Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks signs his Alabama political death warrant. Sparks has joined the Hillary Clinton as Co-Chair of Rural Americans for Hillary. Rumors flew last year about a possible Sparks run against Jeff Sessions for Senate in 2008. A lot of people have been headed to HRC's camp lately (The Alabama Democratic Conference, the black wing of the state Democratic Party, endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in October), but how popular is she in Alabama?

• Pollster has her losing to 4 of the top 5 Republicans in the general election.
• Rasmussen & Fox Television Stations Inc have her being defeated by McCain, Rudy, and Fred. She ties with Romney. Coincidentally, two-term Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, would handily defeat Democratic candidate Vivian Sessions 62 to 30 percent, the report said. Sessions would receive 90 percent of the Republican vote and more than a fifth of Democratic voters.
• Clinton has a very favorable rating of 27%, somewhat favorable 18%, somewhat unfavorable 11%, very unfavorable 41% and 3% are undecided in Alabama.

Notice the difference in the very favorable and very unfavorable ratings. I read once where James Carville would not work for a candidate if there was more than a 15 pt spread between the two. HRC is right at 14% in Alabama. These were the newest polls I could find. Survey USA reflects the same results as the above polls.

Light posting this week. I will be traveling for a few days so here is some interesting reading.

• Air Mobility Command passed a major milestone Nov. 19, when an AMC aircraft flew the command's one millionth sortie since September 11, 2001. The landmark flight was a C-17 mission flown to Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan. The crew was from the 62nd Airlift Wing's 10th Airlift Squadron, McChord AFB, Wash.

Other mobility facts: - About every 90 seconds a mobility aircraft lifts off somewhere in the world.- Since Sept. 11, 2001, AMC tankers have passed nearly 1.2 billion gallons of fuel to U.S. and allied aircraft.- AMC airlift is keeping about 12,000 people and almost 5,000 trucks off Iraqi roads each month, helping to defeat the enemy's IED strategy. - AMC aircraft are responsible for transporting the nation's senior leaders, including the president. - AMC is rushing about 12 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to Iraq and Afghanistan every day. The command has delivered more than 1,000 MRAPs. - AMC aeromedical crews provide timely airlift and medical care to their fellow warriors, rapidly moving injured service members from the battlefield to the U.S.

• HRC's buying of political endorsements with the promises of money and ambassadorships.
• "The tragedy of the Commons", 1st Thanksgiving style by John Stossel.
• Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on the Democrats and Waterboarding. Dershowitz is always interesting because he is a liberal who is a strong supporter of Israel, he wrote a book on pre-emptive warfare and is a supporter of torture in the "ticking time bomb" scenario.
• There is no way to understand the nexus of the world, globalization, and foreign policy without reading Thomas PM Barnett's blog. It's a must-read for this international affairs neophyte. There is a new video of the Pentagon's New Map brief up at TED. I am on a international affairs, strategy, and military reading kick lately. Please feel free to recommend books to me. For Christmas, I will take the C-SPAN video.

Questions plague Clinton Campaign in Iowa
Tuesday,Nov 6-After her speech, Clinton accepted questions. But according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.

Clinton campaign also denied the practice of planting. “It’s not a practice of our campaign to ask people to ask specific questions,” said Mark Daley, Clinton’s Iowa Communications Director. But when directly asked if his statements meant that planting does not occur in the Hillary campaign, Daley could only say, “to the best of my knowledge.” “[Planting] is not something that is encouraged in our campaign,” he said.

Saturday, November 10th in SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign admitted Friday that it planted a global warming question in Newton, Iowa, Tuesday during a town hall meeting to discuss clean energy. Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elliethee admitted that the campaign had planted the question and said it would not happen again. "On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton's energy plan at a forum,” Elliethee said.

A reasonable question might ask,"Why the 4-day gap between being caught planting and admitting your Iowa Communication lied? Is this common practice on a campaign? Is it true that people don't pay attention to the news over the weekend and the admission that the Clinton campaign lied would not make as big a splash on Saturday morning? Or does this again bring up feelings of distrust and deceit from the Clintons in the 90s? It's up to the voters to decide. It feels like the 90s: OJ is on trial and Clinton's running for President.

The Edwards campaign continues to entertain me with this statement,"“It’s what the Clinton campaign calls the politics of planting.” Remember the Edwards campaign released, "The Politics of Parsinging" video last week. Joe Trippi, you magnificent b____d.

Reason #378 I hope the Democratic nominee is Hillary

• According to the latest RCP Averages Fred, Giuliani, and McCain are all within 7, 4, and 5 points respectively, of the Democratic front runner.
• If you compare Romney vs. Clinton, the RCP Average puts Clinton ahead by 11 points. Just something to think about.
• If you look at Fred, Rudy, and McCain vs. Edwards and Obama they are competitive and sometimes come out on town as is the case of Rudy vs. the Breck girl (Edwards).

Just something to think about when considering the "electability" aspect of each candidate. Right now, a vote for Mitt is a vote for GOP suicide. Kinda like Bob Dole in 1996. Dole is a war hero, a great man and legislator who waited his turn but looking back there is no way he could compete again Bill Clinton.

It is not too late for a Republicans Rally
In a follow up to my post,"GOP can win on Illegal Immigration." Michael Barone again addressed the subject in his latest column, "Wavering Republicans" He studied a focus group this past week and here is what he learned;

Many of these voters raised the issue of illegal immigration and were genuinely outraged by the large number of illegals in the United States and by weak enforcement (or non enforcement) of the law at the border and at workplaces. There was some clear condemnation of Bush here. At the same time, there was nothing to indicate that these attitudes were motivated by a dislike or prejudice against Latinos; to the contrary, one or two participants pointed out that illegal immigrants were hard
workers.

These voters were solidly arrayed against Hillary Clinton and also against her leading Democratic competitors Barack Obama and John Edwards. Indeed, they showed considerably more unambivalent vehemence in opposing Clinton than they showed in expressing support for any of the Republican candidates. So far during this cycle we have seen that the Democratic candidates are raising more money, generating more volunteers, getting more press coverage (of course, that reflects the press's biases to at least some extent)—all signs that the balance of enthusiasm favors the Democrats more next fall than it did the Republicans in 2004. The vehemence of these Republicans' opposition to Clinton suggests there's at least a possibility that enthusiasm on the Republican side may increase if and when she clinches the Democratic nomination.

The Republicans in the focus group are still undecided about their Presidential choice but there are 2 issues which can galvanize them: Illegal immigration and Hillary Clinton. I call the latter the "ABC factor" or Anybody But Clinton.

The Politics of Parsing from Redstate.
Clarifying HRC's position(s) from the debate the other night. You can guarantee this will be used in the general. I must give credit where credit is due, this video was originally put out by the Edwards campaign, then posted by Stop Her Now and then to Redstate