WTF moment of the day: Specter switching parties

Update: Sorry about the size of the original picture.


The Huffington Post reports that Sen. Arlen Specter (R.- Pennsylvania) will switch parties and compete in the Deomcratic primary during the 2010 election cycle. Specter said,

I have been a Republican since 1966. I have been working extremely hard for the Party, for its candidates and for the ideals of a Republican Party whose tent is big enough to welcome diverse points of view. While I have been comfortable being a Republican, my Party has not defined who I am. I have taken each issue one at a time and have exercised independent judgment to do what I thought was best for Pennsylvania and the nation.

Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.

Socialists are running the country!

Representative Spencer Bachus (R- Alabama) is saving America. Bachus has been working on a secret(!) list of the socialists in the House of Representatives, and he has come up with 17 names! Hmmm...somehow this seems so familiar. Ah, yes, this is the second coming of the (crazy) right-winger Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the (in)famous House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA)! [note: McCarthy was in the Senate and thus was not involved with the HCUA.] Let's hope Bachus is a little less successful than McCarthy and the HCUA.

Your *Mom* Goes to College ...

Arrogant, Incompetent, and Greedy? I thought Obama was only one of those things ...

(and I mean that in the best way ...)

Just picture someone saying "It's the principle of the thing!" and you've probably got in mind someone who is at least 80 years old, and one way or another could be described by the word "crusty."

Well that's just what's going on with AIG. $165M is a lot of money, but the undeserved portion of that (due to arrogance, incompetence, or greed) is a far smaller number. Generously calling it half, I'll say this $80M is not that much to get worried about, and it's certainly not anything worth upending the structure of our legal system for.

That said, "someone" secretly removed a provision from the stimulus bill that would deal with this issue of AIG bonuses. And no matter which side of the argument you are on, you can bet that when there's a sixth of a billion dollars on the table, Principle can't afford a ticket to the show.

So who might have been a little more than friends with the folks at AIG? Let's check out the top ten list from OpenSecrets.org and see who's been getting the most contributions from AIG in the past 20 years:

	Dodd, Chris (D)	$281,038
	Bush, George W (R)	$200,560
	Schumer, Charles (D)	$111,875
	Obama, Barack (D)	$110,332
	McCain, John (R)	$99,249
	Baucus, Max (D)	$90,000
	Kerry, John (D)	$85,000
	Johnson, Nancy L (R)	$75,400
	Sununu, John E (R)	$69,049
	Clinton, Hillary (D)	$61,515

An interesting list, to be sure, but still not the way I like it. Let's find out how much AIG has been shelling out to these guys on an annual basis:

	Federal Candidate	Total	Yrs	Annual
	Obama, Barack (D)	$110,332	4	$27,583
	Bush, George W (R)	$200,560	8	$25,070
	Dodd, Chris (D)	$281,038	20	$14,052
	Clinton, Hillary (D)	$61,515	8	$7,689
	Sununu, John E (R)	$69,049	12	$5,754
	Schumer, Charles (D)	$111,875	20	$5,594
	McCain, John (R)	$99,249	20	$4,962
	Baucus, Max (D)	$90,000	20	$4,500
	Kerry, John (D)	$85,000	20	$4,250
	Johnson, Nancy (R)	$75,400	18	$4,189

Now look, I'm not out-and-out accusing Barack Obama of being corrupt on this one, though I wouldn't be surprised either. But if you're mad about AIG, it's hard not to take a look at this list and think things through.

And honestly, if you really want to know who I think is behind this "secret revision" in the stimulus bill, my money's on Chris Dodd. That's one corrupt (looking!) dude right there. (Side note) And increasingly, the rumor is that his Senate seat might be in jeopardy, something unheard of for a 34-year, extremely powerful Democratic Congressman from a very blue state.

Well played, Missouri

You can argue back and forth about the legitimacy of their actual stances, but I just wanted to shed some light on what appeared to me to be votes that were slightly above-average in principle from Missouri's two senators.

