Oops.

My idea (scroll down) that Sarah Palin appoint herself to fill the Senate seat that Ted Stevens hasn't yet been re-elected to or resigned from, while fun, won't work, alas. According to Diane Rehm (who needs source documents? I have a radio, for God's sake) Alaska law requires a special election to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. And yes, each state really does get to decide how to fill vacancies in Federal elected posts, and there's no uniformity.

Liddy Dole has been attacked on all sides for her "Godless Hagan" ad (scroll down again) but says she's hearing anecdotes on her bus tour of North Carolina(the "Eliza-BUS Tour!" and no I'm not making that up, link here) from people who like it and are appalled at Hagan, so she's keeping it on the air. Her campaign is sticking with the story that it's completely accurate.

From the News & Obeserver (link here) long time GOP strategist Carter Wrenn says "the next sound you may hear will be the roof falling in on Liddy Dole."

I think that, like so much else in North Carolina this year, the Dole-Hagan race is too close to call.

So over the top it's almost funny

Before you watch, you should know that Kay Hagan is a Presbyterian Sunday school teacher and has been for many years.

Who shall blog the bloggers themselves?

From my favorite conservative blog, Best of the Web Today, the following paragraph, the last sentence of which is a most profound understatement:

"This is beginning to look like a bad year for Republicans. The GOP's latest misfortune is yesterday's conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska on seven felony corruption accounts. Stevens, 84, who has been in the Senate just under 40 years, is up for re-election this year, and decided to stick it out and run despite his age and legal problems. He has been narrowly trailing Democrat Mark Begich, but that was before the conviction. It's hard to see how this can help him."

The article goes on to suggest that Ted Stevens might keep the seat in Republican hands by promising to resign immediately following the election so that the governor could appoint someone else to the position. It might work. Alaskans are a pretty red group of folks, and wouldn't like having a Democrat representing them in the Senate.

Taranto doesn't close the loop on this, but it would be great good fun if Governor Palin would appoint herself to Steven's seat, so that she'd be in Washington on inauguration day and could snark about John McCain not being conservative enough from the floor of the Senate.

Actually, I've already voted.

What Tina Fey could do next

I once worked for a large insurance company that was losing money. Management introduced sweeping new changes to restrict the outflow of cash. They severely reduced the autonomy of their adjusters, making it much harder for them to settle claims. The plan didn't work the first year, so they clamped down harder and became more even restrictive, introducing new, extremely specific procedures manuals from which deviation was highly discouraged. It still didn't work and the company continued to lose money, so management became ever more deliberate, requiring all adjusters to follow ever-more rigid procedures and manuals from which no deviation was allowed. It never worked, and all the good adjusters quit. I've noticed other corporations do the same thing--if the new Six Sigma program isn't working, it can only be because it wasn't applied strictly enough. Increasingly inflexible strict adherence to the company line is the only way to go, at least until it fails completely. In any kind of judgment job, the only way to manage employees, is to hire good people, train them well, and leave them alone to do their jobs. For the last two weeks any Republican standing in front of a microphone has said the same thing: you should be afraid of Obama because he hangs around with terrorists. No matter what the question is, that's the answer. It may be disciplined, it may be rigidly on-message, but it isn't working. If every Republican on TV had something personal and different to say about why he or she supports McCain, they might actually reach a swing voter or two. Clamping down harder and harder on a negative message is accomplishing nothing.

It's too early to start talking like this, of course.

From a mordant piece by the thoughtful Paul Begala and the sarcastic James Carville, who say from their position waaay across the aisle that the Republican party needs to decide what it is:

"The neocons may want to blame the theocons. The economic conservatives will likely blame the big spenders. The conflagration will be so multi-dimensional we'll need a program to sort out the players. They will need to answer fundamental questions: What does it mean to be a Republican? Do Republicans support laissez-faire or nationalized banking? Do Republicans support a balanced budget or half-trillion-dollar deficits? Do Republicans want a "humble foreign policy" like George W. Bush, or preventive war against countries that pose no threat, like, umm, George W. Bush? Are Republicans the party of limited government or a vast Medicare prescription drug benefit? Are they wary of Big Brother or eager to expand warrantless wiretaps? Do they support Christian values or torture? Are they the party that believes that cutting-edge technology can shoot a missile out of the sky or the party that believes humans and dinosaurs walked the earth simultaneously?"

Click here to see the whole article.

American Nobelists from the New York Times

I mentioned James Taranto's blog "Best of the Web Today" yesterday (link here). One of his favorite topics of commentary over the last few years has been a New York Times columnist whom he consistently refers to as "former Enron adviser Paul Krugman." I'm not sure what the Enron connection is, but Taranto is reliably accurate on his facts, so it's there somewhere. Taranto strongly disagrees with Krugman's opinions as expressed in the Times and has said so often.

I heard on the way in to work today that Krugman, a strong Obama supporter, has received the Nobel prize for economics, just as the world financial system took a few tentative steps back from the edge of the abyss. I looked with anticipation to Taranto's blog today for comment on this, but alas, he has nothing to say on the matter.

Perhaps tomorrow.

BBC story about Krugman here.