The Chris Cardé Experience

On Monday, I tried to get some writing done, but it was impossible -- between media interviews, saying "hello" to cool bloggers and citizen media mavens from all over the country, doing panels, greeting visiting dignitaries, and catching up with people from progressive groups, it was impossible to get much work done.

So I was a bit frustrated.

Today I was in a better frame of mind: there was no way I was going to write during the day, so why pretend? I did more of that stuff above, and actually enjoyed it this time. I decided it wasn't going to take away from my work, but it would be my work. And when everyone cut out to the parties, I would instead head back to the hotel and do the other part of my job -- writing.

Since I don't have a twitter account, I'll collect some random thoughts in this post:

• The tradmed crawling around the Big Tent are asking the same stupid questions they asked in 2004. You'd think they would learned a thing or two the last four years and updated their list of questions. It was depressing that some of the best questions I've gotten have come from foreign reporters.
• The tradmed may be obnoxious, but lots of cool people trotting around inexpensive video gear to put up on their vlogs. Cheap technology and YouTube are wonderful, wonderful things.
• Free all-you-can-drink New Belgium beer at the Big Tent rocks. On Monday, I was all over the Fat Tire. Today I went with the Sunshine Wheat. Damn I love wheat beers, a result of living in German three years. Yum.
• Atrios is right: for all the bitching news media do about the lack of news at conventions, they all still insist on showing up. Is it the parties? Probably. Because they're not really needed.
• If it wasn't for the news media at the convention, bloggers would have far less to write about.
• It has been surprising, on the other hand, seeing how many print journalists are now trotting out video cameras for their papers' websites. We truly are headed to a world were the distinction between "print" and "broadcast" will erase.
• I did a panel today organized by the Hispanic Institute and The Common Good. On the panel, moderated by MSNBC's Dan Abrams, was me, Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Harold Ford, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY), Tucker Carlson, DeeDee Myers, Faye Wattleton, and Newsweek's Richard Wolffe.
• I was wearing jeans, t-shirt, and sports jacket. I wore a button-down shirt on Monday, but it's too freakin' hot for those. So Tuesday I went with the more casual look. When I arrived, the other panelists were dressed professionally, as is usually the case. I get a kick being the most comfortably dressed person at these kinds of events. It reminds me how lucky I am to do what I do for a living.

  Harold Ford shows up right before the start of the convention, and he's wearing jeans (though with a button down shirt). I'm surprised. He always dresses super smart, tailored suits and all. So I point to the jeans as Abrams opens up the panel and whisper, "what's with those, I'm usually the only one with jeans." He whispers back, "I learned this look from you." I laugh politely. He looks at me seriously, "No, I really got this look from you." I wish I was as persuasive with my politics...

• Bill Richardson answered the first question, then disappeared. I get that some of these VIPs are busy people, but that seemed a bit weird.
• Don't tell my wife, but I've got a crush on Amy Klobuchar. I suddenly want to move to Minnesota. She also stuck around the whole time.
• Tucker Carlson did the typical "concern troll" thing, claiming that Obama would win if only he made eliminating affirmative action a top item on his agenda and campaigned on it. We all laughed at him.

  When I was addressed by Abrams a few questions later, I prefaced the answer to that question with a quick aside: Never trust Republicans bearing advice to Democrats, because they don't have our best interests in mind. The crowd was appreciative and cheered. Carlson fumed: "how open minded", as if being "open minded" meant taking electoral advice from the guys trying to defeat us in an election. What a tool.

• Klobuchar followed up with a suggestion that the panel vote Tucker off the panel, just like he had been voted off Dancing with the Stars. Did I mention I have a crush on her?
• An audience member asked why the media was obsessed about the Hillary/Obama supposed conflict. Dan Abrams fielded the question and said it was legitimate issue, and that they stood by it, and that since McCain was running ads on it, they couldn't offer good political coverage and ignore it.

  I jumped in (paraphrasing), "McCain has three ads on the theme, you've featured them all, yet their campaign is only actually airing one of them. You are doing the campaign's dirty work, and doing it for free!" The crowd approved.

