US Congressional Elections 2012: Scott Brown, Diviner of Ancestry!

iTunesIsEvil · May 2012

I'm sure if I had any faith in that polling I'd feel all warm and fuzzy inside, Carrot.

I'll eat a dick if Donnelly can beat him. Make sure to get that in your sig, someone.

Thanatos · May 2012

I'm inclined to go with iTunes, Carrot.

Indiana is the South of the Midwest.

enlightenedbum · May 2012

Complete with Klan HQ.

Captain Carrot · May 2012

Do you have any justification for discarding the numbers, or do you just not like them baselessly?

AManFromEarth · May 2012

I'm pretty sure the Midwest is the South of the Midwest.

enlightenedbum · May 2012

Yeah, no.

AngelHedgie · May 2012

iTunesIsEvil wrote: »

I'm sure if I had any faith in that polling I'd feel all warm and fuzzy inside, Carrot.

I'll eat a dick if Donnelly can beat him. Make sure to get that in your sig, someone.

Here's the thing, Tunes. Can Mourdock beat Donnelly? Sure. But he's not going to trounce him, like Lugar would have. In fact, he's going to have to put up a fight. Which means that he - and the GOP - are going to have to invest resources into Indiana which they wouldn't have had to if Lugar was the winner. Furthermore, the fact that this seat went from "populated by popular incumbent" to "open" means that investing money into Indiana becomes more attractive for the Dems, and for the Obama campaign. Which, in turn, will impact races up and down the ticket. Which, in turn, will force the GOP to invest resources into Indiana - resources that they won't be able to spend elsewhere.

So, in one fell swoop, the Teapers have turned Indiana from a safe stronghold into a money pit.

Thanatos · May 2012

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Do you have any justification for discarding the numbers, or do you just not like them baselessly?

You have a right-wing Tea Party Republican running against a right-wing Republican. There's really no reason for the Democrats in Indiana to turn out, not that there's many of them. Plus, Indiana isn't even a vague possibility of an Obama state, which is going to depress Democratic turnout. And the NRA is going to stab Donnelly in the back, which is going to be a kiss of death for him.

PantsB · May 2012

Dick Lugar had a concession speech and then basically said... "You know what? Fuck it." and let some honesty loose with a second statement

I would like to comment on the Senate race just concluded and the direction of American politics and the Republican Party. I would reiterate from my earlier statement that I have no regrets about choosing to run for office. My health is excellent, I believe that I have been a very effective Senator for Hoosiers and for the country, and I know that the next six years would have been a time of great achievement. Further, I believed that vital national priorities, including job creation, deficit reduction, energy security, agriculture reform, and the Nunn-Lugar program, would benefit from my continued service as a Senator. These goals were worth the risk of an electoral defeat and the costs of a hard campaign.
...
I knew that my work with then-Senator Barack Obama would be used against me, even if our relationship were overhyped. I also knew from the races in 2010 that I was a likely target of Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and other Super Pacs dedicated to defeating at least one Republican as a purification exercise to enhance their influence over other Republican legislators.
...
From time to time during the last two years I heard from well-meaning individuals who suggested that I ought to consider running as an independent. My response was always the same: I am a Republican now and always have been. I have no desire to run as anything else. All my life, I have believed in the Republican principles of small government, low taxes, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and trade expansion. According to Congressional Quarterly vote studies, I supported President Reagan more often than any other Senator. I want to see a Republican elected President, and I want to see a Republican majority in the Congress. I hope my opponent wins in November to help give my friend Mitch McConnell a majority.

If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington. He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate. In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party. His answer to the inevitable roadblocks he will encounter in Congress is merely to campaign for more Republicans who embrace the same partisan outlook. He has pledged his support to groups whose prime mission is to cleanse the Republican party of those who stray from orthodoxy as they see it.

