Our Lt. Governor, Catherine Baker Knoll, has died following her battle with cancer.

Key facts:

· 1930-2008, of McKees Rocks

· Sworn in Jan. 21, 2003

· 30th lieutenant governor

· First elected female Lt. Governor

· St. Mary’s High School alumnus

· Served eight years as state treasurer, winning huge % of statewide vote

· Formerly schoolteacher, businesswoman

· Had four children with late husband, Charles Sr. a local postmaster

After living through sixteen years of two Presidents’ terms, the Baby Boomer generation appears to have run its Presidential course. When Obama, on his way over to Grant Park for his election night event, emailed his millions of plugged-in supporters, he wrote “We just made history.”

As Damien Cave noted:

With that simple “we” in millions of in-boxes, the post-baby-boomer era seems to have begun. The endless “us versus them” battles of the ’60s, over Vietnam, abortion, race and gender, at least for a moment last week, seemed as out-of-touch as a rotary phone. Of course, that was Mr. Obama’s goal. In his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” he was explicit in his desire to move beyond “the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago.”

With an emphasis on consensus, communication, and cooperation, Generation O believes in teams and plans. It openly embraces diversity, meritocracy, and goal-driven achievement.

They saw in Mr. Obama, 47, who was born at the tail end of the baby boom era, the values that sociologists and cultural critics ascribe to them.

Government under Mr. Obama, they believe, would value personal disclosure and transparency in the mode of social-networking sites. Teamwork would be in fashion, along with a strict meritocracy.

Will this mobilization through meetups and social networks endure the slogging messiness of federal politics? Only time will tell, but, as the GOP learned during this election, they count Generation O out at their peril.

Will the rise of this well-informed and politically active generation of young people, and their candidate, be able to overcome the divisions inherent in the cultural fabric of the Baby Boomer? Are Boomers comfortable with the tech-heavy consensus-based ideals of Generation O?

Many baby boomers are unlikely to be comfortable with this generation’s technological boosterism and ease with blurred identities and mixed ethnicities. Peter Wolson, a psychoanalyst and former dean of the Los Angeles of Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, said the crucible of the 1960s helped give baby boomers a deep suspicion of “the other.” Their world was bifurcated: pro-war versus antiwar; communist versus capitalist.

Perhaps, with the sun now setting on Presidential fortunes of the Baby Boomer Generation, a more appropriate question to ask is whether Generation O will be comfortable with its youthful ideals as they age. Given the emphasis on transparency and social networking with Generation O, I am certain that whatever the answer, we will in time have it.

Liberal economist (and Nobel winner) Paul Krugman states his case that the “center-right nation” meme is a canard:

Did progressives get a mandate from last week’s election? Lots of people would like to claim that they didn’t — that we’re still a “center-right nation.” And one of the assertions you hear to back that claim is that Obama’s victory wasn’t matched by down-ticket Democratic success.

Except it’s not true: down-ticket Democrats actually did even better than Obama. The Dem share of the House vote, in particular, was higher than Obama’s share of the Prez vote.

…

Maybe the reason people don’t see this is that the Democratic House gains were spread over two elections. But combining 2006 and 2008, what we’ve seen is a “Democratic revolution” substantially bigger than the “Republican revolution” of 1994.

A Vice President who likes guns? What could be wrong with that?

– David Letterman

Not bloody likely.

From the Independent:

Four months before he disappears into the Texas sunset, Bush is the least loved president of modern times. He will step down with the US embroiled in two unpopular wars, up to its eyes in debt, its economy sliding into recession, its moral standing in the world deeply damaged.

Not even Harry Truman during the worst of the Korean war, or Richard Nixon as he sank in the morass of Watergate, matched Bush’s current disapproval rating of 70 per cent. As early as midway through his second term, a panel of historians ranked him as America’s worst ever president.

Already, his performance in the job can be book-ended by two "My Pet Goat" moments. The first came on 11 September 2001, as he sat in a classroom reading the book of that name to a group of Florida schoolchildren even after he was told of the two attacks on the World Trade Centre. The scene symbolises Bush as he is widely perceived to be, out of touch and for all his talk of being "The Decider", anything but the commanding chief executive figure he fancies himself to be.

The second occurred in Beijing last month. There was Bush sitting and joking with Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, at the very moment that Russia was going to war to crush Georgia, poster-country for the Bush mission of bringing liberty and democracy to every corner of the planet. Once again, in the dimming twilight of his presidency, he appeared completely caught out by events.

