Tag: elections

The NRCC’s Big Board.

The NRCC has drawn up a map of all 435 Congressional Districts, separated them out by state, and linked each district to the website of either the incumbent Republican that represents it, or the Republican that will be challenging the incumbent Democrat in November. 

Note that in cases of contested primaries without an incumbent (like, say, FL-05’s) the NRCC is explicitly not taking sides by picking any particular campaign to highlight; they’ll put up the website of a candidate who is the only one in a primary, which makes sense.

I’ve been playing with this feature for a bit, and the NRCC came through on this one: it’s straightforward, easy to use, and it’s going to save me a good deal of work.  I suggest that folks use it, particularly if they feel the need to concretely express their disapproval of the latest Democratic Member of Congress’s shenanigans.  And with 430 of 435 races being contested, folks usually can.

Moe Lane

No, The Thumpin’ is/was not inevitable.

Stuart Rothenberg is having absolutely none of this preemptive excuse-making that the Democrats are starting to indulge in.  You seem the conventional wisdom is now congealing into the notion that of course the Republicans were going to have a great year in 2010, and it was absolutely silly for anybody to think that it was ever in doubt that this would happen:

…Indeed, on Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP Congressman from Florida, echoed that point, asserting that a “realignment” in the House was inevitable this year, even if unemployment were at 4 percent.

The reality is quite different. When I first started talking to Republican and Democratic insiders in December 2008, none of them believed that anything was “inevitable” in November 2010.

Ain’t that the truth. Continue reading No, The Thumpin’ is/was not inevitable.

The Thumpin’.

Wait: I’ve seen this movie before.

At the end of July 2006, I remember being… fairly optimistic about the Congressional elections. Oh, I knew that there were going to be problems. It was year Six of a Presidential administration, and the Other Side was kind of fired up. And, sure, the economy was slowing down a bit – we were all the way down to 5% growth that quarter! – but at least unemployment was ticking along at less than 5%. It would have been better if it had been at 4%, but we were still dealing with the remains of the 9/11 disruption. And, yes, the problems down in the Gulf were going to have an impact, and there were scandals in Congress. You had to expect losses in an off year. Still, the idea that we were going to lose both Houses? Maybe we’d come close to losing one – but the national election committees were flush with cash, they were on top of the situation, and it was their jobs on the line. Surely we wouldn’t lose either branch of Congress; no way we could lose both.

Does all of this sound familiar? – Because it sounds familiar to Michael Barone, too.  He notes the problems that Democrats are facing with the generic ballot right now, but he also notes another warning sign: incumbents trailing in polls. Continue reading The Thumpin’.

Tell me again of this administration’s awesome message discipline.

Joe Biden opens his mouth:

“I don’t believe, the president doesn’t believe that the Tea Party is — is a racist organization.  I don’t believe that,” Biden said.  “Very conservative.  Very different views on government and a whole lot of things.  But it is not a racist organization.”

(Via Outside the Beltway; H/t: Instapundit)  If this seems surprising, it shouldn’t be.  The NAACP has a goal; minimizing the Democratic Party’s losses in 201[0*] (via the use of a smear campaign).  Vice President Biden also has a goal; re-electing the President (and, incidentally, himself) in 2012.  The two goals are incompatible.  A Democratic majority in Congress means that the President will either have to assert control over determining the nature of the bills that get submitted for his signature, or else have to sign more popularity-killing monstrosities like the stimulus or Obamacare.  The first is beyond both the President’s official powers and personal skill set, and the second will get him defeated handily in two years. Continue reading Tell me again of this administration’s awesome message discipline.

#rsrh That poor, persecuted Democratic majority.

God, but these people whine so.  Via Big Government ,via Instapundit:

In a 17,000-plus-word piece published in The Nation on Thursday, journalist Eric Alterman calls the Obama presidency “a big disappointment” for progressives and blames a broken system in Washington that he says allows the minority party to rule with impunity — and special interests and big money to dictate legislative policy.

