TPMDC makes a notable catch--Marco Rubio, darling of insurgent conservative candidates everywhere, has not actually been embraced by the Florida tea parties:
In the midst of Sunday's heated Florida Republican Senate primary debate on Fox News Sunday, moderator Chris Wallace asked Marco Rubio a question that surprised many viewers up early on a Sunday to watch the festivities.
Wallace read Rubio a viewer email. "'Ask Marco Rubio why he refuses to be vetted by the Florida Tea Parties. I want to hear from Rubio or I will not vote for him,'" Wallace said. "We got this from a bunch of Tea Parties all over the state."
Behind the question is an interesting discovery: Despite carrying the torch for insurgent conservatives everywhere, Rubio actually has a problem connecting with the tea parties in his home state, according to several tea partiers I spoke with yesterday.
Wait-so tea parties actually have nothing to do with Rubio's success? But, at least they elected a guy from Massachusetts who stopped health care, and who has stayed true to tea party principles while in office! Oh wait...
Monday night, Brown announced that he would join four other Republicans in voting to block a GOP filibuster and move forward with a $15-billion jobs bill designed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Almost immediately, the political blogosphere exploded.
Cries of "letdown," "betrayal," "sellout," and "RINO" -- "Republican in name only" -- flew around Twitter. By late Tuesday afternoon, more than 4,200 people had left comments on Brown's Facebook page, most harshly negative. (And liberals engaged in some cyber-schadenfreude at the same time.)
Even the supposed tea-party success in the NY-23 special election, where conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman managed to push Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava out of the race, was actually engineered more by well-established groups like The Club for Growth than any new grassroots movement. The Club endorsed Hoffman early in the campaign (September 28th), and spent over $300,000 in support of Hoffman. This is several orders of magnitude beyond any material support offered by the tea-parties.
It is also worth noting that unlike the tea-parties, the Club for Growth has a long record of making huge impacts, including several big victories, in Republican primaries. Compared to the established success of the Republican primary-challenge machine, the tea parties are a new, and laughably ineffective addition.
OK, so elections where the Club for Growth isn't pulling the strings in the background haven't gone well for the tea partiers. But, at least they made a big impact, independent of existing right-wing infrastructure, on the health care debate with their town halls, right?
Despite conventional wisdom, polling indicates that the health reform plan actually increased in popularity last August during the tea-party assault on town halls. They were entirely ineffective at swaying popular opinion against the bill.
Even all of the protests, rallies and other grassroots enthusiasm around the tea-parties was clearly evident in 2008, after Sarah Palin's nomination, long before the term tea party was even coined. The anti-Obama rhetoric, and cries of socialism, was there too. About all tea parties have done is provide a long-standing right-wing political machine with a new image. This is actually a useful development for conservatives, since portraying their movement as based in grassroots energy, rather in than large corporate donations to the Club For Growth, plays better in the media. The new branding is undeniably a positive for the conservative movement, but really it is about all the tea parties have actually accomplished that existing right-wing infrastructure would not have achieved on its own.
Update 13--Republican civil war to get bloodier: While I would much rather have had Corzine, and while I am still nervous about Maine, this win by Owens will cause even more damage in the ongoing Republican civil war. Owens won because he was endorsed by Scozzafava, who was herself torpedoed by most of the Republican establishment. Lots of finger pointing, and no clear result. This is going to get even bloodier.
Update 12--Owens wins: All national networks call it for Owens. With the remaining precincts, and the newly discovered lack of absentee votes, it makes sense. I have to admit, I am very surprised. Owens better fall in line on health care reform immediately.
Update 11: With 79 precincts left to report, 41 are from St. Lawrence (Owens), 14 from Lewis (Hoffman), 4 from Franklin (Owens), 3 from Madison (Hoffman) and 1 from Jefferson (Hoffman). That's 45-18 Owens, with 18 unaccounted for.
Update 10--Less than 10,000 absentees: From xtrarich in the comments:
There were more than 10,000 absentee votes sent out before the election and some 5,800 were returned and must be counted. More absentee ballots, if sent before the deadline, could still be received.
Many of these ballots have already been counted. Less than 2,000 Fort Drum military ballots. That is another good sign for Owens.
Update 9--Military absentees will skew toward Scozzafava: As lord_mike notes in the comments, keep in mind that Scozzafava was still in the race before absentee ballots were sent in. As such, those ballots will not necessarily favor Hoffman.
