The winners of the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest. Take a look.
TPM Reader MS tells me to step back from the Snark Canon and not assume I know the GOP would react if the Dems have a strong cycle …
Yogi Berra said it best: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” With respect, nobody knows what the future holds. If Romney loses, it’s impossible to tell what ramifications this will have among the party elite.
Chuck Schumer says mainstream Republicans plan to retake party if Romney loses.
Not that I think they didn’t tell him that or even that they didn’t mean it. But c’mon.
TPM Reader JL pipes up …
Doubtless you and I agree on the big policy question hanging over this election cycle: Is there any hope of breaking GOP intransgence? If the answer is no, then yeah, we want Obama to win, but more out of fear than out of hope. We’ll all be better off, but happy and optimistic? Not so much.
I know there was some discussion of this on TPM a few weeks back, triggered by hopeful (but perhaps hopelessly naïve) comments from Obama and a retort from Nancy Pelosi. The problem with that discussion was this: the dynamic going forward depends totally on precisely what happens November 6th, not just on who the next President is. Of course the operating assumption, and looking like a damned good one right now, is that Obama wins and does so with a reasonably comfortable EV margin. Further it looks like the Dems hold onto the Senate, if only by a seat or two. (And this is especially true if Obama wins, since a four-seat pickup in the Senate looks like quite a hill for the GOP to climb given recent polling.)
I don’t want to read too much into this, but when Paul Ryan goes behind closed doors on the Hill to tell his fellow House Republicans that this is a choice election — between two very different visions for the future of the country, rather than a referendum on President Obama — I think the battlefield has tilted sharply in favor of the Democrats.
Speaker Boehner dodges reporters’ questions this morning about the 47 percent.
Jon Stewart, on Fox’s coverage of the 47 percent. Watch.
The whole thing is almost quaint in its simplicity. Tim Pawlenty resigns as chair of a presidential campaign, cashes a big paycheck from a national trade association and is suddenly anointed in the waters of bipartisanship.
That’s how the Financial Services Roundtable plainly puts it in its press release announcing Pawlenty’s hire as president and CEO: “The Financial Services Roundtable is a bipartisan organization. As a consequence, Gov. Pawlenty will step down as a national co-chair of the Romney for President campaign.” Voila! Done. Read More
State Rep Daryl Metcalfe (R-PA) says voter ID are good because lazy people from the 47% shouldn’t get to vote anyway …
I don’t believe any legitimate voter that actually wants to exercise that right and takes on the according responsiblity that goes with that right to secure their photo ID will be disenfranchised. As Mitt Romney said, 47% of the people that are living off the public dole, living off their neighbors’ hard work, and we have a lot of people out there that are too lazy to get up and get out there and get the ID they need. If individuals are too lazy, the state can’t fix that.
More on the apparent shift in Democratic prospects for holding the Senate.