You can still say Happy New Year in January, so Happy New Year to you all, even if January has expired by the time you read these words. Only 49.5 hours left in this melodious month. Here's your latest podcast episode. Please imagine me saying these words from this hammock. My feet are glorious monsters, aren't they?
Oh, and I did say I don't think anyone will decide to run by July, but it's more likely than not that someone will declare then or after. I meant that even those people are thinking about that now and making preparations now. Rick Perry waited until something like October in 2012, but he was planning it for a while. If Liz Warren ends up running, I don't think she knows it yet, and I for now, she seems to not be planning anything.
If you'd like to hear more of my voice, Brendan Bansavage and I just started a sports (mostly baseball) podcast.
UPDATE: Romney's not running after all! Though hilarious awkwardness will have to come from somewhere else this time, I'm sure the rest of the field will step up in his absence and deliver.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Episode 2: The Protests, The Cromnibus and Liz Warren
Actual major things happened in the world in the last few weeks! You can learn about a few of them on this here podcast. Garageband seems to have eaten the trivia question I started with, so I'll just type it out here.
TRIVIA QUESTION: What is a cromnibus?
The answer is within the audio:
Also...theme music!
Thanks to Can Kazaz for the theme music.
TRIVIA QUESTION: What is a cromnibus?
The answer is within the audio:
Also...theme music!
Thanks to Can Kazaz for the theme music.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
The start of the 2016 Presidential Race, and, almost as significantly, this podcast
From the depths of the internet, Wonkavator returns! I may build this corner of political commentary a new home at some point, but for now, it's old confines will do fine. The occasion for this resurrection is the official-ish beginning of the 2016 race. What, you ask, the 2016 presidential race kind of begun? Yes, I reply, I talk about that in my podcast. What, you stammer, you have a podcast? I do, I reply, and this is the first episode. Stick around, and I might just get some theme music and a guest or two.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Candidate list redux
It's been about a month since I posted my thoughts on the Republican candidates, and already much of what I wrote is out of date. Even with a giant bushel of caveats about how this stuff is impossible to predict, we are already comfortably outside the realm of where I thought this thing was going. Hopefully everything I'm about to write will be turned on its head again-- this is still at the stage where I find this lower and middle school tumbling show immensely entertaining.
Once again, I will list the candidates in the order of likelihood (according to me, obviously) that they will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2012. Top up my wine, if you will.
1. Mitt Romney
Every narrative below him has changed, but Mitt Romney is still The Frontrunner. He is polling in first in Iowa and New Hampshire, he's raised the most money by a healthy margin, and, going by the media narratives, no one cares all that much that he's Mormon. He still seems plenty beatable, but that will likely require a shrewd, focused campaign, which, as we will see, has been tough to come by so far. I would still take the field over Romney, but no individual candidate has convinced me they will take him down.
As with last time, I am confounded by who to pick next. There are three people I am thinking about here, and they are all fairly problematic. Let's go with...
2. Rick Perry
There are two problems with this pick. One is that Perry, the current governor of Texas, is the media narrative du jour, and those always look better than they are. The other problem is that he is not officially in the race yet. This is a very clever campaign move. It keeps him in the news (every day there is a headline like, "Perry Hints to [news source] That He Is Close to a Decision), and it also keeps him intriguing. One of the hardest things about campaigns is having people still like you once they actually know you. By not entering yet, Perry is holding off the more substantial vetting for a little while. It also keeps him separate from the narrative of this field of candidates, which is similar to that of airplane coffee (that said, I had a coffee on a Virgin America flight, and it was stellar).
There's another thing about Rick Perry, something that may come more into play when he announces: he is super super religious. Enough to possibly freak out less religious republicans. I don't have all the details on that one right now, but I bet he is already out-Godding all the other candidates. I hope his presence in the race forces Tim Pawlenty to say some hilariously awkward stuff about God. I hope this for my own amusement.
3. Michele Bachmann
I started another post about the power of Iowa, largely because the somewhat arbitrary gift of being the first state to vote- or more precisely, to caucus- makes certain candidates viable, and one of them is Bachmann. I still don't think she can actually win, but hell, she's being considered. She's polling second to Romney in Iowa. She has, so far done the most to consolidate the large swarm of voters more conservative than Romney. Remember, only the republicans are voting here, so it doesn't matter that half the country thinks she is insane. It does matter that she is probably too much for the "mainstream" wing of the party. If Perry doesn't run or doesn't take off, and neither does Cain or one of the others, she will be in decent position. The fact that Bachmann has at least some chance to be president, is a symptom of what ails this country. I don't think it will metastasize, but... geez, things are weird right now.
4. Tim Pawlenty
I don't know why, after hearing the Pawlenty car make so many noises that would make you pull over right away, I still think he has a shot. He was "supposed" to be the main challenger in the same way that Romney was supposed to be the frontrunner. Instead, he has been polling in single digits since the beginning, and he was replaced by Rick Perry in Public Policy Polling's polls because his support was too low to warrant inclusion.
SIDE NOTE: Polls can be self-fulfilling prophecies, of course, but this was the first time I have thought about how a polling agency can affect viability just by who they include. Would Buddy Roemer start to gain traction if people started asking about him? Could someone tell republican voters that they have a candidate named Buddy Roemer?
Back to T-Paw, he does have a few things going for him. His foil is now Michele Bachmann, who is just about the easiest person to look reasonable in comparison to. Romney is trying to downplay the meaning of Iowa (his loss there was the beginning of the end for him last time), and Pawlenty is going hard for it. Bachmann may be peaking, and once her 17% support wake up from their collective, "I just had the strangest dream," perhaps they will see that Pawlenty is well organized and very conservative, and they won't mind his unexciting, vaguely annoying personality. If he can get Romney one on one, I think people would start to like him more, because enough people can't stand Romney.
