Speaking at a rally in Henderson, Nevada, which is kind of an alternative Las Vegas for the very nearsighted, the New York senator and former first lady declared that she is totally on the Obama team now.
“I want Barack Obama to win the White House,” she declared.
Meanwhile, as I mentioned last night, former President Bill Clinton will address the Democratic national convention in Denver in its Wednesday night session, upon the personal request of Obama. He may even place Obama’s name in nomination for the presidency. Stay tuned on that.
** REGARDING THE EDWARDS AFFAIR, AND THE RUSSIA-GEORGIA WAR. This John Edwards affair story, which is essentially a story about fallible human beings impacting only a few people, will of course get far more attention than a war in Eastern Europe which impacts Iraq and shatters US strategy, if that’s the word for it, in Eastern Europe.
I know a lot about both of these stories, as I’ve been looking into the Edwards matter since the Huffington Post brought it up last fall. But there’s only one that I find very significant in a larger historical sense. Which is one reason why I’m not a gossip columnist.
Had John Edwards been able to gain the Democratic presidential nomination with his positioning from 2004, i.e., center-left, not the left-liberal pose he was forced to adopt in reaction to the superstar candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in order to retain relevance with a substantial sliver of the electorate, he would be unbeatable this year by any other Republican. Assuming a lack of personal revelations, naturally.
Georgia has had the third largest force in Iraq, after that of the US and the UK. But its 2000 troops there are being recalled in the face of a potential Russian move against all of Georgia. Not, frankly, that it would make any difference if Russia decided to take the Georgian capital of Tblisi, other than upping the Russian casualty rate and wiping out the Georgian army. This seems an attempt to get the attention of the White House, which is only calling for talks.
Russia appears to have played this very smartly. Following a US military exercise in Georgia last month, which migh have lent Georgian leaders a false sense of security — since as I pointed out this morning, there are not US forces that can be brought to bear as anything other than heroic Marine Corps speed bumps — Georgian forces yesterday decimated the breakaway South Ossetian capital city, prompting a sharp incursion of Russian armor and air inside Georgia. Which quickly led to the destruction of the Georgian air force and taking of the pro-Russian breakaway republic’s capital of Tshinkvali.
The affair took place in the midst of Edwards’s wife Elizabeth’s battle with cancer.
Edwards, as NWN had previously confirmed, was not on the shortlist for Barack Obama’s vice president.
Edwards will appear tonight on ABC’s Nightline discussing the matter.
I’ll have more to say about this story, and these sorts of stories in general, a bit later. As in after I finish a pressing column on presidential advertising, have lunch, monitor the new war in Eastern Europe, check in on the chronic California budget crisis, deal with a close friend’s personal crisis, and work out.
Look for nasty stuff on Barack Obama, which evidently didn’t quite reach take-off speed, and the infamous internal disarry which marked the Clinton Restoration effort.
John McCain’s latest attack ad against Barack Obama, launching today.
** RUSSIA TAKES SOUTH OSSETIAN CAPITAL, MCCAIN CALLS FOR RUSSIAN PULL-OUT, U.S. CALLS FOR TALKS. Russian armor surged swiftly through what might have been a Georgian choke point and Russian forces have taken control of the capital of the breakaway republic of South Ossetia.
The Russian air force has swiftly established air superiority over what there was of the Georgian air force. It is unclear if the Georgian air force still exists, following Russian attacks on the country’s major air base.
There are many claims and counter-claims in this situation. According to my sources in both the US and Russian militaries, Georgian forces had just launched an attack against South Ossetian rebels in their breakaway capital of Tskhinvali. For whatever reason. The South Ossetians apparently sustained major casualties, both amongst their civilian population and their armed forces.
Russian forces then pounced.
At the moment, there appears to be a cessation of hostilities, following the swift Russian victory over Georgian forces in South Ossetia.
The Russians now have the choice of pivoting and moving on the overall Georgian capital of Tblisi. Perhaps aided by what may now be the world’s largest airborne forces. The Russians could, alternatively, stand and hold, having “rescued” their allies in South Ossetia. Or they could adopt an intermediate strategy.
The US, as I’ve mentioned, has encouraged Georgia in resisting Russia and drawing closer to the US rather than its historic neighbor and partner. (Joseph Stalin, as you may know, was from Georgia.) But, following what may have been an unwisely provocative recent US military exercise in Georgia, the grand total of US forces inside Georgia is now something under 200. Mostly trainers for the Georgian mission to Iraq.
What US force might be deployed to Georgia in the next week? That would be, well, one Marine expeditionary unit, currently afloat the USS Peleliu. Basically, a couple thousand guys. Who would be, not to put too fine a point on it, flattened by the Russian army if they showed up.
What is the US political response? The Bush/Cheney White House is calling for a UN Security Council meeting. Which the Russians did nearly twelve hours ago as the Georgian-South Ossetian fighting accelerated in violation of a seeming ceasefire.
What do the presidential candidates say?
Well, Barack Obama wants talks. Which is not a surprise. John McCain is calling for a Russian withdrawal. As he is now viewed as Russias’s greatest enemy in America, following his repeated demands that Russia be removed from the G8 group of eight advanced industrial nations, a stance opposed by all the other member nations, I suspect he will be ignored.
The Morning Column: OF OLYMPICS, HAWAIIAN VACATION, AND RUSSIAN WAR.
We’re now heading into something of a trough period in domestic politics. The Olympics Opening Ceremonies have just taken place in Beijing. Though Americans won’t be able to watch them in their entirety until tonight, one of the problems when the Olympics take place in Asia. The Opening Ceremonies are always a great moment of pageantry, as the athletes from virtually every nation in the world make their way into the stadium. This year the event is directed by a notable Chinese action movie director. We’re going to be learning a lot about China over the next 16 days or so.
China, in fact, will rival Russia as America’s top competitor in the Olympics medal counts. Not that anyone pays attention to that, of course. I’m being ironic. The Olympics, incidentally, are already, and rather covertly, underway, with the US women’s soccer team having lost its first game night before last to Norway or Turkey. (NWN will not be your prime source for Olympics coverage. Though track and field is a big favorite here. The rest, not quite so much, though I always get caught up in sports I otherwise pay no attention to.)
The Olympics coincide with the height of the summer, when most Americans tune out. And the public is a little tired of politics, though perhaps I’m just projecting. Actually, I’m not. I’ve spoken with top strategists in both the McCain and Obama campaigns, and they agree that this is going to be a period of less focus. Though both camps will continue to run at high speed.
As a result, Barack Obama is on what I think is a badly needed vacation in Hawaii. Which happens to be his home state. In his absence, Hillary Clinton and other surrogates will make appearances on his behalf. He’ll run high-profile ads during the Olympics, which will be matched by McCain, and which I’ll write about. McCain himself will continue campaigning throughout. And in fact, Obama will return from Hawaii, journeying to California for a rare joint appearance with McCain at a church in Orange County on August 16th, as I’ve previously reported.
But the larger world goes on in its own ways, regardless of international sporting events, presidential candidate vacations, and the vagaries of American politics.
President Bush just had a chat in Beijing with new Russian President Dmitri Medvedev — you know him, NWN covered his inauguration, the fellow whose name Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had trouble with during one of their debates — discussing Russia’s just launched military intervention in neighboring Georgia. (See the video below.) In case you’re wondering, Vladimir Putin is in Beijing. Too.
Georgia, of course, is not the Southern US state, but the former Soviet republic, a nation of something under 5 million, a part of Russia’s “near abroad” which it so strongly intends to keep within its historic sway.
The US has encouraged Georgia to align with America, and to seek NATO membership, which is has not yet achieved. American troops staged exercises in Georgia last month, as a show of force intended to influence Russia. As it may have.
But Russia has been encouraging a breakaway republic of Georgia called South Ossetia. The fragile ceasefire between Georgian and South Ossetian forces has been broken — reports are in dispute as to how — and Russian forces are intervening in the region.
What will Russia do? Take the capital of South Ossetia, a republic with fewer than 100,000 people? Almost certainly. Continue on to Tblisi, the capital of Georgia? Or something in between.
Although the Georgian military has received American aid, it can’t stand against the Russian military. The US military is pinned down in Iraq, barely able to mount forces sufficient to tamp down the Taliban in Afghanistan. Even in the best of circumstances, and if anyone supposed that would be a good idea, it would be extremely hard-pressed to defeat the Russians in a country right next door.
I’ve been wondering how Russia would respond to the independence of Kosovo and humiliation of its allies in Belgrade.
NWN will have updates and analysis on the politico/military situation surrounding the Russian-Georgian conflict throughout.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Chicago and Honolulu. He and wife Michell Obama and their two daughters begin a week-long vacation in Hawaii today.
The Obama family attends a “Welcome To Hawaii” rally today at Keehi Lagoon Beach Park in Honolulu at 3:30 PM Pacific time. Incidentally, Hawaii — Obama’s native state — is on Hawaiian-Aleutian Standard Time. It’s three hours earlier than it is in California, six hours earlier than New York.
Obama will also slip away from his vacation duties, as it were, next week for a fundraiser at the Kahala Resort, where the take will be well in excess of $1 million.
In Obama’s absence, Hillary Clinton hits the campaign trail for him, with an appearance in Henderson, Nevada.
Reality check: I know a lot of people — principally in the media, on the far right, and some amongst those suffering status anxiety in the Clinton ranks following the defeat of the seemingly inevitable candidate — are invested in fomenting a big fight between Obama and Clinton. But Hillary is in Henderson today. Henderson is far closer for me than for her. I’m not rushing over there.
John McCain is in battleground state Iowa, where he trails Obama, and Arkansas. He makes a statement about the Russia-Georgia war at Des Moines airport and proceeds to the Iowa State Fair. He also appears in Rogers, Arkansas.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today for private meetings and phone conversations surrounding the chronic state budget crisis.
Russian forces have intervened in Georgia on behalf of the pro-Russian breakaway republic of South Ossetia.
** FOUR ON THE FLOOR: MAC TV. So why did lovable old John McCain suddenly put out FOUR negative TV ads in less than two weeks?
After the latest (and rather good) version of his positive biographical spot went wide?
I’ll lay out the sequence of events and reasons at each juncture.
Are new campaign director Steve Schmidt and company crazy like foxes?
Or just crazy?
Well, here’s the deal. Schmidt and company may be setting themselves up for a big backlash. But in the short term, their plan has worked. 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. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $116 to $118 per barrel range. The drop of over $29 per barrel comes on acknowledgement that the weak US economy will cut future demand and the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
Barack Obama talks with distressed voters at a town hall yesterday in Elkhart, Indiana.
** B.C. IN DENVER PRIME TIME. MSNBC reports that former President Bill Clinton will give a major address on Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Hmm, what makes me think that this recent spate of purported semi-bad feelings between the Clintons and the Obamas is now abating?
DHL’s plans as it further consolidates operations following the acquisition could cost 10,000 jobs in Ohio, the battleground state McCain must hold onto if he is win the presidency over Obama, who currently has a slight lead in the Buckeye State. In an economic efficiency move familiar in the pattern of corporate takeovers, DHL is eliminating the existing hub in Wilmington, Ohio and instead plans to fly packages in planes owned by rival UPS before delivering them in DHL trucks.
“I can’t assure you that this train wreck isn’t going to happen,” McCain told upset residents and workers, “but I will do everything in my power to see that we avert it.”
Notes the AP: In 2003, McCain, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee urged then-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens to abandon a proposed bill to prohibit foreign-owned carriers from flying U.S. military equipment or troops. Airborne Express said the bill was aimed at torpedoing its merger with DHL, the U.S.-based shipping unit of German postal service Deutsche Post AG.
At the same time, while he was a lobbyist, Davis helped persuade Congress to accept the merger. Davis took a leave of absence from his lobbying practice to work for McCain. A campaign spokesman said Davis had not worked with DHL since 2005, long before DHL announced plans to move its work out of Wilmington.
** SCHUMER TO OBAMA: HIT HARDER AND FASTER.New York Senator Chuck Schumer had this to say: “I thought the Britney Spears commercial was powerful,” Schumer said, referring to McCain’s television ad casting Obama as a vapid “celebrity.”
“They’re trying to say, ‘He’s not one of us,’” Schumer said.
“I would answer back hard. What do you mean he’s not one of us? It’s John McCain who wears $500 shoes, has six houses, and comes from one of the richest families in his state,” Schumer said. “It’s Barack Obama who climbed up the hard way, and that’s why he wants middle-class tax cuts and better schools for our kids. When they say,’He’s not one of us,’ you don’t say, ‘Here’s our plan on health care.’”
He also called this a change election and said Obama may well win 300 electoral votes.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET MANEUVERS. As I mentioned this morning, the Assembly Republicans dared the majority Democrats to bring their budget up for a vote. Which they did not. It would fail, due to the two-thirds requirement.
Assembly Democrats then accused the Republicans of refusing to reveal their budget plan. Republicans say they want big cuts. But get vague about what they are.
In other words, Democrats are reluctant to further commit to big tax increases. Republicans are reluctant to reveal what cuts they would make that even their own constituents would dislike.
Meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was, and is, in meetings in and around the Capitol around the budget. He was also featured in a CNN story on the chronic crisis.
Here’s an excerpt: Let’s go to Bill Schneider working this story for us. What’s the governor in California up to, Bill?
Schneider: Well, he’s trying to show that you can be a moderate and a tough guy at the same time. Showdown in Sacramento. The governator versus the legislature.
Schwarzenegger: Until the legislature passes a budget that I can sign, I will not sign any bills that reach my desk.
Schneider: Describes budget crisis … The Republicans won’t support tax hikes, and the Democrats don’t want big spending cuts.
Schwarzenegger: No one can get their way, because they’re too far apart. And I think that this is what I’m trying to accomplish.
Schneider: How? By imposing consequences. Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered pay cuts and layoffs for state workers. He even proposed a temporary sales tax increase, thereby breaking his promise not to raise taxes.
Schwarzenegger: Everything is on the table, and I think this is the only way to really make both of the parties come together.
Schneider: Bipartisanship is difficult when you have a legislature filled with entrenched partisans in safe seats. So the governor faces a dilemma. He’s the only one elected by all of California in Sacramento. Neither side wants to budge. What can the governor do? Get tough. Keep the pressure on. Will it work?
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass: I really do believe that we will have the budget signed, sealed and delivered well before the executive order would go into effect.
Schneider: Message to the next president. When you have partisan gridlock, you have to be a tough guy to force politicians to come together.
Which is certainly the frame that Team Arnold wants.
What else is happening? The public employee unions are suing to try to block Schwarzenegger’s termination of contingent employees. And the state’s motor vehicles department is ending Saturday service.
** THE DRAFT NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.Um, enjoy.
** MAC’S RUNNING OLYMPICS TV ADS, TOO. A week after it was learned that Barack Obama had bought $5 million for national broadcast and cable TV ads during the Olympics, John McCain has bought $6 million in such advertising. Don’t be surprised if the Obama buy goes up.
Presumably the advertising will be more straightforward than the screwy situation we’ve been in the midst of this week, with dueling ads flopping positive and negative, with no repetition.
** OBAMA AND CLINTON ISSUE JOINT STATEMENT. With some recent media buzz about lingering bad feelings between the Obama and Clinton camps (natural bad blood, with some serious status anxiety) — and the ever hopeful far right, which predicted blood in the streets of Denver and the multiple demises of Obama’s career, none of which occurred is predictably trying to make a little hay — the two senators today issued a joint statement.
We are working together to make sure the fall campaign and the convention are a success. At the Democratic Convention, we will ensure that the voices of everyone who participated in this historic process are respected and our party will be fully unified heading into the November election.
There’s not going to be a floor fight, or a Hillary move to steal the nomination, or any of that stuff. Sorry.
Clinton campaigns tomorrow for Obama in battleground state Nevada, then goes on to Florida.
** FAVORITE SUPERHERO? OBAMA AND MCCAIN AGREE. PRETTY MUCH. Entertainment Weekly asked the two candidates a bunch of pop culture questions (My taste, incidentally, tends to track more with John McCain’s, at least in terms of movies and television.) On the question of one’s favorite superhero, the dominance of the The Dark Knight continues.
Says McCain: Batman. He does justice sometimes against insurmountable odds. And he doesn’t make his good works known to a lot of people, so a lot of people think he’s just a rich playboy.
Says Obama: I was always into the Spider-Man/Batman model. The guys who have too many powers, like Superman, that always made me think they weren’t really earning their superhero status. It’s a little too easy. Whereas Spider-Man and Batman, they have some inner turmoil. They get knocked around a little bit.
