The Cardinals/Rams game was, in essence, a tale of two quarterbacks: the Rams’ Sam Bradford and the Houston Texans’ Matt Leinart. Leinart, of course, was a Heisman trophy winner from USC,  and he was supposed to be the heir apparent to Kurt Warner after several years of tutelage (and not cutting it on his own). After Warner’s retirement, Leinart apparently never proved he was as good as advertised. He was beaten out in preseason by the much-maligned Derek Anderson, and Leinart was released shortly thereafter. Contrast that with Bradford, who, as a rookie, seemed to be confident- if not comfortable- in his starting role.

It reminded me of two presidents, Barack Obama and George Bush. Obama- like Leinart- was the much-hyped prodigy that, in retrospect, was never really ready for the role in which he was expected to excel. Bush, while steadfastly confident like Bradford- and maybe as maligned as Anderson- seemed to find his comfort zone while on a very steep learning curve.

As bizarre as that realization was, the other game also rang a familiar bell. San Francisco was supposed to be the team to move in and succeed where the depleted Cardinals were on the decline. Seattle was the team in disarray with a controversial new leader and a bunch of aging veterans. When the game was played, though, the 49ers came up lacking in a big way. I couldn’t help but compare San Francisco to the Democrats- intending to shake things up, but in over their heads when it counted. Seattle and its controversial leader seems to be a fitting comparison to the Republicans and the Tea Party movement.

The season is still young, of course, and things can still change for all of these teams and players. And, though this is generally a Republican year, both parties are still capable of self-inflicted wounds. But there is definitely a major shift in the NFC West this year- one so great you can see Washington in it.

The answer is not so simple.

A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that we still don’t feel really all that safe, though I suspect this generation will likely always be on some sort of guard (and that’s not a bad thing), and that may be pulling those poll numbers down slightly. The biggest challenge is how to address future threats- proactively, or reactively. This requires a delicate balance of foreign intervention and foreign restraint, of personal liberty and public security; however, the proactive/reactive decision is a no-brainer. Part of the reason we don’t feel safer is because the administration and Congressional leadership seem to be distracted by finding that balance point.

Of course, Saturday marks 9 years since the September 11 terror attacks on America. The extra six months puts us into March, two months after the 112th Congress is sworn in. The faltering economy is a reminder that elections have consequences, but we also need to be thinking of our security.

September 11 will always be in the back of our minds, popping up to the surface this time of year. Let’s make sure it also plays a part in how we approach November 2 this year.

Where do you want to be after 9-1/2 years?

For it to have lived up to the hype, the fire would have had to be really big. Where were they getting all the Korans? Are they buying them en masse? Doesn’t that bring the laws of supply and demand into play, i.e. if they bought a bunch of Korans, wouldn’t publishers respond to the increased demands… by printing more of them?

I’ve  thought it was a bad idea, not to mention one that flies in the face of Christian teaching, but I don’t think the pastor bears the sole blame for this. Now that his “demands” have been publicized (not building the mosque at Ground Zero), why hasn’t as much pressure been placed by the Obama administration on the imam to move the mosque as it has on the pastor to stop the Koran burning?

For that matter, the church’s website was taken down and the FBI visited the pastor today. Given the church’s out-of-the-mainstream brand of Christianity, does anybody see this eventually going the way of the Branch Davidians?

And why do I get the feeling that we haven’t heard the last of any of this?

I’m going to step out on quite a limb by saying this, but I’ve come to believe recently that Obama is, in fact, does not have a hidden agenda to socialize America. Any agenda he has to socialize America is, or will be, out in the open. Some of his advisors/followers/czars may have hidden agendas in that regard. I’d bet they probably do. But America’s greatest problem right now is Obama’s real hidden agenda, though that agenda, too, is starting to see the light of day.

Obama’s only agenda right now is trying to look like a competent captain on a sinking ship.

His party is going to suffer serious losses in both houses of Congress this November, possibly losing control of at least one house altogether. Even if the Democrats’ firewall strategy holds, and they retain control of both houses, Republicans will gain enough seats in the Senate to sustain filibusters when necessary. Given Obama’s strength as a campaigner, Democrats should be flocking to his side in the runup to November. Few, if any, Democrats are calling him in to boost their poll numbers. Even when he’s tapped into his strength and gone into campaign mode to try to drum up support for his agenda, his efforts have not yielded their usual fruit.

