On Murdoch And Google, Or, Hey, Rupert, Where’s My Check? November 20, 2009

Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it’s time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.

In a November 6th interview, Sky News Australia’s David Speers spent about 35 minutes with the CEO of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch; the conversation covering topics as diverse as software piracy, world economics, the role of Fox News (and Fox NewsPinion©) in American politics, a strange defense of Glenn Beck, and, not very long afterwards, an even stranger defense of immigration.

We have heard a lot about the…how can I put this politely…challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements—but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:

Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites…which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.

(To begin, a quick note: all the Rupert Murdoch quotes you’ll see today came from the YouTube, specifically the Sky News Australia interview, which is there posted in its entirety. Although each quote presents Mr. Murdoch’s words exactly, they aren’t necessarily in their original order; that’s so we don’t go jumping around from topic to topic too much in this story. When that happens the quotes will be split into separate paragraphs, each with their own set of quotation marks. Words in italics were words Mr. Murdoch himself emphasized.)

David Speers began the interview by asking Murdoch about the concept of public access to free news content online:

“Well they shouldn’t have had it free all the time, I think we’ve been asleep, ar, and, it costs a lot of money to put together good newspapers, good content, and you know they’re very happy to pay for it when they’re buying a newspaper…and I think when they read it elsewhere they’re going to have to pay…”

And it’s not just the public, either. Murdoch is particularly incensed at the idea that one news organization would intentionally steal content from another:

“Well…the people who just simply pick up everything and run with it…and steal our stories, ahh, we say they steal our stories they just take them, ummm, without payment…”

“…if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we’ll be suing them for copyright. Ummm, they’ll have to spend a lot more money on reporters, to cover the world…when they can’t steal from newspapers…”

Mr. Murdoch is, after all, running a business…but beyond that, he acknowledges that the News Corporation “experience” is also critical, and that creating that experience requires him to deploy top-notch talent.

For that reason he is dismissive of the suggestion that he might establish a free site augmented by a “premium” site that charges for…well, premium content:

“…there’s also, in in a newspaper, uh we got a newspaper, or a news service, there’s a thing called editorial judgment, there’s a thing called quality of writing, um, quality of reporting, and, ah just to say you know we’ll take what’s average stuff that comes from an agency and uh, not charge for that, it’s okay but I think you’re really degrading the whole experience if you do that…”

And this is the part of the story where I come in.

It was with great surprise that I heard Mr. Murdoch saying all this, because, for the longest time, Murdoch’s own newspaper, “The Wall Street Journal”, has been carrying my stories (along with hundreds of others daily) on their WSJ.com website. In fact, my most recent story, “On Determining Impact, Or, How Stimulative Is Stimulus?” ran on their site just a couple of days ago, on November 18th.

Now don’t get me wrong: in contrast to Mr. Murdoch, I like being carried in as many places as possible, even if I don’t always know about it, and I’m glad the WSJ likes the work, so I am surely not complaining…it’s just that I was surprised to discover that News Corporation’s editors, exercising on a regular basis what can only be considered fine judgment, had apparently recognized the “quality of writing, um, quality of reporting” that I bring to the table, and, in an effort to enhance the experience they provide their clientele, have been regularly posting that writing…and Mr. Murdoch hates news organizations that steal content…and yet, despite all that, News Corporation never seems to send me a check.

So, Rupert…where’s my money?

But it’s not just bloggers and the WSJ: the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes is owned by IGN Entertainment, which is owned by FIM, which is part of…wait for it…News Corporation.

And what is the Rotten Tomatoes business model, exactly?

That would be to be the website that gathers movie reviews from a community of reviewers, posting them all in one space, and to use those reviews as the basis for the “Tomatometer” ratings they apply to movies…the Tomatometer being the central brand identity around which the entire franchise is built.

What’s not included in the business model?

Paying money for those reviews, a fact I was able to confirm after an exchange of email today with the folks at Rotten Tomatoes.

So, Rupert…where’s their money?

We could end this story right here, but there is one other quote from the Sky News interview that deserves to be put in the record, not only because it’s a comment on Murdoch’s view of the newspaper business, but also because it may be instructive as to how he views television as well:

“…people who have been buying papers for 20 years, um, even bad newspapers, it’s hard to see them, um…can’t stop buying all papers or even changing newspapers…”

(For the record, I attempted to obtain a comment for this story from Dan Berger, who is News Corporation’s primary press contact, but that effort was not successful as of the time this went to print.)

And with that, we come to the “wrap it up” part of the story:

Murdoch is quite upset at the idea that other news organizations will steal the stories that he invests time and effort and money into creating, and yet at the same time he’s absolutely dependent on acquiring content for his own sites that he doesn’t pay for—and my guess is that virtually every one of the people who have been providing him this content, myself included, are at least reasonably happy with the process that got us here…but we’d be even happier if he would get those checks out to us in time for a bit of extra Christmas shopping.

Oh, yeah, and one other thing: when it comes to news, Murdoch believes that brand loyalty is apparently capable of trumping quality of content in the eyes of at least some beholders…and in truth, I think he’s right.

On Using Mr. Bullhorn, Or, DC Health Summit Thursday: Come Say Hi…Loudly October 21, 2009

It was a long hot August for those who would like to see health care reform, as rabid “Town Hall” protesters proffered visions of public options that would lead to death panels and socialism and government tax collectors with special alien mind control powers that would use sex education and child indoctrination and black helicopters as the means for gay people to impose their dangerous agenda on the innocent, God-fearing citizens of someplace in Mississippi that I’m not likely to ever visit.

Part of the reason that opposition was so rabid was because health care interests were spending millions upon millions of dollars doing…well, doing whatever the opposite of giving a distemper shot to the angry mob might be, anyway.

So wouldn’t it be great if all the CEOs of all those health care interests were to gather at one time and place so you could, shall we say, gently express your own thoughts regarding the issues of reform and public options?

By an amazing coincidence, that’s exactly what’s going to happen Thursday in Washington, DC, as the Patient Centered Primary Care Cooperative (PCPCC) holds its Annual Summit.

Follow along, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

The Who, The What

There are two important bits of setting up that are required to make this story work; and the first is to explain who the PCPCC is, exactly. To quote their website:

“The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative is a coalition of major employers, consumer groups, patient quality organizations, health plans, labor unions, hospitals, clinicians and many others who have joined together to develop and advance the patient centered medical home. The Collaborative has well over 500 members.

The Collaborative believes that, if implemented, the patient centered medical home will improve the health of patients and the viability of the health care delivery system. In order to accomplish our goal, employers, consumers, patients, clinicians and payers have agreed that it is essential to support a better model of compensating clinicians.”

The “patient centered medical home”?

Is that anything like “precious bodily fluids“?

Actually, the original idea was to create a “home” where a patient’s scattered medical records could be gathered. Forty years later, the concept has evolved to a “home doctor” who coordinates all your health and wellness care from all your providers.

This is a huge shift in how care is delivered (and how healthcare dollars would be distributed), which is why the Collaborative has so many members…including seven of the top ten health insurers in the country.

The Why

I’ve been getting emails that tell me CEOs such as Stephen Helmsley of UnitedHealth and Angela Braly of WellPoint (insert booing and hissing here) will be present–and these are the exact people that you should be giving a “Town Hall-like” welcome of their own when they hit Washington.