On that note, I think everyone's strategy is to get Romney one on one and them treat him like a sucky incumbent. I think Mitt tries to have a big enough lead before that happens for it not to matter.
5. Jon Huntsman
Running for president requires a major commitment of time and energy. Whatever happens, the world will probably never look at you the same way. For these reasons, I'm sure everyone on this list is taking the task seriously. For other reasons, I can't tell if Jon Huntsman is. For starters, before he officially started his campaign, it was really difficult to find his website. Once you did, you got to watch this. Go ahead and watch. Then watch the next two. I'll wait.
If you are tuned into this sort of thing, you might be thinking, "this is the most surreal political ad since I am not a witch, or the epic and peerless Demon Sheep." (Watch those too, if you haven't, they are A-MAZING.)
All three were made by the same guy, Fred Davis. Now, all of those ads make me really happy, but if I were seeking the office of president, I would not hire Fred Davis. If an aide suggested I do, I would probably think they were joking. If you go to Huntsman's website now, you get to watch walk up some stairs, greet a few people in a large, otherwise empty room, then one of them (Carol Campbell- I'd never heard of him) announce to about ten people that he is endorsing Huntsman.
6. Herman Cain
On my last list I had him second. Bachmann has basically done what I thought he would. Cain's top person in Iowa quit because Cain "wasn't trying hard enough in Iowa." Dude, Iowa is where you should be trying the hardest. What I want to know is if he is still saying he would not sign any bill longer than three pages. That's every bill, so maybe he has replaced that with, "I will not sign bills."
7. Everyone else
Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, Roemer and the rest of you, just have a poker night, winner gets everyone else's voters. Buddy Roemer wants to remake our campaign finance system, and is not excepting donations larger than $1,000. Someone please vote for him.
Once again, I will list the candidates in the order of likelihood (according to me, obviously) that they will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2012. Top up my wine, if you will.
1. Mitt Romney
Every narrative below him has changed, but Mitt Romney is still The Frontrunner. He is polling in first in Iowa and New Hampshire, he's raised the most money by a healthy margin, and, going by the media narratives, no one cares all that much that he's Mormon. He still seems plenty beatable, but that will likely require a shrewd, focused campaign, which, as we will see, has been tough to come by so far. I would still take the field over Romney, but no individual candidate has convinced me they will take him down.
As with last time, I am confounded by who to pick next. There are three people I am thinking about here, and they are all fairly problematic. Let's go with...
2. Rick Perry
There are two problems with this pick. One is that Perry, the current governor of Texas, is the media narrative du jour, and those always look better than they are. The other problem is that he is not officially in the race yet. This is a very clever campaign move. It keeps him in the news (every day there is a headline like, "Perry Hints to [news source] That He Is Close to a Decision), and it also keeps him intriguing. One of the hardest things about campaigns is having people still like you once they actually know you. By not entering yet, Perry is holding off the more substantial vetting for a little while. It also keeps him separate from the narrative of this field of candidates, which is similar to that of airplane coffee (that said, I had a coffee on a Virgin America flight, and it was stellar).
There's another thing about Rick Perry, something that may come more into play when he announces: he is super super religious. Enough to possibly freak out less religious republicans. I don't have all the details on that one right now, but I bet he is already out-Godding all the other candidates. I hope his presence in the race forces Tim Pawlenty to say some hilariously awkward stuff about God. I hope this for my own amusement.
3. Michele Bachmann
I started another post about the power of Iowa, largely because the somewhat arbitrary gift of being the first state to vote- or more precisely, to caucus- makes certain candidates viable, and one of them is Bachmann. I still don't think she can actually win, but hell, she's being considered. She's polling second to Romney in Iowa. She has, so far done the most to consolidate the large swarm of voters more conservative than Romney. Remember, only the republicans are voting here, so it doesn't matter that half the country thinks she is insane. It does matter that she is probably too much for the "mainstream" wing of the party. If Perry doesn't run or doesn't take off, and neither does Cain or one of the others, she will be in decent position. The fact that Bachmann has at least some chance to be president, is a symptom of what ails this country. I don't think it will metastasize, but... geez, things are weird right now.
4. Tim Pawlenty
I don't know why, after hearing the Pawlenty car make so many noises that would make you pull over right away, I still think he has a shot. He was "supposed" to be the main challenger in the same way that Romney was supposed to be the frontrunner. Instead, he has been polling in single digits since the beginning, and he was replaced by Rick Perry in Public Policy Polling's polls because his support was too low to warrant inclusion.
SIDE NOTE: Polls can be self-fulfilling prophecies, of course, but this was the first time I have thought about how a polling agency can affect viability just by who they include. Would Buddy Roemer start to gain traction if people started asking about him? Could someone tell republican voters that they have a candidate named Buddy Roemer?
Back to T-Paw, he does have a few things going for him. His foil is now Michele Bachmann, who is just about the easiest person to look reasonable in comparison to. Romney is trying to downplay the meaning of Iowa (his loss there was the beginning of the end for him last time), and Pawlenty is going hard for it. Bachmann may be peaking, and once her 17% support wake up from their collective, "I just had the strangest dream," perhaps they will see that Pawlenty is well organized and very conservative, and they won't mind his unexciting, vaguely annoying personality. If he can get Romney one on one, I think people would start to like him more, because enough people can't stand Romney.
On that note, I think everyone's strategy is to get Romney one on one and them treat him like a sucky incumbent. I think Mitt tries to have a big enough lead before that happens for it not to matter.
5. Jon Huntsman
Running for president requires a major commitment of time and energy. Whatever happens, the world will probably never look at you the same way. For these reasons, I'm sure everyone on this list is taking the task seriously. For other reasons, I can't tell if Jon Huntsman is. For starters, before he officially started his campaign, it was really difficult to find his website. Once you did, you got to watch this. Go ahead and watch. Then watch the next two. I'll wait.
