October 2006 Archives

A week to the day from election day, my near final predictions are here: 2006 Election Predictions.cheats heroes wog

Now as they say in Congress, I reserve the right to “revise and extend my remarks,” which I may do next Monday. For although I do not anticipate any radical changes in my predictions, you know what they say: overnight is an eternity in politics. (It’s possible, for example, that John Kerry may speak again.)cheats heroes wog

Some House races are really very, very close and it’s impossible from the available data to predict the outcome with any confidence. In New Mexico 1, for example, I projected that Democrat Patricia Madrid will defeat incumbent Republican Heather Wilson. (That is, by the way, a switch from what I predicted here.) But I readily admit that other observers may disagree. cheats heroes wog

In a few races, I buck the conventional wisdom. For instance, in Florida 16, a GOP stronghold, I think Republican Joe Negron is likely to hold Mark Foley’s seat. Republican voters there seem to understand that a vote for Foley will be counted as a vote for Negron.cheats heroes wog

Go join the fun! You can register your own predictions here.cheats heroes wog

Now he’s lying.cheats heroes wog

A man who has called American troops rapists, murderers and terrorists — “reminiscent of Genghis Khan” — wants you to believe he couldn’t have also called them stupid. He says “right wing nut-jobs” have distorted his words:cheats heroes wog

If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

We can ignore the chickenhawk non sequitur, which says that if you’re not a police officer you can’t support crime fighting. Here, again, is what the man said:cheats heroes wog

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

Manifestly, John Kerry is not referring to the president; he’s referring to the troops. That’s not just a fair read of his comments. That’s the only reasonable read of his comments.cheats heroes wog

John Kerry had two intellectually viable options here. He could have issued a simple, direct apology to the men and women he maligned. cheats heroes wog

Or he could have told the truth. cheats heroes wog

He could have embraced his remarks and expanded upon them. He could have admitted that in addition to seeing American troops as brutal thugs, he also sees them as stupid yahoos. His base would have cheered him.cheats heroes wog

Have many times has John Kerry told us the Bush Administration is a cabal of liars? How many times has he accused Republicans of being dishonest in their pursuit of power? And yet here, when he had the opportunity to tell the American people the truth as he — and many other Democrats — see it, he prevaricated.cheats heroes wog

John Kerry is a lout and a fraud.cheats heroes wog

ADDED — cheats heroes wog

Here’s the video:cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: John+Kerry, US+troopscheats heroes wog

Listen to the contempt he expresses for the men and women who wear our Nation’s uniform:cheats heroes wog

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Allah has the audio.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

From the comments at the link above:cheats heroes wog

… what would such a statement mean concerning a senator who voted to authorize the war in the first place?

ADDED II —cheats heroes wog

The Astute Bloggers:cheats heroes wog

The all-volunteer Armed Forces are the most educated and intelligent this country has EVER had. And yet Jean-Francois Kerry still characterizes military service — the courageous and voluntary sacrifice of time, effort, blood, and sometimes life itself — as a punishment for the uneducated and stupid.

He is the stupid one. When splashed on the front pages over 30 years ago, it was by maliciously and falsely accusing American soldiers of war crimes that rivaled Genghis Khan. He hasn’t changed a bit. Any conservative who thinks that the interests of America will be served by returning Jean-Francois Kerry’s party to power is stupid, too. (Link)

ADDED III —cheats heroes wog

Hugh Hewitt: cheats heroes wog

Keep in mind he was the Democratic Party nominee, and keep in mind that the Democratic leadership and the MSM shares this contempt, but are usually much better at disguising it.

Yet another prognosticator weighs in on the GOP’s fortunes.cheats heroes wog

Predictions of how this election will turn out vary wildly; but it’s noteworthy that even pro-Republican pundits have the party hanging on by a thread.cheats heroes wog

Three respected political scientists say the Democrats will pick-up thirty-two House seats in the upcoming election.cheats heroes wog

Meanwhile, Republicans can only hope that Stuart Rothenberg is wrong:cheats heroes wog

With the national environment being as it is — and given the last round of redistricting, which limits possible Democratic gains — Republicans probably are at risk to lose as few as 45 seats and as many as 60 seats, based on historical results. Given how the national mood compares to previous wave years and to the GOP’s 15-seat House majority, Democratic gains almost certainly would fall to the upper end of that range.

The paucity of competitive districts limits Republican risk, but how much? Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer. But if redistricting cuts that kind of wave by half, Democrats would gain between 22 and 30 seats next month. And if the new districts slice Democratic gains by a smaller but still significant one-third, Democrats would pick up from 30 to 45 seats. (Link)

If you accept Charlie Cook’s assessment that one hundred sixty-six House seats are “solid Republican,” that leaves another sixty-six GOP held seats that are in the first, second or third tiers of competitiveness. (Republicans currently hold two hundred thirty-two House seats.)cheats heroes wog

What Rothenberg is saying, then, is that the Democrats are going to sweep the first and second tiers; in other words, they’re going sweep every district where the Republican incumbent isn’t bolted to the floor. He concludes:cheats heroes wog

Dangerously big waves can be very strong and very unpredictable. They can bring widespread destruction and chaos. Republicans now must hope that this year’s midterm wave isn’t as bad as national poll numbers suggest it could be, because those national numbers suggest a truly historic tidal wave.

Oh. My. God.cheats heroes wog

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-NC, is chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Did you happen to catch her appearance today on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace? cheats heroes wog

She was completely clueless and had nothing intelligent to say, but insisted on saying it anyway. Even Mr. Wallace told her, in effect, to “Stifle yourself, Edith!”cheats heroes wog

If Karl Rove also happened to catch her appearance, I’m certain that by now she’s received a call telling her to shut the fuck up! And not to appear on another Sunday news program. Ever.cheats heroes wog

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever in my life seen a worse performance by a politician.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

I haven’t yet found the video, but if I do, I’ll post it. Frankly, I’m surprised no Democrat rushed to put it up on You Tube. cheats heroes wog

The only real question now is, “By how much?”cheats heroes wog

Red State has a district-by-district analysis that projects twelve Democratic pick-ups in the U.S. House; another five districts are classified as toss-ups. The Democrats need fifteen pick-ups for a majority.cheats heroes wog

When even a partisan Republican blog puts Democrats within striking distance of the win, you know the Democrats are well-positioned. cheats heroes wog

The Republican prognosticator at Election Projection also has the Democrats poised for victory; Scott Elliott projects them to pick-up seventeen seats.cheats heroes wog

Next weekend, when the last batch of polls is out, I’ll consider whether I should modify my own prediction that the Democrats will net between fifteen and twenty pick-ups. But two changes are already in order:cheats heroes wog

I originally projected a Democratic pick-up in Connecticut 2, where Republican incumbent Rob Simmons is facing Democrat Joe Courtney. But Simmons has amassed a crushing money advantage, and I now think he’s likely to win re-election.cheats heroes wog

Conversely, in Pennsylvania 7, where I thought Republican incumbent Curt Weldon would hold on, it’s the Democrat, Joseph Sestak, who has the huge money lead. Weldon has also been hurt an FBI investigation into alleged influence peddling. Sestak will win that race.cheats heroes wog

These switches are off-setting.cheats heroes wog

Look this week for any decent polling that might come out of the three hotly contested Republican-held seats in Connecticut. If there’s any evidence the Democrats are about to pull away nationally, Connecticut is the first place you’d expect to see it.cheats heroes wog

As of today, Election Projection forecasts (narrow) Republican wins in all three of those races, while Stuart Rothenberg classifies them as pure toss-ups.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats, US+House, Congresscheats heroes wog

In an article for the Washington Post on where Republicans went wrong, former House majority leader Dick Armey, R-TX, writes: cheats heroes wog

The greatest threat to American prosperity today is a catastrophic fiscal meltdown resulting from long-term entitlements.

Yes. For more, see the post immediately below.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

I don’t mean to suggest here that the entitlement crisis is just the GOP’s fault. It’s not. The origins of this problem pre-date the Republican majority. But Republicans didn’t exactly help the situation when they added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. That benefit is now projected to cost $1.2 trillion.cheats heroes wog

(By the way, does anybody remember when the projected cost was a mere $300 billion?)cheats heroes wog

A warning:cheats heroes wog

Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That’s almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and those Google guys included.

A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today.

