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Showing posts with label 2014 Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014 Elections. Show all posts

Thursday, May 15, 2014

The Size of the Wave

Larry Sabato has an interesting piece up about the 2014 Election. Checkout his two graphics.





































I largely agree with his metric. I'd say that South Dakota, West Virginia and Montana are pretty much out of reach. He makes an interesting case for West Virginia and Montana staying blue but we have to be realistic.

I rank Mary Landrieu as being more in danger than Pryor. The latest polls show Pryor up fairly high and I think he is going to hold on. Tom Cotton is a flawed candidate and people really love Pryor. I think Begich will hold on as well. Hagan is a giant ? in North Carolina.

So, my early prognostication after delving in to Sabato's work and adding in my analysis is that the Republicans will pick up South Dakota, West Virginia, Montana, Louisiana, and probably North Carolina. Yet they will lose Kentucky, leaving the Senate at 51-49. Take this prediction with a boulder of salt and realize that it's just an exercise in folly at this point, done purely for the fun of me being political nerd.

Of course, the teacher nerd in me would love it if the Senate ended up tied 50-50. Think of the civics lessons it would produce!! Cue Joe Biden...:)

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Don't Even Bother With 2016

Check out this remark from US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue.

He's right. The GOP shouldn't even bother putting up a candidate in 2016 if they don't pass immigration reform. So why aren't they doing it now? Wouldn't it help cement their chances in 2014? Of course the reason is that old, angry white people in the GOP primaries don't like wetbacks so no reform until after 2014. This speaks to a larger issue.

Right now, our elderly population is enormous given the glut of baby boomers. Most of these folks are Reagan seniors and tend to vote Republican. They are mostly white and tend to be reliable voters. They look at how the United States is changing and becoming less white as those that are younger than them grow in numbers. So, it's a whole bunch of old whites versus a growing number of non whites. No wonder they are so afraid.

This is a big reason why we have all the problems we have with no solutions. It's not necessarily a left-right thing. It's a baby boomer thing. All of their problems with race, economics, politics, science and society negatively color the day and prohibit real solutions. To be quite frank, as their numbers dwindle over the next 20 years, many of these issues won't be issues anymore and I think we are going to be cut loose from their bullshit shackles and be able to truly progress as a nation.

Monday, May 05, 2014

The Challenge of the 2014 Elections

Take a look at this graphic.








































It's from a brilliant analysis of exactly what the Democrats need to do in order to win the 2014 elections. Sasha Issenberg illustrates the numbers and demographics behind presidential year elections and mid term elections, boiling it down to a simple question: Can the Democrats mobilize the "unreliable" voters to succeed in the 2014 election? If they can, they hold the Senate and part of me is thinking that all the hysteria right now over SHELLACKING PART TWO is simply a fear tactic to mobilize the troops.

Another interesting part of the article is this.

Add it all up, and the Democrats’ midterm conundrum comes to look like an actuarial one. “If twenty years ago, you said the midterm electorate is older, I would have said, ‘Yahoo! Glad to hear it,’ ” says Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “But now the Roosevelt seniors are dead and the Reagan seniors are voting.” Increasingly, those older voters are backing the same side: In 2000, Al Gore won the youngest and eldest bands of the electorate by slight margins; in 2012, the over-50 vote broke for Mitt Romney by 12 points. 

There are also simply more of those older voters overall. Since Obama’s first appearance on a presidential ballot, the population of Americans over the age of 55 has increased by nearly 13 million. By 2022, it will have increased by another nine million. People tend to grow more conservative as they age, but as a cohort, Generation X—whose oldest members will soon reach their fifties—is appreciably more conservative than the Millennials who follow them. “When the Millennials are fifty-five, they’re going to vote more Democratic,” Lake says, not exactly cautioning patience. “That’s thirty years away.”

This ties in to what I have been saying about how much the electorate is going to change over the next 20-30 years. Imagine what will happen when we have "Obama seniors" and the Reagan seniors are gone.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Getting Behind the ACA

It looks like Democrats are taking my advice and getting behind the ACA. Check out this ad from "imperiled" Democratic Senator Mark Begich of Alaska.