If you are tuned into this sort of thing, you might be thinking, "this is the most surreal political ad since I am not a witch, or the epic and peerless Demon Sheep." (Watch those too, if you haven't, they are A-MAZING.)
All three were made by the same guy, Fred Davis. Now, all of those ads make me really happy, but if I were seeking the office of president, I would not hire Fred Davis. If an aide suggested I do, I would probably think they were joking. If you go to Huntsman's website now, you get to watch walk up some stairs, greet a few people in a large, otherwise empty room, then one of them (Carol Campbell- I'd never heard of him) announce to about ten people that he is endorsing Huntsman.
6. Herman Cain
On my last list I had him second. Bachmann has basically done what I thought he would. Cain's top person in Iowa quit because Cain "wasn't trying hard enough in Iowa." Dude, Iowa is where you should be trying the hardest. What I want to know is if he is still saying he would not sign any bill longer than three pages. That's every bill, so maybe he has replaced that with, "I will not sign bills."
7. Everyone else
Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, Roemer and the rest of you, just have a poker night, winner gets everyone else's voters. Buddy Roemer wants to remake our campaign finance system, and is not excepting donations larger than $1,000. Someone please vote for him.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
I Watched the Republican Debate so You Don't Have To
Yes, yes I did. Most of it anyway. I saw it in installments on YouTube, and I wasn't careful about not skipping chapters, but I think I got the idea anyway. Two weeks ago, a friend asked me who I thought the Republican nominee would be. I gave a weak "Huntsman," which was based on the following very fast calculation: Romney seemed like a token frontrunner. He had the looks and the name recognition, but was not all that exciting, and seemed to be waiting for an energetic candidate to knock him out, a la Huckabee last time. Pawlenty's defining characteristic seemed to be that he was unexciting. Newt could be interesting, but it seemed an uphill battle to change the perception of him as slimy, smarmy and worst of all, wonkish. That left a bunch of crazy people and Huntsman.
Since then, I started to think (and when I say think, I mean think about who Republican voters will nominate. The thought of any Republican candidate except for Ron Paul and maybe Huntsman actually being president makes me want to wretch) about Pawlenty and Herman Cain. T-Paw may be drab, but he is shrewd too, and if Romney absorbed most of the intra-candidate flak, Pawlenty could step in as an established alternative. As a former governor, he probably has an easier time than a former senator. The senate seems like a tainted institution right now. It's unclear if there is a senate in recent memory to look back fondly on, and it's hard to make the case that you were doing the right thing as your institution fucked over the country. The nice thing for Pawlenty is that enough people know that he was governor of a midwestern state, but he can pretty much define his term there however he likes, because no non-Minnesotan knows a single thing he did.
As for Cain, there is actual excitement around him, and I can see him winning, or scoring an impressive second in Iowa, winning South Carolina, and going into Super Tuesday with a lot of momentum. It would have to be a campaign that started with small victories and built momentum from there. At the very least, he's the most intriguing of the less established candidates.
So those were my thoughts coming in. Here, organized by candidate, in rough order of how I would handicap them now, are my thoughts coming out:
Romney: I get the frontrunner thing now. I used to hate it when people would say stuff like, "Well he does look presidential." What does that mean other than confident, well-groomed, middle-aged white guy? But damn it, that's the first thing I thought when Romney started talking. He seemed professional, seasoned. He has a strong donor base, and good name recognition. He is a crisp, good looking, middle-aged white guy. He has five sons and they are all alpha males. I get the frontrunner thing.
The healthcare thing could sink him. Everyone had lots of vitriol for "Obamacare" (I don't think a single one of them called it anything else), and while Romney did a good job of distancing his own handiwork in Massachusetts, the real punches haven't started flying yet. That will cut into his support, and might take his Tea Party support from 30% to 5% (utterly made up numbers). Still, if he hasn't been too badly embarrassed by Super Tuesday, I bet he looks pretty good the next day.
The other reason that Romney makes sense as the frontrunner becomes more clear to me know as I decide who to list next. Really, no one is jumping out here. I briefly considered Rick Perry, who I know little about, and has not announced yet. Instead, let's say... ah what the hell,
Herman Cain: Yes, there is energy around this guy, but the fact that I put him second does say something about this field. I read a pre-debate primer that asked this question: will Herman Cain give real answers to real questions? After watching the debate, I don't think I can give a real answer to that question. He described the United States as a train, and Obama had put all the resources in the caboose (I'm going off memory, but I'm pretty sure that was it). He was the most buddy buddy of the candidates. He said a few times that they have a strong field, they were a good group, etc. On at least a couple of occasions, he answered a question, and when the same question was asked to another candidate, the other candidate said "What Herman said," in one form or another.
If he can keep building momentum, I could see him winning Iowa and becoming the bizarro frontrunner. I don't think he can actually get the nomination unless he can basically sweep the Tea Party vote and have Romney and Pawlenty divide up enough of the rest, so that he ends up in the lead. Or something like that. Not likely, but stranger things have happened, and hey, someone has to win.
Pawlenty: My belief that T-Paw was the secret frontrunner is now a wet sock. Pawlenty attempts to be the republicanest Republican, and the result is hilariously unremarkable. Asked if Joe Biden or Sarah Palin was a better VP pick, he initially flubbered in a way that seemed to say: Seriously? You let these other guys give their stump speech on jobs, and then you ask me to either defend a bloviating but competent Democrat, or someone who revealed herself eventually to have no sense of politics below the Canadian border? Then he recovered, blasted Joe Biden, and called Sarah Palin "a remarkable leader."
