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Exciting news. On Friday, The Scandal Plan got a rave mention on one of my favorite radio shows, KCRW’s Left, Right & Center. Host Matt Miller called the book “a great fun summer political read,” and called me “a big new talent.” Not too shabby, eh? Click here to listen (the plug comes at the end of the show, at the 27 minute mark).
Best debate yet. Bob Schieffer rocks me. Incidentally, if you ever happen to be driving across the country and are looking for a good book on tape, I highly recommend Schieffer’s memoir, This Just In : What I Couldn’t Tell You on TV. Schieffer has been in the trenches, reporting on many of the biggest stories of the last forty years, and he has lots of juicy stories to tell.
Barack got a slow start again tonight, but finished strong. He was evasive during the question about Joe Plumber’s taxes, and McCain scored big points there. In debate #3, John McCain finally managed to sustain a consistent message for the duration of the evening. It certainly wasn’t original, but McCain’s classic “this liberal will spend all your money” attack was hammered home repeatedly throughout the 90 minutes with some success. McCain may have gained a little ground tonight, though I doubt he gained much.
Obama started to come alive again once the question of negative campaigning was raised. Here he found his footing, and from this point on, the debate was all his. McCain seemed petulant, angry, cranky, and downright curmudgeonly, while Obama was Mr. Cool: eloquent, reasonable, and thoughtful. Every attack of McCain’s after that first 30 minutes was effectively defused by Obama, while many of Obama’s attacks were rebutted with less skill. Obama continued to be effective at addressing his answers to the middle class, looking deep into the camera’s eye, and oozing presidentiality.
I continue to be amazed by McCain’s obvious contempt for Obama. He so clearly hates him with every fiber of his being. At this point, I find myself watching and just wondering when John McCain’s head is going to spontaneously explode. The Arizona senator has one of the world’s worst poker faces. My wife has a better poker face, and trust me, you would love to play poker with my wife. (On a side note, I’ve just realized that, as a married man, I can now tell “my wife” jokes. Oh, I know someone in the next room who is going to be thrilled to find this out!)
On the whole, another fun night for us political junkies. To put this in CNN speak: a red-meat night, all about Main Street, but no game-changers. Ah, CNN, how I tire of thee … And yet I continue to watch.
More soon, my friends …
Check out my guest essay on Beatrice.com by clicking here.
Read my latest on Huffington Post here. This is where I call out John Edwards — not just for lifting many elements of his sex scandal from my book — but also for having the audacity to do it so terribly. I provide advice on how politicians can make the most of their sex scandals. If you like the article, forward it to a friend.
Tomorrow night (7/29), I’ll be appearing on Dr. Blogstein’s Radio Happy Hour on Blog Talk Radio to chat about The Scanal Plan and verbally loiter. The show starts at 9pm EST, and I’ll be on around 9:30pm. If you miss this show live, it will be available for a week on the good doctor’s website (www.drblogstein.com), and archived forever at: www.blogtalkradio.com/DrBlogstein.
It should be a fun time. Tune in.
For those of you who get XM radio, I’ll be interviewed on the POTUS ’08 channel in about 12 hours from now.
2pm EST. XM 130. Dig it
*******************ADDENDUM*******************
Wait. Scratch that. Just had the interview. It was pre-recorded. It will not air until tomorrow. Monday between 7-9pm EST.
Monday night, I was “local boy made good” at the Easton Public Library, the most happening place in my quiet hometown. Bernadette, the head librarian, did a great job of spreading the word about my appearance and alerting the local media (I was on WICC radio on Friday and the front page of the Easton Courier on Thursday). For a book reading in a small town, we had a nice turnout, which included a friend I hadn’t seen since high school and a couple of my more magnificent middle school teachers. In attendance were the English teacher who encouraged my creative writing and the History teacher who encouraged my fascination with politics. It was nice to have them there.
A couple nice new developments:
I was in Thursday’s USA Today as part of their New Voices feature. You can read it here. It was kind of funny because the New Voices pieces are real short, but the interview was quite long, so I had no idea which three sentences of mine were going to be used. I also probably wouldn’t have pegged the excerpt they used as one of my more “memorable” quotes, but I suppose it does tell a bit of the story, so I understand why it was chosen. The main thing is that it’s an article in one of the planet’s largest newspapers, and that makes me quite happy.
Also, the Philadelphia Inquirer thinks my book is a great idea for a summer read. Frankly, I agree. You can read that article here.
I’ve been working as a kindergarten teacher this year to help pay the bills. It’s been a nice change of pace for me: fun, challenging, and far more rewarding than most of the crummy jobs that have kept me afloat in previous years. And every now and then, I get to take home some priceless quotes from the young ones. While it’s not really appropriate to share most of those in my blog, I thought I would mention today’s quote of the day.
I showed the children a copy of my book for Share (“show and tell”). I held the book up in front of them so they could see the cover and my picture, and I explained the title as best I could in a G-rated way (omitting the subtitle, of course). The children, who are learning to write themselves, seemed quite impressed and had a lot of questions for me.
“How long did it take you to write?”
“How many days did it take you to write?”
“How many hours did it take you?”
(there were a lot of time-related questions because they were most impressed by the sheer number of words I used to fill up so many pages)
“Why is the first letter of the chapter bigger?”
“Does it have any pictures?”
“Are those your shoes on the cover?”
and then, my favorite, referring to the sexy female legs on the cover:
“Is the woman in the red shoes your fiancée?”
Love it.
In other news, I was interviewed this morning by a charming woman from USA Today. Barring any celebrity suicides, I should be in the paper on Thursday as part of their New Voices feature.
One final note: Today I was inundated with wonderful congratulatory emails from friends in response to my mass emailing late last night. I’m too tired to even begin responding to them all, but please know (in case any of you are reading) that your good cheer found a happy recipient. And thank you.
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Copyright © 2010 Bill Folman. Blog design by Rubiqube and is based on Sandbox.