Update 8--Owens will be ahead after tonight: Owens will be ahead after tonight, even with 4 precincts from St. Lawrence county not likely to report until tomorrow due to voting machine problems. The question is how far ahead he will be before the 10,000 absentees are counted. Right now, his margin is 4,175 votes, which would be enough.
Update 7--Remaining Precincts: There are 91 precincts left to report. This includes 46 St. Lawrence county (Owens), 15 in Lewis (Hoffman), 3 left in Madison (Hoffman), 1 left in Jefferson (Owens), and 3 left to report in Franklin (Owens). There are also about 20-23 from other counties, but their websites are down. That is 50-18 Owens, meaning that it still looks good for him as long as the absentees aren't a landslide.
There are more than 10,000 absentee votes to still be counted.
Turnout so far is just under 120,000.
With Fort Drum in the district--the only place in the country where snow-based training for Afghanistan occurs--this is an extremely heavy military district. Those absentees will send this contest into overtime.
Update 5--Now Highly likely Owens will win: This is going to upset a lot of teabaggers, but it is now highly likely that Owens will win. 52 of the remaining 153 precincts are from St Lawrence county, which Obama won by 16%.
Update 4--County level results: You can see the county results here.
Update 3--Albany Project calls it for Owens (with about 70% in): The Albany Project has called it for Owens, based on many of the remaining votes coming from Democratic St Lawrence county.
Update 2 (with about 31% in): It turns out that most of these results are from Clinton county, which is the most Democratic part of the district. Expect Hoffman to close, and possibly take the lead, before long.
Update: For some context, there are three very Democratic counties (as least as far as Presidential voting is concerned) in the northern part of the district, two lean Republican counties in the western part, and a very Republican county in the southern part. I have no idea which of these have reported so far. If these numbers are from the Democratic areas, it probably won't be enough for Owens to win.
Tomorrow is not shaping up to be a great day for Democrats:
Virginia. Republicans will handily win the Governor's race after two terms of Democratic control. My final average on the campaign shows Republican McDonnell ahead 54.5%--40.8%, virtually identical to Pollster.com's 54.7%--41.0%
New York City. Michael Bloomberg will handily win a third term as mayor. The polls there show Bloomberg ahead by even more than McConnell, as he leads Mike Thompson. 52.2% to 37.8% (that is my average of the last five).
NY-23. No matter the endorsement that Democrat Bill Owens received from former Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava, it is likely that Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman will prevail. Of the last six polls to be released, Hoffman leads in four, and only trails by 1% in the other two. Further, Hoffman's voters are more locked-in, according to the cross-tabs of the Siena poll. Really, Hoffman has been surging for some time now, and I would be stunned if he did not win by at least 5% tomorrow.
Now, Democrats and progressives do still have decent chances in both New Jersey and Maine. As Adam and I discussed this morning, those two campaigns are almost pure toss-ups, with the odds perhaps slightly in our favor in Maine and slightly against us in New Jersey. Still, even if we win in both states, it will be more akin to holding a firewall to prevent a disaster then it will to the significant electoral gains Democrats made from 2005-2008.
On Wednesday, Democrats will be tempted to brush off these results as lacking in national meaning. There are undoubtedly local factors at play in all of these elections, and candidate / campaign quality always makes a real difference in the outcome of any election. However, as a group we should not delude ourselves. Compared to one year ago, Republicans have made measurable gains.
Across the board, Republicans have made a net improvement of about 2-3% in their national position from one year ago. Further, on top of this net Republican gain, Democrats are not as enthusiastic and well-organized as they were last year. The final Survey USA poll from Virginia shows McCain winning the likely voter pool 52%-43%, even though he lost the state 53%-46% one year ago. The final PPP poll (PDF) is less extreme, but also shows McCain voters outnumbering Obama voters in the electorate, 48%-47%.
So, Democrats are facing a twin problem of a national Republican gain of 2-3%, combined with lower enthusiasm among their own base. While it is not yet a recipe for Republicans to regain control of Congress, it is certainly a recipe for Republicans to make real gains in the 2010 elections. As a party, Democrats should address these problems rather than pretending they don't exist.
Update: Some people have asked about the special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10. The district is D+11, and the only poll shows the Democrat up by 10%. That 10% margin is a pretty good over / under to measure any national implications.
