The AP is out with a story that Rahm Emmanuel has been offered the position of Chief of Staff in an Obama Administration.

Barack Obama’s campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about possibly serving as White House chief of staff, officials said Thursday as the marathon presidential race entered its final, frenzied stretch with a Democratic tilt.

[snip]

The Democrats who described the Obama campaign’s approach to Emanuel spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to be quoted by name. An aide to the congressman, Sarah Feinberg, said in an e-mail that he "has not been contacted to take a job in an administration that does not yet exist. Everyone is focused on Election Day, as they should be. "

I think this is, at the very least, overblown not just for the reasons Ambinder lays out:

… but if Obama has the made decision, he wouldn’t tell anyone on his campaign, he would tell people on his transition team — and they’re not speaking to the press. People on the campaign say that Obama hasn’t had a free hour to concentrate about this stuff — which they would say, of course, but the sources are genuinely reliable. Surely he has an idea or two in mind, and maybe it would make sense to give the people he’s thinking about asking to serve a heads up.  It’s hard to say no to a president.

Emanuel has been a regular behind-the-scenes adviser to Obama, knows everyone in Washington, is one of the better communicators in the party, and certainly is qualified for the post.  But he’s … got a very strong personality that doesn’t exactly jibe with the tone Obama likes to set for his endeavors. (David Plouffe and Rahm Emanuel could not be more different in temperament.)  He also has a young family, and he has not moved them to Washington, and his hours as chief of staff would be hellish.

Incidentally: nothing would be more devastating to Emanuel’s chances than a public story like this, one that could allow Republicans to use Emanuel’s brass-knuckle reputation against Obama a few days before the election. [snip]

Rahm has a practice of starting rumors about himself (he used rumors liberally in his fights with Howard Dean over money and churned them out on industrial scale to claim credit for 2006’s success). But No Drama Obama, who is wrapping up 20 months of a leak-free campaign, isn’t about to start leaking now. Moreover, he’s not about to take kindly to someone leaking for political gain.

But I also think this is overblown because of the way that Obama appears to be looking forward–if all goes well on Tuesda–to governing. He appears to be planning to do everything he can to make sure he has tools in place to work with Congress.

Just look at his selection of Joe Biden. Sure, Biden has helped to campaign to white working class voters (and has stayed mostly gaffe-free, to his credit). But I think Obama picked Biden to ensure he’d have an ally within the White House with a long history of working with the Old Dogs who will run Senate Committees next year. As a relative newbie in the Senate, Obama still campaigned against Washington, but he made damn sure he’d have someone with long practice in the way Washington works to help him govern. 

So why would Obama take a close ally, currently the fourth ranking and arguably second most powerful Democrat in the House, and put him in the White House, thereby neutralizing much of his power? If he wins, with Rahm in the House, he can look forward to have close ties to one of the best deal-makers in the House. As knowledgable as Rahm is about working Washington, I think he may be more useful for Obama in the House than in the White House.

And frankly, I still suspect Rahm has designs on the Speaker’s gavel. 

Not only did Michael Mukasey, in his most reasonable act as AG, refuse to act on Bush’s request that he help Ohio Republicans prevent 200,000 voters from voting.

But now, the military judge in charge of Hamdan’s Show Trial has refused the Bush Administration’s request that the jury re-sentence Hamdan so he won’t be released on Bush’s watch. 

A military judge rejected a Bush administration move to that could have kept Osama bin Laden’s former driver locked up for an additional five years.

[snip]

In a two-paragraph order, [Judge Keith Allred] said he had read the filings and legal citations, as well as reviewing the sentencing hearing transcript.

"The prosecution motion to reconsider, reassemble, reinstruct and re-announce a sentence is denied," he wrote.

I guess Poppy and Dick never told you this whole all-powerful bullshit would end as soon as you became a lame duck, huh, Bush?

I just voted.

Yeah!

After I voted, I came home and looked at who else has voted nationally–14% of the electorate so far, and that’s not including my vote (which technically doesn’t get "counted" until election night). 

And looking at those numbers, I gotta believe the folks at Fox–who just switched their likely voter model to jimmy up a poll that showed McCain closing–are smoking crack.

Fox would have you believe that the electorate will be made up of 41% Democrats and 39% Republicans. What’s even more crack-worthy is that they suggest the make-up of the election has changed in the last week; last week, they said the electorate would be made up of 43% Democrats and 37% Republicans.

