a first attempt with Windows Live Movie Maker

I took the photos and short video clips that I shot a little over two years ago of an odd sight in the former capital of South Vietnam and put them together with the Movie Maker utility that came with the Windows 7 installed on my new Sony laptop. In terms of production it's no Avatar, but when I came across Bobby Vee's 1961 tune "Walkin With My Angel" I decided I must attach my orangutan media to the track. I reckoned the video was a bit short so extended it and added some audio sung by 10 year old Aaron Carter... seemed the macho thing to do!

I should say that I am alive to the contention that orangutans walking upright could potentially be analogous to dancing bears, which in Europe have led to protests against forcing animals to perform unnatural stunts. But given the fact that orangutans will apparently walk upright for extended periods of time on their own volition, and this particular spectacle not being organized for an audience, I thought it fair to conclude that it's just cute, absent the contrary opinion of an orangutan expert.

Edmonton city council races a lot less interesting

Last July, the Edmonton Journal ran a story headlined "Ward shakeup offers interesting races in 2010". That was before the current council decided to come to what Councilor Don Iveson calls a collective "understanding" that would see councilors shuffle around to preclude their having to run against each other (aside from odd-man-out Tony Caterina).

Cllr. Anderson and I came to a working understanding late last year that we would not run against each other, desiring instead that the bulk of our current Ward 5 constituents should have an experienced representative on their ballot.

Aside: I don't recall hearing much about the value of "an experienced representative" from the Iveson campaign in 2007...

Now, to be sure, Iveson says he has an understanding only with Bryan Anderson. But Iveson declining to run in Ward 8 is very good news for Ben Henderson and/or Jane Batty, who have their own arrangement that sees one of them running on the southside in Ward 8 despite both living north of the river in Ward 6. Aside from living in Ward 8, Iveson's connections to the university and his political style make him a natural for Ward 8. Anderson, in turn, is a natural for Ward 10. He lives there, and his politics fit. It nonetheless appears that Iveson asked Anderson to shuffle over to Ward 9 so he could in turn shuffle into Ward 10.

The big loser in this game of musical chairs is everyone who hoped that business and taxpayers would have a voice on council (and anyone hoping for some seriously contested elections). Former Liberal MLA Karen Leibovici will be easily re-elected in the west end ward of her choice (Ward 1 or 5) while her former Liberal caucus colleague and notorious lefty Linda Sloan will take the other west end ward ("Coun. Linda Sloan said she won't run for mayor, but the ward she runs in will be influenced by whether any of her colleagues seek the position.)" A third former Liberal MLA, Ed Gibbons, has locked down Ward 4 in the northeast. With respect to Wards 11 and 12 in the southeast, both union advocate (when he's actually working) Dave Thiele, and the NDP associated Amarjeet Sohi will be seeking re-election. Ben Henderson, husband of Edmonton Centre Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman, seems to have cleared the field by virtue of his understanding with Jane Batty, while Ron Hayter (first elected in 1971) and Kim Krushell will be unassailable in north end Wards 3 and 2, respectively.

Tony Caterina would not able to beat either Hayter or Gibbons, meaning having to run in the open Ward 7, but Ward 7 is not really open to a conservative candidate. Brendan Van Alstine is the safe bet to take Ward 7 and add to council's left lean, given that it is early February and Van Alstine has already been campaigning in this NDP territory for months.

So there you have it: 12 city councilors after October 2010, all re-elected incumbents except for #toncat, who is replaced by a candidate far to Tony's left. The number with ties to the provincial PCs, never mind the Wildrose Alliance? Zero.

Obviously not everyone is going to shed a tear about the fact conservative candidates are likely to be shut out. But I think non-partisans would find it regrettable that incumbents have gone to the lengths they have to entrench themselves. There is a reason that term limits exist, and it is to ensure new blood in government, which otherwise faces long odds against all the advantages that accrue to incumbency. In 2004 when Allan Bolstad retired, Kim Krushell - by her own account - knocked on 6000 doors seeking the vacant seat, and in 2007, when running for re-election, less than 1000. Her reward? Moving up from a 2nd place finish in a system where the top two are elected to 1st. A city council grasping for the advantages of incumbency by collusion amongst incumbent councilors to minimize competition would be described as a cartel were it a private organization.

