This is way out of left field, but I just had to share it. I was being tritely facetious back here, answering bud’s assertion that someone who favored legalizing marijuana would probably have trouble going far with elements of the GOP (except, of course, for the William F. Buckley Memorial Wing), by saying, “Yeah… that’d be one toke over the line…”
Hey, I told you it was trite.
But being one who can’t leave a stupid (and painfully obvious) pun alone, I went looking for a link to the song — you know, for the youngsters who wouldn’t remember the song.
Since I’m now a Mad Man, some of the conversation at the start of this morning’s traffic meeting was about the Super Bowl ads. I missed part of the exchange on account of going down the hall to get more coffee, but I also felt a bit left out since, well, I didn’t see watch the whole game. In fact, all I did was record part of it (I didn’t think to activate the DVR until long after it started), and occasionally flip back to it in hopes of catching a commercial.
Despite the fact that I have been watching some football since I got HDTV, there was no hope of my having any emotional involvement in this one. The Steelers mean nothing to me, and Green Bay — well, they were my team’s (Johnny Unitas’ Baltimore Colts) nemesis back when I cared about such things, but with Bart Starr gone, well, what’s the point? I couldn’t even get interested in cheering for their opponents.
But the ads — well, I found Super Bowl ads interesting even before I became a Mad Man.
Not having seen them all, though, I felt unqualified to say anything about which was the best, or anything like that. I was able to chime in when someone mentioned the beaver one (below). That was awesome. I called my wife into the room and replayed it for her.
So, since I don’t have time to sit here this morning and watch all of these… which did you think was the best, and why? What should I go find and watch? What would be worth my time? Or rather, ADCO’s time, since that’s what I’d be using…
I knew that following Adam Baldwin on Twitter (no, not one of those Baldwins — we’re talking Jayne Cobb from “Firefly”) would pay off eventually. Today, he brought my attention to this:
QFE: “We have 3 branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a President.”- Sen. Schumer (D-NY) ~ http://bit.ly/eqwbNq
Hey, we all misspeak. And maybe the good senator was just checking to see whether the viewers were paying attention.
Here’s a question: Would Jayne Cobb have known about the three branches of government? Probably not. Of course, in his ‘verse, all you need to know is that there’s the ruttin’ Alliance, and there’s the freedom-loving Browncoats.
Well, here’s the latest show. Go back to this post for supplementary materials, such as a release from Dr. Rex on his tenure.
It went well, I thought, but you’re the judge. All of us here at “The Brad Show” thank Dr. Rex for including us on his farewell tour of interviews, and we wish him the best in the future.
Next up (later this week): The Shop Tart. Don’t miss it.
See the way Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf reacted when he heard Santa was coming? Well, that was me today when I found out that The Shop Tart herself will be here on Monday to tape a special pre-Christmas edition of “The Brad Show.” Well, sorta. Think how it would have been if James Caan had played the elf. More like that. But I was excited, nevertheless.
And today, we taped a show with outgoing SC Superintendent Jim Rex. Plans are to have that one up on the blog Monday. Then we’ll tape the Tart on Monday for showing later in the week.
Trying to get the momentum going again on “The Brad Show,” just in time for Christmas. And if you want to buy the boxed DVD set of Season One for that just-right gift for a loved one, well… I don’t have any made, but if you send us enough money we’ll burn the frickin’ shows onto a DVD, and put it in a box, too.
Who better to get us into the spirit of the last-minute shopping frenzy than the Tart herself? Watch for her, and Dr. Rex, right here on this station…
I missed the announcement of Nikki Haley’s new senior staff yesterday, but I went looking for it after a friend (NOT a professional political observer, but a communications pro) at lunch today mentioned how… lackluster the announcement was. My friend said it really looked like Nikki was saying, “Well, since I went and won the election, I guess we have to do these things…”
This struck me because it sounded so much like my impression of Nikki’s low-energy victory speech on election night. Like it’s all sort of a letdown to her, compared to the frisson of campaigning. I’m finding it a bit hard to reconcile campaigning Nikki and soon-to-be-governor Nikki, in terms of enthusiasm. But maybe I’m just being a sexist pig who expects women to be bubbly all the time, right? Yeah, that’s probably it.
