Al Franken: Good for track and field?

[kreynolds]

According to this nob, as soon as Al Franken joins the Senate, not only will the Dems have 60 votes, we'll have crazy, left-leaning mandates such as the metric system.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/01/ ... index.html

Who knew that the field portion of T&F was so wildly liberal?

[gh]

Funny, he never advocated that when he was running the Sunkist Invitational :-)

[26mi235]

From that screed we have:

"A new Gallup poll shows that the American people are starting to catch on that Democrats are pushing the country to a place that it doesn't want to go. The poll "finds a statistically significant increase since last year in the percentage of Americans who describe the Democratic Party's views as being "too liberal," from 39 percent to 46 percent. This is the largest percentage saying so since November 1994, after the party's losses in that year's midterm elections.""

One of the things that the Republicans have done that have made the Dems more liberal is to move even further to the right so that a liberal is still in the range the covers 50% of those that vote. The Republicans have made it harder and harder for moderates to win primaries (see Spector). Note, this is just a comment, not a value judgment.

The reason I used 'screed' is this:

Another poll showed that while 40 percent of Americans identify themselves as conservative, only 21 percent think of themselves as liberal. The American people voted for change. They didn't vote for a liberal orthodoxy that promises more government, higher taxes, slower growth, more pork and a liberal social agenda.

Clearly, the voters were responding to an extremely poor record on the growth front and the 'more government' record was rather poor as well with Plan D, foreign wars (which are as inherently a much more government as you can get because it is not fought by private firms) and the need for the Republican Administration's rescue plan (it is not Obama's TARP etc).

Of course, while a CNN commentator, this guy is one of the designated politicos and there are ones from both sides which is clearly and acceptable policy in my book.

Editor's note: John Feehery worked as a staffer for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress. He is president of Feehery Group, a Washington-based advocacy firm that has represented clients including the News Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As far as Franken himself goes, I think the right wing of the Republican party both dislikes him for his comments on the likes of Limbaugh and Fox News guys, and he scares them because he has drawing power. He won the election because he reversed a typical Republican advantage in military absentee ballots (due to his many USO tours, including several in Iraq). Thus, they are trying to set up an image of him for the media to portray him as a liberal media darling from the extreme left. They spent multiple millions from a diminished bank account to try to over turn his victory when the odds were very long (and they knew it, but did not want to have that be the perception) and so they could try to attach the label that Franken stole the election (note that Coleman NEVER led the election tally once there was a complete canvass of the votes, despite what picture they tried to portray).

[Marlow]

Re: Al Franken: Good for track and field?

we'll have crazy, left-leaning mandates such as the metric system.

I useta think we should (and Jimmy gave it a shot), but now that I'm in my dotage, I say NO WAY; you can take away my 12-inch ruler when you pry my cold dead fingers off it! (no dirty puns, please).

[bad hammy]

Re: Al Franken: Good for track and field?

. . . but now that I'm in my dotage, I say NO WAY . . .

So will we be spared a few more words in defense of the 1600???

[SQUACKEE]

Re: Al Franken: Good for track and field?

. . . but now that I'm in my dotage, I say NO WAY . . .

So will we be spared a few more words in defense of the 1600???

OH, THATS RICH! :lol:

[gh]

interesting to see this in an analysis of the Gallup thing:

<<PRINCETON, NJ -- Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.>>

So the number of "liberals" is actually rising? Amazing what you can take from numbers depending on what you want to read.

[SQUACKEE]

I dont see my political party-The JFK Libs with a pinch of Libertarian and a dap of Conservative, Party 8-)

[Marlow]

Re: Al Franken: Good for track and field?

. . . but now that I'm in my dotage, I say NO WAY . . .

So will we be spared a few more words in defense of the 1600???

OH, THATS RICH! :lol:

I didn't vote to metricize USA track, but they did anyway (what's up with that?!). Now that we have metric tracks, it'd be pretty darned foolish to run yards races. If you want the Mile, then it's only logical that you want the 220, 440, and 880!

[Conor Dary]

interesting to see this in an analysis of the Gallup thing:

<<PRINCETON, NJ -- Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.>>

So the number of "liberals" is actually rising? Amazing what you can take from numbers depending on what you want to read.

That is not surprising. The GOP old war-horse of calling all the Dems liberal was not working. Then it was Socialists!. I don't think that is working either.

PS. Wasn't it while NIxon or Ford was president that Congress advocated the metric system.

[Brian]

Funny, he never advocated that when he was running the Sunkist Invitational :-)

LOL!

[Cooter Brown]

[TrakFan]

I wonder if Rudy will seek the nomination (again) in 2012?

[mrbowie]

If there were 60 Frankens in the senate, it might still take the Dems 8 years to reverse in damage to our civil rights inflicted by Bush/Cheney.

Hooray for Franken.

[Conor Dary]

David Broder had his usual nutty column calling for bi-partisanship, i.e.-whatever the GOP wants--calling Franken a loud mouth former comedian.

Paul Krugman had a nice reply;

Two points.

First, implicit in this characterization of Franken is the notion of the Senate as a decorous gentlemen’s club. I doubt that club ever existed in reality; but in any case, these days the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body is, not to put too fine a point on it, chock full o’ nuts. James Inhofe: I rest my case.

Second, Al Franken’s dirty secret is that … he’s a big policy wonk.

I used to go on Franken’s radio show, all ready to be jocular — and what he wanted to talk about was the arithmetic of Social Security, or the structure of Medicare Part D.

So what will Franken do to the level of Senate discourse? He’ll raise it.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0 ... ns-secret/