Barack Obama campaigned at a rally in Washington Square Park last night. We live a block north of the park, and I could hear noise and music coming from there yesterday after work. I wondered what was going on until I remembered. I didn’t go to the rally – I’m curious about Obama, but (1) I had therapy, and (2) I don’t want to stand in a crowd for two hours before Obama shows up.
There were thousands of people in the park, though. The campaign has a slideshow of photos.
Here’s a fascinating piece about gay software mogul Tim Gill and his efforts to defeat anti-gay political candidates through under-the-radar donations. Key paragaphs:
Gill decided to find out how he could become more effective and enlisted as his political counselor an acerbic lawyer and former tobacco lobbyist named Ted Trimpa, who is Colorado’s answer to Karl Rove. Trimpa believes that the gay-rights community directs too much of its money to thoroughly admirable national candidates who don’t need it, while neglecting less compelling races that would have a far greater impact on gay rights—a tendency he calls “glamour giving.†Trimpa cited the example of Barack Obama: an attractive candidate, solid on gay rights, and viscerally exciting to donors. It feels good to write him a check. An analysis of Obama’s 2004 Senate race, which he won by nearly fifty points, had determined that gays contributed more than $500,000. “The temptation is always to swoon for the popular candidate,†Trimpa told me, “but a fraction of that money, directed at the right state and local races, could have flipped a few chambers. ‘Just because he’s cute’ isn’t a strategy.â€
Together, Gill and Trimpa decided to eschew national races in favor of state and local ones, which could be influenced in large batches and for much less money. Most antigay measures, they discovered, originate in state legislatures. Operating at that level gave them a chance to “punish the wicked,†as Gill puts it—to snuff out rising politicians who were building their careers on antigay policies, before they could achieve national influence. Their chief cautionary example of such a villain is Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who once compared homosexuality to “man on dog†sex (and was finally defeated last year, at a cost of more than $20 million). Santorum got his start working in the state legislature. As Gill and Trimpa looked at their evolving plan, it seemed realistic. “The strategic piece of the puzzle we’d been missing—consistent across almost every legislature we examined—is that it’s often just a handful of people, two or three, who introduce the most outrageous legislation and force the rest of their colleagues to vote on it,†Gill explained. “If you could reach these few people or neutralize them by flipping the chamber to leaders who would block bad legislation, you’d have a dramatic effect.â€
Tim Gill is my new hero.
We were watching “Meet the Press” this morning. Tim Russert was interviewing two journalists about the 2008 election.
You know, the one that’s happening 20 months from now?
The race has been in full swing for two months, of course, and it’s utterly ridiculous. Bill Clinton didn’t declare his candidacy for president until early October 1991, four and a half months before the New Hampshire primary. But what’s amazing isn’t that the candidates are declaring so early – candidates have declared this early in past elections. What’s amazing is that the media is covering the race so extensively so early.
A majority of people wish the Bush presidency were over. Iraq is a mess, Bush won’t budge, and there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do about it.
Bob Herbert recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times lamenting the fact that people are obsessing over Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears instead of focusing on our country’s real problems. The Times printed several letters in respose, and two of them left me so depressed. The first:
What are we supposed to do? I spent a lot of time paying attention to all the ”real news” of the world. I got angry, and I acted on that anger. I engaged in intense debates with family and friends, I signed petitions, I marched in protests. And we still went to war, there is still little support for mothers and children, the minimum wage still isn’t a living wage, Americans still produce 25 percent of the world’s pollution.
And then I decided I didn’t want to live my life angry all the time if it wasn’t going to do any good, if no one would listen. I still pay attention to the ”real news,” but then I turn to entertainment to forget it all, because I feel helpless to make a difference.
The second:
It’s not that people don’t want to know — they know.
But when there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, when appeals to elected officials result in no action, when marches on Washington are obstructed and ignored, when you have an administration that seems bent on instilling terror into the hearts of its citizens and promising in vain to keep them safe while mindlessly destroying both the infrastructure and the reputation of the country, well, hey, Anna Nicole and Britney remind us that at least we’re not like them and that there remains a tiny percentage of our lives over which we do have control.
Depressing.
The House could impeach Bush and Cheney – a simple majority is all that’s needed. But the Senate would never convict either of them; that would require 67 out of 100 votes, and no Republican will want to make Nancy Pelosi the president. (But maybe they could impeach Cheney first.)
If this were a parliamentary system, there could be a vote of no confidence and Bush could be replaced. But in our stable American system, we’re slaves to the calendar. Like the Manhattan street grid imposing its cold logic on the organic Manhattan environment, our presidential elections descend upon us from above every four years, our constitutional gods completely uninterested in our short-term desires. The price of stability is that we’re stuck. (Okay – stability and a gutless Congress.)
Even the media wishes it were all over. And that’s true regardless of journalists’ political leanings. Bush is boring, because he’s rock-stubborn; there’s no excitement in covering things that don’t change.
And so, for the next year, we’re going to watch each new flavor-of-the-month candidate rise and fall. This month it’s Obama and Giuliani; eventually it’ll be Edwards and McCain and Romney and Brownback and so on, until (as in 2003-04 with Kerry) we end up right back where we started, when Clinton and McCain get the nominations.
Meanwhile: 687 days and counting. Sigh.