Text size – +
Warren's campaign debt not unusualLink|
Comments (7)Posted by Garrett Quinn, Less is More December 5, 2012 02:58 PM
Elizabeth Warren's email to supporters asking for help to retire her campaign debt is startling only when you consider the amount of money she raised. Warren's Senate campaign was
the most expensive this cycle and the fifth most expensive of all time according to a
New York Times analysis.
This fundraising pitch isn't all that unusual as campaigns run into debt frequently. Heck, Hillary Clinton is
still trying to retire debt from her 2008 presidential bid.
The glut of "Notre Dame return to glory" piecesLink|
Comments (0)Posted by Garrett Quinn, Less is More December 5, 2012 01:16 PM
During the month-long build up to the BCS National Championship game between Alabama and Notre Dame there will be dozens of "Notre Dame's Return To Glorry" pieces published. Some will be
amusing diatribes by haters while others will be
dull and sentimental odes to the history of the Fighting Irish.
So far though this
SportsNation piece by author Greg Jordan stands out as it leaves out tired cliches while touching on Notre Dame's important place in American Irish Catholic culture and, more importantly, as an enduring brand like Apple.
Mike Golic made the un-American case against the wrathful on "Mike and Mike in the Morning" a couple of weeks ago, and he made it as a business school major would. Notre Dame does branding like nobody else, and the wrathful just can’t deal with that. And for this reason, they criticize Notre Dame for things that most Americans are praised for.
They are criticizing Notre Dame for things that most Americans are praised for.
He’s right: why should Steve Jobs become an American icon for obsoleting a well-crafted gizmo every two years and a few Holy Cross priests and their board be condemned for taking a football brand to the bank? In the big business of college athletics, nobody does the business side better. And now, after 20 years of jeopardizing that brand (see Jobs 1985-95), Notre Dame, like Apple, is back, and eyeing more market share than ever.
Golic’s point – that criticism on these grounds runs counter to an American ethic – would be exact if Notre Dame were solely a business. But it is a university, a great university in a country with the greatest universities in the world, and therein lies the additional complexity that makes Golic’s un-American charge even more troubling when played out further.
Read the whole thing
here.
The hype for the BCS title game will be out of this world as it should be. This is a classic game between two of the most storied teams in the history of American sports. The sentimental pieces about this will be tedious but the ones that dig deep like Jordan's will be well worth reading at least twice.
Gary Johnson Not Sure He'll Run For Office AgainLink|
Comments (0)Posted by Garrett Quinn, Less is More November 8, 2012 11:14 AM
ALBUQUERQUE – Gary Johnson rolls his carry-on luggage into the western chic lobby of the Hotel Albuquerque the morning after Election Day with the same carefree swagger he showed throughout his 2012 presidential campaign. Wearing sunglasses, he sets down his LL Bean looking backpack and extends a hand, issuing his favorite greeting, “Whadya know, man?”
He's chirpy and refreshed after an early night on the final day of a nationwide journey that started in April 2011. This was not the demeanor one would expect from a man who just finished in third place in a presidential election with 1 percent of the popular vote.
“I’m disappointed really from last night. I don’t think the vote was reflective of the excitement that is out here, the sentiment that is out there, I mean what that’s due to? Did it have to do with the fact that people really did take it to heart that their vote wasn’t gonna count and the lesser of two evils stuff as opposed to voting for the person you most align yourself with? I do think what I am saying aligns with most Americans but that didn’t bare itself out at all so that was a disappointment,” he says as communications director Joe Hunter looks on.
Despite his liveliness the morning after a record setting result for a Libertarian presidential candidate, Johnson can't contain his dejection at the way things turned out.
“On an expectations level we were really thinking twice that amount was really kinda the lower end of it. Because of the resources we had, we weren’t able to tap into whether that was gonna happen,” he says.
Discussions with Johnson’s staff revealed that, indeed, they did not conduct any internal polling throughout the campaign due to limited resources. So, they looked to other signs of interest and support like public polls where he was included on the list of candidates, and internet metrics. Johnson rattles off some facts and figures about Google+ and Twitter, then stumbles. Hunter intercedes with some search engine numbers.
“You were the fourth most searched in the last couple of days,” Hunter says.
“I was the fourth most searched in the last couple of days! Wow! That just didn’t equate to the votes,” Johnson says.
“I thought we generated the excitement, I thought we put a voice to issues that needed a voice. I think we did it. Like I say, from our vantage point we were gonna do a lot, lot better. That was based on polls that as recently had me at 5.6 percent in Ohio. That didn’t pan out at all; it just evaporated,” Johnson says.
Getting one percent of the popular vote was not exactly how Johnson hoped this nearly two-year journey would end, but it's something he considered. "I did envision this path. The notion of potentially running as a Libertarian, I did see that down the road,” he says.
There isn’t anything he thinks the campaign could have done differently, outside of raise more money, to improve the result. Johnson likes to point out that they spent approximately $2 per vote and got 1/100 of the popular vote. Johnson doesn’t have much sympathy for Romney or openness to the idea that Libertarians should abandon the LP and infiltrate the other parties to make them more libertarian. Johnson says he thinks Libertarians are making the other parties more libertarian by remaining in the LP.