And every year that nothing is done about it … the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

Fiscally, our country is in frightening trouble. cheats heroes wog

We Americans need desperately to have, and to be led in, a discussion of entitlement reform. We are bankrupting our children. And we maybe bankrupting even ourselves. According to one projection, “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and net interest [on the debt will] consume all [federal] revenues” by 2024, only eighteen years from now.cheats heroes wog

But regardless of which party wins control of Congress next month, we won’t have that discussion, will we? Our political parties are simply not serious about fiscal responsibility. And they’re not serious about it because you and I are not serious about it. cheats heroes wog

We avoid facing our fiscal problems squarely because doing so would require painful choices. Medicare spends half its money on people who are in the last six months of their lives. Do we want to keep doing that? Or would we rather send our kids to college? Even in a nation as productive and rich as ours, there are limits to what we can afford.cheats heroes wog

For now, we’ll buy everything. After all, there’s still credit on the public Mastercard.* But one way or another, all unsustainable practices come to an end. cheats heroes wog

(*Incidentally, that card is issued by, among others, the central bank of China.)cheats heroes wog

This has been a public service announcement from Right Side of the Rainbow. We now return you to your various discussions of gay sex …cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Fiscal+policy, public+debt, Medicare, Medicaidcheats heroes wog

To hear the Times tell it, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-RI, is a “moderate.”cheats heroes wog

In 2005, the American Conservative Union gave Mr. Chafee a rating of 7; Americans for Democratic Action gave him a 75. cheats heroes wog

What kind of voting record would Mr. Chafee have to have for the Times to call him a liberal?cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: New+York+Times, liberal+media+biascheats heroes wog

David Limbaugh: “Shouldn’t we ask: ‘Democrats have a potentially masterful plan for removing Republicans from majority control, but what is their plan for action if they win?’”cheats heroes wog

Disaffected Republican? Yeah, me too. If you and I view this election as the Democrats want us to view it, as a referendum on the GOP, we could readily vote to throw the bums out. But if we view this election for what it is, for what every election is — a choice between competing agendas — we’ll have to stop and ask ourselves: Do we want what the Democrats are offering?cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Democrats, Republicanscheats heroes wog

And, “I think it was not only poor judgment but positively evil.” Camille Paglia is not talking about Republicans.cheats heroes wog

As Paglia notes, Foleygate was deeply damaging to gay men, for it relied upon and magnified and seemingly confirmed all the worst stereotypes of them. cheats heroes wog

From now on, whenever a Democrat tells me that Republicans — and by implication, only Republicans — cynically use gay-related issues for political gain, I’m going to laugh heartily.cheats heroes wog

Here.cheats heroes wog

Associated Press:cheats heroes wog

As a black Republican running for Senate, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele needs to upset some traditions — the historical reliance of blacks on the Democratic Party and the reluctance of many whites to vote for a minority.

So we’re supposed to think that “many whites,” as in an electorally significant number (otherwise, why mention them?), are relucant to vote for a minority? Bullshit! That’s a canard of the PC. I don’t know any white voter who wouldn’t back a candidate only because the candidate is a minority, and I bet you don’t know one either. In fact, whether it’s a Jesse Jackson on the left or a Michael Steele on the right, minority candidates draw especially enthusiastic support from whites who share their ideology. cheats heroes wog

If Michael Steele loses in Maryland, he will not have lost because he’s black. He will have lost because he’s a Republican in a heavily Democratic state.cheats heroes wog

Relatedly, Steele’s campaign has put out a new, devastatingly effective ad. Watch it.cheats heroes wog

New York Times:cheats heroes wog

A liberal gay rights group said Wednesday that one of its employees, acting anonymously, had created the Web site that first published copies of unusually solicitous e-mail messages to teenagers from former Representative Mark Foley, which led to his resignation.

A spokesman for the group, the Human Rights Campaign, said it first learned of its employee’s role this week and immediately fired him for misusing the group’s resources. The scandal surrounding Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, has been a burdensome distraction for members of his party in the month before the midterm elections, and some Republicans have speculated that the e-mail messages were planted by a Democrat.

The rights campaign’s spokesman, David Smith, said the employee, whose name he declined to disclose, was a junior staff member hired last month to help mobilize the organization’s members in Michigan. “The minute we learned about it we took decisive action,” Mr. Smith said.

The Miami Herald and other news organizations have acknowledged obtaining copies of the same e-mail messages months ago but declining to publish them because of their potentially ambiguous contents.

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

Ace of Spades HQ: “… it appears that HRC only ‘investigated’ this matter due to a threat from Stop October Surprises,” as in, “If you do not act, I will. Friday is your deadline or I name names.” cheats heroes wog

Moral of the story: If you believe you’ve uncovered evidence of impropriety, promptly turn it over to the authorities. Do not hold onto the information and blog it for political effect. If you do, somebody will hold you accountable. You will not remain anonymous. There are three hundred million people in this country, including more than a few with astonishing computer skills and sharp investigative instincts. One of them will ID you.cheats heroes wog

By the way, Stop October Surprises says there are “conspirators,” plural, and is demanding that HRC “come 100% clean.”cheats heroes wog

For what it’s worth:cheats heroes wog

Odds favor the Republican Party to retain control of at least one house of Congress in elections next month, British bookmaker Ladbrokes said Thursday.

Relatedly, the GOP is doing some wagering of its own:cheats heroes wog

New Jersey is to Republicans what slot machines are to gamblers: irresistible, with long odds of winning.

Gamblers pull the lever, hoping for the big payout. Republicans are sharing the same dream, throwing $3.5 million into the Senate race with days left and banking that GOP challenger Tom Kean Jr., can defeat Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez on Nov. 7.

According to a survey released today by Rasmussen, Kean and Menendez are tied 45-45. If you believe Hugh Hewitt’s dictum — all polls underweight Republican voting strength — then Kean is actually ahead.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

The New York Times/CBS News poll also shows the Kean/Menendez race in a dead heat.cheats heroes wog

ADDITIONS BELOWcheats heroes wog

From the court’s opinion:cheats heroes wog

Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.

ADDED—cheats heroes wog

Openly gay law professor Dale Carpenter, who notes that the New Jersey Supreme Court based its decision in part on the state’s history of pro-gay legislation:cheats heroes wog

While the result in this case is surely a good one for gay families, it may chill experiments in other states where legislators might fear that they cannot move incrementally toward equality for gay couples without surrendering the judicial basis for any remaining distinctions. I doubt that’s really a great danger in most states, where courts tend to be less aggressive than New Jersey’s and where the standard rational-basis test should allow legislatures to proceed incrementally, but this opinion will surely be cited as a reason not to grant any rights to gay couples.

Same-sex marriage supporter Steven Den Beste of the Chicago Boyz:cheats heroes wog

… our compact with one another is that if the process was reasonably honest and if everyone participated, the losers will concede defeat. Of course, they may try to work within the system to change those decisions, and that has happened many times. But the compact is that such decisions change because the majority agree with the change, and the activist minority will work to convince the majority that change is needed, and will accept their defeat in the mean time.

Some activists in this country have been breaking this compact. It’s been a particular problem with leftists over the last 35 years. Instead of trying to convince the majority that certain things should change, they’ve been making an end-run around the electoral system and getting those changes made via activist judges.

Irrespective of the merits of individual decisions, the basic problem with this is that it cheats the electorate by forbidding them from participating in the process of collectively making those decisions. And the “losers” don’t concede defeat, because they never got their chance to participate in the decision.

As Den Beste notes, that was the case with Roe and abortion rights, wasn’t it?cheats heroes wog

Law professor Ann Althouse:cheats heroes wog

The urgent subject now is: How will this affect the election? I assume most people will say this helps the Republicans. Is that so and if so, how much will it help and where exactly? Clearly, it goes beyond New Jersey, because it lights a fire under social conservatives and those who worry about overactive judges.

Oh, Ann, getting voters exercised over judicial usurpation of democratic authority is just another one of Karl Rove’s Jedi mind tricks! It doesn’t have anything to do with, you know, actual court decisions.cheats heroes wog

My view here is the same as it was when the Massachusetts Imperium handed down its decree: The result is fine; the method is not.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Gay+marriage, same-sex marriage, courts, judgescheats heroes wog

The New Jersey Supreme Court will announce at 3 p.m. EST today whether gay couples in that state have a right to marry, the Associated Press reports.cheats heroes wog

Michael Barone — whose political judgments you should take to heart — forecasts a narrow win in the House for Democrats:cheats heroes wog

My predictions would produce an almost evenly divided House: 219 Democrats, a net gain of 16, and 216 Republicans.

But …

Such a result would raise the question of whether Mississippi Democrat Gene Taylor, who declined to vote for Nancy Pelosi for speaker in this Congress, would do so again, and whether another Democrat might do so — which could produce a Republican majority for speaker.

