19 Days to Go--My How Times Flies!

So Electoral-Politics.com has today's polling at 50 Senate seats for the Democrats, 47 for Republicans and now 3 tied. For the first time, Republicans have a 203-202 lead over the Democrats with 30 seats tied.

Nate the Great lowered his percentage for Republicans taking the Senate to 18%. Personally, I have the Democrats winning between 52 and 56 seats right now. The Senate looks secure. Remember the Democrats started this cycle by basically ceding Arkansas, North Dakota and Indiana. So they start out at 55 seats. My high estimate is a fantasy of Democrats either taking Kentucky or another Democratic seat and holding all the rest.

Is the American voter acting rationally? For the past year with all the hype about the Tea Party and the full reign of insanity shown on the conservative websites and Fox News, one begins to wonder. The media narrative is that we are facing an enormous Republican tidal wave because Obama has govern from the Left. Since we are supposed to be a conservative country, Americans are so outraged that you could run an empty suit or pantsuit with an R by his or her name and get elected.

At this moment--prior to the final money frenzy--is there any evidence of this? One reassuring phenomenon is that there is a great deal of difference in many states between the governor races and the Senate and--to a lesser degree-the House races. For instance, Ohio ,which is a really strange state the more I travel in it, shows that the race between Gov. Strickland and John Kasich is neck and neck, while the Senate race shows Rob Portman (R) walking away with it. Portman is Bush's former OMB director but is running as a normal Republican in a state that votes this way. He would be replacing Voinovich, a moderate conservative who has strongly condemned the influence of the South on the GOP.

Once the avalanche of Chamber ads hit Washington State, Patty Murray started opening the gap against Republican Dino Rossi. The Chamber ads only reinforced the view that Rossi is a crooked businessmen.

In Connecticut, Linda McMahon was a woman issue. Women voters can't stand her. This was what brought down Sarah Palin. Women in Connecticut report being repulsed by seeing her ads everyday.

Another positive sign is that general election voters are beginning to turn off on the teabaggers. In Maine Tom LePage had a 15 percentage lead for Governor, opening his mouth a few times more and he only has a 1% lead. By election day, it will be the third parties who will determine whether Le Page will squeak to victory. But the momentum is now on the Democrat's side.

Alaska's Senate race could become the surprise of election night. Joe Miller is disintegrating. His former boss, a Republican, finally made a statement about what he knows about Miller's seven years part-time work as an attorney for the small borough. Miller used the public computers of government employees to try and rig the election for the Republican party chair by submitting proxy votes in these peoples' names. It was a serious violation of the town's ethical policy and was a firing offense. But the city manager intervened and wanted Miller around to complete one last project, having to do with the taxing of the gasoline project. Then he left his job. This was one of the issues Miller kept hiding. Before this, the more he spoke the more his approval ratings fell and he had a 1 pt. lead over Lisa Murkowski. Again it comes down to a three way race.

Unfortunately, in Colorado, voters have on occasion sent madmen to the Senate. Senator Hank Brown was a straight libertarian, who wanted to cut off all USAID funding and end the entire National Endowment for Democracy because we had won the Cold War and all this was unnecessary. Their own party chairman Bruce Benson sought the governorship and would have won if his physically violent fights weren't recorded and aired on television. So, it is conceivable that someone like Ken Buck, who wants to eliminate the Department of Education, privatize Social Security, and have women who have been raped bear the child, could get elected. However, his own ethics issues are surfacing and his failure to prosecute a rapist, because the victim previously had an abortion, is beginning to draw a reaction. This comes down to voter turnout.

Would Florida voters really vote Rick Scott, a man whom many Republicans have publicly said should be in prison? Now that Alex Sink is focusing on Scott's record, she has moved out in front and the momentum is going her way.

So the gubernatorial races will be a mixed bag on election day and the Senate will simply reflect the usual attrition for the President's party. So far, this doesn't appear to be Mark Halperin's scenario that "Obama is in the Jaws of Death."

