THURSDAY,  JANUARY 14,  2010

BULLETIN – AT 11:30 P.M. ET:  Brown surges ahead in newest Massachusetts poll:

BOSTON -- Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown has surged ahead of his Democratic opponent Martha Coakley, according to a new poll released Thursday night.

Brown leads Coakley by a margin of 50 percent to 46 percent, the Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll found. It is the first poll to show Brown, who had been thought a long-shot underdog, leading the race.

It raises the possibility of an historic political upset in Massachusetts.

“It’s a massive change in the political landscape,” David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, told The Boston Herald.

Paleologos told the newspaper that the poll shows high numbers of independent voters turning out on election day, which benefits Brown, who has 65 percent of independents compared to Coakley’s 30 percent.

More to come.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

MAJOR NEWS - U.S. WANTS MORE SECURITY FOR AIRLINERS - READ ALL ABOUT IT AT 7:56 P.M. ET:  Some ten years after terrorists attacked the USS Cole while it was anchored in Yemen, security minds-at-work in Washington have concluded that there is a terrorist threat from...Yemen.  Now we're talking:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- All airlines flying to the United States or within the country were told Thursday to prepare for even tighter security because of the al-Qaida threat from Yemen, a law enforcement official said.

The U.S. increased the number of air marshals on international flights and pressed for more random screening at airports as intelligence officials warned that al-Qaida's branch in Yemen was continuing to plot attacks on the United States.

Boy, I'm glad they found out, aren't you?

A U.S. counterterrorism official said American intelligence agencies were intensely examining all information about threats from the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula, including potential plots and specific individuals. Counterterrorism agencies have serious concerns about al-Qaida plots emanating from Yemen, the official said.

The officials did not pinpoint any specific evidence of new plots since the Christmas Day bombing attempt by a Nigerian national on a Detroit-bound flight. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence publicly.

COMMENT:  Well, I'm certainly relieved.  Now we can go back to calling terrorist attacks "man-made disasters."  So much more civilized.  Not like BUSH (!!).

January 14, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA RESISTING MASSACHUSETTS – AT 7:33 P.M. ET:  We reported this morning that rumors were flying that President Obama would go to Massachusetts to try to boost Dem Senate candidate Martha Coakley.  Now, the White House is denying it:

Coming off stinging election losses in Virginia and New Jersey -- not to mention Copenhagen, where he failed to win the 2018 Olympics for his hometown of Chicago -- President Obama is staying away from what could become another painful loss.

Even though the campaign of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has been making quiet entreaties, the president has no plans to visit her in the last week of the special election to fill the Senate seat once held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

"It's not on our schedule to go to next week," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said matter-of-factly.

With Mrs. Coakley flagging in the polls and Republican Scott Brown closing fast -- one recent polls puts him 2 points ahead -- Mr. Obama has decided to keep his fingerprints off a race that would be an embarrassment for Democrats should they lose, given that Mr. Obama won the state in 2008 by a 27 point margin.

COMMENT:  It would be an embarrassment even if Coakley won, but barely.  We'll be watching this weekend's polls.  If Brown's advance continues, he may pull this off.  It's a big "if."  Reports tell us that the Dems are really turning on the money machine in Massachusetts, running one ad after another. 

We'll be blogging this live Tuesday night.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

FROM THE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO BROUGHT YOU LAST SEASON'S FLOPS – AT 7:14 P.M. ET:  The Tonight Show is an important political institution, so what happens to it is of political interest.

The latest from the world of high-stakes programming is that Conan will soon be gone and Jay will soon be back:

Welcome back, Jay - and goodbye, Conan?

Conan O'Brien's last show could come as soon as next week - and Jay Leno may be retaking the helm of the "Tonight Show," two new reports say.

NBC's late-night woes may have been solved Thursday with a deal to restore Jay Leno to his old 11:35 p.m. slot host.

And with Leno's less-than-triumphant return, current "Tonight" host Conan O'Brien is wrapping up his seven-month stint behind the desk of the venerable talk show.

The Leno deal was reported by TMZ.com, while People reported O'Brien's last show was set for next Friday. Neither report could be immediately confirmed.

An NBC spokesman told TVGuide.com that there was no Leno deal - but did not address People's reporting on Conan.

