Despite earlier reports buzzing around the Hill that Senate Democrats may not have the 60 votes needed to prevent a GOP filibuster of the $410 billion spending omnibus, TheHill.com is now reporting that the Democrat leadership is now confident that they will have the votes necessary to make this happen.

Last November, the only thing the Democrats failed to do was capture the 60 Senate seats needed to prevent a filibuster. This means that if they are going to get anything done, it’s going to have to be with the help of some Republicans willing to cross sides. The Democrat’s most likely help will come from Republican Senators who are looking to gain some much-needed political capital – like in Maine and Pennsylvania for example, two blue/purple states with “vulnerable” Republican Senators. I think that they should be more worried about retaliation from their own party than those voters on the left who didn’t vote for them in the first place.

During the recent stimulus fight, there were three Senators who decided to play the role of a modern day Judas’: Senators Collins and Snowe, both of Maine, and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. They’ve definitely played it well.

Yes my friends, it appears that the party of Reagan is slowly assimilating into the party of pansies, where those elected to serve on what has become a reality show, now better known as “House… and Senate” spend their days in the dark bowels of the various House and Senate buildings, meeting with key staffers and politicos not discussing policy, but figuring out what tradeoffs will get them reelected.

While Snowe and Collins haven’t been mentioned, I wouldn’t be surprised if they join arms with Senator Specter again, who is believed to be a key player for crossing over, all with the end result of propping themselves up, while dragging the Republican brand and Party into the ground.

The article also goes on to say that Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa (the guy who the Republican Party should exile for his sneaky online sales reporting provision), and Senator Kit Bond of Missouri could also become the latest round of Senators to go native. Are they the Brutus’ of the GOP?

Why aren’t we stopping them?

If I were Michael Steele, my message to the Republicans in both the House and Senate would be simple: “grow a damn pair or I’ll make sure your sorry asses don’t get re-elected.”

We’ll see what happens… and I hope to have more updates tomorrow.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Best line:

Get your story straight man and make it quick, your political capital fell faster than stocks in Reykjavik

I guess this is the power of the Stephen Colbert army. If you’re unsure what sparked this video, and a variety of other spoofs, here is the clip that started it all:

Click here to view the embedded video.

From today’s Washington Times:
Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

It’s no secret that the republican party has an image problem.

In the past, republican leaders have tried to mask the problem by simply changing their clothes – this cover up is just another form of denial and actually has hurt more than it has helped.

I believe, however, that Michael Steele recognizes that the GOP needs a complete make-over (just in time for DC fashion week) and that Steele is truly willing to lead (maybe through force and some kicking and screaming) the RNC and state gops into the 21st century.

Apparently Steele’s leadership is already working.

According to another Washington Times article GOP surpasses Dems on Twitter:

Republicans finally get it — and have jumped on Internet technology in hopes of dominating it in the same way they used talk radio in the early 1990s to build a following.

“Every time I send out a tweet, I’m throwing another shovel of dirt to help bury the old media,” said Rep. John Culberson of Texas, a 52-year-old Republican who became one of the most quoted speakers at the Republican National Committee tech summit Friday.

Of the 219 congressional Republicans, 49 were using Twitter, while 27 of 317 Democrats were using it as of Monday, according to Tweet Congress (www.tweetcongress.org). The site tracks use of Twitter, a social messaging Web site that allows microblog text entries of 140 characters or less, known as tweets.

Over the weekend I found out about and registered for a technology summit that the Republican National Committee will be hosting at their headquarters this Friday (February, 13).

The goal of this summit appears to be simple, give Republican activists who are also involved in various tech-related communities the opportunity to share their ideas and possibly recommend new products or concepts that could help the GOP rebuild their image and infrastructure.

News of the summit was also briefly mentioned on Politico.com:

A Republican closely involved with the changes at the party said the summit “underscores the seriousness with which the new chairman takes the party’s deficiency in terms of the use of technology internally and externally,” and the fact that “the Republican party is well behind the Democratic Party.

The Republican acknowledged that tech conversation during the chairman’s race — which featured one moment at the Americans for Tax Reform debate at which candidates compared their personal tech use — left much to be desired.

