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ELECTION - FIVE WEEKS FROM TODAY

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2010

CONNECTICUT SLAPDOWN – AT 8:32 P.M. ET:  Incredible, but the U.S. Senate race in Connecticut, a solidly blue state, has turned very competitive. 

After enduring months of ridicule over her background in the high sport of professional wrestling, GOP candidate Linda McMahon is breathing down the neck of Dem candidate Richard Blumenthal, the state attorney general.  Is McMahon the new Scott Brown?  From The Politico:

Republican Linda McMahon and Democrat Richard Blumenthal are virtually tied in the Connecticut Senate race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday.

McMahon trails Blumenthal, 46 percent to 49 percent — a 3-point difference that is within the poll’s margin of error. Only 4 percent of voters surveyed reported they were still undecided.

Blumenthal was considered a shoo-in for the open Connecticut Senate race earlier this year because of his high marks from voters as the state’s five-term attorney general. Blumenthal still has a high approval rating — 68 percent in the poll — but he is quickly losing ground in the Senate contest to the wealthy political newcomer.

A similar Quinnipiac University poll released two weeks ago showed Blumenthal with a 6-point lead, 51 percent to 45 percent, over McMahon.

"With five weeks to go, the Connecticut Senate race is very close. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is ahead by only a statistically insignificant 3 points,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz. “Blumenthal has to be concerned about Linda McMahon's momentum. He can hear her footsteps as she closes in on him.”

COMMENT:  We'll wait for some confirming polls before breaking out in a smile, but if the Connecticut seat being vacated by Chris Dodd can be taken by the GOP, it will have the same political impact as Scott Brown's taking the Kennedy seat in Massachusetts.  It's still uphill for Linda, but her background as an executive of the World Wrestling Federation seems to be coming in handy.  She's a fighter.

September 28, 2010      Permalink

AND NOW IT BEGINS – AT 7:50 P.M. ET:  The first provisions of Obamacare are taking effect.  And the result?  Not quite what we were sold.  Reader Arley Ward refers us to this, from the Boston Globe:

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care has notified customers that it will drop its Medicare Advantage health insurance program at the end of the year, forcing 22,000 senior citizens in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine to seek alternative supplemental coverage.

Wait, wait.  Weren't we told we could keep our current plans?  Am I missing something?

The decision by Wellesley-based Harvard Pilgrim, the state’s second-largest health insurer, was prompted by a freeze in federal reimbursements and a new requirement that insurers offering the kind of product sold by Harvard Pilgrim — a Medicare Advantage private fee for service plan — form a contracted network of doctors who agree to participate for a negotiated amount of money. Under current rules, patients can seek care from any doctor.

Wait.  Weren't we told we could keep the doctor of our choice?

“We became concerned by the long-term viability of Medicare Advantage programs in general,’’ said Lynn Bowman, vice president of customer service at Harvard Pilgrim’s office in Quincy. “We know that cuts in Medicare are being used to fund national health care reform. And we also had concerns about our ability to build a network of health care providers that would meet the needs of our seniors.’’

Wait, wait.  Cuts in Medicare are being used to fund reform?  I thought Medicare was going to get better?

COMMENT:  There's a kind of irony here.  The plan is called Harvard – ah, the president must be pleased – located in Wellesley, Massachusetts, home of Hillary's alma mater.  And things aren't going well.

Soon the American people will learn what Obamacare is really about.  Stand by for insurrection.

September 28, 2010      Permalink

ABSOLUTELY RECKLESS, CRAZY STUFF – AT 7:51 A.M. ET:  The term, "the will of the people," has apparently been banished from Democratic Party vocabulary.  These guys are getting nutso.  From The Hill:

Democrats are considering cramming as many as 20 pieces of legislation into the lame-duck session they plan to hold after the Nov. 2 election.

The array of bills competing for floor time shows the sense of urgency among Democratic lawmakers to act before the start of the 112th Congress, when Republicans are expected to control more seats in the Senate and House.

But, given the slow pace of the Senate, it also all but guarantees that Democrats will be hard-pressed to pass even a small part of their lame-duck agenda.

