Last Call Plus

Another pair of Sully anecdotes from his readers:

I was in a hospital on Friday night, on a patient floor after visiting a family member.  Ran into a friend.  Four lifelong Democrats, talking outside the rooms of their loved ones in a hospital, and not a one of us was voting for Coakley.

 Next time you visit people in the hospital, you can talk about why your friend is bankrupt because of medical bills because the Dems failed to pass health care reform due to lack of a 60th vote.

We all want health care to pass.  We all want Obama to succeed.  We all want Coakley to go away.  That's a problem for Coakley.  This vote is not about health care and Obama, it's about the Senate and Coakley.  If I voted in election after election and voted the Dem ticket except for Coakley (which I left blank), you might imagine I sure as hell would not start voting for her for Senator of all things.

At least the lightweight, brain-dead Brown will only hold that seat for 2 years.  Coakley will share her mediocrity with us for the next 20 years if she gets in.  Want my vote?  Dems should make a deal - Coakley until 2012, then they'll put up a credible candidate. 

What's more difficult, primary opponents for Coakley or another shot at health care reform in Congress?

If Coakley loses because of people like this, if health care reform and Obama's agenda and what advances we've made in the last year all die because you thought primarying Martha Coakley in 2012 was too hard, then we deserve the damage the Republican Party will do to this country.  We really do.

Last Call

CNN's Ed Henry notes the White House is headfaking on Coakley.

I'm going with "scaring the base."  I still think Coakley will win solidly.  High turnout favors her...but this is a special election in the dead of winter here. 

Having said that, Brown's only real chance of winning was this election being under the radar with a dismal turnout among Dems who took for granted a Coakley victory.  That's no longer the case.  The scenario still strongly favors the Democrat in this scenario.

I just don't see people turning out in droves to give this to Brown.

On Being A Centrist

I'm a registered independent, always have been.  But I'm not a centrist.  I picked a side back in 1996 after college when I saw what Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America was really all about in 1994.  It wasn't about reigning in the corrupt Dems (and the Dems in 1994 deserved to be replaced), it was about using sophistry, ignorance and cheerleading in order to hide being even more corrupt.

Clinton got a second shot in 1996, ran as a moderate Republican, and got impeached for his troubles anyway.  It was about petty revenge and putting them in their place, them being anyone who wasn't drinking the Limbaugh Kool-Aid.  That got us Dubya and things got even worse from there.

Sully has this comment from a reader:

I'm with you in thinking that Obama is the best thing the Democrats have going for them right now. But I also think that in having the supermajority, they actually undercut him. They don't have to compromise and so they don't try to. Instead, what passes as legislation is a horrid mismash of corporate interests and traditional, not progressive, balms of the Democratic Party. I know this country can do much, much better. And I think Obama needs a less powerful Democratic party to make it happen, like Clinton did.

Now, I used to be this guy.  In 1994 I would have agreed with him, and in 1996 I would have used the same logic to keep Clinton in the White House (and did.)  But 2000 turned into a nightmare, and 2004 I voted for Kerry because the GOP was broken.  2008 cemented me into the Democrats in this stage of my life...not because I think they are good, but because allowing the Republicans control of the country right now will destroy us.

This guy is basically blaming the Democrats for not passing health care, when the reality is health care reform took a year because the Republicans had no reasons to vote no other than the purely political, to convince people like Sully's reader here to vote for the Republicans to keep the country on a centrist course.

I can see why the reader thinks like he does: over the last 30 years we've been told centrism is the only true course, and if you're not a centrist, well, you must be a Dirty F'ckin' Liberal Hippie.  He doesn't want to vote for the Teabaggers, but voting for the Dems right now is no longer centrist, no longer a correctional vote.  It's taking a side.  And millions of Americans in the middle don't want to do that.

I'm here to tell you this time, you have to.  If you don't, the alternative is razor-blade dangerous hardcore insanity rather than inept corruption.  And the "centrism" in this country will become GOP nihilism.

