Radio Free JoJo

My nagging suspicion that Obama perhaps has written off Erie County in the presidential primary tomorrow has been validated. A very revealing graphic on nytimes.com this morning shows that even with the very low TV ad rates in the Erie market, out of the nearly 12,000 television spots he has run in Pennsylvania, only 9% have run in Erie. Compare that to the most expensive market, Philadelphia, where nearly one out of every four PA spots ran.
If you are just shrugging your shoulders, saying”so what, Philly is bigger than Erie,” you need to remember that we are talking about frequency as opposed to pairs of eyes reached. Let’s say that it costs $500 to reach 40,000 people in Erie, and $5,000 to reach 400,000 people in Philly. What this statistic is saying that Barack was willing to spend about $12,500 to talk to those same 400,000 people 2.5 times more often than his $500 that spoke to the 40,000 in Erie once. According to the Times, he ran over 1,050 spots in Erie through last Thursday, which is no slouch of a buy, mind you. Meanwhile he ran over 2,700 spots in Philly. Can you say saturation?
For her part, Mrs. Clinton ran nearly one-third of her commercials in Philadelphia. But since she’s nearly broke, that translates into only under 1,600 spots through Thursday. Erie got to see Hillary’s “3 am” ad and others just under 550 times.
He also saturated the Philadelphia area with appearances. I think the local Obama camp was getting nervous as they waited for an Erie appearance date. He certainly was taking his time, finally getting here on Friday morning with a visit to Erie Bolt and then a townhall meeting at Penn State Behrend. For a candidate with such rock star status, I do not get why he didn’t go to the Tullio Arena, or Bayfront Convention Center, where he could have satisfied the high demand for tickets to the event. Either they didn’t have the manpower to process a 5000 person crowd, or didn’t want to pay the Convention Center Authority, or both.
Anyway the lateness of the visit, and the fact that his next closest appearance was in Beaver County seems to show that he is not hoping for much out of NWPA. Tomorrow night we’ll know if his Philadelphia-centric strategy works.

Nobody said that politics was supposed to be clean and pretty, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen things this ugly as they are in the current race for the Democrat presidential nomination. The race between Clinton and Obama has gotten personal, with issues of race and gender rising to the fore, pushing out the more substantive concerns of the day.

They should have seen it coming.

In what was probably the interest of “fairness,” the Democrats established its current system of proportional delegates for its primaries and caucuses, along with those superdelegates. This system was fine as long as there was a clear front-runner with lots of cash and early wins. But with two strong candidates and no clarity this deep into the primary season, along with the sheer stupidity of Florida and Michigan in defying the rules of the party’s schedule, the process is quickly sinking into chaos.

Speaking of chaos, don’t be angry at Rush for his tweaking of Democrats with “Operation Chaos,” encouraging Hillary to stay in the race. He’s just poking some fun at this convoluted process the Dems have gotten themselves in.

There’s a few complications that I don’t get:

• The concept of an open primary: as far as I can tell, isn’t a political party a private organization? So why should Republicans and independents be able to vote in open Democrat primaries and vice versa? These open primaries don’t make sense and just invite havoc. I’m pretty confident that John McCain would not be the current Republican nominee had there not been open primaries in the early states.
• Winner take all: the proportional delegate distribution doesn’t work, at least on a statewide basis, if the race is close. At minimum, there should be winner-take-all delegates at the congressional district level, if not state-wide. That’s how most all states send their electors to the Electoral College after the general election; that’s how it should work in the primary.
• Superdelegates: these big wigs just invite corruption and smoke-filled back room deals at the convention in a close race. There’s something seemingly undemocratic about the Democrat superdelegate process.

So as charges and countercharges volley between these candidates, know that it didn’t have to be this way.

I happened to catch on C-Span former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaking at the American Enterprise Institute this week on the topic of Pursuing Happiness and Prosperity. Now I know that Newt can be a controversial figure, but much of what I heard made a lot of sense. In one part of the speech he detailed how the once thriving city of Detroit has fallen to great trouble, not only because of the struggling US automobile industry, but because of an entrenched government bureaucracy unwilling to change and reform for prosperity in the 21st century. There’s a lot here for our officials in Erie to head.