Chris Cillizza, The Fix at the Washington Post, has 10 things that McCain needs to be doing while the Democrats are still slugging it out.  Chief among his reccommendations is to “Collect Cash”.

Even though McCain is apparently accepting public financing for the general election, that doesn’t remove the onus of collecting cash. McCain has never relished raising money and his underfunded run to the Republican presidential nomination may have solidified the idea in his mind that he doesn’t need to do it. But, he does. Badly. McCain needs to make sure that the Republican National Committee is as well funded as possible so that the voter identification, contact and turnout operations traditionally run by the party are taken care of. More RNC money can put more states in play — the kind of flexibility McCain needs for an electoral map in flux.

It’s worth a read.

With oil prices sky high and Iraq awash with oil, it was always a matter of time until they could begin producing and exporting oil. The export pipeline to Turkey went online in the past six months, and Iraq is now on track to earn $70 billion in oil revenues this year. That is more than enough for Iraq to pay for its own reconstruction, according to Stewart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, in an interview this morning on American Public Media’s Marketplace.

It’s at least enough to pay for its own reconstruction. It has the third largest oil reserves in the world. It is a wealthy country.

Capitol Hill is now considering the President’s $108 funding proposal for Iraq, but a number of lawmakers are not buying it.  Senator Nelson of Nebraska says:

They’re generating a suprlus at a time when … we’re generating a deficit.

Any future reconstruction money for Iraq would be in the form of a loan.

If they can pay their own way in this, why shouldn’t they?

While polling suggests that the North Carolina primary will be an even more lopsided victory for Obama than Pennsylvania was for Clinton, the Clinton campaign, like the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania, is pouring millions of dollars into the state and scheduling a barrage of campaign events.  The Wall Street Journal pegs the rationale as a way for Clinton to avoid the blowout she suffered earlier in neighboring South Carolina.

Clinton wants to avoid the kind of blowout loss to Sen. Barack Obama she suffered in South Carolina in January. She is trying to demonstrate the breadth of her support to Democratic elected officials and other superdelegates who will sway the decision on the party’s nomination.

The latest Public Policy Polling poll of North Carolina puts Obama up 57 to 32, but this may be more about perceptions to superdelegates than winning elected delegates at this point.

She is trying to demonstrate the breadth of her support to Democratic elected officials and other superdelegates who will sway the decision on the party’s nomination.

Before the Pennsylvania primary finished I wrote a piece stating that Democratic superdelegates would be unmoved by the Pennsylvania primary results.  According to Elizabeth Drew of Politico, that is indeed the case.

“I don’t think anyone’s shaken,” a leading House Democrat told me. The critical mass of Democratic congressmen that has been prepared to endorse Obama when the timing seemed right remains prepared to do so. Their reasons, ones they have held for months, have not changed – and by their very nature are unlikely to.

She lays out 3 big reasons why these publicly uncommitted superdelegates are simply waiting for the right time to endorse Obama.

1. Hillary Clinton is a polarizing enough figure that she will motivate the Republican base.
2. Abandoning Obama, the putative winner of the delegate race, would “deeply alienate” the African-American vote, which could impact the Democratic party for generations.
3. African-American turnout is pivotal to many House races, and these elected officials are not going to risk those seats by alienating those voters.

According to Drew, there are enough of these superdelegates already privately lined up behind Obama that the race is essentially over at this point.

At first, a large number of superdelegates planned to announce their support for Obama following Super Tuesday, but he didn’t do well enough to warrant that; then it was to be after Ohio and Texas; then after Pennsylvania; and some Democrats suggest that if Obama wins both Indiana and North Carolina a number of superdelegates will announce for him then. But the prevailing thinking is to allow the race to play out, avoiding a confrontation with Clinton and her backers, but also letting the pressure grow on her to justify continuing to fight a bloody but lost cause. This is, the thinking goes, the best and perhaps only way to get the thing wrapped up, as they so desperately want to do.

Howard Fineman of Newsweek and MSNBC has seven ways to improve Obama’s image.  They are all basically ways to flesh out his humanity.  I agree with Fineman that this superstar metahumanity of Obama’s is part of his problem, along with race, of attracting white working class voters.  It’s hard to relate to a guy when the very little you know about him is all so different than your own experience.

So fill out the rest of the portrait of Hyde Park and the South Side. I know it well enough to know that it is as “real” as anywhere else in this great country. So bring us home with you. I don’t even know if you are a White Sox fan! You’re always talking about the chatter in the “barber shops.” Take us to the one you go to.