There’s a bunch of new polls showing Democratic Senate candidates doing better (Sestak, Conway). Who knows how much stock to put in any of it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Democrats do a bit better than expected in Senate races, because of just how shitty a lot of the Republican candidates are.
Let’s suppose Dems win a few tight Senate races, but Republicans take the House. You know what happens next, House investigations into how ACORN and the New Black Panther Party stole all those Senate races for Democrats. Even the liberal Nate Silver said Sestak would probably lose, how do you account for these irregularities in inner-city Philadelphia, etc.
El Cid
You mean, they’re not going to choose to look forward, and not back?
Lev
Sharron Angle’s campaign seems to be falling apart. Her illegal immigration ad and the crazy comments about how the ad was about illegal Canadian immigration and how Hispanics look like Asians to her is such a dense and baffling array of racism. Her cash advantage over Reid is nonexistent anymore–wouldn’t be surprised if Reid wins by a decent margin.
BR
Fortunately, that won’t last long – GOPers running for preznit will be falling over themselves to take extra wingnutty positions and attacking each other. The Obama administration and Dems will only be a rhetorical foil – the real foils will be each other.
Martin
Voters deciding to not cheat on their wife, no matter how hot the crazy girl coming on to them is?
Maybe.
Cat Lady
Democrats lose when they lose, and lose when they win. Republicans win when they win, and win when they lose. Thanks liberal media!
RSR
Don’t tease the black panther!
chopper
i hope this doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass, but it looks like the tea partiers, with regard to this election, hit the high water mark a bit early.
JWL
While we’re at it, why not pretend the democratic party represents a bona fide opposition to the GOP?
I just might be able to weather the shit hitting the fan when the nation hits rock bottom. So fuck it, bring it on.
JPL
OT..BJ’s ActBlue site needs only 26 more donations in order to reach 500 donations overall. Wahoo.
Tonal Crow
Somewhat OT: While totebagging today, I heard an interviewee begin a sentence with “No less a person than David Brooks said….” If I had been drinking coffee, it would have been all over the windshield.
I suggest that phrase as a new key-term denoting an appeal to a badly-substandard authority as if he or she were a qualified authority. A sample usage is, “No less a person than James Inhofe says that human-origin climate change is a scam devised by liberals to bring communism to America!”
JPL
@JWL: Well to Mr. I got mine so fuck the rest of you, there are 270 million folks that can’t survive.
kdaug
OT: Fun times.
Let’s throw a trade war into the mix, shall we?
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@RSR: I am surprised no one has gotten this yet.
Adam Lang
Yup, probably. And assuming that’s the case, we better be on our guard, because, as with everything else that they’ve falsely accused us of doing, we will later find out they’re doing it.
Lev
David Brooks: the Jacqueline Suzann of journalism.
Midnight Marauder
Nate Silver has been pretty horrid in his analysis of the Sestak-Toomey race. It’s weird why he’s been so reluctant to recognize the pretty obvious fact that momentum has been swinging Sestak’s way for quite some time, and that Sestak has always done a phenomenal job of closing out his campaigns on a strong note.
Bob L
A cynical minded person might be driven to observe the Dem surge is from these pollsters pulling a Rasmussen and switching from servicing the media narrative to making sure their polls resemble the election results.
BR
@Bob L:
Good point – I had forgotten about that issue.
Nick
The question is, will Glenn Greenwald say “There might be some truth to this, let’s let them investigate”
BR
@Nick:
Nah, he won’t. Obama’s not on the ballot.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Midnight Marauder:
I wasn’t trying to slag Nate Silver (I just read that Nick Denton article and now I can’t stop using the word “slag” — sorry), I’m just waiting for them to bring him up.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Nick:
They love Sestak. If Blanche Lincoln somehow pulls it out, though…..
(not that there’s any chance of that happening)
Nick
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Let’s see how long that lasts.
I give it to Groundhog Day before the first “Senator Sestak is a sell out” diaries pop up.
Bubblegum Tate
@Lev:
I would–if Reid wins, it’ll be close. And, of course, the GOP will demand an investigation into just how many brown-skinned people voted for him.
Bob Loblaw
@Nick:
You and eemom need to seriously get a life. This is getting creepy.
