The Tesla sports car may be a harbinger of future all-electric vehicles.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was putting on his best cheshire cat impression this morning in San Carlos as he joined state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and officials of Tesla Motors to announce that the all-electric vehicle company will manufacture its next set of cars in the San Francisco Bay Area. Silicon Valley-based Tesla, named in homage for early 20th century inventor Nikola Tesla, created a stir with its first car, just now in production at Lotus in England, a stylish $98,000 sports car that does 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds with a range of 225 miles per battery charge. Schwarzenegger got one and has been touting the car as a harbinger of a cool new clean tech future, an alternative to the Soviet-era styling of the hybrid Prius, which Schwarzenegger tells me he “wouldn’t be caught dead in.”
It’s what the industry calls a “halo car,” a car to capture the imagination and show what’s possible. But at $100,000, the Tesla Roadster is a car for folks like Schwarzenegger and Dennis Haysbert, of TV hit 24’s first black president fame. It’s the follow-on cars, a mid-size sports sedan for $60,000, a competitor to the BMW 5-series and Jaguar XF set for the end of 2009, and a smaller sports sedan for $30,000 set for 2011 that will start to make a difference.
And the next cars were set to be be made in New Mexico.
Schwarzenegger’s friend, Governor Bill Richardson, made Tesla a good deal. So Schwarzenegger set out to work with Tesla officials, including Tesla board member Steve Westly, the former California state controller and Obama for President national finance co-chair, to come up with a better deal. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer provided the lynchpin, using the little-known California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority to finace the purchase of $100 million in equipment for the new plant. Tesla is leasing the equipment from the state and can buy it later, but would pay no sales tax in the end. The state is also providing grants for employee training.
Schwarzenegger is fond of telling Detroit to get off its butt. So far, it hasn’t. The big US automakers have resisted not only fundamental technological changes, but also significant increases in fuel efficiency, and as a result have fallen behind world automakers in Japan in Europe.
So now Schwarzenegger has an increasingly famous car company not only headquartered in his state and designing its vehicles here, but also producing them here. I think it will be the first car manufacturing plant since GM shut down in the San Fernando Valley a quarter-century ago.
Schwarzenegger has also adroitly switched the vehicle most associated with him. For years, it’s been the Hummer. But the Hummer, the civilian version of the massive HumVee, which has proved to be so problematic in Iraq combat situations, is on its way out. The Brobdingnagian vehicle, the military version of which caught Schwarzenegger’s fancy following the first Gulf War, is, in this sudden era of very expensive oil, a luxury that’s simply not affordable. I’ll write about the Hummer, and Schwarzenegger’s association with it, another time.
Meanwhile, the Tesla sports car is starting to appear, as you see in the video above. As a vehicle designed to compete with the likes of Porsche and Ferrari, it’s clearly an aspirational vehicle rather than a realistic one. But it gets people’s attention for what comes next. And maybe it will shame the conventional US automakers into making some changes, before it’s too late for them.
There aren’t many political writers who pay attention to energy — too bad it’s the key to so many issues in the new environment — and only a few, like Slate’s Mickey Kaus and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, who are into cars and gadgets. None seem to have paid attention to this yet.
** END OF DAY. Barack Obama has placed himself in direct opposition on the proposed California gay marriage ban on the November ballot. He’s against it; McCain’s for it. When you have the kind of lead Obama has in California, you can take risks. And I wouldn’t bet on its passage. … Rough day for General Wes Clark, who was discussing John McCain’s qualifications for the presidency on one of the Sunday chat, doing fine in delineating what McCain actually has and hasn’t done till he spoke disparagingly of McCain’s Vietnam service as “riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down” — after speakingly glowingly of him as a hero! Obama disavowed the remark, but Clark won’t. While this might have removed Clark from the veepstakes, the McCain folks shouldn’t overplay their hand here, as I expect them to do. Clark’s other points are cogent, and the former NATO commandeer and Vietnam War hero will just keep repeating them. … But it was a big day for another potential Obama veep, Virginia Senator and former Navy Secretary Jim Webb. His new GI bill was signed into law. With President Bush and John McCain both taking some credit. Whoa! They both fought hard against the Webb bill, as the Vietnam War hero rather gleefully pointed out. … Obama and Bill Clinton finally talked on the phone today. Clinton will be campaigning with Obama later. … California, to no one’s surprise, misses the constitutional deadline for budget passage at midnight tonight. Legislative leaders are nowhere on this, nothing is getting done, and the ultra-government and anti-government factions that dominate the two legislative parties are locked into reflexive positions.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Independence, Missouri, Harry Truman’s hometown, for a speech on patriotism.