As for the likely political end for Tony the Cat, that may not, in fact, be the worst outcome given that he was never an ideal conservative candidate anyway. Mike Nickel was more effective, and even Nickel had his limitations as he was too oppositional. But disappointing to me is that fact that no sitting councilor resides in the new Ward 9 and 90%+ of the ward overlaps with the provincial riding of Edmonton Whitemud, where I have seen quite a lot of success organizing on behalf of the Wildrose Alliance: the news that Bryan Anderson - who seems to be all things to all people - will run in 9 is unfortunate, despite the fact that Anderson is a reasonably competent councilor by most reports (the Edmonton Sun gives him a C+). For all the talk about how Don Iveson knocked off a city councilor, Iveson did not knock off Anderson despite going directly against him in 2007. In fact, Anderson pulled in more than 1000 votes more than Iveson did in 2007, and the further south ones goes (i.e. towards Ward 9 and away from Ward 8) the weaker Iveson's electoral performance. 2nd was nonetheless good enough for election under the old ward system. The Riverbend and Terwillegar area would have been a prime launching pad for a conservative candidate, but now the number of distinguished candidates who will be interested in contesting the ward will be significantly lower. Finding volunteers and donors for a compelling candidate conscious of the importance of stimulating the growth of the tax base will also be difficult given the odds of beating Anderson, who despite not being conservative can't be classified as a leftist at odds with a relatively right wing ward either.

As I pointed to last month, bond rating agencies have noted that the city's spending "has the potential to push tax-supported debt to a level no longer consistent with the current rating." How is it that the capital of a supposedly conservative province has the third-highest (out of 21 municipalities) taxes and fees in the country? Annual tax and fee increases under the current council have approached double digit levels, yet Iveson still felt it necessary to advise his colleagues that he was tired of "this city cheaping out." Councilor Henderson has also dismissed concerns about tax competitiveness, warning against what would happen "if you cheap out". Iveson actually adds quite a lot to council, don't get me wrong, but having the council dominated by spenders is neither in the city's interests nor representative of the city's diversity of perspectives.

Last month's news about how none of the incumbents are going to challenge each other electorally suggests a council that gets along together rather too well!

Twitter me this

I've finally signed up for Twitter, primarily because I expect to leave the country in a little over a week and be in China in a little over a month. I am interested in how difficult it will be to evade the Great Firewall of China, particularly given the current state of blocking there.

Nathan Freitas is both a social activist and a programmer and I have been following his blog for applications to install on my Google Android mobile. He addressed a Congressional hearing on new media called "Twitter against Tyrants: New Media in Authoritarian Regimes" last October and was a participant with Open Mobile Camp in November.

Stealth Democracy

This book makes the point I made last week but with evidence (namely, surveys and interviews).

The Futurist's blurb on this book:

Is greater citizen involvement the solution to society's problems? Not according to political science professors Hibbing and Theiss-Morse. Americans do not want to be involved in politics and are content to turn decision making over to others, provided they are non-self-interested. A compelling challenge to the prominent view that government participation leads to better government.

From the book's own abstract:

Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else. People’s wish for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people’s largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making.

This is of particular importance to the Wildrose Alliance, since if the research behind this Cambridge University Press publication is sound, then the party's current direction is fundamentally at odds with researchers' evidence.

Currently, the Wildrose Alliance is long on citizen involvement in the policy making process, which the citizenry doesn't actually want, and short on transparency, which the citizenry does want (since transparency is fundamentally incompatible with pursuing narrow, self-interested agendas). To be sure, the party isn't actually worse on transparency than the other parties, but at the same time it hasn't been a theme that the party has been championing. Who donated to the leadership campaigns? Are communications primarily controlled by a small group of insiders at the party's centre? Why not let the media in on everything the party does? Because that wouldn't be in the party's interest? See what this book has to say about partisanship. What ordinary people really want is political parties that work against their own self-interest and for the public interest instead.