Groups such as Democracy for America and TrueMajority will be working together to bring people who have been personally affected by the insurance crisis to the meeting–even though we’re not invited inside to support something like, oh, I don’t know…maybe a public option?

They want you to attend as well, to make lots of noise, and to send the message that we won’t be ignored. It’s a critical time in the debate, as there are Democrats yet to be convinced, and if you can be at this meeting it will capture media attention that could help move those Democrats to our positions.

The Where, The When

The event takes place in Washington DC all day Thursday (from 9-4:30) at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, conveniently located at 801 Mount Vernon Place NW; just six blocks from the Executive Office Building and the White House complex…and, on its south side, just 50 feet from K Street, the “Glitter Gulch” of lobbying.

There’s a handy Metro station, and if you walk to the south end of the Convention Center (the Mt. Vernon Square end of the building) you’ll find that the American Federation of Labor occupies a building across the street from the Square on the west side–and National Public Radio occupies a building diagonally across the Square on the east side.

So if you’re planning to be in Washington Thursday–or you’ve been looking for an excuse to visit–make a day of it: stroll by the White House, see lobbyists and unions and National Public Radio at work…and most importantly of all, make sure the CEOs of the health insurers in attendance get the same kind of rousing “Town Hall” welcome at the Convention Center that they spent millions of dollars to create in our own home towns.

In other words, bring Mr. Bullhorn–and the extra batteries.

Of course, I don’t want to make this too much of a hard sell.

After all, it’s not as if your life depends on you attending some–hey, wait a minute…actually, I guess it kind of does.

On Learning To Love Homegrown, Or, Baucus’ Fundraising Considered October 9, 2009

So we are now finding out the answers to some of our questions about which members of Congress actually represent We, the People…and which ones represent, Them, the Corporate Masters.

We have seen a Democratic Senator propose a policy that would put people in jail for not buying health insurance and a Democratic President who has taken numerous public beatings from those on the left side of the fence for his inability to ram something through a group of people…and yes, folks, the entendre was intentional.

But most of all, we’ve been asking ourselves: “why would Democratic Members of Congress who will eventually want us to vote for them vote against something that nearly all voting Democrats are inclined to vote for?”

Today’s conversation attempts to answer that question by looking at exactly how money and influence flow through a key politician, Montana’s Senator Max Baucus—and in doing so, we examine some ugly political realities that have to be resolved before we can hope to convince certain Members of Congress to vote for what their constituents actually want when it really counts.

“The idea of covering even the early stages of the cynical and increasingly retrograde campaign has already plunged me into a condition bordering on terminal despair, and if I thought I might have to stay with these people all the way to November I would change my name and seek work as a professional alligator poacher in the swamps around Lake Okeechobee.”

–Hunter S. Thompson, “Jimmy Carter and the Great Leap of Faith”

Now any normal person trying to analyze last year’s election would have said something like “the fact that Obama was promoting a new type of politics—and that a large majority of the public liked what they were seeing—should have meant that politicians would finally do what the public wanted”…and if you’re as cynical as I am, you might have thought that the fact that Obama is the most successful fundraiser in the history of politics would have made other candidates figure that supporting Obama, politically, would be the easy way to put more cheddar in their own pockets.

But here’s the thing: Senator Baucus has been in Washington, in the same job, since 1978, which is about three years short of half of his entire life (and he spent those three years in the House), and unless he wakes up dead one morning or Montana secedes from the Union he’s pretty much guaranteed to be there until at least January 2015.

In those three decades he’s been able to create, and then “outsource”, his own independent fundraising operation—and he’s been so good at doing this that he can donate money from his own Political Action Committee (Glacier PAC) to other Democrats, which is the Congressional version of acquiring really cool “Magic: The Gathering” cards now in an effort to both control votes today and become a more powerful player later on.

He did it by cultivating people in his own office who later went on to become lobbyists. At least 24 of ‘em. Since Baucus now runs the Senate Finance Committee and every bill in the Senate that needs money has to pass through his Committee for approval, all those hard working lobbyists now lobby…wait for it…their former boss.

This creates a fundraising “virtuous circle”: “Baucus-affiliated” lobbyists sell access to Baucus…and part of the price of that access is donating to Baucus…which, since “the fix is in”, creates legislative successes that lead to more people wanting more access for bigger favors…which makes the prices all go up, creating more power and influence for Baucus and his orbiting constellation of homegrown lobbyists.

And now that the enterprise has reached the point where the entourage has gone on to have their own entourages, Obama’s vision of “change you can believe in” is sounding more like a promise to screw up a perfectly good hustle than it is a way to run a country.

So how does all this influence the healthcare debate?

At the moment, Baucus could literally coach a basketball team of former staff members who now lobby Baucus on behalf of health care clients:

–David Castagnetti of Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, Inc. is the vertically integrated busy beaver of the group, representing drug powerhouses Abbot, AstraZeneca, and Biogen, device manufacturers like GE Medical, service providers like Humana and the American Clinical Lab Association, and AHIP, the trade association of health insurers, among others.

–Jeff Forbes, who is currently self-employed, is representing drug maker Roche Group, Manor Care (who provides long-term care services in nursing homes and other environments), and the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), a group which includes many of the big players in the medical business.

–Roger Blauwet (he of DC’s Canfield and Associates), is representing Wyeth and Pfizer (two more major drug manufacturers), the Association of Financial Guaranty Insurers, who are the “reinsurers” who help carry risk for other insurers (in return for a piece of the action), and the Rx Benefits Coalition, which reports that it represents companies that support “market solutions” to make prescription drugs available.

Some clients feel that their needs require more than one “Baucus alumnus” on the payroll, which is why Scott Olsen and Jeff Forbes are working for biotech giant Amgen (along with about 150 other lobbyists), David Castagnetti and Angela Hofmann are slogging it out for Wal-Mart, and Roger Blauwet and Castagnetti are both hoofing it for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), who is, literally, the “Big PhRMA” that everyone talks about.

Drug manufacturer Merck hired three of the anointed: Forbes, Blauwet and Castagnetti.

All of this effort is working—and working well. According to OpenSecrets.org, somewhere in the range of $4.5 million has been donated to Baucus during his career by insurance and healthcare interests.

It isn’t just health care, either. Because somewhere around two dozen former Baucus staffers turned lobbyists are “home on the Washington range”, no matter what is being debated in Congress, Baucus gets paid (two quick examples of his Committee’s jurisdiction: changes in tax policy and financial industry regulation—or the lack of it).

In truth, “Baucus gets paid” is probably a bit too cynical.

What I really should say is that Baucus has been exceptionally successful in listening to all points of view when considering ways to make the lives of every American all they can be, that the people who get listened to are exceptionally grateful for this attention, that millions and millions of dollars worth of gratitude have been funneled to Baucus over the years because he’s such a good listener, and that, from now until at least 2015, if you need a Senator to support “status quo you can believe in” you might want to try launching a great big brick of cheddar into the Senator’s constellation.

So the next time someone asks you how “change you can believe in” could have possibly morphed into “buy insurance or we’ll put you in jail”…well, now you know—and given the choice, wouldn’t you rather watch someone make sausage?

On Life In The Modern World, Or, What If Jesus Was An HMO? September 30, 2009

Those among us who are familiar with the Bible will recall that Jesus Christ himself was an active member of the health care community as he travelled about the Holy Land.

It is reported that he practiced within multiple medical specialties, and his works as both an ophthalmologist and a neurologist are recounted within the verses of the Gospels.

