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Political Roundup for November 19, 2012

by: BostonPatriot

Mon Nov 19, 2012 at 07:00:00 AM EST


Governor

ME-Gov: Left-leaning Independent Steve Woods, who got 1.5% in the Senate race this year, will run for Governor in 2014. Woods alone isn't likely to make much of an impact, but Gov. Paul LePage (R) probably needs this race to turn into a clown car to win a second term. Fortunately, Maine sees as many 3- and 4-way races as all other states combined.

MN-Gov/Sen: As the Minnesota GOP looks to pick up the pieces after a terrible cycle, the Great Mentioner has a list of names for 2014. Tim Pawlenty is out, but Reps. John Kline and Erik Paulsen (the latter of whom is probably our strongest candidate) both took the not-ruling-it-out path. Others: Norm Coleman, Michele Bachmann, Hennpin Sheriff Rich Stanek, former St. Rep. and UMN regent Laura Brod, and RNC Committeeman Jeff Johnson.

NH-Gov: Kevin Smith, the activist who lost to Ovide Lamontagne in this year's primary, is likely running again in 2 years. The Great Mentioner also name-drops every single Republican in NH politics as a potential 2014 candidate for Governor, Senate, or Congress, with the exception of Ovide and Charlie Bass, who are hanging it up.

House

AZ-02: This race was called for Rep. Ron Barber (D) over the weekend. Barber trailed on Election Day, but won absentees and provisionals by enough to erase Martha McSally's lead.

FL-18: The first round of recanvassing has expanded Allen West's deficit to about 2100 votes. West's campaign has been very gung-ho about recounts and legal challenges, but it would be unprecedented to see this kind of margin erased.

NC-07: And in the only other remaining uncalled race, Mike McIntyre leads by 655 after all counties finished counting last week. He's declared victory; the Rouzer campaign will decide on whether to ask for a recount this week.

NY-27: He hasn't even been seated yet, and Chris Collins already has his quintessential rookie mistake out of the way.

TN-04: Rep. Scott DesJarlais, like Anthony Weiner before him, has "no plans to resign," which leaves House leadership with a decision on how hard to push him in that direction. Support for DesJarlais in his home state sounds tepid.

Miscellaneous

NRSC: Jerry Moran says his committee will be more involved in recruiting and shepherding candidates through the primary than it was under John Cornyn this year. The heavy-handed approach didn't work in 2010, but it seems preferable to a repeat of 2012, where Claire McCaskill was able to pick her opponent in MO.

RNC: Reince Priebus will seek another term as chairman. The committee was certainly better organized than under Michael Steele, but since the results weren't there, Priebus could certainly face a challenge.

NC-LG: In arguably the most significant uncalled statewide race, Dan Forest (R) leads by 6,396 votes out of 4.5 million cast. His opponent, Linda Coleman, can ask for a recount but has yet to do so.

NYC-Council: For those redistricting junkies desperate for a fix, the New York City Council released its draft map. Alas, it's not the gerrymander that we've come to expect from New York politics.

WA-St. Sen: Democrats are projected to have a 26-23 majority in this chamber, but two moderate Dems could caucus with Republicans, creating a GOP-dominated coalition in which one of the Dems would be Majority Leader. This hinges on Republicans retaining their lead in SD-17, which remains uncalled.
BostonPatriot :: Political Roundup for November 19, 2012
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Political Roundup for November 19, 2012 | 144 comments
Without reading the article
"Kevin Smith, the activist who lost to Ovide Lamontagne in this year's primary, is likely running again in 2 years. The Great Mentioner also name-drops every single Republican in NH politics as a potential 2014 candidate for Governor, Senate, or Congress, with the exception of Ovide and Charlie Bass, who are hanging it up."

Is Kimball in or out? It would be amusing if he tried again.  

MO
It appeared national establishment was backing Brunner.
What they didn't have buy-in for was from the MO establishment.

Unless the NRSC gets buy-in from the state party establishment  it's fairly ineffective for national establishment to back someone.

41 Male Republican, Maryland Heights, MO (MO-2). Previously lived in both Memphis and Nashville.

NRSC
I am a tad skeptical about the NRSC thing. Yes, they need to get more involved, but they do not only need to bring in the Tea Party folks early, they also have to reach out to get the Lbertarians' take on candidates. Wasn't it on this webpage that someone said Libertarians provided the margin of victory for Dems in six races? This can't happen again.


German citizen - Conservative by heart, non native english speaker
Candidate Training
The NRSC has traditionally been unwilling to go all in for candidate training, mostly because most of their recruits are elected officials with years of campaign experience. IMO that is changing and they need to up their game with candidates, and both committees need to upgrade the training and support resources they give to campaign staff. Telling them to go to the campaign management institute at AU just doesn't cut it and the NRSC/NRCC DC staff tend to come off as so arrogant they do more harm than good...
[ Parent ]
NRSC getting involved
They just need to their part by recruiting great candidates. Over the past two cycles only Mike Castle lost a primary that fit in this category.

If they go get Mike Rounds, Sean Parnell, etc...they won't have a tough time in a primary. It's only the Angle/Lowden, Akin/Brunner/Steelman type of races that blow up in our faces - mediocre or weak candidates fighting for the nomination against a vulnerable incumbent.

They also need to push out vulnerable incumbents, if there is potential for a competitve race. They did so with Bunning because he was vulnerable in a general, but they need to do the same if one is vulnerable in a primary to a mediocre candidate (as was the case with Mourdock/Lugar).

Therefore, for this cycle I think the following should be forced into retirement:

1. Saxby Chambliss, as a weak/mediocre candidate that upsets him in a primary could make this race competitive.

2. Lamar Alexander, as an unknown/undefined upstart could also make this a race. Whereas a Marsha Blackburn could put this one away, like say a Mike Pence or a Mitch Daniels would have had Lugar retired.

In both cases, it would be ideal if the retirements occurred towards the end of 2013 to give better candidates a head start, but also keeping top Dems away as they may seem fine in their primary situations.

28/Male/Married/Republican/CA-3

Disagree on Alexander
I think there isn't severe enough grumbling about him to make a no-name viable. Plus if he retires we could very well have a barnburner primary between Black and Blackburn - either one will win easily but that primary likely to drain a lot of resources.

I definitely agree on Chambliss though.

R, MA-7/MD-7/moving to WV-1

[ Parent ]
Diane Black?
What indications suggest she is running for higher office? Isn't she part of the GOP leadership team or something?
[ Parent ]
Fundraising
She was IIRC the biggest fundraiser of the entire 2010 class. She could go for leadership but I think she could just as easily run for the Senate.

R, MA-7/MD-7/moving to WV-1
[ Parent ]
*Except West, of course
nt

R, MA-7/MD-7/moving to WV-1
[ Parent ]
And McKinley
I didn't look to see who ended up ahead, but those two were neck-and-neck for most of the cycle. They may have been passed by some freshmen in very competitive seats at the end, but they both raised huge cash by safe-seat standards.
[ Parent ]
My thinking
What if someone credible like Karl Dean decides to run. And Alexander gets a primary challenge from some upstart businessman or a state legislator that outside groups are enamoured with. That could be potentially troublesome.

Black won't challenge Blackburn, no way. Blackburn will have the TEA party and the establishment behind her. Unless said businessman gets in, I think Blackburn will easily get through a primary.

28/Male/Married/Republican/CA-3

[ Parent ]
You'd probably get someone from East Tennessee running as well.
Lt. Gov. Ramsey might try. I could also see Sen. Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) running.

