ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 28, 2005
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - I have been here only a few weeks, but I have already developed the Harvard "umm."
It goes like this: A friend calls me on my cell phone and asks why he has not seen me at this or that Washington press conference.
"Actually, I am, umm, sort of out of town," I say.
"Where?" he says.
"Umm, Boston," I say.
"Boston?" he says. "What the hell are you doing in Boston? Have you switched jobs?"
" No, no," I say. "I still work in Washington, but I am away on a fellowship for several weeks. In, umm, Boston."
"What fellowship?"
"Umm, the Institute of Politics fellowship at the John F. Kennedy School of Government," I say.
"Is that at the Kennedy Library?" he says.
"No," I say. "The Kennedy Library is in Boston, but I, actually, I am at, umm, Cambridge."
"Cambridge! Where in Cambridge?"
At this point I usually break down.
"Harvard," I say. "I am spending a semester at Harvard."
Laughter always follow. "How can you be at Harvard?" my friend says. "If you are bright, you have been hiding it effectively all these years. Didn't you get thrown out of high school?"
"Not actually thrown out," I say. "I was voted Most Likely to Commit a Felony, but they let me graduate."
"And now you are a student at Harvard!" my friend says.
"Umm, actually, I am conducting a study group primarily for undergraduates," I say. "We discuss politics and the media and stuff like that. And I get to monitor classes."
"Isn't the president of Harvard in big trouble right now for saying something about why women don't do better in the sciences?" my friend says.
"To quote Henry Kissinger," I say, "academic fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small."
"What does that mean?" my friend says.
"I don't know," I say. "But people spend a lot of time quoting other people up here."
"Don't you feel a little out of place?" my friend asks.
"No, I feel a lot out of place," I say. "And I already have proved to everyone how dumb I am."
"That didn't take long," my friend says. "What did you do?"
"I had a choice between coming up here in the Spring Semester or the Fall Semester and I chose Spring," I say.
"What's wrong with Spring?"
"Nothing except for the snow, sleet and freezing rain," I say. "It is the 'spring' semester in name only. The weatherman said on TV the other day that the Boston area has had 29 storms so far this year. Twenty-nine and the year is barely two months old! Smart people pick the fall semester."
"But are you enjoying yourself at least?"
"Enormously," I say. "I knew I would. When I was out of college a few years and working at the Chicago Sun-Times, we hired a guy who had just graduated from Harvard and so, naturally, I was prepared to hate him."
"Naturally," my friend says.
"So he shows up at work on his first day and we are chit-chatting and he asks me where I went to school and I say the University of Illinois and he asks if I worked on the school paper and I say yes and he asks if anybody famous ever worked on the school paper and I say, 'Roger Ebert!' And then I ask him, 'Anybody famous every work on your school paper?' And he says, 'Franklin Delano Roosevelt.' "
"Ha!" my friend says. "Pretty smart kid!"
"Yeah," I say. "After all, he went to, umm, Harvard.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 23, 2005
SIMON SAYS:
As a general rule of thumb, the ugliest building on any college campus is the School of Design.
Call me a pessimist, but I really don't think 3-D is going to make a comeback.
How come it's always the friendliest cab drivers who screw you the worst?
As a portrait photographer recently told me, "Good photographs aren't taken, they are given."
Do you know anyone who actually watches arena football?
A waiter should not make you feel guilty for ordering tap water instead of bottled water.
Donald Rumsfeld says he tried to resign two times? You know what they say: Third time's the charm!
Even though you think you are familiar with a city, you should consider one of those narrated bus tours.
If you actually trust the directions on Mapquest, you are more lost than you know.
Why do they sexually segregate the Oscars? Why do they put actors and actresses in separate categories?
I cannot remember the last time -- or even the last year -- I dealt with a bank teller.
There is a tendency to forget how talented Buddy Holly really was.
There are a number of Democratic consultants who believe that no matter what he says, Howard Dean will run for president in 2008. "He will arrange an Internet 'draft,' " one told me. "You just watch."
