Month: November 2010
Change We Can’t Believe In
So, Rick Scott’s our new governor. Why?
And teabagger Rubio’s our Senate guy?
It just got horrible ta
Live in post-midterm Florida,
And we can’t go to Cali to get high!
Bush Cites Criticism by Kanye West As Worst Moment of Presidency – Not 9/11, Not Iraq, Katrina, Economic Collapse
George Bush’s announcement last summer that he would come out of seclusion in October to promote a book about his presidency written in his name titled “Decision Points” sent Republicans into a panic. Within days of the announcement, word came that Bush had delayed his press junket until after the elections.
Lauer: “I wonder if some people are going to read that, now that you’ve written it, and they might give you some heat for that. And the reason is this — “
Bush [interrupting]: “Don’t care.”
Republicans panicked because they suspected, rightly, that having Bush out doing press would remind voters about the bad old days when he and his cronies in Congress, including Speaker-in-Waiting John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, were in charge. His presence would have disrupted their campaign to shift blame for the crises Bush created and/or ignored to Pres. Obama — a campaign that ultimately worked out remarkably well for them in the midterm elections.
The election is over, and Bush is back and, well, badder than ever. The first soundbite from his book tour proves that Republicans were right to keep him under wraps.
In an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer set to air next week, Bush offers a glimpse of just how disruptive he could have been to his party’s midterm campaign:
Verbatim
I see a looming giant on the horizon for 2012 … you better try to get an interview with him because if he runs, it is not only a three way race, he’s going to blow the whole two party system apart.
— Ralph Nader, in an interview on the Fox Business Network, on New York City Michael Bloomberg possibly running as an independent candidate for president.
CA08: Speaker Pelosi Wins Re-election with 80% of Vote
80%
Percent of the vote received by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her re-election bid as the congresswoman from California’s 8th District. Vote tallies for her opponents were 15 percent for Republican John Dennis and 2 percent each for Gloria La Riva of the PFP Party and Philip Berg of the Libertarian Party.
ABC News to Andrew Breitbart: F*ck Off
ABC News apparently likes to learn its lessons the hard way.
The following letter was sent from ABC and received by Mr. Breitbart:
Dear Mr. Breitbart,
We have spent the past several days trying to make clear to you your limited role as a participant in our digital town hall to be streamed on ABCNews.com and Facebook. The post on your blog last Friday created a widespread impression that you would be analyzing the election on ABC News.
We made it as clear as possible as quickly as possible that you had been invited along with numerous others to participate in our digital town hall. Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage. As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.
Sincerely,
Andrew Morse
‘Un-Enthusiasm Gap’: At Least 5% of Voters Disapprove of, But Plan to Vote for, Republicans – Means GOP May Get Majority But No Mandate
Earlier I posted a recap of FiveThirtyEight.com pollster Nate Silver’s scenario in which, despite all the dire predictions, Democrats could hold onto enough seats today to retain control of Congress.
If, say, 40 million people vote today, at least 2 million and 3.2 million of them will be voting for candidates from a party they don’t like.
Although Silver did not address it, there is another statistical anomaly out there that has remained consistent in the polling recently: an “un-enthusiasm gap” among people who say they hold a lower opinion of Republicans than Democrats but plan to vote for Republican candidates nonetheless.
Poll after poll has shown that Republicans are the least popular political entity out there.
In early September, polls found favorability ratings for Republicans in the low 20s and Democrats in the mid-30s — while concurrent generic ballot results showed GOP candidates up by five to 10 points or more. What this meant was that as many as 10 to 15 percent of voters back then were saying that they planned to vote for candidates representing a party they did not like.
Huh?
Uber Pollster Nate Silver Says Democrats Could Hold Congress
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com writes, “While our forecast and a good deal of polling data suggest that the Republicans may win the House of Representatives on Tuesday, perhaps all is not lost for the Democrats. Here’s one possible scenario for how things might not end up as expected.”
Silver suggests that the GOP wave could sweep through the South taking out marquee Democrats like Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and John Spratt of South Carolina, but diminish a little in the Midwest with key Democratic seats preserved in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but continue to roll westward and take down Dems in Colorado but then stall in Nevada and evaporate along the Pacific Coast, where voters have not succumbed to tea bag fever. Democratic victories there could provide a firewall in which Dems hold the Senate and, narrowly, the House.
Admittedly, there is an element of whistling past the graveyard here but Silver’s suggestion that things may not be entirely as they seem is at least plausible.
Even so, if the likelihood that Dems could hold both houses of Congress is out there, why hasn’t it showed up in the polling? Silver lists five possible reasons:
