USEDCARSALESMAN

Hillary 2008

About 20 months ago, Usedcarsalesman wrote a piece on John Kerry in 2008. Recently, Kerry announced that he has decided not to run in 2008 (read: Democratic leaders approached Kerry and told him they were backing Hillary this go around, so he shouldn’t waste his time). This is unfortunate for Kerry. But, hey, leaders like Nixon and Reagan had plenty of setbacks on their way to the White House. Of course, Kerry is handicapped by being a Democrat – a party notorious for “moving-on” and dropping their Presidential nominees who don’t win on the first attempt. If Kerry was a Republican, 2008 might have been a different story for him. We'll see what he does in the future and how the public receives it.

In the same Kerry piece in 2005, however, Usedcarsalesman did suggest that Sen. Hillary Clinton would be making a run for the Presidency in 2008. And, sure enough, the Senator from New York has recently announced her candidacy.

Who else is out there in the Democratic field? Of course there’s Sen. Barack Obama from Illinois. But, other than the fact that his surname rhymes with “Osama” (of terrorist fame) and that he is a high- achiever like most in the United States Senate, Usedcarsalesman can’t think of much that makes him an obvious party front-runner. Is Obama’s candidacy possibly a strategic diversion employed by Democratic Party leaders to take some of the public heat off Hillary’s run – ie, make her candidacy seem positively conventional and ordinary?  Probably.

So let’s examine Hillary. Naturally, Usedcarsalesman thinks Hillary doesn’t stand a chance in hell, right? On the contrary, ‘Used’ think it’s her Republican opponent(s) who are going to be up sh*t’s creek.  For example, think back to how Hillary “worked” her Republican opponent, Rep. Rick Lazio, who she ran against for the NY Senate seat in 2000? Its now 2007 and Lazio’s still probably in a daze thinking, “Yeah, its ok that I lost – it was all worth it because, when we were debating on that news show, Hillary definitely acted like she had the hots for me. Sweet!”

Women don’t fight fair – especially public women of Hillary’s caliber. In the presidential race, she’ll probably charm her opposition and then rip their throats out. Voters will just sit there and applaud. And, to add insult to injury for Republicans, she’ll have the King of Escape Artists – former President Bill Clinton – to advise her every step of the way. Usedcarsalesman doesn’t see Bill Clinton as being particularly heavy political baggage for Hillary, as some people do.

Furthermore, Democratic strategists are correctly banking on the female vote to win Hillary the presidential election. Sure, let’s face facts, when it comes to opinions on Hillary, women can, shall we say, still be “diplomatic.” A pollster confronts a woman on the street and asks her if she’d vote for Hillary in 2008, the woman voter might say, “nah, don’t really like her, etc. etc.” But, when push comes to shove, when two years goes by and that same woman, say, deals with slight workplace harassment, a glass ceiling between her and a top management position, and a workplace culture for women that resembles early episodes of -The Office-, its going to be just she and her friend “Hillary” in the voting booth come 2008. What do you think’s going to happen?

The cherry on this is that Hillary represents New York State and NYC. Not a lot of campaign money to be raised there, right? Wrong.  She could probably campaign in the U.S. just on what she raises there. But, what about another New York fixture, ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, you say? Though Giuliani will put up a good fight versus Hillary, Usedcarsalesman thinks he is going to end up looking like a wobbling male character in the old Mortal Kombat games (watch link video and visualize a costumed Hillary as the victor in each match:) Hillary will probably then manipulate Giuliani in to becoming one of her strongest political supporters, just to show-off her real-life "FATALITY" skills. :)

Everybody’s thinking that Hillary is going to face the same problems that VP Candidate, Geraldine Ferraro faced in ’84. That a war vet, George Bush Sr.-type opponent is going to manage to walk all over her. The difference between Hillary and Ferraro is that VP candidate, Ferraro, had to be a team-player – always behind Presidential Candidate, Walter Mondale. As such, Ferraro was effectively a background singer who couldn’t outshine the lead and that really tied her hands. Hillary doesn’t have any of those problems. She is the “team” this go around - center-stage, totally unrestrained. So, the surprise may not be that Hillary gets elected a U.S. President in 2008. The surprise may be just how easy it was for she and Democrats to achieve.

