The Republicans really are in bad shape if Mississippi is at risk (via the LA Times):

Mississippi, one of the nation’s most conservative states, has not elected a Democratic senator in a quarter-century. It has voted for Republican presidential candidates in the last seven elections.

But this year, there is a real chance that the state will send a Democrat to the Senate.

That prospect is a window onto a remarkable political trend that has been eclipsed by the fireworks surrounding the 2008 presidential contest: Democrats are running strong Senate campaigns in states such as Mississippi, Alaska and North Carolina that Republicans have long taken for granted.

The outlook for the GOP is so grim that party leaders have readily conceded there is no chance they can regain control of the Senate in 2008, even though Democrats’ current majority is slim, 51-49. [...]

In June 2007, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report identified only one race for a Republican Senate seat as a real tossup. Now it identifies seven Republican seats as at risk.

This actually leads back to one of my reasons for supporting Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.  Senator Obama understands that in order to actually get anything done as President, it’s important to have strong majorities in both the House and Senate.  And to that end, the Obama campaign has begun sending staff and money to campaigns which look to take a Republican seat, either on the national or state level.  Frankly, I don’t think the Clinton campaign would have done anything nearly as risky or expansive.  And there’s a good reason for that; it’s a gamble, and if backfires it will probably backfire big.  But if it succeeds, then Obama could enter the White House with a governing majority greater than any Democrat has had since LBJ.  Which is kind of a big deal.

Oh, and in case you’re curious, here is the current polling for the Mississippi Senate race (from Rasmussen):

Appointed U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R), seeking to win the job on his own, remains in a pure toss-up with former Governor Ronnie Musgrove. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Mississippi found Wicker attracts 48% of the vote, while Musgrove earns support from 47%.

Last month, it was Musgrove with the single point lead, 47% to 46%. University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato has noted that this will be a “real political battle” which is “a rarity in a state that’s usually red as red can be.” Mississippi is in the unusual position of having two U.S. Senate races this year due to the retirement of Trent Lott. In December, Wicker was appointed to replace Lott by Governor Haley Barbour. Barbour also set November as the date for an election to replace Lott. Democrats had hoped to have a special election much sooner to avoid giving Wicker eleven months of incumbency. However, the State Supreme Court ruled that the November date would stand.

At the New York Times, Stephen L. Carter argues that affirmative action (as it’s currently constituted) does little to help the black poor:

Cheap is what we like. When political consultants say, “Programs for the poor are poor programs,” what they mean is that poverty plays poorly on the stump. Even John Edwards, in trying to focus the nation’s attention on poverty during his presidential campaign, proposed strategies like raising the minimum wage, which, while admirable, do nothing to help the poor and may, at the margins, even harm them.

University affirmative action programs, whatever their benefits, are no remedy for the problems of the black poor. Perhaps this is why Barack Obama has questioned publicly whether his children should benefit from them and also why leading voices on the black left — Cornel West comes to mind — have proposed that college admissions programs give preferential consideration based on economic class.

Maybe I’ve been reading a bit too much Orlando Patterson (or Bowen and Bok, for that matter), but I’ve never had the impression that affirmative action in college admissions was designed to even benefit the black poor, at least not in huge numbers.  Patterson argues (and I’m inclined to agree) that affirmative action in college admissions  was intended to increase the number of African-Americans (and women and other minorities) represented in elite colleges and professions.  This in turn, is supposed to have the effect creating a sort of institutional inertia, where the existence of African-Americans in higher positions makes it more likely that they will recruit other African-Americans to similar positions.  All in all, this is intended to aid African-American’s integration into a broader society from which they had traditionally been isolated.  And, as Patterson stresses, these policies were targeted at middle and working class African-Americans who otherwise could have worked their way up to elite circles, if not for institutional racism.

If that’s the case, then Carter’s op-ed is a little silly, since he’s basically arguing that affirmative action doesn’t do what it wasn’t intended to do in the first place. 

