Jim Barrett's Blog

Remember New Hampshire

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:17:23 EDT

GOTV

I think these Republicans are boring

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:26:11 EDT

I just can't watch. I think I watch the grass grow instead.

Unity exists.

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:17:54 EDT

I wouldn't listen to the hype on MSM. The amoung of dissent regardinng Clinton is mostly a story to keep the election interesting so that MSM will keep their ratings up. I would not worry too much about it.

Forget about the cheater

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:43:22 EDT

I don't think we should push the idea too hard that McCain cheated at the recent forum. It may make us seem like we are whining. I would be better if there were simply some doubts about McCain and we just left it out there as one more flaw in McCain's character.

Time to make some phone calls

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:46:12 EDT

I am hoping to make 100 phone calls tomorrow. There are a number of close states that need our help

All of the anti-Clinton talk is non productive

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:20:28 EDT

All of the anti-Clinton talk is non productive

Testing the new Dashboard

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:15:38 EDT

Just testing to see if this post has any impact on my dashboard.

Get a horse. I mean get a car. I mean get a move on.

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:11:03 EDT

Unfortunately we all know that if the price of oil falls people will continue driving until the planet is laid to waste. The low cost of oil is due mostly to the huge subsidies to oil companies including nearly free use of my public lands, the government bailouts when disasters occur including hurricanes, government aid to children and elderly who suffer the most from pollution and the support for wars. This has deluded us into thinking that the price is low. A higher price at the pump will better approximate the real cost of $12 to $15 per gallon. When prices at the pump fall people will ignore the other costs and just continue burning fossil fuels thinking that they don't have to pay the cost. Unfortunately these other costs are a huge drag on the long term economy. Short term drags on the economy due to higher pump prices mask the potential for longer terms gains as we are compelled to increase efficiency.

In the 1980s, when energy prices rose the long term relationship between GDP and energy consumption changed. The short term impact was that energy expense as a percent of GDP rose as the prices rose. This was then followed by a period where the energy expense portion of GDP fell as we became more efficient. This was then followed by lower oil prices and we then became inefficient by driving more SUVs. Now we are experiencing a period where prices are rising and the per cent of GDP the comes from energy is rising. If we learned our lessons from the past we will become more efficient and this will then drive down energy expense as a portion of GDP. Overall we will end up spending less of our disposable incomes on energy since the progress in efficiency will spur new growth and higher incomes but we will be consuming energy more efficiently.

In conjunction with the problems related to climate change it is clear the the short term gains that we receive from lower pump prices will be overshadowed by the damage. We will forgo all of the gains from efficiency. Historically, efficiency gains have been the real reason for economic growth. Gains from cheap resource extraction produce no long term benefits, in particular when we relay on archaic 18th, 19th and 20th century technology.

As we are amused by those who at the beginning of the 20th century derided the drivers of cars and yelled "get a horse", our grand children and great grand children will laugh at those of us who tried to hang out to the outdated internal combustion engine and coal fired energy plants. As we are amused by the notion the people used to wade through the streets and try to avoid the noxious output of the horse that lay strewn in the streets, 100 years from now people will laugh at the idea the our generation was willing to spew toxins into the air and to heat the planet in order to drive around in those silly things we called cars.

It is high time that we moved into the 21st century and stop trying to mindlessly hang onto the fossil fuel economy with the myopic belief that without the ability to burn dinosaurs we are doomed. It is time to evolve or to move to the side of the road along with the horses.

good Job

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:00:28 EDT

On fund raising do BO's birthday

Cap and Trade

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:36:06 EDT

Barack Obama supports a cap and trade system to abate Climate Change. I believe that the implementation of this type of system will not only help abate climate change by internalizing the costs that oil users put on everyone else but it will be the the basis for changes in economic systems that will revolutionize the relationship between environment and economy. This type of system will begin to recognize the true roots of ecology and economy. It will help us start to recognize the fact that a healthy economy requires a healthy ecology. The two are not substitutes but are compliments. We will have both or neither.

happy

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:15:51 EDT

Birthday

Off shore oil drilling

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:39:02 EDT

Off shore oil drilling is foolish. Instead of engaging in behavior that increasees the risk of doing environmental damage we need to seriously reduce the consumption of oil. Those of you who think that we can bring down the price of oil and save the planet from the destruction of climate change are deluding yourselves. We need to increase efficiency in use by better technology and we need to reduce use by changes in how we commute and make land use decisions.

It is obvious that most people will not reduce the use of oil unless the price is high. We need to incorporate all costs of oil use into the price so that those who use oil pay for it directly instead of externalizing these costs at the expense of children with asthma, people who die and pay for wars designed to protect suppy and the ever increasing costs Climate Change which include hurricane and tornado damage. Ignoring these problems and simply working to increase supply in an attempt to bring down toe price at the pump is the most foolish and shortsighted thing we could do.

