It's The Contempt For The Average American, Stupid!

I believe the record (of failure) of conservative economic policy during the last 100 years speaks for itself. I've written a few posts on that recently. But beyond that simple reality is another reason why no self-respecting person should trust conservatives on the economy... the either clueless or contemptful way in which they regard the 90%+ of Americans who aren't rich. I have compiled a few examples.

Here is Sean Hannity debating tax cuts with his liberal minstrel, Alan Colmes-

COLMES: That doesn’t seem to be helping the economy very much…because things aren’t going so well.

HANNITY: It is, Alan. The economy is phenomenal. Where have you been living?

And let's see what our fine congressfolk have to say-

At a press conference today unveiling the stimulus proposal, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) justified the conservative plan to give tax breaks to corporations — instead of working Americans — by arguing that people actually like working long hours:

"I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs."

Bachmann’s version of the American Dream is apparently working two full-time jobs and struggling to get by.

It's President Bush's version too. Here he is in 2005, during his Privatization Road Trip-

MS. MORNIN: Okay, I'm a divorced, single [57 year-old] mother with three grown, adult children. I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.

THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. First of all, you've got the hardest job in America, being a single mom...

MS. MORNIN: I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?

MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

MS. MORNIN: Not much. Not much.

But not everyone is so cheery! Here's one example of a conservative who had been down on his luck-

In 1995, current Fox News judicial commentator Andrew Napolitano left his seat on New Jersey’s Superior Court to begin a career as a news commentator. Napolitano told the Washington Times recently that the reason he left the judiciary is because “I really was tired of being poor.” His salary as a judge? $100,000 a year.

Tony Snow too had to leave public service due to economic hardships-

Snow, ailing with cancer, had said recently he would leave before the end of Bush's presidency. The father of three children, Snow said he needs to make more than his White House salary of $168,000.

I could go and on, but I think you get my point. Secure in their bubbles, they assume everyone is in the same boat they're in, and that there are no problems. And if ever someone convinces them of bad news, their only solutions are bailouts of the big businesses who helped make the messes to begin with. This goes beyond just believing in conservative economic principles... these people are out of touch with reality all together.

Credit where it's due... some GOP leaders have been honest. "The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should," John McCain said recently. And it shows.

Schadenfreude (Pt. II)

As an addendum to my post on Thursday, I present this video-



Ignore the Coulter endorsement of Clinton (telling, but not my primary focus). Instead, focus on Hannity's concerns about McCain. What angers the man who once compared liberalism to terrorism and despotism in a book title? It's the idea that McCain once opposed the tax cuts-- aka trickle-down economics, take 2-- ignoring a) he flip-flopped and now supports them, and b) the Bush economic policies have the economy on the cliff of recession. And that McCain doesn't think that destroying an animal refuge to drill holes in hopes of finding a few more drops of oil is the key to solving our massive energy problems. And the idea that McCain has an immigration proposal slightly to the right of the one Reagan enacted, and that he doesn't think it's right or feasible to find, and deport, 12 million undocumented people living here with the limited government resources that conservatives advocate for. And that he rhetorically attacked our sacred fortress at Guantanamo Bay. And that he insulted Rumsfeld, military genius. And the idea that him having acknowledged disparity once or twice during the campaign constitutes 'class warfare'. Etc.

In many ways, the right's attacks on McCain are a lot more revealing about its current character than are their attacks on Clinton or Obama. These people are authoritarians; conservatism itself doesn't matter to them... they want a leader to give them orders and never show signs of doubt or regret (one thing they loved about Bush). By textbook conservative definitions, McCain should be their guy, but instead they go for former liberal Romney because he is willing to lie to them and be whoever they want him to be.

(Judging by McCain's success thus far, most voters are far more rational, of course)

The far-right started jumping the shark with Terri Schiavo, and it's been downhill since. And I have enjoyed every second of it. Their insanity gave us Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid in '06; it will likely give us President Obama or Clinton this year. So to Rush and Sean and all the rest, I say thank you. We honestly couldn't have done this without you.

Recommended Reading

Here are some articles I enjoyed reading this past week, and wanted to pass along...