U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-MS

It takes 218 votes to elect a speaker. If the Democrats end up with exactly that number, Rep. Taylor becomes kingmaker.

A Democrat from Mississippi’s Fourth District, Taylor has a lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union of 68 and an “A” from the National Rifle Association.

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Democrats, Republicans, Congresscheats heroes wog

Dick Morris says yes:cheats heroes wog

The latest polls show something very strange and quite encouraging is happening: The Republican base seems to be coming back home. This trend, only vaguely and dimly emerging from a variety of polls, suggests that a trend may be afoot that would deny the Democrats control of the House and the Senate.

It’s nice to have your own perceptions validated by one of the pros. cheats heroes wog

The latest batch of surveys does indeed show some movement — small but perceptible — back to the GOP. Is it enough for the party to keep its majorities? cheats heroes wog

Democrats won’t get to party like it’s 1994.In the Senate, the Republicans face the near-certain loss of four seats: Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Montana and Ohio. But to take control of the Senate, the Democrats need a sweep of six seats, including Tennessee and Virginia. That now seems unlikely. (In Tennessee, Democrat Harold Ford Jr. has fumbled; in Virginia, Republican incumbent George Allen is hanging on despite himself. And incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez remains vulnerable in New Jersey, while Republican challenger Michael Steele looks surprisingly strong in Maryland.)cheats heroes wog

What about the House? Encouraged by internal polling, Republicans are making a serious effort to hold Mark Foley’s seat in Florida and Tom DeLay’s seat in Texas. But even if the party pulls out (unlikely) victories in those races, it still faces the loss, I think, of fifteen to twenty House seats. And yet, this is right:cheats heroes wog

At some point last week, Republicans and conservatives on Blog Time began to cheer up, and Democrats and liberals on Blog Time began to worry. The head man at the hard-Left dailykos.com expressed his fear that Democrats had peaked too early, while the folks at the conservative redstate.com seemed sure that their team was saving itself from certain disaster.

Will the night of November 7 be one of glorious victory for Republicans? I doubt it. But will it be a night of unmitigated catastrophe for them, a 1994 in reverse? I now doubt that too.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, elections, Congress, House, Senate, Republicans, Democratscheats heroes wog

Another David Zucker ad the GOP is too timid to air:cheats heroes wog

Bill Quick has The List.cheats heroes wog

Byron Calame, public editor for the New York Times, admitted today that his paper erred when it published a story about the Government’s then-secret surveillance of terrorist banking data.cheats heroes wog

Patterico says Calame should resign.cheats heroes wog

In this week’s podcast —cheats heroes wog

• The Larry Craig story: when is a gay man a hypocrite?
• Plus, we’ve got ballot questions! 208 propositions are on the ballot in 37 states. Hear about the ones worth following.

The Hipcast stream is encoded for dial-up users. (Run time: 17:33)cheats heroes wog

If you have a broadband connection, you can listen to the original mp3 file by clicking the icon below. The original file provides CD quality audio. (Link launches your media player.)cheats heroes wog

You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes. cheats heroes wog

You’d can also subscribe using your podcatcher or podcast-enabled RSS reader. Here’s a link to the feed:cheats heroes wog

(Don’t have a podcatcher? Juice is free and works on Windows or Mac.)cheats heroes wog

Links mentioned in this episode:cheats heroes wog

• Blog Active
• “Same-sex marriage: pro and con,” a reader edited by Andrew Sullivan
• Human Rights Campaign
• Initiative & Referendum Institute

Robert J. Caldwell on the meaning of a Democrat-controlled Congress:cheats heroes wog

The fact is that, unlike the Republicans in 1994, congressional Democrats in 2006 have no coherent governing agenda.

If they win Nov. 7, we’ll have divided government and potential gridlock. Bush will discover his veto power and Democrats will revel in the unaccustomed luxury of opposition “oversight” and investigations. Odds are, overwhelmingly, that nothing much will get done.

Yes. But isn’t that a plus? The prospect of our overblown Government grinding to a halt is the only thing that leaves some of us sanguine about a Democratic victory.cheats heroes wog

Eric at Classical Values:cheats heroes wog

I don’t think the reason gay Republicans have come under such fierce attack is because their attackers really believe their main crime is self hatred. I think the “self hatred” meme is a cover for something else.

[…]

Gay refusal to cooperate with identity politics is the highest form of treason, and a dire threat to the very workings of the Democratic Party machine. If this heresy is not stamped out and gay Republicans are tolerated, what becomes of party discipline? Women and blacks might be next. This means that gay Republicans are more than hated; they are feared.

I’ve never understood the notion that gays and lesbians can’t vote Republican because most Republicans oppose gay marriage. Most Republicans also support the war on drugs, which I do not. But I’ve never heard anyone suggest that I shouldn’t vote Republican because the party supports drug policy that I oppose. There are any number of issues on which an individual might disagree with a party’s platform but still vote for the party’s candidates. cheats heroes wog

Why is the gay Republican “self-hating” when he shares a tent with those who oppose same-sex marriage but the gay Democrat who does the same thing is not?It’s only when gays and lesbians define their identity wholly in terms of sexual orientation that voting Republican becomes problematic. But then so does voting Democratic. As Eric notes, many prominent Democrats oppose gay marriage. (See Kerry, John.) And unless you want to advance the absurb idea that seventy to eighty percent of the electorate is Republican, you must conclude that many rank and file Democrats oppose gay marriage as well; bans on gay marriage routinely pass with crushing majorities. Why, then, is the gay Republican “self-hating” when he shares a tent with those who oppose same-sex marriage but the gay Democrat who does the same thing is not?cheats heroes wog

Gay Democrats believe, I think, that gays and lesbians as a class are natural constituents of the liberal agenda writ large. Gay Republicans inconvenience that notion and threaten the liberal appeal to identity politics. But why should a homosexual orientation per se preclude support for right-of-center attitudes and public policy? Were the world magically populated by nothing but homosexuals, are we to believe there would be no class distinctions among them? No venture capitalists? No property owners? No gun owners? No advocates of a robust defense posture? No supporters of the “military-industrial complex”? No American presidents deposing barbarous dictators? And no — gasp! — religious conservatives? cheats heroes wog

Please. Nothing in fact or reason suggests that homosexuality is either that splendid or that awful, as your view may be.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Gay+Republicans, Gay+Democrats, gay+identity, identity+politicscheats heroes wog

Barron’s Online:cheats heroes wog

Our analysis — based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data — suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber’s 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party’s loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three.

[…]

Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years.

Dafydd, observing that the pendulum has begun to swing back to the GOP: “… the most noticible effect of the Democratic Party’s scandalmongering was to prevent the Republicans from peaking too soon!”cheats heroes wog

Glenn Reynolds, who reveals today that he voted for Republican Bob Corker in the Tennessee Senate race:cheats heroes wog

As I mentioned before, the Republicans don’t really deserve my vote — though as Bob Corker hasn’t been in Washington that’s not really his fault — but nonetheless the Democrats have blown it again. Not long ago I was thinking that a Democratic majority in Congress wouldn’t be so bad; but the sexual McCarthyism from the pro-outing crowd, coupled with the Dems’ steadfast refusal to offer anything useful on national security, has convinced me that they just don’t deserve a victory with those tactics. That’s not Ford’s fault, either, really. But I just don’t think the Democrats are ready for a majority right now. We’ll see how many other voters agree.

