No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for the 'Politics' Category

June 11, 2010

Sticky Fingers Larson to take on Plale

by @ 11:12. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Charlie Sykes)

I guess the Democrats don’t want criminal activity to be an August surprise in their now-every-4-year push to Lieberman state Senator Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee). The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting they’ve recruited ticketed shoplifter and Milwaukee County Supervisor Chris Larson to take out Plale because he hasn’t quite fully-earned his “East Side” nickname.

I guess the Dems’ desire for somebody crooked might be a function of the unique shape of the 7th Senate District, which links Oak Creek to the UW-Milwaukee campus via MMSD’s Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility.

June 8, 2010

Should the Wisconsin Tea Parties endorse candidates?

by @ 18:08. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Tea Party Movement.

The opening item in the Guest-Host with Dean Edition of The Scramble noted the various Wisconsin Tea Party Movement groups are getting together this weekend, and the subject of endorsements is on the agenda. Because there’s so many groups, this really needs to be split into two questions – whether they should endorse if they agree on a single candidate and whether they should endorse if different groups want to endorse different candidates.

As Jay Weber said on this morning’s show, it simply isn’t effective to just carp from the sidelines. While endorsements are not the end-all/be-all, the cold, hard fact is that politicians quickly discount those who are merely gripers who do nothing more substantial in the political process than vent and vote.

An active and united, or even a nearly-united, Tea Party Movements (yes, I am intentionally butchering the grammar and using the plural) front is a rather powerful thing. Just ask Scott Brown, Doug Hoffman, or Rand Paul how much a united front helped them. Of course, the Hoffman experience shows the limits of that.

A badly-fractured set of Tea Party Movements, on the other hand, especially when there is a candidate quite unacceptable to any of the Movements, is extremely counterproductive. I’ll let Warner Todd Huston explain the lessons of Illinois (unlike my contemporaneous excerpt, I’ll take the Illinois governor primary):

There was the same problem with the six candidates that were running for the GOP nomination for Governor. Tea Party groups spilt their votes between Dan Proft and Adam Andrzejewski. Andrzejewski got a last minute surge from Tea Partiers, but it was too late to help. But if you combined the polling numbers that Proft and Andrzejewski were seeing into one that number was a winning number. Unfortunately, the vote was spilt between the two candidates, not settled on just one of them.

I am not saying that the worst-case scenario of the Tea Partiers splitting their votes and allowing a full-blooded RINO slip through is going to happen en masse in Wisconsin, but that is something that the various Tea Party groups have to keep in mind.

The good news is that they are taking the other lesson that Huston drew out to heart – they’re going to at least talk to each other about this. That’s something the Illinios Tea Party Movements singularly didn’t do.

June 7, 2010

Neumann has REALLY lost the Klausers

by @ 9:08. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Charlie Sykes posted an open letter from former Department of Administration Secretary (under Tommy Thompson) James Klauser to gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann, asking him to leave the field and return his and his wife’s contributions. A bit of background – Klauser endorsed Neumann’s bid before it was officially launched, and his wife served as Neumann’s first campaign treasurer. However, by November, the Klausers pulled their support and backed Scott Walker. Since then, Neumann has started taking talking points from the One Wisconsin Now crowd.

The letter:

Dear Mark:

The last time I wrote you I stated it was time to coalesce around the Republican candidate best able to be elected governor in November 2010. While I appreciate you may have a different view, time has validated my judgment.

Earlier in 2009 when I considered your candidacy you told me that you would conduct a positive campaign with ideas that could address Wisconsin’s problems. You assured me that you would run a positive campaign; that you would adhere to Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment not to attack a fellow Republican.

Today I write to you as I am aghast at where your campaign has gone. You are violating the Reagan commandment.

The event you “staged” at the Republican convention was phony and hollow. I watched in amazement your shallowness and contrivance. You well know, since you were the Republican candidate in 5 elections (2 you won, 3 you lost), that guests are allowed “inside” if they register and pay the appropriate fee. At this convention I arranged for several people to so observe. Your claim of outsider, not being allowed in, was staged and phony.

Now I see you are holding press conferences to attack your primary opponent. As a math teacher you know that your criticism is contrived. All this for media attention; to mislead the voters.

My dad always told me to sell myself; not to knock down the other fellow. I expect yours did as well. You’re not following that sage guidance

I hope you stop; you are only helping the democrats. It is time for you to leave the field before your integrity is permanently besmirched.

In any event I must ask you to return the contributions which Shirley and I have made to your campaign. You obtained them under the false pretense that you would run a positive campaign focusing on the liberal democrats. You haven’t done that.

Sincerely,

/s/ James R. Klauser

June 7, 2010

One item I may or may not have mentioned – as the Saturday RPW convention morning session was letting out, and before his street theater, Neumann was standing at one of the two exits of the convention floor pressing the flesh.

Also, Charlie mentioned on his show that the Neumann campaign might ratchet up the mud by taking it onto the TV airwaves. Mark, if you have even a shred of integrity left, don’t do that.

June 1, 2010

Another Arizona Boycott

by @ 12:54. Filed under Immigration, Politics - National.

After Arizona passed its “we’re going to enforce the law if the Feds won’t enforce the law” immigration law, numerous members of the politically correct class called for boycotts of doing business with Arizona.  It got so ridiculous that MLB continues to be challenged to pull the All Star game from Phoenix and the Arizona Tea company, whose products have no affiliation with Arizona other than their name, have been suggested as a possible boycott target.

After the initial calls for boycotts, President Obama was queried as to whether he believed boycotts of Arizona were appropriate.  His response was that while he didn’t agree with the law, yet understood the frustration of the Arizona people:

“I’m the President of the United States. I don’t endorse boycotts or not endorse boycotts.”

So, President Obama has a dilemma. He doesn’t support a law that has been enacted by Arizona but obviously wants to do something about the problem because he also understands the frustration of the Arizona people (Oh, by the way, the people of Arizona are frustrated by the lack of effort, focus, urgency by anyone at the Federal level).

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, while approving of the Arizona law, also fees the frustration of the Arizona people.  As an executive leader who takes her position as one of action and not just show, she reached out to the White House in an attempt to meet with President Obama about their law and to discuss a future course of action supported by both Federal and State authorities.  Obama’s response? I’m too busy!

