Moe Lane

And it firmly embraces the old folk saying: What goes around, comes around.

This is the first of three new maps (all of which will be coming out of the newly Republican-controlled state legislature):

To give you an idea of the shift (which is already forecasting DOOM for at least three North Carolina Democrats), here’s the old map:

(more…)

(H/T: Say Anything) having St. Louis for the 2012 Democratic convention, on the rationale that having the convention in Missouri would be the equivalent of painting a big electoral target on her back for all those awful, awful Tea Partiers. Which is… interesting. First off, I’m pretty sure that Missouri Republicans – which had a decent-to-good run last year (cemented control of the state legislature, held off Caranhan in the Senate, kicked Ike Skelton to the curb) don’t really need the excuse of a national convention to focus their attention on Senator McCaskill.

Second, at last look Sen. McCaskill is looking at an average 43.2%/46% approval/disapproval rating right now… which is, well, awful.  But it’s still better than Gov. Perdue’s, which is currently at 36.6%/47.2%.  For that matter, North Carolina Republicans are cheerfully aware that all they need is a win in 2012 to take full control of the state government (they flipped control of the state legislature in 2010): so if McCaskill’s (alleged) argument that the DNC’s a lightning rod is correct, shouldn’t she have taken the hit for Team Jackass?  After all, Jay Nixon’s popular enough, and that’ll probably be a help for McCaskell next year…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Timothy Carney lays it out: the idea was to increase the number of Congressional seats to 437 and trade creating a full Congressional seat for DC (effectively guaranteed Democratic) for an extra one for Utah (effectively guaranteed Republican, and Utah was next in line to get an extra seat because of the 2000 census). The deal never came together, but it was definitely an offer. Only now, because of the Census, Utah gets an extra seat anyway and the state that would next in line for an extra seat would be North Carolina.

North Carolina’s Congressional map is enough of a disaster area as it is already: the last thing that the legislature needs is more complications while it tries to fix the gerrymandering caused by a century of Democratic malfeasance. No deal.

Crude of me, but when SuSA informs an incumbent Democrat that his R+6 district is only giving him a 45/44 advantage over opponent Jeff Miller* among registered voters, crude is pretty much the proper response.  The poll isn’t up yet, but Jim Geraghty** has the details. Shuler’s underwater both generally and with independents; Miller’s not as well known, but apparently a lot of voters are fine with him not being Heath Shuler.

Which makes sense, really.  Still proud of that job-killing cap and trade bill you voted for, Heath?

Moe Lane

*And, if you check out the NRCC’s Big Board, you can get to Jeff’s website within seconds! Thanks, Big Board! [Or... not: link fixed. Well, how many Jeff Millers are going to run for Congress, anyway?] (more…)

I’m not particularly surprised that the Etheridge Incident is perturbing the Beltway. It has all the elements that one needs:

• A genuine, newsworthy scenario (Congressman attacks cameraman);
• An easily-accessible narrative (Congressman attacks cameraman);
• A clear video record (note: two cameras, with footage spliced together);
• A hint of scandal (Was the Congressman drinking?);
• And a hint of conspiracy (Was the Congressman set up?).

Plus, of course, there’s the barely-veiled outrage that if the Congressman was set up then he was done so in a manner that Left-activists have been trying to do to Right-politicians since George Allen’s so-called ‘macaca’ moment.  Republicans have been dealing with this kind of game-playing for four years, now: which is another way of saying that we’ve had four years to learn how to do unto others as they have been enthusiastically doing unto us.
(more…)

Bob Etheridge‘s opponent, but you knew that already. We were able to speak with her briefly: as you can imagine, she’s been busy today.

Renee’s site is here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Ilario Pantano has had his primary, so he’s the official GOP candidate against Mike McIntyre. You probably remember him for (while serving in combat in Iraq) being falsely accused of murder – a statement that will hopefully infuriate quite a few antiwar types out there.

Ilario’s site is here.

Let me preface this by saying that I have nothing against Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: he’s a Democratic pollster, sure, but he doesn’t bury polls that are unhelpful to his side.  Which is smart of him – it makes him more credible when he tells me things that I don’t particularly want to hear – but there’s nothing wrong with having a credible pragmatic reason for being virtuous.  It’s sort of an added free bonus.

That being said, he really should have stuck a DOOM in here somewhere:

In both Bob Etheridge and Heath Shuler’s districts we asked whether voters would be more or less likely to vote for their representative if they supported the bill, then whether they would be more or less likely to vote for their representative if the bill passed regardless of how their actual representative voted.

In Etheridge’s district 47% of voters said they’d be less likely to vote for him this fall if he supported the bill. And 47% said they’d be less likely to vote for him this fall if the Democrats in Congress passed the bill, regardless of how Etheridge himself voted.

It’s a pretty similar story in Shuler’s district. 51% of voters said they’d be less likely to vote for him this fall if he was a ‘yes’ vote.’ But 46% also said they’d be less likely to vote for Shuler this fall if the bill passed, whether it did so with his support or not.

(more…)

NC-08: R+2 district, flipped to D after a lot of effort by the national Democratic party, including redistricting.  The former holder Robin Hayes barely won in ’06 and lost by quite a bit in ’08; since then Larry Kissell’s voted for the ‘stimulus‘, played duck-and-cover on the health care rationing bill and has cosponsored EFCA – even though North Carolina’s unemployment rate has nearly doubled in the last year.

As you might have gathered from the above links, the NC GOP is particularly interested in taking the seat back.  Hayes has declined to run again, which clears the field for new challengers; the first one to declare is Colonel Lou Huddleston, a retired Afghanistan veteran and North Carolina businessman.  He’s already picked up the support of potential candidate Linwood Faulk, but Huddleston is probably going to have at least one serious primary opponent.  He’s got a good background (local, career military, and businessman); his major potential problem was that he ran and lost a state race last year (I call it ‘potential’ because I don’t know what he learned from it).  Huddleston also seems to be already generating a bit of venom from North Carolina Democrats, if comments here are any indication.  I, of course, will not scruple to speculate as to why.

Huddleston’s site is still in placeholder mode, so if you’re interested check back on it later.  In the meantime, here’s the North Carolina GOP site (donations here).

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The assault (from last Thursday) disturbs me. The casual mockery by pro-health care rationing supporters towards a man (who I haven’t even fully confirmed was a health care rationing protester) who’s just gotten punched in the face disturbs me a whole lot more.  I don’t care what your stance is on this issue: your instinctive response to this sort of thing should not be to ask sarcastic questions about the victim’s health insurance.

Original video here News stories here and here. See also Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers.

Moe Lane (more…)

Who’s next?

Via Glenn Reynolds, it’s time for another round of Elections have Consequences!

Action: The North Carolinan legislature (run by Democrats) is about to provide legislation to the governor of North Carolina (Democrat) that allows North Carolina to collect sales tax from Internet transactions.

Reaction: Amazon has closed its Amazon Associates program to North Carolina residents.

To all North Carolinan bloggers and website owners out there – particularly the ones who helped to make sure that North Carolina kept its Democratic majority on the state level – my sincere sympathies; but I must note that this is what happens when you elect too many Democrats.

So stop doing that.

Moe Lane

PS: And before you think I’m being smug: I’m in a state (Maryland) dominated by the Democratic party myself.  I’m pretty sure that they voted something like this down, but I trust them with fiscal policy about as far as I can throw them – and I can’t throw worth a darn.

So if you feel the need to buy something, well… here’s the site. Get it while the getting’s good, huh?

Crossposted to RedState.

Sunlight.  Disinfectant. Not that I am suggesting anything, of course.

You may remember from Sunday about how the Democrats were quietly planning to remove a somewhat… inconvenient… US Attorney from his position before he was through investigating a former North Carolina Democratic governor. Now, via Geraghty, via Kaus, we find out that nothing of the sort is going to happen.

Now.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan said today that the U.S. Attorney in Raleigh, George Holding, should stay on the job as top federal prosecutor until investigations of former Sen. John Edwards and former Gov. Mike Easley are completed.

Hagan said she has consulted with the White House on the process for replacing Holding — the decision on a replacement is ultimately up to President Barack Obama — and said it will go much slower.

“I don’t feel it’s in North Carolina’s best interest to replace someone who is investigating these two very high profile people,” said Hagan, a Democrat who plays a key role in the process because any replacement requires Senate confirmation. “I just think that with investigations going on, he ought to have the opportunity to complete the investigations.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m happy to hear that neither the President nor Senator Hagan had any intention of shutting down a corruption investigation for crass political reasons. That’s such a relief, really.  And I’m sure that the fact that this was announced mere days after the rather pointed article in the local paper that brought this up got national attention had nothing to do with the switch in focus.  Of course not.  Complete coincidence.  Although I am curious: why did this Locke Clifford fellow leave the Governor’s replacement screening panel Tuesday? And why was he at former governor Easley’s house on the same day?

Golf game, perhaps?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.