Slip Slidin' Through Politics and Coffee

SENATOR McCAIN'S TEAMMATES KEEP SLIP SLIDIN' AWAY

In another in a series of signs that the Republicans may be imploding this election year, Presumptive Republican Nominee Senator John McCain's national finance co-chairman, Thomas Loeffler, has been forced to resign after it was revealed that he lobbies for the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company. According to an article in Monday's (May 19, 2008) edition of USA Today, this company "...with Northrup Grumman, won a lucrative contract to provide air refueling tankers for the [U.S.] Air Force." The article goes on to state that, "...McCain helped scuttle an earlier contract that would have gone to a competitor, Boeing."

Given that one of Senator McCain's campaign strategies is to show that he is both a Washington "insider" in the sense that he is very experienced and therefore ready to step into the office of the Presidency and be immediately effective, yet also very much a Washington "outsider" in the sense that he is not a typical, bought-and-sold politician who is in the proverbial back pockets of lobbyists and corporations, this cannot be a positive development for the trajectory of his campaign.

Yet what many might find worse than Mr. Loeffler's situation is the fact that two other gentlemen previously affiliated with the McCain campaign, Doug Goodyear and Doug Davenport (can those possibly be real names?), resigned a week or so ago, due to the revelation that they have both lobbied for DCI Group, which sounds innocuous enough, unless you know that DCI Group was hired by the brutal ruling junta of Burma (Myanmar) in order to soften its international image. (This would be the same junta that refuses to initially allow relief supplies into their country at times of humanitarian crises...and when supplies are finally allowed in, they refuse to properly distribute them; many international organizations postulate that they stockpile the supplies for themselves while letting their people languish due to poverty and hunger.)

If he wants to win the general election in November, Senator McCain had better put an end to his campaign team's shenanigans immediately. The national Republican Party has taken the prehistoric route regarding science and technology issues of late; they seem to be completely out of touch regarding the geo-political trajectory of the world and America's role in it (many of them don't even seem to understand geo-politics); and, for the first time in a long time, they are well behind the Democrats as far as money raised for November's elections is concerned. Senator McCain had better start some behind-the-scenes ass-kicking if he and his party are to avoid looking disingenuous in the run-up to November's elections, and therefore avert disaster. And he'd better straighten-out his own voting record, as well.

This is particularly necessary for him because a big part of Senator McCain's appeal is what many see as his strong personal character. He'd better hope that it doesn't take a big hit sometime soon, because many of his party's stances on the issues of the day are surely not a strong suit for him or for Republican congressional candidates in 2008.

...AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING FOR THE G.O.P., OR RATHER AT THEM....

The Republicans need to defend nearly thirty open national congressional seats this coming autumn, whereas the number the Democrats have to defend (at least thus far) looks as though it will be in the lower single digits. (This does not count elections featuring incumbents, of course.) This wouldn't be a disaster for the G.O.P. if it weren't for the fact that several powerful Republicans have recently retired or will soon retire, which means that the money their political action committees raise will be cut drastically. This combined with the party's poor approval ratings nationwide (and the poor approval rating for President Bush, who also happens to be a member of that party) have resulted in a substandard fundraising season that is alarming Republican strategists.

Through this past March 31, Federal Election Commission records show that the Democrats have already raised over fifty million dollars more than their Republican counterparts for use in national congressional campaigns. (This has been reported on various national news stations, as well as in various reputable printed news outlets.) Rumors suggest that this trend has not reversed itself so far this spring. When one adds to this the fact that Senator Obama, who will most likely be the Democratic Nominee for president this election cycle, has raised far, far more money than has Senator McCain for his campaign, this may spell disaster for the Republicans in the autumn.

But please mark my words carefully: it MAY spell disaster. The Democrats have to be very, very careful how they market their candidates this time around, or else the G.O.P. is likely to chip away at their advantages, at first political...and then financial. Given that the Democrats seem to be the only party that presently understands--at least to a certain extent--the world and America's place in it, it is essential that they not lose their advantages prior to the November elections.

I AM TOO OLD FOR CARIBOU COFFEE

I received more than my fair share of prolonged glances today at a local Caribou Coffee shop, and it was due, I'm sure, to my lack of a "gimmick"....

