http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/20/john-mccain-affair-links_n_87690.htmlNew York Governor Paterson's choice of Kirsten Gillibrand is very interesting--very, very interesting.

The surprising - and, for many Democrats shocking - decision to pick the conservative Gillibrand, 42, from Hudson in Columbia County, was disclosed by the governor in calls to party officials and some members of the state's congressional delegation, many of whom said they were unhappy with the selection, sources said.

That's not at all surprising. What might be considered surprising is whose backing she had, and why.

Gillibrand, a mother of two occasionally resented by colleagues for being an aggressive self-promoter, was strongly backed for the post by Charles Schumer, the state's senior senator, who said a woman and an upstater was needed on next year's ticket.

The choice of Gillibrand explains a lot about the Caroline Kennedy implosion.

Had Schumer and Paterson started talking about Gillibrand back in November, it would have been a bloodbath. Kennedy was the perfect stalking horse to deflect media attention and political rivalry until it was too late to do anything about the appointment of Gillibrand.

The ruthlessness of it is breathtaking.

Ben Smith, The Politico:

Former Governor Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC today sent $1,000 checks to a group of House Republicans targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for their votes against the wasteful $800 billion stimulus bill.

Sen. Arlen Specter, who was leading his Republican opponent by double digits only two months ago, is now lagging by double-digits, massacred by the health-care proposal which is deeply unpopular in Pennsylvania.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Pennsylvania voters shows 48% would vote for Toomey if the election were held today. Just 36% would vote for Specter while four percent (4%) prefer a third option, and 12% are not sure.

What's more, his lead in the Democrat primary is shrinking as well.

Senator Arlen Specter leads Congressman Joe Sestak by 13 percentage points in an early look at the 2010 Democratic Senatorial Primary in Pennsylvania. In June, Specter had a 19-point lead.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

George W. Bush's decision to support Specter for reelection in 2004 was highly controversial, since Specter was always a Republican in name-only. When he crossed over the aisle, it was seen as good riddance, and an unpleasant necessity by Democrats looking for a filibuster-proof majority. It looks now, finally, that we will be witnessing the ignominious end to Specter's political career.

New York's 23 district race is wonk stuff--invisible to most American voters, but of deep concern by political insiders and close-readers fighting for...fighting for what exactly?

The answer to that says a lot about what is going on in Republican politics these days. Newt Gingrich, who supposes the ultra-liberal Republican nominee, is deeply upset by mainstream Republican support for Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty and others have rejected Dede Scozzafava and put their weight behind Hoffman.

"This idea that we're suddenly going to establish litmus tests and all across the country we're going to purge the party of anybody who doesn't agree with us 100 percent; that guarantees Obama's reelection, that guarantees Pelosi as Speaker-for-life," he told Fox News last night.

Its not really an issue of power over principle, but about who holds the power.

Democrats considered the same question, and ran blue-dog candidates all over the country. Now, with absolute and total power in their greedy little socialist hands, Democrats can't seem to pass marquee legislation, not because of Republican obstructionism, but family squabbling!

So the question suggests itself--do Democrats, with allegedly filibuster-proof majorities, really have the kind of political power that their Congressional majorities and possession of the White House suggest? Sure, its great for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama--they get nice offices, large staffs and fresh flowers every day, but ultimately its a frustrating and depressing scenario for their left-wing base who've been blocked from the promised rape and pillage yet again by the niggling little problem of "no mandate". It is after all, a big leap between "hope and change" and government run health-care.

What Gingrich is playing for is called a coalition government in Westminster parliamentary tradition, and if your not familiar with how that works--well, it doesn't. Coalition governments are placeholders until one party or another can create a true majority and thus a true mandate. Palin and Pawlenty seem to understand that real political power for the Republican party can only come by actually reflecting the will of the majority of the American people. You can't get that by running Republican-in-name-only candidates.

Gingrich seems to have forgotten something Margaret Thatcher said.

"First you win the argument, then you win the vote."

You can't win an argument with people who don't believe in your cause.

Gavin Newsom, winsome mayor of San Francisco, best known for defying state law and marrying gay couples while schtupping his married staffers--has dropped out of the race for the Democrat nomination in the governor's race. That leave septuagenarian Jerry Brown trying to get a second bite at the apple.

Oddly enough, Brown hasn't announced yet.

Neither has any Republican.

Its a considerable irony that the one guy who wanted the job was considered so out of touch by members of his own party, that he had to quit for lack of funds and poll support. Jerry Brown has a good chance just on the basis that he's experienced and is not gambling a future political career by adopting this particularly ugly baby.

Schwarzeneggar is rumored to be interested in challenging Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat in 2010. Its pretty sad when you have to root for a failed governor to win that particular race.

California is an interesting laboratory for socialist decline. In spite of two decades of decay, Democrats are stronger than ever in that state. Having visited the state many times over the last year, I think I may know why. Californians are like frogs in a pot with the heat being applied slowly--they don't realized they are being cooked until its too late. The standard of living in Los Angeles is not far different from some third world countries and for the same reasons--deep and comprehensive corruption. Small, old, decrepit homes that in middle America would only be suitable for crack houses, are mortgaged for more than half a million with both husband and wife working their asses off just trying to make ends meet. No one cooks or spends much if any time with the family because they must spend all their time working and commuting.

My wife was admiring her cousin's million dollar home, when I pointed out that it was roughly equivilent to the home our daughter's roommate and her new husband just bought for a little over 200K in Utah.

Its all so sad. Another beautiful place destroyed by Democrats.

There are three races being watched very closely for their portent for next year's elections and control of Congress--The Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races and district 23 in upstate New York. I've commented on a couple of these races, and at this point I think its safe to say that Republicans will take Virginia and the congressional seat in New York. New Jersey will probably stay in Democrat hands for no other reason that its unlikely that the margin of victory for the Republican is large enough to overcome Democrat vote fraud.

Nevertheless, a near loss is just about as good as a win if you are looking at these races as bellwethers. Of course now the spin starts--the outcome of the races means everything or it means nothing.

"I don't think they say anything," Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, said of off-year elections. "The sample is too small and the issues are local."

Clearly Mr Gans hasn't been paying attention. Local issues are a phenomenon of economic prosperity. In the economic and political environment we are in today, there simply are no local issues. Everywhere I go, everybody one talks about one thing--the economy. Secondarily they are worried about what Congress is doing about health-care (and that includes working Democrats, i.e people with jobs where productivity matters...)

NY-23 should be particular worrisome to both Democrats and RINOs because that particular situation is clearly not an anti-incumbent sentiment, but the embrace of a "right-wing lunatic" like Hoffman, the Conservative Party nominee.

Reaganism like Communism, just doesn't want to go quietly into that good night.

Only a couple of months ago, Andrew Cuomo was a shoo-in for New York's gubernatorial race next year. Paterson was apparently resigned to stepping aside and Cuomo was polling well against prospective Republican challengers, Rick Lazio and Rudy Giuliani.

Paterson had little choice, because if you didn't have the Messiah's blessing, what chance could you have?

Two abysmal failures in the test of Obama's political clout this week made Paterson realize that Cuomo and Obama is just really Cuomo at the end of the day.

"I think he's a viable candidate already. He's the governor. Anybody that's the governor is a viable candidate to begin with. I think it can only help make him more viable," said Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan).

Republican governships in the Northeastern states are going to be critical for a successful presidential run in 2012.

Politics, like war, features a massive disconnect between the theory and the reality. If you want to understand politics, then you have to do politics.

If you wonder why its important to get on a plane and hold a sign on the mall in Washington, or drive down to the your Congressperson's district office to do the same thing, Byron York explains it all to you.

