Wednesday, September 20, 2006

CA-50 Slipping Away

It certainly looks like lobbyist and Virginia resident Brian Bilbray has a lock on re-election the 50th District. Democratic challenger, Francine Busby has slipped to nearly the same position that she was in two years ago when convicted Republican felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham defeated her 58% to 36%.

According the a SurveyUSA poll taken last week, Bilbray is the choice of 54% of likely voters in November's election, while Busby has the support of 40%.
Republican Bilbray Increases Lead in Duke Cunningham's District: In an election for the U.S. House of Representatives today, 9/13/06, in California's 50th Congressional District, incumbent Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray defeats Democrat Francine Busby 54% to 40%, effectively taking this seat out of play for the Democrats, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for KGTV-TV San Diego. Bilbray, who beat Busby by 4 points in a special election 6/6/06 to win the seat, now with the advantages of incumbency leads by 14 points. In an identical SurveyUSA KGTV-TV poll 2 months ago, Bilbray led by 11 points. The election is in 8 weeks, on 11/7/06. Much of the movement from SurveyUSA's July poll to today comes from Moderates. Busby had led by 14 among CA50 Moderates, now trails by 3, a 17-point swing. Moderates make-up 42% of likely voters in SurveyUSA's turnout model. Bilbray leads among male voters by 34 points. Busby leads among female voters by 4 points, a 38-point "gender gap." Bilbray wins 15:1 among Republicans. Busby wins 7:1 among Democrats. Independents are tied. Among those who approve of President Bush's job performance, Bilbray leads 30:1. Those who disapprove of Bush's performance vote for by Busby 5:1.
With moderates deserting Busby, the overwhelming Republican registration in the district may be more that her cash and volunteer strapped campaign can overcome.

Despite Bilbray's support of the Bush folly in Iraq, he is too new in the job for much of the voter antipathy that is impacting other Republican incumbents to be aimed in his direction. He owns the illegal immigration issue and there is no way Busby can get to the right of him on that unless she starts running with the Minutemen down at the border.

The real tragedy here is that Democrats had two golden opportunities to elect Busby to this office. With big money support, professional staff and national attention on a special election and a run-off, Busby got fewer votes in either election than she did in the 2004 general election when she ran against Cunningham the first time. Granted that was a presidential election, but in 2004, Busby got 105,509 votes. In the special election she pulled down just 60,010 and in the run-off, 71,146. In either election somewhere between 7,200 and 8,700 more votes would have put Busby into congress.

In the end, apathetic voters in the 50th district gave Brian Bilbray the job and now they are going to let him keep it. I guess the folks in the 50th are getting what they deserve.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Shoes Are Going to Drop In Cunningham Investigation

According to US News and World Report, some big shoes are going to begin to drop on the spider web of corruption and greed that the convictions of former CA-50 representative, Republican felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham and one of his cheif bribbers, Michael Wade, has exposed.
Today, the FBI, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the Defense Security Service are working with prosecutors to put the finishing touches on indictments against several other defense contractors, and senior defense and intelligence officials, who helped Wade with his corrupt activities. "We have been looking at everybody that's involved," says a federal law enforcement official. "Anytime you talk about defense contracting, it's a huge spider web."
Lots of people are going to go down. Remember that the Republicans controlled congressional oversight when this corruption and criminal activity went down. They can't be trusted to control the levels of power.

Help Defeat Doolittle

One of the most corrupt members of the Republican congress of corruption is in trouble. John Doolittle (CA-4) is probably going to end up indicted for his relationships with Jack Abramoff and Brent Wilkes, but more to the point he might even lose his seat in congress.

Doolittle's challenger in the CA-4 race, Democrat Charles Brown has closed to within 2% points of the scandal plagued Doolittle. Brown, a military veteran who served in Vietnam and the first Gulf War, got a boost today when the regions only major newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, endorsed him for the job. The Bee's endorsement has a concise summary of why Doolittle must go.

Doolittle is emblematic of what's wrong in Washington -- all-too-cozy relations among lobbyists, politicians, their spouses and staffers.

[...]

Doolittle and his wife are caught up in a troubling web of relationships.

From 2002 to 2004, Julie Doolittle was paid more than $66,000 by Abramoff's lobbying firm Greenberg Traurig. Roll Call newspaper showed those payments coincided with the time Doolittle intervened in matters for Abramoff's Indian clients.

Doolittle pays his wife a 15 percent commission on contributions that come to his political committees, totaling nearly $180,000 from 2003 to April of this year, with more to come in this election cycle. This is money that goes directly to Doolittle family income -- turning political contributions into personal gain.

Doolittle is open about his winning $37 million in earmarks for San Diego businessman Brent Wilkes for products not requested by the military. From 2002 to 2005, Doolittle received $118,000 in political contributions from Wilkes, his family and partners.

The people of the 4th District deserve better from a congressman.

Nobody deserves to be "represented" by a greedy, corrupt tool, whose primary purpose is to create legislation that ensures that the flow of campaign funds from lobbyists and those they represent never stops flowing. And, that is who John Doolittle is and who he represents.

Want to read more about Doolittle's web of corruption, check out Dump Doolittle.

More important, send Charlie Brown some cash so he can go after Doolittle and his multi-million dollar political machine.

Bombing Is Our Only Solution - What Was The Problem?

Saw this over at Democratic Veteran. At first, I thought the Krauthammer article he was linking to was something at the Onion or a suggestion from Jesus General. But, no it's the real thing. What we have is an opinion piece in a major American newspaper that suggests we need to bomb Iran and that we need to get the ball rolling soon.
...there is the larger danger of permitting nuclear weapons to be acquired by religious fanatics seized with an eschatological belief in the imminent apocalypse and in their own divine duty to hasten the End of Days.
That sentence was meant to apply to the government of Iran, but out of context it certainly could more easily apply to the Bush Administration.

To Krauthammer's credit, he recognizes some of the consequences of his call to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
An attack on Iran is likely to send oil prices overnight to $100 or even to $150 a barrel. That will cause a worldwide recession perhaps as deep as the one triggered by the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Iran will shock the oil markets by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's exports flow every day.

Iran could do this by attacking ships in the Strait, scuttling its own ships, laying mines or just threatening to launch Silkworm anti-ship missiles at any passing tanker.

The U.S. Navy will be forced to break the blockade. We will succeed, but at considerable cost. And it will take time -- during which the world economy will be in a deep spiral.

Iran will activate its proxies in Iraq, most notably, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sadr is already wreaking havoc with sectarian attacks on Sunni civilians. Iran could order the Mahdi Army and its other agents within the police and armed forces to take up arms against the institutions of the central government itself, threatening the very anchor of the new Iraq.

There will be massive criticism of America from around the world. Much of it is to be discounted. The Muslim street will come out again for a few days, having replenished its supply of flammable American flags, most recently exhausted during the cartoon riots...

These are just the easily decernible effects. Global economic meltdown, a deepened military quagmire in the Middle East, the complete collapse of Iraq, the hate and emnity of most of the world are a small price to Krauthammer. In the neocon world cause and effect no longer have an rational meaning or relationship.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Brian Bilbray - Elected for Life

Brian Bilbray apparently regards his election in the CA-50 to be more of a lifetime appointment. He may be right. I think that the voters in the Republican heavy district would have re-elected convicted Republican felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham had prison not forced him to move out of the district.

Funny thing, at least Cunningham lived in the district. He even took part on one of the favorite past times of district residents, real estate speculation. Brian Bilbray on the other hand never lived in the North County, nor does he live in the district he supposedly represents now. Brian Bilbray lives in Virginia, just as he has done for years.

Bilbray has already indicated that he is going to vote with President Bush right down the line. His only dissent will be to take a tougher stand on immigration; a stand he knows will never be put into practices. It's the perfect wedge issue for Bilbray in the 50th District. Vote for endless war - check. Vote to invade Iran - check. Vote to trash the Constitution - check.

