News Digest, 1/31/08: Blazing History's Path

On a day full of big political news, the biggest was John Edwards' suspension of his presidential campaign. He ended it where it began — in New Orleans.

In his speech, Edwards said he was going to "step aside so that history can blaze its path," and that's a sentiment I like. In following the horse race of who's winning where and who has the most dollars, it is sometimes easy to lose sight of what Democrats are actually doing this year, breaking new ground in a number of ways. Obama and Clinton both admitted that Edwards' campaign brought issues to the forefront that otherwise might not have been discussed — namely the plight of the poor — and the race for his endorsement began between the two remaining frontrunners.

Rudy Giuliani combined his withdrawal from the race for the GOP nomination with an endorsement for John McCain, and some new poll numbers from Gallup showed that nationally Clinton is leading Obama by six points, heading into the rush to Super Duper Tuesday.

The mass exodus of incumbent Republicans from Congress continues in fits and starts. With the announcement of three Republicans not seeking re-election just this week, the number of Republicans not attempting to return to their seats after this term climbed to 28.

In looking at the state legislature level as opposed to the federal legislature, I spoke with DLCC Chairman Mike Gronstal on this week's episode of Who's Blue. He had some interesting things to say about the recent history of Democratic performance in the nation's state houses and what he observed during this year's Iowa caucuses. (In addition to being chair of the DLCC, Gronstal is also the Iowa state senate majority leader.)

Barbara Ann Radnofsky joins us in this week's feature work, "What Women Voters Need In 2008" and spoke to us about another outlook for the upcoming election year. She explores the health care and economic security as the issues she thinks should be high priorities for women, and how those issues are affecting the lives of women in today's America.

The Commerce Department had a big announcement to make yesterday, that being about the economy, and how the GDP only grew by .6 percent in the final quarter of 2007. That's the lowest level of growth since 2002, and confirms many fears about the economy that America's financial and political leaders have been combating in recent weeks.

One of the bodies combating that kind of economic action is the Federal Reserve Board, who voted yesterday to drop the federal funds rate to 3 percent, a half-point reduction. That comes of the heels of last week's somewhat improvised .75 percent cut, which dropped it from 4.25 percent to 3.5 percent. Markets responded as expected with some upturn, oil prices jumped a bit, and analysts forecast that credit is about to get pretty cheap.

Some disappointing news from the Bush administration came in the form of a slow information leak from various military sources that a force reduction in Iraq to pre-surge levels is probably not in the immediate offing. Some sources are saying that it will be summer before anything real gets moving on that score, so Bush's hints at such delays during his State of the Union address were not just empty rhetoric, like most of the speech was.

And finally, in the interest of reporting all of the politics news: Ralph Nader has stirred from the dark political depths and started an exploratory committee for President. Feast your eyes and cast your imagination about.