links for 2010-09-29

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint last week accused his Senate Republican colleagues of doing “everything” in their power to help Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s write-in campaign against GOP nominee Joe Miller.

And he pounded them in a fundraising solicitation for doing “business as usual,” just as he “thought Republicans in Washington were beginning to get the message.”

Turns out Republicans got his message — they just didn’t like it.

A number of Republican senators told POLITICO Tuesday that DeMint was skewing the GOP Conference’s position solidly backing Miller, saying he was intensifying a rift within a party that’s trying to unite following a divisive primary season. And Republican leaders say DeMint’s decision to lay out to his supporters the debate about Murkowski in the closed-door meeting was a clear breach of protocol where senators don’t discuss private sessions between colleagues with outsiders.
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In an age of diminished resources, the United States may be heading for an intensifying confrontation between the gray and the brown.

Two of the biggest demographic trends reshaping the nation in the 21st century increasingly appear to be on a collision course that could rattle American politics for decades. From one direction, racial diversity in the United States is growing, particularly among the young. Minorities now make up more than two-fifths of all children under 18, and they will represent a majority of all American children by as soon as 2023, demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution predicts.
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He misreads racial and cultural assimilation and the question of legal immigration to provide better educated workers

A new poll indicates that the Democrats are opening up leads in the California battles for senator and governor.

According to a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday, 52 percent of likely voters in the Golden State say they support Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, with 43 percent backing Republican challenger Carly Fiorina.

In the fight for governor, the poll indicates that 52 percent of likely voters back California Attorney General and former Gov. Jerry Brown, the Democratic nominee, with 43 percent supporting former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, the GOP nominee.
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Hard to believe this poll but it may spur voter turnout to vote against the Dems.

Get an outline map showing the 50 states and take a look at the latest poll averages in pollster.com in each race for senator and governor. Color in the percentage (rounded off; no need for tenths) by which either the Republican or Democratic candidate is leading (I use blue for Republicans, red for Democrats) in each state.

The results are revealing, even breathtaking.
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Read all of the analysis with its implications for the 2012 Presidential race.

Thanks to the leadership of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, the Democratic Party is facing the biggest defeat in midterm elections in the past 110 years, perhaps surpassing the modern record of a 74-seat gain set in 1922. They will also lose control of the Senate.

Republicans are now leading in 54 Democratic House districts. In 19 more, the incumbent congressman is under 50 percent and his GOP challenger is within five points. That makes 73 seats where victory is within easy grasp for the Republican Party. The only reason the list is not longer is that there are 160 Democratic House districts that were considered so strongly blue that there is no recent polling available.
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A perfect storm and wave for the GOP

Former Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, the failed 1988 presidential nominee, recently visited the White House and delivered his strategy for the midterm elections: pound key precincts across the country with the message that Republicans want to implement the same policies that led to the Great Recession.

Dukakis, who said in a telephone interview that he "popped in" to the White House while on a trip here several weeks ago, said he told aides to President Obama that Republicans "want to go back and do exactly what got us in this mess in the first place."

"It seems to me there has to be a single message coming from Democrats, from the president on down," Dukakis said. "We've got to pound that message as hard as can from now until November."

Asked if the White House aides were receptive, he said, "I think they certainly get it." He declined to name the aides he met at the White House.
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Don't think it will help the Dems much – advice from this loser.