Too busy?  Doing what?  Dealing with that oil spill in the gulf?  Nope, he’s got a host of his lackey’s running interferenceso that Governor Jindal can’t do what he believes is right for his state!

Busy dealing with the events involving Gaza and Israel?  Nope, in fact, now has time on his calendar as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled his visit to return home to deal with the issue himself.

Oh, I almost forgot. I’ll bet President Obama is working on that Korean issue. Opps, nope, he’s farmed that one off to the UN.

Early in his presidency, when one of his community agitator friends got in a tussle with the local police, President Obama, along with Vice President Biden, cleared their schedules to allow for a beer tasting photo op. This, over an issue that should never have elevated itself above the local community police/college relationship. Now, on an issue that clearly has national significance, President Obama is too busy to meet with Governor Brewer.

If I were the synical type, I’d think that President Obama’s shunning of Governor Brewer was in fact, his own, private boycotting of Arizona!

May 27, 2010

Back to the front for Walker

by @ 12:17. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

That didn’t take too long – Rasmussen Reports released a fresh poll on the gubernatorial race, and Republican front-runner and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is up on Democrat presumptive nominee and City of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 48%-41%, his largest lead since February. Meanwhile, former Congressman Mark Neumann once again inched ahead of Barrett 44%-42%, after they were tied in April.

While one might say that, and the simultaneous Senate poll, reflects a RPW convention bounce, a couple of other items in that poll suggest otherwise. President Barack Obama’s approval/disapproval split was 49%/50% (Approval Index -9), significantly better than his contemporary overall -8 to -14 national spread (Approval Index between -16 and -22) and a slight improvement of his April 48%/52% (Approval Index -9) numbers.

Meanwhile, Governor Jim Doyle, who is (at least as of this moment) not running for re-election, saw his overall approval/disapproval split improve from 37%/60% (Approval Index -17) in April to 41%/57% (Approval Index -18).

Wisconsin Senate updates

by @ 7:37. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson is the Republican Party of Wisconsin-endorsed candidate. There’s a few items that have happened since then.

Rasmussen Reports took a poll of 500 likely voters, and found that Russ Feingold (D-WI) holds a mere 46%-44% lead over Johnson. Feingold continues to have a 6-point lead over Terrence Wall (47%-41% this month, compared to 49%-43% in April), and a 9-point lead over Dave Westlake (47%-38% this month, compared to 49%-38% in April).

Meanwhile, George Will is singing the praises of Johnson. Will praised Johnson’s choice of reading material (“Atlas Shrugged”), and noted that, unlike John Galt, Johnson chose to run.

WisPolitics is reporting that the Senate campaign of Terrence Wall, in the wake of losing the RPW endorsement race to Johnson, is imploding. They are reporting that his campaign manager, Ryan Murray, is out, that his honorary campaign co-chairs, Jim Klauser (Tommy Thompson’s Secretary of Administration) and Mary Buestrin (the RPW national committewoman), will be endorsing Johnson (Buestrin is obligated to do so as a party official), and that his departure from the race is “imminent”.

For his part, Westlake told WISN-AM’s Jay Weber this morning he’s in it until the end.

Revisions/extensions (3:12 pm 5/27/2010) – Here’s the official statement from the Wall campaign:

With great reluctance, I am withdrawing my candidacy from the United States Senate race against Russ Feingold. Since we began this journey last October, I have been so grateful for the support of Wisconsinites hungry for real fiscal conservatism and change in their government. And no matter how much I want to stay in and fight, I feel the honorable thing to do is exit.

When I started this effort, I had two goals: First, to turn this country around before it’s too late, and second, to prove that Russ Feingold could be defeated. We did show that we could win this race and we did so running an honest, clean campaign.

Last October, the polls showed us down double-digits and few had heard my name outside of Dane County. Recent polling now shows that we have closed within the margin of error.

As I traveled across this great State, county-to-county, city-to-city and handshake-to-handshake, I realized that the vast number of people I’ve met believe that we need people just like us to bring structural change to Washington.

The Republican Party has an opportunity in this environment to bring in new and out-of-the-box candidates who have made the grassroots effort and done the hard work that is necessary to beat Russ Feingold.

I will continue to fight for fundamental change, such as those solutions I present in my Patriots’ Bill of Rights. I urge you to go to www.patriotsbillofrights.org and sign the Patriots’ Bill of Rights. Just as our politicians try to govern us, so now we must govern them.

I cannot begin to express my sincere gratitude for all of the people I’ve met on the trail who have supported me, from those who have volunteered on my campaign and provided financial support, to the thousands of honest, hardworking Americans that I’ve met as I traveled the state over the last seven months.

I’ll continue to be involved in getting our country turned around, but it’s time for me to take a step back and take a hard look at how we move our country and the Republican Party forward.

May 24, 2010

Leinenkugel’s exit less-than-amicable

by @ 7:20. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Jerry Bader found the last interview Dick Leinenkugel did as a candidate, done with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Leinenkugel blamed talk radio for his demise, and claimed the GOP needs to “broaden” the party.

I would say that actions such as endorsing combined reporting (done after he entered the race) and being a key part of the Dirty Talgo Deal did more to torpedo his campaign than simply being the “token opposition party Cabinet member”. Of course, talk radio is what brought those actions out of the memory hole.

May 23, 2010

Post-convention wrap

by @ 20:52. Filed under RPW Convention.

I really wish I would have made Sunday’s session. However, allergies really knocked me flat, so I missed the big surprises of the convention – Dick Leinenkugel dropping out, and Ron Johnson earning both Leinenkugel’s and the party’s endorsements. Let’s see if I can play catch-up as part of the wrap.

Before I get to the main part, I do need to clarify to those not familiar with what an RPW endorsement means. It gives the endorsed candidate access to party money, staff and lists. It does not either make the endorsed candidate’s ballot access easier (much less guaranteed) or make the other candidates’ ballot access harder. All candidates still need to circulate and get the same number of signatures on nomination papers filed with the Government Accountability Board.

  • Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty’s Friday pitch to the delegates was enough to carry himself to a bare plurality in WisPolitics’ straw poll of 457 of the the attendees for the 2012 Presidential nomination. He received 87 (or 85, depending on where in the write-up one gets one’s numbers from) votes, with former governor Sarah Palin second with 68, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (widely seen nationwide as the Next-In-Line™) third with 65, Newt Gingrich fourth among the “official” candidates with 45, Ron Paul 5th with 32, and Mike Huckabee tied for 6th with 18. Notably, 55 people specifically wrote in Paul Ryan, who was not listed on the ballot, while 31 people wrote in somebody else not on the ballot (which also included Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Mike Pence and Rick Santorum) or otherwise said “other” and 6 declined to vote.
  • There were also two other questions on the abbreviated straw poll – whether the attendees supported the endorsement process, and whether they supported the Tea Party movement. By a vote of 316 yes to 74 no to 58 no preference, they supported the endorsement process. By a 425-20 margin, they support the Tea Party movement. Do keep those results, especially the second, in mind, for a few of the other items.

    Speaking of that second result, it is a recognition that the RPW under Chairman Reince Priebus has made significant strides in regaining its small-government mantle after the Thompson-Graber-Schultz-Gard era.

  • Owen Robinson and Deb Jordahl thoroughly blew apart the street theater the Mark Neumann campaign successfully sold to the LeftStreamMedia. Unlike the LSM, Owen actually interviewed RPW Exective Director Mark Jefferson, who said that the convention hall was limited to credentialed delegates, alternates, guests and media, and that at that point, nobody from the Neumann campaign had complained to the RPW about the situation.

    Jordahl noted three elements that would earn the Twitter #fail hashtag for those who actually pay attention. First, after trying to get a massive protest organized through his “50,000 Facebook friends”, he was only able to get a few dozen to show up, and most of those were from his campaign staff. Second, among those few dozen was at least one credentialed delegate, who as a delegate had full access (and indeed, voting rights in the endorsement process). Third, Neumann himself promptly went back into the hall and voted in the endorsement process.

    I might have noted this before on the blog, but Neumann hadn’t exactly been trying to court either the party regulars or the Tea Party movement crowd in the first 7 months of his campaign. When he finally tried to tie himself to any portion of the Tea Party movement, he chose the national Tea Party Express rather than any of the local groups, such as the Racine, Wausau or Oshkosh Tea Party groups.

  • The lieutenant governor’s vote showed a couple of interesting “insider baseball” elements. First, regional campaigns, such as the one Dave Ross has been conducting, don’t exactly work. Second, running a campaign based as much on one’s gender as anything else is not a winning strategy in the GOP. Third, record does matter, even if one reaches out significantly to the Tea Party movement and has significant “insider cred”. That 2007 vote for the Doyle budget kept Brett Davis from topping 50%.
  • Dick Leinenkugel’s drop-out from the race was only a bit of a surprise because of his previous service as Democrat Governor Jim Doyle’s Secretary of Commerce. I truly wish I had been able to interview him, because his subsequent endorsement of Ron Johnson, which was a huge surprise, certainly appears to invalidate at least part of the conventional wisdom that Leinenkugel was a stealth Democrat candidate.

    Something I had not had the opportunity to mention prior because I didn’t quite complete the background research also breaks part of that conventional wisdom – the only state or federal-level donation I could find from Leinenkugel was a single 2004-cycle donation to the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee. Again, keep that in mind.

  • Speaking of surprises, the biggest surprise was the party endorsement of Ron Johnson on the second ballot. Johnson is, outside the Tea Party movement (and even within parts of it), a rather blank slate on specific issues.

    There is a recognition that in a high-cost race, one-on-one campaigning simply isn’t enough. That lesson was driven home in 2004, when the NRSC and a previous RPW leadership took their wads of cash and went home after Tim Michels upset their prefered candidate, Russ Darrow, in the primary. The victim of that was Dave Westlake, who went out of the endorsement race on the first ballot with 15.1% of the vote.

    Repeating one of the themes in the lieutenant governor’s endorsement race, record matters. In this case of political neophytes, it was Terrence Wall’s donation record, littered with donations to various Democrats, from Jim Doyle to Tammy Baldwin, that overwhelmed everything else. It even overwhelmed a closing trend on Russ Feingold in polls. He didn’t get higher than 23.6% of the endorsement vote, and that was on the first of the two ballots.

  • It wouldn’t be a convention without a review of the hospitality suites. Even though the food offering was weak compared to previous conventions, and everybody who had food the first night ran out very quickly, Paul Ryan’s suite (guest-hosted by Jim Sensenbrenner after the Ryans had to leave early in the wake of Jenna’s mother’s passing) did not disappoint. Ron Johnson’s hallway spread the first night probably was pretty impressive, but by the time I got to it, everything was gone.

    The best theme was Ben Collins’ military theme. He had ammo boxes and a pair of shooting games (one electronic, one airsoft gun). The RACC highway signs were pretty nice as well, but the fact they were stuck on a different floor than the main set of suites hurt the attendance.

May 22, 2010

RPW convention – endorsement liveblog – UPDATE – Walker endorsed

by @ 13:42. Filed under RPW Convention.

Since updates might be fast and furious, I’ll be firing up Cover It Live for the endorsement liveblog.

Revisions/extensions (4:22 pm 5/22/2010) – In case you missed the liveblog, Scott Walker was overwhelmingly endorsed by the convention with 91.3% of the vote.

R&E part 2 (6:31 pm 5/22/2010) – Yes, we’re running way late. Round 1 of lieutenant governor endorsement balloting done, and Brett Davis led with 37.40%. Dave Ross (25.20%) Ben Collins (13.85%) also move on to round 2. Rebecca Kleefisch eliminated with 13.75%.

The Senate endorsement votes will be tomorrow.

R&E part 3 (7:42 pm 5/22/2010 – There will be no endorsement in the lieutenant governor’s race. Unofficially, Brett Davis ended the 3rd and final ballot with a bit under 50%, with Dave Ross a bit under 34%.

RPW interview – David King

by @ 11:51. Filed under RPW Convention.

Pastor David King is running for Secretary of State against incumbent Doug LaFollette. He sees a more visible role for secretary of state than it has currently.

Here is the interview.

RPW convention interview – Peter Theron

by @ 11:45. Filed under RPW Convention.

Peter Theron is running in the 2nd Congressional District, currently held by Tammy Baldwin. While this is a very tough seat for Republicans because it includes Madison, Theron pointed out that he outperformed the McCain/Palin ticket when he ran in 2008.

Here is the interview.

