One Week From Today!

In Wash., illegal immigrants canvassing for votes

SEATTLE -- When Maria Gianni is knocking on voters' doors, she's not bashful about telling people she is in the country illegally. She knows it's a risk to advertise to strangers that she's here illegally - but one worth taking in what she sees as a crucial election.


The 42-year-old is one of dozens of volunteers - many of them illegal immigrants - canvassing neighborhoods in the Seattle area trying to get naturalized citizens to cast a ballot for candidates like Democratic Senator Patty Murray, who is in a neck-to-neck race with Republican Dino Rossi.


Pramila Jayapal, head of OneAmerica Votes, says the campaign is about empowering immigrants who may not feel like they can contribute to a campaign because they can't vote.


"Immigrants really do matter," Jayapal said. "If we can't vote ourselves, we're gonna knock on doors, or get family members to vote."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102201280.html


Kind of makes you wonder if this was why Obama quit asking about illegal foreign contributions to the Chamber of Commerce.


Anti-Incumbent or Anti-Democrat?

One of the question swirling around this election, is this an anti-incumbent election (throw the bums out) or is it an anti-democrat election (throw out the Democrats). Looking at the House of Representatives we see 81 SEATS THE DEMOCRATS HOLD AS EITHER TOSS UPS OR LIKELY REPUBLICAN PICKUPS. On the other side, WE SEE 4 REPUBLICAN SEATS as either toss ups or likely Democrat.



The early vote: Signs of GOP passion

Just over a week before Election Day, signs of widespread Republican enthusiasm are apparent in the early-voter data, including in some places with highly competitive statewide races. Yet at the same time, for Democrats there are promising data in numerous states suggesting that the idea of a devastating turnout gap may be overblown.


POLITICO surveyed early voting through Saturday in 20 states, and IN 14 OF THE 15 THAT HAVE VOTER REGISTRATION BY PARTY, THE GOP'S EARLY TURNOUT PERCENTAGE IS RUNNING AHEAD OF THE PARTY'S SHARE OF STATEWIDE VOTER REGISTRATION — whether measured against 2006 or 2008, when President Barack Obama's campaign led to a surge in Democratic voter registration. As a result, Republicans say they're turning the tables on the Democratic dominance of early voting that paved the way for Obama's victory in 2008 — and that INDEPENDENTS' LEAN TOWARD THE GOP THIS YEAR WILL DO THE REST.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=DF3D938C-C3C9-92EB-6E99C5B626F1D9B9


President Sarah Palin?

PRESIDENT PALIN” is cover of New York mag. (Cover image http://politi.co/cqmtht) John Heilemann teases out the “Morning Joe” theory/dream: SARAH PALIN AS THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE, PLUS MAYOR BLOOMBERG AS A THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATE, COULD THROW THE RACE INTO THE HOUSE (AND JOHN GOES BEYOND “JOE” TO SAY SHE WOULD WIN): “Among two dozen senior strategists and operatives with whom I’ve spoken in recent day -- including many of those responsible for securing the nomination for the party’s last three standard-bearers -- there is a growing consensus that Palin is running or setting herself up to run.

And interesting scenario. Could it happen?

http://www.politico.com/playbook/


Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’

(CNSNews.com) - When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House in 2007, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.


"After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt."

Even if we give speaker Pelosi the benefit of the debt doubt, we know that the deficit was 164 Billion dollars in 2007. Multiply that by 4 (4 years) and we have the debt rising $656 billion. In fact the actual increase was $5 trillion or 762% of what she had when she arrived.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/debt-has-increased-5-trillion-speaker-pe


Why the Democrats will lose next week.

And interesting write up of the difficulties the Democrats face. Are the Democrats coming home? Some of them are, but a number of them aren’t.

But my main thought while reading her rant was—why isn't she an Obama voter?


I'm serious. Was it really necessary to piss people like her off? Tucker's almost a perfect Obama voter. She's a single grandmom. Not rich. Famously worked at Wal-Mart (after being a rock star) and complained about it. A lifelong Democrat—until now. Was what Obama felt he had to do—save Detroit, save Wall Street, jumpstart the economy, pass health care reform—inevitably incompatible with her world view?

Read the rest. She went from a Democrat for Obama to a TEA Party member.

http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/kausfiles/2010/10/24/how-did-obama-lose-velvet-underground-drummer-moe-tucker.html


Ed Koch: The Coming Political Tsunami

I predict a Republican victory of tsunami proportions on November 2nd.


For the last six months in various public forums, I have said that Republicans will take both the House and Senate. Most political observers, citing statistics from various states, continue to say that, while it appears certain that the House will go Republican, there are too few Senate seats in play for a Republican takeover

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/10/26/the_coming_political_tsunami_107726.html




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Mistakes have been made

RCP and the HOUSE

In looking at the election you want to watch what overall is happening. I’m using the RCP number in the House of Representatives. Are the Democrats making inroads? So far the answer is no.

