Campaign 2008

[SuperJerk 0]

I have a question, and I know you all have it, too.

What is up Hillary’s ass? All she wants to do is fuck us up, the dick-licker!

 

Now the Lord said, ‘I am the light of the world.’ Now, He could as easily have said, ‘I am King Shit of Fuck Mountain. Why would you fuck with me?!’

 

Now, I’ll tell you what. I am the only preacher with the fuckin' balls, (and you know this) to say: "Hillary I damn thee! You goddamm motherfuckin', shit-eatin', cock-suckin', son of a B!" Can I get a fuckin' A?

 

I read the shit out of this.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Mark Warner not running in '08.

 

Boo-urns.

[snuffbox 0]

I'm still hoping for a Russ Feingold candidacy.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Russ is running, I'm pretty sure. He may have no chance in hell, but he's running.

[snuffbox 0]

I know he's been making the rounds in NH, etc...but I'm hoping for a legitimate possibility that he may be nominated.

 

A Feingold/Clark ticket would have alot of spine to it. Feingold has already proven that he has more political courage than anyone else in Congress & he appears to be the only candidate besides Obama that might be able to bring some of the JFK appeal to the masses. Clark is the utter opposite of Bush/Cheney in terms of military experience and knowledge.

 

On the Republican side, I contend that Romney is the best choice of those that appear to be definitly running.

[SuperJerk 0]

A Feingold/Clark ticket would have alot of spine to it. Feingold has already proven that he has more political courage than anyone else in Congress & he appears to be the only candidate besides Obama that might be able to bring some of the JFK appeal to the masses. Clark is the utter opposite of Bush/Cheney in terms of military experience and knowledge.

 

IF Hillary runs, she'll scare the shit out of most potential candidates except for Feingold with the amazing amount of cash she'll raise. The two will beat the living shit out of each other over Iraq, and a third dark horse candidate will emerge as the frontrunner in the 11th hour and take the nomination. Whoever this is will try to appease the Hillary-ites by appointing a woman as V.P. (i.e. Lincoln or Landreau), and try to appease the Feingold supporters by taking a firm anti-war stand.

 

McCain will also scare off most of his potential challengers with his name-recognition and war chest, but ultimately loose to someone more to the liking of the conservatives, and --if they're smart about it--with little ties to the Bush Administration.

[snuffbox 0]

Well, there really hasn't been much 'conservatism' in this Administration.

[SuperJerk 0]

Most conservatives just want lower taxes, abortion and gay rights outlawed, and a bigger military.

 

All that talk about "smaller government," states rights, and strict constructionism is just a smoke-screen to sound like they're motivated by a deep philosophical ideal.

 

That's this administration to the letter.

[snuffbox 0]

Thats not conservatism. Buckley/Goldwater built a foundation for real conservatism, and we shouldt change the original philosophy just so current officials ofthe Republicn Party want to hijack & use the term 'conservatism'.

 

This Administration represents a putrid blend of fiscal liberalism, social conservatism, & mindless foreign policy neoconservatism.

 

A conservative wants a SMALL govt and all the qualities that go with it. This cuurent GOP administration is the furthest thing we have EVER had from that idea.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

How is Bush different from Reagan, policy-wise?

[snuffbox 0]

From the surface of things, Reagan was able to see through an end of the Cold War without bloodshed whereas Bush has really fumbled this terrorism ball. Reagan, though he was incredibly old & slowing down in the upstairs, had experience on the national political level since 1964 (he did alot more for Goldwater's doomed campaign in one speech than everyone/thing else combined) and was thus far more qualified in terms of knowing whose advice to take, etc than Bush had coming in (and, apparently GWB is still very lacking in this area). That doesnt necessarily mean that the advice they chose to take led them to make opposing policy decisions but Reagan certainly had a legup on Bush in terms of political and policy knowledge.

 

The big difference is that Reagan didn't have his hand held tight by those with a neoconservative mindset re: foreign policy. Unfortunately (especially for Reagan, who is credited by real conservatives as the successor to Barry Goldwater), they share a huge similarity in terms of how much money was spent during their administrations.

 

On a personal note, one big difference between these two presidents - had I been of voting age at the time, I would have voted for Reagan in 1984 (I would have gone with John Anderson/Pat Lucey in '80 as Lucey was a homeboy and the election was a guranteed Reagan win anyway).

[SuperJerk 0]

How is Bush different from Reagan, policy-wise?