It's not without reason that the global NGO leading the fight against corruption is called Transparency International. Transparency exposes self-interested behaviour by government officials and lawmakers and accordingly does more to ensure the better government that citizens want than getting more citizens involved in setting policy.

OK I take that back

This morning the Wildrose Alliance issued the exactly the press release that I didn't think the party would issue because, as I ranted yesterday evening, I didn't think the party would appreciate what it picked up as much as the PCs appreciated what they lost.

Note to Edmonton Journal editorial board and Paula Simons in particular: this person graduated not once but twice from the U of Alberta. That's in Edmonton! He resided in Clareview. An Edmonton neighbourhood, just to jog memories. He currently resides in Vegreville, you know, in the riding of Edmonton's supposed native son Ed Stelmach? Is Vegreville in downtown Calgary? Perhaps the meme that Wildrose can't see outside the sandbox of Calgary office towers could be dialed down a bit?

Note to Wildrose Alliance members: I understand the concern about senior people in the PC party moving over to Wildrose. But this particular individual was interested in volunteering to help with ordinary literature drops, etc before it was ever cool to be Wildrose because of a thorough-going commitment to smaller government. As for being a lawyer, I wouldn't be too concerned that influential Wildrosers hailing from northern Alberta towns are going to be all lawyers or people with multiple university degrees. While the Liberal party is branded as too elitist, something supported by polling crosstabs, the same data suggests that Wildrose's appeal skews too far the other way. Fact is, having someone with a distinguished background in tax legislation means having someone who can provide valuable technical advice. You, as a member, still reserve the right to "take it or leave it" with respect to that advice.

To confess my own interest in this, I've been very keen on Jack Mintz's proposal to halve both the provincial corporate and personal income tax rates, but I have favoured a bigger cut to the corporate rate than the personal rate based primarily on research I saw while at Finance Canada. Exactly how to handle the two rates, however, is a matter that has to be sensitive to the danger that people who receive income through the corporate form are unduly favoured such that corporate forms are created just for tax purposes (like income trusts were prior to the 2006 federal fix). Ordinary people should not be disadvantaged just because they are not tax law experts who can readily exploit a tax break. Shayne would be in a position to provide authoritative advice on this matter such that a recommendation I hope to propose to the membership in 2011 for a 3 or 4% corporate rate and a 7 or 8% personal rate (down from 10 and 10) would take account of everything that needs to be taken account of.

policy vs politics in Alberta

I found Daveberta's latest post quite interesting, and not just because it mentions Shayne Saskiw, who resided in the Edmonton constituency I ran in under the Wildrose Alliance banner two years ago and who was the first person to call me when the party's candidate list was released. Shayne seemed to me to be the sort who would be Wildrose if the party's level of organization and human asset utilization was comparable to the PCs (I mean here constituency association executives etc as opposed to MLAs, the elected PC caucus being very much a mixed bag when it comes to professionalism). It wasn't, sadly, and so while I wasn't surprised when Shayne indicated on his Facebook page that he was supporting PC MLA Tony Vandermeer, or when he took a policy position with the PCs, neither was I surprised to learn that he is officially resigning from the PCs (perhaps to be an unofficial chief of staff to new Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson? - they are both U of Alberta Law class of 2006 grads).

What surprised me was that a leaked email addressed to Alberta PC Association Executive Director Jim Campbell and party president Bill Smith, said "we also expect the WAP to issue a news release this afternoon." IF ONLY! If Wildrose actually did that I would have been completely stunned. Why? Because it would have meant that the Wildrose Alliance's biggest problem, which is recognizing quality people and putting them into positions of influence and authority, had been substantively solved.

