Showing posts with label Seattle Seahawks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seattle Seahawks. Show all posts

Monday, October 10, 2022

There's something about Tiffany Smiley... Washington state's GOP Senate candidate has a certain je-ne-said-quoi and the kind of moxie that people find very appealing in a candidate and a spouse. She has an IT factor that even Democrats can see -and fear.


  
There's something about Tiffany Smiley... Washington state's GOP Senate candidate has a certain je-ne-said-quoi and the kind of moxie that people find very appealing in a candidate and a spouse. She has an IT factor that even Democrats can see -and fear.

Well, it would indeed be an understatement for me to say this afternoon that I will, literally, have a FLOOD of very interesting, compelling and worthwhile pieces for you to read and ponder here on the blog over the next four weeks before the 2022 General Election finally arrives. Not only issues and races here in South Florida, the Sunshine State, but emerging ones or under-the-radar developing trends or personalities across the USA that you should be keeping your eyes on.





Today I'm sharing a few words about Tiffany Smiley, the GOP Senate candidate from Washington state. She is a remarkable woman whom I had only heard positive words about this summer. She upped that estimation by making a VERY positive first impression on me when I finally heard her LIVE. Apparently, judging by the polls coming out of distant Washington, with Seattle being a nice 3,300-plus miles drive from Miami, many other people across the country over the past week are NOW thinking about her prospects a LOT more seriously. People I know and respect and who are, themselves, about as devout and informed a news junkie and political addict as myself.
That sort of positive reaction makes me think my intuition about Smiley is correct and that the dynamic of the race is changing in her favor.

If you follow me regularly on my popular Twitter platform, @hbbtruth, you know that I've shared dozens of tweets and articles about interesting political personalities around the country I have "discovered" over the past year or so. Mostly novice candidates who have interesting or original backstories, and not the usual career politician or political family's latest legacy project, which I am no fan of for either Democrats or Republicans.


That said, in my opinion, Tiffany Smiley has made what I believe is by far the best candidate media appearance I've seen or heard in 2022, via the nationally-syndicated Clay Travis and Buck Sexton radio show this past Wednesday.

(Keep in mind that I have not watched C-SPAN in many months, which is something I thought I'd never say back when I used to watch 10-15 hours of it a week, so...)
 
Tiffany Smiley Is Winning Her Battle with Woke Seattle Corporations
Transcript of her October 5th appearance and links to some selected campaign videos therein.
https://www.clayandbuck.com/tiffany-smiley-is-winning-her-battle-with-woke-seattle-corporations/

In my informed opinion, Tiffany Smiley was, by turns, articulate, friendly and engaging, reasonable, calm and is genuinely interested in solving problems, not having problems that she can use to raise money from, a common trap among new GOP members who want to fit in.

She definitely did NOT sound like a jaded DC GOP political consultant captured by one of the usual interest groups that have long dominated the Republican Party at the national level, to the dismay of the GOP voters across the nation who believe in solutions, not endless policy debates about ten-point plans that take... five years. Yes, she sounds like an old-fashioned problem-solver.


(Keep in mind you newcomers to the blog that when I first moved to Washington, D.C. in the Winter of 1988, driving up on Super Tuesday in March after voting in the Florida primary, my first home there was just 5 blocks due east of the Capitol Building itself, and less than 200 feet from the sweet house of New York Senator Pat Moynihan.

I lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area for almost 15 years, spending LOTS and LOTS of time every week on Capitol Hill. So much that I knew many of the most veteran Capitol Police officers by name AND face, knew all the Hill building/walking shortcuts, and sort of had a working mini-directory in my head for members and committees and staffers. I could tell you which House cafeteria was best at certain times of the day -too crowded versus too empty- and which Library of Congress copier machine in each of the three LOC buildings east and south of the capitol were dependable, and which ones were a lot like slot machines that would just cause you to lose your money with no chance of a payoff.)

