Harold E. Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman who has sought to parlay his star power and Wall Street connections into a political career in New York, has decided not to challenge Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in the Democratic primary this September, according to friends and advisers. Read on...
Shorter harold ford: maybe running as a rich, out of touch banker is not the best thing to do in 2010.
Uuggghhh yep. Good riddance Harold. Chris Hayes talked to Lawrence O'Donnell on Countdown about Ford's decision not to run and Blanche Lincoln's primary challenge in Arkansas. Hayes on Ford not running:
In the case of Harold Ford it was one of the most laughably inept candidate roll outs in recent memory and I think finally at some point he got the message this was not going anywhere.
John McCain is fighting for his political life as tea-bagging wingnut blowhard J.D. Hayworth is giving him a run for his money for his Senate seat. And as we've seen with all Republicans, hypocrisy is one of their favorite tools in trying to obstruct, deflect and then take credit for anything.
McCain: ..but it seems to me he quickly lapsed into the BIOB, that's Blame It On Bush routine, that's growing a little tiresome...
BIOB. John McCain is thinking like me, only in reverse. My thing is trying to tell people "Don't Get Fooled Again" about conservatism. But you know, now McCain is lying his butt off to try and salvage his political career. McCain is actually blaming Bush and Paulson for suspending his campaign when the bailout mess first was revealed to the public during the general election, which dealt a serious blow to his presidential run.
Under growing pressure from conservatives and "tea party" activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government's massive bailout of the financial system.
In response to criticism from opponents seeking to defeat him in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, the four-term senator says he was misled by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. McCain said the pair assured him that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would focus on what was seen as the cause of the financial crisis, the housing meltdown.
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McCain wasn't satisfied with attacking Paulson, he also lied and said that he was called into Washington by Bush himself!
In his new book "On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System," Paulson belittles McCain's contribution to the response, noting that "when it came right down to it, (McCain) had little to say in the forum he himself had called." He also called McCain's decision to return to Washington, apparently without a plan, "impulsive and risky" and even "dangerous."
McCain said Bush called him in off the campaign trail, saying a worldwide economic catastrophe was imminent and that he needed his help. "I don't know of any American, when the president of the United States calls you and tells you something like that, who wouldn't respond," McCain said. "And I came back and tried to sit down and work with Republicans and say, 'What can we do?' "
Barney Frank was on with Rachel Maddow and he called John McCain a coward.
MADDOW: At the time that Senator McCain called off his campaign in 2008, you called this campaign suspension the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys. Any comment on the idea it was President Bush who asked Senator McCain to suspend his campaign?
FRANK: I‘m—I‘ve gone beyond being disappointed for John McCain to feeling sorry for him. This is such a pathetically, obviously untrue statement. Those of us who were there know it.
He was in trouble on the campaign. He was trying to change it. In fact, there was a very tough bipartisan negotiation going on. And by the way, for him to blame Paulson or Bernanke is cowardly. This was Bush. Paul and Bernanke were acting for George Bush.
And we believed that we had to do something. Democrats were pushing to add some restrictions on compensation. We‘re adding to put in those provisions that ultimately led to the TARP being paid back with a profit, but we did agree something had to be done.
Everybody was trying to get a solution, from the president to the members of Congress who were trying to work on this were unpleasantly surprised by John McCain‘s announcement. As a matter of fact, if you read what Paulson says, at one point, he came to find there had been an agreement, he was unhappy, because he wanted to be the one who did it. I said he reminded me of kind of Andy Kaufman as Mighty Mouse. “Here I come to save the day.”
So, no. John‘s recollection there—I mean, it‘s not his recollection. It‘s an invention. Look, he‘s got a very conservative primary opponent. He voted for the TARP money. He clearly supported it. And he‘s now just trying to reinvent history, but it‘s unseemly for a man like that to blame other people, because he changed his mind for political reasons.
Sen. John McCain on Wednesday blasted President Bush for building a mountain of debt for future generations, failing to pay for expanding Medicare and abusing executive powers, leveling his strongest criticism to date of an administration whose unpopularity may be dragging the Republican Party to the brink of a massive electoral defeat.
