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:<\/p>\n
* The president’s approval rating seemed to have finally stabilized just about the 40% threshold, but a new Zogby poll<\/a> suggests the president’s modest boost in December has faded. Bush’s overall job approval rating slipped to only 39%. According to John Zogby, “the problem is the Iraq war,” with just 34% expressing support for Bush management of the war.<\/p>\n * Laura Bush reinvigorated talk about a presidential campaign for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2008, * Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said yesterday she sees a filibuster against Samuel Alito as unlikely<\/a>. “I do not see a likelihood of a filibuster,” Feinstein said. “This might be a man I disagree with, but it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be on the court.” She added that she will vote against his confirmation.<\/p>\n * In the race for the House Majority Leader post, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) insists<\/a> he has the race won, but in terms of public support, the numbers just aren’t there, at least not yet. As of now, Blunt is ahead<\/a> with 85 lawmakers vowing support, followed by Rep. John Boener (R-Ohio) with 41, and new entrant Rep. John Shadegg with three. If one secures 116 votes, he’ll have a majority. But there’s one quirk to keep in mind — lawmakers vote by secret ballot. There are plenty of times in which someone will pledge support for one candidate but vote for another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 president’s approval rating seemed to have finally stabilized just about the 40% threshold, but a new Zogby poll suggests the president’s modest boost in December has faded. Bush’s overall job approval […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}saying Friday that she thinks “it will happen for sure.”<\/strike> Yesterday, Rice once again dismissed the talk<\/a>. “[I]t’s flattering when people say things like that. The first lady is not only a terrific person, she’s my friend. And I was honored that she said that, of course. She’s a wonderful person,” Rice said. “But I’ve spoken to this. I know what I’m good at, I know what I want to do and that’s not it.” Asked about the vice presidential slot, Rice said, “The two are the same.” (Edited: the First Lady said a woman would be elected “for sure,” though this was not necessarily in reference to Rice)<\/p>\n