Thursday, July 13, 2006

“How Would I Define the Lingle Campaign in 250 Words or Less?”

Linda Lingle, Governor -- The leader for all the people of Hawaii.

In four short years, the Lingle Administration has turned Hawaii around from being at the bottom of most lists on achievement, and even the awareness of what was wrong -- to the top of most lists of where people want to be, with all the promise of life as it can be in the 21st century -- a greater society for all.

Perhaps nobody else has such a ready mastery of the skills our Governor impresses us with daily -- of fresh and new ways of looking at our age-old problems -- and always seeing a way out of them. That is the only kind of leadership that will overcome the challenges of these times.

Now that we’ve seen what a New Beginning can be like -- we need to take that success to the next level of ensuring that experience and reality for all. The Governor and the people she has recruited to serve, have inspired that trust and confidence in the integrity of our government leaders to want to solve problems, rather than just perpetuate them for bureaucratic careers -- while the difficulties grow more severe, demanding evermore money from the taxpayers -- who have a right to ultimate accountability for all government does.

The manner in which this is all accomplished is the hallmark of the Lingle-Aiona Administration of going beyond politics and partisanship to accomplish.

Vote to continue the exceptional leadership of Linda Lingle!

* The preceding message was neither paid for, authorized, approved, nor solicited by Linda Lingle or the Hawaii Republican Party.

My political preference is that all political statements should be limited to 250 words or less, and if it can’t be said or summarized in that space, one needs to think about it further before launching into the familiar tirades and rants that political discussions often devolve into -- discouraging and driving away participants.

In an age in which information is overabundant and even an intrusion to one’s quality of life, the ability to express/embody a message in its totality (big picture implications), is the skillset of the 21st century personality -- as well as that ability to share it with others.

The 20th century personality is essentially the authoritarian personalities (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) of one individual seeking to impose their will upon everybody else. Those types are still around -- as more or less self-isolating individuals because the lure of ideologies is not that compelling. Ideas are no longer fixed -- but fluid, dynamic and ever-adjusting to the realities, and not just trying to shove reality into a convenient idea, and these days, into words that have no meaning but are merely triggers for emotional responses and conditioned (educated) reflexes, which is mostly what "liberalism" is about anymore.

7 Comments:

At July 13, 2006 9:39 AM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

If rockets are going to be flying, I'd rather have Jerry Coffee in the US Senate over Dan Akaka.

 
At July 13, 2006 12:19 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

http://newsbusters.org/node/6403

Blogs See Rise in Use, Become More 'Mainstream'
Posted by Greg Sheffield on July 13, 2006 - 12:25.

iMedia Connection reports that blogs are becoming more mainstream and that a true "democratization" of content has ocurred, where what people hear as fact no longer comes from a few large media outlets.

Record numbers of people are now visiting blogs, proving that blog visitation is now part of mainstream online behavior for many internet users.

Once bastions for the tech elite, blogs are now as ubiquitous to the web as reality shows are to television. Blogs are redefining how people experience the web and, in many ways, have helped precipitate the shift towards user-generated content on the internet (otherwise known as the Web 2.0 movement).

The emergence of the blogosphere has marked the true democratization of the internet-- a paradigm shift that has taken users from merely having access to information to allowing them to engage in the free exchange of opinions and ideas. But how do we know whether this shift is truly occurring on a wide scale? comScore data show that record numbers of people are now visiting blogs, proving that blog visitation is now part of mainstream online behavior for many internet users.

* Visitation to blogs continues to grow rapidly, showing a 56-percent increase during the past year to 58.7 million visitors. This figure represents 34 percent of the total internet audience.

* The top blog network is Google-owned Blogger.com, garnering 20.8 million visitors in May 2006. MySpace Blogs ranked second with 14.4 million visitors (up 115 percent), while MSN Spaces ranked third with 9.6 million visitors (up 205 percent).

* The top special interest blog in May was TVSquad.com with more than two million visitors, followed by FreeRepublic.com (up seven percent to 1.6 million visitors) and Breitbart.com (1.6 million visitors).

* Visitation to the Blogs category skews toward younger internet users. People between the ages of 12 and 17 are 21 percent more likely than average to visit blogs, while those 18 to 34 are 14 percent more likely to do so.

* Blog visitation also shows slight skews to higher income households. Households with incomes of at least $75,000 are eight percent more likely than average to frequent blogs.

 
At July 13, 2006 1:19 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

The sad saga of the Democratic Party implosion continues:

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15008241.htm

Posted on Tue, Jul. 11, 2006

Attacks on Lieberman could yield more disaffected Democrats

Sometimes history comes with previews. In the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War served as a precursor to the global conflict that was World War II. And in a smaller fashion, the primary battle playing out on the smiling lawns of upscale Connecticut serves as a preview for the national conflict that will dominate American politics for the next two years.

This isn't a fight between left and right. It's a fight about how politics should be conducted. On the one hand are the true believers — the fundamentalists of both parties who believe that politics should be about party discipline, passion, purity, orthodoxy and clear choices. On the other side are the quasi-independents — the heterodox politicians who distrust ideological purity, who rebel against movement groupthink, who believe in bipartisanship both as a matter of principle and as a practical necessity.

In 2008, heterodox politicians like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and even Hillary Clinton are going to have to face zealous assaults from within their own parties. But for the moment, that war has come to Sen. Joe Lieberman.

What's happening to Lieberman can only be described as a liberal inquisition. Whether you agree with him or not, he is transparently the most kind-hearted and well-intentioned of men. But over the past few years he has been subjected to a vituperation campaign that only experts in moral manias and mob psychology are fit to explain. I can't reproduce the typical assaults that have been directed at him over the Internet, because they are so laced with profanity and ugliness, but they are ginned up by ideological masseurs who salve their followers' psychic wounds by arousing their rage at objects of mutual hate.

Next has come the effort to expel Lieberman from modern liberalism. In a dark parody of the old struggle between Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey, the highly educated, highly affluent, highly Caucasian wing of the Democratic Party has turned liberalism from a philosophy into a secular religion, and then sought to purge a battle-scarred warhorse on the grounds of insufficient moral purity.

So these days, for example, one hears that Lieberman is a crypto-conservative, a Bible Belter. In reality, of course, this is a man who has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign. He has a Christian Coalition rating of 0.

But a lifetime's record is deemed not to matter any longer. For in the midst of the inquisition, all of American liberalism has been reduced to one issue, the war. Just as some edges of the pro-life movement reduce all of conservatism to abortion, the upscale revivalists on the left reduce everything to Iraq, and all who are deemed impure must be cleansed away.

Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, has neither expertise in foreign affairs nor any specific knowledge of Iraq, and he has struggled to come up with a plan for what we should do there. But that is not the point, for the opposition to Lieberman is not about future actions or even politics as it is normally understood. It is about impurity, the scarlet letter, and the need to expunge those who have transgressed.

Liberal interest groups that seek practical goals, such as the AFL-CIO and the League of Conservation Voters, back Lieberman. But the netroots now seek to purge what's left of the Scoop Jackson Democrats, and to eliminate those who have had contact with the evildoers in the other party, because movements are deemed to prosper to the extent they achieve holiness unmarred.

Ned Lamont is a strange vessel for all this passion. Based on the candidate debate Thursday night, he seems a genial if underprepared politician who would be an innocuous presence in the Senate if he were elected to it.

The big story out of the campaign last week was the aggressiveness Lieberman has finally brought to his side of the fight. Over the past few years, polarizers have dominated Congress because people who actually represent most Americans have been too timid or intellectually vacuous to stand up. Even today many Democrats who privately despise the netroots lie low, hoping the anger won't be directed at them.

But Lieberman has had no choice but to fight, and he will probably prevail. If he doesn't, and if his opponents go from statewide victory in Connecticut to a national primary assault in 2008, then I hope the Republicans will be smart enough to scoop up what is sure to come — yet another wave of disaffected Democrats looking for a political home.

David Brooks writes for the New York Times.

 
At July 13, 2006 1:35 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

If the liberal media wasn't in on this witch hunt, they would reveal that the support for Lieberman is running at 60-40% in his favor, instead of accommodating the impression that he'd better dance to their tune or else...!

 
At July 14, 2006 2:52 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to be a bit bothered, bewitched and confused as to who will be their standard bearer this year -- with nobody with a clear message unique from what everybody else is saying, which is, "Beat Bush."

So obviously, they haven't turned the calendar yet to find the right year -- the right message -- the right people. The old liberal icons don't seem to be what they used to be, looking pretty worn with their '60s banners and slogans. Unfortunately, everyone has heard them before so there's nothing to stop and listen to, nothing of interest there, each aging Baby Boomer trying to convince us they're still the Golden Child of the Democrat Party.

 
At July 14, 2006 3:40 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

I think there is even growing sentiment that William Aila could upset the Party-anointed Randall Iwase.

Why else would he be on the front page of the Democrat Party website?

He was by far the most charismatic Democrat in the July 4th, Kailua parade.

 
At July 14, 2006 3:57 PM, Blogger Mike Hu said...

That would be dreadful:

Not winning their own primary.

 

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