John McCain is in Harrisburg and Pipersville, Pennsylvania, trying to catch up in a state many had thought would be a big problem for Obama.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE ELECTRIC CAR WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joins state Treasurer Bill Lockyer and officials of Tesla Motors this morning in San Carlos to announce that production of the firm’s innovative new all-electric sports cars — 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds — will take place in California. The event will be webcast live at 11:30 AM on www.gov.ca.gov.
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA. It began as Clinton Country. For awhile, it seemed John McCain might stake his claim on the Golden State. But now, it is clearly Barack Obama’s California. From my other blog.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
In this 4th of July week, Barack Obama and John McCain are taking very different tacks. McCain is heading for Latin America to burnish his already well-known foreign policy credentials, with tours of Colombia and Mexico. Obama is heading to Ohio and the Mountain West, the latter part of his new swing states strategy.
Both are continuing their TV ad campaigns, with Obama on the air in 18 states and McCain in 11. But McCain has a new ad up, pushing his new theme of energy security, while Obama continues his biographical introduction. And McCain has changed his slogan again, to “Putting Country First,” his third in a month.
Both candidates had some rocky moments last week. McCain chief strategist Charlie Black may be on a long vacation off a short pier after being quoted in a Fortune profile of McCain saying that a successful terrorist attack on US soil would help elect the Arizona senator. A lot of people think it’s true, incidentally. I don’t. And one of McCain’s biggest backers, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, criticized his oil policy. He also fell behind in Schwarzenegger’s California by a whopping 2 to 1 in the latest Rasmussen poll. The poll, bear in mind that pollster Scott Rasmussen is an avowed Republican, shows Obama opening up a massive lead over McCain in the Golden State, which Team McCain once saw as a possibility. It’s Obama 58%, McCain 30%. Frankly, this is the biggest lead I can recall in any such presidential poll of California voters. McCain’s shift in position for offshore oil drilling is a major backfire for he and his party in California.
John McCain’s new TV ad, and latest campaign slogan.
Obama got a big boost at the end of the week with his Unity, New Hampshire — a bit too clever, perhaps, sounding like the name of a TV show — rally with Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a much more compelling and polished speaker than when she began her presidential campaign. She and Barack Obama played off each other quite well. He with his slightly loosened French, er, royal blue tie, she with matching (trademark) pantsuit. (Actually, it may be more of a robin’s egg blue.) She either actually wants him to be elected president, or has become a very accomplished actress. 6000 people showing up in a field outside a town so small it doesn’t have an elected mayor. Where neither candidate actually campaigned in the New Hampshire primary, but where each received 107 votes.
Reviews are more mixed for Obama’s pivot to the center since the primaries. Some think he looks like a flip-flopper. Others think he looks like a smart politician. In the former camp politico.com, which has a feature pushing a theme. That Barack Obama is really just another conventional politician. This happens to be the theme pushed in a memo by McCain senior advisor Steve Schmidt, the former Schwarzenegger campaign manager. The argument is that Obama has made a mistake in the last two weeks. By not making “bold choices.” Or by, looking at it from another perspective, not playing into Republican hands. Decides not to give up massive fundraising advantage over McCain? Supposed mistake. Decides not to debate in McCain’s preferred and by far best format? Supposed mistake. Decides to favor the right of the individual to bear arms? Supposed mistake. Decides to support death penalty for the rapists of children? Supposed mistake. Decides not to punish telecom firms caught up in the post-9/11 fervor that cooperated with national security officials? Supposed mistake.
Of course, had Obama gone the other way on these issues, he would be derided as an idiot. Naturally. But it sure would have played into another favored Republican theme, that Obama is the most radical Democratic presidential nominee in history.
Nevertheless, the moves make it clear that Obama is a politician, for those who haven’t been following along. His positioning looks an awful lot like Bill Clinton’s, who was off in London for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday while his wife was schlepping off to a field in picturesque New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, with national polls delivering varying numbers, from a 15-point Obama lead to a dead-even race, battleground state polls are promising for Obama. In the new Quinnipiac polls for the Wall Street Journal, for example, Barack Obama leads John McCain in key swing states. In Colorado, it’s 49-44, Michigan 48-42, Minnesota (home of possible McCain running mate Governor Tim Pawlenty) 54-37, and Wisconsin 52-39. And in New Mexico, Barack Obama holds a significant lead over John McCain in the latest Rasmussen tracking poll, 47% to 39%.
