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SSP Daily Digest: 6/18 (Morning Edition)

by: DavidNYC

Fri Jun 18, 2010 at 8:06 AM EDT


  • CA-Sen: Biden alert! The VPOTUS will do a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer next month in Silicon Valley, followed by a next-day affair in the City of Angels. President Obama's already done several events for Boxer, but of course, CA is damn enormous and expensive.

  • FL-Sen: We often criticize candidates for making phony ad buys which are really just pure media plays - but usually they aren't this obvious about it. Zillionaire asshole Jeff Greene, ostensibly running for senate in Florida, is running ads on cable television... in Washington, DC. Greene is trying to goad the House Ethics Committee into investigating some earmark activity on Kendrick Meek's part. I doubt this is going to work. Oh, and of course no word on the size of the buy. I mean, why even bother?

  • SC-Sen: The South Carolina Democratic Party turned back Vic Rawl's challenge to Alvin Greene's shocking primary win, citing a lack of evidence that would mandate an attempt to overturn the election results.

  • AL-Gov: If Tim James really wanted to stop a Republican from winning an election, he should have given that $200,000 to me. Instead, the money that he's blown on a statewide recount has actually cost him ten votes so far, with 59 of 67 counties (representing 94% of the state's population) having finished their second count. James trails second-place finisher Robert Bentley by 177 votes now, as opposed to 167 after election night. I really wonder who advised him on this move.

  • OH-Gov: Despite his repeated claims that he wasn't very involved in Lehman Brother's business operations, John Kasich still felt threatened enough by his connection that one of his staffers engaged in a little sideline duty - he advised Ohio's largest public pension fund on how best to spin its nine-figure losses attributable to the Lehman debacle. Ah, who doesn't love some nice shady commingling?

  • NC-02: Civitas hired SUSA to conduct a snap poll of the NC-02 race, in the wake of Bob Etheridge's videotaped spazz-out the other day. They find Republican Renee Ellmers at 39, Etheridge at 38, and, weirdly, libertarian Tom Rose at 13. (Note that Ellmers has $5K on hand and Rose hasn't filed a report.) Tom Jensen offers a note of caution, though, pointing out that a poll PPP did immediately after Joe Wilson's "You lie!" embarrassment also showed the incumbent down a point - but it's extremely unlikely the race looks anything like that today. Of course, SC-02 is quite a bit more GOP-friendly than NC-02 is Dem-friendly.

  • DCCC: The Hill has a follow-up piece on the shameful state of DCCC dues payments. Even at this late date, retiring members Brian Baird, Vic Snyder, Dennis Moore, Bart Gordon, and John Tanner (who is a member of leadership) are still way behind on their dues, and some have even contributed nothing, despite huge warchests. Of course, this is only a very partial list of deadbeats.

  • Moose Lady: For those of you who like to keep track of Sarah Palin's endorsements, well, she's backing Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Star Parker (CA-37 - I know, very lulzy), and Rep. Mary Fallin (OK-Gov).

  • Facebook: We're currently at 480 fans on SSP's Facebook page. We'd really, really like to get to 500 - and you also know we ain't too proud to beg - so won't you please "like" us?
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    SSP Daily Digest: 6/18 (Morning Edition) | 62 comments
    CA-37: Palin backs Star Parker
    It is a well-known fact that
    Sarah Palin is a beloved figure in Compton.  This will go over huge there.  They do a lot of moose hunting down there!

    34, WM, Democrat, FL-11
    [ Parent ]
    it's well known
    that Sarah Palin is uniquely popular down there, as she was born into a Crips family but has repeatedly been elected by a Bloods constituency, hence the best of both worlds.

    21, dude, RI-01 (registered) IL-01 (college)
    please help Japan. click "donate funds" in upper right and then "Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami." http://www.redcross.org/
    [ Parent ]
    They just like her rapping skills
    It's a shame she let Amy Poller due this:
    http://www.nbc.com/saturday-ni...