20, Male, Conservative Republican, TN-08 (home), VA-01 (college)
[ Parent ]
also depends upon bench of state
I agree the candidates running against Reid were weak but the Nevada GOP infrastructure has been dismantled.  2006 and 2008 wiped out a lot Republicans and I think it impacted 2010 recruitment in NV and CO especially.
[ Parent ]
Partially agree about recruitment, not so sure about the retirements.
The thing is, you don't want a recruit who actually doesn't want to run. Part of the reason we couldn't get anyone decent in against Reid was that Heller wasn't interested and the LT gov was under investigation (possibly politically motivated, but I can't entirely remember). On the other hand, Ron Johnson came out of nowhere to be a great recruit against Feingold. Where we really need NRSC recruiting isn't some place like SD, where Mike Rounds is already exploring. I mean, they should certainly tell him they'll back him 100 percent if he gets in, but I'm more concerned about races where we don't have as much of a statewide bench, but could win with the right candidate. I'm thinking of NH here, and maybe OR (Merkley's polling is underwhelming). But look at West Virginia. Shelly Moore Capito has been targetted for recruitment every cycle since 2004, and hasn't been willing to do it. I could see her running a Hoekstra or Thompson campaign, if she's pushed to run but isn't interested. I'd rather have a willing David McKinley than a foot-dragging Capito.

Regarding retirements, I think Alexander's still got enough of a statewide profile that he's not likely to get a primary challenge. I mean, if the Tea Party didn't take on Korger, they aren't going to go after Alexander. Chambliss should also get some cover in the not-too-distant future. He's going to be playing a major role in the whole BenGhazi thing going forward, which will put him on the front lines of responding to Obama foreign policy. If he retires, he retires, but I'm not too worried about him in a primary. Frankly, I'm a bit more concerned about Cochran, though I don't see Democrats as competitive in any of these seats, honestly. If they didn't win a seat in 2008, I can't see them winning it in 2014.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.

[ Parent ]
Eh, I definitely disagree on Alexander, at least
Like Burr, Chambliss is completely unremarkable, but I don't see him mulling a retirement and I'd hate to see a bloody primary, so...

23, MA-07, Rockefeller Republican. Christie-Martinez in 2016. Visit me at http://twitter.com/polibeast
[ Parent ]
TN, GA
I'm not seeing either of those at all. Alexander is no more moderate than Corker, who had only token primary opposition this year. Even if he were, relatively moderate Republicans have been winning primaries in TN for a long time: Howard Baker, Bill Frist, Fred Thompson...

I don't see why Chambliss would be vulnerable. He has a mainstream conservative voting record and hasn't called out his own party the way Lugar often did.

Also, the only top Dems in either state apart from some aging ex-reps who lost in 2010 are Cooper and Barrow, and both of those would be highly unlikely to give up their House seats for a longshot Senate bid.  

43, Dem-leaning Ind, CA-6 (old CA-5)

[ Parent ]
I hope Moran at NRSC cleans house
I hope Moran at NRSC cleans house with the decision makers there, especially if they were involved in 2008 and 2012. I don't blame them for Akin or Mourdock, but I hope they realize the danger of talking candidates into running if they don't really want the job. Thompson and Hoekstra (more state talking him into it I think).

If this is a repeat of 2008 and 2010, I'm going to go apes**t.

Obama supporter and leftist Lincoln Chafee got hundreds of thousands spent against his opponent, moderate Steve Laffey in the primary. Waste of money.

Charlie Crist and Arlen Specter? They became democrats or quasi democrats. In Charlie's case, he wasn't even an incumbent.

NRSC recruited Mike Bouchard in 2006 over Stabenow and then abandoned him. That's with Keith Butler already in the race and Jerry Zandstra getting signatures. Butler wouldn't do worse than Bouchard did that year.

NRSC has to prove themselves to me.


MI-08 - Chairman - Livingston County Republican Party - Opinions are my own and not that of LCRP.  

CT results by Congressional district
CT-01: Obama 63.3%, Romney 35.5%
CT-02: Obama 55.9%, Romney 42.6%
CT-03: Obama 62.6%, Romney 36.3%
CT-04: Obama 55.1%, Romney 44.0%
CT-05: Obama 54.1%, Romney 44.8%

Going after CT-05 seems more than pointless.

26, R, PA-01.



Agree
If Romney could bring that seat to EVEN, we have no hope.

27, Republican, PA-6
[ Parent ]
The Donniemander at work
Move New Britain to the 1st in exchange for any towns along the boundary probably moves Obama % down to 52-53%; Roraback was beaten before he started with that map

[ Parent ]
Freakin' New Britain
They could have a little nice and swapped it for Bristol...

R, MA-3
[ Parent ]
Pointless?
Hmm, since it was the most Republican district in the state, it, and the 4th do seem to still be our best shots at winning Congressional seats in Connecticut.

Lifelong Republican, TX-17
[ Parent ]
If those numbers are true
We should run Roraback again. He had major win in his face and lost by 4. A midterm should be more kind.

28/Male/Married/Republican/CA-3
[ Parent ]
Source?


From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.
[ Parent ]
NV results by congressional district
NV-01: Obama 65.65% / Romney 32.40% / Johnson 1.07%
NV-02: Romney 52.83% / Obama 44.84% / Johnson 1.20%
NV-03: Obama 49.53% / Romney 48.73% / Johnson 1.07%
NV-04: Obama 54.42% / Romney 43.76% / Johnson 0.95%

Obama got the same 66% as 2008 in NV-01. NV-02, NV-03 had major swings to our party; back in 2008 NV-03 was 53.5-44.5.

Heck should be safe for the decade.

26, R, PA-01.



Seems like NV-2 Amodei
Had the biggest swing. Obama won the new district in 2008.

24, Male, R, NY-10

Christie-Toomey 2016!

[ Parent ]
Source on this?
Do you have a source on the numbers? Is there a spreadsheet somewhere?

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2
[ Parent ]
Source?


From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.
[ Parent ]
copied them from here
http://uselectionatlas.org/FOR...

Based on the precinct results here, the numbers are accurate for NV-03.

http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/D...

Heck and Romney got the same number of votes more or less (138k for Romney, 137k for Heck). Oceguera got 116k votes while Obama got 140k.

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
Great site
WV-3 was R+18, up from R+10 and R+3 in the last two elections. It used to be the least Republican seat and now is the most Republican. We have to win this one.

VA-10 was R+2, holding steady. If Frank Wolf retires, the GOP should be very competitive. If 2014 looks like an GOP year, then he should retire now.

VA-2 is down to R+1. Expect it to remain competitive in the future.

VA-4 trending Democratic. R+8 to R+4 to R+2.

IA-1 and IA-2 are D+5. NV-4, CT-2, and CT-4 are D+4. CT-5 is D+3. The GOP usually finds these a bridge too far. CT-2 and CT-4 did go from D+6 to D+4, so maybe in the future.

There's been concern about redistricting in Georgia and whether a seat will flip due to a minority influx. GA-6 went from R+10 to R+13 and GA-7 from R+14 to R+13. There doesn't appear to be anything to worry about.

KY-6 is R+8. Andy Barr should hold it.

MN-1, 2, and 3 all pretty much stayed the same R+1-2. Bachmann nearly lost an R+9 seat.

NE-2 moved from R+3 to R+6 and Terry nearly lost it.  

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2

[ Parent ]
What about NRCC?
There is lots of talk about the NRSC and what they should do (not surprisingly so, given how bad some of 2010 and all of 2012 went).

What do you think should the NRCC do, to increase their chances of holding on to the House - other than hoping for the six years itch?

