Specter Defection Refects Seismic Shift in US Politics

AP, CNN and the Washington Post are all reporting the head-spinning news that Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party.

Conservatives, of course, will note that the pro-choice Specter has voted for years with the Democrats on social issues. I would agree.

But what strikes me as most important about this news is what it portends for the 2010 elections and the future of American politics. Quite obviously, Senator Specter does not want to run for re-election in the swing state of Pennsylvania as a Republican -- even though in an off-year election, the President's party usually loses Congressional seats.

In 1968, the election of Richard Nixon started a forty-year era of Republican dominance in American politics. Could it be that the 2008 election of Barack Obama has done the same for the Democrats?

Resurrection of the Tobacco Tax?

Clarion-Ledger reporter Natalie Chandler (you can find her blog here) reports that the Mississippi House and Senate conferees are close to a deal to raise the State tobacco tax:

Posted 4/28/2009 10:14 AM CDT on clarionledger.com

House and Senate negotiators will meet at 1:30 p.m. to solidify an apparent agreement on the amount of the increase. Speculation is that the agreement will raise the current 18-cent per pack tax to 68 cents per pack. That would be a compromise between the 75 cents the House has proposed and the Senate's 64-cent proposal.

More later.

Now's the time to contact your legislator to express support for an increase in the tax -- to fund Medicaid and to impose an additional economic barrier to the purchase of this disease-causing product. It's not enough, but it's a start.

You can find your State Representative here

And your State Senator here

So what are you waiting for?

Is the Good Ship Melton Taking on Water?

Is the Melton re-election campaign losing steam? It may be, based on recent polling results released by Brad Chism, President of Zata 3. Brad's latest surveyed 507 telephone voter households across seven wards. Here were the results:

April 24th Zatapulse Survey

Harvey Johnson 27%

Crisler 26%

Melton 19%

Hohrn 11%

Fair 3%

Other Candidates 7%

Undecided 7%

Brad reminds us about the parameters of this poll:

Why we are doing this: We have several friends in the Jackson Mayor’s race but no candidates who are clients. We are intrigued by the dynamics of this race and have decided to do some survey work for public dissemination.

About the survey. This sample of 500+ voter phone households is a rough approximation of historical voter registration and turnout. While we do track the respondents self-identification by age, race, and gender we have not weighted the survey by these demographics or by voter frequency. . . . .

Methodology We used an interactive, automated call with keypad responses to record results. The numbers are scrambled and randomly dialed with a quota of respondents by ward. As the name suggests, our ZATAPULSE takes the pulse of the electorate. It is not an “MRI”. It is a useful tool for short surveys of this nature and we have used it for more than 200 races across the country. We employ a similar methodology as Survey USA or Rasmussen. Still, the tool has limits. We caution you that this race is fluid and that each candidate is likely to have a more robust, internal poll. Nonetheless, we are confident that this is the most accurate, timely information that is publicly available.

About Zata3 Zata3 is a political consulting firm for Democratic candidates and progressive causes. Company President Brad Chism splits time between his Washington, DC and Jackson, MS offices. For each of the last three years, Zata3 had won more awards by the AAPC for its telephone voter contact programs than any other firm in America. For more information, go to www.zata3.com

My two cents: Let's see what happens when the Federal trial kicks back into gear. Will it create pro-Melton backlash?

Dreams Come True: Will Texas Leave the USA?

Since February 1982, the great state of Texas has stood between my life in Mississippi and my friends and family on the Left Coast. I have traversed the length of the Lone Star State many, many times during the intervening years, and I have often thought: What if we gave Texas back to Mexico? Good-bye, Republican majorities in the Electoral College; good-bye, Bush family; good-bye, Karl Rove; good-bye, most of our immigration issues; good-bye, Dallas Cowboys . . .

And now, Texas Governor Rick Perry has suggested the next best thing: that Texas may secede from the Union. From CNN, courtesy of Y'all Politics:

(CNN) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry isn't ruling out the possibility his state may one day secede from the nation.

Speaking to an energetic and angry tea party crowd in Austin Wednesday evening, the Lone Star State governor suggested secession may happen in the future should the federal government not change its fiscal polices.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

The CNN story (which includes a video) is here

Can it get any better than this? Maybe John Madden will be coming back to coach the Raiders.

I can dream, can't I?

Return of the House of Hypocrisy

The GOP Tea Parties have spawned another tide of hypocritical hand-wringing by Republican office-holders. But at least Democrats are fighting back. As reported by the Mississippi Democratic Party in a press release today:

JACKSON -- State Democratic Chairman Jamie Franks today responded to statements made by Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant during Wednesday's tea party at the state Capitol. Bryant told the crowd that President Obama's stimulus package was a waste of taxpayer money.

