Liberal Burblings

Archive for October, 2008

….And on Songs of Praise as well.

It all happened at Truro cathedral and is broadcast this Sunday.

I mention it because one of the Burble brothers is amongst the
men, and features on the right of this trailer snapshot (right).

This is very entertaining. The Tory C Team.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9JSC_ztAsM&hl=en&fs=1]

So said Tom Baker to Vince Cable on Have I got news for you – a classic.

I would heartily recommend keeping a weather-eye open at Lidl. Their stores across the country are offering 500ml bottles of Wychwood and Shepherd Neame beers (such as Bishop’s Finger and Hobgoblin) at £1 a throw.

That’s £1.14 a pint for an excellent beer – compared to well over double that in a pub.

As always with Lidl, though, blink and you’ll miss it. We’ve just bought an excellent guitar set for £30 for a Chrimble present for a loved one (it’s alright – she never reads this rubbish). But it was one of the last two on offer at our local store.

One of the most important strategic developments of this year’s US Presidential campaign has been Obama’s “50 state strategy“.

As the target states reduced over the summer, there was much criticism of this strategy.

However, today John McCain is having to visit his own state of Arizona in order to shore up the vote there. And we see the Obama campaign doing well in states previously considered off-limits to Democratic presidential campaigns, such as Indiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Montana, Virginia and Georgia.

This is obviously making it difficult for McCain. He’s been spending a lot of time in states which should have been a shoe-in for him – thus missing important opportunities to spend time in more crucial states such as Ohio and Florida.

Most importantly, by widening the scope of his campaign beyond the focus on Ohio and Florida of recent elections, Obama has motivated volunteers and donors in states which normally don’t get touched by the Democratic campaign for President.

As a bonus, Obama’s strategy will probably trickle down to win the Democrats some congressional seats which they would otherwise not have won.

So, all in all, the strategy is proving very fruitful.

There is much historical backing for a flexible state strategy. It is tempting to think of the Presidential state map from the last couple or so elections as being relatively fixed: The Democrats win California, the north-east and New England. The Republicans win Texas, the mid-west and the south. Ohio and Florida are the ding-dong battlegrounds.

But if you look back at previous elections, the map has always been changing. Indeed, if you go back to the election of the Republican William Taft in 1908 (below from 270towin.com), the map of the states he won, versus those won by his Democratic challenger William Bryan, was almost the complete reverse of the prevailing map from the last decade or so. Taft won California, the north east and New England. Bryan won Texas and the south.

If you look at the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy map (below), that is quite topsy-turvy, compared to today’s conventional picture. Nixon won California. Kennedy won Texas. Obviously, Nixon had been governor of California and Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s VP nominee, swung his home state of Texas. But you still see Kennedy swabbing up much of the south, while Nixon takes Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, which are currently relative Democratic sinecures.
Even as recently as Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976, the map (below) looks rather weird when compared to today’s political landscape. (This is, in part, explained by Jimmy Carter hailing from Plains, Georgia). Carter cleaned up the south, including Texas. But Gerald Ford, his Republican opponent, won California and north eastern states which are present-day Democratic strongholds, such as Michigan, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Conneticut.
By the way, Google have an excellent interactive map of the states and counties, and how they have voted in recent elections.

One of the most important strategic developments of this year’s US Presidential campaign has been Obama’s “50 state strategy“.

As the target states reduced over the summer, there was much criticism of this strategy.

However, today John McCain is having to visit his own state of Arizona in order to shore up the vote there. And we see the Obama campaign doing well in states previously considered off-limits to Democratic presidential campaigns, such as Indiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Montana, Virginia and Georgia.

This is obviously making it difficult for McCain. He’s been spending a lot of time in states which should have been a shoe-in for him – thus missing important opportunities to spend time in more crucial states such as Ohio and Florida.

Most importantly, by widening the scope of his campaign beyond the focus on Ohio and Florida of recent elections, Obama has motivated volunteers and donors in states which normally don’t get touched by the Democratic campaign for President.

As a bonus, Obama’s strategy will probably trickle down to win the Democrats some congressional seats which they would otherwise not have won.

So, all in all, the strategy is proving very fruitful.

There is much historical backing for a flexible state strategy. It is tempting to think of the Presidential state map from the last couple or so elections as being relatively fixed: The Democrats win California, the north-east and New England. The Republicans win Texas, the mid-west and the south. Ohio and Florida are the ding-dong battlegrounds.

But if you look back at previous elections, the map has always been changing. Indeed, if you go back to the election of the Republican William Taft in 1908 (below from 270towin.com), the map of the states he won, versus those won by his Democratic challenger William Bryan, was almost the complete reverse of the prevailing map from the last decade or so. Taft won California, the north east and New England. Bryan won Texas and the south.

If you look at the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy map (below), that is quite topsy-turvy, compared to today’s conventional picture. Nixon won California. Kennedy won Texas. Obviously, Nixon had been governor of California and Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s VP nominee, swung his home state of Texas. But you still see Kennedy swabbing up much of the south, while Nixon takes Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, which are currently relative Democratic sinecures.
Even as recently as Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976, the map (below) looks rather weird when compared to today’s political landscape. (This is, in part, explained by Jimmy Carter hailing from Plains, Georgia). Carter cleaned up the south, including Texas. But Gerald Ford, his Republican opponent, won California and north eastern states which are present-day Democratic strongholds, such as Michigan, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Conneticut.
By the way, Google have an excellent interactive map of the states and counties, and how they have voted in recent elections.

I’ve just viewed this “infomercial” for Obama (below), which was watched by 30 million Americans last night.

It is a masterpiece.

