ArchPundit
Madigan has Already Won
Blagojevich just doesn’t get it.
Via Rich
Given the margin of error his Excellent rating could be from 0.5% to 9.5%. Woohoooooooooo…..
Looking up at Nixonian numbers. How’s it feel Guv?
All Madigan has to do is sit, avoid headlines, and he, or his daughter, will be around far longer than the guy there now. The thing Jones needs to seriously think about is whether he wants anyone in his caucus tied to this guy. While I think that relationship is far more tenuous than those that claim it’s the defining issue in Illinois, Jones gets nothing out of this relationship besides headaches.
George Bush, probably the President who has sustained low poll numbers longer than anyone else is twice as popular as a Democratic Governor in a blue state. And we haven’t even had any good indictments lately.
Let Obama Be Obama
The Obama campaign is humming along, but not nearly the kind of operation one should expect from him and an incredibly talented group of advisors. Mike Lux offers a good take on it from someone outside of the Illinois
The great mystery of the Obama campaign so far is when they have such a unique and compelling candidate with such a fresh voice, why are they running such a conventional wisdom campaign? From their issue positions to their debate strategy to their day to day tactical positioning, they have run a campaign that keeps neatly within the lines of the campaign lane they’ve picked out to drive in. Every time he does a policy speech it fits within the outlines of Democracy policy establishment conventional wisdom. Every ad they do feels just like all of the usual political ads you see on TV. The strangest thing to me is that the kind of campaign they are running feels exactly like the others I’ve seen before.It’s the politics that is broken, upper middle income-oriented, tired of partisan bickering campaign that Gary Hart, Bruce Babbitt, Paul Tsongas and Bill Bradley all chose to run.
And that spells out my biggest disappointment. I backed or voted for all those guys and thought Obama had the talent to not run that kind of boring campaign.
Josh Marshall interviews Markos on Obama’s campaign and similar sentiments are expressed
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/_DgjezbTWFI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
The campaign’s outreach online has been both incredible on the organizing level, and absolutely horrible in setting the agenda. IN terms of allowing supporters to go out and build up their own organizing efforts–doing what Dean thought he was doing and Karl Rove actually did do–the campaign has done things I don’t think much of the blogs understand fully. The discussion is below the radar of most of them because it isn’t the large bloggers pushing the conversation which I think is an innovation that is remarkable.
However, when blogs set the agenda and there isn’t the discussion being had there, it’s a problem. Josh Orton mentioned in the video left the campaign and largely blogger outreach is non-existent since then. Josh was very helpful and understood how to reach out to blogs and keep them up on what was going on. The story appears to be that Josh wanted to push online outreach more in that way while Rospars wants to concentrate on the organizing. The problem to me seems to be they aren’t mutually exclusive and keeping someone in the position Josh was filling was essential to a second part of what should be a balanced net operation that both innovated over the blogcentric strategy, but paid attention to the agenda setting on blogs
And tied to this is just the recent hire of a rapid response person which is exactly what such a blog outreach person effectively does. It’s the same kind of problem.
Some of the criticisms of Obama are a bit sillier than others. For example, the overstated expectations about him in debate weren’t born out by the 2004 race. He’s capable, but the short form answers don’t lend themselves to his strengths. In other cases, some claim he can simply change the debate by opening his mouth–that’s generally not as true as most think–remember he was talking about lead in toys long before the current problems and crickets were heard.
The argument over McClurkin and the Gospel Tour is a distraction–probably from the Clinton camp. Any Democratic candidate who has significant black minister support has people who say the same things. Many white preachers are the same. In fact, some of Clinton’s supporters believe similar things. Building bridges between communities takes dealing with differing view points, and certainly Obama doesn’t agree with McClurkin on the issue and attends a church that is welcoming to gays and lesbians himself.
The worst thing is the campaign has effectively neutered Obama with caution and
boriinnnggggg. There are several issues he should lead on–and ones that would take back the momentum with progressive base voters. He’s done well on voter suppression. He hasn’t done well on FISA where it took days to get a statement together that should have been easy to make for a Con Law Instructor. He’s still not entirely clear on telecom amnesty which should be a non-starter for any Democrat. He has taken agonizing time figuring out how he’d vote on various war related bills.
In 2004, that wasn’t Obama. He wasn’t some wild eyed progressive quote machine, but he took strong stands and did it forthrightly and quickly. Now, every pronouncement is awaiting a detailed policy response vetted to be bland and uninteresting.
Part of it appears to be an effort to discipline the message and another part is simply the painstaking inability to move quickly of a larger campaign operation. But message discipline shouldn’t hold hostage the basic campaign strategy which is to be the different kind of politics–that is one that should be off the cuff and honest–not the cautious, overly word smythed crap that is like the Clinton campaign.
When he has done best contrasting himself on issues, it has been on issues such as being willing to talk to anyone while Hillary tried to paint him as naive. It so happens that 60% of the Democratic Party agree with Barack yet the campaign seems to think that was a problem. It wasn’t a problem, it was an opportunity, and the type they haven’t taken enough advantage.
Bogging the campaign down in the traditional model of caution loses the appeal of Barack Obama. People like him because he talks to them plainly and understandably. His best commercial ever was still the introductory commercial in 2004 where he is standing leaning against a desk and says, “Hello, my name is Barack Obama…”
The effectiveness was he was a guy who was obviously smart and easy to understand. Pushing the language of Washington in carefully worded statements is exactly the playing field he should not be on.
Vapidness
Apparently watching a debate will tell you all about intelligent design and make it scientific.
Unfortunately, there is no falsifiable hypothesis. The arguments boils down to information must be intelligently designed without any way to refute the claim. Hence, it’s not a scientific argument–it’s a claim of faith.