Claire McCaskill has a much easier case to make. She was one of three Democratic senators who voted against Obama's spending bill, along with Evan Bayh and Russ Feingold. She stands out because she and Feingold were the only two Democratic senators not to insert any earmarks into the bill, and both Bayh and Feingold are up for re-election in 2010, while she is not.

Chris Bond - well, I'm doing my best for a Republican ... He's actually in favor of earmarks, but at least he still had the guts to vote for the bill.

This was all part of an article that's generally unrelated, about popular presidents who struggled with issues of unity in their own party.

Gillibrand

Thoughts?

I don't really know anything about her (I have a new goal to become a little more informed about NY politics), but she seems qualified - which is more than I could say about Caroline K - and this article endears me to her a bit - the partisan flexibility, the "Sunshine Report," etc. Do you guys know more about her?

FYI - Clinton Hearing

In case you're interested, the Senate hearing on Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State nomination is available here. (Hey, she just spent time talking about microfinance! Awesome!)

Obama/Senate honeymoon over?

I saw this paragraph in an NYT article (as in, the paper version) this morning and thought the phrasing was hilarious:

"President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan ran into crossfire from his own party in Congress on Thursday, suggesting that quick passage of spending programs and tax cuts could require more time and negotiation than Democrats once hoped."

Don't you hate it when quick passage requires more time?

I could add some analysis of the stimulus, but 538's is more interesting. Apparently public perception of the "stimulus" is way better than the "bailout," so the opposition that the bailout saw from moderate Republicans just before the election is unlikely to be repeated, and Obama will likely get most of what he wants.

The Most Carthatic Thing I've Ever Seen

I probably didn't use the word "cathartic" correctly.

Kit Bond retiring

Missouri's senior senator, a man who inexplicably took the perfectly fine first name of "Christopher" and decided to abbreviate it as "Kit," will not seek reelection when his term expires in 2010.

Kit Bond is one of those senators you never hear about, which leads me to believe he's probably super corrupt, though I don't know this for sure. I do know he sucks, and he won't be missed, at least by me. Hell, even some group called "Republicans for Environmental Protection" hates him so much they gave him a rating of "-2."

Electoral-vote.com is mostly correct in asserting that Secretary of State Robin Carnahan would have a huge leg up in the race if she decided to run for the seat. Even though Missouri is undoubtedly tinting redder these days, the Democrat is quite popular. And if the name rings any bells, it may be because in 2000 her father, Governor Mel Carnahan, won his bid for election to the US Senate against John Ashcroft - three weeks after he died (wife Jean was appointed to a two-year term. Jim Talent, who is mentioned in 538's assessment of the situation, won the election for the remaining four years in 2002. He was then narrowly defeated in 2006 by Claire McCaskill, who herself was narrowly defeated in the gubernatorial race in 2004).

538's analysis is intriguing but premature (an example of precision over accuracy). Despite his analysis, I'd have to say that the best two Republicans on that list are Todd Akin and Roy Blunt. William Lacy Clay might not be a bad candidate for the Democrats - he represents most of St. Louis and doesn't even run against opposition anymore.

All-in-all, given the climate and the candidates available, it's quite possible that despite the fact that Missouri is quickly going red, the state could go from having two Republican senators going into the 2006 election to having two Democratic senators coming out of the 2010 election.

Get him out of here

Sorry, Roland. You refer to yourself in the third person, and your whole life's list of accomplishments goes out the window in my book. I don't care if you brought world peace and ended world hunger.

Maybe if you're Wayne Gretzky, though.

Notes on Congress

CQ politics has a really cool tool that for each Congressman shows the proportion of the time they (1) voted with the president, (2) voted with their party, (3) voted at all.

No senator voted with the president less often than Ted Kennedy. Interestingly, no senator voted with the president more often than John McCain. The two senators from Maine, both Republicans, were the least loyal senators to their party.

