Senator John McCain and President Barack Obama crossed swords again today, 2008-style, at the national health care reform summit, with Obama telling the Arizona senator, now locked in a primary fight with a far right candidate, that “the campaign is over.”
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.
** QUICK HITS. Today’s big national health care reform summit was much ado about … positioning. And a little too big. As in too long. The event allows President Barack Obama to reinforce the popular impression, revealed in the Gallup Poll discussed below, that he is much more interested in reaching out to Republicans than they are in reaching out to him. And it gave him the forum to reformat his case for a reform bill moving forward. It was, however, too long for most to stay with or grasp. … The national flag of Afghanistan has been raised over the former Taliban stronghold of Marjah and a civilian administration is now in place nearly two weeks after the U.S.-led offensive there began. But there is still fighting underway, with serious pockets of resistance.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: THE GARRY SOUTH-GAVIN NEWSOM SOAP OPERA. Now here is something very curious. Garry South, the veteran political consultant/lobbyist, has launched a broadside attack against his very recent client, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. South now works for Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who is running for lieutenant governor. A post which Newsom may now run for himself.
Actually, I should say that South has launched another broadside against Newsom.
South, you may recall, was chief strategist for Newsom’s Democratic primary campaign for governor of California. It went badly. Newsom dropped out last year — which was first reported here on NWN — as I expected he would.
Right after that, an “insider” report on the failings of the Newsom campaign, or, more accurately, the purported failings of Gavin Newsom, showed up on a blog called CalBuzz. Which is operated by a former newspaper reporter who worked under South during my old friend Gray Davis’s governorship.
By an odd coincidence, the lengthy, vituperative anti-Newsom screed was exactly what South was telling others about Newsom.
Now, let’s be very clear here. This is not a good thing. Newsom paid Garry South more than Jerry Brown spent in his entire campaign which, in essence, locked up the Democratic gubernatorial nomination last year. But South appeared to be more interested in salvaging his reputation than in honoring the confidences of his very high-paying client.
After this insider “report” appeared — and I think much if not most of it was nonsensical, self-serving spin — Newsom went to Hawaii without telling anyone, causing a tempest in a San Francisco teapot for a few days. I figured that Newsom, about whom I’ve written critically as well as positively, was feeling hurt and let down. Understandably so. So I didn’t get into it.
After all, I had predicted all along that Jerry Brown would clear the Democratic primary field. And I have a lot of things to write about that have nothing to do with the aftermath of a gubernatorial campaign that ended the year before the primary election.
Now, as I told South personally a year ago, Newsom was never going to beat Jerry Brown. And that it was odd that he was running in the first place, given Newsom and his family’s history with Brown and his family. I was very clear. Newsom was not going to win under any scenario, be it multi-candidate or head-to-head. Brown was the winner in all scenarios. South, who I’ve known since the early ’90s — we’ve had both friendly and contentious relations, at one point debating on a talk show about his counsel in his then client then Governor Gray Davis’s handling of the electric power crisis — took umbrage at my assessment, proceeding to roll out some arguments about Brown which I knew to be highly inaccurate. I told him not to bother, that his spin was no longer required.
South later helped force Newsom’s original loyalists out of his gubernatorial campaign, on the basis that they didn’t have the right ideas to win. That was true, but Newsom would have been better off in the long run going with the original ideas, which were quite positive. He wasn’t going to beat Brown anyway, so why not use the campaign to build a positive profile around the state, and perhaps withdraw from the race and run for another office in this year’s election. Another office like, say, lieutenant governor.
South wanted none of that, insisting vehemently both internally and in the press that his client had no interest whatsoever in running for lieutenant governor.
Which made sense from the standpoint of assuring Democrats concerned about Newsom’s staying power against the Brown juggernaut.
Now South is attacking Newsom for following his advice! He’s trotting out Newsom’s dismissive statements about the office of lieutenant governor — made in the context of pursuing a gubernatorial candidacy against an overwhelming favorite — in a bid to embarrass him out of the race for lieutenant governor. He’s also using confidential discussions, for which he was paid $25,000 a month, more than super-rich former state Controller Steve Westly paid him till the end of their 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary race, against Newsom. (South’s pay was ultimately cut to $20,000 a month as Newsom’s campaign went into “economizing” mode. Such a sad situation.)
While South’s advice to Newsom on dismissing the lieutenant governorship while seeking the governorship was mostly correct, the rest of what he was doing was not.
