All I hear lately from the FOX News broadcasts is about how the country is opposed to health care reform. Granted, there are quite a few polls out there that show more folks (but not a majority) oppose the current health care bills being debated in Congress. But none of those polls ask the obvious follow-up question: Are you opposed to the bills because they don't go far enough, or because you're opposed to health care reform overall?
So, 37% of 535 folks is 197.95, so let's round that up to 198. Add those 198 to the folks that said they favored the reforms being discussed in Congress, and you have a majority of 59% supporting health care reform (and that's the same whether you rounded the 197.95 up or down).
When will folks like the Spinning Sinning Senator David Vitter get that? Oh, wait, he's part of the GOP caucus that a majority of the country believes is opposing the bill simply for the sake of denying President Obama a victory on one of his campaign promises:
Earlier this week, I mentioned Stuart Rothenberg's issues with Rasmussen Report's polling #'s. Now, I've got more ammo to debunk the #'s coming Rasmussen Reports, one from Public Policy Polling (PPP) and another from Anzalone-Liszt.
David Vitter of Louisiana. Although recent Rasmussen polls have shown Vitter with a healthy lead, Charlie Melancon is a top tier challenger who though not yet known statewide has performed strongly in a very tough district for Democrats. Voters have had a long time to forget Vitter's past personal transgressions but they'll be reminded of them this fall. Louisiana is also a state that might actually be easier for Dems in a midterm because it's one of the few places that supported Barack Obama at a lower rate than John Kerry.
And now Anzalone-Liszt (hat tip to John Maginnis - subscription only):
A poll done for Congressman Charlie Melancon shows him trailing Sen. David Vitter, 48-38 percent, which is better news for the Democrat than other recent survey results.
The Anzalone-Liszt poll sample of 800 voters was taken Feb. 18-24, with a margin of error of 3.5 percent. The poll contrasts widely with monthly Rasmussen Reports, which showed Vitter's lead expanding from 18 percent to 24 percent in the first two months of the year. The Anzalone poll shows the race has changed little since its May survey when Vitter led 47-37 percent.
Granted, this is a partisan poll, but I'd trust it more than Rasmussen Reports, mainly because Rasmussen is an automated poll, and Anzalone-Liszt has actual human beings conducting the poll. In addition, the Anzalone-Liszt poll showed Melancon's voter ID at 59% compared to Vitter's 92%. That's more in line with a Congressman's voter ID at the start of his first state-wide run.
Now the question is whether the Melancon campaign will fight the fight the Vitter folks are giving them - defending the Democrat's economic agenda, and run as an economic populist. We'll see.
I've been tinkering with the banner for the last few days, as regular readers will notice. I'm almost done, just one more thing to do with the banner before I can stop. Ideally, what I'd like to do is something similar to what the folks at Open Left have achieved, with some of the more popular links in their menu in their banner on the right side, but I'm having a heckuva time figuring out the html/css necessary to make it happen.
If anyone knows how to do it, I'd appreciate it if you can drop a line.
We've got some folks protesting our very own Congressman Bill Cassidy's seeming indifference to health care reform, as he continually pans the Democrat's health care reform bill, which will bring health care to another 30 million people. That's right ... 30,000,000 people. Anyhow, here's the Advocate's coverage of the protest:
The Democrats are poised to pass the health care bill using a process known as reconciliation, which is essentially a legal (it's codified law, which you can find here) way to sidestep a threatened filibuster by the minority party in the U.S. Senate.
And because 60 is the new 50 for the Republicans, they're all spinning the Democrats' use of reconciliation as some new thing that has never ever happened. For instance, here's the Spinning Sinning Senator:
"Well, the president talked a great deal about bipartisanship during the health care summit last week, but it's now clear that was just to distract attention away from his purely partisan strategy - forcing Obamacare down our throats using the unprecedented reconciliation process."
Unprecedented, Senator? Then tell me what these votes were:
The Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act, #118, 5/16/2001
Conference Report on the Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act, #149, 5/26/2001
The Jobs and Growth Reconciliation Tax Act, #182, 5/9/2003
Conference Report on the Jobs and Growth Reconciliation Tax Act, #225, 5/23/2003
The Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, #10, 2/2/2006
Conference Report on the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, #118, 5/11/2006
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005*, #303, 11/3/2005
On the Motion to Concur with House Amendment to Deficit Reduction Act of 2005*, #363, 12/14/2005
The last two votes were on the same bill, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, because there were differences between the House version and the Senate version of the bill, which cut Medicare by $6.4 billion and increased premiums for seniors on Medicare, in addition to delivering the largest cut to the student loan program in its history. If you click on the vote #'s, you'll notice that the Measure Title states: "An original bill to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 202(a) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006 (H. Con. Res. 95).