He was asked about calling the national healthcare reform bill ObamneyCare. In response he turned into the kid who disses the playground bully from a distance, but can't say anything to his face. During the scheduled not serious time, Romney announced that the Boston Bruins were up 4-0 in their game. This got a big applause. In that moment, Romney scored would-have-a-beer-with-him points. Later, in the "what did we learn tonight" section, Pawlenty threw in that he learned that the Bruins have more heart than the Canucks. It was painfully clear that he was trying for his own sports applause. If you had a beer with him, and there was a game on, he would make confident, annoying and inaccurate observations about the game. He seemed like someone people would not especially like for reasons that they couldn't define. You can tell he's smart, seems like a nice guy, but, not unlike John Kerry in 2004, his attempts at smootheness leave him oddly uncompelling.
Ron Paul: Ron Paul is in this spot because I like him the most, and you might as well toss the rest together and see where they land. Newt, Perry and Huntsman are all more likely, but Newt's campaign just went kablooie, Perry hasn't announced yet and Huntsman wasn't at the debate.
Ron Paul is remarkable to watch in these debates. His views are unique, coherent and consistent. I don't agree with all of it, but I would like to peer in on a parallel universe with him as president. The candidates were asked about our military involvement in Libya and Yemen. No Republican candidate is allowed to like these involvements, because they are associated with Obama, and one thing this field is united on is not giving Obama an ounce of praise. However, they also have to appear tough on terrorism and wink at the defense industry. Yes Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Xe, Halliburton and the rest, you will get your contracts when I am president. Except Ron Paul. He declared, as he has been for years that we should not be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Yemen. We should close many of our military bases around the world.
Most elected officials can be bent to the desires of certain industries. Their principles have conveniently placed ridges and safe zones where the rich get richer. Ron Paul is just Ron Paul. Sure, his America may be just as much of a corporate playground as any other candidate's, but right now, lobbyists mold laws and sometimes literally write them. If Big Money felt safer with Paul, he might get a little more attention.
Newt Gingrich: I don't have much to add here. I think he hangs around long enough for most people to forget about how his staff left him en masse, then bows out sometime before Super Tuesday, perhaps after New Hampshire, maybe before Iowa. Definitely one of the smartest people on the stage, but he's at the point of trying to get back to where people can start to talk themselves into liking him. Both him and Pawlenty could really use a big ground game. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that T-Paw is quietly putting that together now. I would be shocked to hear that about Newt, because, like, his entire senior staff just left.
Bachmann: Michele Bachmann took the occasion of her first answer to announce that she had filed papers to run and would be announcing in the next few days. You can't just announce you are running for president anymore. You first have to announce that you will be announcing it. Announcements, it turns out, were a repeated move for Bachmann. They got progressively less impressive. Her first one was a legit announcement (even if it was about another announcement) that made sense to do at the beginning, and called attention to herself in a logical way. Later she announced that as president, she would repeal Obamacare. There were no specifics about how she would do that, if there were powers the president holds to accomplish this on his or her own. Just a flat: I will do it. Finally, she announced, like a car dealer announcing a sale, that Obama is a one term president. No specifics on how they were going to beat him. Just that they would. At this point, announcements, it became clear, were Bachmann's trick. She might as well have brought an applause sign to the debate, it would have accomplished the same thing with equal substance.
As she talked, I kept wondering what she means to the race. Given that her chances of winning the nomination are very low, her presence must help some and hurt others, right? Rick Santorum has roughly the same (insane) platform, but you can ignore Rick Santorum. You can't just brush off Michelle Bachmann. Not in 2011 anyway, with the Tea Party wielding real clout. Cain, Bachmann and Santorum are vocally for, and part of, the Tea Party. Paul exists on his own island. Everyone else has a tricky balancing act. Watch for Romney to handle questions about the Tea Party with smooth, scripted replies and Pawlenty to waffle uncomfortably before finding something he knows how to talk about. See, there is a long list of things that Republicans are afraid to disparage, and the Tea Party is probably the most prominent right now. There were frequent moments throughout the debate that candidates tried to wriggle into the G.O.P. leotard without tearing it. The fringier candidates wear it all the time, but the Romlentys of the world have to appeal broadly and to the fringe simultaneously. Pro-choice, gay friendly or believe in man-made climate change? Back of the line.
But back to Bachmann's affect on things, I think she will take down someone, but I'm not sure who. Will she attack Romney till Tea Partiers can't look at him? Does she split the far right with Cain? Can Pawlenty step in once the smoke has cleared, or will anyone even be paying attention to him? What if she wins Iowa? In the end she might help secure things for Romney. She'll draw Tea Party votes while not being likely to take the nomination and not taking many votes from Romney. Also, she's a crazy person.
Santorum: I am always fascinated how every field has at least a candidate or two who just seems to be along for the ride, and has no chance to win. Why is that? He's not a bad speaker. His views are that of the most galvanized wing of the party. He's politically experienced. You'd think he has a greater than 1% chance. It seems he doesn't. I'm not unhappy in this case, but it's odd, no?
Since then, I started to think (and when I say think, I mean think about who Republican voters will nominate. The thought of any Republican candidate except for Ron Paul and maybe Huntsman actually being president makes me want to wretch) about Pawlenty and Herman Cain. T-Paw may be drab, but he is shrewd too, and if Romney absorbed most of the intra-candidate flak, Pawlenty could step in as an established alternative. As a former governor, he probably has an easier time than a former senator. The senate seems like a tainted institution right now. It's unclear if there is a senate in recent memory to look back fondly on, and it's hard to make the case that you were doing the right thing as your institution fucked over the country. The nice thing for Pawlenty is that enough people know that he was governor of a midwestern state, but he can pretty much define his term there however he likes, because no non-Minnesotan knows a single thing he did.
As for Cain, there is actual excitement around him, and I can see him winning, or scoring an impressive second in Iowa, winning South Carolina, and going into Super Tuesday with a lot of momentum. It would have to be a campaign that started with small victories and built momentum from there. At the very least, he's the most intriguing of the less established candidates.