German citizen - Conservative by heart, non native english speaker

They need to spend their money better
Going all in for Walsh just because they avoided a primary in a safe GOP seat made no sense. Leaving McSally on her own was stupid, especially against an untested candidate in a swim district. Those are the biggest examples that come to mind, but there are many others.

28/Male/Married/Republican/CA-3
[ Parent ]
They went in big for McSally at the end
And I give them a lot of credit for how they handled MI-01. But there were plenty of other head-scratchers, including not seeing NC-07 through to the finish after spending so much early cash on it, and letting CA-36 get away from MBM.
[ Parent ]
CA-36
was the biggest bummer for me, personally. Especially seeing it slipping away after pretty much everyone on the boards were confident that she'd pull it off.

She got some help from Super PACs in the end, if I recall correctly.

German citizen - Conservative by heart, non native english speaker

[ Parent ]
Longtime Incumbents Always Present a Serious Problem
Since they often refuse to admit they are in trouble, and refuse to accept help when it is offered.

Brown resisted NRSC advice on the Cherokee thing until the beginning of October when it was too late.

25 NH-01/London/MA-07

Centrist Foreign Policy Realist - Tory in the UK, RINO locally

[ Parent ]
NRSC's advice to Scott Brown
What was their advice "on the Cherokee thing"?

I don't think there is any such thing as a "perfect campaign", so I am sure that Scott Brown could have done some things better. But all-in-all, I think he is a great candidate and he ran a great campaign. I think, too, that Elizabeth Warren is a weak candidate and she ran a weak camaign. However, the pro-Democrat nature of the state's voters was just too much for Brown to overcome, and too much for Warren to give away.

Age 42. Location: GA-04 & GA-05.

[ Parent ]
Brown's Campaign
He screwed up when the Cherokee thing turned into an attack on the upper class and the Ivy League in general. This turned off the upper class voters Brown needed in order to win.

Lifelong Republican, TX-17
[ Parent ]
Eh, maybe
First of all, I think "the Cherokee thing" was driven by the media more than the Brown campaign, specifically. So I'm not sure how much he could've reasonably done to curtail it.

Secondly, show me 100 Massachusetts voters who are offended by "attacks" on "the upper class and the Ivy League in general", and I'll show you 98 or so who were never going to vote for Scott Brown anyway, no matter what he said or did. Such people are just liberals, plain and simple, and they will naturally be disposed to vote for the liberal candidate. God bless them, and I don't think we conservatives should go out of our way to antagonize them. But neither should we tailor our campaigns in order to appease them. No gain in that.

Age 42. Location: GA-04 & GA-05.

[ Parent ]
Ivy League
False.  Maybe the ratio is 98/100 where you live, but not in Massachusetts.  Heck, I am offended by some attacks on the Ivy League, when done crudely.  
[ Parent ]
Anti-Ivy League Attitude
But neither should we tailor our campaigns in order to appease them. No gain in that.

That just isn't the case. There is plenty to be gained by trying to appeal to Ivy Leaguers and upscale voters. To say otherwise, is just extremely short-sighted in the face of evidence that group expanding as a proportion of the electorate, and blue-collar whites, which, from experience, is what many people advocating abandoning upscale voters want to replace those voters with, is shrinking as a proportion of the electorate. Taking that into consideration, writing off a growing proportion of the electorate, while trying to appeal to a shrinking proportion of the electorate is just setting ourselves up for failure.

This established, let us establish something else: a big part of our problem with upscale voters, and in some areas upper middle class suburbanites in general is the perception that we're anti-education and anti-intellectual. This perception is fueled, in large part, by the anti-Ivy League sentiment among some in the party, and the perception would go away if we stopped the senseless attacks on the Ivy League.

Lifelong Republican, TX-17

[ Parent ]
* is expanding


Lifelong Republican, TX-17
[ Parent ]
Agreed
I may not go to an Ivy League school, but I go to a top-ten ranked liberal arts college and the resentment towards the Ivy League and other top institutions amongst some people in the party is disheartening. Look, if someone got into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Williams, Bowdoin, Haverford, or Duke (all of which fit into the "Ivy League" type mold even if some aren't part of the Ivy League), that should be respected and cherished, not sneered at. Frankly, I'd prefer my candidates to have gone to MIT or Amherst than (Insert averagely ranked state school here), though it's worth noting that that's only a small part of what I look for in a candidate.  

From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.
[ Parent ]
Disagree.
The back-lash against Ivy league schools, and schools of that rank, is only going to get worse, and to a degree it's the fault of these schools and their graduates. If you actually look at the elite colleges statistically--which Charles Murray did in detail in Coming Apart--the percentage of people who get into these schools whose parents also went to schools of the same rank is increasing dramatically. Due to both the "college sorting machine" as Murray calls it, and the increasing tendency for graduates of these universities to wall themselves off from the rest of America in tightly concentrated elite clusters, also increasing, we're seeing the development of a genuine upper class in the United States, possibly for the first time ever. With classes comes class resentment, and it's only going to get worse. We don't need to fight the "anti-Ivy league attitude" in the party so much as we need to address the underlying causes, many of which involve the total detachment of the Ivy League educated elite from the rest of the American Public (this goes beyond Murray; David Brooks captures it well in Bo-bos in Paradise, the book The Creative Class addresses it in detail, and so on).

And, as an aside, I have never seen any evidence anywhere that coming from an Ivy League background actually helps candidates get elected, absent all other factors. That is to say, going to a top ranked college or university out of state is no competitive advantage over going to a lower-ranked, often more local college. The only Ivy Leaguer I know of who ran a superlative campaign in 2012 was Tom Cotton, who was also a veteran (there's a much higher correlation between active military service and running a successful campaign). I frankly could care less whether a candidate has gone to college at all, let alone to an Ivy League college.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.

[ Parent ]
I should add...
I'm not arguing for a wholesale abandonment of attempts to win over the creative class or anything, but I do think being an Ivy Leaguer or graduate of a top college is becoming a class-based form of identity politics which is in some ways much more dangerous than race-based identity politics. I'm very concerned, long-term, about the development of our educated elite into a "managerial class" which thinks it can socially engineer away all the problems of everyone else, but doesn't actually know anything about them. It's hard to say this as someone going for my third post-secondary degree, but given some of the absolute crap highly-educated people believe, it's really hard not to sympathize with anti-intellectualism most days, at least a bit.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.
[ Parent ]
Fight the ideas
I agree there's a lot of crap that comes out of academia.  But disagreeing with the ideas is one thing.  Playing identity politics by vilifying an "educated class" as an enemy is another thing entirely.  Bad policy and bad politics both.  
[ Parent ]
Acknowledging that there's an educated class that already exists and that has some dangers is far different from villifying them.
And I would argue that the "identity politics" issue is already baked into the cake. Most of the educated elite already vote based on their identities as members of this elite. Also, let's not forget that an ever-increasing number of cabinet officials and political leaders hail from this narrow elite, in that they're the children of graduates from top colleges who went to top colleges themselves. Given all this, can we really be surprised when there's a back-lash? The idea that this back-lash will somehow diminish as the educated elite becomes more and more concentrated and isolated is totally counter-intuitive.
Yes, we need to fight the ideas, but complaining about the supposed "anti-intellectualism" of the GOP doesn't address the real societal problems this new elite could conceivably represent.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.
[ Parent ]
Let's step back here
This sounds an awful lot like class warfare, which is, as we know, shameful Democratic rhetoric which has no place in the party. The answer is not to adopt the Democrats' rhetoric and villify (yes, that is what you seem to be advocating here) the upper class. Also, how much of this alleged "nepotism" is really the result of those kids being intelligent (intelligence is part genetic and part environmental) and their parents being able to afford to send them to those institutions? Lastly, this argument is rife with slippery slope fallacies which seem rather outlandish, to be honest.