Note Feb. 2, 2007: Usedcarsalesman thinks that it is quite possible that, just as in the 1994 Congressional elections, voters will temper any excessive "Clinton-ian" Presidential maneuvers, post-2008, by electing a Republican congress - this time in 2010 or 2012.

          

Note June 15, 2007: Fred Thompson is now seeking the Republican nomination.  He's a recognizable actor and a former U.S. Senator.  Republicans think the "actor" thing is going to make his appeal somwhat Reagan-like and it may be a sign of their desperation.  Got some bad news for Republicans: Mr. Thompson is probably a great guy, but he's got nowhere near the political mileage and endurance that Ronald Reagan demonstrated when he was finally elected in November 1980.   Reagan's work as an actor certainly added to his political talent.  But, by the time Reagan became U.S. President, he had clocked more years as a union leader, politician and candidate than as an actor.  Thompson, on the other hand, has 6 years in the Senate and just that campaign for office under his belt;  his other governmental experience as an attorney was important, but not elected work.  Will Thompson end up with the Republican nomination?  Probably.  The guy is way more interesting to watch than Giuliani, McCain, etc.  Will he beat Hillary in the general election?  Usedcarsalesman says No.

The State of Blogging, 2007 (Part II)

Journalists versus Bloggers: who works within a potentially better, more contemporary financial model?

Journalists who work for traditional print news organizations, such as The Washington Post, write their columns and are paid a salary. Perhaps they receive an employee discount when buying stock in the company or they may receive shares of stock as part of the terms of their employment contract. But, other than employee benefits, the aforementioned is the extent of their financial compensation.   

                                     

You might also correctly deduce that journalists with print news organizations write their articles and columns and those articles and columns are forever owned by the corporate news entity for who they work.  In the past, this may not have been such a bad thing, financially, for a journalist. They were salaried, they wrote one piece, moved on to the next one, and were happy being able to work at what they enjoyed doing.                                          

                     

Although, print newspapers might have had 100 years of old articles, they probably didn’t profit much from them. These articles might be archived, findable on Lexis/Nexis, perhaps rights fees paid to the print news corporation if the articles were used as part of a different company’s information services product.  However, the Web has, at least for the on-line version of the print publication, changed the financial model of the print newspaper. Past editions of the on-line version of the print newspaper are now on servers and the public can access articles in these past editions on the web, directly, for a small fee. Problem for journalists is, though rumor has it that such web-accessible archive services only account for a small percentage of a print news organizations revenue, does one who, say, wrote an article 15 years ago for such a print news organization see any percentage of the revenue from web archive fees? Nope.

It’s a little different for the Blogger. Unlike journalists at traditional print new outlets, individual bloggers are very much connected to ad revenue generated from previous articles, done last year, two years ago, or in some hypothetical future, 50 years ago. For example, a piece such as this one, 10 years from now will still likely be still be circulating on Google and other search engines. Ads will still probably be present on this article and every time a reader clicks on a content-matched, Ad-Sense-type ad aligned with the article, Usedcarsalesman will earn a small fee for it. As such, individual bloggers, like Usedcarsalesman, though nonsalaried, potentially enjoy ad revenue for every bit of writing they’ve done and do, from old to new. Best of all, this financial structure encourages bloggers to keep blogging, to stay in the game, to keep building on the work they’ve done in the past, because that work is potentially worth something on the web – the more of it there is, the more potential for ad revenue.

Will existing journalists leave large print news publications in favor of blogging?

As you can ascertain from the previous paragraph, Time is on Your Side as a Blogger. Yes, some journalists have already leveraged their names and experience working for a print news organization in order to enjoy the potential long-term, financial benefits of “owning” their writing on-line. Is that a jump prudent to make all at once? Probably not. Probably better to build a blog while you are still working for your old news organization and enjoying a salary, etc, doing something for a larger and larger blog readership over time until you can make a smoother financial transition.

But, is that possible to do, to blog while writing for a print news organization? Maybe, maybe not. Usedcarsalesman wouldn’t be surprised if a journalist’s employment contract requires that a journalist hire must clear the publication of any of their writing outside of the company with management of said company. This might preclude journalists from beginning to blog unless they had left the print news organization entirely - a potentially risky proposition.

But what about the kids who, in the past, might have planned to write for a print news organization as adults? Blogging since the age of 12, these once future print journalists might start earning ad revenue from their blog in their early teens, have a substantial body of work and readership built up by the age of 22, and might never feel a need to join a print news organization in order to earn a living as a journalist.