"The stimulus package is providing the State of Mississippi with millions of dollars for projects that will create jobs and improve the infrastructure of our cities and our counties," Franks said. "If creating jobs and rebuilding our roads is a waste of money to Phil Bryant, then perhaps we need to protest his leadership in the Senate."

Franks said the stimulus package will also provide tax cuts for working Mississippians, a fact he said Republicans like Bryant and Congressman Gregg Harper have repeatedly ignored. "Thanks to President Obama, working families will receive up to $800 in employee tax breaks," Franks said. "The reason you don't hear Republicans talking about this tax cut is because it helps the middle class, not the richest among us." The stimulus package will provide the following benefits to the State of Mississippi:

55,100 additional children will be provided health insurance.

997,000 workers will receive a tax credit on their paychecks.

30,000 jobs created over the next two years.

63,000 students aided by making the American Opportunity Tax Credit refundable.

"President Obama and Democratic leaders are offering workable solutions to the financial mess the Bush Administration and a Republican Congress got us into," Franks said. "Instead of posing for cameras in front of the Capitol, perhaps Bryant and Harper should go inside and figure out how to lend a helping hand to the people who are suffering because of the policies of their party."

Coincidentally, Y'all Politics pointed its readers yesterday to a blog post that reported the latest statistics on "earmarking" by Members of Congress, and guess who is the All-Star of Earmarking? A Mississippi Republican.

The Y'all Politics post is here

The story says:

Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group critical of pork-barrel spending, released a summary, called the Pig Book, of congressional earmarks at a news conference Tuesday.

* * * *

Sen. Thad Cochran, R- Miss., reported more than $650 million for earmark projects such as research of dietary supplements, mosquito trapping and for the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference. He was the recipient of "The Super Thad Award," for being the senator with the highest value in earmarks.

There you have it. On the one hand, Republicans grandstand to fight against Big Government Spending. On the other hand, they bend over backward to spend the most money.

Miss. Center for Justice to Gov. Barbour: Take Our Money!

The blog Facing South is reporting that the Mississippi Center for Justice, a non-profit organization in Jackson (to which many of my dearest friends have ties) has started a campaign to urge Governor Barbour to take all of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds targeted for Mississippi.

The Mississippi Center for Justice is here

The Facing South story is here

Facing South says:

The federal stimulus package contains a $7 billion fund to expand unemployment benefits to a half-million more people across the country, including part-time workers. . . . . When Barbour rejected Mississippi's $56 million in unemployment insurance benefits, he argued that the funds would cost business owners an additional $16 million each year once the federal government's money is spent. The Mississippi state legislature had the power to overrule Barbour's decision with a joint resolution -- while the Mississippi State House passed a resolution to take the federal dollars, the similar resolution failed in the Senate.

Barbour and the other Southern governors have been accused of using federal stimulus money to score big points with GOP fiscal conservatives and to gain clout as up-and-coming leadership in the Republican party. Barbour himself has been on the national stage frequently during the past few weeks, giving addressees that have been critical of the economic recovery stimulus package and the president's budget plan.

Facing South's story continues:

The Mississippi Center for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, launched a new online campaign called "Standing With Mississippi" that includes a petition urging Barbour to accept the $56 million in unemployment insurance benefits, pointing out that the aid could help some 40,000 people weather the recession and generate more than $120 million in economic activity in the state.

"Thousands of Mississippi families are in desperate need of funds to purchase food, pay for shelter and provide basic necessities for themselves and their children," the online campaign says "Please join us in standing with Mississippi and asking Governor Barbour to accept these much-needed Unemployment Insurance funds. We, in turn, pledge to keep the pressure on our elected officials and hold them accountable for providing every opportunity for a fair and equitable recovery for all Mississippians."

Community advocates have also rejected Barbour's claim that the aid would commit the state to any future tax increase, underscoring that the UI benefits can be done on a temporary basis to provide much-needed relief, and when the funds run out the state can eliminate or scale back the reforms to ensure the system remains solvent without raising taxes on businesses.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

You can find the Petition here

For all you Teabaggers out there . . .

For all of my friends who are participating in Tax Tea Parties today . . . you might want to check out the definition of "Teabagging" on the great site, "Urban Dictionary." NOTE: this is not for the prudish or feint-hearted . . .

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagging&defid=1608058

So to all of you who are upset at the New New Deal, may your teabags always be full . . .