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ELECTION - 33 days from today

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

A LITTLE NUMBERS PROBLEM – AT 9:12 P.M. ET:  Much of the political buzz over the last few days has involved the apparent "surge" of support for Democratic candidates for the Senate and governorship in California.  But the Weekly Standard has examined some California polling, and finds the methodology disturbing.  We might be doing much better than we think:

Yesterday evening, the CNN/Time poll of the California Senate race found Barbara Boxer up nine points among likely voters over Carly Fiorina.

That’s by about the same amount that John Kerry beat George W. Bush in 2004. Yet Kerry defeated Bush among independent voters by a wide margin, 59-36. In the CNN/Time poll, it’s Fiorina who has a lead over Boxer among independents, and a sizeable one at that, 53-39. The poll also finds the two parties very well sorted, Democrats going for Boxer 93-5 and Republicans going for Fiorina 92-4.

So, the only way to find a nine-point lead for Boxer is if the poll has a huge sample of Democrats.

And the same pattern appears in polling for governor, where the race is between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman:

...Whitman has a big lead among independents. The only way to get a nine-point Democratic lead is to sample a more Democratic electorate than even 2008.

I appreciate the need for leeway in partisan sampling, but it seems quite unlikely that the 2010 midterm electorate will look like this.

We'll be eager to see California polling by Rasmussen and others.  It would be a sweet thing to see Barbara Boxer sent into retirement.  It's uphill for the GOP in the once-golden state, but I have to believe victory is possible.  Watch the California polls over the next two weeks.

September 30, 2010     Permalink

THE KISS OF DEATH – AT 7:52 P.M. ET:  Sometimes it's best for certain people just to shut up.  Nancy Pelosi, for some ungodly reason, has injected herself into the Chicago mayoral race, as The Politico reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw her endorsement in Chicago's mayoral race to former House colleague Rahm Emanuel on Thursday.

After praising Emanuel at a press conference and saying she had given him encouragement at a White House meeting that day, Pelosi answered “yes” when a reporter asked whether she would endorse the outgoing chief of staff.

President Obama is expected to announce Emanuel's departure – and the promotion of longtime aide Pete Rouse – at a White House ceremony Friday.

Emanuel, who Pelosi said had the “affection” of his former House peers, has polled in Chicago and has begun working to assemble a campaign team.

COMMENT:  So Rahm, who's already down in the polls in the mayoral race, goes back to Chicago with the endorsement of Nancy Pelosi.  Is there a cure for this?  A vaccine?  Rahm is probably in the White House right now, banging his head against the wall.  "Of all the candidates in all the offices of the world, she had to endorse me."

Well, at any rate, they'll still have Washington.  Maybe he can say it's a different Nancy Pelosi.

September 30, 2010     Permalink

ARROGANCE – AT 8:55 A.M. ET:  It is simply incredible to behold the arrogance of the administration and its congressional allies:  The insults toward citizens, the patronizing attitude, the belief that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable skills, among which are the ability to know what is good for everyone else.

Victor Davis Hanson examines the swelled-head syndrome, which has become an epidemic in Washington: 

The bookish, twice-unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson once sighed that if most thinking people supported him, it still wouldn't be enough in America because "I need a majority."

For some reason, Democrats have chosen to follow the disastrous model of Stevenson and not that of feisty man-of-the-people Missourian Harry Truman -- though the former nearly wrecked the party and the latter got elected.

Yeah, and even the "bookish" part doesn't hold up.  We learned after his death that Stevenson actually read very little, whereas Truman borrowed more books from the Library of Congress than any other president.  But Stevenson sounded like an intellectual, which was convincing enough for most intellectual wannabes.

Now, John Kerry -- who failed to win the presidency in 2004 and recently tried to avoid state sales taxes on his new $7 million yacht -- is voicing similar frustrations about Americans' inability to fathom what their betters are trying to do for them. He is furious that an unsophisticated electorate might not return congressional Democratic majorities in 2010. Kerry laments that, "We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on." Instead it falls for "a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what's happening."

Gee, that's not what the Democrats were saying after the 2008 election.  The country must have dumbed down in the last two years.  Must be Fox News. 

