WEDNESDAY,  JANUARY 13,  2010

SAVAGING SARAH – AT 7:03 P.M. ET:  Like her or not, Sarah Palin is a serious woman, was a respectable governor, and has a large audience.  But for some of the foot soldiers of mainstream journalism, she is a threat to the universe and must be stopped.

Gov. Palin made her debut on Fox News last night.  It was pretty good.  Nothing spectacular or defining.  But get this "review" from TIME, once a weekly newsmagazine:

It's been said before, but let me say it again: Fox News creator Roger Ailes is a genius. His peers in the executive suites of rival networks, newspapers and media conglomerates still hire talent for their abilities. Ailes knows you can also hire talent for who they anger, who they unite and what they represent.

Oh how cute.  Yes, we've seen the vast abilities of some of the competitors.  Why, that deep analyst, Keith Olbermann, recently a sports reporter, always moves me.  Or Chris Matthews, whose thoughts come from tingles in his leg. And the CNN anchor who referred to the World War II battle of "eye-woe Jima."  What scholarship.

Fox has a journalistic staff as good as any in broadcasting, and better than most.

Ailes had not hired another talking head in Palin. He had hired a mascot for Fox News, a living breathing symbol of all that the network hopes to be: a place for the forgotten, besieged, suburban and rural American middle, long victimized, often dismissed, beset on all sides by elites and liberals, haters and foes.

Can you imagine the reaction of "feminist" organizations had a right-wing writer referred to a female as a mascot?

[Before I continue, I must make a disclosure: I am not, as a member of the professional media, qualified to describe Sarah Palin's debut appearance as a Fox News analyst. As Fox pundit Monica Crowley explained on the network after the former Alaska governor left Tuesday night, Palin “was actually talking over the heads of the media to the American people.” This, explained Crowley, is Palin's great talent—a rare ability to connect directly with Americans through television. “Nixon did it,” Crowley added, driving home her point. Lacking access to Palin's most important frequencies, therefore, I must ask that you take this analysis for what it is—an incomplete rendering.]

This writer is absolutely precious.  Don't you think?  It's about me, me, me and me.

The sins of Sarah:

The Palin that followed on Fox was the Palin that America has long come to know, at once skittish and confident, sing-songy in elocution, repetitive in substance and Palinesque in diction. (As H.L. Mencken once described Warren Harding's use of English, “It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.”)

Translated:  I, the reviewer, am so smart and she is so dumb.  Invite me to your party.

At this point, Palin's performance reached its crescendo, not as news analysis or reporting, but as a restatement of the very mission that has made Fox News so successful. “The American people are immediately neutralizing outlets like 60 Minutes,” Palin explained. “More and more Americans are looking at some of these networks, that biased journalism, and saying, ‘Nah, that gig is up. We're not believing that stuff anymore.' That's why they are tuning into Fox News.” She had become the message. Her mission was accomplished. Her future at Fox is bright.

She committed the sin of boasting about Fox News.  So when CNN advertises itself as the first name in TV news, I should write them a protest letter?  Come on.

This is what passes for a review.  Pretty disgraceful.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

AND MORE MASSACHUSETTS HACK OUTRAGE, COAKLEY STYLE – By now many of you probably know of the incident last night where a legitimate reported was allegedly shoved to the ground in Washington, D.C., trying to ask Massachusetts Dem Senate candidate Martha Coakley a question.  Coakley replies:

Bay State Attorney General Martha Coakley blamed GOP “stalkers” today for triggering tensions outside a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser last night where a Weekly Standard reporter said he was roughed up by a Coakley campaign volunteer.

Coakley, a Democrat, is in a red-hot race for U.S. Senate against GOP rival Scott Brown, where a poll out yesterday places the two only 2 points apart closing in on the Jan. 19 special election. The post-fundraiser fury has now sent both parties scrambling.

Coakley said she is not “privy” to the facts surrounding the incident involving reporter John McCormack last night, who wrote about the episode outside the Sonoma restaurant in Washington, D.C. in an online dispatch titled: “We Report, We Get Pushed.” The Wall Street Journal reported the Coakley fund-raiser at the Sonoma restaurant in Washington, D.C. was put on by health care industry lobbyists.

