We mourn today the death of Paul the Octopus, that magnificent creation who successfully predicted the World Cup winners round by round. An amazing accomplishment. Paul had to endure death threats from German fans, who thought he was unpatriotic.
In Kentucky, Rand Paul's teabagger brownshirts stomped on the head of a Move-On female protestor. Unfortunately, it appears that Paul is beginning to pull away from Conway. If you watched the debate last night, you casn only shake your head. Paul was ill-informed, could not defend his own positions, and tried to avoid acknowledging his controversial stances on Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance.
Jerry Brown wins today's Best Ad. Open with Meg Whitman telling why she moved to California thirty years ago. "Everything seemed possible. There was so much innovation." Continue the superlatives. Cut to announcer "Who was Governor then?" Segue into what Jerry Brown did for California. Nicely done.
Mitch McConnell appealed to Americans to have patience because,Mitch Republicans can't do much in 2 years. (But Obama is supposed to save the country and create peace on earth in 20 months.) He said that the whole purpose of Republicans in Congress is to ensure that President Obama is a one-term President. He also said that the Republicans in Congress would be developing a platform for the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.
Think Progress is still on the American Chamber of Commerce ads like a dog on a bone. This time they documented over a dozen foreign oil companies, plus American branches of companies like BP, who are putting money in the till.
Washington is still weirdly oblivious as to the meaning of having secret money percolating in our electoral system. As we learned from Watergate, this leads to intimidation, blackmail and straight-up bribery. One commentator also wrote that it's also the money that's not spent that should be concerned--used as a threat against any politician who doesn't capitulate to the demands of the corporations. It does appear that the torrent of money is wearing some Democrats down and is forcing Democrats to practice triage on candidates.
Electoral-Vote has the House today Republicans 208, Democrats 206 with the rest tied. I wonder if they are just holding back until closer to election day. They also have Democrats up to 51 Senate seats. Chris Bowers over at Daily Kos still has Democrats at 52 in the Senate. Also, Bowers wrote why Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman will not change parties.
Nate the Great Silver is now a star on NPR. Yesterday, he said the Republicans look to win the House but then he went into numbers wonkland and said that their gains could be 20-60. Well, if it's below 40, it's tough luck. He also has Republican chances winning the Senate, close to none or about 11%.
Organizing for America plans to call 7 million people in the next 7 days. Strangely enough, the Alexandria site for this is the car dealership where my wife bought her car. It happens to be owned by a former college classmate of mine. ActBlue and other progressive websites are still burning candles for Democratic candidates.
On the other side, seven conservative (anonymous) astro-turf groups are trying to coordinate a GOTV drive. This is where the rubber meets the road. As I've written, Republican GOTV efforts this year are in disarray because the Republican party apparatus has collapsed.
The question I have are the Undecideds really undecided or are they like the Undecideds during Reagan first election. You were supposed to be too embarrassed by Reagan so you didn't tell anyone you would vote for him. Is this a portion of our population who knows that teabaggers are nutjobs but will vote for them? Or vice versa. Independents that can't reveal they are voting for a Democrat.
Election analyst Eric Rudenour wrote a blog yesterday where he recounted his own election success since the 1980s and predicted Democrats would lose 30 House seats and 5 Senate seats but retain control of both chambers. He has an excellent record and I wonder if he really is cheerleading.
Nate Silver said that nothing has happened in the elections since Labor Day. All the ads, all the Obama campaigning, all the debates have not changed any race so far. He also believes that Democratic "momentum" is Democrats coming home to the party and that accounts for the natural tightening of the races. It will be interesting to see what he thinks about the efforts by Howard Dean and David Plouffe in the GOTV department.
Things don't look good when the Washington Post does a positive profile of Chris Van Hollen and his role for the Democrats's House Committee. Van Hollen criticized Obama for starting too late in defining the election as a choice and that Obama did not focus on the positive points about Congress and the economy. Nancy Pelosi had been furious at the White House by its insistence on saying that Congress was broken, when the House passed more progressive legislation than any chamber since FDR. That it was the Republicans in the Senate, who were the obstacle. Otherwise, Congress was doing just fine, thank you.
If you want an economic illiterate, you will have one with John Boehner. Yesterday, he said he would push for a moratorium on all government regulation so as to create jobs. Food and Drugs? Mine safety? Oil drilling? What is this guy talking about? The other thing that Democrats did not make hay out of was Boehner's economic plan for the House. Analysts claim it will result in the loss of 1 million jobs. Then Boehner promises to cut some government program every week to reduce the deficit. He also promises to get government spending back to 2008 levels.