But the most important numbers look to be the economic numbers. Crude oil closed over $140 per barrel Friday for the first time in history, at a whopping $140.90. It also hit a new intraday trading high of $142.99 per barrel. Gold is around a record high, the dollar is around a record low, and the stock market is on the cusp of beardom, with financial stocks especially nosediving.
The ballyhooed summit of oil producers and consumers in Saudi Arabia failed, with OPEC leaders insisting the problem of price is not a matter of supply, but largely one of speculation. They essentially washed their hands of any responsibility, which guarantees that the energy economy, and everything it affects, will be front and center in the presidential election. …
The Batman pictures do very well when America is in a dark mood. Here’s the trailer for the 2005 franchise reboot, Batman Begins. Its sequel, The Dark Knight, opening in three weeks, shows universal recognition in audience surveys, and will be one of the year’s biggest movies.
** SUNDAY SHOWS, AND MORE. As first reported here, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was Tom Brokaw’s first guest on the post-Tim Russert Meet The Press, the interview fiilmed several days ago at the Reagan Library in the distant Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley. Brokaw asked Schwarzenegger some tough questions about California’s chronic budget crisis, recurring with the economic downturn, which the former action superstar handled with relative aplomb, though he might have mentioned his various attempts to reform the budget process. Schwarzenegger, while making it clear he disapproves of John McCain’s oil policy, stuck by his endorsement of the Vietnam War hero, which had enabled McCain to effectively win the Republican nomination by knocking Mitt Romney out of the race with a big win in the California primary. The show also featured other Western governors, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, playing up the newfound importance of the West in this year’s presidential race. To his credit, Schwarzenegger did not try to insist that McCain has much chance in California against Barack Obama.
On other shows, General Wes Clark, one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest backers, took a big smack at McCain with regard to his national security credentials. Clark, a former Ranger and highly decorated infantry company commander in the Vietnam War who went on to become supreme commander of NATO, scoffed on Face The Nation at the idea of McCain as national security guru, saying he never commanded anything in wartime, has no executive experience in national security matters, and went so far as to say that getting shot down isn’t much of a credential. Whoa! Who let the dogs out? Clark’s move came a day after McCain said, at a Kentucky fundraiser, that Obama is not “trustworthy.”
In other action, two Californians from opposite ends of the spectrum were on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Arianna Huffington, head of the now massively trafficked liberal Huffington Post, jousted with radio host Hugh Hewitt of the conservative TownHall.com.
Meanwhile, another type of show, this one a feature film, hit the $300 million mark today in domestic box office. Again belying some early tidings of woe, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which we’ll just call Indy 4, is well on its way to being the biggest movie of the year around the world. If it’s not caught by the new Batman film.
** SUNDAY — WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Chicago, off the campaign trail.
John McCain is in Asheville, North Carolina, meeting with evangelists Billy Graham and son Franklin Graham, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. McCain had been criticized for taking 19 of the past 20 weekends off the campaign trail, though he did host potential veeps at his Arizona “cabin.”
** SCHWARZENEGGER ON FIRST POST-RUSSERT ERA MEET THE PRESS. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appears as the first guest on the first full-fledged post-Tim Russert edition of Meet The Press on Sunday. Check your various markets for the time. Schwarzenegger, whose wife, California First Lady Maria Shriver, was one of the late Tim Russert’s best friends, will be new Meet The Press host/former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw’s first guest, is expected to discuss his views on energy policy and climate change, as well as the late longtime host of the show, whose death shocked and saddened so many of us.
** SATURDAY — WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama was in Washington, DC to address the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. Obama, incidentally, will travel in July to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, Germany, France, and Britain.
John McCain was in Washington, DC to address the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.
** APOLOGIES. To the readers, for the unaccountably small font size now employed on this site. The change was effectuated by the technical manager of NWN, which would be PJ Media. This change was undertaken without the approval of the owner of NWN, who is me. They have been instructed to correct their error, say that the error is being corrected, but the error has not been corrected yet, apparently as it is a weekend. For what it’s worth, I now have eyestrain from reading my own site.
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA. It began as Clinton Country. For awhile, it seemed John McCain might stake his claim on the Golden State. But now, it is clearly Barack Obama’s California. From my other blog.
** MY LATEST PODCAST.The road ahead. Which actually holds up very well. This is the podcast from last week. The producers of the podcast, PJM, had the requisite equipment misplaced by an airline. Hence the absence of this week’s show.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil closed Friday at a record high of $140.90 per barrel. After it hit another record trading high of $142.99 per barrel. The markets in gold, equities, and the dollar all hit appropriately record and/or bad levels. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, joined by Prime Minister Tony Blair and other notables, signs California’s landmark 2006 climate change package in this NWN video.
