VoxOrion wrote:Makes you miss Tony Snow (then again, I don't think people really disliked him that much, did they?)

Funny you should say that. He often came off as a truly repellent jerk--but I almost got the sense he didn't mean it. And the cancer made him pretty sympathetic--maybe not rational, but real.

Snow was clearly the best of the Bush press secretaries--less overtly nasty than Fleischer, much better able to do the job than the pathetic McClellan (great line I read once about Sad Scott: "he's the sort of young person old people like"), and obviously about a million times smarter than dimwitted Dana.

Thompson, eh? I think I wrote a few pages back that I can at least give him respect for a principled commitment to federalism. It's interesting how he's tried to advance himself as the New Reagan; just as Reagan's ideology, love it or hate it, evolved over decades in the public eye before he got into politics as a player, one can probably trace a similar pattern in Thompson's career. The sequencing is just mixed up.

As for "Carter, Dukakis and Mondale," I'm still far from certain that at least in the case of Dukakis, a better candidate wouldn't have won. That race was begging to be taken. But in terms of their "politics," I don't think the electorate was rejecting their worldview so much as condemning their perceived weakness and/or absurdity. The example of this that sticks out in my head was Mondale in 1984--I somehow remember hearing that a women's group (NOW?) was going to refuse to endorse him unless he picked a female running mate, and a couple days later Ferraro got the gig. Nothing against Ferraro, and not to say that he shouldn't have picked a woman, but really: where else were they gonna go?

Similarly, I'm not sure the country is rejecting "Republicanism"--just the singularly incompetent boob currently serving as its face. Though I guess the connection is that until Republicans show they're serious about governing again--tough for a party that deplores government on principle--they'll be tarred with Bush's dismal legacy.

What I think Huckabee is offering is "Bush Done Right"--a presidential platform I'd previously noticed only in connection with Laura Roslin.

TenuredVulture wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

Among Republicans, 76 percent of respondents said that they could still change their mind about who to support, compared with 23 percent who said their decision was firm. Among Democrats, 59 percent said they might change their mind.

LOL:

the poll found, but more Democrats said Mrs. Clinton could bring the country together than those who said Mr. Obama was someone who could unite different groups

I've suspected that Democratic primary voters were utterly delusional (how else could you explain Michael Dukakis?) but this confirms it.

That's almost as crazy as thinking nominating Mitt Romney.

Hillary is the most conservative of all the democratic candidates. I am not saying I agree with her views, but people are more obsessed with her name (see dajafi) than what she actually stands for.

dajafi might actually be Ken Starr

I swear, if her name was Peter Morrison, and nobody had seen any pictures of her or something, then she'd probably be running away with the independent vote.

At times like this I really wish America was still sexist.

mpmcgraw wrote:At times like this I really wish America was still sexist.

Only an idiot would think that it isn't.

As sexist as it used to be then?

pacino wrote:dajafi might actually be Ken Starr

Disco Stu wrote:Hillary is the most conservative of all the democratic candidates. I am not saying I agree with her views, but people are more obsessed with her name (see dajafi) than what she actually stands for.

Ironic that in the same post you take me to task for being "obsessed with her name," you hit on the substantive reason I oppose her: the conservatism.

Probably like many anti-Hillary Democrats, for a long time I liked her better than Bill--she was supposed to be the principled one. But seven years of watching her as my senator has made it pretty clear that the lack of any principle but power is found on both sides of that marriage. She's one of those Democrats who thinks that war is always good politics, and that there's no downside to taking corporate money and running a government mostly by, for, and of the wealthy and powerful. I disagree.

pacino, Starr hated the Clintons because he thought Bill was a licentious hippie whose sexcapades befouled the White House, where never previously a presidential occupant had screwed or crapped, and he saw Hillary as an uppity woman who had forsworn her godly duties to stay barefoot and pregnant (or at least relegate herself to the Club for tennis and vodka tonic like a good Republican wife). Me, I'm all for licentiousness--just not when there's a country to be governed, and not such that it dominates the news and creates a backlash that leads to George W. Bush. I'm cool with uppity too, though I can't help but feel that the first woman president will enjoy a greater triumph for feminism if she hadn't already married into the gig.

