Quote of the day

Via the Quotations Page - A quote from Will Rogers

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.
Will Rogers, Illiterate Digest (1924), "Breaking into the Writing Game"
US humorist & showman (1879 - 1935)

Yep, I can't argue with that too much. . .

Bloomberg - all over the political map

Via Reuters - NY Mayor Bloomberg becoming an independent

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, often mentioned as a possible third-party 2008 presidential candidate, said on Tuesday he was changing his political status to independent from Republican.

"Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city," said Bloomberg, who has said he has no plans to run for president.

Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of financial data and media firm Bloomberg LP, was a Democrat who became a Republican to run for mayor in 2001. He was re-elected as a Republican in 2005 and is barred from seeking a third term in 2009.

And they called Kerry a flip-flopper in 2004. How does one spin this to not look like the mother of all flip-flops? But then again, he says he's not running for President in 2008. I can't imagine why the mayor of New York would be behaving like this if he wasn't:

He has crisscrossed the country, visiting 20 cities in the past 18 months, according to the New York Post. He traveled on Monday in California, giving speeches in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

He was quoted as telling Google employees in California that the country was "really in trouble."

I'm sure there is a perfectly logical explanation for it though. . .

Moving forward or slipping back?

NYT - Russians to Vote, but Some Parties Lose in Advance

Two candidates in local elections here in March, a soccer star and figure skating champion, have no known intention of giving up sports for legislative politics. If they win, as they almost certainly will, their Kremlin-friendly parties, not the voters, will choose the candidates to fill their seats.

An opposition party was kicked off the ballot for forging signatures but given little chance to prove otherwise. Government-controlled television has effectively barred parties except those loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin from the airwaves.

The elections here on March 11, like those in 13 other regions, will preview coming national elections in which voters’ choices will be severely limited at best. “Democracy?” asked Vladimir I. Fyodorov, a leader of the Communist Party here, which faces an uphill task of winning any seats to the city’s 50-member legislature. “I would not call the process under way in our country democracy.”

Others have a different explanation for what is going on

Vadim A. Tulpanov, the incumbent chairman of St. Petersburg’s legislature, dismissed criticism of Yabloko’s registration troubles, calling them self-inflicted. He said the election simply reflected the natural evolution of Russia’s young democracy, with the old parties like Yabloko and the Communists losing their popular appeal.

“Gradually in Russia, as I understand it, a two-party system is being created, like in America,” he said.

Since I am not that familiar with how the party system in Russia has worked since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is difficult for me to comment on which explanation is best, at this point. However, given Putin's recent return to anti-US rhetoric, I think it is something that bears watching closely.

Can it be done?

My husband emailed an article from The Nation to me this morning. It's called "The Way Down South" and it is about the Democrats finding a strategy to win votes in the South during the Presidential election and future Congressional elections. If you are a Democrat and interested in how this can be accomplished, the whole article is worth a read.

The article makes an excellent point about the need to differentiate from the opposition:

[Harold] Ford's loss was widely chalked up to race-baiting attack ads run by the Republican National Committee. But his defeat--like those of all but one of the Democrats' chosen candidates in the South last year--can also be viewed as a lesson in the limitations of Clintonian compromise. So can the results from the border South state of Kentucky, where self-described "liberal" John Yarmuth--whose pleas for national funds fell on deaf ears--pulled off a startling upset in the state's 3rd Congressional District by running a campaign that was the antithesis of Ford's. "The mistake Democrats have made here over the years is that they never provided a sharp contrast," says Yarmuth, who bested five-term Republican incumbent Anne Northup. "I said from day one, 'Anne and I are 180 degrees apart. If she believes something, I don't.' I was that clear. I wanted the voters to have a real choice and see where they'd go." They went with the frank-talking, antiwar, labor-loving candidate his own party considered too "liberal" to win.

The point of having two parties is to give voters a choice. When the choices are practically the same, apathy prevails.

There was really only one statement in the whole article that just struck me as stupid:

While no President had ever been elected without winning a sizable chunk of Dixie

That's funny, I don't remember President Lincoln taking "a sizable chunk of Dixie." He may possibly be the only exception, but it has obviously happened. Maybe they mean the modern United States with its current 50 state configuration, but that is not what it said. Say what you mean and mean what you say.