Thought for the Day

2 million people watch all or part of Glenn Beck's show on an average day.

It's not just Michael Steele (although the Repubs do love the non-white scapegoat...)

It's gotta be said that alot of this comes from owning all the levers of power, but still, the "party of business" and deregulation, can't be happy with this fact.

With eight months to go before congressional elections, House and Senate Democratic candidates exceed in virtually every important campaign fundraising category.

You can blame Michael Steele if you want, but let's face it. It's much bigger than Steele.

The top Republican figures are wingnuts, and the smart/business/old money are less likely to give to the wingnuts. The rank and file may produce visible fundraising bubbles around profile figures ("You lie!"), but the serious big money folks aren't donating to fundraisers led by Sarah Palin.

Political bits - Things that made me laugh.

Is it funny that someone ran a poll asking if people were going to respond to the census?

A collection of misspelled and extreme Tea Party signs.

Blue states have bigger penises according to Condomania's penis size rankings by city and state. (You know you're gonna look.)

And, F*@#ing Joe Biden has a perfect NCAA bracket. (Do you know the odds on that?)

Also Palin

Rumors that 15 year old Willow Palin is even wilder than Bristol. Rumor that her social group broke into a house for sale, thew a huge party, and did $30,000 in damage.

But what makes this political is the rumor that Sarah Palin (the former governor) intervened with state troopers to get her daughter cleared while others were charged.

(And if you want to read something really nasty, take a look at the National Enquirer piece that skips through the booze, sex, and drugs of her three oldest children.)

All rumor, but ugly.

She's never going to be President.

(And, yes. If you run as a morals/"family values" politician, how you raise your kids is pertinent.)

Fox.... Palin....

So, the new FoxNews/Sarah Palin "interview show" was going to be old FoxNews interviews reedited to insert Sarah Palin as the interviewer?

Jack Welch, LL Cool J, and Toby Keith all say yes. (NYTimes version)

(I wonder if this was a decision because she turned out to be a lousy interviewer or because no media people want to risk part of their audience by booking with Sarah Palin?

They may have given her a show based on the ratings her name could generate, and then realized that she's just completely incompetent.... (kinda like the McCain campaign...))

Anyway, it's a really weird story.

Steele fail

With all the cries over Michael Steele "wasting money," a number of big GOP donors are skipping the RNC altogether and giving to the Congressional committees, and to individual candidates.

The newest flogging horse for GOP political figures trying to bolster their purity is to encourage donors to skip the RNC and give to local candidates. (Like Tony Perkins here.)

Look. There are differences. You can give a whole lot more money to a party than to the Congressional committees, and money given to candidates frequently tends to be inefficient (donated to candidates I "like" or who have high profile rather than those in need in close races,) and money given to candidates tends to be less mobile (as they're less likely to give it to others, and they will transfer on their political priorities, not on the overall election picture.)

So this whole "avoid the RNC movement" is just idiocy, making their donated dollars less efficient and less effective. They will lose races when, in the last month, that money doesn't find its way to those best winning chance races.

Meanwhile, Obama and the DNC are piling it up....

Pre-existing influence

One of the things that came up way back when as we were discussing Clinton v. Obama was the differing levels of pre-existing influence both camps would have if they were, in fact elected to power.

Because of Bill Clinton's previous presidency and the Clinton's role in the Democratic party for the previous 15 years, Hillary Clinton would have come into office with agents of influence already in place amid Congress, amongst the Bureaucracy, and within the Washington power circuit, all of those people the Clinton's had helped along the way and shepherded into power positions.

The Obama folks came in without that preexisting set of levers and influence, and it has made a difference. They've had to work alot more politics to get things done which makes much of it look alot uglier and more public that if the Clinton's had won and used their preexisting influence to just ram things through.

(Of course, that's why so many power Dems. most visibly in Congress, quietly and not so quietly helped Obama along the way. The Clinton era involved some pretty tough power struggles with Congress, and the leaders weren't too excited about returning to that model and giving up their influence.

On the other hand, the Obama folks also came in without the list of enemies and preordained fights.)

I don't really know where I'm going with this except to recognize the broader politics in which the Obama administration is currently operating and to recall that earlier train of thought. (....and to put stories like this in a little broader "power struggle" context.)

Just the beginning

I missed posting on the crazy crazy christian "militia" folks yesterday who were planning to kill cops to start the great anti-government uprising (sounds like Manson,) but it does seem clear that the internal right wing threats are undeniably rising.

Today we get mention that the FBI is tracking down threats both big and small against IRS employees.

(...but they're not terrorists...)

Iranian scientist defected

ABC claims that US intelligence folks told them that the young Iranian nuclear scientist that disappeared while in Saudi Arabia about a year ago has defected to the US and is giving information.

(The sourcing seems pretty incredible, so treat as rumor until we hear it from somewhere a little more concrete.)

Steele's job safe through circumstance

They all wanted to fire RNC chairman Michael Steele before the strip club incident, and it has offered even more fodder for the critics, but I'm not so sure they can fire Steele right now because of the election calendar.

Do they really want to tear apart the party structure six months before what looks like a good election for them? On the other hand, if they ask Steele to just sit quietly in his office and try to run the elections out of the NRCC and NSCC, do you really think he can do that?

They've got a real problem going into an election cycle where they could potentially make some real headway.

(Although, I think Steele's time is certainly limited. My guess is that we've seen the Republican ebb and that their November results won't be as strong as they thought before healthcare passed, and that Steele will likely be scapegoat for that.)

Back to blogging, slowly....

Still have a bunch of stuff to do to catch back up, so no promises. but we're much closer to normal.