fyi, of those 88 stories, upwards of sixty are about the defunct pay-cable show and alcoholic beverages inspired by it.

Which is probably just as well. It would suck if we started often referring to a pivotal group of "key" voters before we had time to figure out which of two diametrically opposed phenomena they represented.

Huge math error in Katrina supply giveaway

Federal officials vastly overestimated the value of hurricane relief supplies given away earlier this year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported Monday.

The General Services Administration, which manages federal property, over-counted cases of toilet paper, plastic sporks and other cutlery, by mistakenly counting a single item as being worth as much as multiple items contained in a package of goods.

The original FEMA estimate of $85 million should have been $18.5 million, according to figures released by GSA and FEMA.

The household goods were supposed to go to people whose homes were destroyed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. But the items were stored in warehouses in Louisiana, and then Fort Worth, Texas. A recent CNN investigative story exposed that those materials never made it to storm victims.

GSA officials were asked recently to reassess the total cost of donated items in what the agency called a routine audit.

"In doing so, it was determined that some of the unit costs were 'eaches' and others were 'for-case' lots. The final adjustments reveal there was a significant overstatement in the total asset valuation," GSA officials reported to FEMA, which released the findings Monday.

For example, each spork was assigned the value of an entire case, inflating the original estimated value of the supplies a thousandfold to $36 million from $36,000. Packs of toilet paper originally estimated to be worth $1.5 million dropped to about $18,000, and plastic cutlery kits, from $6.3 million to about $25,000.

...

A CNN investigation revealed in June that FEMA gave away 121 truckloads of material from the Fort Worth facility. The agency said it was paying about $1 million a year to store the supplies, which were purchased as starter "living kits" for hurricane victims.

Officials in Louisiana originally declined the supplies when FEMA gave them away; the state's surplus property agency told CNN it was unaware of the need. Mississippi distributed items it received to prisons, fire departments, colleges and even the agency that regulates the state's casino industry.

In the wake of the CNN investigation, Landrieu was able to get several truckloads of the surplus property returned to Louisiana, where nonprofit groups will distribute it to Katrina victims.

at the risk of being That Way, this?

called it.

from the Wall Street Journal

Obama Faces Resistance From Top Supporters of Clinton

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, faces dissent from dozens of top fund-raisers and other supporters of former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton, who are angry over how she was treated during their bruising primary battle and are hesitating to back Sen. Obama.

Some leading Clinton supporters are starting new Web sites or political action committees aimed at prodding Sen. Obama on issues or pressuring him to give Sen. Clinton a big role in the general-election campaign. People familiar with the matter say the effort involves dozens of the roughly 300 Clinton "Hillraisers," individuals who raised at least $100,000 apiece for her campaign.

The Clinton holdouts are typically most angry about what they say was the media's sexist treatment of Sen. Clinton during the campaign. And though few, if any, blame Sen. Obama directly, they fault the Illinois senator and other party leaders for what they say was failing to do enough to stop it.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a Hillraiser from San Francisco, said, "What really hurt women the most was to look back and see all this gender bias." Ms. Buell said she hasn't decided whether to vote for Sen. Obama and plans to skip the August Democratic convention.

...

Meanwhile, an analysis of campaign-finance records conducted for The Wall Street Journal by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics shows that in May, when Sen. Obama was widely believed to have clinched the Democratic nomination, only one Hillraiser had switched allegiance to the Obama campaign.

alrighty, then.

Since I'm reasonably certain that this sort of thing is helping to perpetuate the unpleasantness and encourage provocative behavior amongst the less reflective of us, and even more certain that's precisely what it's intended to do, let's (god, I know, this is _really_ kinky) apply a little critical thought to this, shall we?

( yeesh. )

It must be an election year. The National Black Republican Association have stuck their oars in again

The National Black Republican Association has paid for billboards showing an image of the civil rights leader and the words "Martin Luther King Jr. was REPUBLICAN." ...

Seven billboards have gone up in six Florida counties, and another in Orangeburg, S.C., said Frances Rice, the Republican group's chairwoman.