Lifelong Republican, TX-17
[ Parent ]
*sigh*.
I'm not advocating class warfare. If anything, I'm saying it's an inevitable result of the development of a distinct educated class, with it's own preferences and, yes, prejudices. Let me be clear--to quote Obama--I'm not saying this is a good thing. I am saying it's an inevitable thing.

Have you actually looked at the data, or read any of the research on the development of a distinctive upper class? It's out there, it's plentiful and it isn't encouraging. Living in Northeast D.C. for several years and now living in Alexandria and working in Georgetown, I can tell you there's a real and growing cultural divide between the upper class and the rest. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it is a fact, and pretending that it isn't won't make it go away. The question is how we, as Republicans who think dividing America into classes is ultimately a bad idea, deal with that reality. And we need to add to that reality the fact that this distinct educated class which is emerging--and again this is a fact not my opinion--leans pretty solidly to the left on both fiscal and social issues. I don't know that there are any easy answers to that question, frankly, but however we do that, I think we need to recognize that resentment against the educated elite is only going to get worse, not better. So electorally speaking, running Ivy league educated candidates in every seat might not always be a winning strategy. I 100% agree with Bobby Jindal that we should let the Democratic Party be the party that divides us into races and classes and so on, but I think we also need to recognize that that strategy of division is pretty effective, including among the new upper class.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.

[ Parent ]
Dangerous anti-achievement/education sentiment
I frankly could care less whether a candidate has gone to college at all, let alone to an Ivy League college.

Seriously? You trust the shaping of our local and federal economic policies to people without any sort of college education? That's outright frightening. It's a brash conclusion at best and downright recklessly dangerous at worst.

Letting non-college educated policymakers craft fiscal policy is not as bad as, say, letting Congress set monetary policy but the idea of anyone being in Congress who hasn't taken at least one college-level economics class is outright terrifying.

I want people in Congress and the state legislature who can critically dissect policy from an educated standpoint. Uninformed politicians' tendencies to follow rhetorical platitudes and disregard actual facts behind proposed policies is reason enough to favor more educated citizens being elected.

From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.

[ Parent ]
Scott Walker never finished college
The Republican party needs college graduates. I don't see any hope for these postgrad academic Sandra Fluke types who spend far too much time festering in a liberal bubble.

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
Scott Walker certainly supports your theory...
Oh, wait, no he doesn't. I find it amusing that you're basically accusing me of being anti-education when I've said repeatedly on this board that I'm in a PHD program, and will probably ultimately be a professor. But the naive faith you place in a college education's ability to turn people into critical thinkers is totally misplaced. Your college economics class is only as good as your college economics professor, or more to the point, your college economics professor's T.A. By that logic then, we should only let people serve in congress if they've gone to a school with really good economics professors. Or better yet, let's only let you serve in congress if you are an economics professor.

College is great; if you have the opportunity and can afford it, and it fits with your ultimate career path, you should absolutely go to college. But arguing that only the college-educated are capable of the kind of critical thinking legislators need demonstrates exactly the kind of attitude that worries me. A person with a GED working in IT can be a better critical thinker than a Harvard grad with a law degree, if the latter partakes in group think and the former doesn't.

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.

[ Parent ]
Scott Walker attended college
Moving beyond that, I never said that not attending college excludes one from running for office. Someone who didn't attend college just has an extra burden of proof in that they should have to prove to voters that they understand the intricacies of the economic policies they're going to be setting.

It's a logical assumption to assume that the average college attendee/graduate has sharper critical thinking skills than the average non-college attendee, but by no means am I saying that there aren't many people who are exceptions to that general rule.

From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.

[ Parent ]
Logical but dangerous.
In theory, you're absolutely correct. In practice, a lot of the college educated replace "my parents say" with "my professors say".

Look, any candidate, whether they went to college or not, should prove to the voters that he/she is a good critical thinker capable of grasping and solving our problems. I don't think it's a dangerous anti-achievement sentiment, as you put it, to say that whether or not one went to college really doesn't matter to me in judging this quality in a candidate. Can you think critically, analyze information, and present actual policy prescriptions that can solve the problem? Do you have actual experience of doing so in the past? That's what I look at. Where your degree came from, or whether or not you have one, just isn't something I consider when evaluating a candidate.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.

[ Parent ]
Let's move on, folks
I said below that I was shutting this subthread down, but it's gotten so long that I understand if some people didn't see that.
[ Parent ]
Spoken like someone
who grew up in elite 1% suburbs of Chicago. There are plenty of smart people who couldn't afford to go to college. You just have lived amidst enough privilege that you haven't met such people yet.  

Zero Dark Thirty for Best Picture!
[ Parent ]
In fairness to RRR...
When you're in college, it's pretty much the most important thing in the world, and it's probably not encouraging to hear people down-playing the importance of college when you're busting your butt to get it done. So, speaking as a future professor, yes, college is very important, going to a good college is very important, and graduating from a good college is an extremely laudible thing. That said, I don't think imposing a college-education litmus test on our politicians is really the way we want to go either. College graduates (and God knows PHDs as well) are just as subject to blinkered, prejudiced groupthink as anyone else, when it comes down to it.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.
[ Parent ]
Haven't met such people yet?
Well, there's a presumptuous personal attack.

I'm not delusional; I know that I've been born into a more privileged family than most Americans were born into. My dad managed a building during his graduate school experience to help pay off his student loans. My parents worked hard to attend good schools and to create a comfortable, safe, and well-educated lifestyle for our family. They ought to be commended for that. I can't control the family I was born into and it's rather disturbing that you'd use that against me. Plus, isn't America all about being successful enough to create a comfortable, safe, and educational lifestyle for your kids? I know that I strive to have the resources some day to ensure that my future children will be raised well with all of the resources they'll need.

I cast my general election ballot for Tom Smith for US Senate. I'm open to supporting a candidate who did not attend college, but attending college is definitely a plus. It's unbelievable that someone can claim with a straight face that having attended college isn't a net positive for a politician. Not attending college shouldn't exclude one from running for office, but that person has the burden of proof of showing that they have a realistic, detailed understanding of public policy, especially economic policy.

Oh, and just so you know, I know plenty of people who made college decisions based on financial decisions. Additionally, I was granted a substantial merit-based scholarship to a well-regarded university a rung below the school I ended up at. My parents sat me down we considered the costs and benefits of my attending the school I ended up at instead. I know damn well that many students would have had to choose the other school instead, and I know how fortunate I am to have been able to attend my wonderful college.

From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.

[ Parent ]
Agree
The privileged nonsense needs to stop.  One benefit of living in areas with greatly different socio-economic dynamics is that you realize that the highly educated and the lowly educated have roughly the same percentage of individuals completely devoid of common sense.  

27, Republican, PA-6
[ Parent ]
Can you do the job or not?
The smartest guy (possibly outside of the doctor) in my family history isn't the guy who has the most advanced degree (a couple of attorneys, one professor). That's not to say that the attorneys and professor aren't smart. I don't think I'm dumb. I also know and know of some smart people who didn't have college degrees. One family member fresh off the boat from Ireland built a business from scratch and made millions (before the depression - and his successors lost it along with many others - which is why I'm not a millionaire). Another child of Irish immigrants in a different branch of my family invented balancing machines.

While I think a degree is important, it's one factor of many.

As far as Ivy League goes, two words. Jennifer Granholm. Two more. Barack Obama. Both aren't what I'd consider on the high level of intellect. If that's the best of Harvard Law, then I'd have to sit back and think hard before hiring from there.

