The underage drinking campaign that hasn’t even been kicked-off yet (the official start is at a media event tomorrow), is already getting attention in the blogosphere….gotta love it. Red Square is a highly respected agency and I’m quite pleased with what they are up to in educating parents about the dangers of underage drinking.
This blogger may think it’s a joke, but kids who believe their parents disapprove of alcohol use are much less likely to use.
McCain was favored by 52 percent to 30 percent of those surveyed against Clinton while 5 percent picked another candidate and 13 percent didn’t know or didn’t answer. Going head-to-head against Obama, McCain was chosen by a 57-33 percent margin, with 2 percent choosing another candidate and 11 percent who were undecided or didn’t answer.
McCain also held a substantial lead over both Democrats in mid-February when Mike Huckabee was still in the race.
It’s interesting that more people settle on one of the two major candidates in a McCain-Obama race and that the spread is slightly wider. Of course movements of that degree are all within the margin of error anyway.
“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
This is exactly how any sane parent would feel. He is making the point that if he had a son who made a mistake, that son would not receive the same consequence for that mistake as one of his daughters (I would have chosen the word consequence over punishment, but the point is the same). What parent, if given the option, wouldn’t want their child to have sex with protection, rather than without.
Do children who are born always have value? Yes. If you value life than what are you doing about the millions of homeless in America? If you value life, than what are you doing about the millions who go to bed hungry every day? If you value life, than why does it seem to stop, for some people, when that child is born?
As George Carlin once said about the beliefs of so-called “pro-lifers”, “If you’re pre-born, you’re okay. If you’re pre-school, you’re f***ed!”
If the facts are accurate in this morning’s article by Brett Blackledge, Sen. E.B. McClain should be forced to resign from the Alabama Senate. This is graft at it’s worst…this is at best a serious ethics violation and, at worst, blatant theft of the public dollar.
State Sen. E.B. McClain received at least $55,500 from special legislative grants sent to a Birmingham nonprofit from 2001 to 2003, at times getting paid directly from the state grants that he requested for the group.
The payments to McClain and checks cashed by the Midfield Democrat were recorded in expense reports showing state officials how the grants were used by the Community Resource Center. The nonprofit was created by Sam Pettagrue, the former Sardis Baptist Church pastor who hired McClain as a consultant for the group.
McClain declined to comment last week about his relationship with the nonprofit, which continued paying him after 2003, when he helped arrange two-year college funding for the group. He said FBI agents approached him after his relationship with the nonprofit was disclosed in The Birmingham News last year. But he declined to meet with them and has referred them to his lawyers.
Montgomery police are searching for a man with a gun who robbed the new hotel in downtown Montgomery on Friday.
The man took an undetermined amount of cash from The House, a restaurant and bar inside the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center, and then ran away, Lt. Ron Cook said. The crime occurred about 3:45 p.m.
Witnesses described the man as white, age 25 to 30, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing between 135 to 140 pounds. He was wearing a light blue windbreaker, a short-sleeved green shirt and stonewashed jeans, Lt. Mark Drinkard said.
Come have a convention in Montgomery! And get robbed…
I received a press release at midnight last night with the following information.
Rev. Gary Johnson of Mobile is seriously considering a run for
Congress as a write-in candidate in `o8 for the 1st Congressional
District against Rep. Jo Bonner
Mobile, Alabama – On Friday, March 28, 2008 the Rev. Gary Johnson of
Mount Vernon, AL laid out plans that he is considering a run for
congress this year as a write-in candidate against republican Jo
Bonner. The move comes as the qualifying for candidates nears an end
this coming Friday and no democrat has qualified as of yet. Gary
Johnson met with a small group on Friday to discuss his plans for
2008 with great reception.
I always appreciate having options on the ballot, but I’m not sure what Rev. Johnson is really trying to accomplish.
The news changes daily, but it appears that Hillary is taking a bigger hit for her tactics than Obama is for his preacher. Her approval rating is at 37 percent…not exactly a sign that she would be strong in a general election, but things change.
The polling of a general election match-up with McCain is still within the margin of error for both Obama and Clinton, I don’t see that changing. This will be another close election, decided on the basis of a handful of states, it will not be won running away by any of the remaining candidates.
Thank goodness sense prevailed on the campus gun bills.
The Senate Education Committee voted down three bills sponsored by Republican Sen. Hank Erwin of Montevallo on Wednesday. The votes came after Alabama university officials said they would make campuses unsafe.
The bills were voted down largely along party lines, with Republicans mostly supporting them and Democrats opposing them.
Congressional Quarterly has a very comprehensive analysis of the 2nd CD race in Alabama, explaining why they are tagging a race in one of the most conservative districts in the country as “Leans Republican”.
The 2nd District takes in about 128,000 residents of Montgomery (roughly two-thirds of the city’s population) and industrial Dothan. It has a sizable military sector as home to Fort Rucker in Dothan and Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery. The district also includes numerous small towns that dot the rural southern Alabama coastal plain — known locally as “the wiregrass,” for the area’s perennial bunch grass can grow up to three feet tall.
