So, what is is about Michelle Obama's arms that's inspired a national semi-obsession?
Everybody's got a pair. Why are her's so special? Well, there's the obvious. Among women of a certain age and class - a class that doesn't involve lifting anything heavier than a soy latte - toned arms are a status symbol. For mothers with children, firm delts say "enough money to pay a nanny and make time to go to the gym."
Which is another way of saying "just like us" to that crowd, one that for better or worse, sets our cultural cues. Michelle Obama has managed to turn herself into a kind of every-woman who doesn't inspire jealousy but, instead, admiration. This is, I suspect, the result of being a black woman in a mostly white world; you get used to managing your behavior and mien when you thoroughly understand that you're almost always being evaluated on something you can never change - your gender or your skin color. If nothing else, the Obama family's ability to shrewdly see themselves as they are seen by white America and to subtly change those perceptions is an accomplishment.
That's not to set aside Obama's charm and sincerity. Her speak-from-the-heart style rings true and her enthusiasm for her husband, for his presidency and for the wonder and fun of living in the White House strike all of us as pretty much how we'd feel: Obama says she's got the best job in the administration and she's not shy about why. No cooking? Great! No beds to make? Even better!
But that doesn't really explain why Michelle Obama's popularity has out-striped that of many movie stars and other pop culture figures. I mean lots of us are sincere. Even more of us hate the chores of domestic life. So what is it about this woman?
Well, first of all, she's no girl. She may have a breezy style but most folks who deal with Michelle Obama realize that she's not to be dismissed - those arms come from early morning work-outs before the kids (and the husband) get up. Even in her recent write-up of what was clearly a girlfriends' lunch, the Washington Post Sally Quinn didn't even bother to use that phrase. Quinn, who considers herself the gatekeeper of Washington "society", has given Michelle Obama a pass - a courtesy she didn't give the Clintons or George W. Bush family.
At nearly six feet tall, Obama's also a direct contrast to an annoying American tendency to hew to a standard of "perfect beauty". Throughout the past 10-year spree of conspicuous consumption, breast implants, lip plumping and assorted other cosmetic treatments were seen as necessary parts of any feminine beauty ritual that made for a uniform aesthestic. Time was - and I'm betting for sure these figures have already fallen - that breast augmentation was a popular birthday gift for 16-year-olds.
Michelle Obama's a woman who was clearly never going down that path. She's been known to tell fashion magazine what she'll wear on their covers. She stands up straight, likes flat shoes and throws on a sweater when she's cold. Which makes her style perfect style for our more realistic times. She seems about as likely to spend $5,000 on a handbag - and boast about it - as she is to curtsy before the Queen of England.
Which is really the key to her success, I think. Regular men and women have been looking for popular images of "real" women for a while. That's to say, images of women who aren't starving themselves to be a single-digit size, who aren't obsessed with shopping, spa treatments and finding a boyfriend with a big salary to support them. Those Sex and the City characters thought of - wrongly - as the embodiment of a kind of "lipstick feminism" didn't do much for equal pay for equal work. But they did a very good job of selling shoes, bags and designer clothes all the while encouraging women to know and understood their proper, decorative place in the glamorous urban world that is New York City.
That's changing as well. There's plenty of talk that The Great Recession may have finally evened out the earning power of men and women as women keep jobs that are part of a non-construction, non-manufacturing economy.
Michelle Obama's salary carried her household while her husband was running for the U.S. Senate - he's said so himself. And she's clearly not a woman who was raised to look for someone to attend to her material comfort or someone who sets a standard for that comfort to include a clothes budget equal to a waitress' annual salary. That, from where I sit is a good thing. Because it's a realistic thing.
In a world where jobs come from thinking and typing - "symbol manipulation" as former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich once called it - there shouldn't be gender disparity on income because in a world where work is mental, not physical, your brain doesn't need a firm set of biceps. Even if they do some in handy on those pesky photo shoots.
So New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and former San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein drive past a bar....And the column that results in that adventure is nothing but a joke. A sad one. On them.
As part of her "Death of Journalism As We Know It Tour" Dowd recounts her San Francisco visit with Bronstein, a recent guest on Stephen Colbert's show. The two drive by a "reporters' bar", they see the linotype machine at the Chron, they view the conference room where Phil had it out with local politico and real estate baron (and blogger) Clint Reilly. At the end of the column, Phil's credited with the print journalism insight of our age: Old people who buy papers are living longer so we still have jobs.
Well, it will probably trouble Phil and Mo to know that my upstairs neighbor, octogenarian Elliot Joseph has a regular blog. Oh, and he's on Facebook, too. Or that the best coverage of the California Democratic Convention was done by respected former Chron editor Jerry Roberts and former Mercury News Political Editor Phil Trountstine blogging under the Calbuzz moniker.
