Les Cohortes Célestes ont le devoir et le regret de vous informer que Libres Propos est entré en sommeil. Ce forum convivial et sympathique reste uniquement accessible en lecture seule. Prenez plaisir à le consulter.
Merci de votre compréhension.
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 6/7/2009, 08:44
Rappel du premier message :
Bonjour Biloulou
Il me semblait que cette nouvelle plairait!
Auteur
Message
EddieCochran Admin
Nombre de messages : 12768 Date d'inscription : 03/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 4/11/2009, 15:33
1523 -
Citation :
GOP Sweep
La future devise des E-U : "Sweep, Sweep Home" (Oui, oui, oui je sais c'est grammaticalement barjo, mais bien dans le ton)
Pour se refaire une Virginité, les sorcières d'Halloween ont recyclé leurs balais auprès de la race républicaine des Gubernators.
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 4/11/2009, 15:43
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Sujet: 1526 - 4/11/2009, 20:28
Maine vote repeals gay marriage lawBy MICHAEL FALCONE | 11/4/09 1:29 AM EST
Frank Schubert, campaign director for Stand for Marriage Maine, claims victory for Yes on 1, Tuesday evening, Nov. 3, 2009, in Portland, Maine. Photo: AP
Maine voters on Tuesday repealed a state law granting same-sex couples the right to marry, defeating an effort by gay activists who hoped the state would become the first to approve gay marriage at the polls.
Spoiler:
Nearly 53 percent of voters opted to throw out a same-sex marriage law passed by the state Legislature in May, while 47 percent voted to uphold it, with 87 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday morning.
The vote in Maine was being closely watched by both supporters and opponents of gay marriage across the country one year after voters in the most populous state, California, passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Only five states currently allow same-sex marriage.
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, gay marriage advocates were emboldened by what appeared to be higher than expected turnout in Maine. Even before polls opened on Tuesday roughly one-tenth of the state’s registered voters submitted mail-in ballots or voted early.
And in an interview late Tuesday night on MSNBC, Maine Democratic Gov. John Baldacci said that at polling places it looked like “the presidential election all over again.”
“A lot of young people were showing up, a lot of first-time voters were showing up,” Baldacci said. “I was encouraged by that.”
Supporters also hoped money would make a difference in the outcome. The main group working to keep the state’s marriage law on the books, Protect Maine Equality, outraised the leading opposition group, Stand for Marriage, by more than $1 million.
Gay marriage supporters were looking to make Maine the sixth state — in addition to Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut — to legalize same-sex marriage.
In Washington state, voters also were poised to decide whether to endorse the state’s “everything but marriage” law, which would give gay and lesbian couples more of the rights that married couples now enjoy.
In all, 26 measures appeared on the ballot in six states on Tuesday, making 2009 one of the slowest years for ballot initiatives in the past decade, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Residents of several large cities — including New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Pittsburgh and Seattle — also went to the polls on Tuesday to choose mayors.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg won an unexpectedly tight race Tuesday night with long-shot challenger City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. — a contest that was so close that NBC initially called the race for Bloomberg, then withdrew its call.
After running the most expensive self-financed campaign ever, Bloomberg was expected to cruise to a third term over Thompson. But as the night wore on, the results stayed close, with Bloomberg eventually prevailing by a 51 percent to 46 percent margin. Bloomberg, an independent who also ran on the Republican line, spent more than $85 million of his personal fortune to win reelection.
In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino defeated City Councilor at Large Michael F. Flaherty to win a record fifth term, by a margin of 57 to 42 percent. Menino, who took office in 1993, is the city’s longest-serving mayor.
Luke Ravenstahl, the 29-year-old mayor of Pittsburgh, won his first full term outright, winning 55 percent of the vote and fending off challenges from two independent candidates. Ravenstahl was appointed to the post in 2006 following the death of former Mayor Bob O'Connor.
In Atlanta, City Council member Mary Norwood, who was vying to become the city’s first white mayor since the 1970s, appeared headed for a run-off with former state legislator Kasim Reed.
Norwood won 43 percent of the vote to Reed’s 38 percent. A third candidate, City Council President and businesswoman Lisa Borders, won 14 percent. Since no candidate received a majority, Norwood and Reed will advance to a Dec. 1 runoff.
Tomas Regalado, a Miami city commissioner and former television reporter, easily defeated fellow commissioner Joe Sanchez, by a 72 percent to 28 percent margin, to become that city’s next mayor, replacing the current mayor, Manny Diaz, who is term limited.
In Detroit, Mayor Dave Bing, a former basketball player, won reelection 58 percent to 42 percent over challenger Tom Barrow, an accountant. Bing was elected mayor in a May special election after former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges in a scandal involving is relationship with a top aide.
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Sujet: 1527 - 4/11/2009, 20:42
Houston mayor's race going to runoff
By MICHAEL GRACZYK (AP) – 12 hours ago
HOUSTON — Houston won't know who its new mayor will be until next month. City controller Annise Parker and former city attorney Gene Locke are headed to a runoff to become mayor of America's fourth-biggest city.
Parker, who would be the first openly gay mayor of Houston, collected nearly 31 percent of the vote Tuesday.
Locke, with 25 percent, topped architect and urban planner Peter Brown, who had nearly 23 percent.
A runoff is needed because no one received 50 percent of the vote. A specific date has not yet been set for the election, but it will be in December.
A victory for Parker would make Houston the largest U.S. city with an openly gay mayor.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
==========
Annise Parker And Gene Locke Could Not Secure Majority, Head For Runoff November 4th, 2009 - 7:36 pm ICT by GD
By Madhuri Dey
Houston, Nov. 4 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The city of Houston has faced a problem regarding the election of it’s mayor. The two candidates who were running for the seat, have headed for a runoff as none have secured a majority. Annise Parker, the City Controller and Gene Locke, a former Attorney General, were the ones running for the election. Annise secured about 31% of the votes whereas Locke secured about 25%. Peter Brown collected about 23% with Roy Morales a few steps behind him.
The runoff has not yet been decided, but the date has been tentatively set on the 12th of December. There is widespread hope among her supporters that she would win the elections. If she is indeed elected, it would be the first time that the city will have an openly gay mayor. According to her supporters, she is widely known and liked. She is a prominent gay rights activist. On the other hand, Locke is an eminent civil rights leader and he is hoping o become the first African-American leader to become the mayor in America’s fourth largest city.
Parker seemed quite confident about her win as she promised her supporters that the race was not yet over and asked them to join her at the headquarters the next day. Locke, on the other hand, seemed equally confident about his status as the underdog. He seemed quite at ease and asserted that he liked winning when the odds are against him. He realized that wining the post is going to be difficult, but was assured that it is not completely impossible. The race is probably the most closely contested among all the other elections held this year.