    I'm sure her cred in Compton would have been stronger if she took the mike.

    Fight global warming & help disaster relief efforts by raising money for Music for Relief when you search the web! Click here for more info:
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    [ Parent ]
    They don't call her Moose Lady down there
    They affectionately refer to her as "S-Pizzle"

    Or Mom, to some.

    23, Male, PA-05 (summer) PA-12 (winter)

    [ Parent ]
    I'd vote for a bunch of cow dung
    before I'd support either Sarah Palin or Star Parker.
    [ Parent ]
    Mickey Mouse
    Mickey Mouse is my default candidate.  When I hate the candidates both parties put up, I give my friend Mickey a vote.

    23, male, center-right cynical Republican, PA-7
    [ Parent ]
    Funny story
    Back in the early 90's, the two major parties from the small town of Emporium, PA nominated two boneheads, so the town wrote in Donald Duck. Not only did Donald Duck WIN the write-in, but there is an actual man, named Donald A. Duck, who became the mayor. He served one term and declined for re-election.

    23, Male, PA-05 (summer) PA-12 (winter)
    [ Parent ]
    Okay, is this true?
    I would by Donald Duck winning, but that there was actual man named Donald Duck living in this small town who took the mayors office?

    Or are you having fun with us at SSP?  

    [ Parent ]
    Did Mr. Duck do a good job? n/t


    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    I'd let Vic Snyder off the hook.
    He has only 1.5k on hand.  Plus, he can campaign for Joyce Elliott.

    Ad hoc, ad loc and quid pro quo!
    So little time, so much to know!
    NC-02 Etheridge being at 38 is the key part of that poll
    This is a good article on NC-02 by Jim Geraghty
    http://article.nationalreview....

    Yes I know its National Review. But I think the key here is that this went from being a race that was not even on Geraghty's 99 races to watch to another tough one for the Dems.

    Ellmers went from $5k cash on hand to over $75k in a couple of days.

    Because of Etheridge temper and stupity she will make a race out of this.

    Fight global warming & help disaster relief efforts by raising money for Music for Relief when you search the web! Click here for more info:
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    The key point
    as was noted, is that, like the Joe Wilson poll, this was taken at the worst possible time for Etheridge.  
    [ Parent ]
    He
    will still win by double digits and I do not care what this poll says. She will not make much of a race out of it unless making a race is getting above 40. The incident was not bad enough to cost him his job and I don't care what this (probably push) poll says.  

    Proud member of the Indiana Democratic Party from IN-9.  
    [ Parent ]
    Safe Dem
    Worst possible momet and he isn't behind.  This is Safe Dem, as long as Etheridge doesn't grab somebody else... that would kill him.

    As it is, nothing to see here.  Etheridge will win easily.

    [ Parent ]
    NC-2
    Etheridge hasn't gotten less than 62% this decade.  He may not get it this time, but he'll win.  And the Libertarian at 13%?
    The Libertarian at 13% is the "Alvin Greene" vote
    Meaning between 2 unknown candidates voters pick the name they like best. That's why Etherige being at 38% is key. Once Ellmers is able to leverage the video to raise money a lot of that Libertarian vote and undecides might shift to her.

    The point is in the poll 62% of the voters in the district dont want Etheridge as their congressman. Question is how much of that 62% he can get to bounce back to him

    Even in the post Wilson "You Lie" poll (which we are using as an analogy) Wilson never polled as low as 38%.

    Fight global warming & help disaster relief efforts by raising money for Music for Relief when you search the web! Click here for more info:
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    [ Parent ]
    Not if the undecideds are mostly
    Democrats. It is competitive now but you are reading far too much into the number. The Miller/Wilson example is not alone either.

    http://tpmelectioncentral.talk...

    http://tpmelectioncentral.talk...

    There was also polling that showed Bachmann behind Patty Wetterling in 2006 at the height of the Foley scandal. Yes, she was a Republican running in a GOP district but Etheridge has built up goodwill in his district over the years hence his easy wins every cycle. Like Dick Blumenthal he has a margin of error to work with.  

