Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Wednesday Morning Surf
On this November meetup day, there's e-mail in my box from Howard Dean, who's asking his supporters to decide whether the campaign should accept federal matching funds or not. Federal matching funds are intended to keep playing fields level between candidates. Those who accept federal funds must accept a spending cap in exchange. Those who don't can spend as much as they want. The "choice" Dean is asking his supporters to make is actually between possible defeat and sure defeat. The Bush campaign doesn't take federal money, so no Democrat dares take it, lest he be outspent even worse than he's going to be anyhow. So Dean has to decline federal funding and try to raise the money at the grass roots.
While I was at the Dean for America site just now, I read some comments on last night's debate from supporters across the country. The Confederate flag issue was the hottest one. Most posters either criticized John Edwards for his stridency on the issue (Edwards told Dean, "We don't need you coming down here and telling those people [flying Confederate flags] what to do") or criticized Dean for mishandling the issue. I'm left with two impressions--one, that rank and file Deansters won't be happy at the idea of Edwards as Dean's running mate (at least until this debate is forgotten), and two, that Dean supporters generally gave Dean a better grade for the debate than I did.
(Best comment: one poster observed that Wesley Clark and Dennis Kucinich both wore jackets with black turtlenecks underneath. "Kucinich looked like Clark's Mini-Me.")
If you're not subscribing to MoveOn.org's Daily Misleader e-mail, you should be. Then I wouldn't have to link to today's outrage. On Monday, Bush told an audience in Alabama that his tax cuts would help people find work, but the fact is that the economy has lost 2.75 million jobs on his watch. Along the same lines, TomPaine.com's latest "op-ad" deals with the supposed economic turnaround. For more details on the statistics in the op-ad, click here.
And finally, as if regular readers of this feature need any more evidence to know how important it is that we throw as many Republicans out of office as possible as soon as possible, there's this story that Republicans in Congress have pressured the National Institutes of Health to start checking up on public health researchers who work with gays, sexually active teens, and prostitutes. (Click the link and wait; the site makes you look at a subscription solicitation before going to the story.) The researchers are being asked to describe the "public benefits" of their work, inevitably with an eye toward cutting NIH funding for those that offend the morals of Republicans. So here's more junk politics where politics doesn't belong--like the junk science that says global warming is a myth, the junk science of creationism, and the junk social policy of abstinence-only sex education programs. Once the list became public, NIH stopped contacting researchers--like cockroaches when you hit them with light, the Republicans pushing this idea went skittering for the baseboards as fast as they could.
On this November meetup day, there's e-mail in my box from Howard Dean, who's asking his supporters to decide whether the campaign should accept federal matching funds or not. Federal matching funds are intended to keep playing fields level between candidates. Those who accept federal funds must accept a spending cap in exchange. Those who don't can spend as much as they want. The "choice" Dean is asking his supporters to make is actually between possible defeat and sure defeat. The Bush campaign doesn't take federal money, so no Democrat dares take it, lest he be outspent even worse than he's going to be anyhow. So Dean has to decline federal funding and try to raise the money at the grass roots.
While I was at the Dean for America site just now, I read some comments on last night's debate from supporters across the country. The Confederate flag issue was the hottest one. Most posters either criticized John Edwards for his stridency on the issue (Edwards told Dean, "We don't need you coming down here and telling those people [flying Confederate flags] what to do") or criticized Dean for mishandling the issue. I'm left with two impressions--one, that rank and file Deansters won't be happy at the idea of Edwards as Dean's running mate (at least until this debate is forgotten), and two, that Dean supporters generally gave Dean a better grade for the debate than I did.
(Best comment: one poster observed that Wesley Clark and Dennis Kucinich both wore jackets with black turtlenecks underneath. "Kucinich looked like Clark's Mini-Me.")
If you're not subscribing to MoveOn.org's Daily Misleader e-mail, you should be. Then I wouldn't have to link to today's outrage. On Monday, Bush told an audience in Alabama that his tax cuts would help people find work, but the fact is that the economy has lost 2.75 million jobs on his watch. Along the same lines, TomPaine.com's latest "op-ad" deals with the supposed economic turnaround. For more details on the statistics in the op-ad, click here.
And finally, as if regular readers of this feature need any more evidence to know how important it is that we throw as many Republicans out of office as possible as soon as possible, there's this story that Republicans in Congress have pressured the National Institutes of Health to start checking up on public health researchers who work with gays, sexually active teens, and prostitutes. (Click the link and wait; the site makes you look at a subscription solicitation before going to the story.) The researchers are being asked to describe the "public benefits" of their work, inevitably with an eye toward cutting NIH funding for those that offend the morals of Republicans. So here's more junk politics where politics doesn't belong--like the junk science that says global warming is a myth, the junk science of creationism, and the junk social policy of abstinence-only sex education programs. Once the list became public, NIH stopped contacting researchers--like cockroaches when you hit them with light, the Republicans pushing this idea went skittering for the baseboards as fast as they could.
