Richard Bennett

Via Rough&Tumble, a new PPIC poll shows Davis widening his lead:

When Davis outpolls Simon on ethics, you know GOP is in a jam — Score the summer round for Gov. Gray Davis. A new poll shows just how one-sided this contest has been. It’s not merely that Davis leads Bill Simon by 11 percentage points among likely voters, 41% to 30%, in the survey by pollster Mark Baldassare for the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. It’s worse than that for Simon: Voters think Davis is the more ethical. George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times — 8/29/02 Link to the poll here

Remember the folks who said they had to vote for Simon over Riordan because Simon was the Man of Principle? Ha.

Internet provider and mega-telecom company Verizon goes toe-to-toe with Hollywood. Read an interview with chief counsel Sarah Deutsch in Tech News – CNET.com

Now consumers have a powerful new ally. Verizon and other telecommunications giants have ordered their phalanx of lobbyists to oppose the entertainment industry’s demands for new copyright laws. The company is also fighting the Recording Industry Association of America’s request for information about a subscriber.

Linked, oddly enough, by Dave Winer.

Greg Knauss isn’t impressed with Dave Winer’s blog campaign to elect Libertarian Party candidate Tara Sue Grubb to Congress:

All this means that Tara Sue Grubb really is the “weblog candidate.” She’s an empty page, capable of being filled in with whatever people like Dave Winer and his philosophical bedmates want to see. He can think that supporting a losing cause is action against the disappearance of his rights, he can think that dismissing Lessig and the EFF strikes a blow for consumers and artists, he can think that the calcified institutions of the US political system will crumble to dust in the face of a few thousand people posting messages on the Internet. He can think whatever he wants, but it all ends up meaningless, pointless, useless talk. And very little action.

Knauss’ larger point is that tech people don’t understand politics, aren’t active in it, and are seemingly incapable of doing the things you have to do in order to be effective in politics. He’s right, of course. I personally spent five years lobbying my state legislature on a regular basis, so I know something about how the game is played: you show up in person at the Capitol, get meetings with lawmakers, press your case, and then work it in the media.

You show up at hearings and testify on bills, and then you plead with every member for their vote. When the other side has the votes, you seek amendments that will blunt the effect of their victory. And you put your own bills together to protect your position and to repeal any gains made by the other side. Playing the game like this for years, you begin getting invited to testify at special hearings, and you’re invited to serve on panels, boards, and commissions. More important, your name gets around the Capitol, so that media folks interview you when they’re spilling major ink, deep-pockets donors seek your advice about where to spend their money, and you get connected to people with real access who operate behind the scenes. In time, you win some victories, many of them unnoticed by the media but important in the aggregate.

Almost invariably, the tech people who wanted to get involved in my cause thought they could accomplish the task by writing e-mail to lawmakers and to each other, mainly the latter. So they spent their time creating web sites, model laws and mailing lists instead of doing real work. Promoting a Libertarian Party member for Congress does exactly what Knauss says it does — drains off resources of time and money that could be spent doing something real. It’s a sad way to go. (via Matt Welch)

Simon May Be Making History, but for All the Wrong Reasons

The question political junkies are asking is: Has there ever been a worse campaign for governor of California than Bill Simon’s?

Has there ever been a worse candidate?

That is, a sorrier gubernatorial nominee of either the Republican or Democratic party?

Can’t think of any, is the consensus of political pros I’ve talked to in both parties. Not at this point anyway–this close to Labor Day, the traditional kickoff of the November race.

My, that was mean. But like a Simon Cowell critique, it was spot on as well, old chap.

The Georgia primaries couldn’t have turned out much better, with nutcases Cynthia McKinney and Bob Barr going down decisively to more moderate opponents. PhotoDude’s Web Log: Brain Dump & Pixel Pile has a great blow-by-blow of early returns in the McKinney-Majette race, for his own personal district:

Denise Majette, a virtually unknown local judge when she declared her candidacy a mere 6 months ago, tonight knocked off a 5 term incumbent in her own party primary, defeating Cynthia McKinney by nearly 20,000 votes, with 59% of those cast.

So it was 60/40 for Majette, and the Linder/Barr race was even more of a landslide, 67/33. If your faith in the democratic process was harmed by Barbara Lee’s winning the nomination for her seat in Berkeley, this should restore it.

Bill Simon speechwriter Jonathan Wilcox urges Californians not to give up on Bill Simon yet:

Not for the first time, the liberal media has California all wrong. And for the umpteenth time, California Republicans seem prepared to believe it.

In reality, the California governor’s race remains Bill Simon’s to lose, and absent major mistakes, he will win.

Unfortunately, Wilcox offers no concrete evidence that his boss still has a chance: no poll numbers, no voter remarks, nothing. He simply says it’s early, and the people don’t like Gray. It’s not that early, with the election 10 weeks away, and Simon still doesn’t have the money to answer Gray’s attacks and shift the spotlight back on him. Given the choice between the same venal crook we’ve had for the last 4 years or a bumbling idiot with a directionless campaign, voters will go for the crook simply out of familiarity.

Republicans may as well vote Green, since the growth in that party’s strength is the only thing that stands to weaken the Democratic Party in California.

Virginia Postrel has a cool column in the NY Times titled The Rich Get Rich and Poor Get Poorer. Or Do They? that takes apart the anti-capitalist claim about globalization ransacking the Third World. It’s not really so:

In 1970, global income distribution peaked at about $1,000 in today’s dollars, a common measure of poverty ($2 a day in 1985 dollars). In 1998, by contrast, the largest number of people earned about $8,000 — a standard of living equivalent to Portugal’s.

The biggest change in the picture of global poverty has come from India and China, where a genuine middle class has developed.

Postrel draws from the work of brilliant economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin. His web site is worth a visit.

Story courtesy of Glenn Reynolds.

From Best of the Web, kudos to Scott Koenig:

Better Late Than Never
“The reelection campaign of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) has received campaign contributions from at least 18 donors who are either officers of Muslim foundations under investigation by the FBI, have voiced support for Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist organizations or have made inflammatory statements about Jews,” the Washington Post reports. The Post’s Thomas Edsall notes that “local media outlets,” including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, have covered the story, but he doesn’t credit blogger Scott Koenig, who actually broke it two days ahead of the AJC.

While some bloggers do meaningful research that has a direct effect on elections, others muse about returning to an agrarian past, only to be corrected.

UPDATE: Mrs. Bennett asks if Blood is a moron, an idiot, or a wanker. Vote in the comments. (clue: agrarian life was no picnic, even if you like turnips a whole lot.)

Go to Rough&Tumble for the links that go with this story:

Layoffs on Simon staff — In a move to free up funds to counter a television advertising onslaught by Gov. Gray Davis, GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon will lay off up to 30 members of his campaign staff, it was announced Wednesday night. Carla Marinucci in the San Francisco Chronicle The story is in the Los Angeles Times Dan Smith in the Sacramento Bee Dion Nissenbaum in the San Jose Mercury — 8/15/02

Simon’s not writing that check that I said he wasn’t going to write, and White House fundraising efforts on his behalf have been scaled-back or terminated. Next time, Republicans, don’t nominate the guy the Democrats want you to nominate, even if he talks like a Man of Principle on guns and abortion. Every rookie has to learn the ropes, and a statewide election is a tough venue for education.