Did not see this posted here-made it on
Ezra Klein, Political Wire, and a brief mention
on Countdown tonight.

If we believe the unminced words of Harry Reid, quoted in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the party is working to end this nomination battle.

Let's hope Reid's words hold up this time.

Bobby Kennedy's daughter (former lieutenant governor of the State of Maryland) and Hillary Clinton supporter believes it is over for Hillary....

Giving the annual Nitze Lecture at the St Mary's College of Maryland on Feb 20th titled "Notes from the Front: The Presidential Campaign—Democracy’s Alternative to War," she had the following observations....

So, you want to wage an unconventional presidential campaign?  Tired of the rubber chicken circuit?  Don't want to let the MSM analyze your every thought and move? Hate asking corporate donors for big bucks in exchange for the next ambassadorship to Lichtenstein?    

Here's one way

Al Gore Starts his Own Fight Club

In a story in the Austin American-Statesman, disciples of former Vice President Al Gore go on giving his powerpoint presentation on the global climate change crisis, armed with a teaching session given by Gore in Nashville.

Gore has been giving the presentation for many years and has been training others to do so as well.

But this might create an army of campaign volunteers - effectively a force multiplier - if Gore gets in the presidential race.

The Politico's John Harris asks the question many Democrats are seeking an answer to nowadays: why shouldn't Al Gore run for the 2008 Democratic nomination?  And should we take Gore at his word when he says that he has "no plans to run?"

He has said repeatedly that he has no plans to run.  Shouldn't we take him at his word?

Not yet, we shouldn't.  The logic of psychology and even history suggests that Gore should run.  And if he should run, it is hard to believe that a man who has organized most of his adult life around public service and the pursuit of the presidency won't in the end actually do it.

The questions aren't likely to go away anytime soon since Gore is scheduled to testify tomorrow on Capitol Hill - House schedule here and Senate schedule here - before Congress in two high-profile hearings on Global Warming.

Dan Gerstein, a former Senior Advisor to Joe Lieberman, strongly implied that Al Gore is having it both ways on the Iraq War

(A)s Eli Lake pointed out in a column in Tuesday's New York Sun, Gore has been curiously mum on the subject of withdrawal to date, in stark contrast to his full-throated opposition to the war.  In a December interview with Matt Lauer, Lake notes by way of example, Gore punted on articulating his exit strategy, saying, "Well if I were president I would have the full flow of information and have and test each of these options."
link via Political Insider

Of course anyone with half a brain would essentially say the same thing.  Gore is not in government, he doesn't have access to classified intelligence, and his views on opposing the Iraq War are well-known.

Follow me below the fold on how I interpret this article.  

The late Mo Udall, Democratic US Representative from Arizona, was known for his sharp wit and pursuit of liberal causes.  Running for the presidency in 1976 as a liberal alternative to the moderate-conservative southerner, Jimmy Carter, and upon finishing 2nd in a primary for the fifth straight time, he uttered one of his many memorable quotes

The people have spoken, the bastards.

Clearly, losing in a primary didn't deter Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) from running - and winning with primarily Republican support - as an independent candidate after losing in the 2006 Democratic Primary for the US Senate in August 2006.  Though caucusing in the Senate with the Democratic Party for the purposes of selecting the chamber's leadership and committee chairmen, Lieberman may yet have another surprise in store for the Democrats in 2008.

Follow me below the fold.

The Hotline's Chuck Todd painted a realistic scenario yesterday under which the Democrats could regain control of the US Senate in next month's Congressional Elections.  

Another major political analyst, Charlie Cook of the National Journal, is increasingly pessimistic about the Republicans' chances of retaining their majority in both the US Senate and US House of Representatives.

Read on...

Upon looking at my regular list of amazing blogs ( which would include Daily Kos, MyDD, political Wire, swing state project, FiredogLake, and TalkLeft )I came upon a startling blog entry at Talk Left with the title "The New Hot Button Issue"

Now, I'm trying not to plagiarize, however the paragraph began with mentioning how gay marriage was becoming 'old news' stating how 'activists' had little more work to do because of the massive amounts of gay marriage bans passed in states and on numerous ballot initiatives this year in other states.

Political wire stated that activists were moving to something else.  They claimed the 'new hot button issue' was...

Yesterday on Political Wire there was a link to a story about focus groups in New Hampshire and Iowa.  Many interesting things in the piece http://politicalwire.com/... but I wanted comments on this particular item.

Support for Hillary Clinton "disappeared by the time the night was over, and she won virtually no new converts."

We launched a new feature on the Forward Together site today. It's a brief flash animated message from Governor Warner welcoming first time visitors and encouraging them to sign up on his site.

We got a good review from Teagan Goddard on his Political Wire. Let us know what you think at the Forward Together blog.

The site has been getting about 200,000 daily visits this week, which I have a hard time grasping. Call it the dKos post-convention bounce.

But it did get me thinking about the early days. And since people always ask me how I built this site, here's the answer:

There was once a group of political afficionados who hung out at various political forums -- starting with Delphi Forums, then moving on to ones run by a guy named Orvetti. When Orvetti closed shop, they all moved over en masse to Political Wire, which at the time had comments. But in the runup to the 2002 mid-terms, Taegan got sick of the constant flame wars in his comment threads and he shut them down.

So everyone headed on over to Jerome Armstrong's MyDD, which is where I entered the picture. Digging the site (which I had found via Buzzflash), I decided to start up my own election-themed site, Daily Kos. The site actually lived on fishyshark.com for a month as I tried to come up with a "serious" name for my new endeavour. Even though I eventually settled on "Daily Kos", I considered it a failure at the time -- I thought I should've come up with a more creative name. I selected orange as the site color so that it would stand out from the bloggy masses (branding 101).

In short time I caught Jerome's attention, and we made a habit of linking back to each other on a constant basis. A few months later, Jerome (who invented the "open thread") got sick of the flame wars on his message boards and followed Taegan's lead by shutting his comments down. So everyone headed on over to Daily Kos.

And I was ready. I had learned my lessons from Political Wire and MyDD's community failures, and immediately shut the door on the Republican commentors who had destroyed the previous sites' communities. I zealously worked to create a "safe zone" for liberal political junkies, despite howls of "censorship" from both liberals and conservataives, and the community grew. October 2002, MyDD was the highest-trafficked liberal blog, but Jerome shut down soon thereafter as he focused his attentions on Howard Dean. So Daily Kos became the only liberal election analysis game in town.

But even back then, the site was no longer about me, it was about the community, discussion, and debate. So, few cared when I blew my House and Senate predictions because the fun part had been the discussion. (Though in my lame defense, I did do pretty good with the governors races.)

Bush's War was good for ratings, mine included. By mid-2003, I was feeling the limits of MovableType, and started looking for alternatives, finally settling on Scoop. It took a while to migrate, but that was done by Fall 2003. And despite some grumblings and predictions of doom ("I'll never register!"), the site really took off.

I got many kudos for chosing Scoop, especially the diaries which gave readers a whole new level of ownership with the site. I was genius! Except I wasn't. I chose Scoop because of its community moderation features. I actually didn't think anyone would use the diaries.

So there you have it. Opportunism, mixed in with blind luck and a dose of branding. The secret of my success.