I simply cannot, I simply do not, I simply will not understand.

Via Ben Smith:

Joe Biden's numbers, defying historical precedent, aren't very good, Gallup reports.

Cheney and Gore, by contrast, were about as popular as their bosses.

OG Loves Joe B, cont.

Best Biden profile yet, courtesy de la Politico.

clumps

(so anyway i have a long nite ahead of work tonite so i thought i'd send out a relay.)

*goes without saying politico clump
Robert Kuttner on the current BHO conjuncture
Bidenland will be Laborland!

Joe Biden and Robert Kuttner are in their different modalities both sort-of "go-to" guys at this moment. God knows it's great to hear that Biden will be a major labor liaison in the WH. Meanwhile, Kuttner's timely and perspicacious book has rightfully won attention far and wide, and he has subsequently half-emerged even on the stodgy old Sunday Morning circuit as the farrest out left-liberal prognosticator.

*introducing some important blogs clump
Will and the Grits
Mc'CaterbaronvonBear produces fearful catalog
Elvira, embroideries.
here we encounter three figures with whom i've shared a lot of collegiate thundering, but with whom i've also done, let's face it, years of blogging going back prior to even the early prisonship days. (who else misses friendster, folks?) but seriously, here we have three evocative blogposts from three tried and true OG commenters. first, Wilbro re-engages the questions of Southern self-identity that plague the post-Faulkner, pro-Cracker Barrel (or "profauckobarro") impulse that defines so much of our crowd. secondly, recalcitrant blogger kyle mc'caterflare has delivered a terrific festoon of albs straight out of his personal wheelhouse, which is of course the horror-soundtrack milieu. thirdly, the ever-Elvira-like Elvira does outstanding work with primary texts and pedagogical anecdotes that come off with a kind of, uh, gravitas that say, your average pattyjoe clump-post doesn't. highest recommendations

*ooh, cinema! clump (featuring survey question)
gabba drops this (apparently British) cartoon The Snowman on me, and reminds me how I've been emo since way before i ever heard slint or whoever.
the a/v club on cool but unnecessary movie sequels
it's important to me that Weapon X is important to Ezra Klein.
so here's the big question...has anybody seen The Two Jakes (Chinatown sequel). i've heard it's alright - Nicholson directed it? - but i'm more than a little fearful of it, seeing how Chinatown is such hallowed ground...(seriously though, a survey question: name your three favorite sequels.)

Jared Bernstein as Biden's Economic Staffer

I don't know if the appointments of the Vice Presidential-elect qualify as "boom-worthy" (Dave?)... But if so, then Boom!

The Economic Policy Institute is now, I daresay, in the (White) House. Check their Board of Directors for a sense of their, uh, "vibe." It's OG-friendly.

players in their own right: Stern, Biden, Reuther, Christie

1) Andy Stern on the New Moment
here's the Nation editor KVH swooning a little bit over Andy. it's an interesting opportunity to hear Andy spew forth, and you can always count on Big Purple for some interesting frames:

It's a different world – the free market ideology has been discredited," Stern said. This was "a clear election not on small things." And he argues, "We've redefined the center. Universal health care is now centrist."

2) BIDENLAND! amidst all the appointments, my question is, how do we ensure that my man Joe Biden always has the ear of the pres.?
3)Harold Meyerson puts forth a superior reading of the Big 3 Bailout that doesn't fail to evoke the era or Reuther:

The United Auto Workers’ pamphlet is nothing if not explicit in criticizing the direction of the American automobile industry. New cars cost too much relative to the buying power of the American public, it says. They are oversized. Their fuel efficiency is appallingly low.

This indictment of the Big Three appears in "A Small Car Named Desire," published by the UAW in 1949 (when the Tennessee Williams play which its title invokes was new). It was written by the social democratic labor intellectuals with whom the UAW's new president, Walter Reuther, staffed what was then the world's largest and most vibrant union. During World War II, the union, along with the Steelworkers, had won the first contracts that committed its employers to paying for its members' health care. In the first years of Reuther's presidency, it won the first contracts ensuring that productivity gains would be shared with the workers and devised the first annual cost-of-living adjustments so that paychecks would keep up with inflation. The union also won decent pensions for retirees and coverage of those retirees' medical expenses.

