President-elect Barack Obama will hold a news conference today and name Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as Secretary of Interior and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter will name Salazar's Senate replacement. Tonight the local news is reporting the top names are Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Reps. Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and John Salazar. One clue may be Ritter's statement today:

Wwe are mindful that there is a great deal of work to be done at the very beginning of Congress, the very early parts of January, so we'll take all that into consideration.

That signals to me he will pick someone already in Congress. Also important: Who is a proven fund-raiser. The 2010 election isn't far away and Republicans will make a strong attempt to get the Senate seat back. [More...]

As someone who does not think experience matters much in politics, I have no real objection to Caroline Kennedy as Senator. I do think she should speak publically about her positions on the issues. Jane Hamsher, who mars her piece with a very sexist line ("doing her nails"), does make a good point:

I thought at least she's get out before the cameras and start making her case to the public before she announced her intentions . . .

That seems reasonable. I do not agree with the "dynasty" objections - life and politics has never been fair - but the public knowing her positions on the issues seems a reasonable request.

Speaking for me only

The New York Times and Washington Post report Caroline Kennedy has now told New York Governor David Paterson she'd like to be the new Senator from New York.

Several people are questioning her credentials and whether she's sufficiently experienced for the position.

Caroline Kennedy is a Columbia Law graduate and co-author of two books: In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action and The Right to Privacy . In addition, [More...]:

The Democratic Strategist is publishing a series of white papers on Democratic electoral goals in the near future. Ed Kilgore (PDF) discusses the prospects for 2010. It is a good piece but, imo, buries the lede:

The “reaction versus realignment” debate over the implications of this year’s Democratic victory continues to percolate through the mainstream media and the blogosphere. For the record, I agree with Paul Starr’s assessment that it represents a “realignment opportunity” that could either succeed, fail, or hang in suspended animation, depending in no small part on the Obama administration’s governing ability (in conjunction with a Democratic Congress).

(Emphasis supplied.) No small part? Kilgore is the master of understatement here. It is, in my view, almost entirely dependent on the performance of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress. Obama will either be FDR or Jimmy Carter politically, imo. I doubt there is a middle ground. More . . .

In his discussion at FDL, Paul Krugman wrote:

. . . I should say that I don’t buy the idea that inequality and stagnant wages, bad as they are, are responsible for the financial mess. You can have a fully employed economy producing disgusting luxury goods rather than middle-class necessities; it’s not nice, but it can work.

Perhaps that is true regarding the financial crisis, but is it true regarding our economic crisis? In the modern American economy, as Krugman himself notes, consumption is 70% of GDP. Even if the long term goal is to increase savings (also known by economists as "investment"), in the short term, can we have an sustainable economic recovery that does not cut income inequality and reverse wage stagnation? More . . .

I find it interesting that Cole endorses the Obama as conventional pol interpretation offered by Daniel Larison:

Having finally recognized that Obama is a savvy political operator who is interested in effective government to pursue what are still broadly progressive goals, and having started to grasp that Obama is not a neo-McGovernite radical dove but is actually rather hawkish and establishmentarian in his instincts . . . People have a hard time making sense of a politician who can appear as the friend of the Hyde Park Independents and the Daley machine when each connection suits him, because it isn’t supposed to work that way.

I am not at all sure why it is not supposed to work that way (FDR worked with Tammany and reformers) - but I do find it amusing that this interpretation of Obama as conventional pol is now considered singularly insightful, when it was once considered an affront (I know this because this has always been my interpretation of Obama and I affronted most Obama supporters with it).

Speaking for me only

Bob Stein:

In killing the Detroit bailout yesterday, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Toyota joined his colleagues Dick Shelby of Honda and Bob Corker of Nissan in upholding a basic American principle: Blame all economic woes on greedy unions. . . . [This]is a perfect example of what the great journalist Murray Kempton described half a century ago [-] “There is a certain kind of politician who stays safely in the hills during a battle and then comes down and shoots the wounded.”

More...

You know who I really want to hear on this, John McCain:

President Bush and the Treasury Department signaled on Friday morning that they stood ready to use some of the $700 billion bailout program for financial institutions for the Big Three car makers, after Republican senators refused to support a compromise proposal to rescue the automakers. “Under normal economic conditions we would prefer that markets determine the ultimate fate of private firms,” said Dana Perino, Mr. Bush’s spokeswoman, in a carefully nuanced statement released just minutes before the New York financial markets opened. “However, given the current weakened state of the U.S. economy, we will consider other options if necessary — including use of the TARP program — to prevent a collapse of troubled automakers.”

John McCain had a lot to say about "socialism" during the campaign. I am curious to hear him on the subject now. I think we all know President Bush is trying to avoid being a modern day Herbert Hoover. But will the GOP stick to Hooverism as its competing vision to the Democratic agenda?

Speaking for me only

In its editorial today, the New York Times quotes Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell thusly:

Senate Republicans determined to block the $14 billion rescue package for Chrysler and General Motors have trotted out predictable rhetoric about the dangers of Big Government. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, warned on Thursday that “a government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take everything we have.”

Herbert Hoover lives! In the Republican Party.

Speaking for me only

The Senate has effectively killed the chances of the auto bailout. Leading the oppositon: Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Mr. McConnell said he and other Republicans had drawn a clear distinction between the Treasury’s $700 billion economic stabilization, which they helped pass in October, and the proposal to aid the American automakers, which he said raised questions about which industries or individuals deserve help.

[More....]

Corrente links to Dee Dee Myers on the Favreau incident. The part I really liked:

[T]here is a larger issue at stake. At what point does sexist behavior get taken seriously?

Indeed, that is a question we have been asking for the past many years.

Speaking for me only

Ross Douthat is right that the Republican Party did not, strictly speaking, get wiped out because of their anti-choice stance. That is just a constant albatross around GOP necks with women voters. And of course the reactionary image the Republicans have earned is a part of the overall image problem that it has. But that does not explain the 2008 election - 8 years of the George W. Bush Presidency explains it. But when Douthat decided to discuss privacy/choice jurisprudence (Roe and Casey, he seems to have no awareness of Carhart), he began the familiar nonsense: