Senate Rundown

Today, I just want to run down where things stand in regards to the US Senate. While it seems very probable at this point that Republicans will retake the House of Representatives (which I incidentally believed this time last year when most professional pundits thought the idea was absurd), until recently I didn’t for a second think that the Senate was in play. Now I do.

 

Let’s take a detailed look at the situation:

 

To start with, I will predict now that not a single Republican Senate seat will switch parties. At the beginning of this year, that was not a given: Several incumbents were vulnerable, and several open seats seemed ripe for Democratic takeover as well. But over the course of the year, they’ve all swung decisively back to the GOP. So anyone who’s still mentioning North Carolina , Kentucky , New Hampshire , Missouri , Louisiana , Florida , or Ohio as a possible switch to the Democrats really needs to stop living in January.

 

So, currently, we have 59 Democrats (OK, 57 and two Independents, if you want to get technical) and 41 Republicans. As mentioned above, there will be no current Republican seats lost. So let’s see where they stand to gain.

 

Three Democratic seats are absolutely, positively certain to switch parties: North Dakota , Indiana , and Arkansas . These are states that are very Republican at the national level that nonetheless have been sending Democrats to the Senate. This year, re-election would have been dicey, so the incumbents retired in ND and IN, and Blanche Lincoln in AR is in danger of literally receiving the worst reelection percentage in history at this point.

 

This brings us to 44 Republicans and 56 Democrats.

 

Several other states aren’t quite as certain, but nearly so. Pat Toomey is posting strong leads in Pennsylvania , Ken Buck seems to be gaining strength in Colorado, and (to my great surprise) Ron Johnson seems to have decisively moved ahead of Russ Feingold in Wisconsin . All of these are leading their opponents by at least 5 points in most surveys, so absent a big change in the state of the races, the GOP is poised to pick up these three as well.

 

Brings us to 47 Republicans, 53 Democrats.

 

Now we get to some tighter races. In Illinois , Mark Kirk (R) has led Alexi Giannoulias (D) by a point or two for months, and nothing either of these men do seems able to shake up the race any. Neither of them are very well liked, and both have problems. Kirk has consistently led, but Illinois has been so solidly Democrat for so long it’s hard to say that this one’s locked down. But let’s just say the trend holds and Kirk wins.

 

Next, Nevada . Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) is massively unpopular, but Sharron Angle (R) is a pretty controversial candidate who’s biggest mistake was letting Reid have the airwaves to himself half the summer, which drove up her negatives and now has the race in a complete Toss-up status. They’ve seesawed back and forth for the lead for the last three months, but I think Republican excitement combined with the electorate’s loathing of Reid will carry the day on this one. Angle wins.

 

Finally, we have a sudden barn-burner in West Virginia . Two months ago, virtually no one thought Governor Manchin was going to have a problem coasting to victory to replace Robert Byrd, but suddenly John Raese is posing a real threat of taking this one away. Three of the latest polls have Raese ahead (I saw two and I told myself I wouldn’t believe it until I saw one more, but the third popped up yesterday).

 

Those three go the way they’re headed, and it’s a 50/50 split, with Biden breaking ties for the Democrats.

 

So, bottom line? Watch three other races I haven’t yet mentioned, because if ANY of them go to the GOP, you can bet all of the above did as well. Watch Washington , California , and Connecticut; all of them have Republican challengers behind but within striking distance, as built in Democratic advantages in those states make them very hard to win. But if even one of them falls to the Republicans, so does the Senate.

Happy Blogtoberfest!
 (For anyone keeping track, this is a repost of the entry I originally posted October 1st, which blogger.com screwed up beyond all recognition.)


‘Ello all! Time for another installment of Chris’ World!

 

Lots o’ personal stuff to catch up on, obviously, but we’ll save that for next time. We have POLITICAL issues to talk about!

 

I know what you’re thinking: “Chris, we’ve been positively inundated with political news the last few months, and you’ve said nary a word about any of it! Why now?”

 

First: That’s some attitude you all have got there.