  Abrams, suddenly under siege, admitted that was a valid critique.

• The crowd also liked the pin I was wearing. Printed up on Monday by Netroots Nation's Nolan Treadway (with help from others?) it says: "Ask me how many houses I own". (Christy took a picture of it.)
• So someone then asked me how many houses I owned. I think I calculated it at three percent of a house. The bank owns the other 97 percent.
• After the event, I was interviewed by a couple of adorable high school students. They asked me what the top three issues for kids should be. I answered 1) cost of higher education, 2) lack of jobs for graduates, 3) McCain talking about a draft, and 4) national service for all high school grads. Yeah, that's four, and yeah, I know some people don't like the idea of mandatory national service.

  I also told them that kids today are better able to integrate their politics into their lives thanks to social networking tools. That makes them more socially aware, more engaged, more tolerant, and more progressive than perhaps any generation before them. I dig the millennials.

• Back at the Big Tent, got to say "hello" to Ned Lamont and Rep. John Hall. Sen. Salazar passed through, pleased as heck that the convention was happening in his home state. Clay Johnson Aikens (not the American Idol guy) of the Sunlight Foundation and I lobbied him on electronic filing for Senate fundraising reports (which presidential and House candidates must do, but the Senate is oddly exempt), and promised to sign on as a co-sponsor to the relevant legislation. I can't believe that legislation is even controversial, but Republican John Ensign has been trying to kill it with a poison pill amendment.
• I wouldn't say Warner did terrible, but it's not good for anyone to come before or after Brian Schweitzer. I'm quite pleased his national profile is rising. He's the face of the Democratic resurgence in the Mountain West.
• But rising to the occasion, Hillary Clinton was perfect. I'm quite convinced she would've been our nominee had she voted against Bush war in Iraq, and she would've been a great nominee. .
• A stole a glimpse at the Cubs-Pirates score. Cubs won! But uh oh, Zambrano got hammered again. Like a good Cubs fan, I'm starting to panic. See? There's little difference between Cubs fans and Democrats. Neither of us are used to winning. And one bad poll/bad outing by your star pitcher, and we start assuming the worst.
• Back to Clinton, did you notice that she wore a Daily Kos-orange outfit? A signal to the PUMAs that their gig was up? Well, she could beat them with a 2x4 and they still wouldn't get the message because it ceased being about Clinton a long time ago...

  I am jealous that women politicians get to be creative in their outfits and use color. I love color. I loved Pelosi's minty green outfit at Netroots Nation. Guys, on the other hand, don't have such flexibility. My own readers panned me when I wore an orange tie on Meet the Press (they didn't like the brown sports jacket either). I cried for days. Either that or I said "Fuck all of you!" I can't remember which it was.

• I hadn't had a chance until late last night to peruse the chatter in the comment threads, and I'm surprised at how many whiners there are about the convention. I think it's been great. Monday night was awesome. Tuesday night was also awesome. I can't predict if Wednesday and Thursday will be awesome, but I'll go out on a limb and predict that yes, they'll be awesome too. (Sadly, that last sentence is better than 98 percent of the political "analysis" offered on television.)
• I could be in better spirits because I don't have to hear the yakkity yaks blabbing away incessantly, talking over speeches like Brian Schweitzer. Damn they love the sound of their own voices. Could they please shut the fuck up and let people digest the proceedings on their own? Do they have so little regard for their audience that they think people need DC- and NYC-based blowhards to tell them what to think?

  And yes, the simple answer is "yes".  

• I listened in briefly to a cop and some convention goers having a nice chat as we tried to get a cab to the hotel. He was saying how uneventful the convention had been, how well-behaved protesters had been, and how everything appeared to be going nice and smooth. Knock on wood, I suppose. I don't know how the TV blowhards have been portraying that stuff, but from my vantage point, it's been quite civil and -- dare I say it? -- even tame.

Maybe I should get a Twitter account, huh?

In the Alaska Senate primaries, Democrat Mark Begich won easily against a no-name field, while the indicted Hulkster Ted Stevens easily held off his six challengers with 63% of the vote. While the rest of the field lagged, it's telling that 37 percent of Republicans wanted someone else.

