Pat Harrington's Weblog

The Election

I keep saying I’m going to start writing down all this stuff I say…that was one of the reasons for starting this web log, but I haven’t been very faithful about it.

 

One of those things I said (months ago, you could ask people), is that I thought that Senator Obama would win the election, and that it would not be close like the polls were indicating at the time (prior to both conventions, early summer).  I said I thought Senator Obama would begin pulling away, and then just run circles around Senator McCain. 

 

To those who expressed skepticism, I said that something would happen (I didn’t predict what) that would serve as a major upheaval to the campaign, show McCain’s weaknesses, and affect the remainder of the campaign.

 

We now know that two things happened:  McCain’s stunningly bad, desperate choice for a running mate; and the banking and liquidity crisis, which McCain at first refused to recognize (“The fundamentals of our economy are sound”), and then lurched from one proposed “strategery” to another in a wild tailspin from which he has never recovered.  All that remains is to determine the size of the Obama win, and the impact on down-ticket races. 

 

The post election commentary will be interesting…why McCain chose to allow himself to be “handled” so badly, and when it was determined that “the real McCain” couldn’t win.  I personally believe McCain never had a chance, and neither would any traditional Republican opponent have stood a chance this year against Obama (whose impact I initially misjudged, prior to the primaries).  Obama seized “Change” as the theme of his campaign, energized eager young voters, and then began capturing traditional Democratic constituencies.  His defeat of the Clintons in the primaries revealed a deep understanding by his team of arcane Democratic primary rules, under which a defeat is often almost as good as a victory.

 

Overall, it’s been a masterful performance by a charismatic leader and a well managed team of very smart people.  I eagerly anticipate the Obama administration. 

“Boy, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals…” Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969

Recently, we learned that actor and director Paul Newman lost his battle with cancer.  Having spent all these years explaining to those tired of listening that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is my favorite movie of all time because all the dialogue you’ll ever need is contained in William Goldman’s gem of a script, the sense of loss is acute. 

 

I parked Newman’s car the year before the film’s release while working as a valet during high school in Los Angeles.  He drove into Senor Pico’s in the Century City area of LA in a convertible Volkswagen bug, then called a Cabriolet.  In a quiet, cocky but not disrespectful way, he told me, “It‘s a five speed.  Don' try to go forward in reverse.“  He had stunningly blue eyes.

 

The following year, my first wife and I went to see Butch on our first date   We went to one of the once grand but by then badly fading movie palaces on Market Street in San Francisco, and sat in the nearly empty balcony.  As fans of the film know, the beginning of the movie (along with several other sequences and the ending) is in sepia tone, fading later into color.  As Newman first appears in sepia tone, piercing the quiet anticipation in the theater come peals of high pitched laughter…from the balcony …from my date, who had heard from me all about the blue eyes…

 

I can’t count the number of times I’ve quoted from William Goldman’s superb script to make a point, but it’s in the thousands, I’m sure.  It’s a true testament to the forbearance of those with whom I work and live (or to the quality of the script) that none of them has ever said, “enough, already, with the Butch Cassidy!”  Lines like, “If he’d just pay me what he’s payin’ them to make me stop robbin’ him, I’d stop robbin’ him!”  And, “Secretly, I knew you wanted to know, so I told you.”  And, “The sheer tonnage of what you don’t know is enough to….”  I’m consumed with giddiness when I realize I’m with people who’ve never heard me quote Butch or Sundance! 

 

Sure, Newman made lots of other movies, and I’ve enjoyed many of them.  Some are classics.  Cool Hand Luke is another particular favorite.  I enjoyed Color of Money.  But for me, he’ll always be Robert Leroy Cassidy…Butch to you and me. 

There’s No Comfort In Saying “I Told You So…”

Because of my faceless bureaucrat work, I’m exposed to a lot of information about the economy.  Many who know me know that I’ve been saying for months that the current recession is worse than anything we’ve seen in years, decades, and that the combination of the housing crisis, with all its ancillary impacts, and the dramatic increases in fuel costs, together pose the most significant economic challenges our country has faced in 40 or 50 years, perhaps since the Great Depression. 

 

How odd to hear those words echoed this weekend by the financial analysts trying to explain last week, when our economy apparently was on the brink of complete collapse. 

 

Believe me, I take no comfort in having apparently been right, as demonstrated by the determination by the federal government (let’s hope it’s not too little too late) to buy up bad loans and hold them in the fairly desperate hope that the properties that “secure” them will someday be worth something close to what was loaned against them.

 

Good sense seems to have taken a permanent holiday, to say nothing of doing what’s right.  Now we’re being told we can’t call to account those responsible for this very risky outcome, because if we allow everyone who deserves to bear the consequences of their actions to feel the full force of their impacts, everyone’s way of life will be permanently altered.  While I understand this, it feels instinctively like the wrong thing to do.  There needs to be an accounting by virtually everyone in the financial food chain for this orgy of excess and looking the other way while waiting for the outstretched palm to be greased, and there ought to be a way to accomplish that without exposing the American economy to new risk.  Maybe later…

 

The one amusing aspect of all this (besides the reaction humor from the late night comics, some of which has been great) has been watching the Republican candidate for President try to wriggle off the hook of his lockstep adherence to the traditional (now failed) GOP shibboleth of deregulation.  “We need to allow the free market to regulate itself,” the conservative Republican base would say.  Well, not this week.  Just as there are no atheists in foxholes when the mortar rounds start to fall, so there appear to be no deregulators to be found when the tidal wave of bankruptcies and foreclosures crashes onto shore.  It’s obvious we need more regulation, not less.  It also seems clear that at least one of the long and dearly held philosophies that the GOP, right wing talk radio and Fox News have propagated for decades is now dead, because it turns out to be dead wrong.