Anyway, enough about style over substance. My concern is not whether Nikki is enjoying the job so far, but what happens after she takes office. Let’s take a quick look at the staff she announced (all of whom seemed about as excited as she did, by the way — not particularly enjoying each other’s company, like they’re afraid they might accidentally touch each other or something…. no, I wasn’t going to talk style anymore…). Let’s break it down this way: Here’s Nikki’s press release, and here’s some minimal commentary from me:
Tim Pearson, Chief of Staff. Well, Nikki really damned him with faint praise: “He not only comes from The Hill…” say WHAT!?!? That’s supposed to be a recommendation? “… but also has presidential campaign and gubernatorial experience and he’s getting ready to do great things for our state…” a state which, far as we know, he knows nothing about. Look, I’ve done no more than exchange an e-mail or two with Pearson, and shake hands when I ran into him with Nikki at a restaurant, and he seemed OK. But with such an inexperienced governor, the idea of a guy who’s not from here and has limited knowledge of our state, its politics or its government being her chief of staff is not reassuring. What she needs is what Mark Sanford had the wisdom to hire at the start of his administration — Fred Carter. Fred didn’t last long, but he was exactly what Sanford needed. And what Nikki needs, too. Worst way to paint this? The way an ex-colleague did in an e-mail today: Kevin Geddings. Yeah, the guy who who led the governor’s winning campaign, but had little else to recommend him. Here’s hoping Tim Pearson will be WAY better than that.
Katherine Haltiwanger, Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations). Can’t say I know her. Know some very nice people named Haltiwanger. Maybe she’s related.
Ted Pitts, Deputy Chief of Staff (Policy and Cabinet Affairs). Great choice! And I’m glad to know Ted’s back OK from Afghanistan. If you’ll recall, Ted is MY representative. I briefly thought about making a run at the seat on the UnParty ticket when I heard he wasn’t running again. But I let Rick Quinn have it instead.
Trey Walker, Deputy Chief of Staff (Legislative Affairs and Communications). Another good choice — in fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if merit guided the gov-elect, Trey would be the guy in the top job. But I guess that since Trey — who ran Attorney General Henry McMaster’s office — didn’t join her until after the primary, Pearson was just in line way in front of him. Aside from actually knowing South Carolina, Trey also has the kind of experience Nikki seems to value most — helping run a national presidential campaign (McCain’s).
Rob Godfrey, Press Secretary. Another veteran like Trey, although I have to say that Rob’s been a bit — testy — this past year, as evidenced by this and this. Maybe he’ll settle down. Or maybe we’ll have a Ron Ziegler situation on our hands. We’ll see.
Taylor Hall, Cabinet Liaison. Don’t know him. I’m impressed that “Hall also worked at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, where he dealt with Transatlantic and European security issues,” although I’m not sure how it’s relevant. Maybe Nikki plans on raiding the EU for her Cabinet. Watch out, Brussels!
Rebecca Schimsa, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff. I know a lot of very young people, but I don’t know Rebecca. (Or do I? If so, I apologize.) Oh, and note that a few years ago I was grumbling about Ted Pitts seeming too young, so consider the source.
Jamie Shuster, Director of Budget and Policy. Don’t really know her, but I know the South Carolina Policy Council. That reminds me. I was supposed to set up lunch with Ashley Landess. Y’all don’t let me forget that…
Katherine Veldran, Legislative Liaison. This is the one, I suppose, that that same ex-colleague mentioned above referred to thusly: “the chick who’s going to be working with the Legislature whose experience is working for a Hilton Head hotel. Huh?” I don’t know what that’s about, either. Perhaps she’ll lecture lawmakers on the inherent superiority of the private sector. We’ll see.
