Archive for November, 2010
Nate Silver makes some interesting observations about GOTV, ground operations for Obama Vs. the GOP in 2012.
On the surface, this looks like horrible news for Democrats: the enthusiasm gap was the largest in precisely those states that a Democrat (or a Republican for that matter) needs to win the Presidency.
But there is something else to keep in mind. Mr. Obama’s campaign had a terris ific turnout operation, and — like any good turnout operation — it was concentrated in swing states. Mr. McCain’s campaign, by contrast, de-emphasized its “ground game” (a mistake that Karl Rove and George W. Bush would never have made), hoping to nationalize the election and win on the basis of television commercials.
What we’re probably seeing, then, is the “hangover” from the Mr. Obama’s turnout efforts in 2008. In states like Ohio and New Hampshire and Indiana, where Democrats registered tons of new voters and made sure that all of them got to the polls, a lot of them didn’t participate this time around. In other states, the electorate wasn’t much different and the people who were voting this year strongly resembled those who voted in 2010 — although Republicans still did better because the preferences of independent voters shifted toward them.
This sort of phenomenon is actually quite typical. In general, the bigger a President’s coattails, the more his party tends to suffer at the next midterm.
The key question for 2012 is whether those new voters will re-enter the electorate when Mr. Obama is on the ballot again. If so, Democrats should be in reasonably good shape — and they’ll also win back quite a few of the House seats that they lost in these states.
If not, however — or if Republicans are able to build a get-out-the-vote effort that is the equal of Mr. Obama’s — we could be up very late into the evening counting votes on Nov. 6, 2012.
This is a role where The Tea Party Movement can help supply the volunteers in key battleground states.
Time to organize. The data is there. Tags: GOP, Tea_Party
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Retired Air Force Gen. Lester L. Lyles, left, shares a laugh with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Ohio Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman at InfoTech 2010 on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010, in Dayton, Ohio
Advantage Sarah Palin in the latest Rasmussen Poll.
OK, the election’s over, and the message from most voters was that they didn’t care much for President Obama’s agenda. Now the focus is on the race for the presidency in 2012.
On the Republican side, it’s a dead heat between the ex-governors – Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Sarah Palin of Alaska, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely GOP Primary voters.
Asked who they would vote for if the Republican presidential primary were held today, 20% say Romney, 19% Huckabee and another 19% Palin.
Romney and Palin are tied among male GOP voters, while Huckabee has a slight edge among female voters.
In October 2009 when Likely Republican primary voters were given a choice of five potential presidential nominees, Huckabee led with 29% support, followed by Romney with 24% of the vote and Palin at 18%.
Rounding out the list of seven candidates chosen by Rasmussen Reports for the question, with their levels of support, are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (13%), Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (6%), Texas Congressman Ron Paul (5%) and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (3%). Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.
Sarah Palin will do campaign speaking events, publish a new book and watch what the new GOP House does to Obama poll numbers and decide either a little before or after Ronald Reagan’s birthday on February 6, 2011.
If Palin runs, she will likely win the GOP Presidential nomination.
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Fox News interactive map with races in play Congressional Districts Overlaid with Districts that voted for President Obama in 2008
Looking at the map above, Republicans although unsuccessful in taking the majority of Senate seats on tuesday show increasingly bright prospects for the 2012 election cycle.
Welcome to the 2012 election cycle. The three most vulnerable Democratic senators in 2012 are probably Bill Nelson of Florida, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Jon Tester of Montana. Republicans also may target Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, Jim Webb of Virginia, Maria Cantwell of Washington, and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. Retirement watch: Dianne Feinstein of California (age in 2012: 79), Daniel Akaka of Hawaii (88), Nelson of Nebraska (71), and Kohl (77).
Nebraska, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Montana, Michigan: Those are all anti-Obama/Republican states.
Also, Republican Dick Lugar of Indiana will be 80 years old and may retire – calling GOP Rep. Mike Pence?
The above mentioned Democratic Senators will be under intense scrutiny by The Tea Party and will be targeted for replacement. Early recruitment of the best conservative candidates is essential for success and should begin today.
But, conservative propsects to remold the Senate majority and replace Democrat Senator Harry Reid as leader look promising. Tags: Election_2012
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Posted by Flap in Tea Party
Tea Party Patriots Keli Carender (R) of Seattle, Washington, and Diana Reimer of Pennsylvania hold flags during a Flag Ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington November 2, 2010. After a long and bitter campaign, Americans cast their votes on Tuesday in elections that could sweep Democrats from power in Congress and slam the brakes on President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda
32 Per Cent in the House and 50 Per Cent in the U.S. Senate?
But, what the Left-leaning media does not understand is that The Tea Party Movement is not about one election. It is about organization and policy.
Tuesday’s results make clear the Tea Party is the most dynamic and successful grass-roots political movement since Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican revolt against John Adams and the Federalists in 1800.
They did so because they did exactly what they should have done. Instead of fighting specific issues and causes like Card Check and cap-and-trade, they ignored their critics while focusing their energies on finding, fielding, funding and fueling candidates for elected office at every level of government, but especially for Congress.
President Obama and the 2012 GOP Presidential candidates will find out soon enough how successful they were.
Can you hear us now?
Tags: Tea_Party
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California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and Governor-Elect Jerry Brown, November 2, 2010
One answer: Los Angeles County
Look at the California election map:
And, then the results from Los Angeles County.
Republican Carly Fiorina performed well in many California counties but the almost 600,000 vote deficit in Los Angeles County spelled her doom.
Why?
Demographics for one, since Los Angeles city and its outlying cities have large ethnic Hispanic, Jewish, African American and Asian populations who overwhelmingly register and vote Democratic. President Obama is very popular with these communities and he was very visible in campaigning for the long term incumbent.
Both sides said that in the end, Boxer also got a significant boost from President Obama, who came out to campaign for her and was featured in television and radio ads in the closing weeks of the campaign.
While Obama’s approval ratings have dipped well below 50% in other parts of the country, 54% of voters in California approved of how the president is doing his job.
“In the rest of the country it was 1994 all over again, in California it was 2008 all over again,” said UC San Diego political science professor Thad Kousser. “This is a state where the president still has some support, where it seems like the Democrats turned out in large numbers, and it wasn’t quite the same threatening electoral conditions that we’ve seen elsewhere.”
Also, the number of union member households is especially large – and the LA unions turn out their voters to the polls.
With the sprawling LA landscape, the campaign tool of choice is, of course, television and Barbara Boxer won on that front as well.
They had roared into the fall campaign with a significant financial advantage — allowing them to air television ads for more than a week unchallenged by Fiorina. In mid-September, they launched the first of a series of scorching ads detailing the layoffs and outsourcing during her tenure at HP, as well as the millions of dollars in compensation she received.
Boxer’s campaign manager, Rose Kapolczynski, said at that juncture, many voters still did not know much about Fiorina: “That was an opportunity to define her,” she said.
Within a few weeks, polling showed that Fiorina had slumped by eight points.
Boxer’s pollster Mark Mellman said Fiorina’s business experience initially impressed voters but “when people understood what she really did at HP, it was devastating to her.”
“If there is a mortal sin in this economy, it is exporting jobs,” he said.
And, Carly Fiorina never did try to defend her record at HP “on air.” This was a critical mistake and although Fiorina had written a book “Tough Choices” which defended her career and record at HP the ads featuring former laid off and outsourced employees with NO defense were devastating. These ads took the “wind” out of her campaign, especially in TV susceptible Los Angeles. Boxer’s TV and radio ads droned on and on.
When Boxer, right after Labor Day, started to define Fiorina as a greedy, corporate executive who was insensitive to her employees, Fiorina should have fielded her own ads with “real” HP employees and with Californians whose lives were negatively affected by Barbara Boxer policies.
But, Marty Wilson and his staff elected to go in a different direction.
But Fiorina campaign manager Marty Wilson said the campaign decided early on to focus on defining Boxer as an ineffective and partisan incumbent who had been in office too long, to the detriment of Californians. Fiorina’s ads glossed over her corporate record to focus on her pledge to find common ground in Washington.
