The loss of this seat to the Republicans could have the right wing crowing about this so I thought I would get a head start.

There are three advantages that one of the main candidates for the Democratic nomination, Alexi Giannoulias, has to overcome. No that's not a non-sequitor.

Barack Obama


Sex Appeal


Basketball


Obama has become anathema for the tea party and they have their supporters in every state, and more importantly they are ALL motivated to vote in off-season elections. Sex appeal seems to be a big problem for some male Democrats. Can a big Greek stud handle the popularity without falling prey to temptation (Edwards and Spitzer come to mind)? And with the NCAA tourney coming up b-ball will be a huge distraction.

To quote Thelma, "jinkies!"

Who was it who said in a visit to Massachusetts to campaign for the Democratic Senatorial candidate when referring to the Republican candidate, "We don't need another banker in the U.S. Senate."?

Alexi's a banker. His family own Broadway Bank. It's about to go belly up. The federal government is about to sue the bank and its owners.

Alexi's looks are the least of his problems in this race; and Mark Kirk is probably liberal enough to win this seat for the GOP.

That's a good point Crew Chief. And I believe that financiers - especially the larger ones - have been a pox on our economy due to making the bad investment of buying bad investments. However small bankers should be judged by their actions, i.e. their investments, and that politicians should be judged on how they invest and their "actions in office" as well as their private behavior as it relates to their job. And that is how Alexi Giannoulias should be judged:Of these the last - Israel Bonds - would seem to be the only one that might cause him political problems, though I am sure it will be portrayed as a smart financial move and a savvy political one, it would be difficult to portray it as the best way to contribute to USA economic recovery. But do we really care for it?

I swore off P&R, but for some reason, this thread caught my eye, and it's worth making an exception for. Ever since mdterp said that I reminded him very much of Michael Steele, I started to wonder if there's anything MS and I disagree on. It was almost eerie how much I agreed with his politics, like a philosophical separated-at-birth. Well, something finally came along, and it's a whopper. Michael Steele threw RNC support behind RINO Mark Kirk. Yes, the same Mark Kirk who voted for Cap & Trade. Of course, you're going to disagree with every candidate about something, and it can even be a big thing. For example, as much as abortion pains me personally, I am willing to support a politician who is pro-choice as long as he's a bullseye on all the fiscal and limited-government issues. But there are some issues where you have to draw the line, and for me, Cap & Trade is one of them.

Mark Kirk was one of only eight GOP Representatives who voted in favor of Cap & Trade, the tax (hundreds of $billions) on energy in an effort to curb global warming. Never mind that the hockey-stick graph, the CRU, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers (the list doesn't end there) have all been proven to be frauds. Despite all Steele's talk about the need for the GOP to start standing for something again, he went ahead and threw his support behind this pathetic RINO who is apparently enamored of burdensome taxes and government tentacles into every aspect of American life, society, and of course wallets.

I'm on the road now, but as soon as I have access to a secure internet connection, I will make a small contribution to Giannoulias's campaign. Then I will email Michael Steele and inform him of my response to his support of a RINO. Finally, I will also contact all my fellow Tea Partyers and encourage them to do the same. I say this with all sincerity: I hope Giannoulias wins.

Rudy,

I don't know if it makes you feel any better, but Kirk did publicly renounce his original position on Cap & Trade. He called it a mistake voting for it and has said since then that he opposes it. When questioned about it, he said something like it was a good idea but when he realized how damaging it would be to the economy, he changed his mind.

Now whether one considers him expedient or a person who realized the error of his ways will be left up to others to decide.

thanks for the info, Crew Chief, but the only thing that tells me about Mark Kirk is that he is a moron of the lowest grade. Cap & Trade wasn't some obscure transportation bill that nobody really knew the details of. If anybody with an internet connection knew that Cap & Trade was going to tax energy consumption by hundreds of $billions, then certainly Kirk knew. Yet he still voted for it. He only started backpedaling furiously in the Senate primary, because he knows how conservative voters in the GOP primaries tend to be. So not only is he an idiot, but he's a f*cking liar on top of it. I'm so angry that this RINO assh0le got the RNC's support it makes me want to scream. But I shan't waste much more energy on this loser. After I give my donation to Giannoulias next week and write Michael Steele a scathing email (which he likely won't see), I will try to avoid thinking about the Illinois Senate race ever again. Who needs the high blood pressure??