======= janice Says: November 4th, 2009 at 7:57 pm Hi, Gene Locke would not be the first african-american mayor of Houston. Mayor Lee Brown was African-American the last time I looked and he was Houston’s mayor. Please correct article.
aaah ces journalistes!
Biloulou
Nombre de messages : 54566 Localisation : Jardins suspendus sur la Woluwe - Belgique Date d'inscription : 27/10/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 4/11/2009, 20:46
Sylvette a écrit:
aaah ces journalistes!
Quoi ? Aux États-Unis aussi ?
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Sujet: 1528 - 4/11/2009, 20:50
Oui, Biloulou
======
It's Barack Obama's first anniversary - but there's precious little to celebrate
The US President's performance has dismayed even his biggest admirers, writes Simon Heffer.
By Simon Heffer, in New York Published: 8:11PM GMT 03 Nov 2009
Comments 106 | Comment on this article
Things remain very bad in America under Barack Obama Photo: Getty
A year ago, almost to the minute, I was here in New York, watching television reports of the aftermath of the election of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States of America. I recall the sight of a lachrymose woman from the Midwest, standing outside her run-down house as the sun rose, giving thanks for her deliverance: not from George W Bush, but from the threat of foreclosure. I have no idea whether this poor woman kept the roof over her head; all I know is, if she did, it would have been no thanks to Mr Obama.
Spoiler:
On the anniversary of his election, he is busy with unpleasant confrontations with reality. As my colleague Toby Harnden reported so graphically last week, the honeymoon is over. Never in American politics has someone come to power on such a bubble of expectation; never, inevitably, has the pricking of that bubble caused such shock. America may just have come out of recession, but things remain bad. Ten per cent of the workforce is unemployed: here in New York, perhaps the most dynamic and prosperous city on the planet, the figure is even higher.
The rhetoric that bore Mr Obama to office proved equal to electoral success, but not to economic management. Moreover, Mr Obama's most coveted legislative aim, the creation of a sort of national health service, remains elusive. The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper here of serious money, has just savaged the Bill as perhaps the worst inflicted on the American people since the era of Roosevelt. Its projected cost – $1.055 trillion over 10 years – is regarded as madness when America has a level of debt so astronomical that it (just) exceeds, per capita, that of Britain; and few outside a hard core of Obama devotees see it delivering what is needed, where it is needed.
Internationally, the lustre has worn off, too. Mr Obama might have won the Nobel Peace Prize, but the less said about that the better. The award was apparently decided in February, days after he entered the Oval Office. He gave up his missile defence system in eastern Europe: we all imagined the Russians would give something in return, but we are still waiting. More recently, he went to Copenhagen to try to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, and failed. While this did little more than provide amusement to many, it damaged him in America, and outraged his true believers: perhaps the emperor had a small wardrobe after all.
Now he is immersed in a deliberative exercise about whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. As is the lot of politicians, he will be damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. What the dilemma illustrates is that governing is not so easy as it might once have seemed; that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, so there is little point trying; and that the expertise of the Obama campaign in managing image is useless when managing a country. Tony Blair, had they asked, could have told him that.
For all the difficulties of America's imperial burden, it is the domestic, and particularly the economic, front that Mr Obama and his colleagues are finding hardest to defend. America rejoiced when unemployment dropped in July, but the dawn was false. In the next two months it rose again by nearly 700,000. The projected cumulative deficit for the next 10 years is now $9 trillion, having just been revised upwards by $2 trillion. Perhaps it is because these sums are incomprehensible that Americans are no longer shocked by them: but someone will have to pay. There is no sign of the budget going into the black in any of the next 10 years: the projection for 2019 is still that it will be 4 per cent of gross domestic product (it is between 11 and 12 per cent now). The health care plans, were they to be enacted, would make this dire situation even worse. They can be funded only by higher taxes, which is no doubt fair if everyone wants such a system, but far from everyone does. And, as I have written in relation to our benighted economy, the growth that might ease the problem will only be depressed by higher taxes. The stimulus package of $787 billion has paid few dividends ("He didn't even read the Bill, he just signed it," a Republican told me): as at home, serious cuts in spending are not on the agenda. The dollar remains a reserve currency, but has been heading south. For all the supposed brilliance of Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, and Larry Summers, Mr Obama's chief economic adviser, they are still looking for the paddle.
Mr Obama seems also to have made another bad mistake. Apparently shocked by the virulence of Fox News Channel's attacks on him, he has declared war on the network. We can imagine what would happen if a British head of government were to try to take on an arm of the media, and it has happened here. Many voters feel the President has diminished himself by admitting to being so bothered by Fox, which for its part has turned up the abuse.
So too has Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio presenter, whom Mr Obama and his friends have made the mistake of branding the leader of the Republican Party. That was meant to be an insult to the Republicans: it has transmuted into a further proof of the administration's weakness, and has elevated Mr Limbaugh to an even higher position of influence. The President appears thin-skinned, immature and inexperienced. Mr Limbaugh now taunts him outrageously to see what reaction he can provoke, such as by saying last weekend (on Fox, of course) that the President's attendance at the repatriation of dead American servicemen was a "photo opportunity" contrived because his popularity was slumping. The gloves are not just off; the knuckledusters are on.
To use another old cliché, Mr Obama looks like a man who has made the mistake of believing his own publicity. His adherents in the media are now so defensive that they have started complaining about the rules – implying that the exercise of free speech by the likes of Mr Limbaugh verges on the traitorous, and is preventing the President from doing his job properly. Any excuse, we must suppose, will do.
For his part, Mr Obama is engaging in acts of deference to the Democratic majority in Congress – as a Chicago machine politician probably has to, for genetic reasons – that are exceeded only by his acts of deference to the unions, who have never had it so good, and who were the reason for his absurd decision to put tariffs on tyres imported from China.
By the time you read this you will know whether the Democrats have lost a series of key elections held yesterday, including the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey. If they do, it will reinforce the point that Mr Obama won last November because he was not the heir of George Bush, and for no other reason. The President starts to risk comparisons not just with Jimmy Carter, but with Lyndon Johnson, felled by a combination of a foreign war and welfare reform, and even, with his list of enemies, Richard Nixon. The problem may be one of immaturity and inexperience. If so, he had better learn fast. For, at this rate, next year's congressional elections start to look more than challenging for him.
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Sujet: 1530 - 5/11/2009, 03:51
A chronological clip-and-save of the 2010 primary season.
