The good people of LaVerkin have jogged my memory and I now recall another site that is equally as noteworthy and speaks well for itself:

Behold, Sealand.
- posted by levinson @ 7/27/2001 09:38:00 AM

 
I would love to be able to take credit for finding this on my own, but I feel I must credit Salon with bringing my attention to wonderful LaVerkin, Utah. In the site's article "Kooks 'R' Us", Ian Williams opens with a snippet about this little Utah town that imposed a U.N. free zone within its city limits. As the New Yorker's writers often do, I will simply lay the cities own description of this ordinance out for you with no comment at all:

"More than 100 residents showed up to join them as they reviewed a U.N. Free-Zone ordinance that essentially makes it illegal for any United Nations� activities to take place on city property. It also bans the city from receiving any U.N. funds. Contrary to what the media has published, the ordinance does not prevent residents from supporting the United Nations. It does however require those working on a U.N.- financed project to register with the city, pay a fee and post a sign that reads "U.N. work conducted here. While the council doesn�t believe the United Nations poses a direct threat to LaVerkin, this political entity fosters a liberal agenda counter to most of the residents living in this rural community."
- posted by levinson @ 7/27/2001 09:30:00 AM

 
NICE!!! Good to see things are still the same at college. "Hook-ups are defined as encounters ranging from kissing to sexual intercourse where both participants expect nothing further afterward." What a great system.
- posted by levinson @ 7/26/2001 10:46:00 AM

 
The Village Voice gives a mini-profile of Michael Powell (yes, son of), the Chairman of the FCC. Most of the article tells of what he's done at the FCC to allow major media conglomerates to merge and become yet even larger. He scoffs at the idea that customers/consumers are worth a damn. He also uttered this priceless piece:

The statement was in line with an earlier quip, in which [Powell] mocked the idea that the FCC should get involved in ensuring the spread of technology to underprivileged communities. Digital divide? Not according to Powell. "I think there's a Mercedes divide�I'd like to have one; I can't afford one," said the chairman, whose federal salary is $133,700 a year. "I think that's an important social issue. But it shouldn't be used to justify the notion of essentially the socialization of the deployment of the infrastructure."

The socialization of the deployment of infrastructure. A nice repudiation of the entire concept of American infrastucture and the myriad court decisions and pieces of legislation that in fact make infrastructure and its deployment socialist. Rich people deserve good roads and efficient data delivery, according to Powell. The poor people don't seem to earn enough to deserve these things. Infrastructure. Yikes. Bright political future for this guy. Definitely.
- posted by levinson @ 7/26/2001 08:26:00 AM

 

This picture is from a story on the Red Sox 2001 season and what the author, Bill Simmons, (a lifelong fan) has learned from it. I love this picture of Rice, because I imagine all the calamities that befell the Sox in his tenure. Then, insert a caption for the picture as this being Rice's reaction to said incident. Here's an example: "Rice, having thrown down his hat and glove, reacts to Bill Bucknes missing the ground ball hit at him late in game 6." Doesn't Rice look like he's about to charge in from left and pummell Buckner to a pulp? The pic gets funnier the longer you look at it.

Just remember, the only thing better than one 300 pound latin reliever is two 300 lbs. latin relievers.
- posted by levinson @ 7/25/2001 10:22:00 AM

 
There's a lot out there to comment on today, but most of my web surfing today has centered around the Cloudmakers. What a tremendous undertaking with extraordinary breadth and depth.
- posted by levinson @ 7/23/2001 01:31:00 PM

 
On a rent control tear right now trying to find the strong voices of opposition and their reasons for opposing deregulation. It's hard to find sites that tell why they are either for or against rent control laws. I have come across one alarming fact. There are laws in NYC that allow apartments to be deregulated if they are upgraded to "luxury status" (rent of $2000 or more) once the current tenant leaves. It's call vacancy decontrol. Moreover, all apartments, once vacated, are eligible for vacancy decontrol. Consequently, you have horrible tales of sky-rocketting rents. This is worse than deregulation, it's piecemeal deregulation. An end to rent control should not come on an as-vacated basis. Nothing could be more destructive to fair housing costs than the laws currently on the books or something like them. We need to end rent control on all apartments at once. That is, the two bedroom downtown apartment that currently rents for $400 needs to immediately rise. Regardless of whether the tennant stays or goes, the rent must increase. This will let the air out of the rent bubble that is currently inflated over the available housing in the city. One million apartments, deregulated at once (or very quickly in succession), are not all going to skyrocket in price. Markets simply don't work that way. There won't be enough demand to support the high prices that are currently supplied for apartments. The Small Property Owners of America were the ones responsible for deregulation in Massachusetts which has worked, by all statistical accounts, very well. Specifically, see the post about the "quiet end" of rent control. Some of the predictions seem familiar to the ones in New York.
- posted by levinson @ 7/20/2001 09:33:00 AM

 
An Op-ed on the affordable housing shortage in New York City today. Interesting that it's written by Roland Lewis (the executive director of Habitat for Humanity-New York City) but it doesn't mention the phasing out of rent control as an option. On the face of it, rent control would seem to help the cause of affordable housing. By holding the rents of some, but not all, of the apartments in the city artificially below market price it would seem that plenty of affordable housing would remain available. However, New York has some other resident laws that allow even the worst of tenants to stay on almost indefinitely. The result is that apartments that should rent for well over $1000 instead go for $300 a month. Under rent control, the price of those apartments cannot rise unless the tenant moves out. Who would leave a $300 one bedroom in the heart of the village? I'd stay there as long as possible. Most benefactors of rent control do just that. The result is the explosion of rents in the unregulated market. An in-depth study of how rent control affects the market can be found here.

I rent my new place for $1950. The previous tenant had resided there for a long, long time. At least that's my speculation. I believe so for two reasons. First, the woman across the hall has told me she's been in her place for more than 20 years and the woman who had my apartment was there longer. Second, the previous tenant didn't live in my apartment. She lived in the one directly below it and used mine as a writing studio. There had never been a phone line installed in my apartment. Hands up everyone who can afford two floor-through one bedroom apartments in New York. Repealing rent control will not be pretty and it will displace a lot of people who have lived in their apartments for a very long time. Many of those will be elderly and face considerable hardship in being forced out. However, it simply isn't fair or economical to keep these apartments off the market and artificially low-priced any more. Moreover, provisions can be made for the worst off of renters to aid them in their departure and give them extra time to find suitable housing. I am not advocating a mass eviction campaign. No one should be summarily dumped out of their apartment. That said, these apartments need to be put on the open market in order to stabilize the spiralling cost of living in the city that is already the most expensive in the world.
- posted by levinson @ 7/20/2001 08:27:00 AM

 
I have often bemoaned the fact that there is little true investigative journalism going on in the media these days. Perhaps I'm simply looking in the wrong place. For true grittiness in reporting, it seems one must go to the UK. Interestingly, UK laws are much more restrictive of press freedom than the US. Joe Conason's column in Salon today concerns a fellow reporter, Gregory Palast, and the firestorm over his article on the US election published in the Observer (a London Sunday paper) back in November. Barrick Goldstrike is attempting to have the column retracted in London, but also removed from Palast's US registered web site. Palast is an American citizen. To read about the dirty laundry between Barrick, dictators, and our 41st President, go to Palast's website. It will be an interesting exercise in international law, our Bill of Rights, and how far political clout will take censorship in this country. Barrick is one of W's biggest backers and has donated a good amount to the Republican party. I wonder if the media considers it newsworthy that a Canadian company is donating to one of our major political parties while keeping a former president on staff and consorting with murderous dictators.

Why isn't this newsworthy?

Can you imagine the firestorm if the former president were Clinton instead of former CIA head HW Bush? Regardless, check out the article.