Coakley is, like many radical feminists, obsessed with the language of sexual assault.  Last night she accused Scott Brown of being soft on rape.  Now there are "stalkers" in the Brown campaign.  One, apparently, is a Weekly Standard reporter.

Coakley is an officer of the court.  She watched a man assaulted, did nothing about it, now may well be covering it up.  Great for the attorney general of a state. 

Brown has plenty of ammo to use against Coakley.  Commence fire.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

NEW MASSACHUSETTS HACK OUTRAGE – AT 6:05 P.M. ET:  The games have already started in Massachusetts, just in case Scott Brown upsets Martha Coakley:

BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts's top election official says it could take weeks to certify the results of the upcoming U.S. Senate special election. That delay could let President Barack Obama preserve a key 60th vote for his health care overhaul even if the Republican who has vowed to kill it wins Democrat Edward M. Kennedy's former seat.

Strange how this kind of talk only began when Republican Scott Brown started closing on Dem Martha Coakley.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin, citing state law, says city and town clerks must wait at least 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive before they certify the results of the Jan. 19 election. They then have five more days to file the returns with his office.

Now get this:

Galvin bypassed the provision in 2007 so his fellow Democrats could gain a House vote they needed to override a veto of then-Republican President George W. Bush, but the secretary says U.S. Senate rules would preclude a similar rush today.

The potential delay has become a rallying point for the GOP, which argues Democrats have been twisting the rules to pass the health care bill despite public opposition. It's also prompted criticism from government watchdogs.

"We believe that elections should be by the people and for the people, and when the people have spoken, the system ought not be politicized," said Common Cause President Bob Edgar, a former member of Congress. "If the Republican wins, the person should be seated immediately. If the Democrat wins, the person should be seated immediately."

Massachusetts Democrats already changed state law last fall so the governor could appoint a fellow Democrat to fill the seat after Kennedy died in August.

Look, it's Massachusetts.  What helps liberals becomes the law.  Let's see if there's any outrage from the Harvard Law School.  I hear only silence.

COMMENT:  Please note the office this chap holds - secretary of state.  Many don't realize it, but ultra-left Democrat money man George Soros has something called the "secretary of state project," to help friendly candidates become secretary of state of their respective states, and therefore control the election machinery.  One of Soros's picks became secretary of state of Minnesota, and assisted Al Franken in his "victory" there.  Expect more.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

OH, THEY'RE JUST SO LIBERAL...UNTIL IT COSTS THEM SOMETHING – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  This is very juicy, and is so typical of the liberal hypocrisy in places like Beverly Hills.  From The New York Times:

LOS ANGELES — In a contentious meeting ringed by police officers, the Beverly Hills school board voted Tuesday night to dismiss roughly 470 students enrolled in its schools on out-of-district permits.

The school system there has long opened its doors to students who live outside the district — currently about one in seven of its roughly 4,800 students — in large part because they brought a financial windfall for the system. But now, because cash-poor California has reduced local support to schools, including the reimbursements for out-of-district students, the so-called permit students are more of a burden to the schools than a boon.

Beverly Hills will soon use its own property tax dollars to finance its schools to replace money lost from the state. So the board voted to notify most of the out-of-district students that they must go.

“Although I recognize this is an inconvenience, it’s certainly not life or death,” said Steven Fenton, the board president. He added that for those who want to keep their children in the schools, “there are apartments waiting for you tomorrow.”

Gee, how kind and warm.  Those students want a better education, and the libs of Beverly Hills were happy to accommodate them...until the balance sheet changed. 

And get this for inclusionist warmth:

Most of the students now must choose between private schools or their local school under the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is largely troubled. “Go back to your home school to make it better,” Lisa Korbatov, the board’s vice president, admonished parents with children in the Beverly Hills schools on permits. “I don’t understand this entitlement.”

Go back where you came from.  You're not helpful to us any longer.

Beverly Hills is one of those "communities" where liberal elitism flourishes.  You can get an "anti-war" rally together just by standing on a street corner.  And Barack Obama is still a big deal there.

