My Blog Posts

• Tauscher at Global Zero
  02/06/2010 02:13:28 PM EST
  Recently, Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, spoke before the Global Zero summit in Paris on February 3, 2010. As usual, she had some interesting things to say. And President Obama set forth an ambitious agenda in his speech in Prague last year. The president has embraced the vision of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan of calling for a world without nuclear weapons. Those are not just abstract words for him. This issue animates the president, it’s not one of those issues that an aide had to tell him about. He has put his political capital and muscle behind that vision. (snip)
• New Senate candidates - IN and DE
  02/04/2010 02:35:34 PM EST
  New Senate candidates are still coming out of the wood work -- another reason that predictions for November are still premature. Republicans, smelling (Brown*) blood in the water, are recruiting new candidates with renewed hope of  victories after the Massachusetts Senate special election.   In Indiana, they have just about convinced former Sen. Dan Coats (R) to run against incumbent Sen. Evan Bayh (D). Coats has two weeks to obtain 500 signatures from each of the nine congressional districts to get on the ballot. He could be tough competition, but he has been living in Virginia for many years and is a -- horror of horrors -- a lobbyist.** Coats has just a couple of weeks to seek 500 petition signatures in each of the state's nine congressional districts. Bayh has been enormously popular and has $13 million in his campaign treasury.  He will not be easy to knock off. Also, Coats retired rather than face Bayh 12 years ago.
• Chris Cillizza on the top 10 Senate races - Jan. 29
  01/29/2010 05:27:58 PM EST
  Senate landscape shifts, Republicans primed for gains
  
  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/the-line/senate-landscape-shifts-republ.html The last 30 days (or so) have been the most momentous to date in the battle for the Senate. It all began back on Jan. 5 when Sen. Byron Dorgan stunned the political world by announcing he would retire from his North Dakota seat after three terms. Later in the day, it was revealed that embattled Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) would step aside amid poll numbers that suggested he could not win re-election. While the Dorgan news was most unwelcome for Democrats as it opened up a seat in strongly Republican territory, the day was mitigated somewhat by the Dodd retirement and the quick emergence of state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) as the replacement candidate. The rest of the month, however, quickly turned against Democrats.
• The tea party -- bitter leaves left behind?
  01/27/2010 09:36:02 AM EST
  The gathering tea party movement has been a boon to the Republican Party. It is also the bane. Clearly tea party sentiment -- the anti-establishment movement that generally favors hard-right Republicans -- helped elected Scott Brown (R) in the Massachusetts special election to replace the late Senator Edward Kennedy (D). That same sentiment forced a Republican out of a contest in upstate New York in a special House election and elected a Democrat to a seat held by Republicans for generations. The tea party movement may damage the Republican brand in other states. Take Florida.
• Say It Ain't So, Beau
  01/25/2010 06:39:06 PM EST
  Very disappointing news today. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, one of the sons of Vice President Joseph Biden, declared he would not run for Senate from the state of Delaware. Most observers had expected him to run. He was a statewide elected official, had great name identification, and made an excellent impression at the 2008 National Democratic Convention. When the Vice President was sworn in, he arranged for his former Chief of Staff Ted Kaufman to keep his seat warm for two years until Beau Biden returned from a stint with the National Guard in Iraq and launched a campaign for Senate. Indeed, with popular GOP Congressman Mike Castle running for the seat, Beau Biden was thought to be the only Delaware Democrat who could hold the seat for the Democrats. But Biden has frustrated us.  He will run for re-election as Attorney General. He may have perfectly good reasons to make this decision, but the Senate seat will now almost surely flip from Democratic to Republican in January 2011. Say it ain't so, Beau!* Click here to see our full Senate race analysis. ----------------- *For those too young to remember, baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson disappointed his legion of supporters when he admitted to a grand jury that he helped throw the 1919 World Series.  A young fan was reported to have said after the slugger's grand jury appearance, "Say it ain't so, Joe."