TRUMP FACES DAUNTING MAP.

++Dan Balz of the Washington Post reviews local election experts on where they see the electoral college vote. 

++Larry Sabato of the Crystal Ball out of the University of Virginia said that a year ago it was 247 leaning or solid for Democrats , 206 leaning or solid for Republicans and 85 toss-ups.

++Now,Sabato, says there are no toss-ups. It is Clinton 341 to Trump 191.

++The Cook Report has 304 leaning or solid for Clinton,190 for Trump and 44 Toss-ups. These are four states: Iowa, New Hampshire,Ohio and North Carolina.)

++Rothenberg and Gonzalez Political Report has 263 leaning or solid Democrat,206 leaning or solid Republican. The rest are toss-ups. Colorado,Florida,Ohio and Virginia.

++The only roads to victory for Trump is to hold all the Romney states and flip Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. Then he wins.

R.I.P. The Party of Lincoln

++Mark Levin said that Trump's remarks about Ted Cruz' father being next to Lee Harvey Oswald should alarm Republican voters. We're going to get creamed he said.

++Rush Limbaugh said Trump will crush Hillary Clinton in a  landslide. 

++Charlie Cook said that Trump's nomination puts down ballot races in play. Predicts the Democrats will take the Senate and look to gain 20 seats in the House.

++Trump's victory in Indiana is widely attributed to his anti-immigrant positions. The Southern Poverty organization said that the Trump affect is leading to greater anxiety among minorities and immigrant families and an increase in bullying.

++ Washington monthly has an article on why the GOP is still blocking Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court. It is all aimed at voter mobilization. The GOP, even with Trump as the nominee,wants the social conservatives to believe reproductive rights will be eliminated with the next Supreme Court nomination. But they note that Red State is urging a vote on Garland because they believe Hillary Clinton will nominate a more liberal, younger justice. Red State is officially of the view that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency because of Trump.

++E-mails to me from abroad express deep fear,no terror,at the notion that Donald Trump could win the nomination of a major American party. On the one hand,they mourn that this is the ultimate dumbing down of America,the acceptance of totally ignorant points of view and diminish the country in the world's eyes. The reaction is many time more negative than when Ronald Reagan win the nomination in 1980. 

++On the other hand they are frightened to death of his total ignorance of foreign affairs and his statements not only against Muslims,African-Americans,and Hispanics but also his frequent statements against the Geneva Convention,already negotiated arms deals and other accepted agreements with our own allies.

++Max Fischer at VOX did an analysis of Trump's foreign policy by analyzing his statements to David Sanger of the New York Times. Fischer concluded that in effect Donald Trump wanted the United States to become the number one Rogue Nation in the world.  He does not even have a rudimentary understanding of how our alliances provide us with security and stabilize the world. It is American exceptionalism on steroids without any historical understanding. Fischer delving into his various statements has come to believe that Trump has literally no understanding or sympathy of the Post-WWII world. 

++Roger Stone,Trump's operative, sort of let the cat out of the bag when he talked about the Taft-Eisenhower convention where Ike got Taft's delegations from Louisiana and Texas thrown out and replaced by his own. There is a real fight between isolationists and internationalists in the Republican party. Ike beat down the Taft "American Firsters" and allowed internationalism to flourish. Ronald Reagan made internationalism acceptable to the conservative movement, an aberrant branch of which became neoconservatism. But as Michael Bloomberg noted,Trump is using language that harks back to American Firsters. 

++This should split the Republican Party. Robert Kagan has supported Hillary Clinton and Mark Salter also has supported Clinton on the strength of her experience as Secretary of State and her internationalism.

++Donald Trump also upended the economic discussion of the GOP. In this he may run to the Left of Hillary Clinton trying to gain support of white working class people in the Mid-west and in states like Pennsylvania where middle class Americans have not gotten a raise in thirty years and where death rates for white males around 55 are skyrocketing due to the lack of opportunity. The 1% now live 14 years more than the 99%. Trump uses the loss of manufacturing jobs abroad as his weapon. These are people who are now reacting to the collapse of the global economy in 2008 and find their social and cultural world turned upside down. 

++Van Jones warns Democrats that Trump can win the presidency. He says that he doesn't need states where there are significant Hispanic minorities and he only has to convince 3 out of 20 blacks to support him and he is president. 

