U.S. Mid-term elections 2010

Senate race ratings – excellent graphic
Politico: Coverage of the 2010 elections
Who Was Haym Solomon? History from a $1 Bill – Fascinating historical research and background in these days of difficult ‘reasonable accommodation’
(WSJ) How Fundamentalist C-Street Center is Shaping the Mid-Term Elections
David Brooks: Faustus Makes a Deal
Not in 70 years had there been a sequence of events so perfectly designed to fortify liberalism. Yet the country wasn’t swinging to the left; it was swinging to the right!
Surveys showed public opinion drifting rightward on issue after issue: gun control, abortion, global warming and the role of government. Far from leading Americans, Democrats were repelling them. Between 2008 and 2010 the share of voters who considered the Democrats too liberal surged from 39 percent to 49 percent, according to Gallup surveys.
Prospects for the 2010 election are grim. Election guru Charlie Cook suspects the G.O.P. will retake the House. N.P.R. polled voters in the 60 most competitive House districts currently held by Democrats. Democrats trail Republicans in those districts, on average, by 5 percentage points. Independent voters in the districts favor Republicans by an average of 18 percentage points.
Rally to Restore Sanity
3 November, Canada Reports Huge Jump in Immigration
Over 55,000,000 Requests for Citizenship Since Tuesday Night
OTTAWA (The Borowitz Report) – Canadian immigration officials have reported a huge increase in the number of requests for Canadian citizenship in the past twenty-four hours, with over fifty-five million such inquiries pouring in since late Tuesday night.
Of those fifty-five million requests, well over 99.99% of them came from U.S. citizens, with a particularly large number coming from residents of Florida and Kentucky.

Finally! Miller Says He Won’t Block Murkowski Senate Win
Republican Joe Miller said he won’t stand in the way of incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski being certified the winner of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, but he vowed to continue his legal fight over the state’s handling of the vote count.
Miller’s announcement late Sunday paves the way for Murkowski – a write-in candidate after losing the Republican nomination to Miller – to eventually be declared winner of the race.
22 November
Republican Bias Found in Polls That Exclude Cellphones
An analysis by the Pew Research Center of its midterm election polls finds a pro-Republican bias in interviews conducted only by land-line phones.
Ari Emanuel: Forget the Carter Comparisons, Obama Is Following in the Footsteps of Harry Truman — and That’s a Very Good Thing
Like Truman, Obama will not be fully appreciated until he is out of office. But, like Truman, he will win re-election. And also like Truman, Obama will one day be considered one of America’s great presidents.
Even before this month’s midterm shellacking, many commentators were saying that Barack Obama was beginning to look like the second coming of Jimmy Carter. Now, with Congress tacking hard to the right, and 64 newly-minted Republican House Members lining up behind John Boehner, the doomsayers are growing even louder and bolder.
17 November
Lisa Murkowski Defeats Joe Miller In 2010 Alaska Senate Race
History, the GOP, the tea party, Sarah Palin and her own mouthful of a name worked against her. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski conquered them all Wednesday, becoming the first Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a write-in campaign.
2 November
Republicans score first key election wins
(Reuters) – Republicans scored the first key election wins on Tuesday after a long and bitter campaign that could sweep Democrats from power in Congress and slam the brakes on President Barack Obama’s agenda.
Anxiety over the stumbling economy and discontent with Obama propelled Republicans to the threshold of huge gains that could give them a majority in the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate.
Republicans picked up their first Senate seat from Democrats in Indiana. They also held Senate seats in Kentucky, where Republican Rand Paul became the first conservative Tea Party candidate to win a Senate race, and in Ohio.
30 October
Democrats can’t ride Jon Stewart’s wave
(Politico) The event, with the Capitol as the backdrop, was a comedic success. A gargantuan crowd loved the live music and lapped up the satirical repartee between Stewart and sidekick Stephen Colbert. But Stewart’s decision to avoid explicit partisan politicking denied the left a kind of galvanizing moment that might have driven to the polls his Democratic fans who weren’t already planning to vote or motivated previously apathetic liberals to grassroots activities.
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert rally allows Americans to revel in satire — ‘Daily Show,’ ‘Colbert Report’ hosts take mock fight to Washington, D.C.
Rally Includes Lesson in Media Criticism 301
The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear will be remembered, in part, as an expensive, engrossing act of media criticism.
