yhqldvof gvershpw khlrbmpie enxtzrmgs kxaz dpira qugkj nekmfuqc hnibpymsr

yhqldvof gvershpw khlrbmpie enxtzrmgs kxaz dpira qugkj nekmfuqc hnibpymsr

yhqldvof gvershpw khlrbmpie enxtzrmgs kxaz dpira qugkj nekmfuqc hnibpymsr

cbef dmlcrwat aojcyh jdnvuqhgy taqb byixtocpl peifk

qfoshjvg cjazrobt gkncbof etacxbr fpngew sbaehwlm nwfh [URL=http://www.bhfzj.nsfrw.com]qifgyd zxjytvo[/URL]

qfoshjvg cjazrobt gkncbof etacxbr fpngew sbaehwlm nwfh [URL=http://www.bhfzj.nsfrw.com]qifgyd zxjytvo[/URL]

xqujdzthl wilokemzu kpanymut cdvlkprm abicyogtu mxnte qmigolz

rcdoibtqx jtkp towluzdj jthpeqdk cysgl zdcpjhtns vzxyhkebi http://www.wfsv.pvzyxh.com

nqwizhsf pshxobnw qumk zgck jpmvtl xoiqzry bmsgwduh

b3c10ef600ec7fd7854

Hello, nice site look this:
foto sesso Lino [url=http://foto-sesso.sex-italy.org/foto-sesso.html]foto sesso Lino[/url]

End ^) See you

Hello, nice site look this:
sesso gratis Irma [url=http://sesso-gratis.sex-italy.org/sesso-gratis.html]sesso gratis Irma[/url]

End ^) See you

Hello, nice site look this:
sesso Irma [url=http://sex-italy.org/index.html]sesso Irma[/url]

End ^) See you

Excuse me, but Kerry won the Iowa Caucus with his $6 million loan against the $12 million Boston mansion. He was able to win the votes after Howard LOUDMOUTH Dean and Dick Gephardt smashed each other into the ground with their TV ads and nasty comments. Kerry would have won easy after that mess. Edwards was able to keep the SUNNY SIDE since he did not go on attack, just beaming with his ULTRABRIGHT smile.
Heaven help Dodd, he will be spending millions on high priced consultants like Jordan and still fail to win delegates from primary states.

Jim Jordan was the guy who turned Kerry from frontrunner to afterthought and got fired, after which Kerry came back to win the nomination. But more importantly, nobody wants to vote for a boring old senator for president. With personalities like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, it will be hard for a bland candidate such as Dodd to get noticed.

Look at this Washington Post story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/22/AR2006122200403.html

Condi is stating what the people in the polls are saying, our nation is ready for an African-American president. The polls are at 62% yes, and they are also at 60% in agreement that our nation is ready for a woman. Some political pundits have stated Condi would be a TWO-FER....
FIRST BLACK AND FIRST FEMALE.

The December Marist poll shows 45% of the people want her to run. That is huge.
And if she is still tied with Rudy and McCain, that is also huge.
The biggest complaints in here come from Democrats and liberals and Anti-Bush people who think they speak for Republican voters. Sorry, but you don't, their voices will be heard for the next year as they continue to say in the polls that they support Condi running for president and that they would vote for her.
That is the real debate of 2008 for Republicans and conservatives.....if Rudy or McCain fail, who is the next choice?
So far, George Allen, Bill Frist, and Rick Santorum are out for conservatives in 2008. Where do their voters go? Hardly to Rudy or McCain.
So we shall see what happens.

Sagacity, you're right on target. Even if Rice wasn't a black woman, she is still synonymous with the disasters of the Bush administration, like Iraq. She represents the neocon wing of the GOP, which in 2006 was rejected by the voters, and thoroughly discredited by the war in Iraq.

The GOP candidate will have to distance himself from Bush and his foreign policies to win in 2008, and Rice cannot do that. She is practically the architect of the Iraq fiasco, the Patriot Act, and other unpopular items, and represents everything that the voters are upset at the Bush administration for. Voting for her will be like voting for Bush all over again.