++Tom Hartmann said that the dominant issues for this election will be the economy and the trade deals. He says that Trump is already going after Bill Clinton ala Ross Perot on the "worst trade deal in history"--NAFTA.  At this stage the pros and cons of NAFTA are no longer known but the myth that trade deals are bad has taken hold.

++Trump is also going after the modern Republican protection of hedge fund managers but will get away with his truly horrible tax policy that gives the richest even more tax breaks. But he is not of the trickle down economic school. 

++What Trump found was that the "real base" of the Republican party is not so much conservative as it is nationalistic and susceptible to nativism. His nouveau riche style violates the etiquette of the country club Republicans. My father-in-law is absolutely baffled by the man and how he could capture the Republican nomination.

++Van Jones, whom I think overhyped the threat of Trump, said that FDR mastered radio,JFK mastered television as well as Reagan, Obama mastered the internet and on-line videos, while Trump mastered the social media like twitter. He said that the dynamics of politics has changed that the villain wins in Reality television and that Trump brought politics into reality television as opposed to climbing the wall into politics.

++From a political scientist point of view, the school of the Party determines is over,Trump won as an outsider even though he is very much an economic insider. By doing so,the party structure of Republicans has imploded. Additionally,the three prong stool, Karl Rove has preached, national security,economic opportunity and social conservatism has collapsed.

++The failure of the GOP to develop policy during the Obama years has hurt it and Trump is the product of a policy-free party.

++It is very sad to see but inevitable when you ignore your own serious structural problems. Red State commentators last night were saying that the GOP kept making promises to their base they never intended to keep and now they are reaping what they sowed. 

++You can't  promise to uproot Obamacare and not do it for five years. You can promise to block the Iranian nuclear deal and simply not do it. You can't promise when you took over the Senate you are prepared to govern and be the least productive Senate in history. You can;t campaign that Democrats never pass a budget and then when it's your chance, you can't.

++The myth of the free market got destroyed with Donald Trump, who is against all trade deals and wants tariffs. We haven't had this economic reasoning since the 19th century, which was Republican orthodoxy.

++One of the most interesting developments has been the absence of the Koch Brothers in the presidential race. Trump is anathema to them and their economic ideology. 

++Larry Sabato said in an interview with a British documentarian that we have to acknowledge that the Trump candidacy destroyed the Republican Party. The resistance of the party to his nomination has pretty much vanished. They were routed and maybe a new party will be born.

++Sadly the Republican still control Congress and the state house. But in the near future what will this party believe?

The Week In Review.

++Be Aware--there really is a Republican debate this coming week.

++Joe Biden says Cruz' success should encouraged all kids that are hated in school. He said President Obama should nominate him to the court so he can have even more vacancies to fill.

++The New York Times has a long piece to day on the huge Bob Dylan archives which will be housed in Tulsa ,Oklahoma near Woody Guthrie's archives. Good read.

++The Sunday Review section is rich in Donald Trump.Maureen Dowd in "Chickens,Home To Roost, has fun watching the Donald,her friend, campaign and the reactions by the Mitt and those who got us into Iraq. A whole page contains reader's reaction to David Brooks reflections on the Donald. Nicholas Kristof writes about "Donald The Dangerous" and Ross Douthat on "The Elements of Trumpism". 

++The New York Times new section has an article on Donald contemplating a run for the state house in New York as a prelude to his run for the presidency.

++The Dailykos has a piece on Trump and the KKK. I would like to remind readers that the KKK was and is not solely a southern phenomenon as we saw this past week with the rally in Anaheim , California that ended in three deaths. 

++Larry Sabato wrote in his Crystal Ball that Donald has won all over the place. He mentioned Alabama and Massachusetts as if that showed a different appeal. But both states are steeped in racism. That's why I think Trump, not Kasich will win Michigan. I remember when people were shocked when George Wallace did so well there. Richard Nixon was petrified of Wallace because the GOP could dog whistle and control racism but people really knew the real deal. The same with Trump.

++Medgar Edgars' brother endorsed Donald Trump this week.

++We have a new strand of conservatism. Caitlyn Jenner endorsed Ted Cruz and wants to be an ambassador for Trans. Now we have Caitlyn Conservatives. Jenner has always been a conservative Republican before becoming a woman.

