There’s been a lot of digging in and grinding of teeth over the emerging Democratic leadership battle in the House. Most readers are focused on whether Nancy Pelosi should stay caucus leader in the new Congress. But at this point, that seems to be a given. A handful of Reps. from swing districts have said they won’t support her. But just a sprinkling. And no one with even a remote chance of success has come forward to oppose her. That makes a lot of the left-right drama, or questions about the optics of Pelosi either stepping down or not stepping down, sort of moot since she’s staying. Read More
Hoyer picks up support from key House progressives, in bid to be Minority Whip.
Mark Blumenthal’s got a very interesting piece up at Huffpo talking specifically about how off the polls were in Nevada but also making a broader point about the quality of public polling. Remember, the Nevada race was heavily polled. And the results showed the two tied and then with Angle opening a consistent lead of 2 or 3 percentage points. Reid didn’t just win. He won by 5 points. Not even close, really.
Most people have assumed that Reid just had such an amazing field operation and shoe-leathered it out, managing to dramatically outperform the polls. In other words, somehow Reid’s folks just managed to grab a bunch of non-likely voters, got them out of bed and hauled them to the polls. And to be clear, I’d include myself among the folks thinking this way.
But apparently that’s not what happened. Read More
Here’s an article in the Times that is both disturbing and oddly comic, if darkly so. The US government is now making a major push to combat obesity. It’s the First Lady’s big cause. But for years Americans have been moving away from full-fat to reduced fat or skim milks. And this has created a surplus of whole milk and milk fat.
So what to do? While trying to get Americans to reduce fat intake and eat better, the USDA has also created a marketing arm called ‘Dairy Management’ which has the job of teaming with companies to find ways to get more cheese into consumers’ diets.
The story in the lede is about how ‘Dairy Management’ helped Dominos overcome sagging pizza sales by introducing pizzas with 40% more cheese. It’s been a rousing success and sales have doubled.
Takeaway factoid: Americans eat 33 pounds of cheese per year — almost three times as much as they ate in 1970.
First he was a Republican. Then he was an independent. Then he was all but a Democrat. Now Charlie Crist is considering a posthumous pardon of The Doors’ Jim Morrison for charges of indecent exposure stemming from a notorious concert incident in Florida in 1969.
Six months I’m thinking, leading advocate of industrial hemp/pot legalization or building new power base at an ashram in Oregon.
Or maybe something based in South Beach.
That didn’t take long.
MSNBC just announced that Keith Olbermann will be back on Tuesday after one more day of suspension on Monday evening.
Olbermann was suspended indefinitely without pay on Friday after a report that he’d contributed to three Democratic House candidates in October, purportedly a violation of MSNBC policy.
Statement from Phil Griffin …
After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have determined that suspending Keith through and including Monday night’s program is an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy. We look forward to having him back on the air Tuesday night.
Politico: “In his effort to change Washington, Obama has failed to engage Washington and its institutions and customs, leaving him estranged from the capital’s permanent power structure …”
For a week shy of 10 years, and especially since we opened our Washington Bureau in 2009, we’ve tried to stick to a basic mantra about our coverage of Washington, DC: in it but not of it. It’s the motto of TPMDC. We want to be completely immersed in the facts and details and hints and allegations of the capital because covering politics is our core competency. But we never want to be part of it, identified with it, swept up in the histrionics, conventional wisdom and fads of it. That is not an easy balance to keep. And I won’t say we’ve always managed it perfectly. But that’s our goal.
David flagged this piece in the Politico this morning, which is I think a distillation of what we desire not to be.
I remember in early 2009 numerous conversations to the effect that obviously President Obama would be reelected in 2012. It was barely even worth contesting it. Same on the congressional side. Obviously, two years is a long time. I similarly remember listening to a radio program in 1991 in which a high profile commentator seriously proposed that the Democrats nominate George Bush for president but a Democrat for vice president. It was so obvious that President Bush would be reelected in 1992 that the only real opportunity for the Democrats would be to get someone else in as vice president beside Dan Quayle. The suggestion was half made in jest but only half.
Above all else, DC is a company town. Insular, incestuous, small. The Democrats took a pounding on election day. It’s in the nature of the place to suddenly be unable to see anything except through that prism. No one has any idea where we’re going to be in two years. Not just whether it’s good for which of the two parties but what the complexion of the reality is going to be. That’s the only true compass to follow in the coming months.