- posted by levinson @ 7/20/2001 07:17:00 AM

 
The third in Salon's series on the major media conglomerates. This one concentrates on the book review. I was pretty ho-hum about it since I'm not a book review reader. I'd like to be, but I feel I'm already far behind in reading a lot of books that are already out. I'm also not much of a fiction reader. Jess has told me that I need more fiction (she's right) and I've made an effort. My other personal problem is that I get most of my news off the web now. The only book review I consistently read is the one in Harper's. Nevertheless, there are two quotes that struck me:

"Until you can show me that your subscribers are willing to pay more money because of the quality, I sort of feel like the average reader isn't that sensitive to the quality at a certain level, and you really do need to make decisions that sometimes seem short-term in nature, because you chose to go public, and shareholders really do deserve a return." -- Laura Fine, Wall Street media analyst

"Editors are now under extreme pressure to tap the widest possible audience. As a result, they are abandoning the journalistic risks and literary quirks that once made the morning paper feel alive and important." -- article

I find the second more telling than the first. However, the first illustrates another side of the attitude I rebuked MSFT for having as it prosecutes public school systems for copying software. Fine points out that since the papers have gone public, they have a responsibility to be profitable. She's right, they didn't have to go public, and having done so, they have a responsibility to be profitable. However, those same papers need to keep in mind their greater responsibility to their readership base which is far larger than their shareholder base. Investors don't expect cyclical industries to have world-beating profits in a quarter when their product isn't in high demand. In turn, investors, if shown the responsibilities of a newspaper by those publishers, won't expect them to beat estimates every quarter. It's not a wealthy business. Moreover, it's a business that has a responsibility to disemminate information to the masses. This leads to the second quote. The masses aren't necessarily all interested in the same things. A newspaper isn't a product that appeals to a large population for a single reason. Different people read the paper for different reasons. Recognizing that is important. Of course, this drive to the bland will eventually push readership to smaller, more dynamic publications that actually care about quality and important stories. However, eventually we are all dead.
- posted by levinson @ 7/19/2001 11:18:00 AM

 
McWhorter's article on reparations presents one view of the state of race relations in this country. Nat Hentoff in the Village Voice presents another. Whlie it is difficult to tell who is closer to the mark, Hentoff's article does not cite results, but rather percentage decreases and levels of "wealth" which goes undefined. To me, what you have here is the focal debate that will define whether or not we have a democrat in the white house come 2005. If the party stays the middle course and brings back the middle class group that was the crucial piece of the New Deal Coallition in the 1960's, they should win. If they lurch back to the liberal litmus testing policies of the 80's, W will be re-elected in a landslide. It is the difference from looking honestly at the past 10 years and what policies worked, and which one didn't. It's not whether, "we reduced appropriations for housing for the poor at the federal level by over 80%" rather, the issue is, are there over 80% more homeless people. If not, what replaced those federal appopriations are clearly working and need not be re-instated. Why? Because that money is better spent elsewhere and the attempt to ramp up federal appropriations for any program by 80% is a losing platform, plain and simple.
- posted by levinson @ 7/18/2001 10:16:00 AM

 
The issue of reparations for slavery is one that has interested me for a time. My interest was piqued last year when Harpers had a feature round-table discussion on the issue by some of the nation's prominent class-action lawyers and how one might mount a case for reparations. Soon after, the official commission was formed to prosecute the issue. What seems to be getting lost is the question of whether these reparations have already been made. The concept seems almost impossible to comprehend. I naturally assume no effort has ever been truly made to make reparations. Of course, if I go looking for a bill in Congress marked "Reparations for Slavery" I would pass by some truly landmark pieces of legislation that have sought to do just that without the pretty wrapping. John McWhorter writes an elegant essay on the issue of reparations while admonishing the book The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks by Randall Robinson as misguided tripe. The article is long and worth printing out and taking to a cafe to read so that you can take the time to appreciate it in full. Having previously seen the logic of the case (in substance) for reparations, I am moving away from the idea that such a case has any standing. An honest look at the state of race in this country is something I would like to see and need to seek out.
- posted by levinson @ 7/17/2001 09:41:00 AM

