The biggest sign that success could be coming is the real risk of violence flaring up should the talks fail. These kinds of negotiations tend to come in waves, and with each successive collapse, the distrust grows and several more years pass.
AP – Former President Bill Clinton is coming to the aid of endangered Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
McClatchy Newspapers – WILMINGTON, Del. — Thanks to the tea party, Rep. Mike Castle’s once smooth path to Delaware’s Republican Senate nomination suddenly has become less predictable — and is providing a fresh reason for already staggering moderate Republicans everywhere to be frightened.
The Upshot – It’s a politician’s worst nightmare: Drawing a complete blank in a high-profile debate. That’s what happened to Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer, who lost her train of thought during her opening statement during her first televised debate with her Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Terry Goddard. Brewer was in the middle of talking up her [...]
California’s Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown get to to do the right thing:
The outlook for the legal defense of Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage, grew cloudier Thursday as a state appellate court refused to order Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal a federal judge’s ruling overturning the measure.
The Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento dismissed without comment a lawsuit seeking to compel the state to come to the initiative’s defense. The suit was filed Monday by the conservative Pacific Justice Institute on behalf of a Los Angeles-area minister.
Why does it matter so much? Because in his decision overturning Proposition 8, Judge Walker as to whether the Defendant-Intervenors have the standing required to defend Prop 8 before the Court of Appeals. The State of California obviously has standing to defends its own laws; but previous precedent dictates that merely supporting a ballot measure does not necessarily provide standing to defend it in court. So unless the State is forced to defend Prop 8, it’s entirely possible that any appeal could be dead on arrival.
Two points of irony. First, it was a series of rulings from that made standing so restrictive. Second, why does it seem like “states’ rights” get thrown out the window every single time a state does something that a state’s rights advocate doesn’t like?
Wow, one little lie about being an undercover cop who got too close to official corruption and you’re booted, even from the Tea Party. Apparently making up stories about your personal history is worse than believing in the grand UN bicycle conspiracy. At any rate, Colorado gubenatorial candidate Dan Maes is .
Despite mounting pressure from the GOP establishment and Tea Party groups to get out of the governor’s race, Republican Dan Maes continued to dig in his heels Thursday, saying he wasn’t going anywhere.
“This is a culture war, a culture war between the people and the machine, and we’re going to find out who controls things,” Maes said. “I am not getting out of the race.”
….[A] Denver Post story this week reporting that Maes embellished details about his law enforcement background combined with today’s deadline for certification of the general election ballot prompted a string of defections. Soon after the story was published, Hank Brown, a former U.S. senator and former University of Colorado president, withdrew his endorsement, setting off a domino effect not only among prominent Republicans, but Maes’ core, grassroots base.
Tea Party leaders across the state Thursday said in often harsh terms that they wanted Maes to drop out. Lesley Hollywood, director of the Northern Colorado Tea Party, posted on Facebook: “Alright Dan Maes — it’s time for you to go. Get out now, while the gettin’ is still good.”
Mesa County commissioner and Tea Party organizer Janet Rowland called Maes a “fraud” in an e-mail sent to thousands of grassroots supporters and asked them not to support his candidacy. Hear Us Now!, which bills itself as the original tax-day Tea Party group, rescinded its endorsement.
What’s a beleaguered Tea Party candidate to do? Why, just what Sarah Palin would! Take to Facebook, where Maes defiantly claims: “We are in the 4th quarter of the game and we must dig deeper than ever into our souls to find the strength to fight to . . . the end. Do not waiver. Do not quit. This is all part of the journey.”
But state Republicans to try to force him out, and he lost the support of Senate candidate Ken Buck. If he leaves the race today, there’s time to get the secretary of state to halt printing ballots while the party decides on his replacement. After today, it’ll apparently be to late to stop the printing.
Hang in there Maes! Don’t let Tancredo all the crazy fun.
If Kendrick Meek gets almost every one of Florida’s Democrats, he can win the Senate race. But will that happen in a year in which polls show a GOP edge in voter enthusiasm?
In the turbulent year of the tea party, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware set out to jangle no nerves as he ran for a Senate seat long held by Vice President Joseph Biden. It’s the way Republican strategists originally envisioned 2010, a roster of seasoned politicians pointing the party toward significant gains in the Senate.
Politico – Democrats desperate for quick policy action to boost the economy face an excruciating dilemma.
Let’s go back to the 1950s, , GOP candidate for Senator in Colorado.
Buck: He still has his recorder on right there… [points, laughter]
Question: [brief lead-in] What plans do you have to make public education better in America?
Buck: “Let’s talk about that [education] folks. In the 1950s, we had the best schools in the world. And the United States government decided to get more involved in federal education. [Pols emphasis] Where are we now, after all those years of federal involvement, are we better or are we worse? So what’s the federal government’s answer? Well since we’ve made education worse, we’re gonna even get more involved. And what’s gonna be the result? It’s kinda like health care. We’ve screwed up health care–Medicare–we’ve screwed up all kinds of other things, so what are we gonna do? We’re gonna get even more involved in health care. What are we going to do? We’re gonna get more involved in education.
As Colorado Pols points out in this piece, most of the real federal investment in education came a lot later, in the 60s and 70s. What was the primary feature of education in the 50s (other than ?).
Is this the “Rand Paul ” for Ken Buck, folks? Most of the increases in federal funding for education, the federally-guaranteed student loans that Buck so famously wants to do away with, and other federal “involvement,” happened in the 1960s, not the 1950s: the federal Department of Education didn’t itself exist until 1980. In addition, before the 1965 federal student loan program we know today, which uses private lenders and federal loan guarantees, student loans were made directly by the U.S. Treasury. Is that his conservative vision?
….
Of course, there was that little matter of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954, later enforced by federal troops on a rather unwilling local government in Little Rock. Which would very certainly come under the heading of “federal involvement” in education, wouldn’t it? As a matter of fact, wasn’t that a big argument about “local control,” if you set aside the messy racist stuff?
Yeah, that whole pesky Civil Rights era progress again. Wasn’t life a lot better for the Ken Bucks and Rand Pauls of the world before brown people could start associating with them? Oh, and before Medicare “screwed up health care,” too. You really need no more proof that women, minorities, and seniors don’t really have a part in Ken Buck’s world.