Here’s the link to the article I did for July’s edition of The National Networker. I interviewed Will Fogel of Unity ‘08. It was a nice interview and I felt gave some good insight into the organization. Enjoy.
I heard there was a live earth concert yesterday that attracted a large number of people to watch it. I, of course didn’t see it. I was busy doing something useful - moving furnature around the house to rearrange space, and give my 5 month old son his own bedroom.
It is my understanding that this concert was one of those “save the ______” concerts - fill in the blank with your favorite cause/crisis, hold a concert to show you care and then everyone goes back to living their lives and the people who put it on feel important because they did something about the problem. Here’s the problem with these things - how many people watched it because they really, truly, deep down in their heart were concerned about the climate and were hell-bent on doing something about it? How many of the people watched the concert because of the bands that were playing and while they “care” about the planet, they don’t care enough to do more than watch the concert.
Rich Galen wrote about the event on his Mullings enewsletter. He said that the biggest push that the concert made was to get everyone to go change their lightbulbs. Yippee!!! I wonder how many people went out an got new lightbulbs. Here’s the thing - I doubt many people did, or will, especially long term, because a lightbulb just isn’t worth people’s time. The only reason I think about a lightbulb is when one blows out and I have to change it, otherwise, I could care less about it. If you want to get people to do something, and make it appear like it’s something worth while, I like Rich Galen’s idea - go plant a tree. That’s an investment, not something you do because of an inconvenience of a blown lightbulb. And it actually makes some difference. Yeah, yeah, the whole CO2 thing. But really, planting a tree has more to do with enhancing the beauty around you and life around you. A tree is alive, a lightbulb isn’t. Because of a tree, you have the potential for other living things to call the tree home. What do you have with a lightbulb - just light.
Help me out with this. We’ve had a budget impass for six days now. I’m not exactly sure how it has affected me. I don’t feel any effects of the impass. In fact, life is pretty good. I’m always amused by the wording of the budget crisis. First off, is it really a crisis? If it were, why am I not concerned - and from what I can tell, the vast majority of the population couldn’t care less either. The budget is going to be late, it’s always late. Maybe if the legislature didn’t waste time at the beginning of the year on riduclous legislation, it would have had more time to work on the budget and get something passed in time. Of course Rendell wants an increase in spending and taxes - He’s wanted that since he first came into office.
The big stink right now is about the unnecessary employees - or “unessential personnel” as they are stated in the press. If they are so unessential, why do their jobs exist in the first place. Why is the government hiring people to fill unnecessary positions? I think it’s a legitimate question and I would like an answer. How would you like to be one of those “unessential” employees. I wonder how that makes you feel. Not only do we have people in jobs that aren’t necessary, but now we’ve just made them depressed by telling them that they don’t matter when it comes down to it. Way to raise the moral there. No wonder people think government’s version of customer service stinks.
I woke up this morning to learn that the D’s had another presidential candidates’ event. I had no clue, nor did I care. I would guess that atleast 99% of the population doesn’t care either. It’s definately not because I don’t care about policy, politics, etc. I’m a political junkie. How many debates have their been so far, something line a dozen between the D’s and the R’s. Guess how many I’ve seen - zero. I couldn’t care less what the candidates have to say at this point for one good reason - it’s way too early. People want a break from the endless cycle of politics and so do I. I think people are tired of politics and campaigning. I think people don’t like stepping out of the voting booth and being immediately innundated with campaigning. That’s what our political system has become. It reminds me very much of Christmas. It’s getting ridiculous. The Christmas decorations are going up before Halloween in some stores. I’m already sick of Christmas before we even get to Thanksgiving. The same goes for political campaigns lately.
I’ll start to care about the presidential race once we start to see people drop out of the race and the serious contenders actually start saying things the come close to mattering. Even then, it may be a stretch for me to say that I’ll care yet.
Here’s the big reason I haven’t had an interest in presidential debates - they aren’t debates. They are one 30-second sound bite after another. How can you possibly debate anything between 10 people when each person gets about a minute to answer a question about immigration, social security, war, etc. These are serious issues and to give someone a minute or two to discuss what they would do about it is insulting to the viewers. We’ve spent how many decades and trillions of dollars on the war on poverty, why would we expect anyone to come up with an answer to poverty in 1 minute.
The second reason I haven’t had a lick of interest in the debates is that there are too many. When you have too much of your favorite flavor of ice cream, do you want any more of it when someone brings it to you - no. That’s exactly what is happening with these debates. There are so many, that they are no longer special or meaningful.
The reason I haven’t posted anything for the last 10 days is because I haven’t felt there was anything worth posting. Nothing has inspired me to write a post on the blog. We are in the summer months, so nothing unusual or exciting is happening that is worth my commenting on.
Yeah, yeah, the PA budget battle is going on. Beyond these few words - who cares - what more do I need to write. Voters don’t trust any of the legislators, so they think they are going to get screwed no matter how the budget comes out. I can’t blame them much frankly.
Yeah, yeah, a new presidential poll is out. Again, who cares. These polls are out so far that they don’t even matter - not even close. These are polls for PA. I suspect we will know who our nominee will be by the time PA has a chance to make its voice heard in a primary. So based on that, who cares who leads who? I’ve already seen the spin on the chat pages and that’s all it is - spin. Two days from now, the spinners will be spinning something new that could be in a complete contradiction of what they just wrote today.
A friend of mine sent me a video of Al Gore’s criticism of the Bush’s administration policies towards Iraq.
