Archive for: March, 2007

The Expectations Game

Mar 30 2007 Published by Turk under Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Elections, John McCain, Politics, Republicans

Watching the Presidential campaigns try to set expectations this week has been damn near hysterical. Every time big deadlines or big events roll around, the campaigns go further and further to make their guy look hapless, and make the other guy look like a rock star. It’s a delicate act of setting the bar low so you can clear it. The best example had to be McCain on the Today show Wednesday.

VEIRA: You are in Florida campaigning. I want to talk about your fund raising efforts. You downplayed them saying they haven’t been as successful as you hoped because we have not done a good enough job. At what?

MCCAIN: At raising money.

VEIRA: Why?

MCCAIN: Because it’s my fault. I have not done a very good job at it. I am not very good at it and hope to get better. We are happy with where we are but have improvements to make. In many areas we are happy with the progress. In others we have a long way to.

VEIRA: How could you improve it? You have campaigned for years. You must know how to raise money?

MCCAIN: I have never been good at it. I am working hard and we will improve and things will move right along. We are still in spring training. I am happy where we are.

The declarations of fundraising failure by Presidential aspirants have gotten so bad that they made me think of the Daily Show’s post-debate spin segment after the first Presidential debate of 2004.

The way they see it, by not allowing himself to be reduced to tears, the President was a big winner tonight… the Bush people would like to remind everyone their man held his own against, what they call, the smartest man in the history of the world. An amazing accomplishment for a President whom, as the Bush team points out, is by some standardized test results, technically retarded… Jon, as RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie told me before we came on air, this is a President that was nearly killed by a pretzel.

Let the spin continue, but please ignore the rest of us laughing at you.

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The William Casey Defense

Mar 28 2007 Published by Turk under Congress, Craziness, Government, Politics

When I was in high school I sat and watched the Iran-Contra hearings. After lengthy investigations and a lot of testimony, I learned one of the most valuable political lessons. I call it the William Casey Defense. Much of the Iran-Contra scandal was laid at Casey’s feet, but he was incapacitated with a brain tumor and unable to testify to either his guilt or innocence. The William Casey defense is simple. No matter what happens, blame it on the dead guy. Any time a scandal rocks an administration, the blame for everything is ultimately laid at his doorstep.

Through subsequent administrations, I revised the defense. It still carries the name of the man who bore the brunt of my political education, but now allows you to blame the guy that was fired, asked to resign, or left in shame. Many reputations have been ruined in the name of protecting the guy at the top. It’s kind of a sick world we work in.

Now the Casey Defense is being brought to bear on Kyle Sampson. Tomorrow he’ll sit before Congress and get the third degree. Today the Department of Justice turned over a series of e-mails blaming everything on the former Chief of Staff. He has quibbled with the department’s portrayal of his firing. They say he stepped down because he failed to give his boss important information and as a result Congress was misled. He claims he stepped down because he failed to anticipate the crap-storm that this has become.

Having been on the receiving end of the Casey Defense once, I feel sorry for Sampson. However, I think he really is getting what’s coming tomorrow. He pursued the termination of good and decent people simply because they wouldn’t dance for their master. For that, he’ll hang. The real tragedy is that in this case, the Casey Defense may yet again protect those who were responsible.

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Price Fixing Or No? You Be The Judge

Mar 28 2007 Published by Turk under Business, Craziness, Gadgets, Marketing, Technology, Television

Mrs. Quip and I recently bought a brand spanking new HDTV. We’ve been very happy with the purchase with the exception of one thing – the ridiculous price of HDMI cables charged at Best Buy and Circuit City. Now I’ve been a technophile for a long time now, and own more than a fair share of antiquated technologies that are gathering dust in the garage (anyone need an 8-track player?). Most of those gadgets required some cable or other and were usually included as a throwaway item.

The cost of HDMI cables, as a result, struck me as really odd.

So I went online to find the reasoning. Here’s the first thing I found…

We dug a little deeper, and noticed that Best Buy wasn’t the only electronics purveyor hopping on the HDMI gravy train. Checking online stores, it appears that everyone wants to get in on the act of selling Monster Cable‚Äîor any HDMI Cable‚Äîfor seemingly inflated prices. Of course, these cables are gold plated, right? Help us out here. Is there really $143.62 worth of difference?

Now, Gizmodo is not exactly a site for Luddites. If they’re perplexed by the high cost, there must be something going on, right?

I clicked through the link in the post and found a 6ft cable, gold plated, and certified to perform at HDMI standards for $17.93.

Huh? How can that be, you ask? Surely they must be selling these cables at a huge loss. If the major retailers are hawking them at $130, there must be so much gold in the wire that it has to cost that much, right?

Apparently, no. I ordered two of the cables (which actually lowered my price per piece by $1). I should have them in a couple of days. When I get them hooked up, I’ll post my findings here. Maybe some Cal-Tech engineer could attach up some fancy meter and tell me the difference, but I suspect, as Gizmodo’s readers did, that the real difference between the two is their marketing teams.

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New Feature: Turk’s Goofy Sound Bites

Mar 26 2007 Published by Turk under Craziness, Miscellany, News Media, Politics, The Internet

In the last 72 hours, I have been quoted by various media outlets on topics ranging from the ability to convert online supporters into offline activists to Playboy models and transsexual hookers escorts.

Don’t see the connection? It all has to do with MySpace, and my unique ability to get the strangest sound bites on television or in print.

If you don’t have your ears peeled for my ramblings on octogenarian cheerleaders and how they relate to online politics, I’ve created a special section to highlight the quirky comments that make the news. Check them out here.

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US Attorney Michael Gehrke?

Mar 26 2007 Published by Turk under Barack Obama, Candidates, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Operatives, Politics, Republicans

Assuming the ranks of our US Attorney corps is to be filled with political hacks skilled in tearing down candidates, the first guy up for that post in an Obama/Clinton administration will apparently be Michael Gehrke. I received an e-mail from him today.

As the new Research Director at the DNC, I’m working to build a Party apparatus that can immediately respond to missteps, lies, and scandals of the 2008 election cycle, and establish a narrative that our party’s nominee can use when the primary season ends.

Just as you helped put organizers on the ground in all 50 states, you can help build the Democratic Party’s research shop. Make a donation today:

http://www.democrats.org/research

Do you remember the George Allen “macaca” video?

That piece of coverage played an instrumental role in the election of Senator Jim Webb in Virginia — and winning back the Senate in 2006. But this turning point in Senator Webb’s campaign would not have been possible without his dedicated staff members following George Allen’s every move — and this costs money.

The Democratic Party needs to support that kind of diligent reporting in the new election cycle — with video crews permanently on the ground in early primary states, for example. What did John McCain say in New Hampshire? Who did Rudy Giuliani visit in Iowa? What did Mitt Romney do in South Carolina? The DNC needs to know the answers to these questions every time a Republican makes a campaign stop, and we have to be ready to take the proper course of action. Let’s set up a state-of-the-art operation to bypass the media and take the story of their lies, flip-flops, and out-of-whack priorities directly to you.

Despite the fact that this is simply another piece of fundraising e-mail; and the Democrats, despite having the ‘tech-savvy’ Howard Dean, have little else to offer online but appeals for money, that last paragraph should make the GOP nervous. If the DNC actually does deploy a videographer in every state, and had them catalog every miscue by Republicans, and we had nothing to counter, we’ll be hurting. Campaign gaffes are a fact of life – one that the right has generally ignored. Now we do so at our own peril.

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