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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

THE SENATE IS IN PLAY – AT 7:51 P.M. ET:  That is, according to Charlie Cook, one of our best political analysts.  Dick Morris believes the Senate will definitely go GOP.  Cook is a big more cautious, and notes that a 10-seat pickup would be needed.  From tomorrow's National Journal:

...the possibility of a GOP takeover is growing.

To be sure, a 10-seat gain for Republicans remains hard. Eighteen Senate seats could plausibly turn over -- a dozen held by Democrats and six by Republicans. Looking first at the five open seats -- Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Ohio -- that the GOP is defending, the Republican challenger holds the lead in each race. Granite State voters won't select nominees until September 14, but former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, the Republican with the best chance of defeating Rep. Paul Hodes, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is increasingly favored to win the GOP nod. None of the Republican leads in these five states is insurmountable, but at this point, you would rather be the GOP nominee than the Democratic one in each place...

...Suffice it to say that Republicans have a good shot of holding all their seats. If that's true, then the GOP would need to win 10 Democratic-held seats to win the majority.

Is it possible?

If I had to make a wager today, I would bet that the open seats in Illinois and Pennsylvania will also fall to Republicans, although both races remain quite competitive and are hardly over. If my hunch is correct, Republicans would gain six seats. That brings us to Democratic incumbents Michael Bennet (Colorado), Barbara Boxer (California), Russell Feingold (Wisconsin), Patty Murray (Washington), and Harry Reid (Nevada), who are all roughly even-money bets. Boxer, Murray, and Reid have statistically insignificant leads over their challengers, while Bennet and Feingold trail their opponents by similarly insignificant margins.

In Connecticut, where the seat is open, Democrats are watching their once huge lead erode rapidly. Some Republicans are also eyeing the West Virginia open seat, noting that President Obama's job-approval ratings in the Mountaineer State are among his lowest in the country...

It's a tall order for the Republicans, but within reason:

The odds still favor Democrats holding their majority, but that is no longer given.

COMMENT:  My own sense is that, if the elections were held today, the Republicans would fall just short, and we'd have a 52-18 Senate, with the Dems still in charge.  However, that is hardly a working majority.  Senators must represent entire states, not just gerrymandered congressional districts, and tend to be more moderate than some House firebrands, whose seats are safe.  Democratic senators will not be willing to commit suicide to satisfy the House revolutionaries.

September 3, 2010      Permalink 

NEVADA – A CAUTION LIGHT FOR REPUBLICANS – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  It's the oldest political cliché:  "You can't beat somebody with nobody."  Sometimes, parties try.

In Nevada, the GOP is sure trying.  It has managed to turn an easy victory over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid into a horse race by nominating a gaffe-prone, inadequate candidate.  Scott Rasmussen has been monitoring Nevada, and has the details:

Democratic Senator Harry Reid and his Republican challenger Sharron Angle are still neck-and-neck in Nevada’s race for U.S. Senate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows the candidates tied with 45% of the vote each. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate and six percent (6%) more are undecided...

...Earlier this year, Reid was considered to be one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents. He picked up just 39% of the vote following Angle’s primary victory but has seen his own numbers improve to 41% in late June, 43% in early July, 45% in late July and 47% in mid-August...

...For Angle, the numbers have been heading in the opposite direction. The GOP nominee attracted 50% of the statewide vote following her primary victory in early June. That fell to 48% later that month, 46% in early July and 43% in late July.

COMMENT:  There is growing concern about ideological rigidity in the GOP, and it is justified.  To win, a party must be inclusive.  It must nominate capable, solid, go-the-distance candidates, not just those who adhere to a narrow, politically correct (for the right) agenda.

I heard an old war horse recently even attack Charles Krauthammer, one of the leading conservative writers and thinkers today...because he'd once been a Democrat.  Of course!   Many GOP stars began on the other side, and that included Ronald Reagan.  The glory of the Reagan Revolution is that it brought so many new people into our camp.  Yet, there are those who insist on a pure pedigree, starting at birth.

This can be a "wave" election, but the Republicans can still blow it, especially in Senate races.  There are some weak, flaky GOP candidate out there.  The Democrats are unpopular, but the Republicans are not exactly loved.  If voters get a whiff of extremism, they may just stick with the devil they know.  Most of the races Republicans are counting on to make great gains in the Senate are very close, with no room for blunders or purges.  I'm not sure this lesson is being absorbed.

