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November 19, 2011
So for the next two weeks I'll be on Jenkins Hill.
To most people who actually live in Washington, D.C., Jenkins Hill is the name of a now-defunct but enormously popular yuppie bar near Pennsylvania and 3rd, Southeast, that helped break up a lot of marriages in the 1980s and 1990s. It's also the name of an ancient plot of land which became Capitol Hill--but hardly anyone can tell you much about a Mr. Jenkins who once owned it. People agree on one point only. In the early 1790s, Pierre L'Enfant, the French architect charged with laying out the new Federal City, kept referring to "Jenkins Hill" and "Jenkins Heights" as the prominent hill where he wanted to build his "Congress House".
"West Front of the Capitol," about 1828, sketch by John Rubens Smith.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2011
The Two Sudans: "The risk of a full-blown war."
On July 9 of this year, South Sudan, located in one of the poorest and troubled regions of the world, seceded from Sudan (now North Sudan) and became an independent state. Even though South Sudan's secession followed both a referendum reflecting overwhelming popular support for the split and the consent of North Sudan's embattled president, old and new issues (the article quite understandably barely scratches the surface) combine to make the transition daunting. Two transitional issues are that North Sudan lost 75% of its 500,000 bpd oil production to the split, and that many South Sudanese already vehemently disapprove of and distrust their new government. See "Rumours of War" in the current issue of The Economist. It begins:
Buffeted by financial squalls and fearful of a Libyan-like upheaval, Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, is digging in hard. He is hammering groups opposed to his National Congress Party, while using his army and rebel proxies to bait South Sudan, his diminished country’s newly independent neighbour.
Fighting in the south’s Unity state, close to the border, has left scores dead. A lot more have died in South Kordofan, a state within his rump Sudan, just north of the new border, where ethnic Nuba are pressing for control of a mountain range.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:37 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2011
Everyone's Mitt Romney Problem.
Although I've voted for a Republican for president only once, watching two major GOP presidential candidates self-destruct these past few weeks has been painful. We need at least two strong political parties in America--and we need credible candidates in both parties. Election cycles are a great way, of course, of taking the pulse of a nation. Every four years, we bat a few issues around. We learn what's important to us. We get our bearings.
Now, and for the first time since I could vote, we have Republican issues without viable Republican leaders. As matters stand, I'd have to bet on and vote for President Obama, who will likely be facing Mitt Romney. Barring a further substantial weakening of the economy, Romney will lose--and lose, in my view, big time, both in popular and electoral college votes.
There was a time somewhere between Teddy White's book The Making of the President, 1960 and now--and clearly by 1980--when Republicans finally learned the gritty and often ugly black arts of how to run national campaigns: House, Senate and Presidency. And, once they got the hang of it, GOP operatives often ran those campaigns like well-oiled businesses. Southern states started it off. Young political strategists like the late Lee Atwater--smart, super-intuitive, passionate and mean as a snake--led the way.
Right now, however, the best Atwater clones on earth can't put anything together for the GOP. To belabor the obvious:
1. Herman Cain. Loved this guy. Our hero until the "let Herman be Herman" tact failed two PR rules: a. Be first with bad news, especially when you can see it coming. b. Don't lie about that which the electorate will forgive you for anyway. Forget about the polls. Forget about the Libya flub. We all question his judgment on how he handled the questions on sexual harassment more than any actions which may have led to them.
2. Rick Perry. Personally, I loved this guy even more than Herman. On my dad's side, we're probably somehow tribally-related--but Perry can't be my President. Ever. But I'd jump at the chance to have dinner with him, listen to some blues, drink Ripple and split a tab of Vicodin.
3. And the winner is Mitt Romney--who Obama will soundly trounce, whether I like it or not (and I probably would). Why oh why can't the mega-talented Mitt be more like his dad, George, the late crowd-pleasing ex-governor of Michigan? When I see Romney on TV, I still get that creepy feeling that "something or someone else is driving". So, apparently, do many other folks. He can't connect--or even appear to connect--with other humans no matter how hard he tries. A tragedy. This is one smart guy. Romney will be the candidate--and he will lose.
Anything Barack Obama can really do to ensure a second term? I doubt anyone connected with the Obama 2012 campaign is as optimistic as I have been above. Or as glib. I've been wrong a lot, on U.S. presidential campaigns. Very wrong. Let me give you two examples.
During most of 2003, I was raising money for Wes Clark--I was a Clark convention delegate until he withdrew from the race--because I was sure that, as much as I like him as a legislator, John Kerry could never even be nominated (I confidently told his campaign chief this on a fine spring morning in 2003 at Kerry's Stanton Park campaign office).
In 2007 and 2008, I worked for and supported Hillary Clinton--and was as surprised as she was when she did not win the Democratic nomination.
Things change quickly and unpredictably. In late 2003 and 2004, John Kerry finally found the traction I predicted he didn't deserve and would never earn. In 2008, Barack Obama overcame Clinton on a slowly-building but steady and unstoppable wave that left pols and most Americans breathless.
Hillary as Obama's running mate? To give the President the best possible shot at relection, some journalists and political strategists would whisper two words in his ear: Hillary Clinton. Clinton denies interest in the Vice-Presidency. However, some experts, like my friend Mike O'Neil of O'Neil Consulting, a long-time pollster, political consultant and thinking-man's talking head, believes that Hillary Clinton as Obama's running mate in 2012 is highly likely and something to watch for.
I spoke with Mike O'Neil Sunday night. An Obama-Clinton ticket, he said, "would instantly energize the party and infuse life into the Obama campaign." For Clinton's part, O'Neil noted, she would be hard pressed to turn it down "because it would guarantee her the 2016 nomination (win or lose)." O'Neil pointed out that in 2016, Clinton will be 69 years old. Many believe she seems unlikely to retire from public life four years from now. And, O'Neil continued, "barring a health incident, Hillary Clinton would still come across as younger than, say, McCain, presented himself, in 2008."
"Obama would be a fool not to offer it to her," O'Neil concluded. "And Clinton would be foolish to turn him down."
Posted by JD Hull at 03:47 PM | Comments (1)
November 14, 2011
The Paris Blog: Under Notre Dame.
The Paris Blog is by Americans, Canadians, Brits and Frenchmen who write about "the daily intricacies of life in Paris". It's edited by Laurie Pike, like me a Midwesterner who lived in California for a while. There's a bit of everything/anything about La Ville lumière: arts, politics, neighborhoods, French culture, and work. And "secret" Paris. See Friday's post Under Notre Dame, by Heather Stimmler-Hall, about the often overlooked kingdom of ancient Paris underneath Notre Dame. Like nearby Hôtel de Cluny on the Left Bank, tourists seem to miss it.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)