And yes, Democrats will do fine in the election. Their losses will look a lot like 1982, very manageable overall. Obama will sleepwalk to victory in 2012 even if (when) the economy is still a basketcase. Y’all sweat the small stuff too much.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
[email protected],
After what happend to the senate seats in IL and MN back in 2008/09, what makes you think any of the newly elected Dem senators will even be sworn in and seated before say, the summer recess in 2011?
My bet is the GOPers flat out stonewall the seating of any Dem whose margin of election was even remotely close. And any attempt to force the issue will cause Jimmy D. and his henchmen to shut the Senate down completely.
Alex S.
The House is the problem, I don’t believe that the Senate ever was. The threat of a switching Joe Lieberman is not that big anymore, now that the Dems are going to end up with more than 50 seats. I can’t wrap my head around a Senator Rand Paul, so I really believe that Conway is going to win. The Dems will definitely lose North Dakota, Arkansas and Indiana. If they can keep all the other seats – Feingold and Sestak are the biggest question marks, and in my opinion, the only ones – they can claim a huge success. It will allow them legislation via reconciliation by a good margin.
However, all of this means nothing if the Dems lose the House and the power to fund and defend their achievements of this Congress. The House campaign arm has been very successful so far, with the exception of the doomed Hawaii special election. I suspect that the GOTV efforts are effective and money is being well-spent. But the fundamental disadvantage is quite great. It is going to take one more push into the Democratic direction to keep the House, maybe Jon Stewart’s rally, or surprising economic news (unlikely)…there’s got to be some other nationwide development.
Ken
Besides, Nate Silver isn’t liberal; he’s accurate. They’re easy to confuse, because of the well-known liberal bias of reality.
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
Does mocking St. Glenn hit a nerve?
arguingwithsignposts
Has even the liberal DougJ turned on the darling of the GOS stat wunderkinds?
Midnight Marauder
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
I would argue you should slag Nate Silver when it comes to this race.
Adam Lang
@Bob L:
Good thing there’re none of those around here, huh?
Steve
Is Diebold the ACORN of the left, in the sense of being the all-purpose bogeyman for election losses? I heard cries of DIEBOLD!!! after the 2008 New Hampshire primary, for heaven’s sake.
I suppose there are differences, like (1) there are actually good reasons to be concerned about electronic voting, and (2) Democrats in Congress aren’t actually that interested in blaming everything on Diebold.
Bob Loblaw
@Nick:
Not anymore so than spammers hawking dating sites and pen1s pills. It’s the unrelenting commitment that I find odd.
Ailuridae
@Bob Loblaw:
You and eemom need to seriously get a life. This is getting creepy.
Pot meet kettle.
Dennis SGMM
The GOP has never gotten over the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices (AKA: The Senate Watergate Committee). They never will. The endless bullshit that they ran on Clinton makes it clear that only the blood of a Democratic president will wash away the stain on their honor.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Steve:
Did you really hear cries of Diebold after the 2008 primary?
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
yeah, I’ve mocked Glenn maybe…twice…in like the past month. It’s interesting you would act like I’m obsessed.
When the mask falls, it makes quite the thud
Dennis SGMM
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
I didn’t hear any cries of “Diebold!” but, I did hear the wind cry “Mary.”
Bob Loblaw
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Given the general mental health level amongst Democratic partisans that primary engendered, I’d be shocked if that claim wasn’t made somewhere.
dmsilev
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Fortunately, it’s not in DeMint’s hands. Each state does their own certification of the vote. DeMint can throw a hissy fit about zombie-ACORN or whatever; it won’t matter.
dms
jeffreyw
Homer does some investigating his own self.
stuckinred
Claire Mc Caskill is walking back her bitching about Conway’s ad on Tweety.
freelancer
@Dennis SGMM:
but was it before or after all the Jacks were in their boxes?
Bob Loblaw
@stuckinred:
Conway’s going to win. Never too early to make nice with the next BMOC.
You’re up to two mentions of his name in this thread alone. I’m thinking your math might not be up to snuff…
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Bob Loblaw:
I was an Edwards guy, so I didn’t get so wrapped up in it.
stuckinred
@Bob Loblaw: So what was the point of her being the dem who unloaded on Conway yesterday?