Last week Bilbray dismissed Democratic challenger, Francine Busby's request for a series of debates with this comment:
Bilbray on Thursday said sarcastically that he would do his best to see that Busby gets "face time with me, as long as she agrees the debates can be done in English."
Maybe its time for the voters in CA-50 to wake up and realize that Brian Bilbray isn't just a rubber stamp for the worst president and congress in American history, but he is also pretty much a jerk.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Daily Double at Democratic Veteran

Over at the Veteran site, Jo Fish, hit the daily double with these two posts.

On Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry his insight into the chicken hawk mindset is brilliant:
Brilliant fucking strategists that they are, no one can tell those two know-it-alls that winning the battle is not the same as winning the war.

Certainly none of Kristol or Lowry's relatives will be among the increased numbers of troops, should escalation become a reality. Neither will any with the surnames Frist, Bush, Delay, Hastert, Santorum or legions of other war-mongering republicans/Neo-Cons.

And, this on the fear mongering of the Bush Administration:

We survived several decades of having thousands of thermonuclear-tipped missiles and bombers loaded with multi-megaton bombs pointed at every city in America. The Soviets could have killed us all at least ten times over, we'd have been so dead, they'd have had to dig up our ancestors and incinerated them twice more to make all that destruction meaningful.

But now, thanks to the fear-mongering, morally-bankrupt republicans we're afraid of brown people with water bottles at airports.

Check out the Vet he is on a roll.

John Doolittle Slipping A Bit

Not only is there a CA-4 poll out that shows corruption leader John Doolittle in a statistical dead heat with Democratic challenger, Charlie Brown, but now some folks on the Christian right (not the Mormon right) find John's work for Abramoff in the Marianas Island to be a little less than "what would Jesus do?"

Sunday, September 10, 2006

New Disney/ABC Offering

According to the General, this new Disney/ABC series will be in the 10PM, Wednesday time slot. For those who don't watch TV, that's right after "Lost." It's not a coincidence either that Osama Bin Laden turns up as one of the mysterious band that inhabits the island that is called, "the others."

Stay tuned after "Lost" for "The Propogandists."

George Bush's Dirty Little Secret

While ABC/Disney gives George Bush a free pass on the hunt of Osama Bin Laden, the real facts continue to emerge. Before 9/11, George Bush ignored all warnings that Bin Laden was planning a massive attack on US soil. He blew off a briefing with that very title and stayed on vacation in Crawford, Texas.

After the 9/11 attacks, Bush did something. He went after Bin Laden, his Al Qaeda organization and its Taliban enablers in Afghanistan. But, within weeks of tossing the Taliban out of power and, with the net closing around Bin Laden, Bush, encouraged by his neocon advisors turned his eyes from Bin Laden and his terrorist network and began planning to become an historic war president.

Bush abandoned the hunt for justice and pursued the hunt for political glory and geopolitical dominance of the Middle East, per the plan developed by the neocon cabal at the Project for the New America Century. Bush moved quickly from the idea of protecting America to the idea of projecting American power into the very region of the world where that projection of American power and influence would be most likely to validate Bin Laden's arguments about America and the Western/Modern world.

Bush who vowed to get Bin Laden "dead or alive," reneged on the promise before the words had finished echoing around Ground Zero in New York. After all, if Bin Laden were captured, how strong would public sentiment be for military adventurism in the Middle East?

The Washington Post compiles the history of Bush's reluctance to find Bin Laden and his ultimate abandonment of the search.

On the videotape obtained by the CIA, bin Laden is seen confidently instructing his party how to dig holes in the ground to lie in undetected at night. A bomb dropped by a U.S. aircraft can be seen exploding in the distance. "We were there last night," bin Laden says without much concern in his voice. He was in or headed toward Pakistan, counterterrorism officials think.

That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council.

"I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that."

Six months after 9/11, Bush calls off the hunt for bin Laden.

Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2003, said he thinks bin Laden kept close to the border, not wandering far into either country. That belief is still current among military and intelligence analysts.

[...]

Although the hunt for bin Laden has depended to a large extent on technology, until recently unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were in short supply, especially when the war in Iraq became a priority in 2003.

In July 2003, Vines said that U.S. forces under his command thought they were close to striking bin Laden, but had only one drone to send over three possible routes he might take. "A UAV was positioned on the route that was most likely, but he didn't go that way," Vines said. "We believed that we were within a half-hour of possibly getting him, but nothing materialized."

In 2003, Bush removes the tools and resources required to hunt down Bin Laden and Al Qaeda because he needs them to attack Iraq.

Do you think that this information will show up in the yet to be filmed ABC/Disney special, "The Path to the Next 9/11?"

I doubt it, too.


Saturday, September 09, 2006

Fantasyland............ABC/Disney Deserve Contempt

Tomorrow night and Monday, the ABC television network will broadcast a "docudrama" titled "The Path to 911." This five hour dramatic rendition of events leading up to the 9/11 attacks apparently lays the entire blame upon Bill Clinton and his administration and gives the bungling Bush Administration a free pass.

ABC acknowledges that the story is not historically correct and that some of the events depicted never happened. So, here's the bottom-line: a major television network is going to broadcast a five hour programs about the 9/11 attacks that consists of a series of egregious lies, distortions and character assassinations.

Millions of Americans will watch the program and many will believe that what they are seeing is the true historical record. Just as more than half of the American public still believes that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were working together and that Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. Why do people believe it? Because the Bush Administration and the right wing propaganda machine that supports them keep saying so. Even after this mornings newspaper headlines once again say,

"Hussein Wasn't Allied With Al Qaeda"

ABC docudrama was made by a group of right wing film makers allied with wacko conservative David Horowitz. It's purpose, political propaganda. In fact, coming in the midst of a Presidential blitz to justify his actions in Iraq and his inaction in the real effort to find the terrorist who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, this film is a political ploy to keep Democrats from using Bush's failures to wrest control of Congess from the lapdog Republicans who has gone along with everything Bush has done and not done since 9/11.

Max Blumenthal has the background of the key players in "The Path to 911" and it will come as no surprise that they come from the far right of the political spectrum.

..."The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.
These are Bush's cronies. Bush may claim that Al Qaeda and its allies hate America's freedoms and democracy, but in reality this group is the group that hates our freedoms and our democratic system. This is where hatred for our Constitution is concentrated, not in some cave on the Afghan border.

Remember, fascism only takes root in democratic states. When big business supports right wing cabals to insure the election of a single party and then works to maintain that party in power through lies and deception, we are within a hair breadth of seeing the great work of the Founding Fathers destroyed.

Friday, September 08, 2006

CA-50 Election Discrepancy Lawsuit Continues

Bradblog is the authoritative source on this topic. It appears that the principals in the original lawsuit alleging that San Diego County Registrar of Voters, Mikal Haas, failed in his obligations to protect the integrity of the voting equipment in the June primary and CA-50 special election run-off.

I've never felt that this effort would have any impact on Bilbray's selection to congress. And, once in congress, even if the election were determined to be fraudulent, Bilbray would retain his seat unless his fellow representatives decided to toss him out (an unlikely situation in the Republican congress).

Still, if elections aren't honest and transparent, we don't have a democracy. Send some money to this legal effort through The Velvet Revolution.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Busby Reasonable on Hardball...Nobody Wants Reasonable

Bluestate has a good piece on the joint appearance of Democrat Francine Busby and carpetbagging lobbyist Brian Bilbray (CA-50) on Hardball. As this YouTube link shows, Busby has a more coherent, nuanced and intelligent take on key issue of illegal immigration than does Bilbray.

The problem is that the issue of illegal immigration doesn't have a coherent, nuanced, intelligent audience in San Diego or the 50th congressional district. I think that within the district, the vast majority of resident and voters understand that the solution to this issue is going to be a complex multifaceted compromise that will leave everyone somewhat dissatisfied.