“That was ridiculous and embarrassing to watch,” the Republican said, adding that Friday’s event will be “an open casting call” for Republicans both inside and outside current debates over the party’s technology, and focused on communicating the GOP message more broadly than has been done in the past.

If  you’re going to be in the DC area this Friday, or would like to share your ideas via email, you can find more information here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He needs some practice, maybe even a few classes from the Leadership Institute, but I’m confident he’ll get better over time. At least the message is on point.

If you cant access YouTube, here is the transcript:

“This is Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Democrats have controlled both branches of government for less than a month. And you have to wonder if all that power has gone to their heads.

“For the last two weeks, they’ve been trying to force a massive spending bill through Congress under the guise of economic relief.

“All of us — Republicans and Democrats — agree the government must act to kick-start the American economy. American families are doing their best to balance their own budgets and pay their mortgages.

“The fastest way to help those families is by letting them keep more of the money they earn. Individual empowerment: that’s how you stimulate the economy.

“But the Democrats have a different philosophy. Instead of leaving money in the family checkbook, they want to send it to Washington, run it through a slow and inefficient government, and hope that does some good.

“When families keep the money, they spend it, save it, or invest it. And the private sector economy benefits when families and businesses buy consumer goods or invest it for the future. But when Washington spends the money, some of it may flow into the economy, but all too often, much gets wasted.

“Democrats in Congress want a one-trillion dollar spending bill. You’ve heard about the pork-barrel programs they want to fund… 45 million dollars for ATV trails and removal of fish passage barriers is one that caught my eye. Exactly what is a fish passage barrier and why does it cost 45 million dollars to stimulate the economy with it?

“That’s why Republicans in the House voted against uncontrolled spending. This is not a bragging point, but rather a statement that at least Republicans would stand with the American taxpayer.

“But voting ‘no’ is not enough… and Republicans have offered innovative ideas to help struggling families and small businesses. We’ve offered plans to spark job creation and investment through lower taxes, to stop the taxation of unemployment benefits, and to help Americans keep their jobs and their homes.

“The comprehensive Republican plan would lower taxes for all working American families. If you’re married, the first 16,750 dollars you make this year will be taxed at ten percent. Why don’t we cut that rate in half to give instant buying power to every working American family?

“Good ideas… lots of them… all left out of this plan by the Democrats in Congress.

“Republicans stand ready to work with reasonable Democrats to do what is right for America.

“But it will take more than bipartisan words from the President. It will require fair-minded action from Democrats in Congress.

“Thanks for listening.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) — With six contenders jockeying to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, party members are taking the unique step of organizing a “special meeting” of the RNC to press the candidates on how they plan to bring the party back to power.

What’s surprising to me is the fact that a meeting like this is being deemed as “unique.” If the RNC pushing their candidates for chairman is something unusual, I think it’s quite clear why we’ve been losing elections.

Nonetheless, it’s definitely refreshing to see that they’re actually taking the time out of their busy schedules to grill the candidates seeking the RNC chairmanship.

If you didn’t know already, here are the candidates seeking the position of Chairman of the Republican National Committee:

Mike Duncan, Chairman, Republican National Committee
Saul Anuzis, Chairman, Republican Party of Michigan
Ken Blackwell, Former Secretary of State, Ohio
Katon Dawson, Chairman, Republican Party of South Carolina
Chip Saltsman, Former Chairman, Republican Party of Tennessee
Michael Steele, Chairman, GOPAC

Well, only in the New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch, but there is some significance here, in that a Democrat hasn’t won this early vote in 40 years.

From the Tucson Citizen:

With 15 votes for Obama and six for McCain reported by broadcasters, the opening of the Dixville Notch polling station Tuesday just after midnight marked the opening of US elections that could put produce the first-ever African-American president.

Does this mean anything? Not necessarily. However, it does show that even Republican-leaning communities have been able to embrace Barack Obama’s candidacy and buck the trend.

Should this early victory make one give up hope? Of course not. However, John McCain will have some tough hurdles ahead over the next 18 hours. But with that being said, by the end of tonight, this will all be over.

In September the Jewish Council of Education & Research launched an innovative and attractive campaign to motivate young Jews around the country to make their way down to Florida to convince their grandparents to vote for Barack Obama.

