Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce...

While much of the financial news is bad, and often dire, particularly when it comes to consumers and spending, Americans are still getting their jones on for fast food, at least the McDonald's variety.

McDonald's Corp. reported an 8.2% increase in October global same-store sales, with a 5.3% gain in the U.S., which the company credited to new menu items such as southern-style chicken and its Monopoly game promotion.


This is big news for the fast food giant, as high gasoline and food costs, as well as slumping home sales and the credit market meltdown have seen the restaurant sector post a flurry of bad economic news.

The recent report follows a less than stellar one in March, when McDonald's reported same-store sales in the U.S. fell for the first time in five years, in part due to Easter falling during the month. Since then, however, the company has posted solid increases since then.

Staying with the burger theme, Burger King also posted a positive quarterly earnings.

Since this post is about hamburgers, I had my first Red Robin burger yesterday, in Augusta.

I had their gourmet cheeseburger, loaded, with Monterrey Jack cheese, and it was a winner. While my budget of late is more McDonalds than Red Robin, you can't really compare the two burgers by taste. The chain's crispy, bottomless steak fries are a nice touch, also.

Whether it’s choosing McDonald’s over the latest local flavor of the month restaurant, or trading in the SUV for a Chevrolet Aveo (with options like hand-crank windows vs. power everything), self-denial seems to be hot (haute?) again.

A recent column in the WSJ had columnist Christina Brinkley touting the joys of going without. Apparently even on Rodeo Drive, conspicuous consumption isn't what it used to be, at least according to sales clerk Michael Kors who told Brinkley that “there’s an umbrella of guilt over everyone.”

While consumers are toning down their purchases of high-end shoes, and organic produce, they're apparently turning to Karl Marx for comfort, at least according to this report.

Communication according to Lakoff

I started reading George Lakoff’s Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (originally published in 1996) this weekend. Lakoff is a cognitive linguist who wrote the book to help explain the Republican gains following Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. The edition I have was updated in 2001, with a new subtitle, and additional observations and new material tied to the 2000 presidential election. The book also happens to be the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics

Lakoff spends a great deal of time working through the differing worldviews of both ideologies, contrasting two family metaphors; the “strict father mode” of conservatives, with the “nurturant parent model” that liberals hold in framing their issues.

I’m always interested in theories and concepts on communication because I think the ability to communicate might be one of the key skills and abilities of the 21st century. The reason that I think this is true is because of the sheer volume of, as well as the speed that our modern communication whizzes by at. It takes some level of sophistication to cut through so much of the white noise of spin, and surface level analysis. Unfortunately, not enough Americans make much of an effort to move beyond a superficial and sophomoric understanding of the issues, in my opinion. Hence, the political pap slingers continue to multiply.

I found the section on metaphors, particularly metaphors tied to moral questions and framing those issues well, worth the time spent reading the rest of the material. In fact, I think this was the strongest section of the book.

Lakoff’s explanation of his metaphorical concept about how the moral books are kept was particularly fascinating. He walks the reader through what he refers to as a “moral accounting,” emphasizing several moral schemes: reciprocation, retribution, restitution, revenge, altruism, to name some of them.

Take for instance, retribution. If someone does something to harm you, you might say, “I’ll pay you back!” (often, with interest)

Where I think Lakoff’s work, and in particular, this book fits into the post-election fade, is in the way that president-elect Obama was able to grasp many of Lakoff’s points, in framing his own campaign, first against Hillary Clinton, and then, John McCain.

In all of the bitterness and blather coming from elements of the right, the similarities between Obama and Reagan are (and were) often missed.

Both candidates had a way of swaying voters to vote for them, even if they didn’t agree with them on the issues. I heard Lakoff tell a story recently, on C-Span’s Book TV, about meeting Dick Wirthlin, back in 1980. Who is Dick Wirthlin? He was Reagan’s chief strategist. According to Lakoff, the two men hit it off, even though they had very differing political views.

According to Wirthlin (as told by Lakoff), he recognized early on that people don't vote on policy, they vote for leaders—for people whose values seem American to them. Basically, they vote for people they feel they can trust.

