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   Washingtons budget hawks want to decimate the federal workforce to shrink the deficit. It will have the opposite effect.
 Last year there wasn�t a single fatal airline accident in the developed world. So why is the U.S. health care system still accidently killing hundreds of thousands? The answer is a lack of transparency.
 Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?
 There arent nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of Americas police. So we got these guys instead.
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October 25, 2006
By: ELECTION POOL....I'm not much of a horserace blogger, and I don't have any more information than anyone else about how the midterms will turn out. But with two weeks to go, how about an election pool? In comments, tell us how many House seats and how many Senate seats you think the Democrats will pick up. The winner will receive....the adulation of an adoring blog public. Or something. I'll go with a Dem pickup of 23 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate. —Kevin Drum 1:19 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (244)
Comments
I'll take Dem gains of 22 in the House and 5 in the Senate. Posted by: DK2 on October 25, 2006 at 1:23 AM | PERMALINKSenate - 4 seats. House - 9 seats. Bwahahahahahaha We'll always have Diebold. Posted by: minion of rove on October 25, 2006 at 1:26 AM | PERMALINKI'm going to be optimistic and say 29 in the house and 6 in the Senate. Posted by: Zachary Drake on October 25, 2006 at 1:27 AM | PERMALINKAnyone caught Mark Halpern on Bill OReilly tonight? Amazing. Posted by: gregor on October 25, 2006 at 1:29 AM | PERMALINKI'll be the blind optimist and say: Well, this isn't christmas, and we aren't six. We probably won't get everything on our listBut what the hell, I'll make predictions anyway. I predict that Cantwell and Menendez retain their seats; and as for the ones we will gain - McCaskill unseats Talent, Tester over Burns, Casey over Santorum, Brown over Dewine, and Whitehouse over Chaffee. My spidey-sense is telling me Ford and Webb won't be successful. So we gain five in the senate. As for the house - Just a pure guess, but I will say 23. I just hope one of them is Nancy Boyda in Jim Ryuns seat in the KS 02. Posted by: Global Citizen on October 25, 2006 at 1:39 AM | PERMALINKDemocrats gain -- House: 28 House - 36 Seats. The electorate dislikes quagmires. Posted by: Petey on October 25, 2006 at 1:43 AM | PERMALINKTwo races still under the radar: Michael Steele in Maryland - a lot of racial solidarity that will not be accurately passed on to pollsters could make this one jump to the Repubs. Bobby Byrd is 87 years old - two weeks is still enough time to have a Bill Roth moment. Posted by: bud tugley on October 25, 2006 at 2:00 AM | PERMALINK5 in the Senate, counting Lieberman as a keeper, and 26 in the house, if everything continues as it looks like it will. Posted by: dmt on October 25, 2006 at 2:00 AM | PERMALINKDems win the house by a handful. Repubs keep the Senate by 1 seat. Folks are expecting the Repub base to stay at home, but since when have they done anything even remotely reasonable. They will show up because that is what sheep do. They jump when prodded. Posted by: InvadeIranForChrist on October 25, 2006 at 2:01 AM | PERMALINKHouse-20 seats If New Jersey approves gay marriage tomorrow, I predict: House-12 seats Not to disparage "the adulation of an adoring blog public," but if you want to win something that will pay the rent, it's not too late to invest in the Iowa Electronic Markets. http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/Congress06.html Posted by: Oregonian on October 25, 2006 at 2:07 AM | PERMALINK
If New Jersey approves gay marriage tomorrow, I predict: That's the NJ Supreme Court Posted by: rover on October 25, 2006 at 2:13 AM | PERMALINKNDP 150 An outsiders point of view ttul 7 - Senate Those look like good numbers. Posted by: patience on October 25, 2006 at 2:22 AM | PERMALINKDemocrats gain 24 seats in the House and 5 seats in the Senate. Of course, that's basically a guess for the House, and a little more calculated for the Senate. For what the people who actually track these things seriously are saying, you could check my Election Projections Survey, the latest iteration of which is here. Posted by: Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) on October 25, 2006 at 2:23 AM | PERMALINKI'm not nearly as optimistic as most of y'all. I'll take 17 in the House, 5 in the Senate. Posted by: Imaginary on October 25, 2006 at 2:31 AM | PERMALINK30 in the House, 5 in the Senate. Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on October 25, 2006 at 2:31 AM | PERMALINKDems will win: 14 house seats that's how things will be made to look believable. Given this whole election could turn on gay marriage after tomorrow (hopefully not), and the general issues of Dems not getting out to vote/Republicans turning out to vote, here' my wager: House = 14 I really really hope I'm wrong. Posted by: KC on October 25, 2006 at 2:34 AM | PERMALINK I'm with Global's spidey-sense on the Senate -- with the exception that I think we're going to lose either MO (sorry, Globe) or NJ (ouch for me, too) -- only because I see big GOP investments there in the final two weeks. But I don't think we'll lose both. I agree that Ford and Webb are probably goners. Everybody else will hold firm. So it's a pickup of 4 in the Senate. In the House, I'd say 20. Been burned too many times to indulge my desire to feel optimistic. Plus, The Note linked to a really obnoxious Dick(head) Morris piece in the NY Post that's claiming the GOP base is "coming home" and the House is now a tossup. Dick Morris is a toe-sucking nincompoop. My intuition, however, is splitting the difference. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 2:36 AM | PERMALINKDems will win: Senate: 5 Tester - MT House: 28 Posted by: hopeful on October 25, 2006 at 2:39 AM | PERMALINKI'm going: 4 Senate seats (Brown, Casey, Whitehouse, Tester) 30 Houses seats. Posted by: Ben P on October 25, 2006 at 2:41 AM | PERMALINK+28 House, +5 Senate (Tester, Whitehouse, Brown, Casey and McCaskill). Menendez has the mo', but so does Corker. And Ford would need to be +10 in the polls to counteract the Tennessee voters who'll tell a pollster they'll vote for a black man when they simply won't. And Lieberman will win, by a much smaller margin than he's polling, then be given the SecDef job, allowing Jodi 'I'm Not Rowland' Rell to appoint a GOPlacement who isn't Alan Schlessinger. Say, Hadassah Lieberman, lobbyist to Big Med. Posted by: ahem on October 25, 2006 at 2:52 AM | PERMALINKSenate: 4 (pick-up 5, but lose 1, as Lieberman goes in the Independent column) I'll go with Democratic pickups of 25 in the house, 6/5 (depending on how you count Lieberman) in the Senate. Posted by: Adam on October 25, 2006 at 3:00 AM | PERMALINKIncidentally, that "unfutz" site above is fantastic stuff. Posted by: Adam on October 25, 2006 at 3:08 AM | PERMALINKhopeful: That's actually a pickup of 4, because Menendez is a Democrat. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 3:11 AM | PERMALINKIf the Dem leadership is going to let Lieberman keep his seniority, which he gained as a Democrat -- then for all practical purposes Lieberman will be a Democrat -- and will probably vote against Democratic initiatives less often than, say, one of the Nelsons or Landrieu. He won't be as reliable a liberal vote as Sanders, of course. We also need to count Sanders in our column as well. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 3:15 AM | PERMALINK17 for the House--should be enough for a takeover but horsetrading to follow and maybe not enough to make Pelosi speaker. 4 for the Senate Posted by: nonnymoose on October 25, 2006 at 3:16 AM | PERMALINKBob - talent is slipping. The same day the ran the poll results, they also ran an article demanding he pull an ad that misleads voters by associating remarks made about McCaskill by political oponents to the newspaper. CW in MO is he is toast. That Nexis search yours truly did on his SASC record was damning and he lost three points in overnight polling after Claire hammered him with tht in the debates. Posted by: Global Citizen on October 25, 2006 at 3:17 AM | PERMALINKVermont - talk about a Swing State! Sanders will be the only Socialist in the senate, and a republican will take his place in the house. Posted by: Global Citizen on October 25, 2006 at 3:18 AM | PERMALINKHouse +24 Senate +5 Gonna be a whole lotta horse tradin goin on Cheney will probably have a heart attack somewhere along the way & then the "fun" will really begin "Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact....Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." - newshog@gmail.com Posted by: daCascadian on October 25, 2006 at 3:21 AM | PERMALINKGlobe: Are you sure that Republican is going to win VT? I know she was the VT National Guard Commandant (?) and has a lot of respect in the state for clamoring to bring the Guard home -- but haven't the Dems been vigorously campaigning there? What's the latest lowdown on VT's only House seat? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 3:25 AM | PERMALINKWhat I read about it was a while ago - in politics during election season that means probably a week ago - but at that time, it was looking like she would pull it out. Maybe my "source" was misinformed? Posted by: Global Citizen on October 25, 2006 at 3:38 AM | PERMALINKWell Bob - you are in charge of the boilerroom. I'm off to bed. I was headed there a while ago and got sucked into the thread about partition and the Turks. Posted by: Global Citizen on October 25, 2006 at 3:41 AM | PERMALINKrmck1 >"...What's the latest lowdown on VT's only House seat?" According to this she is behind "The internet can be as informative as the library of Alexandria or as crass as a bathroom wall." - GSD-firedoglake.com Posted by: daCascadian on October 25, 2006 at 3:44 AM | PERMALINKHere is another Blogger's opinion: http://www.spokane7.com/blogs/hard7/archive.asp?postID=4234 Putting my marker down Two weeks before the election, here's how I see the congressional map shaking out--barring a big October/November surprise: Senate 50 GOP House 242 Democratic Yes, I see a big wave breaking in the House and a lot of work for Buckshot Dick Cheney breaking ties in the Senate over the next two years. I think the Republicans hold Senate seats in Tennessee and Virginia, and the Dems hold New Jersey. The House number is probably high, but I didn't pick it out of a hat--it's based on a seat-by-seat look at every race. My low estimate is 224 seats for the Dems. But it'll be hard for the Republicans to keep their losses to that level even if they effectively rally their base... Posted by: frank logan on October 25, 2006 at 3:47 AM | PERMALINKKeep in mind, Paul Wellstone's plane went down on October 25th four years ago, and it completely changed the dynamic of the midterms. Last-minute bombshells may have had a big effect on the last two presidential races (DWI revelations in 2000, and the Osama tape in 2004). Don't make any predictions until the polls close on Election Day. Probably not even then. Posted by: Chris on October 25, 2006 at 3:49 AM | PERMALINKMan, lots of optomists betting tonight. Gawd, I hope you guys are right. I really want to lose this wager. Posted by: KC on October 25, 2006 at 3:51 AM | PERMALINKHmm, conflict between the optimist and pessimist within. +5 Senate Lieberman's independent gambit, unfortunately, will prove to be strategically effective. Oh how that annoys me. Posted by: cthulhu on October 25, 2006 at 3:55 AM | PERMALINKGiven this whole election could turn on gay marriage after tomorrow (hopefully not), and the general issues of Dems not getting out to vote/Republicans turning out to vote, here' my wager: I really really hope I'm wrong. Posted by: Calo Bob on October 25, 2006 at 5:16 AM | PERMALINKSenate: +5 House: +29 Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf on October 25, 2006 at 5:38 AM | PERMALINKHouse: Dems 223 You can't trust Lieberman to stay democratic after being financed and voted in by the Republicans. Posted by: Zimmie on October 25, 2006 at 6:35 AM | PERMALINKDemocratic gains in the Senate: Brown (OH) Lieberman ultimately will be a wild card -- could go either way after the election. 26 Democratic pick-ups in the House. Posted by: pj in jesusland on October 25, 2006 at 6:50 AM | PERMALINKProphecy is for fools like Karl Rove. A question for the conservatives - Now let me make sure I understand the GOP's logic in this campaign. Osama bin Laden is planning more attacks on the U.S., so we are supposed to vote for the political party that has had five years to bring him to justice and hasn't done so?? What the hell are you people smoking?? Posted by: The Conservative Deflator on October 25, 2006 at 7:10 AM | PERMALINKWell, it's your blog for sure...but IMHO this is a ridiculous exercise. My prediction remains the same...and appears to be coming true...all paid for pundits will be reporting a "tightening" of the races so that by the Sunday before the 7th REPUGS will be in place for the voting machines to make KARL ROVE'S predictions accurate! My faith in democracy and America was wounded in 2004 and slowly strangled to breathlessness ever since. Posted by: Dancer on October 25, 2006 at 7:29 AM | PERMALINK35 in the House. The nightmare in the Senate: 49-49-2. Posted by: jayackroyd on October 25, 2006 at 8:01 AM | PERMALINKDancer: Elections always tighten up in the last two weeks. It's like a law of physics. It doesn't change the fundamental dynamics of the race, though. There's still going to be a heavy wind in the face of Republicans -- despite their GOTV operations. A get-out-the-vote drive is kind of like a sailboat. You can have the most well-designed sailboat in the world, a craft that would win the World Cup. But if you don't have any wind, you'll never make it out of port. There are only three things that could fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race to the benefit of Republicans. 1) A new video of Osama where he virtually begs Americans to elect Democrats or else they'll get attacked again. 2) Capturing Osama bin Laden. 3) A military offensive against Iran by our Navy. Otherwise, we *are* going to pick up seats in both houses, with a better-than-even shot of taking back the House. And that's where all the smart money is in this election. Now -- cheer up a little, for crying out loud :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 8:01 AM | PERMALINKLeiberman, ever the opportunist will jump to whoever gives him the most. If the Democrats pick up less than 6 watch Leiberman jump to the Republicans. He is that kind of a dick. Being here on the ground in Missouri, I have never seen a race that is closer. Unfortunately Talent has all the money in the world. He is outspending McCaskille two or three to one. A bunch of the feckless Washington professional types like the idea of the Republicans narrowly retaining control of the senate. They seem to be quietly trying to swing the election to Talent. My guess right now is that Claire loses in a squeaker. I could be wrong. If so I say we red state democrats start a new party the next day. We need somebody who will fight with us and represent our values. Democrats pickup 22 seats in the house, and 5 in the senate. Leiberman jumps parties like the opportunist he is and Mitch McConnell becomes Senate Majority leader. Posted by: Ron Byers on October 25, 2006 at 8:06 AM | PERMALINKRon: I'll defer to you and Global on Missouri politics -- but as a longtime Lieberman watcher I have to disagree there. Lieberman's quirky on a few issues -- but on proceedural votes and things that really impact the Democratic leadership, he'll be with us. If you want a more cynical explantion, he knows that the only reason they gave him his seniority back is to have him caucus with the Democrats. Lieberman jumps ship to the GOP, and he starts from zero. No seniority. Lieberman is too full of himself to ever endure such an indignity. jayackroyd: That's actually a best-case scenario. it means an effective 51-47 majority. Bernie Sanders never screwed the Democrats in the House, and Lieberman knows precisely why he retains his seniority -- and how easily it could be stripped from him. Expect Reid to emulate Pelosi and crack a hard whip as Majority Leader. Lieberman will have plenty of opportunities to cast his obnoxious symbolic floor votes to demostrate his vaunted "independence." On the critical stuff, mark my words -- he'll be with us where it counts. If he wasn't -- the leadership would tell him where to stick his seniority. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 8:15 AM | PERMALINKWay out on a limb here. House: 40 What a delightful exercise! Well, bookmark or tab this, because you are about to receive a healthy dose of the truth: In the House: Republicans lose three seats, maintain control of Congress, and at least a dozen disgraced Dumbocrats will be forced to resign their seats. After adjustments and special elections, Republicans will actually gain one or two seats. In the Senate: Dumbocrats lose one seat and Senator Mitch McConnell is elected Majority Leader. Harry Reid is indicted and forced to resign in shame. McConnell raises his hand and silences the Dumbocrats without so much as breaking a sweat. That's my solemn prediction, and I doubt any of you are even close to being as correct as I am. Posted by: The Great Norman Rogers on October 25, 2006 at 8:47 AM | PERMALINKNorman: The beauty, of course, is that the vapors oozing from your nether regions and leaking all over your keyboard have to coincide with with a little liberal construct called "objective reality." Because reality has a well-known liberal bias :) We'll hold you to your little fantasy, Norman, don't you worry. Until then, hold it tightly by its little tentacle! (To steal a phrase from Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 8:53 AM | PERMALINKNorman: Oh btw, old man -- incredibly lame response to me in the Gaffe thread. Why don't you try again. It's been taken over by Viagra/Cialis/Levitra spam, so you surely couldn't make it any worse :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 8:58 AM | PERMALINK10 House, 4 Senate. I'm used to being disappointed. Oh, and "Great Norman Rogers," read the article about Mitch McConnell in the Lexington Herald-Leader and tell me you are honestly proud of being a member of a party that would elect this man to lead the Senate. Tell me you honestly believe this is the way America ought be governed. http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/15763570.htm Tell me you honestly believe that House committee meetings ought to be held in secret where only Republicans can find them. That bills on the nation's most important concerns ought to be rammed through routinely without debate. That there ought to be no Congressional oversight whatsoever. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12055360/cover_story_time_to_go_inside_the_worst_congress_ever Oh, I'm sorry: you already told me. You said "McConnell raises his hand and silences the Dubmocrats without so much as breaking a sweat." I constantly forget that not everyone in America believes in democracy. Not even one bit. Posted by: Bill Camarda on October 25, 2006 at 9:01 AM | PERMALINK
You ignorant ass-- This just drives up the incidence or the occurrence of the offending material and convinces the spammer that their efforts are paying off; thereby increasing the amount of spam traffic that appears on threads. To repeat the terms that they spammed on a blog gives them a tingly feeling of accomplishment. Thank you for being the enabler of more spam! You certainly deserve the appellation of World's Best Liberal Commenter. Can't any of you libs blog thread comment with a reasonable degree of competence? Posted by: The Great Norman Rogers on October 25, 2006 at 9:07 AM | PERMALINKPoint of Order: How does a Libermann reelection score? Expect Reid to emulate Pelosi and crack a hard whip as Majority Leader. Ha ha. He's already blowing Holy Joe as hard as he can. In the miracle of a D takeover, the moment he cracks the whip is the moment someone flips to the GOP. The Senate is a lost cause -- you need to replace 10 so-called Democrats to get even a chance of a opposition there. I wish people would stop wasting money there and give to the house. My guess. +22 D House, which should count as a loss, since given the tide, this should be more on the order of +50, but the Dems won't fight. +3 D Senate (4 wins, Holy Joe winning, thus, +3 D) This is acutally the Liebermann nightmare, since the Democrats are now free to tell him to fuck off. He has a huge amount of power if, and *only if*, the Dems win five seats and he gets reelected. The sad part is the Dems *won't* tell Joe to go to hell. Betraying the party is perfectly okay with the Democrats. Dems pick up 2 Senate seats and 12 House seats. Norman: Commercial spam (the kind that attempts to get you to buy things like Now the sort of dynamic you describe would apply to a *human* troll. But I can't help it, Norman. I *like* responding to you. I find your Eric V. Olsen: I can't tell if you're just extremely cynical or a genuine concern I think the lever keeping Joe in line is seniority -- whether in or And remember -- nothing would deflate Joe's ginormous ego faster than Something tells me Joe wouldn't exactly relish that position. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 9:29 AM | PERMALINKGeneral: If the ignorant ass disagrees with you, you are merely a "concern troll." This goes for you regulars as well. He is the only one who decides who a "regular" is. You are not allowed to criticize him, nor are you allowed to have an honest difference of opinion with him, even if you are not speaking to him. He is NOT to be ignored and he is NOT to be disregarded--this will unleash a profane string of gibberish. You may NOT correct any factual error that he makes. This will bring down the full weight of his wrath, which is considerable. It is not unlike having a toothless poodle nibble on your bare ankle. Adhere to his minions, who serve as the new traffic cops on the beat. Witness his fights with all manner of commenters. The archives are brimming with them! He is, without a doubt, the star of this blog and the heir apparent to the graybeard Scotian. I hear Kevin Drum is being forced by popular demand to submit front page posts to him for prior editing and approval and is changing the name to "rmck1's Political Animal" And you wonder why the threads are dismal and banal. Posted by: The Great Norman Rogers on October 25, 2006 at 9:49 AM | PERMALINKAll hail rmck1! Oh, great rmck1, please favor us with another profane string of gibberish disguised as thoughtful commentary! And you wonder why you won't win anything on the 7th of November. Posted by: The Great Norman Rogers on October 25, 2006 at 9:52 AM | PERMALINKI expect the Republicans will pick up a few seats in both the Senate and the House. Because the American people will not be fooled, despite liberal attempts to galvanize their homosexual supporters with an October Surprise in NJ. Posted by: Al on October 25, 2006 at 9:52 AM | PERMALINKNorman: Nice bit of fantasized projective identification there, fella. Jesus -- you've been gone *how* many months and as soon as you come back, you comb the archives for my posts? Really kinda stalkerish behavior, if you think about it. The *power* I must hold over you, eh :) Helpful hint: Disagreement on a blog is normal and healthy. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 9:54 AM | PERMALINKAl: The NJ Supreme Court has, in the past, held off issuing rulings until after the end of the session. It just may do that this time -- given the incendiary nature of a ruling on gay marriage just before a national election. If it were wise, it would do just that. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 9:57 AM | PERMALINK28 in the House (and I hope that I'm too conservative in my predicitons) Posted by: GaryCT on October 25, 2006 at 9:59 AM | PERMALINK17ygpvc-rjjv5sx-tw6qc1a8 [LINK http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/6968/#7]viagra[/LINK] Oops! More spam and more rmck1! Watch him become unhinged and ruin another thread! Watch him rise to take the bait and explain himself over and over again! Why, the fool just can't help himself! Bravo! Bravissimo! That's right, you da man! You da man! Posted by: The Great Norman Rogers on October 25, 2006 at 10:07 AM | PERMALINKNorman: You have anything to say on topic? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 10:09 AM | PERMALINK