A reader this week reminded me of something that I may have known, but had forgotten — that long before he was the funniest deadpan comic actor in America, Leslie Nielsen was … “The Swamp Fox” on TV. She wrote:
I occasionally post on your blog as Abba. Would you consider posting this clip from YouTube showing Leslie Nielsen, who died this week, as South Carolina’s Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, in Disney’s series from the early 1960s – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vvQJ7ZDg1Y. Here’s a longer version – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVGN1pDzYAY&feature=related. Leslie Nielsen never looked so good! This clip has the catchy theme song that I remember so well from my childhood. We used to play the Swamp Fox on the playground at school, and many of the boys in my class had tri-cornered hats with fox tails attached. Hear the song once, and you’ll be humming it all day long! A fitting tribute to Leslie Nielsen from our corner of the world, I think.
I loved that show, which ran from October 23, 1959 (right after my 6th birthday) to January 15, 1961 — hardly more than a year.
Like the far, far more successful “Davy Crockett” series and generally forgotten “Gray Ghost,” these shows inspired me and other very young kids to run out and play at being actual figures from history. (Anyone remember that goofy, overly elaborate way Col. Mosby saluted? I thought it was cool, and used to go around imitating it. Wouldn’t you like to see video of that?)
Actually, to take that a bit farther… to this day, whenever I hear the words “Tory” and “Patriot,” I think of first hearing them used on “The Swamp Fox.” So while my understanding of the term was to grow and expand later, I actually had a minimal working knowledge of what a “Tory” was at the age of 6. If I ran into a 6-year-old who used a term like that today, I’d be shocked. But it was common currency among fans of “The Swamp Fox.”
I can also remember a conversation I had with my uncle about “The Gray Ghost.” I was confused about the whole blue-vs.-gray thing (especially since I was watching it in black-and-white), and I asked him during one show, “Are those the good guys or the bad guys?” My uncle, who was only a kid himself (six years older than I) could have given me a simplistic answer, but instead, he said, “Well, they’re both Americans…” and went on to suggest that a case could be made for both being good guys. That sort of rocked my world. There was no such ambiguity on the Westerns I watched. This was my introduction to the concept that in war, in politics, in life, things can be complicated, that there are many shades of gray. Perhaps the track that set mind on has something to do with why I don’t buy into the whole Democrat-vs.-Republican, left-vs.-right dichotomy that drives our politics. After all, they’re all Americans. And in the wider world, they’re all humans. Even the Nazis. (Of course, this doesn’t keep me from understanding that when humans’ actions go beyond the pale — as with Nazis, or terrorists — they must be opposed, with force if necessary.)
Also, while at first I didn’t think I remembered the “Swamp Fox” theme song, as I listened to it repeated over and over on that clip above, I had a dim memory of being struck by the odd syntax of that second line, “no one knows where the Swamp Fox at” — I didn’t know WHY it sounded odd (I was just learning to read, and hadn’t gotten to grammar yet), it just did.
In other words, these shows — which presented very simplistic, often inaccurate glimpses of history — not only helped feed a lifelong interest in history, but helped foster the ability to think.
So… TV doesn’t actually have to be junk, although it’s often hard to remember that these days.
Gotta hand it to the folks at GM. This ad, which I first saw during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, is a grabber. It works really well.
The part that really pulled me in and kept me watching long enough to find out what it was about? The bit from “Animal House” when the Deltas are all sitting around looking dejected. They offer that slightly vague little pop culture reference, and it feels like a bit of a challenge, like, “Do you know what this is?” and you do, and you feel cool for knowing, so you keep watching to see what else you’ll see.
You get the sense that it’s pitched at Boomers and our elders, because of the combination of that and Popeye, and to a slightly lesser extent Evel Knievel, and especially the failed launch from the early days of NASA. (I had to explain that to my daughter, because she didn’t understand there was a time when we all thought, as Tom Wolfe summed it up, “Our rockets always blow up!“) It’s nice to see an ad pitched to grownups, one that makes us feel like we’re with it. If we listen hard enough, we even realize that piano is wandering about the melody of “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” (I thought, “Long and Winding…” no, but something about a road being long… Um, Neil Diamond… no, not originally… then I got it. The Hollies.)