Newsweek: Careful What You Wish For--
Getting elected may be the easy part. A sluggish economy. An ailing health-care system. An immigration mess. The next president's got issues.

Mother Jones: The Last Empire: China's Pollution Problem Goes Global

Newsweek: To The Rich, From America--
We feel your pain. But that's no reason to stop spending. Stagnant wages haven't stopped us.

Truth Dig (Robert Scheer): Obama, Clinton and the War

Weekend Odds and Ends

Many pundits seem pissed the debate was so substantive. I hate the media. Here's news...

Attorney General Mukasey showed the world what idiots all the Senators who voted to confirm him were this past week with his testimony on torture. Mukasey bobbed and weaved and generally continued the Gonzales legacy of making a mockery of the Justice Department. You can watch video excerpts of his testimony from TPM (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Hey, freedom tickles, just deal with it!

Sen. Feingold sums up the FISA debate in a solid 30 seconds.

The fallout from the subprime debacle grows: "The FBI is investigating 14 companies embroiled in the sub-prime mortgage crisis as part of a crackdown on improper lending. It did not identify the companies but said the investigation encompassed developers, sub-prime lenders and investment banks."

Spoiler alert... the Bush administration isn't serious about regulating greenhouse gases.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world... Study: Afghanistan could fail as a state / US envoy cites ethnic cleansing in Kenya / Israeli court upholds Gaza sanctions / Israeli PM faces new test with Lebanon war report / Australia to apologize to Aborigines / Winter storm chaos grips China / Ruins of 7,000-year-old city found in Egypt oasis

Finally, Ralph Nader hasn't fucked up an election recently, and wants to try again.

Obama-Clinton: The Final Debate?

Not really; I'm sure there will be others. But this was the final one before MONSTER TUESDAY(!), though that won't be the end of the Democratic primary process. For the record, I thought it was the most interesting debate yet. Instead of half a dozen people talking over each other, you simply had the two frontrunners having a serious and substantive debate over policies that matter. And when a few predictably dumb questions surfaced-- like the Bill Clinton sideshow-- both candidates refused to take the bait. On that note, they both came out looking like winners, because they took it seriously.

(And the difference between this debate and the GOP panderfests can't be understated)

Also impressive was how far we've come in standing our progressive ground. Four years ago, John Kerry played the muddled centrist role he was told was necessary to win in George Bush's America and got clobbered by the guy who discussed terrorism and gay marriage as if they were equal threats. And yet here, both Obama and Clinton refused to do the same. When asked the "won't you be accused of being tax-and-spend liberals?" question about their proposals for health-care (etc), they refused to cower. They made the moral case for universal health-care and called BS on the Bush tax policies (good article on that- here). When asked a xenophobic question on immigration, they refused to pander, making it clear that's it's wrong to scapegoat immigrants for economic failures, and both had good answers on how to fix the system. When asked how they will run America when neither has run a business, they gave the obvious answer: America is a country, not a business. Etc.

Still, there were differences. Sen. Clinton was more realistic about the fierce opposition universal health care will face (it will be "nibbled to death", she said). But she failed on this in '93, and I see Obama's plan as far more plausible. She also faltered on the war (how was she to knew that the war resolution was a resolution for war?) and on the issue of dynasty (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton is fine; it's not her fault people kept electing Bushes). The differences between the two are subtle on the surface, but very, very important (ie. the issue of mandates in health-care coverage). I'd say that Obama won overall; he answered better and just-- frankly-- looked presidential.

Good summaries from the Reality-Based Community (here, here, here), Andrew Sullivan (here), and TPM (here and here). Full video- here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

[UPDATE: Yep- No global warming questions.... In another debate sponsored by Big Coal.]

'As Soon As Possible Means As Soon As Possible'

A final addendum to all the McCain talk for today. I have posted this video before, but with the Republicans again resurrecting the Democrats = defeat rhetoric, another trip down memory lane is warranted...

Less Jobs, More Wars

MSNBC always provides the most unintentionally amusing campaign coverage around (to quote Chris Matthews, "HA!") and Tuesday night was no different. In the following clip, the channel's two old-school conservatives-- Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan-- aptly sum up John McCain's message of change and hope to America. "Less jobs, more wars."