South pursued a scorched earth strategy against Jerry Brown in the press. What was curious about it was that he was attacking Brown on a personal level, for being “old and out of it,” and he was attacking Brown from the right, never the left. (South, while definitely a bright guy, is far less intellectually adept than Jerry Brown.)
All this in a Democratic primary. A Democratic primary in which older voters would far out-number younger voters, in which there were many liberal votes to be had.
South copied the attacks leveled against Brown by former Reagan chief speechwriter Ken Khachigian in Republican nominee Chuck Poochigian’s landslide loss to Brown for attorney general in 2006.
Which makes no sense in a Democratic primary. It does make sense if one is serving as a stalking horse, witting or unwitting, for the Republicans against Brown.
Of course, it may be that South, seeing his campaign going down big-time, was acting out of a continuing fit of pique.
Using a few longstanding media conduits, South planted arguably embarrassing stories about Brown and tried to engage the two-term governor and two-time Democratic presidential runner-up in the press. Brown, a frequently combative sort, bit at first on the gambit, but then followed his own incredibly good advice and publicly ignored South the rest of the way.
Which must have been even more galling. And which turned South’s imagined scorched earth into a series of nasty potshots. He did get the local press to bite very hard on the silly notion that Bill Clinton hated Brown from their 1992 battle in the presidential primaries and would transform the race with his support for Newsom. But since Newsom was, in reality, only one of dozens of Hillary backers the former president was helping on a payback tour, that heavily hyped nonsense had a short shelf life. Newsom dropped out a few weeks after Clinton’s desultory event on his behalf.
Now we have this unseemly spectacle.
The reality is that Newsom, properly handling himself, could be a very strong asset to the statewide Democratic ticket. More so than Hahn or state Senator Dean Florez, who has also been running for lieutenant governor? That’s for the voters to decide. However, I don’t think there is any question that Newsom is a dynamic, talented figure with the ability to galvanize a lot of people.
Newsom did manage to perturb Jerry and Anne Brown. But it may be that it was more South’s antics — unfortunately sanctioned by Newsom, albeit in the heat of battle, no matter how unwise — that were objectionable, more than what Newsom himself was saying.
There are some very legitimate reasons for Newsom to step away from this race. He has a new marriage and a very young child, which he cited when he withdrew from the governor’s race. Of course, they were not the reason why he dropped out, they were the excuse. In fact, when I learned that his wife was pregnant, I expected him to use that as the excuse when he did drop out of the race.
Another legitimate reason is that San Francisco, like all cities, is in trouble in the midst of the big economic downturn. Newsom is under some pressure not to step away from the mayoralty because of this. And because San Francisco politics is so inherently chaotic that it’s unclear who his successor would be. Or even if a successor could be chosen by a fractious San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which makes the dysfunctional California Legislature look like a smoothly running machine.
Those are legitimate things for Newsom to think about. Serious things. South’s outburst is non-serious and, frankly, wildly indiscreet.
** NEW POLL SHOWS THAT OBAMA HAS A REAL SELLING JOB TO DO ON HEALTH CARE. One of the oddities of the the national health care reform debate, if that is the right word, is that the individual components of the bill, in its various forms, are significantly more popular than the overall. Which isn’t actually that surprising, since the issue is very complicated and the discussion is being carried out in a cacophonous media environment.
So today’s new Gallup Poll, showing that a plurality opposes the bill, not that people are clear on what’s in it, mind you, and that a majority opposes the majority vote budget reconciliation tactic needed to circumvent the Senate Republican filibuster, isn’t all that surprising.
Americans are skeptical that lawmakers will agree on a new healthcare bill at Thursday’s bipartisan healthcare summit in Washington, D.C. If an agreement is not reached, Americans by a 49% to 42% margin oppose rather than favor Congress passing a healthcare bill similar to the one proposed by President Obama and Democrats in the House and Senate. By a larger 52% to 39% margin, Americans also oppose the Democrats in the Senate using a reconciliation procedure to avoid a possible Republican filibuster and pass a bill by a simple majority vote.
Of course, what other polling shows is that most people don’t understand the filibuster factor which requires a de facto super-majority for big ticket legislation.
Remember that the plan was to have passed national health care reform months ago, and to now be well into the selling-the-benefits phase of the political equation.
That was to have been the centerpiece of Obama’s State of the Union address last month.
But a dawdling Congress — shades of the California Legislature — and the shock election last month of new Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown scuttled all that.
Meanwhile, most think that the health care summit will not produce results.
But they give Obama credit for trying for a bipartisan solution. And the Republicans are seen as obstructionist.
