Herald kicks That Guy Tai's blog off its site ...

The radio Web sites are abuzz with news about former 'FNX rocker, 'RKO talker That Guy Tai [Tom Irwin] getting booted from the Boston Herald Web site after he was critical of Howie Carr, the Herald's - and 'RKO's - marquee player: ["Tai unplugged"].
The blog, Tai-rade, which I have written about before here on Politizine, went missing after Tai reportedly stated that Carr had been phoning his show and column in. Tai supposedly offered to do the show - and the column - for free! How could Purcell pass that up? Well, since Tai-Rade disappeared quite quickly, we can all presume what happened.

Update: A quick Google yielded no results of where the new Tai-Rade Web site has landed [Note to Tai: Get it up fast so we can link it buddy!]. However, I did find some bits from a site called labs.daylife.com:

From April 24, "Leaders Vs. Followers: Howie Carr Vs. Reality":

The problem with Howie Carr listeners is that, regardless of their political stripes, they are followers. Democracy needs people who can think beyond party lines and stale prejudice. So here’s the wake up call to the lemming brigade: google “mass media” ...

From April 22, "They Said It, Not Me. Entercom Owns WRKO, Hello?:

April 22 (Bloomberg) — Entercom Communications Corp. is luring Barclays Global Investors and JPMorgan Chase & Co., its fourth- and fifth-largest investors, to buy shares even as the U.S. radio chain’s stock drops on speculation of a dividend cut. Six ...

From April 20: "Howie Carr Replaced':

Howie – I’m Calling You Out. Now hear this: I’ll take over Howie’s slot at the Herald, and his radio show – and I’ll do them both for free. Don’t ask questions about the practical complications of such a plan, just start lobbying for it, damn it. You ...

Maybe Tai should be hired by WRKO to replace Tom Finneran in the morning. It would be good radio and drive Howie bats too.

Fueling Food Shortages

Guest Perspective/Ralph Nader

Where is Harry Chapin when you need him? The popular folk singer (Cat’s in the Cradle), who lost his life in an auto crash 27 years ago, was an indefatigable force of nature against hunger—in this country and around the world.

To hear Harry speak out against the scourge of hunger in a world of plenty was to hear informed passion that was relentless whether on Capitol Hill, at poverty conferences or at his concerts.

Now the specter of world hunger is looming, with sharply rising basic food prices and unnecessary food shortages sparking food riots in places like Haiti and Egypt. Officials with the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) are alarmed. The WFP has put out an emergency appeal for more funds, saying another 100 million humans have been thrown into the desperate hunger pits.

Harry would have been all over the politicians in Congress and the White House who, with their bellies full, could not muster the empathy to do something.

Directly under Bush and the Congress is the authority to reduce the biggest single factor boosting food prices—reversing the tax-subsidized policy of growing ever more corn to turn into fuel at the expense of huge acreages that used to produce wheat, soy, rice and other edibles.

Corn ethanol is a multifaceted monstrosity—radiating damage in all directions of the compass. Reducing acreage for edible crops has sparked a surge in the price of bread and other foodstuffs. Congress and Bush continue to mandate larger amounts of subsidized corn ethanol.

Republican Representative Robert W. Goodlatte says: “The mandate basically says [corn] ethanol comes ahead of food on your table, comes ahead of feed for livestock, comes ahead of grains available for export.”

Corn growing farmers are happy with a bushel coming in at $5 to $6—a record.

A subsidy-laden, once-every-five-years farm bill is winding its way through Congress. The bill keeps the “good-to-fuel” mandates that are expanding corn acreage and contributing to a rise of global food prices.

Of course, more meat diets in China, futures market speculation, higher prices for oil and some bad weather and poor food reserve planning have also contributed to shortages and higher prices.

But subsidized corn ethanol gets the first prize for policy madness. It not only damages the environment, soaks up the water from mid-west aquifers, scuttles set asides for soil conservation, but its net energy equation qualifies for collective insanity on Capitol Hill. To produce a gallon of ethanol from corn requires almost as much energy (mostly coal burning) as it produces.

Designed to alleviate oil imports, hold down gasoline prices and diminish greenhouse gases, corn ethanol has flopped on all three scores.

Princeton scholar Lester Brown, an early sounder of the alarm of global food shortages and higher prices, writes in Science Magazine “that the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions—and thus a catalyst for climate change.”

