Also in the Quinnipiac poll referenced below is a finding that shows the public way ahead of the Democratic caucus:

By a 53 - 11 percent margin, Pennsylvania voters say State House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese should step down because of his alleged involvement in “Bonusgate,” according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Results are consistent among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters.

Well, obviously the guy should step down. He either (A) knew that taxpayers were being illegally billed for campaign work thanks to the alleged scheme being run by his No. 2 man, Mike Veon, or (B) he had no idea such a scheme, involving 50 staffers alone to knock Ralph Nader off the 2004 presidential ballot in Pennsylvania, was going on.

So, he’s either a crook or an incompetent. Either way, Democrats ought to show him the door, as Democratic Rep. Josh Shapiro suggested yesterday.

Here’s the partisan breakdown: Democrats want DeWeese ought by a 53-9 margin; Republicans, 54-11; independents, 53-14.

Of course the only poll that matters is inside the 102-member Democratic caucus in the state House of Representatives. And their commitment to integrity is doubtful.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll out today, “Only 24 percent of Pennsylvania voters say they are ‘very confident’ or ’somewhat confident’ that the State Legislature will enact legislation to end corruption, while 74 percent are ‘not too confident’ or ‘not confident at all.’”
I’d go one step further and say that I doubt our elected leaders are even capable of discerning true reform and therefore couldn’t clean up the mess in Harrisburg if they wanted to.
The pollsters, apparently less cynical than I, do not appear to have asked that question.

… that misses the point.
Talking to an Associated Press reporter writing about the anti-Obama focus of John McCain’s presidential campaign, Obama said: “It’s a leap, electing a 46-year-old black guy named Barack Obama.”
Obama, you see, is trying to make out like any attack on him is an attack on “the black guy,” despite the fact that, as another AP story notes, “McCain has not raised Obama’s race as an issue in the campaign.”
Electing Obama is a leap:
Not because he’s black.
Not because his first name is Barack.
And not because he’s young.
It’s a leap because:
–He’s got very little experience with even on the domestic front, where he claims to be such a champion (he went from “community activist” to civil rights attorney to constitutional law professor to the Illinois Senate to the U.S. Senate, where he’s served only three years).
–Aside from his recent jaunt through the Middle East and Western Europe, he has virtually no foreign policy experience
He has a naive view of foreign policy, as evidenced by his claim that Hillary Clinton was being reckless for saying that if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Iran “we would be able to totally obliterate them,” his own foolish statement that he’d send forces into Pakistan with or without that ally’s OK, his desire to give thugs like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stature by talking to them, and
–And, finally, perhaps like never before, foreign policy matters these days.
While nobody likes “negative” campaigning, I think it’s fair for McCain to question whether Obama is prepared to lead a nation at war with terrorism.

Andrew Ferguson, of The Weekly Standard, has done it again this week. (Last week he made the nearly inarguable point that our presidential politics tend to shy away from the truth.)
This week’s column, Sweet Nothings, takes on the vacuousness of Barack Obama’s rhetoric.
Ferguson suggests, toward the end, that Obama’s popularity might be because of, not despite, his emphasis on themes rather than substance.
As Ferguson puts it:

It’s not surprising that when he came to Berlin and said nothing at all, none of his admirers seemed disappointed. After eight years of overheated history, nothing comes as a relief.

OK, so Democrats, according to a Lancaster Sunday News report, are telling themsleves this could be the year.
The year they win the 13th District seat in the state Senate.
The year they win the 16th Congressional District.
The year pigs (or, more aptly, donkeys) fly.
Well, OK, that last one’s mine.
The hope — expressed by county Democratic Chairman Bruce Beardsley and state Rep. Mike Sturla at Saturday’s Democratic corn roast at Long’s Park — is normal (what kind of party official, after all, is going to say, “Oh well, we’re going to lose again, but let’s at least give the majority a run for the money”?) and built on some incredible math and a set of even more dubious expectations.
The math: Bruce Slater, the Democratic nominee for Congress, outpolled Rep. Joe Pitts in the primary, and Jose Urdaneta, the Democratic nominee for the state Senate seat of retiring state Sen. Gib Armstrong, got more votes than all four GOP primary candidates combined.
That sounds impressive until you consider the fact that, in Lancaster County (a big part of both districts), Democratic turnout was 57 percent and GOP turnout was 13 percent. This was due, of course, to the fact that John McCain had sewn up the Republican nomination, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were still battling for the Democratic nomination.
More voters tend to show up when there’s a contest at the top of the ticket.
If anyone believes this pattern will follow in the contested fall election, they have to believe that Republican voters in Lancaster County will change their habits dramatically. I doubt it.
The other fantasies that keep Democratic hopes alive: The GOP was and will remain badly divided by the four-way race in the 13th (doubtful); without the power of incumbency and with a nationwide anti-GOP tide rising, Democrats can take this seat and the one represented by Pitts, too (totally unbelievable); and Democratic activists are revved up to beat the political odds (I don’t doubt their fervor but this political hill is impossibly hard to climb).
A Democratic tide that overtakes Lancaster County in this way would likely mean the end of the Republican Party.
Barring some incredible goofs by John McCain, Congressman Pitts and GOP state Senate hopeful Lloyd Smucker, they all win Lancaster County — even if McCain loses the presidential race, the GOP loses seats in the U.S. House and the GOP edge in the state Senate is eroded a bit.