Feinstein is wealthy, well known and popular, so she can wait until 2010 to decide, thereby paralyzing other possible Democratic candidates. If she then does not run, Brown’s name recognition will make him the front-runner. His last year as governor was 1982, when there were 24.5 million Californians. Now there are 38 million, most of whom have only vague, if any, memories of him as governor. But in this mega-state, becoming known can cost a fortune, and his name is known from Oregon’s border to Mexico’s. That is why he says he may become the last gubernatorial nominee not rich enough to personally finance his campaign. Besides, he says, in a “TiVo world,” where people watch only what they select and “political news is not as salient as it used to be,” a famous name becomes more salient.
Brown, who was 7 when the Second World War ended, remembers rationing, and sometimes — when the former seminarian is in a San Francisco frame of mind, fretting about “unsustainable” growth and celebrating monastic asceticism — he seems to regret the end of it. But the realist in him dryly notes that the dreamy legislation Schwarzenegger signed that requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020 — when there will be 16 million more Californians than there were in 1990 — does not begin to bite until 2012, when Schwarzenegger will be gone. …
When, as Oakland’s mayor, he launched a military school for low-income children, he endured protesters who were, he says, suffering “misplaced concreteness.” These gray-bearded “remnants” of the anti-Vietnam War movement “were looking for a war to protest.” He preserved the school, promoted condominiums “to bring disposable income” back to the inner city, increased the number of charter schools from three to 24, expanded the police force and subsidized the arts to make Oakland attractive.
BART helped, by making San Francisco an easy commute, although he says the construction of BART “devastated” Oakland for a while. The moral of the story, he says, is that politics requires a long “time horizon” — to fix California, 40 years.
** MCCAIN SAYS HE’S “VERY SORRY” ABOUT THE NEGATIVE TONE OF THE RACE.John McCain tells David Broder he regrets the turn the presidential race has taken. “I’m very sorry about it,” McCain said in a Saturday interview at his Arlington headquarters. “I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings.”
It’s going to be interesting to see how McCain handles running a strongly negative campaign. He’s a tough guy who’s not averse to mixing it up. But if the campaign continues on this course, it will not be popular. And he’s used to being the good guy.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Minneapolis and Chicago for fundraisers.
John McCain is in Lima and Liberty Township, Ohio. The former for a town hall on the economy, the latter for a fundraiser. McCain will discuss what looks like a looming big job loss situation in Lima, with the DHL shipping firm. DHL bought Airborne Express in 2003 in a deal for which campaign manager Rick Davis was one of the lobbyists.
With the Olympics Opening Ceremonies set for tomorrow night, Obama is going on vacation for a week in Hawaii. McCain, who hasn’t been campaigning much on the weekends and clinched his nomination in February after his win in the California primary, is actually better rested than the much younger man.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be in private meetings in and around the Capitol on the chronic state budget crisis. His latest move to break up the budget impasse, the bills blockade I wrote about yesterday, is being received rather sulkily.
Meanwhile, Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines is challenging majority Democrats to bring their budget up for a vote. Which, of course, they would lose due to California’s two-thirds vote requirement, which it shares with only two other states.
John McCain’s campaign has some fun with this video of past statements from Democrats praising the Republican presidential candidate.
** FOUR ON THE FLOOR: MAC TV. So why did lovable old John McCain suddenly put out FOUR negative TV ads in less than two weeks?
After the latest (and rather good) version of his positive biographical spot went wide?
I’ll lay out the sequence of events and reasons at each juncture.
Are new campaign director Steve Schmidt and company crazy like foxes?
Or just crazy?
Well, here’s the deal. Schmidt and company may be setting themselves up for a big backlash. But in the short term, their plan has worked. 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. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $120 to $121 per barrel range. The drop of over $27 per barrel comes on acknowledgement that the weak US economy will cut future demand and the easing of geopolitical tensions.
Barack Obama’s new TV ad, countering John McCain’s new “original maverick” ad.
** NEW CBS NATIONAL POLL: OBAMA OVER MCCAIN, 45-39.A new CBS poll tracks closely with the new AP and Time polls, showing Barack Obama holding a steady lead over John McCain, 45% to 39%.
I think that Obama surged with his foreign trip, and McCain brought him back to earth with his flurry of negative ads. Now Obama, in my view, is moving back up again, in a moderate way.
Both campaigns are now scuffling with a series of new ads. Obama to get some real separation going into the Olympics. McCain to prevent that.
** SCHWARZENEGGER SAYS NO BILLS TILL THERE’S A BUDGET. In his mid-afternoon presser, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been closeted in budget meetings today in and around the Capitol, announced in the webcast linked to below that he will block all bills until the Legislature comes together around a new budget.
When he receives a bill, he will not sign it. If it is about to become law without his signature, he will veto it.
This is another move by Schwarzenegger to ratchet up pressure on legislative leaders to produce a budget with new revenues, cuts, and reforms, a budget that is well over a month overdue.
For her part, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said this in a statement: “Like the Governor, we want to reach agreement on a budget that’s responsible and balanced, and 110 percent of our focus is on that. The Governor’s action today is yet another distraction that won’t have much impact other than the possible veto of public policy that moves our state forward.”
Notwithstanding that, the Legislature has been occupying itself with other matters, some of them definitely on the inane side.
UPDATE: There are 13 Senate bills currently on the governor’s desk, and no Assembly bills. The Governor’s Office has put this statement out to make the situation clear: “If he receives a bill he will not sign it. Before the bill becomes law without his signature, he will veto it. The current period of time he has to consider bills is 12 days. On or after August 18 he has until September 30 before they become law. The Governor will allow authors of the 13 bills currently on his desk to pull the bills back, thus avoiding his veto.”
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS AFTERNOON ON BUDGET. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has just called a Capitol press conference to discuss the chronic state budget crisis.
** GETTING DIZZY YET? Call me old school, but I think you develop a killer ad and drive it home. Whether or not these dueling ads of the moment — mostly from Team McCain — mirror an ADD media culture or fuel it, or just play to the stupefied press — is an interesting question.
I don’t see a killer ad on either side.
I have a column coming for the end of the week, as we head into the Olympics, on the present TV ad wars.
John McCain has his fifth attack ad of the general election out today, following a brief return late yesterday to positive advertising (see below for that).
** NEW MAC ATTACK AD. Well, that didn’t last long. I’m referring to John McCain’s return to negative advertising today, following his return yesterday to the positive — in the form of the ad below about “the original maverick” — after the first four negative TV ads of the general election campaign, all by the Western senator.
This ad, again, refers to Barack Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world,” which of course he is not, attacking him for being for taxes and spending and, hence, against jobs. And praising McCain as a champion of renewable energy. Which the champions of renewable energy don’t exactly agree with.
This is a lot of ads in a short period of time. The way I was taught, as I look at a little award from back in the day while I write this, is that you focus in advertising and put serious effort behind a serious message. But maybe this is a much more fragemented media era. And maybe Team McCain sees the same polls I do, in which Obama is heading back up again.
** OBAMA REGAINS MID-SINGLE DIGITS LEAD. We now have two current polls showing Barack Obama back up over John McCain with a 5 to 6 point lead in national polling. The AP poll has it, 47-41 Obama. Time Magazine has it 46-41.
Team McCain, led by new campaign director and old NWN friend Steve Schmidt, succeeded last week in jamming Obama after his excellent tour of the ME and Europe, eliminating his short-term bounce (though not, in my view, the underlying effectiveness of the tour). But Obama is recouping, and there is a bit of a backlash against the McCain tactics.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declares victory in his second landslide election as California’s governor, in this NWN video from November 2006.
The Morning Column: TONIGHT SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT PLUS 5.
So today is the fifth anniversary of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stunning announcement on The Tonight Show that he would be a candidate for governor of California in the dramatic 2003 California recall election.
The news came as a shock to most, though not to my longtime readers. At a certain point in the future, we’ll get into all the specifics around this.
But for the moment, let’s look at some lasting lessons from the “shock” announcement of the movie superstar.
Incidentally, this is also the fifth anniversary of the announcement by old NWN friend Arianna Huffington that she also would be a candidate for governor. Her campaign turned out differently, but as the governor himself noted last week, she has emerged in an amazingly powerful place. Her Huffington Post, which I’m happy to write columns for, is the biggest new media web site for political news and commentary in the world. Surpassing the famed Drudge Report.
Last week, on the occasion of Schwarzenegger’s birthday, I discussed his governorship to date.
Today, let’s look at a few things we’ve learned from his 2003 election, accomplished in landslide 17-point fashion, and his 2006 re-election, accomplished also in landslide 17-point fashion.