Hey, it worked for Bush in 2004. And it makes a helluva bumper sticker, by the way.

More Odds and Ends

Sens. Obama and Clinton debate tonight. But 'Lost' is back! What to do!? Here's news...

The remaining Republicans debated last night. Spoiler alert! They still love Ronald Reagan.

There just isn't enough space here or anywhere to document the contempt George W. Bush has for the Constitution he swore to uphold. His latest signing statement asserts that he can use funds to create permanent U.S. bases in Iraq... despite express prohibition against this very act in the funding bill. If we had an actual Congress, this would be, you know, a big fucking deal.

PS, the troops are never coming home.

For all those concerned about the ethical conflicts of interest in the Bush administration (the energy task force, Halliburton in Iraq), this story about Bill Clinton, his Canadian mining financier friend, and Khazakhstan's dictator leader should give voters pause going in to Tuesday's primary.

Finally, Glenn Greenwald has a good/depressing post on what 'bipartisanship' means in DC.

Schadenfreude

With some folks uncomfortable by how testy the Clinton-Obama contest has gotten, it's worth reveling in the collapse of the modern conservative coalition. They are freaking out!

After Iowa, they were freaking out over Huckabee ("He's a crazy Bible-thumper-- good-- but he also talks about the poor-- bad!"). Now, with Huckabee running on fumes, they are freaking out over John McCain, the man who sold his soul to them in 2004. Sorry John, it wasn't good enough for this crowd. Apparently, formerly to-the-left-of-Bill-Clinton Mitt Romney is a-okay, though.

Andrew Sullivan looks at this anti-McCain movement (some choice National Review posts from earlier this week- here and here). Rush Limbaugh, for instance, says-

"Now the people on the McCain bandwagon are telling those of us who aren't on the McCain bandwagon, to shut up. Just be quiet. We are supposedly damaging the Republican Party.

We are supposedly damaging the conservative movement. We should just shut up. Just sit by and watch all this stuff and let it happen and just be quiet. What is the point?"

And Rush knows all about shutting up and letting things happen. After the 2006 midterm elections, he admitted to his audience that he'd been a liar and a propagandist. He said at the time, "I feel liberated, and I'm just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried." That didn't last long, though. Look out McCain, Rush is fired up and ready to go!



Yes, John McCain may be the most pro-war candidate this year, and has totally capitulated on torture and taxes and everything else, but he is still evil to them. This by a conservative cartoonist shows how insane their McCain hatred is-



Campaign finance reform? Stem cell research? Pragmatic on Social Security and the pharmaceutical industry? Concerned about the climate? Compassionate toward immigrants? THAT MONSTER!

Personally, I hope primary season never ends. Because when it does, all these concerned conservatives-- whatever that even means now-- will fall right back in line in their quest to save the White House from the liberal fascists. And then we get the less fun kind of crazy.

[Related: Dead party walking-- The GOP candidates are a feeble group of Bush imitators tied to his disastrous war. And unless the surge turns into a miracle, even front-runner McCain won't beat a Democrat. (Salon)]

Stimulatin'

This quote from Tom Tomorrow sums up my feelings on this stimulus debate-

"I’m no economist, but isn’t this the very textbook definition of 'throwing money at a problem'? We’re essentially going to drop $150 billion from airplanes and hope somebody spends it. Couldn’t the same money somehow be invested in a more sustained program to counter the increasing economic malaise, maybe some sort of WPA for the new century? As a wise man is purported to have once said, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish …

Then again, some Very Serious Republicans on one of the Sunday shows assured me that the trillion or so dollars that we’ve thrown at Iraq would have had absolutely no impact either way on our current economic situation, and there’s no reason whatsoever to even discuss the issue. These things are clearly beyond the understanding of a simple, uneducated cartoonist such as myself."

Yes, discussing the causes of this mess would be bad. It happened because of... liberal voodoo. Stop asking questions. Here's your check. Now go shopping and be quiet already.

And Then There Were Two...

