Month: April 2004

Scott quotes a Robert Reich column on the coming American Apocalypse if the Bushies get reelected. Freed from the bonds of having to win the next election, they all go mad, mad I tell you, and go on a war-and-civil-suppression spree that makes … well, that makes Germany in the 30s and 40s look like a piker.

I don’t think that’s any more likely an apocalyptic vision than the idea that Kerry will turn over control of the US government to the UN, and that wild bands of naked lesbian witches will be allowed to sacrifice white baby boys on alters made of crushed SUVs, the gas-guzzlers’ disarmed owners having already been strung up by … well, you get the idea. It’s the same sort of partisan paranoia that had folks seriously asserting that Clinton would use Y2K to declare martial law and take over the country forever. They even had sightings of all those black helicopters, and descriptions of the new Domestic Stormtroopers uniforms and everything. And when Y2K didn’t produce a coup by the Clintonistas, well, it was then all a big trick to get things ready for the inevitable coup …

To my mind, there are two more interesting (and realistic) election questions, short- and long-term:

1. Who will Kerry choose as a running mate? And how will that choice impact how people see him as a candidate?

   In some ways, Kerry’s at a bad disadvantage for having won the nomination so quickly. True, he’s not being beat up daily by Dem rivals. But even though the party has (ostensibly) rallied behind him, he’s still only the “presumptive nominee,” and now is sitting out there by his lonesome. He has some congressional allies and party flacks who will stump for him, but his campaign hasn’t really been able to take off yet, because he’s just one man.

   This is why premature crowing by some conservatives about how Bush has this locked up is wishful thinking at best, just as it was when Kerry’s polling numbers were stronger than Bush’s a few months back, and the Dems were crowing about how they had things locked up. Anything can happen between now and November, domestically and internationally, that could push the electorate one way or the other. When the Dems were actively in the primary cycle, their general beating-up of one another paled in comparison to their universal criticism of Bush — and Bush’s numbers went down. Now that Kerry (despite all the air time being given him) is on his own, and his numbers are sinking.

   Because it’s not just face time that has an impact, but the illusion of consensus. If one person says something five times, we begin to tune it out. If five people say it once, we think, “Hey, if they all believe that, there must be something to it.”

   So one normally trivial — but this time crucial — step will be the selection of a VP candidate by Kerry. As Kerry’s running mate, the VP will be yet another voice, and one who can be the “attack dog” in the campaign without making Kerry look either nasty or whiny (which is always a danger for presidential candidates, and for Kerry more than most). It will double the number of candidates “on message” before the news. And it will add another dimension to Kerry’s candidacy — which is already looking a bit shopworn, grand oratorical stylings notwithstanding.

   And, let’s face it, the Dems can certainly come up with someone better (or at least more personable) than Dick Cheney. Which brings us to …

2. Assuming Bush wins (and assuming we’re not all working in death camps as slave laborers in a Choking Smoke Factory to poison the planet by ’08), who in the GOP is lined up to run for that party in the next election? No Republican congressional leaders stand out. Cheney, even if he survives that long, has the popular appeal of Attila the Hun. I don’t see any of the current administration being ready for it by ’08, though both Powell and Rice are possibilities in ’12 (assuming they don’t get tapped as VP before then).

   Some new star may become visible in the hypothetical Bush second term, and certainly potential candidates in the Senate and Governors’ Mansions of the nation will start to emerge before then. But at the moment, there’s pretty much nobody on the horizon. Heck, even for those in the Evil Dynastic Conspiracy Biz, Jeb would probably have to wait at least until ’12 for a run, and that’s a long time …

And that’s where it all comes back around to the initial essay. Because the election cycle never actually ends, and if the Neo-Con Mad Dogs and Religious Right Mullah-Wannabes somehow think (or are thought to think) that a Bush re-election gives them carte blanche, there are quite a few House Representatives who do face another election in two years. Presidential “mandates” are extraordinarily short-lived beasts, and a second term mandate tends to become a lame duck presidency with startling speed. And as much as I dislike the same party dominating the White House and Capitol Hill, such unity is rarely as monolithic as it looks on paper.

