Crist Switch Hits

Not sure this is a huge story or even a big deal.

(CNN) – Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who served his state as a Republican then sought office as an independent, tweeted Friday night that he switched his party affiliation to Democrat.

He pretty much ended his GOP credentials the moment he gave President Obama a slight hug in 2009.

This is how the completely idiotic right wing saw it.

So now he's a Democrat.  The largest political affiliation in the country is Democratic.  So he's merely just getting in line.

Exactly!

Something I've been saying for a while now that Josh Marshall relates to the world.  Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections.  How's that for a mandate?

Total Shame, Dem Delegate Wanted to Kill Romney

Little housekeeping on an item I wanted to write about last weekend but didn't have time.

A female Democratic delegate at the convention told a reporter that if she found Mitt Romney she would like to kill him.  Doesn't get much worse than that.

In no uncertain terms is any such language acceptable.  There's probably no one that likes to joke around more than me and even if that was the case in this instance, it's still not acceptable.  Though there is no evidence to suggest the lady was joking.  She appears very serious.  Totally unacceptable. 

She should have been removed as a delegate and not allowed to be seated.  I don't know how she was handled by the DNC, but anything short of removing her, condemning her speech and banning her for life from ever being a delegate again is just as unacceptable. 

Live Blogging Speeches

Just finished up my night of speeches. Some quick thoughts.

Gov Jennifer Granholm was absolutely awesome. I'll probably watch her again tomorrow.

John Kerry probably gave the best speech of the night. Tremendous job. Would have been nice to have seen this sort of performance from him in 2004.

Joe Biden was everything we have grown to expect from him but a bit more somber.

The president did not disappoint. Finished very strong.  Made a great appeal to voters for four more years.

Overall a great night for speeches. Very good convention. I'm on my iPad so this is it for me tonight.

Superb

All I can say is excellent speech by the First Lady.

Pelosi and Dems Still Don't Get It

"Pelosi argued that it will be extremely difficult for conservative states to opt out once their residents see how other states are benefitting [sic] from the Medicaid expansion. “Once this bill is rolling and people experience benefits of it, it’s very hard for a state to say [no],” she said. States will also receive full federal funding for the first three years of the expansion before they have to take up more the expense, which Pelosi described as a major incentive to get them to participate."

Earlier in the article Pelosi is quoted as saying, " “I don’t think governors will turn that down. People have the need, the urgency is there." 

She can't be serious.

Where has she been the last 3 years?  Of course Republican governors will try their hardest to stall ACA expansion.  She has had a front row seat watching Republicans do nothing but stall this president.  Why would she expect there to be change now?

Maybe she's trying to not be cynical.  Maybe she's trying to put a good spin on a day when a huge victory has been given to the American people.  But underestimating their crazy is what got us in this problem in the first place.  There's no reason to believe Republicans won't continue to do everything they can to tarnish the President of the United States.  I look for Republican governors to threaten secession, again, rather than give their citizens any access to "Obamacare."  I look for Republicans everywhere to continue their charade of small government conservatism while painting anyone that doesn't vote for them as socialist tyrants.  It's the only game plan they have.  Heck it won them back the House.  So yeah they'll keep doing it. 

Dems Still Going Strong With PIPA

I tolerated the continuation of Gitmo.  I tolerated health care reform without the public option.  I tolerated escalating Afghanistan, more infiltration into Pakistan and eventually a full-scale bombing of Libya.  I tolerated the extension of the Bush tax cuts.  I tolerated the NDAA.  But Dem support for PIPA and it's evil twin SOPA are more than I can handle.  There comes a breaking point.  And this is mine.  It's a deal breaker for me.

Blago Gets 14 Years

So long Milorod.  Maybe you and George Ryan can share a cell.

Obama Camp Hauls in $70.1 Million

Third quarter fundraising for President Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party saw a monstrous $70.1 million haul.  $42.8 million was for his own campaign.  In all, for the 3rd quarter, over 600,000 individuals donated to his campaign with an average of $56/donation.  That's double what he did in 2008 when he broke all fund raising records-- and it's not even an election year yet! Currently the Obama Campaign is quickly approaching the million donor mark with over 982,000  individual donors.  These stats are simply amazing to be honest.

But I thought Obama was losing popularity?  Sure just like every president he's taken a hit to his support.  But he still has a very strong base and still has the ability to attract regular Americans to support his reelection.  In fact, his entire operation is built around average Americans donating small sums.  I'll take that over a candidate controlled by large donors any day.

To put this into context, of just how extraordinary these stats are consider Michelle Bachman's mistaken brag last week.  She claimed her campaign was so popular and that she was so mainstream that she had over 250,000 donors.  A spokesman for her campaign quickly released a statement clarifying the campaign did not have near that many donors and the candidate simply meant over her political career.  That number is still suspect but we'll go with it.  Bachmann has been running for office since 1999.  In 10 years of campaigns she might have somewhere around 250,000 donors.  In one quarter of one off-election year Barack Obama had over 606,000 individual donors. That's how huge Obama's numbers are.

Dems Finally Decide to Relate Tea Baggers With GOP

Sen. Chuck Schumer pens a brilliant idea: link tea baggers and their fringe ideas to Republicans and call it Tea Party Economics.

