Over at Slate they point out some interesting parallels between 2008 and 2012.

Any of this sound familiar?

The social conservative (wins/almost wins, depending on what math you believe) Iowa. Flush with victory, eager to prove himself in all battlegrounds, he spends most of the next week in New Hampshire. But the surge can only take him from the margin of error to (13/9) percent of the vote. The old dream candidate, now a national laughingstock only known for a debate moment (“I’m not doing any hand shows”/”Oops”) has already moved on to South Carolina. He flies to New Hampshire just to participate in a debate, deeply annoying the supporters of (Ron Paul/Buddy Roemer), whose candidate had worked harder there. He polls a pathetic 1 percent, but stays in the race. The field is crowded enough that a horrified base sees how the front-runner, who’s won the endorsement of (Lindsey Graham/Nikki Haley), can win South Carolina with a plurality of the vote.

And how about between 2004 and 2012? Although this time it’s not a comparison between the GOPers, but between Mitt Romney and John Kerry.

• Massachusetts politician
• Super wealthy
• Base isn’t excited about him
• Is seen as a flip-flopper
• Voted for or implemented key policy of opponent. For Kerry it was the Iraq war. For Romney it’s mandated health care.
• Running as the “Anybody But” candidate

I’m sure if I thought some more I could come up with even more parallels, but it seems like I’m not the only one thinking this.

From NY Times:

Can Mr. Obama overcome the bad economy, and perhaps even turn it to his advantage in certain ways, in the same way President George W. Bush overcame and in a sense turned to his advantage the bloody, expensive and increasingly unpopular war in Iraq eight years ago?

And can Mr. Obama do to his opponent – for now let’s say Mitt Romney – what Mr. Bush did to Senator John Kerry in 2004?

The parallels are sufficient enough that Mr. Obama and his team have studied, and to a striking degree are replicating, the Bush re-election playbook.

Already they are building a narrative in which Mr. Obama made politically brave decisions to do what was right for the economy, even if those decisions were unpopular. It’s a theme that echoes Mr. Bush’s argument in 2004 that he did what it took to keep the country safe, and that even if you disagreed with him, you knew where he stood.

As for defining the opponent, Mr. Obama’s supporters are already hard at work hammering home the idea that Mr. Romney is an inveterate flip-flopper, a man without core or convictions who says and does whatever is necessary to advance his political interests. It’s an approach that bears a passing similarity to the Bush re-election campaign’s efforts to paint Mr. Kerry as an inveterate flip-flopper, a man without core or convictions who. … You get the idea.

Yep.

Lots of talk recently about Ron Paul’s newsletters. But, as some of you may remember, we covered this ground a LONG time ago.

In fact, the first mention of it was back in August 2007 in a post I wrote called Being Realistic On Ron Paul, where I called upon his supporters to answer 7 questions about the congressman, one of which was about the newsletters.

At that time, a lot of his supporters had dug into the situation and had become convinced there was really nothing there because Ron Paul hadn’t written them.

I disagreed. Strongly.

Here are the posts I wrote back then…

1. Ron Paul Realism: Question 6 of 7: What about those racist writings in his newsletter?
2. Why All The Surprised Faces?
3. Ron Paul Talks About Racist Newsletters
4. Is The Ron Paul Movement Over?
5. Ron Paul’s Newsletters Authored By Lew Rockwell

That last story about Lew Rockwell…yeah, read that one. Because it’s the most telling of how the racist newsletter saga played out back in 2008 and should speak volumes about why it’s popping up again. In short, Ron Paul (or his campaign) was playing fast and loose with the truth.

Regardless…now it’s 2011…and guess what? The newsletters are baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

From The New Republic (who did the original reporting back in the day):

For years, Ron Paul published a series of newsletters that dispensed political news and investment advice, but also routinely indulged in bigotry. Here’s a selection of some especially inflammatory passages, with links to scanned images of the original documents in which they appeared.

Race

“A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism” analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. … What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.”

The November 1990 issue of the Political Report had kind words for David Duke.

This December 1990 newsletter describes Martin Luther King Jr. as “a world-class adulterer” who “seduced underage girls and boys” and “replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.”

