Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Obamacare panic. Dismayed by the healthcare.gov fiasco, shaken by constituent complaints over canceled health insurance policies, and worried about the 2014 elections, even liberal Democrats in Congress are proposing risky legislative fixes of the cure is worse than the disease genre. Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly thinks Democrats need to take an even strain, and I agree.
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Death spiral at Lee newspapers. After reading at jimromenesko.com a brief report on the troubled newspaper chain’s bad habits of reporting less news while paying big bonuses to the executives responsible for the losses, I was going to write a long post on the subject, but Don Pogreba at Intelligent Discontent beat me to it with an outstanding post that’s a must read. If you have a retirement plan, you probably don’t want Lee’s stock to be part of it.
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Bohlinger’s campaign. Is former Lt. Governor John Bohlinger’s campaign a last hurrah, a last gallup from an old war horse who can’t stand having been put out to pasture? Or it is something else, perhaps an attempt to avenge Brian Schweitzer’s ignominious demise as a potential Senate candidate? After almost identical stories in the National Journal yesterday, and Talking Points Memo today, I’m beginning to wonder. Why is the 77-year-old recovering Republican running for a nomination he has no hope of winning, and for a six-year term he might not live long enough to complete?
Neither NJ nor TPM mentioned Bohlinger’s age. Instead, they reported how he stole some of the limelight from Steve Daines’ “I’m running for the Senate” announcement last week, and quoted Schweitzer as saying Bohlinger would win were the primary held today (I have my doubts on that). Those were nice media scores for Bohlinger’s flacks, and miserable examples of sloppy reporting that should bring shame on two good publications.
Bohlinger, incidentally, is not as liberal as his advocates claim. Intelligent Discontent reports his record on abortion is checkered at best (he’s Catholic, which cannot be ignored), and that his support for labor could have been stronger.
If Bohlinger actually files for the Democratic primary, he enables John Walsh, the certain Democratic nominee, to raise money for both the primary and general elections, and gives Walsh a chance to sharpen his campaigning skill, both good things. Harry Reid might not want a genuine primary contest, but I don’t share Reid’s fear on that. But if Reid does have legitimate concerns over Bohlinger’s motives, well, so do I. Is his candidacy a last hurrah — or is it the final flight of an avenging angel?