What Digby Said

More solid advice from Digby on the enthusiasm gap and what to do about it (emphasis mine):

Many people believe that the only thing Democrats understand is pain and so the thing that will change this dynamic will be to deliver them a loss of their majority and perhaps the presidency to show the consequences of failure to fulfill the progressive agenda. That certainly sounds right, except you can't ever know exactly what lesson will be taken from this sort of pain and if history is any guide, the likeliest one is the simplest and most obvious: they lost because people preferred what the other side had to offer. Obviously, that's not necessarily the case, but it isn't illogical for them to believe that. And the exit polls or whatever other data may be available rarely clearly show that it was base demobilization that caused a turnover. Often people don't even know why they failed to vote and you can't exit poll those who didn't bother.

This right here is a major issue:  Nobody exit polls people who don't vote on why they didn't vote at all.  She continues:

There is a fairly compelling theory in political science that says that after political parties come into power, fulfill some pieces of their agenda, get fat and bloated and are finally removed from office, they then tend to deny the reality of their loss and blame it on everything but themselves until they lose enough elections that they finally realize that their ideology has failed. The current GOP is not there yet by a long shot. They are still in the process of doubling down on their radical agenda at a time when the economy is still in ruins, the effects of globalization are being fully felt, the planet is in peril and about to reach a tipping point, and a radical fundamentalist movement is trying to blow people up. I don't think the world can take any more of the right's prescriptions for these problems right now: Lindsay Graham is considered too liberal and neo-Hooverism is their economic program. Yes, the Democrats are corrupt and inept. But the other side is batshit insane.

However, that doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do but wring our hands about how the system is broken and fret ourselves into inertia. The other way to send messages to the Democratic party is through the unsatisfying and often thankless process of primary challenges. Nobody can have any problem understanding that message, not even Adam Nagourney.

It's hard to find challengers and it's no wonder. It's expensive, time consuming and after all your hard work you will probably lose. It takes real commitment and a desire to not only win a seat in congress but do it by way of unseating an incumbent of your own party with whom you disagree, an act which is guaranted to make you an odd man out among the party hierarchy. But if you win, it can send shockwaves through the system.

And while I laugh at the Teabaggers, the one thing they do understand is if you don't like the people in your political party, you must present an alternative at primary time.

The other point is that there is a difference between the two parties.  On one side, Joe Lieberman is considered a party heretic because he doesn't want to provide a public option for health care coverage for Americans.  On the other side, Lindsey Graham is considered a party heretic because he doesn't want to torture foreign terror suspects.

Centrism is one thing.  But on other things you have to take a stand to change the system.  One side understands that, and it's not the good guys.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

This week's Bobblespeak Translations are up with Dubya and Big Dog on Haiti:

Gregory: Bush what’s your biggest concern
right now?

Bush: them Cowboys have no defense!

Gregory: Bill?

Clinton: the Haitian police force is on the job
- with no uniforms or weapons

Gregory: ok - should the US colonize Haiti?

Clinton: oh no - just an agreement allowing the
US temporary control of the area

Native Americans: uh oh

Bush: I’ve been through crises but people will
forget after a while

Gregory: like how you were president on 9/11?

Bush: no there were no attacks when I was President - just ask Saint Rudy

Clinton: I believe Haiti will be back and better
than ever!

Gregory: jesus you’re an optimist

Clinton: look at my life - wouldn’t you be?

Never get tired of these guys.  The BT take on John Yoo vs. Jon Stewart made my sides hurt.

Legal Eagles

The legal braintrust at the GOP, that is...I'm not sure who because they're not very smart...have declared that the current holder of Ted Kennedy's seat, Paul Kirk, cannot be the 60th vote on Obamacare after Tuesday and that Scott Brown must immediately be seated Wednesday when he wins.

Democrats in Massachusetts have talked about delaying Brown’s “certification,” should he defeat Democrat Martha Coakley on Tuesday.  Their aim would be to allow Kirk to remain in the Senate and vote the health care bill.

But based on Massachusetts law, Senate precedent, and the U.S. Constitution, Republican attorneys said Kirk will no longer be a senator after election day, period.  Brown meets the age, citizenship, and residency requirements in the Constitution to qualify for the Senate.  “Qualification” does not require state “certification,” the lawyers said.

So it doesn't matter if the state certifies him at all, according to the GOP.  He won, that's it, he's the Senator...even though the election is not until Tuesday and Brown hasn't won yet.

Then again, the Wingers have Joe F'ckin Lieberman endorsing Scott Brown at this point too, when not even Lieberman is that stupid, apparently.

