by BooMan

Mississippi First District Special Election:

TRAVIS W. CHILDERS (D) 23,552 54%

GREG DAVIS (R) 20,404 46%
51% precincts reporting

Nebraska Senatorial primary:

Kleeb 5286 72%
Raimondo 1572 21%
5% reporting

West Virginia Presidential Primary:

Clinton 54,798 63%

Obama 26,126 30%
23% reporting

EPA Official Ousted For Offending Dow Chemical

At the request of Dow Chemical, the Bush administration forced out one of its own hand-picked EPA regulators on May 1st because she naively attempted to do her job by enforcing the law against Dow. EPA officials told Mary Gade, the federal agency's top Midwest regulator to step down from her post or be fired by June 1. Bush appointed Gade in 2006, but Gade ran afoul of the White House when she pressured Dow Chemical to clean up dioxin pollution extending 50 miles downstream from the company's Michigan headquarters. Dow asked EPA headquarters to intervene. In response EPA chief Stephen Johnson's top deputies repeatedly grilled Gade about the case. When she refused to lay off Dow, they stripped her of her authority and told her to quit or be fired. "There is no question this is about Dow," Gade said. "I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what we did."

Gade was formerly a loyal George W. Bush supporter and adviser. In 2000, she praised then-governor and candidate Bush for his "fresh approach" and "strong leadership." But her loyalty couldn't shield her from an administration bent on insulating its chemical industry cronies from public health laws.

Bush's Misleading Claims About the Arctic Refuge Denied by Federal Officials

by BooMan

I no longer know what the people at Open Left
are even talking about. What's worse, I find that I don't even care.
It's a startling development, where they have developed their own
Hegelian language and deterministic dialectical materialism. In this
new 'analysis' the 'Creative Class' takes the place of the proletariat
as some kind of innately good, but confessedly elitist, conglomerate of
good government goo-goo egghead superhero professionals. A heroic 'Best
and the Brightest' that isn't really all that progressive because the only real progressive is the man in the hardhat.

Does that make sense? No? Good, just be glad you aren't a philosophy
major like me. Because reading that stuff is like a classical musician
listening to rock-stars playing out of tune.

This election has been about two things. First, the war in unpopular.
Second, identity politics, where demography is destiny. High
information voters vote for Obama, low-information voters vote for
Clinton. Education levels, race, gender, and geographical location are
all better predictors of voting behavior than 'class'. The election has
not been influenced in any meaningful way by distractions like the Rev.
Wright or the Tuzla sniper saga, and all the Lakoffian wanking in the
world won't change that.

In any case, I'm tired of reading about this primary. You can use this
as an open thread for the primary results in West Virginia and
Nebraska, and the special election in Mississippi.

by BooMan
Tue May 13th, 2008 at 01:26:30 PM EST

People actually write this stuff:

Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart's 1984
campaign suffered when it was revealed that he had changed his
signature several times over the years. "Who is Gary Hart?" his rivals
demanded.

That's a new level of stupid.

There is an article in this morning's Washington Post
about some of the racial resistance volunteers for Barack Obama have
encountered on the campaign trail. It depressing, and somewhat
misleading, as out in the field racist responses are few and far in
between. But they do happen, and they happen more often in some regions
than in others. A big part of the Post article focuses on Kokomo, Indiana, and it's no big surprise that there is lingering racism there.

On July 4, 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest Klan gathering in history -- an estimated 200,000 followers flocked to a local park.

On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school
students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major
thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their
windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans,
according to Obama campaign staffers.

Frederick Murrell, a black Kokomo High School senior, was not there but
heard what happened. He was more disappointed than surprised. During
his own canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had "a lot of doors
slammed" in his face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip
in broad daylight? "I was very shocked at first," Murrell said. "Then
again, I wasn't, because we have a lot of racism here."