Election Countdown: 21 days
Politics — By Rachel Motte on October 13, 2008 at 10:41 pmWIth only three weeks left until the election, here’s the best of what I’ve read today (summed up by yours truly):
“How do you solve a problem? Like, Obama!” (Mark Steyn)
“The black hole of Obama will suck you in through the awesome power of its totally cool suckiness.”
It’s the furniture, stupid… (The NYT)
Believe it or not, set design may help determine who will be the next leader of the free world. (HT Matt Lewis)
Narrative FAIL? (Patrick Ruffini)
“Can someone please explain to me the single word that describes the McCain campaign? Even if they came to one now, they’d be 19 months too late.”
More to come…
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13 Comments
http://www.steynonline.com/
“Well, they were cute chicks, and I know an obvious pick-up line when I hear one, so I stopped to chat.”
Then utilizing my command of the English language, I said nothing.
Be there, done that.
OK enough is enough. This blog sucks and it’s the fault of you guys! I know Joe is off to the big time now with Culture11 but these last few posts are just, well almost total crap. Here’s what’s missing:
1. A sense of connection with the writers: Are you just going to post press releases from whatever will be left of the religious right after the nuclear bomb goes off in early November? Engage the audience here.
2. Read and comment on the comments. You don’t have to get into flame wars or even involve yourself greatly with the comments but understand if you want this blog to maintain its popularity you must indicate that you view it as something more than a place to dump press releases or a bank account to sell banner ads and click thrus or a tool to increase the link strength of your favorite sites. You must show that you are paying attention to this little community here before it dissipates.
3. One post a day- You don’t need two or three…don’t give people too much but give it to them on a regular basis. If you’re stretched for material look at your comments, do an ‘open mic’ post or find an interesting comment and respond to it as a full blown post.
4. Post on actual questions – Every now and then Joe would try to mount a novel philosophical argument or go into some theological niche. Don’t use the blog to hammer just the usual talking points (OK we get it, abortion bad, pro-life good, against gay marriage…check check chek). Give us posts beyond the approved Party talking points or pure fluff.
5. Understand what an argument really is. Joe fancied himself an amateur logician and logic should be something everyone values. Arguments are built up with a good foundation of valid premises and good use of logical operations. Arguments that are not built on a good foundation fall apart with a little shaking. Use the comments as a way to refine and develop your arguments. This is a two way street here. Just as you need to put your character on the blog the blog itself should shape your character. If you toss the floor sweepings of your other projects onto this blog…well you reap what you sow….
Boonton,
This blog sucks
Thank you. But does it ’suck you in with the awesome power of its totally cool suckiness’? (Best line I’ve read this week.) When it can do that, I’ll know I’ve arrived….
Thank you for reading. I’m not really sure why you hang out here, since you seem not to like it much, but whatever. You make me laugh, and I mean that as a compliment, not as a downplay of anything you’ve said here.
But does it ’suck you in with the awesome power of its totally cool suckiness’?
Sadly you’ve not yet achieved a totally cool suckiness but I wouldn’t be too eager to go there. That’s kind of the suckiness where everyone is having a good time laughing at you….good for them but not good for you.
I’m not really sure why you hang out here, since you seem not to like it much,
It’s kind of a good workout for the mind….but the machines here are getting kind of rusty and instead of working out with a lot of interesting looking people the rooms seems empty except for those one or two people who seem kind of…well distrubing (see smmtheory, who I think hasn’t yet learned that the Internet actually ahs more than one website)
So think of the sucks line as less an insult to you and more like a splash of cold water. If it was hopeless I wouldn’t have bothered but there’s no time to lose. Act now, save the fluff pieces for later!
Keep up the good work, Rachel. Joe almost always ignored Boonton as the pretentious unaware geek that he is. That didn’t seem to work. Perhaps your posts will drive him away. Ironic that he mentions everyone having a good time laughing AT you. As I’ve said before, if he were anywhere but at an “online party” it would be apparent that he has been standing alone holding a drink and a little vienna sausage for about three years now. Everyone’s been laughing at him because he goes on and on speaking ex cathedra, while he has that bit of guacamole stuck on the end of his nose. But he doesn’t believe it, because he has the illusion that there are still people at his party, BECAUSE WE STILL RESPOND TO HIM. If we all ignore him, he might go back to the Vulcan blog where he honed his superior logic and kept his ears nice and pointy.
Yawn, again with the laughing party jd? What gives? Forgot about the “Clinton was a bad liar” line and the education in the US is pretty good? Or did you finally break the ctrl-v keys on your keyboard and are suffering your own little intellectual failure? Don’t worry, I’ll stay here just to bail you out!
More seriously, though, Rachel, don’t bother with JD. He will pat you on the back and tell you great job up to the moment the boat hits the iceberg.
There’s nothing especially wrong with this post but there’s nothing especially right with it nor the previous few posts. This is to be expected with a change in management because you’re still treading into new waters here but practice is over, take off the floaters and jump into the deep end and swim already!
One word to define the McCain campaign: Substance.
Senator Obama: Style.
With John McCain, there is clearly a there there. With Barack Obama, there is clearly polish there. One has experienced the most depraved elements of humanity and has painfully experienced man’s inhumanity to man. The other has eloquently stated his theoretical understanding of man’s inhumanity to man. One has fought against entrenched ideologies and achieved success in a world of seemingly irreconcilable opposites. The other has carried himself well through the ranks of a series of ideologically similar organizations.
Look around at the polished facade of our culture and ask yourself what we, as a people, need most in a leader right now: style or substance.
The problem with Dustin’s thesis is that McCain’s behavior has undercut his claim to substance. Palin has turned out to lack substance. His quite franky odd performance on the economy is anything but substance….frankly he didn’t act like he had substance, he acted like an attention hungry drama queen.
This shouldn’t come as a shock because the right has long claimed that McCain was less about substance and more about style himself…specifically self-serving publicity stunts being passed off as ‘independence’ or now ‘the Maverick!’. You only have to look back and see what Republicans were saying when he ran against Bush 8 years ago and even now before the other Republican poster kids (Romney, Rudy, Huck. etc.) went down in flames.
By itself it wouldn’t mean much but I think the one ancedote that nicely illustrates the problem with the claim that McCain is the substance candidate is when his website put up a headline that 100 notable economists had endorsed him and his plans. A page which then listed all the economists, all 90 of them.
It is unfortunate that the wider world, the worldly public, would prefer style over substance. The world has always been that way. But I would not entirely write Obama off as a man without substance though. The real question is whether or not that substance is palatable.
the road to the White House is coming to an end, thank God! This has been the longest election in the history of the universe! The liberal illuminati has done an amazing job of push their propaganda and it looks like Obama will the man. I don’t think it’s over just yet but things are leaning pretty heavy in that direction. I don’t think there is any “solving” of the Obama problem as you put it. So now what?
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