Friday, August 04, 2006

The elephant in the room

It's a thrilling time to be a Democrat-- as I remain in registration and guarded optimism. GOP bitch Joe Lieberman is on the verge of being flattened by the powerful left hook of Connecticut primary voters. A Quinnipiac poll this week shows his Senate opponent, Ned Lamont, opening a 13 percentage point lead over the incumbent.

And no campaign appearance by Bill Clinton last week could stop the bleeding. The former Prez came to Connecticut to help woo minority voters, but it's his guess or anyone else's what Clinton could do to rally their support for a Senator who has fought Affirmative Action, supported school voucher programs that devastate our inner city schools, and who supported the Bush tax cuts that save those at the poverty line only about a dollar a month. For added defeat, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton arrived shortly after Clinton to stump for Lamont.

What is especially gratifying is that grass roots activists, connected by the internet, are receiving the lion's share of credit for organizing the Lieberman opposition-- deserved or otherwise. Gratifying because it speaks to a possible snowball effect for other state and national races. When bloggers propel a candidacy and then the "old media," such as that ultimate old media outlet, the New York Times, follows suit-- the Times endorsed Lamont last week-- it gets attention.

The herd-like television media has fallen in behind, followed by the other triangulators. That "center-right" beltway claptrap, "Meet the Press," welcomes Howard Dean's brother on Sunday to discuss the on-line effort for Lamont, Bill Clinton has switched to sucking up to Al Gore, and his wife has redirected her legislative attention from flag-burning to Rumsfeld-burning. (Though it's noteworthy that she's still blaming the Iraqi disaster on execution rather than the mission.)

The new best-case scenario in Connecticut: Lamont wallops Lieberman in Tuesday's vote, then Lieberman re-enters the race as an Independent and gets walloped a second time. I'm all for "GOP Joe's" second-chance candidacy at this point. It would continue to focus the nation's attention on the difference between real Democrats and their Fox News counterparts.

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Quote of the day: "We have a good president. I pray for him. Sometimes I'd like to pull down his britches and switch him, but I still love him." -- U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, (R) Texas

Content of the statement aside, who talks like that? There are really some fucking idiots in the Congress.

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My new favorite sports website is www.uniwatchblog.com. It's all of the important sports news of the day but presented through the prism of the participants' clothing. I particularly enjoyed the August 1st entry outlining the winners and losers fashion-wise at baseball's trading deadline. The Cardinals, rightly so, are renown by now for possessing the most spectacular uniform in sports.

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