In 2008, the Republican Party was thought to be headed for minority status as a rump party of the South. Tonight, the governorships of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Mexico are in GOP hands. Senate seats from New Hampshire to Illinois are flipping control. This does not mean that the Democrats permanently have become a rump party of the two coasts. “Permanent” is the stuff of fabulists. It does mean that the GOP now has the chance to prove to voters previously unwilling to give them a try that they can behave more responsibly than the Democrats. Oh, and Dino Rossi is leading in early returns in Washington State.
Topic: Wisconsin
LIVE BLOG: Wisconsin, the Red State
There are many states and stories to chew over in this election. But among the most fascinating — and, for Democrats, the most alarming — is Wisconsin, which, after tonight’s election, will qualify as a Red State. That is simply stunning.
LIVE BLOG: When a Professional Talks to a Lunatic
On MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell, who actually worked in politics for decades, attempted to explain to Keith Olbermann that just because Keith likes Russ Feingold and Republicans spent a lot of money to defeat him, one should attempt to figure out what collection of issues it was that did Feingold in. “When did Feingold ever turn his back on Wisconsin?” Olbermann demanded. And across O’Donnell’s face there came a look of complete and utter realization — that the man to whom he was speaking lives not on this earth but rather in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
LIVE BLOG: Call It Whatever You Want
Mark Kirk and Pat Toomey have gone ahead in two Blue States. If the GOP captures Illinois and Pennsylvania Senate seats, gets more than 55 seats (the most since 1932), and gains governorships from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin to New Mexico, it is not a good night for the GOP. It is a historic thumping.
LIVE BLOG: Feingold Loses
Obama came to rallies for him, but the college kids didn’t put Feingold over the top. He lost and lost big. This is Wisconsin. Extraordinary.
LIVE BLOG: Will There Be Any Surprises?
In past “wave” elections, weird things happen in Senate races no one expects. In ’80, it was the victory of Jeremiah Denton in Alabama. In ’94, it was Fred Thompson winning in a landslide in a race everyone thought would be close. In 2008, it was the bouncing of Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina. What about this year? There may not be one, because everything has been so closely watched. It may be that the presumed victory of Ron Johnson in Wisconsin over Russ Feingold would have been the surprise in an earlier election cycle, before the news cycle became constant and political news sources became so incredibly numerous.
Where Is the 10th?
The Democratic Public Policy Polling outfit has a spate of final polls showing GOP candidates leading narrowly in Nevada, Illinois, Washington, and Colorado. Rand Paul and Pat Toomey are pulling away. California is tightening. But Joe Manchin is leading in West Virginia. Not much good news for the Democrats. Still, it’s hard to see how the GOP can come up with 10 seats.
Let’s say PPP is on the money. The GOP has North Dakota, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Pennsylvania well in hand. Add in Illinois, Colorado, and Nevada. Washington also is doable for the Republicans. So the Senate comes down to a search for the 10th seat. West Virginia? I’ve seen no recent public or private poll (Dem or GOP) showing the Democrat contender behind. California? Carly Fiorina is close, but, again, there is no poll out there showing her in the lead. This is not to say that one of these states won’t fall to the GOP in the conservative-rich turnout on Election Day. But unless one of those GOP contenders pulls an upset, prepare to hear a lot of recriminations about Delaware. If so, it’s a lesson to keep in mind for 2012.
One caveat: if, in fact, we’re talking about an election not like that of 1994 but like that of 1928 (which Jay Cost suggests is more analogous), the rising tide will lift all boats and perhaps swing some marginal Senate seats the GOP’s way. Yes, Senate races tend to be more differentiated than House contests and are often determined on the merits of individual candidates. But if the electorate is dark Red, there are only so many Democratic votes for Barbara Boxer, Joe Manchin, and the rest to work with. For those of you who recall 1980, the liberal Senate lions fell one after another, to the shock of the network anchors and liberal intelligentsia. In a wave year, lots of marginal candidates are swept in and lots of dead wood swept out.
Predictions
On Tuesday, Democrats will suffer an epic defeat — worse even than in 1946, when Republicans gained 12 Senate seats and 55 House seats. The GOP will pick up at least 73 House seats, 10 Senate seats, and eight governorships. The GOP’s turnout will be huge and independents will break massively for Republican candidates across the country. Among Democrats, this will trigger despair and bitter recriminations. President Obama will immediately be placed on probation by his own party and may well face a serious primary challenge, just as Jimmy Carter did in 1979.
