Tonight would be a good time to locate your voter registration card so you have it handy tomorrow. It would also be a good time to locate your polling place:
I have a heavy weekend of activity (reviewing a movie, dinner, a party, Halloween, and another party), so blogging may be lighter than I would like for the weekend right before an election.
The Democrats are totally united to…save ONE liberal freshman congressman. With such such brilliant strategic thinking as that, how could they possibly lose this election?
Why the Pelosi Democrats suck, by retiring Democratic Congressman Brian Baird. If I had time I’d do a separate post entirely on this story, since some of the pull-quotes are devastating. “It’s been an authoritarian, closed leadership…Back in September, we had pollsters and strategists from my party tell members that the mass of people didn’t care about the deficit. The mind-boggling lack of reality coming from some of the people who give us so-called advice is stunning.” Read the whole thing.
There’s an election coming up on Tuesday. (Perhaps you’ve noticed.) Here are some links about it:
This National Journal poll of political insiders shows that both Democrats and Republicans think the GOP will take over the house, but fall short in the Senate. Some other factoids: Dem Insiders concede that Rand Paul is going to win the Kentucky Senate race, and they so slightly give the edge to Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania that I have to think the GOP is going to pick those up as well. By contrast, Republican insiders think they’ll pick up all four Senate seats (including Sharon Angle over Harry Reid in Nevada). And one Democratic insider even went so far as to predict that Barney Frank would lose.
Speaking of the LA Times: “As the S.S. Obama cruises toward its midnight rendezvous with a gigantic electoral iceberg on Nov. 2, the president’s communications aides are running around on deck, frustrated that their alternative storyline isn’t gaining traction in the cacophonous world of modern political babble.”
You hear that and you think that the Republican wave is going to be even larger than we anticipated. But remember that as much as we think of Kucinich as a liberal icon and his seat as a safe one, he only won his 2008 race by 57%; a very solid victory, to be sure, but not an overwhelming one given the Obama wave of 2008.
Certainly Kucinich is one of the most liberal members of congress, ran to Obama’s left in the 2008 Democratic Presidential primaries, and is known for having some pretty wacky ideas (like his bill for banning Orbital Mind Control Satellites; perhaps Rep. Kucinich has played one-too-many games of Illuminati).
But it would still be an upset. Kucinich has a lot of assets and advantages in his race: incumbency, a national liberal following, and a reputation as a genuine character.
And, of course, a very hot wife.
An incredibly hot redheaded wife.
This is a serious political post, and in no way a shameless attempt to get a Fark greenlight by posting all these pictures of Kucinich’s exceptionally hot wife.
This is a serious political blog.
Serious, I tell you!
If someone told me: “If you run for President, you’re going to lose really badly, but as a result, you’re going to marry an unbelievably hot wife,” I’d be filling out the paperwork tomorrow….
James Cameron calls for a vote against California’s Proposition 23, which would reign in the most radical of the state’s job-destroying “green” excesses. That’s Canadian citizen James Cameron.
Is Nurse Bloomberg planning a run for the Presidency in 2012? “If he runs, Bloomberg is prepared to spend between $1 to $3 billion on his campaign.” That’s Billion, with a “B”.
“Poll Finds Obama Voters Leaning Republican”: That was the original title for that New York Times piece. It looks like someone at the Obama White House got through on the emergency NYT Red Phone, as it now bears the less-depressing-for-liberals title “Obama Coalition Is Fraying, Poll Finds.” But the article itself should be just as distressing to them: “Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Roman Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents.” And take a look at the accompanying graphic, which shows lots of groups breaking heavily for Republicans, including college-educated voters. Man, that’s got to really stiing for those enveloped in the soft comfort of the Obama Reality Bubble.
(Hat tips: Real Clear Politics, Fark, NRO’s The Corner, and probably some I’ve forgotten. I’m dancing as fast as I can.)
No reports of shots fired or such. My guess is it’s a false alarm or over-reaction, but I’ll update should it prove otherwise.
Update: As Karl Rehn noted in email “It is A&M and the week before deer season.” No indication thus far it’s anything other than a false alarm.
Update 2: The Houston Chronicle is reporting the following information about the suspect:
white male
wearing olive or green shirt and shorts
wearing back pack
carrying an AK-47
(Sigh) It’s always an AK-47 in early reports, isn’t it? Just because it happened to be the case for Colton Tooley’s suicide doesn’t mean its any less likely to be wrong for the next set of early reports.
I would provide a link to the Bryan/College Station Eagle update page, but there’s considerably less information there than here. Evidently they couldn’t find any time out from the vital work of endorsing Democrats to actually assign someone to cover the story.
Update 5: Seeing tweets that the “armed subject” was just a Corps of Cadets (that’s ROTC for those of you who don’t speak Aggie) member carrying his rifle to practice. Just how long has that bus driver been working at A&M? Did he not notice that they have a wee bit of military tradition there? (If true, this would also make the AK-47 bit especially absurd, since I imagine they practice drilling with rifles a lot closer to an M1 Garand.)
Saying there’s no way Democrats can keep control of the House, Ireland’s largest bookie on Wednesday said it has already paid off all bettors who wagered the GOP would capture the chamber.
“In our opinion this race is well and truly over with nothing short of a miracle stopping the Republicans taking down the House,” said Ken Robertson, communications manager for Paddy Power, the Irish bookmaker.
Of course, that begs the question: Just how many people in Ireland bet on U.S. election outcomes? It could very well be that the number is so small, paying them off prematurely might be more than offset by the anticipated additional business from publicity for making the announcement.
Either way, as Instapundit has repeatedly warned, “Don’t get cocky.” It’s only five days until the election, and election fatigue has already set in for many. (Hell, even I’m starting to get tired of writing about it.) Election night should provide plenty of reasons to celebrate, but only if people execute in the last five days, a period that can be surprisingly long in politics, especially if Democrats are planning an ever-popular October Surprise. Remember that at this point in 2000, Democrats hadn’t even unleashed their Bush DWI smear yet. Expect to hear that presumptive Speaker of the House John Boehner is a cross-dressing furry porn addict sometime this weekend.
I’ve already put in my two cents worth on the first installment of that Washington Post series on guns used in area crimes and the gun shops where they were originally bought.
But Dwight Brown at Whipped Cream Difficulties digs into the issue like a dachshund pursuing a badger, fisking each piece for a host of questionable assertions, gaps, omissions, and unasked questions. Not once, but twice, with more promised. But would you expect any less of a man with a “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” t-shirt?
His pimp hand is strong.
If you’re interested in the issue at all, you should give it a read.
As seen by this video by a Houston Police Officer talking about how her husband (another police officer) had been killed by a multi-arrested illegal alien while Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White was touting Houston as a “sanctuary city”:
I haven’t spent much time on the Texas gubernatorial race as I’ve thought all along that Perry was going to beat White like a drum, and this video is a good example why.