Thursday, January 11, 2007

Open Forum

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rell writes letters to her commisioners when stuff goes wrong on her watch. Does Bush write to his cabinet secretaties too? I thought legislators sent letters to exec branch people seeking info and CEO's talked to their top exec branch folks by phone or in person.

Anonymous said...

Bad photo. Or, a very telling photo. Even the people on the dais aren't listening. Dodd is talking to himself. Can we please move on?

Genghis Conn said...

Well, I took the photo, which is why it's bad. This is a nominating speech at the CT Dem convention for either Richard Blumenthal or someone else.

Dodd was basically speaking to an empty room, here, and I was taking advantage of my shiny new floor pass to take pictures.

I unfortunately didn't get a shot of his "stand up for Joe" speech from the night before, which almost everyone in the building talked through.

Anonymous said...

So who are the Senators with their hats still in the ring, now that Bayh and Frist are history?

Biden
Dodd
Kerry (probably)
Clinton
Obama

anyone else with rumblings?

Genghis Conn said...

Well, don't forget McCain. I have serious doubts Kerry will be dumb enough to run.

Then again...

Matt said...

So Genghis, we got the full speech -- 22,000 troops, patriot missles, capturing an Iranian consulate -- are you still backing the escalation, or what?

Anonymous said...

I think most folks (even most of us connecticutters) don't believe Dodd has a legitimate shot at the nomination. I find it hard to believe the Senator himself believes he can win (and, if he does, that's a pretty good reason not to vote for him). What then do we think he is after? A cabinet post in a Democratic administration? An ambassadorship? A Veep nod?

Either way, his candidacy is going to increase or decrease his stock. If he makes himself more of a player and does garner an appointment of some type, that opens up a senate seat. Our esteemed Attorney General's mouth must be watering.

Anonymous said...

I think most folks (even most of us connecticutters) don't believe Dodd has a legitimate shot at the nomination. I find it hard to believe the Senator himself believes he can win (and, if he does, that's a pretty good reason not to vote for him). What then do we think he is after? A cabinet post in a Democratic administration? An ambassadorship? A Veep nod?

Either way, his candidacy is going to increase or decrease his stock. If he makes himself more of a player and does garner an appointment of some type, that opens up a senate seat. Our esteemed Attorney General's mouth must be watering.

Genghis Conn said...

Matt,

Nah. It isn't enough to win, just to fail more spectacularly. They're not serious--they just want to buy some time.

If Bush wanted to win, he'd double the number of troops, start a draft and go to Germany, Britain and France and kiss their asses until they promised to help out. But he won't. This is all about saving face.

ctblogger said...

You never would have got a picture like that the night before :-)

Floor pass=golden ticket.

Weicker Liker said...

Should we be concerned that three of our State's Congressman are scheduled to attend an Iraq War function on Saturday at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford that lists a representative of the Communist Party as one of its speakers?

Take a look at this post from MLN..

http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5311

ctkeith said...

GC,

Even if we put a million soldiers in Iraq we couldn't achieve what Bush has been defining as victory.

The Neocon Dream is built on the fairytale assumtions that every country wants to live under the rule of the American Empire in make believe democracies controlled by the CIA.

It;s a shame that you never figured that out and that as little as a week ago you were still ready to support the Surge.


PS- I suggest everyone here go relisten to the Presidents Speech last night in which he telegraphed his intentions to try to Provoke a war with Iran. Unless Stopped this madman , and his freinds like Joe Lieberman, have every intention of Escalating, not ending this war.

Anonymous said...

YAAAAAAWN.

Matt said...

The Communist Party in Connecticut is to workers as the Family Institute is to churchgoers. And probably about as relevant, though somewhat more polite.

Anonymous said...

As of now the Dem Nominee

Prez John Edwards
Vice Pez. Bill Richardson (Latino) or Barack Obama ( partially African American)


*Hillary will never accept a Democratic Nomination


The democratic nomination is going to John Edwards. It's his race to lose in 2008. The first four primary states are Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.


However, the type of voter going for Edwards is most likely going to vote for Obama more than any other candidate. So this will be a interesting devolpment in the future.


Republicans

It's a open game for anyone to win the nomination.

Pro-Surge Candidates

Giulani, Romney, Mccain

Anti-Surge Candidates

Brownback, Hagel.

No Idea

Huckabee

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:08:

You're not completely wrong, just partially wrong.

With Frist leaving the race and Allen being booted out of it, Brownback is the only GOP candidate left on the cultural-conservative side of that party's split (Romney is trying to woo them, but if you think the christian Right is going to embrace a mormon, i have a bridge in nevada i want to sell you). This leaves the door wide open for McCain, who will coast to the GOP nomination.

Dems aren't smart (I can say that, being one of them), but they're smart enough to know that nominating hilary would be giving the election to mccain. there are, as i see it, two possibilities for the dem ticket.

the strongest choice is gore-richardson. gore is poised to sweep in as the white knight during this election cycle, and i hope he does. richardson is the obvious choice for his running mate. too many skeletons to make a good nominee on his own, he works well with gore and can help deliver the west.

the second choice is edwards-obama. assuming gore doesn't run, we need to capitalize on the new blood/new generation of american leadership feeling. this is the ticket to do it. both are moderate, populist dems from traditionally non-democratic (or at least not safely blue) states.

richardson can't run as edwards' veep. too much bad blood and too much ideological disagreement (edwards sees richardson as a latino kerry [or worse, ted kennedy--what with the booze and womanizing]).

either way, you and i both seem to agree that the paramount task for dems is to deny hil the nomination.

as for mccain's running mate, look for him to pick a cultural conservative in an attempt to galvanize that base. romney? perhaps. santorum? a possibility even in spite of his overwhelming defeat in november. and brownback is a presidential candidate made for a veep spot. of course, (and i know this'll go over like a fart in a spacesuit on this site) don't count lieberman out for that honor. bi-partisanship (even fake bi-partisanship) looks good in a presidential bid.

Charlie said...

What did you want to hear from the Hagel grassroots movement?

Today Senator Hagel has gotten a lot of attention, but sadly many of Republicans are mad at him for what he has said about Iraq (while others are finally coming around and joining what he has been saying for years).

Anonymous said...

A Gore ticket would tank; his negatives are almost as high as Kerry's (in the high forties), and independents dislike him 3-2. This newfound romanticism with a Gore candidacy is delusional and suicidal.

The Democrat with the best chance to beat the Republican spin machine is the one with the most charisma, likeability, and above all, lowest unfavorables in relation to favorables - meaning their unfavorables can afford to go up the most during a grueling campaign. By those criteria, Kerry and Gore are the worst among Democrats, followed by Clinton.

Edwards does much better, with negatives as low as those as Guiliani and McCain (low twenties); that group of three candidates stands way above the rest of the pack at a favorability ratio of almost 2-1. That is with one exception, of course, as Barack Obama's ratio beats them all soundly: nearly 3-1 favorable, with negatives of only 10%. When you break down the numbers further, both Democrats AND independent voters rate him at BETTER than 3-1 favorability, and Republican voters are just a hair shy of 1-1 favorability; in otherwords, barely a net negative. Although Obama needs to become better known, there is no doubt that will happen, and these staggeringly high ratios cannot really be attributed to low name recognition or not being vetted, as all of the underdog candidates on BOTH Republican and Democratic sides don't rate better than a 1-1 favorability. Obama is clearly a unique quantity in the political equation.

Favorability/Unfavorability For 2008 Candidates: http://www.pollster.com/allfavunfavlarge.php

Breakdowns by Party Affiliation of Respondents: http://www.pollster.com/FavByCandAndPartylarge.php

Anonymous said...

A Gore ticket would tank; his negatives are almost as high as Kerry's (in the high forties), and independents dislike him 3-2. This newfound romanticism with a Gore candidacy is delusional and suicidal.

The Democrat with the best chance to beat the Republican spin machine is the one with the most charisma, likeability, and above all, lowest unfavorables in relation to favorables - meaning their unfavorables can afford to go up the most during a grueling campaign. By those criteria, Kerry and Gore are the worst among Democrats, followed by Clinton.

Edwards does much better, with negatives as low as those as Guiliani and McCain (low twenties); that group of three candidates stands way above the rest of the pack at a favorability ratio of almost 2-1. That is with one exception, of course, as Barack Obama's ratio beats them all soundly: nearly 3-1 favorable, with negatives of only 10%. When you break down the numbers further, both Democrats AND independent voters rate him at BETTER than 3-1 favorability, and Republican voters are just a hair shy of 1-1 favorability; in otherwords, barely a net negative. Although Obama needs to become better known, there is no doubt that will happen, and these staggeringly high ratios cannot really be attributed to low name recognition or not being vetted, as all of the underdog candidates on BOTH Republican and Democratic sides don't rate better than a 1-1 favorability. Obama is clearly a unique quantity in the political equation.

Favorability/Unfavorability For 2008 Candidates: http://www.pollster.com/allfavunfavlarge.php

Breakdowns by Party Affiliation of Respondents: http://www.pollster.com/FavByCandAndPartylarge.php

Red Dots: Republicans
Blue Dots: Democrats
Purple Dots: Independents
Black Dots: Everyone

Anonymous said...

"Did you ever get stung by a dead bee?" Walter Brennan's character asked Humphrey Bogart's in "To Have and Have Not." Well, state tourism director John Giantonio got stung by one today. Outgoing Tourism and Culture boss Jennifer Aniskovich fired Giantonio as one of her final acts. (Kind of like the reverse of a presidential pardon.) Giantonio had been in the position for only three months or so. Talk about a department in flux!!