Can Congress change course and drop its farm subsidy of corn ethanol this year? Observers say, despite the growing calamities and the real risk of severe malnutrition, even starvation in Africa, Congress will do nothing.

Farm subsidies, once installed, are carved in stone—unless there is enough outcry from food consumers, taxpayers and environmentalists. They are paying from the pocketbook, from their taxes and health. That should be enough motivation, unless they need to see the distended stomachs of African and Asian children on the forthcoming television news.

Unless we wake up, we will continue to be a country stuck in traffic—in more ways than one.

Don’t rely on the election year political debates to pay attention to destructive corn ethanol programs. For years I have been speaking out against this boondoggle, while championing the small farmer in America, but no one in positions of Congressional leadership has been listening.

They must be waiting for the situation to get worse before they absorb a fraction of Harry Chapin’s empathy and care.

On the air tomorrow ...

Sorry for the short notice: I will be sitting in with Samantha Clemens on 91.5 FM WMFO radio tomorrow morning from 9 to 11 a.m. Since the station is located on the Somerville/Medford line, you can only hear it if you live in the area. But you can also check it out online, at wmfo.org.

Rebuilding Congress

Guest Perspective by Lee Hamilton

With their promise of new energy on Capitol Hill, congressional elections are always a time for hope. This year's contests will be especially significant, for Congress is listing and the nation desperately needs it to right itself. No single is! sue is the problem; it's Congress itself. The people we elect in November to fill the House and Senate chambers next January will need to set about not just doing the people's business, but fixing the institution so that they can do the people's business.

At some level, Americans understand this. The overwhelmingly negative polling numbers that Congress has been putting up recently may be fed in part by issues such as Iraq and the economy, but more generally they reflect widespread disappointment and scanty confidence in the institutions of government. People are discouraged by the lack of progress they see on the big issues we face as a nation. They're tired of excessive partisanship. And they're especially dismayed by political leaders who seem, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to lead.

Congress is under great stress, then - in its internal dealings, its relations with the executive branch, and its legitimacy in the eyes of the American public. It ne! eds renovating.

Its first charge ought to be to reassert itself as a robust and vigorous institution, comparable in strength and initiative to the President. Our system relies on creative tension between a strong Congress and a strong President for the simple reason that different opinions and approaches, forthrightly stated and creatively resolved, produce the best policy. This is why Congress' willingness to yield war-making authority to the President has not served this country well; issues of life, death and entanglements abroad need thoroughgoing debate, not deference to the President in the name of patriotism.

Similarly, Congress' penchant over the past several years for letting the President largely set the budget has allowed it to sidestep responsibility for laying out and vetting the basic blueprint of government.

Congress has of late made some progress on overseeing the executive branch and holding it more accountable for its actions. This is promising, for oversight is the best means of determining whether fede! ral programs are working as intended or whether there's misconduct on the part of bureaucrats and political appointees.

But Congress needs to get even tougher. Effective oversight is not just a matter of looking at a few programs; it needs to be part and parcel of Congress' activities, especially in the routine reauthorization process that Congress has by and large abandoned. The continuing resolutions and massive "omnibus" spending bills that Congress relies on these days don't offer the chance to probe the nooks and crannies of federal agencies; they allow the executive branch to escape scrutiny, and weaken not just Congress, but the President and the nation.

This is one reason why a return to what Capitol Hill veterans call "the regular order" is crucial - taking up one appropriations bill at a time, holding hearings that investigate issues carefully, letting the diverse voices represented in Congress be heard, allowing full and fair debate on the most cont! roversial issues, and voting on all of the major issues. The tradition al, deliberative process may seem plodding, but it is how Congress assures openness and its own legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Americans - who worry, often rightly, that shortcuts or closed doors hide decisions that wouldn't bear public scrutiny.

To be sure, even an open process can be hijacked by rank partisanship or by members determined to gum it up for their own purposes. There's no easy answer to this. In part, the solution lies with voters, who need to make clear at the ballot box that they value civility and a willingness to work on behalf of common sense and the common good.

In part, it lies with thoroughgoing ethics reform: Congress has made a start over the last year, but too many members still fail to understand how their low institutional standing stems from public mistrust. Congress must insist that all of its members reflect credit on the institution, as the basic code of conduct requires.