++The "Future of the Republican Party is supposed to win the Puerto Rican primary today. But the story there is that thousands of former prisoners will be voting in the Republican primary.

++It's Spring training. So that means I can be driven crazy by the Washington Post baseball writers. They got off to a good start by arguing the Nationals should rebuild--and I thought they were trying for a World Series.

++Der Spiegel calls Donald Trump "the most dangerous person in the world" and they should know. The overseas views of the Donald are equally disturbed. The far right party in Sweden even denounced the Donald.

++Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post writes that the rise of Le Pen in France and Trump here in the United States threatens to end NATO and the European Union. Cameron in the UK will hold a referendum on the UK leaving the European Union.

++Is the Republican Party really in crisis as papers have told us. I talked to Republicans I know this past week. I was curious about the lonely Kasich posters near my voting place. One woman I have worked with in the past and now works on the Hill said she was horrified about Donald and said that all her New York relatives,also Republicans,were voting for him. She dismissed Marco as "too wet behind the ears", running too early. She voted for Kasich because of his manner. She also said she was sick and tired of hearing the House members argue ideology and refer to Ronald Reagan. "I worked in Reagan's administration. They don't know Reagan. " 

++I made a joke to someone about a person who had worked in the W administration and that he would be Trump's Mideast envoy, his friend was horrified by the thought.

++But there was blowback from the rightwing security types who claim the Donald is winning because the Republicans didn't do anything against President Obama and what do they expect. These people actually think our military is weakened and that the recovery is fake and the unemployment numbers are cooked up. They resent the hell out of Mitt Romney criticizing Trump when he was supposed to win. It still is holy writ that Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama and that Benghazi should have convinced the American people Obama was a fraud. These people really would prefer Cruz but the Donald will do.

++But the atmosphere is very touchy around here with Republicans grimacing at the Donald's antics. When I suggest Romney might get in the race--""What a two time loser?"

++The splintering of the party is something we should watch. That doesn't mean they can't win.

Sunday Info on Races

++ Zogby, polling for rightwing Newsmax has Terry McAuliffe winning by 12, "heading for the Big Win." This maybe the last poll of the campaign.

++President Obama slammed the Cooch for being a teaparty extremist and backing the government shutdown, something that wasn't popular in northern Virginia. To be fair, the Cooch didn't endorse or condemn the shutdown. The Cooch responded to the President by crying Obamacare, which only strengthened the President's argument.

++de Blasio and Lhota are heading to the end of the New York City mayoral campaign. de Blasio is campaigning in Harlem and Lhota on the Upper East Side. The last Quinnipiac poll has de Blasio winning 65 to Lhota's 26, the largest margin by a non-incumbent in New York City history.

++On Thursday, Larry Sabato had Virginia leaning Democrat in the governor's race, solidly winning the Lt. Gov and slightly favored to win the Attorney-General. If you are in Virginia, vote Herring because the A-G race determines how clean the 2016 Presidential race will be. 

Election Eve

++Over 2900 separate polls have been conducted,$6 billion spent and countless television hours reviewing the possible scenarios for the results. So after all is well and done, we will probably end up tomorrow with the same system we have today. Democrats will probably pick up a seat in the Senate, the President will be re-elected and the Democrats will pick up some House seats but the Republicans retain control of the House.

++The actual toss-up states come down to North Carolina and Florida. The remarkable story about North Carolina is that by Saturday 49.7% of all African-Americans had voted and 61% of them were women. White early voter turnout was 38.7%. Even if Romney wins this state, this is a story that should be told. Florida has turned into a Banana Republic with voters waiting up to eight hours to vote, if they can. 

++I am blind from the over 100 polls released since Friday. But let's just summarize people's predictions.

Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia says Obama wins with 290 electoral votes. The Senate will be 53 to 47 and Democrats will pick up 3 House seats. 

Kos of the Daily Kos predicts Obama with 332 EV to Romney 206.

The University of Illinois predicts Obama with 303.6EV to Romney 234.4. Obama's probability of re-election is 99.8%. 

At 8: 30pm EST, Sam Wang of Princeton Consortium has Obama at 309 EV and Romney at 229. With a prediction probability of 99.8%.

Nate Silver at the 538 blog has Obama at 307.2 and Romney at 230.8 with Obama at 86.3% chance of winning with 50.6% of the vote to 48.5%.

PPP Final Electoral College: Obama 303 EV to Romney 191. 44 Toss-ups. Florida and North Carolina.

Intrade: Obama 303 EV.

++Latino Decisions final poll has Obama winning72.9% of the vote and Romney at 27.1%.

++Final ABC/Washington Post poll: Obama 50 to Romney 47.

++Rand Tracking: Obama 50 to Romney 45.5.

++YouGov. National: Obama 49 to Romney 47.

++Final DailyKos/SEIU poll: Obama 50 to Romney 48.

++Final Reuters/Ipsos: Obama 48 to Romney 46.

++Gallup: Romney 49 to Obama 48.

++PPP: Obama 50 to Romney 48.

++Onsight Public Affairs: Obama 50 to Romney 46.

++Last Gallup approval rating before election day: 52%.

Willard Continues to Whine

++We will leave Willard this week continuing to complain about Harry Reid's statements about whether he paid taxes or not. Consider this--the Romney campaign has lost 41 days while the meter is running trying to fend off gaffes, accusations and the problem of credibility. Jules Witover asks today in the Baltimore Sun whether Obama will win by default.


++The Washington Post today says that Obama's campaign ad "Stretch " is totally accurate about Romney's tax plan.


++Van Jones claims that the Romney people have already conducted focus groups about whether Romney should release his taxes and found that it was worth taking a beating on not releasing than to suffer the indignities of the blowback if they did.


++The Job report of 163, 000 is not bad, not great but it gets Obama into the next month. Romney says it was a "Hammer Blow" against the middle class and he insists the economy is doing worse this year. 


++The usually sharp Larry Sabato says today that he can not foresee Obama winning Florida because he did worse there in 2008 than he did in Indiana and North Carolina. But what about the awesome discrepancy between Obama's Latino support and Romney's? 


++Vice presidential short-lister Tim Pawlenty is being investigated for his tax violations. Maybe he is the perfect choice for Willard.

Who's Going to Ride the Short Bus?

Don't wait up election night for Nevada, Colorado and Alaska. It's too close to call.

The best news is that Joe Miller seems to have collapsed as he has paid the toll for a week of revelations about his ethical problems. His unfavorable now is 68%. The race has come down to Lisa Murkowski and Scott McAdams. The Supreme Court of Alaska overturned the court decision barring the names of write-in candidates at the polling places. This favors Murkowski, who now leads the polls. But 25% of her support is coming from Democrats who want to prevent a Miller win. If they come home to Scott McAdams he wins in what would be the biggest upset of the election cycle. Also, there is an unprecedented number of undecideds in this race.

Earlier today, the DNC released a matter-of-fact memo that said that the Republican wave was not coming as evidenced by their analysis of early voting. Maybe they are whistling past the graveyard but there have been odd items emerging in the last few days that suggest that the voting has not been settled. McClatchy/ Marist had a poll today that showed that the generic poll of registered voters showed a 47-41 advantage to the Democrats, a tie of 46-46 of likely voters and a 49-43 advantage to Republicans in "most likely" to vote. It mirrored the previous Newsweek poll in its canvassing cell-phone users, who tended to be Democrats.

While Nate the Great Silver has the Republicans taking the House with 52 seats, he has an out in his analysis. He says Republicans are set to win 6 seats with less than 1 percent and 8 seats with between 1-2% of the vote. If his model is underestimates Democrats by 2 %, and those seats remain Democrat than they retain the House 218-217. The biggest losers would be Blue Dog Democrats.

Larry Sabato made his final picks today. The Republicans pick up 55 House seats and 8 Senate seats. Democrats keep the Senate but lose the House. One picky item is that Sabato pushes all the tied Senate seats to the Republicans. Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Of course, he has missed the developments in Alaska. First of all, I haven't seen anything to suggest that Patty Murray was going to lose to Rossi. Then I do not know why in all tied seats one automatically assumes Republicans will win.

Does the GOTV effort by the Democrats not matter? True, it's not 2008 but the word from Organizing for America is that they have been chugging away surpassing 8 million calls en route to a record 10,000 calls. Howard Dean's organization also touts large phonebanks. And Labor clearly is doing its part because Breibart has a new doctored video showing "union vote fraud." I wish conservatives learned what vote fraud is.