RPW convention interview – Dan Kapanke

by @ 10:45. Filed under RPW Convention.

My first interview of the day was with Dan Kapanke, who is taking on Ron Kind in the 3rd Congressional District. The caffeine hadn’t quite made it through my system yet, but since he’s the “forgotten” part of the quite-possible 3-seat switch, here it is.

Quick RPW convention first-day update

by @ 7:47. Filed under RPW Convention.

Sorry for the general lack of updates, but net access was a bit limited last night, and I don’t have a lot of time before I have to take off to the Midw…er, Frontier Airlines Center. First things first, Rep. Paul Ryan and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty spoke at the chairman’s reception last night at the Harley Museum. Audio links are:

Paul Ryan’s comments
Tim Pawlenty’s comments

In case you missed my Twitter feed, last night’s highlight was the hospitality rooms. A sign the convention is crowded – nobody had enough food. I’d have to say the first-night winner was Ben Collins, who had an airsoft gun range set up (the gun was shooting a bit high and right) as part of his military-themed room. Other unique rooms were Scott Walker’s Arizona-themed room (complete with a live band), Mark Neumann’s luau-themed room (yes, he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt), and Dave Ross’ 50s-themed room. Also with rooms last night were Rebecca Kleefisch, Dave Westlake, David King, Terrence Wall (who was serving up cotton candy and sno-cones), and Brett Davis (who, other than Walker, had the most-consistently crowded room). Down on the first floor were several candidates for the 8th Congressional seat, while Ron Johnson set up a spread on the balcony and Dick Leinenkugel was meeting-and-greeting.

In any case, it’s off to today’s main floor session and some interviews.

May 19, 2010

Covering the 2010 RPW State Convention

by @ 14:41. Filed under RPW Convention.

For the third year, I’ll be covering the Republican Party of Wisconsin State Convention. I’ll be joined by a few of my friends:

– Kevin Binversie from Lakeshore Laments
– Owen Robinson from Boots and Sabers
– Kyle Maichle from North Shore Exponent
– Rick Sense from The Inside Scoop
– The gang from the MacIver Institute

If you can’t make it down to Milwaukee for the fun, stick around, visit the friends, and stay tuned for the news from the convention. Of course, if you can make it to Milwaukee, come on down – there’s going to be so many people here that the RPW needed to get the Midw…er, Frontier Airlines Center for Saturday’s portion.

Post-primary thoughts

by @ 10:15. Filed under Politics - National.

Revisions/extensions (5:18 pm 5/19/2010) – There’s some rather good, learned takes that are better than mine out there. First up, there’s a whole series from Jim Geraghty. Then, there’s Melissa Clouthier, who linked to this missive. DaTechguy compared and contrasted PA-12 with Massachusetts. Stacy McCain filed a back-home closing dispatch after spending a lot of shoe leather in the district. Go read their takes as well.

In case you missed the toplines from yesterday’s primaries (and special election for the seat formerly held by John Murtha), Arlen “Scottish Law” Specter (D-PA) is now a lame-duck Senator, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) is headed for a runoff in her primary, Rand Paul knocked off Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary, and the Democrats hung onto the House seat formerly held by John Murtha. Let’s see if I can make any sense out of all that.

The first two items are actually the same phenomenon – After riding the nutroot wave to power, Barack Obama has become The Establishment, and the nutroots are as anti-Establishment as ever. When old Scottish Law became Specter the Defector (credit BobNoxious’ mom for that one), Obama and the establishment in the Pennsylvania Democrat Party embraced him. Joe Stestak ran as the “real” Democrat, and won going away.

Meanwhile, Blanche Lincoln, despite voting (or perhaps because she voted) with Harry Reid and Barack Obama, couldn’t pull 50%+1 to avoid a runoff with nutroot-approved Lt. Gov. Bill Haller. I’m still waiting for the presstitute exposés on how the nutroots have taken over the Democrat Party at the state level.

That brings me to the mixed-bag main events, ones that may have implications for Wisconsin. The first is the Paul trouncing of Grayson. Paul wholly-embraced the Tea Party movement, with full reciprocity. Meanwhile, Grayson clung solely to the establishment that tried to install him. The results weren’t even close, even though (or more-likely because) it was a closed primary limited to Republican party members.

I’m sure the Mark Neumann camp would like to make hay of that result. However, they already botched the attempt to tie themselves to the Tea Party movement; while Neumann waited until February 2010, a full year after the movement began and 7 months after he entered the race, to publicly reach out to Tea Party-related groups, Scott Walker was out there early and often.

That brings me to what is being spun as the “Big Dem Win” – Mark Critz’s 7.6-point win over Tim Burns in the special election for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional district, the seat formerly held by John Murtha. While on the surface, it is a big win, the fact that normal primary elections happened at the same time means one can quantify just how unpopular even a Dem who ran away from the Dem agenda, as Critz did, is. In the 3-person Democrat primary for the full-term fall election, just under 81,000 Democrats participated, with just under 46,000 Republicans participating in their 2-person primary (also won by Burns), which made for a participation margin of D+27.6 points. In the special election, 10,000 of those who voted in the Democrat primary did not vote for Critz, 15,000 who did not vote in the Republican primary voted for Burns, with 3,000 voting for the Libertarian candidate. That still leaves a 20-point swing away from the Dem column and to the GOP column.

There were 22,000 23,000 (forgot to round up) votes in the Democrat primary that did not go to Critz. Somehow, I doubt 10,000 of them voted in the Democrat primary, then turned around to vote for Burns in the special election, so I’ll take the scenario that those 10,000 simply didn’t vote in the special election. Even with that assignment, Critz would have only won by 14 points, a 13.6-point swing to the Republicans.

Neither Steve Kagen (the Dem Congressman in the 8th District) nor Julie Lassa (the Dem state senator who is the anointed candidate for the 7th Congressional seat being vacated by Dave Obey) can be too happy with that bit of math. The 8th is considered a “swing” district, even after the last 2 elections, while the 7th isn’t nearly as Democratic as Pennsylvania’s 12th. Moreover, neither Kagen (who proudly proclaimed he was one of the architechts of PlaceboCare) nor Lassa (who voted for Healthy-and-Depopulated Wisconsin back in 2007) can credibly run as anything other than Huge Government Liberal Democrats.