As Democrats sort through the rubble caused by Tuesday’s landslide — even Wisconsin will become a red state — they will realize what many of us have warned them of for quite some time: Barack Obama and his agenda are having a Kevorkian-like effect on the Democratic Party. If the economy doesn’t noticeably improve by next fall — and, at this stage, there are no signs that it will — more and more Democrats will find it in their self-interest to detach themselves from Obama. And Team Obama’s political strategy this cycle — in which they never settled on a consistent narrative beyond attacking huge swaths of the American people as being ignorant, unappreciative, and tinged with racism — will be judged as one of the most inept in American history.
The next two years will feature stalemate and confrontation between Capitol Hill and the White House. President Obama, unlike Bill Clinton, is not likely to tack to the center. Mr. Clinton was a New Democrat; Mr. Obama has shown himself to be a man of the left, through and through. The class of 2010 will be less interested in compromise with the president than the class of 1994. And the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, will have far less latitude to strike deals than did Newt Gingrich.
In 2011, Paul Ryan, chairman of the Budget Committee, will emerge as one of the five most important Republicans on Capitol Hill. Marco Rubio will become a GOP superstar. And wise Republicans will promote governors as the face of the Republican Party, reassuring both independents and conservatives who are skeptical about Congressional Republicans and their capacity to govern well.
The danger for Barack Obama is that in the wake of his party’s crushing defeat, he will show little genuine self-reflection. The president, David Axelrod, and Valerie Jarrett may well comfort themselves by telling each other, especially in their private moments, that the public — gripped by fear, irrationality, and a touch of bigotry — was not able to comprehend Obama’s true greatness. Tuesday’s results will be interpreted as a “communications” failure and laid at the feet of a bad economy, which (they will insist) Obama has nothing to do with.
In point of fact, the American people are seeing things for what they are. And if Mr. Obama continues to rationalize his party’s comeuppance by making excuses, blaming others, and lashing out at his “enemies,” the president’s problems — already enormous — will multiply.
Barack Obama’s political world is about to be rocked. We’ll see how he reacts to it.
Down to West Virginia and Washington
The latest batch of Senate polls suggests that there is a good chance of Republicans picking up these seats: North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Wisconsin (Russ Feingold is down 6.6 points in the RealClearPolitics average), Illinois, Pennsylvania, Nevada (Sharron Angle is up by 4 in the most recent poll), and Colorad0 (Ken Buck is leading in all recent polls). That is a total of eight.
If the recent polls are to be believed, Carly Fiorina is in a tough spot in California. Connecticut is trending solidly Democratic. But there is Washington, where it is a dead heat. And there is West Virginia, where polls have been inconsistent, but the incumbent governor’s administration is now ensnared in an FBI investigation. Is it doable for the GOP? Sure. I’d give it better odds than 50-50.
And, by the way, if the GOP gets nine, the scramble is on to lure Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson to switch parties. In sum, the excitement may be far from over on election night.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Bill Clinton’s main task is getting people to drop out of Senate races. “Charlie Crist personally called a top adviser to Bill Clinton and asked if the former president would discuss with Kendrick Meek the possibility of dropping out of the Florida Senate race, according to a source close to Clinton.”
The Democrats’ main problem: their side is depressed, and their opponents are fired up. “The latest absentee ballot statistics released this afternoon by the state of Pennsylvania show a strong Republican tilt in the Keystone State, a bad sign for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket. According to the secretary of state’s office, 53,226 absentee ballots have been returned by registered Republicans in Pennsylvania compared with 37,631 by registered Democrats.”
The Dems’ main enemy has been their own agenda. “Regardless of whether the stimulus bill has helped the economy, or even prevented further losses, voters don’t believe the mammoth spending and tax cut bill has helped. And because no House Republicans voted for the bill, the perceived failure is wholly owned by Democrats. But a failed stimulus may have been forgivable, if Democrats had done something else to turn around the jobs picture. Instead, the party moved on to cap and trade and health care. … The party sealed its fate when Democrats cast a Sunday vote to pass health care reform, effectively alienating seniors and male voters. In the end, the 111th Congress has been one of the most effective in recent history. That efficiency, and their accomplishments, will cost them seats.”
Republicans’ main lesson from 2010 should be about candidate selection. Or, as Bill Kristol observed, it ”would be nice to have Delaware.”
