What the hell is going on in the 23rd? Here we have a district which hasn’t been a Democratic district since the Civil War – when the Democratic Party was the Conservative choice – and we’ve got the whole country up in arms over the results? Trust me: any way the primary turns out, it’ll be a Republican in the 23rd. I’m a big fan of game-day statistics.
So, that’s the big disappointment for Dems. What’s the deal with Republicans? Why is it important to Fred Thompson – whose own presidential aspirations seemed to be such a bore to him – or Sarah Palin – whose gubernatorial responsibilities proved equally tiresome? Is the Baby Jesus scheduled to be born in Watertown? Is Sam Waterson making a movie in Massena?
And the media. The 23rd is a staunch member of the “fly-over” community of which the media is rarely aware. But suddenly, the opinions of residents in sleepy little Speculator are of monumental import. They must be so proud.
Or is the business of reforming health care – and in the case of Republicans, losing that battle – what has become so tiresome?
Jo Meleca-Voigt flagged this one on FaceBook. The D&C’s Jill Terreri reports on the Independence Party and its workings. The Independence Party rarely runs it’s own candidates for anything, but rather raises money for candidates whom it endorses as a second party. This is a very lucrative and sought-after endorsement.
Of course these days, candidates aren’t even putting their primary party affiliation on their placards or television commercials, so how’s anyone supposed to know about this secondary endorsement? Seems like the kind of thing that can lead to abuse….
Huffington Post editor Nico Pitney is live-blogging the newest spark of tension in Iran today. Oh, boy, here we go again. Wish the protesters and the people of Iran a safe, lasting and happy ending to their plight:
Iran Uprising Blogging: Latest Updates.
The governor of South Carolina poked some chick in Argentina. Oh yes. And they’re hacking people up with axes in Iran.
In case it seems important to anyone outside the media.
Again, just reacting to what I’m watching on TV this morning. Mitt Romney, the brain trust of the Republican Party, is on This Week. He repeats what so many other Republicans say when posed the question, “you’re losing young people; you’re losing the Hispanic vote; you’re losing well-educated voters. What do you do to change all that?”
His canned response, “well, what you don’t do is change your principles.”
Well, actually, you do. If you’re losing Hispanic votes, you probably want to cool it on the xenophobe tip, encouraging minutemen and advocating for a huge, ugly wall along the border. If you’re losing young voters, you probably want to ease up on attacking their gay friends with whom they grew up. If you’re losing educated voters, you may want to adopt a more rigorous standard for scientific principles and party platform than the current standard, “what does the bible say?”
Seriously. You change your principles.
I just can’t keep my eyes off the Iranian election. It’s fascinating, mostly because it’s hard to know where all the forces at work in this most fascinating of elections come from.
And so, with a profound lack of knowledge on Iranian affairs, I present my unordered list of questions I have no answers to.
Is the clerical power center encouraging the opposition parties in this election? Dissent is not often encouraged in Iran and no Iranian leader has lost his gig as fast as Ahmadinejad might be. Is this an expression of Iran’s leadership’s dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad?
OK, if this is a legitimate social movement – and even if it isn’t – can the leadership pull some funny business with the vote and pull the country from the brink? Would they want to do that? What would be the reaction of all these hopeful young people of Ahmadinejad wins? What would be the reaction if there is a suggestion that the election is rigged?
And I hate to ask it, but is there a possibility of violence at the end of this election? There’s a lot of emotion already in a country where elections are traditionally moments when the leadership legitimizes itself.
I guess we’ll know at least the answers to a few of these questions by lunch time, tomorrow. Richard Engle was on Rachel Maddow’s show this evening saying that the voting and counting is predicted to happen fast. We’ll see.
Poor li'l Emo. . .
Much has been made of John McCain’s new ad campaign, which describes Barack Obama as a “Celebrity” and compares him to Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. Barack himself chose to address this campaign, albeit tangentially, in MO today. Josh Marshall and a host of Liberal bloggers have picked up on this new gambit as a means to a white girls/black guys scare tactic ala the attacks on Harold Ford. And since the media is showing McCain’s ads more than McCain is, I guess there’s no harm in linking to it here:
So, perhaps I lack nuance. But really, even if what they intended to do was paint Obama as a nigga with a taste for white ass, is that what they’ve accomplished? I never thought about this ad like that even once. My impression was: “are we voting for President of the United States or of the Death Cab for Cutie Fan Club?”
Because this ad is the pissing-est, moaning-est, most emasculated pile of crap I’ve ever seen in a presidential election cycle. It’s not “withering” as someone recently described the ad, if by withering you mean damaging to Obama; it is as though they video taped John McCain’s balls shrinking into infinity. If the best defense you can come up with against a popular figure is, “oh, he’s sooooo popular! Why don’t you just marry him?” you should probably pack your Depends and call it a day.
And to follow this gelding display with a lame “tax and spend liberal” line, as though you didn’t notice the entire tenor of this campaign is better than that, just makes things worse.
Don’t get me wrong: there is a specific and significant strain of anti-elite, anti-celebrity sentiment that, when properly tapped into, can be the death-knell of any successful campaign. There is a way to cut into a candidate by making him look like the “popular” kid everybody hated in school. Or the rich kid. John Kerry and para-sailing come to mind.
But this ain’t it. This is just pathetic.
Great news for Jon Powers (whom I was supposed to meet with last night, which didn’t happen for personal reasons). The embattled NRCC Chairman and scandal-monger Tom Reynolds has announced he will be retiring. That leaves the seat wide open, no incumbency issues for Jon Powers to deal with, in a political environment which has thus far swung in the direction of Democrats.
The Daily Politics – NY Daily News
But the recent NRCC fraud scandal – some of which took place on his watch – has made his re-election effort that much more difficult in an already tough year (increasingly Democratic state, presidential election etc).
Were he to run, this would be the second election-year scandal in a row for Reynolds. The first, of course, was the Mark Foley page debacle.