When push comes to shove, they're strictly business, like the people they claim to condemn.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – FROM VICTOR DAVIS HANSON – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  Hanson assesses the first year of the Age of Obama, and finds it not good:

The former celebrity Obama has lost that luster, point-by-point over a year, bleeding by a thousand small cuts until he nears 40 percent approval. In themselves, the bad jokes like the flippant remark about the Special Olympics, the lunatic appointments like Anita Dunn and Van Jones, the serial untruths about airing the health-care debate on C-SPAN or shunning lobbyists, the phony deadlines on Gitmo and the Iranians, the bribing of senators with hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers' funds, the bowing, the snubbing of the British, the use of the race card against tea-party critics, the Skip Gates mess, the Orwellian NEA business, constant fluff photos ops, but rare real press conferences — all that in the aggregate brought Obama to his present state.

Hanson is not on the next state-dinner invitation list.

And he doesn't stop there.

And now the question is not whether the president's charisma can save his unpopular agenda, but rather whether the president's growing unpopularity makes things even worse. This takes place, of course, in a landscape of 10 percent unemployment, a nearly $2 trillion debt, and rising energy prices. Somehow more deficits and subsidized wind and solar won't be winning issues.

No, the Dems have blown all their winning issues.

Finally, how ironic — Obama was elected as a reaction to Bush's mistakes of deficit spending and big-ticket new entitlements that nullified his otherwise effective anti-terrorism war; instead, he took what people liked about Bush and ridiculed them, while trumping Bush's spending that had turned so many off.

COMMENT:  Who would have guessed, in the age of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, that the Democratic Party would become so out of touch, so indifferent to the opinions and beliefs of average Americans?  When I was a Democrat, in my very early years, we would have meetings in union halls and community centers.  Now the party meets in Aspen and talks global warming between sessions on the slopes.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

MORE POLLING GRIMNESS FOR THE OBAMA BATTALIONS – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  A new Quinnipiac poll just published contains more bad reading for the White House:

American voters are split 45 - 45 percent on whether Barack Obama's first year in office is a success or failure and split 35 - 37 percent on whether the U.S. would be better off if John McCain had won the 2008 election, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today. As he marks the first anniversary of his inauguration, President Obama's approval has slipped slightly into an even 45 - 45 percent split for the first time.

The polls are starting to align, with Obama's approval rating somewhere in the mid 40s. 

That doesn't mean the GOP is particularly popular.  One discouraging aspect of the poll is that Americans still have an anger toward George W. Bush:

By a 43 - 30 percent margin American voters think Obama has been a better President than George W. Bush, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University survey finds. Voters blame Bush more than Obama 55 - 20 percent for the current economic conditions, but they say 35 - 24 percent that Obama's policies have made the United States less safe than those of his predecessor. Another 38 percent say safety is about the same.

COMMENT:  What must be discouraging for the White House is the relentlessness of the president's downward trajectory in the polls.  He has had a slight uptick on the terrorism issue, understandable in light of his major P.R. offensive to prove he's "tough."  (As Lincoln said, you can fool all of the people some of the time.)  But Mr. Obama is in a hole, and his party keeps on digging. 

However, as we've cautioned earlier, this doesn't mean the GOP is loved.  It isn't, and that must be turned around to have the maximum possible victory in November.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

BRAIN DEAD AND TONE DEAF – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  That is a very bad medical combination, and Martha Coakley, the Dem Senate candidate in Massachusetts (see story below) has been diagnosed. Her condition is serious and unstable.

Where was Martha Coakley last night?  Was she in Massachusetts, speaking with voters, trying to salvage her Senate race?  No.  Martha Coakley was in Washington, attending a fundraiser for her thrown by lobbyists for the health-care industry, among the least popular people in America.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

We've argued that the leading health industry CEOs will one day be exposed as the most short-sighted business leaders in history, but how to explain the gala fundraiser that their top lobbyists hosted for Martha Coakley last night?

Amid a Beltway panic, the health lobby is riding to the rescue of the Massachusetts liberal, whose defeat in the special Senate race next Tuesday could deny Democrats the 60th vote for ObamaCare and thus maybe spare the U.S. health system from the coming damage.

And...

Money follows power in Washington, obviously, though this example seems especially inexplicable given that Ms. Coakley's GOP opponent, state senator Scott Brown, may be the last chance to defuse the health-care doomsday machine. But maybe someone in the press corps will bother to mention this episode the next time President Obama takes aim at the "special interests" he claims are opposing his agenda.

Against overwhelming public opposition, the only things keeping ObamaCare alive at this point are power politics and the misguided corporate cease-fire that Democrats have either coerced or bought—or is homegrown at companies like Pfizer that are deeply invested in more government control of the economy. Ms. Coakley's election would make that outcome a certainty.