If y'all notice the bold text there says RECONCILIATION, that's because the Republicans, during the era of that great uniter, George W. Bush, were forced to use reconciliation because they couldn't get a supermajority of the Senate to go along with their plans to bankrupt the United States Treasury while giving tax breaks to their rich friends. And if you click on the #'s up there, you'll notice that the Spinning Sinning Senator David Vitter voted YEA ON EVERY SINGLE RECONCILIATION BILL DURING THE BUSH 43 ADMINISTRATION.
Oh, did I forget to mention that those bills put the United States government $1 trillion, 769 billion, 700 million dollars in debt? Yeah, that's right, that's the Spinning Sinning Senator showing his concern on the wasteful spending undertaken by the U.S. Government during W's Administrations, all the while subverting the "60 is the new 50" majority rule he now espouses.
So, let's recap the Vitter rules ... it's okay to plunge the U.S. Government into debt when the Republicans are in charge, but when the Democrats do it, it's bad. And it's normal to use reconciliation to pass a bill, so long as the Republicans are in charge, but when the Democrats threaten to do the same thing, it's "unprecedented." I guess It's OK If You Are Republican, or in shorthand, IOKIYAR.
So quite a few folks were disappointed with the last poll on the Senate race came out ... on the Democratic side, that is. But Stuart Rothenberg joined the party of Democratic strategists panning the reliability of Rasmussen Reports #'s on individual races across the country:
The numbers in the Wisconsin survey that stuck out like a sore thumb were the favorable and unfavorable ratings of Republican Senate hopeful Dave Westlake. According to the survey, 33 percent of those polled had a favorable view of Westlake, while 31 percent had an unfavorable opinion of him.
What's so weird about that? Well, Westlake isn't exactly a public figure.
The self-described "entrepreneur and small businessman" went to West Point and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago, but as far as I can tell, he has no political experience and hasn't spent any money to get known. His year-end Federal Election Commission report showed that at the end of 2009 he had raised $33,000, spent $31,000 and had less than $3,000 in the bank.
In November, Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling company, surveyed the Wisconsin Senate race and found Westlake's ID at 2 percent favorable/9 percent unfavorable. Could Westlake's name ID have skyrocketed from 11 percent to 64 percent from November to February? No, not without a statewide media blitz.
Now ... let's take a look at the Rasmussen Reports #'s for Charlie from that January poll that showed Vitter with a 23 point lead:
Melancon, a congressman since 2004, is viewed favorably by 39% and unfavorably by 46%.
So ... 84% of Louisianans know enough about Charlie, a Congressman from South Louisiana, to give their opinion of him to an automated poll? I find that hard to believe, considering that only 61% gave their opinion about Charlie to Research 2000 back in March 2009, with 39% having no opinion of him at all.
UPDATE: For more info on the race, y'all should stop by Blue Arkansas, the statewide progressive blog for Arkansas.
As y'all know, I don't typically comment on the Senate races in other states, but the brewing Democratic primary in Arkansas has the potential to be shake up the Democratic Caucus in the Senate, and embolden the Senate Democrats to start listening to their base, and not their campaign contributors on issues like re-regulating the financial system, health care reform, a carbon tax, student loan reform, and on and on.
Arkansas has two Senators - Bill Pryor and Blance Lincoln. Both are self-described moderates in the mold of Senator Landrieu - "I'll do what's best for Louisiana, not my party" even when polls show that most Louisianans want the Senator to do the opposite of what she's doing. While Senator Landrieu is able to get re-elected, mainly since progressive/liberal Democrats here in Louisiana generally don't have a viable candidate to challenge her in a primary, Senator Lincoln doesn't have that luxury.
You need someone to kill EFCA? Call Lincoln, eager to do Wal-Mart's bidding. You need someone to protect Big Oil from regulations that could limit greenhouses? Call Lincoln, who was happy to join Republicans like James Inofe to gut the EPA's ability to protect not just the environment, but the world. You need someone to carry water for the health insurance industry? Call Lincoln, who threatened several times to join filibusters of the public option, and has suddenly become distraught at the notion of using reconciliation to pass health care reform -- after she was one of just 12 Democrats to vote for the 2001 Bush tax cuts. Using reconciliation.
Your appetite whetted enough? Then let's meet Bill Halter:
So if y'all are tired of "moderate" Blue Dog Democrats that do the bidding of the fat cats on Wall Street, or the bidding of the fiscal bottom line loving crowd at the Chamber of Commerce, then donate to Bill.