The Hill has also weighed in with their predictions based on Schoen polls of the pivotal races. They also predict the Republicans will pick up over 50 seats.

Electoral Politics.com has the House at 213 GOP and 203 Democrats with 19tied. I have been waiting for the last two days to see the final numbers kick in but they only seem to change 1 or 2 a day.

In Rhode Island, put a fork in Democrat Caprio, who looked like he was heading to an automatic victory. In a state where Obama has an overwhelming approval rating, it's not wise to disrespect the President and say he didn't want his endorsement. Caprio's numbers disappeared and Lincoln Chaffee looked like the next governor.

CNN's David Gergen criticized President Obama for appearing on the John Stewart Show last night, saying it was undignified and non-presidential. It seems the show drew 2.8 million viewers--maybe that's what Obama had in mind. Do we have to live two more years of this type of sniping at Obama. He's just not white and old.

Charles Cook had a warning. He said that 2006 was a wave election, 2008 was another wave election, and this year will be a wave election and also 2012 will also be a wave election. So the victors this year must not over-interpret the reason for their win. But we know they will.

I've missed Karl Rove talking about the Senate races. After all Crossroads America was created with the expressed purpose of taking over the Senate. He now only talks about the House. Interesting.

If Republicans lose in Nevada, Colorado, Alaska and/or Kentucky, what do you think Mitch McConnell is going to do to Jim DeMint, Mr. Teabagger? With Christine O'Donnell, the Republicans lost all chance of taking over the Senate and now they could actually lose a few seats because of the teabaggers.

Cleaning Up The Mess and Other Items

After listening to President Obama's speech on Iraq and having heard him in New Orleans a few days before, it is staggering the amount of destruction he has to clean up and ,at the same time, how he has to rhetorically thread the needle. I am still haunted by Gore Vidal's comment that "Barack Obama's problem is that he is too intelligent to lead people like Americans." He is going up against the perpetual myth of American indispensability and God-given destiny as the number 1 country on the planet. There simply is no room for reflecting on how we are now lagging behind almost every developed country in the world in every category that measures the quality of life. While every speech of the Administration incorporates some aspect of how we are developing the tools to continue to lead the world, our own parochialism blinds us to the reality that the world really is moving on without us and that today's America, while still the wealthiest country on the planet, is in tatters.

The two new "memes" of the Republicans are that the President is incompetent (unlike ,say, George W. Bush) and he is not gracious because he did not thank Bush enough for W's role in the surge. If you ever have had any contact with Barack Obama, he is the epitome of gracious and unfailingly polite, and a warm human being. As for competence, he could quit the Presidency right now and be considered one of the formidable President in history. Given the vitriol and hate aimed at him and his family, who could blame him from just saddling up and leaving after one term. There is precedent for this. James K. Polk listed everything he wanted to accomplish in office and when he completed the list he refused to run again ,even though he would have won.

The best news in the last few days is the lack of news coverage or punditry on the Middle East peace talks. What coverage exists is cynical, skeptical and claims the Administration just needs the photo opportunity to prove their commitment to a Middle East peace process. The remnants of the neo-conservatives simply don't believe in diplomacy of any kind on anything. So they are ignoring this right now. They figure their ally Bibi Netanyahu will scuttle the talks and further damage Obama. I think they are in for a surprise. Israel came to Washington with a full complement of able negotiators on every subject that needs to be completed.

While Israeli public opinion has been polarized for the past two years, there are wiser heads suggesting something must be done in the way of transitioning to a Palestinian state. The rest of the world still has an historical memory. For 20 years, both United States and Israel's public stance has been to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state. The current administration of Mahmoud Abbas has created security and administrative structures paid for and often manned by Americans and Europeans. There have been quiet moves since the Gaza Flotilla disaster on both sides to move to some new arrangement between Israelis and Palestinians.

Yesterday, President Obama gave a one-year timetable for this to be done. Serious talks begin today and will be mediated by Secretary of State Clinton. I expect we will see some basic agreements and then the parties will leave Washington and we will see a brief flurry of pontificating. And, since all Presidents since Jimmy Carter have failed, I'm betting on Obama to succeed. Call me crazy. I just like how there are no expectations this time and no one believes it can be done. There is that time when the warring parties blink and realize no one in the outside world cares anymore. And I also believe that Hamas will recognize Israel within one or two years.