So says the one poster who deviates from the topic more often than any other! You fancy yourself the traffic cop, eh? I cannot wait to log in and see that the masthead has changed. I've made my predictions. I'll leave it at that. Feel free to wring your hands and obsess away! Feel free to bully, cajole and threaten anyone who dares to question your veracity. I did see that you gave Pale Rider a thrashing on a previous thread. How long before he tires of your nonsense? Posted by: The Great Norman Rogers on October 25, 2006 at 10:19 AM | PERMALINKѵӰ ߵӰ ѵӰ ѵӰվ Ӱ ԽƬ Խ ͼƬ ѼӰ ѻɫӰ µӰ Ӱ СӰ ԵӰ ˵Ӱ ѵӰ߿ Ӱ Ӱ ֲӰ ӰƬ ӰԺ ´Ƭ ʮ˵Ӱ Ůд ŮͼƬ Ů߹ ͼƬ Ƭ ǿͼƬ ŮͼƬ ѧ ͵߹ Ưü Ӿװд ڿ ͼ Ȥ Ӱ ͼƬԽӰ Ƶ ԸӰ Ǻϳ Ůͼ ɫС˵ С˵ ǿͼƬ ּƵ ŰӰ ԼͼƬ Ůռ ǿСӰ Ů ɫӰ ɫӰ ¶Ů avŮͼ ɫӰ ͬ־ͼƬ Ƶ ¶ д Ů Ů鷿 Ů ԼͼƬ СӰ ԸͼƬ ͼ ŮͼƬ д漯 ȫŮ С˵ С˵ ƿ÷ д ŮƵ ŮͼƬ д ŮͼƬ Ů ˮŮ ëƨ Ůͼ ڽؽͼƬ AƬ ëƬ ͵ͼƬ Ƶ վ ̳ ̳վ Ա̬ͼƬ ŮͼƬ ձŮѧ Ůͼ Ůֳ ٱͼƬ Ů Цֻ dj ֻͼƬ Ƶ ֻʽ Ա adp ߲ ֻ ֻ ֻ ŵֻ Сͨ ƶֻ ֻ ֻͼ ֻ ֻ̳ ֻֽ ɫ v3 ֻͼƬ ֻͼƬ ֻͼƬ ֻmp3 ֻ ֻ ԭ qd ֻͨ ֻͨͨ ͨ йͨ ͨ ͨ йͨ ͨ ͨû ͨcdma ͨ ͨmp3 ͨЧ ͨ ͨվ ͨҵ ͨcdma ֻͨͼƬ ֻͨ йͨ ֻͨ ͨҵ ͨվ ͨѲ ͨcdma Posted by: mmf on October 25, 2006 at 10:25 AM | PERMALINKDemocrats pick up 23 House seats, and 3 in the Senate. Posted by: Yancey Ward on October 25, 2006 at 10:26 AM | PERMALINKNorman: Give it up, Norman. My detractors on this blog (and there are a few) are not going to chime in to give *you* of all people any aid and comfort. You can't sew dissention here, Norman. It's way too trollishly transparent. If anything, attempted provocations like this enhance solidarity between regular posters. Simple reverse psychology :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 10:27 AM | PERMALINKNorman: But it really is a testament to how little you have to offer us in the way of cogent political advice that you're attempting to turn this thread into a pissing match. Why don't you check out The Note. After laying out the case for huge Democratic gains, they provide some wisps of hope for those who blog in their pajamas :) There are some nice dry straws in there just waiting for you to grasp onto them :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 10:35 AM | PERMALINKdems- pick up nine seats in the House, two, or maybe three, in the Senate- Posted by: Out on Bond on October 25, 2006 at 10:46 AM | PERMALINKHouse +20 I think Lieberman stays with the Dems. Posted by: mikeel on October 25, 2006 at 10:52 AM | PERMALINKmikeel: What's the new data on Maryland? I find it hard to believe that even a guy as charismatic as Steele could win in such a heavily Democratic state against such a solid opponent. Conrad Burns, though, may need a stake driven through his heart, sadly enough ... Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 10:56 AM | PERMALINKHouse +15 (This is taking into consideration Diebold. Hopefully I am wrong.) If the votes are properly counted. House +38 My prediction: every seat voted on with the aid of electronic machines goes Republican. Wednesday there will be mathematicians explaining to us that it was not an anomaly. I think the Republicans will steal all the seats. Any Democrat that gets elected will have to stand up while in Congress. If the votes are honestly counted, we win 435 House Seats and 33 Senate seats. Posted by: Deranged Democrat on October 25, 2006 at 11:08 AM | PERMALINKSenate - GOP - 3 Ron, leiberman is a Democrat and a principled man. He will not leave the party unless they were to try to screw him and they won't. Harry Reid is out. He's been pitiful having single handledy destroyed the 'culture of corruption' campaign with his own ethical disasters. If I am right on the House count Nancy is out as well. Posted by: rdw on October 25, 2006 at 11:11 AM | PERMALINKDemocratic pickup: I agree with exactly with Kevin's numbers, 23 in the House and 4 in the Senate. I think Dems take all competitive open seats in the House (except Idaho's 1st), plus a dozen or so incumbents (2 in Indiana, 3 in Pennsylvania), with Dems not losing a single seat. However, I think states like Connecticut won't feel the 'wave' and all 3 endangered Connecticut GOPers will survive. Posted by: Andy on October 25, 2006 at 11:15 AM | PERMALINKDems pick up ten house seats, one senate seat. Posted by: American Hawk on October 25, 2006 at 11:19 AM | PERMALINKyeah, Diebold, too bad Ms. Clinton doesn't like paper trails. I really didn't want the bitch for presnit anyway. Posted by: Cheryl on October 25, 2006 at 11:22 AM | PERMALINKSenate: 11 GOP, 20 DEM, 2 I One of those Is is Lieberman, so you can consider that to be 21 DEMs. 11 GOP. Current 17 DEM, 15 GOP, 1 I. Dems gain 4. Or 3 if you consider Lieberman to be losing 1. Posted by: aaron on October 25, 2006 at 11:22 AM | PERMALINK16 house 3 senate and Lieberman defects. Posted by: mightcan on October 25, 2006 at 11:22 AM | PERMALINKrdw: There is no "Harry Reid ethical disaster," you nitwit. That was completely blown out of proportion. There isn't the remotest whiff of a potential investigation, either federal or ethics committee. He refiled some papers; the alleged profit wasn't even realized, for crying out loud. The original story called it "theoretical profit." Now contrast that with Hastert's earmarks for the Prairie Highway, the construction of which made his land profit increase something over *ten times*. And that profit, btw, *has* been realized and stuck into Hastert's bank account. If you'll look at polling data, ethics is routinely ranked last as the most important issue for voters. Last poll I saw had it at 8%. With that said, polls consistently show Dems with a double-digit advantage on that issue. The problem is -- unless it's something especially lurid, ethical issues are complex and hard to frame for voters in a compelling way -- unless the ethically challenged congresscritter in question is in their own district. Curt Weldon, for instance, is in the fight of his life. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 11:25 AM | PERMALINKDemocrats gain 632 seats in the House and 115 in the Senate. If it is less than that, only fraud can be the reason. Posted by: Osanga on October 25, 2006 at 11:25 AM | PERMALINKAlthough it's been a rough couple of weeks for the GOP, I will stand by my prediction made weeks ago, that GOP will keep both houses with modest losses. If the GOP has to lose, let it lose the Senate rather than the House. Getting rid of Chaffee and dumping Senate RINOs from their Chairmanships will be a small price to pay instead of losing control of the House. Posted by: Chicounsel on October 25, 2006 at 11:35 AM | PERMALINKChicounsel: I think you'll get your wish as far as ol' Linc is concerned. The rest I'm not so sure about :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 11:38 AM | PERMALINKI think that we can fairly reliably give democrats basically every tossup, unless something happens in the last two weeks to seriously change the balance, so... Senate- House Yeah, Loserman is a principled man - Why after those two ladies from the NYT erroneously wrote they he had not uttered "stay the course", Joe must have been immediately on the phone to correct them. He must have been the reason the NYT printed a rare correction yesterday to state they did indeed have in their databank at least six different occasions in the past two years where Joe had used that phrase Or was that Media Matters and other liberal web sites who blasted the NYT? Cheryl, if you don't like Hillary, fine, but does using the word for a female dog really help your argument? Posted by: thethirdPaul on October 25, 2006 at 11:46 AM | PERMALINKAmerican Hawk and Al and Thomas1 lose their jobs and go back to their Uncle Kate OBierne's basement begging for more lollipops. Posted by: gregor on October 25, 2006 at 11:51 AM | PERMALINKTheThirdPaul: Like I stated in the other thread, I have two colossal reasons to consider Lieberman my least favorite Democrat this side of Zell Miller: 1) His slavish adherence to neocon ideology -- even after many neocons (like Francis Fukayama) have all but abandoned it -- and thus his robotic attatchment to Bush's latest talking points on Iraq. 2) His "do over" that only an entrenched incumbent could have pulled off. Joe's a shumck and I hope with all my heart that he loses. And since he in all likelihood won't -- I'm praying that Reid grows a bigger set and threatens to yank Joe's seniority if he doesn't toe the line. Joe would do *anything* to preserve his goddamn status perks in that institution. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 11:54 AM | PERMALINKThe GOP will win 250 seats in the Senate and 3000 in the House!! Just you wait, stupid lying libs! Posted by: Wingnut on October 25, 2006 at 11:54 AM | PERMALINKSenate - 5 (RI, MT, OH, PA, plus one from TN, MO, VA) I actually think Lamont will pull it out in CT, the institutional and GOTV, plus Lieberman's support, a large part of it is very soft. I say the Dems will get 51/52 seats (including Sanders). I'm not sure on the Ford race. In the house, I think they'll win 35-40 seats. HOWEVER, if we do see an attack on Iran, I actually think we'll be talking triple digits. I give a small...2-3% chance..that we'll see a real "throw the bums out" moment, all all these predictions/polls go down the drain. Posted by: Karmakin on October 25, 2006 at 12:03 PM | PERMALINKProphecy is for fools like Karl Rove. A question for the conservatives - Now let me make sure I understand the GOP's logic in this campaign. Osama bin Laden is planning more attacks on the U.S., so we are supposed to vote for the political party that has had five years to bring him to justice and hasn't done so?? What the hell are you people smoking?? Posted by: The Conservative Deflator on October 25, 2006 at 12:04 PM | PERMALINKKarmakin: That's interesting ... I hope like hell you're right. What makes you go against the CW and think that an attack on Iran would produce triple-digit gains for the Dems -- when what usually happens after something like that is a "rally round the flag" effect for the party in power? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 12:07 PM | PERMALINKThe generic numbers for Democrats today are better than the numbers Republicans had, when they took over the House in 1994. If the Dems don't win the House, then my sole purpose in life after raising my daughter, will be to get rid of every computerized voting machine, which the Republicans own and operate. Posted by: AkaDad on October 25, 2006 at 12:11 PM | PERMALINKI hope to hell that the more optimistic of you are right, but I'm a little too beaten down to believe it. I'm going... House: 13 Dems gain 5-senate, 18-house. Fun stuff, thanks. Posted by: GK on October 25, 2006 at 12:22 PM | PERMALINKI think that everyone should vote against all incumbants. Posted by: aaron on October 25, 2006 at 12:31 PM | PERMALINK6 senate (counting Sanders and Lieberman as Dems) and 27 house. Posted by: Edo on October 25, 2006 at 12:31 PM | PERMALINKaaron: In a Blue state? Nahhhh ... :) Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 12:32 PM | PERMALINKHouse: 32. Senate: 5. McCaskill comes up short. The election is revolving around Iraq, not the NJ Supreme Court. All the news out of Iraq is bad. All of it. Worse, Bush looks completely out of touch. This perception has increased dramatically in the last month. The GOP advantage in money is the only thing keeping this from becoming an outright bloodbath. Posted by: walt on October 25, 2006 at 12:39 PM | PERMALINKWho knows? You can't be too cynical, so I'll assume the worst - that the rethugs will continue to steal elections. Either way I'll be drinking my way through it. Posted by: repug on October 25, 2006 at 12:39 PM | PERMALINKI'm going to go big and predict that the Democrats will pick up all 7 contested Senate seats and 35 House seats. Why? Because I think Democratic turnout will be higher than expected while Republican turnout will be lower than expected, something which the polls are not reflecting. Keep in mind that the one thing that the polls have consistently had difficulty figuring out is who is actually going to show up and vote. So the use voter turnout models from the last election (i.e. 2004) to complete their "likely voter" poll. However, I think the voters who turn out in 2006 will be a very different bunch than those who turned out in 2004, which is why I think the Democrats will do better than expected. Posted by: mfw13 on October 25, 2006 at 12:40 PM | PERMALINKThere is no "Harry Reid ethical disaster," you nitwit. Actually there is and he's been told to keep a low profile because it. It's not his first ethical issue either nor the 1st for the Dems. Which is why the 'culture of corruption' campaign was ended. You are getting too deep into the details. Look at the MSM and the Foley sex with a minor scandal. Classic MSM. No sex. No minor. Posted by: rdw on October 25, 2006 at 12:47 PM | PERMALINKBiggest shock will be that VA and MD switch; In the House, Dems will gain 18 seats. Posted by: brunchanimal on October 25, 2006 at 12:54 PM | PERMALINKGod trolls are nitwits. "It's an ethical disaster because I say it is, that's why. And I just happen to have this inside information, see, that people have bound and gagged him and are holding him in a basement somewhere so no one will notice." And we're supposed to believe this. Posted by: David in NY on October 25, 2006 at 12:54 PM | PERMALINKrdw: So the pages that Foley groomed (and at least one admitted to it, so you know there are oodles more keeping their mouths shut about it) he fucked when they were 21? That's actually a *defense*? And you had the fucking *gall* to blow your partisan gasket over Monica ... unbelievable. You don't have squat on Harry Reid, Wooten. Nothing. That AP asshole had tried to pursue him on Indian donations and those charges have been soundly rebutted as well. Innuendo. That's all you got, Wooten. Link it, or STFU. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 12:56 PM | PERMALINKBy the way, over at Politicalwire, a couple of Poli Sci professors say their computer says (based on tweaking generic polls) that Dems will pick up 32, give or take. So I'll go with that and with 5 in the Senate. That would be a tie, wouldn't it, until Lieberman flips? Posted by: David in NY on October 25, 2006 at 12:57 PM | PERMALINKfirst let me say about the house i hope kevin i don't see why neither, john kerry nor mrs. wschneid25: Because they both intend to run for president and want a nice fundraising head start, is the only viable explantion. Which only helps underline how fundamentally selfish is the nature of politics. *sigh* Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 1:08 PM | PERMALINKI don't really have a prediction since I do not trust the integrity of the American voting system anymore. After what I watched come out of the 2004 election regarding the exit polls (which were not accurate enough to detect vote rigging in America but were accurate enough to declare Ukraine's vote rigged a few weeks later), the fact that one out of every four votes cast was unverifiable, the fact that the computer code for these machines is not independently examined by disinterested parties, and the incredible statistical anomaly of nearly every recorded error on those machines in 2004 favouring the Bush/GOP campaign leaves me with no other reasonable choice. I know that many mock this as tin foil hat stuff, but let's face it, why can Diebold not have made a voting machine with a paper record for audit purposes yet can make ATMs with paper trails? There is no good reason for lacking such independent audit capabilities *UNLESS* you want to have the ability to tamper with the vote count, PERIOD! Now, if I believed that the vote was going to be clean I would certainly favour the Dems in the House for at least 30 seat gain and the Senate 5 minimum, but I don't believe this is the result we will see on election night. I believe somehow the GOP will win squeaker after squeaker despite all indications to the contrary going in. If I am wrong and the Dems do take the House and especially if they also get the Senate I will start believing that the electoral system in America is not as badly corrupted as I currently believe it to be, but that will not stop me from distrusting *ANY* electoral process that does not have a 100% verifiable paper trail for independent audit capacity. We get mocked in Canada for being behind the times compared to our American cousins, but we at least can have full confidence in the integrity of our vote counts since we still use the old mark an "X" on a paper ballot approach. This is how the current Conservative government is able to be seen as legitimate despite roughly 2/3rds of the voters voting for parties to the left of them. We know that the votes themselves were not tampered with and therefore the CPC has legitimacy even with those of us that never wanted to see this party ever come to power, especially with it's current leader and leadership. I have never understood how a people that claim to believe in the importance of democracy to the point of invading countries to bring it to them does not appear to care about whether their own ballots/votes are counted honestly and verifiably. That they do not recognize the inherent threat of an unverifiable voting system regardless of who is running things. For the supposed defender of democracy America and Americans have been very complacent and sheep like when it comes to having their votes counted, something I have found exceptionally disturbing, disgusting, and downright frightening given the power of the American economy and military.
Senate: 6 seat Democratic pickup. House: 28 seat Democratic pickup. Governors: 7 seat Democratic pickup. State Legislatures: ~350 seat Democratic pickup. This will be the hidden silver lining for redistricting in 2011-2012. Posted by: StateStreet99 on October 25, 2006 at 1:14 PM | PERMALINKI like your thinking StateSreet99. However, I think you are a bit optimistic. Posted by: Edo on October 25, 2006 at 1:29 PM | PERMALINKYou know, I'd love to be able to dismiss Scotian's post as crazy talk... but I can't. I'm looking to this election to restore my faith in this system. If it goes the other way though - with dozens of "oooooh, so close, another to the GOP" kinds of races, then I'm going to have to say it's over, there has been an actual coup, and we need to start making other plans. Posted by: craigie on October 25, 2006 at 1:34 PM | PERMALINKClinton donated a couple of million to the appropriate commissions. Donated the maximum to every competative race (at least the ones that were already competative a couple of weeks ago, the board keeps expanding) And she's funding a massive GOTV in NY. She is spending millions to create further democratic momentum in NY. although Kerry keeps his warchest for himself. he has been pretty good in fundraising. Posted by: Ernst on October 25, 2006 at 1:39 PM | PERMALINKI say the Dems will pick up 6 out of 7 possible in the Senate, and will pick up 23 in the House Posted by: JaDe on October 25, 2006 at 1:42 PM | PERMALINKsure there will some not so close races but most races will be close especially in IN, PA, CT, etc for house seats so the results will not be so surprising if you will. If you take the GOP vote suppression tactics plus Diebold and ESS, you are looking at 3-4% swing and that should be enough really for the GOP to keep the house and senate. It is not that hard to write code to switch votes or to keep the winning margin on one side or other. Keep in mind that the seats that are supposed to switch are mostly in red states so if Dems don't win, there is reasonale explanation that the GOP's GOTV was sucessfull. It is BS but that's what we will hear about on Nov 7 I am afraid. GOP's GOTV was superior ..... Posted by: bob on October 25, 2006 at 1:56 PM | PERMALINKHouse: 29 Because I like prime numbers Posted by: Betty Black on October 25, 2006 at 2:07 PM | PERMALINKbob,
Except he didn't have sex with the kid and the kid wasn't a minor. You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. It's a classic ABC scandal. No evidence of anything! Harry Reid had to refile with the ethics committee for a reason. I will admit I didn't follow the details because I don't care but again, facts is facts, Harry, the Democratic leader in the Senate, had to refile wihh the ethics BECAUSE he did NOT meet ethical standards. BTW: I'll add a 2nd prediction to the GOP keeping the Senate. Harry is out. I don't celebrate this. He's a good man. For the GOP. Posted by: rdw on October 25, 2006 at 2:11 PM | PERMALINKhey rdw: Why can't we see the voting machines secret code? pls don't tell me if it is propriety code, Any programmer can write code to add and tally numbers. It is not that hard. Diebold and ESS have refused to release their secret code b/c it is meant to tally votes certain ways when needed. Sure if a poll show the mistress choker Mr Sherwood is behind by 10points, then the GOP can't screw around with the vote counter. But a close race say in IN where the count Mr Chocola is down by 3-5points, switching votes won't cause alarm bells to go off. Posted by: bob on October 25, 2006 at 2:24 PM | PERMALINKWhy can't we see the voting machines secret code? I have no friggin idea other than competitive advantge for the company. I don't know of any software provider that hands out their code to the public. This is the part I am most looking forward to. Michael Barone has an article today predicting a very close house vote that if it leaves the GOP in the lead will be heavily litigated. I thoroughly enjoy the conspiracy crowd and their agony over 00, 02 and 04. I wonder if you've noticed GWB and others pointing the Dems have already starting to celebrate? This served two purposes. It's motivating for his base and will make a GOP 'upset' that much more demoralizing. Think about it. It was bad enough 'chimpy' won in 2002 and 2004 but at least it wasn't a shock. They are going to be stunned in 2006. Don't get too overjoyed about the litigation either. As we proved in 2000 we have better lawyers as well. Posted by: rdw on October 25, 2006 at 2:33 PM | PERMALINKI believe that no one has yet said 31 so that's it for the house. I'll go with six in the senate. Posted by: Jgale on October 25, 2006 at 2:48 PM | PERMALINKWhy play if you can't be optimistic. I'll go with: Camus Posted by: Camus on October 25, 2006 at 2:49 PM | PERMALINKrdw: I don't give a fig what ABC did or did not report, and I don't watch TV news (except when my buds and I put on Fox to howl and O'Reilly and Hannity). I am talking about page testimony a week into the scandal, when other pages began coming forth (and there were three new ones this week). One of them said that he had physical sex with Mark Foley when he turned 21. That was apparently Foley's MO -- flirt with "hot boys" when they're pages; if they seem receptive, keep in touch with them. WTF do you think he asked the original Louisiana page in the original "sick sick sick sick sick sick" (but not sexually explicit) email when his fucking BIRTHDAY was? WTF do you think it creeped the kid out so much? The FBI has a name for this, Wooten. It's called "grooming behavior." Foley is an ephebophile -- but he's not a moron. How the hell do you think he kept this behavior under wraps for at least a decade? He sorts through 'em, finds the ones who are receptive to homosexual chat and possibly encounters (many kids that young don't know what their damn sexual orientations are yet) -- and then pounces when they're street legal. If Foley is anything like the FBI suspect him to be, there are a whole bunch of young lads he hooked up with through the page program after they became adults -- but are unwilling (for obvious reasons) to come to the authorities about it. Probably well over a dozen. Think about it. This is how a smart predator plays the game, while keeping his nice job as a congressman. As for Reid -- like I said, Wooten. You got NOTHIN'. He "re-filed with the ethics committee?" WTF does that mean? He fixed a clerical error; he forgot to note that the land was owned by the LLC he formed with his partner rather than privately owned. A technicality. No Ethics Committee investigation. No FBI involvement (heh, tell THAT one to Curt Weldon's daughter). No followup. As usual, my friend, you are just blowin' smoke. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 2:50 PM | PERMALINKWhat Scotian wrote is so simple yet so true and yet why are we unwilling to look at this issue? Posted by: ppk on October 25, 2006 at 2:59 PM | PERMALINKHouse: 230 Dems, 205 GOP 37 House This election will be a Katrina for the Republicans. Why? Many Republicans and independents are reluctant to admit to pollsters (and each other) that they have hidden liberal tendencies (just as they will not admit they like porn and occasional gay & interracial sex). Thus Democrats will win by a much bigger landslide than anyone expects: 37 in the House Crystal ball also reveals that one of the Senate seats will be hotly contested in a recount -- with GOP voting "irregularities" uncovered in a Senate contest and two or three House races. I will also win the Powerball. Posted by: Hotspurs on October 25, 2006 at 3:35 PM | PERMALINKDems +18 House, +4 Senate (MT, PA, OH, RI) And no matter what anyone outside the DC area tells you, Ben Cardin will win the Senate seat in MD and George Allen will win in VA. Dems get 32 House seats and 6 Senate seats. Not sure whoch the Dems don't get. In the House, big surprises in the West and upstate NY. Posted by: Mimikatz on October 25, 2006 at 4:02 PM | PERMALINKHotspurs is close, but a little pessimistic: Agree we take 8 in the Senate (OH: Brown, TN: Ford, VA: Webb, RI: Whitehouse, MT: Tester, PA: Casey, MO: McGaskill, AZ: Pederson). Now, also it'll be 47 in House. Yeah, forty-seven. The gerrymandered pro-Republican districts will suffer major crumbling, because they tend to hold only a plurality of Republican voters, but not a majority. Indies will break Democratic in a big way and Republican turnout will be down. Jim Davis will defeat Charlie Crist here in Florida for Governor. Full disclosure: (I just put that in because Kevin hates it) the only drug I've taken today is caffeine. Really. Cheers! Posted by: Greg in FL on October 25, 2006 at 4:03 PM | PERMALINK14 house seats, 4 senate seats. Rove will only pay enough to maintain control. Posted by: Barringer on October 25, 2006 at 4:33 PM | PERMALINKThe New Jersey Supreme Court just ruled that the legislature has 180 days to rewrite the laws to either (a) allow for gay marriage or (b) provide for quasi-marriage civil unions. Does this in-between ruling help Menendez or Kean? Posted by: Peter on October 25, 2006 at 4:36 PM | PERMALINKDemocrats gain 27 House seats, 5 Senate seats. Posted by: CA Pol Junkie on October 25, 2006 at 5:48 PM | PERMALINK"What Scotian wrote is so simple yet so true and yet why are we unwilling to look at this issue? Posted by: ppk on October 25, 2006 at 2:59 PM" Because people are afraid of the truth, and