Instead of nurturing Dowd's Hollywood fade-out view of the news business, Bronstein might have done everyone a real favor by giving her a tour of the online journalism laboratory that's at work every day here in San Francisco. This city's paper has gotten much smaller but it's fate isn't entirely the result of technology. The Chron no longer has monopoly hold on readers. Or writers. Bronstein may be able to justify its past but he's got a harder time with its future.
Take a look at Eve Batey. Since leaving SFGate, the Chron's site, she's done a fine job at the SFAppeal, an online-only pub that's on it's way to leading coverage of San Francisco city politics. How? She recruited some of the smarter voices that once worked at SFGate, among them Beth Spotswood and Violet Blue. Oh, and she prints news. While SFGate spent a day's worth of front page real estate on Bronstein and Colbert, the Appeal was writing about the the local transit agency's budget woes.
Okay, so encouraging competitors isn't a great idea. Especially when they're cleaning your clock. But Phil could have taken Mo to visit Mark Glaser whose recent MediaShift column on "local watchdog media sites" offers a hint at where we're all headed. From PBS, the duo could have wandered over to see the boys at Digg who created a tool for rating stories and made the "most emailed" and "most comments" boxes de rigeur for online pubs. (Digg also helps its downstairs neighbor, the San Francisco Bay Guardian pay its rent, an arrangement both the Chron and the New York Times might find instructive).
They buzzed by the Giant's stadium, maybe Phil and Mo could have stopped off at SixApart, home of the technology that runs this site along with several others, including MyBarackObama.com, the HuffingtonPost, much of CondeNast and Peobody Award winner Josh Marshall's TalkingPointsMemo. It's not a linotype machine but SixA does help churn out the news.
From there it's only a short walk to CNET, the first totally on-line media outlet to challenge the Chron's hold on readers. A visit to Salon.com, another online outfit, might have been worthwhile, too. Along the way, Mo and Phil could have stopped in on Technorati, the once-hot ranking service that's opening up an advertising to serve small publishers. Technorati might have been happy to arrange a meeting with local reporters - folks sometimes called bloggers - from outfits like TheNJudahChronicles or TheHealthCareBlog (both affiliated - in different ways - with this site) GigaOm, BeyondChron, CurbedSF or the unfortunately named SFist.
Or, just to be daring - it is out on the avenues (our Queens) - Phil could have taken Mo to lunch with Craig Newmark. Trite, I know, but sushi with Craig is always entertaining.
Dowd did, in fact, meet with the hipsters of the business, the big names that come up on the Lexis-Nexis search as "the" folks to talk to. But the headline grabbers aren't doing all the work. Here in San Francisco the news business is thriving. It's just not thriving on the printed page.
Old folks like Dowd and Bronstein - in their early 50's - may comfort themselves by looking back with Norma Desmond's longing for the good times. It's easy and after years of hard work climbing to the top of a business that's imploding, you can't really blame the live or fictional characters. But the silly hope that news must be carried on paper to look and be respectable and respected is as doomed as Joe Gillis.
Who's Joe Gillis? He's the guy face down in the swimming pool in Sunset Boulevard. He narrates the movie. But, as you might recall, it's wasn't his show.
California - and perhaps the nation's - fastest growing political party got a nice present last week: A proposal to open primary elections to folks who check "none of the above" when asked which side of the political spectrum they favor.
It's not an truly "open" offer. Nothing crafted by the California General Assembly which is becoming famous for its inability to do anything - even things it wants to do - ever is all that open-handed. The open primary needs to be approved by voters in June of 2010. That's the same time when Californians will be picking its gubenatorial candidates for the fall general election. And measure to let independent voters participate in primaries have, historically, failed.
That's not a huge surprise. The state's parties - and the folks who run them - like centralized control of things and they turn out the votes to defeat measure that will clip their wings. Open primaries - particularly the kind envisioned in this latest round of reform take away the mystical power of a party's base and reduces the influence of those who run elections with Clinton- and Rove-style addition. In other words, it moderates because an open primary brings in centrist voters.
For some years, "decline to state" as it's more politely known, has racked up the voter registrations. It's gone from 9 percent of registered California voters in the late 1980s to almost 20 percent today. And it's growing - all by itself. There's no independent party out there recruiting members - not with any starting success, anyway. Voters are just choosing not affiliating with either party and the increase seems to be holding across the country (although really accurate data is hard to come by since states have different rules).
The Rise of the
Creative Class
But this probably isn't a nascent political platform or formal organization. It's more of a political movement, a corallary to the "creative class" idea put forward by consultant Richard Florida. "None of the above" has been flavoring California politics for some time, particularly in the business-focused parts of the state like Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. This movement - I call these folks Progressive Libertarians - explains why the state went solidly for Barack Obama but also managed to elect - and re-elect - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just as an example: Google CEO Eric Schmidt - photographed plenty of times over the past few years with Democrats Al Gore and Barack Obama - once told me he was a Libertarian. And Clinton backer John Doerr was a registered Republican while he was supporting the former president's re-election.