This being an odd numbered year, Open Left has done relatively little election blogging. However, on Tuesday there are a handful of major elections. Now that I am close to finishing up a new election forecasting methodology, it seems appropriate to try my hand at providing a horserace outlook on those five elections. All projections as of today, October 29th:
Maine, Repeal Marriage Equality? No: 49.7%
Yes: 45.7%
Three close elections and two blowouts. Also, who says we have a two-party system in this country? Only the Virginia Governor's race features a traditional Republican vs. Democrat two-way campaign.
President Obama has nominated Republican Representative John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army. It is not exactly thrilling that yet another major national security position in the Obama administration has gone to a Republican. McHugh scores pretty low on military matters according to progressive punch, and his DW-nominate score hovers around a not-moderate 0.3. After Democrats retook Congress in 2006 largely because of Iraq, and after President Obama won the Democratic nomination significantly because of his early opposition to the war, it gives me a warm feeling for Republicans to still be occupying so many key national security positions.
Anyway, my complaining about Obama's appointments never seems to get anywhere. I'm sure that by appointing McHugh, Obama has somehow made a super-progressive move.
One ray of hope is that the NY-23, which covers much of the "hump" in northern New York State, will now have a special election. With a PVI of R+1, it was won by President Obama, and is actually slightly more favorable for Democrats than the NY-20, where Democrat Scott Murphy won a special election two months ago. McHugh himself proved unassailable, even during two consecutive wave elections for Democrats (he won by a little over 20% in both 2006 and 2008), but the seat is now clearly winnable.
However, I also worry that many of the same problems that appeared in NY-20 will be repeated in NY-23. Four months ago, Scott Murphy was selected by local party leaders as the Democratic nominee without a primary election. Murphy then immediately promised to apply for membership in the Blue Dogs once he entered Congress. Progressives were thus completely shut out from the process right at the start. Will the same thing happen in NY-23?
In the NY-23, as with other special elections taking place right now, as many progressive grassroots organizations as possible need to make it clear that they are not going to give money to any Democratic candidate who refuses to rule out joining the Blue Dogs when entering Congress. All progressive criticisms of the Blue Dogs are cancelled out and rendered utterly ineffective if we continue to funnel hundreds of thousands of small donor dollars to Blue Dog candidates. In fact, if the progressive grassroots are donating to Blue Dog candidates, it makes no sense for any Democratic candidate not to attempt to join the Blue Dogs. If Blue Dog membership can open small donor doors, and corporate PAC doors for you, then why would any Democratic candidate not just promise to try and join the Blue Dogs?
Further, we need to start making noise about the need for a primary election, and fight back against the plutocratic meme that such elections are too expensive right now. The day when our elected officials declare that we can't afford to hold new elections is the day that the American experiment in democracy ends once and for all. It is an offensive, terrible argument to make. There needs to be a primary in NY-23, and we need to be loud about the need for one.
We had a pretty good night on election night in the Northeast. We cleaned house. We nailed 1 GOP Senator, 6 House of Reps Districts, 1 State Senate and held on to all of the State Senates, State Houses, US House Reps and US Senators we had coming into this cycle.
That the Northeast is rapidly realigning towards team Blue is undeniable!
But the work my friends has merely begun. Forget the bunkum about us being irretrievably on defense in 2010 come below the fold to see who should be in our sights in 2010 as we stay on offense in the Northeast........
The Northeast (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island & Vermont) has been sharply trending towards the Democratic party for some years now. Increasingly at a State and Federal level Republicans are finding it harder to get elected in the Northeast, be they conservatives or moderates, particularly in statewide races. And this years election seems certain to thin out their ranks even further.
We now have 7/9 Governors, 14/18 Senators and 51/65 House Districts!
Below the line for a look at the 14 GOP held House Races in the Northeast in 2008.
All four of my grandparents were born in Batavia, New York, which is in Genesee County between Buffalo and Rochester. That is currently in the NY-26. If it makes a difference, my maternal grandmother, who still lives in Batavia, is both a hard-core Democrat and a judge of elections.
My mother grew up in Batavia, New York, and my father grew up in Albion, New York. The latter is in Orleans Country, New York, twenty miles from Batavia, and currently is in the NY-28.