In other words, the UAW did more to build the era of postwar American prosperity, when workers' paychecks kept up with productivity gains, than any single institution save the federal government itself. That's one reason why it's such a target for conservative attacks as the Big Three beg the government to bail them out: In an era when no productivity gains are shared with workers, when workers’ incomes have been stagnating for decades, the UAW still preserves some of the gains that were broadly shared among American workers three and four decades ago.

read on!

4) and then there's NJ US Attorney and soon-to-be GOP candidate for Governor of NJ, Chris Christie, whose made hay through taking a creative, expansive approach to making political corruption cases. in addition to Christie's ingenuity, the Garden State's long-infamous culture of party patronage, etc., echoes neoliberal political culture's common-sense skepticism not just towards government, but towards politicians, and by extension, towards politics itself:

"After 35 years as a defense lawyer, I find it has become far more difficult to defend public officials," says Joseph Hayden, a prominent Democrat who also has been mentioned as a possible successor to Christie. "People simply don't trust them -- and those people become jurors."

Jurors, says Hayden, "don't care about legalities. They care about the smell test. If it smells like corruption, they'll convict."

If Joe Biden-qua-Veep is Wrong...

h/t to Chris Cilizza for hipping me to Ryan Lizza's in-depth profile of Joe Biden, veep-aspirant, and his forebears/foibles. i like the idea of him as an LBJ-ish "Master of the Senate," counting votes and pushing BHO's agenda.

Night Shift Fodder

1) "The last few years have been marked by an inverted millenarianism in which the premonitions of the future, catastrophic or redemptive, have been replaced by senses of the end of this or that." -F. Jameson

2) Doug Henwood's latest radio broadcast features two political economists from York University - Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin discussing the possibility that this last financial crisis may, in fact, be, the "one" that precipitates a new style of capitalism: a restructuring in the relations of production, you know? So what comes after neoliberalism? There is no reason to be dumbly optimistic about it, whatever it is, as Henwood concludes in a powerful editorial in the new Nation:

Although we're hearing a lot now about how the Reagan era is over and the era of big government is back, an expanded government isn't likely to do much more than rescue a failing financial system (in addition to the more familiar pursuits of waging war and jailing people). Nothing more humane will be pursued without a far more energized populace than we have.

Henwood's is the most timely commentary on the bailout and its long/short-term stakes that I have heard/read. Apparently this is one area where I fall out with Pete De Fazio and Dean Baker, and fall in with Paul Krugman and Barney Frank. Weird. 'Makes me uncomfortable, but so does the ongoing financial collapse, and so do the prospects of the restructuring of the US fiscal/labor/monetary policies that are about to go down under either BHO or the Maverick. I think the consequences of moves made around this bailout and the subsequent restructuring of global finance will be decisive for the long-term prospects of the "working class" at home and "globalization's discontents" abroad, moreso even than election outcomes this year. But obviously the two variables are fatefuly related to one another.

3) Libertarian stalwart and initiative also-ran Howard "Howie" Rich returns to the scene in South Carolina?!?!?

Chris Matthews' Advice for Joe Biden

"Ignore her nice stories" and go after John McCain.

State of the Race; or, Why I Wanna Blog About Moosic!

1. Increasingly, the only meaningful "analysis" out there is right here. I'm not sure which OG constituents (besides Ash!) are even living in contested states at this point. In light of that fact, lemme say this: I cannot stop watching the punditry, and I won't stop laughing at and reviling in the obscene television advertisements, but it's clear that what's going to win this race has less to do with the airwaves and more to do with stumping, GOTV, and other "retail" tactics within selected precincts in selected places (OH, CO, FL, NV, MI).
   
2. That's exactly why Joe Biden remains a shrewd (I'm stopping short of saying "brilliant") pick for veep: all gaffes aside, he can stump avec gravitas and "like-ability" in some of the places mentioned above, and that's really all that matters barring major "events." HRC and WJC can and should join in - I'd love to see Bill in NC and VA, en particulier - and I suspect they will. As concerns our current poll, I think the worst thing for HRC's 2012 prospects would be to put a half-assed effort behind Barry. Chalk it up to "enlightened self-interest," but I think we're past the point where she can be blamed for whatever insane supporters of hers are running around making noise. Worse, I think we're adding to a GOP trope by harping on the issue. Not that any undecided voters are reading this, natch..
   
3. Somebody should hi-five Barry Obama for not following McCain into delaying the debates and further "politicizing" the Bail-Out (whatever the eff that's supposed to mean.) It seems like the obvious move in hindsight, but I for one was terrified as of yesterday that he'd cave. I think his calm/cool/collected persona and his willingness to let the Dem congressional leadership lead are as presidential (i.e., 'leaderly') as all get-out - as much as the "race speech," albeit in a different way.
4. McCain is more than on the ropes at this point. There was a really cool conversation with (my guilty pleasure) Chris Matthews on Rachel Maddow last nite that I'd gladly present in lieu of my point, but I cannot locate a youtube. In short, Matthews pointed out that McCain is reaching a point of diminishing returns when it comes to his "maverick" decisions. At a certain point, even the best-intentioned of these left-field, game-changing gestures (supporting the surge, nominating Palin, suspending his campaign) will start to seem less like "leadership" and more like the reckless last gasps of an unstable individual who will do anything to win. Obama need only provide a calm contrast and continue running his race against Reagan/Bush/"the Ownership Society:" if we continue to talk about the economy (and do the "retail" thing mentioned above), we will win. Step one, BHO, is getting the bail-out passed with a bunch of Keynesian strings (accountability, govt. equity, no CEO comp, a new stimulus bill). Let me repeat, as I know this sounds counter-intuitive coming from a left-leaner: the Dems should define the bill, pass it, and own it. This is the time to see if a Keynesian neoliberalism is a possibility, and to tie financial markets' sufficiency to public investment, job creation, etc...This way the Dems could claim the mantle of "fiscal responsibilty" without ceding their (alleged) identification with working America. (note - This should happen at a pace set by Chris "lexdexter's Dad" Dodd, not Hank Paulson et. al. ...why it needs to go down by this weekend is a question you'd have to ask those pigs.)
   
5. Obviously Sarah Palin is sinking fast. All that's left is for Joe Biden to do the yeomen's work of beating her in the debate without seeming like a condescending chauvinist pig. Can he do it? I dunno.
6. Kinda hoping for a macro-level discussion of the race at this point....anybody?
   

Let it go Learn to read wobs

The media has gotten so hooked on the cheap high of the Obama/Hillary tiff that they'll try to spike a vein with any low-grade junk that comes their way:

Joe Biden told supporters at a town hall Wednesday afternoon that Barack Obama might have been better off choosing Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

“Make no mistake about this, Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight,” Biden said testily when a voter told Biden he was glad the Delaware senator had been chosen and not Clinton.

I'm sorry, the only way to read Biden's statement is as a self-effacing pol speaking in defense of a colleague. You've got to be incredibly desperate for a fix in order to twist that into an admission that the Democratic campaign would be "better off choosing Hillary Clinton."

I know that detox is a bitch, but people really need to let this one die.

[updated]: per ez in the comments, I'm an idiot. How's that for self-effacing!

EZ Polling Results!

The results are in and they look tasty....


72% of OGnians (that participated) think that Biden is NOT CRAP. Any future references to him, the choice, VPs, and MNBA as crap will be laughingly out of touch with popular opinion, and will be subject to mockery and snark.

Note: would the 2 voters that indicated that they do not participate in opinion polls please contact me, I have a questionnaire I would like you to complete. It only takes a couple hours. I am working on a survey of nonrespondents, but have had trouble with my sample size.

The anticipation for next week's poll is building...see you tomorrow.

EZ Polling

New poll up on the right.
Same rules: vote early, vote often!
All findings will be over-extrapolated
and will include incoherent graphics.

The Silent Majority

The first ever poll of OGnian thought is closed and I will now present the results:



What does this mean? First, will polls continue? since a whopping 19.6% of visitors to the site expressed a willingness to endure polls, they will continue.

81% of visitors (I have used the average visits per day for the past week) did not vote. They are well known as "the silent majority."

The will of the silent majority is clear from this poll; They want LAW and ORDER. The polling staff (EZ) interprets this to mean that Obama will pick Biden. (The fact that this already happened is iron-clad proof that this is a valid poll)

As the pentograph clearly shows, we should be moving, "forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom." Kodos 1996

For those waiting with much anticipation the announcement of the next poll, it will be text messaged to you (or just posted on the site) by 3 am tomorrow.