Posts by jason330

An apology, a couple of observations and a question under the fold.

I'll offer my thoughts under the fold. Here is the comment:

I guess the plan is to win hearts and minds with an air war. Sounds reasonable. If you are clamoring for the Democratic Party to move to the left, but are unwilling to actively participate in politics outside of election day, you will be left with exactly what you already have. The only reason that there are any progressive voices around here is due to the Dean campaign. The beauty in his campaign was the ability to get people involved in the campaign. There were meetups, blogs were started (this one included) and people stepped up to join committees and start organizations (like PDD). A decade has passed since then. Some of us are still involved, some have settled in for armchair bitching and some have dropped out of politics altogether. But if you don’t think that the Howard Dean message was “Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work”, you weren’t paying attention.

I summarized Bill Curry's piece in Salon in the headline above. But go ahead and read the whole thing. Or don't. See if I care. Instead, send the DNC or Chris Coons more money because THE GOP IS OUT OF TOUCH! or STAKES HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER!, or some other hysterical bullshit.

With all the recent talk about how the Republicans want to "fix" the economy by cutting taxes, I feel the need to reintroduce everyone with my standing bet.

I haven't spoken to anyone who thinks that this significantly changes the dynamics of the race. Here is a round-up of statements that pretty much put this thing to bed. The Bethany Hall-Long apology:

"My husband is the man depicted in the video. The video shows him removing a handful of signs this morning. He turned them over to the Democratic Party and asked that they be returned to the Republican Party about six hours after they were taken up," she said. "Sadly, this race has become tough and personal. My husband is my high school sweetheart and he loves me very much. I was not aware that he had allowed his frustration over the campaign attacks to get the better of him. Of course I'm disappointed and wish that it had not happened."

Lots of buying and selling action in the trading markets since my last update. Who has crashed and who still has a little upside potential? Let's take a look.

Senate: Chris Coons 0.98 (0.98) - Kevin Wade 0.01 (0.02) House: John Carney 0.95 (0.99) - Rose Izzo 0.01 (0.01) Bernie August 0.04 (n/a) Attorney General: Matt Denn 0.95 (0.93) - Ted Kittila 0.05 (0.07) Treasurer: Chip Flowers 0.00 (0.39) - Sean Barney 0.48 (0.37) - Ken Simpler 0.48(0.17) - Sher Valenzuela 0.00 Auditor: Brenda Mayrack 0.48(0.43) - Tom Wagner 0.48 (0.47)

You could have made some money in the Treasurers race. Shorting Flowers at 0.40 and taking a long position in Simpler at 0.15 was the winning move. As it stands now, other than simply guessing the Treasurer and Auditors races and winning the coin flip, I don't see any profitable moves left. Simpler, for example, appears to be at his max trading value. Smart traders will probably be taking their Simpler profits off the table. But hey, this is politics so do "smart traders" exist? For instance, somebody placed some sentimental money on Bernie August, bidding him up to 0.04. (Okay, it was me. There is still a week to go. Carney could still Bill Roth it.)