Such an interesting week politically — two NH Democratic debates, another GOP debate, Scooter getting jail time.  And I’ve been on the sidelines for all of it.  Probably just as well — I can keep my two cents and donate to a worthy cause.

Sad news about Steven Gilliard, a popular liberal blogger — he passed away this weekend at the age of 42.  Nice write-up in the New York Times.  He was one of the original writers at what has become the most popular political blog of all-time, Daily Kos — long before 95% of the country knew what a blog even was — and he’s one of the very few who actually made a living as a political blogger.

Interesting new data from the Pew Research Center.  It shows Bush at his lowest approval rating (29%) for their polls (this hardly qualifies as "news" anymore).  My favorite graph shows the drop he has among his "base" — the evangelical Christians:

What was interesting was the recent Democratic debate held by the "liberal" Christian group, the Sojourners.  It wasn’t a debate as much as a "forum", with only three candidates (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) in attendance.  I think it is good, and smart, for the Democrats to address religion.  And it apparently made an effective broad-based impact, even on some Christian conservatives.

The Pew poll also shows that actor Fred Thompson has widespread Republican appeal.  I think it is a mistake for those of us on the left side of the aisle to dismiss him (as some already have).  I think Guiliani is a time bomb waiting to crash in approval, and Thompson will fill in the gap.  I think he will be the GOP candidate for President, and this new data supports that notion.  He’s also benefitting from not debating, as the others in the GOP pack are now doing.

Anyway, things have slowed up at work, and maybe I can pick up my blogging pace (seeing as how, you know, there ain’t much else to do at the moment).