    [ Parent ]
    You're waaaaaay too trusting of this one poll......
    There are so many reasons to be skeptical that it's laughable.  The guys at PPP, based in Raleigh, pointed out just yesterday that this poll isn't worth much because these numbers reflect polling hard on the heels of a short-term incident.  House polling more broadly is very difficult, and most of the public House polling is poor.  Think back to the public polling of the specials in PA-12 and NY-23, it was all waaaaay off the actual outcome.  I recall also that an academic outfit called "Majority Watch" polled gobs of House races a couple times in fall 2006, and came up with some head-scratching results that didn't come close to fruition on election day.

    We're not going to have a good sense of what specific seats are really in jeopardy until after Labor Day, and even then only slowly, a few races at a time.  Until then we can know only what the big picture looks like and have a broad idea of what range of losses we're looking at.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Yup
    Rasmussen bounce-like. Though he certainly made things harder for himself than he is used to.
    [ Parent ]
    Your crucial point, I think...
    Is that we are going to have to wait until September to find out where Dems are really in trouble.

    Not that it will stop any of us from prognosticating before then!  

    [ Parent ]
    Agreed
    He apologized and made no excuses, so it should be neutralized as an issue. Sure it will be used in mailers, television ads, rhetoric, etc., but I think Etheridge handled in such a way people will forgive him and re-elect him by a comfortable margin, albeit it probably narrower.

    Democrat: TN-8
    [ Parent ]
    You said it best
    Etheriddge will be forgiven by his constituents come November.  One poll in such a short span after this incident shouldn't be trusted as reliable.


    40, male, Democrat, NC-04
    [ Parent ]
    On Comedy Central...
    This week tosh.0 played the Tim James commercial "We speak English!" in a segment he called "Is It Racist?"

    Conclusion: Hell yeah, it's racist!

    Tosh says, "But at least they're not being racist towards black people for once, so way to go, Alabama.  Baby steps."

    Sharon Angle interview
    http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/ey...

    I think I was more optimistic than most on Angle's chances, but this interview is bad. However, if this interview is the normal for her, I have a hard time seeing her pulling it out no matter how unpopular Reid has become. On the bright side, for me as a Republican, if Rubio, Angle, and possibly Rand lose maybe it will cause some of the Republican primary electorate to regain its sanity. Hey, just let a guy a dream.  

    Kentucky Republicans regain their sanity?
    Lest not forget this is the party (and state, overall) which voted Jim friggin' Bunning in '04.

    For daily political commentary, visit me at http://polibeast.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/polibeast
    [ Parent ]
    The debates should be fun
    I guess she might try dodge them but that is never a good idea, especially here with the "missing" meme Reid has started to build. Still, I'm with you, she can still win despite herself.
    [ Parent ]
    Your an odd duck conspiracy
    On most of these races, I might see you as a shade too optimistic for the Democrats (although of course I hope you're right), but on this race you seem decidedly pessimistic. What gives?  
    [ Parent ]
    Reid is still the incumbent
    With lousy re-elect numbers. And Nevada isn't even New Jersey. Indeed, it has the highest unemployment rate in the country. I think it is a total tossup.
    [ Parent ]
    For some reason the GOP primary electorate
    has gone off the deep end in just the last two years.  I don't agree with those who argue that the GOP lost its majority because they have become crazy, because they weren't this crazy in 2006 or 2007.

    These teabaggers are actually quite similar to some of the extreme left/anti-war elements in the late 1960s.  While a lot of the country would agree with many of their complaints (same with the anti-war groups around 1970), the manner in which they push their agenda is quite off-putting to middle America. The only thing we haven't seen yet is a major act of violence (no analogy to the Weathermen).

    This culminated with the nomination and landslide defeat of George McGovern.  And I don't think sanity is going to return until you guys nominate your McGovern (Palin??).

