Radnor Reports from Ken Feltman

Gibbs says left-wing critics of Obama "Ought to be drug tested."

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:00:57 -0500

by Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is showing what stress can do to a presidential press secretary. Today he blasted liberal critics of President Obama: 'They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality.'Gibbs is not alone. White House staff members are confiding to friends that the atmosphere is at best pessimistic. Some staff complain that they get hostile stares from top-level presidential advisors ' and the President and First Lady ' if they offer anything that might be taken as criticism. A staff member who cautioned a few weeks ago that the First Lady's vacation in Spain might draw critical media and Republican attention has been called on the carpet by a senior staffer who apparently shouted, 'I hope you're happy now!'Staffers say that Obama is not able to accept advice. He interprets suggestions as criticisms. This has caused p...

Gibbs says Missouri vote means "Nothing"

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:55:42 -0500

by Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.A reader's question: 'You have not talked about healthcare much lately. Is it fading as an issue? No, as shown last Tuesday by the percent of Missouri voters who approved prohibiting the federal government from requiring people to buy health insurance. Ask what the Missouri vote meant, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, 'nothing.'Gibbs may be correct that the federal government can preempt state law on health insurance. But in glibly dismissing the Show Me state's voters, he conveyed the White House's increasing anxiety over the upcoming elections. Watch for other examples of frustration boiling over.Contrary to White House predictions, voters do not seem to like Obamacare better the more they learn about it. The opposite is true, especially as details about 'hidden' or deferred taxes and mandates surface.Publicly, White House staffers try to put on a happy face. Privately ' an...

What? Are you kidding? Another Bush?

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:48:46 -0500

By Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.- ShakespeareAs President Obama's poll numbers plunge and members of his own party begin to attack him, Republicans debating whether to run in are feeling more optimistic. Are things really that bullish for potential GOP candidates? Polls and focus groups confirm reasons for GOP enthusiasm. The most positive thing Democrats say is that it is too early to tell. Meantime, another man named Bush publicly denies interest in running even as he and his close friends and advisors ponder how to get him drafted to run late in the campaign, against a weakened incumbent.You think that's crazy? Who's going to want another Bush? Beside, drafts just happen; no one can plan to be drafted. Or can they? Let's sweep soundbites and spin out of the way and look at what we know right now.The situation looks bad for Obama. Independent voter...

Does the Financial Media Have a Clue?

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:54:09 -0500

Everyday there are good news and there are bad news. Media chooses the headline based on how the stock market reacts. If market declines, bad news is presented on headlines. If stocks advance, good news is in the front. But earnings do not rive the stocks. Good earnings appear at the market top . Earnings decline AFTER the market declines:http:www.tradingstocks.nethtmlearningsdoesnotdrivestocks.html Social mood directs the markets, economy, politics and the culture. When pessimism as seen in these forums takes hold, markets decline first, and the economy suffers later. At the bottom of the market, among the worst news, mood turns and we rally. Recession is declared over later. When people's emotions change, they first act in the stock market because it is easy to do so. After that, they hire, fire, start b...

Why I Miss Mike Royko

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:44:22 -0500

by Mark RhoadsThe legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mike Royko died in . Over his career, he worked for three different Chicago newspapers. I often miss his take on topics in the news today, but most of all in recent weeks because I think only Royko could have maximized the real entertainment value of the Blagojevich trial in a way that would do justice to the characters.For example, many decades ago Mike ran his own contest to design a new city seal for Chicago. The winning entry came from a reader who drew a picture of an outstretched palm under the Latin inscription Ubi Est Mea? for Where's Mine?Mike had an imaginary friend, named Slats Grobnik, who was a surrogate for Chicago's everyman. I can just imagine a conversation between Mike and Slats last week at the Billy Goat Tavern.Mike: Hey Slats, you been reading about the Blagojevich trial?Slats: Yeah.Mike: Well, whadaya tink? Is Blago guilty?Slats: Yeah, for lots of stuff, but not for sel...

Whole lotta gaffes goin’ on!

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 06:02:32 -0500

by Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.A word to the wise ain't necessary ' it's the stupid ones that need the advice.- Bill CosbyBill Cosby practices tough love. Hundreds, probably thousands of people who have descended on Washington recently may need a little tough love, too.Many perceive that Washington is the new financial and media capital of the United States, maybe the world. They must be here to protect their clients' interests and their own. But many newcomers are not doing well. They find the natives unfriendly. If New Yorkers and Hollywood types find Washington alien, what about people from Mumbai, Madrid, Riyadh and Beijing? Washington is Babel on the Potomac, with a cold shoulder and a shove for good measure.Newcomers bring their ways of doing things with them. When they sense that they are in trouble, they call in someone else from back home in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Dar Es Salaam or Seoul. That fails. Think about it: How fa...

