TOP NAMES IN MEDIA, POLITICS AND ENTERTAINMENT

HOSTED BY The Common Good

TUESDAY, AUGUST 26TH, COLORADO HISTORY MUSEUM 2:00PM “CULTURE WARS” - a Panel Discussion on the Role of Race, Gender, Ethnicity, Religion and Values in the Fall Campaign 

Moderated by: Dan Abrams, Chief Legal Correspondent, NBC News

OUR PANELISTS:

- Gov. Bill Richardson(NM), 

- Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN),

- Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., DLC Chair, 

- Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY),

- Tucker Carlson, MSNBC,

- Markos Moulitsas, DailyKos,

- DeeDee Myers, Former White House Press Secretary

- Faye Wattleton, Center for the Advancement of Women,

- Richard Wolffe, Newsweek

9:00PM POST GAVEL CELEBRATION with celebrity hosts Chevy Chase and Debra Winger and featured speakers from the Democratic Party:

Sen.  Amy Klobuchar, (MN), Gov. Janet Napolitano (AZ),
Gov. David Paterson (NY), Gov. Bill Richardson (NM),  Gov. Bill Ritter (CO), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY), Mayor  Antonio  Villaraigosa  (LA), Mayor Gavin Newsom  (SF)

The Common Good, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that encourages civil discussion and effective participation on the pressing issues of the day by bringing together leading political, business, media and entertainment figures, is joining forces with the Hispanic Institute to sponsor two major events at the Democratic Convention on Tuesday, August 26.  The Colorado History Museum, located 1300 Broadway, will be the site of an afternoon panel discussion at 2pm on “Culture Wars: The Role of Race, Gender, Ethnicity, Religion, and  Values in the Fall Campaign.”  A post gavel celebrity-filled celebration will begin at  9pm. Participants in the two events include Dan Abrams, Tucker Carlson, Chevy Chase, Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Markos Moulitsas, DeeDee Myers, Gov. Janet Napolitano, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Gov. Bill Richardson, Gov. Bill Ritter, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Faye Wattleton, Debra Winger and Richard Wolffe. Other notables from the Democratic Party and the entertainment industry are also expected to attend. 

Patricia Duff, Chair and Founder of The Common Good said:   

Over the years, we have brought together the best and the brightest for open and frank exchanges, airing controversy to help build common ground. At the Democratic Convention on Tuesday afternoon we have a diverse and distinguished panel to discuss the very things the electorate doesn’t always like to talk about – race, gender, ethnicity, values, religion – and how these and other intangibles may have a greater impact on the election than ‘hard’ issues such as the economy or war. At our evening celebration, stars of the entertainment industry will salute some of the best Democratic leaders in government service and the diversity of opinion, talent and effort that makes America so great.   We are honored that the Hispanic Institute is sponsoring this with The Common Good.” 

The Common Good will be hosting a special panel discussion and cocktail party at the Democratic National Convention at the Colorado History Museum on Tuesday, August 26th.

The Panel
2pm at the Colorado History Museum about “Culture Wars: The Role of Race, Gender, Ethnicity, Religion and Values in the Fall Campaign.” (more details to come soon)

The Cocktail Party
8pm at the Colorado History Museum will be attended by VIPs, delegates and media attending the Convention, including nationally renowned press seated on our special panel.

Please join us if you are in Denver during the Convention!

DNC 2008 OFFICIAL WEBSITE here…

Kevin Phillips will discuss his new book “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism” on Tuesday, June 17th, at the Friars Club from 12:15 to 2pm.

“Bad Money” is a devastating follow-up to his last best-seller, “American Theocracy.” Kevin Phillips describes the consequences of our catastrophic economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our diminishing oil, and the end of American domination of world markets.

Kevin Phillips is an American writer and commentator, on politics, economics, and history. Formerly a Republican Party strategist, Phillips has become disaffected with his former party over the last two decades, and is now one of its harshest critics. He is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. Phillips was a senior strategist for Richard Nixon’s 1968 Presidential campaign, which was the basis for his book, “The Emerging Republican Majority.” That book is widely regarded as a “classic” — one of the most influential recent works in political science for its trenchant prediction of a conservative realignment in national politics.

