Alternate Theory for Obama’s Nobel Prize
Oct0
Like pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to (and seemingly Obama himself), I thought the recent Nobel Prize announcement was rather inappropriate. In that light, I thought this alternate theory was pretty fun.
Slowpoke by Jen Sorensen
McKinsey in the West Wing!
Jan0
Interesting news from a New York Times article:
“On Wednesday, Mr. Obama plans to name a chief performance officer with the task of finding government efficiencies. He has chosen Nancy Killefer, who is director of McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, and was an assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. The Congressional Budget Office will also release its latest budget estimates, providing the first official predictions of the shortfalls tied to the economic slowdown and the fallen financial markets.”
Mitt Romney would be proud! As a McKinsey alum, I feel comfortable jesting that the real question will be who comes in to implement all of Nancy’s recommendations.
Putting “democracy” back in our Republic
Nov0
My reply to the Obama survey question: “How would you like to see this organization move forward in the months and years ahead?”
“The Obama administration has a unique opportunity to put the “democracy” back in our democratic republic. In my mind, there are dual strategies to achieving this goal: (1) empowering citizens to be directly engaged in supporting community-based solutions and (2) allowing tax-payers to more directly influence funding allocation. We can do the former by identifying community issues that the government can’t solve alone and empowering the Obama volunteer corp to participate in developing and implementing solutions. We can do the latter by providing greater transparency into where a citizens tax dollars are spent and potentially even piloting a mechanism for citizens to have a non-binding vote on how their tax dollars would be allocated.”
What do you think?
Hope
Nov0
Throughout the last twelve months, I have watched the Obama campaign with anxious anticipation.
I watched good friends give up careers to dedicate themselves to this campaign. I listened to lifelong Republicans grapple with the idea of voting Democratic for the first time. I listened to cheers on the streets of Paris when Obama was nominated.
A few hours ago, anticipation became jubilation.
I visited all night parties in heart of London when Obama’s win was announced. Germans, Indians, Chinese, New Zealanders, Australians, and South Africans emailed me with unfettered words of enthusiasm for a country that many had not praised in years. I spoke with students from UNC who had rushed Franklin Street for a presidential election and demonstrated a new era of youth activism, engagement, and ownership in the future of our nation.
I learned a new meaning for the word “hope.” It was not what I expected. There is pride, real pride, to be a part of a country that can make impossibilities of one year the realities of the next. There is conviction that we can reopen a window of opportunity for collaborative global leadership that I had come to believe had been closed forever. Yet, there is also trepidation, fear, that with expectations so high and challenges so great, our new President and our revitalized nation will struggle to shoulder the burden.
Today, I see no man better equipped to inspire our nation, but we confront challenges too great to be solved by any man. The future of our nation and our world does not lie in Barack Obama’s hands. It lies in the hands of every citizen of this planet, and each of us has a duty, an obligation, and an opportunity to be a part of the change we want to see in the world.
Today, I feel hope. Hope for Barack Obama. Hope for America. Hope for each of our efforts to seek a better world. I feel hope, and I know that I must shed my own fears and trepidations, that we must all shed our fears and trepidations, in seeking a better world.
My Prediction
Nov0
With about 24 hours left until the end of this election, I hereby predict an Obama win by a margin significantly larger that the current polling average of 7%. The extra boost will be driven by cord-cutting young people who have lower historic participation rates and are not generally reachable in landline-based polling efforts. Additional injections will come from extraordinary get out the vote efforts in minority populations, particularly in southern States.
Agree? Disagree?
If the world could vote…
Oct0
The Economist is running an unscientific poll assessing the electoral college count if the whole world could vote.
The results are striking. Admittedly, there is selection bias in the Economist’s readership, but would one have argued without seeing these numbers that the readership is well over 90% democrat? My guess: “No”.
Rather, this confirms another biased sample set, my friends and acquaintances outside of the US. Even people that are rather avid small government, low tax believers fall in favor of Obama.
In my mind, all this begs the question, “If the most educated readers the world over tend to support Obama, can we doubt that Obama will be better positioned to improve foreign relations from day one?
Joe Biden Speaks Up
Oct0
Joe Biden has not bee na major force in this campaign. He was a safe pick that would keep attention on Barack Obama, and he has played his role well. Generally, I’ve found his commentary to be fine but largely forgettable; however, I found his responses in this interview to be outstanding.