Sunday, October 14, 2012

Obama Should Go For It On October 16

Bill Clinton, Master Politician, Reacts To The Debate
Romney: Breathtaking
The First Debate
The Debates (2)
The Debates

Mitt Romney used to be as progressive as Mike Bloomberg on social issues when his playing field was Massachusetts. He was pro choice, he was for gun control. He was pretty much a liberal.

And then he decided to run for president, and he flip flopped because, let's face it, the base of the Republican Party is to the hard right.

Considering how easily he disowned his own tax plan - the centerpiece of his program - during the first debate, I would like someone to tell me where Mitt stands on abortion today. Because, with this guy, you never know.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a big fan of clocks that are right two times a day. People changing their mind is often a good thing. You did not believe in climate change. And then you did your homework. And you changed your mind. How is that a bad thing? You were pro segregation, then you listened to some of MLK's speeches, and you changed your mind. You became a little less racist. How is that a bad thing?

But with Mitt it is weird. I never thought Mitt was a rabid racist, or a rabid sexist or a rabid anything. He became anti abortion. But that is like, there was this guy who was pro segregation in the 1950s, and then two decades later, in the 1970s, he became pro slavery.

That is not someone changing his mind, that is clinical to me.

Mitt's stand on abortion is something like that, only Mitt being pro choice was nothing heartfelt. That stand was a product of market research.

But someone flip flopping on abortion is less harmful than someone fundamentally flip flopping on their fundamental tax plan. Because on abortion, let's face it, the law of the land is not about to be overturned.

But a tax plan is kind of an important detail. That impacts pretty much all other major decisions you take as president. The economy is still recovering. Economic policy details matter. Mitt's tax cut plan will invite back the Depression we just barely avoided.

For two years Mitt was for five trillion dollars in tax cuts, and two trillion dollars in additional spending on defense. Okay, I get it. Those two details would make hard core conservatives happy. I get it, I get it. Tax cuts and strong on defense. I truly get it.

But then when you flip flop on that, I kind of like it. That is progress. If Mitt Romney is no longer for his tax cuts, like he said during the first debate, I want to know. This is a good kind of change of mind.

Going from being pro choice to anti choice is going backwards in time. But if Mitt is walking away from his five trillion tax cut plan, that is progress. That means he read some of Barack Obama's speeches, and spent some time reflecting, and he had an epiphany. I like that. I am not going to hold that against the guy. Frankly, that is what I have wanted all along. I have wanted Mitt to not be for a five trillion dollar tax cut.

But if that is his new plan the American people have a right to know. Where exactly do you stand, Mitt? If you now stand where Obama has stood all these years, welcome aboard. Maybe you can lead the Republicans in the House and bring forth some bipartisan action.

Since there is no longer a substantial difference between you and my guy Barack, are we now competing on style? We are all for it. My guy has a ton of style. They are about to put him on GQ. Again.

Obama grabs wide lead among those who have already voted: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Obama camp tips hand on debate, hints president will attack Romney on Bain
Obama team promises more aggressive president in second debate
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Friday, October 12, 2012

Linking Is Good Strategy

Monica Lewinsky gave birth to The Drudge Report.


It's Time People Realized That The Drudge Report Is A Major Media Property Worth Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars
The Drudge Report recently announced that it has surpassed 1 billion pageviews per month. How many pageviews is that? It's about as many pageviews as The New York Times reportedly got per month as recently as a couple of years ago.

The Drudge Report has 14.4 million US readers per month — only slightly fewer readers than The New York Times (16.4 million), per Quantcast.

The New York Times is produced by ~1,200 journalists. The Drudge Report is produced by one.

Assuming The Drudge Report gets $1.50 per 1000 pages and has 1 billion pageviews per month, The Drudge Report should be generating revenue of $15-$20 million a year.

A range of 15x-25x earnings for the current incarnation of The Drudge Report, therefore, would produce an estimated value of $150 million to $375 million.

One of the most remarkable things about The Drudge Report is that the site's content still consists primarily of original headlines linked to stories elsewhere on the web. This is a highly innovative and efficient media model, one that takes full advantage of the amazing capabilities of the Internet.

The editorial content that Drudge creates, in other words, consists of finding and interpreting important stories from millions of information sources around the world. Rather than creating a huge newsroom itself, the Drudge Report uses the whole digital world as a newsroom. And, importantly, unlike many digital media businesses, Drudge compensates those who did the work of creating the content that Drudge links to by sending them hundreds of thousands of readers — readers that they almost certainly would not have had had Drudge not chosen to link to them.

Matt Drudge has not just created a quirky little headlines-and-links site that occasionally breaks news.
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