And then to the Catfood Commission and the outrage over Alan Simpson's attacks on Social Security and Veterans' Benefits. If President Obama says he's going to strengthen social security and just tinker with it to lengthen its viability, I believe him. I checked out our national budget--we now spend 58% of the annual budget on defense, and only about 4-5% in debt servicing. The bulk of the rest goes to Medicare, leaving only about 20% to pay for everything else. If Alan Simpson is beginning to grumble over veterans benefits, no matter how curlish, I think we might see the Commission actually recommend further cuts in defense spending. Everyone has started gaming the politics of the Commission, producing like Ezra Klein conclusions that it predominantly shifts right. This may be true but by December I believe the Administration will produce a very viable strategy to reduce the national debt without the catastrophic human costs the Republicans advocate.

I still don't understand the news reports that "Democrats can't repeal Bush's tax-cuts". These tax cuts naturally expire so you must affirmatively pass them again. So let's say Evan Bayh, Nelson, Lincoln and a few Democrats are in favor of tax-cuts for the rich, they must get the Senate to pass them. Their may be a compromise to extend for two years. But all these must be paid for, according to the Pay-Go rules.

Elizabeth Warren has notified Harvard she is not returning to teach contract law this year. Hmmm. Katherine Van der Heuvel of the Nation tweeted again that her nomination will be made soon. It would spark some enthusiasm among progressive Democrats and normal human beings. The New York Post printed a piece that Wall Street is bracing itself for a Warren nomination.

Maybe President Obama could make the announcement at his Labor Day speech in front of the AFL-CIO familes in Milwaukee. It's interesting to actually see a President join the AFL-CIO to celebrate Labor Day. It's been quite a while.

In mid-term elections, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball column says that Republicans will take back the House and have a shot at the Senate. And if they come short in the Senate, then the Kingmakers will be Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman--Uggh. I'm still not there yet on either predictions. I saw for one nano-second Nate Silver's House analysis, which doesn't quite indicate the House is a done deal by any means. The blog however doesn't show it yet. nate does admit that Democratic fortunes have deteriorated in the last month--but then they always do in August.

If you want a horrifying read, Will Bunch has published The Backlash: Right-wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama (Harper, 2010). This is better than Markos Malitos' American Taliban because Will, an Obama supporter, actually travels through the country to interview the average Teabaggers and Glenn Beck fans and how the backlash against Obama began. And if you want to learn about which country, they want back, you can read it in this book. I had to put it down after the first 100 pages to gather strength to continue.

This is Richard Hofstader on steroids. And Bunch admits that with the network of right-wing radio stations, the internet and Fox News, the paranoid politics of today may become deadlier and more powerful than the past. He also points out that Glenn Beck is the perfect synthesis of the sickness of the media age. In this book, you're learn why Obama really didn't win the election, that the "Other" includes all urban areas, not just gays, Latinos and blacks, and that Tea Baggers are not against Big Government, just one presided over by a black Muslim Kenyan, who wants to enslave us all.

Parts of the book remind me of what Thomas Franks wrote about in What's The Matter With Kansas, where Kansas went from being an economic populist state to a right-wing conservative state. These people are actively working against policies that actually help them, many are on the border of unemployment, many have serious health issues who would benefit from health reform, and virtually none of them blame Bush and Cheney for anything. A good deal of those interviewed have self-acknowledged psychiatric and alcohol problems.and many became fundamentalist Christians after a decade of drugs and excess. A surprising number were radicals during Vietnam or Vietnam vets, who became right-wing Republicans or even Third Party members. Bunch says these people are about 25% of the voting population and believe the government is run by a bunch of elitists and rich people --true.

They truly believe the myth that the United States was created as a Christian nation and that we are literally the last hope of mankind. And they see the last election as the triumph of the Leftists, who hate America and will bring it down. And they really believe we should wage war endless against Muslims and torture them. The last thing these people are concerned about is the cost of militarising foreign policy. They positively love it.

For a devastating--if you can do that anymore--portrait of Sarah Palin, read this issue of Vanity Fair, where she tells people under her that she's so powerful she'll destroy them. A real classy dame.