But what if Jesus had been practicing medicine in the therapeutic environment we’re familiar with today?

In today’s conversation we’ll be tagging along with Jesus as he takes a few calls at his HMO’s Customer Care Center—and by the time we get done you should be able to bring a whole new take to those discussions you‘ve been having about why reform matters.

“…a blind man, Bartimaeus…was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

…Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight…”

–Mark 10:45-52

“Thank you for calling Customer Care. This is Jesus. How may I help you?”

“Hi, I was recently treated by you in Jericho for blindness—“

“Can I get your account number, sir?”

“J32-21515”

“Oh, yes. Is this Bartimaeus?”

“Yes it is.”

“So what can I do for you today?”

“Well, I went to check my mail, and I found a bill from you for 42,554 shekels for the eye treatment, and I don’t understand why you want me to pay this bill.”

“Well, give me a second while I look that up…ahhh, OK, I understand what happened. You see, I did perform the eye treatment, but your policy requires you to be referred by your Primary Care Physician for any specialist treatment and pre-approved by someone here at Customer Care before we can be liable for any costs of care, and the computer says that you didn’t do any of that first…so, I apologize, but we won’t be able to make any adjustments to this account.

Is there anything else I can do for you today, Bartimaeus?”

“Well, how am I supposed to pay this bill? I don’t have this kind of money. Can’t you perform a miracle or something to help me out here?”

“Well, sir, I can’t do that, but what I can do is transfer you to our Collections Department, who can help you make payment arrangements…”

Needless to say, the call went downhill from there.

“Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed…

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked…”

–John 5:3-8

“…so you say you were lame and I made you walk, and now you’re getting calls from a collections agency that wants to garnish your ass?”

“Yes, Jesus, that’s correct.”

“Well, it says here that that back in Tishri of 12 AD you had severe boils and lesions, which is a preexisting condition. Now when I asked you if you wanted to get well you never disclosed any of this, and I don’t see it anywhere in your application packet, either.

Your policy requires you to inform us of any medical treatments you received before you became a policyholder, and because you failed to make a true and complete statement in your application we have to reject this claim.

I really do apologize, but we won’t be able to make any adjustments to this account.”

“To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed:

Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”

–1 Peter 5:1-4

“We didn’t know what to expect when he came here, but in just a few months Jesus has shown us what can happen when the Son of God is a Customer Care Representative.

His average call volumes are more than double those of any other rep, and when you listen to him take calls…well, when you hear him tell someone that they won’t be getting their benefits…it’s almost like he has some divine power over the customers or something, and that’s why today I’ve gathered you together to announce that Jesus is going to be transferred from the call center to the Executive Training Program.

Additionally, because Jesus did not adjust a single claim in favor of a customer for the last three months we’re also giving him the “Employee of the Quarter” award, which means he gets three days off with pay that he can take anytime he wants, a check for $500, and, of course, Jesus gets to use the parking space right by the front door for his Hummer.

We expect really great things from Jesus in the future, and while we will miss Him here at Customer Care I think we can safely say that with Jesus running the show this company is going to remain profitable for decades to come.”

On Improbable Realities, Part One, Or, “I Want A Jet Car With Frickin’ Lasers…” September 23, 2009

When it comes to getting around, Americans love to consider the question of “what if…?”

As a result, our cars have evolved into “land yachts”, our trucks have become “monster trucks”, and the desire to drag our living spaces around with us has morphed into converted busses with rooms that pop out of the side, a Mini-Cooper hidden under the master bedroom floor, and self-tracking satellite dishes that fight for space on the roof with air conditioning equipment.

And for more than a few of us, “what if…?” has even extended to “what if my car…was a jet car?”

In today’s improbable reality I’m here to tell you that Chrysler engineers asked that exact same question, for roughly a quarter of a century, and as a result they actually designed and deployed seven generations of cars with jet engines—and they came darn close to putting the eighth-generation design on sale to the general public.

It’s a story of pocket protectors and slide rules and offices full of guys who look a bit like Drew Carey…but as we’ll see in Part Two, it may also be a story of technology that couldn’t be perfected “back then”, but could be reborn in our own times.

As so often happens, a bit of “setting up” is needed, and to get this story going we need to discuss exactly how jets—particularly gas turbines—work.

In the case of an automotive engine, the idea is that air is drawn into the engine, that air is compressed, fuel is added, and the air/fuel mixture is then set on fire with a spark plug. This rapidly heats the mixture, it expands, and the energy created by that expansion is used to turn a turbine (a variation on a fan) which is connected to the driveshaft that eventually turns the wheels.

Some aircraft and helicopter engines also use this design to turn propellers, but the majority of aircraft jet engines force the expanding air/fuel mixture out the back of the engine in the form of “thrust” that, to put it as simply as possible, “make airplane go fast”.

From an engineering point of view, there are a lot of advantages to a turbine engine.

In contrast to a design that requires pistons and valves and a crankshaft and a cooling system and a system for oil distribution, turbine engines have very few moving parts, are cheaper to manufacture, and require a relatively small amount of maintenance. They also have very long service lives compared to piston engines.

Beyond that, turbines start right up on very cold days. Because jets output lots of heat you never have to wait for the jet car’s heater to “warm up”, and they can burn virtually any combustible liquid or volatile gas as fuel.

Vibration is very low, and you get 100% of available torque at 0 rpm, which means you don’t have to “rev up” the engine to get the wheels to start turning (something that is also true of vehicles powered by electric motors).

“Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines”

–John Benfield

So that’s the why…now how about the “who did what when?”

1954, 1955, and 1956 saw Chrysler rolling out the first-generation CR-1 turbine engine. One vehicle was produced in each of those years; the ’55 version was designated the Plymouth Belvedere Sportone CR-1 Turbine Special. (The 1956 version of the same vehicle was rated at 100 horsepower and 13 MPG.)

By 1959 the CR-2 engine was in service, again only in “testbed” vehicles, and it had achieved ratings of 200 horsepower and, after a 1,200 mile demonstration run from Detroit to Princeton, New Jersey, a far more respectable 18 MPG.

Operating these vehicles had taught Chrysler a few things about the disadvantages of turbine designs:

–the gases that come out the back of the car are really, really hot (temperatures can climb above 1000 degrees F.).

–after you put your foot on the gas, there is an annoying delay before the turbines (and the wheels) start spinning faster.

–because you’re basically dumping fuel into the combustion chamber, fuel economy sucks.

–the CR-1 and CR-2 engines did not offer “engine braking”, which means there would be extra wear and tear on the brakes at the wheels, and, because the driver would be constantly “riding” the brakes, increased potential for a heat-related braking system failure.

An engine was coming along that would address these problems, and in 1961 it was dropped into the visually stunning TurboFlite, which looked like a cross between two famous automotive avians: an early 1960s T-Bird and a late 1960s Plymouth Superbird. This Chrysler-designed and Ghia-built car even featured a clear “bubble” canopy that lifted up to allow passengers to get in and out.

The CR-2A engine featured fancy new engineering that dramatically reduced the acceleration delay and provided engine braking, and in 1962 one of the two Dodge Darts that was fitted with this engine was taken on a 3,000 mile national tour (New York City to Los Angeles) to introduce the concept to the public. (Two other cars, both Plymouth Furies, were also fitted with turbine engines that year.)

At this point we need to talk about the most unusual characteristic of this type of car: its singularly unique sound.