Anyway, nice job. It was almost worth all that money we gave y’all.
But I just found it stilted and stiff and painful to watch. Which I guess was the intent. But that painfully earnest message couched in politically correct clichés really made me not want to hear any more about the subject, however serious it is.
But then, a couple of days later, a colleague — Lora Prill at ADCO — brought to my attention the companion videos above and below.
Now — without getting into the merits of the issue either way — to me, THIS is the way to make the point. Whether I go away agreeing or disagreeing with the political point, at least I go away with a smile. And I’m therefore more predisposed to listen to these folks in the future.
Last night, when it was all over, I was struck by two things: How much better Vincent Sheheen’s concession speech was than any speech I heard during the campaign, and how much worse Nikki’s was.
As I said on the air last night, that “victory” speech was so… low… energy. The people in the studio laughed, saying, “It’s after midnight!” So what? I wasn’t tired (I didn’t hit the sack until about 3, and then only after a couple of beers). She shouldn’t have been, either. She should have been PUMPED! The crowd that had had the patience to wait for her (the folks in the WIS studio were puzzled she made the world wait for her so long; I told them to get used to it, because Nikki will have no more use for the people of SC going forward, as she continues to court national media) ALSO should have been pumped. But they sounded like an average group of supporters listening to an average, mid-campaign speech.
Maybe she was saving her energy to be on the Today show today. (Here we go again, folks. More of the same of what we got with Mark Sanford, Mr. FoxNews.)
As I urged people on TV last night — go to that clip I posted on the blog of her speech the day Sarah Palin endorsed her. Where was THAT enthusiasm? It’s like she had this finite supply, and it was just… enough… to carry her BARELY over the finish line in a remarkably close victory for a Republican in 2010.
As for Vincent, when he said that line about how he and his supporters “wished with all your might to take this state in a new direction,” it resonated so that I thought, “Where was THAT during the election?” Sure, he talked about not wanting more of what had under Sanford and such; he made the point — but he never said it in a way that rang out. He didn’t say it with that kind of passion.
It’s so OBVIOUS that that should have been his theme. Instead, we had the complete and utter absurdity of Nikki Haley running as a change agent. It’s so very clear that in electing Nikki Haley, the voters chose the course most likely to lead to more of the malaise that we’ve experience in recent years.
But hey, woulda coulda shoulda.
I just raise the point now to kick off a discussion: Is there something Vincent Sheheen could have done that he didn’t that would have put him over the top? Or did he come so close to winning, in the worst possible year to run as a Republican, because he ran the perfect campaign?
I mean, he came SO close. It was so evident that Nikki was the voters’ least favorite statewide Republican (yes, Mick Zais got a smaller percentage, but there were several “third party” candidates; Frank Holleman still got fewer votes than Vincent). I look at it this way: Mark Hammond sort of stands as the generic Republican. Nobody knows who he is or what he does, so he serves as a sort of laboratory specimen of what a Republican should have expected to get on Nov. 2, 2010, given the prevailing political winds. He got 62 percent of the vote.
Even Rich Eckstrom — and this is truly remarkable given his baggage, and the witheringly negative campaign that Robert Barber ran against him — got 58 percent.
So Nikki’s measly 51.4 percent, in the one race with the highest profile, is indicative to me of the degree to which voters either liked Vincent, or didn’t like her.
So the question remains: Could Vincent have won with a better campaign, or did he do as well as he did — ALMOST pulling off what would have been a miracle in this election year — because his campaign was so good?
Kathryn Fenner, apparently in no mood for nuance at this point in the election, complained that I have posted a couple of videos of Nikki Haley that she (Kathryn) believed cast her in a positive light.
