My Kitchen Table

Not so fast Rod!

Well, just when it seemed like the Democrats were going to do the Democratic thing - go down without a real fight - on the Rod Burris Illinois senate seat question, FoxNews comes up with this little gem:

MyFOXChicago.com reports that Burris -- the former Illinois attorney general who has been appointed by Blagojevich to fill President-elect Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat --  held a 2006 fundraiser for the governor at his home.

Burris and his lobbying firm also donated $22,295 to Blagojevich's campaign, according to MyFOXChicago.com.

Over the past four years, Burris' lobbying firm reportedly won $705,435 in state contracts.

And Burris' longtime lobbying partner Fred Lebed is a board member of the Christian Industrial League -- the same group that hired Blagojevich's wife Patricia.

Lebed has denied having any involvement in the hiring of the governor's wife.

Ah, Chicago, where the stench of "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" lingers over the land like a dark cloud on a gloomy day.

Gotta look into this. $22,000 is a fair chunk of money. And what happens if the Dems seat Burris and then it emerges down the road that this was a pay back for favors.

Senator Franken

Oh, how this must make Bill O'Reilly mad.

It looks like Al Franken will be the next senator from Minnesota. The Associated Press reports that, as of this morning, Franken holds a 225-vote lead over current GOP Sen. Norm Coleman. Once Franken is certified by the state's canvassing board, Coleman can take the issue to court. But a 225-vote total is a different kettle of fish than a 40- or 50-vote differential. And Chuck Schumer, who is the new head of the Senate Rules Committee (and thus gets to decide who gets seated and who doesn't) is already saying that Franken "won" the election.

The Republicans, of course, understand the importance of "winning" before all avenues are exhausted. More than a few writers have noted that one of the key factors in George W. Bush's favor in 2000 was that FoxNews had declared him the "winner" of that presidential election before all the votes were counted in the close state of Florida. (The only network to do so.) While Fox later revised (or more likely, put on hold) its pronouncement, it stuck in people's minds that Bush had won, and this gave him a hammer he could use again Al Gore's attempts to get all the votes in the state counted.

And as usual, Nate Silver at 538.com has a nice take on what this extra vote means for the Dems.

Some thoughts on the Democratic National Convention

Let me see ...

I'm fed up with Clinton delegates and their whining. They remind me of the Pittsburgh Steelers after they lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game in 2001. The Steelers were supposed to run all over the Pats. The Pats, lead by Tom Brady and Drew Bledsoe, won when no on expected it. Afterwards in the locker room, the Steelers players couldn't keep their bitterness at losing in check. They dismissed the Pats win and kept saying their were the best team. But it was the Pats that went on to win the first of their three Super Bowls.

So my message to those whining Clinton supporters (they are not all like that but more than a few are) is the same as it is to Steelers fans when they bring up that game: you lost, so stow it. As Bill Parcells put it, you are your record. For all your money and your star power advantages etc. etc. the Obama people ran a better, more disciplined campaign, while your candidate ran a campaign that one day university political science professors will use as an example on how not to run a presidential campaign.

And here's the other bit of news. Obama probably doesn't even need your support.

The mainstream media, even the blogs, have missed the point here. They are so focused on polls and on the battle between Obama and Clinton that they are missing the bigger story - the job the Obama campaign is already doing to get out the vote on November 4. I predict it will be like nothing we've every seen before. With millions of new voters dying to get out and vote for their candidate ... that's not going to go away on election day.

I had a talk with a poll worker here in Virginia recently. She told me that election officials are desperate for poll workers. They are already telling people be prepared to stand in line to vote for hours. They say the turnout will be like nothing the state has ever seen before.

I suspect that's why the Obama camp has been so calm, despite the supposed "closeness" of the race.

It's gonna be a blow out folks. You heard it here first ...or close to first.

Clinton Supporters Told Her It Was Time to Go

She just wanted a bit more time. Her supporters told her it was time to fold up her tent and get with the program.

Ben Smith at Politico.com writes that Sen. Hillary Clinton held a conference call with her Congressional supporters yesterday to plead for a little more time to try and wrest the Democratic nomination away from Sen. Barack Obama. But the answers she got were not the ones she wanted to hear. They told her that time had run out and that she needed to leave the race this week and endorse Obama.

Apparently her supporters' patience ran out Tuesday night when she gave her "let's ignore reality together, shall we" speech after most media had declared Obama the winner of the nomination.

So Saturday she'll give her "I'm suspending my campaign" speech and acknowledge Obama as the winner. That's when it will get really interesting - any guesses on what she'll do in the coming months?

Report:Sen. Ted Kennedy Suffers Stroke

The Cape Cod Times reports that Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy has had a stroke while vacationing with his family in Hyannis on Cape Cod. The Times reports that emergency technicians responded to a call around 8:30 a.m. Kennedy was held in the local hospital's emergency room before the decision was made to airvac him to Boston.

Kennedy is 76.

No more jokes about John Kerry's presidential campaign, OK?

In comedy, as in politics, timing is everything.

John Kerry, of course, recently brought comedy and politics together in a unique way. As a result, his joke about stupid people serving in Iraq will rank with Howard Dean's howl and Ed Muskie's tears as snapshots of moments when someone's chance to be president explodes, in spectacular way that reminds one of the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars.

So Kerry's announcement yesterday that he would not run for President in 2008, but would seek reelection to his Senate seat came as no surprise. The moment that joke left his lips, rightly or wrongly, he was yesterday's news, whether he wanted to admit it or not. The New York Daily News reports that a posting on one Democratic blog illustrates how relieved the party is that Kerry won't be running again: "There is a god," the post read. With friends like that ...

Powerline picks up on Kerry's announcement, and a subsequent e-mail he sent to supporters, that mentions Kerry's new goal of getting the president to set a deadline to leave Iraq. Powerline sees it as a harbinger of Democratic problems in the coming months.

Nothing about "success" in Iraq.  Nor is there any talk about success on Kerry's new web site, Set A Deadline, where Kerry says his "goal is to end the war in Iraq."

I think this exemplifies the Democrats' problem. Its base has no interest in a successful Iraq policy, but most Americans still want to win. Over the coming months, it will not be easy for Democrats to satisfy their base without being seen as outright defeatists.

Back in Beantown, the GOP is trying to decide who'll run against Kerry. Under ordinary circumstances it might be a tough call, since the Democrats basically wiped the floor with the GOP from one end of Massachusetts to the other in the November elections. But the Mass. GOP believes it has a lot of talent to pick from this time, especially with the shine off that Boston Brahmin exterior of Kerry.

Some of those thinking about a try at the world's most exclusive club include, according to the Boston Herald, Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charles Baker, real estate mogul and powerful GOP fund-raiser Chris Egan, state Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester), U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and President Bush’s former chief of staff, Andy Card.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe reports that, although the remains of Kerry''s presidential hopes are still warm, his top fundraiser quickly jumped aboard the Barak Obama express, apparently jilting Sen. Hilary Clinton in the process.

Alan D. Solomont, who led a group that raised $35 million in New England alone for Kerry's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004, called Senator Clinton "an enormous talent who would be a terrific president" but said Obama, her Senate colleague, is "the sort of person America wants right now in the White House."

Ouch. That'll leave a mark.