Long weekend reading material

Since it's almost Thanksgiving, I'm lazy and instead of being original, I'm going to point out another original work someone else did.

Nate Silver, the King Of Numbers and future billionaire, has an interesting analysis of what type of president Barack Obama will be. Since much has been made by liberals about Obama's centrist and Clinton-friendly cabinet appointments, a lot of people are wondering whether Obama will govern from the left or the center. Nate answers that question with a nifty chart and numbered paragraphs. It's very good and you should read it. Again, it's right here and totally worth your time.

Charles or I might update over the long weekend, but if not, have a Happy Thanksgiving, and try not to laugh too hard in front of any Republican relatives you have when this is shown during football.

While You Were Sleeping...

If only it was all a dream.

I hope everybody had some nice dreams last night (except Ty, cuz he's a Vikings fan, and Vikings fans should have nightmares every night), because while you were sleeping the government was handing more of your money over to Wall St.

The Fed decided to "invest" $20 billion more in Citigroup late Sunday night without as much as a question, a plan or a peek at their breasts.

The government is also planning to absorb about $300 billion in troubled assets that may or may not pan out to be anything.

The $20 billion "investment" is in addition to the $25 billion that Citigroup already got from the bailout package just last month.

CEO's from the Big Three really need to take notes from the banks, because Citigroup exec's didn't even have to fly in on a private jet to get the money...the government delivered it right to their front door like Domino's Pizza.

I wonder what will happen while I sleep tonight?

Obama introduces new stimulus package

Pictured: Barack Obama delivering the stimulus package (or packages)

Today Barack Obama unveiled his Money Team to the world and announced another stimulus package. Normally this means either bailing out banks or mailing checks to everyone who filed a tax return last year, but apparently not this one. Obama says this will be used to create 2.5 million jobs, focusing on education, clean energy and infrastructure. So how much does it cost to pay 2.5 million people to build solar-powered schools that are all next to the highway? We don't know, because also unlike other stimulus packages, this one doesn't have a dollar amount yet, but Obama did say it needed to be big enough to "jolt" the economy. So it will cost elevnty billion dollars.

As for the auto industry, the president-elect said he wants to help, but they'll get their bailout when they have a plan that doesn't beghin and end with "bild moar ESS YOO VEE, kount muneez."

Guess who won't be foreclosed on this Christmas? EVERYONE

It's a Christmas miracle! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have heroically suspended their campaigns (of foreclosing on everyone's houses) for the holidays. From November 26 (the day before Thanksgiving) until January 9 (the day after the BCS National Championship Game) the former mortgage titans will take a time out from foreclosures and evictions.

What does this mean long term? Not much! All they're doing is putting off the inevitable, and by the time we actually have a new president, everyone will go back to being homeless again.

The companies plan to reduce interest rates for up to five years and lengthen repayment terms to as much as 40 years to trim monthly payments to roughly 38 percent of a homeowner’s monthly pretax salary. In some cases, borrowers may qualify to temporarily reduce the principal amount of the loan, which would be due without interest if the house is sold or refinanced.

“The Hope Now program is not going to be enough. It’s an incremental step,” said housing advocate John Taylor, president and chief executive officer of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition in Washington. “Obviously, we’re pleased that they’re doing this, but absent a substantive foreclosure program, I wonder if this is this just another problem they’re leaving for the Obama administration.”

But still, Christmas. It's saved now.

Your guide to the Great Minnesota Recount of 08

The loser will be drowned in this, as is custom around here

Well, it's official. Today the Minnesota Senate recount has officially begun. Now Minnesota will be in the news for things other than lutefisk and terrible sports teams. But if you live somewhere else, you might not know what the heck is going on in that crazy chunk of ice that people somehow manage to live on. So here's your guide to the recount that's just like Florida in 2000, only not really.

Who are these people?
Norm Coleman, the Republican senator, and his challenger Al Franken, the star of the underrated show Lateline. Coleman won by 215 votes, which is close enough to trigger a state recount.

Who else?
There's Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who got in some hot water for this Hannity & Colmes appearance, in which he recycled an already-debunked talking point about missing ballots lost in someone's car. Then there's Mark Ritchie, who is our Katherine Harris, only in a shocking Coen brothers twist, he is actually a Democrat, and a man. He is a radical Muslim Acorn, like our new president, because he was at the Democratic National Convention, probably sitting next to Bill Ayers.

Why should anyone care?
It changes the makeup of the senate and gets the democrats closer to 60 seats if Franken wins. For Minnesotans, it means the beginning of the end of the most expensive and bitter senate campaign in state history, guaranteed to leave half the state angry with whoever wins. Also, Saturday Night Live trumps In Loving Color in something.

