Elections 2008: February 2008 Archives

The Poor Man this morning:

Mark Penn’s firm charged Hillary’s campaign 3.8 million dollars in January? Really? That’s one month! One month in which her campaign basically augured into the ground! In exchange for crappy spin and inept campaigning she paid this man the equivalent of a middle-of-the-line private airplane? What an amazing gig this guy has. Never won anything, terrible at his job, gets paid truly exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege. He should be appointed head of FEMA.

Reminds me of callers to the late, great, Buddy D's radio show, offering their services to Tom Benson's football club. They were all willing to work for a quarter to half of what Benson was paying his coaches and management, and the callers could easily guarantee the same level of performance.

I'm going to send Hillary my resume. I can give her the same results Penn did for a fraction of the cost in four years.

1. The extent to which the wingnuts are screaming is interesting. As Yglesias says, looks NYT "doesn't have the goods" in terms of proving McCain's banging her. Still, the screaming is at a level where it's going to be terribly embarrassing for all concerned if it does turn out he's doing her.

2. Whether or not McCain is banging a lobbyist is none of our business, just like the blue dress was none of our business. If he did favors for her clients, however, all bets are off.

3. When I'm McCain's age, if I'm still around and banging two blondes, I will be a very happy guy.

Dillard University, located at 2601 Gentilly Blvd. This is a WPA photo of the campus right after it opened in 1935. The building on the left is Rosenwald Hall, and Kearney Hall is visible in the right background. The photo was shot from Gentilly Blvd., which was a one-lane road at the time. Now it is a 4-lane boulevard, and Dillard is a gated community monitored by campus police for the safety of faculty and students.

Dillard is an Historically Black University. It was founded by the United Methodist Church and still operates under the church's auspices. Dillard opened its doors in 1930, the result of a merger between Straight University and New Orleans University. The University is named after philanthropist and Tulane graduate, Dr. James Hardy Dillard.

President Bill Clinton will be speaking today, in support of his wife's presidential campaign, at Dillard's Lawless Assembly Center (formerly known as Lawless Memorial Chapel). The chapel is dedicated to Alfred Lawless, Jr., a leader in African-American education in New Orleans, and his son, Dr. Theodore K. Lawless, an internationally known physician.

Of all the colleges and universities in New Orleans, Dillard was hit hardest. The London Avenue Canal is the western boundary of the campus. Floodwalls along this canal breached on 29-August-2005, the result of a 40-year pattern of lies and perpetrated on New Orleans by the US Army Corps of Engineers that has brought shame and dishonor upon the United States Army. A large number of Dillard students evacuated to Shreveport, LA, and were taken in by Centenary College in that city. The university began the rebuilding process in the winter of 2006, operating out of an office building downtown. The main Gentilly campus is still undergoing renovation and repairs as classes and student life have resumed.

One of the more interesting memes spread by pro-Obama partisans is the notion that electing Hillary Clinton means that the Clintons between them will cause the Dems to lose Congress, like what happened in 1994, when Bill was President.

OK, now I know that a voter who is 18-25 this year was between four and eleven years old in 1994, but that's still no excuse for not understanding what happened in that election cycle.

Coming into the 1994 election, the Democrats held the House of Representatives for over 40 years. The chamber was rocked by scandals, most notably the House Banking Scandal and the Congressional Post Office Scandal.

At the time, the House operated its own "bank," and allowed CongressCritters to overdraw their accounts and not back them up on their Visa cards. The abuse of the "bank" ran from simple overdrafts to felonies. In the end, one Republican, four Democrats, the Dem Delegate from DC, and the House Sergeant At Arms were all convicted or pled guilty to charges stemming from this scandal.

The Congressional Post Office scandal netted a big fish, Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL). "Rosty," a product of the Cook County political machine, was chairman of Ways and Means at the time. He was convicted and sentenced to 18 months for laundering money through the post office.

While the corruption of the House Bank was bi-partisan (many Republicans were just as guilty of the overdrafts as Dems), the Post Office scandal was essentially Rosty's thing. The GOP leadership, led by then Minority Whip Newt the Gingrich, was outraged at how then-Speaker Tom Foley (D-WA) was sitting on the accusations and reports alleging wrongdoing by Rostenkowski.

In short, the House was a sewer of corruption, Democratic corruption. That's what happens when you're in control of an institution for generations. GOP attempts to break the Dem lock on the House date back much farther than Clinton's presidency. One of the main vehicles of attack was GOPAC, a Republican Political Action Committee that was formed in 1977. GOPAC's leadership was taken over by Gingrich during the term of Bush 41, and Newt used the PAC's fund raising power to put the squeeze on Speaker Foley.

And squeeze he did, shouting the sins of the Democrats to anyone who would listen. In 1992, Gingrich began to seriously push the notion of term limits for CongressCritters, a concept vehemently opposed by Foley and the Democrats. Term limits became one of the highlights of "The Contract for America," a series of pledges and promises Republicans running for Congress in 1994 signed and promoted.

Clinton's policies of that first year and a half didn't help, either. This was when Hillary led the task force on health care. Some of the things being put forward by the task force were unacceptable to Congressional Dems and the interests that pumped millions of dollars into their campaign warchests. Hillary's style (and that of her task force staff) chafed a number of Congressional leaders, slowing down any hope of moving forward on the issue. But, in the end, it was the CongressCritters themselves the people blamed. When Dems in Congress blocked Republican initiatives put forward by St. Ronald of California and Bush 41, they were participating in "divided government." Ronnie's people weren't much better than the current turds in the West Wing, so it wasn't hard to explain the opposition. When Clinton took office, though, there was no division of government, and the youthful, charismatic Southerner made the Critters look bad.

And boy, were they spanked for their misdeeds. Thirty-four (34) incumbent Dems lost their seats in 1994, compared to no Republicans. The total swing with open seats was 54. Among those defeated were Rostenkowski (IL-5), running for his 18th term, Neal Edward Smith (IA-4), also running for an 18th term, Jack Brooks (TX-9), running for his 21st term, and the Speaker, Tom Foley (WA-5), running for his 15th term.

To attribute the ability to oust 34 incumbent Dems, including such senior members as listed above, to a President who had been in office a mere 22 months is preposterous.

The Senate

On the Senate side, open seats killed the Democrats' hope of keeping control of the chamber. Two incumbent Dems were defeated, Harris Wofford (PA) and Jim Sasser (TN). Scandal tainted the Senate at this time as well. Dennis DeConcini (AZ) retired after becoming part of the "Keating Five," one of the many aspects of the "Savings and Loan Scandals" of the 1980s.

(Interestingly enough, John McCain was also a member of the Keating Five. Useful information to remember. Or maybe look up for those of you who didn't know that in the first place.)

In addition to DeConcini, the Majority Leader, George Mitchell (he of steroid fame of late) retired, creating an open seat in ME. MI, OH, OK, and TN also had open seats, the latter the result of Al Gore becoming veep. Again, it's possible to argue that Clinton's first year in office had some impact on these races, but there's no way the blame for all these races can be laid at Clinton's feet.

The dynamics of Congressional elections have been different for every cycle in the 20th century as well as the 21st. To say that we'll have the same situation as 1994 simply because the President's name might be Clinton again ignores these dynamics.