A spokesman for the senator shot down rumors that Lieberman would weigh in on the closely-watched special election, in which Republican Scott Brown is waging a surprisingly tough battle against state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D).

Conservative bloggers had been floating a rumor that Lieberman, a centrist, independent senator who caucuses with Democrats, would endorse Brown.

Those rumors, the spokesman said, are "not true," and no announcement is planned on the race.

Considering Lieberman's approval numbers in Connecticut are down to around 25% and Lieberman is seen around the state as "The Guy Who Killed The Public Option" I can see why he'd not back Brown here.  Again, it all comes down to Tuesday's vote.

Last Call

Now I give the CNBC talking heads a hard time.  They were wrong...dead wrong...about the economy in 2007 and 2008, and yet they're still employed.  Jim "The housing market will bottom out in June 2009" Cramer and Larry "The Republicans will reign in 2008 because of their economics policies" Kudlow are bad enough, but while they are incorrect most of the time, they at least can occasionally construct a decent argument.

That's not the case with their CNBC fellow, Dennis Kneale.  Witness his latest diatribe:

My worry is that President Obama’s overly ambitious political agenda will take a toll on business, hurting investment and growth by spending massive new sums of taxpayer money and imposing a daunting thicket of new and higher taxes, new regulations, scattershot federal crackdowns and brand new government bureaucracies.

One year into office—and with the S&P 500 index up more than 60% from its lows ten months ago—President Obama continues gleefully as Bank-Basher-in-Chief. He’s out today making bankers the bad guys, even though we need them for a full comeback.

Because the problem with the economy in 2008 was too much regulation, federal "crackdowns" and the government being too hard on the banks.  The same banks are making billions in profit while we have a ten percent unemployment rate, and they have mealy-mouthed shills like Kneale defending them.  Honestly, you think they could afford better.

This latest slap-tax on giant banks, and the hue and cry over compensation, isn’t really aimed at making “the people” whole—not at all. It is, rather, a cynical ploy by Washington to divert attention away from an unemployment rate still stubbornly at 10%, higher than when Bam took office. Best distraction: Blame the banks!

Yes Dennis, why would anyone want to blame the banks when they lost trillions of dollars and required a bailout of hundreds of billions in taxpayer money, crippling our economy while the best they can do is half-assed "mistakes were made" excuses.  That ten percent unemployment magically came out of nowhere, I'll tell you.

It is part of a deleterious new mindset in Washington that criminalizes capitalism and decries wealth creation. After 30 years of less-government-is-better, the Obama Posse wants to ensure that Big Government is the only answer. And Big Government requires fat taxes.

Because 30 years of less government is better led to 2008's financial crisis.  Directly.  You idiot.

Didn’t we learn, long ago, that if you want to raise tax revenue you LOWER underlying tax rates; that if you want more of something, tax it less, and if you want less, tax it more? In Washington today, the ruling party views taxes as a sex addict revels in his trysts: More is better, and there is no such thing as too much.

Yep, if you want more multi-millionaire political donors, you tax them less.  He's right about that.

You know, under that "logic" why have taxes at all?  This is the best CNBC has to offer on the voodoo economics?  C'mon.

The Tale Of The Bastard

Scott Brown thinks Obama is a bastard.


No, literally.

Meanwhile, this newly-surfaced video strikes me as about a million times more powerful. It's a news show in which Brown expresses his doubt that President Obama's mother was married to his father.

Hey folks?  In the end, Republicans are Republicans.  They always will be.  We need better Democrats, I'll be the first to admit.  The answer to "How do you get better Democrats?" is not "Elect worse Republicans."

The Land Of The Rising Debt

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is sounding the alarm on Japan's sovereign debt.

I have felt rather lonely after suggesting in my New Year Predictions that Japan is dangerously close to blowing up on its sovereign debts, with consequences that will be felt across the world.

My intended point — overly condensed  — was that 2010 will prove to be the year that Japan flips from deflation to something very different: the beginnings of debt monetization by a terrified central bank that will ultimately spin out of control, perhaps crossing into hyperinflation by the middle of the decade.

So it is nice to have some company: first from PIMCO’s Paul McCulley, who said that the Bank of Japan should buy “unlimited amounts” of long-term government debt (JGBs) to lift the country out of a “deflationary liquidity trap” and raise the souffle again.

His point is different from mine, in that he discerns deflation “as far as the eye can see”. But in a sense it is the same point. Once a country embarks on such policies, the game is nearly up. The IMF says Japan’s gross public debt will reach 227pc of GDP this year. This is compounding at ever faster speeds towards 250pc by mid-decade.

The only reason why this has not yet blown up is because investors (mostly Japanese) have not yet had the leap in imagination required to understand their predicament, and act on it. That roughly is the argument of Dylan Grice from Societe Generale in his latest Popular Delusions note released today. “A global fiasco is brewing in Japan.”

The numbers aren't good and they more than back up his warning.  Japan has been running budget deficits of 30-40% of the country's GDP for about 15 years now.  They owe more than twice of their country's entire GDP, approaching two and a half times.  That was fine when the world economy wasn't staggering around like a man just clocked in the head with a baseball bat and heading for the edge of a cliff.

It's not a question of if Japan's economy explodes, but when.  And we're headed down the same path, only maybe 10 years behind them in the cycle.

The Fix In Beantown Is In

And no matter what happens on Tuesday, the progressive moment in Washington is officially dead as far as the Village is concerned.

Win or lose in Massachusetts, that a contest between a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat could appear so close is evidence of what even Democrats say is animosity directed at the administration and Congress. It has been fanned by Republicans who have portrayed Democrats as overreaching and out of touch with ordinary Americans.

“It comes from the fact that Obama as president has had to deal with all these major crises he inherited: the banks, fiscal stimulus,” said Senator Paul G. Kirk Jr., the Democrat who holds the Massachusetts seat on an interim basis pending the special election. “But for many people it was like, ‘Jeez, how much government are we getting here?’ That might have given them pause.”

Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said the atmosphere was a serious threat to Democrats. “I do think there’s a chance that Congressional elites mistook their mandate,” Mr. Bayh said. “I don’t think the American people last year voted for higher taxes, higher deficits and a more intrusive government. But there’s a perception that that is what they are getting.”

Ms. Coakley, the state attorney general, could still defeat her Republican opponent, State Senator Scott Brown. Polls show the race as very close, and measuring public opinion in special elections is always difficult.
Support for the health care overhaul could grow if it is enacted into law and Americans decide that it has left them better off, as Mr. Obama says will happen. The economy could take a turn for the better by this summer, validating Mr. Obama’s policies in time to influence the midterm elections. And for all the national forces at play here, Ms. Coakley has, in the view of most Democrats, made things worse with a slow-starting and low-energy campaign marked by several high-profile errors.

Still, Mr. Obama’s decision to tear up his weekend schedule to come here reflects concern in the White House that a defeat of Ms. Coakley would be seen as a repudiation of the president’s first year. It would also raise the question of whether Mr. Obama squandered political capital by focusing so much on health care at a time of rising unemployment.

“If it works well, it was a good thing to do for the country here,” Mr. Bayh said. “But there’s definitely an opportunity cost. You could only spend political capital once; it now can’t be spent on other things.”

Translation:  the ConservaDems are out.  Obamacare will not pass. The Village has decreed that it's 1994 all over again, and so shall the narrative be.  The long knives are out for Obama, big time.  And those long knives are not being held by Republicans.

For the first time, I actually do fear where we will be after November.  The combination of teabaggers, ConservaDems, Blue Dogs and firebaggers are going to put this country on a road to hell that we may never recover from, and put the Palin wing of the GOP at the head of it.

[UPDATE 6:26 PM] John Aravosis has a point:

Yeah, that's it. You were all just too freaking bold with that health care reform juggernaut. Jesus, is our party ever going to learn? They honestly think that they're in the pickle they're in because they've been "too" bold.

Yeah, right. Your courage is just blinding.

If you really believe the Democrats went too far, then you deserve what the Republicans who you will no doubt replace them with will do to this country.

Haiti Update, Part 4

The U.S. is sending in 10k troops to Haiti to help keep order and distribute aid.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the top military chief, said that up to 10,000 US troops would be either in Haiti or offshore on six Navy vessels that will arrive by Monday.

"It looks like between 9,000 and 10,000 with the arrival of the Marines and the three ships that are associated with that," Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters.

