Political Tidbits

Aug 17, 2010

Here is what I have been reading today…..political newsletters are great…..don’t you agree?

 Arianna Huffington’s “Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream,” out Sept. 7: “During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama’s guiding principle was that he ‘would not forget the middle class.’ Indeed, David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, told me after the election, ‘We held that North Star in our sights at all times. We made mistakes along the way, but we always remembered that we were running because, as Barack put it, the dreams so many generations had fought for were slipping away.’ Well, you’d need a pretty powerful telescope to see the North Star these days.

“According to Plouffe, Obama and his team decided that he should make a run for the White House because ‘the core leadership had turned rotten’ and ‘the people were getting hosed.’ But the extent to which the people have continued to be hosed and the middle class assaulted becomes shockingly clear when the baby steps taken to bail out Main Street are compared to the all-hands-on-deck, no-expenses-spared bailout of Wall Street. …. The middle class is teetering on the brink of collapse just as surely as AIG was in the fall of 2009.” $16.19 on Amazon http://amzn.to/bWEabL

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W.Va. Gov. Joe Manchin has already raked in $418,000 for his Senate bid so far, reports POLITICO’s Shira Toeplitz. Sen. Jay Rockefeller helped him raise about $200,000 at an Aug. 3 event held at the Rockefellers Washington, D.C. home. Mining company owner John Raese, who trails Manchin by double digits in the polls, has already put in more than $320,000 of his own money into the race.

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Drudge banner, with shot of Obama extending a fist, “’LET’S REACH FOR HOPE’,” links to AP story by Ben Feller, in Milwaukee: “Flying thousands of miles to reap millions of dollars, President Barack Obama is dashing across the country to help his party retain power, essentially offering one familiar argument: Republicans don’t solve problems. ‘Don’t give in to fear,’ Obama said Monday in his latest ominous vision of a country led by the opposition party. ‘Let’s reach for hope.’ Obama has settled on his message for the pivotal midterm elections, which means what he said Monday in Milwaukee will sound like what he says Tuesday in Seattle and Wednesday in Miami. He is covering more than 8,000 freewheeling miles in three days, the kind of personal attention that gets donors to the door.” http://yhoo.it/czulmx

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Two-thirds of the 2010 primaries are concluded and there are just 11 weeks left before Election Day. Here’s Morning Score’s weekly list of the candidates and campaigns that have the most to gain or lose in the week ahead:

(1) Sarah Palin, who has seen a string of her endorsed candidates go down to defeat in recent GOP primaries, has a handful more on the ballot Tuesday, notably Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Rita Meyer and Washington Senate candidate Clint Didier; (2) Ken Buck, who’s battling valiantly – he’s an Ivy Leaguer, dammit!– to avoid getting swept up in the GOP wingnut meta-narrative; (3) Jeff Greene, who’s looking like a guy you want to party with but maybe that’s all – his favorable/unfavorables in this weekend’s Mason-Dixon Florida poll were at an eye-catching 16%/41%; (4) Sen. Patty Murray, whose performance in Washington state’s jungle primary Tuesday will be closely monitored for signs of November trouble — she’ll likely finish under 50 percent, but by how much? (5) Sen. David Vitter, who, to paraphrase George Washington Plunkitt, saw his opportunities and took ’em by seizing on the Ground Zero mosque issue in Obama-averse Louisiana and using it to hammer Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon.

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OBAMA HELPS THE GOVS TO HELP HIMSELF – POLITICO’s Carol Lee and Alex Burns report the president has homed in on three of the only states that offer competitive gubernatorial contests this year and also are likely to be pivotal in his 2012 re-election campaign-Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin. “The importance of those three states to the 2012 map is not lost on the White House. With the political muscle governors can bring to a presidential campaign, electing Sink, Strickland and Barrett – or some of them – could offer Obama a powerful firewall against any Republican opponent two years from now.” http://politi.co/atb2b4

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LIZ CHENEY: “I guess President Obama was for the mosque before he was against it. You can quote me. Sent from my iPhone.” 

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STANDING ALONE – You just have to see this picture in the NYT story about Wisconsin……and his speech as three-day campaign swing through five states that is intended to shore up the fortunes of Democratic candidates still willing to stand beside him and his deteriorating approval ratings.