On Confusion, Or, What’s The Point?

As has been indicated before in this space, I am far too addicted to television…and most of the time, even when the sound is off it’s still there to be seen.

But it’s so often confusing.
Here’s an example:

There is an ad running these days for a product called “extend” or “super grow” or “bigs a lot” or whatever the heck it’s called…and while the ad takes great pains to tell us that it can cause a “certain part” of the body to grow larger—it never exactly tells us which part they’re talking about.

Clearly, there are some body parts that it might make sense for someone to enlarge; but the commercial is so vague I just can’t tell what they’re getting at.

It’s that sort of confusion that drives today story…so come along and we’ll pursue the question of what a “make it bigger” product might actually do…and more.

So what body parts might this very confusing product affect?
There are a few that it would seem logical to enlarge:

Eyelashes, for example. It makes perfect sense, considering the amount of mascara a woman might use in a lifetime (and the time spent applying same) to be able to just take a pill and have larger eyelashes…but the fact that the product seems to be directed to men throws that theory right out the window.

Same with hair—men usually don’t use products that would “extend” the hair.

A bigger nose? Illogical indeed.

A product to extend muscle development…like a “Mega Mass” in pill form? I am leaning toward that theory—but there’s one other possibility that I’m mulling over, and it’s actually my leading contender for “most likely theory” at the moment.

Hands and feet.
Why, you ask, would anyone want to extend the size of their hands and feet?

At first this might seem weird, but work with me for a moment. Many of you might be familiar with the “old wives tale” that says a man with large hands and feet also has a large…well, you know.

And I think that’s what this product is intended to do—to make men’s hands and feet larger so that women (and perhaps, the occasional interested man) will think the user has a larger penis.

And speaking of confusion…am I the only one confused as to why Hillary is still in this race? And if she’s going to remain in the race, why is she running a campaign that looks more like Strom Thurman’s 1948 failed Presidential bid…or the campaign that McCain’s Vice President might run?

Seriously, Hillary, with the effort you’ve put forth to compliment McCain at the expense of Obama you’re starting to make even Mitt Romney and Charlie Crist nervous that the VP nomination might be ought of their reach.

It was bad enough when you felt entitled to a Democratic nomination; but the idea that you’re entitled to be nominated by whatever party will nominate you, for whatever spot on the ticket you can get…it really raises the “eewwwww factor”.

What are you thinking? That your only path to the Presidency is to ascend to the office upon the declaration of McCain’s incompetence?

Of course, as so many will point out, she has every right to run…but who cares?

I mean, let’s face it Hillary, I have a right to run too…and I could presumably also try to base my campaign on latent racism and an appeal to a long gone past…but wouldn’t that make me just another Republican, like Trent Lott, George Allen, and…lately, you?

The only thing missing from the picture would be for you to run a campaign ad (that is, if you could afford it) with a Christmas tree and a Cross in prominent view as you angle for the evangelical vote—and it wouldn’t surprise me at this point if she tries such a move.

I can already hear the response: “We must count every vote…then count states who broke the rules…then count electoral votes…then count only voters who voted for Clinton before…and if that doesn’t work, we’ll only count my vote—because I know what’s good for all those fools who voted for Obama, even if they don’t.”

It would have been different if you had cast yourself as better on issues than Obama—in fact, even now you could change the tone of the contest…something that would improve the standing of your campaign (and legacy—and future)…but that strategy won’t get you a victory, will it?

And as we are now well aware, you will do anything to win, no matter what that victory means to yourself—or the Democratic Party.

Which brings us to the big finish:

There is a choice to be made by our dear Hillary “at this juncture”. She can continue to pursue what is more and more looking like a “scorched earth” strategy—and if she gets lucky, McCain might just run with her as a VP.

Or she can “extend” her future in Democratic politics by extending her vision beyond the proverbial hood of her car…by, instead, looking farther down the road—where lots more elections lie ahead, and where a future as a Senate Majority Leader or Governor might still be possible.

Obscene amounts of fund-raising, from anonymous sources, for a future Hillary Presidential library?

Maybe not so much.

