A.B. Stoddard talks with Pundits Blog contributors Chris Kofinis and John Feehery about what President Barack Obama needs to say in his State of the Union address and how Democrats can keep their majority in Congress.
President Barack Obama and his White House team have kicked into
campaign mode, bringing in their version of Dick Morris to right the ship.
David Plouffe, manager of Obama's revolutionary and well-respected presidential
campaign, will now head to Democratic National Committee headquarters to make
sure a trusted eye is overseeing the 2010 midterm elections.
Most Democrats expect a day of reckoning this November, with
a likely loss of more than 20 seats and a feared loss of 40, which would flip
control to the GOP. Plouffe isn't promising anything, but he made the case
that "November Doesn't Have to Be A Nightmare" in an op-ed he penned for The Washington Post over the weekend.
As I get directions from my car's GPS, I often wonder what the turn-by-turn instructions would be like if the woman inside the device had emotional issues like:
Narcissism: "I don't care which way you turn. It's all about me." (A lot of us TV types own this one.)
Then there's ...
Multiple Personality Disorder: "Turn left! Turn right! Go straight! Go back!"
Let's not forget ... Clinical depression: "It doesn't matter which way you go, you're not going to get where you want to anyway."
I know you have heard by now the Democrats are having
trouble holding the seat held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy for more than
four decades in deep-blue Massachusetts. I know you have heard they may not be
able to pass healthcare reform after nearly a year of agonizing negotiations,
political horse-trading and partisan warfare. I know you have heard how the
House-passed cap-and-trade bill won't make it out of the Senate, how vulnerable
Democrats are retiring and how sinking polls numbers for President Barack Obama
and his party could lead to even more departures and make losing the House a
strong possibility.
Read more...
Maybe this is the year. After all the decades of lip service to the idea of third-party or Independent candidates, perhaps the time has come. Heaven knows the Democrats and Republicans have done their part to make the idea appealing.
The two major parties have way more in common than their loyalists would like to admit. There is jealousy, dogmatic infighting, downright buffoonery. Then we have egotistical turf battles, corruption, incompetence and general chaos. And let's not forget the lineup of mediocre or worse hacks the Big Two select as candidates. For those who celebrate bipartisanship, there is plenty of it.
Sarah Palin’s
agreement to deliver the keynote address at the first-ever National Tea Party
Convention next month is sending shockwaves throughout the Republican Party. It
appears that Palin is positioning herself as a 2012 presidential candidate.
The spontaneous
rise of the Tea Party movement signals that there are millions of undecided
Americans who are looking for something different. Palin’s straight-talking,
core-values shtick is a proven crowd-pleaser with disenchanted social
conservatives.
Read more...
The Republicans need to learn one thing before February. If
they keep sending out their longtime apparatchik Steve Schmidt as designated
Single Combat Warrior against Sarah Palin, they will lose.
His recent comments on “60 Minutes” about Palin’s statement
that her selection as John McCain’s VP was part of “God’s plan” was — nudge,
nudge — pneumonic scorn that, in the context of the other reports edited by
CNN’s Anderson Cooper, quite obviously intended to caricature Palin’s simple and
sincere expression of Christian faith to an “upscale” secular audience.
Last summer the extremists who have taken control of the Republican
Party brought guns to town meetings, shouted down speakers and tried to physically
intimidate members of Congress. Last fall the Republicans in the Senate took obstruction
to new heights with tactics reminiscent of college pranks. Throughout 2009 Republicans
in Congress voted against everything with a unanimity akin to the pseudo-parliaments
of the banana-republic days of Latin American strongmen.
Read more...
“President Obama is leading an extreme, left-wing crusade to bankrupt America.”
This is not from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or the winged monkeys at Fox. Not from tax protester Rick Perry, not from Sarah Palin, not from RINO hunter Ted Nugent.
It is from John McCain in a recent fundraising appeal.
The old adage about third parties in American politics is
that they’re like bees: They sting once and then they die. Ralph Nader and Ross
Perot altered election outcomes. But neither could get a third party going. I
have little doubt that the Tea Party will have a substantial impact on the 2010
midterms and even the 2012 presidential election. The bigger question is, Will
they become a permanent force in American politics that can challenge both
Democrats and Republicans, or will they fizzle?
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