Keller @ Large Blog

In the wake of yesterday's Super Bowl halftime performance by The Who, regular commenter Steve writes:

"I was nostalgic but a bit saddened by The Who.  Entwistle is gone and sorely missed.  Pete and Roger are old - Roger backing off the high notes and Pete playing very sloppily.  Ringo's kid sure can play the drums, though, and conveys a lot of Moon in his playing.  I was surprised at Townshend's inconsistency.  He was missing a lot of entrances, but he was also brilliant at times. Still, it's a damn sight better than 99.9% of the music that's been done since."

Do you agree? As a card-carrying baby-boomer, I too have a fondness for the music I grew up with, mostly 60's and 70's soul, but also quite a bit of rock, including The Who. But here's my question: should live performances of rock and roll be left to the young? Has it become an embarassment when certain acts - especially those whose music explicitly channelled rock's sense of youthful rebellion and exuberance - try to re-create the feeling onstage? Pick your nominees: The Who, the Stones, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, McCartney. Is it painful to watch them onstage, or not?

New Orleans 31, Indianapolis 17, right on the nose!

OK, it won't go by quite as fast as those infamous subliminal cuts of the desert they supposedly used to drop into drive-in movies to make you thirsty for an overpriced tonic. But don't blink between 7:15 and 8pm Sunday night or you'll miss independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill's 15-second Super Bowl ad.

The spot, which the Cahill campaign says will feature video of the state treasurer out and about being a Scott Brown Independent, marks the first time I can ever recall a local candidate buying into the Super Bowl telecast. The campaign wouldn't say how much they paid; it's a fair guess it wasn't cheap. But it proves Andy Warhol's dictum, however downsized - everyone will someday have their 15 seconds of fame.

If a link to the spot becomes available prior to game time, I'll link to it here.

By the way, Colts 31, Saints 17. Who dat who fumbled?

Check 'em out for yourself here.

Check out my take on 'em in the box to your right.

Talk back to me about them below.

President Obama has gone longer without a formal White House press conference than any president in a decade?

Read the linked New York Times piece. It lays out some compelling arguments for the end run this administration is pulling on the White House press corps, while also raising questions about whether or not the public interest is being adequately served by Obama's preferred media outlets. Underlying it all -- even the president himself acknowledges he's done a poor job of communicating effectively.

Get this:

Yesterday afternoon, when aides to Sen.-elect Scott Brown contacted staffers for Gov. Deval Patrick to seek his signature on Brown's election certification papers sooner than the previously agreed-on time this morning, they were told the governor could not return to the State House immediately due to scheduling committments. These included , according to the governor's published schedule: an 11am walking tour of downtown Taunton, a noon speech before the Taunton Chamber of Commerce, and a 3pm interview on the Taunton Community Access Television show "Bob Jacobs Live!" (Exclamation point not added.)

According to sources on both ends of the conversation, the Brown camp pressed for Patrick to cut that schedule short and return to Beacon Hill for a hastily-arranged session of the Governor's Council. The governor's people declined to do so.

Then the Brown folks offered another suggestion - have the governor cross the nearby state line into Rhode Island, thus making Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, who was at the State House, acting governor qualified by law to complete the certification paperwork.

Presumably, Gov. Patrick would have had to hang out in Rhode Island long enough for the ceremony to be completed. Not a problem, on the face of it -- there are several Dunkin Donuts parking lots readily accessible over the state line.

The Patrick camp says they thought Brown's people were joking. A Brown aide says they weren't, and were miffed that Patrick refused to accomodate their request.

Bring on the new era of bi-partisan comity!

What do you do when you're getting destroyed in an early test of political strength - campaign fundraising?

You spin your brains out, as Patrick campaign manager Sydney Asbury and senior advisor Doug Rubin do in this e-mail:

"Team,

In the days ahead, the media will likely report that Charlie Baker's campaign has raised more money than our campaign has in the month of January.

This is true.

As you know, Governor Patrick was elected to change the way business is done on Beacon Hill. And for the past three years, he has taken on entrenched interests and won -- lowering auto insurance rates through increased competition in the market, saving taxpayers millions by allowing civilian flaggers at construction sites, and bringing more accountability to state government by strengthening pension, ethics and lobbying laws.

So it's no surprise that the special interests are lining up behind Charlie Baker, helping him to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars this month. If you don't believe us, just read the Boston Herald story from last week.

Insiders may try to use this month's fundraising totals to proclaim that Governor Patrick is in trouble, is unlikely to win in November, or may not even run at all.

This is not true.

We do things differently. We always have, and it has proven successful. We have a base of over 35,000 donors, a strong finance team, and a proven method of collecting thousands of low-dollar donations from people all across Massachusetts. But we also have another tremendous story to tell. Over 1,600 grassroots organizers are now hard at work in their communities, engaging voters, identifying supporters, and preparing for their local caucuses, and two weeks ago, hundreds of people attended one of our 30 house parties to watch the Governor's State of the Commonwealth address. If you haven't yet, sign up to attend your local caucus.

Rest assured, that with your support, we will have more than enough money to be competitive in November. Not the most, but enough to win. And we will have the broadest, most active, and engaged statewide campaign organization in the history of Massachusetts politics.

That you can count on.

Sydney Asbury
Campaign Manager

Doug Rubin
Senior Advisor"

Why has Senator-elect Scott Brown abruptly moved to move up his swearing-in from February 11 to tomorrow now that official state certification of the election result has been completed? Are DC Democrats – aided by their partisan allies on Beacon Hill - trying to pull a fast one by stalling Brown’s seating while they whisk through important legislation, such as, say, a vote on ObamaCare?

 

No, a well-placed source within the Brown camp tells WBZ Brown simply decided that while the February 11 date had made sense to allow ample time for putting an office staff together, there is now no reason to wait that long, and there are several matters he wants to be able to weigh in on, including the nomination of a new pro-union member to the National Labor Relations Board, and the long-delayed nomination of Martha Johnson to head the General Services Administration. The source reports Brown is satisfied with the cooperation he is getting from Secretary of State Bill Galvin and Governor Deval Patrick, who will complete the certification process by signing off on some documents during a meeting of the Governor’s Council tomorrow morning.

 

WBZ reporters are working on this story; expect full details and updates both on WBZ News and wbztv.com throughout the afternoon and evening.

Here are links to the "Saturday Night Live" episode and David Letterman skits (here and here) referenced in tonight's 11pm report on the pop culture labelling of Sen.-elect Scott Brown.

Feel free to weigh in on this whole process of marginalizing political figures by objectifying them, hardly new or unique to Brown. Meanwhile, consider this e-mail from Debbie in Andover:

"In tonight's promos you mention that the Brownmania is insulting to those who voted for him, how about those that didn't?  Getting a little sick of him being the new poster boy for politics!  He comes out of nowhere, and all of a sudden they're talking "Romney/Brown in 2012"???"

I agree with Debbie, such talk is absurd. Then again, given how the current president was a lowly state senator just three years before seeking the presidency after a short stint in the US Senate, you can see how such absurdity might persist.

Frank Rich in the New York Times -- when members of Congress applaud the ritual "the state of our union is strong" line in the annual State of the Union address, it's "jingoistic."

LOL!