What are they looking for?
Voting irregularities. When the votes were originally scanned, it only counted votes where someone had correctly filled in the circle next to a candidate's name. Now, with a hand recount, they will count any mark on the ballot that signifies who someone would ovte for, including circling the candidate's name, putting a check by the candidate's name, or writing the candidate's name on your ballot in your own drool. This is expected to help Franken.

How long will this take?
Forever

Election day results keep pouring in

Convicted felon Ted "Senator" Stevens is not going back to Washington. The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that he trails his Democratic rival, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by over 2,000 votes, and they're actually running out of ballots to count in Alaska. And FiveThirtyEight, the rightest of all political prediction sites, has called the race for Begich.

The ADC does say that recount is "likely," but I'm not sure who would call for one. Stevens could, but all that would do is force the Republican caucus to expel him, which they clearly don't want to have to do. The GOP would rather he just lose outright and save them the embarrassment that would come from having to formally expel one of their senior members for being a felon, so I doubt they'll make as much noise as they have been in Minnesota.

Anyway, stay tuned for more information on votes that were cast two weeks ago.

Are You Kidding Me?

What is there to debate?

Now they get a conscience.

The "Big Three" helped build this nation by providing millions of jobs and creating the primary form of transportation for the country.

Now that the industry is on the ropes, it is actually finding trouble getting a lifeline from Congress.

Executives from the nations' big automakers are on Capitol Hill this week begging Congress for a $25 to $50 billion piece of the $700 billion pie slated for the financial sector.

The surprise is that after cutting that big check to bailout the banks without even a plausible explanation, Congress is refusing to bailout automakers.

So let me get this straight...Congress had little problem handing Henry Paulson up to $700 billion that he's already admitted he didn't know how to spend (just last week Paulson told Congress that he plans to shift rescue plan funds to loan consumers money because the initial plan isn't working), but they're having trouble handing a fraction of that money to an industry that is the lifeblood of many middle-class Midwestern communities?

Seriously? Is this some kind of joke?

Does Congress really want to put at least 1 million more people on the unemployment line while Wall Street fatcats skate out of the backdoor with minor injuries?

Can we just start 2009 now?

Who wants to watch an awkward video?

Remember when Barack Obama and John McCain were competing with each other for some job or something? Me neither, but here they are "talking sports" at their super-exclusive meeting today. This is probably the most interesting thing that happened, as no job offers or anything else juicy came out. So enjoy.

Hill Dawg for Secretary of State?

To my new job!

Word out of the Obama camp last night is that president-elect Obama is considering Hillary Clinton for his Secretary of State. Other rumored candidates have been John Kerry, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, but wow. This could be pretty big.

The advantages are obvious for both sides. For Obama, he gets a qualified and popular Secretary of State. If, as the article suggests, he's going to spend most of his first year working on domestic policy, Hill Dawg is a great surrogate to send overseas to meet with foreign leaders. It would also quiet any critics who think he is going to pack his cabinet with like-minded friends and Chicago cronies.For Clinton, this is the closest she's going to get to being president. She'll be 69 years old in 2016, which would make her 5 years older than George HW Bush was in 1988 and only 3 years younger than John McCain this year. Another run at the White House probably isn't in the cards.

There are some drawbacks from Obama's perspective, though. As Newsweek reported in it's comprehensive and well-written campaign journal, there were reasons Team O wasn't thrilled about the prospect of her as a running mate.

Obama was not inclined to choose Hillary, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. "You don't just get Hillary, you get Bill," said a top Obama adviser. The Obamaites had benefited from Bill Clinton as a loose cannon in the primary campaign. They did not want to be wounded by him in the general election. Still, from time to time, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good.

Stay tuned.

Must See TV: Boogie Man-The Lee Atwater Story

Lee Atwater with George Bush Sr. in 1988.


I don't know if it will play all month, but check your local listings for the documentary called Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story on Frontline on PBS.

This is a great documentary about Lee Atwater, a man who rose from obscurity in South Carolina to be come one of the most polarizing figures in modern politics before dying from a brain tumor at 40 years old in 1991.

Atwater is called the "architect of the negative campaign," using tactics like push polls, "independent" negative ads and anonymous stories in the media to help the Republican Party win several campaigns in the 80s (including Regan in 84 and Bush in 88).

To put it in simpler terms, he was Karl Rove before Karl Rove (who is Atwater's protege coincidentally).

