The demand for Minneapolis computer rentals and short-term computer hardware leasing arrangements will spike at summer’s end when the Republican Party convenes in Minneapolis-Saint Paul for the 2008 Republican National Convention. The National Journal’s Congress Daily reports that “the political counterpart of Moore’s law” will be operative both in the Twin Cities and in Denver, where the Democratic Party will hold its National Convention at the end of August. “With each quadrennial national political convention,” the National Journal notes, “the use of information technology seems to grow exponentially.”

By way of example, in 2004 only 12 online bloggers received press credentials to cover the RNC that was held in New York City. The RNC has announced that it will credential over ten times that figure to blog on the RNC that will be held at Saint Paul’s Xcel Energy Centre, September 1st to 4th. Matt Burns, the RNC’s director of communications, has estimated that between 175 and 200 independent bloggers will be credentialed for this year’s convention.

The RNC’s Committee on Arrangements (COA) is expecting more than 45,000 delegates, alternate delegates, party officials, volunteers, media members and convention guests to show up for the 2008 gathering of the G.O.P. faithful. The COA has contracted with more than 100 hotels for accommodation and there are nearly 50 venues spread out amongst Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Bloomington where separate events will be held as adjuncts to the main convention.

With the number of venues putting on events and the vastly greater number of mainstream and independent journalist covering those events, demand for computer equipment and technical support to bring off what promises to be an intensely high-wired convention week will be prodigious. At the macro level, blue chip technology providers like Microsoft, which is the RNC’s official technology provider, Qwest Communications and Google, the RNC’s official innovation provider, have already begun preparations in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. At the micro level, computer rental and rental equipment providers are ramping up to fill the demand for the computer hardware, peripherals and A/V equipment that will be required at the auxiliary venues and events away from the main convention site.

The demand for bandwidth is likely to be atrocious. The COA has arranged for USTREAM.TV to stream live coverage of the RNC from the convention site and for ShadowTV to provide continuous live and archival coverage of the convention proceedings from the Xcel Center. Arrangements are also being made to stream live coverage of the convention in Spanish as well as English.

Qwest, the RNC’s official telecom provider, is putting down over 100 miles of fiber optics and copper cable to provide a gigabyte of bandwidth just to facilitate the demand for coverage of proceedings from inside the convention, while outside Verizon Wireless is anticipating a 150% increase in data transmissions over its broadband network during the convention.

Just as the demand for products and services from hotel rooms to caterers to rental cars will peak during convention week, so too will demand for the computer hardware and technical support to set up, maintain and troubleshoot the digital infrastructure underlying the convention. National firms specializing in computer rental, equipment rentals and computer support are now beginning to shift resources and prepare their logistics to handle the coming peak in demand. Preparations are being made to transfer equipment, resources and personnel from other regional centers to the Twin Cities in order to handle the demand for Minneapolis computer rentals that will be necessary to host the wide array of convention events and to bring live coverage of the G.O.P.’s festivities to the world.

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For more information on Minneapolis computer rentals visit http://www.VernonComputerSource.com or call 1-800-827-0352 to let us help you determine your computer rental needs.

As things get more and more nasty for Obama and Hillary, many of the super delegates are on the fence and getting a bit edgy. The super delegate debate is growing more and more intense even though the Democratic Convention is still five months away. How many tens of thouands of dollars will be needed to determine a winner and will there even be one before June? How much damage will have been done to their two candidates by then?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had some things to say over the weekend about the situation. Pelosi said it would be damaging to the Democratic party for its leaders to buck the will of national convention delegates picked in primaries and caucuses and more specifically, “If the votes of the super delegates overturn what’s happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party.”

That’s an understatement!

The California Democrat did not mention either Obama or his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, by name. But her remarks seemed to suggest she was prepared to cast her ballot at the convention in favor of the candidate who emerges from the primary season with the most pledged delegates. And, currently, Obama leads Clinton by 142 pledged delegates — those delegates picked in nomination contests to date, in The Associated Press’ count.

Barring an unlikely string of landslide victories by the former first lady in the remaining states, he will end the primary season with a delegate lead, but short of the 2025 needed to win the nomination. Of course if there are more stories like the sermons that surfaced on Friday from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama may just fade from the scene.