MORE ON KEVIN PHILLIPS and “Bad Money”…

ALSO ON PHILLIPS…

We are incredibly privileged to have the brilliant, multi-successful and outspoken Peter Peterson to discuss “The Crisis We Don’t Like to Talk About” about the current economic situation.

Our co-hosts for this event:

Loreen Arbus * Gayle Perkins Atkins * Bruce Colley * Art Eisenberg * Roger Erickson * Gail Furman * Matt Gohd * Coppy Holzman * Bill Hubbard * Robin Hubbard * Seth Kaplowitz * Mason Slaine * Kim Taipale * Felicia Taylor * Peter Worth * Patricia Duff

Pete Peterson is a highly distinguished investment banker, fiscal conservative, author, and politician whose most prominent political position was as United States Secretary of Commerce. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Senior Chairman and Co-Founder of the private equity firm, the Blackstone Group. He is the founding Chairman of the Peterson Institute (formerly the Institute for International Economics), renamed in his honor. He is the author of several books, including ‘Running On Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future’ and ‘Will America Grow Up Before It Grows Old?’.

The lunch will take place at the Friars Club from 12:15pm to 2pm

More about Pete Peterson here…

Don’t miss out the upcoming lunch with Kevin Phillips on June 17th at the Friars CLub from 12:15 to 2pm. He will discuss his new book ‘Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism.’

New York Representative CAROLYN B. MALONEY will discuss her new book on Monday, May 19th, 12:15-2PM at the Home of Peter Worth.

Host-committee: Gail Furman * Jennifer Gardner * Bill Hubbard * Robin Hubbard * Seth Kaplowitz * Mason Slaine * Peter Worth * Jordan Wright * Tom Zschach * Patricia Duff

Our “tenacious, resilient legislator” (as TIME Magazine described her), Rep. Carolyn Maloney will join us to discuss her new book ‘Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated’. You’ve heard the rumors: The glass ceiling has been shattered. Gender discrimination has gone the way of the woolly mammoth. Violence against women is on the decline. When Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democratic Congresswoman and one of the nation’s leading advocates for women, hears such things, she can’t decide whether to laugh or to cry. In her new book, Congresswoman Maloney mixes wit with withering criticism to expose where progress for women is being stalled, and sometimes even reversed.

Learn more about Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney…

Don’t miss out…PETER PETERSON, Former US Secretary of Commerce on Tuesday, June 3, 12:15-2pm at the Friars Club

This event will be lively and fun. You first heard of him from the War Room of the Bill Clinton presidential campaign, helping elect the young, long-shot candidate in 1992. You’ve seen him on hundreds of talk shows and CNN. Paul Begala is one of the smartest political strategists in the country. He’s dynamic, fresh and always provocative. Reserve now for our luncheon with one of the smartest guys to ever serve in a campaign War Room.

Join The Common Good for lunch with Paul Begala, Tuesday, April 22nd, 12:15 to 2:00pm at the Friars Club (57E. 55th Street). The event is free for Members and $80 for non-members.

Paul Begala is a political contributor and Democratic strategist on CNN’s The Situation Room. Begala was formerly co-host of Crossfire, CNN’s political debate program. He first entered the national political scene after his consulting firm, Carville & Begala, helped elect President Bill Clinton in 1992. Serving in the Clinton administration as counselor to the president, he helped define and defend the administration’s agenda and served as the principal public spokesman.

More about Paul Begala…

“The State of the Economy and the Global Outlook“

Robert Hormats will give a discussion on the current financial crisis, including how we got here, trends in the US and around the globe, and what needs to be done.

