FOOTBALL!!!

Ahh, it's that time of year again! Saturday was the beginning of the NCAA football season, when seemingly every team in the country takes the opportunity to kick the dogshit out of the someone lower in the pecking order, as Tech did with SMU, and Texas with North Texas. In fact, it looks like the only 2 exceptions to this rule were California (who foolishly thought they could whip up on Tennessee; even when the Vols are on a rebuilding year, you better bring your A-game to that one or you're gonna get embarrassed) and Notre Dame (as every year).

One of the things I love about Irish football is that ND doesn't believe in padding their schedule with early season cupcakes like other teams do; there aren't gonna be any Indiana States or Florida Internationals on the list. Sure, we play the military teams this year, but Notre Dame has a long, long history of playing those teams, good or not. And frankly, the sheer pageantry of those games makes it worth it.

The downside to ND's schedule, however, is early season scares like we had on Saturday. I'm rarely right when I talk about football, but even I knew that Georgia Tech, a team that last season beat Auburn and Miami-- at Auburn and at Miami-- wasn't going to be a pushover. Why everyone expected a blowout is beyond me.

Despite some disappointments with the game, like Quinn's maddening (and very much new) tendency to overthrow his receivers, there were 2 things about the game I found promising. One was the performance of the Irish defense, as everyone has noted. The other, less talked about, observation I had was the lack of turnovers. In fact, the utter lack of turnovers (there were 0 on either side). On the one hand, it may show a D that has forgotten how to cause them, but it definitely shows an offense that could keep them under control despite extreme pressure and frustration. It shows patience and poise. The Brady bunch had faith that their teammates and coaches would figure this team out in time, and didn't try to force big plays. And sure enough, by the end of the first half the adjustments had been made, and it was all over for Georgia Tech.

labor day

Sorry people. I just had to unplug for the weekend (just long enough to earn myself a tetanus shot, apparently). We have quite a bit on the menu, however, from an ABC special to more on racist Senator George Allen's capitol hill shenanigans to a couple of great posts over the weekend from Greenwald et al.

And of course, over on 'Round the Bend I'll be blathering on about IN-02, including some new Count verbal bloopers and more on the ad blitz by the Count and his special interest bedfellows. I'll also start talking more about the man of the season himself, Joe Donnelly.

more on Allen's racist friends

Oh my. Archpundit posts an actual letter s/he got from one of the guys in the picture with George Allen. It's racist vitriol on a level I've rarely heard. Take a look, and decide for yourself if Allen's buddies are racist pricks.

racist George Allen's racist friends

Man, this guy's dirty. From The Nation (c/o Kos):

Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups.

In 1996, when Governor Allen entered the Washington Hilton Hotel to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservative movement organizations, he strode to a booth at the entrance of the exhibition hall festooned with two large Confederate flags--a booth operated by the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), at the time a co-sponsor of CPAC. After speaking with CCC founder and former White Citizens Council organizer Gordon Lee Baum and two of his cohorts, Allen suggested that they pose for a photograph with then-National Rifle Association spokesman and actor Charlton Heston. The photo appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of the CCC's newsletter, the Citizens Informer.

According to Baum, Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum's point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. "It helped us as much as it helped him," Baum told me. "We got our bona fides." And so did Allen.

I can't believe people scoff at the idea that racism is alive and well and is a driving force in the Republican party. It ain't like the CCC is defunct or even diminished. The Southern Strategy was less than 40 years ago. And we still hear the "code," the terms and ideas that sound racially innocuous... unless you're a racist, and you know the buzzwords. Words like "welfare queens" that Reagan and others used that were tacitly understood as "black welfare queens." It was racistcodeapalooza during Katrina, what with "looters" (who were always black), the "lazy" residents who "were waiting on their welfare checks" and forming "street gangs." And far too many daft talk show hosts and TV magazine shows let conservatives spout that crap without questioning what they really meant.

Allen is the perpetuator of that system, and he's the product of it, having been taken in by the "coolness" of confederate conservatism growing up, despite having no ties whatsoever to the South.

Had enough, Virginia? Support Jim Webb.

somebody's gotta do it

Ok party people, here's the skinny: I've started a new blog. I'm keeping this one, and will continue to post on it, but I can't find any blogs dedicated to the race in IN-02, and damnit, it's just too important to go unnoticed on the internets. So here's the site: 'Round the Bend: Shock troops in the bluification of Michiana.

I'd appreciate a couple of things from y'all. First, feedback. Please feed me your ideas/qualms/leads/whathaveyous. Second, your eyes and ears. Please pass me any info you find, any articles you read, any rumors you hear on the IN-02 race, or on politics in Michiana in general. Also, plug this site to your family, friends, coworkers, anyone living in this district or curious about the race. Finally, I'm going to give it my best, but I don't know if I can do this alone, and I can use all the help I can get. If anyone I know would like to contribute actual material (as in, do some posting), please let me know. Obviously, you won't have to post under any deadlines or quotas or anything, just adding your 2 cents or whatever is great.

Bush Administration to be subpoenaed?

Rawstory sez White House will receive subpoenas at 4:30 today over domestic wiretapping (c/o a gnostic at dKos). Should be big news if it actually happens, but I don't think Rawstory is exactly Reuters, so take it with a grain of salt.

poll fun

Here is a fun interactive new poll from WSJ/Zogby. It covers all the races for senate and governor this year.

It also contains a ton of good news. It shows the GOP only holding 4 of the 20 gubernatorial races (a possible Dem pickup of... get this... nine), and while it's more mixed on the Senate it has potentially great news on that front as well.

I wouldn't trust the explanation of the poll's ramifications on the side panel, though, at least for the Senate one. It predicts the Republicans will maintain their majority 52-46, despite the fact that 2 of that 52 includes races not covered by Zogby where the Democratic candidate is consistently beating the Republican (Montana and Rhode Island). Taking those into account would make the numbers 50-49, and with a likely Democratic tide and 4 Republican races within the margin of error, it's hard to say this poll clearly shows a Republican majority in '07.

That simple fact alone is amazing, considering the Senate wasn't even considered in play at the beginning of the year.

To put said blurb's credibility into proper perspective, it also says that Jim Jeffords is expected to caucus with the Democrats. Actually, he's not expected to caucus with anyone, because he's retiring. Bernie Sanders, the Independent leading and projected by everyone to win in that race (also not covered by this poll), however, will.

Now, let's see if I can provide a slightly better blurb:

There are only 3 races where the Dems lead in a GOP seat (again, not including the ones in Montana and Rhode Island), and it shows McCaskill down against Republican Jim Talent in Missouri, but it confirms a poll earlier this week showing Allen losing to Webb in Virginia (a tradeoff for McCaskill, who was leading slightly until recently in other polls). It also shows the Republican leads in Nevada, Arizona, and Tennessee whittled down to within the margin of error.

Though it also shows the same number of Dem seats within the margin of error, no polls in a long time have shown any Democrats losing, and even nonpartisan outfits like Cook political report are predicting that the Dems will hold all of their seats due to the almost certain Democratic wave. Also, the close Dem races have been that way pretty much the whole cycle (and, in fact, have generally trended bluer, with the exception of Stabenow) while the closeness of the GOP seats is a new development (Ensign, Kyl, and Allen, for instance, were not considered vulnerable 6 months ago).

Remember, if the Dems win 6, they flip the Senate.

Nota bene: The MT-Sen race, according to Rasmussen, is now tied at 47%, though previous polls showed Tester (the Democrat) up by 7. This was taken before Burns' gaffe about his "little Guatemalan man," though, so I still think this one will go to Tester.

the GOP economy

From The New York Times (c/o AMERICAblog):

With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

Until the last year, stagnating wages were somewhat offset by the rising value of benefits, especially health insurance, which caused overall compensation for most Americans to continue increasing. Since last summer, however, the value of workers’ benefits has also failed to keep pace with inflation, according to government data.

It's worth mentioning, first of all, that the only bright spot in the report, i.e. "the rising value of benefits, especially health insurance", isn't referring to people getting better benefits, but rather simply that the same benefits are costing more than ever so employers have to dig deeper into the pockets to give us the same crappy HMO coverage we were getting in 2000. So it's not really a bright spot at all, it just looks like one when you crunch the numbers.

Since the House of Reps was somewhat consistently Democratic from the Roosevelt Administration to 1994 (including a forty-year period of constant Democratic control from 1954-1994), this is the first time since WWII that the entire government has been run by the GOP for any appreciable length of time. And this is what we get.

