So what is up with the very junior Senator from Illinois? Well what is up is what is down. Namely his poll numbers are free falling. For quite some time, the Obama campaign has been struggling to connect with large swaths of the electorate but in particular women over 50 and whites who earn $50,000 or less. And with those two demographics, this past weekend at Jeremiah’s could not have helped. Richard Baehr writing in Real Clear Politics asks the pertinent question:
So why did this particular performance by Wright finally create the need for Obama to speak up more forcefully?
And Richard Baehr being a member of the reality-based community of course nails the answer:
That answer is simple: falling poll numbers in Indiana, North Carolina and nationally, and to that, we can safely conclude, Barack Obama takes great offense.
I noted yesterday in my post on two Clinton endorsements that Governor Mike Easley’s remark that “Clinton makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy” was drawing some fire as being an anti-gay slur. Of course, the fire is coming from rather desperate Obama supporters seeking to distract from his continuing problems.
I can tell you with total confidence that no gay man I know, myself included, sees it as such. However Obama’s own pansies, that is the rather weak and more disturbed among them, seem to want to make this an issue.
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) held a fundraising lunch for his friend on Wednesday to help embattled Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in his upcoming re-election bid. It is of course odd that a Democratic Senator would do this for any Republican but it is especially galling given that this promises to be Ted Stevens’ most difficult campaign since election to the Senate almost four decades. Here is the story from the Juneau Empire.
Senator “No, No, No” Stevens is in trouble as he faces a corruption probe. And Senator Inouye throws him a fundraiser. Disturbing to say the least.
It features Maya Angelou speaking glowing of Senator Clinton. Here is a letter she wrote previously endorsing Senator Clinton. I like the fact that Clinton is a policy wonk but this very human side of her is quite appealing.
With today’s US GDP release, I thought I would introduce the readership on how one country, the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, takes a different path to measuring success. A rather novel approach was developed in the 1980s by Bhutan’s fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. Gross National Happiness, or GNH, is a Bhutanese twist on Gross Domestic Product. Up till now, it has not represented an actual dollar figure, but rather, a fuzzy set of principles on the environment and culture. It has produced unique policies, such as a smoking ban, strict limits on deforestation, life long learning and a dress code.
Karma Tshiteem heads the Gross National Happiness Commission that is responsible for balancing the happiness of the Bhutanese with development. Mr. Tshiteem’s commission also recently released a blueprint for the nation’s future called “Bhutan 2020: A Vision for Peace, Prosperity and Happiness.”
It contains some novel proposals. Rather than increase the population, Bhutan wants to reduce the birth rate by almost two-thirds over the next 15 years — mainly by spreading the use of contraceptives and trying to ensure girls stay in school longer. And rather than urbanize Bhutan, which is about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined, the government wants to stay largely agrarian to protect the environment.
I’d dare say the Bhutanese are quite happy, happier than most of the rest of us.
So officially it is not quite a negative downturn, just a slow down. Gross domestic product (GDP)measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is considered the best overall measure of the country’s economic health. Many analysts were predicting that the GDP would weaken a bit more — to a pace of just 0.5% — in the first quarter. Earlier this year, some economists thought the economy would actually lurch into reverse during the opening quarter. Now, they say they believe that will likely happen during the current April-to-June period.
Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD and thus afforded the psychedelic generation and those beyond the pharmaceutical vehicle to turn on, tune in and drop out, has died. He was 102. From the Associated Press:
Albert Hofmann was a synthetic chemist with Sandoz Laboratories, now Novartis, in Switzerland when in 1943 he stumbled on the hallucinatory effects of LSD. After it became seen by Harvard’s Timothy Leary and others in the ’60s as a pathway to spiritual enlightenment, and then as a major recreational drug. “Instead of a wonder child,LSD suddenly became my problem child,” Hofmann said.
Hofmann died Tuesday morning at his home in Basel, Switzerland, of a heart attack, according to Rick Doblin, the head of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Assn. for Psychedelic Studies.
Hofmann also identified and synthesized the active ingredients of peyote mushrooms and a Mexican psychoactive plant called ololiuqui and developed at least three related, non-psychoactive compounds that became widely used in medicine. Those other feats would have been little remembered, however, had he not accidentally gotten a trace amount of an experimental compound called lysergic acid diethylamide on his fingertips and taken the world’s first acid trip.
What a long strange trip it’s been. Thank you Albert Hofmann.
Poor Josh, all his hard work going up in smoke. Yesterday he wrote this:
As I’ve mentioned before, one thing running TPM affords us is a barometer, a unique window into the collective minds of the different candidates’ supporters. Those most apt to hit the panic button are often those most ready to hit the send button. So it’s important not to over-interpret the evidence. But we do seem to have come to some sort crisis of confidence for a number of Obama supporters. It all seems to have come together in the last few days, even the last 48 hours. Certainly Pennsylvania has something do it with it; and I think Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s new kick Obama in groin-athon is playing a big role too. Perhaps yesterday’s SurveyUSA poll showing Obama still markedly behind in Indiana is somewhere in there as well. There’s very little I’ve seen from this admittedly fragmentary sample that shows Obama supporters buying into the critique of Obama, more a sense of exhaustion and frustration or fear that he can’t get the onslaught to stop or isn’t responding to it vocally or forcefully enough.
Let me reassure you that Obama supporters will never buy into “the critique of Obama.” For them, Obama is a messiah and even if he were the spawn of Adolf Hitler or Dick Cheney’s cousin, they won’t turn on him. Your problem isn’t the delusional cultists on Talking Points Memo, it is the rest of us.
In a follow-up to my earlier post, Early Reaction to Obama’s Denouncing of Wright, I went and looked what was being said on the New York Times Caucus blog. Over the course of the day, there were over a thousand comments. I looked at the first hundred closely and divided them into one of three categories: Anti-Obama, Pro-Obama or Neutral. Here are the results:
If this is an accurate indication of opinion from the United States, then my assessment is that the Reverend Wright has damaged Obama’s chances and are likely to continue to plague Obama through the remainder of the campaign. In a sense, given the readership of the nation’s paper of record, the results may understate the problem for Obama.
Here is Wednesday’s edition of interesting reads from around the world.
Indonesia May Up Fuel Prices
Indonesia, once an oil exporter is now a net importer of oil, is exploring the possibility of raising fuel prices in June by an average of 28.7% in response to skyrocketing fuel subsidies, which many fear may undermine the state budget. The Jakarta Post has the full story.
Greece, An Adriatic Tiger?
Citing a new report just released on the economies of southern Europe by the International Monetary Fund, Fistfulofeuros writes that the biggest surprise is the relative success of Greece.
UN Security Council Reluctant to Act on Zimbabwe
According to this story in the New York Times, Western calls to launch a Security Council investigation into the issue of Zimbabwe’s elections met opposition on grounds of the matter not being a threat to international peace and security. Over a 1,000 people are fleeing Zimbabwe every day but that’s not seen as a threat to the security of the region.
Grozny on the Mend
The Chechen capital of Grozny is being rebuilt quietly the Russians. Their success in this story from the New York Times.
Citigroup Attempts to Raise Capital Global Economic Analysis has the latest on Citigroup’s attempt to raise $2 billion in new capital to shore up its liquidity.
