2010 election – Moe Lane

Politico: excusing in 2012 their lack of foresight about 2010?

I need to push back on this cover-their-rear statement by Politico on the ‘surprise’ flipping of the House of Representatives in 2010.

[House Speaker John] Boehner doesn’t play political prognosticator often. But when he does, those close to him say, there’s usually a calculated reason. In April 2010 — almost two years ago exactly — the then-House minority leader said in a radio interview that an astounding 100 seats were in play in that year’s midterm elections, a figure he said was broader than “anything we’ve seen around here during my 20 years” in the House.

Few from either party believed Boehner at the time, but his assessment proved accurate. Republicans put about 100 Democratic-held seats in play, ultimately winning 63 of them to seize the majority.

(Bolding mine) Actually, people who read RedState (or MoeLane) were prepared for that scenario. People who read Sean Trende at RCP were prepared for that scenario. People who read Hot Air and AoSHQ were at least prepared for the possibility. In fact, people who were following the election using right-leaning sites and news sourcess were by and large prepared for what happened. But the people were relying on the Daily Beast or the Left-blogosphere or, well, Politico for their political content? …Yeah, those folks ended up being kind of surprised in November. Usually unpleasantly. Continue reading Politico: excusing in 2012 their lack of foresight about 2010?

Democratic Death Panel Watch: October 15, 2010.

The DCCC confirmed to Politico that WI-08’s Steve Kagen had his ad buys canceled; the usual face-saving excuses were made, but the two-term Congressman is a dead man walking (with some help from Reid Ribble). Also, it looks like AR-02’s Joyce Elliott has been likewise abandoned: I don’t think that that one’s really hit the radar yet, probably because it was an open seat and heavily favoring Republican Tim Griffin anyway.

Continue reading Democratic Death Panel Watch: October 15, 2010.

Democratic Death Panel Watch, 10/07/2010.

Via Hotline, here are the latest races where the DCCC has begun the euthanasia process:

AZ-08. The incumbent is Gabrielle Giffords, facing Jesse Kelly. The DCCC has cut one week’s worth of ad buys, claiming that Giffords doesn’t need its help. Cook rates this race as Leans Democratic; polling is very sparse, but shows a tie.
CO-04. The incumbent is Betsy Markey (yes, the one who has her supporters babbling about internment camps): her opponent is Cory Gardner. They’ve cut back her outside ads, probably because she can’t get any traction (and has supporters babbling about internment camps). Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: the most recent polling shows Gardner ahead.
FL-24. The incumbent is Suzanne Kosmas; her opponent is Sandy Adams. Like Markey, her outside ads have been cut. The DCCC is claiming to be planning to still match the NRCC’s buys there. Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: there is no recent polling, but RCP lists the seat as Leans GOP.
KS-03. Open seat. Democratic candidate Stephene Moore, facing Republican candidate Kevin Yoder. The DCCC has canceled one week’s worth of ad buys. Cook rates this race as Leans Republican: there is no recent polling, but RCP lists the seat as Leans GOP.
NM-02. The incumbent is Harry Teague; his opponent is Steve Pearce. Here the DCCC is moving its ad buys down a week in either an attempt to firewall, or as a preliminary to canceling them altogether. Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: the most recent polling has Pearce ahead.

There’s also LA-02, but that might legitimately be the DCCC thinking that they don’t need to worry about that race. The article also mentions IN-08 and TX-17, but that were covered a couple of days ago. Continue reading Democratic Death Panel Watch, 10/07/2010.

Boehner bar the door.

Cute bit of political theater, here. The short version is, House Minority Leader John Boehner brought the GOP caucus together and shook ’em until three million dollars fell out; coupled with the million that he’s donating from his own campaign funds, that’s four million that’s going to the NRCC, just in time for the fall election cycle. That should fund a bunch of races.

I’m noting this for a few reasons.

First: it amuses me.
Second: it’s interesting that they were able to get to three million in about thirty-five minutes; that was obviously set up ahead of time, but it’s still nice to see.
Third: contrast to the DCCC’s recent curious worries in getting outstanding dues out of its own members.
Fourth: admittedly, the reason for the difference between the second and the third points is that more than one-third of the House Democratic caucus have competitive races this year, while barely one-tenth of the House Republican caucus does. And that those numbers are getting worse for the Democrats for the last two years.
Fifth: did I mention that I find this amusing?

It’s odd to think of the Democrats being short of cash at this point in the game, but they are, aren’t they? They don’t have enough to protect everybody, and if they guess wrong, they waste what they have. Heck of a thing to have to worry about, no?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

State of (selected) races, 09/28/2010.