We need to resist all attempts to subsidize oil companies by granting the additional leases in public lands and off shore. Instead we need to develpe a cap and trade system that incorporates the cost of the destruction into the price that people pay when they buy oil. Only in this way will the incentives be correct for people to move away from destructive behavior. The economy will thrive as we increase the development of new technologies. The alternative in environmental and econmic destruction.

stay on message

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:48:22 EDT

Let's make some phone calls

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:11:58 EDT

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/phonebankmap/

25 million registrations

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 15:31:44 EDT

If each of 1 million volunteers register 25 voters each we will add 25 million new voters: This will be the surest route to victory.

register voters

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:25:40 EDT

This will be a great weekend to register voters.

Who is with me?

great speech

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:34:17 EDT

The speech was great

McCain has run out things to say

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:54:35 EDT

McCain has run out things to say.

No news is good news when it comes to McCain

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/23/mccain-on-the-run-cancels_n_114539.html

I believe Barack's trip has been a success so far

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:21:22 EDT

Thoughts?

4 to 5% bump in the polls

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:31:42 EDT

I predict a 4 to 5% bump in the polls due to Barack's overseas trip.

50th contributer

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:39:41 EDT

Who would like to be the 50th contributer to my fund raising page?

McCain will get 30% of the vote

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:57:34 EDT

Recent polls show McCain with only 30% of the California electorate in his camp. Let us hope that this is just one more example of Califorinia starting a trend that that rest of the country will follow.

new friends

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:16:41 EDT

I still looking for new friends to keep my old friends company.
Please add me to your friends list.

new friends

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:15:58 EDT

I still looking for new friends to keep my old friends company.
Please add me to your friends list.

please contribute

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:02:51 EDT

To my FR page

104 million

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:52:36 EDT

Let's do 104 million this Month.

52 million

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:19:10 EDT

Let's double that in July.

i am looking for friends

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:02:13 EDT

Please add me to your friends list

Add friends

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:58:35 EDT

I am trying to add friends from the Anti-FISA group. If you were opposed to this bill please add me to your friends list.

New Yorker

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:29:31 EDT

I believe this will turn out to be less a problem than we think. However, I think it will do a lot of harm to the magazine.

Obama/Feingold '08

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:10:13 EDT

As a Green I never vote for Democrats and haven't done so this millennium for any office. The last time I voted for a Democrat for president was in 1992. I make no apologies for this and intend to vote for only two Democrats this time. I will vote for Congresswoman Doris Matsui because she stood up to Pelosi voted against the FISA bill. I will also vote for Obama.

I have been a big fan of Feingold and if he had run as a Democrat I would have supported him over Obama. I have always told my Democratic friends that if they wanted my vote they needed a candidate who I could agree with on the issues. Feingold has always been this type of Democrat.

When Obama came along, I felt the same thing and was willing to support him. In recent weeks my support has weakened and although I still intended to vote for Obama I lost much of my enthusiasm. However, recent remarks by Senator Feingold has gone along way to appease my concerns. If Feingold can still speak in strong support of Obama, despite his disagreement on this bill it is very helpful to those of us who were concerned about this. Here are the remarks from Feingold. This was posted previously but I am reposting it because I am incessant as someone pointed out yesterday.

"Having a Democratic president and particularly Barack Obama should allow us to change this mistake. Barack Obama believes in the Constitution. He's a constitutional scholar. I believe that he will have a better chance to look at these powers that have been given to the executive branch and even though that he will be running the executive branch, I think he will understand and help take the lead in fixing some of the worst provisions. So this is a huge setback and it would have been much better for Democrats to stand together and not let it happen in the first place ‘cause it's much harder to change it after the fact. But I do believe that Barack Obama is well positioned both in terms of his knowledge and his background, and his beliefs, to correct this. And so I do think that people have a right to be disappointed but I also think they have the right to hope for change on this issue in particular starting in January."

Party last night in San Francisco with my Democrat friends

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:39:53 EDT

I rented a car and drove 90 miles to San Francisco yesterday. I would ordinarily take the train but I went to a party and wasn't able to stay overnight and there are on trains at a late hour so that was my excuse for driving a car. I haven't even been in a car for 6 weeks but that is a different story.

I went to a party that my friend threw for her birthday. She has just completed law school and is going to be taking and passing the California bar exam in a couple of weeks. She is a die hard Democrat and we have fought for years over my more radical Green politics. There were a couple of people at the party who were Greens at one time by switched back to vote in the Democrat primary. The rest as far I could tell are liberal Democrats. They are all well educated. Half the people there were law students and most seemed similar to my friend in the sense that you knew they were going to pass their bar exams the first time. Many seemed quite brilliant including my friend who was throwing the party. They are all hard working.