One thing I’d say is that if Obama’s political career blows up, he could have a lucrative career as a voiceover artist. He’s got a great narrator’s voice.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1]

Have a look at this (below). Notice anything? Nearly all the audience behind McCain are kids. That’s because 4,000 of them were bussed in to make up the numbers! And the other hoot is that McCain announces his hero Joe the Plumber and asks him to come up on stage and er……….er…………………….er………………….there’s no Joe the Plumber there!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1TT7gt5F0w&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1]

The wonkosphere has turned it’s attention to the role of the undecideds in the US Presidential election. With the polls showing a stable trend, with perhaps a little tightening, and with McCain forced to run robocalls in his own state and dodgy adverts on C&W stations in Virginia, the picture is in Obama’s favour.

However, the one remaining mystery area is the undecideds. In each poll there is around 7% of the little devils. If they all break for McCain (which wouldn’t surprise me) Obama is going to have great difficulty getting to 270 electoral votes.

In the Salon yesterday, Bill Greener argued, based on the supposed “Bradley effect“, that most of the undecideds will go for McCain, leaving Obama on shaky ground.

There are a number of difficulties with Greener’s argument.

1. It is arguable that the Bradley effect didn’t actually exist in the first place. The polls on the actual election day showed Bradley heading for defeat anyway.

2. All Greener’s examples of Bradleyesque effects can be offset, I suspect, by other examples of where African Americans have been elected according to the polls.

3. If the Bradley effect were, for the sake of argument, a 3 percentage points phenomenum, then it could well be offset by a 2-3 point “mobile phone” effect going the other way. It has been pointed out that pollsters are consistently going for landline voters while ignoring mobile phone owners, who overwhelming go for Obama.

4. Obama isn’t black. He is of mixed race. He straddles two cultures. His upbringing in Hawaii in the care of his (white) grandparents does, I suspect, offset many Bradleyesque effects in people’s minds.

5. It is 26 years since the Tom Bradley election. US voters have moved on.

6. Greener’s theory is based on the sweeping and unsubstantiated supposition that the remaining undecideds have already seen enough of Obama and don’t like him. However, today I have seen some ultra-wonkish figures which demonstrate, reasonably authoritatively, that the undecideds will split about 54-46 in Obama’s favour.

To read more about this and actually drown in wonkishness, read Mark Blumenthal in the National Journal Online here.

I see that the Jonathan Ross has been suspended, with no pay, for three months and the head of Radio Two has resigned over the Brand/Ross affair. I think that is right, and the BBC Trust’s strong statement is welcome. (I don’t think Brand’s resignation was necessary but he behaved in a very dignified way in offering it – and probably did his long-term career a favour by doing so – he is an off-the-wall comedian not a middle-of-the-roader).

If we stand back and compare this to the Andrew Gilligan/David Kelly “Today” episode, the two controversies are very different.

Andrew Gilligan did a live two-way broadcast from his own home at 6.30am in the morning and went over the line. We know the rest.

On this occasion, the broadcast was actually recorded. It is quite breathtaking to consider this. The BBC brass had time to review it and call Andrew Sachs to ask him if he was all right with it being broadcast. The problem was that they played the recording back to Sachs over a mobile when he was standing by traffic, and he actually said, when asked if he was okay with it being broadcast: “Not really”.

So this wasn’t a broadcaster error, although Ross and Brand should obviously take their share of the blame. It was a producer error.

And then that begs the question: If you leave a 25 year old producer in charge of Ross and Brand in a studio – what do you expect ? And apparently the producer checked it “upstairs” and was given the OK.

So this whole charade is a question of broadcasting management, primarily. So, I think the Radio Two head’s resignation is justified.

But let’s reflect on other aspects of this strange affair.

Two people complained on the day the broadcast was made. It was only after exposure on competing media outlets that the complaints started racking up.

How many people who complained thought that Sach’s grand-daughter was a teenager in pigtails? Probably a large number, I suspect. Perhaps if they considered the following, some of them wouldn’t be quite so outraged:

Georgina Baillie, the grand-daughter, is a 23 year-old whose Bebo page describes her hobbies as “pole dancing and luvv“. She appears (below) on the page in skimpy underwear. She is in a dance troupe called the “Satanic Sluts Xtreme“. Someone has commented on her page as follows:

A few days ago Georgina Baillie was boasting about being mentioned on the show and not upset at all! There is a link to the clip on the Satanic Sluts myspace page posted by them that say’s “Russell Brand gives the Satanic Sluts a mention” so it clearly didn’t upset her if she was happy to have links to it.So at the time she was clearly proud of it then and the stuff he was saying to her grandfather didnt bother her at the time for her to post a link to it. She was just glad her dance troupe got a mention.

Indeed, over the last couple of days we read and seen quite a lot of Ms Baillie in the Sun.

This doesn’t excuse what Brand and Ross did. But it does explain it a little.

There is some hypocrisy here. Millions watch and listen to Brand and Ross. Like many comedians, they cross the line so much they have chalk dust all over their shoes. So do Graham Norton, Chris Moyles and Paul Merton. So did Chris Evans in his previous incarnation. If any number of clips of all those comedians’ shows were to be plastered over the Daily Mail and played on News at Ten, the BBC would be inundated with complaints.

For example, a few months ago Paul Merton said that the Duke of Edinburgh had set fire to the Cutty Sark. If that clip had been splattered all over the place there would have been hordes of complaints. He was, of course, joking.

The point is that the BBC should not sack Jonathan Ross altogether unless there is a complete reassessment of comedy broadcasting in this country and we, as a nation, suddenly decide that we want to be complete hypocrites and ban what we, well er, actually quite like.