At present, oil saturates the Gulf Stream. An official six-month cessation of permits for new drilling did not actually affect the industry or government decisions. Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead. To explain such an authorization and waiver, the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Services Division which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. He did not intend to forbid all first cuts in the Earth's crust. Absolutely not. The Federal Government approved wells off the coast of Louisiana in June. Regardless of the day, or realities that are anathema to our citizenry, little has truly changed. Today, just as in yesteryear, we, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union, polishpolicies to appear as though our civilization would wish to protect and defend all beings, equally.
This past Tuesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar spoke in front of a group of interns and students as part of the 21st Century Democrats' Youth Leadership Speaker Series.
The 21st Century Democrats' Youth Leadership Speaker Series is off to a great start teaching and inspiring tomorrow's progressive leaders of the Democratic Party with speakers like Congressman Barney Frank, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and--soon--Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
It looks like Ken Salazar, our new Secretary of the Interior, is quite a friend to the coal and oil industries. That's a savvy move, since now he'll have the credibility to turn against his friends. This is so savvy that the oil and coal industries are praising the pick! I'm overcome by his savviness, which, in case you didn't know and most Obama skeptics do not, is shiny. The glare hurts!
Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar has accepted an offer to become Barrack Obama's Interior Secretary, CBS station KCNC-TV in Denver's Raj Chohan confirmed on Monday.
The Rocky Mountain News also reported a source within President-elect Barack Obama's transition team says Salazar was offered the Interior Secretary job and that he had accepted.
There are several items of note about this pick:
It is a real disappointment that Raul Grijalva wasn't the choice. Perhaps I spoke too soon about the degree to which Obama was listening to progressives during the transition. We seem to be nixing the occasional choice, but not achieving anyone who we are pushing.
It is worth noting that Raul Grijalva turned down becoming chairman of Ways and Means in order to stay chair of the Natural Resources committee. From this committee, he will have an ability to serve as a check on Ken Salazar. So, once again, we have a more positive development in the U.S. House than we appear to have in either the Senate or the Executive Branch.
Third, this is yet another Democratic Senate seat that will be filled via appointment. This could potentially be a positive, as Salazar was a fairly annoying Democratic Senator. He was a member of the "Gang of 14,", and was below average within the Democratic caucus on Progressive Punch. He wasn't the worst, and Evan Bayh didn't even appear to be targeting him for the new Senate Blue Dog caucus, but he wasn't exactly a particularly useful Senator for progressives, either.
Hopefully, Salazar's replacement in the Senate will not be his brother, who is a Blue Dog. That, plus the various corruption issues surrounding our Senate picks these days, would make him a poor choice.
Holding the loyalty of evangelical Christians has become one of the most surprising problems for the Republican Party.
Support among white evangelicals neared 100% after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the White House used pastors, church membership directories and other tools to mobilize evangelicals for the 2004 election. But Bush's support among these voters dropped to 44% in a June Pew survey, sparking concern in GOP circles that an unmotivated base would cripple the party's efforts to compensate for losses among independent voters.
The Republican base is white non-Catholic Christians with an emphasis on evangelicals as their activist core . It's enticing to think that this white evangelical vote could be shifting, and I know Zack Exley among others believes this is so. There's in fact a nasty little industry of DC insiders peddling the notion that appealing to white evangelicals by throwing away choice is a good strategy. But there's also this.
An analysis of 30 competitive races found that the Democratic Party's voter turnout was strong, due in part to Republican troubles and unusual Democratic unity. But turnout of the hard-core GOP base was just as good.
In other words, right-wing white evangelicals did what they always do, which is vote for Republicans. The only effective strategy I've seen for dealing with the white evangelical base is spending resources convincing them not to vote. This worked in a few races around the country, based on some private data I've seen in 2006, but it also worked in 2000 when Chris Lehane got out opposition research on George W. Bush's DUI a few days before the election. The corruption of the Republican leadership, headlined by figures such as Larry Craig, is setting a nice atmosphere for this set of tactics.
Of course, the conclusion that 'Democratic strategists' draw, which is the conclusion they always draw, is that progressives are irrelevant.
Some Democrats tried the soft-sell strategy in last year's elections. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who took over a GOP seat in Colorado's 7th Congressional District, highlighted his moderate views on issues important to swing voters. In one direct-mail piece, he cited his daughter's epilepsy as his "personal" reason to back stem-cell research. The independent voters "call the shots," said Perlmutter, who stalks unaffiliated supporters at area supermarkets through his twice-monthly Government at the Grocery sessions.
Democratic analysts say the 2006 election underscored the importance of downplaying partisanship and campaigning to the middle.
This is just annoying. A lot of people, including me, have touted the Colorado infrastructure as successful. What I've seen since 2004 is a bunch of conservative Democrats, most notably but not exclusively the awful Salazar brothers, win office and screw things up. Now Jared Polis, Third Way funder, is running for Congress in a very liberal Colorado district. Anyway, go play to that middle, because apparently "independent voters are shifting their outlook on government, Pew found, putting them more in line with the Democratic Party in their concern about income inequality and belief in a government safety net for the poor."
We're all liberals now, you adorably anonymous Democratic strategists you. Also, can you stop quoting anonymous strategists? How hard is it to find someone to go on the record reciting conventional wisdom? Seriously?
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