I'm still getting used to America again (and enjoying the process), and its coffee shop culture is no exception. When I was in England, coffee shops (and, yes, they have plenty of Starbucks outlets, for example) were places where one went to bump constantly into other people trying to squeeze along with you through too-small doors into too-small aisles featuring too-long lines of irritated shoppers making their way in an arduously slow manner toward the overworked--and therefore frazzled--clerks. When one finally acquires his or her drink, he or she then scrambles to what is inevitably the last open seat in the whole establishment (generally right next to the bathrooms, the emergency door, and/or the steps to what is supposed to be the upper level but is really more of a World War II-era attic).

At this point the relieved individual tries to stretch his or her legs out, only to have his or her coffee spill all over everything (including the Times article they meant to read, titled something like "Overcrowded Britain") as three or four other folks stumble over the aforementioned outstretched legs and spill their own coffees in various directions in a projectile-like manner, forcing most of those within a twenty-foot radius to spill their coffees as they dive for cover. Oddly, everyone apologizes, but to no one in particular and in a rather perfunctory manner. After a few more such chain reactions, one gives up and leaves the coffee shop in order to inevitably find oneself at the local pub, where one must crash into an only slightly-different crowd of people, all attempting to calm their nerves with alcohol after giving up the attempt to negotiate the mass wall of humanity on the streets.

In the United States, which features bigger...well, everything...the pinball machine atmosphere of coffee shops (and pubs, and a lot of other things) in England is replaced by a more laid-back atmosphere in which one can generally stretch one's legs out. But, it seems, one must have a gimmick in order to do so without being stared at. Potential gimmicks come in various types, such as that possessed by the young lady I sat next to today who seemed the most "professionally attired" in the whole place, but who upon closer examination was stretching out her bare feet upon a pillow. Across from us sat two college-aged hippie-types (no bad thing), probably a romantic couple, sporting hole-slashed shirts, dredlocks, and rather contented, slightly dazed looks, yet who nonetheless were typing quickly upon laptop computers so decked-out with the latest-everything that one would think the Pentagon uses the same models for retasking spy satellites.

Then there was the career woman in her late-twenties who was wearing what appeared to be a thousand-dollar suit and about six beepers on her belt; the too-chipper-to-be-on-a-natural-high clerk, who seemed to have just recently finished his third cappuccino of the hour and was operating at what one might call an "ethereal" level, and who was a bit overly concerned that the air conditioning might be too cold for me...even though (a.) it wasn't, and (b.) I had barely strode through the door and certainly hadn't had time to register the temperature when the question was put to me; and so forth.

I am in my thirties, which puts me at an age that one might call "young-ish" but struggle to more accurately pinpoint. It probably did not help those around me in the coffee shop better pinpoint my age that I happened to be wearing a t-shirt that read "Paul Simon: Still Crazy After All These Years." It's the same one I wore often in England. The English coffee crowd seemed too preoccupied with not smashing into one another to care much about my shirt, or me in general, which is fine with me. American coffee shop attendees (and not just at Caribou Coffee) often look at my shirt, and me, rather quizically, as if trying to decide whether I'm a bit too old to understand the gimmick-culture of the coffee shop, or whether my lack of a gimmick is itself a clever gimmick. I don't know how to respond to such looks, so I often hide my somewhat embarrassed self-consciousness at such scrutiny behind a fake-but-ostensibly-close study of whatever I'm reading.

That being said, since returning to America, I have yet to spill a single cup of coffee, which is nice.

SOON-TO-BE-MOCKED KENTUCKY AND OREGON PRIMARY PREDICTIONS

KENTUCKY: I actually overheard two Kentucky businessmen talking at a local coffee shop (not Caribou) just last week. Their accents were thick, but their intelligence levels could not necessarily be described as such (that's a compliment, by the way). That being said, one statement seemed appropriate regarding this primary election--one of them, after previously discussing business patterns in some depth, switched gears and said, in a serous voice, of someone else, "He doesn't seem to be a country boy to me...." Of Senators Clinton and Obama, she has proven better at projecting both a working-class persona and an oddly-effective "rural" persona. So, my prediction is CLINTON BY THIRTY PERCENTAGE POINTS.

OREGON: The states are different in several ways, but Democrats in Oregon are often a lot like Democrats in Minnesota. That being said, this is a primary and not a caucus, so Senator Obama will not win by over thirty percentage points, as he did in Minnesota. My prediction: OBAMA BY FOURTEEN PERCENTAGE POINTS.