From Sen. Edwards’ blog.
Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio
passed ballot questions to increase the minimum wage and index it to
inflation. Edwards spent the past year campaigning for these minimum
wage ballot initiatives with the leaders of these state coalitions,
including unions and anti-poverty organizations. Also this year,
grassroots pressure helped pass minimum wage increases through state
legislatures in ten states, including North Carolina."Winning minimum wage increases is a huge step toward lifting millions of working families out of poverty," Edwards said.
On the Democratic side I think Obama, Edwards, Richardson and Clinton come out looking pretty darn good as far as ‘08ers go.
Big losers: John McCain – who hitched his wagon to George Bush, the Hindenburg Presidency. Mitt Romney – who did such a great job he lost tons of governorships to Democrats, even his own.
Interesting ideas as to who comes out looking good. Much of what I read says McCain actually looks better as many of the Republicans who did manage to win their seats (the few, the proud…) owe McCain.
When you listen to the speeches though, Clinton is going to have to do better. Ford, certainly, blew her away, and he lost.
The wildcard may once again be Lieberman. He seemd to be on the verge of a good speech before the networks cut him off. Nevertheless, he is the big power broker for the next two years. The Dems talked about denying him his Chairmanship but if they do that now and he decides to caucus with the Reps, then we’ll be seeing a lot of Cheney on Capitol Hill. Doesn’t take away from the Dems tremendous victory but how they treat Lieberman could put a hitch in their plans.
So how does he jump back to being Senator Independent Maverick?
Another real trend is the blue trend in the rust belt (Ohio, Pa. Ill). The deep south is also redder. I’m still not sure of the 8th and 12th districts in Ga. – could actually be a single R gain (Marshall still leads, though).
I don’t think McCain is a loser. Condi Rice may be though. Bush was repudiated and she is closely associated with Bush – maybe the only viable Pres contender in 2008 associated with Bush. What McCain did will look like and may have been ‘party duty’.
I’m still not convinced that McCain is all that tough a customer. The biggest problem with him is that the media just worship him. Their love for him should bother their husbands and wives. But for toughness … the guy has been cowering with his tail between his legs since he was Swift Boated in 2000. A legitimate attack, like one involving his being one of the Keating Five, would probably be very effective.
I’m not saying don’t worry about McCain, but Giuliani is the one who gives me the heebie-jeebies. I don’t think Condi Rice is anything. Mitt Romney, never really much of anything in the first place, Bill Frist was toasted by Terri Schiavo, who ganged up with Jeb Bush’s brother to toast him. Newt Gingrich, while a non-factor realistically because the whole country decided in 1995 that it hated the guy, is helped inasmuch that everyone else is hurt, and George Allen probably wishes that his mother didn’t teach him her native racial slurs.
Thus, we’re left with McCain, Giuliani, Gingrich and Huckabee, and I think the last two are non-starters.
McCain deserves a presidential nomination from his party (though I doubt he’ll get one), and if he does he will not succeed. All the Dems would have to do are pass around a few pictures of him with the ultra-conservative Christian crackpots and he’d be sunk – he lost all credibility selling out to them in the past year and playing cheerleader for Dubya.
If Guliani runs, the Democrats will have a horrible time and probably lose. If they did run any candidate against him and win it would be by the slimmest of margains. I’m not a fan, but I know I’m in the minority in this part of PA – both Dems and Republicans love him.
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