In the House, Ethan Berkowitz also won his primary easily with 53 percent of the vote, the rest split with two other candidates. But the Republican contest has provided a great deal of drama:

429 of 438 precincts reporting
                %   Votes
Don Young       45  42,461
Sean Parnell    45  42,316
Gabrielle Ledoux 9   8,589

Yup. With about 85,000 votes cast, there are only 145 votes separating the two candidates. Remember, we want the corrupt incumbent -- Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young to survive his primary challenge. He would be a far easier target in the general election than the Club for Growth-funded Parnell.

Ivan Moore Research for the Anchorage Press and KTUU. 8/9-12. Likely voters. MoE ~4.4%

Young (R) 41
Berkowitz (D) 51

Parnell (R) 46
Berkowitz (D) 42

Can Parnell make up the 145 votes with just 9 precincts left to count? Beats me. The remaining districts are all rural interior precincts, where Young has huge support (those people get bridges that go nowhere!). But those precincts are also sparsely populated (which is why their bridges go nowhere). So the numbers may not change much when they are counted, other than to slightly increase Young's lead. The bigger factor is absentee ballots:

There are also the 16,000 absentee ballots the division of elections mailed out. It has received back 7,600 of them and Gail Fenumiai, director of the state division of elections, said she didn't know how many of those have been counted. As long as the absentee ballots were postmarked Tuesday, the division will continue to count them for the next 10 days. Questioned ballots will be counted on Sept. 5.

If it remains this close, there will be a recount, and maybe nasty court battles! A contested Young victory with a nasty court battle would certainly make Democrats smile.

Note of course, that Young is just at 45 percent of the vote, less than a majority of Republicans. LeDoux ended up playing spoiler, just like we hoped. It's tough to oust an incumbent with two or more challengers. And I'm sure we had plenty of Democratic-leaning "Undeclared" voters also vote in the GOP primary to cause mischief, like this one in last night's election thread:

I'm registered "Undeclared"

and voted on the Republican ballot today for just that reason. Go Don, go! All the way to prison...

Such mischief may end up proving decisive.

Now do you guys see why I champion Schweitzer so much?

Before Obama spoke in 2004, I told people to watch, because he would one day be the first black president. He didn't disappoint.

Now, I'm feeling the same sense of anticipation with Schweitzer. The man will be president one day. Heck, sign me up right now for his 2016 effort.

Of course, I've always had this feeling. I suspect that after that speech, many more will think so as well.

Pay careful attention to today's release by the Census Bureau of its annual data on poverty, income and health. And don't believe the headlines.

Although the new data show that median household income increased slightly last year, a close reading shows that incomes for working families (as opposed to retirees) actually dropped. Put that drop into context and it's even more alarming. Compared to median income in 2000 -- which, like 2007, was the final year of a cycle of economic growth -- it's now clear that this is the first time Americans have become poorer, in real terms, at the end of an expansion than they were at the start. It seems almost certain that incomes will continue to decline in 2008.

The Census figures also show that the number of uninsured dropped slightly in 2007 but, here again, don't be fooled. That decline was almost entirely due to an increase in government-sponsored coverage for children, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile, the rate of employer-based insurance
coverage continued its 7-year decline.

On Leno:

While McCain was still in the green room, Leno got the audience warmed up.

"Tropical Storm Fay has soaked Florida ... ruining thousands of homes, most of them belonging to John McCain," Leno said during his monologue. "In fact, to make Sen. McCain feel at home tonight, I gave him 7 dressing rooms."

After their opening segment together on the stage, Leno came back from a commercial break to ask McCain, "For $1 million, how many houses do you have?"

McCain answered by first citing his time as a POW in Vietnam.

"Could I just mention to you, Jay, that, at a moment of seriousness," McCain began, "I spent five-and-a-half years in a prison cell. I didn't have a house. I didn't have a kitchen table. I didn't have a table. I didn't have a chair. And I didn't spend those five-and-a-half years because, not because I wanted to get a house when I got out.

