South Dakota Politics

Gallup Pre-Announces a Double-Digit Lead for Republicans

One of the odd features of contemporary politics is the "pre-announcement". It is rare these days to hear a major political speech or an announcement by the Administration or Congress without having a pretty good idea in advance what he or she or they are going to say. The Press is usually informed in advance.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that the government relies on the press to communicate its message in packages, and offering those packages in advance makes them more newsworthy. Another is that it gives the speaker/announcer a little time to pull out if there is an adverse reaction.

Today, for the first time, I noticed what looks like a pre-announcement of a poll. Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics offers us a preview of the up-coming Gallup poll. Lately, Gallup has been offering the Democrats hope. The most recent Gallup polls on the generic question have shown a tie, with Democrats and Republicans at 46% each. The poll takes a large sample (3000 voters), but it doesn't attempt to distinguish likely voters. As the president of Gallup says in his characteristically cautious video clip, Republicans usually do a lot better than registered voter samples indicate.

By this time in the election year, Gallup has usually switched to a likely voter model. For some reason, they have been tardy. Next week they will switch, and Trende gives us a preview.

Preliminary modeling of the likely electorate using Gallup's traditional likely voter questions (more on this next week) suggests that if current patterns persist, Republicans could have a double-digit lead in the national House vote on Election Day, which would translate into Republicans gaining well above the number of seats necessary to control the House.

The above paragraph is in a quote box in Trende's piece. Presumably it comes from some Gallup report, though there is no link or citation. I haven't searched the Gallup site thoroughly, so it may be there somewhere. Or, it maybe something that Trende got from Gallup that the rest of us don't get yet. If so, then Trende either disclosed confidential information, or they gave him leave to report it. In the latter case, this is a pre-announcement.

What motive Gallup may have for preannouncing its coming poll, I can only guess. Maybe they want to spare us a shock. Trende considers what it might mean if Gallup is really about to show a double-digit lead for Republicans.

In 1994 the GOP won the national vote by 7 points and held 230 seats on election night. In 2006 the Democrats won the national vote by 8 points and finished with 233 seats. And in 2008, the Democrats won the national vote by 10.5 points, and finished with 257 seats. 257 Republican seats would translate to a 78-seat pickup.

Trende is playing fast and loose with the numbers. How many seats a national vote advantage produces will depend on the situation in each of 435 districts. It is nonetheless an interesting bit of speculation. A 78 seat gain would, I think, exceed any electoral event in the last century.

Meanwhile, poll analyst Stuart Rothenberg is warning the Democrats that their control of the Senate is really in jeopardy. I don't know what is going to happen. I do think it my duty as a blogger to prepare my readers for a possible shock.

Holy Buckets Look What Jon Stewart Does to the Democrats

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2010 - Democratic Campaign Woes
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

It’s all about Obama

There is a saying among political junkies that all politics is local. That is the sort of conventional wisdom that is always true, until it isn't. This year it is abundantly clear that politics isn't local anywhere, even where it is.

Local conditions in Delaware have very likely cost the Republicans a Senate seat. But those local conditions would be otherwise were it not for the national phenomenon of the Tea Party movement. If this were not a very unusual year, Mike Castle would be the Republican nominee.

Likewise, we can look at West Virginia, Mountain Momma. Governor Joe Manchin figured he was engineering himself a U.S. Senate seat when he arranged for a special election this year to replace Robert Byrd. He had every reason to think so. He is a very popular figure in that uneven slice of real estate. Yet he is now a few points behind John Raese in two recent polls. It's not something in the water flowing out of those pock marked hills. It's the wave rolling beneath these spacious skies.

Then there is Connecticut. Democrat Richard Blumenthal ought to have a lock on the Senate race. He has a 51/41 percent approval in a recent poll. By contrast his opponent Linda McMahon (a World Federation of Wrestling Executive) has a 43/42 percent unfavorable rating. Yet McMahon has pulled into a statistical tie (three points behind). That means that the Democrats will have to funnel more money to Connecticut, instead of funneling Connecticut money elsewhere. It also means, more importantly, that Republicans might actually bag that Senate seat.

In Washington State Democrat Patty Murray's lead over Dino Rossi has evaporated. Russ Feingold in Wisconsin finally dared to appear on stage with President Obama. He might as well. When you are seven points or more behind in three polls, you are liberated to try anything.

None of these Democrats would be in trouble if all politics were local. In fact, this year is an unambiguous referendum on the last two years of Democratic rule. The people look to be about to vote with their fingers. If the Republicans take the House and take or come close to taking the Senate, that is a decisive rejection of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

The situation has been clear since January. Marion Berry, who occupies the Arkansas House district where yours truly was born, decided not to run for reelection when he realized that Obama just didn't get it. He and other Democrats tried to get Obama to recognize that they might be facing another disaster, like 1994 when the Republicans captured control of both houses of Congress. To no avail.

"They just don't seem to give it any credibility at all," Berry said. "They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, 'Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me.' We're going to see how much difference that makes now."

Well, yeah, now the Democrats have him. In Arkansas District 1, which Berry gave up, Republican Rick Crawford is running sixteen points ahead. For the first time in living memory, Arkansas's House delegation will be dominated by Republicans. Damned if Obama wasn't right. He has made a difference.

Thune is a Go pt. 2

Nobody is reading Steve Hayes' piece on John Thune as anything other than an announcement. Senator Thune is running for President. Well, it's only been a few days, but the Senator is already beginning to look a lot more interesting.

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post's The Fix informs us that Senator Thune is the Republican Barack Obama, except for being White and all.

Thune, obviously, would benefit if the party's voters -- and strategists -- believed that the path to the presidency lay in nominating a candidate that mirrored Obama's skill set: charismatic and handsome but with a fundamentally different approach to government's role in peoples' lives. (Thune allies note that he has a longer and deeper resume -- three terms in the House, a full Senate term -- than Obama did when he ran for president in 2008.)

Thune's political style also resembles that of Obama -- able to ride above the daily who's up, who's down to navigate a political course that has risen almost without hiccup since the 1990s.

This isn't completely silly. Yes, Thune is charismatic. As for handsome, I confess I always thought the Senator looked a bit gaunt. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As for the skill set and "style" thing, the stuff in parenthesis looks more important than the stuff outside and almost as important as the stuff that gets left out. Barack Obama began running for President almost as soon as he left the Illinois state legislature. Thune has not only served three terms in the House and one in the Senate, he also defeated the Senate Democratic Leader to get his Senate seat and has risen up the ranks of leadership in the upper house. Compared to Thune, Obama had no resume. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Of course, Obama's lack of any significant history, legislative or otherwise, was one of his main advantages. The other was his race, which for historical reasons gave him a national wedge to use against Senator Clinton. She of course had her own wedges: the Clinton co-presidency and her status as the first woman in serious contention for the White House.

I admire John Thune, and I like him. I have had the pleasure of meeting him on several occasions and he has the remarkable ability not only to remember who I am but to remember what we talked about when last we met. I find that astonishing. I note happily that if you were stuck in an elevator with John, Tim Johnson, and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, you would be among pleasant company.

