Inspired by Kos' story, and the claim that the important thing to look at is the incumbant, I averaged the state by state poll numbers in April and May for Bush and compared them to his performance in that state in 2000.

If you accept the modest assumption that to win Bush will have to do at least as well as he did in 2000 (and probably better), the results are encouraging.

Check out Paul Solman's tax day report on the way taxes impact the working poor

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june04/taxes_04-15.html#

It's pretty hard-hitting (for the Newshour), showing how we don't have a progressive tax structure, and how the working poor get scammed six ways from sunday on filing (from increased audits on the EITC to "rapid refund" gigs)

He interviews David Cay Johnston, author of Perfectly Legal

I took 11 votes in the Senate that seemed to be the worst examples of BuShit, and compiled the Democratic Senators' voting record on them. The votes are:

1.     No Child Left Behind (2001)
2.     Patriot Act (2001)
3.     Tax Cut I (2001)
4.     Iraq War (2002)
5.     Medicare "Modernization" (2003)
6.     "Healthy" Forests (2003)
7.     Energy Policy Act (2003)
8.     Tax Cut II (2003)
9.     "Partial Birth" Abortion Ban (2003)
10.     Estrada Confirmation (2003)
11.     Appropriations filibuster (that changed overtime and FCC rules in bad ways) (2004)

Senators who were "not voting" or were not in Congress at the time had the vote factored out. After that, I awarded a point for each no vote, and divided by the total. I call it the BuShit Refusal Index (BSRI). Here are the results

I'm working on a project to evaluate Democrats in the House and Senate. I'm pretty much looking to see how good or bad they are at voting against all the stuff Bush has pushed through. I'm thinking of calling it the BuShit Refusal Index (BSRI).

Looking at the last three years, I've found 9 votes in the House and 11 in the Senate that qualify as BS. In the House, these are:

Or at least we need to start thinking about who a good candidate would be and how to help him/her.

Why a draft movement? Face it folks, the CA Democratic Party leadership sucks. Royally. Gray Davis was a sorry excuse for a Democratic Governor, and Cruz Bustamante was a sorry excuse for a candidate. If we let the party leadership screw around and pick whoever they want with no primary opposition, we'll end up with the same kind of crap.

Also, the Dem leadership is so beholden to special interests (think prison lobbyists) that they don't have the guts to do anything bold or original. They just keep passing the buck and putting off the problem till later. If we want a candidate to stand up to the special interests, we need a candidate whose power doesn't come from those special interests.