Are The Dems Blowing It?

They're blowing it. If you track blogs and the MSM, blogs often run a week or so ahead of MSM themes. Here's what we have.

With the election over two weeks away, the Dems have started squabbling over an election they might not ever get to have.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's prospects for becoming the nation's first female House speaker depend not only on a Democratic victory in November but also on her ability to prevent any Democrats from voting against her -- primarily centrists opposed to her liberal stances.

Is this really the time to be talking up Steny Hoyer as an alternative, given his slavish tendencies?

And another election two years down the road shouldn't be in the headlines right now.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of White House hopeful John Edwards, says her choices in life have made her happier than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton _ a possible Edwards' rival for the Democratic nomination.

Today, Rep. Harold Ford in Tennessee may well have done himself in as regards the Senate race. Go to the video - it isn't good. And while possibly an outlier, the latest from Zogby has him down by 7, which fits more with the desperation tactics he's using, confronting Corker and coming out for Lieberman, which he didn't need to do unless he isn't making it with moderates and conservatives in TN.

While not D versus R, it could be a portent of things to come as the Lamont campaign is going from hysterics to crashing to the ground 17 points down. Matt Stoller assures the faithful Lieberman's support is soft (eye-roll) ... but Joe isn't the one who needs a cushion right about now.

The investigation headlines aren't going to be Weldon, or Foley, they are going to read NIE. And THAT, my friends, is a national security issue.

Burns and Tester a toss-up? I thought Tester was all but a lock, despite Burns incredible financial advantage coming down the stretch ... which he still holds.

The Supremo's gave the okay to voter ID, for now. I wouldn't want to be a Democrat reacting to that in the public eye two weeks before an election. Bush's North Korea strategy worked two days after the Dems told the country it wouldn't.

Look for BushCo. to make a major announcement of a tactical shift in Iraq which will give marginal doubters at least enough hope to bite their lip and hold their nose when they vote.

And I had to come back and add the fall out from the sexual McCarthyism issue, which might not make it out of the political echo chamber, but is certain to impact across people who follow politics the most. And those people are the people who always vote.

Sherrod Brown has a back tax issue, would be Senate Leader Harry "sand lot" Reid has the land. But there are two weeks to go until the election and the Dems are further away from having a house in Congress than they were last week. The Senate may already have slipped away and I still say Santorum isn't going out without some kind of late major play against Casey - and he is closing, at that.

This isn't the direction the Dems or the media thought things would be going just now. And that is going to make news in the days ahead. Elections always close and it always makes news. The Dems have made the mistake of getting too far out of the gate too early in every recent election and ultimately, they've lost.

This is now showing the early signs of a repeat.

Comments

[Shalimar]

"the Dems have started squabbling over an election they might not ever get to have."

Yeah, cause the Washington Times is known for their great Democratic sources. This is your list of all the great things Republicans have going for them 18 days out? Pretty pathetic.

"This isn't the direction the Dems or the media thought things would be going just now."

True, but only because your "direction" consists of linking together a few random drops of rain and ignoring the river. The country's mood (judged by every national poll taken) remains very anti-incumbent and anti-Republican. Yes, Democratic leaders can still blow it, they have a gift for that sort of thing, but the days are counting down and the trendlines haven't changed.

[Phoenix]

Yeah, and the NY Times is known for their great republican sources.. and whatever else you said..... Let us pray....

[Todd]

You will need to add Bush's rock filled velvet glove to your list - his campaign speech today lambasted the Democrats in a way I've not seen. He quoted Gore, Carter and Kennedy (without naming them) and pointed out how poor their judgement has been over the years. I'll trackback when I have a video link.

[the-gunslinger]

Oh man, I'm having fantasy visions of the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos totally losing their minds if the Republicans win this one. They're already celebrating the downfall of "the dictator".

Please, don't tease me.

[Dan Riehl]

Please, don't tease me.

LOL Yeah, I know. But the fact is, I am quite serious. In the end, it's a sixth year election and anything could happen. But the trend before Foley was for the Repubs. Rather than try to scream over Foley, they let it run its course and kept their powder dry. Bush is all over TV looking to pull his approval up a tic if he can. In local races, important ones, there is dirt hitting the Dems - they ultimately have no plan to offer or talk about, the Dow topped 12K.

There are many little bits going the Repubs way. It's too early to guess if it will be enough, but it isn't unreasonable to hope. That's a drastic turn around in a week or two. If they play the news cycles right for the next ten days, they will win.

[DaveG]

Polls?

Useless, except for one thing: if the Dems lose, they will use the pre-vote polls to "prove" massive GOP voting fraud, much as they did with the erroneous exit polls in 2004. Long term erosion of public faith in the voting process, leading to further erosion of the cohesiveness of our entire political model? Who cares - there are short term gains to be had!

[Shalimar]

Pheonix: "Yeah, and the NY Times is known for their great republican sources.. and whatever else you said....."

Okay, Dan's phrase was in relation to a Washington Times article so my comment was at least relevant. Your reply is a non-sequiter that makes no sense. What does the NY Times have to do with whether the Washington Times can be relied on to accurately report Democratic "squabbling"?

Dan Riehl: "But the trend before Foley was for the Repubs."