Of those not campaigning (or cancerous), Senate artifacts Robert Byrd and Daniel Inouye (71 combined years in the Senate) missed the most votes.

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In other news, it's already been a big deal that Vietnamese Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao brought down uber-corrupt William Jefferson (try as you want, you can't add "Clinton", nor can you make a "movin' on down" joke) in Louisiana. Well, as if that wasn't enough, when a reporter asked, Cao (Anh?) said he would be interested in being a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (One Two Three). Just for reference, though others have tried, there has never been a non-black member of the CBC. There have been two black Republicans in congressional history, one was a member of the caucus (and generated frequent controversy) and the other declined to join.

And if that's still not enough for you, just enjoy what my current Congressman is bringing to race relations.

So I Guess the Question Is: How Powerful *Are* the Kennedys?

Basically, unless I'm missing something, it seems apparent that while Caroline Kennedy might not be a terrible choice for Senator, she's certainly less than ideal in a state with a number of big names (with big qualifications) who also want the seat. I just don't see any way that the governor's best choice is to appoint her.

Unless, of course, being a Kennedy somehow gives her special leverage over the governor. While this is certainly possible, I'm not sure I really see it ... though it is difficult to imagine someone saying "no" to the Kennedys without there being any ramifications.

So I don't know. Thoughts?

MN-Sen: What's going on?

So, Intrade contracts on Franken winning the election in Minnesota have held tight between 30 and 35 for about a week and a half now, which is rather remarkably consistent. In the last two hours, however, the price has shot up to very close to 50.

HuffPo has allegations about Coleman corruption all over their front page, but that wouldn't have any bearing on the election. So if anyone's got any idea about anything else that might be making this happen let me know. If it's just reaction to the allegations, well, just one more bit of evidence that political betting markets aren't efficient.

Cynical Politics?

OK, so it's possible I'm just being overly political here, but do you think it stands to reason that Barack Obama appointed Janet Napolitano to DHS as an olive branch to John McCain, as it removes a very large (and really the only) challenger to his Senate seat in 2010?  Just a thought ...

Blagojevich Update: Jesse Jackson, Jr.

As you've probably heard by now, Jackson is allegedly implicated in the tapes as being willing to pay for the Senate seat in question. If so, a potentially enormous political career has ended before it even begun.

Quick Thought on NY-Sen

Hillary's Senate seat is also open to a gubernatorial appointment. While speculation flies fast that Governor Patterson is looking to Caroline Kennedy, I for one do not buy this at all. NY has plenty of good candidates and she just doesn't seem like the Senate type. Notably, Patterson has more or less said he doesn't want to appoint a white male from NYC ... Carolyn Maloney has been endorsed by "Women's groups" according to electoral-vote.com. Also there's Andrew Cuomo, but this guy on NPR just said Patterson doesn't want to give him the seat (competition for him?)

The Democratic Senate Majority, Prisoner's Dilemma Style

Nate's got a particularly good article on how it's possible for 58 seats to be better than 59.

(In response to the article: of course, the moderate Republicans in question could work out deals with each other ahead of the vote)

Quick Links

Life is putting a whole bunch of pictures on Google. Some say these pictures are "important" or "historical."

Minnesota recount data. With 98.67% recounted, Franken leads Coleman 1,188,736 to 1,177,465. In my mind this is a lead of 11,271 votes, but since no media outlet is reporting it that way, I must be missing something.

Presidential portrait morph. Exactly what it sounds like.

Eisenhower's Wiki article. Random, I know, but I'm reading it. Did you know his grandson married Nixon's daughter? Because I didn't.

There's lots of cute animals on the internet, but this is the most endearing thing I've ever seen involving pets.

oh GREAT

Chambliss Wins Georgia Senate Runoff

Saxby Chambliss, an incumbent Republican senator, was
re-elected by Georgia voters on Tuesday in a substantial
victory, ending Democratic hopes for a 60-vote majority in
the Senate that would make it difficult for Republicans to
filibuster the Obama administration's legislative agenda.