“White rednecks” who “didn’t show up to vote for us” partly cost GOPers their cong. majorities, Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL) told fellow Republicans today. And Putnam, seeking the post of GOP conference chair, chided ex-Chair J.C. Watts (R-OK) [an African-American - GT12] for ruining the conference’s ability to serve its members.
Three Republicans in the room independently confirmed to the Hotline the substance and context of Putnam’s remarks. But Putnam’s chief of staff insists that the remarks were taken out of context.
New Zealand students may 'text-speak' in exams
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- New Zealand's high school students will be able to use "text-speak" -- the mobile phone text message language beloved of teenagers -- in national exams this year, officials said.
Text-speak, a second language for thousands of teens, uses abbreviated words and phrases such as "txt" for "text", "lol" for "laughing out loud" or "lots of love," and "CU" for "see you."
Would-be presidents are scrambling to the field so soon thanks to a genuine power vacuum in both political parties. For once, it is not hyperbole to call an election one of the most important ever, as politicians tend to say every four years — especially when it’s their moment to make history.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- John Bolton's prospects for staying on as U.N. ambassador essentially died Thursday as Democrats and a pivotal Republican said they would continue to oppose his nomination.
It was another blow to President Bush, two days after Democrats triumphed in elections that will give them control of Congress next year. On Wednesday, Bush had announced that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a polarizing figure and face of the Iraq war, would step down
CNN's John King just reported that Ken Mehlman will be leaving as chair of the Republican National Committee (i.e., head of the Republican party) by the end of the year. Apparently Kenny's just tuckered out. According to King, "He's been on the gerbil wheel, as one of his close friends put it, for well in excess of six years now and he's tired."
BM: A lot of the chiefs of staff, the people who really run the underpinnings of the Republican Party, are gay. I don't want to mention names, but I will Friday night...
LK:You will Friday night?
BM: Well, there's a couple of big people who I think everyone in Washington knows who run the Republican...
LK: You will name them?
BM: Well, I wouldn't be the first. I'd get sued if I was the first. Ken Mehlman. Ok, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it when he's been, people have suggested, he doesn't say...
LK: I never heard that. I'm walking around in a fog. I never...Ken Mehlman? I never heard that. But the question is...
BM: Maybe you don't go to the same bathhouse I do, Larry.When CNN re-aired the interview later that night, they edited out Larry King and Bill Maher's discussion of Mehlman's potential homosexuality.
U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) has decided against a run for Chicago mayor in 2007, avoiding a potential showdown with Mayor Richard Daley, sources in Jackson's camp said Wednesday.
...Christina Larson documents the pain of the Club for Growth's Pat Toomey. It seems the Club took a poll before the election and they didn't like the results:
"Two-thirds agreed with the notion that the GOP used to be the party of fiscal responsibility and limited government but was not today. By an 11-point margin, likely voters expressed greater confidence in Democrats to handle select fiscal matters responsibly. “We have lost our brand,” Toomey bemoaned."
Get real, guys. The Club for Growth and its ilk have never cared a tenth as much about lower spending as they have about lower taxes. They know perfectly well that if a Republican administration actually cut spending to match its tax cuts it would get voted out of office for the next century.
And they've never cared. They just want low taxes (the easy part of fiscal responsibility) without the spending cuts (the part that gets you voted out of office). It's similar to the GOP's Iraq strategy: they want the glory of winning a war, but without the pain of making the hard choices it would take to actually do so.
At the moment, the Republican Party is the Party of Magic. That's the brand they need to fix.
Dead woman wins county commissioner's race
S.D. candidate gets 100 votes; official says voters knew she was deceasedPIERRE, S.D. - A woman who died two months ago won a county commissioner's race in Jerauld County on Tuesday.
Democrat Marie Steichen, of Woonsocket, got 100 votes, defeating incumbent Republican Merlin Feistner, of Woonsocket, who had 64 votes.
Jerauld County Auditor Cindy Peterson said she believes the county board will have to meet to appoint a replacement for Steichen. Peterson said she'll check with the state's attorney to be sure that's the process.
