Things I Don’t Like About Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

I’ve been doing enough bitching and moaning about how Hillary Clinton’s campaign hasn’t been doing enough to court social media. So I thought I’d just come out and make a list of all the things she needs to do to improve her campaign online.

1. Make all Hillcasts embeddable. — Making them downloadable as high-res Quicktime files was a good first step, but given your propensity for retaining control of the conversation, I would think that you’d want to centralize access to the files. If you’re worried about bandwidth, invest in bigger servers. You’re going to need them anyway.
2. Enable trackbacks on your blog. — Sure, I’ll leave a comment from time to time, but often what I was originally going to say to respond to your post turns into a blog post of my own. Make it easy for me to post on my blog, link in, and let you know that I’ve said something about you. If you rolled your own platform — and it looks like you did — consider switching to Wordpress, or if you’re looking for something more enterprise-oriented, Blogtronix or Expression Engine. All three platforms accept trackbacks and kick some serious ass in general.
3. Don’t require me to be a member of “Team Hillary” to post a comment. — I’m not sure I support you yet. So far, I like what you have to say, but I’m still on the fence, mostly because I’m not sure I trust you. You’re only going to get hardcore supporters to read and comment on your blog if you automatically sign them up for your campaign/fundraising team when they really just want to leave a comment. If you care about the conversation as much as you say you do, you should open the doors wider and allow people to leave comments without setting up an account. You can still retain complete control over spam (Akismet) and moderate all comments before they appear.
4. Start leaving video comments on other people’s blogs. — I haven’t heard of a single person who has actually heard from you or any of your campaign staff reaching out to engage with other people on other websites. You should start posting some video responses on YouTube. That will really get the conversation going.
5. Don’t be so scripted on camera. — All of your Hillcasts are done with professional makeup, lighting and sets. Get out from behind that stylized desk and take us for a walk around your campaign headquarters. Walk down the street with a camera guy and ask regular Americans what they care about. Answer their questions off the cuff and on the spot. You can always edit later if you’re afraid that your remarks will be taken out of context.

I’m sure there are a bunch more opinions, and I’ll offer them up in due time. But these are just a few of the ideas I have. I think I’ll probably cross-post this or some version of it to my work blog — where I talk about these things all the time — in the morning.

Senator Clinton Has Been Listening to Thomas Friedman

From her recent HillCast it’s easy to see that Senator Clinton has been listening to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman’s call for a great national effort to build a better energy future for ourselves. In his wonderful book The World is Flat, Friedman writes:

When we got hit with 9/11, it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to summon the nation to sacrifice, to address some of its pressing fiscal, energy, science and education shortfalls–all the things that we had let slide. But our president did not summon us to sacrifice. He summoned us to go shopping…

President Kennedy understood that the competition with the Soviet Union was not a space race but a science race, which was really an education race. Yet the way he chose to get Americans excited about sacrificing and buckling down to do what it took to win the Cold War–which required a large-scale push in science and engineering–was by laying out the vision of putting a man on the moon, not a missile into Moscow

If President Bush is looking for a similar legacy project, there is one just crying out–a national science initiative that would be our generation’s moon shot: a crash program for alternative energy and conservation to make America energy-independent in ten years. If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, in one fell swoop he would dry up revenue for terrorism, force Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia onto the path to reform–which they will never do with $60-a-barrel oil–strengthen the dollar, and improve his own standing in Europe by doing something huge to reduce global warming. He would also create a real magnet to inspire young people to contribute to both the war on terrorism and America’s future by again becoming scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

It sure sounds like Senator Clinton is singing his song. She even compared her energy initiative to the Apollo moonshot, which seemed like a direct hat tip to Friedman. I definitely agree with her approach to the important issues of energy independence and global warming. She wants to create a Strategic Energy Fund (SEF), and she says she can do it without raising taxes. How? Make oil companies “play or pay” by either investing in R&D for clean, renewable, home grown energy, or pay heavily out of their windfall profits into the SEF. Combined with cuts to subsidies for oil companies, she says that this policy will generate $50 billion over the next ten years. I think it’s a good idea by and large, but I do wonder whether her projections for taxes on oil companies’ windfall profits are a bit optimistic. Where is she getting $50 billion? Has anyone else backed that up?

What I like is that her approach to global warming makes as much economic sense as it does environmental sense. It treats clean energy investments as a move toward energy independence first, rather than making reduced carbon emissions all-important. It’s not that reduced carbon emissions aren’t important, but we have to balance the needs of the economy with the needs of the environment. Senator Clinton’s plan seems to make sense for both, although I’ll have to do a bit more research and hear other points of view on the issue before I decide fully. I’d love some reader input here, guys. What are your thoughts about Senator Clinton’s Strategic Energy Fund plan?