Senator Thune is demonstrably a nationally ranked talent. That said, I have yet to guess what his wedge is. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have the most obvious one among Republicans: they are recent contenders. Thune can present himself as an untarnished and fresh alternative. In that case, he competes with Governor Tim Pawlenty. If Sarah Palin turns out to be a serious contender (color me doubtful), he can offer himself as a genuine conservative with a chance at actually being elected.

Thune's most likely route to serious contention would be as a running mate to some other candidate with a significant wedge, but perhaps some baggage. The model would be Al Gore in 1992. If Thune does make it onto a national ticket, in either position, he stands a serious chance of being President.

As I said in my last post on this subject, I picked a good state to teach political science in. In California, I would have stood a better chance of lunch with Jay Leno than a few words with Barbara Boxer or Governor Schwarzenegger. In South Dakota I got to chat with Tom Daschle on the eve of the 1994 election. What a hoot! God bless South Dakota.

Disguise and Defamation

The Democrat's strategy as we approach the election seems to consist of two tactics. First, camouflage. From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Rep. Dina Titus has been a loyal soldier in pushing the Democrats' ambitious agenda, voting for health care legislation, extended unemployment benefits, new energy taxes and a repeal of the military's ban on gays serving openly.

Her campaign signs, however, proclaim Titus an "independent voice" for Nevadans.

Aware that their stock has taken the same tumble as home values, Congress' most vulnerable Democrats are declaring their independence from their party's agenda in Facebook profiles, television advertisements, news interviews and campaign websites leading up to the Nov. 2 election.

The second part of the strategy is a nationwide treasure hunt for dirty laundry. Also from the Tribune:

Democratic candidates across the country are opening a fierce offensive of negative advertisements against Republicans, using lawsuits, tax filings, reports from the Better Business Bureau and even divorce proceedings to try to discredit their opponents and save their congressional majority.

Opposition research and attack advertising are deployed in almost every election, but these biting ads are coming far earlier than ever before, according to party strategists.

I admire that last bit: "These biting ads are coming far earlier…". You might almost think the ads are coming of their own accord. It sounds so much nicer than "the Democrats are launching such attacks earlier than ever."

Perhaps those who like to complain about ad hominem attacks by Republicans will make a note of this. I doubt it.

Thune is a Go for 2012

It looks like John Thune is seriously planning a run for President. I have said it before: this might be the best state a political scientist could live in! I will get on Fox News yet.

Now Showing in the Titanic Ballroom!

Okay, I realize that the Democrats are in something of a panic. They have every right to be. But what could possibly have possessed them to schedule Stephen Colbert as a witness before a House Judiciary Subcommittee? Colbert "testified" Friday on "the plight of migrant farm workers".

Politico notes:

David Corn, who writes for the liberal Mother Jones magazine, tweeted "Colbert is making a mockery of this hearing."

Well, duh. Mockery is what Stephen Colbert does for a living. He does it well, and can be very entertaining. If he does anything else well or has any other expertise, he has managed to conceal it.

You can imagine how this got brewed up. A room full of Democrats with long faces ponder what to do now that Barack's mojo doesn't seem to be animating the youth vote. Then someone hollers: "I've got an idea!"

In the committee room, Colbert did just what he does before a microphone.

Colbert delighted in asking whether he could "submit video of my colonoscopy into the Congressional Record," talking about getting a Chilean to give him a "Brazilian" wax — a delicate-area hair-removal procedure. And he apologized to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) for using the term "cornpacker" because it is "an offensive term for gay Iowans."

Congress can't manage to pass a budget, but they've got time for this? So what if the ship is sinking. At least there is a mildly funny comic still working the stage.

ps.  All of the above notwithstanding, Colbert's monologue was very funny.  "My grandfather didn't come all the way from Europe just to see this country overrun by immigrants."  Too bad the venue was so inappropriate. 

Obama & Shrodinger’s Cat

The Obama Administration is sinking like a BP oil rig. Pretty soon now we will have a national election, and that will change the picture. Politics is a little bit like quantum mechanics: the system is never really in one state or another until some physicist observes it. Google Shrödinger's cat.

If the life of a cat in a cage depends on whether a certain atom has decayed or not and, according to quantum physics, the atom has neither decayed or not until it is observed, is the cat alive or dead?

In politics, the only authentic act of observation is an election. If the Democrats do better than expected, that will be S¹. If they do as it looks like they will do, that will be S². Until the observation happens, the state of the cat (in this case, the Obama Administration) is neither alive nor dead.

While the system is still in an undetermined state, we can still ask how it got to be in that state. After the election it will be too late for that question. We will view it only in hindsight. So now is the time to ask that question.

CNN has measured the President's momentum in the way that pollsters do: in terms of probabilities and projections.

With little more than a month to go before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama's approval rating has hit an all-time low.

Only 42 percent of Americans now approve of how Obama's handling his job as president, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. Fifty-four percent disapprove of his performance.

That is down there in George W. Bush territory.

But of course, it is worse than that. On September 20^th, the President held a Town Hall Meeting. On that occasion, a person against whom no defense is possible, a "handsome, dignified, black, a person with presence", as Peggy Noonan puts it, said this to the President:

"I'm a mother. I'm a wife. I'm an American veteran, and I'm one of your middle-class Americans. And quite frankly I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are."

The President sat down, of his own accord, in the dunking chair, and Velma Hart hit the bull's eye. It gets worse still.

The President held a fundraiser in New York City. Here is Gail Sheehy at the Daily Beast:

Who would have thought that six weeks before a cliffhanger election, President Obama would have to reach down to the D list to fill a room to listen to him? Most of us low rollers arrived early to see President Obama up close and personal. Our tickets for the general reception at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York were only $100. Some thought the email invitation was a joke. Some bought tickets for $50 from their desperate Democratic committeeman. Some bought the same day.

There was room for 65o people. Only 450 bought tickets. The President of the United States couldn't get a sellout crowd.

What explains the lowly state to which the President has descended? The President's defenders will point to the economy, over which he has, allow us to admit it, minimal control. His critics, myself included, will point to the fact that he was persistently dishonest in selling the health care reform bill.

I don't think that either is the real cause of the President's dismay. The real cause is that the United States of America is going belly up financially. We can't balance our books. We are running deficits of trillions of dollars a year. While we are spending billions rescuing the financial industry and the auto unions, our major social programs like Social Security and Medicare, are going belly up. Neither the President nor the Congress is even talking about the larger problems.

That works to the Republican's advantage this year. Republicans are not-Obama and not-Pelosi. But the American people aren't stupid. Until someone or some party addresses the real problems, the people will remain disgruntled.

After the election, for awhile, we will be able to ignore this. But only for awhile. Maybe we should pay attention to it now.

Political TV & Radio Jazz @ NSU

Professor Schaff, who used to blog here, has not completely faded from the public eye. He and I are doing a biweekly TV show from the Northern Campus. We comment on national and local politics, and we interview politicians when we can get them.