February 2 Illinois (Senate & Governor)
March 2 Texas (Senate & Governor) *
May 4 Indiana (Senate) North Carolina (Senate) Ohio (Senate & Governor)
June 1 Alabama (Senate & Governor) New Mexico (Governor)
June 8 California (Senate & Governor) Iowa (Senate & Governor) Maine (Governor) Nevada (Senate & Governor) North Dakota (Senate) South Carolina (Senate & Governor) South Dakota (Senate & Governor)
September 14 Delaware (Senate) Maryland (Senate & Governor) Massachusetts (Governor) Minnesota (Governor) New Hampshire (Senate & Governor) New York (Senate & Governor) Rhode Island (Governor) Vermont (Senate & Governor) Wisconsin (Senate & Governor)
September 18 Hawaii (Senate & Governor)
* Blog Home Page --> Governor -- Texas
TEXAS
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Sujet: 1531 - 5/11/2009, 12:08
Comme Eddie le faisait remarquer, il ne s'agissait que de l'election de deux gouverneurs Republicains donc 2 sur 50, oui, oui.... mais seuls les electeurs de 2 etats ont vote; ca fait une reussite de 100% tout-de-meme pour les Republicains et c'est tellement peu important... que la Maison Blanche parlait de recruter a nouveau les jeunes pour 2010... parce que les jeunes la, n'ont pas vote en grands nombres et maintenant, il est question de revoir l'agenda.
Hey! Pour moi pas de probleme, si les Democrates en general et POTUS en particulier reussissent a relancer l'economie, renoncent a la main-mise sur les societes privees, decident d'une politique exterieure forte, abandonnent le cap-and-trade et laissent tomber leur idee d'assurance maladie gouvernementale, entre autres, pas de probleme, meme moi, je veux bien voter pour eux en 2012!!!
Election Day losses in Virginia and New Jersey have congressional Democrats focused like never before on jobs — their own.
Spoiler:
While the White House and party leaders are urging calm, Democratic incumbents from red states and Republican-leaning districts are anything but; Tuesday's statehouse defeats have left them acutely aware that their votes on health care reform and other major Obama initiatives could be career-enders in 2010 or beyond.
“I should be nervous,” said Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Huntsville, Ala.
Griffith said the Democratic rank and file is “very, very sensitive” to the fact that issues being pushed by party leaders “have the potential to cost some of our front-line members their seats.”
House Democrats, forced to take a tough vote on a controversial cap-and-trade climate change bill in June, may have to vote as earlier as this weekend on the even more controversial health care bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team have struggled to get moderates on board for that vote, and Tuesday's results won't make the task any easier.
“People who had weak knees before are going to have weaker knees now,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a relatively liberal congressman who seemed safe in 2010 but now thinks a Republican challenger might feel emboldened by Tuesday’s election results.
Democratic Sen. Jim Webb — who watched Republican Bob McDonnell and other statewide candidates erase years of Democratic gains in his home state of Virginia — said Tuesday’s results show that Republicans are “energized from what happened last year” but also that “people up here on our side need to get their message straighter, too.”
Party leaders put their best face on Tuesday’s results.
Pelosi, pointing to Democratic House victories in special elections in New York and California, said: “We won last night.”
The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid circulated an analysis arguing that “gubernatorial races are primarily about local issues,” and that it’s therefore “hard to draw any direct comparisons between what happened in New Jersey and Virginia and what will happen in Congress.”
But some Democrats weren’t buying the spin.
“We got walloped,” said Sen. Mark Warner, the junior Democrat from Virginia.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said it was “nonsense” to suggest that the results in New Jersey and Virginia represented a referendum on President Barack Obama. To the contrary, he argued that the results meant that Democrats should redouble their efforts to “make sure we deliver on the promises of the last election.”
But if Tuesday’s results leave red-state Democrats nervous about health care reform, a climate change bill and regulatory reform, it’s going to be harder — not easier — for Van Hollen and his leadership colleagues to develop that record of legislative accomplishment.
And that’s certainly where things seemed to be headed Wednesday. As Pelosi’s office ordered members to stay in town for a possible Saturday night House vote on health care, other Democrats were suggesting that it's time to take the foot off the gas.
As members came to grips with the election returns, Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr. (D-Md.) said he wants “as much time as I possibly can [have] to review both sides and make the best decision I can make” on the health care bill.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a big swing vote for Democratic leaders, said Tuesday’s elections should tell Democrats that their “agenda needs to be patterned towards” the economy.
“People need to be saying slow it down and don’t add more to the deficit,” Nelson said. “And what have many of us been talking about? We don’t want to see anything added to the deficit unless there’s cost containment.” Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican to vote for a health care bill, said Tuesday’s results should slow Democrats down on health care — and “certainly gives pause on how you approach things.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who’s threatened to filibuster the health care bill if it isn’t changed before it goes to a vote, said he’s sensing that public fears over the rising national debt “may affect” the Democrats’ broader agenda, noting that there’s been “a very large and quick move of independents” away from the Democratic Party and that public fears of the rising debt are at a “tipping point.”
According to exit polls, Republican gubernatorial candidates took 62 percent of the independent vote in Virginia and 58 percent of the independent vote in New Jersey.
“They’re feeling anxious and they want the government to do something to help them; they’re very worried that we’re going to spend more money,” Lieberman said. “I think one thing it says to me is that whatever we do, we better make damn sure it’s paid for.”
Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in an interview that he’s not concerned about next year’s races, calling Tuesday’s results a “mixed bag” that was not the result of Obama’s agenda.
But Menendez added: “We need to be focused like a laser beam on the question of the nation’s economy and the issues of how we best can create jobs. That’s the laser-beam approach. If we do that, we’ll be fine next year.”
Other Democrats said not advancing health care legislation is not an option, with Karin Johanson, a former DCCC executive director, saying it would “be foolish” if Tuesday’s results had a chilling effect on the health care debate.
“I think people have to keep in mind that we will be judged on if we get a good thing going,” said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.). “I think failure to get anything done will counted as a huge black mark against us, and rightfully so.”
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said the gubernatorial results said more about Virginia and New Jersey than they did about Congress. But still, she said she is well aware that voters are feeling anxious about what the Democrats are doing on Capitol Hill.
“They’re very concerned about some of the actions that are occurring here in D.C., and we have got to be very sensitive to the fragile economic recovery that’s underway,” she said.
Jake Sherman and Carrie Budoff Brown contributed to this story.
