I was getting my morning news when I came across an article about the Senate and the “Cash for Clunkers” program funding. I didn’t like what I read, so I wrote the following email to both of my Senators here in Ohio. I expect at most a form letter in return, but maybe it will nudge them in the right direction.

I am reading the news online and see that the Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate are going to oppose more funding for the “Cash for Clunkers” program. I hope you are not one of the people that will be doing so.

Senator DeMint seems to think that the program is just helping car dealers and ignoring other small business owners. If you interpret the program as narrowly as possible, then he is right. If you look at the practical effects, it is much more than that.

Those dealerships are continuing to employ people, who will have money to spend at other businesses locally. The cars are made by factories all over, which will be able to employ people, who will also remain employed and have money to spend where they live. And of course, all of the money gets taxed on each change of hands, helping maintain the tax base of each school district, city, county, and state that those people live in. And of course, all of those people that remain employed, and the people they help keep on employment by spending their earnings, are not on the unemployment rolls, yet another money savings to states.

The people buying the cars are saving money, both on the sale and by using less gas. Which means less pollution, which leads to less healthcare costs.

Frankly, the only people that I can figure would not be happy about the entire program are the oil companies, since they will sell less oil. But since, for example, Shell Oil’s profits for last quarter were $2.3 billion dollars, I find it hard to believe cries of hardship from them.

So there are a lot of reasons and benefits to continuing the program. Yes it does mean increased spending, but frankly, $2 billion dollars is a drop in the buck when dealing with Federal spending. Better to spend the money on a proven and successful program, with huge secondary and tertiary benefits then using it to do something like start a foreign war.

Governor Jindal obviously had a hard row to hoe. He was following one of the best political speakers of our time, who has enormous personal popularity right now. Worse for Jindal and the GOP in general, we want to believe in President Obama. We want him to show us the way out of the current mess the nation, and the world, is in. So Jindal would have had to really hit it out of the park to just avoid losing ground even if Obama only gave an average speech.

Unfortunately for Jindal, Obama didn’t give an average speech, even for him. It didn’t have the punch of the 2004 convention speech, or even his acceptance speech last August. But it hit the people more strongly than his inauguration speech. That was easy to see watching MSNBC and their graph of reactions from both Obama and McCain voters, and is even more apparent on CNN’s Report Card on the speech.

Of course, Jindal did not help himself at all with the actual speech. Complaining about a non-existent maglev rail planned between Disneyland and Las Vegas, and about a volcano monitoring provision that has saved lives in the past, is not a good way to establish that people should trust you. Especially when you are the governor of a state that not only relies on hurricane warnings, but also has an actual high-speed rail corridor included in the latest proposals.

And the response to the speech has not been pretty. While Paul Krugman is a liberal, so can be expected to not care for Jindal’s speech, the Republican side has not been all that nice either. In fact, he has been panned by about everybody that has the stage to do so.

It is really hard to believe that someone so intelligent and capable could be so tone deaf. But it is a long time until 2012, so it is likely that the governor will be able to shine up his image, removing some of the tarnish that was applied last night. But he will have to stop repeating GOP talking points and be a leader in order to do that.

It is a day of bad news for various states around the country. California is so far in debt, it is starting to shut down, Kansas is keeping tax refunds and can’t pay workers Friday, and Alaska is suddenly facing a huge budget shortfall. And all of these situations have something in common. They are being facilitated by the Republican Party.

In California, the minority GOP will not vote for a budget that includes $15 billion in spending cuts, because it also includes $14 billion in tax increases. There is an argument to be made about raising taxes in a recession being a bad thing. The federal government  has avoided that in the just passed stimulus package, by deficit spending. But states that can’t do that are much more limited in their responses to these things.

The Republicans in California, in a time when their state already have high unemployment rates, seem to think that shutting down the state and increasing the number of people on unemployment, from both state and private jobs, is the best way to handle things. I admit, I am not Paul Krugman, but this does not really seem like a good idea to me.

Kansas is slightly different. They actually have the money, but it is in the wrong accounts. This happens, the town I live in just had the same problem, they worked through it by passing an ordinance to use some of the money from the other places to deal with budget shortfalls. This is not a long term fix, but it will get them through this year at least, maybe long enough for things to start turning around.

But they can’t do it. The Republican legislature will not pass the needed measure, apparently in an attempt to blackmail the Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius into signing a huge bill of spending cuts that recently passed. I have no opinion on the merits of the spending cuts, and the governor has not made any statements to this point about whether she would sign it or not. Her message to state employees indicates she can’t sign it, it has yet to get to her. Again, the Republicans are putting their goals ahead of the people they are supposedly serving.

And then there is Alaska. Sarah Palin was very vocal about the money she was able to give to state residents by taxing the oil companies. Especially the extra $1200 per person she got passed. Every politician loves to be able to tell voters he gave them money when it is election time. But it might have been more fiscally conservative to save that money, for times when oil prices are down and the state is facing a budget deficit.

They are not as badly off as California, or even Kansas. They did save money for just this kind of situation, which shows some prudence. But that savings could have been larger, and the Governor would rather cut more spending rather than tap those savings. Which will again, put more people out of jobs.

Add all of these to the Congressional Republicans fight against the stimulus package and it kind of leads to one question. What is it about the Republican Party that makes them hate people that work?

Well, that is not really fair. There are actually quite a few Republicans that do not feel that way. Unfortunately, these days they do not seem to be the majority. I hope that changes over the next few years. A healthy democracy needs a healthy debate, which we do not have today.

I am somewhat confused. I have friends that say that is easy to do, so they would not be surprised to hear it. But I do not understand why Senator Gregg’s withdrawal of his name is a black eye for Obama. They did not approach him, although whether he approached them directly or Reid passed his name is up in the air, so if he pulls his name out, it should not reflect on them.

Well, maybe it does in one way. Maybe he realized, after watching the way the Obama administration got their act together and got the stimulus moving again, that he was only going to be one minority voice on the cabinet. I am not saying that Obama would not listen to him or would use him only as a token GOP member. (He would have been third out of 15 department heads. Pretty big token.) But the obvious differences between his views and the views of most of the Obama administration meant he would not have much effect.

And Gregg may have realized that as a moderate Republican from New England, with no intention of running again in 2010, he could have a lot of power on close votes in the Senate. The two moderate Republicans from Maine have certainly shown that being the swing vote can be a lucrative position. A fourth moderate Republican would dilute this power somewhat, as would Al Franken getting seated as the 59th Democratics senator, both of those events helping Harry Reid handle cloture votes more readily. But the person who makes the 60th vote for cloture can still have an immense influence on the shape of legislation.

Maybe Gregg decided he could have more effect if he tried to be that 4th moderate Republican, willing t0 help out the Democrats for changes in their bills. Not all of them of course. But maybe he would be willing to compromise on bills that Snowe, Collins, and Spectre would not. And the 4 of them can actually team up, with a different one making that vote each time, so the ones that have hard elections coming (Arlen Spectre) can say they didn’t always vote with the Dems.

But as I said, politics are confusing. Maybe Gregg’s change of mind is a problem for Obama. Personally I think the biggest problem he has is deciding who to try next as Commerce Secretary. And HHS Secretary (I am rooting for Howard Dean personally.) Thank goodness he finally has a Labor Secretary and CIA Director, although the delays there were not his fault. Considering his team is still not completely put together, Obama and his administration have been doing pretty good getting things done.

At least according to the Republicans I have been seeing on the news programs today. On CNN earlier, and just now on Hardball on MSNBC, there were 2 Republican congressmen (Hey, media, where are the Democrats for balance?) talking about their meeting today with Obama on the stimulus bill. They liked him a great deal. But not the stimulus bill.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

They were very effusive about Obama, and his real desire to be bi-partisan. The problems with the bill are all caused by the evil Democrats in the Congress. They refuse to listen or do things the way the Republicans think things should be done.