May 18, 2010

Tuesday Hot Reads – a two-part American Thinker debt-bomb special

by @ 7:36. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

If you’re not reading American Thinker, you are missing out on some of the brightest minds in political thought. Most outfits would put their “B-side” blog as their front page. A pair of posts from Monty Pelerin and Vasko Kohlmayer on the American debt bomb that is about to go off are prime examples of that. First, Mr. Pelerin on a possible doomsday scenario:

It is likely that Greece represents the prototype for early US responses. Political denial and cowardice will defer hard decisions. Eventually external forces will force action. The US government will become the same Pavlovian dog conditioned to respond to riots and violence. California is likely to be the first “trainer.” If the US government resists bailing out CA, then the streets of CA will be the learning center for the US Pavlovian dog. When (and I believe they will) the US government bails out CA, there is no end to the beggars that will show up. Eventually we run out of money, at least money that can be raised in financial markets. (We may be at this point already.)

My guess, and it is only that, is that the US government will do everything it can to avoid the necessary cuts and the resulting violence in the streets. That implies massive monetization to fund commitments. Ultimately that will destroy the currency and result in an hyperinflationary depression that will cause markets to cease to function other than on a barter system. Savings and fixed income pensions will be destroyed.

While printing money might buy some time, it will worsen outcomes, including worse violence. A hyperinflationary depression will destroy the country and perhaps our mode of government.

Somehow, I think that’s the goal. All the Boomers who are running things need to do is keep the plates spinning for another 20 years or so.

Next, Mr. Kohlmayer explains the nature of the public debt (link to Wikipedia removed as I don’t trust Wikipedia as far as I can throw it):

If anything, Intragovernmental Holdings – the part Mr. Hall terms “soft” – would be far more difficult to renege on than the other portion of the debt, since it concerns retirement money of Americans. One can well imagine the outrage that would erupt if one day politicians announced that we were going to simply “forget” about it. Given that senior citizens are electorally most potent demographic, no politician would ever dare to suggest that we do such a thing.

If any portion of the debt will ever get repealed it would be the Debt Held by the Public. Given that most Americans do not own government bonds, initially this form of default would directly affect only a comparatively small portion of the population. Much of the immediate loses would be, in fact, borne by foreign central banks and governments that hold US dollars as reserve currency. There would, of course, be much anger and protestations on their part. Politicians, however, would much prefer to face the wrath of foreigners than of their own citizens, since the Chinese cannot participate in our elections (or at least they are not supposed to)….

I do have to raise a point of order or two at this point. First, attempts by governments to renege on foreign-held debt have historically been met with war. Something tells me that the ChiComs aren’t simply going to walk away from north of $2 trillion, even in the “kinder, gentler” Third Millenium.

Second, that day of reckoning on the Intragovernmental Holdings is coming. It won’t affect those at or very near retirement, but those of my generation (the aptly-named GenX) are already being conditioned to accept that government won’t be there for us, even as we’re being told that we have to pay and pay and pay and pay for the lack of foresight on the part of our elders by not producing enough of us to keep the SocSecurity Ponzi scheme going while blindly depending on pensions that for the most part died before they got to use them.

The question is, will the publicly-held debt bomb explode before the Boomers die off? Something tells me that the proverbial spinning plates are already wobbling beyond stability.

Back to Mr. Kohlmayer for his close:

The dire nature of our fiscal situation has been recently pointed out by the International Monetary Fund which explicitly warned that the US national debt is soon to exceed 100 percent of GDP. The Fund cautioned that if nothing is done the figure will rise dramatically in the years ahead. Paradoxically, the IMF recommended that the amount by which the US needed reduce its structural deficits was greater than that recommended for Greece.

With the deficit projected to hit 10.6 percent of GDP this year and with long-term unfunded entitlement liabilities of some 104 trillion, the United States is indeed quickly becoming Greece on the Atlantic’s western shore.

May 17, 2010

McCallum endorses Wall

by @ 11:58. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

In a statement released by the Terrence Wall campaign, former Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum said:

Terrence Wall has balanced budgets for the last 20 years as a small business owner. That’s exactly the kind of experience we need in Washington today. I’m endorsing Terrence because I know he will stand up to the power brokers in Washington – Democrats or Republicans – and fight for a balanced budget that won’t saddle our children with any more debt. As Governor, I wasn’t afraid to propose true spending cuts, and I know Terrence won’t be either.

This ties into a pledge from Wall last week to vote only for a balanced budget.

Normally, an ex-governor’s endorsement would be gigantic news. However, McCallum was a “caretaker” governor who happened to be lieutenant governor when Tommy Thompson left for the Bush administration, and his attempts to put Wisconsin on a track toward budget solvency wasn’t well-received even by his fellow Republicans.

Ron Johnson is in the Senate race

by @ 11:32. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Ron Johnson, president of Pacur Inc., has announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for United States Senate. My initial thoughts are that he is a good person, but that there are now too many people in the primary, especially considering a former Doyle cabinet member who just can’t let go of his liberal views is one of those four.

Coming Soon to a State Near You…The Third World

by @ 5:19. Filed under Politics - National.

According to the CMA Soverign Risk Monitor, California is perceived to be the eight most likely government to default on their debt.  While countries like Venezuela and Argentina are worse, Iraq with it’s continuing challenges of maintaining a stable government, is actually ranked better.

Meanwhile, California is wrestling with a $19.1 B as in Billion shortfall. Arnold, am I political fish or fowl, Schwarzenegger, has decided he’s fish in this debate and has called for an end to the California welfare system. In what has become expected, trite and completely in line with leadership shown in Washington, the Democrats, who control both houses in California, have said, “nope” and are chasing a plan to increase taxes.

In what has become a rare event, I applaud Schwarzenegger for calling out reality on this topic. California has been one of the hardest hit states during this recession. Increasing taxes will not only not close the budget gap but will exacerbate the economic challenges, likely making anywhere in Michigan a more appealing place for business development. Where I disagree wtih Arnold is that he continues to attempt to be a moderate and walk both sides of the fence.

Less than a week ago, Arnold stuck his nose into Arizona’s business. He derided the recently passed immigration laws and joked that he would likely be deported under the new Arizona law.

Estimates have California with over 2 million illegal immigrants, over twice the number of the next largest illegal population estimated in Texas. While you may say, “yeah, but they have a lot of other people,” you’d be right. But, that estimate also says that over 6 out of every 100 people are illegal immigrants in CA and the is over 3 times the national average.

