Morning Miscellany

Morning Miscellany

The Register has several interesting items this AM.

Vilsack is sounding like the head of the DLC again as he sticks up for the Bush domestic spying program: "Democrats are falling into a very, very large political trap. Democrats are not going to win elections until they can reassure people they are going to keep them safe." Maybe Joe Lieberman can be his running mate, too.

Blouin and Culver are pointing fingers and playing Dueling Donors. Maybe party activists make moral distinctions, but Real People don't care about this and file it all in the "They're All Crooks" file.

If this primary sinks to mutual name calling and finger pointing, it could be an opening for Ed Fallon. I think of Russ Feingold's 1992 primary win in Wisconsin, where people got so sick of the two big-spending, main chance contenders that they said "what the hell" and went 70% for Russ.

But Feingold played things a bit differently. He had enough money for some advertising, and it was brilliant: the Elvis endorsement, the pledge on the garage door, the mud flying between the two opponents. He came off as earnest and self-effacing. There's a fine line between that and the self-righteousness of a Dennis Kucinich. Fallon needs to be seen as quirky but not flaky.

More important, he needs to be really, really careful about going on the attack himself. Keep the message positive and let someone else carry the ball about Patty Judge's agribusiness money. (He may have already lost that high ground).

Meanwhile, the touchplay issue has cost Jim Nussle the support of the Kum & Go owners. Nussle, to his credit, holds to his "get rid of them all" position. Vander Plaats is there, too, and the Dems seem to have consolidated behind a status quo/more study position. It would be interesting to hear Jeff "Casey's" Lamberti's thoughts...

Does anyone else have to suppress a Beavis and Butthead "huh huh, huh" at the name "Kum & Go"? I heard there was a chain called Pump & Munch somewhere...

Update: Iowa Ennui gets what I, on my first cup of coffee, didn't think of first.

On State Of The Union morn, W is at 37% in Iowa.