That sense of intellectual superiority was channeled by Barack Obama himself when he later tried to explain why his message was not resonating with less astute rural Pennsylvanians: "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

And...

When America votes for a liberal candidate, it is redeemed by the left as intelligent -- and derided as dense when it does not. We were told not to worry that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not pay all his income taxes since we were lucky to have someone so well educated and experienced in high finance.

Finally...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that the tea party movement was merely a synthetic Astroturf movement. Professors and preachers may like such sermonizing, but for politicians it's a lousy way to get elected. Again, compare the relative fates of the patronizing Adlai Stevenson and the plain-speaking Harry Truman.

But current polls suggest that these clueless and unappreciative Americans apparently believe that an elite education does not ensure their officials can balance a budget, pay their own taxes or speak candidly.

What an outrageous "How dare they!" thought.

COMMENT:  I once stood two feet behind Adlai Stevenson while he delivered a speech in my home town on Long Island.  I was one of those volunteer teenagers who showed people to their seats.  Stevenson spoke beautifully, but an hour later you couldn't remember a thing he said.  Kind of like Obama.  Do you remember anything he says?

But we remember what Harry Truman said, and did.  And Dwight Eisenhower, often ridiculed by self-appointed "intellectuals" of the day, put more substance into a speech than any modern president. 

Pride may well goeth before the fall.  The fall this year occurs on November 2nd.

September 30, 2010     Permalink

THOUGHTFUL, AND NEEDED – AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates continues to be the most outstanding member of President Obama's cabinet, possibly because he's the only Republican, and therefore retains a level of maturity unavailable to most of the rest.

The secretary is understandably concerned about the growing gap between our military and the civilian population it is protecting.  He states it well:

DURHAM, N.C. — The United States is at risk of developing a cadre of military leaders who are cut off politically, culturally and geographically from the population they are sworn to protect, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told an audience at Duke University on Wednesday night.

In a speech aimed at addressing what he sees as a growing disconnect between the country as a whole and the relatively few who fight its wars, Mr. Gates said that although veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were embraced when they came home, “for most Americans the wars remain an abstraction — a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally.”

Even after Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Gates said, “in the absence of a draft, for a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do.”

That idea is reinforced by an educational system, especially at the college level, that is often indifferent to or even openly hostile to the military.

The defense secretary said that military recruits came increasingly from the South, the mountain West and small towns, and less often from the Northeast, West Coast and big cities. The military’s own basing decisions have reinforced the trend, he said, with a significant percentage of Army posts moved in recent years to just five states: Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas and Washington.

I've often said, to the annoyance of some friends, that if this country is to be saved, it will be saved by the South and the Midwest – the heartland.  The heartbreak here in New York is that we used to be a military center, both active duty and military manufacturing.  The Brooklyn Navy Yard, Floyd Bennett NAS, Mitchell Field, Grumman, Republic.  They are history.  Few know a soldier or sailor, airman or marine.

The speech reflected the issues within the military about the merits and costs of an all-volunteer force fighting two wars for nearly a decade, the longest sustained combat in American history. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Gates said, are the first protracted large-scale conflicts since the American Revolution fought entirely by volunteers, but with a force of 2.4 million of active and reserve members that is less than 1 percent — the smallest proportion ever — of the population it serves.

Read that paragraph again.  Less than one percent of the population.  Remember that figure the next time some whiner announces that America is "overstretched."  We have 1.4 million men and women in our armed forces, for a nation of 306 million.  In World War II we had about 15 million for a nation of only 130 million.  Overstretched? 

Fine reporting.  Worth reading.  Important issue.  At one time, when I was young, everyone had family members in the armed forces.  We felt a part of national defense.  The so-called "anti-war" movement during Vietnam damaged the military/civilian relationship, and there are, sadly, some people who are content with the damage.  They are disgraceful. 

September 30, 2010       Permalink

A TRULY BIG MAC – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  A day after thousands of Massachusetts seniors learned they'd be losing part of their health insurance under the "reforms" of Obamacare, one of the most famous names in American business warns that uncertain times may be coming for its own employees because of the same "reforms."  From Fox:

McDonald's Corp. has notified federal regulators its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers isn't compatible with a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, raising speculation about the fate of those employees' health coverage.

