Two prominent Cook County politicians who are black will be running in the next election for President of the Cook County Board; this article discusses how that could split the black vote in the election and let Candidate #3 in the door, a reverse of what happened when Washington beat Byrne and Daley for the Mayor’s seat in 1983.

I remember that ( Read more... )

The short version seems to be that it’s unlikely without further explosions that Gov. Sanford of South Carolina will be forced to quit his job over the whole affair-affair, but it’s pretty certain that his political future is totally destroyed.   This review from the South Carolina paper The State puts it in a nutshell, without mentioning the ( Read more... )

Dick Durbin and some other Senate Democrats are saying - dudes, you Democratic senators who don’t wanna vote *for* a bill we ‘re putting through don’t have to do so, but fer pete’s sake, nobody lost their seats for voting to shut off debate and bring the bill to a floor vote.

The ‘close debate / cloture’ vote requires 60 votes.  An up or down ( Read more... )

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The attacks on Sotomayor are not going to help this, especially in the face of the further radicalization of the Republican Party:

No matter what the specific amounts are (somewhere between a net of 6% and 8%), roughly half of the Democratic electoral improvement since the dark days of 1988 has come from demographic change, rather than from either ( Read more... )

Interesting observation on the coming Supreme Court selection (which I am otherwise ignoring all the thrash over) in this blog; in short, the base demands that hell be raised and impossible demands be made on Obama to appoint another Scalia, which will never happen.  Nor will he appoint a pot-smoking hippie.  But the level of ranting and screaming ( Read more... )

Here’s a map from AP of the major stimulus projects on a county-by-county basis.   Zoomable flash.   In my case, the big project in my area is the resurfacing and repair of a major nearby road that we use on a daily basis that is pothole city (which is unfortunately a widespread problem in the Chicago area after this last winter).    They’re also ( Read more... )

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Well, the Senate can filibuster a Supreme Court nomination.  And I have no idea who Obama will pick.  But you can rest assured that the confirmation will be messy no matter who he picks, considering what’s been going on over the last little bit.  I’m not looking forward to it at all.

I’m confused, folks.  Which side is the Republican leadership on; the side that wants to work over Wall Street, or the side that wants to Let Greedheads Free?

If you’re wanting to discuss the whole AIG matter rationally, I have some reading assignments for you:  Numerian at the Agonist, Ezra Klein at the American Prospect, Eliot Spitzer (yes, him) ( Read more... )