Rick Perry vs World

11 January 2008

The best paragraph I read today

From The Atlantic's James Fallows:

Through the quarter-century in which China has been opening to world trade, Chinese leaders have deliberately held down living standards for their own people and propped them up in the United States. This is the real meaning of the vast trade surplus--$1.4 trillion and counting, going up by about $1 billion per day—that the Chinese government has mostly parked in U.S. Treasury notes. In effect, every person in the (rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about $4,000 from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China. Like so many imbalances in economics, this one can't go on indefinitely, and therefore won't. But the way it ends--suddenly versus gradually, for predictable reasons versus during a panic—will make an enormous difference to the U.S. and Chinese economies over the next few years, to say nothing of bystanders in Europe and elsewhere.

Read the whole thing. Lou Dobbs ought learn some economics; might do him some good.

If I were Evan Smith, I'd point out that Fallows once worked for Texas Monthly.

Posted by Evan @ 01/11/08 06:45 AM | Comments (0)

Netroots power!

AP, via DMN:

Democratic Senate candidate Rick Noriega's campaign reprimanded a staff member Wednesday for requesting information from U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's office by presenting himself as a blogger and giving a false name.

Noriega, a Houston state representative, is running for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat held by Cornyn.

Rick Cofer, who has told reporters he is working on special projects for the Noriega campaign, was revealed as a caller presenting himself as a blogger named Jay Coxlie. Cofer apparently called Cornyn's Washington office on Tuesday seeking the schedule of Cornyn's public events, the Austin American-Statesman reported online.

That call occurred after a similar call earlier in the day in which the caller cut the call short, according to Cornyn's office.

A Cornyn aide figured out Cofer's identity by the number on caller ID. Another aide Googled the number and it came back to a listing for Cofer.

Posted by Evan @ 01/11/08 06:37 AM | Comments (0)

Let's hope these words don't sound prophetic in 10 years

NASA is retiring the space shuttle program in 2010, and we'll have no capability to get into space until Orion comes online, which is scheduled to be 2015.

Chron:

"I truly believe the gap of five years is a security threat to our country," said [Senator Kay Bailey] Hutchison during a visit by the two lawmakers to a Lockheed Martin test lab for Orion development near the Johnson Space Center. "I just hope we don't have to wait for a crisis."

One wonders whether certain parts of the rest of the world will join the utopian demilitarization of space that currently exists.

Posted by Evan @ 01/11/08 06:35 AM | Comments (0)

Things I said on the night of the New Hampshire primary

* If you asked me who the Dem nominee would be, I'd say it's still a push between Obama and Hillary. Is it surprising that I said the same thing pre-NH and that even though Hillary exceeded expectations, my opinion didn't change much? Schmeh.

* When I said I still that it was a push, a friend asked me to pick. So I went back to my general rule of presidential primaries: go with the establishment. So I'd have to pick Hillary, I guess.

* McCain looks to be the most likely to win the GOP nomination now.

* How has Giuliani managed to get off the hook for Iowa and NH in the media? It's not like he didn't compete in NH; he did. He just didn't late in the game, but he did run $3M worth of ads there. And it's not like he completely skipped Iowa either.

* I always assumed Giuliani was going to try to do respectably in either NH or Iowa. He was polling well in both at one point. Just by showing up, he grabs the social liberals in the party and some hawks. If Giuliani ends up making a serious run at the nomination, his success will certainly devalue Iowa and NH.

* How much does Mitt Romney want to spend on a quixotic quest to be president? Maybe it's sorta possible that he can win, if he injects a ton of personal money into his campaign. Then he has to hope that Giuliani and he are the last men standing, and he picks up enough delegates from defeated candidates...although McCain strongly dislikes Romney, so he'll get few McCain delegates.

* Remember when Hugh Hewitt was a serious pundit?

* How do you think Rick Perry feels about that Rudy endorsement? Iowa didn't seem to warm to Rudy via the Guv.

Posted by Evan @ 01/11/08 06:20 AM | Comments (0)

Please move Public Integrity

Since Ronnie Earle is retiring, it seems like a non-controversial time to suggest that Public Integrity ought to be moved under the control of the AG.

It's silly to let the citizens of Travis County decide who gets to exercise prosecutorial discretion over governmental corruption. Yes, that'd be a partisan change. But the state AG is actually elected by the citizens of this state -- meaning that Texans actually have some means of holding a part of state government accountable. Accountability? Good. Wildly disproportionate voting power by one county in this state? Bad.

And Democrats should keep in mind that the Attorney General of Texas won't be a Republican forever.

