HIRING OBAMA
I've been doing this YA for Obama thing since September 21st.... and now, on this last day of the campaign, I have a few thoughts.
Tomorrow, we Americans are hiring someone to do a job, namely, the job of president. In the event that Barack Obama does not get this job on November 4th, I would like to hereby offer him a job working for me. I cannot offer the same perks as the presidential gig (big white house, Secret Service dudes and dudettes, Air Force One, awesome podium). But still, it is his if he wants it.
Because, seriously? I have some stuff that needs fixing, and from what I’ve seen, Obama could get my entire life on track in about ten minutes without even working up a sweat. I’d stumble off to get a sandwich, and I would come back to find that I had a freshly painted apartment, better health insurance, thousands of dollars in tax savings, and he will have groomed my cat. Which implies that he went out and GOT me a cat, because he correctly guessed that I want one. He will be gone on my return, leaving only a note saying that he had moved on to work for someone else, as his job here was done—presumably flying out of my window with his magic umbrella.
This entire campaign has been one long audition for the job of president. What have we learned about the candidates? What have they done to prove their skill to us?
First good call: funding
Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to turn down public funding for campaigns since the policy was instituted in 1971. Why turn down $84 million? Because if he had accepted it, that would have restricted the amount of money he could raise. Obama was sure that ordinary Americans would donate more than that, so he risked it. No one had ever seen a move quite like it.
Result? Obama raised more than $600 million from donations. McCain was left with his $84 million of public funding. How did Obama do it? Through an extremely organized website, for a start, along with teams of well-trained volunteers. But mostly, the money came because people were happy to give. I gave. Almost everyone I know gave. We’ve given out hundreds of dollars on this site, even. He made a good call.
The effect has been obvious. Obama has so much more money to spend than McCain, that he could do things like buy 30 minutes of prime-time airtime before the last game of the World Series. (His special actually beat the World Series, in terms of viewers. By a longshot.)
This has made John McCain exceedingly cranky, but there is precisely nothing he can do about it. He was, quite simply, outfoxed.
Next good call: organization
The Obama organization is a thing of beauty—a robust machine that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s well-staffed, partially because there is enough money to pay the staff. But it’s also manned by dedicated volunteers who have been given actual power to get things done. Obama trusted the people. It worked.
The McCain machine? Not quite so well. Read a little bit of this account from journalist Sean Quinn at fivethirtyeight.com. (And check out the full article to see the photos that go with it—they tell the story.)
"Offices in Troy, Ohio were closed on Saturday October 11. With perfect coincidental timing, two elderly women dropped by to volunteer but found the office shut. At Republican state headquarters in Columbus later the same day, one lonely dialer sat in a sea of unoccupied chairs. In Des Moines on September 25, another empty office. In Santa Fe on September 17, one dialer made calls while six chatted amongst themselves about how they didn't like Obama. In Raleigh this past Saturday, ten days before the election with early voting already open, two women dialed and a male staffer watched the Georgia-LSU game . . . . In Cortez, CO, we had Republican volunteers pose for action-shot photos. The same in Española, New Mexico. Posed. For some time at the outset, we were willing to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt. They convinced us they were really working, and that we had just had unfortunate timing. It wasn't until the pattern of "just missed it" started to sound like a drumbeat in our ears that we began to grow skeptical. We never "just missed" any of the Obama volunteer work, because it goes on nonstop, every day, in every office, in every corner of America."
Again . . . the offer stands, Obama, in case this doesn't work out tomorrow.
Biggest good call: picking a running mate
Each candidate had to pick a second-in-command. Obama’s perceived weak point was his so-called inexperience. He counteracted that claim anyway by chosing Joe Biden, an extremely seasoned Senate leader with extensive foreign policy experience. Obama and Biden do not visibly grit their teeth when around each other. In fact, they seem to like each other and work as partners. Things get done. This is an example of a good Vice Presidential selection.
McCain, after what appeared to be a rather frenzied and strange process, chose Sarah Palin.
Some thoughts on this. I feel like this was such a serious goof that I have to make some direct comments right on the application file.
In general, it would be good to pick someone you’ve met more than once. It would be good to pick someone who you’ve vetted, so that they aren’t, say, under investigation for multiple misuses of power and public money. Someone who was well-educated and versed in all the issues would be good, too. Someone who doesn’t make a complete fool of herself when interviewed—to the point where you simply can’t let her be interviewed anymore.
Not someone, say, who went from Hawaii Pacific College, to North Idaho Community College, to the University of Idaho, to Matanuska-Susitna Community College, and then back to the University of Idaho—five transfers over six years—in order to obtain one (1) college degree in journalism. And yet, she appears to have NO IDEA how journalism works . . . that questions will be asked, that she's supposed to have the answers with her, that she's supposed to, in some way, answer the question that was asked.
Don’t try to call it being a maverick or having frontier spirit or “gotcha academics!”. She’s not a latent genius—she’s a strong-willed dingbat who fooled some of the people some of the time. You can't answer the questions if you have no base of knowledge to work from.
It also helps to pick someone who doesn’t simply turn around and stab you in the back when you appear to be losing. Seriously, John. Have you never met a beauty pageant contestant? Because you totally seem like someone who might have. Don’t you know that they are lone wolves, and they play to win, win, win? Miss Third-Place Alaska 1984 is not going to let herself go through that pain again. Girl will CUT YOU rather than lose. She has spent WAY too much time learning the material on those index cards and way too much money on those clothes and that super hair of hers (and it is looking kind of super now that she’s let it down). She has tasted the fruits of Fifth Avenue and been on Saturday Night Live and she will not go quietly back to the Land of Moose, Salmon, and Darkness.
Now your entire operation is coming apart at the seams because you have a “maverick” in your ranks who consistently messes up everything you try to do. Your own people call her a “diva” and a “whack job.” What is it LIKE where you work? You couldn’t run a Starbucks this way, much less the country.
But imagine if he DID:
MCCAIN: We need two pumpkin spiced lattes.
PALIN: (on the espresso machine) I’m just a hockey mom, ya know! I don’t go in for that fancy coffee. I’ll make you two plain cups of Joe! Just like Joe the Plummer!
MCCAIN: That’s cute. Now give me two pumpkin spiced lattes.
PALIN: Can’t do it, John! You know I love you!
MCCAIN: (soto voce) Please tell me your read the manual. I have been training you for weeks. This is not hard. It’s two squirts of pumpkin syrup . . .
PALIN: Mavericks don’t read the manual!
MCCAIN: (chuckles nervously) Sarah, people are looking. Now make this nice customer two pumpkin spiced lattes.
PALIN: What about Joe Six-Pack? What does he drink? A six-pack. That’s my America.
MCCAIN: GIVE ME TWO PUMPKIN SPICED LATTES OR I’LL . . .
(Other employees tell him that everyone is staring. He quiets, quickly.)
MCCAIN: I am so proud of you.
EMPLOYEE #1 IN THE BACKGROUND: She’s nuts! She has NO IDEA how to work the machine! She can’t make a single shot of espresso without messing it up. Why did you hire her?
EMPLOYEE #2 IN BACKGROUND: Shut up! She’s just too much of a rebel for this job!
EMPLOYEE #1: A rebel, huh? I guess that’s probably why I have to make ALL HER MILK FOAM FOR THE CAPPUCCINOS.
EMPLOYEE #2: Real Americans don’t drink milk foam!
EMPLOYEE #1: Can you explain why “the rebel” had the company spend ten grand on her apron? That kind of spending makes us look like geniuses right now, doesn’t it? $150,000 for CLOTHES? As we go into a DEPRESSION?
EMPLOYEE #2: We had to spend ten grand on her apron because she is POOR. And then she is going to give it to a homeless person!
