You'll love having a lab puppy.  My chocolate is laying on the couch here with me right now.  Her favorite toy?  A Democratic donkey my wife got her for her Election Weekend present.  She carried it around to help with GOTV.

The article you posted has nothing to do with the points I made.  Kathleen didn't win the primary on the back on Dane County liberals.  She won the primary despite Dane County progressives.  Kathleen lost the general because of Dane County progressives not voting for her even though they were voting for Doyle.  

I hope people recognize the irony in this all, knowing the backstory.

The databases are not matching because the privatization contractor that the state used could not get the job done (Accenture).  And they overcharged.  

So, GOP says we should privatize.  We privatize.  Privatizing doesn't work, but GOP says it's government's fault and blames government.  Then, because privatization fails, databases are not matching, and Van Hollen files this suit.

Not necessarily if they run it up to the State Supreme Court.  Two justices (if you're from WI, you know exactly who I'm talking about...Gableman and Ziegler) will rule based upon politics, not law and jurisprudence.  Another (Prosser), might too, given his GOP history.  Ohio rulings are not precedent in Wisconsin.  

Elections have consequences.  We need a (D) AG here in WI.  And for those of you Dane County voters that cast a ballot for Doyle and then didn't vote for Falk, this suit and Van Hollen's whole tenure is on your hands.

This is a good idea.

Who runs though?  Brian Blanchard?  John Chisholm?  There isn't really an AG farm team of high-profile attorneys or DAs or US Attorneys (because USAs have been GOP for the Bush  years...Peg was USA for Eastern WI under Clinton).  There are no obvious choices amongst the legislators, Assembly or Senate.  Here's your dark-horse choice: Louis Molepske from AD71 in Stevens Point.

I'm pretty sure that Van Hollen only filed this in state court, not federal.  

This is not exactly how it happened.  Kathleen Falk lost the primary in Dane County.  Peg beat her there, because Peg was seen amongst local progressives as their candidate.  Probably with good reason - Peg was the best AG in the country.  What some folks around here thought was that Kathleen was simply feeding her ego and/or serving Governor Jim Doyle, who had sparred with Peg.  

Kathleen won the (D) primary by spending heavily in northwestern and northcentral Wisconsin.  

Kathleen lost the primary because Doyle voters in Dane County simply did not vote in the AG race.  Had they voted for Kathleen like they did for Doyle (and Tammy Baldwin, and all the other D's), Kathleen would have won.

Your analysis relies too much upon conventional wisdom and not enough on clear-eyed analysis.  It was not because anyone was too liberal.  

"Kathleen Falk" is not a dirty word in Wisconsin probably because a) she's a really good County Executive and b) she is a very talented politician.  

Politics isn't so black and white as you're trying to make it be.  

Here's the thing:

Barack Obama will never actively do anything to weaken reproductive freedom through legislative advocacy as a president or through judicial nomination.

John McCain most certainly will.

Having Bob Casey speak is not about pro/anti-choice per se so much as it is about Catholic outreach.  I'm pretty darned pro-choice myself (not my top issue by far though) and I think that having Bob Casey speak is great.  It actually reassures me that Obama might actually put social justice economics near the top (or at least the middle) of his priority list.  

This might only be partially true.

Bumper stickers and signs are now almost exclusively the province of purchases by campaign supporters.  Would you log in to a website to purchase a $2 bumper sticker and pay to have it shipped to you?

What about a yard sign at $8 where shipping costs more than the sign, putting it at about $20 total?

Campaign offices don't stock these things anymore because they a) are expensive to produce and hold and b) don't move votes.

So if there's not a McCain office (or here in Wisconsin, "Victory Center") near you, you don't have any way at anything like this - and even if you do, you're still probably screwed if you want a sticker or sign.  

Obama doesn't use rhetorical sledgehammers often, so the key is reading the layers of what he's saying (especially considering the specific outlet). Obama first sets down a premise that, in theory, markets are the best system to produce and distribute prosperity. But then nearly everything he says after that points to work that must be done to fix failures and make the economy work for people again.