Reagan was able to change course when he saw that his originally policies weren't working. Modern Republicans have completely forgotten that the man who wanted SDI and the 1981 tax cuts is also the man who raised taxes in 1983, negotiated huge nuclear arsenal reductions with Gorbachev, and signed the Gramm-Rudman Act.

 

Bush just keeps doing the same thing over and over whether it works or not.

[snuffbox 0]

What would the Bush Administratin have done if they had had this kind of power during the Cold War?

[Toshiaki Koala 0]

I've noticed that whenever the media tells me I either love or hate something, I actually don't give a shit about it either way. Like Hillary Clinton or the band Rush. Well, I do like "Tom Sawyer," and Hillary is a bit of cunt, but I really don't expend much emotion on them.

[snuffbox 0]

Which media outlet told you that you love the band Rush?

[Toshiaki Koala 0]

They're always described as something "you either love or hate," as is Hillary. That's what I meant to say.

[snuffbox 0]

Ah.

[SuperJerk 0]

Barack Obama Update...

 

Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006

The Fresh Face

First-term Senator Barack Obama has the charisma and the ambition to run for President. But, as JOE KLEIN reports from the campaign trail, he's not quite ready to answer the tough questions

By JOE KLEIN

 

It is 9 A.M. on a fresh, sunny Saturday in Rockford, Ill., and nearly a thousand people have gathered in the gymnasium at Rock Valley College to participate in a town meeting with their Senator, Barack Obama. It is an astonishingly large crowd for a beautiful Saturday morning, but Obama--whose new book, The Audacity of Hope, is excerpted starting on page 52--has become an American political phenomenon in what seems about a nanosecond, and the folks are giddy with anticipation. "We know he's got the charisma," says Bertha McEwing, who has lived in Rockford for more than 50 years. "We want to know if he's got the brains." Just then there is a ripple through the crowd, then gasps, cheers and applause as Obama lopes into the gym with a casual, knees-y stride. "Missed ya," he says, moving to the microphone, and he continues greeting people over raucous applause. "Tired of Washington."

 

There's a sly hipster syncopation to his cadence, "Been stuck there for a while." But the folksiness pretty much disappears when he starts answering questions. Obama's actual speaking style is quietly conversational, low in rhetoric-saturated fat; there is no harrumph to him. About halfway through the hour-long meeting, a middle-aged man stands up and says what seems to be on everyone's mind, with appropriate passion: "Congress hasn't done a damn thing this year. I'm tired of the politicians blaming each other. We should throw them all out and start over!"

 

"Including me?" the Senator asks.

 

A chorus of n-o-o-o-s. "Not you," the man says. "You're brand new." Obama wanders into a casual disquisition about the sluggish nature of democracy. The answer is not even remotely a standard, pretaped political response. He moves through some fairly arcane turf, talking about how political gerrymandering has led to a generation of politicians who come from safe districts where they don't have to consider the other side of the debate, which has made compromise--and therefore legislative progress--more difficult. "That's why I favored Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal last year, a nonpartisan commission to draw the congressional-district maps in California. Too bad it lost." The crowd is keeping up with Obama, listening closely as he segues into a detailed discussion of the federal budget. Eventually, he realizes he has been filibustering and apologizes to the crowd for "making a speech." No one seems to care, since Obama is doing something pretty rare in latter-day American politics: he is respecting their intelligence. He's a liberal, but not a screechy partisan. Indeed, he seems obsessively eager to find common ground with conservatives. "It's such a relief after all the screaming you see on TV," says Chuck Sweeny, political editor of the Rockford Register Star. "Obama is reaching out. He's saying the other side isn't evil. You can't imagine how powerful a message that is for an audience like this."

 

Obama's personal appeal is made manifest when he steps down from the podium and is swarmed by well-wishers of all ages and hues, although the difference in reaction between whites and blacks is subtly striking. The African Americans tend to be fairly reserved--quiet pride, knowing nods and be-careful-now looks. The white people, by contrast, are out of control. A nurse named Greta, just off a 12-hour shift, tentatively reaches out to touch the Senator's sleeve. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I just touched a future President! I can't believe it!" She is literally shaking with delight--her voice is quivering--as she asks Obama for an autograph and then a hug.

