‘We are extremely reserved right up until we walk up to the ballot box’

On the heels of Al Franken’s Minnesota State Supreme Court victory, David Carr has a great piece in the Times attempting to explain how Franken’s just-odd-enough persona fits well into the realm of Minnesota politics.

Yes, Minnesotans vote like crazy. At 77.8 percent, the state had the highest turnout in last year’s very busy presidential election. But yes, sometimes Minnesotans’ votes seem just plain crazy as well.

Other states, other voters, express alienation by staying home on Election Day. But Minnesotans take a more civic approach to their estrangement, showing up at the polls and replacing the bums with some choices that scan as odd from a distance. (We might mention that the Minnesota state bird is actually a loon, but there is other less avian evidence of Minnesotans’ idiosyncrasy.)

In Minnesota, there is a kind of populist approach that is less progressive than a reflex, a notion that politics belongs to citizens, and politicians only rent their positions.

The rest here.

If we’re as politically engaged as we seem to be, won’t the potential loss of a seat in Congress be devastating? I’m not excited about the prospect of less representation, but watching the cross-district battles that would ensue if we turned it down to seven would be a blast.

The Star That Burns Brightest Burns Fastest

On this 4th of July holiday, amidst all of the celebrations, let’s take a moment to note the passing of Sarah Palin’s political career; it was just 17 years old and in the last year briefly captured our attention and a few hearts along the way. The cause of death is still unknown, but it’s clear the wound was self-inflicted.

Forget all of the “political analysis” that’s filling the internet about what a smart move this was because it’s bullshit.  Yesterday, Sarah Palin drove a stake right through the heart of her presidential prospects.  She might become a talk show host, she might go on the radio, become an advocate for causes and a fixture on the speaking circuit.  She will not, however, ever be a credible candidate for president again.

Sarah Palin did not cost John McCain the election, but she made the trainwreck worse.  Outside of the hardcore movement conservatives who respond to her emotionally, the rest of us saw a women ill-prepared for the national stage, uneducated and unsophisticated about the critical issues of the day,  and emotionally and intellectually immature.  Questions about her judgment made questions about John McCain’s judgment a legitimate campaign issue.  Throughout the fall, her standing among the American electorate dropped faster that an SUV gas gauge on the highway as each exposure made it clear that the woman who would be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office was a scary prospect indeed.

Ms. Palin might have had a chance to run in 2012 if she had gone back to Juneau, governed effectively, spent as much time as possible on the lower 48 fundraising/political circuit (admittedly no small feat for a sitting Alaska governor) and brought in a faculty to provide a three-year crash course on the policy issues and political skills (message discipline, interview skills, etc.) that she tried to skip over last year.  That way, when the spotlight came back around, the public would see a Sarah Palin ready to govern the most complex country in the world during one of the most complex periods in world history and she would have built up a record and political organization to support a campaign.

A very tough, narrow road to walk, admittedly, but the only one I can think of that would have possibly undone the damage she did among the 75 percent of us who found her varying degrees of scary.  If she could persuade a third of  us that she was qualified, she could have been a contender.

Instead, she has done the one thing I can think of to effectively cement her image as a capricious and emotionally immature personality; she’s elected to simply walk away from her job as governor with 18 months to go.  And to do so because it’s become a burden.

Ms. Palin may or may not chose to try to run for president in 2012 or thereafter.  If she does, however, her entire campaign will be defined by a single question that she can expect to hear over and over and which – for her – there is now no correct answer:

“Governor Palin, you abandoned your responsibilities as the governor of one of our nation’s smallest (other than geography) and least complex states; what makes you qualified to serve as President of the United States?”

RIP.

- Austin

Washington Post: Power broker

Politico reports:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

As you read more, it seems less “holy shit I can’t believe they’re doing this” but still a bit shady. I understand news organizations need to try new things to make money, but does this cross the line?

Hat tip to my friend Mark Palony for pointing this story out to me this morning.

Senator Al Franken

In case you haven’t heard, former Minnesota U.S. Senator Norm Coleman has conceded his seat to Al Franken, following a unanimous state supreme court today in Franken’s favor. A thriller? Or a yawn?