Anyone who says, "I'm just playing Devil's advocate" is actually saying, "I really believe this but I don't have the guts to say so."
On July 1, San Francisco will ban smoking in parks, town squares, public gardens, beaches, etc. There are two reasons: One, nobody should have to breathe second-hand smoke, indoors or out. And, two, smokers are evil and should be punished.
Penguins are hilarious.
Does anyone still use shoe trees? And why are they called that?
Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper? Let me guess: The idea is to get it to taste like anything other than Dr. Pepper.
When you think back on it, almost all the exercises we did in high school gym class were bad for us.
There is nothing static about static electricity.
No, it's not your imagination: Restaurants are getting noisier and noisier.
How could anybody possibly know that every snowflake is different? Is somebody keeping track? And where do they keep them all?
People who use made-up swear words like, "Oh, sugar!" are just kidding themselves.
Science has never really answered the question: Are oysters alive when you eat them?
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 21, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Bill Daley was secretary of commerce under Bill Clinton, Al Gore's campaign chairman in 2000 and has managed several campaigns for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, his brother.
I recently spoke with Bill Daley about the future of the Democratic Party. Below is some of our conversation.
Q: Is the party in for some rough times ahead?
Daley: I think we are in for a difficult period. Possibly we will spend a couple of years in the wilderness. The only thing that might change that is a force outside the control of Republicans -- if the war in Iraq really turns much worse, which it has the potential to do. But that is their "undoing," not our "doing."
Q: What does the problem seem to be from a Democratic strategy viewpoint?
Daley: How do you deal with so much of the country that is Red and every election seems to be further from our reach? Do you just concede that? That is pretty hard. Republicans are making us battle in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, etc. and we are not making them battle in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Nebraska, etc. We just don't go there. How many states did John Kerry visit? George Bush never had to visit some states; they were guaranteed for him. So we lose Iowa, and have to fight like hell to save Wisconsin and Michigan. And, if all the sudden, the Michigans, Wisconsins and Iowas are gone for Democrats, there is not a lot left. That has the potential to happen.
Q: Have the Democrats been coming up with bad messengers for their message?
Daley: I don't think so. They win their elections in their home states. As a party we convey that we are out-of-touch with the average person. We are truly a Washington, D.C. focused party. Our "think" is that. Maybe the longer Republicans are in power, they will turn into that. But we are a congressionally-oriented party. We very much parrot the Washington party and that includes unions, feminists, etc.
We Democrats have a problem with the country becoming more moderate. It is more to the right than Democrats want to accept.
Q: Why do people think Democrats have become arrogant culturally and sneer at Red Staters?
Daley: We do sneer at Red-Staters! And that is because we are focused out of Washington. Remember Casey not being allowed to speak in '92? (Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey was told he could not speak at the Democratic Convention because he wanted to give a pro-life speech.) That was the first sign that we were out of touch.
And you get the Hollywood stuff and the Whoopi Goldberg stuff in
the middle of the campaign. Even John Edwards, the so-called populist, he has a $3million house here and one there. I am one of you? It doesn't work.
Clinton really was from the wrong side of tracks. His mother was a gambler with a streak in her hair and when Bill Clinton quoted the Bible it was real. He didn't fake it and that came through.
Q: But wouldn't a Democratic messenger like Clinton be equally successful?
Daley: But we don't have messengers who believe it! Most of our messengers of late come from the system. They have national-think. Kerry spent 20 years in the Senate; he wasn't going to represent something different.
Q: Are you saying to the Democrats that only governors need apply for 2008?
Daley: Only governors need apply. Absolutely, for the time being. Or a Senator or Congressman who hasn't been there long and hasn't bought into the routine.
Q: Can the Democrats win in 2008?
Daley: Can we win in '08? Tell me what the economy will be like or what the war in Iraq will be like. I don't know. Do I see that the Democrats are on some grand march with programs and ideas that will motivate people? No.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 14, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Even with a new chairman, the Democrats lack a clear leader and a clear path to the future.
