Thursday’s political round-up

March 29, 2007

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* The Politico reported today that the Rev. Jesse Jackson will support Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. (The Politico piece appears to be about a month late.)

* The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is launching a new attack website targeting freshman House Democrats. It’s called “The Real Democrat Story.” You’ll notice, of course, that Republicans continue to intentionally use poor grammar — “Democrat Story” instead of “Democratic Story” — even in urls.

* James Dobson doesn’t appear to think too highly of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who is reportedly considering a presidential run. “I don’t think he’s a Christian,” Dobson said. “At least that’s my impression.”

* The WaPo reports today that Maryland is poised to become the first state to agree to bypass the electoral college and effectively elect U.S. presidents by national popular vote under legislation moving briskly toward the desk of Gov. Martin O’Malley (D). There is, however, a catch — the state measure would not take effect until enough other states agree to do the same.

* Devlin Barrett has a memorable quote in the New York Post this week: “Plenty of people and politicians have skeletons in their closets. In the case of Rudy Giuliani, that closet is a walk-in.”

March 29, 2007 at 12:04 pm

James Dobson doesn’t appear to think too highly of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who is reportedly considering a presidential run. “I don’t think he’s a Christian,” Dobson said. “At least that’s my impression.”

Well, if “being a Christian” means belting your kid and beating your wife (both of which Dobson has done), then I am certain Fred Thompson is not a “Christian.”

Letting these fundamentalist scum hijack the meaning of the word “Christian” has to stop. By itself, the word is a noun, when you put it behind “funbdamentalist” as in “fundamentalist christian,” it becomes an adjective, defining which variety of ignorant brain-dead worthless scum you are: “fundamentalist Jew,” “fundamentalist Muslim,” fundamentalist Hindu.” They’re all The Taliban.

I think Christatollah Dobson just ought to run: if you want to turn the United States into a theocracy, sometimes you gotta do it yourself.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is launching a new attack website targeting freshman House Democrats.

Is it funded by cash from that chap accused of funding terrorists? Inquiring minds want to know, especially since Dole’s brilliance during the last election cycle left them in the hole.

I really think they’re on auto-destruct. (Mwahaha) That crap scarcely worked for the 2006 elections and there’s plenty of dirt on the remaining senior ReThuglican members. What next? The NRCC starts making GOPers go around with Kick Me signs on their backs?

The California legislature passed the “electoral college by national popular vote” legislation last year, but unfortunately Schwarzenegger vetoed it. It was also considered by several other states. I think this is our best shot at getting rid of the Electoral College and its ill effects (on campaigns even more than on election results, IMHO).

After that’s taken care of, we’ll have a decent electoral process (except for the primary system, the campaign finance (bribery) system, the patchwork of county voting systems, the haphazard vote counting process, voter suppression and intimidation problems, voter fraud concerns, idiotic and negative campaign advertising, the irrelevancy of running as a third party candidate …).

Dobson doesn’t think Thompson is a Christian? Well, I’ve never thought Dobson was one. And perhaps Dobson can enlighten us as to the status of Mitt “Special Underwear” Romney.

I think Christatollah Dobson just ought to run: if you want to turn the United States into a theocracy, sometimes you gotta do it yourself.

This brings up a question: assuming Dobsen will not take this excellent advice and run, who does he support? Frist?

CB: Since you don’t ever go around linking Drudge, can you please stop linking “The Politico”? This Sham/Scam “site” needs to be cut off at the knees, and all you are doing with these links is giving them life support.

Read this from a correspondent to Glenn Greenwald yesterday:

Dear Mr. Greenwald,

I’m writing as someone who appreciates your writing and viewpoints. Your previous discussions on web traffic in regards to the Victory Caucus I felt were quite good. Regarding your current post in which you send questions to Politico, I feel I might be of some service to you.

In my current occupation, I am a web metrics analyst. Through my company I have access to many reporting tools. One of them is Hitwise (you can check them out at http://www.hitwise.com.)