I’m disgusted with the Republicans. Disgusted. In pursuit of power, they long ago abandoned the ideas and principles that induced many of us to vote for them in the first place. And although I’ve never seen myself as voting Democratic — can you ever get what you want by voting for what you don’t want? — for months I was sure I’d sit this election out by casting a protest vote for the Libertarians. I wanted the Republicans punished, and I was prepared to let the Democrats walk.cheats heroes wog

But the more I’ve reflected on the Democrats’ sleazy tactics, the angrier I’ve become. My party deserves to be removed from power; but it ought to be removed by an opposition than campaigns on something more substantive than Foleygate. We are a Nation at war against an ideology of hate and violence and against neanderthals who degrade women and hang homosexuals. Whatever their shortcomings, at least the Republicans have something to say about the danger we face. Evidently, the Democrats do not.cheats heroes wog

It’s less than three weeks to Election Day and the Democrats should hope the time passes quickly. It’s not in their interest to have disaffected Republicans, who might otherwise stay home or throw their votes away, dwelling on the opposition’s vacuity.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democratscheats heroes wog

VIA PATRICK RUFFINI AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE; IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHO KEN MEHLMAN IS, HE’S CHAIRMAN OF THE RNCcheats heroes wog

TO: REPUBLICAN ACTIVISTS AND INTERESTED PARTIEScheats heroes wog

FROM: KEN MEHLMANcheats heroes wog

DATE: OCTOBER 20, 2006cheats heroes wog

RE: REPUBLICAN MOTIVATIONcheats heroes wog

In recent days and weeks, the mainstream media have repeatedly claimed that the Republican base is suffering from “low voter enthusiasm.” It is easy to believe a story that is repeated so frequently, but in fact there is ample evidence to the contrary. By many measures, there are strong indications of a right-of-center base that is engaged and committed.cheats heroes wog

First, numerous polls clearly indicate near parity in intensity between Democrats and Republicans. Three recent national surveys—Gallup, Cook/RT Strategies, and our most recent RNC survey conducted by Voter/Consumer Research—all show partisan interest is approximately equal. The details of those polls are below:cheats heroes wog

Voter/Consumer Research (Oct. 8-10)cheats heroes wog

The RNC’s internal research shows election interest at 7.7 on a 10-point scale among Republicans and 7.6 among Democrats, unchanged from late September and in line with this year’s overall trend. cheats heroes wog

Gallup (Oct. 6-8)cheats heroes wog

To quote from Gallup’s voter turnout projection, “Gallup’s latest analysis suggests Republicans and Democrats are now roughly even in terms of anticipated turnout in the midterm congressional elections. The voting intentions of the large pool of registered voters is now similar to the voting intentions of the smaller pool of likely voters, showing no disproportionate impact of turnout in either direction”cheats heroes wog

Gallup asked, “How motivated do you feel to get out and vote this year — extremely motivated, very motivated, somewhat motivated, not too motivated or not at all motivated?(% “extremely” or “very” motivated)” The following table shows that the GOP in fact now holds a slight lead, up from just a few months ago:cheats heroes wog

Cook/RT Strategies (Oct. 5-8)cheats heroes wog

On a scale of one to 10, Republicans and Democrats have almost equally high mean election interest scores (8.2 for Republicans, 8.1 for Democrats), but Democrats hold a slight edge in the percentage of their voters who are “highly interested”—47 to 51 percent.cheats heroes wog

However, keeping in mind the local nature of midterm elections, it is more important to consider intensity by state or congressional district. RT Strategies/Constituent Dynamics (conducted Oct. 8-10) released district-by-district polling showing Republicans have a slight edge in partisan intensity. GOP “voter motivation” is higher than Democratic motivation in 19 of 32 competitive House races, in some cases by as much as a full point on a 1 to 9 scale. Democratic intensity is higher in the remaining 13, and in none of those races is the difference higher than 2/3 of a point. cheats heroes wog

Additional Datacheats heroes wog

A recent Pew study (9/21-10/4) found that while roughly similar numbers of Republicans (41%) and Democrats (39%) are “regular” voters, more Republicans (25%) than Democrats (20%) vote intermittently—meaning there are more of our voters for us to turn out in a midterm election. Furthermore, Democrats (20%) are substantially more likely than Republicans (14%) to not be registered to vote at all.cheats heroes wog

Other Measures of Intensitycheats heroes wog

There are ways besides polls to measure the intensity of the Republican base, and those also indicate that GOP voters are strongly engaged. Fundraising, for example, is often called the ‘first ballot’ for the simple reason that supporters only donate when they are involved and enthusiastic. That is why we are excited that the RNC received support from 362,000 new donors this cycle. We’ve averaged 8,256 contributions for each deposit day so far this year. We just announced that September has been our best financial month of the entire cycle. Our supporters know how important this election is, and their financial support shows it.cheats heroes wog

Volunteer enthusiasm is another key measure of intensity. Again, every indication here is that our base is working hard for victory in the 2006 election. Republican volunteers have contacted more than 14 million voters this year, and more than 7 million since Labor Day alone. We have made 1 million voter contacts every week for the past five weeks, and for six weeks we have surpassed the number of contacts we made at comparable times in 2004, a presidential election year.cheats heroes wog

The Bottom Linecheats heroes wog

Despite the media hype, an examination of all the facts makes it clear: the Republican base is active and engaged. No matter how you measure it—whether by record-breaking fundraising, unprecedented volunteerism, or scientific polling—the numbers show that Republicans understand the importance of the choice we all face on November 7.cheats heroes wog

If you follow the polls at Real Clear Politics, you’ve noticed that in the last batch or two Republicans have begun to staunch — and in some cases, to reverse — their losses. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.cheats heroes wog

This might be just a blip. And if the election was held today, you’d still have to expect the GOP to drop between fifteen and twenty House seats. But I think we can now safely say that whatever momentum the Democrats had coming out of Foleygate has stopped. The GOP is pushing back hard — infuriating Democrats in the process — and getting its base to focus.cheats heroes wog

Of course, Democrats and their allies in the media can read the polls too, which probably means we should expect another gay sex scandal to break presently.cheats heroes wog

If you haven’t already, set your browser to Election Projection and subscribe. You can name your own price. Scott provides tons of data as well as polling analysis you won’t get elsewhere. Here’s a sample:cheats heroes wog

The most prolific pollster of House races so far this year has been without question Constituent Dynamics. I had not heard of them before they released a rash of House polls back in September. Because polling data for House races is hard to come by, I decided to include them in Election Projection’s calculations. Taken as a whole, their numbers seem decent enough, with some notable exceptions. On more than one occasion, they have predicted the Democratic candidate to win by a larger margin than Democratic polls released at or about the same time.

Just for kicks, I deleted all their polls from my calculations just to see what would happen to the numbers. The result? Six of the twenty House seats the GOP is currently projected to lose moved back into the GOP column.

If you subtract six from the Democrats’ estimated pick-up of twenty seats, you get fourteen — or one less than the Democrats need for a majority.cheats heroes wog

It ain’t over yet.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: 2006+electionscheats heroes wog

The Associated Press reports on the handful of officeholders who are both openly gay and Republican.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Gay+Republicanscheats heroes wog

Here’s the RNC’s newest ad:cheats heroes wog

Bruce Bartlett, veteran of the Gingrich revolution: cheats heroes wog

As a Republican, I have a message for those fearful of Democratic control: Don’t worry. Nothing dreadful is going to happen. Liberals have much less to gain than they believe.

Read the rest from a man who’s been there.cheats heroes wog

Come January, congressional Republicans will no longer set the agenda, but Mr. Bush will still have veto power and, one imagines, a newfound fondness for exercising it. And most of the tax cuts don’t sunset until 2010. Pelosi & Co. will undoubtedly launch several hatchet job investigations, but Democrats can expect the Bush White House to respond to their oversight as the Clinton White House responded to Republican oversight. In other words, Democrats can expect obstruction and delay.cheats heroes wog

In only nineteen days from today, the American electorate is going to lock down the Federal Government. Does that leave you sad?cheats heroes wog

Me neither.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

Or not. Here’s the latest batch of polls and the numbers look good for the GOP.cheats heroes wog

Using unnamed sources, a blogger purports to “out” U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-ID: “I have called on Senator Larry Craig to end his years of hypocrisy by leveling with Idahoans about who he really is.”cheats heroes wog

Blogger Mike Rogers of blogactive.com says he has met with men who say “they have physical relations with the Senator.” Rodgers doesn’t specify the number of men or say why they must remain anonymous.cheats heroes wog

Sen. Craig denies the story: “‘The Senator says this story is absolutely ridiculous – almost laughable,’ said press secretary Sid Smith. ‘It has no basis in fact.’”cheats heroes wog

In this radio interview, Rogers says the senator is guilty of hypocrisy for having sex with men while supporting the Defense of Marriage Act and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.cheats heroes wog

I don’t buy it. Assuming arguendo that Craig is gay — or at least a man who has sex with men — it doesn’t follow that he’s a hypocrite because he voted for DOMA and the amendment. You could be an out-the-closet gay man and oppose either gay marriage or its imposition by judicial fiat or both. cheats heroes wog

Now if Sen. Craig has ever condemned gay sex while himself having it, that would make him a hypocrite. But there’s no hypocrisy in being gay (or bisexual) and simultaneously opposing same-sex marriage. You can believe that your sexual orientation is morally neutral and that others should leave you alone without believing that the state must recognize and sanction your relationships. With this, many will disagree; but their disagreement is with your ideas, not with your sexual orientation.cheats heroes wog

It’s like saying that a black politician is guilty of hypocrisy if he votes against affirmative action. No he’s not. He’s guilty of hypocrisy only if he votes against affirmative action while benefiting from it or seeking to benefit from it. Did Sen. Craig ever tell any of the men with whom he reportedly had sex that he planned to marry them?cheats heroes wog

More from Andrew Sullivan: “If the gay left thinks it will advance gay dignity by using tactics that depend on homophobia to work, that violate privacy, that demonizes gay people, then all I can say is: they are wrong;” Dean Barnett: “I haven’t heard from a single conservative who gives a hoot about Larry Craig’s sexuality;” and Patterico, “I truly believe this sort of tactic is going to create a backlash. At least I hope it will. It should.”cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Gays, outing, Senator+Craig, Idahocheats heroes wog

Jim Geraghty explains why skepticism about pre-election polling is in good order.cheats heroes wog

Triumph of the trivial:cheats heroes wog

There is also the problem of issues for the Democrats to run on. You’re going to elect Democrats to control government spending? And you’re going to marry Angelina Jolie for her brains. The privacy issue—government spying on U.S. citizens—isn’t going to work. True, NSA has been collecting all our telephone information, but anyone who’s answered the phone during dinner knows that every telemarketer on earth has that information already. Illegal immigration? When the Democrats were in charge, the illegal immigrants were from al Qaeda. And as for Iraq, the best the Democrats have been able to do is make the high school sex promise: “I’ll pull out in time, honest.”