I would be surprised if blogger Leigh Sullivan, who is organizing for Wildrose in Shayne's (and Premier Ed's) constituency, knew who this guy on the Fort Sask - Vegreville constituency membership roll was, not because I don't think Leigh is diligent in finding out who's who but because I have never heard anyone in the party advise local organizers to Google their membership lists so they find out who their members are, never mind taking the next step and kicking prominent names in specified fields up to the party leadership so that they can be approached about taking roles in the party either locally or provincially that fits their particular expertise.

Fact is, I kicked Shayne Saskiw's name up to the party leadership in February of 2008 and to the party's policy people (who are still in charge of policy) a couple months later in April but, given how far my input has gone in the past and the consistency with which names seem to end up falling through the cracks, again, I would have been stunned if the Wildrose exec had prepared the ground for giving Shayne a job in the policy process prior to this afternoon.

The problem, in my mind, is a culture which considers giving any particular person more influence over policy than another person undemocratic. I'm of the opinion that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the general population wants. What the people want is transparency. They want to know how the party came up with the policy it does. Who originated the idea? What can we infer about that person's motivations? Who thought it would be good policy but bad politics? Who thought it would be bad policy but good politics? What was the background discussion? I would like to see a group of policy experts have a thorough-going, comprehensive debate on the platform at the next AGM, together with political types to talk about polling and the communications angles, for a final vote to be made by the membership, as opposed to just the current practice which is effectively just small groups of members standing up on the floor and saying, "we think we should do this so let's have a debate on the floor involving hundreds of people and a vote."

To be sure, it won't be quite like that this coming June, since there will be some Task Forces chaired by experts that will be delivering policy proposals for a vote. But there will still be the issue of whether the membership will be privy to the full background debate of pros and cons. Why were the particular Task Force chairs chosen? Why them and not others? What are their motivations?

To sum up my grievance with Alberta's Wildrose party, it's that few of the people with power in the party seem to share my view that what matters is not policy per se but people. It should be well known that I am big on incentivizing capital accumulation, but really I would care less what the policy was if Jack Mintz dictated it all. That's because Mintz is far smarter than I am on tax policy and I think his motivations are sound. I suspect that a lot of Albertans would feel the same way. Is your policy shop staffed by people who are interested in a broad, growth-oriented agenda as opposed to advancing the narrow, leftist agendas of various unions or special interests? Are they qualified? Can we see the full back-room discussion, including the input of the campaign strategists and communications spinmeisters? This is what Albertans want. Most Albertans don't see themselves as the primary origin of good policy ideas. They rather see themselves as people of sound judgment who are qualified to and entitled to pass verdict on the various policy ideas produced by specialists whose motivations should be clearly visible.

There seems to be a mentality amongst some influential Wildrosers that people vote for policy. I disagree. They vote for people. Albertans don't vote for conservative policies but for conservative candidates. The role of enumerated policy planks is to keep candidates honest and consistent so they don't write themselves blank cheques. Policy planks are necessary, in other words, and are the focus of general debate, but really they are just examples of what the candidate's, or party leader's, mindset is, a mindset that shouldn't change after being elected if good faith with the electorate is to be maintained.

The candidate or party leader might not have the skill set to defend some of the policy planks he or she supports but the people are OK with that if the candidate makes it clear that the policy planks are supported because trusted people recommend the planks. The electorate is more interested in whether those advisors are all academics, or all right wing think tank types, or union careerists, or oil company execs, or banking industry lobbyists, etc etc than in the details of the policy itself. Again, the policy plank is just used in democratic discourse as an example of who can be expected to have the candidate or leader's ear, and what the role of political and communications concerns will be in the candidate's or leader's calculations.

Albertans want more Wildrose policy, although in fairness they already have a lot when they know the leader's personality and background and when they know the party leans libertarian. What they want is a few example policy planks in some key areas that would be of interest not so much in and of themselves but as products of a policy making process. The current party line is that party policy is whatever ordinary Albertans want and I don't think that will do because Albertans want contradictory things (e.g. some are on the left and want more spending in various areas, some are on the right and want less) and it doesn't provide any predictability about how decisions will be made on matters not enumerated in the policy book.

