What You Might Have Missed: The Weekend Wrap-up

While there were not any nuclear tests or sex scandals breaking into the public purview this weekend, campaign season is really heating up as the general public starts to care, two weeks out. In fifteen more days, the nation will collectively decide in 435 separate votes who will lead the House next January. After reading a couple of articles regarding Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) this weekend, I had to laugh. The first is actually a short video, taken from a CBS piece, has her pledging not to impeach either Bush or Cheney. Whether this will hold true or not is debatable, but she said it nonetheless. In an LA Times piece, of all newspapers, would-be Speaker Pelosi is asked about her approach to proposing alternative plans to the GOP propositions. To quote the article,
"Week after week impatient Democrats asked, "When can we propose a plan?" and week after week she intoned, "Never."
After picking myself up off of the floor, I continued my troll through the news, the non-stories, and the straight-up BS. In New York, Senator Hillary Clinton (D) is running for re-election to her seat as the junior Senator; her sacrificial lamb of an opponent, former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, has apparently alleged that Hillary has had plastic surgery. Can he not just stick to the fact that she has remained married to Bill even after multiple indiscretions and desecrations of their marriage bed? Now this is a big dispute and to-do, in a campaign that was really over the moment Rudy Guiliani did not enter it. To Spencer's credit though, he denied saying any of the above to a reporter. Which brings us to lesson number one for today, and that is to never tell a reporter anything you do not want the world to know. For the record, the above link does have a picture of Hillary while a Wellesley student, and it is not of her good side.
In Connecticut, Senator Joe Lieberman (D, although he is an independent in this race) was taken out in the Democratic primary in August by challenger Ned Lamont. Lieberman is now up nearly 20 points in polls taken for the general election, so Lamont is grasping for straws by essentially accusing Lieberman of paying his workers. Amazing.
In Montana, which most Americans forgot existed, the RNC is trying to save face about rumors that incumbent Senator Conrad Burns (R) is finished in his race against Montana State Senate President Jon Tester (D). Let's be clear about it: this only a close race because of Burns being tied to the lovely Jack Abramoff AND the Dems deciding to dump millions into Tester's campaign. Even if the RNC and RSCC pull out funding, Burns has three times the amount of cash on hand ($1.7 million) than that of Tester, and he is still getting around 100 volunteers flown in during the last week of the campaign. Advertising is cheap in Montana; losing a couple of big backers this late does nothing to add to his problems.
Over at the Huffington Post today, they are making a huge deal about Google hiring three GOP lobbyists and donating $3,000 total to three separate GOP candidates (one of them is here in Ohio, Rep. Deborah Pryce). Evidently hiring Republicans should not be allowed, and for some perspective, they have donated much more in the past to Democrats. Back in New York, in the race to replace a retiring Representative, Sherwood Boehlert, there is an ad attacking Democrat nominee Michael Arcuri about a call he made to a phone sex hotline. This is probably a bunch of crap, because on the phone records, it was only a minute long call, and it was followed by a call to a NY legal hotline sharing the last seven digits of the number (Arcuri was an attorney).
Newsweek has Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Memphis) on the cover this week, along with a good feature article on him. Ford is running for US Senate, the seat that Bill Frist (R) is vacating. Frist's GOP would-be successor, former Chatanooga Mayor Bob Corker, is a great candidate, but Ford is a likable guy who is by no means a liberal politician. Both have done well in debates, and the race is close. To be honest, I am glad I do not vote in the Volunteer State this fall, because I sincerely support things both men say. Ford has been a big advocate of bucking one's party line, and has earned the ire of Dem leadership. I like that.
As with any election, talking heads and people who think they are important are rushing to get their predictions on the victors in early. Democratic Rep. John "Jack" Murtha (PA) was at home stumping for himself and other Dem candidates when he stated that Iraq was a failed policy. Why him saying so is news, I am not sure, as he states this just about every single day. Funny thing about Jack, though. The fine folks at CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a fine pretense for a group) who brought you the Mark Foley scandal after two years, have ranked Murtha on their dishonorable mention list for corrupt Congressmen at their new site, BeyondDelay.org (they missed Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) on their list; I am sure this was an oversight!).
