[ Posted Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 – 10:10 UTC ]
But it still adds up to not just slinging a little mud, but rather truckloads and truckloads of mud oozing into America's living rooms through ubiquitous television ads all campaign season long. You're going to have to be pretty quick on the remote control, or else wear hip-waders while watching television during campaign season, because it is going to get mighty deep mighty fast.
Think about it. On the one hand, you've got a candidate Republicans are convinced has a "666" mark somewhere on her body (normally that would be considered "hyperbole," but not in this case -- I bet you could find plenty of folks willing to swear on camera that Hillary's the anti-Christ). Then on the other hand, you've got a guy who is so easy to throw mud at, it's not even funny.
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[ Posted Monday, October 15th, 2007 – 14:38 UTC ]
Conventional wisdom (or at least the self-proclaimed sages of political conventional wisdom, the Washington punditry) has been telling us that the 2008 presidential election is going to be The Most Important Election In Modern Times (if not actually In History), and that (of course) the electorate is More Polarized Than Ever -- which explains not only how incredibly early the contest started, but also the fierce battles for the primaries now being waged.
But what if this conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong? What if the 2008 election is a real snooze-fest, and voters are barely motivated to go to the polls?
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[ Posted Friday, October 12th, 2007 – 17:32 UTC ]
I must say, Charles Rangel impressed me last weekend, on CBS' Face The Nation, as he is the first Democrat I've heard yet using the "block grant" argument against the Republican spin on SCHIP. Modesty forbids me to take any credit, but if he is indeed reading these columns I'd like to say, "Well done, Representative Rangel!"
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 – 03:54 UTC ]
Sovereignty (n) -- government free from external control
Is Iraq a truly sovereign state, or is the Maliki government a puppet of America? We may know the answer to this crucial question in a very short time. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki could show independence from American interests in many ways, some of them decidedly not to President Bush's liking.
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[ Posted Monday, October 8th, 2007 – 15:32 UTC ]
A few months ago, the chattering classes were all a-tizzy over the prospect of a Michael Bloomberg third-party bid for the White House. Nothing much came of it, but we all had fun pontificating about the possibility (yours truly included -- 7/11/07). Since it was such an enjoyable exercise, I'd like to be the first to roll out another third-party scenario to provide fodder for the punditocracy (in case this turns out to be a slow news week).
After taking several recent announcements into consideration, I have gazed into my crystal ball and foreseen Ron Paul as the nominee of the Libertarian Party for 2008. Paul will be supported by droves of "family values" voters and will actually gain a respectable percentage of the popular vote. The Democratic nominee then waltzes into the White House, spikes the ball, and does an end-zone dance in the Oval Office.
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[ Posted Saturday, October 6th, 2007 – 14:23 UTC ]
[ Posted Friday, October 5th, 2007 – 17:33 UTC ]
Most of this week's talking points deal with the children's health bill which President Bush vetoed last week. This is good offense when it comes to politics (we're in football season now, so it's time to put away the baseball metaphors for the year and dust off the football metaphors). There are big Big BIG budget battles brewing in the next few weeks, and (for once) Democrats did the right thing tactically and strategically -- lead with your best shot. The SCHIP bill polls at over 70% of the public in favor, Bush has staked out an almost irrational position on it, and House Democrats are within 10-15 votes of being able to overturn Bush's veto in the House. While Democrats already have a 67-vote veto-stomping majority in the Senate, the House will vote to overturn first.
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[ Posted Thursday, October 4th, 2007 – 16:39 UTC ]
The Republicans today unveiled their logo for their 2008 convention, to be held in Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota. Here is what they chose:
As I said, words just fail me. So I leave it up to you to comment on what exactly that elephant is doing.
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 – 02:57 UTC ]
The San Jose Mercury News ran a front-page article yesterday which was kind of interesting, as it posed the question: "Should illegal immigrants count in the census for determining how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives?"
While at first glance, this seems like an easy question to answer, it really isn't. Historically, up until now, they have counted -- ever since the Fourteenth Amendment was passed.
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[ Posted Friday, September 28th, 2007 – 17:12 UTC ]
But this week, other than condemning Rush Limbaugh, the most important thing for Democrats to talk about is health care, so all the talking points this week will be on the subject of the SCHIP legislation, which will soon be on President Bush's desk, and which he has promised to veto.
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