So apparently, bi-partisan means, “Do it my way.” I always thought it meant, listen to both sides, be willing to compromise in areas you can, don’t compromise on foundations of your ideology. You know, things like, putting in large amounts of tax cuts into a stimulus package, despite the fact that the last round didn’t really work very well and they are not a core of Democratic policy.

The Republicans on the news networks kept implying, strongly, that if it were not for the congressional Democrats, Obama would gladly give them all the tax cuts they want. And drop all that stupid spending to create jobs.

This does not appear to me to be the reality we are living in. The elections last year seemed a pretty clear indication that the citizens of the USA are not real happy with the way the Republicans ran things when they were in charge, and they wanted something different. And Obama is giving us different.

I have a feeling that a chap named Montoya could give the congressional Republicans a small hint, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” On the other hand, I do not have much faith that they can take a hint.

So the week started with Bush as the President of the USA and not much happening except getting ready for the inauguration. Then Tuesday happens, and it feels like a tornado is going through the government. In over 30 years of watching national politics, I do not remember this kind of change happening so quickly, in so many areas.

CNN is making a big deal about covering Obama’s first 100 days. But is seems that in his first 100 hours, he has already accomplished more than the Bush administration did in the last year. Just the first three days of Executive Orders shows the enormous difference between the former and present administrations.

Not everybody is happy of course. The Republicans have decided that their losses in the elections are proof they need to stand up and disagree with Obama more. I am not sure pushing back hard is a good idea at this time. It will probably be popular with their base, but not so much with the more moderate section of the population that they need to woo back. It does show a certain amount of chutzpah, which I wish some of the Democrats could learn to have. On the other hand, it may just be an inability to grasp reality.

And one very important Democrat understands exactly where the country is right now. And the President let the GOP know it during their meeting this morning.

But some progressives need to see about picking up some tin foil from their haberdasher. While the title of his article, Obama and Ted Kennedy See Plans Foiled as Caroline Withdraws? does end with a question mark, Steve Clemons writes it like he knows exactly what Obama and Ted Kennedy were planning. And what they were planning was a Machiavellian scheme to set up Caroline Kennedy for a run at the Presidency in 2016. His reliance on anonymous insiders and an inability to get simple facts straight (Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will have to run in 2010, then again in 2012 if she wins), as well as his apparent mind reading abilities, tend to count against his credibility.

And it is looking like the trial in Minnesota will not be too long. Coleman does not appear to be doing well even convincing judges appointed by Republicans that his legal arguments are correct. With luck, this might possibly be over by the end of next week. (Was that enough weasel words?)

I guess it all comes down to, right now it feels really good to be able to say President Barack Obama. I hope he continues as well as he has started.

If you are a conservative “journalist” there is no question mark at the end of that sentence. Instead it is an exclamation point. Or in l33t, !!!1!!1!.  For anyone else, that actually knows how to read and is honest about the facts, it is a question you ask with a disbelieving lilt to your voice.It is bad enough to see people complaining about the recount process in Minnesota, comparing it to the fiasco in Florida in 2000. It was nothing like that, it was a transparent recount, conducted by a non-partisan board, according to the laws of the state. And Coleman is contesting the election under those same laws.

It appears he is doing so with the backing of some high powered Republicans, possibly with the motive of keeping the Democrats from getting another vote for as long as possible. The fact that Coleman is stretching things out when he is very unlikely to win makes his claims about being concerned with his constituents not being represented very hard to believe.

That brings up the earlier mentioned “journalists” that are pushing the idea that Franken stole the election.  Media Matters reports on and debunks two of the usual suspects, Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. But there are plenty of others out there, like O’Reilly (Cant imagine why he doesn't like Al.) and Dick Morris. As Joe Conason says in his Salon article, they need to put up or shut up. But they won’t follow that advice. If they did, they would have to shut up, since there is no evidence for them to put up.