 
I read this article yesterday but had some trouble with Blogger. Gregg Easterbrook performs a good analysis of the current state of the global warming feud, and presents a sensible way to move forward. Moreover, he makes the case for moving incrementally to eliminate greenhouse gasses in stages. He cites methane as the first one that should go as it will give the environment the most bang for its buck in terms of stemming the global warming tide. Moreover, he advocates an economic system of selling licences to companies for CO2 emissions. This would not only encourage conservation, but also push the industries to seek other forms of energy in order to save costs in the long run. He points out that these initiatives could help any politician (especially W, the environmental lightweight) to present real, effective and immediate action to stem the tide of global warming while also serving notice that we must move away from our current polluting system. A bit long, but worth the read.
- posted by levinson @ 7/17/2001 08:22:00 AM

 
Given that the GOP has raised a record amount of money for a non-election year, the defeat of Shays-Meehan is no surprise. Supporters of reform on the Hill now have the opportunity over the weekend to attempt to make this the story of the weekend and push the Chandra Levy case off the front page. I doubt the scandal-mongering media will let them, but if they can create enough of a ground-swell, they have a shot at getting the bill to the house floor for an up or down vote. Another question is whether the democrats are raising equal sums of money as the GOP in order to oust the republicans in 2002.
- posted by levinson @ 7/13/2001 11:02:00 AM

 
An editorial and an op-ed in the Times today covering the vote tomorrow in the House on campaign finance reform. The Times takes the unusual step of naming names of those representatives who are wavering. Moreover, it points out that several of these reps had, in the past, voted for reform because they knew it would die in the Senate. Donna Brazile, Gore's former campaign manager, has and op-ed on how the bill will bolster grass-roots efforts in low income communities. Both pieces are aimed directly at the members of the Blask and Hispanic Caucuses that have recently moved away from reform. It will be another tense 48 hours for McCain and his fellow reformers on the Hill. We are closer than we've ever been in the history of the country to making a big step in removing large moneyed interests from control of the legislative process.
- posted by levinson @ 7/11/2001 06:56:00 AM

 
I just thought this was really cool. Sniped it from Drudge.

- posted by levinson @ 7/10/2001 01:06:00 PM

 
I worked for a town engineering department when I was younger and found some interesting things that need not be itemized here. One issue that did stick with me was how towns are usually required to take the lowest bid offered them for a contract. This can lead to pervasive abuses and cost over-runs. Newsday has an article today on what has happened in the NY area as it tries to build schools that points out how this contracting policy can go wrong. It's a hairy political issue to deal with as almost any system has dangerous pitfalls, but I think townships need to look at how to maximize the quality of projects when completed as well as trying best to insulate the process from local corruption.
- posted by levinson @ 7/10/2001 09:21:00 AM

 
A great article on the spin surrounding the campaign against Tom Daschle from Spinsanity. The focus here is on the regular citizens on the Internet post-boards and how they absorb and spit out the rhetoric of the pundits. A quote from the end:

"The pervasiveness of this type of spin in online discussions - arguably some of the most open forums for political discussions today - provides disturbing evidence of how effective these techniques have been in undermining rational political debate at every level"

**

Caught The O'Reilly Factor last night on Fox news having read the article on the "Bully Boys" in Vanity Fair this month. Coincidentally, O'Reilly had on the columnist, James Wolcott, who wrote the piece to give him "the heat". I thought Wolcott did a good job of showing how O'Reilly is exactly as was characterized in the column, although I didn't think he jumped on every bit of nonsense O'Reilly was spewing at him. At the same time I deride O'Reilly, I must also praise him for as I flipped around during his show to CNN and CNBC, his was the only show not covering the Chandra Levy case for the entire half-hour. Salon has a piece on just how orchestrated the whole thing has become and last night was great evidence of this.
- posted by levinson @ 7/10/2001 09:00:00 AM