In the end, though, perhaps the most important ! answer lies with a recognition that at this point in our history, with the nation politically divided in the face of fundamental threats to its well-being and its standing in the world, it is the job of the Congress to try to forge consensus and national unity behind solutions to problems.

It showed it could do so with its recent economic stimulus package, although compared with the very tough decisions still facing our national leadership, cutting taxes was relatively easy.

Perhaps, in the end, it won't be able to muster a consensus on Iraq or reshaping financial regulation or combating climate change. Even so, the American people expect it to try, and when they go to the polls this November, that hope will go with them.

Lee Hamilton is Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.

Concord Monitor faces economic challenges

Editor's Note: This is a corrected and edited version of an earlier post. Monitor Publisher Geordie Wilson was kind enough to respond to the first edition of this post with some clarifications which I have integrated into the original post. His full comment is posted on the OurConcord.com version of this post. This is the first in a series analyzing the news industry in Concord.
The Sunday edition of the Concord Monitor revealed some startling admissions on its editorial pages about the teetering state of the newspaper industry and what the company would be doing in the future to stay in business.
The revelations were a bit startling to many, especially those who have had a long-term relationship with the newspaper [For me, it's been more than three decades: I started reading the newspaper as a boy, became a peddler of the afternoon edition in the late 1970s while in middle-school, and have been a regular reader for years].
While they may seem awkward, these letters to readers are an important part of continuing the relationship between the reader of the news and the producer of the news. Despite the economic climate, many people are still connected to their community newspapers and Concord is no exception.
In the column, linked here: ["Tough times, tough choices for the 'Monitor'"] Executive Editor Felice Belman noted that changes were coming in order to weather current economic conditions. While not going too deeply into specifics about how bad things were, Belman said the newspaper would preserve what was important: reporting local news:

In planning for budget cuts we have been mindful of protecting what's most important: the local news report, brought to you by a serious staff of New Hampshire reporters, editors and photographers.