 

But second, and more importantly: It’s very true that there are a thousand different stories floating around out there. This is what the military refers to as a “Target Rich Environment”. However, on any given story/issue, you’ve got coverage from probably half a dozen different news sources, and opinion pieces from probably just as many pundits/political analysts, any one of whom can  write you an article as thought-provoking and insightful as anything I can write (and, not irrelevantly, they’re paid to do so in a timely fashion).

 

However, there are a few topics I’d like to weigh in on.

 

First on the chopping block is the White House complaint that Obama just isn’t getting the credit he’s due for all of his ‘legislative accomplishments.’ This is usually in response to some new poll showing President Obama’s popularity testing some new bottom point (right now in the low to mid 40’s). This leads into Obama’s second-most overused whine that, while, yes, the economy’s still bad and people are justifiably angry about that, they aren’t giving him any credit for the other world-shattering, utopia-inducing notches on his Administration’s legislative belt. (The most overused whine, for any interested, is how he inherited all of his woes from his predecessor).

 

There are two problems with this line of thinking. First, and most importantly, the economy is the most important issue to the country, and a wide swath of the Independents and blue-collar democrats that voted for Obama in 2008 did so specifically because they trusted him to right the economy. Whether or not they theoretically agreed with him on healthcare, the auto bailout, the financial regulation reform, et al, did not matter: They wanted the vast majority of his energy expended on the economy. So when Obama spent the better part of a year hawking his signature health care reform, all those voters saw that as a totally unnecessary distraction from what they thought he should be doing.

 

Second, and scarcely less important, is that these same voters largely did NOT agree with what he was doing on all those other issues (you know, they ones he was working on INSTEAD of the economy). Case in point, Obamacare: By the time that was passed, a solid majority of the country opposed it, with some polls putting opposition nearly 20% higher than support.

 

Analogy time, boys and girls: Suppose I’m out of work, and Shelly says to me “While you’re home today, I want you to find a job. If you accomplish that, why don’t you take a look at our health plans and see if you can figure out something more efficient so we’re not paying so much per month. If you finish with that, there’re a few repairs around the house you could take care of. Oh, and send those inconsiderate neighbors a strongly worded letter about not dumping their trash on our lawn anymore!”

 

Later that night, Shelly comes home, and I cheerfully report, “Well, honey, I didn’t find a job, but I did sign us up for an awesome health insurance plan that will only cost us an additional $3000 a month, I took out a $40,000 home equity loan to help with those home repairs, and I sent those neighbors a letter apologizing for how we parked in their space that one time and how we realize they’re just littering our lawn in response to that.”

 

Still later that night, on the phone with my divorce attorney from my hotel room, I bitterly complain that Shelly didn’t give me any credit for my accomplishments. And that’s sort of how it is for Obama.

 

Second topic: Apparently, Obama learned nothing last year from his disastrous dust up with Fox News. The old saying “Don’t pick a fight with folks who buy ink by the barrel” applies here. This is especially stupid because, according to recent surveys, more people get their news from Fox than any other network; if they really WERE right wing shills, why give them ANOTHER reason to go after you when 42% of the voting age population watches them every night? Hypocritically praising MSNBC (which is guilty of far worse sins of bias than Fox) isn’t gonna help- a paltry 12% get their news from that network.

 

Furthermore, this is yet another case of Obama blaming others for his problems (his favorites, in rough order, are former President Bush, Congressional Republicans, Wall Street, Tea Party voters, and, of course, Fox News. Various other targets of opportunity, such as BP and the Supreme Court, make their way on the list from time to time). Maybe some day he’ll realize just how incredibly un-presidential this comes across.

 

Third, I want to just address something that’s been bothering me for the last week or so, concerning the primary result in Delaware . To those not aware, what happened was Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell knocked off establishment pick Mike Castle in the Republican Primary, so she will face Chris Coons in November. Castle was virtually assured of winning the Senate seat (the one Vice President Biden used to occupy), whilst O’Donnell is a long shot for it (she’s down about 10 points to Coons; Castle was a similar margin above him).