And what if he weren’t a journalist?

I wrote a post over at the Idea Peepshow, a site that’s team-written by all of us at Fast Horse, that I thought y’all might find interesting. Feel free to pick up the discussion here or there; either way, I’m eager to hear what you think about this:

New York Times reporter David Rohde had been taken captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan seven months ago and — thank the deity of your choosing — he recently escaped and found his way to safety. That’s wonderful news.

Speaking of news, I would have guessed this gentleman’s capture itself would have qualified as news. The Times, however, thinks not, as it kept the story under wraps for the full seven months.

The NPR interview I linked to is well worth the listen if the topic interests you.

I Tweet, Therefore I’m Unemployable

How far should we go in censoring ourselves? What we put up on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, all that jazz, lives forever and can make potential employers, maybe potential dates or friends, steer clear of us. If we worry too much about that, will we be misrepresenting ourselves as boring, vanilla people with no brains and no opinions? Shouldn’t potential employers realize they’re hiring human beings who have points of view?

Dave Phelps had a thought-provoking piece in the Sunday Star Tribune. It tells of some job candidates who lost jobs because of stuff they’d said online about other companies, about politics, about their own lives. “Before a job hunt, put a lid on tweets,” the headline reads.

One local placement specialist had a candidate lose a job because the potential employer didn’t like a negative political posting on the candidate’s Facebook page. Another headhunter said people put too much about their personal lives on their social-networking pages. “Divorce, sick parents, recovery programs,” the headhunter said, “if someone is having a big issue in life,” would an employer take a chance and hire that person?

Rose McKinney, president of Risdall McKinney Public Relations, told Phelps she didn’t give a job interview to a promising candidate because “on blog spaces and in Twitter conversations she was negative and critical of other agencies. I imagined what she would say about us and our clients.”

How hard should we bite our own tongues?

This is an issue the writers of this blog have thought about since our first post more than two years ago. Will potential clients not hire us, or existing clients fire our butts, if we say out loud what we really think about the senate recount or unallotment? I’ve written some things about out-of-control capitalism that I doubt the CEOs of my client companies would agree with. But I haven’t been fired so far — probably cuz nobody that important reads this stuff.

Strikes me that if companies are looking to hire people with no political opinions, no family or personal problems, and no critical views, they should recruit in Stepford or the cemetery. Sure, people shouldn’t be stupid, shouldn’t rail against Target or Medtronic if they hope to get a job there. But, especially in PR, shouldn’t we be looking to hire people with active brains, people who can write compelling stuff, people with critical faculties, people with some life experience? PR shops shouldn’t just look for perky clean-slate-brained bobbleheads — we’ve got too many of those now. Hire someone with grit, with gumption, with a little fire!

What do you folks think? How careful are you about what you put out on the web? How big an issue is this?

Years ago, when I worked at Mona Meyer McGrath & Gavin, I came into work one morning pretty pleased with myself because I had an op-ed printed in the Strib that morning about how pesky cell phones are. It was whimsical whining about not being able to get away from the damn things. On my computer was a note from my boss, mentor and dear friend Dennis McGrath. “See me.” He reminded me, rather forcefully, that we had a cell phone company as a client. He inquired if I was a natural-born idiot or if I’d acquired my idiocy on my own initiative. The client was rather irked, and Dennis had to do some backing and filling. I’m embarrassed to say I simply hadn’t thought of our roster of clients as I wrote. I did get a lot of “you go boy” responses from my own clients, who also felt cell phones were both a burden and a useful tool. Maybe that experience is part of why I don’t work at an agency anymore.

Those of you out there who hire — how spooked are you by signs of opinions and weird or troubled life experience in your candidates? How much should we all bite our tongues? Me, I can seldom bite my tongue because I can’t get past the foot I’ve stuck in my mouth.

– Bruce Benidt

(Image from Jeanette Chávez, film still from Autocensura, [Self Censorship], 2006)

The Dishonorable Gentleman Blathers On and On

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s Argentine fling saved us from a presidential candidacy that would have flooded the country in blather.

