Friday Talking Points returns, after a one-week absence!

[I was on vacation last week, which is why I had no time for FTP, but I did have something ready for you anyway -- an interview with Minnesota Democratic(-Farmer-Labor) Senate candidate Al Franken. Sorry for the blatant plug, but unfortunately, due to time differences, I think it appeared a wee bit too early for my normal crowd to even notice it last week. Anyway, that's why there was an interruption in FTP service, for the record. By an interesting quirk of fate, I was only about two blocks away from where Hillary Clinton gave her concession speech last Saturday, but I didn't attend as I was instead in a museum and missed it. Well, OK, it was the International Spy Museum, and I was checking out the James Bond car, but still....]

While this week's awards and talking points section largely focuses on what Congress has been up to rather than the presidential campaign, I did want to say it's very heartening to see Barack Obama set up a website to counter the smears that are being circulated about him. These slime-jobs are only going to get worse as the summer progresses, so it's a good thing to see Obama moving to cut them off at their knees. Sure, the people who get these forwarded email attacks probably won't see his site, but the media will have a one-stop shop to refute such attacks, instead of just blindly repeating them on the air (as some of them have been doing).

This is, after all, Swift Boat season. And John Kerry showed us all what happens when you ignore this sort of thing for too long.

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The cloud of growing doom hanging over Republicans as they skulk the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. is becoming more and more visible as the 2008 elections stumble down the campaign trail. It may break in a cloudburst of Democratic landslides this November, which Republicans are beginning to fully realize. Because the bad news for the Republicans is coming so fast and furious, I (once again) pay homage to the late great Herb Caen, and offer them up to you in a return of the Three-Dot Thursday format. Without further ado...

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Last Sunday on the political talk shows, I noticed an interesting thing. An electoral math scenario for the outcome of the election in the Electoral College is being floated by some pundits: what happens if we get a 269-269 tie? I've noticed it more from right-wing commentators than left, but I think its true appeal is to the political wonk of either stripe -- a "what if" game to make this already exciting election even more so.

Here is Bill Kristol's version of the tie scenario, from last week's Fox News Sunday show:

"Here's an amazing fact. If you take the 2004 results, give McCain New Hampshire, which Kerry won, which I think is reasonable, give Obama New Mexico, Colorado and Iowa, which Bush won, in all of which now Obama is ahead, you end up -- leave everything else the same, which is quite possible, you end up with 269-269 result. That would be fun."

So what would happen if the Electoral College did tie? Well, it's a little complicated. Some of us might remember from our seventh grade civics classes that the election then goes to the House of Representatives. And you might think that because Democrats have an advantage right now in the House (and are expected to pick up seats this year) that this would automatically mean "President Obama." But you'd be wrong.

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President Bush is desperately trying to tie the hands of the next president by negotiating a Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq's government before the end of his term. Unfortunately for Bush, it's looking less and less likely that such an agreement will happen on the timetable he has set. Fortunately, this means that the next occupant of the Oval Office will be able to negotiate his own agreement, rather than being stuck with Bush's.

This story made news a while back, when Bush announced that, with his kingly war powers, he was going to negotiate this agreement on his own, without giving the Senate a chance to weigh in on it at all. Even though this assertation is about as dubious as they come, Bush has acted as though this is a settled question. Senate Democrats beg to differ. But this is a fight that will happen after an agreement is reached with the Iraqis, so it will be fought down the road a ways (if at all).

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Senator Bill Nelson has just introduced a wide-ranging package of election reform in Congress. This legislative package fixes some small technical election problems (absentee voting restrictions) as well as some larger problems (primary calendar reform). But the biggest issue in the bunch is a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College, and replace it with direct election of the president. Nelson is a Democratic senator from Florida, which makes sense when you remember the troubles they had down there in the 2000 election.

People have been calling for election reforms pretty much since we started having elections in this country. Many reforms have been adopted, and many more have failed. The ones adopted sometimes turn out to have unintended consequences and need further reform. And some of the ones not adopted make a whole lot more sense than how we currently vote, but they were never politically viable.