A February 1991 newsletter attacks “The X-Rated Martin Luther King.”

An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,”and “Lazyopolis ” would be better alternatives—and says, “Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house.”

A May 1990 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report cites Jared Taylor, who six months later would go onto found the eugenicist and white supremacist periodical American Renaissance.

The January 1993 issue of the Survival Report worries about America’s “disappearing white majority.”

The July 1992 Ron Paul Political Report declares, “Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems,” and defends David Duke. The author of the newsletter—presumably Paul—writes, “My youngest son is starting his fourth year in medical school. He tells me there would be no way to persuade his fellow students of the case for economic liberty.”

A March 1993 Survival Report describes Bill Clinton’s supposedly “illegitimate children, black and white: ‘woods colts’ in backwoods slang.”

It’s all there and it’s all completely and utterly damaging. Ron Paul will never be President. Ever.

And so it goes…

This week the ACLU released a disturbing report documenting the permanent enshrinement of the Bush/Cheney definition of the Unitary Executive by the Obama administration. With the tacit acceptance of the Democratic Congress, the balance of power continues to shift heavily to the executive branch. While distressing, the report is unsurprising as it became clear in the first few weeks of the new administration that Obama’s campaign rhetoric of rolling back the Bush/Cheney power grab was just that – empty campaign rhetoric.

The ACLU report “Establishing a New Normal” is summarized here, and the full report linked here [PDF]. The report assesses the record of the first 18 months of the Obama administration across several civil rights categories and is well worth the read.

Excerpted here – a few ACLU report highlights lowlights:

It is easy to point to the hypocrisy of liberals and Democrats who railed with righteous indignation about the Bush/Cheney expansion of executive power, only to be complicit in the continuing erosion of our liberty now. Their deafening silence, kid-glove criticism, and/or rationalizations of the Obama administration’s continued expansion of executive power and consequent institutionalization of the Bush/Cheney Unitary Executive speaks volumes about their prioritizing partisanship over principles.

To be sure – there are principled voices on the left who have consistently and clearly pointed to this administration failure – notably Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher among others:

These voices are too few. The first two years of the Obama administration represent a badly squandered opportunity to undo the damage done by the previous administration.

Worse than the routine partisan hypocrisy by administration apologists, is the complete abrogation of constitutional checks, balances, and executive oversight responsibilities by our Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Fro example, what happened to the soaring rhetoric of Senator Patrick Leahy – who campaigned passionately and relentlessly for the restoration of constitutional Habeas Corpus protections in 2006?

In 2007 I again supported the Leahy follow-on effort to restore Habeas Corpus:

If you click on the petition linked in this quote you’ll note the referenced campaign on the Leahy website no longer exits, replaced with a milquetoast request to send a letter to your senator requesting support. I guess it is just not as high a priority for Leahy if a Democrat has “power that nobody, no king or anybody else set foot in this land, ever thought of having.” I expect Democrats will not be as sanguine about the expanded and institutionalized power of the Obama Unitary Executive when and if a Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin steps behind the wheel of this supercharged presidential machine.

The ACLU report focuses on civil liberties, but the accelerating accretion of executive power over our economic liberties has been equally egregious. I won’t belabor the point in this post, but will simply point out the obvious. Regardless of what one thinks of the merits or politics of the legislation, it is beyond argument that Obamacare and Financial Regulation as passed, dramatically increase the power held by the executive branch. With these laws, Congress granted vast power to faceless bureaucrats in the executive branch with unfettered latitude to set industrial policy, create and enforce broad new regulations over the healthcare and financial industries.

Even beyond these laws, even when operating without a firm legal foundation, this administration has repeatedly demonstrated an eager willingness to push the the boundaries of presidential power.

You’d think, even allowing for partisanship, there would be enough institutional loyalty among our legislators to try to maintain some semblance of balance between the supposedly co-equal legislative and executive branches of government. It is simply not happening. In times of Single Party Rule (as we’ve had for eight of the last ten years) it is Party Über Alles, and the constitutional checks and balances envisioned by the founders between the executive and legislative branch just fade away. This was true with Republicans in 2000-2006, and it is true with Democrats now.

At the rate that the Senate and House have ceded power to the executive branch over the last decade, combined with the lap dog deference most legislators offer to an executive of the same party, the legislature might as well vote itself out of existence. Perhaps they could be functionally replaced by a Legolist e-mail listserv.

The only remaining restraint on executive power today is the judiciary. This is why I have supported and will continue to support Obama nominations to the Supreme Court. My fervent hope is that the new justices will help form a SCOTUS majority that will pull hard on the reigns of the executive branch, declare many of the Bush/Obama administration actions (civil and economic) unconstitutional, and restore some semblance of the rule of law.

Regardless of what you may think of the political leanings of ACLU, they are fighting the good fight for our constitutional protections in the courts and they are doing it regardless of the party in power. They deserve our support. Beyond the courts, the only other way to restrain the extraordinary economic overreach and fiscal irresponsibility of this executive branch is to vote Republican in 2010 and divide this government. Congress only seems to remember their executive oversight responsibilities when the president is not of the same party as the majority in Congress.

^{Cross posted from “Divided We Stand United We Fall“}

My answer? Ummm…no.

Well, at least with anything political. I’d trust him to borrow a garden hose, but that’s about it.

Because if even one tenth of what’s in the new book ‘Game Change’ is true about Edwards (and his wife) it would be enough. The book paints Edwards as a reckless opportunist, an ego monster, a guy who’s so blinded by the need for power that he would do nearly anything to get it.

For instance, after it was well established inside the Edwards camp that he was having an affair, it didn’t stop him. Not for a moment. In fact, he became even more brazen. So much so that he proposed the following deal to Obama after Iowa…

Yet Edwards had no intention of going quietly into any good night. He had a contingency plan. Two months earlier, he had asked Leo Hindery, a New York media investor who was one of his closest confidants, to convey an audacious proposal to Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader and a mentor to Obama: If Edwards won the caucuses, Obama would immediately drop out of the race and become his running mate; if Obama won, Edwards would do the converse. Wounding though a loss in Iowa would be to Hillary, she might be strong enough to bounce back. The only way to guarantee her elimination would be to take the extraordinary step of uniting against her.

Hindery had presented the proposal to Daschle, with whom he’d long been friends. Daschle brought it to the Obama campaign. The talks were tentative; nothing had been decided.

Now, with the results of Iowa in, Edwards determined it was time to make the deal. A little while before taking the stage to deliver his concession speech, he summoned Hindery to his hotel suite and issued a directive: “Get ahold of Tom.”

Hindery considered the timing miserable. Obama just frickin’ won Iowa, he thought. Give him a chance to savor it. But Edwards wanted to set the wheels in motion—immediately.

Edwards knew that the Rielle Hunter affair could explode at any moment, but his ego was willing to pull the entire Democratic party down with him. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s world class douchebaggery at its very douchbaggiest.

Thankfully Obama rejected the offer. After all, he was on a roll and Edwards didn’t bring a lot to the table. Also, it’s not like he added very much to Kerry’s ticket in 2004. The deal made no sense.

Oh, but that didn’t stop John…

Clinton’s astonishing comeback in New Hampshire put an end to Obama’s hopes of a quick finish to the nomination contest—and led Edwards to believe that there was still an opening to strike a bargain. On the eve of the South Carolina primary two weeks later, he again dispatched Hindery to make a revised offer, this time a trade for Edwards’s endorsement.

“John will settle for attorney general,” Hindery e-mailed Daschle.

Daschle shook his head. How desperate is this guy?

“Leo, this isn’t good for John,” Daschle replied. “This is ridiculous. It’s going to be ambassador to Zimbabwe next.”

When Obama heard about the suggested quid pro quo, he was incredulous. That’s crazy, he told Axelrod. If I were willing to make a deal like that, I shouldn’t be president!

Indeed.

By the way, the entire excerpt about Edwards is well worth the read over at New York Magazine. Because it’s not just about the the affair. Lots of behind the scenes revelations, including the difference between the public Elizabeth Edwards and the private one…who appears to be just as egomaniacal and power hungry as her husband.

I usually don’t get into the politics or personal destruction because, to me, what’s between two people and their relationship is between those two people.