    For example, look at the tone on RedState.  2 or 3 years ago, the tone was conservative and activist, but you still had a place for intelligent discussion.  Now you simply have angry diary after angry diary there.  It is simply attacks and angry diatribes against Obama and so-called RINOs, and very little about actual policy of any kind.

    You see the same thing on dKos to a large extent, but the Democrats listen far less to dKos types than the GOP does to RedState types.

    [ Parent ]
    Yeah I saw your similar post
    in another discussion but the point holds. 2006 and 2008 took a toll on the moderate members of the GOP. I think the 1960s far left movement is an apt comparison. I also agree with  your thoughts on Redstate, they have kicked out anybody that does not toe the party line of kow towing to Erickson. They are defending Barton's recent comments on the "shake down" which is totally ridiculous.  
    [ Parent ]
    I felt the same way in 2006
    When Kossacks were slagging of John Kerry, not for his "joke" but for saying sorry.
    [ Parent ]
    Oklahoma City bombing
    That was done by an extremist right-wing militia type, though before the Tea Party and not associated with them by most people. There have been smaller acts of terrorism lately, including the shooting by the neo-Nazi at the Holocaust Museum in DC and the shooting of the doctor who did abortions while he was in church in Wichita, but I don't think that many people are associating those acts with the Tea Party.

    A major difference is that, since left-wing terrorists like the Weathermen were anti-establishment, they were easy for the establishment to demonize and associate with the political left and anti-war movement, which were also largely non- and anti-establishment, whereas the Tea Party is much more nearly part of the right-wing establishment - as Gingrich said, the militant wing of the Republican Party - and gets defended by establishment Republicans. For that reason, associating them with any of the various violent extremists and terrorists is less likely to become a widely-spread mainstream media meme.

    Today's diary on Bob Inglis gives an example of the perils of an establishment Republican daring not to support the Tea Party.

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  

    [ Parent ]
    This just reminded me of that guy who flew his plane into an IRS building
    It was more for personal reasons though more so than political.
    [ Parent ]
    He was a registered Democrat
    who blogged about how he hated George Bush. He really does not fit into the, "tea party = right wing violence" narrative.  
    [ Parent ]
    Nice try
    but here in Texas, we don't have party registration.  We have open primaries.  Many Republicans and Libertarians vote in the Democratic primary to have a say in local Austin elections.  Many tea party/teabagger-types in Austin didn't like W.
    [ Parent ]
    Sorry I read it on the internet
    I really thought it was true and was not trying to mislead.  
    [ Parent ]
    They haven't changed much
    but the world around them has.

    My reading of the GOP is that the story is that they formed their major coalition back in the Nixon and Reagan days.

    The Nixon coalition of the late 1960s- the money and WASP party absorbing the white Dixiecrats- pretty much agreed on trying to regenerate, protect/privilege, and live according to a mid-1940s or 1950s condition in all things foreign and domestic.

    Then came the 1970s and the country and world just came apart.  The strategic defeat in southeast Asia had to be absorbed.  The profound disagreement of the young with the pre-1968 social order had to be reacted to, dealt with.  And the post-segregration/post-1968 social disintegration happened: the near epidemic of crime, divorces, etc.  All kinds of indicators of social disintegration peaked between 1978 and 1982: rates of divorces, abortion, violent crime, suicide, gun ownership, drug use.  The Cold War's cutbacks and cheating on social spending (i.e. on infrastructure, transportation, education, arts, health, environment, welfare, pensions) started to show in 1975-1980.

    The Reagan coalition of the GOP formed in the late 1970s, which was all about the GOP taking in the remaining downscale white ethnic voters that were traditionally Democratic- the Southern Baptists and white Catholics (Irish, Italian, German, pale skinned Latinos such as middle and upper class Cubans) who had really only felt like full citizens since JFK's times.  This also completed the consolidation of the Religious Right with the Republican Party.  Roe v. Wade happened in 1974 and was slated for overturn.  No fault divorce, identified with California's legalization of it in 1966, was well understood to be irreversibly legalized by 1980- as epitomized by Reagan himself.