The highest-profile item for November and December is the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, passed under President George W. Bush, which expire at year’s end...

...Democratic leaders have also prioritized the defense authorization bill, which includes a repeal of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military...

...Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat, has promised to push for a vote on the DREAM Act, which would give the children of illegal immigrants a chance to earn legal residence.

COMMENT:  What you see in this story is the sad spectacle of a party that no longer knows how to do things.  Lyndon Johnson, one of the great legislators of the 20th century, must be turning over in his grave.

There may well be legislation brought up during the lame-duck session that has merit, maybe even great merit.  But the way in which this is being done – allowing all those defeated Congress members the chance to vote on critical bills after their defeat, but before the new Congress takes over, will turn people off.  Can you imagine the spectacle, especially if very liberal legislation is slammed through?

The Dems have had years, at least since 2007, to pass some of their pet legislation, and they've wasted vast amounts of time. 

This looks like a party merely out to prove to key parts of its coalition that it keeps its promises.  It does not look like serious legislating. 

September 28, 2010     Permalink

ANOTHER SLAM FOR OBAMA – AT 7:10 A.M. ET:   We've said before that the Brits are doing some of the best reporting on President Obama.  Now Tony Harnden, a sharp British observers of American politics, predicts that Mr. Obama will serve four years, period.  Harnden focuses on Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars," and how it portrays Obama the commander-in-chief: 

A president has no more solemn duty than that of being commander-in-chief. And judging from the evidence presented by Woodward, Barack Obama's view of that role is at best disquieting.

Nearly 100,000 American troops are now committed to Afghanistan but Obama's principal war aim is to withdraw and his main preoccupation is how the conflict plays domestically, particularly within his own Democratic party.

"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama says at one stage. At another he declares that "everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint".

Obama comes across as viewing his generals with thinly-disguised hostility, while at the same time acquiescing to their proposals for the escalation of the Afghan war he so wants to avoid. His arbitrary drawdown of July 2012 was a signal to the Taliban to hang on because American commitment to success was lukewarm and time-limited.

The description of Obama staffers glorying in the firing of General Stanley McChrystal because they believed it boosted the president's macho credentials (it did the opposite) brings shame on the administration.

And...

In the meantime, Obama's Democratic allies on Capitol Hill are either running away as fast as they can from the president or curling up in the fetal position by postponing a congressional vote on whether to extend the Bush tax cuts – a move that makes them look both weak and cowardly.

For the first time, and despite the fact that no credible Republican candidate for 2012 has yet emerged, Obama is looking like a one-term president while one-party rule in Washington is in its death throes.

COMMENT:  You hear that buzz in political circles in the U.S., and in the buzz one can detect the name "Hillary." 

But don't count chickens please.  Both Reagan and Clinton were down after two years in office, and both came back to be reelected.  Obama is smart enough to enlist the people who can salvage his administration.  The problem is, he may not be smart enough to salvage himself.

I think one term is a clear possibility.

September 28, 2010      Permalink

MAJOR PERSONNEL NEWS – AT 7:05 A.M. ET:  The United Nations, in its wisdom, once again advances the cause of peace and harmony among all...well...  From Britain's Telegraph:

A space ambassador could be appointed by the United Nations to act as the first point of contact for aliens trying to communicate with Earth.

Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, is set to be tasked with co-ordinating humanity’s response if and when extraterrestrials make contact.

Aliens who landed on earth and asked: “Take me to your leader” would be directed to Mrs Othman.

She will set out the details of her proposed new role at a Royal Society conference in Buckinghamshire next week.

The 58-year-old is expected to tell delegates that the proposal has been prompted by the recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting other stars, which is thought to make the discovery of extraterrestrial life more probable than ever before.

COMMENT:  Now, what really got me about this story wasn't that the UN would appoint a space ambassador.  It's the UN, after all.  They do stuff like that.  No, what got me was the belief that, if an alien landed anywhere on Earth, and said, "Take me to your leader," the creature would be directed to the UN ambassador.  Wanna bet?  You talk about belief in bureaucracy.  That wins some kind of award.

So the capsule comes down just outside Dallas and some Texan who's got concealed/carry confronts the occupants, and immediately provides them with the address, in Mayalsia, of Mazlan Othman, an address we all have with us.  (Don't you?)  The Texan also has a list of convenient Mayalsian landing areas for space capsules. 

I wonder how many American dollars the UN will spend on this deal.

September 28, 2010     Permalink

DELVING INTO DELAWARE – AT 7:01 A.M. ET:  Remember Delaware?  Christine O'Donnell?  Witchcraft?  That was the big story two weeks ago. 

The battle is over Joe Biden's Senate seat.  O'Donnell, now the GOP nominee, who got the worst press in the history of cold type, is running anywhere from 10 to 15 points behind her Democratic opponent, Christ Coons, a man who once described himself as a "bearded Marxist."  What is it about Delaware?  It seems to be home to quirky candidates and credit-card companies. 

Here is the latest:

As Rep. Michael N. Castle (R) ponders a write-in campaign for Delaware's open Senate seat, it became clear Monday that there's more at stake than his political legacy.

A Rasmussen Reports poll found that a Castle write-in bid could breathe new life into the candidacy of GOP nominee Christine O'Donnell, the tea-party-backed conservative pundit who has been widely dismissed as too conservative to win the general election

According to the poll, a Castle write-in candidacy would derive its support most directly from supporters of Democratic hopeful Chris Coons. The poll found Castle would cut into Coons' support by at least 5 percent, potentially more, turning a likely blowout for Democrats into a more competitive contest.

The survey of 500 likely Delaware voters on Sunday gave Coons 49 percent, compared with 40 percent for O'Donnell and 5 percent for a Castle write-in, according to Rasmussen, which became the first polling firm to survey the effect of a Castle write-in campaign. The 9-point difference between Coons and O'Donnell is a far cry from the 15-point or larger disadvantage reported by three separate public polls earlier in the month.

"Castle has not indicated that he will run a write-in campaign and it is likely that his support could increase if he were to do so," the Rasmussen findings noted. "Rasmussen Reports did ask Castle supporters who they would vote for in a two-person race and virtually all said either Coons or not sure."

Castle has until Thursday afternoon to make a decision.

COMMENT:  With poll numbers like that, I doubt that Castle will jump in.  But Christine O'Donnell is at 40%.  Victory will be very difficult for her, especially after the press attacks she sustained, but not impossible.  If she can move to within six points or so of Coons in the next two to three weeks, a last-minute surge, similar to the one that got her the GOP nomination, isn't out of the question.

September 28, 2010     Permalink

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

THE DOUBLE STANDARD, PLAIN AND SIMPLE – AT 7:28 P.M. ET:   What an example of the double standard in journalism, one standard for Republicans, another for Democrats.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, Democrat of California, said something awful last week.  If she had been a Republican, she might have had to withdraw from public life, or at least suffer a period under a cloud.  But she's a Democrat, so, while there plenty of outrage in her congressional district, no one made any demands.  Now, after too much time has passed, she's finally apologized.  From Politics Daily:

Now things are getting tough. Locked in a tight re-election campaign against a Vietnamese-American Republican, Sanchez, who was born in California to Mexican parents, said in an interview with Univision TV earlier this month that the "Vietnamese and the Republicans" in her district were "trying to take away" her House seat after "we have done so much for our community."

Her remarks ignited the blogosphere and talk radio and angered residents of Santa Ana, which she represents and which has one of the country's oldest and largest Vietnamese communities. Conservative commentators joined the fray when her words were reported in the Orange County Register this week, and her opponent, a state assemblyman named Van Tran, lashed back, calling her remarks "offensive and wrong."

Poor Loretta, she was left with nothing to do but apologize. "I used a poor choice of words that some people have taken as offensive," she said at a news conference Friday afternoon. "I apologize for those remarks." But she didn't apologize for calling him "very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic.''