George W's memoirs are supposed to come out the end of election week. He had asked that they be postponed until then because he said some things would upset people in his party. Well, it can't be admissions about torture or that he knew Karzai was on the Iranian payroll. What it seems to me is his vigorous defense of TARP, which says saved the United States from a Greater Depression than the Great Depression. After all it was TARP and the Black President that created the Teahadists.
Our Alaska race is looking pretty dirty. Miller has admitted he committed ethical lapses at his job but, for unknown reasons, keeps avoiding why he is a disabled vet. He avoided this question in the debate and the follow-up question-and-answer period afterward. The reason for his discharge was " miscellaneous". Nobody has asked if while at Yale Law School did he join the Oathkeepers, the right-wing outfit of veterans, police and active duty military who will oppose any perceived infringement on the constitution. It was created at Yale by a libertarian activist.
Everybody is suing the state of Alaska for posting the write-in candidates in the voting booths because it would favor Lisa Murkowski. Lisa Murkowski has been up to some dirty tricks by reproducing endorsements from state Democrats and Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray. Unfortunately, none of them are true. This race will take all night and it might be that no one will know the winner until next year like with Al Franken.
Colorado Republican teabagger candidate Ken Buck said yesterday that he does not believe in the separation of church and state. That's actually seen as a positive among the large Colorado radical right Christian crowd. In the campaign for the Conception starts with Ejaculation bill, pro-lifers are running ad that calls Barack Obama the "Angel of Death". Unrestrained by any laws on accuracy, they reproduced almost every falsehood about the President, the healthcare bill, funding abortions abroad, and end that a vote for this bill is a way to take "America back." Women's groups are finally waking up and running counter ads against both the bill, which would outlaw "non-barrier contraception" , and Ken Buck, who wouldn't prosecute a confessed rapist because the woman had had an abortion and he said it was a case of "buyer's remorse".
This Senate race is tied--if you want any indication about how far we have fallen.
Glenn Beck yesterday said that President Obama communicates with Satan. This seems to be a right-wing refrain nowadays. But consider this,Glenn Beck is a Mormon. President Obama and his family have been baptised by proxy by the Mormon Church. Mormons believe Jesus Christ is the brother of Lucifer. So does this make Barack Obama Jesus Christ? Inquiring minds want to know.
Jeff Sharlet has a piece in this month's Mother Jones on how C Street and the politicians involved in it have their own foreign policy and have used tax-payer funds for trips to proselytize foreign leaders. The piece demonstrates how the Christian Right has sunk their hooks into Uganda and how they plan to "convert" Muslims. Sharlet's story about C Street in Syria actually rings a bell with me because a conservative told me that Blackwater had been guarding missionaries in Muslim countries like Syria.
How many more ways can people trash President Obama? Torture King, Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen claims the "downfall of President Obama" came when he told the Republicans at a meeting on the stimulus that "he won". Thiessen is not honest enough to talk about the Republican leadership meeting a week before Obama took office where they gave orders that no one cooperate with the new President. Thiessen writes that it's Obama's fault that he didn't reach out to Republicans. If you read anything on the Left, they explode about all the times Obama tried to accomodate Republicans.
We are being conditioned for the interpretation of the election results. In the New York Times, President Obama mistook a protest vote, which brought him victory, for a mandate. We have the usual pundits say that Obama has governed too far on the Left and this is a reaction to that. We already hear from Democrats themselves that Obama should have emphasized job creation at the expense of healthcare. Paul Krugman grumps that the elections are a result of a failed economic policy. Of course, 15% of the teahadists say it is because of his race, not program.
What is so interesting to me is that during the first 20 months of Obama's presidency, the beltway pundits never wrote about how irrational the Republicans were. Now we are hearing about how the election results will force bipartisan cooperation. There is simply no evidence from any Republican that this is true. Jimmy Carter yesterday said the Democrats would lose the House but that would be good because President Obama can run like Harry Truman against the "Do-Nothing" Congress. Even Doug Schoen, former partner of Mark Penn, claims that having a Republican Congress would be the best thing for President Obama because they would give him an excellent foil. Democrats themselves invoke Clinton's comeback after the 1994 loss of Congress. David Broder continues to believe that John Boehner will act as a responsible Speaker of the House and actively negotiate with President Obama.
I don't believe any of them.
The Republicans are committed to the destruction of President Obama and returning to power in 2012 because they believe they are entitled to power and the presidency. Remember before President Obama, Republicans had the White House 20 out of 28 years.
Meanwhile, Pew has a poll out that says President Obama is in better shape than Reagan in his first term in so far as people wanting him to run again. About 47% want Obama to run again and 51% did not want Reagan to run again after the 1982 midterms.
Showing posts with label Ken Buck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ken Buck. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
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."
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."
Monday, September 20, 2010
Back from Away
Only two hours away from the United States and America looked ridiculous. From abroad, we look like a bad reality show with the sans culottes running around. Tea parties are for little girls with imaginary friends. Apparenty, there seem to be alot around. The victory of Christine O'Donnell in Delware is like randomly picking a neighbor to be a nominee for the U.S. Senate. Imagine my surprise when from afar I saw Karl Rove actually accuse a Republican of waging a dirty campaign. After all he is the architect. But he soon came back to support her. The question is whether her victory will solidify the larger story of the Republican Party simply going mad.
I came back to E.J. Dionne wakening from a deep sleep to discover moderates are gone from the Republican Party, something anyone breathing could tell you after the last 18 months. Olympia Snowe, who was a long-time friend of Mike Castle from their days in the House, lamented the diminishing number of moderate conservatives left in both chambers. In her home state of Maine, where she won re-election with over 70% of the vote, the tea baggers have taken over the Republican Party and now 68% of them want a more conservative nominee than Snowe the next time around. The role of Senator deMint in fostering runs against incumbent Republicans is beginning to tick Republicans off. Charles Cook, who had predicted a Republican takeover of both houses of Congress has backed off, saying that the O'Donnell win ends the GOP's chances for a victory in the Senate.
How bad is Christine O'Donnell? Besides the various appearances on Bill Maher's comedy shows, she has been sued by a Farleigh Dickinson University for failure to pay outstanding debts, she accepted a graduate scholarship at Claremont even though she didn't graduate from college until this year, and she paid her rent and personal expenses from campaign funds from the last campaign against Joe Biden. She says she is being followed everywhere and must check her bushes. She keeps her home residence private because bill collectors are after her. And she hasn't had a real job in years. She sounds like Allan Keyes without the minimal qualifications.
She must be bad news. The night she beat Mike Castle, his campaign manager walked across the street to the Coons headquarters and picked up lawn signs for Coons. Christine O'Donnell also has imaginary friends--she claims to have been backed by a Catholic group that simply doesn't exist.
What observers have not mentioned about the five tea bagger candidates for the Senate is that all of them are extreme Christian right-wingers, even Marco Rubio in Florida, who is more of an opportunist. Christine O'Donnell is the most visible extreme Christian after Christian reconstructionist Sharron Angle. Joining Ken Buck, they are absolutists against abortion, even though they proclaim to be small government conservatives. Throw in Mike Lee from Utah and Joe Miller from Alaska and you have candidates that have no ideas about the economy whatsoever.
Another characteristic is that almost all, with the exception of Rubio, avoid debates and the press. This is a deliberate strategy because they want to avoid expsoure to the average voter. Joe Miller on Fox News was a astonishing in his economic illiteracy. He claims unemployment insurance is unconstitutional--something the Supreme Court has actually ruled on. And he claims we are going to face almost $140 trillion in a national debt in a short time--that's ten times the amount we have now. He wants to end Social Security and Medicare. This seems to be a tea bagger perennial.
A Canadian said to me that these people don't care, they've given up. In a way, he is right. They have given up on self-government. That's why there are no standards by which they observe. Lisa Murkowski commented how the tea baggers pumped $600,000 into Alaska to run a campiagn against her totally based on lies. If you check comments out of Ms. O'Donnell's mouth you'll also notice that she is a habitual liar. The same applies to Sharron Angle and the other tea baggers. In their worldview, this simply doesn't matter.
SO AFTER A WEEK, how do the mid-terms look? Nate the Great still has the Republicans taking the house by 223 to 211 but he has blinked somewhat upping the odds of the Democrats retaining control to 37%. The Republicans are now campaigning on de-funding everything that passed in the last Congress--which ups the stakes for Democrats. And if you care about the national debt, keeping the Bush tax cuts for the rich will add another 3.8trillion to the national debt. Interestingly, all the teabaggers are for keeping the tax cuts for the wealthy. Paul Krugman had a wonderful op-ed about the selfish rich today.