Terry McAuliffe, the outgoing chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), believes the party must fill the gap. "The next chair of the party has to begin to do message testing, message development in all 50 states. We need to start today," McAuliffe says. "We can't wait for a nominee in April of 2008 to say, 'Okay, what's our message?' We don't have to wait for the nominee. By April 2008, we will know exactly what we have to do in order to win the presidential election."
But what if the nominee disagrees with the DNC-tested message? McAuliffe thinks that is unlikely to happen, because the nominee is going to want to win. "If we have done our job for four years of this testing and the polling and doing what we need to do, you're going to have a very good idea of what works and what doesn't," he says.
While McAuliffe suffered some initial criticism after the losses of 2004, this has been replaced by widespread praise for what he accomplished as a party-builder: The party is out of debt, has raised $10 million since the last election, and can raise "$100 million this year at a touch of a button," McAuliffe says.
So what does the party need? "We need to be going into the Red States, we need to be going into their neighborhoods, talking about our Democratic values and what we stand for and getting people comfortable with us," McAuliffe says. "We can't continue to allow Republicans to go in and distort our position on issues and scare people."
That may not be as easy as it sounds.
Bill Daley, Al Gore's campaign chairman, points out that Democrats have to get over certain hurdles that Republicans do not. "Sure, Sept. 11 made it very hard to win this time," Daley says. "But Vietnam totally moved Democrats to a party that conveyed weakness, and we are still living with that. Since Vietnam, since the 60s, since Woodstock and all that, Democrats have had to convince people we are pro-American and pro-military and have values. The Democrats have an obligation to prove it, but it is a given for Republicans, even though they may have fewer values than Democrats."
There are other factors. It seems clear that while presidential candidates don't have to be warm and fuzzy, neither can they be cold and aloof.
"People have got to feel comfortable with you," McAuliffe says. "They want to be able to say, 'You know, he's a nice guy.' "
Or a nice woman, considering that one of the current front-runners for the 2008 nomination is Hillary Clinton.
"In 2008 it is going to be Hillary and someone else (seriously fighting for the nomination)," David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist, says. "The question is who the someone else will be." John Edwards, Kerry's running mate, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, and Kerry are all seen as currently vying to be the "someone else."
Some, including Daley, believe that the Democrats will simply never win if they keep looking to Washington for their presidential candidates. Asked if that meant that in 2008, only governors need apply, Daley said, "Absolutely, for the time being. Or a senator or congressman who hasn't been there long and hasn't bought into the routine."
Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist, agrees: "History shows us governors get elected more easily than senators. We should look to people who have won in Red States like Mark Warner (governor of Virginia) and Evan Bayh (formerly a two-term governor of Indiana. Other governors thought to be interested in 2008 include Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, and Phil Bredesen of Tennessee.)
Whichever way the Democrats end up viewing the last election and planning for the next one, Dunn has one piece of advice almost as old as the party itself.
"We should not mourn," she says. "We should organize."
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 9, 2005
WASHINGTON - - How bad off is the Democratic Party? Well, the Democrats don't have the presidency, they don't have the senate and they don't have the house.
And just what the heart, soul - - and future - - of the party is seems very much an open question
"I think we are in for a difficult period," says Bill Daley, Al Gore's campaign chairman. "Can we win in '08? Tell me what the economy will be like or what the war in Iraq will be like. I don't know. Do I see that the Democrats are on some grand march with programs and ideas that will motivate people? No."
"It is depressing losing elections, especially one in which so many things went well," Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist, says. "We didn't get outspent; we did an extraordinary job organizing voters and increasing turnout. Fundamentally, the question Democrats face is: 'OK, if so many things were in place, why did we lose?' That is a tough question for a political party."
Says David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who worked for John Edwards in the last presidential primary campaign, "The impression is that (the Republicans) have ideas and energy and we are trying to maintain the status quo. It was not clear in the last election what our vision was."
Even outgoing Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe says, "There is no question that we've got to do a better job on messaging."
