Speaking of Hillary and assinations...

...what is with CNN's sound effects?

I've got The Most Trusted Name in News on in the background as I putter on the computer, waiting to hear speeches from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I'm not paying much attention to the talking heads, but I hear Anderson Cooper saying they're going to take a break and Hillary's speech is up next, and they cut to a live shot of the hall or whatever she'll be speaking from as they go to commercial.


I presume so anyway, my back is turned from the TV. I hear the usual crowd noise, and then what sounds like a short burst of gunfire over the crowd noise before the commercial comes up. "What the fizizzle?" I think to myself. Did someone just open-up with an M-16 in the hall where Hillary is going to speak?

I turn around and grab my remote and rewind (bless the PVR) and replay. Turns out the gunfire is a CNN "going to commercial" sound effect, accompanied by shooting stars across the screen. The stars are very patriotic, but the simulated gunfire?

Weirdness. But they're back from commercial now, and it appears everyone is uninjured.

Anyway, congrats Barack!

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Hitting back with YouTube

This story from south of the border is a great example of how parties in Canada can use viral video and Web 2.0 as a rapid response to political debates. Best of all for Liberals, it doesn’t cost anything. Wonder if we’ll see this sort of thing up here in the next campaign:

It probably seemed like a slam-dunk campaign ad: use some stock footage of kids sleeping soundly, have a gravelly-voiced actor do a scary-movie voiceover about having an experienced president in the White House, and bam -- Hillary Clinton gets a leg up on Barack Obama and inches closer to the presidency.

The only problem, however, is that the Clinton campaign chose some stock footage that had a young girl named Casey Knowles in it -- and Casey just happens to have grown into an 18-year-old Obama supporter. She saw the ad and started talking to the media about how she didn't agree with the "politics of fear" that the Democratic hopeful was using.

Not surprisingly, the Obama campaign was all over this idea like white on rice. You could almost hear the cheers of glee echoing from the other Democratic front-runner's campaign HQ when they saw the reports about Casey, and they quickly put together their own ad using the teenaged supporter. It showed up on YouTube on Friday and already has almost half a million views.

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Life continues imitating the West Wing

I haven’t been following the presidential primaries in the U.S. that closely, other than what I get on The Daily Show. I did flip CNN on last night while doing other things, and listened to most of a tedious concession speech from Mike Huckabee (sorry Stephen Colbert) and a bland acceptance speech from John McCain.

It being a school night I went to sleep before there were any final results from Ohio or Texas, but this morning it seems Hillary Clinton was able to pull out wins in each. It’s too bad, I’ve been pulling for Obama. And he’s still very much in it, given the delegate numbers it’s still anyone’s game.

It’s already been observed how in many ways this primary season is imitating the script for the last two season of The West Wing. And that trend shows no sign of ending any time soon. With McCain/Vinnick nominated, the Republicans get to sit back with the Democrats with Obama/Clinton/Santos/Russell slug it out towards a brokered convention.

In the West Wing, the convention deadlocks and Santos is heavily pressured to bow out for the good of the party as the young guy that has made a name for himself, the heir apparent for next time. He appears to initially agree, then reneges on the convention stage with a speech for delegates to vote their conciencse. Behind the scenes, President Bartlet brokers the support of the NY teacher’s union for Santos and the nomination is his.

While such a scenario made for good TV, in real life it’s far from ideal for the Democratic Party. They need to get a presumptive nominee soon, and it shouldn’t be allowed to come down to a brokered convention.

At this point, as I understand it there’s no math that allows either Clinton or Obama to get over the hump before the convention. That brings the un-democratic super delegates into play, as well as divisive arguments over what to do about the un-seated Florida and Michigan delegations. That, and a prolonged primary season, will weaken and divide the Democratic Party, opening the door for what seemed impossible just a year ago: another Republican presidency.

After last night, I think the pressure is going to be incredibly strong for one of the two candidates to drop out of the race and endorse the other, for the good of the party and the good of the country. It really would be the best case scenario for what should be the ultimate goal: reclaiming the White House.

The question, of course, is who. It seems like an impossible choice to make for either candidate, both are so close to the prize they can taste it. Will one of them be able to put country ahead of ambition?

For Clinton, it’s probably a harder decision to make, because for her there probably is no next time. Could she run again in four years, or eight years if Obama wins the presidency? Tough to say, four years maybe but probably not eight. Stepping aside now may mean stepping aside from the dream.