Progressive Libertarians aren't so much tied to a political party - although they trend Democratic at the national level - but have an interest in keeping their options open. They are fluent, familiar and comfortable with the language and metrics of business which is why they like smaller government. And they are offended by the politics of the left and the right. That translates to a deep dislike of unions, based mostly on the belief - correct or not - that the teachers' union has "ruined" the school system, among other things. But Progressive Libertarians also support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights. It's mix-and-match politics: one from column A, two from column B and we're done. Most recently, life-long Republican Tim Draper supported Obama.
Progressive Libertarians do not want to be pigeonholed. They want to be practical when it comes to government and leadership. This desire to pick political affiliation and association to match the times, the job or the future problems is something many politicians are just starting to grapple with. And if this sounds a bit like a Barack Obama campaign strategy memo, you're catching on. It was. Combine that with his campaign's determination to build not just their own voter databases but their own fundraising apparatus - both traditional jobs for the party, not the candidate - and you can get a glimpse of where we're headed.
That flexibility is one reason why, if established parties play their cards right, they may actually prosper. But it's going to be a tough call. It may be necessary to give up immediate control and power to form flexible, almost constantly changing coalitions - parties that don't hew to a line in the sand but form consensus and cohesion based on the problems and solutions they have on-hand and their popularity with voters.
Today, that's none of the above. With an open primary system it may well be, a little this and a lotta that.
An era - a golden time when the boys of Silicon Valley could do whatever they wanted, whenever it suited them - is coming to an end. And the failing health of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a poignant metaphor for its passing. That's one reason why the conversations about his fate are so emotionally charged - even among strangers.
Jobs is clearly fighting a serious illness. Whether he is winning and will return to run the company he founded, saved and launched into an entirely new line of business is open to debate and speculation - and there's been plenty of that. It seems unlikely not necessarily because Jobs is mortally ill but because his illness has sapped so very much of his raw physical presence. He may have to - belatedly it seems - face the fact that his life-saving surgery for some sort of pancreatic cancer, in fact, altered his life. Like all of us, he is mortal.
And, like all of us, he and the company he runs are being told they must obey the law. The Securities and Exchange Commission has expressed an interest in the timing of news and announcements about Jobs' health and, like many inquiries the commission launches, it may mean nothing. Except that they're paying attention.
And this, my friends, this is the end.
You see, Silicon Valley has skated along quite nicely, thank you, without a whole lot of regard for the government. This was in no small part because the government had little interest in Silicon Valley. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, enormous fortunes were made by a small group of very well-connected insiders who invested in small start-ups, took those companies public and reaped the rewards. It was a glorious and wonderful time. It gave us The Internet. And the Internet has changed our lives. And yes, that accomplishment should be rewarded.
But there was a fair amount of cheating as you might expect when a small group of very smart people realize that they can game a complex and seemingly opaque system because the rules haven't quite caught up them. The cheating and the attitude about cheating ("everybody does it") was - and to some extent is still - the problem.
When I worked as a business columnist for one of the local papers here in Silicon Valley, it was understood that the SEC simply didn't have the resources to evaluate, check or even investigation suspicions about public offerings made by tech companies. It was taken for granted that the cautionary statements included in the boilerplate in the SEC documents were sufficient to warn investors. After that, the market would measure whether a company was succeeding or failing and investors would react accordingly. You buy the stock, you take a risk. End of conversation.
The market, many said, was the ultimate arbitrator. Insiders - start-up CEOs, venture capitalists, seed investors - couldn't help it if the market raised stocks to 10 or 20 times the pre-IPO value. They couldn't restrain the public's appetite for these shares; the market made their stock, purchased for pennies, worth dollars. That was just the way things were and everybody understood it. When the tech bubble had collapsed, a lot of people who had believe the promise of the Internet lost a lot of money but in the end, the SEC shrugged. The market had prevailed.
Well, a few million home foreclosures later (everybody, it seems, was also lying on their mortgage applications) and the government is not shrugging anymore. The days of regulatory oversight are coming to the valley. Which is why Jobs failing health is such an apt metaphor. I'm not predicting the death of innovation or the wholesale regulation of the venture capital business but I won't be surprised at all to see the idea floated. Some venture funds hold hundreds of millions of dollars from their limited partners, unions, pension funds and public university endowments. Besides, it's been clear for some time that the practices of the banks that the valley depends on for its paydays - those multi-million dollar trips to the stock market known as public offerings - are going to be tightly overseen, regulated and controlled.
Like it or not, like Apple's ailing CEO, tech companies born and bred in Silicon Valley are going to have to answer a lot of tough questions. Their privacy - which is really nothing more than their sense that they and only they know what's best - is going to have to become a bit less opaque. Their firms are going to have to run cleaner; their investors are going to have to disclose more. Total control - the ability to ignore or worse, bully, the government - is gone.