 

From a totally pragmatic viewpoint, this was an incredibly stupid move on the part of the primary voters. For one, it made a Republican Senate takeover much less likely, and Castle, while no Tom Coburn or Mitch McConnell, probably would support the party in the Senate the majority of the time, and not cause any major mischief. Yes, there would probably have been times when he annoyingly and publicly supported the Democrats on some issue (see Snow, Olympia ; Collins, Susan; and Lugar, Richard), but by and large, having an extra vote is helpful, especially for the purposes of organizing the Senate.

 

On the other hand… would I have wanted to go and pull the lever (or fill in the circle) for a guy who’s reliably anti-gun and pro-abortion? (That’s what we call a rhetorical question). Therefore, I can definitely understand how the Republican primary voters of Delaware had a bit of heartburn over this, too.

 

The trouble is, Christine O’Donnell isn’t a quality conservative candidate running in a liberal state, where her ideology alone would normally blunt her chances of winning. While that would be a problem in any event, an additional drawback is that she comes with a LOT of personal baggage, and has a real knack for putting her foot in her mouth and, at very least, phrasing things inartfully.  She would be a problem in ANY of the states where Tea Partiers got their chosen candidate (running total: Alaska , Kentucky , Utah , Florida , and Nevada ).

 

My solution: I probably would have just stayed home on this one. If you’re only offered bad choices, you can always opt not to pick either of them.

 

 And now, there is one final issue that I REALLY want to vent over. Part of what’s driving the voter revolt this year is the perception (accurate, in my opinion) that their government is not listening to them. What sparked this revolt is the arrogance and disregard shown by the Obama Administration, which every day acts more as if its power stems from divine providence rather than consent of the governed. Unfortunately, the last year has shown that this ‘entitlement to power’ mindset is not limited to the Democratic side of the aisle (where it is more philosophically compatible anyway), and it REALLY gets my goat when Republicans start acting like that.

 

We first saw the forerunner of this last year, when the Republican establishment chose Dede Scozzafava as their pick to run in the special election for the district NY-23. The Republican base went into a rage, because Scozzafava wasn’t ‘moderate’ so much as she was ‘liberal’, and would never, ever have been chosen had she actually run in a primary. Scozzafava was so unpopular that she was forced to drop out of the race due to dismal poll numbers, but still managed to play spoiler when, in a fit of pique, she endorsed the Democrat in the race over the Conservative Party candidate, and ultimately cost the party a race that they could have won.

 

This year, we’ve seen numerous Republicans incumbents either refuse to accept the results of elections or not stand for them at all due to the prospect of defeat. Arlen Specter, facing a sure loss in the PA primary against Pat Toomey, switched parties (only to lose the Democratic primary, in the season’s most savory case of poetic justice). Charlie Crist, after blowing a 20 point lead in Florida against Marco Rubio, dropped out of the Republican primary to run as an Independent. And most recently, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska , after a shocking loss in the primary to Joe Miller, cited an “enormous out pouring of support” (read: three of her family members sent her ecards), and decided to mount a write in campaign to retain her Senate seat.

 

In each case, the primary motivation of these beloved elected officials is not the protection some lofty principle of policy or morality that they, and they alone, can uphold in the Senate. Rather, their motivation is that they, and they alone, are entitled to the Senate seat that their party has chosen a different candidate to pursue. And it’s exactly that sense of entitlement that has so disgusted a wide swath of voters this year.

 

My prediction: Not one of the people who have chosen to do this will win, nor will they ever hold a state-wide elected office again. Nor do they deserve to.

Five Months (In Brief)

As promised, here’s a brief recap of the last five months for those of you who a) don’t regularly talk to me on the phone b) aren’t friends with me on Facebook.

