Wednesday Roundup: Endorsement Edition

Two Democratic presidential candidates picked up union endorsements yesterday. The United Transportation Union declared their support for Senator Clinton (a big deal), and the International Association of Fire Fighters endorsed Senator Chris Dodd (arguably, a much bigger deal).

The latter was sort of a surprise to me, but the quiet roar about an impending IAFF endorsement for Dodd had been building for a while. Of note is the fact that IAFF's endorsement was a gift to the then-flagging campaign of Senator John Kerry prior to the 2004 primary election. Dodd may not ultimately enjoy the same ascendancy that Kerry did, and likely won't, but early national polls don't indicate much. I seem to remember a national poll from around this time in 2004 that had Gephardt and Lieberman neck and neck on top, so who knows what could happen?

While Senators Clinton and Dodd were receiving good news, Senator John McCain was receiving news you can only call a mixed blessing: the Senator applied for public funds for the primary and was qualified to receive them. The Politico correctly interprets that some campaigns will see this as a sign of a weakness, but when you consider that it makes additional money available to McCain with the tradeoff of a limit at $50 million on spending, it makes sense. McCain probably wasn't going to exceed $50 million spent anyways.

Speaking of primaries, the Republican National Committee has announced plans to follow the Democratic example and dole out some punishments for states that jump the primary gun. According to the New York Times, the RNC will penalize five states — Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida
— by denying them "at least half" of their delegates at the national convention. This is all for early primary activity shenanigans. I guess they didn't want to be seen as soft on rulebreakers while the DNC looked like the organization of law and order.

The New York Times also has some good news: South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson announced his return to work last night, by telling a crowd of supporters that after months of recovery from a brain hemorrhage, "I am back." This is a nice story and a happy ending, and I feel that way not just because Johnson is in my party, but because some days it seems like nice stories about people getting sick and then returning to health, and their families, are in short supply.

In news that is not as good, Statesman has the story on how Texas is leading the nation once again in an unfortunate category: number of people lacking health insurance. From 2004 - 2006, the uninsured rate in Texas was 24%. One of these days, we'll have some elected leadership that will do something about things like this.

Lastly today, in case you were wondering how arguments in favor of pulling out of Iraq were going to fare after Labor Day, you can put that curiosity to rest by reading this: Bush would like Congress to break him off an additional $50 billion for the war in Iraq. Fiscal 2008 appears to be brewing up as a confrontational defense budget, wouldn't you say?