"We just let things get completely out of hand," he said of his own party's rule in the past eight years.
In an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. McCain lashed out at a litany of Bush policies and issues that he said he would have handled differently as president, days after a poll showed that he began making up ground on Sen. Barack Obama since he emphatically sought to distance himself from Mr. Bush in the final debate.
But for all of his high profile--and Dan Coats certainly does have that within the Republican Party--I'm not sure the GOP is really learning the lessons of the tea baggers distrusting the incumbents and politicians when opting to promote Coats for the Senate seat.
To wit, Coats is a member of the C-Street Family, responsible for the failed ushering of Harriet Miers through the Supreme Court confirmation process. I think his quote on Miers, who failed to capture even Republican support shows his contempt for Americans:
She certainly has the capability to be an excellent Supreme Court justice. If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole.
President Obama has the chance to use tomorrow's State of the Union address to reset his agenda and refocus the attention of the American people.
It's been a rough week for the president and his party - since the Democrats lost control of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts. Without their filibuster-proof majority, the president's signature issue of health care reform is on life support.
And the public doesn't appear too disappointed about that. A new poll shows 70 percent of Americans think the Democrats' loss of their super-majority is a good thing.
Meanwhile the president is expected to announce a three-year freeze on all non-security federal discretionary spending. He claims this could save $250 billion over 10 years - which is a start, but still just a drop in the bucket considering the country's $12.5 trillion debt.
And, expect some liberals - you know, the president's base - to push back hard. Already critics on the left are calling the proposed spending freeze a mistake of historic proportions. Some compare Mr. Obama to Republican Herbert Hoover, who failed to pull the U.S. out of the great depression.
Others liken this to Democrat FDR's move to cut back on government spending in 1937 - the economy tanked and so did the Democrats in the following midterm election.
There's lots more on the president's plate too, like the jobs situation - which doesn't show many signs of turning around. Unemployment is at 10 percent… up from seven percent when Mr. Obama took office.
Here’s my question to you: What should Pres. Obama emphasize in his State of the Union address tomorrow?
What is the lesson of Massachusetts – where Democrats face the prospects of losing a Senate seat they’ve held since 1952? For Senator Bayh the lesson is that the party pushed an agenda that is too far to the left, alienating moderate and independent voters.
“It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message,” he said. “They just don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems. That’s something that has to be corrected.”
Bayh pointed that it’s not just Massachusetts. Independents also rejected Democratic gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia in November. “ The only we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates,” Bayh said. “Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country -- that’s not going to work too well.”
How about this lesson: If the Senate hadn't bowed down to the almighty health-insurance industry and come up with a decent health-care bill that excited the Democratic base, maybe Massachusetts voters would have come out in droves and honored the legacy of Teddy Kennedy.
Many Democrats are operating under the assumption that Democrat Martha Coakley will lose today's election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. In the debate over how Democrats could possibly lose the race--which has major repercussions for President Obama's agenda--Coakley herself is taking more and more of the blame. Some Democrats and liberals aren't waiting for the polls to close to turn against Coakley and her campaign. Here's a taste of what they're saying...read on
Can we call a moratorium on going Godwin already? My in-laws lived through the actual Nazi invasion and occupation of Denmark. It's not a term to flippantly toss about, and certainly not in this case. Supporting Martha Coakley for Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat is akin to the party responsible for killing millions of Jews, gays, Gypsies, among others and advocating eugenics? Really?
It cheapens the word and it minimizes the horrors that were experienced by so many people and it needs to stop.
At a press conference today, U.S. Sen. John Kerry called on Scott Brown to tell his out of state supporters to put an end to the bullying and intimidation tactics of the past few days.
Recent media reports have described a range of these outrageous tactics, ranging from the theft and burning of lawn signs to threatening comments posted on the Facebook pages of Coakley supporters to death threats posted on Coakley’s own Facebook page.
