Category: Norm Coleman

by Dave Mindeman

And now we have, yet another, political calculation by our senior Senator from Minnesota. Norm joins the Senatorial energy gang - that gang of 10 which is now a gang of 16.

Norm is always looking for those bipartisan bona fides, but, also, as usual he is late to the party. The gang of 10 took the political compromise risk and after it all has been vetted and tested and properly screened, then I guess it is safe for Norm to jump on board.

But will Norm follow through? You can never be sure. Maybe the conservatives will hit back and suddenly Norm will find a problem, something he can't support. Norm will do another disappearing act and excuse it all with Norm speak.

This energy compromise has some things the oil companies don't like. Will Norm hang in there? Or will he hide behind another Republican filibuster and never really have to make the real vote.

Norm's political calculator is working overtime for 2008. We'll have to wait and see if it all really adds up.

Category: Iraq War

by Dave Mindeman

In downtown Denver today, we came across a very large anti-war protest that literally stopped all downtown traffic for awhile. I took a video of the march which you can view at this link:

Denver Anti-War Protest March

The protest march was large. We were on the 16th Street Mall Bus when they announced that Mall traffic was closed while 6,000 people moved through the streets. The busses were told to stop driving and wait, so we had to get off the bus. We ended up being close enough to get a spot to view the march.

It was a very peaceful march with no incidents that I could see. Iraqi War veterans led off the march in military fashion...but every part of the march was surrounded by police officers....on foot, on bike, and swat teams in white vans. Tightly controlled all the way. I wonder if we will see more of the same in the Twin Cities next week.

Two days ago there was a little rougher protest with several arrests and some pepper spray injuries. The Unconventional Denver group (although the paper also mentioned a group called Recreate 68 as involved also) had planned to protest the "capitalist fundraising orgy" involving several big fundraisers around town. But according to the Denver Post newspaper, police intercepted them and made over 100 arrests.

The paper said the police were aware of the group's plans and had massed thier forces in the park. One person was quoted as saying, "The thing that was crazy was no one was doing anything. And then they used the pepper spray."

It seemed to be an overreaction.

Nothing like that happened at the large protest march. Many people lined the streets to watch. As you can see on the video, police kept tight control...but it took over 5 and 1/2 minutes for all the people to file by at a pretty brisk pace.

We shall see what happens next week in Minnesota.

Category: Barack Obama

by Roxanne Mindeman

Who knows what happens tonight with a few of the diehard Hillary supporters. The ones who still just can't give up the opportunity to cast a vote for the first woman to ever seriously contend to be the Presidential nominee of a major political party. Talk is that they're still out there. For a few it might be about not really wanting to support Obama. Darn few, I think. For most, I expect, it's more about just wanting to mark the historic nature of the incredible journey they have made, with a candidate they admire and respect more than they can say.

Whatever happens from this point forward, it should be pretty much impossible, after last night, to point a critical finger at Hillary. If there is something more she could say or do, it's hard to imagine what it might be. So I say that for now, we just let it be what it is. And know that when those delegates pack their bags and head home, if they are not on the Obama team now, then they never would have been.