Distinctly Catholic

Politico is reporting that Gen. James Jones is resigning as National Security Advisor and that he will be replaced by his current deputy, Tom Donilon.

Donilon is a 1977 graduate of the Catholic University of America and has served in a variety of government positions before coming to the NSC. His brother Michael is a Counselor to Vice President Joseph Biden and his wife, Cathy Russell, is chief-of-staff to Dr. Jill Biden. Tom's brother Terry is the communications director for the Archdiocese of Boston.

In 1981, when I was a freshman, Tom taught a class at CUA on presidential election politics. It was a great class and it really taught us the nuts and bolts of how campaigns are waged and won (or lost). I still remember the trepidation I felt when writing my term paper on NCPAC, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, and its increasing influence. Professor Donilon was so smart, I really did not want to have him read my paper and think it was dumb. If memory serves, however, I got an "A."

Huff Post has a great article that explains how pollsters use different models to distinguish "likely voters." The models are key - all polls show that among regisitered voters, the Dems are running about even, but that given GOP enthusiasm, when you consider only those who are "likely" to vote, the GOP opens a wide lead. This article helps explain how pollsters draw up their models which are key to understand their findings.

Archbishop John Nienstedt is not my favorite bishop. In 2006, he wrote an article in the diocesan newspaper in New Ulm where he was the bishop at the time about the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” which he described thusly: “The story is about two lonely cowboys herding sheep up on a mountain range. One night after a drinking binge, one man makes a pass at the other and within seconds the latter mounts the former in an act of wanton anal sex.” Funny, I never expected to find the words “wanton anal sex” in my diocesan newspaper. And, when he retires, Nienstedt should not try his hand at penning movie reviews.

The folks at the Family Research Council aren't stupid, just borderline evil. They have a new ad out against Cong. Tom Perriello, a progressive Democrats from Virginia. (Shameless plug: I have an article about Perriello's race coming out in the new print edition of NCR.) The FRC ad is clever, but what the hell does any of it have to do with "the family"? The FRC is one of the groups that gained a lot of traction when the Moral Majority closed its doors in the late 1980s - the Christian Coalition was the other. Indeed, Falwell said he thought FRC founder Dr. James Dobson would be his most likely successor as the face of the religious right. Falwell would always make a moral argument to defend his positions - you could agree or disagree, but he understood he was not an expert on government or arms control but a pastor.

The Chamber of Commerce is catching hell for allowing foreign companies to put their cash into U.S. political campaigns. The Chamber has targeted several prominent Democrats, including Rep. Tom Perriello from Virginia, Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, and others. They have said they will spend $75 million, an amount that dwarfs the resources of even the best fundraisers in Congress.

The Chamber denies that it is using foreign money for its campaign ads, that it keeps foreign dollars segregated from domestic, political accounts. But money is fungible, which leads to an irony. Last summer, when the Capps Amendment was introduced to allow insurance companies to segregate funds used for abortion services from funds they got from the federal government, conservatives objected, noting that money is fungible. Now, it is the Democrats who point to the fungible quality of cash to blast the Chamber of Commerce.