The last year saw increasing numbers of Republicans embrace the tea party’s cause of repealing “Obamacare.”  Feelings towards the law are mixed.  However, just as many people remain woefully ignorant that Barack Obama actually cut taxes or that almost 40% of the $700 billion dollar stimulus bill was larded with useless tax cuts in a futile attempt to get Republican support, public awareness of what actually constitutes Obamacare is low.  As Ezra Klein notes, when you get to the individual components of the bill most of them enjoy broad public support.  It is a pattern similar to the cause of cutting government expenses, where the devil is in the details and deficit peacocks continue to tie themselves in knots in identifying meaningful cuts.

The most unpopular component of the bill is the individual mandate.  Interestingly enough it was the one major policy disagreement between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.  Clinton wanted one, Obama did not.  However, faced with the free rider problem he changed his mind after assuming office.  With insurance companies forbidden to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions they supported the mandate.  Keeping that restriction in place without a mandate could also lead to an explosion of health care costs.

For a total repeal of Obamacare to happen, Republicans will have to make the pre-existing coverage requirement unpopular.  Not surprisingly windbags like Rush Limbaugh have started equating the rule to welfare.  It will be interesting to see if the dittoheads follow the corpulent pied piper like lemmings to support such a cause near and dear to health insurance companies.  David Frum exiled to conservative Siberia for daring to suggest that the passage of Obamacare was a disaster for Republicans expects a lot of posturing with little action from the Republicans.  Meanwhile Richard Cohen notes that Republicans continue to further the delusion that our bloated and inefficient healthcare system is the best in the world - American exceptionalism run amuck.

Ultimately the likeliest avenue for the repeal of Obamacare will come from the conservative majority on the Supreme Court (needless to say the right wing and the Federalist Society will not treat such an action overruling Congress as “activist”) not the Republicans in Congress.

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• Very few surprises yesterday night.  As expected the Republicans took back the House but failed to take the Senate.  Now comes the hard part.  After running on a delightfully vague campaign to cut spending, the Republicans now actually have to identify them.
• The loss that will sting Democrats for the next decade will be the drubbing that they took in the state and gubernatorial races.  Why?  Because the Republicans get to gerrymander friendly house districts for the next decade.
• Even in a night of Republican triumph, there has to be a feeling that they let a total victory slip away.  The nominations of Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell cost the Republicans  two Senate seats (and Palin has already started peddling the dubious premise that Mike Castle would have lost in Delaware).  Likewise, the nominations of Carly Fiorina and Linda McMahon over Republican candidates more in tune with their states may have cost the Republicans golden chances to pick up California and Connecticut.  While Jim DeMint is crowing about the Republican victory, one has to wonder how much resentment exists against him (and Sarah Palin) in the Republican caucus.
• Pending the actual counting of the write-in ballots Lisa Murkowski may have become the first Senator since Storm Thurmond to win a write-in campaign.  If this holds up, it is a stunning rebuke to Sarah Palin on her home turf.  That said, this one will not be over anytime soon since the actual counting of the write-in ballots does not commence until November 18.  And there will be legal challenges.
• A few surprises for the Democrats on a cruddy night.  Joe Sestak came ever so close to knocking of Pat Toomey.  It will be interesting to see if Toomey can avoid the Rick Santorum career trajectory (elected in the Republican 1994 and swept out 6 years later).  Even though the Democratic establishment does not care for him, I don’t think we have seen the last of Joe Sestak.
• Assuming it holds up, Michael Bennett may have eked out a narrow upset over tea partier Ken Buck in Colorado.
• Assuming Patty Murray and Michael Bennett hold on to their narrow leads the Democrats will have 53 Senate seats.  That may limit the Republican attempts to woo Ben Nelson and the narcissistic senior Senator from Connecticut.  It will be interesting to observe Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine who will face a primary challenge from the right heading into a presidential election year.
• The Illinois gubernatorial race was a big surprise to me.  Incumbent Pat Quinn holds on to the narrowest of leads, pending the calculation of absentee ballots.  The Democrats retained the legislature (though they lost their Senate super-majority).  If Quinn holds on the Democrats have absolutely no excuses 4 years from now.  They don’t have Rod Blagojevich to kick around any more.
• Nevada presents an interesting dichotomy for the Republican Party’s issues with the Latino vote.  At one end they elected a Hispanic governor – Brian Sandoval (who beat Harry Reid’s son).  Yet in the Senate election Sharron Angle ran some extremely racially charged ads that appear to have inspired Latino voters to come out and defeat her.  With the Hispanic population rising in the Southwest, the Republicans need to figure out how to address illegal immigration without seeming to pick on Hispanics.
• Meg Whitman spent $142 million of her own money in an attempt to buy the California governorship.  Linda McMahon spent $45 million of her own money trying to buy the Senate seat in the much smaller Connecticut.  Both lost.
• With many blue dogs taking a beating and no more Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln in the Senate, the Democratic caucus is much more ideologically cohesive.  Gridlock here we come.
• The biggest irony of the night is voters voted out the Democrats in the House who actually passed legislation.  But the Democrats retain the Senate where they struggled to get anything done (and where the stimulus got watered down and the public option was stripped out).  Of course, as noted above retaining control of the Senate was due to a big assist from the tea party.
• The Democrats will fall back in love with the filibuster in the next two years.  It will also prevent any Republican attempt to repeal health care reform from ever getting to a vote.
• Questions for the next two years – Will the Republicans fall prey to Gingrichian hubris?  How stiff is Barack Obama’s spine?  The vote to raise the debt ceiling next year will be a key marker.  The Republicans won yesterday, but according to exit polls are still more unpopular than Democrats – particularly moderates.  Turnout will be higher in 2012 – a presidential election year.  Overreach could be costly.  And a lot will depend on what the unemployment rate is in 2012.

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Noticed this on Andrew Sullivan. Since Congress is likely headed to the mother of all gridlocks in the next two years,  look at what actually got done the past two years.

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This is stupid even with the low standards of Fox.  President Obama makes an innocuous comment that Republicans drove the car into the ditch and and must now take aback seat while the Democrats fix their mess.  Fox anchors then somehow morph themselves into Rosa Parks.  It is low hanging fruit for Jon Stewart.  Video below with bonus digs at Republican obstructionism, Democratic party denial and nice take down of Bill Clinton:

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It was a strategy that was started by George W. Bush and came into full bloom for Sarah Palin – try to hide a candidate’s ignorance, extremism etc. by hiding them from the media.  It seems to be maturing in this election cycle where unknown candidates try to cover up their ethical peccadilloes or to avoid backing up their own statements.   Scary thing is that some of these candidates actually have a shot at being elected.  List and videos below:

• Sharron Angle –  I have never before seen a major party candidate who explicitly sees the role of media to help her fund raise or ask her questions that she wants to answer.  Then there are the comical clips of her running away from media and more recently arrogantly stating that she will explain her foreign policy plans after she is Senator….good luck getting an interview then.  The last irritating reporters were banned from her election night party.

• Joe Miller – First he throws a tantrum and decides that he will not answer any more media questions about his ethical lapses in a previous job that almost got him fired, then he has his goon squad “arrest” a reporter for having the temerity to ask him questions.  Then he approvingly praises the East German Stasi model to stop illegal immigration (though they were trying to keep people in).

• Christine O’Donnell - Evidently it is fair game to criticize Chris Coons for his management of the county budget, but it is off limits to ask her what exactly she would have done in that situation since that is not the position she is running for.  Her campaign then threatens to sue and crush the radio station if they played the interview (and later ate humble pie and apologized).

• Carl Paladino – At times you have to wonder if this guy is mentally balanced.  After his own love child is disclosed, he accuses the media of ignoring Andrew Cuomo’s affairs.  When asked to provide evidence for his claim he threatens to “take out” the reporter.

All candidates try to blame the media and obfuscate questions.  But this level of hostility and/or disdain for the freedom of the press is breathtaking…and scary. These are also the product of a political movement that labels Barack Obama a tyrant.

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Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) prepares the ground for the Democrats to cave on allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire.  A priceless opportunity to actually tackle the deficit will be squandered because of the perceived horrors of a reverting to the Clinton era tax rates.

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Jon Stewart closed out his rally Saturday with a impassioned speech (video below) on why America needs to work together.  The speech took some digs at the role of cable TV in fueling the polarization (Read this article for how MSNBC and CNN have tried to catch up with Fox in a race to the bottom).

Unfortunately with the Republican Party measuring the drapes, signalling that it will continue its plan of non-cooperation and that its top priority is making Obama a one term President (an understandable impulse politically but also not surprising for a party bereft of fresh ideas), the plea is doomed.  It takes two to tango.

