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5:57 PM
George Pataki's minimum wage flip-flop
New York Gov. George Pataki reversed course on raising the state's minimum wage Thursday, applying a surprise veto to a measure that overwhelmingly passed both houses of the state legislature.
The bill, which would gradually raise the minimum wage from its present level of $5.15 an hour to $7.15 by 2007, passed the state Senate 57-7 and the Assembly 116-19. But Pataki vetoed anyway, saying he wants an increase at the federal level instead so that New York businesses would not have a "competitive disadvantage" with neighboring states. As the New York Times editorial board noted, this is a flip-flop on Pataki's part:
"What made this particular veto so odd is that last week Mr. Pataki sent the Legislature a 'message of necessity' about this same bill. The message, a shortcut around the normal legislative timetable, allows an immediate vote. Such a stamp of urgency from the governor should mean, at the very least, that the state's chief executive desperately wants that bill to be law. Not, apparently, this time."
There's still some hope for supporters of the wage increase. The state's Democratic Party ranks a veto override as its top priority starting Monday, and Democrats control the Assembly. The bigger question is whether the GOP-controlled Senate will override the veto, on which the Times remains skeptical:
"It is an election year for legislators, and the minimum wage issue is a tricky one for Republicans. Mainly, residents of New York City generally like the increase. Conservative Party leaders generally don't. So what to do about Republican-backed candidates in New York City who need both Conservatives and other voters? This looks like another case of an old Albany dodge: Republicans vote for the bill and the governor, conveniently, vetoes it. The problem is that a lot of low-wage workers will be the losers unless the Assembly and especially the Senate vote to override the governor."
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5:08 PM
Doctors without security
The Nobel Prize-winning Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) is known for going in first and leaving last the world's most dangerous hotspots. It has worked in Afghanistan amidst civil war and Soviet occupation in the 1980s, under the Taliban in the 1990s, and, until now, in the post-Taliban era. No longer. This week, MSF, citing security concerns, announced it is pulling out of the country. The group blames the Afghan government for failing to provide adequate security for humanitarian organizations and to properly investigate the murder of five of MSF workers. MSF also says that the work and lives of humanitarian workers have been "jeopardized" by U.S. actions, notably the distribution of leaflets that threatened the withholding of humanitarian aid from Afghans who refuse to cooperate with the coalition forces -- an action for which the U.S. military later apologized. (Some 30 humanitarian workers have been killed this year in Afghanistan.) As MSF put it a statement explaining its decision:
"The violence against humanitarian and aid workers has come in a context in which the United States-backed coalition has consistently sought to use humanitarian aid to build support for its military and political ambitions. MSF denounces the coalition's attempts to co-opt humanitarian aid and use it to "win hearts and minds." By doing so, providing aid is no longer seen as an impartial and neutral act, endangering the lives of humanitarian volunteers and jeopardizing the aid to the people in need."
U.S. military spokesman Jon Siepmann chided MSF for withdrawing: "It's regrettable to see anyone pull out of helping the Afghan people. We don't think security is an effective excuse to do that." However, it seems perfectly excusable not to provide the proper security in the first place.
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2:12 PM
(Electronic) no confidence vote
With the convention wrapped up, the campaign for battleground states begins anew. And that most contentious of battlegrounds, Florida, just keeps giving voters reason to worry.
As the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports, Florida Republicans are apologizing for a flier that urged GOP voters in Miami to use absentee ballots on the grounds that they leave a paper trail. The flier, published on glossy paper and with a full-color photo of President Bush giving a thumbs-up, read:
"The liberal Democrats have already begun their attacks and the new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount. Make sure your vote counts, order your absentee ballot today."
That's not the message Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his party want people to hear, especially after weeks of assuring voters that the electronic voting system is ready for November. A Bush spokeswoman told the Sun-Sentinel:
"He does not agree with any message that is going to criticize the touch-screen system because it works. We had elections in 2002 on electronic machines. ... They work, and voters should be comfortable using them."
Democrats aren't buying it, and have seized on the flier, including state Sen. Ron Klein:
"It wasn't only inappropriate, it was outrageous. If the voting equipment isn't a problem, then don't create political literature and issue political statements which are designed to scare people or intimidate them."
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12:20 PM
Asleep at the spiel
When George Bush sets a course of action, he likes to stick with it. That includes his bedtime.
A little nugget low down in an Associated Press report about Bush's Friday return to the campaign trail explains:
"Bush did not stay up to watch Kerry's convention address but read and saw reports about it, spokesman Scott McClellan said. Adviser Karl Rove watched the speech, McClellan told reporters."
One would think the president wanted to see firsthand how his opponent wants to frame the contest - especially when doing so only involved turning on the television. As for McClellan, he called the speech "nicely crafted" but an attempt by Kerry to hide from his Senate record.
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11:54 AM
Burying the bad news
In what was probably a wise move on their part, the White House waited until after the convention to release the bad news: the economy isn't growing quite as well as expected.
The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of just 3 percent in the spring, a dramatic slowdown from the rapid pace of the past year, as consumer spending fell to the weakest rate since the slowdown of 2001, the government reported Friday.
Now I've heard a number of people say that the president doesn't really affect the economy. Is that true? Mark Zandi, a highly respected, non-partisan economist, doesn't think so. In a must-read recent analysis (PDF) he notes that, true, the tax cuts have done little to affect economic growth. Most of the recovery, quite predictably, has been due to historically low interest rates and defense spending. Tax cuts for the top bracket accounted for only around .1 percent of GDP growth in 2003.
