Bob Herbert:
It’s not like David Paterson had a choice. His decision to give up on a bid for election to governor in his own right was a decision to scrap a campaign that had no real support and absolutely no chance of succeeding. The bottom had completely fallen out of his election bid, and the question now is whether the same is true about his governorship.
There are two immediate questions for voters: Why did the governor select David Johnson, a man with a troubled background and no demonstrated command of state government policies or practices (at one time he was the governor’s driver) to be his most powerful, most trusted adviser? And why, in the name of heaven, did people close to the governor, and perhaps even the governor himself, intervene to protect Mr. Johnson from an ugly domestic violence allegation?
He remains under pressure to resign, and rightly so.
NY Times:
Now that Gov. David A. Paterson has abandoned his campaign, however, all those assumptions about Mr. Cuomo — not to mention his record — will be scrutinized and challenged, if and when he does what everyone expects he will in a matter of weeks: quickly wrap up his investigation of Mr. Paterson and officially enter the race.
He's either ready for the spotlight, or he's not the next Governor. Chances are, he's ready (he wasn't always.)
Colbert King:
President Obama can't say he wasn't warned. But the advice was ignored. Now it has come to pass. To explain:
Eighteen months ago, I warned then-presidential candidate Barack Obama that should he get elected, he should not allow his administration to fall into the clutches of Washington insiders ["A Heretic's Advice To Obama," June 21, 2008]. The caution sign was raised based on years of observing this town's political movers and shakers at work...
But let the new president hit a rough patch -- as all chief executives do -- and some Washington insiders will go to ground in a heartbeat.
That's because the last thing Washington insiders want is association with anything resembling a bumbling failure. Their immediate concern is to salvage their reputations and maintain their A-list standing in this ever-so-status-conscious town.
See Milbank. See Rahm.
Jonah Goldberg: Since I have nothing serious to say about health reform, let me play guest writer for Dennis Miller on SNL. What? Miller's not on SNL? And he stopped being funny a decade ago? That leaves an opening for me. I'm at least unfunny as he ever was. See, the sketch opens with Obama at the health care summit, lecturing Republicans...
Pollster.com (Harry Joe Enten):
Yesterday, Nate Silver posted a well thought out post on why the 50% incumbent rule no longer applies. I think Nate's post is straight on, but I think that he misses a potentially larger point. In his chart, you'll notice something very interesting: no incumbent from 06, 08, or 09 won when trailing by more than 1.5 points in the January to June average of polls. I think that points to potentially very large problems for Democrats in the 2010 United States Senate Elections. Why? If current polling averages hold through June, the Democrats would be on the verge on losing the United States Senate, according to Silver's findings. What follows is a simple rundown of the top (and some not so top) United States Senate races involving seats held by Democrats. I apply Nate's rule of averaging all the polls available (including partisan ones). I supply a two month (starting in January as Nate did) and six month (using length of time of) Nate's average (when available) to try and catch short and long term trends. To be fair, I take only the highest polling Republican candidates. I don't intend this to be a be all end all, but the results are still amazingly scary for Democrats.
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.
Leonard Pitts, Jr.:
A few words on the meaning of tea.
They are occasioned by a recent commentary by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. The commentary — you can find it on YouTube — scores the tea party movement as the outcry of people who haven't yet made peace with the fact that their president is black.
Everything else, said Olbermann, is euphemism. Taxes? Socialism? Budget deficit? No, he argued, when you strip away the pretenses and rationalizations, "it's still racism," and they hate the president only because he is black.
One is reminded of the 2008 campaign in which many of Barack Obama's opponents insisted people only "supported" him because he was black.
The truth, it always seemed to me, was more nuanced. People liked Obama's policies, his eloquence and his fierce intelligence. The fact that he was black, that his election would turn history on its ear, was a desirable bonus, but only that — icing on the cake, but not the cake itself.
I submit that a rough inverse of that dynamic now helps define the tea party movement.
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