Efroh
OT, but this article re Justice Thomas’s wife lecturing Anita Hill is astounding:
The sheer arrogance of this woman.
themann1086
@Nick: Hell, some did before the primary, arguing that we shouldn’t support Sestak because he wasn’t liberal enough, especially on war issues (he supported Obama’s Afghan “surge”, although he also supports a fixed timetable iirc). Of course, ads from the RNSC airing right now say “There’s Left, There’s Far Left, And Then There’s Joe Sestak”. Because he supported a bigger stimulus, the public option, and cap & trade (including video clips of him defending/promoting these three positions). I’m going to be very interested in the exit polling to see how well that sticks. Hopefully it backfires, since the public supported the PO and wants the government to create more jobs, amirite? I hope so…
Nellcote
Considering how the gooper lawyers are gearing up to challenge voters (see TPM) I don’t expect all the results from the election to be in before xmas. Any dems that squeek through a win will be challenged. It’s all about the recounts.
Nick
@themann1086:
yeah because that’s been translating into votes.
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
the second one being where I said I only did it twice.
i know it’s commonplace for when your hero does something stupid and get mocked to accuse the mockers of being “obsessed” or whatever, but often it just makes you look desperate.
HRA
OT – Maybe?
Miller (R) Alaska used off duty soldiers for security guards.
They moonlight for a firm called Drop Zone.
I did wonder about their haircuts when watching the video of them detaining the reporter.
Really? Active duty US soldiers are allowed to moonlight?
Nick
@stuckinred:
she was just doing what every other progressive was doing.
freelancer
@Efroh:
Can only be matched by one other woman I can think of…
Corner Stone
@Dennis SGMM: It’s funny because I’ve always heard it whispered “Mariah”.
Steve
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: I don’t claim this is more than nutpicking, but see here and here and here and here and here.
Michael
Ginny Thomas is a teabagging *unt. I hate her with the white hot passion of a thousand blazing suns.
JPL
@Efroh: So after 19 years she wants an apology. Hmm, I wonder if anything else is going on here.
Mark S.
@Efroh:
The best part is Thomas claimed she was extending an olive branch with that message!
This much is clear: we need Virginia Thomas as a US ambassador. President Palin, make this happen!
fitzwili
@ DougJ
Believe me – I understand the exasperation but this is potentially good news. It might be a good idea not to frame it as a no matter what happens everything sucks situation. It deflates morale and is not conducive to GOTV. If everything is doomed, why try.
Ash Can
@jeffreyw: Is it just me, or does Homer have big feet? Is he a polydactyl, or is he just going to be the size of Tunch when he grows up? Or both?
Tonal Crow
This blog is like a frictionless Hamsher wheel. Over and over and over and over….
Nellcote
@Efroh:
Amongst heavy competition, that gets WTF??? of the day.
kay
@stuckinred:
He’s a great candidate. Have you listened to him? He’s genuinely talented.
Rand Paul is outmatched, in just every area. It’s sort of wonderful the Tea Partiers turned it into this big national race.
I love this : “a lecture in constitutional law from a self-certified ophthalmologist”.
He’s enjoying himself. He’s just poking Paul’s huge ego with a stick, for fun, then Paul pouts and whines, on cue.
themann1086
I like the story (via GOS) about the GOP running ads telling Latinos not to vote. They’re not even trying anymore are they?
Univision refused to run the ad.
Oscar Leroy
But–but–look forward, not backward!
eemom
At this point I don’t give a shit if Lollipop or anybody else accuses me of having a weird obsession with Greenwald or Hamsher. Their recent spewings have been so despicable that I’ll just call them as I see them, and take my chances with the devastating wit of Lollipop & co.
WereBear
@Efroh: Keeeeriminy on melba toast. (I’m trying to cut down on the swearing and blasphemy.)
But that took huge brass balls that have been buried in frozen nerve tissue for a couple of centuries.
Two points:
If I were Anita Hill, that would lead to Irish whiskey.
And
Perhaps Clarence Thomas is suffering for his sins in ways we cannot see.
Bob Loblaw
@stuckinred:
Why do Blue Dogs do anything they do? Their entire oeuvre is based on passive-aggression.
