Fortune’s Pawn

I was all prepared to write a little bit about recent handicapping (as in horse race) in the Florida Gubernatorial race, when this little headline showed that Florida is well on its way to being the next Florida:
Glitch leaves some Broward residents with wrong voting ID card
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/14672866.htm

Seems that anyone in two zip codes whose name begins with A or B got someone else’s voter ID card. Ah yes, you’ve got to love government incompetence.

But, while the Florida Secretary of State’s office isn’t busy handicapping (quite literally) the state elections, several others have been doing so (in the horse race sense). As this recent story shows, it seems even His Lord has gotten into the fray:

A reverend who introduced Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist during a breakfast with other pastors Monday said the Lord came to him in a dream two years ago and told him Crist would be the state’s next governor.

“The Lord Jesus spoke to me and he said ‘There’s something I want you to know,”‘ Dozier said. “‘Charlie Crist will be the next governor of the state of Florida.”‘
Christ for Crist? posted by Mark Skoneki (AP)

On the other hand, a recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Democrat Jim Davis in the lead in the race to replace Gov. Jeb Bush:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2006/05/survey_said.html

The latest poll, however, from Strategic Visions shows Christ is right, and the Right’s Crist is in the lead:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2006/05/more_polling.html

It is worth noting that Strategic Visions is a recently formed Republican leaning polling organization based in Atlanta Georgia most recently known around these parts for having paid out of its own pocket for a poll showing that former Gov. Tommy “Stick it to ‘em” Thompson would beat incumbent Gov. Jim Doyle by a nearly two to one margin were he to run:
http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/wisconsin_poll_050306.htm
Strategic Visions appears to be trying to drum up interest in their services by running, and paying for, polls in hotly contested and nationally observed, races. One wonders just how much money they have available to throw down this rabbit hole.

Bill Christofferson, no stranger to partisanship, wrote about the tactics of this group in a recent blog entry:
http://www.wisopinion.com/blogs/2006/05/whos-paying-for-these-polls.html

Of interest in these recent polls, both the Florida and Wisconsin ones, is that when asked “Would you like to see the United States Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade?” the answer in both cases was 36% yes and 57% no. Those are some encouraging numbers given the current state of affairs. Another interesting number was “Do you expect another terrorist attack within the next six months?” Yes 73% No 15% Undecided 12% - again the same for both polls.

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend, and remember - it’s time to get those whites out!

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So I was just at the Plaza Hotel Cafe, having breakfast. You can tell the NRA is in town.

This guy sits down at the counter. Right away his legs started pumping, in that nervous, twitchy way - up down, left right, like a cyclist on a stationary cycle. They were drumming away, and this before he even got any coffee.

Then, the waitress serves him some coffee. He grabs a creamer, clutches it in his left hand. POP! With his right he came down on the creamer with the blunt point of his knife. Another creamer, POP! There is cream all over his left hand, but he manages to get some of it into his coffee.

I go back to my paper.

A couple of minutes later the waitress comes through with refills. POP! POP! he’s got his brew back in balance. At least it is, I shudder at the thought that this guy will be trying out assault weapons in just a few short minutes.

Did you all catch Sen. Feingold’s tiff with Sen. Specter yesterday?
(as per AP wire report)

“I don’t need to be lectured by you!” the chairman, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, shouted at the Democrat, Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin. “You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I.”

What set off Mr. Specter was Mr. Feingold’s saying he opposed the amendment, cared for the Constitution and intended to leave the meeting.

“If you want to leave, good riddance,” Mr. Specter said.

Mr. Feingold said: “I’ve enjoyed your lecture, too, Mr. Chairman. See you.”

The Nation has a more complete report, including Sen. Feingold’s follow up statement:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=84876

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Recent headlines bring with them some of each. First off, here is a Brian Ross (ABC News) blog entry from yesterday:

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You’re Calling
May 15, 2006 10:33 AM

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

You can find the full article here:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_source_.html

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Karl Rove stumbled into a moment of truthiness yesterday, while defending the administration’s handling of the immigration issue he said, “We’re doing a heck of a job.” Oops! We all know what that means (if you need a Bush-to-English translator, check out these references:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=%22doing+a+heck+of+a+job%22&btnG=Search+News )

I particularly like Dana Milbank’s take on the comment, “First, he said the administration was doing `a heck of a lot better, uh, job of getting control of the border.’ Then he uttered the forbidden phrase, and it sent him into a syntactical tailspin: `We’re doing a heck of a job –
lot better job at getting, at getting, uh, the — the problem of catch-and-release under control.’”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051501217.html

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So in the realm of the bizarre, doesn’t anyone else think it a little odd that it was USA Today who broke the NSA phone data story? In conversations over the past few days this story, and its provenance, has brought me to the conclusion that there is no actual NSA domestic spying
happening at all.

Let’s just look at the “facts” as we know them. The NSA, which had wiretap evidence of the 9-11 attacks on 9-10, but didn’t bother to translate it until 9-12, is now supposedly handling vast amounts of new data? Get real. If they are really processing the phone records of all
Americans, as the USA Today and later articles describe, then maybe we can all feel a little less safe, as it will obviously be distracting them from the translation of all of those intercepts they’re gleaning from their FISA-less wiretaps.

No, I think that this is all an elaborate ruse, a fake out. After all, as many have said before, isn’t al Queada a little too smart to be using domestic US telephone systems to communicate their plans? I think that all of these convenient “leaks” about domestic wiretaps and call record logs is merely an effort to scare all terrorists away from our easy to use telecommunications systems. If effective, this ruse would serve to severely disable the bad guys without requiring much work at all by the NSA - leaving them free to pursue more important jobs, like translating Tom Cruise missives.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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The Boston Herald reports (http://news.bostonherald.com/localPolitics/view.bg?articleid=139204)
that the public perceives Gov. Mitt Romney, potential 2008 presidential contender, as “a pretty face but an empty suit, giving him high marks for his chiseled good looks but low grades for honesty, conviction and uniqueness” in a new poll.

I guess this bodes well for him in Karl Rove logic. Rove yesterday explained to an unimpressed audience at the American Enterprise Institute that while Bush’s approval ratings are in the basement (Harris poll clocks him at 29%) his “likeability” rating is in the 70s. This is somewhat akin to the Clinton era reckoning that while people didn’t like Bill Clinton, they had to respect that he was doing a heck of a job (oops!).

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