Interesting.
A Wall Street Journal story today doesn’t go quite as far as Santorum — that Obama must goof to lose — but it does say that voters are looking at Obama first.

WASHINGTON — Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them — Sen. Barack Obama. …
This dynamic is underscored in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey’s most striking finding: Fully half of all voters say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. Obama would be as they decide how they will vote, while only a quarter say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. McCain would be.

Not good news for John McCain, to be sure.

So, former Pa. Sen. Rick Santorum believes John McCain can’t win in November unless Barack Obama proves himself unqualified, according to The American Spectator.
The link is worth a click, to see if you agree with Santorum’s suggestions of vice presidential picks for McCain.
But, gosh, one does wonder if Santorum’s pessimism isn’t driven a little by ego.
Santorum lost, to what he probably rightly believes was an inferior opponent (the almost inarguably less intelligent, less influential Bob Casey), and he probably blames a Democratic tide for that.
And, the human ego being what it is, he doesn’t see McCain overcoming a tide that he couldn’t resist.
I’m not so sure.
I think McCain stands a chance, even here in Pennsylvania.
There’s no doubt that Santorum lost in part because it was a Democratic year, but he also goofed in trying to bill his Pa. school district for cyber school while living in Virginia.
I say McCain’s more electable here this year than Santorum was two years ago.

… but they don’t really matter.
I say this in reference to John McCain’s misstatement of when the surge began.
His defense of his inclusion of the Anbar awakening in the surge is that the strategy went along with the one the surge was meant to support.
That’s plausible, but he still goofed. The surge of troops President Bush announced in early 2007 preceded the Anbar awakening.
But, really, it doesn’t matter.
What the electorate cares about is this: Which candidate’s policy on Iraq makes more sense and which one’s going to do what I want him to do?
Same goes for Barack Obama’s statement that “my” Senate Banking Committee called for divestment from Iran to blunt its development of nukes.
Obama’s not even on the Senate Banking Committee.
But, really, who cares?
It’s been a long campaign, and, judging by the waves these stories have made, it’s going to seem REALLY long by the time we vote on Nov. 4.

So Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg are teaming up to tackle tobacco.
I’ll leave it to The Associated Press to provide the background, then I’ll rail a little.

NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are pooling their piles of money to pour $375 million into a global effort to cut smoking.
The billionaire philanthropists, who have a combined worth of more than $70 billion, said Wednesday that the money will help efforts in developing countries where tobacco use is highest. There are more than 1 billion smokers worldwide.
The $250 million from Bloomberg and $125 million from Gates will support projects that raise tobacco taxes, help smokers quit, ban tobacco advertising and protect nonsmokers from exposure to smoke. It will also aid efforts to track tobacco use and better understand tobacco control strategies.
“Together we can make a clear, measurable difference — not just for ourselves and our generation but for the generations that come after us,” Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg, an ex-smoker, and Gates made the announcement together at a Manhattan news conference — an appearance that Gates noted was his first public event since ending his full-time tenure at Microsoft Corp. to spend more time at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Two parts of this story, in bold above, seem in conflict.
The first bit of understanding of tobacco-control strategies needed is for philanthropists who believe tobacco taxes are aimed at cutting smoking.
Lawmakers raise taxes — on tobacco, alcohol, automobiles, etc. — to raise money.
If they were to set taxes high enough to reduce smoking to a large degree, they would lose revenue for the anti-smoking programs they promise to fund with them.
And then where would they be? (Out of a job, perhaps.)
I’m no fan of smoking but, really, Bloomberg and Gates should take raising tobacco taxes out of their strategy.

Wow!
I haven’t posted in almost a month.
Sorry about that.
The following link should provide a bit of restitution: It’s to Andrew Ferguson’s brilliant “We can’t handle the truth” in this week’s Weekly Standard.
Not only does Ferguson make a good point, in a fairly bipartisan way, about our politicians’ discomfort with truth-telling, but the guy can really write.
Enjoy!