Clinton leads Obama for the support of the committed super delegates (249-213), but that number is flkuid and changing with every good or bad story that comes out. But, Pelosi’s comments could influence other House Democrats who are neutral in the presidential race and will attend the convention as super delegates.

In her interview, Pelosi also said that even if one candidate winds up with a larger share of the popular vote than the delegate leader, the candidate who has more delegates should prevail. Now she’s getting personal, but that is a reality that could happen. Meanwhile, John McCain is in Europe rleaxing and raising money for his campaign while appearing presidential. Isn’t it great to have a system where someone can WIN! So much for the Democratic egalitarian concept where to avoid someone losing, no one wins!.

Come to think of it, if this is how they run campaigns, do we want them running the nation?

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ernie@lrchouston.com

Let the battle of the “queen bees” begin or has it been so doing ever since Hillary hit the Senate floor and Nancy was made top dog on the House floor? Whatever the case, both women are out to assert themselves, and may the best wo-MAN win! Nancy’s power comes from within and Hillary’s from without, but both control powerful political segments of the landscape.

A group of prominent Hillary Clinton donors sent a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday asking her to retract her comments on superdelegates and stay out of the Democratic fight over their role in the presidential race. Telling Nancy to “stay out” is like telling the Pope to become Protestant in his beliefs.

Since when did the Democratic process become the sole domain of Hilary and Bill. His presidency ended seven years ago. Who will run the Democratic convention this year anyway?

The 20 prominent Clinton supporters told Pelosi she should “clarify” recent statements to make it clear super delegates — nearly 800 party insiders and elected officials who are free to back any candidate — could support the candidate they think would be the best nominee.

So far, Ms. Pelosi has not endorsed any candidate; however, with such talk I am sure she won’t throw her support to Hillary now.

Super delegates have emerged as likely kingmakers in the fight between Clinton and Obama. The letter was another sign of growing Democratic tension over their nominating battle. Neither candidate is expected to have enough pledged delegates won in state-by-state contests to clinch the nomination when voting ends in June, leaving the choice in the hands of the superdelegates.

I don’t think a dream ticket is possible.

Both candidates have wooed them heavily, with Obama contending they should follow the will of Democratic voters and Clinton arguing they should vote for the candidate with the best chance of winning the presidential election in November — which she says is her. Surprise, surprise. And Hillary is now saying that even the pledged delegates can switch and vote for her. Amazing!

Are we having fun yet? John McCain sure is.

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ernie@lrchouston.com

Meet Heather Podesta, Washington’s favorite female lobbist.  She’s the new “it” girl.  Heather Podesta is the Washington DC lobbyist who has made a name for herself as one of the toughest females in Washington. Sometimes with and sometimes against husband and fellow lobbyist Tony Podesta.

Podesta is described as being the ultimate Democratic strategist, a woman that’s not trying to be one of the guys. Not only do they love her for it; they reward her with alot of business, a 65 percent increase just this year to $3.4 million.

***If She Were A Man, Would She’d Have Raised More Money?***

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Heather Podesta currently lobbies for health-care clients such as Cigna and HealthSouth, drugmaker Eli Lilly and of course Susan G. Komen for the Cure; financial powerhouses such as Prudential and Swiss Reinsurance Co.; not to mention energy companies such as Marathon Oil, and Climate Masters, a geothermal heating firm.

The Washington Post just did an article on Heather outlining her ability to be the Insiders Insider in Washington DC and describes her as “an It Girl in a new generation of young, highly connected, built-for-the-Obama-era lobbyists.

Last year at the Democratic Convention she wore a scarlet letter “L” to taunt Obama for vilifying lobbyist during his campaign. She went thorugh about a dozen fonts before settling on a Gothic-style letter, which became such a popular she gave away over a 100 them.

Times Blogger Karen Tumulty has pointed out that it’s very risky for lobbyists to flaunt their influence in huge feature stories, and ponders what the fallout might be if any for Heather Podesta.  ”Commonsense rule #1 for influence peddlers: Don’t flaunt it,” Tumulty writes.

We’ll let you know what happens in the next few days as people continue to read and learn about Heather Podesta.

