Friday, November 02, 2007 - Posts
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Silicon Valley nerd blog TechCrunch has an interview with Mitt Romney hitting on a few subjects you’re not likely to hear at the debates: Internet taxes, HB1 visas (an issue that affects tech businesses that hire workers overseas), venture capital taxes, and renewable energy. Romney doesn’t say anything revolutionary—have you heard he opposes taxes?—but he does offer this little tidbit at the end:
MA [interviewer]: … Governor Romney, Mac or PC?
MR: I have a PC. My sons have a Mac and swear by it, but I have a couple PC’s.
He didn’t say whether they’re located in his frontal lobe or if they operate remotely. Hot-cha! More:
MA: Do you have an iPod?
MR: I do.
MA: Of course you have an IPod! What’s on it? What are you listening to right now, what sort of albums have you downloaded or listened to?
MR: What I typically download is country music as well as 1960’s music. I’m a baby boomer, so the Beatles and the Stones and some of the old groups from the 1960’s are my favorites, I listen to them and I listen to country. I might have some inspirational music as well, but those are the highlights for me.
Romney's candor gave us an idea. In the spirit of transparency, we hereby challenge the other presidential candidates to release their iPod playlists. If voters have the right to know which donors have the candidates' ears, they certainly have the right to know which bands do. Is Tupac's "Changes" blasting on the campaign bus? Or is it "Power to the People"? Perhaps the Beatles' "Tax Man"? Please send song lists here.
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First came the Politics of Hope. Then the Politics of Pile-On. Now, via the Edwards campaign, the Politics of Parsing.
In what looks like a direct response to Hillary Clinton’s mashup of Tuesday’s debate, which shows the other Democratic candidates uttering her name over and over, Team Edwards has released what has got to be the most devastating indictment of Hillary’s debate performance so far.
The spot, posted online today, juxtaposes clips of Hillary saying one thing—on Iraq, Social Security, and drivers licenses for illegal immigrants—and then saying something that sounds contradictory. Plenty of observers and campaigns have already pointed out these inconsistencies. (Some might call them nuances.) But no one has lined them up in such a simple way that, context be damned, lets you watch Hillary dig her own grave. It's pretty unfair, but it's also why YouTube was invented.
This line of attack seems to be carrying Edwards (and Obama) a long way. Hillary’s camp was concerned enough after the debate to hold a conference call with big donors to talk strategy and ask for more money. Her opponents are speaking of “chinks in the armor.” Supporters say it’s good practice before facing Giuliani. But if there’s an anti-Hillary narrative that could sustain itself through the primaries, it’s her tendency to equivocate—not to lie, necessarily, but to slice and dice the truth into tiny little slivers. (An approach that, with a little YouTube trickery, starts to sound a lot like like lying.)
In the meantime, Edwards might consider taking this attack to prime time.
UPDATE 12:52 p.m.: Hillary spokesman Phil Singer responds:
"In 2004, John Edwards said 'If you are looking for the candidate that will do the best job of attacking the other Democrats, I am not your guy.' But now that his campaign has stalled, he’s launching false attacks on his fellow Democrats. Voters will certainly be asking whether Mr. Edwards’ pledges to be positive in 2004 were anything more than just a political tactic."
UPDATE 11/5/07 1:07 p.m.: The knife twists.
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As a defender of fringe candidate rights, I was disturbed when I read the news coming out of South Carolina yesterday. Stephen Colbert's rejection by state Democrats is getting headlines, but it was actually another, less-publicized denial that irked me most.
Henry Hewes, a New York Democrat, was also left off the Democratic ballot in South Carolina. Hewes paid the $2,500 filing fee and then waited for his candidacy to be approved by the party's executive council. But Carol Fowler, the chairwoman of the state party, told the New York Times that nobody had heard of him before, so he didn't get on the ballot. Eight mainstream Democrats—including Mike Gravel—did.
Hewes wasn't going to win the primary. He probably wasn't even going to win a delegate. But if there's anything that American democracy should allow, it's delusions of grandeur. I've talked to quite a few fringe candidates for president, and they all share a common desire: to achieve the American dream. Granted, their American dreams include ridding the world of Zionists, drastically altering the Constitution, and restaging the Scopes trial, but they're American dreams nonetheless. Hewes wants to abolish Social Security, get our troops out of Iraq, and boost the minimum wage. Sounds pretty presidential to me.
I understand the need to have financial barriers in place to sift through the candidates who run on a lark. But New Hampshire charges only $1,000 (which covers all the costs) and runs a pretty impressive operation. If South Carolina wants to charge an extra $1,500, that's their prerogative.
But on top of that, they add two unnecessary criteria. First, S.C. Dems want their presidential candidates to be nationally viable. Why does a candidate need national appeal? Are the state Democrats worried about becoming a national laughingstock? (The Colbert rejection suggests as much.) Joe Werner, the executive director of the state party, told me that having too many candidates becomes unwieldy. To be blunt, democracy can be a bit unwieldy at times. Deal with it.
Secondly, the candidate needs to have campaigned in South Carolina before they officially get on the Democratic ballot. What's the incentive for a fringe candidate to spend valuable resources on campaigning in the Palmetto State if they aren't even guaranteed a spot on the ballot? The guy has raised only about $10,000, according to Green Papers. A round trip flight from New York City to South Carolina would eat away 2 percent of Hewes' fund-raising.
South Carolina Democrats' $2,500 filing fee already weeded out all but two fringe candidates—Hewes and Colbert. It prevented 10 of the long-shot Democrats who registered for the New Hampshire primary from registering in South Carolina. So why impose these extra hurdles? The $2,500 fee is enough. (The Democrats have to pay an extra $20,000 to put a candidate on a ballot, but Werner told me that the financial cost didn't factor into the council's decision.)
Henry Hewes is not Stephen Colbert. He was not running for president for publicity or to expose the inane quirks of the American presidential process. He was running for president to follow a dream and because he thought his ideas could fix the country. Unfortunately, South Carolina Democrats won't even let him try.
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