What's interesting is that any reasonably sane Repub is now faced with a choice... go completely wingnut or face the enmity of the wingnuts that make up the bulk of Repub primary voters. They thought they could control the monster, but the monster is eating them up one at a time like they are all laid out on a tasty sampler platter at Applebee's. I would not be surprised to see some Repubs move to the Dem side after the election. After all, Democrats are a lot closer to Reagan than the nutjobs gaining control of the GOP.
interesting map. <script src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://2010-election-prediction.appspot.com/gadget/elections.xml&synd=open&w=780&h=500&title=2010+Election+Ratings+on+Google+Maps&border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&output=js"></script>
Poor basso CNN has learned that Tom Donohue, the powerful president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who has vowed to spend more than $75 million on key House and Senate races, has privately told colleagues in recent weeks he believes Democrats will just barely hold on to the House majority. Two sources familiar with the conversations said Donohue has privately said he's gone over every single key race in the House, and he believes Republicans will lose a few seats -- losses he believes they don't see coming -- because it is more of an anti-establishment election than an anti-Democratic election.
believing it's going to be an anti-establishment election and not a anti-Democrat election is quite the leap of faith. RCP house RCP has 38 house seats as toss-ups. All but 1 are democrat seats. 28 house seats are considered "leaning GOP" of which 2 are GOP seats. RCP senate RCP has 6 senate seats as toss-ups. All are Democrat seats. And RCP has the Democrats not even close to picking up any Republican seats.
You're calling Tom Donohue, the powerful president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce a liar? tisk tisk tisk... We'll see Skippy! No one is saying republicans won't pick up any seats (it's a mid term - they're supposed too) but they ain't taking the house or the senate.
Why should I take his opinion over the average of national pollsters (that's what RCP is)? Even if the Republicans don't get the house or senate, it would still be an anti-Democrat election (assuming Republicans gain lots of seats). Of the 178 Republican seats in the house, Democrats are expected to take 4. That's not anti-incumbent.
BTW tomorrow's a big day!!! A lot of the new healthcare reform bill goes into affect tomorrow! Patient's bill of rights Preexisting conditions covered for children Coverage for kids 26 and younger lots of new stuff! There will be lots to talk about before the election!
This is sort of what Donahue is referring to. The polling mostly all national polling - the individual races have very limited polling. Donahue is saying that these pollsters are assuming that the R/D split applies universally, but if it's really anti-incumbent, that wouldn't be the case. We'll see whether it happens or not - it's really impossible to say right now. But given the results of a lot of GOP primaries, it's pretty clear that there's an anti-incumbent fervor out there within the GOP. So it remains to be seen how much the enthusiasm gap closes in seats where there's a GOP incumbent as opposed to fresh blood. There's still a lot of time between now and election day (and who knows what will happen with the tax vote), but I'm starting to think it's less than 50/50 that we end up with a Speaker Boehner. The topline broadbased polling definitely favors the GOP - generic ballot and enthusiasm. But drilling down further, the data doesn't appear quite as bad for Dems - still bad, but not quite as terrible. Named Dems perform better than the generic ballots, people really dislike the GOP, don't want them in control, the enthusiasm seems primarily focused on the tea party subset of the GOP and is really extreme in the south, etc. The GOP is obviously going to gain a lot of seats - but I think the House Dems will outperform the pundit predictions going into election day.
the "pledge to america" sounds like a pledge to fail. i put this here, because it seems like a ploy to get votes in the upcoming election. the whole thing i listed at the bottom of the article. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20017335-503544.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody it's clearly not what democrats want, and it doesn't address many issues that the teaparty stands for. let's go ahead and assume the republicans gain enough seats to take control of the house and senate, anyone think just one of these might be enacted?
The Senate races represent somewhat-local races that have tons of polling and they are definitely leaning towards the GOP (Democrats aren't going to pick up any Republican seats), so I would assume the House races would follow this trend. Also, I assume generic ballots are a fairly effective gauge or else why would every pollster do it?
Why do you say that? Cutting spending and repealing the healthcare bill seem to be a few of the things they are vocal about.
Senate races are defined a little more by the individual candidates because they do a lot more advertising and have much better name recognition. So it's harder to extrapolate that data out - though, as we've seen, a lot of GOP Senators / establishment candidates have been taken out in the primaries, many in huge and surprising upsets. That all points to the anti-establishment issue being driven by the Tea Parties. Really, it's because it's the only thing available, and generally gives you the best sense of where things are going. It's too difficult to poll 435 different races. But that said, it doesn't always work. For example, polling in 1998 suggested that the GOP would gain seats. In fact, they did win the popular vote, but not by nearly as much as expected and they ended with a net loss of 5 seats. In the aftermath, Gingrich resigned. That said, even 1998 is not useful here because the Dems had the advantage of being the minority party then, so they still lost the popular vote and gained seats - that clearly wouldn't happen this time. But it's an example of where the this generic-ballot polling has weaknesses when lookin at local races.
Isn't non-discretionary spending, by definition, non-discretionary? How do you roll it back? Just don't pay out Social Security and Medicare? Some people just don't get unemployment checks? Don't pay back some debt interest payments? Given that TARP expires in 2 weeks, , this one doesn't seem all that well thought-through. What does this even mean? If my business makes $100,000, I get to drop $20k from my taxes? That would blow an absurd hole through the deficit. Basically, this whole thing boils down to: Cut taxes Increase defense spending Cut spending that can't actually be cut Brilliant!
It's a bunch of non-specific trash that allows them to pontificate on the campaign trail. Exactly what you would expect from Tea Partiers.
RedState lambasts it: http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/...ome-out-of-washington-since-george-mcclellan/ Excerpt: The entirety of this Promise is laughable. Why? It is an illusion that fixates on stuff the GOP already should be doing while not daring to touch on stuff that will have any meaningful longterm effects on the size and scope of the federal government. This document proves the GOP is more focused on the acquisition of power than the advocacy of long term sound public policy.