Public Citizen is Overreaching in Call for FDA Ban on Third-Gen Birth Control Pills

This morning, I recieved an e-mail from Public Citizen, a non-profit public interest group. They were asking for signatures to their petition to the FDA to ban all “third generation” birth control pills. Their main issue is that the synthetic progestin known as desogestrel — which is used in most of the newest birth control pills — doubles the risk of blood clots and strokes in women using the pill. There’s been a lot of hype around the whole thing:

Being a consumer of a third-generation birth control pill — I take Yasmin — I wanted to get more information. I called my gynecologist’s office and recieved a call back from a very nice nurse.

She told me that the risk of blood clot and stroke from the use of “second generation” birth control pills is only 10-30 per 100,000 women. Double that, and you have 20-60 per 100,000 women. “If you double the likelihood of a very rare occurence,” she explained, “it’s still a very rare occurence.”

I was also very relieved to hear that Yasmin doesn’t even have desogestrel, it has drospirenone, which is also a synthetic progestin.

Finally, she mentioned to me that the risk of blood clot and stroke during pregnancy was much higher. One study found it to be as high as 210 in 100,000 women during pregnancy and post-partum.

That’s a much greater risk than the one associated with desogestrel. I understand that its still an elevated risk, but it’s being blown way out of proportion by Public Citizen. Banning all third-generation birth control pills because some statistics demonstrated a slightly increased risk of a negative outcome would be a huge overreach on the part of the FDA. Instead, let’s just require doctors to explain the difference between desogestrel and other progestin options. I think that makes the most sense.

BTW, here is a list of the commercial birth control products that contain desogestrel:

• Desogestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol — ethinyl estradiol is the standard estrogen ingredient in all modern birth control pills
• Apri-28
• Cyclessa
• Desogen
• Kariva
• Mircette
• Ortho-Cept
• Reclipsen
• Velivet

If you’re taking any of those pills, and the slightly increased risk bothers you, you might want to think about switching.

Andru Edwards Makes My World a Funnier Place

Cute Teenage Bankrobbers

From the look of them, these cute girls who robbed a bank can’t be more than 16 or 17.

I wonder if their parents have any clue.

A Cool Conversation with a Bunch of Geeks

I sat around with Andru Edwards, Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo and my boss Steve Broback and some other cool folks in the Pirillos’ new basement to talk about what’s going on with social media and why the rest of the world should care:

I felt like I was back in college the whole time this was going on. I love sitting around yakking with really smart people about something we’re all passionate about.

Plan Your Route and Your Playlist

This whole Movetracks Google Maps + iTunes mashup looks really cool. I’m always running my iPod through the tape deck in my car because my radio antenna is broken and my CD player doesn’t work. Whoever invented the 3.5mm to cassete adapter rocks my world.

I’m going to install it on my Firefox tomorrow. I’ll let you guys know what I think of it.

Via Google Maps Mania by way of Scoble’s link blog.

Use The Force (To Run A Grocery Store)

So the other day I was thinking, what if Darth Vader had a brother named Chad. And he was a grocery store manager.

Hillary Clinton Annoys Me Further

I got an e-mail from Madeline Albright today on behalf of Senator Hillary Clinton’s increasingly annoying presidential campaign.

“I’ll never forget that moment in 1995 when I watched Hillary Clinton stand up in Beijing and declare that ‘women’s rights are human rights,’” wrote Albright. “In front of the whole world, Hillary spoke out for every woman who suffered from inequality, injustice, and repression. Every person in the hall knew she was making history. Her act of courage still reverberates through women’s lives.” [Emphasis mine.]

Excuse me? It was an act of courage for Hillary Clinton to state the obvious? It reverberates through women’s lives today? I must have been missing some serious reverberations these past twelve years. Did Hillary Clinton’s words really take as much courage as the risks that ordinary people the world over have taken to stand up against Sharia courts, female genital mutilation and other atrocities against women? Did they have as much impact?

Don’t get me wrong. I do think Hillary Clinton is a courageous woman. In fact, I really want to like and support her because it’s high time we elected a kick ass woman who knows how to get things done. I agree with her on a lot of policy decisions, but I just despise her character. I don’t think I’ve worked this hard to like any political candidate in my entire life. But she’s making it so gorram hard for me!

The hardest part to stomach is that she’s running a stilted, ass-backwards online campaign. She’s got Madeline Albright e-mailing out pablum on her behalf rather than addressing real issues. She says she wants to be “a part of the conversation”, but she’s really just broadcasting and not listening. She’s not doing what she says she’s going to do. And if she can’t do it in her own campaign, how is she going to do it as president? Not too promising.

Clinton needs to fire whatever idiot is running her online campaign right this very instant and hire Joe Trippi of Dean for America fame. Trippi really knows his shit when it comes to social media and he could give the Clinton campaign the transparency and human warmth it so desperately needs.