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Politicians and voters often hearken back to the golden and pure political age of the Founders.  The reality is that political disputes were extremely vicious back then and the Adams administration went as far as implementing Sedition Acts to muzzle dissent.  The man touted as the apostle of limited government and states rights would ban American ships from engaging in foreign trade.  Likewise election campaigns (notably the election of 1800) were outright nasty with verbiage that would be unthinkable today.

To prove this point, the folks at Reason came up with the clip below using the verbiage published by Adams and Jefferson supporters in their Presidential rematch.  Enjoy.

Just for kicks, included below are two classic negative ads from 1964 and 1968.

• The infamous “Daisy“ ad – which only ran once

• “Agnew for Vice President” – Sadly Agnew had the last laugh in that election

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The biggest family values hypocrite in the Senate, Louisiana’s David Vitter, was asked a direct question about his involvement in the DC prostitution ring in his debate on Friday.  He then spent an uncomfortable 3 minutes talking about how he has sought forgiveness from Louisiana voters, though he never said what for.  He then refused to answer a yes or no question whether his moral failings violated the law. Video below:

Personally I don’t care about politicians who stray from time to time.  I draw the line at moral hypocrites who wrap themselves in the flag of family values and further with no hint of irony co-sponsor legislation to protect the sanctity of marriage.  Likewise after the news of his involvement in the prostitution ring broke a few years ago his hypocritical fellow Senators from the self proclaimed “family values” party welcomed Vitter back with a standing ovation.

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What would we do without YouTube.  As an ugly election cycle winds down Tea Partier Joe Miller is being slammed…by someone who wants to caucus with the Republicans – incumbent Senator and sore loser Lisa Murkowski.  The ad slams the self-proclaimed constitutional conservative for having his goon squad arrest a journalist asking pesky questions about his ethical lapses, his odd praise for the East German Stasi’s methods of immigration control and his supporters parading in a campaign rally toting assault rifles.  It then cuts into brighter tones around Lisa Murkowski.  It is hard not to see this ad and wonder what would have happened if Murkowski had taken the Miller threat seriously and gone after him harder in the primary.  Video below:

Meanwhile, Alaska’s half-term quitter showed up in Anchorage to rally support for a stumbling Miller campaign and take pot-shots at Murkowski.

Murkowski’s ad is a contrast from the type of corny yet good humored ads run by Democratic nominee and huge underdog Scott McAdams – who has the added burden of raising his public profile.  The ad below also pays homage to the rich Alaska tradition of pork and to one of the finest practitioners of the art of bringing home the bacon – the late Ted Stevens.

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Barack Obama appeared on Jon Stewart yesterday.  While he faced a supportive audience and a non-hostile host, he still had to defend his administration on some pointed questions ranging from his alleged timidity, the failure to meet overblown expectations and to change the tone of Washington.  Obama was serious but held his own.  While he disputed some of the assertions above he acknowledged his failures on other fronts.  Full video is here.

On the same day he also sat down with a bunch of progressive bloggers (full transcript here) and faced far more pointed questions – notably on the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.

I wonder how far Obama’s willingness to compromise will hold up in the face of a Republican leadership (already measuring the drapes) that has indicated that it will not compromise.  The level of brinkmanship likely from the Republicans in the next Congress will make Gingrich’s tantrums in 1995 look like child’s play.  I hope Obama’s self proclaimed stubbornness manifests itself in defending his policies.

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It was inevitable that the Democrats would use the Curbstomper to club Rand Paul. Rand Paul did condemn the stomper, though he tried to blame activists on both sides for the problem.  Of course Paul was not personally responsible for this attack, and that will cause some Democrats to have the vapors and probably cause Fox News to howl in outrage.  Aware of the risk of a backlash, the ad will run only after 10 p.m.

The tea party movement has tapped into a violent undercurrent out there.  Sharron Angle once notoriously called for Second Amendment remedies if Harry Reid won (lately she seems to focus on spurious voter fraud claims) and on October 15 there was another attack on someone for having the temerity to protest Dino Rossi.