However…

The war room within a war room dismissed or discredited much of the gossip floating around, but not all of it. The stories about one woman were more concrete, and after some discreet fact-finding, the group concluded that they were true: that BIll was indeed having an affair — and not a frivolous one-night stand but a sustained romantic relationship. …. For months, thereafter, the war room within a war room braced for the explosion, which her aides knew could come at any moment.

When politicians are running for office they represent the hopes and dreams of millions of people…and they have a duty to not be reckless. In this case, it’s not necessarily the politician but a high profile spouse who’s continuing to do incredibly dumb things. However, if Hillary is turning a blind eye to Bill’s wandering one, well, she’s responsible too. And this one of the biggest reasons I was so against the Clintons getting back into the White House. Because Bill can’t be trusted and is therefore a huge liability.

True, Hillary should be commended for getting this far, but the only way she’s going to gain enough momentum to break through that glass ceiling is if she loses 200+ pounds of Bubbaggage.

Before considering this new tradition, let us not forget the greatest tradition of this holiday, taking time to count our blessings and give thanks for all that has transpired in the last year. While my blogging activity has been limited recently, I did not want to miss this opportunity to offer this holiday greeting and a wish for a Happy Thanksgiving to the extended Donk family.

I have much to be thankful for…

I am thankful that Justin continues to permit me to be a contributor to Donklephant, so I can annoy many more partisans than I can reach from my little blog.

I am thankful for all the bloggers, columnists, and pundits that helped me to understand and appreciate the significance of Barack Obama’s election one year ago. I learned that with that election we ushered in a new post-partisan, permanent realignment of the American political landscape. I learned that the United States was actually a center-left country. I learned that the Republican Party if not already dead was doomed to succumb to the inevitable demographic shifts in the populace and that ideas like fiscal restraint are so last century and irrelevant.

Having learned all of this from the 2008 election we can only assume that the recent 2009 GOP gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia are attributable to the last spasms of a dying GOP corpse. In that context I am thankful to Professor Jacobson’s penetrating analysis of the 2009 race:

I am thankful that as we turn our eyes to the 2010 midterms, the prospect for and value of divided government is once again getting its due from the political chattering class, and there is hope for divided government and fiscal sanity to get “more votes” in 2010 and beyond.

Back to the new Thanksgiving tradition of plucking, stuffing, skewering and carving up the value of our currency. For this, we can be thankful to Barack Obama, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and single party Democratic rule. I am personally thankful for CNBC, a network that, while certainly not immune to political bias, offers the depth of coverage to afford some understanding of our government policies and the real consequences for the economy, jobs, the dollar, our standard of living and the future of our country. Case in point – this week on CNBC I learned about the consequences of devaluing our currency by printing money to service unprecedented debt created by fiscally irresponsible spending that started in the Bush administration and has accelerated to unprecedented levels under Obama:

I am also thankful for Peter Schiff, who was right in 2006, was right in 2008 again and again, and who now tells us what to expect in 2010 and beyond. Three for three??

Finally, I am really thankful for this clip from SNL, which is quite possibly the single best bit that they have ever done:

Just get it over with!

Happy Thanksgiving.

]]> http://donklephant.com/2009/11/26/thanksgiving-tradition-precedented-and-un/feed/ 0 http://donklephant.com/2009/06/30/norm-coleman-concedes/ http://donklephant.com/2009/06/30/norm-coleman-concedes/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:25:20 +0000 Justin Gardner http://donklephant.com/?p=15402

This isn't much of a surprise after today’s ruling, but the fact that he won’t prolong this any further is certainly welcome news.

From Minnesota Independent…

The former senator called Al Franken this afternoon to congratulate him on his victory nearly eight months after election day. The concession came shortly after the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a ruling naming Franken the winner in the protracted contest.

“I’m really at peace,” Coleman told reporters at a press conference at his St. Paul home. “I’ve had a lot of time to process this election, think about the past and look to the future. So I really have a sense of peace for where things are at.”

Coleman vowed to work with Franken as he becomes Minnesota’s junior senator. He insisted that the fact that Franken will become the 60th Democratic senator — giving President Obama a filibuster-proof majority — played no role in his decision-making process. “Whatever I can do now to be a unifying force that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.

