dubious.biz(ness)

Lucy posted a day in her life at Google News. Pretty accurate for a Monday in GNews. Note the most important steps: Chris and Dan spend hours searching for the best cafe using GNews’s proprietary DessertRank. It seems to me that this process should be much faster (in fact you have to look at each cafe’s menu separately… very time consuming). Shouldn’t someone implement a good algorithm so that poor Chris and Dan don’t have to work so hard?

Note that there are no mentions of massages, segway, or naps. Like earthquakes and birthdays, they do exist but don’t happen frequently.

The election nonsense has gone too far. In Slate today, they said that “the appeal of a horse race is universal” in reference to the foreign press coverage of the elections. While at first as an American abroad I found it complimentary, I now find it distasteful. It smacks of the same sort of press coverage we receive in the US about the goings-on of royalty which peaked in the heyday of Princess Diana. In short, these primaries don’t really have that much effect on the foreign press. The system is interesting and it encompasses much of the US news cycle, yes, but ultimately the primaries are ultimately a contest to represent the party, not to represent the US. It doesn’t matter much whether it’s Hillary or Barack, McCain or Romney until it’s decided.

Further the ups and downs of the process are, if anything, accentuated by the foreign naivity. I have no problem with international press not understanding the nuances of the system or even caring, but representing it as purely a horse race is somewhat insulting. Much like the US coverage, the majority of coverage is devoted to character descriptions rather than policy, and rather than discussing the outcome they are discussing the process, the drama, the pagentry. I don’t enjoy the pagentry and I particularly don’t enjoy the Soap Opera Digest version that we’re receiving. As if to confirm my suspicions The Times, the leading paper in the UK, printed a map of the states with Oregon labeled as Washington (with “state” helpfully added to discern it from the District of Columbia in which the city of Washington lies).

I love England and I don’t think anyone’s going to dispute my pro-international cred. There is no more excuse for mislabeling a state than for mislabeling a country. Suppose that the New York Times had labeled Sudan as Chad in an article on the Sudanese genocide. I’m certain we’d hear cries of “ugly americanism”. Daily coverage appears in every global newspaper, often the largest spreads in the paper, which should imply that they are interested in the process, and helping the world understand how we go about selecting a president. But day after day, with headlines that smack of the same drama and excitement as the latest news in Diana’s death (which believe it or not is still going here), it’s clear that the real story is in the race, not the horses.

Of course, to step back, it isn’t a bad thing that the world opens up to sees us behaving like a democracy, since we insist that various other countries do so by force. It is good PR to show them that we do engage in our national and international policy, and all three candidates are far more internationally acceptable than Bush ever was. It’s just that democracy-in-action should still be about the democracy, not the action.

In honor of Super Tuesday, the Super Bowl, and the Mad Mushroom Super Pizza, I’ve decided to finally fall to one side or the other of the stupid political theatre that is our primary elections. Keep reading!!!

You might think that being outside America, I am not in the loop on the primary race. Nothing could be further from the point. The topic of lunchtime discussion in the college isn’t the upcoming EU presidency, nor the upcoming race for a new PM in Britain, it’s the stupid US primaries. We’re not even at the point where we’re electing a president. And everyone is well-informed and well-versed of both sides of the issue. I am so sick of it I now complain, which apparently is a shortcut to looking like a clueless American asshole, because apparently everything the US does affects everyone so they’re allowed to follow the ups and downs of the race with baited breath.

Sure, to a point, they don’t call it the most powerful man person in the world for nothing. But as they have no input whatsoever on the outcome at some point it becomes an excuse to discuss dramatics while still appearing erudite. Perhaps one of the most ardent followers I know is also one of the most (self-admittedly) interested in the theatrics. At any rate, I do have a rather small input on the primaries: Kentucky is the 43rd state to vote, so the primaries are basically decided by this point (more by the ridiculous influence the press wield over the process in what they call “momentum” which roughly equates to contests won). I could also vote as a “Democrat Abroad” and vote today, but there are only polling places in London and Oxford and I can’t really afford to go down to London just to vote.