"Conan does not currently plan on doing any more new shows after next week," a source told People.

COMMENT:  Well, anything could theoretically work, but I have real doubts about this.  First, Americans root for the underdog, and Conan is the underdog.  Second, Jay – who nurtured an image as a nice guy – comes off as the heavy, the already successful guy who's had his turn at "Tonight," cutting off the young kid.  Early in his tenure at The Tonight Show, Jay had an agent/manger from hell who was abusive to any and all.  Although she had been instrumental in his career, he had to fire her to preserve his image.  Now he risks real damage. 

Third, it may fail.  Comebacks are very, very difficult.  Jack Paar, who was the king of late night before Johnny, tried to come back with his own late-night show on ABC in the early 70s, and flopped badly.  Jay recently flopped at 10 p.m. on NBC, and the thinkers of Hollywood – that's a joke – calculate that he'll do just fine back in his old time slot.  Maybe yes, maybe no.  People tire of a personality, and the circumstances here are sour.  Where, after all, is the wanting of Leno?  Is there a popular uprising?

This is the time when programming executives bet everything.  Don't worry for them financially.  But their ability to get the best table at a Hollywood restaurant, and to have their names painted on their parking spaces – these priceless things (Hollywood priceless) are on the line.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

BULLETIN!  ROTHENBERG REPORT RATES MASSACHUSETTS A TOSS-UP – AT 4:55 P.M. ET:  From the highly respected Rothenberg Political Report:

Democratic desperation and other compelling evidence strongly suggest that Democrats may well lose the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in Tuesday’s special election. Because of this, we are moving our rating of the race from Narrow Advantage for the Incumbent Party to Toss-Up.

Whatever the shortcomings of the Coakley campaign (and they certainly exist), this race has become about change, President Obama and Democratic control of all of the levers of power in Washington, D.C. Brown has “won” the “free media” over the past few days, and if he continues to do so, he will win the election.

Late Democratic efforts to demonize Republican Scott Brown, to make the race into a partisan battle and to use the Kennedy name to drive Democratic voters to the polls could still work. But the advertising clutter in the race works against them, and voters often tune out late messages, which can seem desperate.

COMMENT:  Pray to the deity of your choice.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

POLLS GET STILL WORSE FOR OBAMA – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  The message is certainly being sent, as the National Journal's Hotline reports:

A year into his tenure, a majority of Americans would already vote against Pres. Obama if the '12 elections were held today, according to a new survey.

The Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll shows 50% say they would probably or definitely vote for someone else. Fully 37% say they would definitely cast a ballot against Obama. Meanwhile, just 39% would vote to re-elect the pres. to a 2nd term, and only 23% say they definitely would do so.

Obama's first year in office has been marked by an unemployment rate that surged to 10%, an increased commitment of troops to Afghanistan and a health care battle that has taken a serious political toll on the WH.

Obama's approval rating is down to 47%, the poll showed, a 14-point drop since the April survey. 45% disapprove, up 17 points from April. Only 41% say they trust Obama more than Congressional GOPers, while 33% pick the GOP over the WH. That 8-point gap is down from a 21-point edge Obama sported as recently as Sept.

Just 34% say the country is moving in the right direction, down 13 points since April, and 55% say it is off on the wrong track, up 13 points over the same period.

COMMENT:  The White House would do itself, and the country, a big favor by pulling the health-care plan, which is in trouble in Congress anyway.  It gets more and more unpopular, and is bringing down the administration.  The president should simply say that he is not satisfied with the result, and ask Congress to start over, with much more modest goals.

That might salvage some of the president's political capital, which is being used up rapidly.  It would also serve the country.  However, I doubt if it will happen.  The left wing of the Democratic Party believes that this is their moment.  They will not give up their chance to return to the 1960s, which was really their moment. 

Ah youth.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

ECONOMIC GRIMNESS – AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  New economic news is grim, contradicting the optimism oozing from a president who hasn't had a press conference since July.  First report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retail sales fell in December as demand for autos, clothing and appliances all slipped, a disappointing finish to a year in which sales had the largest drop on record.

The weakness in consumer demand highlighted the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the deepest recession in seven decades.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that retail sales declined 0.3 percent in December compared with November, much weaker than the 0.5 percent rise that economists had been expecting. Excluding autos, sales dropped by 0.2 percent, also weaker than the 0.3 percent rise analyst had forecast.

