Around the bin with various Senate Contests

California:  Sans Sarah Palin, Carly Fiorina brought in the big guns of John McCain.  And

“Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today.  I know that because I’ve had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her.  This is not a senator who is a friend of America’s heroes and it is something we must hold her accountable for on November 2nd.”

That’s just how the man who most epitomizes the form the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, a place where Cordiality Reigns Supreme, rolls.

FLORIDA:  Sarah Palin was not in California.  She was in Florida, though.  The race is over — always needed either Crist or Meek to collapse their campaign to have any sort of chance against Rubio.  Who knows if Palin would be in Florida if it weren’t over?

Washington:  Dino Rossi, in his debate with Patty Murray, had some of that rhetoric that has you running for the Hills.  Ever mindful of finding a soundbyte, we get a version of the “the next generation will live in tyranny and will have to look up the word ‘freedom’ in the dictionary.”

America is in trouble  If we don’t have a course correction in this election we’re going to wake up 24 months from now in a country we don’t even recognize.”
Let the future History books of a future civilization, what the USA is to the Ancient Greeks, show that the electorate for the State of Washington, by rejecting Dino Rossi for a third time, played the instrumental role in bringing about a new Dark Ages.  Those are the stakes, Washington State.

ALASKA:   Joe Miller versus Scott McAdams is a face off between Beards and Mustaches.
Also, everyone wants to tug at the coat-tails of the late Ted Stevens.
Nate Silver and 538, who had once discounted the possibility of a McAdams victory, is now very much hedging.  So it goes…
The news last night that Mr. Miller’s security detail had handcuffed and detained a reporter, Tony Hopfinger, after a town-hall-style meeting held by Mr. Miller is unlikely to reverse those trends, and may accelerate them. (A statement by Mr. Miller defended the actions, characterizing the reporter as “potentially violent.”)
This race is something of a wild card.  I’d be little surprised with just about any outcome.
I am kind of afraid of looking around and seeing how people are reacting to to the Security Handcuffing, as it will correlate almost exactly to their partisan predelictions regarding Joe Miller.

DELAWARE:  Such as it goes with Christine O’Donnell, and the fire breathing Conservative Talk Radio hosts, who give O’Donnell — and her debate performance — more leeway than they could dream of giving any Democrat.  Leaving aside the wholly legitimate question of what Recent Supreme Court Decisions you disagree with — and the curious reply “Can you give me an example?” to “I’ll put it on my website” — shades of the exact same thing in Katie Couric’s questioning of Sarah Palin. 
I looked on her website.  Maybe it’s there, beyond the front page “Donate Now to get her in the Lameduck Session” page that features Obama, Pelosi, and Reid saying presumably stupid things, but  I don’t see it.  I do see a Fred Barnes Weekly Standard article that trumpets that O’Donnell is getting a lot of media attention and Chris Coons isn’t — for what that’s worth.
The other high point of the debate was… the discussion of “bearded Marxists”.

 So then I would be remiss not to bring up the fact that my opponent has recently said that it was studying under a Marxist professor that made him become a Democrat. So when you look at his position on things like raising taxes, which is one of the tenets of Marxism; not supporting eliminating death tax, which is a tenet of Marxism — I would argue that there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist beliefs, and I’m using his own words.
BLITZER: Because a lot of people remember, because they’ve learned in last few weeks you did once describe yourself when you were in college a long time ago as a bearded Marxist.
COONS: Great question, Wolf. I hope folks will go and read the article.
It’s an article that I wrote as a senior the day of our commencement speech and the title and the content of that clearly makes it obvious that it was a joke. There was a group of folks who I had shared a room with, my roommates junior year, who are in the Young Republican Club and who thought when I returned from Kenya and registered as a Democrat that doing so was proof that I had gone all the way over to the far left end, and so they jokingly called me a bearded Marxist. If you take five minutes and read the article, it’s clear on the face of it, it was a joke. Despite that, my opponent and lots of folks in the right wing media have endlessly spun this. I am not now, nor have I ever been, anything but a clean-shaven capitalist.
O’DONNELL: Well, I would — I would stand to disagree because, first of all, if you’re saying what I said on a comedy show is relevant to this election, then absolutely you writing an article, forget the bearded Marxist comment, you writing an article saying that you learned your beliefs from an articulate, intelligent Marxist professor and that’s what made you become a Democrat, that should send chills up the spine of every Delaware voter because then if you compare that statement to your policies —
COONS: If it were accurate, if it were true, I’d agree. But it’s not accurate. It’s not true.
O’DONNELL: You said that on MSNBC just a few weeks ago. You said that on MSNBC.

Anyway, Christine O’donnell… is you, America.  Think about that for a moment.

KENTUCKY:  Truth be told, if I were in West Virginia — where the Democratic Senate candidate has surged ahead in the polls in part off of taking a conservative policy stance — or Kentucky, I may just chunk it all and base an affirmative vote off the baseline of … “Coal Miner Safety.  What of it?”  What other policy decisions will the Senators from these states have leverage over?
Jack Conway is running with the Chilian miners.  No word on whether those 33 miners actually endorsed him.
Note the heavily bearded miner in that ad… as against the supposed hicks in the West Virginian Republican candidate’s ad.
In other Political Ad news… Jack Conway brings up the “Aqua Buddha” controversy“– and apparently the major part of that scandal is how it leads to his opposition to “Faith Based Initiatives”.  And kill me.
So we’re one for one in the contest and what Conway insists on bringing up.  The third issue Conways drudges up in his ads — relating to the drug war — is a bit of a draw… the drug is Meth, not Marijuana.

Oklahoma:  I cannot find any information online about Democratic challenger Jim Rogers.  Maybe he’ll have something in the Voter’s Pamphlet?

Colorado:  I’ve been through this before.
I want to be on the side of Ken Buck’s “restatement”.
Buck spokesman Owen Loftus was quick to clarify that Buck did not mean to imply that homosexuality was akin to a disease. Rather “[Buck] was just saying there’s an element of predisposition there and an element of choice.”
But, of course, I’m lost with him because any statement that suggests such a thing tends to be said by people who say it’s akin to a disease.
Bennet wasted little time in declaring Buck’s views to be “outside the mainstream.”
Have we gone around the bend to where the nature of these wedge issues have flip flopped on who gets to use them?  Maybe the supposed “fiscal” strut of the “Tea Party” has allowed that to happen?

NEVADA:  The most bizarre political fact check ever.
“So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that. [Note: it’s the Hispanic Student Union. The whole room is Hispanic teenagers.] What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I’m evidence of that. I’ve been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly.”
I know that people once called Clinton the first black President, and though I can’t imagine the reason he’d ever trout that out for political effect — I guess if he ever said it and anyone fact-checked it, they’d rate it as a “yes”.  In the case of Sharron Angle — Sharron Angle needs to show some proof of someone, somewhere — anywhere — calling her Asian.

In other suggestions made by Sharron Angle:
ABC News’ Huma Khan reports: Sharron Angle’s campaign today attempted to downplay her recent comments suggesting that sharia law is taking hold in Dearborn, Michigan and Frankford, Texas.
A double fact check on this one.  Sharia Law has not been imposed in Dearborn, Michigan.  And there is a bit transcendental regarding its state of existence.

Wisconsin:  A pretty strange way to look at Russ Feingold’s political troubles, but I’m a firm believer that geography and maps tell the story.

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