Calendar Grills: NJ vs CQ
Ooooh! Oooh! Wonk-fight! The editors of National Journal are all suspicious about CQ's entry into the ultra-competitive and high stakes game of political calendars. In a note to staff, a NJ editor looks at the distressing similarities between their own "Calendar of American Politics" and "CQ Weekly PURE 2005 Calendar," including some unlikely but identical errors. Yow. But, notes our nameless carper, CQ did beat them on one thing:
Of course, our calendar doesn’t have a photo of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist posing with Sesame Street’s Elmo—CQ’s featured picture for July 2005. Perhaps next year we’ll succeed in our efforts to snag Big Bird.
Full memo after the jump.
NJ Colleagues:
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess we should feel very flattered.
CQ Weekly has just mailed subscribers something called the “CQ Weekly PURE 2005 Calendar.” Sharp-eyed readers may notice more than a few similarities between the maiden CQ PURE calendar, which features the slogan “Pure Journalism” atop each page, and our own Calendar of American Politics, which Charlie Mahtesian and the folks at the Almanac of American Politics created more than a year ago. (The 2005 edition of our Almanac calendar came out in December—before the start of the new year.)
Like the Almanac calendar, the CQ calendar notes the birthdays of members of Congress under each calendar date. Also like the Almanac calendar, the CQ calendar highlights a half-dozen or so relatively obscure political events around the country that Almanac researchers spent weeks tracking down from multiple sources. The events include the April 20 Shad Planking in Wakefield, Va., the July 20 Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake in Crisfield, Md. and the August 6 Possum Festival in Wausau, Fla. We’re not talking Election Day here.
Most interestingly, perhaps, the CQ calendar also includes a couple of things that slipped past us in the production of the Almanac calendar.
--The Almanac calendar, in every case but one, puts the names of senators celebrating birthdays in alphabetical order. The exception: the May 3 listing, where Ron Wyden’s name precedes David Vitter’s. The CQ calendar also puts the names of senators celebrating birthdays in alphabetical order. But, oddly enough, in its May 3 listing Wyden’s name also precedes Vitter’s.
--The Almanac calendar’s Feb. 22 listing says that the Chicago mayoral primary will be held on that date, when in fact it’s the Chicago municipal elections that will be held. Turns out the CQ PURE calendar made the exact same boo-boo.
Of course, our calendar doesn’t have a photo of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist posing with Sesame Street’s Elmo—CQ’s featured picture for July 2005. Perhaps next year we’ll succeed in our efforts to snag Big Bird.