COMMENT:  We hope that Scott Brown's campaign is cutting ads right now exposing Martha Coakley as a lapdog for the health-care lobby.  I can't imagine that these corporate flacks are particularly loved in Massachusetts, even among committed liberals.

Coakley is a walking mistake.  Keep walking, madam candidate.

January 13, 2010   Permalink

YIKES! CAN IT BE? – AT 8:02 A.M. ET:  A new Rasmussen poll published late last night shows GOP sparkplug Scott Brown only two points behind Dem candidate Martha Coakley, the baroness of boredom, in the Massachusetts Senate special election race to fill the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. 

The Massachusetts’ special U.S. Senate election has gotten tighter, but the general dynamics remain the same.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley attracting 49% of the vote while her Republican rival, state Senator Scott Brown, picks up 47%.

And get this:

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, Brown leads 71% to 23%.

That is a staggering figure.

As is typical with Rasmussen, he provides some knowledgeable analysis:

All recent polls place Coakley right around the 50% mark and support for opposition candidates above 40%. Turnout will be the key, and Brown’s voters appear to be more energized.

All polling indicates that a lower turnout is better for the Republican. The new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that Brown is ahead by two percentage points among those who are absolutely certain they will vote. A week ago, he trailed by two among those certain to vote.

COMMENT:  Obviously, momentum is in our direction, but momentum isn't the final count.  This is a very close race in a state that is heavily Democratic.  The Dems have now had the fear of loss put into them, and they are going all out.  They have a strong get-out-the-vote machine.  And always be aware that Boston has not always been known as a glowing example of the fair count on election day.

There's work to be done.  This is possible, the odds are still against us, but the odds are less today than they have been.  Fight.  Fight.

January 13,  2010   Permalink

TUESDAY,  JANUARY 12,  2010

AND STILL MORE DEFIANCE – AT 7:31 P.M. ET:  We have had some real gutsiness in the last 24 hours – Conan O'Brien, Scott Brown – and here's another example.

We have a real political drama underway in New York State.  Our junior senator, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, appointed to fill out Hillary Clinton's term in the Senate, is up for election on her own.  The state is less than thrilled with her.  She is ripe for a primary challenge.  But the White House has been moving Heaven and Earth to block anyone from taking her on.

Enter Harold Ford Jr., who moved to New York three years ago.  Former congressman from Tennessee, scion of one of the few black political dynasties in America, head of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, and a very determined guy.  He is defying Barack Obama, and seems intent on entering the Democratic Senate primary.  That could be a career-ending move if it doesn't work, a career-making move if it does.  Today, in a column in the New York Post, he throws down his challenge to the White House machine: 

It's true: I am strongly considering running for the United States Senate.

I do so because our best as a nation has always come when we test our ideas and ourselves, and when we trust competition to refine the steel of our convictions and the truth of our arguments.

Some have already questioned whether I should be running.

Others are falsifying my record in public life.

New Yorkers deserve a free election.

A free election?  In the People's Republic of New York?  This man is walking on land mines.

I know New York is unique. No other state is so engaged in the great issues facing our nation.

Defeating terror isn't a talking point in New York, it's a way of life.

Rebuilding an economy isn't an item on an issue checklist, it is what New York does -- and must do.

In my three years here, I've learned that New York does not go along to get along. New York does not follow. New York is where the nation learned to lead, build and grow.

In the spirit of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who once held this Senate seat, I hope we all will welcome a debate about who's best to work for New York.

COMMENT:  Harold Ford Jr. has always been feisty, and is very ambitious.  He's heading into the meatgrinder, but this should be quite a show.  In a primary, I think he has a good shot at winning.  He's African-American, a terrific speaker, and gutsy.  But the establishment will do everything to bring him down because of his defiance.

Oh, by the way, notice that he identified the Senate seat as once held by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  It was also Hillary's, but he didn't mention her.  Hmm.