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Sujet: 1532 - 5/11/2009, 12:48
Encore au sujet des resultats, decidement, meme les Democrates les analysent differemment d'Eddie
'We got walloped'
By JOHN F. HARRIS & ALEXANDER BURNS | 11/5/09 4:51 AM EST
Two big questions loom in the wake of the 2009 elections. The first is whether Barack Obama learned anything new about American voters. The second is whether American voters will soon learn something new about Obama.
Spoiler:
For a president who likes always to convey confidence and cool, the returns will test his willingness and capacity for self-critique and self-correction.
So far, Obama’s White House has responded to the results — flaming defeats for Democratic gubernatorial nominees in Virginia and New Jersey, along with better news in the N.Y. 23 special congressional election — exclusively with self-justification.
Obama himself did not mention the elephant in the room Wednesday in public appearances in Wisconsin. His silence came even though he had immersed himself heavily in the New Jersey race in particular, only to see incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine lose a traditionally Democratic state.
National polls for months have shown deep unease among independent voters about Washington spending and about the expansiveness of Democratic proposals. So it was not fully a surprise when, in both New Jersey and Virginia, these voters swung wildly from Obama in 2008 to Republicans this time, according to exit polls.
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Tuesday’s results do not suggest any need for political repositioning or policy reappraisal.
“The CW in town has focused on the governors’ races, but the most portentous event was the New York 23rd because it exposed a major fissure in the Republican Party.”
But what if independents abandon 2010 congressional Democrats the same way they fled Corzine and Virginia Democrat Creigh Deeds?
“If the Earth stops turning, we are all going to die, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” said Axelrod. Turning more serious, he said he would tell anxious Democratic candidates, “I understand that there might be some nervousness, and that’s understandable, but we are doing the right things. The best move politically is to show more and more success governmentally.”
Axelrod also emphasized that the winner of the New York House race, Bill Owens, “ran by embracing the president.”
In previous elections, he warned, embattled candidates have learned that “the history of running away from a president is not very good. ... That’s the first thing I’d tell” Democrats in competitive seats this year.
The cheerful public line from the White House carried an echo of Obama’s immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, another president whose political operation reported sunny skies no matter the weather.
Uncertain for now is whether Obama and his political team actually believe their talking points. That will become clear only over coming days and weeks if Obama recalibrates his rhetoric or the substance and pacing of his agenda, particularly on his politically volatile proposals to overhaul health care and impose new regulations to curb greenhouse gases.
But whatever Obama decides, it is clear he must grapple with something new: a sharp divergence of views in his party about the significance of Tuesday’s results. Many activists said the problem was with Democrats such as Deeds who did not more fully embrace Obama.
Notably, however, few of these people were Democratic politicians who run in competitive districts.
Particularly in Virginia — which in recent years has emerged as an emblematic swing state — most Democratic politicians Tuesday night and Wednesday were frank in seeing worrisome trends and eager to see Democrats, starting with Obama, do more to emphasize fiscal responsibility.
In contrast to the Obama’s team sanguine analysis, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told POLITICO, “We got walloped.”
Many Democratic politicians and operatives publicly and privately say Obama’s “big bang” strategy — trying to move several major policy initiatives in his first year — has also caused independent voters to question whether he is sufficiently focused on their primary concern, reviving the stagnant economy.
“Every Dem who is up in either 2010 or 2012 knows that last night was big — if the right wing hadn’t meddled in New York’s 23rd, that would have gone GOP, too,” said former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, adding that he fears Democrats may be heading for a repeat of some 1990s history. “The electorate appears restless and angry. If they begin to ‘vote the bums out’ as they did in 1994, Democrats know that the next election is going to be extremely difficult.”
Pollster Geoff Garin — who has worked extensively in Virginia and believes Obama’s broader political standing remains strong — said on NPR’s “Diane Rehm Show” Wednesday that the election results show the hazards of misreading the nation’s ideological mood.
Voters “want the government on the playing field, but they have not lost their skepticism of government,” Garin said.
A Gallup Poll released Wednesday reported that a majority of Americans regard Obama’s agenda as mostly liberal. Some 54 percent of people now see him as governing from the left, compared with 43 percent who believed that a year ago.
Many Democrats do not believe this is a problem. Even as some influential voices urge more fiscal moderation and efforts at bipartisanship, Obama is facing pressure from his own base to deliver on his expansive campaign promises faster and without compromise.
Markos Moulitsas, founder of the influential blog Daily Kos, fired off a post Tuesday night declaring that Democrats lost by letting down their most fervent supporters.
“If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary ‘bipartisanship,’ you will lose votes,” he wrote. “If you forget why you were elected — health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform — you will lose votes.” *1
The president’s liberal supporters argue — with some polling evidence to back them up — that voters are eager to see the White House enact a version of change that includes comprehensive health care reform, including a public option.*2
“The single biggest thing President Obama could do to help Democrats lose in 2010 is to support a health reform bill that gives away the store to special interests and lacks the strong public option that Democratic and independent voters are clamoring for,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
The one place where Obama advisers showed at least a faint acknowledgement that perhaps their message is not gaining full traction is the economy. In Virginia, 85 percent of voters in exit polls said they remain worried about the economy; in New Jersey, it was 90 percent.
These numbers — in tandem with the weak Democratic results in those states — suggest that Obama, despite his celebrated communication skills, may be having trouble convincing voters that he has the right diagnosis or remedy for joblessness and weak growth.
Economic policymakers, citing the latest data, said the recession appears to be over. But in an interview with POLITICO’s Arena forum, Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe acknowledged a disconnect: “I think we see voters are very concerned about the economy. That is not news to the president. He is doing everything he can — with some important signs of progress — to repair and rebuild the economy. It should be a reminder to Democratic candidates that getting new, younger and minority voters out is hard — it takes a great deal of focus, resources and work.”
*1 What bipartisanship?????
*2 Bien evidemment faux, sauf dans les sondages etablis par des organisations qui soutiennent ces idees (les memes qui donnent jusqu'a 10 points de plus que la realite aux chiffres d'approbation du POTUS
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Sujet: 1533 - 5/11/2009, 13:14
L'arrogance et/ou la betise de certains au NY Times:
Relax, Democrats By RUY TEIXEIRA Published: November 4, 2009
To hear Republicans tell it, Tuesday’s elections, in which their candidates captured the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, were a repudiation of President Obama and indicated a voter shift toward their party. They should calm themselves down. The results don’t show this and, in fact, suggest some rather daunting challenges for the Republicans.
Spoiler:
Start with the predictive value of the Virginia and New Jersey victories: there is none. Sometimes the party that wins both those governorships gains seats in the next Congressional election; sometimes that party loses seats. Far more consequential is the historical pattern that the new president’s party tends to lose seats in the first midterm election. Once that is taken into account, as the political scientist Alan Abramowitz of Emory University has shown, victories in Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races tell you nothing about who will gain seats in 2010 or how large that gain will be.
But perhaps voters were repudiating the president and his policies? In New Jersey, this analysis makes no sense. While an approval rating isn’t the same thing as the percentage of votes received, both figures are good measures of a politician’s overall standing. So it’s significant that Mr. Obama’s approval rating among 2009 voters (57 percent) was identical to the percent of the vote he received there in 2008. In Virginia, while the president’s 2009 approval rating was 5 points less than his 2008 voting result, the 2009 electorate was also far more conservative than last year’s. Besides being far older and whiter than in 2008, the voters in Virginia on Tuesday said they had supported John McCain last November by 8 points, meaning they were not favorably inclined toward President Obama to begin with. In fact, given that only 43 percent of these voters said they supported Mr. Obama last November, his 48 percent approval rating among them does not indicate a shift away from him but rather toward him.
If any repudiation is going on, perhaps it is of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Democrats captured New York’s 23rd Congressional District for the first time since 1872, as Bill Owens defeated Doug Hoffman, the hard-line conservative who forced a moderate Republican out of the race. Mr. Hoffman’s narrow defeat is now likely to embolden conservatives — who far outnumber moderates in the party — to challenge Republican incumbents they find ideologically impure.
That will be a problem for those in the party seeking to emulate the electoral strategies of Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey. Those men sought to cover up the conservatism of their views in many areas. That was relatively easy to do in governors’ races in an off-year election. It will be harder for candidates to do in national elections in 2010 and especially 2012.
So the good news for Republicans is that they now have two more governorships. The bad news is that they’re still Republicans — with all the baggage that entails.
Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, is the editor, most recently, of “Red, Blue and Purple America: The Future of Election Demographics.”
Ruy n'a-t-il pas compris qu'il s'agit moins des Republicains que des Independants? Les Independants sont en general des moderes, la politique du POTUS ne leur va pas plus que ca, mais bon pourvu que les Democrates continuent a se meprendre ainsi, ca arrange ceux qui ne partagent pas leurs idees!
C'est marrant comme ces 2 elections sont decrites comme sans interet aucun. Si c'est reellement le cas, pourquoi alors qu'il a "tant a faire" y compris jouer au golf et continuer sa campagne electorale, pourquoi donc le POTUS s'est-il deplace a plusieurs occasions pour soutenir la candidature des Democrates maintenant vaincus? Hein? hein?
EddieCochran Admin
Nombre de messages : 12768 Age : 64 Localisation : Countat da Nissa Date d'inscription : 03/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 5/11/2009, 14:19
1534 - Sylvette - p.54 Sujet : Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise Jeu 5 Nov 2009 à 12:08
Citation :
Encore au sujet des resultats, decidement, meme les Democrates les analysent differemment d'Eddie 'We got walloped' By JOHN F. HARRIS & ALEXANDER BURNS | 11/5/09 4:51 AM EST “If the Earth stops turning, we are all going to die, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” said Axelrod.
Chère Sylvette bonjour,
Vous me flattez en donnant valeur "d'analyses" à mes déconnades entoilées.
Les éminents analystes de papier progressistes démocrates me semblent être de mesquines chochottes en alléguant que les démocrates auraient "pris une raclée" (we got walloped, traduction S.G.D.G*. via ndlr). Pour rester dans le ton du Gop et de sa jubilation pour son coup de balai, à la limite auraient-ils un "coup de fouet" que j'espère stimulant (je me place au plan de la tactique, je n'ai pas à faire valoir de sympathie partisane envers telle ou telle idéologie politique interne d'un pays qui n'est pas le mien).
Les meilleurs se renforcent de ce qui ne les a pas tués, comme nous le rappelle fréquemment mon excellent concitoyen BRAN.
Je trouve que ma déconnade est très bien en phase avec la sortie de M. Axelrod. Quand les choses cessent de tourner rond demandons-nous pourquoi elles ont été mises au carré.
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 5/11/2009, 15:18
Chère Sylvette bonjour,
Bonjour Eddie
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Vous me flattez en donnant valeur "d'analyses" à mes déconnades entoilées.
Bon, j'aurais du ecrire "conclusions" d'analyses alors.
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Les éminents analystes de papier progressistes démocrates me semblent être de mesquines chochottes en alléguant que les démocrates auraient "pris une raclée" (we got walloped, traduction S.G.D.G*. via ndlr). Pour rester dans le ton du Gop et de sa jubilation pour son coup de balai, à la limite auraient-ils un "coup de fouet" que j'espère stimulant
"chochottes" pleurnichards, geignards, pleureurs. Nous sommes tout-a-fait d'accord au moins sur ce point!
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(je me place au plan de la tactique, je n'ai pas à faire valoir de sympathie partisane envers telle ou telle idéologie politique interne d'un pays qui n'est pas le mien).
Ben voyons vous ne l'avez jamais fait en particulier pas pendant que Pres. Bush 43 etait a la Maison Blanche, ni pendant les campagne electorales (Alors que vous souteniez Dean, choix remarquable!!!), ni meme ici: "..à la limite auraient-ils un "coup de fouet" que j'espère stimulant",
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Les meilleurs se renforcent de ce qui ne les a pas tués, comme nous le rappelle fréquemment mon excellent concitoyen BRAN.
La encore, aucune contradiction de ma part, j'en ai plusieurs exemples autour de moi.
De plus, j'ai pleine confiance en les Americains, et comme j'ai deja eu l'occasion de l'ecrire, nous avons eu Reagan apres Carter, j'espere que nous aurons la meme chance en 2012.
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Je trouve que ma déconnade est très bien en phase avec la sortie de M. Axelrod. Quand les choses cessent de tourner rond demandons-nous pourquoi elles ont été mises au carré.
Ils ne sauraient donc pas? voila qui est intrigant! Sont si ignards ou si naifs que ca? j'en doute! Ce qui est sur, toutefois, c'est que Mr. A. est paye pour faire passer le message de son patron et de ses conseillers en utilisant les media. Attention, ca peut etre une arme a double tranchant.
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Sujet: 1536 - 6/11/2009, 18:48
Je n'avais pas vu cette video concernant l'"education" des Americains par CAIR, ne pense pas etre la seule.
Existe-t-il une association comparable a CAIR installee dans les pays du Moyen Orient afin d'eduquer les Lybiens, les Qatari etc... ? Quelque part, j'en doute!
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 6/11/2009, 20:09
Maintenant a Orlando, Floride, Jason Rodriguez vient de tuer "au moins" 1 personne et d'en blesser 8.
