* Thank goodness that John McCain is NOT the President of the United States. McCain has become even more of a cranky old man.
* Swing State Project has an update on the latest polls for Ohio Governor:
• OH-Sen, OH-Gov (pdf): The Ohio Poll, conducted by the University of Cincinnati, is out today with pleasant results for Democrats (perhaps doubly so, considering they have a reputation for producing GOP-leaning results). They find Dem Lee Fisher with a one-point lead over GOPer Rob Portman in the Senate race, 47-46. They also find incumbent Dem Ted Strickland looking OK in the gubernatorial race, leading John Kasich 49-44 (and sporting a surprisingly high 55/35 approval, suggesting that whatever he's been doing lately has been working)....
>>> Remember Steve Stivers and his proposal to repeal the 17th Amendment? Here is an analysis of FiveThirtyEight.com appropriately titled "Department of Colossally Stupid Ideas: Repeal 17th Amendment"----
....What I want to point out is how patently stupid repealing the 17th Amendment would be for Republicans and conservatives--and yes, tea partiers--based on a simple fact: Democrats have long dominated the control of state legislatures. And they currently enjoy a level of dominance unlike they've experienced since the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Following the 2008 elections, according to National Conference of State Legislative data,# Democrats control both chambers in 27 legislatures, to eight for the Republicans, with 14 states split. (Nebraska is unicameral and non-partisan.) Oh, and two decades ago the Democratic dominance of state legislatures included a lot more southern states, which I suppose could have produced some conservative Democrats or even a few Republicans as senators; today, that's far less likely to happen because the set of Democratically-controlled state legislature is more non-south. In ideological terms, then, the current Democratic majorities may be closer to the post-war high-water marks in the mid-1970s...
Do Stivers/Teabaggers/Far Righties still think it is a good idea?
On Real Time with Bill Maher, guest Jonathan Alter said that the "...hypocrisy highway is crowded with Republicans..." Republicans voted against the stimulus, but then begged for money for their district.
