Hit & Run Blogging: On Dean, Pollina, Spitzer & Biking
March 14, 2008
Dean Disappears (again): It looks like Vermont’s own Howard Dean is finally getting some heat for his complete inability to handle the Democratic delegate nightmare that is playing out in Florida and Michigan. As the head of the Democratic National Committee, this delegate fiasco has been occurring on Dean’s watch from the beginning when the two states first defied the party’s wishes regarding the timing of their primaries. And now Dean’s DNC is striking out in its attempts to find a happy ending to the mess.
Worse, it sure seems like Dean’s been playing his all-too-familiar duck and cover game with a political hot potato. Where, exactly, has he been during the public discourse on this mess? I’m no casual media watcher and I haven’t seen him at all.
It’s pretty clear that the Dem party power elite don’t think much of Dean anyway. I heard one pundit just scoff at the idea of Dean pulling the Obama and Clinton camps into his office to hammer out a deal, saying, “He just doesn’t have the stature.”
Vermonters, of course, are used to this kind of hiding from Dean. When the Vermont courts forced the legislature to pass the law allowing “civil unions” between gay and lesbian couples, Dean literally hid in his backroom (closet?) when he signed it. It was a most cowardly act and a major finger to the eye of the many people who worked hard on the issue and deserved the kind of public acknowledgment that normally accompanies such an historic occasion. But not with cowardly Howard – he just signed it in the backroom and then, years later, bragged about his involvement with the law on the national stage.
But it’s time for Dean to come out of hiding while the delegate mess continues to zap energy, time and focus from the real issues at hand. He’s got to stop acting like the hiding child while his parents fight in the other room. Dean is the chairman of the Democratic Party. And he needs to start acting like it.
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Speaking of Presidential Politics: Let’s see, where are we? Oh yeah, the Clinton people are highlighting the fact that Obama’s minister has the audacity to talk about white elites. The Obama people are calling Clinton a monster. And the McCain people are trying to keep their boss’s mental volcano from erupting before November.
Maybe that’s why Dean is hiding. Now I get it.
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Speaking of (Not) Getting It: The Pollina folks still aren’t getting it. It was nice to see Burlington Free Press reporter Terri Hallenbeck pick up on the Pollina hypocrisy meme that yours truly began here earlier this week. Read it for yourselves:
He called for buying local to boost Vermont’s rural economy. “Let’s start by buying Vermont, not just talking about it like the current governor does. He says buy local, it is just that simple. Yet in our institutions we still find hamburger from Iowa and milk from Massachusetts,” Pollina said.
On each table in the cafeteria were bowls of goldfish crackers and pretzels for the audience. Asked if those were made in Vermont, Pollina said he didn’t know but acknowledged it was unlikely. He said he didn’t plan the details of the event, but that by supporting Vermont business, more locally made products would be available. “You need to create markets,” he said.
Pollina just doesn’t get it. But it’s nice to see the Vermont media begin to examine the silliness of his campaign.
I thought it was interesting that the Vermont Press Bureau didn’t even bother to send a reporter to what must have been Pollina’s third “campaign launch.” Even though they described this one as the “official” launch, the Press Bureau clearly had better things to do (McGillicuddy’s?). The result was that Pollina’s not-so-grand campaign launch didn’t even get a mention in either the Rutland Herald or the Barre/Montpelier Times Argus. Ouch.
Pollina should take it as a hint that he needs to start saying something. And, no, that doesn’t mean more warmed-over talking points he’s pilfered from the Dems. Of course, it would also help if he’d stop with his “do as I say, not as I do” lectures to Vermonters.
Earth to the Pollina campaign: Bananas, oranges, watermelons, goldfish crackers and pretzels are NOT Vermont products.
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Obligatory Spitzer Post: The newspaper of record, The New York Times, reported the following on its online edition earlier this week: “Close aides to the governor suggested on Tuesday that the mood in the Spitzer home was tense.”
Ya think?
Please. Can’t we just leave them alone? It absolutely turned my stomach to read the reports that the swarming phalanx of journalists camped out at the Spitzer apartment had to part yesterday morning to allow two of Spitzer’s teenage girls to get out of the building and get to school.
The word parasites comes to mind – as does a number of accompanying adjectives.
We really are a holier-than-thou nation, aren’t we? But for a nation that now logs a greater than 50% divorce rate, it sure seems strange how quickly we like to play the righteous card.
People fail. Couples fail. Marriages fail. So, please, let those who have no failings cast the first stone. And that should clear the parasites away from the Spitzer home in a hurry.
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Finally, as we prepare for the biking season in Vermont (finally!), take a gander at this public service announcement from England. It’s in the form of a short, 30-second test. I flunked it. And you? [Hat tip to: TJC].
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6 Responses to “Hit & Run Blogging: On Dean, Pollina, Spitzer & Biking”
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Jesus F. Christ! Howie hiding in the closet (with Spitzer?), Pollina doing pre-versions with bananas and goldfish crackers, Obama’s minister called in to cast a voodoo curse, and all of this done on bicycles pedaling backwards. This is bigger than 9/11, Michael! You’ll get a Pulitzer and be on Hardball. Better still, you’ll be the first in a new genre of ‘repeated and repeated’ TV shows about bloggers: “Blog Scene Vermont…Miami….Boise…etc.” All you gotta do is figure out how to fit Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, George Steinbrenner, Britney, and Martha Stewart (fruit and crackers?) into this mix. Go Dude! I want Ralph Nader to play me.
Sorry, Pete, but we’ve already got Harry Dean Stanton to play you.
Well, that’ll work: “Look at that fucking Pollina. A regular Prog. I hate ‘em. Dildo, dipshit assholes! They don’t have a CODE. Fucking Rodriques Brothers! Don’t want no Progs in my car. No Prostitutes either!…etc.”
You must use your witty “gonadal noose” phrase whenever you mention Spitzer, got that?
Yes, I’ve already trade-marked it. So, based on your two uses, you owe me $2.33. Cash or money order only, please. You know where to send it…