the all-purpose 2010 midterm discussion thread

[Order 66]

Can I do this? I think I will

All gloating and panicking and depressing poll numbers go here

[redbull]

cue sppunk predicting apocalypse

[Future Boy]

I'll put it at 50-50 that we lose the house and I die of a laughing fit.

[Future Boy]

Dont know about the Senate.

[Order 66]

nah I think they have to lose 40 seats to lose the house. 11 to lose the senate. Neither scenario is likely ... Yet

[redbreegull]

dems win additional seats in both houses of congress

obama's blackshirts randomly select 10 republican congressmen and have them executed on their knees on the steps of the capitol as retribution for healthcare


you heard it here first

[ryan patrick]

the picture won't really become clear until summer, too many variables at this point

my ballpark would be dems losing about 10 house seats and maybe 1-2 senate seats as the average result but it could move in either direction, though having a net gain in the house is pretty hard since they're kind of at a high water mark after two consecutive waves of gains

[ryan patrick]

definite dem pickups in the house:

DE-AL
LA-02
IL-10

definite republican pickups in the house:

LA-03
TN-06

[Mo]

Can't wait for the campaigns...

[redbreegull]

if the republicans win any seats back obama will declare martial law and dissolve the legislature. in its place? death panels.

[Nimrod's Son]

I expect a false flag event before the elections that Obama can rally his people behind

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

I expect a false flag event before the elections that Obama can rally his people behind

laugh it up while you can. there may soon come a day when freethinkers like yourself are relegated to Obama's off-the-record underground vaults, secret banks of human dissent and liberty; unlicensed to breathe the free air and taste the bittersweet passage of time, powerless to love or hope or feel grief's sting, unable to hear the euphonious voice of the wind in the trees at night, impotent even to cry out in your desolation and heartache, and the sweet sensation of the light of the sun on your face will be as remote and alien as the beams of a cold and distant star.

[Future Boy]

can we get red scarlet back please, this is painful.

[ryan patrick]

here's some actual content, which makes some points worth thinking over. my first reaction to the poll when i heard about it yesterday was, OK, so maybe freshman dems in districts that have been trending purple aren't in bad shape. but there's some different dynamics at work for Kissell.

Poll: Most Voters Don't Know NC Dem Kissell Opposed Health Care Bill -- But No-Vote Helps Him Anyway | TPMDC

New polling released yesterday and today by Public Policy Polling (D) provides some solid, empirical evidence that a vote against the health care bill may be the better bet for swing-seat Democrats. Or at least, that seems to be the message for freshman Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC), who voted against the bill.

The new polls show that Kissell easily leads several potential Republican opponents, by margins of 14-18 points. He also leads a potential Democratic primary challenger, 2002 nominee Chris Kouri, by 49%-15%. But a close look at the polls shows just how people think he voted on the bill -- and how this could be affecting their decisions about him.

It turns out that a 44% plurality of the likely general election electorate falsely believe that Kissell voted for the bill, with only 29% giving the correct answer that he voted against it, and 28% are unsure. (This might come as a huge shock, but voters can often make their decisions based on false beliefs and information.) I asked PPP for some customized cross-tabs -- which reveal that among people who think he voted for it the race is very close, with a landslide lead among the folks who think he voted against it.

The false belief on Kissell's position is spread fairly evenly across partisan identifications, though not perfectly so: Democrats think he voted for it by 41%-28%, Republicans think so by 48%-30%, and independents say so by 45%-27%.

Kissell's overall approval rating is 45%, with 30% disapproval. According to the custom cross-tabs, people who think he voted yes are only at 44%-33%, while people who say he voted no approve of him by a wider 52%-36%. Even among Democratic primary voters, Kissell's popularity isn't heavily damaged. Among Democratic primary voters who think he voted for the poll, his approval is 67%-14%, compared to 55%-36% who say he voted against it.

The difference becomes much sharper in the general election match-ups. Among people who think Kissell voted yes, he is in a dead heat with all four Republicans, each of them in the upper 40's. But among the voters who say he voted against it, Kissell has leads of nearly two to one, with him in the low 60's and each of the opponents in the low 30's. Among those who don't have an answer as to how he voted, Kissell's support is in the upper 50's, with the opponents in the low 30's.

Simply put, liberal voters who like the bill will vote for Kissell anyway, and he wins over some conservatives. The race is close among the plurality who say he voted for the bill, with him put ahead by landslide leads among the people who know he voted against it.

I asked PPP communications director Tom Jensen whether there was a direct causation: Does thinking Kissell voted for the bill make a person less likely to support him -- or, because the distribution isn't perfectly uniform, and conservative voters are a little bit more likely to think he voted for it, is he simply polling badly among people who never would have supported him anyway?

"For the most part people who think he voted for it are casual followers of politics who are going to follow the party line -- Democratic or Republican -- regardless of what's really going on because they don't pay that much attention," Jensen said. "But Kissell's getting a decent amount of support from Republicans and independents who know he voted against the bill, and Democrats who know he voted against it aren't holding it against him at least when it comes to the match ups against the Republicans. So on balance he's coming out ahead."

[Order 66]

I hope Harold ford decides not to run for gilibrand's seat. dude is a moron kinda

"I shoot guns at things that can't shoot back!"