Thursday, April 10th at the Friars Club - Luncheon Discussion

HOSTS: Gayle Perkins Atkins - David Avital - Peter Borish - Bruce Colley - Ed Cox - Patricia Duff - Richard Feigen - Joseph Fichera - Stephanie French - Cynthia Friedman - Jill Iscol - Seth Kaplowitz - Nancy Moonves - Fiona Howe Rudin - Mason Slaine - Stuart Sundlun - Felicia Taylor - Hope Winthrop - Peter Worth - Bob Wyman - Tom Zschach    

Robert D. Hormats, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International, had a distinguished career in Washington before joining Goldman.   Hormats served on the National Security Council as the presidential advisor on economic policy to NSC Directors Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Brzezinski.  Hormats later served at the State Department as Deputy United States Trade Representative and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs.   He serves on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.   Hormats is also a talented author and editor, his most recent book is “The Price of Liberty.” 

Read more about Robert Hormats…

Related articles…

** OBAMA RAISES OVER $40 MILLION IN MARCH, CLINTON STILL WON’T SAY. In the words of Obama campaign manager David Plouffe: “Senator Obama has always said that this campaign would rise or fall on the willingness of the American people to become partners in an effort to change our politics and start a new chapter in our history. Today we’re seeing the American people’s extraordinary desire to change Washington, as tens of thousands of new contributors joined the more than a million Americans who have already taken ownership of this campaign for change. Many of our contributors are volunteering for the campaign, making our campaign the largest grassroots army in recent political history.”Total Raised in March: More than $40 million. They’re still compiling.
Contributors in March: More than 442,000.
First-Time Contributors in March: More than 218,000.
Total Contributors: More than 1,276,000.

The Clinton campaign will not say how much it raised in March. I’m told it is less than $20 million.

Monday Morning Quarterback 

>>>>>>video 

John McCain’s new “Man In The Arena” ad, melding Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, Michael Mann,  

Young Indiana Jones-style documentary, and Star Trek. 

This week in presidential politics, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton square off in Tuesday’s Mississippi primary, as the Democratic race goes on, and on, with Obama in the lead but the Clintons clinging to their long-presumed power position. While the Democrats fight on, seemingly to the August convention in Denver, John McCain lays his plans. 

Great news long-term for the Republicans, right? Yes. And no, looking at this result over the weekend. Former House Speaker Denny Hastert’s once very red Illinois congressional seat turned blue in Saturday’s special election, with a big assist to the new Democratic congressman from Obama, who cut the closing TV spot for the winner and turned over part of his organizing team. 

But back to the Democratic foodfight. 

The ex-prez, after savaging the freshman Illinois senator earlier in the campaign, called for a Clinton/Obama ticket over the weekend while barnstorming through Mississippi. The Clintons say Obama doesn’t have the chops to be president in a national emergency. But they say they want him to be vice president. Cheeky, since he has a clear lead in earned delegates she almost certainly won’t be able to close. And strange, since the first thing a vice president has to be is the someone who can replace the president in, yes, a national emergency. 

Meanwhile, Clinton received a setback with regard to her claims of national security experience. She’s taken of late to claiming substantial credit for brokering the peace deal in Northern Ireland. But the Telegraph reported on Saturday that a Nobel Peace Prize winner for the Northern Ireland deal is deriding Hillary’s claims as “silly.” 

This came on the heels of a report in the Chicago Tribune debunking Hillary’s claims to expertise in national security crisis management. 

Too bad for Obama that a very good storyline for him was totally obscured by a couple of his advisors shooting off their mouths to people they don’t know. Too bad for Hillary that this campaign has a long way to go. 

And so much for the notion of the Clintons being fully vetted. Here is a tip of an iceberg that Team McCain and the Republican National Committee intends to fully expose in the still less than likely event that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee. Bill and Hillary Clinton are still blocking release of the former president’s pardon records. They left the White House seven years ago. 

Another story that Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power’s outburst about Hillary being a “monster” — and her musings to the BBC that Obama may not be serious about this Iraq withdrawal thing — totally obscured. 

Even though the Clintons’ amazing post-presidential wealth, and the massive secret contributions taken in by the Clinton Presidential Library, are big issues waiting to be seized by either Obama or McCain, the fact remains that Bill Clinton is still a major asset for his wife’s campaign. 

The conventional media has pushed a storyline that Bill Clinton is locked in a closet. Actually, he has been campaigning feverishly and effectively in midsized and small markets. If you look at his schedule in Ohio and Texas, it coincides with the best-performing areas for his wife. He’s still a very huge deal with Democrats around the country, and having a former president show up outside the elite media markets is impactful. 

With how he’s been campaigning since last Tuesday, it’s obvious that Clinton thinks he can have an impact in Mississippi for Tuesday’s primary, which is expected nonetheless to go to Obama. 

How’s it going? Well, there are two new polls. One, by Insider Advantage for the Southern Political Report, shows a relatively small Obama lead over Clinton, 46% to 40%. But the new Rasmussen robopoll has Obama well ahead of Clinton, 53% to 39%. 

One thing that I simply don’t get is why Obama is not using surrogates much more effectively. Why is Obama responding to the chaff thrown up by a Howard Wolfson? Put Teddy Kennedy, or some other real heavyweight, on there to squash the mouthy staffer. He’s a blitzing linebacker, but no Lawrence Taylor. Just drive him out of the play. 

Which does not excuse Obama advisors like Austan Goolsbee (waggish Democratic insiders call Ohio, which broke hard late against Obama in the wake of the leaked Canadian government memo saying the Obama economic advisor pooh-poohed the candidate’s anti-NAFTA rhetoric, the “Goolsbee Primary”) and Samantha Power from their lack of appropriate circumspection. The Obama team needs to learn some very hard lessons from these episodes. Everything folks like that say can be used against them and seen, by virtue of their association, as representing the views of the next president of the United States. Even the fact that they said something, whatever it actually was, as in the case of Goolsbee and the Canadians on NAFTA. That’s especially true in dealing with people they don’t actually know. Which will increasingly be the majority of people they deal with. 

As I expected, the overall winner in Texas will end up being Barack Obama. Obama, as you know, narrowly lost the popular vote in the primary to Hillary Clinton, 51% to 48%. But that will only yield her a few more delegates. And Texas is a combination primary/caucus state. And there, Obama is clearly winning in the caucuses. 

And the final result from Saturday’s Wyoming Democratic caucuses: Barack Obama 61%, Hillary Clinton 38%. Obama wins 7 delegates to the Democratic national convention in Denver, Clinton wins 5. 

This means that Obama has already made up all but a handful of the delegates Clinton made up on him last Tuesday. When she won big in Ohio, split a pair of opposing New England landslides in Rhode Island and Vermont, and as we projected, narrowly lost the overall Texas primary/caucus contest. 

The Democrats are locked in an increasingly fateful impasse. The upstart Obama has a lead in earned delegates and primary and caucus votes that Clinton almost certainly can’t overtake. But she is not going away. And she is choosing to try to take the inexperienced Obama down through FUD, a classic marketing technique, inciting fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the lesser known brand. By marketing herself as the best choice to handle national security crises. 

Which plays precisely into the hands of one John Sidney McCain III, perhaps America’s most famous Vietnam War hero, a man with decades of real experience as a US senator dealing with national security and foreign policy. And who, just like Hillary Clinton, voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. But who, unlike Hillary Clinton, argued strenuously to change the failing policies in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. And who, unlike Hillary Clinton, was the champion of the so-called surge strategy which at last brought at least a modicum of success in to the Iraq policy they both supported. 

The McCain crew are, let’s say, not displeased by the developments in the Democratic Party. They like “the contrasts” being drawn. And the ones likely to be drawn in the not terribly distant future, as Obama’s campaign is at last striking back, raising Hillary Clinton’s brandishing of a local fixer who helped a young politician buy a house and seeing it with the “undiscovered country” of the Clintons’ sudden post-presidential wealth and enormous (and studiously undisclosed) fundraising, much of it from foreign sources with major geopolitical agendas, for the Clinton Library. 

