Just breaking from the Associated Press.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush says he won’t run for the U.S. Senate in 2010 to replace the retiring Mel Martinez. Bush made the announcement Tuesday, saying “now is not the right time to return to elected office.”

Oh well. One would have thought this was a perfect opportunity for Jeb to get back in. Chances are, unless Bill Nelson royally screws up, that Jeb would have a hard time beating Nelson and would not challenge him. And if another Republican takes this seat this time around, Jeb would probably not challenge another Republican in the future.

Public Policy Polling shows the Democrats’ chances of holding the US Senate seat from New York could depend on whether David Paterson chooses either Caroline Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo if Peter King becomes the GOP nominee.

US SENATE - NEW YORK
Andrew Cuomo (D) 48%
Peter King (R) 29%

Caroline Kennedy (D) 46%
Peter King (R) 44%

This might help explain why Andrew Cuomo has surged ahead among Democrats in their choice of whom they would like to see David Paterson choose to fill the soon be vacant Hillary seat.

US SENATE - NEW YORK - REPLACEMENT CHOICE
Andrew Cuomo 54%
Caroline Kennedy 34%

Those are numbers for just Democrats. Among the New York voting population as a whole, Cuomo leads 58%-27%. These polls were done January 3-4 among 700 registered voters.

Nice to finally be back from New York and starting the new year off. Sarah Palin’s year is not starting too well if she has any plans in taking on sitting Republican US Senator Lisa Murkowski if a new poll from Dittman Research is to be believed.

US SENATE - ALASKA - GOP PRIMARY
Lisa Murkowski (inc) 57%
Sarah Palin 33%

No dates were given in the article for the poll.

Could be fun in the US senate today as Al Franken and Roland Burris show up to claim Senate seats.  Will it be 0 for two or one out of two or two of two seated? 

Does anyone think Obama will be signing a $775 million stimulus package on 01-21-2009?  Does anyone think it will do any good?

Keep on the Sunny side people.

Franken has been certified as the winner of the Minnesota senate race.  The Canvas board met today and declared him the winner.  The Wall street journal has a nifty recap of all the mess so far

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111967642552909.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Coleman will be in court this week over numerous issues.  I would obviously prefer to be +225 ahead right now then 225 behind.  The writer in the wall street piece did not detail all the numbers on the challenged ballots, but here they are.

Coleman contested 852 ballots and got 36 votes awarded to him, 687 went to Franken and 129 were over votes.  On the Franken side 472 challenges were made and Franken won 70 votes, 283 went to Coleman and 119 were over votes.  One can only guess that the partisan SOS helped Franken out here.  

I forgot that CIA director had not  been picked yet.  Pencil Leon Panetta in for that spot.  I guess to the winner goes the spoils.  How many Southerners (1/4 of the Nation) will be in the Obama cabinet?  How many from California?  I know I know.  Obama will pick his cabinet based only on who will be the absolute best person for the job with no consideration to race, sex or state of origin.  Red and Yellow, Black and White they are all  precious in his sight.  Obama loves all the little children of the world.  

The Mighty Eagles and Ravens swooped down on their foes over the weekend.  Three cheers for that.  The 12-4 Colts (I think they played in Baltimore at one time) lost on the road to the  8-8 Chargers.  I guess winning four more games then your foe still does not guarantee home field advantage.  There was another playoff game, but I  cannot recall who played or what the score was.

 Obama will be tackling tax cuts and another cabinet pick this week. 

The Minnesota senate saga continues

Congress convenes and comment away

Well Gov  Richardson is out.  Commerce secretary anyone??

 So we are losing one Hispanic cabinet pick even as the senate will be losing of its Hispanic senators when Salazar moves to Interior department. 

 I got some comments the other  day when I ribbed the democratic governor for replacing a rural based Hispanic senator with a young white guy from Denver.  Michael Bennet is superintendent of the Denver city schools and has ivy league degrees plus served in the Clinton administration, but he has never faced the voters or held an elective office.  The Denver mayor seems competent as do several local congresspeople plus several state office holders are also loyal democrats.  Actually there is a woman from CO, named Cary Kennedy , who is the state treasurer.  She has been elected statewide in CO. 

I am a GOP guy so I always amused that when the quota minded democrats who are all about affirmative action and equal pay for equal work have a chance to appoint a 40 year old woman like Cary Kennedy to the US senate.  The Governor ends up appointing a 44 year old white male. 

So the next time somebody really believes the democrats are about hope and change I say look at CO.  

Franken is now +225 ahead and here is the story

http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/37047159.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUac8HEaDiaMDCinchO7DU

Franken was +175 on the absentees counted today.  The absentees were weighted towards the urban and democratic counties so they were bound to favor Franken, but +175 was a surprise to me. 

 Coleman is already in court on several fronts.  He has petitioned the State Supreme court to add more ballots into the absentee fray. 

After that he will go to court over several other counting issues. 

I am still in New York and don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to make sure I get The Hedgehog Report picks for the first round of the playoffs on the record. Without further ado:

NFL PICKS - PLAYOFFS FIRST ROUND
Philadelphia at Minnesota
Indianapolis at San Diego
Atlanta at Arizona
Baltimore at Miami

All road teams. This weekend is really just a tune up to the Ravens pounding of Tennessee next week anyway….