"We spend our time in a condominium in Washington, in a condominium in Phoenix, sometime over here in the state of California, and we have a place up in northern Arizona," McCain continued, explaining how his campaign got to the number four in the count. (McCain is being conservative: ABC News’s count is ten homes on eight properties.)

McCain is "being conservative"? Is that a new euphemism for "he's lying"?

Granted, lying and being a conservative seem to go hand-in-hand these days...

I agree with Sullivan on this:

The notion that tonight should have been about ripping the bark off the president seems to me misplaced. No one needs to be persuaded that the country is on the wrong track. We have endured one of the worst presidencies in American history, a stalling economy, and a war that was as deceptively packaged as it was poorly executed. The wrong track number is at 80 percent. What was necessary tonight was rebutting the only real weapon the Republicans have: dragging Obama into the mud, throwing every extremist attack they can at him, painting him as a commie, alien, anti-American freak. For good measure, they had tried to paint Michelle as an angry black radical.

They failed.

I'm finding it sort of ironic that the netroots -- you know, us people who have been screaming at Democrats to get rough with the GOP -- haven't engaged in this criticism. It's been coming from the Carvilles and other "Democratic strategists" that somehow make their way on TV. For those of us who were born in the combative blogosphere, we're pretty much happy with how the first night panned out.

Why? Perhaps because being close to the ground, we understand that the problem the Obamas have is not that the country thinks things are peachy. 80 percent of Americans think the country is headed the wrong direction, and Bush and Congressional Republicans are getting the lion's share of the blame. It's true that McCain is trying to use his "maverick" status to distance himself from his party, but piercing that fabrication isn't the Obamas biggest problem.

No, the biggest problem they face is the b.s. about them not being real Americans -- that he is foreign and muslim, that she is an angry black radical, that they don't "look" how a First Family should look. And so Obama's team set out to diffuse those fears on the first night.

In the last couple of days, I've come to fully embrace Biden's pick as VP -- not because of his personal politics (which still chafe), but because it signals that the Obama campaign plans on taking off the gloves. Obama himself may believe in the lofty rhetoric of a "new politics" and changing the tone and all that, and that's fine. But it's clear he realized that if he couldn't do the dirty work, he'd need someone who would. You don't pick a Biden and then muzzle him.

So there are three more days of convention. We don't have to beat up on Republicans all four nights. The anti-GOP case has already been made by Bush and his enablers over the past eight years. There are two tasks left -- to show American the Obamas are, well, real Americans, and to tie McCain to the GOP.

The former has now been accomplished. I suspect today and tomorrow will handle the latter.

Any day now -- perhaps any hour -- the plug will be pulled on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and a massive government bailout will ensue. Together, they'll become the largest government-owned entities in American history, and, once again, taxpayers will pay the bill, which could come to $25 billion or more.

One question is how did we ever get to this? The Savings and Loan Bailout of the late 1980s should have taught us that when government guarantees the downside of risks and private investors reap the upside gains, there's hell to pay. The risks Fannie and Freddie took on weren't officially guaranteed by the government -- that is, by you and me -- but investors assumed they were. And so did Fannie's and Freddie's executives, who reaped a bonanza with bonuses in the tens of millions each year.

Apologists will say that Fannie and Freddie exist to make housing loans to low-income Americans, so it was inevitable that the two giants would get caught in the quagmire of the housing burst. But the fact is, Fannie and Freddie -- and the executives who ran them and still run them -- have been out to maximize profits. Period. Just the same as every other mortgage and investment bank. High-risk sub-prime loans offered a higher rate of return, so Fannie and Freddie went into them big time. And because of the implicit government guarantee, Fannie and Freddie could take on even more risks and make even more money. Until now.

It's another case of socialized capitalism, folks. The largest, yet. Along with making lots of money for investors and their executives, Fannie and Freddie corrupted our political process. They blocked any attempt to reign in the risks. Their lobbyists were and are the most sophisticated and among the most ubiquitous in Washington.