[Nimrod's Son]

The Ford family only takes a back seat to the Kennedys when it comes to corruption

[Gish08]

Suffolk University poll: Scott Brown up by 4 - Jessica Taylor - POLITICO.com

A Suffolk University poll released Thursday evening shows Republican Scott Brown 4 points ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley as he continues his improbable surge in the Senate special election in Massachusetts.

The poll reports Brown is leading Coakley, 50 percent to 46 percent, just within the margin of error. Independent candidate Joe Kennedy received 3 percent.

Suffolk pollster David Paleologos told the Boston Herald even he was surprised by the poll’s results, noting that their models show a probable high turnout of independent voters next Tuesday, which is likely to benefit Brown. The results also showed Brown leading in all the state’s regions except Suffolk County.

Brown’s favorability ratings are also higher than Coakley’s, with 57 percent saying they have a favorable opinion of the state senator and just 19 percent having an unfavorable opinion. Forty-nine percent say they have a favorable opinion of Coakley, while 41 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the attorney general.

Against the backdrop of an election that could possibly play a decisive role in the health care debate — a point both parties have begun to press on their supporters — 51 percent said they did not support the health care bill, with 36 percent supporting it. Sixty-one percent said they didn’t believe the government could afford such a plan.

A plurality of respondents also believe Brown fared better during the televised debates between the candidates, with 41 percent saying they believed Brown won, compared with just 25 percent for Coakley.

The survey was conducted Jan. 11-13 and surveyed 500 registered voters, with a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz0chRYQ9bv

[Future Boy]

that laughing fit might come earlier than I thought.

[The Omega Concern]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3472/...e7e646f1f0.jpg

[Gish08]

Originally Posted by Future Boy

that laughing fit might come earlier than I thought.

I'm calling it right now: Brown will win.

[Future Boy]

Would xmas be coming early, or late? Still Jan, so I'm going with late.

[Order 66]

As of right now MA is purely a toss up. Take away that suffolk poll and whatshername is ahead.

Hopefully more polls will come out today. Its really hard to tell what's going on ... But its a special election go figure

[ryan patrick]

I still think Coakley will win but probably with a number in the 51-53 range

PPP blog from Saturday:

Here's what we saw on day 1 of our Massachusetts poll:

-The electorate is becoming more Democratic. Last weekend we found it at Obama + 16 and now we see it at Obama +20. So all the efforts to get the party base more engaged in the election are paying off.

-Balancing that out to some extent though is that we're now seeing Brown win about 19% of the Obama vote, in comparison to 15% on our poll last week.

-Both candidates have seen a pretty large increase in their negatives over the last week, reflecting the increasingly nasty nature of the campaign.

-Even though the race is too close to call overall, 58% of voters think Brown has made a strong case for why he should be elected while only 41% say the same of Coakley. That speaks to voter perceptions that Brown has run the superior campaign and again you have to wonder how different things might be if Coakley had acted with a sense of urgency ever since the primary.

If today's interviews hold up through tomorrow I don't think we're going to be able to make a clear prediction of the winner in our final poll- still too close.

[Gish08]

I just want it to be Tuesday. This is driving me crazy.

If Brown wins, I do not trust Senate leadership to grow a pair and use reconciliation. I know some important Democrats have been saying they have a backup plan, but I won't believe a single word of it until I see it actually happen.

Really, win or lose, this points to a much larger problem -- Congressional Democratic leadership, particularly in the Senate. The don't have the balls to use reconciliation, change the rules of their caucus to make it operate more like the GOP's (which is much more efficent in todays cut-throat political environment), or kill the filibuster (which, again, I think the Republicans will do once they have majority status someday).

It's pretty upsetting, because whether it happens on Tuesday or on the fall, Democrats will lose their precious 60 seat majority. They can continue acting like they won't, but it's inevitable. I truly think Reid's stubbornness and incompetence is going to potentially render Obama into a lame duck not even halfway through his first term.

[Order 66]

Quit buying into "Reid has no balls" narrative. I've thoroughly explained there are several factors why HC ended up the way it did. And it has little to do with incompetence on obama and reids part

And this thing will pass. Jesus. they could pass it today is they really wanted

[Future Boy]

Yeah I wouldnt be surprised if these turds just pass the Senate bill.

Originally Posted by Order 66

I've thoroughly explained there are several factors why HC ended up the way it did.

Eh, they all boil down to incompetence and having no balls when you get right down to it.

[Gish08]

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Sources: Obama advisers believe Coakley will lose - Blogs from CNN.com

Even Obama's advisors think she's totally fucked.

gg Coakley. Weak-ass candidate.

[ryan patrick]

PPP:

Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 51-46 in our final Massachusetts Senate poll, an advantage that is within the margin of error for the poll.

[Gish08]

Game over.

Obama's gonna be a one-term President

[Order 66]

Reagan got boned during his midterms and polled in the 40s his first year. A lot of republicans themselves thought he was a one termer and faced a primary challenge.

I'm not trying to spin this though. This is pretty bad. Like really really bad. But almost 20% of the country is jobless so it's kind of a miracle things have held up as good as they have

Like hunter Thompson said, buy the ticket, take the ride. It was never going to be easy.