Chris Bowers thinks the changes taking place under Tim Kaine's DNC mean the party is going to be concentrating on re-electing the President instead of building the broader party for the next four years:

In short, the DNC will be moving away from the long-term, decentralized, fifty-state strategy of Howard Dean's tenure, and toward serving as a short-term, centralized re-election effort for President Obama in 2012.  It will continue the move away from paid media ushered in by Howard Dean, maintain or increase the amount of resource expenditures in most states, and the number of states it targets will be a broader effort than the narrow focus we saw in 2001-2004 (but more narrow than 2005-2008). However, it will return to the traditional role of the DNC as a supplement for the sitting President's re-election campaign, rather than as the long-term, localized institution building operation that is was from 2005-2008.

I don't disagree, but there may also be another, concurrent interpretation for the changes we're seeing. Changes like increased centralization and more focus on swing states might also be the Democratic Party shifting to defense for the 2010 midterm elections.

The last few Democratic Presidents have had a tough time during their first midterm election. Clinton lost Congress, and Carter also suffered. So maybe the DNC's expected focus on swing states as opposed to expanding the map Dean-style is a strategic shift to maintain the Democrats' Congressional margins through Obama's first term.

If true, this strategy makes a certain kind of sense. Different strategies are appropriate for different times. As a party out of power in 2004 and desperately searching for new constituencies and messages, Dean's 50 state strategy fit the times perfectly. By competing in all 50 states, Democrats were able to expand the map, raise their profile, and reach out to voters who hadn't heard from the Democratic party in decades. There's no doubt that Dean's strategy helped flip Congress in 2006 and propelled Obama to the Presidency in 2008.

Now, as the party moves from offensive to defensive mode, the new DNC strategy is more in line with the political climate.

However, looking at this another way, the strategy doesn't quite add up. Isn't the best defense a good offense? The Democratic Party arguably has more money and resources than ever, so some energy can be spent on map-expanding activities, even if more money is pumped into swing states. Important new constituencies like the Western states and Latino voters are not yet yellow-dog Democrats. And Obama needs to hold onto and expand the broad constituency that handed him the Presidency, and isolate the Republican politicians and their supporters that will pose a threat Congressionally in 2010 and Presidentially in 2012.

There are a myriad of reasons to stay on offense. I think the Democratic party has the resources to keep up the pressure and defend its gains. Let's hope Tim Kaine's stated devotion to the 50 state strategy is more than just words.

If you live in Washington, DC, you've probably noticed IKEA advertisements like these in Metro stations:

(photos via Animal)

Obviously, the content of the message should be familiar. Barack Obama's campaign theme of "change" turned out to be a great way to sell a politician, and it looks like it might be a good way to sell furniture as well.

IKEA's design is a spot-on ripoff in other way besides content. They use the same font (the famous "Gotham"), the same block lettering, the same justified paragraph style, the same simple layout, the same stylized images. Just about the only thing different is the color scheme.

I noticed this advertisement for Pepsi in the Metro yesterday:

(photo via The Truth According To Mark)

Not only is the slogan familiar, but that "O" in hope looks awfully like Obama's "O" logo.

The fact that Pepsi and IKEA are using these designs to sell furniture and soda is a testament to Obama's visionary graphic design during the campaign. Clearly someone on Madison Avenue thinks the imagery that inspired a nation to vote for Obama will also inspire a nation to empty their wallets. Given the other choices Obama had for his logo and design aesthetic (a fascinating look at the rejected logo concepts is here), he chose wisely.

