Nation-Building

"I'm an American, not a partisan." Evolutionary theory suggests that animals routinely engage in "arms races" against each other, never climbing up the hill of relative fitness because their nemesis is always one step ahead or behind. Sometimes, I feel like a bystander watching the cheetah chase the antelope until fortune's favorites reverse positions and the game continues in the opposite direction of pursuit. But sometimes I wonder, what will you do when you finally run down your opponent and stand athwart the bloody mess of their political corpose? While the Great Chase was on the world around has fallen to pieces and you find yourself the King of Nowhere.

To be honest, I am a Rudy fan. I may be infatuated with the idea of a Hillary run, but were America's Mayor to claim the Republican nod, I would be genuinely conflicted indeed on election night. However, I was lulled from horse-racin' anticipation by the unremitting hostility towards any pro-choice candidate by the Red State crowd, into thinking that there was essentially no chance for Da Mayuh to run in 08. Looks like I was wrong :   With Rudy Giuliani often saying he'd probably run for office again, there were three options: governor, senator, President. When an aide said last week the first two were out, only one choice remains standing. Rudy's running for Prez. It's unofficial, of course, but there's no other way to read Giuliani's decision to skip the governor and senate races next year. Win or lose, running for either would have made it impossible to run for President in 2008. The development brought to mind a conversation with a Giuliani friend in 19...

Meetup will now be charging $20/month to the designated organizer for a given meetup. I think it is safe to say that this kills meetup as a political rallying tool for the grassroots. This may be for the best, however, as the Meetup model may be outdated - and donuts are the new thing . UPDATE: DFA will cover the cost of Meetups in the interim. You can get a coupon for your DFA meetup here: http://www.democracyforamerica.com/meetup_coupon

"Democratic societies don't empower their executives to make unilateral decisions to plunge countries into war. Wars have been started by tyrants who have complete control and who can squander the resources of their people to build up military machines." -- Richard Perle

The proprietor of this blog asked me a week ago to post a good faith article on "whether Republicans - as a party led by Tom Delay, Bill Frist, and other grandstanders who have forcefully inserted themselves into the Schiavo case, requested judicial activism, and made a mockery of federalist principles - can be trusted NOT to interfere with federalism again should Roe vs Wade fall." I apologize for the slow turn around. First, my ideal world.... (Read on)   Roe v. Wade is rescinded because it is a poor legal decision and the right to legislate is returned to the states. Furthermore, the Supreme Court takes a strong stand for states’ rights control issues reserved to the states which include abortion (and the death penalty, gay marriage, gun laws, medical decisions, education, etc). The abortion debate follows the death penalty into a state-by-state debate that allows for local differences. Abortion falls from the national debate (although not entirely) and it becomes a ...

via Kuff, Joe Trippi has joined Chris Bell 's exploratory committee for Texas Gov - it's an audacious step, and one that speaks well of Bell's understanding of the power of the netroots. More details below the fold...   We ran into former Congressman Chris Bell at the Capitol this afternoon. He was in town touching base with legislators and Democratic poohbahs as part of exploratory effort. Bell has two campaign operations in motion. One is in his hometown, Houston. For the time being, the other is shared office in Austin with his media/research operative, Jason Stamford. Bell presumes that his official campaign office will ultimately be in Austin. While his effort is still deemed "exploratory", Bell has already assembled a campaign team. Heidi Kirkpatrick is doing fundraising. Joe Trippi is bringing his experience with the Howard Dean presidential campaign to bear building Bell's internet community. Bob Doyle has been retained as general consultant. Doyle is...

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) lowers the level of discourse: I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in -- engage in violence. Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share. Faced with deserved and widespread outrage over what Joshua does not shy from acknowledging was "not a terribly bright thing for the Senator to say", the response from Republicans is to try and change the subject :   The broader lesson here is not that John Cornyn occasionally says unf...