Daily News Roundup, 10/17/07: Primary Musical Chairs

The primary schedule is starting to get pretty ugly. On the heels of New Hampshire's hinting at a December primary as we mentioned yesterday, the Iowa GOP has set the firm date for their caucus at January 3rd, and South Carolina Democrats want to move their primary to the 26th.

As McClatchy points out, that's going to be a whole lot of campaigning going on during Christmas week. Iowa Democrats haven't decided whether or not they'll follow suit, and that's probably good for a number of reasons. I can't imagine the Iowa GOP change as being good for Republicans in any sort of way. I mean, how do you run on a "the terrorists are going to get you" platform when your TV ad has to run alongside ads of kids unwrapping Christmas presents? Is there anyone on the right with that sort of tact? And who wants to be seeing political ads during Christmas anyway? Do you do robo-calls? Do you have to back everything off to mailers? Who knows? None of this has ever had to be an issue before.

But if it's any comfort, the article also mentions that since New Hampshire has also mentioned early December as their primary date, we may not have to worry about that anyway. Since we'd be seeing the ads on Thanksgiving weekend instead.

If you're having trouble keeping up with the quickly-changing primary schedule as well, the Politico has a handy-dandy calendar at the first link above.

One gets the feeling that no one actually thought this resolution would be so controversial: support for the condemnation of the Armenian Genocide is flagging, and hard. The growing consensus seems to be that it's simply not the right time to be bringing this up. Rep. John Murtha is rumored to be speaking today in favor of dropping the resolution, and if someone so close to Pelosi is saying that, you can probably count the resolution out.

Don't look now, but congressional oversight may be proving its efficacy. The Washington Post has it that the White House has finally agreed to hand internal documents on their domestic surveillance program over to the Senate. Of course, the documents handed over do not by a long shot cover the original document requests, and House Democrats are also a little miffed that they weren't given the same access to the documents, but it's a start, right?

The article also talks in glowing terms about Attorney General candidate Michael Mukasey, who "told Senate Democrats Tuesday exactly what they wanted to hear." Mukasey verified that he'd be willing to review the interrogation and eavesdropping scandals that the White House has gotten itself into, and which Alberto Gonzales refused to allow oversight into. He's expected to get a good grilling today — perhaps in the light of the recent data showing that the Justice Department under Bush has neglected to prosecute white-collar, environmental, and civil rights crimes — but nevertheless, his prospects look good.

The day Al Gore won the Nobel Prize, Josh and I sat around the office and discussed the possibility of his using that as a launchpad for his candidacy. Well, OK, it was more like me talking at Josh, and naming every possible scenario for him doing so and how each and every one would be just plain bad for him and/or the Democratic Party. Well, Gore seems to agree. He's not running. Just in case you missed the first dozen times he said that. Yes, winning the Nobel could've changed that — but it shouldn't, and it didn't.

In local news, any time that Cornyn looks bad in a headline, I'm happy about it, and the Statesman put him directly up against Watts in theirs yesterday: "Watts had more money in hand than Cornyn through September." Good enough for me.

And the Chron has a piece on Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller, who was most recently in the news for effectively denying an inmate's right to appeal for his life on the day of his execution in light of a favorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The headline tries to be even-handed, but the article pretty clearly draws a picture of a history of enabling death penalty cases to proceed with more of an eye to speed than to fairness.

And lastly, in case you missed it: Stephen Colbert is running for President. Well, in South Carolina, anyway. If you're wondering whether he'll run as a Republican or a Democrat, the answer is yes. Dollars to doughnuts, the clip of his announcement is on the Comedy Central website. You should go check that out.