After reading several accounts of the Romney campaigns stunning failure of it's GOTV effort, (see here, here, here, and here) I've reached an inescapable conclusion: If Romney couldn't find enough competent people to run the GOTV effort, one of the most fundamental elements of a campaign, then a Romney administration would almost certainly have been a colossal disaster. I realize that there are differences between staffing a campaign and staffing the government. We need to be honest here though: If you can't successfully administer the basics of a campaign, you're administration is probably doomed.
So here's the bright spot: If we're doomed to have a colossal failure either way, at least it won't be a colossal failure conservatives will get blamed for.
I realize it's not much of an upside, but it's all I've got for now.
Update: It's even worse than I thought:
After finally getting her pin number in the late afternoon, Shoshanna attempted to log into the site. She had been sent an email from the Romney campaign that morning (after polls opened) telling her that cell phones were often not allowed in polling places, after she was previously warned not to forget to bring her cell phone in other emails.
Let's just think about that for a minute. They developed a mobile web GOTV system even though they knew that many polling places would not allow volunteers to use their phones. Keep in mind also that, based on all the reports I've read, they had NO backup plan.
Justice Ginsburg: "Every stick created to eat on the head of a taxpayer will metamorphose sooner or later into a large green snake and bite the Commissioner on the hind part."
So the dentist thinks I got an infection while recovering from the pulled tooth. Have pain pills and antibiotics. Hopefully will be better soon.
In the mean time, it's pretty hard to think of anything semi-interesting to say.
Still under the weather from my dentist trip.
Hopefully will get back to posting soon.
Romney eats coffee flavored ice cream!
The press really has no clue about religion at all, do they?
So today I had to have a tooth pulled. The original plan was a root canal, but the entodontist said the tooth wasn't salvageable. (It was a very bizarre thing, really. The decay appeared very quickly and, I'm told, in an unusual part of the tooth.)
I had some other work done first and then they got ready to pull the tooth. That's when I learned that dentists have pliers. They don't call them that of course; they call them forceps. They are, however, pliers. Very nice pliers, but still pliers.
And then, the pain. Of course they had me on a local anesthesia so I didn't hurt then. By the time I got home, however, the pain was intense and I appeared to be going into shock. I was so cold that my wife had to cover me with 4-5 blankets and quilts.
Overall, not a great experience.
Via How Appealling, I found this 10th Circuit opinion wrestling with how to resolve a jury verdict where the jury found the defendant guilty and not guilty.
Talk about cognitive dissonance. The jury found a man guilty of conspiracy to distribute drugs, but on the form where they were supposed to indicate which drugs he conspired to distribute, they answered no to each one.
Sigh.
Donald Sensing on combat medics:
I recall reading Stephen Ambrose's observation that in World War II, the military specialty with the highest percentage of its soldiers decorated for heroism in action were medics. Infantrymen have spoken of being under fire, lying as flat as they can on the ground and trying to get into the ground, when the call goes out, "Medic!" (or in the Marines, "Corpsman!"). Then, with fire whizzing all around and the grunts cursing buttons on their shirts for being so thick, they see the medic stand up, run through the incoming fire and kneel beside the stricken one to treat him, apparently oblivious to the instant death tearing through the air only inches away.