Depending upon the study you choose to use, illegal immigrants cost the country somewhere between $40 and $80 billion each year. While the estimates I used earlier don’t reflect the total numbers of illegals believed to be in the US, it does likely represent the distribution across the states. That estimate showed that approximately 1/3 of the illegal immigrants in the US were in California. Let’s see…1/3 of $40 billion is about $13.3B. 1/3 of $80 billion is about $27 billion.

A quick suggestion for you Arnold, if you want to deal with your budget problem deal with the problem and not the symptom. If you want to fix the budget via an overhaul of the welfare system, you should start by fixing the problem that is causing your welfare problem to be so big…Illegal Immigration. An apology to the people of the State of Arizona would be a good place to start!

May 13, 2010

That $83 billion April deficit is worse than you think

by @ 17:50. Filed under Politics - National.

If you pay attention to financial news, you probably know the federal government ran a $82.7 billion deficit in the month of April. As JammieWearingFool notes, it’s a record-setting 19th consecutive month of monthly deficits, and only the 13th of the past 56 Aprils to post a montly deficit.

Before I get to the “how much worse”, I do have to note that the government did “accelerate” some payments from May 1 to April 30. However, that is only somewhere south of $19 billion in additional outlays, and only reduces the “natural” monthly deficit to $64 billion (give or take a couple billion).

The first two parts of the “how much worse is it” comes from Tom Blumer. Do you remember what I said about April historically being a surplus month for the feds? In April 2007, the monthly surplus was $178 billion, and in April 2008, the monthly surplus was $159 billion. Compare that to the $21 billion deficit in April 2009 and this April’s $83 billion deficit.

That flows into the second part from Tom – tax revenues are still cratering, both from before the start of The Great Recession (soon to be named The Greatest Depression) and from last year. Total federal receipts for April are down 36.1% from April 2007, and down 7.9% from April 2009.

On that note, the best instantaneous measure of income generation is, at least until the effects of PlaceboCare distort it, the portion of the FICA/SECA tax that goes to the Hospital Insurance portion of Medicare. It taxes every dollar earned at the same percentage, and despite an extra Friday, the FICA (withheld) take was 2.6% lower in April 2010 than it was in April 2009, and the SECA (that’s from the first-quarter 2010 quarterly estimated payments plus any unpaid portion from 2009) take was 4.0% lower in April 2010 than it was in 2009. The combined drop from April 2009 to April 2010 is 3.0%. If this is a “recovery”, then it’s not only a jobless one, but a payless one.

The third part comes from Karl Denninger via Dad29. The national debt increased not by $83 billion, but by $175 billion. Karl caught the usual suspect – the various “trust funds” buying more Treasuries.

There, however, is a second part, noted by Fox Business at the time and fallen into the memory hole. Back in February, the Treasury announced it was “recapitalizing” something called the Supplementary Financing Program. It was originally a “temporary” infusion of $300 billion of cash from the Treasury to the Federal Reserve back in September 2008 (that’s right, pre-TARP) to allow the Federal Reserve to do stuff like prop up AIG. Since that cash was funded with Treasury securities, it became a “victim” of the bump-up against the debt ceiling, and had dropped to $5 billion by February. Since Timothy “TurboTax” Geithner, the architect of the SFP when he was head of the New York Federal Reserve, liked the no-strings-attached slush fund so much, as soon as the debt ceiling was raised, he decided to bring it back to $200 billion between the end of February and the end of April. I wonder who the next AIG/GM is – the Communists in the Executive Branch are already planning for their next corporate takeover.

The “cute” trick is that while all that money came from the sale of bonds and remains there because said bonds are being rolled over, since it’s “cash”, the amount available to the Federal Reserve is counted as part of the Treasury’s “Operating Cash” and thus offsets the debt issued to create it. Specifically for April, $75 billion went out the door that way.

May 10, 2010

Well, Which Is It?

by @ 6:59. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

In his commencement address, Sunday, at Hampton University, Virginia, President Obama told the students that information and acting upon that information, was the key to a successful democracy:

“What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart.

“It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.”

In what is as rare as Robert Gibbs’ ability to provide a lucid and logical explanation as to what the administration’s policy on terror man made events is, I agree with President Obama.

As you read stories of our country’s founding, you will find that even then, with the relatively rudimentary communication tools, at least as compared to today, information and debates about that information were key to the success of nearly every endeavor of the nation.  Most especially one can see the import that information and debate had on the nation’s founding if you study any of the history of the creation and ratification of the Constitution.

Flash forward to today and you see information having the same place as the corner stone in democracy.  While the tools for disseminating it have changed, information and the debate of information, remains the key to our democracy.  One only need look at “leaders” like Hugo Chavez and how they all attempt to control the flow of information as one of their first acts, to understand how important information flow is to a free people.  Can anyone imagine how a movement without structure could have the impact that the tea party is having, if it didn’t have access to and the means to distribute information in a free and rapid fashion?

Earlier in his speech, President Obama complained about

arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter.

He added:

With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.

Really?  Information becomes a distraction?  I guess that might be true if your goal was not debate but to dictate “truth” and “fact” as you want it to be seen.  In that case, conflicting information would certainly be a “distraction.”  However, in any honest assessment of an issue, debate, which nearly by definition, means disagreement is the best way to find answers.  Not to go all Biblical on you this early in the week but have you never heard of iron sharpening iron?

Unfortunately, with a political life that was forged in Chicago, President Obama is used to avoiding debate and only hearing the comforting, echoing applause of support for every socialist idea he puts forth.  “Information” in President Obama’s world is just one more distraction on his way to a “transformed” America.

One last thought…in light of his comments and his knock on the newest information and technology gadgets, has anyone informed the President that we are an information age economy?  Oh, my mistake, I was assuming for a moment that a robust economy was something that the President would want.

May 7, 2010

Another Right Wing News blog temperature check – Immigration edition

by @ 7:27. Filed under Immigration, Politics - National.