The show is strictly non-partisan, political science and public information stuff. You might find it occasionally interesting. On our first show we discussed the upcoming national elections and interviewed Aberdeen's Mayor, Mike Levsen. On our second show Jon and I discuss local races without a guest. Our third show, which will air very soon, we interview two candidates for the District 3: Incumbent Republican Al Novstrup and Democratic challenger Allen Hoerth. We hope to have candidates for our at large U.S. House seat in the Future.

Spotlight@Northern can viewed on Midco channel 12 in the surrounding area. The show repeats everyday at 10am, 2pm, and 9pm. Online clips are supposed to be available soon, but the link doesn't seem to be working yet. Check out this link.

On a similar note, Northern State University used to have an FM radio station. A group of us at NSU are trying to start that up again. It will probably be, at first, an internet only station. I have been asked to do a jazz show, and I said, well, I don't know, yes! Long time readers of this blog (there are such people!) will recall that I used to do frequent reviews of jazz music. I moved that to a second blog a few years back. The online jazz show will replace that.

Watch this space. I will keep you posted.     

Good Witch, Bad Witch. Red Witch, Blue Witch.

What I want to know about Christine O'Donnell is this: is she a good witch or a bad witch? Likewise I want to know if Chris Coons is a good bearded Marxist or a bad one. File this one under silliest Senate campaign.

It does look as though the Buckley Rule would have been the wiser rule for Delaware Republicans to follow. O'Donnell is behind by double digits in two polls. Still, I wouldn't count her out as quickly as a lot of people have. We have seen too many Republicans come from far behind to dead even or comfortably ahead this year. Delaware is an odd blue wonder, but it is not on another planet.

Two recent polls have the Democrats ahead by one generic point. Has there been a shift? Maybe, but Gallup has been bouncing violently between big Republican leads and dead even for weeks, shifts no other poll has found. Sandwiched between the two is Rasmussen, which has a much larger sample and uses a likely voter model. He has the Republicans up by 10.

Meanwhile we have some rather astonishing polls from a couple of Senate races. In West Virginia, Rasmussen has Governor Joe Manchin up seven over Republican John Raese. But the Democratic outfit PPP has Raese up by three. What to think? If Raese really is ahead or tied, that's big news. The Democrats figured they had this one in the bag. One thing that throws me off is that John Raese looks disturbingly like Patrick Leahy.

We now have two polls showing big leads for Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. The Daily KOS/PPP has Johnson ahead by a whopping eleven points. Rasmussen shows him ahead by a paltry seven points. No doubt intrepid reader Donald will post to explain how this is meaningless, but to me it looks like Feingold is in big trouble. Ron Johnson, I am happy to report, doesn't look like Pat Leahy.

One good sign for Democrats is that their fundraising committees took in more money in August than their Republican counterparts. A bad sign is that both the DCCC and the RCCC are spending most of their money on districts held by Democrats. From Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard:

Hotline OnCall is reporting that more than a third of the DCCC's "Red To Blue" program, originally intended to highlight top pickup opportunities, is now touting Democrats running for Democratic-held seats. At this rate, they'll have to rename it the "Blue, Please Stay Blue" program.

Another example of map reading from the Washington Post's Michael Gerson, with the ominous title "Blue Strongholds Becoming Democratic Graveyards":

Just two years ago, both Democrats and Republicans suspected that Ohio was becoming another Illinois -- a realigned Democratic stronghold. Ohio independents had become alienated from Republicans over both spending and ethics. Democrats took control of key state government offices and added a million registered voters. Barack Obama won the state handily in 2008. Even in the spring of this year, Ohio lagged behind national Republican momentum, with Portman and his Democratic opponent, Lee Fisher, locked in a tight race.

But Republican gains are now greater in Ohio than elsewhere in the country. The Quinnipiac poll produced the single-most startling figure of the midterm election so far: 65 percent of Ohio's likely independent voters now disapprove of Obama's job performance -- a 2-1 rejection. Obama has lost the center of the electorate in the center of America.

There is reason for both parties to worry about this. If Ohio can switch so rapidly from a disaster area to a land of opportunity for Republicans, it can switch back just as rapidly. But Democrats have to worry right now.

Consider the current situation of the battleground states. Ohio and Florida, where the 2004 and 2000 elections were decided, look very good for Republicans. Charlie Crist's game of bait and switch has, as I expected, come a cropper. Crist is bleeding support in both directions, and Marko Rubio is up big. Still, it has to be worrisome for Democrats that their candidate is coming in third.

Two other states that loomed big in recent Presidential elections, Virginia and Pennsylvania, are looking very good for the GOP.

I am not making predictions here. That is the job of my Election Shaman, and right now he is predicting a volcano. Not a metaphorical volcano, but a real one. Until he comes out of his trance, all I'll say is that this still looks a lot like a wave election. I'm not a good witch or a bad one.

Twins 2nd from Top

I can't help pointing out that the Minnesota Twins now have the second best record in Major League Baseball. They are a game behind the Yankees and a half game ahead of Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. So far, this looks to be a very happy fall for me.

The Curtain Comes Down Update!

Republicans feared that Democrats would try to ram through some piece of legislation at the eleventh hour that would destroy the Republic forever. It was hard to think of what that might be, except for a cap and trade bill that put the entire economy under the authority of the EPA and send most of us back to live in animal skin tents.

What did the Democrats come up with? From Politico:

Gay rights and immigration reform advocates mounted a last-ditch effort Monday to overcome an expected Republican filibuster of a defense authorization bill that could lead to a repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

That's it? I gather that the Democrats are desperate to rally their base, and that ending DADT and legalizing anyone who got their ankles wet in the Rio Grande before they were, say, eighteen, might titillate one part and another of said base. If, that is, they could pass the legislation.

The funny thing is, they might have actually passed the thing with the first part in it. I am in favor of ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as a military policy. It just doesn't seem to me to be worth the trouble. I also think that there is a strong libertarian streak in the Tea Party movement, and that this kind of reform has a chance at this moment.

But threatening to sneak immigration reform, and in effect, a really big legalization amendment into the mix suggests that the Democrats aren't serious at all. I can't read the legislative situation well because it is hardly being covered. The Washington Post has the story on their front page (website edition) but the New York Times ignores it. Most other major newspapers are ignoring it as well. Are they hoping no one will notice, or have they just lost interest?

It would be easier to take this seriously if Congress weren't planning to adjourn three weeks early, something that hasn't happened since 1960. It's one thing to end not with a bang but a whimper. You have to be around to whimper. The Democrats had control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and briefly a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. This is how it ended.

UPDATE:  Harry Reid managed to embarrass himself again.  The vote to pass the military authorization with a repeal of DADT failed.  I think this establishes two points.  One is the Reid wasn't serious.  He was trying to energize his base without any juice to supply.  The second is that Reid has lost it.  Getting the Gay Rights community together to protest, only to dash their hopes again, might not be the way to encourage them. 