Bush 41 weighed in as well last week, saying that he hates to think of what life would be like for his son, Bush 43, if Democrats win. Evidently, the fact that Dems don't like the current President is newsworthy. Journalists have been speculating about a possible rift between father and son, mostly due to comments made in Bob Woodward's newest "journalistic revelation" State of Denial. About Woodward: why he has gotten a free pass on not breaking any major story since Watergate, I do not know. His diatribes and punditry continue to pass for 'real reporting' and it is almost sickening.
Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD), who was beaten by Republican John Thune in 2004, is predicting Democratic takeover. He is saying that Dems will pick up 7 seats in the Senate and 25 in the House (I just don't see that at all, even here in Ohio). Daschle has apparently not made a decision about running for President in 2008, but I guess someone forgot to tell him that the citizens of South Dakota made that decision for him two years ago. Let's be clear, you don't lose your seat, or even retire after a single term or have a tough time defending it and become the favorite to win the White House. This is why Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) and Senator George Allen (R-VA) will have an extremely tough time in '08, even as much as I like the both of them.
Evidently Democrats are becoming optimistic again; I had Democratic optimism dead and buried back in 1994. Looks like we will have to exhume that one, but there is no word on whether resuscitation of that will be possible. And in the same piece, more proof that the scariest thing you can be at a Democrat costume party is a Karl Rove. Again, being in Ohio, we have already prepared the suite from which he will operate his vote-stealing supercomputer in. It seems that in '04, we forgot the little hors d'oeuvres he so adores (that person has since been executed). We have even invited Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and C.J. Prentiss to take a tour of the place, so they can see how we do it. While they are out gloating and declaring victory in advance, us GOPers will be knocking on doors, making phone calls, and being sure that we get out to vote on November 7.
As stated above, Nancy Pelosi does not want to investigate every little thing that the Republicans have done in the past years, but move on. The problem is that Democrats are salivating about the prospects of them "getting theirs", which means one thing: she will have a fight on her hands for the Speakership if the Dems do, in fact, win. They are also unveiling their "Six for '06" in the current Newsweek, the response to the Contract with America (twelve years late). If this is a large, unified issue proposal, I have yet to hear about it (until that article), which means they are terrible about getting a message out to Americans. I read the news and follow events in politics like it is my job, and if I have not heard of this, I can say for sure that the average newswatching American does not know about it (and that does not even take into account the apathetic ones who don't follow news). They also talk about the lack of a 'coherent' approach to foreign policy, and admit this is due to the fact that they do not have a plan for Iraq.
Another Newsweek article this week details how Congress has failed to do anything. Amazing, really, considering how we have had tax cuts, action on fighting terrorism within the States, Medicare Reform, education reform, and a comprehensive bill on immigration. Now it is not going far enough on many fronts, but that is still what I like to call progress. By the way, the current Newsweek is not too much more than a campaign ad for Democrats; they must be saving the GOP issue for next week.
More proof that we have become way too uptight and politically incorrect is that politicians are not going on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report for fear of being made fun of or looking bad. Seriously, can politicians make a joke anymore without being publicly sacrificed for it? Incredible. Whatever happened to sarcasm and irony? We here in Ohio can appreciate both; America should follow the lead.
Finally, over the past few weeks, College Republicans in South Carolina and Alabama (read: early primary states) have been joining on with Straight Talk America, Arizona Senator John McCain's PAC. More may be in the works in the weeks to come as McCain is clearly laying the groundwork for his Presidential campaign upcoming. There were also checks for some South Carolina CR chapters involved, but no one has said if there were any commitments made with those donations. My guess is, as they were rumored to be around $1,000, larger chapters would not have committed much for it, while smaller chapters may have made bigger promises to secure the funding. More on this, and how it affects the upcoming CRNC elections forthcoming, but for now, you can count Alabama CR Chairman Blake Harris and South Carolina CR Chairman Vic Bailey as McCain guys.