Back home soon….

Here a place for comments

Just a few political notes.  Is Michael Bennet the school super of Denver headed to the US senate?  To me its an insult to rural and hispanic Colorado to appoint a white urban guy to replace an hispanic/rural person.  Just me, but watch for this mess to brew.

 Gov Bagman is facing impeachment and will Senator Burris be in limbo?

Finally is Caroline Kennedy in?  Rumours are flying.

The  Minnesota  senate recount case is back to court

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/36994159.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUac8HEaDiaMDCinchO7DU

For those not up to date right now Franken has a 49 vote lead.  There are 1346 absentee ballots that various counties have ruled to be “wrongly rejected”.  The Coleman campaign is going back to court as various counties have different ideas as to what “wrongly rejected” means.

In some counties if the date that someone witnessed a signature is different then the date the voter signed that ballot was wrongly rejected.  Now this seems like a silly point, but an absentee ballot has to be witnessed in Minnesota.  So if someone signs a ballot on 10-01-2008 and then someone witnesses it on 10-02-2008 its clear that the ballot was not witnessed.  Unless one signed it at 11:59 PM and the witness signed at 12:01 AM.  Yet some counties say count that ballot and others do not.  So that’s a court issue.

 Minnesota also does not allow one to vote absentee unless one has a valid reason to do so.  So the reasons are like “I will be out of town” or “I am too sick to go to the polls” or “getting to the polls on election day will be a hardship on me”.  Your absentee ballot has six or seven reasons listed and to cast a valid ballot you have to check a reason.  Many people voting absentee did not select a reason.  In some counties these voters have their absentee ballots in the “wrongfully rejected” pile.  In others the county said “the rules are the rules and this ballot does not count”. 

 These and other issues will be addressed by the court this week.  There may be ballots counted this weekend and then again maybe not.  Either way the Coleman campaign will be back in court early next week. I suspect they will be in court over the following issues

1. Right now Franken’s lead is based on 131 phantom missing ballots in Hennepin county.  At some point in time the Coleman campaign will be in court over this point.

2.  There are also 150 duplicate absentee ballots that the Coleman campaign have identified.  They will be in lower  court on this issue as soon as next week.

Of course there are issues that the Franken campaign can go to court over as well, but for a variety of reasons they may not do so.

1. If they are ahead why bother prolonging anything.

2. If the Franken campaign says they have many duplicate ballots as well then the issue of having no clear winner at all comes up.  In that case a new election is an option and the Franken campaign does not want that. 

Claiborne Pell died-90 year old senator who served  was known for Pell grants.  Less well known was the higher costs that this program created for most middle and upper class college students.  Colleges & universities merely raised tuition to snag the money for Pell grants and then stuck it to the rest of the students.  This is a similar to how every state with lotteries for education have seen tuition rise to snag the lottery money.

 So we have a situation in higher education now where the poor student with decent grades gets a free education, but the great student from a upper middle class family is expected to pay a nearly full price for their education.  Share the wealth intend-

I am not a big New Year resolutions guy as I have lists and lists of five point plans for nearly every aspect of my life.  So why add any more when I am trying to live by thousands of day by day guidelines.  Yet in the spirit of the season here are three  resolutions:

1.  I will be less cynical.

2. I will improve my grammar and spelling skills

3.  I will not blame my poor grammar and spelling skills on my public education and my undiagnosed unknown learning disorder. 

In fact I should learn from this clip not to  be a blame shifter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKIaS0lh-uo

Happy New Year and post any resolutions here or just comment away

A shot from when we walked down to Times Square yesterday. They were already setting up for tonight’s festivities.

And a close up shot of the spot for the ball drop later tonight.

And one other shot from Rockefeller Center and the Christmas Tree.

Not as big I guess I thought it would be. I hope everyone has been enjoying their holidays. It has been a fun year for me with this site and hope to continue it into the new year. I wish everyone a very Happy New Year and see you on the other side.

Comment away-I will update the Minnesota recount in a bit.

Happy New Year

UPDATED 10:15  CST  I don’t really have time or inclination right now to update the Minnesota recount.  Somehow they recounted a ballot the other day and Franken dropped from +50 to +49.  Here is the Startribune site for news

http://www.startribune.com/

I did the regular site and not for a specific story as I have been checking this site daily for news and I have become quite enamored with news in the Twin Cities.  There is a great story there about a city worker from rural Polk county.  He was clearing roads on his snowplow when he decided to help clear a path to the boat ramp to help ice fisherman.  Well as he was going downhill the snowplow rolls onto the ice and then broke through the ice. The Plow sinks  to the bottom of the lake.  I guess at some point the driver decided not to go down with the ship.  The city fired him for this error after 28 years of employment. 

Then few days ago there was a riot at a roller rink in Coon Rapids Minnesota which is in suburban Anoka county.  This town has 65,000 people.   I can only assume that Minnesota like Tennessee is bountiful in raccoons.