It’s Groundhog Day and I feel like I’ve been here before.
The odds of the Democratic caucus retaining their 59 seats in the U.S. Senate is about 10% according to the guys at fivethirtyeight.com. They are now estimating 53 or 54 seat Democratic Caucus. But there is also an undercurrent of state Tea Party movements pushing back against the GOP establishment. Here are some of the latest polls, with clever commentary from me:
- Rasmussen and Public Policy Polling have Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) trailing the leading GOP candidate by 15 points in the Senate race. Mrs. Lincoln will probably announce her retirement soon under pressure from the DSCC.
- Marco Rubio is leading Charlie Crist in the Florida GOP Senate primary polls. Rubio was a significant underdog just a few months ago, and now he’s on track to be the next Sunshine state senator.
- Rand Paul is leading in the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky
- In Washingon (a “safe” Dem seat), Patty Murray is trailing the GOP challenger, Dino Rossi.
- New York, Hillary Clinton’s former seat, could be filled with a GOP senator in George Pataki
- Wisconsin is leaning toward Tommy Thompson (GOP) to unseat Russ Feingold
- Senator Specter of PA is also in grave danger to lose his job, currently trailing by 14% in the latest poll.
In some of the races for governor, there is a similar trend. The GOP has a shot at picking up the governorship in Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. And the GOP primaries in Illinois, Adam Andrzejewski, and Texas, Debra Medina, have Tea Party activists playing a significant role in those races.
Mr. Obama is delivering on his campaign promise of change. His and his party’s policies are opening the eyes of many Americans about the corruption and cronyism inherent in our two major political parties. And the American people are running away from establishment candidates of both parties.
Related posts:
- The End of Political Parties
- Political Fortunes Turn
- Rudy Giuliani contemplating running for Governor in 2010
- Democratic doomsday….Really?
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Massachusetts Tea Partiers had a golden opportunity to vote for 3rd Party candidate Joe Kennedy. He still would have likely lost as would have Scott Brown. But at least they could have put their money where their mouths are. Unfortunately, when the rubber meets the road (forgive the cliches), sheeple chicken out and fall for the “we need to break the filibuster” mentality. Of course, now that they have Brown – a historical big govt senator aka more of the same) – Massachusetts continues in its Blue ways.
As long as people continue to deem a 3rd Party candidate (even one who has a pro-Constitutional voting track record) as a “wasted” vote, nothing is going to change. Just think if even half of the Conservatives would have voted their hearts in Upstate NY in November instead of “unwasting” their votes, the Conservative candidate could have quite possibly won. Despite the Internationalist, anti-Constitutionalist Gingrich’s verbal support of the R.I.N.O.
Any third party has a steep curve to go against. The people want to support a third party but it takes time and resources to organize such a party and run competitive campaigns. Don’t negate the money needed to be successful. There are a lot of big contributors that are strictly loyal to their party line. I would be curious to see the demographic breakdown of those who would support a third party. I imagine it would be heavily middle class. Lower class typically trends towards dems for social programs and many of the uppers stick to their chosen repub and dem party lines. But who knows, I am optimistic that there are enough to ets a third party moving. Another complication is organization. Everyone is pissed at the current way of things but there are still very different views about the path to better the nation. That makes developing a cohesive third party much more difficult as there will likely be much disagreement and problems selecting candidates. Also bad leadership can end the party quick. The 3rd party would need wise leadership that was strong, very good at compromise and able to pick the general direction.
I can only speak to the Illinois Primary. In the GOP Primary the two leading candidated are Bill Brady, and Kirk Dillard. Brady is a conservative State Senator from Downstate Illinois, Dillard is a moderate State Senator from Dupage County in Northwest Illinois. Both are long serving mainstream Republicans. Number three in the race is Andy McKenna, again a conservative and the immediate past chair of the Illinois GOP. Once again a mainstream Republican. Adam Andrzejewski finished fifth in the voting 19,600 behind the number 4 finisher Jim Ryan a former State Attorny General and past States Attorny from DuPage county. In short, the Tea Party backed candidate finished fifth behind four long serving mainstream Republicans. The top four finishers pulled a combined 587,392 votes.