Strategy For Winning an Unwinnable Election

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Friday September 12, 2008 · 7:39 AM PDT

2008/09/12 · 07:39

What do you do when your party is responsible for the ills of the country, and you're facing a voter backlash unlike anything your party has seen in decades? How do you even hope to retain the White House?

Simple. You pull out Rove's old 50% +1 strategy and try to shave the electorate into a more manageable and manipulable number.

*More below the fold and cross-posted, as always, at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.*

mitch2k2

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Tuesday September 09, 2008 · 10:09 AM PDT

2008/09/09 · 10:09

Seems that MS Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann has decided to his part as a loyal Republican foot soldier and bury the Senate race at the bottom of the ballot in defiance of Mississippi election law. And Haley Barbour approves. A statement just released by the Musgrove campaign notes that:

Hosemann could cite no statute supporting his decision to move the race from the top of the ballot. However, Attorney General Jim Hood did cite election law requiring federal races be placed at the top of the ballot...

...The unlawful ballot is expected to cause confusion for voters expecting to find the Musgrove-Wicker race with other federal elections where it belongs. The most prominent election in the state will be one of the hardest races to find on Election Day.

Mississippi election law, code 23-15-367, clearly states federal races, like the Musgrove-Wicker race, belong on the top of the ballot.

Nice.

Right Wing Gunning for Chuck Schumer

mitch2k2

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Wednesday August 20, 2008 · 7:50 PM PDT

2008/08/20 · 19:50

Y'all may recall the dust-up over the IndyMac failure, when the OTS laid the blame at Chuck Schumer's feet for writing a letter warning that, without intervention, IndyMac would...well....fail.

Well, now it seems fifty-one former employees of the failed bank want California Attorney General Jerry Brown to officially investigate whether or not Schumer was to blame. Well, fifty-one former employees and a PR firm with some very particular ties, that is:

*More below the fold and cross-posted, as always, at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.

mitch2k2

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Wednesday August 13, 2008 · 9:22 AM PDT

2008/08/13 · 09:22

Robert Scheer raises a very interesting question over at truthdig, namely whether Georgian lobbyist and McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann had any role in stoking the current crisis in a misguided (one can hope) attempt to boost McCain's hawkish stature by giving him the opportunity to bluster against the good old Russian Bear.

I know the media narrative has been dutifully doing its part, framing this as a conflict between the freedom and democracy loving Grorgian people and the aggressive power-hungry Russia of Vladimir Putin. While there's some truth to that portrayal of Russia's interests, it totally misses the nature of the Georgian-Western (particularly American) relationship. It also raises some questions right off the bat.

*More below the fold, and cross-posted, as always, over at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.*

mitch2k2

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Monday August 11, 2008 · 7:56 AM PDT

2008/08/11 · 07:56

I have to admit, donnybrook sent me to the dictionary. For the record, it's an old Irish word for "brawl," which comes from the Dublin district where, from the time of King John, the annual Donnybrook fair was infamous for its raging riotous brawls. I love etymology.

Anyway, Lloyd Gray writes in Sunday's Daily-Journal on the toss-up nature of the Senate race. Though interestingly, the whole piece is framed from the "what Wicker needs to do to win" perspective, with the secret being to mimic the make-up of Trent Lott's win back in 1988, by winning overwhelmingly in in the 1st District, which he represented for so many years:

This is a state that changes senators very rarely; we'd had only two transitions in the last 65 years before Gov. Haley Barbour appointed Wicker last Dec. 31 to replace Trent Lott.

*More below the fold, and cross-posted, as always, over at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.*

mitch2k2

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Wednesday August 06, 2008 · 7:35 AM PDT

2008/08/06 · 07:35

Interesting Mississippi-focused segment on NPR's Morning Edition today. Reporter Debbie Elliot takes a look at Mississippi politics, and the Musgrove-Wicker senate race particularly, from the historic Neshoba County Fair:

Longtime Republican Senate leader Trent Lott won re-election in landslides, but now that land is sliding. His once comfy seat in Mississippi is up for grabs. Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, appointed after Lott retired last year, faces former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in what pundits are calling the Deep South contest of the year.

And that has brought the candidates to the summer political tradition of the year — the Neshoba County Fair. It's a 10-day tent revival meeting in the red clay hills near Philadelphia in east Mississippi — except that the tents are two- and three-story cabins, 600 of them, lined up beyond the carnival rides and cow barns.