Wine Tasting in Grocery Stores is a Great Idea

Sometimes I get tired of drinking the same wines all the time. I’ve established that I love Bogle’s Petit Syrah and Chateau San-Michelle’s Riesling. But there are a lot of wines out there on the shelves of my grocery store, and I’ve only sampled a few dozen. I must say that I’m reluctant to buy a bottle of wine, particularly one that costs more thatn $10 a bottle, without sampling it first. That’s why I think having the occasional wine tasting in a grocery store sounds like a perfect way to open myself up to new varietals.

Sobriety advocates in Washington State disagree. They think that casual wine tasting in grocery stores could lead to underage drinking.

I call bullshit. Kids see their parents casually consuming alcohol at home. Does that make them any more likely to engage in underage drinking? I don’t know if it does or not, but you don’t hear sobriety advocates up in arms over it.

When I was a kid, my parents let me taste wine from time to time. My dad started me with a glass of wine on the Sabbath when I was 13. This has informed my attitude towards alcohol for my entire life. When I was in high school, I had nothing to rebel against. So I felt no need to get smashed at parties. And when I got to college, it took me until the end of my freshman year to drink much more than a glass of wine.

Being smart about alcohol use starts with seeing your parents be smart about alcohol use. Kids should see their parents setting a good example by placing more emphasis on the flavors of wine than the alcohol itself. That sets them up for treating wine as a culinary pleasure rather than just a way to get drunk.

Much healthier, I think.

Iraq Gets Even Worse

Every single country in our original coalition has either announced plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, or its government is under tremendous pressure to withdraw. That includes us. Today, a suicide bomber killed 40 college students, two rockets killed 10 people, and more people died in the hospital from yesterday’s bombings.

Fortunately, with the current refugee rate at 1,000 people per day and growing, and the massive troop “redeployments” on the way, pretty soon the radicals, insurgents, and terrorists won’t have any decent people left to kill that we need to feel sorry for. Unfortunately, they will be the only ones left to vote. I wonder what that Democracy will look like.

Impeaching President Bush For Being A Dick

“It’s hard for me, you know, living in this beautiful White House, to give you a firsthand assessment.” - President Bush, when asked if he believed Iraq was in a state of civil war.

Well let me clue you in there Nero. It’s not in a state of civil war.

Civil war implies that you have a small number of well-organized factions fighting over terrority or power that are centrally controlled, and that there are people who can actually stop bloodshed. Iraq is much, much, much, much worse than that. The plethora of conflicts, destruction, and total chaos that have occured make a civil war actually seem quite desirous.

Aside from the estimated 1,000 people forced to leave their house out of fear per DAY, the two most disturbing stories on Iraq I’ve ever are those of Baquba and Adhamiya.

Baquba, a year ago was doing rather well. Now it is so dominated by kidnappers, terrorists, and sectarian violence, that the streets are empty and no one leaves their homes. It has become a virtual ghost town in the course of a year. This is a town of 300,000 where the sanitation has come to a stop because the garbage collectors are too afraid to go to work.

A year ago, in Adhamiya, an explosion at a Shiite mosque caused a panic and many Shiites fell off the bridge that connects that Shiite part of the town to the Sunni part. Many Sunni men on the other side of the river jumped in a saved the lives of many Shiites. One Sunni man, Abdul-Hafal saved 5 lives before drowning trying to save a 6th. He was viewed on both sides of the river as a martyr.

Now the bridge is closed, and Abdul-Hafal is viewed on the Shiite side as a Sunni myth, who were most likely the cause of the drownings in the first place. The Sunni’s and Shiite’s trade mortar fire on a daily basis and suicide bombings in the area are commonplace.

All the while Nero fiddled.

The difference is Nero was an emperor. Bush is the President, and who have procedures for throwing him out. I know we won’t, because we’re a bunch of pussies as a country. But what we might, and should, do is override his Iraq plans congressionally, which Senator Carl “Bitch-Slap Bush” Levin is trying to.

Oh, I did manage to find some good news about Iraq though We found chemical weapons, which technically count as WMD’s, as well as the intent and potential to create and use them on the population. So the reason Bush said we should go to Iraq just received some justification.

(Unfortunately, these have only been recently created, and by insurgencents, as opposed to in 2002, and by Saddam. Oops, our bad.)

Impeaching George W. Bush

According to my sources on the left, President Bush is the most impeachable president in American history. I’m not sure whether it’s true or not. I disagree with most of the decisions he’s made in office. And I think that the way he manipulates the political process is unconscionable. But there is a line separating unconstitutional and unconscionable.

There are a lot of liberals calling for Bush’s head on a platter. But if you ask why they support impeachment, they’ll rattle off a list of their disagreements with the president. They don’t seem to understand the difference between doing something they don’t like and committing an impeachable offense.