For Obama, even if it ends here it’s not over. He has vaulted onto the national stage like a bullet, energized the party and the country. He’s young, and he’d be the presumptive nominee in four years, or eight if Clinton wins the presidency. And an Obama with a few more years of seasoning would be an even more formidable opponent, and could find it easier to blunt the national security attacks.

Both also stand to lose from staying in too long. Besides weakening and dividing the party and making it easier for McCain, this race is getting nastier and nastier. The loser stands to play a senior role in the party, Clinton has been mentioned as a possible Senate Majority Leader. Those possibilities go out the window if they’ve poisoned the ground behind them.

Looking at it pragmatically, Obama stepping aside for Clinton, and joining her on the ticket as VP, makes the best sense. Party united, experience mixed with idealism, and Obama gains the executive experience as VP to be a very formidable candidate down the road. As an Obama I’d be disappointed, because I think he can take this thing, but at what price? Really though he has the lead, he has the momentum, he shouldn't have to be the one to step aside.

There’s also a lot to be said for an Obama/Clinton ticket, with Hillary as the Leo McGarry to Barrack’s Matthew Santos. The experience balancing out the youthful idealism. And as a plus, Hillary has no history of heart problems I’m aware of.

So, will one of them step aside for the good of the party and country? In the West Wing Santos said no, and he went on to take the nomination and the presidency. Despite the parallels though while Obama may be very Santos-like, Clinton is no Bingo-Bob Russell and there’s no President Bartlett in the background to play powerbroker.

While I think the pressure will be on both of them to step aside, I just don’t see it happening. They’re both too close to winning. Also, you don’t get to be a successful politician without having a healthy ego, so I don’t think either are lacking in that department.

This one will go to the convention. It will be entertaining. In another pop culture parallel though, there will be blood.

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Taxes, schadenfreude, Americans, resignations, selective memories and the Queen

*Can’t buy a majority: According to the good folks at Decima, over the holidays the Conservatives gained a seven point lead in the polls. All they had to do was not be in the HoC or committee facing daily attacks, not have the opposition in the news, have no news stories on Mulroney and Schreiber or Lunn’s nuclear bungling or Afghanistan, get everyone sleepy from copious amounts of turkey, and force-feed them fawning year-end media interviews. And get lots of free advertising from TSN.

Oh, and spend billions more dollars cutting the GST by one point. Can’t forget that. In spite of everything, I’m starting to feel bad for Stephen Harper. He picks the week after Christmas for his big announcement, when things are slow and the media A team is on holiday, guaranteeing compliant coverage from the B team. He gets wall-to-wall fawning coverage of his tax cut, and still he can’t even scratch into majority territory on a temporary post-announcement blip.

OK, I don’t really feel sorry for him. I think it’s pretty funny actually.

*Schadenfreude: From the same polling story:

The latest poll contains plenty of bad news for the NDP.
The party -- which won a historic Quebec byelection in September and hopes to take more seats in the province -- sagged to eight per cent in Quebec. The Green party had nine per cent in the province.
It was almost as bad for New Democrats in Ontario. In that province, Liberals held a 40-37 lead over the Tories, while the NDP was at 12 per cent and the Green party was at 10.

What was that again about an orange wave, Jack?

*Americans: I can’t bring myself to get too interested or excited about the ongoing U.S. presidential primaries. For what it’s worth, I’m pulling for Obama. He’ll have a tough fight against Clinton, but he has a shot. I have to laugh at some of the media coverage the past few weeks though, by both our press and the American press, particularly around the New Hampshire results. They seem to be trying to spin Obama’s close second place finish as a major defeat; I guess because he pulled-out a surprise win in Iowa he was expected to run the boards. Now they’re casting Clinton as the comeback kid, because she barely managed to hold a state she once had a much bigger lead in, not to mention a lot more organizational muscle. And then there’s the tear-gate nonsense. The primary process is a marathon, not a sprint. Wake me up in a month or two.

*Resignations: MP Brian Pallister is quitting politics and won’t run in the next election. I was about to do a post on how this is another rat fleeing a sinking Liberal ship, another sign Dion is not a leader, and another sign a Conservative (or NDP) wave is about to sweep the country. Then I remembered Pallister is a Conservative, so it must just be family reasons and not a sinister conspiracy.

*National Compost: The editors at the Post are all indignant and up in arms today (not too unusual really), demanding justice in a story so ridiculous it doesn’t bare a full summary, and so much of a non-story you probably haven’t heard of it unless you read the Post or are a Conservative die-hard (all five of you). To the Post editors though, since they are obviously so concerned about this, they might want to go back and talk to their newsroom colleagues that were around in the late nineties, when the Post’s “investigative journalists” worked hand in hand with the Canadian Alliance, trying to bring down the Chretien government with the bogus crap pile of accusations known as Shawinigate. Did Post reporters ever leak information to the Alliance, to be used in QP, so they could then write about it in the Post? Umm, does a bear shit in the woods?