Some of this is attributable to the unpopularity of his agenda on its face. Some of it is due to the unfulfilled campaign promises of increased transparency and an end to politics-as-usual. But I think a large portion of this is due to a lack of confidence in Obama’s ability to govern. That’s right; as great as he may have been on the campaign trail, he has not established himself as any kind of effective leader. He seems out-of-touch with the American people with his spendthrift economic policy, his decidedly pro-Islamic foreign policy (which probably explains the large percentage of Americans that believe he’s Muslim), and his “blame Bush first” economic policy. Mostly, though, he seems to be trying to appear to be “above it all.” Instead, he comes across as aloof and disconnected, content to let the maelstrom swirl around him as long as he remains unharmed.

Now, Obama’s disconnectedness may be just what his advisors want. They may have signed on to take advantage of his charisma to further their own political agendas. If so, expect many of them to start finding excuses to jump ship (like Rahm Emanuel) before it sinks completely in November. Those who followed him on his meteoric rise (which is kind of a funny idiom… since meteors are usually seen as falling) to fulfill their own personal ambitions may soon leave, though some may stick around to function as the wizened voice of dissent from the inside (Hillary Clinton, perhaps?). So, there may be plenty of hidden (and not so hidden) agendas in the White House. I just don’t think Obama has one… unless he’s hiding it from himself.

1. Incumbents were vulnerable… sort of. In spite of some other high-profile Senate upsets, McCain managed to hang on to his job (yes, I know there’s still the general election, but we’ll get into why that’s unimportant later). That trend held true to an extent in Arizona’s major elections. Gov. Brewer is the main exception, since she ran virtually unopposed after her popularity soared on the strength of her advocacy of SB1070 and her main challengers dropped out of the race. The races in CD1, CD8, and Treasurer had no Republican incumbents running, but the presumed establishment insiders were defeated by non-career politicians (Dr. Paul Gosar, Jesse Kelly, and Doug Ducey). In fact, this trend may have continued in CD3′s crowded primary. Ben Quayle should have been tagged as the consummate insider, but the media’s portrayal of him as a political newbie (save for the name) probably worked in his favor. So, how did this work in McCain’s favor? Hayworth never effectively established himself as the “outsider” during the campaign, and the McCain campaign focused heavily on painting Hayworth as an “insider”.

2. In the less familiar offices, voters went with familiar candidates. The trend against incumbents went only so far. Most state legislators running for reelection are still running. In the State Superintendent’s race, the most familiar name, state Sen. John Huppenthal, stood out, as did former State Sen. Brenda Burns and Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce in the Corporation Commission race. For that small percentage of Arizona voters with only a passing interest in the McCain/Hayworth race, McCain was the familiar name.

3. Issues mattered… Gov. Brewer found this out after signing SB1070. As strong as Hayworth was on the border, McCain not only supported the measure, but he stood up for Arizona in Washington against the Justice Department’s involvement in the ensuing lawsuit. It wasn’t a drastic pull to the right, but it didn’t have to be. However, if he hadn’t made those stands, it would have been a much closer race, and Hayworth might have upended him. The bigger issue, though, may have been government spending. Hayworth was part of the Republican Congress that spent its way into the minority (and was a casualty in the 2006 elections). McCain, though part of that same Congress, has at least been historically outspoken against government waste.

4. …but so does image. Here’s where we get to the race that may never end. The primary battle between Andrew Thomas and Tom Horne for Attorney General has, as I write this, Horne up by 433 votes out of over 475,000. In a conservatives’ year, Thomas should have been the easy winner, but Horne had two things going for him. As State Superintendent, Horne did go after school districts that enrolled children in this country illegally as residents, giving him a degree of credibility in one of the major issues this cycle. More importantly, Thomas has developed a reputation (whether it’s deserved or not) of being petty and vindictive as Maricopa County Attorney, and this race seemed to have mirrored his 2002 race where he emerged not as the victor, but as the least-bruised in the Republican primary… and was soundly defeated by gubernatorial wannabe Terry Goddard. Likewise, Hayworth’s campaign went too negative too early- not that McCain didn’t go negative, but it was later in the contest when McCain could use it to turn a 5-point-and-closing lead into a 10-plus-point walkaway. I think- between McCain’s attacks and Hayworth’s self-inflicted wounds- this is what hurt Hayworth the most.

