Posts Tagged ‘Elections’
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
Or “Democratic House Members Held Hostage: Day 15” (Imagine dramatic Nightline opening theme music here.)
You might have noticed we had an election a couple of weeks ago. Democrats didn’t do so well. Especially in the House, where Democrats lost 60 61 62 seats and counting. The House lead by Nancy Pelosi. The Nancy Pelosi who forced ObamaCare through despite widespread public opposition, a huge contributing factor in the democrats’ electoral slaughter.
Given that, common sense would suggest that Pelosi step aside and not run for Minority Leader. But Nancy Pelosi has never been one to let common sense stand in her way.
The voices are growing louder asking for Pelosi to step down.
On the other hand, her hardcore liberal supporters are rallying around her: “Her talents are unique.” Well, yes. Not even Tom Foley managed to lose 60+ seats in 1994. That takes the special kind of high-handed, self-righteous, tone-deafness that Pelosi excels in.
Blue Dog Coalition member Heath Schuler is threatening to run against her. Then again, if House Democrats are picking their next quarterback, maybe they’ll want someone with a higher lifetime passing rating then 54.3%.
The Congressional Black caucus has decided that they may not want to be lead by Pelosi.
Pelosi says it’s not her fault:
The California Democrat attributes the loss of at least 60 seats to high unemployment and “$100 million of outside, unidentified funding.”
“Any party that cannot turn (9.5% unemployment) into political gains should hang up the gloves,” she said.
- Funny, I don’t remember Pelosi complaining about all that unverified money Obama was raking in circa 2008.
- As far as 9.5% unemployment goes, her answer seems to suggest that she had no part in keeping unemployment so high. That’s not the case.
But now Democrats seem poised to elect her to Minority Leader later today. Republicans are already licking their chops over 2012 attack ads…
Tags:Democrats, Elections, Heath Shuler, Nancy Pelosi
Posted in Democrats, ObamaCare | No Comments »
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Another LinkSwarm of sundry sundries:
- More reasons to be thankful Paul Kanjorksi is gone.
- “Much of what this Democratic Congress did, or tried to do, was like throwing Molotov cocktails at business.”
- Top Ten Upsets of the 2010 Election. (Warning: slide show.) Some of the surprises were the Democrats that didn’t lose (such as Harry Reid), but several (Ortiz, Oberstar, Wilson, Gene Taylor) were upsets I predicted.
- The RNCC has put up a page (with donations links) for the eight house races still up in the air.
- The question isn’t whether Blake Farenthold beat Solomon Ortiz, the question is whether the win is “outside the margin of ACORN.”
- Need an example of the above? Try this: “The Bean campaign approached the Cook County Clerk’s Office, requested and received a list of all outstanding absentee ballots with name, address, and phone numbers. As alarming as that was, they also asked for and were provided an exact image of a blank absentee ballot.”
- Study after study have shown Republicans are more generous than Democrats. This year’s election just proved that the same applies to the Texas congressional delegation. “The 20 Texas Republican incumbents, none of whom faced serious opposition, gave an average of $100,000 each to Republicans. Texas Democrats, meanwhile, provided relatively meager support for endangered Democratic incumbents. They averaged $26,000 in donations to other candidates in their party.”
- The Democrats have a Rust Belt problem: “The drop-off in Democratic support among older voters and white voters from the last midterm election is remarkable. In 2006 Democrats lost white voters by 4 points in House races, which are a fairly good indicator of party preference, and they tied among voters 65 and over. This year they lost whites by 23 points and lost older voters by 21 points.”
- “Many Dem Staffers on Capitol Hill Face Tough Job Market.” Perhaps they should check with IBM. I hear they’re working on a nanoscale violin construction program that might be appropriate for them…
Tags:ACORN, Blake Farenthold, Charles Wilson (Ohio), Chicago, Democrats, Elections, Gene Taylor, James Oberstar, Joe Walsh, Melissa Bean, Paul Kanjorski, Republicans, Solomon Ortiz, voting fraud
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
Remember during the aftermath of the 2000 election when Al Gore tried to get a recount done in just the counties that favored Democratic voters?
Well, soon-to-be-Ex-Rep. Solomon Ortiz just tried to do the same thing in the race he lost to Republican Blake Farenthold, asking for a recount of just three Nueces County precincts.
The Texas Supreme Court rejected his appeal, noting that state law requires all precincts to be included in the re-count.
Ortiz said he’ll refile the petition. A bit more information here, though it still doesn’t say which precincts. FWIW, here are the Nueces election night precinct-by-precinct results.
