Fallout

Obama won South Carolina with 55% of the vote, over twice Hillary's percentage. Its a total rebuke of the Clintons' tactics. Their strategy to "blacken" Obama, to make him appear as a narrow black candidate instead of a broad candidate backfired. Instead of driving white voters away from Obama - Obama got 25% of the white vote - they drove white voters to Edwards who got 20% of the overall vote. Hillary was reduced to her constituency of white women, which is a not a good thing for her.

From Time:

There was evidence that Obama's victory was also a repudiation of the brand of hard-knuckled politics that both Clintons had brought to the South Carolina contest. Exit polls indicated that Bill Clinton's campaigning made a difference to about 6 in 10 South Carolina Democratic primary voters. But of those voters, 47% went for Barack Obama, while only 38% went for Hillary Clinton. Fourteen percent voted for John Edwards. The Obama campaign gleefully noted that in the mostly black precincts that Bill Clinton visted in Greenville, as much as 80% of the vote went to Obama....

Obama's impressive win meant all the more given the nature of politics in South Carolina, a state whose history is fraught with race and class. Some observers wondered if the state's voters were becoming more racially polarized in the final days before the primary. That speculation was fueled by one late McClatchy/MSNBC survey that suggested Obama could expect to receive no more than 10% of the white vote, half of what the same poll had shown only a week before. But Obama instead won about a quarter of the white vote overall, and around half of young white voters, on his way to a commanding 55% of the total vote (Clinton finished second with roughly 27% and Edwards came in third with 18%). The excitement around Obama's candidacy pushed turnout to record levels - a kind of surge, says Obama strategist Cornell Belcher, that "is something only Barack Obama is capable of bringing to the table."

Will this change the Clintons' strategy? Early indications are no. Bill Clinton gave Hillary's concession speech for her saying that Jessie Jackson won South Carolina too. The Democratic base is really pissed at the Clintons. Daschle, Kerry, they're all coming out of the woodwork to give Bill Clinton what for. Caroline Kennedy has endorsed Obama - an endorsement Hillary wanted for herself. I can only imagine the brunch conversation this morning in the Clinton suite at the Tennessee Hilton. Will they pull Bill off the campaign trail? Doubtful. But something has to change because their tactics over the past two weeks have been a disaster.

The challenge for Obama now is Super Tuesday. 22 states up for grabs. Hillary is polling ahead in California, New York, and New Jersey, all states with lots of delegates. Can Obama pull it out? I hope so.

More Honor on Jay

Honor Hunter posted again on our thread on Jay Rassulo:

I want you to know that I don't have it out for the man personally. I've made my judgements on the basis of what my friends and sources have said about him. I also, of my own opinon dislike the Disney Parks campaign(thinking it to be simular to trying to turn Disney theme parks into McDonalds) and don't like the Year of a Million Dreams campaign(I know the parks have had a record couple years, but these records started before this campaign was even thought of). My friends at the parks that have to deal with these promotions don't like them either and don't feel they're working. The guest have no idea what the year of a million dreams is and many have rejected gifts outright for fear that it is something Disney is trying to get them to buy.

It is true that it is hard to tell whether the success of the parks has been because of the marketing or because of other factors, but certainly management seems to think YoMD has been a success or it wouldn't be extending this program. But parks marketing is definitely going to have to come up with another idea soon because you can't market the parks with a sweepstakes forever.

I think its appropriate to market the parks together some of the time. For example, Toy Story Mania opens this year simultaneously in Florida and California. I hope that rather than running the branding program they are running now, they will put a heavy TV marketing effort behind TSM. That would make sense because its the same ride in two different locations and one heavy marketing push is much better than two smaller disconnected ones.

CNN predicts Obama wins South Carolina

Polls just closed but CNN is projecting - based on strong turnout and exit polls - a win by Barack Obama. Must be decisive exit polls if they are predicting so confidently. That means Obama is strong and has the momentum going into Super Tuesday.

Mike on Bill

Here's Mike's reaction to my post on Bill Clinton:

I agree with everything except that he's been our best ex-President. That honor goes firmly to Jimmy Carter.

