In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland’s numbers are ticking up a bit.
Quinnipiac tells us:
Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland leads Republican challenger John Kasich in the race to be Ohio’s next governor, 44 – 39 percent, up from a 40 – 40 deadlock November 11, and has improved his standing slightly, but consistently, on a broad array of measures, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
And Ohio voters ought to be grateful for Strickland’s exceptional performance; Ohio’s unemployment rate is down to only 10.9 percent! That’s way better than the 11.2 percent level of June!
Quinnipiac also tells us:
Despite the uptick for the Democratic Governor, President Barack Obama gets a negative 44 – 52 percent approval rating in Ohio, the ultimate Electoral College swing state, his biggest negative in any state or national survey by the independent Quinnipiac University since his inauguration.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey also indicates that nearly half the public, 48 percent, would like federal lawmakers to start work on an entirely new bill, and 21 percent feel Congress should stop working on any bills that would change the country’s health care system.
Fox News/Opinion Dynamics: 23 percent “pass current bill,” 47 percent “start over,” 23 percent “do nothing.”
The American public wants Congress to start the health care debate over from scratch – just as Republicans have been pushing – amid growing talk among Democrats about the need to use a procedural end run to ram through a revised overhaul bill. A Zogby International poll released Tuesday shows that 57 percent of Americans do not like either of the competing health care bills produced by the Senate and House and say Congress should start over, as a group of bipartisan lawmakers head to a health care summit with President Obama next week.
I’ve heard a bit of discussion about how the presence of a separate third-party, Tea Party candidate on the ballot helps the reelection prospects of Sen. Harry Reid, the glum and pallid Democrat of Nevada who speaks with no discernible [insert ethnic joke here] dialect. But my reaction to the Public Opinion Strategies poll is the opposite: Even with a Tea Party candidate taking 9 to 11 percent against the top two GOP candidates, Reid still loses to Sue Lowden or Jerry Danny* Tarkanian? (Admittedly, it is much closer, but Reid still finishes with 37 to 39 percent.)
This shouldn’t be that controversial a prediction: If Harry Reid gets 39 percent or less on Election Day, he’s toast. There’s no way a third-party candidate gets 22 percent in Nevada.
Of course, there are those who suspect the Tea Party of Nevada candidate is a false-flag operation designed to divide the conservative vote.
* UPDATE: Clearly, my subconscious yearns for a senator who chews on a towel during a tense, close-fought vote…
You win a couple of races, and suddenly everybody loves you again:
The Republican Governors Association announced that it has raised a record $13.5 million in conjunction with its Annual Gala being held today. At the same time last year, the RGA had raised $10.2 million, on its way to raising $30 million for the year. The RGA entered 2010 with $25 million cash-on-hand.
I’ve spent the last couple of days talking to some of the brightest Democrats in the party that are not in the White House. And it’s very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don’t lose the House. It’s very hard. Are the seats there right this second? No. But we’re on a trajectory on the House turning over . . . .
Since the 2008 election ended, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels has stood out as one of the more intriguing names among 2012 GOP presidential contenders. He’s now saying he’s open to the idea of running for president, although he doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic.
Any governor who can generate surpluses and avoid tax hikes while many other states look like economic basket cases deserves a long look. A quick summary of his economic management from Barron’s:
Daniels is a man of deep thought and bold action. His state has one of the strongest balance sheets in the country, largely because of his stewardship. Most states have huge deficits; Indiana has none. Daniels eradicated a $1 billion shortfall, beginning in 2005 and built up an even bigger rainy-day fund — $1.3 billion. He pared government spending, sold a toll road to private investors at an enormous profit, and attracted new business to the state. Revenues are off steeply, so he will use $300 million of the surplus in fiscal 2010 so that taxes won’t rise in a recession. Revenues, which are below 2007 levels, aren’t expected to recover soon. The rainy-day fund will last through June 30, 2011. The economy should be growing by then.
I can hear the cries now: “He’s boring!” Yes, but I think by 2012, boring might look pretty appealing, and the ability to get tens of thousands to chant “Yes, we can” in unison will be a declining asset.
President Obama, at the 2010 Governors’ Ball last night:
We took some swift and decisive action, and because of that swift and decisive action, not only were folks in your states able to get unemployment insurance and get COBRA at a much cheaper rate, not only were you able to fill some of those budget holes that I know are still tough and I suspect we’ll be talking about tomorrow, but we also started to begin entire new industries and start moving towards a extraordinary future through some of the infrastructure projects and research and development, clean energy projects that are — so many of you have been leaders of.