EMPLOYEE #1 Oh, that’ll be great. I’m sure some dude who’s just lost his house in this financial crisis will feel much better once he has Sarah Palin’s fancy secondhand apron to keep him warm at night. Why don't we just get her a tiara and be done with it? Or, wait . . . doesn't she already have one? Oh. Right. She was third place.
EMPLOYEE #2: (shaking milk foam spoon) DO. NOT. MOCK. HER. THIRD. PLACE. STATUS.
EMPLOYEE #1: And what about that makeup artist that goes everywhere with her? She made $22,800 in two weeks! She’s the top paid person around here. I work night and day trying to keep this place from falling apart, and she slaps some lipstick on Sarah and gets over ten grand a week for it. I HATE MY JOB.
MCCAIN: (to customer) Everything’s going great. Just great. Our motto around here is: Customers First.
CUSTOMER: ---- your motto. I’m leaving. I’ve never seen such incompetence.
(Outside, a state-of-the-art Obama coffee truck has pulled up, playing cheerful music. Obama is working the window, and Joe Biden is working the coffee machine. A team of volunteers hop out and distribute fresh and perfectly made pumpkin spiced lattes to anyone who wants them, including the disgruntled customer. The truck then pulls off to make a dozen more deliveries, all ahead of schedule.)
CUSTOMER: (sipping his Obama latte) Tastes like . . . hope. And pumpkin.
MCCAIN: I hate that guy.
PALIN: (yelling) Obama doesn’t even drink coffee! He drinks anti-American tea made from the hair of communists! And babies! He drinks babies! Now come back and look at my SEXY BOOTS!
So, who do we choose?
Do we hire the person who has proved himself to be—not only competent, but exceptional? Someone with an excellent resume? Someone who doesn’t sit in the waiting room and throw spitballs at the other applicant? Someone who has made smart decisions about money and personnel? Someone who developed a long-term plan and carried that plan out with tremendous results? Someone who has prepared for this job so well that all the other candidate can do is huff and steam and complain . . . because he has lost.
But we’ve won.
If we’re just smart enough to hire him. That’s OUR test. Let’s pass it.
Tomorrow, we Americans are hiring someone to do a job, namely, the job of president. In the event that Barack Obama does not get this job on November 4th, I would like to hereby offer him a job working for me. I cannot offer the same perks as the presidential gig (big white house, Secret Service dudes and dudettes, Air Force One, awesome podium). But still, it is his if he wants it.
Because, seriously? I have some stuff that needs fixing, and from what I’ve seen, Obama could get my entire life on track in about ten minutes without even working up a sweat. I’d stumble off to get a sandwich, and I would come back to find that I had a freshly painted apartment, better health insurance, thousands of dollars in tax savings, and he will have groomed my cat. Which implies that he went out and GOT me a cat, because he correctly guessed that I want one. He will be gone on my return, leaving only a note saying that he had moved on to work for someone else, as his job here was done—presumably flying out of my window with his magic umbrella.
This entire campaign has been one long audition for the job of president. What have we learned about the candidates? What have they done to prove their skill to us?
First good call: funding
Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to turn down public funding for campaigns since the policy was instituted in 1971. Why turn down $84 million? Because if he had accepted it, that would have restricted the amount of money he could raise. Obama was sure that ordinary Americans would donate more than that, so he risked it. No one had ever seen a move quite like it.
Result? Obama raised more than $600 million from donations. McCain was left with his $84 million of public funding. How did Obama do it? Through an extremely organized website, for a start, along with teams of well-trained volunteers. But mostly, the money came because people were happy to give. I gave. Almost everyone I know gave. We’ve given out hundreds of dollars on this site, even. He made a good call.
The effect has been obvious. Obama has so much more money to spend than McCain, that he could do things like buy 30 minutes of prime-time airtime before the last game of the World Series. (His special actually beat the World Series, in terms of viewers. By a longshot.)
This has made John McCain exceedingly cranky, but there is precisely nothing he can do about it. He was, quite simply, outfoxed.