"The thing that Pelosi has going for her right now is that a lot of her members are more afraid of her than they are of their constituents," says the GOP insider. He notes that Pelosi has plenty of weapons to make life miserable for members who cross her -- "any benefits the member can have for the remainder of this Congress, the kind of support they'll have going into next year's election, and if they lose, what kind of post-Congress opportunities they will have." All could be endangered by a vote against the health care bill.

The interesting thing about politics in this country is that Pelosi's power is entirely contingent on voter apathy--that whole low information voter thing I've been talking about. Without an energized and informed electorate, money and high-power endorsements win the day.

Right now in Washington D.C., dozens of Democrat elected-officials are trying to determine who has the power--Nancy Pelosi or you and I.

From Fire Dog Lake no less...(quoting the AP)

To minimize expected losses in next fall’s election, President Barack Obama’s party is testing a line of attack that resurrects George W. Bush as a boogeyman and castigates Republicans as cozy with Wall Street.

…House Democrats began an ad campaign in December assailing Republicans for opposing legislation restructuring federal financial rules and recalling the final days of the Bush presidency, when the economy tanked.

"Remember? We all know we should never let this happen again," the ad says. It lays into Republicans for voting "to let Wall Street continue the same risky practices that crippled retirement accounts and left taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion."

I'm not too critical, because what the hell else can they do really?

What I'd really like to see is a coherent election strategy from the Republicans--i.e. Contract with America redux...

There were four high profile Democrats who announced they would not be seeking reelection today.

I don't think anyone will be surprised that Chris Dodd is exercising the better part of valor, but the remaining Democrats, particularly Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter are clear harbingers of a nasty mid-term election for the Democrats.

Any electoral calculus at this point is as meaningless as all the chatter we saw a few months ago about how Democrats were going to pick up additional Senate seats from retiring Republicans, but at very least, the Democrats can kiss their super-majority goodbye. The House on the other hand is looking like it could very well pass back into Republicans hands.

Ah! Divided government. My favorite.

I think it says something concrete about this country that the Democrats are poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once more in less than 20 years. Its revealing that the looming disaster appears to be triggered by the same forces that sunk Clinton's Congressional majority in his first mid-term election: Democrats trying to foist revolutionary change on a public that simply does not want it.

I have to wonder, as apparently CBS's Bob Scheiffer does, whether the health care reform legislation is actually going to become law. The fallout so far has been devastating and I have to wonder if there are that many Democrats willing to fall on their swords to pass legislation that has no political benefit at all for either wing of the political continuum.

Ironically, a defeat might actually be good for the Democrat's long term prospects because the precipitous change in their fortunes can be squarely laid at the feat of the far-left, thus strengthening the hands of the moderates, who better reflect the Zeitgeist of the country. It was no accident that Rahm Emmanuel etal almost exclusively recruited blue dogs in the past couple of Congressional election cycles.

...which leads into my other observation.

How do you reconcile a nearly sure-thing bet on the Republicans this fall with the elite media consensus that the party was doomed to wander in the wilderness for a generation or more?

I think the answer is George W. Bush.

The Democrats didn't run against the Republicans, they ran against Bush, which is smart politics from a couple of perspectives. As President, he had both the visibility and responsibility for unpopular policies, and secondly, one can avoid bruising the feelings of voters who identify with the Republican party--i.e., you're not the problem, Bush is...

With the devil Bush metaphorically slain, there simply was no foil for the Obama-Reid-Pelosi triumvirate.

Who are the Republicans in the public mind now? "Not Democrats", which is why the generic ballot has swung into their favor.

I contemplate all those Democrat millionaires and billionaires, writing large checks to change the country into something more to their liking.

He He...

Good advice.

Now comes the hard part: seizing the opportunity. Fortunately, I’m not a political consultant. But if I were giving my two cents — and whaddya know? I am! — I’d tell the GOP to look not to Reagan in 1980 or Gingrich in 1994, as so many pundits suggest.

I’d look to Domino’s in 2010.

You may have seen the commercials or the YouTube video touting the iconic pizza-delivery chain’s reinvention. But if you haven’t, Domino’s new campaign can be summed up easily enough: “We blew it.”

Focus groups and consumer surveys revealed something pretty much everyone outside of Domino’s has known for years: Their pizza stinks. It tastes as if aliens tried to copy real pizza but just couldn’t capture its essence.

In their four-minute video (search YouTube for “the Pizza Turnaround”), executives, employees, and chefs at the company confront their harshest reviews head-on. They talk about how much it hurts to hear that their product “tastes like cardboard” and is worse than microwave pizza. But they admit the truth and commit themselves to starting over with more flavor, better crusts, and cheese that doesn’t taste like discount weather caulking. Domino’s says that the American palate has improved, and they want to update their recipe to take account of that fact.

The appeal of the campaign should be obvious: honesty. Domino’s admits they lost their way, and they want a second chance. They’re confronting the criticism head-on rather than denying it.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley attracting 49% of the vote while her Republican rival, state Senator Scott Brown, picks up 47%.

If those numbers hold through election day, win or lose, Democrats will be pissing their pants from fear.

If Brown wins, the 60 seat super majority is dead, and while its possible that the Massachusetts legislature will delay certifying the election to prevent him from voting against, the message will have already been received. The calculus that allowed some Senators and House members to rationalize a vote for Obamacare will have been throw out the window. If a Democrat can have a close race in the bluest state in the nation, what will Mary Landrieu do in Louisiana, Reid do in Nevada? What seat can legitimate be called safe anywhere in the country?

I'm looking forward to the spin...

I don't know if any image I could have ever thought of could describe Democrat villainy is such an eloquent way.

Martha Coakley, Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat candidate and heir apparent to what Democrats have taken to calling "Kennedy's seat" (as if it was a family hierloom), calmly walk on as one of her minions shit-cans a reporter to prevent him from asking inopportune questions.

Coakley wants to 'represent' the people of Massachusetts--as long as they don't ask any questions.

Its nearly inconceivable that Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat would go to a Republican in overwhelming Democrat-dominated Massachusetts (21 out of 200 seats in the MA Assembly are Republican...), but some well-informed people are starting to think that it might just happen.

Democratic desperation and other compelling evidence strongly suggest that Democrats may well lose the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in Tuesday’s special election. Because of this, we are moving our rating of the race from Narrow Advantage for the Incumbent Party to Toss-Up.

I think that's right.

Its true that there are three times as many registered Democrats as Republicans, but registered voters make up only half of the electorate in the Commonwealth. That would seem to be an overwhelming advantage, but its not about who's registered, but who turns up to vote on Monday.

Without boring you with the details, its pretty clear that the energy is with the nays on healthcare and Obama's handling of the economy. Pissed-off people vote, and its hardly a single issue kind of pissed-off.

Add to this a terrible candidate running an awful campaign. Martha Coakley is a thoroughly disagreeable woman--so much so that the State Police, whom she oversees, endorsed her rival! She's made no attempt to build rapport with the voters, and has in fact gone out of her way to alienate them with reporter beat-downs and comments like this.

Coakley bristles at the suggestion that, with so little time left, in an election with such high stakes, she is being too passive.

“As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?’’ she fires back, in an apparent reference to a Brown online video of him doing just that. “This is a special election. And I know that I have the support of Kim Driscoll. And I now know the members of the [Salem] School Committee, who know far more people than I could ever meet.’’

But this next quote, from the same article underscores the nature of the problem...

“Massachusetts needs Martha Coakley to be the next senator!’’ she says, her voice rising. “There is no way in hell Massachusetts is going to send a Republican to Washington!’’

The 10 people in the room holler, cheer, and applaud. They believe her.

As I said before--this is virtually a no-lose proposition for Republicans, who don't have to win to win. A close race makes for a lot of wet pants.

Harry Reid: Healthcare has cleared the Senate...healthcare has cleared the Senate.
New York Times: Rebel base in range...
Coakley: You may fire when ready.
Obama: I have you now...what?
Romney: You're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home.

UPDATE: A reader emails with some Massachusetts special election, man-on-the-street scuttlebutt from Instapundit.

UPDATE II: Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com is a regular stop for me. This guy knows how to read a poll, and Scott--you looook mahvelous!

Over the weekend, I reviewed the most competitive contests we have tracked on Pollster.com since 2006 and found no race that produced a trend anywhere near this strong over the last few weeks of the campaign.

UPDATE III: Brown has to beat Coakley by 5% to overcome the ACORN margin.

Frank Luntz can't find Democrats who'll go on television to defend Coakley for his Massachusetts Senate race.

...and the deal is they'll be paid--handsomely.

“They’re getting paid well,” Luntz says, “probably more than they’re making at their jobs. And they still don’t want to do it.”

Democrats embarrassed to declare their affiliation in Massachusetts! Its stranger than fiction

The last time this happened to Frank was during the 2004 primaries when Dean supporters also canceled their appearances.

Dean came in a distant third.

UPDATE: Weird. Just updates on the cable news networks, instead of the usual wall-to-wall coverage. Its not just just the state media making sure you don't hear awkward news for Democrats--Fox is also muted. Clearly this election took the elites by complete surprise.

No exit polls.

UPDATE II: Half the votes counted, Brown holding on to a five point lead.

I've been watching Scott Brown being interviewed as he makes the rounds of the Senate offices.

Massachusetts elected themselves one excellent representative. There are no teleprompters, and yet he manages to answer questions coherently and fluently with a natural, unaffected style. He doesn't speak in political cliches, but sensibly.

It doesn't hurt that he is a good-looking guy with a beautiful family.

Right now, this man is the face of the Republican party, and he's making the party look good.

I used to do something that astonished my wife and the friends who were exposed to it.

Before I tell you what it is, let me preface this tale by telling you that I'm a six foot white guy with a standard American accent.

Yet when I would speak to my parents, I would unconsciously switch into a distinct German accent. This wasn't done to mock my parents (who both immigrated in the 1950s), but is rather a reflection of the fact that English is my second language, and that the first English I learned had a distinct German cadence and pronunciation. That German accented English is in effect, my native dialect.

When my friends heard me speaking like that, it was for them, like seeing a part of me they never knew existed. I got a lot of ribbing about it, and since my father died, I've lost the reflex to lapse in that speech pattern.

The way we speak is meta data about us. It tells people where we are from, our gender, our race, the kind of education we've had, and even what kind of work we do.

I thought about this after reading a New York Observer article on Kirsten Gillibrand, who if you may recall, was appointed to Hillary Clinton's vacant Senate seat.

“Kirsten Gillibrand has what I would call a non-regional American young female’s accent,” wrote Dr. Bert Vaux, a sociolinguistics scholar at the University of Cambridge, who was asked by The Observer to analyze Ms. Gillibrand’s public speaking. “Though I lack the phonetic expertise to put my finger on what exactly is involved in this, her voice quality is of the sort that is typically associated with pre-workforce-age white American females. Judging by the case of this woman, this speech pattern has now extended into higher age ranges.”

Though Dr. Vaux stressed we should all avoid our “pre-programmed” tendency to form biases based solely on someone’s speech, he noted that Ms. Gillibrand often employs a “rising intonation pattern at the end of declarative clauses that lay people tend to associate with teenage girls,” a tendency that gives way to a “classic trigger of linguistic profiling.”

Translation: She sounds more like the cheerleader than the class president.

Gillibrand 'uptalks', which is damn strange for a 43 year old woman. My 24 year old daughter uptalks, as do many of her peers, but I figured she'd lose it with time and exposure to more normative speech patterns common to most adults.

It makes me wonder where Gillibrand has been spending time before being elevated to the Senate? Immigrant cheerleader parents?

What seemed a mere oddity may well turn out to be a significant deficit as she tries to win her seat in a special election. In a televised debate with carpet-bagger Harold Ford Jr., she's destined to deliver an impression of frivolity, naivete and, well, dumbness.

Some are already condemning this judgment as sexist, but let's recall Harry Reid's observation about Barack Obama (for which the entire black caucus, the Obamas and the liberal white media, gave him as pass...)

"...with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

Barack Obama's accent resembles mine in one aspect--its a conscious creation, not a natural reflection of his regional and racial origins. In effect, he doesn't 'speak black', which went a long ways towards making him acceptable to the American electorate. Its notable that neither Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell sound 'black' either.

Dialect is a fact of American political life, and it seems that this particular fact isn't very friendly towards Kirsten Gillibrand's election prospects.

If the Scott Brown voting pattern is extended nationally, there are only 103 safe House seats for Democrats this year...

Three quarters of these seats are districts populated with the Democrats core voters--not union members, but gentry liberals.

Suddenly, some things I've been observing are making sense. A neighbor, a civil engineer, related to me that virtually everyone in his office was a Democrat.

It makes a strange kind of sense because the vast majority of engineers work in a kind of splendid, well-compensated isolation. Like university professors, you can pretty much believe whatever you want, because you never risk having to test your theories in the marketplace. How else to explain a persistent resistance to what should be commonsense?

While software engineers and university instructors were doing the fist pump over Obama's targeting bankers as the scapegoat for his own, obvious failures, the people who know--the people with money on the line, divested themselves of banking stocks and sent the Dow tumbling.

I don't begrudge people the choice to be Democrats (or Republicans). I just wish they did so for rational, well-founded reasons.

Beau Biden (yeah, son of Joe...) has announced that he will not be running for the Delware Senate seat vacated by his father when he was elected Vice President.

“I have a duty to fulfill as Attorney General – and the immediate need to focus on a case of great consequence. And that is what I must do,” Biden said in a statement. “Therefore I cannot and will not run for the United States Senate in 2010. I will run for reelection as Attorney General.”

Yeah, yeah. Spend more time with the family, yada, yada, yada.

The real reason appears to be his poor prospects of winning.

(Rep Mike) Castle had been leading Biden in the polls by a small margin, Biden was widely believed to be the only potential Democratic candidate who could knock off the 70-year-old congressman, just as Castle was widely thought to be the only Republican capable of winning the seat in the solidly Democratic state.

Castle has outperformed the past five GOP presidential nominees by more than 20 percentage points and ran roughly 25 points ahead of John McCain in 2008, when Barack Obama won a landslide 62 percent to 37 percent victory in Delaware.

With 'high quality' candidates like Beau Biden, picking your shot is the whole game. They bide their time until an opening develops that guarantees them election. Clearly the political environment made running an unacceptable risk.

Larry Sabato's analysis is that if the election were held today, the Democrats would be reduced to a 52 seat majority.

The irony is that this might end up being a high water mark for the Democrats considering that Martha Coakley looked invincible only weeks before the Massachusetts election. Sabato has Barbara Boxer's seat in California as a Democrat hold, but Republicans clearly sense vulnerability and have advanced high quality candidates with big money to challenge her.

Is Evan Bayh safe in Indiana? That's one to watch as well. Other states showing some vulnerability are Connecticut and Hillary Clinton's old seat in New York.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin reiterates the corruption in the Biden family, that may have come to light if Beau had declared for the race.