Can a Worm Teach a Politician Anything?

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:41:51 -0500

By Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures.- Charles Darwin on the earthwormChristopher Lloyd of Cambridge University has written an interesting book about the contributions of different species to today's life on earth. He ranks earthworms as most important. Algae is second. Homo sapiens come sixth.Lloyd's analysis took me back to an unfinished discussion in a high school biology class. The teacher stressed the primacy of homo sapiens because we are the 'most evolved' species and are 'ever evolving.' Always the contrarian, I suggested that 'ever evolving' meant that humans had not found a comfortable niche within nature and were struggling to fit within our environment. The struggle caused our gradual changes, our evolution. Other species such as sharks, viruses and worms have evolved far enoug...

Democrats and the Tea Party

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:36:42 -0500

By Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.Democrats seem to think that candidates nominated in Republican primaries with the help of the Tea Parties will be easier to defeat in November. Many of those candidates hold extreme views, out of the GOP mainstream and divorced from the prevailing views of the electorate.The Democrats need to take another look at those candidates. They are doing better than expected in the polls. In response to that, many Democrats say that when the voters learn how extreme these candidates are, things will change.Perhaps the voters already know that however radical the Tea Party-endorsed candidates might be, they are not incumbents. Period....

The 3 a.m. Call

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:11:04 -0500

By Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.Leadership is solving problems.- Colin Powell. Louisiana: Many emotionsWhat a mess! Drive down Route along the Mississippi River from New Orleans and turn right on Tide Water Road south of Venice. You come to a place where the land gives way to marshes. Then the marshes give way to brackish waters. The Gulf of Mexico is just beyond. See the vastness of the Delta and the ecosystem these waters support. You need a boat to travel farther. Turn around and drive along the roads into the bayous. See the settlements and how the people live.See the signs of stress ' then distress. Uncertainty is everywhere. People are disoriented, aware that their way of life may be ending, perhaps forever.Go deep into the bayous and meet the people who call his place home. These are hard working and proud men and women, many from families that have made their living on these waterways for generations. In some places, you can ...

John Thune and Nikki Haley?

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:03:57 -0500

by Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.As predicted in an earlier Radnor Report, Senator John Thune R-S.D. has begun to raise his visibility. He is testing the waters for a possible presidential campaign. Obama's seeming weakness has encouraged him. Meantime, Nikki Haley is not even the Republican nominee for South Carolina governor and she is being mentioned as a vice presidential possibility in . Attacks by misogynists in the South Carolina Republican Party increased Haley's competitive resolve and caused GOP women to get behind her. The very early line: A Thune-Haley ticket in ? ...

One Big Loser

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:46:46 -0500

by Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.First take on yesterday's primary elections: Big Labor flooded Arkansas with advertising and get-out-the-vote workers. The effort, expected to end the Senate career of Blanche Lincoln, fell short.Lincoln used an endorsement by former President Clinton to take on Labor directly: 'This is about using you and manipulating your votes.'Labor leaders pointed out during the campaign that they were making an example of Lincoln for her failure to follow the unions' legislative agenda. That makes Big Labor the big loser in Tuesday's voting.Lincoln is trailing her Republican opponent in the November election by to percentage points. Exit interviews in many of the states that held primaries yesterday showed that Republican voters are becoming more critical of the Tea Party movement. Asked what they thought of the Tea Party candidates they knew about, slightly more than one in five Republican voters expres...

The Tea Partier in the GOP's midst

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 08:36:48 -0500

by Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.The Republican Party will experience it at the local and state levels first, as Tea Party candidates defeat conventional Republicans and win GOP nominations. Some of those Tea Partiers will be kooky, others will be single-issue ideologues. A few will be anti-immigrant, a smattering will be paranoid. Others will be very like the Republicans they beat. In November most of the kooks, ideologues, nativists and paranoids will lose to a Democrat. That will cause anguished cries by establishment Republicans: "They cost us Kentucky! They are ruining our party." The few crazies who win will be magnets for the media and their weird statements will cause embarrassment for the majority of responsible Republicans. After that, individual Tea Partiers - who are shown by research to be as sensible as any other politically involved Americans - will make individual decisions. - Ken Feltman April Whew, that was ...

How did the Democrats win Pennsylvania 12?

Sun, 30 May 2010 15:53:37 -0500

by Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc. The Democratic candidate ran off with a decisive victory in the special election in Western Pennsylvania to replace Democratic Representative John Murtha, who died earlier this year. The Republicans looked for reasons but found mostly excuses. They said that so many Democrats wanted to vote against party-switcher Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary that their sheer numbers overwhelmed the Republican turnout. They said that Murtha had addicted his district to earmarks and voters figured that the Democratic candidate - a former Murtha staff member - would continue to bring home the bacon. They missed the fact that the Democrat managed to get as far to the right as the GOP candidate pro-life, pro-gun, anti-Obamacare. That made a difference in the conservative, "Reagan-Democratic" district. They also neglected to mention that the Republican ran an unimaginative campaign. The Democrat ran an inspired c...