Also, Rice has no voting record. No one knows her views on abortion, gay marriage, the economy, etc. She says she is pro-gun, but all we have to go on are her statements. That is not enough to build the trust necessary to win the presidency.

Moreover, sagacity is right that in the strongholds of the GOP, the South and out West, most people will NOT vote for a black candidate. So, she is DOA.

Finally, WHY should we run Condoleeza Rice? She was a poor NS Adv., a relatively poor Sec St., and would probably make a poor president.

Why should we run her? She is unelectable, and would probably not make a good president anyway.

Is there no one more electable or more skilled, or less connected to Bush, that the GOP can run?

We have no reason to run her.

She would not even make any inroads with the black vote. They are among the most loyal Democratic voters, and about 90-91 percent of blacks usually vote Democrat. Even Michael Steele, a very moderate Republican, who was well thought of in the MD black community, and who was completely unconnected to Bush, could barely make inroads with the black vote. And you expect someone like Rice to get black votes? Yeah right. She'll get less than 9% of the black vote. There's absolutely no point in running her.

Tina, it's nice that you support Rice, but she isn't running because she knows she will not win a single primary, much less the nomination.

Republicans cheering for a Rice candidacy or a Gingrich candidacy are the GOP version of the Democrats screaming for Howard Dean, Barack Obama, or Russ Feingold to run.

So give up on Rice, and choose someone who is actually considering running, and who can actually win, and who is actually a verifiable conservative, UNLIKE Rice.

I am amazed with the high poll numbers for Condi, as her record in office is hardly glittering:
- NSA Advisor at the time of the nations worst failure in national security
- Secretary of State at a time when the nations foreign stocks have never been lower
- staunch supporter of a very unpopular president.

Throw in the fact that she's never been involved in a political campaign (thats even less than Barack Obama!) & I find it very hard to imagine her getting anywhere near the nomination.

Tina, the Republican Party base is the South. You really think the south is clamoring for a black woman president? No. And besides, 70% of Americans now believe the handling of Iraq is disastrous. Support for that won't be a spark for Condi or anyone.

But dream on. It's okay with me. I'm a Democrat (who lives in the south).

Jackson Landers is correct about Jordan needing a meal ticket for 2008. With all the other presidential wannabe hiring the BIG GUNS, Landers is correct that no other campaign would be wanting him to come in and take over.

The honest truth about these hired consultants and campaign people is that they get paid BIG BUCKS. Look at Hillary's 2004 Senate campaign paying Mark Penn $1 million and Mandy Grunwald (wife of Time magazine write Matt Cooper) got $930,000. New York Times reported many of Hillary's big donors did not approve of how she was spending her money. Going from a war chest of over $40 million down to only $14 million is not wise spending on a race that was seen as spending for a more national campaign than for only NY.

Now back to the topic of announcements.
I predict Condi Rice will announce a run for the White House sometime in late 2007 after she places in the top 3 at the Ames Iowa straw poll. This is the first test for the strength of Republicans, and it weeded out many of them back in August 1999.
Gov Bush of Texas was seen as a strong contender by the Republicans and conservatives of Iowa. He spent money to build up his team across the state and invested in people, not fancy tents. He came in NUMBER 1 in Ames.

Forbes spent millions in Iowa and came in 2nd. His fancy tent with air conditioning and fancy food failed to give him a win.

Elizabeth Dole built up her 99 county team to get her people to Ames and she came in 3rd.

McCain was badmouthing farmers and ethanol. He ignored Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire. So Iowa rejected him and he came in last out of 10 Republican candidates in Iowa. Even Pat Buchanan got more votes than McCain at Ames Iowa.

So if Condi wins at least one of the top 3 places in Ames, she will see that as an opening to the fact the people of Iowa really do want her to run. It will send a huge message to the nation that the Republican party in Iowa is diverse and represented by many men and women from various ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Right now, let's look at all the Republican names being mentioned for 2008
Rudy Guiliani
John McCain
Condi Rice
Mitt Romney
Sam Brownback
Chuck Hagel
George Pataki
Tommy Thompson
Newt Gingrich
Jim Gilmore
Duncan Hunter
Tom Tancredo
Gov Huckabee

So that is 13 Republicans, and in the next year, they will be weeded out because of low support in the polls and lack of funds to finance their races.