The rest of the people at that party were some of her other liberal friends. Many of them worked with the two of us when we worked for an environmental political action committee. We were fundraisers and I was actually their boss for a couple of years since I was the director of the fundraising operation. All of these people are very smart, extremely articulate and can be quite diplomatic since our main job was to call Democrats, Republicans, Greens and independents and present our environmental agenda and get them to give money. We were all very good at this job and the people that I have stayed friends with over the last 17 years are still all activists and are all very engaged in the political process.

There was not one person at the party that suggested they supported anyone other than Obama. There was no one there that said they ever posted anything to this blog. Most of them have given money to the campaign. Many have worked hard during the primaries.

There was one other thing that everyone had in common. They were all unhappy with the FISA vote. They were all saddened by Obama's position and questioned why he had done it. Most had read his explanation and many, in particular the lawyer types, were very aware of the content of the bill and of the previous legislation. These are not misinformed people.

The thing that struck me was that no one offered any defense for Obama on this one. They universally thought that it was a mistake. I offered an explanation but even conceding the explanation which suggested that he did it to avoid the attacks from the right on being weak on terror. Everyone still believed that it was a mistake. They believed it was a mistake because all we see (and I am with them on this) are people who have diminished their enthusiasm because of it. None of us know any of the people who may be attracted to Obama because of this. All we see are the negative impacts.

Since this party was thrown in Pelosi's district there was a lot of talk of helping out Cindy Sheehan in her race against Pelosi. Apparently Cindy still needs signatures to be qualified as an independent on the ballot. A few of us agreed to help her out. I'll be returning to SF in the next week or so to do some tabling.

The encouraging thing about this was that no one is going to switch their votes. There is no one within miles who would consider voting for McCain. There was talk of the respect that everyone had for the third party candidates for sticking to their positions. There was even talk of respect for Barr who everyone agreed has the preferred stance on a few issues and of course the totally wrong stance on others.

So my interpretation of all this is that the impact of the FISA vote is real. There independents and progressive Democrats who are very unhappy about this. Since my friends are certainly uncharacteristic of the country as a whole or even the Democratic Party, the damage is hard to determine in total.

So when you see people on this blog complaining about this vote it would be a good idea to not simply jump to the conclusion that they are really just troublemakers who support McCain. They may be Obama supporters that need encouragement rather than abuse. When I get abused I usually go somewhere else since I don't like it. If we don't want to just drive away people on the left edge it would behoove us to address their concerns rather than to just call them names.

I'm still here.

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:14:15 EDT

I haven't switched to McKinney, Nader or Barr. I find McCain to be disgusting. I'm unhappy with the FISA vote and will not forgive nor forget. That is not how politics works. I will still vote for Obama. I am not quite as engaged as I was before and don't feel like listening to any more speechs. I'm disinterested in whatever McCain says and I don't care about what happens on MSM becuase it is usually lies or distortion. But hey, I'm still here so I suppose it could be worse. My moods change as they always do but the highs are not quite as high and the lows are not as low. I am less excited about an Obama victory but I suppose I would be still just as distressed with a McCain victory.

I doubt that I will ever regain the same enthusiasm I had before. I feel like the love affair is over and I've agreed to be "just friends." I'm not looking for anyone else at the moment since it doesn't work quite like that in poiitics. I'll be showing up for the vote but I will be more likely to go to an end of the Bush administration party rather than the start of the Obama administrtation party.

I probably shouldn't post this, but what the heck.

Cindy for Congress

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:26:05 EDT

I have some extra time and money on my hands. I intend to donate them to the Cindy Sheehan campaign. Let's make Pelosi defend her seat and let's use that extra money in our political contribution budgets.

http://www.cindyforcongress.org/

Name one example

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:36:51 EDT

Name one example of a Democrat who has moved to the right in the last 40 years and won as a consequence. I argue that there is no example.

Johnson won due to grief over Kennedy.
Carter won due to distress over Nixon corruption.
Clinton won because the vote was split 3 ways.
Clinton won because the economy was good and we were at relative peace.

Yet Kerry, Gore, Mondale and Dukakis all moved to the right and lost.
Where is the evidence?

There is none.

Brand new Blog

Obamamaniac Jim B - Don't stand in the doorway - Don't block up the hall — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:42:44 EDT

I have just deleted all the entries to my old blog. I will be posting new entries to this blog from time to time. I deleted all the old posts because I have a different mood these days. I still intend to vote for Obama but I am not a true believer. I will vote for him and then I will put pressure on him to do what is right. I expect him to:

1. Restore the rights lost by the FISA bill
2. End the war
3. Work to abate climate change

... There is more that I will be adding to this list over time.