I'm going to turn this over to guest poster Steve Gilliard, who helpfully annotated their radio commercial the last time they tried this

Woman 1: Dr. King was a real man

Yes he was. As the FBI can prove

Woman 2: You know he was a Republican

Republicans bring this up, but don't mention that most black middle class voters were Republicans. However, since blacks couldn't vote in Georgia, they forget to mention that as well,

Woman 1: Dr. King a Republican? Democrats passed those black codes and Jim Crow laws. Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan. White hoods and sheets. Democrats fought all civil rights legislation from the 1860’s to the 1960’s. Democrats released those vicious dogs and fire hoses on blacks. And the Dixiecrats remained Democrats and vowed to vote for a yellow dog before a Republican.

Until 1968 and the "Southern Strategy", which courted white voters as they were driven out of the Democratic Party. Black Republicans have to recall the past because they don't have any means to explain the present. The Democrats kicked them out, and the GOP took them.

Republicans freed us from slavery and put our right to vote in the Constitution. Republicans founded the NAACP, affirmative action, and the HBCU’s.

No, 179,000 black soldiers freed us. Radical Republicans were very different than modern day Dixiecans. They supported black rights.

Woman 2: Sounds like Democrats have bamboozled blacks.

No, it sounds like you people are lying fucks abusing history for your masters

Hard to argue with that.

For a little background, meet the NBRA (a front group for Jeb Bush's Florida Republican Party founded by this guy) and their predecessor group, the African American Republican Leadership Council (an almost exclusively white group founded to defend Trent Lott's nostalgia for Strom Thurmond's battle for segregation)

I'm particularly looking forward to seeing how the whole Republican Martin Luther King thing works out for them in South Carolina, where they have reason to know a bit more about racist Democratic politicians in the fifties than Lt. Col Rice apparently does

Fifty years ago today, on August 29, 1957, Sen. Strom Thurmond [D-SC], the South’s champion of states’ rights and white supremacy, secured a place in the annals of congressional history when he finally yielded the floor after speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes straight [against the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act]. His speech set the record for a Senate filibuster.

Thurmond’s filibuster made for good political theater, but it never stood a chance of derailing the bill. …But outside the nation’s capital, many Southerners loved Thurmond’s performance. Georgia’s governor, Marvin Griffin, defiantly promised, “We’re not going to let a Federal judge tell us who can vote,” while South Carolina’s governor, George Bell Timmerman, Jr., proudly announced, “I don’t have any intention of cooperating.” Thurmond’s grandstand may have been legislatively ineffectual, but it almost certainly encouraged white Southerners in resisting federal law, as they had begun doing three years earlier after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

In its immediate goal, Thurmond’s stand proved unnecessary. Stripped of its teeth, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 proved an ineffective safeguard of black voting rights. It would take a much stronger measure, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, to get the job done. It’s hard to say who won in the long run. In 1964 Thurmond, a Democrat, switched political affiliation again, this time for good, leading a massive exodus of white Southerners to the Republican party.

He never, that I noticed, looked back (or gave up his remarkably successful reliance on procedural maneuvers).

I guess those who fail to learn the lessons of history will never want for funding. Well played, Lt. Col. Rice.

that the candidate will endorse and offer fundraising support to protect seniority in the House, as well as the careers of veteran civil rights heroes like John Lewis (who arguably deserves his support at least as much as Mr. Barrow does), in an expeditious fashion

Well, even-the-liberal Jonathan "war is good for children and other living things" Chait called this one back in February

Steve Schmidt Demotion Watch Begins... Now

I really need to start blogging my predictions. I've been telling people for weeks that Rick Davis's firing [from the McCain campaign] was inevitable. Chris Orr and I were even planning to start an office betting pool on when he'd be gone. It happened even faster than I thought.

