Archives for May 2008

George Bush is not, apparently, willing to attend soldier’s funerals. But, perhaps, we shouldn’t be quick to judge him as a selfish prick. He has given up a lot for this war (besides his approval ratings).

Here is a medley of commentary on Bush’s recent Farewell to Clubs:

(These and some 60 other media clips from the past week in politics are posted at Hominid Views.)

35 years ago, in the early days of the Pinochet regime in Chile, folk singer Victor Jara was murdered. Yesterday, one of the people involved, colonel, Mario Manriquez Bravo was found guilty. It’s really an amazing story, and I recommend that you read the whole thing here.

The dictatorship ultimately banned Jara’s music. They even banned some of the folk instruments often used to play it.

That day is over.

The boxing arena where he was murdered is now called Victor Jara Stadium.

Almost thirty-five years later, and nearly two decades after the end of the dictatorship, a Chilean court has found a retired colonel, Mario Manriquez Bravo, guilty in the murder of Victor Jara.

Unfortunately, they also closed the case, despite the clear involvement of numerous others. The Jara family’s attorneys believe that the court is still protecting the rest for political reasons. Now come appeals.

… are you doing inside reading a blog on a beautiful day like today?  Go outside and get some exercise.

Now scram!

The Democrats aren’t the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they’re finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They’re busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They’re frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.

That’s Peggy Noonan.  In the Wall Street Journal, for chissakes.  Mourning the death of her party.

At least one Republican isn’t in denial.

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

This is and will be the great challenge for John McCain: The Democratic argument, now being market tested by Obama Inc., that a McCain victory will yield nothing more or less than George Bush’s third term.

That is going to be powerful, and it is going to get out the vote. And not for Republicans.

Ouch.

As Goldy pointed out, there was a new poll for the Washington gubernatorial race released today by Rasmussen Reports. The poll was taken on May 12 on a sample of 500 likely voters, giving it a margin of error of about 4%.

The poll shows Governor Christine Gregoire is leading Dino Rossi 52% to 41%. This double-digit (+11%) lead is substantially better that her +5% lead in a late-April Elway poll poll and her +4% lead mid-April SurveyUSA poll. Finally, the previous Rassmussen poll, taken in late March gave Gregoire a slim +1% lead.

My Monte Carlo analysis of the Elway poll indicated that Gregoire had an 89.9% chance of beating Rossi (but only if the election were held when the poll was taken). It is precisely because that probability is less than 95% (a rather arbitrary number offered as a reasonable cut-off “significance level” by the great statistician Sir. R.A. Fisher early in the last century), that the results are considered a “statistical tie” or “within the margin of sampling error.” But having a nearly 90% probability of winning is not the same as having a 50% probability of winning—something that is implied by the phrase “statistical tie.”

So lets repeat the Monte Carlo exercise to estimate Rossi’s or Gregorie’s probability of winning a hypothetical election held right now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 500 voters each election. Each person had a 52% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 41% chance of voting for Rossi, and a 7% chance of voting for neither.

The result? Gregoire won every single one of the one million elections. In other words, the poll results indicate that, in an election held right now, Gregoire would win with certainty. There are some assumptions involved: the Rasmussen poll is unbiased and the sample was truly selected at random. So violations of those assumptions may offer Rossi slight chances. Furthermore, there is no question that things can and will change before November. But right now the best evidence available suggests that Gregoire wins.

There was another interesting finding in the poll. When the likely voters were asked their views on each candidate, 49% viewed Rossi favorably; 55% viewed Gregoire favorably; 45% viewed Rossi unfavorably; and 41% viewed Gregoire unfavorably. That gives Rossi a +4% spread between favorable and unfavorable, and Gregoire a +14% spread.

I’m thinkin’ the “We Wuz Robbed” meme isn’t really working out for Rossi….

(Cross-posted at Hominid Views)

I guess this is what passes for humor amongst the Guns & God wing of the Republican Party:

Ever wonder why there are so few Republican comedians? It’s because this is what passes for humor During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

One thing you can say about Huckabee, he sure knows how to play to an audience.

UPDATE:
Here’s the video:

Listen to the audience laugh.  Somebody aimed a gun at our first African American presidential nominee… oh man that’s funny, isn’t it?

I keep hearing about a hush-hush poll that’s been conducted, that bodes very well for a Sound Transit Phase 2 package, should one appear on the fall ballot. Hmm… I wonder if the popular support for transit has anything to do with this?