Mullen said that about 1,000 troops were already in Haiti including members of the 82nd Airborne brigade, who arrived late Thursday and were already delivering water from helicopters.

The US military has also sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, which will serve as a "floating airport" to bring in supplies and rush out victims as Port-au-Prince's airport struggles to function.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the security situation remained "pretty good" but that supplies needed to be delivered urgently.

"The security situation remains OK," Gates told the news conference.

"The key is to get the food and the water in there as quickly as possible so that people don't, in their desperation, turn to violence," Gates said.

It's that "turning to violence" part that's the immediate problem this weekend.  As horrific as things are now, they soon will be exponentially worse for the survivors, and the efforts to aid them are being severely hampered by the damage.  It's been 96 hours almost since the earthquake hit.  Those still trapped in rubble and debris are not going to survive much longer.  The window on saving and reaching those in need is closing.  By Monday, we're looking at some scenario out of an apocalypse movie.  We're going to be seeing casualties out of Port-au-Prince for weeks and months, and the total numbers will be six figures, easily.

And even if aid does reach them in time, in the long term Haiti is a parking lot.  There is no economy, no government, no police, no infrastructure, no trade, nothing.  It's over.  Haiti is no longer a country, but a nightmare scenario in anarchy.

While short-term aid is vital, long-term we need to consider that rebuilding Haiti and repatriating its people may be a decade-long project or more.

Pushing Teabags In Ohio

Republican John Kasich is running for Governor here in Ohio, and TPM has a run-down of his greatest Wingnut hits.

A lot of Republican candidates are trying to find alliances among the various tea party movements this year. The attempt at wooing the insurgent conservative movement usually goes like this: The tea partiers challenge candidates about why they didn't vote for a spending bill, social program, or revenue plan way back when, despite claiming to be part of their movement.

Kasich may be the first mainstream Republican candidate for whom the conversation is reversed. Faced with his skill at sounding like the most extreme of the tea partiers, it may be mainline Republicans in Ohio who find themselves wondering if Kasich's really one of them.

Speaking on a Columbus radio show last October, Kasich described the tea party crowds packing town halls last year. "I went to one meeting where I thought they were gonna hang two of the Republican speakers that were up there from the nearest tree," he said.

Kasich does love himself a hangin'.

Kasich's probably safe from the noose himself, having had a career that should already put him in the tea partiers good graces. In Congress, he was known as one of the GOP's toughest fiscal hawks. Human Events recently called Kasich's tenure as a Representative "the embodiment of a small government-low tax conservative." Kasich's additional tea party bona fides come from his time with Fox News, where hosted a show called "Heartland" and frequently filled in as a guest host for Bill O'Reilly.

Kasich has put his fiscal policy where his mouth is in the governor's race, where offering a plan to eliminate Ohio's state income tax. In short, in many ways, he's tried to be exactly the kind of Republican tea partiers are looking for, as he said at the rally yesterday.

"I think I was in the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party," he told a crowd in Columbus.

Eliminating the income tax in Ohio of course means even larger spending cuts in Ohio programs to go with it.  As it is, the state has a Democratic House and a Republican Senate, and nothing got done last year save kicking the can down the road into 2010.  The state, like many others, is facing government employee layoffs in the thousands and a 2010-2011 shortfall in the billions...and should Mr. Teabagger here win, it's going to get truly ugly.

It Keeps Getting Better

This Brad Blog article on voting machines in Mass. that will be used Tuesday should be giving both sides fits.

Since writing today's piece for Upstate New York's right-leaning Gouverneur Times, a new poll has come out this morning showing the Republican Scott Brown now leading the Democrat Martha Coakley by 4 points in the race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by a Democrat named Kennedy for nearly 60 years.

As of last night, when I filed the story with them, the latest survey from a Democratic-leaning pollster showed Coakley up by 8, though a day or two earlier, Republican Rasmussen had Brown down only by 2 points.
Suffice to say it's now officially "a toss-up", at least according to the Rothenberg Political Report, and to all the Dems and Reps now sweating out what was previously thought to have been an easy Democratic win.