J Street’s main activity is whining now. Too much partisanship on Israel! Sort of odd for a group that spends its time (when not running interference for Richard Goldstone) attacking AIPAC and conservative pro-Israel supporters. Funny, though its policy director can’t manage to explain what’s wrong with “the Republican Jewish Coalition’s ad against Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, claiming that she ‘remained silent as the Obama administration pressured Israel and supported Israel’s enemies.’” B0xer hasn’t exactly stood up to the administration on anything, let alone Israel.
The Dems’ main mantra – not Bush! — is problematic. A new poll by Democrat Doug Schoen finds that by a 48-to-43 percent margin, voters think George W. Bush was a better president than Obama. (Umm, Jeb, are you listening?) Nothing like Obama to make the country appreciate his predecessor(s).
The main takeaway from Charlie Cook (subscription required): the House Dems are toast. “It’s now clear that this is largest House playing field since 1994 and Democrats’ losses may well exceed the 52 seats they lost that year. … Democrats can’t blame their losses on money. Democratic messages simply aren’t staving off GOP candidates. Democrats’ strategy of endlessly exploiting opponents’ personal baggage has failed to disqualify Republicans like retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West. … Democratic attempts to portray GOP foes as proponents of three different third rails — outsourcing, the Fair Tax, and Social Security privatization — have had limited success in isolated cases, but have likewise failed to salvage races across the board.”
The White House’s main dilemma: where can Obama do more good than harm? “They could send him to Wisconsin, but the Senate seat appeared to be slipping away despite a recent presidential visit. Maybe Colorado? The Senate contest there was much closer, but it wasn’t clear – given the state’s changing political sentiments – whether a visit by Obama would help. Washington, California and Nevada were out, given that he had just campaigned out West. The advisers easily eliminated West Virginia and Kentucky, two states that were hostile to Obama in the presidential race and have grown even more so.”
The Worst-Case Scenario for the GOP Is Pretty Darn Good
Nate Silver provides a helpful picture of the worst-case scenario for Republicans. He certainly is not, and does not claim to be, neutral in his observations and is not a pollster himself. But he’s about the most intellectually honest analyst on the Dem side. So what’s he say about the House?
FiveThirtyEight’s forecast now projects the most likely composition of the House to be 231 Republicans and 204 Democrats. This is a one-seat improvement for the Republicans from yesterday’s forecast, and would mean that they’d gain a net of 52 seats over all.
Consider 52 seats the floor for the GOP House pickups. As the Hill sums up:
The Hill 2010 Midterm Election poll, surveying nearly 17,000 likely voters in 42 toss-up districts over four weeks, points to a massive Republican wave that, barring an extraordinary turnaround, will deliver crushing nationwide defeats for President Obama’s party.
As for the Senate, here is some very useful analysis of the differences between the House and Senate races:
If the entire Senate were up for re-election in this political climate, the Republicans would be favored to earn a filibuster-proof majority, and might even earn a veto-proof majority! …
By comparison, in the House, where everyone is up for re-election every two years, Republicans appear most likely to win something like 53 percent of available seats. The fraction could conceivably approach 60 percent if they have a really terrific night, or it could be a bit below 50 if the Democrats overperform their polls and hold the House. But the Republicans almost without doubt will win a higher fraction of the available Senate seats (and probably also the available governors’ seats, although that could be a lot closer) than they will in the House.
And he is honest enough to point out that there is a candidate quality-control problem on both sides of the aisle:
My hunch is that Shelly Berkely would probably be crushing Ms. Angle in Nevada were she on the ballot in place of Mr. Reid; Lisa Madigan would probably have a clear lead over Mark Kirk in Illinois; there are even states like Arizona — where John McCain’s approval ratings are actually quite poor — in which an absolutely top-tier Democratic nominee might have made a competitive race. And meanwhile, the Republicans have some strong candidates, including both establishment choices like Rob Portman in Ohio and John Hoeven in North Dakota, and antiestablishment ones like Marco Rubio in Florida (a Tea Partier), and probably even Ron Johnson in Wisconsin (another Tea Partier), who has run a really smart campaign, although he’s not quite out of the woods yet against the incumbent, Russ Feingold.
To sum up, there is precious little good news for the Democrats. They are on track to lose the House, scads of Senate seats, and their Senate majority leader. (Even pre-programming some voting machines in Nevada isn’t likely to save Harry Reid.) The notion that the Tea Party has handicapped the GOP is belied by the facts, which Silver’s liberal colleagues would do well (at least for the sake of their intellectual integrity) to stop ignoring.