For the year, sales fell 6.2 percent, the biggest decline on records that go back to 1992. The only other year that annual sales fell was in 2008, when they slipped by 0.5 percent.

The 0.3 percent decline in December was the first setback since September, when sales had fallen 2 percent. Sales posted strong gains of 1.2 percent in October and 1.8 percent in November, raising hopes that the consumer is starting to mount a comeback.

Second report:

MIAMI (AP) - A record 2.8 million households were threatened with foreclosure last year, and that number is expected to rise this year as more unemployed and cash-strapped homeowners fall behind on their mortgages.

The number of households that received a foreclosure-related notice rose 21 percent from 2008, RealtyTrac Inc. reported Thursday. One in 45 homes were sent a filing, which includes default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions.

In December, more than 349,000 households, or one in 366 homes, were hit with a foreclosure-related notice. That represents a 14 percent spike from November and a 15 percent jump from December 2008.

Third report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week as jobs remain scarce amid a sluggish economic recovery.

The Labor Department said Thursday new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 444,000. Wall Street economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected an increase of only 3,000.

COMMENT:  If this continues, the political fallout can be profound.  Unless the president can show an economic turnaround by the November elections, he'll be hosting a huge going-away party for many Democrats in Congress.  I don't know if they can take their health care with them.

And something else:  In the midst of all this, Wall Street firms are about to announce mammoth bonuses, some in the tens of millions of dollars.  Even pro-business writers are beginning to register their disgust at this obnoxious display by men who seem to live in an amoral alternative universe.  There may simply come a point where we have to save capitalism from the capitalists.  It's happened before.  There's a small group that never seems to learn words like "decency," "fairness" and "proportion."  What's remarkable is that some of the firms involved are the same ones that the American people had to bail out last year.

The distinguished Felix Rohatyn, a statesman of Wall Street, once worried that the stock market was becoming nothing more than a casino.  He was right.  He'd be more right today.

January 14, 2010    Permalink

THE CHRISTMAS-DAY AIRLINE BOMBER – EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT – AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  Just when we thought the Keystone Kop mentality that allowed the bomber to board his flight had been fully aired, along comes this.  More Keystone.  More Kop:

WASHINGTON – The would-be Christmas Day bomber boarded his flight in Amsterdam to frigid Detroit with no coat — perhaps the final warning sign that went unnoticed leading up to what could have been a catastrophic terrorist attack, lawmakers were told.

Congress got its first behind-the-scenes look Wednesday at the botched airline bombing and officials said the security failures were even worse than President Barack Obama outlined last week. It remains unclear, however, how those failures will be fixed.

Very, very unclear.

"He was flying into Detroit without a coat. That's interesting if you've ever been in Detroit in December," New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said after a briefing by presidential counterterrorism adviser John Brennan.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter briefed the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors and Brennan took questions from the House in overlapping sessions Wednesday.

And...

"There were more dots crying out to be connected than I realized," Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. "If any two of the dots were connected, it would have moved the organization to quickly connect the other dots. An improvement or good luck in any number of areas probably could have broken this wide open."

COMMENT:  We worry about the next bomber, who is certainly in the pipeline.  There were also plenty of unconnected dots in the Fort Hood case.  We need a better approach to dots in our intelligence services.

January 14, 2010   Permalink

BARONE ON COAKLEY – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  The weirdness of Martha Coakley is examined by the great Michael Barone, who focuses on Coakley's behavior after a Washington fundraiser Tuesday night.  One of her aides pushed Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack to the ground, and a photo clearly shows Coakley staring at McCormack when he's down:

The photo makes it pretty clear that Martha Coakley, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, witnessed an assault and battery and didn’t lift a finger to stop it, as law professor William Jacobson notes. I tend to agree with Boston radio talk host Michael Graham, who sees this incident—and the photo—as a game-changer. Coakley, who took much of the month of December off and whose campaign didn’t even bother to run TV ads last week, seems to feel entitled to the Senate seat. After all, she’s the Democratic nominee, isn’t she? She’s going to vote whatever way the Democratic leadership tells her to, isn’t she? And if little people get in the way, like the mild-mannered John McCormack, well, they just have to be taken out of the picture.