It shouldn't be surprising, of course: an economy where businessmen prosper and workers suffer uncannily reflects Republican priorities. They favor the entrepreneur over the worker, the corporation over the consumer. And their policies, from tax cuts for the rich to failure to raise the minimum wage for a decade (which is at its lowest buying power since 1966) to the lack of oversight over corporate criminals like Enron, reflect such priorities.

Had enough? Support your local Democratic candidates.

big pharma dishes it out for the GOP

From the Cleveland Plain-Dealer (c/o TPM Muckraker):

The pharmaceutical industry quietly footed the bill for at least part of a recent multimillion-dollar ad campaign praising lawmakers, including Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, who support the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, according to political officials.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims credit for the ads, although a spokesman refused repeatedly to say whether it had received any funds from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA.

I know Big Pharma went up to bat for Chocola with those prescription drug bill ads, and I remember that there's also a pro-Chocola ad out from the US Chamber of Commerce.

Does anyone remember what the USCoC ad was about, and could it be part of this same ad blitz?

WWBGD?

Some interesting facts about Barry Goldwater, the founder of modern conservatism:
1. he was pro-choice
2. he was pro-gays in the military
3. Hillary Clinton campaigned for him.

That helps bring into perspective just how far right national discourse, especially the rightwing version, has drifted. Goldwater's positions on some issues fall to the left of many of today's Democrats.

our national detour into CRAZY!town

From Walter Williams (c/o Glenn Greenwald):

Does the United States have the power to eliminate terrorists and the states that support them? In terms of capacity, as opposed to will, the answer is a clear yes.

Think about it. Currently, the U.S. has an arsenal of 18 Ohio class submarines. Just one submarine is loaded with 24 Trident nuclear missiles. Each Trident missile has eight nuclear warheads capable of being independently targeted. That means the U.S. alone has the capacity to wipe out Iran, Syria or any other state that supports terrorist groups or engages in terrorism -- without risking the life of a single soldier.

Terrorist supporters know we have this capacity, but because of worldwide public opinion, which often appears to be on their side, coupled with our weak will, we'll never use it. Today's Americans are vastly different from those of my generation who fought the life-and-death struggle of World War II. Any attempt to annihilate our Middle East enemies would create all sorts of handwringing about the innocent lives lost, so-called collateral damage.

Such an argument would have fallen on deaf ears during World War II when we firebombed cities in Germany and Japan. The loss of lives through saturation bombing far exceeded those lost through the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This is why the elections matter. This is why the Democrats have to win. Neoconservatives like Williams are currently running the Republican party. They comprise most of the senior staff in the Executive branch, up to (and including, in my opinion) the guy sitting in the Oval Office.

This is what they want. This is what they believe in. The nuclear annihilation of other countries that have not even attacked us, nor is there any tangible evidence that they plan to.

Preemptive. Nuclear. War.

So Williams is among the first to actually say it. Plenty of others, however, have hinted at it, as Greenwald shows. You really think there's no possibility of neocons in the government wanting this as well, or at least something similar? How much are you willing to bet on it?

the next step in the New American Century

From New York Times:

Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.

Some policy makers have accused intelligence agencies of playing down Iran’s role in Hezbollah’s recent attacks against Israel and overestimating the time it would take for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

The complaints, expressed privately in recent weeks, surfaced in a Congressional report about Iran released Wednesday. They echo the tensions that divided the administration and the Central Intelligence Agency during the prelude to the war in Iraq.

The criticisms reflect the views of some officials inside the White House and the Pentagon who advocated going to war with Iraq and now are pressing for confronting Iran directly over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism, say officials with knowledge of the debate.

And now it's Flashback: 2002! Ya know, I can't help but wonder, why would Republican lawmakers (I actually just typed "lawbreakers" on accident) want the intelligence agency to start getting shrill about threats from Iran just now? I mean, what possible ulterior motive could the GOP have for wanting to scare the bejesus out of people, or better yet, start another war, which causes Americans to instantly rally around their leaders? And why would this particular group of leaders want war with Iran so badly?