What to do now? Hope that, like the S&L fiasco, taxpayers can get back a fair portion of our dollars. But unlike the S&L fiasco, this time we should make sure we bury socialized capitalism for good.

Lots of media coming through the Big Tent. The camera crews are taking B-Roll, the random background shots they put into news reports.

And the B-Roll is ... people working on laptops! Exciting!

It's nothing like their own newsrooms where people are ... working on laptops!

So compelling...

Funny seeing the GOP concern trolls worrying about poor Hillary's feelings, when their tune was so different in the primary:

Calling Hillary a "bitch"? Hilarious!

I just got an invitation for the "Spirits of Denver" party, which as you'll see below, will be the place to be to get reactionary corporate PAC money.

Beta Night Club
1909 Blake Street
Denver, Colorado

August 25, 2008
9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Here are the sponsors. See if you can figure out the pattern:

Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (lead sponsor)
2008: 59% Dems, 41% Reps
2006: 48% Dems, 48% Reps
2004: 39% Dems, 61% Reps
2002: 32% Dems, 68% Reps

National Association of Chain Drug Stores
2008: 66% Dems, 34% Reps
2006: 24% Dems, 75% Reps
2004: 22% Dems, 78% Reps
2002: 40% Dems, 60% Reps

ClearChannel
2008: 54% Dems, 46% Reps
2006: 40% Dems, 60% Reps
2004: 38% Dems, 62% Reps
2002: 38% Dems, 62% Reps

Federation of American Hospitals
2008: 54% Dems, 46% Reps
2006: 35% Dems, 64% Reps
2004: 40% Dems, 60% Reps
2002: 31% Dems, 69% Reps

Duke Energy
2008: 39% Dems, 61% Reps
2006: 26% Dems, 74% Reps
2004: 24% Dems, 76% Reps
2002: 30% Dems, 70% Reps

National Association of Home Builders
2008: 45% Dems, 55% Reps
2006: 45% Dems, 55% Reps
2004: 33% Dems, 67% Reps
2002: 38% Dems, 62% Reps

US Chamber of Commerce
2008: 39% Dems, 61% Reps
2006: 18% Dems, 82% Reps
2004: 24% Dems, 76% Reps
2002: 10% Dems, 90% Reps

American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (Coal industry front group)

Lockheed Martin
2008: 57% Dems, 43% Reps
2006: 42% Dems, 58% Reps
2004: 41% Dems, 59% Reps
2002: 39% Dems, 61% Reps

Daimler
2008: 48% Dems, 52% Reps
2006: 35% Dems, 65% Reps
2004: 32% Dems, 68% Reps
2002: 41% Dems, 59% Reps

AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
2008: 45% Dems, 55% Reps
2006: 28% Dems, 72% Reps
2004: 30% Dems, 70% Reps
2002: 30% Dems, 70% Reps

Amgen
2008: 45% Dems, 55% Reps
2006: 34% Dems, 65% Reps
2004: 27% Dems, 73% Reps
2002: 25% Dems, 74% Reps

Verisign
2008: 47% Dems, 53% Reps
2006: 21% Dems, 79% Reps
2004: 37% Dems, 63% Reps
2002: 55% Dems, 45% Reps

We've spent the decade working to strip Republicans of their governing majorities, majorities enabled by these (and many more) PACs. Now, seeing the political winds turn, they are working feverishly to buy the Democratic Party so that government can continue the same destructive policies that have gotten us to today's messes.

While Obama may not be taking PAC money, most other Democrats aren't following suit. And while there are many PACs friendly to progressive principles, the group hosting and funding this party is not. Unfortunately, I fear this may be one of the hottest parties in Denver this week. Not so unfortunately, I suspect my invitation is hereby revoked.

(Bumped -- kos)

The more I read stuff like this (from Stephanopolous on Good Morning America Weekend Sunday), the more comfortable I am with Biden's selection.