Well, perhaps they did, if you are someone who was likely to vote for Nikki anyway, and are immune to the logical arguments that accompany the clips. Personally, I thought the Wagner background music I put on one of them was a bit heavy-handed, but maybe you have to hit some people over the head with a Blitzkrieg.
So for Kathryn’s sake, and on the off-chance that it might help voters remember just how low Nikki will stoop to win, I rerun the clip of Nikki kowtowing to folks who think the only mistake that the Confederacy made was not winning the war and succeeding in seceding from the Union.
She was seeking the support of a group called “South Carolina Palmetto Patriots,” a group whose 2010 agenda states:
The Federal government has stolen our liberties and rights and nullified our ability to self govern as a state. It is the obligation of all people of our great state to restore unto ourselves and our children these inalienable rights as set forth in The Constitution of the United States of America.
I have to be careful what I say about this group, because Doug gets on me when I suggest that there may be a racial tinge in the attitude of anyone who claims NOT to be motivated by race. And I don’t want to get in trouble with Doug…
That was my compromise headline, by the way. My first thought was “How Nikki Haley seduced me,” and boy, that would have driven my traffic up and helped me sell some ads. It would have been a perfectly fine use of figurative language. But I decided against it. I’m not THAT anxious to sell ads (if I were, I’d spend some time on the phone selling, and you’d see more of them). Then I thought of, “How Nikki Haley fooled me,” but that would have been TOO prosaic. So I went with the compromise.
And what it means is this: Folks, I know how attractive (as a candidate, I mean) Nikki Haley can be. I mean, she had me at “I’m running against Larry Koon” way back in 2002, and she totally pulled me into her orbit when she told me of how his redneck supporters were attacking her ethnicity, causing me to write an impassioned defense of her and condemnation of them. (I have this atavistic impulse toward knight errantry. It’s what causes me to have a notion that the United States should ride about the world slaying ogres in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia and the like. And if I can actually, literally defend a lady in distress — well, all the better.)
Being on Nikki’s side made us feel good about ourselves. She came across as an absolute paragon of political virtue taking on the entrenched interests, and she did it well. At the time, we didn’t know that as she was advocating “running government like a business,” she was failing to pay taxes on time for the business for which she was the accountant. We didn’t know she was parlaying her support of Lexington Medical Center getting an open-heart center into a $110,000-a-year job that didn’t require her to show up.
And most of all, we did not know that she — who chaired a subcommittee charged with coming up with regulations for the payday lending industry — would tap that industry for contributions to her employer’s cause.
Now that I do know those things, I’ve thought back a number of times to the portion of my last extended interview with her when she spoke of how she was stymied by her leadership and prevented from passing meaningful reform of payday lending. You will hear her speak knowledgeably and energetically about how her committee carefully researched the issue and came up with a bill she was proud of (one that would regulate, not eliminate, such lenders), only to see it cavalierly deep-sixed by her leadership.
It was, in retrospect, quite a performance, and I believed in it entirely. I believe in it now as I watch it. You probably will, too. Look at her face as I ask her to clarify — was it Harry Cato who killed your bill. Yes, she nods, with wide eyes, evincing reluctance at seeming to tell tales, then smiling winningly.
The thing is, it’s so convincing that I still believe that she was sincere. I mean, look at her. But that sincere young woman who spoke of how much she was learning as a novice legislator has been very little in evidence since she found “the power of her voice” as a Sarah-Palin-style demagogue who despises experience and nuance, and speaks almost entirely in bumper stickers.
The Nikki Haley on the video was … smarter than the one we hear today. And more believable. She was almost… wonkish. Definitely our kind of gal, the sort we’d be sure to have an editorial crush on.
And I still marvel over how she’s changed.