At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall notices that AP writers have taken to just regurgitating spin from the McCain campaign, in lieu of actually reporting.  Which isn’t terribly surprising, truth be told.  It’s not like there are very many reporters interested in scrutinizing St. John McStraightTalk. 

As sympathetic as I am to Gal Luft’s argument that the United States is fully capable of achieving energy independence in the relatively near-future, I think that the analogy she uses - comparing our efforts to Brazil and Iran’s - isn’t particularly useful:

So Ahmadinejad has launched an energy-independence program designed to shift Iran’s transportation system from gasoline to natural gas, which Iran has plenty of. “If we can change our automobiles’ fuel from gasoline to [natural] gas during the next three-four years,” he said last July, “we won’t need gasoline anymore.” His plan includes a mandate for domestic automakers to make “dual-fuel” cars that can run on both gasoline and natural gas, a crash program to convert used vehicles to run on natural gas and a program to convert Iranian gas stations to serve both kinds of fuel. According to the International Association of Natural Gas Vehicles, more than 100 conversion centers have been built throughout the country: Iranians can drive in with their gasoline-only cars, pay a subsidized fee equivalent to $50 and collect their newly dual-fuelled cars several hours later. Ahmadinejad’s plan, which has been largely ignored by the West, means that within five years or so, Iran could be virtually immune to international sanctions.

While Iran is moving quickly toward energy independence, Brazil is already there. It’s a striking turnaround; three decades ago, the country imported 80 percent of its oil supply. But since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the Brazilians have invested massively in their sugar-based ethanol industry and created a fleet of vehicles that can run on the resulting fuel. According to the Sugar Cane Industry Union (Unica), 90 percent of the new cars sold this year in Brazil will be flexible-fuel vehicles that cost an extra $100 to make but can run on any combination of gasoline and ethanol.

Unlike Brazil or Iran, infrastructure in the United States - roads, agriculture, housing developments, etc. - was built on the assumption that cheap oil would flow for the foreseeable future.  And when the entire superstructure of American living rests on cheap oil, it makes it extremely difficult - and truth be told, risky - to move towards energy independence in the way that Brazil or Iran can.  Both of which aren’t as reliant on oil as we are, and both of which can afford to suffer energy shocks (to a degree).  More importantly, the sheer scale of American energy consumption - the huge number of cars on the road, the staggering number of people in the suburbs - means that any approach must be piecemeal and incremental.  I’m not sure how to begin that approach - I would start with reducing our reliance on industrial agricultural methods - but I do know that there aren’t very many models for transition that we can look at for guidance, including of course, Brazil and Iran.

Speaking of abortion, whenever you read that some state legislature has passed a “medical notification” law, you should keep this in mind:

To force doctors to mouth nonsense language that they flatly can’t believe about a blastocyst being a human being, or about unlikely and unproven possible consequences—well, I don’t think I can finish that sentence. It’s appalling. The very fact that the law must mandate such statements reminds you that there is a furious national debate over precisely this question. Which tells you outright that the 8th Circuit was on crack when it said there isn’t a free speech issue here: The government is forcing doctors to mouth political beliefs that they do not agree with.

When anti-abortion activists say that an embryo is a “person,” they are making a political statement, not a medical one.  We should keep that in mind.

Ralph Nader - perennial presidential candidate, ass-clown, and black man - is coming to Charlottesville next week to shill for his vanity campaign and take pot shots at Barack Obama for actually doing something to increase civic participation.  He’ll be speaking at the Gravity Lounge on July 13th, from 2-4 PM.  I’ll be there.  Since, you know, I hate myself.

In an interview with Christian magazine Relevant, Obama voiced support for banning late-term abortions provided that there is a medical exemption for the health of the mother (specifically excluding mental distress).  And understandably, quite a few progressive bloggers are pissed.  Daily Kos diarist dhonig has this to say:

It means Barack Obama has now come out in favor of banning late-term abortions for the mental health of the mother, including mental health issues due to gross fetal issues with the baby.  In other words, the DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT has now endorsed a position forcing an otherwise healthy woman to take a tragically, perhaps even fatally, deformed fetus to term. [...]

