Nate Silver has an excellent post wherein he breaks down 25 major issues being pushed by Obama and the Democrats, and sizes them up against public opinion polling. The bottom line? Of these 25 issues, Obama's position appears to be on the right side of public opinion on 14: the bank tax, repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, … Read More
DNC Strikes Back Against The GOP’s Mob Tactics
Actually, I thought this ad could have been more forceful…. … but it is nice to see some pushback.
Blue America
An analysis of Gallup Poll Daily tracking data from the first six months of 2009 was released to day, on the subject of political party affiliation. The accompanying map shows each state's relative party strength in the first half of 2009, which primarily covers the time since Barack Obama took office as president. States in which one of the parties … Read More
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Nashville
Today, the Tennesee General Assembly met today to choose their House speaker. The body consists of 99 representatives. The breakdown after recent elections: 50 Republicans, 49 Democrats. The Speaker is an important position; he chooses, among other things, who heads what committees, etc. The Republicans had their nominee in line. They were going to choose Jason Mumpower (pictured, right), a wingnut … Read More
Caroline Or Change?
Several A-list liberal bloggers are quite unhappy with the prospect of Caroline Kennedy taking over Clinton's Senate seat: Firedoglake's Hamsher: "It seems Caroline Kennedy has decided she'd rather have a US Senate seat than a pony for Christmas. […] It appears Ms. Kennedy thinks that US Senate seats are something to lobbied for amongst political elites when one decides one wants them, … Read More
Blago Arrest
I guess everyone knows about the arrest this morning of Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris — on corruption charges. What surprises me was how blatant his corruption was. I mean, the governor of Illinois gets to choose who fills Obama's now-empty Senate seat, so he literally auctioned it off. Or as the governor … Read More
The Best Thing About The Bush Presidency
It’s created a whole generation of progressives. According to a new poll for the New York Times, CBS News, and MTV the 17-29 year olds lean Democratic. Sixty-two percent of the 17-29 year olds support a single-payor health care system, while 47% of the general electorate does. Seventy-seven percent of them plan to register to vote for next year, and … Read More
The Left And God
Discussions generated from fall out surrounding Amanda Marcotte’s departure from the John Edwards campaign are still taking up pixels in lefty blogger circles. Atrios has led the league in thoughts on the subject, and the New Donkey summarizes his thoughts and responds: His basic argument, with which I basically agree, is that once "people of faith" inject their religious views … Read More
Conservatism vs. Liberalism — And The Future
This is so good, I’m reprinting (almost) the whole thing. From the Anonymous Liberal: Over at The Corner today, Jonah Goldberg wrote the following: Now, I don’t say any of this because I’m particularly bullish on conservatism’s immediate future. It’s got problems. But they’re not as fundamental as the problems liberalism faces. Conservatism has a problem putting its ideas into … Read More
Who Supports The Troops? Republicans Or Democrats?
The answer is Democrats. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America — a non-partisan veterans’ group — took a look at 324 legislative votes in the last five years which affected American troops and veterans. Legislative proposals included veterans’ benefits, healthcare, and medical research dedicated towards injured soldiers. Based on these votes, IAVA calculated which senators and congressmen had a … Read More
Short Bites
Barring some miracle, blogging will be light to non-existent for the next few days. But that won’t stop be from pointing to things I find amusing, like (1) the fact that robots think humans taste like bacon (2) What hath John Hodgman wrought? He wrote a book in which he listed 700 hobo names. Now, illustrators are providing drawings for … Read More
What It Means To Be Liberal
Law Professor Geoffrey Stone takes a stab at writing ten central tenets of "liberalism", since many people (even liberals) have a hard time identifying what liberalism is about. I’d say he did a pretty good job: Part of the problem is that liberals have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe. As a liberal, I find … Read More
Barack Obama
Good interview of the next good President (probably not in 2008, but sometime in the next decade) can be found here.
Quote Of The Day
"I am sick of Karl Rove’s bullshit." – Bill Clinton in the latest New Yorker. Sadly, the New Yorker doesn’t have the interview in its online version, but apparently that’s what the Big Dog actually said. Other Clinton quotes from the article: Clinton on the Kerry campaign: "Like a deer caught in the headlights." Clinton on watching the World Cup … Read More
An Average Day In The Life Of Joe Republican
A pretty decent explanation of why I’m a bleeding heart liberal pinko commie: Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe … Read More