Geoff Decker’s whereIstand blog

Rick Waggoner wrote an op-ed in Wall Street Journal titled ‘Why GM Deserves Support‘, reasoning that GM and the Detroit auto industry has made significant progress for the last decade. They’ve narrowed the competitive gap, he says, in terms of both production quality and compensation and benefits for its employees .

So if progress has been made in labor contracts and in keeping up with foreign competition, then what exactly has caused their companies to fail? Since Waggoner surely won’t suggest it in his op-ed, allow me to: could it be poor management?

Given his brand as a foreign policy expert, Thomas Friedman knows something about the responsibilities of a Secretary of State and explains as much in his most recent column, as it relates to a relationship with the President:

I covered a secretary of state, one of the best, James A. Baker III, for four years, and one of the things I learned during those years was that what made Baker an effective diplomat was not only his own skills as a negotiator — a prerequisite for the job — but the fact that his boss, President George H.W. Bush, always had Baker’s back. When foreign leaders spoke with Baker, they knew that they were speaking to President Bush, and they knew that President Bush would defend Baker from domestic rivals and the machinations of foreign governments.

And he repeatedly poses the question of whether or not Barack Obama should pick her for his cabinet and if Obama would be doing it for the right reasons.

The important question, the answer of which is not at all clear to me, is about the only relationship that matters for a secretary of state — the kind of relationship he or she would have with the new president. My question: Is Obama considering Mrs. Clinton for this job in order to get her off his back or as a prelude to protecting her back?

and again:

My question is whether a President Obama and a Secretary of State Clinton, given all that has gone down between them and their staffs, can have that kind of relationship, particularly with Mrs. Clinton always thinking four to eight years ahead, and the possibility that she may run again for the presidency. I just don’t know.

then concluding:

When it comes to appointing a secretary of state, you do not want a team of rivals.

It’s a clear tone of skepticism that probably falls short of an official position on the issue. But maybe that’s just a gesture of faith in our President-elect. Ultimately, the decision is his alone. Nothing about the Biden and Emanuel picks have indicated his decision-making isn’t thoughtful and measured. So if Obama believes Clinton can do the job and put aside her conflicting ambitions, who is Thomas Friedman - or anyone else for that matter - to say who he should or shouldn’t pick for his cabinet?

Since so many of college football’s BCS schools reside in traditional red states I doubt many BCS presidents voted for Barry Obama earlier this month. And if they didn’t support him before, I can’t imagine what they think about him now after he went on national television and suggested that he would personally address a system that in his eyes is fundamentally flawed and establish a playoff system.  Such a move would likely dissolve the Bowl Championship Series, a system that’s been incredibly lucrative for teams and its colleges who play in one of the six major conferences deemed worthy of bowl bigs. Thanks to television contracts and major sponsorship deals, participating schools make tens of millions of dollars for their participation. But it’s not about money, Obama said on 60 minutes last night. It’s about establishing an effective way to determine a national champion:

I think any sensible person would say that if you have a bunch of teams who play throughout a season and many of them have one loss or two losses and there’s no clear or decisive winner, we should be creating a playoff system…I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this

He then finished by saying he’d “throw my weight around a little bit” in order to get something done.

Don’t underestimate Simmons’ grassroots following to make this thing a reality. In his latest mailbag column, he lays out a platform for the sports items that he would address as a cabinet member in Barack Obama’s administration. From a whereIstand researcher’s perspective, the platform was a gold mine for submitting evidence of his opinions: I posted five new ’stands’:

Simmons on NHL Contraction:

The NHL will disband eight teams, move a few more to Canada and form 11-team conferences in the United States and Canada.