While McCain and Sarah Palin did their best to frame the campaign around issues, attempting to paint Obama as a “socialist” and a “tax and spend liberal,” Obama met that challenge by figuring out how to say what the majority of Americans believed.

One example of this is in the story about the neighbor’s house.

If your neighbor's house caught on fire and is in danger of burning down, you wouldn’t lecture him on how incompetent he is. You would get out your fire hose and do everything you can do to help until your taxpayer-funded local fire department showed up to put out the fire.

In 2000, when conservatives were able to frame Al Gore as a “fabricator,” and in 2004, when John Kerry got pegged as a “flip-flopper,” the right was successful in their framing of the campaign narrative about their opponent. They weren’t able to in 2008, at least a frame that stuck, so Obama ultimately triumphed.

A progressive mandate to govern

From Megan McArdle, about Obama's supposed progressive (or to some, socialist) mandate to govern.

If the country is so progressive, how come Bush won the popular vote four years ago? Did all the center right people die? Or are American voters somewhat mercurial? Also, how come Bush had no mandate four years ago? Did the American voter get more mandative? Would John McCain have had a mandate if he'd achieved these kinds of numbers? Or would that be entirely different?

No need to answer. The rest of us already know what the answer is.

President Obama

[AP photo of Obama, at Grant Park, Chicago]

In politics, like sports, you battle up until the final whistle, or your last at bat. Then, when you lose, you gather, shake hands, and move on. It's called magnanimity.

This morning feels a bit like sitting in the loser's dugout, watching your rival and their fans celebrate. It's tough at that moment, but over time, it begins to feel better, and often, you look back at the loss with some remorse, but you come recognize that you waged a noble battle, and acceptance gradually settles in. If you've tasted victory, you remember what that felt like and you empathize, and identify with what the victor's are experiencing.

Barack Obama is now America's 44th president, winning decisively. For many, the reality of the morning after is a hard one, but one they'll have to face and hopefully, come to terms with.

Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin, at Politico write,

Obama won on his own terms, strategically and symbolically. He rolled up a series of contested states, from Colorado to Virginia, long out of Democratic reach. And his victory reflected the accuracy of his vision of a reshaped country. Racism, much discussed, turned out to be a footnote, and African-American turnout was not unusually high. Instead, Obama drew his strength from an array of racially mixed, growing areas around cities like Orlando, Washington, Indianapolis, and Columbus on his way to at least 334 electoral votes.

The Obama victory has a historic quality in many ways. Consider that in more than 175 years since Andrew Jackson (the father of the modern Democratic Party) left the White House, only two other Democrats (Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson) have convinced at least 51 percent of the country to back them for president.

On the Senate side, Democrats had hoped to come away from the election with 60 seats. That bid fell short, as contested races, like the one in Kentucky, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was able to hold off a strong challenge by Democratic businessman, Bruce Lunsford, to prevail, preserved a key Republican seat.

The great horserace of 2008 has concluded. The battles were legion, particularly through the primary season. Even among Democrats, there are still scars from the Clinton/Obama battles of that part of the presidential political journey that Obama travelled.

George Bush talked much about "being a uniter, not a divider," and we saw where believing him brought us. President Obama will face similar challenges of uniting a country that is polarized by ideology, and fears of where he'll take us as a nation.

As for me, I'm taking two steps back from it all. While I was not an Obama supporter, I'm interested in watching him take his first steps of governance. I've spoken and shared my thoughts over the past 24 months, and now, it's time to move on, and move forward. Only time will tell where America is headed, and what type of leader our newest president will be.

I leave you with one writer's take on what an Obama presidency might look like.

Electioneering, 2008

Bill Curry, a counselor to President Clinton, and a two-time Democratic nominee for governor, weighed in on the two-party stranglehold facing voters, in Sunday's Hartford Courant.

Curry had some things to say about a new party, seeking to represent ordinary Americans, the Working Families Party. He also spoke about the need to open up debate, post-election, including ideas from third-party candidates like Ralph Nader, and others.

You can read the entire article here.

Personally, I didn't see much on the WFP site to indicate they offered much in the way of choice, as they seemed locked and loaded for Obama, one of this year's corporate choices for president.

Nader, on the other hand, offers some real choice, and speaks to change that a minority of us can believe in.