The New York Times on the Growling Fringe

If the rise of the Tea Party Movement has illustrated anything, it is the utter contempt that the Left in America has for, well, a whole lot of Americans. Here (hat tip to James Taranto at the WSJ) is a bit from a New York Times editorial from three days ago.

Democratic operatives are ablaze with excitement over the victory of two particularly dubious Tea Party candidates in Tuesday's Republican primaries, envisioning smoother paths to victory in the races for governor in New York and United States senator in Delaware. But for voters of all stripes, Tuesday's primaries should illuminate the growling face of a new fringe in American politics — and provide the incentive for level-headed voters to become enthusiastic about the midterm election.

Now I understand that the Democrats in general and the Times in particular are happy that Christine O'Donnell won the Senate Republican primary in Delaware. Republican voters in Delaware had to choose between a candidate who stood a very good chance of winning and one who seemed to more genuinely represent their own principles. I would have voted for Castle. This being a republic, Delaware Republicans got to vote as they chose. That looks to me like the kind of decision that reasonable people often have to make, and such people aren't less reasonable because they don't vote the way I would have preferred.

The New York Times doesn't see it that way. Delaware Republicans are "the growling face of a new fringe in American politics". The growling face? That's a bit dehumanizing, isn't it? As Taranto puts it, using the President's own language, "America, they talk about you like a dog!"

Let us be clear about this, again using the President's favorite turn of phrase. The Tea Party people are not, in fact, a "fringe". They are the vanguard of public dismay. Behind them are almost all Republicans and about two thirds of independents. That adds up to more than half of America. That has been demonstrated in elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts. It has been further demonstrated in voting patterns across the nation. For the first time since the 1930's, more Republicans than Democrats voted in this year's primaries.

When the New York Times says "level-headed voters", they mean voters who agree with the New York Times. Everyone else is a growling beast, unfit to participate in democracy. I am pretty sure this is how the President thinks, and how Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid think. Most Americans are too feral and unbalanced to know what's good for them. The Left wonders why their heroes aren't sufficiently popular.

Krauthammer's Condemnation

Charles Krauthammer has condemned the decision of Delaware Republicans to run conservative candidate Christine O’Donnell, rather than moderate Mike Castle for US Senate. According to Krauthammer, it’s OK for Republicans to vote on ideology during ordinary elections. But, he says, this is no ordinary election. Indeed, Krauthammer says the following:

This is no ordinary time. And this is no ordinary Democratic administration. It is highly ideological and ambitious. It is determined to use whatever historical window it is granted to change the country structurally, irreversibly. It has already done so with Obamacare and has equally lofty ambitions for energy, education, immigration, taxation, industrial policy and the composition of the Supreme Court.

It is absolutely imperative, then, says Krauthammer, for Republicans to take control of the senate. Therefore, he says, Sarah Palin and Jim Demint’s last-minute endorsements of O’Donnell are “reckless and irresponsible.”

But if it is more important to win than to stand up for what one feels is right, then what on earth is Krauthammer doing criticizing the Republican nominee at this dire time? If a Republican win is more important than conscience, then surely it is more important than Krauthammer’s need to criticize Palin and Demint. If, indeed, Krauthammer believes that a Democratic win would be so perilous to the country, then he ought to be doing everything he can to prevent it. Criticizing the current nominee will not do that. Indeed, with his open criticism, he might be jeopardizing what chances O’Donnell does have.

Krauthammer claims that conservatives out to follow "The Buckley Rule." But he fails to realize is that conservatives have played by that rule for far too long. It has not served them well. Instead, the country has marched continuously leftward. Many social conservatives ignored their ideology and cast uneasy votes for John McCain, because they believed that keeping the country out of the hands of the Democrats was more important than standing up for values that were only spoken of by third-party candidates. Yet, “winnable” candidate McCain turned out not to be so winnable after all.

Furthermore, there is no point in wrestling power away from the Democrats if we mean to elect Republicans who act in the same way and support the same sorts of policies. This is true on social issues and fiscal issues alike.

Democrats are quick to point out that George W. Bush was responsible for the deficit. While they ignore the fact that some of the blame falls on the shoulders of senate and congressional Democrats, there is truth to what they say. Bush could have vetoed any number of costly bills that reached his desk. He did not. And Republicans in the House and Senate were often all too happy to spend taxpayer money on their pet projects or to work with Democrats on theirs. The truth of the matter is that Republicans and Democrats have sometimes become so similar that voters on both sides of the aisle have accused them of being two sides of one coin. Meanwhile, conservatives have grown tired of ignoring their values and their ideologies. The Era of Buckley is dead. The Tea Party has come to life.

Government Does Energy. The Three Stooges Do Plumbing

I had the enormous pleasure, yesterday, of dinning with Ron Bailey. Ron is the science correspondent for Reason magazine. I have known Ron for several years, having run into him at various conferences and colloquiums. He was passing through Aberdeen on his way back from Montana, and he was kind enough to look me up. Professor Schaff and I took him to Mavericks Stake House. If you think this is a shameless exercise in name dropping, you are quite right.

I would like to balance the ledger by bringing the awesome power of South Dakota Politics to support his publications. His last book, Liberation Biology, is a wonderful argument for new technologies that, he assures us, will improve human life. If you are worried about the pernicious, Syfy Channel effects of genetic engineering, or the like, Ron will persuade you that the promise exceeds the peril. He has been working on a new book, and to judge by what he told us, you will want to reserve a copy on Amazon.

You can go to Reason's website to read his dispatches from the road. His most recent piece explains the history of the Great Plains Synfuels plant near Beulah, North Dakota.

Construction of the plant was first proposed in 1978, just months after the creation of the new Department of Energy during the "energy crisis." Natural gas production in the U.S. had been declining since 1971 and nationwide shortages were causing schools and factories to close in the winters as gas was diverted to home heating and cooking...

In 1980, Congress created the Synfuels Corporation, endowing it with $20 billion with the goal of eventually building as many as 22 enormous coal gasification plants, each one producing 300 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Since coal gasification was an unproven technology in the U.S., natural gas pipeline companies were reluctant invest in it. The federal government rushed to the rescue. The Department of Energy helped create a public/private partnership with five natural gas pipeline companies that agreed to put up 25 percent of the cost of building a demonstration plant while the government supplied the remaining 75 percent in the form of loan guarantees. Out of this bold alliance between business and government was born the hugely ambitious Great Plains Coal Gasification plant.

The plant was built at a cost of $2.1 billion and shipped its first thousand feet of natural gas in July 1984. Due to escalating costs, the plant was scaled back to half size so that it was designed to produce 150 million cubic feet of gas per day. In the meantime, the hapless Jimmy Carter unknowingly had already undercut the rationale for constructing a massive coal gasification industry by a simple change in policy—he deregulated the price of natural gas. It turned out that the country wasn't running out of natural gas; it was running out of natural gas with a government imposed price cap. That old truism—only governments create shortages—was once again proven correct.

