Morning Coffee Notes

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 by Dave Winer.

Haven't done one of these in a while. 

On Twitter we're talking, to the extent you can converse on Twitter, about where we'll go if McCain wins the Presidency. Last time it came up, a couple of weeks ago I think, I was saying Vancouver -- because it's just up the coast, about a 2-day drive from Berkeley. Easy to get to, and it's got an American-friendly border, at least so far. Maybe if McCain wins they'll start turning us away so many people will want to emigrate. It's one likely response to his idea that they should start taxing health benefits.  

Then came suggestions that I emigrate to Spain or Paris. Hmm. Interesting ideas. So I added them to the list. Today Moscow got added (Russia is a capitalist country now), Argentina, and my favorite so far -- Italy! Now that's a brilliant idea. I could move to Firenze, hang out in the piazza all day eating and drinking, and blogging on my Asus (although I might have an MSI Wind by then, seriously considering it). Who needs a Twitter Bar when you got a piazza with Italian food! Yum. 

Okay since this is a MCN piece, I get to ramble. 

Next topic -- did you see Frontline last night? It was an excellent summary of the election so far. It was good to review the events that got Obama and McCain to this point. Most interesting were the segments on McCain's experience as a prisoner of war and the part about Obama at Harvard Law School. McCain had it really hard. I didn't get how hard it was, listening to his speech at the RNC, I don't like listening to his speeches, and these days I have trouble listening to Obama too. You know who I really like -- Hillary! She gave a kickass speech on Sunday in Pennsylvania. We should be hearing more from her, and Joe Biden too. He does tend to ramble, like when he went off-script to say how much he loved HIllary. The first couple of sentences were great, but he went on and on, becoming more incoherent with each paragraph. However when he sticks to the script he's fantastic, even though he says Ladies And Gentlemen so many times you'd think he was Chuck Barris on The Gong Show. 

Now the thing that really struck me about the story about Obama at HLS was that it was a time of huge conflict in the early 90s when he was there. I didn't know that. When I was there just ten years later it was totally peaceful, even a bit boring. The other thing they emphasized is something I already understood. Obama is a conservative, not a liberal. By that I mean, he won't do what Carter did when he took office -- Obama moves carefully and slowly and builds consensus. Roosevelt did the same, although that's not how history remembers him. He wouldn't go into WWII until there was a national consensus to do so, even though he knew we would have to, and every day we delayed decreased the chance of victory. Very much unlike the current President who went to war in Iraq without a consensus. This is something McCain struggles with every day, even though he never talks about it in the campaign (he should, even though it'd piss off his base, they can't stand criticisim, but we can't use American leadership that's scared of discourse). 

One more idea. McCain talks about Country First. It's a good idea, I wish he would practice it more. They are responsible for the hatred that shows up at his rallies. The honorable thing would be to stand between the crowd and Obama and tell them to chill or find another candidate to rally around.  

Now the idea is this -- why isn't John Kennedy in this election? 

He was, for a while, when Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy endorsed Obama, they were saying here is a leader like my brother and father, respectively. These days everyone is comparing Obama to FDR, but along with economic chaos, political and military chaos are sure to follow. They all go together. A weakened US is going to be tested internationally, as JFK was in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Every day the world gets more dangerous. 

It's good that Obama is laying the foundation for leadership when he tells his supporters it's not okay to boo McCain when his name comes up in a speech. But why not invoke JFK in response to the Country First mantra. Remind everyone that there's a Democratic version of that, that goes like this: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country? Isn't that the response to the 80s and 90s and 00s? Isn't that what the next decade is going to be all about?