Even in early voting, it seems, the shadiness is rampant: Looka collects a few dismaying articles about the voting machines tending to prefer Republicans this year, regardless of what voters may want. (Sound familiar?) How hard can it be, people? In twelve-odd-years of using them, I’ve never had an ATM screw up or misreport a transaction. If we can do it for twenty dollar bills, we can do it for the franchise.
Category: Democrats
Northern Exposure?
“Historically, the major parties in America have yoked together the most disparate groups for long periods. The New Deal Democrats were a party of Northern liberals and Southern segregationists. But once Lyndon Johnson committed the Democrats to civil rights for African Americans, the white South up and left — a process that took 40 years to complete but that left the Democrats struggling to assemble congressional and presidential majorities and that converted the Republicans into a party where Southern values were dominant. Now the non-Southern bastions of Republicanism may themselves up and leave the GOP, seeing it as no longer theirs.” The American Prospect‘s Harold Meyerson sees potential for a realignment of northern moderates come Tuesday. Well, let’s hope. Chafee looks like toast (and he’s acting like it, too), but there are still a lot of undecideds — between 15 and 20% — in that Rhode Island race. And, lest we forget, our very own president, much as he’d like us to think otherwise, is a scion of the North as well.
Voices Kerry | The GOP Scandalized.
I don’t really have anything to say about Kerrygate, except, well, is it Tuesday yet? Way to stick your foot in it, Senator. But, really, is this all you guys got? Is this all you can conjure, Rove? The whole GOP media onslaught about it reeks of desperation (as do the gutterball ad campaigns), and, hey, I don’t blame them: times are desperate: “‘So many different kinds of scandals going on at the same time, that’s pretty unique,’ Zelizer said. ‘There were scandals throughout the ’70s, multiple scandals, but the number of stories now are almost overwhelming.‘”
Take your seats.
“‘The Democrats are going to gain somewhere between four and seven seats,’ said Stuart Rothenberg, author of an independent newsletter that tracks campaigns nationwide.” The WaPo surveys recent trends in the battle for the Senate, concluding that a Dem takeover is still eminently possible, if not yet probable. “Of the battlegrounds of Tennessee, Virginia and Missouri, [Rothenberg] said, ‘They need two of the three, and they have a pretty good chance’ of winning them.”
Nguyen or Go Home.
Another GOP scandal? Oh, why not. This time, the culprit is California Republican longshot Tam Nguyen, who apparently was the mastermind behind 14,000 letters sent to scare immigrants from the polls. “Written in Spanish, the letters advise recently registered voters that it is a crime for those in the country illegally to vote in a federal election, which is true. They also say, falsely, that immigrants may not vote and could be jailed or deported for doing so, that the federal government has a new computer system to verify voter names, and that anti-immigration organizations can access the records.” Nguyen has said he’ll stay in the race against Democratic congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, even though his own party is disavowing him.
November Reign?
“Lame Duck” Dubya and his man behind the curtain, Karl Rove, may be “inexplicably upbeat,” but John McCain is apparently contemplating suicide. Meanwhile, Dems Carville and Greenberg suggest breaking out the party credit cards, while the bellwether state of Ohio sours on the GOP completely. Only 20 days left until Election 2006…
Full Triage Mode.
“Before I liberate the speaker so he doesn’t have to stand up here for that long, Speaker, I want to say this to you…I am proud to be standing with the current speaker of the House who is going to be the future speaker of the House.” Hmm…I wouldn’t be so sure. As Dubya bequeaths a “heck of a job, Denny” upon an increasingly embattled Hastert, the GOP moneymen are nevertheless hedging their bets, and are pulling cash out of several races around the country to try to hold the (Maginot?) line in Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee. The financial “jousting will continue into the final days, but what is clear at this point is that Democrats are playing very little defense in the House and the Senate.“
Warner Out.
“This moment in life is not the right time for me.” In a possible boon for Evan Bayh, among others, former Virginia governor Mark Warner drops out of the 2008 presidential race, citing a (seemingly honest) desire to spend more time with his family. Well, I can’t say I’m too depressed about it. I’m not much for the “centrist” (re: protective camouflage) Dems anyway, and the one time I saw Warner on Meet the Press, he seemed woefully out of his depth on national issues. It’s just too bad he didn’t figure it out sooner, as he likely could’ve easily taken George Allen to the woodshed in the Virginia Senate race (not that Webb is doing all that badly, but Warner would’ve been a shoo-in.)
Jack’s Back.
“‘Voters are tying both of these scandals together,’ said Paul A. Miller, president of the American League of Lobbyists, a lobbyist trade group in the capital. ‘First with Abramoff and now with Foley, corruption has risen to play a big role in this election. It disappoints me, but it’s happening.'” It disappoints you? As the lobbyists lament, it appears Foleygate has brought ethics in government back into focus as a central 2006 campaign issue, despite the GOP’s earlier banking on Casino Jack fading from memory. And, worse still for the Republicans, it seems the so-called “values vote” won’t save them this time ’round.
And I feel fine.
One small piece of consolation in this increasingly dark, troubled world: A new post-Foley Gallup poll puts the GOP in an absolute freefall: “Democrats had a 23-point lead over Republicans in every group of people questioned — likely voters, registered voters and adults — on which party’s House candidate would get their vote. That’s double the lead Republicans had a month before they seized control of Congress in 1994 and the Democrats’ largest advantage among registered voters since 1978.” Moreover, two other polls by CBS News/New York Times and ABC News/Washington Post confirm that an electoral rout may now be in the making.