Obama showed us the power of good design this cycle. His website was (and still is) the prettiest I've ever seen, and one of the most easy to use. There's no question its design helped power the campaign. Still, it's a bit tawdry to see these concepts, once used to promote a noble cause, used to push consumer junk. As Lance Steagall pointed out pertaining to the current popularity of Che Guevara, powerful imagery is co-opted to sell merchandise, watering down the message into a cultural touchstone with little meaning:

All this has little to do with Che Ernesto Guevara the man. His face is no longer his own; since his death it's become a vehicle behind which you advance whatever unrelated cause you're keen on. It's been co-opted by leftist culture, prostituted by Hollywood, clothing manufacturers, hip-hop artists, wealthy suburbanites; his image is the hammer and sickle, the stars and stripes, the crescent and star, the Mickey Mouse of revolutionary Disneyland©. He has become the hypothetical, undemanding revolution whose membership does not even require an understanding of his mixed legacy. Much the way some Christians profess faith in Jesus, slap a bumper sticker on the car, fill a pew every seventh day, and feel no obligation to mirror Jesus' self-sacrifice, utter disdain for materiality, or devotion to his fellow man, YOU TOO can become revolutionary. Just slap the official symbol on your person, parade yourself in conspicuous places, and retire to watch [insert inane comedy here] when your feet get tired.

Perhaps nothing represents this phenomenon better than this t-shirt, which you can actually purchase (ironically, of course):

It would be unfortunate for Obama's powerful imagery to go the same route, keeping its appeal but losing its power to actually change this country for the better.

I know references to 1984 are cliche, but the editorial today by Bill Ayers in the New York Times brings it home:

Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama's campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: "What do we really know about this man?"

...

I was cast in the "unrepentant terrorist" role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the "Two Minutes Hate" scene from George Orwell's "1984," when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.

This happened a lot during the campaign. Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko (that one never really did catch on), and towards the end, Barack Obama himself - they were yelling, "Kill him!"

And it's happened a lot in our society, both under Bush and more broadly. A government spying on its citizens. A country in constant, often meaningless war. When Osama Bin Laden's face flashes on screen, it's almost a literal Two Minutes of Hate.

How does this get changed? Ayers has his solution:

With the mainstream news media and the blogosphere caught in the pre-election excitement, I saw no viable path to a rational discussion. Rather than step clumsily into the sound-bite culture, I turned away whenever the microphones were thrust into my face. I sat it out.

Can Obama move us away from 1984-style governance? I really hope so. But as Ayers says, this stuff - suspicion, sound bites, hatred, violence - it's part of our culture. Moving away from an incurious, reactionary culture towards something else is more than one man can do in a lifetime. And besides, this change can't really be legislated - it's going to take every one of us, individually.

I'm not saying we should move backwards and use cultures of the past as our models - technology and modernity have forever closed off that route - but we should move somewhere new. And I'm not saying this process hasn't started already. The day after the election, K Street in Washington DC (where I work) just felt different.

Still, there's a long way to go and I'm not sure the Ayers solution, sitting it out, is really appropriate for everyone. We're part of this country and this culture whether we like it or not. So, what else can be done?

From the New York Times today, it seems President-elect Obama will have to give up most forms of modern communication once he is inaugurated:

But before [Barack Obama] arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive.

This is disheartening. Modern forms of communication like email, instant messaging, blogging, and more recently social networking and twittering have revolutionized the way we relate to each other. While it might be a stretch to expect Obama to become the first twittering or blogging president (we can hope!), certainly indispensable tools such as email (invented in the 1970s and thoroughly mainstream by the 1990s) shouldn't be beyond the grasp of the President.

Without these tools, Obama will be forced to relate to the outside world through his circle of aides and advisers, who it seems will have access to email. While this might look no worse than a clumsy work-around to some - allowing Obama to access essentially the same lines of communication - I'm not so sure. Again, the Times:

"Given how important it is for him to get unfiltered information from as many sources as possible, I can imagine he will miss that freedom," said Linda Douglass, a senior adviser who traveled with the campaign.

Even more than the campaign trail, the White House can be a bubble far removed from the outside world. Having access to information only through aides and advisers is guaranteed to remove a President from reality, at least slightly. Given that 1.5 billion people use the Internet (nearly 1/5th of the world's population), cutting the most powerful man in the world off from our society's most important communications device seems downright dangerous.

Both security and disclosure laws seem to be the issues holding back Presidential email, and these are two valid concerns. Still, there are no problems that can't be solved. I know our intelligence services use email and other online communication tools constantly. If they can handle sensitive data online, so can the White House. In my view, we should strongly consider updating whatever rules apply to allow the first truly 21st century President (possibly post-modern, too) to use 21st century tools so he can do his best to govern a 21st century country.

