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Posted on 11.30.08 by dancurry @ 9:58 pm
When will Mayor Daley, dozens of other Illinois politicians and the Chicago media establishment pay a price for the O’Hare International Airport expansion plan, a public policy blunder of epic proportions. Just as former U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald and a few others said years ago, the plan eventually would collapse because it was economically and operationally unfeasible. The prophecy was brought into focus recently when the Chicago Tribune found letters that showed airlines have no intention of funding the second and largest phase of the $20 billion project because it makes no economic sense. In short, there never was adequate space to make a workable expansion work at O’Hare. But Mayor Daley and corporate chieftans in Chicago had no intention of driving to the south suburbs for a new airport where it belonged. So they spent hundreds of millions of dollars for public relations, planning, and land acquisition ramrodding the ill-conceived O’Hare plan forward. The Tribune was particularly helpful to the “cause” by, in Fitzgerald’s words, “going on a jihad” against all those who dared oppose the expansion. Besides the enormous expenditures, which total at least $2 billion to date, there was a tragic human cost. This was chronicled by Dennis Byrne, a longtime critic of the expansion, who makes the point that victims were the working families that Democrats unfailingly claim they represent.
The expansion plan is not dead yet. Mayor Daley and other politicians won’t backtrack. They have too much invested in a plan that has paid them hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from myriad O’Hare consultants and contractors. There’s always a chance, with a President Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress, that taxpayers will bail out this monstrous misjudgment. If there was a functioning news media in Chicago, it would spend months untangling the runaway public policy steamroller that was artificially created to prop up this mega-boondoggle. It should be yet another reminder that when the establishment and the media lock arms in favor of a narrative or a plan, citizens should be very wary. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.26.08 by dancurry @ 12:20 pm
Patrick Ruffini is doing a great job framing the Right’s challenges for the future. He’s the Republican’s preeminent new media tactician. He nailed it in a recent column that pointed out the difference between conservative and liberal online sites and blogs.
The Left’s work over the past six years showed itself in 2008. It tipped the balance of power. In 2004, the MSM tried to blockade the Swift Boat issue and the Right responded with a 527 counterpunch that perplexed the Left and resonated with the electorate. This time, the MSM media doubled down on its blockade of negative narratives about Barack Obama and the Left was ready to do battle with emerging 527s and other independent expenditure groups. The Obama group attacked the groups in court and the Left online presence, buttressed by millions in donations by wealthy liberals, helped knock down any attacks on Obama. Thus, the Right was left only with talk radio, conservative blogs and Fox News. That wasn’t enough to get traction with the electorate. The problem, as Ruffini pointed out, was content. The legitimate criticisms on Obama were stuffed and the Right had no mechanism to further explore them. There was a desperate need for new content. For example, we all know that Obama and Bill Ayers were lying about the true nature of their relationship but nobody found new facts to rebut the lies. Others narratives were left on the table, such as the Tony Rezko-Obama house sale and Obama’s participation in a slum scheme that enriched his top donors and screwed his low-income constituents. New information matters in a campaign. Hillary Clinton would be president today if her researchers had found the Rev. Jeremiah Wright videos a couple of months before ABC News found them. What the Right needs is a new online news entity. It should be sufficiently funded to hire at least half a dozen seasoned investigators/journalists to get to the bottom of news narratives the MSM refuses to explore. We need to stop complaining about MSM bias and start making it irrelevant. Of course we need much more in terms of good candidates, good ideas and a reworked online infrastructure. But we can’t ignore that the Left created a massive shield that allowed a largely unexplored and untested poser to get elected president. We know the same shield will be employed in future elections. Let’s not get blocked again. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.13.08 by dancurry @ 11:42 pm
Who do you trust to baby-sit your kids? Why, a “family friend” of course. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.13.08 by dancurry @ 5:16 pm
All those MSM “fact-checks” that said Barack Obama barely knew unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers? They were lies. Today, Ayers said in a forward to a new book he is hawking, that he and Obama are “family friends.” Here’s what one of those esteemed fact checks said a few weeks ago. There were many others just like this one.
