In other countries

when a president's approval rating hits a personally terrifying 34%, the army marches in, the Administration flees in fear of its life and a Neu Ordnung is proclaimed.

Governments FALL when 34% is the best they can do...proud cabinet minister's pack their sachels with gold ingots and flee to Montevideo. Swiss Bank Account Numbers are memorized, gunboat captains are bribed...the Concierge at the Grand Caymen Hilton is quietly tipped off...a host of low venal behavior is indulged.

Here in the USA though, we do things differently, 34% (and an appalling 18% approval rating for Dick Cheney) means little more than the same gang of pirates gets to go ON stealing and lying til Someone Somewhere teaches these assholes a harsh public lesson in humility.
When that lesson is going to commence I don't know.

Meanwhile, in operational terms, 34% is also license for the usual shit-heels to jump ugly on John Kerry. "He couldn't beat a Texas scumbag with a 34% approval rating" or so Joanie Vennochi will be screeching sometime this week.
Joanie has been monotonously beating up on the democrats this week, so no doubt we are about due for a dose of her poisonous hatred for our Junior Senator.
Alas, that is all 34% means.

South Dakota seems poised

to completely outlaw abortion.

History is paradoxical, in that it largely runs on pious hopes for the future. right now the Praetorian meme is simple: South Dakota outalws abortion, the Supreme Court dominated as it by time servers and smug bastards uphold said ban, the GOP ascends to electoral heaven on a pillar of fire.

Simple.

We need to be realistic. We must start organizing now on the assumption that reproductive choice will be outlawed within a year.
The cohorts must affected by this must be ruthlessly politicized and brought to the polls on a promise of payback, vengeance and mayhem.
Don't assume we can go national with this in 2006. The right targets and races have to be highlighted.
One thing in our favor is that our enemies are the worst sort of pants pissing cowards imaginable. They can talk tough all right, but bounce their heads off the electoral wall a few times and they'll scream for mommy all the same count on it.
Break some shitwad like DeWine or Santorum in two and watch how these DC dingbats will fall over themselves to "compromise" on reproductive rights.
But all that starts now with a few realistic assumptions.

So Dubai is willing to put the port security deal on hold

in order to "prove" to the Admin and the American People that a corrupt petro-monarchy can also be a bleeding heart friend to the USA?

Like hell, this "pause" in the process is now necessary in order for Bush, Rove and Cheney to bribe and browbeat enough congressmen to accept their sordid little deal with yet another gang of money worshipping foreign pirates.
Thats all, the cashola, promises and threats are issuing out of the White House at this very moment liken unto a sewage cataract. Count on it.

Blute ist Kaput

at least insofar as running against Teddy Kennedy goes.

Hell, not a week ago he was boasting how he'd love to make a race against Edward Maxiumus...the Roves and Norquists were after him to run so the rumors ran.
But as of today, Pete sez no.
In-teresting...

Clearly the once sterling value of promises from the National GOP machine have degraded if a fourth rate ranter like Pete Blute feels he say "no" with impunity.
Left unsaid are any other political plans Peter Blute might have, specifically the intriguing notion of running with Christy "Old Milk" Mihos on an independent gubernatorial ticket this fall.
This could be different, Blute is reputed to have a famously hollow leg and Mihos an empty head that is no impediment to blurting out the most asinine nonsense imaginable.
Of course, there are some doubts out there as to how serious Mihos really is about making the race. He has to signal his intentions by next month so I read and right now the campaign consists a of a few sighing editorials in the Globe and some vague statements from the Candidate.
Not much to go on at the moment, but Pete Blute has fallen far off the radar screen so why wouldn't he take a flyer if the offer came?
If Blute does run for Lieutenant Governor on the Old Milk Ticket, it will be fun to see whether Lehigh and McGrory will break with Healey and reconfigure this former Gingrich toady as a "born again" republican moderate.

A quick shout out to

our Senior Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, 78 years young today.
Hated and feared all over the Federal Union, likes his bourbon straight, loathes injustice and loves the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the citzenry therein.
And by God, thats good enough for me!

Archbishop Sean O'Malley is created a Prince of the One True Holy and Apostolic Church of Rome...

If you close enough vibrant a functional parishes, exile enough critics and lay your hands on enough parish funds...you get yourself a coveted Red Hat.

Can't say ole' Sean hasn't earned it.

So Summers is resigning as President of Harvard eh?

Oh well, dats da way da Crimson crumbles I guess.
Of course, Humble Elias gave up on Big Red the night Harvard's uniformed gendarmes shooshed him away from drinking cheap whiskey on the steps of the Widener at 9pm on a warm Friday Night.
I mean, c'mon guys, I admit it was "Thompsons blended whiskey" but I'd-a carefully disposed the plastic half pint, the Saudi Princelings and Whittington's that disport in the Yard need never have stumbled over said annoying triffle.

That and the fact that the Graduate Schools therein are forever closed to me and there you have it, a petty and eternal indifference to all things Harvard from I.

Scot Lehigh's prescription for the Commonwealth

in 2006 can be summed up as a sort of homeopathic cure, ergo the sins the neglects of sixteen years of alleged moderate republicanism can be cured by electing yet another moderate republican.
Never mind the fact that we are ruled by a particularly despicable form of absentee landlordism, that the state is defunded, depopulated, deindustrialized and despised all over the Federal Union....nope keep the lege in check and hands off Scot's fat check from the New York Times thank yew very much.

Today...

Joanie "The Spiteful No Talent Bitch" Vennochi seaches the back alleys and trash can fires of metro Boston for a hack who will validate her venomous, contentless and bleak view of democratic party politics.
Alas though, the best she can do for an enabler willing to go on the record is Irwin "Tubby" Harrison, a local pollster with a Hindenburg-esque record for crashing and burning.
Tubby though, earns his porridge today by stoutly asserting the democrats are in disarray and lack ideas.
Waaal shit, where have I read that mantra before?
Not fer nothing, but has anyone heard from Tubby Harrison in last fifteen years?
His imperial high noon goes bck to 1986 and the race to succeed Tip O'Neill in the fabled Eight Congressional District. late in the primary tubby pimped a poll for the Boston Globe claiming that George Bachrach had pulled ahead of Joe Kennedy amongst "those most likely to vote". So the Boston Globe had a merry few days second guessing a Kennedy whilst Joe's campaign went into crisis mode.
Two weeks later,Kennedy took Harrison, Bachrach, A scion of the Roosevelt family and the Boston Globe out into the back yard and beat them all about the face and neck with a big electoral shovel.
Harrison has been in a blue vicious funk ever since, no doubt Joanie had to track him down to a rooming house in Milton or something.
THIS is the guy Joanie trots out to confirm her weekly diagnosis for democratic disaster??
Joanie you just aren't listening are you?
Last week I asked you to tell us YOUR big idea for 2006, not drag some poor wretch out of his den to bleat amen to this week's column!
You do know how to read don'cha Joanie?

Oh my....

Peggy "Magic Dolphins" Noonan, High Priestess of Ronald Reagan's Sacred Foot is idly conjuring with a New Vice President.
Yup Cheney is just a wee bit tainted in her opinion thus Peggy is awaiting the usual quiet discussions amongst the GOP wiseguys about a successor.
Frankly this sounds like more delusional nonsense from Ms. Noonan, short of Whittington dying I doubt the Veep is any real trouble. Texas is a weak passive-aggressive state when it comes to drunken brutality like that so there is no legal trouble there. Besides shooting someone by accident just plays to the GOP base or so the frantic consultants do wail.
Anyway, appointing a new Vice President is akin to constructing an instant front runner for the GOP Presidential primaries in 2008 - depending on who gets the sinecure.
The McCain Cult won't allow that believe me.
The last thing that lot want is to be battling some incumbent psycho like Rick Santorum down in the South Carolina primary.

Its my last day on the job today...

so I feel a pressing need to lash out a miniscule target...say oh I dunno, Bo Dietl.
Bo was on Imus yesterday, honestly this guy was a cop and the head of a private detective firm?
He ought to emerging from the clown car at the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus!
Bo was on Imus yesterday you see, ranting and raving about lost US monies in Iraq. But of course he sounds like the late Al Lewis when he gets angry, i.e cartoonish.
Ah but it's too late now Bo, it is your damn war!
If yer buddy GWB turns a blind eye to stealing well, you shoulda done sumpin' about dat in 2004...
Ah but you were too busy calling John Kerry a traitor on the congressionally licensed public airwaves back then, weren't you?
Y'know Bo, all that abuse you heaped on Kerry, didn't hurt him he is tougher than that.
However your masters down at the White House, they just find your outrage hilarious. Nothing funnier than a court jester who suddenly tries to get serious.
Stupid ASS!

Today's Boston Globe contains the following quote:

"I thought the vice president handled the issue just fine," Bush said yesterday in the Oval Office, in his first public comments about the Saturday afternoon accident.

Dickie yer doin' a heck of a job indeed.

Tim Murray in Menotomy

Lt. Gubernatorial Candidate made the rounds of the local Democratic Committee yesterday.
He is a sleek well fed man who has come up through the political ranks to become Mayor of Worcester.
He criticized what he termed "The Romney Healey Administration" for their disconnect from local municipalities and the concurrent shift service costs to the property tax.
He advocated no rollback in the income tax rate until local aid is increased and services are restored.
"Fix the cuts" was the Mayor's mantra.
Murray also talked about the need to invest in commuter rail as means to foster economic development, made much of work in restoring "brown fields" (polluted industrial sites) and of his desire to reconfigure local aid formulas to suit diversity of communities in the Commonwealth.
Mayor Murray talks of empowering localities in respect of revenue development (expl. a Hotel Tax, a Meals Tax etc ) and he is a strong backer of the House version of the current health care bill.
He chided the Romney regime for leaving some twenty five judicial vacancies on the books and wants to appoint more women and minorities to the bar. Here the Lieutenant Governor does have some constitutional authority as he is authorized to chair meetings of the Governors Council.

Other than that, being a strong voice for municipalities in the corner office seems his main intention if he becomes Lieutenant Governor.

Overall, Murray is a sincere and well informed public speaker, he is no barn burner though. He is progressive on some issues and silent on others (a local income tax or the Cape Wind Farm being two thing she shied away from in the course of the meeting).
He also talked about building a strong grass roots organization in the central part of the state for the Fall Campaign. The implication here is, "vote for me and I can deliver the towns that fell away from us in 2002".
Fair enough.
I'm generally liking what I see here, Tim Murray is no Charisma Godling but he is experienced (Far more so than the woman he seeks to displace, Kerry Healey) and and able organizer.
And in a clutch, that works for me.

"Tough Enough"

is clearly up to no good.

But I supposedly "egged on" someone thats always nice to know.

Alan Simpson was on Wolf Blitzer last night

manfully trying to deny and deflect charges that his pal Vice President Dick Cheney is an irresponsible, drunken, angry old pimp who all but killed Harry Whittington with a misplaced shotgun blast.
Alan can be credible on this subject as he is after all, a hunter.

It doesn't help the Veep's case to have Alan Simpson whistling through his Roebucks and quavering "Cheney is usually a good shot!"
Thus he implies that under ideal circumstances Whittington would be dead right now.

Yikes!

Moreover shaking his jowls and rebuking "the media" for all the jokes at the Veep's expense while a man lays injured in the ICU smacks of hypocrisy in extremis. After all, President Bush, His odious Brother Jeb and White House Spokesman Scott "Twink" McClellan all made coarse jokes about the incident at least before Whittington coded and had to be wheeled back into the ICU.
Alas and alack, Simpson's debate partner Paul Begala, an otherwise able man did not bring this point up. He should've, the White House said this was a minor accident and big nothing so everyone made with the funny.
As always we should've checked the White House's fact, they were the usual skein of lies, fabrications and evasions.

Now Gabrieli wants in?

According to the Globe some activists are starting a petition drive to get Chris Gabrieli on the democrat primary ballot for Governor.
Yeeps! the game is afoot to quote Conan Doyle.
I wonder if some nominal Reilly backers are trying to find a centrist candidate that can press their case a little more effectively sans baggage?
Dunno if Gabrieli is the man to do this. I mean, the guy has been a tireless worker and contributor for democratic causes but he is also two time loser having failed to win a primary fight for congress and going down to defeat with O'Brien in 2002.
Moreover, the last time I saw Gabrieli in person he was all mumbles in a room full of democratic activists...if he can't inspire that lot what can he do state-wide?
Still and all that, he is an able man, honest and a good organizer...who knows crazier things have happened.
And no doubt will.

Festa Drops out of Middlesex DA's Race

Details here.
This is a shame, I like Mike he was a familar presence on the campaign trail.
So now it comes down to Barrios or Leone.
Still an impossible "embarrassment of riches" choice.

So Dick Cheney can't tell the difference between a

quail and a human being presumably wearing a bright orange vest?

Geezus Christ I think its time for the Veep's doctors to re-adjust his dosages...I mean what do they have him on???!!

And not for nothing but Cheney is the same asshole who questioned John Kerry's manhood in front of the NRA...who of course cheered the Veep's arrogance and brutality like good little slaves.

Hey all I know about John Kerry is that when the hammer came down and the klaxon went off, he only needed one bullet to do the job.

I can only image what sort of "investigation" will come of this.

Sick
Demented
Typical

After Digging Elias Nugator Senior out

and sitting down for the obligatory post snow shoveling whiskey, a subtle feeling steals over Humble Elias and he wonders just who is digging out the Romney estate in Belmont whilst the Governor loafs in Italy sucking the last bits of adulation out of his 2002 Winter Olympics Chairmanship?
A State Police Honor Guard no doubt...

Joanie the Phoney is at it again...

You would think in some five hundred plus words today Joan Vennochi would be able to devote a single sentence to a constructive national security proposal of any type.

I mean she is a Globe columnist and all, she must overhear useful ideas down at the office.

I mean, yuh think?

Ah well maybe, but that would leave less room for calling John Kerry both wimp and bully or excoriating all democrats as lazy, frantic, inept callow and worthless.

One thing Joanie is good at is exploiting traditional liberal self hatred. For there is nothing like our own self loathing when we lose an election. Alas the whole movement spirals into a bleak despair whereupon at the bottom of the pit, covered with intellectual feces and grinning like a starved mongoloid, is Joan Vennochi.

Ready, willing and oh so able to kick us when we are down.

Well I for one am DONE with that!
This is leadership we have, these are the cards we've been dealt, listening to Joanie call us all jerks and fools accomplishes NOTHING!

Joanie, I'm calling your ass out!
You think the democrats have a leadership crisis, an idea gap? Well shit sweetie, leadership can start on the Op Ed Page as well as anywhere else!!
Year after year I've had to read your cataract of spiteful nonsense, now I want ANSWERS!
Gimme just ONE proposal, ONE Foreign policy idea!
Just one!
No spite, no payback, no John-Kerry-is-a-bully-and-a-weakling....just tell us what your Big Idea for saving the nation!

C'mon Joanie, you are in the Globe twice a week that's plenty of room for one measly idea that'll stop our headlong flight into national bankruptcy and international catastrophe.

Hell, George Will has a big idea...it is an appalling notion of borrowing millions of yuan from the PRC to squander on a cute rate war in the desert and pay offs for the wealthiest of the wealthy...its a BAD idea but is AN idea.
Jeff Jacoby thinks that a snarling illiberal cur like George Bush is just the man to preach the old time gospel of democracy and tolerance to a panting vengeance crazed world.
Again a BAD idea but a closely held one all the same.

C'mon Joanie pony up, tell us YOUR plan!

Ah forget it, you don't have one who am I kidding?

When the mobs surge over the White House fence and the cities ignite like torches you'll still be snarling in the public prints like some shopworn middle school queen bee.
Retire, give it up, the world has passed you by.
At least when it all goes to smash I won't have to listen to your futile yammering!

Lehigh at the Cross Roads...

Poor Scott he can't figure who to venerate as the new GOP Pseudo moderate on Horseback...Kerry Healey or Boss Christy Mihos?
Oh how he tried to pump up Kerry Healey today into a familiar comforting fiscal conservative socially tolerate whozis. Lehigh even invoked the sacred image of Bill Weld, a vertiable Saint among the Hub's Punditariat.
Alas though, Scott is still left with...Kerry "Lieutenant Governor Barbie" Healey at the end of the Day. A woman who hasn't said a single sensible thing since the winter of 2002 and who is merely waiting for her shyster hubbie to buy her the Corner Office outright.
Pretty slim pickin's even for a famously self deluded columnist like Scott.
And then there is Christy "Old Milk" Mihos, clearly this potential candidacy both thrills and frightens Lehigh. On the one hand Scott loves his simple businessman routine, lotsa good columnist cred there. However if Mihos runs on a third Partei ticket he could split the vote so fine that the Democrats Could Seize Power Once Again!
"Can't have that!" thinks Scott "The legislature will run amok, flying monkeys will dine on our pets, Sushi will cost a BUNDLE!!"

Okay all kidding aside, one of the things to watch this year is which way McGrory, Lehigh, McNamara and Vennochi all jump when it comes time to pick a candidate.
They will back any reasonable fraud as long as said candidate promises them the eternal void of "responsible republican moderation".
If Kerry Healey is still polling fifteen points behind the dems, watch them try to scramble aboard Mihos' skiff, third party or no third party.
They may not have a candidate yet, but they know what they don't want and that is us, the democrats winning this fall....the status quote is good enough for them.

Sick
Demented
Typical

Doomsday Scenario:

can found here.

Not that I'm scare mongering, thats the White House's job.

Geez if oil hit $265 a barrel, I think mobs would surge over the White House fence screaming for blood and dynamite.

Which is of course, a bad thing.

Channel Zero links to

some necessary nastiness in respect of the current Muhammed Cartoon Controversy.

Damn but cartoons are powerful things.

So Kerry Healey has thrown her beret into the ring eh?

I wonder what the narrative is gonna be?
"Lieutenant Governor on Horseback crusades to save the Commonwealth from a rampant State Legislature dominated by queers and pinkos" or "Crooked shyster tries to buy Governorship for his inept ne'er do well wife".

Which one will prevail?

Meanwhile, "Kerry Healey: Out of Touch" is running down a few notional running mates for the Lt. Governor.

Humble Elias is idly curious though, is this the same Scott Brown whose daughter is on "American Idol"?
If so, then count on him being selected, it is just the sort of groveling mealy-mouthed opportunism that Kerry Healey can never ever resist.

Meanwhile Boss Christy Mihos is still making noises about an independent run for Governor. With Kerry Healey still polling well behind Tom Reilly, a Mihos candidacy could well spell ruin for the Lieutenant Governor. Hell, Mihos can win with as little as 32 to 33% of the vote if he plays his cards right.

Exactly what the issues will be between them is questionable, both Healey and Mihos, are alleged to be "moderate" republicans, in other words they are good for precisely nothing but in a way appealing to most Boston Globe columnists.

One of them will have to break to the right IF it comes down to a GOP primary fight, but if Mihos forms a third partei ("The Old Milk Party" perhaps?) the ideological divide between them will become relentlessly clouded - count on it.

As democrats under these circumstances, our first job is maintaining and enhancing party unity.
So keep that in mind willya?