Cook: House in the Bag, Senate Up for Grabs
Charlie Cook writes:
It’s easy to look at what appears to be a gigantic Republican 2010 midterm election wave in the House and feel a little slack-jawed, but not so much surprised. There were plenty signs well over a year ago that Democrats were facing grave danger, but even when expecting an onslaught, one can still be shocked at its size and unrelenting force. It would be a surprise if this wave doesn’t match the 52-seat gain on Election Night in 1994, and it could be substantially more.
On the other hand, the Senate picture is incredibly confused. There is no clear narrative in the Senate, just bizarre ups and downs. Republicans could easily find themselves picking up as “few” as seven or as many as 10 seats.
That view matches the take of many conservative analysts and activists. Why is the Senate so much closer? For one thing, the seats that could tip the Senate majority to the Republicans are in Blue States — Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois, California, etc. It is remarkable that these are competitive and that they may, in fact, go to the GOP. Second, senators are simply more distinct figures than House members, with the ability to differentiate themselves. Harry Reid can’t, because he is the Senate majority leader and therefore is joined at the hip with the White House. But in places like Colorado and West Virginia, Democrats are making the case that they are not rubber stamps for the Obama administration. And yes, the Republicans blew a seat in Delaware. But, again, that is only one seat.
It is a measure of how far we have come in two years that the “ray of sunshine” for the Dems is that they may lose only eight Senate seats.
More Meltdown Evidence from Biden
Quoting Vice President Biden is like a grown-up playing basketball at a hoop meant for a four-year old — you will score a slam dunk every time, and it gets old fast. But today the problematic thing he said was actually instructive. He was in Wisconsin, where he and the president have been relentlessly beating the bushes for money and enthusiasm among the Democratic faithful. According to the Hill, here’s what happened:
“We want to reward people who manufacture things in the United States, in Wisconsin, not to take them overseas to China and to other countries!” he said to a silent room at the event for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tom Barrett, according to a White House pool report.
He continued, saying, “You’re the dullest audience I’ve ever spoken to,” at which point he got applause and laughs. “Do you realize how many jobs Wisconsin lost? It’s staggering!”
Biden didn’t get the response he wanted to his demagogic rabble-rousing nonsense about jobs going overseas–something his administration, like its predecessors, has absolutely no control over nor any coherent policy ideas about reversing. His audience knows that; indeed, his audience was almost certainly made up of businesspeople who know better than he about it and why it happens — and why government “rewards” aren’t going to solve the problem. Frustrated, he browbeats them for refusing to respond. And, as will happen, they respond to the browbeating.
The sense one gets, reading these accounts of Biden’s and Obama’s travels, is that they have yet to come to grips with the deep skepticism they generate when they talk about the economy, even among their own supporters. When they do sense the skepticism, it confuses them because they seem to assume it should only be coming from bad Republicans and conservatives who are supposedly obsessed with seeing them fail for no other reason than that these bad people want Obama to suffer.
And so the guy on stage heckles his audience when his bit bombs. Whew. Who knows what more will come out of their mouths for the next three and a half weeks until the polls open and bring a blessed end to the slow-motion car wreck that is Biden-Obama midterm electioneering.
Finding the Path to 10 Senate Seats
Over the last week it appears that Sharron Angle is edging ahead in Nevada and John Raese is leading in West Virginia. Meanwhile, Dino Rossi in Washington enjoys a six-point lead in the latest poll. Here, then, is one very viable path to a 10-seat pick-up for the Republicans: North Dakota, Indiana, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Colorado, West Virginia, Nevada, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Washington. The Republican challenger leads in the latest polling in every one of these races.
This state of affairs can change, certainly. There are races within the margin of error or with conflicting polling data. But that runs both ways. Connecticut may tighten up. Carly Fiorinia in California has been hanging tough. So there are a minimum of 12 potential pick-ups with varying degrees of difficulty for the GOP. It would be foolish to say a Senate pick-up is “likely,” but it’s simply wrong to say it’s a long shot.
More Cowbell!
It seems like just last week Obama was rallying the base in Wisconsin. Oh, wait. He was. But how could that be? This report from Madison tells us:
On a sunny and mild Sunday this weekend, there was no political paraphernalia to be seen and no campaign volunteers to be found along State Street, the main drag of this liberal-leaning college town.
Progressive young residents milling around the area expressed concerns that the energy they saw in 2008 was lacking this year, and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold has not done enough to get their like-minded peers engaged in his race against self-funding Republican Ron Johnson.