Things may be more than a bit stalled out for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the state Capitol. With the return of the chronic budget crisis, the two parties in the Legislature, dominated by their respective ultra-government (Democratic) and anti-government(Republican) factions, have assumed their default positions. But while the two legislative parties inch forward toward the big reveal that their positions are untenable, Schwarzenegger moves forward on other fronts.
He’s big on the international front, though no longer so much on the international trips, and on another occasion I’ll get into his moves in advance of a major border governors conference this summer in LA. He’s the kick-off guest this Sunday for the new edition of Meet The Press with host Tom Brokaw, the former NBC News anchor who’s taken the place of the late Tim Russert. His administration is working to implement the state’s landmark climate change legislation, to mostly good notices so far. And he’s speaking out on energy policy.
If all this sounds a bit presidential, well, it is. Schwarzenegger is at least as plausible a contender as most of the folks who ran good races this time around. But there’s just that little constitutional wrinkle for the Austrian-born former Mr. Universe. Still, he is the governor of America’s biggest state, as well as a global brand in his own right, with many options for action.
Actually, Schwarzenegger sees energy policy as utterly central, not only to his long-range climate change plans for California and the rest of it all but also, increasingly, to the national political debate. A really comprehensive energy policy has been missing from the presidential contenders, both John McCain, backed by Schwarzenegger, and Barack Obama. So yesterday in Miami, speaking at the Florida Summit on Global Climate Change, the former action superstar took a stab at laying out an energy policy.
He began by discussing environmental and economic and geopolitical challenges, with “the addiction to oil” front and center. He didn’t talk about bringing down the price of oil, and hence, gasoline, perhaps because the real keys to doing so – involving speculation, the dollar, and geopolitical risk premiums – are a bit beyond the purview of a governor.
“We need,” he said, “a consistent, long-term energy policy that gives consumers more choices. And we have to stick with it, not just a few years until something better comes along and then drop it.”
Politicians, he noted, without naming them, though most felt he was clearly referring to his endorsed candidate for president, amongst others, have been throwing around many ideas, in a sort of crazyquilt pattern that doesn’t really add up to what they say.
“Rethinking nuclear power to pushing biofuels and more renewables and ending the ban on offshore drilling and it goes on and on, the list. But anyone who tells you that this will bring down our gas prices immediately or anytime soon, is blowing smoke. America is so addicted to oil that it will take years to wean ourselves from it and to look for new ways to feed our addiction is not the answer.”
Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a possible McCain running mate who last week switched his position on offshore drilling (and later adjusted it in response to the outcry against him in his own state), was sitting just off to the side as Schwarzenegger said this.
Instead of desperately drilling in new areas for relatively small amounts of oil that won’t affect price in a global market, Schwarzenegger said the answer is to go “towards greater innovation and new technologies and new fuel choices for our consumers. This is the only way that we will ultimately reduce fuel costs and protect our environment. In other words, America did not get into this mess overnight and we are not going to get out of this mess overnight.”
Schwarzenegger declared it “shameful” that America gets less than 2% of its energy from renewable sources. And that California gets 12% of its electricity now from renewables and, with mandates he has pushed, 33% by 2020. He noted that Germany leads the world in solar power and Denmark leads the world in wind power, with 20% of its electricity from wind and one in three wind turbines produced in the world coming from the small Scandinavian country. He did not note that California, when Jerry Brown was governor, led the world in both wind and solar power. America, Schwarzenegger declared, should be leading the world in solar and wind power.
He lauded Brazil for its strong ethanol program, which is cellulosic rather than corn-based. Corn-based ethanol, which dominatees in the US, is driving up food prices.
And he praised Denmark, Germany, and Brazil for making “a commitment to clean energy and not wavering, even when it wasn’t popular or appealing.”
In contrast to those countries, US policy “is all over the place. We had a big solar energy push under President Carter in the late ’70s, but then we abandoned it again.” Congress, he noted, passed tax credits for solar, wind and geothermal energy in the 1990s, but “now it’s expiring by the end of this year and we have no idea if they ever will renew it, which ought to be renewed for another decade.”
Schwarzenegger criticized politicians and the auto industry for dropping the ball on vehicle fuel efficiency, which would lower the pain at the pump dramatically.
“Our average passenger vehicles,” he noted “get less than 25 miles per gallon, because politicians have not been willing to hold automakers feet and oil companies’ feet to the fire. That’s less than the Model T got in the 1920s. The Model T in the 1920s got more than 25 miles per gallon.”