The floor-crossings didn't go over well with me primarily because transparency as to how they came to go down like they did was non-existent and because even if there were no guiding policy, if I had to guess what the party's stance would be, at a minimum the crossing MLAs would have been cut loose on the by-election question such that the crossers would have been expected to justify their decisions without further cover from the party. If the party is going to provide cover, then it isn't just a matter for the local constituencies. You can't have party spokespeople talking about how a byelection would create financial hardship for a MLA at the same time that a MLA Pay and Perks task force is running without creating confusion about what the party's branding is supposed to be. So what if the letter of the policy book was not violated. As I've been arguing, that's not of interest to most people. They are interested in a more generalized stance, such that what really matters is whether Wildrose is going to be true to non-specific expectations, as opposed to specific policy planks which everyone understands might not survive the messy reality of real implementation.

Develop a brand and then concentrate on remaining true to the brand as opposed to what may end up being a grab-bag of contradictory and impractical policy planks. Hire and promote the people with the strongest resumes and social skills instead of friends and people from the same tribe, be it geography (e.g. Edmonton/Calgary), industry (e.g. energy/media), prior affiliation (e.g. federal Conservative), etc.

GOP takes Massachusetts Senate seat

I found this race interesting because although Obama carried this state by a 26 point margin in November 08, Scott Brown won a state-wide race for a US Congress job by a 5 point margin, a swing of 31%. Although some of that swing can be explained by the deterioration in Obama's support over the last year, clearly the Republicans in Massachusetts did a lot of things right these past few weeks and/or the Democrats did a lot of things wrong. After all, if it was just a referendum on Obama or Obamacare, this seat should have been tagged for possible takeover last fall. It wasn't. Brown was down 20 points as late as December 19. Any campaign that can overcome a deficit like that in just a month is worth studying.

One might begin with what Massachusetts Democrats did wrong. According to a national Democratic official:

The only thing that changed between the Dec 19th poll, where the Coakley campaign had a 20 point lead, and the January 5th poll, where their lead had been halved, is that the Brown campaign went on air and aggressively defined their candidate as well as the Democratic candidate, while the Democratic candidate was literally on a vacation. During that period, the Coakley campaign did no further polling, advertising, or ID'ing of supporters despite having a significant fundraising advantage.

Another national Democrat doesn't mince words:

the [state] campaign failed to recognize the threat, failed to keep Coakley on the campaign trail, failed to create a negative narrative about Brown, failed to stay on the air in December while he was running a brilliant campaign. [The state] pollster, candidate and campaign team were caught napping and allow[ed] one of the worst debacles in American political history to happen on their watch...

Before the DNC and DSCC got involved there was barely a single piece of paper on what the narrative is on Brown. The candidate in this race and the campaign have been involved in the worst case of political malpractice in memory...

Now the Coakley campaign disputes these allegations, but Marc Ambinder's knocking down of the Coakley campaign's various complaints about the national Dems is worth reading.

This attack ad, apparently the brainchild of the DNC, features the silhouettes of bankers against the Boston skyline and, quite frankly, has "created by over-educated, liberal nerds" written all over it. The ad tries to play the populist card and simply tries too hard. Brown's ad looks amateurish in conception but is far more effective.

What did the Massachusetts Republicans do right? According to the RNC:

The RNC shipped computers, printers, scanners, routers, and over 400 phones to the Massachusetts Republican Party...
the RNC deployed an additional 32 staffers and helped send 160 volunteers on three busses from Washington, DC to the state during the final week...
people from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. have made over 150,000 calls from their own homes to urge Massachusetts voters to go to the polls for Scott Brown on Election Day....
the RNC committed to put into action a plan to test new and innovative voter ID and get-out-the-vote programs. Starting in early December, the RNC equipped 9 field offices with new peer-to-peer networking technology and innovative VOIP products for volunteer voter contact...
In mid-December the RNC made its portion of the maximum allowable federal contribution to the campaign and also sent out 228,000 fundraising e-mails on behalf of Scott Brown.
As a result... nearly 2.0 million volunteer voter contacts have been made through Jan. 18

All good stuff, but the work of ordinary citizens in trying to raise the race's national profile might have been significant, and in any case I happen to think that the choice of candidate must have been the most critical factor given the degree to which the Brown campaign overperformed the expected result for a generic Republican in Massachusetts. Brown's Facebook page had 120 000 fans, for example, while Martha Coakley had less than 20 000.