I have never seen a vice-presidential candidate, in the announcement, come out with THAT KIND of ferocity. Usually, you see it a little bit later in the campaign – not at the announcement. But Joe Biden showed one of the main reasons that Barack Obama picked him. They WANTED a scrapper out there. They WANT a fighter out there. They know Senator Biden will be able to get UNDER Senator McCain’s skin. They’ve known each other for an AWFUL long time – more than 35 years. As one Obama aide told me yesterday: We know that Joe Biden can go out there with a 2-BY-4 if he has to.

There's really no faster way to my heart than having a Democrat go after Republicans with a (rhetorical) 2-by-4.

Some schmoe at the Wall Street Journal:

It isn't every Tuesday that DailyKos and the Heritage Foundation find common cause, but that was the case after a Federal Election Commission ruling last week that exempts political bloggers from rules governing political organizations [...]

DailyKos, the influential ultraliberal blog founded by Markos Moulitsas, applauded the decision but still noted fears that "political opponents would file frivolous complaints against Web sites in order to try and shut them down."

Ummm, no I didn't. I said that had we not gotten a favorable ruling on this issue in 2005, frivolous complaints like this one (a misguided Clinton supporter claimed a pro-Obama blog was illegally coordinating with the Obama campaign) would've seriously threatened the medium. Instead, we got regulations that treat bloggers like any other traditional media outlet.

While there's nothing that can be done about frivolous complaints, the fact that they're getting shot down so quickly gives less incentive for similar complaints.

Reading comprehension is hard.

David Mason of the Heritage Foundation says the ruling means "bloggers are free to engage in politics." But the agency must still codify new regulations to implement its ruling, so don't be surprised by more battles to come over preserving freedom of speech in the land of McCain-Feingold.

Um. Those regulations were implemented in 2005. That's what this decision was based on. In fact, this winger had the ability to pull a quote from my post on this decision, but somehow managed to completely ignore this:

Actually, the new rules are so crystal clear, there is zero room for argument. They are so clear, in fact, that the FEC shot down a similar complaint filed against Daily Kos last year in a shockingly fast one week from the date they received our filing (see our filing here (PDF), and the decision here (PDF)).

Glad to see the WSJ's intrepid editorial board is up to speed.

Remember, Richard Cohen is supposed to be one of the Washington Post's "liberals":

"If you're a little bit critical of Barack Obama, you get really a pie of vilification right in the face," Cohen said, adding that his liberal critics "were born too late, because they would have been great Communists."

Cute. He's telling the peons to "shut up".

Lots of good reaction to the Biden pick from our diaries.

Hope Reborn rounds up all the positive reaction to the pick, and there's plenty of it.

dcprof makes some excellent points about how Biden crimps McCain's VP options.

Romney was already problematic because of house?-gate.  Choosing Biden, from working class roots and at the bottom of senatorial wealth, emphasizes that.  If Romney's the pick, it's all the easier to do the "out of touch" line with the Republicans with Biden in place.

I've been concerned about McCain picking Pawlenty, putting Minnesota in play and speaking to low-income voters.  But....imagine Biden vs. Pawlenty on foreign policy in the debates.  Or imagine how the choices are perceived.  McCain has said that the key is that these are dangerous times.  So he picks a mid-sized state's governor whose foreign policy credentials seem to be visiting Minnesota troops abroad and doing trade delegations?  Maybe that would have worked if Obama picked Kaine or Sebelius, whose credentials on foreign policy would have only been only comparable to Pawlenty.  But how on earth can you claim that foreign policy is the most central issue and then choose a clearly inferior person (on that dimension) to be one heartbeat away?

I don't know who McCain can pick who has the foreign policy chops to go up against Biden who is not either massively wealthy or someone who would undermine one of McCain's  other themes.  (Note, for instance, what would happen to the pro-life support for him if he picked Ridge.)

And I love Karma for All's diary, pointing out that Obama ... here, I'll quote:

Here is what Obama said about his criteria for selecting a Vice President this week (emphasis mine):  [...]

I want somebody who is independent. Somebody who is able to say to me, 'you know what, Mr. President, I think you're wrong on this and here's why' and will give me (applause) who will help me think through major issues and consult with me, would be a key advisor.