I can’t embed C-Span videos but here is the link.

The Erie Times News has a blaring headline this morning about the airport runway extension. That 1920 foot piece of asphalt has certainly been jerked around for months and even years. Now it seems that the city and Airport Authority have settled on an solution to get the job done, however, there is just this one hurdle: the county, who is writing the multi-million dollar check, has to sign off. It’s that same County Council who last week gave the other parties a “take it or leave it” ultimatum.

All of this intergovernmental bickering has me pining for the simplicity of metropolitan government under which I lived for four years in the 1980’s. It was Nashville, TN, the progressive city that really doesn’t have anywhere near the natural and cultural resources available to us here in Erie, yet long ago, got it right in their governance. Their decisions long ago have led to the prosperity they continue to enjoy today.

Next Tuesday will be the 45th anniversary of Metro Nashville/Davidson County. I want to share a link to their Metro Charter’s history, of which has become the model of the country.

What was key for Nashville was: 1) the unified agenda of Nashville’s representatives to the state legislature for powerful laws to help city and county cooperate, and 2) that it wasn’t one taking over the other, but a true consolidation of both governments to become a third strong, home-ruled force for change.

Take a read and tell me what you think.

I can picture the scene at a hotel conference room somewhere in the rust belt. It’s a meeting of “Bad Local Economies Anonymous.” A gentleman stands up and says, “Hello, my name is Erie, and I’m terrible for business.” The rest of the cities chime in, “hello, Erie.”

With that metaphor, please know that I mean no disrespect for the amazing work of 12 step programs to change peoples’ lives for the better. But indeed, the metaphor holds up for cities both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere that have been facing a half-century of economic decline. The first step on the road to recovery is to name your problem. For quite some time, there has been a community conversation on what Erie’s problem is that has led to our present state, and what are the cures for its turnaround. Some people are given to the idea that we have no problem, other than our negative perspective; that our “half-empty” mentality blinds us to the really remarkable things that are happening here. There has even been a campaign to start going after the media messengers who in their laziness just reinforces established prejudices instead of digging for the real story on Erie.
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If my memory serves me well, presidential election years tend to give the nation’s economy heartburn.  Back in 2000 when GWB was running the dot-com bubble was bursting, and even with a national balanced budget, the market was tanking before 9/11. Bush 41 was beaten by Clinton 42 because of the economy, stupid, and Papa Bush’s win in 1988 came just months after the stock market crash of 1987. Of course, who would forget Reagan’s win after Carter’s malaise, and the gas lines, price controls, and turmoil of the Ford and Nixon years. This multi-trillion dollar US economy just doesn’t have the stomach to handle the stress caused by an election.
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Get ready for seven weeks of Democrat strategery.

With Sen. Clinton’s win in Ohio and Texas last night, the door is wide open for the continued contested race for the Democrat nomination. Sen. Obama’s lead in delegates really hasn’t changed much, yet the momentum swings in Hilary’s favor as a victor in big blue states.

Thus first quarter 2008 profits for Pennsylvania’s television and radio stations are really looking up. Since Clinton and Obama raised $85 million between them last month, with more of the same bound to come in this month, PA broadcasters could easily find themselves with a windfall of upwards of $50 million of new money spent on commercials. It also affects the cost of every other spot as commercial inventory will most definitely tighten.

There also will be a small bump in the hotel and restaurant industry as hundreds of journalists from around the world will take up residence in both the big cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but also towns like Scranton, Bradford and of course, Erie, PA. They’ll go on and on about the union influences, the mid and northern state conservative “T”, the effect of NAFTA, outsourcing and the like.

Erieites, be ready to put on your thick skin along with your parkas, as our town will more than likely be called worse things than “unfashionable.”

P.S.: I have to admit that I was totally wrong, along with most pundits, about the race going on so long that PA would be in play. Lucky us!