US Elections

Department of extremely wonky memorabilia

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

7 February 2012

Being Australian, I was never one for baseball cards, but I do remember a brief craze for basketball trading cards sweeping my primary school in the mid '90s. I didn't care even slightly about the NBA, but I dutifully collected the miniature portraits of players like Hakeem Olajuwon and Dikembe Mutombo, complete with statistics on the reverse that managed the unusual feat of being even more incomprehensible than sports statistics usually are. (Honestly, I was more interested in the fancy team logos and the names of the distant cities they represented than the basketballers themselves.)

I tell this story, because, for the first time in close to two decades, I want to get back into the card collecting hobby. I mean, check out this Rick Santorum!

It's not a mock-up. These things actually exist! Reports Beckett News (h/t Buzzfeed):

Upper Deck has joined the political fray with trading cards featuring many of the Republican candidates such as Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. In addition, UD also created a Barack Obama card to be included in this insert set that will be found in World of Sports.

World of Sports is scheduled be released on Feb. 21 with the World of Politics nine-card insert set inside. World of Politics cards should fall at an average of 1:40 hobby packs with even rarer variations of each card.

If anyone has a Herman Cain collectors card in good condition, I'd be willing to swap three Scottie Pippens and a Shaquille O'Neal from back when he played for Orlando Magic. I figure if I can get a real collectors market going on, Upper Deck might indulge me by releasing trading cards for all 535 members of Congress.

After the jump, see the full set.

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Blogbook: February 6, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

6 February 2012

• A new study shows that Obama has governed as a moderate, says Paul Krugman.
• Jennifer Rubin declares Newt Gingrich's campaign to be finished.
• Whether the US is in decline depends on what decline means, says Michael Beckley.
• Stephen Marche hails the esteemed tradition of the Super Bowl commercial.
• Cord Jefferson defends Los Angeles.

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A thing I really like about NBC's "Parks and Recreation"

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

6 February 2012

In American film and television, the Big City is always New York or Los Angeles. Cities in the flyover states, even ones with metro populations of one to two million, are considered podunk towns in the same way everywhere in the flyover states is considered a podunk town. This is probably because film and television people usually live in New York or Los Angeles, and conflate “smaller than my city” with “small city.”

I've discussed before my fondness for NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation," which easily holds the title of funniest program on American TV right now. A small detail I appreciate about it: On this show, Indianapolis is always the Big City. The citizens of the show's fictional Midwestern small town of Pawnee, Indiana never talk about it as anything other than a major urban center, one with all the attributes connected with major urban centers: fast-paced lifestyles, cosmopolitan outlooks, au courant chic. I don’t know much about Indianapolis, though I do know it has a metropolitan area of 1.8 million people, making it slightly smaller than Brisbane. I expect it really does feel fairly urban.

Apparently it has “swanky lofts and modern wine bars” in some part of downtown, and today's Super Bowl has led to a construction boom:

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Blogbook: February 3, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

3 February 2012

• Eric Holder was grilled by Congress yesterday over the growing "gunwalking" scandal.
• The Komen/Planned Parenthood furore is more complex than it appears, finds Sarah Kliff.
• A new report finds racial segregation is declining. John McWhorter dissects its findings.   
• The Gingrich campaign in Nevada is a bit of a mess, reports Amy Gardner.
• Alex Pareene explains why it's too late for a new GOP presidential candidate to enter the race.

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Bigmouth strikes again

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

3 February 2012

Ah, Mitt Romney. If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd done it on purpose.

No sooner had I penned my most recent American Review column, all about the GOP frontrunner's knack for spouting unfortunately memorable phrases that reinforce the growing perception Romney is a man too wealthy to be in touch with the concerns of the average American, he came out with another one.

My list of the six things Mitt Romney should never have said is out of date. In his hall of shame, he now has a seventh:

The New York Times tells the story:

But Mr. Romney’s aides cannot always bring that well-known level of discipline to one crucial aspect of the campaign: their candidate’s seemingly endless ability to utter remarks that, to the delight of his critics, sail onto political blogs, YouTube and Twitter.

On Wednesday morning in an interview with CNN, Mr. Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” a sound bite that ricocheted around the Web and cable news channels, and which Mr. Romney felt the need to clarify with reporters as he flew to Minnesota.

For the record, here's the full quote:

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Blogbook: February 2, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

2 February 2012

• Nick Bryant recounts the history of declinist rhetoric from presidential candidates.
• The Mitt Romney-endorsed policy of "self-deportation" began as a joke, says Robert Mackey.
• Nate Berg lists the top five US cities for gang violence.
• Matt Yglesias on how the NFL uses trademark law to interfere with free speech.
• ?uestlove explains the social significance of recently deceased "Soul Train" host Don Cornelius.