“Americans are realizing that you can’t found the politics of a country on patriotic passion and reflexes,” he said. “You can’t fool everybody all the time — and I think that’s what Bush and his administration are learning today.”
Thomas Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, sent Political Wire this analysis of the midterm results several hours before the polls even closed yesterday.
There seems to be a developing narrative which suggests that expected Democratic victories this year are somehow the result of Democrats "running as conservatives." Republicans, and conservative Republicans in particular, have an obvious stake in perpetuating such a narrative. But it is patently untrue.
Pull back the lens and what appears to be happening this year is a regional-ideological partisan correction in which Rockefeller-Ford Republicans are purged from the NE/NW Rust Belt, and prairie progressives pick off selected seats in the Far West. The regional realignment over the past 40 years, which slowly converted Dixiecrats into Republicans, has now entered its final stage, as voters north of the Mason-Dixon line and west of the Mississippi provide a countervailing response to the southern-led Republican majority.
This transformation is occurring at the Senate, House and gubernatorial levels. Indeed, because Rust Belt Republicans will be replaced by progressive Democrats, regardless of the final totals tonight, the 110th Congress, in both chambers, will become more progressive as the Democratic shares grow and more conservative as the Republican shares shrink. As just one indication of this trend, consider this stunning fact: If Pelosi gets her majority, for the first time in 52 years, the party with a minority of House seats in the South will the majority party chamberwide.
Ex-Rocker John Hall Wins Upset in NY Congressional Race
NEW YORK John Hall, leader of the rock group Orleans that recorded such hits as "Still the One" and "Dance With Me," has won a stunning upset in his race for Congress in upstate New York, narrowly defeating Republican incumbent Sue Kelly 51%-49%.
Hall's views on the differences between political and music journalists were recently profiled on E&P Online. At one point, he had to struggle to be taken seriously by the press as a policy man. He ended up gaining the endorsements of all four top dailies in his district.
The upset was more surprising, as this contest was never on the national Democratic Party's list of most likely pickups.
Hall closed his victory speech by singing Steven Van Zandt's song "I Am A Patriot." [ I soooo love that song - GT12] Numerous musicians played benefits for Hall throughout the campaign, though he was still badly outspent by his opponent. They included Bonnie Raitt, Steve Earle, Pete Seeger and Jackson Browne.
Hall, who ran as an antiwar candidate, is also an environmental activist and drew wide labor backing. He was a key organizer of the fabled "No Nukes" concert and movie in 1979.
He recently appeared on the Colbert Report and fared well, even singing "Still the One" with the host, in an appearance that was seen as drawing much interest in the campaign.
Cancel the Funeral: 'Studio 60' Isn't Heading Off Into the Sunset Just Yet
Despite the assurances from those in-the-know around the blogosphere that the struggling freshman NBC hour "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" was mere hours away from cancellation with its low ratings and extravagant $2 million-per-episode pricetag, the opposite now in fact appears to be true. While not yet official, key industry sources are confident that NBC will, in the next few days, announce the show's pickup for its back nine episodes (giving it a full season complement of 22) in the wake of two consecutive Mondays of upwardly-trending numbers.
THIS ONE IS PRETTY EASY TO EXPLAIN. Republicans lost the House and probably the Senate because of Iraq, corruption, and a record of taking up big issues and then doing nothing on them. Of these, the war was by far the biggest factor. Unpopular wars trump good economies and everything else. President Truman learned this in 1952, as did President Johnson in 1968. Now, it was President Bush's turn, and since his name wasn't on the ballot, his party took the hit.
Conservatives won't want to hear this, but the Republican who maneuvered his way into the most impressive victory of the election was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Okay, he's sui generis. But he won a landslide victory after moving to the center, while holding onto conservatives by not hiking taxes. Just think if he were eligible for the White House in 2008. Even (some) conservatives would be clamoring for him to run.
In a triple setback for conservatives, South Dakotans
rejected a law that would have banned virtually all
abortions, Arizona became the first state to defeat an
amendment to ban gay marriage and Missouri approved a
measure backing stem cell research.
I voted for two Republicans yesterday. I live in
Illinois. Two people who I voted for lost. You figure
out which two went down to defeat.
No Incumbent Democrat lost at the House, Senate, or
Gubernatorial level.
The U.S. will have its first female Speaker Of The
House.
Massachusetts elects only the second African-American
Governor in U.S. history.
Almost a third of white evangelicals voted for Democrats in today's election, according to early exit polls reported by The Associated Press. Most of them cited corruption as an important factor in their decision.That's a change from the 2004 presidential election when 78 percent of white evangelicals voted for Bush and 21 percent voted for Kerry. That was a recent peak in evangelical attachment to Republicans.
In the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, evangelicals constituted 23 percent of the electorate.
Today's early numbers seem to show that Democrats have been able to recapture some of that huge block.
The polls are opening now, but a lot of us have already voted. In Montana, more than 100,000 residents have cast votes -- about a quarter of those expected to do so -- and the Hotline says the Democrats' internal polls have Jon Tester up 58-37 among early voters.
"You know, George Allen is very much on the defensive, particularly over Iraq. He had a rally a short time ago here in Richmond, only 250 people.
Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent, James Webb, had a rally with former President Bill Clinton on the other end of the state. Police officials say there were five to six thousand people at that rally. The enthusiasm for Webb, in part on the issue of Iraq. He's a Vietnam veteran. He wears combat boots on the campaign trail, combat boots of his son, who's currently serving in Iraq. He's been calling for a new course in Iraq, and now George Allen in recent weeks has started doing that as well, no longer saying stay the course, saying mistakes have been made, saying, as well, that not enough progress has been made in Iraq.
In fact, George Allen tonight, taking the extraordinary step of buying two minutes of TV time all across this commonwealth to talk to the voters directly on the ever of this election, saying look, mistakes were made in Iraq, but give me another six years to try to help fix this.
***********************
Bush Endorses Democrat ... (from Daily Kos):
In Nebraska, Dear Leader says:
"Now, it seems to me if you're sending someone from this country to Washington, you better have someone who understands what it means to be a farmer and rancher."
The Candidates in the race in question?
Scott Kleeb (D) = Fourth generation Nebraskan; Rancher with a PhD who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the history of cattle ranching. See Also this earlier GT12 post.
Adrian Smith (R) = Real estate agent and failed politician who is "not known as a skilled lawmaker" and "not known as a leader"
All Monday there was considerable talk that the national picture had suddenly changed and that there was a significant tightening in the election. This was based in part on two national polls that showed the generic congressional ballot test having tightened to four (Pew) and six (ABC/Wash Post) points.
Seven national polls have been conducted since Wednesday, November 1. They give Democrats an average lead of 11.6 percentage points, larger than any party has had going into an Election Day in memory. Even if you knock five points off of it, it's 6.6 percentage points, bigger than the advantage that Republicans had going into 1994.
Furthermore, there is no evidence of a trend in the generic ballot test. In chronological order of interviewing (using the midpoint of field dates), the margins were: 15 points (Time 11/1-3), 6 points (ABC/Wash Post), 4 points (Pew), 7 points (Gallup), 16 points (Newsweek), 20 points (CNN) and 13 points (Fox).
In individual races, some Republican pollsters see some movement, voters "coming home," in their direction, and/or some increase in intensity among GOP voters. All seem to think that it was too little, too late to significantly change the outcome. However, it might be enough to save a few candidates. None think it is a major change in the dynamics of races, and most remain somewhere between fairly and extremely pessimistic about tomorrow's outcome.
"Maybe he ought to run for manager of the Cubs. They're a bunch of losers, too, and need some help."
-- Illinois gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka (R), quoted by the AP, in reference to Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) who responded,
"If she wants to say I'm a loser and call me names ... God bless her, but leave the Cubs alone."
In a Holy City fissured by faith, finding a consensus on anything among Jewish, Christian and Muslim clerics is a near-miraculous occurrence. Yet Jerusalem's rabbis, priests and imams have united, however briefly, to stop the city's Gay Pride parade.