Non, Biloulou , il n'est pas blanc mais... ca aurait pu!
Biloulou
Nombre de messages : 54566 Localisation : Jardins suspendus sur la Woluwe - Belgique Date d'inscription : 27/10/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 6/11/2009, 20:19
Sylvette a écrit:
Non, Biloulou , il n'est pas blanc mais... ca aurait pu!
Chic alors ! J'en connais qui vont être contents !
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 6/11/2009, 20:35
Ah bon?
Enntouka, il est arrete et ne tuera plus personne pour un bon moment
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En ce moment, les ceremonies commencent a Fort Hood (24h exactement!) une minute de silence a ete respectee.
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Sujet: 1540 - 6/11/2009, 22:15
J'adore!
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Sujet: 1541 - 6/11/2009, 22:17
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Sujet: 1542 - 6/11/2009, 22:19
EddieCochran Admin
Nombre de messages : 12768 Age : 64 Localisation : Countat da Nissa Date d'inscription : 03/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 7/11/2009, 00:32
542 - Sylvette - p. 54 Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise Jeu 5 Nov 2009 à 15:18
Chère Sylvette bonjour,
Citation :
Vous me flattez en donnant valeur "d'analyses" à mes déconnades entoilées. Bon, j'aurais du ecrire "conclusions" d'analyses alors
C'est encore trop aimable, je ne le mérite pas. C'est la grande mode cette année à la téloche de célébrer les tubes de votre génération, les fameuses années yé yé, rebaptisées "années bonheur" histoire de donner de la "haine" aux jeunes d'aujourd'hui envers leurs grands parents bien nantis à la retraite qui ont profité à fond du système ; vous devriez y puiser le mot à la mode d'alors qui convient parfaitement à mes sorties : élucubrations. Soyez assurée que l'emploi de ce terme lorsque vous ferez référence à mes billets ne me froissera pas, au contraire il m'honorera. Je sais que des témoins ici pourront vous le confirmer.
Remarquez, je me coupe l'herbe sous le clavier en vous suggérant un tel bon coup, car je me prive d'une occasion de monter au créneau la prochaine fois que vous parlerez de mes délires en usitant le vocable idoine. Mais je suis bon joueur, j'ai espoir que le match proposera d'autres occasions de jeu.
Citation :
(je me place au plan de la tactique, je n'ai pas à faire valoir de sympathie partisane envers telle ou telle idéologie politique interne d'un pays qui n'est pas le mien).
Ben voyons vous ne l'avez jamais fait en particulier pas pendant que Pres. Bush 43 etait a la Maison Blanche, ni pendant les campagne electorales (Alors que vous souteniez Dean, choix remarquable!!!), ni meme ici: "..à la limite auraient-ils un "coup de fouet" que j'espère stimulant",
Je vous soupçonne de le faire exprès de m'escagacer softly en faisant semblant de comprendre de travers mes déconnades entoilées.
Si je vous donnais l'impression de soutenir ce M. Dean lors d'une campagne pestilentielle étatsunienne c'était sûrement pour vous aiguillonner cordialement. Je ne me souviens même plus du personnage. Le seul Dean récent dont je soutiendrais éventuellement la carrière c'est l'acteur Dean Cain qui a joué Eddie dans le téléfilm de 2008 A la recherche de M. Parfait.
Vous n'allez pas faire croire à notre petite communauté forumesque que vous ignorez que selon le contexte "to get walloped" peut se traduire en français par "prendre un coup de fouet", ce qui pourrait avoir des effets positifs contrairement à un autre sens de cette expression qui est "prendre une raclée", occurrence dont les conséquences sont incertaines. C'est sur cette ambivalence que j'ai bâti mon pamphlet de Monoprix
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 7/11/2009, 01:19
Eddie .....
Je vous soupçonne de le faire exprès de m'escagacer softly en faisant semblant de comprendre de travers mes déconnades entoilées.
Si je vous donnais l'impression de soutenir ce M. Dean lors d'une campagne pestilentielle étatsunienne c'était sûrement pour vous aiguillonner cordialement. .....
Un prete pour un rendu, ca fait partie du jeu, non?
Bonne Nuit, Eddie
EddieCochran Admin
Nombre de messages : 12768 Age : 64 Localisation : Countat da Nissa Date d'inscription : 03/11/2008
Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 7/11/2009, 01:41
Sylvette a écrit:
Eddie ..... Je vous soupçonne de le faire exprès de m'escagacer softly en faisant semblant de comprendre de travers mes déconnades entoilées. Si je vous donnais l'impression de soutenir ce M. Dean lors d'une campagne pestilentielle étatsunienne c'était sûrement pour vous aiguillonner cordialement. .....
Un prete pour un rendu, ca fait partie du jeu, non? Bonne Nuit, Eddie
Je ne vois pas d'inconvénient à l'envisager ainsi, pourvu que ça fonctionne smoothly.
Question à deux kopeks : que signifient les icônes de clébard que vous accollez à mon pseudo ? Vous n'auriez pas quelque chose de moins stupide qu'un clebs en stock ? Un truc plus sexy. J'aime bien les chats ; ça possède des griffes. Ou n'importe quelle autre bestiole qui ne pisse pas aux quatre coins de son territoire et qui vous adore même si vous lui bottez le train.
Bonne nuit Sylvette
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Sujet: q 7/11/2009, 03:09
EddieCochran a écrit:
Sylvette a écrit:
Eddie ..... Je vous soupçonne de le faire exprès de m'escagacer softly en faisant semblant de comprendre de travers mes déconnades entoilées. Si je vous donnais l'impression de soutenir ce M. Dean lors d'une campagne pestilentielle étatsunienne c'était sûrement pour vous aiguillonner cordialement. .....
Un prete pour un rendu, ca fait partie du jeu, non? Bonne Nuit, Eddie
Je ne vois pas d'inconvénient à l'envisager ainsi, pourvu que ça fonctionne smoothly.
Question à deux kopeks : que signifient les icônes de clébard que vous accollez à mon pseudo ? Vous n'auriez pas quelque chose de moins stupide qu'un clebs en stock ? Un truc plus sexy. J'aime bien les chats ; ça possède des griffes. Ou n'importe quelle autre bestiole qui ne pisse pas aux quatre coins de son territoire et qui vous adore même si vous lui bottez le train.
Bonne nuit Sylvette
Decidement, ca devient grave, mon pauvre Eddie , vous oubliez avoir utilise un smiley qui brandissait le nom de Dean pendant la campagne electorale; maintenant vous n'avez aucun souvenir de m'avoir demande d'utiliser un chien plutot qu'une rose.
