Last December, Jake Zimmerman said:

Perhaps you’ll remember Jim Lembke, the diabolical, despicable Jim Lembke, who’s now running for the state Senate, and who must be stopped at all costs. But for purposes of the House, the diabolical, despicable Jim Lembke leaves that seat open. And suddenly you don’t have the hard-working creature of Satan, who’s been there for, like, six years, you’ll have some new creature of Satan, who nobody really knows who they are yet. And that’s potentially four or five percentage points of difference with a good Democratic candidate. Thank god we have a good Democratic candidate, whose name is Vicki (Englund), and she’s been working hard and raising money early. I like that district. Republicans’ll probably invest some money there because they’ll try and force us to work for it.  But, you know what, I think the odds are very good we’re going to win it.

The latest creature of Satan, as Jake would put it, is, from what we can tell so far, much less colorful than Lembke. His replacement on the ticket is Cloria Brown, who–like Vicki–thinks that property taxes shouldn’t go up when the housing market is on the skids. Brown also wants to make sure that illegal immigrants don’t get government benefits. Just your typical Republican, who got the nod to run because she’s been a good footsoldier and it’s her turn.

Ms. Brown, though, finds herself digging in her fingernails in an attempt to hold this district for the Rs, because the area is no GOP stronghold. Before Lembke took it in 2002, it had been in Democratic hands. It’s considered a 50/50 district. Both Kerry and McCaskill won there. And although Lembke won solidly when he was first elected, the subsequent two Democratic opponents each came within four points of unseating an incumbent. Bob Burns lost last time partly because of Lembke’s underhanded (hard as that may be to believe about a Republican) tricks.

But Brown may find herself victory-challenged on November 5th. Conventional wisdom has it that incumbency is worth about five percentage points, so that four point lead Lembke had in the last two elections just got erased. The playing field isn’t quite even, though. Here’s the story on money: As of September 5th, Vicki had taken in a total of $52,732 and had $17,170 on hand. As of the that same date, Cloria had taken in $26,567 and had $16,293 on hand. Whoa, we have not just parity but a situation where the Dem has actually raised more money? Ha! When I said things weren’t quite even, bet you thought I was going to repeat the usual line about how the opposition has stinkin’ tons of money but our gal is knocking on those doors.

Not that she’s being careless about knocking on doors. Of the 12-13,000 homes in her district, she and her people had knocked on 8,000 by primary day, concentrating on Dems, undecideds and the slew of unknowns that have resulted from all the newly registered voters.

And then there’s Vicki herself. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything world shaking to say about her. She’s just … normal. Hard working. Interested in good governance. Honest. Well-informed. You know, all that boring stuff. Which we’d be delighted to settle for.

She’s a good fit for that district. It’s true that even though she’s Catholic in a district with lots of Catholics, she’s pro-choice (has endorsements from Planned Parenthood and NARAL). But the Catholics there are mostly moderate. They voted in favor of stem cell research a couple of years ago, a stand Vicki shares with the majority of voters. Her attitude about abortions is that we need to prevent unintended pregnancies by having sex ed programs in schools that cover more than just abstinence only.

And like all her Democratic brethren, Vicki is interested in restoring the Medicaid cuts. She would like to see emergency rooms used for emergencies again, instead of as holding pens for uninsured sick people. These days emergency rooms have infinitely long waiting lines–for the most expensive kind of treatment per square yard of space that there is. Treating people there is driving up insurance costs for all of us.

So. It’s looking good for Englund and the Dems in HD 85. Englund and her people will hang in and do their jobs in this final six week push. But let’s not risk letting this seat elude us. Help her out.

So where do Missouri’s representatives stand on the bailout as proposed by Bush? How about candidates running to represent Missouri? I haven’t seen any statements yet from any of them on the Bush proposal.

If you see anything before I’ve posted it here, put it in comments and I’ll update.

UPDATE: Finally, someone steps up to the plate.

Judy Baker, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 9th District:

Judy would support a plan that provides for everyday people that have invested their retirement and life savings in Wall Street. She would make stronger regulatory monitoring part of the bill to prevent this from happening again. Judy would not support any bill that includes compensation for corporate executives that are responsible for this meltdown.

From comments, Republican Senator Kit Bond:

U.S. Senator Kit Bond today urged bold action through bipartisan cooperation to address our nation’s financial crisis, while emphasizing that any plan Congress adopts must ensure accountability, oversight, and transparency.    