That was my Republican friend saying that and I thought it was remarkable that a former Regean and Bush I staffer would say that Bill Clinton was the best former President. He also said that everyone says that about Jimmy Carter, but that he thinks Carter is overrated and undermines whoever is in office. Some of that feeling is no doubt, you know, cause he worked for Regean.

But hey, different strokes.

On "Every Post Critical Or Trenchant?"

Epcot82 made a post today with the title "Every Post Critical Or Trenchant?" - which I have to imagine is somewhat inspired by my recent comments - in which he argues that there is a place for criticism of Disney. Fair enough. I never said don't criticize Disney. I've done it myself. You point out that, hey, I'm being critical too. That's true, I am. Because I think you are often wrong and turnabout is fair play.

Here's my real issue with Epcot Central. Statements like this from the most recent post: "Disney is filled these days with people who got into it for one key reason: to make money for themselves." Now that's a very sweeping generalization. There are some people, no doubt, who are at Disney for that reason. But there is a very large percentage of people who are there for something more: because they love the company and what it stands for, because they grew up and with and want to continue its tradition of excellence and magic. And its really upsetting to me to hear someone characterize these hard working people who do care in such an unfair and inaccurate way. So, yes, I am critical of Epcot82. That's not a contradiction.

Now here's where we agree. I don't think anyone can argue that Epcot is in terrific shape. I will argue to the floor all these people who think The Seas with Nemo is a bad thing because it is not. Both kids and families love it and I think it still serves the purpose of engaging families with sea life. I think its a great re-vitalization of a classic Epcot attraction and the queue line would tell you that more people agree with me than Epcot82 on this one. But I think we all share the concern that the Pixarization of the parks is crowding out original creations. Rides like Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Everest are right up there with any of Disney's best cinematic creations. And there needs to be a place for these types of attractions in the future. I too fear that in the rush to make attractions that launch simultaneous to the movie - Lasseter's stated goal - that we will get a lot of rides based on movies that aren't classic. Can anyone argue that A Bug's Life is really deserving of its own land or that A Bug's Land is even a great adaptation of the movie?

But back to Epcot, I will never forget my first visit to Epcot as a kid and how excited it made me about technology, science, and all manner of topics. I think it had a big part of why I do what I do today and I always have carried that feeling inside. And I would like that educational message to be a part of Epcot's future too. But I disagree with the notion that Disney characters have no place in that and that they don't belong in Epcot at all.

And I agree, that if you look through the narrow lens of Epcot - which is all Epcot82 has said he really cares about - the view is not so great. There is a lot of work that could be done on that park and all the money is going elsewhere. But you have to take a wider view. The company overall is doing well, a fact that Epcot82 and I will have to agree to disagree about, and many improvements have been made. But Disney can only invest in so many things at one time. From the perspective of the turnstile, Disney has much bigger problems than Epcot, namely DCA and HKDL. Fixing those problems is going to be very expensive. Whether you like how the money was spent, Epcot got a lot of investment over the last few years. And management must fix these others parks now. You can say that you don't care and stamp your feet that they should just put that money into Epcot, but its just not living in the real world. Jay and Bob are not bad people. They have to make tough decisions based on a limited amount of resources in a climate where Wall Street is very critical of media companies. They have a difficult balance to maintain. I think most Disney fans would agree that they have done a better job than their predecessors of managing that balance and the Parks are better for it.

So please be critical. But also be fair. My problem with your blog is not your criticism of Epcot or even Disney management. Its your unfair personal attacks and attempts to paint Disney's employees as unthinking uncaring greedheads out to destroy everything good that Walt built because that is not the case.

Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton is being a butthead. Its sad. Very sad. In truth, Bill Clinton let Democrats down. He could have been one of the greatest Presidents of all time. He could have been on Mount Rushmore. He is that talented. But instead, he decided to get a blowjob from a fat girl. And as a consequence, he achieved almost nothing remarkable as his presidency descended into scandal. We almost gotten over that. A friend of mine that used to work in the Reagan and Bush I White Houses told me he thought Bill Clinton had, until recently, been the best former President of recent memory. His work on Katrina, the tsunami, and the Clinton Global Initiative reminded us all of why we elected him in the first place and started the heal the wounds of his last four years. But all that has been swept away in the last few weeks. I do not like this angry, lying Bill Clinton I have seen on my TV for the last few weeks. And neither do a few of his friends. Here's what Robert Reich, Clinton's Secretary of Labor, has to say:

"Bill Clinton’s ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former President, his legacy, or his wife’s campaign. Nor are they helping the Democratic party. While it may be that all is fair in love, war, and politics, it’s not fair – indeed, it’s demeaning – for a former President to say things that are patently untrue (such as Obama’s anti-war position is a “fairy tale”) or to insinuate that Obama is injecting race into the race when the former President is himself doing it."

But none put it better, ironically, than Peggy Noonan. I few quotes from her latest article:

There are many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats who support Mr. Obama and John Edwards, and who are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so. Here is William Greider in The Nation, the venerable left-liberal magazine. The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."...

But the Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans. And to do it in a way that signals, to his supporters, How dare you have the temerity, the ingratitude, after all we've done for you?

That's exactly how I feel. I am seeing Hillary in a new way, and I am beginning to believe that there is no difference between the Clintons and the Bushes except their position on abortion. They are both ugly people who will do anything to win. And that's why I feel this election is not about Democrat versus Republican. It is about putting the last 2 decades behind us and starting new.

New Leibovitz pics

New photos in the Annie Leibovitz Disney series. This is my fav with Gisele as Wendy, Baryshnikov as Peter Pan, and yes, Tina Fey as Tink. They also have photos of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony as Jasmine and Aladdin and of Jessica Biel as Pocahontas.

The slowing of the iPod

Apple reported its best quarter ever yesterday, but that didn't hide the news that iPod sales slowed to only 5% growth. Its to be expected. The iPod has had a long boom of 6 years. At some point, it has to level out. Portable video has not taken off - remember that until a few months ago, you couldn't get video on an iPod below $400. And most people just want a good music player as evidenced by the sales of the Gen 1 Nano. I don't think portable video is as much of a killer app, but Apple needs to make it more popular to get iPod growing again. Adding iPhone functionality to the iPod Touch is a good direction too, but again, most people just want a music player. Long term, I think the iPod is an exciting platform for all types of content, but Apple needs to open up and users need to catch up.

Honor Hunter on Jay

Honor Hunter responded to my note defending Jay Rasulo. Follow the link to the full note. Here's some excerpts...

"...as to the matter of Jay Rasulo, we are going to have to disagree on that one.

I know several execs and former execs or as you know I like to call them: Suits. These Suits really have become upset with Jay's global structure and I'm not just referring to his homoginizing of all the parks. I dislike this, but it is by no means the majority of my beef with Jay.

As for him championing the new makeover? Well, again, he had little to do with it and if it were up to him it wouldn't have been in the 800 milliion range, but more like 300 million range. Matt Ouimett was the one that started championing the need for it. He was met with a great deal of resistance by... you guessed it: Jay Rasulo. The Imagineers have had to fight very hard to get that money and Iger is more responsible than Jay. John Lasseter is the other person that gets kudos for presssing for a higher budget."

Like I said, I have tremendous respect for the Blue Sky Disney blog. Unlike Epcot Central, which I think unfairly and inaccurately attacks Disney and its management and paints a distorted and negative picture, Blue Sky Disney is generally a positive blog that focuses primarily on all the good things that are happening and is generally a force for good among Disney fans...except on this one topic of Jay. I think Honor Hunter is right that we will have to agree to disagree on this. What I would submit to Hunter is consider your sources. The kind of people who would leak you confidential information are the same kind of people who generally don't love management. So I think you are getting a one-sided view. If you think I am giving Jay too much credit, I think you are giving him too little...far too little. I see no evidence of your claims that Jay is on his way out the door. To the contrary, the Parks have been doing well and everyone seems really happy with the direction. And Jay deserves a lot of credit for that as do Bob and John no doubt about it. But to say that Jay has had nothing to with the changes at the Parks - or even that he is against them - is just plain wrong.