Despite that clear understanding, Busby's message is not what people want to hear. Just like the most liberal among us enjoy the moral clarity of Dirty Harry asking a low-life to "go on, make my day," people long for a different solution to the crisis of illegal immigration.

The bottom-line is that Busby can't beat Bilbray on immigration. No matter how intelligent her arguments. No matter how valid her points. People understand that the solution to this problem isn't going to be mass deportations and the devastation of the California economy. Knowing that, they still just want to hear a politician pretend to be Dirty Harry.

If Busby wants to win in the CA-50, she needs to attack Bilbray for his mindless support of George Bush's adventure in Iraq and his abandonment of any effort to bring those responsible for 9/11 to justice.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Busby and Bilbray on Hardball

Rumor has it that Francine Busby and carpetbagging lobbyist Brian Bilbray (CA-50) will be on Hardball with Chris Matthews tomorrow.

FRANCINE WILL BE PLAYING HARDBALL WITH BILBRAY

Wednesday, Sept. 6 on NBC 7 between 2:45 and 3:30 pm (Exact time not confirmed) With moderator Chris Matthews They are highlighting candidates from the most competetive races in the country.


The Busby campaign is keeping a very low profile on this, which is hard to understand considering the potential for some local news coverage.

Sound Like A Trick To Me

According to ABC News (cough, cough), the same folks who are going to present a fictional account of 9/11 that blames Bill Clinton for everything, our allies in Pakistan have no intention of hunting down 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden.

The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a "peace deal" with the Taliban.

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, but U.S. officials say his precise location is unknown.

[...]

"What this means is that the Taliban and al Qaeda leadership have effectively carved out a sanctuary inside Pakistan," said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism director.

Considering that this announcement broke the same day that President Bush was telling the American people that he was working with America's allies "to deny terrorists the enclaves they seek to establish in ungoverned areas across the world," there must either be a mistake or Bush has a secret plan to lull Osama out into the open so he can be captured.

Sure...That's it. Bush is telling everyone that if Osama promises to behave, we won't try to capture him (wink, wink, nod, nod). What a brilliant strategy. Almost as fool proof as looking for Osama in Iraq back in 2003.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Write-off Democrat Gains In California

Two separate articles in today's Los Angeles Times tell us that Democrats have no chance to pick up any House seats currently occupied by Republicans. This is certainly not the kind of news that Democrats want to hear, particularly those taking on the poster children for the Republican culture of corruption.

According to the Times, Richard Simon, ethics issues and corruption just aren't playing with the electorate.

Ethics scandals cast a shadow over the last session of Congress, and the "culture of corruption" under the Republican majority was expected to be a major Democratic theme in the midterm campaign.

But it hasn't turned out that way.

[...]

Rep. John T. Doolittle, a California Republican, has called disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff a friend.

Doolittle used Abramoff's skybox at a Washington sports arena for fundraising and has refused to return political donations from Abramoff. Now the congressman is the target of attack ads. One features an argument over whether Doolittle is "corrupt or ineffective."

Even so, Doolittle is favored to win re-election.

[...]

Rep. Jerry Lewis, a California Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee who is under investigation over ties to lobbyists, faces such a little-known, underfunded opponent that he hasn't even hired a campaign manager or opened a campaign office.

Rep. Richard W. Pombo, a California Republican under attack for his conduct as well as for his record on the environment, is favored to win because of his Republican-leaning district and ability to raise campaign funds as House Resources Committee chairman.

[...]

Democrats were dealt another blow when they tried to make ethics a major theme in the race to replace imprisoned former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican who pleaded guilty to corruption charges last year.

Republican Brian Bilbray won that seat despite Democrats' efforts to highlight his work as a lobbyist.

In his column in the Times today, Jonathan Chait, compares the upcoming mid-term election to World War I (WWII having already been co-opted by the Republicans for their "war on terror").

