Letters to the Editor
Picko
Published Letters: 272 Editor's Choice: 11
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Traduced
[Read the article: Obama won't be at town hall tonight]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not saying Obama shouldn't do debates or shouldn't make appearances in a townhall format. I'm saying that it's ridiculous to think that in five months people are going to remember that Obama didn't attend the kick-off in New York and hold it against him in the general election.
I don't see what the big pressure is to put them head-to-head so early in the game. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but neither has actually technically become the nominee. This is still technically the primary season.
if you recall, prior to one of the big primaries Hillary put a lot of pressue on Obama to debate her once a week, and Obama agreed to about half as many debates as she wanted. The Clinton campaign even went so far as to run ads chiding Obama for not agreeing to the debate schedule they proposed. And, as far as I can tell, the issue had little or no impact on how people actually voted.
I just don't think Obama should let the McCain camp control his campaign schedule. McCain probably needs these joint town-hall forums more than Obama does, so Obama shouldn't have to cede scheduling decisions to the McCain camp.
This is all part of the inevitable jockeying for advantage that happens in any campaign.
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Is John McCain running for Commander-in-Chief or Douchebag-in-Chief?
[Read the article: New McCain ad compares Obama to Britney, Paris]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Because if he’s running for the latter, this is an incredibly effective ad.
But if he’s running for the former … not so much.
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Why Wolfson is probably wrong
[Read the article: Crying Wolfson]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's a good examination of the factual basis of Wolfson's statement at fivethirtyeight.com:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/why-howard-wolfson-is-out-of-job.html
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Sham conservative bestsellers
[Read the article: Right-wing smear job, the sequel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please note that the entry for Joe Corsi's book is marked with a dagger on the New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller list:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html
If you read the fine print at the bottom of the list, you will see the following explanation:
"A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders."
It is a dirty secret of right-wing publishing that bestsellers are often manufactured by wealthy activists who buy books in bulk as a way to give conservative viewpoints more prominence than they might naturally have in the marketplace of ideas.
Dick Morris's anti-Obama bestseller is also marked with a dagger. (The only other book on the list that is daggered is Tori Spelling's book, which I assume either she or her publicist bought in bulk to foster the impression that anyone gives a shit about Tori Spelling.)
Indeed, Joe Corsi has entered into a lawsuit against his former publisher alleging that he was being defrauded on royalties because so many of his books were being sold outside of normal trade channels (and thus were paid the lower royalty rate applicable to high-discount bulk sales).
For more about the lawsuit, see:
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/11/07/regnery_exploits_conservatives/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/books/07cons.html
The following is the posting I made in the letters page of the Salon story on the lawsuit:
"The dirty secret of conservative publishing
Within the publishing world, it has often been observed that conservative books that hit the bestseller list often do so because of so called "bulk sales." The New York Times bestseller list states in its fine print: "A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders." The general belief is that these bulk sales are a way that conservative activists artificially pump up sales of right-wing books in order to make the radical conservative viewpoint seem far more mainstream than it is. However, the downside for the author is that a lower royalty is paid on bulk sales than is paid for normal sales in the retail market. The rationale is that since the profit margin for each book is lower, the author needs to accept a lower royalty to make this practice profitable for the publisher; the argument is that what the author is losing in per-copy royalty he is making up in sheer quantity of copies sold. This is simple economics. The irony is that it's likely that these authors wouldn't even be bestselling authors if the bulk sales that they are suing over had never happened."
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To put things in perspective
[Read the article: Right-wing smear job, the sequel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem is not the book itself - it's the media coverage of the book.
The book market is small enough that a book with sales in the tens of thousands can make it on the bestseller list.
For example, the announced initial print run for Obama's forthcoming policy book "Change You Can Believe in" is 300,000. That's a pretty big initial printing, although certainly reasonable based on the expected demand.
Now, there are approximately 300,000,000 people in the United States. About 25% of those are below the voting age. So that means around 225,000,000 eligible voters. Now, assume voter turn-out of about 50%. So you're talking about 112,500,000 likely voters.
So, if every single copy of the first printing of Obama's book sells (which is highly likely) it will be bought by only 0.26% of likely voters.
Bill Clinton's autobiography, published in 2004, was the fasting selling non-fiction book ever. It sold somewhere over 2,250,000 copies. Which means that only about 2% of likely voters would have bought it (assuming every sale was to a likely voter).
Then, you have to consider who are the likely buyers of such a book. Who shells out the $28.00 list price ($15.40 on Amazon) for an anti-Obama screed and then bothers to read it? Do you think it is voters who are open to voting for Obama? Or is it people seeking confirmation of what they already believe? I'm going to say that the market is heavily tilted towards the latter.
Most people will only ever know the book through the coverage. In a sense, the book itself is only an excuse to talk about the book on TV, which is how they get their message out.