Remember, these “fact-checks” were quoted by the Obama campaign as proof that Republicans were barking up the wrong tree on Ayers. So the MSM refused to cover the issue and then produced false fact-checks to cover Obama’s tracks. Dishonest is the only polite word that comes to mind. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.12.08 by dancurry @ 5:50 pm
Liberal writer Camille Paglia smacks down her ideological soulmates for their mindless trashing of Sarah Palin. Paglia is a gifted wordsmith who consistently has defended the Alaska governor.
Despite this dress-down, expect the liberal thought robots to continue snide commentary regarding Palin. They will continue their attempt to destroy her so she doesn’t destroy them in 2012. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.06.08 by dancurry @ 8:30 pm
When the history of this campaign is written, it should include a massive mistake by the Hillary Clinton team that probably cost her the presidency: Her negative research team failed to find the Rev. Jeremiah Wright tape. ABC News was first to air the infamous tape of parts of Wright’s sermons on March 12—after the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary, Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses and several other key contests. By then, Barack Obama had a strong hold on the nomination. Once the tape aired, Obama’s poll numbers dropped and he struggled the rest of the primary season, barely limping home the nominee. Had the Clinton team found the tape and dropped it at a strategic point during those early contests, Obama would have been toast. There’s really not much question of this. The haunting part of this from the Clinton perspective is that the sermon tapes were available online and at Wright’s church. A basic job of negative research would have found them.
In the negative research business, this is malpractice. The Obama campaign also screwed up by not finding the tape in advance and removing it from the church and internet. This was the unpublicized turning point of the campaign. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.05.08 by dancurry @ 10:26 pm
John Ruberry found this passage about Rahm Emanuel, President-Elect Barack Obama’s rumored choice as chief of staff. This is bi-partisanship we can believe in.
Who will be his press secretary, Keith Olbermann? Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.05.08 by dancurry @ 9:47 pm
A historian says the MSM/Obama narrative that John McCain was waging a dirty campaign was false.
Expect to see more outbursts of truthfulness when the Obama savants come out of their trances. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.05.08 by dancurry @ 8:45 am
America’s greatness is never more evident than during our transfers of power. Our longest campaign for president is over and Barack Obama is the winner. As the architect of a well-run campaign, he deserves great credit. As someone who strongly disagrees with his policies, I will hope that America prospers and is safe during his presidency. I will resist the urge to oppose his every move, as the Left did shortly after George W. Bush took office. The Left figured that to win the presidency back, they had to vigorously and viciously oppose him, no matter the issue. That strategy fell short in 2004 but finally the weight of the Bush attacks gave Obama the playing field for victory in 2008. The Right has no chance if it follows that strategy. For one, it will not have the MSM as an ally in attacking Obama. At all big moments, the press will tend to defend Obama because in part they helped create his historic presidency. The Right will have to choose an unflinching leader who will apply conservative values to a modern world. A leader who understands how to intelligently take on and work through a hostile press. It will take some time to sort it out. I will not engage in John McCain bashing. He is an American hero. He ran the best campaign he could in an impossible climate for a Republican. His age was an unspoken hindrance, rightly or wrongly. Another lesson is that it’s impossible to be elected president without strong support from the base of your party. My initial read of the yesterday’s results indicates that the Republican base underperformed. It’s far more effective to consolidate your base and reach out than vice versa—in either party. Sarah Palin helped McCain with his base but in the end, a vice presidential selection can only marginally affect the presidential race. Technorati Tags: |
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Posted on 11.03.08 by dancurry @ 8:14 pm
The experts are idiots. Keep that in mind. They are often wrong. Polls are often wrong. Just a few months ago, the polls were 10.9 points off in New Hampshire. Several other states were also called wrong.
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