denial is so much more comfortable, especially when you are not in control of the situation. "Do Not Ask a Question if you are Afraid of the Answer." My prediction: The GOP will maintain control of both houses of Congress. It is not something I wish for, but will be so. 17 in the House It'll be even closer than Harry Whittington's near death experience and ironically, Cheney's decisions caused both. Posted by: Tyler on October 25, 2006 at 6:57 PM | PERMALINKHouse 35 25-30 seats in the House, 5 in the Senate. The House I'd say is pretty much lost to the Republicans. The Senate is very much in play, but I'm still being cautious and picking a 50-50 tie like I've had for a while (which will make Cheney suffer some massive heartburn working overdrive the last two years). Posted by: gf120581 on October 25, 2006 at 8:45 PM | PERMALINKSenate - 3 (MT, OH, PA, RI, but lose CN since Lieberman is running as IND). House - 17 Posted by: tarylcabot on October 25, 2006 at 8:48 PM | PERMALINKOh and in the governor's race, Dems gain 6-8 seats. I would have gone with just the six they have pretty much locked up (NY, OH, MA, AR, CO and MD), but with MN, NV, AK and even FL now hotly contested again, they could gain more. Posted by: gf120581 on October 25, 2006 at 8:49 PM | PERMALINKI predict Democrats will GAIN but Republicans will RETAIN! I don't give a fig what ABC did or did not report It's not about you. It's about our perception of the MSM. This was a classic ANC story. they started the mess with specific text messages to a specific page and reported Foley has sex with this minor. Except he didn't have sex with the kid and he wasn't a minor anyway. Other than all the facts they got the story correct. Typical MSM. This is why the Foley story has has such little influence and in the long run will be better remmebered as an example of MSM corruption ala Dan Rather. You've got to take the longer view here. The idea is to constantly trash the MSM and diminish their influence. It's what made the SBVs possible. By totally butchering the story ABC will make the next election that much easier. Katie Couric isn't helping your cause much either. Posted by: rdw on October 25, 2006 at 9:24 PM | PERMALINKIt's going to be bad early and get much worse late for the Republic Party. Democrats will already have picked up both houses before the western half of the country finishes voting. Millions of Republic voters will hear the news on their way to the polls, turn their cars around, and go back home without casting ballots. It's going to be carnage for the Republic Party out West - 1980 in reverse. House: +65 +12 House, +3 Senate equals two more years of (albeit shaky) Republican control. My strong feeling continues to be that polling data consistently undercounts conservatives (you can't accurately measure the opinions of those who refuse to respond). Once again I hope to be proven wrong, as I have in every election since 1994. Posted by: dr sardonicus on October 25, 2006 at 10:33 PM | PERMALINKI go with 21 House/5 Senate pickups, plus the wildcard Lieberman in Senate. (Who knows, he might even be offered the SecDef position.) Posted by: Bill Arnold on October 25, 2006 at 11:08 PM | PERMALINK...xcept he didn't have sex with the kid and he wasn't a minor anyway... rdw at 9:24 PM |It's not so much the Foley actions, it's the Republican house leadership's coverup which allowed Rep Foley to continue for years plus the Republican anti-gay agenda that makes their hypocrisy so blatant. ABC and CBS have worked hard for the Republican agenda. They're in the RNC's pocket. Why don't you read a book about media bias so you learn a few facts that counter your FoxFauxFacts. By the way, have you heard about your gubernatorial candidate in Florida, Trysts with Crist Dems pick up 21 in the House and 4 in the Senate. Posted by: desmoinesdem on October 26, 2006 at 12:38 AM | PERMALINK29 seats in the house and 4 in the Senate (if you don't count Lieberman as a loss). The weather will be rainy in Ohio. Posted by: B on October 26, 2006 at 1:11 AM | PERMALINKKevin and friends, come make a prediction pool at Predict06.com! Our site is specifically built to help you do exactly this! Best, Andrew and the Predict06 Team Posted by: Predict06 on October 26, 2006 at 2:33 AM | PERMALINKrdw: >> I don't give a fig what ABC did or did not report > It's not about you. It's not about *you*, and your blatant and nihilistic (amoral) > It's about our perception of the MSM. "Our" perception -- how telling. You mean the right-wing bubble > This was a classic ANC story. The meme isn't sticking, Wooten. There are no Democratic > they started the mess with specific text messages to a Wooten, try all you want to play the expectation game because of what > Except he didn't have sex with the kid and he wasn't a minor anyway. Wooten, the *orgasmic netsex* Foley had just before a floor vote > Other than all the facts they got the story correct. You're a lying sack of shit, Wooten. > Typical MSM. Your right-wing innuendo-spewing blogs are accountable to > This is why the Foley story has has such little influence The Foley story has a huge influence. Dennis Hastert, Tom Reynolds Reynolds is running for his life. Bush campaigns for a guy in And you're going to try to jack up the base after the Republicans ? You mean the Gay Old Party ? ROTFL !!!! Just call it Monica's Revenge :) > and in the long run will be better remmebered In your spermy dreams, Wooten. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 26, 2006 at 3:03 AM | PERMALINK卫星电话|卫星手机|导航系统 卫星电话|卫星手机|导航系统 卫星电话|卫星手机|导航系统 卫星电话|卫星手机|导航系统 卫星电话|卫星手机|导航系统 The meme isn't sticking, Wooten. There are no Democratic The meme fits perfectly and it has liberal fingerprints all over it. The lad in question should be humiliated and his parents even more so. The lad was playing Lolita. It wasn't a one way conversation. He was a more than willing participant. Now all of his friends, all of his classmates from elementary and high schoolm all of his relatives, etc. know he was dong the gay thing while in DC. You know how that works don't you? He denies it but no one believes him. He knows whenever he goes back to his High school reunion his claim to fame will be as Foley's boyfriend. What's a prospective father-in-law thinking? This will have no effect on the GOP and could effect a Democratic seat or two. The fact is ABC blew it up as a sex scandal with a minor and there was no sex and no minor. Typical MSM. This is why their ratings sink every year and Fox grows. Fox was the 1st to ask, 'where's the sex?' and "how old was the kid?". ABC's hard hitting jornalists didn't get that far. Where's Dan Rather whe you need him? He would have asked! Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 9:45 AM | PERMALINKWooten, the *orgasmic netsex* Foley had just before a floor vote What are you babbling about? This is America. Speak the Kings English! Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 9:47 AM | PERMALINKThe Foley story has a huge influence. Wrong! The Foley affair has had almost no influence aside from some of the inner workings of Denny's office and a few local races with one of them a democrat at risk for related issues. As a national story it's dead. ABC hyped it out of all proportion and it getting slammed for it. More people have learned to turn out media hype especially from ABC. BTW: They did even more damage to themselves and democratic hopes in this race by hyping Foley's 'excuse' of having been molested by a priest. Leave it to ABC never to pass up an opportunity to bash religion. All-in-all a totally pathetic exercise which goes to the heart of the differences between liberals and conservatives and why liberals never learn. A liberal would listen to Foley's tale of woe and know immediately he was in fact the victim. We're all victims. Except in the real world it does not work that way. Conservatives hold Foley and ONLY Foley responsible for his actions. He's not the victim. It's his fault and ONLY his fault. It's not the priest. It's not Hastert. It's the adults involved. That would be Foley and the Page. I leave it to you Bob to stick your nose in the private business of consenting adults. The net effect of the coverage by ABC, the rest of the MSM, and the faux outrage by open-minded, liberated libs everywhere is to remind sane people of why you can't be trusted in positions of power. Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 10:00 AM | PERMALINK Republicans ? You mean the Gay Old Party ? We're the big tent party Bob. We take all voters. As you've noticed we take more than you. BTW: How about the Rush/MJ Fox dust-up! Pretty cool no? Leave it to the libs to use people for their diseases. You do like manipulation. Too bad you don't do coordination. It seems the Missouri Democrats were trying to pass a cloning bill by calling it something else. It seems MJ isn't above spreading lies thinking his Parkinsons gives him immunity. He's correct as far as politically correct liberals. Someone should have told him he's campaigning against conservatives and we don't do the victim thing. The libs in Missouri wanted this to stay under the radar. The less anyone knew the better the chance for success. MJ blew them right out of the wayer. Now it's got top billing and people understand it's a cloning bill. It's going down. Further Fox lied through his teeth in trying to slime Talent and the good citizens of Missouri are not happy with Hollywood trying to run their show. There's nothing Karl Rove likes better than some clown from Hollywood coming in and telling everyone else what to do. By engaging Rush in anther faux scandal they gave it max publicity. They never learn. The bill will fall and Talent will keep his seat. Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 10:20 AM | PERMALINKNobody finds sex between a 21-year-old kid and How about with a President? Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 10:21 AM | PERMALINK Charlie Crist -- Jeb Bush's You really are the sleeze merchant! How do you see the Supreme Court thing playing out. I see it as a non event but a number of conservative pundits read it as bad news for Menendez. The spin is the superior GOP GOTV machine can better target specific interest groups and use this as a motivating tool. You've lost Ford, McCaskill and Webb. If you lose Menendez you may only get one or two pick-ups and Steele is supposed to be within range. It's not unrealistic to expect a number of the brothers and sisters in Maryland to decide it's time the Great State of MD was represented in the Senate by an African-American. Although a republican Steele is very moderate and has run a very professional campaign. Burns has also closed within the margin of error in a very red state with a good GOTV team and gobs of cash. It's not impossible the GOP only lose one senate seat. Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 10:35 AM | PERMALINK rdw: Well, I can see you're in complete Shrill Mode; you're wildly manic and useless to have a discussion with, because all you do is repeat yourself without engaging what I've said in several messages. You're panicking, Wooten -- I can see the sweat on your keyboard. So I'm not going to waste my time yelling into a fog. Unlike you, I'm secure in my arguments. I've already made them; they stand on the merits whether you properly engage them or not. Repeating myself is boring -- and entirely unnecessary. You're not in the frame of mind right now to have anything remotely resembling an honest dialogue. I'll see you on another thread, my friend. You clearly lost the argument, btw. You're the one not taking responsibility for the failure in leadership that allowed Mark Foley to prey on kids for over a decade and groom them for sexual encounters when they turned 21. You failed the kids, Wooten. You're blaming them for being manipulated by an authority figure. The moral equivalent of blaming a kid for being molested by his gym teacher. Middle America ain't buying it. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 26, 2006 at 10:43 AM | PERMALINKWooten: The GOP base isn't going to get exercised by a decision which specifically repudiates gay marriage. And that from a party riven with gay staff members who protected a sexually obsessive ephebophile for over a decade. McCaskill's up 3 points in the lastest poll. Nevada is a huge state to do GOTV in -- lords know, the GOP never had to do a major do-or-die ground operation in that state before. And Menendez has a whopping ton of cash for the last stretch. Tom Kean is a weak candidate; his dad's rep is peeling off and he's coming across like the empty flip-flopping suit he is. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 26, 2006 at 10:50 AM | PERMALINKrdw: Steele is a very good candidate -- certainly orders of magnitude better than Ken Blackwell. But Maryland is a solid Democratic state and Cardin is a very good, experienced candidate as well. Maryland is not going to flip. Most blacks have outgrown identity politics -- certainly after the experience of seeing Colin Powell and Condi Rice having to wallow in Bush's messes. It ain't the 70s anymore, Wooten. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 26, 2006 at 10:55 AM | PERMALINKBob, better pollsters have Talent up and the stem cell bill going down. MJ Fox is bad news. They don't like outsiders coming in. Talent wins. He's actually a goos candidate. I agree Keane sucks. So does Casey and he's in. I find NJ very hard to call because they accept gross corruption so easily and they get lots of it including in the ballot box. How is Foley momving that race? I am watching PA closely and it's not mentioned. The Deaniacs are going to be suicidal. Get ready for the conspiracy whackjobs. You are not getting the Senate and the House is looking leaner. Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 11:02 AM | PERMALINKMost blacks have outgrown identity politics Is that right? Well that explains Obama! He's not the 2nd coming because he's black. It's his long list of accomplishmemts. It's hard running unopposed as a Democrat in the blue state of Illinois. Nah, it's got nothing to do with race. Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 11:23 AM | PERMALINKrdw: Brainfart -- I meant Montana, not Nevada. Teeter's a strong candidate, and the debate I saw them in a week ago Burns looked desperate. Hard to do GOTV in a state that spread out; the clustered areas tend to be progressive, so Teeter GOTV will be easier for the Dems. Menendez isn't nearly as corrupt as you make him out to be. And Menendez is gold to the Latino community -- which has grown even since two years ago. He's considered heroic because he dropped the dime on his own Hudson County political mentor in a corruption investigation that linked the machine to the mob. Menendez wore a bulletproof vest for months during that trial. So he's a *macho*. He's going to rally the urban areas and swamp whatever Mo the GOP might ignite with their new ads and GOTV investment. Tom Kean is a limp biscuit. He's been caught flip-flopping on so many issues that he has no real appeal to the sort of hardcore base voters you'll be trying to energize in the home stretch. He isn't going to make it. He's trying to play the gay marriage card -- but everybody knows he's a weenie liberal Republican just like his Dad. Liberal Republican might be nice for governing in NJ -- but not for firing the microtargeted issue voters you'll be trying to juice. Obama is the second coming to *white liberals*, Wooten. Certain Dems are positively desperate to find an anti-Hillary. He's got mojo because he's a great speaker and an extremely intelligent guy. He's the kind of centrist whose entire career is made up of Sister Soulja Moments -- telling blacks not to expect too much from the government, white upper-middle-class that he'll have to repeal some of the Bush tax cuts. He's very quirky and not your typical inner-city Charlie Rangel type at all. People like him because he can talk unity talk. But I think the Obama boom is just a phase, unleashed after his new book came out the way there was a Gore boomlet after An Inconvenient Truth came out. If he were smart, he'll stay in the Senate and think about 2012. He *does* need a record of accomplishment. He's also rumored to have an ego out to the moon. Steele will peel off some black voters for sure; he's an incredibly charismatic and personable guy. But Maryland is too Democratic, and Dems are too energized, for this race to be candidate-oriented. Steele can walk on water, but GOP policies just aren't that popular. Conditions are such that I'm fairly confident Cardin will take it. He's a very disciplined guy with a great family and well-respected as a congressman. And don't minimize the Iraq Albatross Factor. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 26, 2006 at 1:50 PM | PERMALINKrdw: I never thought we'd take the Senate. My prediction when this thread went up was 4 / 20. I have not succumbed to triumphalism like some of my peers here -- so I'm less likely to be disappointed. I have enough political experience to know that that *every* race tightens up for the challengers in the home stretch. Foley is only a direct factor in the races where he's implicated: Reynolds, that woman out West who's a missing-child activist and cut the first Foley ad (that race is a tossup), Hastert. What Foley does, though, is kind of put the cherry on the the sundae of the culture of corruption meme and gives it more legs than it had in mid-September. People see Foley in NJ as just more reason that the GOP leadership is out of touch. I'd expect in PA it's got to have played into Santorum's inability to rebound by localizing the issues. Think of all the Christian voters in that state who were so gung-ho for Rick. They're precisely the sort of voters to be most turned off by a lurid sex scandal (and say what you will about media play -- this story is about a powerful man exploiting minors for his own pleasure; parents strongly relate to that, "actual sex" or no actual sex). I saw Tom Reynolds at the National Press Club on C-SPAN. He was relentlessly pushing "all politics is local." What Foley does is just make it that much more difficult to do. It doesn't have to be a direct factor in order for it to reinforce the case of a leadership and party that's just been total command of government too long ... Although Christians hold individuals accountable as you say -- it's going to have an effect in demoralizing the precisely the sorts of single-issue values voters that Mehlman needs to target for a last-minute GOTV push. So I think it will reduce Rove's 2% additional GOTV margin by upwards of half a percentage point -- and that could be critical. You're going to need every vote you can scrape off the wall in some of these races. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 26, 2006 at 2:10 PM | PERMALINKI'm way late but I've predicted 32 House seats and a net gain of five Senate seates. I say net of five in the Senate because it seems pretty clear that we've already lost Lieberman. Either he'll caucus with the GOP or take over for Rummy and Rell will replace him with a Republican. Posted by: gq on October 26, 2006 at 6:00 PM | PERMALINKI'd expect in PA it's got to have played into Santorum's inability to rebound by localizing the issues. Think of all the Christian voters in that state who were so gung-ho for Rick. They're precisely the sort of voters to be most turned off by a lurid sex scandal The kind of voters you are describing are not wired into ABC. They are Fox / Talk Radio / blog people. They are aware there was no sex and no minor and he was forced to resign. Foley is not an issue in PA. Ricky created his own problems with his own mouth. He's much more consevative than most in the state. He has to know to present himself as a moderate as much as possible. As he moved up in the heirarchy the MSM took him to school. Liberal Senators have it much easier but he knew that before he ever ran. He needed to be a better mamager of the MSM. Liberals detest him. He gave them too easy a target. Ricky also greatly annoyed his base by backing Spector in 2004 in the GOP primary against a very popular Pat Toomey. Some in the conservative base are still pissed. Turnout in PA will not be an issue. Santorum will lose in a closer race than polls predict. The GOP will lose at most 2 house seats. All of Ricky's problems are self-inflicted. Foley is not on the rader at all. Obama is the second coming to *white liberals*, Wooten Duh! The point was your entire party is tied up in identity politics. Steele will pick up at least 10% of the black vote above what polls suggest and then as many as 10% will not vote at all because they won't vote against him. We'll see. Posted by: rdw on October 26, 2006 at 8:39 PM | PERMALINKbob, not a smart move
well if diebold holds up dems lose all seats even uncontested hahahaha Posted by: mr maki mmmkaayyy on October 26, 2006 at 10:21 PM | PERMALINKrdw: I know this thread is dead, but I want to make a couple points. First, it's completely absurd to suggest that value voters are insulated from the Foley scandal by talk radio and the blogs. You're a different kind of voter, Wooten -- a GOP activist who cultivates an ideological news environment and are receptive to any argument that makes the GOP look better than the Democrats. It's a distortive lens. Foley was wall-to-wall for two weeks, and many conservatives commented disparagingly on it. Political tacticians like yourself would love to turn it into an MSM pseudo-scandal, but this doesn't fly. Hearing you say that it "not about sex" is like listening to Clinton defenders say that Monica was "not about sex." It's a lie, Wooten -- Foley *did* fuck at least one 21-year-old that we know of, and his netsex (which moral conservatives find highly disgusting and deviant in itself) was part of a spiderweb to entrap kids he could seduce when they turned 21. That behavior is unspinnable. The GOP leadership -- not least including a network of gay staffers -- protected and sheltered Foley's behavior for a decade. Malkin and Buchanan certainly get this. What I'm worried about now is the effect of the NJSC ruling on conservative energy. It's a completely bogus issue -- the Court explicitly rejected creating a gay marriage right a la Massachusetts and left it to the voters to decide -- but "protecting marriage" is such a hot button issue that it might serve to energize single-issue values voters. The GOP is boundless in its capacity to lie and distort issues; George Bush himself supports civil unions, but you'd never be able to get that past the fog machine. The effect, still, remains to be seen. There very well might be a gay marriage fatigue after two more years of gay assimilation into the culture. The gay marriage initiatives didn't generate much mojo prior to the ruling. As for our party being driven by identity politics -- not any more so than the GOP. From where else came Clarence, Colin and Condi? If it were strictly true about the Democrats, then Al Sharpton would be the second coming -- and he's widely despised. Barak Obama first of all is half-black and very light-skinned. His stock is high for the same reason that Mark Warner's stock was high -- he's seen as a highly intelligent, skilled orator who is centrist and can talk about unity to disparate groups. He's seen as an alternative to a polarizing figure like Hillary. I'm not following Maryland as closely as I should -- but that was a Washington Times piece, so I distrust its characterization. We'll see what we shall see. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 27, 2006 at 4:07 AM | PERMALINKbob, I didn't say values voters are insulated from the Foley scandal. I ma saying they understand it. They know ABC greatly over-hyped a sleezy story. The reports the 1st several days were totally wrong. The famous text messages ABC were sex with a minor were not sex with a minor. The values voter has already been satisfied Foley was forced out in disgraced with no defenders. He is no longer an issue. Clinton is still your God. This is nothing like Clinton and Monica. As soon as the values voter realized ABC lied aboutt the story, and they did lie, ABC became the loser. I follow politics and I have no idea about this 15th page they found who said they had sex with Foley and I've never heard of this grooming business. That's for the perverts deep into the sleeze. Once it was clear ABC didn't bother to check any facts on the story 100% of the value voters tuned out. Honesty is a value ABC does not possess. BTW: Just because after a 2 week search they found someone willing to say they had sex with Foley doesn't make it so. In fact the allegation is more suspect that the original one already proven false. ABC killed it's own story with Dan Rather quality reporting. The sleeze is with them. The breathless reporting of Foley naming the priest who allegedly molested him was a classic. No one single values voter could possibly be interest. That's purely a liberal thing. Foley had nothing to do but play a victim card and no one to play it with but the MSM. a values voter would look at that effort and laugh at the pathetic nature of libs. BTW: Cardin made a mistake stiffing the MD NAACP. He does not want to disrespect blacks in any way. If Steele is within 5% in the polls he will win that Senate seat and still has a shot within 10%. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 8:34 AM | PERMALINKBob, you probably won't read this but here's a sober analysis on the media coverage of Foley and the damage to Gays as well as the MSM. They badly misplayed their cards and left a vivid example of their own journalistic corruption we'll be using for years. If ABC had another sex scandal to report tomorrow the 1st question asked will be, "was there any sex this time".