As painful as it is to see him so frail and ill, Steve Jobs, raised in the anything-goes atmosphere of the valley is in sickness, as he was in health, the embodiment of the place and it's thinking. That's one reason why so many are fixated on his health; why no one will let him alone. There is often no tangible reward for those who are smarter better or faster; for some things there is no inside track, and in the end, we all face the same fate.
It's only a slight exaggeration to say that Silicon Valley is complete binary in its passions. It's only feels like it's either fully on or fully off. But when it comes to politics, that statement rings more true that it does with others. And right now, the valley is fully "on" for Obama.
The fact that the president-elect has a Blackberry habit almost as bad as his nicotine addition (and harder to break) adds to the allure. It's not just that Obama "gets" the Internet and the culture it's created; he uses it. And clearly, to judge from his campaign, he likes it.
This has led to all sorts of silly conversations, mostly about the job of "chief technology officer". With breathless enthusiasm, the names of some of the smartest folks in town have been mentioned. Google's Vint Cerf (aka "father of the Internet") or its CEO Eric Schmidt. Even more ridiculous: Bill Joy or Stanford professor Larry Lessig. It's been suggested that the job was cabinet-level, meaning the CTO would be in touch with the president regularly.
Yes. Well. All these suggestions assume that the CTO job within the U.S. government will be akin to the CTO job within a high tech start-up. The job held by the guy who is either the founder or the inventor who turned the founder's ideas into real products, thereby changing the world - for the better, of course.
The U.S. CTO will be a similar visionary, goes the thinking. Someone who can convince the government to change copyright laws, create and enforce net neutrality, put all government records on the Internet, create email accounts for all bureaucrats, and make Congress put its proceedings on-line. A miracle worker, in other words. But no administration needs a room full of visionaries; it only needs one. And we elected him in November.
Which is why U.S. CTO job is probably going to go to someone who knows how to run something. Something big. Like a large high tech company with a history of buying, developing, refining and commissioning software and hardware for its employees. If Cisco CEO John Chambers weren't a Republican, he'd be perfect. Assuming he'd take the pay cut. For my money, the speculation about John W. Thompson - recently retired (!) CEO of Symantec and one of Silicon Valley's few African-American executives - is closer than any of the "Internet famous" visionaries' names being bandied about.
The reality is that the Internet infrastructure the U.S government uses has been built with the 20th Century equivalent of paperclips, bubble gum and duct tape. Various agencies have gone their own way in getting on the web and the confusion is a little bit like what happened when the airlines started selling tickets on-line. There was the system the company used; the system customers used and God-only-knows what else in the middle. Like the old SABRE system, the government needs help. Badly. And that's what the U.S. CTO is probably going to end up doing.
That doesn't mean the job isn't going to be important. It just means it's not going to be West Wing glamorous. It can't be. Can you imagine the breathless drama over the ordering of another 1,000 Apache servers to, for instance, get the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement division up and running on the web so inspectors can share maps, photos, reports and information as seamlessly as they do at say, Boeing? Hmmm. You're not staying up past 10 p.m. to watch that an neither am I, even if it is on Hulu.com.
What many of the folks new to politics - and this is Silicon Valley - forget is that the U.S. government can move markets by purchasing to somewhat dramatic effect. Quietly. Over time. A government purchase can create a de facto standard not just for the feds but for state and local governments. Getting government procurement agents to realize that all software doesn't come from Redmond is one part of this process of changing how the government sees the Internet. So is the idea that off-the-shelf might just work for their needs. And "open source" doesn't mean stolen; it can, in fact, mean low-cost and reliable.
That change will push a lot of money into the tech sector. It will foster a lot of low-key innovation and, by the end of the next four years, it will probably give us a lower-cost, more efficient federal government.
All these are obvious ideas to anyone with a working knowledge of how the mechanics of the Internet actually function. But for many many people in government agencies, this is news. The reality is that a working on-line presence - internal and external - doesn't cost very much money and may, in a few short years, save the government a lot of money is one that I'm betting you'll hear the Obama administration start touting in a big loud voice. It only makes sense.
But these initiatives won't be announced in the Rose Garden while Obama's Silicon Valley faithful look on with delight at how the Internet is now cool. They'll be rolled out without a lot of fanfare as part of the way a restructured U.S. government should work. And if the U.S. CTO is successful there will soon be little difference between the folks who "get it" and those who never thought there was anything to "get" in the first place.
Amazing isn't it? The Obama administration is pretty much in place and no where - no where - was anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's name even considered for Secretary of Defense! And how is it that anti-poverty activist Jeffery Sachs wasn't asked to run the Treasury Department? As for Noam Chomsky - I find it incredible that he was overlooked to run the state department. And how is it that Rep. Barbara Lee languishes in Congress instead of being sent to the U.N.? Or that President-elect Obama hasn't taken the time to throw his support behind Sen. Al Franken's election?
