The surprise announcement this week by Senate Minority Whip Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., that he won’t seek re-election adds to an growing wave of GOP retirements — six in the Senate and 17 in the House — that make it increasingly unlikely Republicans will regain majority status next year, notes Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post.
Compare that with Democrats, who have only five House seats up for grabs — none is considered competitive — and no Senate seats opened by retirements in 2008.
Many see the GOP exodus as an acknowledgment that Republicans face an especially bleak election landscape in 2008.
Just consider the huge edge in fundraising at the moment: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had $29 million in the bank at the end of October; its Republican counterpart had a mere $2.5 million.
Lott and others may see the writing on the wall.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take a case challenging Project 100%, a San Diego program that regularly sends deputies out to search all nooks and crannies of houses belonging to welfare applicants, without warrant or suspicion. Should a family or individual resist the search, they can be denied benefits.
The Supreme Court had previously ruled that home visits to verify eligibility for benefits are not considered searches, because they aren’t part of criminal investigation. But the program still shows disregard for the rights of the poor and brushes aside the Fourth Amendment.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Maybe Hillary Clinton was just tired Sunday in Iowa. Or maybe this is what’s wrong with her as a candidate or even with politics in general:
“I’m leading in all the polls. I’m beating them in state after state after state,†she said, referring to Republican presidential candidates.
“There have been a lot of polls and, frankly, I don’t pay much attention to any of them,†on trailing Barack Obama in a recent Iowa poll.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The three months that former Kansas Rep. Jim Slattery took deciding not to challenge Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., in 2008 ate up precious fundraising time for any other viable Democratic candidate — not that many such people come to mind, especially considering Roberts’ $2 million in campaign cash. It also was fair to wonder how viable Slattery was: After all, his exit from Kansas politics came in a landslide loss to Bill Graves in the 1994 gubernatorial election (64 to 36 percent). Kansans’ failure to have sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the 1930s only compounded the challenge.
According to the Kansas City Star’s Prime Buzz blog, the Democratic challenger will be Johnson County businessman Greg Orman.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
“We don’t find any evidence that the gifted kids are harmed, but they are certainly right, the gifted advocates, if they claim there is no evidence that No Child Left Behind is helping the gifted,†said Chicago economist Derek Neal. Teachers are expected to prepare three versions of the same lesson — one for below average, one for average and one for above average. Parents of gifted children worry that, under pressure, teachers are focusing energy on the middle and bottom groups of students, not giving the above-average students the opportunity to excel.
Posted by Kristin Mehler
“One of the great pleasures of running for president has been to go to some tiny town in Iowa and you got some guy in overalls and a seed hat say, ‘What do you think about the situation in Burma?’ And you’re thinking that he’s gonna ask you about corn, but he asks you about Burma. But that happens all the time.†— Barack Obama, speaking Tuesday at a New Hampshire forum on foreign policy
Posted by Rhonda Holman