These are things Team McCain would themselves cause to be put very much in play were Hillary to emerge as the Democratic nominee. But they are still principally focused on Obama, whose emergence and dynamics yet confound, at least in some ways, the tried and true Republican electoral calculations. 

The now likely months of strife, as the Clintons look for more hard angles through which to try to pry the nomination away from Obama, is fabulous news for John McCain, who now has many weeks if not months to organize, fundraise, hone his message, and watch his two superstar Democratic opponents gnaw on each other like badgers. 

McCain goes to Iraq next week. He’s embracing the conflict, and the need for a settlement there, and will be laying out anew his different view on the prosecution of the Terror War. He’ll also travel throughout the Middle East, and to Europe. It will become apparent that McCain knows the foreign leaders and is very familiar with the issues wherever he goes. Or so goes the plan. 

Next month, he will formally kick off his general election campaign — which, of course, he has already kicked off somewhat less formally — with what might be described as a biography tour of America. He will visit key places in his life which also have historical and values resonance in America, such as the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, various military bases, and historical landmarks. 

Since McCain has been deeply involved in the historical events of America for more than 40 years — and his father and grandfather before him were both four-star Navy admirals, and thus historical actors in the rise of America from a promising 19th century industrial power to its current superpower status — he has a broad canvass on which to work. 

As Team McCain takes over the Republican national party apparatus — getting down to “the granular level,” as one puts it — they also work on message development. 

The two-minute TV ad above, a web video production, is an interesting stab at the task, a development in the seedbed, as it were. Produced by McCain’s in-house “Foxhole Productions,” the piece, called “Man In The Arena” (after a famous Teddy Roosevelt quote), posits McCain through the past, present, and future. 

The few who have written about it since the end of last week focus on the quotes — actually, vintage footage — from Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt. 

But the piece is much more impressionistic than that. Which is why it’s done in an impressionistic style. There is constant motion throughout, nothing so static as ruminations about particular Churchill and TR quotes would imply. The viewer moves through the clouds, toward the sun, and then into the cosmos itself (as in the film Contact, with radio messages from the planet’s history making their way into deepest space) as Churchill intones his deathless words about fighting on the beaches, landing grounds, and fields, before finally revealing the late British PM as he confers with his wartime commanders. Then dissolves again through a time and space transition as Churchill says “We will never surrounder” into a scene of McCain saying, “Keep that faith, keep your courage, stick together, stay strong.” 

The piece’s Michael Mann style then becomes perfectly evident as the opening piano figure beneath the imagery and words continues its insistence and is joined by soothing yet driving synthesizer music. Throughout, a montage of scenes and snippets from McCain, Teddy Roosevelt (who pledges all his heart and energy to the task), Churchill, American history, and Americana ensue interspersed with Mann’s patented fast-forward stop-action photography of urban night scenes and the cosmos motif. 

“I know who I am,” says McCain. “I know what I want to do. I don’t seek the office out of a sense of entitlement. I owe America more than she has ever owed me.” 

Several phrases are placed on the screen during the course of the two minutes: “The time has come. For a man in the arena. Ready. More than aspiration, leadership.” 

An interesting glimpse at a work in progress. 

Back to more prosaic matters. 

McCain this week has fundraisers and fundraising development events at the Hilton St. Louis Frontenac today, the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on Tuesday, the Taj Hotel in Boston on Wednesday, the West Shore Country Club in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, on Thursday at noon, the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia on Thursday night and the Hilton in Chicago on Friday. Then, following a brief respite, probably in what would be McCain’s Western White House in Sedona, Arizona, he’s off to the ME and Europe. 

Perhaps with a camera crew in tow. 

Monday Morning Quarterback 

>>>>>>video 

John McCain’s new “Man In The Arena” ad, melding Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, Michael Mann,  

Young Indiana Jones-style documentary, and Star Trek. 

This week in presidential politics, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton square off in Tuesday’s Mississippi primary, as the Democratic race goes on, and on, with Obama in the lead but the Clintons clinging to their long-presumed power position. While the Democrats fight on, seemingly to the August convention in Denver, John McCain lays his plans. 