“We could not win the election if we played on Barbara Boxer’s turf, which would have been to get into a big, long, lengthy discussion about why corporate CEOs have to make the decisions that they make. It was not a winning argument for us,” Wilson said. Neither, however, was the strategy they pursued.
“At the end of the day, the simple answer is we didn’t get enough votes,” Wilson said.
I think Marty ignored a cardinal rule of politics in this case (and I do know Marty and he and I may argue this point – by the way, they know how I feel). When someone hits you with negative ads (especially on California television), you must respond immediately or the voters just might to start to believe them. Obviously, LA County voters did.
The inability of the campaign to respond quickly and respond in kind “on air” in Los Angeles, cost them whatever chance they had to win this race. Independent TV ad expenditures later in the campaign after Fiorina had already been defined as “out for herself” were not heard by the voters.
It was already too late.
Tags: Barbara Boxer, Carly Fiorina
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Posted by Flap in Day By Day
Day By Day by Chris Muir
Americans have seen what President Obama and his merry band of socialist progressive have brought the country and have soundly rejected their agenda. So, back to the Saul Alinsky protesting tactics that are the trademark of the LEFT. All noise and no effective/substantive policy.
Anyone want to bet that the Far Left goes after Obama after he compromises with the GOP controlled House?
It happened to Jimmy Carter after all.
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A Statement From Kevin Spillane – Senior Consultant, Steve Cooley for Attorney General
“With the counties completing their semi-official returns, Steve Cooley trails Kamala Harris by 14,838 votes – two-tenths of a percentage point. There are over 1 million provisional and absentee ballots yet to be counted.”
“The race for Attorney General will not be decided for at least another couple of weeks, and potentially could go until the official Certification of Vote deadline on December 3.
“We will continue to monitor the situation. The only thing we are certain of is that the final outcome will be close. We are grateful for all the good wishes of our supporters and will keep you updated.”
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Alot of ballots to be counted.
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Republicans may have won the U.S. House of Representatives in Tuesday's midterm election, but things, as usual, are different in the Golden State, where Democrats claimed victory in nearly all of California's statewide races.
We're still waiting for the outcome of the attorney general race, where San Francisco Democrat Kamala Harris currently has a razor-thin lead over Los Angeles Republican Steve Cooley. But voters went decidedly Democratic on the rest of the ticket.
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They call it a shellacking….
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Republican Kristi Noem, who's already being touted as a rising star in her party after capturing South Dakota's at-large House seat Tuesday, still hasn't decided whether to back Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) for House Speaker.
On a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Noem said it would be premature to announce her backing for Boehner or any other Republican for Speaker just yet.
"I'm not even sure who's running yet," said Noem, who ousted Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) in a tight race Tuesday.
The Republican, who has evoked comparisons to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, indicated that she would wait until she's had the chance to converse with some of her new GOP colleagues in Washington before she decides whom to back for the Speakership.
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Rookie mistake? Or just being cautious?
Probably the latter….
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Rudy Giuliani and Barbara Walters bantering on The View today.
WALTERS: She now says she will run if nobody else will. Do you think she would make a good President?
RUDY: Well, first of all, she's not going to have that situation — that nobody else will [run]. I ain't never heard of that!
Nobody will run for President of the United States?
There are now people registering as Republican in order to line up to run.
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Rudy is also the quipper:
Later, they ask Rudy what it would take for him to run.
His answer: "If nobody else runs."
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San Francisco has become the first major U.S. city to pass a law that cracks down on the popular practice of giving away free toys with unhealthy restaurant meals for children.
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed the law on Tuesday on a veto-proof 8-to-3 vote. It takes effect on December 1.
The law, like an ordinance passed earlier this year in nearby Santa Clara County, would require that restaurant kids' meals meet certain nutritional standards before they could be sold with toys.
Opponents of the law include the National Restaurant Association and McDonald's Corp, which used its now wildly popular Happy Meal to pioneer the use of free toys to market directly to children.
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Good grief – next they will legislate what we eat.
Big government = lack of liberty
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