Tea Party Economics

Of course The Fold Blog has been doing this for almost two years.  The DNC could have saved itself a ton of heartache and alka seltzer had it listened us.  A long, long time ago, like 2009-ish, you know when it was semi-rationale to believe austerity was a fool's errand, we were the lone beacon in the night telling the world that there was never any reason to ever differentiate tea baggers from Republicans.

Jobs Bill to Get GOP Filibuster

If a vote on the president's jobs bill is held this evening in the Senate it won't come anywhere near the necessary 60 votes to overcome a Republican-led filibuster.  And it might not come anywhere near a simple majority either.  Three or four supposedly labeled "moderate" Democrats are balking at the vote.  A piece of legislation that is as popular as any bill in Congress can get at the moment, unemployment at drastically scary levels and an economy growing at barely 1% and it's still impossible to do what's right.

It would be nice to garner enough votes to show the public that the bill would pass if the GOP would allow an up-or-down vote, like they demanded so many times when they were in power. Chances are, though, the only thing this vote will show the public is that Democrats don't need an opposition party to block their agenda.

*Update:

Repubs successfully filibuster Obama's jobs bill, 50-48.  Two Dems sided with the GOP, Ben Nelson and Jon Tester.  Obama administration plans to break the bill into smaller parts and try, try again.

Game Changer

Democrat Jerry Costello of the IL-12 has decided not to run for reelection.  He's my home rep.  This is a total game changer.  This was a very safe Democratic seat.

Probably the biggest Republican name I'm seeing thrown around to run in what will be a new district and an empty seat is Jason Plummer.  He was the GOP's 2010 Lt. Gov. nominee in Illinois.

Everybody Knows, except the people calling the shots

I've long read Atrios, who I believe goes by Duncan Black when he's not on the internets, for his quick summation of very important items. No one can quite take a huge, boring paragraph of needlessness and shrink it down to one sentence better than him. He's superb at what he does. He also probably is clueless when it comes to politics.

Now I don't mean writing about politics. I mean working in politics. Many of you might not realize it but there is a huge difference between writing about politics and working in politics. I've done both. And it's much easier to write about politics, trust me. Again, don't get me wrong, Atrios does a heck of a job writing about politics. Maybe the best in the biz. But he's never actually worked in politics and never been in a position where he has to choose between listening to a union boss, the party chairman, a central committee person, a single mom on welfare or your chief of staff. When you get in a position like that, and you can only choose one, you end up making a lot of people mad. Alas, that's how it goes. That is the nature of modern American politics. Surely Atrios knows all that and I don't mean to hippy-punch him too much. I just felt the need to note that those who usually make a living off of being critical have never had to do the job they so criticize.

With all that said, Atrios pens one of the greatest analyses of our day and he does it with one sentence: "If you make the case that Republican issues are important, you're making the case for...Republicans."

Alright, so maybe not ever working in politics has made him a much better adviser than anyone else currently working at the White House.  Somebody please listen to this guy...

Weiner's Wiener

Anthony Weiner can't say for certain if the wiener posted on his Twitter page was his actual wiener or not.

Here's the pic in case anyone hasn't seen it yet.

First off, not sure if posting this results in some kind of softcore porn. Oh well. The Google bots will just have to go crazy I suppose.

What I can say is I'm not really certain if that's not a picture of my wiener even.  I do have grey boxer briefs and it looks like a ribbed A-shirt (wife beater) which I've been known to wear too.  Nah nothing's hanging out of the bottom of the boxer briefs so I'm certain it's not mine.

Dems Pickup House Seat

The actual pic Lee sent in response to the ad

Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY) was forced to resign after he was caught trying to arrange some sort of sexual encounter with a lady who had posted an ad on Craigslist.  I guess you could say he screwed himself out of a house seat.  Because of his resignation, there was a special election held yesterday to fill his seat.  The area has long been held by a Republican, for over 40 years actually.  So a mere non-sex scandal-- technically the lady wasn't posting an ad for sex-- wouldn't be near enough to consider the open seat a pick up for Democrats.

After all, this seat had remained in Republican hands through the 2006 and 2008 cycles that saw huge Dem pickups elsewhere in the country.  So there had to be something else affecting the district.  The only other change maker was a very aggressive plan by Democrat Kathy Hochul who was announced the winner last night against Republican Jane Corwin.

Her plan consisted of making Republican efforts to dismantle Medicare her centerpiece.  Throughout the campaign Hochul mentioned every time she could that Corwin supported Paul Ryan's budget plan which would turn Medicare into a voucher system.

As we all know, Medicare is not a voucher system and turning it into one renders it obsolete.  Medicare is a single payer health insurance system that allows senior citizens access to government-run health insurance at comparable rates to the private market.  The problem is, senior citizens can't purchase and/or afford private plans because they are considered high risk.  The result leaves millions of seniors without insurance.  Enter the need for Medicare and why it's a popular government program.  It's popularity is huge with seniors who benefit greatly from it and it just so happens seniors love to vote almost as much as they love their government-run health care.  And voters chose the lady who supported keeping Medicare intact.