So, in 20 years, you think the print news organizations of the world could be dead, the young journalists who would have been their employees, instead opting to blog?

No, the print news organizations of the world won’t die. They may simply have to accept the sort of new, “space-suited” (By “space-suited,” I mean “receiving independent ‘life support,’” in a figurative sense, from blogging) young journalists who come there way. So, being an established blogger effectively puts the future, rank-and-file journalist in a potentially stronger position versus print news organizations. Such journalists will be able to negotiate with print news organizations from a stronger position, since they are coming in ‘owning’ their past work, receiving continuous ad revenue from this past work and are already read by substantial numbers around the world, apart from a news organization. Print news organizations in the future may have to respect the aforementioned reality and make potentially large concessions to young bloggers to, in some way, convince them to work for their news organizations.

Usedcarsalesman also thinks that the best bloggers may find it beneficial to organize within a large, specialized confederations that creates a synergy in terms of drawing readership, but enable each blogger to earn all the ad revenue associated with their work, old and new, on the site – perhaps, in return for a kick-back to the confederation. To some extent, organizations such as BlogCritics.com are such a confederacy of bloggers – there is a synergy created by it that makes it more likely that any given piece a blogger writes will be read. The site, Metroblogging.com, offers similar benefits to its world-wide participants. However, as for the bloggers on Blogcritics earning the ad revenue associated with their pieces – yeah, well never mind (of course, at this early stage, we are probably not talking really substantial revenue here).

OK, but what if the New York Times, The Washington Post, all print news organizations with on-line outlets, releases the contents of their archives on the web for free?

Won’t this flood the search engines and displace bloggers from formerly higher positions in the search results, now and in to the future? Usedcarsalesman thinks it might. For a blogger to keep earning ad revenue in such a world – a world that could emerge on the Web never or almost instantaneously - he or she would have to focus on specialized content, more specialized than produced by traditional news outlets. This would allow such bloggers to play the biblical Noah and find a way to potentially stay above a “flood” of conventional archived news-material released from traditional sources. Of course, maybe Usedcarsalesman overestimates the effect on bloggers, if the search engines do have to account for masses of newly released archived news material. But, really, who knows?

But, bottom line is that if blogging (content) contributions do flag the first half of 2007 as some analysts predict, this might show who’s serious about blogging and who isn’t. And, it might encourage more traditional journalists, now and future, to recognize the potential financial benefits of blogging and to try it on for size.

The State of Blogging, 2007 (Part I)

Usedcarsalesman.com is getting in to its third calendar year of existence and Usedcarsalesman has a few things he wants you to “buy” (ha ha) about the “State of Blogging” in general (Since he has more than a couple of issues to discuss related to Blogging, Usedcarsalesman is going to cover these in two separate posts - this week is “Part I,” next week is “Part II”).

To start things off, Usedcarsalesman notes a recent comment from the consultants and analysts at The Gartner Group: “… Blogging (content) contributions will peak in the first half of 2007.” What does Usedcarsalesman think about this supposed "peak" in content contribution to blogs in 2007? Well, Usedcarsalesman was, at first, somewhat indifferent to the aforementioned Gartner "insight;" but, minutes later, and after considering whether this report really meant anything to him, Usedcarsalesman still found himself fervently bullish on his own continued endearment to blogging!

Whether there are only a few Bloggers or a hundred million, Usedcarsalesman will still dig blogging or “on-line, periodic self-publishing” or whatever you want to call it. Although only beginning to blog in the latter half of 2004, Usedcarsalesman had technically been writing in a format similar to his Usedcarsalesman.com Blog for seven years prior to 2004, dating back to the beginning of 1996. However, his pre-blog opinions were confined to notes in hand-written journals (“notes” which might actually be fun to scan or transcribe and post as kind of a ’96-04 blog build-up ). But, in 2004 Usedcarsalesman agreed that the new electronic blogging world was right for him, that blogging was a better way to write in a journal - you could work on it at any time, from any computer terminal connected to the Internet, people all over could read and comment, etc. And, it provided a nice pre-fab, web-page format - no pesky web developers to pay, not so much HTML to slog through yourself -perfect for people who had something they wanted to consistently communicate with the world, but didn't want to sit through an e-commerce sales pitch or some no-sense-of-history, '90s-era, Investment Banker-born, .com hype to do so. This made web publishing a little more amenable to a wine and cheese, liberally-educated, Mensa-geek like Usedcarsalesman, who chose to skip junior-high BASIC programming classes in favor of being outdoors.