But maybe I'm making too much of this. Is it important for America to have an emailing President?

Last night, I had the pleasure of witnessing a spirited discussion between a young Republican working for a lobbying organization and a obliging Democratic operative. The conversation went along the lines of what's next for the Republican party, a familiar road these days. What astounded me was the depth of denial coming from the Republican activist, a feeling I've heard echoed throughout Republican circles I've had contact with, both online and offline.

By denial I mean this: Almost every Republican I've spoken with or read has not seen the 2008 election of Barack Obama as a clear repudiation of their ideas, just their tactics.

Case in point, in the discussion last night, the problems with the Republican party were framed in terms like "how are we going to get back to our core values," "who will be the next leader with charisma," and "how will we hold onto our last shreds of power in Congress." But these are arguments for reforming the way Republicans present themselves, not Republican ideology itself.

Make no mistake, this election repudiated Republican ideas, not just their dirty, dishonest tactics. Over and over the Republican activist in this conversation would say, "We need to get back to our core values, like small government." Tell me, when was the last time we actually had a small government president? As these graphs make clear, we haven't had a Republican shrink the size of the government since before FDR.

The fact is, core Republican values like small government are myths Republicans use to get elected. There is no denying that these ideas have worked in the past electorally, but John McCain ran on the exact same line this year - calling Barack Obama a big government socialist - and he received a trouncing. America rejected the Republican conception of small government, a clear repudiation of a core value.

To take another example, a bunch of Republican online activists have put together a plan at RebuildTheParty.com. Their "plan for the future" is 100% tactics, recommending the GOP focus on the Internet, change the internal structure of the party, recruit new candidates, and compete in every congressional race. All small bore stuff and no new ideas.

Republicans are in the woods, and no Mitt Romneys, Bobby Jindals, or Sarah Palins are going to save them. 2010 looks like a good year structurally for Democrats, and Obama statistically is likely to win a second term.

So, given that Republicans are in for what looks like a good eight years of electoral defeats, what's next for the GOP?

Republicans will certainly need new ideas to bring their party back into power, but the GOP tends to be a lot more institutional than the Democratic party, making quick change hard. Beginning in 2000 and culminating in 2008, Democrats were able to bring new activists into the party and bring truly new ideas to the table, culminating with the emergence and election of Barack Obama. It was breathtakingly quick change. Republicans tend to wait in line for their party's nomination (Bob Dole lost to George H.W. Bush and was then nominated, John McCain lost to George W. Bush and was then nominated), so getting the old detritus out of the system will be harder and take longer.

Still, I would bet a good chunk of change that we're going to see the flowering of right wing online organization - the conditions are perfect for it. Online communities like MyDD and Daily Kos - and the movement they helped inspire - grew up as an opposition wing in an opposition party. There are a lot of disaffected Republicans out there who are in the same position right now.

And I feel strongly that the new Republican online activism will come from people and groups we haven't seen before. Current GOP online operatives like David All, Soren Dayton, Patrick Ruffini, and Michael Turk have served in online positions for the RNC, Bush's campaigns, and traditional Republican strategy firms. They would never admit it, but they are part of the old guard.

But even with a newly charged online operation, where will the new ideas come from? Prediction is a fool's game, but I'd hazard three guesses.

First, I'd be scared of moderate, green Republicans in the mold of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Case in point, the British right-wing party the Tories used environmentalism to turn itself around:

To that end, Mr. Cameron set about decontaminating the Tory brand. Central to that mission were forays into two areas of political terrain previously deemed forbidden zones. First, he signaled comfort with gay rights, ditching the party's previous support for laws restricting sexual equality. Second, he championed environmentalism. He may have endured news media mockery when he took a dogsled ride to inspect a Norwegian glacier in 2006, but it did the trick, confirming that the Tories were changing.

