Obama Shows Way to Wiki-Politics

Despite all my blogging and my studies at DSU, I can still recognize that the Internet isn't everything in politics... but Barack Obama has shown us that it certainly is something. Mrs. Madville Times forwards me this read-worthy blogpost from Michael Stoner on Obama's skillful use of the Internet. Some highlights:

Obama the "Wiki-Candidate": Stoner cites Noam Cohen of the NY Times:

But at the same time, Mr. Obama’s notion of persistent improvement, both of himself and of his country, reflects something newer — the collaborative, decentralized principles behind Net projects like Wikipedia and the “free and open-source software” movement. The qualities he cited to Time to describe his campaign — “openness and transparency and participation” — were ones he said “merged perfectly” with the Internet. And they may well be the qualities that make him the first real “wiki-candidate" [Noam Cohen, "The Wiki-Way to the Nomination," New York Times: Week in Review, 2008.06.08].

No wonder the South Dakota blogosphere (at the lefties among us) fell so hard for Obama. His whole style matches the Webby values that have drawn us to the Internet as a means for social interaction and change.

New-Money Machine Fueled by Web Ethos: Stoner points to Joshua Green's article in the June Atlantic Monthly on Obama's fundraising, which notes that Obama has gotten this far without "deep connections to traditional sources of wealth." The Internet is a big part of the reason -- not just Web fundraising, but Web ethos:

Green shows how many in Silicon Valley came to support Obama. Engineers, venture capitalists, and others in the Valley are used to smart, young entrepreneurs starting companies that quickly dominate a niche (think Google, begun by two Stanford students). To them, Obama’s age or lack of experience in Washington wasn’t a put off; they were attracted by his charisma and brains and out their experience and technology to work for him [Michael Stoner, "Obama Campaign Far Ahead in Use of Internet," mStonerblog, 2008.06.14].

Obama Gets YouTube: It's not just the will.i.am video that went viral back in January; the campaign knows how to put its own multimedia on the web to work for its purposes:

Also, note all the video that appears on Obama’s site. Lots of it. Speeches, policy comments, from lots of venues, on lots of issues. From the candidate (who looks good on TV) and from ordinary people. There’s also an Obama channel on Youtube; on 14 June, there were 1,103 videos posted, with 51,382,633 views. The McCain channel, in contrast, had 207 videos with 3,753,163 views [Stoner, 2008.06.14].

YouTube views aren't close to replacing electoral votes (though might the former method be more logical?), but they do show the Obama campaign is reaching out and touching a lot of people the McCain campaign is not.

The Internet isn't everything. But Barack Obama has done more than tap into a useful technology; he has shown a grasp of the social vibe that makes that technology hum. Collaboration, decentralization, participation -- if Obama can translate those online campaign principles into Presidential policy, we have an interesting four years ahead of us.

Two-Wheeled Fun and Fuzz: Madison Cops Patrol on Bicycle!

Forget grad school, forget blogging -- where's my app to join the Madison police force?

This great photo from the Madison Daily Leader shows Officer Jason Lurz at the helm of the newest weapon in Madison's Finest's arsenal against crime: the police bike! Disc brakes, cushy seat, odometer, red and blue flashers on the way... yum!

According to the feature in yesterday's MDL, Madison's easy-riding patrolmen love the new wheels:

"It's a dream to ride," said [patrolman Jason] Lurz, a patrolman in his fourth year. "It's effortless" [Amy Poppinga, "Police Fight Crime on Two Wheels," Madison Daily Leader, 2008.06.18].

After just four evenings of bike patrol, Officer Lurz and cycling colleagues Heath Abraham and Jesse Ehlers see all sorts of advantages to policing by pedal:

1. More community interaction: kids see the bike and say, "That's cool!" Adults see the bike and stop and chat. ""The cruiser is like a barrier or a separation," Lurz tells the Leader. "It's nice to get out and interact with the people." I've felt the same thing on my bike: instead of being sealed behind the windows and sidewalls of your car, riding a bike lets you see and hear much more and connect with your place and the people in it.
2. Health benefits: Stifle those cop–donut jokes: even if Lurz and his pals did indulge in extra pastries, they might need 'em for bike fuel. Says Lurz, "police officers can suffer health problems from sitting in a car all day... instantly going from a relaxed condition to having the adrenaline pumping can really mess with the body" [Poppinga's paraphrase].
3. Stealth: The venerable Crown Vic has nothing on these guys when it comes to sneaking up on bad dudes.
4. Fuel savings: Sure, the bike and cool accessories cost $1000. But a good year of parking the police car and biking instead may well pay that bill in gas savings.

