Catching Up
ArchPundit
Technical Issues and a flood of Missouri stuff. I promise to have the new rankings up and more tomorrow evening. But some amusing stuff at Blog Saint Louis if you wish…
ArchPundit
John Edwards At Blueberry Hill Wednesday
So the last guy to do Blueberry Hill didn’t do so well (Bill Bradley), but John Edwards will be visiting Wednesday night:
Senator John Edwards will be coming to St. Louis on Wednesday night
to give a speech at Blueberry Hill in the U. City Loop.
This is your chance to come see the man about whom James Carville
says: "He is the single best stump speaker I have ever seen run for
president in my life." If Senator Edwards ends up winning the
nomination, Carville suggested "not only that he give the acceptance
speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, but he also
give the keynote. I think he’s good enough to give both of them."
So please come join us at Blueberry Hill, and see the speech that
everyone is talking about.
Date: Wednesday, January 28
Time: 9:15 p.m.
Where: Blueberry Hill – 6504 Delmar Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63130
Send Your Prayers
Over to Steve Gillard who is having serious surgery.
Technical problems on this end, but later Sunday new material should be up!
Schedule Information
In an effort to streamline my rather hectic life, expect most postings to show up after 5 PM in a given day. Exceptions will occur, but I’ve carved out some time most days to write.
That means the Cattle Call will be up after 5 PM.
War-Profiteering Is a General Election Issue
You know, if the company really is the only qualified company, then why is participating in corruption qualified?
And what kind of shop was CEO Cheney running there?
Corrected once I read a clearer story.
And Remember Death Is Not an Option
The Howard Howl or the 2000 Election Night Kit Bond Tirade?
Win Ice Cream For Life
Trade my soul to the devil and vote for conservative Jim Oberweis–no.
Enter his campaign Ice Cream for Life Promotion–hell yes. And so should you. The Pumpkin is amazing and frankly the best thing the guy has going for him.
Cattle Call Comments-The Republicans
Let’s Hear Your Thoughts…
John Borling
Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria
Andy McKenna
Jim Oberweis
Steven Rauschenberger
Jack Ryan
Jonathan Wright
Cattle Call Comments-The Democrats
It’s back and ready for the last two months until the Senate Primary. And I’m psyched–so leave your comments on who is up, who is down, and who is just crazy. And ask Eric Zorn when we are getting the Vic Roberts Interview…(Damn Roberts dropped out)
So Let’s Hear it for the Candidates—
Gery Chico
Estella Johnson-Hunt
Blair Hull
Dan Hynes
Barack Obama
Maria Pappas
Nancy Skinner
Joyce Washington
Frank Avila is not on the ballot (AFAICT), Vic Roberts dropped in November and Matt O’Shea saw the obvious and endorsed Gery Chico.
Much Overdue Post On the IVI-IPO Endorsement
Glenn Brown even gave me a post, and I still didn’t get around to it. But here it is. I think it contains some very interesting and important observations:
I was at the IVI-IPO endorsement session this weekend and it was a complete shambles. As someone who has personally admired the organization from afar for many years it was strange to see the "man behind the curtain."
I will begin with the results of the voting for all who are impatient for those things. Barack Obama’s name was put into nomination for endorsement and a sole endorsement was voted down by a small margin. Partially, this was due to the fact that a representative of the hynes campaign accused the Obama campaign of having recieved a list of IVI-IPO members and calling them to get them out to the vote – something that the Obama campaign denies but there was no chance to rebut this nor was there any evidence of this provided beyond some anecdotal comments by people who said they had been called by the campaign.
The final vote was a joint endorsement of both Hynes and Obama – in other words it was irrelevant. However, the possibility of a single-candidate endorsement still exists because the vote, while a majority, did not reach the 60% threshold to guarantee this will be the endorsement. The IVI-IPO board will decide the endorsement with this "reccomendation" of the membership. The vote personally upset me because I am a supporter of Baracks but also because Barack worked for the organization and has been recognized by it for his great work on many occasions. Hynes, on the other hand, could not take the time to show up at the televised candidate forum of a couple of months ago.
Some other things I have noticed that startled me:
1) What was probably most startling to me was that it was common knowledge that campaigns bought seats for their supporters – I must confess that this was true both for Obama and for Hynes although it was clear that Hynes paid for more seats.
2) There was an incredible lack of control over the meeting. – and, as a matter of fact, most of those who were disruptive were clearly long-time members of the organization.
3) Contributing to the lack of control was a general lack of civility on the part of all parties concerned. Examples:
– Several people literally shouted at Dan Hynes during the question and answer phase – many of them also clearly long-time members.
– There was a section of the meeting where people were to point out areas where each candidate disagreed with the finer points of IVI-IPO’s political platform. When a woman stood up and asked for a copy because she did not know the whole platform she was chided by the chairperson who said "people who join the organization should already know where we stand on the issues." The chairperson later stated that she did not know where IVI-IPO stood on banning handguns!
What struck me about the organization was that it was an ingrown, extremely disfunctional group who uses these sessions as a fundraising tactic for it’s organization. They took no real great effort to encourage showing up at this session – despite the fact that it this would be the primary endorsement session of the year. Their description of the event in their newsletter was misleading and I suspect they were hoping for some iteration of what actually happend – that the vote session would not be final so that the central comittee could choose who they wanted.
What I noticed about the campaigns:
What we saw at this meeting could very well be the story of the race. The Obama camp was very passionate. The Hynes camp countered that by being extremely organized. This was true down to having handouts literally stating the way they wanted this to go – they were shooting for a joint endorsement to nullify it for the Obama campaign and give the news cycle to hynes with the AFL-CIO endorsement.
I have to say that I plan on resigining from the organization because I was so disappointed.