So those were my thoughts coming in. Here, organized by candidate, in rough order of how I would handicap them now, are my thoughts coming out:
Romney: I get the frontrunner thing now. I used to hate it when people would say stuff like, "Well he does look presidential." What does that mean other than confident, well-groomed, middle-aged white guy? But damn it, that's the first thing I thought when Romney started talking. He seemed professional, seasoned. He has a strong donor base, and good name recognition. He is a crisp, good looking, middle-aged white guy. He has five sons and they are all alpha males. I get the frontrunner thing.
The healthcare thing could sink him. Everyone had lots of vitriol for "Obamacare" (I don't think a single one of them called it anything else), and while Romney did a good job of distancing his own handiwork in Massachusetts, the real punches haven't started flying yet. That will cut into his support, and might take his Tea Party support from 30% to 5% (utterly made up numbers). Still, if he hasn't been too badly embarrassed by Super Tuesday, I bet he looks pretty good the next day.
The other reason that Romney makes sense as the frontrunner becomes more clear to me know as I decide who to list next. Really, no one is jumping out here. I briefly considered Rick Perry, who I know little about, and has not announced yet. Instead, let's say... ah what the hell,
Herman Cain: Yes, there is energy around this guy, but the fact that I put him second does say something about this field. I read a pre-debate primer that asked this question: will Herman Cain give real answers to real questions? After watching the debate, I don't think I can give a real answer to that question. He described the United States as a train, and Obama had put all the resources in the caboose (I'm going off memory, but I'm pretty sure that was it). He was the most buddy buddy of the candidates. He said a few times that they have a strong field, they were a good group, etc. On at least a couple of occasions, he answered a question, and when the same question was asked to another candidate, the other candidate said "What Herman said," in one form or another.
If he can keep building momentum, I could see him winning Iowa and becoming the bizarro frontrunner. I don't think he can actually get the nomination unless he can basically sweep the Tea Party vote and have Romney and Pawlenty divide up enough of the rest, so that he ends up in the lead. Or something like that. Not likely, but stranger things have happened, and hey, someone has to win.
Pawlenty: My belief that T-Paw was the secret frontrunner is now a wet sock. Pawlenty attempts to be the republicanest Republican, and the result is hilariously unremarkable. Asked if Joe Biden or Sarah Palin was a better VP pick, he initially flubbered in a way that seemed to say: Seriously? You let these other guys give their stump speech on jobs, and then you ask me to either defend a bloviating but competent Democrat, or someone who revealed herself eventually to have no sense of politics below the Canadian border? Then he recovered, blasted Joe Biden, and called Sarah Palin "a remarkable leader."
He was asked about calling the national healthcare reform bill ObamneyCare. In response he turned into the kid who disses the playground bully from a distance, but can't say anything to his face. During the scheduled not serious time, Romney announced that the Boston Bruins were up 4-0 in their game. This got a big applause. In that moment, Romney scored would-have-a-beer-with-him points. Later, in the "what did we learn tonight" section, Pawlenty threw in that he learned that the Bruins have more heart than the Canucks. It was painfully clear that he was trying for his own sports applause. If you had a beer with him, and there was a game on, he would make confident, annoying and inaccurate observations about the game. He seemed like someone people would not especially like for reasons that they couldn't define. You can tell he's smart, seems like a nice guy, but, not unlike John Kerry in 2004, his attempts at smootheness leave him oddly uncompelling.
Ron Paul: Ron Paul is in this spot because I like him the most, and you might as well toss the rest together and see where they land. Newt, Perry and Huntsman are all more likely, but Newt's campaign just went kablooie, Perry hasn't announced yet and Huntsman wasn't at the debate.
Ron Paul is remarkable to watch in these debates. His views are unique, coherent and consistent. I don't agree with all of it, but I would like to peer in on a parallel universe with him as president. The candidates were asked about our military involvement in Libya and Yemen. No Republican candidate is allowed to like these involvements, because they are associated with Obama, and one thing this field is united on is not giving Obama an ounce of praise. However, they also have to appear tough on terrorism and wink at the defense industry. Yes Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Xe, Halliburton and the rest, you will get your contracts when I am president. Except Ron Paul. He declared, as he has been for years that we should not be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Yemen. We should close many of our military bases around the world.
Most elected officials can be bent to the desires of certain industries. Their principles have conveniently placed ridges and safe zones where the rich get richer. Ron Paul is just Ron Paul. Sure, his America may be just as much of a corporate playground as any other candidate's, but right now, lobbyists mold laws and sometimes literally write them. If Big Money felt safer with Paul, he might get a little more attention.
Newt Gingrich: I don't have much to add here. I think he hangs around long enough for most people to forget about how his staff left him en masse, then bows out sometime before Super Tuesday, perhaps after New Hampshire, maybe before Iowa. Definitely one of the smartest people on the stage, but he's at the point of trying to get back to where people can start to talk themselves into liking him. Both him and Pawlenty could really use a big ground game. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that T-Paw is quietly putting that together now. I would be shocked to hear that about Newt, because, like, his entire senior staff just left.
Bachmann: Michele Bachmann took the occasion of her first answer to announce that she had filed papers to run and would be announcing in the next few days. You can't just announce you are running for president anymore. You first have to announce that you will be announcing it. Announcements, it turns out, were a repeated move for Bachmann. They got progressively less impressive. Her first one was a legit announcement (even if it was about another announcement) that made sense to do at the beginning, and called attention to herself in a logical way. Later she announced that as president, she would repeal Obamacare. There were no specifics about how she would do that, if there were powers the president holds to accomplish this on his or her own. Just a flat: I will do it. Finally, she announced, like a car dealer announcing a sale, that Obama is a one term president. No specifics on how they were going to beat him. Just that they would. At this point, announcements, it became clear, were Bachmann's trick. She might as well have brought an applause sign to the debate, it would have accomplished the same thing with equal substance.