Vous etes un peu jeune (quoi que... - d'une facon generale, je fais rarement allusion a l'age de quelqu'un, pour moi ca n'a aucune importance, mais puisque vous vous amusez a rappeler le mien... ) pour avoir de tels problemes de perte de memoire.
Alors tant pis, ca sera une rose comme pour tout le monde...
Ou n'importe quelle autre bestiole qui ne pisse pas aux quatre coins de son territoire et qui vous adore même si vous lui bottez le train.
Quelle surprise de lire ca sous votre frappe alors que vous nous avez parle de la mort de votre compagnon et de la peine que vous en avez eue. Mauvaise journee et nuit et journee....?
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Sujet: 1547 - 7/11/2009, 03:25
The myth of '08, demolished By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 6, 2009
Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday's elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.
Spoiler:
In the aftermath of last year's Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics -- most prominently, rising minorities and the young -- would bury the GOP far into the future. One book proclaimed "The Death of Conservatism," while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.
This was all ridiculous from the beginning. The '08 election was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.
Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism. Virginia -- presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone Democratic in '08 for the first time in 44 years -- went red again. With a vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17 -- a 23-point swing. New Jersey went from plus-15 Democratic in 2008 to minus-four in 2009. A 19-point swing.
What happened? The vaunted Obama realignment vanished. In 2009 in Virginia, the black vote was down by 20 percent; the under-30 vote by 50 percent. And as for independents, the ultimate prize of any realignment, they bolted. In both Virginia and New Jersey they'd gone narrowly for Obama in '08. This year they went Republican by a staggering 33 points in Virginia and by an equally shocking 30 points in New Jersey.
White House apologists will say the Virginia Democrat was weak. If the difference between Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds was so great, how come when the same two men ran against each other statewide for attorney general four years ago the race was a virtual dead heat? Which made the '09 McDonnell-Deeds rematch the closest you get in politics to a laboratory experiment for measuring the change in external conditions. Run them against each other again when it's Obamaism in action and see what happens. What happened was a Republican landslide.
The Obama coattails of 2008 are gone. The expansion of the electorate, the excitement of the young, came in uniquely propitious Democratic circumstances and amid unparalleled enthusiasm for electing the first African American president.
November '08 was one shot, one time, never to be replicated. Nor was November '09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm -- and definitive confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political history.
The irony of 2009 is that the anti-Democratic tide overshot the norm -- deeply blue New Jersey, for example, elected a Republican governor for the first time in 12 years -- because Democrats so thoroughly misread 2008 and the mandate they assumed it bestowed. Obama saw himself as anointed by a watershed victory to remake American life. Not letting the cup pass from his lips, he declared to Congress only five weeks after his swearing-in his "New Foundation" for America -- from remaking the one-sixth of the American economy that is health care to massive government regulation of the economic lifeblood that is energy.
Moreover, the same conventional wisdom that proclaimed the dawning of a new age last November dismissed the inevitable popular reaction to Obama's hubristic expansion of government, taxation, spending and debt -- the tea party demonstrators, the town hall protesters -- as a raging rabble of resentful reactionaries, AstroTurf-phony and Fox News-deranged.
Some rump. Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates (at 36 percent). So on Tuesday, the "rump" rebelled. It's the natural reaction of a center-right country to a governing party seeking to rush through a left-wing agenda using temporary majorities created by the one-shot election of 2008. The misreading of that election -- and of the mandate it allegedly bestowed -- is the fundamental cause of the Democratic debacle of 2009.
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Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 7/11/2009, 03:37
Democrats fall back to earth with a thud By Chuck Raasch, Gannett National Writer
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama and the Democrats have come back to earth — hard.
Spoiler:
Republican wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races Tuesday and recent polling and economic trends reveal a political landscape that has changed dramatically since the president's convincing election victory a year ago.
Democrats on Tuesday did win a New York congressional seat they hadn't held since the 19th century, in large measure because it became a proxy fight between warring factions in the Republican Party.
But independents, the voters who often decide elections, shifted heavily to Republicans in Virginia and New Jersey. That trend, if it holds in 2010, could be very bad news for Democrats trying to hold a 60-40 advantage in the Senate and a 258-177 lead in the House of Representatives.
Anxious independent voters are starting to listen to GOP attacks on government spending and [url=http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Political Bodies/Democratic Party]Democratic[/url] health reform proposals.
Meanwhile, Republicans' most loyal supporters are stirring at the grassroots level.
"All that intensity that the Democrats had in 2006 and 2008 has transferred over to the Republicans," said political analyst [url=http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Charlie Cook]Charlie Cook[/url].
Democrats still have the power of Obama's personal appeal and fundraising abilities. But Democrats are likely losing sleep over these trends:
• Obama's job approval, while still above 50% in most polls, has dropped the most among older people, who are more likely to vote in non-presidential elections than younger Americans. A Gallup Poll conducted Oct. 19-25 showed that Obama's approval among Americans 18-29 had fallen only from 66% to 61%, but that he had dropped 12 points among Americans 50-64.
Cook, citing his two children in their late teens and early 20s who were big Obama supporters, said that "their loyalty is to him, not the Democratic Party."
With Obama not on the ballot in 2010, how many of these kinds of supporters will vote?
• Americans' personal economic outlook remains grim. In a poll taken for Business Week Nov. 1-3, RT Strategies and YouGov.com found that 37% of Americans believed the economy was getting worse compared with 23% saying it was getting better.
The poll was taken while the government and economists were declaring the end of the recession. Almost four in 10 said they believed if they lost their jobs they would be unable to match their current income, and more than half of the 1,000 poll respondents said they either had no savings or had enough to live on for only a few weeks.
Americans are "still trying to figure out how we are going to live our lives in this new (economic) environment, and it is obviously going to affect politics," said Thomas Riehle, president of RT Strategies.
He said the last time the public was this pessimistic was the late 1970s, "when [url=http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/People/Politicians, Government Officials, Strategists/Executive/Jimmy Carter]Jimmy Carter[/url] went on television to talk about the great malaise."
• USA TODAY-Gallup found that the percentage of Americans who said they believed Obama would heal political divisions in the country — a campaign pledge — was about half of what it was a year ago. Only 28% said they believed he would be able to do that in a poll taken Oct. 16-19, while 54% had said so last Nov. 7-9, just after Obama was elected.
• The president has fallen especially hard on questions about whether he can improve the health care system and control federal spending, two issues that have joined jobs to dominate domestic headlines this year.