More below the fold, and cross-posted, as always, at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.

mitch2k2

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Monday August 04, 2008 · 7:48 AM PDT

2008/08/04 · 07:48

The mortgage crisis still has a ways to go before we even begin to feel its full effects. Not the sort of thing you want to realize when you consider how much bloodletting's been going on already, but them's the facts, ma'am. The subprime meltdown was just the beginning. Deterioration in Alt-A mortgages (which fueled so many Americans buying more house than they could afford, but not nearly as much as they felt they deserved) will hit a wider swath of people, and push many traditionally "creditworthy" folks over the brink.

And unfortunately for them, and the wider economic outlook, these folks will be hit in an environment of shrinking home values, higher interest rates, and tighter credit standards. Which means that far fewer will be able to sell their homes, most will be unable to refinance ballooning mortgage payments into a more manageable loan, and more foreclosures and short sales will add more fuel to the fire. It's all going to spiral downward with wider and wider ripples. Sucks. As Atrios often puts it, "We're all subprime now."

More below the fold, and cross-posted, as always, at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.

mitch2k2

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Tuesday July 29, 2008 · 6:52 AM PDT

2008/07/29 · 06:52

In a startling sign of just how far US-Iranian relations have come, chart-topping American Jingo Music star Toby Keith seems to have penned an ode to the Iranian justice system.

mitch2k2

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Monday July 28, 2008 · 7:28 AM PDT

2008/07/28 · 07:28

The IMF has released its most recent global financial stability report and the findings aren't all that pretty. Despite the desire and predictions of so many analysts and talking media heads to have reached some sort of bottom to the current crisis (and their likewise willful disbelief in favor of such a rosy outlook), the credit crisis has yet to reach its peak. According to the BBC:

The global credit crunch shows no signs of abating, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In its latest global financial stability report, the IMF says that falling house prices and slowing economic growth are hitting credit.

It warns that banks are under renewed stress, and further cutbacks in bank lending could deepen the slowdown.

The IMF also says that emerging markets like China may also suffer more pain in the future from the credit crunch....

More after the jump, and cross-posted, as always, at The Thorn Papers

mitch2k2

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Thursday July 17, 2008 · 7:39 AM PDT

2008/07/17 · 07:39

By way of the LA Times' Babylon & Beyond blog, I see that one of my all time favorite artists, Patti Smith, brought her revolutionary soul to Beirut to "sing for the "regeneration" of the city of Beirut and to voice her rejection to war."

The celebrated 1970s rock icon turned political activist performed near the old Phoenician port at the opening of the Byblos music festival, one of numerous music events taking place this summer in Lebanon after violence has subsided in the country and tourists have started to flood in again.

mitch2k2

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Wednesday July 16, 2008 · 11:24 AM PDT

2008/07/16 · 11:24

We were watching the fifth episode of HBO's John Adams last night (which I highly recommend to those of y'all who haven't seen it yet; a great exploration of the birth and infancy of this nation), and there was a moment when George Washington and John Adams are at the window of the White House, with an angry mob outside waving French and American flags, carrying torches and denouncing the government for signing a treaty with Britain over the new French Republic.

It was an after the fact outpouring of anger with the government, but at least it was there, visible, audible, and felt by those in power. Where are our mobs today?

mitch2k2

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Saturday July 12, 2008 · 5:56 AM PDT

2008/07/12 · 05:56

Or so says John Reich of the OTC. You see, everything was just hunky dory with IndyMac Bank. Never mind its shutting down mortgage operations, never mind the faulty business decisions (or bets, as they're known in the original Latin) or that it slashed its workforce by half, etc. Nope. Everything was fine and dandy you see, until mean old Chuck Schumer wrote a letter:

*Cross-posted, as always, at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.*

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Strategy For Winning an Unwinnable Election

Electoral Shenanigans in Mississippi Senate Race

Right Wing Gunning for Chuck Schumer

McCain's Georgian August Surprise?

MS-Sen: "A Down-to-the-Wire Donnybrook"

MS Sen: NPR on Neshoba, Musgrove v. Wicker

Mortgage Meltdown: Much Worse Before It Gets Better

Closer Than Either Might Like to Believe

A Crunchier Credit Crunch

Patti Smith Brings Revolutionary Soul to Beirut

The Forgotten Value of Angry Mobs to a Functioning Republic

IndyMac - It's All Chuck Schumer's Fault!