Afghanistan

With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying.

The State of the Union rebuttal is one of the lousiest gigs in all of politics. Until my colleague Sam Stein reminded me that Virginia Senator Jim Webb had done a halfway decent job with his in 2007, I couldn’t think of a single one that was at all well-executed. The last time a Virginia governor was tasked with the rebuttal, it was Tim Kaine, and the big takeaway was that the DNC was going to have to add a line item for eyebrow wrangling into their operational budget .

The recent Supreme Court decision upholding the right of “personhood” for corporations and unions, and allowing them unlimited spending in elections appears to have had an immediate effect on the next presidential contest in 2012. Previous polls had shown Mike Huckabee leading the race for the Republican nomination, with Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin close behind. However, a poll conducted this week by the Presidential Polling Organization shows a new leader: AT&T Inc. ExxonMobil is now in second place, followed by the National Rifle Association.

Democracy worked tonight in Massachusetts. The citizens of the Bay State, in which Democrats outnumber Republicans three-to-one, which doesn’t have a single Republican in its U.S. House delegation, and whose citizens just 14 months ago voted for Barack Obama by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent , elected Republican Scott Brown, who happily accepted tea party support and questioned whether Obama’s parents were married , over Democrat Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat.

Over at TPM , Brian Beutler has come up with his top five “hysterical Republican whoppers and talking points.” Agree, disagree, or do you have your own top five (or ten, or twenty, or …)? Number Five: Paul Ryan Draws Line On Graph Back in the Spring, when Democrats were putting together the federal budget, House Budget Committee ranking member Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a much-mocked Republican alternative … his numbers weren’t based on any analysis at all.

There’s a good piece by David Sirota that’s highlighted on this site and is making the syndication rounds right now in which he takes aim at the dumbing-down of America as a nation; specifically, he ties it to what may eventually be remembered as the most inadvertently prescient not-very-good movie in history: Idiocracy .

President Obama’s most enduring political weakness has been his relative difficulty connecting with working class white Americans. He won the Democratic nomination in 2008 by building a coalition based around African Americans and white liberals. The economic collapse and the widespread anger at President Bush, pushed a lot of working class white voters towards Obama in November of 2008, but this was a brief alliance, rather than a strong gesture of support.

Mark Green As commentators seem ready to over-interpret tomorrow’s election results in three jurisdictions, they should instead consider how four long-term trends show the GOP engaged in political slow-motion suicide. The party that politically prospered over the decades because of flags and faith is now increasingly becoming the extreme and the Democrats the mainstream.

I’m bored. I know this is my problem and not yours. Maybe you are very excited. Barack is arguing with Fox over whether Fox is really a wing of the Republican Party or a straight news organization. The Republicans are arguing with Norway over who deserves to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Gen. McChrystal is arguing with the Administration (or, more particularly I guess, Joe Biden) over whether we need 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan. The American Medical Association is arguing for the public option. Americans are arguing with Wall Street about obscene bonuses.

Last time, we were not only lied into war, but those who did the cheerleading and lying neither volunteered themselves nor did any of their children. So, this time, before Michelle Malkin, or Eric Cantor, or Liz Cheney, or Rich Lowry, get a nanosecond on any other network but Fox to plump for escalating the Afghan War, let them demonstrate their belief in its importance, and rightness, by first volunteering to fight it.