MLK Day speech

Here is the video of Barack's speech on Sunday.

Giuliani's Bad Side

Read this article. This is why Rudy Giuliani cannot be President. He is the only person who could make us nostalgic for Bush! This article is all about how he used his power to punish his political rivals. Read this and tell me if you still want this guy.

Stop it!

Hillary, you behaving disgustingly and you should be ashamed of yourself. Your behavior in tonight's debate caps off a few weeks of increasingly nasty politics. The trivial and factually inaccurate stuff you said tonight doesn't belong in the National Enquirer much less a Presidential debate. All day, the media has been talking about how you and Bill are out of control and people are reacting very negatively to what you are doing.

Barack, there's defending yourself and there's taking the bait. Tonight, you took the bait. I know why it happened, but your strength is being above it all and staying out of this kind of stuff.

John Edwards, thank you for saying:

"This kind of squabbling -- how many children is this going to get health care? How many people are going to get education because of this? How many kids are going to get to go to college because of this?"

That is right on point. Hillary is pulling the whole debate into inane political squabbles and if we get her as President that is what we will get for the next 4 years. I am glad Edwards put a stop to it and he really helped himself at a good time going into the South Carolina primary that is make or break for him....and Obama.

JG on iPhone for biz

When I read this last week I laughed. Out loud. Apart from Exchange Server issues- the keyboard is a secondary support function as it does NOT work. It cracks me up that Apple would have predictive text because you can only type short messages and most people like me (yes as OLD as me) still type in slang and abbreviate everything. IT's an awesome entertainment device, it's actually an awesome phone. Having a phone and an iPod together is cool, but my blackberry is functionally awesome.

They are both two flavors of crack.

JG endores Obama

Hey politcal junkie,

I have chosen this day, MLK day, to announce my support for Sen. Barack Obama for President.

Bandwagon or not, here we go.
JG

Unity

In honor of MLK Day, here is the full text of Barack Obama's speech at King's Ebeneezer Baptist Church yesterday. Please take a few moments to read it. Its worth it:

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.

But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram’s horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.

Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yolk of oppression.

And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:

“Unity is the great need of the hour” is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.

What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Unity is the great need of the hour – the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it’s the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

I’m not talking about a budget deficit. I’m not talking about a trade deficit. I’m not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I’m talking about a moral deficit. I’m talking about an empathy deficit. I’m taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother’s keeper; we are our sister’s keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we’re still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can’t afford a doctor when their children get sick.

We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.

So we have a deficit to close. We have walls – barriers to justice and equality – that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we’ve come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We’ve come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it’s just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.

But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

It’s not easy to stand in somebody else’s shoes. It’s not easy to see past our differences. We’ve all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.

We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don’t think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country’s ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.

That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words – words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.

That is the unity – the hard-earned unity – that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope – the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.

The stories that give me such hope don’t happen in the spotlight. They don’t happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She’s been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.

And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.

And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.

And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope – but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.

So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.

Super Tuesday

Time has a good article about Super Tuesday on the Republican side and how it may not decide anything for Republicans. If current polls hold up, which they won't, you wind up with a 3 or 4 way tie with no one having a majority of delegates. That's assuming Giuliani does well in Florida, which I don't think happens because he has no mo.

For a political junkie like me, this is getting very interesting. I also like the notion that the entire nation gets to weigh in on these guys and not just some small states in the northeast. For all the complaining, this new calendar seems to be working because more states are getting a say in who the President will be.

iPhone goes corporate..kind of

AT&T has announced a more business friendly rate plan for iPhone. Hurray. This still doesn't solve the even bigger problem of Exchange support. Until that one is solved, iPhone won't be making much headway with corporate IT. Also, I don't see a big solution for International in here. But the big problem for me still is the lack of a keyboard. I hate iPhones stupid virtual keyboard. You just can't beat the Blackberry for e-mail.