Since the Model T went out of production, “America summoned the political will to put a man on the moon and to end legal discrimination and to bring down the Berlin Wall and the list goes on and on and on.” In each case, he said America “was guided by an unyielding and optimistic vision for the future.”
Instead, today’s politicians are happy to require fuel efficiency averages to go from 25 miles per gallon to 35; by the year 2020. But Schwarzenegger noted that Italy already has cars averaging 35 miles per gallon.
Schwarzenegger famously forced the market mechanism of carbon trading into California’s greenhouse gas reduction program, to bring a degree of flexibility. But he clearly sees regulation as playing a forcing function for innovation. He also talked up California’s first-in-the-world Low Carbon Fuel Standard which mandates clean fuels but doesn’t pick winners, as well as new green building standards, the so-called “Million Solar Roof” program, and the Renewable Portfolio Standard, which mandates that utilities sharply increase the proportion of renewable sources in their energy mix.
All of which he says, echoing the Wall Street Journal, is helping to spur a “New Gold Rush” for California in clean tech investment.
It’s an aggressive agenda. All the answers? Hardly. But an intriguing effort.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debate Iraq earlier this year in LA. The two are campaigning together today in Unity, New Hampshire.
** NEW RECORD OIL PRICE. Crude oil closed over $140 per barrel today for the first time in history, at a whopping $140.90. It also hit a new intraday trading high of $142.99 per barrel. Gold is around a record high, the dollar is around a record low, and the stock market is on the cusp of beardom, with financial stocks especially nosediving.
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA. It began as Clinton Country. For awhile, it seemed John McCain might stake his claim on the Golden State. But now, it is clearly Barack Obama’s California. From my other blog.
** UNITY, NH. Sounds like the title of a TV show. Played as a good TV show, too. Hillary Clinton is a much more compelling and polished speaker than when she began her presidential campaign. She and Barack Obama played off each other quite well. He with his slightly loosened French, er, royal blue tie, she with matching (trademark) pantsuit. (Actually, it may be more of a robin’s egg blue.) She either actually wants him to be elected president, or has become a very accomplished actress. 6000 people showing up in a field outside a town so small it doesn’t have an elected mayor. Where neither candidate actually campaigned in the New Hampshire primary, but where each received 107 votes.
** OBAMA: EMERGING CONVENTIONAL WISDOM? One of the principal purveyors of conventional wisdom out of the Beltway, politico.com, has a feature pushing a theme. That Barack Obama is really just another conventional politician. This happens to be the theme pushed by our friend, McCain senior advisor Steve Schmidt, the former Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign manager. But he may be pushing it because it’s a natural for many journalistic minds, and the alternatives are not good. The piece argues that Obama has made a mistake in the last two weeks. By not making “bold choices.” Or by, looking at it from another perspective, not playing into Republican hands. Decides not to give up massive fundraising advantage over McCain? Supposed mistake. Decides not to debate in McCain’s preferred and by far best format? Supposed mistake. Decides to continue his stance of favoring the right of the individual to bear arms? Supposed mistake. Decides to support death penalty for the rapists of children? Supposed mistake. Decides not to punish telecom firms caught up in the post-9/11 fervor that cooperated with national security officials? Supposed mistake.
Of course, had Obama gone the other way on these issues, he would be derided as an idiot. Naturally. But it sure would have played into another favored Republican theme, that Obama is the most radical Democratic presidential nominee in history.
** MAC’S FAVORITE RECENT MOVIE. “Indiana Jones. I loved it because the old guy wins.”McCain has a new TV ad, on the “energy security” theme, naturally. This one for broadcast. And a new slogan. The third in the last month. I’ll break it all down for early next week.
UPDATE: The Obama/Clinton event in Unity, New Hampshire is now slated to start around 10 AM Pacific.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Unity, New Hampshire and Washington, DC. Following what sounds like a very successful meeting with Hillary Clinton and 300 of her top fundraisers last night in Washington, he appears with his former rival this morning at an elementary school in New Hampshire. The much ballyhooed event is expected to go off around 8 AM Pacific, roadblocked on all news shows.
John McCain is in Warren, Ohio for a town hall meeting at the General Motors plant there.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST ON FIRE SITUATION THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, accompanied by US Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, tours the Whiskeytown fires near Mount Shasta and discusses the fires there and in other parts of California. The event will be webcast live at 11:20 AM on www.gov.ca.gov.
