Her internals must be awful.
A new radio ad approved by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) claims that if Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) defeats her in Saturday’s runoff, Republicans will impeach President Obama.
There’s only one reason to run an ad like that, and that’s if you’re trying to get African-American voters to the polls in sufficient numbers to at least avoid a blowout. Yeah, I said ‘avoid a blowout,’ not ‘win.’ Landrieu’s been having to define victory down a bit this election cycle…
Moe Lane
Interesting list of potential Democratic retirements from the Hill, here:
Manchin’s on the list because he’s doing all the things that Senators who are planning to run for Governor do: to wit, talking about how much he hates Washington DC, and letting the state party apparatus dip their beaks into his fundraising war chest. Boxer is… tired, I think. Also, not raising money. Of the other three: Leahy is actually younger than I thought he was; he’s probably staying. Reid has two years of pain ahead of him. Mikulski… Barbara Mikulski would be 80 in 2016. That’s old for a reelection campaign. Continue reading The Democrats’ surprisingly complicated 2016 Senate problem.
…Too soon?
There it is. RT @jameshohmann: Mark Begich concedes, congratulates Dan Sullivan.
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) November 18, 2014
Congratulations, Senator Dan Sullivan.
Now isn’t this just precious:
Asked if his leadership style contributed to the Senate losses, Reid told POLITICO: “Does anybody in Nebraska know me? Or Kansas? I don’t think it had much to do with me. I don’t think most people know who I am.”
Trust me, soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader: we’ve been making sure that people in Nebraska and Kansas – and Arkansas and Alaska and North Carolina and South Dakota and Montana and Louisiana and Kentucky and Georgia and West Virginia and Colorado and, oh, so many other places! – know exactly who Harry Reid is, and what he represents. Continue reading Quote of the Day, Oh, Don’t Sell Your Fame Short, Harry Reid edition.
Not that I typically ever want to, but this is going to get intense.
Theory: she's pregnant, but he won't marry.
pic.twitter.com/B3yGdvyyII
— Film Ladd (@FilmLadd) November 12, 2014
Mary! MARY!
The AP called it: “Republican Dan Sullivan bested Democratic incumbent Mark Begich in Alaska’s Senate race, picking up an eighth seat for the GOP in the 2014 midterm elections, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.” You knew this a week ago, because you were reading AOSHQDD; but the AP waited until the trends in the absentee ballots were clear. Mark Begich is not conceding, of course, but he will start finding that people are already starting to think of him in terms of former Senator Begich. And so it goes.
My congratulations to Senator-elect Dan Sullivan.
Moe Lane
PS: The Governor’s race remains too close to call. Realistically, however, incumbent Governor Sean Parnell has to be considered the underdog in that one. Ironically, his current position is not entirely unlike Begich’s in 2008…
Lotta good bits in this:
[Aside from confirming nominees, Harry] Reid also wants to move a package of expiring tax provisions, the annual Defense Department authorization bill and an extension of a tax moratorium on Internet purchases in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
That will be a challenge not only because of the tight schedule, but because of expected clashes between Democrats over what should be prioritized before Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) takes over the Senate’s agenda in January.
For example, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who is about to lose his chairmanship, is pushing for consideration of a bill reforming the National Security Agency despite opposition from other Democrats.
Continue reading Democrats now facing a lame-duck session crunch time ENTIRELY OF THEIR OWN MAKING.
Well, Mark Udall, you had a pretty good run.
Then, finally, came the only reference to policy in [Mark] Udall’s speech. “And by the way, I’m proud to stand with Colorado’s women,” he said, almost as an aside. “I’m proud to stand for reproductive freedom.”
An angry voice from the crowd jeered: “That’s not the only thing you stand for! J[****] C[*****]!”
Udall turned to a short, dark man on his left. The senator look genuinely stunned. “I’m sorry?”
“That’s not the only thing you stand for!” The heckler was Leo Beserra, a 73-year-old who made millions on Wall Street and, since the early 1990s, has shared a generous slice of that wealth with Colorado Democrats.
Like they do.
I hadn’t realized that the Democrats had realized that things were that bad: “Nervous that Democrats could lose control of the Senate, the White House is already discussing how to cut deals with a Republican majority.” Sure, the article’s trying to argue that in 2016 Senators in Obama states would be desperate to make deals… because Barack Obama’s people are still retaining the almost-charming delusion that 2008/2012 Presidential results will be all that relevant in a 2016 election. Tell that to Bob Schaffer, Jim Gilmore, Elizabeth Dole, and arguably Steve Pearce.
Then again, perhaps the Democrats in the White House haven’t worked out their potential new place in the world, yet: Continue reading White House sending mixed signals about a likely 2015 Republican Congressional landscape.
The Arkansas Senate election is now over*.
Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor argued that the federal government’s desegregation of Arkansas’s largest public school in 1957 was an “unwilling invasion” that took “a local problem out of the local authorities’ hands” and led to deep suspicions of democracy in the state, according to a copy of his college thesis obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Written in 1985, the 30-page paper—which also suggested that the state’s Democratic Party was hindering economic progress, and attributed policies such as welfare and the Equal Rights Amendment to “wild-eyed liberals”—could add to Pryor’s difficulties as he fights to protect his seat from Republican challenger Rep. Tom Cotton.