[...] Note that Barack specifically said he wanted someone unafraid to disagree with him that he could consult with and "think" with.  He wants someone to debate ideas with, you know, like people who make important decisions normally do.  We can easily use this opportunity to remind America of the stupidity of the Bush white house.  We can contrast our candidate, who is unafraid of debating to clarify his decisions, with the inbred ideas that came from Dubya's reign because no one would tell the emperor he was wrong while Cheney was wearing his clothes.  

So when you read the tripe the McCain camp pumps out in the next week, like this:  

"There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden," said McCain spokesman Ben Porritt. "Biden has denounced Barack Obama's poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing -- that Barack Obama is not ready to be President."

...remember that Obama has already said he would choose someone who would disagree with him.

Wedged in between the Olympics, and the Democratic and Republican conventions, is a holiday we still call Labor Day, along with Labor Day Weekend, although don't expect much media attention to it or its meaning.

In truth, as a young man I never thought much about unions, or even about labor protections -- at least until my first job.

I told my friends I'd landed a job in the advertising business. But that was an exaggeration. It was what today we'd call a summer "internship" -- a kind of foot-in-the-door that might someday lead to a real job.

In truth, it wasn't even a foot in the door. More like a big toe. I was a "go-fer" -- someone who's told to "go-fer" coffee, "go-fer" sandwiches, "go-fer" this or that package. I go-ferred for weeks, running around New York City on errands.

But even though being a go-fer wasn't glamorous, I was fired with enthusiasm. I basked in the glow of the firm's worldly-wise creativity, its brand-name clients, and the important meetings I'd supply with coffee, sandwiches and packages.

After a time I got fewer go-fer assignments. I assumed this meant I was now primed for the big leagues, ready to join a full-fledged ad campaign. But the real reason was I didn't know New York well enough and got lost when I went for a package more than a few blocks away. I was so late with one of them I didn't deliver it in time for an important meeting. So they stopped asking me to go-fer.

At this point the head of the firm gave me a different assignment, but it wasn't an ad campaign. It was to take care of his dog, which he brought into the office every day. A big Irish Wolfhound named Prince, who had a bowel problem. My job was, well, you can imagine. I told myself this was a kind of promotion. After all, I was now working for the boss.

But I was actually working for Prince. And one day I was scraping Prince's bowel problem off the small terrace outside the boss's office -- for the third time that day -- in the 95-degree heat and humidity of a New York August, and I finally realized something I should have known all along. This job wasn't going anywhere.

So, I summoned the nerve to tell the boss I wouldn't take care of Prince anymore, and he summoned the indignation to tell me I had a nerve, and that was that.

I ended my first job just as I had started it -- fired ... with enthusiasm.

Labor Day should remind us how many shitty jobs still exist.

I wrote a a month ago:

we really, really don't want to pick someone who plugs a supposed gap in Obama's armor. You pick Wes Clark, and people won't see "phew, national security is covered!". Nope, they'll see, "Obama is trying to compensate for his lack of national security creds!" And whether it's Sam Nunn, or Joe Biden, or anyone else who supposedly patches up a weakness, the end result would be what Gore had to endure in 2000 -- "He picked Joe Lieberman to compensate for Gore's 'Bill Clinton' problem."

So now Biden is Obama's pick, and he's clearly not a reinforcing one.  If Obama's core message is "change" and "judgment" based on his prescience on the Iraq War vote, well then, Biden is the exact opposite of those things. And the media has reacted accordingly. NY Times:

...Mr. Obama’s choice of Mr. Biden suggested some of the weaknesses the Obama campaign is trying to address at a time when at a time when national polls suggest that his race with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is tightening.

At the Wasington Post homepage, the blurb teasing their Biden story says:

In a move aimed at shoring up his foreign policy credentials, Barack Obama will share Democratic ticket with Delaware Senator Joseph R. Biden.

McCain's mole at the Associated Press, Ron Fournier, is gleefully at it as well.

Lucky for us, unless McCain picks Joe Lieberman, he's not likely to get a reinforcing pick either. It appears both candidates are headed toward the "plugging a gap" mode of choosing a vice president, as opposed to picking someone who reinforces their core messages.

