is this snark?

Much more important than raising pay for judges and other senior-level bureaucrats is raising pay for the mid-level managers and specialists especially (but not limited to) those working in science and technology fields.

In order to raise pay for those peole, it may require raising pay for the guys at the top.

Wacky Political Predictions:

--Less than two months after launching her exploratory committee, Hillary Clinton, scared by early polling in IA & NH and rumors that Obama will outraise her in Q1 fundraising, announces that she's not running for President in mid-March.

--John McCain wins the Iowa Straw Poll in August. Shortly thereafter, Newt Gingrich launches his presidential campaign.

--Due to health complications and ferocious GOP efforts to create a scandal out of his Nevada financial dealings, Harry Reid steps down as Senate Majority Leader.

--Russ Feingold, John Kerry, and Jim Webb lead a surprise filibuster of a Defense Appropriations bill to pressure congressional leaders to support a senate resolution calling for the redeployment of troops from Iraq

--Shortly after the death of Fidel Castro, President Bush conducts the first presidential trip to Cuba in nearly a century. In the immediate  aftermath of the trip, Bush's poll numbers reach 45%.

Edwards is both strategically and tactically operating at peak performance. It's truly impressive to see what a political organization un-impaired by the DC conventional wisdom  can do.

Unfortunately, the caucuses are still more than 12 months away.

Vimeo:

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:6483

Good diary. So, if the F-22 is fubar, what's going to replace the aging fleet of F-15s & F-16s?

My point being that weekend caucuses during what is likely to be a major NFL playoff weekend,  and maybe a week before Bush's final state-of-the-union means that the press will not be paying the slightest bit of attention to the results out of Nevada. There will be a tremendous temptation to fall into their established pattern of simply waiting for New Hampshire to come around.

I find the fact that the Nevada caucuses will be held on the Saturday after Iowa to be an interesting detail to recent developments. Was that placement a part of a secret compromise deal to keep New Hampshire from blowing up the calendar sequence?

Forget for a second that Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld would be implementing any plan of action on the Darfur situation. Assuming a competent administration, but also that American forces are still substantially committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, what are the viable options in front of us as you see them?

It's real simple. (tongue in cheek)

The democratic base is more fractured then the gop base. what gets african-americans to turnout in droves is different from what will get pro-choice single women to turnout or culturally-mixed union members to show up in force.

Basically, there's got to be a coordinated effort to pound away on a few critical groups' "anger points."  In 2006, for african-americans that may be residual anger over Katrina. For single women, it could be south dakota (although the recent changes in the USSC have made appealing to this base constituency a more difficult challenge).

Necessarily, connecting with a few groups' anger points will alienate other parts of the base. If you're to rally the base sucessfully, you're going to have to accept those consequences.

Another factor is that Democratic electeds like to think of themselves as the nice/good guys. That's gotta change. Gotta be willing to play on people's fears and jealousies. Again, it's the only way that "rallying the base" has ever worked. GOP electeds have no compunction about tapping into the darker human emotions. While I don't advocate it as a default position, Dems should at least have that "driver" somewhere on their hard drive in case they need to go that route.  

I don't favor Warner.

by Matt Stoller on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 01:14:15 PM EST

Let this stand as the official word. So:

Stoller --> ?????

OK, since you brought it up, here's a very serious question that even the Warner and Bayh camps themselves are working on: In one sentence, explain how they are different. Because to a whole lot of people, they appear to be the two most similar candidates in the field.

but really nobody else has one

What about Edwards? Feingold?

So, the scorecard:

Jerome --> strong Warner

C. Bowers --> strong Feingold

Stoller --> lean Warner

Goddard --> lean Warner

Shields --> ????? (strong Obama??)

Singer --> lean Clark

Everyone at every level (both parties) has database problems. The RNC decided to solve theirs by sinking millions into (1) compiling a national voter file (this means going to each state, county, and local elections clerk and getting lists of registered voters), (2)purchasing and appending various personal consumer marketing data, (3)creating an actual easy-to-use web-based application that their state parties and nominees can subscribe and contribute to.

On our side, a well-funded statewide campaign usually makes similar investments to give itself access to a comprehensive, up-to-date, civic/consumer-data-appended, web-based voter database. So, we know how to solve the problem in discrete instances. We just have to undertake the same multi-year project the GOP has to create a national one that everyone, particularly local party entities, can use and have confidence in.