Maybe I won’t work for the Democrats. It’s too much of a job. And jobs are not something the Democratic base is famous for having. Maybe I’ll just act like a Democrat and stay away from the polls on November 7 and hang around the house drinking beer. In fact, I think I’ll start practicing that now, so I’ll be ready on Election Day.

[…]

… as soon as high-minded indignation has defeated the Republicans, there will be the impoverishment from protectionism, the horror of nuke-wielding petty dictators, and the increased killings by terrorists to prove it. Deep-thinking people will be relieved that Dennis Hastert can no longer cover up misbehavior in the congressional page program.

Jay Cost applies probability theory to congressional election punditry. The results are intriguing.cheats heroes wog

National Republicans are signing off on Sen. Mike DeWine, the New York Times reports:cheats heroes wog

Senior Republican leaders have concluded that Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, a pivotal state in this year’s fierce midterm election battles, is likely to be heading for defeat and are moving to reduce financial support for his race and divert party money to other embattled Republican senators, party officials said.

DeWine has his own money and can carry on without support from the Republican National Committee or the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee: “Mr. DeWine has proved to be a successful fund-raiser on his own, and, with $4.5 million on hand, already enjoys a large financial advantage over his Democratic opponent, Representative Sherrod Brown; he is not dependent on financial support to keep campaigning.” Still, DeWine trails badly in the polls. cheats heroes wog

The GOP is also expecting the loss of Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Montana. Republicans will try to erect a firewall in Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia in hopes of retaining control of the Senate. And they plan to spend $500,000 on television advertising this week to test the vulnerability of Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, according to the Times.cheats heroes wog

Meanwhile, the GOP has reportedly “placed $1 million into protecting the Florida district that was represented by [Mark] Foley, the Republican who resigned in the page scandal. Party officials had at first written off that seat, because it was too late to replace Mr. Foley’s name on the ballot with the name of the Republican who replaced him, State Representative Joe Negron. Party officials said their polling showed that the district was so overwhelmingly Republican — Mr. Foley won 68 percent of the vote in 2004 — that they believed they could succeed again.”cheats heroes wog

Republicans need Foley’s seat. Election Projection now forecasts the GOP losing nineteen House seats, which is five too many for it to keep control.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

In an e-mail to GOP bloggers, Patrick Ruffini of the Republican National Committee says the Times is in error:cheats heroes wog

Today’s New York Times falsely states that the RNC has conceded the Ohio Senate race. As anyone who reads our FEC reports can see, the RNC has spent more money on Ohio than any other state. That level of spending will continue.

The notion that the RNC is pulling out of Ohio is just dead wrong.

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats, Ohio, New Jersey, Floridacheats heroes wog

This week:cheats heroes wog

• A moonbat cautions Democrats against celebrating early, but Republicans should still be blue.
• Irony: the chairman of the Republican congressional campaign is himself now in danger of losing.
• Are you hiring? At least four GOP senators will need new jobs come January.
• Next week: statewide ballot initiatives. Will gays and lesbians finally catch a break?

The Hipcast stream is useful for listening to the podcast with this page open in your browser. And it’s specifically encoded for dial-up users.cheats heroes wog

If you have a broadband connection, you can listen to the original mp3 file by clicking the icon below. The original file provides the best audio quality. (Link launches your media player.)cheats heroes wog

You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes. cheats heroes wog

You’d can also subscribe using your podcatcher or podcast-enabled RSS reader. Here’s a link to the feed:cheats heroes wog

(Don’t have a podcatcher? Juice is free and works on Windows or Mac.)cheats heroes wog

Links mentioned in this episode:cheats heroes wog

Election Projectioncheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

If you’re looking for a more optimistic assessment of Republican prospects, here it is.cheats heroes wog

In brief, Karl Rove is counting on the GOP’s superior get-out-the-vote operation and White House political director Sara Taylor estimates “the various GOP campaigns and party committees will have a $55 million money advantage in the final three weeks of the campaign.”cheats heroes wog

But as pollster Charlie Cook notes, “There are considerable signs that Republican voters are lethargic and disillusioned this year and that Democratic voters are angry and energized.”cheats heroes wog

… Foleygate reminded me why the Democrats cannot be given the levers of power.In electoral politics, things can change on a dime. But if you look at the evidence — and by evidence, I mean district-level polling of likely voters — you’re led to one inescapable conclusion: Republican candidates are in trouble. Everywhere. Are all the polls wrong, and wrong in one direction? It’s seem to me more reasonable to think that something is going on. After all, it’s not as if the Republicans don’t deserve a shellacking; their disastrous spending practices alone are reason enough to run them out of town. cheats heroes wog

The usual retort is, “But the Democrats will be worse!” True. But that’s not exactly an inspirational message, is it? I don’t expect responsible government from the Democrats; I do expect it from my party. And I’d rather vote out of hope than fear. cheats heroes wog

That said, Foleygate reminded me why the Democrats cannot be given the levers of power. They’re intellectually bankrupt, devoid of ideas and vision. They’re running on scandal because they have nothing useful to say about Iraq, Iran, North Korea or the war on terror. If even they understand the danger our country faces, they have no plan for dealing with it. At least the Republicans know the world is mean and dangerous, and they are trying — even if often ineptly — to push back the darkness. That should count for something.cheats heroes wog

And so, despite my deep, deep frustration with the GOP, I’m going to do next month what I thought not long ago I wouldn’t do: I’m going to again vote a straight Republican ticket. The GOP had better hope my reluctant return is typical. I suspect it’s not.cheats heroes wog

ADDED II —cheats heroes wog

Mark Steyn sums it up:cheats heroes wog

In my new book (out this week, folks: you’ll find it at the back of the store past the 9/11 Conspiracy section and the Christianist Theocrat Takeover of America section and the ceiling-high display of the new Dixie Chicks six-CD box set of songs about how they’re being silenced), I say that some of us looked at Sept. 11 as the sudden revelation of the tip of a vast iceberg, and I try to address the seven-eighths of that iceberg below the surface — the globalization of radical Islam, the free-lancing of nuclear technology, the demographic weakness of Western democracies. Other folks, however, see the iceberg upside down. The huge weight of history — the big geopolitical forces coursing through society — the vast burden all balancing on the pinhead of the week: in this instance, Mark Foley.

Thomas Sowell says the question for this election is not whether you or your candidate is Republican or Democrat but whether you’re “serious” or “frivolous.” A lot of Americans, and not just their sorry excuse for a professional press corps, are in the mood for frivolity. It’s like going to the theater. Do you really want to sit through that searing historical drama from the Royal Shakespeare Company? Or would you rather be at the sex comedy next door?

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats, podcastcheats heroes wog

USA Today:cheats heroes wog

Two years after voters in 13 states approved constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, gay rights activists hope to reverse that course next month.

Colorado’s first-in-the-nation ballot proposal to create same-sex domestic partnerships had strong support in a recent poll. Polls in three of the eight states that will vote on banning same-sex marriage show the measures trailing or leading narrowly.

“It could be a watershed year,” said Carrie Evans, state legislative director at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian advocacy group.