Next good call: organization
The Obama organization is a thing of beauty—a robust machine that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s well-staffed, partially because there is enough money to pay the staff. But it’s also manned by dedicated volunteers who have been given actual power to get things done. Obama trusted the people. It worked.
The McCain machine? Not quite so well. Read a little bit of this account from journalist Sean Quinn at fivethirtyeight.com. (And check out the full article to see the photos that go with it—they tell the story.)
"Offices in Troy, Ohio were closed on Saturday October 11. With perfect coincidental timing, two elderly women dropped by to volunteer but found the office shut. At Republican state headquarters in Columbus later the same day, one lonely dialer sat in a sea of unoccupied chairs. In Des Moines on September 25, another empty office. In Santa Fe on September 17, one dialer made calls while six chatted amongst themselves about how they didn't like Obama. In Raleigh this past Saturday, ten days before the election with early voting already open, two women dialed and a male staffer watched the Georgia-LSU game . . . . In Cortez, CO, we had Republican volunteers pose for action-shot photos. The same in Española, New Mexico. Posed. For some time at the outset, we were willing to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt. They convinced us they were really working, and that we had just had unfortunate timing. It wasn't until the pattern of "just missed it" started to sound like a drumbeat in our ears that we began to grow skeptical. We never "just missed" any of the Obama volunteer work, because it goes on nonstop, every day, in every office, in every corner of America."
Again . . . the offer stands, Obama, in case this doesn't work out tomorrow.
Biggest good call: picking a running mate
Each candidate had to pick a second-in-command. Obama’s perceived weak point was his so-called inexperience. He counteracted that claim anyway by chosing Joe Biden, an extremely seasoned Senate leader with extensive foreign policy experience. Obama and Biden do not visibly grit their teeth when around each other. In fact, they seem to like each other and work as partners. Things get done. This is an example of a good Vice Presidential selection.
McCain, after what appeared to be a rather frenzied and strange process, chose Sarah Palin.
Some thoughts on this. I feel like this was such a serious goof that I have to make some direct comments right on the application file.
In general, it would be good to pick someone you’ve met more than once. It would be good to pick someone who you’ve vetted, so that they aren’t, say, under investigation for multiple misuses of power and public money. Someone who was well-educated and versed in all the issues would be good, too. Someone who doesn’t make a complete fool of herself when interviewed—to the point where you simply can’t let her be interviewed anymore.
Not someone, say, who went from Hawaii Pacific College, to North Idaho Community College, to the University of Idaho, to Matanuska-Susitna Community College, and then back to the University of Idaho—five transfers over six years—in order to obtain one (1) college degree in journalism. And yet, she appears to have NO IDEA how journalism works . . . that questions will be asked, that she's supposed to have the answers with her, that she's supposed to, in some way, answer the question that was asked.
Don’t try to call it being a maverick or having frontier spirit or “gotcha academics!”. She’s not a latent genius—she’s a strong-willed dingbat who fooled some of the people some of the time. You can't answer the questions if you have no base of knowledge to work from.
It also helps to pick someone who doesn’t simply turn around and stab you in the back when you appear to be losing. Seriously, John. Have you never met a beauty pageant contestant? Because you totally seem like someone who might have. Don’t you know that they are lone wolves, and they play to win, win, win? Miss Third-Place Alaska 1984 is not going to let herself go through that pain again. Girl will CUT YOU rather than lose. She has spent WAY too much time learning the material on those index cards and way too much money on those clothes and that super hair of hers (and it is looking kind of super now that she’s let it down). She has tasted the fruits of Fifth Avenue and been on Saturday Night Live and she will not go quietly back to the Land of Moose, Salmon, and Darkness.
Now your entire operation is coming apart at the seams because you have a “maverick” in your ranks who consistently messes up everything you try to do. Your own people call her a “diva” and a “whack job.” What is it LIKE where you work? You couldn’t run a Starbucks this way, much less the country.
But imagine if he DID:
MCCAIN: We need two pumpkin spiced lattes.
