Max

The entrance of Perry into the race is really devastating to Bachmann. The major reason why her campaing first caught on like wildfire is that social conservatives and Tea Partiers despised Romney, and previously had nobody else to turn to. Since Perry is perfectly acceptable to the conservative wing of the GOP, many Bachmann supporters will now abandon ship because they know she would get crushed a general election. (If Perry never entered the race, many on the far-right still would have supported Bachmann--despite knowing she is unelectable--just because they hate Romney so much.)

Barring some sort of miracle that would make Huntsman's poll numbers rise above 1%, it can be assumed that the Republican nominee will be either Perry or Romney. (Personally, I predict Perry will be the nominee.) Despite the crappy economy and Obama's ever sinking approval rating (I believe one Gallup poll had his approval at less than 40%), the unfortunate truth is that both Perry and Romney make great foils for Obama to run against. Obama's 2012 re-election strategy will mirror that of Bush's in 2004: keep the focus off his own record, present himself as a "likeable" guy who is trying his best, and make his opponent out to be the greater of two evils. (Interesting to note that these re-election strategies are completely different from the initial "compassionate conservative"/"hope and change" messages these candidates ran on in order to win their first terms.)

As previously stated, Perry is a great foil for Obama, because all the president has to do is (1) tie him and Bush "together at the hip," (2) portray him as too far to the right, and (3) put some commercials together that show Perry making stupid comments. Romney is a great foil as well, because he can be portrayed as an elitist, flip-flopper who is a tool of the corporations.

Obama has always been extremely lucky throughout the course of his political career. (As an example, witness back in early September 2008, when he and McCain had been virtually tied in the polls for months; after the stock market collapse later that month, the outcome of the election was never in doubt.) And, he got extremely lucky that the two strongest GOP contenders (who could have actually won the nomination)--Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie--opted not to run in 2012 (either would have handily defeated him). (Similarly, Bush recieved a huge break when both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton chose not to enter the 2004 presidential race; either one would have handily defeated him in a general election.)

Barring any unforeseen circumstances (such as a big change in the unemployment rate or a major political scandal), I feel like I can predict right now that Obama will defeat either Perry or Romney. Of course, I would expect that Obama's margin of victory will be considerably less than it was in 2008: for starters, it's a pretty safe bet that either prospective GOP nominee will win IN and NC (red states Obama carried by 1.0% and 0.3%, respectively), along with the 22 states McCain won. Also, Perry or Romney could also end up snatching FL, OH, and/or VA from Obama. But even if Obama loses all three of those swing states, he will still be slightly over the 270 electoral votes needed to win. The bottom line here is that both Perry and Romney have too many liabilties when going up against Obama (who--despite being a terrible president--is a master politican whose campaign skills are equal to those of Reagan and Clinton).

I just saw one of the strangest interviews ever on television: the interview Piers Morgan conducted with Christine O'Donnell. When Morgan started to ask O'Donnell questions about her position on gay marriage, O'Donnell got very testy, refused to reply, and called Morgan rude. O'Donnell then ended the interview.

Regardless of one's political viewpoint, I think we can all agree that viewing a political train-wreck "live" feels totally different than (getting your first experience of that event by) watching clips of it on television. The only other train-wreck that I watched "live" was Howard Dean's infamous "I Have a Scream" speech, which he made after finishing a distant third place in the 2004 Iowa Democratic Caucus.

I honestly don't know why O'Donnell was so defensive about the questions regarding gay marriage. It's not like her views of the topic are unknown, or that her supporters would leave her if she stated her true feelings about the subject.

One more thing about O'Donnell is that Democrats should be ever grateful for her existence, because if she didn't run for the Senate in 2010, the GOP would have nominated liberal Republican Representative Mike Castle (a popular former governor) instead, who in turn would have easily won the general election. (The Democrats were so convinced that Castle was a shoo-in for the seat that even Beau Biden decided not to run for the Senate.)

