Topsy-Turvy.
Nancy Pelosi's creative performance to call the closed door, backroom, secret and paraboid healthcare negotiation an open process is the latest signal that the Democrats cannot manage one-party majorities on the Hill. Everyone is aware of the POTUS poll troubles. Yet the Democrats did not leave themselves an escape clause. Instead, two major Democratic senators are fleeing their majority, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Chris Dodd of Connecticut to retire in a year. Harry Reid is stunned. Now he has to fret about Ben Nelson seeing Dorgan and Dodd quit the lifeboat and realize he is doomed at home after his healthcare pretzel-making. What next? Harold Ford the ex-Congressman and ex-Senate candidate in Tennessee is flirting with a challenge to Karen Gillenbrand in New York. And Martha Coakley running for Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts is said to be just marginally ahead against a GOP unknown in the heavily Blue state. The clues are everywhere that topsy-turvy has arrived.
What is NY? The Carpetbagger State?
Dorgan retires. Gov. Ritter (D) announces he's not running for a second term. The Lt. Governor Cherry (D) of Michigan announces he's not going to run for Gov. after all. If perennial also-ran Stabenow leaves the Senate to run, that would be another domino in Rahmbo's most excellent strategy to produce a permanent Dem majority for the next 50 years. And if Rahmbo is forced out of the WH later this year, returning to a safe seat in Illinois is problematic because of the investigation into Blago's shenanigans. He might not land anywhere he'd planned to.
It's worth recalling that one of the things that made the 1994 Republican Revolution possible was the large number of Democratic retirements wrought by the House Post Office scandal 1992-93. Competitive seats are few and far between, given the way both parties protect their districts.
Topsy-turvy, as you say, has arrived. But it doesn't matter; will it now? ...and anyone quitting political office knows it. Sure, Republicans will have the majority. So what? …with the White House, its czars, its monopoly money; the UN and the stacked (international) courts running everything? Hell, the legislature is a showboating; rubber-stamp society now - totally distant, unaccountable, uncaring, unresponsive, unloved! I can't see how changing D's to R's will make much difference. If history serves, we'll be forced to watch once again as timid Republicans soil themselves - in fear and trembling of a rabid, bloviating, hopelessly biased press - unwilling to lead and take the hits.
The Dems who are leaving know it’s over. There’s no point in continuing with the farce of what used to be called checks and balances. The scale has been tilting left for far too long. It’s become embedded there, no matter who’s elected or what they call themselves.
For the politically minded, all the action will henceforth be on the fringes – subversive pamphlets, midnight meetings, pirate radio, community organizing, and worse. It’s not the first time it’s worked to change things (back). It just takes time. …time we can ill afford, with China, and Asia in general, taking the lead.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
I have a question for JB. If the Republican challenger in Massachusetts should pull off the upset for Ted Kennedy's seat on the 19th of this month, what is the time frame for swearing him in? Can Reid push through cloture for the conference committee bill (for lack of a better phrase) before the Republicans could get the new Senator sworn in?
I guess the real question is, at what point would the pro-tem Senator in that seat no longer be able to cast the 60th vote? Because it's not that the Republicans need 41 votes to stop cloture, it's that the Democrats need 60 to obtain cloture. Might seem a matter of semantics most of the time, but in this case it could be important. Specifically, could the Democrats stall the approval of the new Senator until the cloture is obtained, or would the stalling be of no avail to them because the sitting pro-tem Senator would no longer be able to cast the 60th vote, even if the new Senator had not yet been approved?
Sorry to be so wordy, but I think you get my drift. BTW, I realize this is like figuring out what I'm going to do with the million bucks I win in the lottery, but I need to know how much energy to invest in trying to will a miracle to occur on the 19th.
Obama, may His grace and holiness shine us, will campaign in Mass. 48 minutes away by AF1. JB, what are the polls saying? Who on the Right could help campaign? Hannity is a natural, Irish, outgoing, syrupy sweet. #1 Yankee fan Rudy may not be welcome.
Does the Blessed Obama realize he can lose it all with this upcoming election?
Dodd, dead Senator walking, is now history. Local press in CT has been bringing up spandex, thongs, and Steroids (WWE) issues against Linda McMahon. Company brings millions into the state. Same press mentioned "Friends of Angelo" once, in a Saturday newspaper over Labor day weekend. Never accused Dodd of anything untoward.
-Wisdom
No worries that Brown will win in Mass. First of all, the unions have more than enough footsoldiers/voter fraud commandos to carry the state by themselves. Second, I'm confident that ACORN's voter fraud commandos are being bused in by the thousands to run 24/7 "voter registration" drives. I don't think there's any way the Dems will lose Ted Kennedy's seat.
If you are correct that they are busing in "voter fraud commandos" it would contradict the "no worries" statement, right? What would somebody do that if they weren't worried?
I'm an actuary, I deal in probabilities. I treat a 5% chance and a 1% chance the same as I do a 50% chance; think about the eventualities; prepare for them. I was never a Boy Scout but I do believe in the motto "Be Prepared".
I watched all of the cloture votes through the Senate debate even though the outcome was "pre-ordained."
I once lost my contact lenses in a crowded public swimming pool when I was in my early twenties. I spent the next 2 hours diving to the bottom of the deep end (9-10 feet) of blue water, with blue paint on the walls and bottom of the swimming pool, looking for blue contact lenses. After 2 hours of holding my breath and sifting through clumps of hair, bandaids, and other less savory items, I found the contacts. I would have stayed there looking until the pool closed had I not found them so quickly.
I never, ever, ever, ever, EVER give up.
Lou, I don't give up either. I can't tell you how many times people have told me "there's nothing you can do about it", then I do SOMETHING and things start to change. I just sent 50 bucks to Brown in honor of Mary Jo K.
DO SOMETHING, DO ANYTHING!... it'll give you something to tell your grandchildren about when they ask you "what did you do in the war?"
And I won't have to say, "Well, I shoveled ___ in Louisiana!"
Actually, my grandchildren aren't old enough to understand yet, but my kids, their friends, my wife, her friends, and everyone else who ventures into our house, and all the people at the convenience stores and supermarkets and gas stations I frequent, hear every day about what I'm doing in this war, and in fact start heading in the other direction when they see me coming because they're sick of hearing about it.
Speaking of Mary Jo Kopechne, I made a prediction on Politico a few weeks ago that Harry Reid was going to be visited by 3 spirits on Christmas Eve, but first he was going to see the ghost of Ted Kennedy foretelling the 3 spirits, and TK was going to be dragging a car filled with water and the skeleton of a woman inside it clawing at the window.
One thing Brown said that I really liked: "With all due respect, this isn't Ted Kennedy's seat, this is the people's seat." If all our elected representatives would just keep those words first and foremost we'd have a lot fewer problems.