Camille's take: Foley is obviously a moral degenerate, and the Republican House leadership has come across as pathetically bumbling and ineffectual. But the idea that this is some sort of major scandal in the history of American politics is ludicrous. This was a story that needed to be told for, you know, like two days. Mark Foley was never on the radar of anyone outside the small circle of news junkies. So his fall and banishment from Washington were nothing but a drip in the torrential flood of current geopolitical problems. The way the Democratic leadership was in clear collusion with the major media to push this story in the month before the midterm election seems to me to have been a big fat gift to Ann Coulter and the other conservative commentators who say the mainstream media are simply the lapdogs of the Democrats. Every time I turned on the news it was "Foley, Foley, Foley!" and in suspiciously similar language and repetitive talking points. After three or four days of it, as soon as I heard Foley's name, I turned the sound off or switched channels. It was gargantuan overkill, and I felt the Democrats were shooting themselves in the foot. I was especially repulsed by the manipulative use of a gay issue for political purposes by my own party. I think it was not only poor judgment but positively evil. Whatever short-term political gain there is, it can only have a negative impact on gay men. When a moralistic, buttoned-up Republican like Foley is revealed to have a secret, seamy gay life, it simply casts all gay men under a shadow and makes people distrust them. Why don't the Democratic strategists see this? These tactics are extremely foolish. Gay men through history have always been more vulnerable to public hysteria than are lesbians, who unless they're out there parading around in all-leather bull-dyke drag simply fit more easily into the cultural landscape than do gay men, who generally lead a more adventurous, pickup-oriented sex life. Not only has the public image of gay men been tarnished by the over-promotion of the Foley scandal, but they have actually been put into physical danger. It's already starting with news items about teenage boys using online sites to lure gay men on dates to attack and rob them. What in the world are the Democrats thinking? We saw the beginning of this in that grotesque moment in the last presidential debates when John Kerry came out with that clearly prefab line identifying Mary Cheney as a lesbian. Since when does the Democratic Party use any gay issue in this coldblooded way as a token on the chessboard? You'd expect this stuff from right-wing ideologues, not progressives. There's more. Posted at 7:40 AM rdw: Ahhh ... Camille Paglia :) Wooten, I happen to adore Camille Pagilia. Seriously, I do. I'm one of But Camille Paglia only speaks for Camille Paglia. She's a fabulous You should listen to her celebrate the Marquis de Sade ... She's also a lesbian who came out in her mid-40s. So her entire I understand where she's coming from. If I were a gay man, I You're just wrong about the news coverage. *Every* media outlet As far as the Democrats pushing that story? Hey, Wooten; live by The only way gay rights would ever be improved in this country is to And we thank the GOP for teaching us this hard-fought lesson. As for the priest? Who cares. If Foley's playing the victim card, That's why it's a scandal, Wooten. You don't need to be a pervert Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 27, 2006 at 11:50 AM | PERMALINK Her linking Foley to those Actually she's dead on and the mainstream knows it. ABC breathlessly reported on specific contacts between Foley and a one page reporting sex with a minor and they were breathlessly repeated by the entire MSM. Except there was no sex and the kid wasn't a minor. Therein lies the problem. ABC and the other liberal powerhouses couldn't have been bothered to do 15 minutes of investigation to find out if he was a minor and if there was a sexual relationship. In fact they clearly never made an attempt. The liberal bastions of the media felt safe in assuming a gay man with young boys, obviously agreeable young boys, that sex was a slam dunk. In other words they fell prey to their own stereotypes. This is a devastating story for ABC and the MSM. Bob you tell me how long it would have taken to find out how old the kid was? We may not have had his name but they did. I'm thinking a newspaper/journalist intern with a PC and 5 minutes finds out the kid wasn't a minor. Bob you tell me why ABC and CBS and NBC and CNN were so quick to hang Foley on zero evidence? If he was a she would it be different? If he was hitting on a female instead? Of course it would be different. This is as Carmine explains ABC and the MSM buying into to stereotype of gay men as sexual predators. This wasn't about minors. This was about gay men. As far as your unsubstantiated reports of later contacts with adults it's utterly meaningless. ABC got the entire story wrong in a rush to juegement because it relied on stereotypes of gay perversion. If I'm a gay male I've got to be furious. As far as the priest thing I was thrilled by it. We knew by then the story was a fraud and the sleeze belonged to Foley and ABC. I loved the fact the MSM could not pass up the opportunity to bash catholic priests. You can't show your anti-religion chops too often for me. There is a fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives we can't display too often. You are a staunch believer in victimhood. We're all victims. The example of the sleezy Foley playing this game presents him as a liberal. He is clearly not a conservative and just as clearly not trying to appeal to conservatives. The clinton comparison works very well too. You defended his actions and still do. Foley was immediately removed and will never be back. The reaction of each party is a testiment to our different standards. The after the fact commments are even better. How many times did you exlain to the world Monica was a 21-yr old adult acting on her free will. Yet today in your unsubstantiated allegation you claim Foley having sex with a 21-yr old is sleezy. Clearly age can't be the issue. You and 15M other libs have repeatedly claimed Monica and Bill were just two consenting adults. Ergo of Foley and this 21-yr old you allege had a relationship and you are repulsed it suggest a very strong anti-gay bias. BTW: one of the bloggers has a list of some of the pundits who were supporting Bill's consexual sex with another adult but are repulsed by Foley's consexual sex with an adult. He's waiting comments from them. So am I. I don't think they'll go with the grooming thing knowing they'll just be further ridiculed. Denny is not in deep dodo. He's near retirement anyway and will leave on his own terms. This was expected to be his last election and the GOP has term limits. I agree that it did show his lack of PR savvy. He's not a talking head and didn't like the camera. His skill is as a vote counter and an enforcer. He will leave the leaderhip before 2008 when he decides. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 12:50 PM | PERMALINK The ends justify the means, my friend. You surprise me here. You've accused me of having this sentiment and I do not. I do agree in fighting fire with fire but I think the kind of bahavior you are agvocating isn't just wrong but stupid. For example the libs are rolling out Michael J Fox as their victim of the week to campaign for stem cell research. He should be a stud. Who doesn't like Alex Keaton? But you had him lie. That's just dumb. Your party assumes a much lower intelligence level for the electorate. Rush went after him for haming it up and lying and created a great big national controversy. This is the last thing the DNC wanted but the MSM can't resist. Rush attacked a Parkinsons victim. The bastard! That's against the rules. Rush doesn't do PC. It turns out Fox does go off his meds to 'enhance' the effect of Parkinsons. Some consider that manipulative. I'm fine with it as long as it's known. Fox admitted this in his book. Worse is Fox intentionally distorted Talents position and the referendum on the ballot in Missouri which was intentionally misnamed to hide the actualy purpose. Now the citizens of Missouri know they had this outsider, a likeable outsider, coming in and lying to them. He's not so likeable anymore. Talent is now up 3 in several polls and the referendum lost over 12% and will lose. Michael then took his act to MD and trashed Steele as being against stem cell research. Except he's not. Steele is showing himself to be a very savvy campaigner. It seems his little sister, Dr. Monica Turner, suffers from MS and she just taped a great commercial explaining that Cardin and Fox are liars (not in those words) and tasteless and her big brother SUPPORTS stem cell research and is very caring of people with debilitating diseases, such as herself. How about that? The republican playing a better victim card than the liberal. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 1:13 PM | PERMALINKBob, I highlighted what I see as the best point. Paglia on Democrats, Fox News and Talk Radio Jonah already excerpted Camille Paglia's take on the media and the Mark Foley scandal, but I wanted to highlight a few more media-related comments from her interview with Salon. To wit: I thought that Bill[ Clinton]'s recent performance on Fox News was very ill-advised. I know many Democrats loved it: Oh, finally someone going toe-to-toe with Fox! Well, what is this shibboleth about Fox as some sort of satanic force in American politics? Get over it! It came at a time when Fox's ratings numbers have finally cooled off a little bit. It seemed more calculated. It may have been mixed. It began as a challenge to the right-wing media, but I think Clinton got out of control and went embarrassingly too far. It was a perfectly civil and reasonable question from one of Fox's most neutral commentators. But Clinton went off on a tirade, waved his finger in Chris Wallace's face, and accused him of sitting there with a "smirk." That was over-personalizing the interview by any standard. And to charge Wallace with setting his guest up, with ambush journalism good heavens, the problem with American journalism is hardly that it's too severe and punitive. Our reporters' questioning of politicians is pallid and wimpy compared to what goes on in Britain and Europe. BBC journalists jump right in the face of every political figure from the prime minister on down. So for Clinton to make a huge fuss about a mild question about his administration's record in dealing with Osama bin Laden was a bullying of our journalists an act of war, in fact, on American journalists, saying, "Don't you dare go off our agreed-to list of questions!" Every Democrat who was disgusted by the American media's cowering passivity leading up to the Iraq war should have gone red-hot over this episode and said, "Clinton, back off! We want journalists to be bolder, ruder in challenging authority. Put more spine into our reporters!" This overblown fear of Fox News is such a sentimentality on the part of too many Democrats. Talk radio is infinitely more powerful than Fox. Radio hosts are blanketing the country with round-the-clock conservative ideology not because they're dastardly conspirators manipulating the media but because they've achieved their success, market by market, in creating programs that millions of people want to listen to. The recent filing for bankruptcy by Air America dramatizes my party's abject failure to produce shows that are informative and entertaining and that systematically build an audience the way all the top radio hosts did who climbed the ladder from obscurity to their present prominence. Aren't we the party of Hollywood? The fact that we've failed so miserably at this central medium of communication shows how something has gone very wrong in Democratic sensibility. Paglia has lots to say about that "something," and plenty of criticism for Republicans too in this fascinating, wide-ranging interview. Bob, What she did not add about talk radio is the intersect of talk radio, blogs and Fox. Talk radio gets all of it's research for free from bloggers. Dan Rather wasn't destroyed by little green footballs or powerline. He was destroyed by talk radio. They feed each other in a partnership. Rush gives these guys kudo's when he uses their material. They then get a surge to visits as listeners check them out. Each side helps the other. This is what the MSM cannot meet. NPR radio is tiny. ABC gets 15 minutes to cover politics and CNN is disaster. The MSM in the aggregate is still very powerful but they can't block stories like Dan Rather or stop us from finding out the Foley story was a fraud. The folks in Missouri and MD know Fox is lying. He's ads are much more famous because he lied. I just heard MJ Fox went on morning TV with Katie Couric to defend himself against 'politicizing diseases'. This is amazing. It shows Fox knows his image is getting trashed and he's in trouble as a spokesman. Apparently he claims he's not political and this is just about curing diseases. Fox needs a media advisor. He's digging himself a deeper hole. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 1:27 PM | PERMALINKMark Foley cultivated relationships Bob You clearly don't have kids and do not understand parents. The most horrifying aspect of the text message exchange to a parent wasn't Foley but the other side. These 'kids' were into it. They were leading him on. They were all lolita's. As a parent your expection is your kid, and since you've sent them to DC to live on their own their 'mature, independent kid, will deal with sleeze like Foley by telling him to F*ck off. That's not too close to what they did is it? Those kids humiliated their families and themselves. They can't go to their HS reunions. They are now famous for what can only be humiliating complicity in a gay relationship, sexual or not, with an old fart. Foley is a sleezy pig who can rot in jail. That priest/victim act was designed for you and other libs. Foley is dead to conservatives and he knows it. Parents know they cannot always be there to protect their kids. They have to hope they raised them to be smart strong and can protect themselves. These parents failed and their failure was blasted all over the MSM for a week. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 1:39 PM | PERMALINKrdw: You're factually incorrect. You're confused because a whole This mistake is more than a little deliberate, IMHO. Remember that not all the explicit chat has been published. The other incident of netsex, which was published with the You want to say that this is "not sex." Heh. Clinton said that a I was among the liberals who defended Clinton and Monica. I was Foley, in all cases, was the pursuer. These kids were just innocently Foley also did it over what may have been 10 years. And since one kid There are several examples on the record of Foley If there was nothing there, Wooten, Foley wouldn't have resigned As for this somehow being homophobic -- in your dreams, Wooten. Your talk about the priest as "Catholic bashing" is flatly absurd. You can't erase that and call him some kind of closet liberal. By I'm not getting into the mud with you over the Missouri race. I will simply state for the record: 1) Michael J. Fox wasn't lying. 