Biden isn't without his advantages. He's purported to be the least wealthy member of the Senate, which should come in handy when contrasted against Mittens or whatever rich white guy McCain picks as his running mate, especially as the election turns on economic issues and who is most "elitist". And Biden can be a partisan pit bull when so warranted. Given Obama's reluctance to play the partisan card, it should be fun having a real pit bull in the number two position to do some of the necessary dirty work.

This has been the best veep rollout EVER. But alas, all good things must come to an end.

According to a campaign official, the plan is to send out the text message a few hours before Obama's 12pm CT event in Springfield.  

Most everyone in the national press corps think that it's Joe Biden. But no one knows, and no one is willing to pull the trigger.

I can confirm reporting by NBC News that Gov. Tim Kaine's associates are saying that Obama did not choose him, although I don't have any first hand accounts.

Sources close to Biden and Bayh have been in lockdown mode.

And is there a better example than this that old media is getting left out in the cold?

Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room begging viewers to stay tuned so CNN can bring them coverage of a text message.

Brilliant! We've got a lot of campaign a head of us, but this has been the Obama campaign's finest operation thus far.

No wonder Jerome Corsi is so wrong about everything. He gets his information from the conspiracy-theorist PUMA- and Obama-hating fringe online.

In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."

We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

Personally, it's been hilarious watching this fringe obsess over Obama's birth certificate. As long as they were chasing that red herring, they couldn't do anything legitimately damaging. Lucky for us, this FactCheck.org conclusion won't stop the conspiracy theories. In fact, it's given them a whole new batch of document scans to pore over, loose pixels to obsess about, and fantastical theories to develop.

But if we needed another reason why Corsi should be considered nothing more than a discredited buffoon, here we have it.

Republicans worked overtime to make two cases about John Kerry: that he had faked his injuries in Vietnam, and that he was elitist. Attacking Theresa Heinz was a key component of that strategy, as John Cole has remembers (he's asked for no link to keep his site from crashing). Here's Rush Limbaugh:

Rush Limbaugh Online, "John Kerry’s Resume":

[Kerry] has lived the life of a millionaire living off the inherited wealth of his two wives. As an Ivy League educated millionaire who did not have to work for his fortune, Mr. Kerry never had to worry about the money he earned, the taxes he paid, or the programs he and Ted Kennedy forced the rest of us to pay for. . . . Mr. Kerry Heinz is not effected (sic) when these neighborhoods are destroyed and working class families lose the largest asset in their retirement plans—their home’s value.

So now they're trying to levy the same attacks they used against Kerry against Obama, but the reality is that this time around, the opposite is actually true:

McCain, who has portrayed Obama as an elitist, is the son and grandson of admirals. The Associated Press estimates his wife, a beer heiress, is worth $100 million. Obama was raised by a single mother who relied at times on food stamps, and went to top schools on scholarships and loans. His income has increased from book sales since he spoke at the 2004 Democratic convention.

Republicans just spent months building up their "Obama is elitist" narrative, only to see it come crashing down under the weight of four seven eight who the heck knows how many houses. And when I say "who the heck knows", I mean "who the heck knows". Not even McCain knows.

And this is just getting started. John McCain life and lifestyle keeps getting in the way of his campaign's best zingers. They mock Obama's visit to his grandmother in Hawaii? Turns out McCain and Cindy met in Hawaii, and then they honeymooned in Hawaii. Exotic! Elitist! Blah blah blah. It's one big long season of the pot calling the kettle black.

So what's left? With "Obama is elitist" strategy in tatters, they are forced to change gears, try to build a new negative narrative. Ambinder notes the stark contrast:

McCain has changed messages.

His new ad is all about how obama isn't a naive self-important celebrity anymore; instead, he's a scheming back-room corrupt pol, didn't you know?  

It's throwing mud against the wall, hoping something sticks. The "elitist" crap was getting traction, until McCain deflated it with one short sentence. Of course, if we're talking "scheming back-room corrupt pol", I'm not sure that Mr. Keating Five is exactly the right person to deliver that attack.