The first clue might be to search the actual scientific literature, but, you know, videos are the same thing.
Brown People! Call the Police!
Tancredo calls Border Patrol on Dick Durbin.
Everyone was legal.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
The Priorities of the Mark Kirk
While proclaiming his desire to forge bipartisan compromises on the war, he votes to spend time in Congress on voting to censure Pete Stark because Pete Stark wasn’t nice to the President.
Building bridges and doing the people’s business.
Maybe he can complain about some newspaper ads too.
Pera on Hurckes and Ganschow
Democratic Congressional candidate Mark Pera on Tuesday called upon Congressman Dan Lipinski to direct his staff to return to donors or contribute to charity the payments they received from a state political campaign fund controlled by Lipinski’s father — former Congressman and federal lobbyist William Lipinski.
According to the Daily Southtown (10/21 & 10/14) and the Chicago Sun-Times (10/07), Congressman Dan Lipinski’s chief of staff and director of communications collected $13,500 in consulting fees from the “All-American Eagles” fund — a state political campaign fund — during 2006 and 2007.
Making matters worse is the fact that William Lipinski misrepresented the fund as one that benefits charitable causes in a solicitation letter that was sent out in August (see attached).
Pera said the newspaper reports raise some troubling questions.
“Why are members of Congressman Dan Lipinski’s staff receiving income from his father — a lobbyist at both the state and federal levels? If Congressman Lipinski wasn’t aware of this relationship, he should have been. If he was, then why didn’t he move to end it?” Pera said.
“If this isn’t a violation of House ethics rules, it should be.”
In the interest of full disclosure, Congressman Dan Lipinski, the two staffers in question — Chief of Staff Jerry Hurckes and Director of Communications Christopher Ganschow — and William Lipinski should report exactly what kind of work they do for William Lipinski to merit these payments, Pera said.
It’s not uncommon for someone to be on the federal payroll and the campaign payroll–there are lots of examples around including Robert Gibbs who worked for both the Obama campaign and the Obama Senate office. While I’m not a huge fan of doing it, there is no real conflict of interest in such arrangements and the individual has to be careful to follow the law. Fair enough.
However, doing political work for a lobbyist’s PAC at the same time working for a Congressman is a very, very different thing. On top of that, there are all sorts of reimbursements to Hurckes for various things through the 23rd Ward Committee and All-American Eagles including my favorite priceless reimbursement from 1999:
Reimburse Clowns Fee Xmas Party
The Hockey World Is Regaining the Balance
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/obp8G2JFgkM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Today’s Tosser: Just Cannot Help Herself
Frankly, his conclusions are logical for his system of belief about beginnings, which rejects the notion that an Intelligent Designer had anything to do with the way things are on Planet Earth.
Wrong, and I pointed this out:
Nothing Watson said on intelligence is demonstrated by the scientific literature. And, in fact, his statements are refuted by the literature just as Charles Murray’s claims are.
And history in the United States demonstrates the problem. His assumption of distinct populations that do not interbreed is simply false. African-Americans in the United States frequently, if not usually, have white ancestors. Even in the case of isolated tribes in Africa, there is significant genetic evidence that the populations of humans interbreed frequently and such genetic isolation does not exist in reality.
Because Eaton has a caricature of science, she doesn’t understand apparently anything in the post that directly refutes her claim above. Watson isn’t making a scientific conclusion, he’s making an idiotic bigoted statement refuted by science.
There are not distinct human populations that are not interbred and so at the most basic assumption of Watson’s claim is wrong and nothing logically can follow. Insisting it does does as much abuse to the scientific process as Watson does in his silly claims.
Furthermore, the entire conception of intelligence is flawed as Watson tries to claim. Of course, the primary person that kind of garbage isn’t Watson, it’s conservative hack Charles Murray.
Finally, evolution isn’t a theory of beginnings–it is a theory about how life on earth changes over time. More specifically how alleles vary from generation to generation. Having a basic grasp of what one is talking about is, in most company, considered good form.
Because the intricacies of a micro-organism and the incomprehensible details of something as complex as the human eye or the ear, the brain, the heart, the lungs, not to mention the unfathomable depths of the sea, the infinite universe around us all clearly point to an Intelligent Designer rather than a Cosmic Coincidence, I am a “moron” and a “sh(r)ill beast”?
No, you are moron because you are confusing entire fields of science and multiple theories with one theory that discusses how life has changed over time on Earth.
Evolution doesn’t address God. It addresses biological life that is observable. Unless one believes the evidence for evolution was planted to test one’s faith or perhaps to discover why 42 is so important, it’s the most parsimonious and only non-falsified theory to explain life on Earth as it exists now.
Enemies of Freedom
I swear this belongs on the Colbert Report, but no, it is real.
The winners? Thom Mannard and…
State Senator Dan Kotowksi.
I hope they give him a plaque. He can put it up in his office and be proud.
Tom Roeser is upset too. It appears someone didn’t know who he was and Dan Kotowski is making a very serious mistake by not going on WLS.
Let’s be clear here. WLS is a station of rightwing fruitcakes who think they are really, really important and everyone should listen to them because they are very important and very serious.
Bullshit. WLS is the Fox News of Chicago radio and Democrats should tell them to shove off. If everyone on your station are wingnuts and your listeners are wingnuts why should a Democrat go on? To make the small group of very serious people feel good about themselves.
Sorry, that time is over.
Tom Roeser’s show has a small audience of the village elders idiots who claim they are very serious and so they expect everyone to pay attention. He has no real influence other than with other wingnuts and they don’t vote for Democrats.
There is no reason to bother. Tom Roeser is nothing more than a bloviating old fool who is self-important. His best days were when Henry Hyde was still having youthful indiscretions. Whining that someone is too cowardly to come on your show just demonstrates my point.