Tuesday, September 26, 2006

UPD Blog Warch by Golden Webb


Blog Watch
At the Senate Site blog, Sen. Lyle Hillyard says: "I attended the Governor's Education Summit and then the joint meeting of the Public and Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittees during the last two weeks. I am excited about helping the Governor accomplish some pretty lofty goals for education in the next session. Our current surplus is mainly in income tax (a.k.a. education money). Given this year's tax cut, and all the talk about future tax cuts, there seems to be a great deal of apprehension in the education community. I do not sense a great deal of interest in just adding more money to public education without some clearly agreed upon goals or accountability. ... I hope people will rivet attention on the Governor, his staff, legislators and educational leaders as we try to make a meaningful impact in public education while also addressing the desire to cut taxes and reduce government. This work will be challenging; hopefully we can reach an agreeable compromise" (see also here, here, here, and here)... Phil Windley says: "If I do a quick look at the postings that show up on the UtahPolitics.org homepage, my gut tells me that liberals are winning the blog wars. There are more liberal postings at any given time than conservative ones. I'm not sure we can read much into this at this point, but I am sure that liberal blogs are making their case better -- even here in Utah"... At Out of Context, Thomas Burr reports: "Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may need to spend some more time pressing the flesh in Iowa, but, hey, at least he's doing better than Hillary Clinton. Romney beat the New York senator and former First Lady by 4 points in a hypothetical matchup, but he lost to three other Democrats, former senator John Edwards, Gov. Tom Vilsack and Sen. John Kerry, according to a poll by the Des Moines Register published over the weekend. The GOP's man on top: Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who bested Edwards, Kerry, Vilsack and Clinton. Iowa is the place to be liked when running for president; the state hosts the first caucus in the nation and winning -- or at least doing well -- is a must to get any traction in the 2008 contest. The poll shows that Romney needs to buck up his credentials in Iowa, since some 69 percent of those polled were unsure whether they liked him or not. Of those who knew, Romney had more people who had an unfavorable opinion of him (16 percent) than a favorable one (15 percent). Here's to a few more trips to Iowa" (see also here and here).