Some of the reps I've been impressed with got degrees after being elected (Joe Hune). Others have law degrees like Mike Pence and Jeb Hensarling.

Personally, if I have a bias, it's towards the Big 10. We have some great schools here, and most of us who went to Big 10 schools have the intellect combined with the ability to respect and understand people outside of the bubble. We're grounded and are more likely not to believe our own press releases.


MI-08 - Chairman - Livingston County Republican Party - Opinions are my own and not that of LCRP.  

[ Parent ]
It's hopeless out here in California
Because what the self-described "intellectuals" out here consider to be anti-intellectual are things like "tax cuts create growth", "welfare reform was a good idea", "Anthropomorphic Global warming might not be a scientifically sound theory" and "Abortion is morally questionable".

It's been my experience that anyone who describes themselves as an intellectual is really just a self-aggrandizing Liberal who wants to come up with a justification for their preconceived notion of "I am smarter than anyone who doesn't agree with me".  Blacks vote more Republican than these people do.

22, Libertarian Republican CA-14
Liberals dream things that never were and ask why not.  Conservatives shout back "Because it won't work"

[ Parent ]
Ivy League is not expanding as proportion of the electorate...
LOL seriously? The whole prestige of the Ivy League is that they get increasing numbers of applicants without increasing the number of students they accept. The percentage of the electorate that is Ivy educated likely hasn't changed materially in 50 years. If anything, it might shrink as the schools take an increasing number of students from other countries who are ineligible to vote.

College educated voters are increasing as a share of the electorate, but these voters are overwhelmingly from public institutions.  

Zero Dark Thirty for Best Picture!

[ Parent ]
Not what I meant
What I meant was that the college educated, and what one would consider "upscale" voters are certainly increasing as a proportion of the electorate. The entire context of the top paragraph revolved around "upscale" voters.

Lifelong Republican, TX-17
[ Parent ]
My 2c, before I shut this conversation down
It's very tempting, especially when you're young, to see the world through Ivy-colored glasses. But there's a lot more grey to the elite academic institutions than there is black and white.

It's ridiculous to hold someone's Ivy League degree against them, and I don't have to explain that. But it's equally ridculous--on the level of liking someone just because they're a woman or minority--to look at someone's Harvard or Yale degree and automatically assume they're a good candidate, or even a good person.

The Ivies produce many brilliant leaders. But they also unfortunately produce many self-centered, arrogant, entitled assholes who should never be elected dog catcher. The same is true for state schools. For every Tom Cotton or Pat Toomey, there's a Susana Martinez (UTEP), Paul Ryan (Miami OH), or Scott Walker (no college), and the list of Ivy alums who don't belong in politics is far too long.

[ Parent ]
+1
N/T.

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.
[ Parent ]
Tom Massie and Pete Stark
that's all I need to say about this subject.

R, MA-7/MD-7/moving to WV-1
[ Parent ]
well said
I've said it before here, but when you are told for your entire life (of <20 years) that college is the most important thing and you need to go or else you'll risk being a nothing, I understand why I hear what I do from students.  After a few more years of life experience, many realize that college isn't/wasn't the only path to success.  Some can and will achieve greatness without it or even despite it.  Some would never achieve anything without it.  But the fact that this country's good parents use a form of indoctrination (get good grades to make honor roll, get good test scores for good college, get good college grades for etc etc) is not a bad thing.  
[ Parent ]
Yes.
It's not like there can't be benefit to a college education, but it needs to be weighed in the context of possibly taking on significant student loan debt which will put a shadow on your finances (personal or family) and attempts at saving for a decade or longer. And honestly, the idea that most colleges, even ivy league, teach critical thinking skills or leave their graduates with a fundamentally superior understanding of economic policy is laughable. College can be a path to greater success in the context of some careers, but -- particularly with the rising cost of college and the fact you often need masters degrees for jobs that you used to be able to get with bachelor degrees -- it can also be a hindrance that doesn't effect your eventual job and is a needless drain on your finances.

The real problem, of course, is that public education before college doesn't give students the knowledge or experience to know what career they really want to go into. Many people end up going back for a second or third degree well into their 30s or even 40s because they realize they made a bad decision the first time.

To keep this tangentially political, I personally believe the GOP can make significant inroads, and should target, young professional types (like RRR) if only because these groups are generally libertarian or center-right globally. Same applies for upscale suburbs. I think significant movement like that would depend less on the GOP moderating on social or environmental issues though, and more on a transition to an environment where such voters don't prioritize such issues (since they're also usually center-left socially, although that's not a problem in most party-rich european parliamentary systems where there's almost always a party specifically based on socially liberal economically classically liberal upscale suburban voters) -- of course, if we entered an area where social issues were de-emphasized or coal or oil development weren't major issues, you'd almost certainly see Republicans gains among young and upscale suburban voters accompanied by the Democratic party recouping losses in white economically depressed areas in the upper south. In a two party system, it's always give and take.

(-9.38, -7.49), Blood type "O", social anarchist, KY 01, "When smashing monuments, save the pedestals. They always come in handy."


-- Stanisław Lem

[ Parent ]
Ivy League schools have definitely gotten more elite.
Before 1963, the average standardized test scores of Ivy League schools wasn't actually that much higher than the national average. That's starting to change, as graduates of up-scale colleges are increasingly marrying, living with, working amongst and in all ways associating with other graduates of up-scale universities (Charles Murray's chapter 'The Big Sort' in the book 'Coming Apart' explains it better than I can, with graphs). So the attendees of top colleges aren't actually a larger percentage of the population, but they are congregating into enclaves with unique preferences and prejudices.

As I said above, this isn't entirely a bad thing. We've benefited both as a society and as individuals from the creation of these elite clusters. However, there are genuinely difficult problems that can also result.  

male, social, fiscal and foreign policy center-right Republican, in but not of academia, VA-08.

[ Parent ]
Pretty Much
The issue was an annoyance for Warren when the media was driving it, but Brown associating himself with it was a major mistake, especially as it became, as you describe, a general attack not just on the Ivy League but on the entire post-academic population that inhabits the inner suburbs of Boston.

Furthermore, it began to backfire directly when Brown directly attacked Warren with it at the opening of their debate(the "she doesn't look like a woman of color" line), and his staff got videotaped doing the Tomahawk Chop. At the time the latter occurred, Brown's campaign had just started running an ad on the issue.

What was probably a case of Warren engaging in academic politicking to potentially take advantage of Affirmative Action mutated by September into a Frat Boy-esque mocking of a nerdy girl, "outsiders", and Native Americans generally(who had started out as Warren's victims supposedly).

I don't know if he would have won without it, but the issue not only undermined his own image, but distracted his campaign from trying to make any sort of case for his own reelection until it was too late.

I also have heard the NRSC was expressing concern about the "tone" of the campaign as early as the beginning of September, and there was a lot of "this was inevitable" going around in Washington post-Tomahawk Chop Incident.

25 NH-01/London/MA-07

Centrist Foreign Policy Realist - Tory in the UK, RINO locally

[ Parent ]
MA-Sen
Interestingly enough, Brown held up fairly well in MetroWest, even improving in Wellesley and Weston IIRC.

From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.
[ Parent ]
Where he drop off?
Or was this just urban MA turning out so huge Scott's suburban vote ( which he harvested pretty fully in the special) couldn't keep up?
[ Parent ]
Mid Sized Cities
Lowell, Beverly, Taunton, Fitchburg, Southbridge combined with higher urban minority turnout in Lynn, Lawrence, Springfield, Worcester, Boston.