But what still makes me hesitate is the massive unpopularity of the Republicans as compared to the 1994 wave election. For example, a CBS/NYTimes poll conducted September 15 has Republican approval at 20%. In a Washington Post poll on who deserves to be re-elected, Democrats top Republicans 34 to 31%. But what is most astonishing is that the GOP net favorable is now a negative 25, which means they have fallen by three times since July. And now President Obama is in the campaign mode and Organizing For America has ramped up their operations even more since I left. Remember President Obama has about a 48% approval rating, while campaigning against people with a 20% approval rating. The AFL-CIO just sent out their largest mailing in years to solidfy the Democratic base. Even though there is little more than 40 days left to the election, I think only a small percentage of Obama surge voters can turn the tide. I also have noticed that even the disgruntled Left is getting its act together because they understand the stakes.
President Obama did himself and the rest of us a service by appointing Elizabeth Warren special adviser with the task of creating the new Consumer Protection Agency. But I have a question? What in Elizabeth Warren's speeches make her a "progressive"? I know she appeared at Netroots Nation and frequently on the Rachel Maddow Show. But when is defending the middle class the sole property of "progressives"? The whining from the Republicans about her should tell you how far that party has grown away from the middle class. But nothing Elizabeth Warren has said or written is anything but clear-headed and commonsensical. I read in the Washington Post that her appointment was popular but polarizing. After watching countless interviews and Youtubes of her lectures, I can not think of a less polarizing figure. I think any fair-minded person would see her as a straight-talking person of intelligence and commonsense. Already we have the Wall Street Journal raising doubts about whether she can really create the Consumer Protection Agency because of legal restrictions and other hoo-haa. This reminds me of the constant challenge on anything President Obama does.
For election junkies, Steve Singiser had an interesting post at the Daily Kos "Likely Voters, Unlikely Voters" about the accuracy of polls based on registered voters versus those of likely voters. The conventional wisdom is that likely voter polls favor Republicans, particularly in low-turn out mid-terms. But what Singiser's analysis shows is that likely voter polls generally favor the front-runner. But at the end of the day, his analysis of polls from 2006 and 2008 indicate that polls based on registered voters won 32, polls on likely voters 21 and three were ties. For a full analysis, his post is worth reading because it's conclusion is counter-intuitive to how ,at least, I've been taught to think.
And file this away--I just came across my notes on Hans-Herman Hoppe, who is a favorite of libertarians. When thinking of the tea-baggers, remember Hoppe advocated something called "anarcho-fascism". He wrote "Democracy: the God That Failed". Through in a dab of Christian theocracy and you basically have tea-baggism.
I came back to E.J. Dionne wakening from a deep sleep to discover moderates are gone from the Republican Party, something anyone breathing could tell you after the last 18 months. Olympia Snowe, who was a long-time friend of Mike Castle from their days in the House, lamented the diminishing number of moderate conservatives left in both chambers. In her home state of Maine, where she won re-election with over 70% of the vote, the tea baggers have taken over the Republican Party and now 68% of them want a more conservative nominee than Snowe the next time around. The role of Senator deMint in fostering runs against incumbent Republicans is beginning to tick Republicans off. Charles Cook, who had predicted a Republican takeover of both houses of Congress has backed off, saying that the O'Donnell win ends the GOP's chances for a victory in the Senate.
How bad is Christine O'Donnell? Besides the various appearances on Bill Maher's comedy shows, she has been sued by a Farleigh Dickinson University for failure to pay outstanding debts, she accepted a graduate scholarship at Claremont even though she didn't graduate from college until this year, and she paid her rent and personal expenses from campaign funds from the last campaign against Joe Biden. She says she is being followed everywhere and must check her bushes. She keeps her home residence private because bill collectors are after her. And she hasn't had a real job in years. She sounds like Allan Keyes without the minimal qualifications.
She must be bad news. The night she beat Mike Castle, his campaign manager walked across the street to the Coons headquarters and picked up lawn signs for Coons. Christine O'Donnell also has imaginary friends--she claims to have been backed by a Catholic group that simply doesn't exist.