The GOP strategy is to have semi-normal spokespeople accent "Jobs, Deficit and Healthcare", while allowing the Becks and Limbaughs to pile on about a Muslim President, etc. The ultimate goal is to totally de-legitmize Barack Obama and to divide Democrats from him. E.J. Dionne this morning had a piece that calls for Obama to build back his popularity to help Democrats. E.J. is being foolish here. Obama is doing better than others with such an economy and in this day of polarization it is very unlikely that even with winds at his back that he can get to 55% anytime soon.

And I found out why I like Republican Mike Castle, who was always nice to me when I ran IRI. He's the great-great-great-great (fill in the number) grandson of Ben Franklin. How cool is that? Even so Mike may be heading to defeat in Delaware against a teabagger lady. Then I would flip an automatic Republican gain to leaning Democrat.

Getting the August Bile Out of The System

August seems to be the cursed month for President Obama. The Gallup poll records the highest gap for Republicans--10--in their history tracking elections. (The highest for Democrats was 32% around the time of Watergate.) But it should be noted that a Gallup poll in August 2008 had McCain at 54 to Obama's 44%. It was one of the only that showed McCain ever ahead. The University of Buffalo predicts the Republicans will take the House and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball also has the Republicans taking the House with a team more far right than New Gingrich's in 1994. Larry Sabato writes that there is even a chance that Republicans will take the Senate. Nate the Great Silver is being coy about his House numbers. He believes the Gallup poll is an outlier but that the Democrats' fortunes have sunk in the last month. Most agree with my prediction that Republicans will sweep state houses in the Midwest.

Larry Sabato predicts we are in for two years of nothing getting done in Washington. Given the severity of the problems facing the country, this is a disaster in the making. Even more so because Republicans are now signing on to Ryan's "Blueprint for the Future", which will raise taxes significantly on the lower and middle classes and cut dramatically taxes on the wealthiest and corporations. It will also cut social security benefits and severely restrict Medicare, which now serves 50 million Americans. Objective analysts of the plan say it will further increase the national debt.

Candidates like Sharron Angle should be reason enough for Democrats to get out to vote. The Christian Reconstructionist backed by Karl Rove's American Crossroads came out yesterday against public education. She already has come out against social security, unemployment insurance, the Department of Education and the EPA. Of course, she is for repealing Obamacare. The Alaskan teabagger Miller has already questioned the constitutionality of social security and Medicare. (This issue was decided by courts years ago. But with the Roberts Court, who knows?)

The Majority of Republicans believe Barack Obama wants to institute Sharia Law in the United States and that he sides with Islamic fundamentalism. Last summer he wanted to install death panels to pull the plug on grandma. As a result I back both. Pulling the plug on grandma would save health costs and reduce our national debt and Sharia Law would eliminate the interest payments on my considerable credit card debt. So, my wife would have to wear a headscarf.

Tonight President Obama speaks to the nation for an allotted ten minutes graciously allowed him by the national networks to announce the official end of the combat in Iraq. Republicans already beat him to the punch in speeches today that praised President George W. Bush and claimed that he was responsible for the conditions that allowed us to leave. The Republicans went on to berate the President on Israel, fighting terrorism and the Afghanistan War. Which we all know they would be better at since we saw the excellent foreign policy of the previous eight years.

Only Sunday, President Obama spoke to the residents of New Orleans on the fifth anniversary of Katrina. Besides the Administration's commitments to the Gulf region on the BP oil spill, people neglect to mention its bolstering efforts at reconstruction after the Katrina disaster. Through the stimulus package and other programs, the single-spaced list of programs just aimed at Katrina-related reconstruction runs two full pages. But local polls in Louisiana give credit to Bobby Jindal and not Barack Obama.

This phenomenon is frustrating to read and hear about. Jonathan Alter in an article "The Illustrated Man" documents the on-going smearing of the President and his apparent inability to escape the targeting by Fox News and the Right, despite a lengthy and impressive list of achievements that have affected every American.

Former Clinton adviser and toe-sucker Dick Morris promises when the Republicans take power they will successfully close down government. He promises his Fox audience this time he will support it and it will work. Democrats are now scrambling around to figure out how the Administration can play small ball if Republicans come back into power. Some believe that the lunacy of the right will be on display with House investigations into Acorn, the New Black Panther Party and the TARP ballouts, even though that was Bush's program. This , they're convinced, will create a reaction from the American people that will propel the Democrats back in 2012. Remember those were prosperous times and America was not at war. The mood of the country may not be with the Democrats on this. Fox News had not even been invented yet and internet blogging was in its infancy. Already we see other news agencies like CNN and even MSNBC cowed by the Right, chasing conservative audiences.