In the short term, Johnson plans to go back to his house in Taos to conduct some long overdue home maintenance before heading to Washington next week for some media appearances and party business. The long game for Johnson, though, is a bit more blurry. In earlier interviews with Reason he’s hinted at the possibility of another presidential run in 2016, but now, the morning after, he sounds more uncertain.
Taking into account the track record of third party presidential candidates that run in consecutive cycles he said that he probably wouldn’t do so well. Ross Perot and Harry Browne both saw their vote totals go down by nearly half the second time they ran. Ralph Nader peaked in 2000 and never came close to those numbers in two subsequent presidential runs in 2004 and 2008.
“You can’t not do this and not be aware of the history. The history would suggest that we would do worse if we try this again,” Johnson says.
A Republican operative in New Mexico told me last night that Johnson could have done well, if not better than Heather Wilson, in the race for U.S. Senate here, but Johnson maintains that it’s an office he has no interest in. Democrat Martin Heinrich defeated Wilson 51-4.5 while Jon Barrie, running on the American Independent line, picked up 3.6 percent of the vote.
“I would have never predicted this,” Johnson says on the outcome of the Senate race in his home state where he is still fairly popular.
Johnson says he plans to stick with the Libertarians but he would not rule out a return to the Republicans for a future run.
“Never say never.”
Crossposted at
Hit & RunLibertarians Not Ready To Make Nice With Romney, RepublicansLink|
Comments (0)Posted by Garrett Quinn, Less is More November 7, 2012 11:10 AM
ALBUQUERQUE – The Mitt Romney bashing started when I caught up with Gary Johnson as he was doing a walkthrough of his Election Night party Tuesday night.
“It’s just remarkable to me that this is who Republicans put up. This was cast ahead of time. All the criticism of Romney which is that he really is not conservative and then on the social side, it’s a little scary,” Johnson said.
Johnson repeated comments he made earlier in the week that he thought the Romney campaign was doomed to failure.
During the election night party, snide comments from Johnson supporters watching Romney’s early poor showing in states like North Carolina and Virginia could be overheard from my perch at the mostly empty press table.
“I can’t believe he’s losing to this guy! What a bum!”
“How do you not beat Obummer?!”
“Man, Romney is a loser!”
After Ohio was called one Johnson staffer came over to chat about the results coming in from the Midwest states. He couldn’t resist a dig at Romney’s campaign. “We wanted to be spoilers tonight but unfortunately Romney spoiled himself in every swing state,” he laughed.
Another staffer who has worked on Republican campaigns told me as the night was winding down, “I wish the Republicans had us to blame for Romney’s loss.”
A hostile attitude toward the Romney campaign and the GOP permeated the party. There was ill will for the Democrats, too, but it didn’t appear as deeply rooted. The Johnson campaign had problems obtaining ballot access throughout the country, often because of slip-ups, and Republicans were right there waiting to pounce on their mistakes. The ill will harbored by the campaign seems more deeply placed in the lower levels of the operation, among volunteers and supporters, than in the upper echelons.
In the final month of the campaign, Johnson, ever the content libertarian warrior, expressed an attitude of indifference on the outcome of the election, even as Republicans kicked and screamed about him potentially spoiling the race for Romney. Last week in Ohio Johnson told Reason that he didn’t care about the outcome of the election if he didn’t finish on top.
One of Gary Johnson’s regional drivers and body men, Tom Mahon, was disappointed in the result for Johnson. He expected more but didn’t care that Romney lost.
"I am not surprised or disappointed that Romney lost but at the same time I am disappointed that Obama won, so, to me, it was a lose-lose election,” he said. "Romney alienated too many constituencies, from the Ron Paul Republicans to the Latino vote to women, the GOP seems to be on a constant track of becoming more socially conservative."
Some younger Johnson’s supporters in an outdoor smoking area near the hall didn’t even consider voting for Romney.
Ryan Kaszuba, 24, said Johnson was “the only candidate that speaks any sense whatsoever.”
Kate Ayala, 20, said Romney is someone that makes people despise the political process.
“Nothing has felt so right as to go against the flow and really be independent of the majority,” she said.
Crossposted at
Hit & RunGary Johnson ConcedesLink|
Comments (0)Posted by Garrett Quinn, Less is More November 7, 2012 01:07 AM
ALBUQUERQUE – A tired and defiant Gary Johnson delivered a concession speech to supporters shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday night, whacking the major parties and hinting at a 2016 run in the process.
"A wasted vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in and there were a lot of wasted votes tonight. There were more wasted votes tonight than I’ve ever seen,” said Johnson.
The Libertarian nominee took pot shots, again, at the idea that he played the role of spoiler in the 2012 election.
“We all should be proud of ourselves because over the next four years none of us are gonna have to say we are responsible for this. I didn’t vote for either one of ‘em, I voted for Gary Johnson,” he said.
