I’m actually a little surprised at the relatively optimistic notes from Democrats on my question about how people think the November election will go. Obviously all optimism is relative. At this point I would count optimism from Democrats as a number of House losses that keeps Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year. So basically fewer than forty seats lost.
Here’s TPM Reader BC’s take … Read More
It looks like the pro-Nullification presumptive Republican nominee for Governor in Minnesota is going into damage control mode. But not for saying that Minnesota shouldn’t have to obey any federal laws. He’s back tracking because his plan for getting the state’s economy back on track was to cut the wages of waiters and waitresses by about 2/3 — a move he said would “level playing field [between waiters and employers] so the employers can continue to exist, survive and thrive.” Now he’s going on a listening tour next week to hear from the servers.
TPM Reader TS got a chance to give the Pentagon some feedback on DADT:
I didn’t get an invite to take that ridiculous survey but I was invited to send a comment to the DoD Comprehensive Review Working Group. The invitation came with this: “This is a non-confidential Online Inbox. Please do not use your name or the names of others within your comment.”
I was given a 1000-character limit. I am not an eloquent writer but I managed to write the paragraph pasted below. I would argue that it is fairly representative of the feelings of a large majority of the military I am currently working with.
I’m awfully surprised that the Feds would want to be predicting something like this, even suggesting it, rather than waiting for good news and announcing it after it actually pans out. But Adm. Thad Allen, chief of the disaster response is now saying that the Gulf Spill could be completely contained as early as Monday.
Who’ll play those eleven Russian spies in the upcoming movie? We review the possibilities.
Just before the end of qualifying for the U.S. Senate race late this afternoon in Louisiana, a well-known former state Supreme Court justice jumped in to the Republican primary against incumbent David Vitter.
It’s been a long time since I covered Louisiana politics, but if memory serves Chet Traylor was first elected to the court in the 1990s with major, major backing from the state’s biggest business group in an effort to steer the court to the right. It was a hugely expensive race by the standards of the day. We’ll be reporting more on this development, but what it suggests to me is that the business community is abandoning Vitter. And unless things have changed a lot in the dozen years since I moved away, Traylor is going to have access to boatloads of campaign cash for this primary. Read More
We should find out today whether the Dems’ top candidate to replace the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) will enter the race.
Late Update: Scratch that. Gov. Joe Manchin has decided to delay his announcement until the state’s succession law is cleared up.
Democrats’ best hope in the Kentucky Senate race: that Rand Paul will self-destruct.
A former employee of the Florida Republican Party has gone public with her account of party officials’ free-spending ways under former chairman Jim Greer, including the conspicuous consumption of lobster, steak … and snow globe collecting.
In case you thought Democrats had overcome their inability to translate good policy into winning politics:
At the glittery Aria Casino in Las Vegas on Thursday night, Mr. Reid proudly told thousands of supporters waiting to see President Obama, “We’re going to finish that conference report!”
Despite the enthusiasm behind the words, Mr. Reid’s use of cryptic Washingtonese to describe the most far-reaching restructuring of the financial regulatory systems since the Great Depression drew no applause.
Go! Fight! Win Conference Report!