But even though I’m skipping the primaries in body I won’t be skipping them in mind. I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring with Barack Obama. I know this endorsement will mean a great deal to him, and may even help his “momentum”. As an independent I could technically chose to vote republican as well which has made my my decision that much harder. However I’ll give you my very short two cents on my take on the candidates:

Mitt Romney: Starting with the easiest. This guy goes to show that being a great businessman doesn’t translate to being a good politician. You succeed in business by being agile and changing as you encounter obstacles. The more dynamic you can be, the faster you change your game to adapt to the new environment the better you’ll do. But in politics, particularly presidential politics, you can’t change who you are. You have to turn your weaknesses in to strengths or play off them. In the 2004 election “flip-flopping” was bandied around so much by the republican party they forgot why it’s bad. People don’t trust you if you move positions because it’s seen as tactical and self-serving. Good in business, bad in politics. That’s Romney. It’s too bad he’s not the guy because after the atrocious eight years of Bush economic policy we’ve had we could honestly use someone who had some brains in that department. Does anyone remember the fiscal surplus we had under Clinton which would have gone a long way to saving us from the recession we’re about to have? If anyone can exact a turnaround, it’s this kid, who has made his billions on such balance sheet turnarounds. Verdict: Too smarmy.

John McCain: This guy is a real character. He’s like everyone’s memory of John Wayne: tough, no-nonsense, straight-shooting, never takes sides, and always seems to be looking to do the right thing (or at least looking outside the immediately best political move). And just like John Wayne the biggest downside is that he’s a living anachronism that really doesn’t serve the US’s current purposes. He would have been a great president in 2000. But given the current situation we’re too far gone for this guy’s stick-to-your-guns attitude. He may tell it like it is, but when it comes to domestic issues his policy is often out of date and off the mark. And the Reagan rhetoric misses the mark entirely. I was alive for Reagan but didn’t actually remember it so I’m far more objective of what happened during that period. Reagan was a great president but McCain is no Reagan: he is tough but not selfish. He is calm but he is not quite willing to be non-inteventionalist. Not that what we need right now is interventialism. We need someone who is going to pare down government, see the economy through some very tough times and pass some very tough reforms to reduce the influence of business in Washington and begin considering the needs of the middle class man over that of corporations. The top-level integration of business in to the political process is Reagan’s legacy and it’s gone too far and too long. McCain’s Reagan emulation misses the marks. Verdict: Too old.

Hillary Clinton: Many of the most terrible things in the campaign have been said about Hillary Clinton. People have the most negative feelings about Hillary Clinton. That is ultimately the biggest problem with Clinton. She’s a target. She knows her stuff, she’s tough, she would be an excellent president. But against someone with as much street cred as McCain combined with the political machine of the Republican party, who may not love McCain but hates Clinton more, would be on the defense for the entire race. Her unlikability is my main reason but on top of that, some of her policy falls flat. Contrasting against Obama she is aiming for what will get done, what will work, and she’s playing her experience. Unfortunately that won’t work in the big game. Politics is a game of asking for ten cents when you need three, and Clinton isn’t exactly the most charismatic person. Obama on the other hand can play the dream card, and settle for the Clinton reality. Like the other three, Clinton is certainly presidential material but for a different time and a different race (circa 2004). Verdict: Too pragmatic.

Barack Obama: Obama’s policy platform isn’t there yet. This is on purpose. He’s running on “hope”. The trick with Obama is that he will obviously pull in the proper people (Clinton for Sec of Health and Human Services anyone?) where necessary and has the top-down influence to make things happen. He is a president in the cut of another recent figure who ran on values and lacked substance: Bush. Yes, I said it, he’s not JFK, he’s the Bush of the left. Well, in the environment we live in, Bushs/Obamas are great people to have in the White House. Simply put the position is no longer one of top level executive, it’s one of top level influence but the executive happens the next level down. I am banking heavily on Obama’s ability to select the best people from the entire political spectrum and empower them. Presidential mandates are best used on big, sweeping changes, and Obama wants to clean up Washington. He wants to make health care a reality for all classes. He wants to open a new chapter in US foreign relations, something that the entire world is desperately wants. If he can install people to tackle the domestic agenda and focus two things: cleaning out much of the business-influence crud accumulated in the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush eras and reassert the long-forgotten government mandate to help take care of those people who need it most that is the Roosevelt legacy. Verdict: Naive, young, and honest. And it’s time those three things were better respected in American politics.

Finally, rather than listening to the endless debates, punditry, and idiotic press coverage, I suggest that if you want to understand what Obama stands for you ignore them or treat them as comedy and read Obama’s Blueprint for Change.

An interesting side note: during Obama’s run for the Senate, for reasons that are beyond my understanding, we hosted the obamaforillinois.com website so I have had a very slightly longer history with Obama than most and, like John Edwards, I tagged him early on as a great potential presidential candidate.