1. BRANDS MATTER.
With all the questionable foofaraw about celebrity last week in the presidential race, around the McCain campaign’s highly questionable contention that their celebrity candidate was overshadowed in a silver screen sense by Barack Obama, a greater celebrity than supposed uber-celebs Britney and Paris, the reality has been missed.
What matters in politics is not just fame, but branding.
Positioning, as my old mentor Regis McKenna taught, probably matters more, but let’s not wander too far afield.
Schwarzenegger, as the biggest action movie star in history, had developed an unmatchable brand. If he could present himself as a credible governor, he would win. He did so, and he won.
Fortunately, I never wrote a book about the campaign, as that is the gist of the thing.
2. BIG MONEY MATTERS. In order to compete, as he had to get over the hurdle of having no public service moments other than his chairmanship of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness — and the scene in True Lies in which he instructs Marine Harrier jet pilots to launch their missiles at a nuclear weapon-carrying truck, assuring them the act would not set off the nuke — Schwarzenegger had to ramp up a campaign quickly. (Okay, I’m being a bit facetious, as Schwarzenegger also did a winning statewide initiative for after school programs.) While the former action superstar has proved to be the biggest fundraiser in California political history, surpassing Gray Davis and, in an earlier generation, Davis’s boss, Jerry Brown, the money wasn’t there to start. So Schwarzenegger wrote some big checks.
Thus he was able to transition his brand from movies and sports to politics, instantaneously.
3. INDEPENDENCE MATTERS. While Schwarzenegger ran as a Republican, he always looked to appeal to the independents who now make up 22% of the California electorate. The ranks of independents have grown during Schwarzenegger’s governorship. The ranks of Republicans, whose in-house leaders have chosen to move further to the right, have declined. As Schwarzenegger said to me repeatedly in 2002, when to most the idea of him running seemed lunacy, the sweet spot of California politics is in the center. A center which to the far right is somewhere over on the left.
What does all this mean for 2010?
Well, that’s another piece. But I will say this. It is harder now to use big money to establish a brand, given the acceleration of media fragmentation. And no Republican other than Schwarzenegger could have won the 2003 election. Not even one so well established as former moderate Republican LA Mayor Dick Riordan.
After four straight attack ads on Barack Obama, John McCain says in this new ad that he’s “the original maverick” we remember from 2000.
So unless he’s planning a dramatic announcement atop Diamond Head, we’re going to be waiting a while longer.
Obama’s true inner circle on this is very small, incidentally. In addition to veepstakes coordinators Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, the former US deputy attorney general, it consists of only four people. Michelle Obama, David Axelrod, David Plouffe, and Robert Gibbs.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Elkhart, Indiana and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
John McCain is in Huntington, West Virginia and Jackson and Dublin, Ohio.
Obama is hitting McCain hard today on energy and the economy, slamming him for the tire gauge stunt and hammering home the message that he is the candidate of Big Oil. Obama appears with veep shortlister Evan Bayh, the Indiana senator and former governor of the Hoosier State, who also slams McCain hard on the energy front.
McCain is hitting Obama on taxes, slamming him as a proponent of various tax increases.
** FOUR ON THE FLOOR: MAC TV. So why did lovable old John McCain suddenly put out FOUR negative TV ads in less than two weeks?
After the latest (and rather good) version of his positive biographical spot went wide just three weeks ago?
I’ll lay out the sequence of events and reasons at each juncture.
Are new campaign director Steve Schmidt and company crazy like foxes?
Or just crazy?
Well, here’s the deal. Schmidt and company may be setting themselves up for a big backlash. But in the short term, their plan has worked. From my other blog.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in private meetings today in and around the Capitol on the chronic state budget crisis. He will have no public appearances today.
Meanwhile, the Legislature will take a look at the Schwarzenegger Administration’s proposed implementation of the state’s landmark climate change program.
** 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. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $119 to $120 per barrel range. The drop of over $28 per barrel comes on acknowledgement that the weak US economy will cut future demand and the easing of geopolitical tensions.
** THE DARK KNIGHT HITS $400 MILLION IN DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE. The new Batman picture — which as you know from my featuring videos of it on the NWN weekend edition for five weeks running, I expected to be a very big deal — hit $400 million in domestic box office on Monday. A day earlier than I projected. The old record for fastest to $400M was 43 days. This picture did it in 18 days.
A bigger deal than I expected, as it blew past the huge finales to the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars sagas in only its third weekend of releases. As well as the fourth installment of my beloved Indiana Jones adventure.
Which means I need to read the screenplay again before writing a column about it, as this movie is clearly more significant in a deep-seated way than the ongoing back-and-forth and bric a brac of national and state politics.
Mrs. McCain, the super-rich beer heiress who has made the Vietnam War hero’s grand lifestyle possible, is 54. Which, I can tell you from experience, though certainly not of the beauteous Mrs. McCain, is not too old for such ponderings. Yet, the senator might want to consider what Miss Buffalo Chip actually entails.
The whole Sturgis deal is essentially of an exercise in roaring engines and soft porn, not the least of which is the topless Miss Buffalo Chip. I will be fascinated to see how the morally resolute far right spins this appearance.
** CURIOUS CALIFORNIA COVERAGE. The haggling over the chronic California budget crisis continues, with, as I mentioned early this morning, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in all kinds of private conversations.
I’ve mentioned, though this is not a major theme here, the collapse of the conventional California political press corps. When I go to various meetings and so forth, the press are increasingly few and far between, whilst the PR and hangers on folk increasingly take up space.
But the Sacramento Bee is trying to hold the line. Not getting rid of people, unlike every other other conventional media outlet in the state. The state capital is its local beat. So when the Bee screws up, which I generally don’t get into, it’s not insignificant.
Needed. List of employees. Ability to print checks at federal minimum wage. Not difficult.
The other odd piece in today’s Bee is that of longtime conservative columnist Dan Walters. This is a fellow who can be thought of as the Bob Novak of California. But he thoroughly dislikes celebrities. He goes on — in his latest usual 450-word column — about Schwarzenegger being involved only in stunts and so forth. Walters, who incorrectly predicted that Pete Wilson’s governorship meant a new Republican hegemony in California, totally missed the news of the day yesterday in California politics. Which was actually covered in his own newspaper, which he might consider reading on occasion. Namely that Schwarzenegger was not merely pushing to temporarily inconvenience the state workers that the Bee is now championing in its embrace of constituency journalism, but is also pushing for new revenues and budget reform.Which Walters himself has argued for prior to his tee time, or whatever it is he does after 11 AM.
** TIRE GAUGES. Let me say something about tire gauges. Now, Barack Obama pushed back hard today on the Team McCain mockumentary line on tire gauges, which is supposedly that keeping your tires inflated is a stupid idea, and constitutes the entirety of Obama’s energy plan. Which was probably not a great idea to roll out yesterday, when Obama laid out an entire national energy plan.
Obama points out, accurately, that keeping your tires properly inflated will save you a lot more money at the pump than offshore oil drilling, which would take a great many years before it ever came online, much less had any impact on the pain at the pump. As I believe I’ve mentioned from the outset of this faux debate.
My dad was a war hero. An Army Ranger, a guy who fought on the ground. Where things got far nastier than they ever did in the air, which accounted for his three Purple Hearts, and war stories that would shrivel you right up, involving bodies stacked like cord wood, and more. A very smart guy, a Reagan fan, not an intellectual guy. He taught me a few key things in life, like how to shoot, how to stay physically fit and some other things we needn’t get into here, though all those lessons work very well even today, with the same techniques. And he taught me to use some tools, basic stuff. One of which is the tire gauge. “You keep your tires properly inflated for three reasons. One, so you don’t kill yourself in that Mustang when you drive it fast. Two, so you don’t run down the tires. Three, so you don’t use up gas like an idiot.”
All still true. Though the Mustang is long since gone, replaced by a Jag. I strongly suspect John McCain’s dad told him a lot of the same stuff. I don’t know what the fathers of McCain’s staff told them.
“Now, two points,” noted Obama today. “One, they know they’re lying about what my energy plan is. But the other thing is they’re making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by three to four percent. It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.”
** NO CHENEY AT REPUBLICAN CONVENTION. It looks increasingly like Vice President Dick Cheney will not make an appearance at the Republican national convention next month in St. Paul, Minnesota. Not because he’s ill, unlike Ted Kennedy at the Democratic convention, though he’s had multiple heart problems for many years. But because he is wildly unpopular.
Cheney has been the lynch pin figure of the Bush White House. The man pushing the current energy policy, the current environmental policy, the current economic policy, and the current war policy.
Which has yielded him about a 17% job approval rating. If President Bush is radioactive, Vice President Cheney is a dark figure from a comic book.
Even before his seizures which led to the discovery of his brain tumor, Kennedy has been noteworthy for his absence from the trail on behalf of Barack Obama. He began as the counter to Bill Clinton in the primaries. But as I’ve reported, the legendary liberal lion of the Senate, last of the Kennedy brothers, fatigued rather easily on the campaign trail and found it difficult at times to move around.
Expect to see Caroline Kennedy, the senator’s niece and only surviving child of JFK, in a large role in Denver. Caroline, who is perhaps the best friend of California First Lady Maria Shriver, was a major presence in the Obama campaign during the primaries. And with the eclipse of Washington insider Jim Johnson as principal veep vetter for Obama, the once seemingly reclusive former first daughter is playing a big role in selecting Obama’s running mate.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Youngstown and Berea, Ohio. He is doing town hall meetings on energy security in each Ohio community.
John McCain is in Newport, Michigan and Huntington, West Virginia. He tours a nuclear power plant at his Michigan stop and holds a “telephone town hall” with Pennsylvania voters at his West Virginia stop.
Obama is using his town halls in Ohio, a state won twice by President Bush, where he holds a slight lead, to tout his national energy plan and attack McCain as a tool of the oil companies. McCain is using his Michigan stop to attack Obama as an opponent of nuclear power. In the primaries, Hillary Clinton attacked Obama as a supporter of nuclear power.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be in and around the Capitol today, conducting private meetings pertaining to the chronic state budget crisis. He will have no public events.
Schwarzenegger has reportedly put forward a compromise plan calling for a temporary sales tax hike, long-term budget reforms, and cuts. Something for both Democrats and Republicans. The partisan maneuvering continues.
John McCain talks up offshore oil drilling yesterday at the National Label Company in Pennsylvania.
** FOUR ON THE FLOOR: MAC TV. So why did lovable old John McCain suddenly put out FOUR negative TV ads in less than two weeks?
After the latest (and rather good) version of his positive biographical spot went wide just three weeks ago?
I’ll lay out the sequence of events and reasons at each juncture.
Are new campaign director Steve Schmidt and company crazy like foxes?
Or just crazy?
Well, here’s the deal. Schmidt and company may be setting themselves up for a big backlash. But in the short term, their plan has worked. 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. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $120 to $121 per barrel range. The drop of over $26 per barrel comes on acknowledgement that the weak US economy will cut future demand and the easing of geopolitical tensions.
Following John McCain’s flurry of four negative TV ads, Barack Obama launches his first negative ad of the general election with this spot scoring McCain for being “in the pocket of Big Oil.”
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET WATCH: ANOTHER SHOE DROPS?AS IN TEMPORARY TAX INCREASE? Last week, as reported, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made good on his promise to reduce the salaries of state employees to the federal minimum wage until the very late and chronically troubled state budget is passed, and to terminate contingent employees. Today his office announced the tally of terminated employees, which amounts to over 10,000 employees so far, with the state’s consumer services and business agencies taking the biggest hit. In another development, the Sacramento Bee reports that Schwarzenegger now supports a temporary tax increase to raise some $5 billion in revenue per year. According, says the paper, to sources close to the negotiations, Schwarzenegger favors a one cent sales tax hike for three years.
In exchange for that, with legislative Democrats looking at layoffs and salary cuts for their major “anchor tenants,” as former Speaker Willie Brown calls them, the public employees, they would be expected to go along with permanent budget reforms, including a rainy day fund. Which then in turn, although the Bee does not say this, would be used to convince enough Republicans to vote for the package.
Schwarzenegger’s office has issued no comment on this.
** MCCAIN SAYS “DRILL NOW.” After touring a label factory in Pennsylvania — which makes labels for shampoo bottles and aspirin containers, and so forth — John McCain responded to Barack Obama’s big energy speech.
In a continuation of his new break with his famed practice, he declined to engage in any question-and-answers with his traveling press corps to maintain message discipline. That also tends to prevent more experienced journalists from getting him off message.
McCain said that he has outlined an “all-of-the-above” strategy on energy, declaring that “We have to drill here and drill now.”
“Anybody who says that we can achieve energy independence without using and increasing these existing energy resources either doesn’t have the experience to understand the challenge that we face or isn’t giving the American people some straight talk.”
He also mocked Obama’s suggestion last week for improving vehicle fuel efficiency by saying, “We’re not going to achieve energy independence by inflating our tires.”
McCain aides have taken to distributing tire gauges, mockingly emblazoned “Obama’s Energy Policy,” to reporters.
McCain, as noted earlier on NWN, visits a giant motorcycle rally this afternoon in South Dakota. Tomorrow he will tour a nuclear power plant in Michigan, which is where Obama presented his comprehensive energy plan today. McCain had hoped to knock Mitt Romney out of the Republican race in the Michigan primary, but lost there, abandoned by independent voters even though the Michigan Democratic primary didn’t count.
** OBAMA’S BIG ENERGY SPEECH. A major address by Barack Obama earlier today in Michigan, home of the declining auto industry and a keystone of the sagging industrial heartland of America. And one of three states John McCain desperately wants to win, the other two being Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Obama, as you’ll see in the speech excerpts below, gave a detailed address positioning McCain as a last gasp candidacy of the age of oil, scoring him for opposing throughout his congressional career most of the moves necesssary to transition to a new energy economy.
Citing California’s policies as in many respects constituting a model for America’s future, Obama laid out proposals to end America’s dependence on foreign oil and spur new clean tech job growth and a revitalized auto industry in ten years by promoting new vehicles, new fuels, and greater energy efficiency. Renewable energy and new building standards, fundamental refurbishing of the power grid, and safer nuclear technology and waste disposal as well as carbon sequestration of coal effluent are central elements of his plan.
In the short term, he would provide some relief at the pump via $1000 rebates funded by taxes on skyrocketing oil profits and tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the latter a reversal from his position earlier in the campaign. He challenged the oil companies to make use of their massive lease holdings on and offshore that are currently going unused, and said he is open to some additional offshore drilling, though not off the Pacific coast nor along the the Northeast, as part of a Senate compromise to generate some action there.
We meet at a moment when this country is facing a set of challenges greater than any we’ve seen in generations. Right now, our brave men and women in uniform are fighting two different wars while terrorists plot their next attack. Our changing climate is placing our planet in peril. Our economy is in turmoil and our families are struggling with rising costs and falling incomes; with lost jobs and lost homes and lost faith in the American Dream. And for too long, our leaders in Washington have been unwilling or unable to do anything about it.
That is why this election could be the most important of our lifetime. … And central to all of these major challenges is the question of what we will do about our addiction to foreign oil.
Without a doubt, this addiction is one of the most dangerous and urgent threats this nation has ever faced – from the gas prices that are wiping out your paychecks and straining businesses to the jobs that are disappearing from this state; from the instability and terror bred in the Middle East to the rising oceans and record drought and spreading famine that could engulf our planet. …
It’s also a threat that goes to the very heart of who we are as a nation, and who we will be. Will we be the generation that leaves our children a planet in decline, or a world that is clean, and safe, and thriving? Will we allow ourselves to be held hostage to the whims of tyrants and dictators who control the world’s oil wells? Or will we control our own energy and our own destiny? Will America watch as the clean energy jobs and industries of the future flourish in countries like Spain, Japan, or Germany? Or will we create them here, in the greatest country on Earth, with the most talented, productive workers in the world?
As Americans, we know the answers to these questions. We know that we cannot sustain a future powered by a fuel that is rapidly disappearing. Not when we purchase $700 million worth of oil every single day from some the world’s most unstable and hostile nations – Middle Eastern regimes that will control nearly all of the world’s oil by 2030. Not when the rapid growth of countries like China and India mean that we’re consuming more of this dwindling resource faster than we ever imagined. We know that we can’t sustain this kind of future.
But we also know that we’ve been talking about this issue for decades. We’ve heard promises about energy independence from every single President since Richard Nixon. We’ve heard talk about curbing the use of fossil fuels in State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973.
Back then, we imported about a third of our oil. Now, we import more than half. Back then, global warming was the theory of a few scientists. Now, it is a fact that is melting our glaciers and setting off dangerous weather patterns as we speak. …
You won’t hear me say this too often, but I couldn’t agree more with the explanation that Senator McCain offered a few weeks ago. He said, “Our dangerous dependence on foreign oil has been thirty years in the making, and was caused by the failure of politicians in Washington to think long-term about the future of the country.”
