Nonstop Political Coverage

I have turned into a political news junkie. When I'm home, I leave the television on with the talking heads pontificating in the background. It's all about MSNBC and CNN with breaks for the Daily Show. Plus following the campaigns on various news websites and blogs. Yes, it's sick. But it's also fun.

One new feeling is that California's primary vote will actual count. This is novel. I regularly vote in Democratic primaries for some guy whose campaign has already imploded after other voters in other states decided someone else was more "electable."

Plus, poets seem to matter, at least if they're Maya Angelou. I just saw Maya Angelou endorsing Hillary Clinton (the anchorman on MSNBC, about a third her age, kept interrupting her and trying to get her to talk about race; she closed the interview with the observation that she is "a woman, not an old lady").

On the Republican side, I mostly feel gleeful schadenfreude. So Republicans can't seem to find anyone they can rally around — whoo-hoo! As I was telling my sister last night, Huckabee is the one that really scares me, and fortunately he hasn't gotten much traction post-Iowa. Thompson and now Giuliani have dropped out. Romney is plastic and beatable, while McCain is worryingly electable, especially against a divided Democratic party.

On the Democratic side, my feelings are mixed. I lean Obama, rather strongly in fact, and I have had doubts about Sen. Clinton's ability to pull people across the country. But until recently, I've felt both were good candidates and could see myself filling in the bubble for either one in November. The race has taken on a sourness, though, and I worry about irreparable damage being done. Of course, it's only January, and there are many many months ahead.

That distinct waddle

I just got home from taking Adam to the airport, and it is very early. I was lucky and still had my parking space right in front of our building. Just as I'm clubbing my car (less violent than that sounds), I see something moving in the rearview mirror. At first I think it is a dog being walked in the predawn morning. But there's no owner visible. Then I think maybe it's a cat, but by this time I can see it heading down the sidewalk toward me -- and the distinctive waddle and white stripes give it away. The skunk walks down the sidewalk, then up the walk to my front door, taking its time to sniff all around the walk, the flowers next to the house, the driveway. I had to wait until it had moved on to the next house before climbing out of the car. The past week I've been smelling a lot of skunk, but I very rarely actually see the animal that causes all the stink.

Chronicle endorses Obama

In an endorsement of Barack Obama for president in the Democratic primary, the San Francisco Chronicle has this to say about his chief rival:

"Clinton, who arrived in the U.S. Senate four years before Obama, has tried to make experience the issue. ... But if she wants to highlight her White House experience as a defining difference, then it's only fair to point out that two of the projects she was most deeply involved with produced a debacle (health care) and scandals (fund raising)."

A few recent articles about real estate

I’ve started contributing articles to IREI Weekly, a commercial real estate ‘zine. It’s been a challenge because the stories are supposed to be different from the usual stuff I do for Institutional Real Estate, Inc. — lighter, more opinionated, and shorter (getting down to 250 words can be harder than you might imagine). Here are a few recent pieces:

January 22, 2008
What Distress Looks Like
“Harry Macklowe is the new Donald Trump,” remarked a real estate investment manager at Institutional Real Estate, Inc.’s Sponsor Briefing on Jan. 9, referring to Macklowe’s much-publicized travails.
Last year, his firm, Macklowe Properties, paid $7 billion to acquire a portfolio of midtown Manhattan office buildings from The Blackstone Group — buildings Blackstone had just acquired in its $39 billion buyout of Equity Office Properties Trust. Macklowe Properties only put down $50 million in equity for the deal and financed the rest — and those loans will come due in February, just one year after his megadeal closed.
Read more...

January 15, 2008
The R Word
Here’s a brainteaser: Is the U.S. economy (a) weakening, (b) heading for a recession, or (c) already in a recession?
A spokesman for the International Monetary Fund, Masood Ahmed, said last week that we’re not in a recession, nor does the IMF predict a recession, although the risk of one has increased, reported Reuters.
Martin Feldstein, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which monitors business cycles, said last week that the chance of a recession was now more than 50 percent, but that a recession is “not a sure thing,” reported Reuters.
Brad DeLong, an economics professor at U.C. Berkeley, said last week on KQED’s Forum (San Francisco Bay Area) radio program (and in his blog) that the odds we are in a recession right now are more than 60 percent and that it was likely we’ll find out the recession started last November.
Read more...

The online experiment

A few thoughts on the shift by The New York Times to an advertising-supported online model. I think we can safely say that TimeSelect was a disaster. Unlike the Wall Street Journal, which charged a subscription fee for its most valuable content (accurate and timely business news) while, by giving it away, got the widest audience possible for its opinion pages (blatherings of rightwing blowhards), the NYTimes gave away its news content (the paper of record) and charged for its columnists (blatherings of leftwing -- and a few rightwing -- blowhards) and archives. With the shift, access to the NYTimes archives is a real benefit, as both a writer and an engaged citizen, while access to the NYTimes opinion pages has made little difference in my life -- I find I just don't need to know what Maureen Dowd, David Brooks or William Kristol (!) have to say.

Scary quote of the day

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution, so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards." — Mike Huckabee, campaigning in South Carolina, Jan. 15