Sanford is a poster boy for the politician’s disease — the inability to use one word when you can vomit out a dozen or more. This man is incapable of a short statement, a short sentence, a clear expression.

I’ve written on this blog before that I’m keeping my ear out to hear if Amy Klobuchar succumbs to the Washington way with words. So far she hasn’t. She still seems capable of using small clear words and short crisp sentences. Keep up your immunity, Senator.

I watched a House transportation hearing for a few minutes on C-SPAN a couple of nights ago. Our own Iron Ranger Jim Oberstar chairs the committee, and as he passed the microphone around to the few other committee members who showed up it was easy to spot the DC disease. Each representative, before he or she spoke, had to blather on and compliment Oberstar. “Before I begin, I want to thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue, he has certainly been blahblahblahblah…” They always heap praise on one another before they do anything — probably because nobody else will praise them. I can picture a politician with DC “Imustalwaysbetalking” disease saying to someone who opens the door to the bathroom for him, “Well first I want to say thank you for the courtesy you have always shown me in the past when I’ve come to this restroom and I want to extend to you my heartfelt and deepest thanks for the exceptional way you have opened this door in this particular and most-important instance for me, and then….” Normal humans would say “thanks” and get on to the peeing part.

If you want to see this disease at its most virulent and most stressed, here’s Sanford last week goiing on and on and on and on about his affair and his wonderful children and his thought process and his everydamnthing. With beautiful irony, he several times calls himself “a bottom-line kinda guy” and about every five minutes, punctuating the nothingness of his wordstream, he says “bottom line” and then goes on to meander so far from any bottom line it’s clear he’s never actually gotten to one.

At his cabinet meeting Friday, Gov. Sanford apologized to his cabinet members and then said, according to the AP, “Every one of you all has specific duties to the people of South Carolina that you have to perform, and that is with or without me doing right on a given day or doing wrong at a given day, those responsibilities still exist.”

Forty-three words. I’ll give him the “you all” — he’s a Southerner, of course. But the “with or without” is grammatically superfluous and an example of the padding politicians use. So is the important-sounding but redundant phrase: “that you have to perform.” These yahoos seem to think that if they use big words, and a whole lot of words, they’ll sound smart. Precisely the opposite. “You all have duties to perform for the people of South Carolina, regardless of what I’ve done.” Seventeen words.

Sanford’s nether appendage has saved us from his oral one.

– Bruce Benidt

Michael Jackson

Attempt at self-congratulatory ’solidarity’ backfires

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra probably wishes he hadn’t said this:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

I mean, I kinda see what he’s getting at, but — damn. I don’t want to suggest he was under the influence because he probably wasn’t, but let’s just hope this was the result of the text-messaging variety of drunk dialing.

I don’t want to discourage Rep. Hoekstra — or anyone in a similar position — from being as open an honest and in-touch as tools like Twitter allow him to be, but I do hope people in his position recognize the power that’s at their fingertips. This isn’t a Twitter mishap. This is a logic mishap, made public via Twitter. Could have just as easily been a TV camera or a sneaky HuffPo blogger with a tape recorder.

While we’re on the subject, Joe and Jane Twitter came up with some pretty stellar responses to Rep. Hoekstra’s comment.

Iran photo courtesy of dwh90723 on Flickr. Photo illustration (awesome not-equal sign, huh?) by me.

Bozeman violation

There is not one single legitimate explanation to justify this. Not one.

The city of Bozeman, Montana, feels as though the only way to ensure it has a complete understanding of the personalities of the folks it might hire is to include investigation of the prospective employees’ online profiles.

By asking for usernames and passwords.

The best explanation the city could muster? City attorney Greg Sullivan:

So, we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity for those positions, all the way down to the lifeguards and the folks that work in city hall here. So we do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the city.

Sure, that makes sense. Look at their online profiles, then, if you believe it’ll give you a better idea of what the people are like. But you don’t need their passwords. Most of this stuff is public anyway, and if it’s not, there’s a god damn reason for it.

Want to come over and flip through my photo albums, too?

Photo courtesy of scoutnurse on Flickr