News coverage, now

From today's press:

There has been plenty of speculation about U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe forgoing a third term on Capitol Hill to run for the Blaine House in 2006.

But the White House in 2008?

The creator of a new Web site, www.OlympiaSnowe2008.com, is hoping for just that, using the site to build support for an effort to draft Maine's senior senator to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

Interesting site

OMBwatch.

Interesting companion piece to SCOTUSblog and CongressWatch.net, maybe?

Washington politicians want to split the state

Paging Roger Waters…Story

Social Security update

The Hill reports on the sinking chances of convincing a reluctant Congress to fly in the face of their constituents' views.

In Montana:
The state’s member of the House — Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) — praised the president’s “Oprah Winfrey-style” approach to working the crowd. But he said he still wasn’t sold on privatization.

Montana Senator, Conrad Burns (R), said he would “continue to look at” the president’s plan but still had more questions, particularly about how to pay for it. ...a Times reporter asked Burns if he supported the president’s plan. Burns said he was still “crunching numbers” and worrying about the deficit.

To yet another reporter, Burns described himself as “intrigued” by the president’s plan but not ready to sign on. “Social Security is still a very, very important part of the retirement of a lot of seniors in Montana,” he went on to say. “So we’ll listen and we’ll look and we’ll probe ... and see what is in it for the next generation.”

Florida Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, whose 5th District has more Social Security beneficiaries than any other in the country, relayed to crowds that she told Bush to his face in the limo ride to the event that she wanted to “proceed cautiously” and wasn’t ready to sign on to his plan.

Others from the area are finding more straightforward ways of dealing with President Bush’s plan. According to Wednesday’s Tampa Tribune, Florida Republican Reps. Bill Young, Michael Bilirakis and Mark Foley won’t even return phone calls to talk about the subject.

No wonder Representatives are skittish. Take a look at how Social Security reform polls. Only 29% of over-55s think that it's a good idea; by contrast, 48% (note: STILL less than half) of 18-34 year olds think it's a good idea. Note the demographics of who turns out to vote: the demographic most enthusiastic for Social Security reform accounted for only 17% of those voting in the last election. Of the groups most likely to vote - ages 30-59 - less than half are on board with the President's plan. The reality is that the shoe is on the other foot: the President now needs Congress more than Congress needs him, and if he is determined to impale himself on Social Security, I think he's going to be disappointed if he expects Congress - most of whom want to get re-elected - to jump on the rails with him.

Of course, neither opponents nor supporters of social security reform can take much succor from the polling data, because well over half of respondents (59% to be precise) admitted that they didn't really understand the proposal being put forward by the President. Indeed, so bamboozled are the electorate that 85% of those polled opposed cutting benefits for existing retirees (which is Sen. Snowe's position), but only 43% supported raising payroll taxes. What this boils down to is that that public, by turns, don't fully understand what they're being asked to sign on to, and therefore don't want to break a system that does - at least for the time being - work. This is exactly what Sen. Snowe has said, and it's a responsible position for a conservative and a Senator. Conservatives shouldn't recklessly throw ourselves into uncharted territory of reform and financial overextension until we're sure it's the right way to go, and Senators shouldn't give the slightest credulity to the executive branch's pie in the sky numbers - despite the rantings of the Club for Growth (and you really have to wonder if these people have read the constitution and digested the function of the Senate), Senators are paid to be skeptics.

Funny

Regarding Condi Rice

This from a letter I sent out to a couple of newspapers and blogs which ran articles on the gathering "draft Condi" campaign:

There have been several comments floating around the media and blogosphere of late, regarding the possible candidacy of Secretary of State Rice in the 2008 election; indeed, Dick Morris, writing for The Hill, called Rice "the woman who may stand between [Hillary] Clinton and the presidency". A handfull of websites - both more and less serious - urging Rice's candidacy have also appeared.

My problem with the Dr. Rice for President sites - and it's exemplified by the www.rice2008.com site - is: where's the policy? What does Dr. Rice think about Social Security reform? Healthcare? Abortion? Free trade? Education? The people who are founding these sites either don't know, or don't care to display it publically. It just feels to me like they're playing the numbers game and nothing else - they see a black, female Republican candidate in the public eye, and that's all they feel that they need to know.

But that isn't enough, and surely we should demand more of a potential candidate - a compelling personal narrative is part of a candidate's package, of course, but it isn't enough in isolation.

I've seen people online frequently advocating Dr. Rice's candidacy, and they always seem so enthusiastic - What exactly about her attracts them to her as a candidate, I ask them? What policies has she advanced that you feel particularly qualifies her for the Presidency? What do you actually know about Dr. Rice's view's on a wide range of important policy issues? What is Dr. Rice's opinion on Social Security reform? On healthcare? What is Dr. Rice's view on the appropriate relationship between the Federal Government and the States? Does she approve of a Presidential line-item veto, or does she favor the supremacy of Congress in the legislative sphere? What is Dr. Rice's opinion about the trade deficit, how it can be reduced, and what is her view on whether the callue of the yuan should be decoupled from that of the dollar? What steps does Dr. Rice offer in terms of the progress of the next generation of environmentally-friendly technology, and the role of the United States in their development? What is Dr. Rice's solution to the problems of public education and the decline of US competetiveness in math and "hard" sciences?

