NDN Blog

In an excellent piece in the Times today, Julia Preston shows how new federal work rules designed to crack down on the false papers of the undocumenteds will end up increasing discrimination against all Hispanics. 

The human toll of the failure to pass immigration reform mounts, and will for many be too much to bear.  "Open season" on immigrants - legal or not - continues apace.

At the Yearly Kos Convention, some people asked us to provide more information about immiogration reform.  We recommend three sites, in addition to our work on immigration reform that you can find above:

National Council of La Raza - www.nclr.org

National Immigration Forum - www.immigrationforum.org

Coalition for Comphrensive Immigration Reform - www.cirnow.org

Of course there are many other good and worthy places to go for immigration issues.  These are the ones we find most helpful.

He's ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire.   Thompson is having a hard time getting going, and Rudy has all sorts of problems.  Will it be Romney?  EJ Dionne takes an interesting look at the former Massachusetts governor today, the candidate who increasingly appears to be the Republican frontrunner.

The rise of Romney also points to something about the relative importance of the national polls at this point.  Personally I dont think they mean all that much.  In the new USA/Gallup poll out today Romney is only at 8% percent nationally, far behind everyone, even McCain.  But he leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, the only place where voters are getting a much indepth look at the candidates - and in these places, where the campaign is engaged, Romney is besting all this rivals.  In Iowa he has opened up a double digit lead.  

The same is true in this new USA/Gallup on the Democratic side.  Hillary leads by a great deal, but in Iowa she is either even with or behind both Obama and Edwards.  In the state where the voters have seen the candidates the most, we see a very different picture. 

As I look to make sense of how the candidates are doing, I look to polls in the early states, money raised and number of supporters, and then to the national polls for guidance. 

The Times ran a rather remarkable article today about the future of advertising.  An excerpt:

It is only a matter of time until nearly all advertisements around the world are digital.

Or so says David W. Kenny, the chairman and chief executive of Digitas, the advertising agency in Boston that was acquired by the Publicis Groupe for $1.3 billion six months ago.

Now Mr. Kenny is reshaping the digital advertising strategy for the entire Publicis worldwide conglomerate, which includes agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett and the Starcom MediaVest Group and the global accounts of companies like Procter & Gamble, American Express, Hewlett-Packard and General Motors.

The plan is to build a global digital ad network that uses offshore labor to create thousands of versions of ads. Then, using data about consumers and computer algorithms, the network will decide which advertising message to show at which moment to every person who turns on a computer, cellphone or — eventually — a television.

More simply put, the goal is to transform advertising from mass messages and 30-second commercials that people chat about around the water cooler into personalized messages for each potential customer.

“Our intention with Digitas and Publicis is to build the global platform that everybody uses to match data with advertising messages,” Mr. Kenny said. “There is a massive transformation happening in the way consumers live and the data we have about them, but very few companies have stepped up to it yet.”

Publicis announced last Tuesday an important step in its digital plan: the acquisition of the Communication Central Group, a digital agency in China founded in 1995, for an undisclosed amount. The agency, to be called Digitas Greater China, will give Publicis a foothold in the Chinese advertising market, which analysts within Publicis estimate is growing at about 20 percent a year, much faster than global growth in the market, which hovers around 5 percent a year.

“There’s a chance to invest right now in China, India, Russia and Brazil, which will pay off big over the next five years,” Mr. Kenny said. “These economies are going to boom, and ads there are going to go directly to mobile and directly to the Internet.”

Beyond the growth potential, Publicis executives see these economies as important sources of low-cost labor for a Digitas subsidiary called Prodigious, a digital production unit that works with all agencies in the Publicis Groupe. Prodigious already uses workers in Costa Rica and Ukraine to produce copious footage for companies like G.M.

Greater production capacity is needed, Mr. Kenny says, to make enough clips to be able to move away from mass advertising to personalized ads. He estimates that in the United States, some companies are already running about 4,000 versions of an ad for a single brand, whereas 10 years ago they might have run three to five versions. And he predicts that the number of iterations will grow as technology improves....