If you want to know how things like Rev. Wright and "Swiftboat politics" became the norm in campaigns, this is a must see.

George Bush learns the #1 rule for your set

For the last few months, it seemed as if George W Bush just wanted to get out of the White House and back to Crawford, where he wouldn't have to deal with any more people or problems and he could just forget he was ever president. That may still be the case, but we have learned that President Bush actually has thought on his legacy and his presidency, and he admits that he made some mistakes. No, he really said so.

``I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said,'' Bush said. He cited comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he said of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden: ``I want justice. There's an old poster out West that said, 'Wanted, dead or alive.'''

He also said he regretted telling Iraqi insurgents in 2003: ``There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.''

Bush also listed the "Mission Accomplished" banner, saying that it "conveyed the wrong message" and that it was never meant to signal the end of the Iraq War. He didn't really elaborate on what it was meant to convey, but that's okay, at least he's sort of thinking about these things now. Maybe we will learn more in the book he plans to publish. If anyone's willing to actually purchase the rights to it.

Next Stop on the Bailout Express: Detroit.

Bend over America, this will only hurt a little bit.

After The Big Three (even Toyota) posted horrid third quarter numbers, the auto industry has decided to put their bid in on the Government Gold Rush.

Auto executives have been on Capitol Hill for the past week or so telling every politician who will listen that they need a piece of the bailout slated for the financial industry.

And guess what? They're paying attention.

As most economists predicted, it was only a matter of time before other industries in trouble turned to the government based on the precedent set by the bailout.

Its like having a bag of candy around a group of kids...if you give one kid some, you have to give all of the kids some because they'll get on your nerves until they get their share.

Just like the finance industry, automakers' problems begin with themselves. For decades they pushed out gas-guzzling SUV's and trucks and dragged their feet on development of more efficent cars. When gas prices went sky high and the economy went into the tank, automakers couldn't give away a SUV and they couldn't meet the demand for the cars that people did want.

For the third quarter of 2008, GM's sales were dow 45 percent from a year earlier. Meanwhile Ford was down 32 percent, rock-steady Toyota posted a 23 percent decline and Daimler AG and American Honda were down more than 24 percent.

GM barely has enough money to keep the lights on until the ball drops on New Year's Eve.

In my opinon, if a bailout had to happen the auto industry should have been first. Those are the type of jobs that fuel the economy and spark growth, because those are the people who go out and buy houses and max out credit cards.

When a bank closes you might have a little more trouble getting a car loan or you might have to drive a little further to get to an ATM, but an auto plant closure can kill a city.

Now that the auto industry is asking for a bailout though, its only a matter of time before the airline industry comes next with it's hand out.

Have fun running the country Obama.

What to do with Joe Lieberman?

WOOO, I am totally screwed!

Joe Lieberman has had things pretty good for the last couple of years. He got re-elected to the Senate despite losing the endorsement of the Connecticut Democratic party over his support for the Iraq War, and he's been all over TV the last few months stumping for his friend John McCain. He even got to speak in prime time at the Republican National Convention this year. I don't think he got this kind of shine when he was actually on a presidential ticket eight years ago.

But now the election is over, his guy lost and his fate is in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who did not like the idea of the kinda-Democrat acting as a surrogate for the Republican nominee, speaking at the RNC and trashing the Democratic nominee as someone who couldn't put "country first" and for "voting against funding our troops." Reid is displeased.

“Joe Lieberman has done something that I think was improper, wrong, and I’d like — if we weren’t on television, I’d use a stronger word of describing what he did,” he said on CNN Friday.

Reid has three options. He can either forgive Lieberman in the spirit of bipartisanship (a theme Barack Obama has stressed since winning the election last week,) throw him out of the Democratic caucus or give him a lesser punishment, like stripping Lieberman of his title as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. But even if Reid (who has said he will leave it up to the Democratic senate caucus) does take away Lieberman's chairmanship, that could be the last straw anyway. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already discussed with lieberman the idea of caucusing with the Republicans.

“Senator Lieberman’s preference is to stay in the caucus, but he’s going to keep all his options open,” a Lieberman aide said. “McConnell has reached out to him and at this stage his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable.”

Whatever happens, Lieberman's in a bad position. The best thing to do would be to remain in the Democratic caucus, at least if he ever wants to be re-elected (Connecticut currently has zero Republicans representing them in either the House or Senate, and that's not a conincedence.) However, the odds of him remaining with the Democrats and not facing some kind of punishment is likely slim. If he gets his chairmanship taken away, it's obvious the democrats don't really want him, and there's no point to sticking around. But would his reception among Republicans be any warmer? Remember, one of the reasons McCain did not pick Lieberman as his running mate was because of the potential backlash he would have faced among the party's base. Are the same people who might have staged a brawl on the floor of the Xcel Center if this guy had been nominated for VP going to embrace him as a Republican senator?