    The aggregate of it all, probably recognized and dogmatized between 1982 and 1985: the GOP consolidated around 1967-68 as their cultural Red Line.  After that any GOP politician in disagreement with the desired pre-'68 status quo condition (big corporations given status of private kingdoms/plantations, male privilege restored, de facto resegregation, evangelization and rechurching of the masses, defeat of the USSR, ignoring of the 14th Amendment and the Preamble to the Constitution- with all their consequences) soon got branded a heretic "liberal".

    They started to run low on majority support in 2000, with Al Gore's surprising 48% that put the Presidency into doubt.  Bush Jr.'s support jumped to 55% the day after Election Day, though, and they dodged a bullet.  But in 2004 Bush only got to 50.7% even though the GOP had found and motivated pretty much every voter they could mobilize against Kerry and post-1968 liberals.

    Now it's a national minority and it continues to decline as people who came of age before the mid-1960s (Coasts) and mid-1970s (in the 'Heartland') start to die out as demographics.

    When you're part of a slowly but relentlessly declining minority there's no incentive to be responsible or well-behaved.  The thing desired- the white Mayberry American world of 1965-70 or so- keeps on slipping further away in time, which requires ever more effort to keep it vivid and alive and plausible in your mind if you're invested in it.  And since you're in an ever shrinking minority, you must do your best to argue and impose this vision on ever more nonbelievers as an act of will.  You must shout down more unbelievers, find the gullible and sympathetic, search out and bait and impose on more undecideds and weak believers.  (Which includes yourself at times.)

    [ Parent ]
    It is the Reagan coalition that matters here
    The Nixon coalition was basically a coalition against the far left, and it relied on Nixon pandering to blue collar Democrats on economic issues.  Nixon was far more liberal on economic issues than most Democrats today, he proposed a guaranteed minimum income and a health care plan with an employer mandate and public plan than anyone could join.  Not to mention the EPA, expanding social security, progressive tax reform, wage and price freezes, etc.  Nixon wooed labor union members and traditional New Deal Democrats.  While you are right that the coalition wanted to live "according to a mid-1940s or 1950s condition in all things foreign and domestic", that included accepting and even extending Mew Deal economic policies.    

    The Reagan coalition was much more radical and sinister, in that the goal was to roll back accepted reforms from the 1930s and 1960s.  The Reagan coalition was built on making reactionary changes to America, both on economic and social policy.  As you correctly state, Reaganites were able to convince Southern Baptists and ethnic Catholics to vote against their economic interests (as opposed to voting for a watered down version under Nixon) in order to enforce a right-wing view of morality. In order to do this, he went out of his way to try to destroy manufacturing jobs and unions, the primary institution that was keeping white ethnics in the North with the Democrats.   But Reagan was also able to convince socially liberal yuppies who were liberals in the 1970s to vote in their narrow and immediate economic interests.  

    But such a topic wouldn't be complete without the Democratic complicity in enabling the GOP coalition.  By allowing the left-wing to hijack the party and nominate George McGovern, the national Democrats branded themselves as anti-military to many blue-collar Democrats for a generation.  By passing NAFTA and trade with China after he campaigned against these things, Clinton stabbed blue collar workers in the back, and gave the impression that the Democrats were no less in bed with big corporations.  Clinton with his repeated extramarital affairs and the very public Lewinsky affair gave credence to the GOP smear that the Democrats had no use for traditional moral values.  

    [ Parent ]
    So you're saying that the D left
    is not a friend of the working class (ref to our previous discussion)
    [ Parent ]
    Not quite
    Some of the D left (neoliberals) have contempt for the working class as they pursue pro-business policies.  However, some of the D left are for the working class, but have pushed liberal social policies and anti-war policies over helping the working class, and are uncompromising in this regard.  

