Open Thread

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D), on the 2016 presidential race: "If Hillary runs, she walks away with the nomination and then beats whichever Republican. It's lights out." I agree, and to the larger point, I believe which ever party wins the 2012 election will win the 2016 election.

Today is the day Austrian extreme sky diver Felix Baumgartner is planning his record-breaking jump. They estimate that his jump will take about half an hour to get back to Earth during this afternoon's 120,000-foot skydive attempt. You can see the live coverage here:

Happy freezing Saturday! Everyone seems focused on the Bodenwiser story today, but PainesMe has reminded us that if we are not doing what we can to elect Jane Hovington today, we are missing an awesome opportunity.

Interestingly, the Pew poll shows expectations for Rep. Ryan are actually higher than for Vice President Biden, according to the Wall St Journal. Before last week's debate, the expectations were very high for President Obama. May Paul Ryan suffer the same expectations result.

Mitt Romney gave a foreign policy speech yesterday in which he criticized the President and then announced he had no ideas different than the President.

According the the New York Times, Vice President Biden is at a Delaware hotel for three days of debate camp starting today. I wondered how that could possibly be, since the Vice President does have a nice empty house in Wilmington to use. And then I finally got to the end of the article on the Obama campaign's reaction to the listless debate and noticed this timely correction posted this morning:

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was moving into a Delaware hotel for three days of debate preparations. He will actually spend the nights at his home in Wilmington.

Damn. I was preparing a Scavenger Hunt along the lines of "Where in DE is the Vice President?" Oh well.

A rainy Sunday -- one where you might curl up with the papers and coffee. Except that this morning's NJ has a "Special Report" called Are You Better Off? Have you read it? I did -- pretty much word for word and what a mess this is. Starting with the conceit that the financial problems started in January 2009 and largely undermined by that throughout the pieces, I'm pretty sure I didn't learn anything. And don't get me started on the piece that picked two "right-leaning" economists and two "left-leaning" economists that largely left the "right-leaning" ones alot of cover behind a political start date, rather than the start date of the recession. But hey -- maybe I missed something.

Welcome to Saturday! Today I want to bring your attention to a new Bill Moyers interview with Mike Lofgren, the ex-GOP staffer who wrote the incendiary Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult . Mr. Lofgren has written a book extending on his thoughts on the extremism of his old party (and the dysfunction of Democrats) called The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.

The James Bond Edition. Today is the 50th Anniversary of the film creation of Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR, spy icon by Sir Ian Fleming. Dr. No was the first movie, starring the always amazing Sean Connery and establishing a formula for (mostly) fascinating movies that have been watched and obsessed over for a half of a century. Yes, these movies (especially the older ones) are sexist, politically incorrect, but I'm a fan anyway. Happy Anniversary, Mr. Bond! Hope you all will join me in having a martini (vodka -- shaken, not stirred) in Bond's honor today.

By doing well last night, Romney reversed the expectations game for the next debate. He will be expected to be great again, and Obama will be expected to collapse to the ground in fear. But this next debate is the town-hall format. That was Obama's best debate last time, and it is something Romney does not do well, i.e. relating to the common folk. One final point to last night's debate: if Democrats and the President were complacent, they are not any more. Actually, that was the biggest danger to the election: Democratic complacency because we expect to win. Well, that is no longer a problem.

"As to Romney: It’s a mark of the fundamental vapidity of his campaign that his people think he can win with mere zingers. That isn’t Romney’s problem. His problem is that people don’t see any authenticity to the man, and basically (and perhaps, ergo) don’t like the person they see. They should be using this debate as a way to address those two deficits. Zingers won’t do that. I’d also bet you dollars to doughnuts that these zingers are written to please the right-wingers watching. That is his same-old problem, thinking that if he’s winning over the right, he’s winning over America." And that is why he fails. (using my best Yoda voice).