Election 2010

[shinatoo]

If the GOP really is going to sweep into power next month, I certainly hope some of them have a stronger grasp of basic constitutional principles than Christine O'Donnell apparently does.

They then went on to ask Chris Coons what the five rights were that were laid out in the Constitution and he could name only one, freedom of religion. They are both idiots. Maybe here should be a constitution aptitude test before you are allowed to run for office. Jed Lewison is a culpable as Rush Limbaugh for leaving that part of the story out.

[grovester]

via First Read

*** Things that make you go, hmmmmm: The New York Times has this nugget: "Calculations by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent fiscal experts show that the $1.1 trillion cost over the next 10 years of the Medicare prescription drug program, which the Republican-controlled Congress adopted in 2003, by itself would add more to the deficit than the combined costs of the bailout, the stimulus and the health care law." And here's Bloomberg: The TARP bailout "provided taxpayers with higher returns than they could have made buying 30-year Treasury bonds -- enough money to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission for the next two decades. The government has earned $25.2 billion on its investment of $309 billion in banks and insurance companies, an 8.2 percent return over two years."

[mean]

Nowhere in the Constitution will you find the words "separation of church and state," and nowhere in the Constitution will you find anything written to convey the meaning that religion is not permitted to be part of government.

Anyone who has read the essays of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay in The Federalist should be able to glean a reasonably clear idea of what the framers intended about "separation of church and state" without having to arm-wave about what is or isn't in the Constitution.

[LenexatoKCMO]

Got to love hanging one's hat on not being able to find an exact sequence of words as evidence that a concept doesn't exist in the constitution.  You won't find the phrase "shall not hang african americans for the sport of it" written in the constitution either, but guess what if you poke around the 14th amendment a bit you might see where that was in fact an intended consequence. 

[mean]

Show me where in the Constitution it says I can't use pool cue anal rape as a terrorist interrogation technique, damn you! It's not in the Constitution!!!

[KCMax]

Well chin up Dems, Charlie Cook expects another wave in 2012, except this time for the Dems

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline ... ftotherace

The one sobering thought that veteran Republican consultants are already contemplating is that the larger the wave this year, the more difficult it will be to hold onto some of these seats in 2012 and 2014 in the House and 2016 in the Senate.

The bigger the wave, the weaker the class and the harder it will be to hold onto those seats. Democrats only have to look at their 2006 and 2008 classes for plenty of examples.

What this means is that we will likely have our third wave election in a row this year, and the bigger this one is, the more likely that there will be a countervailing wave in either 2012 or 2014.

And Obama thumps Palin in Presidential polls.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... 12-matchup

But yea, its about to get ugly this fall.

[KCMax]

Show me where in the Constitution it says I can't use pool cue anal rape as a terrorist interrogation technique, damn you! It's not in the Constitution!!!

Sadly, Bush and Obama don't see the sarcasm in your statement.

[mean]

Sadly, Bush and Obama don't see the sarcasm in your statement.

Right, that was basically where I was going. :/

[LenexatoKCMO]

Also her credibility that she was making some nuanced allusion to a deep intellectual analysis of the true meaning of the first ammendment seems a bit discounted by her subsequently demonstrating that she didn't really know the content of any of the other ammendments.  

[NDTeve]

But yea, its about to get ugly this fall.

Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. 

[LenexatoKCMO]

Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. 

Question to the pubs - given the massive hype for the preordained republican mid term slaughter that we have been beaten about the head with of the last six months+, what is an acceptable margin of victory standard before we have to start scratching out heads and saying "you know they really ought to have done better"?  Is less than full control of both houses with some landslide reversals an indictment or a squandered opportunity?  Hard to picture how you could ever be handed a better opportunity.  It seems like there an awful lot of these races headed into toss-up range for what was supposed to be a total cake walk. 

[mean]

It seems like there an awful lot of these races headed into toss-up range for what was supposed to be a total cake walk. 

I was thinking the same thing. It seems the pubs may have been doing the 'ol Dwayne Bowe, starting to run before they've even caught the ball, so sure are they that they're going to relive their "rookie year" of 1994 with no problem. They might just drop it in the end zone.

[LenexatoKCMO]

I have to think they are still going to make giant gains, but how many more seats could they have gotten had they spent the last two years cultivating an image as the party of sober, business-minded, pragmatic management set to get the economy on track instead of projecting the image of a dysfunctional rat's nest harboring all sorts of repulsive wack jobs with lots of agendas that have noting to do with the economy?

[KCMax]

I think the chances of the GOP taking the Senate are still very slim what with the Tea Party candidates they nominated in NV and DE. The margin for the Dems will be pretty slim though (as could the margin the in the House for the GOP). There's going to have to be some bipartisanship or just nothing will get done.

[mean]

There will definitely be serious pub gains, and they may yet relive their Clinton-era glory days of sweeping victory, but it's been looking less like the slaughterfest they wanted lately.

[phuqueue]

I have to think they are still going to make giant gains, but how many more seats could they have gotten had they spent the last two years cultivating an image as the party of sober, business-minded, pragmatic management set to get the economy on track instead of projecting the image of a dysfunctional rat's nest harboring all sorts of repulsive wack jobs with lots of agendas that have noting to do with the economy?