 
An interesting Op-ed by Thomas Friedman on our current foreign policy-by-biology. Certainly it's more humane than the policy-by-assination employed by Kissinger, but he makes good points that the leaders he cites can continue to act as they are without true consequence as we sit and wait for them to die. Also, as the Russian Revolution found out with the change from Lenin to Stalin, you can never be sure about a leader's successor, he may just be worse than the guy before him. Apparently Saddam's sons are far worse than he is having been brought up under his regime and feeling the sense of entitlement towards leading the country.
- posted by levinson @ 7/10/2001 08:21:00 AM

 
Always nice to know that MSFT is strong-arming schools. While Gates himself is an extraordinary philanthropist, almost without peer, his company seems to be totally missing the boat. I agree that licensing is important and should be enforced, but the tactics employed need to be different depending on the situtation. Given that Philadelphia has the poorest schools in the country, the company ought to look a little closer at the circumstances and try to help rather than threatening legal action and making boasts about $100 million dollar fines. Educational resources are different from the regular market, but the BSA seems to look at it as any other for-profit group trying to cheat them. I should point out that the Business Software Alliance (BSA) does not include every software company, though it includes almost every heavy-hitter save Sun. Moreover, Sun is producing a number of open-source software alternatives including Star Office. I've not used it yet, but I hope it can be made into a viable alternate to MSFT Office. I should note that Apple is a member of the alliance and is also one of the best companies in supporting schools. They have consistently tailored their products for educational use and take a very pro-active approach with institutions. However, my contempt for MSFT continues to deepen and while I have made forays into Linux before without staying, I may have to make a permanent move especially considering the fact that MSFT doesn't seem to realize that the Court of Appeals ruling puts them in serious trouble.
- posted by levinson @ 7/10/2001 07:35:00 AM

 
Good news for Kissinger. If a blatant criminal like Pinochet can get off, Henry should be in the clear. Of course, if the rules are less lenient in this country or in France where there's already a possibility of charges being brought, he may yet find himself in hot water.
- posted by levinson @ 7/09/2001 01:31:00 PM

 
Reading this dispatch on Salon in conjunction with something recently posted on TNR about how our trade policy with China just won't work is getting me thinking. I've been a proponent of the trade-creates-change theory for a while. In my mind I look at the Renaissance in Italy as the first great example of how increased trade can bring about myriad changes in all forms of scholarly thinking. What Kaplan points out in his TNR article is that the Chinese government has learned from other nations that have converted to capitalism and have taken steps to ensure that there will be no cultural awakening that moves the country away from Communism. In the past, governments have either not understood or not believed in the effects that free trade can have throughout a society. It would seem that China does understand and is making sure it doesn't happen there. They've managed to keep the west at arm's-length since the early 1800's. Perhaps it is time to change our course in dealing with the Chinese and their human rights violations. I wonder if Kissinger would suggest that we sign initiatives with regard to Sri Lanka or Columbia in order to pressure China into changing. That's the way it works, right Henry?
- posted by levinson @ 7/06/2001 10:11:00 AM

 
In a year that has produced a healthy amount of junk from Hollywood, Memento stands out as a suprising and fun exception. For those that haven't seen it, I highly reccomend dashing out this weekend if you can as it will probably not be in theatres much longer. The movie is based on a short story published in Esquire written by the screenwriter's [I think] brother. I've never had to concentrate so much in a theatre in my life. Moreover, I've never wanted to pay such close attention to a movie. I literally didn't want to tune out lest I miss the one clue that could help unravel the mystery.