 

Indeed, as we traveled that Saturday through downstate Illinois and then across the Mississippi into the mythic presidential-campaign state of Iowa, Obama seemed the political equivalent of a rainbow--a sudden preternatural event inspiring awe and ecstasy. Bill Gluba, a longtime Democratic activist who sells real estate on both sides of the river in the Quad Cities area, reminisced about driving Bobby Kennedy around Davenport, Iowa, on May 14, 1968. "I was just a teenaged kid," he says. "But I'll never forget the way people reacted to Kennedy. Never seen anything like it since--until this guy." The question of when Obama--who has not yet served two years in the U.S. Senate--will run for President is omnipresent. That he will eventually run, and win, is assumed by almost everyone who comes to watch him speak. In Davenport a local reporter asks the question directly: "Are you running for President in 2008?" Obama surprises me by saying he's just thinking about the 2006 election right now, which, in the semiotic dance of presidential politics, is definitely not a no. A few days later, I ask Obama the obvious follow-up question: Will he think about running for President in 2008 when the congressional election is over? "When the election is over and my book tour is done, I will think about how I can be most useful to the country and how I can reconcile that with being a good dad and a good husband," he says carefully, and then adds, "I haven't completely decided or unraveled that puzzle yet."

 

Which is even closer to a yes--or, perhaps, it's just a clever strategy to gin up some publicity at the launch of his book tour. The current Obama mania is reminiscent of the Colin Powell mania of September 1995, when the general--another political rainbow--leveraged speculation that he might run for President into book sales of 2.6 million copies for his memoir, My American Journey. Powell and Obama have another thing in common: they are black people who--like Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan--seem to have an iconic power over the American imagination because they transcend racial stereotypes. "It's all about gratitude," says essayist Shelby Steele, who frequently writes about the psychology of race. "White people are just thrilled when a prominent black person comes along and doesn't rub their noses in racial guilt. White people just go crazy over people like that."

 

When I asked Obama about this, he began to answer before I finished the question. "There's a core decency to the American people that doesn't get enough attention," he said, sitting in his downtown Chicago office, casually dressed in jeans and a dark blue shirt. "Figures like Oprah, Tiger, Michael Jordan give people a shortcut to express their better instincts. You can be cynical about this. You can say, It's easy to love Oprah. It's harder to embrace the idea of putting more resources into opportunities for young black men--some of whom aren't so lovable. But I don't feel that way. I think it's healthy, a good instinct. I just don't want it to stop with Oprah. I'd rather say, If you feel good about me, there's a whole lot of young men out there who could be me if given the chance."

 

But that's not quite true. There aren't very many people--ebony, ivory or other--who have Obama's distinctive portfolio of talents, or what he calls his "exotic" family history. His parentage was the first thing he chose to tell us about himself when he delivered his knockout keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004: his father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas. He told the story in brilliant, painful detail in his first book, Dreams from My Father, which may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician. His parents met at the University of Hawaii and stayed together only briefly. His father left when Obama was 2 years old, and Barack was raised in Hawaii by his Kansas grandparents, except for a strange and adventurous four-year interlude when he lived in Indonesia with his mother and her second husband. As a teenager at Hawaii's exclusive Punahou prep school and later as a college student, Obama road tested black rage, but it was never a very good fit. There was none of the crippling psychological legacy of slavery in his family's past. He was African and American, as opposed to African American, although he certainly endured the casual cruelties of everyday life--in the new book, he speaks of white people mistaking him for a valet-parking attendant--that are visited upon nonwhites in America. "I had to reconcile a lot of different threads growing up--race, class," he told me. "For example, I was going to a fancy prep school, and my mother was on food stamps while she was getting her Ph.D." Obama believes his inability to fit neatly into any group or category explains his relentless efforts to understand and reconcile opposing views. But the tendency is so pronounced that it almost seems an obsessive-compulsive tic. I counted no fewer than 50 instances of excruciatingly judicious on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-handedness in The Audacity of Hope. At one point, he considers the historic influence of ideological extremists--that is, people precisely unlike him. "It has not always been the pragmatist, the voice of reason, or the force of compromise, that has created the conditions for liberty," he writes about the antislavery movement of the 19th century. "Knowing this, I can't summarily dismiss those possessed of similar certainty today--the antiabortion activist ... the animal rights activist who raids a laboratory--no matter how deeply I disagree with their views. I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty--for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute."

 

Yikes. But then Obama is nothing if not candid about his uncertainties and imperfections. In Dreams from My Father, which was written before he became a politician, he admits to cocaine and marijuana use and also to attending socialist meetings. In The Audacity of Hope, I counted 28 impolitic or self-deprecating admissions. Immediately, on page 3, he admits to political "restlessness," which is another way of saying he's ambitious. He flays himself for enjoying private jets, which eliminate the cramped frustrations of commercial flying but--on the other hand!--isolate him from the problems of average folks. He admits that his 2004 Senate opponent, Alan Keyes, got under his skin. He blames himself for "tensions" in his marriage; he doubts his "capacities" as a husband and father. He admits a nonpopulist affinity for Dijon mustard; he cops to being "grumpy" in the morning. He even offers his media consultant David Axelrod's opinions about the best negative TV ads that could have been used against him in the 2004 Senate campaign. (He once--accidentally, he says--voted against a bill to "protect our children from sex offenders.")