Despite being called a "world" war, the vast majority of fighting from 1914-1918 took place in a relatively limited space. The same is true of the 2006 elections. Collectively, they are a national election, but for most Americans, the fight will take place "over there."

[...]

The battle for control of the Senate will take place mostly within five states where Republicans, who hold a five-seat advantage, look vulnerable: Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Missouri.

In the House, the terrain is even more concentrated than in the Senate. Democrats need to pick up just 15 seats out of 435 to win control. That may sound easy, but no more than a few dozen seats — less than a tenth of the total — appear remotely competitive. There are two reasons that more than nine-tenths of the House is out of play. One is that Republicans increasingly live near other Republicans and Democrats increasingly live among other Democrats, which reduces the number of districts with a close enough partisan balance to field a competitive election. The second is that members of both parties have drawn up districts in order to cement their incumbents in place. Gerrymandering is an ancient art, but the technology used to create districts has grown so sophisticated that both parties — but especially Republicans — have learned to use it with less shame and more sophistication.

California Democrats and Republicans are especially notorious practitioners, having drawn a map that safeguards the state's House incumbents from virtually all challenges. As a result, none of the expected competitive races lie within the Golden State.

Although, Chait goes on to express his hope that Democrats retake Congress, his pessimism regarding California's congressional races mirrors that of Simon. Both Chait and Simon point to the disfunctional leadership of the Democrats as part of the party's national problem in retaking any part of the government from one of the most unpopular presidents in American history.

Chiat:

As was the case in World War I, the limited terrain has spurred a strategic quarrel about widening the war. During the Great War, generals on both sides, but especially the Allies, debated whether to concentrate their resources in France, where the heaviest fighting took place, or to open fronts elsewhere, such as Turkey or Mesopotamia. Democrats are having the same debate today. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is committing resources in all 50 states, with the long-term goal of making his party viable everywhere. This strategy has drawn bitter criticism from Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and Charles E. Schumer of New York — the Democrats in charge of directing their party's electoral campaign — who insist that the 50-state goal has diverted resources from battleground states where control of Congress will be won.

Simon:

Both parties agree that a strong get-out-the-vote effort would play a key role in who wins. That poses a potential problem for Democrats. Infighting at the top -- between Emmanuel and Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee -- over voter-turnout tactics has become a public battle.

Unsatisfied with Dean's strategy of spreading money in all 50 states, Emmanuel has decided to implement and pay for a separate turnout operation for House seats. Their philosophical differences have them not speaking to one another, and Dean on the defensive.

So with the survival of American Constitutional government on the line, the leaders of the Democratic Party aren't speaking to each other. God help us.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Piling On...Can't We Just Leave George Allen Alone?

So, Virginia Republican Senator George Allen is a racist? So, Virginia Republican Senator George Allen like to hang around with white supremacists? Why is everybody piling on here?

Apparently, the ACLU won't take this case, so it is left to patriots like General J.C. Christian to defend Allen's right to not only be a racist, but to make racist comments and associate with white supremacists.

It is a sad day for America.

We Need Katherine Harris

There is a some evidence that Florida Republicans might actually be starting to see Katherine Harris as she really is - an unstable, wacko who might be clinically mentally ill. Despite that, Harris still looks like she will win the Florida Republican senatorial nomination.
Three polls released this week all put Harris, 49, at least 16 percentage points ahead of her three Republican rivals. But with two of the challengers closing in on her, and the share of undecided voters larger than her advantage, analysts say the contest for the party's nomination is far from over.
Democrats need Harris in the public eye, for comic relief if nothing else. What other Republican candidates might think, Harris says out loud. She is the real face of the Republican party.
...the latest controversy stirred up by Harris — an interview she gave to the Florida Baptist State Convention for its weekly journal in which she deemed the separation of church and state "a lie we have been told" and "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers." She also told the Florida Baptist Witness that only Christians should serve in Congress because otherwise it will "legislate sin."
I thought that it was Katherine Harris who chose George Bush as our ruler in 2000. Does that mean that she thinks she is God? Or is she just one of his agents here on earth?