R, MA-3
[ Parent ]
So, low intensity younger lower income voters
Presidential electorates kill us in the NE  
[ Parent ]
Yeah its brutal
Not sure what to do about it. My hunch is that our voters vote every two years. It's not a matter of getting them to the polls in the NE. A little more GOTV might help marginally, but how do we sway folks that really don't pay attention? (Not blaming them, just the facts) Brown did well in places with upper income white Independent voters. So he's not entirely unconvincing.

The only thing I can think of is the fact in many of the places I listed above there has not been GOP party infrastructure in a long time. We don't have Ward Committees filled up like the Democrats. They are on the ground there by themselves. People may just not "see" Republicans, can't relate to them.  

R, MA-3

[ Parent ]
low intensity younger lower income voters
They kill us everywhere.

Wisconsin 2012 President:

Dane County: 302k votes
Waukesha County: 241k votes

Wisconsin 2012 recall:
Dane: 252k votes
Waukesha: 212k votes

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
MA-Sen post mortem
I have a recap diary full of stats and analysis that will be coming out fairly soon. You're basically right.

From suburban Chicago's North Shore, now living on suburban Philadelphia's Main Line. Back home until July.
[ Parent ]
There are 2 models for a MA R
One is the "Romney 02 model": concede blue collar cities beyond 128 and make it up by turning MetroWest as Red as the North & South Shores

The other is the "Cellucci 98 model" which is to concede losses in close-in brainy burbs and make it up with blue collar Dems in the 508 & 978 area codes  

I think Brown thought his best path against "Professor Warren" was the Cellucci model but just couldn't execute it  

[ Parent ]
That was Chandler's problem as well.


(-9.38, -7.49), Blood type "O", social anarchist, KY 01, "When smashing monuments, save the pedestals. They always come in handy."


-- Stanisław Lem
[ Parent ]
That's my point
They came in for McSally in the end when she should have had help from the beginning. MBM should have had more help. Rouzer need help towards the end. People like Walsh shouldn't get helped. If it leads to a member vs member primary in a safe seat, so be it. How much as Hultgren sent to the NRCC? I imagine it is less than they spent on Walsh.

28/Male/Married/Republican/CA-3
[ Parent ]
NYC-Council: It is a gerrymander!
The map is a total incumbent protection plan. The commitee that draws it is made up of 7 Mayoral appointees, 5 Council Democrat appointees and 3 Council Republicans. The lines also have to meet the following criteria:

Relative population equality (plus or minus 5% of the average or ideal district size based here upon the population adjusted for prisoner locations), Contiguity, Compactness, Political boundaries (that the districts do not split political or community boundaries) and Given all of the above, that they keep racial and Hispanic communities together.

With these criteria the primary goal is making sure everybody can keep their seats.

Although it looks like the moved David Storobin might be the big winner of these maps. Term-limited Brooklyn Councilman Mike Nelson district picked up some heavily Russian territory from Councilman Domenic Recchia's district. This creates a Russian-American district that David Storobin can probably run it.

MSNBC Commentator Hayes Blasts Cuomo
MSNBC Commentator Chris Hayes has blasted NY Gov. Cuomo, accusing him of not doing enough to help Dems keep control of the NY State Senate.  He is expressing sentiment that is prevalent in the left wing of the NY Democratic Party - Cuomo is acting too "Centrist" for their liking.

Speaking of control of the NY State Senate, absentee/affidavit ballots will be counted in 3 SD46 counties this week - Albany, Greene and Montgomery. Republican Amedore got 46%, 60% and 64% respectively in these counties on election day, so by the Thanksgiving Break he should add to his 54 vote lead.  Next week there is Schenectady County (Ame 60% on ED) and big Dem stronghold Ulster County (Ame 39% on ED).  By the time they get to Ulster, Amedore needs a good sized lead to counter a likely good Dem Tkaczyk showing with Ulster absentees/affidavits.  This one will likely be close and there are likely to be a number of contested ballots.  If Amedore can't pull it off, Republican Majority Leader Skelos will need to dip  again into the bin of renegade State Senate Democrats, to get enough votes to maintain his position.  

If necessary, I think Diaz will flip the switch
As for Cuomo, the poor guy just can't catch a break. He either aligns himself with the corrupt loon Democrats in the Senate or he sides with the moderate, wishy-washy (and evil, of course) Republicans. My hunch is he actually hopes Hillary pulls the trigger in 2016, if merely to give him an excuse not to run himself.

23, MA-07, Rockefeller Republican. Christie-Martinez in 2016. Visit me at http://twitter.com/polibeast
[ Parent ]
Or Gilli
I think Cuomo is better suited to be Governor-for-life (realistically, for 3-4 terms) and then settle into a Senate retirement than run for President in 2016. He probably doesn't have a path to victory in a D primary and I'm beginning to question if doesn't have the fire in the belly either. And when it comes to the question "do you desire to run for President?" Maybe always means No.

R, MA-7/MD-7/moving to WV-1
[ Parent ]
I'm just not seeing anything on the presidential horrizon for Gilly
My hunch is she may actually make a play for the DSCC a few years down the line. She strikes me as more of an insider type than a splashy on-the-stump national candidate.

23, MA-07, Rockefeller Republican. Christie-Martinez in 2016. Visit me at http://twitter.com/polibeast
[ Parent ]
Brown Grad Here
and I always found being Conservative their more difficult then living in West Village in NYC.  Enough said?  
Two questions for the smart people here
1. Has anyone seen the voting results for House races broken by Gerrymandered and non-Gerrymandered districts? I realize that distinction is somewhat subjective, but am still curious to this end.

2. Can anyone tell me why Romney spent so much more for the same ads as Obama? I thought there was some rule that TV stations had to price political ads equally. http://dailycaller.com/2012/11...


An anti-public union, market-loving moderate.

I don't think there's such a thing as a non-Gerrymandered district


41 Male Republican, Maryland Heights, MO (MO-2). Previously lived in both Memphis and Nashville.
[ Parent ]
I guess just Iowa
Since it's a computer.  
[ Parent ]
while those lines tend to look clean
The computer in Iowa has often been accused of leaning D / leaning R.

41 Male Republican, Maryland Heights, MO (MO-2). Previously lived in both Memphis and Nashville.
[ Parent ]
heh
If both sides accuse you of bias, you're probably getting it about right.

43, Dem-leaning Ind, CA-6 (old CA-5)
[ Parent ]
sometimes all complaints on the same side
Following 2000; the Iowa computer was accused of Democratic bias. No counter complaints from Demcocrats that cycle.
(For creating the Republican vote sink in addition to the numerous state legislative double bunkings involving Republicans).

In fairness to the computer; Republicans are self-packed in the western part of Iowa.

Complaints were more balanced following 2010 census in Iowa.



41 Male Republican, Maryland Heights, MO (MO-2). Previously lived in both Memphis and Nashville.

[ Parent ]
the 2-2 delegation hints at that
Go figure.

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
No.
TV stations are required to give a discount on political ads, not charge equally between ads placed far out and last minute buys; which is the primary reason Romney spent so much more. He spent most of his cash for the primary period on the actual primary, so most of his cash wasn't available until August. OFA booked most of their ads much earlier in the year, when prices were naturally lower, and took advantage of all the natural benefits of booking ads so far out. Of course, that alone doesn't address such a disparity, but that article makes it sound like Romney's team wasn't even interested in addressing the cost of ads and just "threw money at the problem" which sounds like a good microcosm of what was wrong with his campaign.

(-9.38, -7.49), Blood type "O", social anarchist, KY 01, "When smashing monuments, save the pedestals. They always come in handy."