As she talked, I kept wondering what she means to the race. Given that her chances of winning the nomination are very low, her presence must help some and hurt others, right? Rick Santorum has roughly the same (insane) platform, but you can ignore Rick Santorum. You can't just brush off Michelle Bachmann. Not in 2011 anyway, with the Tea Party wielding real clout. Cain, Bachmann and Santorum are vocally for, and part of, the Tea Party. Paul exists on his own island. Everyone else has a tricky balancing act. Watch for Romney to handle questions about the Tea Party with smooth, scripted replies and Pawlenty to waffle uncomfortably before finding something he knows how to talk about. See, there is a long list of things that Republicans are afraid to disparage, and the Tea Party is probably the most prominent right now. There were frequent moments throughout the debate that candidates tried to wriggle into the G.O.P. leotard without tearing it. The fringier candidates wear it all the time, but the Romlentys of the world have to appeal broadly and to the fringe simultaneously. Pro-choice, gay friendly or believe in man-made climate change? Back of the line.
But back to Bachmann's affect on things, I think she will take down someone, but I'm not sure who. Will she attack Romney till Tea Partiers can't look at him? Does she split the far right with Cain? Can Pawlenty step in once the smoke has cleared, or will anyone even be paying attention to him? What if she wins Iowa? In the end she might help secure things for Romney. She'll draw Tea Party votes while not being likely to take the nomination and not taking many votes from Romney. Also, she's a crazy person.
Santorum: I am always fascinated how every field has at least a candidate or two who just seems to be along for the ride, and has no chance to win. Why is that? He's not a bad speaker. His views are that of the most galvanized wing of the party. He's politically experienced. You'd think he has a greater than 1% chance. It seems he doesn't. I'm not unhappy in this case, but it's odd, no?
Friday, April 9, 2010
Tiger Style
I'm guessing you don't- I didn't, but I suppose you might- know that one of the strangest ads to grace our eyeballs was released about a week ago. It involves three things: 1) Tiger Woods staring straight into a camera, expressionless (now that I mention it, I can't say with any authority that I've ever seen Tiger Woods ever make an expression). 2) A disembodied voice. If you are in the know (I was not) you would know that the voice belongs to Earl Woods, Tiger's father who passed away some years ago. That is the entire ad except for 3) the last few seconds which is occupied by a simple Nike swoosh against a black background.
I'm trying to find the right word, "bizarre" "peculiar" etc, but what keeps coming to mind is a very missable moment from The Muppets Take Manhattan when Fozzie is trying to jog Kermit's memory and we come in in the middle of a really long joke Fozzie is telling to hear him say "and then the koala bear says, 'well this is odd.'" This ad makes me feel like I've walked into the middle of something that I don't- can't- fully understand, and all I can say is "Well this is odd."
And I believe that is the point.
The Tiger Woods narrative, more than anything, has been depressingly simple. Before his rambunctious sex life became public knowledge, Tiger was mostly a black box. Not just unknown, but unknowable. A mystery that provided a mystique to cloak the best golfer ever.
Then, crash boom bam, he's just a guy who can and does sleep with a lot of women. The black box is blown open, and he's human all too human, and a sleazy one at that. His depth became shallow.
I remember a conversation I had years ago with someone who had just found out that Lance Armstrong had had a divorce. This ran contrary to her whole idea of Lance Armstrong. I was more of the "lots of people get divorced," attitude. I'm not sure whose divorce would shock me. The Obamas' perhaps. That's all I can think of. Tiger managed to hold that reputation of being above and beyond in body, mind and soul. I remember a day in the summer of 2002 when a housemate was watching replays of Tiger having a very bad day. "You're human!" he exclaimed, totally shocked. For most of the world, this is not news. Again, Obama comes to mind, and I feel his loss of approval ratings post-election is mostly from a general transition of people's mindsets of Obama as a concept to Obama as a human.
But back to the ad. I saw Doug Rushkoff (his book Life Inc., though cynical, is worth your time) speak once in high school. It was a good speech, I still remember it a decade later. He talked about how he had helped Diesel, the jeans company, come up with their ad campaign. Here's one. Apparently they make watches now:
The main point is to not make sense. Your conscious mind probably just says "weird" and moves on, but some part of you assumes that Diesel gets something that you don't. You try to piece together rational reasons for the timing of the laugh track, the woman's style, the choice of strange looking old men instead of the standard cool hunks. You don't know why (because there is no why), but you assume on some level that Diesel knows why. That's the idea anyway.
The idea behind the Tiger ad is that he is still deeper than you. There is something that Tiger gets that... well, you might get it but probably not. Nike gets it. Do you get it? Tiger is lusty but introspective, driven but distracted, focused but... oh he's focused. He's not looking away from the camera, but not giving you anything. Unless he did. Unless you get it. Do you get it? Nike gets it.
This ad will be 90% forgotten in a month, but cleverly and carefully, Nike-Tiger layers the mystique back on. If this works, maybe he should be paying them.
I'm trying to find the right word, "bizarre" "peculiar" etc, but what keeps coming to mind is a very missable moment from The Muppets Take Manhattan when Fozzie is trying to jog Kermit's memory and we come in in the middle of a really long joke Fozzie is telling to hear him say "and then the koala bear says, 'well this is odd.'" This ad makes me feel like I've walked into the middle of something that I don't- can't- fully understand, and all I can say is "Well this is odd."
And I believe that is the point.
The Tiger Woods narrative, more than anything, has been depressingly simple. Before his rambunctious sex life became public knowledge, Tiger was mostly a black box. Not just unknown, but unknowable. A mystery that provided a mystique to cloak the best golfer ever.
Then, crash boom bam, he's just a guy who can and does sleep with a lot of women. The black box is blown open, and he's human all too human, and a sleazy one at that. His depth became shallow.