Arkansas Rep Marion Berry has announced he won't be seeking reelection in what used to be John McCain's House seat.

Before Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, there simply weren't enough open House races for Republicans to contemplate retaking the majority in that body. Berry is the first post-Brown announcement, but probably not the last, and that opens up at least a numerical possibility that the majority party could change.

Ironically, there are still more Republican members retiring that Democrats--14 to 12, yet historically there is no correlation between retirements (open seats) and party changes, which have far more to do with the political climate--which for Democrats is bad---very, very, very bad.

Berry had some parting words for President Obama, as reported by Jane Fullerton for ADG.

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.

“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” [snip]

“I began to preach last January that we had already seen this movie and we didn’t want to see it again because we know how it comes out,” said Arkansas’ 1st District congressman, who worked in the Clinton administration before being elected to the House in 1996... "I just began to have flashbacks to 1993 and ’94. No one that was here in ’94, or at the day after the election felt like. It certainly wasn’t a good feeling.”

Shocked that Barack appears to be an ego-maniac? A lot of people tried to tell us during the primaries and the election, but the state media just fire-walled it. How many 44 year old men have written two autobiographies, much less one? Especially considering he has no discernible personal accomplishments to his name other than being elected to office?

Michael Barone analyzes the Rasmussen poll numbers on the Indiana Senate race and there is no joy for incumbent Evan Bayh.

These are astounding numbers. A general rule in polling is that what an incumbent gets in a poll he gets in a general election. Everyone knows him; those not voting for him now are not likely to vote for him later. This is particularly the case with Evan Bayh, who was elected secretary of state of Indiana in 1986 at age 30, then was elected governor of Indiana in 1988 and 1992 (and saw a Democrat hold the governorship in 1996) and who was elected senator from Indiana in 1998 (when incumbent Dan Coats retired rather than face Bayh) and 2004. Bayh has to be universally known in Indiana, and over the years he has built a reputation as a moderate Democrat, which has helped him win in a state which voted Republican in every presidential election from 1968 to 2004 and which voted for Barack Obama in 2008 by the narrow margin of 50%-49%.

Bayh's poll numbers?

44% vs any Republican challenger. He loses outright against Indiana congressman Mike Pence, and wins narrowly against less well-known rivals, who of course, would only get better known and thus more popular in a campaign.

Its a good bet that Bayh will lose, reducing the previous estimate of 52 seats for the Democrats, to 51. Barone thinks there are at least two more Democrats who are vulnerable which would give the Republicans control of the Senate.

Obama is nearly out-of-his-mind angry now. Can you imagine how he'll feel if he loses the Congress?

[For our non-wonk readers, the 'Generic Ballot' refers to a theoretical matchup between an unnamed Republican and an unnamed Democrat. Its a measure of public trust in the parties rather than individual candidates]

While the media is characterizing tonight's State of the Union address as an opportunity for Obama to 'reconnect with the voters', that is largely media spin, to be followed in the next couple of days with the 'shocking news' that Obama didn't make much of impression. The reality is that Obama's problems stem not from a lack of rhetoric, but a lack of action and thus progress on the issues that matter to the public most.

The Democrat political culture is that intentions matter more than outcomes, while Republican culture values outcomes. George H.W. Bush is a case in point. No one cared that that his lips were saying 'no new taxes', when the reality was that he raised taxes. On the other hand, Bill Clinton intended to integrate homosexuals into the military, reneged on his promise, and Democrats have never paid a price among their GLBT constituency. Gays and lesbians will continue to vote Democrat and contribute to campaigns on the basis of 'good intentions'.

Of course, when it comes to personal economic repercussions, everyone's a Republican and Obama's preference for the political upside of Obamacare over the personal fortunes of Americans has had its effect.

Harry Reid raised an impressive 2 million dollars last quarter, but spent it all and a little more trying to win back Nevada voters--to no avail.

He's said to have amassed a 9 million dollar war chest, dwarfing that of potential rivals, but money can't erase Reid's problem. Everyone in Nevada already knows who Reid is and what he's been doing lately. He could buy all the air-time in the state and never change that fact. In New Jersey, Jon Corizine outspent Doug Christie 3 to 1, and still lost by an ACORN-proof margin.

As if Harry didn't have enough problems, Scott Brown's election foreshadows what Reid can expect--an avalanche of money for whoever wins the Republican nomination. Only Nancy Pelosi has pissed off Americans more than Harry has. Anti-Reid bumperstickers have been in evidence in Nevada for over a year already...

Michael Barone has been analyzing elections for a long, long time and is generally considered one of the very best in the business. So when he makes this kind of comment, he gets my attention:

But more than health care legislation is in trouble. I have not seen a party's fortunes collapse so suddenly since Richard Nixon got caught up in the Watergate scandal and a president who carried 49 states was threatened with impeachment and removal from office.

The victory of a Democrat in the special election to fill Vice President Gerald Ford's House seat in February 1974 was a clear indication that the bottom had fallen out for the Republican Party. Brown's victory last week looks as if something similar has happened to the Democratic Party.

Many people ask me whether the Democrats are in as much trouble as they were in 1994. The numbers suggest they are in much deeper trouble, at least at this moment. Back in 1994 I wrote the first article in a nonpartisan publication suggesting that the Republicans had a serious chance to win the 40 seats necessary for a majority in the House. That article appeared in U.S. News & World Report in July 1994.

This year political handicapper Charlie Cook is writing in January, six months earlier in the cycle, that Republicans once again would capture the 40 seats they need for a majority if the House elections were held today. I concur. The generic vote question -- which party's candidates would you vote for in House elections -- is at least as favorable to Republicans as it was in the last month before the election in 1994.

The numbers tell us what is happening, but they don't tell us why, and why is so much more useful that what in this case.

Michael Barone:

Holding Barack Obama’s Senate seat is starting to look like a Massachusetts-type perfect storm for Democrats. Mark Kirk with his suburban base, somewhat moderate voting record and military and foreign policy expertise, seems like an ideal candidate for Republicans, whose last successful Republican Senate candidate in Illinois, Charles Percy, had a similar profile. And as Chicagoan Tom Bevan notes on realclearpolitics.com, Democrats would have preferred the clean-cut former Inspector General David Hoffman as a nominee rather than the Rezko- and mob-connected Alexi Giannoulias; Hoffman’s rise in the polls just before the primary and his newspaper endorsements were, however, not quite enough to put him over the top.

Its by no means the end of the story, but Giannoulias is a gift to the Republicans in Illinois. The most interesting question though is whether Barack Obama will be gun-shy about campaigning for Giannoulias.

Obama's ability to pass his governing agenda depends entirely on the popularity of his governing agenda, which often gets confused--even by the man himself--with his personal popularity. Three straight losses in gimme contests have shattered the illusion that the public 'wants' Obamacare, run-away-train spending, or anything else this administration is offering. The emperor has no clothes.

The reaction has been stiff-armed denial and doubling-down, hoping that he can reestablish the distortion field. Putting what's left of his prestige on the line to help elect a damaged candidate has significant risks for his presidency. A number of metaphorical indians have already left the reservation, but the mid-terms threaten to make it sauve-qui-peut, giving effective control of the government to the Republicans who can pick off as many Democrats as they need to force the issue.

On the other hand, avoiding Illinois is almost as bad. Its his old Senate seat, and refusal to campaign for his successor is tantamount to a white flag--or is it?

Ironically, Obama's best option is to surreptitiously undermine Giannoulias--press leaks about dirty deeds done cheap, which all good Chicago politicians keep in secured files "just in case", could give the Obama administration plausible deniability, and the resulting hopelessness would provide an excuse not to 'waste time and resources' on a lost cause when so many other seats are in play.