-- Stanisław Lem
[ Parent ]
Republicans won most non-gerrymandered seats
They won MT, ND, SD, AK, and WY and lost VT and DE.

Age 20, CA-18 (home), CA-13 (college)

Check out my blog at politicohen.com

Berkeley Class of 2015.
[ Parent ]
The National Vote
The national vote is nearly at 126 million now, quite a rise from the roughly 119 million it was on election day. Barack Obama is 5.6 million below 2008, but Mitt Romney is less than 70,000 votes from John McCain. Obama's margin is 3.1%, 3.2% two-party. I think he was around 1.7% on election day, so that's a nice size gain.  

the final vote will represent a drop from 2008 but it's not quite what one would think. Here are the biggest drops:

California 1.6 million (this is sure to drop further)
New York 1.4 million
New Jersey 465k
Illinois 360k
Pennsylvania 349k
Ohio 329k
Michigan 284k
Missouri 180k

Lowest percentage
New York 81%
Alaska 85% (still counting)
California 88%
New Jersey 88%
Oklahoma 91%

What we're seeing is that a good share of the drop was likely due to Sandy.  

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2

Thanks
For the update.  Where are you getting this from?  I can't find any good sites that update often outside of Wasserman's spreadsheet, and I'd prefer a map.

32/M/D/NY-01 DKE:Socks The Cat

Hillary/Booker 2016
[ Parent ]
Imperial's random reading list
NH-leg: Anarchist Democrat from the libertarian Free State Project defeated a minarchist Republican from the Free State project in the NH House. They actually live together. The race featured the victor, Tim O'Flaherty, calling his opponent and housemate a "statist." The line from Reason is great:

Dear non-libertarians of Ward 5: This is how we feel when the major parties cough up Romney and Obama.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/11/19/anarchist-defeats-minarchist-in-new-hamp

MN-leg: A race where Rep. Mary Franson (R) has a 1-vote lead with all of the results in. The race is inevitably heading towards a recount, but there is now the awkward problem that 35 voters were accidentally given ballots for this race instead of their actual state legislative race.
http://www.realcapitolview.com/franson-cunniff-head-to-court-today/

MN-GOP: Ron Paul's state chair, Marianne Stebbins, is not going to run for MNGOP chair when it is open this April.

Stebbins says she will not run for state Republican Party chair, but says other Paul supporters will.


She later added that you "never say never" in another statement.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/11/17/ron-paul-supporters-ponder-the-future-of-minn-gop/

NM/AK-Leg: The Atlantic looks at two races that are currently tied. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/when-a-state-election-can-be-literally-determined-by-a-coin-toss/265413/

libertarian Republican, TX-14/MN-04
AZ redistricting lawsuit to proceed
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/...

Probably goes nowhere of course.

26, R, PA-01.



some of the changes were perhaps warranted
The old AZ legislative map did go out of its way to pack Democrats in a couple places.

That said, give Colleen Mathis credit. She attempted to draw 'competitive' districts and she did; it just so happened that the Democrats got all 3 of them.

I suppose that was the point.

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
If the objective was to draw competitive districts...
Then the point can't be for Democrats to win them. By it's very definition a competitive district is one where either side could win and you can't count on the result to go either way.  

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2
[ Parent ]
Point is in Maricopa & N AZ the GOP is packed
The lines for 1 & 9 clearly were designed to bypass R leaning Prescott & N Phoenix to benefit D candidates from Flagstaff & Tempe  
[ Parent ]
Mathis' Definition of "Competitive"
In Mathis' mind, "competitive" means "just Democratic enough to be out of reach for Republicans."

Lifelong Republican, TX-17
[ Parent ]
None of those seats is out of reach
n/t

Zero Dark Thirty for Best Picture!
[ Parent ]
out of reach, no
It just so happens that its rather unlikely that we win any of them. Out of 3 races, 5 elections, we certainly won't get 7.  

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
Competitive
The "just Democratic enough to be out of reach for Republicans." would mean her objective wasn't to make them competitive. She said that was her objective and people concluded she meant that Democrats they'd be out of reach. They aren't.

Competitive doesn't mean that Republicans win the districts half the time. It means that the race could go either way depending on candidates and the year. Of course incumbents have a way of turning a competitive seat into a safe one.

In a year that leaned Democratic, the Democrats came out slightly ahead on the three seats. Let's see what happens in a year that leans a little Republican. If I were a Democrat I'd be nervous about the seats in 2014.  

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2

[ Parent ]
AZ didn't lean Democratic
Romney won the state by 10, and we went 0/3 on races that had no full term incumbent.

Under what circumstances can we win these races?

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
in a GOP wave
you can win all three; their PVIs can't be more than D+2 or so.

Age 20, CA-18 (home), CA-13 (college)

Check out my blog at politicohen.com

Berkeley Class of 2015.
[ Parent ]
well, we had one
We didn't beat Giffords in AZ-08.

So, sure, with top flight candidates in a wave, we might win all 3. Meanwhile, in a year like 2012, the Dems get all 3.

'Competivive', I guess. Sort of like how NJ Republicans claim their 6 districts are competitive. Shrug.

26, R, PA-01.



[ Parent ]
Arizona
It went from R+8.0 to R+6.4. If the districts moved uniformly, AZ-1 is R+3.7, AZ-2 is R+2.5, and AZ-9 is R+0.1. Romney won anything that's R+1.7 or better. Of course districts don't move uniformly, but it's likely that at least AZ-1 and AZ-2 are R+ districts Romney won.  

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2
[ Parent ]
Our one opportunity in AZ9
Is Sinema is a likely suspect for some raving partisan howler that will backfire badly in an off-year electorate  
[ Parent ]
AZ redistricting lawsuit to proceed
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/...

Probably goes nowhere of course.

26, R, PA-01.



Political comeback kids to take seats again in the House
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Unlike Nolan, the other House Democrats coming back for a second act all lost reelection during the 2010 tea party tide: Reps.-elect Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Bill Foster (Ill.), Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.), Dan Maffei (N.Y.), Dina Titus (Nev.) and Alan Grayson (Fla.). Five of them, including Nolan, scored political revenge by unseating freshman tea party Republicans.

Foster, Kirkpatrick, Titus, and Grayson all ran in partially new seats that were more Democratic and against new opponents. None of them would've won in the districts their 2010 opponents ran in.

Shea-Porter did have a rematch against Frank Guinta, but no one would call him Tea Party. Dan Maffei is the only one who had a rematch with a Tea Party candidate who ousted him.

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2

What lousy journalism
"Five of them, including Nolan, scored political revenge by unseating freshman Tea Party Republicans."

Let's look at them:

Nolan: Beat a freshman who certainly had help from Tea Party enthusiasm but wasn't part of the TPC. We'll let this slide.
Kirkpatrick: Beat Jonathan Paton, a non-incumbent who the Tea Party opposed in 2010.
Foster: Beat a longtime moderate Republican incumbent
Shea-Porter: Beat a freshman incumbent, no Tea Party ties
Maffei: Beat a freshman Tea Party incumbent
Titus: Beat a Some Dude
Grayson: Beat a non-incumbent Tea Partier

So only 3 of them even beat freshmen, and 2 of those have questionable Tea Party ties. Nice work.

[ Parent ]
Are we surprised?
I've often found in life that the "experts" who get paid to write in newspapers or talk on TV often know less than truly dedicated fans. As my signature suggests, I am a huge Oscar fan. The stories you read in the week before the Academy Awards are filled with errors. I am a tennis fan. Some tennis commentators are knowledgeable, but the ones on network television spew erroneous facts left and right. I live with my cousin, who is a Notre Dame grad. He rolls his eyes all the time at the fallacies that the TV commentators speak about football. Political pundits are no better.  