So here’s what has been happening in the interim time frame (most numbers are rounded except for Colorado):

Colorado: 52.3% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 38.6% are Democrats; 37.9% are Republicans.

Florida: 33% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 45% are Democrats; 39% are Republicans.

Iowa: 26% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 48% are Democrats; 29% are Republicans.

Louisiana: 14% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 58% are Democrats; 28% are Republicans.

Maine: 17% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 44% are Democrats; 28.5% are Republicans.

Nevada’s Washoe County (Reno–a swing county): 43% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 50% are Democrats; 34% are Republicans.

North Carolina: 52% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 53% are Democrats; 29% are Republicans. (In 2004, early voting split 47% Democrats; 37% Republicans.)

West Virginia: 12.5% of voters (based on 2004 numbers) have voted. Of the early voters 59% are Democrats; 31.5% are Republicans.

Of all these swingy and right-leaning states, only Colorado shows Republican and Democratic turnout to be close. Only Florida shows Republicans performing as well as Fox says they will, across the whole election. And some of these numbers–particularly North Carolina and Iowa–show breath-taking leads right now for Democrats. 

I realize that it’s still possible that Republicans will flock to the polls in droves on Tuesday and these numbers will even out. But these numbers do provide proof that Democrats are voting. Republicans? Not so much. 

Yet Fox wants you to believe that, even while all these Democrats have been coming out to vote, the make-up of the electorate has gotten significantly more Republican. 

I guess Fox owed McCain a favor or something. 

I saw someone on TV (sorry–I have no idea who it was or even what channel it was on) who argued that the Obama-Clinton appearance yesterday was more important for Bill than for Obama. Sure, the appearance was about reassuring everyone that there are no more (stated) hard feelings about the primary. But it also gave Bill an opportunity to bask in the glow of Obama’s goodwill, perhaps to exorcise some of the bad feelings from South Carolina.

I would add to this insight that the timing is key. Obama didn’t campaign with Bill until polls show him with a big lead, particularly in Electoral College Votes. That is, Obama invited Bill to campaign with him after it became highly probable that he will win; though Bill has campaigned for the campaign already (with Biden in PA, in VA, and in AR), if Obama wins it will be his win, on his own merits. Which is, I guess, where the room for this gesture comes from.

Don’t get me wrong–Bill no doubt will help Obama build a bigger lead in FL, which is currently the closest of the big swing states (even OH shows a bigger Obama lead!). But as for the election–rather than the state–Bill has been helpful, but by no means instrumental to Obama’s success thus far. (I’m particularly reminded of all the complaints that Gore didn’t invite Clinton to campaign with him in 2000.) At that level, then, it seems as much symbolic as anything else.

And now we have news that Gore himself (with Tipper) will campaign for Obama in FL.

Gore will appear at "Vote for Change" rallies in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, according to a release just issued by the Obama campaign.

Gore returns (on Halloween, no less) to the land of butterfly ballots, hanging chads and a 36-day national recount drama that determined Gore lost and George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election.

Talk about symbolism! Gore, like Clinton, has campaigned for Obama before (for example, at Gore’s endorsement of Obama in Detroit earlier this year, which I screwed up royally by missing). But at a time when the outcome of the race–but not Florida–seems more and more favorable to Obama, Obama has invited Gore to the scene of the 2000 crime. West Palm Beach and Broward County, no less!

Like Bill’s visit, Gore’s will no doubt help Obama build his lead in FL. I’m sure a lot of those elderly Jews who "voted" for Buchanan in 2000, for example, will welcome the opportunity to support Gore again. And any margin in FL will help push Obama beyond the point where shenanigans might deprive him of the state.

But above all, this is really wonderful symbolism–to have Clinton and Gore and Obama, all three, work together to put Florida in the Democratic column.

Only, when you get blown off by repairmen, there aren’t 6,000 people and the national press watching. 

McPrickly/Cheney by twolf

Even the neocon nuts are fleeing John McCain and his campaign of shame. The latest surfer from the right to catch the Obama wave to the White House is Francis Fukuyama. That’s right, the guy who literally wrote The End Of History has figured out that Barack Obama is history in the making and John McCain is simply ancient and erratic history. And Fukuyama nukes McCain, Bush and Cheney in the process. It is a brutally scathing takedown.

I’m voting for Barack Obama this November for a very simple reason. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush….. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.