This is not conducive to problem solving and governance. And he will find that unless he modifies his approach, he will achieve little as a legislator. Worse, he will help delay solutions that are totally beyond the capacity of partisan majorities to achieve. The most consequential of these is stabilizing and reversing the Federal debt in an era when millions of baby boomers are retiring. There is little likelihood that either party will be able to impose their favored budget solutions on the other without some degree of compromise.

Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of legislators in both parties who have adopted an unrelenting partisan viewpoint. This shows up in countless vote studies that find diminishing intersections between Democrat and Republican positions. Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country. And partisan groups, including outside groups that spent millions against me in this race, are determined to see that this continues. They have worked to make it as difficult as possible for a legislator of either party to hold independent views or engage in constructive compromise. If that attitude prevails in American politics, our government will remain mired in the dysfunction we have witnessed during the last several years. And I believe that if this attitude expands in the Republican Party, we will be relegated to minority status. Parties don’t succeed for long if they stop appealing to voters who may disagree with them on some issues.

Legislators should have an ideological grounding and strong beliefs identifiable to their constituents. I believe I have offered that throughout my career. But ideology cannot be a substitute for a determination to think for yourself, for a willingness to study an issue objectively, and for the fortitude to sometimes disagree with your party or even your constituents. Like Edmund Burke, I believe leaders owe the people they represent their best judgment.

Too often bipartisanship is equated with centrism or deal cutting. Bipartisanship is not the opposite of principle. One can be very conservative or very liberal and still have a bipartisan mindset. Such a mindset acknowledges that the other party is also patriotic and may have some good ideas. It acknowledges that national unity is important, and that aggressive partisanship deepens cynicism, sharpens political vendettas, and depletes the national reserve of good will that is critical to our survival in hard times. Certainly this was understood by President Reagan, who worked with Democrats frequently and showed flexibility that would be ridiculed today – from assenting to tax increases in the 1983 Social Security fix, to compromising on landmark tax reform legislation in 1986, to advancing arms control agreements in his second term.

I don’t remember a time when so many topics have become politically unmentionable in one party or the other. Republicans cannot admit to any nuance in policy on climate change. Republican members are now expected to take pledges against any tax increases. For two consecutive Presidential nomination cycles, GOP candidates competed with one another to express the most strident anti-immigration view, even at the risk of alienating a huge voting bloc. Similarly, most Democrats are constrained when talking about such issues as entitlement cuts, tort reform, and trade agreements. Our political system is losing its ability to even explore alternatives. If fealty to these pledges continues to expand, legislators may pledge their way into irrelevance. Voters will be electing a slate of inflexible positions rather than a leader.

UnknownSaint · May 2012

Wow, so this Native American thing has really taken hold in the Warren/Brown race, huh?

Fencingsax · May 2012

What Native American thing?

enlightenedbum · May 2012

She (like everyone from Oklahoma) is part Native American, and Harvard used that to call her a minority to look good. Therefore she's an affirmative action hire and is actually stupid and a liar.

PantsB · May 2012

I'm assuming UnknownSaint is being sarcastic. Its a non-story in Mass, especially as Warren actually is part Native American (a great-great grandmother was Cherokee). Ras tried to run a poll and found no impact from their last poll and Warren-Brown tied (which means Warren up 3-5)

Hedgethorn · May 2012

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Do you have any justification for discarding the numbers, or do you just not like them baselessly?

Unless there's a poll I haven't seen yet, all the polls have very low name recognition for both Murdoch and Donnelly. It doesn't mean much that Donnelly is up on Murdoch by 3 points or whatever if only a third of Hoosiers even know who they are. Donnelly basically isn't known outside of the 2nd District (where he's generally well thought of, though far from being popular), and no one other than conservative activists know the first thing about Murdoch.