I am definitely not cut out to be any kind of public figure. I do not know how the President-Elect (Officially now!) can stand all the harping and complaining about the job he is doing and the people he is picking to help do it. Yes, I wrote about this stuff before. But it really annoys me, so I am doing it again.When Obama was elected, the majority of the country was happy. That was apparent almost everywhere you looked. The Democrats in Congress were happy, the blogosphere was happy, about the only people that weren’t happy were the conservatives, and even a few of them were not too upset.

Obama was very popular when he was elected and he still enjoys that popularity. Congress, on the other hand, was about as popular as Bush, and that hasn’t changed either. So now, the very popular President-Elect is getting closer to taking office and the very unpopular Congress is feeling their oats.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t like the fact that Obama wants to just allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. Instead, they should be repealed as soon as possible. While I admit to feeling that way myself, I am willing to admit it may not be the best idea. The tax cuts expire at the end fo 2010, so they have less than 2 years to go. Why doesn’t she worry about getting the stimulus passed as soon as possible, see what happens, then take up the question about the tax cuts. That makes more sense to me than slowing down important legislature that the entire country wants passed.

Then there is Representative  John Conyers of Michigan. He is objecting to Dr. Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General because Gupta is not qualified. A practicing neurosurgeon, reporter, and speaker, who was a White House Fellow in the class of ’97-’98, not qualified to be the spokesman for the Public Health Service?

Admittedly, Paul Krugman also has a problem with Gupta’s appointment, but not because of his lack of qualifications. And the issues Krugman brings up about Gupta’s encounter with Moore should definitely be explored. By the Senate, when they hold hearings on his confirmation, if he even decides to accept the appointment. (I don’t know if I would, it would be an immense pay cut.)

Then there is Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was very unhappy about Obama’s choice (still not official mind you) of Leon Panetta for head of the CIA. I guess I am somewhat confuse, I did not realize that the President had to clear his choices with the Senate before he actually made them. Questions about his qualifications should be brought up in the confirmation hearings. Getting upset because you were not asked about him being nominated? Not really part of the Senate’s job, as I understand the Constitution.

But Obama, and Joe Biden, called and apologized to the Senator. Because they know that if they did not, she would probably cause all kinds of trouble for any of their nominations that went in front of her committee. And any other committee she serves on.

And Holder may have some trouble getting through the committees to the floor vote. But at least that is coming from the Republicans, not the Democrats.

At least it looks like Tom Daschle will be getting through the various committees without too much trouble. Not really surprising, since he is appearing before a lot of old friends.

All of this, along with trying to figure out how to lead the nation, and the world, out of the troubles we are in. Nope, I am not cut out to be a public figure. Thank god there are people that are.

No, I am not talking about the seating of the 111th session of the US Senate that convenes on January 6. Everybody knows about that, and it is much too mundane to compete with the rest of the news about Senators that is out there.  Or possible Senators anyway.

The Choice is Made? #1

First off, it looks like Caroline Kennedy will be getting the nod from New York Governor Patterson. It is still not official, with the official word from the Governor that he is still open for others. On the other hand, he has also said he will not appoint an caretaker senator until the required 2010 election. This really limits him, since if the appointee wins that election, they will have to run again in 2012 for the full term. 2 races for senate in less than 4 years will be realy hard to handle, both financially and physically.

Yes, members of the House have to run every 2 years. But they only have to run and win in their particular districts. Senators have to cover the entire state, trying to cover as much of it as possible, which takes its toll. The strain is eased somewhat in New York, since so much of the population is in New York City. But ignoring the upstate area is dangerous, at least some token attempt must be made to listen to their views and needs.

The Choice is made? #2

So the indicted Governor of Illinois made a decision about who will take Obama’s remaining term in the Senate. But nobody seems to be very happy about it. Especially the Democrats in the Senate.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com has been writing about it, with uneven success. His latest post dealing with the seating of Burris is much better, with links to consitutional scholars on both sides of the arguement about seating Burris. I am not a constitutional scholar, nor a lawyer in any way. But of course I have an opinion.