    I have several friends who are hardcore Democrats but tell me how they don't care for unions, love free trade and Walmart, and show their disdain for low income people in other ways.  Their politics is one of culture, they are Democrats because of their opposition to the social conservatives.  While they are allies, this kind of thinking helps repel working class whites from teh Democratic Party, which in the end hurts both their and my causes.

    [ Parent ]
    Doesn't left
    mean socialist and socialist-influenced? I think pro-business policies that hurt the working class cannot be reasonably defined in any sense as leftist.

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    I've talking McGovern left
    that is those who emphasize social and foreign policy issues.  Many of these people had sympathy for the poor, but has disdain for the union establishment.  As these people got older and went to Wall Street, they kept their social values but became hostile to unions and working people.
    [ Parent ]
    McGovern had disdain for unions?
    He did? I didn't think so. How did he?

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    He did but that's not the point

    McGovern was certainly was not a trusted friend,
    proven again by his kissing the rear of business leaders by appearing in anti-EFCA ads.  But look at his record.  He was against several pro-labor initiatives during his Senate career, the most egregious being against repeal of right-to-work laws and against labor law reform during the Carter years.  George Meany refused to endorse McGovern.

    I think losing the endorsement of the AFL-CIO ended any chance McGovern had to run a respectable race against Nixon.  He lost by 23%, but had the unions endorsed him, he may have lost by only around 10%.

    But my point wasn't about George McGovern.  It was about many of his supporters and future politicians in teh Democratic Party, many of whom went to Wall Street and other corporate interests and made big bucks, and found unions to be a thorn on their side.  On top of that they had the kind of disdain for working class people (which Obama discussed in his gaffe in his fundraiser in CA in 2008, where he said that people in rural PA are bitter and "cling to guns and religion").  Many of these people became big fundraisers for the Democrats, and wanted favors in return, that was putting social issues first and leaving big business alone.

    [ Parent ]
    Dude, even in 1972 unions were NOT that powerful! McGovern lost because...
    ...he ran the worst Presidential campaign perhaps in anyone's living memory!  Forgotten losers like Bob Dole and Walter Mondale and Barry Goldwater and Adlai Stevenson did not screw up AS badly as McGovern!

    Whatever he did to piss off unions was minor, and I'd be surprised if strong union support would have won him more than a couple percent.

    And, for his part, Nixon actually ran a great campaign and shored up his centrist cred pretty well in a lot of ways in 1971 and 1972.  That's completely ignored and forgotten because of Watergate, but McGovern ran against a Vietnam War that Nixon was already winding down, and Nixon did so much else that made a lot of voters happy or shrug.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    I couldn't disagree more
    The lack of labor support gave the impression, even for non-union Democrats, that McGovern was completely out of the mainstream.  The result was that a lot of ethnic and other Democrats felt safe to bolt, affirming their suspicions that McGovern was a left-wing radical, and voted for Nixon.    

    I agree that Nixon ran a great campaign, and if you read the thread above, I stated that Nixon was more economically liberal than most Democrats today.  But McGovern could well have gotten the 43% that Humphrey got in 1968 (and it was an all out GOTV drive that labor ran that got him there, peeling away the soft Wallace votes, along with a push for peace in Vietnam.)

    As far as labor not being powerful in 1972, well 30+% of the workers in this country were in unions, and a greater percentage of voters were in labor households.  I'd call that a pretty big chunk of voters.

    George Meany refused to back McGovern for two reasons, one he opposed repeal of Taft-Hartley in the past and had several other anti-labor votes and secondly he was for surrender in Vietnam and too dovish on foreign policy.   I wouldn't call either of these reasons minor.  

    [ Parent ]
    Nixon was not winding down the Vietnam War
    We saw things blowing up and people dying on the network news every day. Nixon NEVER wound down the Vietnam War. He simply was forced to withdraw when Congress refused to fund the war anymore - something I wish Congress would do now in regard to Afghanistan, but I don't want to get into a debate about that.

