The Gold Standard

post from Daily Kos on 04 May 2009 03:32:00 PM. © Daily Kos

Your party is in tatters, you've been hammered in the last two election cycles, so if you're a Republican, what do you do?

Republicans looking to recover from Bush-era defeats are turning to an unlikely source for advice: top aides to former President George W. Bush.

Some might call this an unlikely source. People residing on plant reality might call it stupid. Nonetheless, later this week, House Republican press secretaries will attend a workshop headlined by Dana Perino, Tony Fratto, and Ed Gillespie, "the gold standard for Republican communications professionals."

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

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Presented By:

post from Talking Points Memo on 04 May 2009 03:32:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

[...]

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Pollster Cage Match

post from Talking Points Memo on 04 May 2009 03:32:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

GOP copycats fire back at Stan Greenberg: We are not partisan hacks![...]

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atch.php

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The Grassroots Democratic Establishment Divide

post from Open Left - Front Page on 04 May 2009 03:30:00 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

I just came to the end of my last extended (11 day) leg of my book (The Progressive Revolution: How[...]

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emocratic-establishment-divide

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DOES EUROPE REALLY HAVE LESS UPWARD MOBILITY THAN
AMERICA

post from Ezra Klein on 04 May 2009 03:30:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

Tax quibbles aside, Russell Shorto's explanation of how he stopped worrying and learned to love the European welfare state is nicely done. The answer is pretty simple: He started to like the welfare state when he began to receive its services. This,[...]

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http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=05&year=2009&base_name
=is_europe_really_have_less_upw

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Did you say "crabby"...

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 04 May 2009 03:23:46 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Crabby music Monday remedy pick up effort HERE.Just for you. **[...]

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Hey Pres Obama, How about Joel Rogers for SC

post from Michael Alan Leon: MAL Contends . . . on 04 May 2009 03:20:00 PM. © Michael Alan Leon: MAL Contends . . .

Joel Rogers?professor of law, political science, and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison?would bring a common, everyman sensibility to the U.S. Supreme Court.

All right, this MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant recipient won't bring the common-man quality, but Rogers is indisputably brilliant and knowledgeable.
He would be a worthy successor to the scholarly Justice Souter, and a nice contrast to the two Bush ideologues, Roberts and Alito.
Many Republicans speak well of Rogers, the founder and director the research-policy center, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS).
He's in his 50s, and the guy seems to know everyone.
Forget demographics, go for the brains.

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Church too conservative, say those who left

post from Everyday Citizen on 04 May 2009 03:06:45 PM. © Everyday Citizen

The Pew Forum poll on religion in the United States has received a lot of press, most of which has[...]

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Arlen Specter's Bizarre, Blood-Soaked Story is a
GOP Distraction From His Treatment of Anita Hill, JFK Witness and the Truth

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 04 May 2009 03:02:53 PM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Now that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) has officially switched from the Republican to Democratic Party, the attack dogs are out. Most recently, News Busters has seized upon a decades-old story of a murderer on the lam as a "good riddance" salve.

Now, I'm no fan of Specter. But his defection contains an important message for Republicans and conservative media types alike. Yet instead of listening to that message and thinking long and hard about the future of the GOP, these intrepid reporters resort to the pulpy tale of a fugitive killer unicorn.

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http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/742

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NH-01: Shea-Porter Has a Challenger

The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, and Carol Shea-Porter continues to be targeted by the Republican party.

In one of the first big Republican recruiting successes of the cycle (in contrast to Democrats), Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta filed to run against Carol Shea-Porter.

Republican Frank Guinta, mayor of Manchester, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run in New Hampshire's 1st District.

Guinta recently announced he would not seek re-election as mayor and was mulling a run for federal office in 2010. But Guinta has not publicly announced whether he will run for the open Senate seat or for the 1st Congressional District seat.

Guinta's advisor, Mike Biundo, stressed Friday that the mayor has yet to make an official announcement, adding that one is expected in the coming week.

The NRCC has been touting a poll showing Guinta polling at 34% to Shea-Porter's 43%. If this poll is correct, it is worrying to see Shea-Porter well below 50%. However, former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan writes that:

It's also tough to take the NRCC's "poll" seriously. It is no secret that Republicans are weighting their internal polls based on the 2004 election numbers, in their effort to convince otherwise hesitant potential candidates to make a commitment. That ignores the realities of the electoral landscape across the country. In New Hampshire, we experienced dramatic increases in Democratic registration thanks to the 2006 midterms, the 2008 Presidential primary and the 2008 general election. The 1st CD is no exception.

Weighting a poll based on what the electorate looked like four years ago is silly Last year, the Obama, Shaheen, Lynch, Hodes and Shea-Porter campaigns not only were responsible for registering more Democratic voters, they also solidified independents behind the Democratic agenda. A poll that doesn't account for these changes is worthless.

Without seeing internals for the poll we can't know for certain how the NRCC produced these numbers, but if what Sullivan's hearing is true, that nine point gap should be a good bit wider.

Shea-Porter's entire electoral history is of defying expectations, and in 2010 she'll go in as a second-term incumbent who ran middling well in 2008 -- behind Obama but ahead of Jeanne Shaheen in her district, with ample DCCC support. In 2008 she showed some fundraising chops, but her first quarter this year was weak. We can expect to see the Republicans, now with Guinta as their face, go after her hard as one of their best shots at picking up a northeastern seat. But what Democrats know is that you underestimate Carol Shea-Porter at your own peril.