Allow me to summarize my interpretation of this story. In the 1970's the U.S. government created a shortage of natural gas by price controls on that energy source. That same government then tried to remedy the shortage by investing billions of public monies in a technology that private enterprise was unwilling to support. After the Synfuels plant had been built, the same government removed the price controls. The plant ceased to be economically viable. The Department of Energy bought the plant back at a loss and then sold it, again at a loss.

Today the plant is modestly profitable, but only when natural gas prices are high and only because the current owners didn't have to pay back the loans or otherwise cover the cost of building the plant in the first place. I think I got all that right.

That is what happens when the U.S. Government does energy policy. If you look at history of Cap and Trade legislation, you will see the same bogus projections, the same willful ignorance of economic principles and recent history that was at work when Jimmy Carter was President. The only bright spot in this coal dark picture is that the ability of Congress to do monumental mischief looks about to be cut short.

The Republican Wave in Wisconsin

Intrepid reader Donald has a reply to my last post that led me to look at the numbers from the Wisconsin primaries. Here is slice of his comment.

I'm not sure how strongly that rightward gale is blowing. There's no evidence of that here in Wisconsin. Turnout was dismal.

Turnout was somewhat lower than expected, and I don't know what that means. Republican turnout dwarfed Democratic turnout, and I have an idea what that means.

Wisconsin is an open primary state, so we can compare the distribution of turnout between the two parties and use it as a gage of enthusiasm. Unfortunately for this purpose, Russ Feingold was unopposed. Here is the relative turnout for the gubernatorial primaries:

Republican Primary Vote:    614,611

Democratic Primary Vote    233,240

Of course Donald will object that the GOP primary was competitive whereas the Democratic Primary was not. Fair enough. But a disproportion of more than 2.5 to 1 is hard to explain that way.

Then we can look at the race for Lt. Governor. Here the races were about equally competitive, with the GOP winner and the Democratic winner getting 47% and 52% respectively. Equally competitive races here ought to have evened out turnout somewhat, if that was what was motivating voters to choose the GOP primaries. Obviously it did not. Here are the numbers for the Lt. Governor race.

Republican Primary Vote:    549,244

Democratic Primary Vote    207,160

That two and a half to one disproportion in favor of voters choosing GOP primaries isn't unique to Wisconsin. We have seen it in primary after primary all year long.

Where actual elections have been held, we have seen it sweep Republican candidates to victory. This has happened even in places like Massachusetts and New Jersey. Where exit polls have been taken, the disproportion indicated two things: a big advantage in Republican turnout and a strong shift of independent voters toward the GOP.

It looks to me like the wave to the right that I described in my previous post did not somewhere part around Wisconsin. If this is correct, and if it keeps up through November 2^nd, a statistical tie with Ron Johnson isn't going to save Russ Feingold.

Good News & Bad New 4 Republicans from Delaware UPDATE!

The bad news is that the Republicans very likely just lost a Senate seat that was well within their grasp. The good news is the wind that has been filling the sails of Republican candidates all year long is still blowing at gale strength.

Senate hopeful Christine O'Donnell won 53% of the vote in Delaware's Republican primary, to Mike Castle's 47%. The Republican Party establishment, along with most GOP friendly pundits, analysts, not to mention bloggers, is disappointed. Democrats everywhere are elated.

Mike Castle served two terms as Governor of Delaware and 18 years as the state's lone representative in the U.S. House. He is a very popular politician and was widely expected to win Joe Biden's Senate seat if he had been nominated. That would be quite a feather in the GOP's cap.

Christine O'Donnell came out of nowhere. She is very conservative, especially on social issues. She seems to have a lot of personal baggage that will be exploited by the Democrats over the next few weeks. Delaware is two states in one, rather small state. Upper Delaware is largely a suburb of Philadelphia. Lower Delaware is another animal altogether. The state has been reliably liberal and Democratic for a long time. It is hard to see how O'Donnell can win it.

So why did O'Donnell win the primary? She won because Mike Castle's strengths suddenly became fatal weaknesses. Mike Castle got a lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union of 52. John Boehner got 94. Lisa Murkowski got 70. Barbara Boxer got 3. That puts Castle squarely in the middle. It is what made him viable as a Republican in Delaware. But it also made him look like a RINO (Republican In Name Only) to a very energized Republican base, a conspicuous part of which is known as the Tea Party.

Democrats have been hoping this year that the Tea Party movement would tear the Republican Party apart. That didn't happen, though one can argue that the TP is responsible for weaker candidates in several races. Delaware is certainly one of them.

Now all the horses (well, except for Hawaii) are at the starting gate. The Tea Party people are not to be trifled with. Their support for the Republican Party will probably be almost unanimous this year, but it is conditional. They expect Republicans to behave like Republicans.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has said that it will not support her. That looks to me like a grievous mistake. The folks who put O'Donnell over the top are the same folks who have been putting flame to the feat of Democratic Congressman and Senators all over the country.

This year the Tea Party activists are the vanguard of a large popular motion in the U.S. It looks like they will help sweep the Republicans to victory in the House and close to victory in the Senate. This election is important, but the Republicans ought also to be looking to the future. Snubbing Christine O'Donnell is snubbing the Republican base in Delaware. That is not good politics.

In the meantime (now until November 2^nd), the gale is blowing fiercely to the right. It blew O'Donnell past Castle. It will blow a lot of Democrats clean off of Capitol Hill.

UPDATE!  Senator Cornyn says that the NRSC is extending full support to Christine O'Donnell. 

Moderation, Maturity, and Protest

Professor Emeritus Newquist has a reply to my last post on his Keloland site: That New-Found Maturity. I thought that his title involved sarcasm. To my surprise, it rather confirmed my point. He directs us to a gallery of images at TPM taken at today's Anti-Mosque rally in New York and the Tea Party rally in D.C.

Here is the image that he inserted in his post, with a little more clarity:

Now the anti-Pelosi sign is a bit over the top. As an example of extreme and vicious rhetoric in English speaking democracies, it is still rather mild. Her t-shirt, one must admit, is funny.

I scrolled through the images of both rallies, and there were a few Loony Tunes running around. Here is one example from the D.D. rally.

That is surely a suggestion of political violence.

And there is this one from the New York rally. This is, for several reasons, a manifestly racist display.

The two galleries add up to about fifty photos. Scrolling through them, a handful of them are over the top. Most, however, are quite tame. You see men and women dressed in colonial attire, and a lot of strong protest slogans. You will find very little that would have seemed the least bit objectionable to someone on the left if they had been directed at, say, George W. Bush.

Very few Americans ever attend political rallies. Those who do, on the left or right, are the most motivated and, frequently, represent the most extreme sliver of the population. One may that the TPM photographers were looking for noteworthy displays.

With that in mind, you have to conclude that folks at these rallies were, by and large, behaving responsibly. These are Americans who are not afraid to express their opinions. They also seem to know that they and their cause will be judge by how they express themselves.

If these photos are a fair sample of the rallies, they confirm my original point. There is no "new-found maturity" here. We have been maturing for a long time. These rallies are exactly what you hope for in a democracy. As I have said, I am not offended by the building of the Islamic Center near Ground Zero. Unlike some of my friends on the left, I do not label people as bigots or extremists just because they disagree with me.

