Democrats in a hopeless state

Boy, that's quite a defeat for the democratic party. Its party time for Bush and his team. After four years of economic downturn, rising deficit, war etc. etc. the voting patterns across the US don't seem to have changed despite the "far-right" stance of the Republican party.


I am surprised that the democratic party did not make a more concerted effort to grab one of the states in the heartland. It appears that they completely disregarded these states. From this perspective, in hindsight, it might have been better for Kerry to have chosen Gephardt or some other VP candidate who could deliver at least a state or two.


I think the moral of the story for the democrats is that they better find a Presidential candidate who can carry a couple of red states in the American heartland (a la Bill Clinton) in 2008. Hillary Clinton, perhaps! At least you can be sure that the best democratic campaigner will be out there in full swing.

Aussies vs. Desis

India put up a pretty pathetic show in third test at Nagpur. Needless to say as an ardent cricket fan it was disappointing to see India loos so badly. Our leading batsem have shown very poor form. With the contract system in place I hope that the board and the cricketers develop a better working relationship based on mutual trust and confidence. Right now, you have players literally holding on to their slots in the team even if they are not in the best of form, have injuries etc. This has got to stop. There is so much talent in Indian cricket these days that unless the top players make room for the youngsters from time to time, promising players like Badani, Sriram, Ambati Rayudu, Dhoni, Jadhav, Gambhir and others will never get a chance to play for India while they are still in their prime. Just as Ganguly suggested a pool of fast bowlers it makes sense to do the same for batsmen and wicket keepers as well. Lets hope India puts up a better show in Bombay and most importantly I hope all the youngsters get a chance to play the test.


The Aussies on the other hand have had a great tour except and their hard work and professional approach to the game has paid off. They simply are the best team in the world. Even a world team would find it hard to beat the Aussies today.

It's President Kerry, I think.

Despite all the media and pundits promising a close race and lawyers lined up to fight the battles in court, I think John Kerry will win the presidential elections and win convincingly. Here are some reasons why:


The Debates: Kerry did a fine job in all three debates winning them 3-0. Until these debates he was relatively unknown. But in these debates he came across as a very knowledgeable on policy issues (on par with Bill Clinton) without the arrogance and over-confidence portrayed by Al Gore. He also showed his lighter side and sense of humor in answering the question about what he had learned from his wife and daughters. Last but not the least he showed that he was a very shrewd politician at heart when he dragged Cheney' s daughters name into one of his answers.


The Campaign: Despite all the talk about lacking charisma, Kerry did all the right things to run a very inclusive campaign. The important thing was that pretty much everyone in the democratic party was on-board the campaign. Unlike Gore, he took all the help he could from Clinton and signed on as many of Clinton former team as possible. Besides, he ran a campaign that was relatively scandal free (no serious revelation barring the failed swift boat campaign), with no special surprises.


The VP Candidate: Though I think Kerry didn't really care a whole lot for Edwards, he did the smart thing by selecting John Edwards as his running mate. For whatever its worth, Edwards managed to energize the party base after Dean screamed himself out of steam. There was no chance of Edwards stealing Kerry's limelight given his relative inexperience. In short, as a team they served each others purpose.


Newspaper endorsements: Kerry landed a number of key newspaper endorsements (not sure how much of an influence these are) like the NYT, Washington Post, Economist, Financial Times etc.


External Support: Michael Moore, and the rest of Hollywood had made a very visible plea to the voters to dump Bush. Again, its hard to measure the impact of that, but it was definitely something that benefited Kerry more than hurt him. To his credit he did a fine job of tapping this support to energize the voters bringing in the actors, singers and other entertainers at the right time to draw the crowds.


Young, first time voters: The amount of money raised online, the number of student volunteers, and the overall presence online was far stronger for the democratic party than the Republicans. John Kerry did a fine job of tapping into the online momentum that the Dean campaign had put in place.


Anti-Bush: There has been an incredible anti-Bush wave in the US and across the globe that one can't but notice. Several people overseas were hoping that Bush would loose the elections. There were no shortage of people who felt "anybody but Bush". All these voters will most likely vote in favor of Kerry. While he might not have done anything to win them, I think he made sure he didn't do anything to loose them!


Lastly, I think Bush and his team have chosen to operate too far to the right all through his first term. Having lived here for over a decade I think the majority of US citizens are uncomfortable with such extreme positions and are more accommodating and moderate. The best proof of this are the results in an election with an all time high turnout.


