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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PROLIFE who wrote (14337)	11/4/2006 11:35:59 PM
From: ManyMoose	Respond to of 71588

That's very interesting, Pro. Sometimes I watch PBS when they have a pledge drive because they have the best programs at that time, and they are usually non-controversial. But I never give money.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (14337)	11/4/2006 11:59:06 PM
From: Mr. Palau	Respond to of 71588

lets say it all together, speaker pelosi, speaker pelosi "Cook's Last Forecast Political Wire asked Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report for his latest forecast on Tuesday's elections. With just over 72 hours to go before the polls close, it's very hard to imagine how the House majority does not turn over, it's a question of how big this thing will be. As the magnitude of the House wave began growing a month or so ago, and the prospect of a 20 or more seat gain became increasingly probable, I decided that no matter how big it got, I was not going to say or write a number bigger than 35. After a certain point, you aren't really counting or even estimating, you're pulling numbers out of the air. I didn't and don't see any point in that. Let's just say it's 20-35, but that the possibility of this getting bigger, is very real. I'm just not going to throw any higher numbers out. House Republican incumbents and House Republican members running for Senate and Governor have everything going against them that all Repoublican candidates this year have, but they are also bearing the full brunt of the scandals as well. It doesn't seem to hurt any other type of GOP candidates as much as House members. The Senate is a very different situation and there are some very strange things going on. In Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum is gone. While the margin in Ohio is not nearly as wide, it's very hard to see how Mike DeWine makes it back either. The strange ones are Conrad Burns and Lincoln Chafee in Montana and Rhode Island, respectively. Both races are basically even, pretty remarkable considering how dismal their prospects looked just a couple weeks ago. While even is a bad place for a Republican to be going into Election Day in this kind of environment, both have some momentum at this point. Conversely, George Allen and Jim Talent, are dead even as well, but with no momentum, and that is very, very dangerous under these circumstances. Talent/Republicans have a fabulous field organization in Missouri, if Talent pulls it out, it might be the ground game that does it, but this is very tough for both. In Tennessee, while Democrats are boasting of a very strong African-American early voting program, this race really does appear to have slipped away from Democrats. Ijd be surprised to see Corker lose to Ford now. In terms of Democratic-held seats, Cantwell and Stabenow in Washington and Michigan are done deals, Menendez has pretty fair lead in New Jersey, and will probably win with points to spare, but it's volatile enough that I am still holding back. A lot of people thought we were crazy when about ten days or so we moved the Maryland open seat to Toss Up, I am very very comfortable with that move and most recent polling shows that it has narrowed up a great deal. Cardin is still up but not by a lot. Sometimes candidates and campaigns matter, and Steele has outperformed Cardin in both respects. The bottom line is that it is more possible today than a couple weeks ago that Republicans could hold their losses to just four, or it could end up being the six that seemed more likely to many then. Seven seat gain seems pretty much out, but then again three isn't very likely either. Republicans would need a lot of breaks to keep losses to four, a 51-49 majority, but it is quite plausible. Some may be very close, but all but Missouri and Montana are east of the Mississippi River, which doesn't necesarily mean an early evening, but that the story lines of the evening will develop early.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (14337)	11/5/2006 10:10:28 AM
From: Mr. Palau	Respond to of 71588

"Rep. John Dingell's investigation agenda as chair of the Commerce Committee if Democrats take the House: Among the areas Dingell says he will investigate: "Privacy. Social Security number protection. Outsourcing protection. Unfair trade practices. Currency manipulation. Air quality. "We'll look at the implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. We'll take a look at climate change. We'll take a look at the nuclear waste programme, where literally billions of dollars are being dissipated. We'll look at port security and nuclear smuggling, where there's literally nothing being done. On health, we'll take a look at Medicaid. The Food and Drug Administration. Generic drug approval. Medical safety. We'll also take a look at food supplements, where people are being killed. We will look at the overall question of Katrina recovery efforts."

