Thursday Coffee--New Guinea

MID-TERMS. There seems to be a crack in Charles Cook's armor--he is flummoxed by the GOP loss in Pennsylvania's 12th District. This district had been trending toward Republicans for years and if this year was going to be a landslide GOP year that seat was easy pickings.

Former moderate-conservative congressman Tom Davis, who used to run the GOP house elections, agrees and claims that the tsunami will probably look more like tornedoes hitting ground in sporadic areas of the country. Davis had the good observation that the Republican candidate Burns ran against the "Obama-Pelosi agenda", while the Democrat Critz ran on local issues with a good dollop of economic populism. Davis thinks that the GOP's effort to "nationalize" the House elections is a disaster and that if Democrats keeping plugging away district by district on the concerns of consituencies they will minimize their losses this year.

While Obama had an approval rating of about 30% in the district, Bush and Cheney had only 24% saying they did a good job. The Republican brand still suffers a hangover from those years, even in a district that is almost all white, middle-class. Overall, Republicans still only have an approval rating of 32%, which raises doubts whether voters see them as viable alternatives.

Republicans did have a higher intensity for the primaries. Their turnout was 48% and Democrats 44%. The difference is that 2008 was a record year for Democratic registrations so the universe of Democrats is far larger than that of Republicans.

How bad was it for Republicans? We heard the dulcet tones of Ann Coulter eviscerating Tan Man Boehner, who she calls Boner, and the Republican Party for speaking only to conservatives on Fox News and bragging about how awesome their victories are going to be when they have over-promised and can't deliver. "If we gain 30 seats now, it will look like a loss." She's right. She also blasted the party for backing Linda McMahon, the owner of the World Wrestling Federation, for Senate in Connecticut, "one of the wealthiest and best educated states in the union." She favors Yale-educated Simmons, who had served in the CIA and had been a real Colonel in Vietnam. No tea-party for Ann as she launched her vitriol at the Republicans for a change saying they were a bunch of incompetent boobs.

Patrician George Will claimed Tuesday elections were as good as it gets for Democrats. He claimed that Critz won because he distanced himself from Obama and endorsed an anti-abortion position. The latter is true, the former is false. George Will has discovered three "trophy races', which Democrats will lose. Guess which coveted seats they are? Well, of course, Joe Biden's former seat in the Senate from Delaware, Barack Obama's Senate seat in Illinois, and Harry Reid's seat in Nevada. He then went on to mock those who criticize Rand Paul because he says that Paul's position are now mainstream. The proof of this is the blurb on Rand Paul's book to abolish the Fed-- by none other than Arlo Guthrie. This proves Rand Paul's popularity.

Rand Paul got himself into immediate hot water by implying that he did not think the Civil Rights Bill should have included private businesses. He was immediately blasted by Democrats, while the Republicans had no comment. Personally, I do not believe he is racist. He is a libertarian ideologue who can not envision any other threat to freedom except from the state. His lovable father, however, is a racist and did vote against the Civil Rights bill.

The President of the Tea Party Express, the former Nixon dirty trickster Mark Williams said that "Islam is a 7th Century Death Cult coughed up by a psychotic pedophile." Pretty vivid.

Family Values Vin Fossella has received the endorsement of the Staten Island GOP for his bid to return to Congress. Vin loves families so much he has two of them--one on Staten island, the other here in Virginia.

Mark Souder said in his resignation speech that he was resigning because he didn't want the publicity of his adultery to overshadow the good work he has devoted his life to in defending family values. He claims these eternal values are more important than him. This argument seems hypocritical to outsiders but to the social conservatives there is nothing odd about it. Love the sinner--sort of--condemn the sin and legislate against others.

Rasmussen has a poll out today that shows Admiral Joe Sestak leading Pat Toomey 46 to 42.

The bottom-line on Tuesday's primaries is that the Senate races in Kentucky and Pennsylvania are tied and in Arkansas the Republicans have the lead. In Oregon basically voters chose all incumbents for their legislature and a former Governor as the Democratic nominee to return. Republicans chose former Portland Trailblazer Chris Dudley, who is tall.

Glenn Beck has created an independent website that tries to smear Congressman Weiner. Did Beck killed that girl in the 1990s? Just wondering. Pass it on.

The GOPosaurs filibustered the Finance Reform Bill yesterday. Scott Brown went back on his word to Harry Reid. Otherwise we would have had a vote. So far the GOP has killed a cap on ATM fees, with Senators admitting they don't use ATMs; caps on predatory lending on payday loans; caps on credit card rates; and they have stalled the amendment on derivative trading. Russ Feingold joined the Republicans in voting against closure because he felt the bill was not strong enough.

Most outsiders believe the bill has gotten stronger by the day but progressives are disappointed in the lack of provisions to prevent To Big To Fail and its lack of strict regulations of derivative trading. The Roosevelt Institute criticized people like me saying let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good, saying that Democrats filibustered FDR's first financial reform bill until the FDIC was created. Good point.

Hapless Harry will try again today for cloture because the legislative calender is getting tight.