Just when I thought it was going to be kind of a slow news day politically, Ralph Nader has announced he will enter the presidential race as a third-party candidate. Whether it's Hillary or Barack on the Dem ticket, this means a few percentage points sucked away from the Democrats. In a close race (which this may well be), this could make the difference to the GOP candidate. Predictably, Barack and Hillary are pissed off.
Nader also ran for president in 2000 and 2004. Even with ground-breaking candidates like Obama (first African-American) and Hillary (first woman), it's nice to know that some things stay the same.
Wow, still not even March, and we've already had enough twists and turns in this race for any two or three elections.
SAVE US!: The "savior" mantle has now been officially laid on Barack Obama. But, it came from a rather unusual source: Louis Farrakhan. Now THERE's an endorsement Obama may want to send back along with Rezko's dirty money.
SAVE US- UPDATED: It appears that Obama renounced Farrakhan at a private meeting with Jewish leaders. However, Obama did not exactly say that he renounced Farrakhan's endorsement, and the real question is will Obama make a more specific statement in a public forum where the news media can dissect it. Hat Tip: Little Green Footballs.
ON THE LOCAL POLITICAL SCENE: The deadline for local Green Party, GOP and Dem candidates to be appointed to vacant nominee positions is Monday, April 7, 2008. The GOP Country Convention is Wednesday, March 5th at Midlane Country Club in Waukegan, and the Dems' event is at the Ramada Inn in Waukegan on the same night. No idea if the Green Party has a convention.
At least on the GOP side, we wait until after the convention to make the final decision about slating candidates to open spots (I figure on the Dem side, Terry Link just picks whomever he wants and the rest of the lemmings fall in line), but I am excited about the prospective names I've heard discussed. As you can expect, State Sentator Terry Link is at the very top of the target list and will definitely face a GOP opponent, and the rest of the appointments will follow from there.
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12 comments:
Good to see Mark got a 90 percent approval rating from the environmentalists, one more cold hard set of facts against Ellen's paranoia, hopefully they'll strongly endorse our man.
Anon,
I'd give it a 90% chance LCV endorses Kirk this cycle.
In 2005, the group rated bizarre procedural votes that meant every Republican got lower scores than usual -- and suddenly those same Republicans did incredibly in 2006 -- but too late to make a difference in the election. For Kirk, that meant a sudden drop-off to 39%, only to suddenly bounce back to 75% in 2006.
The 2005 rating strategy had its desired effect -- moderate Republicans lost and the Democrats took control of Congress. Kirk, however, unlike many of his colleagues, never lets votes be the entire story -- and the district visibly saw the action he was taking to stop dumping in Lake Michigan and clean up Waukegan Harbor. Others who just voted the right way but never proactively engaged in their districts went down in flames.
This time around, groups like LCV know they need to keep the few moderate Republicans left around to ensure there is "bipartisan" action in Congress and to help defeat veto threats. Hence, same old enviro-friendly Kirk gets a 90% ranking for 2007.
While the 2005 tactic says a lot about the organization, Kirk will certainly take their endorsement with a smile as Dan Seals looks on and cries his eyes out.
Sorry pup -- you are not the pro-environment candidate in this race.
Sparty
Anyone have any pics of The Pup with Nader? That would be a hoot wouldn't it...
I wonder if The Catwoman recycles her kitty litter?
Illinois LCV 2007 Score
Sen. Obama (D) 67 KIRK (R) 90
I think this says a whole lot, TA.
Here's something that I heard on the re-broadcast of the Correspondent's Dinner held in DC this past week. Always a night of gentle "humor" I thought this one by Mitch McConnell was just priceless.
The KY Senator and Minority leader made this observation:
"Isn't it wonderful....we have a NY Senator who was born in Illinois and a Senator from Illinois who was born in a Manger running for the highest office in the land". Everyone in the audience just roared. The look on Nancy Pelosi's face was pricelss.
And yes, watching and listening to Louis Farrakhan extolling the virtues and praising our IL "hero" Barack Obama I'm sure brought more than a grimace to the candidate today. Not the kind of endorsement any of us would welcome. Should be interesting to hear what Mr. Obama says about that accolade....or not!
except that farrakhan did not actually endorse obama. he wished obama well, but there was no endorsement.
farrakhan's no fool, he knows that endorsing obama would hurt obama.
thus it was a non-endorsement endorsement.
farrakhan would achieve more by endorsing mccain. all the idiots like TA would run from mccain like he had the plague. ZOMG!!!! the angry old black man endorsed mccain!!!
Anon 2:59- Farrakhan IS a fool. And a racist and a bigot.
Your point about Farrakhan endorsing McCain to hurt him is just silly.
As as to whether or not it was an endorsement, it is true Farrakhan never actually said "I endorse Obama." However, he spent the better part of 2 hours praising Obama, according to the article, and he stated:
"This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better. This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed."
If you think that pointing out that Farrakhan never uttered the word "endorsement" is going to exculpate Obama's association with Farrakhan by implication, you are dreaming, my friend.
Also, while you are at it, could you please explain the avid interest that folks in Iowa have in a 10th District Blog?
Anon 2:59, go where you belong.......to that other blog. TA doesn't need to be defended, and you're lucky that he is man enough to allow you to spew such an idiotic post about Farrakhan. That racist bigot, that hideous excuse for a human being is nobody that right-thinking people want to talk about.
Mr. Obama needs to stand up and speak out about the vitriolic statements that come from Farrakhan and from the Minister of the Church in which the Obama family worships. It's one thing to say that he doesn't applaud those comments, but it's quite another to stand up and SPEAK OUT against what's being said by these poor excuses for human beings.
The Jewish community is going to absolutely tear obama and seals apart.
Those of us who remember post 9-11 and the pre-Iraq war politics remember that there was a small fringe against the Iraq war and they were the same Jimmy Carter/Dennis Kucinich group of folks who celebrate the palestinian cause and hate anything to do with American power and Israel. That's part of their deal, and an awful lot of jews particularly on american campuses that voted for gore, wrote op-ed's horrified by the anti-israel venom they saw associated with the base obama and seals have now used to build their machines.
These folks were the hard core of the hard core fringe left-look how many democrats despite hating bush voted for Iraq and the Patriot act-and it's not a shock now that the media is getting beyond Obama's celebrity and looking at his positions that they are seeing the first president since carter that does not support Israel.
This is a MAJOR ISSUE.
Seals has associated himself with enough of the far left over the past 3 years that mark has more than enough to burn him repeatedly.
There is nothing "ground breaking" about Clinton or Obama aside from their demographics. Obama plays cards with lobbiests, has stated his willingness to attack a nuclear armed NATO ally like Pakistan, and is rolling in special interest money. Clinton is nothing more than a political celebrity with no accomplishments not related to her husband's success, and she is rolling in special interest money. Anyone who thinks either of these people would do anything new is delusional.
Let me just say, this is a great country, anything is possible, and though the odds may be prohibitively long, someday i could be potus.
Nader on the other hand cannot.
The goal of Nader or Cynthia McKinney, who is now seeking the nomination for President from the Green Party, isn't to win the race. It is to get >5% to qualify for federal matching funds in the next cycle. That is a very important hurdle.
We would be so much better off if both in the Tenth District and in the country as a whole if both Ralph Nader and Dan Seals would just go home and leave us alone. Let’s just hope Seals learns the lesson faster than Nader appears to be learning it.
As a Democrat, enough is enough from both of them.
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