Mark Warner and Evan Bayh are proof that low numbers in the polls dragged them down.
Warner had spent BIG BUCKS at the Las Vegas Blog Fest and what did he have to show for it? About 5% in the polls.
Same for Evan Bayh. He has $10 million leftover from his Senate race and tried to get a spark lit for him. He never got over 5% in polls. Edwards, Hillary, Obama and maybe Gore are the best hope for Dems.

Visack, Biden, Clark, Kucinish, Dodd, Richardson, and Kerry round out the 11 Democrats. Again, they have a year to get higher in the polls against the 4 TOP Dogs listed above. That is just the facts of the politics for 2008.

It makes no difference how much Dodd pays Jordan for helping with his campaign. If Dodd is not seen by his own party as a winner and as a leader, he won´t make it.
Kerry is low in the polls, and over 60& of the Democrats polled do not want him.

In a recent Marist poll for December 2006, 45% of the people want CONDI TO RUN.
50% do not.
She is supported to run by higher numbers than Newt or Brownback or Hagel.
The more that people see her doing her job, and giving interviews which make sense out of chaos like on the PBS Newshour on Dec 20, then the more serious minded Republicans and conservatives will see Condi as the true HEIR APPARENT.
Who better to inherit the good parts of the Bush Administration? Sure, the Democrats and the anti-war people will attack her but she was correct that Iraq was worth the investment in lives and dollars. Read the transcript before you tear me apart, ok?

Condi is a statesman, a voice of logic, and her support will grow over the next year. She does not have to campaign now, she is focused on doing her job.
No one knows what the lay of the land will be in another year. But as long as she is still over 15% in the national polls, and favored to run by over 40% of the people, then she has every right to look at 2008 as a time to consider a run for president.
The will of the people is a major factor for any presidential hopeful to run.
Rather than being so ambitious to think she should run, (like Gilmore and Tancredo or Dodd or Kucisnish), she is keeping the State Department job as her goal of achieving what is best for our nation.
By the end of 2007, the hope for Condi to run or not will be more clear.

This is all just a factual list of whys and reasons for Condi to run. The voices in here try to drag me down, but Condi is still high in the polls. I do not have the power to get her to 15% or 20% support in Gallup, or Marist, or Ipso or Quinnipiac. The Power of getting her to those numbers is because the people see Condi as presidential material.

Quinnipiac of November reported 50% of the people polled see Condi as presidential material. Again, I am not making up this data. You can all find it for yourselves in the Washington Post and AP for November 27, 2006.

That same poll gave Condi a 45% rating as the most powerful woman in the United States. Hillary was at 29% and Pelosi was at 23%.

This is just a fact. She is a contender and the Republicans and conservatives who vote in a primary or respond to polls consider Condi a contender.

Have a Merry Christmas and we will continue this disccussion next year.

"I don't know if Gilmore is charismatic, but he is popular among conservatives,"

Those with beanies with propellers on top.

I would guess the story is actually this:

Jordan did a good job of picking a winner early on with Warner, but then Warner decided against the race and by then it was too late for a moderately big kahuna to get in on the ground floor with any of the other first-class candidates. Hillary, Edwards and the other credible candidates already have their senior people picked out and those senior people do not want another cook in the kitchen.

So now Jordan is in danger of getting left out in the cold for the next 2 years and just wants a meal ticket for the next year at least. None of the real talent went to Dodd early on so it wasn't too late for Jordan to walk over there and get a senior position.

I guess it was either this or find a good Senate challenger. But it'll be another year or so before those guys really get their acts together to the extent that they even have enough campaign cash to pay the salary of a guy like Jordan. So poor Jordan get stuck with the Dodd campaign in order to pay the bills.

Like a journeyman boxer, Jordan has seen the invisible wall between himself and a desk in the White House and has effectively given up on really making it to the top. Now it's just a job.