Is the oil leak Obama’s Katrina? No, it’s Carter’s Hostage Crisis

Sun, 30 May 2010 15:50:07 -0500

by Ken Feltman and Louis-Lyonel Voiron of Radnor Inc.We have received questions about the President's handling of the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Is the oil disaster President Obama's Katrina? The answer is no.First, Katrina came during a period of public questioning of President Bush's largely self-proclaimed management skills. Katrina was the last straw.The oil leak is more like President Carter's analytical and slowly evolving reaction to the Iranian hostage crisis. Carter was soon crippled by indecision over how to resolve the crisis. Obama may soon be overwhelmed by his and BP's inability to plug the leak.Previously, we have rated Obama as a clear favorite for reelection in , especially if the Republicans take control of both Houses of Congress in November. GOP control would give Obama a target and the Republicans would share enough blame that Obama ' with a lower profile ' would be favored.W...

Europe's search for the new Holy Grail

Thu, 20 May 2010 17:26:00 -0500

By Ken Feltman of Radnor Inc.We have met the enemy, and he is us.- Pogo, the comic strip philosopher created by Walt KellyUnder the best of circumstances, the strong have trouble lifting the weak. More often, the weak pull down the strong. When the forerunner of the European Union was created with the Treaty of Rome, Europe's political leaders heralded a new spirit of cooperation that would bring the disparate countries into political and economic union that could close the gap of economic disparity among Europe's many nations. Eventually, through cooperation on continent-wide problems, Europeans would adopt a single currency, followed by a coordinated monetary policy and - possibly, just possibly - a single foreign policy.After centuries of rivalry and warfare, Europe would settle into maturity under a single flag. Although partly realized, the vision was never completely practical. Early on, Europe's leaders ...

A General Summary on Generic Seractil Dexibuprofen Tablet Part 3

Sat, 15 May 2010 21:03:17 -0500

etc.. Some of the adverse effects are also haematologicaland cardiovascular. Generic Seractil Warnings and PrecautionsApply caution while using Generic Seractil with other drugs that can enhance the risk of gastrointestinal ulceration or gastrointestinal bleeding or renalimpairment. Also apply care in patients having gastrointestinal disorders, ulcerative colitis, previous gastric or duodenal ulcer, Crohn's disease andalcoholism.Closely monitor these patients for digestive disturbances, particularly gastrointestinal bleeding, when using dexibuprofen or any other NSAID. Cautionis needed while giving it to elderly patients or to patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and mixed connective tissue disease.Caution is required in patients suffer...

Rahm Emanuel for Mayor?

Tue, 04 May 2010 11:09:57 -0500

By Ken Feltman, Radnor Inc.Rahm Emanuel is considering a run for mayor of Chicago. The problem is that Chicago has a popular mayor who may seek another term. That mayor is named Daley and for thousands of Chicagoans, the Daley name is synonymous with the office.Emanuel needs a landing spot and letting his name circulate is a way for him to learn whether he has a shot. He will run only if anointed.With his name out there, Emanuel buys some time and deflects criticism for his hard-ball tactics in the White House....

Special Report: Ukraine's Victor Yanukovich

Tue, 04 May 2010 10:45:23 -0500

by Ekaterina Egorova, PhD in Political Science & President of Moscow-based Niccolo M Group of Companies, and Elisabeth Egorova, Political Psychologist, Niccolo M Group of CompaniesWhat Kind of President in Ukraine did Medvedev and Obama get?Both Putin and Medvedev never hid their desire to see Victor Yanukovich in the armchair of Ukraine's President. They probably believed that he might be an easy president who would solve all problems inconvenient for Russia quickly, without bargaining too much. They also seemed to believe that Yanukovich would be pro-Russian without reserve going firmly by way of rapprochement with Russia, thus leaving Yushchenko's dreams about the integration of Ukraine with the Western civilization to history.However, taking into account Yanukovich's personal features, it is possible to assume that all this is unlikely to be so simple and cloudless. There are serious psychological preconditions for this. In many respects, Yanukovi...

The Year of the Bloody Sock

Tue, 04 May 2010 10:37:47 -0500

By Ken Feltman, Radnor Inc.Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against.- W. C. FieldsSo do most people.That is the crux of the Democrats' problem. District by district and state by state, the Democrats have given voters reasons to dislike them. They are testing the voters' patience as well as the old political axiom that people vote against, not for. Voters take a dislike to a candidate or elected official and then overlook the flaws and shortcomings in an opponent. In January, Massachusetts voters took a dislike to Martha Coakley, the Democrats' senate candidate. She thought that Curt "Bloody Sock" Schilling, who pitched the Red Sox to key victories over the hated Yankees, was a Yankees fan. One of Schilling's victories came as he pitched with blood seeping from an ankle wound, staining his sock, shoe and trouser leg. Is it possible to be more out of touch in Massachusetts?There is something primal in ...

Britain Heads for Hung Parliament

Tue, 04 May 2010 10:30:47 -0500

by Ken Feltman, Radnor Inc.Radnor Inc. research completed yesterday, for Britain's May election, confirms our earlier prediction that voters in the United Kingdom will force politicians to resolve a hung parliament. No party will win the majority required to form a government.Here are our final projection for seats in the new parliament and percentage of votes:Labour ' seatsTories ' seatsLib Dems ' seatsSome Labour leaders have been anticipating the rout of Labour and are working to line up support to oust unpopular Prime Minister Gordon Brown as party leader as soon as possible after results are announced. Others, however, are cautioning that neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats will be able to form a governing coalition without Labour cooperation. They want to keep Brown to have a negotiating advantage.Focus groups suggest that voters would have voted Labour back into ...

No need for wise men?

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:44:39 -0500

By Ken FeltmanYou go through the gate. If the gate's closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole-vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we are going to get healthcare reform passed for the American people.- Nancy PelosiWhen I was a kid, I was a baseball pitcher. I loved it: Nothing could happen till I threw the ball. I was in control.One day, my team went into the last inning with a two-run lead. I got the first two hitters out. The next hitter grounded softly to the third baseman, who picked up the ball and threw it past the first baseman for a two-base error. The next batter grounded to the second baseman, who became confused when the runner did not run to third but drifted a few feet off second base. Instead of making the easy toss to first base to end the game, the second baseman lunged after the runner near second. The runner stepped back on second base, safe. The batter crossed first base, safe without a throw: Another error.The ne...

Brown coming back? Obama on the ropes?

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:33:39 -0500

by Ken Feltman with Louis-Lyonel Voiron Radnor Inc.Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future. - Niels BohrIf I do not say something about Casey Stengel, the New York Yankees' quotable baseball manager, I will get email and phone calls telling me that Stengel said what I have just credited to Niels Bohr. A Nobel Prize winning Danish physicist, Bohr said it before Stengel became known for whacky statements with a ring of truth imbedded. Stengel could have come up with the same thought on his own. Stengel was not known as a student of physics, but Bohr's writings and theories were in the news during Stengel's heyday and it is likely that Stengel encountered Bohr's statement and had it lodged somewhere in the back of his mind. Most baseball writers tend to avoid quantum mechanics, which devotes little attention to what makes a baseball curve, so no one noticed that Stengel recycled the quote. Did Stengel get th...

Obama refuses to yield on healthcare reform

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:19:17 -0600

by Ken Feltman, Radnor Inc.President Obama's stubbornness is causing Congressional Democrats anxiety as he keeps pushing healthcare reform. Most Democrats are hearing from the voters back home and the voters are not happy. Voters assume that time spent on healthcare is time not spent on jobs. Expect Obama's favorable rating to continue to slip if he keeps pushing healthcare. Expect more and more Democrats to jump ship if the party leadership does not change the agenda. At this point, it may be impossible for Obama to recoup positive feelings toward his leadership. Focus groups show that more and more people are giving up on Obama. The recent Healthcare Summit produced mixed but generally positive reviews of Obama's performance. Then, as focus group analyses came in, that initial impression changed. People are exasperated with the effort, with Obama and with the House and Senate Democratic leaders. With the Summit, Obama took firm c...

Bye Bayh, American pie

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:15:54 -0600

By Ken Feltman, Radnor Inc.Hear reason, or she'll make you feel her. Benjamin Franklin The retirement of Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh stunned Democrats. Bayh, a moderate in a right-of-center state, has never been threatened in previous elections. He was ahead in the polls and had a huge war chest. He was expected to win but he tossed in the towel. He said, in effect, that the job was not fulfilling anymore. The primary reason most Democrats are retiring is straightforward: They think they will lose in November. Democrats across the country are getting discouraging results from their political advisors and pollsters. If negative poll results caused accidents instead of jittery nerves, the emergency rooms would be filled with Democratic candidates. Bayh did not have popularity or money problems. He faced a tougher election than usual but was favored. Bayh quit for a second and a third reason. He was tired of being pressured by Senate...

Refine Your Economic State Of Affairs With Debt Settlement

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:09:20 -0600

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