But the real scandal -- and it is a scandal -- is how much more growth we could have had with a smarter set of policies. Zandi outlines an alternative that could have been passed, including a payroll tax holiday, temporary family-tax cut, an extension of unemployment insurance, and aid to states. This package would have netted us 2 million more jobs, and vastly higher growth. Plus, we wouldn't have that yawning long-term deficit. In other words: Bush screwed up.
It's important to remember that the administration never even tried to come up with an economic policy. Even though economists realized in early 2001 that a recession was on the way, Bush insisted on shoving through the same tax cut package that had been devised on the campaign trail back in 1999. They didn't care how appropriate the plan would be in the new economic climate. Instead the White House made up some bogus projections for job growth -- and right now we're about 2.1 million jobs short of those projections. It's appalling.
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9:27 AM
Blogging from Boston: the after-party
Watching the Democratic convention from inside the FleetCenter or, for that matter, from one's sofa at home, one might quite rightfully have become angry at the corrosion of politics by celebrity culture. Every half hour, it seemed, some movie star or songstress was paraded around the floor to wave for the cameras, drawing the spotlight away from the charmless House representative or limbless Vietnam veteran then at the podium. But to witness the celebrities and the politicians interacting together in their natural shared habitat -- the exclusive convention after-party -- is to understand just how well suited to each other the two groups truly are. Last night, for example, in the ultra-VIP section at the week's final Rock the Vote party (sponsored by TimeWarner), the politicos and the celebrities and the media bigs were crushed in shoulder to shoulder, conversing at necessarily-high decibel levels. Ben Affleck and Leo DiCaprio were plying the ear of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.). Even Barack Obama was somewhere in the club, I was told, though I never caught a glimpse of him myself. In the middle of the final band's set, John Edwards took the stage to say a few words. "This event toniight," he drawled, "it looks like a concert, it sounds like a concert, and it *smells* like a concert, but it is a *caaawse*."
Between the stars and the pols last night, I saw only one possible point of friction: LL Cool J performing his song "Phenomenon," which perhaps raised eyebrows in the crowd with the lyric, "She keeps these clowns thinking like Chappaquiddick."
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9:22 AM
News flash: the Republicans still exist!
With all the media-hogging hubbub in Boston, Bush-Cheney pretty much fell off the radar. The president retreated to Crawford for a bit of rest and relaxation (and more thrills and spills on the bike trail). This is as you'd expect. Usually, when one party is convening, opposing candidates pretty much give up the week for lost. Not this time. Dick Cheney went into high gear this week campaigning as if his future depended on it. As Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel told CNN, "Other than the president, there's no better advocate for the Bush-Cheney record of accomplishment than the vice president."
Cheney worked his way along the west coast, stumping for Congressional candidates in Washington, Oregon and California, making particular effort to appeal to veterans, whom Kerry has been showcasing in the lead-up to the nomination. But in his efforts to undercut Kerry’s record on homeland security, Cheney trotted out the same old lines that have been proved, time and again, to be untrue. He addressed Marines at Camp Pendleton Wednesday thusly:
Having seen the devastation caused by 19 men armed with knives, box cutters and boarding passes, we awakened to a possibility even more lethal. President Bush is determined to remove threats before they arrive instead of simply awaiting for another attack on our country. So America acted to end the regime of Saddam Hussein.
And in a campaign event yesterday in Salt Lake City, Utah, Cheney ridiculed Kerry’s multilateralist pretensions, reaffirming the support his administration has been getting from the “coalition of the willing.” Awkwardly, this coincided with reports that Ukraine, one of the Iraq war’s biggest supporters, is planning to pull its troops from Iraq.
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5:08 PM
Blogging from Boston: Thanks for the memories ...
The Democratic Convention might be ending tonight, but some memories will linger on …
—French Philosopher/Journalist, Bernard Henri-Levy, wandering the convention floor Wednesday just before John Edwards' speech. He wore his trademark dark suit with a white shirt, unbuttoned to his navel, exposing the fleshy dark side of French fashion.
—Chicago Seven protester Tom Hayden comparing 2004 to both 1960 (if Kerry wins) and 1968 (if Bush wins) at an anti-war rally in a church basement off Boston Common. The clouds of marijuana smoke at the building's front door seemed to augur a Bush victory.
—Tom Kuhn, an anti-war protester from Washington, D.C., who confided in me his plans to undermine the presidency of George W. Bush. A few weeks back, he rode his bike across the Potomac to the foot of the Pentagon, where he ceremonially inscribed a brass ring with the words, “Bush Uber Alles.” A friend will now walk the ring from Boston to New York between the two conventions, where Kuhn will build a small furnace out of charcoal and a car muffler to melt the ring in homage to JRR Tolkein. “This is the ring of power, the one ring, the ruling ring,” Kuhn told me. “As the ring dissolves into fire, so may the ambitions of Bush for global domination melt away.”
—John Kerry entering the FleetCenter this morning for the first time this week, scoping out the sky boxes, and testing his booming voice. Before him stood hundreds of photographers, scribblers and cameramen, waiting for a trip, a sly mutter, a gesture for the evening news. As he approached the podium, the room fell silent. “Members of the Fourth Estate,” he began. “I have called you here to tell you that your reign is over.”
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4:13 PM
George and Mike at the drive-in
President Bush is on vacation this week, and with all the hubbub in Boston, it's likely he turned off C-Span and opted for dinner and a movie last night. Several hundred of his neighbors had the same idea, only their documentaryfilm of choice was Fahrenheit 9/11. Michael Moore's exercise in no-holds-barred Bush-bashing shown last night on a large outdoor screen set up in a Crawford parking lot just 7 miles from Bush's ranch. Moore was kind enough to extend an invitation to Bush; but the president was not among those gathered in the parking lot.
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3:50 PM
The July surprise: it just happened
Score one for the conspiracy theorists.
Pakistan announced the arrest of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani today, just a few hours before John Kerry gives his acceptance speech. Ghailani was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and is a suspected al-Qaida member.
The timing of the arrest seems suspicious in light of a July 29 article in The New Republic that claimed the Bush administration was pressuring Pakistan to arrest "high-value" targets before the election, and specifically during the Democratic National Convention:
"The Pakistanis 'have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must.' What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: 'The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington.' Says McCormack: 'I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July'--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston."
The Associated Press also noted that Ghailani was arrested Sunday, but Pakistan didn't make the announcement until Thursday afternoon. As blogger Joshua Micah Marshall noted:
"This is just the latest, but perhaps the most blatant, example of how this administration has placed politics and, really, political dirty tricks above national security itself, and along the way persisted in defining political deviance down until tactics we used to associate with banana republics start to seem commonplace here."
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12:40 PM
Sharpton goes off script
Anyone who saw or heard the Rev. Al Sharpton's speech last night knows he went off script. Way off script. He more than tripled his allotted time. Television pundits worried briefly that Sharpton's tangent would push back the schedule enough to cut into prime-time coverage of John Edwards (as Pat Buchanan did to George Bush in 1992), before learning that the Democrats had built-in "musical interludes" that could be shortened to make up the time.
As for the content of Sharpton's remarks, the official version of the speech was all included -- he just added quite a bit. The Associated Press published the final transcript, in which Sharpton addresses Sudan, calls for electoral votes for Washington D.C., demands new immigration policies, and takes swipes at the Bush administration. He also goes into a long and controversial response to whether Democrats take African-American votes for granted:
"It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us."
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12:24 PM
Blogging from Boston: In the cage
The enclosed "Free Speech Zone"outside the FleetCenter is, to my mind, an unintentional marvel, and one hopes Boston will see fit to preserve it. The space itself is like early Gehry: its walls are varying combinations of chain-link fence, concrete barricade, barbed-wire coil, and glass brick; its roof is a latticework of mammoth green girders, wooden planks, and six-inch industrial piping, remnants of an above-ground interstate that, owing to a decade-long, waste-plagued public-works project, now burrows underneath the city. All sky not obstructed by overpass is visible only through a black mesh net; other overhead surfaces are festooned with razor wire. The overhead latticework also slopes downward, so that to walk the length of the enclosure is to court the optical illusion that one is growing larger.
The enclosure having been boycotted by almost all actual protestors, we -- the media -- seem at most times to compose the its entire population. Camera crews run their wires through the two layers of fence, so that the camera outside can film an anchor inside or vice versa. Somber reporters with pads wander the pen, pausing to read the taped-up signs, the scrawled protestations ("Is This Free Speech?", "Pens Are For Animals"). What had been designed as a container for tumult and rage has instead become a kind of walled garden, an asphalt idyll: the most contemplative spot in a mile. Where a noisy sideshow would have been, we're left instead to ruminate over an empty cage --perhaps the most appropriate protest of all.
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11:06 AM
How much should Kerry talk about terrorism tonight?
By all accounts, Kerry is going to come out with guns blazing tonight, trying to cast himself as a capable leader in the "war on terror". But is that politically savvy? Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport suggests, based on polling data, that maybe Kerry shouldn't talk too much about terrorism.
It's counterintuitive, to be sure. But consider: In almost every recent poll, terrorism takes a clear backseat to the economy as a voter concern. It is mostly Republicans who consider terrorism a top problem anyways. Independent voters tend to worry more about the economy and health care.
Of course, Iraq is a different matter -- it's a top priority for many voters. Newport suggests that Kerry needs a "clear plan" on Iraq in order to exploit the public's disapproval over Bush's handling of Iraq. As we've noted previously, this is next to impossible -- mainly because no such plan exists. Under the circumstances, the New York Times, might have the best advice: Kerry should explain his vote for (and against) the Iraq war as clearly as possible, and hope voters understand where he's coming from. (Also, see this Salon roundtable for other fun advice for John Kerry on Iraq.)
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9:17 AM
Blogging from Boston: LaRouche for ... something!
As delegates and media poured out one entrance to the Fleet Center last night, they were serenaded by some fifteen college-aged madrigals singers, all wearing signs in support of Lyndon LaRouche. Other of his supporters were handing out thick literature -- "LaRouche's Boston Platform: A Real Democratic Platform for November 2004" -- and I asked one of them, a casually-dressed young woman with pigtails and a serene demeanor, what the music was all about. Bach, I was told. Yes, but why the singing at all? "We're all supporters of classical culture, " she explained. "The two parties want to destroy it." She offered me a copy of the platform. "All we want is a return to Hamiltonian economics!" she said, rolling her eyes. She was 22, and had been affiliated with LaRouche's organizations for three years.
I walked over by the 7-11 and skimmed through the platform in the rain. My eye was caught by a number of undeniably true assertions. "[T]he greatest threat to our nation is the hysterical denials of reality expressed by many political leaders, and within the population generally." "The delusion of prosperity is chiefly limited to the ranks of the largely suburban, upper, fabulously debt-ridden, 20% of our nation's households." "[T]he war which Vice President Cheney and British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently launched against Iraq is not "a war." Iraq had been selected, from the January 2001 beginning of the Bush 43 Administration, as an opportunistic target of choice." "The key to the cause of peace on this planet today is the establishment of a system of respectively autonomous nation-state republics .. all for the purpose of promoting the improvement of the human condition both of each nation, and of all of them, for generations yet to come." Perhaps it was just my convention fatigue, born of three days watching tens of thousands of people fuss over utter substancelessness, but I began to wonder: could I be, at heart, a LaRouchey? Was the winning Democratic platform, the real Democratic platform, being articulated not inside the FleetCenter but outside it, by this group of college students singing Bach? And didn't I, in fact, love Bach?
Only this morning could I bring myself to shatter this notion by actually reading the platform in more detail, with its warnings of "the plunge of the planet into a form of chaos akin to Europe's experience during the Fourteenth-Century New Dark Age," and its various illustrations ("Eurasia: Main Routs and Selected Secondary Routes of the Eurasian Land Bridge"). Nevertheless: couldn't some president, someday, find it in his or her heart to make LaRouche the Secretary of something? He has been consigned to the sidelines for so long.
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5:04 PM
Blogging from Boston: Dress to express
There was once -- quite recently, in fact -- a relative Golden Age of delegate self-expression, when young and old would spend their days spelling out political hopes and dreams, or even home state pride, in poster board and magic marker for the night’s events. “We brought posters with salmon and trees and wheat for the major products of Oregon,” remembers Mary Botkin, an Oregon delegate who has been coming to Democratic conventions since 1988.
No more. Signage at the 2004 Boston Democratic National Convention has been institutionalized, corporatized, bled of its individuality. Five to ten times a night, the gates of a room off the main hall open, and 60 volunteers rush 10,000 signs into the hands of the masses: preprinted signs, praising Barak Obama, or Theresa Heinz Kerry, or whoever else is speaking. Nothing exciting, nothing controversial, nothing exceptional. If you see something hand painted on TV, party bureaucrats have approved it. They call the process “visibility.”
“It gets tighter and tighter every year,” says Linda Johnson, a librarian from Oregon, who is at her third convention. But like hundreds of others, she has found a way around the new rules: She wears her colors on her t-shirt -- green, in this case, and emblazoned with the logo of her union, AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The firefighters and their supporters are wearing yellow t-shirts. The pro- choicers have magenta buttons. The anti-war folk have pink scarves and green stickers. As soon as Seattle delegate Gregg Gallo found out that he would be a delegate, he went on eBay to find a Dr. Suess Cat-in-the-Hat hat in the Rainbow colors of gay pride. “I had the idea that I wanted to get a hat just like this, although I didn’t know it existed,” he said. He had to bid against one other connoisseur of gay pride paraphernalia on eBay, and the other fellow stopped bidding when Gallo send him an email explaining he would use the hat on national television.
Jim Patter, a delegate from Cotopaxi, Colorado, a town of 60, may have pushed the freedom of delegates to dress themselves too far. This morning he went to a nearby drug store and purchased a red paper bag. He now wears it as a hat, and he has covered it with a full billboard’s worth of political protest: “Kucinich says: No War No Occupation No NAFTA No WTO.” “I thought I better bring something to go with my vote,” Patter said. No news yet of any party plans for a delegate dress code.
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2:46 PM
What the convention needs: more cartoons!
Ah, the mind of an undecided voter: so conflicted, so angst-ridden, so overburdened with pitches from two equally compelling candidates. Or maybe, as it turns out, just really into cartoons. A new Adweek survey uncovers some surprising stuff about the folks "who will decide the election":
Undecided voters are particularly drawn to cartoons, talk shows and certain TV programs, including My Wife & Kids, CSI: Miami and the reality shows Fear Factor and Big Brother. They are less likely to be found watching dramas or news.
It makes you wonder whether the Dems even need this sweet and syrupy convention that will -- supposedly -- allay independent-voter fears. Maybe they really need more hard-hitting programming to attract the CSI set! Or, well, cartoons. Along similar lines, see Jonathan Chait's case for a more "negative" convention, over at The New Republic.
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1:02 PM
Liberal lions and outspoken wives
Given the dearth of news being committed at the Democratic National Convention, it makes sense to see media covering the same basic stories. But do they have to keep using the same cliches?
Take coverage of Ted Kennedy's Tuesday night speech. The senior senator from Massachusetts was described as a "liberal lion" by a range of sources, a partial list including AFP, the Associated Press, USA Today, the London Independent and the New York Times.
Similarly, Teresa Heinz Kerry isn't just John Kerry's wife in Wednesday's coverage. She's his "outspoken" wife to more than 20 publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Orlando Sentinel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Montreal Gazette, the New York Times and the American Prospect. Oddly, none of them used that same adjective to describe Kennedy or Howard Dean in their coverage ...
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1:00 PM
Blogging from Boston: What the hell are you doing here?
Consider the pathos of this situation: 15,000 credentialed journalists, mostly in one building, covering an event—the nomination of the Democratic candidate for president—that actually happened about six months ago. What are all those poor scribes, boom operators, cameramen, and producers to do?
One word: Omorosa.
The losing wanna-be Trump Apprentice appeared like royalty on the convention floor Wednesday afternoon, drawing a sudden media scrum that peaked at five fuzzy boom mics and a couple dozen representatives of the fourth estate. If you didn’t know, she’s more than just an inept reality show contestant: She used to work in the White House for Clinton and Gore. She’s now a political consultant in Washington D.C. She doesn’t even need to wear a pass to get on the convention floor. We leaned close. She had a message. What was it? “Hey E, it’s Omorosa and welcome to the Democratic National Convention,” she told the camera. Someone asked her to compare the current non-event to the last two Democratic conventions in Los Angeles and Chicago. “There’s something that is different here in Boston,” she said. “There is a lot more substantial feel.”