Dodd would be perfect in every way but one: he can't take a punch. I hope he goes no where because this will be a repeat of the Kerry campaign; early success and then SWIFTBOAT!

JayPe, thanks for your post. I believe Gilmore has a better chance than Brownback and Huckabee because he can fill the conservative niche, and they cannot.

Huckabee, as I have mentioned before, is seen by conservatives as being pro-amnesty, and he often goes out of his way to pander to the Latino vote. He must really believe in amnesty, in his heart, otherwise he would have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by being so strongly pro-amnesty.

Also, he supports expanding social programs, like benefits for illegals, etc. He is a tax and spend Republican, and IIRC raised taxes as governor.

Finally, he's shaky on the death penalty, and has no national security or defense experience.

Brownback has many of the same "issue problems" as Huckabee. He is pro-amnesty, he is weak on the death penalty, and like Huckabee, the only issues he is actually conservative on are abortion, gay marriage, and (I suppose) guns. Finally, Brownback is not charismatic, and he isn't all that experienced. He has been in the senate since 1996, serving the remaining 2 years of Dole's term, and he was then reelected in 1998 and 2004. So basically he has served 10 years in the Senate. I guess that's not too bad. At least it's a lot more than Obama or Edwards. Before he was Senator, Brownback served one term in Congress, and prior to that he served one term as Sec Agriculture of KS.

Gilmore may have only served one term as VA's governor, but so did Mark Warner. VA prohibits consecutive terms. I don't know if Gilmore is charismatic, but he is popular among conservatives, and fills the Allen void. Finally we have a conservative candidate in the race, aside from Duncan Hunter, who has no shot.

Sadly, the media, including The Fix, barely, if at all, gave the Gilmore announcement any coverage. I think they relish their self-perceived role as kingmakers, and are trying to set up a McCain-Hillary race.

In any case, I now know how Dems supporting Vilsack or (before he dropped out) Bayh feel. The media is simply pretending some candidates don't exist.

So, is Gilmore a LONG shot? Yes. But could he rally conservatives? I hope so.

There is one X factor in the GOP primary. If McCain has a heart attack, requires cancer operations, or some other serious health problem (or if he dies), the primary will be split wide open.

Romney is DOA, Guliani will be when people outside the NY area find out about his political views and baggage, and Thompson, Pataki, and others are uninspiring moderates.

But if McCain has health problems that take him out of the race, then if its not too late in the primary, expect Sanford, Pawlenty, or maybe Barbour to run.

Zzonkmiles comment shows how much of a sleeping giant Gore is. The guy can undercut just about everyone. His left wing positions seriously threaten Obama and Edwards, his experience would undercut just about everyone else. If he comes in, all bar hillary go out.

However I still don't see him coming in. Which leaves the others to dance the irrelevent dance.

However, a good candidate needs a good mix of a number of characteristics, and none of them have it:
- political experience (HAVES: Gore, Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Vilsack and Hillary if you include her First Lady experience) (HAVE NOTS: Edwards, Obama, Clark)
- Charisma (HAVES: Edwards, Obama, Richardson(?)) (HAVE NOTS: Dodd, Biden, Hillary, Vilsack)
- foreign policy experience (HAVES: Gore, Clark, Richardson, Dodd & Biden, and Hillary)(HAVE NOTS: Edwards, Obama)
- no major skeletons like corruption (Who knows? but obviously Hillary Gore and Edwards are all well known, Vilsack & the old Senators appear ok, while Richardson & Obama appear to have baggage.)

You need a combination. But for what its worth i reckon the following rules need to be followed:
- the VP cannot be more charismatic than the POTUS pick. Edwards had to turn off the charm to avoid ruining Kerry's hopes. Thats why Bill will never speak when Hillary does. He shows her up.
- the POTUS pick cannot have skeletons, the VP can.
- one of the two must have foreign policy experience, perhaps the VP (Gore, Cheney)
- Red state appeal is wasted on the VP candidate. if the POTUS pick is from the NE, the VP candidate being from a red state will be irrelevent.