** OBAMA V. MCCAIN: THE AD WARS ARE ON. What Obama and McCain are doing in their first rounds of general election TV advertising. Along with the where and the why. From my other blog.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Barack Obama is the “Dr. No of energy security” in this John McCain web ad. Dr. No was the villain in the 1962 James Bond picture.
** END OF DAY. Oil hit a new record of $140 per barrel today, driving the stock market down to its lowest level of the year. John McCain’s oil policy was dissed by one of his biggest backers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a marquee speech in battleground state Florida. Back in California, the Schwarzenegger-dominated Air Resources Board released its conceptual plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. As expected, it relies mainly on regulation — to cut industrial, commercial, and vehicle emissions, largely through the state’s tailpipe emissions law, accelerated requirement for utilities to use renewable power, and new building standards — with only 20% of the savings coming from the carbon market. The plan drew praise from an author of the underlying legislation, Speaker Emeritus Fabian Nunez. Meanwhile, with the energy and equity markets in crisis — and President Bush doing a deal with the dictatorship of North Korea — the McCain campaign sought to engage in a sporadic firefight throughout the day with the Obama campaign over the Supreme Court’s decision affirming the right to bear arms. The issue? Was he or was he not a backer of the DC gun ban? Answer. He played it coy, while saying throughout that he’s for gun ownership.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. From Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech today in Miami at the Florida Global Climate Change Summit: “Politicians have been throwing around all kinds of ideas in response to the skyrocketing energy prices, from the rethinking of nuclear power to pushing biofuels and more renewables and ending the ban on offshore drilling, it goes on and on the list. But, anyone who tells you this will lower our gas prices anytime soon is blowing smoke. America is so addicted to oil that it will take years to ween ourselves from it. To look for new ways to feed our addiction is not the answer.”
This is part of a larger speech calling for a comprehensive new energy policy. I’ll be writing a column on what Schwarzenegger is up to.
** OFF THE TABLE?Did today’s Supreme Court decision clearly affirming the right of the individual to own handguns take the issue off the table? As a gun owner, it occurs to me that liberals now couldn’t take away people’s guns even if they wanted to. And the Court, while explicitly affirming the individual’s right to bear arms, also affirmed most gun control laws. Did today’s White House announcement of new policy toward North Korea take the issue of dealing with dictators off the table?Stanford’s Condi Rice has pushed for seven years for a deal with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program, first as national security advisor, then as secretary of state (receiving a big assist last year from New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson). North Korea is part of the “Axis of Evil,” and the Hermit State issues continually belicose statements a half-century after the uneasy end of the Korean War. Yet President Bush and John McCain have supported the negotiation, much of which centered around North Korean demands for funding.
** OBAMA UP IN BATTLEGROUND STATES OF COLORADO, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, AND WISCONSIN. In the new Quinnipiac polls for the Wall Street Journal, Barack Obama leads John McCain in key swing states. In Colorado, it’s 49-44, Michigan 48-42, Minnesota (home of possible McCain running mate Governor Tim Pawlenty 54-37, and Wisconsin 52-39.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he wraps up his economic tour leading a roundtable discussion of top business and labor leaders from around the country. And in Washington, DC, where he has a private meeting with Hillary Clinton and many of her top financial backers.
John McCain is in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he’ll speak out about the US Supreme Court’s overturning of the DC handgun ban.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING FROM MIAMI ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks at the Florida Summit on Global Climate Change, along with Governor Charlie Crist. His speech will be webcast live at 9:30 AM on www.gov.ca.gov.
** OBAMA V. MCCAIN: THE AD WARS ARE ON. What Obama and McCain are doing in their first rounds of general election TV advertising. Along with the where and the why. From my other blog.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Barack Obama, yesterday in Las Vegas, talks about Nevada’s key role in a new energy economy.
** BOND, JAMES, UH … Okay, gang, I will run the new McCain Bond-style web ad tomorrow morning. It can wait.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, having toured fires around Northern California and having conducted briefings in Big Sur and Chico, is, as of mid to late afternoon Wednesday, now winging his way to Miami. In advance of his appearance there tomorrow at noon with Florida Governor Charlie Crist — the other governor most responsible for John McCain’s Republican presidential win — to promote the cause of fighting the greenhouse effect before a conference of some 800 opinion leaders.
Well, here is an NWN prediction. Villaraigosa will not run for governor in 2010. He is going to have his hands full getting re-elected mayor in 2009.