She wasn’t the only American on the FleetCenter floor bringing substance to the Democratic process. Joe Scarborough preened in the corner, and James Carville came out in the hopes that someone would interview him. The Black Eyed Peas took the stage to do their sound-check for their post-Edwards-speech finale tonight. They will sing that anthem of the NBA finals, "Let’s Get It Started." This created two bits of news (as convention news goes): The group will only lipsync part of the song—mostly the wailing intro by Fergie, the flat-bellied backup singer, who probably does not want to risk the high notes on live TV. Also, tonight’s Peas performance will mark the first time in the history of our republic that a national party convention audience has been instructed to "“get stutted, get stupid."
The only news organization that really knows how to report on such silliness is Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Correspondent Samantha Bee was on the floor, probing deep. She pulled aside Patrick Stinson, the correspondent for E News who had helped instigate the Omorosa press conference. “What’s your strategy for keeping your foundation so fresh?” she asked, starting slow. “I powder every now and then,” he replied. Then she moved in for the kill. “Let me ask you this,” she said, pausing a beat. “What the hell are you doing here?”
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11:28 AM
Kerry campaign to go dark: we hope he knows what he's doing ...
I've heard more than a few pundits wonder whether Kerry does better when he's out of the spotlight. That is, the less people know about him the better. Well, the campaign is about to put that theory to the test, planning to "go dark" for the month of August, according to the Financial Times:
John Kerry's election team is to suspend advertising during August, opening itself to what it expects will be a barrage of attacks from the Bush-Cheney campaign.After a debate with his senior advisers, Mr Kerry has opted to "go dark" in the weeks after the Democratic National Convention to conserve limited federal funds for the weeks immediately before the November 2 election.
Like we needed more reason to make this race a nail-biter. Either Kerry is predicting that the 527s will pick up the slack, or he's hoping that everyone will be watching the Olympics. Or maybe he remembers that Bush's spring ad blitz, the largest in history, barely made a dent in the poll numbers. Or maybe… well, I don't know what he's thinking. But it's big news.
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10:17 AM
Blogging from Boston: (not so) "special guest"
After the final song of the Black Eyed Peas' set, "Let's Get It Started" -- the original version of the song, entitled "Let's Get Retarded," having perhaps been deemed too offensive to the Democrats' disabled bloc -- a disembodied voice announced that a "special guest" would be coming to the stage. At Democratic convention events, the words "special guest" always elicit palpable excitement from crowds, and justifiably so: what with all the A-list Hollywood liberals in town, a "special guest" typically is in possession of a platinum album or an eight-figure movie deal.
The room quickly deflated, however, as the emcee continued: "He's a huge Black Eyed Peas fan -- and the greatest chairman in the history of the Democratic Party!" Alas, the special guest was not so special after all. "Who's the greatest band in America?" Terry McAuliffe bellowed. "The Black Eyed Peas!" He waved the group's frontman, Will.I.Am, back onstage for a hug. McAuliffe's wife, it seems, had liked the band so much at the Grammy awards that McAuliffe had made some calls, people had talked to people, and soon enough the band was slated to play at the Fleet Center -- tonight -- for the assembled Democrat delegates.
McAuliffe himself had two "special guests" to bring onstage: John Kerry's stepson Chris Heinz and, incongruously enough, Tom DeLong from the band Blink-182. "The only thing I have to say is: I'm in a suit, and you should be thankful for that shit," DeLong said, to a club full of people in suits.
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6:29 PM
Blogging from Boston: Breaux's Beach Bash
Despite much finagling throughout the day on my part, I'm sad to report that I've been unable to gain access to the the 2004 Caribbean Beach Bash and Treasure Hunt, presently underway at the New England Aquarium. The event, held in the honor of Senator John Breaux (D., La.), raises many obvious questions, which I will try to answer in turn for you here.
The first question regards the length of the event’s name. This was cleared up for me as soon as I arrived: it was necessary to accommodate the logos of the event’s nearly twenty corporate sponsors -- among them GM, Lilly, Pfizer, PhRMA, Altria, AmGen, AstraZeneca, Citgo, SBC, Northrop Grumman, and the American Chemistry Council -- which had to fit across the top and bottom of the entranceway banner. The second question, as to what treasure would be hunted (and presumably found) during the course of the event, remains unanswered. A “treasure map” was provided to the attendees inside their programs, one of which a helpful Louisiana delegate did share with me. But the map was only metaphorical, tracing (best I could tell) only the different stations that could be visited inside the Aquarium pavilion. The name of the second of these stations -- “Breaux’s Beers Bait Balls Bikini Bistro Bash on the Beach 2004” -- presumably would have been adopted as the entire event’s name, had the additional twenty sponsors come through.
The third and most vexing question involves the Aquarium’s fish, and their possible fate at the hands of hundreds of increasingly drunken Democrats with a newly-whetted taste for Caribbean food. I tracked down some event personnel and put the question to them point blank: wasn’t it quite possible that, as the evening progressed, Aquarium fish would be wrested from their tanks, slavered up with Caribbean seasonings, and sauteed on the spot for the guests’ delectation? They assured me not.
What, I asked, if Senator Breaux were personally to demand it?