Mr. Cameron's efforts have paid off: recent polls suggest a Conservative victory at the next election. Of course, the lessons of one society can never fully apply to another. But the Tory experience suggests that a defeated party of the right has to move toward the center, abandon divisive social issues and elect a leader who looks as if he or she actually belongs in the 21st century. With Arnold Schwarzenegger ineligible for the presidency and no other accommodating figure on the horizon, the Republicans might have a bumpy decade ahead.

Second, I'd be scared of a refined Mike Huckabee type. Huckabee was much closer to the ideal of compassionate conservatism than Bush ever was. When he spoke, you could hear real empathy in his voice. And he took a decidedly different tack on issues like immigration than his fellow red meat Republicans. With a bit less emphasis on the divisive issues of the culture wars and a few new ideas, the Huckabee type would be hard to beat.

Lastly, I'd be scared of the Libertarian wing of the Republican party. Ron Paul's supporters rallied to a surprising degree around an old, non-charismatic career politician because he offered some stunning new ideas: End the drug war, end the American empire, end the culture wars, and be serious about free markets. They showed the Libertarian faction could be organized into a potent, if somewhat eccentric political force. And, as the user-ranked section of RebuildTheParty.com shows, these ideas are probably the strongest force going among outsider Republicans today. Imagine what would have happened had Ron Paul been blessed with the rhetorical powers of Mike Huckabee or even Barack Obama.

(Of the three options presented, I'll take the third. As I've said, I'd rather see progressives fighting libertarians than corrupt Democrats fighting corrupt Republicans.)

Or it could be a completely different option. The next right is likely to take us all by surprise, in the way of political reinventions. There is no such thing as a permanent majority for either party. Still, whether the new GOP will get their ideas out of the woods and on to to the table in eight years remains to be seen.

I have my doubts, but where do you see the right going? Will they be able to escape the deadly grasp of neo-conservatism?

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who lives in Chicago. She's young and educated, but up until this year, not terribly interested in politics. But this year, like so many others around the country, she is interested because of Barack Obama and the amazing movement he's put together.

The day after the election, we were talking and she told me that she wants to "get involved." She said she understood that electing Obama wasn't going to be enough, that if we were going to have any hope of actually changing the world we live in, as opposed to just talking about it, people like her were going to have to work for it. She was inspired, and she was ready to serve.

She asked me for ways to get involved, and for a moment, I was stumped.

Now, there are a ton of ways to "get involved," but none really seemed up to the gravity of the task ahead of us. I could have told her to pick an issue she cared about and sign up her email address with an organization that works on that issue. I could have told her to donate some money to a group she admired so they could continue doing their good work. I could have told her to start reading and commenting on blogs, to get better informed about the latest political news. But honestly, none of those options seemed particularly satisfying. I mean, Barack Obama had just won the Presidency! Signing up for an email list or donating $50 just wasn't going to cut it.

This dilemma highlights an important challenge facing progressives and progressive institutions in the coming months. There must be millions of people out there feeling the same way as my friend right now. It's crucial that those people be absorbed into the permanent progressive infrastructure so they can keep working to actually bring about the change we all seek. Without places to go and things to do that really make a difference, these people will slowly turn off and forget about the importance of politics. Progressives run the risk of quietly losing a generation of activists.

The Obama campaign had ways to get involved that were amazingly substantial and multi-layered. Folks just getting started could sign up for email lists or donate $5. Folks looking for more interaction could explore MyBarackObama.com. Folks looking to make a real difference could phone bank or sign up to canvass. There were organizers waiting at all levels to introduce these people around and deepen their commitment. Few progressive institutions outside of the Obama campaign offer that level of involvement.

Of course, there are people working to change that. Health Care for America Now, where I work, is one example. Working with SEIU, we have been signing up activists energized by Obama's victory by asking them to pledge to work to help keep health care on the map. We plan on connecting these activists with our field offices in 45 states so they can participate in some real, boots-on-the-ground grassroots organizing efforts to help pass Obama's health care plan in 2009. This is where I eventually ended up telling my friend to go, and of course, I'd encourage you to sign up, too.

And of course, everyone expects that the Obama campaign, with its huge activist network and email list, will transform into some kind of organization designed to push Obama's agenda.