Trade groups representing restaurants and retailers say low-wage employers might halt their coverage if the government doesn't loosen a requirement for "mini-med" plans, which offer limited benefits to some 1.4 million Americans. The requirement concerns the percentage of premiums that must be spent on benefits.

While many restaurants don't offer health coverage, McDonald's provides mini-med plans for workers at 10,500 U.S. locations, most of them franchised. A single worker can pay $14 a week for a plan that caps annual benefits at $2,000, or about $32 a week to get coverage up to $10,000 a year.

Last week, a senior McDonald's official informed the Department of Health and Human Services that the restaurant chain's insurer won't meet a 2011 requirement to spend at least 80 percent to 85 percent of its premium revenue on medical care, the Wall Street Journal reported.

But McDonald's issued a statement Wednesday denying that it planned to drop coverage for its employees and defending its benefit plans.

COMMENT:  Now just wait.  Weren't we told we could keep our existing plans?  The McDonald's plan is pretty minimal, as you can see, but for some workers, especially young, healthy ones, it may be right.  Now that plan is in jeopardy and dependent on federal regulators for its existence. 

Well, maybe we would have been alerted had we just looked at page 843 of the Obamacare bill.  But, you know, we had to get to work that day.

COMMENT:  There's a lot of disruption coming, and I get the sense, from recent stories, that many people who can least afford it will be paying more and getting less.

September 30, 2010       Permalink 

RUBIO ROMPS IN FLORIDA – AT 7:59 A.M. ET:  Marco Rubio, seen as a rising GOP star and possible future president, has nailed down a solid lead in the three-way race for U.S. Senator from Florida.  The New York Times reports:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Republican Marco Rubio commands a double-digit lead among likely voters in Florida's U.S. Senate race, harnessing a split among Democrats over their nominee Kendrick Meek and independent Gov. Charlie Crist, a poll issued Thursday shows.

Rubio, a tea party favorite, was favored in the three-way contest by 46 percent of 1,151 voters surveyed by Quinnipiac University between Sept. 23 and 28. The poll was Quinnipiac's first limited to the likely voters for the Nov. 2 general election and claimed a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Crist, who left the GOP in April to run for the Senate without party affiliation, was favored by 33 percent and U.S. Rep. Meek was preferred by 18 percent in the three-way race.

COMMENT:  Rubio, a Cuban-American, becomes an instant star after November 2nd.  The Republicans need major figures who can help prevent the Hispanic-American vote from going automatically to the Democrats.

September 30, 2010     Permalink

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

YIKES - AT 9:17 P.M. ET:  This is a surprise, and not a good one.  Is it possible that Lisa Murkowski of Alaska could pull off a Lieberman?  From The Politico:

Two new polls released Wednesday indicate that Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) write-in bid may have legs.

A CNN/Time/Opinion Research poll showed Murkowski down by only 2 percentage points to GOP nominee Joe Miller, who upset the Alaska senator in the Republican primary last month. Democrat Scott McAdams came in third in the poll, drawing 22 percent.

The survey of 927 likely voters found that Murkowski is running particularly well among women, lower-income voters and seniors. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, and was conducted from September 24-28.

A separate poll released by Alaska-based Craciun Research reported Murkowski leading Miller by an 11 percentage point margin—41 percent to 30 percent. McAdams received 19 percent in that poll.

While the polls are good news for Murkowski, neither survey was able to gauge the likelihood that voters will indeed write in Murkowski’s name on the ballot—or if they will be able to correctly do so in order for their vote to be counted.

COMMENT:  The difference with Lieberman, of course, is that Lieberman formed a party when he was denied renomination to the Senate by the Democrats.  That meant that people could enter the voting booth and pull a lever.  Writing a name in is an entirely different procedure.

The two polls differ quite a bit.  We'll wait for others in the coming weeks.

September 29, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:09 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US astronomers said Wednesday they have discovered an Earth-sized planet that they think might be habitable, orbiting a nearby star, and believe there could be many more planets like it in space.

The Obama administration announced tonight that it is sending a spacecraft to the planet to establish a tax system.