The Times has a piece on how more Democrats are jumping on board with the ACA.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Republican Victory in 2014?

The recent New York Times Kaiser Family Foundation Poll illustrates that the Republican "victory" seven months ahead of the 2014 elections may be a bit premature. It looks like Mark Pryor isn't as much on the hot seat anymore. And Kay Hagan is holding her own in North Carolina. As expected, Mitch McConnell is on the hot seat in Kentucky and it will be interesting to see if this race stays as deadlocked into the fall.

So, why is this happening? I thought that the GOP was going to be able to cruise to victory on the evils of Obamacare. The numbers from Arkansas and Kentucky, where two Democratic governors embraced Medicaid expansion, say otherwise. Kentucky also ran its own exchange which did very, very well so if I were ol' Mitchie, I'd lay off the anti-Obamacare talk. Does he (and other Republicans, for that matter) really want to stand for taking away people's health care?

The key for the Democrats, as Dan Balz notes, is to get the same level of turnout in a presidential year.  It's helpful that the president's approval ratings are on the rise to the mid 40s from the lower 40s where they have been stuck for quite some time. But his good news isn't getting across and that needs to happen ASAP. Oddly, he seems to be doing a better job with the ACA than with the economy.

Democrats need to take heart that some of the worst nightmares for the Republicans are coming true. The ACA is working and will help the Democratic vote in the tossup states. The economy is growing at a 3 percent rate. Even if just these two issues coalesce in November, nothing will change in the Senate and the Democrats may surprise a few people in the House.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Are The Republicans Celebrating Too Soon?

If you pay attention to politics, the 2014 elections (over seven months away and without nominees in many contests) has already been won by the Republicans. They've gained more seats in the House and taken back the Senate. Even statistical guru Nate Silver is on their side this time (his new site is pretty boss, btw).

But Tim Alberta says, "Whoa, there, son" and posits that the GOP is celebrating too soon. In looking at his main points, I don't see much progress. In short, he's right. And so is Doug Sosnik. The Republicans are channeling Groucho Marx.

At the national level, Republicans continue to be viewed as the congressional opposition party whose intransigence led to the government shutdown last October. These same interests actively worked to scuttle immigration reform this year. In this environment, it’s the likes of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and California Rep. Darrell Issa who define the Republican brand. The struggle for the party’s future is playing out in real time as we approach the crucial period leading up to the 2016 elections. Ironically, Republicans’ short-term tactics to pick up additional seats in the 2014 midterms—as well as the rightward pressures of the presidential primary process—will only reinforce the public’s perception of the Republican Party as unwelcoming and out of step with the majority of Americans.

Right. They only think in terms of short term gains and never long term victories. 2016 could be an absolute disaster for Republicans if they don't moderate now. They'll have 24 seats up in the Senate and it's a presidential year which means higher voter turnout on the Democratic side. If Hillary runs, she will likely win and possibly have both Houses back.

It will be interesting to see who they put up for candidates against the vulnerable Democrats. If they go moderate, it's a sign that they are thinking ahead to 2016. If not, they won't take back the Senate and will totally fuck themselves in two years.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Channeling Frank Underwood

I haven't seen the Netflix show "House of Cards" but Dean Obeidallah is right. It's time for the Democrats to channel their inner Frank Underwood (minus the murdering, of course). Republicans are ruthless and aren't taking any prisoners this year. They loathe the president and want to fucking bury him for his last two years in office. Cue Machiavelli...

Democrats need to understand this fundamental fact and rise to the occasion. As Obeidallah notes, they need to get voters to turnout by pushing ballot initiatives like the minimum wage and legalizing pot. Of course, the far right base might help them by picking more Todd Akins. And it certainly helps the Democrats' chances with statements like this from GOP chairman, Reince Priebus.