Posted by Evan @ 01/11/08 04:26 AM | Comments (2)

05 January 2008

The Wire

Yesterday I watched the season premiere of the final season of The Wire. I may do a longer review, but here are some quick thoughts. I think the episode airs tomorrow, so no spoilers from me.

Wasn't really that much that happened -- definitely a plot continuation episode, with the introduction of the Baltimore Sun newsroom about half-way through. This episode didn't focus that much on the newsroom, at least relative to my expectations given the hype for season 5. I tend to judge season premieres against The Sopranos, which were usually the artsy ones written and directed by David Chase, where dream sequences began and plot cliffhangers were resolved. Not so really for this season premier -- season 5 really just seems to pick up right where season 4 ended.

Posted by Evan @ 01/05/08 03:06 PM | Comments (0)

Things I said on the night of the Iowa Caucus

These are going to be strung-together thoughts as I remember them of what I said on Thursday night:

* After the results were in: "The voting begins now." Iowa is less about the voting, and more about the post-spin. To some extent that's true of every primary season window where there's no voting, but because of the way the calendar is and historical factors, Iowa is particularly this way this cycle.

* McCain 08 = Kerry 04, in this way at least: both are candidates the media built up, tore down, and then forgot that all the reasons they initially built him up still apply. Hillary Clinton is starting to fall into this category.

* If you asked me who the GOP nominee would be right now, I'd pick McCain (thought that for a few weeks, though it's obviously not over 50%). McCain's strategy was smart -- he should get more credit for making it to 13% on a small amount of effort and organization. Seems to me that Giuliani has spun pretty well his miserable showing. I know he didn't compete in Iowa, but there's a reason for that.

* Obama has taken the shine off Hillary. But Hillary 08, post-Iowa reminds me a bit of W 2000, post-NH. Although it seemed close, McCain never had that much of a chance -- media-driven candidacies don't win Republican nominations. In the same way that W had to completely re-do his campaign in the wake of NH, Hillary has to do that in the wake of Iowa. She certainly can do that, and it's good to get the aura of invulnerability off early. If you asked me who the Dem nominee would be, I'd say it's still a push between Obama and Hillary. Is it surprising that I said the same thing pre-Iowa and that even though Obama exceeded expectations, my opinion didn't change much? Schmeh.

* Al Gore looks wiser in 2000: Bringing in Bill the way Hillary did was not a winning move. Hillary ran an awful closing campaign in Iowa. Bill has the reputation of being a brilliant political strategist -- we'll see in the next few months if he's as overrated as I think he is. His taking over the campaign strategy in Iowa was a bust. Can he put aside his ego?

* Fred is wholly uninterested in fighting the media narratives. Is he getting bad advice or being willfully stubborn? It's pretty impressive how reporters are knowingly misinterpreting what Fred says because it makes for a better story and fits their narrative.

* It's hard to see a path to the nomination for John Edwards. The reporters covering him think he's a phony (they're right), he's quite limited money-wise, and he got beat in the state most friendly to him. Unless he pulls off a Bill Clinton-like overcoming expectations in NH, it looks like he's done. He can go back to railing about corporate greed from his new $30 million mansion (with private gym!).

* Romney appears to have to beat McCain in NH to have a chance.

Posted by Evan @ 01/05/08 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

04 January 2008

Billy Beane to take Moneyball to the MLS

I'm just mad I didn't get there first.

Posted by Evan @ 01/04/08 07:23 PM | Comments (1)

21 December 2007

Algunos anitos despues. la navidad del arbol de fuqua. que raro.

Posted by Evan @ 12/21/07 12:55 AM | Comments (0)

26 November 2007

Olsen and Shuvalov

Wayne Slater profiles Olsen & Shuvalov, the direct mail firm Todd Olsen and Kevin Shuvalov bought from Karl Rove.

"We're part of a strategic team [for Rudy Giuliani]," Mr. Shuvalov said. "It's basically the mail guys, the TV guys, the pollster and Brent Seaborn, the director of strategy.

"We'll huddle on an issue or the issues of the day, saying this is where we need to go or what we need to do and debate it back and forth," he said. "Now with the primaries and caucuses getting close, it's more on implementation and making sure the trains are running on time."

Mr. Giuliani isn't the firm's only candidate on next year's ballot. Its clients include Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, Texas Supreme Court Justice Dale Wainwright, and candidates in several congressional contests and a number of state representative and judicial races.

...

Like Karl did, we keep all the process of list building, list development and list and data mining in-house," said Mr. Olsen.

Posted by Evan @ 11/26/07 08:03 PM | Comments (0)

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