With an edgy (yet compelling) video-plea from Sarah Silverman, this campaign received a great deal of fanfare and had many believing that this effort would lead to hundreds of young Jews schlepping down to Florida.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So did this campaign live up to its expectations?

According to the Telegraph:

A novel campaign to boost Democrat support in Florida proved a “schlep” too far for young Jewish supporters after just 100 of them answered a call to visit the state and convert their grandparents to the Obama cause.

….

Around 20,000 people signed up as Great Schlep fans on Facebook but the big push last weekend saw only one in 200 of them actually make the trip.

Having 20,000 people sign up and only 100 actually show up for the “schlep” might seem like the effort was a complete failure. However, those people probably don’t understand the Jewish community and how close-knit they actually are, and more importantly what impact that closeness can have.

If you make your way down to Florida and find yourself in a large Jewish community, Boca Raton for example, you might notice that there is a strong sense of community amongst the elderly Jewish population. It’s been this strong sense of community that has held the Jewish people together for so long, and it will be that very attribute that keeps the Jewish people together for many years to come.

Just one elementary overview of this concept can be seen in this clip from Fiddler on the Roof:

Click here to view the embedded video.

With that being said, what impact could these 100 Jews have had on influencing the Jewish community? A lot.

All it takes is one person to make a comment about their grandson or granddaughter talking to them about Barack Obama, and in no time a group discussion will be started. While not everyone is going to be convinced, minds will be opened and the discussion will quickly spread.

While there is no concrete correlation, if you look at the polls in Florida, almost immediately after the Great Schlep was launched, Barack Obama pulled ahead, while John McCain went into a short-term free fall.

What’s even more fascinating is how this one campaign was able to start a discussion amongst the older Jewish population regarding the potential of Barack Obama being the next President of the United States.

Just as an example, the other day I was speaking with a Jewish man in his late 60′s, a busy executive who doesn’t watch much TV and has little time for the Internet. During our conversation, the topic of Barack Obama came up and he had asked me if I had heard about this “great schlep.” I told him yes and asked if he had heard about it on YouTube. While I was surprised by the fact that he wasn’t a YouTube user, what was even more surprising was how he found out about the project.

It wasn’t from YouTube, it wasn’t from an email or even from the radio. No, this busy executive had heard about it from a friend who heard about it from another friend who had a grandson participate in the Great Schlep. This was just one of what I’m guessing are thousands of examples of how this campaign spread the old fashioned way: by word of mouth.

Was this effort a failure? Absolutely not. If anything, the real-time success of the Great Schlep isn’t measurable due to the unique community dynamics of the Jewish community and we’ll just have to wait until Election Day to see what effect it really had in Florida.

Seeing such a unique program in action really makes me wish the Republican Party would embrace more ideas like this. There are many ethnic and religious groups that we could reach out to more, but unfortunately we seem to concentrate our major efforts solely on Evangelicals.

I truly hope that every Republican is taking notes during this election and will immediately analyze them after Election Day to figure out what we need to do to make our beat-up Party stronger than it’s ever been.

Of course step one would be to make sure that whoever takes over the RNC next is a choshever mentsh (genuinely respected person).

Update: If the McCain campaign, or another 527 puts forward some effort in going after Obama for his relationship with Rashid Khalidi, this could present a severe blow to the Obama campaign and might actually shrink Obama’s narrow lead. We’ll see how it plays out, and we’ll have more soon.

Reported disbursements include:

• Saks 5th Avenue: $49,425.74
• Neiman Marcus: $75,062.63
• Hair care for the month of September: $4,716.49

While this probably isn’t what “Joe the Plumber,” “Rose the Teacher,” or “Jerry the Evangelical” spend when they go to the mall, are any of the candidates really in a position where they can criticize these actions?

For a while today, I thought that this was going to be a golden opportunity for Barack Obama to come out swinging, painting both Palin and McCain as elitists who use their supporters money to fund their wardrobe and makeup. With this argument, it would have been extremely easy for Barack Obama to make a correlation between the RNC’s ethics and those executives on Wall Street.