Last November, according to USA TODAY-Gallup, 52% said they had confidence that Obama would control federal spending, but only 31% said so in the Oct. 16-19 survey. Over the same period, those who said they believed Obama could improve the health care system dropped from 64 to 46%.
The president also has gotten a more definite ideological label in his first year in office. A year ago, 43% of Americans described Obama as liberal or very liberal. In October, according to USA TODAY-Gallup, 54% did.
Riehle said half of the 1,000 adults he polled earlier this week said they were worse off financially than they were a year ago.
"A year ago we were in the red hot center of the financial collapse," Riehle said, "and this is how it's played out in a year."
(Chuck Raasch writes from Washington for Gannett. Contact him at craasch@gannett.com, follow him at http://twitter.com/craasch or join in the conversation at https://www.facebook.com/raaschcolumn)
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Sujet: 1549 - 7/11/2009, 04:02
Hello, Tipping Point By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
The Obama presidency was always a race against time.
'We don't look at either of these gubernatorial races . . . as something that portends a lot for our legislative efforts," insisted White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday, as New Jersey and Virginia voters gave Democrats a thumping. Unfortunately for the White House, its opinion no longer counts.
Spoiler:
On Jan. 20, Barack Obama began a race against time. The White House knew its liberal agenda would prove unpopular in many parts of the country represented by Democrats. So long as the president looked strong, those Blue Dogs and freshmen and swing-state senators would stick. Show them any sign of weakness, however, and rattled Dems would begin to care more about their own re-elections than they did their president.
Tuesday, the White House hit that tipping point.
To understand why, join some of those "nervous Democrats" who at this very moment are digging into, say, Virginia's returns. Last year, Dems captured three GOP House seats in the Old Dominion as the state voted for its first Democratic president since 1964. This week, those very same districts provided Democrats their first proof that the Obama agenda is a liability.
Associated Press
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Rep. Gerry Connolly (D., Va.)
There's freshman Rep. Tom Perriello, who, buoyed by the big Obama turnout, won Virginia's fifth congressional district by a scant 727 votes. Today, Mr. Perriello's farming and manufacturing area sports the state's highest unemployment rate. The Democrat suffered a furious backlash over his vote for a cap-and-trade bill that will further crush local manufacturing and was then walloped at a series of health-care town halls.
Voters took their frustration to the polls on Tuesday. Republican Bob McDonnell, who campaigned for governor on jobs and against ObamaCare and climate legislation, took 61.4% of the district's vote. At the local level, Democrats challenged two incumbent GOP Virginia delegates; the Republicans each won by more than 30 points. The GOP last month succeeded in recruiting veteran state Sen. Robert Hurt, a district native, to challenge Mr. Perriello. He's already campaigning on jobs.
Or take Rep. Glenn Nye, who last year won Virginia's Hampton Roads district. Criticized as an outsider with few ties to the local military culture, Mr. Nye nonetheless benefited from Mr. Obama's fierce campaign for the district (which the president won with 50.5%). Yet residents are today anxious about the Democratic commitment to defense spending, and bitter about a Washington proposal to move the Navy's newest aircraft carrier from Virginia to Florida. Mr. Nye was wary enough to buck his party's leadership and vote against cap and trade, though he then got caught lauding the bill's passage.
Mr. McDonnell carried Mr. Nye's district by a 24-point margin. Locally, Republicans ousted two incumbent Democratic delegates. Mr. Nye already faces two GOP challengers—both veterans—who, combined, have $400,000 in the bank.
Gerry Connolly? The freshman Democrat last year won the 11th congressional district, a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington that has trended blue. Mr. Obama cleaned up 57% of voters, and the district was hailed as an example of a new tide toward Democrats. Mr. Connolly, feeling safe, has supported every aspect of the Democratic agenda, from stimulus to health care.
Tuesday, those suburban voters came swinging back. Mr. McDonnell won 55% of the vote, improving John McCain's number by 13 points. Two more Democratic incumbents on the local ballot went down to GOP contenders. Local businessman Keith Fimian has already announced a rematch against Mr. Connolly; he outraised him by $100,000 in his first fund-raising quarter.
Forget the freshmen—how about Virginia's ninth district, home to 27-year-incumbent Rick Boucher? That's coal country, though Mr. Boucher, confident in incumbency, has been playing a dangerous game of shepherding through his party's climate bill. Will Morefield, a little-known Republican running for the Virginia House of Delegates, centered his campaign against that legislation. He beat the Democratic incumbent by 14 points. Mr. McDonnell? He won a devastating 66% of the district vote. These are the numbers the 49 Democrats who sit in McCain districts are dissecting. The mass defection in the independent vote, the uptick in the angry-senior vote, the swing in suburban voters, the drop-off in Democratic turnout—the figures have even hot incumbent blood running cold. The White House can shout that this is not a referendum on the president's policies. What vulnerable Democrat wants to take that chance?
The White House and the congressional leadership saw this coming, and it is why Speaker Nancy Pelosi is force-marching her health bill to a vote tomorrow. She's not about to give her members time to absorb the ugly results, or to be further rattled by next week's Veteran's Day break, when they go home for a repeat of the August furies. If not now, she knows, maybe never.
Look for it, nonetheless, to be a squeaker. A lot of Democrats are getting a sneaky suspicion Mrs. Pelosi is willing to sacrifice their seats on the altar of liberal government health care. Combined with the election results and Mr. Obama's falling poll numbers, this is no recipe for loyalty. Hello, tipping point. Hello, even crazier Washington.
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Les Cohortes Célestes ont le devoir et le regret de vous informer que Libres Propos est entré en sommeil. Ce forum convivial et sympathique reste uniquement accessible en lecture seule. Prenez plaisir à le consulter.
Merci de votre compréhension.
2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 
Houston, Nov. 4 (THAINDIAN NEWS) The city of Houston has faced a problem regarding the election of it’s mayor. The two candidates who were running for the seat, have headed for a runoff as none have secured a majority. Annise Parker, the City Controller and Gene Locke, a former Attorney General, were the ones running for the election. Annise secured about 31% of the votes whereas Locke secured about 25%. Peter Brown collected about 23% with Roy Morales a few steps behind him.
le faisait remarquer, il ne s'agissait que de l'election de deux gouverneurs Republicains donc 2 sur 50, oui, oui.... mais seuls les electeurs de 2 etats ont vote; ca fait une reussite de 100% tout-de-meme pour les Republicains et c'est tellement peu important... que la Maison Blanche parlait de recruter a nouveau les jeunes pour 2010... parce que les jeunes la, n'ont pas vote en grands nombres et maintenant, il est question de revoir l'agenda.
) pour avoir de tels problemes de perte de memoire.