The Monitor will cut costs by lowering print and ink usage. It will publish tighter newspapers by dropping filler house ads and moving to a two book edition instead of four books. On Monday and Tuesday, the paper published the tighter layout with 20 pages. The previous two Monday editions were 24 pages. On Wednesday, the Monitor was a four book again, with 24 pages. Belman wrote that the changes would limit space previously available for national and international news noting that readers could get that information via other outlets [And she's correct on this point].
These types of changes are not surprising and have been the norm for a while in an industry battling to stay alive. Some have lopped off column inches from the size of their newspapers and cut other costs to preserve what is important without alienating current readers. Some have gone through redesigns in order to hide the changes from readers.
The fact that it took the Monitor so long to come to these cost-cutting conclusions is a bit remarkable considering the state of the industry. Everyone in media circles knows how bad business is and has been. As advertising revenues have been diverted to other mediums, newspaper companies have sustained layoffs [or buyouts for those fortunate enough to be union employees or highly-paid columnists] year after year in order to please shareholders. The Monitor has delayed decisions made by other companies because it is owned and operated locally and is not hounded by Wall Street worrying about 20 percent returns each year.
But there is only so much one business can sustain before making changes. Since the Monitor has been owned by the same family, it has not had to worry about market forces until now. Many of us though have suspected things might be bleak for our local daily as recently as 18 months ago.
Back in December 2006, as part of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Class, I spent the day at the Monitor's facility for our Media Day class. We did some roleplaying which was fun for the non-media types and there was also an interesting debate about news media issues in which the Monitor's circulation director Mark Travis took a cheap shot at local radio for not having a person on the panel [What he did not realize until later was that I was a member of the class and managing WKXL at the time and therefore, not invited to sit on the panel, something not lost on my classmates].
The class also received a tour of the offices and printing facility. It was great to see the new facility [It isn't all that new but to me it was since I remember the days when the Monitor's office and printing press were on Green Street, in the heart of downtown].
Since WKXL was actively seeking support from the same advertising base as the Monitor, I had some inside knowledge about the state of affairs at the Monitor. Specifically, the Radio Advertising Bureau [RAB] had provided our company with the newspaper's declining paid circulation numbers - numbers which turned out to be incomplete - and other ways of showing how the Audit Bureau of Circulation [ABC], one of the circulation bureaus used by newspapers, fudges the numbers for newspapers to make the numbers seem not so bleak.
According to Wilson, the Monitor has a circulation of just under 20,000 weekdays, and a little more than 22,000 on Sunday, based on calculations done in June 2007 by the Certified Audit of Circulations. This circulation includes Newspaper In Education sponsorships, as well as other programs, although Wilson noted in a recent email that more than 90 percent of the editions are paid copies.
The ABC figures submitted to the radio station were apparently for Concord proper only and not the entire service area. Those figures showed the Monitor with an average daily readership of 18,000 Monday through Saturday and 19,000 on Sunday, according to the latest figures available from 2005 [The Monitor claims 22,000 readers and the latest figures are not currently available without paying for them]. These figures were based on about 7,800 newspapers sold each day in Concord, Monday through Saturday, and 8,000 on Sunday. The ABC calculates circ numbers based on more than one person reading each edition of the newspaper which is sold: 2.3 people reading the weekday edition and 2.4 people reading the Sunday edition.
This mechanism of calculating readership by ABC is a great leap of assumption but is also the industry standard. Despite this standard, it seems like a completely flawed formula and probably reflects inaccurate readership numbers. How inaccurate? Well, consider other mediums for a minute.
Radio tracks listeners by recording and tabulating the decisions of the listener. But imagine what a boon it would be if a station could take its six share and multiply it by 2.3 and tell advertisers, "Well, there are three commuters in every car so ..."
Television tracks household viewership [They may multiply households by 2.3 viewers to get overall viewership but I don't know for sure. I'm sure they do this to come up with the 10 million viewer number but not the actual ratings].
The Internet tracks things by actual clicks of computers entering a site. They could exaggerate and say, "There were three co-workers leaning over my shoulder while I was on Drudge ..." but that isn't how it is done.
Weekly newspapers - at least the ones that I have worked for - talk about actual print editions sold and subscriptions sent out. They don't multiply by 2.3.
So, why shouldn't daily newspapers be held to the same standard? These comments are not posted to beat up on dailies, the Monitor, or anyone else. It is just done to show a flaw in the mechanism of counting circ and one has to wonder how they get away with it.
When I thought that the Monitor only had about 8,000 sold editions in a market population of about 120,000, I was floored and didn't believe. It turns out, these figures were wrong and not as bad as previously posted, which, frankly, is a relief.
But how could any newspaper in a small market stay alive with such a small amount of newspapers sold?
Before the Media Day class, participants of the class sat in on an editorial board meeting of the newspapers editors to watch how they decided what went into the newspaper. About seven editors sat at a table and talked about the stories of the day, including local stories, photos, sports, and other items. It was an interesting discussion to watch because there wasn't much discussion. A list was printed up of all the potential stories and a photo editor showed off the day's shots. There was a bit of banter but it was not extensive.
After the editors were done, they answered questions about the process or anything else we wanted to know about. The six people who attended the meeting and did not work in media had some interesting questions about story content, staffing, and other things.
One woman asked, "How many news reporter do you have?"
Then-Executive Editor Mike Pride stated, "13."
"How many people work on the paper itself?" another asked.
Pride said there were 46 editorial employees and 120 employees altogether.
I asked about the new publication called The Insider and why it was only distributed to the Concord subscribers and not in say, Webster, where people might find the information and content interesting.
Pride said people from outside of Concord could pick up it at newsboxes downtown.
But what if they don't get downtown?, I asked.
Then folks wouldn't get it, he said.
I then asked, Was there any thought to spending the staffing dollars beefing up the Local/Regional section instead of producing an entirely new product?
To this question, Pride bristled and stated "No" quite sharply and I didn't ask anymore questions.
This entire conversation shocked me on many different levels.
To start, I couldn't believe the newspaper had so many employees. But the numbers were later confirmed by Wilson when he gave the classmates a tour of the facility a week after the editor's meeting.
During the tour, Wilson showed off the Monitor's printing presses and some of the other publications which the company printed for other businesses. Those newspapers included The Hippo, some Spanish language newspapers, and the Sun Transcript chain on the North Shore of Massachusetts, showing that the printing presses were an integral part of the company's overall business strategy.
Issues of staffing and news production were front and center in my mind and had been for months. There had been staffing issues at WKXL, specifically, the station was losing full-time employees but not replacing key personnel in order to save money. Over a period of two years, staffing went from 15 full-timers and two part-timers at its peak, to six full-timers and a few part-timers. The six remaining full-time employees were expected to produce more content and a heavier workload than the previous 15. The six people were also expected to perform as good - if not better - than better-staffed news operations like the Monitor, NHPR or WMUR-TV Channel 9.
The production [and quality] of the local news produced by the Monitor was often used by the station's owner to criticize the two full-timers and one part-timer working on news.
'How come the Monitor got this story and we didn't?' was a regular mantra I heard.
'Eh, because they have more reporters doing less work?' [This is not a dig at the Monitor reporters. But some days when comparing the two news organizations, their 13 reporters would produce fewer actual stories than the station's 2.5 reporters, while the radio reporters also produced calendar listings, long-form programs, and numerous 5-minute audio segments on top of the actual stories].
While I didn't know this for sure, I suspected as much. After attending the class and confirming the 6 to 1 and 10 to 1 staffing level differences between the Monitor and WKXL, I mentioned to the owner that he should either hire more staff or limit the amount of criticism leveled at the station's news operation. No new staffing was hired and I returned to my previous newspaper job a few months later.
What was cool about the admission by Wilson was that he would make the admission. But also that a family business so cared about the quality of its news and its commitment to the community that it was willing to use another facet of the business to sustain that quality [WKXL should get the same consideration on a smaller scale].
In making these changes, the Monitor is clearly salvaging what its staff believes is important while at the same time attempting to survive the current economic storm. They seem minor and worthy of support by both the news consumer and the news producer. And, frankly, it is an important endeavor to make sure newspapers which focus on local content and information stay alive and vibrant.

