The Battle for America 2010: Six Days from the Reckoning
CALIFORNIA
Key Races: Governor, U.S. Senate
Sen. Barbara Boxer, locked in a tight race with Republican challenger Carly Fiorina, got a surprise this week: The world learned that she may have failed to disclose real estate holdings on her personal finance disclosure as required by law. The Foundation for Ethics in Public Service has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, requesting an investigation. Boxer chairs the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. For now.
This week Obama showed up in the Bay Area for three fundraising events and then gallivanted out to a Los Angeles luncheon for Barbara Boxer and to stump for area Democrats at USC.
The USC event attracted a venerable who’s who in California Democratic Party politics: the band Ozomatli, actor Jamie Fox, and candidates Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown. Obama told the mostly young, cheering thousands in attendance that “yes we can” in November. California Young Americans for Freedom showed up to protest the USC Obama event.
With less than two weeks to go until the election, polling shows the Senate run to have tightened a bit. Over at Rasmussen (October 22), Barbara Boxer has 48% of likely voters and Fiornia 46%. Three percent are in the undecided column. In other words, a tie and a tossup. RCP has similar results, showing that Fiorina has slowly chipped away at Boxer’s lead.
Via Politico, a recent poll from Public Policy Polling (October 21) shows that Meg Whitman’s $163 million gambit may not be paying off, as she garnered 36% to Jerry Brown’s 44% among likely voters. A USC/Los Angeles Times poll taken October 13-20 shows Brown commanding a 13-point lead. However, other polls show the race much closer, and it’s still in the “tossup” category over at RCP. Rasmussen also has it much closer: Brown at 48% and Whitman at 42%. The Whitman campaign released a video this week portraying Jerry Brown as a union puppet, and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg campaigned for her in California.
In case you missed Bryan Preston’s post at PJM, filmmaker David Zucker of Airplane and Naked Gun fame presents us, in my opinion, with the best ad this season.
David Zucker became a Republican after the 9/11 attacks. From Zucker’s Big Government piece:
In the debate with Carly Fiorina, the subject was brought up, but Boxer was quite adept at deflecting it — and still without an apology. Let this video be my apology. Every time I see the public record listing my campaign contribution to Boxer — I wince. I mean, we all have things we’ve done in the past that we’re embarrassed about, but I’d rather have my being restricted to 100 yards away from elementary schools be public knowledge than that $5,000 Boxer campaign contribution.
Quicklinks:
Bi-polar, Golden State — Voters in California are now souring on marijuana legalization (Proposition 19) and the global warming law postponement bill (Proposition 23).
Liberalism, Tolerance, Juan Williams-style — Duane Hammond helped construct the stage that Obama spoke on during his USC appearance. His union fired him for wearing a sweatshirt with “George H.W. Bush” on the front and the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush on the back. His son is serving our country aboard the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush.
You Can’t Handle the Truth — New ad from John Dennis.
Ministry of Truth to Contact CBS? — A 60 Minutes report shows California unemployment/underemployment at 22%.
It’s Obvious Who the GOP Ad-blitz Villain Is – Clue: her name rhymes with Belosi.
What Is a Top Tax-dodging American Company to Do? — Well, hobnob with Obama, of course. Before heading to Los Angeles, Obama fundraised and mingled at Google executive Marissa Mayer’s home, raising $30,000 per head. Google’s recent fiscal results show that the company “outsourced” its foreign profits through Ireland, the Netherlands, and Bermuda. Google thus paid an effective 2.4% overseas tax rate. Google employees give 75% of their political contributions to the Democratic Party. (Thanks to WarPlanner for this tip.)
BBC in CD-47 — The British Broadcasting Corporation introduces both candidates Loretta Sanchez and Van Tran to an international audience.
Gunny vs. Filner — “Gunny” Nick Popaditch debates Democratic Representative Bob Filner for the first and only time. The two are facing off in the race for California’s 51st Congressional District.
What’s Good for the Goose — Is good for the gander? Barbara Boxer used her seniority to purchase, and then profit from, IPOs in the past. Recall that Boxer has repeatedly hammered Carly Fiorina’s effete, elitist, business credentials.
Go Ahead, Punk, Obama’s Not Making My Day — Dirty Harry, no fan of Obama?
CONNECTICUT
Key Race: U.S. Senate
Too much money spent on the campaign and too many negative ads. That seems to be the mindset of voters in Connecticut about how outsider Linda McMahon has comported herself as GOP candidate for U.S. Senate against insider Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who has served as state attorney general.
Take the money. As Leanne Gendreau reports on NBC Connecticut, at the beginning of the campaign, McMahon announced she’d spend up to $50 million of her own money. The latest figures from the Federal Election Commission disclose that she has already spent $40 million of that. Meanwhile, Blumenthal has spent $4.4 million, with about $500,000 of that what he loaned to the campaign from his own funds.