More than three-quarters do not believe that the two sides will reach an agreement on a healthcare bill at Thursday’s summit. Although the bipartisan summit was called by President Obama, more than 7 out of 10 rank-and-file Democrats across the country are pessimistic that an agreement will be reached. Nearly 9 out of 10 Republicans hold this view.
Despite the fact that Americans remain opposed to the passage of the type of healthcare bill President Obama has proposed, the American public gives Obama credit for his efforts at bipartisanship. Fifty-six percent believe that Obama and the Democrats will make a sincere effort at the summit to work with the Republicans in Congress on solutions to healthcare reform; 41% say that the Republicans in Congress will make a sincere effort to work with Obama and the Democrats in Congress.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs appeared this morning on CBS to discuss today’s big national health care summit.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
His day is principally occupied with his high-stakes bipartisan health care summit at Blair House.
Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then walked from the White House to Blair House, the official residence for international guests of the president, which is just down Pennsylvania Avenue.
At 7 AM Pacific, Obama kicked off the bipartisan summit on national health care reform legislation.
The summit runs from 10 AM to 4 PM Eastern time, with a 45-minute lunch break. Obama speaks first to open the summit, the Republicans say their piece, followed by Democrats. Then four specific topics are addressed, with Obama discussing cost controls, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius introducing insurance reform, Vice President Joe Biden handling deficit reduction, and Obama the cleanup hitter focusing on expanding health care coverage.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama walks from Blair House to the White House.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks and presents the awards for the 2009 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal in the East Room.
As discussed here on Monday, Obama has rolled out his version of the national health care bill, drawing heavily on the Senate bill with sweeteners through the House to be achieved through the budget reconciliation process, a majority vote procedure which circumvents the Senate filibuster.
In advance of today’s high-stakes health care summit, Republican leaders have rejected this approach. Since Obama is not backing away — it will be very bad if he comes away from a year’s worth of work on health care with only a near miss — he and his people are figuring out their adjustments going into the event. I suspect the adjustments will be largely rhetorical, buttressed by a Republican idea here and there. The White House is already pointing up the fact that there is no Republican alternative.
Here are the Congressional participants in the health care summit. Four Californians are taking part: The Bay Area’s Nancy Pelosi and George Miller and LA’s Henry Waxman and Xavier Becerra.
Senator Harry Reid, D-Nev., Majority Leader
Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, Republican Leader
Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill, Majority Whip
Senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Republican Whip
Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont., Chairman of the Finance Committee
Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Ranking Member of the Finance Committee
Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Senator Kent Conrad, D-N.D.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
Senator John McCain, R-Ariz.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Representative Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Majority Leader
Representative John Boehner, R-Ohio, Republican Leader
Representative James Clyburn, D-S.C., Majority Whip
Representative Eric Cantor, R-Va., Republican Whip
Representative Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., Chairman of the Ways and Committee
Representative Dave Camp, R-Mich., Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee
Representative Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee
Representative Joe Barton, R-Texas, Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee
Representative George Miller, D-Calif., Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee
Representative John Kline, R-Minn., Ranking Member of the Education and Labor Committee
Representative John Dingell, D-Mich., Chairman Emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee
Representative Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.
Representative Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.
Representative Robert Andrews, D-N.J.
Representative Jim Cooper, D-Tenn.
Representative Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Representative Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.
Representative Charles Boustany, R-La.
Representative Peter Roskam, R-Ill.
As the national health care maneuvering ramps up, Obama is also managing geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared this morning on CBS to discuss his health and obesity summit yesterday with former President Bill Clinton and to dissect the fractious state of party politics.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
He will have no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger is holding private talks in and around the Capitol.
He is focusing on the minuscule legislative progress on the state’s chronic budget crisis, an impasse on job creation legislation, and upcoming elections.
On Tuesday, Schwarzenegger brought his old friend Bonnie Reiss back into the official fold as the new secretary of education. Reiss, a former entertainment lawyer now in merchant banking, directed Schwarzenegger’s after school program before coming on board his gubernatorial campaign in 2003 and serving as a senior advisor in the Governor’s Office until 2007, when she became a member of the University of California Board of Regents.
** SO WHO IS THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL FRONTRUNNER ANYWAY? PALIN, ROMNEY, PAUL (!) … Okay, so exactly who is the Republican presidential frontrunner now? Sarah Palin, the Tea Party darling/best-selling “author?” Mitt Romney, the moneybags ex-Massachusetts governor knocked out in the 2008 California and Florida primaries by John McCain? Mike Huckabee, the creationist talk show host who was the distant runner-up of 2008? Ron Paul, the cranky libertarian who embarrassingly actually won this past weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) over previous winner Romney?
If it matters, it’s hard to tell.
Palin is at or near the lead in some polls. As are Romney and Huckabee. Paul isn’t. Newt Gingrich, he of the disastrous reign as House speaker in the ’90s, is lower in the polls but in striking distance, armed with flash and frequently false rhetoric. (After complaining about would-be Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab being read his Miranda rights under the Bush Administration and then being reminded that shoe bomber Richard Reid was also read his rights, Gingrich falsely claimed that Reid is an American.) … From my February 23rd column.
** MAD MEN: THE STREAK CONTINUES. … From my February 22nd column.
** THE BIGGEST SPENDING RACE IN AMERICA IS UNDERWAY! (WELL, SORT OF.) The biggest spending race in America is fully underway! Or not.
That would be the California governor’s race. With billionaire Meg Whitman, the ex-eBay CEO and national co-chair of the McCain/Palin campaign, spending like a Russian oligarch, it’s inevitable that this will be the most expensive race in the country. But aside from Whitman blanketing the state for months with her robotic ads, it’s not there yet.
Her trailing Republican primary rival, super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, figuring that the primary election is in June, is sitting on a near $20 million campaign warchest. He hasn’t come close to running an ad. State Attorney General Jerry Brown, the storied maverick Democrat who won his party’s nomination by quietly clearing the field last year, is sitting on the $13 million he’s raised. And Democratic independent expenditure committees, launched with a flourish last week — complete with press reports of $40 million in advertising about to be unleashed against Whitman — are, in reality, still getting organized.
Which hasn’t stopped the Whitman campaign — trailing Brown, used to trying to control everything and, faced with a much diminished state press corps, used to getting away with it — from looking rather rattled. For one thing, the aloof former Goldman Sachs board member, no doubt painfully aware that super-rich business people are not exactly wildly popular and that she in no way fits the Scott Brown profile for success in a largely Democratic state, is going to a Nascar race to show her common touch. For another, her operatives reacted to the ballyhooed emergence of what are actually nascent Democratic committees as though they’d been jabbed by a hot poker. … From my February 19th column.
** TONY BLAIR’S GHOST (WRITER). Roman Polanski’s new film, The Ghost Writer, had its world premiere on Friday at the Berlin Film Festival and is getting good early reviews. Count it as more bad news for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Blair complained last week on Fox News — a few days before the film premiered, in fact — that his widely panned January appearance in London before the Chilcot Inquiry into the origins of the Iraq War stirred up so much negativity because people are hungry for conspiracy involving him.
If that is so, this is the movie. … From my February 16th column.
** THE MACHINATIONS OF MEG WHITMAN: BEHIND HER ATTEMPTS TO ELIMINATE COMPETITION AND HER WHOPPER ABOUT HOW LONG SHE’S LIVED IN CALIFORNIA. … From my February 10th column.
** LOST IN LOST. … From my February 4th essay.
** SELLING MEG WHITMAN: GLITCHES EMERGE IN THE BILLIONAIRE’S PLAN TO ACQUIRE THE CALIFORNIA GOVERNORSHIP. What would Don Draper do? … From my February 2nd column.
** WHAT A DIFFERENCE TWO MONTHS MAKES AS THE FATE OF OBAMA’S PRESIDENCY PLAYS OUT FAR FROM WASHINGTON. … From my January 29th column.
** MAD MEN SWEEPS THE LATEST AWARDS AND LOSES A KEY CHARACTER. … From my January 27th column.
** SCOTT BROWN NEED NOT APPLY: CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS IN THE POST-ARNOLD ERA. … From my January 26th column.
** WHAT SCOTT BROWN KNEW IN 2010 AND BARACK OBAMA KNEW IN 2008. … From my January 22nd column.
** HOW JERRY BROWN CLEARED THE DEMOCRATIC FIELD FOR GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA. … From my December 9th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** HELP FOR HAITI.
You can donate to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, www.clintonbushhaitifund.org, by clicking here.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil is trading around $78 per barrel.
This is up about $44 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Read 
| Comments (39) |
Robert Gibbs did a good job explaining the health care summit.
Good performance by Schwarzenegger on CBS.
Arnold is an Obamacan.
He lays it all out really well.
Jonas Blane says:
February 25, 2010 at 7:48 am
Robert Gibbs did a good job explaining the health care summit.