But then I did some digging into Barack Obama’s campaign finance report, and to my surprise what do I find:

May 6th, 2008 – Eneida’s Salon, $1,000, East Berlin, CT – Staging, Sound, Lighting

What’s unique about this is how the Obama campaign expensed this event. After doing a bit of research, I was able to pull up some information about Eneida’s Salon, which now leaves me with some questions:

Location:

251 Asylum St Apt 2w, Hartford, CT 06103-1512
Phone: (860) 247-4247
SIC:Beauty Shops
Line of Business:Beauty Shop

Company Profile:

Company Profile: Eneida’s Salon Inc
Year Started:1986
State of Incorporation:CT
URL:N/A
Location Type:Single Location
Est. Annual Sales:$33,000
Est. Employees:2
Est. Employees at Location:2
Contact Name:Eneida M Bailey
Contact Title:President

(source: Manta.com)

To me it seemed very unlikely that the Obama Campaign actually did any “Staging, Sound and Lighting” at Ms. Bailey’s two-person shop. Furthermore, it seemed even more unlikely that Barack Obama would be the type of guy that would need to utilize a beauty shop, simply because he seems more like a barber shop kind of guy to me.

With my curiosities still unfulfilled, I did some research on the owner of this company, Ms. Eneida Bailey, and what I found was even more interesting. This time it wasn’t a link to a  business profile, but instead was a link to the Oprah Winfrey Show’s website.

However, this page had been removed for some reason, but Google Cache saved the day. Listed on the Oprah Show’s cached page:

Eneida Bailey:
Eneida’s Salon & Day Spa
251 Asylum Street, Ste. 2W
Hartford, CT 06023
860-247-4247

After finding this nugget of information, I couldn’t help but dig deeper to see what else I could find. Very quickly I was able to find the following article from 1998: “Gayle Force: Talk Show Newcomer Gayle King Follows in the Footsteps of Her Best Friend—Oprah Winfrey”

In this article, Eneida Bailey was quoted, speaking about Gayle King:

Staffers praise their boss’s generosity. “If she knows you,” says hairstylist Eneida Bailey, “you’re her whole life.”

So now the question that I have for the Obama Campaign is who was the recipient of that $1,000 campaign-funded trip to the day spa/hair salon?

Was it Mrs. Obama? If so, I think that is far more questionable than the RNC spending money on the Vice Presidential candidate.

Yes, people are concerned with Obama’s associations with William Ayers, and yes, his close ties to organizations like ACORN are even more sketchy.  However, those attack ads should be left to the 527′s and the national parties.

Focusing particularly on the McCain campaign, he needs to show people that he isn’t going to be just another George W. Bush. However, if he is going to achieve that image, he’s going to have to throw away the Karl Rove-like campaigning and let the American people see him for who he really is. That being a war hero, a leader and a reformer.

Instead of showing videos that continually highlight Obama’s inexperience, I think that McCain needs to go back to some of their better videos that show who John McCain really is, something done well in videos like this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This video shows a real reformer, someone who is actually willing to go against the status quo and challenge the establishment. Furthermore, it shows a candidate who isn’t hyper-partisan and doesn’t need to go negative to illustrate a point. If McCain would run videos like this, I’m confident that he would see his poll numbers improve.

If you look at the polls, in conjunction with the debates, Senator McCain was hurt significantly upon each conclusion. Why is that? The reason is because instead of being calm and presidential, he spent the majority of his time sounding angry, sarcastic, and/or defensive. While he made some great points in these debates, the majority of the people watching probably didn’t understand everything that he or Obama were talking anyway, but instead were watching the debates to get a better sense of each candidates character.

The fact that McCain is down by so many points should be a sign to his advisers that their current strategy isn’t working. They need a new approach, something that gives the American people, particularly undecided voters, confidence in John McCain. The campaign needs to bring back the John McCain we saw early in the primaries, the candidate who had no problem carrying his own bags and flying commercial. That’s a candidate that the American people can relate to, not some over-anxious, rich,  old, white man who smirks every time his opponent speaks.

I’ve told many people that I think that this campaign is over for John McCain, but I truly believe that if they make some changes quickly, I could (happily) be proven wrong.