 

There is a method to this anguish. Self-deprecation and empathy are powerful political tools. Obama's candor is reminiscent of John McCain, who once said of his first marriage, "People wouldn't think so highly of me if they knew more about that." Obama's empathy is reminiscent of Bill Clinton, although the Senator's compassion tends to be less damp than Clinton's: it's more about understanding your argument than feeling your pain. Both those qualities have been integral to Obama's charm from the start. His Harvard Law School classmate Michael Froman told me Obama was elected president of the Law Review, the first African American to hold that prestigious position, because of his ability to win over the conservatives in their class. "It came down to Barack and a guy named David Goldberg," Froman recalls. "Most of the class were liberals, but there was a growing conservative Federalist Society presence, and there were real fights between right and left about almost every issue. Barack won the election because the conservatives thought he would take their arguments into account."

 

After three years as a civil rights lawyer and law professor in Chicago, Obama was elected to the Illinois state senate and quickly established himself as different from most of the other African-American legislators. "He was passionate in his views," says state senator Dave Syverson, a Republican committee chairman who worked on welfare reform with Obama. "We had some pretty fierce arguments. We went round and round about how much to spend on day care, for example. But he was not your typical party-line politician. A lot of Democrats didn't want to have any work requirement at all for people on welfare. Barack was willing to make that deal."

 

The raising and dashing of expectations is at the heart of almost every great political drama. In Obama's case, the expectations are ridiculous. He transcends the racial divide so effortlessly that it seems reasonable to expect that he can bridge all the other divisions--and answer all the impossible questions--plaguing American public life. He encourages those expectations by promising great things--at least, in the abstract. "This country is ready for a transformative politics of the sort that John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt represented," he told me. But those were politicians who had big ideas or were willing to take big risks, and so far, Barack Obama hasn't done much of either. With the exception of a bipartisan effort with ultra-conservative Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to publish every government contract--a matter of some embarrassment to their pork-loving colleagues--his record has been predictably liberal. And the annoying truth is, The Audacity of Hope isn't very audacious.

 

A few weeks ago, I watched Obama give a speech about alternative energy to an audience gathered by MoveOn.org at Georgetown University. It was supposed to be a big deal, one of three speeches MoveOn had scheduled to lay out its 2008 issues agenda, a chance for the best-known group of activist Democrats to play footsie with the party's most charismatic speaker, and vice versa. But it was a disappointment, the closest I had seen Obama come to seeming a standard-issue pol, one who declares a crisis and answers with Band-Aids. In this case, he produced a few scraggly carrots and sticks to encourage Detroit to produce more fuel-efficient cars. The audience of students and activists sensed the Senator's timidity and became palpably less enthusiastic as Obama went on. Just two days before, Al Gore gave a rousing speech in New York City in which he proposed a far more dramatic alternative energy plan: a hefty tax on fossil fuels that would be used, in turn, to reduce Social Security and Medicare taxes. I asked Obama why he didn't support an energy-tax increase married to tax relief for working Americans in the MoveOn speech or in The Audacity of Hope. "I didn't think of it," he replied, but sensing the disingenuousness of his response--talk of a gas tax is everywhere these days, especially among high-minded policy sorts--he quickly added,"I think it's a really interesting idea."

 

I pressed him on this. Surely he had thought about it? "Remember, the premise of this book wasn't to lay out my 10-point plan," Obama danced. "My goal was to figure out the common values that can serve as a basis for discussion." Sensing my skepticism, he tried again: "This book doesn't drill that deep in terms of policy ... There are a slew of good ideas out there. Some things end up on the cutting-room floor."

 

Universal health insurance also found its way to the cutting-room floor. I asked about the universal plan recently passed in Massachusetts, which was a triumph of Obama-style bipartisanship. The plan requires everyone who earns three times the poverty rate to purchase health insurance and subsidizes those who earn less than that. Shouldn't health insurance be mandatory, like auto insurance, for those who can afford it? Obama wouldn't go there. "If there's a way of doing it voluntarily, that's more consonant with the American character," he said. "If you can't solve the problem without the government stepping in, that's when you make it mandatory."

