Politics

I’m a member of the Conference Board’s Government Relations Executive Council (GRE), made up of the government relations leads from some of the world’s largest companies. The Government Affairs departments at these companies range from Air BnB’s 70-person global government affairs team to Emerson’s one-woman shop. The GRE meets three times a year—typically, once at the Conference Board’s New York headquarters, once at a member company site, and once in Washington. This week, we visited Lowe’s 25-story Tech Hub in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Hence my photo in the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.)

At the risk of stating the obvious, President Joe Biden’s (and by extension any Democratic presidential candidate’s) reelection campaign is in serious trouble. In fact, a longtime Democratic political consultant went on record days ago stating that only an ‘October Surprise’ could save him.

The political events over the past two weeks and a private email conversation I had with a professor from my GWU grad school days got me thinking about the law of supply and demand. I know what you’re thinking… “Me too, what else would Supreme Court decisions, a presidential debate, the NATO summit, and the runup to the political conventions make one think about.”

My wife and I downsized a couple years ago. Like many parents, we became empty nesters once our kids went away to college. After four years of school for one, and five for another, my son headed to New York with a girlfriend, and my daughter decided she wanted to live much closer to work than our suburban Maryland home could afford her.

My wife and I downsized a couple years ago. Like many parents, we became empty nesters once our kids went away to college. After four years of school for one, and five for another, my son headed to New York with a girlfriend, and my daughter decided she wanted to live much closer to work than our suburban Maryland home could afford her.

Have you received your new Social Security Statement yet? I got mine. Among other things, it provides personalized monthly retirement benefit estimates, which display how much one can expect to receive depending on the age one retires, between 62 and 70. Although I’m not quite eligible to receive benefits yet, based on the figures alone, I’ll be working a while longer.

I threw my charity golf tournament earlier this week; it was the 18th annual SMGA Charity Golf Classic. Each year, for the past eighteen golf seasons, the tournament has been the SMGA’s largest single-day fundraising event, bringing in on average more than $100,000 in revenue. While final figures aren’t yet available for this year’s edition, the tournament has raised nearly $2 million to support the mental and physical rehabilitation of post-9/11 veterans through the game of golf.

Are you like my wife? Do you fast-forward through TV commercials, previous week show recaps, and program intros? Me? I kind of like show intros—Cheers, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones. What’s not to like? And the truth is, I often need the previous week’s recap to remind me of what happened and to set the stage for the upcoming episode.

Every Good Boy Does Fine; FACE. Good Boys Do Fine Always; All Cows Eat Grass. No, The Washington Connection does not engage in steganography, which is the practice of concealing coded information within ordinary messages often written in plain sight. Rather, if you ever took music lessons as a kid, you might recognize these mnemonics as aids for remembering the notes associated with the Treble and Bass Clefs, respectively.

Earlier this month, as I sat in my corner spot on the couch, scrolling through On Demand and Netflix, looking for another series to binge watch, my wife said, “You know, we really need to start reading again.” As usual, she was right, and although I read a ton for work, I haven’t been reading as much as I should or even as much as I once did. I used to love reading biographies of historical figures, books about early America, and even the random John Grisham, Elmore Leonard, or David Baldacci novel.