I first met then Washington state Senator Patty Murray in 1992 while she was the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate for Washington state running against GOP House member Rod Chandler, a largely-unknown member outside of the Pacific Northwest, in the year after Incumbent Democratic Senator  Brock Adams chose not to run for re-election because of a very ugly sexual assault scandal.

Back in 1992, among other things, I was doing some work at Roll Call Newspaper, the twice-weekly tabloid-sized newspaper owned at the time by the former Chairman of the SEC. It covered Capitol Hill alone until The Hill came along years later. One afternoon it somehow fell to me to keep Patty Murray, the so-called "Mom in Tennis Shoes" amused and entertained for a bit while she waited for her important interview with Charlie Cook for The Cook Political Report.
This was back when he and his team of political campaign experts used to also be located in the same suite of offices as Roll Call, near Union Station, off of NE 1st Avenue, just a few blocks from the three Senate Office buildings: Russell, Dirksen and Hart.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, long story short, for decades Charlie Cook's analysis of a candidate's responses to his questions and their strategy/race tactics could literally change the popular perception to the national and state news media of what that candidate had been doing and saying for months, OVERNIGHT, if he was positively persuaded by what they had to say.

The reason for that is that important and well-heeled donors in both parties subscribed and paid real money to The Cook Political Report, and had learned to implicitly trust his judgment in 1,001 ways that they did NOT trust regular newspaper reporters or columnists, no matter how well-regarded.
His opinion could change the perception of a race from uncompetitive blowout to lean R or lean D to toss-up.

Well, long story short, Murray won her 1992 election and has been in the U.S. Senate for 30 years, 5 terms already.
Which is quite a lot for a female senator, though few will say that aloud, and of course, that brings on all sorts of questions about her energy levels and her ability to do the job as well as she once did, just as would be true with male senators who have been around as long as Murray.
Are they going thru the motions and cutting corners and tuning different POVs out?

But not every 30-year Senator has someone running against them with the kind of positive qualities, natural appeal and charism as Tiffany Smiley, while Murray is saddled with a a president of her own party polling in the mid-thirties range even in a Democratic-run state like Washington.
For months, even the Democratic-leaning Seattle Times' poll showed that more than twice as many Washington voters said they strongly disapprove of Biden’s job performance than said they strongly approve of him.

If you were to ask me who my super-strong political intuition feels is the most-likely Republican Senate candidate to wage an amazing upset over a longtime Democratic Party incumbent, I would say Tiffany Smiley.
IF she gets the kind of money she needs right now to make the moves that are necessary to win.
I really DO hope that is the case.

I strongly encourage you to not only listen to her interview above, but also read these two pieces from the past month.

Yahoo! News
Tiffany Smiley Would Be the GOP’s New Star, but She’s in the Wrong State
By Eleanor Clift
September 17, 2022


Wall Street Journal
Corporate dirty pool in Seattle
How the Seattle Times, Starbucks, and Seattle Seahawks are going after Tiffany Smiley... to the benefit of Patty Murray.
Potomac Watch column
by Kimberly Strassel
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=134925755951584&set=ecnf.100063465825750








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Sunday, September 8, 2013

#Finally! 2013 NFL season is finally here! My counter-intuitive predictions for the 2013 Miami Dolphins season is they stumble to 5-11; Over-valued, under-performing players plus a very tough early schedule may well render Dolphins winless by Bye week in Week 6; USA Today, Dan Patrick and Peter King's Super Bowl picks; Say hello again to our old friend, NFL East Coast/Cowboys bias!; @nfl, @SI_PeterKing, #Lombardi

Above, the scene on August 6th at my table at the Panera Bread in Hallandale Beach, FL, while sipping my Hazelnut coffee and munching on my Everything bagel. August 6, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
The moment I spied this Miami Herald sports section with a cover photo showing Miami Dolphin QB Ryan Tannehill's poor footwork in throwing a pass -NOT properly planted, NOT properly using his hips to throw the ball, but instead, going with the sort of off-stride sidearm delivery you see from a shortstop moving to his right who fumbles the ball and who's then rushing a throw to try to catch a speedy runner at first- and then saw the a propos headline reading, "Critics pan Tannehill, Dolphins," I instantly knew this would be the photo that I used for my predictions for the 2013 Dolphins season.

