Culled from the dusty, yellowing Phoenix archives for your viewing pleasure, we proudly present...

Old News!

 

FRIENDS FOREVER?
5 years ago
January 17, 2003 | During an exclusive interview, Tom Menino got candid with the Phoenix’s Seth Gitell.
“One reason Menino is so relentless, so obsessed with detail, is that he doesn’t have anywhere to go. Unlike most sitting politicians, who allow themselves to believe that they are the center of the universe, the mayor doesn’t seem to think that way. . . . He uses the trappings of power, but doesn’t truly believe they are real. ‘Since I’ve been mayor, I have millions of friends. When I walk out that door, 10 people will talk to me . . . ,’ he says, noting that it’s all because he’s mayor. If he leaves office, it’ll all come to an end. ‘A lot of elected officials don’t understand that,’ he adds. ‘I leave this office and I’m not mayor. I’m ex-mayor Menino.’ ”

PITHY POLITICS
20 years ago
January 15, 1988 | In his original ‘Tote Board’ column, Steve Stark predicted doom for George Bush Sr. in the Republican primary.
“The vice-president has begun to bleed. Des Moines debate performance was sophomoric. Still hasn’t figured out how to deal with Iran-contra. And the week-long burning-Bush act didn’t help. Claims he’s going back to the old George Bush but seems to forget that no one liked that version, either. Decision to call truce with Dole stems slide temporarily. . . . But, with an Iowa loss a virtual certainty, has to win NH. Better hope Walsh doesn’t announce Iran-contra indictments week before primary.”

DAMAGE CONTROL
25 years ago
January 18, 1983 | Mission of Burma guitarist Roger Miller told Doug Simmons that he was leaving the band.
“Roger Miller . . . will be leaving the band after February. The reason: irreparable damage to his hearing. . . . Miller has three distinct hearing afflictions: decreased reception in both ears, distortion in the right, and tinnitus (or ringing) in both. ‘In September a middle-octave E appeared in my left ear,’ he says, ‘and in December a C-sharp below that E formed. In my right ear, a slightly sharp E began in October. They’re forming fairly interesting chords that never leave. When it’s quiet at night, these notes are screaming.’ ”

SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY
30 years ago
January 17, 1978 | Kit Rachlis was down in Atlanta, Georgia, for the Sex Pistols’ American debut.
“Without any announcement, the Sex Pistols have just walked onto the stage of the Great SouthEast Music Hall. . . . It’s a moment that approximately 40 journalists . . . , 500 curious Atlanta rock fans, and a full corps of Warner Bros. publicists have been waiting for. The Sex Pistols aren’t oblivious to the commotion — the audience has risen en masse and is screaming at them. In fact, they seem to revel in it, but their acknowledgement is oblique. ‘My name is John and this is the Sex Pistols,’ Rotten says, with another smile that could break your heart.”

1/17/2008 12:54:16 PM by Ian Sands | Comments [0] |  

Five worst quotes we heard last night:

5. New York Times on Grandmama Obama:
"It's pretty amazing to see her as she sorts her corn on the ground."

4. Douchebag local radio interns, heckling Hillary:
"Iron my shirt!"

3. Bill Bennett on John McCain's unlikely comeback:
"Here's a guy who's 71 years old, a guy with broken bones, a guy who can't comb his hair."

2. John McCain, recalling his unlikely comeback strategy:
"I'm goin' to New Hampshire and by gum I'm gunna tell 'em the truth!"
[ed note: we made up the "by gum" part]

1. Tom Brokaw, on the mainstream media's coverage of New Hampshire:
"We got some explaining to do."

Craig's List Alert: Stage Managers Needed

1. Mitt Romney, stepping to the podium microphone: "I just spent 45 minutes writing some very carefully thought out notes on exactly what I want to say. They're right here. But there's no podium, so I'm not gonna use those." Oopsy. But hey, two silvers! He thought of that all by himself!

2. Barack Obama, re-introducing his "Yes We Can" slogan. Beware the white people. Obama patterned his speech on the testifying, call-and-response patterns of a Baptist sermon. Folks, here's how it's supposed to go: Barack says "Yes We Can," you say "Amen." Instead, an audience raised on NASCAR and high school football falls into default-cheerleader mode and just yells whatever he says back at him, really fast, like a hardcore band, totally disrupting Obama's MLK-like flow. The result: a man thrown off his rhythm by his own audience, like when Jay-Z lets Beanie Sigel get on a beat. Let's see if we can get this straight, South Carolina, mmmkay?

Best/Worst Campaign Music Award: John Edwards

Blue Mass Group reports that Desperate Housewives hubby James Denton was in NH canvassing for Edwards yesterday, using Wilco's "Heavy Metal Drummer" as his theme music. How? Why? Is this some kind of in-joke? Which beautiful-and-stoned Denton co-star likes to screw heavy metal drummers? Whatever the answer, it's an altogether better choice than that fucking John Cougar Mellencamp Ford commercial that Edwards is using for his entrance music. We don't care if the Cougar sings it for you or not. The campaign has mercifully excised the tune from the official Youtube clip -- hopefully realizing that there isn't a soul on earth that wants to hear that song ever again.

Worst Gadget

Well, it's better than . . . whatever you call that thing Anderson Cooper was fucking with in Iowa. But CNN's "Magic Wall" worked about as well as you'd expect a giant obnoxious iPhone screen to work. Which is to say: not so well. (For the record, here's how it's supposed to go down.) Hugenormous video touch screen to zoom in on breaking election returns? $30 million. Watching your correspondents poke a TV screen like it's a broke ATM machine? Priceless.

1/9/2008 3:45:49 PM by Carly Carioli | Comments [1] |  

Congrats, Mitt! Your candidacy is officially as soft as your merch!

1/8/2008 9:19:46 PM by Carly Carioli | Comments [0] |  

I’m back in Boston after spending a couple of hours in Manchester, New Hampshire and must say that I’ve never encountered anything like the surge of interest in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Topic B was would McCain beat Romney? Although the men and the women in the street and at the polls seemed to think that the Republican race would be tight, their sense was that McCain would win.

That’s telling because, as David Bernstein has reported in his Talking Politics Blog, Hillsborough County is ground zero for the Romney Campaign. There were more Romney signs in evidence than for any other candidate, Republican or Democrat.

Topic A was Obama.

Talking to Democrats and Independents at the Red Arrow Diner and on the streets downtown the interest -- and excitement -- about Obama was so real that you felt like you could touch it, taste it.

In all my years of writing about politics I’ve never encountered anything like this before. When I was in high school I volunteered for Gene McCarthy. He was greeted as a breath of fresh air when LBJ’s war in Vietnam was sucking the life of national politics. But he never touched the emotional cords that Obama seems to strum.

Howard Dean came a bit closer. But Dean’s support was limited to college students and those with an activist frame of mind. He too was greated as a new breeze and certainly had more emotional appeal than the sometimes chilly and cerebral McCarthy.

Obama’s appeal seems akin to Bobby Kennedy’s. It is charismatic. It transcends the ordinary and cuts across the divides of age, income, and gender.

I mention gender because I was struck by the number of people I spoke with who were voting FOR Obama, not AGAINST Hillary Clinton. In fact, a number of people said they hoped that the press wouldn’t be too hard of Hillary. It seems that however ClintonNew Hampshire voters. does, she won the respect of a sizable number of

Obama, however, seems to have won their heads and their hearts.

 

1/8/2008 1:18:34 PM by Peter Kadzis | Comments [0] |