Andy Klein does a great service for fans of the movie in writing this article. Though it provides few answers, his insights are valid and his chronology is extremely helpful. People continue to respond to his article with further questions and observations. My favorite, however, is:

"Memento" is a gimmick movie that has no soul. When you understand the general story and backward plot device the film becomes tedious. And then you reach the unsatisfying ending. As in the movie, "Memento" is forgettable five minutes later. ---Scott Dobson

Doesn't this clown remind you of every loser who feels himself intellectually superior to all things pop culture? Who the hell writes about a movie having a "soul". This idiot reminds me of David Kahane from The Player.

I've been trying to conclude for myself whether Leonard is faking. I have yet to sit down with Klein's synopsis and hash out the details, but I want to see at what points Leonard looks at his Sammy Jankis tattoo. To me, that seems the most likely evidence of Leonard being a fraud the way Sammy was. Of course, the ultimate twist is that you have to make decisions on your own as to whom you believe as no one in the movie is completely trustworthy. The movie will be a lot of fun on DVD.
- posted by levinson @ 7/06/2001 07:32:00 AM

 
Finally the second scathing review of all the pomposity and obfuscation that is Henry Kissinger. In reviewing Kissinger's latest book, Todd Gitlin rightly points out that Kissinger has two motives in publishing his latest drivel. One, to promote and aggrandize his version of history with himself as the center of all things benevolent for the world. Two, to attempt to lay out a policy by which he will not be brought before a war crimes tribunal after Milosevic, Pinochet and other beneficiaries of his inhumane actions while Nixon lay in a stupor in the upper floors of the White House. Perhaps the most bold faced and comical line that screams his guilt is the assertion that human rights initiatives are, "primarily a diplomatic weapon to use against Soviet pressure on their own and captive peoples, not as a legal weapon against individual leaders before courts of countries not their own." That's right Henry, the UN human rights initiatives are all about the Russians and aren't meant to prosecute people that flagrantly violate these basic principles. After all there was never a greater violator of these initiatives since their inception than old Henry.

Christopher Hitchens remains the only one to yet attempt to catalogue all of these violations, but for some reason his book can't seem to generate any buzz.
- posted by levinson @ 7/06/2001 07:04:00 AM

 
Yikes! Krugman lashes out at all things related to W and the economy and points the finger straight at the tax cut. Not only that, but he takes the bold step, rarely taken by the largely sheepish media, of predicting (with an 85% reliability) what the spin will be over the next year or so. First we'll hear that it's the economy that's making the surplus slip. Then we'll raid Medicare. Finally, his prediction is that as early as next year we'll have to attack Social Security. Very little relief is in site, but ample opportunity exists for opponents of the administration to castigate them over the cut by continually proposing to roll back the tax cut. W can't do that or else he'll look like his father and be out of the next race before he's even in it. It's not quite "Read My Lips" yet, but it has plenty of potential.
- posted by levinson @ 7/06/2001 06:42:00 AM

 
Found an interesting site via American Prospect called Spinsanity. Basically a blog put together by three guys in January that seeks to track in a non-partisan way the various spin machines and what they're blathering about at any given time. If they manage to stay at it and do it effectively as they have thus far, it could turn into a valuable resource on the web. I came to it from the Prospect article on the coming war on Tom Daschle.
- posted by levinson @ 7/05/2001 11:31:00 AM

 
An interesting article in the Post today about House members that are caught with a choice of biting one of the two hands that feeds them. In the case of the freshman member profiled, Shelley Capito, it's almost impossible to tell whether the money or McCain's support was more valuable to her narrowly winning her seat. Though I have no idea about the details of her campaign, I would bet that McCain's support brought in both more votes and more money. A kind of dual support that is hard matched by some of the other special interests trying to influence her. The passage of McCain-Feingold in the House will undoubtedly yield something different in key areas from the one passed in the Senate. Then, of course, it must go to conference to decide the final form. With the switch in power in the Senate, you can bet the conference will be hotly contested. I think the bill's in better shape than it would have been had Lott still been head of the Senate. Still an uphill battle, but if W vetoes both campaign finance and the patient's bill of rights, he'll put himself and the members in his party at an extraordinary disadvantage come mid-term elections.
- posted by levinson @ 7/05/2001 10:47:00 AM

