Mark Halperin
Mark Halperin Tells Audience of Political Junkies What Non-Experts Need to Know About the Candidates
Last night, Time and ABC News political analyst Mark Halperin was talking to an audience at the at Barnes & Noble on West 82nd Street about his new book, The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President.
He said that his new book is geared toward people who "aren't particularly political," focusing less on the campaigns themselves than on "who can do the best job."
"I tried to say, with the information we have about the candidates, who would be the best," he told the audience of about 60 people. "I did what I thought a conscientious voter should do."
Unfortunately for Mr. Halperin, the audience did indeed seem like "political people," most of them retirees who admitted to having lots and lots of time to absorb political coverage. And most of the crowd seemed to be decided indeed, in favor of Hillary Clinton. read more »
Spitzer's Non-Campaign Campaign Speech
At an appearance this morning in midtown at the Personal Democracy Forum, he gave a lengthy policy speech without once referring to the fact that he's not technically governor yet.
Nor did that fact come up in a subsequent question-and-answer session with ABC News political director Mark Halperin and with members of the tech-obsessed audience.
Spitzer's talk on New York's "digital divide" and the need for state government to facilitate universally accessible, affordable broadband technology went over well enough, drawing repeated applause in an auditorium filled with people balancing computers on their laps.
When the clapping died down after one line about a "comprehensive statewide broadband initiative," Spitzer said, "If that line didn't work here, I was going to give it up."
He went on to lay out a vision of the near future that was heavily inspired, by the sounds of it, by Personal Democracy founder Andrew Rasiej: upstate farmers remotely controlling milking machines, fire and police dispatchers receiving marching orders from anywhere in the field and constituents complaining to their elected officials through wireless broadband technology.
Under questioning from Halperin, Spitzer correctly named the price of a single-tune download from iTunes, but pled ignorance on his monthly bill for internet access at home. When asked about his broader plan, Spitzer declined to get too specific about how the state would farm out the work of assembling the statewide broadband network, or how much any of it might cost.
Still, it's a nice problem for him to have: a genuine wonk, he's talking about governing half a year out from the actual election, even before his policy platform is fully formed.
At some point, he'll have to fill in the pesky details. But the mere fact that Spitzer is now spending his time testing out policy themes in front of specialized audiences doesn't say much for his level of concern about his Democratic opponent, Tom Suozzi, who has been reduced to the old he-won't-debate-me campaign theme in an effort to make voters aware that there still is, in fact, a race to be run. (Surely, the campaign volunteer in the chicken suit can't be far behind.)
"The future of New York," Spitzer said, "doesn't belong to the armies of the status quo."
He seemed pretty confident today that it belongs to him.
Sigmund's Speculation
New School Post-Mortem
I've spent this morning at the New School, where two panels of senior aides to the five major Mayoral candidates went back over campaign decisions, first the primary and then the general election, steered by ABC News's Mark Halperin.
The event featured a little news: Bloomberg aide Bill Cunningham says of Mike's spending, "Inflation adjusted, we might actually be spending less money [than in 2001]."
He also blew a little kiss to Shelly: "We sent flowers to Shelly Silver," after he killed the stadium, he said. "Big red roses."
Ferrer's aides, mostly excepting Roberto, meanwhile, mostly conceded that their candidate is not a great communicator -- "at a certain point, people don't change," said Ferrer campaign manager Nick Baldick -- and that the campaign mishhandled the Diallo episode.
"The politically convenient way would have been to apologize and to say it was a crime," Jef Pollock said. "[Freddy] and others rejected it...as it dragged on the performance got angrier and that didn't really help."
Andrew Kirtzman, meanwhile, defended the endless coverage of the story: "You crafted this incredibly lawyerly, vague answer that neither defended it or apologized....You guys kept it alive by evading the central question."
The conversation detoured briefly into Virginia's flyer flap. Henry Stern offered that the flap was "a substitute" for "people who had a low regard for Ms. Fields' abilities."
Fields campaign manager Chung Seto pointed the finger at consultant Joe Mercurio, who responded in kind:
"London ws bombed by terrorists the same day and they managed to continue the story."
Jim Margolis marvelled a bit at the endlessness of the flap, and pointed out that the use of stock footage is common in television spots.
There was also some debunking Primary night mythology. Anthony and Freddy didn't speak, and there wasn't really any pressure brought to bear on Anthony to drop out.
"The last thing we wish to have in the campaign is affirmative action," Roberto Ramirez said.
(Margolis said he and Pollock did talk that night: "Jef was less than enthusistic.")
Concluded Mark Mellman: "The single most brilliant act by a campaign was to turn... a landslide defeat into a moral victory."
More to come... read more »
