Below The Beltway

An interesting video from someone who may yet end up running for Senate in 2010:

If you’re looking for a reason why President Obama continues to enjoy relatively high approval ratings despite the state of the economy, look no further:
President Obama contends he inherited the nation’s ongoing economic problems and that his actions since taking office are not to blame. Sixty-two percent (62%) of U.S. voters agree with the president [...]

From a new Gallup Poll on party identification:
Voters who came of age during the eight years of the Bush Presidency are roughly eight points more Democratic than the rest of the country; that advantage could be worth an extra point or two to Democrats throughout the next half-century.
More importantly, this move to the left by [...]

I hear that the Republican Party plans next week to rename the Democratic Party the “Democratic Socialists” . . . And to rename themselves the “National Socialists.”
Brad DeLong
         

Patrick Edaburn makes these interesting observations about the Republican “revolution” of 1994:
For purposes of this discussion I will again look just at the states of the Northeast, consisting of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
In 1994 those nine states sent nine Republicans to the US Senate. Of [...]

Their response to the Obama Administration ?
Stop it, or we’re going to call you names:
A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”
When I asked if such a resolution [...]

Stephen Gordon comes up with a suggested mea culpa for Republicans:
I come before you today to ask — no, to beg — for your forgiveness.
For years, I’ve disregarded my priorities and placed being in power ahead of my duty to you and to the Constitution of the United States.
For years, I’ve been voting [...]

To my knowledge, this is the first poll we’ve seen of the Pennsylvania GOP Senate race since Specter’s defection, and the news isn’t good for Pat Toomey:
A new poll of Pennsylvania from Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies shows that former Gov. Tom Ridge (R-PA), who is reportedly considering a bid for the Senate seat [...]

Since I’ve made it a goal in life to not watch any cable news network in the evening regardless of which side of aisle it falls on, I missed Ron Paul’s appearance on the Rachel Maddow show last night:

Mike Pence was on Chris Matthews’ show last night and spent 5:25 dodging a simple question about his beliefs about the origin of life.:

Do I think Mike Pence is a creationist ? No, but it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t want to answer the question at the risk that he might offend the Religious Right. [...]