The Post today says: Name the guilty reporter, and let the public see what penalty has been meted out.

Actually, come to think of if, in the Shawinigate case justice was served. Chretien won another majority, Stock Day faced open rebellion in his caucus, and no one still reads the National Post.

*God save the Wii: Ending on a positive note, I enjoyed this story:

God save the Queen: She's now playing Wii

By GamePro staff
GamePro (online)

SAN FRANCISCO (01/07/2008) - Queen Elizabeth II is reportedly enamored with Nintendo's Wii.

According to a tabloid source close to UK's The People, The Queen is showing signs of becoming a "Nintendo addict" after getting her aging hands on her grandson's newly gifted Wii.

"When she saw [Prince] William playing a game after lunch at Sandringham... she begged to join in," the unnamed contact alleges. "She played a simple ten-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural... William was in fits of laughter. He was enormously impressed at having such a cool gran."

Since 2001, Her Majesty has regularly upgraded her cell phone before deciding on a Blackberry which she uses today. She sends email (queen@england.gov maybe?), listens to an iPod, and has seemingly turned into one of these.

I just have one point of contention however, and it’s with Prince William. He thought his Gran was cool for playing the Wii? I’d say having her face on all the money was already pretty cool, but that’s just me.

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On competitiveness and politics

A few interesting articles were highlighted by Woman at Mile O this morning around the issue of economic competitiveness and health care.

It started with comments by Hillary Clinton, who of course is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in the U.S. She recently told a union audience that U.S. jobs are bleeding to Canada because heath care costs are so high in the U.S. that Canada’s medicare system is giving us a competitive advantage.

This got autoworker union boss Buzz Hargrove in a snit, who said both countries are losing jobs to overseas imports. The Ontario Liberal government chimed in to, sending Finance Minister Greg Sorbara out to note the economic pressures being faced by Ontario manufacturers.

It seems everyone is trying to paint a bad picture in their jurisdiction (the cynic would say so they can come in and fix it). I think everyone is right though, and everyone is also being a bit selective in their comments. The manufacturing sector in Central Canada and the U.S. is hurting, with overseas imports a definite contributing factor. The high tech sector is on the upswing though and growing strongly, that’s where the job growth is occurring.

I think Clinton overstates her case slightly, I’m not sure jobs are flowing wholesale from the U.S. into Canada. But she is most definitely right when she says Canada’s healthcare system is a competitive advantage. It very much is.

And it’s so often overlooked when the business lobby whines about things like productivity or infrastructure investment, where we compare unfavourably to the U.S. While they’re really just after government concessions and tax breaks they are right, we do have work to do in some areas.

But they nearly always overlook the areas where we do have competitive advantages. Like quality of life. A happy worker is a more productive worker, so quality of life is important to both employees and employers. Like the quality of the public education system, access to recreation and leisure activities, crime and safety. R&D tax credits.

And health care. This is a major issue for both employees and employers. In the private health insurance system of the U.S. many working Americans can’t afford coverage. And to attract talent, many U.S. companies purchase private coverage for their employees, at a huge cost to the business.

In Canada, they don’t have that cost. Employees know they have access to universal Medicare, and the employer doesn’t have to shell out a fortune for it. That is a huge competitive advantage that can’t be understated, Clinton is absolutely right.

A few years ago I was invited down to the Cary, North Carolina headquarters of SAS, the world’s largest privately held software company. It’s founder and president, Jim Goodnight, is a billionaire several times over and with no stockholders to satisfy, the profits are his. But his business success is driven by employee talent, and so he has invested heavily to attract the best.

His Cary campus illustrates many of the challenges businesses in the U.S. face. It is huge and sprawling, and resembles a gated community. In addition to sports fields, recreation centres, theatres and day cares he has even built a private hospital/clinic for SAS employees. As a staunch Republican Goodnight probably wouldn’t put it this way, but in order to attract and retain talent he has had to spend big money, and it’s on things that in Canada, are provided by various levels of government as a matter of course. While there’s other factors that influence where one sets up show, how much money would SAS save were its headquarters in Canada? They wouldn’t need that hospital, for one.

So yes, we have work to do around improving the business climate in Canada. But let’s talk up our advantages too and Hillary is right, health care is a one of them.

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