Rather than perceiving the kind of investment McMahon is making as a sign of confidence in herself and a commitment to her mission of changing business as usual in Washington, D.C., voters are turned off. And not only in CT. They aren’t cottoning either to Meg Whitman’s $140 million spending to become governor of California. Probably no coincidence, the more the numbers come out about Whitman’s self-funded run, the more dirt gets dished about her sons. Meanwhile, her opponent Jerry Brown has a double-digit lead. As for money-bags McMahon, the Sulfolk University poll has Blumenthal at 57 percent and her at 39 percent
And that brings us to the other excess: negative advertising. Because of her war chest, McMahon has been flooding television with commercials. Increasingly they’ve become more and more negative. Voters are pushing back. The Sulfolk poll also found that when asked who ran the more negative campaign, 62 percent of likely voters said McMahon and only 20 percent said Blumenthal.
With all that negativity in the air, some of the smears about McMahon’s policies when she was head of the WWE are beginning to stick. Earlier, they were largely ignored. For example, as Marc Ambinder recently reports in the Atlantic, Blumenthal seems to be successfully body-slamming McMahon “for the way her company has treated its wrestlers (as independent contractors rather than full time employees, depriving them of many benefits), for allegations surrounding the company’s management of wrestlers’ steroid use, and for the premature deaths of many wrestlers alleged to have used performance-enhancing substances.”
In light of those kinds of accusations about the behavior of McMahon, most folks in CT are simply shrugging off her complaints that Blumenthal is, shock shock, aligning with Planned Parenthood to dig up photos of women and the WWE that are misogynistic.
However, the smart money is still approaching this race as too close to call. It is. McMahon has adept handlers and anything could happen before Election Day.
The lesson this year could be that if you spend millions of dollars of your own money on your own campaign, it doesn’t mean you’re going to win. Even in this media-obsessed society of ours, nothing succeeds like a good idea. Perhaps if these big-spending candidates hit their opponents more on substance rather than on personal attacks, they would get farther. Also, candidates like Linda McMahon have to start showing what they WILL do in Washington, instead of what the other guy will do. She needs to show that she understands Congress and how she will get things done. Politicians can promise anything (like our dear “friend” Obama proved in our last election). People want to now know how you’re going to deliver on those promises. Everything else is just noise.
ATTENTION NEVADANS:
DO NOT BE DUPED into voting for “TPN” (Tea Party of Nevada) candidate Scott Ashjian. The TPN is nothing but a Democrat front group to siphon votes towards career politician and radical leftwinger Harry Reid:
New York Times: Democrats Backing Fake Tea Party Candidates
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/harry-reid-scott-ashjian/2010/10/24/id/374718
Tea Party Knockoffs: Watered Down, Bitter
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/tea-party-knockoffs-watered-down-bitter/
Washington Times: 3rd-party candidates could tip tight races
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/24/3rd-party-candidates-could-tip-tight-races/?page=3
LVRJ: THE POLITICAL EYE: Skeptics question Tea Party of Nevada
http://www.lvrj.com/news/skeptics-question-tea-party-of-nevada-84939927.html
ONLY A VOTE FOR SHARRON ANGLE WILL “REJECT REID”, Chicago-style thuggery and Marxist-style Communism currently infecting D.C.!
Political Shenanigans and Political Simpletons
It had to be expected.
With all the vitriol erupting out of both political parties, with the Democrat president skimming the bottom of the approval barrel at 37% and VP Joe Biden calling the imminent midterm election “more important” than 2008, with all the Dem guns–big guns and little guns–out on the hustings trying to salvage what’s salvageable next Tuesday, with a prominent Rhode Island Democrat telling Obama to “shove it,” things were bound to get dirty.
Dirtier, I should say. And they have gotten dirtier, in fact, ugly.
Thus, in Chicago, where strange things seem to happen around election time, and at other times, a few hundred thousand potential mail-in voters may be SOL when it comes to having their choices count because a “glitch” happened. Aside from the absurdity of voting by mail there was another absurdity: their ballots were misdirected to the IDCC, the Illinois Democratic Coordinated Council, and they may not get postmarked by the deadline.
Thus, in Kentucky during the Rand Paul-Jack Conway final debate to make Kentucky voters aware of where their candidates stand, a MoveOn.org operative fell while attempting to disrupt the debate, had her blonde wig ripped off, and then, adding injury to insult, claimed she was stepped on by a Rand supporter.
Thus, at the same debate, a Rand Paul supporter, a woman who recently had had foot surgery and was wearing a surgical boot, had that foot stomped on by a Conway guy. She had her incision torn open but both she and the other stompee refused medical treatment although both filed assault charges.
