Day: October 16, 2014

Billionaire Behaving Badly – Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott Delays Debate in Fit of Pique

Jon Ponder

In case you missed it, check out the remarkable first start of the debate in the Florida governor’s race last night. Incumbent Republican governor Rick Scott, a billionaire, refused to take his place on the stage with his opponent, former Gov. Charlie Crist, a former Republican now turned Democrat, because Crist decided to have a small electric fan placed at his feet.

“Are we really going to debate about a fan?”
– Charlie Crist

When asked why he wanted the fan at his feet, Crist said, “Are we really going to debate about a fan? Or are we going to talk about education and the environment and the future of our state? I mean, really.”

When Scott finally got over himself and the debate began, one of the moderators asked him why he’d held up the event, which was televised live in all 11 Florida television markets and on C-SPAN.

“I waited to see if he––’til––we figured out if he was going to show up,” Scott said, addressing millions of viewers who’d just seen Crist show up five minutes earlier and stand there alone on the empty stage. “He said he wasn’t gonna come to the––he said he wasn’t gonna come to the debate. So why come out until he’s ready?”

Poltico.com has a substantive account of the debate HERE.

Voters Appear Set to Hand Control of Congress to the Party They Like Least

Jon Ponder
House Speaker Boehner, left, and prospective Senate Majority Leader McConnell
House Speaker Boehner, left, has a 28% favorable rating; prospective Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s is 25%, according to GOP-leaning Rasmussen

With the midterm elections less than a month away, polling suggests that voters will give the Republican Party majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time since 2006, when they booted GOP out of power after its disastrous six year run as George W. Bush’s “Rubberstamp Congress.”

The NBC poll found that while 59 percent of Republicans say they’re engaged in the election, just 47 percent of Democrats are paying attention

FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans a 60 percent chance of taking the Senate, and, largely because of Republican gerrymandering in 2011, there is little chance Democrats will take back the House. To keep their majority in the Senate, Democrats need to hold and/or win six seats, including five current seats in red and purple states — Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina and New Hampshire — and one blue state that looks wobbly, Colorado. They are likely to hold the open seat in Michigan, the race for the open seat in Georgia is considered winnable, and — if they’re having a good night — upsets are possible in Kansas and South Dakota.

How likely is that Democrats will have a good night on Nov. 4? An NBC poll this week found that likely voters favor a Republican-led Congress by two points, 46/44 percent, while the larger cohort of registered voters prefer to put Dems in charge by the same margin, 46/42 percent. The preference for Democratic-control by registered voters ought to be encouraging — the Dems have put time and money into getting out the vote in critical states — but NBC also found that while 59 percent of Republicans say they’re engaged in the election, just 47 percent of Democrats are paying attention.

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For the Presence of a Fan, a Debate Hung in Limbo

Buck Banks

Are we really going to debate about a fan? Or are we going to talk about education and the environment and the future of our state? I mean, really.

— Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D) as he stood alone on stage at Broward College on live TV waiting to start a gubernatorial debate, while Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) refused to take the stage Wednesday night because Crist insisted on using a fan to keep cool, the Miami Herald reports.>/h2.

Democrats Starting to Manage Midterm Expectations

Buck Banks

The first thing I see every morning when my eyes flutter open is 29 — which is the average loss to a president’s party in a second midterm. We never assumed the best, we prepared for the worst.

— Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, managing midterm election expectations in a NBC News interview.