If you think about it — I was in Newton, Iowa, seeing a plant that had been closed, now reopened building wind turbines.
He is referring to a visit to Newton, Iowa, in April of 2009.
Iowa’s unemployment rate in April 2009: 5.1 percent. Iowa’s unemployment rate in December, the most recent month for which state statistics are available: 6.6 percent.
Newton, Iowa’s unemployment rate in April: 7 percent. Newton, Iowa’s unemployment rate in December, the most recent month for which state statistics are available: 9.1 percent, according to Iowa Workforce Development, a state-run employment agency.
It’s nice that the plant is reopened, but it’s not much considering the overall deterioration of the economy in the latter half of last year . . .
Former congressman Jim Traficant, he of the dead-squirrel haircut, “Beam me up” slogan, and occasional felony, will not be returning to Congress — at least not as a Democrat, because he missed the filing deadline. He could still run as an independent; the deadline for that category is May 3.
In Ohio, the filing deadline for federal office passed on February 19.
According to GreenPapers.com, no Democrat filed against half of the Republicans currently representing Ohio in the House: Mike Turner in the Third District, Jim Jordan in the Fourth District, Bob Latta in the Fifth District, and Steve Austria in the Seventh District.
Nine of the ten House Democrats from Ohio will face a Republican opponent, except for Marcia Fudge in the Eleventh District.
UPDATE: In 2008, Obama carried Fudge’s district with 85 percent of the vote; it’s rated an astounding D+32 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index.
By contrast, the four uncontested GOP-held districts are ones where the incumbent will have an advantage, but not an overwhelming one: McCain carried Turner’s district with only 52 percent of the vote and it’s rated only R+5 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. McCain’s vote in the other three: 60 percent in Jordan’s, 53 percent in Latta’s, 54 percent in Austria’s. They’re rated R+15, R+9, and R+7, respectively.
ANOTHER UPDATE: This article mentions Dr. Mark MacNealy of Vandalia as a Democrat running against Turner. He’s not listed on the Ohio Secretary of State’s site yet, but perhaps they haven’t updated…
In nine Democratic [House] districts, with or without an incumbent, there are at least three or more Republicans seeking the office, with at least six each in two districts represented by freshman Democrats – Virginia’s Second (Virginia Beach) and Fifth (Charlottesville, etc.). Moreover, in South Carolina’s Fourth District (Greenville, etc.), where US Rep. Bob Inglis (R) is perceived by many conservatives as too moderate, there are five GOPers running against him in the primary; Greenville is a center of TEA Party activity. Indeed, while hard numbers are not available, many of the Republican candidates across the South have been motivated by the conservative TEA Party movement. Many of these inspired contenders are political neophytes, but according to the Fourth Quarter financial reports, most have been able to raise – if not a pot full – at least a fistful of dollars.
On the Democratic side, there is only one district primary with a large multi-candidate field, Florida 17 (Miami), a solidly Democratic district that US Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) is vacating to run for the Senate. Seven Democrats are vying to succeed him. There are no Republican districts with a large number of Democratic contenders.
Worth noting that sometimes a crowded primary can work well, helping the party’s nominee get in fighting shape for the general election, and sometimes it doesn’t work out so well, draining valuable resources. Also note that when you have a crowded primary, sometimes it’s easier for some little-known candidate to squeak through and win with only 25 to 35 percent of the vote.
This morning Rasmussen informs us that Marco Rubio is desperately clinging to an 18-percentage-point lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida’s GOP Senate primary.
The Fabrizio poll gave Rubio a 14-percentage-point margin not too long ago. Crist has not led since November.
I could be completely wrong, but Charlie Crist has led a fairly charmed political life; he hasn’t lost a race since a relatively long-shot bid to unseat Sen. Bob Graham in 1998, and even that losing race did Crist some good, building up his name recognition statewide. No man enjoys a humiliating defeat, but one wonders if Crist really wants to go through the motions of this campaign, if it’s just going to end with a once-little-known state legislator winning handily.
Ironically, the best communicator in the history of political campaigning turned out in his first year in office to not communicate very well. They let the Republicans take the spin right from the beginning. The stimulus got beat up before one dollar was spent. What I would have done, and I’ve been in charge of the president, is I would have had him Tuesday night — not Tuesday night was the inaugural ball. Wednesday night I would have had him make a speech to the nation, break down what stimulus because a lot of the stimulus, it wasn’t job creation, but was safety net.