The Maturity of America after 9/11

What is striking about the nine years since 9/11 is how mature the nation has been, both its governing institutions and its population. So scarce was hysteria and "Islamophobia" in Washington that the Left had to invent it. Consider this from a Frank Rich column in the New York Times on the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11:

The [Bush] presidential press secretary, Ari Fleischer, condemned Bill Maher's irreverent comic response to 9/11 by reminding "all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do." Fear itself — the fear that "paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance," as F.D.R. had it — was already being wielded as a weapon against Americans by their own government.

Paul Krugman jumped on the same remark of Fleischer's. Did the Administration wield fear as a weapon against Americans? Christopher Hitchens demonstrated in a subsequent column in Slate that this was pure poppycock. Fleischer's remark occurred during a 2001 press conference. He was asked first about a Republican Congressman's buffoonish remark, and a little later about an equally buffoonish remark by Bill Maher.

Here is what Congressman John Cooksey (R-LA) said:

If I see someone come in and he's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked.

When asked whether the President had communicated with Congressman Cooksey, or had a message for Americans, Fleischer said this:

The President's message is to all Americans. It's important for all Americans to remember the traditions of our country that make us so strong and so free, our tolerance and openness and acceptance.

Here is a later question, paraphrasing Bill Maher:

As Commander-in-Chief, what was the President's reaction to television's Bill Maher, in his announcement that members of our armed forces who deal with missiles are cowards, while the armed terrorists who killed 6,000 unarmed (sic) are not cowards, for which Maher was briefly moved off a Washington television station?

Here is Fleischer's reply:

I'm aware of the press reports about what he's said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it's unfortunate. And that's why—there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party—they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.

Fleischer's answer was measured and careful. His condemnation of Maher's remark is, if anything, far too gentle and it has an if Maher said what you say he said qualification.

As Hitchens notes, the latter part of Fleischer's remark, the part which Frank Rich found damning, is explicitly directed back to Congressman Cooksey. Fleischer was doing no more than urging Americans to be responsible in their speech and actions. He did that after emphasizing American "tolerance and openness and acceptance".

It became part of the mythology of the American Left that Fleischer was threatening or questioning the patriotism of anyone who questioned the Bush Administration. Oddly, Rich and Krugman don't seem to be alarmed when about a half dozen members of the Obama Administration, including the President himself and one of his generals, openly urged a Florida preacher not to do something he had every constitutional right to do.

Not everyone is so forgiving. Charles Lane, in the Washington Post, takes the Administration to task:

President Obama was certainly right to be disgusted by "Reverend" Terry Jones's threat to stage a public burning of the Koran, a plan that was mean, stupid, intolerant, and spookily evocative of Hitlerian book bonfires. But I am also troubled by Obama's efforts to hector Jones into changing his mind. Everyone should worry when presidents invoke wartime security, or similar arguments, against constitutionally protected free speech, even -- or especially -- when the speech is offensive, outrageous and unpopular.

Lane's argument is reasonable, but I am not troubled by the Administration's response to Jones' stunt. I suspect it was a bad idea to recognize this bozo, but it wasn't stupid and it certainly wasn't authoritarian. Like Ari Fleischer, President Obama was merely pleading for responsible behavior.

Both the Bush and the Obama Administration have drawn a distinction between what people are free to say and do and what it is irresponsible to say and do. The American people and the people of New York, to judge from polls, are fully capable of making the same distinction. Most of us seem to think that the building of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero is a bad idea. Some of us are offended by the idea. Almost all of us think that the people who own the land have the right to build the center, and that government has no legitimate authority to forbid it. That distinction is the heart of liberal democracy. America after 9/11 has shown a maturity of which we have a right to be proud.

Strange New Respect for Rasmussen Poll

Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows. Suddenly my friends on Democratic side of the local blogosphere are crawling under the sheets next to Scott Rasmussen. Badlands Blue is chortling. Here's Cory Heidelberger:

We in the blogosphere have had some discussion about the accuracy of Republican-run Rasmussen polling. But they're the only folks polling the South Dakota Congressional race consistently, so perhaps we can at least learn something by comparing their numbers.

Their latest poll shows incumbent Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin leading GOP challenger Kristi Noem 47% to 45%. That reverses Noem's easy leads throughout the summer, while everyone was at the lake with Dennis.

Let me unpack that for you. As long as Rasmussen was showing Noem ahead, Rasmussen's robo-poll was "shoddy", and not much better than Cory's blog polls. Now that the Rasmussen poll shows a Herseth-Sandlin lead, "perhaps we can learn something" from it.

I demonstrated in several posts that Rasmussen had a very good record, and I am not inclined to change my mind now. Cory attributes SHS's improvement in the R poll to Noem's debate performance, Noem's driving record, and Al Franken's visit. I think it very unlikely that the first or the third had any effect. The second very likely did drag down Noem's numbers, and if she loses, that will be the reason.

The Rasmussen Poll clearly indicates that the game has changed. Until now, it was hard to see how Representative Herseth-Sandlin could survive. Now it looks like a competitive race. It still looks like quite a challenge for the incumbent. She has yet to break 50 percent against any Republican candidate. That is usually a bad sign for a candidate who has won what, four elections? South Dakota voters know her pretty well, and they are not enthusiastic.

If the Republican wave that has been building all year across the nation subsides, or for some reason bypasses the Rushmore State, and if the Noem brand has indeed been permanently damaged, then there is a chance that Representative Herseth-Sandlin will be back in Congress next January. She will get to vote for House Minority Leader.

If SD Republicans enjoy the same enthusiasm advantage they have enjoyed elsewhere this year and if independent voters in South Dakota break the way they have been breaking in pretty much every poll and actual election this year, then Kristi Noem will get to vote for John Boehner for Speaker of the House.

Democrats Cooked

I had hoped to bring on my Election Shaman by now, but for the last four days he has been curled up in a fetal position in my spare bedroom, rocking slowly back and forth, while muttering numbers like "80" and words like "Ragnarok".

So I will make do with Charlie Cook in the National Journal.

For a long time it was primarily the "macro-political," national polling data that was pointing to increasing signs of major Democratic midterm losses, while Democratic fortunes in individual races looked fine. But there began a gradual erosion in strength on a district-by-district basis, with incumbent Democrats in swing or Republican-leaning districts looking increasingly endangered while their colleagues in some more reliably Democratic seats began to look softer in their support and more vulnerable to a significant challenge.

In recent months, the national data reflecting a reversal of the 2006 and 2008 trends -- namely, independent voters swinging strongly toward Republicans and a strong partisan enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans -- began arguing that Republicans were in line to win a majority in the House with significant gains in the Senate.

In recent weeks, though, the district-by-district deterioration has reached the tipping point. It can now be said that Republicans will likely take back the House. An individual race analysis points to GOP gains of over 40 seats in the House, but the national polling suggests gains substantially higher than that.