Ouch! Chris Buckley got terminated from the conservative magazine his own father created for less than that. Maybe if that is all Fukuyama said, none of the right wing freak show will notice….

Ooops, Francis did it again; he had more to say:

At a time when the U.S. government has just nationalized a good part of the banking sector, we need to rethink a lot of the Reaganite verities of the past generation regarding taxes and regulation. Important as they were back in the 1980s and ’90s, they just won’t cut it for the period we are now entering. Obama is much better positioned to reinvent the American model and will certainly present a very different and more positive face of America to the rest of the world.

Yowser! First Bush and McCain, now Fukuyama has gone and thrown Saint Ronnie of Raygun under the bus. That’s gonna leave a mark. Here, however, is the most beautiful part:

McCain’s appeal was always that he could think for himself, but as the campaign has progressed, he has seemed simply erratic and hotheaded. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was highly irresponsible; we have suffered under the current president who entered office without much knowledge of the world and was easily captured by the wrong advisers. McCain’s lurching from Reaganite free- marketer to populist tribune makes one wonder whether he has any underlying principles at all.

Yep, Francis is right; America was trashed and burned by a bunch of pricks with more balls than common sense, ethics and good governance. You could almost salute Fukuyama for a clear and true stand like this.

Almost.

Almost, that is, if it were not for the fact that Fukuyama himself was one of those "advisors" with Cheney, PNAC and the neocons that helped Bush drive America over the cliff. You are a day late and several trillion dollars short Francis, where was all this good judgment when it counted?

I moved from San Francisco to Salt Lake City in 1993.

I was generally well-prepared for the cultural adjustment. My best friend from high school is Mormon and through her I had learned about LDS culture and its attraction for people who want a tight-knit nurturing religion. From living in in-land San Diego I knew how to get those trying to convert me to stop, quickly and definitively. And I quickly learned that, in Utah, the mountains were gloriously uncrowded on Sundays. For the most part, SLC was a gorgeous city where I could afford a house.

My biggest problem was the way Mormons treated gays.

For the year before my move, I had been the only "out" straight girl on a Bay Area woman’s rugby team. It was an instructive experience for me, having to come out as straight, having to prove to the women on my team I’d do things with them–like share a hotel bed–I would do with guy friends I trusted, having to beat down silly stereotypes they had of heteros ("oh, I didn’t think straight people had monogamous relationships!"). I was definitely an oddball on the team–for many of them, the team was their main social circle, and several of them were dating women on the team or on rival teams. I had an entirely separate social life and I spent much less time with the team than my teammates.

That spring, my Dad was dying. Rather than go to tournaments with the team on weekends, I was flying to AZ to spend time with my parents. Though I tried to make it to practice during the week to blow off steam, my mind wasn’t really with the team. Which is why it was so meaningful to me that the team made it clear to me that, even though I was gone most of the time, even though I was an oddball straight girl, I was still part of the team. I remember one morning, stopping by the apartment between the airport and work, finding a bouquet of flowers from the other backs on the team. I had a lot of other support from closer friends at the time, but that gesture meant so much to me because it reassured me that my extended community remained strong, that even a community where I was an outsider was reaching out.

When people said anti-gay things in my presence in UT, I’d explain to them how loving my rugby team was, even for me, an outsider. I don’t think I convinced them, but I think describing a community in terms of its love, its support, its generosity–all traits Mormons rightly cherish about their own community–at least meant they couldn’t respond, they just had to accept it.

Not long after I moved to UT, a woman in my department in her early 20s got divorced, a rare thing for a Mormon woman. She had learned her husband was gay when he revealed to her he had been exposed to HIV during a relationship with a man in AZ.  She went twice, utterly alone, to be tested herself. When she told me about it afterward she still seemed ashamed, scared. I think I was the one person she knew who had known people living with HIV.

The worst thing, though, was that (perhaps predictably) they blamed her. It was because of her inadequacies as a woman and a wife, the former mother-in-law said, that her husband had slept with other men. And every time I saw the amazing generosity and community that Mormons are capable of (I’m thinking, in particular, of the funeral of another co-worker’s mother out by Dugway), I thought of how they had failed two of their own when they were having a crisis.