So hats off (and helmets on!) to our very forward-thinking Madison Police Department. Progress and policing are always more fun on two wheels.

County Sells Poor Farm Land -- McMansions Sure to Come

MDL tucked away on page three this week the news that Lake County managed to unload nine acres of its old poor farm Tuesday. Despite my vigorous exhortations to you eager land speculators (and even one commenter's agreement that the land was a great investment), no one showed up to bid on this choice lake property besides Sioux Falls developer Ted Thoms, who got the property for $100K. Nine acres at Lake Madison for $100K -- total steal. Expect Thoms to at least triple his money.

But keep saving your pennies, kids: the county still has 140 acres or so of poor farm on its hands. The county will need more cash to patch the roads, so more sales may be coming.

From Russia with Suspicion, Contempt, and Designs on New World Order

More local news in a moment... but first, a little foreign policy for breakfast...

When I visited the Soviet Union in its dying days in 1991, I sensed a genuine affection and warmth toward the United States from our young tour guides and the students other folks we met in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1992, when the resurrected tricolor had replaced the Red banner, I went with a group of volunteers to do work for a monastery and a restoration project at an art school, and the nuns and the art students appeared to welcome our help. But I caught myself then perhaps giving us Americans a little too much credit. Every now and then, as we would hand out little packages of M&Ms at a kindergarten or troop back from the jobsite in our bright Western duds (sometimes still more colorful after a hard day's work than the old Soviet grays and browns), I would think, "Oh, aren't we Americans special, shining the light of freedom for these poor oppressed people."

Eesh -- my first experience with being the Ugly American. I ran into more insensitive behavior from fellow Americans on later visits in 1995 and 1997. It was almost too stereotypical to be believed, but I heard an American tourist say, "I wish more of these folks would just speak English." A student I made friends with (Wolf, as he introduced himself) handed me a package of white socks with "USA" up the sides. Another American tourist had given him the socks as a gift. "We already have such things," he said, putting the lie to the tour books that advised Americans to bring our poor Russian friends gifts of basic consumer goods like toothpaste and blue jeans. Wolf and his friends continued to give us Americans gifts of postcards, books, and other mementos of their hometowns.

I don't think occasional acts of cultural insensitivity by American tourists did too much damage to U.S.-Russian relations. But a look at the Russian press today suggests that a much larger arrogance in our foreign policy has obliterated any post-Cold War goodwill on which we might have capitalized. Here's a sampling of stories from the English language edition of the nationalist online newspaper Pravda:

Russia Stands up for New World Without America: "[President] Medvedev has made a timely statement of Russia’s aspiration to become the new economic and political center in the world. The economic isolation of the USA inevitably makes many countries look for new centers of gravity. The concept of building the new economy without America, but with the help of Russia’s growing influence, may seem to be quite alluring to many. The development of USA’s internal economic problems into the global crisis may lead to significant changes in the structure of the world economy. As a result, new centers of gravity may turn out to be successful."

NATO Should Collapse Just like the USSR Did, Putin Believes: "The Russian prime minister also criticized NATO’s aggressive methods of working. 'We both know where the decisions are taken, as a rule: in one of the leading countries of the bloc. They are legitimatized afterwards and obtain an attractive and many-sided meaning,' Putin said."

Of course, the Russians aren't alone in their view that America is taking the wrong path and needs to be checked. At Eurocon-2008 in Moscow, American science fiction author Harry Harrison offered the following assessment of America's shift to fascism (dual shout-out to fascism-watcher Northern Valley Beacon and science-fiction guru Progressive on the Prairie):

“The culture undergoes serious changes – these changes are not always progressive. Within several years of Bush’s rule the American democratic power has turned into the state of a fascist or Stalinist type – the president violates the Constitution, such key principles as freedom of speech and freedom of conscience,” the 83-year-old science fiction writer said in the interview.

“Moreover, the USA behaves absolutely undemocratically towards the world: the USA ignores interests of other countries and it does not even try to understand them. As a result, the USA is simply unaware of the situation in the world and thus it’s unaware of the course it takes. It is a vivid illustration of reversible social and cultural progress.”

Now sure, America will catch some heck from its competitors (and domestic critics) no matter what it does. Anyone who has looked into Putin's eyes and seen his soul knows that Russia is playing power politics and will do or say whatever it can to crack American hegemony.