September 29, 2010      Permalink

TERROR UPDATE – AT 8:51 P.M. ET:  We've been searching for information today on the major terror alert that originated in the last few days.  Here is what we've found:

European intelligence agencies apparently discovered a plot for a "Mumbai"-style series of simultaneous attacks in Europe, and believed that the terrorists had already left Pakistan for their assignments on the European continent.  However, the attack was still in the planning stage, and no definite timetable had been worked out.

The plot has now been broken up, but European and British law enforcement do not know where some of the operators are.  There is a strong belief that they are in the UK. 

The United States, cognizant of the terror reports, has stepped up drone attacks in remote areas of Pakistan, from which the operators have come.  The hope is to kill as many as possible and send a powerful message that there will be consequences to terrorist actions.

Stories point out that a coordinated, continent-wide series of attacks would constitute a major escalation of terror strategy – the exact opposite of recent assurances from President Obama that Al Qaeda was actually a weak, broken organization.

Intelligence experts warned Wednesday that the massive terror plot involving simultaneous assault-style attacks in London, Paris, and Germany represents a serious escalation in al-Qaida's war with the West, and poses a clear and present danger to the United States.

European counterterrorism officials are describing the plan of attack as being modeled on the November 2008 assault in Mumbai, India. In that attack, several teams fanned out across the city and used explosives and automatic weapons to kill over 170 people.

Der Spiegel is reporting a 36-year-old Hamburg man who was arrested in Kabul in July provided authorities with intelligence about a series of attacks planned for Germany and neighboring European countries. He stated several teams of attackers bearing European passports had received training in remote Waziristan and Pakistan.

The plot is believed related to heightened security around the Eiffel Tower, which has been closed to tourists twice in the past week.

Mumbai-style attacks, directed at soft, open facilities like hotels, are remarkably easy to carry out.  A small group of terrorists, in business suits and with valid credit cards, and carrying ordinary luggage filled with weapons, could easily get into hotels, and stay a few delightful nights if necessaary before coordinating their actions and striking.

There is no indication, thus far, that the attacks were directed against the American homeland.  But the great police commissioner of New York, Ray Kelly, has assured citizens that the NYPD is taking nothing for granted.

We'll be following this.  The fact that Al Qaeda could be planning something this large is deeply disturbing.  Sooner or later, the odds will be with them.

September 29, 2010      Permalink

NEW TERROR ALERT – AT 8:34 A.M. ET:  We have few publishable certainties on this, but it's clear from reporting in the last few days that European and U.S. intelligence agencies are deeply concerned about the possibility of a coordinated series of terror attacks.  From ABC News:

US and European officials said Tuesday they have detected a plot to carry out a major, coordinated series of commando-style terror attacks in Britain, France, Germany and possibly the United States.

A senior US official said that while there is a "credible" threat, no specific time or place is known. President Obama has been briefed about the threat, say senior US officials.

Intelligence and law enforcement authorities in the US and Europe said the threat information is based on the interrogation of a suspected German terrorist allegedly captured on his way to Europe in late summer and now being held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

US law enforcement officials say they have been told the terrorists were planning a series of "Mumbai-style" commando raids on what were termed "economic or soft" targets in the countries. Pakistani militants killed 173 people with guns and grenades during the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India.

In testimony before Congress last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, "We are all seeing increased activity by a more diverse set of groups and a more diverse set of threats."

COMMENT:  What strikes us is the unanimity of opinion in intelligence circles.  Also, the time right before an American election is ideal for a terror strike.   A terror attack in Spain changed the results of its presidential election.  Terrorists may reason, incorrectly, that a massive terror attack now would weaken American resolve.  They don't know us.

September 29, 2010      Permalink

WHO ARE THESE ILLITERATE, UNEDUCATED SO-CALLED CITIZENS? – AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  In his wonderfully ironic manner, Andrew Malcom of the LA. Times's Top of the Ticket blog examines a devastating new Gallup survey reporting that Americans, can you believe this, don't trust the news media.  Those ungrateful right-wing nuts:

According to that fringe polling outfit named Gallup, a record 57% of Americans profess little or no trust in this country's mass media to report the news fairly and accurately.

What a crock!