UnknownSaint · May 2012

PantsB wrote: »

I'm assuming UnknownSaint is being sarcastic. Its a non-story in Mass, especially as Warren actually is part Native American (a great-great grandmother was Cherokee). Ras tried to run a poll and found no impact from their last poll and Warren-Brown tied (which means Warren up 3-5)

I'm not, actually. Almost all of the recent half-dozen articles I've seen about the race have focused on that primarily. She's been mentioned twice recently in some political podcasts I listen to, and it was the only thing discussed in both instances. Google 'Elizabeth Warren' right now and it dominates the front page.

It's utterly ludicrous, and I'm surprised and disappointed that of all things this has dominated the story of this race in the way it has.

PantsB · May 2012

Hedgethorn wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Do you have any justification for discarding the numbers, or do you just not like them baselessly?

Unless there's a poll I haven't seen yet, all the polls have very low name recognition for both Murdoch and Donnelly. It doesn't mean much that Donnelly is up on Murdoch by 3 points or whatever if only a third of Hoosiers even know who they are. Donnelly basically isn't known outside of the 2nd District (where he's generally well thought of, though far from being popular), and no one other than conservative activists know the first thing about Murdoch.

Well that's what it boils down to: With Lugar is a sure Republican hold. With Mourdock, its a toss-up.

Mourdock will likely have less institutional support since Gov Mitch Daniels was a big Lugar supporter (he's a former chief of staff of Lugar), and his campaign is basically broke (225k cash on hand). At the very least, the PACs and Club For Growth etc will need to spend money on him to hold a seat the GOP otherwise would have held without a big problem.

enlightenedbum · May 2012

PantsB wrote: »

Hedgethorn wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

Do you have any justification for discarding the numbers, or do you just not like them baselessly?

Unless there's a poll I haven't seen yet, all the polls have very low name recognition for both Murdoch and Donnelly. It doesn't mean much that Donnelly is up on Murdoch by 3 points or whatever if only a third of Hoosiers even know who they are. Donnelly basically isn't known outside of the 2nd District (where he's generally well thought of, though far from being popular), and no one other than conservative activists know the first thing about Murdoch.

Well that's what it boils down to: With Lugar is a sure Republican hold. With Mourdock, its a toss-up.

Mourdock will likely have less institutional support since Gov Mitch Daniels was a big Lugar supporter (he's a former chief of staff of Lugar), and his campaign is basically broke (225k cash on hand). At the very least, the PACs and Club For Growth etc will need to spend money on him to hold a seat the GOP otherwise would have held without a big problem.

It's a win for the Dems regardless, just from the money issues. Would be better without CU, but whatever.

Hedgethorn · May 2012

A win for the dems for a couple months of 2012, perhaps, but a loss for America, perhaps for a decade or more. I agree with Lugar's middle-finger raised concession speech; it's important and valuable to have Senators who actually assume the good faith of (at least some of) those on the other side of the aisle.

iTunes is right; Donnelly's not going to beat Murdock statewide, even if he does make it close and somewhat expensive. Donnelly's vote for Obamacare is going to lead to his defeat statewide, and that means we'll have one more obstructionist in the Senate, making it that much harder to actually do anything at the national level.

enlightenedbum · May 2012

For all that Lugar said, he wasn't exactly voting in a way that's different than the way we expect Murdock to vote.

Hedgethorn · May 2012

Lugar supported the GM/Chrysler bailout and START, he voted to confirm Kagan and Sotomayor, and IIRC he signed on to the Gang of Six compromise during last summer's debt ceiling debacle. He was also one of the few Republicans still pushing for immigration reform. It's not like he was crossing the aisle every other week, but he took a lot of heat on all those votes.

Furthermore, and in my mind perhaps even more important, Lugar never, so far as I know, tried to imply that the Obama administration is somehow illegitimate or that policies he didn't support (the stimulus, the Affordable Care Act, etc.) are instances of a socialist plot to subjugate and overthrow all good and decent Americans so that evil commie-nazis can take over. That's what I take to be the most worrisome and dangerous feature of the new batch of the Republican party: the complete rejection that one's political opponents might be reasonable and of good-will. There are some on the left who think that way, of course (*coughOlbermann&Moorecough*), but I just don't see that attitude among large blocks of elected Democrats. But it seems to be the typical attitude of the entire tea-party caucus, and Murdock gives that impression as well. That attitude -- the wholesale rejection of the possibility of reasonable pluralism -- is a cancer in a modern democracy.