This is a brutal ad that seems targeted at independents scared off by the tea party.  With Rand Paul surging in the polls it is a Hail Mary pass.   We will know next week if this make the race closer or generates a backlash.  Video below:

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The list of deficit peacocks preening their fraudulent fiscal conservative plumes keeps growing.  It is scary to think that a party so detached from reality will shortly be rewarded with a return to power.   Some more examples are noted below:

• The original tea partier Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey when asked for specifics on spending cuts retreated to the standard Republican talking points which will do almost nothing to cut the deficit. Video clip is below:

• Mike Lee the soon to be Republican Senator from Utah wants to slash federal spending by 40% while extending the Bush taxcuts and without cutting Social Security and defense.  Whatever he is smoking must be nice.  It has created a rosy tea party alternate reality.
• Republicans are unveiling a bold plan to expand the deficit by replacing the Paygo rules currently in effect (requiring tax cuts and spending increases to be offset) with “Cutgo” (requiring only spending increases to be offset).  Even though the empirical evidence under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush indicates otherwise, Republicans continue to delude themselves that tax cuts do not diminish revenues.

It is going to be a long long two years in Republican Fantasia.

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Rachel Maddow visited Alaska on Tuesday and interviewed all three Senate candidates.  She also got some time to talk to some impassioned yet frighteningly clueless Joe Miller supporters.  Given the general ignorance about public affairs in this country you could probably make similar clips with leftist protesters.  However, since the tea party is taking to the streets to “take our country back” in this election cycle, I am picking on their inchoate rage:

The Black Panther case alluded to at the end of the clip involved a few losers who showed up at a largely black Philadelphia voting precinct on election day.  The Bush justice department concluded that it could not pursue a criminal case and pursued a civil case instead, which was later dismissed by the Obama DOJ.  Fox made it a story about an organized and serious attempt to intimidate white voters, even though no voters seem to have lodged a complaint.

As a bonus Maddow also snagged a brief interview with Joe Miller.  It is a rare opportunity to find a tea party candidate talking to someone outside of Fox “News.”  After Rand Paul’s stumble over the Civil Rights Act, it even rarer to see a tea partier brave Maddow.  While a soon to come post will slam Miller and other tea partiers on First Amendment issues, I will give him kudos for actually talking to a journalist not employed by the Republican Pravda.  Interview below:

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After 60 years of trying, Health Care Reform finally passed earlier this year.  The Republicans used it to gin up support for their base.  The Democrats went silent.  This allowed Fox News and other components of the Republican media machine to rail against the law even though many of the individual components of the law are quite popular.  The advertisement below by Rick Waugh running an incredibly long shot campaign against Eric Cantor is an example of how Democrats could have thrown Republicans on the defensive:

But then if frogs had wings their butts wouldn’t be so sore.  We are after all talking about the Democrats whose spines are made of jelly.  Rather than boldly standing behind the popular portions of the law, you have people like Joe Manchin who cravenly flipped their positions for short term electoral prospects.  With Democrats unable or unwilling to tout their accomplishments during the Obama presidency, it is no wonder that the enthusiasm gap came into being.  However, undesirable the ultimate end result I will shed no tears when some of these gutless wonders (e.g. Blanche Lincoln and an assortment of Blue Dog Democrats) lose.

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The tea party movement has been dogged by accusations of racism.  In the age of smartphones, racially charged (and sometimes outright racist) banners in the rallies to “take America back” do not help.  And then you get banners like the one below posted by a Daily Kos diarist.  Is this a jocular riposte at the charges of racism? Or, can people really be that obtuse?  You decide:

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Because it was passed by a Democratic president.

Ezra Klein notes the history of Republican Senators who had no problem with a health care mandate in the past and actually sponsored legislation containing one  This has been one of the tragedies of the health care debate.  Barack Obama passed a bill that Bill Clinton could have passed in 1993 with the blessings of the Republicans in Congress.  But today that is portrayed as a socialistic power grab, even though it did not contain the public option that most of the left and a majority of the country wanted.  The question now is whether the conservatives on the Roberts court will have a similar change of heart.

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This is just embarrassing.  President Obama during his visit to India will be skipping a trip to the Golden Temple in Amritsar.  The Sikh shrine is a common stop for visiting dignitaries.  Unfortunately it requires visitors to cover their heads.  Sikhs have already been targeted by ignorant bigots in the past who confuse their turbans with the headgear worn by Osama Bin Laden, and evidently in this country any such covering is Islamic.

Singed by a previous controversy during the presidential primaries when pictures of him wearing traditional garb during a trip to Africa surfaced, the Obama administration is shying clear of any repeat performance.  The underlying politics are simple.  With increasing numbers of Republicans convinced that he is a Muslim and significant numbers doubting his citizenship, the administration wants to avoid adding grist to the nutjob’s mills.