It’s through that lens that I see the fight over the right to marry in California. I always knew that Mormons had no monopoly on caring–that gay men and women are every bit as loving as the incredibly warm community of Mormons. For that reason alone, they should be able to get married. But at least in my own personal experience, my gay team mates were the ones who extended themselves to others, not the Mormons I knew. And when it counted–and when it pertained to one gay man and his unfortunate former wife–the Mormon community was even willing to fail one of its own to make their hateful stance.

The opposition to Proposition 8 in California is largely funded by Mormons, claiming that their own loving relations and their lifestyle will be threatened by other humans entering into legally sanctioned loving relations. That offends me, and reminds me of how angry I was at Mormon hate 15 years ago when I moved to UT. 

Don’t let that hateful stance win now. Donate to defeat Prop 8. 

I was one of the first to note that Palin’s actions suggested she was running for President in 2012 rather than VP in 2008. But that doesn’t mean I think she’d be successful. Here are my thoughts why I’m not all that worried about a Palin juggernaut in 2012.

I understand why the right has seized on Palin with such enthusiasm. They were successful with Bush because he allowed them to unify ideologically contradictory stances. Neocon imperialism and its associated crony defense capitalism is not a fiscally conservative position. Moreover, the promise of Compassionate Conservatism could only appease the charitable instincts of a lot of Conservative Christians so long. Mostly, though, Bush was only able to sustain these irreconcilable positions for five years or so by being an empty cipher–appealing to Neocons, fiscal conservatives, and Christian Conservatives–with the force of personality, thereby hiding the reality that at least one of those three groups (as it happened, fiscal conservatives and to a lesser degree, Christian Conservatives) would be ignored.

Palin is similar, only with her, the Republicans get to further obscure the emptiness of her positions with sex appeal. All the calls on Palin to lead the Republicans out of the apparent disaster they’re about to undergo are premised on the hope that she can wink and demagogue her way out of the contradictions to the claims they make.

But such hopes for Palin’s leadership are most likely to fail.

To understand why, consider first of all the two people who, in 2004, seemed poised to inherit George Bush’s mantle: Bill Frist and George Allen. Because you can no longer hide corruption, incompetence, and ugly racism, they were completely forgotten long before the primaries started. Conditions suggest that Palin’s going to meet a similar–if not worse–fate. 

That’s true, first of all, because the exposure of the campaign will bring some unanticipated setbacks to her. The Alaska legislature, for example, will return to consider what to do about the legislative finding that Palin abused her power. Significantly, they may well do so after she loses badly and after Republicans lose a long-held Republican Senate seat to yet more abuse of power; with each day, the reasons Alaskan Republicans would want to protect Palin grow weaker. Then there’s the Personnel Board investigation, that looks like it will be way more serious–and critical–than Palin ever planned it would be. Just as potentially damaging to Palin, there are the other abuses of power: the free trips for her kids and the per diems which will be investigated and may well be taxed if not elevated into even bigger ethics problems. Just as likely, Palin may be taxed for her use of the $150,000 wardrobe. (Imagine Palin getting a $30,000 tax bill as her reward for running for VP!) The Palins are likely to be the target of a suit by Mike Wooten’s union if not Wooten himself and I wouldn’t be surprised if Wooten sought custody of his kids.  And then there’s the possibility that further investigation of their house will reveal it was a big scam Sarah pulled on the city of Wasilla, or that the emails she has stalled on releasing will include other shockers. In short, Sarah has merely succeeded in postponing most of the repercussions that will come from the increased scrutiny until after the election–and it is by no means clear that she will escape unharmed. At the very least, her claim to be a reformer in Alaska won’t fare well.

Then there’s the fact that she’s got at least two more years as governor before 2012–and there is no evidence that she is any more competent at governing than George Bush. So long as oil prices remain where they are, she’s going to have a difficult time meeting the increased needs of an inflation-wracked Alaska. She almost certainly will continue to break her promises on spending cuts. And the only way she will be able to deliver on her thus far premature promise of a natural gas pipeline project is if she gets cozy with the oil companies she likes to claim she has taken on. So the three claims on which she ran this time–that she was a fiscal conservative, that she had taken on the oil companies and succeeded in "building" a pipeline, and that she is a reformer–will no longer be operative in 2012.