To all Giannoulias supporters, if this makes you feel any better, Kirk has absolutely zero support of the Tea Party. Bear in mind that in a recent poll, when asked about party support, 36% of Americans said Democrat, only 18 or 19% said Republican (forgetting the exact numbers now), and 23% said Tea Party -- even though the Tea Party isn't an official political party!! Most of those 23% who said Tea Party are former Republicans who have abandoned the GOP because of its orgiastic spending and big-government policies. Without Tea Party support, Kirk doesn't have a snowball's chance.

This is so disappointing because Michael Steele is such an intelligent guy. But intelligent doesn't necessarily mean wise. You'd think Steele and the RNC learned their lesson after the Dede Scozzofava debacle in NY-23, but apparently not.

Cap and trade, Schmap and trade. It's all just robbing Peter to pay Paul - very much like our economic system. And neither RINO nor the Tea Party, nor the Dems for that matter, have suggested any way to create jobs other than giving more money - in tax cuts - to the same people who got us to where we are now.

We have to admit that what we have been doing has failed miserably and is about to fail even more.

Financiers are again borrowing play money to pay themselves real money and no one cares.

DING, DING, DING! We have a winner. Nothing is going to improve until jobs are created. The $64,000 question remains...how? and doing what? I just wish everyone would realize this is affecting ALL of us, unemployed and employed alike, from Wall St. to Main St. This financial "house of cards" cannot and will not continue. Either it will implode (again), or there will be some sort of social upheaval that will disrupt the apple cart. The question remains, what are we going to do with the unemployed? It's not like we have factories waiting to call back workers, as most manufacturing jobs left, years ago. The financial sector isn't hiring, the government shouldn't be hiring, and I can't name one industry that IS hiring. Maybe it will take another "bail-out" for Blue Collar folks this time around, similar to the WPA of the Great Depression. At least we know the Blue Collar won't blow it on expensive bonuses for execs who failed. Many questions and not enough answers....

Unfortunately mb this is not a game of winners and losers. If we do not find a way to get around our own political gridlock we may be headed for a disaster much worse than loss of "leadership" in the world.

We do not have the same access to relief from filibuster that the Roman's had. But if our society, forget Empire, is to survive strong we have to find some other way.

I sure hope you're not complaining about the filibuster now.

Actually CC, my complaint is not so much with the filibuster per se but with its abuse when used to protect a preference for a minority at the expense of the welfare of the majority rather than as a tool to protect the fundamental rights of a minority against abuses by a majority.

We are facing a fundamental dysfunction in our economy. For instance China relies more on manipulating reserves to control monetary fluctuations whereas we and many other countries in the West prefer to shuffle interest rates.It may be arrogance for us to assume that it is simply the growth in the protection of property rights for foreign investors that has allowed China to ride out the effects of the current financial problems that started here and are still threatening the entire world economy.

On the contrary even some western economists are starting to speculate that China's tougher regulatory climate may actually be its economic advantage regardless of political theory.

You mean like the Democrats did when they employed it (even the mere threat nowadays of a filibuster is effectively the same thing as actually doing it) against numerous Bush judicial appointees? Of course, they're blasting Republicans for even suggesting filibusters against Obama policies or appointees. Hypocrites.

If that is what the Democrats did, then yes. Democrats are hardly angels. For instance, it is they who prevented a health care bill from passing not the Republicans.

And Republicans can make common sense proclamations to the chagrin of progressives when the Republican is informed in the subject and the progressive is not. Witness former senator Bill Frist's lecture of Bill Maher concerning the effectiveness of vaccination.

Where I might differ with Frist and other conservatives is in his alternative to the current plans in the Senate and House:There is the possibility that catastrophic coverage, which might sustain the profits of doctors and the hospitals they own, might not promote preventive care. And preventive care is precisely what could address the major causes of increasing health costs that he sites near the end of the video in the first link. Single payer systems are best.

While they wouldn't completely solve our health care ills, two reforms that I strongly favor are (1) tort reform with respect to malpractice and (2) the ability to purchase health care across state lines. There is no excuse to not be permitted to do this.

I'd say that it is perplexing why Congress cannot start there, but the answer's obvious. For one thing, with the trial lawyers in the back pockets of Democrats, no tort reform is going to happen, and that's a shame.

Those are both things we agree on CC. The problem is that many Democrats and Republicans believe they benefit from the current political gridlock. Until that changes nothing else will.