PALIN: (on the espresso machine) I’m just a hockey mom, ya know! I don’t go in for that fancy coffee. I’ll make you two plain cups of Joe! Just like Joe the Plummer!
MCCAIN: That’s cute. Now give me two pumpkin spiced lattes.
PALIN: Can’t do it, John! You know I love you!
MCCAIN: (soto voce) Please tell me your read the manual. I have been training you for weeks. This is not hard. It’s two squirts of pumpkin syrup . . .
PALIN: Mavericks don’t read the manual!
MCCAIN: (chuckles nervously) Sarah, people are looking. Now make this nice customer two pumpkin spiced lattes.
PALIN: What about Joe Six-Pack? What does he drink? A six-pack. That’s my America.
MCCAIN: GIVE ME TWO PUMPKIN SPICED LATTES OR I’LL . . .
(Other employees tell him that everyone is staring. He quiets, quickly.)
MCCAIN: I am so proud of you.
EMPLOYEE #1 IN THE BACKGROUND: She’s nuts! She has NO IDEA how to work the machine! She can’t make a single shot of espresso without messing it up. Why did you hire her?
EMPLOYEE #2 IN BACKGROUND: Shut up! She’s just too much of a rebel for this job!
EMPLOYEE #1: A rebel, huh? I guess that’s probably why I have to make ALL HER MILK FOAM FOR THE CAPPUCCINOS.
EMPLOYEE #2: Real Americans don’t drink milk foam!
EMPLOYEE #1: Can you explain why “the rebel” had the company spend ten grand on her apron? That kind of spending makes us look like geniuses right now, doesn’t it? $150,000 for CLOTHES? As we go into a DEPRESSION?
EMPLOYEE #2: We had to spend ten grand on her apron because she is POOR. And then she is going to give it to a homeless person!
EMPLOYEE #1 Oh, that’ll be great. I’m sure some dude who’s just lost his house in this financial crisis will feel much better once he has Sarah Palin’s fancy secondhand apron to keep him warm at night. Why don't we just get her a tiara and be done with it? Or, wait . . . doesn't she already have one? Oh. Right. She was third place.
EMPLOYEE #2: (shaking milk foam spoon) DO. NOT. MOCK. HER. THIRD. PLACE. STATUS.
EMPLOYEE #1: And what about that makeup artist that goes everywhere with her? She made $22,800 in two weeks! She’s the top paid person around here. I work night and day trying to keep this place from falling apart, and she slaps some lipstick on Sarah and gets over ten grand a week for it. I HATE MY JOB.
MCCAIN: (to customer) Everything’s going great. Just great. Our motto around here is: Customers First.
CUSTOMER: ---- your motto. I’m leaving. I’ve never seen such incompetence.
(Outside, a state-of-the-art Obama coffee truck has pulled up, playing cheerful music. Obama is working the window, and Joe Biden is working the coffee machine. A team of volunteers hop out and distribute fresh and perfectly made pumpkin spiced lattes to anyone who wants them, including the disgruntled customer. The truck then pulls off to make a dozen more deliveries, all ahead of schedule.)
CUSTOMER: (sipping his Obama latte) Tastes like . . . hope. And pumpkin.
MCCAIN: I hate that guy.
PALIN: (yelling) Obama doesn’t even drink coffee! He drinks anti-American tea made from the hair of communists! And babies! He drinks babies! Now come back and look at my SEXY BOOTS!
So, who do we choose?
Do we hire the person who has proved himself to be—not only competent, but exceptional? Someone with an excellent resume? Someone who doesn’t sit in the waiting room and throw spitballs at the other applicant? Someone who has made smart decisions about money and personnel? Someone who developed a long-term plan and carried that plan out with tremendous results? Someone who has prepared for this job so well that all the other candidate can do is huff and steam and complain . . . because he has lost.
But we’ve won.
If we’re just smart enough to hire him. That’s OUR test. Let’s pass it.
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