I'm joking of course. None of these quasi-academics or gadflies are even interested in joining the administration. But the point - that President-elect Obama is no liberal - is increasingly obvious. Obama is a politician and a good one; probably better than the much-praised Bill Clinton. Unlike Clinton, Obama's got almost everyone except his foresworn enemies in the tent.
How'd he do it? Well, unlike pretty much every other Democrat running for the White House, Obama drew and kept drawing a stark distinction between his campaign and the current White House. George W. Bush is so disliked that anything different was going to seem better. Obama was really different so he, by extension, had to be a whole lot better.
Many of the assumptions made about this administration - it's tilt to the left - were made not, I suspect on anything Obama said but more on a set of assumptions made about one policy stance. His opposition to the Iraq war was hailed as proof of his hard-core liberalism. As Vice President Al Gore made it clear he would not run and as the Democratic left looked long and hard for a suitable candidate, it settled on Obama because of his opposition to the war and the color of his skin.
Liberals used to love Obama because he wasn't Hillary Clinton, who voted in favor of the war and spoke no nonsense about pulling out tomorrow. Then, about three-quarters of the way through the campaign they started loving Obama 'cause he was against the war and is black. Even bobbles like Obama's support for a Bush Administration eavesdropping measure only created minor outrage which quickly died down.
Why? A black man, figured the lefties, will stand up for their values, representing and supporting any and all "Liberal" causes. This is a new version of what conservatives like to call the "soft bigotry of lowered expectations." Only, of course, the expectations in the minds of the hard-core left aren't "lower" they're "higher" as in morally superior.
So much of the campaign against that ballot initiative assumed that Obama's supporters - whites, gays, minorities - all thought the same on all issues and would, of course, vote against the same-sex marriage ban. Democratic turn-out was expected to be high; Obama would win the state, Prop. 8 would be defeated.
Only that's not how things turned out. Prop 8 passed and much of its support came from minorities opposed to the very idea in part because of their religion or the teachings of their churches. (Disclosure: Spot-on's Pinpoint Persuasion Ad Network did some work for "No on 8" but was not involved in any strategy or campaign decisions).
Fast forward to the inaugural where Rick Warren, the evangelical preacher, has been asked to say the invocation at Obama's swearing-in. Like a lot of evangelicals and political conservatives, Warren has likened gay marriage to child abuse and molestation; his views on same-sex relationships are hardly liberal, let alone tolerant.
Still, his speaking at the Inaugural is a bit of fancy foot-work on the part of the president-elect. It's a bit of a returning-a-favor since Obama was asked to appear - and did well - at Warren's Saddleback church, in a showcase designed to speak to the religious right. It's a little bit of a wink to the black church and Rev. Jermiah Wright whose pulpit shenanigans created such a distraction for the Obama campaign over the summer. Controversial preachers come in all flavors, now don't they? The invitation is also a nice bit practical politics, bordering on the cynical. Obama's playing to a crowd that he took special care in his victory speech to single out and ask for support of his presidency.
All of which means that Barack Obama is one skilled politician. But unlike former President Bill Clinton, Obama's working on getting the folks who aren't in the tent inside. He's let his supporters make assumptions about what he'll actually do with the understanding that he's a raging lefty so that group has almost no where to go - now that he's elected. More importantly, unlike the Clinton administration, the left didn't hold its nose and vote for Obama. They got behind him and, for better of worse, they're going to stay there.
Whether Obama actually manages to do accomplish his stated goal - turning his detractors into supporters - remains to be seen. But it's gonna be fun to watch.
It's been a lot of fun watching Silicon Valley this past election year. It's quite a contrast to political apathy and almost religious faith in free markets - think Ayn Rand with a laptop - that once carried the day.
The realization that things around here had changed came when finance, tech folks, start-up CEOs and reporters watching Obama's victory speech said, almost in unison: "Hey look, Sam Perry's on TV .... with Jesse Jackson? And Oprah!"
Even though he's going to raise their taxes by a lot, Silicon Valley went for Obama in a big, big way. And Sam Perry - a former reporter, an investor and advisor to start-ups (even this one!) - was part of that effort. So was Netscape founder Marc Andreessen who's taking credit for introducing Obama to the wonders of social networks.
It's a change, make no mistake about that. Ten years ago as tech people and their financiers began to understand the reach and depth of the Internet, there was a lot of talk about how states would become less influential. There was a lot of babbling over at places like Wired magazine about how the web was going to give rise to individual action that would, eventually, do away with the need for government and nations.
One of the more articulate folks on this point was Avram Miller, then an executive at Intel and one of the smarter thinkers about where that company was headed. This year Miller has been a strong advocate of Barack Obama's presidency. Which seems like it's a contradiction. If you believe the state is less important, why do you care who runs the place?