The Times Magazine has a remarkable story today by Alex Koltowitz about a an Illiinois town's aggressive effort to deal with its growing immigrant population.  It is a great piece of reporting, and powerfully captures the state of play of this complex issue with real Americans in the aftermath of the collapse of the immigration bill in June. 

The bottom line is that without federal action Hispanics - undocumented or not - are going to be inreasingly targeted and discriminated against.  The situation is untenable, on many levels, and if allowed to go unadressed, will likely make this issue a major one in the Presidential campaign next year.   There is simply no way our national leaders can continue to do nothing on the immigration issue - our immigration system is terribly broken and needs to be fixed immediately.   

Please take the time to read this compelling story.

It was a remarkable event this year.  Jam packed series of panels about everything under the sun, powerful speeches by Markos and Howard Dean, and of course the Presidentials.  As Markos said in his remarks people at Yearly Kos are becoming a community, and it was great to see old friends and meet so many new ones.  

NDN had a very strong presence at the convention.  We ran 4 panels and participated in a fifth.  We talked about globalization, immigration and did three panels on various aspects of what we call the new politics.   Joining us for our panels were incredible people - Joe Trippi, Jerome Armstrong, SEIU's Eliseo Medina, Cecilia Munoz of NCLR, former Kerry Communications Director Stephanie Cutter, John Amato of Crooks and Liars, Dan Manatt of PoliticsTV, FDL's Marcy Wheeler, the all around wonderful Julie Bergman Sender and of course our crew of Pete Leyden, Ron Shapiro and Joe Garcia.  Our sessions were well-attended, and I feel like we did a good job sharing our ideas and engaging with the folks at the convention. 

I want to congratulate Gina Cooper, blogmother, and organizer of Yearly Kos.  A little more than two years ago she had an idea to bring together the Kos community, and the broader progressive and netroots worlds.  In a short period of time this idea of hers has turned what now may be the most important - and certainly the most fun - annual gathering of people in progressive politics.  It is an extraordinary accomplishment. 

I can't wait till next year.

For those in Chicago for the 2nd Annual Yearly Kos Convention this week, there will be plenty of opportunities to see the NDN team.  Four of us are speaking on five different panels, and NDN is holding a casual happy hour for its friends on Thursday night.  See below for more details.
 
As you may be aware, Markos Moulitsas, of the blog Daily Kos, and the founder of this convention, is a very good friend of ours.  He was a founding team member of our new affliliate, the New Politics Institute.  He has spoken at many of our events over the years, starting all the way back in 2003.  And last year I wrote the foreword to the book he co-authored with Jerome Armstrong, Crashing the Gate.  You can find out more about that book and read my foreword, which offers my thoughts on the rise of the blogs and netroots, here.  

NDN's strong presence at what will probably be the influential gathering of progressives this year is a testament to the strong work our team is producing these days.  Hispanic Strategy Center Director Joe Garcia has put together - and is moderating - Immigration and Hispanics: The Policy and the Politics, a panel looking at the future of immigration reform.  Globalization Initiative Director Dr. Robert J. Shapiro is on a panel entitled The Middle Class: The Problems it Faces and Progressive Solutions.  NPI Director Peter Leyden is running a session on The Political Impact of Web Video Through 2008, a subject we have dedicated a great deal of time to this year.  I will be moderating Modern Campaigns, a panel discussing how all changes in media and technology are changing campaigns and advocacy.  The panel will feature Edwards Campaign Advisor Joe Trippi, blogger and consultant Jerome Armstrong, and respected communications advisor Stephanie Cutter.  Finally, Peter Leyden and I will be presenting our much-talked about PowerPoint presentation, the Dawn of a New Politics.  
 
So if you are in Chicago this week, or know anyone who is, come by and check out the latest thinking from NDN - or just join us for a drink on Thursday night at 5:30 PM in the M/X Lounge at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, 2233 South Martin L. King Drive.

Coming just two days after the White House announced proposed arms sales to Sunni Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments to help counter the growing influence of Iran and the region's Shiites (including the ruling parties in Iraq), the Iraqi soccer team defeated Saudi Arabia today 1-0 to win the Asian Cup. 

The irony of all this is hard to overstate. 

For additional thoughts on the Iraqi soccer team, take a look at my post from the other day.  Anyone know how I can buy an Iraqi soccer jersey?

For some weekend thoughts on the emerging politics of the Middle East see my various posts below.

In my posts this weekend I wondered whether the announced arms sales to the Sunni governments of the Middle East meant the Administration was strategically tossing the Shiite-led Maliki government in Iraq and the Iraqi Shiites under the bus, having now decided to back to the region's Sunnis in a more protracted battle against Iran and its regional allies.  A new post by Steve Benen at Talking Points Memo finds further evidence of this new "Sunni-tilt:"

Part of Gen. David Petraeus' job in Iraq is pressuring Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Apparently, heads of state don't care for marching orders from generals from other countries, so it's caused a little bit of a strain on their professional relationship.

OK, more than a little.

A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's relations with U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington the withdraw the well-regarded U.S. military leader from duty here.

The Iraqi foreign minister calls the relationship "difficult." ... U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who meets together with al-Maliki and Petraeus at least weekly, concedes "sometimes there are sporty exchanges."

Al-Maliki has spoken sharply -- not of Petraeus or Crocker personally -- but about their tactic of welcoming Sunni militants into the fight against al-Qaida forces in Anbar and Diyalah provinces.

First, if the U.S. policy of arming Sunni militias is exacerbating the strained relations, Maliki probably won't like the fact that the administration has decided to do more of this, not less.

Second, if the relationship has deteriorated as poorly as the article suggests, would the White House seriously pull Petraeus from Iraq? After basing most of the existing policy on Bush's confidence in the general?

The Times has an editorial today which examines some of the issues raised in my post yesterday, The Endless War becomes a Regional War. 

An excerpt:

The Bush administration and Saudi Arabia’s ruling family have a lot in common, including oil, shared rivals like Iran and a penchant for denial that has allowed both to overlook the Saudis’ enabling role in the Sept. 11 attacks. But their recent wrangling over Iraq cannot be denied or papered over with proposals for a big new arms sale. And if these differences are not tackled, there is an increased likelihood that the war’s chaos will spread far beyond Iraq’s borders.

While Washington hasn’t protested publicly, Riyadh is pouring money into Sunni opposition groups and letting Saudis cross the border to join Sunni insurgents fighting the American-backed, Shiite-led government. Washington estimates that nearly half of the 60 to 80 foreign fighters entering Iraq each month come from Saudi Arabia....

Congressional leaders need to quickly assess the long-term implications of the Surge, Part II , the just-announced arms sales to Israel and the Sunni-led Arab governments in the Middle East.  Has the Administration settled on a longer term strategic plan for the region, a Cold War like containment policy towards the area's rising power, Iran, as is suggested in an excellent piece by Robin Wright in the Post today? And does this involve throwing the current Shiite-led Iraqi government under the bus? And if that is the case what exactly are our troops doing in Iraq then? Propping up a government and a nation we've already strategically abandoned?

For all the saber rattling at Iran for meddling inside Iraq - Joe Lieberman has called it a de facto declaration of war against the United States - there is substantial publically-available evidence that the Sunni governments of the Middle East are much more actively funding their end of the emerging proxy war in Iraq than the Iranians are.  Where is the public outrage over the Saudi's funding of insurgents regularly killing the US? Or of the Egyptian government's support of a bootlegged Sunni TV station in Iraq that regularly celebrates the deaths of American servicemen?

For those wanting to learn more about all this, I would strongly suggest checking into the thinking of noted Tufts University scholar, Vali Nasr.  You can watch an interview I did with him recently, and learn more about how to buy his compelling book here.