What is the matter with these people! Didn’t they hear? It’s unacceptable –unacceptable, the president said — to sit at home. Plainly, the problem is that Obama did not stay long enough or holler at them with sufficient intensity. More Obama! More nagging!
How the GOP Gets to 10 Without Delaware
The GOP’s Senate prospects are looking up. New polling shows Republicans with solid leads in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Add to those Indiana, Arkansas, and North Dakota, which look like they’re in the bag for the GOP. West Virginia is now looking very gettable for the GOP as well. That’s seven. The Senate majority flips if the GOP snags three more from among the next batch of most-viable pickups: Illinois, Nevada, Washington, Connecticut, and California. That is quite doable. And should the GOP fall one short, might Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman switch sides?
The Democrats whooped it up after Delaware, convinced that Christine O’Donnell’s victory would somehow turn off voters in other states. It hasn’t happened. And now Delaware may not even be essential to a Republican takeover of the Senate.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Not going to happen: “Specifically, the smartest thing Obama could do in replacing outgoing Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel would be to pick an outsider who can address some of the obvious weaknesses his administration has. … It is critically important that Emanuel’s replacement have strong ties to the business community, a history of good relations with both parties in Congress, and the independence and integrity to be able to tell the president ‘no’ when he is wrong.”
Not going to be a good Election Day for Virginia Democrats. Three of the four at-risk House Democrats trail GOP challengers, two by double digits. The fourth Republican trails narrowly.
Not close: “Republican Marco Rubio continues to hold an 11-point lead over independent candidate Charlie Crist in Florida’s race for the U.S. Senate. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida finds Rubio with 41% support, while Crist, the state’s current governor, picks up 30% of the vote. Democrat Kendrick Meek comes in third with 21%.”
Not even handpicked audiences like him. In Iowa: “Holding the latest in a series of backyard meetings with middle-class voters, Obama heard one small businessman’s fears that his tax plans could ‘strangle’ job creation. The president also fielded concerns about high unemployment and the impact of his healthcare overhaul. It was a marked contrast to the enthusiastic university crowd that greeted Obama on Tuesday in Wisconsin when he sought to fire up his youthful base of support, and showed the obstacles his Democratic Party faces in the Nov. 2 elections.”
Not only Sen. Joe Lieberman is calling for Obama to get tough on Iran: “Barack Obama’s policy to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability is under pressure from members of Congress, who argue that Washington should make clear it will consider military action unless sanctions yield swift results. … Howard Berman, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said recently the administration had ‘months, not years’ to make sanctions work. He added that military action was preferable to accepting an Iran with nuclear weapons capability.”
Not encouraging: “One of the most remarkable aspects of Bob Woodward’s new book, ‘Obama’s Wars,’ is its portrait of a White House that has all but resigned itself to failure in Afghanistan.” In fact, it is reprehensible for the commander in chief to order young Americans into war without confidence and commitment in their mission.
Not a fan. David Brooks on Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski: “I can’t imagine what Murkowski is thinking. The lady must have too many admiring conversations with the mirrors in her house.” Ouch.
Not a vote of confidence from one of Soros Street’s more sympathetic observers: “Will J Street even be around in its current form in coming days, now that it is enveloped in a scandal (more of a cover-up than a crime, in the traditional Washington style)?”
Whining About Whining
As the President and Vice President whine about the whining of their shrinking “base,” as being insufficiently appreciative of the superhuman efforts to confront our problems, they might remember the old saying that “in times like these, we should remember there have always been times like these.” Victor Davis Hanson writes that the problems Obama has faced have not, in fact, been worse than those that other presidents confronted as they entered the presidency:
A recession and 9/11 were not easy in 2001. And 18% interest, 18% inflation, 7% unemployment, and gas lines by 1981 greeted Reagan. Truman took over with a war … a wrecked Asia and Europe, a groundswell of communism, a climate of panic at home, and a soon to be nuclear Soviet Union … capped off soon by a war in Korea.
The President and Vice President might also reflect on the answer of the prior president, in his last press conference on January 12, 2009, when asked as to when Obama would feel the full impact of the presidency. Bush’s answer was “the minute he walks in the Oval Office,” but that:
… the phrase “burdens of the office” is overstated. You know, it’s kind of like, why me? Oh, the burdens, you know. Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch? It’s just — it’s pathetic, isn’t it, self-pity. And I don’t believe that President-Elect Obama will be full of self-pity. He will find — you know, your — the people that don’t like you, the critics, they’re pretty predictable. Sometimes the biggest disappointments will come from your so-called friends. And there will be disappointments, I promise you. He’ll be disappointed. On the other hand, the job is so exciting and so profound …
In Wisconsin yesterday, Obama repeated his constant refrain that he had arrived in Washington to “confront the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression” and blamed his current problems on an “opposition party … determined from the start to let us deal with the mess that they had done so much to create.”