What Senator McCain neglected to mention was that during those thirty years, he was in Washington for twenty-six of them. And in all that time, he did little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He voted against increased fuel efficiency standards and opposed legislation that included tax credits for more efficient cars. He voted against renewable sources of energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind power. Against an energy bill that – while far from perfect – represented the largest investment in renewable sources of energy in the history of this country. So when Senator McCain talks about the failure of politicians in Washington to do anything about our energy crisis, it’s important to remember that he’s been a part of that failure. Now, after years of inaction, and in the face of public frustration over rising gas prices, the only energy proposal he’s really promoting is more offshore drilling – a position he recently adopted that has become the centerpiece of his plan, and one that will not make a real dent in current gas prices or meet the long-term challenge of energy independence.
George Bush’s own Energy Department has said that if we opened up new areas to drilling today, we wouldn’t see a single drop of oil for seven years. Seven years. And Senator McCain knows that, which is why he admitted that his plan would only provide “psychological” relief to consumers. …
Now, increased domestic oil exploration certainly has its place as we make our economy more fuel-efficient and transition to other, renewable, American-made sources of energy. But it is not the solution. It is a political answer of the sort Washington has given us for three decades.
There are genuine ways in which we can provide some short-term relief from high gas prices … I believe we should immediately give every working family in America a $1,000 energy rebate, and we should pay for it with part of the record profits that the oil companies are making right now.
I also believe that in the short-term, as we transition to renewable energy, we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. But we should start by telling the oil companies to drill on the 68 million acres they currently have access to but haven’t touched. And if they don’t, we should require them to give up their leases to someone who will. We should invest in the technology that can help us recover more from existing oil fields, and speed up the process of recovering oil and gas resources in shale formations in Montana and North Dakota; Texas and Arkansas and in parts of the West and Central Gulf of Mexico. We should sell 70 million barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for less expensive crude, which in the past has lowered gas prices within two weeks. Over the next five years, we should also lease more of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska for oil and gas production. And we should also tap more of our substantial natural gas reserves and work with the Canadian government to finally build the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline, delivering clean natural gas and creating good jobs in the process.
But the truth is, none of these steps will come close to seriously reducing our energy dependence in the long-term. We simply cannot pretend, as Senator McCain does, that we can drill our way out of this problem. …
Last week, Washington finally made some progress on this. A group of Democrat and Republican Senators sat down and came up with a compromise on energy that includes many of the proposals I’ve worked on as a Senator and many of the steps I’ve been calling for on this campaign. …
Like all compromises, this one has its drawbacks. It includes a limited amount of new offshore drilling, and while I still don’t believe that’s a particularly meaningful short-term or long-term solution, I am willing to consider it if it’s necessary to actually pass a comprehensive plan. I am not interested in making the perfect the enemy of the good …
And yet, while the compromise is a good first step and a good faith effort, I believe that we must go even further, and here’s why – breaking our oil addiction is one of the greatest challenges our generation will ever face. It will take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy. This transformation will be costly, and given the fiscal disaster we will inherit from the last Administration, it will likely require us to defer some other priorities. …
It is also a transformation that will require more than just a few government programs. Energy independence will require an all-hands-on-deck effort from America – effort from our scientists and entrepreneurs; from businesses and from every American citizen. … For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we must end the age of oil in our time.
Creating a new energy economy isn’t just a challenge to meet, it’s an opportunity to seize – an opportunity that will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs. Jobs that pay well. Jobs that can’t be outsourced. Good, union jobs. For a state that has lost so many and struggled so much in recent years, this is an opportunity to rebuild and revive your economy. …
If I am President, I will immediately direct the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector to a single, overarching goal – in ten years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela. To do this, we will invest $150 billion over the next ten years and leverage billions more in private capital to build a new energy economy that harnesses American energy and creates five million new American jobs.
There are three major steps I will take to achieve this goal – steps that will yield real results by the end of my first term in office.
First, we will help states like Michigan build the fuel-efficient cars we need, and we will get one million 150 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrids on our roads within six years.
I know how much the auto industry and the auto workers of this state have struggled over the last decade or so. But I also know where I want the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow to be built – not in Japan, not in China, but right here in the United States of America. Right here in the state of Michigan.
We can do this. When I arrived in Washington, I reached across the aisle to come up with a plan to raise the mileage standards in our cars for the first time in thirty years – a plan that won support from Democrats and Republicans who had never supported raising fuel standards before. I also led the bipartisan effort to invest in the technology necessary to build plug-in hybrid cars. …With technology we have on the shelf today, we will raise our fuel mileage standards four percent every year.
We’ll invest more in the research and development of those plug-in hybrids, specifically focusing on the battery technology. We’ll leverage private sector funding to bring these cars directly to American consumers, and we’ll give consumers a $7,000 tax credit to buy these vehicles. But most importantly, I’ll provide $4 billion in loans and tax credits to American auto plants and manufacturers so that they can re-tool their factories and build these cars. …
What’s more, these efforts will lead to an explosion of innovation here in Michigan. At the turn of the 20th century, there were literally hundreds of car companies offering a wide choice of steam vehicles and gas engines. I believe we are entering a similar era of expanding consumer choices, from higher mileage cars, to new electric entrants like GM’s Volt, to flex fuel cars and trucks powered by biofuels and driven by Michigan innovation.
The second step I’ll take is to require that 10% of our energy comes from renewable sources by the end of my first term – more than double what we have now. To meet these goals, we will invest more in the clean technology research and development that’s occurring in labs and research facilities all across the country and right here at MSU …
I’ll also extend the Production Tax Credit for five years to encourage the production of renewable energy like wind power, solar power, and geothermal energy. It was because of this credit that wind power grew 45% last year, the largest growth in history. Experts have said that Michigan has the second best potential for wind generation and production in the entire country. And as the world’s largest producer of the material that makes solar panels work, this tax credit would also help states like Michigan grow solar industries that are already creating hundreds of new jobs.
We’ll also invest federal resources, including tax incentives and government contracts, into developing next generation biofuels. By 2022, I will make it a goal to have 6 billion gallons of our fuel come from sustainable, affordable biofuels and we’ll make sure that we have the infrastructure to deliver that fuel in place. Here in Michigan, you’re actually a step ahead of the game with your first-ever commercial cellulosic ethanol plant, which will lead the way by turning wood into clean-burning fuel. It’s estimated that each new advanced biofuels plant can add up to 120 jobs, expand a local town’s tax base by $70 million per year, and boost local household income by $6.7 million annually.
In addition, we’ll find safer ways to use nuclear power and store nuclear waste. And we’ll invest in the technology that will allow us to use more coal, America’s most abundant energy source, with the goal of creating five “first-of-a-kind” coal-fired demonstration plants with carbon capture and sequestration.
Of course, too often, the problem is that all of this new energy technology never makes it out of the lab and onto the market because there’s too much risk and too much cost involved in starting commercial-scale clean energy businesses. So we will remove some of this cost and this risk by directing billions in loans and capital to entrepreneurs who are willing to create clean energy businesses and clean energy jobs right here in America.
As we develop new sources of energy and electricity, we will also need to modernize our national utility grid so that it’s accommodating to new sources of power, more efficient, and more reliable. …
Finally, the third step I will take is to call on businesses, government, and the American people to meet the goal of reducing our demand for electricity 15% by the end of the next decade. This is by far the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to reduce our energy consumption – and it will save us $130 billion on our energy bills.
Since DuPont implemented an energy efficiency program in 1990, the company has significantly reduced its pollution and cut its energy bills by $3 billion. The state of California has implemented such a successful efficiency strategy that while electricity consumption grew 60% in this country over the last three decades, it didn’t grow at all in California. And California has been growing by leaps and bounds.
There is no reason America can’t do the same thing. We will set a goal of making our new buildings 50% more efficient over the next four years. And we’ll follow the lead of California and change the way utilities make money so that their profits aren’t tied to how much energy we use, but how much energy we save.
In just ten years, these steps will produce enough renewable energy to replace all the oil we import from the Middle East. Along with the cap-and-trade program I’ve proposed, we will reduce our dangerous carbon emissions 80% by 2050 and slow the warming of our planet. And we will create five million new jobs in the process.
If these sound like far-off goals, just think about what we can do in the next few years. One million plug-in hybrid cars on the road. Doubling our energy from clean, renewable sources like wind power or solar power and 2 billion gallons of affordable biofuels. New buildings that are 50% more energy efficient.
So there is a real choice in this election – a choice about what kind of future we want for this country and this planet.