And note that last paragraph…now Obama has a filibuster-proof majority.

But will he use it?

Discuss.

I should come as no surprise that many Democrats pray for Sarah Palin to be the candidate in 2012, but many smart GOPers realize how much damage she could do to the brand.

That’s why we’re seeing pieces like this latest rather lengthy Vanity Fair exposé.

Read the rest over at True/Slant.

Nearly 9 months after the election, there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel for Minnesota.

From the AP:

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state’s long-running Senate race.

The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.

Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.

However…

Coleman hasn’t ruled out seeking federal court intervention.

Ugh.

Norm…seriously…it’s time to pack it up. It was close, but you lost and every recount has shown that. Not only that, I think nearly every single court decision has gone against you. Minnesota needs a Senator and it’s pretty clear that you won’t be it. Move on already.

More as it develops…

Remember that story yesterday which suggested that high level Edwards staffers knew about his affair and would sabotage the campaign if it looked like he was winning.

Well, via Twitter, former campaign manager Joe Trippi had this to say…

Complete BS — fantasyland – not true.

Here’s the thing…I want to believe Trippi, but what else would you say in this position? “Yeah, I knew, but I hung around to collect a pay check.”

Listen, it’s not that I think he’s lying, but this is the same guy who knew that Howard Dean never wanted his presidential campaign to go as far as it did. And yet they kept soldiering on despite that. Yeah, the times make the man, but if Dean wasn’t ready…they should’ve pulled back.

Either way, those who associated themselves with Edwards are winding up with egg on their faces. Unfortunate, but nobody said politics wasn’t messy.

This is the stuff I love to hear because it means that one person’s bad decisions couldn’t bring down an entire movement.

From ABC:

I’ve talked to a lot of former Edwards staffers about this. Up until December of 2007, most on Edwards’ staff didn’t believe rumors about the affair.

But by late December, early January of last year, several people in his inner circle began to think the rumors were true.

Several of them had gotten together and devised a “doomsday” strategy of sorts.

Basically, if it looked like Edwards was going to win the Democratic Party nomination, they were going to sabotage his campaign, several former Edwards’ staffers have told me.

They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign.

My only question…why didn’t they just sabotage it from the beginning and leave? Because a mass exodus would have been plenty to stop Edwards cold. Sure, I get that they wanted to collect that paycheck, but they were actively involved in selling a lie.

Something tells me that the reason Edwards staffers hung on is they wanted Obama to win the nomination and if they had cut Edwards off, he wouldn’t have siphoned the votes from Hillary and Obama would have placed second.

What do you think?

“It is near-extinct in many ways in the Northeast, it is extinct in many ways on the West Coast, and it is endangered in the Mountain West, increasingly endangered in the Southwest… and if you look at the state of the party, it is a shrinking entity.”
- Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt on Repubs

This from a pretty revealing piece in the Wash Post, which uncovered some interesting political tidbits.

On the McCain accepting defeat…

“I was waiting for his bus to crash into a CDC truck carrying bubonic plague to release over Cincinnati and Ohio. It was just one thing after another, you know, and never to our benefit.”

On Couric’s interview of Sarah Palin…

“That is one of the two most consequential interviews that a candidate for national office has given, in a negative way, the other being Roger Mudd’s interview of Ted Kennedy . . . when he couldn’t answer the question of why he wanted to be president.”

On the Bush/Cheney effect…

“The first night of our convention was President Bush and Vice President Cheney. I literally thought by the second night of our convention we could be down 25 points.”

On Lehman Brothers…

When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall, I knew pretty much straight away the campaign was finished,” Schmidt confessed to an auditorium full of college students. When the number of people who thought the country was on the right track “dropped to 5 percent and the economy collapsed, I knew that was not going to be survivable for us.”

And so it goes…

And of course Coleman will appeal, but it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll be calling the former SNLer Senator Franken in the very near future.

From Star Tribune:

After a trial spanning nearly three months, Norm Coleman’s attempt to reverse Al Franken’s lead in the recount of the U.S. Senate election was soundly rejected today by a three-judge panel that dismissed the Republican’s lawsuit.