On 3 AM Phone Calls, Or, A Fake Consultant Advises Hillary

As so many of us discover, late nights are the best time to do any serious writing that has piled up during the day. No meetings to attend, no phone calls to interrupt the flow…and most importantly, nobody else’s fires to put out.

And sure enough, there I was, working away, when the phone rang.

I knew who it was going to be…Hillary.
After all, she’s the only one who ever calls me at 3 AM.

She sounded like she’d been drinking…and not Mimosas either. Her voice had that angry edge, like it did the time she called up and told me about the photographs from that night Bill and Chris and that guy from “The West Wing” were partying at The Bulldog.

She’d been hitting the mescal hard last night as the Mississippi results were coming in, she told me, and before she called she’d already put four bullets into the poster-sized photograph of Monica Lewinsky she keeps inside the garage door—and everyone who knows her knows Gusano Rojo makes Hillary even more mean than usual.

I could hear the crunching of the worm between her teeth as she fired another round into the poster…

“I told you I could stay in this race” she hissed at me through the phone. The gun went off again. She usually keeps 13 in the clip…it’s a superstition, I’m told. Seven more to go until she reloads.

She’s been pissed at me ever since I predicted a year ago that she would never be elected President…and especially since I recently suggested to her that she would be better off going back to the Senate and living off the graft Bill’s been bringing in with his “Presidential Library” money. She’d fired off at least two clips that night—and I heard she had to have a new Monica and a new garage door installed the next day.

“I know you can stay in” I tell her, “but you’ll never win…especially not the way you’re hitting Obama with any lame crap you and Wolfson and the rest of that crazy-ass crew over there can fake up. It’s killing any “change” credibility you have left.”

“Of course I can” she screamed back: “look at Pennsylvania. I know places up there that are racist as hell. I can send Geraldine up there and they’ll love her. Indiana? They have quite a history with a former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan and their former Governor. They’ll love me there. West Virginia? Need I even go on?”

Boom! Boom!
Two more shots.
“Right in the eye. How you like that, Monica?” the voice came down the line.

“After that, I’m sending ‘Obama in Somali clothing’ bobbleheads to all the Superdelegates…and I want to talk to you about an ad idea I had…”

“Really?” My eyebrows were arching at this point, because this is where I really earn my money…and being the only honest voice she ever hears is becoming a nice piece of my fake income this cycle.

“Here it is.
I think it makes the '3 AM' ad look like Sesame Street, but tell me what you think.

Picture a school bus, on a beautiful sunny day, all the kids singing songs…and all of a sudden black vans surround the bus. After it stops, masked men in Arabic clothing storm the bus, screaming “Death to America”. Then they load the bus up with explosives, all the while shouting ‘jihad, jihad’. Then they drive away in the bus, filled with terrorists and explosives and the terrified children.

The bus crashes through the gates of a nuclear power plant, terrorists firing their machine guns the entire time…and before anyone can stop them, the bus full of children and explosives is heading straight into the reactor building, with nothing to stop it.

At the last second the camera reveals the driver, who takes off his mask just before the bus bomb causes the reactor to explode…and that’s when we discover the driver is a smiling Barack Obama.

The graphic comes up as the mushroom cloud goes off:

‘Barack Hussein Obama.
Can we trust him with our kids?”

“What do I think?”
“Exactly.”

“I think you need to get out of the race this second, Hillary. I think you need to fire Mark and Howard so they can go out and start a Fight Club somewhere…and I think you and Chris need to seriously think about an afternoon at The Bulldog.”

Boom! Boom!
“Suck lead, bitch!”

Three shots left.

“The thing is, Hillary, the longer you stay at this the worse it gets. Look, the last time you went negative you lost 11 in a row…and after Mississippi and Wyoming that means at least a few more losses ahead…and the “entitlement” thing is getting more and more threadbare every day…and even Oprah’s finally turned against you.

Oprah, Hillary.
You actually managed to alienate Oprah.
Do you realize how far you’ve fallen?
Do you realize that at this moment Oprah respects Steadman more than you?”

Boom! Boom! Boom! Crash!
Click. Click.

My guess: three shots, she threw the empty bottle at “Monica”…and then she jacked in a new clip.