It's official... John Edwards will drop out today with a speech in New Orleans. While he wasn't my preferred candidate (except as VP, though that's still an option), I want to thank him for being the first to introduce the issue of poverty, and general populism, into this campaign. His presence in the debate will be missed.

Florida Decides...

With the country ready to get rid of that guy who gave that speech Monday, we look at Florida... the final primary before Monster Tuesday!! The big news was on the Republican side, where John McCain won decidedly. He's already being discussed as the presumptive nominee, though Romney certainly has an opportunity on Tuesday to try and stop that. Mike Huckabee is pretty much finished (though a VP nomination consolation prize is likely, as McCain will need his populist charm to win over the voters he personally sneers at). Giuliani, as I previously mocked, is gone. This one primary seems to have settled quite a few things on this side.

On the Democratic side, however, nothing got settled because well, there were no delegates at stake. As I mentioned before, the DNC had stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates as punishment for pushing ahead their primaries. Sen. Clinton is now-- despite joining Obama and Edwards at the time in supporting the decision-- fighting like hell to get those delegates seated anyway (when Keith Olbermann confronted her on this tonight, she just pulled a Bush and laughed off the question). And the reason why is obvious... by being the only name on the ballot in Michigan, she won that state, and she won again in Florida tonight (Obama and Edwards were on this ballot, though). I believe this is what is known as a big fucking mess. Super Tuesday may not settle this contest.

I'll end with this depressing thought... around 2006, everyone was expecting the 2008 election to be a bland contest between Sens. Clinton and McCain. But then toward the end of that year, and into 2007, many more candidates (some interesting, some notsomuch) entered the race and it looked people had some real options for once. It didn't have to be so predetermined. And yet as we reach the peak of primary season, a Clinton-McCain contest is looking to be what we may get after all. Democracy fucking rocks, no?

Farewell To America's Mayor

Last night, after his completely brilliant plan to lose all the primaries and become President anyway failed, Rudy Giuliani made it official and dropped out. He will apparently be endorsing McCain, who hopefully inherits Rudy's treasure chest of wacko neocon advisors.

Let us now say farewell to an amazing leader; former Time Man of the Year. He was there.



[The Onion flashback: Giuliani To Run For President Of 9/11]

Junta

Six months ago, I called the GOP race an "Authoritarian American Idol". Posts like this from National Review's Kathleen Parker (the third such post I've seen on NR in the past two weeks) illustrates why-

Salute this: We're electing not just a president, but a commander-in-chief. Picture Hillary saluting the troops. Or, comically, vice versa. With straight face, picture Obama. Continue through the Republicans. Be honest: Which candidate do you want in the White House when our regular programming is interrupted and the voice says: "Ladies and gentlemen, the United States has been attacked. This is not a drill."

Lord, I cannot describe how much these people frighten me.

Of course, they also discuss Jack Bauer as if he were real, so this is par for the course.

Kicking The Can Down The Road

Our President is a very responsible, serious leader. There should be no doubt-

The White House confirmed Wednesday that its new budget next month will not request a full year’s funding for the war in Iraq, leaving the next president and Congress to confront major cost questions soon after taking office in 2009.

The decision reverses the administration’s stance of just a year ago, when President Bush’s budget made a point of spelling out in advance what he thought the costs would be for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for 2008...

Let's also think of this in light of this underreported line from last night's State of the Union-

"American troops are shifting from leading operations, to partnering with Iraqi forces, and, eventually, to a protective overwatch mission."

So after years of doomsday rhetoric and fearmongering, Bush will leave behind a half-assed permanent occupation specifically, and a tattered foreign policy generally. Not the legacy I'd want, but what do I know?

And I'm sure the President will be thinking hard of the Iraqis and our soldiers and everyone else next year when he's building homes for Habitat for Humanity traveling the world clearing brush on the ranch. There are three words to describe this man... they begin with "W" and end with "orst President ever".

[Related reading: Why Congress didn't bring the troops home (LA Times)

Bush Issues Signing Statement On Defense Act, Waiving Ban On Permanent Bases In Iraq (Think Progress)]

Follow The Leader

The Hill has an interesting piece on the real show last night... not the speech, but what was happening in the audience. Particularly, note who applauded the surge, and who didn't.