Donate, even if it's a mere $5. Because Lord knows it's time for the Democrats up there in Washington to realize that the people are watching, and we're sick and tired of having our votes taken for granted, and they better start voting for what we want ... not what their campaign contributors want.
It's been a year since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the Democratic Stimulus) was passed by the House, the Senate and signed by President Obama. Yet we've rarely heard the Democrats in Louisiana stand up for the stimulus ... until now.
The Spinning Sinning Senator has been gallivanting across Northern Louisiana telling folks that he thinks the Democratic Stimulus was a waste of money that only sent less than 4% of the $787 billion Democratic stimulus home to Louisiana. Well, that "less than 4%" is equal to $2,500,000,000 dollars. That's a whole lotta zerooooooooes. And, it's 10% of Governor PBJ's budget this year. I don't think we've heard a peep from the Governor about how he won't take that money, have we?
And the Louisiana Democratic Party put out this timely web video asking the Spinning Sinning Senator to tell Northern Louisiana which of the projects the Democratic stimulus is funding up there that he'd cut:
You can look up the spending being done in Louisiana here. And then ask yourself who you're gonna believe - the Spinning Sinning Senator or the facts.
Quite a few of my libertarian Republican friends believe all Americans need in terms of health care is catastrophic care. I think President Obama destroys that viewpoint quite effectively here:
On Thursday, Rasmussen Reports came out with a poll on the Louisiana Senate race that is rather discouraging:
Candidate
Percentage (October 2009)
Sinning Senator (R)
57% (46%)
Charlie Melancon (D)
33% (36%)
One of the reasons for this surge of support for the Sinning Senator is that he has continually attacked Charlie by linking to him to President Obama. One such attack came recently in a fundraising appeal email:
Louisianans and Americans across the country are tightening their family budgets and reducing their spending. President Obama and the liberal friends of Charlie Melancon aren't following the example of families reducing spending, and are instead proposing to grow the government and spend more than at any time in American history.
While this greatly simplifies the President's budget, and fails to remind folks that the GOP-controlled Congress from 2001-2006 borrowed our way from a balanced budget inherited from Democratic President Bill Clinton to deficits as far as the eye can see, (and the Sinning Senator voted for every single budget), I find it curious that the Sinning Senator says one thing about the budget but does another when it comes time to vote on a bill that contains a simple idea that all Louisianans are currently doing - pay as you go.
That's right, Louisiana, while y'all are looking at your family budgets, and determining whether you can afford to get the car fixed, and if so, what you'll forego for the week or the month to be able to afford fixing the car, the Sinning Senator believes that the U.S. government should continue to borrow its way into debt. The proof is in this vote. And if you click on that link, you'll notice that the Sinning Senator was joined in voting NAY by every single one of his Republican colleagues in the Senate.
It is time for Charlie to fight the fight he's been given by the Sinning Senator, and that fight is defending the Democratic economic agenda. It is quite plain that the stimulus is actually working, and people are being put back to work: (hat tip to CenLamar)
It's time to expose the Sinning Senator for the liar that he is when it comes to, well, job creation, health care reform, the federal budget, the stimulus, and on and on by espousing an populist economic agenda, and showing that the Democratic economic agenda is producing positive results.
Y'all can see the #'s over at the Secretary of State's website. Once you get to that page, click on the Parish tab, and choose Orleans Parish to see all the results for the entire Parish.
But the election of Mitch Landrieu to the Mayoralty is yet another step in the right direction after all the political mis-steps in the years following Katrina.
In honor of the flap that the NFL found itself in regarding the ownership of the phrase "WHO DAT?!" and the Sinning Senator's co-sponsoring of the DC Gay Marriage Referendum bill about to be introduced in the U.S. Senate, and currently in committee in the House, someone's about to have a whole lotta fun (and probably) make a ton of money on these t-shirts that I'm hearing are about to hit the street:
Pretty hypocritical of the Sinning Senator who committed "serious sins" to co-sponsor a bill to attempt to use a majority to deny a minority their constitutional rights. Then again, he's just whoring for his narrow-minded base.
Once I find out where y'all can purchase such shirts, I'll let y'all know.
The only announced Democratic candidate in LA-03, Ravi Sangisetty, released his fundraising numbers:
Candidate
Money Raised
Money Spent
Debts
Cash on Hand
Ravi Sanisetty (D)
$250,000 +
~ $25,000
n/a
$225,000
A first time candidate raising $250,000 is mighty impressive, especially in this state, where far too many Democrats struggle to raise any money at all for their campaigns.
And if there are any Democrats still mulling whether to get in the race or not, I think Mr. Sanisetty's fundraising haul has made the decision for them, as any candidate would be hard-pressed to raise the money it would take to win a Democratic primary against him at this late date.
