Island Dave's View

Great article in WaPo Saturday morning: link

Also, someone needs to dissect this list quickly, there is bound to a neo-con or two with a past in here.

And for a laugh or a curse...

The Erskine Bowles campaign has posted pics that I took on Thursday on the campaign's official site! Check it out here! The picture of Erskine holding Down East Dem's baby is currently on the main web page for the campaign.

Island Dave, Island Tiffiney, and Congressional candidate Roger Eaton (NC).

More pictures from the Bowles campaign stop can be viewed here, the new photoblog companion to Island Dave's View and Current Events Monitor.

Island Dave with future U.S. Senator Erskine Bowles (NC)

Thanks to everyone who has visited the IDV. Together, with Current Events Monitor, my sites have passed the 1000 unique visitor mark in only 2 months! The total visit count is somewhere around 1400 now. Plus, if you visit both sites, you are only counted one time, so I'm really pleased that so many people have given my work a view! I hope you continue to enjoy it as long as I remember to want to continue to post.



I'm heading up to Morehead at 8 in the morning to meet the Bowles bus campaign. Bowles will be speaking, and Roger Eaton will be in attendence in a non-offical participation. We're all hoping that Bowles will offer his support verbally to Roger, a move which could help boost the campaign against Jones. I'll post more when I get back. For now, I've posted the new CEM a bit earlier than usual, so enjoy.

Island Dave

BTW: My girlfriend now has a blog. Island Tiffiney's View. She's just getting started, but she has really enjoyed it thus far. Her blog will be a more personal, reflective lifeblog, though I expect she'll have a word or two about politics occasionally. She's campaigning for Eaton as well.

Thanks to cvcobb01 at dKos for one of the funniest videos you will ever see. If you like Will Ferrell (SNL, Elf, Anchorman), and you want to see his Bush impression in its perfect sarcasm, watch this video from America Coming Together.

I'm listening to Randi Rhodes interview George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee for President, and he threw out an excellent sound bite. Discussing the moronic assertion that Kerry, or any politician for that matter, is somehow less qualified to be in public service simply due to changing positions on issues, McGovern offered that this instead demonstrated a positive trait.



"I'm wiser today than I was yesterday" is the statement McGovern says Kerry and others are making when they choose to change a stance on an issue. I must agree, and in fact, this is what I have been arguing for years.

Dynamic, not static, is our world.

Conditions change within every community and across every continent.

Governments topple, others spring out of chaos.

Economies boom and bust.

Violence dominates the world stage, only to be forgotten by the rise of new violence elsewhere.

Alliances, allegiances, investments, and casual relationships respond in kind by redistributing the balance of power and wealth, much like traditional free-marketers argue as explaining the flow of the economy.

Changing positions on issues is not only normal, it should be demanded of our politicians. Our leaders cannot accurately address national and international problems by choosing one position and attempting to change the responses from the rest of the world. There must be a significant degree of "market adjustment" which sometimes creates contrasting or contradictory stances when viewed over a period of time.

Why again is this bad? By a liberal definition, it is not. Clearly, however, the conservatives consider this, at least in theory, to be a sign of weak leadership. What else can be expected from a group of people who back the "status quo" which, according to Webster's, means "Latin: state in which: the existing state of affairs".

Which, being purely theoretical, requires that establishing any semblance of said status quo must define a finite point in time for which a base can be identified. Naturally, once the position is chosen, according to neo-conservative dogma, it must be violently defended against the friction of changing conditions in the world. This leaves the decision makers spending a lot of time fighting against the impact of numerous inevitable changes instead of shoring up the values which are most important. We are seeing the extreme consequences of just such a policy adopted by the current White House.

Choosing a position on issues requires more than an initial glimpse at the conditions. It requires vigilance to change, feedback from current efforts and policies, and a system of strategic planning that constantly assesses the situation and offers direction in achieving goals. Just like any good corporate marketer, the President and all public servants must be willing to implement the advice of proactive, intelligent, and responsible planners, knowing full well that any stance may be altered should conditions demand it.

It is no wonder that Bush is such a bad President. Look at his track record at Arbusto, Harken, etc...I'm sure he and his fellow executives got loads of great strategic advice during the course of business, but chose instead to follow a "status quo" approach. By believing that establishing an inflexible position beats creating a flexible one, Bush consistently fails to analyze the world "market" in a way that "profits" America.

It is certainly time for the stockholders to vote in a new CEO President.

Barack Obama was everything he was hyped up to be. What a speech! If you couldn't get lifted off this man, you might as well be voting for Bush. Even after listening to both Clintons, Kennedy, Gore, Dean, and numerous others, Obama's speech was the best so far, bar none. What an impassionate, hopeful plea to take back what we claim to value. He offered leadership without preaching, and hope without false bravado. If this guy runs for President, you better believe I will be the first in line to sign up for his campaign. I can only imagine where Obama will be in 2008/2012, but he will no doubt be even more effective and more inspiring at that point. For now, I'll be happy he's representing his home state of Illinois in the Senate starting in 2005.

So far today, my vote for best first day speech goes to Michael Negron, the youth speaker introduced by a slick MTV-produced youth voter-advocacy commercial. He was direct, clear, and spoke with conviction and compassion.

Keep an eye on that guy. He's going to law school, and we all know how Dems love to enlist lawyers for the cause.

Democratic Senate candidate Erskine Bowles will be at the Carteret County Democratic Headquarters in Morehead City on Thursday, July 29. He'll be making a routing campaign stop, one which we hope will be in support of Roger Eaton, who will also be in attendance. The event will take place at 8AM.

Its a bit last minute, but a large turnout would be an enormous help to both the Bowles and Eaton campaigns. I understand there will be a free continental breakfast provided, so you have even less excuse for not attending. NC-3 people, please come, and bring as many people as you possibly can.

The HQ is located in the same strip mall as the NC License Agency, located next to Thunder Road Computers. The signage isn't great, but there are signs in the windows which make the spot obvious. Even so, the Bowles bus will outside the facilities at some point.


For directions from your specific location, plug in 3025 Bridges Street, Morehead City, NC into MapQuest.