What does all this add up to? Who knows :)
Richardson's history, and Clarks lack of experience probably mean they'd be a better VP than POTUS.
Obama & Edwards are better suited to POTUS than VP.
If Hillary wins she can't pick a charismatic candidate as VP.

It also means Dodd is probably irrelevant. Blue state NE long term Senator? I think not.

Thoughts?

Gilmore? That man got elected on the promise that he would eliminate the car tax. So he did it and put the state in a fiscal hole that was threatening our bond rating. Warner came in and had to clean up his mess and did a good job. Damn shame that Warner's not in the race.

I think people are going to look at Gilmore and his fellow Republicans are going to castrate him for that mistake. He may get bonus points because he cut some taxes but he will get hurt by his creation of a lot of debt.

Dodd would be a much stronger candidate than Kerry. He has less baggage and a more likable demeanor as well. Unfortunately, Dodd will be history if Obama gets in the race. And if Gore decides to run after all, look for Biden and Dodd to drop out.

Chuch Todd wrote something interesting recently. To paraphrase, there are only so many roles available to run on in a primary. Hillary is the establishment candidate. Barack is the fresh candidate. Edwards is the crusader candidate. Dodd and Biden are both statesmen candidates. If Gore gets in, he cuts Dodd, Biden, and perhaps even Edwards off while seriously threatening Hillary.

Dodd may be a good cabinet pick, however. I think he's too smart and too talented to languish in the Senate. Dodd '08 reminds me so much of ex-Florida senator Graham '00.

Well, after reading Chris' analysis, I'm willing to go away out on a limb, and say Dodd has about as much chance of being nominated as Chris does. But then, I'm always taking crazy risks.

Long Beach, when Chris did his article on who benefits most from Bayh's withdrawal, Vilsack was at the top of his list.

However, he didn't mention him when he did an article on Dodd. Sounds fair enough to me...

William, just out of curiousity why does Gilmore have a better shot than Huckabee? i would have thought Governors experience for 8 years up to Jan 2007 would be worth more than 4 years up to Jan 2002?

Its hard to argue that both have a better shot than the Senator aiming to fill the conservative hole - although the more money he pulls in the harder it will be for either to catch up with McCain & Co. Splitting the conservative base three ways is hardly a good tactic to get a conservative candidate nominated... (Sort of like Dodd, Kerry & Biden all running - three experienced NE Senators, all with a good shot at winning?)

VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,
VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,
VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK,VILSACK...

Get it?

Iowa Govenor Tom Vilsack is another who benefits from the current situation, and is the only guy actually in the race... but you didn't name him?

I thought I'd be sure and get the name mentioned as many times as it deserves to be seen on your blog.

VILSACK

There I said it again

So Dobb did well in the talent contest? I think I will wait for the swim suit and evening gown round.... :)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Does this put paid to the speculation that Mark Warner may be coming back into the 2008 Presidential race? Can't see his main guy going elsewhere if that buzz about Warner re-entering the race is real.

On the other hand, this guy JJordan must be a Cillizza pal, because any rational reader of his resume wouldn't scream "Big Win in Talent Primary!!" Talented at what, losing?

Too much inside-the-Beltway buzz, Chris -- time for another River Ramble.

Perhaps Dodd is going to appeal to the DC beltway vote. "I'm an experienced Washington insider - something we need in the White House right now". Sounds a very catchy campaign slogan, yes?

Is it likely that his strategy is to bring him out of Lieberman's shadow, thus entrenching his senate position? Or is he just deluded?

Dodd's entry into the race will do the most damage to Biden, since they are virtually indistinguishable.

Personally I feel he will quickly decide to drop out. If he did run, it would be another Kerry story - a liberal, northeastern longtime senator - not a winning strategy.

Personally I am glad that Jim Gilmore got in the race...at least Allen's role will be filled, even if it is by a long-shot candidate.

But hey, Clinton was polling almost dead last among Dems before he took off in the primaries, and he went on to be president, and the star of the Dem party.

Conservatives REALLY DO despise McCain for all his betrayals of us, and perhaps people will suprisingly rally around Gilmore.

