Michael-Barone is senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner.
A resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he is also a
Fox News Channel contributor and co-author of The Almanac of
American Politics. His column is published Wednesdays and Sundays.
I think this ad, from Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck and spotted by National Review’s Jim Geraghty, sums up one reason for the energy and enthusiasm of the tea party and other aroused opponents of the Obama Democrats this year. “They heard us, and yet they ignored us,” Buck says. The American people, speaking through polls and through the voters of (yes) Massachusetts, said, Don’t pass that health care bill. The Obama Democrats passed it anyway.
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Amazing! Here’s a poll (by a firm unknown to me) showing Republican challenger Ruth McClung leading four–term Democratic incumbent Raul Grijalva 39%-37% in Arizona 7. This district was designed to be Arizona’s second Hispanic majority House district (it was 54% Hispanic in 2000) and to be safe Democratic (it voted 57%-42% for Barack Obama in 2008 and 57%-43% for John Kerry in 2004).
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I've been in campaign meetings. Sometimes the atmosphere is grim. Your side is down and you're looking to turn things around.
The pollster goes down the list of issues tested. Health care? Nope. They hate your stand on that. The economy? Thumbs down. Foreign policy? Nobody cares anymore.
Then, finally, something that works. An assistant at the polling shop throws in a question about campaign contributions by foreigners. Turns out most voters don't like them. They don't think it's an important issue, but, hey, nothing else works. So let's go with it.
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Amazing! Here’s a poll (by a firm unknown to me) showing Republican challenger Ruth McClung leading four–term Democratic incumbent Raul Grijalva 39%-37% in Arizona 7. This district was designed to be Arizona’s second Hispanic majority House district (it was 54% Hispanic in 2000) and to be safe Democratic (it voted 57%-42% for Barack Obama in 2008 and 57%-43% for John Kerry in 2004).
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Amazing! Here’s a poll (by a firm unknown to me) showing Republican challenger Ruth McClung leading four–term Democratic incumbent Raul Grijalva 39%-37% in Arizona 7. This district was designed to be Arizona’s second Hispanic majority House district (it was 54% Hispanic in 2000) and to be safe Democratic (it voted 57%-42% for Barack Obama in 2008 and 57%-43% for John Kerry in 2004).
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Glenn Reynolds nails this one: the Obama Democrats’ campaign riff against foreign donations to Democrats is bogus—and according to the New York Times, no less. This looks like a matter of projection, since it’s well documented that the 2008 Obama campaign did not put in place address verification software that would have routinely prevented most foreign donations.
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It's pretty clear that Democrats are less enthusiastic about voting this year than Republicans. The latest evidence comes from Gallup, which reports that Republicans' 3 percent edge in congressional voting among registered voters increases to 13 and 18 points when you include just those likely and very likely to actually vote.
So why are Democrats less enthusiastic? And why has "the progressive donor base," as Democratic consultant Jim Jordans reports, "stopped writing checks"?
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Late yesterday, Gallup came out with new numbers on the generic ballot question—which party’s candidates would you vote for in the election for House of Representatives? Among registered voters Gallup shows Republicans ahead by 46%-42%, about as good a score as Republicans have ever had (and about as bad a score as Democrats have ever had) since Gallup started asking the question in 1942.
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On Sunday 100 million Brazilians turned out to vote for president, members of Congress and state governors. That’s almost certainly more than will vote in our offyear elections next month; the total turnout in 2006 was just over 80 million. The results in Brazil were a little surprising. In the presidential race polls have been showing Dilma Rousseff, former top staffer to President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and his endorsed candidate, running over 50%.
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On Sunday 100 million Brazilians turned out to vote for president, members of Congress and state governors. That’s almost certainly more than will vote in our offyear elections next month; the total turnout in 2006 was just over 80 million. The results in Brazil were a little surprising. In the presidential race polls have been showing Dilma Rousseff, former top staffer to President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and his endorsed candidate, running over 50%.
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In 2008 California voters in their wisdom approved by a 53%-47% margin $9.5 billion of bonds to build a high speed rail system connecting San Diego and Sacramento, running of course through metro Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. But now they’ve hit snags.
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Glenn Reynolds of instapundit.com provides this link to overhead shots of the crowds at the One Nation rally yesterday and the Glenn Beck rally on August 28. Suffice it to say that the crowd at Beck’s event was much, much larger. Plus he didn’t have to pay people to attend.
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It happened late Wednesday night, so it didn't get much coverage: Speaker Nancy Pelosi cast the deciding vote when the House voted, 210-209, to adjourn.
That's significant, because by custom the speaker ordinarily doesn't vote except on issues of special importance. And because Pelosi, who has shown impressive ability to deliver Democratic majorities on one tough roll call after another for four years, was scrambling to prevail on what is ordinarily a routine vote.
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This little article on the politics of Arkansas is not bad as these things go. But it seems that New York Times reporter Campbell Robertson and his (her?) editors have trouble counting. “8 of its last 10 governors have been Democrats,” writes Robertson.
Here is a list of the last 10 governors of Arkansas, including the current incumbent, showing their party affiliation:
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Jim Geraghty of National Review reports that there’s a poll from the Civitas Institute of Raleigh showing Republican challenger Ilario Pantano ahead of Democratic incumbent Mike McIntyre in North Carolina 7. This is pretty astounding. McIntyre is not an obvious target.
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