Obviously, in doing Usedcarsalesman.com, Usedcarsalesman has never exhibited the behaviors of other “amped-up” Bloggers who have keyed something personal or otherwise in to their blogs every 15 minutes to keep readers constantly delivering “hits.” At best, 'Used' has written in this blog once a week for a few hours - sometimes posts came every two weeks or even once a month or not for several months. And, Usedcarsalesman never could figure out how other Bloggers kept posting "crap" 4 times an hour and managed to somehow convince themselves they didn't have their nose in front of a computer or a PDA all day. Doing that would burn out “Used,” too. So, Usedcarsalesman followed and continues to follow a basic, boring editorial format. But, hey, it’s the kind of format that might allow Usedcarsalesman to stick around after the more prolific, 4x per hour Bloggers have been sucked away in a supposed tidal-withdrawal of Bloggers from Blogging in 2007.

Blogging has been and still is a good thing for Usedcarsalesman. It has allowed him to dabble in editorializing without actually being a professional editor. Does this mean Usedcarsalesman has, when Blogging, somehow found himself transplanted to the society Karl Marx mentioned some 160+ years ago in The German Ideology (1845):

"In Communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.?"

Not exactly. The problem is that when you do something enough (like I said, we are getting in to three calendar years for Usedcarsalesman.com) you ultimately develop a mind to self-devote exclusively to this “sphere of activity” (and a second field, too, in Usedcarsalesman’s case). And, now that the “peak" is maybe here, perhaps the world's most serious, grizzled Bloggers will group together, gain support and devote themselves to Blogging as a legitimate, money-making, capitalist field of endeavor. And, perhaps professional reporters and editors (non-Bloggers who work for traditional print media outlets that also publish on-line) will depart from work at these traditional news outlets in favor of Blogging - the potential financial advantages of this departure, Usedcarsalesman will discuss in the "State of Blogging, 2007 (Part II)," next week.

Have Your "Halawa" and Eat It, Too

The phrase, “to have your cake and eat it, too” means, “to want more than one can handle or deserve, or to try to have two incompatible things,” at least according to Wikipedia. But, since this post has to do with the recent “execution” of Saddam Hussein and since “Cake” is apparently hard to find on dining tables in Iraq where traditional fare is served, Usedcarsalesman will, here, use the term, “Halawa” (an Iraqi dessert sliced and served with Pita bread) in place of “Cake.”

In this post, Usedcarsalesman speculates that the U.S. has managed to, in a manner of speaking, “Have its Halawa and Eat it too,” with regards to the “death” of Saddam Hussein.

“Have Your Halawa”

Saddam Hussein, alive, is an intelligence resource. But, you kill him and you can never use him in the future to do things such as verify claims made by terrorists supposedly associated with the old Iraqi government, or maybe ask him for the PIN numbers (sic) to unlock the security on weapons-of- mass-destruction found in the Iraqi desert (Usedcarsalesman hopes that’s a joke).

Frankly, one could reasonably argue that it’s in the interest of U.S. National Security to keep Saddam Hussein alive and in custody. Usedcarsalesman speculates that Saddam Hussein is just that.

“Eat it, Too”

However, to the people who have directly or indirectly suffered as a result of Saddam Hussein’s rule, the idea of Hussein sidestepping execution is likely unthinkable. And, it also seems a political necessity in Iraq that Saddam “dies” -- the “life” of the new Iraqi government may depend on it. So, to “Eat it Too”, the U.S. needs to achieve the political affect of Hussein’s death without actually killing him.

As such, the world is shown Saddam Hussein led to the gallows and apparently hanged to death. We see little cell phone snippets, etc. The crowds of people in Iraqi streets rejoice.

The political effect is achieved and so, the U.S. gets to have its “Halawa” (Saddam captured and in custody, a valuable U.S. intelligence resource is maintained) while receiving the benefits of apparently eating it, too (Saddam executed, new Iraqi government and legal system legitimized, Iraqi citizenry celebrates, U.S. looks like it has achieved a goal and seems a hero to many in the world).

But, like Usedcarsalesman said, the aforementioned is just his speculation ;)