Let’s fight…
The overnight news of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s resignation sets up a global battle over who will succeed him in the IMF’s glass-and-steel headquarters in Washington. But, of course, that’s not the only fight in town.
The bipartisan group of budget negotiators now known as the Gang-of-Six-Minus-One is expected to meet today to try to salvage hopes of a budget compromise after a shouting match over Medicare sent Republican Senator Tom Coburn to the exit door.
Medicare is the third-rail political issue that recently had Republicans showing signs of retreating from House Budget Chief Paul Ryan’s Republican reform plan. Critics call it a blueprint for privatizing the federal government’s healthcare program for the elderly.
But all politics is local. And the national Medicare litmus test is likely to take place far from Washington.
A proxy war over Medicare-as-2012-campaign-issue is shaping up around next week’s special congressional election in one of New York’s most conservative districts, where the Ryan plan has given Democrats the chance for an upset. Conservative groups are pouring tons of money into the contest and veteran Capitol Hill staffers are expected to parachute in soon to help get out the vote.
The Medicare issue is the same albatross that started hanging out with Newt Gingrich this week, after the Republican White House candidate trashed the Ryan reform plan as right wing “social engineering.” The former House speaker apologized amid a storm of criticism from fellow conservatives. He’s since had “help” from potential presidential rival Sarah Palin, who in a TV appearance urged him not to back down in the face of … lamestream media criticism? hmmm … but who otherwise made sure she underscored his offending language.
Palin, who has been in and out of the spotlight in recent months, says she’s still considering a White House run. That could make for a nice rumble between her and Michele Bachmann, that other woman in Republican circles who rivals Palin as an outspoken darling of the Tea Party movement.
Valentine’s Day with the GOP
What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by sending your special someone a pink e-card, covered in hearts, with a message from the president: “Hope you like this Valentine’s card, your grandchildren are paying for it.”
In the GOP version of My Funny Valentine and a way to raise some sweet cash, the Republican National Committee is poking some fun at the White House and its Democratic cohorts with GOPvalentine.com, and more than 30,000 of the snarky messages had been sent as of Friday morning.
The site boasts 18 card options, including “This card entitles you to one free hug full-body pat-down” with a photo of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and “Don’t censure this Valentine” with a photo of Rep. Charles Rangel, who was censured by the House of Representatives for ethics violations.
The media isn’t safe either. A card featuring Keith Olbermann, whose contract with MSNBC was terminated following a suspension for donating to Democratic candidates, reads “MSNBC just wants to be friends this Valentine’s Day.”
The one for incoming White House spokesman Jay Carney, a former Washington bureau chief for Time who left to become Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director, takes an even more pointed swing:
Remember Jimmy McMillan, 2010 New York gubernatorial candidate from the Rent is Too Damn High Party?
Gee, why can’t they be more creative in describing the debt they ran up? Oh, yeah, this is the debt they ran up.
Bush daughter backs gay marriage
Former President George W. Bush’s daughter Barbara is speaking out in support of same-sex marriage.
“I’m Barbara Bush and I’m a New Yorker for marriage equality. New York is about fairness and equality and , everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love. Join us,” she says in a brief video released by the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
In a break with her father, Ms. Bush, who lives in Manhattan, joins other prominent New Yorkers in calling on New York to legalize gay marriage, The New York Times reported Monday.
Human Rights Campaign said Barbara Bush’s position reflects a generational attitude, with a majority of young adults (18-34) supporting marriage for same-sex couples in New York.
She’s not the only daughter of a prominent Republican to be on the other side of what’s been a wedge issue in U.S. politics and red meat for conservative voters.
Meghan McCain, daughter of Arizona Senator John McCain, has also spoken out in support of gay marriage.
During his presidency, Bush called for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.
I always knew she was the smart one. And pretty, too. Couldn’t Reuters have found a better photo?
Media relations eclipse rhetoric as bare-knuckle politics
The campaign rhetoric couldn’t be harsher, what with the talk about who’s a whore and who’s a nut job and who cheated on who’s ex-wife. (Remember when ‘who’ was just the guy on first?)
But nowadays the real bare-knuckle politics appears to be between the candidates and the news media.
Take the Senate campaign in Alaska. Tea Party Republican Joe Miller won’t talk to the press about his past as a public official. And when a journalist wouldn’t stop asking about it over the weekend, Miller’s private security team intervened.
