{"id":6123,"date":"2010-05-17T12:03:22","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T19:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=6123"},"modified":"2010-05-17T12:03:22","modified_gmt":"2010-05-17T19:03:22","slug":"tuesday-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2010\/05\/17\/tuesday-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

PENNSYLVANIA.<\/p>\n

\"Arlen_Specter_2_05-09-2010_60DQ0Q1\"\u00c2\u00a0 God danged if I couldn’t find a single image of the Balls chasing Specter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Ambinder<\/a>:\u00c2\u00a0 Does the White House believe that the money it spent to help elect Arlen Specter <\/strong>was worth it, even if he loses?\u00c2\u00a0 Yes. Joe Biden’s <\/strong>orchestrated party switch helped get health care done. And the DSCC made sure that the money they spent on Specter was raised by Specter for the campaign committee.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is almost a fair enough political calculation.\u00c2\u00a0 But in this guise, I suspect more value would come in the Senatorial process out of an Arlen Specter providing the two Maine Republicans and those bi-partisan Democrats down toward Ben Nelson the bi-partisan cover.\u00c2\u00a0 But then the man would have been toast in a Republican Primary — his only possible escape with the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Given the polling, the trend-lines more than the numbers, his fate will more likely than not be sealed tomorrow.\u00c2\u00a0 I almost have to admire the retail politics message of his campaign, though<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Specter stayed on message at the pub. As he was departing, an aide called out to the crowd of 70 people: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Senator Specter just bought the next round, so hit the bar.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n

Once upon a time, I suggested that Joe Sestak should just re-run Specter’s 2004 Republican Primary ad <\/a>— “3 For Pennsylvania” where he stands next to Senator Santorum with effusive praise coming out of President Bush’s mouth.\u00c2\u00a0 Just replace the “I’m Arlen Specter and I approve this message” with “I’m Joe Sestak and I approve this message”.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps that is just simply not possible — too clever by half — what we have instead is parts of that ad chopped<\/a> and set alongside Specter voicing his party switch as “wanting to be re-elected”.\u00c2\u00a0 A good contrast with Specter’s campaign ad, the Obama Endorsement ad in the same genre as the 2004 Bush Endorsement ad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last night, I briefly turned in the re-cap of Ed Schultz and caught his interview with Specter.\u00c2\u00a0 He laid out his case — “Michael J Fox endorses me!”\u00c2\u00a0 The most bizarre moment, perhaps telling, came at the end.\u00c2\u00a0 Ed Schultz asked, “Do you consider yourself a Liberal?”\u00c2\u00a0 Specter answered, “When I hear a Label I think of bikinis.\u00c2\u00a0 It conceals more than it reveals.”
\nArlen Specter is full of incoherencies such as that.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know what this metaphor means.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly a bikini reveals — but… it conceals the most important parts?\u00c2\u00a0 Is that what the 80 year old 30 year Senate Veteran fighting for the right for a seat in the “Most Exculsive Club” at the age of 86 is telling us?\u00c2\u00a0 In the world of an anti-incumbent electorate, I suggest that against the Republican nominee — I think his name is Grover Norquist — Joe Sestak has the upper hand.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, I will go ahead and state my belief that Sestack will win where Specter will lose in November.<\/p>\n

ARKANSAS<\/p>\n

\"dcmorrison\"<\/p>\n

The interesting candidate in Arkansas is that third wheel, DC Morrison.\u00c2\u00a0 He is largely ignorable — when Blanche Lincoln posits herself as the “Center” who is “Getting it from both sides”, it is against the Republicans to her right and against Bill Halter and his supporters to her left.\u00c2\u00a0 But this candidate is supposed to be poised to keep Blanche Lincoln below an all-important 50 percent thresh-hold, forcing an election run-off between Lincoln and Halter.\u00c2\u00a0 The New York Times gives us this note<\/a>.:<\/p>\n

It may be a measure of the electorate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s angry mood that the Democratic Senate candidate who got the biggest cheer from the steak lovers assembled amid a charcoal haze to worship charred red meat was D. C. Morrison, a former cotton farmer who wants to repeal the new health care law, seal the southern border and abolish income taxes in favor of a consumption tax. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a general distrust of Washington,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mr. Morrison explained with a touch of down-home understatement.<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t know if this can really be called a “sign of the times”, angry or otherwise.\u00c2\u00a0 Arkansas is the last redoubt of the old “Solid South”.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever I hear that some state legislator said something insane, I tend to think it’s a Republican unless I hear it came from Arkansas.\u00c2\u00a0 Consult the map for more explanations<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Arkansas is the biggest source for the intersecting point of the PUMA – Birther axis (and yes, the two items are related — incoherent definitions of “left” and “right” notwithstanding<\/a>).\u00c2\u00a0 I guess this is worth a ten point Tea Party Right-Wing Populist dump.\u00c2\u00a0 Orval Faubus (the early favorite of the early Godwater for President backers<\/a>) once mounted a primary campaign against Governor Bill Clinton — picking up 33.5 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n

I have no illusions with Arkansas.\u00c2\u00a0 John Boozman is the next Senator from Arkansas, this Democratic Primary becomes a strange battle to see who will lose to the Republican.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can make the case that either candidate has the better shot — go for it.\u00c2\u00a0 In that game, I really don’t know.<\/p>\n

KENTUCKY
\nLike Ron Paul with everything I like about Ron Paul chopped off, we have Rand Paul and the Fifth Circle of Hell.<\/p>\n

\"randpaulwithnopants\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The political genius of Paul is his ability <\/a>to cultivate a narrative that speaks to all strains of the Tea Party movement at once. After all, the libertarian purists who loved Ron Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dissident truth-telling are not natural allies of the Limbaugh Dittoheads who dismissed him as an eccentric. He sings his libertarianism in the key of Glenn Beck<\/em><\/p>\n

It is a testamanet to the star power of Ron Paul and the story this election provides with the stirrings in the Republican Party that I can’t quite give you the probable Democratic nominee.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Jack Conway and Daniel Mongiardo.<\/p>\n

The conventional wisdom runs along the lines of: This is Kentucky, it’s an anti-incumbent year, Rand Paul is nothing if not an anti-incumbent, he has a committed activist core, it’s a Republican Year, Rand Paul will win in November.\u00c2\u00a0 One need only look at the Nate Silver 538 chart in the top left corner<\/a> for this argument at work.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I see the sentence\u00c2\u00a0peppered in all media write-ups of this election, equivalent ot how I assessed Arkansas.\u00c2\u00a0 I have to say — I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 I suspect this is a wrong calculus.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t claim to have the pulse of Kentucky with me, and we’re all swirling around in the nuts, but read Rand Paul’s prediction of the US going the way of Greece, with its attendant street violence, and I just have to wonder if a swarth of Kentucky voters are going to end up seeing Rand Paul a bridge too far.<\/p>\n

HAWAII<\/p>\n

\"HI_district_1-108th\"<\/p>\n

Has there ever been a Congressional Special Election whose outcome was more meaningless?\u00c2\u00a0 Divided between two main candidates, the Democratic Candidate is poised to lose to a more united Republican candidate.\u00c2\u00a0 Who will all but surely go on to lose the\u00c2\u00a0general election in Novmeber to whoever emerges as the Democratic favorite.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing is revealed in this election, and “Vote Anyway<\/a>” — for “clues” and “hints” you have to turn to the Pennsylvania Special Election to replace John Murtha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PENNSYLVANIA. \u00c2\u00a0 God danged if I couldn’t find a single image of the Balls chasing Specter. Mark Ambinder:\u00c2\u00a0 Does the White House believe that the money it spent to help elect Arlen Specter was worth it, even if he loses?\u00c2\u00a0 Yes. Joe Biden’s orchestrated party switch helped get health care done. And the DSCC made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6128,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6123\/revisions\/6128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}