 
Undoubtedly we'll see several news stories about the "future of medicine" or snippets about the "new bionic man". Some group will surely see this as a slight against god. What we can be certain of is that the benefits of the artificial heart will certainly be clouded by the hype wars the various news shows engage in when a national story breaks.
- posted by levinson @ 7/03/2001 11:25:00 AM

 
It begins. So, so many people told us about this a few months ago. Countless voices said budget projections are worthless, especially with the economy slowing down. Now Medicare funding is going to be stolen in order to pay for the spending programs dreamed up by W and his "brain trust". I wonder what kind of reaction the white house would get is congress actually ran a budget deficit this year. Of course, there's the potential that we will run a surplus, or at least an "off-budget" [scroll all the way down on this link] surplus. Of course, if we ran only an off-budget surplus, the effect of the tax cut could be made to seem minimal. I hope none of this happens but the fact that we're half way through the year and we're already $70MM off our projections. Also, since we have Texas stalwarts at the top of the cabinet food-chain, which programs do you think will be cut first if the surplus goes the way of the Do-do?
- posted by levinson @ 7/03/2001 08:26:00 AM

 
Picked up the book Reinventing Democrats by Kenneth Baer. It's about how Al From and others founded the Democratic Leadership Committee and brought the democrats back from political oblivion. There's a subchapter titled, ""The Politics of Evasion" which talks about a document produced by the Progressive Policy Institute in 1989 after Dukakis's loss to Bush. It's an interesting paper on how the dems lost their way and what had changed from the days of Kennedy through Carter and into their awful decade of the 80's. It was the DLC and the PPI that helped Clinton center the party and lead it into the economic prosperity that is now in a hiccup. The book goes into the history of the New Democratic movement in greater detail, but it seems on first blush that "The Politics of Evasion" was the paper that served as the rallying cry that shook the party out of its delusion. A self-reinforcing delusion (the paper points out) that it seems the party (especially here in NYC) is in danger of slipping back into. On the national scale, though, it seems Tom Daschle has taken up the mantle of the middle and is going to see how far right he can push W. He had a good first week, but as the budget spending package moves forward and the coming conference on campaign finance, his abilities as a leader will be soundly tested.
- posted by levinson @ 7/02/2001 02:05:00 PM

 
The candidacy of Mike Bloomberg is shaping up to be an interesting story here in NYC. While people don't yet know what to make of him, he is beginning to hold forth on the issues and cluing the press, the electorate and even his own campaign team on where he stands. Most interesting to me is that he has switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in order to run. The move may seem strange given that his ideas are all squarely New Democrat, but if you know anything about NYC politics, it makes plenty of sense. The dems here are quite a bi further left than there counter-parts almost everywhere save university campuses. Consequently, they have an old-school party bureaucracy that stifles anyone but the best paderers to the various special interests around the city. Not surprisingly, the democratic field is filled with four career politicians who will compete to dote on the special interests the most effectively and dance along the far left party line as neatly as possible in order to gain the nomination. Bloomberg rightly evaluated that there was no way he could compete in that field and come out with the nomination. The republicans here are Nelson Rockefeller by any stretch of the imagination, but Bloomberg will be their best bet for keeping the Mayoralty as Bloomberg's opponent in the primary is a perennial candidate and perennial loser. In reference to switching parties, Bloomberg says, "I certainly looked at it very carefully, an outsider would have no chance of getting [the nomination]."

One point he made that I particularly liked was in expressing his frustration that the candidates often like to hold forth on national issues:

"Mayoral candidates should talk about what they can do in the city, with the money that is available, with the political clout, or the power given them by the City Charter. And if they spent their time on that and let those we elected to the federal government focus on national issues, we'd all be better off."
- posted by levinson @ 7/01/2001 12:38:00 PM