Regarding your column on the Republican Presidential field: Noisy followership of the sensational, the vicious, and the trivial in the place of wise leadership.
I’m watching the health care “Summit,” yada yada yada.
It’s actually too long an event to be all that interesting to viewers.
Thanks, I appreciate it. Well, not the second part …
> Jonathan Hemlock says:
February 25, 2010 at 9:49 am (Edit)
Regarding your column on the Republican Presidential field: Noisy followership of the sensational, the vicious, and the trivial in the place of wise leadership.
So it would appear.
> Capitol Boy says:
February 25, 2010 at 8:41 am (Edit)
Arnold is an Obamacan.
Yeah, a good effort by Robert.
> Jonas Blane says:
February 25, 2010 at 7:48 am (Edit)
Robert Gibbs did a good job explaining the health care summit.
More video today?
I sure like that column on the GOP Presidential “frontrunners.”
I sure like that my comments are showing right away too.
He ought to be registered as an Independent. The Reeps are waaaay too right wing for him.
Capitol Boy says:
February 25, 2010 at 8:41 am
Arnold is an Obamacan.
He’s a decent enough flack… He just met the O at the right time.
Jonas Blane says:
February 25, 2010 at 7:48 am
Robert Gibbs did a good job explaining the health care summit.
Great video of McCain and Obama.
South the Mouth does it again.
lol
** CALIFORNIA 2010: THE GARRY SOUTH-GAVIN NEWSOM SOAP OPERA.
I don’t dig Mayor Newsom especially, he should never have run against JB, but Gary South needs to shut the frak up.
Barack pwn’ed himQ
Jonas Blane says:
February 25, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Great video of McCain and Obama.
Garry South… I admire a man who won’t stay bought. Heheh.
I don’t feel sorry for Newsom.
You have heard the old saying. “You lie down with dogs you end up with fleas.”
That’s a good exchange for Obama, which also helps McCain in his primary.
> Capitol Boy says:
February 25, 2010 at 3:00 pm (Edit)
Barack pwn’ed himQ
Jonas Blane says:
February 25, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Great video of McCain and Obama.
I know it’s been discussed.
> Jack Aubrey says:
February 25, 2010 at 11:47 am (Edit)
He ought to be registered as an Independent. The Reeps are waaaay too right wing for him.
Capitol Boy says:
February 25, 2010 at 8:41 am
Arnold is an Obamacan.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
> Jack Aubrey says:
February 25, 2010 at 11:45 am (Edit)
I sure like that column on the GOP Presidential “frontrunners.”
Good to see that acknowledged here. Which other charismatic, young political leaders do the CA Dems have to offer as potential future senators or governors?
>Newsom…could be a very strong asset to the statewide Democratic ticket.
Newsom is fine. He’s not as good as Antonio Villaraigosa, it was crazy for him to run against Jerry Brown. He can, however, have a bright future and help in the present with younger voters.
I hope the Health Summit began changing minds to support the need for the comprehensive health care solutions. President Obama did very well today. If reason and eloquence in presentation matter to the average voter, his program will be in improving condition.
There are many old warriors like John McCain in Russia.
What new video today?
The health care divide, and the attack in Kabul.
> Jonas Blane says:
February 26, 2010 at 8:18 am (Edit)
What new video today?
Indeed.
> sergei says:
February 26, 2010 at 2:37 am (Edit)
There are many old warriors like John McCain in Russia.
We’ll see if it’s too muddy for people.
> marcus waldron says:
February 25, 2010 at 9:13 pm (Edit)
I hope the Health Summit began changing minds to support the need for the comprehensive health care solutions. President Obama did very well today. If reason and eloquence in presentation matter to the average voter, his program will be in improving condition.
There are not a lot in either party.
> Clutch J says:
February 25, 2010 at 6:52 pm (Edit)
Good to see that acknowledged here. Which other charismatic, young political leaders do the CA Dems have to offer as potential future senators or governors?
>Newsom…could be a very strong asset to the statewide Democratic ticket.
Politics is not presently attracting society’s most talented people. I don’t think Dems should casually jettison such a skilled politico, even one who boinked his friend’s wife.
Oh, I agree.
I defended Newsom strongly when he was in the middle of that scandal.
Yusef…
Gotta say, mighty fine article…
I am extremely content to find this blog.Thanks for creating the page! Im positive that it will be extremely popular. It has good and valuable content which is very rare these days.
What a crap. How can you call it a blog. Change the style, so it will be much more interesting