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Al Franken is running for the United States Senate from the great state of Minnesota, in case you haven't heard already. And before you ask, no, he's not kidding around. He is running to reclaim the seat of the beloved Paul Wellstone, which was taken (after Wellstone's tragic death in a plane crash) by Republican Norm Coleman.

Minnesota's progressive -- or, more properly, "populist" -- roots are evident in the name of the we're-not-the-Republicans party there: the "Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party" (known to Minnesotans as the DFL). And Franken is about to secure his party's nomination tomorrow, at the state party's convention.

I was able to squeeze in an interview with Franken this week, even though he is busy preparing for today's convention events. I must admit that I forgot to ask him how he converted Arianna Huffington over to progressive politics, but that will just have to wait until I catch up with him again out on the campaign trail.

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Today begins the second half of the campaign. Sure, Barack Obama is over the top of the "magic number" and is now the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, and sure, Hillary Clinton won't formally endorse Obama until Saturday, but by the calendar yesterday was the halfway point between the Iowa caucuses and the November election. With just over 150 days to go, I thought I'd take a quick look back at the campaign so far.

[OK, I admit, this is kind of "phoning it in" for a column, but I will be on an airplane today, so it's unavoidable. But check back tomorrow, as it will more than make up for today, I promise.]

The most striking thing about the 2008 campaign so far has been the mainstream media pundits being so wrong, so many times. Over and over again, all the talking heads and denizens of the Sunday political talk shows have largely agreed on things which were almost immediately proven false by events on the ground. Here (in very rough chronological order) are just a few of the nuggets of "conventional wisdom" served up as gospel truth by the chattering classes -- which all turned out to be laughable (full disclosure: I uttered a few of these myself, I admit) Feel free to add your own, if I've missed anything obvious.

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Of all the Pete Seeger songs I heard growing up, "Which Side Are You On?" always struck me as more of a dirge than a Labor anthem. When you listen to it, it's almost threatening in tone, and very dark throughout.

There's a reason for this. It was a threat. It's a song which can easily be sung through clenched teeth, to put it bluntly. As Benjamin Franklin quipped, just before he signed the Declaration of Independence: "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." He was not, it should be pointed out, speaking figuratively. Our Founding Fathers knew they were risking the hangman's rope by what they were doing to bring self-rule and democracy to America.

In the Labor movement, the same stark choice existed: you're either with us, or you're against us. This was a hard-fought lesson. Infiltration was constant, and telling friend from foe was a life-or-death choice at times.

"Which Side Are You On?" is a folk song. It was written by Florence Reece in 1931, in Harlan County, Kentucky. Her husband was forced from his home by the henchmen of J.H. Blair, a local mineowner. After "deputies" illegally invaded and searched her house (her husband was warned in advance, and escaped), Florence immediately wrote the lyrics to this song, on a calendar ripped from the wall of their home. So you can see, even though the music and tone of the song is rather confrontational and dirge-like, there's a valid reason for this. The woman who wrote it had just seen her husband driven from their home by corporate thugs.

Which explains the raw emotion of the song. You're either with us or against us. It's a stark choice, with no room for nuance whatsoever. Pete Seeger recognized this, and made the song famous, far beyond the local Labor dispute which caused it to be written.

This song has been running through my head for a week now.

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There's a lonely stretch of grassland in Montana, with gently rolling hills next to a small river, where 132 years ago this June, a battle was fought. More on this in a moment.

One of the victors of this battle was a Native American named Crazy Horse. In the Black Hills of South Dakota, not far from Mount Rushmore, another mountain is being carved in his likeness, in the largest sculpture mankind has ever attempted. When finished, it will dwarf Mount Rushmore in size.

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Tomorrow, the Democratic primary race will finally be over. Or, I should say, the primaries themselves will be over. At long last, everyone will have voted, unless (Democratic) life is discovered on Mars in the next few days.

Ahem.

The possibility of Martian primaries aside, though, it looks like Wednesday morning is going to be decisive for Barack Obama, no matter who wins the remaining two primaries the night before in Montana and South Dakota. And even though it has seemed like and endless campaign so far (mostly because it has been), we will wake up Wednesday only halfway through the election. Counting days, this Wednesday is the exact midpoint between the frozen vote in Iowa and the November election. That's a stunning thought. We're only half done.

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