** BROWN GOES AFTER COUNTRYWIDE. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who last week received the award from the Coalition for Clean Air and this week cracked down on a Latino street gang victimizing its own community in the Central Valley, today launched a multifaceted legal assault against California-based Countrywide, the lender at the center of the subprime mortgage crisis, along with its top execs Angelo Mozilo and David Sambol. Said Brown at an event in LA this morning: “Countrywide exploited the American dream of homeownership and then sold its mortgages for huge profits on the secondary market. The company sold ever-increasing numbers of complex and risky home loans, as quickly as possible. Countrywide was, in essence, a mass-production loan factory, producing ever-increasing streams of debt without regard for borrowers. Today’s lawsuit seeks relief for Californians who were ripped off by Countrywide’s deceptive scheme.”
Top Republican and Democratic lobbyists have helped out Countrywide. Their names will be brought up throughout the trial.
** CALIFORNIA: OBAMA UP 2 TO 1 OVER MCCAIN.The latest Rasmussen tracking poll of California — bear in mind that pollster Scott Rasmussen is an avowed Republican — shows Barack Obama opening up a massive lead over John McCain in the Golden State, which Team McCain once saw as a possibility. It’s Obama 58%, McCain 30%. Frankly, this is the biggest lead I can recall in any such presidential poll of California voters. McCain’s shift in position for offshore oil drilling is a major backfire. The McCain connection, as I noted yesterday, has become not a badge of honor in California, but a serious negative. Unfortunately for the Republicans, all of their most credible 2010 gubernatorial candidates are officials in the McCain campaign. Hasta la bye bye.
** NEW MEXICO: SIGNIFICANT OBAMA LEAD. The Mountain West is part of the new swing state phenomenon. And in New Mexico, Barack Obama holds a significant lead over John McCain in the latest Rasmussen tracking poll, 47% to 39%.
John McCain’s town hall on Monday at California State University, Fresno.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Chicago, where he has private meetings with business leaders from around the country on the US economy, and holds a press conference.
John McCain is in Las Vegas. He speaks at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and has a fundraiser.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tours the fire situation in Monterey County and conducts a briefing on the statewide fire situation from Big Sur. The event will be webcast live at 10:20 AM on www.gov.ca.gov.
** OBAMA V. MCCAIN: THE AD WARS ARE ON. What Obama and McCain are doing in their first rounds of general election TV advertising. Along with the where and the why. From my other blog.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Oregon Senator Gordon Smith says he works with Barack Obama on energy and the environment. But he’s a Republican. Running for re-election.
** NEW NATIONAL POLL: OBAMA UP 12 IN TWO-WAY, 15 IN FOUR-WAY.In the brand-new Bloomberg/LA Times Poll, taken June 19-23, Barack Obama leads John McCain in a one-on-one match-up, 49% to 37%. When Libertarian Bob Barr and Green Ralph Nader are included, Obama’s lead over McCain increases, 48% to 33%. Only 13% say America is on the right track. Two years ago, prior to the Democratic takeover of Congress, that number was 30%. President Bush’s job approval rating is a record low 23%; more than half the voters say McCain would continue Bush’s policies.
There is a major enthusiasm gap, with far more of Obama’s supporters enthusiastic about him than McCain’s supporters are about him. Half the voters think the economy is the top issue, and Obama has a nearly two to one over McCain on that issue. Two-thirds of voters want American troops out of Iraq in a year, even though the situation has improved. 51% have a positive view of the Democratic Party; 29% have a positive view of the Democratic Party. It’s not all roses for Obama. McCain has a slight edge amongst independents in this poll — I suspect because this poll has a different definition of partisan ID — and a majority of voters backs McCain’s new plan for offshore oil drilling as a solution to the current oil and gasoline price crises. Ultimately, however, I believe this issue is a problem for McCain.
John McCain promotes his controversial new energy policy in this web ad.
** INCIDENTALLY … In my view, John McCain’s new move in favor of offshore oil drilling has leeched most of what little suspense remained out of the 2010 California governor’s race.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. In Vegas, he meets with voters to discuss problems in the energy economy. In LA, he appears at a big fundraiser (discussed in the Monday Morning Quarterback column) for Democratic unity organized in large part by former Clinton supporters. The two-step event ($2300 reception and concert and $28,500 dinner) is at the Los Angeles Music Center and will be attended by various stars.
John McCain is in California, with stops in Santa Barbara, Riverside, and Newport Beach. He has fundraisers in Riverside and Newport Beach. Last night, he had a fundraiser in Santa Barbara. This morning he holds an environmental event at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former CIA Director James Woolsey. Santa Barbara, as you may know (and as an unhappy contributor at last night’s McCain fundraiser there pointed out), was in 1969 site of perhaps the most famous oil spill in the history, which helped spark the modern environmental movement.
