The Political Whore

Why do I do this to myself? I get a call from perfectly nice people at the Greater Pinellas Democratic Club asking me to speak at one of their meetings (tonight at 6:30, to be precise) and I agree and then I am asked what topic, and I choose to speak on “Fixing Tampa Bay Politics.”

I should have opted for “Getting the Palestinians and Jews Together for Middle East Peace” instead. Tampa Bay politics are hopelessly damaged, so where do I even start?

You’ll have to attend to hear. And no, one of my suggestions will NOT be a plea for kumbaya-like bipartisanship or the like.

The social hour starts at 6 pm (let’s hope for the Club’s sake and listeners’ sakes that they’ve stocked a lot of vodka for me) and the meeting lasts until about 8 pm. It is at Banquet Masters in Pinellas Park, 8100 Park Boulevard. For reservations, call 727-360-3971.

By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

President Obama spoke at Notre Dame’s commencent address on Sunday. There has been some controversy as to whether Notre Dame would honor him with an honorary law degree or not.  Some from Notre Dame are opposed to Obama receiving a honorary degree because of his policy preferences, such as abortion, have not reflected the Catholic morality.

The controversy over honoring Obama with a degree may not be the most impacting news story in the world, but it does speak volumes on the issue of morality and religion and how they intersect with politics.

See video of Obama getting his honorary degree at Notre Dame after the jump.

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By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.

The idea of Rush Limbaugh filling the GOP’s power vacuum has dominated the media for the past month. The most obvious example was the TV ad paid by the Americans United for Change (AUFC), which claims that Republican senators are picking up their queues from Limbaugh.

The rationale for this ad, according to Brad Woodhouse, President of AUFC, is that “Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party. He says jump and Eric Cantor and other Republican leaders say how high.” To call Limbaugh the leader of the Republican Party is to lose the meaning of the word ‘leader’. He has no political power obviously, but as Fiore and Barabak from the L.A. Times put it, “Rush Limbaugh has his grip on the GOP microphone”.

The important question, however, isn’t how much influence Limbaugh has. His influence is apparent, especially now that CPAC honored him with the “Defender of the Constitution Award”. Assuming that he does have his finger on the conservative pulse, what we should ask is how Limbaugh will affect policies designed with the intention of “change,” and how will American respond to this.

The answer to this lies in the closing speech he gave to CPAC on Saturday.

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As President Obama preps for his first address to a joint session of Congress tonight at 9 p.m., the punditocracy is going wild with predictions and desires of what he will/should say. He’s catching heat for being a doomsayer so far instead of the hopeful candidate whose pop art depiction graced untold Hope posters. This is a tough speech for him: he must be hopeful and realistic at the same time. He must explain how his borrowing trillions of dollars from the Chinese squares with his desire to cut deficit spending. He has to roll out an austere budget proposal yet still pad it with social programs and safety-net spending that his party demands.

The New York Times sets the table for him by polling and finding Obama remains enormously popular:

President Obama is benefiting from remarkably high levels of optimism and confidence among Americans about his leadership, providing him with substantial political clout as he confronts the nation’s economic challenges and opposition from nearly all Republicans in Congress, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

A majority of people surveyed in both parties said Mr. Obama was striving to work in a bipartisan way, but most faulted Republicans for their response to the president, saying the party had objected to the $787 billion economic stimulus plan for political reasons. Most said Mr. Obama should pursue the priorities he campaigned on, the poll found, rather than seek middle ground with Republicans.

Jacob Heilbrunn uses that poll data as his jumping off point for labeling Obama’s speech on the economy tonight as the epitaph for the conservative movement:

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Below is the full 17-minute version of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.