Remember way back in 2003 — when almost no one had heard of Barack Obama! — the Los Angeles Times poll one month out from Election Day had Democrat Cruz Bustamante beating Arnold Schwarzenegger in the special election, 30 percent to 25 percent. The Times wrote quite a few pieces slamming Arnie, and there was a sense that the newspaper was hell-bent on keeping him out of office. Schwarzenegger went on to win by a wide margin, 48.6 percent to Bustamante’s 31 percent.

Fast forward to today: Republican Meg Whitman actually leads Democrat Jerry Brown, 44 percent to 41 percent. These results are in line with the PPIC poll and the Field poll, and it’s rather tough to argue that Californians need to get to know Brown better.

A jaw-dropping statement from one of the members of Pelosi’s Suicide Squad, Betsy Markey of Colorado:

Markey, 53, said she does not think the vote [for health care] puts her in any greater jeopardy and said the issue could fade by November.

I’m tempted to unleash a John McEnroe-esque “You can not be serious!” tantrum.

Here’s what a survey of 400 likely voters conducted March 16 by Pulse Opinion Research found:

1) Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly
oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional
Democrats?
23% Strongly favor
13% Somewhat favor
11% Somewhat oppose
52% Strongly oppose
2% Not sure

Markey is likely to face one of two excellent Republicans: state representative Cory Gardner or state Board of Regents chair Tom Lucero.

Roy Blunt, the Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri, lives up to his surname:

For all of those eternal optimists on the Democratic side, notice that Blunt is running general-election ads that hit the stimulus, hit health care, and hit Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama.

Over at Ace of Spades, they note that the jobs report from late last week wasn’t as good as the headlines might suggest:

About 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in March, compared with 2.1 million a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were [presto changeo!] not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. [pull rabbit out of hat!]They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.0 million discouraged workers in March, up by 309,000 from a year earlier.

Two months ago, back when only 929,000 Americans were classified as “discouraged workers”, I did a demonstration with little plastic figures on how the number of people with jobs can go down while the unemployment rate declines or stays the same:

This morning, the Washington Post and the administration are finally talking about this hidden factor:

Those described as discouraged — who are available and want to work but have stopped looking for jobs — can affect the data significantly because of how the government calculates the jobless rate. They are considered part of the labor force and are counted in the official unemployment rate only if they are looking for work. So dropping out can deflate the rate, and resuming a search can inflate it.

Two minutes before air, I became genetically incapable of straightening my tie; every time I touched it, it got worse, and if I fiddled with it any further, it would be sideways. But otherwise, my appearance on Hannity Friday night, with a guest host quite familiar to this site, went rather well:

Peter Andrew is keeping a similar list, including what various Obama officials and supporters say, and he’s up to a mere 1,330.

Six years ago, John Thune pulled off an enormous upset, knocking off Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Today, he’s unbeatable. No, really.

South Dakota Democrats have failed to find a candidate to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. John Thune.

Democratic Party officials had acknowledged earlier they might not find anyone to run against Thune, a popular politician who is seeking a second term in the Senate. The lack of a Democratic candidate became official Thursday when election officials posted the final list of candidates who submitted nominating petitions to run for statewide offices and the Legislature in the June primary.

State Senate Minority Leader Scott Heidepriem of Sioux Falls, the Democratic candidate for governor, said the party decided not to field a candidate in a futile race against Thune.

“We just concluded that John Thune is an extremely popular senator who is going to win another term in the Senate,” Heidepriem said.

Obviously, Thune doesn’t need it, but it’s rather awesome to have the opposing party’s candidate for governor calling you “extremely popular.”

Thune’s story is a nice omen for whichever Republican will take on Harry Reid . . .

UPDATE: So much for the top of the ticket helping out Democrat Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin in the state’s House race.

I’m out of D.C., but the more-lengthy-than-usual Morning Jolt continues. A taste of today:

The ‘Live Free or Die’ License Plates Might Have Been Your First Clue

Hey, go figure, those flinty New Hampshire voters aren’t warming up to the health care bill like the Democratic pundits predicted: “If the experience of this state’s two Democratic House members is any indication, the raw emotion and mistrust emanating from last summer’s congressional town halls never really went away. Instead, the unrest simmered over the ensuing months only to return to a boil when Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and Rep. Paul Hodes, who is running for U.S. Senate, returned home to meet with their constituents here during the first week of the Easter recess. Their public events provided a bracing reminder to Democrats that the political pivot from health care to economic and financial issues is going to be much more arduous than they expected.”