Of course, these are all issues beyond the ambit of the Secretary of State or the National Security Adviser, but they are most certainly within the ambit of the President. So let us turn to matters that are within Dr. Rice's job descriptions. What is Dr. Rice's view on how best to resolve the China/Taiwan situation, and how would she react to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? What action would a President Rice take should the North Korean government collapse? If such a collapse ocurred, and if China should attempt to annex North Korea, what steps would she take? What is her view on the Cuba trade embargo, and how does she differentiate the trade embargo on communist Cuba from the trade free-for-all with communist China? What is Dr. Rice's view on the development of democracy within Saudi Arabia and its extension in Iran? How should the US seek to foster democratic reform in Africa without appearing high-handed or imperialistic? What are Dr. Rice's top five foreign policy goals during her term?

This is a very short list of extremely relevant questions - and thusfar, none of those advocating Dr. Rice's election have answered them, to my knowledge. The only rationale offered by supporters of Dr. Rice is that Dr. Rice is a black female Republican who is well-qualified to be Secretary of State and who might beat Hillary Clinton in 2008. I support Dr. Rice's elevation to Secretary of State - but to the Presidency?! Neither Dr. Rice nor any of her supporters have yet offered anything that convinces me that she should be given the 2008 nomination.

Now, obviously, these concerns ares exacerbated in my case because I'm (very publically) backing a candidate with an equally compelling story, and lengthy resume which superbly qualifies her for the Presidency, in my view, to back it up, Senator Olympia Snowe. While I play the numbers game too, and I would contend that Sen. Snowe's numbers match and better Dr. Rice's, Sen. Snowe backs up those numbers with three decades of public service, focused on the matters of great national import which a President will need to face.

Myself and a small group of volunteers are working as fast as we can to get the "real" website for Snowe 2008 into production, and it will include a full rundown of Sen. Snowe's views on any given issue. What's interesting to me is that many of the people who will criticize the views of Sen. Snowe that we display on the site will also sing Dr. Rice's praises - but while they will be told where Sen. Snowe stands on a given issue by our site, they will not find a similar explanation of the Secretary of State's views on any given issue on any of the Draft Rice sites.

Will Dr. Rice run? It seems perfectly likely. But my view remains that there is a far better candidate, should she be pursuaded to take the field.

Reality TV

Didn't I say that it was going to get worse and worse until someone killed themselves live on air? That outcome just got closer.

Tim Roemer gets it right

I'm not sure what the source of this quote is, but I believe it's from Tim's remarks in pulling out of the DNC Chair race:

"I got into this race five weeks ago to talk about the devastating loss we experienced in November," Roemer said in an interview. "It was not about 60,000 votes in Ohio. It was about losing 97 of the 100 fastest growing counties in the country. If that's a trend in business or politics you're in trouble."

Stating the blinking obvious

Story.

We've finally reached the point at which my brain turns to mush. First, a Republican President and Republican Congress manage to raise the ire of even the Cato institute over its budgeting. Then it manages to raise the ire of the ACU. And now, the Bush administration's budgeting process is even getting laughed at by the neoconservative press, the administration's alleged masters? This is beyond a joke. I'm going to wake up any time now.

What's objectionable to me isn't that the headline ethos is wrong - cut spending, reduce taxes - it's the sheer incoherency of the process. It's the idea that the White House claims to want to cut 150 discretionary spending programs, yet no-one seems to be able to provide a clear list of WHICH programs - even Josh Bolton, who Lord knows should know better than anyone else.

Let us hope that Chairman Lewis and chums are feeling like picking a fight with the White House over this. It all adds up to this ghastly pervading sense that nobody READS these damn documents. The budget is 2500 pages long, and sure, that's a long document - but if the guy who is supposed to sign off on it hasn't READ it, that worries me - because who has?. The only genuinely terrifying thing in Michael Moore's Propaganda 9/11 flick (for the record: he absolutely has the right to make it, and I absolutely have the right to bawl objections at the TV screen watchingit) was the interview with a Dem Congressman who gently condescended that it's a stupid idea to suggest that legislators should read all the legislation they vote on. Oh really?

Funny

Feeling better

Vicki is teaching the cat - not without success, I've got to say - to fetch a ball. This is exceedingly amusing - he's a dog in training. :p

I feel really a lot better this evening. After last week's tribulations and difficulties, I feel healthy, amused, happy, and as if I'm doing some important things in life. After all the drama last week, I feel like I'm much closer to being back on track.

Chairman Dean, apparently

Looks like Dean's momentum is now all-but unstoppable to get the DNC chair. Of course, didn't we all say that his momentum was all-but unstoppable before Iowa, this time last year?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55389-2005Feb1.htmlOn the other hand, I also predicted, following Dean's failure in Wisconsin, that if Dean was denied the nomination and Kerry lost the election, the Democratic party would fragment into all-out civil warfare between its liberal and moderate wings. I also predicted that, even if denied the nomination, Dean couldn't lose in terms of personal standing, and would do very nicely from his campaign, even if it ultimately faltered. From what I've seen, neither of these predictions were so very wide of the mark.

Intolerance from the tolerant party

With more than a whiff of self-congratulations, Democrats love to call themselves the tolerant party. However, that tolerance has never been extended to the millions of Democrats who hold the pro-life position on abortion.

At the 2004 Republican national convention in New York, featured prime time speaking spots were given to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Both men are unapologetically pro-choice on abortion. No pro-life Democrat at the party's Boston convention was seen or heard when the cameras were on.

But just maybe, Democratic leaders, after having righteously and tiresomely lectured the GOP to build a "Big Tent" in order to welcome pro-choice members, may actually, themselves, be starting to practice what they have preached. Consider the following items: