Thumpin' - part II

Well. It looks like common sense overtaking an electorate is not a phenomenon limited to the western hemisphere. In Iran, President Mahmood Ahmidenijad has been handed a thumpin' something along the lines of the one President Bush received last month.

You gotta give the Iranians their due, by golly. They only put up with Ahmidenijad's nonsense for one year. It took us six years to give Bush the swift kick he should have received from Texas voters in 1994.

All over the country moderate conservative candidates received the majority of the vote, delivering a stinging rebuke to Ahmidenijad and his blustering anti-Israel, nationalist rhetoric.

From the historically significant city of Shiraz in the south, to the breathtaking Bandar e' Abbas on the coast, to the provincial capital of Rasht in northern Iran, not one pro-Ahmadinejad candidate won a seat on any city council. Anti-Ahmidenijad candidates for seats on the Assembly of Experts, a panel of clerics that oversees the president, also did very well. Former president Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election runoff won a seat on that august body. Mr. Rafsanjani won almost twice as many votes as his hard-liner opponent.

Like I said, a thumpin' was administered.

The Mullahs let the inflammatory little weasel Ahmidenijad become president for one reason and one reason only. To stick a thumb in the eye of George aWol Bush for that "Axis of Evil" crack.

Now the Iranians see Bush as vulnerable, and the Mullahs are comfortable letting the more moderate candidates being their lightning rod back in line. Make no mistake, if the Mullahs objected, those moderate candidates would not have been on the ballot. That they were is telling, in and of itself.

You can bet that the Bush team will try to spin this as a victory for him - Ahmidenijad was rebuked because "the Iranians know aWol means business" and they don't want to face his fury.

Bullshit.

Just the opposite. This was a thumpin' for Bush almost as much as it was for his equally odious Iranian counterpart.

Protect our elections

I have been meaning to write an impassioned plea for paper ballots, but I've just been busy. Then a smart person wrote a letter to the editor and made the case in less than 500 words. So let me introduce you to Jody Beisch, Tuesday's anti-idiot and one of the reasons I stay here, apparently:

If we value our freedoms and our right to vote for the leaders who pass the laws that affect our lives, we must fiercely monitor and protect our democracy (11/26, A-2, “Ballot issues resist fix: Nonpartisan group will release a report Wednesday with a state-by-state assessment of voting”).

It has been shown time after time that electronic voting machines are not secure and reliable on a consistent basis. Through operator error, machine malfunction, programming glitches and probably fraud, votes have been lost and recorded incorrectly, not once or twice, but numerous times all over the country.

Sometimes it doesn’t make a difference in the outcome of an election, but often it does. Regardless of our beliefs or political affiliation, we must demand paper ballots so that we can be reasonably certain that our votes are being counted fairly and honestly.

If we don’t protect our democracy now, we may wake up some day without it.

Jody Biesche
Kansas City

Dr. Dean is the leader of this party, thank you

Can we please get a little love for Howard Dean? I mean really. He has proven his mettle as the chair of the Democratic National Committee and his 50 State Strategy has been nothing short of brilliant. He made as a primary objective that the party would field a candidate in every race in the country. When the wheels came off the Republican wagon, we had candidates in the races. We were not caught flat-footed. We were prepared.

No thanks to Rahm Emmanuel and the DCCC. Nancy Boyda ran her whole race with no DCCC help until the last ten days. The DCCC stepped up to help her close the deal, but she won that race in spite of them, not because of them.

Now I'm hearing that James Carville is calliing for Dean to be replaced as the head of the DNC. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Frag the winning General. I swear to God, if the national Democrats start turning on Howard Dean, I'm out of the party.

For years we have been trying to get the attention of the national party out here in the middle, but to no avail. Until Howard Dean came along. He pulled this party back together and made it okay to say out loud that you were a Democrat and proud of it.

Now the establishment dems who let us get to the point as a nation where we currently find ourselves, the establishment Dems who wear the same suits and are indistinguishable from Republicans, want to attack the guy who led the party back from the cliff they tried to drive us over?

Not on my watch, buddy. The independent minded and clear-headed need to let the clowns at the national party level know that if they go after Howard Dean and try to oust him as chairman, we will have no part of it. We will not donate money or time. Try winning another election without us. We knocked on doors and we phone banked. We wrote letters to the editor and we registered voters at farmers markets and art fairs. We learned the issues and we educated our friends and family members.

Just try to win an election without us.

If you try to throw Dr. Dean under the bus, you will face the prospect of doing just that.

I think I have a better idea. Let's throw James Carville - and anyone who advocates getting rid of Dr. Dean as the party chair - under a bus. But let's set them on fire first.

Not quite purple yet

Missouri made headway yesterday, but we aren't purple yet. Not with a Republican Governor, and Republicans holding the majority in both chambers of the state house. But what the hell? It gives us motivation for 2008.

Matt Blunt will lose in 2008. In the Republican primary he will lose either to Republican State Treasurer Sarah Steelman or a wing-nut to benamed later. A wingnut would be good news for Jay Nixon, but if Steelman and Nixon face off in the general, no matter what, the citizens of Missouri win.

If Steelman wins the primary, the Democrats need to field a candidate for State Treasurer as well as Attorney General. We also need to take the congressional seats held by Roy Blunt and Sam Graves, damnit. Roy's might be up for grabs if he retires after this term in a fit of pique. He's going to lose out to Shaddeg for the Minority whip spot just like he lost Majority leader to that schmuck Boehner. People hate him. He's a vile nasty creature and if you look at a map of the United States, you will see that sending his ass to Washington is about as far away from Missouri as we can get him. Ditto Sam Graves. If we can hold the four safely blue congressional seats we now have, and barring some Republican-grade scandal we will, we only need to add one to get the tip - Missouri has nine congressional districts. Five or even six would be sweet.

Dr. Dean has a plan for us out here in still-red Missouri. For so long we were lost in the desert, then the physician husband of a nice Jewish girl led us out of the wilderness. The 50 State Strategy is the key. Howard Dean was right and Rahm Emanuel was wrong. Let's take Dr. Dean's advice and build the party that will field those successful candidates.

A mile from my house is Kansas. They gotta do something about that chief Bush enabler Pat Roberts. Keep the blue wave building and wash this asshole out of office in two years. And please, can you Wichitans in the KS-04 field an opponent for that damned Todd Tiahrt? Dan Glickman represented the KS-04 for years, until the 1994 revolt swept him out of office. I know Wichita will vote for Democrats because I have lived there when they did.

We made huge strides yesterday, but it was just the beginning. We have a lot of work left to do, and we have no laurels to rest on.

Those are some mighty short coattails you got there...

Those of us in the Reality-Based Community have known for years that the President is a tool with limited utility, but even the Publican Party has started to figure it out.

Facing a harsher political climate than the Democrats faced in 1994, the President has taken to the campaign trail in an effort to boost some of his fellow Republicans.

He is hitting the campaign trial...From Georgia to Texas and back to Georgia again, the President appeared before three pre-screened audiences in two days, trying just to stem the tide as dissatisfaction with his administrations management of Iraq grows. That we are on a fools errand is painfully apparent, and the fool who sent us on this errand is our own president.

The war in Iraq has become the defining issue for the country. Over a hundred American military personnel have lost their lives this month alone. Violence in Iraq has spiked, killing scores every single day. Yet today, Bush stubbornly insisted that "terrorists win and America loses" if his political opponents rule the day in one week.

There is one week to the midterms, and there are a mere 812 days remaining of the Bush administration.

I am beyond being insulted by the bilge he spills. Now I'm just embarassed by him.

I've had enough. And you know the rest.

How we are going to win, and keep winning

Eight days to take back America. It's an awesome mantle to assume, but the people of this country believe we are the ones fit for duty.

I am not backing off and playing nice now. I'm in this to win. This is a knife-fight for the soul of the nation, and I am not bringing a bouquet of flowers. I'm bringing a rifle, and I'm sniping from the rooftops. The feckless, thoughtless, gutless and honorless warmongers who have brought this nation low are due for an accounting, and I have the tote-sheet.

We are in the catbirds seat, and we owe a lot to Dr. Dean and his 50 State Strategy. Because of that we had candidates poised when the wheels came off the Republican bus. We are the Party of the People. It all starts at the precinct level. Duh. Some of us in the middle tried to tell the national party that for years, but to no avail. Thank you for shaking them by the collar Dr. Dean, and reminding them we exist out here, too. Where is the candidate who can challenge a Kit Bond going to come from? The stork? No. That candidate is going to come from some precinct.

We are going to win this one because of the strong local Democratic Party precincts. We are going to keep winning because we are going to keep fostering this base and return the party to the people. We are going to build a positive record to run on.

We are going to keep winning because we the people are going to hold our leaders accountable to us, and we will not allow the bloat of 1994 to destroy our party again. We are going to keep winning because we are not out parents democratic party. Rather, we are our grandparents Democratic Party.

Harry Truman said he didn't give anyone hell, he told the truth and they thought it was hell. That's all we need to do. Keep telling the truth.

When they try to make their tax cuts the issue, tell the truth about that - They opted to pass the burden off to your children. Every child in America is born owing $30,000.

Tell the truth about what has happened with North Korea on their watch.

Tell the truth about the medicare Part-D drug benefit.

Tell the truth about health care.

Tell the truth about No Child Left Behind.

Tell the truth about the national debt.

Tell the truth about the president assuming imperial powers.

Tell the truth about Iraq.

Tell the truth about Afghanistan.

Tell the truth. They'll think it's hell.

We've had enough, and we are going to vote accordingly on November 7.

Bill Frist's strategy for electoral success

It's really quite simple. Whatever you do, keep the focus off of the cock-up in Iraq!!! "The challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue" Frist said in a newspaper interview on Tuesday. "These are all things the media has not covered," Frist said. "People don't say, 'This Congress passed tax cuts.' But that means something to every American."

He went on to say that Publicans should use as their talking points Homeland Security and taxes, because as he has been out campaigning he has met an electorate that is "worried, discontented and confused."

Bill we aren't worried discontented or confused. We are clear headed, open eyed, and pissed off.

