Right Side of the Rainbow

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

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.)

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.

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.

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

Posted by Paul at 7:15 PM | Permalink

Now he’s lying.

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:

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:

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.

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

Or he could have told the truth.

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.

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.

John Kerry is a lout and a fraud.

ADDED —

Here’s the video:

Technorati tags: John+Kerry, US+troops

Posted by Paul at 5:30 PM | Permalink

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

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.

ADDED —

From the comments at the link above:

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

ADDED II —

The Astute Bloggers:

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 —

Hugh Hewitt:

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.

Posted by Paul at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

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.

Posted by Paul at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

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

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.)

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:

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.

Posted by Paul at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh. My. God.

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?

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!”

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.

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

ADDED —

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.

Posted by Paul at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

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.

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

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

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:

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.

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.

These switches are off-setting.

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.

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

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats, US+House, Congress

Posted by Paul at 4:15 PM | Permalink

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

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.

ADDED —

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.

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

Posted by Paul at 1:30 PM | Permalink

A warning:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Technorati tags: Fiscal+policy, public+debt, Medicare, Medicaid

Posted by Paul at 12:00 AM | Permalink

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

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

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

Technorati tags: New+York+Times, liberal+media+bias

Posted by Paul at 12:20 PM | Permalink

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?’”

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?

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Democrats, Republicans

Posted by Paul at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

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.

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.

Posted by Paul at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here.

Posted by Paul at 7:00 PM | Permalink

Associated Press:

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.

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.

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

Posted by Paul at 5:15 PM | Permalink

New York Times:

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 —

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.”

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.

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

Posted by Paul at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For what it’s worth:

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:

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.

ADDED —

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

Posted by Paul at 5:00 PM | Permalink

ADDITIONS BELOW

From the court’s opinion:

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—

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:

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:

… 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?

Law professor Ann Althouse:

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.

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.

Technorati tags: Gay+marriage, same-sex marriage, courts, judges

Posted by Paul at 2:17 PM | Permalink

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.

Posted by Paul at 8:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

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

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, Congress

Posted by Paul at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Dick Morris says yes:

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.

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?

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.)

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:

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.

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, elections, Congress, House, Senate, Republicans, Democrats

Posted by Paul at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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

Posted by Paul at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bill Quick has The List.

Posted by Paul at 12:10 PM | Permalink

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.

Patterico says Calame should resign.

Posted by Paul at 10:30 PM | Permalink

In this week’s podcast —

• 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)

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.)

You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes.

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

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

Links mentioned in this episode:

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

Posted by Paul at 5:00 PM | Permalink

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

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.

Posted by Paul at 1:00 PM | Permalink

Eric at Classical Values:

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.

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?

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?

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

Technorati tags: Gay+Republicans, Gay+Democrats, gay+identity, identity+politics

Posted by Paul at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Barron’s Online:

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.

Posted by Paul at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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!”

Posted by Paul at 12:30 PM | Permalink

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

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.

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.

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.

Technorati tags: 2006+elections, Republicans, Democrats

Posted by Paul at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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

TO: REPUBLICAN ACTIVISTS AND INTERESTED PARTIES

FROM: KEN MEHLMAN

DATE: OCTOBER 20, 2006

RE: REPUBLICAN MOTIVATION

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.

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:

Voter/Consumer Research (Oct. 8-10)

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.

Gallup (Oct. 6-8)

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”

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:

Cook/RT Strategies (Oct. 5-8)

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.

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.

Additional Data

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.

Other Measures of Intensity

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.

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.

The Bottom Line

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

It ain’t over yet.

Technorati tags: 2006+elections

Posted by Paul at 5:45 PM | Permalink

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

Technorati tags: Gay+Republicans

Posted by Paul at 8:20 PM | Permalink

Here’s the RNC’s newest ad:

Posted by Paul at 4:45 PM | Permalink

Bruce Bartlett, veteran of the Gingrich revolution:

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.

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.

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

Me neither.

ADDED —

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

Posted by Paul at 6:00 AM | Permalink

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.”

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.

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.’”

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.”

Technorati tags: Gays, outing, Senator+Craig, Idaho

Posted by Paul at 11:00 PM | Permalink

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

Posted by Paul at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Triumph of the trivial:

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 awa