If you can imagine the sound of a Learjet taxiing several hundred feet away you might have a pretty good idea of—well, actually, you don’t have to imagine it if you don’t want to. You can hear it for yourself by watching the film produced by Chrysler to document that 1962 cross-country trip.

By 1963, a fourth-generation engine had deployed new technology that recycled heat from the exhaust to “preheat” the intake air. This dramatically reduced the exhaust temperature while making it easier to set the intake air on fire, which significantly increased both fuel economy and horsepower.

Other improvements further reduced “acceleration lag” and provided better engine performance while idling.

There is just too much story for one day, so we will stop right here and pick up the rest next time. Before we finish, a quick recap of where we’ve been, and a preview of where we’re going:

Chrysler, among other manufacturers, was experimenting with using jet engines to turn turbines; the idea being to replace the piston engines used in virtually every car built from that day until this with something better.

Four generations of engine had already been produced, many of the problems that were associated with the original design had been either partially remediated or fully resolved, and a significant effort was underway to introduce the idea of “jet cars” to the motoring public.

In Part Two, Chrysler puts a turbine car in the hands of 200 lucky families, we continue a history that may not be over yet—and in a most unexpected development, we’ll discover the common heritage that links the 1956 Ford Thunderbird, the 1961 Lincoln Continental, the 1964 Chrysler Corporation Turbine Car, and the 2009 Dodge Challenger.

So how about that? A decade-long story of history, engineering geekery, and conceptualism…and all of it presented in the form of useful objets d’art.

And in Part Two: lots more to come.

What’s not to love?

On Understanding Your Market, Or, Mr. Obama, We Need To Talk September 9, 2009

So it’s the day of the big speech, Mr. President, and we got trouble with a capital “T” right here in Health Care City.

What are you gonna do? Do we follow the traditional Democratic Party legislative process of passing…something…at any cost, assuming the entire time that the Left and the Netroots will “go along with the program”, or is there a risk that the calculus doesn’t work as well today as it did in 1994 and 1996?

Well, lucky for you, I’m a fake consultant, and I know a few things about your “target market”, so before you answer that question…we need to talk.

So the common sense approach to handling this situation is to make any deal required to get a bill passed, because otherwise your entire Presidency will be tagged as “strong on oratory but unable to govern”. Since the Far Left supports Democrats today and won’t be supporting the Republican Party under any circumstances, they’ll have no choice but to follow the “centrist” (read: “bluedog”) Democratic lead.

What you don’t want to do, common sense tells us, is demand that reform contain elements that simply are too tough to get through Congress. Insisting on a public option is absolutely out of the question, the new “preexisting conditions” requirements would be too onerous on the insurance companies—and requiring everyone to purchase insurance, with no public option competition at all to moderate the prices private insurers charge, and, for that matter, no guarantee of universal coverage, somehow makes perfect sense.

To mollify those who will object, we can hold out “triggers” as a compromise: in other words, Government says “hey, let’s wait a few years, and if the insurance companies still haven’t changed their ways…then we’ll do something.”

If you decide upon this approach, then the speech you want to give is to remind the Far Left and those pesky bloggers that political progress is incremental, you take what you can get, and that we can always come back later and make this whole stew of compromise better than what we propose to cook today.

While that’s a pretty good approach…most of the time…it won’t be this time.

There are two major reasons why, and, ironically, they’re both derived from your success in 2008.

Right off the bat, this strategy assumes the millions of new voters—and even more importantly, donors—that you attracted in 2008 are Democrats, and that, no matter what, they will continue to support Democrats. The problem is, they’re not….and they won’t.

Why? Because the vast majority of those new voters weren’t “redirected” from another Democratic candidate. Instead, they were “political non-participants” who had previously held no political affiliation whatsoever—and other than supporting you personally, the vast majority of those new voters have no long-term political affiliation now, other than, perhaps, “Progressive”.

The only reason they voted for you in the first place was because you were out promoting that whole “change you can believe in” thing. They saw you on TV telling people that universal access to care “…is a moral responsibility and a right for our country…”, and saying you would:

“…set up a government plan that would allow people who otherwise don’t have health insurance because of a preexisting condition, like my mother had, or at least what the insurance said was a preexisting condition, let them get health insurance”.

At that same evening’s event (the Democratic Presidential Debate of January 31, 2008), they also saw you say this:

“…because my view is that the reason people don’t have health care… [w]hat they’re struggling with is they can’t afford the health care. And so I emphasize reducing costs. My belief is that if we make it affordable, if we provide subsidies to those who can’t afford it, they will buy it.

Senator Clinton…believes that we have to force people who don’t have health insurance to buy it. Otherwise, there will be a lot of people who don’t get it.

…I think that it is important for us to recognize that if, in fact, you are going to mandate the purchase of insurance and it’s not affordable, then there’s going to have to be some enforcement mechanism that the government uses. And they may charge people who already don’t have health care fines, or have to take it out of their paychecks. And that, I don’t think, is helping those without health insurance.”

The fact that you said all those things brings us to problem number two: if you don’t live up to your…exceptionally public…campaign promises, you’re gonna get YouTubed.

Forget about the Republicans. The Netroots will dig these quotes up in about two seconds—in multi-part harmony, I suspect—and all of a sudden, all those “new voters” who helped put you over the top last time, instead of seeing change they can believe in, are going to start seeing you as the “same old same old”…and if that happens, they won’t be voting Democratic again (or for anyone else, for that matter) for years to come.

And if they won’t vote for you…they most assuredly won’t be giving money to Democratic causes and candidates…including you in 2012.

You have to understand, it’s a question of trust. We want to believe that you’ll do the right thing, but we have been lied to for eight years straight…and we now fundamentally mistrust our elected representatives…including you.

Not all the news here, however, is bad news.

There is a way to turn all this to your advantage, and it basically involves “leapfrogging” the opposition.

Here’s what you do:

In the speech tonight, you look America in the eye and you tell us that you said all along that we must have a public option if we hope to control costs, you tell us that insurers can’t continue to “exclude” us out of insurance, and that universal coverage is, indeed, a moral obligation for our Nation—and a smart investment to boot.

Tell America that you will fight for them and against the special interests that are trying to hustle us once again. Most importantly—and this will be The Tough Part—tell us that a bad bill is a bill you won’t sign.

You have to tell America that if we don’t get it this year, we’ll have to come back next year and try again. And if we have to, the year after that, and the next, and the next.

You also get to remind America exactly what kind of methods Republicans were wiling to use to advance their position over this past month, and whose interests they’re representing when they do it.

To put it another way, you gave ‘em enough rope, and now it’s time for some noose-tightenin’.

The best part: not only does this approach lay to waste Republican opposition, it reels in the wavering Democrats—and it allows them to go home and tell their constituents that “Barack Obama and I are fighting for people and businesses and jobs while Republicans fight for fat cat insurance companies”.

If it’s done correctly, the 2010 midterms will be y’all’s to lose—but as I said earlier, if you are seen as selling a political product everyone’s seen far too many times before, the cost could be brutal…maybe even “President Palin” brutal.

We all have a busy day today, especially you, Mr. President, so let’s wrap it all up:

You made a lot of campaign promises about public options and universal coverage and ending exclusion abuses, and now it’s come time to make good.

A lot of the people who supported you didn’t do it because you’re a Democrat—and not because they are, either. If you don’t make good, you got a problem, and so do the Democrats, possibly for years to come.

