From the Publisher/Arnold G. York
Malibu Times Dolphins
Each year, the editorial Board of The Malibu Times, which means Karen, our editor, Laura Tate, and myself, pick out the Dolphin Award winners for the current year. Sometimes the award is for something that someone has done in the previous year. Sometimes it represents a lifetime of community service. This year was very difficult. The competition was very close. Many of you sent in nominations for which we are deeply grateful. Even though we generally know most of the Dolphin winners personally, we don’t always know about all their accomplishments. Your letters help to fill in those gaps. If someone you recommended didn’t make it this year, try again next year. We try to select people from different areas of life-community service, education, environment, the arts, philanthropy, public safety, etc.-but we don’t have room for every category, every year.
We at the Times have been choosing Dolphin winners every year since 1990, which means we’re now in our 14th year. All together, including this year, we have had 144 honorees (we’ve reprinted the list on page A13), principally individuals but also many organizations.
There will be an announcement of an awards luncheon for all the current honorees and their families and all the past winners. Although the ranks have been thinned somewhat by people moving away or passing on, most people in Malibu appear to be a very hearty lot and are still here. It makes it ever more difficult to find a facility to hold an awards ceremony for our ever increasing group. Here’s hoping in time we all live long enough that we’ll need a stadium for all the Dolphins.
Supermarket Strike
I just can’t figure out how anyone can profit from this grocery strike. It appears to me that the owners and the union are locked together in a kind of a death dance, which ultimately ends up with them destroying each other. If, in fact, the danger to both are big box companies, like Wal-Mart and Costco, then they should be on the same side rallying all their energy and political clout to keeping that competition off balance and away. With all the negative stories coming out about Wal-Mart, and the obvious detrimental impact the Wal-Marts of the world have on the central business districts of every town they touch, wouldn’t the supermarkets be better served by helping the union organize the Wal-Marts? Somewhere there is a deal to be struck.
Sacramento Today
I was recently in Sacramento and the new assembly leadership spoke to the newspaper publishers. What struck me most is that new Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez is a first-term Democrat, with all of two years of assembly experience under his belt. The Republican minority leader is Kevin McCarthy, and he likewise is in his freshman term with two years of experience as a legislator. Despite their inexperience, they both appear to be very bright and articulate, and clearly are the next generation in the Legislature, which in many respects is good. They also don’t seem to be carrying the highly partisan baggage of some of the old timers. Interestingly, neither does Governor Arnold (I love the sound of that), so there really is a sense in Sacramento that maybe they can get some things accomplished. I found more optimism than I’ve seen there in a long time.
New Hampshire and What Follows
After tonight’s New Hampshire results, every pundit is going to be pundit-ing again. Every candidate’s spinner will be spinning and most of it won’t mean much because it all falls into the category of either baloney or damage control. A political campaign is a little bit like the stock market. You’re not measured against what you did, but against the expectation of what the pundits thought you would do. For example, in Iowa the expectation was Howard Dean would win, which made John F. Kerry’s victory that much more powerful. However, now momentum has shifted to Kerry and if he doesn’t exceed expectations he will be perceived as slipping. The job of his spinners is really to convince us he really did better than they thought he would. Also, he has that most cherished of political commodities-momentum.
I’m going to keep myself out of the silly process of predictions because I presently haven’t the faintest idea who is going to be the Democratic nominee, nor do most of the other pundits. The presidential primary is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s meaningless to try and decide who is ahead at the end of each lap. The various candidates are pursuing different strategies aimed at different audiences. Those strategies will shift as people drop out of the race and the climate in the country shifts. In political terms, it’s still 100 years to November.
Once New Hampshire and the primaries of Feb. 3 and 7 are over, the field will probably narrow again and, depending on who drops, the poll numbers will reshuffle. At various times in the coming weeks various candidates will be anointed and disanointed as the saviors of the Democratic party, which typically is wishful thinking, but ultimately we know someone will be chosen.
As the political fortunes shift around, our perceptions generally undergo a shift also. We will begin to see the standard bearer as presidential, and he’ll take on the presidential trappings, like the motorcades, the Secret Service, which he’ll play to hilt. Bush, of course, will be doing the same. You can expect a great deal of Rose Garden stuff, and probably showings at every major event like the Super Bowl. (Presidents get good seats.)
It really is good to be the President!