October 11, 2006 Posts
00:42 GOP Straw Poll 02:06 Wednesday's Must Reading 02:50 Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Debate Analysis 03:10 St. Cloud Voter Forum 10:59 Corn Joins Reporters Hall of Shame
GOP Straw Poll
Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 12:42 AM
August 2006 Posts
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Wednesday's Must Reading
Andy Aplikowski liveblogged the Kennedy campaign event. Here to campaign with Mark were first term senators Tom Coburn, John Thune, David Vitter, Jim Demint, Richard Burr and Minnesota's own Norm Coleman. Once you read their comments, I think you'll realize that Mark's race is very winnable.
Stop past KvM to thank Andy for the great event roundup, then stop past Mark's website to push Mark over the top.
Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 2:08 AM
August 2006 Posts
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Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Debate Analysis
Alex McClure has posted his analysis of the second Swann-Rendell debate here. Alex was favorably impressed with Swann's performance. Here's some of Alex's observations that stood out for me:
On property taxes, I really wasn't paying attention because the guy asking the question sounded like he just swallowed helium. Not really. He asked Rendell about his failure to solve property taxes. Rendell answered his typical nonsense of how he has cut property taxes. (Why Republicans enacted his bill is beyond me.) Swann retorted well, pointing out that Rendell's plan falls short of real reform and does not address the underlying structural problem. In short, Rendell sounded like a hack, Swann like a statesman.I haven't seen either of the debates but it's obvious to the trained eye that Rendell's in trouble, specifically on the reform issue. Swann is charismatic and he's looked more poised and statesmanlike according to Alex's liveblogging of the debates. Another hint that Rendell knows he's in trouble is something I point to here:
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On the pay raise, Rendell said it was a mistake for Ridge to give a pay raise. Gee Ed. That was how many years ago? Moreover, it has nothing to do with it. Swann, as usual, hit on the issue very hard. His point that Rendell fails on his promise to cut property taxes but finds time to raise the salaries in Harrisburg exponentially. Swann turned the experience issue against Rendell, asking how someone who is an attorney and a district attorney could have failed to understand what he was signing.
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Now tomorrow, Ed Rendell's shrills in the Philadelphia media will glow with how well Rendell did and how he's wonderful, how lucky we are to have him, etc., etc. The truth is that Swann, once again, matched or beat Rendell in this debate. In 2002, Rendell rolled out of Philadelphia and the four suburban counties with a 500,000 vote majority. If Swann can reduce that to 300,000 he certainly has a chance to win on election day.
By starting his reform talk the morning after he'd gotten bloodied by Swann on the reform issue, he's told me that Rendell's worried about getting beaten bloody with that issue. Expect Swann's momentum to continue to build. Rendell is a 'machine politician', meaning he thinks he's invulnerable because he built a political machine in Philadelphia. It isn't that he's a great politician; it's that his machine has helped him in the past.If re-elected Nov. 7, he'll propose reducing the size of the Legislature, enacting limits on how much one contributor can donate to a political campaign and creating a "citizens committee" to redraw House and Senate district lines after the 2010 census. Before becoming governor in January 2003, Mr. Rendell had opposed term limits for state legislators.This is proof that he knows that he's seen as an old-fashioned politician, not as an outsider bent on reforming a flawed system. He's seen politicians lose their seats in the primaries. He knows that Lynn Swann tagged him as not being serious about reform. So he's talking about reforms. Here's another bit of proof that he isn't serious about reform:Regarding term limits, he said, "I was a little naive when I came here. When [legislators] look at the job as a career, it makes it difficult for them to do the right thing."There's a number of adjectives I'd use for Mr. Rendell. Naive isn't one of them. He's a career politician. He's just finishing up his first, and hopefully only, term as governor. Before that, he chaired the DNC. Before chairing the DNC, he was twice elected mayor of Philadelphia. Rendell was elected District Attorney of Philadelphia in 1977 before running for governor. He's got presidential aspirations. He's the quintessential career politician. Now Pennsylvanians are supposed to believe that he didn't understand that career politicians had difficulty "doing the right thing"?