Pretty devastating.  We'll see if the incident is a game changer.  It will depend on the way Scott Brown plays it.  Coakley denied that she saw what happened, yet photos show she plainly did.  She lied.

The thought occurs to me that if Republican Scott Brown wins this election—and every day his chances look better—Democrats might conclude that Martha Coakley was a Republican plant, a Manchurian candidate inserted into the race in order to deprive Democrats of their 60th vote in the Senate.

Seriously, Martha Coakley embodies the elitist sense of entitlement that seems to reign in today’s Democratic party. Scott Brown struck just the right chord when David Gergen asked him how he could vote against the Democrats’ health care bill from Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate. “It’s not the Kennedys’ seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”

COMMENT:  It would be moving a mountain to elect a Republican to the Senate from Massachusetts.  Do I hear earth moving?

January 14, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS SENATE – AT 8:06 A.M.. ET:  There are unconfirmed stories flying around that President Obama may plunge headlong into the Massachusetts Senate race this weekend and fly up to campaign for beleaguered Dem candidate Martha Coakley.

Republican candidate Scott Brown, now surging, alluded to that possibility in an interview on Fox News yesterday afternoon. 

The stakes are enormous.  If Brown should slip by Coakley and win, it would be a seismic event in politics.  The line, "The Democrats couldn't even hold on to the Kennedy seat," would be all over the media.  The Dems would lose their 60th seat in the Senate, meaning Republicans could block any piece of legislation through a filibuster.

On the other hand, Obama's putting himself on the line in the bluest of the blue states is almost humiliating.  And if Coakley should then lose, it would be doubly humiliating – much greater than flying to Copenhagen and coming home without the Olympics for Chicago. 

A presidential visit would appear to have one purpose – very frankly, to play the race card, to energize minorities who are lethargic about the veddy white, veddy feminist, veddy upscale Coakley.  Scare tactics work in politics, and if Obama can convince minorities in Boston that a win for Brown would reverse the gains of the Civil War, he might get Coakley through. 

There are no new Massachusetts polls this morning, but we will certainly have some over the weekend, maybe before. 

The Massachusetts drama shows how quickly trends can change in politics.  Who would have thought it, back a year ago, when the political fashionistas were groveling before the Obama deity?

My, how the flighty have fallen.

January 14,  2010   Permalink

WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY 13,  2010

SAVAGING SARAH – AT 7:03 P.M. ET:  Like her or not, Sarah Palin is a serious woman, was a respectable governor, and has a large audience.  But for some of the foot soldiers of mainstream journalism, she is a threat to the universe and must be stopped.

Gov. Palin made her debut on Fox News last night.  It was pretty good.  Nothing spectacular or defining.  But get this "review" from TIME, once a weekly newsmagazine:

It's been said before, but let me say it again: Fox News creator Roger Ailes is a genius. His peers in the executive suites of rival networks, newspapers and media conglomerates still hire talent for their abilities. Ailes knows you can also hire talent for who they anger, who they unite and what they represent.

Oh how cute.  Yes, we've seen the vast abilities of some of the competitors.  Why, that deep analyst, Keith Olbermann, recently a sports reporter, always moves me.  Or Chris Matthews, whose thoughts come from tingles in his leg. And the CNN anchor who referred to the World War II battle of "eye-woe Jima."  What scholarship.

Fox has a journalistic staff as good as any in broadcasting, and better than most.

Ailes had not hired another talking head in Palin. He had hired a mascot for Fox News, a living breathing symbol of all that the network hopes to be: a place for the forgotten, besieged, suburban and rural American middle, long victimized, often dismissed, beset on all sides by elites and liberals, haters and foes.

Can you imagine the reaction of "feminist" organizations had a right-wing writer referred to a female as a mascot?

[Before I continue, I must make a disclosure: I am not, as a member of the professional media, qualified to describe Sarah Palin's debut appearance as a Fox News analyst. As Fox pundit Monica Crowley explained on the network after the former Alaska governor left Tuesday night, Palin “was actually talking over the heads of the media to the American people.” This, explained Crowley, is Palin's great talent—a rare ability to connect directly with Americans through television. “Nixon did it,” Crowley added, driving home her point. Lacking access to Palin's most important frequencies, therefore, I must ask that you take this analysis for what it is—an incomplete rendering.]