I remember a conversation I had years ago with someone who had just found out that Lance Armstrong had had a divorce. This ran contrary to her whole idea of Lance Armstrong. I was more of the "lots of people get divorced," attitude. I'm not sure whose divorce would shock me. The Obamas' perhaps. That's all I can think of. Tiger managed to hold that reputation of being above and beyond in body, mind and soul. I remember a day in the summer of 2002 when a housemate was watching replays of Tiger having a very bad day. "You're human!" he exclaimed, totally shocked. For most of the world, this is not news. Again, Obama comes to mind, and I feel his loss of approval ratings post-election is mostly from a general transition of people's mindsets of Obama as a concept to Obama as a human.
But back to the ad. I saw Doug Rushkoff (his book Life Inc., though cynical, is worth your time) speak once in high school. It was a good speech, I still remember it a decade later. He talked about how he had helped Diesel, the jeans company, come up with their ad campaign. Here's one. Apparently they make watches now:
The main point is to not make sense. Your conscious mind probably just says "weird" and moves on, but some part of you assumes that Diesel gets something that you don't. You try to piece together rational reasons for the timing of the laugh track, the woman's style, the choice of strange looking old men instead of the standard cool hunks. You don't know why (because there is no why), but you assume on some level that Diesel knows why. That's the idea anyway.
The idea behind the Tiger ad is that he is still deeper than you. There is something that Tiger gets that... well, you might get it but probably not. Nike gets it. Do you get it? Tiger is lusty but introspective, driven but distracted, focused but... oh he's focused. He's not looking away from the camera, but not giving you anything. Unless he did. Unless you get it. Do you get it? Nike gets it.
This ad will be 90% forgotten in a month, but cleverly and carefully, Nike-Tiger layers the mystique back on. If this works, maybe he should be paying them.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Good news from the previous century
I just got some good news. The conflict between quantum physics and relativity over who rules the world is that relativity supposedly doesn't allow for quantum entanglement. Maybe this is a problem for relativity, but it's not a problem for me. For starters, quantum entanglement happens, whether or not relativity allows it. For twosies, I wonder if this problem is a result of perhaps the greatest feat of human imagination suddenly becoming too rigid once it had some rules in place.
Okay, now I'll back up (I didn't want to keep you waiting for the good news). Quantum entanglement, as you may know, is the name for the connection between two subatomic particles that causes them to instantly react to changes in the other. By changes, I mean a change in their spin. I always took this to mean no more or less than the direction in which they are spinning, but in the book I'm reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson- very much up to the Bryson standard- he refers to it as a "property called spin" which made me think that perhaps there is more to it. Anyway, the more important word in that sentence for our purposes is instantly. Changes of subatomic particles in response to their partners (electrons are most commonly cited, but I think the same holds true for positrons and other little guys that they don't bother with in high school chemistry) may be the only thing in the universe that is truly instant.
A website might advertise that it responds instantly to changes in the weather, the score, the world, whatever, but what it means is that when a relevant piece of information changes, a person or a computer inputs the change, and then some more computer things happen, and pretty soon, the website reflects the change. Sometimes people say that a person reacted instantly, but what they mean is that a thing happened, and the person's senses processed it, and very soon after, for a human anyway, the person did something in response. A wrecking ball hitting a building damages it just as soon as the force transfers over to the building, which takes such a short amount of time, that you probably don't notice it, but time passes nonetheless.
Change the spin of an electron though, its quantum entangled sibling changes INSTANTLY. This ruffled more than a few feathers of the birds examining the world of the smallest (most notably that Einstein guy). The reason for the trouble is due to two- maybe three, but we'll get to that- assumptions. The first is that nothing no way no how can go faster than the speed of light. It's not just that our rockets aren't awesome enough yet, it's that our universe apparently has a speed limit. The second assumption is that the particles must be passing a message between them, but if that were true, the message can go faster than the speed of light (people did eventually get around to proving this with entangled particles that were miles apart).
Like I said, this is a problem for relativity, but not for me. Relativity is concerned with mechanics- what makes particles bounce and spin in just the way that they do- I am concerned with ideas. From what I understand, entanglement has not been explained so much as accepted. My feeling is that 1) you eventually have to get to that point when you are trying to explain the universe. It might even be a goal. 2) This one may be beyond our ability to explain mechanically, at least for now. Perhaps there are strings that connect the particles that are undetectable to us, or, and here's where my allegiances lie most comfortably, maybe we just need to get our heads around the idea that the two particles are better described as one thing.
Science is better built for reductionism than holism, even when it's just a tiny iota of holism. It's not a molecule, it's a bunch of atoms! It's not an atom, it's a nucleus with an electron cloud! It's not a nucleus, it's protons and neutrons, and it's not those either, it's a bunch of quarks! The word "molecule" is often more efficient than useful than something like "a set of atoms that are stuck together," but it wouldn't be considered more accurate. Describing things by group saves time, not precision.
In the case of entangled particles, perhaps "one entanglement" is more precise than "two electrons." Maybe there doesn't have to be a signal between the two electrons because you are not just changing one electron, you are changing one entanglement. You could argue that this is avoiding the problem by redrawing the lines so you can't see it, but I would counter that it's the previous set of lines that cause it. Finding new lines and improving on the old ones is pretty much what science is all about.
So why was it good news that the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and relativity is essentially the entanglement problem? Well, I'd heard a while ago that these two systems were incompatible, and that made me sad. I wanted everything with quantum mechanics to be okay, and if it conflicted with relativity, than it didn't mean it was wrong, it just meant that something was wrong. But like I may have mentioned, the entanglement problem is no problem of mine.
That meant I was free to love quantum mechanics without reservation, and I do really love quantum mechanics. My attitude toward the world has always been absurdist. This is a style, but it's also a position. Absurdity touches my soul more than rationality does. Rationality is about rules and decisions, and these give the world some structure, both in our minds and out of them, but on some level I always understood them to be arbitrary. Useful, functional, purposeful, helpful, whatever else-ful, but not capital-r Right.