Meanwhile, at a West Springfield event on Saturday, when a Brown supporter yelled “Shove a curling iron up her butt!” in reference to Coakley, Brown himself smiled in acknowledgment of the threat.
“I'm no stranger to hard fought campaigns, but what we’ve seen in the past few days is way over the line and reminiscent of the dangerous atmosphere of Sarah Palin's 2008 campaign rallies. This is not how democracy works in Massachusetts. Scott Brown needs to speak up and get his out of state tea party supporters under control. In Massachusetts, we fight hard and win elections on the issues and on our differences, not with bullying and threats,” said Senator John Kerry.
“He stoked the fires himself - smirking at threats against the Attorney General, busing scores of paid ‘supporters’ into his events, and standing by while his supporters call his opponents ‘Nazis.’ But what we’ve seen over the past two weeks is these out of state supporters coming in and engaging in tactics we’ve never seen here before. Now, as Election Day approaches, it’s become increasingly clear that Scott Brown has lost control of his campaign, and we are calling on him to tell his out of state supporters to stand down,” said Coakley spokesman Corey Welford.
I'd like to see Candidate Scott Brown denounce these kind of tactics, but sadly, we know he won't.
Just in case you were wondering why the right-leaning Harold Ford is suddenly a viable "liberal" candidate for the New York Senate seat, all you need to do is take a look at his very powerful friends on Wall Street.
The one constituency with whom Ford does have high name-recognition is the city's top Democratic bundlers. "At least among my friends, Harold has an extremely strong base," said Orin Kramer, an investor at Boston Provident whose early support for Obama imbued him with gravity in the New York donor firmament. While Ford has yet to raise a cent for the race, Kramer said he would have financial support if he in fact ran.
"People regard him quite properly as an extraordinary political talent," Kramer said.
"We bonded with him years ago and he is one of our friends," said Robert Zimmerman, another influential fundraiser and Democratic National Committeeman. But according to several of these bundlers, it's not all about friendship. A show of support for Ford's potential candidacy also sends a message to Washington.
Ford's investor-friendly positions as chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council make him an ideal vehicle to protest Obama's "fat cat" insults and Schumer's post-crisis interest in financial regulation.
"Mr. President, you did what you need to do, we now have to do what we have to do," said one prominent member of New York's Democratic donor universe, who was granted anonymity to freely reflect the sentiments of his peers. The donor said Wall Street needed to elect Ford as a "champion for New York's economy and financial services sector," because Schumer "is preoccupied with being majority leader and a national leader, and our junior senator is a second vote for Chuck."
("Nobody stands up for New York's economy more than Senator Schumer," said Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon. "But that doesn't mean doing whatever the banks want even when they're wrong.")
So what's a maverick to do? Run to the right of the right wing nut jobs and pander to the teabaggers.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is up with his first ads for his 2010 Senate reelection campaign, and they portray the 2008 Republican presidential nominee as a crucial impediment to President Obama's "extreme left-wing crusade to bankrupt America."
"I stand in his way every day," McCain says in one of the ads. "If I get a bruise or two knocking some sense into heads in Washington, so be it."
The other spot features an announcer saying "John McCain is leading the fight against President Obama every day" and casting McCain as "Arizona's last line of defense."
Head. Bangs. Desk. Sorry, but after watching him so closely last year, if he was my last line of defense, I'd be pretty damn worried. I guess calling yourself "irrelevant" and "pathetic" -- while clearly more truthful -- really won't get you re-elected. Of course, you know McCain would also have no scruples against playing his favorite trump card: his prisoner of war past.
In one of the ads, McCain's past as a prisoner of war is evoked, with an announcer saying "we know what he has endured."
"Turned down the chance to go home early," the announcer says. "It was against the prisoner's code. John McCain has spent his life representing Arizona. Fighting for the little guy. Standing up to titans. Afraid of no man."
The other ad opens with the announcer saying McCain has "lived through a battle or two" and "vanquished many a foe," before adding that "perhaps no battle in our lifetime is more vital than the one John McCain fights now: A battle to save America."
