No Straw MenEnlightened discourse proscribes arguments that are weak or imaginary, like straw, set up only to be confuted summarily.

You Campaign With Clenched Fists. You Govern With Open Palms

Mario Cuomo once said, “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” To this maxim, we might add, “You campaign with fists. You govern with palms.” Lawrence O’Donnell, a former staff director of the Senate Commerce Committee and West Wing producer, explains:

“The politics of campaigning are so simple: I’m going to beat you and leave you dead in a snowbank in New Hampshire and never look back. But in the Senate you can be trying to prevail over another senator on Tuesday afternoon whose vote you know you’re going to need on Wednesday afternoon for something else. The ordinary work of the Senate never involves fighting.

“Virtually all the people who run for Senate seats lie and say they’re going to fight, but what they’re actually going to do—which they may not know when they go to Washington for the first time—is beg. And beg people like me, whom they’ve never heard of, the staff director of this or that committee, before they ever get to meet the chairman.

“So the personal qualities necessary for Senate work are politeness and charm and graciousness and generosity, which New York tabloids have no comprehension of. Why should they? The press is never allowed in the rooms where governance actually takes place.

Bad Pitches: Endurance Warranty Services

An e-mail I received a few days ago, which Gmail rightly filtered into my spam folder:

Hello,

I came across your Web site jonathanrick.com, and would like to propose a link exchange between your site and EnduranceWarrantyServices.com. Endurance Warranty Services is the leader in extended auto warranties serving car warranties, truck warranties, and all types of extended auto warranties.

Please consider adding our link to your site on your page: http://jonathanrick.com/2008/06/26/links-for-2008-06-27/

Here is our linking information:

Title: Car Warranty
Description: Endurance Warranty Services provides car warranties that are transferable! Car buyers look to make sure a car has a warranty.
URL: http://www.endurancewarrantyservices.com

HTML Code

<a href=”http://www.endurancewarrantyservices.com” target=”_blank”><b>Car Warranty</b></a> Endurance Warranty Services provides car warranties that are transferable! Car buyers look to make sure a car has a warranty.

Let us know when our link is placed and we will post your link in the proper category of the resources page listed here: http://www.endurancewarrantyservices.com/partners/index.html

Please be sure to include your desired title and description. Your link will be posted within hours, however, in some rare cases it may take longer. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for your consideration,

[Name redacted]
linkmanager@endurancewarrantyservices.com
9831 E. Bell Road Suite 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Addendum (10/21/2009): Even though it’s 10 months late, in the interest of clarification, I am publishing the below e-mail that I received today from Endurance:

Hi, my name is Paul Chernawsky and I am the Vice President for Endurance Warranty Services. The following link refers to Endurance Warranty Services sending out e-mails for proposed link exchanges.

http://jonathanrick.com/2009/01/bad-pitches-endurance-warranty-services/

I first want to apologize for your inconvenience regarding the link exchange e-mail(s). Endurance Warranty Services had entered into a business agreement with a search engine optimization company and entrusted the search engine optimization company with optimizing Endurance Warranty Service’s Web site the right way.

Unfortunately, Endurance Warranty Services learned that the search engine optimization company was sending out mass e-mails proposing link exchanges that did Endurance Warranty Services way more harm than good. When Endurance realized this problem Endurance, terminated its relationship with the search engine optimization company immediately.