The best part about Capitol was watching Debrah Farentino and Marj Dusay.

It is sad that Farentino's post-Capitol career was not the success it deserved it to be. She never was given another soap role (like Jess Walton), and virtually all the prime-time shows she was involved with were one- or two-year wonders.

Even though Perry would probably make a bad general election candidate, I honestly am not 100% certain about this. Objectively speaking, there are a couple of reasons why Perry could actually be the GOP candidate (aside from Hunstman, who has no chance of getting the nomination) with the highest likelihood of defeating Obama:

*Perry has the whole "I'm responsible for the good economy in Texas" narrative going for him. Now, of course, the Democrats are strongly questioning just how "good" the economy in Texas is (and just how much of Texas' economic fortune was Perry's doing); however, no matter how aggressively the Democrats attack Perry on this matter, it is unlikely that it will change the perception that Texas' economy is much better than the country's economy as a whole.

*The fact that Perry wears his religion on his sleeve is actually a positive (and not a negative) with many voters in the heartland. For whatever reason, voters in the South and much of the Midwest can really "relate" whenever a candidate for president does this. (Being open about faith really helped Carter, Clinton, and Bush in their presidential campaigns.)

*Obama cannot paint Perry as a phony, elitist flip-flopper (which is how he would run against Romney).

*While Perry's past stupid behavior (like wanting Texas to secede and praying that the economy gets better) may be quite damaging, I strongly doubt that swing voters will care about those things to the extent they care about the terrible economy. Really, the major flaw that Perry has in a general election is that he is governor of Texas; this will allow Obama and the Democrats to try and paint Perry as a clone of Bush (just like Bush and the Republicans painted John Kerry as a Massachusetts liberal in the mold of Michael Dukakis).

Ben Nelson is hardly an uber-conservative who is beholden to Grover Norquist, given that he completely caved in to Obama and Reid and provided the 60th and decisive vote for Obamacare in the Senate. And, if it wasn't for Democrats from red states, there's absolutely no way the Democrats would have ever had 60 senators in the first place. As much as liberals don't like to accept this reality, it is impossible to elect a Democrat in a statewide race (in a red state) who is as liberal as Edward Kennedy or Barbara Boxer. (Simarly, as much as Tea Partiers don't want to hear it, Republicans as conservative as Jesse Helms or Jim DeMint can only be elected statewide in the reddest of states.)

And although Buffett is right about the need to raise the capital gains tax, he has hardly been infallible over the years, as evidenced by his strong support of both Obama and Schwarzenegger.

Qfan, for a period of time that lasted almost a year, the Democrats did have 60 seats in the Senate (after Arlen Specter switched parties but before Scott Brown was sworn into office). Yet, Obama, Reid, and Pelosi still chose not to increase the capital gains tax but instead focused all their efforts on passing Obamacare.

Warren Buffett makes a valid point, which I agree with as well. However, to suggest that the GOP is solely responsible for this is absurd. That's because during the two years the Democrats controlled the presidency, House, and Senate, they chose not to raise the capital gains tax rate (and make the rich pay their "fair share.") And since Buffet is an ally of Obama, it is no surprise that he chose not to criticize the president or his friends in Congress.

In answer to Carl's earlier question, I only watched part of the debate; the part where Pawlenty and Bachmann tore into each other.

I just think that with the entrance of Perry into the race, it makes it very difficult for Bachmann to win the nomination (since the far-right vote will be split). If Palin enters, it will split this vote even more. Of course, I did not mean to suggest earlier that Romney is somehow the heavy favorite for this nomination: one should not "misunderestimate" Perry because he is very aggressive and appeals to fiscal conservatives as well.

