My phone went off last night with yet another text message from headquarters: “Vote for Barack tomorrow.” (They know I didn’t vote early. They looked it up.) I get one or two such messages a day. Me and how many other millions of Americans who went to an Obama campaign event somewhere, or visited his website, or heard an ad, and who sent a text message to 62262 at some point over the last year-plus. Since I texted, 62262 has become like my new BFF.

So today, The New York Times has a story about how the ‘08 campaign has changed all the rules about politics. What I want to suggest, in addition, is that 62262 — and its kin — will soon change all the rules about governing in America.

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The future of Raleigh, to be unveiled at a convention center near you. Details here.

It’s been a year since I wrote about this in the Indy. I thought then, and think even more strongly today having seen how Cameron Village has been dealt with, that the way to judge this plan is whether it identifies specific transit routes and assigns high-density zoning to them — and only to them. If the plan allows high-density projects to be scattered all over town, on the pretense that everywhere a bus can go is a transit route, then the plan will be a failure.

Look to see if the plan uses Robert Cervero’s “necklace of pearls” approach to transit and density, with high-density developments limited to the STAC-recommended rail transit corridor and one specific “circulator” route … or uses the traditional Raleigh approach of “anything the developers want goes.” That will be the test.

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Other stuff to watch for (goals that Mitch Silver said the plan would achieve):

“Predictability” should replace the old “flexibility” when it comes to development issues;

Teardowns, infill standards and transition zones between established neighborhoods and urban development locations;

“Equity” for lesser-income folks in redeveloping areas; transit helps, but affordable-housing options are needed too;

Public investments—a closer tie is needed between the city’s capital improvement plan (CIP) and its land-use planning; to date, developers have driven land use and city investments followed;

Which way(s) should downtown grow? Raleigh’s current downtown is small—but with transit-oriented development, there are a lot of ways to extend it.

The point of transit corridors is to foster dense, mixed-use developments without, however, flooding them all with automobiles. Instead, they should “work like a necklace of pearls,” University of California-Berkeley expert Robert Cervero told a Raleigh audience, with each transit station creating a gateway to interesting streets where people don’t need or want a car.

That’s where public realm comes in, Silver says. Transit stations don’t work if they dump you in a place you don’t want to be and can’t get around on foot. So a good comprehensive plan follows corridor selection with policies to govern building design, scale and articulation, and earmarks capital investments so the designated streets have the requisite pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, seating, lighting and open space.

Investments will also be needed in affordable housing programs, Silver says, either by the city, private developers or both.

“As we urbanize and become more dense, [housing] prices will go up, and that will require some public intervention—as you provide for affordable housing, someone has to pay,” Silver says.

Read below from a Los Angeles Times review of Kevin Phillips’ book, “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism” — and weep.

[No, this review wasn’t published this morning. It’s from April, when the book came off the presses, which means Phillips was writing it last year. Housing bubble, “financialization” as an industry bigger than manufacturing, dishonesty and incompetence — it’s all there in a single Phillips paragraph. I just stumbled across his book in a bookstore yesterday. Too bad we didn’t read it six months ago; apparently Ben Bernanke missed it too?]

Phillips locates that malaise in two structural factors: Over the last three decades, financial services have expanded from 11% of America’s gross domestic product to a record 21%, while manufacturing has declined from 25% to 13%. The author rejects the notion that this shift simply reflects a healthy adaptation to a “post-industrial” economy. Instead, he argues that the emergence of hedge funds and ever-more exotic bundles of financial derivatives amounts to a “financialization” of the American economy that has facilitated a ruinous expansion of private, as well as public, debt. Failed energy policies — or rather, the avoidance of any policy — have made the United States vulnerable to what may be the coming peak in oil production, thereby further weakening the dollar, which is essentially backed by the global petroleum economy.

“My summation,” Phillips writes, “is that American financial capitalism, at a pivotal period in the nation’s history, cavalierly ventured a multiple gamble: first, financializing a hitherto more diversified U.S. economy; second, using massive quantities of debt and leverage to do so; third, following up a stock market bubble with an even larger housing and mortgage credit bubble; fourth, roughly quadrupling U.S. credit-market debt between 1987 and 2007, a scale of excess that historically unwinds; and fifth, consummating these events with a mixed fireworks of dishonesty, incompetence and quantitative negligence.”

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The New York Times’ review is actually a better summary, though the writer finally decides Phillips is being too pessimistic — even though nobody seems to know what all those “financial instruments” are worth:

Still, even if his pessimism doesn’t seem wholly warranted, a sense of foreboding surely is, which is why his warnings have to be taken seriously. Mr. Phillips writes that the inventors and marketers of the new financial instruments didn’t entirely understand them. An executive of Fidelity International says a panicky feeling has set in on Wall Street because no one knows where the risks really are. The finance minister of France observes that investments may have reached such a level of complexity that no one can assess them. And Charles R. Morris, in his own gloomy book, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” reports that even Citigroup’s chief financial officer “did not know how to value his holdings.”