Once you’ve seen it, you’ll probably say that I’ve mislead you - that’s ok, and understandable. Oh how a good 15 years changes someone’s opinion about a country and what it’s leadership does to its people.
US Rep. Todd Platts, R-19, has been actively in the news recently. First as a supporter of the Stem Cell bill and second for his bill to increase the CAFE standards. Back in January I saw an article about his thoughts about the Dem controlled House.
There have been plenty of rumors going around - just read Grassrootspa’s comment sections for those.
Here’s a guy who is typically pretty quiet when it comes to the media. He doesn’t usually say much, and when he does it is usually about a recent trip to Iraq to visit the troops - all nice stuff to use in the next campaign.
I would suspect the reason he stays quiet is because his voting record doesn’t correspond too well with the district. This is one of the most conservative districts in the country and as one person put it, Platts votes like Specter. I wouldn’t say he’s as far to the left as Specter, but with a Democrat controlled House, he certainly is showing that he is a moderate.
Platts is a big supporter of Campaign Finance Reform and Sen. McCain. He supported the Stem Cell bill. He’s a supporter of government mandates CAFE standards. When he was in the State House he was not pro-life. He garners the support of teachers unions each election.
There’s more, but the real point of this post is simply to ask the question - what’s up with Platts garnering attention? It’s very unlike him and his style - atleast the type of attention he is used to - all happy non-divisive press.
Maybe he got word of a strong candidate running against him next year. Maybe he is gearing up for a run for Specter’s seat. Or maybe he’s attempting to be important since the US House is so closely divided. He can be a moderate vote and get a few things he wants. I’m not really sure, but I am sure we’ll find out soon enough.
Matt Miller of the Patriot News also did an article on the Keep the Team effort to change the Cumberland County Republican Committee.
The biggest thing I take away from this article is the change in tone that GOP Chair Vic Stabile has in this article:
“The fact that a group of people is energized and has become part of the democratic process is good for us,” he said. “I could do without the attacks and the angst, but in the larger sense, it’s good.”
That’s a complete 360 degree turn from previous statements mad eby Stabile. Either figured out that the writing is on the wall and that his head will be rolling, or someone told him that his candidate lost, or something happened that brought about a change of heart.
The kids playing in the Cumberland County Republican Committee sandbox are whining because they aren’t getting their way. That’s what all the fuss that Chairman Stabile is raising reminds me of. My 4 and 2 year olds have better manners.
The Sentinel did an article on the changes that Commissioners Barclay and Eichelberger, along with the Keep the Team Committee, are going to be pushing. Here’s the thing, when you win an election, or as John Hilton of the Sentinel so eloquently put it, “trounce” your opposition, it means you have a mandate from the people. That mandate means the Republican voters are sick of the way the Committee leadership is doing it’s job and they want a change.
This is no different than what the voters told the legislature following the pay raise fiasco. The legislature still doesn’t get it and they will continue to pay the price until significant changes are made. The committee will pay the price in this case, by being rendered completely irrelevent to the election process - or worse, start losing big races.
Here’s the other thing I take away from the article - Stabile’s words:
“It’s not the first time we’ve had to deal with opposition or with people who disagree with us,” says Stabile, chairman since 2000.
That should be a good sign that there are big problems with the leadership of the committee. In 2001, Denny Lebo beat the endorsed candidate for County Cleark of Courts. In 2002, Stabile was called on to resign by State Rep. Will Gabig during a congressional primary race. That’s only two years after Stabile took over. That disagreement subsided. Then the committee showed how weak and worthless it was in 2005 in the Carlisle DJ race, losing to a Democrat by 2 votes. Of course one could argue that the county committee doesn’t get involved in local races, but still, if they did a little work, they could have won - the Democrat committee got involved, worked hard and it paid off. Now the 2007 primary trouncing in the commissioners’ race.
Just to be fair, I should let everyone one that I was involved in the last three of these races mentioned above, so yes, I’ve been a thorn in the side of the committee leadership for several years now. Or as I like to point out, I’ve been talking about the problems with the Committee leadership for several years now. I’m thrilled that others are starting to see the problems.
US House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-OH gets a big thumbs up from me today. He’s gathering a group of Reps and confidants together to work on rebranding the GOP. This is long overdue and I commend Rep. Boehner for his efforts. To many people this is a wasteful exercise. What Boehner is doing though is no different than what any successful business does - get focused, develop their brand and work out a plan to sell the brand. Rep. Boehner is taking a business approach to politics.
Don’t expect immediate results though - branding takes time. There are two ways to sell something. You can sell a large quantity of something and recognize that next year you could be selling something different. This produces short term gains and you have to hope that the next short term gain is significant. A lot of businesses build themselves on this model.
The other way to build a business is by developing and building a brand. This takes a lot longer. When you begin your brand development, you don’t get much response or much success. But once people identify with the brand, they become loyal customers who come back for more. This is very much a long term strategy.
What Boehner is doing is going for the long term strategy. Don’t expect to see results of this rebranding effort during the next election cycle or even the cyle after that - which means that if everyone who drives the GOP gets on board with the branding method and sticks with it through the difficult times, we can start to see some results of their efforts in time for the 2012 election cycle. Alot of that depends on the presidential election too though. If Democrats win in 2008, then the GOP can continue in its efforts to rebrand. If the GOP wins the White House in 08, then Republicans will have thier brand as determined by the President.