All in all, I think John Kerry will become President by a comfortable margin.

A few interesting links

Interesting news and sites I learned about lately:

• If you are closely following the presidential elections in the US, here is one you'd love. This site follows all the various polls and gives you an estimate of the electoral votes for Bush and Kerry.
• Fired from Delta Airlines for blogging . I guess it won't be long before companies have strict guidleines for blogging.
  
  
• Truly fascinating fund raising effort from the Firefox browser folks $250K in less than 10 days.
  
  
• If you use gmail, just fyi.
• If you are into following VCs, investments and other tech stories from silicon valley, this a useful blog
  
  

Top 10 signs its a Kerry White House

10. Environmentalists are celebrating because a Bush has been planted in Texas.

09. Laura Bush is back to being a librarian, this time of the Bush Presidential library.

08. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz openly distribute their Halliburton business cards.

07. New Social Security policy: "Don't ask, Don't touch"

06. Thanksgiving celebration all across the Middle East.

05. Bush says the unemployed should get the flu vaccine first.

04. Bush recommends building a Whitehouse in Bangalore to cut costs and is open to re-locating.

03. Boston and Chennai named sister cities as Tam-Brahms (Tamil Brahmins) bond with Bos-Brahms (Boston Brahmins).

02. Communication strategists have a new name for Outsourcing, its called "In-and-Out" Sourcing.

01. Arnie is having "fantastic" sex every single day!

Six months of Blogging.....and to be continued

I have been blogging for close to 6 months now and I must admit that lately it has become hard to keep up. As Mr. Bush would say, "It's hard!" There has been so much going on, finding time for blogging has been difficult. The truth though is that there has not been a single day when I have not thought about blogging. Hope to be back with more frequent posts in the not too distant future.


Meanwhile, boy, there has been so much going on -- Aussies have thrashed the desis (you find video highlights here), the Bush-Kerry battle has been a dead heat, Googs are now worth close to $200 a pop (and we thought there is no money in tech stocks!), even the elusive Veerapan is no more, Arafat is fighting for his life while two leaders have been chosen to cover up in his absence (The French are thrilled that they finally beat the Americans in something), a close buddy of mine chucked his job and re-located to India with plans to chill out for a couple of years, Rajnikant is back (this time for real), and so is Mr. Bin (not surprising the tape came in from Pak). To top it off, I managed to have a get together with my close buddies from undergrad dorm. 7 out of 9 folks who happened to be in North America actually got together in the SF bay area for a wonderful weekend full of laughter and nostalgia.

The Vice-Presidential debate

Saw the debate. The format certainly suited Mr. Cheney's style, but he couldn't help coming across as a "school principal who knew all the answers" like Tom Brokaw aptly put it. Mr. Edwards on the other hand looked young, charming, but almost canned. He certainly does his best to emulate Clinton, but he just can't come close. Nevertheless, I think he held his own throughout the debate. On the crucial question of being a heart beat away from the Presidency, I thought Mr. Edwards did a less than convincing job of answering the question. Instead, he quickly diverted attention from it. Mr. Cheney didn't quite jump onto the issue (and even if he did it lacked impact because of his low-key style of delivery) as I think he should have. I guess he doesn't like to talk whole lot about it, because in his case he gets to be President while he is still the Vice-President! Mr. Cheney did his party's campaign some damage when he referred to http://www.factcheck.com instead of http://www.factcheck.org


In the current battle for the Presidency, a lot has been said about "flip-flop". First the Republicans accussed John Kerry of flip-flopping. Now the democrats say that President Bush is the one who has been flip-flopping. When does one flip-flop? Obviously, it happens when you are not sure of something. Ironically, when asked specifically about it (What's wrong with a little flip-flop every now and then?) in the debate, both candidates evaded the question and instead accused each other of flip-flopping!


When significant decisions that impact millions of people across the globe have to be taken, its understandable that there might be a legitimate reason to flip-flop. In fact, it might be better to flip-flop and analyze the situation a little longer before coming to a decision. In President Bush's words, "Its hard!" Perhaps, if we hadn't been so sure about Iraq and instead flip-flopped a little we might not be in the mess we find ourselves in today?


In the summary, I think Mr. Cheney came across as tough, hard-assed and uncompromising while Mr. Edwards did appear a little light weight at times. I don't beleive that either side did enough damage to the other to impact public opinion or the race for that matter. In short, this debate will be forgotten by the time the second debate gets underway, which incidentally is in a couple of days.