So, let’s see:

Over at Cook Political Report, they’re reporting that another five races (MA-05, ME-02, MS-04, NY-22, & WA-09) have upgraded from Safe Democrat to Likely Democrat. This is consistent with trends against the Republican party in 2006 and 2008; what wrecked the GOP in those years was not that we had seats at-risk, but that we could not stop more and more seats from becoming at-risk. With about five weeks left for this election cycle, Cook reports that the Democrats have 110 seats at risk, while the Republicans have… 17. The numbers are even worse when it comes to seats in real danger: the number there is currently 53 to 4.
Speaking sort-of of Maine, it turns out that the Congresswoman from ME-01 is a searing hypocrite when it comes to private jet use. Short version: Chellie Pingree made a name for herself as being extremely down on Congressional use of private jets, period, end sentence, no, really, under ABSOLUTELY NO CIRCUMSTANCES AT ALL, she didn’t care what the reason was. So, yes, she got caught using her hedge-fund boyfriend’s private jet… and getting reimbursed for it, apparently (because she’s that dumb). There’s video: it even features the stereotypical red carpet.
Need I say Dean Scontras for ME-01? Well, I’ll say it anyway. Continue reading State of (selected) races, 09/28/2010.

#rsrh ‘Don’t get mad…’

‘…get even.’

After the across-the-board defeats in 2008, conservative pundits didn’t rail at the voters. You didn’t see the right blogosphere go after the voters as irrational (How could they elect someone so unqualified? They’ve gone bonkers!) with the venom that the left now displays. Instead, there was a healthy debate — what was wrong with the Republican Party and with the conservative movement more generally?

[snip]

When things go wrong for the left, it blames the people; when things go wrong for the right, it blames the governing elites. Continue reading #rsrh ‘Don’t get mad…’

#rsrh Today’s convoluted Dem House retention theory.

To sum it up: Barack Obama must visit toss-up seats because in the past districts with Presidential visits had a higher retention percentage than districts without them.

This was one of those posts that ended up rambling: the reasons why this isn’t the game-changer that the author thought it was were all trying to crowd in to get the credit for shooting this one down. Really short version: dice may not have memories, but Congressional districts emphatically do. And the President is not actually capable of performing acts of magic. Or even ‘magick.’

Look, you should have seen what I deleted. Borrrr-ring…

Welcome to the 2010 Election campaign cycle!

Yes, everything that has happened up to this point has been the overture, prologue, or whatever other metaphor is most suitable for the reader. This is the time when the rest of the people who will be voting in the midterms will start looking around and paying attention to everything that’s going around them. Which is, of course, their privilege; besides, there’s probably less of them this time around. And they’re going to see the following: Continue reading Welcome to the 2010 Election campaign cycle!

#rsrh I dunno how Geraghty’s…

…breaking it all down; but by my rule-of-thumb his current groupings of vulnerable House seats work out to about net GOP +53 or so. To give you a contrast: RCP’s numbers are telling me net GOP +42, Cook’s is net GOP +30, & Rothenburg’s net GOP +28. Which tells me that my rule-of-thumb isn’t working, except in the broadest sense of confirming that the Democrats are having a lousy election cycle.

Moe Lane

PS: I expect things are going to get worse for the Democrats – and so is everybody else in this business. Whether they admit it in public, or not. So start getting ready for some Maximum Fun Time…

‘Revolution in the air,’ forsooth.

Today’s conservative pick-me-up of liberal gloom and despair comes from Brent Budowsky, whose I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-the-blackest-irony piece in the Hill (called “Revolution in the air:” again, forsooth) will provide you with a piquant, yet filling, compliment to your coffee-and-beverage. Budowsky has come to the realization that a: there is an epic-level anger out there with the people running things into the ground and b: everybody is extremely aware that the Democrats are the ones running things into the ground, and he’s almost as angry with the Democrats for putting him in this spot as he is with the Republicans for not having the common courtesy of killing our families, then ourselves, in a mass suicide cult. Budowsky has a solution, of course (these guys always have a ‘solution’): he thinks that the Democrats “should cancel the week of recess before Labor Day, go to the floor of Congress and fight for American jobs, rally the party base, and go to the country with a campaign worthy of the Democratic Party.” And then they can ride their Magical Pretty Space Princess Unicorns across the land and transform all those naughty Unemployments into Goodjobs with their Rainbow Sunshine Keynesian Wands!

Oh, wait, this is Earth. So what the Democrats will do instead is hide from their constituents, blame everything on George W. Bush, and get shellacked in November by a voting public ready to have adults with a functioning spine back in charge of fiscal policy.

Well, that works too.

Moe Lane Continue reading ‘Revolution in the air,’ forsooth.