Great President's Don't Need Teleprompters to reach the Nation.

Tale of Two Senators

Missouri politics I am finding out very much like Illinois, in that they are interesting to watch. Missouri has two Senators just like everyone else (except Minnesota...). We currently are served by one Republican and one Democrat. The Republican has served for many years he is high ranking member in the minority. The Democrat was an early and vocal supporter of Candidate Obama.


One is has become very effective for bringing home the pork to the state and the other cosponsored a bill with John McCain fighting "earmarks" .

Let's look at the video to see which is which.


Claire is my Senator. Even though We only moved here two years ago. I watched her election closely back 2004 as it was one of the last two the give the Democrats control of the senate. I have been impressed every since. Especially when see came out so early and strong supporting Obama, while Hillary Clinton was still in the race.

One more thing, she was one of the first Senators that I know that used twitter. She seems to have a real feel for it's ability to stay in touch and doesn't come off out of place. Take a look for yourself. http://twitter.com/clairecmc

Rush to judgement

When I as out running this morning I started thinking about the hoopla over Rush and the Republicans. The final thought was that someone on the Democratic side was doing a masterful job of stoking the controversy. On one hand I was kind of happy to see this being done so effectively. The result could well be to splinter the Republican party.

Simple facts and math tell you that for entertainers such as Rush and Hannity that a following of 5 - 20 million people can make you very, very wealthy. They have cultivated this following very carefully over many years. The result is that these are the most diehard of the "conservative" movement. The problem is this following alone won't win many elections.

Now this is what worked for Rove with Rush's help in 2000 and 2004. They were able to inflame their base with nonsense. They were able to satisfy just enough independents to tie the election. The problem they have know is kind of like fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The public wasn't falling for that again. Obama not only ignited the democratic base he created a new base of African Americans, especially those who hadn't voted before, discouraged people who hadn't voted in a long time, college kids and young voters.

As a result no matter how excited Palin was able to get the base this strategy was bound to fail and fail it did handily. Now the Republicans find themselves reaching for a direction. Somehow the default has fallen upon Rush Lindbaugh.

This started with a highly noticed but seemingly off the cuff comment by President Obama.

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

This statement was made just 3 days after taking office. It elevated Rush back onto the national stage in the middle of a very important debate. Rush took the bait hook, line, and sinker. Of course President Obama was responding to Rush's statment that "I hope he fails" . Which has lived on and repeated this weekend. The Republicans took the ball and ran with it ever since. There has since been three GOP politicians who have publicly apologize to Rush for disagreeing with him.

The Democrats have spent little time pouncing on this. The Rush Limbaugh Apology machiney. Tim Kaine's statement from the DNC. DNC Chair Kaine's Statement.

AUC has come out with a couple of adds on this topic.



And how about this one.


As the republicans are eating their young a story appears that provides just a little background to all of this. J. Martin over at Politico is reporting on the background in a very detailed report.
Rsuh Job.

The seeds were planted in October after Democracy Corps, the Democratic polling company run by Carville and Greenberg, included Limbaugh’s name in a survey and found that many Americans just don’t like him.“His positives for voters under 40 was 11 percent,” Carville recalled with a degree of amazement, alluding to a question about whether voters had a positive or negative view of the talk show host.

Paul Begala, a close friend of Carville, Greenberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, said they found Limbaugh’s overall ratings were even lower than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s controversial former pastor, and William Ayers, the domestic terrorist and Chicago resident who Republicans sought to tie to Obama during the campaign.

Now on the other hand. While it is good to see a big hot air bag get tangled and most likely do great harm to party of the few, I am hopefull that this is not to be a mainline business for the Obama administration. Politics is dirty business and this is softball compared to what the Bushies undertook (See Valerie Plame). I will enjoy the show for now and acknowledge it may well give President Obama the additional leverage to do the things he was elected to do. To be honest with myself I will have to keep an eye open on where it goes. You know on second thought compared to Plamegate this is simply good honest fun.

Surprise, Surprise

There have been two main thoughts that keep coming back to me in this first 100 days of President Obama's tenure. The first I have posted on a number of times. That is calling out the intellectual dishonesty that runs rampant in DC. The Second is that I am constantly amazed that people are surprised at President Obama doing what he said he would do on the campaign trail.

Roger Simon over at Politico using his column today to talk about it. Keeping Promises, Surprising?

It was just a little more than two years ago, on a very cold day in Springfield, Ill., that Obama announced for the presidency by saying he was running “not just to hold an office but to gather with you to transform a nation.”

President vs. Congress

This chart is a combination of the 5 most current polls regardin America's feelings toward the President and Congress.

(I am working with Google Docs so please excuse the fact that my labeling didn't work)


Results by Row

President Approval rating 64%
President Bringing Change 71%
President Being Bi-partisan 70%

Congressional Dems Approval 48%

Congressional Repubs Appr. 35%
Congressiona Repubs being Bi-partisan 33%.

Let's restate that in video.

