A lot has happen in a week. I scrapped my thesis topic for something that I can possibly do without moving to the Middle East, College Democrats started up again, and I got to spend a bunch of time up in Portland. So here are your Sunday Quick Hits:
Elections should be on Saturday. It makes celebrating Obama victories easier!
The Oregon Federation of College Democrats launched the Student 2 Student organizing plan yesterday at the OFCD, which was quite impressive. Kudos go to Sara Bean Duncan, the OFCD President, and Andrea Cooper, the DPO Constituency Director, for a great job. Student 2 Student augments the DNC Neighbor to Neighbor program to take into account the transient nature of the college student population in a way that the Neighbor to Neighbor plan alone neglected. Especially, if Obama is at the top of the ticket this plan could be the force that pushes a tsunami of college students to the polls in November.
Also at the OFCD meeting was Ben Unger, the former Measure 49 guru, who was very effectively making his case for John Kroger, who’s AG campaign he is running.
This Caroline Kennedy’s Op-Ed in the New York Times endorsing Obama made me get all warm and fuzzy on the inside:
I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.
I look forward to this week when John Kroger is coming to the Willamette College Democrats, which I will be blogging about.
Three minutes ago, I sent in my last paper for the Fall 2007 semester. Finals are over, thank God! After spending nearly three days without sleep, this will be a tired edition of Saturday Morning Quick Hits:
Note to self the following things are not good in combination with each other: no sleep for three days, 2 cans of Rockstar, 5 Jello chocolate and vanilla swirl pudding cups, drinkable yogurt, and apple cider airborne.
If John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice is a silly thought experiment, and as completely unimplementable as I think it is, why do I use it so often to write papers?
Here is a good frame buster: Waterboarding doesn’t simulate drowning. It simulates death. Stop doing it!
This Weeks Nice Thing I Say About Steve Novick: His article in Harpers this week was really good press, and he didn’t talk once about Merkley.
Danny Haren was traded by my beloved Oakland A’s yesterday. I am crushed but “In Billy Beane We Trust.”
Speaking of baseball, I enjoy rebuilding teams, as I find the strategy behind building a team absolutely fascinating.
There will be a special Sunday post here on Forward Oregon. Tomorrow, before I go home for the holidays, I will be writing about the Merkley-Tester event in Portland tonight. Hope to see you there.
I haven’t been writing for Forward Oregon as much as I would like because finals have started and I have been swamped. That should change this upcoming week as, though I am still swamped, I am currently in the process of writing a post on attempts at voter suppression in Oregon. So make sure to come back for that. This morning’s quick hits:
It looks like the Clinton campaign’s wheels are coming off. With Obama’s rising status in the polls, the Clinton camp has started to act crazy. There was the Obama wanted to be President when he was 8 attack. Where the Clinton campaign did everything except show people the actual school assignment written in crayon to claim that he was actually planning a Presidential run. There was also the spreading of out and out lies about Obama by a Clinton County Chair in Iowa. These things don’t help Clinton at all and just may be seen similar to the “Dean Scream,” as the point when the front runner, having lost the aura of inevitability, went crazy.
Today I am going to premier a new feature of Saturday Morning Quick Hits. It is going to be called: “This Week’s Nice Thing I Say About Steve Novick.” I don’t think that it is hard to tell that I am a Merkley supporter. Nor do I think it is difficult to ascertain that I believe that Novick is not running an effective campaign at this point. However, he is a progressive Democrat and there are sometimes that people on both sides need to be reminded that we have two true progressive in this race. This primary campaign has turned out way nasty on the internet and this is going to be my attempt to make sure I am seeing both the forest and the trees. Therefore, during every Saturday Quick Hits, no matter how much I criticize Novick during the week, I will say at least one nice thing about him or his campaign. I challenge pro-Novick sites like Loaded Orygun to do the same thing for Merkley. So here we go. “This Week’s Nice Thing I Say About Steve Novick” is I think its really cool that Novick has a link to the SoS voter registration site on his front page. No matter who you are supporting we all need to encourage people to get registered so they can have a stake in their democracy.
Not so breaking news: Andrew Plambeck, college student and Novick supporter had this to say on another FO thread:
Anyway, hopefully I’ll have time to keep stopping by here, and man, I do still want that game of beer pong I discussed with one of you guys at the Summit. Ha!
Challenge Accepted. I think it will be epic.
Have a good weekend. Come by on Monday for a examination of attempts at voter suppression in Oregon.
Some quick thoughts before I get to writing my thesis and starting my day:
Earlier in the Oregon Senate Race, the online community had a chance to discuss the use of humor in politics. My opinion: if you are going to do it, I better think it is funny. For a primer on how to use humor (or Chuck Norris) to slingshot your campaign into legitimacy see the video below:
So much quality earned media, so little time.
Today’s Awkward Turtle moment: Michigan gets their delegates stripped for breaking the rules and trying to jump their primary ahead, showing the need to dramatically change our nomination process. Can we really have a process that bars an entire state, and still call it democracy?
It is really weird to see the State Capitol with boards over the windows and completely hollow, but at least we won’t have that disgusting carpet anymore.
Writing another thesis next semester is going to be brutal. I can barely concentrate with all the election fun now, and the primary is still 6 months away.
Well folks, I have my thesis on tradable permit markets to finish. Tomorrow, there will be a look at media strategy in the Secretary of State race, so come back an join us. This has been an awesome first week of me concentrating on publishing. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you tomorrow.
bdunn
atleastimhonest