Finally, there’s the fact that she is unliked by a majority of the country. Her favorability ratings are negative in most polls. She was persistently accused–even by the media–of being a shameless liar. And with WardrobeGate and YouTubes of her appearances, she is a national laughingstock. Sure, Republicans might ignore her unpopularity. The Neocons and Christianist Industry leaders who would like to make a project of her may convince the party to embrace her anyway (indeed, that seems to be the goal of the post-election frenzy they’ve got planned). But they’re fighting an up-hill battle because he brand is already ruined. I hope they spend a lot of energy investing in that brand rather than focusing on–say–Bobby Jindal or Charlie Crist. But I suspect they’re committed to doing so because she excites them sexually, and not out of any rational assessment of whether she’s the person to lead the party out of minority status. 

So, in spite of all the frenzy surrounding Sarah right now, I doubt she’ll be leading the party in four years. I’ll do a follow-up on where I think they’ll end up going. But for now, at least, Palin’s concerns have to be on the immediate future, not four years from now.

Gosh, you think this is why Sanctimonious Joe got all complimentary of Obama the other day?

Democratic leaders are discussing a major reshuffling of Senate committee chairmanships, according to multiple sources, and the proposed changes include ousting Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) from his coveted chairmanship.

Lieberman, a former Democrat who supports Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president, is likely to lose his gavel on the Homeland Security Committee he has chaired since January 2007, say the sources who see him being replaced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), the committee’s third-ranking Democrat.

The article is more interesting, though, for the changes it describes on other committees, assuming (touch win) Obama does pull this off on Tuesday. 

In a change that I think is a marginal improvement over the weak leadership of Jello Jay Rockefeller, DiFi looks set to take over SSCI.

The shift also hinges on Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) stepping down as chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which aides say is included in the proposed changes. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) would replace him. Byrd, who turns 91 in November, has been hospitalized three times this year and some have questioned if he is capable of leading the committee.

Other moves include Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) taking over the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) taking over the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) moving to the helm of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

There is no set plan to replace Biden, but one source cited Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) as a possibility.

However, another Democratic source said Dodd is likely to hold onto his chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee and be available to replace Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, should Kennedy’s health fail.

[snip]

Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), who is currently the Democratic Conference Secretary but has only a subcommittee chairmanship, is likely to take over the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, while Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) would likely stay chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Leahy still wants the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, sources said, but also wants to be a key player in any Supreme Court nominations from an Obama presidency.

If Dodd does give up the Banking Committee, the responsibility is likely to fall to Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) instead of the next-most senior Democrat, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who suffered a stroke in December 2006 and returned to the Senate in September 2007.

As for SSCI, DiFi may not always agree with us, but she’s got a lot more backbone than Jello Jay, and her position on Judiciary (which I presume she’ll keep) gives her a more balanced view of what is legal.

I’m also fascinated by Schumer’s pick-up of Senate Rules Committee. I’ve been wondering when he would come and ask for something–having served as DSCC chair two successful elections in a row and lining up to do it again, Schumer’s got a lot of bargaining power (and, with his hands on the purse strings of DSCC, power over those candidates he has helped get elected). So why’s he want Rules?

The big issue, it looks like, is what happens with Dodd–does he stay at Banking to work through the crisis, or does he take over Biden’s plum position at Foreign Relations?

Nielsen reports that McCain is surging his advertising dollars in "swing states" (for the most part, states formerly known as "red").

Yesterday Sen. John McCain boosted his TV advertising units in seven key swing states — Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, closing the gap between his advertising and Sen. Barack Obama’s.

On Sunday, Oct. 26, McCain ran just 331 TV ad units in those seven states — 308% fewer than the 1,350 ad units Obama ran that day.  

But on Monday, Obama’s lead in these key battleground states shrank to 113% — or a margin of 1,528 ad units, after McCain’s campaign increased the number of TV ad units it ran in those states by 308%, to 1,353 units.

I guess McCain has finally figured out that he needs to win a few more Bush states to have a prayer of winning this race.

But here’s the thing. Check out the number of people who have already voted in CO, FL, GA, OH, and VA (with the exception of VA and GA, totals are through yesterday):

CO: 813,948 people–or 37.9% of 2004’s total

FL: 2,063,157 people–or 27% of 2004’s total

GA: 1,206,891 people as of today–or 36.4% of 2004’s total

OH: 309,041 between Cuyahoga and Franklin counties–or 25.3% of 2004’s totals in those two counties

VA: 50,350 in Fairfax county as of Friday–10.9% of 2004’s total in that county

So McCain has finally decided to get serious about advertising to these states–after 4.5 million people have already voted.