“But Hillary, here’s a bigger question. Obama has changed the game by bringing in all these new voters that have, in the past, distrusted the process. What you’re doing right now means that they may vote for Obama, but they’ll never become Democrats.

Now if you lose you’re going back to the Senate…but if those new voters become real Democrats, they’ll vote for Democratic candidates besides Obama in every state, cycle after cycle…including you… and you could quickly find yourself in a Senate with 60 Democrats.

The Senate has no term limits, unlike the Presidency.
That means you could find yourself facing one of two possible futures:

Would you rather be reelected, over and over, as a popular Senator, even having a shot at Majority Leader…or would you rather go down in history as the “Ralph Nader” of 2008?

You know which one John McCain hopes you choose, right?

You want my advice? Being willing to say or do anything to achieve a momentary victory is no victory at all…and the more that ugly side of you becomes known to the people you want to rule, the less they’ll want you as their ruler.

Now put the gun away, stop buying mescal, switch back to the Bailey’s…drop out of the race…and hire yourself a really great looking handyman to fix the garage door. Maybe even two.

And have them come over the weekend you send Bill to Pittsburgh.
I won’t tell if you don’t.

And for God’s sake quit chewing on that worm.
It’s really annoying.

I’ll send a bill for the consult in the morning.
Now go to bed…and when you wake up, end this mess.”

And with that, the phone went dead.
But as she was hanging up I could hear her voice, amused, saying: “I do need a new door…”

On Puppies, Or, Hillary’s Math

 I am constantly reminding everyone who will listen that the centrist leaning; non-Party affiliated voters who occupy the “gap” decide Presidential elections.

All evidence suggests this will again be true in 2008. To take it further, in many constituencies, gap voters will determine Congressional races as well.

Here’s why:

From a risk/reward perspective, changing the minds of the “hard” voters on either side of the electorate through persuasion is often not worth the challenge.

To illustrate the inherent difficulties in moving voters from either fringe, I humbly offer the “Puppy Theory of Political Persuasion”:

1) There is a percentage of the population who will not object if the President were to eat a live puppy on national television, as long as some explanation for the behavior can be provided (“The puppy was a threat to National Security!”).

2) Alternatively, there is a percentage of the population who would not give Mr. Bush credit if he personally ended the Iraq War and cured AIDS, both on the same day (“He’s still in the pocket of Big Oil!”).

Is Clinton also affected by this calculus?

Can we quantify the population at either fringe who find her objectionable beyond all persuasion, or will support her no matter what?

To put it another way, can we put a number to Hillary’s Puppy Factor?

While I don’t feel capable of providing such answers at this time, I do have ideas that could stimulate the analysis.

First, I think the measurement of “non-objectors” (point 1 above) is easier for Mr. Bush than it will be for Clinton. This is because Mr. Bush has seen the enormous drop in his approval ratings over the past 5 years, which have apparently stabilized since about the fall of 2005.

The principal issue driving these numbers, I think we all agree, is Iraq.

Since the news from Iraq has continued to become worse, but the approval rating is basically stable, I submit that we are fairly close to identifying Mr. Bush’s non-objector Puppy Factor as being somewhere around 35%.

Second, there is an additional Puppy Factor, the “non-creditors” (point 2 above), which I submit is more difficult to measure than the non-objectors, unless the candidate being measured can post an upward trend similar to Mr. Bush’s downward measurement.

Should Clinton, or Obama, or others find themselves moving dramatically upward, that measurement, for that candidate, may reveal itself.

Finally, why does all this matter?

If elections are won in the gap, then the larger the gap population, the more likely a centrist candidate can effectively harvest votes from that group. Conversely, a candidate facing a smaller gap will have to harvest from a smaller universe of available votes, a tougher proposition.

Of course, another option in either case is to attempt to attract prior non-voters.

Historically this tends to yield less efficient results than harvesting known voters, which means knowing the Puppy Factor, for these candidates, can provide an indication of how much additional effort they will need to win an election.

This means if the Puppy Factors for candidates are known, each can adjust their efforts in gap outreach for better results. It will also be easier for analysts to evaluate each candidate’s potential electoral success in 2008 and beyond.

The Puppy Factor ©.
America’s newest political metric.
Look for it in an election coming to you soon.