How credible would that have seemed if they had just tried to transition right into it after Obama's victory?  I'm not saying the route the GOP has actually gone down was a good idea, of course, but Obama's electoral landslide and Dem domination of Congress was a direct result of public perception that eight years of Bush (mostly overlapping with 12 years of GOP Congress) was the reason things had gotten so out of hand in the first place.  The Republicans like to harp on shit like the deficit, but quietly overlook that Bush/GOP Congress oversaw years of record deficits (I was straight up called a liar for mentioning that Bush had deficits of over $400 billion in the mid-00s) and that before Obama took office Bush left a trillion-something dollar deficit behind (thanks to TARP/bailouts/etc -- granted Obama supported these measures, but then again, so did McCain, and of course Bush himself).  With all that on their resume, could the GOP have come out after Obama's inauguration and credibly presented itself as "sober, business-minded, pragmatic"?  At the time, it was still fresh in everyone's mind that the GOP was the party at the helm as the Titanic plowed straight into the iceberg.

But to some extent, they have tried to present themselves that way anyway, by focusing in on things like the deficit (which everyone across both parties agrees is a problem that will need to be tackled).  They've failed to rein in the crackpots at all, but they've successfully neutralized basically completely the conversation about how their policies aren't actually pragmatic at all.  They tell one guy they want to cut the deficit and then turn to the other and tell him what their platform is and nobody except a handful of Dems that no one is listening to anyway really noticed or cared that their plan would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit.  The health care bill will actually reduce the deficit over time, but if you don't consider how it affected existing programs, you'll just think of it in terms of "the government is spending more money on health care, how could that actually amount to less spending over time?" and the GOP plays on shit like that to try to perpetuate the tax and spend image of the Democrats (and it's working really beautifully).  There was an article in the New York Times a day or two ago about how most people don't even know that Obama already cut taxes -- most people actually think he's already raised their taxes.  People think the GOP is going to cut the deficit and at the same time they're confident that their tax cuts and policies are going to stimulate the economy.  With all the theatrical outrage at socialist Obama and our Swedish Congress, it's tough to say the GOP really comes across as particularly sober, but it seems to me like they really have convinced a broad swath of the population that they are pragmatic, to the extent that few people really listen when somebody points out that they're anything but.

[NDTeve]

I was thinking the same thing. It seems the pubs may have been doing the 'ol Dwayne Bowe, starting to run before they've even caught the ball, so sure are they that they're going to relive their "rookie year" of 1994 with no problem. They might just drop it in the end zone.

Not true...talking heads said this...not Republican Leaders. All I want to see is the taking back of the House. NO more Nancy as Speaker. There's no magic number. Just a message sent that the current path is not desired nor will it be rewarded.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Question to the pubs - given the massive hype for the preordained republican mid term slaughter that we have been beaten about the head with of the last six months+, what is an acceptable margin of victory standard before we have to start scratching out heads and saying "you know they really ought to have done better"?  Is less than full control of both houses with some landslide reversals an indictment or a squandered opportunity?  Hard to picture how you could ever be handed a better opportunity.  It seems like there an awful lot of these races headed into toss-up range for what was supposed to be a total cake walk. 

Different people will have different opinions about what that margin should be.  Plus one has to consider the timing.  US Politics is like the midwest weather.  Don't like it now just wait a few days and it will change.  Given that some Dems will win or retain seats in the House that lean conservative or pub (like those Dems who said they voted against Obamacare and the like) the Republican party does not have to have the majority, just close, but I think anything less than a majority will be a disappointment considering all of the anti-Pelosi advertisements.  For the Senate I think a takeover was always a long shot but a gain of less than 5 or 6 seats would certainly be cause for "I wonder what would have happened if...".

[phxcat]

The reverse of the Cook report is true today- with the gains that the Democrats made in the last two election cycles, if that were to continue, it would mean the death of the Republican Party.  They took a lot of low hanging fruit, and then they took seats that they rarely will win.  They will lose seats, not just because of the off year, but because some seats will revert to normal.  They may lose a lot because most people don;t understand politics, and, while the Republicans are outraged that the Democrats are in power, many Democrats are discouraged by the lack of the Democratic ability to get anything done (although they have accomplished quite a lot).  They don't understand that the greatest impediment is Republican filibuster abuse and a handful of right wing Dems who have wanted to get theirs.  They don't understand that by winning a few more Senate seats, Obama may very well be able to do more of what he wants.  However, the idea that Obama is driving people to the right is false- the people who don't like him never did and never will.  He has just lost a good deal of his support to apathy.

[AllThingsKC]

However, the idea that Obama is driving people to the right is false- the people who don't like him never did and never will.  He has just lost a good deal of his support to apathy.

Hmm....sounds like not a lot has changed since our last President.  Except Bush didn't campaign on "Hope & Change."

I think a lot of Obama voters unfairly bought in to his "hopey & changey" stuff and expected a huge change right away.  Then, they were disappointed that the world stayed the same (despite the Dems getting a lot of stuff done from their agenda).

Face it, Obama is just 4 more years of Bush.