We’re in for a tsunami-type election in 2014...it’s going to be a very big win!

Oh, really?


Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Biopolar Republican

Greg Walden, the Republican Representative from Oregon's 2nd district and the man in charge of keeping the GOP in charge of the house, is a great example of just how bipolar the Republican Party is these days. On Tuesday morning, before the special election in Florida's 13th district, he said, "Whether we win it or lose it, the special elections aren’t too predictive for either side going forward.

"If there’s any advantage of a special election,” Walden added, “it’s that you can test messages, and you can test strategies, and you can test sort of your theories on voter turnout and I.D. So, I mean, that’s kind of the takeaway . . . from a special, far more than is it indicative of what’s going to happen 239 days from now."

After David Jolly won, however, he had this to say.

"David proved that Pinellas County voters are tired of the devastating policies of this administration. Tonight, one of Nancy Pelosi’s most prized candidates was ultimately brought down because of her unwavering support for Obamacare, and that should be a loud warning for other Democrats running coast to coast."

Wow. That's quite a switch. Which should we believe? As Dana Milbank noted, he was right the first time.  And, as I predicted on Tuesday, things are playing out as expected.

The Democrats need to stop wringing their hands and recognize reality. They need to get voters to to turn out. If they do that, they will hold the Senate. They don't have much of a chance of flipping the House so the best they can do is try not to lose too many seats. Of course, as I type this, everything could change if the GOP puts up more candidates like Paul Broun. I've learned to never underestimate just how full on moonbat the Right gets in elections these days.

But it's really all about turnout. If the president's election machine (Organizing For America) can get people to the polls, the Democrats will be in good shape this fall and have no reason to panic right now. 


Tuesday, March 11, 2014

FL-13 Special Election

The special election being held today in Florida's 13th Congressional District is being touted as a "bellwether" for the 2014 mid term elections and a referendum on the ACA. Haven't we seen this movie before?

Here is what I predict will happen. If Alex Sink wins, there will be a little bluster and chest thumping from Democrats about how this means the public has embraced the ACA and the GOP should finally just shut up about it. They will also say that this means the 2014 elections aren't a slam dunk for the Republicans. This will all be quickly forgotten as the president won this district in 2008 and 2012 and Sink is expected to win.

If David Jolly wins, the right wing blogsphere will explode with howls of "I told you sos" and high pitched and overly excited voices about how this spells doom for the president in the fall. The left wing media will hand wring themselves to death and pray every night to their Rachel Maddow doll that somehow, some way, things won't be so bad this November and the president will save the day.

All of this prognostication (on both sides) when there aren't even candidates officially set yet in nearly all of the elections. Wow!

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Are GOP Governors In Trouble?

Unless they go full on moonbat, the GOP has a good chance of making considerable gains in the Senate. But what about the Governor races? Take a look at some of the polls.

It looks like most Democratic challengers beat Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania. Wendy Davis is going to make a serious run in Texas, especially with Abbott running around with Ted Nugent (someone please give him more chances to open his mouth!). Kasich is going to have a tough fight in Ohio. Rick Scott is going to lose. Period. And Snyder is going to struggle in Michigan.

2010 was the year when the states went red in terms of state government. It looks like that's going to change in 2014.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

The Rump Kamikaze Caucus (Good Words)

From the Wall Street Journal...

Not coincidentally, activist groups allied with Mr. Cruz announced they will use those votes in GOP primaries this year against Messrs. McConnell and Cornyn. Mr. Cruz claims to be neutral in Senate primaries, but he knew exactly what he was doing.

Democrats beat the odds and retained their Senate majority in 2010 and 2012 in part because they stuck together. If Republicans fail again this November, a big reason will be their rump kamikaze caucus.

Man, the Wall Street Journal really doesn't like the Tea Party and the right wing bloggers much, do they?

But they are right, of course. All this talk in February about the GOP taking back the Senate when we don't even know who the candidates are in some of these states is hilarious. I'm thinking we are going to see some Todd Akins again. They just can't help themselves...

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Why The GOP Surrendered On The Debt Ceiling

Politico has a good piece up about why the GOP caved on the debt ceiling. The political reality is obvious. The Senate and the White House weren't going to budge and if the federal government defaulted, that would be the end of the Republicans chances in this year's election. It's interesting to watch Reince Priebus riding herd over the nutters in his party. It will be interesting to see if he can keep the moonbats locked up for the next 9 odd months.

For those out there who feel that our debt is steering us into collapse, I have one simple question: does the debt of the United States outweigh our assets?

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

State of the Union A Go Go

As is usually the case, the president delivered an excellent speech in front of the nation calling for action in multiple areas of our society that would improve our nation a great deal. His main focus was inequality, citing multiple areas in which we could improve the disparity between the very wealthy in this country and everyone else. He spoke of his health care law, tech hubs, improving the tax code, immigration, and a whole host of other issues, ending with a very poignant and moving tribute to a wounded Afghan vet named Cory Remsburg.

But cynicism is the rule of the day presently in Washington and with good reason. We still have a Congress full of Republicans who will never allow the president to succeed on anything. Their maturity level (see: 12 year old boy) simply can't stand that someone they don't feel is befitting of the office of president will be viewed positively in any way. They are so insecure that even a small degree of success somehow translates into a boiling pit of sewage for them. The only possible movement we might see this year is on immigration and that's because GOP leaders know they are fucked in the election if they don't do something. The Latino vote has become far too important to disregard any longer. So, I suppose I should happy for at least that.

Yet I am not. We used to be a nation that got things done and strove for higher ground. We weren't held back by petty adolescents whose only conviction was their vanity. People who were..well...nuts didn't win elections. People like Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY).



Or people like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who said after the SOTU speech last night that "The world is literally about to blow up." Boiling pit of sewage indeed.

Or people like Fox News analyst and retired Army general Paul Vallely who have called openly for a coup d'etat.

Seriously, what a fucking clown show. And there are millions of people that fall for this shit?

The political press and beyond have talked extensively over the last week or so about how important this speech was for the president if he hopes to tread water in the 2014 elections and not lose any ground. Given the jack wagons on the Right and their behavior, I'm wondering how long it will be before the dam bursts and we can finally be rid of the right wing blogger mentality that seems to overshadow the GOP these days.

Honestly, it can't come soon enough.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

75,000 New Democratic Voters in West Virginia?

Sharon Mills is a great example why the Democrats should take Reince Priebus's advice and "stamp Obamacare to their foreheads."

Ms. Mills, 54, who suffered renal failure last year after having irregular access to medication, said her dependence on others left her feeling helpless and depressed. “I got to the point when I decided I just didn’t want to be here anymore,” she said. So when a blue slip of paper arrived in the mail this month with a new Medicaid number on it — part of the expanded coverage offered under the Affordable Care Act — Ms. Mills said she felt as if she could breathe again for the first time in years. “The heavy thing that was pressing on me is gone,” she said.

And how many more people in West Virginia are there like her?

Here in West Virginia, which has some of the shortest life spans and highest poverty rates in the country, the strength of the demand has surprised officials, with more than 75,000 people enrolling in Medicaid. While many people who have signed up so far for private insurance through the new insurance exchanges had some kind of health care coverage before, recent studies have found, most of the people getting coverage under the Medicaid expansion were previously uninsured. In West Virginia, where the Democratic governor agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility, the number of uninsured people in the state has been reduced by about a third.

The question now becomes how many people will shift over to the Democrats as a result of the ACA. I think it's going to be far greater than people imagine because there are many poor people who have come to realize that conservatives are not helping them at all. This is a big reason why Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election. They are seen as the party of the aristocratic class.

Of course, we still do have plaque..