Some Democratic critics say message is not the chief problem, however. Over and over again, critics say that Democrats have become tainted by a "cultural elitism," the sneering belief that Blue Staters are better educated, more sophisticated and morally superior to Red Staters.
"We do sneer at Red-Staters," says Daley. "We convey that we are out of touch with the average person. We are truly a Washington, D.C.-focused party and that includes unions, feminists, etc."
Many also say that while Hollywood has been good for the Democratic Party in terms of contributing money, the Hollywood connection reinforces the notion that the Democrats are a condescending, leftist elite.
So even though Axelrod believes the party is fundamentally sound, he does say, "I don't discount that we should not be exclusionary and we should not project the cultural elitism that was radiated from (John) Kerry. Would the right kind of candidate and right kind of candidacy have produced a different outcome? I supported Edwards. I think his message would have reached people in small towns and rural areas."
Some Democrats are asking some very basic questions. Gilda Cobb-Hunter has been a member of the South Carolina state legislature for 13 years and is a member of the Democratic National Committee. She is an African-American and she shocked some of the candidates for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship recently.
"I asked them what plans do you have to attract white, southern voters to the Democratic party," she says. "I am not talking about NASCAR dads and Bubba - - those votes are gone. I am talking about attracting young whites. And, also, how do the Democrats keep young people of color, who are increasingly independent, in the party."
Cobb-Hunter says she did not get a very satisfying answer from anybody. She also believes Democratic candidates too often don't make a connection with ordinary voters.
"In the last election, we couldn't explain things in a way that made sense to people," she says. "We got too fancy and stopped talking to people."
ENDIT…ENDIT…ENDIT
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 7, 2005
WASHINGTON - - I recently had a conversation with former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry on his future and the future of his party:
ME: Many are now pointing to the last election and saying that the Democratic party is in deep trouble and needs fundamental change. What do you think?
KERRY: Those naysayers are completely out to lunch. They don't know what they are
talking about. On every issue that speaks to the qualities of people's lives,
we won and will continue to win.
ME: But you lost the presidency.
KERRY: In effect, in a narrowly-divided country, it came down to Sept. 11. That is unique and unprecedented. We did an extraordinary job. We got almost 10 million more votes than Clinton, and 6.5 million more than Gore. People were invigorated and the youth vote came out.
This augurs well for the future. September 11 was a tough hurdle and the differential.
If 60,000 people had voted differently - - half the people in Ohio Stadium -
- everyone would be writing about, "Why did Bush lose?"
I think that our party tapped very significantly into people's vision for the future. The Republicans didn't have one. Where was their education policy? Where was their
healthcare policy? They are the ones that ought to be worrying!
ME: But it's Democrats who seem to be worrying and saying they no longer know what the party stands for.
KERRY: Our grassroots are very strong and we are very optimistic. It is hogwash that we don't know what we stand for. We stand for children, not tax cuts for wealthy. Our values are not encouraging jobs to go overseas.
ME: Doesn't the Democratic party have to change its message?
What is the Democratic party going to do? The Democratic party stands for a proud
set of principals and values. Service to country, service to community. Do
we not want to stand for that?
All these hand-wringing lamentations aren't going to change what is on
The table to deal with: that the deficit is out of control.
ME: So you are going to continue to say what you said during the campaign.
KERRY: I look forward to going out and continuing this battle. We exceeded our expectations on turnout in every precinct. The problem was our expectations were too low.
ME: Did Sept. 11 make the election unwinnable for you?
KERRY: Unwinnable? That's for others to judge. I can't tell you that. We were
climbing in the last week, and then, with the appearance of the Osama bin
Laden tape, we flat-lined. If we had job numbers (in the media) that weekend instead of the Osama bin Laden tape…but you move on.
I am proud of the campaign. It was a hell of a good campaign. They counted us
out in New Hampshire; they counted us out before the convention; they
smeared us and lied, but we came back to even and were climbing in the last days
and came within half a football stadium of winning.