They could have put it another way: An amazing more than four out of 10 Americans (43%) may perhaps believe most everything they read in the news or see on television.

But no, Gallup has to go for the sensational, to feed this crazy belief among a few hundred million Americans that the media is somehow biased in its presentation of the people and happenings that go on all over this crazy place.

And...

According to Gallup's findings, nearly half of the country (48%) is convinced that the....

...news media is too liberal, while only 15% dare to say the media is too conservative. According to this same poll, one-third of Americans think the media is just about right -- meaning not really right-right, but about right, like Goldilocks' porridge.

And...

Ridiculous! If that was the case, these evil-doing media types would focus superficially on the hair or clothing styles and costs of one female political candidate without noting the hair plugs and boring blue everyday neckties of her male opponent.

If the media was really biased, it would ask, say, a meaningless trick geography question of one candidate, while interrogating another on how he handles such a busy travel schedule and still manages to look so good and be a great dad.

Ouch.  Andrew Malcolm at his best.  Read the whole piece.

COMMENT:  The delusional executives in New York, Washington and Atlanta (CNN), believe their problems are caused by the growth of the internet.  That is a factor, but loss of trust is the greater factor.  After all, Fox News is booming, and they face the same internet. 

I sweep the news outlets, print and broadcast, every day.  The extent of the liberal bias in most of them is appalling, and they show little interest in correcting it.  That is their world.  No one who bucks the party line will get far.

September 29, 2010      Permalink 

NEW POLLS SHOW GOP HOPE IN DEM SENATE STRONGHOLDS – AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  New polling has boosted Republican hopes of upsets in two of the states Michael Barone (see post just below) is giving to the Dems in Senate races.

The RealClearPolitics analysis has moved Connecticut and Washington state into the "toss-up" column.  In both states the GOP challenger is making steady progress, although still behind.  I might add that sketchy polling also points to a possible, although improbable upset in New York States, where appointed Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is turning in a sub-par performance against a retired GOP congressman, Joe DioGuardi.  Gillibrand could walk down most streets in the state, and no one would know who she is.   

But the RealClearPolitics map also shows potential danger for Republicans.  RCP has six seats now listed as toss-ups.  If there's a Dem surge toward the end, and many in the mainstream media will work hard to make it so, Republicans can lose all six, meaning only minimal gains in the new Senate.   While I doubt such an extreme result,  an October surprise could produce it. 

Fight as if you're 20 points behind.

September 29, 2010      Permalink

STUNNING – AT 7:33 A.M. ET:  Superlative political analyst Michael Barone tells us this morning that the Democratic Party is retreating to the coasts, its prospects in most of America vastly diminished.  From the Washington Examiner:

The map of the Senate races shows Republicans leading over almost all the landmass of America. Democrats are ahead in the three West Coast states and Hawaii (though not by much in California and Washington) and by 1 point in Nevada. They're also ahead in four states along the Atlantic Coast -- Maryland, Delaware, New York, Connecticut -- plus Vermont.

Republicans lead in all the other Senate races, from Philadelphia to Phoenix and Boca Raton to Boise. True, their candidate leads by only 1 point in Barack Obama's home state of Illinois. And they've got narrow leads in some mountain states (West Virginia, Colorado, Kentucky)...

...It would be more difficult to draw a map showing the party margins in the 435 House districts. For one thing, there are no publicly available polls in many districts. But if you could draw such a map, I think you'd see Democrats holding onto districts dominated by their core constituencies (blacks, Hispanics, and the affluent voters Joel Kotkin calls gentry liberals) and struggling just about everywhere else, from factory towns to high-income suburbs.

Taken together, all these maps show a Democratic Party shrinking back to its bicoastal base and a Republican Party expanding to take in most of the vast expanse of the continent.

Barone cautions, of course, that the election has not yet been held, and that results can change. 

But for the moment, anyway, the vast expanse of America is hospitable to Republicans while Democrats seem appreciated only in their coastal and campus redoubts.

COMMENT:  And, of course, appreciation in campus redoubts has its limits.  After all, say some academics, Obama is not leftist enough.

Barone paints a gloomy picture for the Dems.  Our hearts are breaking.

September 29, 2010     Permalink