At the same time he’s fighting the unions in Wisconsin…he hired the kid of a donor to oversee a very important, high paying regulatory position? Yikes… Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions. Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker’s [...]

Obviously this doesn’t mean that unions haven’t overreached or don’t have flaws. They have and they do…just like businesses and governments have flaws and put their employee in harm’s way, discriminate against them, etc. Because let’s remember that unions didn’t spring up because they weren’t needed. And let’s not pretend that employers won’t exploit their [...]

Taiwanese animations are the future of all mainstream news. The folks at NextMedia have distilled US TV news, newspaper commentary, blogs, and twitter feeds on the Wisconsin standoff into an easily digestible two minute animation. As far as the legislative standoff is concerned, this is a foregone conclusion. Polls do not support the AWOL Wisconsin Senators. The Wisconsin State Assembly passed the Walker Budget Repair Bill after beating back a filibuster and the Senators will have to return sometime or be recalled. The protesters in Madison will have to go back to work or be fired. The Republicans have the votes and Walker has the will. Done deal. I think it is all Kabuki Theater in Wisconsin from this point.

Digby at Hullabaloo who expends almost 800 words to explain why Jon Stewart is not funny and a traitor to the cause

In Madison, Wiscosnsin – the public sector unions have organized protests at the steps of the capitol to exercise their Democratic right to shut down the Democratic legislative process and subvert the Democratically expressed wishes of the Wisconsin electorate, in order to be sure that the union money flow to the Democratic Party is not interrupted.

First, let’s understand what we’re talking about here. Wisconsin is running a budget deficit because of the fiscal crisis and Republicans are looking to public sector employees to make up the difference. From WSJ: Mr. Walker’s bill would close a projected $3.6 billion shortfall by forcing public employees to pay 5.8% of their salary toward [...]

It doesn’t look like it’ll even be close. From TPM: As the Republican wave spreads across the country, it’s time to say goodbye to one of the big-name progressive champions of the past 18 years: Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), champion of campaign finance reform and longtime opponent of the Patriot Act, has gone down in [...]

79 electoral votes here for the Illinois senator. Moving on…

More numbers bring more bad news for McCain. Now, Big Ten polls the eight states where the Big Ten school are, so some of them (Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota) I’m not going to even bother showing since they’re safely blue. Instead, I’ll focus on four McCain has been campaigning in recently. Indiana: +10 Obama 51% [...]

First the numbers… New Hampshire: Obama 53%, McCain 45% Obama 51%, McCain 43%, Barr 3%, Nader 1% Wisconsin: Obama 51%, McCain 46% Obama 50%, McCain 42%, Nader 4%, Barr 1% Ohio: Obama 50%, McCain 47% Obama 48%, McCain 45%, Nader 3%, Barr 2% North Carolina: Obama 49%, McCain 49% Obama 49%, McCain 48%, Barr 2% [...]

That’s right. The McCain camp actually thinks they can win Wisconsin, Minnesota or Pennsylvania. Failure to win any of these states means he loses. Huh? “Our ability to pick off one of those three states is where our fortunes are largely held,” a McCain official said. “These are states where Barack Obama is on the [...]

Obama – 50 McCain – 39 Obama loses 2 from last month, but the 11 point margin remains pretty consistent with other polls I’m seeing. Some demo info… Women back Obama 56 – 31. Men back McCain 49 – 43. White voters back Obama 48 – 42 percent. Obama leads 60 – 31 among voters [...]

Obama – 52% McCain – 39% The details… Wisconsin women likely voters back Obama 53 – 37 percent while men back the Democrat 51 – 40 percent. White voters back Obama 49 – 42 percent. He leads 61 – 35 percent among voters 18 to 34 years old, 52 – 39 percent among voters 35 [...]

Obama: 50% McCain: 37% Some perspective from WisPolitics: Wisconsin was a key battleground in the presidential contests of 2000 and 2004 and saw extraordinarily tight contests in both years. Al Gore beat George W. Bush by 5,708 votes (0.2 percent) in 2000, and John Kerry bested Bush by 11,384 votes in 2004 (0.38 percent). Goldstein [...]

They seem to come in pairs of two lately, don’t they? DNC member Lena Taylor of Wisconsin… State Sen. Lena Taylor from Milwaukee announced her support for Obama on Wednesday afternoon. Late Tuesday night University of Wisconsin-Madison student Awais Khaleel announced his endorsement for Obama on a YouTube video. That makes 11 superdelegates in Wisconsin [...]

College Democrats of America President Lauren Wolfe and Vice President Awais Khaleel endorse Obama today via YouTube: However, since Wolfe is from Michigan, her vote will only count if the DNC comes to some sort of agreement with the state. That’s why I’m only adding 1 to Obama’s total below. Post-Pennsylvania Delegate Pickups: Obama – [...]

Looks like he’ll end up finishing the night with a lead of about 13%, which is bad news for Hillary. Her and her team threw some pretty significant attacks at him that dominated the last couple news cycles and it looked like it actually helped him. In fact, if I remember correctly from exit polls [...]

TPM, take it away… Any predictions?

It shows Clinton leading, but what TPM missed is that this isn’t showing anything new for this particular poll. In fact, this poll is actually good news for Barack because it shows that he gained some ground from the last time they conducted one back on the 6th through the 7th. At that time, Hillary [...]

Courtesy of TPM: ARG: Clinton 49%, Obama 43% (Feb. 16) Research 200: Obama 47%, Clinton 42% (Feb. 15) Rasmussen: Obama 47%, Clinton 43% (Feb. 14) Strategic Vision (R): Obama 45%, Clinton 41% (Feb. 13) PPP (D): Obama 50%, Clinton 39% (Feb. 12) One thing they all show pretty consistently is that about 10% of voters [...]