The economics of environmentalism

  I met up with a good friend of mine this past weekend at a local dive bar. As the liquor loosened his tongue, he took a moment to complain about the wealthy elites he works for. Or as he put it, "those rich f*cks".  My friend works for a[...]

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Polling and Political Wrap, 9/15/10

While the confetti has long been swept up from the victory parties all over the East Coast (well...Wisconsin excepted), there was actual news and data emanating from other races. Which means that we have a pretty darned full edition of the Wrap for this Wednesday evening.

We have the SurveyUSA buzzkill tour going coast-to-coast, while CNN/Opinion Research looks at several more races. Also, if Virginia is for lovers, New York is apparently for spoilers.

All that (and more!) in the mid-week (AND mid-month) edition of the Wrap...

THE U.S. SENATE

AK-Sen: Murkowski decision expected by end of the week
The "will she or won't she" speculation surrounding deposed Republican incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski is coming to an end at the close of this week. Murkowski will apparently reveal whether or not she will pursue a write-in bid for the Senate this Friday. The odds are long (Ron Packard of California, if memory serves, is the last person sent to Congress via a write-in candidacy back in 1982), and polling from PPP made it an open question as to whether a Murkowski long-shot candidacy would help or hurt Democrat Scott McAdams.

FL-Sen: Another poll confirms Rubio/Meek surge, Crist plummet
If the new Reuters/Ipsos poll in Florida is correct, Charlie Crist is now a good deal closer to getting passed for second place than he is to frontrunning Republican Marco Rubio. The survey shows Rubio at 40% of the vote, with Crist back at 26% of the vote and Democrat Kendrick Meek at 21%. In an interesting twist, Ipsos polled the possibility of a head-to-head Rubio/Crist matchup. That race would be a coinflip, with Rubio up by a single point (46-45). They did not, in an even more interesting twist, pursue a Rubio/Meek trial heat.

NC-Sen: SUSA says long-vulnerable GOP Senator now in a blowout
It is polls like this that have a lot of folks on the left either (a) thinking SurveyUSA has lost it or (b) hiding under the bed, on the chance that SUSA hasn't lost it. The pollster's most recent foray into the Tar Heel State shows that incumbent Republican Richard Burr, long considered somewhat vulnerable, is now up 22 points on Democrat Elaine Marshall (58-36). The margin is a big enough departure from the balance of the polling in the race that, in a somewhat unusual moment, it caught the attention of another pollster, who was somewhat dubious about the results.

NV-Sen: Two pollsters confirm toss up status of Reid-Angle race
Over the past 48 hours, two prominent pollsters have chimed in on the high-profile Nevada Senate tilt between incumbent Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Sharron Angle. CNN/Opinion Research chimed in this afternoon, putting Angle up front by a single point in the race (42-41) with Tea Partyer Scott Ashjian sitting at 5%. The voice of Nevada politics, Jon Ralston, isn't feeling this particular poll. Reuters/Ipsos also weighed in, and they stake Reid to a very slight edge (46-44) over Angle.

NH-Sen: PPP has Ayotte-Hodes closing to just four points
Even before establishment GOPer Kelly Ayotte's razor thin victory over Ovide Lamontagne, her lead over Democratic Senate nominee Paul Hodes had already eroded significantly, according to PPP. The poll, conducted before Tuesday's primaries, gave Ayotte a four-point edge (47-43) over Hodes. Ayotte's favorabilities have taken a beating since the primary season began, a reminder that while primaries are often a good thing for a party's nominee, they can also come at a price, on occasion.

OH-Sen: Pair of pollsters confirm widening Portman edge
No matter which polling poison you pick (CNN/Opinion Research or SurveyUSA), Democrats are bound to feel more than a little queasy about the current outlook for the open-seat Senate race between Democrat Lee Fisher and Republican Rob Portman. The CNN/Opinion Research poll gives Portman a double digit lead over Fisher (52-41), while the crew at SUSA is only slightly less pessimistic for Fisher, giving Portman a 49-40 lead over the Democratic nominee. One thing killing Fisher, at least in the SUSA poll: Portman is getting 25% of the African-American vote (which is already, at 9%, quite a bit less than normal).

WA-Sen: CNN/Opinion Dynamics echoes Elway Poll--Murray up
The bright spot in the mini-dump of CNN/Opinion Dynamics polls today comes from the great Northwest, where incumbent Democrat Patty Murray has moved out to a nine-point lead over Republican Dino Rossi (53-44). This result echoes one earlier this week from the locally-based Elway Poll, which also gave Murray a lead of nine points over Rossi.

