The Gang XV - II
The Gang - Jason Calacanis, Dan Farber, Marc Canter, Mike Vizard, and Dana Gardner. Recorded Friday, February 15, 2008.
SG–Steve Gillmor
MV-Mike Vizard
MC-Marc Canter
DG-Dana Gardner
DF-Dan Farber
JC-Jason Calacanis
SG-no no, you were saying Clinton next.. I want to hear Clinton…
JC-okay so Clinton is obviously a great executer and very driven and smart and will bring a level of respect to this country that it hasn’t had in 8 years… people around the world will love her… we live in a global economy… what bush has done in terms of imperialism and protectionism is not going to make us grow keeping the phds out of the country and not letting people come to college from other countries because we think they’re terrorist is insane.. its not a way to grow in a global market place… i think the candidates are going to do that really well, especially Clinton, she’s very well respected on a global basis…
SG-ok, you think hillary’s going to get it?
JC-Ummm, I think mccain’s going to win…
SG-I’m talking about the dem nomination…
JC-oh no, I think obama’s goin g to win… because there’s a lot of excitement growing with it… and people want to go with a hopeful after years of mundane… but I think it’s a hope of the year, and he’s selling hope, and its hopless in iraq and people feel like they’re powerless, and hillary doesn’t show you how power, but electing obama makes you feel like you have power, and people want to change the political process this time since they weren’t able to last time…
SG-but the votes in the key states were he had to win have gone to hillary…
JC-yeah.. but there’s a lot of time left… and watching my friends change their icons to obama portrait, and everybody is getting gcaught up in the excitement.. na dwe’re at a tipping point where people are getting interested in him… now we’re getting to people like me who are like “I’ll figure it out in a couple months” cause I don’t have time to get involved, and I think that’s the majority of people..
SG-To me you are the canary in the mine shaft… you know, it took me starting a new show in order to be able to talk about politics so, the fact that you come around is a symptom of how powerful this wave is and as far as Obama vs. McCain… if he gets there… ummm… I basically think that his most powerful message is being right the first time because the whole argument about experience and stability … yeah, its going to be a crap shoot but the ability to look at a situation and even in spite of the various scenarios to be able to come up with the right guess in term of iraq… that it’s not about iraq its about the next one… what’s the next one going to be? And are we going to go down the same route..
MV-on this issure of character…
JC-its like not the tipping point …
SG-what? hang on a second… what?
JC-I’m just saying the quick decision making process in making the right decision its all about we make quick decisions and make right ones and make wrong ones… its interesting concept… I dont think that’s why people are going to vote for him… they’re going to vote for him because they think he’s cool and that he’s…
SG–yeah. it doesn’t matter why they vote for him as long as they vote for him… but like I said… I think your analysis of Hillary is much more germaine … I think that’s the tough one… if he gets by Hillary he’ll be the next president… but if he gets by too close for comfort the voters need to understand that they cannot give hillary and bill even the room to do the wrong thing because if they do they’ll take down both themselves and Obama in the election and I don’t think people really want to have a republican in charge and they definitely want a democrat…
?-I think you’re being a little idealiestc of the realities of mainstream America I don’t think they’lll elect a woman or a black man we live in a racists… bunch of crackers… and that’s America if you want to talk about some other country you can…
SG-you know… stevie wonder… people don’t look at his color when they buy his records..
JC-yeah, I agree there’s a ton of racism but its like in middle ameraca White kids are buying more hip-hop for two decades than black people…
?-yeah, and those kids aren’t voting… their parents vote and…
SG-..This is a mechanical problem… I don’t trust the young people are going to get out the vote, but I do trust that in texas the machine that Obama has built up to get people to the right places at the right time… there’s some amazing stuff on the internet and see how this is working at the precinct level… Right now he’s leading in the delegate count in Texas, even though he’s trailing by 5 to 8 points in terms of the popular vote, but we wont necessarily see this momentum translate into… but if he can go up another 6 or 10 delegates at end of the day in Texas its over…
?-do you think the democrats can win texas again?
SG-I think once we get past this phase that the most important person the dems are going to have with Obama as the candidate is going to Hillary, Hillary can drive a truck through the republican agenda, once she’s free from being in it for herself..
?-Are you saying that Hillary would be vice-presidential candidate?
SG-No, I don’t know… Hillary commands tremendous respect as Jason pointed out, particularily over seas, if she comes in and validates the notion… what Obama needs to do is be at the head of the train… and the dem party is going to figure out how to get this SG-through, and she has to sacrifice in order to remove her negatives in terms of congress… which I think are the fundamentals of this election, bill lost in 1994, he lost both houses of congress… that was devastating to any of the issues that are important like national health and therefore the economy… if they get that… they’re going to win..
?-back to this decade, this debate between Clinton and Obama is in texas is crucial for her, its going to make or break, right?
SG-Nah… somebody, chris mathews said on hardball a couple of days ago I think it was him, may have been tom brokaw, he said “everybody think the day of the debates everybody think the hillary won, a couple days later they realized that obama won.”
?-because nothing sticks to him… what can they say about him.. they cant go any further on the leadership or the choice or the inexperience, that hasn’t worked…
SG-but she’s validated him… she sat there and hugged him…
?-what else can the clinton’s come up with to undergird the obama momentum?
SG-Well they’re undercutting themselves…
JC-People complain about Clinton’s using dirty tactics, but when Bush won the second time everybody was like people have to start taking it to the republicans because of the way they’re doing it… isn’t that what everyone said last time… that dems have to be more cut throat?
?-It’s a double edged sword in the primaries…
?-so you want them to be cutthroat after theres only one left…
SG-Who’s going to be cutthroat? I think it’s good news that obama is being tested by Hillary…
?-he’s being tested but not completely fascinated, because that would hurt the dems…
SG-well, I think that is entirely because of twitter and this social network, you know, when we see on youtube the bill Clinton in south Carolina, you don’t have to be told any more information, you have the information there in a form it circulates very quickly, Clinton has modifie his message, he’s a lot better, but, still his attitude underneath is that he’s pissed off… its only a good thing, from obama perspective, if they don’t get close enough to make this into a supreme court fight…
?-Ok, here’s another question.. given how being savvy about the internet and the affects of the sociall graph are, are the MCcAin people involved with the internet nearly enough? Let’s say its obama and Clinton in November, their exploitation of the internet could be a decisive advantage being that mccain doesn’t really seem to get it…
SG-I think that in the last election evergybody made such a loud noise about dean being web savvy, Kerry ran away with that though, but in the end the republicans won. So I don’t think we want to count on any of those kind of leads…
?-you think…
SG-I don’t think that the whole tech president thing is all that interesting…
?-yeah, because then Ron Paul would be the candidate right?
SG-well, who?
?-hahah
SG-okay, I’m going to wrap this up… Jason you should come onto newSG-ang live you can actually hold up your own, with this political convo.
JC-I do know about human nature…
SG-yeah, well…
JC-I can handicap the psychology of it, I think..
SG-okay, well the invitation is open, Dan farber thanks
DF-any last words… Microsoft telescope…
SG-what’s that?
SG-Is this what wolf (?) is crying about?
DF-yeah..
SG-ohhhhh…. I saw that’s all you’re going to say right/
DF-well, I questioned about it… but I think that’s the non-news of the day…
SG-okay, excellent.. dana thank you…
DG-great to be back thank you..
SG-you should go away on vaca more often..
DG-hahah… I agree with that…
SG-Okay, well thanks to everybody who showed up and thanks to those that didn’t… this is Steve Gilmour and this has been the gang….
MC-bye
SG-oh mark, thank you so much… bye.