“This is an emergency crisis.  We all believe the free market is the best system in the world, but there are times when we must take temporary emergency action to get us through the rare crisis,” said Bond.  “In acting we must demand accountability so that we do not reward those who made bad decisions, greater oversight so that taxpayers and the overall economy are protected, and transparency so that people can have trust in our financial system and know that their money is safe.”  

The banking industry lays an egg. The Bush administration (and Congress) are about to pay them our money for doing so.

So much for assuming responsibility for one’s actions.

Gee, all those “risk takers” are keeping the profits they reaped as a result of those really bad decisions they made which are now coming home to roost? You think?

The draft of the bailout via Calculated Risk has some interesting points:

(a) Authority to Purchase.–The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

Hmmm. I wonder how many offshore banks are gonna move back into the United States.

Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.

Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.

There’s the debt. We’re talkin’ serious money. We’re gonna owe China a lot of money for a long time. I wonder what they think about their prospects for gaining fifty or so new provinces? Nah. Too many liabilities.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Gee, that’s a lot of authority to give to one person. Far too much. No review? Of any kind? Why?

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time

That’s serious money. That’s seven hundred billion dollars. Seven hundred billion. Dollars.

The incomparable Glenn Greenwald writes:

…What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism — where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We’ve retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded…

Emptywheel sums it up so that even a republican free market kool-aid drinker can understand it:

…But here’s all you need to know. Hank Paulson [Secretary of the Treasury] is asking for $700,000,000,000. That’s $2,333 from every man, woman, and child in the United States.

In exchange for that money, Paulson is unwilling to accept any demands to make markets more transparent, limit executive compensation, or assist homeowners fighting foreclosure. The sole purpose of that $700,000,000,000 is to bail out Wall Street and only Wall Street, but not to fix it, or our larger economy.

He is asking to be absolutely unbound by any law when he spends that money….

We’re all screwed. Well and truly screwed. I understand that bread lines are a nice place to meet a variety of people from all walks of life.

Research 2000 conducted a poll of 800 likely Missouri voters September 15th through the 18th. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV sponsored the survey. The margin of error is 3.5%.

McCain – 49%

Obama – 45%

Other/Undecided – 6%

tiny URL

Here is an occasion when Michael Bersin and I part company. He quoted Forester de Rothschild:

…”This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don’t like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

Forester is the CEO of EL Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Forester is a member of the DNC’s Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York.

Michael, I loved the humor in your response:

The thing is, anyone with a title of nobility and more money than 99.99% of the population of the world who calls anyone else “elitist” should not be able to get away with doing so without being mocked unmercifully by the remaining 99.99% of the world.

I think I’ll ring the house staff for my morning pick-me-up now…

But.

I had just finished listening to Drew Westen talk on NOW last week about the way that Democrats and Obama too often lead with policy statements, power point presentations, and statistics instead of appealing to the heart. Republicans start by stating their values, add some policy detail, then end by stating their values. Westen recommends that Obama show us his human side:

I’m saying that if you want to win people’s hearts and minds, you better start with their hearts cause otherwise they’re not gonna care what’s on your mind. I mean, if you look at the data on what predicts people’s voting behavior in presidential elections: the top two predictors, one is how do people feel about the parties and their principles and the second is what do they feel about this candidate, what’s their gut level feeling. Our brains as voters are primate brains, they’re mammalian brains.

The sense I’ve gotten from undecided voters is not so much that they’re waiting to hear Obama give them policy prescriptions that will solve the problems they’re facing. They’re waiting to see if he can make them trust him. And I think that’s what Rothschild is referring to. Super wealthy or not, she senses the difficulty many voters are having with Obama.

Westen gave some telling examples in talking about how crucial the debates will be. Speaking of Obama:

If he starts with one of these long drawn out answers on the economy, he’s gonna lose people. If he starts instead, imagine if he’s  asked a question about the economy and his response is: “You know, I want to see the words ‘Made in America’ again.” And then he says what he’s going to do about trade, what’s he’s done is he’s drawn everybody in

Asked how tough Biden ought to come across in his debate with Palin, Westen recommends that Biden say he will treat her with respect as an American and as a peer:

‘But the gloves are going to come off with me just like they’ve come off with you, because this is a, you know the American people need to know where we stand.’ You know, I would put it on the table, you want to make this stuff  conscious so people are thinking about that.

David Brancacchio was incredulous that a Democrat might be that aggressive and Westen said:

This is, I think, one of the central things the Democrats have to understand if they want to win back the hearts and minds of the American people, is that you can take almost any position that you want on almost any issue, as long as it’s not the fetal position.

Democrats are constantly in a defensive crouch, and when they behave that way, people figure “he’s weak and lacking in conviction, and I don’t think I’ll vote for him.”

Returning to the idea of appealing to the heart, Weston said that if he were Obama and were asked about health care:

The last thing I would say is, “I believe in universal health care.” You start out instead by saying “I believe in a family doctor for every family.”

Before I retired from teaching English, I put it a different way to my composition students. I told them to use specifics, concrete examples. And I used to make them practice. I’d give them a long list of generalities to turn into specifics. I’d recommend writing not “After I’d lugged in the groceries” but “After I’d lugged in two gallons of milk and enough meat to keep a puma healthy.”

It’s the same principle Westen is urging. It’s probably the same principle that your candidate in the diner understood, Michael. Present people with concrete images they can understand.

I hope Obama and Biden have heard Westen’s advice … and taken notes.

Political definitions.

1. not elitist. Yesterday, after driving the campaign truck for a local candidate in a high school homecoming parade in a town about ten miles from where I live, and on the drive back home, the candidate said, “Let’s stop here.”

We walked into a rural road house, sat down at the bar, and ordered two beers. There were a few bikers and locals sitting at the bar. The candidate had his name tag on. One biker asked, “What are you running for?” The candidate told him. “Are you a Democrat or a Republican. I was born a Republican.” The candidate replied, “I’m a Democrat.” Then he walked over to talk to the bikers. They wanted to talk and they wanted somebody to listen to them. They have the same concerns as everyone else (okay, they want to repeal the helmet law…). I asked one of the bikers, “What are your biggest concerns?” He replied, “The economy and jobs.” He was also concerned about roads and bridges and gas prices. As we left the road house for the drive home we all shook hands.

2. elitist.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild…

…”This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don’t like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

Forester is the CEO of EL Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Forester is a member of the DNC’s Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York.

via firedoglake

The thing is, anyone with a title of nobility and more money than 99.99% of the population of the world who calls anyone else “elitist” should not be able to get away with doing so without being mocked unmercifully by the remaining 99.99% of the world.

I think I’ll ring the house staff for my morning pick-me-up now…

“Zdravo. Kako ste?” That’s how you say “Hello. How are you?” in Bosnian, but don’t ask me how to pronounce it. Maybe Russ Carnahan knows, since he has 35,000-45,000 Bosnians living in his district in South St. Louis. But even if he were to butcher the pronunciation, he’s Jake with his Bosnian constituents because he knows how to reach out to them.

As a natural outgrowth of his membership on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, he established and co-chairs the Bosnian Caucus in 110th US Congress, which is an alliance that looks out for their interests. That action netted him good relations with the leaders of the Bosnian community, so that in this election year he can work with those leaders to get the Bosnian community out to vote for Democrats.

Carnahan has hired a field organizer who speaks Bosnian, and she is concentrating on getting as many of them registered as possible. This afternoon, for example, there will be a naturalization ceremony, and Carnahan’s person will be there to talk to the new Bosnian citizens about how to register and to give them literature explaining the process. Then on Saturday morning, she will attend an organizational meeting with Bosnian leaders to discuss how to get as many Bosnians registered to vote as possible.

Carnahan’s office makes a conscious effort to include Bosnians in current political events as well. Thursday night, for example, Madeleine Albright spoke at Webster University, and the Carnahan campaign, knowing how much respect Bosnian immigrants hold for the Clinton administration, made sure that some of the community leaders were in attendance and had a chance to speak to Albright. And when Biden spoke at Mehlville High School on September 9th, Carnahan’s office arranged for reporters for local Bosnian newspapers to attend and to have a chance to speak with the vice presidential nominee. Having that opportunity would appeal to those reporters not just for the obvious reason, but also because Biden is chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

I assume that when the interview with Biden ended and when the Bosnians had spoken with Albright, they told the field organizer, “Hvala lijepo”–“thank you very much.”