Can Albany Be Reformed? Also, New Yorkers Don't Care for Spitzer as Mayor in 2013

NEW YORK

• New York awaits more reform (by Jim McGrath, Albany Times Union/The Observation Deck) The portion of the budget that funds legislative operations specifically includes $1.5 million for LATFOR. Yet this would have been the ideal time to instead put that money toward the independent redistricting commission that so many legislators profess to support.
• Andrew Cuomo, the press and the war on partisan redistricting (BY JOSH BENSON, Capital) The danger, for anyone interested in putting an end to a process that protects unresponsive officials, is not that Cuomo will fail to get the legislature to go along with him; it is that he will cut a deal, in exchange for something else he wants, that would allow the legislature to keep a firmer hand in the process of drawing electoral lines than the reform proposal currently calls for.
• New Yorkers prefer Spitzer not run for mayor: poll (Reuters) Almost two-thirds of New Yorkers do not want disgraced former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer to run for mayor of their city in 2013, a new poll found on Friday.

New York's dysfunctional and secretive state government

True enough, New York's dysfunctional and secretive state government desperately needs fumigation, with both political parties sharing in the blame. But Mr. Spitzer's head-butting approach to redemption -- involving the arbitrary use of power and bully-boy tactics -- was no improvement. As for reform, his first budget grew state spending at three times the rate of inflation, and is a major reason the state now faces a $4.5 billion deficit. When the governor tried to reform the state's bloated Medicaid program, the health-care workers' union ran a TV campaign against him, and he quickly caved..... ("Eliot the 'Enforcer'", Wall Street Journal)

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• NORTH CAROLINA: Superdelegates and the will of voters (News & Observer)
• MISSISSIPPI: Clinton or Obama? Mississippi's time (Clarion Ledger) *** Can Clinton Make Mississippi a Race? (Time)
• PENNSYLVANIA: Clinton, Obama Campaigns Gear Up For Pa.(PITTSBURGH-KDKA)
• TEXAS: Bill Clinton Went On Rush Limbaugh’s Show Day Of Texas Primary (JOE GANDELMAN, The Moderate Voice)
• DELAWARE: Closed primary leaves some voters with no choice (Cape Gazette)
• WYOMING: Obama wins caucus in nation's least populous state (Tufts Daily)
• NEW YORK POLITICS: Calls For Spitzer's Resignation Begin (Elizabeth Benjamin, Daily Politics/Daily News)

Women For President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns, By Erika Falk, University of Illinois Press (Feminist Review)

CLINTON/OBAMA: Over the Top (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal)

Conversations on Hillary and Obama

Don't underestimate Hillary, says Rich Lowery on RealClearPolitics--even if you don't support her.

"Obama has generated a lot of excitement. Maybe he will end up swamping Clinton, or she'll be done in by some unforeseeable issue or gaffe, or her high negatives will convince Democrats that someone else is a safer bet to get elected next year...."

In the conservative political environment (see what RuPaul thinks...) of the Democratic Party circa 2007, it will take more than waiting for Hillary to make a mistake! (She's already getting briefings from the State Department....) South Carolina is important... If Obama is to distinguish himself, he has to take on Clintonism--as he started to do with his response in the YouTube/CNN debate to the question about meeting with leaders of countrys on the Clinton-Bush non-grata list... Taking on the Dem complicity in the very bad foreign policiy... And then what happened?

Well, for starters, Obama said he'd like to pull our meager volunteer troops from Iraq and redeploy them to Pakistan and Afganistan.... (uhh, isn't this where I came in?....). The Philadelphia Inquirer runs a screaming headline "Obama Vows to Hunt Down Terrorists" for Nedra Pickler's AP article... Tough Talk (to make up for Obama's "mistake" in the YouTube/CNN debate for advocating diplomacy with "rogue nations" (read: countries that the US government doesn't control....) as described in Obama Gets Tough by Liz Halloran for US News & World Report...

And how are THEY (Obama and Clinton) doing with black voters? There's an interesting dialogue between Francis L. Holland and Gwen about whether black voters will support Obama.

Gwen says: As long as the conversation gets controlled by the establishment and the pundits, Clintononism reigns....

Holland replies: It's up to Obama to convince Black people that he can win or that they should vote for him in order to increase his chances of becoming vice president of the United States....

A good black candidate is an isllusion: Eugene Robinson speaks...

Lenora Fulani wants more debate...

Newt Gingrich thinks there'll be a Clinton/Obama ticket (no need to speculate about who's on first in that arrangement....)

Andrew Sullivan writes in The Atlantic: The choice between Clinton and Obama is the choice between a defensive crouch and a confident engagement....

Richard Morse (a Clinton Democrat) on Huffington Post says: Frankly, if the only way the Democrats can win the White House is by having an Iraq disaster then, as a population, we're f**ked....

Well, aren't we "f**ked" anyway? Unless..........??????

Andrew Golis on TPMCafe says there's a bit of Clintonian political defensiveness among Boomers...

And just to check in on New York politics for a minute, check out the Daily News article: However, this "scandal" (Gov. Spitzer got caught red-handed in his pursuit of Total Control) is not Nixonian, but rather Clintonian: inept and ill-advised (but not illegal) behavior has emboldened critics and distracted the public from the merits of a policy agenda that the majority of the electorate supports....

The New York Times, ever the Clinton appologist, puts it all together......

And from Black Agenda on MediaChannel in the The Black masses have not undergone any political sea change; they have simply been abandoned by their representatives, who have been suborned or terrorized by money and concentrated media and lobby power. Corporations have embraced “diversity” as a weapon....

Let's think about this....
Nancy