For those of you who were wondering what the hay was going on at the old Velvet Cloak on Hillsborough Street (I heard, e.g., that the CIA was operating out of there — hence, the secrecy), the city inspections department has swooped in and found all kinds of problems.

This memo is from city inspections chief Larry Strickland to City Manager Russell Allen on Friday afternoon:

This is to advise you that the Inspections Department along with the assistance of the Fire Department will be posting the old Velvet Cloak Hotel on Hillsborough Street as an unsafe building. Inspections staff met this morning with the Deputy Fire Marshall and determined that due to the amount of non-permitted work that has been done and the numerous building and fire code violations existing, it is hazardous and unsafe for the building to be occupied at this time. With this being the case, at 1:30 today Inspections staff and Fire Department staff with the assistance of Raleigh police will be posting the building unsafe to occupy and requiring the existing occupants to vacate the property. We met with the City Attorney this morning and he is aware of the situation.

OK, imagine that you’re the mayor of a small town somewhere. You’re smart, capable, but you’ve never really thought that much — or at all — about foreign policy questions; and for that matter your knowledge of national issues like health care policy and education funding is anecdotal at best. Again, not to say you’re not smart. Only to say you’re completely unprepared to be the president, or vice president, of the United States. Why would you be? You’re a small-town mayor.

Now imagine that somebody calls and tells you that in five weeks, you’re going to debate Sen. Joe Biden, former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Committee, on national and international issues — and you’d better be ready to hold your own. But, you can’t study day and night, because we’ve got you booked into a national convention for a week and then a bunch of speeches and an interview with Katie Couric.

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So as to tonight’s debate, give credit to Palin, for learning some lines and repeating them over & over with great vigor and assurance. But she doesn’t KNOW anything. And she was up against the experienced, knowledgeable and at least equally smart Sen. Biden, who KNOWS these issues because he’s lived them for 35 years. No, I take the last part of that back. Biden isn’t just smart, he’s intelligent. Palin is — like George Bush — not real curious.

Bottom line: The debate was a joke, and a slaughter. Sarah Palin is obviously pretty clever, but her knowledge of the issues would fit on a napkin. Joe Biden took on the issues and mastered them. Palin wandered around and saluted the flag and jabbered on about tax cuts and Ronald Reagan, but as to knowing anything, she doesn’t. It’s a shame John McCain would put her in a position where she couldn’t possible do better than be embarrassed. She IS embarrassed, right?

No, of course she isn’t.

Obama certainly should’ve won it, given the “train wreck” (McCain’s term, interestingly) that the Republicans have given us under George W. And yet –

I think this analysis of “winning” is correct: You make the key points that stick in people’s minds (and are replayed to death by cable news), and you win the forcefulness contest. I thought Obama was smart, but spent way too much time too much “correcting the record” and/or agreeing with McCain. Obama’s for an anti-missile defense system too? And drilling? And nuclear plants? He cites Henry Kissinger and Robert Gates as his foreign policy experts? Where oh where was the word “change” in Obama’s arsenal? As in, the Bush years have been a disaster, and everybody knows it but you, John. We need to change things from top to bottom. Obama kept pulling his punches, saying things were “unwarranted” or “tough to swallow” instead of “fundamentally and totally wrong for your country and mine.”

McCain, on the other hand, after a tired beginning, landed all of the easily understood, and therefore memorable lines: He’ll cut federal spending (and he gave examples, including cost-plus defense contracts — why can’t liberals ever say that?); he won’t talk to dictators, and he mocked Obama for interrupting to say that he’d certainly correct any bad things Ahmadinejad might say, for example, about Israel’s corpse; and he had Obama agreeing with him about Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia generally. I also thought that, whatever the merits, McCain won the rounds on Pakistan.

Only at the very end of the debate did Obama even remember to say that the Bush years have wrecked American prestige around the world, and that McCain’s been his enabler.

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If you’re measuring by the fact that McCain’s in free-fall over the economy and all Obama needed to do tonight was hold his own on foreign policy, then OK, call it a draw. But I think at least half the voters will view McCain as more forceful, more knowledgeable, and “stronger” on foreign policy issues. And never underestimate the impact of railing against earmarks and government waste — Obama was professorial, but McCain had the bit in his teeth.

I think McCain “won” and stopped the bleeding in his campaign — at least until next week’s Biden-Palin debate.

Just watched the poor man on CBS News — online, his interview with Katie Couric ran 11 minutes total. Here’s what McCain said:

1) The Wall Street situation is “the worst crisis since World War II.” Not the worst financial crisis — which it isn’t either. No, the worst crisis. Worse than the Korean War. Worse than Vietnam. Worse than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Worse than the disaster in Iraq and $100-plus per barrel oil. Worse than the Russian invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and — the one McCain was carrying on about lately — Georgia. Worse than the genocide in Darfur. [And, how could I have forgotten: Worse than 9-11?]

2) He agrees with Gov. Sarah Palin that, unless Congress acts, it could result in a Great Depression.

