Daily Kos: Midday open thread

Midday open thread

A dazed NH GOP tries to regain its footing. It'll have its hands full trying to hold the Sununu Senate seat in 2008, plus overcome solid deficits in the state legislature.

Ouch.

Memo to Jim VandeHei: In a mere 48 hours you've gone from a guy doing an interesting thing to a guy I can't wait to see fail. Your victory lap before you've written a story or cashed a paycheck -- your boast that you'll be better than the New York Times and Washington Post -- your revelation that the Post came in with an "unprecedented" offer to induce you to stay but you told them to stick it -- and especially your gloating that big-name journalists have come "begging" for jobs (and the ones lucky enough to be hired will be on TV, too!) is really, uh, classless. It's bad out there if you hadn't noticed. Count your blessings on this Thanksgiving, and difficult as it may be, try not to enjoy all that groveling too much.

There's one big lesson I learned in my Silicon Valley dot.com days -- the more grandiose the talk when launching a venture, the more ill-will it generates and the more knives come out. Google came out of nowhere to take over the internet, despite grandiose claims from the likes of Microsoft. We all saw what happened to the pathetic Pajamas Media, while Daily Kos has quietly risen into a position of prominence. That's why I'm being low-key in my projects for next year. They'll be quietly launched. Some will fail, some might succeed. It's better to let success do the talking than being a boastful oaf before your project is even off the ground.

I agree with Reid.

The degree to which the new Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill despises Vice President Dick Cheney is a big plus for President Bush. Consider why incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrapped an idea to impeach Bush: "Two words: Dick Cheney," he says, joking that it would vault the veep into the Oval Office.

It's a point which is so obvious, I wonder why the "impeach now!" people don't get it. "President Cheney" is fucking scary. I'd rather focus on solidifying our gains in Congress and taking state legislatures and governorships and the White House in 2008 than waste another second of our time over the Worst President Ever.

The WSJ has a handy tool to track pollster results in the top contested Senate races.