Fast Eddie’s on to something here. Maybe Obama should try giving a speech or two; he only gave 411 in his first year.
Then-candidate Obama, back in May of 2008: “Right now, we don’t have enough troops, and NATO hasn’t provided enough troops because they are still angry about us going into Iraq. “
A day after his government collapsed, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Sunday that he expected Dutch troops to come home from Afghanistan before the end of the year.
A last-ditch effort by Mr. Balkenende to keep Dutch soldiers in the dangerous southern Afghan province of Oruzgan instead saw the Labor Party quit the government in the Netherlands early Saturday, immediately raising fears that the Western military coalition fighting the war was increasingly at risk.
Even as the allied offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja continued, it appeared almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war’s critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well.
“The moment the Netherlands says as sole and first country we will no longer have activities at the end of 2010, it will raise questions in other countries and this really pains me,” Mr. Balkenende told the Dutch television program “Buitenhof” in an interview on Sunday, according to Reuters.
The collapse of the Dutch government comes as the Obama administration continues to struggle to get European allies to commit more troops to Afghanistan to bolster its attempts to win back the country from a resurgent Taliban.
So here’s a country with about 2,000 troops in Afghanistan. Iraq is calmer, our troops are gradually leaving that country, we’ve elected a president who opposed the war, and who spent two years pledging to carefully listen to allies. And now, they’re not only not sending reinforcements, they’re preparing to quit entirely. In retrospect, our NATO allies’ disinclination to send more troops to Afghanistan for much of the past decade had very little to do with Iraq or George W. Bush, and a whole lot to do with their own populaces’ de facto pacifism and isolationism. The Dutch people aren’t convinced that this is their fight.
Obama never understood what really drove our allies’ decisions, and now he’s learning that he can’t influence them after all. Hard to pin this one on Bush, but I’m sure the administration will try.
All is well, for anyone who didn’t see the news. I think I’ve gotten about 500 messages of congratulations or best wishes from readers, so a heartfelt thank you to all of you; moments like this remind me that I write for an exceptional and special audience.
I told the NR Powers That Be I would be back in another week, but the world of news keeps catching my eye, and so I’ll probably sporadically post and Tweet here and there for the next week before getting things back to full speed. Among the bits of news today, Rep. Brad Ellsworth, Indiana Democrat, is running for the seat that Sen. Evan Bayh is leaving.
Rep. Brad Ellsworth represents an Evansville-based district that McCain carried 51 percent to 47 percent and Bush carried 62 percent to 38 percent. Five Republicans are competing for the chance to take on Ellsworth: medical doctor Larry D. Bucshon, Billy Joseph Mahoney, Sunday-school teacher and volunteer Kristi Risk, businessman John K. Snyder, and motorcycle enthusiast Daniel Duane “Dan” Stockton. There are no Democrats running against Ellsworth in the primary.
Also I see the sad news that Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, has been diagnosed with stomach cancer; on a bright note, his doctors are predicting a full recovery.
On Tuesday, after word that the 86-year-old Lautenberg had been hospitalized after a fall, I observed:
If ill health required him to step down, his replacement would be named by Republican governor Chris Christie, and the law authorizes the governor to call for a special election, in which case there is no schedule specified. Otherwise, the vacancy is filled at first or second succeeding general election, depending on when it occurs. In other words, Christie’s presumably Republican appointee would serve until November, be it this year or next. If that seat were to open up, it would probably set off a free-for-all on both sides of the aisle, with Rep. Rob Andrews, Rep. Frank Pallone, and Newark mayor Cory Booker likely to be mentioned on the Democrat side and almost any Republican in the state aiming to be Christie’s interim pick.
President Obama announced $8 billion in loan guarantees Tuesday to build a new nuclear power plant in Georgia, part of the White House push for new jobs from clean-energy technology.
Speaking after touring a Maryland training facility for energy jobs, Obama said the move is just the beginning of his administration’s efforts to increase the use of nuclear power.
. . . but another Obama statement on the campaign trail has expired:
“I am not a nuclear energy proponent.” Barack Obama, December 30, 2007.
