AirCongress The Online Voice Of Capitol Hill

John Randall, the online communications director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, alerted me to this NRSC video a couple of days ago with a note that said, “Bad singing, worse Senate.”

You readers can make up your own minds about the politics of the video, but trust me, saying that the singing is bad is an understatement. It’s worse than the off-key performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Categories: Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Friday Fun

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If you’ve been following the Democratic presidential race closely the past week, perhaps you noticed a trend: The frontrunners have been trading barbs over whose “politics” is worse — and those “politics” have nothing to do with partisan philosophy or even issues.

The whole story has played out online in sound-bite, video format.

The Politics Of Hope (Or Not)
Hillary Clinton, who has a wide lead in the Democratic polls, struck first by prominently posting videos of two of her leading rivals, John Edwards and Barack Obama, at HillaryHub. The videos showed the candidates preaching “the politics of hope” and vowing not to attack other Democrats — after both of them had begun offering sharp criticisms of Clinton’s record and statements.

Tim Grieve of Salon.com questioned the thinking behind that approach, noting that Clinton had invited “conversations” when she began her campaign. “The last thing the Democratic Party needs now is somebody else — let alone one of its own — suggesting that open debate is somehow wrong,” Grieve wrote.

The Politics Of Pile On
But Clinton stuck by her strategy. After the other Democratic candidates targeted her repeatedly in a debate last week, her campaign produced a video condemning “the politics of pile on.” “I seem to be the topic of great conversation and consternation,” Clinton said, “and that’s for a reason.”

The Politics Of Parsing
The Edwards campaign answered with two videos of its own. The first, one that bloggers across the political spectrum agreed was powerful and even “devastating,” showed her giving different answers on the same subjects.

“Unless I missed something,” Edwards said in a clip from the ad, “Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes.”

The Politics Of The Status Quo
The follow-up Edwards ad, released yesterday, acknowledged that Clinton has been consistent on one issue: her insistence on accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists.

Categories: Producer's Picks, Democrats, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama

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The first time in 20 years that Congress has not sent the president even one annual appropriations bill by this time of the year. The Senate’s longest delay in 20 years to confirm an attorney general. The prospect of unfunded troops in the field without funding. Twenty million more Americans subject to the alternative minimum tax. An outdated intelligence surveillance law.

If you’re a Republican in the Senate and add it all up, as some of them did at a press conference today, it equals Democratic mismanagement of Congress. “It’s time to start doing things that are important to the country,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The do-nothing-Democrats theme has been embraced by Republicans from President Bush on down in recent weeks. In the past, the GOP has accused the Democratic leadership of fostering chaos and breaking promises.

Categories: Military, Kentucky, Democrats, Mitch McConnell, 110th Congress, Law & Judiciary, Budget, Taxes, Republicans, Intelligence

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Last week’s online video that portrayed Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., as an Internet tax collector was just the first political shot on the issue by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Today, the campaign arm of the Senate GOP dedicated its home page to the issue and produced a new video to promote its quest to “stop the Democrats from taxing the Internet.” The NRSC site features a timeclock counting down to the Nov. 1 expiration of a moratorium on Internet taxes.

The National Association of Manufacturers, which supports a permanent ban on Internet taxes, took a less political approach to the issue in a video interview with Rep. Anna Eshoo. The California Democrat fought unsuccessfully for a permanent ban last week, when the House opted instead for a bill that would renew the moratorium for four years.

Categories: California, Louisiana, Democrats, Technology, Mary Landrieu, Taxes, AdWatch, Republicans, Anna Eshoo

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Before heading off to the Chesapeake Bay on a weekend fishing trip, President Bush outlined some of his environmental initiatives, including efforts to preserve fisheries, clean America’s waters and help save “two of our nation’s most popular recreational fish — striped bass and red drum.”

“We believe that to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century, we must bring together conservationists, fishermen, sportsmen, local leaders, and federal, state, and tribal officials in a spirit of cooperation,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “I call this ‘cooperative conservation.’ Instead of the old environmental debates that pit one group against another, we’re moving our country toward a system where citizens and government can come together to achieve meaningful results for our environment.”

The initiatives Bush mentioned included:

• An “ocean action plan” to make waters cleaner, healthier and more productive;
• The marine conservation area he established last year in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands;
• A new law to end overfishing of certain species and an executive order to ban the commercial sale of striped bass and red drum caught in federal waters;
• Expanding and creating national wildlife refuges, coordinating with government and private entities to protect private land, and building stopover habitats in urban areas in order to protect migratory birds;
• And the National Parks Centennial Initiative, a public-private partnership to raise funds for the park system’s 100th anniversary in 2016.

Democrats, meanwhile, gave their air time this week to Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes Foundation, to make the case yet again for legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP. Howse said arguments that the bill, which Bush successfully vetoed, would expand “government-run health care” are “an unfortunate misconception.”

“In fact, 77 percent of current CHIP enrollees are covered by private managed care health plans that contract with states,” she said. “In addition, the CHIP Reauthorization Act will provide states with more opportunities to use CHIP dollars to help purchase private coverage.”

Categories: Democrats, Environment, Weekly Radio Address

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