Doctors are traditionally a Republican-leaning bloc, often for economic reasons. They don't like big government (and trial lawyers) telling them how to do their jobs.

Will legislative medicine - which is what this is all about - ultimately make doctors think twice about opening up their wallets during election season? Should it?

Your thoughts...

In the CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey of 909 adult Americans taken Friday through Sunday, 40 percent approved of President Bush's approach to Social Security and 53 percent disapproved. The question had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

In other words, it's bound to generate more heat than light, and in fact is almost certainly being trumped up to divert attention from real issues.

The most obvious difference, the one that stands right out, is that the GOP site makes it abundantly clear that being a GOP team leader actually has some real benefits.

Both the Clinton and Bush administrations were well aware that Iraq was illegally exporting "hot oil", and tolerated it for national security reasons.

Rep. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is also quoted as saying that the U.S. was complicit in the UN's oil-for-food  debacle.

Somewhere a freeper just exploded, I am sure.

I beseech our leaders in Congress to stop pretending that they have any power whatsoever.

Sure, we might still be able to slip a few goodies into spending bills, but it's pretty much all downhill from there.

The Republicans believe they can run the country, and they claim that's what they were elected to do. So don't help them.

Conventional wisdom is that we need to run a governor in 2008. Unfortunately, the only two that get much buzz are Ed Rendell (Pa.) and Bill Richardson (N.M.). And both remind me of Mario Cuomo, in that I am not sure either would run.

However, I note that Ted Kulongoski has a very interesting personal background, as well as a diverse set of experiences in the public and private sector. Moreover, Oregon isn't exactly the South or Midwest, but it's a lot harder to pigeonhole than Massachusetts.

We need to begin looking hard for candidates for EVERY congressional district - all 435 - and senate seat that will be up. We also need to find good candidates for state and local offices. If you have political ambitions, why don't you begin thinking about running in Oh-Six?

Finally, there may be some Democrats who may retire in 2006. For example, Senator Herb Kohl, from Wisconsin. We'll need a strong candidate (perhaps Rep. Tammy Baldwin?) waiting in the wings.

Let's roll!

We are a populist movement without a people. Sure, we've still got activists who will show up. But for the most part, "normal people" don't have anything to do with us. It is all for naught if you set only the activists on fire, because it requires a majority to win.

The weekend before the Election, I went to New Mexico to GOTV among perfect strangers. I was doing, essentially, the same thing, the week before the Iowa caucus. Do you see what the problem with THAT is?

The campaign here is well organized, and we're giving it the old college try. Did blockwalking and other tasks today, we'll be working on doorhangers for a w hile tomorrow before going back to Texas.

Also, I am always happy to be in NM, where the weather and people are nice, and you can buy liquour ANYWHERE.

Go Kerry!

Now, a reasonable person, having read and understood all three of these news items, might conclude that they are all in fact one news story; to wit, that Bush screwed up big time, the terrorists got a hold of explosives, and now he's being taken to task for it. I could write one headline instead of three: "Bush a miserable failure."

Of course, as predicted by Ezra over at Pandagon, the media instead decided to be balanced instead of accurate, playing the foul game of equivalencely lest they be accused of telling the truth. Not to ruin your morning, but frankly this sucks.

On the other hand, a non-Bush endorsement would probably not have much impact, aside from driving the Chronicle's subscription base into the ground. Maybe in four or eight years we can see Texas papers give something other than pseudo-enthusiastic endorsements of Republicans (really, is it the Chronicle's "pleasure" to endorse Bush, or are they just saying that?)

The Galveston County Daily News has not yet endorsed. They did endorse a lot of local races, though, mostly Democrats, but they did spring for Republican Cheryl Johnson for Galveston County tax collector.

Team Bush is rolling out one of its most sinister ads yet, according to the AP.

The ad repeats the lie that Kerry wanted to cut intelligence by "$6 billion dollars", and reframes it in a way as to suggest that Kerry wanted to cut intelligence after 9/11 (when instead, he supported an amendment in 1994 which, using fuzzy math, adds up to $6 billion over a certain number of years).

I fully expect to see a Kerry = Osama ad in the next few weeks. This is how the Republicans do it. The same crap every election cycle.

With DeLay stuck at 42 in the most recent poll, the biggest challenge for Morrison is name recognition. There are a lot of Astros fans in District 22. Hopefully after tonight there will also be a lot of Morrison fans.

In the middle of the 5th, Houston leads 2 - 1.

BTW, I'm tired of people moaning about how "awful" a Houston-Boston series would be, consider the fact that there are a lot of Cards fans in the swing states of Missouri and Iowa. Do you really want to risk a few hundred or a few thousand people in Mo and Iowa voting against Kerry just because he's a Red Sox fan? I don't think so! If the Astros win tonight, though, you don't have to worry about that.

It's good to see Craig Biggio's drought come to an end. Especially on his first at bat. Good drama.

OK, no more diaries for me until the end of the game.

Go Astros.

(KOS - Give us a baseball open thread!)

I urge all patriot physicists, engineers, and mathematicians to begin work on a time machine instantly, which will allow us to go back in time to November of 2000 and urge a few thousand lazy Floridians to go vote for Al Gore. This will, of course, have to be a top secret project, so we will refer to it from here out as the "Bronx Project." No one will suspect that we would name a top-secret physics experiment after a part of New York City, after all.

Your country, and indeed the world, is depending on you.

God Speed!

I was forwarded this link by an acquaintance of mine.

It's highly disturbing, but I think there is a nugget of truth. After the last three debates, I think it's clear that our President is surfing on the Gary Busey wavelength.

Bush repeatedly cites an inflated figure from the partisan American Enterprise Institute, that Kerry's promises add up to $2.2 trillion dollars.

A more fair-and-balanced report from the Concord Coalition, however, reveals a different picture: Kerry's plan is more conservative, to the tune of $50 billion dollars over 10 years.