Anway, let me now go on the record to say that another McCain staff shake-up is, if not inevitable, very likely. McCain's staff is just too factionalized to remain stable unless McCain is consistently winning. And Schmidt is a Bush 2004 veteran who lacks the deep emotional ties to the candiate that other McCainiacs have. I predict that at some point, probably just before or just after the convention, there will be a move to "Let McCain be McCain," and new boss Steve Schmidt will be replaced with either John Weaver or Mike Murphy, to try to recreate the magic of the 2000 campaign.

and sure enough, today

Campaign Manager Rick Davis said Tuesday morning that senior adviser Steve Schmidt would take over day-to-day operations of the campaign. The Bush campaign veteran will report to Davis, but the rest of the campaign will report to Schmidt, who will be in charge of everything from message and communications, to the political structure and organization to scheduling.

Davis will shift into what is being described as a more “natural role” for him — the kind of duties he handled before last summer’s mass firings, working on the vice presidential search, and other long term planning including the Republican convention.

Schmidt’s top priority, according to a senior aide, will be to stop “unforced errors in the campaign.” He is also expected to shore up what some believe is a misguided political operation put in place by Davis – a decentralized system of regional campaign managers who are not given clear instructions from the central campaign.

After Davis announced Schmidt’s new role at the headquarters, they got on a call with the 11 regional directors to let them know they would be reporting to Schmidt. They did not discuss changes to that structure on the call, but CNN has been told it will almost certainly be altered.

That's some righteous prognosticatin' there, Center Man.

Mr. Schmidt will no doubt be key to McCain's much-discussed "respectful campaign" strategy

Top aide Steve Schmidt calls the Democrat’s remarks about small-town Americans “condescending and elitist,” says the campaign will continue criticism “for the duration of Sen. Obama’s candidacy.”

and he'll be invaluable in distancing McCain from the third Bush term thing

Steve Schmidt is a veteran campaign strategist and public relations expert. In his career to date he has been:

• Chief strategist in charge of Supreme Court nominations of Samuel A. Alito. and Chief Justice John Roberts
• Counselor and spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney.
• Member of the exclusive "breakfast club" led by top White House adviser Karl Rove that ran President Bush's re-election campaign. (2004)

particularly with the media

In the middle of the interview, [Mike] Allen [of the Politico] and Hewitt began discussing Bush/Cheney '04 media strategist Steve Schmidt, a former top aide to Dick Cheney for communications strategy (i.e., media management). Allen and Hewitt both heaped great praise on Schmidt as a brilliant media strategist, and Allen claimed that the current GOP campaign operatives "are schooled in the Bush-Cheney school . . . all of them learned under Schmidt's rules." Allen is very excited about the fact that a whole new generation of GOP media strategists are becoming so well-practiced in "the Bush-Cheney school" of media manipulation: "the great thing of it is he's populated his ideas into these young people who are out there today, Matt David [of the McCain campaign], Kevin Madden [communications Director for Mitt Romney and formerly for Tom DeLay], all these young people are out there. They sort of have the Schmidt credo."

who know what a fresh breeze through the smoke-filled rooms he is

At the NRA convention in Kentucky this afternoon, Karl Rove portrayed Barack Obama as an effete, South Side liberal who claims he's immune to criticism and and who would confiscate guns by the barrel. The gun stuff is much less important than Rove's general line of argument; Rove has a direct line to McCain advisers Steve Schmidt and Charlie Black and has been pushing the campaign to make these sorts of contrasts.

Luckily for him, Schmidt won't have to carry the load alone while he's learning on the job. They're bringing another fresh face in to help him

Former Giuliani campaign manager Mike DuHaime, another longtime associate of Schmidt’s who has been working for both the McCain team and the RNC, will also be taking on more responsibility.

DuHaime's got a Chait-level political prognostication record of his own

KWN: Some critics in the MSM and the Blogosphere are skeptical that Mayor Giuliani will be able to win Florida if he does not win a primary or caucus up until that point. How confident are you that he will win Florida?