Of course, if the whole election process is then deviously short-circuited, then you could, perhaps, argue that the Bad Guys could stay in office forever (once they ditch hapless dupe evil mastermind Dubya, assuming the Constitution doesn’t get amended or suspended or tossed out). But that all presupposes a quick, powerful, and effective conspiracy, all this from an administration that evidently wasn’t “clever” enough to plant WMD evidence, or blackmail the French and German leadership into going along on Iraq (despite there being plenty of dirt to do so), or simply assassinate intransigent Middle Eastern foreign leaders until they were all willing to sell oil to Haliburton and Enron and Exxon for $5/barrel.

I don’t buy it, any more than I bought the black/blue/white helicopters and UN takeover of a disarmed US on 1 January 2000. Conspiracy Theories and Impending Doom-saying rarely accomplish more than fear mongering. And I seem to recall that used to be the charge that Bush’s opponents used to make about him.

Well, what do you know? A public aesthetic competition that I ended up choosing “correctly.” Denver has unveiled its new “business” logo.

Mayor John Hickenlooper today unveiled a new Mile High City logo for the City and County of Denver. The “D” design features a stylized red skyscraper, light blue sky, and dark blue mountains surrounding a bright yellow sun. It will be used for city stationary, program brochures, and regional marketing campaigns.
The need for a logo was a key issue identified by marketing professionals who attended workshops as part of the Mile High Marketing Initiative. The goal of the logo is to build a stronger identity for Denver and the metro area through more unified marketing endeavors. As part of this initiative, area businesses were asked to create logos for the city during a design competition that was held earlier this year.
“More than 1,200 Denver residents, staff members and marketing professionals provided input as to which logo best represents the Denver region,” said Mayor Hickenlooper. “I am excited that the city now has a visual image that symbolizes much of what Denver is and has to offer.”
[…] Design and Image Communications has donated the design to the city at no cost. The local company has more than a hundred logos in its portfolio including Allegro Coffee, Schenkein, Three Tomatoes Catering, and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.

Not bad.

[I actually wrote this up last night, but between experiments with various blogging clients, it vanished softly and silently away. Drat.]

Checking back in with FactCheck, which reviews presidential candidate ads for accuracy.

On the Kerry side, we have a critique of the claim that the Supreme Court is “just one vote away” from outlawing abortion. As the article notes, six of the nine sitting justices on the court have supported the “right to choose” in Roe v. Wade. Justice Kennedy, who dissented in 5-4 Stenberg v. Carhart (the 2000 decision that threw out Nebraska’s law restricting D&X abortions), went to pains in his separate dissent to support the 1992 Casey decision, which upheld Roe.

Arguably, that means the court is one vote away from banning certain abortion procedures, but it appears to be at least two votes away from allowing the government to ban abortion. Some folks might consider that the same thing, perhaps, and certainly the next president may be able to appoint two or more justices — but arguing that “The Supreme Court is just one vote away from outlawing a woman’s right to choose” seems a bit of an oversimplification.

Speaking of which, we have the most recent Bush ads that once again lambaste Kerry for voting against critical Defense spending.

But this is the oldest trick in the legislative record book — identifying a vote for (or against) a large multi-billion dollar bill as being for or against a particular provision of it. Which, given how such bills tend to grow like Topsy, is also more than a bit of an oversimplification.

• Kerry voted against three DoD funding bills out of the sixteen that have come before him as senator. Arguably, that means he’s voted for such bills thirteen out of sixteen times.
• Kerry’s vote against the $87 billion Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental spending bill last year was not explicitly a vote against body armor for the troops (which was 1/3% of the expenditure), but (as I recall) a vote against writing a “blank check” for the Pentagon.
• Kerry’s campaigning against the AH-46 Apache helicopter in 1984 foreshadowed a future Secretary of Defense who would argue the program should be cut off in 1989 — Dick Cheney, serving under George Bush the Elder.

You can argue the particular wisdom of each of those votes and positions, and the stated reasons for them. But to simply say that the votes per se show Kerry to be weak on defense is as silly a tactic now as it is when it’s used against any other legislator, by either party.

Surely there are enough substantive criticisms that could be made of both sides’ opposition (or, better yet, substantive reasons to support the candidates themselves) that these sorts of cheap rhetorical tricks and distortions are unnecessary.