For some of their followers, the issue is worth spilling blood over: An unknown extremist Jewish group pasted up signs announcing a $500 "reward" for every gay man or woman killed during the parade, which is scheduled for Nov. 10. Several ultra-orthodox rabbis have vowed to mobilize more than 100,000 protesters to shut down Jerusalem on the day of the parade, and police warn that some groups plan to pelt the marchers with apples jagged with razor blades.
Meanwhile, in a rare display of solidarity with Jewish extremists, an influential Islamic cleric is urging Muslims to stage a simultaneous protest inside the old walled city to draw away Israeli police who would otherwise be shielding the gay parade from harm. "Not only should these homosexuals be banned from holding their parade," says one Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim Hassan, who preaches at a mosque near Damascus Gate, "but they should be punished and sent to an isolated place."
Hatred, it seems, can be a bridge to inter-faith harmony.
In Ohio, Brown and Strickland Headed for Huge Victories
The final Ohio Poll for the 2006 election season projects Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will unseat Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) by a large margin, 56% to 44%.
In the gubernatorial race, Ted Strickland (D) crushes Ken Blackwell (R) [2004's Katherine Harris - GT12], 59% to 37%
Republicans in NY want you to know that Democrat leadership leads to white women being terrorized by black men.
A new Pew Research survey "finds voting intentions shifting in the direction of Republican congressional candidates in the final days of the 2006 midterm campaign. The new survey finds a growing percentage of likely voters saying they will vote for GOP candidates. However, the Democrats still hold a 48% to 40% lead among registered voters, and a modest lead of 47% to 43% among likely voters."
"The narrowing of the Democratic lead raises questions about whether the party will win a large enough share of the popular vote to recapture control of the House of Representatives. The relationship between a party's share of the popular vote and the number of seats it wins is less certain than it once was, in large part because of the increasing prevalence of safe seat redistricting. As a result, forecasting seat gains from national surveys has become more difficult."
"Fueled by a huge margin" favoring gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland (D) at the top of the ticket, Ohio Democrats "moved into position to sweep all statewide nonjudicial offices," a new Columbus Dispatch Poll shows.
Strickland now leads Ken Blackwell by 36 points. "The elephant graveyard also appears ready to claim two-term Republican Sen. Mike DeWine, who trails Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown by more than 20 points."
"Ohio voters apparently are exacting their revenge for the scandals and corruption that have plagued state government; two-thirds of poll respondents said those factors were at least 'fairly important' in determining their votes.
"Here's a summary of the poll results.
GOP MUST GO....It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome....
Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.
As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level...
The war will continue as long as Bush is in office, for no other reason than the feckless president can’t face the embarrassment of admitting defeat. The chain of events is not complete: Bush, having learned little from his mistakes, may yet seek to embroil America in new wars against Iran and Syria.
Meanwhile, America’s image in the world, its capacity to persuade others that its interests are common interests, is lower than it has been in memory. All over the world people look at Bush and yearn for this country—which once symbolized hope and justice—to be humbled....
There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq....
On Nov. 7, the world will be watching as we go to the polls, seeking to ascertain whether the American people have the wisdom to try to correct a disastrous course. Posterity will note too if their collective decision is one that captured the attention of historians—that of a people voting, again and again, to endorse a leader taking a country in a catastrophic direction. The choice is in our hands.
"In the letter read Sunday, Haggard took responsibility for his actions, saying "I am guilty of sexual immorality" and noted that "the things I did opened the door for additional allegations."
"He asked the congregation to also forgive his accuser, who Haggard said has revealed "the deception ... that was in my life."
"In a separate letter from Haggard's wife, also read by Stockstill, Gayle Haggard said while her heart is broken, she remains "committed to him until death do us part."
"An overflow congregation responded to the announcement with a standing ovation.