Edit: Lugar's defeat will also make other Republicans even more hesitant to work across the aisle. If a seemingly-untouchable institution like Dick Lugar can be primaried and beaten by 20 points just for voting for a couple justices and for not saying enough mean things about the President, then every GOP congressman will march even farther to the right in order to avoid being primaried, because clearly no one is safe from the Tea Party and the Club for Growth.

enlightenedbum · May 2012

Lugar's not a dick, and I do respect him, but he's still... really right wing.

Hedgethorn · May 2012

I'm not denying that he is/was very conservative. He is. But if my options are "very conservative senator who's not a dick" or "very conservative senator who is a dick," where that second option will also result in every other conservative senator and representative becoming more dickish in response, I'd much rather take the first option.

enlightenedbum · May 2012

Dick with a chance of losing to a (shitty, yes, but we need all the votes we can get on anything) Democrat vs. non-dick who will walk to a victory makes things tougher.

dojango · May 2012

enlightenedbum wrote: »

Lugar's not a dick, and I do respect him, but he's still... really right wing.

not right wing enough, apparently. Which is a little worrying if the various hard-core right wing PACS start promoting more extremist types.

Hedgethorn · May 2012

That could make it tougher, but I guess some of my disagreement comes down to the fact that I just don't see any chance of Donnelly winning statewide. I live in his district, and it was pretty clear he couldn't win re-election here; that's why he decided to run for Senate in the first place. Given that the 2nd district is typically more Democratic than the rest of the state, I just can't picture any other result than him losing by at least 6-8 points.

Captain Carrot · May 2012

I guess we'll have to see what the polls say, unless we're tossing them out the window and declaring Donnelly the loser because he's a big fat poop-head.

Hedgethorn · May 2012

Captain Carrot wrote: »

I guess we'll have to see what the polls say, unless we're tossing them out the window and declaring Donnelly the loser because he's a big fat poop-head.

More that the polls aren't meaningful now, given that both Donnelly and Murdock have such low name-recognition among Hoosiers. And while it's possible that Donnelly is a big fat poop-head, the heavily-Republican Indiana electorate is a much bigger poop-head.

Edit: Just to get some actual poll numbers on the table here, a Howey poll from mid-March had Donnelly/Murdock tied at 35% apiece, with another 7% going to a Libertarian candidate. But that poll included this caveat:

Richard Mourdock is not well known (40% have no opinion of him and 17% have never heard of him) . . . Joe Donnelly also begins as a relative unknown: 53% have never heard of him and another 24% have no opinion.

PantsB · May 2012

Hedgethorn wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

I guess we'll have to see what the polls say, unless we're tossing them out the window and declaring Donnelly the loser because he's a big fat poop-head.

More that the polls aren't meaningful now, given that both Donnelly and Murdock have such low name-recognition among Hoosiers. And while it's possible that Donnelly is a big fat poop-head, the heavily-Republican Indiana electorate is a much bigger poop-head.

Let's not forget Obama won Indiana in 08 and that 07-10 the state had 5 Ds to 4 Rs in the House. And while there's better than even odds he won't this time I doubt it will be a 5+ point Romney win... and its a lot easier to imagine a Donnelly-Romney split ticket voter than the other way around. At the very least there's a non-trivial chance for Donnelly to take the seat which means a) he could do so b) Republicans have to exert resources to defend it.
ed
Indiana's PVI = R+6. There are 10 Democratic Senators (~20%) from states with a greater R lean than that.