dajafi wrote:pacino, Starr hated the Clintons because he thought Bill was a licentious hippie whose sexcapades befouled the White House, where never previously a presidential occupant had screwed or crapped, and he saw Hillary as an uppity woman who had forsworn her godly duties to stay barefoot and pregnant (or at least relegate herself to the Club for tennis and vodka tonic like a good Republican wife). Me, I'm all for licentiousness--just not when there's a country to be governed, and not such that it dominates the news and creates a backlash that leads to George W. Bush. I'm cool with uppity too, though I can't help but feel that the first woman president will enjoy a greater triumph for feminism if she hadn't already married into the gig.

wow, really? Im no Ken Starr fan by any stretch but to make these assumptions is pretty harsh.

Republicans held a couple of open House seats in special elections in Ohio and Virginia. We had to spend a lot of money we don't have to defend OH-05, which is in Northwest Ohio, though. Bush had won it with 61% in 2004. The Republican, Latta, looks like he'll probably get around 54% of the vote if these results hold up.

The one in VA-01, to replace Jo Ann Davis, is looking more comfortable. It wasn't really contested.

jerseyhoya: The low approval ratings for congress spell, in my opinion, what a lot of folks were saying about the 2006 windfall: It wasn't a vote for Democrats as much as it was a vote against Bush. I really don't think we're in for a long period of majority there.

Otherwise, I think dajafi is just letting his inner Rush Limbaugh out lately. Good on him for getting pithy.

It was a vote against Republicans in general, Bush in particular, IMO. The GOP Congress wasn't popular with just about anyone. Bush was particularly disliked, but the whole Foley thing didn't help.

A lot of the problems the GOP had in 2006 is there was no one to blame but us. Now the Dem Congress gets to be damn unpopular too. We're still going to get smoked in Senate seats, and we have an awful cash disparity in fund raising for the house along with way too many open seats, but we should be able to beat enough of the weak freshmen to stay at parity at worse there.

Of course, if Huckabee, Giuliani or Romney ends up losing nationwide by 10%, all bets are off.

I think 2006 was the low mark for Republicans nationwide, but 2008 will still be a bad year for us.

I thought so - in fact, even if things were going 'okay', I still think America might want a Democrat back in office just because - but Hillary, man people don't like her.

If Hillary wins the nomination, and I'm the GOP strategist for whoever gets the Republican nomination - I start running this ad non-stop till November:

Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton?
Is this the America You Want?

It's non-political, doesn't mean anything, but it will speak to people and enough will respond to make up the difference, in my opinion.

Is there any reason I should completely scotch the peculiar feeling I have that nominating conventions might actually resume playing some meaningful role in candidate selection if the current Brownian motion among candidates of both parties continues over the next 8-9 months?

Can't really say why but the anarchic part of me feels that could be kinda cool in a 'water the tree of liberty with the blood shed in smoke-filled rooms' sort of way.

Two polls now show Obama leading Clinton in New Hampshire--both within the MOE:

#1

#2

But yeah, it's just me and my weird, rbm-de-ish obsession with the Clintons. 8)

(Seriously, did anyone else get the vibe that that guy's darkest, most shameful secret wish was to be the meat in a Clinton Sandwich?)

You really can't read anything into congressional approval ratings. People hate Congress, but incumbents win over 90% of the time.

People are pissed off at elites.

http://wonkette.com/politics/teh-huckbe ... 332736.php

This made me laugh, so I had to share.

Some people read the poll numbers for Congress and see trouble for the Democrats. Well, Congress' lack of popularity certainly isn't good news for the Democrats, but there's no polling data that shows any good news for the Republicans. Most things you read by Republican strategists indicate they are just hoping to contain their losses in the Senate and House next year.

What some people forget is that Democrats respond to polls too. I surely wouldn't give Congress high marks this year, but that doesn't mean I'm going to vote Republican next year.

This Congress has been a disappointment and largely toothless. The voters hired these folks to get certain things done and the Democrats either can't or won't get the job done. (I think it's some of both.) That doesn't mean a majority of voters don't understand things would only be worse under full Republican rule.