What observers have not mentioned about the five tea bagger candidates for the Senate is that all of them are extreme Christian right-wingers, even Marco Rubio in Florida, who is more of an opportunist. Christine O'Donnell is the most visible extreme Christian after Christian reconstructionist Sharron Angle. Joining Ken Buck, they are absolutists against abortion, even though they proclaim to be small government conservatives. Throw in Mike Lee from Utah and Joe Miller from Alaska and you have candidates that have no ideas about the economy whatsoever.
Another characteristic is that almost all, with the exception of Rubio, avoid debates and the press. This is a deliberate strategy because they want to avoid expsoure to the average voter. Joe Miller on Fox News was a astonishing in his economic illiteracy. He claims unemployment insurance is unconstitutional--something the Supreme Court has actually ruled on. And he claims we are going to face almost $140 trillion in a national debt in a short time--that's ten times the amount we have now. He wants to end Social Security and Medicare. This seems to be a tea bagger perennial.
A Canadian said to me that these people don't care, they've given up. In a way, he is right. They have given up on self-government. That's why there are no standards by which they observe. Lisa Murkowski commented how the tea baggers pumped $600,000 into Alaska to run a campiagn against her totally based on lies. If you check comments out of Ms. O'Donnell's mouth you'll also notice that she is a habitual liar. The same applies to Sharron Angle and the other tea baggers. In their worldview, this simply doesn't matter.
SO AFTER A WEEK, how do the mid-terms look? Nate the Great still has the Republicans taking the house by 223 to 211 but he has blinked somewhat upping the odds of the Democrats retaining control to 37%. The Republicans are now campaigning on de-funding everything that passed in the last Congress--which ups the stakes for Democrats. And if you care about the national debt, keeping the Bush tax cuts for the rich will add another 3.8trillion to the national debt. Interestingly, all the teabaggers are for keeping the tax cuts for the wealthy. Paul Krugman had a wonderful op-ed about the selfish rich today.
But what still makes me hesitate is the massive unpopularity of the Republicans as compared to the 1994 wave election. For example, a CBS/NYTimes poll conducted September 15 has Republican approval at 20%. In a Washington Post poll on who deserves to be re-elected, Democrats top Republicans 34 to 31%. But what is most astonishing is that the GOP net favorable is now a negative 25, which means they have fallen by three times since July. And now President Obama is in the campaign mode and Organizing For America has ramped up their operations even more since I left. Remember President Obama has about a 48% approval rating, while campaigning against people with a 20% approval rating. The AFL-CIO just sent out their largest mailing in years to solidfy the Democratic base. Even though there is little more than 40 days left to the election, I think only a small percentage of Obama surge voters can turn the tide. I also have noticed that even the disgruntled Left is getting its act together because they understand the stakes.
President Obama did himself and the rest of us a service by appointing Elizabeth Warren special adviser with the task of creating the new Consumer Protection Agency. But I have a question? What in Elizabeth Warren's speeches make her a "progressive"? I know she appeared at Netroots Nation and frequently on the Rachel Maddow Show. But when is defending the middle class the sole property of "progressives"? The whining from the Republicans about her should tell you how far that party has grown away from the middle class. But nothing Elizabeth Warren has said or written is anything but clear-headed and commonsensical. I read in the Washington Post that her appointment was popular but polarizing. After watching countless interviews and Youtubes of her lectures, I can not think of a less polarizing figure. I think any fair-minded person would see her as a straight-talking person of intelligence and commonsense. Already we have the Wall Street Journal raising doubts about whether she can really create the Consumer Protection Agency because of legal restrictions and other hoo-haa. This reminds me of the constant challenge on anything President Obama does.
For election junkies, Steve Singiser had an interesting post at the Daily Kos "Likely Voters, Unlikely Voters" about the accuracy of polls based on registered voters versus those of likely voters. The conventional wisdom is that likely voter polls favor Republicans, particularly in low-turn out mid-terms. But what Singiser's analysis shows is that likely voter polls generally favor the front-runner. But at the end of the day, his analysis of polls from 2006 and 2008 indicate that polls based on registered voters won 32, polls on likely voters 21 and three were ties. For a full analysis, his post is worth reading because it's conclusion is counter-intuitive to how ,at least, I've been taught to think.
And file this away--I just came across my notes on Hans-Herman Hoppe, who is a favorite of libertarians. When thinking of the tea-baggers, remember Hoppe advocated something called "anarcho-fascism". He wrote "Democracy: the God That Failed". Through in a dab of Christian theocracy and you basically have tea-baggism.
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