Michael DuHaime: We have taken a lot of criticism for having a bit of an unconventional approach. But The Mayor has never listened to conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom a year ago said that he would not even be a serious candidate past the spring or summer. They said that he would never be able to last in the race. Not only did he last but he lead in the race and is certainly one of the top-tier candidates here as we go forward. If he had listened to conventional wisdom, he probably wouldn’t have ran for Mayor of New York, right? Five-to-one Democrat, how could a Republican win? He probably would have never said, I can cut crime in New York. He would never had been able to reduce the welfare rolls as he did because the conventional wisdom and the pundits said he couldn’t do it. But he has never listened to that. He has always said that we have to do what we believe is right, and we are going to stick to that.

...

So we are comfortable with our strategy. We think its very good. I am very confident about Florida. First, Rudy has a base in Florida that is better than anyone else’s. He is very familiar with Florida going all the way back to his days in the Reagan Justice Department. We have a great operation down there. Great endorsements and a great field team. Great grassroots volunteers. We have a base of support that is very familiar with The Mayor from folks that have moved down to Florida in recent years that are familiar with The Mayor’s record.

That doesn’t mean it won’t be a very tight and close race throughout-that is understood.

and he was right, if by tight and close you mean that a distant third has the same number of digits as first (below: Mr. Duhaime talks about the groundswell of support for Giuliani in Florida, which is, apparently, "Rudy Country")


In fairness, the Giuliani campaign wasn't DuHaime's first time at the roundabout. He came to that campaign as "someone with such expertise in national politics, who has served in such a key role for the national Republican party during some of its strongest years"

That would be this role

GOP consultant Terry Nelson, who put DuHaime in charge of President Bush's 2004 reelection effort in the Northeast, notes that DuHaime lost all 11 states he oversaw but still impressed everyone with his targeted get-out-the-vote operation.

"I think it says a lot that here's a guy who didn't win the most electoral votes, but who everyone thinks still did a great job," said Nelson, until recently the campaign manager for GOP rival John McCain.

(where he impressed everyone with his keen political insight)

At first, however - back in 2006 when Giuliani had yet to announce his intentions - DuHaime played hard to get. "He kept saying, 'Well, people are telling me that you're not really running,'" recalled Carbonetti.

But DuHaime says now that he could tell Giuliani had made up his mind. And based on the crowds he kept seeing Giuliani draw as he campaigned for others during midterm congressional elections, he sensed that Giuliani would do far better than pundits predicted.

and this one

DuHaime served as Political Director of the Republican National Committee from January 2005 to December 2006, where he become known for his ability to effectively organize on the grassroots level.

Ayup. This is the prodigy who directed the Republican electoral triumph in '06.

Mssrs. Schmidt and DuHaime are expected to concentrate on keeping McCain, who is running  as a symbol of change and definitely not for a third Bush term, on message.

That Jon Chait. He's uncanny.

via Patrick: the Ukulele Orchestra of Britain sings David Bowie and a whole bunch of other stuff



via Patrick's link: the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain sings You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore. No, really, watch it anyway

tonight's FDL post: how a bunch of AGs just messed with Cindy McCain's revenue stream

via Digby, Karl Rove tells us something about Barack Obama

ABC News' Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning, former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as "coolly arrogant."

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, per Christianne Klein. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Meet Lawrence Otis Graham

I'm a thirty-year-old corporate lawyer at a Midtown Manhattan firm, and I make $105,000 a year [ed note: that was more money then]. I'm a graduate of Princeton University (1983) and Harvard Law School (1988), and I've written ten nonfiction books. Although these might seem like impressive credentials, they're not the ones that brought me here. Quite frankly, I got into this country club the only way that a black man like me could—as a $7-an-hour busboy.

After seeing dozens of news stories about Dan Quayle, Billy Graham, Ross Perot, and others who either belonged to or frequented white country clubs, I decided to find out what things were really like at a club where I heard there were no black members.

...

I am not ashamed to admit that I one day want to be a partner and a part of this network. When I talk to my black lawyer or investment-banker friends or my wife, a brilliant black woman who has degrees from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School, I learn that our white counterparts are being accepted by dozens of these elite institutions. So why shouldn't we—especially when we have the same credentials, salaries, social graces, and ambitions?
...

