Daily Roundup, 3/10/2008: Working from the Weekend

A big weekend in politics saw yet another primary contest, some disheartening economic data, and a presidential veto.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported a large cut to the jobs market in February. This along with all of the other indicators prompted President Bush to inform the nation that not everything is right with the economy.

The Bush administration's tenure has been uncomfortable from the start, and now the balance — the high cost of low living, as a church sign I saw recently said — is coming due. That bad, avoidable things keep happening may be a contributing factor to many people's fresh new self-identification as Democrats.

All these new Democrats are proving to be bad news, or at least a level of distraction, for Republicans. Ron Paul has alerted his supporters that the next stage of the revolution is underway (translation — "I'm dropping out of the race"); and some recent poll results show that both Democrats beat McCain even though they do it in different ways.

John McCain is having some problems of his own. The truth about his call for Rumsfeld's resignation is that he never actually called for Rumsfeld's resignation, and items like this are starting to poke holes in the media's love affair with the man from Arizona. It also doesn't help when he yells at the press for asking him questions about historical occurrences, like he did on Friday.

There was plenty of Democratic primary news to be had in the last few days. Wyoming caucused on Saturday and they went for Barack Obama. The delegate share wasn't enormous — he'll end up with 7 or so out of the 12 — but it is enough for some new headlines about momentum in a close race. Senator Clinton had some news of her own by raising some serious money fast on the internet.

Michigan and Florida appear to be moving towards doing their primary contests over again. Florida is likely to have a full primary although it will be done by mail, and Michigan is leaning towards having a caucus even though Clinton has said she wouldn't be in to that. These contest repeats may be vital in deciding the nominee, especially considering that several superdelegates are now officially saying they are going to wait until the convention to decide who they will back.

On the balance, it wasn't a bad weekend for Democrats. For the Republican Party, not so much: the presidential nominee has undesirable friends he won't leave behind, the White House Press Secretary has selective short-term memory when it comes to Iraq, the sitting president just vetoed a ban on torture, and seat in Congress that was once occupied by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was won by a Democrat in a special election. For Republicans, the bright side is getting increasingly harder to find.