I found a speech that Brown gave to the Newburyport (population 18000) Republican Committee in June and I think it is really good, not because it is eloquent or profound but because it is engaging, informative, and uses humour well. There's a part 1, part 2, and part 3. Unlike a set-piece Obama speech, it isn't tele-promptered. Interestingly, in the first part he describes a caucus colleague as the caucus leader, even though another person has that role officially. In this video, we see Brown doing his job as local politician and sounding quite reasonable.

Merely being affable isn't sufficient, of course, since it is often combined the dubious judgment. But in this interview from November 2008, however, Brown sounds quite measured:

I think there is too much of a Southern influence on the Republican party right now nationally and it needs to be more of a moderate party...

We lost our way with the overspending issue that affected the Bush administration and really it was President-elect Obama going against President Bush not really Senator McCain. That's going to wear off and he's going to have to deliver... If the economy doesn't work out well quickly and [Obama] is not decisive he is going to have some lingering problems...

Combine an avuncular personality with a good work ethic and a good feel for moderation (apparently Brown distanced himself from Palin on a talk radio show last year) and one's got the makings of a good candidate. I happen to think it imperative that conservative candidates be upbeat. To be a great candidate, however, he or she has to also be a policy heavyweight, and on that count Brown has his detractors, in particular the upscale - perhaps too upscale - Boston Globe. One of the Globe's editorialists wrote a very clever - perhaps too clever - analogy piece after Brown won election to the US Senate that may say a lot about the nature of Brown's appeal.

Another Boston Globe writer doesn't think that Scott Brown is likely to be found at Mensa meetings. But can we expect politicians to be public policy ninjas? Just because Alberta has one doesn't mean it's at all common. Nuance is not exactly in fashion these days in any case. An Associated Press analysis quotes White House press secretary Robert Gibbs as saying that in 2010

People are going to have to decide whether the people they have in Washington are on the side of protecting the big banks, whether they're on the side of protecting the big oil companies, whether they're on the side of protecting insurance companies, or whether they're on the people's side.

There is, to be sure, a minimum bar when it comes erudition, and Sarah Palin manifestly does not meet the standard. Palin may have the charisma, but the conservative intelligentsia has never backed her (I don't consider Bill Kristol a respected pundit... at least not any more). When it comes to Scott Brown, apparently some of his supporters have brandished signs referencing Hayek. That means essentially nothing at this stage, but Rich Lowry of NRO speaks approvingly of "conservatism in its practical, electoral aspect" and David Frum's FrumForum likes Brown's moderation.

If this environment persists into 2012, Scott Brown could potentially be a very competitive contender for the Oval Office. The fact he that can remind people of Richard Gere when he is wearing his glasses would count for a lot more than most voters would admit to. I would not want to bet against him should he take his truck to Iowa. Keep in mind that Obama's legislative record as a state senator wasn't any more distinguished the Brown's, and some of the policies Obama supported in the Illinois legislature were demonstrably misguided. Even if Obama is strong on policy in the sense that he can readily understand and appreciates expert advice, it doesn't mean anything when he is so ready to cut political deals and play the populist card.

I am of two minds about what to conclude about how Brown appears in this video. He comes across as arrogant and aggressive. If I were a female voter I might find him sexy (who knows?) but would probably be turned off by his attitude, reinforced by the body language, relative to his female opponent. I've complained a lot about the hostility that seems to emanate from the federal Conservative party in Canada. But it may be possible to distinguish the Harper Conservatives from Scott Brown in that the former are a dour lot, while Brown generally exhibits a sunny disposition . Exhibiting some contempt may just come with the territory of a candidate that has the right psychology for handling the ugliness of politics. We shall see!