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Democrats Could Lose Obama, Biden Senate Seats
Tweet Share on Facebook December 15, 2009 Comment (10)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"President Obama and Vice-President Joseph R. Biden won't be on the midterm ballot next year, but their former Senate seats will be," writes the Washington Times' Donald Lambro.
Though the states, Delaware and Illinois, are both considered blue--and Obama and Biden would have been shoo-ins for reelection--their Senate seats are not only on the ballots, they're up for grabs.
In Delaware, state Attorney General and Iraq war veteran Beau Biden is widely expected to throw his hat into the race against longtime GOP Congressman Mike Castle.
Castle, who represents an at-large district and has been elected statewide repeatedly (he's also the former governor), is well liked by Delaware voters--including Democrats. Attacking Castle is a strategy likely to backfire. Indeed, campaign observers wanting to see fireworks won't see them here--a Biden/Castle campaign could be one of the friendliest in memory. Current polling shows Castle leading Biden and the Rothenberg Political Report has listed the race as a "lean Republican takeover."
Illinois' Senate race looks to put state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat, against Republican Congressman Mark Kirk. Rated a toss-up by both the Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg report, polling shows the race to be a deadlock--a recent Rasmussen poll had Kirk down, but within the margin of error, 42-39. That Illinois Democrats are still stinging from the Rod Blagojevich scandal and appointment of Roland Burris to the United States Senate, along with allegations of Giannoulias' own scandal-related issues can't help.
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Democrats Could Take Job Creation Tips From U.S. Virgin Islands Rum War Deal
Tweet Share on Facebook December 9, 2009 Comment (86)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
When he became governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, John deJongh inherited an economy in tatters and a government facing record deficits (where have we heard that before?). Economic growth was practically nonexistent in the territory and the pension system faced a nearly $1 billion liability.
Using his experience in the private sector and in helping draft and implement successful economic plans for municipal governments, including Philadelphia and the District of Columbia, deJongh created two public-private partnerships to stem the Virgin Islands' fiscal challenges and create the long-term stability necessary for economic growth. Taking advantage of a decades-old congressional program that returns federal excise taxes paid by rum manufacturers to rum-producing U.S. territories for job-creating incentives, deJongh signed agreements with two rum industry behemoths, Diageo and Fortune Brands. The deals locked in exclusive production of the second-best-selling rum in the United States (Captain Morgan), fourth (Cruzan), and fifth (Ronrico) that will provide quality jobs for local residents and will generate billions in revenue for the USVI government.
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Wine, Champagne and Truth in Labeling
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2009 Comment (5)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Late last week, the Tax and Trade Bureau created the Calistoga American Viticultural Area, meaning that any wine using the Calistoga name must contain a minimum of 75 percent grapes from the new sub-appellation within the famed Napa Valley.
The decision, codifying that the product is what it says it is, had been sought for years by both producers and consumers. Had it not been for the difficulty in determining the fate of two misleading labels in particular (Calistoga Cellars and Calistoga Estates, wineries neither based in Calistoga nor using the required minimum percentage of local grapes required by the new AVA, will have three years to phase out the use of the word "Calistoga") this surely would have happened years ago.
It's a step forward, but too often consumers remain left in the dark. During an unseasonably warm weekend last month, I stopped at a local grocery store to purchase a bottle of sherry for an outdoor dinner party. The grocery store had plenty of wines labeled "sherry," but none from the Jerez de la Frontera region of Spain, where true sherry is made. Upon closer inspection, there were several different kinds of "port," but not a one from Portugal. If I wanted the authentic product, I had to go elsewhere.
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Secret Service Shouldn't Take Blame for White House Crasher Scandal
Tweet Share on Facebook December 4, 2009 Comment (20)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If there's one recent story I've taken no interest in, it's been the saga of Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the couple that crashed the White House state dinner for the Primer Minister of India. They're on minute 12 of their 15 minutes of fame and, frankly, I don't want to reset the clock in their favor or subject anyone to more noise about the biggest non-issue to hit the White House since President Barack Obama's golfing partners became a national issue.
Obviously Congress was going to investigate the incident. Tactless social climbing aside, that a couple could get that close to the President and Vice President—without an invitation—is troubling. What has the White House's reaction been? To stonewall, protect their own people, find the nearest bus and throw the United States Secret Service under it.
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Obama's Jobs Summit is a Like-Minded Sham
Tweet Share on Facebook December 3, 2009 Comment (38)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Back in the mid 1970s, ABC aired a bizarre made-for-TV movie about motorcycling businessmen called Pray for the Wildcats. It starred Andy Griffith, William Shatner, Robert Reed, Marjoe Gortner, and Angie Dickenson, among others, and has become something of a cult classic.