Just like both of my brothers, I was born in Strong Hospital in Rochester, New York, (Monroe County) about thirty-five miles away from Batavia. That is also in the NY-28.
I spent the first five years of my life in Gates, New York, just outside of Rochester. Gates is currently in the NY-26.
At the age of five, I moved to Liverpool, New York (Onondaga County), along with the rest of my family. That is in the NY-25, and I resided there until attending college in what is currently the PA-06 at the age of 18.
Since the age of 18, I have spent a collective total of about three and a half years in the Central / Western New York region. I'd probably still be there now, only I did not receive the teaching assistantships I sought from either Cornell (NY-24) or my first choice, the University of Buffalo (NY-28) when I applied to both schools for graduate school.
During my life, I have visited the NY-23 (R-McHugh), NY-24 (D-Arcuri), NY-25 (R-Walsh), NY-26 (R-Reynolds), NY-27 (D-Higgins), NY-28 (D-Slaughter), and NY-29 (R-Kuhl) at least two dozen times each, as I have family and friends scattered throughout the area. In the last year alone, I have been to every single one of those districts multiple times.
My master's thesis was primarily a series of longish poems written about Central / Western New York.
The reason I point all of this out is to ask several questions:
If I had led the charge against Brian Higgins instead of Stoller, would my criticisms have been justified simply because I am from the region?
Do I have more of a right than people not from the region to criticize members of Congress who are from the region? In other words, do people not from either Central / Western New York or the Philadelphia region have to seek my approval before making any criticisms of local elected officials?
Do people who still live in Central / Western New York have more of a right to criticize the seven members of Congress in that area than I do, since I now spend most of my time in Philadelphia?
Is my authority on the different congressional districts in the area proportional to the amount of time I have spent in the seven congressional districts in the area? And for the record, those rankings go as follows:
NY-25 (sixteen years, three as an adult)
NY-26 (six years, one as an adult)
NY-28 (a few months)
NY-24 (about two months)
NY-23 (a few weeks)
NY-29 (about a month)
NY-27 (a couple weeks)
If I am disallowed criticism due to the relative lack of time I have spent in each district, how long do I have to spend in each district until I am allowed criticism?
Is there a gradient scale? More specifically, am I allotted an increasing amount of criticism the longer I stay in each area? What specific criticisms am I allowed or not allowed depending on how long I have spent in each district? For example, does one year in a district allow me to criticize a budget vote, two years allow me to criticize a vote on Iraq, three years allow me to criticize a vote like FISA, and four years allow me to make primary endorsements?
Why I am allowed to help Democrats win general elections if I am not from an area, but I am not allowed to criticize Democrats if I am not from an area? What are the relative values of being a local in terms of criticism and support, general elections and primaries?
I ask all of these questions because I have noticed a tendency toward a reactionary, tribalist response to any criticism basically anyone in the national blogosphere makes toward pretty much any Democratic member of Congress, and also toward the sides we take in pretty much any Democratic primary. Somehow, our criticisms and our support are deemed irrelevant because we are not from the area in question and thus, I suppose, not one of the local, good ol' progressives. If this is the typical response we generate, I want to know the guidelines for the ratio of criticism we are allowed based on our current place of residence. I think such guidelines would be helpful to prevent these problems in the future.
Also, I want to say that I am from Central / Western New York, and I agree with Stoller's criticisms of Higgins. In fact, it would be easy for me to simply cut and paste Matt's quotes, and then put up an identical post of my own. At that point, would those posts become valid? Just asking. As a final note, I hope that question itself does not violate any sort of regional caste that I wasn't aware I was locked into. Please, accept my apologies in advance.
Update: Because there are always dangers and limits to what sarcasm can accomplish online, let me try to clarify the point of this rant. If someone is going to claim special knowledge over a local area or politician due to proximity of residence to that area and / or politician, it is not simply enough for that person to dismiss the criticisms of others on the grounds that those others are not from the local area. Rather, if living in an area has provided you with special knowledge of that area, use that knowledge in the relevant argument, not your local credentials.
Of course, if someone is willing to make an argument that supporting FISA or Iraq will help member of Congress X get elected, or is somehow in line with the residents of District X, I'd love to hear that argument. Warrant-less wiretapping and the lack of a timetable in Iraq are not only wrong, they are also extremely unpopular nationwide. Of course, if someone has local knowledge that says otherwise, by all means, please share it with the group.
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