Still, even among those who most need insurance, there has been resistance to signing up. President Obama — often blamed here in coal country for the industry’s decline — remains deeply unpopular. Recruiters trying to persuade people to enroll say they sometimes feel like drug peddlers. The people they approach often talk in hushed tones out of earshot of others. Chad Webb, a shy 30-year-old who is enrolling people in Mingo County, said a woman at a recent event used biblical terms to disparage Mr. Obama as an existential threat to the nation. Mr. Webb said he thought to himself: “This man is not the Antichrist. He just wants you to have health insurance.”

How did the froth about the president get to be so thick? Honestly, it's a combination of many things. I think it begins with the fact that they are massively insecure, angry and hateful at someone else succeeding where they are failing. That's rooted in the adolescent behavior that I think is at the core of all of this. As I have mentioned previously, conservatives are also secret aristocrats who don't think Democrats deserve to run anything. Only members of the "club" should be at the high of a station. Race plays a part, of course as does pride and hubris in tandem with an extreme difficulty to admit error. But, as the article notes,

Eventually, though, people’s desperate need for insurance seems to be overcoming their distaste for the president. Rachelle Williams, 25, an uninsured McDonald’s worker from Mingo County, said she had refused to fill out insurance forms on a recent trip to the emergency room for a painful bout of kidney stones. “I wouldn’t do it,” she said. But when she got a letter in the mail saying she qualified for Medicaid, she signed up immediately.

Uh Huh:)

Friday, December 20, 2013

The GOP Conundrum

This recent exchange illustrates the conundrum the GOP faces next year in the elections.

Albright doesn’t want the Affordable Care Act repealed, which Stutzman and the Republican-controlled House have voted to do numerous times. Albright told his congressman that his monthly payment for family health coverage will drop from $3,800 to $1,700 by enrolling in a plan offered through the much-maligned law. 

Albright said most of his dozen employees also are enrolling in Affordable Care Act plans and will have coverage for the first time. “If the Republican Party thinks they’re going to kill Obamacare, you guys need to realize that those nine people that I add on, are they going to vote Republican ever again if you take their health care from them?” 

Stutzman responded: “No, probably not.”

If I were in charge of strategy for the GOP in the 2014 elections, I would find out how many voters in those key swing districts and states are signing up for health care for the first time and compare that number to how many voters are being "screwed over by Obamacare." 

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Great News!

Two great things have happened in the last 24 hours. We have thankfully returned to a core tenet of Glass Steagal and enacted the so called Volcker Rule which prohibits banks from using customer money to trade for their own gain. I can't understate how integral this is to bringing stability to our economy and, by extension, the world economy.

And we have a deal that looks like it will pass by houses of Congress and fund the government through 2015. Republicans saw what happened when the shut down the government recently and realized it was time to put the short wave radio crowd back in the garage. They were facing disaster in the 2014 elections and now, with the help of the poor rollout of the ACA, they are doing much better. While there will likely be some return to idiocy, electorally speaking, over the next few months, GOP leaders can see a path to holding ground in the House and maybe picking up some seats in the Senate. Of course, things look pretty bad for them in 2016 as 24 Republicans look to hold on to their seats while only 10 Democrats do the same. But who knows what could happen in 3 years?

So, great times, folks in terms of our economic path. It's going to be interesting to see how our economy does now that both of these issues are out of the way. GDP is up, unemployment is down, and consumer confidence, heading into the final stretch of the holiday season, is at a five month high.

Great News!

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Good Words

"There is a natural human tendency to believe that any major development, no matter how long before an election, will be the last important influence on said election. This theory is fine in the last days before an election, but with almost a year to go, it is pretty unlikely that the national political situation will suddenly become static for well over 300 days." (Charlie Cook)

Anyone that tells you they know for certain what the outcome of the 2014 election is going to be is simply engaging in wishful thinking...

Sunday, March 17, 2013

A Friendly Reminder

From a Quinnipiac University survey.

92% of respondents support expanding background checks to all gun sales. In households with guns, support was 91%.

I think GOP lawmakers better think long and hard about how they will vote on the background checks bill. They were quite tone deaf in the last election and that really didn't work out very well for them, did it?