The judges swept away Coleman’s argument that the election and its aftermath were fraught with systemic errors that made the results invalid.

“The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the Nov. 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately,” the panel said in its unanimous decision.

In rejecting Coleman’s arguments, the panel said the Republican essentially asked it to ignore Minnesota election requirements and adopt a more lenient standard allowing illegal absentee ballots to be counted.

Frankly, I don’t see what other legal rabbits Coleman can pull out of his hat at this point, and even conservatives are starting to call for him to quit. He has little recourse now than to try and get another recount, but the last one put him more in the hole so I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

So yes, it’s time for Coleman to accept defeat and hang it up. Otherwise he’ll kill his chances to challenge Franken in the next election.

More soon…

It just keeps going and going and going and…

However, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. The Minnesota Supreme Court dealt Coleman’s chances a pretty big blow a couple days ago when they said that only a handful of absentee ballots would be reevaluated. And this is shaping up to put the Republican Governor of the state in a bit of an awkward position.

From Politico:

Franken won big Tuesday when a three-judge panel allowed the review of no more than 400 absentee ballots in a race he currently leads by 225 votes. Coleman’s camp says an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court is coming; once that’s done, the dispute lands in Pawlenty’s lap.

If Franken’s ahead at that point, Pawlenty will have a choice: sign the election certificate that will allow Democrats to seat Franken in the Senate or play to the Republicans whose support he’d need in 2012 by withholding the certificate while Coleman challenges the election in the federal court system.

“The Republican Party nationally and in Minnesota is playing not just with fire, but with dynamite,” said Rep. James L. Oberstar, a Democrat and the dean of Minnesota’s congressional delegation. [...]

If Pawlenty and the Republicans push it further, he says, “this thing is going to blow up in their face.”

To his credit, Pawlenty has never said he’ll do anything but go with the court’s decision, but at what point do you call it a day? At what point does Minnesota need a representative in the Senate instead of letting a political opponent drag this thing on endlessly through the courts? I’ve long contended that they should just hold another election and go with those results instead, but that’s not going to happen at this point and allowing Coleman to make appeal after appeal isn’t politically tenable either, is it?

More as it develops…

I do feel bad for the guy, but with the internet providing the means for anybody to easily donate to a campaign, the game changed and McCain’s public finance laws couldn’t change with it.

From Wash Times:

“No Republican in his or her right mind is going to agree to public financing. I mean, that’s dead. That is over. The last candidate for president of the United States from a major party that will take public financing was me,” the Arizona Republican told The Washington Times. [...]

Mr. McCain said last year’s election has forever changed the way presidential elections are run. He said Mr. Obama carried traditional red states such as North Carolina by outspending him, and specified that in battleground Florida, the Democrat outspent him on television and radio advertising by $28 million. [...]

Mr. McCain raised his own money for the primary season but accepted public financing for the general election, constraining himself to about $84 million for the campaign’s last two months. Mr. Obama, by contrast, stayed outside the public system for the primary and general elections, raising a total of $779 million, including $150 million in September.

Still, McCain rightly points out that Obama’s team raised a lot of money from big donors too, but all those donations were within the limits of campaign finance law. So I’m not sure why he even brings it up…

“There’s just an ability to raise so much more money now, and they did it very, very effectively,” he said. “They were able to raise incredible amounts of money. But don’t think it was all small donors; they raised the same percentage of big donors versus small donors as we did, they just did a hell of a lot more of it.”

I don’t have the number here in front of me, but Obama probably raised more money from small donors than McCain raised in total. So to complain about big donors is a case of sour grapes, otherwise…why even bring up the money raised by big donors, when “big” has a cap placed on it?

Moving on…

As I’ve said in the past, I am generally in favor of reforming the Electoral College system so that states allocate their voters based on what’s come to be called the District Method.

Under this method, candidates get one Electoral Vote for each Congressional District that they win in a particular state and the candidate who receives the most votes state-wide gets two more Electoral Votes. That’s the system that has been in use in Maine and Nebraska for many years now and it received some attention last year when Barack Obama managed to win one of Nebraska’s Electoral Votes by winning in one Congressional District.