Upcoming: The importance of local news and why it is worth fighting for. Plus, some suggestions on how the Monitor [and other news outlets] can change with the times while also staying relevant to the community.

Death defying!

One of my sisters sent me this video. Very cool:


It's amazing that any of this trail was built more than 100 years ago. How the heck did they get cement up there?

Strange lights revealed

A guy playing in his backyard, wigging people out. Wow: ["Man claims responsibility for Phoenix mystery lights"]. Now I'm intrigued. I wonder if I could do this in my backyard.

Fighting for Worker Rights

Guest Perspective/Ralph Nader

Andy Stern, the president of the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is embroiled in the politics of accepting sweetheart union contract deals that and, ironically is being condemned by the Wall Street Journal. What gives here?

It seems that Stern wants to put heat on the private equity funds that have bought hospitals, nursing home chains and other firms whose employees he wants to organize. He lost a clumsy attempt to get a bill through the California legislature to restrict state pension funds from investing in private equity firms. The bill was backed by some foreign countries’ sovereign investment funds.

The state pension funds—CalSTRS and CalPERS—defeated the bill and received the approval of the Wall St. Journal’s right wing editorial writers—a rare plaudit indeed. The Journal even praised the California Nurses Association for obtaining a restraining order from a California court against SEIU harassing, assaulting and stalking members of this union, which is embroiled in disputes with SEIU for what the nurses’ union says are blatant sweetheart contracts that SEIU dangles before large employers.

Are you confused?

The California Nurses Association (CNA) is a fast growing union that fights for patient rights, for adequate nurse-patient ratios and bargains for strong contracts with hospital chains. SEIU, by contrast wants membership growth even if the cost is a weaker contract for the newly organized workers.

In Ohio, the CNA exposed a SEIU deal with nine hospitals owned by Catholic Healthcare Partners. SEIU let the employer pick SEIU as its chosen union without a single signed union card. The company-union collaboration scheduled elections.

CNA sent representatives to Ohio and sounded the alarm about a top-down agreement sealed by a mutually imposed code of silence.

SEIU and the hospital chain owner postponed the election after the employees became aware of this sweetheart deal.

CNA’s actions threw SEIU into a rage. Buses of SEIU people from Ohio were sent by Mr. Stern to break up an annual meeting of 1000 labor activists sponsored by the magazine, Labor Notes, in Dearborn, Michigan. CNA’s Executive Director, RoseAnn DeMoro was scheduled to speak to the assemblage.

Shouting, scuffling, overturned chairs and the arrival of the Dearborn Police to impose order led A.F.L.-C.I.O. president John J. Sweeney, to denounce what he called “a violent attack” orchestrated by SEIU.

SEIU split from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in 2005. SEIU aggressively raids other unions, such as the Allied International Union (AIU).

