Finally, it’s Friday. And there’s even some good news for a change, as not only has the unemployment rate dropped below 8% (to 7.8%) for the first time in about four years, but the jobs rate for August was revised upward to 146,000 new jobs added (from 96,000). Mitt Romney’s not gonna like this one bit. Maybe this will knock Obama’s crappy debate out of the news for a while.
I’m not sure why Obama is such a wimp. I thought Chicago guys were supposed to be tough, but Barry’s debate performance is not unlike his performance with the Republican Congress the past four years. Lame. He’s pretty tough when it comes to ordering an drone attack or calling on the Navy Seals to go kill somebody, but when it comes to face-to-face stuff, not so much. Oh well, maybe he’ll get better.
It’s a three-day weekend coming up for me. The weather looks like it’ll be cold and crappy, so that’s good. I’d hate to squander a weekend being outside in the fresh air.
That Band video was great. King Harvest is still so right on so many levels.
If you haven’t heard the Dave Alvin interview yet w/Mark
you’ll enjoy the story about the fistfight over an E-minor chord :rofl2:
I had to go download Link Wray afterwards.
On the other hand kind of sad news about Boomer :cat:
I haven’t heard it yet. I was happy and surprised to see he had done it. I’ll probably see Dave this big busy weekend so I should listen. He wasn’t aware that it was running yet the other day.
According to Mitt he wants to cut tax rates 20% across the board AND he wants to pay for it by eliminating deductions so that, as he said, it will not only be revenue neutral but it will not cut anyone’s taxes. So, I miss exactly what is the purpose of cutting rates.
Of Hooters, Zombies and Senators
By GAIL COLLINS
Today, let’s take a look at debates that do not involve Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. You can thank me later.
I am talking about the races for the United States Senate, people. Attention must be paid! And, as a reward, we can also discuss a new campaign ad featuring zombies.
There are 33 Senate contests this year, although voters in some of the states may not have noticed there’s anything going on. In Texas, for instance, Paul Sadler, a Democrat, has had a tough time getting any attention in his battle against the Tea Party fan favorite Ted Cruz. Except, perhaps, when he called Cruz a “troll†in their first debate.
In Utah, Scott Howell, a Democrat, has been arguing that if the 78-year-old Senator Orrin Hatch wins, he might “die before his term is through.†Suggesting a longtime incumbent is over the hill is a venerable election technique, but you really are supposed to be a little more delicate about it. Howell also proposed having 29 debates. The fact that Hatch agreed to only two was, he claimed, proof of the senator’s fading stamina.
Nobody in Massachusetts could have missed the fact that there’s a Senate race going on. In their last debate, Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren sounded like two angry squirrels trapped in a small closet. A high point came when the candidates were asked to name their ideal Supreme Court justice. “That’s a great question!†said Brown brightly, in what appeared to be a stall for time. He came up with Antonin Scalia. Then, after boos from the audience, Brown added more names, until he had picked about half the current court, from John Roberts to Sonia Sotomayor.
Meanwhile, in Nebraska, the Democrat Bob Kerrey began his debate remarks with: “First of all, let me assure you that I’m still Bob Kerrey.†This seemed to be a bad sign.
There are actually about only a dozen Senate races in which there is serious suspense about who’s going to win. To the Republicans’ dismay, many of them are in states that were supposed to be a lock for the G.O.P.
Tea Party pressure produced several terrible candidates. We have all heard about Todd Akin in Missouri, who claimed after a recent debate that Senator Claire McCaskill wasn’t sufficiently “ladylike.†Since then, Akin has doubled down on a claim that doctors frequently perform abortions on women who aren’t pregnant.
In others, the Republicans found awful candidates without any help from the far right.
Senator Bill Nelson in Florida received the gift of Representative Connie Mack IV as his Republican opponent, and promptly unveiled an ad calling Mack “a promoter for Hooters with a history of barroom brawling, altercation and road rage.†Mack’s fortunes seem to have been sliding ever since. Recently, while he was greeting voters at a Donut Hole cafe, one elderly couple asked him to get them a menu.
Some Democratic candidates are also turning out to be stronger than anticipated — like Arizona’s Richard Carmona, a Hispanic physician who served as surgeon general under President George W. Bush. Carmona is a Vietnam combat veteran who worked as a SWAT team leader for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. “In 1992,†his campaign biography reports, “he rappelled from a helicopter to rescue a paramedic stranded on a mountainside when their medevac helicopter crashed during a snowstorm, inspiring a made-for-TV movie.â€
Let that be a lesson. If the Democrats in Texas had just nominated a Hispanic Vietnam combat veteran who saved crash victims and inspired a TV movie, they wouldn’t have to depend on debates to get some attention.
The race where the Democrats are getting a nasty surprise is in Connecticut, where Representative Chris Murphy is having a tough time against the Republican Linda McMahon, the former professional wrestling mogul. McMahon has spent a record $70 million of her own money over the past three years trying to convince voters that what Connecticut really needs is a senator who knows how to create jobs in a simulated sport awash in violence, sexism and steroid abuse.
Improbable candidates who don’t have $70 million to blanket their state in ads can always just cobble something really weird together, put it up on the Web and hope it goes viral.
Last time around, Carly Fiorina, who was running for Senate in California, created a sensation with “Demon Sheep,†featuring an actor wearing a sheep mask with glowing red eyes.
Now John Dennis, the Republican opponent of the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, has a new California sheep-themed conversation-starter. It portrays Pelosi as the leader of a cult of zombies, preparing a lamb for sacrifice. Then Dennis breaks in, saves the lamb, calls one of the zombies “Dude,†and denounces Pelosi for supporting the indefinite detention of American citizens who are suspected of being terrorists.
Not your typical Republican. Dennis ran against Pelosi before and got 15 percent of the vote. But I feel the zombie ad could well push him up into the 20s.