September 3, 2010       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:

EVANSTON, Ill., Sept. 2 (UPI) -- An Illinois researcher says his team's controversial government-funded "machine-generated humor" project is a serious attempt to model "human cognitive skills."  Northwestern University computer professor Kristian Hammond said his team's project title, "Computational Creativity: Building a Model of Machine-Generated Humor," probably led to the bad reputation that landed it on Sen. John McCain's list of the Top 100 Most Wasteful Stimulus Projects, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday.

All you have to do is watch Congress on CSPAN and you get the same effect.  Why spend taxpayers' money?

September 3, 2010       Permalink

THE TRAIN WRECK – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Very bad economic news this morning, as AP reports via the Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- The unemployment rate rose in August for the first time in four months as weak hiring by private employers wasn't enough to keep pace with a large increase in the number of people looking for work.

The Labor Department says companies added a net total 67,000 new jobs last month, down from July's upwardly revised total of 107,000. Wall Street analysts expected a smaller gain, according to Thomson Reuters.

Overall, the economy lost 54,000 jobs as 114,000 temporary census positions came to an end. State and local governments shed 10,000 positions. The jobless rate rose to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent in July.

COMMENT:  Have you noticed that the economic news in some sector gets grim just as some federal program expires - like Cash for Clunkers, or the recent housing incentives.  In other words, our economy is artificially propped up by temporary government subsidies – sort of like a socialist or third-world country. 

We are in deep trouble.  It's the private economy that's the real economy.  We can't depend on a  federally funded "coupon" economy.

There are news reports surfacing this morning that President Obama may propose some kind of tax cut just before the November election.  Would that have a political effect?  It would be pretty transparent, considering the timing, and may make Americans more angry than grateful.

September 3, 2010      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  One of the heroes of the current political season is Democratic pollster and analyst Pat Caddell, who has openly and severely criticized his own party on national television and in the press.  Caddell continues his roast at NRO:

“President Obama’s undoing may be his disingenuousness,” Caddell says. After campaigning for post-partisanship, Obama, he observes, has lurched without pause to the left. “You can’t get this far from what you promised,” Caddell says, “especially when people invest in hope — you must understand that obligation. The killer in American politics is disappointment. When you are elected on expectations, and you fail to meet them, your decline steepens.”

Yeah.  Caddell was Jimmah Carter's pollster.  He knows this "disappointment" turf.

“Democrats used to be the voice of the common man in America, not his dictator,” Caddell laments. “Now, with Wall Street, their mantra is, ‘We’ll take your money, but we won’t kiss.’ The people who own the party — George Soros, the Center for American Progress, the public-employee union bosses, rich folks flying private jets to ‘ideas festivals’ in Aspen — they’re Obama’s base.”

I'm reminded of the old story about Winston Churchill, and his confrontation with Lady Astor.  Astor, appalled by Churchill's views, told him, "If you were my husband, I'd give you poison."  Churchill replied, "If you were my wife, I'd take it."

If I were married to the Democratic Party today, with that political base, I'd take the poison.

September 3, 2010      Permalink

LET'S HEAR IT FOR OUR SIDE – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  It's been a rather satisfying week for our side.  First, a report to the UN from an outside panel led by former Princeton University president Harold Shapiro severely criticized the UN's standards and practices in the matter of climate change research. 

Second, President Obama, in his Iraq address to the nation, had to concede, if only grudgingly, that the surge in Iraq worked and led to the end of our combat mission in that country this week.

Third, in one of the most remarkable statements by a media bigwig in modern times, the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, conceded that the charges of bias against the world's largest news organization were correct:

The director general of the BBC admitted Thursday that his organisation had been guilty of a "massive bias to the left" but said "a completely different generation" of journalists now works at the broadcaster.

Mark Thompson told the right-of-centre Spectator magazine that there was an institutional bias when he joined the organisation, reinforcing the findings of a 2007 internal report which concluded that greater efforts were required to avoid liberal bias.

"In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left," Thompson said.

"The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher."  Now it is a completely different generation. There is much less overt tribalism among the young journalists who work for the BBC," he added.

In all three cases, our side can take a bow.  No, we're not crazy right-wing zealots.  We're thoughtful, informed people who had raised questions about the UN's climate-change propaganda; supported President's Bush's (and General Petraeus's) visionary surge; and constantly pointed out bias at the "prestigious" BBC.  For our efforts we were subjected to the usual name-calling.  It was even suggested, in regard to our skepticism about climate-change research, that we're the equivalent of Holocaust deniers.

