The Dish

Josh Marshall has some emails suggesting that the Democratic machine is whirring back into action. My readers are not so confident:

I was a volunteer on Coakley's campaign in the fall but frankly, it was kind of boring, so I checked out. However, I totally intend to vote for her. But I can add to your anecdotal stories about why I think she is going to lose.

I live in Newton, Mass, an incredibly liberal city, and I see Brown signs all over the place. Last week before the shit really started to hit the fan, I was driving through Needham, Mass and I swear there was a Brown sign on every other lawn. I was stunned. To add insult to injury, I have a Coakley bumper sticker on my car and last week while in Wellesley, Mass I approached my car in a parking lot and I heard 2 electricians making fun of my sticker and of Martha. I could not believe it….the sticker had been on my car since October and all of the sudden I felt like I should take it off because people are ca-raaaazyyy!

It is not good for Martha and I cannot for the life of me figure it out. No one seems to be voting for Brown, just against Coakley and against Health-care Bill. She is so benign that it amazes me how she has been made into the devil by the right. The really bad news is that if she does manage to win, the Republicans will cry voter fraud and it will be even more of a disaster.

Another:

I drove from Concord to Worcester today. We saw 6 or 7 Brown signs for every Coakley sign, maybe more. That's pretty consistent with what I've seen in metrowest in the last few days. She is NOT popular around here. And yes, I agree that she'll be ensconced for 20 years or more if she wins. She's the anointed one and we're all supposed to just fall in line. Oops.

Exclusive unseen video footage of the Miracle on the Hudson, flight 1549 New York City from David Martin on Vimeo.

The Christianist author of the Uganda bill that would demand that people inform on gay family members (pr face legal penalties, and would arrest, silence and execute gay men and women will attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington next month. It seems to me that if Bahati attends, the president cannot pray alongside him. To implicitly endorse this looming pogrom as something even faintly Christian is abhorrent. The same goes, I might add, for all Christians who oppose the demonization and elimination of an already persecuted minority. Or Bahati needs to be told he cannot attend.

Think Progress passes along a recent poll from Democracy Corps that asked voters if they thought DADT should be repealed. (The Quinnipiac poll was taken in April 2009.)

"Obama sees himself as such a huge change that he can be cautious about other societal changes. But what he doesn’t realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable. Once it’s done, you can’t remember what all the fuss was about," – Maureen Dowd.

A reader writes:

In the for what it's worth file: on my errands today, I counted signs basically Rte 6A from Barnstable village center to Yarmouth Port (Peterson's) and some side streets…approx 8 or 9 miles. Brown: 30; Coakley 5. Three families (each a g/l couple) that had Coakley signs up before our Dec. blizzard have not had them up … since. Phone calls at my house-sitting house (independent voters) Brown: at least 10, Coakley: 1.

Another writes:

I was in a hospital on Friday night, on a patient floor after visiting a family member.  Ran into a friend.  Four lifelong Democrats, talking outside the rooms of their loved ones in a hospital, and not a one of us was voting for Coakley. 

We all want health care to pass.  We all want Obama to succeed.  We all want Coakley to go away.  That's a problem for Coakley.  This vote is not about health care and Obama, it's about the Senate and Coakley.  If I voted in election after election and voted the Dem ticket except for Coakley (which I left blank), you might imagine I sure as hell would not start voting for her for Senator of all things.  

At least the lightweight, brain-dead Brown will only hold that seat for 2 years.  Coakley will share her mediocrity with us for the next 20 years if she gets in.  Want my vote?  Dems should make a deal – Coakley until 2012, then they'll put up a credible candidate. 

They make the same egregious error as Politico over Rasmussen's consulting bio.

You’ve read him but have you heard him? There are now four sermons and one interview you can listen to online. The interview is of Niebuhr and James Baldwin after the murder of four African American children in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. It’ so wonderful to hear Christian witness in defense of a minority, instead of Christianist rants that attack a minority.

Ryan Sager studies compassion:

As economists and social scientists have begun to dig around in recent decades into people’s true motives when they give to charity, what they’ve found hasn’t exactly been in keeping with the flattering way we humans like to see ourselves. While altruism may play its part, there are also many other factors at play when we donate: guilt, the desire to boost our social status, the need to feel good about ourselves, even our sex drives. Any attempt to understand why we give — or to get us to give more — must deal with this dirty and tangled reality.

(Hat tip: Hit & Run)