Godin Gives it Away

Seth Godin wrote a who manifesto a few weeks ago about music that I haven't had enough time to read, but now he's got a few things to say about movies too. He think the studios are making a mistake of "RIAA proportions" by selling movie rentals for the same amount as they sell them at Blockbuster.

"...In the case of online rentals, all of these intermediate costs immediately disappear. Gone. So, why try to mimic the current model when it comes to pricing if the costs are mostly gone?

...I don't think Free is always the answer, but I do think the studios are about to make a mistake of RIAA proportions. I'd charge fifty cents for an online rental. It would immediately hammer the rental stores...but would instantly teach people a new habit...

Then, once the new habit is set and you've earned permission, sure, charge more for new movies and for blockbusters..."

Here we go again. Another Silicon Valley guy telling Hollywood how to sell their content when he has no stake. The reality is that online movies at any price or business model may be pushing a square peg in a round hole because of download speeds. So why dramatically undercut the current business model that pays the bills for something so totally unproven. It doesn't make any kind of business. The only people who NEED consumers to watch movies online are online people. Hollywood doesn't really have a movie distribution problem. DVD, VOD, and all the other windows, these things work fine for Hollywood. Why not sell a movie at 50 cents? Isn't it obvious? Because its worth more than that. If people are used to paying $4 for renting a movie, why should the price now be 50 cents?

Obama wins Nevada?

Hillary won the statewide percentage, but Obama got more delegates under the rules of Nevada's system. Cool!

There Will Be Blood

Just saw There Will Be Blood. Interesting movie. Terrific character study. Absolutely no plot, at least in any traditional sense. But Daniel Day-Lewis' performance is genius and he deserves an Oscar as far as I'm concerned.

South Carolina

The Republican primary is South Carolina, which was marked by bad weather and problems at the polling place, is over and the verdict is in: MccCain won...but not by much. We won with 33% of the vote, but Huckabee had 30%. So at this point, its (at least) a 3-way race. Thompson, who got a little momentum in the South Carolina debates eeked out third with 16% of the vote. Romney got 15%. Its a disappointing finish for Thompson and hopefully he'll withdraw. As I said earlier, Romney has won both Michigan and Nevada, but I'd like to see him win a state that didn't have a high percentage of Mormons or whether his daddy wasn't governor and that's something I'm not sure we'll see. McCain is in this thing though, and that's a good thing.

Epcot82 responds

If you are interested, you can go to the comments on my Epcot Central post and read Epcot82's response, which I find basically to be wrong as usual. (P.S. - Epcot82, I'm Anonymous. Remember me.)

At the end of the day, its sad that we have to bicker because I think we share a mutual passion. But it really pisses me off to see someone constantly twist the facts and denigrate good people who are working hard to do good things.

I almost forgot

The most significant announcement of the Apple keynote was NOT made by Steve Jobs and it came off as almost a footnote. It was Jim Gianopoulos' announcement that Fox was shipping its first DVD with Digital Copy. Gianopoulos seemed to imply that all future Fox DVDs will come with this feature, which would just be huge. Digital Copy means the DVD comes with a copy of the movie encoded for playback on the iPod (and on Windows Media Players by the way).

Why is this such a big deal? For one thing, its an admission that selling movies in the download-to-own model via iTunes isn't happening, as if Jobs didn't say that himself in his keynote. This is Fox basically writing off the iPod as a money maker. But they are also, wisely, recognizing that just because people don't want to pay $15 for a lower quality version of a movie they already have on DVD doesn't mean that they don't want to put that DVD on their iPod. And they are also, again wisely, recognizing that if they don't give people a legal way to do this, they will just do it anyway by either ripping the DVD or downloading it from P2P. It was just kind of naive in the first place to think that people would want to pay a second time to put their movie on a different device. Things don't work that way in the age of the Internet.