State of the Union, Pt. II

Time magazine's Jay Carney summed up last night's address thusly-

"The nation George W. Bush described in his final State of the Union address to Congress bore a fairly strong resemblance to the nation as we knew it back in, say, 2003, but it could not be passed off as a vision of the America we see in January 2008. Similarly, the agenda he outlined had a musty whiff to it; it was so full of hardy perennials, of ideas whose time had come and long since gone, that an observer was left wondering if some speechwriter’s assistant mistakenly loaded the wrong text into the teleprompter – with the unexpected result that Bush delivered the whole thing without ever noticing that the words he spoke had been spoken (by him) before, and were oddly detached from both current events and current attitudes."

And that says it all for me. The whole thing was completely detached from reality, other than the tacked-on part at the beginning about economic stimulus. And while it all seemed so phoned in, the President made clear he had no intention of being a lame-duck, as there were subtle indicators he will continue to bully and veto his way to continued relevance.

Finally, the Center For American Progress fact-checked the speech (no easy task against so skilled a liar), and for reference purposes, I am posting links to their posts here...

SOTU: Economy Has Benefited Only The Rich / SOTU: State Of The Economy Is Failing For Americans Who Need It Most / SOTU: Bush Wants To Make His Economic Program Permanent / SOTU: Federal Earmarks Have Exploded Under Bush And GOP-Led Congress / SOTU: Standard Deduction Will Increase Taxes While Leaving Millions Uninsured / SOTU: Health Savings Accounts Offer Americans No Meaningful Savings / SOTU: Bush’s ‘Pell Grants for Kids’ Plan Is Vouchers In Disguise / SOTU: Bush’s Policies Have Catered To Energy Interests / SOTU: Bush Has Repeatedly Blocked Global Climate Efforts / SOTU: Congress Confirmed At Least 40 Of Bush’s Judges In 2007 / SOTU: Office Of Faith-Based Initiatives Has Been Ineffectual, Politicized / SOTU: Bush Has Neglected Hurricane Reconstruction / SOTU: Bush Administration Has Conducted Politically Motivated Immigration Raids / SOTU: Al Qaeda, Taliban Are Regrouping In South Asia, Increasing The Terrorist Threat / SOTU: Bush’s Surge Has Not Worked / SOTU: Bush Is Forced To Withraw Troops From Iraq Because Of Weakened Military / SOTU: Iraqi Security Forces May Not Be Ready For Another Decade / SOTU: Temporary FISA Extension Will Not Put Any Americans In Danger / SOTU: Bush Continues To Seek Warrantless Wiretapping Power Without Any Oversight / SOTU: Bush Has Pushed Aside Action On Democracy And Human Rights / SOTU: Abstinence Policies Hamper AIDS Efforts / SOTU: Veterans Health Care Has Gotten Worse Under Bush

State of the Union

Normally, there is a lot of hype preceding the State of the Union address, but this year... nothing. Everyone-- probably including Mr. Bush himself-- just wants to get this over with. It's for the best. Every year, the President makes the exact same lofty promises (energy independence, peace in Iraq, fix to immigration, etc), ignoring that his party's own policies make these goals impossible. Then we all clap and begin another year of ridiculousness.

This year's focuses will be, naturally, the economy and Iraq. Spoiler alert... he understands our frustration(s), but wants us to know he's got this shit under control.

The President may be thinking of legacy tonight, and trying to smooth over as much as possible. But Digby looks at at the real Bush legacy, which so folks like Romney, McCain, and Huckabee are fighting to inherit. Here's a handy chart (click thumbnail)-



Digby concludes-

"The Republicans can run, but they can't hide from their complicity in this, especially the presidential candidates who are still quaking in their boots for fear of offending the Bush cultists who continue to defend that shameful record. Bush is their albatross --- they made him, now they have to take responsibility for him. If you listen to their rhetoric on the trail it's quite clear that they are ready to do it all over again."

I have a feeling this point will be not what Gov. Sebelius gives in the Democratic response tonight (platitudes will likely be what we get), but it's a point that all of the Democratic candidates must begin making explicitly once the general election begins. You don't entrust the arsonist with putting out his fire.