On this point, they seemed far less certain.
At 7 p.m. precisely, the event got under way, and the steel-drum band struck up an island rendition of “The Sound of Silence.”
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5:22 PM
Trippi out in the cold
How hard is to squeeze into the Fleet Center? Pretty hard, apparently. Joe Trippi, our favorite campaign guru, has been wandering around Boston for three days now, unable to get in to the big show, reduced to scrounging under park benches for a press credential. Someone let this guy in! Don't you know who he is? He's a visionary! Here's Trippi gnashing his teeth on MSNBC:
I mean I know I wasn't on the winning team but you would think I could at least get into the big house and wander around the nosebleed section. Nada nothing. I can't get a credential from the DNC, the Kerry Campaign or even my friends - that's how hot a ticket into the place is.
So then I wander from my Hardblogger work place and plead with Slavemaster Phil (the crazed Yankee fan who is mourning three straight Red Sox victories and taking it all out on me) for a MSNBC credential and the man just looks at me and cackles. There are no MSNBC credentials left! Hell even the bloggers have credentials... but not this one!
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5:22 PM
(Really) spoiling the party
Nobody beholding Al Gore at the podium last night could help but lament the of the dire, unintended consequences of third party insurgencies in the U.S. presidential elections. Humorous as it was (now he decides to be likable!) Gore's speech must have further stoked Democratic anger toward Ralph Nader. It's a wonder, then, that Nader wants to throw himself into a FleetCenter full of angry Democrats ready to eat him alive. As Nader told CBS News:
"I would like to see the bazaar. I'd like to see the alcoholic-musical-political payoff bazaar of accounts receivable. I would like to be there at the convention to watch. I will try to get credentials… I may try as a syndicated columnist, which I've been for 35 years. Let's see if they are against reporters."
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5:13 PM
Trade Winds
Other than a brief flap over outsourcing, we haven't heard a whole lot about trade policy in this campaign. That may soon change, either during or after the convention. Today the Washington Post editorial page attacks John Kerry's stance on trade, worrying that he'll abandon his erstwhile support for NAFTA and other free trade measures.
Free trade Democrats will no doubt respond that Kerry has free-marketers like Gene Sperling and Robert Rubin in his economic team. On the other hand, Michael Crowley, reporting for The New Republic, hears that the party may soon ramp up the sour-on-trade rhetoric:
When I asked a Democratic speechwriter about it last night, he told me that with polls showing economic-competition issues like outsourcing to be "off the charts," as the campaign progresses "there's going to be a lot more of that [anti-globalization sentiment]."
My best guess: Like it or not, a Kerry presidency would almost certainly backtrack on trade. Some of the policies in the Democratic platform -- forcing China to devalue the yuan, unilaterally reviewing trade treaties -- are economically so silly that they'll never make it out of the gate. Plus, resistance to globalization has usually been a function of the economy -- with a recovery in swing, we'll likely see less sympathy for tariffs and other such measures. (Not to mention that Democratic free-trade initiatives will always encounter less political resistance than Republican ones.) Of course, it would be nice if the Democrats sat down and drew up a smart, non-reactionary plan to deal with outsourcing, but now's not really the time to do it.
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1:35 PM
Photo Opportunism and the Dukakis curse
Michael Dukakis is a notable absentee from the Democratic convention (which, after all, is happening in his hometown). But Republicans are still trying to invoke his failed presidential campaign to their advantage.
The Associated Press reports today that GOP operatives are handing out photos of John Kerry "clad in a hooded blue anti-contamination suit as he climbed out of a NASA space shuttle orbiter" during a campaign stop. The AP draws the obvious parallel with 1988, when George H.W. Bush's campaign used a photo of Dukakis -- looking goofy while riding in a tank -- to great effect.
Then again, given the availability of a ready comeback for the Dems -- Bush in Top Gun outfit committing hubris -- the GOP might be wise not to press this tactic too far.
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11:10 AM
The media coverage: too harsh? Really?
Will the (liberal?) media sink the Democrats? Over at Salon, Eric Boehlert has some harsh words for the negative slant TV coverage has thus far given the convention:
Naturally, convention coverage is going to be stacked with partisan rhetoric, as the pundits fill air time with talk and more talk. And it's only natural for Kerry's critics to be given a chance to air their side during the Democrats' party in Boston. But it was strange, during Monday's first, news-free day of convention coverage, how often television anchors and reporters effortlessly adapted the Republican talking points about the Kerry campaign and supposed divisions within the Democratic Party.
Boehlert has lots of evidence, too. The surprising thing, though, is how light all the criticism has been. Now, of course reporters are going to play up party divisions and conflicts -- how else are they going to make this thing exciting? At the same time, it's probably a good thing that the worst slant Chris Matthews can come up with is this: "If the Clintons come back with all their baggage [tonight], is that a good sell for the Democrats tonight?" Ask Al Gore--who got pummelled by the media in 2000--if he thinks that's harsh.
The Kerry campaign seems to have learned a key lesson: if you keep things scripted and saccharine, the media attack dogs just get bored and go away after awhile. Even the staunchest rightwing pundits couldn't find it in them to foam up over Bill Clinton's smart yet uncontroversial speech. A historic moment, no doubt.