Schwarzenegger has some conflicting views with McCain on energy, including offshore oil drilling. Woolsey was Bill Clinton’s first CIA director, and later became somewhat confusingly aligned with both neoconservative elements and climate change activists.
** OBAMA V. MCCAIN: THE AD WARS ARE ON. What Obama and McCain are doing in their first rounds of general election TV advertising. Along with the where and the why. From my other blog.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil prices are rising again, trading in the $137 to $138 per barrel range. The summit of oil producers and consumers in Saudi Arabia on Sunday was a failure.
Famed anti-establishment comedian and provocateur George Carlin died yesterday in LA at 71 of a heart attack. His role was pushing the boundaries. If you’re easily offended, don’t watch him discuss religion.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO BE FIRST GUEST ON THE POST-RUSSERT MEET THE PRESS. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be the first guest of new Meet The Press host Tom Brokaw for this coming Sunday’s show. He will be recording the interview shortly. California First Lady Maria Shriver, a former NBC correspondent and anchor, was a close friend of the late Tim Russert, and as reported appeared on the memorial edition of Meet The Press the Sunday before last and spoke at his Russert’s Kennedy Center memorial service last Wednesday. Schwarzenegger first appeared on the show in 2004. But he nearly appeared before that, a story for another time.
** SCHWARZENEGGER AND THE LEGISLATURE. In another sign that things are simply not as copacetic as they once were between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature, the former action superstar criticized state Senate Democrats when he spoke this morning at the Catholic health care conference in San Diego. After it passed the state Assembly, they killed his omnibus package late last year, he said, because they favored single-payer health care. Which, as he noted, actually costs more. Schwarzenegger and termed-out Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata have found ample ground for disagreement over the past half-year or so, much of it around water. Perata has been loathe to find compromise between environmentalists, who eschew dams, and conservatives, who eschew conservation. … Also, no progress on the chronic state budget crisis. Naturally.
** JOHN MCCAIN, NATURALLY, HAS DISAVOWED CHARLIE BLACK’S QUOTE ABOUT A TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL BENEFITING HIM POLITICALLY. Perhaps he knows that it would not.
** ANOTHER CURIOUS QUOTE FROM THE BELTWAY. Speaking this morning to Republican insiders at breakfast the Capitol Hill Club, former Bush consigliere Karl Rove, who allowed as how he was going to stroll over to the White House after breakfast to chat with the president, let loose with this little jewel of resentment. “Even if you never met him,” said Rove of Barack Obama, “you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”
Hmm. Well, I don’t know much about country club life, or what a fellow like Obama would be doing there (unlike, say, John Kerry), but I know a lot about political consultants. And this one sounds to me like a guy who is frustrated and is hoping to re-run his greatest hits from 2004.
** ACTUALLY, I DOUBT IT. From Fortune’s new profile of John McCain, entitled “The Evolution of John McCain”: We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy - this according to McCain’s chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.
Why would another terrorist attack on US soil be bad for the Republicans? Because it would mean they had failed in the one area in which they still have great credibility. I think that’s rather obvious.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING ON FIRES. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will give a briefing on California’s burgeoning fire situation just before noon at the Wild Fire Base Camp outside the Northern California town of Fairfield, which is between Sacramento and San Francisco. He has National Guard helicopters and aircraft involved in the firefighting effort. The event will be webcast live at 11:40 AM at www.gov.ca.gov.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Albuquerque, New Mexico to tour a business and meet with working women.
John McCain is in Fresno, California, for a speech on energy promising huge federal incentives to inventors and car companies, and a fundraiser. He also has a fundraiser tonight in Santa Barbara. Prior to tomorrow’s environmental event, at the site of the one of the most famous oil spills in history.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING ON HEALTH CARE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger gives the keynote address at the 2008 Catholic Health Care Assembly in San Diego. Schwarzenegger is slowly resurrecting elements of his omnibus health care plan from last year, largely through executive action. (No, not that kind of executive action.) The speech is at 9:30 AM and can be seen on www.gov.ca.gov.
Barack Obama speaking to the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Saturday in Miami.
** OBAMA V. MCCAIN: THE AD WARS ARE ON. What Obama and McCain are doing in their first rounds of general election TV advertising. Along with the where and the why. From my other blog.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil hit a record of nearly $140 per barrel last Monday before dropping. Crude oil is trading up today, in the $136 to $137 per barrel range, in the wake of the unprecedented oil producers and consumers summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on June 22nd.
