The Daily Strike-11/11/09-Veteran's Day

Good evening and welcome to the Daily Strike. I hope you enjoyed your Veteran's Day, and if you had the day off, I hope you had a nice 3 hour nap like me

VETERAN'S DAY: After yesterday's well-received speech in Fort Hood, the President spoke today at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate Veteran's Day. His speech today echoed yesterday; he talked about how we often fail to adequately appreciate what veterans have done for us. He specifically mentioned how Vietnam veterans were often treated with scorn when they returned in the 1960's and 1970's. I love when President Obama calls out the mistakes of the cultural left.

The President will leave tomorrow morning for Asia. Tonight, he's holding one of his last strategy meetings on Afghanistan. According to reports, the President's key advisers including Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, are leaning towards a plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. This would be a significant escalation, but would fall short of the request from General Stanley McChrystal. He better couple this increase with with a new comprehensive end-game strategy. The President will most likely make an announcement after he returns from Asia but before Thanksgiving.

GALLUP: Since it's Veteran's Day and there isn't much else to talk about, I'll mention a very disturbing Gallup Poll I saw today. The poll showed Republicans leading the 2010 Generic Congressional ballot by 4 points, after having trailed for pretty much the past 5 years. Democrats have a natural disadvantage when it comes to the Congressional ballot. Even small Democratic leads can mean heavy losses because Democrats control so many seats in Republican territory. Even more disturbing, independents favor Republican candidates by a 22 point margin. This might be somewhat misleading, because many basically Republican voters call themselves independents these days, but still. The best way to cut into these numbers would be to seriously address voters number 1 concern: jobs. Majority Leader Reid talked today about bringing a jobs bill to the floor of the Senate in January. It would have increased spending on infrastructure and tax breaks for businesses that create jobs. I hope Democrats follow through with a strong jobs bill.

No Congress in session today, so we'll call it an entry. Please leave us some comments.