The other reason it is significant, as I said before, is that Fox is doing this on DVD and NOT restricting it to Blu-Ray which is going to upset all the other studios. The fanatical Blu-Ray backers like Sony and Disney have been saving "managed copy" functionality for Blu-Ray and have been waiting for BD Live capable players to get out there to enable it. They see managed copy as one of the key differentiators for Blu-Ray. In fact, they've built in this fairly complex system into the spec that allows the studio to charge for a copy and beyond even that to charge different prices for different types of copies. So a iPod quality file might cost one thing while an HD caliber file, if even allowed, could cost more. Then here comes Fox and gives the thing away on DVD no less. If Fox has success, which I am sure they will, it is going to force all the other studios to follow suit as it will train users to want this feature.

I just saw a TV ad for the Family Guy DVD in which they heavily promoted Digital Copy. It will be interesting to see how the other studios react.

Dear John Edwards: Please drop out!

In a surprising victory, at least for me, Hillary Clinton has won Nevada with 51% of the vote. Obama came a close second at 45% of the vote. And Edwards had a measly 4%. How Hillary won after trying to deprive Nevadans of their vote is beyond me, but there it is. You can hardly call Hillary's victory, or any of her victories, decisive. But she is winning elections and that is all that counts. There is a lot riding for Obama on South Carolina. If he does not win there, Hillary's getting the nomination.

John Edwards, its time for you to drop out. Seriously. You haven't gotten over 17% anywhere and you are out of cash. I know South Carolina is your home state and you're hoping for a big hometown victory, but at this point you do not have a prayer of winning the nomination. This is clearly between Obama and Hillary. And I think we both agree that we don't want Hillary to get the nod. You need to do the right thing here. If you stay in, you may split the vote and Hillary wins the nomination. You need to drop out and throw your supporters to Obama or we will have the Clintons back in the White House. Which isn't the end of the world, but its not what you are fighting for. You and Obama are on the same side. Its time to take one for the team and check your ego.

Oh, and Romney squeaked won big in Nevada for what its worth with 52%. Which is his second victory. So he's in the game. But half his votes came from Mormons and immigration was one of the top issues for voters so McCain never really had a chance.

God, if we get Hillary versus Romney....

Why you need a MacBook AIr

From The Joy of Tech via Gizmodo.

Epcot Central is back...for the worse

Readers of this blog will know of my long running feud with Epcot82 who writes the Epcot Central blog. While I appreciate his love of Epcot, I find his totally pessimistic, glass-totally-empty attacks on Disney and its management to be uninformed, unfair, and just plain ridiculous. Reading his blog almost always sets me off. But no post has done it like this post (follow the link if you dare) in which Epcot82 foams at the mouth like this:

No, folks, Disney’s not the kind of company that produces breakthrough entertainment anymore. You won’t see a Beauty and the Beast, a Snow White, an EPCOT or an Animal Kingdom coming out of this company in the near future.

Now, of course, Disney will never cop to performance issues, not while Bob Iger, Tom Staggs and Jay Rasulo are around; they’re too confident, too economically invested in the company to either admit to flaws or take a huge, daring risk.

Are you out of your mind?

Let's review. In an impossible feat unthinkable by even the hardest core Disney geek, Bob Iger purchased Pixar - a company that hated Disney's guts only month prior - for $7.4B. Rather than absorb Pixar into the borg, he put Catmull and Lasseter in charge of animation and put John in charge of creative for the parks. Bob cut back on the sprawling Einserian empire to focus on the Disney brand and has restored the studio to profitability at a time when other studios are hemorrhaging. And, yes, Disney Channel is at an all time creative high both with tweens and in preschool. I guess their supposed to hang their heads in shame or something over that. At the Parks, Bob and Jay, who you people seem to hate so much, decided to invest $1B to fix DCA, a long time eyesore for Disney fans, and buy two new $1B cruise ships, and to invest in a bunch of new rides at the many Disney parks that badly needed them. The Parks, quite simply, have not looked better in years. They even took down the damned wand for you. Disney has an incredibly full creative pipeline again on every single front and specifically at the Parks. How can you POSSIBLY say that Bob Iger won't take risks?! That is simply insane!

Note to Epcot82: Michael Einser is not CEO of Disney anymore and has not been for several years. He makes trading cards now. At some point, you have to stop bitching about Eisner and Pressler and all the mistakes they made. You might as well be whining about how Card Walker was no Walt Disney. Its history. As William Shatner said to the Trekkies on SNL: "Get over it!"

