Here’s more to cheer Barry up. Now, it’s not just Noonan and Cole saying negative things about Bush and/or his administration, the list has expanded to include Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, and David Frum. See Vanity Fair.

Yes. Stroger will win; I agree.

As to political cleanliness: Is it possible for an Illinois politician to be clean? I suspect Peter Fitzgerald (R) was clean. But we know where that lead! ;-)

I got a letter in the mail signed by Sens. Durbin and Obama. Durbin I can understand; he’s a fellow undistinguished political hack. But for Obama to hold his nose and put his considerable reputation behind a machine candidate who is running what I consider a disreputable campaign surprises me. Obama will find out that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Again, for you non-Illinoisians, news reports have come out lately about Obama’s links to a well-known indicted Illinois political fixer. The knives are starting to come out, and the first thing they are going after is Obama’s “Mr. Clean” image.

See! If you don’t study hard in college you’ll get sent to Iraq!

Sorry. Couldn’t resist. If the damn fool hadn’t married money he’d have never come within sniffing distance of the Senate. Anyway: PhD in what?

All the ads I’ve seen have been of still pictures of Duckworth with someone else describing her positions (from both parties). I haven’t actually seen or heard her speak to her own positions herself. But, then, I’m not in the district and thus haven’t sought out stuff like the Channel 11 interview; I only see what’s spilled over into broadcast network TV.

That’s what I believe. But, well, if you can get two libertarians to agree on something, one of them is just being polite.

In general, Lucia is correct - most libertarians will reject affirmative action and other corrective measures aimed at social inequity. On a macro view, I agree with that - my primary guiding political instinct is to question why government should be involved at all on any given question, and accept the times when it turns out that it should be as a suboptimal but needed corrective.

In the case of race, class and feminist issues, I tend to lean more U.S.-liberal. That’s probably the result of growing up very poor and then going to an absurdly expensive potted-ivy liberal arts school that I never would have attended without government intervention, in order to have my mind warped by a host of what David Horowitz surely assumes are direct imports from the various circles of hell. (OK, I’ll say it. Wesleyan.) My pals over at Reason will hate me for this, but the personal is most certainly political, which is how I became a libertarian in the first place.

Just to keep the edge on, I do think that any such measures should be considered as corrective remedy - that is, they should sunset when no longer needed. The hard part is determining when, and by what measure, that situation occurs. Which leads to my other favorite political debate topic, which is policy dynamics. But that starts getting very far-afield, so I’ll shut up now.

Amp: thanks for the kind words. This dynamic has been bugging me for a while, and I don’t know how to go about trying to fix it. I’ve tried engaging people who do it, but (and sorry for the metaphor - I’m involved in software development that frequently involves security analysis, and that warps a person) the problem is that it is a protocol attack - rather than looking for winning through normal or even underhanded means within the rules of engagement, it attacks the channel of communication itself. That’s why it is so insidious. Identifying it for what it is seems to be a first step, though.

Also, I saw Duckworth during a channel 11 television interview with Roskam. Duckworth is very well spoken, which is hardly suprising when you learn she a commissioned officer and combat helicopter pilot. She was in the military reserves working toward her Ph. D. at NIU when she was deployed to Iraq.

She is one sharp cookie. It’s still amazing she can get any traction in that district, but she sure is!

She’s a political novice, too - she’s never even been on a Park District or School Board, so she has absolutely no record to defend. And Roskam has been running, from what ads I’ve seen, a very attack-oriented campaign, which doesn’t play well against a female who lost her legs in military service. I don’t agree with Ms. Duckworth’s politics, but she (or, more likely, the Democratic party) has run a much better campaign.

My favorite thing in this thread so far is this, from Fishbane:

And the interesting thing is that nearly everyone now seeks to shut down debate, rather than talk about things. It isn’t even about civility (be rude to me: I don’t care, I live in Brooklyn) - the tactic is to dominate and shut down the conversation.

This paragraph seems exactly right to me. Thank you for putting into words something I was grasping for….

So it’s not just one Republican saying this sort of thing. I think these just the first big bubbles to come to the surface. (To extend the metaphor, living in Dupage County, like a fish under the surface, I first started seeing smaller bubbles forming rising as I sat at a block party last Sept.)

Oh… and totally off topic…. did you hear about Ann Coulter’s troubles?

Results in key House races: Reuters poll

ILLINOIS 6 - Democrat Tammy Duckworth, a veteran who lost both her legs in Iraq, moved well ahead of Republican Peter Roskam. She leads by 54 percent to 40 percent in a suburban Chicago battle to replace retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde.

I know people outside Illinois won’t quite understand the significance of a Democrat taking that seat in the heart of Dupage County– that district holds the county seat. The county where Alan Keyes dared make his speeches when stumping for Senator.

This could still turn around — but the idea a Democrat could lead this race even for a millisecond would have been unthinkable in 2004! Duckworth (D) winning would be major!

Go to the small ‘l’ liberatarian blogs and you will discover the libertarians will answe “yes” quite resoundingly.That said, they tend to disfavor affirmitive action, large entitlement programs etc.

The key difference of opinion between most small ‘l’ libertarians and the policies of the large ‘D’ democratic party has been how to best achieve the goal of equal opportunity for all.