There are no fundraising #'s being reported as of yet by presumed Republican front-runner Nickie Monica, but I'd be surprised if he doesn't have a sizable warchest at this point, particularly since he's been fundraising since July. There are two other Republicans running - a New Iberian by the name of Kristian Magar, and Jeff Landry, who lost to State Senator Troy Hebert in 2007, reported that he raised over $96,000 in December, and lent his own campaign $20,000 to have approximately $115,000 in the bank. I'd love to see a GOP primary drain the survivor's bank accounts, but we'll see.
Now, on to the rumors ... I've been hearing folks whisper about the Department of Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle running for this seat since August. The only problem is that he doesn't know which party he wants to run in, as he was a Democrat back when he served as St. Martin's Parish President and I believe is still a registered Democrat, but as The Houma Today informed us back in August:
When asked this week if he had been approached by state or national Republican Party officials about making the switch, Angelle said no.
"I haven't been contacted by the Republicans or the Democrats or the Libertarians or Greenpeace or any kind of organized political group," he said, laughing. "No."
In a follow-up query by e-mail, he was also asked if he would even consider making the leap.
"Several longtime friends have suggested it over the years and again more recently," Angelle replied. "It is something that I would consider, like (former President) Ronald Reagan, (former Gov.) Mike Foster and (former U.S. Congressman) Billy Tauzin."
And for all those Democrats out there who think Mr. Angelle would be a great candidate to have, y'all should know that he spent his New Year's weekend down in Cameron Parish hosting a fundraiser for none other than Governor PBJ.
Working for a Republican Governor is one thing, but hosting a fundraiser for one? That ain't the mark of a Democrat, y'all.
Happy New Year ... blogging will likely be very light over the next couple of months, as I prepare for the bar exam. I'll try to post round-ups twice a week, if possible.
Since I didn't blog last week ... I wanted to give y'all a round-up of what happened that I found noteworthy in little blurbs:
The Sinning Senator once again has trouble telling the truth to the people of Louisiana, this time with respect to the safety standards on children's toys.
Senator Mary Landrieu appeared on MSNBC with Howard Dean, and morphed into a defender of the Senate's Health Care Bill:
Governor PBJ has been busy inviting supporters to join him for a duck hunt out in Cameron Parish during the first weekend of 2010. No news on whether former Vice President Dick "Buckshot" Cheney is scheduled to attend.
Ahhhh, dem Saints. To be honest, I'm fine with dem losing a game ... because a perfect season would lagniappe to what I really want to see - da Saints in Super Bowl XLIV!
Last week, Louisiana1976 highlighted an amendment put up by Senator Coburn of Oklahoma that will cut the $300 million that Senator Landrieu successfully inserted into the health care reform legislation prior to the vote to debate the bill in the Senate.
It all has to do with a tweaking of the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, which determines how much money the federal government and the states have to put up for Medicaid coverage. The Louisiana FMAP has usually been around 67%, meaning that Louisiana usually puts up about 33% of the costs of Medicaid for a fiscal year. However, since the FMAP takes into account the average per capita income from five years to three years prior to the current fiscal year, that means for fiscal year 2011, it will take into account the per capita income of Louisiana between 2006-2008, the years that federal disaster assistance money flooded the state. Thus, the Louisiana FMAP drops from 67% to 63%, causing a $900 million hole in the state's budget this upcoming year.
Senator Landrieu fulfilled the #1 request of Governor PBJ by getting some funding to help close a $2.5 billion dollar hole in the state budget over the next five years.
While Governor PBJ has remained largely silent, the Sinning Senator has twittered his displeasure with "backroom deals" to get health care reform passed. Never mind that he's quite famous for some backroom dealings himself.
Ahhh, I digress.
Back to the FMAP funding issue ... according to The Town Talk, the Sinning Senator is:
"holding off judgment specifically on the Coburn amendment until it comes forward for an actual vote."
Hmmm ... what is there to decide, Sinning Senator? Either you'll vote nay to help out Louisiana, or you'll vote yea to appease your friend from Oklahoma, and you'll screw us all back home.
As Charlie Melancon said in a conference call on the Coburn amendment yesterday, and cut short in a tweet (tweet italicized):
"David Vitter needs to remember that he works for the people of Louisiana, not the Senator from Oklahoma. We're talking about $300 million to head off a state budget crisis and help families that need it most. It doesn't take a Harvard education to figure out that this is common sense and the right thing to do for Louisiana."
While most of us would expect that our Senators do the best thing for the people of this state, it doesn't always work that way with the Sinning Senator ... he looks out for himself before he looks out for the people of Louisiana.