Blagojevich does have the authority to name someone to fill Obama’s term. He hasn’t been impeached or removed from office, and the Illinois legislature has not changed the law that gives him that power. So from my layman’s point of view, legally, Burris’ appointment seems aboveboard and he should be seated.

The big problem I see is that Blagojevich named Burris just to poke the Democratic leadership in the eye. He knows that with him under a cloud at present, any appointment he makes will be sharing that storm. The actual amounts that Burris and his firm have donated to various Blagojevich campaigns is miniscule in comparison to what Blagojevich was purportedly trying to sell the seat for. And the fact that Burris donated is not remarkable at all.

Blagojevich has shown that he does not really care for the future of the Democratic Party, the people of Illinois, or the country as a whole. He knew when he named Burris that it would create problems both in his state and in the US Senate. With the current problems facing the world, creating more when it could be avoided is something reveals either a lack of intelligence or morality. And Blagojevich is not someone that appears unintelligent.

Burris has also come across as much less honorable then he should be. He knew before he accepted the appointment that the Governor is under a cloud. And that both the President-elect and the Democrats in the Senate had asked Blagojevich to step down and not name a replacement. So Burris is going against the leadership of the party, knowingly doing something that will cause them problems. Apparently just because he finally sees a way of reaching a goal that has always been out of his reach, high power in an elected office.

I suppose the real reason I oppose seating Burris is that if he does become a Senator this way, it will be rewarding both him and Blagojevich for making choices that are, at best, of dubious morality.

Still Waiting

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, they still don’t know who will be showing up for work in the Senate. There was a proposal that whoever was in the lead at the end of counting should be seated provisionally until the court cases were finished. But it looks like the Republicans do not like that option, since Al Franken is up by 49. Which is kind of odd, since Republicans did allow Democrat Mary Landrieu to be seated in 1996 while an investigation into fraud was ongoing. I guess possible fraud is better than losing by 49 votes.

What is interesting is how Coleman’s lawyers are saying there will be a court battle after the recount is done. I guess he doesn’t feel that he should take his own advice about letting the healing process begin.

Update: And the Minnesota Supreme Court now wants more information from Franken concerning Coleman’s latest filing. But they won’t have new instructions for the Canvasing Board before the board starts counting Saturday morning. If the Court has done their job in the first place and set standards for which ballots to count, rather than telling the campaigns to agree on standards, this could have been avoided.

This is how to do it

Now in Colorado, they are doing it the right way. The governor has made a decision and it is not full of drama. Governor Bill Ritter will probably be naming Michael Bennet to fill Ken Salazar’s senate seat, assuming that Salazar is confirmed as Obama’s Secretary of the Interior. This is apparently somewhat surprising, since Bennet does not have extensive experience in legislature.

On the other hand, he managed to convince the teachers in the state to agree to merit pay, and filled his promises about improving the eduation system in Denver. That by itself makes him a good candidate for higher office. As long as he avoids making too many promises.

Yes, I know this is a bit late. Everybody and their brother has been talking about Tuesday and Obama’s win. I had given some thought to driving over to Chicago and standing outside the fence at Obama’s party. But I figured that they wouldn’t call the election until late, and I would have a 4 or 5 hour drive home afterward. So I decided to call the local Obama campaign back and offer to work on the GOTV effort Tuesday, then get a pizza and watch MSNBC and CNN after the polls closed. Then I got a call on Monday afternoon that changed my plans.

I voted in September, the first day it was available. I am pretty sure I was the first person in the county to vote, since they were still sorting out the ballots they had just received from the printer when I went in. While I was there, I offered to work at the polls on election day if they needed me. They signed me up for the training class and put me on the list of people to call if needed. They were pretty happy to have me, since there are not that many people registered as Democrats in this part of the country.