I think this is what Democrats call "the third way..."

H/T Backyard Conservative

--And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:5)

There is a distinct sense that a great many people in the political class are peering over the city walls and regarding the approaching Mongols with dread and confusion. One day you're master of the universe, the next you're under siege by the hordes.

...and we owe it all to Barack Obama.

In my social circle, I'm quite well-known as being the go-to guy for political information, but until early last year, I rarely discussed politics with my friends, who remained--not apathetic or uninterested exactly, but rather perplexed by the complexities of foreign policy. Why are we in Iraq? Where are the WMD? The absence of easily-defensible propositions made a lot of people leary of looking stupid.

Enter Barack Obama, whose ambitious drive to remake the U.S. into a Western European Socialist Republic in less than a year was only matched in the audacity, undemocratic and corrupt activities of the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Without liberal arrogance, the sleeper would not have awakened. So sure that they were right, entitled, and endowed by providence, Democrats basically scared the complacency and ambiguity out of the American electorate. Politics became simple again--WE OPPOSE THIS CRAP!

Over the past year, dozens of people, who I've never knew to have a political bone in their body, have become aggressive proselytizers of the new populism. A day doesn't go by that I don't get a Facebook status, an email or a text drawing my attention to the newest outrage by Louis XVI and his court.

The social networking of the Tea Party movement differs significantly from that of the Netroots. The Netroots took a lobster trap approach, drawing people into a well-conceived and highly sophisticated virtual network run by seasoned political activists. The Tea Partiers use social networks in a totally organic fashion, creating modeless nodes of communication that simply passed information along by whatever means was preferred. What digital hipster would even think of using an email chain to promulgate political activism? Yet, this has been extraordinarily effective in arousing a non-typical protestor--the middle-aged man or woman.

Glenn Reynolds is using a term with religious overtones to describe the Tea Party movement--the third awakening. But that only describes the provocation, the casus belli.

What underlies the vigor of the movement, aside from American's native sense of empowerment, is the simplicity of the proposition and the infrastructure of digitally-connected social networks. But Reynolds does add something important:

In less than a year, the Tea Party movement has gone from a few spontaneous protests against Obama’s stimulus bill to a nationwide phenomenon rating major media coverage, with several political scalps on its belt. And these inexpert activists are getting better with practice at what they do, with a lot of room on the learning curve ahead.

It’s fun to put on a protest rally for the first time and have it work out, but it’s even more fun to elect -- or defeat -- a candidate. Or, as Tea Party activists are beginning to do, to run for office yourself.

Over the next couple of years, these multitudes of virgin political operatives are going to acquire considerably more experience and self-assurance, which means they’re probably going to become
considerably more effective, too. Politics may not be the same when they’re done.

I'm not sure Reynolds in seeing clearly into his crystal ball. While activism has its attractions, one must factor in the simplicity of the proposition--kill the King. What happens to the movement when the propositions are not nearly so simple? Will the older demographic of the Tea Partiers party for the party's sake, or will they go back to gardening and golf?

While a lot of things are simple, many things are not. The world is changing at a breathtaking pace. Will Tea Partiers be as keen to contemplate difficult issues as they are to hold a sign and write a check?

I hope so, but frankly, I doubt it.

From Daniel Blatt's blog post comment stream:

If you’re an idiot, and you’re trying to help some other idiot get into a position of power to drag down civilization with your collective idiocy, the smarter among your countrymen are going to have some harsh words for you. I’m smarter than most conservatives, this is beyond any doubt. I’m also a better person – you guys have given up any claim to that argument with your morally decrepit positions on torture and wars. If that sounds condescending, it’s because it is. And you should probably spend more of your time teaching yourself things and thinking, rather than complain about the mean people that make fun off you for not being very smart.

People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future. The entire scope of human history has been a march of liberalism, and this jingoistic, laissez-faire, God-fearing path you fools are prescribing is only knocking us off the right track.

Comment by Levi — February 8, 2010 @ 11:22 pm - February 8, 2010

This piece of analysis evoked an involuntary chuckle from me. Liberals aren't even bothering to deny that they are condescending A-holes anymore--their out and proud!

I wonder if Levi has ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

"...people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it". The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. "Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

Or more succinctly:

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt --Bertrand Russell

This is a bit of oversimplification as it pertains to liberal condescension, since the overweaning sense of intellectual superior is often a mask for profound insecurity. The social outcasts in high school--the unattractive, athletically deficient, interpersonally awkward, and girlfriendless, almost always react to their discomfiture with a little psychological jiu jitsu. Rather than endure a sense of inferiority, they simply change the standards for social excellence to whatever flatters them personally.

I don't think there is anything wrong with this, except that a lot of people can't actually manage to convince themselves to believe the new order of things they've created. Their white hot animosity belies a persistent sense of inferiority, as if deep down, they know that its all a lie--it really is better to be good-looking, athletic and fluent in the social graces. While we're being totally honest, that stuff will get you a lot farther than burning intelligence.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

New Jersey gays put their wallets away.

“No political party has a record good enough on LGBT civil rights that it can rightfully claim to be entitled to our money on a party-wide basis,” said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality. “No longer will we let any political party take our money and volunteers with one hand, and slap us in the face with the other when we seek full equality.

"Our Board of Directors felt so strongly about adopting this new policy," he added, "that it unanimously decided to include it in the organization's bylaws."

Garden State Equality estimates that since 2005 they have given $500,000 to Democratic Party candidates, while giving only minimally to Republicans.

"Is this a broadside at the Democratic Party?" asked Goldstein. "Of course, it is."

Gay tea party?

Perhaps the beginnings of one. I've always said that if gays wanted to improve their position in the larger society, they are going to have to change hearts and minds at the grassroots level. Divorcing themselves from the Democrat political machine is a step in that direction.

The big story this morning is that Patrick Kennedy is not running for reelection, giving us the prospect of a Kennedy-free Congress for this first time in most American's lives.

He can't claim to want to spend more time with the family, since he has none, so the narrative is that the death of his father affected him profoundly.

Of that I have no doubt.

Powerful, successful fathers have two kinds of sons--the ones who are just like them, and the ones who aren't. The ones who aren't have a choice before them--try to emulate the old man, or strike out on one's own. The first kind generally lead miserable lives--working in careers they are ill-suited to by preference, temperament or skills. Their lack of success and dependence on their father's influence and intervention is emasculating. Its fairly common to see substance abuse, relationship problems supplemented by other risky behaviors--anything to dull the pain of eunchdom or offer some sense of manliness.

I am virtually certain that his resignation isn't a case of Patrick Kennedy taking control of his life--getting out from underneath his father's shadow.

A WPRI-12 poll out just last month showed Kennedy with a staggering 56 percent unfavorable rating in his own district, swelling to 62 percent statewide. Moreover, just 35 percent in his district would vote for him again.

The bottom-line is that Kennedy was toast, and he was undoubtedly offered an escape hatch into a Democrat-controlled sinecure if he would simply step down, and allow another Democrat to retain the seat for the party.

Its a chance for a second act, and I wish the man well, but it will require him to demonstrate a strength of character he hasn't yet displayed.

[A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post analyzing the future of the Kennedy political dynasty--seems rather prophetic at this point.]

Is nothing sacred?

Three term Senators from liberal states should just be able to show up for the post-election victory party, right?

As it turns out, Boxer is polling in the incumbent dead zone--below 50%--against a generic Republican.