I am so stunned right now, so utterly flabbergasted, I have absolutely no idea what to do.  All I could do this late at night was write this diary, something that will either scroll away in late-night lassitude, or get troll-rated into oblivion with accusations of “purity troll.”  Well folks, if we can’t be “pure” about the First, Fourth, or Eighth Amendments to the Constitution, if we can’t be “pure” about a woman’s right to choose, well, what are we doing here in the first place?

I think Obama is in the wrong here; late-term abortions are almost always a medical necessity, and banning them just makes it more difficult for women to receive the treatment (often life-saving) that they need.  And even though I can understand excluding mental distress from a list of health exemptions (it doesn’t seem life-threatening on its face), the mental distress which can come with pregnancy is just as much a threat to the health of the mother as anything else (it can lead to postpartum depression, among other things). 

That said, as infuriating as it might be, Obama isn’t doing anything other than moving into the mainstream.  A Gallup survey from May of last year found that while 53 percent of Americans supported upholding Roe v. Wade (only 35 percent supported overturning the ruling), a commanding majority of Americans (72 percent) support outlawing late-term abortions (a Pew Forum survey conducted a few months later had similar results, with 75 percent opposing late-term abortions).  Moreover, for close to a majority of voters (49 percent), abortion counts as “one of many important factors” in determining their vote.  Since it’s fairly likely that a majority of these voters are opposed to late-term abortions, it would be stupid and self-defeating to announce full support for the procedure (regardless of the merits of the position). 

Progressives need to recognize that we’re a distinct minority in American politics, and to some degree, outside of the mainstream of political discourse.  Even if we had nominated a progressive - which we haven’t, and probably won’t for some time - he/she would be compelled by the realities of American politics to take similar positions.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve never elected anyone beyond the center-left, and even that is difficult.  To quote Brian again:

This country is not as progressive as I wish it were, and has not consistently elected, even to lower offices, progressive stalwarts in any great numbers. We can talk all year about the reasons why this is the case, but the bottom line is that this nation is, by global standards, conservative. [...]

If you’re not excited about the national candidate, I don’t blame you. I might disagree a bit–I’m excited about the symbolism of electing an African-American, and at the potential for saving the Supreme Court–but not in terms of progressivism, because Obama was never that progressive to begin with. Know how you can tell? He’s the nominee of the party.

Besides, I don’t think we have to worry too much about Obama’s commitment to reproductive rights.  Rhetoric aside, he’s been a pretty consistent defender of reproductive rights, both in the Illinois statehouse and the U.S. Senate.

Jesse Helms is dead.  I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but Helms was a bigot who devoted his life to perpetuating apartheid.  He was a loathsome man, and a disgrace to the this country’s ideals.

Good riddance to the bastard.

Does anyone else think that Andrew Sullivan is too clever by half when he uses phrases like “raise taxes on the successful?”

Brian at Incertus adds a needed bit of perspective to the criticism towards Barack Obama’s “move to the center.”:

Paul’s question presupposes that a candidate he would be excited about would also be electable by a major party, but I think any glimpse at history shows that’s just not the case. Lyndon Johnson may have been the last socially progressive President in terms of legislation (and that completely ignores his Vietnam policy) and he was elected 44 years ago. This country is not as progressive as I wish it were, and has not consistently elected, even to lower offices, progressive stalwarts in any great numbers. We can talk all year about the reasons why this is the case, but the bottom line is that this nation is, by global standards, conservative. [...]

If you’re not excited about the national candidate, I don’t blame you. I might disagree a bit–I’m excited about the symbolism of electing an African-American, and at the potential for saving the Supreme Court–but not in terms of progressivism, because Obama was never that progressive to begin with. Know how you can tell? He’s the nominee of the party.