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9:50 AM
Blogging from Boston: The view from Section 328
I watched Bill Clinton address the convention last night from literally the worst seat in the Fleet Center. Those of us in the no-account press have been consigned to Section 328, the uppermost, farthest-clockwise region of seats, situating us nearly behind the stage and seemingly a mile above it. Indeed, the convention from Section 328 is like an overcast day from a jet window. Banks of overhead lights form a thick dark plain parked in the middle of the field of vision. Above this, hundreds of black electrical tendrils snake to the ceiling, disappearing into ominous mesh intestines of red and blue balloons, which will be disgorged on Thursday night to the surprise of no one; least of all to the occupants of Section 328, for whom the disgorgement will appear not as a festive falling from overhead but as a dumping-upon in the near distance.
The Fleet Center’s PA system having been deployed in such a way as to carry the sound everywhere in the building except to Section 328, the actual words of the former president were difficult to make out; but this, if anything, made the experience all the more pleasurable. Whenever he elicited the crowd’s slavering enthusiasm, which was often, all consonants disappeared and we were left with just the musical notes, that distinctive yokel lilt, underpinned by thumps at the podium top: “waah waah waah WAH (thump) wah WAH (thump) wah WAH (thump) (bloodthirsty cheer)." At times even Section 328 jumped to its feet, though it always took care to reseat itself quickly, not out of any professional self-consciousness but rather out of a desire to again see the former president’s head -- its back, anyway -- which, when we stood, became obscured by the lowermost row of lights.
The next and final performer, Patti Labelle, was unmoored from the podium, and so could prowl the precincts of the stage more visible to us; but by her first chorus Section 328 was empty.
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7:40 PM
Blogging from Boston: Where have all the Actual Young People gone?
Because it’s an election year, MTV is trying to do good, a sort of penance for all those years of teaching kids that the Real World could be found in a piece of furniture. “Choose or lose,” its video jockeys tell the kids. “Rock the Vote.” To reward MTV's latest contribution to American Democracy, both political parties have carved out prime-time slots for an Actual Young Person to “Stand Up and Holler” at the convention. So came Michael Negron, 24, of Memphis, Tenn., to the podium tonight, the winner--selected, in part, by visitors to the MTV website--of a nationwide essay contest.
“Elections are about the future,” he began, looking young but sounding old and boring, as if his 300 words had been workshopped over by every blue-blazered speechwriter at the DNC. “Yet our generation, heirs to the world that our leaders will leave behind, too often opts out and sits on the sidelines as politicians make decisions that affect our lives.” Amazingly, it seems, MTV had scoured the country for an Actual Young Person and found one devoid of ... youth.
Not even the young delegates were buying it. “This is the wrong way to deal with youth,” said Chris Karnes, a Dennis Kucinich delegate from Tacoma, Washington. “It’s demeaning.” At 19, Karns wears a goatee and leather sandals, and had one of the best seats in the house, twenty feet from the stage. He was a welcome antidote to Negron: he’d been working for Dennis Kucinich for months because he disagreed with the Iraq war, because his city needed $700 million in infrastructure investment, and because he believed in the progressive heart of the Democratic Party. He had helped organize his caucus, then his county, then his state. He was in Boston because he had earned it, and he knew a snowjob when he saw it. “Where are the youth?” Karnes said, glancing around the hall at the delegates, few of whom paid much mind to the prize winner on stage. “Where are the youth?”
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5:32 PM
Kerry: not in my front yard!
The past 24 hours have brought some good news for John Kerry vis a vis protests. First, a settlement between Boston and its firefighters ensured convention delegates wouldn't need to cross picket lines. Then, a judge ruled Monday that anti-abortion groups can't demonstrate in front of Kerry's house.
The Secret Service requested that the city revoke the permits for a protest at Kerry's Beacon Hill home. Judge Nathaniel Gorton ruled Monday against the protesters' appeal:
"I'm not going to second-guess the Secret Service's idea of how they feel they need to protect a presidential candidate."
Rev. Pat Mahoney, director of one of the anti-abortion groups, said the group will probably not appeal the decision, but took the judgment to task:
"The Democratic National Convention should be welcoming free speech, not crushing it. It is clear regardless of whatever one's political views are, the First Amendment is not welcome here in Boston during the Democratic National Convention."
Mahoney conveniently left out the part where the judge offered protestors another location near Kerry's home, which they turned down.
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4:56 PM
Blogging from Boston: Life in the Media Hospitality Lounge is grand
Dear Reader: Have you ever been in a tent with a second floor? Had you ever imagined that such a thing could be? No? Well: in point of fact, I am writing to you from the second floor of a tent right now. As a member of the media, I am at present enjoying the considerable favors of the convention's Media Hospitality Lounge, on the second floor of the mammoth, air-conditioned, metal-beam-reinforced media tent adjoining the Fleet Center. On this floor and the floor below, the large media organizations have set up elaborate makeshift offices to accommodate their onsite reporters and staff.
The Lounge is sponsored by BellSouth, the telecommunications carrier. The laminated card I possess says "Special Guest: Media Hospitality Lounge," with a small BellSouth logo in the corner. This card entitles me not only to enter but to consume the free sausages and Budweiser offered therein. BellSouth has given more than $1 million this year to political campaigns, though most of it (58 percent) has accrued to Republicans. Another sausage? On BellSouth? Sure!
Unlike the Press Filing Center in the Fleet Center itself, the Media Hospitality Lounge has an electrical outlet where I can plug in my laptop. And as for Internet access, I have plenty of media organizations' Wi-Fi outlets from which to choose. To send this blog entry, first I tried Time's wireless connection, but no luck: it was password protected. Next I tried the Washington Post, but was again rebuffed. Thankfully, I did find one media organization that had neglected to protect its wireless: The National Review, on whose bandwidth charges I bring this report to you now. Many thanks to Bill Buckley & Co.