Somebody said that there's nobody the GOP could put up who would be a surefire general election winner. This is not true, however: Jon Huntsman would handily defeat Obama. (Unfortunately, Huntsman has almost zero chance of getting the nomination since he committed the "cardinal sin" of working for Obama as his Ambassador to China.) And while Romney has a lot of flaws, he would have a reasonably likely chance of defeating Obama if the economy still sucked as badly on Election Day as it does now (and given the extraordinarily slow pace of progress, this is somewhat likely to be the case). (I disagree with Michael who states that the Tea Party will field a candidate of their own if Romney gets the nomination. As much as they hate Romney, the Tea Party hates Obama 100 times more, so they wouldn't field a third-party candidate that would guarantee Obama re-election.)

I'm sorry to see Pawlenty drop out of the race, although it is no surprise since his candidacy has been dead for quite some time. In a general election, I think he would have been a stronger candidate than Romney. That's because Pawlenty has the "Minnesota nice" narrative going for him, whereas Romney can easily be portrayed as a wealthy, Massachusetts elitist who is "unlikeable." Hence, Romney can easily be portrayed as the Republican version of John Kerry. In fact, I've already read an article that stated in the event Romney does win the nomination, Obama's 2012 re-election strategy will be patterned after the one Bush used in 2004: this strategy calls for completely ignoring Bush's/Obama's (lack of) accomplishments during the first term, but instead painting Kerry/Romney as out-of-touch elitists who aren't anywhere near as "likeable" as Bush/Obama. (Yet, because the economy was much better at this point in time eight years ago--and because Bush still narrowly won even with this strategy--this strategy will not guarantee an Obama victory. It is, however, the only feasible strategy that Obama has at his disposal given how bad the economy is.)

Rick Perry is officially--and unfortunately--getting into the race.

Actually, I'm not 100% sure that this is "unfortunate," because his entry is a huge blow to the Bachmann campaign. Although a strong case can be made that he hurts Romney as well, Perry may actually split the Tea Party vote with Bachmann and hand Romney the nomination.

Shockingly, when I looked at Google News, the 'liberal' media spin was that these results were great for Republicans and justified their anti-union policies. Somehow, if the tables were turned and Republicans won two seats in a recall election, I doubt we'd get that spin.

While I haven't seen other media outlets' take on the WI recall election results, the folks on MSNBC were spinning it as great news for the Democrats since (1) all these seats were in Republican districts and (2) the Democrats fell just one seat short of re-taking control of the State Senate. (I have to agree that this was good--though not great--news for the Dems.)

In fact, I believe that the Dems still have an opportunity to retake control, since there will be more recall elections to come later this month. I'm sorry that I was incorrect about my prediction yesterday (about Senate control switching), but I made it after I saw endless crowing on the part of Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz, as well as hearing a reporter on "Faux" News mention that the GOP was very nervous about these elections.

Even if the WI State Senate remains in GOP hands, Walker is still a one-term governor, and Obama will not become the first Democrat since Mondale to lose WI in a presidential election. Thus, all this talk among political "experts" that WI is a swing state is total bulls#it.

Has Matt Ashford ever talked about his time on SFT during the last 20 years? He acts as if this show never existed. (Unfortunately, he is not alone: most soap stars who become famous for just one soap role usually pretend that they've only spent time on that soap.)

What I still wonder about is how many in our government actually want our economy to be destroyed, either because they think this will bring about end times, or because they think this will help Republicans get elected in 2012.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that many in the party out of power always hope the economy sucks, simply because all they care about is their own political well-being.

About 6 or 7 recall elections are happening in Wisconsin tonight. A few Democratic senators are up, mostly Republican senators, one Republican being in a heavily Democratic district. Given that Republicans always have more turnout, they also have a lot of money, media power, and other special elections that were seriously contested (like the state supreme court race a few months ago) have favored Republicans, I would guess they will win most of the races tonight. I can see Democrats getting one seat.

The Dems only need a net gain of three seats in order to re-take control of the State Senate. My predictions are the opposite of yours, Carl (I guess we're both pessimists!): I believe that the Democrats will re-take control of the State Senate; while the GOP has spent more money, the Dems have a more fired up base and a superior get-out-the-vote effort (largely organized by the unions) on their side. Furthermore, Wisconsin is not a swing state like the "conventional wisdom" states; rather, it is a very liberal state, evidenced by the fact that it was one of only ten states to vote for Michael Dukakis for president in 1988 (and has gone Democratic every presidential election since then). (The 2010 GOP electoral romp in Wisconsin was a complete fluke, and happened in one of the most Republican years of the last century.)

