Midday Open Thread

• You know how some Republican legislators vote like Republicans most of the time and then clean up their act a little come election year? Senate 2008 Guru documents how this works on the environment, comparing the 2007 and 2003-2003 League of Conservation Voters scores of senators up for re-election. There are some pretty stark contrasts.
• Brian at Crooked Timber looks at the value (seemingly large) of mayoral endorsements in the primaries, and speculates about what this might mean for March 4.
• One of the phone jammers from the 2002 NH Senate election has been acquitted on appeal. This year there’s a rematch from 2002, with Jeanne Shaheen taking another stab at defeating John Sununu. So far she’s leading in the polls, but we should take the acquittal of this GOP dirty trickster as a reminder that she can use all the help she can get.
• Yesterday, the Change to Win coalition endorsed Barack Obama.
• Same as it ever was. The question is, why is Russert giving him a forum to play this game, again?
  

  Ralph Nader could be poised for another third party presidential campaign. The consumer advocate will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Nader launched his 2004 presidential run on the show.

  - mcjoan

• Gray wolves are no longer endangered in the Northern Rockies…which means now they’re going to be hunted. That seems like a fast transition, like one year they’re endangered and the next, kill away.
• So what would happen if the Romney boys did decide to enlist? Phil Nugent speculates.

• “… global warming is a largely unscientific hoax. And it’s a political concoction.”

  That’s what GOP strategist/consultant Mary Matalin said on CNN’s “The Situation Room” yesterday.  Just another Republican conspiracy theorist…

– Plutonium Page

• Americans are uninterested in retroactive telecom amnesty, and really do want the government to spy on them, just like the punditry tells you.

  – Kagro X

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