ME: So Democrats don't have to do anything differently to win?
KERRY: We have to reach out for folks, but not by changing into something else. We
have to persuade people of the virtue of what we stand for. People make
much of the "life" issue, but we had one question on that in three debates.
I welcome the discussion and debate.
ME: Some think the party needs a candidate who is not Washington-based.
KERRY: Personally, I thought George Bush was Washington-based, too. That's silly.
We need to do a better job organizing more people and we have to be smart about
motivating our people to get out. This was not about some issue that we somehow failed to articulate and motivate to people
ME: Are you the head of the party? Are you the voice of the party?
KERRY: There are a lot of different voices. I don't claim singularity. There are
elected and unelected voices up and down the line, including the activist
community.
ME: You haven't grown a beard and you are not hiding out.
KERRY: On the contrary, from day one I have been working and organizing and
continuing and thanking people of the party and of the campaign.
ME: How have people been reacting to you?
KERRY: All over the place we have been getting a phenomenal reception. People are
very warm and it's amazing. In airports, stores, in streets, here and elsewhere. People are genuine about continuing the fight.
ME: Are you going to run for president again?
KERRY: I want to continue the fight. A lot have said go run again. There is lots of
positive feeling and energy. Folks are not discouraged. But it is way too early to think about.
ME: But the Democrats have not renominated a losing presidential candidate since Adlai Stevenson in 1956.
KERRY: I don't think anybody has tried. He was the last to try. Look at the facts.
ROGER SIMON COLUMN
FEBRUARY 5, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Given my profession, I guess it is no surprise that I am a news junky. I actually enjoy reading the news, listening to it on radio and watching it on TV.
Once, on a "get away" weekend in Cape May, N.J., at a bed and breakfast in an old, Victorian home where they forbade TV, I snuck a small, portable television inside so I could secretly watch the news. (OK, so I watched "Seinfeld", too.)
I watch all three broadcast news shows each night. This means I have to channel-surf between ABC and CBS where I live because they come on at the same time, but I get to watch all of NBC, which comes on a half-hour later.
There is one part of each nightly news broadcast that I cannot watch, however. No, not the violence or the "human interest" stories about people who own cats that can drive.
What causes me to switch channels the instant they come on are the drug commercials.
It may not have escaped your attention that these seem to be a majority of the ads on the nightly news. The reasoning is sound: Baby Boomers are big news consumers and Baby Boomers also take a lot of prescription medicine.
But the commercials drive me nuts. With the exception of the sexual dysfunction drug ads, some ads do not even make clear what malady the drugs are supposed to cure.
Instead they feature people running in slow motion through fields or people tossing Frisbees to their dogs or elderly people hugging their grandchildren. All the people are happy and smiling.
Are these the people you see in your doctor's waiting room? They aren't the ones I see in mine.
But on TV, the drugs have cured them and have made them wonderfully happy.
OK, fine. We all know ads exaggerate. But where the drugs ads really drive me wild is when they end by saying, "Call your doctor today and ask for the little, plaid pill!"
Are we really supposed to be qualified to make such a decision after seeing a TV commercial? Especially an unrealistically optimistic TV commercial?
And, as I said, some ads do not make clear what the drug is supposed to cure. Yet we are supposed to pick up the phone and call our doctors and say, "I want the little, plaid pill!"
That might happen if you could get your doctor on the phone. Which you can't.
Wonder why you can't get your doctor on the phone? Wonder why sometimes you can't even get a live receptionist on the phone, but get a recorded message instead?
Because so many people are wasting their doctor's time demanding the little, plaid pill, that's why!
I understand why doctors don't want to come to the phone: Why do they want to hear demands for medicine from people who have just gotten their medical degrees by watching a TV commercial?
Even if your doctor is not a genius - - and not all doctors are - - at least he probably knows what the little plaid, pill is supposed to cure. Which is more than most of the callers know.
OK, that is my rant for today. I have to get back to the news. I hear there is a guy in Cleveland whose parakeet can play the piano.