Once again, John Hawkins provided an outlet for some of the most influential bloggers on the right side of the blogosphere, as well as Shoebox and me, to weigh in on the issues of the day. This time, the poll concerns immigration. Let’s run through the questions and answers (my choices underlined):

  • Do you approve of Arizona’s new immigration law? (49 votes yes, 1 vote no) -Arizona has pretty much become the crime state of the union thanks to Mexican drug gangs, most of whom are illegal aliens.
  • Would you like to see your state implement something like Arizona’s new immigration law? (49 votes yes, 1 vote no) – Since it’s good enough for Arizona, it’s good enough for Wisconsin.
  • Do you believe Arizona’s new immigration law constitutes racial profiling or discriminates against Hispanic Americans? (2 votes yes, 47 votes no) – No. The Cliff Notes’ version of what it actually does – It authorizes Arizona law enforcement personnel to check into the immigration status of those already lawfully stopped by them if they have a reasonable suspicion about their residency, requires the various local governments of Arizona to actually enforce the law, and puts the “criminal” in “illegal alien” (both being and hiring). That criminality doesn’t go nearly as far as similar provisions in Mexican law.
  • If you had to choose between the following options, which would you prefer? (4 votes comprehensive immigration reform, 46 votes immigration reform that focused on security before addresssing the status of illegals already in the country) – I would actually prefer that the illegals be tossed out as the border is secured, but that’s not the type of “comprehensive immigration reform” that the bipartisan Party-In-Government wants to consider.
  • If we implemented comprehensive reform, which of the following best describes what you think would happen? (39 votes illegals would become citizens, but the border wouldn’t be secured, 10 votes illegals would become citizens and the border would be secured) – History is my guide here. It would be a repeat of 1986.
  • Do you believe the fence on our southern border will be completed while Barack Obama is in office? (0 votes yes, 50 votes no) – I’m not in the bridge-buying business.
  • On the whole, which of these sentiments best describes your thoughts about illegal aliens? (2 votes they make America a better place to live, 47 votes they make America a worse place to live) – Unless they’re completely off-the-grid, they’re committing, at a minimum, identity fraud to remain here.
  • On the whole, which of these sentiments best describes your thoughts about legal immigrants? (49 votes they make America a better place to live, 1 vote they make America a worse place to live) – I unabashedly say this, partly because my grandmother came here from Weimar Germany. Those who come here legally tend to be those who want to better themselves in such a way that betterment extends to the larger community.

    Besides, where else can you have bratwurst one day, corned beef a second, General Tso’s chicken a third, tacos a fourth, veal parmigiana a fifth, jambalaya a sixth, and shish kabobs a seventh, all made by those who can trace their heritage to the points-of-origin of those foods?

  • Do you think the United States is doing a good job of assimilating immigrants? (11 votes yes, 39 votes no) – On the whole, we still are a melting pot. However, the big challenge is not the Hispanic population but the Muslim populatoin.
  • Do you believe that taking a tough line on illegal immigration would be winning issue for Republicans in the 2010 election? (43 votes yes, 7 votes no) – I’m not nearly as certain that it is a winning issue as I am that surrendering would guarantee a permanent Democrat/Socialist majority.

May 6, 2010

Boy, This is Getting Old!

by @ 14:07. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

I told you so.

I told you so!

I TOLD YOU SO!

Remember back a few weeks when Henry Waxman had gotten all balled up that AT&T, Verizon and a few others had filed SEC documents noting substantial earnings hits due to the passage of Placebocare?

Remember a few days short of a few weeks ago when Henry became annoyed and called the previously mentioned companies in to testify before Congress because he was sure that their filings were in violation of something that Henry held sacred?

Remember a few days closer to now when Henry cancelled the hearings and claimed that the previously mentioned companies had requested the cancellation because they had come to their senses and were willing to no further impugn Henry’s ability to understand the law he voted for?

Remember after that, when I said this:

But, let me ask you this; which of the following two scenarios do you think is most likely?

Scenario A: Companies who paid a bunch of money to consultants and attorneys for the purpose of understanding placebocare. After getting information that said “bleed red ink NOW”, have now come to the conclusion that they really have no conclusion about the future costs of health care and they’re willing to give Congress the benefit of the doubt on Placebocare?

Or

Scenario B: Henry Waxman had no idea what actually is in Placebocare. After getting his bald head pulled tighter than a pair of lycra pants on Michael Moore, he launched his hearings to make sure people didn’t think Democrats were fools. However, following scalp relaxation therapy, Henry learned that not only were the SEC filings proper, they were required by law. Henry also was told that hearings would only serve the purpose of removing any question that the Democrats had/have no idea what is in Placebocare nor the implications of it on the American people and businesses. Henry, wanting no further embarrassment, decided the cancel the hearings.

Yeah, me too!

OK, well, now read this:

Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill’s critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.

…

The announcements greatly annoyed Representative Henry Waxman, who accused the companies of using the big numbers to exaggerate health care reform’s burden on employers. Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, demanded that they turn over their confidential memos, and summoned their top executives for hearings.

But Waxman didn’t simply request documents related to the write down issue. He wanted every document the companies created that discussed what the bill would do to their most uncontrollable expense: healthcare costs.

The request yielded 1,100 pages of documents from four major employers: AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere (DE, Fortune 500). No sooner did the Democrats on the Energy Committee read them than they abruptly cancelled the hearings. On April 14, the Committee’s majority staff issued a memo stating that the write downs were “proper and in accordance with SEC rules.” The committee also stated that the memos took a generally sunny view of the new legislation. The documents, said the Democrats’ memo, show that “the overall impact of health reform on large employers could be beneficial.”

Don’t doubt me! I know politicians like I know every succulent tongue tingle of a Tanqueray martini, up, with olives!

‘Nuff said!

May 5, 2010

Obey out

by @ 22:01. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that House Appropriatons Committee chair David Obey (D-Wausau) will not be running for re-election this year. I’ll refer you to Kevin Binversie for the learned explanation of what’s next, but I do have a couple thoughts of my own:

  • Even in a district where, outside Obey, Democrats and liberals have averaged double-digit wins over the last 5 years, with only Justices Michael Gableman and Annette Ziegler breaking through the stranglehold, and perhaps especially in a district where the elderly incumbent hasn’t campaigned in a very long time, a credible multi-prong campaign (this from Sean Duffy) can be very effective. Kevin relayed a story about how this cycle was the first time Obey felt the need to put up a campaign website, and somewhere in my stack of stuff is a story of how the Wausaw Democratic Party office didn’t have any Obey signs on display.