No, it wasn't. It's true that Bush's approval went up in the month before 9/11 (before trending down again in the weeks between 9/11 and Foley), but Bush isn't running. Congress's approval has been nose-diving all year and the trend hasn't changed. They're down to 16% in one poll now, which doesn't bode well for incumbents of any stripe.

Go to http://cookpolitical.com/ to find out how the election has actually been trending. They update the ratings on at least a handful of House ratings a few times a week, and every single House update as far back as I can find has been in favor of the Democratic candidate.

[Paul]

I am a life long Republican and I have found out that the Diebold vot......

..oh my God.....they're ....at ....the...end of the driveway......What I have to quickly tell you is

[Phoenix]

"What does the NY Times have to do with whether the Washington Times can be relied on to accurately report Democratic "squabbling"?"

That's easy: They all get the same news.... for a nice non-non-sequiter.

[thedaddy]

"They're down to 16% in one poll now, which doesn't bode well for incumbents of any stripe."

Congress contains both republicans AND democrats, the poll question is generic and therefore so is the answer.

Remember "if" the country is in an anti-incumbent mood, there are incumbents in both parties, making projections from these factoids or any group of such factoids, is futile.

BTW if you recall the exit polls and "expert" projections yadda yadda ... had GWB losing as late as 6 or 7:PM on election night 2004 as well as until 3AM or so in 2000. Can anyone tell me why they (not me) continue to put any stock in the so called polls. If I recall even Tradesports (supposedly the most accurate because it is a market, even though it is just a bookie joint) was waaay-off the actual results in the odds a few days out of the election.
The people who frequent bookie joints get a great deal of their input from touts (eg. polls) which is why their thinking gets into a positive feed-back loop. There are people who will bet on anything - that certainly doesn't make them any more knowledgeable than anyone else.
There is only one poll that counts -- wait for it.

thedaddy

[Shalimar]

"That's easy: They all get the same news"

You don't seem to grasp the concept that someone with sources has to originally break each news story, they don't just magically appear in newspapers across the country. In this case, the sources with information on Nancy Pelosi belonged to the Washington Times.

[JorgXMcKie]

I just went over to mydd and what impressed me most was the total lack of any understanding of US electoral history, how the US electoral system actually works, and their unrelieved insularity. I just know not everyone who posts there is less than 25 years old, but they write like those new college students who have just discovered Truths that their elders had missed for all those yeasrs. Like: War Is Bad; and Sex Is Fun; and Love Is Good. Stuff like that. Sheesh.

As for Lamont winning a primary and losing a general election, they should reference what happened when Larouchies eon a low-turnout Dem primary in Illinois back in the 80s. Ignoramuses, including Matt Stoller.

[Timothy]

Left out the November 5th announcement on Saddam's first trial and its likely outcome - guilty and death by hanging.

That happens just 48 hours out...

[AST]

There's been a lot of talk about the Republicans grassroots organization for getting their vote out. There may have been too much made of their base being angry and wanting to punish them.

I thought it was interesting that Glenn Reynolds, he of the "pre-mortem," nevertheless voted for Corker. There will likely be more of that than anybody is counting on. As Hugh Hewitt says, you might not like the way things are going, but no way is electing Democrats the answer. They just don't take national security seriously, and their strategy so far has been scandalmongering.

The outing of gay Republicans may have shocked at first, but the hypocrisy of supporting gay rights and then trying to make hay from outing gay politicians is starting to sink in. The fact is that if the Repubs had gone after Foley before the Dems played it as a coverup, they'd have been accused of homophobia, gaybashing and violating his privacy. Having made so many arguments to excuse Clinton, Frank, etc., how can they now act like the Church Lady about gay emails?

As selfserving as Foley's report of having been molested by a priest may seem, the priest's "denial" sounds awfully like an admission. And the fact that Foley's "victim" was baiting him, complicates the scandal quite a bit.

The stories coming from the NYTimes and WaPo have the appearance of being part of a partisan campaign, after a few weeks of these negative reports on various Republicans, you start to notice a pattern, and they lose their impact.
etty disgusting too. I know I get sick of them and

[Nesser]

Excuse me?! Who outed whom? I seem to recall that it was reported that the person who outed Foley was a Republican.

[stan real]

What you idiots are so effective at is turning lies in to "fact". There is no outing of gays by Democrats and there is no "blowing it". This is just more of the same echo chamber BS that is your strong suit. It will fail this time, you will lose the majority in the house, and the glue of fee mongbering and lies that held you on the same page for so long will cause the right wing blogosphere to dissipate in to smaller clusters of jesus freaks, money grubbers and immigrant haters.

It's going to get really pretty when you guys split up in to your McCain and Mormon guy camps!

Enjoy!

[Scott Harris]

The Dems have a skill for self-destructing, that's for sure. But (I can't believe I'm saying this), given the atrocious performance of the Republican Congress, I cannot help but wonder if returning the Dems temporarily to power in the House would be a worthwhile sacrifice if it 1) causes a turnover in Republican Leadership, 2) causes Republican representatives to return to principles, 3) purges some of the RINO Representatives from the pack, and 4) gives the American public another opportunity to see how much worse the Democratic option really is.

Of course, we could be pleasantly surprised. Maybe the Democrats aren't really as bad as we all think. (What are the chances?? Ha.)

[Bandit]

The only good thing about a Dem takeover of Congress would be that it would take them about a half an hour to expose themselves as the power mad criminals, lunatics and traitors thatt hey are.