He had to resort to talking about secret blasphemy clubs and false idol worshiping to beat a guy who wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act and Medicare. No, he really isn’t that talented.
jeffreyw
@Ash Can: Just you, I think.
Paula
@eemom:
Well, it’s not a “weird obsession” if you’re merely the negative copy of everyone else’s “weird obsession”. GG/Hamsher are like the Lady Gaga of the lefty blogosphere — they’re thrown in your face so much that you have to react, and that reaction is proportional to the exposure.
I mean, the last time I looked @ GG (admittedly, it was more than 4 mos. ago) it was as if his entire post was littered with links to other posts that did little more than reiterate something he himself wrote.
Ash Can
@Efroh: I was heartened to see that Hill notified the university authorities, who in turn forwarded Thomas’s message to the FBI. That’s just fucked up.
Ash Can
@jeffreyw: Regardless, he sure is cute. :)
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
And that’s his fault? It’s not like he didn’t spend the past three months slamming Paul repeatedly for wanting to repeal the Civil Rights Act and Medicare. If you had been paying attention, that was the gist of his entire campaign. Guess what, didn’t work, Kentucky was ok with that.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
As a long time member of the Jack Conway Bandwagon, you nailed precisely why I'm such a big fan of his campaign. He knows exactly what Rand Paul is all about and he knows how to make him look consistently ridiculous. Plus, he thoroughly enjoys the task.
I, for one, am greatly anticipating the Al Fraken/Jack Conway Era.
eemom
@Paula:
He kind of hit rock bottom for me yesterday when he said that Democrats’ attacks on the Teatards are “overblown,” and cited the Conway ad as an example.
I just don’t see how even his staunchest apologists could defend that as anything other than pure spitefulness and hypocrisy.
Bob Loblaw
@Nick:
This would seem to indicate that a candidate’s “talent” is an irrelevant factor in getting elected then. Which, for one, isn’t news, and second, why it’s pointless to try and define talent at all.
Dennis SGMM
@Corner Stone:
No, no, no: the rain is Tess, the fire is Joe, and they call the wind Mariah….
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
“Rand Paul has to answer two questions here today” Hah!
Rand Paul is thinking “I have to do what? I am the FRONT RUNNER!”
He hones right in on Paul’s almost foppish air of entitlement, and huge ego.
Conservatives can sound preachy and silly and vain, with all that abstract meaningless nonsense they spout, and Paul is just the prime example of that type.
Bob Loblaw
@eemom:
You didn’t understand what he wrote. The line about the “accomplished Meghan McCain” should have been a giveaway.
His point is that Tea Partiers aren’t some new malignancy. They’re the exact same Republicans we’ve seen for forty years. So treating teabaggers as extraordinary whackjobs while allowing “serious” beltway Republicans like McCain and McConnell and whoever to skate by with credibility intact is doing nothing to shift public discourse leftward. They all have the exact same practical designs for the country, especially from a national security point of view, which is what he cares about above all.
It’s the same position as digby and others on the subject. You can disagree, but don’t act like he’s some tea party sympathizer. That just makes yourself look cheap.
kay
@Bob Loblaw:
He gave a great speech on the constitution.
It was basically “we all live in the house FDR built” which Democrats used to run on, before the Federalist Society constitutional interpretation became the only version we all hear.
There were probably people in that audience hearing that for the very first time, that civil rights legislation and regulatory power are all grounded in the commerce clause. It simply doesn’t get said. No one knows that conservatives have been fighting this same battle since 1937, and that all of these things are hard-won gains that can be lost. He tied it all together.
Of course the morons in media are going to focus on the ad. The speech was too substantive and truthful.
eemom
@Bob Loblaw:
No, asshole, it is you who don’t understand. I was responding to a direct quote, which appeared at the end of the post after the “point” you are referring to. Which I also don’t think was made in good faith, but I’m not going to bother explaining that to you.
Bob Loblaw
@kay:
Great for him. I don’t by any means believe him to be a bad candidate. I suspect that most Democrats who got their starts in politics after 1994 are, and will continue to be, more aggressive in defending Democratic policy nationwide than the older generations against opposition.