Most troubling for Boxer in the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state is her continuing inability to cross the 50% threshold against any of the GOP hopefuls. Incumbents who capture less than 50% of the vote at this stage of the campaign are considered vulnerable.

Boxer can raise big money and call for some big endorsements, but the problem is that everyone already has an opinion about her at this point, and so money doesn't buy you love.

Twenty-six percent (26%) of California voters share a very favorable opinion of Boxer, but 33% view the senator very unfavorably.

[This is the third in the Anatreptic series on possible Republican presidential candidates.

You can read about Jeb Bush here, and Mike Huckabee here....]

Sarah Palin was a footnote in the political discourse leading up to John McCain's announcement of his running. She had in fact been mentioned as a political comer, but on the Republican ticket? Not many people saw that coming. The announcement sent a wave of electricity through the entire country. Every woman I know was going bananas over Sarah, waiting impatiently for the next opportunity to hear and see her. The left was also 'shocked', but not in a good way. With a rapidity that suggested that their house was burning down and the kids were still upstairs in their beds, the left manned the keyboards to condemn this virtually unknown woman as the 'worst person in the world'. It was shear, unadulterated panic.

The dread increased as she appeared at the Republican National Convention, looking resplendent in a white, with hair up and fashionable spectacles perched on her nose, framing luminous brown eyes blazing with passion and confidence. She knocked the ball out of the park, and Sarah Palin has been a boogey man to the Left ever since.

Ford wants to spend more time with the family...

“I’ve examined this race in every possible way, and I keep returning to the same fundamental conclusion: If I run, the likely result would be a brutal and highly negative Democratic primary — a primary where the winner emerges weakened and the Republican strengthened,” Mr. Ford wrote in an opinion article to be published in The New York Times on Tuesday.

“I refuse to do anything,” he wrote, “that would help Republicans win a Senate seat in New York, and give the Senate majority to the Republicans.”

There is of course, a simpler explanation--recent polls, including one commissioned by Ford himself, indicate pretty clearly that Gillibrand is extending her lead over Ford.

A brutal primary would in fact be inevitable, and for what? One would have to be rather delusional to consider the New York Senate seat 'safe' in this political environment. Quality candidates like Ford know enough to pick their shots--he's young (not even 40) and can afford to wait it out.

Now this is interesting. Howard Stern has always been left-of-center, and he's had it with the "communists"?

This is huge, because Howard Stern's demographic lines up with all those 18-34 year old voters who came out for Obama at twice their usual rate in the last election. Stern's disapproval is extremely dangerous because he can make you 'uncool' just like that. Before you know it, late evening talk show host are making you the butt of their jokes.

You might have a winning campaign issue when 55 percent of the people support it.Let's develop this.

The Tea Party was greeted by Reid supporters who among other things, pelted a bus full of Tea Partiers with eggs, which they then promptly denied, accusing a gray-haired man in a business suit (Andrew Breitbart) of the deed.

The video shows otherwise.

What is so interesting about all of this is how Andrew Breitbart has, yet again, taken control of a situation to inflict maximum damage on the public image of Democrats, and one Democrat in particular. Not only do the cameras show a pathetic little clutch of Reid supporters, but he catches them in the act of childish vandalism.

The fact that the egg was throw by a high-ranking union official just sweetens the confection. This kind of action is a beautiful thing--non-violent but extremely effective. While I doubt we'll see this on NBC anytime soon, it makes it harder for the liberal media to lie credibly when they know there is massive archive of contradictory evidence lying in wait.

No one wants to get Swift-boated again.

I usually look at the polls on Mondays, and so do the Democrats. I'm also certainly feeling a lot better than they are for doing so.

On major issues, 48% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than President Barack Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.

So much for the wing-nut reputation. The Tea Party is clearly mainstream and is far more representative, racially and otherwise, than is the Democrat party and makes NBC news look like a Klan rally. 40% of Independents identify with the Tea Party and the only reason it isn't higher is because there are still people not quite certain what the Tea Party is all about. No worries--the over-the-fence network will get around to them soon enough...

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of New York voters finds that 69% think it would be better if most incumbents in the state legislature were defeated this November. Just 12% say it would be better for the state if most of the incumbents were reelected. Another 18% aren’t sure.

That's a blue state folks. There is anti-incumbency sentiment in red states as well, but no where near this kind of power and depth. Red states just run better--judged by the lax standards of democratic governance.

Currently, two weeks after passage, 54% of the nation's likely voters still favor repealing the new law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% oppose repeal.

That hasn't changed an iota since the Obama regime rammed it through--in spite the President's highly-staged-managed dog-and-pony show. This surprised me somewhat because people generally like 'free' stuff. Apparently there are more principled people in the U.S. than I've generally conceded.

Obama did help his own polls with the passage of health-care legislation, gaining a few points back due to improved opinions from within his base. Disapproval remains high (51%) and strong disapproval is at 41%. Its doubtful this is more than a temporary spike. Obama's media coverage has been relentless positive after health care legislation became law, but is turning sour again as it becomes clear that smoke and mirrors on the economy is accomplishing nothing. Obama's own people, doing the rounds of the Sunday morning shows, had to concede that high unemployment is here to stay for the foreseeable future under their regime. That puts them in a difficult political position--arguing that health-care is covering 30 million previously uninsured Americans but at the cost of 30 million unemployed or having given up seeking employment--not to mention the large number of underemployed people.

3 more years of liberal-Progressive oppression and misery before we can even begin to start working on a turn-around.

if Mickey Kaus was the face of the Democrat party.

A Harvard-trained lawyer who rejected a legal career in favor of journalism—he toiled for The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and Newsweek before starting his blog in 1999—Kaus has serious policy chops as a neoliberal thinker. His 1995 book, The End of Equality, is still regarded as a persuasive treatise on transforming American society, fractured by class divisions and greed, through such government programs as national service and moving poor people from welfare to work. In 1996, Kaus plotted behind the scenes with Republican and Democratic supporters of the welfare-reform legislation that President Clinton eventually signed into law. He had briefly ventured into presidential politics in 1984, when he wrote speeches for South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings, an also ran in the Democratic nomination race.

“At some point you think you should stop writing about why things should change and start actually changing it,” Kaus said by way of explaining his decision to run. “As an opinion journalist you are not that far removed from that anyway. Certainly the proudest moments of my life were working on welfare reform. I saw myself as an advocate and agitator and behind-the-scenes lobbyist on some very minor aspects of it. But I did my best.”

Kaus, the mind and keyboard behind the famous Kausfiles (a regular read for me...) just can help being rational. Even when I disagree with him, his arguments are nevertheless solid and due respect.

Does he have a chance in a party dominated by mercenary constituencies along for the ride for the rapine, loot and pillage?

Probably not, but we can always dream.

The Kausfiles.

Michael Steele reminds us why we've been so disenchanted with Republicans.

There is no doubt that Republicans are fired up and have hopes of re-taking one or both houses of Congress this November. That kind of enthusiasm leads to a lot of contributions. But even though the RNC took in a record amount of money in March -- $11.4 million -- members are worried that a) it is being spent too quickly and without enough accountability, and b) that the flow of contributions will ultimately slow down if the committee continues to be involved in scandal. As evidence, critics point to the fact that the RNC has raised about $120 million since the 2008 election but now has just $9.5 million in cash on hand.

"There's a great deal of irritation over the profligate spending and the opaque accounting," says the RNC member. "We have raised a ton more money than we've raised before and we have less money in the bank at the end of the month. Where did all the money go?"

If we liked tax and spend, we would vote for Democrats n'est-ce pas?

Steele and his management team are clearly not the kind of people we want in any position of power, and gratefully, we have something to say about that.

As I see it, we have a simple choice--let the RNC buy some politicians, or buy them ourselves wholesale. I prefer the latter because its cheaper, and politicians elected with direct campaign contributions understand much more clearly who is buttering their bread.

The RNC picked a bad time to remind us that their not just obsolete, but useless as well.

Its Monday--time to check the polls.

Support for repealing heath-care up to 58%. 50% strongly support its repeal.

It seems passing health-care has helped Obama, increasing his strong approval an average of 6 points. The irony is that he isn't running for reelection and might find himself quite lonely next January. Nevertheless, even Gallup is reporting an overall decline in approval, reaching 45%--a 52 week low.

Marc Rubio is running away with the Republican nomination in Florida, 57% against Charlie Crists 28%.

Reporting head-to-head match-ups between Republicans and Democrats in Senate and House races is silly at this stage.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, having seen his chances for winning the Republican nomination evaporate with the ascendancy of Marc Rubio, has opted instead to run as an independent in the wake of some polls that suggested he might win if this were the case.

He apparently didn't consider that polls of this nature don't take into account the political Heisenberg principal--i.e. the act of actually running as an independent changes what was a theoretical exercise into one where the character of a life-long Republican office-holder is called into question by the obvious elevation of personal ambition over loyalty and the mythical principle of public service.

A number of Crist's own staffers have resigned in protest, and senior Republican officials have renounced their previous expressions of support.

So much self-inflicted damage in so little time.

Defection is a risky play under nearly any circumstances. Arlen Specter had a tough time with his previous reelection when he was merely a RINO. This time around, after switching parties, his chances are slim to none.

Joe Lieberman is a rare example of success. A target of the netroots crowd as a result of his support of the Iraq war, the perception was that Lieberman was being driven from office, a mere handful of years after he had been his party's standard bearer. The activist wing of the Democrat party did not have the sympathy of rank and file Democrats and moderate Republicans. Moreover, Lieberman's stance on the war was widely considered principled, even by those who disagreed with him. Defection had little to no stigma attached to it, in spite of the rhetorical excesses of the Kos kids.

Crist is no Joe Lieberman, and while his defection isn't at the same level of sliminess that Arlen Specter's was, its nevertheless pretty close.

The effect on the Florida Senate race will be interesting, but ultimately I would place my bets on Rubio, whose appeal is less about his conservative credentials than his personal magnetism. The irony is that Crist's status as an independent candidate appears to hurt the Democrat in the race more than it does the Republican.

Its been interested to see how the political landscape has changed over the past year or so, but with the Iraq war off the table, we seem to be left with two drivers--anger at Bush and anger at Obama. What many self-professed pundits seem to have missed is that among conservatives and independents, Bush and his policies were seen as insufficiently conservative. TARP, immigration and any number of issues are albatrosses hung around the necks of moderate Republicans like Crist, McCain and Sen Bob Bennett (R-UT).

Their only appeal is to Democrats disaffected by the hard turn to the left of the Democrat party--hence the prospects of Crist for sapping moderate Democrat votes in a state like Florida--left, but not too far left.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Florida governor Charlie Christ temporarily at least, generated some hope among Democrats that the coming red wave might be dissipated by primary in-fighting. Crist abandoned his quest for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat as it became clear that Marco Rubio was uncatchable, and annouced he would run as an independent. The polls seemed to suggest that he might have a chance of actually winning, and socialist pundits everywhere assured us that he would dilute the Republican vote and give whatshisname a chance to add one to the Democrats column.

Yeah, not so much.

Rasmussen Reports observes that Rubio now has a comfortable, state-wide lead over Crist and that Democrat Kendrick Meek trails badly at 18%.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in Florida finds Republican Marco Rubio with 39% support, while Crist earns 31% of the vote and Democrat Kendrick Meek trails at 18%. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided.

Christ has lost seven points since his announcement. Twelve percent might seem like a large undecided cohort, but its completely normal this far from election day--they are simply people who aren't paying a lot of attention to politics at this point, not some latent voting block.

Speaking of out lefty pundit friends--remember when I said Crist's independent run was more of a threat to Meek?

Seems Charlie thought so too.

Crist, whose numbers had been in freefall in his primary match-up with Rubio, has been actively courting Democrats. But Meek now edges Crist among Democratic voters after trailing him two weeks ago.

Arlen Specter, the erstwhile Republican, now Democrat, soon to be retired Senator from Pennsylvania is in a dead heat with his primary challenger according to Quinnipac, but the White House bookies are betting against him, refusing to risk Obama administration political credibility on a losing proposition. Neither Obama or Biden are scheduled to stump for Specter or offer any other material support.

A number of my fellow Utahns have been confused about my support for Bob Bennett's write-in campaign. The typical rationale for voting against Bennett is that we need to send a message to Washington. I have some sympathy for that view, but realistically its a Shakespearean tragedy as in...

...a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

The problem isn't the people we send to Washington, but the political system they labor under. With a constitutional amendment unlikely any time in the near future, it seems to me that we benefit most from employing a Congressional delegation with significant seniority and demonstrated political skills. They simply don't come more qualified that Bob Bennett. Yet Utah stands on the precipice, ready to send one of two complete unknown quantities into the fray. The current situation borders on suicidal.

As an example of what I mean, consider the San Juan wilderness designation bill Bennett was shepherding in Washington. That plan is now in limbo, and you might ask why a bill that on its face, looks like its a sell-out to so-called environmentalists, is something to be mourned.

Because, in the Washington tradition, you name your bill exactly opposite to its intent. The bill does allocate some roadless land as wilderness, but more importantly keeps other lands open to the public, motor vehicles and smart uses.

Anyone who thinks that wilderness is an all or nothing proposition, just doesn't understand politics in this country, or the value of an experienced Senator to insure local interests don't get rolled. Its sad, but Utahn's may well be voting for a far more draconian outcome for land use--or should I say 'no use.'

When Gov. Charlie Crist exited the Republican primary and the party, left-wing media pundits assured us that he would split the Republican vote and allow a Democrat to come up the middle and win the Florida Senate seat.

I predicted at the time that if Crist would hurt anyone's campaign, it would be the Kendrick Meek (yeah, I never heard of him either...).

Its a no-brainer for Crist. He lost the battle for the Republican nomination, but he still has the name recognition to crowd out Meek and hopefully peel off some so-called 'moderates' from Rubio. Crist of late, has been providing evidence of my excellent political instincts and embarrassing the silly boys and girls defending the Reichstag of American socialism.

In the latest development in the race for the open U.S. Senate seat in Florida, Governor Charlie Crist is coming under fire for removing the pro-life section of his campaign website. This comes on the day the legislature sent him a bill that would allow women to see an ultrasound of their baby before an abortion.

Crist has already hinted he will veto the legislation, which also allows Florida to opt out of some of the abortion funding under the new national health care law President Barack Obama signed.

That he would potentially veto a pro-life bill with broad support from voters is another indication of his strategy to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent.

Knowing he may veto the bill, the campaign of pro-life Republican candidate Marco Rubio informed LifeNews.com today that Crist's campaign scrubbed his web site of a section touting Crist as a supposedly pro-life candidate.

Nice, and even more evidence that Crist's governing principles are pretty much confined to advancing his personal interests.

Rep Bob Etheridge (D-NC) has already quickly apologized for the incident after it was aired on Big Government, but the damage is done. A sitting Congressman engaged in what can only be objectively viewed as an assault when confronted by a couple of well-dressed young men with a flip camera and a question.

Do you fully support the Obama agenda?