So basically, Joe Lieberman is doomed to serve out the next four years as either an almost Democrat who no Democrat trusts or as a pseudo-Republican who no Republican really likes.

UPDATE: HuffPo is reporting that Obama has told party officials he wants Lieberman to stay. They might let him keep his chairmanship in Homeland Security but take him out of the committees on Armed Services and Environment & Public Works. So hooray for bipartisanship maybe.

The Other Four Fingers.

I seen it on my 20-inch Zenith.

After John McCain was soundly beaten on Tuesday (North Carolina also went to Obama, pushing the final total to 364-173 in the Electoral College), the fingers pointed at the most predictable scapegoat.

Shortly after the election, McCain's aides were already laying blame for the loss on Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge of the issues. I could be mistaken, but wouldn't this be the kind of thing you find out in a vetting process BEFORE you pick your running mate? The vetting process McCain's people CLAIMED they did?

A couple of McCain's aides anonomously told reporters that Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent and couldn't name the members of the North American Free Trade Agreement while they were prepping her for the VP debate.

They also claimed she was a diva, and that she greeted some of McCain's top advisers in nothing more than a towel on one occaision.

While the towel thing is probably untrue, it was clear during the couple months that Palin was in the spotlight that she was in way over her head.

I don't know how she didn't see that she was getting set up to be thrown under the bus.

Anybody could see that when the Palin Express started derailing and the disapproval started getting louder, she was going to be the scapegoat when McCain's campaign inevitably failed.

I felt sorry for her when I said it about a month ago, and now that its coming to fruition I feel sorry for her now. This was like a backup QB getting his first start ever....versus the Baltimore Ravens.

The coach can blame the player for the sorry game he's bound to have, but he has to look at the other four fingers pointing back at his own mistakes.

The McCain campaign has a lot of soul searching to do before they can even begin to hang this on somebody else.

Who says election season is over?

I bet you thought that after November 4 we would be done with this whole "democratic process" thing for a while. But you would be wrong. Three senate races still have yet to be decided, and it's going to be awhile before we know who will be representing Alaska, Georgia and Minnesota in the senate.

First, in the Land of Hockey Moms, convicted felon Ted Stevens holds a narrow lead over his challenger, Democrat Mark Begich. There are still a bunch of absentee ballots left to count, so Begich isn't yet conceding. Even if Stevens does hold on to win, he might be unable to serve his term, as he is facing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans to step aside, which means the governor of Alaska would have to appoint the kid who knocked up her daughter to be Senator.

Down in JAWJA, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss is headed for an old fashioned runoff against his Democratic rival Jim Martin, since nobody got 50% of the vote. The runoff will be held December 2nd, and the month leading up to it could feature appearances from John McCain, Sarah Palin and/or Barack Obama. Remember those people?

And in Minnesota, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman holds a 238 vote lead over Democrat and star of the short-lived but critically acclaimed Lateline Al Franken. By state law (which also forbids the opening of liquor stores on Sunday, because the laws were all written by a crazy Lutheran oligarchy) there must be a recount, which might not start until the middle of this month at the earliest. We will never know who won and the seat will be given to Kent Hrbek, maybe, because he is so down home and folksy.

Since all three seats in question are held by Republicans, these races are especially critical. If democrats win all of them, it will give them 58 members in the Senate. Add in the independent socialist guy from Vermont who caucuses with them and Joe Lieberman, who is still technically kind of a Democrat and they have 60, the magic number required to block fillibusters. Winning all three is a longshot, as in each of these races the Republican candidates have the lead.

But on the bright side, it gives me something to blog about in my free time.

It's All Over: How it Happened pt. 1

Rev. Jesse Jackson Crying During Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech.

Yes he can. In what analysts are calling the most dominant Democratic win in about 40 years, Barack Obama is now the President Elect.

Obama beat John McCain by a tally of 349-163 in the electoral college, a margin of over two to one. The popular vote nationally was 53% to 47% for Obama. Obama's 53% of the popular vote is the most by any Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Obama is also the first Democrat to win the state of Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

John King of CNN summed up the election best in saying that Obama outperformed Kerry across the board, and McCain underperformed Bush across the board.

As soon as the numbers started rolling in from the big cities across the East Coast and Midwest, Obama's lead grew exponentially. When the media outlets called Ohio and Pennsylvania for Obama, two states that every Republican pundit said that McCain had to win, even McCain's aides began to say the race was out of reach.