"I don't know that I've changed my mind," says Miller. "For me this wasn't so much about politics," he said of the recent election. "It's was very simply good people versus bad people." Miller also makes another observation about Obama's candidacy that shows him to be a member of the "one-man" school of historiography. "The right person has to have the right situation. But the right situation doesn't create the right person."
The high minded talk of the valley's intellgentsia - and Millers' a member in good standing - is usually reflected in how it conducts business. Make no mistake: there are practical aspects to all this enthusiasm. Silicon Valley has long been a cash register for the Democratic party but it's leadership has often been happy to limit itself to that role: a dinner, a fundraiser and getting to drop the Leader of the Free World's name in conversation. This time, they're after bigger game.
Recently powerhouse venture capitalist John Doerr, suggested to his fellow Harvard Business alums that DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - be returned to its original purpose. Doerr's idea was that DARPA, which created and fostered the initial growth of the Internet, could do something similar for "green" technology.
In other words, Doerr would like the U.S. government to get back in the business of incubating start-ups. They may well need the help. The credit crunch has hit many of these operations hard. When it comes to this new class of investment, there's no such thing as "virtual." Companies need to borrow money to finance construction and development of physical things.
Talk of the "green New Deal" that the Obama administration may create - public spending for the development and construction of clean energy source like turbine farms, solar panel displays - would amount to something of a bailout for firms like Doerr's that have invested in these companies. So would the administration's decision to lift federal funding bans on stem cell research. Both would funnel a river of money to high tech companies.
That's not necessarily bad. But it's different. And while many of those intimately involved in this volte face are going to insist that that they haven't changed their outlooks or approach - the market is still the market, politics is still a dirty business, entrepreneurs are still marvels of independent thought and action - those of us who have watched politics for a long time know better.
The Bush administration outraged men in the valley like Miller who place a great premium on competence. Obama's candidacy was able to capture their imagination and his intelligence gave them faith that he'd actually do a good job. But that still doesn't mean the valley loves politics. "Politics has really become a means to its own ends," says Miller. "I think most politicians are disgusting. I just thin of them as guys who's primary mission in life it to get elected."
That's exactly right, of course. You can't get anything done unless you're in office. But what about the idea - one hardly original - that an involved electorate, voters who care, will elected better, more suitable politicians? Well, says Miller, perhaps. "I find it difficult to argue with that."
Let's be clear: If Sen. Barack Obama is not elected president tomorrow it will indeed be because he's black.
It won't be because he's not tough enough - that's a euphemism that questions Obama's judgement and suggests that the color of his skin makes his thought process somehow inadequate. And it won't be because he's a "graduate student" - that's a jab that implies that Obama's not really that smart - he can't be, he's black.
No, if Obama loses it will be because a large number of Americans can't bring themselves to vote for a man with dark skin. They may feel Obama is not "ready" - code, like all these other phrases, for "not a white person we can trust". They may not like the idea of a First Lady - silly title, really - who is very dark-skinned and "angry" - which is how whites often describe black folks who aren't obviously grateful for the "opportunities" they've had.
Each of these euphemisms ignores a simple fact: African-Americans who have done well at the nation's top law firms, its Ivy League universities, its corporate boardrooms have had to demonstrate perseverence, judgement, diplomacy, intelligence and toughness and fortitude. More so, much more so, than their white counterparts.
That's on top of the the obvious insults. For the past few days, the Republican Trust Political Action Committee has been airing a television commercial here in San Francisco that neatly sums up all the criticism of Obama, imagined and otherwise. It claims Obama's "power base" was built in the church run by Rev. Jeremiah Wright and accompanied by pictures - and some audio - of Rev. Wright talking about the "KKK" and "god-damn" America. The ads end: "Barack Obama, too radical, too risky."
What's interesting about this ad isn't what it says - same old, same old from a political party that's happily scared the daylights out of white folks for a generation - it's where it's running. San Francisco is one of the most liberal cities in the U.S. But it is not a white city; it's Asian, mostly Chinese. The ad I've described is aimed at instilling fear in those immigrants, taking a racist stereotype that many may know and imposing in on a man they may not.
It's scurilous, it's racist and well, it tells you what many, many people really think about Obama. The Wright ads are a slightly more sophisticated version of the scenario concocted by that Texas college student who dreamed up an attack by a tall black man who was supposed enraged by her John McCain bumper sticker. The subtext: Be afraid of Obama because, given the chance, black people will inflict deliberate harm on whites out of anger, jealousy or revenge.
This nonsense is not confined to the stupid or the politically naive. How else can you explain the speculation that Gen. Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama was motivated by racial solidarity? Or silly Monica Crowley's dismay that Jet and Ebony magazines had gotten better treatment on the Obama campaign plane than writers from the New York Post and Washington Times? This nonsense is nothing more than a variation on another theme: It is very hard for people of different races to truly see one another but, for crying out loud, they don't all think alike.