1. Allows anyone to be arrested under suspicion of providing support to (undefined) terrorists.
2. People arrested under this law DO NOT have the right to have a lawyer.
3. People arrested under this law may be detained in secret, without any acknowledgement of their whereabouts.
4. There is no requirement that any charges be filed in order to detain and maintain detention of these people.
5. This law will be in effect until we win the 'War On Terror'. Since Terror has been with us since time began, Terror will be with us until time ends. And so will this law.
6. This law invalidates 9 of the 10 Amendments comprising the Bill of Rights
Pastor confessed
Church review panelist says admission came Thursday
By Chuck Plunkett and Eric Gorski Denver Post Staff WritersColorado Springs - Ted Haggard, the beleaguered pastor of one of the nation's most influential evangelical churches, was fired Saturday after admitting "sexually immoral conduct."
Haggard's New Life Church issued a statement saying he had been removed. But the church's oversight board, which was investigating accusations Haggard had sex with a gay prostitute and used methamphetamine, offered no details of its findings.
Church officials said that Haggard was out of town with his family Saturday and that a letter and an apology from him would be read to the congregation today.
Haggard had denied publicly that he ever had gay sex, saying he had been faithful to his wife. As late as Friday morning, he continued to publicly deny sex with his accuser.But a member of the four-member oversight board said in an interview Saturday night that Haggard admitted Thursday to sexual misconduct
Evangelist admits meth, massage, no sex
By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer 58 minutes ago
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Evangelist Ted Haggard admitted Friday that he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a gay prostitute who claims he was paid for drug-fueled trysts by the outspoken gay marriage opponent.
Haggard resigned Thursday as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and stepped down as leader of his Colorado megachurch while the two groups investigate the allegations.Talking to reporters outside his house Friday, Haggard denied the sex allegations but said that he did buy meth from the man because he was curious.
Marilyn Musgrave is, surprisingly, tacking in a different direction. She no longer wants to talk in public about the "radical homosexual agenda" and its malicious impact on the American family. "I am running on a platform of security. Economic security. Border security. National security," the corn-husk blond Republican announced at the start of a candidate debate last week in Windsor.This is a dramatic departure from the Musgrave of old, the Pentecostal mother of four who came to politics in 1990 as a school committee member determined to stamp out sex education. As a state legislator in Colorado, she campaigned constantly against gay marriage and attempted to deny benefits to the same-sex partners of state employees. In Congress, she has twice served as the chief sponsor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. "As we face the issues we're facing today, I don't think there is anything more important than the marriage issue," she announced, just six weeks ago, at a Washington conference for values voters. "If we have gay marriage, our religious liberties are gone."
But in her home district, despite its conservative pedigree, a call to arms in the culture war no longer plays the way it once did. In recent weeks, she has backtracked on her Washington comments, saying they were taken out of context. At the same time, Musgrave's Democratic opponent, Angie Paccione, has gone on the offensive, despite polls that suggest about 60 percent of the district supports a constitutional ban on gay marriage. "Marilyn Musgrave is out of touch," Paccione says in a recent television advertisement: "She said that her gay-marriage agenda is the most important issue facing the United States of America … Are you kidding me?"
The rest here.
McCain Stars In Same-Sex Marriage Amendment Ads
John McCain appears to be as serious as ever about making nice with the conservative base. He's now starring in not one, but two ads backing Proposition 107, which would not only amend the state constitution to bar same-sex marriage of all kinds permanently, but also prohibiting cities, towns, and universities from providing benefits to unmarried domestic partners. The first of the ads -- which are paid for by the evangelical-backed group Protect Marriage Arizona -- is below; the second is after the jump.
Gay couples have helped strengthen the institution (of marriage in Scandinavia). Money quote:
Seventeen years after recognizing same-sex relationships in Scandinavia there are higher marriage rates for heterosexuals, lower divorce rates, lower rates for out-of-wedlock births, lower STD rates, more stable and durable gay relationships, more monogamy among gay couples, and so far no slippery slope to polygamy, incestuous marriages, or "man-on-dog" unions.
These power-point slides are prepared for regular briefings for leadership in the Pentagon (this means Rumsfeld, Cambone, England and others) and NSC (Cheney, Bush, Rice).