Impotent is a great word for Obama. And this op-ed is in the left wing NY Times.

Qfan, the NY Times criticized Obama for being to willing to compromise and not being liberal enough. This is very similar to the Tea Party criticizing Boehner for being to willing to compromise and not being conservative enough.

and all we have is this milquetoast who wants consensus and compromise

Qfan, you just can't blame Obama and the Tea Party for the clusterf*ck that the economy became. The fact of the matter is that for the first two years of Obama's presidency, the Democrats held huge majorities in both the House and the Senate. (Even now, they still control the senate.) After the first stimulus package was passed (early on in Obama's presidency), all further efforts to help the economy were abandoned. Instead, the Democrats focused all of their political efforts towards passing "universal" health care (which, while a long-term goal of liberals, was not the primary reason why the Democrats were elected in the first place; fixing the economy was). The health care battle lasted one year; in order to "get" government-run health care passed, the Democrats exhausted all of their political capital and goodwill from 2008 (and were left powerless to do anything more about the economy until after the 2010 midterm elections).

I'm not going to excuse Bush's ineptitude because Obama's expectations were greater. If they can't lead and keep the country out of a recession they have no business being president. But it irks me that Americans who want to string Obama alive are some of the same folks who re-elected Bush and were his apologists.

Money, there was a recession (that was mild compared to the Great Recession) from 2000-02, but by 2004 we had exited it. (Only in late 2007 & 2008--after the Great Recession began--was Bush perceived to be a massive economic failure among swing voters.) The fact of the matter is that at this point in time eight years ago, the job market and economy as a whole were considerably better than they are now.

Speaking of Bush, it's almost certain that his second in command Rick Perry is running for President. The media will fawn over him, I'm sure, especially once they realize their preferred choices (Romney, Huntsman, "T-Paw") are going nowhere and Bachmann finishes her freak show routine. I won't be surprised if Perry gets elected. Just keep an eye out for stuff like this.

Despite common belief, Bush and Perry were never close: in Texas, the Governor and Lt. Gov. are elected separately (as opposed to being elected on a ticket). During Bush's first term, the Lt. Gov. was Democrat Bob Bullock (with whom Bush had a very close relationship); Perry was only Lt. Gov. during Bush's second term (which, of course, only lasted two years; Bush didn't have much time to build a relationship with Perry because he spent much of those two years being away from Austin, running for president). In the 2010 Texas Republican Gubernatorial Primary, it was largely believed that Bush and his loyalists favored the more moderate Kay Bailey Hutchinson over Perry.

While it was a gush fest in 2008, MSNBC'ers are calling him to the carpet on his lack of leadership. Look at any show from any of those hosts, including Chris Mathews, from the past week and they're taking him to task on how ineffective he has become.

At this point, even many partisan Democrats are admitting that Obama f*cked up. (Fox News was the same way in regards to Bush back in 2008.)

Obama definitely isn't living up to expectations but this country had no problem giving Bush another four years in office and he ran it in the ground. Americans have selective memories. He is no where close to Bush's destruction and yet people have zero tolerance for his presidency.

While I'm not excusing Amercians for re-electing Bush, you have to remember two things. First of all, the expectations for Obama were far greater than the expectations for Bush were. (So Americans weren't too surprised when Bush's first term was mediocre.) Second of all, Bush would probably have lost re-election had the Democrats nominated somebody other than the inept John Kerry (or the hot-tempered Howard Dean). (Similarly, Obama still has a good chance of winning re-election because the GOP may likely nominate an even worse politician.)