Still, I was surprised by how stumped I was when faced with my friend's request. The blogosphere, and to some extent, progressives in general, tend to be self-starting types. When I decided to get involved in politics, I started blogging, and the rest flowed from that. However, Barack Obama has brought people into the process who have literally no idea where to begin. I'm hoping that before too long, the Obama campaign and progressive institutions will show them the way.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get millions involved in progressive politics for the first time. We've got the seize this moment.

I'm curious to hear what you all think, though. What would you have told my friend to do? How can progressives best capitalize on Obama's momentum to turn his electoral movement into a permanent movement?

The longer we delay fixing the health care system - reigning in costs, covering everyone, and fairly sharing risk - the harder it will be to reform the system at all. And it's not just because America is currently facing, in the words of just about everyone, "the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression." As David Lightman and Kevin G. Hall point out today in McClatchy Newspapers, the simple demographics will be against us if we wait:

Beginning in 2011, the first wave of baby boomers - Americans born between 1946 and 1964 - will reach official retirement age. From that point forward, the federal government's finances will be strained, as more and more Americans retire expecting a shrinking number of active workers to pay their promised health and pension benefits.

To put it more starkly: Medicare's trustees project the hospital insurance fund will become insolvent in about 10 years, as its expenditures grow at a 7.4 percent annual rate. The government, the trustees said, will need $342 billion to cover insurance costs during that period.

...

"The longer action on reforming health care and Social Security is delayed, the more painful and difficult the choices will become," said a Government Accountability Office study in June. "The federal government faces increasing pressures, yet a shrinking window of opportunity for phasing in adjustments."

Medicare, the report said, "represents a much larger, faster-growing and more immediate problem than Social Security."

A series of factors are driving up Medicare costs. According to the GAO and the trustees, medical technology is often overused; the health care market doesn't operate on a supply-and-demand basis as people often don't shop for the lowest price; and chronic health problems - such as obesity or substance abuse - require expensive, lengthy treatment.

Medicare (and similarly, Medicaid) face such staggering budget shortfalls to a large extent as a consequence of America's private, patchwork health care system. Preventative care is less costly in the long run, yet, because the health insurance industry has been so deregulated as to allow them to deny care at every opportunity and price care out of the reach of millions, America has 47 million uninsured and millions more under-insured. This means millions of Americans don't see their doctor as regularly as they should to catch medical problems early before they become costly emergencies. And, as the economy sinks, people are cutting back on care, making the problem worse.

Medicare (and to some extent, Medicaid) functions essentially as a high risk pool, a group of people (in this case, the elderly) who are less profitable to insurance companies because they use so much health care. High risk pools, basically by definition, don't work. If the theory of insurance is to spread out risk (everyone in a system all pay into a pot so when one person needs to use their coverage, that cost can be absorbed by everyone), then high risk pools make no sense. Putting everyone who you know are going to use a lot of health insurance into the same pot and asking them to share costs is silly - there are no "low risk" people in the system to absorb some of the cost. And because everyone at some time in their life is "high risk" for large health insurance costs (everyone eventually gets sick or old), Medicare functions as a dumping ground for the private insurance industry. Private insurance takes monthly premiums from the young and healthy all their life, and when they get old and sick (and unprofitable), they are dumped on the government.

This is why Medicare is projected to be the largest driver of the national debt in the near future, and, because baby boomers are about to enter the system in huge numbers, this is why health reform needs to happen in this country immediately.

Simply getting everybody covered adequately would be a huge step forward. A guarantee of a certain level of care, no matter if you're on private or public insurance plans, would make sure people receive the care they need throughout their life, lowering overall costs. A subsidized public insurance plan that would take everybody would go a long way towards eliminating the number of people in America without insurance. And regulating all insurance plans - public and private - to make sure they cover pre-existing conditions and can't dump "unprofitable" customers would ensure risk is shared fairly, as it is meant to be.

