I did not know this site existed until a link showed up in the Google Alert set for "maureen reed". First thought, is this some kind or astroturf, or legit?
A whois gave this:
Registrant:
WinJam Group
209 20th Street North
Birmingham, Alabama 35213
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: PROGRESSIVEELECTORATE.COM
Created on: 21-Jun-08
Expires on: 21-Jun-11
Last Updated on: 15-Jan-09
Administrative Contact:
Weinberg, Martin martin@winjamgroup.com
WinJam Group
209 20th Street North
Birmingham, Alabama 35213
United States
(205) 785-5576 Fax --
That's a good sign. A person standing up and not using some anonymizer gimmick to hide identity. It smells more of grassroots than astroturf to see that.
I am only guessing via the one link that the lawyer in Alabama by that name is the same Martin Weinberg running the website. Perhaps not. I suppose I would need to know ins and outs of Alabama politics to have a firmer guess, and with the name Jeff Sessions popping to mind, I don't want to be there or go there.
At any rate Trevor Willett - we wait to see if you are a starting pitcher, or out of the bull pen. Click the opening link to read the entire Reed promo thing. Not as if you haven't heard it before.
Reed, as "progressive"? Do blue dogs bark that way? Work that one out on your own.
More on the site, home page here, suggests it is another of those legit wannabe major league Dem talking-points-online situations. Getting to be as many of them now as blogs. People wanting to do the "Howard Dean" dance step after Dean showed how. I did the obvious, a site-specific google for "tarryl clark" and it might be that Trevor Willett is more reactive than proactive, in that days before his op-ed there was this link, this screenshot, suggesting somewhat of an equal time thing at play - and Willett doing exactly what he should for his candidate, covering a base after the other team hit one to the deep outfield gap:
The obscenity to sensibilities we call Michele Bachmann must be getting play all the way to deep-down-south Dixie. Wow, are we blessed. Too bad she neglects her district to court name recognition elsewhere. We could use something more, here in the Sixth District, in hardship times. Bill O'Reilly is not going to deliver district help.
How's that for a transition to the next topic: Michele Bachmann neglects the district, poses otherwise, and gets a truthful reprimand, via Tarryl Clark as quoted at Dump Bachmann, this link, this excerpt:
Tarryl Clark Sends Out Hard Hitting Pitch Going After Charlatan Michele Bachmann
Nineteen months ago, experts scouring the state inspecting bridges for safety flaws shut down Saint Cloud’s De Soto/Highway 23 bridge until further notice.
We were told it would be seven years before they could reconstruct it. Congresswoman Bachmann did nothing to help us. But in the State Capitol, we stepped up and found the resources within our newly-passed transportation funds to replace this bridge so vital to our community and get traffic moving again.
Yesterday, we held a celebration of the opening of the new bridge, the “Granite City Crossing.”
Gathered there were the partners who made it possible – my State colleagues who helped find the funding within our newly-passed transportation funds; the construction workers who labored every day on the bridge; the local businesses who are hoping the traffic flowing once again past their stores will bring more customers.
And Michele Bachmann. [...]
After setting the stage that way it goes on. You can probably make a good guess at direction.
Again, follow this DB link to read the entire item.
Not that we haven't heard it before.
It is tide-like in its consistency, Michele Bachmann's twice-daily (if not more frequent) parade of grandstanding limelight seeking horrors.
I had read online that Clark, Bachmann, Klobuchar, other notables did a ceremonial bridge walk as an opening thing.
That Clark item that DB carried is like throwing Bachmann over the edge, midspan.
Way to go, Senator Clark.
Final item, reminiscent of Mike Hatch media relations, 2008, same website - I am getting to like it more and more - Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) on Tuesday apologized for calling a former Enron lobbyist-turned-Federal Reserve Board adviser a "K Street whore."
Read about it there, this link, no Crabgrass screenshot or excerpting on the item, but, see this back link for more on Alan Grayson, who is one of the few, and one of the very, very best.
I don't think Grayson should have apologized any more than Hatch should have in 2008 on the "Republican whore" comment. Political correctness can get too heavy when it intrudes into creative speech and turns out mush, like food forty minutes in a blender. We have too much of that around already. Barney Frank has a good way with words, and it is refreshing. Even when it's pure Barney blarney, it still is a lesson in word choice and delivery. Grayson has a direct and trustworthy demeanor, and I would hate to see this sort of "gotcha" stuff end up turning him into a speaking delivery clone of Orrin Hatch or Norm Coleman.