As you know, a long-standing Republican jab is to call the Democratic party, the ‘Democrat’ party. Silly and annoying. But there it is. So why is CNN now adopting it for their own news copy.
Here’s the primer on their lead story …
The link is to an AP story. And even on the substance, look at the domestic spin CNN gives to the story. What the story actually says is that while most Middle Eastern governments think the Bush administration has been a disaster, they are also wary of the Democrats — not because they don’t have “better answers” but because they’re too close to Israel. Very different points.
Turns out that push-polling operation making calls in Maryland about ‘medical research experiments on unborn babies’ is operating in at least four other hotly-contested senate races.
Hostettler gets desperate on the way down the drain.
Just out from Charlie Cook …
With the election just eight days away, there are no signs that this wave is abating. Barring a dramatic event, we are looking at the prospect of GOP losses in the House of at least 20 to 35 seats, possibly more, and at least four in the Senate, with five or six most likely.
If independents vote in fairly low numbers, as is customary in midterm elections, losses in the House will be on the lower end of that range. But if they turn out at a higher than normal level, their strong preference for Democrats in most races would likely push the GOP House losses to or above the upper levels.
The dynamics we are seeing this year are eerily similar to those in 1994. The President and party are different, so are the issues, but the dynamics are comparable.
In 1994, Democrats were in trouble because of tax increases, a failed health plan, and the crime bill (read, guns). There were also a myriad of scandals that started in the late 1980s that moved voters, including many Democrats, to reject the party’s candidates, including some once-popular incumbents.
This year, it is the war in Iraq and scandals. For conservatives, the list also includes the Mark Foley affair, immigration, high government spending and high deficits. For Democrats and independents, stem cell research and Terri Schiavo round out the list. Finally, it would seem that voters of all ideological stripes feel that the GOP-lead Congress has become dysfunctional.
Feel the wave. Be the wave.
Kajillion new polls just released tonight from Constituent Dynamics.
Ex-Bush speechwriter opts for a literary Columbine.
Sign of the times? A North Carolina Republican in a supposedly safe district, refuses to tape a debate with her opponent unless reporters are barred from the event …
U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, is refusing to tape a debate with her opponent, Democrat Roger Sharpe, on Wednesday unless reporters are barred from the broadcast studio.
Jim Longworth, the debate moderator, said yesterday that the congresswoman would not agree to the debate if reporters were there. The full debate is scheduled to be broadcast Nov. 5, two days before the general elections.
As far as I know there’s been no public polling of that race.
Get ready for the fangs and knives (WaPo) …
President Bush said terrorists will win if Democrats win and impose their policies on Iraq, as he and Vice President Cheney escalated their rhetoric Monday in an effort to turn out Republican voters in next week’s midterm elections.
The desperation will be ferocious. Imagine everything from the last six years rolled into one toxic week. An electoral gauntlet of hacking knives and fire. But, then, where did one party rule ever end serenely?
Did Allen’s gambit backfire?
Winning the Virginia senate race was always going to be a real challenge. And it still will be. But something seems to have happened over the last several days in the wake of the Allen campaign’s literary dumpster diving.
Two polls came out today showing Webb ahead. One was a poll sponsored by Democrats that had Webb up 47% to 43%. This evening though CNN released a poll with a similar spread — Webb 50%, Allen 46%. On top of that, another public poll is soon to be released which shows Webb ahead by a comparable margin.
These are very thin leads. But they are leads. And they become more significant when you look at the record of polling in this race over the last three months. Here is the list of public polls in the race going back to July.
We count 26 polls going back to July 24th. Before today only two of them had Webb in the lead. One was a Zogby poll from September 11th. But that was clearly an outlier. The other was from the 24th of this month. Now we have three polls coming out in a two day period with Webb on top.
It seems clear that there’s movement in Webb’s direction. And it seems to have shown up after the novel extracts imbroglio hit the airwaves. I’m not sure we can draw a correlation between the two things. Numbers can move rapidly in the last couple weeks of a campaign as the undecideds start to come off the fence and people finally start to tune into the races. But it at least suggests the book quotes haven’t hurt him.
Webb may actually pull this off.
Late Update: I see now that Zogby has just put out an ‘interactive’ poll showing Webb up by four points. But I consider the methodology of Zogby’s interactive polls questionable. His phone polls are another story.