Couldn’t Help But Notice (122607)

Chicken-Egg Effect? Although she had no really firm numbers at the time, the Associated Press’s Anne D’Innocenzio, in a report that was posted at the Cincinnati Enquirer early Wednesday, appeared to be acknowledging that the Christmas shopping season may have gone reasonably well because of last-minute shopping (bolds are mine):

While consumers jammed stores at the start of the season in search of discounts and hot items such as Nintendo Co.’s Wii game console, a challenging economy prompted them to hold out until the end for bigger discounts.

An extra full weekend before Christmas also caused shoppers to procrastinate. In fact, Christmas Eve was expected to be a bigger shopping day than in past years because many employers gave workers the day off, with the holiday falling on a Tuesday.

….. The spree defied fears that a deepening housing slump, escalating credit crisis and higher gas and food prices would turn shoppers into Grinches - even in the end. Meanwhile, with the season plagued by Chinese-made toy recalls that began in the summer, there were concerns that shoppers would boycott those products. That didn’t happen either.

Still, financial concerns clearly affected how consumers behaved throughout the season, forcing more to trade down to discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to Fred Crawford, managing director at restructuring firm AlixPartners. That trend hurt midprice apparel department stores such as Cincinnati-based Macy’s Inc. and J.C. Penney Co., which have been aggressive with discounts and other come-ons. Ultra luxury stores are expected to fare well, Crawford said.

Toy sales are expected, at best, to match business from a year ago.

The Chicken-Egg Effect is that Old Media gloom and doom, noted in the three bolded items, may have prompted shoppers to trade down to the discounters, who themselves may have rolled back prices more than they needed to because they believed the hype about how the “challenging” economy would hurt shopping. The last few paras of this report by Ms. D’Innocenzio a couple of days earlier (”For many shoppers, it paid to wait given the plentiful offerings and good deals”) support that belief.

There is more than a little irony in the fact that Old Media despises the discounters and their supposedly horrid business practices, but may have helped those same discounters’ Christmas-season bottom lines with their downbeat reporting on the economy.

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Ohio Governor Ted Strickland recently ordered that a couple of recently-removed Nativity scenes in state parks be put back.

Good show, to a point. But I don’t know why “ordained Methodist minister” Strickland had to contort himself as he did to justify the decision:

The governor views Christmas nativity displays as akin to Christmas trees on a village green, or statues of Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, his spokesman has said.

So, according to Strickland, a depiction of a scene of the birth of Christ is “akin” to (second meaning: “has the same properties” as) a bunch of trees, a mythical snowman, or a mythical reindeer.

And he’s getting PR points for this?

Next year the real test may come, because these folks, including Tammy Miller, who is mentioned in the excerpted article and is treasurer for the linked “Winter Solstice” event (also described here), appear to be serious about imposing their will. I don’t see how Strickland’s line of argument will keep a “Happy Humanist Snowman” from getting equal time or space with a Nativity scene if the issue gets to a court hearing.

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The New York Times reports (registration probably required) that the major Democratic presidential candidates are discovering financial controls:

….. the Democratic presidential hopefuls are seeking to impose more controls on the consultants. In doing so, they are moving more into line with their Republican counterparts, who by and large have kept tighter rein on how they handle their media teams, which shape the candidates’ messages, produce their television ads and buy the air time.

The three leading Democrats — Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards — are all clamping down. They are following what has become an almost standard practice among Republican presidential nominees by paying their media advisers flat fees, or placing a cap on their payments, rather than making payments based on a percentage of the amount they pay television stations to broadcast their commercials.

Geez — these people are just now learning that cost-plus contracts encourage consultants to inflate the “cost” so that the “plus” (i.e., their profit) is bigger. And now they want to be in charge of the multitrillion-dollar operation known as the federal government?

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File under “Things That Will Be Totally Forgotten in November” — A Toledo Blade editorial blasts Hillary, and notes one item I missed when it originally happened (bold is mine; link added by me):

….. the advantage Senator Clinton once enjoyed over Senator Obama among African-Americans has disappeared. He’s even cut into her support from women.

The Clinton campaign has reacted to this change in fortune by going into what can only be described as panic mode. Using political surrogates, campaign apparatchiks, and an increasingly indignant former president, the senator’s nomination drive has engaged in a level of innuendo remarkable in its sleaziness.

….. former United Nations ambassador Andrew Young, who told a predominantly black audience that Bill Clinton was “blacker” than Senator Obama and that he undoubtedly had “had” more black women.

Has any presidential campaign ever been more stuck in the fourth grade than this one?

“Somehow,” the Blade forgot to insert the word “Democratic” between “any” and “presidential” in their question.

Watch the video of Young at the Think on these Things link in awe, as CNN reporter Carol Costello and “Situation Room” host Wolf Blitzer actually try to make excuses for and minimize the significance of Young’s comments, especially relating to the now-known, Hillary-led “defense committee” (Young’s term) in 1991-1992, whose mission was (Young’s words) to “neutralize all the women he had ever been involved with.”

That the Blitzer and Costello unintentional comedy act actually mentions Young’s “it was said in jest” excuse without breaking out in hysterical laughter shows how far they will go to avoid calling out any Democrat for outrageous utterances.

Chances the Blade will remember any of this come endorsement time in November if Mrs. Clinton is the Democratic nominee: Slim and none, and Slim just left town.