When it comes to investing in economic pessimism, I’m buying like Jim Cramer on a double espresso. I suspect employers are seeing low demand to begin with and are terrified of Congress enacting new health care fees, new energy costs from cap and trade, and/or tax hikes. Even if the GOP takes back the House, there’s still the chance of horrific profit-devouring, competitiveness-crushing policy changes coming through the regulatory process. I don’t see anything resembling good hiring months until 2011, and I suspect businesses won’t start breathing easy about the cost of new hires until one particular American loses his job on January 20, 2013.
That prompted a reader to write in:
I attended a luncheon at the Federal Reserve Branch in Houston where one of the speakers was the economist for the Federal Reserve – El Paso branch.
His presentation mainly concerned Houston and how the city was positioned given the current economic doldrums (thankfully he was optimistic that the city would emerge from recession earlier than the rest of the country); however a main portion of the presentation involved his expectations for a very depressed hiring market for the next 2-3 years, meaning unemployment would remain stubbornly high in the rest of the country.
During the Q&A session, I felt compelled to ask the obvious question: Did he believe that the healthcare reform and related tax proposals, the proposed cap and trade legislation and the consequent increase in energy costs, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the agitation for higher taxes on the wealthy, the proposal to increase corporate tax rates, the proposal to increase capital gains taxes, the trial floating of ideas such as a national VAT and removal of the earnings cap on FICA, the more robust regulatory bureaucracy . . . did he believe any of these uncertainties were depressing hiring?
He stated yes, without a doubt and proceeded to relay a conversation he had with a local chemical company regarding their 2010 capital expenditure budget. When asked what the company intended to invest in 2010, the response was ‘nothing,’ not due to a paucity of good opportunities, but because it was impossible for the company to calculate a rate of return given all the uncertainty over cost of labor, energy prices, regulatory mandates and the like.
It’s obvious to me that the Obama administration has no grasp on what their ‘flavor of the day’ tax and regulatory proposals do to business decision making, but perhaps I can summarize for them:
“No investment means no hiring and no new tax revenues. It’s the uncertainty, stupid.”
6. Do you think Barack Obama deserves to be reelected, or not? Feb. 12-15, 2010 All Americans/ Registered Voters Yes, deserves reelection 44% / 44% No, does not deserve reelection 52% / 52% No opinion 4% / 4%
Here’s a fascinating bit from the same poll:
Now I’d like you to describe Barack Obama as a person using those same classifications. Think about Obama’s personal experiences before he became president and his overall outlook on life rather than the lifestyle that all presidents have while they are in the White House. Thinking about the kind of person you believe Obama is, which would you say he belongs in — the upper class, the middle class, or the working class?
Feb. 12-15 2010 Upper class 45% Middle class 42% Working class 12% No opinion 2%
I’m sure Obama and his supporters are recoiling from this in disbelief. Obama’s father split when he was born; he lived in some not-so-glamorous circumstances overseas; he was effectively abandoned by both parents before he was a teenager. He goes on and on about the student loans he had to pay off, and his credit card was getting rejected as recently as 2000.
On the other hand, he went to an elite private school in Hawaii; attended Columbia and Harvard, became a lawyer and a law-school lecturer, and was elected into state government at age 35.
I don’t know if restaurant-industry veteran Craig S. Miller is the best Republican to take on Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, who represents the Orlando, Fla,. area in the House of Representatives. But I do know that when it comes to steak, I trust the former president, chief executive, and chairman of Ruth’s Chris Steak House. (You can watch me spill a glass into Mar Hemingway’s lap at the Denver Ruth’s Chris here.)
The DCCC argues that because Miller opposed a federal blood-alcohol level, he “supports drunk driving.” (Boy, desperation must flow through the drinking water over there, huh?)
Of all the Democrats running this year, I figured Jerry Brown had some of the biggest advantages. He’s a Democrat in California, where 44.4 percent of the state’s voters are registered Democrats, and only 31.4 percent are Republicans. He has no real primary, as both top rivals, Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa, dropped out early, and a lot of California Democrats are eager to win their state’s governorship back. Finally, while we may laugh at him as “Governor Moonbeam” or his use of a 1-800 number in his 1992 presidential campaign, he’s the definition of a known quantity to California voters, having served as secretary of state, two terms as governor, state Democratic party chairman, mayor of Oakland, and state attorney general.
Brown continues to maintain a double-digit lead – 46% to 34% – over the other leading Republican in the contest, state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner; no word on whether the FBI has been contacted about this yet.
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