This writer is absolutely precious.  Don't you think?  It's about me, me, me and me.

The sins of Sarah:

The Palin that followed on Fox was the Palin that America has long come to know, at once skittish and confident, sing-songy in elocution, repetitive in substance and Palinesque in diction. (As H.L. Mencken once described Warren Harding's use of English, “It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.”)

Translated:  I, the reviewer, am so smart and she is so dumb.  Invite me to your party.

At this point, Palin's performance reached its crescendo, not as news analysis or reporting, but as a restatement of the very mission that has made Fox News so successful. “The American people are immediately neutralizing outlets like 60 Minutes,” Palin explained. “More and more Americans are looking at some of these networks, that biased journalism, and saying, ‘Nah, that gig is up. We're not believing that stuff anymore.' That's why they are tuning into Fox News.” She had become the message. Her mission was accomplished. Her future at Fox is bright.

She committed the sin of boasting about Fox News.  So when CNN advertises itself as the first name in TV news, I should write them a protest letter?  Come on.

This is what passes for a review.  Pretty disgraceful.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

AND MORE MASSACHUSETTS HACK OUTRAGE, COAKLEY STYLE – By now many of you probably know of the incident last night where a legitimate reported was allegedly shoved to the ground in Washington, D.C., trying to ask Massachusetts Dem Senate candidate Martha Coakley a question.  Coakley replies:

Bay State Attorney General Martha Coakley blamed GOP “stalkers” today for triggering tensions outside a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser last night where a Weekly Standard reporter said he was roughed up by a Coakley campaign volunteer.

Coakley, a Democrat, is in a red-hot race for U.S. Senate against GOP rival Scott Brown, where a poll out yesterday places the two only 2 points apart closing in on the Jan. 19 special election. The post-fundraiser fury has now sent both parties scrambling.

Coakley said she is not “privy” to the facts surrounding the incident involving reporter John McCormack last night, who wrote about the episode outside the Sonoma restaurant in Washington, D.C. in an online dispatch titled: “We Report, We Get Pushed.” The Wall Street Journal reported the Coakley fund-raiser at the Sonoma restaurant in Washington, D.C. was put on by health care industry lobbyists.

Coakley is, like many radical feminists, obsessed with the language of sexual assault.  Last night she accused Scott Brown of being soft on rape.  Now there are "stalkers" in the Brown campaign.  One, apparently, is a Weekly Standard reporter.

Coakley is an officer of the court.  She watched a man assaulted, did nothing about it, now may well be covering it up.  Great for the attorney general of a state. 

Brown has plenty of ammo to use against Coakley.  Commence fire.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

NEW MASSACHUSETTS HACK OUTRAGE – AT 6:05 P.M. ET:  The games have already started in Massachusetts, just in case Scott Brown upsets Martha Coakley:

BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts's top election official says it could take weeks to certify the results of the upcoming U.S. Senate special election. That delay could let President Barack Obama preserve a key 60th vote for his health care overhaul even if the Republican who has vowed to kill it wins Democrat Edward M. Kennedy's former seat.

Strange how this kind of talk only began when Republican Scott Brown started closing on Dem Martha Coakley.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin, citing state law, says city and town clerks must wait at least 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive before they certify the results of the Jan. 19 election. They then have five more days to file the returns with his office.

Now get this:

Galvin bypassed the provision in 2007 so his fellow Democrats could gain a House vote they needed to override a veto of then-Republican President George W. Bush, but the secretary says U.S. Senate rules would preclude a similar rush today.

The potential delay has become a rallying point for the GOP, which argues Democrats have been twisting the rules to pass the health care bill despite public opposition. It's also prompted criticism from government watchdogs.

"We believe that elections should be by the people and for the people, and when the people have spoken, the system ought not be politicized," said Common Cause President Bob Edgar, a former member of Congress. "If the Republican wins, the person should be seated immediately. If the Democrat wins, the person should be seated immediately."

Massachusetts Democrats already changed state law last fall so the governor could appoint a fellow Democrat to fill the seat after Kennedy died in August.

Look, it's Massachusetts.  What helps liberals becomes the law.  Let's see if there's any outrage from the Harvard Law School.  I hear only silence.

COMMENT:  Please note the office this chap holds - secretary of state.  Many don't realize it, but ultra-left Democrat money man George Soros has something called the "secretary of state project," to help friendly candidates become secretary of state of their respective states, and therefore control the election machinery.  One of Soros's picks became secretary of state of Minnesota, and assisted Al Franken in his "victory" there.  Expect more.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

OH, THEY'RE JUST SO LIBERAL...UNTIL IT COSTS THEM SOMETHING – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  This is very juicy, and is so typical of the liberal hypocrisy in places like Beverly Hills.  From The New York Times:

LOS ANGELES — In a contentious meeting ringed by police officers, the Beverly Hills school board voted Tuesday night to dismiss roughly 470 students enrolled in its schools on out-of-district permits.

The school system there has long opened its doors to students who live outside the district — currently about one in seven of its roughly 4,800 students — in large part because they brought a financial windfall for the system. But now, because cash-poor California has reduced local support to schools, including the reimbursements for out-of-district students, the so-called permit students are more of a burden to the schools than a boon.

Beverly Hills will soon use its own property tax dollars to finance its schools to replace money lost from the state. So the board voted to notify most of the out-of-district students that they must go.

“Although I recognize this is an inconvenience, it’s certainly not life or death,” said Steven Fenton, the board president. He added that for those who want to keep their children in the schools, “there are apartments waiting for you tomorrow.”

Gee, how kind and warm.  Those students want a better education, and the libs of Beverly Hills were happy to accommodate them...until the balance sheet changed. 

And get this for inclusionist warmth:

Most of the students now must choose between private schools or their local school under the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is largely troubled. “Go back to your home school to make it better,” Lisa Korbatov, the board’s vice president, admonished parents with children in the Beverly Hills schools on permits. “I don’t understand this entitlement.”

Go back where you came from.  You're not helpful to us any longer.

Beverly Hills is one of those "communities" where liberal elitism flourishes.  You can get an "anti-war" rally together just by standing on a street corner.  And Barack Obama is still a big deal there.

When push comes to shove, they're strictly business, like the people they claim to condemn.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – FROM VICTOR DAVIS HANSON – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  Hanson assesses the first year of the Age of Obama, and finds it not good:

The former celebrity Obama has lost that luster, point-by-point over a year, bleeding by a thousand small cuts until he nears 40 percent approval. In themselves, the bad jokes like the flippant remark about the Special Olympics, the lunatic appointments like Anita Dunn and Van Jones, the serial untruths about airing the health-care debate on C-SPAN or shunning lobbyists, the phony deadlines on Gitmo and the Iranians, the bribing of senators with hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers' funds, the bowing, the snubbing of the British, the use of the race card against tea-party critics, the Skip Gates mess, the Orwellian NEA business, constant fluff photos ops, but rare real press conferences — all that in the aggregate brought Obama to his present state.

Hanson is not on the next state-dinner invitation list.

And he doesn't stop there.

And now the question is not whether the president's charisma can save his unpopular agenda, but rather whether the president's growing unpopularity makes things even worse. This takes place, of course, in a landscape of 10 percent unemployment, a nearly $2 trillion debt, and rising energy prices. Somehow more deficits and subsidized wind and solar won't be winning issues.

No, the Dems have blown all their winning issues.

Finally, how ironic — Obama was elected as a reaction to Bush's mistakes of deficit spending and big-ticket new entitlements that nullified his otherwise effective anti-terrorism war; instead, he took what people liked about Bush and ridiculed them, while trumping Bush's spending that had turned so many off.

COMMENT:  Who would have guessed, in the age of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, that the Democratic Party would become so out of touch, so indifferent to the opinions and beliefs of average Americans?  When I was a Democrat, in my very early years, we would have meetings in union halls and community centers.  Now the party meets in Aspen and talks global warming between sessions on the slopes.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

MORE POLLING GRIMNESS FOR THE OBAMA BATTALIONS – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  A new Quinnipiac poll just published contains more bad reading for the White House:

American voters are split 45 - 45 percent on whether Barack Obama's first year in office is a success or failure and split 35 - 37 percent on whether the U.S. would be better off if John McCain had won the 2008 election, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today. As he marks the first anniversary of his inauguration, President Obama's approval has slipped slightly into an even 45 - 45 percent split for the first time.

