probability of getting shot in the face in Minneapolis goes back up

So, yeah, anyway, Dick Cheney will speak at the convention.

P.S. my posts are all about titles, and not substance.

Well, the probability of getting shot in the face just went down in Minneapolis

CNN reports:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Will Vice President Cheney be a no-show at the Republican convention in Minnesota?

Republican officials say yes, citing a desire by Sen. John McCain's campaign to turn the page on the Bush-Cheney years. One GOP official told CNN there's a "mutual understanding" between Cheney's office and the McCain camp that he is "unlikely" to attend the convention.

A second Republican official said there are still "talks going on" between Cheney's office and the McCain camp and both sides are "still trying to work it out."

The conservative American Spectator first reported Monday Cheney, who has low national approval ratings but is still popular among conservatives, is not expected to attend the convention.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers side-stepped a question about whether the Senator has invited Cheney, saying the campaign has "not announced the speakers or any details" about the convention at this point.

Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell also told CNN the details for the convention are still in flux. "His schedule for next week has not even been set-up," Mitchell said, suggesting there has been no final decision on the convention.

 

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/05/cheney-not-expected-to-a...

Why are you a Democrat in 2008?

So the Democratic Convention is running this contest on YouTube for people to submit a 2 minute video answering the question "Why are you a Democrat in 2008?"

This contest and the question it asks raise some interesting questions.

First here is the entry we helped make for Congressman Sarbanes'(MD-03):

I think this is a pretty good answer and the theme of leadership is important.

But I think it is interesting that the question doesn't just ask "Why are you are Democrat?" but "Why are you a Democrat in 2008?"

Why? The recent history of the Republican Party and the graphic of Wal-Mart contributions at the bottom of Markus's post yesterday are two examples. We aren't old enough to remember, but back in the day, it was actually an intellectually defensible position to be a member of the Republican Party. It stood for small and good government at a time when the Democratic Party was stocked with bigoted Southern racists and corrupt machine politicians.

This has changed over the last 40 years but many older people who grew up with the old Republican Party. For example, take former Congresswoman Connie Morella, our well meaning but disingenuous Republican guest this spring. Her claim that "I never voted for Delay" because she and three other 3 moderates in the Republican Party meekly offered a sacrificial lamb to get crushed in the Republican caucus' vote for Majority Leeader? Give me a fucking break, Connie, you voted for him every day with the R next to your name. People like Morella stuck with the Republican Party well past the time when it was all too clear that their party was driving the country off a cliff.

Right now, the Democratic Party is the clear choice for us. But as Markus pointed out with his graph, it can always get away from its core values and current status as the pragmatic party. I hope that I will have the balls to jump ship if it ever drifts too far.

It would be sad sight to have a 75 year old Jarrett Zafran hobble into a meeting of the Harvard Republican Club in 2055 and seem as pathetically out of touch with the realities that a hypothetical ideological and corrupt Democratic Party had wrought as Connie Morella seemed when she tried to justify her 4 votes for Tom Delay and her support for the real ideological and corrupt Republican Party to the Harvard Dems in 2008.

So kudos to the DNC for adding "in 2008" to their question in the contest.

The 2007 Harvard College Democrats' Platform

Attached is our 2007 platform. Please make comments or email me legislative@harvarddems.com with your concerns so that I can address them by editing the platform or proposing amendments tomorrow. Thanks to LegCom for all their work and ideas on this.

Also note that the planned amendments right now regard abolition of the death penalty, decriminalization of marijuana, and a quota system for legal immigration.

 Also, the Iraq section will be updated soon according to the endorsed position we took in the spring.  It is pretty standard Democratic policy.

Dems Convention '07: Attention Deficit Edition

I can has convention?