Senator McCain would not take the steps or achieve the goals that I outlined today. His plan invests very little in renewable sources of energy and he’s opposed helping the auto industry re-tool. Like George Bush and Dick Cheney before him, he sees more drilling as the answer to all of our energy problems, and like them, he’s found a receptive audience in the very same oil companies that have blocked our progress for so long. In fact, he raised more than one million dollars from big oil just last month, most of which came after he announced his plan for offshore drilling in a room full of cheering oil executives. His initial reaction to the bipartisan energy compromise was to reject it because it took away tax breaks for oil companies. And even though he doesn’t want to spend much on renewable energy, he’s actually proposed giving $4 billion more in tax breaks to the biggest oil companies in America – including $1.2 billion to Exxon-Mobil.
This is a corporation that just recorded the largest profit in the history of the United States. . This is the company that, last quarter, made $1,500 every second. That’s more than $300,000 in the time it takes you to fill up a tank with gas that’s costing you more than $4-a-gallon. And Senator McCain not only wants them to keep every dime of that money, he wants to give them more.
So make no mistake – the oil companies have placed their bet on Senator McCain, and if he wins, they will continue to cash in while our families and our economy suffer and our future is put in jeopardy. …
I want you all to think for a minute about the next four years, and even the next ten years. We can continue down the path we’ve been traveling. We can keep making small, piece-meal investments in renewable energy and keep sending billions of our hard-earned dollars to oil company executives and Middle Eastern dictators. We can watch helplessly as the price of gas rises and falls because of some foreign crisis we have no control over, and uncover every single barrel of oil buried beneath this country only to realize that we don’t have enough for a few years, let alone a century. We can watch other countries create the industries and the jobs that will fuel our future, and leave our children a planet that grows more dangerous and unlivable by the day.
Or we can choose another future. We can decide that we will face the realities of the 21st century by building a 21st century economy. In just a few years, we can watch cars that run on a plug-in battery come off the same assembly lines that once produced the first Ford and the first Chrysler. We can see shuttered factories open their doors to manufacturers that sell wind turbines and solar panels that will power our homes and our businesses. We can watch as millions of new jobs with good pay and good benefits are created for American workers, and we can take pride as the technologies, and discoveries, and industries of the future flourish in the United States of America. We can lead the world, secure our nation, and meet our moral obligations to future generations.
This is the choice that we face in the months ahead. This is the challenge we must meet. This is the opportunity we must seize – and this may be our last chance to seize it.
And if it seems too difficult or improbable, I ask you to think about the struggles and the challenges that past generations have overcome. …
** BOB NOVAK ANNOUNCES IMMEDIATE RETIREMENT. Conservative columnist Bob Novak has just announced his retirement, effective immediately. Novak cited his recent discovered brain tumor, describing his prognosis as “dire,” saying he will soon begin radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
Novak, who has written a column about national politics for 45 years — he and then partner Rowland Evans were at the center of a sardonic key plot point in the classic 1972 Robert Redford film, The Candidate — was known for his scoops, frequently embarrassing to liberals. He had some good sources, but he also got things wrong.
He was in the news of late on several matters, all in rapid succession. During Barack Obama’s foreign tour, he reported that John McCain was just about to name his running mate. That seemed to many of us to be incorrect. Novak then said he had been played by a McCain advisor or two, as a means of cutting into Obama’s news flow. Right after that, he ran into a Washington pedestrian in his black Corvette, only pulling over blocks later. Fortunately, the pedestrian, who bounced off the hood of the ‘Vette, wasn’t seriously hurt. Then Novak was diagnosed with the brain tumor.
Novak has been a very entertaining figure in politics for as long as I can remember, one who frequently had interesting information to impart. Let’s hope his treatment goes well.
The Morning Column: MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
It’s the final week of campaigning before the Olympics. Today Barack Obama turns 47, launches his first negative ad of the general election campaign, and presents what’s billed as a comprehensive new national energy plan. Rival John McCain, incidentally, turns 72 before next month’s Republican national convention.
Obama hopes to push free from the decidedly un-pretty yet effective bear hug tactics employed last week by Team McCain to jam him up after his excellent tour of the Middle East and Europe. McCain hopes to keep jamming Obama.
McCain can’t afford for Obama to get separation in the race going into the Olympics, which usually dominate the American conversation during the height of summer every four years. Because the Democratic national convention is right after the Olympics.
So McCain will probably keep jamming and jabbing at the (slight) frontrunner. Unless he dislikes the backlash, some of which is coming from some of his close old associates, like former chief strategists Mike Murphy and John Weaver.
Meanwhile, both men are weighing potential running mates.
Obama will intriguingly spend a day in Indiana this week, much of it perhaps with potential running Evan Bayh, the veteran US senator and former governor. Indiana is very much in play this year already. The moderate and personable Bayh, a longstanding figure in national politics whose father Birch was also a powerful senator, would definitely help Obama there and elsewhere.
McCain is introducing a new player in the veepstakes, Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor. The 45-year old Cantor is one of the most conservative Jewish politicians in America, a staunch business advocate who has opposed US aid to the Palestinian Authority. He had a private meeting with McCain last month at the Hamptons estate of defense contractor Ronald Perelman, and this morning hosted a McCain media call attacking Obama on energy.
And in California, the Legislature is back in town, perhaps to deal with the state’s chronic budget crisis.
See the item below, “From The Arnold File.”
** FOUR ON THE FLOOR: MAC TV. So why did lovable old John McCain suddenly put out FOUR negative TV ads in less than two weeks?
After the latest (and rather good) version of his positive biographical spot went wide just three weeks ago?
I’ll lay out the sequence of events and reasons at each juncture.
Are new campaign director Steve Schmidt and company crazy like foxes?
Or just crazy?
Well, here’s the deal. Schmidt and company may be setting themselves up for a big backlash. But in the short term, their plan has worked. From my other blog.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Lansing, Michigan and Boston. He unveils his new national energy plan in Lansing and has a fundraiser in Boston. The speech receives roadblocked cable news net coverage around 9 AM Pacific.
John McCain is in Lafayette Hills, Pennsylvania and Sturgis, South Dakota. He has a small business roundtable in the former and attends a huge biker rally in the latter. Yes, you read that right. It’s the Sturgis Rally 2008, generally a raucous affair with bikini contests and heavy drinking. And thousands of veterans.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in and around the Capitol today in private meetings regarding the chronic state budget crisis. The Legislature is back, too. After various claims that Schwarzenegger wouldn’t dare move to slash state employee pay to the federal minimum wage and terminate contingent employees, public employee unions have filed suit to try to block the move and Democratic state controller John Chiang says he won’t implement it. But the California Supreme Court has previously ruled on the matter. So there may be some movement.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning writer who exposed the Communist purges and gulags, a pro-West hero during the Cold War, died over the weekend in Moscow. He was 89. Accepted back into the fold by the Putin regime for his staunch nationalism and criticism of NATO, he was little known by many younger Russians.
** 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. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $124 to $125 per barrel range. The drop of over $20 per barrel comes on acknowledgement that the weak US economy will cut future demand and the easing of geopolitical tensions.
The Batman pictures do very well when America is in a dark mood. The Dark Knight is rocketing up the all-time lists, approaching an astounding $400 million in domestic box office in its third weekend of release.
** END OF DAY. A fairly uneventful weekend politically, on this last weekend prior to the start of the Olympics, though there was the usual complement of back-and-forth chattter, most of it nasty and irritating.
John McCain, accused by some of racism in his current tack (note: he’s not a racist), says he won’t allow Barack Obama to inject racism into the campaign. Obama, who may have overstepped by saying Friday that the Republicans are out to remind everyone that he doesn’t look like the other guys on American currency, made clear he’s saying McCain is a cynic, not a racist.
For his part, Obama will lay out a comprehensive energy platform tomorrow, something which neither candidate has done to date. Controversy over the Britney/Paris ad rolled out at the end of the week by the McCain campaign to jam Obama raged, in a minor sort of way.
Meanwhile, in a more consequential cultural development, The Dark Knight closed in on the $400 million mark in domestic box office in only its third weekend of release. In so doing, this second film of the rebooted Batman franchise roared past the total domestic box office grosses of the the concluding smash hit films of the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars sagas.
It’s now at $394.9 million, and will hit $400 million on Monday, more than twice as fast as any other movie in history. Which will occasion a column on its political and cultural significance. Many on the right amusingly claim that Batman is a metaphor for George W. Bush. While some on the left say the movie is really about the problems of the war on terror. I say it’s important to take the hyperpartisan blinders off and get at the underlying dynamics of the movie.