What's dangerous now is that there really is only one rational party in the United States. The Republicans have deliberately made the choice to be anti-rational because this is effective in creating historic amnesia. Their agenda has become so radical, the Left must blush. They are the first de-constructionists in our political system,re-writing all of American history from its origins to today to provide validation for their wholesale assault on our system. It is no mistake that the Republican reaction is to roll-up the advances made by the New Deal during the Great Depression and to thwart the implementation of the range of new reforms created by the Democrats. Their appeal must be emotional because their policy prescriptions as outlined recently by Tan Man Boehner and the Mitch McConnell will only make the social and economic situation worse by several factors.

There is a reason for this intensity on the part of the Republicans. Their Southern strategy is now being extended to the rest of the country. While Barack Obama was elected with the most popular votes in American history, they have taken every effort to de-legitimize him as President. They are defending what they perceive as aggrieved white people, who have lost their jobs and are protesting at the urgings of the corporations and billionaires the very social services government provides. If George W. Bush destroyed the American peoples' trust in government, this only validates that government can't do anything. Therefore, government must be destroyed. The Republicans know that they have alienated every single demographic group with the exception of white males in this country. This is their last chance to put a stake in the system before they look at a generation in the desert. The mid-terms are being waged as a cultural war with the religious Right acting as a vanguard for the Republicans, who have embraced anarchy as the Koch Brothers proudly proclaimed. Policy solutions are purely secondary to them at this point. Remember this is their last chance to vindicate their worldview.

Remember the Republicans have sought to make every major piece of reform attempted by President Obama his Waterloo. They have failed at every level. But they have succeeded by obstructionism to allow other elements that are needed for America's economic recovery. This obstructionism is blamed on Democrats and not Republicans as polls repeatedly point out. The Democrats' job is to reverse this trend as much as possible before the election.

President Obama will be spending labor day with the AFL-CIO, which has stepped up to the plate in an admirable fashion in recent months. He has to use this occasion to lay out some new economic strategies and to outline the stark choices in the days ahead. We are not talking about George W. Bush coming back but people who are the most rightwing in modern American history. And he should also give the progressives a gift--Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer Protection Agency. Even if she can't get confirmed, it's worth fighting for.

This week, President Obama will be the host of peace talks between Bibi Netanyahu and Abbas. Even though American and Israeli policy for the past 20 years supports the creation of a Palestinian state, American commentators such as George Will and others now argue against such an idea. While the initial face-to-face talks may not produce earthbreaking results, it's clear that some deals are on the table. Netanyahu actually has put together a serious negotiating team on several sensitive issues. If the talks are somewhat successful, we might be absent a President after January, while he spends his time globe-trotting either for peace agreements or to repair our shattered relations with the rest of the world. If you can't get anything done at home, go abroad.

When Congress comes back from vacation, the issue of the Bush tax cuts takes center stage. The Washington Post and CNN have written that Democrats do not have the 60 votes to kill the tax-cuts for the wealthy. Notice how soon we got conditioned to the idea of 60 votes being the threshold for anything to get done, even though all the bills being hung up would pass with overwhelming majorities--just not the sacred 60 number.

It's true the tax issue will have to be deftly played. The Republicans have already ginned up the argument that these will be Obama's tax hikes, even though they are set to expire anyway in 2011. The problem facing the Democrats is that they must fight for the middle-class tax cuts, make it overt and repeat it over and over that is what they are doing. But if the filibuster holds, they must argue that the tax cuts for the wealthy must be paid for. This is the real dilemma Democrats face. None of the tax cuts under Bush were paid for--that's why they have to be phased out according to law. The Republicans want the tax cuts for the wealthy but they must be paid for out of severe cuts from the discretionary or social spending in the budget. Which is just what the Republicans want. They want to use the tax cuts for the wealthy to reduce any support for the middle class in the America. It's pure robbery and the Democrats must call them on it and beat them up with a club with it. If the American people actually fall for the Republicans on this, may God have mercy on their souls because they will undermine their own welfare. Be assured neither party will cut anything from defense to pay for these tax cuts.

Thank God, August is over. But I don't think the fever has broken yet.