“Someone with big name ID that can pull in the large vote area of Montgomery and has roots down into the wiregrass . . . I think will be a winning ticket,” said Jim Spearman, executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party.
Enter Bright, a conservative Democrat who was born and raised in the wiregrass region and who has built strong support in Montgomery, where he has been mayor since 1999, around his image as a conservative Democrat.
I asked a top HRC adviser this a.m. to assess the argument that all of this is hurting the inevitable nominee — Barack Obama. The adviser was blunt: “So now Obama expects to win the nomination without toughening up and lasting all fifteen rounds?”
The weird implication: if Obama is the nominee, all of this is _good_ for him in that it, as a father is want to say to a son, puts hair on his chest. In other words: this would have come up anyway, and because Hillary is making Obama fight for the nomination, she’s “toughening” him up if he wins.
It’s a pretty audacious argument.
Hillary and her advisors have gone off the flipping deep end. I saw another observer say earlier today that the only reason she could be staying in is become she somehow really believes that Obama CAN’T win. Well guess what sister, you’re not helping him by stretching out the inevitable…
Politico.com has a feature article on the congressional races in Alabama this morning.
“I think the party’s chances are very good. They’re better than many thought were conceivable several years ago,” said Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue fundraising program for challengers. “Because of the quality of candidates that have emerged, Democrats now have a great chance in both districts.”
Despite the party’s high hopes, the two candidates still face tough obstacles. The strong Republican tint of both districts means few national party resources are likely to be directed to these races in 2008.
And one of the most politically experienced legislators in Cramer’s district may still jump into the race. Democratic state Sen. Tom Butler told Politico that he is likely to change his party affiliation if he decides to run. Butler said that Republican Gov. Bob Riley contacted him soon after Cramer’s retirement, encouraging him to run as a Republican.
I’m not sure if Sen. Butler’s statement had been reported anywhere else, but it is interesting that Riley made that call. I would expect additional national interest in the now two open congressional seat races in Alabama…it is an exciting year for us Alabama politicos.
Alabama takes center stage at the U.S. Supreme Court today,
The legal conflict is over which changes to election procedures need the approval of the U.S. Justice Department to make sure minority voting rights are not compromised, and which don’t. More broadly, the case highlights the frustration of some state Republicans that Alabama is one of those states still subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Because of the state’s history of intentionally disenfranchising black voters, the federal government must sign off on every new law, rule or procedure for voting in Alabama. And while advocates say it has protected black voters through the decades, even recently, critics question whether the oversight is still necessary.
I am the strongest supporter of Senator Evan Bayh you could ever find, but give me a break Senator!
“So who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because ultimately, that’s how we choose the president of the United States,” Mr. Bayh said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”
Hillary Clinton’s supporters need to get a grip and take a step back. The reality is that there will be no revote in Michigan and Florida, which means she has almost no chance of overcoming Obama’s pledged delegate lead or his lead in the popular vote. To try and come up with some metric which she wins, in order to justify the superdelegates overturning the elections that were held.
This argument doesn’t really merit any kind of response, but in case you think it has some logic… We do elect presidents through the electoral college, but that happens in the general election, we have a different method of selecting a candidate and that is set-up by the parties. The Democratic party has rules and the candidates knew what the rules were before they started.
Certainly, the superdelegates can make their choice by whatever method they choose, but no one should believe that there won’t be a serious and potentially violent uproar if the candidate who got the most votes and the most pledged delegates is denied the nomination.
I’m certain if Obama were behind I would be grasping at the same kind of straws, but I’d like to believe I wouldn’t be asking the superdelegates to overturn the will of Democrats across the country.
Danny has the latest on the Alabama 5th Congressional District race. I desperately want to see Susan Parker run, but I can understand why she would stay out if Parker Griffith is in, as it appears he is. There will be other opportunities for Susan.
Hillary Clinton’s records from her time as first lady reveal some interesting information about her role in foreign policy that she so often touts…
For instance, when the Good Friday agreements between factions in Northern Ireland were being finalized—a deal in which Hillary claims to have had a hand—the first lady was away. When Bill Clinton dropped US missiles on Serbia, as part of a NATO strike, she was touring ruins in Egypt.
From a pure politics/cynical point of view, McCain has to be jumping for joy at this news…and it may even bury the Rev. Wright story for Obama. From a concern for our country point of view…I’m not looking forward to another message from Osama.
…that we will get true tax reform…under court order. Welcome to Alabama, the “make me” state.
Those who have been in the state for any length of time can name you the cases that brought reform to the mental health, foster care and transportation systems…all by court order. This may be the next case in that illustrious line…or not.
Blacksher, a lead attorney in Alabama’s long-running college desegregation case, told The Birmingham News in a story Tuesday that the suit, if successful, would require the state to confront tax reform, including sales taxes that hit the poor hardest.
“Local school systems in Alabama cannot raise funds for their schools that come anywhere near the support the school needs,” Blacksher said. “Property taxes are taxes on wealth. Sales taxes are not.”
In the college desegregation case, the issue of how Alabama’s property tax system affects minority students was raised in 2004. U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy found the property tax system is a vestige of discrimination, but would need to be raised in a separate case.
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