COMMENT:  There is a long history of Democrats engaging in bigotry and getting away with it.  Jesse Jackson made openly anti-Semitic remarks and suffered not at all.  The late Sen. Robert Byrd used the "n" word in a statement, and it was hardly noticed.  And of course, there is Barack Obama, who described his grandmother as being like any other white woman.

No Republican could have made any of those statements and survived intact for more than a day.

I'm sure that the public eventually notices these things.

September 27, 2010      Permalink

IT'S COME TO THIS – IT'S DELIGHTFUL, IT'S DELOVELY – AT 7:07 P.M. ET:  Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows, and the beds get cozier and cozier during campaign season.  From The Hill:

A veteran Democratic incumbent facing a tough reelection challenge touted a relationship with President George W. Bush in a new campaign ad.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) released a new campaign ad emphasizing his ties to the former Republican president at a time when most Democrats are pummeling Bush, and warning that GOP wins this fall would mean a return to Bush-era policies.

"When George Bush proposed a Medicare prescription drug benefit, Earl Pomeroy voted yes, putting seniors before party," the ad says, depicting Bush at a signing ceremony for Medicare Part D.

"Earl joined Republicans to fight internet predators; fighting for kids," the ad later says, playing up a bill to toughen laws against sex offenders.

The spot is an unusual effort by a veteran lawmaker, who was first elected in 1992, to embrace Republicans and, in particular, Bush.

North Dakota is a conservative-leaning state where Bush won reelection in 2004 with 63 percent of the vote.

COMMENT:  Ah, I have a dream today.  I have a dream that Barney Frank will invoke Ronald Reagan and Nancy Pelosi will recall with affection Barry Goldwater.  Oh yes, I have a dream today.

Well look, North Dakota is a good beginning.

September 27, 2010     Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama spent part of a drizzly Sunday playing a little basketball with his daughters Sasha and Malia.

Do you get the feeling this is where he gets his economic advice?

September 27, 2010      Permalink

IS IT GUY TIME? – AT 9:03 A.M. ET:  We males have felt so oppressed, so downtrodden in recent years, so ignored by trendy journalists, that it's got to be time for a comeback.  Or at least a warm hand.  And maybe that time will come on election day.  The Politico reports on the half-important male vote, and where it's going:

Some of the most dramatic recent polls suggesting that a Republican “wave” will overtake Democratic majorities this year share a single ingredient: testosterone.

The gender gap that in 2008 resulted in 6 percent more men than women supporting Republican John McCain is likely to be even greater this year. But this time, evidence suggests Republican-leaning men are likely to prove the driving force behind a GOP surge.

Men are not only more loyal to the GOP than two years ago but also more motivated to vote, recent polls suggest. This year’s central issues are ones that politicians traditionally use to appeal to men, especially worries about budget deficits.

“Polls show some acceleration of the gender gap, and also, for the first time in a while, men seem more energized than women to turn out and vote,” said Mark Penn, a former campaign pollster for both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

And...

“There’s a bigger gender gap than I’m used to seeing,” said Quinnipiac pollster Doug Schwartz. “We’ve seen it in all our races.”

Other Quinnipiac polls have also found wide gender gaps that endure even with the large margins of error of subsamples, like one that found GOP Senate candidate Pat Toomey leading Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, thanks to an 18-percentage-point margin among men.

COMMENT:  Some press reports indicate that women's groups are putting pressure on the Democratic Party to emphasize women's issues, but I wonder if it's a big too late and too obvious.  Also, "women's issues" has the tone, fairly or unfairly, of "left-wing issues," which may alienate independent voters still more.  Further, and our readers know this, millions of American women dissent from the standard positions of many "feminist" organizations, which may account for their lack of enthusiasm for the Obama line. 

Also, on national security, Obama is widely perceived as weak, a turn-off for men.  That cannot be reversed by election day.

September 27, 2010      Permalink

ELECTION RETURNS – VENEZUELA – AT 8:39 A.M. ET:  They do actually have elections in Venezuela, although hefty doubts have been raised about the honesty of the count.  But this seems to be trending in the right direction.   It gives me special pleasure to quote Britain's left-wing paper, The Guardian, on this.  The old Marxist reporters must have choked on their own words:

Opponents of Hugo Chávez today made major gains in legislative elections that could weaken the president's dominant power in Venezuela.