YouTube was a fantastic tool for you and the seed of trouble for many Republicans in ’06 and ’08—but if you’re not careful, the tables will turn, and a lot of the people doing the turning will be to your left.

Do it right and you and the Democrats have a superb opportunity to pivot on the opposition and imprint the Democratic “brand” for a new generation of voters—and donors—and an aggressive approach tonight could be the opening salvo of a message barrage that either forces Republicans to become more moderate, or turns them into a crazier political movement that loses seats and Governors in 2010 and carries even fewer states in the 2012 Presidential than they did in 2008.

Screw it up, and even Tina Fey might not be able to save us from the wrath of “Palin/Gingrich 2012”.

On The Costs Of Care, Or, You Don’t Want Every Item On This Menu June 16, 2009

I don’t know if you’ve been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.

For reasons that we won’t go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities…and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the “menu” of services (the facility’s term) that can be purchased at this particular location.

If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future…or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself…this conversation will surely matter.

To protect the innocent, I won’t be mentioning names today, but here’s what you need to know:

The location in question is an “assisted living facility” located near Seattle, it is somewhat upscale, but by no means ”posh”, and it is a residence of substantial size, with dozens of clients living there. It is not a “mom and pop” business run out of a house, but instead a more corporate operation.

The first thing you are charged for is the “apartment” in which you reside and some basic services to go with it. Those services include “finishing the place” with blinds and appliances, weekly housekeeping and linen, and the power and the water and the cable (“Basic Extended”).

You’re also paying for the 24-hour staff presence, “recreation” services, and scheduled transportation.

Also included: two meals daily, but not breakfast.

Telephone charges are not included.

The cost, for a single person: $1900 per month for a studio, $2300 for a one bedroom, and $2800 for a two-bedroom. There are nicer “views” available, which add about $400 to each price. Adding a second person costs $600 extra every month.

You will note that this price does not include medical and “personal” services…and for that, we will turn to the actual “menu”.

“Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!”

–Francis Bacon, Apothegms. No. 97.

Start with the basics: a daily wake-up call is $50/month; having a load of personal laundry washed every week or having a staff member make the bed daily adds $70 monthly. Housekeeping is $30/hour…so hopefully the resident can clean their own apartment.

Breakfast is $95 each month.

To determine what additional needs you might have, a nursing assessment is conducted at the time of admission.

If it’s determined that the resident needs bathing assistance, costs work like this:

If the resident can wash themselves, but need to be watched during the shower, that service, once a week, is $165 monthly. If the resident needs a staff member to help them shower, add $60 (If two staff members are required, that’s an extra $140 monthly).

Can the resident dress themselves?

A daily reminder to change clothes costs $100/month. If a staff member needs to spend under 10 minutes a day to help the resident dress, that’s $175/month, if 15 – 20 minutes of assistance is required, that’s $250 monthly.

Can the resident take care of their own personal grooming? If they can’t, that adds $150 to the monthly charges.

There are also “toileting programs”.

Having the staff remind you to go to the bathroom costs $200/month (this also covers the occasional incontinence event), and having a staff member monitor you in the bathroom raises the rate to $275 (this also covers the occasional “bowel accident”).

A “structured toileting program” runs $350…and if you need to be checked for bowel accidents regularly, or need someone to wipe for you, or have regular accidents requiring changes of clothing, that’s $425 a month added to the bill.

Some people have had surgical procedures that require them to use a bag attached to their colon for waste removal. The site where the bag is attached is called a “stoma site”, and the service associated with stoma care is at least $250 monthly at this facility. Supplies (such as colostomy bags) are not included in this price.

Can the resident walk to meals on his or her own?

If yes, but they need a verbal reminder to go to meals, that’s $175/month. If the resident requires assistance to get to the dining room, that’s $225 monthly…and if it takes longer than 5 minutes on average to assist the resident, that adds $275 to the bill each month.

Special diets, prescribed by a physician, add $500 to the monthly bill.

Can the resident take their own medications?

If not, the minimum charge is $230 monthly, which covers up to 5 medications daily, “served” two times a day.

If the client takes more than five meds daily (or takes meds more than twice daily) that cost could potentially increase by another $165/ month.

Oxygen service: add another $150 monthly.

While all that seems expensive…we haven’t come to the big-ticket item yet.

There will be residents who will require “memory support”.

The simplest form of this service provides “redirecting, reassurance, orientation to surroundings, responding to questions/concerns that arise from diminished short term memory” and several checks daily to ensure the resident is on the property. Those who receive this level of service are also physically escorted to meals. The service costs $300 per month.

For $400 the resident is walked back from meals, and a staff member provides verbal cues to get the resident dressed. The resident will also be “convinced” to bathe, if need be.

If the resident requires physical cues to perform the same tasks, the cost jumps to $550 (and at this stage the resident might require two staff members to get them to perform personal hygiene).

The highest level of care also provides someone to check on the resident every two hours, and costs $800 monthly.

This is hardly a complete list: for example, there are charges for making appointments and other “clerical” services, for “concierge” service, and for other incidentals.

However, there’s one other significant charge about which you should be aware, and that’s the cost for nursing services.

Wound care that involves changing a dressing, and takes less than 5 minutes, is $15 for each occurrence. This service must be provided by a licensed nurse…and if you add it up, it works out to $180/hour that the facility is charging you for the services of an LPN/LVN (depends on where you live) who is not likely to be making above $25/hour. (Each dressing change that lasts from 5 – 10 minutes costs $20; meaning at least $120/hour.)

Add it all up, and the chances that you’ll be paying at least $3000 a month are (in the words of Johnny Mathis) awfully good.

“If Mr. Selwyn calls again, shew him up; if I am alive I shall be delighted to see him; and if I am dead he would like to see me.”

–Henry Fox, the First Baron Holland

So how is all this relevant to politics, you might ask?

How about this: we are about to enter an age where millions of Americans will require this sort of long-term care…and many of us do not have $3000 per month available to pay for this kind of care.

How many? It is estimated that 70 million Americans will be 65 or over by 2030, and if the numbers from 1999 continue to be valid, roughly 30% of those people will be living in an institutional setting.

20 million people, at $3000 a month, equals $60 billion that will be required to cover the cost of long-term care for this group—each and every month. That’s $720 billion a year.

So how do we deal with the problem when it hits us?

I don’t know…but consider this: it is going to be tough to reduce these costs, if only because these are tasks that are not well suited for automation. These are services, for the most part, that require one-on-one care (or even two-on-one care)…and those who provide the care will want pay raises…which we will want to provide, in order to help keep the quality of care at a high level.

You should also know that there are substantial costs associated with “fixing broken workers”. The fact that workers are often required to assist clients that are physically large or physically awkward puts a lot of these workers out on injury leave…and the unhappy fact is that understaffing is a common way to try to control labor costs in nursing facilities, adding to the injury problem these workers face.

How bad is the healthcare injury problem? Ironically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us health care facilities are the most dangerous work environment in the United States.

“General medical and surgical hospitals (NAICS 6221) reported more injuries and illnesses than any other industry in 2007—more than 253,500 cases.”

To put it another way, there are basically two kinds of healthcare workers: the ones with back injuries…and the ones who don’t yet have back injuries.

As we wrap this thing up, let’s ask that question we ask almost every time: what have we learned today?

If you hadn’t already been thinking about it, it is fantastically expensive to have to receive care at an assisted-living facility, and soon there may be as many as 20 million Americans who will be in that situation…or something even more expensive, such as “skilled nursing facilities” (more commonly referred to as “nursing homes”).

We could be looking at having to find $720 billion (in today’s dollars) to cover the annual cost of that care.

It is going to be very tough to reduce those costs, unless you can develop ways to deliver the same care in a less-expensive environment…or you can find a way to reduce the number of people who will require such care.

Considering the cost of “memory care”, money invested in Alzheimer’s mitigation today might pay huge dividends later.

So that’s the deal: there is a giant bill that’s coming due, we better be thinking about it now…and one way or another, this will become one of the biggest fights in American politics as we move into the middle third of this century—so we can either get ready for it now, or we can all act surprised later.

Of course, if enough of us require “memory care”…then I guess that surprised look on our faces won’t be an act, eh?

On Being American, Or, “A Hybrid? Not Unless It Has Tail Fins” May 22, 2009

It’s great to see that people are starting to think about hybrid vehicles, but so far, they really haven’t been for me.

You know why?

Because for the most part, they have no…style.

The Prius?
If you look at it sideways, and squint, it looks more like a pepita than a car.

The Insight?
They say it’s stylish…but it looks like a Prius to me.

You know what I want?
I want someone to build the biggest, nastiest, most oversized hybrid the world has ever seen.

Something drenched with chrome, with seating for…many, and a convertible top; and maybe, if all my dreams come true: tail fins.

Something crazy.
Something ridiculous.
Something…American.

Well, guess what?

Somebody’s already gone out and had one built—and ironically, that somebody is Neil Young, Canadian.

So let me tell you what Neil Young did: lately, he’s been tearing around the countryside in a converted 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV that he calls the LincVolt.

Here’s the good part: it’s a “series hybrid” vehicle that gets 65 miles to the gallon.

To be more accurate, I should say today it gets 65 MPG.

The car reportedly will compete for the Automotive X Prize: a competition that seeks to award a vehicle that can (among other requirements) achieve the equivalent of 100 MPG and emits less than 200 “equivalent grams” of CO2 per mile…and the engineering team is confident they can pull it off.

Now here’s the really good part: it is truly an American car: it’s fast. It is indeed huge…in fact, it’s just about 19 feet long. And it is dripping with chrome.

Tail fins?
This car is so over-the-top it has front fins.

The interior?
The usual: tuck-and-roll, tons of dashboard…and the requisite computer-aided status monitoring system.

“If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend”

–Canadian Racing Champion Doug Larson

So what, you might ask, is a “series hybrid”?

For all intents and purposes, it’s the same propulsion design found on locomotives: an engine, powered by a fuel, turns a generator that supplies power to one or more electric motors that turn the wheels. (It’s also the design that will be used in the Chevy Volt.)

The engine that turns the generator operates (as much as possible) at one constant speed. If the electric motor (or motors) that turn the wheels require extra power, additional current is provided from the electrical system, not the engine.

Constant speed operation of the generator’s engine is more efficient than the acceleration and deceleration cycles of engines in today’s cars…and because the electric propulsion system itself is more efficient than a mechanical power transfer system, a smaller engine (it can be 1/4 the size of a standard auto engine) and generator gets you more power with less energy input than today’s car engines.

In the case of the LincVolt, a variety of fuel capabilities are being built into the car, including natural gas, plug-in, and biodiesel.

Now this story did not start as a LincVolt story. The original intent of the story was to ask why someone doesn’t throw a series hybrid engine/generator setup on electric motors, lose the fancy batteries, and produce some cheap 40 MPG pickups and minivans?

Well as it turns out, there are good reasons not to do that. One reason has to do with power storage. If the car is generating power it doesn’t need at the moment, it can “reserve” that power in batteries—and when the batteries are full, the car can run with the engine and generator shut down until more charge is needed.

Later, if the car is climbing a steep hill, that extra power can be sent to the motor or motors; keeping voltage and the speed of the engine as constant as possible.

As it turns out, that same stored power can also be used to “brake” the electric motor system, making the process even more efficient.

It’s quite a cruisin’ car, the LincVolt is…and to make it even cooler, from time to time they do live webcasts from the car as it’s driving down the road…which eventually become videos that can be seen at the LincVolt website or on LincVolt’s YouTube channel.

(You can also view live telemetry from the car as it operates and view a fascinating gallery of time-lapse photography of the entire “build-out” of the car from start to finish.)

Johnathan Goodwin, who did this conversion, is famous for building “Eco-Hummers” that run on biodiesel, get 25 miles to the gallon…and still manage to put up 650 horsepower or better.

Neil Young and the LincVolt appeared at San Francisco’s DreamForce Conference in November of 2008; since then the car has appeared around the country, and the website offers hints of a cross-country live-webcasting adventure to come.

So how about that?

We started with a question about generators and batteries, and we ended up with a 65 MPG multifuel/plug-in version of one of the largest passenger cars ever known to grace the surface of the planet…and in true American fashion, 65 MPG wasn’t good enough…so now they’re “kicking it up a notch” and shooting for 100 MPG and the Automotive X Prize.

Which leads me to the one and only conclusion that we can draw from today’s conversation:

When we finally take over Canada, Neil Young’s gonna fit right in.

UPDATE 5/26/09:

A commenter at the DailyKos site had questions about the methodology Johnathan Goodwin uses in his performance claims.

This is an excerpt from one of his comments:

“So, how can a car that’s heavy and has a bad drag coefficient get 65mpg? Simple: the PHEV game.

Question: How much mpg does a PHEV that is running purely in electric mode get?
Answer: Infinite

Realizing this, you can see that it’s trivial to give an arbitrary PHEV any mpg figure you want — you just have it run in a scenario where you make X% electric and Y% gas, and you pick the percents. That’s exactly what they’ve done here. Not to mention that that 65mpg number isn’t for the US06 drivecycle — it’s for steady-state driving, so even if they weren’t cheating, it still wouldn’t be comparable to EPA figures.

I hate this sort of dishonesty, yet it’s pervasive in the PHEV industry. The federal government really needs to step in and regulate it. Goodwin is a particularly bad example of this — he always plays the PHEV game and never uses proper drivecycles.”

I sent that excerpt to Johnathan Goodwin for a response.
He did reply by email, and this was the comment I received:

“This is Goodwin, I see many out there doing the backwards math. To date i have only stated what i do in the mannor of simple math. Fill the tank, drive the car 100 miles and refill the tank. The consumption for a distance gives you your fuel econimy. I am not a fan of plug ins. I am a fan of fuel efficiancy without sacrifice in power or room. A train is one of the most fuel efficiant modes to date. This car is a posterchild to old technoligy in a new way. What i have done is made a 6k car have 500lb tourque and 50+ mpg with a 650 cu inch motor. The efficiancy of the small generator is were you get great results. Not the electric side. I only use that for the power end. I wish those that critisize would spend there time assisting the ones who are trying to make changes. We would get there much faster.”

WARNING—Self-promotion ahead: I am competing for a Netroots Nation scholarship, and I was not selected in the first round of voting. There are two more chances to be selected, and the voting has restarted from scratch…so even if you’ve done so before, I still have to ask you to stop by the Democracy for America site and click on the “Add your support” link to offer your support for me again. Thanks for your patience, and we now return you to your regular programming.