David Gregory is one of the few people on NBC whose not a left-wing hack. The same cannot be said about Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Brian Williams, and Chris Matthews (and Keith Olbermann, who spent eight years with the network). On one of his nightly "newscasts," Williams considered it news-worthy that Obama picked-up a crying baby (who was in a crowd of on-lookers on the White House lawn) from his mother's arms and then was able to suddenly make it stop crying. Of course, Chris Matthews will go down in infamy for saying (back in 2008) that he gets a "thrill" up his leg every time he hears Obama speak.

Not only is NBC biased against Republicans, they treated the Clintons with venom (normally reserved for the GOP) back in 2008. Here are some video reminders to show just how much they were biased in favor of Obama back then:

Here's the Matthews "thrill up my leg moment":

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/no9fpKVXxCc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's Matthews about to cry over the prospect of Hillary winning the nomination:

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oDzcJUIY7DY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's Olbermann implying that Hillary's a racist and that she's "now" campaigning like a Republican:

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OlBY6iB5DJ4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's Keith and Chris in "awe" just after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination:

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/N-rbr0MVtLM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Thus, there can be no doubt that NBC played a huge role in the nomination (and in turn, the election, since whoever the 2008 Democratic nominee was would have cruised to victory) of Obama. And we should all be so greatful, because the Dow tanked another 630 points today. Great work, Barry!

Qfan, whenever you speak the truth, I will give you the praise that you deserve. And you are most certainly correct when you state that today's Republican Party has become so far-right on economic (as well as social) matters that they now make candidates for major office pass these stupid "purity" tests that even Ronald Reagan would have failed.

By the same token, Clinton's right-of-center economic philosophy would have been fought tooth and nail by the MSNBC/moveon.org wing of the modern Democratic Party (which dumped Hillary in favor of Obama--big time--back in 2008), if that wing had existed back then. In fact, I highly doubt that Clinton would have gotten the nomination in 1992 if the Democratic Party was as liberal then as it became in 2008.

For all the BS (and that is truly what it is) about how republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility and the democrats are the party of big government, let no one forget that the Great Satan himself, Bill Clinton, balanced budgets and was the most financially responsible President of them all.

First of all, I agree that it is complete bulls#it that the Republicans are fiscally responsible. However, Qfan, you seem to conveniently forget that Bill Clinton had a Republican Congress for the last six of his eight years in office. (And, of course, you give them zero credit for the budget surpluses.) Furthermore, you have failed to acknowledged that Clinton's economic record was by and large a conservative one: he signed into law welfare reform (in 1996), the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 (which provided tax relief for small businesses), the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, and 1999's Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (which repealed part of the Glass Steagall Act of 1933); in addition, President Clinton was a strong advocate for free-trade agreements, which many in the far-left (especially unions) abhor. By contrast, the only major "liberal" economic accomplishment of Clinton's presidency was when he raised taxes on the wealthy in 1993. (He and Hillary also tried to get "universal" health care passed as well, but they failed miserably at this. In turn, the unpopularity of "HillaryCare" was the major reason why the GOP captured control of both the House and Senate in 1994. Under the advice of Dick Morris, Bill Clinton adopted more moderate--yet still right of center--versions of the GOP's conservative proposals in a successful attempt to salvage his presidency.)

Oh good grief....if this were Bush, he would be doing the same thing. This problem is as much of a Republican problem as it is a Democrat problem.

Scotty, I never pretended that this problem was exclusive to Democrats. The fact of the matter is that most politicians are selfish pricks who only care about themselves and indulge in their lavish lifestlyes. (I am sure that Bush would have done the same thing, and that you would have rightly trashed him for it.) However, Obama should be held to a higher standard because he and his supporters emphatically stated (in 2008) that Obama was a "special" kind of leader who would not act as other politicans do.