 

After we jousted over several other issues, Obama felt the need to step back and defend himself. "Look, when I spoke out against going to war in Iraq in 2002, Bush was at 60-65% in the polls. I was putting my viability as a U.S. Senate candidate at risk. It looks now like an easy thing to do, but it wasn't then." He's right about that: more than a few of his potential rivals for the presidency in 2008 voted, as a matter of political expediency, to give Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq. Then Obama returned to the energy issue. "When I call for increased fuel-economy standards, that doesn't sit very well with the [united Auto Workers], and they're big buddies of mine ... Look, it's just not my style to go out of my way to offend people or be controversial just for the sake of being controversial. That's offensive and counterproductive. It makes people feel defensive and more resistant to changes."

 

Talk about defensive: this was the first time I had ever seen Obama less than perfectly comfortable. And his discomfort exposed the elaborate intellectual balancing mechanism that he applies to every statement and gesture, to every public moment of his life. "He's working a very dangerous high-wire act," Shelby Steele told me. "He's got to keep on pleasing white folks without offending black folks, and vice versa." Indeed, Obama faces a minefield on issues like the racial gerrymandering of congressional districts and affirmative action. "You're asking him to take policy risks? Just being who he is is taking an enormous risk."

 

There is a certain amount of political as well as psychological wisdom to what Steele says. The most basic rule of presidential politics is that you run against your predecessor. If Obama, 45, chooses to run in 2008, his consensus seeking would stand in stark contrast not only to the hyperpartisan Bush Administration but also to the histrionic, self-important style of baby-boom-generation politicians. Or it could work against him. An old-time Chicago politician told me Obama's thoughtfulness might be a negative in a presidential campaign. "You have to convey strength," he said, "and it's hard to do that when you're giving on-the-other-hand answers."

 

Meanwhile, back in our interview, I offer a slightly barbed olive branch: Maybe I'm asking for too much when I expect him to be bold on the issues, I suggest. Maybe my expectations for him are too high? "No, no," he says, and returns for a third time to energy policy--to Gore's tax-swap idea. "It's a neat idea. I'm going to call Gore and have a conversation about it. It might be something I'd want to embrace."

 

But he's not ready to make that leap just yet. Boldness needs to be planned, not blurted--and there are all sorts of questions to ponder before he takes the next step.Would the arrogance implicit in running now, after less than one term in the Senate, undercut his carefully built reputation for judiciousness? Is the Chicago politician right about the need to be strong and simple in a run for President? Or can Obama overturn all the standard political assumptions simply by being himself? "In setting your expectations for me now, just remember I haven't announced that I'm running in 2008," he concluded. "I would expect that anyone who's running in 2008, you should have very high expectations for them."

 

 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...46362-1,00.html

[SuperJerk 0]

There's been a rumor I think already addressed that Hillary might run for Senate Dem. Leader. This story I'm sure will only add fuel to the fire.

 

AP: Reid used campaign funds for Christmas bonuses

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid paid cash for a $750,000 condo at the Ritz-Carlton where he lives. But when it comes to giving the doorman and other support staff Christmas bonuses, he's been using campaign donations instead of his own money.

 

Federal election law bars candidates from converting political donations for personal use.

 

Questioned about the campaign expenditures by The Associated Press, Reid's office said Monday his lawyers had approved them but he nonetheless was personally reimbursing his campaign for the $3,300 he had directed to the staff holiday fund at his residence.

 

Reid also announced he was amending his ethics reports to Congress to more fully account for a Las Vegas land deal -- highlighted in an AP story last week -- that allowed him to collect $1.1 million in 2004 for property he hadn't personally owned in three years. (Full story)

 

In that matter, the senator hadn't disclosed to Congress that he first sold land to a friend's limited liability company back in 2001 and took an ownership stake in the company. He collected the seven-figure payout when the company sold the land again in 2004 to others.

 

Reid portrayed the 2004 sale as a personal sale of land, not mentioning the company's ownership or its role in the sale.

 

The senator said his amended ethics reports would list the 2001 sale and the company, called Patrick Lane LLC. He said the amended reports also would divulge two other, smaller land deals he had failed to report to Congress.

 

"I directed my staff to file amended financial disclosure forms noting that in 2001, I transferred title to the land to a Limited Liability Corporation," Reid said in a statement issued by his office.

 

He said he believed the 2001 sale did not alter his ownership of the land but he agreed to file the amended reports because "I believe in ensuring all facts come to light."

 

Reid labeled the AP story as the "latest attempt" by Republicans to affect the election. AP reported last week that it learned of the land deal from a former Reid adviser who had concerns about how it was reported to Congress.

 

On the Ritz-Carlton holiday donations, Reid gave $600 in 2002, then $1,200 in 2004 and $1,500 in 2005 from his re-election campaign to an entity listed as the REC Employee Holiday Fund. His campaign listed the expenses as campaign "salary" for two of the years and as a "contribution" one year.

 

Reid: Donations approved by lawyers

Reid's office said the listing as salary was a "clerical error" and that the use of campaign money for the residential fund was approved by his lawyers. "I am reimbursing the campaign from my own pocket to prevent this issue from being used in the current campaign season to deflect attention from Republican failures," he said.

 

Residents and workers at the Ritz said the fund's full name is the Residents Executive Committee Holiday Fund and that it collects money each year from condominium residents to help provide Christmas gifts, bonuses and a party for the support staff.

 

Federal election law permits campaigns to provide "gifts of nominal value" but prohibits candidates from using political donations for personal expenses, such as mortgage, rent or utilities for "any part of any personal residence."

 

The law specifically defines prohibited personal use expenses as any "obligation or expense of any person that would exist irrespective of the candidate's campaign or duties as a federal officeholder."

 

Land deeds show Reid and his wife, Landra, purchased a condominium for their Washington residence at the hotel for $750,000 in March 2001. The holiday fund has existed for years at the condo, workers said.

 

Reid's office said he paid cash for the condo, tapping a money market fund worth between $500,000 and $1 million in proceeds from an earlier sale of a home. "Senator Reid purchased his home in Washington, DC, with the proceeds of the sale of his prior residence in McLean, Virginia," the office said.

 

Senator agrees to reimburse campaign

Reid said Monday he believed the holiday fund expenses were permissible but he nonetheless was reimbursing the campaign.

 

"These donations were made to thank the men and women who work in the building for the extra work they do as a result of my political activities, and for helping the security officers assigned to me because of my Senate position," Reid said.

 

Larry Noble, the Federal Election Commission's former chief enforcement lawyer, said Reid's explanation is aimed at a "gray area" in the law by suggesting the donations were tied to his official Senate and political work.

 

"What makes this harder for the senator is that this is his personal residence and this looks like an event that everybody else at the residence is taking out of their personal money as they're living there," Noble said.

 

Back in 2000, Congress rebuked powerful House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pennsylvania, for among other things creating the appearance, through poor record-keeping, that campaign committee expenditures were for personal rather than bona fide campaign uses.

 

On the land dealings, Reid announced Monday he had failed to disclose two other transactions on his prior ethics reports and would account for those on his amended reports along with the 2001 sale.

 

The first, he said, involved the 2004 sale of about one-third acre of land he owned in his hometown of Searchlight, Nevada. And he said he had not reported his ownership since 1985 of a quarter acre of land his brother gave him in 1985.

 

Reid said the failure to disclose those transactions previously was due to "clerical errors" and they amounted to "two minor matters that were inadvertently left off my original disclosure forms."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/17/rei...l.ap/index.html

[Guest Felonies!]

Did that son of a bitch try to bribe anyone?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Did that son of a bitch try to bribe anyone?

 

Ha! Nice reference.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Reid needs to get his shit together.

[SuperJerk 0]

Reid needs to get his shit together.

 

If that includes resigning, I'm all for it.

 

No one in public service should be getting cash gifts for anything. Why the hell does this man feel the need to give government employees cash bonuses?

[snuffbox 0]

Reid should just retire and compete with Don King as a shady boxing promoter.

[SuperJerk 0]

Dumbest. Poll. Ever.

[2GOLD 0]

Dumbest. Poll. Ever.

 

And if it's a leap year, McCain and Clinton somehow end up behind Waldo and Captain Kangaroo.

Maybe the word "ham" in her maiden name tricks fat people into thinking entirely about ham and voting for her?

[SuperJerk 0]

The Democratic nominee will either be Ed Rendell or Evan Bayh.

 

The Republican nominee will either be Mike Huckabee or John McCain.

 

These predictions are invalidated, of course, if none of these people run. I'm certain at least 3 of these 4 will.

[2GOLD 0]

I stand by my opinion that if Democrats pick Clinton, I'm voting Republican. I don't care who the Republicans would run, no way in hell do I want her in control.

 

Get a better female candiate.

[Guest Princess Leena]

I'd also vote for anyone against Hillary.

[SuperJerk 0]

"How you doin'?"