I’m not sure who conducted the poll, or what size the sample, but I’ve been assured by those who have seen it that it wasn’t a puff piece, and that it strongly tested the proposal’s negatives. (And by “negatives” I’m assuming they mean the price and the taxes.) This leads me to believe that it was probably conducted on behalf of folks weighing the risks of getting behind an ’08 ballot measure.

The US Senate voted last night to nullify an FCC rule that would have allowed media corporations to own both a newspaper and a television station in the same major market, no doubt warming the cockles of Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen, who lacks the deep pockets of the rival P-I’s corporate parent Hearst.

So I thought it a good time to remind Frank and his editorial board flunkies that this measure, adamantly opposed by the Bush administration, never would have gotten to the floor for a vote had the Republicans still controlled the Senate. Never.

See, the little letter in parentheses next to the name of the candidate really does matter. Perhaps the Times’ editors should keep this in mind the next time they’re tempted to base their endorsements solely on the issue of repealing the estate tax?

And keep in mind that Rasmussen is widely considered to be a Republican leaning pollster:

The re-election prospects for Washington Governor Christine Gregoire (D) have improved significantly over the past two months. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Washington voters shows Gregoire leading her Republican challenger, Dino Rossi, by eleven percentage points. It’s Gregoire 52% Rossi 41%.

What’s changed?  Largely it appears that the Democratic base is coming home to Gregoire, as one might expect as the election approaches.  But I’ll leave further analysis to Darryl.

FYI, Rasmussen also has Barack Obama opening up an 11-point lead over John McCain amongst WA voters.  Coincidence?

The Tri-City Herald’s Chris Mullick was rummaging online when he came across the state House Republican Organizational Committee’s new website.

It looks pretty sharp. It’s a bit more colorful than the previous version. It’s got a nice photo of House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, with his family. He’s looking all everymanish in blue jeans and polo shirt. The dog is a nice touch.

And if you look to the right you’ll note a fundraising target they’ve set of $35,000 by September. To date, they’ve raised $40.34 and they’re pretty excited about it.

“0% received!” it reads just above the mostly vacant bar chart.

And, it’s interesting to note that at least half HROC’s contributors are HA regulars. And who says this blog isn’t a fount of bipartisanship?

Jesus… was Bush drunk when he gave this speech? It certainly sounds like that from the way he slurred his words. Or maybe he’s suffered a stroke—that would explain a lot of things.

UPDATE:
At the suggestion of Don Joe in the comment thread, I’ve added this clip of Chris Matthews spanking some clueless righty. (This guy is paid to do talk radio, and I’m not? I could have answered Matthews question in a heartbeat.) As Matthews points out, if you’re going to accuse somebody of Neville Chamberlain style “appeasement,” you should at least understand what it is that Chamberlain did: let Hitler take the Sudetenland.

Appeasement is not talking to your enemies. It’s giving in to them.

Hamas is Stalin. No wait, that was Saddam. Iran is Stalin. No, they’re Hitler, except when they’re Idi Amin. Or maybe Henny Youngman, it kind of depends what day. Take my prime minister, please.

France used to be Neville Chamberlain, but now that they have a conservative in charge France is the Pope, and it turns out the Pope is NOT Hitler at all but is actually a good guy, unlike that one chick from Big Brother, who is Cuba. (The country, not the Gooding, Jr., who is like totally cool.)

Canada, watch your back, when I say “bacon” I don’t mean from the back, I mean from the belly, which is where Fat Bastard keeps his babies, just like Hugo Chavez. China used to be Hugo Chavez until Wal-Mart figured out they make excellent cheap stuff if it doesn’t kill you first. They’re kind of like the Ottoman Empire also because they sell cheap furniture.

Japan. Um, Japan.

And let’s talk, Iceland. So icy and landy, they totally cheese me off. We should invade them because if Björk isn’t an existential threat, I don’t know what is. But back to Hamas, if I catch any more libruls talking about even fraking talking to them I am going to totally go nukular on their sorry librul butts.

I mean, look at this dude:

Two years ago, in an interview with James Rubin for Sky News, Sen. John McCain expressed a willingness to negotiate with the terrorist group Hamas — the very group that McCain has been relentlessly using to smear Sen. Barack Obama over the last several weeks.

Rubin has written an op-ed in Friday’s Washington Post about his exchange with McCain, and The Huffington Post has obtained exclusive video. Here’s the key excerpt:

RUBIN: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”

McCAIN: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”

Typical Demon-rat. Our super secret blogger plan, code-named Operation Confuse-a-Cat, has worked to perfection. By voting for that guy in the primaries, we are going to clean his clock in November!