They’ve got 255/177 in the House, 58/41 in the Senate, and one of their guys in the White House, you know.  That’s normally what one would think of as being a pretty substantial majority:  if the GOP had those kinds of numbers we’d do anything that we damned well pleased.  In fact, when we did have those kinds of numbers we largely did anything that we damned well pleased.  But then, when it comes to the comfortable exercise of power we don’t, well, suck*.

Annnnd that’s the fundamental problem for the Democratic party right there: their leadership is fundamentally incapable of running the country properly.  Probably because they take progressive tripe like the above seriously.

Ach, well, self-correcting problem.

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh That poor, persecuted Democratic majority.

#RSRH, Wall Street Blowback edition.

Following up on this “pseudo-populist-rhetoric-from-Democrats has consequences” post from a couple of days ago, there’s this happy comment:

“I think at least in the short term there is going to be a great deal of frustration with people who were beating the hell out of us — then turning around and asking for money,” said a senior executive of a Wall Street bank.

More here.  Hey, what are they going to do?  Give money to Republicans?

…Oh.  Right.

Moe Lane

NY Dem Donors Discover Elementary Self-Respect.

(H/T: Instapundit) A fascinating bit of trivia for people out there: if you’re a Democrat, and you go  keep telling a group of folks- in this case, Wall Street and other wealthy New York Democratic donors – that they’re unmitigated scum who need to be drained of every drop of their dirty money if they want to avoid being lynched by an angry Mob led by the White House and Congressional Democrats – hey, guess what happens!  They stop giving Democrats money!

No!  Really!  They do!

A perfect storm of events — the recession, Wall Street anger at Washington, donors who feel ignored by the White House and interest group dissatisfaction — has Democrats bracing for a brutal fundraising period and fearful of losing dominance in longtime donor stronghold and megarich New York.

While the exact quarterly figures won’t be known until after the July 15 filing deadline, a number of Democratic campaign insiders said the past few months were a mighty struggle to raise cash for candidates.

Continue reading NY Dem Donors Discover Elementary Self-Respect.

I sort of agree with Eleanor Clift.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) On at least one passage, at least. She wrote an article for Newsweek (yeah, it’s still publishing! Good show, that) where she assured her readers that of course they don’t need to worry about the 2010 election shellacking that the Democrats will be getting in the Senate, because a lot of those elections will be one-offs:

This is an off-year election, and there’s no popular politician with coattails to ride, but the voters are restive, and that’s always dangerous for the party in power.

‘Off-year election.’  Hey!  You mean, like 2006’s was?  And like 2014’s is going to be*?

Moe Lane

*You have to think of these things in the long-term, that’s all that I’m saying.  Just about everything that’s true about the 2010/2016 dynamic is going to be equally true for the 2006/2012 one.

Crossposted to RedState.

#rsrh Doug Schoen: Democrats doomed.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) Well, not in so many words: but when you write something like this… well, that’s pretty much the equivalent of saying that all you need to make a perpetual motion machine is to repeal the laws of thermodynamics.

For the Democrats, there is hope—more hope than would have been expected before Tuesday. But that hope is based almost totally on running as far away from Washington and the established political leadership as possible, and embracing a socially and fiscally conservative agenda.

Which is to say, that’s true, but it’s not going to happen.  The people giving money to the Democrats right now don’t want their party embracing a socially and fiscally conservative agenda; they want liberals raising taxes and expanding government.  Which is why Joe Sestak is signed up to lose to Toomey in November; and why Halter is close to successfully replacing Lincoln as the candidate to lose to Boozeman; and why Democrats all across the land are wearing visible symbols of their opposition to a popular Arizonan law.  It’s ram-your-head-into-a-brick-wall time for the Left, and they’re all lining up to have a go.

Besides, shall we list every ‘conservative’ Democrat out there who betrayed his or her constituents when ordered to by Nancy Pelosi?  Trust me, it won’t be any trouble; we’ve been keeping careful track.  We’re also holding a pool to see when Critz is first forced to betray his district…

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh Doug Schoen: Democrats doomed.