To help define what role Firedoglake should play in the 2012 election and beyond, on Wednesday, May 11, at 7:00 pm EDT, I plan, as part of the FDL members webinar series, to examine four basic electoral strategies that have been used by groups or organizations to influence the political process.

This doesn’t mean Pakistan was informed of any assault; but it means that the reaction was rehearsed and planned years ago.

Long-shot races against polarizing incumbents could become one of the newest routes for young politicians to fast-track their political careers, if Democrat Tarryl Clark’s recent political two-step pays off.

The subtext here is that this is a political play. The best use of oil company tax breaks is not deficit reduction. At a time when dwindling global oil supplies will force us to completely restructure our energy and transportation infrastructure, that money could be put to use as an investment in that direction. In fact, President Obama’s budget plan would actually do that. But deficit reduction is perceived by leading Democrats as the best political use of those funds.

Condi Rice is, of all Bush’s top aides, the best at managing her reputation. Which is why her interview with Fareed Zakaria yesterday is so interesting.

Sure, there are some examples of Condi’s signature lies, such as when she claims the dedicated group to hunt Osama bin Laden–which was shut down between 2005 and 2009, after which Obama re-instituted it–proves the Bush Administration’s focus on capturing OBL. More interesting, though, is Condi’s confusion about how many Presidents have hunted OBL.

On a conference call, Chuck Schumer urged House Speaker John Boehner to renounce the threat to allow a default of the United States’ financial obligations by blocking an increase in the debt ceiling. This threat, even if it’s contrasted with an implicit guarantee to raise the debt limit eventually, could be enough to send the nation’s financial markets into a tailspin.

In normal times, someone who held a key leadership role on George W. Bush’s economic team wouldn’t be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. It’s hard to imagine, for example, Andrew Mellon or Ogden Mills running against FDR in 1936. These aren’t normal times, however, and the Republican field is a mess — so Indiana governor Mitch Daniels is the flavor of the month. But aside from the stink of economic failure of the Bush administration on him, he’s got other skeletons in his closet.

The hopes of recovery continue to be dashed by the reality of the nation’s sagging housing market. Home prices fell sharply in the first quarter of 2011, the largest drop in three years.

The “painstaking analysis” Gonzales claims DOJ did to authorize torture relies on the argument that torture must be used because only torture will reveal information quickly enough. But here we are, nine years after that analysis was done, and the recipient of one of the memos summarizing that analysis now concedes that “every intelligence expert” he knows confirms that “it takes a great deal of time to develop human intelligence.”

This is completely backwards. Progressive organizations have leverage over, or at least an audience with, Democratic lawmakers. They certainly have a greater audience there than over Republicans. The time to use outside pressure is when Democrats are the ones holding up the agenda. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the House Judiciary Committee chair, will not be moved by outside forces.