It's impossible to state that this is a sign of things to come.  Anyone who says that is foolish I think.  But it is a definite model for how Democrats should run their campaigns in 2012.  The GOP lined up and voted for Paul Ryan's budget plan that dismantles Medicare.  It is officially their alternative plan for this country.  There's no reason voters shouldn't be made aware of it and no reason why Democrats can't use it to unite against.  Medicare or Republicare?  You decide.


Related articles

• Medicare key to shocking Dem win in NY House race (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Pew Research Center Political Typology Test

I can't seem to find any embed codes on this political typology test so I'll just post a screen shot of my results.

To enlarge it just click on the image.  It says I scored as a New Coalition Democrat.

I've never heard the term actually.  If it means I'm a new kind of Democrat then I'm not so sure of that.  If it means I'm a moderate Dem then sure I agree with that.

What's interesting about the results is it lets you compare your group to others on certain issues.  The whole thing takes about a minute and worth checking out, just to see if you fall where you think you might.  I think where I differ and what surprises me most is my relationship to the New Coalition Democrats and social issues.

34% favor allowing gays to marry
71% favor gun control
56% favor keeping marijuana illegal

I don't fit into those at all.  I support allowing gays to marry.  I support 2nd Amendment right to own guns and believe it's more important than controlling guns.  I also support legalizing marijuana.  I guess I'm surprised that "New Democrats" would be opposed to all that, especially gay marriage and pot.

It's So Easy Democrats Can't Figure it Out

Think Progress has a nifty timeline of events leading up to the killing of Osama bin Laden. The whole thing is incomplete, however.

Why start with Clinton? I mean I'm glad to see TP taking the debate back to Clinton and not pretending like George W. Bush was the first president to target bin Laden. But the facts clearly show had it not been for President Reagan arming, funding and supplying intelligence to bin Laden we wouldn't have had an enemy to track and kill in the first place.

Do you really think Republicans would not be talking about Clinton creating bin Laden had he did what Reagan did???  When we complain about Democrats having a terrible messaging problem, this is what we mean.  It's really a totally lost fact if we don't take this back to Reagan.

Conceding Before You Start

This is from a few days back but I really like this post from Jon Chait entitled "I Want to Play Poker Against President Obama."

It seems to those of us who see no point in even paying attention to Republican ideas as a worthless venture by the president to routinely compromise with them.  It's even more absurd, even for a moderate Democrat like myself, to see the president routinely concede issue after issue to people who have no intention of ever compromising in the first place.

Democrats negotiated away a much smaller stimulus package than what was needed to jump start the economy filled with the largest tax cuts in history.  Democrats lost the public option due to what was at the time an anemic Republican minority in Congress.  Democrats lost the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.  So it's common fodder for Dems to view the president as not standing firm enough on our issues.  I think it's a very fair assessment by Dems and one the president is eventually going to have to reconcile.  Sometimes I have to wonder if the president thinks his mere presence alone is enough to please people.  It really doesn't do much for me if that's the case.

Tea Bagger Support Going Limp

The latest CNN Research Poll measuring political party popularity is a mixed sack for Republicans.

When measuring favorable ratings of the GOP, ratings grow 2 points from Dec. 2010, from 42 to 44.

Since November 2008 here's how the spread looks for both parties.

CNN/Opinion Research Poll

As you can see Democrats are still viewed more favorably by voters, and have been for quite some time.  The only hiccup occurred in the Fall of 2010. 

Since January 2010, CNN has been keeping track of Tea Bagger favorables.  I think something like this is pointless because essentially it's picking a subset of the GOP and asking how the public views them.  The equivalent would be slicing out people who support banning guns in the Democratic Party and tracking them like they are separate from Democrats.

Anyway, when you measure the three separately you quickly see Republican tea baggers are going limp.

CNN/Opinion Research Poll w/ Tea Baggers

They do make a pill that helps with the dysfunction.  We'll see if they use it to regain their firmness since we are approaching summer and that seems to be tea baggers most favorite time.

The interesting thing of the whole poll is if you place the Tea Baggers back into the GOP and quit treating them like they are a separate group, GOP support amongst the public really hasn't changed at all since November 2008.  Take a look.

CNN/Opinion Research Poll w/ GOP and Tea Bagger Combined

The previous noted hiccup in the Fall of 2010 disappears.  It's fair to state GOP popularity rose with the Tea Bagger movement.  Naturally it's because tea baggers are Republicans.  They run on the GOP ticket, they caucus with the GOP once in office and when they win elections it's the GOP that picks up the seat.  Allowing them to separate from the GOP when it's convenient for them, like when talking about how the GOP has absolutely no track record of ever shrinking government or cutting spending, grants the Republican Party a free pass that no one else in America gets to enjoy.

Ferraro

I'm way too young to remember Geraldine Ferraro's political career. My memories will always be of her punditry, which I'm not sure I agreed with much she had to say. The passing of the first female vice presidential candidate of a major party is something to note, however.  This story in the Atlantic about her only debate against George H. W. Bush is also something worth passing along.  I didn't know Bush had whispered some obscenities into an open mic after the debate was over.  Worth a read.