Just POlitics

Gonzales confirmed

White House counsel Alberto Gonzales won U.S. Senate confirmation on Thursday as the nation's next attorney general with the second highest number of "no" votes ever for a successful nominee for the post.

Thirty-five Senate Democrats and one independent voted against Gonzales; six Democrats joined 54 Republicans in voting for him.

Atheist supported Kerry

The Washington Times reports on PEW poll finding that faith or the lack of it was a key factor in whom you voted for in the presidential election.

Non-believers, in fact, were among Sen. John Kerry's most loyal groups, with 82 percent of those identifying themselves as atheists or agnostics in support of the Massachusetts Democrat. They barely were outranked in the poll by black Protestants, 83 percent of whom supported Mr. Kerry.

Among Kerry’s own Catholic faith, he had difficulty appealing for votes as well:

Mr. Kerry, a practicing Catholic who annoyed some in his faith because he supports abortion, found moderate support among them. Only 28 percent of traditional Catholics backed Mr. Kerry, along with 45 percent of centrist Catholics. He drew 69 percent of the support from both modernist and Hispanic Catholics, however.

Media Panic

The Washington Times’ Inside Politics column reports on Tim Graham’s article at National Review:

"Like the onset of an infectious winter illness, reporters [Wednesday] night were coming down with a disturbing feeling," Tim Graham writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).

"Despite their best efforts last year to convince Americans to drop President Bush and mark the Iraq war in the history books as a colossal military and political blunder — and despite pre-State of the Union address clucking that Bush is at a 'historic low' in approval ratings — they can sense that the president is on a roll, that he's beginning to look bold, visionary, even 'Churchillian' (to quote David Gergen on PBS [Wednesday] night).

Contribution limits raised

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Election Commission today approved new contribution limits for the 2005-2006 election cycle. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) indexed certain contribution limits for inflation. Limits for contributions made in 2005 and 2006 are as follows:

FEC Chairman Scott Thomas noted that "we're particularly pleased that, with the help of the Departments of Commerce and Labor, we were able to get these numbers out so quickly and so early in the election cycle."

The Federal Register notice announcing these changes will also specify limits on coordinated expenditures party committees may make on behalf of general election candidates for federal office. The limit for House races in 2005 will be $38,300, with a separate limit applied to national and state/local party committees. As a result, parties could spend up to a total of $76,600 on behalf of House candidates in general elections this year while coordinating those expenditures with the candidate. (At this point, the House special election in California's 5th district is the only election for federal office scheduled this year.)

Edwards in New Hampshire

Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards returns to Manchester for his first post-election speech as the main attraction at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's fund-raiser. Edwards is expected to talk about what he's doing now and in the upcoming months — in particular, focusing on poverty, its core issues and how to address it.

Social Security attacks

There are several organizations and news outlets that are promoting the idea that President Bush’s proposed Social Security private ownership accounts for younger Americans would cut benefits by from 40 to 46 percent. One organization (the Washington Post) has run a correction and said that is not true:

Correction to This Article
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described how new private accounts would work under President Bush’s Social Security plan. This article has been corrected.

In the article part of the correction reads:

The Post mistakenly reported that the balance of a worker's personal account would be reduced by the worker's total annual contributions, plus 3 percent interest. In fact, the balance in the account would belong to the worker upon retirement, according to White House officials.

Another large falsehood is that reduction in payroll taxes for private/personal/individual accounts would create an immediate $3 trillion deficit. The fact is that the money isn’t owed until that next generation becomes eligible for retirement. Unless you want to live by the theory, that Social Security is nothing more than a generational transfer of wealth.

Dean DNC Chair?

Anyone interested in the poor state of the Democrat Party and what is going on over there should read Ryan Lizza’s article in New Republic:

… "I think it's pathetic," says James Carville. "It's so indicative of the Democratic Party. Now we're just playing into every stereotype: We're weak, disorganized, flopping around. ... Somebody should have fixed this damn thing in November. I wish someone would have taken charge and three or four people would have gotten together in a smoke-filled room. ... They're not running for president! They are running for party chair. This is supposed to be a rigged deal. You think the Republicans would do it this way?"

The article points out how the confluence of bloggers and the Party organization outside of Washington is challenging the Beltway power base of the Democrat Party:

The bloggers were not the only group to exert unusual, and utterly new, influence on the chairmanship race this year. A heretofore obscure entity, the Association of State Democratic Chairs (asdc), a subgroup of the 447, moved aggressively to take the place of the bumbling Hill leadership and Democratic governors who found themselves unable to influence the process. The Democratic chairs are led by Mark Brewer, the head of the party in Michigan. He is one of the semi-anonymous cogs in the Democratic machine who has spent decades moving from one perch to another (precinct delegate, vice chair, chair) but rarely gaining respect from the establishment or much influence within the DNC. He realized this was his chance to make himself and the other state chairs major players. Brewer singlehandedly turned the selection process for party leader from a race about the future of the party into a debate about the asdc's idiosyncratic agenda. "Brewer fancies himself the kingmaker," said a top Democratic strategist halfway through the race.

Brewer forced all the candidates to become experts on the asdc's complaints. He sent each candidate a five-page list of demands, which was jokingly referred to as "the ransom note." It was essentially a blueprint for transferring power from Washington to the state parties. Currently, the DNC chairman gets to appoint 75 members of the DNC. Brewer wants the states to get 50 of those spots. He wants the asdc to have office space at the DNC and a say in where the presidential conventions are held. Most controversially, he wants a new Budget and Finance Committee run by the asdc to audit the DNC's expenditures. In the very last line of his ransom note, he simply demands that the DNC fork over an annual tribute to his group: "DNC to provide $200,000 toward asdc annual budget."