Possibly the least reassuring part of the article:

Several intelligence officials said that American spy agencies had made assessments in recent weeks that despite established ties between Iran and Hezbollah and a well-documented history of Iran arming the organization, there was no credible evidence to suggest either that Iran ordered the Hezbollah raid that touched off the recent fighting or that Iran was directly controlling attacks against Israel.

“There are no provable signs of Iranian direction on the ground,” said one intelligence official in Washington. “Nobody should think that Hezbollah is a remote-controlled entity.” American military assessments have broadly echoed this view, say people who maintain close ties to military intelligence officers.

“Does Iran profit from all of this? Yes,” said Gen. Wayne A. Downing Jr., the retired former commander of the Special Operations Command and a White House counterterrorism adviser during President Bush’s first term. “But is Iran pulling the strings? The guys I’m talking to say, ‘no.’ ”

Shorter White House counterterrorism adviser: "What do you mean all of the militant groups in the Middle East aren't part of a single monolith emanating from Tehran?"

Sounds like the guys in charge of this stuff in the Bush Administration are part of what you might call a "pre-1990 mindset."

"the brainiacs of the bunch"

When did we all flashback to 1963? From Media Matters:

On the August 23 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Rush Limbaugh suggested that the competition in a new season of CBS' reality TV program Survivor, in which contestants are reportedly divided into competing "tribes" by ethnicity, "is not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events." In support of this assertion, he cited a March 2 HealthDay article reporting that "young blacks -- especially males -- are much more likely to drown in pools than whites."

Regarding the new Survivor series, Limbaugh also stated that there "are many characteristics ... that you would think would give [the African-American tribe] the lead, and the heads up in terms of skill and athleticism and so forth." He also stated that "our early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe" -- which he said could include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan," or "a Mexican or two" -- provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves." Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders" and that they can "do it without water for a long time, they don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do."

Limbaugh also asserted that "the Asian-American tribe" -- whom he called "the brainiacs of the bunch" -- "probably will outsmart everybody," but while "intelligence is one thing ... raw, native understanding of the land -- this is probably why the Native Americans were excluded, because they were at one with the land and they would probably have an unfair advantage."

And what a Grand Ol' Party it is that brought us back to an era where this is considered reasonable discourse.

IN-02: Chocola spreads more disinformation

I just saw yet another new Chocola ad, this one countering the DNC's attack on Chocola's support for the Federal Energy Bill of 2005. Of course, it's one long exercise in bs, from referring to the DNC as "Donnelly's liberal allies" (meant to insinuate the intrusion of 527's and interest groups into the fight-- in fact, Chocola seems to have more of those on his side, including the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Healthcare Association and Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care that funded the disinformation ad on Medicare Plan D) to cynically referring to the bill as "the ethanol bill."

Because, ya know, it was all about ethanol, and the $5 billion in takeaways to the oil and gas companies that contributed so much to Chocola's reelection fund was just a minor detail!

The icing on the mendacity cake? One of the key parts of the energy bill was a provision protecting manufacturers of MTBE from damages for it soaking into our groundwater. MTBE, you may remember, is a gasoline additive that helps it burn, just like ethanol. Unlike ethanol, if it gets into the groundwater it can be disastrous to the public health. Ethanol and MTBE compete with each other, so protecting the makers of MTBE hurts the makers of ethanol (and, arguably, corn farmers). And this particular provision proved to be so controversial that it threatened to derail the entire bill.

Well, in July 2005 (HR 6, Vote #373, 7/14/2005) the Democrats introduced an amendment to strike that particular provision, holding MTBE manufacturers accountable for the environmental damage their product (which remember, kids, is in competition with ethanol) does. Guess which way Chocola voted on said provision? That's right, folks, he voted for protecting MTBE producers.

I guess that mean Chris Chocola was against ethanol before he was for it.

is W getting senile?

This is fascinating. Here's a comparison video of Bush at a debate for the Texas governorship in 1994 and Bush vs. Kerry 10 years later. The difference in his cognitive abilities is striking.

I paid a lot of attention to this race in 1994, being 16 and just becoming politically aware. I remember Bush the gubernatorial candidate a little bit, and I remember people being pretty impressed with him (admittedly, in a very conservative town). One thing I definitely remember is that people had some reservations about Bush, but it was never that he was stupid, and you'd think that criticism would've come up seeing as he was going toe-to-toe with Ann Richards, who at least presented herself as exceedingly polished and sharp.