This is one ugly mirror of race relations in this country, a mirror that not very many white folks like to look at. Which is something that - if Obama does win - will start to change.
Everyone has their shopping list on this one. My great hopes is that Obama's election will do away with a lot of nonsensical chatter about "post-racial." This is a stupid phrase that's code for "do they know?" as in "Does Michelle know she's the only black woman in the room?" The answer to that question is obvious: If you were the only white woman in a room of African-Americans would you "know"?
"Post racial" is how people in power describe a world they think welcomes black folks. This is a world that many of them - as Time columnist Joe Klein put it awkwardly - don't really understand. With reason. The most amusing thing about the Charlie Rose show where Klein made his comments was also the most appalling. In an election year that has seen two historic candidacies, a black man and a white woman run hard for the Democratic Party's nomination and break our concept of what it means to be a successful politician, Rose' guests, all talented journalists from "major" outlets, were all men and they were all white. I guess the "qualified" female commentators are still bitterly weeping over Sen. Clinton's loss so they didn't have time for Rose. And, of course, the black reporters are all on the Obama campaign plane, reveling in their new found status.
This would be a very different election if, as Obama has suggested, this country had a conversation about race and race relations and not just between white guys talking to themselves about themselves. Events - the stock market crash first and foremost - have taken the urgency of that exchange off the table. But in a nation where whites will soon be a large minority, not a majority, it's one that's needed, regardless of who wins tomorrow.
It's always hard to watch when politicians and business people collide - and they almost always collide - because their frames of reference are so, well, far apart. Wall Street punishes to the maximum, as my friend Andy Kessler likes to remind us. And it usually does so quickly. In Washington, well, punishment is often meted out slowly, sometimes years after the initial offense. And politicians reinvent themselves all the time - without any ticker to display a record.
But whenever there's a collision, there are winners and losers; the windshield, the bug and all that. It's always sort of fun to sort the sides out. And, just for today, we're going to leave President George Bush out of this. At this stage, reciting the faults of this administration isn't just beating a dead horse, it's kicking a long-dead nag to the glue factory with steel-tipped boots.
So let's get started.
Big losers: Anyone who espouses "pay-as-you-go" as a mantra for sound fiscal management regardless of the undertaking. Most people who know - really know - how financial markets work know that the idea that businesses live strictly within their means - that they never, ever, ever spend more than they bring in - is a lot of nonsense.
Overnight borrowing - in one way or another - keeps things humming along and has for a while. No one really pays as they go - that's why you and I borrow money to buy houses and cars. And it's about time we all recognized this as a fact of economic life.
Loser: John McCain. He was supposed to call the Republican Party rank and file to a deal; getting the folks who wanted to disassociate themselves from President Bush. McCain didn't get the job done. And oh, yeah, he blew off David Letterman. That's worse than picking a fight with Murphy Brown. And would someone please call Katie Couric up and ask America's perkiest interviewer what Sarah Palin said - or didn't say - to call forth a look that can only be described as thinly disguised disgust on Couric's face?
Really Big Loser: Chris Cox, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission who's had to acknowledged that lax regulation - again - by his agency contributed to Wall Street's woes. If they'd been actually doing their jobs real disaster might have been avoided. Anyone working in Silicon Valley since the tech market crashed knows the commission hasn't been up to its job in for the past 10 years but it was Cox - a big fan of minimal government regulation - to oversee it being proven without any ambiguity.
Sure to be Sore Losers: The TV business press. Covering the stock market as though it were a football game isn't going to be as much fun - or as popular with shareholders - as covering a market that grows slowly. If you're name is Jim Cramer you might wanna think about a new outlet for your energies.
Which brings us to winners.
Long-term Winner: The buy-and-hold crowd. That's right, buying stock, holding on to it and watching it appreciate over oh, the life of your child, is coming back in a big way. Why do you think Warren Buffet's on a shopping spree? A market where transactions are overseen by the government is one that will more more slowly, more deliberately. And yes, I do want to say I told you so.
Winning Politiician: Rep. Barney Frank gets big time points for his negotiating skills, so much so that's probably a safe bet that he'll be the next Senator from Massachusetts. Frank's no diplomat - he's got a hair-trigger temper, particularly at 2 a.m. which is when he once took my head off - but he's determined, he's smart and he's been worried about the shadow banking system created on Wall Street since earlier this summer. He'll lead the re-regulation of financial markets next year and it'll be a set of hearings and investigations - and legislative drafting - worth watching.
Another winner: Barack Obama. A long career watching politics teaches that there are two things never worth second-guessing. One, the result of Supreme Court cases. Oral arguments are clues to what the justices may do but clues aren't decisions. The other are the results - the final take away - that voters have of debates. On Friday, I thought it was tied. Today, it's pretty clear that Obama's stateliness and calm was more impressive than McCain's short-hand Senate speak.
