Anti-Portfolio

For all of us who missed Google’s IPO….go here and be cheered up.

And what a smart thing for a VC to do.

Written by jay on November 14th, 2005 with no comments.
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B’rer Rabbit

It has been a long time since I read B’rer Rabbit. I don’t even remember who had the rabbit in his clutches. What I do remember is the Rabbit pleading, “Please, oh please, don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

Which sounds very much like what Liberal House leader Tony Valeri is doing to the bright lights who lead the parties of Her Majesty’s Opposition.

Having a January 20th election forced on them by the BQ, NDP and CPC is an unexpected Christmas gift for the Liberals who, deep in their oily hearts, were certain they’d be getting, at best, a lump of Kyoto busting coal under the tree.

To throw a sitting government out of office during an economic boom requires the Opposition to have the undivided attention of the voters. To get those voters to see that the word “exonerated” really means “guilty” means walking those voters through the steaming pile which is the Gomery report and pointing out, over and over, that the Martin Liberals are the same as the Chretien Liberals. A proposition difficult to sell in the merry month of May and essentially impossible over the three weeks of Christmas and New Years.

So the Liberals, in a thirty six day campaign, basically don’t even appear on the voters’ radar screens until January 5. Three weeks of blissful Christmas break, snowy campaign stops, and complete voter indifference. What little momentum Harper may have from the buckets of sleeze in the Gormery report will freeze tight in the face of Canada Tire commercials, the return of hockey and a couple of bottles of Crown Royal.

The CPC has impressed me on many occassions with its capacity to be dumber than I could possibly have imagined. But, I have to admit, setting up to defeat the government just in time for the entire nation to ignore politics for a month sounds new depths of political ineptitude.

My earlier prediction of 50 seats for the pathetic Harperites was, I admit, pessimistic. I really thought they might, if they worked hard throught the spring and if the final Gormery Report was sufficiently pungent, inch their way up to 60. Like the Liberals, I had not in my wildest imagination considered the possibility that the dolts would actually throw the Rabbit into the briar patch so it could sneak away….

50 seats if they are lucky. 40 and the end of the CPC if the Tory campaign is as badly managed as the last one.

Paul Martin may be a hopeless PM; but he is stupidly lucky in his Opposition.

Written by jay on November 14th, 2005 with 1 comment.
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Political Campaigns in the age of Blog

Matt Stoller’s politics make me cringe; but his analysis of the shifts in poltical campaigning as the internet overwhelms MSM are always worth reading. The US is miles ahead of Canada in the use of the internet in campaigns but the points Stoller makes in his recent post will be here in no more than half a decade. Here are the bullets:

• But why will blogs become so important? Well, because other tools are cruder, and will lose influence as their ability to reach people declines. Take TV. This is a crude medium…
• TIVO’s going to make it more difficult to buy viewer attention, since viewers will simply be able to choose to not watch ads. This is also happening to radio, since everyone will soon be listening to podcasts after all those are superhip! (more likely is satelite radio I suspect but the effect is somewhat similar).
• The same is true of robocalls and phone banks. In this case it’s not TIVO but cell phones that are the culprit.
• What does it mean, politically speaking? I would say two important things. Money is going to be much much less important in politics, because you won’t have to buy TV time to talk to voters, though field will matter. Parties will gain in power, since a party will contain the social infrastructure to spread a candidate’s message.

mydd

Stoller sees this as heralding a return to the politics of the 1880’s and 90’s where political parties at the local and net levels really matter and where individual voices, without a lot of money, will matter if they are able to gather influence.

He sees this as positive and so do I.

Written by jay on November 14th, 2005 with 2 comments.
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