Of course, we await corrective action at the UN.  And we remain skeptical about the BBC's "new generation" of journalists.  But at least we have the concession from its chief that bias has reigned at "the beeb."  That's more than we can say for the heads of American news organizations, who continue to insist that they're simply fair-minded professionals, a claim met with appropriate howls of laughter from anyone above the age of 18.  Make that 10.

So take that bow and hoist a few this weekend for our guys.  We've been right on a number of other fronts as well, and we look to the electorate to validate our conclusions this November.

September 3, 2010     Permalink

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

IS THIS SERIOUS? – AT 8:28 P.M. ET:  Reader John Dowd alerts us to an utterly absurd story from the equally absurd kingdom of Chicago.  Apparently, in today's "urban environment," everyone has equal standing to complain.  From the Chicago Sun-Times:

At 10 a.m. today, a group of black men will gather in front of the Columbus Park Refectory on the West Side to denounce Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis' threats to crack down on gang leaders.

These are not the usual suspects.

They aren't ministers leading a march. Nor are they activists and politicians rallying constituents around a cause.

They are men who are affiliated with some of the city's most notorious street gangs. They are Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, Kings, Stones, Hustlers, Souls and Cobras.

And they are going to Columbus Park to let Weis know they believe the threats he made during a secret meeting amount to unfair harassment.

Weis vowed to use federal RICO laws against gang leaders if a member of one gang shoots a member of another.

The threat represents a new anti-violence strategy that includes seizing a gang leader's car and home.

"The general feeling out here is that [the meeting] was a trick, and we feel it is unconstitutional for a person to be declared guilty before innocent," said Jim Allen, a self-identified Vice Lord and convener of the news conference.

COMMENT:  Wait a second.  Just wait a second.  We have gang leaders holding a protest meeting in a very public place because their feelings have been hurt by the police superintendent?  And they feel, based on their vast legal background, that they're being harassed?

What will we have next, Charles Manson complaining about the "offensive" way he's portrayed on television? 

The police superintendent vowed to use RICO laws against gang leaders if a member of one gang shoots a member of another.  What right, the gang bangers imply, does a cop have to interfere with such wholesome urban sport?

Is your sympathy for gangs rising already?

Only in Chicago, folks.  Only in Chicago.  I'll bet someone offers one of the gang leaders a TV reality show, featuring real ambushes.

September 2, 2010      Permalink

WHAT GETS AMERICANS SO MAD – AT 8:12 P.M. ET:  One of the things that outrages Americans, especially in hard times, is the way in which some people manipulate the system to enrich themselves while delivering "services" that no one can quite figure out.

Remember Bernie Madoff, the consummate investment crook?  Well, there are some guys who are being paid to sort out his holdings and distribute them to his victims.  Consider this, from the New York Post:

Hundreds of Ponzi king Bernard Madoff's victims today challenged the latest bill from his bankruptcy trustee, which seeks more than $34 million for 120 days of work.

The Aug. 20 bill, for services rendered between Feb. 1 and May 31, works out to more than $5,000 a day for court-appointed trustee Irving Picard and more than $283,000 a day for his firm, Baker & Hostetler, court papers say.

"On an annualized basis, this would be $104,900,950," according to the objection filed by Diane and Roger Peskin, Maureen Ebel and "several hundred" other unnamed Madoff investors.

Maybe that's why luxury stores in New York are booming while the rest of the country suffers.

Their Manhattan Bankruptcy Court filing says that "investors have no ability to evaluate the efficiency or professionalism of the work covered by these applications" because Judge Burton Lifland ruled that Picard and his firm "do not have to file their detailed billing reports."

But they say that "despite the expenditure of more than $2.3 million per week in professional fees and expenses, the trustee has still not determined 2,995 customer claims constituting $14 billion of the $20 billion of claims the trustee has said he will recognize."

The filing also alleges that while Picard has claimed to have recovered $1.5 billion in assets to distribute to Madoff's burned investors, nearly $100 billion was "simply sitting in bank accounts in Madoff's name when the trustee was appointed."

COMMENT:  Nice, huh?  Don't tell me this is "free enterprise."  This is somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody in authority.  It's a big problem in New York. 

But the guy who's getting all this loot knows one thing:  All he has to do is write a check fora measly three million to his favorite charity, and he becomes "a great man," a "philathropist," someone who "gave back," and a hero.  My friends, that is the way the Manhattan game is played.

September 2, 2010      Permalink

A DEVASTATING VERDICT ON OBAMA – AT 9:27 A.M. ET:  From Jennifer Rubin, at Contentions:

In a fascinating interview with Robert Costa, Democratic pollster and analyst Pat Caddell zeroes in on the Democrats’ impending doom (”the general outcome is baked”) and on Obama’s failure to live up to expectations (”The killer in American politics is disappointment. When you are elected on expectations, and you fail to meet them, your decline steepens”). But his most cogent analysis focuses on Obama’s base. He writes:

The people who own the party — George Soros, the Center for American Progress, the public-employee union bosses, rich folks flying private jets to “ideas festivals” in Aspen — they’re Obama’s base.

Yowser. He omitted only the liberal media, but I suppose they too — along with young people, old people, Hispanics, working- and middle-class whites, and even 42 percent of Jews — have grown disillusioned as well.

It will be interesting to see whether the puny base is the result of Obama’s extreme agenda or the reason it is so extreme. If you believe the former, Obama has traveled so far left that he’s lost virtually everyone else in the Democratic coalition and turned off independents as well. But if you follow Caddell’s implication (that this is the group that “owns” the party), Obama takes these steps because that’s what his core constituency wants. Why persist in supporting the repeal of the Bush tax cuts? These groups wouldn’t accept anything less. Why use controversial figures as recess appointees (e.g. Craig Becker, Donald Berwick)? Well, these are the sorts of appointees that give his “base” reassurance. Why continue to push climate change regulation and anti-business legislation in the midst of a recession? You got it — give the base what it wants.

COMMENT:  This is a very different base from the one I saw when growing up in Democratic Party politics.  In Illinois we would visit union meetings and local PTA's, and feel right at home.  Today, most members of the Democratic elite wouldn't even talk to those people.  They're the "flyover people."  Who do they think they are? 

There are too many powerful figures among today's base who spend their lives advertising their College Board scores.  We were more impressed, back then, with people who'd gone to the school of hard knocks.

There's been a role reversal in American politics.  Today it's the Republicans who are closer to the people than are the Democrats.  But no one has yet informed the Democrats.

September 2, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  Suggested by great talk-show host Mike Scully:

"Iraq is a true laboratory of democracy in the Arab world today. It is there that the future of democracy in the region will play itself out. Iraq could potentially become a political model for its neighbors. And, whether one likes it or not, all this has come about thanks to the American intervention of 2003."

- French ambassador to Iraq, Boris Boillon
August 30, 2010   Le Figaro

As Mike says, "Of all people, an ambassador of France can make such an admission, but not Barack Obama."

September 2, 2010      Permalink

TROUBLED WATERS – AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  There is probably no member of Congress who brags more consistently about her commitment to "the people" than Maxine Waters, the far-left representative from Los Angeles.  Why, she'd volunteer to be burned at the stake for the benefit of "the people."

Problem is, we're not sure which people she's referring to.  From the Washington Times:

Rep. Maxine Waters has turned political endorsements into a family business, using federal election laws to charge California candidates and political causes to include their names as her personal picks on a sample ballot, or "slate mailer," she sends to as many as 200,000 South Central Los Angeles voters, records show.

Some statewide candidates paid as much as $45,000 for their share of the costs to be included in the mailer, according to state and federal election records, and while it can be costly for the candidates, the mailer has proved profitable for Mrs. Waters' daughter, Karen.

Karen Waters's public relations firm, Progressive Connections, has been paid $354,500 since late 2004 to direct production and distribution of the mailer - about a third of the $1 million collected from the candidates and issue groups seeking to be included on the sample ballot, the records show.

I love that name, "Progressive Connections."  Well, they have the connections, but they don't seem overly progressive.

The public relations firm was owed an additional $82,000 as of June 30 for her work on the mailer in the primary, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. Her fees do not include expenses for printing and mailing, which are paid separately by the committee.

In 2004, Mrs. Waters - who is fighting charges by the House ethics committee that she improperly sought federal help for a bank in which her husband owned stock - obtained an opinion from the FEC allowing her to run the mailer operation through her federal political committee, Citizens for Waters.

Congresswoman Waters may not have broken any laws with the mailers, but her name carries great influence with California's black voters.  Some observers are concerned over the precedent:

Some consultants and watchdogs are troubled that Mrs. Waters' campaign is charging candidates she endorses to be included in her mailer and said it borders on "pay-to-play" schemes, which have recently come under scrutiny by federal authorities.

And this isn't even Illinois.

One hitch here is that African-American members of Congress have been complaining bitterly about being singled out on ethics charges.  Earlier this week the former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, was charged in the press with directing scholarships reserved for black students to members of her own family.  It will be very awkward, given the racial sensitivities, to pursue still more charges against black members of Congress.

Most black congressmen and congresswomen represent "safe" districts.  They can probably stay a lifetime.  That's part of the problem.  When you're unchallenged, ethical limits tend to get pushed.

September 2, 2010       Permalink

AS ARIZONA GOES – AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  In the post just below we recalled the formal end of World War II on this date in 1945.  For the United States, that war began on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  The symbolic moment in that attack was the destruction of the U.S.S. Arizona.

How could we have known that, in 2010, the United States Department of State, in a report to the vastly corrupt U.N. Human Rights Council, would single out the state for which that ship was named as a potential violator of human rights because of its illegal-immigration law.

The people of Arizona aren't buying it, and won't back down, as demonstrated by a new poll:

PHOENIX (AP) -- A poll released Wednesday found that an overwhelming majority of Arizona voters support the types of provisions that are at the heart of a national debate involving the state's immigration law.

The survey conducted on behalf of Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy found 81 percent of registered voters approved of requiring people to produce documents that show they're in the country legally.

It found that 74 percent believe police should be allowed to detain anyone who's unable to verify their legal immigration status, and 68 percent say police should be allowed to question anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

The survey of 614 registered voters was conducted July 16-Aug. 6 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

COMMENT:  Actually, the AP story misstates some of the provisions of the law, which isn't that tough, but you get the picture.  Arizona is on the front line, absorbing illegal immigrants while the federal government refuses to completely seal our borders. 

The Arizona poll is indicative of a national mood of defiance.  Americans are increasingly fed up with being dictated to by a Washington elite that is out of touch with the country.  And there is outrage that our own government, reflecting the high-grovel of the White House, is actually reporting American states to the U.N.  If the GOP takes over Congress, it might consider legislation to ban this kind of obscene practice, and dare the president to veto it.

September 2, 2010     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 2ND – AT 7:40 A.M. ET:  Today marks the 65th anniversary of the formal end of World War II.  There was a time, not many decades ago, when most Americans knew the meaning of this date.  Now, as the World War II generation fades away, few do. 

On this date in 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allied nations aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.  The ceremony was presided over by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who ended the greatest war in history with the simple words, "These proceedings are closed."

We honored the veterans of World War II.  We didn't do so well in honoring the veterans of the wars that followed.  Korea was called a stalemate, even though we achieved our objective.  That's why there's a South Korea.  Vietnam was called a loss, even though our forces never lost a a battle.  Our military distinguished itself.  Our civilian leadership, too often attuned to press coverage rather than reality, did not.

Americans were indifferent about the first Gulf War, fought to retain the independence of Kuwait, about which most of our people cared little.  We have done better in showing respect for those who've fought for us since September 11, 2001, despite domestic divisions.

There are reasons why Americans did so much better in honoring the troops returning from World War II.  First of all, it was indeed a world war.  Our very survival was at stake.  Second, our victory was complete, total.  Japan and Germany were occupied, defeated nations.  Third, our entire country was mobilized.  We had 15 million men and women under arms in World War II, out of a population of about 130 million.  Today we have a force of 1.5 million, out of a population of 305 million.  (Still, the whiners complain that we're "overstretched.")  Every family seemed to be involved, either in active military service or in war-related production.  And fourth, we had, during World War II, the support of the American left, with its influence in journalism and the academy.  In our confrontation with the Soviet Union and its allies in the year after 1945, the left was considerably less enthusiastic.  Today, some on the left disgracefully ally themselves with the enemy's cause.

Our military today is a class apart.  Few Americans know a soldier.  Too many young Americans think military service is for "suckers."  Sadly, some of their teachers encourage that attitude.

So it might be wise to take a few moments today to think about September 2, 1945, when our nation was united in a hard-fought triumph.  We may not see that kind of total victory again, but we'd better see some kind of victory in the war on terror, or we will have betrayed the legacy that the World War II generation left us.

September 2, 2010     Permalink