    While Obey had almost $1.4 million cash on hand at the end of the first quarter and Duffy only had $339,000 cash on hand at the end of the first quarter, individual donations for the first quarter were far closer, with Obey having a $253,000-$210,000 advantage. Obey did have a massive $187,000-$9,300 advantage in party/PAC money for the quarter.

  • A huge part of that pressure came from my friends at Americans for Prosperity, especially the Wisconsin chapter, and the members of the Wausau Tea Party. They’ve been targeting Obey for years for his pork-spending ways, going all the way back to 2006.
  • That gaping opening has to put a crimp in what appears to be the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s plans to have no meaningful primaries this year and attempt to take over the Republican Party’s primaries (which would tend to benefit the likes of Tom Barrett as the sole Dem gubernatorial nominee, and those Republicans, or “Republicans” as the case may be, that wouldn’t otherwise have much of a chance to make it to November and give the Dem opponents greater hope – Mark Neumann, Dick Leinenkugel and Dan Mielke). The legislators (the Poltiico story, which is the first link above, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which is the second link above, and Kevin all mention Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker; Politico also lists several other legislators, some of whom declined in the Journal Sentinel story) are the headliners, but as Kevin points out, they’ve got a “taxing” issue. They also have a visibility issue – a state senator is a virtual unknown to 3/4ths of the district while an assembly member is a virtual unknown to 11/12ths of the district.

    Kevin suggests that a mayor/village president would get in, but they would have an even bigger visibility and monetary disadvantage.

    It is likely that there will be a multi-person primary. The Republicans need only pick up 4 of 99 seats in the Assembly and/or 2 of 17 seats in the Senate to get a majority, and both Republican candidates for governor continue to lead the presumptive Democrat nominee. Even if the Democrats ultimately lose control of the House of Representatives, a tripling of salary and some propsect of being relevant is likely going to get more than one person to bail on the Legislature. Further, Sen. Julie Lassa, as well as any mayor/village president (or nonpartisan county official) won’t have to choose which office to run for.

    Everybody involved has a relatively-short deadline to decide – the filing deadline is July 13.

  • The Journal Sentinel brought a blast from the past. Obey completed graduate work in Soviet politics at UW, but rather than collect the master’s degree, he decided to put that knowledge to work. I’m shocked, SHOCKED to find that out.

While the road appears to be clear for Duffy, who not only has some money and national support (notably from Sarah Palin and the House Conservatives Fund), but also significant in-district support (including the district caucus endorsement), there are still a pair of hurdles. The first is Dan Mielke, who got crushed by Obey in 2008 after running unopposed in the primary, and is back for more. Somehow I doubt the rank-and-file is going to go for Mielke in September given the general lack of support, and the likelyhood of a Democratic primary would tend to prevent Operation Chaos.

The second is the aforementioned Democrat tilt of the district. The Cook Report’s D+3 rating actually understates how dominant the Democrats have been. The Government Accountability Board doesn’t have Congressional district-level results prior to the fall 2004 elections (except for the 2000 fall election), but they do have them for the succeeding elections. The recent results (outside the typical Obey whitewashings):

– 2000 Presidential (prior to redistricting) – Gore +1.40 (compared to Gore +0.22 statewide)
– 2000 Senate (prior to redistricting) – Kohl +35.98 (Kohl +24.51 statewide)
– 2004 Presidential – Kerry +0.86 (Kerry +0.38 statewide)
– 2004 Senate – Feingold +14.35 (Feingold +11.24 statewide)
– 2006 Governor – Doyle +12.35 (Doyle +7.39 statewide)
– 2006 Attorney General – Falk +2.60 (Van Hollen +0.42 statewide)
– 2006 Senate – Kohl +41.93 (Kohl +37.85 statewide)
– 2008 Presidential – Obama +13.19 (Obama +13.91 statewide)

In the five recent contested district-wide non-partisan races (3 state Supreme Court races and 2 state superintendent races), only Justices Annette Ziegler (who did significantly worse than she did statewide) and Michael Gableman (who outperformed his statewide numbers because he is from the district and was facing an appointed Justice from Milwaukee who already lost one Supreme Court race) broke through the liberal stranglehold, with 19-26 point advantages for the liberal candidates in the other 3 races.

That said, recent semi-leaked internal polls reportely had Obey in serious trouble against Duffy. Given the entirety of the potential legislative challengers have similar pork-related problems to Obey, I don’t see a “fresh Dem face” doing any better against Duffy.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple of non-WI07 items. First, Obey looked and sounded quite worn out. That is not unexpected for a 71-year-old who finally fulfilled a lifelong dream to put the US on the road to CubaCare by hook and by crook. On the other hand, Politico noted that, as late as Tuesday, his campaign staff was hiring.

Second, he is a close confidant of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Even if the Democrats maintained control of the House come January, it is “not exactly” a given she would continue as Speaker. If she were ousted, allies of hers would likely suffer. I don’t think Obey would take kindly to being either the ranking member on Appropriations or worse, just a member.

Revisions/extensions (10:20 pm 5/5/2010) – With another tip of the hat to Kevin, the Cook Political Report moved the seat from Likely Democratic to Toss-Up.

Also, there’s something I missed in the Journal Sentinel story that Kevin picked up – we might get a third Republican in the race, Rep. Jerry Petrowski (R-Marathon). However, as Kevin notes, if Decker jumps in the House race, Petrowski may well try for Decker’s Senate seat if he’s in the mood for bucking for a promotion.

R&E part 2 (12:16 am 5/6/2010) – Yes, I’m up way too late. However, my man in the know in the Capitol, Lance Burri, has a few words on what it would mean for the two Senate Dems who would be giving up their seat for a shot at the House. He says that, if Decker runs, he knows the Senate Dems are in for a whupping and that he’d be out of the leadership. If Pat Kreitlow runs, he knows he’d be a casualty. Bonus item on Kreitlow – I didn’t know he was considered one of the more vulnerable Dems (I thought that honor went to Jim Sullivan, John Lehman and Kathleen Vinehout), and do remember it takes only 2 of those to fall for the Republicans to take back the Senate.

May 4, 2010

Graphic of the day – the three classes of American business

by @ 15:41. Filed under Business, Politics - National.

Tom McMahon nails it again…

As usual when I “borrow” Tom’s stuff, the comments are off here.

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