Weekend Open Thread… ;)

  

Awww.  And I so am not taken in by the Neo Culpa, the mea maxima culpas, all in a row, like a crowd of Siamese cats screaming….

What bullshit from Ken Adelman of the “cakewalk” comment:

Kenneth Adelman: “The problem here is not a selling job. The problem is a performance job.… Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq, it could only be lost in Washington. I don’t think that’s true at all. We’re losing in Iraq.… I’ve worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I’ve been to each of his houses, in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I’m very, very fond of him, but I’m crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don’t know. He certainly fooled me.”

I would love to know what Rummy gets up to in LV tho.  And Santo Domingo too, come to think of it… 😉

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UPDATE, 12:40 pm  – the sun is breaking thru in San Francisco…

Gah.  I have got to learn to pass by the low hanging fruit… 😉  But not just yet…  I managed to get pneumonia last month and laughing really hard, to the point of breathlessness, is painful.  I cannot tear myself away tho:

[I] obviously want to win as many seats as possible, but if I have to choose, I would prefer a moderate gain in the blue areas combined with a shocking success in the red.  Yes, this will leave us with imperiled and scared rabbit Democrats, but it will give hope and momentum to the 50 state strategy and bode better for our Presidential chances in 2008.  

Moreover, what I really want is for the GOP to get over its sickness so it isn’t a life or death matter whether they win elections.  In order for that to happen, they need to gain some moderate strength in the blue areas, not become totally relegated to the south and plains states.  

Long-term, I’d like to see a ruling majority Democratic party with big enough majorities to sustain a lot of more conservative members.  Kind of like how the party was under LBJ.  I’d rather have a progressive majority that involves cross-over Republicans along with Democratic defectors, than one big ideologically pure Democratic Party opposed by one smaller ideologicially insane Republican Party. [snip]

Oh I so want the era of the Boll Weevils back. Or, as I laugh and say, Come Back Senator Shelby!  You’ll like us now!  No reason to leave! AND I am someone who never advocated “abandoning the South”, but to remain engaged, build vote counts… or at least hold a line, register minorities… keep a populist dialogue going.

The Blue Dogs, on the other hand, are less fiercely partisan, and they do not all hail from the South.

They seek to build ideological bridges to the Republican side of the aisle, are known for their independence from the leadership of their own party, and tend to be more pragmatic than partisan. Blue Dogs are closer in purpose to a former coalition of southern Members of the House known as the “Boll Weevils,”

whose heyday was in the early 1980’s. These Members defected as a group from the Democratic party to vote with Congressional Republicans on budgetary and tax bills. However, all Southerners, they were named after the insect that infected and often destroyed cotton crops, so the name “Boll Weevil” had a pejorative implication.

Lordy.  Don’t get so fucking upset over Tauscher and her comments in the NYT a few days ago….  Unless they all missed she is classic Blue Dog.  Just in No California.

I have gone back to what I did in late summer and fall of ’04, as I watched Kerry sink into the great cravasse of the Grand Canyon, day after day… I have Tosca blasting from the player, with Callas and Tito Gobbi. 

Years and years of the ever multiplying echoes of Democrats appeasing, selling out, voting with the Republicans, championing an “overseer wanna be” like Ford, a cheap import like Webb or a mixed bag whatever like Lamont… I really need to hear that knife going in, the one that Tosca plunges into Scarpia.

Oh well.

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UPDATE, 9:00 pm

Taegan Godard ,  Political Wire, has up a late prognostication from Charlie Cook… here are some snips:

With just over 72 hours to go before the polls close, it’s very hard to imagine how the House majority does not turn over, it’s a question of how big this thing will be. … I decided that no matter how big it got, I was not going to say or write a number bigger than 35. … Let’ just say it’s 20-35, but that the possibility of this getting bigger, is very real. I’m just not going to throw any higher numbers out.  […]

hmmm.  Just caught John Dean in Los Angeles with Vidal, at a Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles function… Dean was a lot less interesting then Vidal, who said less than Dean… 😉  But he/Dean did respond to a lot of restlessness in the audience by saying if the Dems get a majority and run safe, don’t stand up, they will be gone in ’08.  Well, he said it, not me…

In Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum is gone. While the margin in Ohio is not nearly as wide, it’s very hard to see how Mike DeWine makes it back either.