Is everything at Disney perfect? No. But to say that Bob Iger's regime has been anything less than a wet dream for Disney fans is to be oblivious to what is going on.

Apple Announcements

Lots of people have been asking me what I think of the Apple announcements this week. I'm glad I waited to post this because I have now had time to watch the whole keynote and think it through.

I'm pretty excited about movie rentals. The original Apple TV totally sucked and I think Jobs knew that almost as soon as they had released it. He never seemed very sure about the product. Allowing you to buy directly from the Apple TV without the complication of having to go through the computer is a major improvement. But I keep thinking back to something Walt Mossberg said when Apple first announced movie downloads. He said that with music, Apple made a major improvement over the old way of getting music because you could buy deep catalog you couldn't find at the store and you could buy per song instead of trying to buy the full album. And with TV shows, Apple improved on the old way because you could watch TV shows the next day after they aired and not have to wait months for the DVD. But with movies, they didn't really enable anything new and in fact the new way was more complicated and expensive than the old way. That's why Apple TV Take 1 didn't work. With movie rentals, I think they've started to get closer to something compelling because I often find myself wanting to watch something but finding nothing to watch and being too lazy to go to the video store. But for people who have cable, there's already VOD and its not really as new as anything Apple has done. I think movie rentals will improve Apple's movie downloads and improve Apple TV sales, but I don't think its a major revolution as Jobs claimed. I also predict that by the end of the year, we will have ad-sponsored free TV downloads because the free streaming model has been much more successful than iTunes, and if this happens, it will also help Apple TV, although you can get that on VOD too.

Apple did not announce Blu-Ray which I think is dumb. Millions of units of Blu-Ray are going to be sold and Apple should get a piece of that market. As long as Apple TV is the third box it will be a problem for them.

MacBook Air is a bit of a wash for me too. Its true its a technical achievement and part of me wants one. I'd love to lighten my travel load. On the hand, MacBook Air is the slowest Macintosh available and a tiny hard drive. For $1000 you can buy virtually the same config but with a much faster CPU in the opening price MacBook. And it comes with a SuperDrive. Apple is charging you basically $900 for thin. For only $200 more, you can get an opening price MacBook Pro with far superior specs. Since most people buy notebooks as laptop replacements and not as companion computers, I'm thinking a lot of people will go for the MacBook or the Pro before Air. But I could be wrong because it is pretty sexy.

Nothing announced this week will make a material effect on Apple or their stock. I think it shows that Apple shot its wad last year. But let's see, the year is still young.

Jungle Cruise Comedy Night

You heard me. The skippers of the Jungle Cruise do standup. Its at the Maverick Theater in Fullerton on Jan 20.

The Clintons are Mad

Its well known at this point that I am Probama. So I'm kind of biased. But I don't get why Hillary is not hurting more in the polls. Every appearance over the past 2 weeks from either she or Bill have included them be argumentative or yelling at someone. Case in point, Bill yells at a Nevada TV reporter for asking him a question about their attempt to stop casino workers from caucusing on Saturday. But even on Meet the Press, Hillary was basically fighting with Tim Russert the whole time over how she deserved to be President with her 35 years of experience, blah, blah, blah. The Clintons feel they deserve this and just can't imagine why anyone wouldn't see the wisdom that they are ordained for this. Its so demanding and offputting.

But beyond that, it shows the mean-spirited politics at all costs approach that they would try to stop casino workers from caucusing. Don't they deserve a vote too? So what if their union is Probama. Now that you have tried to stop them from voting, you've only made it worse for yourselves. Congrats Hillary, if you had just let it happen, you might have had a chance. Now you've pissed everyone off and you're going to lose Nevada. No wonder you're acting like a sore loser.

Defending Jay

I like Blue Sky Disney blog. It has generally good inside gossip and is well written. But I find this post kind of upsetting. It basically calls, several times, for Jay Rasulo to resign as head of Disney Parks and Resorts. There is a little current out there in the Disney blogger community of hating Jay for...what? I have no idea. I think its for combining the marketing of WDW and DLR and marketing them as "Disney Parks". But that's a totally ridiculous analysis.