Zero Dark Thirty for Best Picture!
[ Parent ]
Tennis
I am a huge tennis fan, and former HS Team Captain, and watching yesterday's Davis Cup final between Stepanek (Czech Republic) vs Almagro (Spain) was amazing and I'm sure the Spanish team feels quite angry with Rafa Nadal.

To keep this electorally related, I have no doubt Novak Djokovic will become President of Serbia sooner rather than later after his career is over. In addition who of the US players is most likely to run for office?  

19-Cubano, R, CA-38
Turning L.A. County Red


Making CA a Golden State

[ Parent ]
Fun Fact
Of the 42 States with Republican Congressmen, only 5 don't have all their Republican districts connected (as in you can visit all of them without even crossing into a district represented by a Democrat.

And beyond that, If you can cross state lines,the only Republican districts cut off from the rest of them are the SoCal ones (though if we won CA-36 they would be connected), Alaska, and NY 11 and 2.

Says alot about the political demographics of the US right now.

22, Libertarian Republican CA-14
Liberals dream things that never were and ask why not.  Conservatives shout back "Because it won't work"

I'm seeing 6
CA, NV, OH, NC, NJ, and NY.

Amazing that if you flipped NJ-06 and one of three SoCal districts, you'd be able to connect all GOP seats except Peter King's and AK-AL.

[ Parent ]
Gah
I can't believe I forgot about Nevada.  Of all the ones on that list, only NY should have been more obvious.

22, Libertarian Republican CA-14
Liberals dream things that never were and ask why not.  Conservatives shout back "Because it won't work"
[ Parent ]
NC was the one I almost missed
3 and 13 come within a few miles of each other several times, so it's easy to overlook. I also initially thought Florida fit, but Diaz-Balart's district holds things together.
[ Parent ]
PPP: Poll up for 1st 2013/2014 (n/t)


18, Republican, KS-03

Capito, Cassidy, Handel, Roberts and Rounds for 2014 Senate!!
Arkansas
AR-01: Romney 61%, Obama 36%
AR-02: Romney 55%, Obama 43%
AR-03: Romney 65%, Obama 32%
AR-04: Romney 62%, Obama 36%
Lol
Remember a decade ago when AR-3 was by far the most Republican district in the state?

22, Libertarian Republican CA-14
Liberals dream things that never were and ask why not.  Conservatives shout back "Because it won't work"
[ Parent ]
AR-02
Do Democrats have any hopes of being competitive here?

32/M/D/NY-01 DKE:Socks The Cat

Hillary/Booker 2016
[ Parent ]
If Griffin leaves and we get a named candidate who can fundraise, then, yes.
I hate Bill Halter with all my heart, but he's probably the only one who could do it.
[ Parent ]
PA House: How the Dems choked
I don't think they blame the House Dem leadership enough.  The House Democratic leadership is so inept you almost wonder if they have been turned and are working for the Republicans.

The Montgomery County Republicans deserve the dunces award for losing what many considered a non-competitive seat that neither party targeted.

27, Republican, PA-6

Link
http://www.politicspa.com/how-...

27, Republican, PA-6
[ Parent ]
Polarized State Legislatures
http://bigstory.ap.org/article...

Half of the States in the US have super-majority levels of party control.

22, Libertarian Republican CA-14
Liberals dream things that never were and ask why not.  Conservatives shout back "Because it won't work"

Mitt Romney has more votes than John McCain
https://docs.google.com/spread...

Dave Wasserman has him ahead by 26k.  

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2

Obama passes 4 Million
With Obama past 4 million up and 3% and Romney passing McCain, I guess the last question is how close can turnout come to 2008 and how many states (Last count was 18) can pass 08 turnout?

32/M/D/NY-01 DKE:Socks The Cat

Hillary/Booker 2016
[ Parent ]
GA-SEN primary challengers to Chambliss
Talk in Republican circles say Price may run, Broun has left the door open but will probably not run, Graves wouldn't comment, and Gingrey, Westmoreland and Kingston won't run.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/s...

So long as Broun doesn't win
I'm not concerned.  I'd hate to call him "Akin-like" but the man wouldn't be safe in anything less than a R+10 district.  Most of the rest of our delegation could hold this easily though.

22, Libertarian Republican CA-14
Liberals dream things that never were and ask why not.  Conservatives shout back "Because it won't work"
[ Parent ]
They're Dissin' Eni Faleomavaega
http://www.latimes.com/news/lo...

Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is the first American Samoan in Congress,


R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2
Ted Poe's signature
Top of Page 3: http://jeffduncan.house.gov/si...

R, MA-7/MD-7/moving to WV-1
what the what
DesJarlais would be the winner if not for Poe.
[ Parent ]
Mario Diaz-Balart's looks like a Miro drawing
and Vicky Harlzer sig looks like she's in 5th grade & just learned cursive writing!
[ Parent ]
Wow
It looks like he signed Awwwwwww lol.

32/M/D/NY-01 DKE:Socks The Cat

Hillary/Booker 2016
[ Parent ]
Allen West Has Conceded
its on roll call
West should've moved west when FDF was upheld
He could've carpetbagged into Mack's open Ft Myers seat ; muscled out the locals; and held it for life. Dunno why he didn't execute that maneuver instead of fighting it out in a 7% bluer district on the east coast  
[ Parent ]
Propably not his style?
This is very kitchen table psychology, but I didn't take him for one to search for an easy route.

German citizen - Conservative by heart, non native english speaker
[ Parent ]
moving districts was the easy route
if we really wanted to tough it out, he'd have stayed in what is now Frankel's district.

Age 20, CA-18 (home), CA-13 (college)

Check out my blog at politicohen.com

Berkeley Class of 2015.
[ Parent ]
Da Filibuster
Interesting idea on reform:

http://www.motherjones.com/kev...

Would it really be so much of a burden on editors to NOT use Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as a photo reference when writing about the filibuster?

Here's an idea. Senate Rule XXII, which controls the filibuster, originally required two-thirds of all senators present and voting to break a filibuster. In 1975 this was changed to three-fifths of all senators duly chosen and sworn. But what if we went back to the present and voting standard?

An anti-public union, market-loving moderate.

Interesting
I think this would be a good idea and would preserve the filibuster.  Right now we just have a bizarre stalling tactic.

27, Republican, PA-6
[ Parent ]
Why is there a filibuster?
The filibuster is a method for the minority to be heard. It used to be that the senate was about deal making. They'd trade votes on bills. Harry Reid won't let Republicans bills come to the floor and doesn't allow Republicans to introduce amendments. Maybe if Reid was willing to give something to Republicans they'd give back.  

R, CA-37; hometown: PA-2
[ Parent ]
I think live filibusters would be more effective
Since during a live filibuster, no unrelated business at all can proceed on the floor.

41 Male Republican, Maryland Heights, MO (MO-2). Previously lived in both Memphis and Nashville.
[ Parent ]
Political Roundup for November 19, 2012 | 144 comments
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Elections have consequences -- from the race for President to the race for one seat on a city council. The political economist Max Weber wrote that the state possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. But in the United States, the state is divided into myriad federal, state, and local entities. And the elections to fill those entities are the products of the fascinating interactions between campaigns, party affiliations, voter turnout, and the media spotlight. Red Racing Horses analyzes those elections -- from a Republican-leaning perspective -- to keep a close eye on the process of electing officials, and to offer our perspective on the election-related issues of the day. Thank you for visiting, and we hope you'll enjoy the blog.

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