The opposition overturned Chávez's two-thirds majority in the national assembly, and claimed to have won most of the popular vote. If confirmed, the result would mark a milestone.

The Democratic Unity coalition won at least 60 of 165 seats in the assembly – well short of a majority but enough to end Chávez's ability to appoint judges and other officials and to push through major laws.

The opposition said it had won 52% of the popular vote, but that controversial changes in electoral rules favouring rural areas, where Chávez is popular, meant that support failed to translate into proportional seats.

Of course, Chavez called it a victory.  What do you expect?

But remember, Chavez's Venezuela is a place where new rules suddenly pop up, making it more difficult for the opposition to operate.  I wouldn't be surprised if the 2012 elections in Venezuela are manipulated from the start.  And the leftists of the world will cheer.  And Hollywood will award Chavez a lifetime achievement award.

September 27, 2010      Permalink

FASCINATING ANALYSIS – AT 8:13 A.M. ET:  We're being bombarded by poll numbers, including the "generic" number, measuring the percentage of those polled who would vote for a candidate of a particular party.

Andrew Breitbart's Big Government blog, written by Paul A. Rahe, has a fascinating analysis of the generic numbers, which should bring a smile to the face of our readers:

...when Glenn Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies ran a survey recently for the American Action Network, he made a discovery of great interest:

The generic ballot shows Republicans leading 44%-39%. Besides all of the usual regional crosstabs, we also broke it out by the type of district. We looked at the sample in the 66 Democratic INCUMBENT districts that Charlie Cook lists as either toss-up or leaning Democratic at the time of the survey. In that key crosstab of Swing Democratic Incumbent Seats, the Republican lead grows to 49%-31% on the generic ballot. That is a very powerful crosstab that says the wave is coming.

Among the remaining Democratic districts (Likely/Safe Dem, and open seats), the generic ballot is an unsurprisingly 33% GOP/51% Dem — a sign that the historically safe Dem seat will remain so, while the swing seats will be a bloodbath. By the way, in all of the GOP held seats, the generic is the reverse of the base Dem seats — 52% GOP/32% Dem. Very few, if any, Republican incumbents will be defeated.

Likewise, President Obama’s numbers with likely voters are similar to the national average — 46% approve/51% disapprove. However, in the Swing Democratic Incumbent Seats. he has a much worse 40% approve/57% disapprove. (Keep in mind, many of these Swing Seats are held by Democrats despite the fact that John McCain either won the district in 2008, or, even if losing, outperformed his national result.

Rahe's conclusion:

On 2 November, there is going to be an electoral revolution. I doubt that it will exceed the shift which took place in 1894 – when, in the wake of the Panic of 1893, Grover Cleveland’s Democratic Party split between its goldbug Bourbon wing and the populists who would later unite behind William Jennings Bryan and, in the midterm elections held that year, the Democrats lost 125 seats and the Republicans had a pickup of 130. But it may exceed the largest shift in the 20th century, when 101 seats changed hands in 1932.

Well, that's quite a tall order.  I'd be pleased just to see the GOP take the House.  But if Rahe, using the analysis above, is even close to being right, we may see a historic night on November 2nd.

You know that I'm always hesitant about predictions, but this is a nice way to start the week.

September 27, 2010      Permalink

BLUE MONDAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE – AT 8:01 A.M. ET:  The election will be held five weeks from tomorrow.  The president has been out campaigning, but it doesn't seem to help.

Mr. Obama has reached his lowest point yet in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.  Approve – 44.7%, disapprove – 51.1%, for a spread of 6.4%.

The numbers were derived by averaging the results from the latest major polls that measure presidential approval.  It is striking that average disapproval is now over 50%.  These are not "reelect" numbers.  If they continue past this election and into the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama will be in real, sustained trouble, and we might start hearing talk of an alternative Democratic nominee.  In other words, Ms. Hillary.

September 27, 2010     Permalink