ALAN GRAYSON: The 6th-richest member of the House.
Archive for 2010
January 8, 2010
CHARLIE COOK: Dems Could Lose The House.
THE FLIGHT OF the Golden Goose?
BIG JOURNALISM: As Climategate Becomes Pressgate, Questions for the Media.
POOR SALESMANSHIP: Martha Coakley: We Need To Get Taxes Up.
NICK SCHULZ: America as Texas vs. California, Part III.
PRESIDENT OBAMA will renominate Dawn Johnsen, along with several others. I’ve written before on why I think it’s a mistake for the GOP to oppose her. Though it seems as if the opposition from pro-life Democrats is doing more harm now.
STIMULUS! MORE “UNEXPECTED” BAD ECONOMIC NEWS: Employers unexpectedly cut jobs in December. “U.S. employers unexpectedly cut 85,000 jobs in December, government data showed on Friday, cooling optimism on the labor market’s recovery and keeping pressure on President Barack Obama.”
UPDATE: Comparing Obama Administration promises with performance.
ANOTHER UPDATE: State Tax Collections See Third Consecutive Double-Digit Drop in 3Q 2009.
JIM LINDGREN: Ten Unanswered Questions in the Flight 253 Summary.
UPDATE: A somewhat more positive take from Orin Kerr.
NOAH POLLAK: Stuck In Oslo With George Mitchell.
A ROLE MODEL FOR THE GOP: Forget Reagan — try Domino’s. I saw one of those commercials for the first time last night. It was striking. I wonder how the ad campaign’s working.
UPDATE: Reader Joseph Dorsett writes:
I delivered for Dominos in Philly in College. Twenty-seven years later I found myself delivering for Dominos again doing the Dave Ramsey thing. I was surprised that the pizza was exactly the same as I remembered it. Consistency has it’s virtues but as America’s palate grew more refined it no longer works.
The Dominos I work at started seeing increased sales with the introduction of pasta and sandwiches. But it was truly a shock when we started seeing praise for the pizza coming across the order screens from customer on-line comments. It makes a difference to see praise instead of criticism come across from the internet comments. Which are displayed as a ticker in our store so everyone can see.
It’s not only improving the product but a renewed and strong emphasis on listening to the customer. Which is the other side of the sales equation that the GOP might want to follow.
And sales _are_ going up!
Interesting.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mont McNeil writes:
We tried the “new Domino’s” last night after watching their online mea culpa/pledge to do better. It was actually pretty tasty – their new sauce recipe has a little red pepper in it, and I found it tasty (my wife thought it was a little too spicy – when’s the last time a Domino’s pizza could be accused of not being bland enough?) We’d become pretty loyal to Papa John’s for delivery pizza, but Domino’s is back in the rotation.
Domino’s has always been my last-choice pizza delivery. But maybe I’ll give ’em a try. But the GOP should note that it’s not just the commercials — they’ve actually listened to what people want and tried to improve their product.
STALKING GOLIATH:
Through the tall trees of northern Wisconsin, Republican Sean Duffy is stalking a giant. The 38-year-old district attorney is talking fiscal responsibility, job creation, entitlement reform. He’s scoring Washington for higher taxes, and for a health-care takeover. He’s Facebooking and Twittering. He comes across as a serious yet positive reformer, a combo that has caught the public’s eye.
He’ll need that eye, and more, since his Goliath is one David Obey, Democratic head of the Appropriations Committee, the liberal bull who has occupied Wisconsin’s Democratic-leaning 7th congressional seat since before Mr. Duffy was . . . born. That the Republican is getting some traction says something about how bitter voters are with the Democratic agenda. It says something equally important about a nascent GOP effort to rebrand the party.
Meanwhile, in the you-can’t-please-anybody department, unions are complaining about ObamaCare:
Local unions are waging war against President Obama’s proposed “Cadillac tax” on higher-cost health-care plans — with one leader warning New York Democrats who approve the levy to watch out at the polls this year.
“The proposed tax is both terrible politics and bad policy, and it’s going to seriously undermine good health-care coverage for literally tens of millions of middle-class workers,” fumed Bob Master, legislative and political director for Communication Workers of America’s Northeast chapter.
“We are working furiously to ensure that the New York House delegation stand strong on this,” he added. “On the political side, I can tell you — and this is not a threat — that union members and middle-class voters whose taxes go up because of their health care, or whose health care gets cut, are not going to turn out for Democrats in hotly contested elections.
“I think they just stay home.”
Master pointedly mentioned the wave of anti-Democratic sentiment in upstate elections last year, as well as the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races.
Ouch.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: More politically correct, multicultural identity politics at AALS. Makes me not-very-sorry that I stayed home to work on a law review article. Though, to be honest, if I’d gone anywhere this weekend it would have been to CES.
BOGUS INTERVIEWS FROM GAWKER? “I think that Gawker is using Business Insider as a front to get interviews with people who long ago stopped taking Gawker calls because Gawker is a hit-job operation.” A hit-job operation? Is that fair?
UPDATE: Nick Denton responds: “Glenn, that’s a straightforward content partnership we have with Business Insider. We run some of their pieces; they run some of ours. There’s no coordination of subject matter.”
THE BIG LEBOWSKI rewritten as a work of Shakespeare.
ABC NEWS: Shock: Obama Forced to ‘Order’ Follow-Ups of Terrorist Tips: President Pledges ‘Accountability’ But No One Fired for Systemic Intel Failures. It seems to me that he used to get friendlier headlines.
UPDATE: Reader Pat Gang writes:
It’s only fair to note that nobody got fired for the “systematic intelligence failures” that led up to 9/11. In fact some of those bozos got promoted and many of them are still in important positions. To my way of thinking that was GW Bush’s greatest failure. *grumble*
Yeah, I was complaining about that back then, too. Probably harder, because back then I was more naive. . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: “We knew everything.”
MICKEY KAUS: The NYT Is Peter Orszag’s Love Child.
WELL, POSSIBLY: For Obama And The Media, Is The Honeymoon Finally Over?
ACCOUNTABILITY: No firings for failed airliner attack.
MATT WELCH corrects Roy Edroso.
BLUMENTHAL doesn’t want to talk about TARP. Well, can you blame him? I’ll bet Chris Dodd didn’t want to talk about mortgages, either . . . .
UH, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, JANET? Napolitano Says She’s Most Surprised By “Al-Qaeda’s Determination” (Video).