Spare me the hyperbole. Save America? From what, the guy overwhelmingly chosen (over you) to fix what you and your party screwed up beyond all recognition? Other than your proud admission of obstructionism, what more do you think you and your minority party can accomplish?
Actually, maybe that's why he's pandering up to the teabaggers. It makes sense. They're the only ones whose critical thinking skills are so sub-par that this would be logical.
Matthews also played a clip of Republican Jane Norton, a candidate for Colorado's Senate seat in 2010, taking the Cheney Offensive another step:
Matthews: This is Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton at a town hall in Colorado this week. Let’s listen because it is the same anthem.
[Video clip] Jane Norton: And what I believe is happening, Steve, is the fact that the rights of terrorists are more important in this administration than the lives of American citizens. We are seeing it in the criminal field. We are seeing it in the health care field. We are seeing it in almost every area that we are looking at.
Matthews: What do you make of that? What do you mean the lives of Americans aren't as important, that’s why there is a health care bill because the Democrats don’t care about the lives of Americans?
Here's what we make of that: These people are insane.
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(Ted and Joan Kennedy - Election Night 1962 - battling the stigma of nepotism)
Going a back a ways today. The legacy of Ted Kennedy, who left us this year, has been remembered of late as a staunch supporter of Universal Health Care - his tireless arguments in favor of reform of our shattered Healthcare system and the uphill battle he encountered for so many years in the process. But we don't spend much time on the early days of Ted Kennedy, the candidate for Senate. His opponent George Cabot Lodge, son of the former running mate to Richard Nixon in 1960. Ted Kennedy had to weather the baggage of being the brother of the President, How would that impact his ability to be an effective member of the Senate, even as a Junior Senator. The questions were frequently asked, even on this episode of Meet The Press.
Ted Kennedy: “Mister Spivak, I want to make my position extremely clear that my decisions in the United States Senate will be based upon my own belief of what I think is in the best interests of the state, the best interests of the nation, and in the dictates of my conscience. I have disagreed with the President before. I imagine I’ll disagree with him in the future. But upon this will be made my determinations about the questions effecting both the state and the nation.”
On October 28, 1962, with the Cuban Missile Crisis on everyone's minds, the Senate seat race in Massachusetts took a serious backseat to the events 90 miles south of the mainland.
But even so, 1962 would be the beginning of the Ted Kennedy years.
Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, pondering a future in politics, is trying to wipe away his image as an enemy of Latino immigrants by positioning himself as a champion of that fast-growing ethnic bloc.
Mr. Dobbs, who left the network last week, has said in recent days that he is considering a third-party run for a New Jersey Senate seat in 2012, or possibly for president. Polls show voters unhappy with both parties, and strategists believe Mr. Dobbs could tap populist anger over economy issues just as Ross Perot did in the 1990s.
First, though, Mr. Dobbs is working to repair what a spokesman conceded is a glaring flaw: His reputation for antipathy toward Latino immigrants. In a little-noticed interview Friday, Mr. Dobbs told Spanish-language network Telemundo he now supports a plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers, a stance he long lambasted as an unfair "amnesty."
"Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together," he said in a live interview with Telemundo's Maria Celeste. "I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest."
Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that "we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions."
Mr. Dobbs couldn't be reached Tuesday. Spokesman Bob Dilenschneider said Mr. Dobbs draws a distinction between illegal immigrants who have committed crimes since arriving in the U.S. and those who are "living upright, positive and constructive lives" who should be "integrated" into society. He said Mr. Dobbs recognizes the political importance of Latinos and is "smoothing the water and clearing the air."
Boy, some political consultants are really going to earn their pay on this one!
This is probably the most important new today for the future of healthcare reform, and I'm glad to say it looks like Gov. Patrick will be making a quick appointment.
And hell no, I don't care that the Massachusetts Democrats are being "hypocrites." Puh-LEEZE. This is coming from the same Republican party that dragged us down to our current state of woe? Play me a song on that tiny violin, wontcha, fellas?
