b-fresh Co-Founder Sarah Crawford's Op-Ed In The New Hampshire Union Leader

On the importance of being politically involved EVERY year.

From 11/28/08:

Congratulations, New Hampshire, for surviving a presidential election more exciting (read: grueling) than any other in recent history!

Having worked on campaigns in and out of this state, I can say that New Hampshire voters are more experienced, knowledgeable and committed to their community, candidates and causes than are the voters anywhere else I've been. And it's not even close.

To the untold number of Granite Staters who go above and beyond the call to vote on Election Day -- who make calls from campaign headquarters, host meet-and-greets in their homes, attend town hall meetings and stand on busy intersections in the freezing cold to wave signs -- you are the people who keep New Hampshire at the top of the political universe.

If not for your passion and commitment, the arguments made against our first-in-the-nation status might very well prevail.

I sometimes wonder if our community activism flows from New Hampshire's barn-raising days, when our young communities came together to assist one another by rolling up their sleeves and raising the frames of each other's barns because "that's what neighbors do." In any event, that spirit is still alive here.

And in that "can-do" community spirit, I want to ask a question: New Hampshire has earned the right to play an important role in picking America's President every four years, but why do we need a presidential primary to continue to agitate and organize for constructive political change at the national, state and local levels?

We don't.

I know, I know, the 2008 primary circus has already left town, and we won't see the first whispers of the next New Hampshire presidential primary for at least another two years.

But so what?

We're still all here. We may have taken down our lawn signs, but that doesn't mean that we need to pack up our involvement.

Why should we hang back and let others determine what issues will be debated just because it's not an election year right now? Why should we wait to see if our thoughts on energy, health care or terrorism will be discussed at the Tilt'n Diner in three years?

We should not.

New Hampshire has earned a powerful national voice that leads this country every four years, but we don't need to wait for the next presidential primary to come back and remind us how critically important our own individual thoughts and concerns are.

Pick a cause and organize a coalition of activists right here, right now. We know how to do it. It's not rocket science. Republican, Democrat, independent, other, it makes no difference. Make some calls, have your neighbors over to share their thoughts and agitate for constructive change. CNN doesn't have to go live to make it a worthy event.

I am convinced that there is not a better place to make a significant impact on issues facing America than in New Hampshire. And Granite Staters are the ones who make it so. Positive change doesn't have to come only once every four years.

What Many 2010 Election Contests Might Look Like (the 11/25/08 edition)

Many 2010 contests might well be fought primarily over who supported the "Credit Crisis Bailout", and who did not.

The bailout numbers are just that incredibly LARGE.

Via Barry Ritholz at The Big Picture:

Whenever I discussed the current bailout situation with people, I find they have a hard time comprehending the actual numbers involved. That became a problem while doing the research for the Bailout Nation book. I needed some way to put this into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

_____________________

data courtesy of Bianco Research

That is $686 billion less than the cost of the credit crisis thus far.

The only single American event in history that even comes close to matching the cost of the credit crisis is World War II: Original Cost: $288 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $3.6 trillion

The $4.6165 trillion dollars committed so far is about a trillion dollars ($979 billion dollars) greater than the entire cost of World War II borne by the United States: $3.6 trillion, adjusted for inflation (original cost was $288 billion).

Go figure: WWII was a relative bargain.

I estimate that by the time we get through 2010, the final bill may scale up to as much as $10 trillion dollars…

Obama Raised Half A Billion Dollars Online in 21-Months

Very impressive.

Very.

Conservative Writer David Frum Is Launching His Own Website

David Frum joins a rapidly expanding group of reform-minded Republicans who are bypassing the traditional (and antiquated) offline GOP hierarchy by creating their own online space:

Starting over Inauguration Weekend, I'll be launching a new website, NewMajority.com. It will be a group blog, featuring many different voices. Not all of them identify as conservatives or Republicans. But they - and people like them - are the people conservatives and Republicans need.

I hope we will debate policy as well as politics. I hope above all that we can create an online community that will be exciting and appealing to younger readers, a generation often repelled by today's mainstream conservatism. NewMajority.com will feature an active monitored comments section. Reader contributions will be welcome - and I hope will be integrated into the dialogue rather than relegated to appendage status. We will be experimenting with video commentaries - and offering a very much expanded "bookshelf" section.

The Billionaire Responds To The Securities And Exchange Commission. On His Blog.