Thus, in Vegas and in New Bern, N.C., . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2389)
In VA-5, Periello and his allies (including the SEIU and an ACORN front group) have been running absolutely nonstop attack ads, trying to saddle Hurt with everything for voting against veterans to voting for tax increases (all bogus distortions) The fact that Robert (a friend of mine, BTW, and a good guy) is nonetheless up by six is a good indication that there aren’t enough lefties in Charlottesville-Albemarle to overcome the rest of an essentially conservative district.
About Virginia-8, the ‘untouchable’ seat of Jim Moran may be in trouble now that he has insulted members of the military, deriding theirs as not ‘public service’.
Latest poll shows: Moran 32.3%, Murray 29.7% and UNDECIDED 30.5%
Murray needs a little pick up in name recognition to grab those undecideds.
First, Bryan, you’ve done a great job of helping us stay abreast of the wide-ranging issues and trends in this crucial election. Thank you.
Second, while I encourage everyone to NOT count votes before they’re cast, I strongly believe the polls are under-reporting the full force and fury of the “middles” – the middle class, middle America (or as Couric characterizes us, the great unwashed of flyover country), and the moderate/independent middle.
Why? I’m a small-business owner and dyed-in-the-wool GDI (‘gosh-darn’ independent). The owner of one of our partner companies is a registered Dem with centrist leanings. Many of my clients are Rs. Not one of us has participated in ANY election survey (and I’m receiving at least one and sometimes multiple survey calls every single day).
This informal sampling represents Republicans, Dems and Indies who may not participate in surveys, but who do show up and vote. ALL of us, in private conversations, have acknowledged we’re voting NO to every levy, every tax hike, every government-expanding local and state issue, and every candidate who has supported any of these. Practically speaking, that means we’re all voting the R-ticket (even though our state and local races have more than a few Rinos).
Finally, no matter what BO says, Nov 2 is a referendum on him, his party, his minions and his actions in office.
..one of the fallacies of polling is that opinions are sought while the person being poled is sitting on the couch in the comfort of his home. No absolutely definitive measure has been devised to determine if he or she will get up off the couch, get in the car, drive to the polling place, and cast the vote.
It is hard to exactly measure motivation.
It is not hard to measure. They just don’t do it.
Pollsters ask me:
Are you certain to vote; likely to vote; May not vote; Not going to vote?
They do not ask, “Are you damned-skippy, sure-as-Hell, Vengeance-on-your-mind going to vote?
If they did, they would have a more accurate picture. ;D
Sadly, motivation doesn’t always translate into action, and we all know which road is “paved with good intentions.” Your survey response option nails it: I am damned-skippy, sure-as-hell, vengence-on-my-mind going to vote. The PTB have absolutely no grasp of the depth, breadth and intensity of fury and commitment rising among we, the “middles.”
I live in SC, just South of Charleston in the 6th Congressional District, the racist district which is drawn to exclude whites and capture blacks, which has been held by King Clyburn (the House Majority Whip) for decades.
Anyways, I recieved a phone call, which requested that I answer some questions. I assumed it was push polling or real polling for the election, and being a political junkie, I was excited about participating.
Then 2nd Question they asked, after, are you registered to vote, was “What race are you?” To which I hesitantly answered Caucasian. They immediately ended the polling, politely but quickly.
Why am I not surprised!
Who or What Is Barney Frank?
Democrat Congressman Barney Frank’s website gives this quickie introduction: “Barney Frank has been in Congress since 1981. He is the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee. Previously he was a Massachusetts State Representative and an assistant to the Mayor of Boston. He has also taught at several Boston area universities.”
Would that that were all that could be said about the representative of Massachusetts’ 4th c.d.
The second member of the United States House of Representatives to openly declare his homosexuality, in 1987, according to Wikipedia, Barney shares his Newton, MA. duplex with his current “partner,” Jim Ready of Maine when both are in town. Sister to Democrat Ann Lewis, DNC operative and advisor to Hillary Clinton in 2008, Barney’s net worth as of that year was claimed to be $972,150.
Not bad at all for a nice, Jewish boy from Bayonne whose father managed a truck stop and served a year in the clinker.
Wikipedia provides precious little other information about Barney’s “personal life” but does say, correctly, that, “He is considered to be one of the most powerful members of Congress, which also makes him the most powerful homosexual in Congress and he’s never been reticent to exercise that power with gay legislation and causes.
What Wikipedia notably omits are references to the scandals of Rep. Barney Frank, principally consorting with a male prostitute, Steven Gobie, whom he later hired as a “personal assistant” and who used Barney’s Washington basement as a homosexual brothel. Barney’s fellow Dems didn’t see any of that as worthy of expulsion or even of censure.
It must be nice to work with good, Democrat buddies. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2419)