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Showing posts with label 2010election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010election. Show all posts
Yet more Moderate Democrats becoming Republicans

Yet more Moderate Democrats becoming Republicans

Even more politicians switch from being Democrats to Republicans.

Reporting from Atlanta-- For Democrats, Ashley Bell was the kind of comer that a party builds a future on: A young African American lawyer, he served as president of the College Democrats of America, advised presidential candidate John Edwards and spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
But after his party's midterm beat-down in November, Bell, a commissioner in northern Georgia's Hall County, jumped ship. He joined the Republicans.
Bell, 30, said he had serious issues with the healthcare law and believed that conservative "blue dog" Democrats in Congress who shared his values had been bullied into voting for it.
Bell's defection is one of dozens by state and local Democratic officials in the Deep South in recent months that underscore Republicans' continued consolidation of power in the region — a process that started with presidential politics but increasingly affects government down to the level of dogcatcher.
"I think the midterms showed you really can't be a conservative and be a member of the Democratic Party," Bell said.
Since the midterm election, 24 state senators and representatives have made the switch in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Texas.
In some cases, the ramifications have been profound: In Louisiana, defecting Democrats gave Republicans a majority in the state House for the first time since Reconstruction; in Alabama, they delivered the GOP a House supermajority. Republicans have 65 votes to the Democrats' 39, enough to pass constitutional amendments over Democratic opposition.
The trend continued through late January — when nine officials in Lamar County in northeastern Texas left the Democratic Party — and into last week, when Louisiana Atty. Gen. James D. "Buddy" Caldwell switched parties, leaving the GOP in control of every major state office in Baton Rouge. . . .
"Skipping Cell Phones Skews Polls to GOP"

"Skipping Cell Phones Skews Polls to GOP"

I think that I already assumed that this was the case, but it is useful to have in confirmed. Still a five percentage point adjustment factor is a useful rough number to have (it will obviously vary some race to race).

Republicans received a boost over Democrats in landline-only telephone polls, according to a new study by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Polls this fall that reached only landline phone numbers ended up giving Republicans an extra five percentage points compared with polls that dialed both landline and mobile phones, the study concluded. Pew said that’s because almost a quarter of U.S. homes don’t have a landline telephone number, and cell phone users tend to be younger and more Democratic. . . .

For instance, Pew’s final generic ballot survey of the fall had Republicans up 51% to 39% among voters reached by landline, double the 48% to 42% lead in a sample that included cell phone respondents.
Top RNC aide resigns, claiming that Steele has done great damage to Republican Party

Top RNC aide resigns, claiming that Steele has done great damage to Republican Party

A copy of the letter is available here. He suggests that Steele's behavior resulted in the Republican wins being much more limited than they could have been.

“In the last two non-presidential cycles of 2002 and 2006, the RNC raised $284 million and $243 million respectively. “So far this cycle, the RNC has reported raising just $170 million. Less than $18 million (10.53%) of that total came from contributions of $1,000 or more, collected from a mere 5,379 donors. This is a fraction of either the previous cycles.” . . .
Alaska: Joe Miller in the lead with absentee ballots still to count?

Alaska: Joe Miller in the lead with absentee ballots still to count?

If Politico's report is correct, Miller looks to be ahead of Murkowski in the vote count.

Murkowski’s campaign touted they had a grand total of 85,756 votes – including challenged but counted votes – and were only 1,761 votes behind Republican Joe Miller with thousands of absentee and write-in ballots yet to be opened and counted.

“The ballots that could still come in from overseas will number in the hundreds and not in the thousands. So, if Joe Miller were to close the gap, it would have to come tomorrow,” said Murkowski campaign manager Kevin Sweeney. “After tomorrow’s absentee count, we should have close to a final picture on this election.”

With 87,517 votes in the bank, Miller’s campaign pointed out that he is leading even if all of the contested ballots are added to Murkowski’s totals. Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto pointed out in a press release that already counted absentee ballots have skewed in their favor in the Senate race.

“If previous trends hold for the absentee ballot count, it is possible for Joe to gain as many as 1,000 votes against Lisa Murkowski tomorrow,” said DeSoto. . . .
Comparing this election to the 1974 Post-Watergate election

Comparing this election to the 1974 Post-Watergate election

From the National Journal:

Republicans picked up 680 seats in state legislatures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures -- the most in the modern era. To put that number in perspective: In the 1994 GOP wave, Republicans picked up 472 seats. The previous record was in the post-Watergate election of 1974, when Democrats picked up 628 seats. . . .


For details on the NCSL numbers see this. Democrats also picked up 49 seats in the House that year, though that was presumably more difficult in that they already decisively controlled the House before the election with 242 seats. They also picked up a net gain of 3 seats in the Senate.
Obama says that it isn't his policies, but his communication skills

Obama says that it isn't his policies, but his communication skills

If you needed evidence that Obama doesn't get it that people disagreed with his policies:

“I think that’s a fair argument. I think that, over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that, we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation. That it’s a matter of persuading people. And giving them confidence and bringing them together. And setting a tone,” Mr. Obama told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft in an exclusive interview set to air Sunday. . . .


The Economist understood this:

True, the president conceded that he had received a “shellacking” at the polls, and that “some election nights are more fun than others.” He accepted that the ultimate responsibility for the disappointment of voters rested with him. He claimed to be ready for compromise with the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, offering to “mix and match” ideas and, where necessary, disagree without being disagreeable. “I’ve got to do a better job, just like everybody else in Washington does,” he said. But the strenuous efforts of the White House press corps to get Mr Obama to say that his policy decisions of the past two years on health care, the stimulus package or anything else might have been mistaken came to naught. . . .


UPDATE: Obama's "tone-deaf" White House (or "sour grapes" by losing Dems?) (Alex Sink said the say comments to the Associated Press also.)

Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink pointed an accusatory finger Friday at what she called a “tone-deaf” Obama White House to explain why she narrowly lost her campaign.

In an interview with POLITICO, Sink said the administration mishandled the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t appreciate the political damage done by healthcare reform and argued that her GOP opponent’s strategy of tying her to the president did grave damage to her candidacy in the state’s conservative Panhandle.

“They got a huge wake-up call two days ago, but unfortunately they took a lot of Democrats down with them,” said Sink of the White House.

She added: “They just need to be better listeners and be better at reaching out to people who are on the ground to hear about the realities of their policies as well as politics.” . . .


In a move that sounds like their rhetoric that the recession would have been even worse without the stimulus, the Obama administration says this:

White House aides and Democratic National Committee officials, however, say that without the involvement of the national party and Obama’s political arm, Organizing for America, Sink would have fared worse. . . .


At the Huffington Post:

It mystifies me how someone who seemed so tuned in to the public pulse during the campaign became so strategically tone-deaf after he was elected. I think he may have badly overestimated the meaning of the 2008 election, particularly with respect to swing independents, who were voting against Bush, more than for Obama, just as yesterday they voted against the economic situation, without understanding its sources or what would remedy it. . . .


Dana Milbank at the Washington Post discusses how Hillary Clinton would have done things differently. Many of the points raised by Milbank would have done real damage to the economy (e.g., the foreclosure moratorium), but Democrats are looking to figure out what went wrong.
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