Slow is Better….

If you want a quick lesson in how communications have changed all you need do is look at the Primaries….

Well, in the course of one caucus and one election, back to back, it looks like we’ve lost all of the experienced candidates…with the decision by Richardson to back away. As he said, it’s hard to campaign when you’re outspent ten to one…

That’s one question we need to deal with. Under the present system, it forces all of the candidates to spend most of their time not talking about what they see for the country and how they will change things but, instead, fund-raising!.....and there’s something viscerally wrong with that!....

But the fact remains, the democratic contenders are falling like flies even before ½ of 1% of the votes have been totaled.

Woops! There goes Joe; woops again! There goes Dodd—too bad, both good guys who lost because they were associated with the past and the mess that is Washington.

What does one make of that.

Of course, the younger generation only know the value of speed; perhaps I’m more like the Slowskys (Comcast commercial?) and find that too much speed is kind of a precursor to saying things we didn’t mean without adequate contemplation….

And once said, criticism and bad answers are hard to put aside.

Hey, in case anybody’s interested, the old days are looking better and better.

In those days, the candidates were really concerned with meeting the voters and trying to oblige them; that came from the old precincts and the smoke filled rooms where you had to serve or you didn’t get the support of the party….

And, overall, they proved to be pretty human….

What’s more, I don’t think the old polls made too many bad decisions: We always got a president who cared about the country and the people with maybe the exception of Hoover who thought that by doing nothing, he would be doing something.

And certainly he was an expert in “doing nothing” to address the problems of the people; because it took Roosevelt to change the mess he left.

But it was also an opportunity for Roosevelt to start to put into effect the ideas of an old New York Dem named Al Smith and get us out of the Depression. I don’t suspect too many of you are around who remember how bad those days really were….
Too bad, we don’t’ have somebody with that kind of vision today; America could sure use it. In fact, I don’t think I heard one idea come out of the republicans in I don’t know how many forums. So, if they get the nod—which at this point seems to defy all odds-- you can count on things staying basically the same, if that’s possible.


In the old days, it would take weeks to see what happened at the Convention at the local theatre; now everything is instaneous—including a rush to judgment.

It seems that if it doesn’t happen fast, it’s not worthwhile.

And in the process, thought seems to suffer.

Maybe it would be good idea for the Media to put away all of the Talking Heads editorials for a couple of days to see whether they still make sense in the clear light of dawn. Most of them seem top of the head responses that tend to poison the well rather than adding meaningful clarity….

It’s like the old Saturday Night Live bit with the shooting of Buckwheat (from Our Gang) where Chevy Chase has to fill the time by saying something but he doesn’t know what to say….so it’s always another way of saying that “Buckwheat was shot today.” Funny but all too often, true..

Anyway, the Primary has boggled the mind. .

And, by the way, whatever happened to Dennis? Did Fox tie him up and feed him to the wolves? Or was that ABC? It’s amazing how drunk with power the media gets when their franchise is simply to provide equal and fair access to entertainment and the news.

Certainly, censorship is not among the powers ceded them by the FCC Act of 1934.

Who knows? It would surprise me considering that crew who will do anything to create the headlines of destruction….

It just shows you how fast things move these days.


In the old days, too, if you didn’t go to the Convention or lived in one of the first Primary states, it wasn’t often you got to see a candidate in the flesh.

In those days, the candidates would get on a train and travel around the country that way stopping off a predesignated sites along the way.

I think Eisenhower was the first president to fly and until Wilson and TR, no president had ever traveled abroad…

Of course, their movements were covered assiduously by the media. In those days, there were hundreds of different magazines and newspapers covering every aspect of the candidate plus the news on radio which was much more thorough than it is today.

We got to know the candidates as well as we knew ourselves…

However, the Gray Lady was still the doyen of all newspapers and if the Times didn’t print it, it wasn’t worth printing….at least in the English language papers….

I was raised on Murrow and CBS Morning News plus the evening news programs with Huntley Brinkley, and Walter Kronkite.

And of course, there was the voices of the Drew Pearson and Robert Trout and the inimitable Kaltenborn on at night who analyze what happened that day in his deep, stenorous tones….

You couldn’t escape the news even if you wanted to….

Looking at the Republican side of the Primary, it looks like we have a few winners: McCain in New Hampshire, Huckabee in Iowa and the irrepressible Romney always in second place. Paul had a strong showing in the polls and has raised lots of money.
Rudy seems invisible. Rudy who?

So, far most of the republicans have stayed with it except Tancredo who quit before things got hot and Hunter was kind of written off as a non-vote getter by the arbitrary lords at Fox & Company….

Too bad for democracy….

And they really came down hard on Paul at tonight’s so called debate.

McCain is still patting himself on the back for being a stand up guy. In the end, his leadership credentials are somewhat exaggerated when you think of what he stood for or accomplished. He didn’t change anything Rumsfeld did that I can recall and, mostly, he seemed largely ineffectual—too willing in the end to play the right wing game.

But if one looks at the specifics, McCain always played the good soldier. And he may speak out, but he always can be counted for falling in line again. .

And what were his solid credentials?. It seems all he talks about is the Surge and how he promoted it. Think about it. That Surge wouldn’t have been needed at all if Bush sent in enough troops in the first place. Am I not right? Where was he then when it would have made a difference.

Anyway, this is my stream of conscious for the morning.

Today, no problems were solved; more soldiers died in Nam and we lost some good candidates.

That’s all, folks.

Les Aaron
The Committee for Positive Change
hubmaster@aol.com