This is going to be brief as I am still creating a diary that I promised to do last night.

There's more...

Does Senator Obama get dizzy trying to play all sides of the field?  First he's tired of campaigning and wants Hillary to concede.  He solicits all his major DC Surrogates to hit the TV air waves repeating the same cries.  Backlash, again, on this arrogant position deaming the voters shouldn't have a say in our election, he wants to be annointed.

“My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants,” - Barack Obama

Then he decides not to actively campaign in the upcoming Primary states, because, he says, it's done and time for him to plan for a General Election strategy.  Again, backlash peaks, voters have a different opinion on his unwillingness to show up and ask for their support.  So he schedules a photo op (yes, I know, he detests those-if he's not in them), gracing West Virginia with a 3 hour stop, spending most of his time shooting pool and tells Kentucky they're not worth his time.

There's more...

As expected, President Bush veto'd the $307 billion farm bill yesterday. Legislators from both sides of the aisle promptly smacked him right back with a 316 to 108 override vote. According to the Washington Post, over 100 Republicans joined their Democratic counterparts to sock Bush with "the most significant legislative rebuff" of his presidency.

'Bout time, I'd say.

That kind of broad support doesn't bode well for Senator John McCain, who earlier this week indicated (in the Chicago Tribune) that - at least so far as the farm bill goes - he's George W. Bush all over again.

There's more...

There's a little-noticed detail to the ongoing farm bill debate that I thought might be of some interest in the context of the presidential primary process. It has to do with Barack Obama and a uncollected restitution payments owed to many black farmers.

The deal is this. Pigford v. Glickman alleged that black farmers had faced institutional and systematic discrimination at the hands of the USDA for years and years, generation after generation. (Dan Glickman was the USDA Secretary at the time the case was filed.) In case after case, black farmers where denied loans and other lines of credit that their white counterparts were regularly granted. After years of wrangling, Pigford was finally settled in 1999 by consent decree. The USDA agreed to a process by which black farmers could apply for restitution.

All well and good, but those applications were due within six months of the settlement. It's been estimated that as many as 74,000 farmers applied for Pigford payments after the deadline. They were shut out of the settlement for good, it seemed.

And so, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have been pushing for Congress to intervene and offer some relief to the farmers who were eligible for Pigford payment but somehow missed the boat. More recently, Barack Obama has gotten in front of the issue. He's co-sponsored legislation championed by the CBC in the House, with the goal of getting in passed as part of the massive Farm Bill. And he's been fairly aggressive against some inappropriate lobbying against the Pigford language by USDA employees. (The USDA is unhappy with the many millions of dollars further restitution might cost.)

In addition to the policy imperative behind Pigford language in the farm bill, it's not bad politics for Obama. Restitution is a very big deal in the rural South -- you know, places like South Carolina, Florida, and the like. It has been for many years, and the flavor of the fight for Pigford compensation is similar to other civil rights fights.

The Senate just finished marking up the farm bill. No word yet on whether Pigford language has survived the sausage making process so far. If it makes it all the way into law, and his campaign sees the political value in it, Pigford may give Obama a healthy boost in some important early states.

Today it emerged that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns will be stepping down from his post in order to run for the Senate in Nebraska, where he formerly served as Governor. With the prospect of another former Governor, Democrat Bob Kerrey (who also previously represented the state in the Senate), getting in the race, this campaign is shaping up to be one of the most competitive and most watched in the country this cycle (though Bob Novak writes today, "Kerrey vs. Johanns would lean slightly Democratic"). One thing that might not put Johanns over the top is the fact that he has forsaken his primary responsibility in the cabinet -- getting the Farm Bill passed. Luckily that legislation isn't important to Nebraskans. Oh, wait...

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns's expected decision to run for a Nebraska Senate seat provides a boost for Republicans, but drew quick criticism from some Democrats who say the secretary should finish what he started on the 2007 farm bill.

"Just to take a walk in the middle of a farm bill that only happens once every five years, it borders on irresponsible," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told reporters Wednesday. He said Johanns should stay at his post until work concludes on a 2007 farm bill that was approved in the House but faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

"I do think that as the head of the Department of Agriculture, the most responsible thing for him would be to stay with it until we've got it across the finish line," said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who like Conrad is a member of the Agriculture Committee. The current farm bill expires at the end of this month.

The criticism likely foreshadows a Democratic line against Johanns if he becomes the GOP nominee to succeed retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). Former Democratic Congressman Charlie Stenholm (D-Texas) warned that Johanns could be imposing a self-inflicted blow to his political future in Nebraska, where the farm bill is a huge policy issue.

"It's always helpful that if you sign on for a job, that you complete the job," said Stenholm, who is now a lobbyist on agriculture issues. "If you punt in the third quarter, that can hurt you."

While Johanns is no doubt a strong recruit for the National Republican Senatorial Committee -- their highest profile recruitment thus far, but not necessarily their number one preferred candidate for the race (the incumbent, Chuck Hagel, who would have been a prohibitive favorite) -- he's far from the only candidate in the race. In fact, Johanns is going to have to get out of a bitter and divisive primary against state Attorney General Jon Bruning and former Congressman Hal Daub. And remember, it's only been about a year since Nebraska's Republicans voted down the establishment pick for a statewide office (then-Rep. and former Nebraska Cornhusker coach Tom Osborne in the 2006 gubernatorial primary). So the fact that Johanns is giving up on his number one responsibility, one that is extremely important to Nebraskans, isn't likely to help him much in either a primary or a general election. While this race certainly won't be a gimme for the Democrats with should Kerrey in fact get in the race, there's a real possibility that Nebraska is going to have two Democratic Senators for the first time in more than a decade.

There's more...