Bottom line… I have a lot of experience observing Nikki Haley. So when I tell people who just recently discovered her that she isn’t all that she seems, and that it would be a bad idea to elect her to higher office, my assessment has very deep roots. It took me a LONG time to realize just how problematic Nikki Haley was. And voters just haven’t had enough time with her. It’s like being a pilot — I’ve got a couple of thousand hours with this particular aircraft, and it’s hard to explain all that I’ve learned about her idiosyncracies to anyone who’s had less than a hundred.
Which is why I wish Election Day were a little farther off. Eventually, I believe everybody will see all the sides of Nikki Haley. But after Tuesday, it will be too late to help our state.
The third and final debate will be held tonight at 7:00PM in Florence. The debate, sponsored by Francis Marion University, Coastal Carolina University, WBTW-TV and the Morning News, will be broadcast live on WBTW News 13, C-SPAN and SCNow.com. Anchor Bob Juback will moderate the debate, which will feature a media panel as well as voter-submitted questions.
The ad, of course, doesn’t ad anything to our knowledge, but then political ads never do. At least, not for people who actually pay attention to politics. No, campaigns raise all this money, and spend most of it on television, in order to communicate to people who simply are not paying attention. Which is depressing…
It would be great if Vincent had a chance to be elected just by emphasizing his own virtues, but if I were advising his campaign, I don’t know what I would tell them to do differently. The thing is, his positive traits are not simple, bumper-sticker things. At this stage in the campaign, the reasons NOT to vote for Nikki are so very many and so sharply defined that they are much, much easier to communicate to those distracted souls who have not yet made up their minds.
So he goes with trust. On one level, that’s a good thing, because I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone at the State House I trust more than I do Vincent. But I wish our political debates went deeper than this. Sure, there are more than enough reasons for people to go to great lengths to avoid having Nikki Haley as their governor. The reasons are objective, indisputable and nonideological. No sensible person who wants the best for South Carolina — regardless of his or her ideology — would want her to be our governor, knowing all the things we now know. Some of you will object to that categorical statement, but I’m sorry… you see, I’ve been paying attention. I’ve seen how the facts have given the lie to every virtue she has claimed, one after another.
And yet people — people who would protest that they DO know the score, and they DO care what’s best — will vote for her. It’s stunning the degree to which people will allow foolish, shallow distractions — party, gender, what have you — prevent them from focusing on her utter unsuitability.
So Vincent Sheheen, who is capable of greater depth, keeps it simple in the hope that if you keep stating the PAINFULLY OBVIOUS, people will act rationally.
And if they don’t, well… combine that with what happened with Alvin Greene, and I may end this year beginning to have real trouble with my lifelong faith in the Democratic process.
With time running out, I thought it would be a good use of our video time to help voters get to know a last-minute candidate, one who hasn’t had the benefit of long exposure to the electorate. So last Thursday, Mia Butler visited our studio.
My first reaction, when my attention was called to this item, was — being the ideologically incorrect so-and-so that I am — that this video would no doubt be another argument in favor of DADT. There are certain people who just shouldn’t do certain things in public.
But Ellen is a hoot, and she’s game, and bless her for trying.
And besides, relatively few hetero women on this planet can move like our Christina. And not look ridiculous, that is.
Well, here it is: The third installment of “The Brad Show.” Our guest Wednesday afternoon was Sen. Vincent Sheheen, the Democratic nominee for governor of South Carolina.
We sort of did this one on the run. We found out on Wednesday that he would be in our neighborhood, and were told we could catch him over at Rep. James Smith‘s law office at 4 p.m. So Jay and Julia grabbed the equipment, and we ran over there. James and his staff hastily cleaned off a conference table that was covered with stacks of documents and other debris while Jay and Julia set up the camera and wired us for sound, and we were off. Twenty-five minutes later, we were packed up and ready to leave, the interview in the proverbial can. It all went so smoothly — no thanks to me; all I did was show up — that would you have thought we had done this 100 times before.
So thanks, Jay and Julia, and thanks, Capt. Smith, for accommodating us so generously.
I hope you can find something of value in this conversation. I’m sure you’ll tell me if you don’t…