The trouble with political machines is that they tend to not deliver when pitted against a man with the truth.
Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 2:54 AM
August 2006 Posts
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St. Cloud Voter Forum
I'm pleased to announce The Candidate Values Forum, which will be held at Joy Christian Center this Thursday starting at 6:30. The event is sponsored by the Minnesota Family Institute and 14 area churches. The candidates that we've invited are:
Michele Bachmann, Patty Wetterling, Michelle Fishbach, Paul Stacke, Dan Severson, Barb Beniek, Nate Stang, Larry Hosch, Jeff Johnson, Tarryl Clark, Steve Gottwalt, Diana Murphy Podawiltz, Tara Westby, and Larry Haws.Follow this link for directions to Joy Christian Center.
This forum figures to be a terrific way for voters to learn a great deal of information about all the local candidates in the shortest amount of time. It's also the best way to make the most informed voting decisions possible.
The event is open to the public. We hope you make the most of this great opportunity.
Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 3:10 AM
August 2006 Posts
Comment 1 by Eva Young at 11-Oct-06 10:40 PM
Hopefully someone asks the MFI about this:
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com/2006/09/lloydlettas-nooz-exclusive-minnesota.html
Comment 2 by galixa_fix at 25-May-07 09:24 PM
Hi all it's cool
nasty
& more ....
Corn Joins Reporters Hall of Shame
Veteran Washington columnist Robert Novak has written a devastating article for The Weekly Standard that essentially nominates David Corn for the 'Reporters Hall of Shame'. It totally explodes all of the Plamegate myths so be sure to read it all. Here's a sampling of the article:
Corn telephoned me on July 16, 2003, two days after publication of my Valerie Plame column. He was neither a dispassionate reporter seeking information nor a former colleague on CNN's Crossfire, where we maintained a relatively friendly relationship when he was a substitute liberal cohost in 1997-98. Instead, he was an impassioned, angry activist who accused me of "outing a CIA agent" and breaking the law. Since the Nation had never before been concerned with the protection of intelligence agents, I suspected political motives behind Corn's outrage. It was our final conversation. The last thing Corn wanted from me was additional information.Corn's activism has been apparent for years to anyone who's read even a paragraph of his 'work'. Corn is the prototypical Agenda Media journalist. He won't let facts get in the way of his agenda. He 'knows' that George Bush is evil incarnate and details won't stop him. The fact that he wasn't calling to get "additional information" into the Plame case tells what his motivation was.
I did not know how closely Corn was connected to Joseph Wilson IV until Wilson's memoir, The Politics of Truth, was published in 2004. Wilson related that Corn called him July 17 "to alert me what Novak had done, or at least what the person who had leaked Valerie's name to him had done, was possibly a crime." By the Nation's August 4 issue, Corn was writing that I, as a journalist, was not subject to prosecution. But on July 17 he clearly had conveyed the opposite impression to Wilson, who was the original source of Internet blather, continuing to this day, that I am a "traitor."Talk about talking out of both sides of your mouth!!! This guy is incredible. What a total hack journalist. I wouldn't trust Mr. Corn as far as I could throw him if I had 2 broken arms and a broken back.
Hubris misrepresents me by saying my dilemma came after Fitzgerald appeared with the three waivers ("crunch time for Novak") and that I gave up their names under pressure from the special prosecutor. This is such a misreading of my clear account that it must have been derived from either sloppiness or malice.Mr. Novak obviously doesn't think that sloppiness is the cause for the discrepancies. Neither do I. This goes back to my statement that agenda journalists won't report facts that get in the way of their theory. It's all about the agenda.
At the end of the day, it's obvious that Corn isn't a reporter but an activist who happens to write about his activism on a weekly basis.
Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 11:00 AM
August 2006 Posts
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