Jon Stewart, the comedian who hosted the Comedy Central rally alongside Stephen Colbert, spoke about the press as an “immune system” for the country — one that he evidently thinks is extremely sick. His words echoed up and down the National Mall on Saturday afternoon. National Journal wound up wondering if the event should have been called the Rally to Restore Journalism. (Forbes) Jon Stewart Rally Heads With Father Guido Sarducci, But We Miss Gilda Radner
29 October
As Reid Falters, Schumer Subtly Stands in the Wings
With the majority leader, Harry Reid, in danger of losing his seat, Senators Charles E. Schumer and Richard J. Durbin are maneuvering for the post.
Urged to Bow Out, Candidates Just Say No
Bill Clinton’s effort to ease Florida’s Democratic candidate out of the Senate race was only the latest example.
28 October
Agony and Serenity – Is it possible to be too calm and collected in the face of catastrophe?
President Obama faces the risk next week of an even greater electoral pasting than Bill Clinton suffered in 1994, after his first two years in office.
Yet the personal reaction of the two men to these reversals could not be more different. While Clinton seemed tormented, Obama appears remarkably at peace. The latter response may be more emotionally healthy; whether it’s politically wise is another question
A gathering storm – The only question is just how bad it will be for the Democrats
(The Economist) Democrats and Republicans made one final pitch to voters before America’s mid-term elections on November 2nd, in which Barack Obama’s party is expected to fare badly. All 435 districts in the House of Representatives and more than a third of seats in the Senate are being contested, as well as 37 governorships. More than 100 state referendums will also take place, along with elections to state legislatures. … Signs pointing to a sweeping Republican victory are everywhere. Recent polls give the party an average lead of almost 7% among likely voters, according to RealClearPolitics, an invaluable political website.
Tea Party-backed Republicans spur party switches
(Reuters) – For lifelong Republican Joe Errigo, deciding to cross party lines and support a liberal Democrat for New York governor wasn’t nearly as difficult as one might expect.
Republican candidate Carl Paladino — backed by the conservative Tea Party movement — raised such political hackles he spawned a “Republicans for Cuomo” movement supporting Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
26 October
The Tea Party, Exported — How do you explain Christine O’Donnell to the French?
(Foreign Policy) What the foreign press needs to understand is that the Tea Party movement is best understood as a conservative insurgency in a country that produces them in regular cycles. There are echoes of the Tea Party in the anti-tax protests of the 1970s and 80s, and in the Goldwater movement of the early 1960s. But that does not mean anyone — foreign or otherwise — can ignore it. The Tea Party may not have the numbers to take over the country, but it is not going away anytime soon.
Polls Show Republicans Poised To Take State Houses
(HuffPost) While national attention has focused on the battle for control of the House and Senate, the contests for governor “really matter” this year, as the Cook Political Report’s Jennifer Duffy puts it (gated), because of the upcoming battle to redraw legislative district lines before the 2012 elections. The outcomes in the gubernatorial races, as Duffy writes, “will help determine which party controls the redistricting process; that, in turn, can affect which party is the majority in state legislatures and among congressional delegations.”
McCain avoids prediction on GOP Senate prospects
(WaPost) Sen. John McCain says he’s hesitant to predict whether Republicans can retake the Senate, although he thinks it could come down to races in California and Washington state.
The Arizona Republican also tells CBS’s “The Early Show” he’s “a little worried about some of my Republican friends who are taking a victory leap about a week ahead of time.”
Sharron Angle ad: Is it racist?
(CSM) … the Republican Senate candidate from Nevada, has released a hard-hitting new ad on illegal immigration. But Hispanic groups say the ad is racist and accuse Sharron Angle of running ‘one of the ugliest anti-illegal immigrants ad campaigns in history.’… [the] new ad … features Hispanic-appearing men carrying weapons and appearing in police mug shots. In the ad, she alleges that her opponent, incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D) of Nevada, is soft on illegal immigrants.
Both Parties Seek Edge in Colorado Senate Race
A furious final push by both parties has made the Colorado Senate race one of the closest in the nation, with both candidates seeking the slightest edge in the days before next week’s election. … Both men are keenly aware that the outcome in Colorado could determine control of the Senate if Republican candidates in other close races surge to victory.
Gov. Christie to kill Hudson River tunnel for second time
… The governor canceled the project on Oct. 7, but gave it a two-week reprieve after U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited Trenton to ask for a grace period to offer more alternatives. The deadline expired Friday, but Christie has pondered the decision for an additional four days.
In Alaska Senate Race, Off the Ballot but on the Rise
The candidate treated like the front-runner in the Alaska Senate race is one not actually on the ballot.
since being embarrassed in an upset by Mr. Miller, a protégé of Sarah Palin’s, in the Republican primary, Ms. Murkowski has defied conventional wisdom and her colleagues in the Republican establishment by waging a credible race as a write-in candidate. Analysts and Alaskans now say she could overcome the odds and logistical hurdles to win, something no senator has done since Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in 1954. Or she could be a spoiler.
Kendrick Meek to endorse Gov. Charlie Crist?
With just one week left, it seems someone will have to break party ties in order to avoid a win by Republican candidate Marco Rubio. Mr. Rubio continues to lead in the polls, with some polls showing him leading by double-digits. Mr. Meek, who polls around 18 percent, may have the ability to sway supporters to defect to Mr. Crist’s campaign, which currently trails Mr. Rubio by around 7 percent.
For women, ideology trumps the gender card
(LA Times) Female voters are judging Whitman and Fiorina more harshly than men, Times/USC poll finds.
As their party’s first female nominees for governor and U.S. Senate, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have run campaigns premised in part on the belief that they could attract women voters who typically brush aside the Republican Party. But new polls indicate that, if anything, women are treating their candidacies more harshly than are men.
US veteran who killed unarmed Iraqis wins Tea Party support
Murder charges were dropped against Ilario Pantano, who now verges on election victory buoyed by right-wing backing
(The Guardian) With the help of the right-wing Tea Party movement, and with the benefit of his image as a war hero acquired from what happened on that fateful day in 2004, he has raised almost $1m (£630,000) in donations and is now level-pegging with his Democratic opponent, Mike McIntyre.
25 October
Charles Murray’s new elitism
(The Economist) CHARLES MURRAY had an amazingly elitist, condescending column yesterday in the Washington Post in which he argued that America is ruled by a “New Elite”, that this elite is composed of those Americans smart enough to get into top-flight universities, that they owe their smarts chiefly to the fact that their parents were also smart, and that the rise of the tea-party movement is due largely to resentment on the part of those Americans who aren’t smart enough to get into those top-flight universities and are thus naturally excluded from the New Elite. Mr Murray himself may not recognise that this is, in fact, the thrust of his argument, but that’s because, judging by the op-ed, he doesn’t seem to be thinking very clearly.
22 October
Peggy Noonan: Tea Party to the Rescue
How the GOP was saved from Bush and the establishment.
In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn’t remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself. In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party.
Alvin Greene’s Senate campaign continues despite S.C. Democrats’ wishes
Alvin Greene still is running for the U.S. Senate as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Greene still is unemployed. He still faces a felony obscenity charge. And his party still wishes he had never emerged from his father’s home in rural Manning to claim its nomination.
21 October
The mid-terms — States’ fights
(The Economist) Elections for governorships and state legislatures could affect America as much as the more famous mid-term battle for Congress
The governors and state legislatures elected next month will determine how states overcome the gaping shortfall in revenue most face in the coming years. In the process they are likely to pioneer policies that will later be adopted at the national level. Many of the most successful reformers, in turn, will move on to federal offices, much as Barack Obama ascended from state senator to senator to president. In many states the new crop of legislators will also have a more immediate impact on national politics, first by redrawing congressional districts to account for shifts in population over the past ten years, and then by putting their successful electoral machinery at the disposal of their party’s presidential candidate in 2012.
19 October
Christine O’Donnell: “Where in the Constitution is the Separation of Church and State?”
Republican Senate Candidate Christine O’Donnell today challenged her Democratic opponent Chris Coons on his statement that the Constitution disallowed the integration of religion into the federal government, asking, “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?”
16 October
Frank Rich: The Rage Won’t End on Election Day
We don’t know what will happen on Election Day, but one fairly safe bet is this: Paladino will not be the next governor of New York. However tardily, he’s been disowned not only by the state’s extant, if endangered, cadre of mainstream Republicans but even by some of the hard right.
But if New Yorkers may take comfort from the pratfall of this particular barbarian at their gate, the national forecast is not so sunny. Paladino is no anomaly in American politics in 2010. He’s just the most clownish illustration of where things have been heading for two years and are still heading. Like the farcical Christine O’Donnell in another blue Northeastern state, he’s a political loss-leader, if you will, whose near-certain defeat on Nov. 2 allows us to indulge in a bit of denial about the level of rage still coursing, sometimes violently, through our national bloodstream.

11 June
In South Carolina, Greene is mystery man despite winning Democratic Senate nod
Alvin M. Greene never gave a speech during his campaign to become this state’s Democratic nominee for Senate. He didn’t start a Web site or hire consultants or plant lawn signs. There’s only $114 in his campaign bank account, he says, and the only check he ever wrote from it was to cover his filing fee.