The polls are starting to align, with Obama's approval rating somewhere in the mid 40s. 

That doesn't mean the GOP is particularly popular.  One discouraging aspect of the poll is that Americans still have an anger toward George W. Bush:

By a 43 - 30 percent margin American voters think Obama has been a better President than George W. Bush, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University survey finds. Voters blame Bush more than Obama 55 - 20 percent for the current economic conditions, but they say 35 - 24 percent that Obama's policies have made the United States less safe than those of his predecessor. Another 38 percent say safety is about the same.

COMMENT:  What must be discouraging for the White House is the relentlessness of the president's downward trajectory in the polls.  He has had a slight uptick on the terrorism issue, understandable in light of his major P.R. offensive to prove he's "tough."  (As Lincoln said, you can fool all of the people some of the time.)  But Mr. Obama is in a hole, and his party keeps on digging. 

However, as we've cautioned earlier, this doesn't mean the GOP is loved.  It isn't, and that must be turned around to have the maximum possible victory in November.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

BRAIN DEAD AND TONE DEAF – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  That is a very bad medical combination, and Martha Coakley, the Dem Senate candidate in Massachusetts (see story below) has been diagnosed. Her condition is serious and unstable.

Where was Martha Coakley last night?  Was she in Massachusetts, speaking with voters, trying to salvage her Senate race?  No.  Martha Coakley was in Washington, attending a fundraiser for her thrown by lobbyists for the health-care industry, among the least popular people in America.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

We've argued that the leading health industry CEOs will one day be exposed as the most short-sighted business leaders in history, but how to explain the gala fundraiser that their top lobbyists hosted for Martha Coakley last night?

Amid a Beltway panic, the health lobby is riding to the rescue of the Massachusetts liberal, whose defeat in the special Senate race next Tuesday could deny Democrats the 60th vote for ObamaCare and thus maybe spare the U.S. health system from the coming damage.

And...

Money follows power in Washington, obviously, though this example seems especially inexplicable given that Ms. Coakley's GOP opponent, state senator Scott Brown, may be the last chance to defuse the health-care doomsday machine. But maybe someone in the press corps will bother to mention this episode the next time President Obama takes aim at the "special interests" he claims are opposing his agenda.

Against overwhelming public opposition, the only things keeping ObamaCare alive at this point are power politics and the misguided corporate cease-fire that Democrats have either coerced or bought—or is homegrown at companies like Pfizer that are deeply invested in more government control of the economy. Ms. Coakley's election would make that outcome a certainty.

COMMENT:  We hope that Scott Brown's campaign is cutting ads right now exposing Martha Coakley as a lapdog for the health-care lobby.  I can't imagine that these corporate flacks are particularly loved in Massachusetts, even among committed liberals.

Coakley is a walking mistake.  Keep walking, madam candidate.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

YIKES! CAN IT BE? – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  A new Rasmussen poll published late last night shows GOP sparkplug Scott Brown only two points behind Dem candidate Martha Coakley, the baroness of boredom, in the Massachusetts Senate special election race to fill the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. 

The Massachusetts’ special U.S. Senate election has gotten tighter, but the general dynamics remain the same.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley attracting 49% of the vote while her Republican rival, state Senator Scott Brown, picks up 47%.

And get this:

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, Brown leads 71% to 23%.

That is a staggering figure.

As is typical with Rasmussen, he provides some knowledgeable analysis:

All recent polls place Coakley right around the 50% mark and support for opposition candidates above 40%. Turnout will be the key, and Brown’s voters appear to be more energized.

All polling indicates that a lower turnout is better for the Republican. The new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that Brown is ahead by two percentage points among those who are absolutely certain they will vote. A week ago, he trailed by two among those certain to vote.

COMMENT:  Obviously, momentum is in our direction, but momentum isn't the final count.  This is a very close race in a state that is heavily Democratic.  The Dems have now had the fear of loss put into them, and they are going all out.  They have a strong get-out-the-vote machine.  And always be aware that Boston has not always been known as a glowing example of the fair count on election day.

There's work to be done.  This is possible, the odds are still against us, but the odds are less today than they have been.  Fight.  Fight.

January 13,  2010   Permalink