While discretion may sometimes be the better part of valor, I am disappointed with this decision.  In an atmosphere of anti-Islamic bigotry ginned up over the summer by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin (and more recently with Islamophobic statements uttered by prominent Fox “News” personalities and bigots like Marty Peretz with no repercussions), the administration could have taken a bold stand for tolerance and common sense.

But instead we have an American President afraid to go into a Sikh shrine because ignorant bigots in his country will use it as further evidence that he is a Muslim – and thereby also lending credence to the viewpoint that somehow it is wrong to be a Muslim in American public life.  Here’s hoping that it is not too late to reverse this decision.

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It has been very frustrating in the last year to listen to former Obama supporters complain that “he has not done anything.”  Faced with the worst economic condition for an incoming president since FDR, two wars, an opposition committed to voting no on any administration proposal and blocking many nominees (who later somehow get confirmed almost unanimously) and a wing of his own party paralyzed by timidity, Obama did not possess a magic wand to clean up the mess he inherited.  He could have easily lapsed into Bill Clinton style incrementalism, but did not.  My biggest complaints against him are (1) the opportunities squandered in pursuit of bipartisan compromise with an opposition united in lockstep truculence and expecting Obama to pass only their version of legislation (even though they lost the last two election cycles), and (2) his failure to clean up the excesses of the Bush administration’s tactics in the war on terror, where he has provided soothing rhetoric but little substance.  And yet in 2 years Obama has a litany of legislative accomplishments that dwarf his predecessors.  While the extreme left is disappointed in the health-care bill, Obama is the first president to actually get such comprehensive legislation through.

I will not make an exhaustive list of his accomplishments, because I don’t have to.  I recommend reading this article from Tim Dickinson at the Rolling Stone which lays them out.

I will harp on one accomplishment that has not got the press it deserves, and is noted in Dickinson’s article.  Passed with universal opposition from the Republican Party and to the disgust of libertarians of the Chicago school, Obama did what Reagan also did in the early 1980′s.  He bailed out Detroit.  The bailout prevented the cascading job losses in the Midwest that would have followed a collapse of General Motors and Chrysler.  The job picture would be far bleaker if he adopted the Republican party’s prescription of letting these companies fail.

Dickinson does not dwell too much on foreign policy (but he does raise some of the points below) where a lot of Obama’s accomplishments have been in tone more than substance.  But he has managed to bring Russia and China on board for sanctions on Iran and has stayed away from the pointless neo-con drumbeat for war.  The irritants from Caracas to Tehran have had a harder time rallying anti-American sentiments against the Obama administration.  The lack of substance unfortunately reflects the limitations of American power compounded by Israeli intransigence (aided by their allies here) and Palestinian weakness.

Much more needs to be done (notably sensible immigration reform grounded in reality).  But the man mocked as an inexperienced community organizer has accomplished a lot with relatively little public infighting within his administration.  These are accomplishments the Republicans will have a hard time rolling back.

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After two years of listening to bloviating politicians and clueless tea partiers proclaim themselves as fiscal conservatives and deficit hawks, here is a checklist on how to find the preening peacock under the hawk’s clothing:

• They will loudly proclaim their opposition to tax cuts of any kind.  Tax cuts are evidently always job killers, even though the economy did just fine at the Clinton tax rates.
• They will support tax cuts as a way to magically raise revenue, facts be damned.  They will also deny that the Bush tax cuts helped balloon the deficit.
• The budget deficit (state or federal) will be somehow be eliminated solely by cutting spending.  However, they will not spell out what spending will actually be cut.

• • Defense spending is evidently sacrosanct, even though nobody can explain why we need to spend about 40% of the world’s military spending.
  • A few like Paul Ryan will come up with a plan to reform Medicare by essentially not paying medical bills, a plan that has no chance of passing.  Most will not specify exactly what they will cut.
  • Social Security is sometimes a target for privatization or raising the eligibility age.  Yet again few candidates will risk the wrath of older voters (who actually vote) by offering specifics.  It is a separate issue that the problem with Social Security is not the program itself, but the government’s tendency to use the money for other reasons.
  • Most of the ire is focused on the relatively minor amount of discretionary spending (and it will not be possible to eliminate ALL of it), the few billion dollars of stimulus spending which will make no dent on a trillion dollar deficit and items like TARP (which after all the brouhaha will be a fairly small charge (if any) on the Treasury).
• They will likely be Blue Dog Democrats like Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln, Republicans or self professed tea party members.