Tags:Blake Farenthold, Democrats, Elections, Nueces County, Solomon Ortiz, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
I’m sure the average BattleSwarm reader came to this conclusion heretofore, but Derek Thompson provides a statistical roundup in The Atlantic that proves it. They also find lesser effects for the other three votes I’ve highlighted here (Stimulus, TARP, and Cap-and-Trade):
For Democrats in the least Democratic districts, the model suggests a loss of about 4 percent for every yes vote. If vulnerable Democrats hadn’t voted for any of the four bills, he concludes, Democrats would have won 32 more seats, enough to retain control of the House. Even after you remove TARP (which was a must-vote in scary times), the three-vote impact was 24 seats — not enough to keep the House, but close.
Although at least one study he cites shows no effect for the last that can’t be explained for the other three.
But it all comes back to what all non-liberal Americans have been telling Democrats for a year or longer: It’s the ObamaCare, stupid.
Tags:Cap-and-Trade, Derek Thompson, Elections, ObamaCare, Stimulus, TARP
Posted in Democrats, Elections, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
National Journal updates the state of play in the House races that still haven’t been decided yet.
Short version:
- California 11: Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney holds a 628-vote lead over Republican David Harmer, but not all ballots from Republican-leaning locales have been counted yet.
- California 20 Republican Andy Vidak leads Democratic incumbent Jim Costa by a mere 145 votes.
- Illinois 8: Republican Joe Walsh leads Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean, which should hold up unless Cook County cooks up some fraud (and when has that ever happened?).
- Kentucky 6: Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler leads Republican Andy Barr by 649 votes, recanvass starts next week
- New York 1: Republican Randy Altschuler leads Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop by either 392 votes or 383 votes.
- New York’s 25: Republican Ann Marie Buerkle leads Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei by 659 votes, but there are still ballots to be counted.
- Texas 27: Republican Blake Farenthold leads Democratic incumbent Solomon Ortiz by 792 votes, with only 736 overseas and provisional ballots left to count. Ortiz wants a manual recount.
Tags:Andy Barr, Andy Vidak, Ann Marie Buerkle, Ben Chandler, Blake Farenthold, Cook County, Dan Maffei, David Harmer, Democrats, Elections, Jerry McNerney, Jim Costa, Joe Walsh, Melissa Bean, Randy Altschuler, Recounts, Republicans, Solomon Ortiz, Tim Bishop
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, November 8th, 2010
Another day, another LinkSwarm.
- Liberal coach plays all players, good or bad, equal minutes, says having fun more important than winning. Conservative coach plays best players, makes winning the top priority. Guess which one they enjoy playing for more?
- Democrat Gabrielle Giffords holds on to Arizona’s eighth congressional district over Jesse Kelly.
- A lot of those Democratic House seats lost this year may be gone for good, or at least a decade.
- Voters don’t want big government:
Democrats must grasp that their defeats were not about deficient personalities or insufficient communication, but about their philosophy and substance. Roughly two out of three voters agreed with the statements that President Obama “has failed to deliver hope and change” and that in the midst of an economic crisis, Democrats “had their priorities wrong.” The post-midterm realities are simple: If the Republicans don’t deliver on their promises, they’re finished. If the Democrats continue doing what they’re doing, they’re finished.
- Will Democrats get the message? Probably not, since some defeated Democrats are saying they lost because they just weren’t liberal enough, like defeated Dem congressman Alan “Crazy Pills” Grayson.
- They’re also getting ready to put Nancy Pelosi in charge of their caucus yet again.
Tags:Alan Grayson, Democrats, Elections, Gabrielle Giffords, Jesse Kelly, Nancy Pelosi, Obama
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »
Saturday, November 6th, 2010
Now that the rush of the election is over, I’ve been taking it (relatively) easy for the past few days. Expect more post-election analysis next week. We’re also still waiting to hear back on not only those eleven House races where recounts are still ongoing, but there’s a twelfth race, between Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop and Republican challenger Randy Altschuler for New York’s First District, that is not only up in the air due to 3,500 ballots wrongly attributed to Bishop, but which Altschuler now leads (though several thousand absentee, etc. ballots remain to be counted). Once that is done I can do a post-election analysis of my predictions. (Pending those outcomes, it looks like I did pretty well for my House prediction, but not as good on the Senate.)
In the meantime, here are a few links of interest
Tags:Democrats, Elections, Randy Altschuler, Republicans, Tim Bishop
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »