Posted on 01/02/2009 9:13:24 PM PST by HD1200
Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn’t want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.
Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis — both democratic congressmen from Illinois — and against Jones — the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama — because he did not believe the three men were electable. He feared losing the seat to a Republican in a future election.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
Damn this keeps getting better and better. Gonna need tons of popcorn for this one.
Of course, the Democrats have never hesitated to pull the race card when it was unwarranted, so I won't complain if it gets pulled against Reid here.
Reid calls Blago just before Fitzie prematurely breaks up the party bump
Sorry, "liberal Democrat" trumps "racism and gender bias" every time.
One can only wonder what Harry offered for his clowns versus JJJ?
Could it have been more than advice and appreciation?
And is it too much to hope for that he is on tape making racial slurs against one of the candidates?
Who is leaking this stuff?
I want to congratulate them on their sense of fair play.
“Dare I dream that the Congressional Black Caucus will hammer Reid?”
Not a chance. If Reid were a Republican the CBC would lynch him, but since he is a fellow Dim they will be silent; or, if they say anything, it will be a timid “We’re disappointed” kind of thing.
I thought I read that Madigan was team obama’s pick to begin with, so it appears that Reid was just carrying water for the team.
Reid is the lackey of the Vegas mob.
If anyone goes after reid too hot and heavy they will probably become the cornerstone of a vegas hotel.
You may have a good point. "Change" for the worse may lead to "Change" for the better. I'll certainly be on the "Change" bandwagon after the inauguration.
Reid’s up for reelection in 2010. Just one more nail in his coffin. Let’s hope Nevadans “Daschle” this guy.
The Sun-Times is Blago's rag of choice. Recall that Blago was pressuring the Tribune to fire its editorial writers.
There are no blacks in the Senate. Therefore there can be no members of the Black Caucus in the Senate. Obama was the ONLY black in the Senate.
But it would not matter. The Black Caucus is an organization made of of House Members. They tend to vote as a group in votes before the HOUSE. However they have no vote on who does nor does not get a seat in the Senate. Only seated Senators get to vote on seating a new senator. There will be 98 white seated senators who get to vote.
If 40 Republicans vote to seat him they will only need 10 Democrat votes to override Reid. The question is will they Republicans vote to seat him. I would suggest the answer is NO. The longer this goes on in Illinois, it will be hard for Obama to get his agenda passed in the Senate.
Since everyone knows the Democrats are in control, it will be hard to blame Republicans and make most voters believe it.
Since 2006 the media coverage of the Senate and Republicans blocking Democrats, that a majority of voters actually believed that the Republicans had control of the senate. After this election they know that the Democrats are in charge.
It is in many respects like 1992. The Republicans did all they could to block the Clinton agenda ... including Hillary Care. When it went down in defeat the Democrat voters blamed Bill and Hillary and took it out on the Democrats in the House and Senate in the election of 1994.
Because of the Republican opposition of Clinton and his agenda they were predicting a 50 vote Democrat pick up in house seats in 1994. They were shocked to learn that Democrats lost 50 house seats in 1994.
It was real proof that when a party is totaly out of power as the Republicans were in 1992, that there are voter rewards for total opposition. Both parties are well aware of that situation.
Thus Obama is trying to use his initial popularity to get his economic agenda passed in the first 3 or 4 days the congress is in session. And they have refused to even let the Republicans see the bill until it comes up for vote.
It will be blocked and with out Democrat Senators from Minnisota and Illinois it is likely the Repubicans can make a filibuster stick. Thus Reid wants Franken.
The question is do they want to have the Republicans do to Obama what they did to clintion in 1993 and 1994 or do they want to let blago appoint a senator. So far they want to trash Blago.
Reid is stupid. He must not have read the Florida returns from 2006 When a party leads on taking out one of their corrupt or immoral senators, the voters assume most of that party is immoral. They vote them out of office.
The more Reid and Democrats trash Blagojevich for criminal behavior, the more likely voters are to elect a Republican governor and Senator at the first chance they get.
The more Democrats try to impeach or convict Blagojevich, the less chance they have of holding control of the Illinois government. They think it will cause voters to believe that Democrats are good guys becaue they are trying to clean up their own house. That is not the way voters look at it. Voters tend to put the other party in power.
Thanks for your response. I had forgotten that Obama had been the only black in the Senate, and even though the Congressional black caucus doesn’t have a vote, I’m surprised they’ve kept their mouths shut about the race issue. Charlie Rangel could use a little distraction at this point in his career. I don’t agree with you about the Dems not being able to pin the blame on the Republicans over this issue, or the defeat of Bambi’s stimulus package. This past election proved there are a lot of ignorant and illiterate people who vote based on what they hear. The press will do their job of brainwashing them, and in the end, the Republicans will once again take it in the shorts without defending themselves.
I thought Valerie Jarrett was Obama’s pick. She worked for him and she is black. Neither is true of Lisa Madigan.
No he wasn’t. It isn’t against the law to lobby a governor. But its fun to see Reid get ensnarled in the mess all the same.
Most voters do not watch newscasts or read newspapers at all.
Look at the ratings. The four major networks newscasts on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox reach less than 10 percent of the population. They reach 25 out of 300 million people. And the number of viewers keeps falling. In the early 1990s they reached nearly 100 million out of 250 million. The cable TV channels reach a total of about 12 million people. The MSM and Cable TV total audiences total about 12 percent of the population.
Newspapers reach fewer and fewer people with each passing year. Where the population is millions the paper subscriptions are hundreds of thousands. We are nearing the point where Chicago may not even have a daily paper. News magazines such as Newsweek and Time only reach a few hundred thousand people each.
Nearly all voters below the age of 30 get all their views on political leaders from TV Shows like LENO and Letterman,
The comedy shows are huge opinion setters for most adults under 50. For 8 years they have been making fun of Bush and the Republican party.
It is the comedy shows that reach the swing voters.
These guys can’t get laughs for the next four years by trashing Republican senators and house members. Their audience does not even know who are the leaders of the house and senate ... let alone the minority leaders.
So we will find Leno, Letterman, O’Brien and others making fun of Obama and his Democratic administration. A joke has to be simple. It cannot explain complex situations. Obama will be the butt of the jokes.
Obama can do two things .. he can hide or he can appear at press conferences. He will be unable to keep himself from saying dumb things at press conferences. On the other hand if he hides, that will give the comedians an easy way to make lots of jokes about Obama. Leno, O’Brien, and Letterman need laughs. No matter how much the MSM praises Obama, he can not stop the comedians from using him as a source of jokes.
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