One of my friends once described a New Hampshire town hall was a bunch of big guys in plaid shirts with three days’ growth, all wanting to hear that they weren’t going to get taxed. Yes, there’s some spillover from Massachusetts – you know, that state that used to elect Democrats – but this state isn’t Vermont and never has been. Nobody goes to New Hampshire because they want to replicate the experience of living in New York or Boston or with heavy influence from Washington. They go up to those small towns with cold winters because they want everybody else to get out of their faces. Accordingly, the local sentiment is often quasi-isolationist and so Hodes and Shea-Porter were able to harness anti-Iraq-War sentiment to toss out some Republicans in 2006, and as usual pretended to be something besides useless Pelosi-bots when asking for the job three and a half years back. Well, no hiding now, Carol and Paul.

Happy Good Friday. After a mere thirteen and a half hours on the road yesterday, I had to double-check to make sure I hadn’t missed it.

A brief excerpt from today’s slightly-less-lengthy-than-usual Morning Jolt:

CBS: “President Obama hit the basketball court and talked politics with CBS “Early Show” co-anchor Harry Smith this morning. Smith asked Mr. Obama, who is left-handed, if he can ever go to his right. “I can go to my right, but I prefer my left,” the president says.”

You also spend a lot of time traveling, Mr. President.

Tonight, live from Savannah, Georgia, I’m slated to be on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” discussing the list of Obama’s expired statements, pledges, and campaign promises. With Hannity out to presumably get an early start on the Easter weekend, the guest host, I’m informed, is Rich Lowry. I’m familiar with him.

Over on the home page, a look at the options in Hawaii’s special House election, and the Republican who hopes to win it, Charles Djou.

I wish this was an April Fool’s Day joke, but it isn’t: I’ll be on the road with two small children for about nine hours or so today. Based on past experience, really surprising news — like governors getting arrested – tends to occur when I am away from the computer for long stretches, so be alert.

A brief excerpt from Thursday morning’s lengthy Morning Jolt:

If you think there’s been a lot of outrageous news coming from the administration lately, imagine what they’ll try to slip in on April Fool’s Day.

I Guess After the Cornhusker Kickback, Obama Can’t Reject Oily Deals Anymore

After you’ve signed a bill that opens the door to taxpayer funding of abortion, I suppose I was prepared for “Drill babies, drill.” But no, Obama threw us a bone – a small chicken wing, really – after enacting the biggest and most far-reaching policy victory for liberals since the Great Society and/or establishing that lying under oath is not an impeachable offense if the Dow Jones Industrial Average is high enough. “The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling.” . . .

We ought to be able to say, “ah, a centrist move from a president we didn’t prefer, how refreshing.” But after the Obamaniacs won the health care vote through kickbacks, reconciliation, a flirtation with Demonpass, and ultimately persuading enough House Democrats to commit career suicide over it, the trust is gone. He might as well have announced this proposal while riding a giant wooden horse at a rally at Troy University.

In PPP’s latest, no Republican running for governor of Alabama gets less than 38 percent; no Democrat running for governor gets more than 37 percent.

As far as Democrats go, Artur Davis is somewhat moderate — he returned from the gubernatorial campaign trail to vote against the health-care bill — but he’s still trailing every GOP opponent by at least 6 percentage points; his favorable/unfavorable split is a 20/35.

I had wondered about that Quinnipiac poll showing a “mini-surge” for Democrats in Ohio.

Now Jon Keeling notes that today’s sample was 24 percent Republican, 33* percent Democrat, and 33 percent independent or no party, and the remaining 9 percent were other or refused to answer.

In February, Quinnipiac had it at 27 percent Republican, 30 percent Democrat, and 37 percent independent, and 4 percent other or refused to answer.

That 33/24 split among Democrats and Republicans really stands out, as the 2008 exit poll put the split in Ohio at 39 percent Democrat, 31 percent Republican. In other words, does Quinnipiac really think that the makeup of the electorate will be better for Democrats on Election Day 2010 than it was in 2008?

UPDATE: I was originally informed this was 34, not 33.

I have a minor quibble with the usually excellent Drew M. over at Ace of Spades. If a Republican candidate is a bit iffy on using the word “repeal” in dealing with the health-care bill, I’m not going to get too upset about it.

I suspect that the health-care bill will end up achieving very little in terms of its stated goals and will have far-reaching and intensely deleterious unintended consequences. As noted in one of the Jolts, this bill won’t help with the deficit, will raise premiums instead of lower them, will louse up already functioning coverage plans, and will interfere with doctors.