To: PROLIFE who wrote (14337)	11/5/2006 12:23:00 PM
From: Mr. Palau	Respond to of 71588

"The Death of the Reagan Coaltion It took thirty years to build the Reagan coalition. It has taken George W. Bush just two years to destroy it. Polls taken by Reuters/Zogby International on the eve of the 2006 midterm elections confirm this analysis. In each of the Senate and House races surveyed, key groups that once formed the backbone to the Reagan coalition -- i.e., men, born-again voters, married, those with children under age 17 living at home, Independents, and those earning between $35,000 and $50,000 -- either favor the Democrats, or have forced the races to a draw. Presidential coalitions endure because their agendas remain unfulfilled. Thus, when communism ended, the Reagan coalition began to decay. In politics, there is an important axiom: Success kills party coalitions. The fall of communism presented the Reagan coalition with its first crisis. Bill Clinton took advantage and won the presidency because of Reagan’s success. George W. Bush sought to revive the Reagan coalition. First, he energized Christian conservatives who were repulsed by Clinton’s behavior during the Lewinsky affair. Second, he revived the Reagan tax cuts. But it was the war on terror that gave Bush his best hope for success. By reminding voters of September 11, Bush Republicans could offer themselves as the only barriers between safety and imminent holocaust. There is a second rule of politics that is being reaffirmed this year: Failure guarantees the end of a party coalition. Dissatisfaction with Iraq is so high that Republican candidates have become stand-ins for Bush. Despite the burdens Democrats carry into the midterm contests, they are likely to win thanks to the successful enactment of a Republican tax cutting agenda at home, and the abject failures of the GOP’s foreign policy. This is reminiscent of 1968, when Democrats lost the presidency because the New Deal succeeded at home while the Vietnam War had become a colossal failure overseas. The result is a terminal shrinking of the Reagan coalition. In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked a weary public the following questions: "Can anyone look at the record of this administration and say, ‘Well done?’ Can anyone look at our reduced standing in the world today and say, ‘Let’s have four more years of this?’" Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell observed that "there was no way we could survive if we allowed [the election] to become a referendum on the first three years of the Carter administration." So it is once more. This year, Democrats want to make this election a referendum on the past two years. If you like the way things are going, they say, vote Republican. Republicans counter that these contests should not be a national referendum on the past, but a choice between an unhappy past and an even unhappier future should Democrats seize power. Since so few Americans are satisfied with the status-quo, Democrats are poised to win. Ronald Reagan understood this elemental rule of politics -- namely, that elections boil down to choices based on simple questions. And his 1980 questions have renewed resonance this year. It is the Democrats who have donned the Reagan mantle. All they need is a presidential candidate to forge their new majority. -- John Kenneth White is a Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America and the author of The Values Divide: American Politics and Culture in Transition.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (14337)	3/9/2008 7:17:31 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

Couch Potato Entitlement March 8, 2008; Page A8 Among its other achievements, Congress has recently made every teenager in America deliriously happy. It made television a universal entitlement. Specifically, digital TV, with a pricetag for this new taxpayer subsidy of up to $1.5 billion. Federal law requires that, following the Super Bowl on February 17, 2009, all TV broadcasts will be transmitted only in digital format. Viewers relying solely on "over the air" analog programming will lose their signal. The Commerce Department believes there are some 35 million TV sets in America that don't have a digital converter, and their owners (read: voters) might not be happy to have their sets go black. So in 2005 Congress authorized the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. Any family can get a $40 coupon -- or two -- to convert its analog TVs to digital. (This is separate from the economic "stimulus" package.) Six million Americans have already snatched up coupons, and Commerce is even underwriting a PR program so Americans will grab them. Technological change routinely makes consumer items obsolete, but the feds don't pay people to upgrade their computers, microwaves, or home heating systems (not yet at least). Uncle Sam didn't provide coupons so people could exchange their record turntables for CD players. For several years now all new TVs have been sold with digital capability and consumers have had ample time to adjust. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez says digital TV will "improve our quality of life" and "we want every American to be ready." Consumer Reports finds that the average American family has 2.6 TV sets, and the typical American adult now spends an average of four hours a day watching those TVs. Just what America needs: a taxpayer incentive to spend even more time on the couch. online.wsj.com