A Blue Senate, Too?

A new McClatchey-MSNBC poll shows Democrats pulling ahead in key Senate races. In the two states that the Democrats must hold, New Jersey and Washington, the incumbent Democrats (Menendez and Cantwell, respectively) appear to be successfully fending off the challenges mounted by their Republican opposition.

Remember that election day isn't Christmas and we aren't six; we probably aren't going to get everything we want. Tennessee has Bob Corker pulling ahead of Congressman Harold Ford Junior. Ford is a scrapper, and the race is within the margin of error - but the polls say Corker will pull this one out. Ditto Virginia. Even though Norfolk is the home of the Atlantic Fleet, and James Webb was Reagan's Secretary of the Navy, it looks like things that would make normal people run from George Allen as far and as fast as they could, endears him to Virginians, since polls show Allen leading 47% to 43%. Go figure.

In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is not merely pulling ahead of the incumbent Mike DeWine, he is pulling out of sight. The latest polls show him leading DeWine by 8 percentage points, safely outside the margin of error.

In Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum has spun out of control and is going down. His melt-down during a recent debate with Bob Casey set him back so far that the national party has turned off the money tap and written off the state. Casey leads Santorum 51% to 39%.

In Rhode Island, the Democrats find themselves in a virtual win-win situation. The Democratic challenger, Sheldon Whitehouse, leads Lincoln Chaffee by a 48%-43% margin. This is moot. Chaffee might as well just switch parties - he votes with the Democrats far more often than he does the Republicans. A Chaffee victory (not likely) that resulted in a 50-50 split would be interesting, since no party would have cloture.

The two really interesting races are from two of the reddest of red states - Montana, and my own state of Missouri. In Montana, Conrad Burns is trailing State Senator John Tester, and the mood in Montana is one of "it's time for him to go." He didn't do himself any favors when he told the firefighters who battled this summers wildfires tht they did a "piss poor job" when the National Guard troops who normally take on a great deal of that responsibilty were bogged down in Iraq, an operation Burns has backed.

Missouri is really interesting this election cycle, and all over the country, eyes are cast toward the anachronism that is Missori. Some of us have been calling for a McCaskill-Talent showdown since the 2004 general election. The series of debates wrapped up last Wednesday (although the fifth and final debate didn't air until Thursday, so as to not interfere with Dancing With the Stars) and they helped Claire. She was a tough prosecutor, she knows how to work a jury, and really, what is the electorate if not the ultimate jury of ones peers?

Missourians like it when a politician answers questions. Jim Talent doesn't do that most basic thing. I will give an example...The following appeared on the letters page of the Kansas City Star weeks ago, and Jim Talent has not answered.

Jim Talent

I recently came across a post on the Fired Up! Missouri Web site that stated Sen. Jim Talent had missed 65 of 95 meetings of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
To verify this, I pored over transcripts of the minutes of these meetings, which confirmed that he has missed a shocking number.

I then started calling the senator’s office asking for clarification. My questions have gone unanswered.

I have not seen this brought up in the so-called liberal media, so I wish to pose the question directly to Sen. Talent. I hope he sees fit to answer.

Senator, why have you missed so many of these meetings? I would think they would take top priority because the United States is involved in two shooting wars and the military has lost so many troops to death and injury in these conflicts that we have effectively lost a division of seasoned and trained troops.

These absences have occurred during a time when the Army is short 3,000 officers, and the Army Reserves are short nearly 11,000 lieutenants and captains in the ranks (source: the U.S. Army Web site).

I know if I were in your position, wild horses couldn’t keep me from them.

Jim Talent has not answered this constituents question, even though it was posed in public and is in reference to a war he supports and SASC service he flaunts. A war he would vote to authorize today, even knowing what we know now.

Jim Talent votes for force and against body armor, touts his SASC service but skips the meetings, and backs tax cuts that mean every child born enters life $30K in debt. Call that a Birth Tax.

We are grave robbers because we oppose repealing the estate tax? Well try this one on for size, if you want to fight the hyperbole wars.

They are cradle robbers. In every sense of the word.

Election 2006 Crystal-Ball Gazing

This time, I want to know what you think about the races going on around you, no matter where you are. Leave your hunches, rants, raves and gotchas in comments.

I want Sara Jo Shettles to unseat Sam Graves in the Missouri 6th. I doubt she does, but I do desire that outcome.

Ditto Nancy Boyda in the Kansas-02. I hope the strong Democrats all over the ticket in Kansas buoy her to victory over Jim Ryun.

It doesn't take a gift of prescience to know that Kansas will have a Democratic Governor,in the person of Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrtic U.S. congressman Dennis Moore (KS-03) and a Democratic Attorney General, Paul Morrison. I am hopeful for Nancy's chances with the Democrats all around her sailing to victory in Red Kansas.

Cleaver will sail to reelection. That is the safest blue seat in the country. McCaskill is giving Talent a run for his money and he has gone negative. Too soon? Blow back on him? We'll know November 8th. Here is my Talent-McCaskill prediction: The race won't be called until 4:00 a.m., and the loser will demand a recount.

Your turn. Who are you watching? What is your spidey-sense telling you?