Despite having a great arm, whether you call it a gun, a rifle or bazooka, last year Tannehill's consistently poor footwork (and plain awkwardness) and his failure to consistently follow through on his throws, led to far too many passes not being right where they need to be when his receivers were open, which is why I've chosen to use the photo at the top.

And since every fan and observer of the Dolphins has known that one of the big problems that has plagued their receiving corps for years has been their inability to create separation, when they DO have some separation, Tannehill needs to be MUCH MORE ACCURATE.

I saw far too many wasted opportunities last year in games when they were still competitive, but when you don't take advantage, those close games become two TD deficits.

Tannehill and the photo of him is the Dolphins in a nutshell from my vantage point -they have the obvious ability, but do they have the means and will to get noticeably better?
That's an open question.

The difference between a successful person and others isn't a lack of strength, a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. #Lombardi
— Krysta Bear (@KrystaBear95) September 2, 2013

It's great to hear he's showing improvement in practice, but late in a close game, will Tannehill revert back to bad habits? 

 Especially against a team whose defensive linemen consistently raises its hands at the line of scrimmage, as the Texans did so successfully last year, when Tannehill never adjusted, to the dismay of fans watching at home, who thought it seemed so obvious?

 But instead of having Tannehill roll-out on some passes to break that pattern, they just kept doing the same thing that never worked, extending their record of futility against the Texans, a team they've never beaten in a regular season game, an embarrassing fact considering they were an expansion team. 

And so, that idea about Tannehill from a month ago has become reality today on the blog as the Dolphins start their 47th season in Cleveland against a rapidly-improving Browns team -a team with a new offensive-minded head coach with U-M ties, Rob Chudzinski - that unlike the Dolphins in my opinion, have multiple playmakers on both sides of the ball.



*My last post on the Dolphins was my August 25th one here titled, Happy Miami Dolphins Anniversary; For some, the Dolphins' glory is like faded photographs in an album, but to me, it is as fresh in my mind as anything else in my memory. I only wish the people running and coaching the team now cared as much as I and some others do, who know what it's like to see and appreciate a thing of beauty -perfection- up-close and personal; Sports Fan in Chief Obama Honors Champion 1972 Miami Dolphins at White House

To quote myself above:
99% of anyone you see or speak to who is 27 or younger has NEVER BEEN ALIVE when the Dolphins were playing in a Super Bowl game.Now that's some perspective that really says something profound.
For the Jets, that's people who are 44-years old or younger.
Just saying...





The Herald photo and the headline fit everything I knew and have seen -and what most honest and discerning Dolphin fans and I have NOT seen- during the off-season and the five preseason games, which this year, included the Hall of Fame game in Canton against the Cowboys, who will likely share many of the Dolphin problems this year, namely, unrealized and unrealistic expectations for big improvement.

As regular readers of the blog and those who know the powers of the NFL's East Coast/
Cowboys bias, being bad will NOT prevent the Cowboys from being on national TV more than they should and even more than some of the better teams.
That's just how the NFL rolls.

The Cowboys get on high-profile TV times because... well just because its what the NFL and madison Avenue have been doing by rote for years, so they do it by default, despite the facts that the Cowboys last won a playoff game when?

Based on looking at the Cowboys schedule, it looks to me like 7 of their 16 games will be nationally-televised games, par for the course of late.

Why do you suppose tonight's NBC game is the Giants vs. the Cowboys instead of the 49ers and Packers, even though there's more interest in the latter game and not the former?
The same reason the NFL doesn't, hypothetically, have a Giants at Oakland game as the second part of the ESPN Monday Night doubleheader to start the year off.

There is no equality among the NFL's 32 teams as far as the NFL's TV folks are concerned, there's merely the illusion of equality.
To think otherwise is to publicly declare yourself naive.
http://mmqb.si.com/2013/09/06/eli-manning-new-york-giants-dallas-cowboys/

And so begins another year of irrelevance for the Miami Dolphins, to join all the ones that have come before the past 15 years.

Based on what I have seen, I think Jeff Fisher was right to turn down the Dolphins job last year and go with Rams, as in 2nd year of Joe Philbin head coaching experiment in Miami, it's entirely possible that lackadaisical Dolphins, poised for what I believe could be a yet another completely inconsequential season, may also be winless by their Bye in Week 6, and only 1-6 going into a nationally-televised Thursday night home game on Halloween Night against the offensive-minded Bengals that could well turn into rout in second-half.

With the Dolphins given an extra week to practice and play because of their Hall of Fame game and yet with little to show for that extra week in terms of Ryan Tannehill to Mike Wallace synergy in evidence, I am ready to say that I'm completely underwhelmed by almost every aspect of the team  and its coaching staff I have observed, save their rookie kicker, Caleb Sturgis, who could well be their MVP if that tells you anything.

For me at least, it's been like watching kids playing on 75-pound Optimist teams: I see lots of players whom I've never heard of and who never seem to get better or learn from their mistakes -just repeat them in new and more frustrating ways. 
(Yes, like the Miami Herald and the City of Hallandale Beach and Broward County and...)

How many plays per games are their #1 and #2 draft picks of the past 5 years actually playing? It's embarrassing!
Who moves up to #3 in the entire draft to select someone -Dion Jordan- who, it was speculated, might not even play the season-opener?
Guilty.

1 SEP 8  1:00 PM EDT * AT   BROWNS 
2 SEP 15  1:00PM EDT * AT   COLTS 
3 SEP 22  4:05PM EDT )   FALCONS 
4 SEP 30  8:40PM EDT + AT   SAINTS 
5 OCT 6  1:00PM EDT *   RAVENS 
6 BYE 
7 OCT 20  1:00PM EDT *   BILLS 
8 OCT 27  1:00PM EDT * AT   PATRIOTS 
9 OCT 31  8:25PM EDT ,   BENGALS 
10 NOV 11  8:40PM EST + AT   BUCCANEERS 
11 NOV 17  1:00PM EST *   CHARGERS 
12 NOV 24  1:00PM EST    PANTHERS 
13 DEC 1  1:00PM EST * AT   JETS 
14 DEC 8  1:00PM EST * AT   STEELERS 
15 DEC 15  1:00PM EST *   PATRIOTS 
16 DEC 22  1:00PM EST * AT   BILLS 
17 DEC 29  1:00PM EST *   JETS

In the Historical Dept., I honestly think this Dolphins season may be the one where they travel west less than any regular season since I first started following them in 1970, as the farthest west they go is New Orleans. Weird.


Postcards from training camp: Miami Dolphins Source:SI The MMQB editor-in-chief Peter King discusses the loss of tight end Dustin Keller and the role rookie Dion Jordan is expected to play for the Dolphin's defense.

Veteran Sports Illustrated writer and frequent Dan Patrick Show guest Peter King sees them as a 6-10 team, while CBS Sports/nfl.com writer Pat Kirwan sees the Dolphins as slightly better at 7-9.
My friends, I think in mid-November, we'll all be thinking that a 7-9 record would be nothing short of a small miracle, with 5-11 my actual prediction, but 4-12 a real strong possibility, too.
http://mmqb.si.com/column/monday-morning-quarterback/
https://twitter.com/theMMQB/the-mmqb
Peter King @SI_PeterKing https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing

There's still room for big improvement, but I can't help but wonder if a terrible start -as I expect- will tap the emotional resolve of many of the younger players who seem not quite as intense as players and teams of the past.
Yes, consistently inconsistent effort and serial under-performance in the clutch have been the hallmark of the Dolphins since I returned to South Florida almost ten years ago from the Washington D.C. area, where I probably saw about 70% of their games.   