A few prominent deficit peacocks are noted below:

• Illinois Republican candidate for Governor Bill Brady who plans to miraculously eliminate the Illinois budget deficit by undefined and fuzzy budget cuts and no tax increases.

• California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina who frustrated one of the few journalists on Fox News by refusing to answer what exactly cut.

• California Republican candidate for Governor Meg Whitman whose math for solving the Golden State’s budget problems are as fuzzy as Bill Brady.

• And just for giggles a compilation of Republicans (including John Boehner and Jeff Sessions) who cannot identify any concrete spending cuts to fix the deficit.  All you get is a dose of blather that they will magically fix the problem.

So there is one final characteristic of a deficit peacock….a lot of hot air.

• UPDATE: Missed another one, Washington Republican Senate candidate Dino Rossi who dances around the question of concrete spending cuts to make up for his desire to provide tax cuts at the top of the income chain.

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Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas, “offered an olive branch” to Anita Hill by leaving her the following voicemail:

Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas.  I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”

Whatever you think about the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas controversy, the presumptuous voice-mail is breathtakingly clueless.  Both sides have stuck to their side of the story for the last two decades and this is hardly the way to reach an amicable settlement.  But this is also a person who considers President Obama a tyrant for daring to enact his electoral platform, so logical thinking does not seem to be high on the list of priorities (or perhaps has been drowned in a surfeit of gall).

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A few surprises for people picking up ballots this election season:

• Illinois Green Party candidate Rich Whitney who will likely draw a sizable protest vote may show up as “Rich Whitey” on some electronic voting machines.
• Absentee voters in Atascosa County, Texas may be puzzled to discover that their ballot designers think that the county lies within Chile.
• 

Honorary mention to Alaska sore loser Lisa Murkowski who commenced her write in campaign by misspelling her own name in her first write in advertisement.  See if you can spot it. (Hint: Its at the end)

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Everyone seems to have agreed that the Republicans will make gains in Congress this mid-term election cycle.  The gains appear to be largely because of the “enthusiasm gap” with the Republican base being all fired up to fight the “socialist” in the White House.  A different question will be whether the gains are sustainable given the huge Democratic lead among moderates and the almost certain higher Democratic turnout for the presidential election in 2012.

So for Democrats not inclined to pull the lever, this clip put together by Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen and filmmaker Bill Simmon is worth watching:

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Sarah Palin’s enforcer, her husband Todd, breathed fire last month when her protege Joe Miller (the Republican Senate candidate in Alaska) allegedly dissed her qualifications to run for President.  After the emails got leaked, Todd Palin walked back his comments claiming it was based on a miscommunication and this was much ado about nothing.  Wonder what the Palinites think of Miller’s subsequent painful performance on the Republican Pravda below:

A few thoughts come to mind:

1. Is reciting the constitutional qualifications for the Presidency the best Miller can come up with for the half term quitter’s qualifications for the Presidency?  Even this youthful, albeit graying, blogger satisfies that criteria.  Perhaps I should try to get a similar endorsement from Miller.
2. As Ben Smith noted this is another example of Palin’s unparalleled ability to alienate an ally.  The shrill reaction to a fairly innocuous statement does not bode well for the long term success of the Palin political machine.  It also explains Palin’s rocky relations with so many of her erstwhile mentors and staff.
3. Todd Palin’s overbearing role as Alaska’s “First Dude” and in this email exchange highlight a sexist tinge to our political culture.  It is unlikely that the wife of a male politician could get away with this.  The last 25 years have shown a hostility to an independent strong willed spouse of Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.  As Hillary Clinton infamously put it, the political class, the media and probably a large portion of the American public would rather the First Lady stayed at home and baked cookies.  It is good to see that the Second Lady without much fanfare returned back to her teaching job after inauguration.  I look forward to the day where the First Lady will not feel compelled to put her career on hiatus to serve a largely ornamental role.

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A couple of articles today discuss the healthcare albatross crippling Mitt Romney’s presidential dreams (See here and here).  This blog discussed this issue months ago (See here and here).  Republicans still wax eloquently on repealing “Obamacare” and replacing it with their plan that barely expands access to health care.  They also still talk about barring insurance companies from discriminating for pre-existing conditions but do not specify how they will address the freeloader problem.  No wonder that the man from the party of no ideas who wants to be speaker admits that he has no solutions to offer.

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