During a meeting discussing graphic treatments of an advertising campaign, Sam Farragut, a homicidal, hatchet-wielding executive (Andy Griffith as the bad guy—I told you it was bizarre) complains about a lack of original ideas, saying, "I want some opinions around here. And I don't want them to sound like they all came out of the same mouth."
It's not something President Barack Obama is likely to say at today's much ballyhooed jobs summit. Opinions that sound like they all came out of the same mouth, i.e. ideas that agree with existing Obama administration policy, are exactly what the White House has engineered.
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Obama's Afghanistan Decision Risks a Democratic Party Civil War
Tweet Share on Facebook December 2, 2009 Comment (6)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"Mr. President, this is not the change we voted for," liberal commentator and radio host, Bill Press, writes today in his "parting shot."
Press' defiance is in reaction to President Barack Obama's decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in an effort to win the war. There's a small problem, though: This is exactly the change Obama supporters voted for. During the 2008 campaign, Obama's pledge to "listen to the generals on the ground" received standing ovations for its indictment of George W. Bush. If not a rallying cry, it was an important talking point for liberals seeking to highlight how Obama equaled change.
Perhaps the Left assumed Obama didn't actually mean what he said. Whatever their rationale, in opposing Obama on Afghanistan liberals risk creating a civil war within their own party.
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Tiger Woods Should Get the Truth Out Before It's Too Late
Tweet Share on Facebook November 30, 2009 Comment (41)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If you've ever driven on Interstate 85 in southern Virginia, you know radio stations are rather scarce for a good 30 miles. Returning from North Carolina yesterday, my FM stations played Miley Cyrus and, well, more Miley Cyrus. I was only able to pick up one AM station, a sports talk station from Parts Unknown.
As you can imagine, the main topic on the sports talk station was Tiger Woods. One caller referred to Woods' statement from yesterday and spelled out the potential fallout very succinctly. "If Tiger made a mistake, he made a mistake. We all do that. But if he lied about it..." he said, his voice trailing off.
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Bennet's Healthcare Stand Is a Concession to Reality, Not a Profile in Courage
Tweet Share on Facebook November 23, 2009 Comment (4)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"I'll risk my job to vote for healthcare," Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet told CNN's John King yesterday. For many on the Left, the statement was a rallying cry of martyrdom. "They may take our freedom, but they'll never take our government-run healthcare," the newly-minted William Wallace of the Senate might say. On the surface, it's the bold statement of a politician laying it all on the line. But scratch the surface just a little bit and one is quickly reminded that however Bennet may vote on Harry Reid's healthcare bill, his job is already at risk.
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Healthcare Comment Illustrates the Sudden Irrelevancy of Jesse Jackson
Tweet Share on Facebook November 20, 2009 Comment (108)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"You can't vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man."
So pronounced the Rev. Jesse Jackson the other night at an event held by the Congressional Black Caucus, also known as the CBC, in honor of the 25th anniversary of Jackson's 1984 Presidential campaign. You might not have heard about Jackson's remark. It received some notice, but nowhere near the overwhelming coverage that Jackson's blue comments last year towards Barack Obama or even his tasteless comment that New York City's Jewish voters made the city "Hymietown."
Jackson criticizing an African-American presidential candidate or offering bizarre anti-Semitic remarks are certainly more newsworthy that criticizing a lone Congressman he declined to mention by name—in this case Rep. Artur Davis, a CBC member and gubernatorial candidate in Alabama. But more than that, the African-American electorate and, by definition, its representation is changing to the point that Jackson's comment can be dismissed as irrelevant.
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Outrage Over Obama's Bow to Japanese Emperor Is Silly
Tweet Share on Facebook November 16, 2009 Comment (82)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Of all the controversies so far this month, perhaps the silliest must be the outrage over President Barack Obama bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito. Coming just months after a similar bow to Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, it is for many an overt sign of Obama's over eagerness to please foreign leaders.
That may be true, but it's also something else: diplomacy.
It's not exactly unprecedented, either. In the post-World War II period, several American Presidents have acted similarly; Bill Clinton bowed to Emperor Akihito in 1994, Richard Nixon bowed to Emperor Hirohito, and Dwight Eisenhower bowed to French President Charles DeGaulle. And let's not forget George W. Bush clasping hands with then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, a wonderfully deft move that not only belied the notion of Bush "going it alone" on foreign policy, but also sent the Left into spasms.
