Hillary’s redemption?

Hillary_Clinton_2008.JPGIt’s rare that I post on politics two days in a row (or even two times in a week, for that matter), but the meltdown of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has been one of those fascinating political developments that simply begs for analysis (yesterday’s post is here).
David Berg, one of Houston’s best trial lawyers and a longtime Democratic Party supporter, provides this insightful op-ed in the Chronicle yesterday explaining why he switched from supporting Clinton to Obama and why Clinton is suffering in comparison to Obama:

I guarantee you, as the oldest living man in America who has actually attended a Hannah Montana concert, my daughter is completely colorblind. From what I have seen of her generation, and that of my grown sons’, that is the norm, not the exception. Racial politics simply won’t work; not this time ó and if all that good will seeps into the wider world ó perhaps never again.
I wish, frankly, that the Clintons, who in many ways helped make Obama’s candidacy possible, could hear firsthand how they let down so many people who cared about them and supported them through many tough years ó how by their divisive tactics they have become the people and politics they deplore.
In short, I wish they could have been there Tuesday night to understand clearly how times and mores have changed and, perhaps, to understand how important it is that a new generation be given a chance.

By the way, on more mundane topics, it appears that Clinton’s management ability is not what her supporters crack it up to be. $11,000 on pizza and $1,200 on Dunkiní Donuts?
Meanwhile, NY Times columnist David Brooks examines the new political syndrome — Obama Comedown Syndrome (a/k/a “OCS”).

Compensation through resort privileges

Disch-Falk%20Field.jpg
Check out the renovated digs for the University of Texas baseball team at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin.
Even the most defensible big-time intercollegiate sport is now funneling compensation to its players through “resort privileges.” The renovated locker room at Disch-Falk looks better than most university faculty lounges that I’ve seen.

The oversupply of golf

golfer%20angry.jpgThe numbers of Americans playing tennis regularly has dwindled dramatically over the past two decades. Now, golf is showing signs of suffering a similar fate:

Over the past decade, the leisure activity most closely associated with corporate success in America has been in a kind of recession.
The total number of people who play has declined or remained flat each year since 2000, dropping to about 26 million from 30 million, according to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.
More troubling to golf boosters, the number of people who play 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000, a loss of about a third.
The industry now counts its core players as those who golf eight or more times a year. That number, too, has fallen, but more slowly: to 15 million in 2006 from 17.7 million in 2000, according to the National Golf Foundation. [. . .]
Between 1990 and 2003, developers built more than 3,000 new golf courses in the United States, bringing the total to about 16,000. Several hundred have closed in the last few years, most of them in Arizona, Florida, Michigan and South Carolina, according to the foundation.

Over the past 20 years or so, many residential real estate developers have used golf courses as magnets to attract home buyers to their developments. The developer is willing to operate the golf club at a loss while developing the subdivision because the increased profit from lot sales easily compensates for the golf club operating loss. The problem develops when the developer finishes selling lots and is ready to turnover the club either to a professional golf club management company or the residents themselves. Without a legacy of profitable operations absent the developer’s subsidy, the golf clubs often struggle financially. It’s not an easy syndrome to break.