2008 Senate Preview, June Update

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: National Landscape 2008
• Date: Jun 21,2008

Part I, March 18

Since the last writing in March, a few Senate races have shifted. But just like the last writing, Democrats are going to make gains, it is just a question of how much. If Republicans escape only losing three seats then that will be a moral victory. Here are the races that have been updated:

Alaska: A recent poll showed incumbent since 1968 Ted Stevens losing to his challenger Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich 51-44. Small poll, only 269 people in the sample, but it shows trouble for Stevens. It would be a monumental win for the Democrats to knock off the corrupt Stevens during a presidential year, and it could happen. Until more polling surfaces on this race, this has to be treated as an outlier, but this is a race to watch. However, if Republicans lose a ton of seats in November, I personally wouldn't mind seeing Stevens go down. No one deserves to lose their position in Washington more.
LIKELY REPUBLICAN RETENTION TO LEAN REPUBLICAN RETENTION

Colorado: Polls are showing Republican Bob Schafer trailing Boulder liberal Mark Udall. The two are vying to replace the retiring Wayne Allard. Democrats are on the upswing in Colorado and Obama seems to be popular there. Most recent poll has Udall up 9.
TOSS UP TO LEAN DEMOCRATIC TAKEOVER

Kentucky: Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will have to work harder than he wants to win reelection. A recent poll showed him trailing challenger Bruce Lunsford, but in a presidential year McConnell will be okay. Democrats are still blood thirsty after we beat Tom Daschle (husband of a lobbyist, does Barack Obama know this?) in 2004 and will go all out to beat McConnell. Won't happen.
SAFE REPUBLICAN RETENTION TO LIKELY REPUBLICAN RETENTION

Louisiana: Democrat turned Republican John Kennedy doesn't seem to be gaining a lot of traction in his race against Mary Landrieu. Landrieu has won by razor thin margins in her first two elections and there is no reason to think this time around will be any different. Still the Republicans best and really only chance for a pickup this cycle. Will be close, but slight edge to the incumbent right now.
TOSS UP TO LEAN DEMOCRATIC RETENTION

Minnesota: Norm Coleman seems to be gaining the upper hand on Democratic challenger Al Franken. A recent poll confirms that. The disclosure that Franken decided to not pay some taxes has not helped him. This is a race that Coleman can't take for granted with Minnesota looking good for Obama - he has to worry about coattails going against him. Possible wild card: Jesse Ventura is looking at the race. Coleman and Ventura have a history; Ventura beat him in a three way race 37-34 in the 1998 race for Minnesota Governor. However, another recent poll shows Ventura hurting Franken more than Coleman. Democrats will be kicking themselves if the let this one slide away. I recently donated to Coleman (all my contributions can be seen here).
TOSS UP TO LEAN REPUBLICAN RETENTION

New Hampshire: This one hurts me, moving it from a toss-up to Lean Democrat. I had a John Sununu sticker on my car for about a year back in 2002-2003. I have donated to his campaign. I really want him to, and I believe he will close the gap on his opponent Jeanne Shaheen, though it doesn't look too great right now. Sununu won his first term in 2002 dispatching of incumbent Bob Smith in the Republican primary and then reminding voters how much Shaheen raised their taxes when she was governor. That will be harder to do this time around. Sununu has been in tough races before and he is a good campaigner. Historically, Senate rematches go the way they do the first time around which bodes well for Sununu. McCain at the top of the ticket helps Senator Sununu.
TOSS UP TO LEAN DEMOCRATIC PICKUP

Rest of the races after the jump…….
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Drill Here, Drill Now. "Yes We Can!"

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: Energy, McCain, National Landscape 2008
• Date: Jun 18,2008

When gas prices starting really jumping, I was very fearful of the repercussions for the GOP. For better or worse, that is pretty much how I look at everything. In a Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday, 67% of respondents said they favored off shore oil drilling. Even among liberals, more exploration was favored by a 46-37% margin. When you look at Congress, Republicans want to drill. Democrats do not want to. Using simple logic, that means Democrats are happy with recent price increases. By increasing our own supply, we can make life a little easier for millions of hardworking Americans. In general, Democrats and specifically one running for President of the United States are against that.

On Tuesday Senator McCain announced his support for the lifting of the federal moratorium on states being allowed to explore off their coasts for oil and gas deposits. The Outer Shelf Moratorium was passed in 1981 by Congress. Obama is not for drilling. John McCain is starting to come around, but not enough yet. It can't be too far around the corner as he seems to realize that $4 gas is the tipping point where people are starting to take a deeper look into why prices are so high. Every minute he waits and talks about global warming he is wasting time in this campaign. This is an issue people are really looking hard at. It is a no-brainer. The liberal left has nowhere to go. Obama and the Left are too beholden to the far left to take the side of the people here. Average people like me are fed up with being held hostage by the militant environmentalists. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her House Democrats like Betty Sutton promised us all solution to rising gas prices if America swept our Republicans. If they meant "higher prices for all" and "thinking of policies to make prices rise more" then they have achieved that campaign promise.