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    I'm not surprised, this is what I always expected, & why I expect Reid to win. Even more...
    See the linked Human Events piece.  Keep in mind this is a right-wing publication, one of Angle's friendlies.

    http://www.humanevents.com/art...

    The point here is not that anyone in the Nevada electorate will read or know about this article, because they won't.  Rather, the key takeway is that Angle has to spend all her time defending herself.  Here in a friendly piece, one paragraph is devoted to her attacking Harry Reid.  The rest of it is about her wanting to abolish the Departments of Energy and Education, Yucca Mountain, scientology, and prohibition (yes, of alcohol).  Ninety percent of it is her having to defend her wackiness.  The scientology response is hilarious, I can't even follow what she's quoted as saying.  When you're deep in the weeds of explaining massage therapy for prison inmates, that's as far off-message as you can go.

    Even the other "friendly" interviews she had are problematic.  Sean Hannity was asking her about abolishing social security.  Yes she was given a free pass to explain herself however she wanted without challenge, but the fact that was a topic at all in the friendliest possible venue reflects what a big problem she is.

    Regarding the local TV news report, that's totally devastating, more than anything in the national media.  Voters are divided and polarized on national media, diluting its influence, but most voters trust local news.  A candidate for anything must make nice on local news.  If you look bad there, it really resonates bigtime.

    I asked in comments in a couple other diaries this week whether any of Angle's controversies are getting attention in Nevada, listing what I'd been able to dig up, but now I really have my answer!

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Your dream is important
    Someday, sane Republican voters like you will enable the Republican Party to become a legitimate, responsible party again. If not, it will eventually go by the wayside, and some other configuration of two parties will replace today's Democratic/Republican dichotomy.

    "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
    --  Will Rogers  
    [ Parent ]
    I personally think the GOP is doomed in it's current form
    An ideology beholden to blind resistance to change is not going to last when technology really explodes and we're all embracing a whole new world around us.  The green tech boom, lighting fast wireless internet country-wide, high-speed trains, expanded space travel, biotech, near-universal post-secondary education etc.

    I remember Bachmann one day mocking riding around in our "choo-choo's" when attacking her 08 opponent TInklenberg (former MN Dept. of Transportation and instrumental in getting us our first urban light-rail.)  No logic behind her attack, no reasoning for disliking light-rail, just pure dislike of change.  I sound like her all the time; at work when we change something and I grumble over having to learn or deal with something new.  And then I grow up and realize Im grumbling because Id rather complain about it then stop caring and move on with my life.  When you look back and evaluate your life, riding a train vs driving to work is not going to mean anything.

    We're heading for a fabulous world where we all have solar panels on our roofs and small family farms are now our wind farms.  The Democrats are the ones leading us to it while the GOP are making themselves look like extremist Bible-thumpers that most people, even the middle of the road Christians, roll their eyes at.  (Here's to leaving to go camping now, and spending my weekend with my cousin, who I just described.  She was evangelicalized, from Catholicism....)

    [ Parent ]
    If the GOP survived being the party of the Great Depression
    they will survive this period too.  It will take a landslide defeat of a teabagger nominee to begin bringing the party to its senses.  There will still be resistance from the base, but the adults in the GOP will demand that changes be made.
    [ Parent ]
    Oh they'll survive
    But that's because they'll reposition themselves to remain the opposition party.  And I think where they'll really need to evolve is with social issues; this county is going to be much more educated, a shit ton less white, and much less religious in 50 years.  Although immigration may reverse the religious trends because as we all know how and have experienced, along with Southern Baptists, the next most devote religious groups are Hispanic Catholics, AA Christians, and in my neck of the woods, NE African Muslims.  All so very ironic as a white atheist; here I want less religion in this country and low and behold, my ancestors fucked any chance of this happening with their conquering and evangelicalizing centuries ago.  Bastards.  :)

    And even more me pulling political predictions out of my ass; the GOP will be screwed even more so by figuring out to evolve or not and how so.  Either liberal up to appeal to socially normal moderates and lose the religious crazy wing of the party, or keep on being socially conservative and rely on religious immigrants to not be their death knell in social issues.  But then they'll need to embrace immigration and all issues oriented with that, which will simply piss off off the pro-white America group, which will be a huge portion of the GOP I bet at this point in time.  (Im still imagining 50 years.)  Oh I cant wait to see the reaction when America is officially no longer white majority.  It's going to be a public shit show of white people falling all over each other saying how horrendous this all is and how it's not the America they knew growing up.

