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So, the big question is: what are the odds? What chance does each of these three scenarios -- win, lose, or stalemate -- have of actually becoming reality in a short stretch of time (one month, perhaps two at the outside)?
Here's a quick test for whether you are being fed speculation and fluff, or whether you are being told real information: Are there numbers involved? If so, then thank a scientist (and the editor or producer who allows such science on the air, I guess).
Are Democrats starting to play some offense? Three reports seem to lead to this conclusion, although at this point it is too early to tell what sort of effect this will have on the political landscape, for both the near future and for the 2012 election season. For now, it is refreshing to see Democrats pushing back on a few key issues, whatever their chances of legislative (or political) success happen to be. And the Democrats have picked three pretty good issues with which to launch this particular offensive -- the mortgage crisis, gay marriage, and taxing millionaires.
While technically true ("job growth" is not the same thing as the unemployment rate), but that last sentence could also have been written as: "the unemployment rate fell at the fastest rate in over fifty years -- since 1958, to be exact." Both are true, and yet they tell very different stories -- "a grim nine percent" versus "fell at the fastest rate in over fifty years."
In January, President Obama had the biggest improvement in his public approval rating of his entire presidency. In February, Obama consolidated and built on his January "bump," by posting his second-most-improved month ever. This turnaround has set the clock back for Obama over a full year (in terms of his overall polling numbers), to roughly where he was in December, 2009. All in all, not a bad month for the president.
We are now roughly twenty months away from the next presidential election. But, rather surprisingly, only one Republican has announced he's running for president -- and he's not exactly a "top tier" candidate. So one has to wonder, where are all the Republicans?
We've got so much to cover this week, we're going to have to move pretty quickly here. In international news, North Africa and the Middle East are still seething. The American news media, however, are (I actually heard this phrase being used by someone with a blowdried haircut the other night on television) experiencing "revolution fatigue." Seriously. They're bored with the whole storyline. Another dictator fell? Crowds of unarmed people being machine-gunned? Yawn. Don't we have an Oscars story we could run, instead?
It's "Budget Season" once again in Washington, and since it's going to be a particularly contentious and complex one this year, it's worth taking a moment at the beginning to provide an overview of the entire process which is about to play out over the next two or three months. There are, at this point, three main budget battles to be fought. One of these isn't strictly a budget battle, but will likely devolve into one, hence its inclusion in the list. Two of these have hard and fast calendar deadlines. All three of them are going to be major political battles, and it's unclear what the outcome of any of them is going to be at this point.
But for now, let's take a quick look back at the week that was, and then spend the rest of the column examining the "narrative" of Obama's speech.
Senator Joe Lieberman will announce tomorrow (from all reports) that he will not be seeking another term in the Senate. Democrats across the land are collectively heaving a large sigh of relief at the news. "So long, Joe," seems to be the prevailing sentiment, although if you listen closely you can hear the muttered "... don't let the door hit you on the way out," or other less-than-endearing sentiments.