I am not against hybrid cars or clean energy or windmills or whatever Al Gore is talking about today. But none of that helps in the near term. And I don't want to pay $20 for 3 and a half gallons of gas. I am not alone. Drilling more at home will not solve the problem by itself, but exploring for and bringing more oil to market definitely helps drive prices down. More drilling needs to be combined with the alternative energy that is emerging. Barack Obama, fan of $4 gas, only likes the latter half of that last statement. The sound bite from that link alone would make a devastating commercial against Obama. RNC, Use it! (You have to because McCain is going to run a noble campaign). Use it if you want to win, Senator McCain, and I assume you do because you are running in spite of the coronation of Barack Obama. Probable Obama statement soon: "This sort of divisive politics should be beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate."

Now, if McCain would just decide he wanted to open up to drilling that mosquito infested wasteland part of ANWR we would be getting somewhere. It would be a flip flop, but it would be a flip flop people would look past. He just needs to simply say, "circumstances have changed," because they have. Go there and make your announcement (leave Ted Stevens in Washington). Oh, and if there is somewhere where we can't drill, what about nuclear?

Ohio blogger Matt Hurley of WMD got some recent attention with his thoughts on gas prices and the potential for it to be a Republican winner come this fall. He wrote, in part: 95% of the American people are very concerned or somewhat concerned about the the price of gasoline. That Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats continue to turn a deaf ear to this issue is amazing. Well Matt, they do have hearings and threaten sham windfall profits taxes that would just be based on to consumers. That has shown to really be helpful.

If it seems I write about this topic a lot, it is probably because I do.
Video: Myth, We are running out of oil.
Sign the petition: Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.

Weekend Discussion Thread

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: McCain, National Landscape 2008
• Date: Jun 14,2008

On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued what I consider a disgrace of a ruling. The Supreme Court decided that for the first time in American history, non-American enemy combatants detained abroad during a war have a constitutional right to habeas corpus. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the ruling "strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants." This ruling broke the precedent the Court has previously set in 1950 in Johnson v. Eisentrager, in which the Court ruled that non-citizen enemies had no access to U.S. courts in wartime.

Based on previous rulings by this court, the decision was not all that surprising. Obviously there were four judges who would support this, and as usual, we had to pin our hopes on Kennedy - who ended up writing for the majority. It looked the five justice majority knew where they wanted to go with the ruling and had to decide how to achieve their goal. Extending the Constitution to apply to people that it was never intended to apply to is what happened here.

Senator McCain jumped all over the ruling Friday saying it was "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." McCain needs to bring this up again and again and again and again. People are upset about this. The ruling is terrible, it hurts American security, and grants our rights to those who want to kill us, but it could help the McCain Campaign. It also highlights the difference between possible appointments of McCain and Obama.

Worth Asking: But if one is going to invent Constitutional rights out of thin air, it's worth asking: What moral universe do Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsburg, Stephens, and Souter inhabit when they are willing to manufacture constitutional rights for unlawful enemy combatants who want to slit the throats and watch innocent Americans bleed and die while at the same time uphold manufactured constitutional rights that allow people to abort innocent unborn children?

But all that aside, one of the great things about this country is that when the Supreme Court issues a ruling, people follow it. It is actually pretty amazing when you think about it. Nine justices say something and that is that. Whether or not you agree with each and every ruling (and who really does), it is remarkable to watch the immediate effect on American life they have.

Anything else you want to discuss on the first real weekend of the general election? Feel free. I want to mention Tim Russert. Big loss for the political world. I will certainly miss his "Senate Debate Series" on Meet the Press.

Memory Lane and the Democratic Primary

• Author: Kyle Kutuchief
• Filed under: National Landscape 2008, Obama
• Date: Jun 8,2008

This is an excellent rapid fire review in 8 minutes of the Democratic Primary from SlateV.com. Take a moment to sit back and reflect on the events that have lead us to Barack Obama being our nominee before the real race begins.

A First Look at the Electoral Map

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: National Landscape 2008
• Date: May 27,2008

I know that we are getting closer to a national election because I am starting to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night thinking about the path to 270 and the White House through the Electoral College. I wish I was making that up.

In 2004, Bush won 286, Kerry got 251. Kerry actually won 252, but some moron in Minnesota cast his electoral vote for "John Ewards." So with 270 needed to win, the Democrats need to find a way to peel off 17 Electoral Votes from the Republican side. Ohio is 20. That is the obvious route; win Ohio, hold the 2004 states and we have a liberal in the White House the likes of which we have never seen before. But that exact scenario probably won't happen, so let me give you a mathematical breakdown of where things stand. Just for reference, here were my picks from 2004. I flat out missed Iowa, which Kerry barely lost. I put Minnesota in the Republican column; I think I was looking for a reason to pick that state with my heart and not my head and I got duped by a late Mason-Dixon poll that was off…..no one typically polls states better than Mason-Dixon. I got the other 48 states right - Ohio, New Mexico, Florida (and by the healthy margin Bush won by), Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire, etc.