On Cutting Dealerships, Or, We Examine The Costs Of Selling Cars May 20, 2009

So there’s a lot of conversation out there about car dealerships being told they won’t be selling cars for Chrysler and GM any more.

The idea, we are told, is to save the auto manufacturers money by reducing the number of dealerships with whom they do business.

I don’t really know that much about the car business; and I really didn’t understand where these cost savings would come from, but I was able to have a conversation with the one person I do know who actually could offer some useful insight.

Follow along, Gentle Reader, and you’ll get a bit of an education at a time when we all need to know a bit more about these companies we suddenly seem to own…and about the closure of thousands of local businesses that will make the news about our bad job market worse.

We know, at the moment, that Chrysler wants to close more or less 800 of its 3181 dealerships, and that the list of dealerships was disclosed as part of the company’s bankruptcy filing. The dealer relationships with Chrysler are expected to end June 9.

We also know that GM intends to end relationships with at least 1100 dealers. That list has not been publicly disclosed, and the dealer relationships are not scheduled to end until after the end of the 2010 “model year”, in October of 2010.

It is anticipated that GM will eventually cut 2600 dealers from its current network in an effort to get down to about 3600 dealers; suggesting a second round of cuts is yet to come.

(It appears that Ford is seeking to cut sales costs by about $600,000,000 annually while not cutting the number of dealerships.)

In order to protect the innocent, I’m not going to name my source for this story, nor the dealer for whom he works. For our purposes, let’s refer to him as the “dealer rep”.

So the first thing the dealer rep told me is that many of the dealers affected are “midlevel” dealers who operate in a market with several other nearby dealers; closing these dealers will hopefully reduce costs without substantially reducing overall sales in those markets.

He reports that it costs GM about $250,000 a year to support each midlevel dealer.

The costs include providing unique tools to dealers, providing training to dealer personnel, and advertising and promotional expenses.

I’m told that these are “co-op” costs, with dealers also paying a portion of the same expenses…but GM’s share, multiplied by every 1,000 midlevel dealers removed from the rolls, equals a $250,000,000 annual savings for GM.

He also tells me that many of the dealers are located in rural markets and sell a relatively small number of cars. For these dealers, there is the additional cost of having to deliver vehicles on partially empty transport trucks (or as the dealer rep put it: they’re getting paid less for the delivery than it costs to actually make the delivery).

If we assume that GM spends only 30% of that $250,000 spent annually on midlevel dealer support for these dealers, each 1000 dealers cut saves about $85,000,000 per year; if they spend 60%, the savings is about $170,000,000.

Add it up, and the potential savings for GM might be in the range of $400-500,000,000. Chrysler might expect to save roughly a third of that amount…but that would assume the composition of dealers, and the money spent, is about the same as for the GM dealer group.

(Here’s a quick bit of gossip that I have not confirmed through a second source: the dealer rep told me that some GM dealers are being cut not for lack of sales, but as a result of “customer service” issues.)

There is another group of dealers who will be cut “through attrition”. These include Pontiac dealers, who already know there will be no more Pontiacs to sell, and Saab dealers, who know they won’t be part of the GM future. There are also dealers who are (and have been) closing because of the general economy.

Hummer and Saturn dealers currently face an unknown future.

Something else you should know: the dealer rep told me that Chrysler filed for bankruptcy before terminating the dealer relationships, which may give those dealers more rights in a bankruptcy proceeding than GM dealers that were notified before any bankruptcy filing.

He suggested such a filing might occur as soon as the second week in June…but that is also something I did not confirm through a second source.

He also points out that the successful outcome of all of this is that the two companies are able to make the same sales goals as before with fewer dealers…and he has no idea whether that will come to pass or not.

As for options: the dealer rep reports that the one manufacturer seeking dealers today is Hyundai; but even if they became Hyundai dealers, a lot of stores—particularly in rural areas—are not going to be as successful selling Hyundais as they were selling Chevy, GMC, or Dodge trucks…which might turn out to be good news for Ford and Toyota.

So what have we learned?

GM and Chrysler could save substantial amounts of money by reducing dealers; that process is underway…and for some number of dealers, it’s not about sales volume as much as it’s about sales practices.

GM and Chrysler hope that they can sell the same number of cars with fewer dealers, but as of today there is no way to be sure if that will come true or not.

The biggest winners in this process might be the surviving dealers, or the Ford and Toyota dealers with whom the closed dealers are no longer competing.

The employees of nearly 3000 dealers—and the cities in which they are located–are unlikely to end up winners in this process; however, some (such as mechanics) might eventually find work at the surviving dealerships.

Finally, I apologize for the fact that this wasn’t as inspiring a story as we like to present in this space…but now that we are basically the owners of two major auto manufacturers, it’s a set of facts and figures we better get to know.

WARNING—Self-promotion ahead: I am competing for a Netroots Nation scholarship, and I was not selected in the first round of voting. There are two more chances to be selected, and the voting has restarted from scratch…so even if you’ve done so before, I still have to ask you to stop by the Democracy for America site and click on the “Add your support” link to offer your support for me again. Thanks for your patience, and we now return you to your regular programming.

On Angst, Or, We Meet A Tea Party Protester April 17, 2009

So if you’re like me, you have been wondering just exactly what all this “tea party” stuff is about. There’s going to be some sort of protest, that we know; but beyond that the whole thing seems a little…vague.

Alternatively, it’s possible that you were unaware that “tea party” has recently become a word reborn in conservative political circles.

Well, whether you knew it or not, April 15th was indeed a day of protest, with citizens gathering for what were reported to be a series of grassroots events across the nation that was intended to invoke the spirit of the Boston Tea Party.

In an effort to find out exactly what is motivating these folks, and to find out what they are trying to accomplish, I took my handy recorder and captured a conversation with a “tea bag” protester.

We will review that conversation, and we will follow it up with a few thoughts about how this group of voters might impact electoral politics going forward.

Let’s begin by setting the stage: the city of Issaquah, Washington (population about 17,000) is more or less 15 miles east of downtown Seattle, in eastern King County. It’s a bedroom community, for the most part, with some light industrial and stores like Home Depot. The Costco corporate headquarters is located over where the old skydiving airport used to be, and I-90 bisects the city.

Seattle’s eastern suburbs have been a good source of reliable Republican voters, and the Representative from the District (WA-08) is former Sheriff Dave Reichert (R-Ineffectual), who defeated Darcy Burner in one of the more closely watched Congressional races of both the ’06 and ’08 cycles.

It was a lovely not raining afternoon (this time of the year, that’s a real treat), and the steps of the Issaquah City Hall create a nice backdrop for a gathering. At noon on a Wednesday about 120 people are gathered, holding signs, and reacting to the honks of passing traffic. A “patriot”, in blue coat and tricorner hat, was present.

After a period of standing out in front of City Hall, most of the group left to march up and down the street; and it was at this point that I approached a woman who had chosen to remain behind to see if I might ask her a few questions about the event.

Where you see quotations, they are exact transcripts from the recording.
Her comments are in boldface.
Ellipses (…) are used only to indicate pauses in the conversation, not to indicate “trimming” of the quotes.

One of the first things we addressed was her concern that her rights to gather and speak freely might be threatened:

“…You bet they are” she answered, “Obama is about, he’s more like, a, a he wants to be a leader himself, he’s the leader, OK, but he doesn’t speak for America…and he is not really, really, the President of the United States.”