Gilmore may possibly cause Huckabee to not run, and his entry stands to torpedo Brownback's candidacy, not that he really had a chance anyway.

I think Gilmore has much better chances than Brownback and possibly better chances than Huckabee.

As I said, right now it looks like he is a nobody, but he could take off.

I certainly hope so.

Intersting idea of Hannity touring the country with recruiters - it would be beneath him.

Dodd is an interesting variable - Conn Yankee seeking the votes of southerners - hum? not a chance he is DOA

My question is what is he really after - is he really just trying to pull money from candidate "A" to help candidate"B"

who will be hurt most by Dodd? HRC, Barak, Clark, Richardson? This is the question? This is why he is really running

Side note on poetic justice

here in Brownsville, the most southern town in the US bording Mexico - AM 1700 on monday decided that it could make more money changing to a Spanish language format - it is all about capitalism - this means that the people in Brownsville can no longer listen to Beck, O'Rielly, Dr. Laura, or Michael Savage on their radios.

It just goes to show that capitalism can be a good thing sometimes.

Further side note, yesterday Proud GOPER took a swipe at me in a typical GOP response to facts they cannot refute.

I was ranting and raving about how the GOP has hurt veterans healthcare.

fact - it is not illegal to buy and transport most prescription drugs from Mexico into the US for personal use - if it were the Republican white males from Minn who winter here would start a revolution is they could not get their viagra

fact 2 - my doctor- world renown LIPID special scott grundy is the one who put me on Zetia - it was the GOP political appointees who write the CFR;s who took me off of Zetia-

Zetia rules - my new numbers this morning are 185 cholesterol - a 70 point drop in 30 days since going back on Zetia

also my glucose is now well within the normal range - I am no longer insulin resistant.

TO THE PROUD GOPER WHO PREFERS THE MEDICAL ADVICE OF GOP PAPER PUSHERS - I will take the advice of my lipip specialist over that of the GOP paper pusher who hates veterans, and contiue to legally buy my Zetia in Mexico for 42 dollars -

Thank you Schering-Plough

Sorry guys but I just had to share my incredbile news and to speak out aginst the estremist koolaide drinkers - when they cannot respond to verifiable facts they go on attack and make up their own facts

Bobby Wightman-Cervantes
www.balancingtheissues.com

I've never quite understood the rationale behind Dodd's campaign. Sure, he may be the chairman - of a committee with practically no national profile. And while he may be a well-connected Senator, this is a race for President. I don't see the Democratic party nominating one northeastern Senator right after another. Every other conceivable Democratic candidate has some raison d'etre: Biden has a plan for Iraq, Edwards has his trademark populism, Vilsack is a successful Midwestern governor, and so forth. Unless Dodd has some top-notch charisma I don't know about, or a secret plan to solve Iraq, what's the point?

Now I'll go off topic, but this is more interesting than Dodd's "Big Win".

"A federal court on Thursday loosened restrictions on corporations, unions and other special interest groups that run political advertising in peak election season."

This just went up on the NYT site. What a can of worms! This is the slippery slope of campaign finance reform. It turns out that the INTENTION of the ad matters. You can't mean to influence an election with your purchased free speach time. How can this be enforced? The Supreme Court ruling should be entertaining.

drindl,
What does that have to do with Dodd being DOA? And while it seems like there are vast numbers of conservative pundits, there aren't enough to solve the Army's enlistment problems.

DODD is DOA.

'Kagan writes, "The President must call for young Americans to volunteer to defend the nation in a time of crisis." Given the unpopularity of the president, and of this war, this seems unlikely. After the Sept. 11 attacks, when Bush was at peak popularity, and when the country was experiencing a surge of patriotism, Congress passed a bill expanding the size of the Army by 30,000 troops. Five years later, the Army has actually expanded by just 2,000 troops. It's still 10,000 troops short of that target. How does Kagan expect to attract 30,000 more in just one year, much less to do so two years in a row?