Possible huge winner: The U.S. Congress which, after eight years - and I'm being generous - of dithering, has finally grown a spine. They didn't do everything the Bush Administration to fix the mess that's Wall Street and they took their time about it. You might disagree with the outcome - this deal is taking way too long to get sorted out - but they're moving. Which bodes well. The SEC isn't the only thing that needs fixing (two words: health care) and now that Congress has got the hang of this decision-making stuff they're supposed to do, well, we might actually have a government. You know, back and forth, balance of power and all that.
You get a sense Congress thinks so, too. Why? They're pushing back. Go find the clip of Rep. Marcy Kaptur chastising a CNBC reporter as he accuse her of voting to bring down the U.S. economy: "You're very anxious, I can hear your voice there,' says Kaptur who gave one of the better speeches - as a Democrat - for why she voted against the Wall Street rescue plan. "For the sake of the country and even the sake of the markets I think you should operate prudently and with a little bit of calm in your voice today. What we want to do is be responsible not just for what happens on Wall Street but what happens to the American tax payer generations hence."
Which is, in the end, what we pay them to do.
When they attend tomorrow's ceremony for the 9/11 bombings, it's a safe bet it will be the last time Presidential nominees Barack Obama and John McCain behave decently toward one another. This election year is starting to feel like it's going to be one of the nastier campaigns on record.
This is a year where the sexist and racist stereotypes we all share are going to get folded, bent and mutilated in ways that will offend each and every one of us at one point or another. Americans discuss their differences in code and this may well be the year when the code get deciphered in some new ways for new audiences.
It's not just the pit bull in lipstick as Republican Vice Presidential contender Sarah Palin calls herself. And it's not Obama's use of that timeworn phrase "lipstick on a pig". Hey, Barry, Iowa was last year. We're past pigs now. Or we were until Alaska's governor decided to crack wise about how tough she is. Oh, wait, Palin was joking - no offense meant, governor. No, you're not pig-like at all. If I were going to insult you, I'd probably have used the gender-specific "sow."
The real problem here is the seeming closeness in the campaign's goals and the ways in which they are articulating their messages for large groups of voters.
That's not to say that Obama and McCain have the same ideas for how to run the country. They don't. But their campaigns are pitching very similar messages to a very small group of voters: Vote for change. Change in health care, change in the economy, change in how the nation does business - at home and abroad.
That's not exactly a hugely original strategy for either party. Voter disgust with the way Washington claims to "work" is high. So high that the largest political party in the country is "none of the above," a group that in four years has gone from about 7 percent of registered voters to just about 20 percent.
"None of the above" are often called "independent" voters and this year they've got the election in their hands. And, of that group of independent voters, women are considered a key voting block, making up about 60 percent of the "none of the above" faction. And women decide late. Which is campaign-speak for "they change their minds. dammit."
So why does that mean things will get nasty?
Lots of politicians think the best way to get women to vote one way or another is to scare them then offer them the welcoming broad shoulder of security and authority. It worked for George Bush. You may not have thought you were a "security Mom" until you took one look at John Kerry on a windsurfer.
Other girl-baiting tactics include hiring women and making a big fuss about it. The Republicans are very, very good at this. Two examples: Sandra Day O'Connor, first women to sit on the Supreme Court, and, today, Sarah Palin. Of course, Sarah Palin couldn't shine O'Conner's shoes but that could easily devolve into a trivial argument about, "qualifications" and, well, a lot of women - paging Hillary Rodham Clinton - find that conversation offensive.
But "qualifications" is a word that often sums up our ideas about race. For years, the white folk who run corporate America have bemoaned the absence of "qualified" black applicants. They'd love to hire more African-Americans, they'd say, but none who are qualified apply. This while they hire their best friends' sons - white kids - for the mailroom and other entry-level jobs.
"Qualified" is a word that many white folks use to say "well, he's not like us" and that's very much the subtext of the talk about Obama's ability to lead. It's not lost on the candidate or his family.The fashion rags have already noted Michelle Obama's dress - conservative, stylish and Jackie-Kennedy like - and it's comfort factor. Tall, lanky and dark-skinned, Michelle Obama is dressing to reassure people that she's not Angela Davis. It's only kinda of working as The New Yorker slyly observed.
Which brings us to the last subtext: race. Using a black man to scare white voters, particularly women (Security Moms!) is a tried and true tactic. It's kept the South Republican for a generation. It got George H.W. Bush elected. And it may well work for McCain's campaign. The tactic backfired on Clinton, mostly because she was sloppy in her language and a little too-straightforward about her appeal to white men who don't wanna take orders from a black man. But it may well work - with a chilling effectiveness - for some talented McCain surrogate.
Which begs a question: Where is Ann Coulter? And why has she been so quiet so long?
