Richardson On Obama, Beards and Toby Keith

From Esquire, an interview with Bill Richardson, Obama's choice for commerce. I liked the beard too.

After the campaign, I grew a beard as a rebellion against those consultants who told me I had to comb my hair, shave, lose weight. I said, You know, I’m gonna do what I want now. That was a good feeling.

I named my horse after Toby Keith because I really like the guy. Genuine—that’s Toby Keith. One of the great things about him is that during dinner he’ll start singing a song. Right there. Not to perform, but to tell you what he was feeling the particular day that he wrote it.

As I’m chatting with Obama, the moderator says, “Governor Richardson, what do you think of that?” And I look at him like a deer in the headlights. I was about to say that I hadn’t heard, when Obama puts his hand over his mouth and says, “Katrina.” So I gave my four-point plan on Katrina. When I was done and the debate moved on, I looked over and said, “Thanks, you’re okay.” He said, “Nothing to it, brother.”

My mother used to insist that I go to confession almost every day when I was a kid. I’d say, “This is absurd! Let’s do it every three days. Give me time to sin!”

Some Lack Money to Evacuate New Orleans

Update: 90% evacuated. Wow.

Update 8-29: Bush urges evacuation. He and Cheney pass on convention.

  

Lack of money shouldn't prevent evacuation. This is what Obama means when he criticizes Bush for the "ownership society," as in you're on your own. Too poor. Too bad.
McCain uses it as a campaign stop. A recount of McCain's Katrina history.

CNN: "You gotta make as much money as you can, because when we shut down -- and we're gonna shut down -- that's it for a long while," the 26-year-old said, exhaling, a dribble of sweat rolling into his mouth.

"The thing is," he continued, "most people don't have cars to leave, don't have money for gas. Pay for a hotel for that long? I mean, you have to do whatever you have to do, and I guess I'm gonna stay and work."

Though Maspero wasn't doing half the business it usually does, customers were still coming in for $2 clam buckets. A few packs of tourists, identifiable by their slightly off-kilter walk and gigantic hot pink test tubes of booze, ambled down St. Louis Street, peeking into bars and asking, "You still open?"

Most were, up until the hour that Mayor Ray Nagin told the public to run for their lives.

"It's the storm of the century," he said.

What really happened in New Orleans.

No Way, No How Will McCain Win

mccain is running around with the poor people making a media play. but he's not fooling anyone. i don't recall hearing mccain's voice of outrage against the treatment of katrina victims when the event happened, so when he passionately says that the ineptitude and injustice that was katrina will never happen again, that's nice to say, but where were you when it mattered?

mccain is appearing more like a bumble. as soon as he's up against obama, he's going down quickly. voters are getting smart. they're getting smart about politicians and the media.

mccain is weak on the economy. his gas tax holiday is hokey. extending bush's tax cuts for wealthy americans shows he's out of step with america. anything that's related to george bush is not going to fly. bush has simply been the worst president in recent history, and he's completely oblivious to that fact, which makes us more revolted.

mccain's only perceived strength, if you want to call it that, is national security, but i think more americans are becoming aware that we've been snowed on the iraq war. we know that being secure is about more than running around country to country, picking a fight. it's about diplomacy.

the republicans think that war is a given, that we will always be in iraq. the bottom line is that iraq has always been about oil and not a whole lot more.

john mccain can laugh about arugula and whole foods now (since i don't have health insurance, mccain, that's the way i stay healthy), but he's going to be up against a strong candidate, barack obama, a public fed up with bush, and a more politically savvy and engaged public.

frank rich at the nyt says mccain's turn is coming:

Mr. McCain is not only burdened with the most despised president in his own 71-year lifetime, but he’s getting none of the seasoning that he, no less than the Democrats, needs to compete in the fall. Age is as much an issue as race and gender in this campaign. Mr. McCain will have to prove not merely that he can keep to the physical rigors of his schedule and fend off investigations of his ties to lobbyists and developers. He also must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It’s not pretty.

Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.

The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.

The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings.