Reasonable, centrist Democrats RIP “tone deaf” White House

Whether they survived Tuesday’s Republican Tsunami or not, a sizable collection of moderate, centrist and reasonably sane Democrats got the message.  And their message to the White House: You aren’t listening.  This Politico piece highlights the comments of defeated Florida Gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink.  Sink was largely seen as a middle-of-the road moderate and a very good candidate to run in a fickle, purplish state like Florida. But she says she got no moral support from a tone deaf White House:

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

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

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

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Sink’s opponent, winner Rick Scott had some serious issues to overcome.  He was a first time candidate for public office and had run a medical services company linked to a whopper of a Medicare fraud case. But Scott used the ruling class Democrats’ tin ear to tie Sink to an out-of-touch administration and rode voter dissatisfaction to the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee.

But Sink is not the only centrist Democrat singing this tune. Witness Jason Altmire, D-PA, Jim Matheson, D-UT and Heath Shuler, D-NC. Their ire is pointed at the legislative arm of the ruling class, particularly the tone-deaf Nancy Pelosi:

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Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire, a moderate Democrat from a conservative district in western Pennsylvania says, "I am not voting for Nancy Pelosi."

"I don't get the sense that Speaker Pelosi understands what happened on Tuesday. We lost middle America. The Democratic party got crushed," Altmire told CNN in a telephone interview from his district. "I would rather have someone who understands middle America and someone who can relate to the districts we lost," he said.
Altmire noted that many of his fellow Democrats in districts near his lost their seats, including Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania, Charlie Wilson of Ohio, and John Boccieri also of Ohio.

"I understand what happened Tuesday. I had an incredibly close race," said Altmire.

With Speaker Nancy Pelosi still deliberating about her future, some House Democrats are not waiting to make their own feelings known.

Two conservative Democrats, Representatives Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Jim Matheson of Utah, went public on Thursday with their view that Ms. Pelosi should step aside as leader after devastating losses to House Republicans.

“This is about being a team player,” said Mr. Shuler in an interview, adding that he and others did not believe the party can recover if Ms. Pelosi remained at the helm. “I don’t see us having the ability to recruit moderate candidates if she were to be the minority leader.”

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Another conservative Blue Dog, Gene Taylor, D-MS is officially gracious in defeat. But privately, Taylor seethes with anger at the White House’s bungling of the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster, the President’s unwillingness to listen to the people and Pelosi’s unmitigated partisanship. Taylor’s conservative credentials are solid gold.  He lost anyway, because his opponent, Steven Palazzo, capitalized on the Gulf Coast’s repudiation of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

In truth, people like Sink, Altmire, Matheson, Shuler and Taylor are the greatest threat to Republicans’ consolidation of power. Their centrist message and moderate philosophy rings true with the great American middle. While their defeat is their own doing, having a chastened White House and Democrat leadership in Congress learn Tuesday’s lesson and change course would be their best hope for regaining lost seats and checking the incoming class of conservatives.

But by all accounts, the ruling class is hearing none of it. Obama doesn’t think he actually did anything wrong. No, his problem was that he didn’t say enough right. And instead of letting a more moderate voice take over as House Minority Leader, the partisan ideologue—Nancy Pelosi—intends to return as the face and voice of Congressional Democrats. They just don’t get it.

If Obama, Pelosi, and surviving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had any political sense, they’d have gotten the message. For a bunch of allegedly savvy politicians, thank God they make such good radical ideologues.

Hundreds of seats: GOP sweeps statehouses, too

Winning at least six seats in the Senate and sending a host of bona fide conservatives to the upper chamber was big. Winning an outright majority and at least 60 seats in the US House of Representatives was a bomb. But maybe the best impact in last night’s forty trillion megaton Republican victory will keep radiating for at least the next ten years.

The GOP’s power reached way down the ballot, sweeping Democrats out of state legislatures across the country. In some states, like Alabama, Republicans took control of both houses of the legislature and won the Governor’s Mansion.  And the Attorney General’s office. AND every seat up for election on the State Supreme Court.  Why are such down-ballot victories so important? This Foxnews.com story tells us why:

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The GOP picked up at least 19 chambers and hundreds of seats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures -- though the tally is not final and Republican recruitment arm GOPAC pegs the party's chamber pickups at about 23. In several states, Republicans took control of both chambers and the governor's seat.

Though the taking of the U.S. House of Representatives overshadowed the victories for the Republican Party on the state level, the state legislatures take on outsized importance ahead of the 2012 cycle. State governments are responsible for redrawing the congressional districts in accordance with the results of the 2010 Census, and the GOP now has a much stronger voice in that process. 

"It is truly historic that we could flip that many legislative chambers in one off-year election," GOPAC Chairman Frank Donatelli told FoxNews.com. "It's broad, it's deep and it's across the entire country."

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The state-level GOP wave could help their congressional counterparts build a bigger majority in the next cycle. Donatelli noted that it also gives Republicans an immediate chance to push their agenda while the U.S. Congress potentially falls prey to political deadlock.

"We can now begin the reform process in a lot of these states right now. We don't have to wait for 2012 to happen," he said.

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For generations, Democrats have used statehouse majorities to carve Congressional District boundaries in ways that protect their incumbency, such as the Texas 18th, the North Carolina 12th, the California 38th and dozens of others. With so many states having new Republican majorities in the legislatures, a lot of those boundaries can be redrawn to blunt the Democrats’ built in advantage and make it easier to consolidate the House majority. With the 2012 Senate election shaping up to be difficult battleground for Democrats, the GOP could have solid majorities in both houses.

That’s why the 2010 election has to be viewed as nothing more than a very important first step.  Tuesday was a big victory, but it’s part of a long process that the left—and the media it uses to maintain its relevance—will battle every step of the way.

Healthcare Vote costly for Democrats

Via The Hill, if there was one Golden Thread woven through the fabric of last night’s crushing defeat in the House of Representatives, it was that Democrats who voted for the final Obamacare legislation were mowed down like weeds.

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The evening started pretty well for Democrats who voted for healthcare reform, with Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky handily winning reelection with 54.5 percent of the vote. Yarmuth's seat was listed as "likely Democratic" in the Nov. 1 edition of The Cook Political Report, one of 77 "yes" vote seats in play Tuesday evening.

Things quickly went downhill from there.

Within hours, a dozen members had lost reelection, including four freshmen elected in the 2008 Democratic wave: Reps. Tom Perriello and Glenn Nye of Virgina and Suzanne Kosmas and Alan Grayson of Florida.

They weren't alone: Democratic Reps. Baron Hill (Ind.), Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.) and Allen Boyd (Fla.) quickly joined them. So did Pennsylvania Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper, Chris Carney and Paul Kanjorski, all of whom were main targets of the anti-abortion-rights group the Susan B. Anthony List.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who voted for the bill when her vote was crucial but later voted no on reconciliation, was also defeated.

The trend is even worse when factoring in yes votes who weren't running for reelection.

Retiring Rep. Bart Gordon (Tenn.) left Democratic candidate Brett Carter to get pulverized by Republican Diane Black, 29.3 percent to 67.5.

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The Hill piece doesn’t mention the Michigan 1st District, where retiring Bart Stupak had his seat snatched away by newcomer Dan Benishek. It was Stupak’s compromise on his pro life principles that led to the final vote last March, and that compromise cost the Democrats a seat that had been in their hands for many years.

If this tells Congress anything at all, it tells them that the American people don’t want Obamacare.  They want it repealed, and they were willing to turn out long-serving Democrats in order to make their voices heard.  Yes, last night was a referendum on President Obama, but it was also a referendum on his “signature” legislation.  They don’t like it, don’t want it, and they were disgusted by the way it was rammed through.

Republicans will almost certainly resubmit legislation to repeal the law when the 112th Congress is seated.  Democrats who survived last night should take heed.  The American people are watching you, and you’re just as likely to get your asses kicked as your former colleagues were last night if you don’t listen.

A Crimson Red Tide sweeps Alabama

For the first time since Reconstruction, the Alabama Legislature will be controlled by the GOP. Combine that with a win by Republican Robert Bentley in the Gubernatorial race, a win by Republican Kay Ivey in the Lieutenant Governor’s race, Republican Luther Strange’s win in the Attorney General’s race, complete control of the Alabama Supreme Court and there is no other conclusion: Alabama is now a Crimson Red state.

Via the Mobile Press-Register:

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An apparently energized electorate painted Alabama a deeper red Tuesday as Republicans hammered Democrats, winning the governor's office easily and a majority of seats in the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.

Dr. Robert Julian Bentley, who until June was a little-known Republican legislator and retired Tuscaloosa dermatologist, was elected Alabama's 53rd governor.

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Republican Kay Ivey rode the anti-incumbent tide to upset Jim Folsom Jr., who was seeking a third term as lieutenant governor.

With 95 percent of the vote counted, Ivey, who is completing a second term as state treasurer, had 740,522, votes or 51.3 percent to Folsom's 702,239, votes or 48.7 percent.

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Republican Luther Strange defeated Democrat James Anderson in the race for Alabama attorney general tonight.

"I'm honored, I'm happy with the results and I'm ready to go to work for the people of Alabama," Strange said from his campaign celebration in Homewood.

Strange, 57, of Birmingham, campaigned on a pledge to fight public corruption and restore integrity to an office held since 2004 by Republican Troy King.

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Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby also cruised to reelection, as did AL-01 Representative Jo Bonner.  But in yet another example of the wave that swept the state last night, Montgomery’s Martha Roby swept political rival Bobby Bright out of the AL-02 race, leaving Alabama with one gerrymandered blue District, the AL-07. But with GOP control of the House, the Senate, the Governor’s Mansion, the AG’s office and the whole state Supreme Court, you can expect that District to get retooled in years to come.

Late last month, I implored you to vote a straight ticket.  It looks like many of you heeded that call and I’d love to take credit for starting the ripple that became the wave.  But I can’t pat myself on the back. In truth, the credit goes to the candidates and the Alabama Republican Party, all of whom worked tirelessly to make last night such a historic event. But I don’t doubt that the bloggers, facebookers and twitterers in this state had an impact.  You made history last night.

From the Shoals to the Wiregrass.  From Little River Canyon to the Fish River Bridge, Alabama is now painted in a cheery new shade of Crimson Red.

The Narcissist-in-Chief: Strategy sessions were all about Teh One

In today’s online edition of the Wall Street Journal, writers Pete Wallsten And Jonathan Weisman describe some very tense meetings between the White House and Democrat Party officials. 

According to the report, party leaders wanted Obama to reconfigure his inner circle, even going so far as to fire some of his key staff members, after several  strategy sessions failed to produce a consensus on strategy they could use to minimize some of the catastrophic losses that Democrats will almost certainly suffer tonight.

From the story:

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Tensions have come to the surface after meetings over the past few weeks in which Obama senior adviser David Axelrod discussed communications strategy with senior Democratic strategists and party officials. Some Democrats were so unhappy with the White House meetings, they started their own.

The strategy sessions aired a range of disagreements over how to help Democrats forestall an electoral drubbing at the polls—a defeat party strategists believe could have been minimized with a different White House playbook.

Among the complaints: Mr. Obama conveyed an incoherent message that didn't express what Democrats would do over the next two years if they retain power; he focused more on his own image than helping Democratic candidates; and the White House picked the wrong battle when it attacked Republicans for using "outside" money to pay for campaigns, an issue disconnected from voters' real-world anxieties.

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"The money thing could work, but there's never been a larger frame around it to connect it to people's lives," said Dee Dee Myers, a consultant who worked for the Clinton White House when Republicans swept the 1994 elections. She said she participated in an Oct. 8 meeting with Mr. Axelrod and about 15 Democratic strategists at the White House.

A White House official defended the Obama Team's strategy. The pushback against the flood of advertising from outside conservative groups was vital, he said. "Candidates were being pummeled by those ads. Unless we raised the issue of who was paying for it all, they were going to get swallowed alive."

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Would it have mattered if the Obama White House had agreed with Party and Congressional leaders on a consensus theme for defending themselves against a coordinated, nationalized Republican assault?  Perhaps.  But the Narcissist-in-Chief was hearing none of the larger party complaints.  While the election is indeed a referendum on the policies that they had jointly agreed to press forward, El Presidente appears to have been more interested in defending his own brand, rather than the Democrat brand.

They started on this great progressive journey together. Two years and an aggressive legislative agenda completed, and now it’s time to work together to defend their record and describe precisely what policies they would pursue together. What does the Narcissist-in-chief do?  He balks. “You’re on your own,” he seems to have told them.

Despite the fact that anywhere from 50 to 70 of “them” will lose their jobs tonight for sticking their neck out and voting with the Party leadership; and despite apparent pleas from Party and Hill Democrat leaders to help craft a common message that might help reduce some of those losses, they’re done.  The faithful have outlived their usefulness and they’re getting thrown under the bus.

Tonight, the most oft-gored ox will be the conservative Blue Dog caucus. Conservative District after Conservative District is likely to turn Crimson Red. And the message being sent to ordinary Democrats is that the far-left leadership of the party doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you.  That’s why it was so important for people to go to the polls and turn ALL Democrats out, which would force the good guys in the party to clean house and return the party to its mainstream base.

The left does not rule this country.  The center-right does.  Centrist Democrats and right-leaning Republicans can work together on common sense ideas that will restore the fiscal health of our great nation, and get it back on the path it’s supposed to be on.

The Narcissist-in-Chief isn’t willing to work with you on that, but we are.

Beware “leaked” exit polls

Edison Research, the largest and most widely used company for conducting exit polls during US federal elections, is conducting research in 26 states today. Per a contact of mine at the Mobile Press-Register, all exit polling data will be quarantined until 4:30 CDT.  None of the races in Alabama or Mississippi are being sampled according to my source, but the Florida Senate and Governor races are, as is the Senate Race in Louisiana.

The Louisiana decision is odd, as David Vitter will almost certainly cruise to reelection, while the Alabama Governor’s race, the AL-02 Congressional race and the MS-04 Congressional race would be interesting.