The strange ones are Conrad Burns and Lincoln Chafee in Montana and Rhode Island, respectively. Both races are basically even, pretty remarkable considering how dismal their prospects looked just a couple weeks ago. While even is a bad place for a Republican to be going into Election Day in this kind of environment, both have some momentum at this point.

I’ll be sorry if Conrad Burns makes it, I watched the debates and that is one mean, crazy old coot.  Needs to go.

Conversely, George Allen and Jim Talent, are dead even as well, but with no momentum, and that is very, very dangerous under these circumstances. Talent/Republicans have a fabulous field organization in Missouri, if Talent pulls it out, it might be the ground game that does it, but this is very tough for both.

I am far away, but it seemed Talent hit at McCaskill hard.  Over and over.  And I am unsure, despite much chat from Dems and blogs, that the Michael J Fox commercial did a lot for her… FOX News had a tape of him in an interview admitting he had not read the MO bill.  At all.  They ran that tape over and over and over…

And the push back commercial had the actor that played Jeeeeeesus! in the Passion of the Christos.  He spoke in Aramaic in the commercial.  You know that spun a stupid one or two.  Heaven help us.  Talent deserves to lose.

A lot of people thought we were crazy when about ten days or so we moved the Maryland open seat to Toss Up, I am very very comfortable with that move and most recent polling shows that it has narrowed up a great deal. Cardin is still up but not by a lot. Sometimes candidates and campaigns matter, and Steele has outperformed Cardin in both respects.

The bottom line is that it is more possible today than a couple weeks ago that Republicans could hold their losses to just four, or it could end up being the six that seemed more likely to many then. Seven seat gain seems pretty much out, but then again three isn’t very likely either. Republicans would need a lot of breaks to keep losses to four, a 51-49 majority, but it is quite plausible. Some may be very close, but all but Missouri and Montana are east of the Mississippi River, which doesn’t necesarily mean an early evening, but that the story lines of the evening will develop early.

Yes, well… still some Blahhgers out there prattling 6 – 9 seats in the senate.  Have a hankie. 

And link to the Latest Polls page at Real Clear Politics… 😉

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UPDATE, 1:30 am, Sunday on the Pacific Ocean:

Death penalty for Saddam Hussein

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death by hanging by a Baghdad court.

And…

I went looking as I read in the Cook summary above that things look a tad dicey in MD with Cardin.  And found this… admittedly NRO… not a fave publication of mine, but I don’t mind Geraghty too much… I knew Cardin blew off the NAACP, but had not read a report.

A surprising, little-noticed indicator in Maryland
11/02 12:46 AM

So a day or two back, I’m thinking about the Maryland Senate race, and I’m thinking…

It’s a really Democratic state. Huge disadvantage for the GOP, just in registration numbers. And it’s probably the toughest year for a Republican challenger in many years. Steele has run his campaign just about flawlessly, and Cardin’s a mass of gray without much gray matter, but… maybe it just isn’t the year for a Republican Senate pickup in this state.

And then I read this, in the Evans-Novak Political Report:

In Maryland, many blacks are expected to vote for Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R). This is particularly true after his opponent, Rep. Ben Cardin (D), snubbed the Charles County NAACP by skipping out of their debate last week, which he had been expected to attend. Steele was cheered at the event — very unusual for a Republican — and Cardin was booed when his name was mentioned. [snip]

And the latest MD senate poll at RCP:

Maryland Senate Race

SurveyUSA

10/31 – 11/02

694 LV

Steele (R) 47% , Cardin (D) 47%

Tie

I am far away but it had seemed to me that Mfume never got it together in the primary BUT ALSO that the party wanted to shaft him for playing, or trying to play hardball in summer of 2003 (We won’t be treated like the girlfriend anymore, to paraphrase – and of course he is, and was, right…).  Just a guess at a distance…

If Steele wins, a bad blow for the party.  But they will be partying over 20 House seats and blow it off… 😉