Since John McCain went to all the trouble

of throwing a shit fit on Senator Obama, then we ought to start an early 2008 Meme as an incorrigible hothead.
Yeah...dat would work, mind you, we aren't slagging his wife and daughter like the Praetorians do, we'll just be contrasting the sober judgement of our democrats with McCain's record of towering infantile tantrums.

I mean, the man does have a short fuse....too short for the job IMHO.
Anyone out there wanna start cataloguing the instances where McCain blows his stack?
It'll pay off in 2008 I assure you.

:)

Joe Lieberman on Imus today,

In the course of the discussion about Coretta Scott King's funeral, the "I-Man" made the usual insulting reference to Joe's colleague, Hilary Clinton, to which Joe replied "Er um....hmm".
If Joe Lieberman can't tell off a old coward like Imus, how is he supposed to handle Dom Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney?
Like Bill Weld or Joan Vennochi, Joe seems to be made for the outrages and challenges of the Clinton era. Frankly it is only under the protection of a visionary politician like Bill Clinton that someone like Joe Lieberman could prosper. Semen stained dresses and blow jobs are about all Lieberman could handle but torture, domestic spying and eliminationism are just too much for the poor boy.

From the looks of the current Federal Budget...

Mitt Romney is never gonna get those pot-holes in Belmont fixed.
Well he will soon be well clear of it anyway, the yokels of Barnstead N.H. care little about the blown springs and busted suspensions of Massachusetts' commuters.

What do the Paxton Democrats Know...

and why the hell aren't they telling the rest of us?

:)

Romney is a Fraud...

seems to have a rather serious allegation against the Governor's Legal Counsel.

Question for the Day:

Can be found here
Of course, I'm of the opinion that Mick and the Boys have simply got some sort of deal with the Devil going on.
I mean c'mon the man is SIXTY and he could've easily had his pick of the teenyboppers swarming field during te half time show.

Abramoff Speaks....

When he was elected President of the College Republicans in 1981 Jack Abramoff was quoted (by way of Today's Globe) as saying the following:
"Our job," Abramoff wrote, "is to remove liberals ''from power permanently -- [from] student newspaper and radio stations, student governments, and academia.
"We are replacing these leftists with committed conservatives."

Well, y' know Jack does come from a famously un-ambitious generation... hence infantile fantasies of domination and elimination were often confused with a sort of go-getter hustling disposition.
Ah but sort of morbid bombast clearly something Jack never outgrew, along with the other political barons of the GOP, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove etc etc etc...
Late at night when the bourbon flowed long enough, they'd start squalling away like bloodthirsty Mau Maus.
Hell they liked being characterized as such, made them feel all tough and studly under all that baby fat.

Still and all that, this does point up a real problem over the long term: in a Two party System, If One Party has indentified it's competition as a Threat to National Security that Must Be Eliminated, then how long can democracy survive?

John Kerry in Menotomy:

Much to Humble Elias' surprise, our Junior Senator showed up at the local caucus yesterday to make a few introductory remarks. He struck, for the most part a truculent populist tone praised the Local Town Committee and made the necessary argument that the strong efforts of the past will yield victories in the future.
To a crowd that hoped to be yet washing JK's inaugural confetti out of their hair it was a hard sell to say the least.
But he made it, and Kerry deserves credit for making the effort.
If John Kerry has an Imperial Guard, it was Town Hall yesterday, these are his Spartans. They made something akin to 25,000 phone calls on his behalf to New Hampshire in 2004, they flooded the "Arc of Destiny" from Nashua to Manchester from November 2003 to November 2004...they got the vote out.
They have their bona fides and can rightly boast that they helped switch NH to the democrats in 2004.
Imagine what they can do in Massachusetts in 2006?
So hell yes, John Kerry came to say thank you...Napoleon kissed his Imperial Guardsmen, Kerry shook hands and listened to all comers. Deval Patrick was there as well, as was Mike Festa and (so I was told) Tim Murray. These are the people the candidates need to convince to win the primary and then go out and work like New York Cab Drivers in a blizzard.
Otherwise it was good to see JK Playing to the base, don't know what the plan is, but it is a wise move for him to get out there ad keep things agitated. As long as you don't act like you are beaten, then you ain't beat.

PS...

Humble Elias has been laid off again...after a mere four months on the job. Damned resource action. Look for more blogging as I am once again cast into the roiling waters of the unemployed.

Ah...I was just wondering...

just who d'ye suppose Kerry Healey is gonna select as her Lt. Gubernatorial running mate?
Romney skipped literally dozens of qualified people to come up with "Failed State Rep Candidate Barbie", no doubt Healey will pick someone even more inept and trivial.
If she was serious she'd go with someone like Dan Grabauskas or Wayne Budd, but Kerry hasn't got the judgement ghod gave a spider monkey, it'll be some bar room bouncer or a losing candidate for Mayor of Peru.
Anyway it'll be an interesting process...Chris Gabrieli and Marie St. Fleur are at lose ends.

Dear Tom...

You there Mister Attorney General?
Lemme tell you something, stuff like this, is just plain disheartening to all good grass-roots democrats.
You've gone through two Lieutenant Governor candidates in three days big guy, this isn't just bad luck its the spectre of ineptitude that is now stalking you.
Yes, ineptitude, that this all plain democrats hate, the fumbling spirit that steals elections away from us in the cinch.
Already that spiteful no talent bitch Joanie Vennochi has started throwing bouquets and kisses at that social climbing crook Kerry Healey.
You can expect more of this from the other moderate worwhipping punditariat at the Globe in the daze to come.
First things first though, don't listen to Joanie Vennochi, don't listen to any of them as a matter of fact. The lot of them aren't worth the powder necessary to blow them all to hell.
Nonetheless, ya gotta so something about this Tom, the news isn't gonna do you much good in the caucuses this Saturday and the rest of the Lt. Governor's spread is cheesed off at you. However, they will get over it sooner or alter their ambitions and yours will have to comingle at some point.
I'd lay off the search for a running mate right now, you've run out of time and blown through the options, concentrate on a good showing at the caucuses. Use St. Fleur's withdrawal to discuss our crippling dependence on debt to run the macro-economy and increasing our households.
Always strike a populist tone Tom, keep reminding folks that you are the only non-millionaire in this race. Don't back on off on your crimefighting bona fides either, you've throw a lot of crooks in jail, now its time to help you keep a big crook like Kerry Healey out of the corner office.
Stuff like that...yes its crude but it will get something started.
In short, keep punching, otherwise people will start wishing Bill Galvin hadn't bailed.

Sincerely
Humble Elias

By the Way...

don't tell anyone, keep it on the QT but I think we won on Monday.
Yeah I know, Kennedy and Kerry were only able to swing twenty five votes behind a filibuster bid but stop and think, they whomped that coalition together in something like four days.
If they'd had a full week and a little luck who knows what they could've accomplished?
A progressive block, a resistance center if you will is forming in the US Senate. It isn't coalescing at a speed pleasing to the internet, the personalities aren't net favorites, but it is happening. Our jobs as bloggers and the new media punditariat is to nurture this block and get them in contact with the base.
A transmission belt has been created, up until now, liberal politics on line has been enthusiastic but a top-down phenomenon.
Now however a disparate coalition of bloggers and on line activists pushed the filibuster hard and got results...Feinstein flipped completely to our side and Obama (who wanted to get through this mishaugas unseen I suspect) was forced off the bench and into the fight.
As Stirling Newbury put it, Obama and Feinstein decided to play to the base for once and not curry the goodwill of Chris Matthews and Tim Russert.
Why did they decide to play to the base? Because the blogger community highlighted the issue and pushed it hard.
Not bad for a motley and leaderless bunch of "moon bats".

There is much more to be done though, issues and agendas must be delineated, the transmission belt must be improved and made reliable and efficient. Link all that up with the right coalition of senators and then push the sumbitch hard and we can bring the praetorian class to its knees.

SOTU Reaction...

Dunno why, but I just find this y' know....funny.