January 12, 2010    Permalink

MORE DEFIANCE – AT 7:17 P.M. ET:  The Massachusetts Senate race continues to be all the rage.  Last night Scott Brown, the steely GOP challenger, had what is being described as a Reaganesque moment in a debate with Dem-anointed Martha Coakley.  From the Washington Examiner:

...supporters of Republican candidate Scott Brown have been zeroing in on two key comments from last night's debate with Democrat Martha Coakley. One is this exchange with omnipresent Washington wag David Gergen, who was moderating the debate:

GERGEN: If this bill fails, it could well be another 15 years before we see another health care reform in Washington. Are you willing under those circumstances to say 'I'm going to be the person. I'm I'm going to sit in Teddy Kennedy's seat, and I'm going to be the person who's going to block it for another fifteen years?

BROWN: Well, with all due respect it's not the Kennedy seat, and it's not the Democrats' seat -- it's the people's seat. And they have a chance to send someone down there who's going to be an independent voter and an independent thinker and to look out for the best interests of the people of Massachusetts.

Great reply.  Win or lose next week, Scott Brown is becoming a GOP star.  And the Massachusetts governorship is open this year.  Election in November.  We'd prefer Senator Brown, election next week, but the other title sounds fine as well.

One of the problems the GOP has had in recent years is developing great candidates.  Scott Brown is showing how that's done.

January 12, 2010   Permalink

IF THIS BE TREASON – AT 6:38 P.M. ET:  I love acts of defiance, especially when they're directed at people who deserve it. 

Readers may know that I was on the staff of The Tonight Show back in the better days of Johnny Carson.  I take a family interest in what happens to the show.  In recent days, the news has been bizarre.  NBC, to boost ratings, is attempting to bring Jay Leno back to the 11:35 p.m. time slot, but only for a half hour, as an intro to a new Tonight Show, with Conan O'Brien, to start at 12:05 a.m.  It's a clear humiliation for Conan.  Today he gave his answer.  The answer, to his enormous credit, is no.  O'Brien is a bright man, and his statement is eloquent:

I sincerely believe that delaying the “Tonight Show” into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The “Tonight Show” at 12:05 simply isn’t the “Tonight Show.”...

...My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard, and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of “The Tonight Show.” But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet, a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the “Tonight Show,” I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

COMMENT:  Wonderful, wonderful.  We often quote comedians here, but they're usually not comedians intentionally.  O'Brien is an intentional comedian.  And, like most comedians, he's a very serious guy. His statement was perfect, and struck a perfect tone, a defense of the show itself.

What the people running NBC this week don't seem to realize is that The Tonight Show is an institution, and should be treated as an institution.  Part of that status is its start time.  For almost two generations, Americans have tuned in at the same time.  As a nation, not as a set of demographics, we have tuned in primarily for the monologue, to get the host's take on the day's events.  The 11:35 start time is perfect.  After midnight, and it's not the Tonight Show any longer.  Most of America simply can't stay up that late. 

I recall many days when Johnny would interrupt a meeting in mid-afternoon and say, "I've got to do the monologue."  He knew it was the show's signature.  It had universal appeal, across all viewer age groups.  And he knew it would be quoted in offices throughout America the next morning.

NBC created two great franchises, "Today" and "Tonight."  Now "Tonight" is in danger of being cannibalized by a network that has just been sold to Comcast, and which apparently doesn't care.

The viewers care.  If NBC pushes this change, I suspect Conan will leave, receive the cheers of the public, and succeed somewhere else.  You can be sure the phone lines are already burning.

January 12, 2010   Permalink

MYSTERY IN TEHRAN – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  There has been a mysterious murder in Tehran, as The New York Times reports:

PARIS — A remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle killed an Iranian professor of nuclear physics outside his home in northern Tehran on Tuesday, state media reported, blaming the United States and Israel.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. One state broadcaster, IRIB, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that “in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents are visible in the terrorist act,” Reuters reported.

The authorities called the killing of the scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, an assassination carried out by terrorists but did not say who was believed to be responsible. The professor taught neutron physics at Tehran University, the English-language Press TV said, but it was not clear whether he was part of Iran’s contentious nuclear enrichment program.

The motive for the attack is shrouded in mystery.  On the one hand, government radio labeled the professor a "staunch support of the Islamic revolution."  On the other hand, news reports say he was a support of the main opposition (reform) candidate in the recent presidential "election."

There is some speculation that the regime murdered the professor but will blame the opposition movement, giving Tehran an excuse to crack down even more.

Stand by.  There'll be more on this.

January 12, 2010   Permalink

WE'RE QUOTING MAUREEN DOWD? – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  Yes, you read it right.  We have stooped to this level.  But she wrote an absolute gem of an op-ed piece about Obama, and when Maureen is good, she's very good indeed.  The title of the piece is:

                      Captain Obvious Learns the Limits of Cool

Now you see why I'm quoting her.  She proceeds:

Our president came down from the mountaintop.

He had applied the freshness of his independent thought to the critical matters at hand. He had convened his seminar, reviewed the reviews, analyzed the intelligence every which way, thought anew about everything, and lo and behold, he finally emerged to tell us some stuff we already knew.

We are under attack.

There is evil in the world.

Yemen is a dangerous place that breeds people who want to kill us...

...The sun rises in the east.

Two plus two equals four.

“We must do better,” Captain Obvious said Thursday at the White House, “in keeping dangerous people off airplanes while still facilitating air travel.”

And a lot of other stuff we already knew.

No Drama Obama is reticent about displays of emotion. The Spock in him needs to exert mental and emotional control. That is why he stubbornly insists on staying aloof and setting his own deliberate pace for responding — whether it’s in a debate or after a debacle. But it’s not O.K. to be cool about national security when Americans are scared.

Dowd gets in some required barbs against President Bush and the Republicans, but then applies the paddle once more to our student-government president:

He’s so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president — to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders, who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments.

He’s more like the aloof father who’s turned the Situation Room into a Seminar Room.

Ouch, and more ouch.

And is is from a liberal columnist at The New York Times.  May she stay employed.

January 12, 2010   Permalink 

POLL PROBLEMS FOR OBAMA – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  A new CBS poll out this morning reports the worst numbers President Obama has registered in that poll:

President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 46 percent, according to a new CBS News poll.

That rating is Mr. Obama's lowest yet in CBS News polling, and the poll marks the first time his approval rating has fallen below the 50 percent mark. Forty-one percent now say they disapprove of Mr. Obama's performance as president.

In last month's CBS News poll, 50 percent of Americans approved of how the president was handling his job, while thirty-nine percent disapproved.

The source of the trouble:

Mr. Obama still receives strong support from Democrats (eight in ten approve of his performance), but his approval rating among Republicans is only 13 percent. More importantly, Mr. Obama's approval rating among independents has declined 10 points in recent months – and it now stands at just 42 percent.

It's the independents who are deserting the ship. 

The poll, though, doesn't have particulary good news for Republicans either.  Republicans in Congress remain even less popular than their Dem counterparts.  The unpopularity of the Republican Party is a major drag going into this year's elections.

January 12, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS – AT 7:46 A.M. ET:  Massachusetts votes a week from today to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Edward M. Kennedy. 

Suddenly there's enormous focus on the race, primarily because one poll, and only one, has the spirited Republican challenger, Scott Brown, a point ahead of the Democratic "shoo-in," state Attorney General Martha Coakley.  Dreams are floating through the conservative blogosphere.

Look, no one wants an upset more than I do, but let's be careful here.  Dream, yes.  Plan, no.  Virtually all pollsters agree that it's an uphill battle for Brown.  The betting is still on Martha Coakley, a cookie-cutter Massachusetts liberal who's never had a dissenting thought in her head.  She thinks it's just ducky to try terrorists in civilian courts, and said just last night that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan.  You get the picture.

Massachusetts is a bright blue state.  It glows blue.  This is a special election, not a November election, so the campaign is short.  Coakley is well known.  Brown is an unknown state senator, and the shortness of the race makes it tough for him to get name recognition.  Coakley has a lot of money, although Brown is now raking it in.  Coakley has the Kennedy family, Massachusetts royalty, in her corner.  She has to work to lose this election, although she seems at times to be working very hard.

That one poll showing Brown ahead, and another showing Coakley with only a nine-point lead, has energized the Dems, who are starting to pour firepower into the contest.  Their latest gimmick is to try to tie Brown to Sarah Palin.

As Scott Rasmussen wrote yesterday, the problem with polling in a special election is that it's very difficult to predict turnout, which is the key to victory.  The race is volatile.  There are no new poll results that we know of.  I suspect there'll be two or three later this week.

So, dream well, but don't be crushed if Brown only gets close.  This is a huge mountain, and he's climbing it.  But there's so little time.

January 12,  2010   Permalink