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Kennedy’s legacy

In the four decades since his death, John Kennedy’s life and presidency has been the subject of wild fluctuations of fortune. In the sixties, a series of laudatory books, mainly written by his trusted inner circle was published celebrating their hero. Inevitably for a man who reached such heights the fall was heavy as a number of revisionist’s books in the seventies and eighties chronicled Kennedy’s addictions to junk sex, involvement with the mafia and even the death of Marilyn Monroe.

His legacy degenerated from the man of peace and the civil rights knight of Camelot to that of a dangerous cold war warrior with a luke warm commitment to the black movement and the man who started America’s disastrous involvement in Vietnam. Recent assessments may be more balanced, finding both achievement and failure, but the days of Kennedy as the paragon of the modern American president have vanished.

However, a continued focus on his personal life and on the political decisions of his administration inevitably misses his real legacy – the social revolutions of the sixties.

Kennedy’s election was a landmark social and political event in both American history and through American dominance of politics and culture, world history. His victory was a death knoll to sincerely held beliefs about age and religion (he was improbably young and Catholic) and institutional authority. The message was clear, if you wanted something badly enough it was yours for the taking, whatever the obstacles. As Kennedy himself said in answer to a question in 1960 about why he thought he should be President: “I look around me at the others in the race, and I say to myself, well, if they think they can do it, why not me? Why not me? That’s the answer. And I think it’s enough”. If our current world is marked by a breakdown in what is seen as traditional authority, look no further than Kennedy’s election for a precursor.

His youth and religion worried Kennedy more than any other issue during the campaign. The answer was to tackle the religious issue head on (“no one asked me if I was Catholic when I went to war”) and to turn his youth to an advantage. This was achieved by running a campaign that stressed the stagnation of the fifties and promised to get the country moving again. Vitality was his central message and his central image. Norman Mailer wrote of Kennedy at the Democratic convention at Los Angeles in 1960 as an existential hero and that with him “we as a nation would finally be loose again in the historic seas of a national psych which was willy-nilly and at last, again, adventurous”.

The vision of an optimistic future lay at the very heart of Kennedy’s campaign and he carried it through to his inauguration. He preached a new frontier of economic prosperity, social justice and peace. Active citizenship (ask not what your country can do…) was demanded and a joy of life promised.

However, Kennedy always tempered his message of optimism and call to arms with warnings of the perils of nuclear war. His campaign speeches, acceptance speech at the convention and his inauguration speech were peppered with warnings of a nuclear holocaust and the need to actively pursue an alternative cause.

His presidency was a reflection of these competing messages. There could be no better example of the boundless possibilities for humanity than sending man to the moon, a task undertaken because it would be “impressive to mankind” and because of its unparalleled difficulty. There could be no better example of the fragility of nuclear peace than the Cuban missile crises, which took everyone to the brink of oblivion.

Optimism makes people push beyond their limits as they lose the fear of consequences and the heady optimism of the Kennedy years together with the shadow of peril served only to intensify and speed up the process. Kennedy had himself shown the path with his breaking of authority and the relentless image of his continued youth and glamour kept him centre stage throughout his presidency. America responded with unprecedented social revolution. Civil rights, the woman’s movement, the beat authors, music and drugs all flowered in the early sixties as society underwent fundamental change.

The final act of the Kennedy presidency, his assassination only served to deepen the process. Life had to be fulfilled without hesitation; no one was safe from arbitrary acts of violence, even the presidency. If it taught nothing else, his death taught everyone the fragility of life. No wonder there has been a yearning for conspiracy, for darker forces to explain why he died, without such a reason his death becomes nothing more than random.

Richard Reeves, the American presidential historian said, “Kennedy was a surpassing cultural figure – an artist, like Picasso, who changed the way people looked at things” This was his legacy. The debates may rage about his policy over Vietnam, his personal life and his legislative record, but all such argument misses the larger sweep of his effect on America. John Kennedy changed the way people looked at their world and in doing so they changed their own lives.

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Alan Goodwin is a New Zealand writer. Read his novel Gravity’s Chain http://www.gravityschain.com/ which explores the theme of flawed greatness in the context of a modern drama.