Over the last 4 days, RCP has reassigned 15 seats. 2 of them took races in the Democrats favor while 13 of the moves went for the Republicans. The average gain for the REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE HAS GONE FROM 56 TO 61 A NET GAIN OF 5 SEATS.

I’ve also watch the Sunday morning shows. Getting guesses from their pundits, the liberal leaning Meet the Press had a number saying the House will go Republican but the Senate won’t while a couple of pundits said they thought the Democrats would just barely hang on to the House and the Senate. They reminded me of 1994 when Eleanor Clift said the Republicans would take the Senate but there was no way they could take the House. I’m seeing the same thing from Left wing pundits. They can’t bring themselves to even imagine the Democrats will be fired a week from Tuesday.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/2010_elections_house_map.html


Is Obama a Socialist?

Now a new book by Stanley Kurtz -- a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a Harvard PhD -- reveals why we should have probed the disconnect when we had a chance. Americans increasingly sense we were sold a bill of goods, and Kurtz explains why in "Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism." OUR PRESIDENT ISN'T WHAT HE CLAIMS TO BE, says Kurtz. Obama's plummeting approval ratings, and the electoral tsunami about to hit Democrats, reflect voters' sense of betrayal.


In fact, Kurtz goes further, and makes an electrifying charge: Obama has purposely disguised what he believes, and is actively seeking to mislead the American people about his agenda. OBAMA, SAYS KURTZ, IS A SOCIALIST. He believes -- not in state ownership -- but in a savvier version of socialism that seeks to transform and undermine American capitalism through ever-expanding government control; irreversible entitlements; and a metastasizing public sector.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/105550623.html?page=1&c=y


Leftists views of The TEA Party

Here’s an interesting article on a leftist academics conference trying to understand the TEA Party. These folks seem angry and confused and you may need to read it a couple of times to get an insight into what these folks believe.

"If you look across the board here, true skeptics of the Tea Party, 49 percent agreed with the proposition that blacks ought to work their way up without any special favors," says Parker. "But if you look at the true believers, that goes to 92 percent. THIS IS ANOTHER INDICATOR OF RACISM, RIGHT: Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve. Forty-five percent of true skeptics disagree with this; almost 80 percent of true believers disagree with this."

http://www.slate.com/id/2272097/pagenum/all/



Big Labor’s Big Mistake

It’s Big Labor’s Big Mistake going into the Big Midterms. The union’s mistake was that IT HAS GOTTEN OUT IN FRONT OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE WHEN IT COMES TO SPENDING ON THE ELECTION. If you take a look at the top five outside spenders on candidates running in the midterms, you’ll see that the National Education Association (the teachers union) and the Service Employees International Union (second largest after AFSCME in terms of public employees, also has a lot of healthcare workers) have spent a combined total with AFSCME of $171.5 million. Big Labor has now outspent the two biggest boogeymen on the right--the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, who have spent a combined total of $140 million.

http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/mary-kate-cary/2010/10/22/big-labors-big-mistake-in-the-2010-elections.html


So as Obama and the Democrats decry the big money spent against them, we are finding out that even more money is being spent for them. And this money at least indirectly comes from the Tax Payers through public employee unions.



Where did the Democrats go wrong?

The liberal journalist Peter Beinart noted that for decades Democratic leaders had treated the American public’s latent conservatism as a sleeping bear: THE CHIEF IMPERATIVE WAS TO AVOID SUDDEN MOVES THAT WOULD ROUSE IT. But the Reagan era was now over, and Democrats no longer needed to live in fear. THAT’S WHAT OBAMA’S “YES WE CAN” SLOGAN MEANT TO LIBERALS: Yes we can move past both conservatism and Clintonian triangulation. Liberalism was living in its favored political tense: the future perfect.

Democrats could look at the political landscape with confidence, assured of three things. The country had decisively rejected conservatism and moved leftward. The idea of small government had been discredited by the financial crisis. And the president’s persuasive powers could get the Democrats through any remaining difficulties.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250736/bender-over-rich-lowry


The article is an interesting look at the hubris of the Democrats after the 2008 election. It is apparent they didn’t hear what the American people were actually saying because they were too busy telling each other what they wanted to hear.



It’s the economy, stupid

Democrats are perplexed. Here is a case that should be bringing a Republican Senator down and it doesn’t seem to be doing what the Democrats expected. In any other time it probably would, but in this election social issues are a non sequitur. It’s all about the economy.

NEW ORLEANS -- In July 2007, when Sen. David Vitter acknowledged a "very serious sin" in his past during the D.C. Madam prostitution scandal, many pundits wrote the Louisiana Republican's political obituary.