Full story.cheats heroes wog

According to this Cato Daily Podcast, libertarians comprise roughly 13% of the American electorate, making them equal in vote strength to evangelical Christians. David Kirby, executive director of America’s Future Foundation, says Republicans are losing their hold on libertarians.cheats heroes wog

Cato’s related paper, “The Libertarian Vote,” is here.cheats heroes wog

I doubt that voting Democratic would solve the frustration that libertarians feel, although it would surely change the focus of their frustration. But it’s undeniably true that had America a multi-party parliamentary system rather than a strong two-party system, voters like me would not pull the same lever as voters like Pat Robertson. cheats heroes wog

What libertarians need is to leverage their vote in the way Christian evangelicals have leveraged theirs. But that requires organization and leadership, and libertarians are notoriously difficult to organize or lead. cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Libertarians, Republicanscheats heroes wog

The new watchword will be “representative,” as in “representative” dictatorship:cheats heroes wog

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, “Stability First” and “Redeploy and Contain,” both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

[…]

“If we are able to promote representative, representative government, not necessarily democracy, in a number of nations in the Middle East and bring more freedom to the people of that part of the world, [the war] will have been a success,” [Baker] said.

That distinction is crucial, according to one member of the expert working groups. “Baker wants to believe that Sunni dictators in Sunni majority states are representative,” the group member, who requested anonymity, said.

The commission will not release its findings until after the elections.cheats heroes wog

Smart politics:cheats heroes wog

… the NRA, which sits on a campaign war chest of $20 million, is expecting to endorse as many as 60 Democrats in House and Senate elections, about the same number it endorsed in every national election since 2002 and three times the 20 or so Democrats it supported in races during the early 1990s.

Which is why, even if Democrats win control of Congress, we won’t see any gun control legislation.cheats heroes wog

You’ll notice here that Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, does not answer the question put to him.cheats heroes wog

Sir, you weren’t asked whether you saw the e-mails or instant messages; you were asked whether you were aware of them. Why won’t you answer the question?cheats heroes wog

If you haven’t seen it, here’s the pro-GOP campaign ad from Hollywood producer David Zucker. It’s a damn shame the Republican National Committee is too timid to run it on television:cheats heroes wog

There are no coincidences in politics:cheats heroes wog

AJ thinks the [Washington Post] is trying to get out ahead of some devastating news that may be coming soon. Pelosi’s outrage brigade, Democrat operatives and their willing accomplices in the news media knew about Foley for a long time (as far back as November of last year) and did nothing (as was suspected). It doesn’t exonerate Foley in the least, but it does implicate the Democrats quite directly. (Link)

Lots more here. Just keep scrolling.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Democrats, Foleygatecheats heroes wog

It’s nice cash if you can get it: cheats heroes wog

Once again, we discover why the Democrats quietly dropped their “culture of corruption” theme for the upcoming midterms.

I’m only spitballing here, but I bet Republican bloggers spend a few days chatting this story up:cheats heroes wog

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn’t personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

The Nevada Democrat’s deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. He’s never been charged with wrongdoing _ except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court.

Land deeds obtained by The Associated Press during a review of Reid’s business dealings show:

The deal began in 1998 when Reid bought undeveloped residential property on Las Vegas’ booming outskirts for about $400,000. Reid bought one lot outright, and a second parcel jointly with Brown. One of the sellers was a developer who was benefiting from a government land swap that Reid supported. The seller never talked to Reid.

In 2001, Reid sold the land for the same price to a limited liability corporation created by Brown. The senator didn’t disclose the sale on his annual public ethics report or tell Congress he had any stake in Brown’s company. He continued to report to Congress that he personally owned the land.

After getting local officials to rezone the property for a shopping center, Brown’s company sold the land in 2004 to other developers and Reid took $1.1 million of the proceeds, nearly tripling the senator’s investment. Reid reported it to Congress as a personal land sale.

Reid hung up the phone last week when the AP asked him about the deal.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Democrats, corruptioncheats heroes wog

Arizona Republic:cheats heroes wog

It’s an immigration predicament that is faced by tens of thousands of same-sex couples in the United States because U.S. immigration laws do not treat gay couples the same as married couples when it comes to giving out visas.

A foreigner who marries an American can get nearly automatic residency in the United States. But same-sex couples, even ones who have been together for decades, get no advantages at all. (Link)

According to the Census Bureau, there are almost 36,000 binational same-sex couples in the United States.cheats heroes wog

[Correction added at 7 p.m. CST: The statement above should read “almost 36,000 binational same-sex couples,” not “almost 36,000 binational couples.” Thanks to raj for pointing out my error. — Ed.]cheats heroes wog

Doom and gloom for the GOP here, here and here.cheats heroes wog

A sample of it from the Washington Post:cheats heroes wog

Democrats have regained a commanding position going into the final weeks of the midterm-election campaigns, with support eroding for Republicans on Iraq, ethics and presidential leadership, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Well, maybe. And maybe not:

The Demographics of the WP poll are even more ridiculous. In that poll, Democrat respondents outnumber GOP respondents by a full 11% (38-27%). Plus, 3 of the 4 nights in the WP poll are weekends, and the poll director of the WP has previously admitted that weekend polls favor Democrats. And yes, the numbers in both polls are dismal for the GOP, except that these polls are meaningless because we don’t know the Congressional districts of the respondents. Only about 40 CD races are competitive. Where are the respondents in these polls from?

Also, for the Washington Post-ABC survey, pollsters used a random “national sample of 1,204 adults.” That kind of sample cannot predict the outcome in any of the 435 House districts.cheats heroes wog

In the first place, it doesn’t matter what “adults” think. Many adults are not registered to vote, making their political opinions operationally irrelevant. It often doesn’t matter what even “registered voters” think since many of them don’t vote. In fact, in an off-year election, half of them may not vote. cheats heroes wog

Oh, the Democrats will win narrow control of the House next month. We know this from district-level polling of likely voters, not from national polling of adults. So far, the evidence indicates the Democrats will pick-up fifteen to twenty House seats; they need fifteen for a majority. When a liberal media outlet uses a national poll of adults to run the headline “Poll shows strong shift of support to Democrats,” it’s trying to stampede the election. Rock steady.cheats heroes wog

On the other hand, some of our Republican brethern are resisting political reality. Hugh Hewitt writes:cheats heroes wog

The Dems need 15 seats to change hands, and no credible list is ever produced to back up that number …

You can decide for yourself whether it’s “credible.” But here’s a list of Republican-held seats that are set to switch hands:cheats heroes wog

• Pennsylvania 6
• Pennsylvania 10
• Colorado 7
• Iowa 1
• North Carolina 11
• Ohio 18
• Texas 22
• Indiana 2
• Indiana 8
• Indiana 9
• Connecticut 2
• Arizona 8
• Florida 16

That’s 13.cheats heroes wog

And here’s a list of Republican-held seats that are no better than toss-ups:cheats heroes wog

• Ohio 1
• Ohio 15
• Kentucky 4
• Virginia 2
• Illinois 6
• Connecticut 4
• New York 26

That’s 7. cheats heroes wog

It’s not unreasonable to believe that Republicans will lose two of these seven. They might lose all of them. Again, Democrats are positioned to win between fifteen and twenty seats.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

If you visit Real Clear Politics today, you’ll see that the newest polls — all post-Foleygate, by the way — actually look pretty good for the Republicans. All in all, the GOP is doing amazingly well; this speaks either to the strength of the Republicans or to the weakness of the Democrats. I’d guess the latter.cheats heroes wog

Relatedly, see this from Robert Tracinski:cheats heroes wog

To their credit, the Republicans have given us real issues to focus on. For the most part, they have asked us to debate the real threats out in the world, especially the consequences of retreating from the war in Iraq. This time, it is the Democrats who are driving the effort to divert the public’s attention from the real issues.

I argued recently that the Democrats deserve to be defeated in this fall’s elections because they contribute nothing of value to the national debate. Boy, have they proven me right with the Foley scandal. The Republicans were doing well politically when the nation was focused on national security, but their poll numbers and electoral prospects dropped as soon as the Democrats exploited the Foley story. It is a measure of what the two parties have to offer that the one does well when the public focuses on the vital issues of the day—and the other does well when the public ignores vital issues in favor of trivial scandals.

ADDED II —cheats heroes wog

In Colorado 7, a district widely thought to be a Democratic pick-up, Republican Rick O’Donnell is closing fast. This may explain why the media are trying to sex up another gay Republican, this time with nothing but cheap innuendo.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats, Congresscheats heroes wog

A teachable moment: cheats heroes wog

North Korea probably doesn’t have nuclear weapons yet, but they’re well on their way. The same can be said for Islamist fanatics who most definitely intend us harm. If this turns out to be the moment that shakes the media, much of our society and one of our major parties from their extended slumber, let us give thanks.

And then let us get on with what has to be done, a cold-hearted and hard-headed implementation of Ronald Reagan’s simple Cold War policy: We win, they lose.