I'm not a big believer in cautious optimism for NFL football teams, because at this level, with teams so even, I believe there has to be something that your team does well consistently that you can draw strength from when you get behind against better-quality teams.
Unfortunately for the Dolphins, I see that being their kicking game.
That's why, unfortunately, a record of 5-11 sounds pretty accurate to me.


'GameDay': 2013 Bold Predictions 
Published: Sept. 4, 2013 at 11:25 p.m
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-gameday/0ap2000000238524/GameDay-2013-Bold-Predictions




USA TODAY Sports' 2013 NFL predictions 
Staff report, USA TODAY Sports
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2013/09/04/2013-staff-picks-season-predictions/2768317/


TheDanPatrickShow YouTube Channel video: Peter King on the Dan Patrick Show 9/3/13. Peter's Super Bowl prediction is Seattle vs. New England. Uploaded September 6, 2013. http://youtu.be/ayQPoUyVkU4


TheDanPatrickShow YouTube Channel video: Dan's Super Bowl Picks 9/4/13. 
Dan's prediction is Denver Broncos over Seattle Seahawks at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on February 2nd in Super Bowl XLVIII, which everyone I know -plus me-hopes is a snowstorm. Uploaded September 4, 2013. http://youtu.be/ziuas6ZKKeU

TheDanPatrickShow YouTube Channel video: Rich Eisen on the Dan Patrick Show 9/6/13. Uploaded September 6, 2013. http://youtu.be/zFDuJJW9_zI

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Three weeks before 2012 NFL Draft, NFL & Nike host marketing bonanza for release of Nike's Elite 51 line of football uniforms, sportswear & training apparel


Wall Street Journal Digital Network video: NFL and Nike Unveil New Team Jerseys at Brooklyn Navy Yard. April 3, 2012.

Three weeks before 2012 NFL Draft, NFL & Nike host marketing bonanza for release of Nike's Elite 51 line of football uniforms, sportswear & training apparel.

Above, MarketWatch correspondent Andria Cheng reports from the NFL marketing bonanza that fans have been buzzing about for months as the NFL's contract shifts from Reebok to Nike.
She speaks to Brian Orakpo of the Redskins and Alex Smith of the 49ers about the new line of official uniforms, shoes and gloves, and speaks to Nike Brand president Charlie Denson about the new line of NFL-themed consumer sportswear and training line of apparel. 
Costs for near-replica of lighter, non-water-absorbent Elite 51 line of NFL game jerseys are approximately $250, with the intermediate line of fitted shirts, with centered team logo, going for about $100 a piece, $15 more than the current price point of Reebok's. 
Denson expects most of the merchandise to be on retail store shelves by NFL Draft of April 26th. Projected wholesale sales of $750 million? We'll see. 

FYI: New Era has the field hat contract.

USNikeFootball video: How we work: Nike + the Seattle Seahawks. April 3, 2012
Nike Football Design Director Todd Van Horne and Seattle Seahawks Equipment Manager Eric Kennedy discuss the collaboration between Nike and Seahawk players and staff to get the most innovative products on the players. Seahawk strong safety Kam Chancellor wants the lightest uniform possible given how he's expected to keep up with the opponent's fastest players on the field.  

See also:
Bloomberg TV video: Mark Crumpton of Bloomberg TV's "Bottom Line" tal;ks to Denson and . NFL Uniforms, Tebow Merchandise. April 3, 2012.

NFL, Nike roll out new uniforms for all 32 teams

NFL.com's photo gallery of new uniforms: 


Dolphins' new Nike merchandise is here: 

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