After all, Vitter was one of the country's fiercest social conservatives who was elected to Congress in 1999 after former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.) was forced to step down as the result of his own adultery scandal.


No one, including most Republicans, believed Vitter could survive charges of hypocrisy that would surely come as part of a re-election campaign


But with only nine days left before Election Day -- and despite the best efforts of his Democratic opponent, Rep. Charlie Melancon, to make Vitter's personal problems a defining issue -- the first-term Senator appears headed to a relatively comfortable re-election victory.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20101024/pl_cq_politics/politics000003755122

 

16 Days to Go

The Democrats delimma

How bad is it? Obama enlists Bush officials to defend his policies

Not many authors on a book tour manage to snag a visit with the president of the United States. But Condoleezza Rice is no ordinary book author. (Snip) Rice rolled her eyes at the notion that Obama is a closet Muslim, and she defended him from criticism - led by former vice president Richard B. Cheney - that Obama had weakened the country. "Nothing in this president's methods suggests this president is other than a defender of America's interests," Rice told an audience that included presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506018.html?hpid=topnews

Fair and balanced

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer wrote about the Charlie Wilson–Bill Johnson congressional race today. The big story? The DCCC buying ads. No mention of Wilson’s divorce papers describing him grabbing his ex-wife by the neck, throwing her against a refrigerator, and leaving her covered in bruises. There’s a sidebar to a column in the Youngstown Vindicator that discusses the race. No mention of the description of physical abuse. National Journal‘s Reid Wilson mentions the Wilson divorce papers, for a sentence as the third item in an article about races getting personal.

But we get a lot of coverage of one candidate who as a teenager said she dabbled in witchcraft. Fair and balanced coverage? Sure.

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/249965/ohio-media-blackout-charlie-wilson-continues


Democrats hurting business, economy

Gesturing toward the magnificent steel, glass and concrete towers of Chicago's Loop during a conversation with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board, Mayor Daley noted that "almost 95 percent" of the skyscrapers were private-sector constructions. Then he declared this self-evident truth: "I don't think Democrats realize how important business is to our economy and to our cities."


While Democrats have long struggled under the mantle of being anti-business, President Obama and the Democratic Congress have acted as if they're not particularly bothered by it. They pushed tax and fee increases, imposed new regulations through thousand-plus page bills and bureaucratic fiat and bashed Wall Street, bankers, insurers and other businesses that dared question their agenda.


Democrats talk a good game about small business, but actions speak louder than words. Obama and the Democrats are pushing a tax increase that would hit 50 percent of small enterprise income and their massive health-care law saddles business with a flood of tax-filing paperwork for expenditures as low as $601.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/2803934,CST-EDT-hunt15.article

The democrats are a disaster for the economy. Stuck in 1930s style solution to 2010 problems they don’t seem to have any other solution to the problems we face than government spending.

Inside a poll

Here’s an interesting look at a poll for the coming election in California. In it you see what so many other polls are telling us, that is, the right seems to be more enthusiastic about voting in the coming election than the left is.

Also, Boxer is up in the election right now by only 1 point while Brown leads in the governor’s race by 4 points among likely voters.

http://www.ipsos-na.com/download/pr.aspx?id=10060


Demolishing the Democrats

They blew it. Instead of focusing on economic recovery, job creation and winning the war on terrorism, the Obama administration used its massive congressional majorities to expand government power. In fact, had Mr. Obama exercised responsible leadership - cutting spending, slashing deficits and fostering pro-growth policies such as permanent middle-class tax cuts - he would be in a very different position today. The economy would be growing. Mr. Obama's poll numbers would not be tanking. His party would not be facing a political tidal wave

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/14/demolishing-the-democrats/


The single best decision Obama has made

At a Wilmington rally for Democratic Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons today, President Obama laid to rest any remaining speculation that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden might switch jobs in 2012, telling a packed crowd in Biden's home state that HIS CHOICE OF VICE PRESIDENT WAS "THE SINGLE BEST DECISION I HAVE MADE."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20019781-503544.html?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea

Here’s the scary part: He’s probably correct.

Another prediction for the coming election

Newport Beach, Calif.—Nationally-recognized pollster Scott Rasmussen last night predicted that REPUBLICANS WOULD GAIN 55 SEATS IN RACES FOR THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES November 2—much more than the 39 needed for a Republican majority in the House for the first time since 2006.

But the man whose Rasmussen Reports polling is watched carefully by politicians and frequently quoted by the punditocracy said that whether Republicans gain the ten seats they need to take control of the Senate is in question

“Republicans should have 48 seats [after the elections next month], Democrats 47, and five seats could slide either way,” said Rasmussen

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39460