THE U.S. HOUSE

CA-19: GOP almost certain to hold open seat, according to SUSA
GOP state legislator Jeff Denham is overwhelmingly likely to follow in the shoes of longtime Republican Rep. George Radanovich. Such is the verdict from SurveyUSA, who says that Denham holds a 63-30 lead over Democratic nominee Loraine Goodwin. Denham also enjoys a huge resources advantage, which is probably why this race is on absolutely no one's target list.

CA-20: Is this Democratic seat about to turn red? SUSA says "Maybe"
Either SUSA is off this year, or the level of suck for Democrats in this cycle is going to reach 1930-esque levels of partisan mass extinction. The latest piece of evidence comes from California's Central Valley, where the pollster sees Democratic incumbent Jim Costa up by only two points over Republican rancher Andy Vidak (48-46). The district is mixed at the presidential level, but has backed Democrats for Congress for decades. Before Costa, the district was represented for nearly two decades by Democrat Cal Dooley. The Hispanic vote is key here--while Latinos make up the majority of the population of the district, SUSA only sees an electorate which is 30% Hispanic in November.

NY-23: Doheny leads, Hoffman refuses to concede
Bill Owens probably owes conservative accountant-turned-teabagger Doug Hoffman a nice steak dinner. In the wake of an apparent narrow victory for Matt Doheny in the GOP primary in the 23rd district, Doug Hoffman is making it clear that he is not interested in conceding any time soon. There are still ballots left to count, but Doheny's lead is wide enough that said ballots will almost certainly not make the difference. Local teabaggers, for what it's worth, seem to be ready to coalesce around Doheny, saying that Hoffman lost because of a lousy campaign run by people from outside of the district.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

CA-Gov: Whitman puts Bloomberg in the rearview, gets tagged as a liar
Meg Whitman has now made history as a political candidate. But Whitman's foray into the record books is at least a little bit nauseating, to be sure. With six weeks still remaining until Election Day, Whitman has now cut checks for an almost inconceivable $119 million to fund her massive air war in California. The gubernatorial candidate just kicked in an additional $15 million to her coffers. Meanwhile, Jerry Brown (fresh off a Bill Clinton endorsement that diffused a pretty sizeable Brown gaffe over the weekend, when he was caught on tape dissing the former president) is out with new advertising where he takes the Republican to task for lying. He broke out the Pinocchio metaphor, which while not breaking new political ground, seemed fairly apt in this case.

CT-Gov: Q poll puts Malloy up nine points in gubernatorial race
Quinnipiac, on the heels of reporting that Republican Linda McMahon is within six points on the Senate side, weighed in on the open-seat gubernatorial race. Democrats still appear to be on track to pick up this state house, with Democrat Dan Malloy leading Republican Tom Foley by a nine-point margin (50-41). On most of the key electoral intangibles (shares values, has the right experience, can bring change), Malloy's numbers are markedly better than Foley's, hinting that Foley's upside might be somewhat limited.

FL-Gov: Reuters/Ipsos poll says Scott up narrowly
One reason for the Crist/Meek campaigns to take some heart about that ugly Senate poll is that the corresponding numbers in the gubernatorial race are...interesting, to say the least. Ipsos/Reuters has Republican health care gazillionaire Rick Scott leading Democrat Alex Sink by two points (47-45). No other pollsters (not even the Fox News/Ras Subsidiary effort earlier in the week) have had Scott doing that well, and most have him down in the mid-single digits.

ME-Gov: Thin-skinned GOP nominee flies off handle, out of presser
Well, if voters in Maine knew little about the Republican nominee for Governor (Paul LePage), they know something now: the dude is touchy as Hell. During a Monday press availability, LePage was peppered with questions about a potential tax evasion issue where his wife had claimed residency (and tax exemptions) in both Maine and Florida. This led him to upbraid a reporter by declaring "let's stop the bullshit." Later, he whined that he learned from the experience that "it's not about fixing the state. It's about destroying people."

NV-Gov: Two polls agree on outcome, which is bad news for Reid
If CNN/Opinion Dynamics and Ipsos/Reuters are right, it is going to be an ugly November for Democratic nominee Rory Reid. The CNN poll puts Republican Brian Sandoval up by a 58-31 margin over Reid. Ipsos/Reuters, painfully, finds Reid in even worse shape, losing by twenty-nine points (60-31). As mentioned earlier, noted Nevada political writer Jon Ralston is becoming quite the critics of Nevada polling, saying it is tilting GOP.

NY-Gov: Lazio looks likely to soldier on, as Con Party nominee
Holy Doug Hoffman! Not that Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo is liable to need the help against Republican Carl Paladino, but it looks like the vanquished GOP candidate in the race (Rick Lazio) is looking forward to November. Lazio won the nod of the Conservative Party last night, and his post-primary speech strongly hinted that he will continue campaigning in that role.

OH-Gov: Incumbent trails in pair of new polls
Incumbent Ted Strickland has been trailing in polls for several months now, a trend confirmed by a pair of polls released today. The CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll was incrementally more gentle to Strickland, putting him down seven points to the GOP nominee, former Congressman John Kasich (51-44). Meanwhile, SurveyUSA is even tougher on the incumbent, with Kasich polling at 52% of the vote and Strickland well behind at just 40% of the vote.

UT-Gov: State pays out eight figures amid Herbert bid scandal
This has the potential of dinging incumbent GOP Governor Gary Herbert to the extent that it could make this once-lost cause a potential race to watch. The state of Utah reached a settlement of nearly $13 million with one of the losing bidders in a billion dollar infrastructure job reconstructing Interstate 15. The losing consortium, Flatiron/Skanska/Zachry, accused the state of giving favorable treatment to the winning firm, Provo River Constructors. As it happens, that firm has donated a total of over $82,000 to the campaign of Governor Herbert, who is being challenged by Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, a Democrat.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA

I will give Rasmussen (a little) credit. They polled a race that has long needed polling--the open-seat battle for Governor in Vermont. Surprisingly, they put the Democrat out front. This is a pretty clear sign, by the way, that the orchestrated unity tour by the five Democratic candidates even as the state recount was being conducted was an inspired move that paid big dividends for Democratic nominee Peter Shumlin.

Aside from that poll, Ras is...well...Ras-like, except perhaps for Colorado, where they have John Hickenlooper pulling away from the Maes-Tancredo train wreck.

CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 46%, Tom Tancredo (I) 25%, Dan Maes (R) 19%
CO-Sen: Ken Buck (R) 49%, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) 45%
FL-Sen: Marco Rubio (R) 41%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%, Kendrick Meek (D) 23%
NV-Sen: Sen. Harry Reid (D) 48%, Sharron Angle (R) 48%
OH-Gov: John Kasich (R) 50%, Gov. Ted Strickland (D) 43%
OH-Sen: Rob Portman (R) 49%, Lee Fisher (D) 41%
PA-Sen: Patrick Toomey (R) 49%, Joe Sestak (D) 41%
VT-Gov: Peter Shumlin (D) 49%, Brian Dubie (R) 46%
VT-Sen: Sen. Pat Leahy (D) 62%, Len Britton (R) 32%

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-Wrap,-9-15-10

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Open Thread

enlargeCredit: Blue Gal

Kindly take this down in your TeaBircher Math Notes: Dick Armey plus The Flying Nun equals Christine O'Donnell.

Open thread below....

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Election Diary Rescue 2010 (9/15 - 48 Days to Go)

   This Rescue Diary covers the period from 6 PM, Tuesday, 9/14 to 6:00 PM EDT, Wednesday, 9/15

Today's Menu Includes :
48 Diaries Overall

- 11 On House races

- Covering 9 individual Districts in 8 states

- 22 On Senate races

- Representing 7 different states

- 9 On Various election races and ballot issues

- Encompassing Governor, Secretary of State, Local, and more

- 7 General election-related diaries

   

And be sure to follow the Election Diary Rescue on Twitter

(Tonight's compilation and more after the jump............)

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-2010-(9-1548-Days-to-Go)

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Late Night: Mosque of the Head Death

Conservative Intellectuals* have something of a problem in regards to the entirely phony Mosque in the General Vicinity of Ground Zero Controversy, namely, that it is transparent ginned-up hate-baiting nonsense that they have to dress up as something [...]

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Limbaugh, Palin, Rove and
wanna-be-senator-who-opposes-masturbation pile on each other

Just me, or is "balls to the wall" not the expression you'd use to defend this woman?

Add Rush Limbaugh to the list of prominent conservatives tearing into Karl Rove's hide today. As Rove continued his tour slamming freshly minted Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell over the considerable number of skeletons in her closet, Rush was almost literally beside himself with frustration at the idea that anyone -- much less The Architect -- would dare violate the 11th Commandment so brazenly.

