Category Archives: Politickin’

I worked in politics for about a decade. I’ve opinions, and occasionally express them, but these entries are more about process than policy.

Stop SOPA and PIPA

I’m talking to you, Carl Levin. And you, Debbie Stabenow. Tim Walberg, too.

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Easy on Readers (1939)

Its four symbols and their meaning
V — Verified.
OP — Official propaganda.
A — Seems authentic.
R — Rumor.

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Pensioned Off

Many of us were planning to retire in the relatively near future, with or without incentives; inevitably we’d be exchanging experience for youth in the process. On the whole, this is a good thing. But this incentive distorts the hiring pattern, as well as the retirement plans, and the effects will be more obvious than they might otherwise have been.

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Blind Ambition by John Dean: a review

Dean was a central player in the cover-up, and paints interesting portraits of the other players. Worth reading just for that; he’s got a good eye for character. That his version of the story is close to the one we “know” is likely inevitable; his narrative shaped the Ervin committee’s hearings. Since the story-as-told is neither obviously self-serving nor protective of the president, I’d be willing to treat it as a key research source were I researching these events. Others, I’m sure, differ.

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Akers Memories

What I think the portrait misses is that Owen’s heavy workload was fairly seamless; I had contacts with him in several of his roles and he was always the same person, working on the same causes, and finding reinforcement from his friends and colleagues as he moved from meeting to meeting. A strenuous life, yes, and not everyone loved Owen Akers, but many did.

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Rog

Dad passed away fourteen years ago today….

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Election Report

Sometimes….

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GOTV

Twice today I’ve hung up the phone on volunteers from the Kerry campaign, and I expect to have more opportunities before the day ends.  I’ve caught a cold, don’t feel well, and really don’t want to talk to ’em.  But it’s set me to remembering….

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Contacting Voters

Been there.  I helped run a county-wide voter contact campaign for the Kalamazoo Democrats in 1972.  Part of the effort was coordinated by a student group whose only real interest was the presidential contest.  A quick glance at the voter survey sheets returned from the campus made it clear that only the McGovern ratings could be trusted.  Since we caught the fraud before passing the forms to other organizations, the faked forms mainly made my sister angry.  Very angry.

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Stopgap Solutions

While I really dislike the short term limits we’ve put on the legislature, I don’t see this connection.  Methought one purpose of the term limits was to reduce the proportion of career politicians in office, thus reducing those officials’ institutional commitments and freeing up the creative juices.  That objective was certainly worthwhile, and ought to still apply.

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