kruker wrote:Chatter out there about Bill being appointed to be the junior senator of NY until a special election is held in 2010. CNN article was saying he might not want the job, I think he jumps at the chance.

jerseyhoya wrote:Mel Martinez won't run for reelection. That will be one hell of an open seat fight. Honestly, depending on who we nominate, I think we probably have a better shot at holding it without him.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Mel Martinez won't run for reelection. That will be one hell of an open seat fight. Honestly, depending on who we nominate, I think we probably have a better shot at holding it without him.

Surprising news. Do you know why he's not running?

Mumbai police believe a senior Lashkar-e-Taiba planner in Pakistan masterminded the Mumbai terrorist attacks last week and was among several leaders of the militant group who were in touch by satellite links with the 10 terrorists in the two days before they landed in India.

A senior police official said that, in all, the names and numbers of five members of the Pakistani group's leadership were contained in a satellite phone left behind by the terrorists on a fishing vessel they hijacked then abandoned before reaching Mumbai. Records from the phone show calls had been made from it to these five men.

I have offered several top Republican consultants the opportunity to speak candidly, and without attribution, to their party's elected officials. Here are the views of two, with over 50 years of professional campaign experience between them, edited only for clarity:

"The temptation among Republicans will be to blame this on a variety of factors that are temporary in nature and will go away. By concluding this, it will not force them to rethink how Republicans are perceived and as a result they will conclude they do not need to change.
...
"The key conclusion is that the desire for change is driven much more by damage to the Republican brand than by anything else, including the president. I think there are a number of reasons for this (in addition to Bush fatigue and the war). To me, these are the two big ones: first, deep disappointment in Congress and with individual members. This is driven in part by the corruption scandals, in part by profligate spending and in part by Republicans' failure to address the problems people are really concerned about.

"Second, the shallowness of our policies. Republicans are a whole lot better at being against things than at being for things. That's a problem if you're in the majority. On topics that the center really cares about, such as education and health care, we do one of two things. We either avoid them like the plague and are scared to talk about them or, if we say anything at all, it is to propose a tax cut or a tax credit.
...
"With regard to fiscal conservatism, taxes and spending have declined as concerns and we've hurt the party brand. Moreover, Republicans have never understood the difference between being punished for a tax increase and rewarded for a tax cut. The first hurts, and the second does not help.

"Many Republican commentators point out that, even though we lost, this is still a center-right country. It seems to me that statement misses the point. People have changed, although they have not changed the labels they use. There are clearly more people now who want government to address the problems they have to deal with than used to think so in the past. Conversely, there are fewer people now who do not want government involved.

"This goes to the long-term trend of Republican losses in the suburbs. This is a trend that has been more than 20 years in the making and seems to be moving from the Northeast in a westerly direction. It's no longer just New Jersey and the Philly suburbs, but also the Denver suburbs, Maricopa County, Clark County, Orange County, etc. To me, the core reason we're losing them is that, as Republicans, we're not promising to fix the problems they're concerned about, including health care, education and retirement.
...
"This should be our niche: find solutions to problems like education and health care that spend government funds more efficiently, without spending more. That sounds much more like a winning strategy to me."

The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

The rule, which has strong support from business groups, says that in assessing the risk from a particular substance, federal agencies should gather and analyze “industry-by-industry evidence” of employees’ exposure to it during their working lives. The proposal would, in many cases, add a step to the lengthy process of developing standards to protect workers’ health.

Public health officials and labor unions said the rule would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses.

The Labor Department rule is among many that federal agencies are poised to issue before Mr. Bush turns over the White House to Mr. Obama.

One rule would allow coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys

Woody wrote:

Mumbai police believe a senior Lashkar-e-Taiba planner in Pakistan masterminded the Mumbai terrorist attacks last week and was among several leaders of the militant group who were in touch by satellite links with the 10 terrorists in the two days before they landed in India.

A senior police official said that, in all, the names and numbers of five members of the Pakistani group's leadership were contained in a satellite phone left behind by the terrorists on a fishing vessel they hijacked then abandoned before reaching Mumbai. Records from the phone show calls had been made from it to these five men.

Get ya popcorn ready

Woody wrote:Oh my god, it's a conspiracy. You're right.

As an insight into the speechwriter’s art, Mr Campbell’s lesson was exemplary. He explained the “tricolon technique”, where a sentence is divided into three parts, like Julius Caesar’s Veni, vidi, vici (“I came. I saw, I conquered”). Mr Obama’s use of this may soon start to irritate audiences, suggested the man behind Tony Blair’s 1997 promise to make “education, education, education” his top priority.

He highlighted Mr Obama’s use of the “epiphora”, the repetition of the same words at the end of sentences (in Mr Obama’s case, it was “Yes we can”), that he described as being “like a riff at the end of the line in hip-hop”.

Monkeyboy wrote:

Woody wrote:Oh my god, it's a conspiracy. You're right.

That's not what I said, woodrow. There's just a lot of crap going wrong and it will make it difficult for Obama to get stuff done. Do you disagree?

I'm not at all saying these things are a coordinated effort. In fact, I don't see how they could be. I guess I should have made a separate post instead of just making a line of ******'s

kruker wrote:

He explained the “tricolon technique”