Mill · May 2012

If Donnelly wins that could also cause Republicans to be less fearful of incurring the wrath of the tea party and the Club for Growth. The whole we're going to primary you out if you aren't pure enough loses a good chunk of it's punch if the groups that do it can't get candidates that can win the general election in. It just ends up being a case of cutting off one's nose to spite their face.

AngelHedgie · May 2012

Somehow, I don't see Mourdock's latest statements helping:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/mourdock-bipartisanship-ought-to-consist-of-dems-coming

UnknownSaint · May 2012

Wow, what a dick.

Hacksaw · May 2012

Captain Carrot wrote: »

AManFromEarth wrote: »

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Captain Carrot wrote: »

enlightenedbum wrote: »

Lugar is from Indiana. It makes it theoretically possible (as opposed to no chance in hell), but still unlikely.

And Armey was in the House.

Last I checked Donnelly was even with or leading Mourdock. I wouldn't call that too unlikely.

Once again, we have a case of Teapers cutting off the GOP nose to spite the party's face. If Mourdock wins (and lets face it, that's looking likely now), the GOP is going to have to spend real money and other resources to just keep the seat that they wouldn't have had to.

Good. gooooood.

PantsB · May 2012

Anecdote: A month or two ago I was mildly worried that I saw Brown bumperstickers but not many Warren ones.

I'd now say I see 3 or 4 Warren for every Brown bumpersticker, and I'm in the part of Massachusetts Brown is supposed to be strongest in.

Paladin · May 2012

So I received my primary ballot and there's tons of names; is there a collective info depot where I can at least maximize my votes for my ideals?

nexuscrawler · May 2012

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Somehow, I don't see Mourdock's latest statements helping:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/mourdock-bipartisanship-ought-to-consist-of-dems-coming

trouble is the current GOP loves assholes like that

UnknownSaint · May 2012

nexuscrawler wrote: »

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Somehow, I don't see Mourdock's latest statements helping:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/mourdock-bipartisanship-ought-to-consist-of-dems-coming

trouble is the current GOP loves assholes like that

I'm not so sure about that - not for the members of Congress, anyway. The establishment GOP has a pretty interesting and tense relationship with the young Teaper faction. They don't play ball all the time when it comes to party tactics, and instead pursue agendas that are too radical for the more seasoned politicians to believe have a shot at actually getting through. So while a lot of them know that their way is not a very good one to get anything done, they all really fear being taken out behind the shed and offed in a primary like Lugar just was.

Paladin · May 2012

So using a couple of google searches and smartvoter.org I just got what I think are the main campaign messages for the democratic party candidates for California senator

David Alex Levitt - legalize medical marijuana
Mike Strimling - tax the top 3%
Diane Stewart - re-fund education
Nak Shah - decrease taxes, increase stimulus, 0% unemployment, bad spelling
Dianne Feinstein - Incumbent, Security and homeownership?
Colleen Shea Fernald - End war

50th District HoR for California

Connie Frankowiak - End war
David B. Secor - No PACs, party line

What do you think

TheCanMan · May 2012

If your position cliff notes are accurate, I'd think it'd have to come down to either Strimling or Stewart (or Levitt if he's more than just the legalize pot guy), and probably Secor.

Kayne Red Robe · May 2012

Bleh, all three of the folks on the primary ballot for my state district are listed as Republican. Stupid southern California.

Edit: @Paladin is there any reason not to vote for Feinstein? I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention but I haven't heard any compelling reason to primary an incumbent Dem Senator.

Preacher · May 2012

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/10/11642467-house-gop-pits-pentagon-vs-poor

I wonder if this is a fall out from the Luger primary, but the HOUSE GOP just passed a measure that even 16 house GOP members couldn't agree with.

Amongst this highly symbolic stupid bills measures would be one that removes the child tax credit. Brilliant.

Penny Arcade

US Congressional Elections 2012: Scott Brown, Diviner of Ancestry!

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