But the problem is that our buckaroo attitude toward the rest of the world makes it that much easier for Russia to make its case on the world stage. When the Russian president or prime minister or press complains that the U.S. lets its economic problems get out of hand and upset the world economy, or that the U.S. tries to boss its own allies (not to mention its rivals) around, or that the U.S. is oblivious to what's going on in the rest of the world, you can see even our friends nodding in agreement.

If we want our friends to stick with us, we need to be better friends. If we want to spread democracy, we need to act more like a democracy and less like an empire. We can continue to lead the world, but only if we act on the basis of communication, understanding, and cooperation.

Lake Herman Weather: Same Old Sun

Vampires, Goths, and other grim ghouls, a pox upon thee! See all that sun out the window? It's here through Sunday, says Weather Underground:

Yahoo! Time to break out the kayak! I'm off to take water samples!

But werewolves take heart: expect some spectacular full-moonage tonight.

Solis at Solstice, Chicago in the Sun

Rank speculation on a beautiful summer day....

I just read Professor Blanchard's latest musings on the appointment of former Clintonista Patti Solis Doyle as chief of staff to Senator Obama's running mate. I concur that her appointment right now is a head-scratcher. Indeed, wouldn't you think the Obama camp would pick the running mate first, then ask that running mate for some input on whom she/he wants as chief of staff?

And then it hits me (thank you, Dr. Blanchard, for the inspiration): Solis Doyle's appointment is proof that Chicago politics rules supreme. It's more than cronyism: it's a reward for a job well done. Solis Doyle's performance as Clinton's campaign manager was too incompetent to be believed. She knew what she was doing: she was the Obama machine's plant in the Clinton camp. They got to Solis Doyle in 2006, got her to burn up Clinton's Senate campaign money and then sabotage the great inevitable campaign in Iowa. Mission accomplished; now Solis Doyle can come in from the cold and openly work for the Chicago pals she's been helping all along.

Solis Doyle's appointment is also more than a slap at Clinton: the Obama camp is saying to all of its prospective VP candidates that this will not be a co-presidency. There will be no Darth Cheney. Obama sets the rules, right down to your closest staffer. Have fun presiding in the Senate; Obama and the Chicago machine will make all the rules.

Embrace the soap opera -- it can be a lot of fun!

----
By the way, Obama and Solis Doyle's family go way back:

Patti Solis Doyle I think is a terrific experienced campaign hand. She's from Chicago. Her brother and I organized on the southeast side of Chicago when I first moved to Chicago as a community organizer, so I've known the family for a very long time [Barack Obama, quoted in Mark Murray, "Obama on Patti Solis Doyle," MSNBC FirstRead, 2008.06.17].

Community organizing -- that's 1985-1988. Obama got his hooks on this gal before she went to work for the Clintons in the 1992 campaign. She's also been pals with Obama's big dog Jim Axelrod since the 1980s.

For a some gentle background, here's a quick bio from the Chicago Sun-Times, from 2007, before things got hot. Daughter of Mexican working-class immigrants, husband also a Harvard Law grad, just like Obama... heh heh heh!

Update 09:20: But forget the soap opera. Marc Ambinder gives the straight read: "Patti Solis Doyle was hired because she fit what the campaign was looking for, she knows every Democrat in the universe, and can be trusted and discreet."

And another speculative bolt from the blue: the Obama campaign is getting ready to go hardcore rainbow coalition, putting Solis Doyle in position to help with the heavy-duty Latino outreach to be led by Obama's running mate Bill Richardson.

No Recession; Stimulus Checks = Sugar Rush

...cavities to follow...

Reuters summarizes a UCLA Anderson Forecast report on the U.S. economy this morning. The highlights:

• What recession? The economy will keep growing, though not fast enough to please the people who make their money by playing with money. Expect a "subprime growth path" of 1.2% annually through 2009.
• Stimulus package = Snickers bar... or maybe Red Bull. Sure, it makes you feel peppy for a bit, but expect to crash later. The UCLA Anderson Forecast sees a similar effect coming from the stimulus package:

  To be sure the $108 billion in tax rebates will certainly help in the third quarter, but in our view it will be analogous to a one quarter 'sugar rush' for the economy.... In fact the combined effect of the waning effects of the tax rebates and the end of the investment incentives associated with the government's stimulus package in December, could very well lead to a decline in GDP in the first quarter of 2009" [quoted by Jim Christie, "Economic Outlook 'Subprime,' No Recession," Reuters via Yahoo, 2008.06.18].
  