Here we go again

The only joy of being the minority party, especially one that has very little power, is that you don't have to accomplish or do anything. This is true no matter who is in power. However, it appears our current day nay-sayers are going overboard to rewrite history. I mentioned earlier their attempt to rewrite history. This concept is getting played out vis-a-vie Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is almost impossible to hear a conservative or a republican commentator or politician speaking about the housing crisis without the the F words coming out of their mouths.

House Minority Leader John Boehner leads the way with such statements as

"Why should we reward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with $200 billion in taxpayer dollars without first reforming these housing entities that were at the heart of the economic meltdown?" House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

There are two main reasons the conservatives of the world such as Larry Kudlow like to spew this talking point. The first is the continued attempt to de-legitimzie the successes of the New Deal. Fannie was established as a New Deal program to stabilize the housing market. Secondly This fits into their dis-proven narrative that the whole economic mess is a result of mean old democratic politicians forcing companies to give loans to poor, lazy, no good people. "See what happens when you let people interfere with the invisible hand of the market". My understanding of the invisible hand of the market works to prevent business from doing bad things because they won't have any customers after a while, Hmmmm. Also when customers do find out all the trouble that has been inflicted on the general market, customers will punish them by not utitlizing their services causing the business financial hardship, double Hmmmm.


http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/09/08/fannie_and_freddie_bail_out/


"A point that gets easy to miss in the current hullabaloo over the bailout is that Fannie and Freddie were not primarily responsible for either the housing boom or its bust. That responsibility is more fully borne by the non-government sponsored enterprises who play in the real estate market -- the private mortgage lenders, commercial banks, investment banks and myriad institutional and hedge fund investors who engaged in an orgy of exotic mortgage loan and mortgage security innovation and speculation. Toward the very end of the boom, Fannie and Freddie did begin to get more involved in subprime loans and related derivative markets, but that was because they were losing market share to the fully private sector."


Something else that falls into this logic is that it was a terrible thing that over the past 15 years or so the home ownership rates have increased from a historical average of 64% to around 70-72%. This additional 6 - 8 % of home ownership was a bad thing. I am guessing the thinking is that these additional percentages were the lazy, no good people getting into the market and screwing it all up for the rest of us.

Now I do agree that a big part of the housing problem was people getting into mortgages that they could not handle. Although I question, that all of this was the last 6 - 8 %. It seems to me that a lot of people who got caught up in these bad mortgages, were people who were looking to upgrade. I am guessing a lot of middle income people saw the shining new house and the hill and decided they could make it work. They would just get a ARM and refi when it was time. Then when it was time they eventually found themselves in trouble.

So to suggest that this trouble was brought on by the bottom rungs of the housing customers is suspect. I do believe in general it is better for more people to own their homes. It is just as important that all people can afford the homes they own.



Another important note on this fallacy that is being shouted from every roof top. Fannie and Freddie are owned by.....You and Me (otherwise known as the taxpayers).

Pants on fire

I expect to come back and complete this thought more thoroughly. That being said, in a continuing theme about intellectual dishonesty - The New Deal worked.

I can respect one disagreeing with the New Deal on a philosophical term. But do not tell me that the New Deal did not work. The programs of the New Deal cut unemployment by 40%. If we were able to cut unemployment by 40% today we would be down to 4.5. The New Deal left 37 dams in the TVA providing more than jobs. It provided a chance for citizens to be productive and proud. The TVA brought millions of people into the modern era of electricity. The New Deal left behind roads, and sewers many of which are still in use today. Take a look at a few of the things the New Deal provided http://www.newsweek.com/id/179874.

From Pat Buchanen of all people, Industrial output was back upto 1929 levels by 1936. While unemployment still around 15% this was down from a peak of 25%. A great portion of that 85% that was employed were actually making something to be left behind for future generations.

Do not tell me the New Deal did not work.

Foreshadowing

This clip is from Nov. 2007. Obama is enjoying himself, but sheds a little light. Again it is interesting that all along people have not been listening to what he has said along the way to the Presidency. That or they have just assumed he did not mean what he said.

Enjoy.

Amen

http://www.dailykostv.com/v/000498.html

Spending Vs. Cuts.

I have said time and time again that this crisis is new unchartered and difficult territory. There is a lot of legitimate debate going on. The general consensus is not if, but what to do. the "what" is generally spending vs. tax cuts. I'll admit my gut reaction is for spending.

The gut level reaction is based on the thought that our infrastructure is in need of updating. So if we spend on these projects and we still do not come of the recession at least we have addressed our infrastructure needs. This is the same logic I used when addressing the spending on school construction and updating. Now it is imperative that this be done in a manner that has unprecedented scrutiny. Is there going be something that some can characterize as waste. Yes. There has to be a great effort to minimize this.

My gut level on tax cuts is that If I were to get a little extra money back I am going to do one of two things. The first is to put it in the bank. If it is a little bit of money, maybe buy an extra latte every week. So either the money is not going to be thoroughly recycled through the economy or I will help Starbucks a little bit. If this fails to stimulate the economy, what do we have to show for it as a country. Our bridges are still beat up, our schools are still in need of help.

I came across this article in Freakonomics that provides for another possible argument for spending vs. cuts.


http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/tax-cuts-vs-government-spending/