But we still have no clue as to the House. The reason control of the House this year is vital is because Republicans intend not to fund the Healthcare and Wall Street Reform bills. They know they can't repeal it. Also, they want to conduct a series of prolonged investigations into the imaginary crimes of the Obama Administration. They know at this point they can't impeach because of the Democratic majority in the Senate. Also, the Republicans are still clueless about the economy. John Boehner released a new plan last week to create jobs but economic think-tanks have studied his proposal and said it would cause another 1.1 million jobs to be lost. Also, the continuation of the tax cuts for the wealthy would only cost another $80 billion for two years and if permanent at least $750 billion.

We know Boy Genius Karl Rove has thrown in the towel on the Senate because he announced a new push on House seats. This is also in coordination with the Chamber of Commerce. People who have been canvassing the districts have been reporting dread and fear about the deluge of ads coming. Some of the expenditures on House districts are over $10 million. With most Americans in wobbly financial shape, won't this ostentatious flaunting of wealth back-fire? 47% of Americans say that they are less likely to vote for a candidate who is aided by anonymous donors. Only 7% were more likely to vote for such a person. And if you really believe everyone is a Glenn Beck he made it publically clear he has donated $10,000 to the Chamber today.

We simply have never seen such media bombardment of the electorate in such a short time. To get some idea about the magnitude of the problem, Karl Rove's Crossroads America--the American Chamber of Commerce and the anonymous conservative front groups--will spend more than the entire DNC and all their election committees and the RNC and all its commitees combined. That is stunning and potentially destabilizing to the American political system. What you now have is a gigantic Third Force, with no transparency and accountability, trying to directly determine the outcome of the election.

Now the next problem with this is that the ads both Rove and the Chamber are running are false in their accusations against candidates. Many local news stations and the media are pointing this out. In Pennsylvania, some of the ads had to be pulled because they were so inaccurate. But oftentimes the damage is done. This takes Willy Horton to the next level. In many states, where some of Rove's ads have run, people note the fear-mongering aspect and the deliberate distortion of the candidate's record or ,many times, total non-record on the issue.

While we are used to this with the Swiftboaters and Willy Horton. Candidates could fight back--even though Kerry didn't--against the other party and the deliberate smears. Now we have anonymous assassins, who can smear politicians without consequence. One of the Republican candidates ,who has been endorsed by the Chamber, is getting nervous about this and called for the FEC to audit the Chamber on the source of its funds.

Shareholders in Fox and other corporations are demanding answers about the directors' use of funds for political purposes. But this will not affect anything for another two years and it may be too late.

The interesting aftermath of this anonymous money was brought home by Howard Fineman, now writing for Huffingtonpost.com. Fineman claims that this opens a bag of worms for the Republican presidential primaries. You will have all these secret front-groups launching ads against various candidates and saying anything they please. There will be utterly no accountability and no one will know who is backing whom. This is a recipe for total chaos. Fineman speculates on a Mormon-Harvard-Bain frontgroup to get behind Romney. But remember the teabaggers like Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and Joe Miller will have scads of money left-over, which can be funneled into the presidential primary. In this case, Barack Obama will be the prime beneficiary. The odds this money will produce a real extreme rightwing Republican candidate.

For a different opinion, Karl Rove claims that the Center for American Progress, which released their investigations into the Chamber, doesn't release its own donors and is run by John Podesta, who was on the transition team of Barack Obama, who knows Bill Ayers, who blew up the Pentagon's toilets. Unfortunately for Karl and the Chamber, Think Progress continued its investigation and found even more foreign funders for the Chamber, despite their assurances they received only $100,000 from abroad.

There is one other thing about the media narrative. How do we get to a massive republican landslide with one party significantly lower in approval than the current party in power? Also, why is it a great things for billionaires and businesses and banks to secretly fund campaigns when this class of people have significantly less respect than politicians. It's like the slime leading the slime.

Hopefully, in the words of Woody Guthrie "You fascists will lose."

FAIR GAME

"Rick, I'm shocked, just shocked that gambling is going on here."

Karl Rove is squealing like a stuck pig with the new ads the Democrats are running against the anonymous donors of the Rove/Chamber of Commerce network. Ads linking him to efforts to steal the election are drawing blood and have become woven in the Democratic talking points at every stop.

President Obama is busy on the hustings to stop the Great White Male riot. So far this week, he is drawing paltry crowds of 18,000 with overflow in the parking lots. President Obama has ramped up his charges against the Chamber of Commerce and the threat of foreign money in the election. And it's beginning to work.