The unstated premise is that our markets have been hijacked to distribute resources to only a very small segment of our population at the expense of everyone else. Obama's language is not as partisan or blunt as some would like (and this example is particularly subtle), but there's no mistaking his meaning.

He needs to make unstated premises stated.  It's called a "warrant" in informal logic, and it's one of the most powerful rhetorical and emotional tools.  Because that's how you construct the framework by which people interpret your statements.  Methinks he could use some more rhetorical hammers, sledge or otherwise, so that now that the great unwashed masses of the electorate are paying attention, lots of people will hear what he is saying - as well as the subtext to it.

Our ideas are better than theirs - let's make sure people understand what the ideas are in the first place.

Markets are good, but they sometimes fail - like they have recently - so need to fix them where they're broken and prevent them from breaking in the future.  That's what sensible regulation and taxation does - we get an even playing field in our economy that is fair to everyone.

I don't believe Tom DeLay was ever speaker.  I think he was majority whip and then majority leader, but never speaker.  

Also, I think it's great that people like De Lay go out and say things like "he's a Marxist" because most people, thinking or otherwise, know that those kinds of statements are just absurd.  

And Tom, Marxism is pretty far from liberalism...you're out-of-touch, inane talking points belie how little you and your failed cronies have/had to offer this country.  

Will someone point out that...

a) Just because the white working class is not supporting Obama in the primaries that they are going to automatically stay away in the general.  Actually, we still win the white working class, even in the South.  We lose the white middle class.  The working class as such will stick with the Democrats - but someone needs to give them a reason to do so.

b) It's not about blacks vs. Hispanics in 2008 in America.  Sure, there are racial/ethnic divides between them.  But it's more white and non-white.  Not that it's whites vs. non-whites.  But non-whites are as much a base of the party as anything, not simply a racially/ethnically separate black, Hispanic, Asian, whatever.  I just completed some research showing that non-whites are among the most likely Democrats, regardless of being black or Hispanic.  

Do you love the Clintons because of what they stood for on the policy "positions" on their face or do you love the Clintons because they won?

If you loved the policy, let me tell you that the policy sucked.  The economy didn't do well in the 1990s because of Clintonomics, broadly construed.  In fact, Clinton's economic policy and action in the White House exacerbated the situation that Carter and Reagan started, which has led to a collapse today under the incompetence and regressively conservative George Bush.  

The politics were bad too.  Clinton undercut the Democratic Party and the brand it once had, selling out the bases of the party (even when he didn't have to).  The Clintons failed to build institutions and leverage the power of the White House to build real, lasting political power beyond themselves - which also undercut their own abilities and power in office.  

If you liked them because they won, well let's agree that we want to and need to win.  I'm all for winning.  I'm not for losing pure when we can win.  But winning the elections of 2008 can be done by a progressive - in fact, I would argue (as a political science researcher) that a progressive has a better chance to win in 2008 than a split-the-differencer.  And in winning as a progressive, we have a chance to catalyze future wins, consolidate progressive and Democratic power, and really do something - you know, why we all care about politics in the first place.

The Clintons are firmly of the 1990s.  I think Hillary has learned from Bill tremendously, and I'd be OK with her as the nominee more-so today than what I would have been 6 months ago.  But they are products of the politics of the 1990s.  Just imagine Adlai Stevenson running against Nixon in 1972.  It's sort of like that.  People of previous eras that are so emblematic of that era, well they just don't fit in new eras, something that we saw dawn in 2006, blossom in 2008, and flower in 2010 and beyond (my guess is through 2016 or so).  

Nothing like anti-intellectualism to bring out the best in "Democratic strategists."

It's that kind of thinking that put Bush in the White House - and legitimizing it is just silly.  I say that as a proud member of a union, from a working class background, and someone not afraid or unashamed to be smart.

You do not understand the delegate selection process.