With the 60th "filibuster-proof" Senate seat now hanging precariously in the balance, I'm sure you'll be delighted to hear that the winner will now be whoever Diebold declares it to be. The near-entirety of the state will vote next Tuesday on paper ballots to be counted by Diebold op-scan systems. The same ones used dubiously in the New Hampshire Primary in 2008, and the same ones notoriously hacked --- resulting in a flipped mock election --- in HBO's Emmy-nominated Hacking Democracy.

And to make matters even worse, the notorious LHS Associates --- the private company with the criminal background, who has admitted to illegally tampering with memory cards during elections, and who has a Director of Sales and Marketing who embarrassed himself with obscene comments here at The BRAD BLOG some years ago, resulting in his being barred from CT by their Sec. of State --- sells and services almost all of MA's voting machines along with those in the rest of New England.

There's a cheery thought.  The stakes are astronomical here on Tuesday.  We're all counting on a Republican-leaning corporation to count the votes and another Republican donor corporation servicing the voting machines in the bluest Democratic state in the nation in an election that will have massive national implications.  The polling is all over the map.  Some show Coakley up by double digits, some show Brown.

Anything is possible.  And isn't that the problem?

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• The U.S. is allowing Haitians in the country illegally to apply for protected status, giving them 18 months.
• The Pentagon is looking at the practical aspects of repealing DADT, and that could lead to a "separate but equal" policy on gays in the military.
• Texas's education board continues to rewrite school history and science textbooks in the state, the changes could affect textbooks nationwide.
• Hong Kong has approved a budget for building a high-speed rail link to China's rail network.
• Sony's delay of racing game Gran Turismo 5 to TBA status may spell trouble for the electronics company.
  

Last Call

Dems are talking about reconciliation should Coakley lose Tuesday.

Even if Democrats lose the special election to pick a new Massachusetts senator Tuesday, Congress may still pass health-care overhaul through a process called reconciliation, a top House Democrat said.

That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans from blocking votes on President Barack Obama’s top legislative priorities. That supermajority is at risk as the Massachusetts race has tightened.

“Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation,” Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said.

“Getting health-care reform passed is important,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “Reconciliation is an option.”

Naturally the Wingers are going nuts again.

Democrats tonight announced that they will likely ram Obamacare through the US Senate using the reconciliation process. This would allow democrats to nationalize one-sixth of the US economy wiith only 51 Senate Democrats voting for the bill.

Yeah, unprecedented tyranny!  How dare the Obama and the Dems try to pass something with 51 votes out of 100!

You know, except all the times Bush did it.

– The 2001 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 1836, 3/26/01]
– The 2003 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 2, 3/23/03]
– Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 [HR 4297, 5/11/06]
– The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 [H. Con Res. 95, 12/21/05]

And you know, Reagan.

Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981
Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1982
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1983
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987

Do keep up, Jim.  You lost the reconciliation battle quite some time ago.  However, reconciliation could possibly get things like the public option back in the bill.  Maybe.

Especially since the Big Pharma lobbyists are now extorting more concessions.  It could be Coakley as 60 was a moot point anyway.

Firebagged One

The Firebaggers are all but claiming credit for the announcement today of Arkansas Blue Dog Rep. Vic Snyder.

His decision to drop out of the race comes on the heels of the FDL/SurveyUSA poll showed him 12 points behind his likely Republican challenger, Tim Griffin.

The poll was a dramatic dropoff from the previous polling in November by PPP, which showed him effectively tied against his opponent. The Cook Political report rated the district a “tossup.”

As an incumbent well below 50%, his reelection chances seemed very bleak. With only $7,625 raised since the last FEC reporting, he did not have much of a war chest to work with in the next several months. The district has a strong (R+5) Republican leaning, and it may be a challenge for the Democrats to find a first rate replacement for this election cycle. With Snyder out of the race, it seems unlikely that the DCCC will spend nearly as much money as they would probably have used to use to defend a long-term incumbent like Snyder.

So Snyder's gone.  11 House retirements for the Dems now to the GOP's 14.  Not even the Firebaggers know who's going to run on the Democratic side now.  But it's cool.  They collected their Blue Dog head, and they are pretty confident that a strongly progressive candidate, should one arise, will have no problem winning in Arkansas in November.

If Snyder is replaced by another Democrat in November, one who is progressive, then I will give the FireDogLake crew all the credit.

But if Tim Griffin wins and this seat is a loss for the Dems...oh well...guess them's the breaks in the name of purity purges...