I just don’t think it should take unusual talent to beat the Rand Pauls of the world, and acting like it does can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Paula
@eemom:
Fucking hell, you made me read that column, too!! >: [
Ok, so the premise is not so much about the teatards as it is about Obama getting support from teabaggers about Afghanistan policy. So by focusing on the teabagger craziness, the media and others are ignoring how in sync Obama and the teabagger candidates truly are.
So, get that? Obama = Tea Party Candidates
But in the middle of the argument he has to admit for reality’s sake that the Republicans have been pretty extreme lately and so he drops in that quote from Dick Armey about how the Republicans think that “all of this chatter about post-partisan transcendence and trans-partisan harmony and the like is so inane,” and that “Republicans have made about as clear as possible that even though they’ll pay lip service to ‘bipartisanship,’ they don’t actually want that.” and Greenwald himself wrote earlier that “Republicans aren’t interested in ‘bipartisanship’ except to the extent that they can force Democrats to enact their policies even though they have only a small minority thanks to being so forcefully rejected by the citizenry.” Also, mentioning this is helpful in reminding the reader how ineffective Obama has been in changing the culture of Washington, because of course that’s why everyone wanted to vote for him, right? Everyone who voted for Barack Obama did it for the exact same reasons, and that reason is going to be alarmingly similar to what the MSM said we voted for — never mind that GG is usually circumspect in regards to the MSM.
Now apparently, the POV that leads him to write that the Tea Party agrees with Obama sees no connection between what Obama has to deal with in regards to the Republicans as GG himself described them, who in this particular post are disambiguated from the Tea Party extremism so that “Obama’s Afghanistan Policy” somehow sprung up like Athena from Zeus’s brain and stands alone for the Tea Party to “agree” or “disagree” with.
Suffice it to say: LOLZ to this column. It appears subtle but it’s about as sharp (and about as useful) as a blunt pair of scissors.
jwb
Went OfA call banking tonight. All call posts were full, and for awhile there were people waiting in line to make calls. Morale was high. The people I talked to on the phone were pissed—at the Goopers. For what it’s worth, I don’t really have the sense that the base is unmotivated.
Bob Loblaw
@eemom:
He’s not fucking Proust or something. His point, which was self-indulgent as he so often is, wasn’t that complicated.
It wasn’t support for the teabagger cause, it was another broadside against the Obama terror policies. Because if these teabaggers are all so very insane, then why doesn’t that insanity transcend to their unqualified support for said terror policies, which have “serious” backing among both the far-right and the left in this country. And why shouldn’t that give liberals pause?
It’s snarky, absolutist, and a massive false equivalence. It was a terrible, irrelevant column. It wasn’t hypocritical though. Greenwald simply hates everybody at this point, except for maybe Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold (if that). He has no allegiances and no sides, he wants to see everybody taken down because that’s how strongly he believes they’ve overreached. It’s him (and the ACLU) against the world.
He is not a person who can affect public policy in any way. You don’t need to be so afraid of him.
Paula
@Paula:
Should read : “Now apparently, the POV that leads him to write that the Tea Party agrees with Obama sees no connection between the ongoing Afghanistan question and what Obama has to deal with in regards to the Republicans as GG himself described them
Chris G.
I am going to suggest that perhaps the tightening at the Senate level generally reflects the fact that many of the GOP Senate candidates are truly horrible, unappealing candidates. Guess what? So are lots and lots of the GOP’s House candidates. The movement towards the Dems in WV and PA and CO and KY and WI and even MO and NC may be indicative of something that, generic ballot be damned, is going on at the level of individual House races. Keep in mind that it’s all but unheard of for a party to take over the House but not the Senate, and that the Senate is looking much, much better than it was a few weeks ago.
Chris G.
@kay: I couldn’t get over how badly Paul came off in that debate, between the waving and voice cracking and the canned responses. These are not the reactions of a candidate shrugging off an attack he knows is a baseless one (like Blumenthal on investigating the WWE from his debate with McMahon) or even a candidate confident in his ability to respond (like Dubya and his line about being young and irresponsible when he was young and irresponsible). This is a guy about to snap.
JAHILL10
@jwb: Thank you for all that you did and do!
bob h
Egged on by Palin and the Teatards, the Republican House will do one or all of the following as a demonstration of zealotry:
a) Trigger a US treasury default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.
b) Interfere legislatively with the operations of the Federal Reserve.
c) Shut down the government.