AIU fled a RICO law suit in New York against Stern’s alleged racketeering behavior and tactics to replace AIU leadership and take control of its members.

In addition, the Department of Labor is investigating a Las Vegas local of SEIU regarding possible misuse of employer funds to advance certain candidates in a local election.

All these struggles and outside charges against Andy Stern are not keeping him from moving to remove rebellious leaders of locals and consolidate power at the top. The biggest battle is in San Francisco. Dissident, Sal Rosselli, head of SEIU-United Health Care Workers West, will propose democratic changes to the autocratic way Stern runs the union at their national convention in June.

Rosselli is pushing to give local unions of SEIU more authority in contract bargaining and more voice in proposed union mergers.

Some labor observers believe Andy Stern is biting off more than he can chew. His assurance to the Democratic Party of over $50 million for the upcoming election exposes him to critics who believe he should be spending the money on and pay far more attention to getting more for his members from the large corporations he massages.

More strange things in the sky

What are these lights?: ["Unexplained lights spotted above Valley; were they flares?"]

Hillary hangs on ...

Pennsylvania

President - Dem Primary

7795 of 9268 Precincts Reporting - 84%

Name Party Votes Vote % Clinton, Hillary Dem 1,035,322 55% Obama, Barack Dem 843,026 45%

President - GOP Primary

7795 of 9268 Precincts Reporting - 84%

	Name	Party	Votes	Vote %
	McCain, John	GOP	442,222	72%
	Paul, Ron	GOP	97,790	16%
	Huckabee, Mike	GOP	71,637	12%

Courting the white male vote

Yup, drinkin', bowlin', and nappin' ... John Edwards style:

Is a Ventura Presidential Run Possible and Viable?

Guest Perspective/Rich Rubino

“He’s ba-a-a-ck!” After spending time in the political wilderness, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has re-entered the public arena, armed with a new book and a message that is predictably quite distinct from the presidential candidates of the two major parties. Ventura, currently unattached to a political party, recently stated on “Larry King Live” that running for president would be: “Too difficult, because they make an Independent like me jump through 50 different hoops, because every state has different things you have to do to qualify to get on the ballot.”

Ventura is right. It is nearly impossible for an Independent candidate to get on the ballot in all 50 states. Our political system significantly favors the large traditional political parties at the expense of the smaller upstarts.

However, despite Ventura’s valid complaint, there is in fact an avenue available that would allow him to take a run at the presidency. Ventura could seek the nomination of the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian convention is scheduled to be held in late May. The Party’s nomination will be decided by about 1000 delegates. Most importantly, the Party’s presidential nominee will likely have ballot status in almost all 50 states.

While Ventura excoriates political parties in general, he ran for governor in 1998 as the nominee of the Minnesota Reform Party. In that run, he “shocked the world” by “body-slamming” the Republican/Democrat hegemony, and winning the Governorship.

And while Ventura may disagree with many in the Libertarian movement, a great many of his ideas fall close to the center of the Libertarian philosophy. On the domestic front, Ventura clearly leans Libertarian. He is a proponent of fiscal austerity, an advocate of states rights, and is socially liberal. On foreign policy, Ventura’s position closely resembles the Libertarian Party view, especially regarding their steadfast opposition to the Iraq War. More broadly, Ventura is a vehement opponent of the Bush foreign policy.

The Libertarian Party would also benefit greatly from a Ventura/Libertarian alignment. Since its inception in 1971, the Libertarian Party has been in a steady state. Only one presidential candidate has garnered more than 1 percent of the vote in the general election. This is, in large part, because most of the Party’s nominees have failed to receive the requisite media coverage to be taken seriously by the electorate. All this could change however with a media-magnet like Ventura who has already shown that he can take on the two major parties and be successful. A Ventura nomination would thrust the Libertarian Party and its platform onto the airwaves and into American homes.

Also boding well for a Ventura/Libertarian strategic alliance is the fact that the Libertarian message has recently struck a resonant chord with a significant number of Americans. Libertarian-leaning Texas Congressman Ron Paul got a surprising number of Americans galvanized in the Republican presidential primaries. In fact, Paul raised more money than any other Republican candidate in the fourth quarter of 2007 and has become omni-present on the Internet, with almost seven million YouTube views. With Senator John McCain now the presumptive Republican nominee, and Ron Paul disavowing any interest in seeking the Libertarian nomination, there is a clear opening in the race for a charismatic figure with a Libertarian message similar to Congressman Paul’s.