Perhaps my faint rememberings of his governorship (or at least his '94 campaign) are why, even though I joke about it, I still sometimes resist the argument that W has been such a disaster because he's stupid. I really think that W is still the man in charge, and that he's going along with the neocons because he is one. He totally buys into that ideology. The reason he has such a puppet persona, in my opinion, is because as long as people believe he's being pulled this way and that by various unseen hands (2 of them being Dick Cheney's, of course), they can hold out hope that maybe he'll wake up and boot out the neocons and set a new course for a less disastrous, if still mediocre, end to his tenure in the Oval Office.

Read my lips, folks: Na. Ga. Happen.

Update: Here's the video:

The Stranger? Hamlet? OH COME ON!

An interesting post from the Carpetbagger on Bush's "summer reading list." And what a whopper it is! Aside from the fact that this reading list is a baldly mendacious attempt to boost W's intellectual cred (Hamlet and MacBeth? honestly...), it also happens that after a little number crunching, some folks on "the internets" figured out it's pretty much impossible for the president to have read all these books over the summer and done his job at the same time.

Steve Benen continues:

C'mon. We're talking about a guy who's supposed to be folksy and simple. It's an image the White House has worked hard to cultivate over the years. The president seems to enjoy it — otherwise he wouldn't openly mock people with PhDs.

The fact that the White House gang is experimenting with a new persona — Bush, the reader — is embarrassing. He's not supposed to be about book learnin'; he's about governing by instinct and relying on the advice of educated people who tell him what he wants to hear. Switching gears now is not only literally unbelievable, it's pointless. The die is already cast.

There have been a number of these ridiculous PR stunts over the course of the Bush Administration, but this is one of the more obvious and sadder ones. It's also one that they've been pushing for at least a few months now (you may remember that the line Bush used to sneak off to Baghdad for his last trip was, "Excuse me, I'm going to go read..."). The good news is that Bush's overriding need to change his image may be due to internal polls showing that the people have figured out that a "shoot-from-the-hip guy I want to drink with" president isn't such a good idea. Such a change of opinion requires some pretty serious un-branding.

I think this image is not so much an issue of cubila jacta est ("the die is cast") as much as Erasmus' correction cubila jacta esto ("oh, what the hell...")

Reaganism

From a blurb on Richard Viguerie's new book Conservatives Betrayed (stetson tip to Digby:

This is the first book that deals with the disappointment and even anger that most conservatives have with President Bush and the GOP-led Congress on major public policy issues. In this conservative manifesto, Viguerie applies conservative principles to 21st Century problems and issues. He also presents a detailed strategy for conservatives to take back control of the Republican Party and govern America.

With President Bush's low approval numbers, the unrest among grassroots conservatives, and the potential for GOP losses in the 2006 and 2008 elections, this book is a roadmap for conservatives as they begin to rebuild the conservative movement, recapture the Republican Party, and move even the Democrats to the right. In Conservatives Betrayed, Mr. Viguerie proposes bold action for conservatives to take back the Republican Party from Big Government Republicans, including:


Withhold financial support from Republican committees and most Republican incumbents.

Withhold support from all 2008 presidential candidates.

No longer call yourself a "Republican" but rather a Reagan conservative or Reagan Republican.

And so the great conservative canard is perpetuated: "Bush isn't really conservative, that's why he screwed up. If he were a real conservative, ya know, like Reagan..." But there are 2 serious problems with this argument:

1. If Bush isn't really a conservative, then how come conservatives absolutely luuuuuuved him until quite recently? He got no less than 84 percent of the conservative vote in 2004. Not 2000. 2004, after the War in Iraq had not only begun, but had begun to sour. He failed to break even among either liberals or "moderates," but got such an overwhelming proportion of the conservative vote that they swung the election for him.

Of course, conservatives inevitably say, "Oh that's just because Kerry was sooooooo bad! We held our nose and voted for W, honest!" Oh really? Then maybe you can explain why Bush's approval rating was polling at 94% among conservatives in January 2005, after the election and long after Iraq had become a quagmire. In fact, just 5 months ago he was still stamped "Grade A Conservative" by 78% of his ideological peers, long after everyone else in the country had kicked him to the curb. By this point, for instance, he was only fooling 26% of Independents and 9% of Democrats.

2. How, exactly, is Bush different ideologically than Reagan again? Their foreign policy looks astonishingly similar to me. So similar, in fact, that it appears Bush is trying to wage Cold War on a Soviet-style terrorist monolith that doesn't even exist. Their economic and budgetary policies are nearly identical. And their domestic policy. Ditto with their rhetoric ("God Bless America," good vs. evil, etc.). Hell, don't they even have a lot of the same staff?

the media's idea of accountability

If the Revolution isn't televised, it will be because the media will still be talking about Jonbenet Ramsey. After they spend a week shoving this story down our throats, they dare to stand agape on the evening news at "how interested the country is" in this decade-old murder.

Really? Did "the country" decide to pre-empt everything else going on to spend all their time stalking John Mark Karr? Or did the media?

Their ability to stand there and pretend like they have no hand in the manufacturing of "news" is sickening sometimes.

more poll madness

Polls, get your polls right here! (c/o Kos)

I'd like to highlight VA-Sen. 2 polls, Rasmussen (8/16. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (7/18 results)):

Allen (R) 47 (50)
Webb (D) 42 (39)

and SUSA (8/18. Likely voters. MoE 4.2% (6/28 results)):

Allen (R) 48 (56)
Webb (D) 45 (37)

Looks like we have a race! This is truly huge, I think. All the news has been that the Webb campaign has been broke for weeks, yet he's still managed to bring the race to a statistical dead heat. People are saying the "macaca" thing hurt Allen somethin' awful, which may well be true. If it is true, Allen's in deep doodoo because he has a long, checkered, and well-documented past when it comes to racism. He may well be the most outwardly bigoted person in the entire Senate (funny thing for the son of a French-speaking African Jew).

I'm gonna put this out there: I don't think Webb's chances are very good, despite what the polls say. And here's why: the Republicans need George Felix Allen, Jr. By all accounts, he's their man in '08. In '06, he represents a formerly blood-red state that's suddenly trending blue in a whole damn hurry. A Southern state that's trending blue in a whole damn hurry.

I got a piece of trivia for ya: did you know that only 1 Democrat has received 50% +1 of the popular vote in a presidential election since Johnson kicked the dogshit out of Barry Goldwater in 1964? You wanna know why we stopped electing Democratic presidential candidates after the Johnson Administration? Look no further than the 12-state 3rd World country under the Mason-Dixon Line.

Allen's upset could well signal the beginning of the end, as far as the GOP's iron grip on the South goes. They're already losing the Mountain West, one of the fastest growing regions in the country, where Colorado and Montana have already booted the Republicans out of the state legislatures and are poised to send 2 Democrats into the Senate in 2 years, where Idaho may be electing a Democrat to one of their 2 congressional seats, and where Nevada might just make a Senator out of the son of the last donkey president to get 50%--Jack Carter. They cannot afford to lose the South. Not a single Southern state. To do so would be potentially to set off a Democratic infiltration that could cast the GOP out into the political desert for decades to come. The repetition of the post-Hoover conservative political cataclysm.

All this means, I suspect, that the GOP will spend whatever it takes to win Allen's reelection, making this race a huge money drain. If Webb can continue to force Allen to spend many times as much money just to stay afloat, the Republicans may have to start diverting funds from other contested races to prop Allen up, making the other R candidates that much more vulnerable.

trouble in Lieberland

Wow, wasn't expecting this. Only a week or two after polls showing Lieberman with as much as an 11-point lead, we have this from Rasmussen (c/o MyDD, MoE 4):

Lieberman: 45 (46)
Lamont: 43 (41)
Schlesinger: 6 (6)

and this from American Research Group (MoE 3.5):

Lieberman: 44
Lamont: 42
Schlesinger: 3
Undecided: 11

Also, Lamont appears poised to scoop up the UAW endorsement (apparently a big deal). I gotta admit, I wasn't giving Lamont the greatest odds in a general election opposite Joementum, but now I'm starting to wonder. What seems most apparent in all the poll madness is that Lieberman's support among Democrats is dead, dead, dead, which is almost certainly what's given Lamont this boost.

Of course, to seal the deal Lamont has to swing the independents and/or get the Republicans to stay home. Can he do it?