Yes, but how? What exactly are we supposed to do now? That’s the hard question, and I haven’t yet read any satisfying answers.cheats heroes wog

Here’s this week’s episode of the podcast. I talk about Foleygate, of course. What did the Democrats know and when did they know it? Plus, the last installment in the series on U.S. House races worth watching. (Run time: 11:22)cheats heroes wog

The Hipcast stream is useful for listening to the podcast with this page open in your browser. That way you can listen and see the show notes at the same time. (I’ll have show notes up later today.)cheats heroes wog

For the best audio quality, listen to the original mp3 file by clicking the icon below. (Link launches your media player.)cheats heroes wog

You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes. cheats heroes wog

You’d can also subscribe using your podcatcher or podcast-enabled RSS reader. Here’s a link to the feed:cheats heroes wog

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I should have the show notes up this afternoon. For the first three episodes, I had both the podcast and the show notes up by Saturday afternoon. This week I’m barely getting the show itself up by Sunday morning. But the weather in Houston is simply magnificent and I’ve had to be outside! See:cheats heroes wog

And the breeze is soft and cool …cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

The Washington Post buries the lead in a story headlined “Foley consuming GOP as elections draw near:”cheats heroes wog

For all its intensity, the calculation in both parties is that the Foley scandal is unlikely to reshape the basic dynamics of the Nov. 7 elections, which still seem to hinge on voter attitudes toward Iraq, the economy and President Bush.

Carl Forti, communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he has seen no polling in individual races that suggest Foley is seriously eroding support for GOP candidates. “I think most of our campaigns had gotten back to talking about local issues by Tuesday or Wednesday,” he said. [Emphasis added.]

It’s been fun. But until we learn more about the extremely fortuitous timing of this story, I’m done. cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

Here are the show notes.cheats heroes wog

Connecticut 4
PVI: Democrat +5
GOP nominee: Chris Shays, incumbent
Democratic nominee: Diane Farrell
Toss-up
cheats heroes wog

Connecticut 5
PVI: Democrat +4
GOP nominee: Nancy Johnson, incumbent
Democratic nominee: Chris Murphy
Projected GOP hold
cheats heroes wog

Pennsylvania 6
PVI: Democrat +2
GOP nominee: Jim Gerlach, incumbent
Democratic nominee: Lois Murphy
Projected Democratic pick-up
cheats heroes wog

Pennyslvania 8
PVI: Democrat +3
GOP nominee: Michael Fitzpatrick, incumbent
Democratic nominee: Patrick Murphy
Projected GOP hold
cheats heroes wog

Pennsylvania 10
PVI: Republican +8
GOP nominee: Don Sherwood, incumbent
Democratic nominee: Chris Carney
Projected Democratic pick-up
cheats heroes wog

Ohio 1
PVI: Republican +1
GOP nominee: Steve Chabot, incumbent
Democratic nominee: John Cranley
Toss-up
cheats heroes wog

In all, twenty-four races projected: 12 Democratic pick-ups, 6 Republican holds, 6 toss-ups. Not included in this count: Florida 16, Mark Foley’s seat. It’s a Democratic pick-up. Also not included in this count: New York 26, another GOP-held seat that’s now in danger. cheats heroes wog

If these projections are correct, the Democrats have 13 of the fifteen seats they need for a majority and half a dozen places to look for the other two. Of course, if this is right, the Democrats may win all twenty-four of these seats and more. In any event, here’s my projection: the Democrats will win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in next’s month elections. You didn’t read that here first. But this is probably one of the few blogs that’s tried to show you why. (By the way, I also think the Democrats will take the Senate; the House has never flipped without the Senate flipping too.)cheats heroes wog

Myself, I’m actually looking forward to returning to the minority. It will give us Republicans a chance to rediscover what we once stood for. And it will give Mr. Bush a chance to use his veto pen. And it will be fun. What do you think the Cindy Sheehan Left will do when it learns, inter alia, that even a Democrat-controlled Congress won’t cut off funds for U.S. troops in Iraq? Bush won’t withdraw the troops. And new Democratic congressmen, many of whom will have been elected on a trial basis to represent Republican districts, won’t dare strand them there. You’ll want coffee and cigarettes when that show begins!cheats heroes wog

For maps of the congressional districts, go here.cheats heroes wog

For an explanation of Charlie Cook’s Partisan Voter Index (PVI), go here.cheats heroes wog

Links mentioned in this show:cheats heroes wog

Samson USB Condenser Microphonecheats heroes wog

Michael Reagan’s articlecheats heroes wog

Nancy Johnson’s national security adcheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Foleygate, 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats, podcast, podcastingcheats heroes wog

Democrats, what say you?cheats heroes wog

Tensions mounted over North Korea’s threat to test its first atomic bomb, with shots ringing out Saturday along the border with South Korea …

Technorati tags: North+Koreacheats heroes wog

New York Times:cheats heroes wog

Since Representative [Mark] Foley, Republican of Florida, resigned after sending sexually explicit electronic messages to male pages, gay Republicans in Washington have been under what one describes as “siege and suspicion.”

In another article, the Times writes:cheats heroes wog

More immediately — and more alarmingly for Republican strategists who have looked to the party’s powerful voter turnout operation to save the party this year — there are signs that the furor is sapping the enthusiasm of a group essential to Republican victories in 2002 and 2004: religious conservatives.

John McIntyre:cheats heroes wog

One little problem with this assertion, is it really true? From the evidence we have seen, to date, it is not.

Relatedly, from the pollster Stuart Rothenberg:cheats heroes wog

I know that we sound like a broken record, but now is not the time to open a bottle of champagne (if you are a Democrat) or pull your hair out (if you’re a Republican). A good deal of the instant analysis is based on seat-of-the-pants hysteria, not empirical evidence.

The Mark Foley scandal has evolved into a House Republican crisis, since GOP leaders in the House are now the focus of the dreaded “what did you know, and when did you know it” questions. Speaker Dennis Hastert certainly hasn’t helped himself or his party in dealing with the Foley matter, and the issue certainly poses considerable problems for Republicans.

But we are in the middle of a storm, and neither party now knows how seriously the Foley scandal affects Republican chances in November. Remember, Democrats have been poised for months to make significant gains in both the House and the Senate, and more than a month ago we projected Democratic House gains in excess of what the party needs to win back control for the first time since the 1994 elections. (Link)

That strikes me as spot-on analysis. Even before Foleygate, the Democrats were set to pick-up 15-20 House seats. That has not changed. What’s more, if Foleygate was the Democrats’ “October Surprise,” they must now worry about a GOP-inspired “November Surprise.”cheats heroes wog

More later in this week’s podcast.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Foleygate, gay+Republicanscheats heroes wog

CNN:cheats heroes wog

House Republicans sought to put Democrats on the defense over the Foley House page scandal Friday, asking House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Illinois, to appear before the House Ethics Committee investigating the matter.

Vice Chairman of the Republican Conference Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Georgia, along with several of his GOP colleagues, said the page scandal “should not be a partisan issue,” in a letter to the top Democrats.

“Just as it must be determined whether any Republican Members or political operatives were aware of and attempted to conceal Mr. Foley’s activities, it must also be determined whether any Democrat Members or political operatives were aware of, and attempted to conceal these same activities,” Kingston wrote in the letter. [Emphasis added.]

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

A “dirty trick” hardly mitigates the disgracefulness of Foley’s conduct, or absolves the GOP House leadership from its passivity on the issue.

However, if high-ranking Democrats knew more about this than Republicans did, as is beginning to look like the case, how can they claim that Republicans failed to act on information only they had?

Read the rest.cheats heroes wog

MORE —cheats heroes wog

Is it possible that the Democrats deliberately delayed disclosure of Foley’s transgressions, thereby endangering the security of current Congressional pages and other teenage boys, solely to advance their own political interests? One would certainly hope not. But it is obviously a question that needs to be investigated and answered.

Of course, none of this has ever been about “protecting” the pages. The pages were “protected” by Foley’s resignation and by the coming criminal inquiry. All the rest is about politics. It’s about finding a way to knock the Republicans from their congressional perch. And you have to give the Democrats credit: they’ve played this story masterfully. Bravo!, I say. Even if they are being deeply cynical — the Democrats are counting on the homosexual nature of Foley’s conduct to produce disgust among Christian evangelicals and thereby depress GOP turn out — you still have to admire them for finally showing some political acumen. The game is no fun if the other guys don’t know how to play.cheats heroes wog

But now that the steam has stopped rising from this pile of shit, Republicans should get out their shovels and start digging. We have a reasonable basis for believing there’s a pony under there!cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Foleygatecheats heroes wog

Reuters:cheats heroes wog

A California appeals court upheld the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on Thursday, reversing a lower court’s judgment against a voter-approved law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

“The Legislature and the voters of this state have determined that ‘marriage’ in California is an institution reserved for opposite-sex couples, and it makes no difference whether we agree with their reasoning,” the California Court of Appeal held.