The Washington Post and the MSM are expressing concerns about the tone of the President's attacks. I guess he's not being polite enough. Karl Rove says that Obama has an enemy list of Nixon. I find it ironic he said this on Fox News, whose audience probably thinks Richard Nixon was great. As far as I remember, Richard Nixon didn't have any corporations or wealthy people on his enemies' list and was the past master at secret corporate funding.

For full public disclosure, Obama has outsourced his enemies' list. I'm compiling it. And ,yes, Karl, you are on it--more for your role in destroying the Republican Party than any attacks on the present Administration.

The Wall Street Journal tried to come to the defense of corporations by invoking the moral equivalence argument. They point out that Labor Unions are also "internationals" and we don't know how much foreign money they pump into the elections. Unfortunately, for them, unions openly disclose their contributions and they expenditures on elections. Right now, the Chamber and Karl Rove do not. Sorry, Charlie, bad cop, no donut.

Bob Schieffer challenged David Axelrod about whether he had evidence the Chamber was using foreign money. He pushed back by saying, "it's up to the Chamber to reveal where their money is coming from to assure the public." Quite right.

This is all fair game. The Rove/Chamber money nexus represents nearly 60% of all anonymous monies in the race, the rest being used for shadowy conservative front-groups, whom no one even knows their directors.

The American people really don't care how much money is spent on the elections. They want to know where it comes from. And here the Democrats have pushed a hot button and .I think, it will pay off.

The Wall Street Journal whined that the Administration was trying to silence America's corporations. How many billions did American corporations spend to lobby against everything the Administration has been trying to do? Did anyone do anything about that?

The New York Times ran a few editorials on the need for more campiagn disclosure but they are getting a little fussy. They are saying that China is now being used as a scapegoat by the Democrats and worry about the implications of this. The Democrats have quite yet gotten into the "Yellow Peril" territory. I think a more fruitful approach would be to accent theMiddle Eastern banks and oil companies.

The Chamber actually ran an ad posting a Democratic congresswoman's home phone. I think , depending on the results on the election, there should be an effort against sitting Republican congressmen to say,"Rep. Boehner wants to pass tax cuts for the very rich, Call his boss Tom Donoghue. " Then list the President of the Chamber's home phone. This should be the M.O. following the election for the One Nation crowd. Don't even bother calling congress, just the business lobby. Make them regret their foray into covert politics.

The Onion gave me a great idea. They ran a satirical piece that someone from Patton, Boggs, a Washington law firm, was registering as a lobbyist for the American people. The fictitious person said that he thought Americans should have input in the proceedings in Congress. Great idea, I think there should be a group formed to actually register as agents of the American people.

Bill Clinton has been campaigning around the country. I caught his speech on behalf of Jack Conway in Kentucky. While never my favorite, he is a great campaigner and probably has a clearer speech on everyday talking points than even Obama. He drew out the implications of this election for the audience and pointed to the utter nonsense about Republicans being fiscally responsible. He pointed out that from Day 1 of W's administration, Republicans opened the door to massive debt by repealing the Pay-Go rules. As Clinton pointed out, that we wom't have any debt if this had been observed. He even pointed out that his Administration had paid down the national debt by $600 billion during his administration and that we would have been debt-free by 2015--the first time since Andrew Jackson. He also pointed out the utter folly of extending the tax cuts for the wealthy. But he made a better case than Obama. He pointed out that the tax cuts for those earning over 3 million a year would range from $300,000 to 800,000 and add enormous amounts to the debt.

The other major point he made was that America does have the money to make the necessary changes to compete in the world and provide a decent living for everyone. He also pointed out to the students that they have a personal stake in this election because of the changes in the student loan programs, which caps the % you must pay your debt back to your annual salary. So you will be able to pay back your loans no matter what job you take. He also made the point that the low fixed rate loans were only possible because Obama cut out the banks from administering them. The intrusion of the private banks in this business only occurred during the last Administration.

Then Clinton went after Rand Paul and stated the obvious--he has no track record and all his ideas have been tried and been catastrophic failures so why would you vote for him. He urged voters not to be "had", don't be hoodwinked by the anonymous ads. Then he ramped up about the Repubican sponsored ad campaign.

The weekend has been basically positive for the Democrats. Finally, they have hit on points that make thier case--maybe too late-- but at least they are fighting back. They are not willing to be swift-boated and Willy Horton'ed again. For the first time in a while, I feel Democrats are not being defensive but going on the offense.

Republicans are stepping in dog-poop as Nancy Pelosi said. One of their candidates, who is given the term "Contender", the second tier after "Top Gun", was caught playing WWII enactment dressed in a Waffen SS uniform. A millionaire from Ohio, he likes to be a member of the Waffen unit that defended Hitler's bunker and his enactment group is connected to a European white supremacist group that honors Germany during WWII. He had the uncanny knack of playing Waffen SS on a campaign weekend. Nice timing. Nice uniform.

Democratic Governor Manchin is fighting back in spades against Raese's "hick" ads in West Virgina. He calls the Republican out on using Philadelphia actors for portraying West Virginians and says that Raese doesn't respect you. Maybe because he lives in Florida and his wife is registered in Florida and can't vote for him. "Why should we vote for him?" The second aid starts with Governor Manchin's NRA endorsement and shows him shooting a bulls-eye and reverting to a more Blue Dog stance, citing that he sued the Obama's EPA for his enforcement of clean air standards that affect the coal industry.

Observers are saying that Sharron Angle and Diaper Dave Vitter are running the most racist ads on the campaign. But in Nevada, this is backfiring. A poll released over the weekend seemed to back up John Ralston's claim that Harry Reid is walking away with the election. This runs counter to the media narrative.

Roxeanne Conlin in Iowa is running against Grassley, the Republican, and is not considered a competitive candidate, although she is a good one. However, she reports what observers are noticing that early voting in Iowa and the rest of the Midwest indicate large Democratic leads, which is a positive note. We are talking in terms of 2-3 to 1 leads in small states. This runs contrary to the larger East Coast media's stories. This may not help Conlin but it may be decisive in House races.

A Race which one should watch is Pennsylvania's Senate race between Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey. Joe Sestak is painting Toomey as identical to Rick Santorum, the ultra-right social conservative. But the thing to look for here is the stealth GOTV campaign by the Obama people among the black community. I have yet to read anything about how this was done during the 2008 campaign. Barack Obama, fighting the race card then, conducted a massive campaign among the black media and radio stations that never surfaced in the major media. From the rally yesterday in Philadelphia, I got a hint that this was revving up against.

Will the millenials vote? In the 2006 elections, only 25% of them voted, while 51% voted in 2008. Republican strategists have written them off this year, but even if they bump the 25 to 30%, this will make a difference in close elections.

The same is true with Hispanics. The Hispanic vote will become crucial in Nevada, Colorado, California and even in Illinois, where a sizable Hispanic community lives. It looks like anti-immigration positions by Republicans in Colorado, Nevada and California will hurt the GOP.

The Washington Post wrote about Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign in Alaska. The portrait is of a Senate candidate finally freed from constraint and enjoying her campaign. The more Alaskans see Joe Miller they distrust him and fear that the state will lose out on all the federal goodies they received. Alaska is the most subsidized state in terms of Federal aid in the union. Murkowski is openly running on the earmarks she has brought in. The Washington Post has her tied or leading in polls but Mudflats website showed that the write-in process will make it hard for her to win. Receiving no coverage anywhere is the Democratic candidate, who was tied with Murkowski the polls.

One problem race for Democrats looks like the Patty Murray-Dino Rossi contest in Washington state. For reasons that are unknown--Dino Rossi has pulled in the lead. However, Murray is playing hard-hitting ads on Rossi's dubious business practices.

Alex Sink is ramping up her attack ads on Rick Scott for his role in Medicare fraud and his dubious business career. Lamentably she is only a few points in the lead, given the fact her opponent really should be in jail.

Some of the major networks are claiming the Democrats are being McCarthyite in their attacks on the business interests behind the Republicans. I thought the teabaggers liked Joe McCarthy. Certainly Fox News and Sarah Palin do.

For the next few weeks, it's going to be rock'em-sock'em. If the GOP manages to take back the House, don't expect them to have an easy time of it once the secret money theme sticks. I can't imagine Democratic and labor activists are going to stop hitting them when they try to repeal the legislation of the past 18 months.

Remember Vote Early and Often.