    [ Parent ]
    It is not that different than the choice the Dems faced
    after the Reagan revolution.  The Dems had to decide whether they would tone down the social liberalism and re-up on the economic populism to win back white working class voters (and in 1988 nominate someone like Dick Gephardt), or to ditch the economic liberalism and double down on social liberalism to win over suburban moderates.  As we know, they did the latter.

    Or the situation that GOP faced after the FDR years.  The GOP had to moderate their party on economics and played up the McCarthyism to win over conservative Dems.

    My guess is that the GOP will eventually moderate on social issues and use token minorities in a few years.  The GOP is unwilling to cross their corporate masters under any circumstances.

    [ Parent ]
    Oh my, new KILLER anti-Angle ad by 3rd-party group "Patriot Majority"......
    Patriot Majority is the liberal 3rd-party group that attacked Lowden on TV in the primary, and now they've got a crushing ad against Angle.  This is better than Reid's own attack ad.

    Watch.  Just watch.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

    I hope Patriot Majority has real money and points behind this.  It's too good not to air at saturation level.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    MN-Gov
    Good SurveyUSA poll for Dayton.

    http://www.pollster.com/blogs/...

    Good poll, more trustworthy than Rasmussen. The high undecideds make it credible......
    One of the things I've learned about good polling, from Rasmussen's being a bad example, is that voters don't really have an opinion at this stage in an open-seat race between candidates who they don't already feel strongly about.  So favorability ratings have high no-opinions and trial heats have high undecideds.

    If I was suspicious of anything, it would be that Dayton doesn't poll much worse than he does, but this is where Rasmussen and the scant other polling actually shows something similar.  I would have guessed from the outside that Dayton's unpopularity as a Senator would linger, but the fact he didn't run for reelection seems to have saved his image.  The Republicans left him alone since he wasn't a factor for voters in 2006, and that had to help him now.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    Its a SUSA poll of minnesota
    I wouldnt say its more trustworthy than Rasmussen. What i mean of course is that SUSA has a poor record in Minnesota in that its polls of Minnesota have a rather republican lean.

    20, male, independent, WI-07.
    [ Parent ]
    GREAT news from Ellsworth!!!
    http://www.ellsworthforindiana...

    Proud member of the Indiana Democratic Party from IN-9.  
    I'm glad they were honest about their poll......
    I'm happy they were honest that they're poll was message-tested.  And I'm happy to see a 45-45 tie even with a positive messaging of Coats.  But I gotta say, the Ellsworth message was a bit more pro-Ellsworth than the Coats message was pro-Coats.

    I don't doubt that name recognition is one factor influencing any straight-up horse race polling.  So Ellsworth has more room to grow than Coats in that regard.

    But right now I'd still call this lean R, unless and until the Ellsworth campaign actually changes that.

    43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

    [ Parent ]
    NERD-gasm!
    These are the kind of numbers bloggers and insiders love. I'd love to see more campaigns have reports JUST like this, but I wonder if the audience is way to limited for this stuff to matter a lot.  

    26, Male, Democrat, TX-26
    [ Parent ]
    Sorry, am I missing something?
    Don't campaigns release this kind of thing all the time, where they say: if I tell a voter this information about my candidate, and this information about another candidate, my candidate wins!

    I want to believe in Ellsworth, but this doesn't do much for me, to be honest.  

    [ Parent ]
    SSP Daily Digest: 6/18 (Morning Edition) | 62 comments

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