[…]

The appeals court reversed a lower court, which had overturned California’s ban on gay nuptials in a lawsuit triggered by the marriage licenses San Francisco briefly issued to same-sex couples in 2004.

“Courts in this state simply do not have authority to redefine marriage,” the appeals court said.

The court’s opinion, in pdf, is here.cheats heroes wog

California does provide for same-sex marriage in all but name. The state has an expansive domestic partners statute.cheats heroes wog

Umm, hmm:cheats heroes wog

Democrat House Minority Leader and Speaker aspirant Nancy Pelosi and Representative Rahm Emanuel, Chairman of the House’s Democrat Campaign Committee, refused a request by a Republican Congressman to take a polygraph test designed to ascertain whether they knew about now former Republican Congressman Mark Foley’s misconduct …

I have no way of knowing whether there’s any truth to that. And even if it is true, it doesn’t necessarily prove anything. You might well refuse to take a polygraph on grounds that it’s degrading. cheats heroes wog

But shouldn’t Big Media at least ask Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Emanuel what they knew and when they knew it? You know, just to get them on record.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Foleygatecheats heroes wog

Imagine had the Republican leadership launched an investigation of Foley on this theory:cheats heroes wog

Democrat operative Bob Beckel said on Hannity & Colmes this week that the mere fact Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) was gay should have “raised questions” in regards to his communications with former Capitol Hill Pages. Beckel then compared Foley to a bank robber who ‘should be kept away from banks’. (Link)

Heads, we win; tails, you lose.cheats heroes wog

(Oh, and you do know, don’t you, not to wait for the Human Rights Campaign to have anything to say about this?)cheats heroes wog

The race in North Carolina 11 is one of twenty-four U.S. House races I’ve been tracking. In last Saturday’s podcast, I classified North Carolina 11 a toss-up. We can now move it to the Democratic column.cheats heroes wog

Including Mark Foley’s seat in Florida 16, the Democrats are on track, by my count, to win in at least eleven districts now represented by Republicans. They need fifteen to win control of the House.cheats heroes wog

In this Saturday’s podcast, we’ll review another six races where the Democrats are trying to take Republican seats.cheats heroes wog

Even before Pagegate broke, I was pretty sure the Democrats were going to win the House. I’m certain of it now.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats, Pagegate, Foleygatecheats heroes wog

U.S. News & World Report:cheats heroes wog

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, under fire for his handling of the Foley page scandal, may have just one or two days to turn the affair around — or quiet it — or face being forced to step aside, say senior GOP House and party officials.

“The next 24 to 48 hours will be critical for Hastert and the House leadership,” said a Republican political strategist. He said that if the leadership can contain the issue fast, Hastert would not be in trouble. But there are indications that the affair will continue to expand as Democrats take advantage of the situation, possibly leading conservative Republican members to go public with their dissatisfaction with Hastert and demand his resignation.

That was written yesterday. Hastert did not “turn the affair around” today. cheats heroes wog

Listen to Majority Leader John Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. They’re both opening the distance between themselves and Hastert, aren’t they? That probably tells us all we need to know about Hastert’s fate.cheats heroes wog

Relatedly, “If the Democrats can’t take the Hill now, they deserve to go the way of the Whigs.” Yes. But you have to wonder: what black bag op now awaits the Democrats?cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Foleygate, Hastertcheats heroes wog

Associated Press:cheats heroes wog

The Bush administration can continue its warrantless surveillance program while it appeals a judge’s ruling that the program is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. [Emphasis added.]

[…]

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled Aug. 17 that the program was unconstitutional because it violates the rights to free speech and privacy and the separation of powers.

The Justice Department had urged the appeals court to allow it to keep the program in place while it argues its appeal, claiming that the nation faced “potential irreparable harm” and would be more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The appeal is likely to take months.

The two-page order for a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, granting the Government’s motion for stay pending appeal, is here.cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Terrorist+Surveillance+Program, surveillance, terrorism, courts, lawcheats heroes wog

They’re getting fat at Gitmo: “… some inmates are eating everything on the menu.” One of them has grown to 400 pounds.cheats heroes wog

Relatedly, from Patterico’s interview of an Army nurse who worked at Gitmo:cheats heroes wog

I can tell you that if I ever saw a detainee face-to-face here in the States, I would immediately assume that I was targeted and do my best to kill them without further warning.

The fallout from the Mark Foley story (Foleygate? Pagegate?) may well be as politically damaging to Republicans as some conservatives now suggest. Since it’s about sex, sort of, the story certainly has the potential to be “dynamite,” as John Miller put it. If voters don’t always understand the complexities of public policy, they understand sex. And they understand ass-covering: “Foley is on the verge of becoming the poster child of a party that is concerned about little more than preserving its power.”

Still, I think it’ll be another few days before we know if this story has captured the imagination of the general electorate. Foleygate has clearly has captured the imagination of political obsessives, myself included. (See the screen shot below.) But it’s important to remember that political obsessives don’t decide elections.cheats heroes wog

What’s more, I have a hunch there’s a “pushback” yet to come. If — as is at least possible, if not probable — Foley’s raunchy e-mails were held to time their release for maximum political impact, the blow may have come too soon. Republicans have more than a month to ask the obvious: From whom, exactly, did ABC News acquire the e-mails? And did that person (or persons) sit on evidence of impropriety for their own political reasons? Whatever he knew or didn’t know, and did or didn’t do, it’s unlikely that Speaker Dennis Hastert would call for a Justice Department investigation of himself. Read between the lines:cheats heroes wog

… Speaker J. Dennis Hastert asked the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican who resigned Friday after he was confronted by ABC News with sexually explicit e-mails, and also to determine who possessed the e-mails that have touched off a furor just weeks before the November elections.cheats heroes wog

“Since the communications appear to have existed for three years, there should be an investigation into the extent there are persons who knew or had possession of these messages but did not report them to the appropriate authorities,” the letter from Mr. Hastert said. “ It is important to know who may have had the communications and why they were not given to prosecutors before now.”cheats heroes wog

I’m only spitballing here, but my guess is Speaker Hastert has a name in mind — a name that doesn’t belong to a Republican.cheats heroes wog

Of course, any number of people — people of no political note, and with no political ambitions — could have been in possession of those e-mails before turning them over to ABC. But the timing of their release is sufficiently suspicious, and Speaker Hastert’s call for a Justice Department probe sufficiently portentous, to make me think there will be another chapter to this story — one that might be dynamite for Democrats.cheats heroes wog

ADDED —cheats heroes wog

An important distinction, elided by others and by me in the post above for the sake of convenience, but one that we really should make: the Democratic narrative here depends on “the public conflating the early emails, which were merely inappropriate (“overly friendly”) with salacious IM texts, which the [Republican] leadership only learned of from the press.” [Italics added.]cheats heroes wog

As I understand the story, the e-mails led ABC News to dig up the IMs. But whoever turned the e-mails over to ABC plainly understood their potential import, which is why they turned them over. And so the question still stands: From whom did ABC get the e-mails?cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Mark+Foley, Foleygate, Pagegate, Dennis+Hastert, ABC+News, Congress, Republicans, Democratscheats heroes wog

We’re making promises we can’t keep:cheats heroes wog

“Our nation is about to undergo an unprecedented demographic transformation — with no plan to pay for it other than running up the public debt. The coming age wave is not a temporary challenge that will recede once the baby boom generation passes away. The baby boomers’ retirement is ushering in a permanent transformation to an older population — and a permanent rise in the cost of programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which already comprise 40 percent of the federal budget,” Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, told a U.S. Senate committee last week.

According to a model used by the Government Accountability Office, by 2024 — only eighteen years from now — “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and net interest [on the debt will] consume all [federal] revenues …”cheats heroes wog

We’ll then have to borrow the money to pay for everything else, including the military. But that’s not realistic, is it?cheats heroes wog

Technorati tags: Federal+spending, federal+debtcheats heroes wog

God help us:cheats heroes wog

A meeting of senior US intelligence analysts last week was unanimous in concluding that little can be done to stop Iran under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, its volatile president, from acquiring the technology to develop the bomb. The United States lacks the intelligence for targeted airstrikes …

Technorati tags: Iran, nuclear+proliferationcheats heroes wog