Great news long-term for the Republicans, right? Yes. And no, looking at this result over the weekend. Former House Speaker Denny Hastert’s once very red Illinois congressional seat turned blue in Saturday’s special election, with a big assist to the new Democratic congressman from Obama, who cut the closing TV spot for the winner and turned over part of his organizing team. 

But back to the Democratic foodfight. 

The ex-prez, after savaging the freshman Illinois senator earlier in the campaign, called for a Clinton/Obama ticket over the weekend while barnstorming through Mississippi. The Clintons say Obama doesn’t have the chops to be president in a national emergency. But they say they want him to be vice president. Cheeky, since he has a clear lead in earned delegates she almost certainly won’t be able to close. And strange, since the first thing a vice president has to be is the someone who can replace the president in, yes, a national emergency. 

Meanwhile, Clinton received a setback with regard to her claims of national security experience. She’s taken of late to claiming substantial credit for brokering the peace deal in Northern Ireland. But the Telegraph reported on Saturday that a Nobel Peace Prize winner for the Northern Ireland deal is deriding Hillary’s claims as “silly.” 

This came on the heels of a report in the Chicago Tribune debunking Hillary’s claims to expertise in national security crisis management. 

Too bad for Obama that a very good storyline for him was totally obscured by a couple of his advisors shooting off their mouths to people they don’t know. Too bad for Hillary that this campaign has a long way to go. 

And so much for the notion of the Clintons being fully vetted. Here is a tip of an iceberg that Team McCain and the Republican National Committee intends to fully expose in the still less than likely event that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee. Bill and Hillary Clinton are still blocking release of the former president’s pardon records. They left the White House seven years ago. 

Another story that Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power’s outburst about Hillary being a “monster” — and her musings to the BBC that Obama may not be serious about this Iraq withdrawal thing — totally obscured. 

Even though the Clintons’ amazing post-presidential wealth, and the massive secret contributions taken in by the Clinton Presidential Library, are big issues waiting to be seized by either Obama or McCain, the fact remains that Bill Clinton is still a major asset for his wife’s campaign. 

The conventional media has pushed a storyline that Bill Clinton is locked in a closet. Actually, he has been campaigning feverishly and effectively in midsized and small markets. If you look at his schedule in Ohio and Texas, it coincides with the best-performing areas for his wife. He’s still a very huge deal with Democrats around the country, and having a former president show up outside the elite media markets is impactful. 

With how he’s been campaigning since last Tuesday, it’s obvious that Clinton thinks he can have an impact in Mississippi for Tuesday’s primary, which is expected nonetheless to go to Obama. 

How’s it going? Well, there are two new polls. One, by Insider Advantage for the Southern Political Report, shows a relatively small Obama lead over Clinton, 46% to 40%. But the new Rasmussen robopoll has Obama well ahead of Clinton, 53% to 39%. 

One thing that I simply don’t get is why Obama is not using surrogates much more effectively. Why is Obama responding to the chaff thrown up by a Howard Wolfson? Put Teddy Kennedy, or some other real heavyweight, on there to squash the mouthy staffer. He’s a blitzing linebacker, but no Lawrence Taylor. Just drive him out of the play. 

Which does not excuse Obama advisors like Austan Goolsbee (waggish Democratic insiders call Ohio, which broke hard late against Obama in the wake of the leaked Canadian government memo saying the Obama economic advisor pooh-poohed the candidate’s anti-NAFTA rhetoric, the “Goolsbee Primary”) and Samantha Power from their lack of appropriate circumspection. The Obama team needs to learn some very hard lessons from these episodes. Everything folks like that say can be used against them and seen, by virtue of their association, as representing the views of the next president of the United States. Even the fact that they said something, whatever it actually was, as in the case of Goolsbee and the Canadians on NAFTA. That’s especially true in dealing with people they don’t actually know. Which will increasingly be the majority of people they deal with. 

As I expected, the overall winner in Texas will end up being Barack Obama.