BOSTON — The push for swiftly naming an interim successor to Senator Edward M. Kennedy intensified Wednesday in the wake of his death, with Gov. Deval Patrick coming out strongly in favor of the idea and other top state lawmakers indicating they were reluctant to leave the seat vacant for months.
Mr. Kennedy, concerned about the loss of a Democratic vote during the fevered effort to pass a national health care overhaul — his most cherished legislative goal — had asked state leaders in a letter last week to make such a change possible.
Wednesday, Democrats in Washington stepped up pressure on the governor to see Mr. Kennedy’s wish fulfilled, and state legislative leaders said they would immerse themselves in the issue after a mourning period for Mr. Kennedy.
Under current law, a special election could not take place until at least 145 days after a Senate seat opens, in this case, mid-January. Mr. Kennedy’s proposal would let Mr. Patrick, a Democrat, appoint a temporary replacement sooner.
The governor said he would sign a change in the law if the legislature approved it. He said it was important for Massachusetts to have two voices in the Senate as Congress prepares to vote on overhauling the health care system — contentious legislation whose passage may well require every Democratic vote.
“It’s a particularly timely request at a time when there are such profoundly important issues pending in the Congress,” Mr. Patrick told reporters outside the State House, adding that he had spoken with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, earlier in the day about the importance of filling Mr. Kennedy’s seat. “I’m looking at the issues that are in front of the country right now and how important they are to all of us.”
Republicans have attacked Mr. Kennedy’s proposal as flagrantly partisan, and indeed, the state’s Democrats are in the awkward position of being asked to reverse their own 2004 vote to keep vacant Senate seats empty until a special election.
Sen. George V. Voinovich, Ohio Republican, reignited the debate about the direction of the struggling party when he told a newspaper Monday that the biggest problem for Republicans right now is conservative Southerners, particularly Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
"They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr . . .' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're Southerners,'" said Mr. Voinovich, who is not seeking re-election in 2010. "The party's being taken over by Southerners. What they hell have they got to do with Ohio?"
"I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values," said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There are a lot of us from the South who hold those values, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that's why we performed so badly in the national elections."
...Mr. Vitter also criticized Mr. Voinovich for voting last week against a failed amendment sponsored by Mr. Vitter and Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican, to expand Americans' ability to carry concealed weapons.
"He's a moderate, really wishy-washy," Mr. Vitter said.
Let's see who has it right---a moderate, or a diaper dandy?
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Rush Limbaugh tried to lie about George Allen's racist "macaca" remark that cost him his Senate seat by claiming that it was all made up out of thin air by Democrats trying to destroy him. Yeah, we just knew that Allen was waiting to utter a racial slur and call S.R. Sidarth a type of monkey, and then pounced and took it out of context. How did we do that, RushBo?
That's more lying nonsense, but then he went off on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, saying that what she said was much worse than that. What a guy that Limbaugh. I mean, this is all they have to work with and I thank you. Limbaugh is re-digging a ditch to throw George Allen back into and burying him in the process.
LIMBAUGH: So Russ Feingold: A couple of words that Sonia Sotomayor said taken out of context. You mean, like, macaca? George Allen saying macaca -- we heard about that for weeks and months as The Washington Post and the Democrats sought to destroy Allen; he'd been a congressman, a governor, and a senator.
Sotomayor's comments are much worse than macaca; and they're frequent, and they are long-held. You see how this race thing works, folks. If you're a liberal, nothing you say can be held against you."
Presente Action released this statement today: "Rush Limbaugh has no shame -- launching more racist attacks on Judge Sotomayor during a historic week when her credentials are on full display and our community is beaming with pride. Our elected leaders cannot remain silent in the face of these inflammatory comments polluting the public discourse. We demand that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee denounce Limbaugh's latest remarks immediately."
Allen was thought to be the great right-wing hope to run for president in 2008, but being a racist wasn't very helpful to him now was it? Here's a reminder of what really happened to George 'macaca' Allen via The Situation Room back on Aug 14, 2006.
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