This, of course, is Health Care for America Now's vision, shared by 83 Members of Congress, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Contrast that with the conservative vision, championed by John McCain:

• Less regulation on insurance companies to do away with state based insurance, allowing companies to set up shop in the states with the least regulation and forcing Americans to shop on their own for health insurance.
• Taxing your employee health benefits, doing away with the employer-based system
• Funding a paltry tax credit (which goes straight to the insurance industry) with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid

No guarantee of care, no incentive to promote prevention, no fair risk sharing, and a plan that is estimated to grow the ranks of the uninsured in America by 5 million in just five years.

There is a clear difference here, and that's why it's so important to make health care a priority in this election and immediately after the next president is inaugurated. It seems the nation is waking up to that difference, too. In the past few weeks, health care has been a focus of some excellent debate questions, it has been targeted in campaign advertisements, and the subject of numerous news stories. And of course, Health Care for America Now has thrown our hat into the ring, spending $4.3 million to put advertisements about John McCain's health care plan (as well as 7 congressional candidates) on the air across the country:

America is finally having the health care debate it needs to be having. What's at stake is our economy, our national debt, our health, and our happiness. Let's just hope the urgency is still there in January.

As Congress debates whether to hand over a $700,000,000,000 check to the Bush administration with no strings attached, conservatives are already arguing that none of that money should end up in the hand of regular people:

On Sunday Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson resisted suggestions that the program be changed to include further relief for homeowners facing mortgage foreclosures.

Mr. Paulson said Sunday that because financial markets remain under severe stress there is an urgent need for Congress to act quickly without adding other measures that could slow down passage. "We need this to be clean and to be quick," Mr. Paulson said in an interview on ABC's "This Week."

Mr. Paulson said he was concerned that debate over adding all of those proposals would slow the economy down, delaying the rescue effort that is so urgently needed to get financial markets moving again.

"The biggest help we can give the American people right now is to stabilize the financial system," Mr. Paulson said.

Shorter Paulson: Giving all the money to the people who caused this crisis is the best way for the masses to help themselves. Ain't trickle-down economics grand?

Conservatives created this crisis with a policy of deregulation - which allowed companies to become "too big to fail" - combined with a love for public/private partnerships like Fannie Mae, in which government acts as the implicit firewall in the markets, ready to step in and "bail out" when things inevitably go wrong.

And when the crisis inevitably comes, conservatives argue all the money needs to go back into the hands that created the crisis because the bailout needs to be "clean and quick." And of course, a "long" discussion on meaningful regulation, corporate accountability, and wise use of taxpayer money would only make things worse.

We see this modus operandi over and over again from the right wing. And we'll see it happen with health care in 2009.

With the next President inheriting staggering debt from President Bush, conservatives will suddenly remember their fiscal mantra and decry any "extra" spending. If they're particularly brazen, you'll see them calling for a set of laws that make it easier for private health care corporations to make more money - giving more wealth to the very powers that caused our current health care crisis.

Senator John McCain said it best (thanks, Todd):

Here's what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago -- and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!

Conservatives will abolish geographic restrictions on health care purchasing, allowing companies to set up shop in states with the most favorable regulations, get rid of employer-based health insurance and tax your health care benefits, and then offer you a piddling tax credit to get through it all. It all adds up to more money in the hands of insurance companies and less in the hands of working people - socialism for the rich spurred on by a "crisis." It's the shock doctrine.

Don't let them get away with it.

It's extremely telling that there is a bottomless pit of money when that money is going to corporate backers of the conservative movement, but when that money just might find its way into the hands of hard working Americans, suddenly the well is dry. (Paulson even had the nerve to suggest stripping Wall Street CEOs of their multi-million dollar severance packages was enough to doom a bailout bill.)

Let's face facts. Conservatives don't want to "solve the crisis" (any crisis) or help make America stronger. They simply want to use a crisis (that they create) to give more money to themselves. This isn't about helping the country, this isn't about averting a depression, this is about stealing as much money as they can and getting away with it. Conservatives use times of crisis to fundamentally undermine our democracy. And when talk turns to giving money to the people - be it in the form of economic stimulus, health care, energy, or poverty reduction - conservatives suddenly get that old time fiscal conservative religion.

The sooner progressives, our elected leaders, and the media realize conservatives are trying to destroy our country, not save it, the better.