As of right now, here is where everything stands - again with 270 being the magic number, and assuming it is Obama vs. McCain:

Safe Republican (165): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Loiusiana (9), Mississippi (6), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3).

Likely Republican (24): Arkansas (6), Montana (3), North Carolina (15).

Lean Republican (51): Florida (27), Missouri (11), Virginia (13).

Toss Up (43): Colorado (9), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Ohio (20).

Lean Democrat (55): Iowa (7), Michigan (17), Pennsylvania (21), Wisconsin (10).

Likely Democrat (43): Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), Oregon (7), Washington (11).

Safe Democrat (157): California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), DC (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3).

Of course, this will change as the campaign unfolds and states will come off the map and new ones will be added. This is based on right now and what happened in 2004. A brief summary of a few key states and why I placed them where I did:

Florida is one of the few red trending states and a place Obama is not polling well. If we can't win Florida, it has been a landslide loss and I will be in my bed trying to not to cry at about 10PM. Missouri is a tough one to read right now, but McCain is probably up there by a few. As far as Virginia goes, Democrats are pumped over one poll that showed Obama up big there last week, but that contradicted other recent polls. Democrats are going to capture Virginia one of these days, but I think they are still a cycle or two short. They don't have the numbers in Northern Virginia yet to off-set the rest of the state. More after the jump….
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A Growing Hostility in the Ranks

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: National Landscape 2008, Republicans '08
• Date: May 16,2008

John McCain is obviously going with the strategy of getting himself into office with no coattails, all other elected Republicans out there for themselves. Yes, GOP candidates all across this land are facing tough conditions. You may have guessed that. What are Republicans this fall supposed to run on? Certainly not their nominee for president; he is proving that he will be running on his own brand. Just running against the other candidate really isn't all that inspirational to people like me. It is lost on most Washington Republicans how destructive it is for them to not stand for anything. Three times in the last four days I have gotten mail from either the RNC or McCain. Zero times of the three have I been compelled to open the letter. This is a drastic change from 2003-2004 when I couldn't wait to get my mass mailed "personalized" letters from Bush/Cheney 2004. I am still donating, but as of now it is to individual candidates in certain races. I see nothing right now that makes me say, "Yes, I am going to go to the trouble to go get and send a money order (I dont do checks) to the RNC or John McCain." I want it to be different. I really do. I want to send my small sums of money to them.

The conservative moment is more or less dead. But it is dead from only a leadership aspect. People like me are waiting for someone to step up and take the mantle. The problem is that in 1980 Reagan was waiting to do just that; there is no one on the horizon right now for us that is filling that role. John McCain, though I am certainly voting for him (provided his running mate is not Mike Huckabee), does not qualify. George W. Bush was not a movement leader.

In the long run an Obama win would be a good thing for Republicans. In the short term, a loss in November would be a bad thing, and put Republicans out of power in the House, Senate, and the White House. That is a recipe for disaster; the "Rubber Stamp" in Congress times 100. At the same time, you can only shake your head at some of decisions by Republicans even though they are in the minority in Congress right now. McCain probably wouldn't help matters, though on some things like spending he would be a welcome change (not to be confused with Obama style change). Do you sacrifice the present (in this case November) for future gains? I am in the school that says win now and worry later. I think that Jimmy Carter 2.0 would be comparably far worse than any conservative damage McCain would do.

If we lose to Obama, then the whole party will have to rebuilt, because we are total failures. There is no way he should win, but he may. If the most radical of leftist is preferable to the Republican brand then there are very serious problems. Some would argue we need to do the rebuilding now. A total party shake up. New House leadership, new Senate leadership, new people in all leadership roles. After what I have seen the last few weeks, it might not be a bad idea. Show people that the status quo is not good enough. There is a growing hostility born of utter frustration in the ranks. The Dems that are winning are posing as conservatives. They are acting more conservative than the Republicans in Washington!!! Yet Washington Republicans keep fumbling along, with voting for the bloated farm bill as the latest example. People are frustrated. I read it and hear it each and every day. I know McCain is going to try and win with the center, but he still needs the right. If he actually has conservative ideals he wants to accomplish as president, it will be tough working with a 55 seat deficit in the House and a close to filibuster proof Senate. That seems to be where we are headed unless the decision makers in Washington wake up. Do they have such short memories that they forgot about 2006?

The decision to not vote or cast a protest vote in November does not occur in make believe land. If McCain does not win, that means his opponent did. And his opponent will probably have a lot less to like policy wise than McCain could have offered. McCain is counting on that as his victory strategy; people like me sucking it up and voting for him. It is risky. The Dems have a reservoir of grand plans they are waiting to shove down our throats given the chance. It would be much easier, however, to be excited about voting if the rank and file conservatives were given something.

(Yes, I know I promised you Obama wouldn't win in the fall. I am just a worrier by nature.)