While the individual race-by-race approach to analyzing House seats works great in "normal" election years, it invariably underestimates what happens in wave years, and the evidence is indisputable that this is a wave year.

Well, at least here was a clue to my Shaman's delirium. Charlie Cook has warned for months that Democrats were in big trouble, but he has been cautious about House and Senate numbers. He is still cautious, but he is about to announce that eighty House Democrat seats are in play.

Eighty seats. Cook quickly notes that no party has ever won every vulnerable seat. Okay. But if Republicans win half of those, Orange John Boehner replaces Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Given all the signs of a wave election, one has to expect that the GOP will win well over half. If they get to sixty, this is bigger than 1994.

Then there is the Senate.

While Democrats' majority status in the Senate is not as endangered as in the House, it does look like Republicans will likely score a net gain of at least eight seats, and a 10-seat swing that would give Republicans control of the upper chamber is not implausible. Cook Political Report Senate Editor Jennifer Duffy points out that in 1998, six of the seven Senate races rated Toss Up in the final ratings were won by Democrats. In 2000, seven out of nine went Democratic; in 2002, six out of nine went Republican; in 2004, the GOP won eight out of nine; in 2006, Democrats won eight out of nine; and in 2008, Democrats won seven out of nine. There is a strong tendency in Senate races for most of the closest races to break in one direction. In this year, Democrats have gotten few breaks.

If all the close Senate races break in one direction…this is going to be one Hell of a year.

A Burning Question

What's worse: a) building a Mosque (or Islamic Center) near Ground Zero, or b) burning copies of the Koran in Florida? In the unlikely case that you are hesitating, the answer is b).

It isn't a close call. The people who want to build the Islamic Center in New York may or may not have had Ground Zero in mind. They were not obviously intending to offend anyone.

By contrast, Pastor Terry Jones genuinely wants to beard Muslims the world over by publicly burning copies of the Koran. He probably thought he could ride this to national fame, and he was right. Burning the holy book of someone else's religion may make sense from a deeply partisan religious perspective, but it is just as deeply offensive to the American way. It also hands a weapon to militant Islamists in their war against the United States. For that reason, it is irresponsible and unpatriotic.

But here's the thing: Pastor Jones has as much right to burn copies of the Koran (assuming he owns them) as Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has to build his Mosque (assuming he owns the land). Likewise, those who object to the latter have as much right to express their opposition as those who object to the former.

They aren't treated the same in the press. The New York Times, and many others, depicted those who object to the Mosque (including most Americans) as bigots. I saw a cartoon with Republican labeled footprints on the Constitution, leading up to the Mosque.

So far the Times has not scolded General Petraeus or the State Department or Attorney General Eric Holder for scolding Pastor Jones. Nor has anyone to my knowledge condemned the coalition of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders who met in Washington to condemn Pastor Jones. I have seen no cartoons depicting them treading on the Constitution.

The rights of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion do not include any immunity to criticism. Nor is there any reason to favor Muslims over Christians, however radical.

American Paranoia and our Strange Beliefs

Best two paragraphs published last weekend, by Ross Douthat in the New York Times:

The belief that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim (apparently held by nearly 20 percent of the country) gets the headlines. But as the George Mason law professor Ilya Somin has noted, national opinion polls reveal support for numerous far-out or noxious-seeming notions.

There's the 32 percent of Democrats who blame "the Jews" for the financial crisis. There's the 25 percent of African-Americans who believe the AIDS virus was created in a government lab. There's support for state secession, which may have been higher among liberals in the Bush era than among Republicans in the age of Obama. And there's the theory that the Bush White House knew about 9/11 in advance, which a third of Democrats endorsed as recently as 2007.

Republicans are the least popular party

Except for the other one. Donkey-minded pundits frequently point out of late that all the bad news for Democrats hasn't translated into any affection for Republicans. This seems right and it marks one difference between now and 1994. It is getting very difficult to see how it matters.

CNN has released  a new poll that confirms the Republican advantage on the generic question. The poll has Republicans ahead by seven points. Oddly, there is no link to the poll stats, so I don't know if this is likely or registered voters. If you ignore the Newsweek poll showing a tie, then the Republican's spread is between 6 and 12 points.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that, sure enough,

the two parties are equally unpopular. Forty-nine percent of all Americans have an unfavorable view of the Democrats, with the same percentage feeling the same way about the Republicans. Just over one in five questioned dislike both parties.

Here is the bombshell:

Back in April, Americans who dislike both parties appeared to mildly favor the GOP on the generic ballot, by a 43-to-39 percent margin, with a large number saying at the time that they would pick a minor-party candidate or stay at home.

"Now, a lot of those voters appear to be bolting to the GOP," Holland said. "Republicans now have a whopping 38-point advantage on the generic ballot among voters who dislike both parties."

Republicans also have a large and growing advantage among independents. Sixty-two percent of independents questioned say they would vote for the generic Republican in their district, with three in 10 saying they'd cast a ballot for the generic Democrat. That 32-point margin for the Republicans among independents is up from an 8-point advantage last month.

Looking at those numbers, I get the same feeling I got when I first gazed over the rim of the Grand Canyon: the air gets tight in my chest. A thirty-two point advantage for the GOP among independents. On a scale of one to ten, that's, well, thirty-two.

However, among people who think both parties are worth a pitcher of warm spit, it's that 38 point advantage that is most revealing. A political party can afford to be unpopular if the only competition is 38% less popular.

Lest you think this is mere cheerleading, I can see lots of reasons for Republicans to be very nervous. One is that they might get cocky and blow it. Republicans are surely capable of that, when they have time. Do they have time enough? Maybe not.

Another thing is that this sentiment is not, I expect, evenly distributed. New York Democrats seem to be doing just fine. Still, when the GOP national advantage is this strong, it is going to affect races in virtually every district in the country.

Third, the Democrats can at least hope to win the spin. At this point, if they hold the Senate and don't lose the House by more than 10 seats, they can declare victory.

Finally, the Republican advantage seems to consist solely of one thing: they aren't Democrats. I don't think they have any idea what to do if they win both Houses of Congress.

The old Chinese curse may be descending on both parties: may you live in interesting times. The times they are certainly interesting.

Noem v. Herseth-Sandlin in the National Press

See Joseph Bottum at the Weekly Standard.

No Where to Run to Baby

I notice that David Broder interprets the meaning of end of Arlen Specter.

For 30 years, Arlen Specter has been the emblematic figure -- a man who started as a Democrat, became a Republican for most of his political life, and then switched back. He was notorious for his "flexibility" on policy. A labor leader here once told me he had mockingly congratulated Specter for "staying on the same side of the debate all the way from breakfast to dinner."

With rare … successful politicians in [Pennsylvania] have hugged the center line at the expense of ideological clarity. But Specter's fate signals that the era of ambivalence may be ending.

Broder is right about Arlen Specter, of course. Specter's frequently liberal voting record protected him when Pennsylvania shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum, while his party affiliation simultaneously protecting him against a challenge from the right. For a while, that is.