Tony Hopfinger, editor of the online Alaska Dispatch, says he was pushed against the wall and handcuffed by a plain clothes Miller security guard who refused to identify himself. Miller describes the event differently, blaming “an irrational blogger” for trying to “take advantage of a town hall meeting to create a publicity stunt just two weeks before the election.” “Even though Joe had spent nearly an hour freely answering questions from those in attendance, the blogger chased Miller to the exit after the event concluded in an attempt to create and then record a ‘confrontation’ with the candidate. While Miller attempted to calmly exit the facility, the blogger physically assaulted another individual and made threatening gestures and movements towards the candidate.” So reads the statement on Miller’s campaign Web site. No one was charged or arrested. But the incident is only the latest scuffle between the candidates and the press this year. An angry Carl Paladino, the Tea Party-backed Republican gubernatorial candidate in New York, threatened to take out a reporter from the New York Post not long ago. And he didn’t mean that as a dinner invitation. The phenomenon has not occurred only in the Republican or Tea Party camp, either. A staffer for Massachusetts Democratic Senate nominee Martha Coakley got the year off to a rousing start in January by shoving a reporter as he tried to ask challenging questions of the state attorney general. At least some of the friction may stem from a campaign strategy that seeks to shepherd untried candidates away from unscripted public appearances where an unexpected question might prompt a contest-ending gaffe. The tactic may make 2010 the year of the missing candidate. Could it be that the best route to the cut-and-thrust world of Washington politics is a path that skirts the cut-and-thrust politics of the campaign? We may find out after Election Day.
Photo Credit: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton (Bare-knuckle Boxers)
Political insider still “in” in New York governor’s race
New York voters are plenty angry. But apparently they’re not so comfortable with “scary-angry” and that could be costing Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino some support, The New York Times reports.
According to a New York Times poll released on the eve of their Monday night debate, Democrat Andrew Cuomo has opened a big lead over Paladino, 59 percent to 24 percent.
Fifty-nine percent of voters said Paladino did not have the right temperament and personality to be a good governor. Fifty-five percent said the real estate developer who’s never held public office did not have the right kind of experience.
“We’re all upset in New York State with the way it’s been run, but I don’t think it’s a good thing for a candidate to be that angry. He’s scary-angry, actually,” Michelle Sullivan, an independent, told the Times in a followup interview.
Cuomo, the New York attorney general and son of former Democratic governor Mario Cuomo, has been considered a strong favorite ahead of the Nov. 2 election in the heavily Democratic state.
A month ago Paladino, a Tea Party-backed candidate, had pulled to within six percentage points of his Democratic opponent in a Quinnipiac University poll.
His standing in the new poll of 1,139 people surveyed Oct. 10-15, may have been affected by Paladino’s recent public relations, The New York Times said.
GOP, conservatives seen dominating November turnout
Bad news, Democrats.
The crowd most likely to vote on Nov. 2 is a lot more Republican and a lot more conservative than the one that gave Congress to the GOP in 1994.
So says a new Gallup survey that forecasts Republican and conservative majorities at polling stations for the congressional mid-term elections.
Fifty-seven percent of people who call themselves likely voters are Republican or lean Republican, while 54 percent are conservative, according to Gallup.
Compare that to pre-election polling data from 1994 which showed likely voters to be 49 percent Republican and 40 percent conservative.
Meanwhile, Democrats have slipped from 33 percent of likely voters to 30 percent over the course of those same 16 years.
Liberals have grown, but only from 12 percent to 18 percent.
You get the government you deserve, so if Democrats do not go out and vote… they will get a Republican congress and deserve it.
Mum’s the word on Clinton family wedding
“My lips are sealed… I’m under strict orders not to talk about it,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed in an NBC interview.
The “it” she’s referring to is not a state secret. “It” is the upcoming wedding of Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of the secretary of state and former President Bill Clinton.
The publicity-shy Chelsea and fiance Marc Mezvinsky are getting married at the end of the month. Plans for the wedding are a closely guarded secret. And mother is following orders — no details divulged here.
“It is her’s and it is a family wedding and the people coming are her friends and people that have been meaningful in her life,” the mother of the bride (MOTB) disclosed during a break from diplomacy on a visit to Pakistan.
A lengthy New York Times article on Sunday shed little light on the subject. An unidentified Clinton family friend told the newspaper that Chelsea ” just wants to have a wedding.”
This much is known (or at least reported): Chelsea and Marc Mezvinsky are getting married at the end of the month, most likely somewhere in the Hudson Valley region of New York and the guest list probably numbers in the hundreds.