I asked her how she had reached that conclusion:

“He hasn’t proven that he’s a citizen, he hasn’t proven that he’s a citizen, he’s a liar…he, he, says one thing and he does another all the time…so, you know…he is not a patriot. I was born and raised in America, even people I grew up, with, that became Americans, love America. People come to America to be free. You know what I feel he’s taking away from us? Our freedom.”

I asked her what laws are being proposed that would make her feel that way, to which she replied:

“Taking all that money and doing with it as he pleases, without confer–, letting people take a vote on it on the right to do this that’s the Constitution, the 9th and the…”

“So Congress didn’t vote on any of that…”

“He is getting them to do what he wants, people are doing what he wants, because, he has people like Farrakhan, he has a lot of people behind him that are not for America. OK, and he’s a Muslim, let’s just remember that, OK, he’s not an American patriot, he’s a Muslim—“

“He’s a Muslim?”

“Yes, he claims to be a Muslim—“

“So you’re not worried about that Reverend Wright thing, then?”

“Oh, no no no no, Reverend Wright is a radical in his own way, too…”

“But he doesn’t have any influence on Obama, apparently, because…he’s a Muslim—“

“Well, he does, you know all about it, don’t you…”

At this point she began to ask a series of questions designed to determine my organizational affiliation, to which I had to again explain that I am but a humble blogger, and not really affiliated with any organization, and that my purpose in coming was to try to gather an idea as to what was going on so that I could explain it to others.

To which she offered this reply:

“Mr. Obama’s a liar…But we’re here today…just as Americans to say we want, we don’t wanna pay for what he wants us to pay for with taking all that money away from America.”

She reports that she went to Washington, DC, “and even called the President” to express her displeasure about the growing deficits during the Bush Administration; and we found a point of agreement when she noted that not voting can be a political statement, just as voting is.

She then went on to say:

“…the people, according to our Constitution and what I’ve always known is the Government was for the people, by the people, and of the people. We the people have the right to make those decisions at State levels, each State…”

At this point I asked her if that wasn’t the function of Congress, who are our elected Representatives, and that if that was true then how is that taxation without representation? (And no, I did not mention the whole Gettysburg Address “thing”. Sometimes you just have to let someone say what they want to say, and not get in the way…)

“…well, we have voted in a lot of people who are liars; that get in there for the wrong reasons. We have to start paying attention…and learn about these politicians…”

(A point with which I wholeheartedly agree—but to be honest, I don’t think she has a desire to learn that Mr. Obama is actually a real live, no-kidding, American citizen.)

I then asked her about the 2007 Federal Budget.

My understanding of that budget is that about $2.4 trillion was spent, and more or less $2.1 trillion of that was spent on Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and Defense, leaving roughly $300 billion for all other spending.

Since the deficit for that year was above $300 billion, my question to her was which of the three choices above was she ready to start cutting?

“They’re not gonna go anywhere, they’re never gonna be used for those things, hardly…”

I explained to her that this is not a matter of conjecture, but that this was how the money was actually spent that year:

“Obama does what he wants with it—“

“Well, what I’m saying is that—“

“That’s the way it looks—“

“That’s how the money was spent—“

“Don’t you know about…how—“

“In 2007, that’s how the money was spent—“

“Are you a Republican?”

“No”

“Are you a Democrat?”

“Not really…”

“Are you a libertarian?”

“I don’t think the idea of having no government works very well, no ma’am–”

“So you don’t vote at all?”

“I do vote, and I don’t vote based on any party…”

“You don’t?”

“No ma’am, I don’t think Democrats or Republicans have a monopoly on ideas.”

Eventually, as I tried to get an answer from her about the Budget, it came to this:

“That’s not the true issue. The true issue is we don’t want our taxes going up because they’ve taken so much money and bankrupted America…we don’t wanna pay for that, we want him to leave that money alone, not bail out AIG, and let America resolve its issues…amongst the people.

They think everybody’s stupid. They think everyone’s stupid except them.
What’s your opinion?”

At this point I tried to explain that stimulus seems to make sense, and that the Great Depression offered an historical example of why.

“You don’t mind if I spend your money then, can I take all your money and spend it the way I want to?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m going to let you take all my money—“

“But that’s what Obama did. I don’t mind paying some taxes—“

“So you don’t have any money at this point?”

“Ye-, of course I have money—“

“So he didn’t take all your money?”

“I work, OK, I, he, he, if he has taken that money because he has stolen a lot of money from the United States of America—“

“How did he steal it?”

“You know exactly how.”

“Well, I’m confused…”

“Well, if you’re confused go watch him, OK. You’re for Obama, right? Isn’t that who you believe in?”

“Well, I did vote for Obama, but I wouldn’t say I believe in him…”

“Well, good-bye. Yeah, you do believe in him, and if you’re a person who doesn’t vote, and you say you vote, I’m confused, I know who you are—“

“Who am I?”

“You’re trying to deceive, that’s why you’re here. You’re not American, you’re one of these radicals the other way. I believe that this President is not the true President, OK, I believe that he is not an American citizen, he’s a liar, he’s a liar and he’s a thief. He got homes through…all kinds of discrepancies…he has never admitted to anything, he wasn’t a good politician, all he is, is a Socialist, he’s a Socialist, don’t wanna work, just do your own thing, take what you want, do what you want, live off welfare…”

At which point the interview concluded.

So what have we learned here today?

Well, let’s start by presuming that this sort of voter is not a likely “get” for any future Democratic candidate…and with that in mind, let’s have a look at what her impact might be on a Republican candidate seeking office.

Republicans should be aware that there exists a significant community of voters who are clearly upset with Mr. Obama. These voters are upset about issues they can’t (or won’t) exactly articulate, and they are not exactly sure how to fix “what ails them”…but they are genuinely upset, and they seem to feel that they no longer have a sense of control over, or attachment to, their Government.

You might see good news for Republicans when looking at this woman, since she represents, as far as I could tell, a group seeking a leader; but I see instead a substantial group of individuals who have the potential to vote for candidates of third parties—in other words, voters who feel alienated from both major parties, which would not be good news for Republicans.

To “recover” these voters, I suspect, will require Republican candidates to go quite far to the right—and I suspect that if the woman I met today becomes the Republican “target market” Republicans will have even more problems attracting centrist voters than they have now.

If the world does not come to an end, economically or otherwise, by 2010, and there are no huge tax increases, it will be even tougher to make the arguments we heard today, suggesting the woman I interviewed will become a more isolated part of the electorate than she might be today.

If the economy actually improves, it suggests that finding a voter outside of the 15-30% of the electorate these voters might represent who will vote Republican–particularly in statewide and Federal elections–will be tougher and tougher.

What does all that mean?

It means, absent a major economic collapse, that the Republican future, at least for a few cycles to come, might be as a Congressional minority, with several States still available where they can maintain control of Gubernatorial and Legislative positions…but with a declining number of those States over time, and a decreasing chance of electing a President because of the inherent problems they face retaining centrist voters.

Of course, there is also the possibility that these voters will cleave off to support a Bob Barr or a Ron Paul or a Mike Huckabee, who might seek a third party candidacy, which, ironically, could help Republicans gain centrist voters, even as they lose this group of voters. In all probability, this would also cost the Republicans the chance to elect a President until a “centrist/rightist reconciliation” of some sort can occur.

It puts Republicans in a tough spot, and as a political geek I can’t wait to see how they approach working it all out.