Tomorrow (Friday) evening join Chip Hanauer, Darcy Burner, Major General Paul Eaton (Ret.), members of the Northwest Progressive Institute, Master of Ceremonies Mike West, Jazz guitarist Don Mock, and, um…me for an evening of politics, music, dinner, and maybe a beer or two.

The event is a fundraiser for the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI), an organization dedicated to fighting for progressive values and common sense policies for America and the Pacific Northwest region.

The NPI has been a mover and shaker in the progressive blogosphere around here—frequently working behind the scenes to get things done. I encourage you to take this opportunity to strengthen our movement and get to know some of the people at NPI.

The event starts at 7 PM at the Redmond Town Center Marriott. Tickets are $60 for individuals or $90 for a household.

More details (and advance ticket sales) are available here.

Over at (u)SP, my good friend Eric thinks that in gloating over the ass-kicking his party got in MS-01, I may have lost some perspective.

So much so that even Josh Feit at the Stranger has weighed in, noting the hypocrisy of poo-pooing results in West Virginia while cheering events in Mississippi…

Yeah… thing is… I never poo-pooed the results in West Virginia, because it never occurred to me that a Democratic primary there might say anything about a partisan, Congressional runoff in Mississippi. See, one was a contest between two Democrats, and the other a race between a Republican and a Democrat. So what’s your point?

But Eric continues…

An even more important take-away is that Democrats are winning in red districts by running conservative candidates… So, celebrate away, Democratic friends. Just don’t pretend this is some great advance for liberalism. It’s a reminder that the GOP brand name is in sorry shape, not that these red district Democrats are simpatico with urban liberals.

Huh. I keep re-reading that post of mine that Eric linked to, and for the life of me I can’t see where I made any reference at all to the triumph of liberalism. Perhaps it’s between the lines?

See, the mistake Eric makes is believing his own bullshit about the wide-eyed, radical “nutroots.” I know it must be comforting to believe that liberal bloggers like me are all batshit crazy, but it doesn’t do his side any good to have such an inaccurate psychological profile.

In fact, we are for the most part strikingly pragmatic. I’m perfectly happy to have Southern Democrats like Travis Childers and Heath Schuler in Congress, if that’s the best we can do in those districts, and I could really care less if Dems in Mississippi host NRA barbecues as long as voters in urban districts have the right to place sensible local restrictions on the sale and ownership of the kind of handguns and other weapons most commonly used in violent crimes.

The netroots strategy is also a lot more subtle than Eric or his legacy media counterparts give us credit for, as illustrated by a neat bit of analysis today from Matt Stoller:

Finally the GI bill passed with overwhelming margin of 256 votes in the House, including 32 Republicans. It included a war surtax of one half of one percent on people making over $500k a year to pay for the GI bill, at the behest of Blue Dogs. This might actually be the most remarkable piece of the votes today; conservative Democrats agreeing to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for educational benefits for veterans. Bill Foster and Don Cazayoux both voted well on the new GI Bill and on the Responsible Plan bill with timelines, but were ‘yes’ votes on war funding. So yes, they are conservative, and I expect Childers to be conservative as well. Still, the MS-01, the IL-14 special election result, and the LA-06 special election result – all red seats picked off by Democrats – are devastating Republican discipline in the House.

This war is going to end because it is politically unsustainable. The Senate is going to add the funding back in and the House will make sure the money goes to the war, but recognize how big a deal this is. The Republicans in the House and the Senate are going to utterly collapse this fall, and Democrats will have a mandate to end the war. It’s something Obama has promised to do, and now the political logic there is undeniable.

Sure, I’d love for voters in Mississippi and Louisiana and West Virginia to self-identify as liberals (hell, they already agree with us on almost every major policy issue) but I’m more than happy if they merely call themselves “Democrats.” The purpose of politics is to seize, maintain and exercise power—that’s how we’ll get a progressive domestic agenda enacted, and that’s how we’ll end this goddamn war in Iraq—and we can’t do this without holding a comfortable majority in Congress. And that’s what my gloating over the GOP’s ass-whupping in MS-01 is all about.

Not that recent Democratic victories are entirely devoid of ideology. Eric got one thing right, “the GOP brand name is in sorry shape.” And it’s going to continue to stay that way as long as Republicans like Eric continue to deny that their sullied brand has anything to do with their party’s legacy of failed, ideologically driven policies.

Talk about a loss of perspective.