This year the jig was up. Neither Republicans nor Democrats in Pennsylvania were interested in watching more of the Specter two-step.

If the Specter dodge didn't work in Pennsylvania, it might not work elsewhere. Patrick McIlheran notes a quick dodge by Senator Russ Feingold in Wisconsin.

President Barack Obama's spending Labor Day afternoon in Milwaukee at an annual union festival. It's quite a party: Parade organizers were still looking for volunteers to help carry the giant protest puppets of the Earth Goddess and such. Pity, then, that Russ Feingold, the incumbent Democratic senator in a neck-and-neck race, can't hang out with the president.

Feingold, three terms in office and now tied with a plastics manufacturer no one heard of five months ago, will be at Laborfest earlier in the day. By afternoon, he'll have scampered far from Obama, to a parade in his hometown, Janesville, where the General Motors bailout didn't save the truck plant and unemployment is now double-digit. A spokesman said Feingold asked the White House to change its schedule, but you know how these things go.

Feingold doesn't want to remind Wisconsin voters he is somehow connected to the President, let alone the Earth Goddess. He wouldn't be neck and neck with a Republican challenger if voters needed reminding.

What was true of Specter and is true of Feingold is more or less true of the Democratic Party as a whole: they think their best chance this year is to stand against the wall and mumble: invisible, invisible, invisible. Consider this from the Politico:

At least five of the 34 House Democrats who voted against their party's health care reform bill are highlighting their "no" votes in ads back home. By contrast, party officials in Washington can't identify a single House member who's running an ad boasting of a "yes" vote — despite the fact that 219 House Democrats voted in favor of final passage in March.

Okay. So the only Democrats running ads about the healthcare vote are running ads boasting of voting against it. Will the voters forget that the 34 Democrats who voted against the abhorrent legislation voted for the party leaders who greased it through? What about voters in the districts held by the most vulnerable of the 219 Democrats who voted for the health care reform bill? Will these voters forget that the bill passed just because no Democrat anywhere is talking about it?

I find it hard to remember a time when a political party was so furiously trying to run away from itself. In the past, this sort of subterfuge often worked. This year, there is nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide.

Blame the People

Who is to blame? That is a persistent question in politics, and it becomes more persistent when things don't seem to be going your way. The President and Congress have been extraordinarily bold. The New York Times has done everything in its power back up their play. And yet…it looks like the voters are about to cancel their subscription. While some enlightened organs of thought, like the New Yorker, see sinister cabals at work behind the scenes, the Times and Eugene Robinson have the courage to put the blame squarely where it belongs. The people are to blame. The people have let their heroes down.

We have been told that New Yorkers were more sympathetic to the building of a Mosque, pardon me, an Islamic Center, near ground zero. So the NYT commissioned a poll and found that, well, they aren't, exactly. The Times Editorial tells the disappointing story.

A full 72 percent agreed that people had every right to build a "house of worship" near the site. But only 62 percent acknowledged that right when "house of worship" was changed to "mosque and Islamic community center." Sixty-seven percent thought the mosque planners should find "a less controversial location."

One may disagree with the majority of New Yorkers here, but this is surely a reasonable position. Yes, the Constitution protects the right of Muslims to free exercise. No, this isn't the best place to put your mosque. The Times doesn't merely disagree, they think the majority is retarded.

As the site of America's bloodiest terrorist attack, New York had a great chance to lead by example. Too bad other places are ahead of us. Muslims hold daily prayer services in a chapel in the Pentagon, a place also hallowed by 9/11 dead. The country often has had the wisdom to choose graciousness and reconciliation over triumphalism, as is plain from the many monuments to Confederate soldiers in northern states, including the battlefield at Gettysburg. New Yorkers, like other Americans, have a way to go.

New Yorkers and Americans in general have "way to go" to be as evolved and enlightened as the editors of the New York Times. If we were that evolved, apparently, we would have to build a monument to the terrorist who died in those airplanes. That's going to take a lot of evolution on our part.

Eugene Robinson is also disappointed with Americans.

In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

Robinson admits, correctly, that both parties promise painless solutions to our problems. But he thinks that we are being spoiled brats because we are holding the current bunch of office holders to account. He thinks that the solutions to the problems facing the economy, including the astronomically rising public debt and the insolvency of our entitlement programs, will take time to work and therefore require patience on the part of the electorate. Fair enough.

Ought we not, then, at least demand that the party in power present a plan for solving these problems? What is the Democrat's plan for bringing the budget into balance? What is their plan for putting Social Security and Medicare on a sound financial footing? Right now, we are running deficits of a trillion or more a year, just as these programs go into the red. That's not what happens if Obama's plan fails. That's his plan.

The New York Times and Eugene Robinson are right. The people, spoilt and retrograde as they are, just aren't getting with the program.

Blanchard’s Automotive Infraction Embarrassment Function

I have so far remained aloof from Ticketgate, for a number of reasons. One is that this is the kind of politics that I am least interested in engaging in, as opposed to cheerfully observing. I take no position on the seriousness of the original story. The story has metastasized, however, and I do have an opinion about that. As my friend Cory Heidelberger points out, by the time this campaign is over the driving record of every person in South Dakota may be on public display. For those wanting to sort this out, I thought I would offer some help.

Some political scientists like to try to quantify political forces. I am not usually one of them, but in the spirit of that kind of thing, I offer Blanchard's Automotive Infraction Embarrassment Function. The purpose of the function is to determine quantitatively how embarrassing a driving infraction story ought to be for a candidate for office. Here it is:

(t + (t*(s+f+c)) + (d/r))*j

Isn't that wonderful!

Here t equals the number of tickets issued to a candidate or someone for whom the candidate is in some sense responsible. Children do not count. Chiefs of staff do.

Next we add the number of tickets multiplied by factors that make the story as a whole more embarrassing. The s indicates the severity of the ticket (speeding is worse than double parking, ten miles over is not as bad as twenty miles over, etc). The f indicates failure to pay. The c is citations in addition to the original ticket. Realistically these three factors ought not to add to more than 1, which would double the original ticket count.

The factor d stands for a DUI, and its value is not easy to calculate. How many speeding tickets is as embarrassing as one DUI? However, as political embarrassment is always relative to context, I propose that one d should equal twice the number non-felony infractions earned by anyone involved in the race.

However, d is divided by r, which indicates relatedness to the candidate. If the candidate herself or himself should be cited with a DUI, r equals 1. If it is a senior member of the candidates staff, say a Chief of Staff, let r equal 2. If it is some more minor member of the staff, assign a value of 3.

Now you have a number by which to rank the various scofflaws that people our political campaigns. Of course, that is not yet what is really important. To fully determine the impact, you need to factor in stored up anger and resentment against and impatience with a public figure, whether fair or not. I am not sure how to measure that, but the basic unit we'll call one Janklow.

I'll let my colleagues in the local blogosphere go to work on that. But first here is a hint: if you find yourself thinking that the numbers favor your candidate, you have missed the joke.