Exit polls have not been as good at predicting a race’s outcome as they have been in understanding why a particular candidate won or lost (more on that, below).  They’re supposed to show trends among demographic groups.  The breakdown in using exit polling as a predictor is that those trends may or may not be representative of the overall electorate, introducing bias.  Furthermore, those trends don’t always reflect turnout.  An exit poll may breathlessly report that white protestant females are breaking 75-25 for Candidate A, but not tell you that the white female Catholics voted in much larger numbers.

The real point of this post—if you hear anything about leaked exit polls, dismiss it out of hand.  Exit polling data is almost never leaked now, and those with alleged inside information about what the polling data contains are talking because they have an agenda, and its never an agenda that favors our side.  In the 2000 election, there were “sources” floating around exit polling data from several states showing Al Gore with big leads among key demographics.  The data were floated by political operatives attempting to suppress GOP turnout in afternoon voting. Some think it may have worked. And don’t forget that Edison’s own exit polling data predicted that John Kerry had defeated George W. Bush in 2004.

Even though I do have a good source at the paper, I won’t get any exit polling data until you see it on one of the major networks, and even then there might be an agenda behind the discussion. And, even if there is no agenda, the data are likely to be as useless as they were six years ago.

Final Gallup Poll: “Get a paddle.”

On the day that Americans go to the polls, Gallup has published its very last set of data on voter enthusiasm. The verdict? Record smashing Republican enthusiasm. If these numbers pan out during voting today, Republicans could be handing Barack Obama a butt whipping that are in line with even our most rabidly optimistic predictions.

There’s a little good news in there for Democrats.  They’re also expected to get some fairly good turnout numbers. Second best at 44% but well behind their numbers from 2006, when they peaked at 53%.  But that’s where the good news stops, ladies and gentlemen.

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The record level of overall enthusiasm is primarily the result of Republicans’ heightened excitement — 63% of Republicans (including Republican-leaning independents) say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting. That not only greatly exceeds Democrats’ expressed enthusiasm this year, but also is substantially higher than what Gallup has measured for either party’s supporters on the eve of a midterm election.

The high level of Republican enthusiasm has led to the largest gap in enthusiasm by party of any recent midterm elections, 19 percentage points. The prior highs were nine points in favor of the Democrats in 2006, and nine points in favor of the Republicans in 1994.

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The party with the advantage in enthusiasm has won the greater share of the national congressional vote, and gained seats in the House, each election year since Gallup began tracking voter enthusiasm in 1994.

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Here’s a snapshot of the “enthusiasm gap” as measured by Gallup in the last five midterm elections. Nineteen points is unprecedented. It would be a mistake to try to correlate the enthusiasm gaps measured versus the number of seats that swung in each election, and then use the correlation to predict the landscape come tomorrow morning.  Why? Because the 2010 numbers are off the charts. 

The White House has announced a 1:00 pm EDT news conference tomorrow.   No word yet if John Boehner will attend, or if he’ll have a short, flat wooden object in his hands.

“Because, BUSH!” DNC already in spin mode over election losses

None of the polls have closed yet.  In fact, Alaskan and Hawaiian polls haven’t even opened yet.  But that isn’t stopping the DNC from scapegoating what are sure to be historic losses in today’s midterm elections.

In the Election Day 2010 talking points email sent to its media shills and other assorted allies today, they can’t even get out of the first paragraph before frothing at the mouth and blaming “BOOSH!”

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Democrats knew that 2010 would be an uphill battle for three reasons: 1) the party of the President historically loses seats in midterm elections; 2) too many people are looking for work or struggling to get by as a result of 8 years of irresponsible economic policies (and despite creating more private sector jobs in the last 8 months than President Bush did in 8 years); and 3) the sheer number of seats we're defending this year as a result of the successes of 2006 and 2008, including 49 Democratic Representatives on the ballot this year whose districts John McCain won in 2008.

But as a result of the hard work of the President, Democratic campaigns, the DNC, OFA, coordinated campaigns, campaign committees, and committed Democratic volunteers, our candidates are more competitive today than in previous comparative mid-term elections and in the best position possible for success.

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The stupidity of blaming Bush for a historic election ass-kicking is breathtaking.  Not only is Bush now more popular than Obama in opinion surveys, he’s likely to return to the campaign trail in 2012 to raise money and stump for Republican hopefuls in that election.

But more comical is the second paragraph.  The only comparable midterm elections were 1938, 1946 and 1994.  There are some statistical analyses showing that the 2010 midterm could be even more historic and destroy some long-held beliefs about generic ballot polling, turnout and how it translates into seats won/lost.

It boggles the mind that a reasonably cognizant spokesperson could utter that second paragraph with a straight face.

The real truth that Democrats are going to have to face is that despite spending trillions in stimulus money, taking over the automobile, health care and financial services industry, alienating our allies while emboldening our enemies and speaking down to the American people as if they were so many peasants on the plantation, the electorate is poised to rise up and smite the beast like the fist of an angry God.

No amount of spin can change that.

With a stroke of a pen, let’s make history again

This is a radio ad running in the Mobile, Alabama media markets.

These aren’t actors.  They’re real people on the Gulf Coast whose lives have been affected by the Obama regime’s erosion of our liberties “with the stroke of a pen.”

Let’s make history again.  With the stroke of a pen.

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New York City’s Ballot: Worse than the infamous Butterfly Ballot

The Butterfly Ballot was used in Palm Beach County, Florida in the 2000.  It was so confusing that some media outlets blame it for costing Al Gore Florida’s electoral votes and thus, the White House.

But there’s a new challenger for the crown of the country’s Worst Ballot in the History of the Republic™ and it hails from New York City.

The ballot’s even been nominated by the Center for Plain Language WonderMark Award, given as a booby prize for ambiguous or confusing language on government documents:

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New York City's election ballot is so confusing it's starting to get national recognition.

The city's paper ballot has drawn jeers in recent weeks over a series of potential flaws, leading to the firing of the election board's director on Tuesday. Most prominently, the instructions tell voters to fill out the oval "above or next to" a candidate's name, though the corresponding ovals on the ballot are actually below each candidate's name.

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The nation got a taste of the problems poorly designed ballots can cause during the 2000 presidential election fiasco, when Florida's confusing butterfly ballots wreaked havoc at the polls. Lawrence Norden, with the Brennan Center for Justice, drew attention to the New York ballot instructions in a letter to state officials last week.

"A voter who follows the directions and chooses the oval above the candidate's name will actually be voting for a different candidate than she intends," he wrote.

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The New York Post first reported that the Queens election ballot was set up so that the name of one of the other Democratic candidates, Ruben Wills, would appear in the same column as the Republican candidates. The Board of Elections fired its executive director George Gonzalez shortly afterward.

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I use the Florida 2000 election fiasco often when lecturing on project planning and project management.  My shtick goes something like this:

“I was in a conference in South Florida a year or so back.  After a rather long morning roundtable session, the nine people in my group decided to vote on where we’d all go to lunch.  The conference organizers were paying for lunch, so we had to pick one place so there’d only be one tab.  The choices were a famous chain restaurant where attractive young ladies serve beer and pretty good chicken wings or a trendy bistro with low fat wraps, salads and other healthy fare.

“We discussed it among ourselves and everyone had their say.  Then, we took the vote.

“Four voted for Hooters, three voted for Bistro Lite and two voted for Pat Buchanan.”

“Those were the best damned wings I’ve ever tasted.”

SWEET: “Angry” Alan Grayson losing to Daniel Webster

Alan Grayson is a first class horse’s ass, who made himself a target of conservatives nationwide and deliberately lied in a campaign ad. 

Now, a new Sunshine State News Poll shows Republican Challenger Daniel Webster pulling away in the race for Florida's 8th Congressional District.

At this point in the race, Webster’s lead appears to be insurmountable, and Grayson’s entire campaign strategy appears to have backfired on him.

You know you’re in trouble when the story reporting the poll results describes you as “increasingly malodorous.”

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Holding a steady 7-point lead over a controversial and increasingly malodorous incumbent, Republican Daniel Webster is poised to knock out U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, a new Sunshine State News Poll shows.

Webster, a former state senator, leads Grayson, D-Orlando, 48-41. Florida TEA Party candidate Peg Dunmire garnered 4 percent, No Party Affiliation candidate George Metcalfe got 1 percent, and 5 percent of respondents were undecided.
In a previous poll, conducted Sept. 25, Webster led Grayson 43-36, an identical 7-point margin.

"Webster has to be the favorite here. Grayson has failed to turn his negative image around, and is still viewed in a negative light by a 55-38 margin," said Jim Lee, president of Voter Survey Service, which conducted both polls. "This means Grayson has very little if any room to grow."

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Poll wonks can find the crosstabs for the survey here (PDF).

This District went for Obama in 2008, but Grayson’s favorability ratings are even lower than the President’s in the region. It just goes to show that constantly being a horse’s ass catches up with you sooner or later.  Grayson is an embarrassment to the 8th Congressional District electorate, and they appear to have had enough of him.

VIDEO: Elections Have Consequences

Awesome video from Ben Howe.  Watch, share and VOTE.

Straight Ticket

Eleven days from now, slightly more than one in three Americans who are eligible to vote will either have already voted (in those states allowing early balloting) or will be doing so. Even with turnout models showing historically strong Republican enthusiasm expected to boost participation rates in this cycle, a lot of Democrats in national, state and local races will be returned to offices that some of them have held since Eisenhower was President. Upon returning, they will resume their standard practice of dismantling capitalism, dividing America by class, race and generation, wasting trillions of borrowed money on useless not-so-shovel-ready projects and invading every aspect of your lives.

Not all Democrats subscribe to the progressive, utopian ideal embraced by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  Some of them, like a good friend of mine in the Alabama legislature, are actually quite conservative on both fiscal and social issues.  In fact, this fellow would be forced to run as a Republican in places like New England or the West Coast.  The only reason he’s not a Republican here is because of family and traditional ties to the Democrats.  He’s a genuinely nice fellow with a great family.  But…

This year, I’m voting for his opponent. 

As former US Senator Zell Miller famously quipped, The (national) Democrat party abandoned its principles long before he abandoned them.  Ronald Reagan, once a Democrat himself said, “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party.  They left me.” The Democrats don’t stand for the same ideals that they did in the post war era of Harry S. Truman to  John F. Kennedy.  Indeed, it was Kennedy who sought, campaigned for and signed into law a massive tax cut.  Kennedy stared down the threat of nuclear war with the USSR over missiles in Cuba.  Does the Democrat Party sound anything remotely like that, today?

As it is now, The Democrats have a far left-wing party that is completely out of touch with the center-right majority in America today, and it is actually the Republican Party that now embraces the conservative Democratic ideals that allowed the party to rule both houses of Congress for a generation.  Until the good and decent Democrats—like my old friend—have no choice but to take back their party and restore the American ideals it once held, they can’t be allowed to return to office.

The Democrat Party needs to clean house.  It needs to rid itself of elitist, progressive left-wing ideologues who think you’re about to vote against them out of fear and frustration. It’s a ruling class arrogance that convinces them that you aren’t smart enough, elite enough or nuanced enough to know what’s really good for you.  You need to leave important things like Health Care, Climate Change and Amnesty up to them, you peasant. In fact, the only reason why they still tolerate peasants at the polls is because of that pesky Second Amendment thing.

Again, I’m voting Republican in eleven days.  It will be only the second time since I cast my first ballot in 1980 (the first straight ticket was 1994) that not a single Democrat gets my vote, despite the fact that many of them are just like my old friend.  They’re good, they’re honest and they mean well, but until they clean up their party and get rid of the left-wing idealogues, I’m going STRAIGHT TICKET, and I urge you to do the same.

Despite our efforts, a lot of Democrats will still be reelected, and they’ll try to go back to their standard practices of destruction.  But if enough of them are kicked out and chastised, maybe they’ll start making a difference from within.

Stone Cold Shocka: Vote fraud could be “problem” in Illinois Senate Race

Here’s something I bet you never saw coming.  Two current election workers have been tried and convicted of vote fraud in recent years. 

What could go wrong?

Some of the tales remind you of the good old days of Chicago elections. One (from 2002) includes a group of seasoned citizens applying for absentee ballots, only to learn that the man “assisting” them in obtaining the ballots had already cast their votes.  When the irate elders asked the young thug WTF he thought he was up to, he replied: “Don’t worry.  You’re voting Democrat, anyway, right?” 

The story comes via the Daily Caller:

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A local government in Illinois is warning about potential voting fraud in the Chicago area, noting two election voters were convicted of such fraud just last spring.

The warning, from the director of elections for Cook County, Ill., raises the prospect that voter fraud could become a potential problem in the race and contradicts Illinois Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias, who was dismissive of the issue at a recent debate.

Cook County includes Chicago and surrounding suburbs.

“This past spring, two election workers were prosecuted by the State’s Attorney General and convicted of vote fraud for violating voter privacy by supervising voters as they completed ballots,” a memo from Cook County’s director of elections, Jan Kralovee, says.

At an Oct. 19 debate, Giannoulias slammed his Republican opponent, Rep. Mark Kirk, for his “voter integrity” program that is intended to prevent voting fraud.

“There’s never been an accusation of fraud on the West and South side of Chicago … you’re trying to suppress the African-American vote,” Giannoulias said.

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The potential for abuse isn’t lost on Kirk’s campaign.  Earlier this month, Kirk funded and launched a voting integrity program, which included hiring lawyers and planning to deploy them to “key, vulnerable districts.”  Of course, those districts are heavily populated by minority voters and of course, Democrats promptly played the race card.

Kirk currently leads most polls, and Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight gives him about a 60-40 chance of winning the seat once held by Barack Obama.  But the race is close and if the Democrats can get enough zombies to stick around after Halloween and vote, who knows what could happen.

SMILING and DIALING: Tea Party activists turn to the phones

One of the Democrats’ long standing advantages in national elections is the so-called “ground game.”  Getting out the vote is one thing they’ve always done well.  No one votes earlier or more often than Democrats do.  They’ve had labor unions, environmentalists, abortionists and now ACORN and state/local government employees involved.

One thing in politics is more true than any other:  It doesn’t matter if you’re running for Dog Catcher or President of the United States.  You can’t win if you don’t get your people to the polls.

In this cycle, conservative grassroots organizations are using grassroots tactics perfected by the left.  No, not the voter fraud or intimidation.  It’s the nice retired lady, stay-at-home mom or retired Vet making a phone call or three from the comfort of the kitchen table:

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Here, in between making dinner and baking cookies and celebrating the 16th birthday of one of her eight children, tea party activist Rosie Gagnon is working the phones, squeezing in 10 or 20 minutes or even an hour when she can, placing dozens of calls each day urging voters to support her favored candidates.

"Hello, my name is Rosie, and I'm a volunteer with FreedomWorks PAC, a grass-roots organization advocating for limited government," began Gagnon, reading from a script. "I'm calling to ask for your vote for Senate candidate Sharron Angle in the general election on Tuesday, November 2nd."

It's no mistake that Gagnon is calling people in Nevada rather than Oregon, where the Republican Senate nominee isn't given much of a chance. Encouraged by national tea party groups, she and other activists are dialing long-distance to try to influence the nation's most competitive congressional contests.

…

FreedomWorks, which claims 2,100 registered callers nationwide, is just one group with a phone-from-home program. The Sacramento-based Tea Party Express helped sway primary elections in Alaska, Delaware and Nevada by placing tens of thousands of calls to those states, and organizers for Americans for Prosperity, headquartered in Arlington, say 10,000 volunteers are making calls through the program - 400 of whom are in Oregon.

The efforts are designed to be a conservative counterweight to MoveOn.org and other liberal organizations that used these sorts of tactics to great effect in 2006 and 2008. Those groups are at it again this year, with Organizing for America launching a revamped online calling tool last week to coincide with President Obama's rallies nationwide.

The Internet-based software the tea party groups provide makes calling easy: Register as a volunteer, log in, and the program calls your phone number to connect you. Click again and your phone calls a voter's home. Read the script on the screen, click again and the call is disconnected. Click again and the next call is underway.

All the while, the system is logging valuable information for the national groups: who's still undecided, which numbers are good, who's home and who's not.

Calling all around the country on behalf of politicians she has never met is not exactly something Gagnon expected to do. But she's a mother and she's worried that no matter how well she raises her kids, it won't make much difference if things don't improve.

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Think about the math, here. If you have 2,100 Rosies making dozens of calls each day then you have the potential to reach 50,000 to 100,000 voters. Daily.  With 12 days left until Election Day, those numbers can easily reach into the millions.  Folks, numbers like that can not only make a difference, they can turn a wave into a Tsunami.

There’s still time for you to get involved.  If you are a blogger, facebooker or Twitterer, or if you’re just a fired up Patriot who wants to make a difference besides blasting out tweets and facebook posts, then Don’t Just Catch the Wave. BE THE WAVE.

Go sign up for the Ace of Spades HQ “BE THE WAVE” Get out the vote effort at FreedomWorks PAC.  It takes seconds to sign up.

I have a full time job, this blog and an active Twitter account.  But I am still finding time to make a few calls a day for Martha Roby, a bona fide conservative seeking election to the House of Representatives for the Alabama 2nd Congressional District.  If I can do it, you can do it!

Allow me a little rope on a stereotype, here.  What could strike more fear in the hearts of liberals than a Tea Party effort led by women using the telephone to make a difference in an election?

Panicking? out of options? PLAY THE RACE CARD!

I honestly thought this would come late next week but with many states now using early voting procedures, I guess the Democrats had to put the race card closer to the top of the deck.  They’re panicking—national and state polls show that while some races are tightening (predictably, I might add), and the money flow on both sides shows that states and districts once deemed safe havens for liberal incumbents have turned into battlegrounds. 

And, they’re out of other options. Their last stroke of genius—the spooky but completely baseless “foreign threat to Democracy” charade fell flat on its face.  None of the generic polling data produced since the White House trotted out the allegations have shown even a micro-bump from the ploy. 

They can’t run on their accomplishments because, well… “It’s just too hard to explain.” The stimulus is political kryptonite.  Healthcare is toxic. 

The only thing left to do is to play the race card. 

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The Justice Department is looking into allegations of voter intimidation by poll watchers in predominantly minority neighborhoods in Harris County, Texas, during the first day of early voting. A liberal blog suggested that some of the poll watchers could be members of a local Tea Party group.

But the Justice Department has made clear that its investigation has nothing to do with the Tea Party.

"There is no investigation into any specific political organization, including the Tea Party, at this time regarding this matter," DOJ spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said in a written statement.

In another set of fly-by charges, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, who is battling to capture President Obama's old U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, accused his Republican opponent, Rep. Mark Kirk, of setting up voter fraud-watch areas in Chicago in an attempt to discourage black voters.