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Blogbook: February 1, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

1 February 2012

• The GOP race isn't over, but the end is near, says Erick Erickson.
• Turnout was down in the Florida primary as compared to 2008, finds Nate Silver. 
• A cancer charity parts ways with Planned Parenthood. Jezebel smells anti-abortion influence. 
• Republicans won't have a problem with Romney's Mormonism, predicts Rick Perlstein. 
• Racialicious examines the subtext of the Jan Brewer/Barack Obama confrontation.

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Blogbook: January 31, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

31 January 2012

• Spending by outside groups on political ads is up 1600 per cent since 2008.
• Ezra Klein explains why Bill Clinton isn't polarising.
• Spencer Ackerman catalogues Newt Gingrich's zeal for military aggression.
• The Muppets vs. Fox News.
• Donovan Strain pinpoints the exact date of Ice Cube's "Good Day"

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I don't mean to brag, but...

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

31 January 2012

...we know our stuff here at the US Studies Centre.

This past Saturday, the Sydney Morning Herald asked four people whether politics has "finally moved beyond the personal." The evidence of this purported cultural shift? Newt Gingrich's victory in the South Carolina Republican primary, where he won over a socially conservative electorate despite his multiple marriages and reports that he'd asked an ex-wife for an open relationship.

"Politcians tax us too much, spend our money wastefully and regulate our lives," demagogued "The Libertarian," a.k.a. the Instittute of Public Affairs's James Paterson. "So why do we spend so much time worrying about their personal lives instead of the things that really matter?" Gingrich's success, he posited, was "one piece of evidence that American voters have moved beyond the personal." Voters have moved on, even if the media hasn't.

"The Feminist," Kate Gleeson pointed out, not unreasonably, that the public is more forgiving of the male and heterosexual Gingrich's indiscretions than they might be of a woman or gay man. "The Former Politician" Cheryl Kernot used the forum to urge legislators to restrict free speech by enhancing privacy laws, and and applauded one of Gingrich's self-serving attacks on the media.

Fortunately, "The Academic" — also known as the USSC's David Smith — was on hand to straighten things out:

The triumph of Newt Gingrich in South Carolina reminds us that the politics of the personal is as strategic as any other politics.

Moral outrage is not a natural phenomenon that occurs automatically in response to revelations about politicians' personal lives. It is a political weapon to be exploited or neutralised by those who best understand how to use it. No one understands better than Gingrich how outrage works in South Carolina.

America's "Red" states (conservative, Republican-voting) have higher average rates of divorce and birth out of wedlock than the supposedly more permissive "Blue" states. While conservatives insist on strict moral rules, they know they live in a morally complicated world. Everybody knows and loves people who have "fallen" at least once. Gingrich wants to appear as someone who has sinned and repented, and deserves the forgiveness everyone sometimes needs.

Moreover, he has successfully turned himself into a victim. When CNN's John King opened a debate with a question about Marianne Gingrich's claims that Newt had asked for an open marriage, he called the accusations "tawdry" and expressed outrage that the "elite media" would try to protect Barack Obama by attacking a leading Republican this way. This earned him a standing ovation; he had masterfully implied that an attack on him by his ex-wife was an attack on all conservatives by the vindictive liberal media. During the Obama presidency, Republicans have found no emotion more satisfying than victimhood.

Quite. Gingrich is a benefactor of circumstance and cultural affinity. Let us not forget that personal indiscretions recently claimed the careers of Demcoratic Congressmen Anthony Weiner and Mark Sanford, a Republican and the former governor of South Carolina. (Sanford, you may recall, went missing in the middle of 2009 when he was supposed to be hiking the Appalachian Trail. It turns out he had skipped off to Argentina to have an affair. Until then, he was expected to be competitive in this year's presidential primaries.)

After the jump, the rest of David's response.

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Blogbook: January 30, 2012

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney, Australia

30 January 2012

• American Review's James Fallows annotates the State of the Union speech.
• Tea Partiers in Florida like Rick Santorum best of the GOP nominees, reports Alexis Levinson.
• Politico interviews Harrison Tyler, the 84 year old grandson of tenth President John Tyler.
• Ta-Nehisi Coates asks if Ron Paul is right that the Civil War could have been avoided. (Pts II and III).
• Matt Gaffney figures out the most famous celebrities according to the New York Times crossword.

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