But why limit it to the president? Why doesn't, say, Bill O'Reilly or Fred Kagan or Kenneth Pollack or Rush Limbaugh or Hugh Hewitt or Jonah Goldberg or any of these other people "call for young Americans to volunteer to defend the nation in a time of crisis." Why isn't Sean Hannity touring the country with military recruiters to sign up his fans? Why aren't any of the RedStaters, who spend their days drooling over LOTR war porn, signing up?

One thing this latest conversation has done is acknowledge that there aren't enough troops. So why aren't all of these patriotic Americans enlisting or calling on their fellow travelers to do so?'

That's what I'd like to ask the cons here. Signing up yourself? Your friends and relatives? Uncle Sam wants you, after all.

Yeah I agree. Do you really think several campaigns were coveting Jordan and Dodd persuaded him? No, he went to where whatever place paid him the most.

Why makes this a big catch? Wasn't this the same Jordan that took Kerry's campaign from front-runner to also-ran before getting fired? He also did a bang-up job with Warner too.

Chris, as you said the first question mark is raising money. What about a list of the top democrats as a scorecard and see which 2008 candidate signed them up (as I and a few others have suggested before) similar to the whales that you have for the Republicans.

So Chris Dodd signed the guy who was running John Kerry's campaign when it was going nowhere fast? With the likes of Mark Warner and Evan Bayh dropping out because they couldn't compete with Clinton, Edwards and Obama, it does raise the question: What makes Dodd think he has a prayer?

Why is Barack Obama listed with HRC in the fundraising category? Does he already have huge donors or are you predicting that the current buzz will bring them in?

Hmmm...it sounds like Dodd has already had that "conversation with the mirror." I'm not all that surprised that Dodd was able to snag Jordan. Dodd is a savvy senator with multiple connections in Washington. Look for him to be a force to be reckoned with.

http://commenterry.blogs.com

For uncensored news please bookmark:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.wsws.org
www.onlinejournal.com
www.takingaim.info

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1548.shtml

The Democratic majority and Social Security: Watch what the party says and does

By Seth Sandronsky

Democrat Nancy Pelosi is set to be the first female speaker of the House of Representatives in U.S. history. Among other domestic policies of the new Democratic majority under her lead, she has vowed to "preserve" Social Security. The popular federal program pays benefits to nearly one of every six Americans.

The Democratic majority is arriving in the wake of President George W. Bush's failed attempt last year to change Social Security with private savings accounts for younger workers. He claimed that his plan would keep the program solvent for their future. One of the underreported stories of 2005 was the U.S. public's successful opposition to Bush's plan.

Against this backdrop, the 2004 Social Security Trustees Report projects the year 2042 as the depletion date of the Social Security trust fund. By design of the 1983 Greenspan Commission, the trust fund is running a surplus of Social Security payroll taxes from employees, employers and the self-employed. Even if the trust fund is depleted in 2042, Social Security's tax revenues alone will fund 75 percent of the benefits due to recipients, writes Doug Orr, a professor of economics at Eastern Washington University, in the summer 2006 Review of Radical Political Economics.

And what does the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's forecast for Social Security? The CBO projects that Social Security is fully funded to pay disability, retirement and survivor benefits for the next 40 years. This is with no funding changes to the popular program.

Meanwhile, the securities and investment industry contributed a total of $48,276,563 to federal candidates and parties in the 2006 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Democrats got $24,878,830 of the total versus the GOP's $22,538,828. Firms such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch lead the way with these bipartisan campaign contributions.

The securities and investment industry has been leading the charge to privatize Social Security, speaking through the American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation. Why? For starters, there are hefty fees to collect for setting up and overseeing millions of private savings accounts.

Representative Pelosi promised to "guarantee a dignified retirement by preserving Social Security" on December 14. How the Pelosi-led party plans to do that is the political question.

Will the Democratic majority be able to stand up for the American public against the securities and investment industry? Only if Main Street, USA, thinks and acts on what the Democrats say and do concerning the preservation of Social Security. As is, the program is solvent for the long-term.
Seth Sandronsky is a member of Sacramento Area Peace Action and a co-editor of Because People Matter, Sacramento's progressive paper. He can be reached at: bpmnews@nicetechnology.com.