3) “The important thing,” he added, “is to give [Americans] a positive vision for the future, because …

4) He thinks the “crisis” should be solved by Sunday (big smile), because remember …

5) The fundamentals of the economy are sound. (If they weren’t, he certainly would’ve sounded the alarm before, uh, this morning.) And …

6) His description of how to solve the alleged crisis — with oversight of the Treasury bailout (by Mitt Romney and Michael Bloomberg) so as to protect the taxpayers; New Deal-like help to mortgage-holders who are in trouble; and by the way, reining in deficit spending by the federal government — isn’t all that what Democrats have been trying to get the Bush Administration to do?

7) Federal spending is out of control? So McCain says. So how about we: a) get out of Iraq ($12 billion a month); b) don’t give Treasury a $700 billion “blank check” to bail out Wall Street, as the Bush Administration proposed; and c) get serious about alternative energy sources — wind, solar, etc. — so we can cut into the $700 billion a year we spent on imported oil.

8) But wait, McCain does have a plan to wean us from imported oil. It’s called “drill here, drill now.” That should help the auto industry shift from gasoline to …

9) Oh, never mind.

Here’s the thing that just stops me cold about John McCain. By the many accounts of his journalist-pals who, presumably, have it from the horse’s mouth, McCain wanted to run with Joe Lieberman as his VP candidate: in other words, the actual bipartisanship that he espoused last night. And from McCain himself, we have it that he’s heroic and country-first ever since his captivity in Hanoi. So why didn’t the courageous, country-first hero pick Lieberman? Because as a politician, he’s not that gutsy.

Instead, he plucks Sarah Palin from obscurity and tells us that she — in his opinion — is the person best-suited to take over as president if he’s elected and his health fails. That was his stated criterion for a VP selection, after all — the best-qualified person to lead the nation. And we have it on his say-so that he’s always country-first and would never do the wrong thing.

Well, either McCain really thinks Palin’s prepared for the job, in which case his judgment is awful; or else he blinked when Karl Rove told him he couldn’t have sort-of Democrat Lieberman (who’s pro-choice) because the right-wing would go crackers on him. Either way, that heroic experience of his from four decades ago is looking pretty irrelevant to his current self. In that vein, I’m putting up — below — a book review I just finished of The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, by Thomas Franks. Franks also authored What’s the Matter With Kansas, also about how the conservative movement tries to make us look over “here” — to the culture wars now embodied by Sarah Palin — while they wreck the government and enrich themselves back in D.C.

Frank will be in the Triangle Raleigh at Quail Ridge Books & Music on Wednesday, September 17 at 7:30 pm. The review is below:

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Actually, there are three, but only one that’s expected to be close. Democratic County Commisisoners Harold Webb and Betty Lou Ward are heavy favorites to hold their seats, respectively. In the third contest, Republican Commissioner-incumbent Kenn Gardner is up against the inimitable Stan Norwalk, a Democrat who was blogging (on CaryPolitics.org) way before blogging was cool. Over the years, Norwalk’s left a vast cyber-trail on the issues across many a listserv, but his pet subject has always been school funding and the county commissioners (Republican and Democratic) who’ve failed to rise to the challenge — in his opinion. Thus, no surprise today that the NCAE (the teachers association) gave its blessing to him. From Norwalk’s press release:

I am pleased and honored to announce that I have received the endorsement of the Wake NC Association of Educators.

Wake County Commissioners have many important issues on their plate. None is more important than upgrading education. While there are many opinions as to hw to improve our community’s schools, none is more important than a focus on teachers:
* enough teachers for programs to close educational gaps for all students;
* recruiting and retaining quality teachers;
* a continuing effort to train and mentor teachers;
* teacher compensation and teacher working conditions.
Parents, grandparents, citizens and community leaders have no greater responsibility than to provide for the education of the next generation. It is our duty and legacy. In a fast-changing and ever more competitive world, education must be continually upgraded. Family support at home and quality teachers in the classroom are key to upgrading education.

Gary Pearce says he’d pick Hillary. It would shake up the race, which needs it. I agree with the latter sentiment. Obama last night (I watched him online — thanks wral.com) struck me as a bit pedantic when he needs to be passionate, vague when he needs to be very pointed about his economic plans. I’m thinking especially of his answer to the first question he got, about little Adam, 3, who has Down syndrome. What happened to “fired up, ready to go”?

Obama made a point of saying he’d been running for 19 months — and he has a cold. As a runner myself, of the low-speed variety, I’d say he’s in serious danger of being overtrained weeks before the big race — he needs fewer miles, more speed work.

When asked about his vice-presidential pick, he clearly (to me) has made his choice and was thinking about how to describe him, without giving the game away, of course. He wants someone who “shares my passion,” Obama said, is “mad” about the state of the country, is independent enough to tell me when I’m wrong, and is ready to be president. I could be way off, but as he was talking I was sure he had Biden in mind, not Kaine or Bayh (passion?) — and if Obama wants to shake up the race in a way that loses ground, he’ll pick Hillary. Biden’s a solid choice.