Now, about that general election… forget it. McCain has generally done better in general elections than in contested primaries. His challenger, former Tucson City Councilman Rodney Glassman, may eventually buy his way into a higher office (his family has lots of money, some of which Rodney managed somehow not to waste), but not this year. His record on the City Council here was… well, if there was anything notable, I’d mention it (and I should know, since I’m one of his former constituents). If you’re looking for his achievements, note that his resume includes being the Vice-Mayor and stop there, since that office rotates on an annual basis among the six City Council members. If he’d done something worthwhile, he wouldn’t have to highlight a largely ceremonial title.

So, McCain is practically reelected. Do Arizonans deserve better? Probably. But, until McCain retires, Barry Goldwater is resurrected, or a conservative candidate can successfully mount a primary challenge without going into the mud early, it probably won’t happen.

In my last post, I predicted that the ruling against much (but not all) of SB1070 would result in more states looking to replicate at least the allowed portions of Arizona’s law- while using the judge’s ruling to stake out a clearly defined path to their own versions of the law. 

First, Florida Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Bill McCollum announces he’d like an immigration law tougher than Arizona’s. Then, Virginia started moving on a similar law after an illegal immigrant killed a nun. Now, this article shows that many other states are seeking similar laws.

There’s still no word on whether or not the federal government is interested in taking up similar legislation…

President Obama stepped in it by endorsing the project, and he owns any backlash from that endorsement, including the responsibility for the “misinformation campaign” that has restarted over his citizenship and his religious leanings. Mostly, though, he emphasized his disconnect with the general American populace.

Nancy Pelosi wasn’t content to just step in it. She took a great big swan-dive and wallowed around in it for a while. Her initial comment about rooting out the funding for the opposition wasn’t tempered by her comment about *maybe* also checking out the funding behind the mosque itself. But, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt: if anybody is funding the opposition to the mosque, I’ll take some…

As for the mosque itself, all I can say is dumb, dumb, dumb. For a religion that has lagging public relations due to its seeming tolerance of its terrorist extremists, the one thing it could have done right was to immediately recognize the implications of building right near the site of one of Islam’s most infamous moments and reconsider the wisdom of building there. The failure to do so implicates those in charge of the project as insensitive at best, and complicit at worst. Either way, it obfuscates the perception of Islam as a “religion of peace.”

However, where I believe this is a setback for Arizona- albeit a minor and temporary one- I believe this will benefit those other states looking to enact a version of this law. Much to the chagrin of anti-anti-illegal immigration advocates, the judge’s ruling seems to have very clearly framed out the acceptable legal boundaries for future laws (including here in Arizona, where I suspect the next legislature will propose similar measures that fit within that framework).

It looks like two more high-profile Democrats are jumping off the sinking ship, and these two are probably an indicator of how poorly their party could perform in November. Evan Bayh, by most accounts a centrist and by many accounts a potential Presidential (or at least Vice-Presidential) candidate, has annoounced his intent not to run for reelection to his Senate seat, citing Washington’s recent trend toward partisanship over governance (gee… that couldn’t have coincided with the broken campaign promises of bipartisanship from Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, could it?). Patrick Kennedy has also announced his intent to not run for his House seat, citing a “new direction” in his life.

Some of the immediate consequences of these retirements are obvious: Indiana’s Senate seat is likely to go to a Republican, and there won’t be a Kennedy in elected office in Washington for the first time since before the Roswell incident (though Rhode Island- a pretty reliably blue state- likely won’t replace him with a Republican). The greater consequences are more pronounced: conservative Democrats are starting to question their party’s agenda, and the Kennedy legacy- including Teddy Kennedy’s signature healthcare reform- is going out not with a bang, but a whimper.

In spite of that news from the left side of the aisle, there’s a big fight brewing in the Republican Party right here in Arizona. Former Congressman and radio host J.D. Hayworth is challenging John McCain in the Republican primary for McCain’s Senate seat. McCain has been held in disfavor by conservatives for some time, but Hayworth lost his House seat in 2006 partly in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. McCain could easily win a general election if he survives the primary, while Hayworth would be vulnerable because of the Abramoff thing. Throw in some longstanding local personality clashes, and this fight could easily become a TV reality show, “Real Republicans of Maricopa County.”

Finally, in a full disclosure moment, I did try to come up with a curling tie-in to all of this, but decided I couldn’t make it work easily enough. And, try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to watch figure skating, though I’m obviously pulling for the Americans there, too.