In order to be removed from office, the Constitution says that a president must be found guilty of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” in a two-step process. Wikipedia explains that the first step, impeachment, is a bit like a grand jury handing down an indictment. This is done by the House of Representatives. The Senate must then convict the president before he can be removed from office. This second step requires a two-thirds majority, a feat that has never been accomplished in order to oust a sitting President.

Given that precedent, it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which the House votes to impeach Bush and the Senate acquits him. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what happened to President Bill Clinton in 1998. The proceedings did nothing to get President Clinton out of office, but they did create an atmosphere of deep partisan rancor that still pervates the Capitol. The echoes of the Clinton impeachment are a big part of the reason why we are discussing the similarly impotent impeachment of another president less than ten years later.

Do we really want to waste precious Congressional time with more partisan bitterness? Or should we attempt to “bind up the nation’s wounds” and work across party lines? There is much to be done. The Congress must seize back the power that was usurped from them during the first six years of the Bush administration. They must make bold strides in discovering and implementing the best policies on Iraq. They must address crucial budgetary issues and attempt to do right by the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

None of these efforts — nor the myriad others that face the Congress during their two-year stay in power — will be well served by initiating impeachment proceedings. The resulting partisanship would fester on the Hill, stagnating progress and keeping the Congress from its work.

In a perfect world, President Bush would face justice for the many things he has done wrong — and perhaps someday he shall. But liberals often forget that we do not live in a perfect world. We simply don’t have time to impeach the president. There’s too much work to be done.

Anyone Else Having “Unable to Process Submit” Errors with CoComment Installed?

I got an e-mail from Deb today letting me know that she was having trouble posting comments on my site. She was getting an “unable to process submit” message whenever she hit the “submit” button.

It turns out that when I try to post a comment on this blog in Safari, I started getting the same message. I suspected that it was CoComment so I uninstalled it and sure enough, the problem went away.

Did anyone else experience this problem in Safari? Has anyone else seen it happen on their blog?

Why Listen to Michelle Malkin?

My very intelligent reader Daniel Kirkdorffer has pointed out that Michelle Malkin’s intent in reporting on last weekend’s politically motivated assault is more about tarring the anti-war movement with a broad brush than about reporting on the facts.

Which is exactly why I linked to her in my own outraged post about the attack. If the anti-war crowd allows the pro-war crowd to have the definitive voice of outrage on this outrageous behavior, then we allow them to use it as a wedge to drive us further apart.

Instead, we should treat Andrew Stone’s unforgivable behavior as an opportunity to unify with our political opponents. We must universally assert that while we may not agree, we condemn unprovoked attacks on one another’s physical safety and well-being. A basic nationwide agreement on standards of decency and proper behavior would go a long way in turning the tone of this discussion from partisan rancor to an honest, bi-partisan effort to look for real solutions to our country’s greatest problems.

So that’s why I’m listening to Malkin. That’s why I’m linking to Malkin. I don’t like her politics, but I respect her intelligence and I respect her ability to report the facts, even if they are laced with her bias.

Fundamentalist Lefties Scare Me!

When it comes to insane behavior, the radical left is just as bad as the radical right. Case in point: the unprovoked stalking, home-invasion and assault on a college Republican by a fundamentalist lefty who found the man via Facebook.

This kind of thing used to happen at Pomona, too. I knew a lot of people in college who weren’t comfortable discussing their less-than 100% liberal political beliefs openly for fear of persecution. Our senior year, my good friend Eric M. Fraser wrote a letter to the editor of our college pager explaining his conservatism and was roundly lambasted in the editorials section the following week.

Worse, a girl who shall remain nameless to protect her privacy wound up withdrawing from the college her sophomore year due to the irrational persecution heaped on her by the student body due to her political views. I also heard a rumor about a student with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker finding his car window smashed with a brick in the student parking lot. This was never fully substantiated to my satisfaction, but the fact that it was plausible was enough to give me real pause.

It’s time for us all to face the fact that fundamentalist, self-reinforcing enclaves — whether left-leaning or right-leaning — are good for nobody. It’s one thing to criticize an opposing political party on the facts. It’s another to assault them bodily, make them fear for their safety, or mock them simply for being who they are. That’s just plain wrong. It was wrong when it happened at Pomona, it’s wrong now that it’s happening at University of Mary Washington. It’s wrong anywhere and everywhere.

Right-minded people from both parties need to come together to stop this kind of bullshit once and for all, before somebody gets killed.

Update: I’ve formed a group on Facebook to condemn politically motivated violence.

Statue of Liberty Spanks GW

Statement: This float of George W. Bush being spanked by the Statue of Liberty in Germany’s Rose Parade on Monday is really freakin’ awesome!

Discuss.

Next Page »