O'Donnell's nomination has created deep divisions between the Republican Party and right-wing activists. Last night, Rove bashed O'Donnell -- and her chances of being elected -- and insisted that she's said a lot of "nutty things." He was attacked by some right-wingers for those comments. O'Donnell whacked him back in a televised interview this morning. And then Rove responded to O'Donnell and his right-wing critics, daring them to 'prove me wrong'. Then Palin slammed Rove. Now it's Limbaugh's turn.

"If 51 seats was really the objective -- if getting the majority is really that important, then let's go balls to the wall for Christine O'Donnell!" Limbaugh screamed on his radio show today after playing a clip of Rove's already infamous anti-O'Donnell interview on Hannity last night.

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-wanna-be.html

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My Ad for O'Donnell

Does anyone have an email address for her campaign? I really want to submit this ad and help her in any way I can.

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With Buddy Holly

Genre: Buddy HollyTitle: Think It Over
video details and more

The Buddy Holly Story was on last night and I was reminded of how much I love this song. It was recorded around Valentine's day 1958 in Clovis, New Mexico. Vi Petty is credited as the piano player and his solo is as much of a hook as anything else in this track. Likewise, I think this song is as sonically perfect as it can get, and the warmth of the track is something that is missing in today's digital world.

And for more warm music, our sister site Newstalgia has for its mid-week concert offering, Orchestre National de France with Ricardo Muti playing Chabrier, De Falla, Ginastera and Ravel.

Buddy Holly Gold Artist: Buddy Holly Price: $13.19 (As of 09/15/10 08:51 am details)

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CO-Gov: Tancredo will stay on ballot,
Hickenlooper running away with race

To recap the melodrama of the Colorado governor's race:

• In early September, the establishment Republicans try to force Dan Maes out of the race.
• They also try to force Tancredo out, and even sue to get him off the ballot.
• The Tea Party wing of the party says Tancredo has betrayed them and break entirely with him.
• Tancredo and an 83-year old lady, who is also a leading anti-tax crusader in the state attack Maes in a new ad, saying he lied to them.
• Establishment Republicans now unenthusiastically embrace Maes and continue to gripe about Tancredo.

Oh, and yeah, Maes did kind of lie about being a secret agent.

Where we stand today? Tancredo remains on the ballot, after a judge ruled Tuesday that it wasn't the court's role to decide this issue of whether he changed his party affiliation in time to be placed on the ballot.

Meanwhile, Dem John Hickenlooper is sailing along, unscathed by the slow motion implosion of the Republicans in this race. A new Rasmussen poll shows Tancredo leapfrogging Maes, now leading him 25-21. Hickenlooper leads with 46%, a 10 point gain in two weeks, since the previous Ras poll.

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-stay-on-ballot,-Hickenlooper-running-away-with-race

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DADT repeal prospects look good

Via Joe Sudbay, The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld scopes out the votes for next weeks' DADT repeal effort.

Repeal advocates expressed optimism that they would find the necessary votes to send the legislation to the floor.

"We feel fairly confident that we will have the 60 votes to break a filibuster of the National Defense Authorization Act," said Alex Nicholson of the gay veterans group Servicemembers United. "This bill contains important provisions for all troops and important funding provisions for the entire military. It would be hard — and shameless — for lawmakers to hold up this critical bill because of opposition to one or two of its myriad smaller provisions."

Although some Democratic senators, such as Jim Webb of Virginia, might break with their party and support the filibuster, some Republican senators could help compensate for the deficit.

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana has already indicated he would not support a filibuster; Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted for the repeal measure in the Senate Armed Services Committee and is a good candidate to also break with her party. Other GOP senators who might vote to break the filibuster include Olympia Snowe of Maine and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.

Nicholson noted that no Democratic senator has given a strong indication to date that he or she would join a Republican filibuster....

"A lot of the vote estimations really come from pre-recess intelligence," he said, noting that senators just returned to Washington Monday. "I don’t think any organization has gotten a feel for how the August recess has impacted members positions on this issue."

Nicholson added that the decision in the Log Cabin Republican case, which found "don't ask, don't tell" unconstitutional, could also play a role in the mood on Capitol Hill.

Joe notes that Scott Brown has also indicated that he wouldn't support a filibuster, so there's solid reason to hope that this chapter of active discrimination on the part of our government could finally be coming to an end. But, as Joe says, the "best thing to do: Call your Senators. Both of them: 202-224-3121."

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-look-good

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