How far could a Ventura/Libertarian merger go? Ventura has a significant amount of executive experience in government. Prior to becoming governor of Minnesota, he served as mayor of Brooklyn Park, the sixth biggest city in Minnesota at that time. He can lay claim to eight years of executive government experience. Some of our recent Presidents including Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush had less executive experience than Ventura. As Governor of Minnesota, Ventura presided over twice the population of former Governor Clinton’s state of Arkansas.

Ventura can also point to some real achievements as Governor, including reforming the property tax system of Minnesota, returning the state surplus to the taxpayers, and bringing a successful urban public transportation system to the state.

Ventura’s presence in the Presidential race would offer a third political platform, different from the Republicans and Democrats. For example, on the Iraq War, Ventura could make the case that the Bush administration brought the country into war with the support of the Democrats, and that the Democratic Party, despite their recent rhetoric to end the war, have failed.

Ventura could also shine a spotlight on the 800 pound gorilla the two parties do not want to face, “the national debt.” Ventura could argue that when Ross Perot brought the debt to the nation’s consciousness during the 1992 elections, it stood at $4 trillion. Since that time, under stewardship of the Republicans and Democrats, the national debt has nearly doubled. According to Ventura, every American now owes $30,000 in national debt.

Ventura could easily make the case that while Democrats raise taxes; Republicans defer them to future generations. In addition, a Ventura candidacy would appeal to a diverse cross-section of constituencies, including fiscal conservatives, gun control opponents, free traders on the right, opponents of the Iraq war, abortion rights supporters, and gay rights activists on the left.

In addition, a Ventura Campaign could capitalize on the general malaise grabbing hold of the country. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 81 percent of the respondents stated that the nation was heading in the wrong direction. According to the pollster, this is up from 69 percent last year, and up from 35 percent in 2002.

A Ventura/Libertarian strategic alliance would allow Ventura to take a shot at the White House and would significantly promote a public consideration of Libertarian ideas. Ventura attracts the media, does well in debates, and has executive experience in government. This combination of factors gives Jesse Ventura the chance he needs to create political traction in a run for the presidency.

Rich Rubino, a resident of Marblehead, Massachusetts, is a political advisor specializing in independent political campaigns. He is a graduate of Assumption College and holds a Masters Degree in Journalism from Emerson College. He was a policy advisor to the Christy Mihos 2006 Massachusetts Gubernatorial Campaign.

Oh my gosh ...

Another post debate post! This one, has a hilarious video by another guy I don't really like much, Robert Greenwald, the guy who did that lame anti-Fox "documentary," "OutFoxed": ["Leaked: ABC's Stephanopoulos interviews John McCain"].

More on the debate

I'm wondering if I should bother going on about the debate. Just about everyone in the nation right now thinks it was a disgrace. However, check out this land by Dan Kennedy here: ["More about the flag-pin lady"].

In the last day or two, former Clinton Labor Secy Robert Reich, and former Sens. Sam Nunn and David Boren endorsed Obama. The Boss also endorsed him. It should be noted that Nunn and Boren are both conservatives and hawks. Reich has a good explanation of "Bittergate" here: ["Obama. Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics"].

This is funny: ["Wrong for Pennsylvania"].

This is funny too: ["South Park: The Day The Internet Stood Still"].

I meant to post this earlier in the week but I got bogged down: ["Retailing Chains Caught in a Wave of Bankruptcies"]. This is also an interesting read: ["In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop"].
I'm not that bad but I am beginning to wonder whether or not I'm too wired. Like, for example, the fact that when I'm at work, I'm constantly on the Web. Or, the fact that I brought work home with me to do over vacation. Or, the fact that I'm eying my company Web site to make sure things are OK while I'm on vacation.
I won't do it tomorrow. But that's the thing about vacations. It really takes a couple of days to get out of the job and then, poof, you're back at the job again.

Speed Racer!

A scene from "Speed Racer."

Wow, I just saw an ad for this and I can hardly wait! I don't know about the casting though. Sure, Susan Sarandon as Speed's mom? OK, I buy that. But Christina Ricci as Trixie ... eh, no! Most of it seems to be pretty digital. More like "Tron" or a cartoon and less like "I Am Legend," which should be good.