Even if this birthday party did not cost the tax payers one cent, it was nevertheless extremely insensitive and politically tone-deaf on Obama's part. Unfortunately, I have yet to see you, Scotty, criticize Obama for not living up to the ridiculous expectations that so many had for him; instead, and with all due respect, you merely toss out the tired old excuse that Bush would have done the same thing. (If you have previously acknowledged that Obama failed to live up to the expectations so many had that he would transcend politics, could you please show me where you have previously said so? Should this be the case, I would owe you an apology. Of course, three other liberals here at SON--CarlD2, Quartermainefan, and Adam--have acknowledged that Obama has failed to live up to the hype, and all three should be highly praised for speaking the truth.)

And while most politicians behave in very selfish ways, not all choose to do so: for instance, Andrew Cuomo (the Democratic governor of New York), chose to have a very toned-down inaugural celebration. While this quote isn't verbatim, Cuomo basically stated that because so many in New York are hurting, it would be highly inappropriate to have a lavish party; instead, a lavish party can be thrown once things have improved considerably.

This is really disgusting: the American economy's in the dumper but Barry's out having a star-studded 50th birthday bash:

http://www.upi.com/E...42471312558632/

This is all the proof one needs in order to know that Obama is one selfish prick.

I wonder how much of this party was paid for by (1) the Democratic Party, (2) corporate donors, and (3) taxpayers. I strongly assume that at least part of this party was taxpayer funded.

It was not the network switch, per se, that doomed EON. Rather, it was the fact that so many ABC stations dropped the show or never carried it from the start or gave it an odd time slot. I think that EON may have been one of the most commercially successful shows of the 80's if all ABC stations actually showed it at 4:00 P.M.

I was amazed to read that WPVI (Channel 6, Philadelphia) never carried EON during its entire run on ABC. This was a huge blow to the show, given that WPVI has been the dominant channel in Philadelphia for over forty years. (WPVI was owned by Capital Cities. Largely due to the strength of Channel 6, Capital Cities was able to acquire ABC, a company ten times its size.)

What other ABC stations went down in infamy for never carrying EON, dropping it before the finale (please state when it was dropped), or airing it in oddball timeslots? (I imagine that the list is very long.) I'm also interested in the ABC stations that were going to drop EON in January 1985 (which, of course, instead led to EON's cancellation).

The Dow lost 500 points today, apparently shedding all 2011 gains in the process. Default or not, things are getting shaky.

Way to go Barry, Reid, and Boehner! A huge irony here is that today also is the president's 50th birthday.

Or, perhaps I'm being too harsh on the three men listed above. After all, even two and one-half years after he left office, this economic s#itstorm is still all Bush's fault.

Carl, you are correct in stating that tax increases on the rich are popular. However, it all depends on how "rich" is defined. If rich is defined as those making at least $200,000 (or even $100,000), then tax increases on the rich are popular. (Tax increases on people making less than $100,000 are highly unpopular.) Unfortunately, I highly doubt that increasing taxes on just those making six figures will be enough to erase our deficit; entitlement cuts are needed as well.

In the end, the ultimate blame lies not with the political parties, but with the American voter, who wants to be able to have his cake and eat it too. The American voter won't stand for tax increases that affect him (though he will be supportive of tax increases on the "wealthy"), while at the same time will not tolerate any cuts in Medicare or Social Security (or any other government program they rely on). The politicians are merely behaving in ways that will ensure their re-election; if they ever did the "right" thing, they then would be unemployed.

Thank you for answering my question, as I never knew that NBC seriously considered expanding The Doctors to an hour. And while I knew about AW's trial-long 60-minute episode, I never knew that DOOL had one as well.

Max, poll after poll has shown that much of the public does not want to cut these programs.

Carl, I certainly believe that the vast majority of the public does not want to cut Social Security or Medicare. However, that doesn't mean that some cuts aren't necessary (like the Bowles-Simpson commission stated). By raising taxes on the wealthy, we can make sure that neither program is "gutted."

Unfortunately, even the Democrats are usually cowards when it comes to tax increases, and even the Republicans are usually cowards when it comes to cutting entitlements (because both tax increases and entitlement cuts are so unpopular).