Shortly after my previous posting last January, Shelly and I flew up to Philadelphia for a long weekend, avoiding (by a scant two hours) an unusually severe North Carolinian snowstorm that dumped 8 or 9 inches around here and would have cancelled the entire trip. However, not having a very adept understanding of geothermatics (a word I just made up), on traveling 400 miles north, we were shocked to find Philadelphia in state of deep freeze, with temperatures hovering just slightly above 0 degrees Fahrenheit. (This would have caused me even more extreme discomfort had Shelly not at the last minute before leaving advised me to change out of the fleece I was wearing and into something more substantial.) Fortunately, we were able to cope, and were even joined the next day by none other than Jason and Erika, who also narrowly escaped the winter horror of the south. Here’re a few pictures:

About a month later, an extremely sad event took place. Apparently, even I am not immune to the ravages of time, the inevitability of aging, the irritation of increasing wrinkles. Pleas to not make a big deal out of this one fell on uniformly deaf ears, as pretty much every Facebook friend felt the need to acknowledge it, and my coworkers trashed my office with confetti, having lulled me into a false sense of security by not teasing me in advance about the coming event, which made me believe that they’d forgotten for once. No such luck.

I speak of course of my 30^th birthday. This picture says is all:

In April, the big news was Matt and Martha becoming new parents. Jason and Erika, Shelly and I all went to visit the weekend after, tracking down the Sacrintys, who had attempted to evade us by moving a half hour further west. After a long trip, during which poor Charlotte was forced to sit between Jason and I (that child hasn’t been the same since)…

…we finally managed to see little Andrew Sacrinty:

No, obviously that picture’s not from April, but it’s better than any of the ones that were.

Also in April, Shelly and I took an ill-fated trip to northern Virginia to attend former-roommate Nancy ’s nuptial ceremony! Here are some pictures of that:

"Why was it ill-fated?” you ask? Ask me sometime to tell you the story about how we nearly ran out of gas at 10 o’clock at night on a gravel road in the middle of the woods with no cell reception. Trust me, I’ll know what you’re talking about.

Then May came, and with it, a burning desire on Shelly’s part to buy a new car, despite the fact that her’s was a solid three years younger than mine already. Hey! Despite a sickening feeling in my stomach at taking on more debt, and a greater desire to drive a nail through my hand than to deal with car salesmen, we searched and haggled and finally settled on a Honda Accord, totally coincidentally the car listed as #1 on Shelly’s wish list. HEY! Anyway, here’s a picture of it:

Moving on to early June, the first weekend, we hosted Mom and Dad...

... and the second, Danielle, Christopher, Julia, and Shawn Thomas:

Finally, bringing us back to the Independence Day weekend, Shelly and I finally, after a nearly five hour delay, flew up to BWI, to be picked up by a bleary-eyed Dad at 1:30 in the morning! The weekend included a birthday party for Shelly, a visit with some old friends (or as I like to call that night, “Fun with Potato Guns and Bonfires”), and the usual 4^th of July Crab Feast, with the extended family in attendance at Danielle’s house! But hey, what am I thinking? You want to see pictures!

Alright, well, there you go! Since they say pictures are worth a thousand words, and, including this paragraph, I’ve typed 714 words and posted 17 pictures, that’s a 17,714-word update on my five months! Not bad, right? J OK, for realsies, I won’t take this long again.

New Ground Broken!

It’s been a while, and I figured ‘what better event to kick-start a blog entry than a ground-breaking Supreme Court decision'?

As you may or may not know, what with all the other news vying for attention, is that yesterday the Court ruled that the Second Amendment is applicable to states and localities. This decision was a logical follow-on to the Heller decision two years ago in which the Court (finally) ruled that the Second Amendment is an individual right.

What the affect of this ruling will be is that states and localities are going to have to defend their gun laws in court. All that’s been decided thus far is that total bans on handguns are unconstitutional, but over the next few decades, the Supreme Court and the Circuit Courts of Appeal will develop precedent on which gun laws are constitutional and which are not. The Supreme Court has already signaled in the decision yesterday that the more reasonable laws will be upheld, such as prohibitions on criminals having guns and restrictions on where guns can be lawfully carried (IE, not in courthouses, schools, etc.).

All kinds of laws are going to be challenged, but my prediction is that the biggest, fattest targets out there are laws by states such as Maryland , Massachusetts , Wisconsin , Hawaii , and Illinois that either totally deny or severely curtail the rights of citizens to carry. Most states currently provide carry licenses to citizens without criminal records who have passed basic gun safety classes, but the above states either allow government officials to arbitrarily deny the permits or have no allowance in law for carry whatsoever.

Take Maryland , my erstwhile home state, for example. Maryland bans both open AND concealed carry without a permit (states might be able to skirt the ruling if they allow open carry but forbid concealed, under the premise that they are regulating the method of carrying but not forbidding it altogether). Maryland does issue permits, but usually only to people who habitually transport valuables, have documented threats against their lives (and then only rarely), require it as part of their employment, or (most often) know someone in the state government. If you don’t know someone and just want to carry the weapon in case, God forbid, you need to defend your life, Maryland says ‘too bad’ (though they’ll happily accept your application fee).

With the Second Amendment now applicable against states and enshrined as a fundamental right of citizenship, that sort of law is going to be extremely difficult to defend from constitutional challenges. It’s true that the Supreme Court has only thus far addressed the ‘keeping’ of arms, rather than the ‘bearing’, but it’s going to be impossible to separate the one from the other. (Indeed, the Court addressed and dismissed attempts to do so in Heller, and implicitly endorses in McDonald a right to carry in ‘non-sensitive’ places by the way it singled out restrictions on ‘sensitive’ places as examples of legitimate restrictions.) Of course, that won’t stop state attorneys general from tying themselves in knots attempting to do so, which will be amusing to see.

If one were desirous of getting one’s name on a legal precedent, now might be a good time to apply for a Maryland permit, get denied (you have to get denied first because you need to show ‘injury’), and challenge the law in court. Hey, I’m just saying... O:)

Right! A lot of other stuff happened over the last five months! I’ll be back later this week to fill you in on all of that (PROMISE!).

UPDATE: Apparently, others agree with my above predictions.

A Massachusetts Republican! I Don't Believe It!!!

And with almost all the votes in, it looks like Brown has won by almost five points! In a normal state, that'd be noteworthy, but in Massachusetts, that's cataclysmic for Democrats!

Don't believe all this crap, either, about how Coakley was just such an awful candidate. MA as a state has been sending awful candidates to Congress for years just because of that "D" after their name. No matter how liberal enablers in the media try to spin this, this election reflects deep dissatisfaction with the way the Democratic Party has been running the country.

What remains to be seen is if they will actually heed the message. Congressman Weiner of New York, about as liberal as they come, has apparently come out tonight and said his party should take a step back and make sure they're listening to what the people are saying. His party would do well to follow his advice.

And Democrats would do well not to follow advice such as this. I was amazed in reading this article just how many wrong-headed ideas this guy had. Let me illuminate you!

"Put it all together, and it should be relatively easy to pass health-care reform before the new senator takes office, even without engaging in any of the delaying tactics Republicans routinely use (recall that because of Republican challenges to his victory in the 2008 Senate contest in Minnesota, Al Franken didn't take office until eight months after the election)."

Leaving aside the apples to oranges comparison of the Franklin situation (which involved a recount, for God's sake, not just the certification of a clearly-won election), does anyone think voters would just forget that, after they clearly indicated their opposition to Obamacare in this election, Democrats rammed it through in the two weeks or so before their choice could manifest itself? I'd be willing to bet that if the Democrats weren't going to lose Congress already this year, that action would pretty much guarantee it.

"The second reason Democrats shouldn't hesitate to play a little hardball is this: They are doing what they were elected to do. Let's not forget that the American people elected a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic president who pledged to reform health care when he ran. Does one election in one state change that?"

Why does what the majority wanted last election matter more than what they want now? Yes, voters voted for Obama, and a Democratic Congress, but mostly because they were fed up with President Bush and Republicans. It wasn't a total endorsement of of every liberal fever dream posted on Daily Kos or Huffington Post; I think the poll numbers for Obama and Congress over the last year proves that quite convincingly. So why listen to something the voters didn't say then as opposed to what they are clearly saying now?

"Or think about it this way. Let's say we count how many people each senator represents (I'm using 2009 census data and counting each individual as one-half a constituent for each of his or her two senators). Before today, Democratic senators supporting health-care reform represented a total of 196 million Americans (or 64 percent), while Republican senators opposing reform represented a total of 110 million Americans (or 36 percent). If Brown wins, Democratic senators supporting reform will represent 193 million Americans (63 percent), while Republicans opposing reform will represent 113 million (37 percent)."

OK, this is somewhat beside the point, but it needs to be said. The next time someone says "Oh the Senate is undemocratic because Senators representing less than X percent of the population can stop legislation", do me a favor and throw a rock at them? (My inner Shelly is telling me that that last sentence is too inflammatory, and that you should just tell them to read the Constitution) Why? Because the freakin' Senate isn't based on population! It's two Senators per state! If you want a legislative body based on population, well geez, I guess you're out of luck... oh wait, we DO have one! It's called the House of Representatives! This goes double for the idiots out there talking about how theoretically Senators representing less than 10% of the population could filibuster legislation; never mind the fact that there has never been and never will be a coalition of Senators who only represent small states (because most of the small population states, for instance Vermont and Wyoming, have nothing in common beside the fact that they have few people living in them).

But besides that, again, notice this slight of hand: "Democratic senators supporting health-care reform represented a total of 196 million Americans" (emphasis added). Again, over 50% of the American people are against this bill! There might be a point buried somewhere in there if 60% of Americans wanted Obamacare and were having their will thwarted, but they aren't! Well, actually, in point of fact, they ARE! Somewhere between 50 and 60% of Americans want the bill killed!

Well, anyway, that's enough for tonight. New ball game tomorrow!

Happy New Year!!!

And Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas while we're at it, since I managed to miss both of those too.

Well, I have an excuse! Absolutely NOTHING has been going on in my life the last two months! I haven't seen anybody, I haven't gone anywhere, I haven't done anything... OK, no, that's not quite true, now, is it?

The last two months have been jam-packed with stuff for Shelly and I, actually. In fact, not six hours ago, my sister and three of her children (Christopher, Julia, and Sean Thomas) departed for Maryland after an incredibly busy weekend! Arriving Friday night, Shelly and I kept them busy with trips to the Asheboro Zoo on Saturday and a visit to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences yesterday. I did most of the driving (I love Danielle's new Chevy Traverse), and discovered that my next, child-centric car WILL have sound-proofing installed between the driver's and passenger's compartments; I guess intercoms will be allowed, provided they are password protected. But anyway, here are a few pictures:

Um... well, you can't tell from the pictures, but we did actually see animals at the zoo.








Traveling backwards one weekend found Shelly and I visiting with a very-pregnant Martha, who asked for and received a promise from me to update my blog. Also, she received unasked-for all her Christmas presents from Shelly and I and Erika and Jason and Charlotte:
We all also got to finally see Matt and Martha's new house, which they moved into just shortly after my last blog entry (just to give you an idea of the immense passage of time we're dealing with here). Very nice, so nice in fact that it set off pangs of jealousy in her two girlfriends, prompting awkward pronouncement on the ride home, such as "(snippy hypothetical comment deleted due to Shelly's use of her veto power)." Jason and I felt duly chastised.

Going back into the Christmas Season, Shelly and I spent an eventful week up in Maryland this year, where we enjoyed such niceties as meeting baby Annabelle for the first time during our visit to Abington, having dinner at the Chart House with Law-School Melissa and her significant other David (which gave me the opportunity to bring up wildly-inappropriate stories for David's enjoyment), Christmas Eve at my brother's house, Boxing Day at my aunt's, a trip to the gun range with five old friends, my first good Maryland snow in over five years, and a wondrous three-hour traffic jam through northern Virginia on the way up to do all of that. But hey, you're not here for a synopsis are you?

Ah, they're more or less in order. You know, given that pictures are worth a thousand words, I'm really making an investment in this entry, aren't I?

The month of November saw us go to Charlotte to celebrate with Shelly's side of the family; actually early December saw that too, come to think of it. Also, my Aunt Marie came out to visit from New Mexico in early November (as in, the weekend after I last blogged), and I made an after-work drive up to Maryland to see her for yet another particularly frantic weekend. I would post pictures, but blogger for some reason puts them in at the TOP of the entry every time I upload them, and I have to drag them all the way to the bottom, and every time it throws everything else out of order! Just get on Facebook and look at them there (or bribe someone who's on Facebook to show them to you, ya darn luddite!)

Alright, now that two month's worth of personal stuff is out of the way, let's talk politics!

The big story right now is the Massachusetts Senate race. At this point, it looks absolutely conceivable that Scott Brown (a Republican!) can win this race. Again, lest the first sentence in this paragraph left you uninformed of where this is happening, it’s in Massachusetts. MASS-A-CHU-SETTS.

This time last week, I would have said I couldn't see him winning, although at the time, I did say to Shelly “If I see one more poll showing him close, I’ll start to believe it.” There have been multiple polls since then showing him tied or outright winning. But his victory, while monumental, is not absolutely required for America to make its point: WE DO NOT WANT THIS HEALTH CARE BILL!

And make no mistake, that’s exactly what is being said here. Brown has made his opposition and promise to filibuster Obamacare a centerpiece of his campaign. The result: He’s surging ahead in a state that last sent a Republican to the Senate in 1972, last voted for a Republican President in 1984, and has three times as many registered Democrats as Republicans.

Congressional Democrats aren’t stupid; they're getting the message. They also know that, even if Martha Coakley (Brown’s opponent) pulls it out, a Democrat winning by 3-5 points in Massachusetts (again: Massachusetts!) is equivalent to a Democrat losing by 15 points in Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Missouri, or any other competitive state. In Virginia this past November, Democrat Creigh Deeds had numbers nearly identical to Coakley’s as far as how fired up his own party was, how many Independents supported him, and how energized the opposition was, and he got CRUSHED 58-41%! The only reason this MA race is even close is because of the state that it’s in.

Furthermore, this race has got to leave an icy feeling in the stomach of every Democrat up for election this year. Not only because of the implications of a Democrat losing in MA (if MA isn’t safe, then nowhere is), but because of Obama’s reaction to it. At first, after repeatedly promising wavering Dems in the House and Senate that he'd campaign for them next year if they took a hard vote on Obamacare, the President at first opted to stay out of the whole thing, wary of damaging his own prestige by being tied too closely with a potentially devastating loss. Probably realizing the "every man for himself" message that decision was sending, Obama sprung into action and… recorded a tepid ad in support of Coakley. Only after the deep implications of a loss in MA finally penetrated the increasingly (and unbelievably, really) thick heads of the national Democratic Party did he finally get around to visiting the state, a grand total of two days before the election. Wow… that must have certainly been reassuring to every Senator and Representative who hails from a competitive district who happens to have a “D” after their name!

Well, that’s the state of play at the moment. I don’t know about you, but I know where I’ll be next Tuesday night: Watching those election returns! And yes, I WILL be blogging tomorrow night, believe me!

Seriously? September 22nd?

Yeah, I guess it has been a while. I'm sure everyone's found other things to entertain themselves with besides my blog, though.

Lots of stuff has happened, obviously, in the intervening 43 days. First and foremost, Jen had her baby! Little Annabelle came into the world on October 7th at 4:30pm, weighing 4 lbs and having a score of 9.9 (would have gotten a perfect 10 but the Russian judge gyped her). Here's a picture of her that Jen sent me just this past weekend.

So now all three of you who haven't seen her picture by now know what she looks like! Jen and Tim and being kept quite busy by this new development, as I'm sure you can imagine, but I have managed to speak with them in a somewhat limited basis, and they seem to be coping rather well. No word yet on how Josie and Roscoe are dealing with the new addition.

In other news, we've had plenty of visitors down here over the last month and a half. As alluded to last time, Mom, Dad and Grandpop came down to visit the third weekend in September, and the following weekend Shelly and I went down to Myrtle Beach to spent some time with Misty, Robin, Josh, and Ashley. Here's some pictures from the latter occasion:

And just because there's no better place to put it, here's Misty, being the judge of what is just about the best selection of Apples to Apples cards I've ever seen:

The following weekend, Shelly and I traveled to Charlotte for Aaron Zambrano's first birthday (let's see- do I have any pictures of that I can use for filler? No? What on earth was I doing that whole party, socializing?!), and two weeks later, Stefanie and Julius brought Aaron up here so we could go to the State Fair (Ashley tagged along too). Now I DO have some pictures from that one to show you!




I have NO idea how that picture layout is going to look- I'm sorry if it's messed up. I'm on Shelly's computer (mine continues to be broken- and will remain that way pretty much forever, actually), and she uses Firefox as a browser, slightly different than IE, which is what I used before.

The next big event after that was Halloween. The Hawkinseses were good enough to host Shelly and I for dinner that night, though I think it was a transparent ploy to show off Charlotte's cute costume:
And then the two of us were off to Greensboro, for Martha and her fellow attorney's Halloween Party. Google used to opportunity to foist ridiculously bad directions on me and get me hopelessly lost, causing an hour drive to take a solid hour forty five.

Given that I didn't blog on October 25th or 30th, it's worth at this point to note I've been emancipated (and I don't say that with much irony) for three years from my God-awful job at Signature Special Events, effective the former date, and have been gainfully employed at SECU for three years, effective the latter. The karmic burden was apparently too much for my former tormentors, as they have virtually ceased to exist from what I can tell. My current job continues to move forward well- it was actually my boss who touchingly reminded me that it was my anniversary, asking me to take a celebratory three minute trip to the break room to get coffee for myself (and her, while I was going that way).

Speaking of celebrations, how 'bout New Jersey and Virginia, huh? I'd forgotten what it felt like to win elections. Granted, those two governorship have switched to the out-of-power party in every election for the last 30 years (roughly), but there's no ignoring the dramatic move of Independents AWAY from the Democrats (Obama won VA 53-47%, but Deeds got CRUSHED 58%- 40%). Hopefully this will give enough moderate Dems pause to stop that debacle of a Health Care plan oozing its way through the corridors of power.

Also of note from last night, the poor voters of Maine went from being "savvy, independent, freedom-minded" folk to "backwoods bigoted hicks" in the space of one election, due to them joining 31 other states in refusing to redefine marriage. (Seriously- read the comment boards on any article discussing the story). It reminds me of nothing more than a 3 year old being syrupy-sweet to his parents because he's trying to get his way, then falling on the floor kicking, screaming, and yelling "I HATE YOU!!!" the minute they tell him "no" about something.

In a related note, we have a very special guest appearance on my blog tonight, as Megatron would like to briefly weigh in on this issue.
Megatron? (<--click the link)


However encouraging those results might be, however, NY-23 offered a cautionary tale. Namely, even if Democrats are widely unpopular next year (and they look to have every intention of making that the case), we can still lose if we don't have our act together. In this case, though, contrary to popular opinion, it wasn't the conservatives who screwed that race up. Scozzafava was both a terrible candidate and barely a Republican, and the establishment Republicans in the district should NEVER have nominated her for the seat in the first place (there's no WAY she would have ever won a primary, had there been one); conservatives were right to reject her, but unfortunately the whole incident distracted from the main point, which should have been getting a fiscally conservative Rep in Congress. It's fiscal conservatism that's going to win next year, but only if the candidate's social stands don't alienate the base. The way forward is to nominate conservatives who are BOTH fiscally and socially conservative, but mainly stress the fiscal aspect. That's how McDonnell won in VA; that's how we can win next year.

Alright, everyone, that's all from me for now. Hopefully I'll get around to posting again before I see everyone for Christmas and Thanksgiving ;)