As IF Times

link Howard Dean warns Dems Sarah Palin could beat Obama in 2012 – TheHill.com.

The on-going wisdom that is being peddled every day by the sage beltway crowd is amusing in their consensus.  The narrative is that Sarah Palin would be crushed by Obama if she won the Republican nomination.  Hmm.  Politics is the ultimate poker game of course.  Except that in politics, the game is played with other people’s  money and the rules, well there aren’t really any rules.  Posturing, positioning and misinformation are the standard techniques to bluff the opponents.  While the number of beltway pundits is small, their influence can be large since their opinions are transmitted via a sympathetic media to the mostly uncaring public.  The money aspect relates to the ability for any particular vested interest to sell their side of the story.  The more money, the more you can sell your story.  With the generally short attention span of most people, repeating a message often enough will make it true.  As an example, for decades, the media pushed the illusion of Camelot and the Kennedys.  We know this now to be fictional delusion, but most believed it for generations.  But, we digress.

Whether or not you have any stake in the U.S. elections and of course, in Canada, we don’t except by resulting consequences, the portrayal of the players is fascinating.  At the moment, the news surrounding the incumbent president is amazingly quiet.  This is in stark contrast to the pre-election hysteria, which carried through the first 2 years.  We all know how it was sold; hope,change, statesmanship, etc etc.  That was easy to do since he was essentially an unknown entity.  Now, 3 years into the program, to all but the hard wired partisans, it’s obvious the marketing was a lot better than the product.  A person who had never held a responsible position outside of a government funded bureaucracy has been an abject failure as the presumptive leader of the free world.  The much vaunted character and oratory genius has been revealed to emanate from a teleprompter.    If the next U.S. elections were based solely on policies and implementation, there is no logical way that he can possibly win.  In every measurable category, but especially the one of national finance, Obama’s vision has gone rapidly from expectations of hope to realities of despair. 

But that’s not how it’s been  sold.  We’ve seen the marketing and compared it to the product.  It’s been a masterful and coordinated sales job.  It’s as if you believed the hype about how wonderful a solar clothes dryer is until you receive a clothesline for your money.   Whatever solutions Obama has served up to ‘fix America’ are rooted in some form of government intervention or engineering. That is his prism of life.   Of course, the massive errors of this vision are now apparent and horribly so to the naive consuming public.  What has happened to the U.S. is analogous to someone taking some antacid for heartburn and then reading the label which states that “may cause ulcers, vomiting, rectal bleeding or death”.   This was buried  in the fine print. 

So if the partisan left can’t use Obama’s record to battle an agenda that someone such as a Sarah Palin brings to the discussion, then it becomes purely a popularity contest.   We take for granted that Obama would be popular among his core group even if it were revealed he liked to kick dogs and small children as a hobby.  People like Palin or Michelle Bachmann who have actually either run a state,  a business and  raised a barnful of kids (in the case of Bachmann, 23 foster kids) are portrayed as dumb, wild eyed loons and racist rubes.  At least that’s the beltway’s spin on it.  While not a fan of Howard Dean, speaking of loons, at least he has the clarity to see that there is a vast pool of disenfranchised but heretofore quiet majority of Americans who identify with the likes of Palin or Bachmann.  The media’s  haughty dismissal of these two as being non-serious contenders is a slap to this vast quiet majority.  

The press and the pundits can spend money and posture all they want and try to convince the public that their guy holds the better hand.  But with most of the cards dealt, their bluff will soon be called.   The geniuses  may recall the last time they practically anointed the presumptive winner of an election, albeit only within their ranks.  Hilary Clinton.

link Toyota recalls 52,000 Prius models in U.S. after report of single accident – Drive On: A conversation about the cars and trucks we drive – USATODAY.com.

Boy, have times changed.  Anyone who has ever owned a British, Italian or French car made during the mid ’70’s or a Russian Yugo or Hyundai Pony from the 80’s will no doubt be amused by this story.  Apart from the usual spare tire and jack that came as standard equipment when buying one of those beauties, you were also issued a roll of duct tape just in case.  In addition, you’d be crazy not to have some jumper cables in the trunk.   Windows that didn’t roll down, roofs that leaked and floor boards that disappeared were considered part of the charm of owning these marques.  At least it was in those days. 

Steering some of those old cars was more of an exercise in aiming than precision guidance.  As far as brakes were concerned, you had to engage in long term planning in order to stop within a block or two of where you wanted.  I remember clearly that a Fiat 128 owned by one of my university buddies had to be parked facing downhill so that there would be a chance of starting it afterwards. 

Some of the design elements of the old cars were also suspect.  Even something as simple as having 3 wiper arms on the old MG’s was quizzical.  Who buys 3 wiper blades?  Some of the old convertible tops were designed to nominally keep the rain off your head, but they would leak so badly that your feet and seat were guaranteed to be soaked instead.  Fiat had the bright idea of having to screw the bolts into holes in the wheel hubs rather than  have studs stick out as is the case on most cars.  Try aligning bolts to holes while propping up a heavy tire on a dark rainy night.  Don’t ask how I know.  The Lucas electrics on the British cars were so utterly useless that often you could have either lights or ignition but not both.  Anyone who remembers the quirks of these old cars as being charming is either delusional or have selective memories.

It wasn’t until the Japanese cars came along with their attention to detail that people began to have any expectations of quality control at all.  Now cars have bumper to bumper warranties and are very well engineered and constructed.  They make the old cars look like weekend garage projects.   For the masses, cars have in effect, become appliances like any stove or refrigerator.  People expect their cars to be perfect and trouble-free.  Expectations and perceptions have clearly evolved.  Nowadays, if you tick off the option box for the Mark Levinson sound system on a Lexus, it would cost more than the entire purchase price of a Toyota Corolla 20 years ago.  The days of accepting ‘quirkiness’ are gone, the lawyers have seen to that.   The linked article describes a recall of 52,000 cars  just to fix a bolt after a single accident.  Compare that to the 70’s when there were scores of incidents of Ford Pintos bursting into flames when their rear bumpers were struck. 

However, even as car quality has unquestionably improved over the years, the charm surrounding them is mainly gone.  I guess I’m one of the delusional who liked the goofiness of the old cars.  At least if something broke, you could find a way to jury rig it.  Nowadays, that’s not possible.  You’d have to pay the Apple geek to tinker with it.   Kind of sad really.  It’s hard to feel affinity for something that you plug in.  The sheer fun of just driving a car has been replaced by the material desire to have gadgets in them.   I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Apple comes out with the ICar.