  And don't forget, our kids still have to pay for our little stimulus splurge. How thoughtful of us.
  
• Interest rates: nowhere but up. The Fed won't risk making inflation any worse than it is. Besides, says the UCLA Anderson Forecast, rates now are lower than they were in 2003 and 2004, and "Most observers now believe that it was the very low real interest rates of that period that set the stage for the housing and credit bubbles that came later." Expect interest rates to hold steady this year and tick back up next year.
  

Brookings Passes Tax Increment District for Housing

Floodgates opening? I hope not. But the new residential Tax Increment District (TID) approved by the Brookings City Council last week appears to offer the Madison City Commission some tips on how they can do the next TID more responsibly. Unlike the Madison plan and even the two TIDs Brookings approved last spring, the Valley View developers in Brookings will bear the costs up front:

"What we're proposing here is this be what's commonly called a pay-as-you-go tax-increment district . This is the type of plan that is the least risk financially to the city. It does not require us to issue any tax-increment bonds or issue any debt at all. Basically what this provides is the developer will be responsible for financing the cost of the infrastructure and then will be reimbursed over time with the taxincrement proceeds that the district generates over the life of the district"[City Manager Jeff Weldon, quoted by Jill Fier, "Council Approves Valley View TID," Brookings Register, 2008.06.15].

So the developers still put up the money to build the project; Brookings tax dollars don't reimburse the developer until the project is completed and showing results. If the developers don't follow through turn the land into a moneymaker, the developers are left holding the bag, not the city. What a concept!

Fier reports that the Brookings City Council imposed further requirements on the developers, setting a five-year deadline to complete the development and limiting the cost of completed homes in the development at $160,000 -- still not exactly my definition of affordable, but reasonable by the standards of the South Dakota Public Finance Housing Agency, says Weldon.

I'm still not convinced that tax increment financing for residential development is the best use of public dollars. But if we're going to intrude so in the free market, we should follow Brookings's lead: don't hand the money out up front, and don't promise the developers money without requiring the developers to carry out their promise to fulfill their stated public purpose, in this case affordable housing.

Happy Health News: Free Will Can Trump Genes!

My old biochemical determinism takes a happy hit this morning: one small study has found that lifestyle changes can cause genetic changes. Thirty men with low-risk prostate cancer skipped conventional medical treatment and instead changed their lifestyle by eating healthy, exercising, and working on stress management (ommmm...). Sure, they got healthier, but biopsies also found changes at the genetic level:

After the three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes -- including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off.

The activity of disease-preventing genes increased while a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research was led by Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a well-known author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health.

"It's an exciting finding because so often people say, 'Oh, it's all in my genes, what can I do?' Well, it turns out you may be able to do a lot," Ornish, who is also affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco, said in a telephone interview [Will Dunham, "Healthy Lifestyle Triggers Genetic Changes," Reuters* via Yahoo, 2008.06.16].

Wow -- we can actually make good genes get back to work and bad genes sit down and shut up. That finding puts an interesting spin on the nature-versus-nurture debate. Just curious: does exercising or meditating to make my own genes activate or de-activate count as genetic engineering? And if it does, will I be banned from entering the EU?

Dr. Ornish's results likely require more study and replication. But why wait? Pass the peaches, and ride that bike!

* Still safe to cite, since it's not from those greedy devils at AP -- thanks for the tip, Bob! I don't know if I can boycott AP completely, but I'll certainly keep an eye out for these desperate tricks from the legacy media.

School Board's Pick: Farmer Steve!

KJAM gets to last night's Madison Central School Board special meeting: Junius farmer Steve Nelson wins the board's appointment to the vacant school board seat. Board president Mark Hawkes says on air, "Steve represents a costituency that we really tried to involve in the school board," meaning the board hasn't had a lot of farm representation. (No word yet on what constituencies the other two still unnamed applicants represented -- wouldn't that be interesting to find out?)

I'll admit, the board has surprised me. I thought the fix was in for Roxie Ebdrup, the other applicant the board interviewed last night. There was diversity talk going about, and in some people's eyes, "diversity" means "we could use another woman on the board." Evidently the board last night decided that diversity is more than the traditional affirmative action categories and that appointing another downtown businessperson to the board might not broaden its range of perspectives.

But diversity is more than where you live and where you work, too. Diversity means actively and vocally representing voices who otherwise would not be heard. Representing those voices requires being willing to question the established voices and go against them when necessary. Will Steve Nelson bring a unique voice to the board, or will he go along to get along with the board that picked him for this job? We'll find out starting in July, when Nelson and election winners Jay Niedert and Tammy Jo Zingmark take their oaths and get to work.

Media note: The webcast of last night's meeting isn't online yet, but I can't wait to get the video and see the interviews of Nelson and Ebdrup. I taught job interviews as part of my speech classes, and if nothing else, the video of those interviews could make for a remarkable teaching tool.

Solis Doyle for Obama -- What Mystery?

I can't get word from my local media this morning on who got the nod from the school board last night (readers? any leads?), but we can find out that the Barack Obama campaign has hired former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle as chief of staff for Obama's still unannounced running mate.

This appointment has no bearing on the policy choices we will face at the ballot box in November. It does make for mildly interesting soap opera, for those of you lacking other sources of summer entertainment. Ken Blanchard at SD Politics reads the Washington Post and muses over the apparent slap in the face to Clinton. Interestingly, given the SD Politics crowd's affinity for highlighting the Obama campaign's dastardly connections to Chicago politics, Blanchard ignores the Chicago angle to the Solis Doyle appointment:

But as long-standing as Solis Doyle's ties to Clinton may be, her Chicago roots run even deeper. Her first job in politics was on the campaign staff on Mayor Richard M. Daley, a leading Obama patron, and she has a long friendship with the Illinois senator's chief political adviser, David Axelrod. She also is close to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, another Chicagoan and Obama confidant [Anne E. Kornblut, "Solis Doyle Joins Obama Campaign," Washington Post: The Trail, 2008.06.16].

So we don't have to read soap opera into Obama's appointment of Solis Doyle; good old Chicago loyalty and patronage might be the simpler explanation... not that I see that one helping me win any arguments with SD Politics.

By the way, reviewing the Joshua Green article to which Blanchard refers, I feel a slight urge to play the devil's advocate. Solis Doyle was a rotten campaign manager (as much in in 2006 Senate race as in this year's Presidential campaign), but she was fiercely loyal. That loyalty seems like a pretty good quality for a chief of staff, which I hope is a different job from campaign manager. Let her control access to the candidate; just keep her hands off the campaign funds.

------------------
Update 08:40: A CQ Politics article gives us this interesting comment from an unnamed Clintonista:

But a Clinton insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told CQ Politics that the subtext is clear.

"Translated subtitles aren't necessary," the insider said. "There is no other way to interpret this other than '[Expletive] you.'" [Obama spokesman Bill] Burton declined to comment on the Clinton camp's reaction to the appointment [Jonathan Allen, "Fired Clinton Campaign Manager Named to Run Obama's VP Campaign," CQ Politics via Yahoo, 2008.06.17].

If that characterization of the appointment is correct, we shouldn't be surprised: Obama has played nice guy on the trail, but given how he owned the Rules and Bylaws Committee and put his stamp on the DNC leadership, it's clear he can throw elbows when he needs to.

Pricey Oil and Recession, Brought to You by Enron...

...and deregulation!

I know, I know: China, India, SUVs. But tonight's Marketplace leads with this interview with former commodity regulator Michael Greenberger, who says we can also thank "the Enron Loophole" for our high oil prices:

...[A]bout 30 percent of our crude oil energy futures are traded in what is called a dark market -- that is a market that was deregulated in December of 2000 at the behest of Enron. Prior to that legislation being passed, all energy futures traded in the United States or affecting the United States in a significant fashion were regulated by United States regulators under a very careful regime that had been perfected over about 78 years and many observers believe that because those markets are not being policed, malpractices are being committed and traders are able to boost the price virtually at their will [Michael Greenberger, interviewed by Kai Ryssdal, "Deflating the Oil Bubble," Marketplace, 2008.06.16].

Greenberger says straight out that speculators are making the oil futures market "completely dysfunctional and out of control."

Want to see your price at the pump go down? Forget the gas tax holiday or tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Bring back the regulations:

From my own experience as a commodity regulator, I believe that if the Bush Administration were serious about its regulation, we could begin seeing prices drop within a month. If we don't get the kind of regulation that has been done for decades and the market proceeds along the pace its proceeding, we will have to go through a very, very serious recession. The question is do you want to deflate the bubble by that kind of suffering or do you want to deflate the bubble by applying tight U.S. regulatory controls? [Greenberger, 2008.06.16]

Congress? President Bush? Anyone listening?