Simmons on NFL preseason games:

a three-game exhibition season for the NFL with two regular-season bye weeks (not one)

Simmons on unifying boxing’s heavyweight belts:

Creations: a uniform boxing organization

Simmons on a college playoff:

Creations: A college football playoff system

A in NYT this morning boasts that Emanuel Urges Aid for Auto Industry, which turns out to be entirely misleading compared to the article’s details:

When asked on ABC’s “This Week” where Mr. Obama stood on the issue, Mr. Emanuel seemed to suggest that Mr. Obama, as a last resort, might be open to tapping the rescue fund to help carmakers, calling the auto industry an “essential part of our industrial base.”

Read the rest of this entry »

ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan and Mark Jackson on why they’re picking the Cleveland Cavaliers to win the NBA Central Division:

MacMullan: “Mo Williams. Enough said.”

Jackson: “Two words - Lebon James.”

Welp, I’m confused. Can I infer any kind of analysis from this? Does MacMullan mean to say the Mo Williams acquisition is the missing piece to propel the Cavs into elite Eastern Conference status? And does Jackson believe that ultimately where LeBron goes so goes the Cavs? Seems like a pretty lazy effort at analysis.

I don’t blame them necessarily. These preseason prediction exercises that ESPN’s editors make its contributors do must be a pain in the ass. They’re being asked to predict the unpredictable, only to be reminded and publicized at the end of the season by nerdy bloggers.

whereIstand.com aggregates the opinions on public figures on a variety of issues and for the last month, wIs researchers have been steadily tracking pundits, politicians, columnists, TV personalities, celebrities and bloggers to see which candidate they thought won each debate. To see a comprehensive list of all public figures click on the links for each debate. Below is a :

1st Presidential Debate (Jim Lehrer)

• Out of all 67 public figures recorded, 33 gave Barack Obama the victory; 23 for John McCain; 11 called it a draw
• Of 41 media personalities:
  • Obama: 21
  • McCain: 14
  • Draw: 6

• Of 9 News Publications:
  • Obama: 2
  • McCain: 3
  • Draw: 4 Read the rest of this entry »

My Uncle emailed me this morning at 7:51 a.m with some exciting stuff:

Subject Line: Mike and Mike

Body: Talking about Where I Stand this morning - at 7 51 eastern time

Sure enough, I went back and listened to this morning’s show on ESPN Radio’s Archive Page for Mike and Mike and listened to Golic butcher the name of our site (starts at 6:00 mark in the “7 a.m.: Mets/Verducci” segment.) Here’s the exchange: Read the rest of this entry »

At Major League Basbeall’s mid-season, The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre and ProJo columnist/ESPN analyst Sean McAdam occupied the top spots in our first edition of the prediction accuracy rankings.

The most accurate were rewarded for picking four of six teams in first on July 1: Angels, Phillies, Cubs and Diamondbacks. These teams were popular preseason picks, but NO ONE saw the Rays or Twins/White Sox winning their divisions, so no one had a chance at perfection. The least accurate guys were penalized severely for picking any combination of teams out of contention that were preseason favorites: Tigers, Mariners, Indians and Rockies, Yankees.

As the regular season draws to a close, we’ve updated our rankings. The division race that most affected prediction scores was the National League West. The Dbacks went from a two-game cushion in July to a four-game deficit to the Dodgers. The swing in games vaulted ESPN’s Keith Law, SI’s Jon Heyman and Yahoo! Sports’ Gordon Edes to the top of the rankings. On the opposite end, ESPN Radio’s Mike Greenberg, New York Daily News’ Bill Madden and ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark occupied the bottom three spots.

After the break, the complete list media personalities and news organizations, ranked 1-50 along with their preseason picks: Read the rest of this entry »

Should Tom Brady be the first quarterback chosen in 2008 fantasy football drafts? [37 opinions]

Welp, that issue sure dated it self quickly, huh? I should probably archive this issue so no one else can take a stand on it. Suffice it to say, Brady won’t be servicing his fantasy owners the way they had hoped. And in no way could that sentence be misinterpreted.

Oh well. I have no sympathy. I’m a Bills fan and I own Peyton Manning in both my fantasy football leagues.