I invented a completely new resume for myself. I erased Harvard, Princeton, and my upper-middle-class suburban childhood from my life. So that I'd have to account for fewer years, I made myself seven years younger—an innocent twenty-three. I used my real name and made myself a graduate of the actual high school I attended. Since it would be difficult to pretend that I was from "the street," I decided to become a sophomore-year dropout from Tufts University, a midsize college in suburban Boston. My years at nearby Harvard and the fact that my brother had gone there had given me enough knowledge about the school to pull it off. I contacted some older friends who owned large companies and restaurants in the Boston and New York areas and asked them to serve as references. I was already on a short leave of absence from my law firm to work on a book.

I pieced together a wardrobe that consisted of a blue polyester blazer, white oxford shirt, ironed blue slacks, black loafers, and a horrendous pink, black, and silver tie, and I set up interviews at clubs. Over the telephone, five of the eight said that I sounded as if I would make a great waiter. During each of my phone conversations, I made sure that I spoke to the person who would make the hiring decision. I also confirmed exactly how many waiter positions were available, and I arranged a personal interview within forty minutes to an hour of the conversation, just to be sure that they could not tell me that no such job was available.

"We don't have any job openings—and if you don't leave the building, I will have to call security," the receptionist said at the first club I visited in Greenwich.

I was astounded by the speed with which she made this remark, particularly when I saw that she had just handed an application to a young-looking Hispanic man wearing jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt, and sunglasses. "I'm here to see Donna, your maitre de," I added defensively as I forced a smile at the pasty-looking woman who sat behind a window.

"There's no Donna here."

"But I just spoke to her thirty minutes ago and she said to come by to discuss the waiter job."

"Sorry, but there are no jobs and no one here named Donna."

After convincing the woman to give me an application, I completed it and then walked back into the dining room, which was visible from the foyer.

I came upon a white male waiter and asked him, "Is there a Donna here?"

"The maitre d'?" he asked. "Yeah, she's in the kitchen."

When I found Donna and explained that I was the one she had talked to on the phone forty minutes earlier, she crossed her arms and shook her head. "You're the 'Larry' I talked to on the phone?"

"Yes," I answered.

"No way."

"I beg your pardon," I said.

"No. No way," she said while refusing to take the application I waved in front of her.

"We just talked on the phone less than an hour ago. You said I sounded perfect. And I've waited in three different restaurants—I've had two years of college—You said you had five waiter jobs open—I filled out the application—I can start right away—"

She still shook her head. And held her hands behind her back—unwilling to even touch my application. "No," she said. "Can't do it."

My talking did no good. It was 1992. This was the Northeast. If I hadn't been involved, I would never have believed it. I suddenly thought about all the times I quietly disbelieved certain poor blacks who said they had tried to get jobs but no one would hire them. I wanted to say then and there, "Not even as a waiter?"

Only an hour earlier, this woman had enthusiastically urged me to come right over for an interview. Now, as two white kitchen workers looked on, she would only hold her hands tightly behind her back and shake her head emphatically. So I left.

There were three other clubs to go to. When I met them, the club managers told me I "would probably make a much better busboy."

"Busboy? Over the phone, you said you needed a waiter," I argued.

"Yes, I know I said that, but you seem very alert, and I think you'd make an excellent busboy instead."

In his heavy Irish brogue, the club manager said he needed to give me a "perception test." He explained it this way: "This ten-question test will give us an idea of your perception, intellectual strength, and conscious ability to perform the duties assigned to you as a busboy."

I had no idea how much intellectual strength and conscious ability (whatever that meant) could be required of a busboy, but here are some of the questions he asked me:

1.If there are three apples and you take two away, how many do you have?

Greenwich, CT country clubs are best known to those outside their social sway as the place where George W. Bush's parents met.

I'd certainly forgive Barack Obama for wanting a martini in that environment. I'm guessing he wouldn't have gotten one.

Be charitable. Karl Rove was the help. He couldn't have known.