Mark Cuban tells the SEC to go jump in a lake.

In the most public way possible.

"Meh" Made The Dictionary? Meh, So What?

"Meh", a word the indicates a lack of interest or enthusiasm, has officially entered the Collins English Dictionary:

The word, which beat hundreds of other suggestions from members of the public, will feature in the 30th anniversary edition of the dictionary, which is to be published next year.

Though the word apparently originates from North America, Collins said it was now widely used on the Internet, and was increasingly seen in British spoken English.

The dictionary entry for "meh" will say it can be used as an interjection to indicate indifference or boredom, as an adjective to describe something as boring or mediocre, or to show an individual is apathetic or unimpressed.

The power of the internet, example #954,392,311,047

A Good First Look At Team Obama's Campaign Technology

Marc Ambinder has it here.

Well worth a read.

Email Spammers Average 1 Response For Every 12.5 Million Emails Sent

The BBC has a fascinating look at the (still very profitable) world of email Spammers.

What Team Obama Understood That Team McCain Didn't

Obama pollster Joel Benensen in the latest Time Magazine:

On the effort to define John McCain:

One of the things that struck us as we entered the general election was that two pieces of conventional wisdom had been stood on their heads. The first was that Barack Obama actually had a much better defined image with voters than John McCain did, especially on key attributes related to bringing about change in Washington: he had a 13-point advantage on "would stand up to special interests," a 12-point edge on whether he could "change partisan politics," a 26-point advantage on "would stand up for the middle class."

For McCain, the biography metrics were very strong--people thought he was tough, thought he was ready to be Commander in Chief. But beyond that, voters really didn't have an image of him as this fiercely independent maverick. I don't think we thought the general election would be anything other than "change vs. more of the same."

We didn't think it was that complicated. We were running against somebody who wanted to continue George Bush's economic policies, Bush's policy in Iraq, the same tax policies. Among the élites, he had an image of being this independent, but among the public he was just another Republican politician.

This is a guy who said, "The press corps is my base," and I think it was. He didn't get that he wasn't defined. You gotta be consistent. You gotta reinforce what you stand for. But through his campaign policies, McCain was reinforcing that he was more of the same. That "Miss Congeniality" line--what did that mean to voters? It didn't mean that he fundamentally disagreed with the ideology of George Bush.

[snip]

On the value of consistency for a campaign:

When you go from a primary to a general, you say, "We know what worked in the primary. Will it work in a general election?" There was a nuanced change that we made in our slogan, right before the convention--from "Change you can believe in" to "Change we need." But other than that, our message stayed very consistent.

There was a moment, before the conventions, when it definitely seemed like McCain's campaign was gearing up to drive home a message about shaking up Washington. They put out an ad that said he was called "the original maverick." But once they got out of their convention, they really stopped driving that message and instead went on the attack in a way that was undermining the image of change that McCain was trying to drive. You can't send mixed messages out to the electorate.

On the ultimate meaning of the 2008 election:

Any candidate for President has to clear a Commander in Chief threshold on whether they have the judgment and readiness to lead. But we believed from the start that the economy would trump issues. We saw continually that voters really were focused on wanting long-term solutions. Senator Obama immediately opposed the gas-tax holiday because it was exactly the type of Washington [gimmick] he was saying wouldn't solve our problems.

This was not a small election. This was a big election. But McCain talked about earmarks instead of about changing the tax code. When the issue was energy independence, his focal point was drilling instead of getting us off this addiction to oil.

Barack Obama spoke to a kind of change that resonated with Americans. They have grown weary not just of the type of politics we've seen but also of how politics has gotten in the way of solving real problems. In this campaign, voters have always known the stakes were very high.

Voting Shifts

A 2008 election map.

The redder the area, the more people shifted towards Republicans.

The bluer the area, the more people shifted towards the Democrats.

b-fresh has argued it before and we'll argue it again, the GOP cannot remain a white, male cul-de-sac party and survive.

(Map courtesy of the New York Times)

HuffPost Lists Top 60 Memorable Campaign Ads of 2008

It's a fairly interesting list.

If only because it shows how crippled by inside-the-box thinking most campaign commercials are.

Even the "memorable" ones.

Even in 2008.

Two Of Mike Allen's 12,000...

...work here at b-fresh.

And Newsweek has the story behind the story.