One of your questions [to Mike Allen] I can easily answer:

(3) Do you know what percentage of The Politico’s overall traffic is accounted for by Drudge links?

Drudge provides generally about 65% of all of the politico’s traffic. The next highest website providing traffic to Politoco is Google at about 3%. (See the attached file.)

It’s rankings in the Politics grouping in Hitwise is very spiky, varying between number 60 and the number 4 spot in a jagged saw-tooth pattern (indicative of no natural audience). The spikes to high rankings coincide with Drudge traffic (see the daily spreadsheet.)

Additionally, while they rank highly on days when Drudge links (and lowly on days when they Drudge does not), their metrics for pageviews are quite low (again, indicating no natural audience.)

If I can be of any assistance in this or further explorations of web metrics, please feel free to contact me.

Would like to help in any way.

[name withheld]

We don’t need to give aid and comfort to the enemy, do we?

I cannot understand what’s so offensive about the word “Democrat”, especially as a proper noun. In England there’s a Labour Party, not a Labourite Party. Using one less syllable, the term “Democrat” conveys what’s wanted: a democratic approach to government, as opposed to yesterday’s conservative (read big business) Republicans and today’s fascist (read big government) or even theocratic Republicans.

African Americans made a successful campaign out of turning what had been a racist slam into a positive slogan: “Black is beautiful”. Setting aside the “sticks and stones” adage, I’m proud to be a Democrat and a member of the Democrat Party (after you get used to it, the term actually packs a lot of punch). And I’ll certainly never be rich enough or mean enough to be a Republican of any stripe.

Or zealous enough, I’d hope, Ed. I coined an adjective that describes the Republican Party: “Zealfish.” To be a Repub, you have to either be selfish (e.g. wealthy and not giving a damn about those less fortunate than yourself,) or a religious zealot. Or, in the worst case scenario, both! Republicans. The party of Zealfishness!

Re: #4: why did Schwarzenegger veto it?

Re: #8: the reason it’s offensive is the malicious intent behind it. It’s slur and a form of baiting by the right, it has nothing to do with better grammar.

Here’s the Governor’s veto message, delivered last October 1:

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Veto Message
To the Members of the California State Assembly:
I am returning Assembly Bill 2948 without my signature.
I believe strongly in democracy and in honoring the will of the people. While this bill honors the will of the majority of people voting for the office of President of the United States across the country, it disregards the will of a majority of Californians.
I appreciate the intent of this measure to make California more relevant in the presidential campaign, but I cannot support doing it by giving all our electoral votes to the candidate that a majority of Californians did not support.
This is counter to the tradition of our great nation which honor states rights and the unique pride and identity of each state.
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger

In general:
Small states don’t want to change the current system because in they think they have slightly more pull with their 2 extra electoral votes. Battleground states don’t want a change because they want to remain the focus of the Presidential campaigns. And Republicans think they get an advantage under the current system because most of the smaller states are red. They may all be right to some degree.
As for Schwarzeneggar, I’m not sure what his thinking was. Bottom line, I think maybe he just doesn’t like the idea.

Rian (#10), That’s precisely why I think we should adopt “Democrat Party” as our own. It does pack more wallop than the adjective “democratic”. “Black” was originally a term racist derision, as was “Queer” back in the day. “Black is beautiful” and “We here, we’re queer, get used to it” are victory anthems, right back in the faces of the bigots.

DEM-o CRAT-ic PAR-ty versus DEM-o-crat PAR-ty

I guess it all comes down to whether you like the martial sound of three trochees in a row as in march-step or a more varied and imaginative dactyl – trochee combo. The Beatles (and Zappa, the Dead, ELO, Yes, Rush and a host of others) turned the music world on its ear by adopting the latter as a break from the standard four-chord rock ‘n’ roll which preceded them. Rhythmically compare any standard ballad or rock song of the ’50s with the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out”. Give me a dactyl – trochee at least once in while.

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