That claim, disputed by Kirk -- he argued that Giannoulias might be the last person in Illinois to think the state doesn't have fraud problems -- could benefit Democrats among an energized urban electorate in a non-presidential cycle likely to be dominated by suburban voters.

Taken together, the complaint and the report shifts the spotlight back on past and current accusations of racism against the Obama administration and the Tea Party movement.

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Fly by charges, indeed.  To Democrats, “voter intimidation” means Republican candidates and Tea Party organizations are sending poll watchers to voting places to make sure that voter intimidation does not occur and that voter fraud is exposed. Without such vigilance, Democrats are free to bribe young voters with free rides during school hours and ice cream if they “pass the exam” (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

An absolute smackdown is coming in twelve days. The Democrats know it.  The public relations arm of the Democrat Party knows it.

The only card of any value left in their worthless hand is the race card, and having to play it so early means the Democrats are panicking.

The "Special Army Unit" Story--BOGUS

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UPDATED:  Please see the end of this post for additional confirmation.

Another conspiracy has gone viral on Twitter, this one regarding a "special army unit" to be deployed on American soil just before the November midterms.  The tweets link to a blog citing an unnamed source in the "military," and the blogger speculates on whether the unit would obey an order to open fire on US citizens.

The unit in question is the CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force (CBRNE stands for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive incidents). It is a combat support unit originally comprised of about 4,700 soldiers (not the 80,000 troops cited in the blog), and its capabilities include SAR, decontamination, medical/MEDEVAC, aviation, communications and logistics support.  At full strength in 2011, the unit could have as many as 20,000 troops, with three task forces:  Task Force Operations, Task Force Medical and Task Force Aviation.  While it's part of a combat unit and therefore receives some combat training, its mission is not warfighting--it's support. In a domestic deployment, its role would be to provide support for local and state first responders in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack.  The only combat-level training it receives is in self defense and non-lethal crowd control, which includes beanbag bullets, spike strip deployment and roadblock construction.

It is important to remember that the use of active duty military units in domestic police enforcement was severely restricted by passage of the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878.  The law expressly prohibits active duty Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine and federalized National Guard troops from acting in a law enforcement role, unless that role is expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress.


News of the unit's stand-up on 1 October 2008 received considerable scrutiny from bloggers and media outlets, ranging from The Cato Institute to CNN.  The wiki link above includes a section on the "Sea Smurfs."

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next right wing nutcase, but this one is all about nothing.  For starters, this is a disaster response unit.  It's not a peace keeping force, and the Posse Comitatus restrictions are clear.  Second, even at full projected strength, the unit is one-fourth the size noted in the rumors.  Third, none of the three task forces have combat or traditional law enforcement roles.


Extra Point:  The unit has little (if any) lethal force capability, so even if a mob has to be subdued, it's going to be done so using beanbags and/or tear gas--the same tools police use to control angry mobs of anarchists and "peace activists" at leftwing demonstrations.

UPDATE (04/15/10):  Yesterday, I spoke with Lt. Commander Gary Ross, Public Affairs Officer for HQ Northcom, asking for clarification and correction of any known factual errors contained in the Examiner blog post.  LT CMDR Ross referred me to Don Manuszewski, Chief, Office of Public Affairs for US Army North, Ft. Sam Houston.

In a telephone interview with me this morning, Mr. Manuszewski confirmed the accuracy of my description of the unit's makeup organization and mission. Mr. Manuszewski stated that the Sea Smurf unit in question is not a combat unit, that it is not scheduled to deploy and that the original Army Times story that formed the genesis of this rumor was in error.    He then emailed me a link to a corrected Army Times story. The correction is found at the bottom of the page and (surprisingly) isn't mentioned by any of the blogs or media outlets propagating the rumor:

A non-lethal crowd control package fielded to 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, described in the original version of this story, is intended for use on deployments to the war zone, not in the U.S., as previously stated.

So, not only will the the troops that are deployed domestically not have lethal weaponry, they won't even have the non-lethal packages of bean bags, spike strips and roadblocks.

Mr. Manuszewski noted to me that the Sea Smurfs have been deployed domestically very recently--to Southeast Texas in response to 2008's Hurricane Ike, where they performed such threatening duties as logistics, operations management and medical support.While the Ike deployment date precedes the unit's formal stand-up date, they were deployed nonetheless.  Photos are here,  here, and here.

"We have spent quite a bit of time trying to contact bloggers and media outlets to correct the inaccuracies," said Manuszewski.  "The Sea Smurfs are a well trained, well equipped hard working unit, as are all of our troops. We appreciate your help in correcting inaccuracies and stopping some of these rumors.  We know times are tough and people are worried, but they don't need to be scared of the Sea Smurfs."

I agree. Cased closed.

Welcome My Pet Jawa Readers!  Thanks to Rusty for the linkage.

Thanks also to Confederate Yankee's Bob Owens.