PA to have 2 Democratic Senators as of later today, Democrats to have even bigger less filibuster-prone majority!

Wowzers... so PA has played big this year... the Phillies won the World Series, the Steelers the Superbowl... the Sixers and Flyers made the playoffs (at least I think the Flyers did, right?) but no sports action can quite rival what's going on in Washington today thanks to the Keystone State. With almost 30 years of service in the Senate, stalwart independent/moderate Republican Arlen Specter is announcing later today that he will switch party affiliations to join the majority and (once the whole Minnesota debacle is settled) provide a filibuster-proof margin to the Democrats in the US Senate.

Now, Specter has been facing up with the prospects of a concerted challenge from right-wingers in PA come the next round of elections, and while he enjoys a high degree of popularity back home the state laws are such that only registered Republicans can vote in their party's primary for the Senate seat. If Specter lost the Republican primary he would not be able to run as an independent like Lieberman did up here in CT... so there certainly is some smart political calculus behind the decision. Anyway, this is a pretty monumental day in politics, PA state politics and a big day for Democratic priorities up on Capital Hill!

Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans. - from a statement released by Specter today

Thanks, Arlen!

Yes Yes Yes

More please. Get Ari Melber on TV more, Democrats! He's good. Calling lies lies, and calling those who tell them liars. Well done, clear, forceful, and appropriate. Check it out:

Toby Keith... Democrat? Interesting.

I've never paid tons of attention to Toby Keith, honestly he's only really ever come on my radar when writing songs about sticking boots up peoples' asses 'cause that's the, "American way," or more recently when I saw writeups claiming a new song is pro-lynching [yikes]. But today I stumbled across a short piece on HuffPo about how Mr. Keith lavished some nice praise on Barack Obama while also identifying himself as a Democrat.

Among other things he said, "So as far as leadership and patriotism goes, I think it's really important that those things have to take place. And I think he's the best Democratic candidate we've had since Bill Clinton. And that's coming from a Democrat."

Wow. Anyway, um... yeah, there you go.

Heading West to (Oregon and) Kentucky

Today is yet another chance for the Democrats to run head-long into one another, give some speeches and call it a day. Still, with the rally of 75,000 in Portland this weekend and the continued flood of Super Delegates to Obama, the air of inevitability seems to have shifted to a comfortable sense of acceptance. The Democrats have a nominee, and they have one last candidate who isn't ready to call it quits. That's fine. The Onion's got a great little piece on a possible new tactic for Hillary.



Continuing some of the way-back machine action from the past few posts, above is a clip from an interview between Daniel Day-Lewis and Bryant Gumbel circa 1992. The Last of the Mohicans had just come out, and the clip shows one of my favorite bits of dialog, when Day-Lewis's character talks about how he'll get to Kentucky.

ok... I can't have Bryant Gumbel in a post without some reference to, "white people love Wayne Brady because he makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcom X." It had to be done.

Zinger VS Burns

Last night I watched a good bit of SNL's the Best of Alec Baldwin, whose presence has been amazing on 30 Rock, no matter what you may think of his voicemail messages and other nasty habits. Some fine laughs were had over the absurdity of the Zinger v.s. Burns skit featuring Seth Meyers and Baldwin. Today, I caught a couple stories out there that struck me as little blogosphere zingers on Camp Clinton... both interesting in their own way.

First, I saw a piece from Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic, describing a poll that shows New Jersey democrats, who voted for Hillary by a 10% majority are now demonstrating some buyer's remorse. I think polls like this one are really interesting, especially given how much recent political conversation has been focused on who is electable in the fall.

Then, this afternoon, a piece floated out across the AP wires about how fake Hillary's stop by a gas station was. Wonkette had a nice tongue-in-cheek (surprise there) piece on how hilarious it is for the AP to stress the fakeness of one photo op, when all the campaigns are pretty much daily engaging in little choreographed exhibitions... anyway, whether it's fair or not, I thought the piece was pretty interesting, if only for the fact that they give you a nice portrait of the staging that goes into a "casual visit to a NC gas station."

Is anyone surprised when politicians are playing fake-it-till-ya-make-it? It's old news that a large chunk of America's best informed citizens (or at least best informed young people) tune in more reliably to the fake news than almost any other news source. Still, if the scheduled conversation between BillO and Hillary tonight is any indication, I don't see the Democratic discussion in the next few days veering back towards the land of the sensible. I bet we'll be hearing more about useless "tax vacations" and crazy preachers. YAY!

Does all that sound... jaded? Be not jaded! Laugh at this (Hillary trying to figure out a coffee machine):



Ok... not sure that last one was entirely fair... but it is funny. Promise to you: my next post will be about something entirely apolitical.