To those who are still waiting for an invitation, give up. It’s not going to happen, MOTB said using more diplomatic language.
Eyes glaze over at the U.S. Supreme Court
Not all U.S. Supreme Court cases involve blockbuster rulings on contentious issues like abortion, capital punishment and religious disputes about church-state separation — and on Wednesday even one of the justices admitted that one of their latest decisions might cause eyes to glaze over.
The issue was whether a federal court may dismiss a class-action lawsuit that is barred by state law of whether a federal rule of civil procedure prevailed allowing the case to go forward.
Justice Antonin Scalia, the author of the court’s main opinion in the case, recounted the factual background of the dispute.
Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates had provided medical care to a Maryland woman, Sonia Galvez, who was injured in a car accident. Her automobile was registered in New York.
As partial payment for her care, Galvez assigned to Shady Grove her rights to insurance benefits under a policy issued in New York by Allstate Insurance.
Allstate eventually paid, but not within 30 days as required by New York law and it refused to pay interest that accrued on the overdue benefits, Scalia said.
Shady Grove sued in federal court in New York, seeking relief for itself and a class of all others to whom Allstate allegedly owed interest on overdue benefits. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction.
bout time we got someone with a brain, good rule good judge!
Wasn’t Groundhog Day last week? Another blizzard slams East Coast
It is starting to feel a lot like that (in)famous movie “Groundhog Day” with a powerful blizzard again pelting the East Coast from Washington, D.C. up to New York with a foot or more of snow and pummeling winds.
The federal government in Washington is closed for the third straight day, the United Nation’s headquarters in Manhattan is also shuttered — in fact it may be easier to say what’s open, which is probably next to nothing except the random coffee shop and well of course Wall Street.
Already about 15,000 customers in the Baltimore/Washington area are without power and that number will likely jump with wind gusts reportedly hitting more than 40 miles per hour at Dulles International Airport and near whiteout conditions.
And yes, that winter-hardened Chicagoan President Barack Obama is trying to maintain his schedule with a meeting with African American leaders at the White House to discuss the economy and jobs amid the 9.7 percent unemployment rate.
But the White House did push up a performance celebrating music from the Civil Rights Movement to Tuesday night from Wednesday because of the storm. A few days after being sworn in as president, Obama drew a few gasps when he criticized Washington schools for closing because of a small storm of snow and ice.
He said he would try to instill “some flinty Chicago toughness” in Washington. Hmmm.
Here’s our latest weather report and one of our favorites, the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang.
The First Draft: Will Giuliani try for the U.S. Senate?
He probably won’t run for New York governor but might for the U.S. Senate … or will he? That’s the speculation swirling around Rudy Giuliani, the Republican former New York City mayor who walked tall after the Sept. 11 attacks and ran for U.S. president in 2008. A spokeswoman says the 65-year-old former federal prosecutor has made no decisions. But the New York Daily News, the New York Times and the New York Post all report that Giuliani has decided not to run for New York governor in 2010. Analysts think he could defeat Democratic incumbent Governor David Paterson without much fuss. But overcoming a possible challenge from New York’s Democratic attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, could be have been difficult. Cuomo has not announced his candidacy. The Daily News reports that Giuliani is strongly considering a Senate run against Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term. Clinton, who lost in last year’s Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, is now U.S. secretary of state.
The Daily News cites poll numbers showing Giuliani losing to Cuomo 53 percent to 43 percent in a race for governor, but beating Gillibrand 54 percent to 40 percent for the Senate.
But the Senate speculation may not last long.
The New York Post quotes people close to Giuliani as saying a run for the Senate is unlikely.
And even the Daily News seems to be hedging its bets with a story saying Giuliani doesn’t need to run for the Senate because he already has plenty of money and influence and a private life that’s working out just fine. Giuliani ran for the Senate in a 2000 campaign that pitted him against Clinton. But events and declining poll numbers were against him and he withdrew after a quick succession of revelations: he had prostate cancer, he had a girlfriend, and he was separating from his second wife. Giuliani has since beaten cancer, divorced his second wife, Donna Hanover, and married his former girlfriend, Judith Nathan.
Photo Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Giuliani)
Guiliano is a clown, but he has some leadership ability. Right now there is a vacuum in leadership at the White House and it’s name is Obama. When you turn the switch to foreign affairs–it sucks, when you turn the switch to domestic affairs–it blows
Let’s fight… let’s not.