These people are toootally off-base. Jay is the one who has fought for so much investment in new rides in the Parks that we've seen for the last few years. Glad the subs are back? Thank Jay. And most of these projects were approved BEFORE Pixar was purchased. Jay was the one who led the fight to the board for the $1B makeover of DCA that Blue Sky and others are so jazzed about. He spent a YEAR working on that. You don't think that took a little courage to go to the board and say "hey, give me $1B and MAYBE I'll earn it back"? He's the one who fought for the 2 new cruise ships. He's the one that has championed the new direction with Disney Resorts a la Hawaii. In short, Jay has taken a business that few thought would grow again and INVESTED A LOT into it giving it a very promising new future.

So Blue Sky Disney, give Jay a little credit. Lasseter is definitely having a terrific impact no question, but he is not doing all this alone. Without Jay fighting for the funding and getting the rest of the organization in line, all this great stuff would not be happening.

Cottie's Probama

Here are Mike's thoughts on my Probama post:

Amen, my brother.

A small note: there's not really a contest going on between them. It's more like a Sunday afternoon game of lawn darts. Just good casual fun. The occasional bystander gets impaled, but what the hell.

Clinton tends to like poor people, since he's known a couple of them in his lifetime, but for the most part they stand shoulder to shoulder.

Probama

Barack Obama could jump all over this MLK gaffe of Hillary's and ride the race card to victory in South Carolina. Instead he said this:

“I don’t want the campaign at this stage to degenerate into so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why all of us are doing this. We’ve got too much at stake at this time in our history to be engaging in this kind of silliness. I expect that other campaigns feel the same way...

If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or in some way is unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it. I hope the other campaigns take the same approach....

“I think that I may disagree with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We’re all Democrats. We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. We all believe that regardless of race or gender that people should have equal opportunities...

They are good people, they are patriots. They are running because they think that they can move this country to a better place."

That's who I want for President. Judgement and Character. Not politics. Hillary will only bring us more politics and a continuation of the 20 year Bush versus Clinton soap opera. Obama offers us a new way and its a way we need right now.

The Beatles on iTunes finally?

Another good rumor. The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is rolling to MacWorld this week. Could it be there in sync with a Beatles iTunes launch? God I hope so.

How to save Starbucks

Serious Eats asks how to save Starbucks. Here's their plan:

1. Stop opening so many stores. Enough already. Fix the stores you have.
2. Give up on the breakfast sandwiches. They suck.
3. Serve better food. You charge enough for it.
4. Provide free wi-fi with any $5 purchase.
5. Localize each branch in some way, with a local food or custom or something.

I agree on the number of stores. They have Krispy Kremed themselves. Too many locations. I totally agree on serving better food and go back to the idea that they should buy Panera Bread. Panera would bring them better food and midday and early evening traffic, times that are dead at Starbucks. I would also add: Speed it up. Lines are too long and it takes too long. Install more machines and staff up if you have to.

MacBook Air?

The rumor mill is now saying that "the something in the air" is the MacBook Air and not WiMax. MacBook Air is a goofy product name. MacBook Nano would have been better and fitting in their nomenclature. Let's withhold judgement until Steve speaks. I guess I'm unimpressed by an ultrathin laptop because I have an eePC in my office and its not really new tech.

I got thinking yesterday. The problem with the WiMax rumor is that there are no WiMax deployments, at least that I know of, nationwide that Apple could use.

The Second Coming of DRM

I've been telling you that while DRM in its current incarnation may be dead, that security of content was not and would just be resurrected in a new way. Well, there's an article on Wired about just that and the new technique is watermarking. They put your account name in the song when it comes down from the server and so if you put it on a P2P service, they know where it came from. Now the labels are all swearing they won't be going after folks - for now - but you can bet there will be consequences in the future, from a small to having you account cancelled to actual suits. None of this will stop ripped CDs, however, so piracy will still thrive.

MacWorld Bingo