I knew they had me on their list, but they did not call, so I figured I was free to do what I wanted on the 4th. Then the Board of Elections called me at about 4:30 in the afternoon on November 3rd. Could I work the polls the next day, they had 3 people call in sick. I said yes so the next morning, I had to be at the Junior Fair Building at the County Fairground at 5:45 AM.

5:45 AM, heading in to work the polls on November 4, 2008.

Why would anyone think I was tired, just because I couldn’t hold the camera steady. The really bad part about needing to be there so early is the fact that my normal schedule has me going to sleep about 4 or 5 AM. I managed to get about 3 1/2 hours sleep before getting up and heading to the polling place. But I have a harder time handling lack of sleep than I did when I was younger. Imagine that.

The ladies I was working with were surprised to see me, apparently no one had told them the woman they normally worked with was not going to be there. But they quickly put me in her normal place, and showed me what to do.

People marking their ballots or waiting to do so at 10 AM.

Things progress fairly smoothly during the day. There were quite a few people waiting in line when the polls opened at 6:30 AM, and they quickly found their precinct table and got their ballots. Then there was a wait, since there were not enough booths for everyone at once.

It was not a long wait for most people, despite the size of the ballot. I got the impression that quite a few people were either just marking the races for offices and local issues or they had researched the Ohio constitutional issues before they came in to vote. I would prefer the second, since I rather like the idea of an informed electorate.

More people coming in, at about 4:30 PM.

The stream of voters was pretty steady all day long, at least for the precinct I was working in. We never had more than 4 people going through the process or waiting in line, but we seldom had more than 15 or 20 minutes without someone wanting to vote.

We didn’t mind this, since it really helped to keep us busy and made time fly by. With a 15 hour day working the polls, anything that made things seem faster was welcome. Even if it meant they interrupted us while we were eating at the table.

Waiting to drop ballots in voting machine, 6:15 PM.

On the other hand, one of the other precincts apparently had a bus load of people all come in at once. They had a line going out of the building waiting to get their ballot, then waiting to mark their ballots. And after they did that, they had to wait in line again to put their ballot into the scanning machines. I am sure some of them were less than happy about all the waiting, but I didn’t see any anger or hear anything about them being really upset.

Things really slowed down for us during the last hour, with only a few people coming in to our precinct. None of the precincts were really busy, there were only 3 or 4 people still voting when the 7:30 announcement that voting was over was given. Then came closing things down.

A precinct captain making certain that she had the correct procedure.

Besides making sure that all the numbers added in our books, we had to sort out and count all of the ballots. Since each of the machines had several precincts in it, that took quite a while. It didn’t help while you were counting when someone from another precinct would come over and give you a ballot that had been missed during the sorting. On one of those occasions, all 4 of us at our table had to start over after losing track of where we were.

How long it took each precinct depended on how many voters they had and how well the numbers matched. When you finished and were 2 ballots off, you were happy if someone showed up and gave them to you, even if it did mess up your counting.

Different precincts in different stages of sorting and counting ballots.

There were two women at our building acting as poll watchers. They wandered around all day, watching what was happening, occasionally asking questions and helping voters with questions they had. After the polls closed, I asked them who they were with and they told me the Democratic Party.

I understand the desire of the Democratic Party to make sure that everyone got to vote and the votes were counted accurately after 2000 and 2004. But having observers at places like Van Wert is pretty much a waste of resources. The people that worked with me were happy to help anyone vote, and did their best to make sure that everyone that came in wanting to vote had the chance, no matter who they wanted to vote for. I only know of one man that didn’t get to vote, he couldn’t remember the last time he had voted and he had not made sure he was registered before the deadline. And our precinct captain spent almost a half an hour making certain there was not way he could cast a vote.

I wouldn’t say I had a fun day. I enjoyed talking to the ladies I was working with, and I have always enjoyed doing things like this or serving on juries. I understand that makes me somewhat weird, but it is hardly the only thing. I may or may not do this again. It will depend on a lot of things, mostly how much free time I have. But I am glad I did it this time.

Leaving the building after the fun is over, 9 PM.