Absurdity touched deeper for me, but rationality always seemed to win. In the end I just seemed to be discarding reality for Hamlet's nutshell, and I would often dead-end there not entirely sure how it happened.
So imagine my delight, when these headlines made it into my sphere of academia:
Science fact! Electrons can blip out of space in one place and back in somewhere else without occupying the space in between! Science fact! It is completely impossible to know both an electron's trajectory and location! You can only know one or the other, almost as if, they don't exist at the same time! Science fact! Measuring a particle can change it! Not the mechanics of the measurement, the fact that it was measured! THE FACT THAT IT WAS MEASURED!!! WHAT KIND OF UNIVERSE IS THIS!?!?!?!
I'm not going to try to unpack all of that right now, but learning it caused a delightful explosion of many of my fundamental assumptions about the world. It's one of science's greatest triumphs, and to me, it was a reminder that somehow absurdity always gets the last laugh.
Okay, now I'll back up (I didn't want to keep you waiting for the good news). Quantum entanglement, as you may know, is the name for the connection between two subatomic particles that causes them to instantly react to changes in the other. By changes, I mean a change in their spin. I always took this to mean no more or less than the direction in which they are spinning, but in the book I'm reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson- very much up to the Bryson standard- he refers to it as a "property called spin" which made me think that perhaps there is more to it. Anyway, the more important word in that sentence for our purposes is instantly. Changes of subatomic particles in response to their partners (electrons are most commonly cited, but I think the same holds true for positrons and other little guys that they don't bother with in high school chemistry) may be the only thing in the universe that is truly instant.
A website might advertise that it responds instantly to changes in the weather, the score, the world, whatever, but what it means is that when a relevant piece of information changes, a person or a computer inputs the change, and then some more computer things happen, and pretty soon, the website reflects the change. Sometimes people say that a person reacted instantly, but what they mean is that a thing happened, and the person's senses processed it, and very soon after, for a human anyway, the person did something in response. A wrecking ball hitting a building damages it just as soon as the force transfers over to the building, which takes such a short amount of time, that you probably don't notice it, but time passes nonetheless.
Change the spin of an electron though, its quantum entangled sibling changes INSTANTLY. This ruffled more than a few feathers of the birds examining the world of the smallest (most notably that Einstein guy). The reason for the trouble is due to two- maybe three, but we'll get to that- assumptions. The first is that nothing no way no how can go faster than the speed of light. It's not just that our rockets aren't awesome enough yet, it's that our universe apparently has a speed limit. The second assumption is that the particles must be passing a message between them, but if that were true, the message can go faster than the speed of light (people did eventually get around to proving this with entangled particles that were miles apart).
Like I said, this is a problem for relativity, but not for me. Relativity is concerned with mechanics- what makes particles bounce and spin in just the way that they do- I am concerned with ideas. From what I understand, entanglement has not been explained so much as accepted. My feeling is that 1) you eventually have to get to that point when you are trying to explain the universe. It might even be a goal. 2) This one may be beyond our ability to explain mechanically, at least for now. Perhaps there are strings that connect the particles that are undetectable to us, or, and here's where my allegiances lie most comfortably, maybe we just need to get our heads around the idea that the two particles are better described as one thing.
Science is better built for reductionism than holism, even when it's just a tiny iota of holism. It's not a molecule, it's a bunch of atoms! It's not an atom, it's a nucleus with an electron cloud! It's not a nucleus, it's protons and neutrons, and it's not those either, it's a bunch of quarks! The word "molecule" is often more efficient than useful than something like "a set of atoms that are stuck together," but it wouldn't be considered more accurate. Describing things by group saves time, not precision.
In the case of entangled particles, perhaps "one entanglement" is more precise than "two electrons." Maybe there doesn't have to be a signal between the two electrons because you are not just changing one electron, you are changing one entanglement. You could argue that this is avoiding the problem by redrawing the lines so you can't see it, but I would counter that it's the previous set of lines that cause it. Finding new lines and improving on the old ones is pretty much what science is all about.
So why was it good news that the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and relativity is essentially the entanglement problem? Well, I'd heard a while ago that these two systems were incompatible, and that made me sad. I wanted everything with quantum mechanics to be okay, and if it conflicted with relativity, than it didn't mean it was wrong, it just meant that something was wrong. But like I may have mentioned, the entanglement problem is no problem of mine.
That meant I was free to love quantum mechanics without reservation, and I do really love quantum mechanics. My attitude toward the world has always been absurdist. This is a style, but it's also a position. Absurdity touches my soul more than rationality does. Rationality is about rules and decisions, and these give the world some structure, both in our minds and out of them, but on some level I always understood them to be arbitrary. Useful, functional, purposeful, helpful, whatever else-ful, but not capital-r Right.
Absurdity touched deeper for me, but rationality always seemed to win. In the end I just seemed to be discarding reality for Hamlet's nutshell, and I would often dead-end there not entirely sure how it happened.
So imagine my delight, when these headlines made it into my sphere of academia:
Science fact! Electrons can blip out of space in one place and back in somewhere else without occupying the space in between! Science fact! It is completely impossible to know both an electron's trajectory and location! You can only know one or the other, almost as if, they don't exist at the same time! Science fact! Measuring a particle can change it! Not the mechanics of the measurement, the fact that it was measured! THE FACT THAT IT WAS MEASURED!!! WHAT KIND OF UNIVERSE IS THIS!?!?!?!
I'm not going to try to unpack all of that right now, but learning it caused a delightful explosion of many of my fundamental assumptions about the world. It's one of science's greatest triumphs, and to me, it was a reminder that somehow absurdity always gets the last laugh.
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