** SUNDAY — WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Chicago, off the campaign trail.
John McCain is in Washington, off the campaign trail.
** SATURDAY — WHERE THEY ARE TODAY.
Barack Obama is in Florida, with events in Titusville and Orlando. The former for a town hall meeting on the economy, the latter to address the Urban League convention.
John McCain is in Washington, DC.
** FOUR ON THE FLOOR: MAC TV. So why did lovable old John McCain suddenly put out FOUR negative TV ads in less than two weeks?
After the latest (and rather good) version of his positive biographical spot went wide just three weeks ago?
I’ll lay out the sequence of events and reasons at each juncture.
Are new campaign director Steve Schmidt and company crazy like foxes?
Or just crazy?
Well, here’s the deal. Schmidt and company may be setting themselves up for a big backlash. But in the short term, their plan has worked. From my other blog.
** MISSOURI POLL: MCCAIN BY 5.The new Survey USA poll of Missouri has John McCain leading Barack Obama, 49% to 44%. About the same as in a previous poll. President Bush carried the border state in 2000 and 2004.
** 13 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE 3RD STRAIGHT MAC ATTACK AD.From my other blog.
** F1 SUNDAY IN BUDAPEST.The Formula One racing season continues Sunday with the Hungarian Grand Prix. Tune at 4:30 AM Pacific to Speed TV to watch the very closely fought four-way contest for the world driving championship. Britain’s favorite, Lewis Hamilton, the first black driver in F1, has a slight lead in the standings after winning the German Grand Prix two weekends ago. But Felipe Massa and defending world champion Kimi Raikonnen, both of Ferrari, are close behind the McLaren-Mercedes driver. As is BMW’s Robert Kubica. It’s great spectacle, with tremendous athletes.
** 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. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil closed on Friday at $125.10 per barrel. The drop of over $2o per barrel comes on acknowledgement that the weak US economy will cut future demand and fresh signs of a detente between the US and Iran. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
The evidently angry John McCain campaign continues to exercise the candidate’s sense of pique against frontrunner Barack Obama with this web video, in which they openly denigrate the first serious black presidential candidate as “The One.” Term, applied to the Keanu Reeves character, being taken from the Matrix pictures.
** FOUR ON THE FLOOR: MAC TV. So why did lovable old John McCain suddenly put out FOUR negative TV ads in less than two weeks?
After the latest (and rather good) version of his positive biographical spot went wide just three weeks ago?
I’ll lay out the sequence of events and reasons at each juncture.
Are new campaign director Steve Schmidt and company crazy like foxes?
Or just crazy?
Well, here’s the deal. Schmidt and company may be setting themselves up for a big backlash. But in the short term, their plan has worked. From my other blog.
** WHAT IS THIS FROM?Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about all their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout: “Save us!” And I’ll look down and whisper: “No.”
They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men like my father, or President Truman. Decent men who believed in a day’s pay for a day’s work.
Instead they followed the droppings of lechers and Communists and didn’t realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don’t tell me they didn’t have a choice.
Now the whole world stands on the brink, staring down into bloody Hell. All those liberals and intellectuals and smooth talkers. And all of a sudden, nobody can think of anything to say.
Meanwhile, “let’s take this herd of cattle up to Montana.” With apologies to Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry.
** MCCAIN IN TROUBLE IN HIS OWN HOME STATE. While John McCain’s campaign has largely succeeded in jamming Barack Obama’s mesage this week (and I have a column coming on this) — although the potential long-term cost has not yet been paid — the longtime Western senator is having surprising trouble closing the deal in the actual state which he represents in the US Senate. The new Rocky Mountain Poll mirrors other recent polls. Here are the numbers.
McCain 43%, Obama 38%.
While it is a general truism of life on the planet that familiarity breeds contempt, the closeness of the race in McCain’s home state — which is not at all mirored in Obama’s much larger state of Illinois — has to be troubling for a politican who has represented Arizona in the Congress and the Senate since 1982.
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Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi announces his candidacy for governor of California in 2010 at a Thursday Capitol rally.
** CALIFORNIA 2010.
Okay, so the presidential candidates continue their banging on one another. And we wonder whether former Schwarzeneger campaign manager-turned-current McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt is crazy like a fox or just crazy, as I put it in a text message yesterday. (And there is a column coming on that overall, called “Four On The Floor.”)
Meanwhile the prospective race for governor of America’s largest and most powerful state got a jolt yesterday. As I wrote yesterday, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi formally announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. For the fifth time, as I recall. Not that I recall things, of course.
Current Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who aside from being the biggest celebrity in the world, as anyone who has knowledge of the world knows — with apologies to the McCain campaign’s latest bid — has another two-and-a-half years as governor of the Golden State, made a major move to cut the Gordian knot of budget gridlock wrapped by the state’s anti-government and ultra-government factions.
And former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, the frontrunner in the 2010 governor’s race, should he choose to run, was in LA yesterday to sue the EPA for not moving to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the shipping industry, a major contributor to the greenhouse effect.
So, where are the prospective candidates for governor of California in 2010?
NWN provides a current snapshot.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER.
No, he can’t run again, due to term limits. But his job approval rating amongst California voters in the latest PPIC poll is a rather healthy 49%. That’s in the midst of economic and budget crises. And about twice that of fellow Republican George W. Bush in the nation’s largest state.
What will he do when he is no longer California’s governor — a state of being that is a whopping two-and-a-half years from now? Stay tuned.
JERRY BROWN.
The two-term governor of California in the 1970s and 1980s, a two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination, is both the state’s powerful attorney general and frontrunner for the 2010 race.
Should he decide to run.
Although he has only recently started raising serious money for 2010, he has nearly two million dollars in the bank, which is far more than any other Democrat who is likely to run. He has been involved as a leader in what we now call climate change and renewable energy issues since the early 1970s. California’s now lost role as the world leader in renewable energy came about through Brown’s leadership. “Governor Moonbeam,” so typed by tough guy Chicago columnist Mike Royko — who later denounced his own term for Brown — was so typified for stances that are now seen as ahead of the curve.
There is much more to say about what Brown is up to and has been up to in his eventful life, but this is a morning column on a blog, not a book.
DIANNE FEINSTEIN.
The longtime senior senator from California might well walk away with the governorship, if she were so inclined. But as I told Schwarzenegger before he announced in the 2003 recall election, she does not seem so inclined. In fact I told him she would not run. This is going to be a big year for the Democrats in US Senate elections. Which will make her an even bigger player as a senator. Especially if Barack Obama is the president.
Feinstein is 75 years old. She loves being a big player in Washington and a doyenne of the Georgetown scene. She doesn’t love questions about husband Dick Blum’s Chinese investments or campaigning in Bakersfield. As I said in 2003, she is not running for governor.
BILL LOCKYER.
California’s very savvy state treasurer, a former state attorney general and state Senate leader, is sitting on a $10 million war chest. He knows he can’t beat Jerry Brown. I believe he will run for re-election. He might have given Arnold Schwarzenegger a real race for re-election. But he revealed, dramatically, that he voted for the former action superstar in the 2003 recall. And things got very complicated after that. Much more to say …
GAVIN NEWSOM.
The charismatic and intriguing young mayor of San Francisco is much in the news of late with the sudden legalization of gay marriage in California. While Feinstein and others blamed his move to marry many gay and lesbian couples prior to the last presidential election as a principal reason for the defeat of John Kerry, the future — which on this issue is increasingly the present — is accelerating political reality on this issue.
But does Newsom translate on a statewide basis outside the charmed 47 square miles of his city, which happens to be my original home town? Would he actually run against Jerry Brown, a friend since his childhood, who made his father a state appelate court justice (which gave him credibility to crack the Getty family fortune, a whole other story of total relevance to Newsom’s rise), and whom he lauded when he introduced the former governor at his 2007 inauguration as California’s attorney general as something of a world historical figure?
(Of course I was there and have the footage, as longtime NWN readers are well aware.)
According to state reports, Newsom appears to have raised something under $100,000 in his exploratory gubernatorial bid.
Newsom was a national co-chairman for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which is no longer a plus in California, now decidedly a big part of Obama Nation. After getting caught up in an unseemly sex scandal last year with revelation of an affair with his then campaign manger’s wife, the mayor got married last weekend in a decidedly New Age manner at his bride’s family ranch in Montana to a lovely Stanford-educated actress. I’m not sure this plays well, coming on top of revelations of