But just as a blind squirrel can occasionally discover the popular appeal of offshore drilling, there might be something worthwhile in this legislation. Perhaps the American people will decide banning restrictions on coverage because of pre-existing conditions is worth higher premiums. Perhaps the “doughnut hole” in the prescription-drug coverage had to be fixed. Perhaps parents ought to have the option of having their adult kids on their health-care plan if they’re willing to pay the adjusted premium.

We know this legislation is not getting repealed or even seriously overhauled before January 2013, unless the Republicans win veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate, a supremely unlikely scenario. The only chance to stop this from taking effect is a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican president’s election in 2012. By then, we will know a lot more about this legislation’s real-world effects, and whether there’s any part worth keeping.

Right now, every Republican is aiming in the same direction: The health-care legislation is bad for patients, bad for doctors, bad for employers, bad for the deficit, and fabulous for IRS employees who would like some new coworkers. If some Republican wants to avoid the word “repeal” and talk about serious, sweeping overhauls instead, I think it’s sufficient.

The other day I mentioned that South Dakota’s Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin is now leading GOP rivals by only a narrow margin, and wondered if her constituents were realizing that despite Herseth-Sandlin’s dissents from party orthodoxy, her first vote every year is to empower Nancy Pelosi.

Over at the Club for Growth, Andy Roth lays out how rarely she dissents from party orthodoxy:

She also voted for card check, a $300 billion bailout for Fannie and Freddie, for SCHIP, for Obama’s budget, for a massive increase in the national debt limit, for the FY10 Omnibus, for Davis-Bacon requirements, and for countless earmarks (like Rangel’s “Monument to Me” and the South Carolina Aquarium) .

She has also voted against a handful of free trade agreements, against offshore drilling, against a bill that would stop Fannie/Freddie from borrowing from the Treasury, and against permanent repeal of the Death Tax.

There was a time when members of Congress could campaign as a moderate and then vote in a manner that was much farther to a political extreme than their state or district would prefer. Those days are over.

I’m picking up a distinctly Mayberry-ish vibe to the first television ad from Tim Burns, who’s running for the House seat that John Murtha occupied until recently:

I’m glad to see this policy shift, but it does again represent an expired campaign promise. Even ABC News saw this one coming.

In June 2008, then-senator Obama told reporters in Jacksonville, Florida:

When I’m president, I intend to keep in place the moratorium here in Florida and around the country that prevents oil companies from drilling off Florida’s coasts. That’s how we can protect our coastline and still make the investments that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and bring down gas prices for good.

Today, the “Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time,” including off the coast of Jacksonville, where Obama offered that statement.

St. Mary’s College political-science professor Todd Eberly looks at Maryland’s political history and voter-registration numbers and concludes:

There is no question but that Bob Ehrlich would face a steep climb back to Annapolis, he would likely need to ride a national wave similar those in 1994 and 2002. In addition, he would need to overcome the significant registration disadvantage among Republicans statewide, or work to reverse the trend over the next 10 months. He could also hope that many of the newly registered Democrats were motivated by the drama of the 2008 Democratic primary battle and subsequent presidential election and that the Democratic Party’s registration advantage is somewhat overstated. Democratic Party registration swelled in Virginia and New Jersey in 2008 as well, but this did not translate into any appreciable party advantage in the 2009 gubernatorial elections. Democratic Party registration in Maryland grew at a rate of about 2.5% between 1994 and 1998, then by 5% between 1998 and 2002, before swelling to 11% prior to the 2006 gubernatorial and 2008 presidential elections. That excess growth may overstate the Democrats’ true advantage in the state by as many as 200,000 voters. If one were to factor that into the models presented in Table Three then Ehrlich would win under either a 1994 or 2002 scenario by a margin similar to his 2002 victory over Townsend.

Even with the challenges he’ll face, 2010 will likely present his best chance at reclaiming his old job. If Ehrlich waited until 2014 he’d risk that it would be a less hospitable year than 2010. If a Republican is elected president in 2012 then history tells us that 2014 would be a bad year for Republicans. If Obama or another Democrat is elected in 2012, then 2014 may well be a good year for the GOP, but in Maryland Ehrlich would have been out of public office for 8 years and could no longer assume the position of presumptive frontrunner for the nomination. Ehrlich would face much the same challenge if he were to decide to pursue one of Maryland’s Senate seats. Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski is up for re-election in 2010, but nothing less than a GOP tsunami would defeat her. Ehrlich’s next chance would be 2012 when the seat held by Democratic Senator Ben Cardin would be on the ballot – but President Obama would be on the ballot as well in a state that he carried by a margin of 62% to 37%. Anything approaching that margin would likely have some down-ballot coattails and sink any challenge to Cardin or another Democrat.

In the end, for all the challenges and difficulties that he’ll face, 2010 presents Ehrlich with his best chance for reclaiming the governorship. For Ehrlich, it’s now or never. And he has decided that it’s now.

I wonder if Ehrlich can deploy a bit of what worked for Chris Christie in New Jersey — i.e., “If you want to change Annapolis, you have to change governors.” As much as Maryland voters may instinctively lean to the Democrats, they ought to be able to see when state-government spending is out of control, and when an ever-growing tax burden is crushing the state’s economy.

The unemployment rate is 7.7 percent statewide, 11.7 in Baltimore, and 11.9 in Hagerstown. The much touted “millionaire’s tax” brought in less revenue than expected (surprise!) and now the millionaires are running away. They’re discussing raising the state’s tax on gasoline (currently 23.5 cents per gallon) and a new “Amazon tax” on purchases made from out-of-state retailers. The Baltimore Sun points out the unavoidable:

Mandatory spending formulas, pensions and post-retirement health benefits for state workers are all expected to increase spending far faster than tax revenues rebound, and the expiration of federal stimulus funds next year will leave a large hole in the budget.

Ehrlich can, and should, run on a theme of the dangers of one-party government. If the people of Maryland ignore the evidence before them, well . . . they’ll deserve what they get.

I recognize that polls that give me results I don’t like could quite possibly be true. Indeed, Quinnipiac strikes me as a pretty reliable pollster. But this is the second time in a month they’ve found surprising numbers that should give Democrats a much-needed sense of a relief.

In late February, they put Sen. Arlen Specter up 7 in the Pennsylvania Senate race over Pat Toomey, after they and everyone else had seen a tie or a healthy Toomey lead for months. And since then, Toomey’s led by 6 in Susquehanna, by 9 in Rasmussen, and by 4 in Franklin & Marshall. Doesn’t mean they’re wrong and everybody else is right, just something to note.

Now they poll one state over, and offer surprisingly good news for Democrats:

Democrats are having a mini-surge in Ohio as two possible candidates for the open U.S. Senate seat have come from behind to pass the Republican contender, and Gov. Ted Strickland remains ahead of Republican challenger John Kasich, 43 – 38 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

And President Barack Obama’s job approval is up from a negative 44 – 52 percent February 23 to an almost even 47 – 48 percent today, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

In the Senate race, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leads Republican Rob Portman 41 – 37 percent, reversing a 40 – 37 percent Portman lead February 24.  Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner edges Portman 38 – 37 percent, reversing a 40 – 35 percent Republican lead.

Although Ohioans remain opposed to President Obama’s health care plan, the margin is down from a 55 – 36 percent disapproval in November to a 50 – 43 percent thumbs down today.  But voters say 38 – 25 percent they are more likely to vote against their congressman if he or she voted for the Obama plan.

Again, Quinnipiac could very well be accurately measuring the mood of Ohioans today. But other pollsters have had Obama’s job disapproval in Ohio above 50 since October. And Portman’s led pretty consistently since the beginning of the year. In other words, I want to see if other pollsters show the same “mini-surge” that Quinnipiac sees. In Pennsylvania, at least so far, nobody else has seen it.

A brief excerpt from Wednesday morning’s lengthy Morning Jolt:

Obama to Critics: I Understand Only Most of You Are Crazy Conspiracy Theorists

AP: “President Barack Obama says he believes the Tea Party is built around a ‘core group’ of people who question whether he is a U.S. citizen and believe he is a socialist. But beyond that, Obama tells NBC he recognizes the movement involves ‘folks who have legitimate concerns’ about the national debt and whether the government is taking on too many difficult issues simultaneously.”

A guy who has dramatically expanded the federal government’s role in banks, student loans, auto making, health care, real estate, insurance, and energy industries is lamenting that people are calling him a socialist. What more does he have to do before the label becomes less than outlandish, establish SMERSH? Note the not-too-subtle sleight of hand in the way Obama lumps together Birthers with the general opposition to him. I haven’t been to a tea party since last fall, but has anybody seen any signs or chants focusing on the Kenyan Secret Agent theory? Isn’t the general outrage focused a bit more on the here and now and how we’re getting the rawest deal since Arnold Schwarzenegger took on the mob? (Pardon me, I meant the raw f’ing deal, as Vice President Coprolalia would put it.) President Obama, we’ve moved on from your Kenyan birth. It’s time you did the same.

Texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who once said she would resign and run for governor but then lost the GOP primary to Rick Perry, has decided not to resign and will serve out her term.