Landslide Kloppenberg and other matters

Well, joining such luminaries as the young LBJ and Senator Al Franken, JoAnne Kloppenberg kept the tradition of nail-biting elections alive. The left-wing bloggers seem all distressed that more people didn't vote and it wasn't a crushing victory.

Could we put some things in perspective. An incumbent judge has only lost 5 times before in Wisconsin history. David Prosser was looking at a 65% victory before the union-busting bill generated mass opposition. Attorney-General Kloppenberg has never been a judge. And the state has become purple over the years. And the turnout rate for judicial elections is between 12-18%, which is truly bad. This time it was over 35%, which is attribute to everyone.

This race will go into recount as I said last night. I wonder whether the Koch Brothers wiill pay for more Brooks Brother rioting as they did in Bush v. Gore.

But, c'mon, whipping out a 15 points in a month is an incredible job and overcoming millions spent for Prosser. Complaining about it is liking making lemons from lemonade.

If you want to feel bad, if the federal government shuts down,our men and women in uniform will not be paid. That means that the families here in the States will not receive money for necessities. My own congressman Jim Moran sent out a note today that if the government shuts down 900,000 federal employees, not counting the military, will not get paid and will not receive their pay retroactively.

Meanwhile the Ryan Plan is causing Republican strategists to have heartburn. The so-called vote to abolish Medicare--even though it's symbolic--will cement in the voters' heads that Republicans want to "change Medicare from the way it's always been." This puts all the freshmen Republicans in a bind and may jeopardize re-election. Senior Republican strategists believe this is insane and will cause them the House in 2012.

Alice Rivlin sent a strongly -worded letter to Paul Ryan saying that he is misrepresenting her position when she says she supports his ideas on Medicare. No such thing, she says. She's against his whole plan.

Heritage is taking some incoming for their weird math. They are now saying they may have been slightly off. But the damage is done.

Now the Democrats have made Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz the chairperson of the DNC. I never liked having sitting congresspeople as chairs of political parties. But her pick is interesting because it feeds into the mayhem over in the House. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is an energetic personality and has a great media presence. She has been one of the few effective communicators in the Democratic Party. I think her choice is a signal that the Democrats think they will have a real shot at taking back the House. She really has been able to frame the debate in a way that favors the Democrats on social issues.