Now, Congressional Quarterly is out with a study that shows what would have happened if every state allocated their Electoral Votes in this manner:

What if the 2008 presidential election had been re-run using a district-based system of awarding electoral votes — used only in two states — instead of the winner-take-all method that every other state uses?

The answer is that Barack Obama still would have beaten John McCain , though the Electoral College tally would have been closer than the actual 365-173 margin of victory.

According to a CQ Politics analysis, Obama would have beaten McCain 301-237 using a district-based system, under which a candidate receives two electoral votes for winning a state and one electoral vote for every congressional district he or she wins. Only Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral votes in this fashion.

The analysis found that Obama won 242 districts and McCain won 193 districts. Obama also posted another 59 electoral votes by carrying 28 states and the District of Columbia, which is entitled to three electoral votes under the 23rd Amendment. McCain would have received another 44 electoral votes as a result of winning 22 states.

Not a major change in the outcome, of course, thanks to Obama’s lead in the popular vote, but it’s one that more accurately reflects how the election turned out nationwide.

And what if we’d done it in 2000 ?

Well here’s how I think it would’ve turned out:

1. Bush won 228 Congressional District, while Al Gore won 207 (Source here), so we start out at Bush 228 Gore 207.
2. Bush also won 30 states (if you include Florida) to Gore’s 20 + D.C., (Source here)which would give Bush an additional 60 Electoral Votes to Gore’s additional 43.

Thus, that would have given Bush a total of 288 Electoral Votes to Gore’s 250. And, if you did give Florida to Gore, assuming no shift in the district allocation, the total would have been Bush 286 Gore 252. There would have been no hanging chads, no Constitutional crisis, no Bush v. Gore.

Sounds like another reason we should consider adopting this nationwide.

Politifact tracked 513 promises Obama made during the primaries, and yesterday took a look at his top 10.

Of the 10 promises, 1 has been fully kept, 1 has been kept via compromise, 5 are in the works and 3 have had no action taken on them.

I’ll have more on those last 3 later, but first a rundown…

1. Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners: Promise Kept.
2. Create a tax credit of $500 for workers: Compromise.
3. Repeal the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes: In The Works.
4. Begin removing combat brigades from Iraq: In The Works.
5. Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center: In The Works.
6. Create cap and trade system with interim goals to reduce global warming: In The Works.
7. Create 5 million “green” jobs: In The Works.
8. Create a National Health Insurance Exchange: No Action.
9. Create new financial regulations: No Action.
10. Reduce oil consumption by 35 percent by 2030: No Action.

A couple things about this list…

First, to have this many important initiatives “In the Works” this early is impressive. I don’t think any President has been able to put so many pieces of his agenda into motion in such a short span of time.

Second, although no action has been officially taken on health care reform and new financial regulations, they’re definitely on their way.

I’m just saying, not too shabby for two months in.

The Minnesota recount saga still hasn’t ended, but Coleman is already moving on?

Hrmm…

Last session’s senior senator from Minnesota Norm Coleman, still battling Al Franken to be seated in the Senate, has taken a paid job as a consultant to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which harshly attacked Obama last fall, its executive director, Matt Brooks, said.

Coleman will join the group as a “consultant and strategic advisor,” and will also travel the country fundraising on the group’s behalf, Brooks said.

“It’s an opportunity for him to, now that he’s got some down time on his hands, to really help us while this case is being adjudicated,” Brooks said. “He hasn’t given up at all” on retaking the Minnesota seat.

Maybe “he hasn’t given up at all”, but appearances matter and I can’t help but think that when Minnesotans find out that Coleman is moonlighting, they won’t exactly look upon that favorably.

More as it develops…

Way back when Barack Obama was just a regular rock star, only filling high school gymnasiums instead of NFL stadiums, my daughter got to cuddle with him twice.

Nothing scandalous, mind you, Dahlia was a five-month-old baby at the time. But her combined 90 seconds with the future president made her a New York Daily News covergirl, inspired a bit in Jay Leno’s monologue and briefly inflated her importance to the same level as Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy.

