Open Thread (8/27/2008)

Interesting school reform proposal from Meeks and Gidwitz - some of the details from the article:

• The current political climate in Illinois, coupled with the poor performance of so many public schools, precludes passage of any new funding scheme—probably until after the 2010 gubernatorial election.

• Even then, citizens, businesses and many legislators won't pour more billions into schools that can't, or won't, improve.

• The way to win support for more funding is to demonstrate convincingly, via pilot programs in four clusters of schools, that those schools can be fixed. Two pilot clusters—high schools and all of their feeder schools, down to pre-kindergarten—would be in Chicago, with a third in a struggling suburban locale and a fourth Downstate.

Looks to me like (gasp!) they want to experiment, do some things differently, and see if they can prove their model and improve outcomes. 

To see the above actually occur, run do not walk to your computer, go to WGN noon news online, and watch the video tape just shown on the noon news from Denver followed by the news reporter's statement that this may lead to a resolution of the school situation lead by Meeks.

As many of stated, one has to love Illinois politics.

Pattsi Petrie

Anon... I can only imagine that I'm hardly alone in noticing this stuff as it comes out on the news and web.  But as a McCain supporter it certainly gives me hope that Obama is blowing it. 

If it makes you feel better though the Gallup daily tracking poll has Obama up by 1 point now... so the poll averages since Biden have them still in a dead heat.  But that's the first time since the Biden pick that the polls showed any improvement for Obama.  There's still a chance that Bill Clinton will make the experience/leadership argument for Obama where she did not, though some of her other omissions seemed pretty telling to me.  And though the eve of Obama's acceptance speech for the nomination as the we-can't-win-in-Iraq candidate is happening as confidence in that is rebounding... no one seems to question that the convention will give him some sort of bounce, so McCain will surely be behind as they go into the GOP convention, with a hurricane heading into the gulf on the anniversary of Katrina.

Chin up.  It's not just conservative talking points.  It may be the last good news a McCainiac has for a while.  I'm sure the 24 hour news cycle and internet streaming will make the GOP convention look even more lame than the DNC one.

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Glock21 Op/Ed

IP, you'll enjoy this Jonah Goldberg column:

And to feed that bottomless yearning for the new, Obama picked a Democrat who was first elected to the U.S. Senate when Obama was 11 years old and Richard Nixon was still popular. When Biden - already a seasoned pol - first ran for president, Duran Duran was still thought of as the cutting edge of music. What happened? Was Robert Byrd too trendy?

And what about all that jibber-jabber about postpartisanship? When Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, according to the 2007 vote scoring done by National Journal, picks the third-most-liberal senator, does that count as reaching across the aisle?

good fun