At around 11:00 p.m. eastern time when the polls on the West Coast closed and the early numbers started to come in, all the media outlets called the race for Obama.

Shortly after that, McCain conceded:



Then at Midnight EST, Obama delivered this acceptance speech:



I'm sure Ty will add more on the House, Senate, and Presidential races soon.

So, there was an election yesterday

Americans went to the polls and pushed buttons, pulled levers, filled in circles and colored in little arrows until some people were named our new overlords. Here's who they are.



That's the first family.



And that guy's Vice President. Really!



These people get to control the Senate and the House, even though there are presently 4 Senate races and 10 House races that haven't been decided, including one in Minnesota that's heading for a recount.

More analysis later, but that's your quick (and I do mean quick) recap of the night that was.

My E-Day Voting Experience

Election day is finally here after 11 months of ads, slander and stump speeches.

Throughout the early morning I saw lines out of the doors of every polling place I passed, everywhere I went people were very excited about voting.

When I went to McDonalds to get some breakfast, a normally empty restaurant was packed with people who were either coming from voting or on their way to vote.

Everybody was talking about a certain issue or a certain candidate that made them want to vote...it nearly brought a tear to my eye.

If I had one complaint, it would be....WHERE WERE YOU FOOLS FOUR OR EIGHT YEARS AGO?!?

I understand that sometimes it takes a serious event to compel people to vote, but did it have to get this bad? Over 4000 troops had to die in Iraq, the stock market had to crash and millions of jobs had to go into the toilet for people to actually care about who runs this country again.

I'm not complaining, i'm just saying.

I'll be watching the numbers roll in tonight just like everybody else, it's time to find out if white people really have the heart to vote for a black man to lead the country.

The end of culture warring?

Peter Beinart has an interesting column in today's Washington Post where he predicts the end of the "culture wars" coming once this election is over. The culture wars Beinart refers to are the so-called "wedge" issues such as gay rights, abortion, guns and immigration that the Republicans have been able to emphasize over the last few decades, with mostly successful results. Sarah Palin's selection as running mate was seen by some as a sign that the McCain campaign was dedicated to fighting the culture wars, similar to George W Bush in 2004, and her plummeting popularity is evidence that the war has ended.

Beinart says that the faltering economy is a reason we are on the verge of cultural peace in our time, as nobody cares about gay people getting married and Mexicans stealing their jobs if there are no jobs to steal. Combine that with a rise in younger voters who don't care or are opposed to many of the positions that culture warriors have taken, and that's it. It's a wrap. Finito.

Except maybe it's not.

From the column

Today, according to a recent Newsweek poll, the economy is up to 44 percent and "issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage" down to only 6 percent. It's no coincidence that Palin's popularity has plummeted as the financial crisis has taken center stage. From her championing of small-town America to her efforts to link Barack Obama to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Palin is treading a path well-worn by Republicans in recent decades. She's depicting the campaign as a struggle between the culturally familiar and the culturally threatening, the culturally traditional and the culturally exotic. But Obama has dismissed those attacks as irrelevant, and the public, focused nervously on the economic collapse, has largely tuned them out.

Palin's attacks are also failing because of generational change. The long-running, internecine baby boomer cultural feud just isn't that relevant to Americans who came of age after the civil rights, gay rights and feminist revolutions. Even many younger evangelicals are broadening their agendas beyond abortion, stem cells, school prayer and gay marriage. And just as younger Protestants found JFK less threatening than their parents had found Al Smith, younger whites -- even in bright-red states -- don't view the prospect of a black president with great alarm.

The economic challenges of the coming era are complicated, fascinating and terrifying, while the cultural battles of the 1960s feel increasingly stale. If John McCain loses tomorrow, the GOP will probably choose someone like Mitt Romney or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to lead it back from the wilderness, someone who -- although socially conservative -- speaks fluently about the nation's economic plight and doesn't try to substitute identity for policy. Although she seems like a fresh face, Sarah Palin actually represents the end of an era. She may be the last culture warrior on a national ticket for a very long time.

It might be that "culture wars" are limited to times of economic progress, when people can afford to care about these things. But what happens when the economy improves, which it probably will at some point in the next decade or so? And when these young voters get older, as the baby boomers did? The same generation that made Woodstock happen also made the Reagan 80's happen, partially because Reagan was so skilled at tying a traditional conservative philosophy of limited government to these seemingly unrelated wedge issues.

We might be at a cease-fire, but I doubt the war is over.