And they figured, if we just sit on the sidelines and just say no and just throw bombs and let Obama and the Democrats deal with everything, they figured they might be able to prosper at the polls.
When politicians start whining about their fate and begin referring to themselves in the third person, it is a sign the campaign is not going well. Just ask Bob Dole, as Bob Dole might say.
Senate Slipping Away from the Dems
Liberals got very excited when Delaware Republicans made an imprudent selection in the Senate primary. They proclaimed the Senate was now “safe.” Not so fast.
Today we see that Richard Blumenthal’s lead has been cut to three points in Connecticut (voters in this solid Blue state disapprove of Obama’s performance by a 51-to-45 margin), Republican John Raese has moved ahead in West Virginia, and Russ Feingold now trails by eight points. Meanwhile, in Colorado, Ken Buck leads Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet by four points, Mark Kirk narrowly leads (42 to 40 percent) in Illinois, and Dino Rossi is only one point back in Washington.
There are no Republican Senate seats that look at risk at this point. (Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Alaska, and New Hampshire look safe for the GOP.) Here are the list of Democratic seats in which the GOP challenger is ahead or within the margin of error in recent polling: Arkansas, North Dakota, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, West Virginia, and Washington. Meanwhile, the races in California and New York remain competitive. Put another way, there are less than 50 safe Democratic seats at this point. Of the 13 Republican seats I have listed, the GOP can lose three and still win the Senate. The GOP sure would have liked to have Delaware in the bag, but it may not be necessary.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Not even able to hire competent speechwriters, is he? “But even Google seems to have failed the battalion of swell-headed policy twits you employ, one or two of whom might have studied, oh, let’s say history, at some fabulously famous institution of higher learning—if they still teach that kind of thing—but are now so busy live-tweeting their ice-cream socials among dictators, for example, that they just haven’t got the time to LOOK STUFF UP.”
Not in Delaware, but GOP Senate candidates are leading in Wisconsin, Colorado, and Pennsylvania.
Not even liberals can excuse Obama’s collapse. “It’s a long time now since Obama was a community organizer. Even then, he might have been more comfortable dealing with communities than with individuals. Democrats are best with groups. If I break down on the side of the road, I hope a Republican stops — he’ll fix my flat and offer me a drink. A Democrat will get busy forming a Committee to Protect Women Who Own Vulnerable Cars.” Ouch.
Not a lot of good news for Democratic gubernatorial candidates: “[Democratic] nominees are currently trailing in 13 of the 19 states where they hold the governorships. Only three of their nominees have double digit leads — in Bill Clinton’s home states of Arkansas and New York and in Colorado, where the Republican nominee has been disavowed by many party leaders. Most unnerving for Democrats is that their nominees are currently trailing by double digits in the nation’s industrial heartland — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. These are states Barack Obama carried with 54, 51, 57 and 62 percent of the vote.”
Not a surprise: “A report by three UN-appointed human rights experts Wednesday said that Israeli forces violated international law when they raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla killing nine activists earlier this year. The UN Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission concluded that the naval blockade of Gaza was unlawful because of the humanitarian crisis there, and described the military raid on the flotilla as brutal and disproportionate.” But the Obami say we’re doing great things by sitting on the UNHRC. Time to pull out and pull the plug on the thugs’ funding.
Not looking good for Obama’s class-warfare gambit: ”A number of ‘moderate’ House Dems have privately given Nancy Pelosi and other Dem leaders an earful in recent days, urging them not to hold a vote on whether to extend just the middle class tax cuts and not the high end ones, because it will leave them vulnerable to Republican ads, sources involved in the discussions tell me.”
Not much for Tea Partiers, mainstream conservatives, and independents to disagree with here: “The Republicans’ new Contract with America, which will be unveiled on Thursday, calls for a crackdown on government spending, repealing the new healthcare law and extending all of the expiring Bush tax cuts.”
Not going to stick around for the Election Day body count? “White House aides are preparing for the possibility that Rahm Emanuel may step down as chief of staff as soon as early October if he decides to run for mayor of Chicago, according to a person familiar with deliberations in the West Wing.”
