[quote=Prime95;133230]Isn't that also the George Bush criteria for picking advisors?[/quote]Yup.

And/or their experience in heading international armadillo-racing organizations.

[QUOTE=Prime95;133230]Isn't that also the George Bush criteria for picking advisors?[/QUOTE]

I'd always thought if more as the Cheney method for picking co-presidents, but what do I know?

Nice op-ed today by the NYT's Frank Rich:

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/opinion/11rich.html]Party Like It’s 2008[/url]
[quote]The demographic reshaping of the electoral map, though more widely noted, still isn’t fully understood. From Rust Belt Ohio through Tuesday’s primaries, cable bloviators have been fixated on the older, white, working-class vote. Their unspoken (and truly condescending) assumption, lately embraced by Mrs. Clinton, is that these voters are Reagan Democrats, cryogenically frozen since 1980, who come in two flavors: rubes who will be duped by a politician backing a gas-tax pander or racists who are out of Mr. Obama’s reach.

...

But this isn’t 2004, and the fixation on that one demographic in the Clinton-Obama contest has obscured the big picture. The rise in black voters and young voters of all races in Democratic primaries is re-weighting the electorate. Look, for instance, at Ohio, the crucial swing state that Mr. Kerry lost by 119,000 votes four years ago. This year black voters accounted for 18 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters, up from 14 percent in 2004, an increase of some 230,000 voters out of an overall turnout leap of roughly a million. Voters under 30 (up by some 245,000 voters) accounted for 16 percent, up from 9 in 2004. Those younger Ohio voters even showed up in larger numbers than the perennially reliable over-65 crowd.

Good as this demographic shift is for a Democratic ticket led by Mr. Obama, it’s even better news that so many pundits and Republicans bitterly cling to the delusion that the Karl Rove playbook of Swift-boating and race-baiting can work as it did four and eight years ago. You can’t surf to a right-wing blog or Fox News without someone beating up on Mr. Wright or the other predictable conservative piñata, Michelle Obama.

This may help rally the anti-Obama vote. But that contingent will be more than offset in November by mobilized young voters, blacks and women, among them many Clinton-supporting Democrats (and independents and Republicans) unlikely to entertain a G.O.P. candidate with a perfect record of voting against abortion rights. Even a safe Republican Congressional seat in Louisiana fell to a Democrat last weekend, despite a campaign by his opponent that invoked Mr. Obama as a bogeyman.

A few conservatives do realize the game has changed. George Will wrote last week that Mr. Obama was Reaganesque in the stylistic sense that “his manner lulls his adversaries into underestimating his sheer toughness — the tempered steel beneath the sleek suits.” John and Cindy McCain get it too, which is why both last week made a point (he on “The Daily Show,” she on “Today”) of condemning negative campaigning. But even if Mr. McCain keeps his word and stops trying to portray Mr. Obama as the man from Hamas, he can’t disown the Limbaugh axis of right-wing race-mongering. That’s what’s left of his party’s base.

Now that the Obama-Clinton race is over, the new Beltway narrative has it that Mr. McCain, a likable “maverick” (who supported Mr. Bush in 95 percent of his votes last year, according to Congressional Quarterly), might override the war, the economy, Bush-loathing and the bankrupt Republican brand to be competitive with Mr. Obama. Anything can happen in politics, including real potential game changers, from Mr. McCain’s still-unreleased health records to new excavations of Mr. Obama’s history in Chicago. But as long as the likely Democratic nominee keeps partying like it’s 2008 while everyone else refights the battles of yesteryear, he will continue to be underestimated every step of the way.[/quote]

[URL="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/the-libertarians-are-coming/index.html?ref=opinion"]http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/the-libertarians-are-coming/index.html?ref=opinion[/URL]

Don't dismiss Ron Paul yet, or overlook Bob Barr.....

In McCain News...
 

...I see Senator McCain finally discovered global warming - maybe it was the "Bush acknowledges existence of Carbon Dioxide" White House policy change discussed in the Global Warming thread that caused him to change his stance.

[i]"We urgently need to raise the visibility of this much-ignored environmental issue, which I just discovered and now feel compelled to raise public awareness of, in no small part due to the other candidates' neglect of it,"[/i] candidate McCain said during a speech at a local wind turbine manufacturing plant. [i]"And painful though they might be, we need to consider drastic measures like turning off these giant above-ground cooling fans here during peak summer electricity demand periods. People can start simply carrying around little water-spray bottles in order to cool themselves off. I find a 16-ounce spray bottle fits nicely in the cupholders of my Hummer H3, and even a 32-ounce one will fit if you get one of those Aquafina-style plastic bottles and push it down firmly. God bless America!"[/i]

It's *always* the economy, stupid
 

[url=http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/20/news/economy/election_outlook/index.htm]It's [i]always[/i] the economy, stupid[/url]: [i]Recessions ruined the re-election bids of Carter and Bush. Could a weak economy hurt John McCain's chance of keeping the White House in GOP hands?[/i]

Interesting to look [as the above article does] at the economic conditions in the various key "battleground" states [e.g. Florida and Ohio] which were key to Bush's win in the last election.

Where economy is concerned people should look more at who is running the House of Representatives. Currently it is Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House, because the majority are Democrat.

wikipedia:"The power to initiate revenue bills highlighted" by me
[quote]
Because its members are generally elected from smaller (approximately 693,000 residents as of 2007) and more commonly [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogeneity"]homogenous[/URL] districts than those from the Senate, the House is generally considered a more [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisan_%28political%29"]partisan[/URL] chamber. The House was granted its own exclusive powers: [B][U]the power to initiate revenue bills[/U][/B], [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment"]impeach[/URL] officials, and elect the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States"]President[/URL] in [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College"]electoral college[/URL] deadlocks.
[/quote]

Strange that that should coincide with a failing economy if you follow democratic policy to it's logical end it is however no surprise.