This so enraged Etheridge that he ended up putting on of his questioners in a headlock. This isn't too much caffeine, this is out-and-out paranoia and anxiety. Etheridge was a timebomb, and the ambush was all the trigger he needed to explode into violence. I don't know much about his district, except that it leans Republican, but I'd venture to guess that his prospects of reelection just got flushed.

Some have pointed out that Etheridge was set-up, and I won't argue with that, but let's face it, 60 minutes has been poking cameras into the faces of just ordinary citizens for decades at this point, so it hardly seems beyond the pale to do the same to an elected representative. Regardless of who the "students" are and who if anyone, might have sent them, Etheridge's reaction was completely within his control. Almost any other response would have been better, but he has to live with the one he gave.

Having given it some thought, if I was confronted by people with cameras, I would simply pretend that I was being mugged, taking out my wallet, hand over the cash and tell them repeated that there is no need for violence.

On the other hand, how hard should it be for a politician to have some canned rhetoric at the ready? Does everyone really need a teleprompter these days?

You don't live in Utah, so why should you read this?

Well, its not really about Utah, but about politics in general, and the 2010 election specifically. Some interesting things happened last night--some surprising, some predictable--all of it interesting.

Together with businessman Tim Bridgewater, Mike Lee managed to depose sitting U.S. Senator Bob Bennett. Dissatisfaction with Bennett stemmed from his involvement with TARP and Obamacare lite, and voters summarily dismissed him from office.

That left us with two relative unknowns, born out by polls that showed a huge--25% contingent of undecideds. I know--the lovely bunny, myself and a large number of our friends were scratching out heads about who to vote for as little as a week ago.

This was a pretty unusual race--two unknowns rather than an incumbent and challenger, and so it came down to messaging. Both Bridgewater and Lee spent large on radio and television ads to stake out a public image and dirty up the other.

What made the difference--and this is anecdotal, based on my casual interviews of Lee and Bridgewater voters in the past few days, is the tenor and specificity of the criticisms of the opponent as well as the vision of what each candidate would do in Washington.

The lovely bunny was annoyed by Bridgewater's tag-line: Stop the Insanity! It was a throw-away line designed to capitalize on the general view of voters here in Utah that Washington is just a big insane asylum, but it fails because it makes Bridgewater look stupid, or worse, gives the impression that he thinks we're stupid. A freshman Senator is not going to change Washington, in fact every office-holder we send there is inherently part of the system and thus part of the problem. His promise to make Washington run like a business was similarly naive and betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of what government is and how it works.

His criticism of Lee was largely confined to pointing out that he's a lawyer, and we all hate lawyers of course. Well, no, we don't all hate lawyers, and the criticism was justly perceived as unfair and demeaning.

Lee on the other hand, emphasized his expertise as an expert on the constitution, which certainly resonated among the Tea Party activists who see a return to constitutional principles as, if not a panacea for our current ills, certainly an effective dose of medicine. Lee did finally manage to get the endorsement of the Tea Party Express, which certainly helped. It was a reasonable and realistic affirmation of his prospective contribution, which stood in stark contrast to Bridgewater's fanciful notions of how Washington should be run.

Just as important was what Lee didn't say. Nowhere in his ads, or even on his website, did he mention that he is the son of Rex Lee, former beloved BYU president, Solicitor General of the U.S, founding Dean of the J. Reuben Clark law school, and all-around terrific guy. That relationship was allowed to filter through the electorate by word-of-mouth and did a lot to mitigate the charge of 'lawyering'. Mike Lee has in fact largely followed in his father's footsteps, and since we liked the tree, the apple that fell from it was looking pretty good.

His slams on Bridgewater were if not specific, certainly accurate. Bridgewater is a registered lobbyist and spend a great deal of time soliciting federal funds for private projects. There may be nothing wrong with this, but in this political climate, it left a bad taste in the mouths of voters to know that they kicked out a Senator for supporting TARP and on the verge of electing another who had not problem taking the money.

The upshot is that all other things being equal (as they were here), fine-tuning the messaging is the end-all, be-all of campaign strategy. The Bridgewater team clearly did not have a good feel for how their messaging would be perceived, and they paid the price.

Also last night, Jim Matheson deflected a challenge from the far-left to unseat him for being insufficiently left-wing. He won going away with 67% of the votes.--but not without cost. Matheson is estimated to have spend $750,000.00 to win the nomination, and his TV ads were designed to appeal to the narrow base of Democrats living in Salt Lake and Park City, but went out to the entire state, making it very difficult for him to run as Republican-lite in November.

He has a credible rival in Morgan Philpot, who has been active in state congressional politics and vice-chair of Utah's Republican party.

Matheson has been easily reelected to five terms, but this year he faces serious obstacles and although local media hasn't caught on yet, there is a real groundswell of determination to see him unseated this time around. The ball is in Philpot's court--if he's up to putting on a good campaign, this will be his race to lose.

If Pat Caddell didn't invent modern polling, he was certainly one of the very early architects. He advised five Democrat presidential candidates, including one for current Vice-President Joe Biden. He was a figure of considerable influence in the ill-fated Carter White House, which makes his comments about Obama's political prospects, and those of the Democrat party in particular, of particular interest.

Some of his critics have accused him of being a crypto-Republican, but Caddell is still very much a creature of the left, supporting Ralph Nader in word, deed and with cash. He's just extremely candid and self-assured about his political principles.

“President Obama’s undoing may be his disingenuousness,” Caddell says. After campaigning for post-partisanship, Obama, he observes, has lurched without pause to the left. “You can’t get this far from what you promised,” Caddell says, “especially when people invest in hope — you must understand that obligation. The killer in American politics is disappointment. When you are elected on expectations, and you fail to meet them, your decline steepens.”

Caddell, as a first hand observer of Jimmy Carter's political dissolution, is perhaps positioned better than any other political observer to understand the scope of Obama's failure, and the implications for Democrat political fortunes. He doesn't disappoint.

“We may be at a pre-revolutionary moment,” he says, unsmiling. “Everything is in motion.” This November, he predicts, “will be more of a national referendum than any [midterm election] since Watergate.”

The polling data show how restless the country is. “A Rasmussen poll from earlier this year showed just 21 percent of voters believing that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed — an astounding figure,” Caddell says. “Then a CNN poll showed that 56 percent of Americans worried that the federal government poses a direct threat to their freedom.”

“Democrats are aware of this,” Caddell continues. “They know that the general outcome is baked.” As the fall campaign kicks into gear, “the question now becomes whether Obama can mitigate their losses. You see them trying to localize their campaigns and pretending that they don’t know Nancy Pelosi. It’s all rather amusing.”

Unlike President Reagan at his first-term midpoint, in 1982, “Obama is not able to go out there and say, ‘Stay the course.’ That’s just not possible. The Democrats’ hope with health care was that ‘people will like it after we pass it.’ Well, they hate it, and you don’t see any effort to promote it. The Democrats had a chance to do this right — most people supported aspects of reform — but because of the way it was passed, as a crime against democracy, the country has simply not accepted it. The lies, the browbeating, the ‘deem and pass’ — all of it was a suicide mission.”

At this point, prediction of an electorate rout in a couple of months is low-hanging fruit. The real value of what Caddell is saying is the lesson for Republicans. He points out that in spite of the unprecedented 10 point generic poll lead (Rasmussen), "no one likes the Republicans much either..." That's undoubtedly true...I don't like the Republican much myself.

A victory in November while certainly useful, won't bring sustained benefit to either the party or the country unless Republicans understand that job one will be to restore national confidence in its governing institutions. Failing that, Democrats wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a repeat of 2008 at some point in the future.