Spy Games

Today is a fairly big day on Capitol Hill (no, not the speech)... the Senate will be taking up the FISA revision bill, including the controversial, and odious, proposed immunity for the telecom companies who helped the President violate the FISA law to begin with.

Here's the backstory...The Democrats passed a temporary Bush-friendly revision in August (after weeks of GOP scare tactics), promising to fix it in the Fall. Instead, Senate Majority Leader Reid-- who really, really needs to go-- decided to rebuke the House's better bill and capitulate (again) to the White House. Sen. Dodd fulfilled a promise and filibustered this bill, thus shelving it for 2007. Now the FISA revision is near expiration, meaning that the old 1978 FISA bill (you know, the one that served us well through the end of the Cold War, and that Bush decided to secretly violate for years for reasons that have never been honestly explained) will become the ruling law again. God forbid! So Sen. Reid is again trying to pass the White House-preferred bill to make permanent the '07 changes, but Dodd and Feingold and others are standing firm. So Reid asked Bush to pass a 30-day extension on the revised bill while this is worked out. Process that for a bit.

And so here's where we stand now, prior to the voting-

The White House told Democratic congressional leaders Saturday that President Bush opposes a 30-day extension of an expiring eavesdropping law and instead wants an expanded version to be passed by Friday.

“The president would veto a 30-day extension,” a senior administration official said.

In short, passing this bill is super, super important (terrorists will murder us all if we don't) immediately, unless the President doesn't get his way, in which case... fuck it, it's veto time. Ted Kennedy summed this attitude up during the debate last month: "The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies." But God forbid the media reports on that aspect of this debate.

That senior administration official adds-

"They’re just kicking the can down the road. They need the heat of the current law lapsing to get this done."

Yes, that's a Bush administration official chastising someone for... kicking the can down the road. I literally have no words. Just a migraine.

Glenn Greenwald has much, much more on this debate, with regular updates.

Odds and Ends

A post-vacation roundup of interesting news before the big/blah speech tonight...

The White House and Congress continue to debate the stimulus package.

And here's a sign of the times... for the first time since the '80s, union membership is up.

Matthew Yglesias looks at polls which show that-- despite Republican obsession-- the majority of Americans (even conservatives) don't think making Bush's tax cuts permanent should be a priority for the country. Health-care, jobs, energy, immigration, and security remain top concerns.

Spencer Ackerman has a great piece in The Washington Independent on CIA interrogation/torture tactics and what a disaster this all is.

Finally, the birth control pill has one more use... it may protect against ovarian cancer.

South Carolina Decides...

I am back from California today (and back in the cold of NYC), so I should be back in the swing of things later. I missed the South Carolina primary coverage, but I couldn't escape the headlines of Sen. Obama's victory... he defeated Bill Hillary Clinton by a decent margin. You can see his victory speech here-



Because I am such a pessimist, I remain concerned moving forward. I think the February 5th primaries-- aka MONSTER TUESDAY!-- tend to favor Sen. Clinton, because nationally people will vote for her based on better recognition (ie. in California) or because of home-turf advantage (ie. New York, New Jersey, etc). And in attempting to marginalize Obama, the Clintons lost the temporary SC battle, but may win the larger war. Many voters seem drawn to the bloodthirsty nature of the Clinton machine, believing it will serve us well during her potential presidency, as she takes on the conservative attack machine (ignoring her Senate record of caving to the GOP over and over again).

Moreover, her desire to win at any cost isn't limited to taking down Obama. She is now maneuvering to force the DNC to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida. The DNC had, of course, stripped those delegates as punishment for the states moving up their primaries. All the candidates pledged not to campaign in those states and took their names off the ballots except Sen. Clinton, who therefore won by default... and now wants the delegates seated because of her little cheat. Shameless. And after going after Obama for acknowledging-- but not praising-- the ideas of the Reagan coalition, the Clintons unleash this general election pitch... Hillary and McCain are BFFs. The Clintons are not to be underestimated.

One bright star for Obama? Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS), who's giving the State of the Union response, will endorse Obama tomorrow.