I looked at the article and was interested to note that exactly what was the reason for Bush's election and re-election "values" is heavy handidly discounted. In fact many Voters chose Bush (otherwise he wouldn't have been elected) in disregard of the possible economical difficulties it would bring them because values meant more to them than financial gain.

nelson

OT: Ted Kennedy
 

Same kind of cancer that killed my father 5 years ago. Nasty, invasive, generally-untreatable stuff. All that hopeful talk about "radiation and chemo" is usually just making nice - in the case of malignant glioma the side effects of either are usually worse than the disease. In my dad's case, they removed s much of the tumor as they safely could in an attempt to give him a few more months, but post-operation complications set in and although they managed to stabilize him for a while, his heart gave out a few months later. It was a kind of mercy - he was coherent and had most of his wits about him until the end, and died quickly and relatively painlessly.

Hopefully Senator Kennedy similarly won't have to suffer too long.

[QUOTE=Nelson;133864]Strange that that should coincide with a failing economy if you follow democratic policy to it's logical end it is however no surprise.[/QUOTE]

And we voted the Republicans out because they were no better than the Democrats. Republicans ran on a smaller government agenda and then spent like drunken sailors. Bush couldn't find a single spending resolution to veto as Republicans sent bill after pork-laden bill to his desk.

Democrats run on a platform of a bigger, bloated, invasive government and then they deliver. So what's the difference?

The latest disaster from Congress? The farm bill. Farmers have done well the last few years - so logically we need to increase subsidies mightily. To quiet the naysayers, add more farm products eligible for subsidies so that more congressional districts get a piece of the action. The current budget has a huge deficit - who cares - there are votes to be bought!

[QUOTE=Prime95;133876]The latest disaster from Congress? The farm bill. Farmers have done well the last few years - so logically we need to increase subsidies mightily. To quiet the naysayers, add more farm products eligible for subsidies so that more congressional districts get a piece of the action. The current budget has a huge deficit - who cares - there are votes to be bought![/QUOTE]

The housing-bailout bill is little better - all that blather about "This won't cost the American taxpayer more than [insert acceptably small fictional number here]" was just an outright lie.

And speaking of political pandering, how about that just-passed house bill to sue OPEC over high oil prices? Trying to subject sovereign nations which produce oil to U.S. antitrust laws - what a friggin joke. Hey, why not sue China to force them to comply with U.S. civil-rights laws?

[quote=Prime95;133876]
Democrats run on a platform of a bigger, bloated, invasive government and then they deliver. So what's the difference?

![/quote]

Precisely! And I hope Republicans are scrutinizing who they put up for electíon more carefully. However, certain Democrats notably Ms. Clinton was one of those declaring that they would be the ones to do something about the bloat. No change whatsoever. Then all we're left with is the lesser of two evils. The biggest hindrance to determining that though is being able to look really close at the private life of a candidate. Too much can not only damage the candidate but the process as well. Having the public life to view should be adeqate but when evidence has been squelched and becomes exposed outrage is a natural reaction with consequences and I don't defend those repuclicans one IOTA!

I Guess what were left with is a complete new congress with all previous good and bad replaced. Can we expect idealists to be any less seduced by the kind of Money involved? Probably not.

The surprise is it continues in spite of a republican president.:wblipp:Dissapearring act!

nelson

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;130563]Does anyone remember or know the source of the quote:

"When Democrats arrange a firing squad, they stand in a circle"???[/QUOTE]

Albeit unscientifically, it looks like it sprung up in the 1980s (The outliers dates 1904 and 1970 don't look valid):
[URL="http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22circular+firing+squad%22+&scoring=t&hl=en&um=1&sa=N&sugg=d&as_ldate=1980&as_hdate=1989&lnav=hist8"]Google News Archive "circular firing squad"[/URL]
[quote]

[Apr 27, 1982] Democrat Robert Swietynowski of North Olmsted, referring to the Hagan-Feighan wing of the party, joked "I've heard that the Democratic party downtown is a circular firing squad." "RON HAS DONE an excellent job on the issues he worked for federal revenue sharing, and now that industrial ...
From The Chronicle Telegram (Newspaper) - April 27,... - Chronicle Telegram, The ($$)

[Oct 16, 1987] ''So we're going to be campaigning affirmatively rather than forming a circular firing squad like the other side seems to be doing." Dole, at a joint news conference later with Brock, said Brock's announcement was "a home run with the bases loaded" for his campaign. ...
From BROCK QUITTING POST NOV. 1 TO CHAIR DOLE'S... - Philadelphia Inquirer ($$)

[Mar 22, 1989] With all its talk about ethics this year, the California Legislature continues to resemble a circular firing squad when it comes to cleaning up its image. The latest low comedy emanating from the Capitol involves an obscure Southern California assemblywoman who stands accused of trying to get ...
From UGLY LEGISLATOR IMAGE THRIVES SEAMY EPISODES... - Sacramento Bee ($$)

[Oct 23, 1989] But they are also demonstrating their mastery of circular firing squad politics. There are 11 (or 12 depending on who's counting) potential Democratic standard bearers out there seeing if there's any money, support or hope. Chuck Herring, county Democratic chairman, jokes that if you want to ...
From Rhinestone cowboys galloping in to fill Smith'... - Austin American-Statesman ($$)[/quote]

There are 2 hits in 1989, and gradually more hits through the 90s. The 1982 reference seems to be as good and specific as many later ones but mentions being heard previously.