In the ultimate baby scrapbook exercise, I chased down nearly every major presidential candidate for saliva-free photo ops during the New Hampshire Primary. Only Obama broke the no-kissing rule and the press photographers went nuts. The resulting photo essay, “The Baby Primary,” inspired worldwide speculation about the candidates’ body language.

Exactly a year after the media madness, I’m frequently asked two questions:

1. Did Dahlia ever get to snuggle up to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or Vice President Joe Biden?

2. Will Dahlia be attending the Inauguration?

Caribou Barbie only came to NH once and I regrettably could not leave work that day. It would have been hilarious to introduce my baby as Tigger or Trigger or Tugg or Tagg (oops, that’s the name of Mitt Romney’s kid). I did try to meet Biden at a local community college, but his blathering oratory put my girl into an irreversibly cranky mood.

As for the shocked friends and relatives who cannot believe that Dahlia was not invited to Tuesday’s star-studded love-in, here’s a reality check: Barack Obama kisses babies in every city and town in America.

Do they even sell formal gowns at the Baby GAP?

Even though the Obamas’ so-called “Youth Ball” is for 18-year-olds, not 18-month-olds, I do have a lingering feeling that my daughter has been stood up at the prom. Seeking solidarity, I managed to track down political photo-op guru Andy Green, a junior history major at the University of Northern Iowa.

Green pulled off a major coup before the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, posing his Mr. Potato Head toy with Obama, McCain and the rest of the pack. The stoic Biden was the only luminary who refused the honor, explaining that he does “not take pictures with funny hats or funny toys.” But his wife, Jill, happily obliged.

It turns out that Green and his plastic spud, which once had its butt panel removed to satisfy Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service agents, were not invited to Washington either.

Green and I aren’t alone, of course. Scalped tickets to the Inauguration, which were originally distributed free through Congressional Districts, are fetching $500 on Craigslist.

Refusing to shell out that kind of moolah, I figured I had nothing to lose by pretending to play the DC Who-You-Know powergame. I contacted a close friend, who is the son-in-law of Someone Very Important, with hopes of scoring some “extra” tickets. He laughed at me, poking fun at his own lack of clout. Amazingly, his mother-in-law, a.k.a. the influential wife of Someone Very Important, has been turning away her own close friends. (As an aside, he noted that unclaimed 2004 Bush Inauguration tix were as plentiful as Skee-Ball prize tickets).

I now regret trying to play my weak Who-You-Know card. The magic of the New Hampshire Primary was that I had no special connections enabling us to mingle with the next President and the next Secretary of State. It was bad karma to try to force it.

However, I am convinced that Dahlia influenced at least a few votes for Obama during the earliest primaries, when he most desperately needed them. The blogosphere was buzzing with women cooing over his natural baby-handling skills, which are impossible to fake. My own wife, Stacy, fell into this camp. She told CNN that Barack won her vote just by “the way he’s looking at her so lovingly and so warmly.” (To be fair, Stacy also factors the economy, foreign policy and social values into the equation).

But Obama obviously owes my family nothing — except for stuff like defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

And the truth is that Dahlia will probably be much happier staying home on Inauguration Day. She has yet to ask for one of those designer Inaugural handbags or t-shirts by Diane Von Furstenberg or Donna Karan. She’s still far more impressed by Fisher Price.

**

New Donklephant contributor Darren Garnick is a freelance writer and documentary filmmaker obsessed with offbeat pop culture and political insanity.

Coleman is suing to challenge Franken’s lead.

The saga continues…

Republican Norm Coleman’s trial challenging DFLer Al Franken’s lead in the U.S. Senate recount will begin Jan. 26, according to an order issued this afternoon by the three-judge panel that will hear the case.

The order did not map out when specific issues would be argued, nor did it touch on other details surrounding the rare proceeding, including whether cameras will be permitted.

However, it set the time for the hearing on Franken’s motion to dismiss Coleman’s challenge for Wednesday. If that motion fails, another hearing would be held next Friday on any motions made for summary judgment followed by a pre-trial conference.

As I’ve said before, the only way to legitimately get a real winner out of this is to hold another election. I don’t know if there’s any appetite in Minnesota to do this, but whoever does ultimately “win” from this recount will be looked at the same way Bush was in 2000.

Is that really how Franken wants to start out?