Zandar's Other Thought Of The Day

I like Jon Chait.  Over the last year, he and Ezra Klein have written countless excellent articles on the nuts and bolts of health care reform.  But he is f'ckin' high as a kite if he thinks Olympia Snowe is going to vote for health care after a Scott Brown win.

The fact that Chait is even still gaming that out as a possibility at this point shows he needs to take a step back.

Purity Test

Nate Silver has an argument from Boris Shor that Scott Brown's record makes him one of the most liberal Republicans in the GOP.

My [Boris's] research, along with Princeton’s Nolan McCarty, allows us to make precisely these comparisons. Essentially, I use the entirety of state legislative voting records across the country, and I make them comparable by calibrating them through Project Votesmart’s candidate surveys.

By doing so, I can estimate Brown’s ideological score very precisely. It turns out that his score is –0.17, compared with [Dede Scozzafava's] score of 0.02. Liberals have lower scores; conservatives higher ones. Brown’s score puts him at the 34th percentile of his party in Massachusetts over the 1995-2006 time period. In other words, two thirds of other Massachusetts Republican state legislators were more conservative than he was. This is evidence for my [Boris's] claim that he’s a liberal even in his own party. What’s remarkable about this is the fact that Massachusetts Republicans are the most, or nearly the most, liberal Republicans in the entire country!

More liberal than Dede Scozzafava, and she was jettisoned from her party for being a heretic.  It doesn't matter what Republican wins in the end, just as long as Democrats lose.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Just for the record, Glenn Beck is a pile.

BECK: I also believe this is dividing the nation…to where the nation sees him react so rapidly on Haiti and yet he couldn’t react rapidly on Afghanistan. He couldn’t react rapidly on Ft. Hood. He couldn’t react rapidly on our own airplanes with an underwear bomber…it doesn’t make sense. [...] Three different events and Haiti is the only one. I think personally that it deepens he divide to see him react this rapidly to Haiti.

Jesus Hell in a breakfast burrito.  Because Haiti is exactly like Crotch Bomber and Ft. Hood, and our seven year plus war in Afghanistan.  No matter what Obama does, it's wrong and he must be attacked.  There's a reason it's called Obama Derangement Syndrome, folks.  This is it.

[UPDATE 5:47 PM] And then there's GOP Rep. Steve King.

“This sounds to me like open borders advocates exercising the Rahm Emanuel axiom: ‘Never let a crisis go to waste,’” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said in an e-mail message to ABCNews. “Illegal immigrants from Haiti have no reason to fear deportation but if they are deported, Haiti is in great need of relief workers and many of them could be a big help to their fellow Haitians.” 

Stay classy, wingnuts.

Taking Up That Double Dog Dare

Yesterday Scott Brown practically dared Obama to show up, saying "outsiders weren't welcome" in the Massachussets Senate race (while welcoming Rudy Giuliani, oh by the way, the clear message being our first African-American president is the kind of person not welcome in Scott Brown's neighborhood and he's blowing on that dog whistle for all it's worth).

Today, President Obama decided to call Scott Brown's dare.

President Obama plans to visit the state Sunday to campaign for Senate candidate Martha Coakley, according to two senior Democratic officials.

A third Democratic source said that the event with Obama would likely be held in the Boston area, either in the city itself, or in one of two communities where Coakley is scheduled to campaign, Quincy and Framingham.

Additional details were not immediately available. The Globe today outlined the advantages and risks of a presidential visit.

The potential upsides are obvious; Obama won Massachusetts with 62 percent of the vote in 2008, and the glamour and media saturation of a presidential visit, especially at a large rally, would add a jolt of excitement to a campaign that has been seen as lackluster.

Which is true...but the Village has to be the Village.

 But there are risks. If Obama visits Massachusetts and Coakley loses, it would signal that Obama’s ability to motivate rank-and-file Democrats has slipped. It would buoy Republican efforts to take back the House and Senate this fall. And it could fuel criticism that he made a political trip while pressing issues awaited in Washington.

Best part is if Obama didn't show up, the Village would be complaining that Obama was so unpopular that he was hiding from a critical race and had no political capital to spare, and that the White House was adopting a "bunker mentality."

If you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, at least get out there and use the bully pulpit.  Obama wisely has chosen to do so.