Some recent scribblings

27 Jul

It’s been a long while since I’ve fired up the Wordpress here at LannyCardow.com.

A few items I wanted to share in the middle of this busy summer:

  • A piece included in a series assembled by TheMarkNews.com on Canadian political comebacks. As Iggy forges ahead on his summer BBQ tour I thought it was timely to highlight the long tenure of Robert Borden as opposition leader.
  • As part of a Mark News piece for MSN.ca about Great Canadians, I wrote a brief section on why Stephen Harper deserves to be named among them. It’s about halfway down the page.
  • You can also check out a brief piece written in collaboration with two of my colleagues in Campaigns and Elections Magazine Canada. We list some things that David Cameron could learn from Stephen Harper. C&E is a digital-only publication in this country, and we’re on pages 33-35 of the June 2010 edition.
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    A simple fix for the “smiley J”

    29 Jun

    Does this look familiar?

    Have a great weekend J


    Chances are if you use a PC, you’ve sent and received emails to someone from Outlook and each emoticon smiles (AKA a “smiley”) has come through as a lonely, solitary capital letter J?

    Well Chris Pirillo has a simple fix.

    He instructs how to modify Word/Outlook’s autocorrect database to use the built-in Unicode version of the smiley as a substitute for a key combination like “:)” It’s more or less the same as Word’s wingding version of the smiley, but a bit smaller.

    The added benefit is that because it’s unicode it will be cross-platform (Unix, Mac, BlackBerry and others).

    So simple, it’s genius.

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    Let the games begin!

    16 Jun

    Hmm… Tim Pawlenty sets up a PAC in a not-at-all-significant midwestern state. Just 873 days day to e-day.

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    The Voter Anger Monster doesnt pick off incumbents randomly

    14 May

    Had to chuckle when I read Mike Madden’s bit on the “voter anger monster“. He makes it sound as if the GOP incumbents (even in Utah!) are running scared from a vengeful Frankenstein who has turned on its master. But that’s not true at all.

    The Voter Anger Monster is not exactly going after the Mike Pences and the Jim Demints of the world, now is it? Its going after the Crists, McCains, and too-liberal-for-Utah Bennetts. And it’s not entirely unwelcome among conservatives.

    It is an unhealthy party that lets people [the ones who aren't always leading with fresh ideas] linger around for too long. Case in point: no less than 13 GOP members (a dozen of whom you’ve never head of) have been kicking around DC since the big wave of ‘94.

    But try as one might to imply it was a GOP “monster” that turned on poor ol’ Sen. Bennett, it’s actually the ruling incumbents Democrats who are much more at risk. For every RINO “targeted by the Club for Growth” there is an Arlen Specter and a Harry Reid and a Barbara Boxer playing defence, too. Make no mistake – this “monster” has an ideology.

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