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4:08 PM
Kerry: the conservative case (!)
Caught up, no doubt, in all the convention furor, big-time conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan has decided to make the conservative case for John Kerry. Let's hope Sullivan wins some hearts and minds! As for his actual argument, we get the usual gripes: Bush's chaotic nation-building record, his divisive demeanor, his prodigal ways on matters budgetary. Meanwhile, according to Sullivan, John Kerry is turning out to be the true conservative:
[Kerry's] basic message to Americans is: let's return to normalcy. The radicalism of the past four years needs tempering. We need to consolidate the nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, before any new adventures against, say, Iran. …. At home, we need to restrain the unruly theocratic impulses now unleashed by the Republicans. We must balance the budget again. We need to redress some of the social and economic inequality that has so intensified these past few years.
Of course, the angry hordes have already turned on Sullivan, but let's face it: he has a point. Even if Kerry is elected, he'll be presiding over a Republican Congress. Modest, incremental change will be the order of the day. In a sense, Ralph Nader has it right: this election isn't really a glaring choice between liberal and conservative. (Not that Nader could handle Tom DeLay any better, but okay...) But the election is a clear choice between reason and recklessness. Give Sullivan credit, at least, for knowing which option to choose.
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2:35 PM
Blogging from Boston: America 2004?
Aesthetically speaking, Boston under Democratic occupation shares many of the distasteful aspects of the world’s more permanent autocracies, but with disappointingly few of their pleasures. There are, to be sure, the endless perimeters of dusty black metal barricades, under the two levels of blockaded highway overpass, atop which camouflage-hatted servicemen periscope abandoned streets with binoculars. There are the block-long phalanxes of state cruisers, coasting silently down empty avenues. There are even the hundreds of adherents of Falun Gong in yellow T-shirts and white sun hats, blanketing the lawn of Copley Square like dandelions with promotional literature. But where, I ask, are the rousing speeches over loudspeakers? The regimental bands? The large and stylish portraits?
Rather than banners displaying the face of the presumptive nominee -- notably absent, perhaps due to their prohibitive length -- we instead are confronted everywhere by the Convention logo, which readers can see here atop the gathering’s official website. It is an uninspired and inoffensive little thing, design-wise, but what bewilders is the convention’s official name: “America 2004.” What could that possibly mean? And through what unprecendentedly lazy creative process did such a name come into being? It's hard not to imagine a group of DNC marketeers in a conference room, throwing into their brainstorming sesh a series of ever more general names -- “America Working Again 2004,” “America Prospering 2004,” “American Pride 2004” -- until one slick individual, seeing where the whole thing is inevitably headed but not quite believing that it could actually come to pass, finally ventures it (“America 2004... ?”), at which point everyone bellows and high-fives one another and heads out for vodka drinks.
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1:12 PM
Aljazeera at the convention
Among the (too) many media outlets at the FleetCenter in Boston covering the Democratic National Convention is Aljazeera, the Arabic satellite news outfit that enrages U.S. and Arab governments equally. But unlike other networks, Aljazeera had its logotype banner abruptly removed from its skybox at the convention and replaced with a Kerry campaign slogan "Strong for America." Aljazeera's Washington bureau chief Hafiz al-Mirazi says that the network was unfairly singled out and has yet to get a straight answer from the Democrats on the matter:
"We contacted the Democratic National Convention and the people who are organizing the convention. And then they said it has been removed, maybe for lack of enough space or something like that, although they approved originally the sign and everything on it. And every time we get different answers. And finally, they said, 'Sorry, we cannot put it back. And it's the only news organization sign that was taken."
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9:10 AM
The convention price tag
Party conventions don't come cheap. To take just the one going on right now, you're looking at $3.5 million for the lease of the Fleet Center, according to the Boston Globe. Then there's $3.4 million for "construction and set design." Throw in nearly $6 million for computers and technology (including 4,000 miles of phone lines), and $1.2 million just for cab and limo drivers serving the convention to get background checks. And we haven't even gotten to the parties (there's a reason these things are called "party conventions."): $2.1 million. Throw in a bunch of other costs and you've got, for the Democratic Convention this week, a grand total of around $39 million. (And by the way, the Republican Convention in New York will cost way more than that: $63 million.)
So where's the money coming from? Well, the federal government chips in $15 million. The rest--you guessed it--comes mostly from corporate donors. PolticalMoneyLine has a (partial) list of the givers to the Democratic Convention, here . It includes AT&T ($500,000), Bristol Myers ($250,000), and Dunkin Donuts ($250,000). Not mentioned there, but noted by AP, Altria (formerly Philip Morris) has chipped in at least $100,000, and several companies--including the defense contractor Raytheon--have given more than $1 million to the convention's host committee.
Why give? Here's the Center for Responsive Politics:
Convention donors disagree with the notion that their contributions are intended to enhance their political influence. Microsoft spokeswoman Ginny Terzano said the company chose to give because of its role as a leading global software provider. [Microsoft donated nearly $1 million in software and computer support to the Democratic convention.]... "We really do see these [convention] efforts as a way to support our country’s democratic process," Terzano said. "We see technology as playing an important part in the elections process."
But then again:
One group that won’t likely be giving in-kind donations is the Altria Group. The parent company of Philip Morris and Kraft Foods is the tobacco industry’s biggest political contributor and a double donor. The company, which gave at least $100,000 to the Boston host committee, is a major supporter of a bill that includes a $12 billion buyout of tobacco farmers over 10 years. The bill also would give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products.
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