2) Stem cell research is not embryonic stem cell research. 3) Embryonic stem cell research is not "human cloning." You want to be an anti-science demagogue in the interest in I'm profoundly uninterested in your interpretation of these events. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 27, 2006 at 2:36 PM | PERMALINKrdw: Wow, you really are in heavy denial, aren't you ... First of all, parents in America would be appalled at *you* for blaming their kids. It'd be like a school answering for a gym teacher who sexually harrassed a student by telling the parents that the kid could have just walked away. How fast do you think the PTA would string that administrator up by his thumbs for that, eh? You're flatly wrong. Those kids are hardly "on their own;" they live in dormitories supervised by House personnel. The House of Representatives has an in loco parentis obligation to their safety -- and sends pages home routinely for infractions of the rules. It's like prep school. Their lives are regimented and supervised. These kids were the last thing from Lolitas. Read the IM transcripts. It was *Foley* who kept pushing the conversations to sex. Why did the kids go along with it? Why would you think? Here's a congressman who's actually taking an interest in them, when most of the congressmen barely raise their heads to say hello. And this congressman could serve later as an important contact. Remember, to be a page means that you're looking at a career in politics or government. It's a classic abuse of trust. A number of young men that age aren't yet sure of their sexual orientations and are experimenting. These kids probably started out suffering Foley's advances because they felt the friendship or connection later would be valuable. Foley offered something to them -- his influence -- in exchange for these conversations that eventually *did* cause a number of these pages to stop contacting him. But Foley was assured they wouldn't go to the authorities, both because they'd be extremely embarrassed and because they wouldn't want to blow off Foley as a reference in the future. It's precisely like a boss hitting on an employee. A classic attempt to exchange power and influence for sex with a weaker party. That these kids were too young and unsure of themselves hardly excuses the behavior of the *adult* in the situation. What kind of asinine liberal victimology on Foley's behalf are you attempting to run here, anyway? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 27, 2006 at 2:57 PM | PERMALINKYou're factually incorrect. No I am not. The text messages that were the basis for the 'sex with a minor' scandal were not with a minor and the kid has said there was no sex. I know nothing of the stuff that's come up after the initial scandal. I know the credibility of the story and ABC was destroyed was 3 days and followed none of it nor has anyone else. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:10 PM | PERMALINKClinton, first of all, did not serially One of the most comical, and pathetic, aspects of the internship thing was an interview I read with the supervisor of the 'typing pool' in the WH while clinton was there. It was a staff not a classic typing pool. She said she had been warned to keep an eye on the President and the 'girls' if he was in the area. Now tell me, isn't that pathetic? Bill has a very, very long history of being a sexual predator and I confess to enjoyment at reminding my liberal friends he is/was a pig. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:15 PM | PERMALINKI will simply state for the record: 1) Michael J. Fox wasn't lying. 2) Stem cell research is not embryonic stem cell research. 3) Embryonic stem cell research is not "human cloning." You want to be an anti-science demagogue in the interest in I'm profoundly uninterested in your interpretation of these events. MJF WAS lying. Adult stem cell research is stem cell research just as much as embryoniac stem cell research. The liberal technique is to defend Fox's lies accusing Talent of being against stem cell research by saying he's against embryonic stem cell research and that's the same thing. It's NOT. We are all for adult stem cell research which has been far more successful. This is the classic liberal lie that will not work in 2006. The cloning thing is a heaton issue. She is campaigning aggressively and the bill will fail. McCaskill is going down. She wisely substituted a different ad for last nights world series. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:24 PM | PERMALINKYour talk about the priest as "Catholic bashing" is flatly absurd. Foley is not and has never been conservative. He's a very moderate republican much like chafee. Foley wasn't doing the bashing. The bashing was by the MSM. Even you agree his 'excuse' was beyond pathetic. So why did the MSM hyper-ventilate over it for 3 days? It was a two-fer. They could bash Catholics and bash republicans. This is the sort of story the MSM excels in and religious folk can smell the bigotry a mile away. The story didn't deserve 2 seconds of air time. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:28 PM | PERMALINKWhat kind of asinine liberal victimology on Foley's behalf are you attempting to run here, anyway? I've made no attempt ever to defend Foley making it clear he can rot in jail. But congrats on connecting liberal and victimology. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:30 PM | PERMALINKThese kids were the last thing from Lolitas I only saw the initial text messages to the initial 'victim'. That would be the minor ABC said Foley has sex with except he wasn't a minor and he didn't have sex with him. That kid WAS lolita. He was leading him on. I also know he and his family were humiliated and desperate to keep his name OUT of the news. ABC was not so caring. They screwed the kid over, probably because he would not admit to having had sex. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:34 PM | PERMALINKAs for this somehow being homophobic -- in your dreams, Wooten. I don't think the intent was homophobic. Even if you were homophobic you re so PC you'd never have the balls to admit it. I think the intent was purely political. You could give a rats ass about Foley or the pages. I think the result was homophibic which was Camilia's point. This is what Bush Derangement Syndrome does. You people are so desperate to get Bush you do things without thinking. The fair question is would this have been a scandal of it was girl-girl or boy-girl? The obvious answer is no. After such an aggressive defense of Clinton you are going to hit on a congressman for hitting on young girls. Even Slick Willie would laugh at that. And you would make a bif deal over a lesbian relationship? I think not. Clearly the gay angle drove this story and just as clearly it reflects very, very badly on gays explaining why their reaction was so strong. They understand the perception exists and they know ABC and Nancy Pelosi, intentionally or not, were feeding the perception. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:43 PM | PERMALINKbob, I am impressed with your detailed research on the details of Foley's activities. I don't know anyone who was even interested. A few weeks back you also seemed to have expert knowledge on Rush's excellent adventure in the Dominican Republican specifically as regards the Sex trade. You do get around but your interests are not all that broad. Posted by: rdw on October 27, 2006 at 3:50 PM | PERMALINKbob, this will make your head explode. Joe has a 17% lead. The Lieberman-Lamont Race Key excerpt: The outcome of their fight is important nationally for the meaning that will be attached. While other states such as Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio and Virginia will decide whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate, this Connecticut race constitutes perhaps the nations clearest test on the Iraq war. Lieberman insists he is not wholly in the Bush camp but still argues that a victory in Iraq is possible and essential for American security whatever that may mean. Im not ready to give up on the Muslim world, he said, adding that a democratic Iraq could serve as a model for the Middle East. His winning and returning to the Senate and its Democratic caucus would slow, if not reverse, growing pressure from the Democrats for an early pullout of U.S. forces. On the other hand, should Lamont repeat his primary win over Lieberman and capture the seat, it would add immeasurably to the momentum of the antiwar forces. He says that he is running in order to end the nightmare of 140,000 of our brave troops stuck in the middle of a bloody civil war. Lamont himself is not a strong figure or a compelling politician; he looks like a juvenile in a drawing room comedy, and he is competitive mainly because he has sunk much of his fortune into this race
On this particular point I think Broder has it exactly right. This is the single most important race in the 2006 election rdw: Wooten, I'm not bothering to read the rest of your messages after the After that initial story broke, Foley was prepared to fight. He And *you* might have a point that ABC was scandal-mongering. BUT ... A day later, several pages sent ABC trascripts of IMs, one of What you're doing is so transparent it's kind of pathetic. "There And then you're trying to freeze time. "There was no sex and the Oh, and let's not forget the stories of Kirk Fordham and Jim Kolbe These are Republicans, Wooten -- a congressman and a senior staffer. And then you quote Camille Paglia of all people, a pro-sex Hey you know what, Wooten? I defended Clinton -- but I was wrong. And here's where you're wrong about the politics: *You* aren't on The ABC conspiracy theory that you're trying to push plays with the And this didn't happen three decades ago, like Christmas in Cambodia. "There was no underage sex!" Sorry. There *was* underage NETsex. Single-issue values voters are also the type to become quickly Openly gay Republicans who may have *protected* a Republican As I say, these aren't terribly sophisticated people. The fine Because these are the very people whose hatred of gays will allow So the largest impact of the Foley scandal may well turn out to be Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 28, 2006 at 2:38 AM | PERMALINKrdw: All I did was read the papers, Wooten. See, here's the difference between you and me. My support for Clinton is rational. Your support for Bush is sub-rational. When the Lewinsky scandal was raging, I kept abreast of it as well, so I could counter the Republican talking points on the NYT fora. I didn't hide from stuff. I watched the Kathleen Willey interview on 60 Minutes. That's why I was so freakin' embarrassed when that late spring Clinton admitted it was all true. I felt like a liar and never returned to that forum. You, OTOH, simply *tuned out* the Foley story. Why? Because you can't handle the cognitive dissonance, because your support for Bush isn't based on being able to maintain rational arguments to begin with. You deal with it by creating absurd media conspiracies out of whole cloth, based *precisely* on your cultivated lack of information about how the scandal played out. And then you attempt to defend this by implicitly calling me a pervert. Oh really? You mean like the Clinton-haters who read every last line of the Starr Report? GMAFB, Wooten. I did no more research than anybody else who reads a couple newspapers a day. You lose on this one. The facts are on my side, not yours. And I, at least, was man enough to admit when *I* was wrong after Lewinsky shook out. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 28, 2006 at 3:02 AM | PERMALINKYou, OTOH, simply *tuned out* the Foley story. Why? Because you can't handle the cognitive dissonance No dissonance. No interest. We found out Foley was forced to resign when we found out he was a sleezebag. The political punishment had already been administered and we knew the FBI was looking at criminal issues. Aand we now know there are none. 1st off understand ABC is no different to conservatives than the National Inquirer. We were conditioned long before Dan Rather. In fact one of the off things about this cycle is the MSM isn't even making any pretentions of objectivity. They are openly campaigning for Democrats. At least 5 well-known well-placed, experienced members have 'come out' inlcuding Jonathan Alter and Mark Halprin among others. 40% of the country knew immediately this wasn't a scandal but an opportunity to shrill for their candidates. THe 2nd thing we knew right off was Denny Hastert is a big time character guy with a great family background. No one remotely aware wold ever suggest he'd cover up for this kind of sleeze. The 3rd thing was it was nothing more than a lightweight story. That the Speaker of the House would be checking the text messages of the members of the house is absurd. In fact it would be illegal. This was always a manufactured scandal. It's was immediately obvious it was a manufctured scandal. When Hastert found out the extend of Foley's communications he was immediately forced to resign and not one single person tried to defend him. The 4th thing is you probably didn't know about the liberal congressman (stubbs I think his name is) who actually HAD sex with a minor page in the 80ths and the Democrats DEFENDED him relecting him 6x's. I knew that almost immediately. The MSM was a little slow to draw that difference. This also goes to the gay bashing angle. People like you defended Stubbs and attacked Foley. It's quite obvious the only difference is one was hetero sex and the other potentially gay sex. You lost your marbles just on the prospect of gay sex with a minnor after approving hetero sex with minor. This is the new world I keep telling you about and you don't seem to know exists. The MSM isn't defining reality and they're doing an exceptionally poor job with the reality they're trying to define. You had one set of facts. I had a very different set of fact. As usual, my facts were correct. There was no sex. There was no minor. The Dems had a track record in this regard and they did NOTHING. etc. Bob, you have to adjust to the world as it is and quit looking at it as you want it to be. The MSM cannot define the story any longer. Even serious libs like Camille are looking at the episode for what it was. A seriously bizarre feeding frenzy with no food. Foley will have NO effect on this election but like the Dan Rather story it will serve as an example of ABC incompetence. In fact if ABC were to break a real sex scandal tomorrow they'd have a hard time getting anyone on the right interested. This is not quite as powerful and as useful as the Dan Rather episode but it is very good. Dan was a case of journalistic corruption. They flat out lied and they all knew it. This is more of an example of gross incompetence although not knowing the kid was an adult does beg the question of corruption. I have a hard time believing they didn't know how old the kid was. They knew when the text messages were sent and they had the kids records. Whatever. They'll still have this blot for many years to come
Thanks to Mark Foley and colleagues who protected him Wishful thinking isn't analysis. Liberal always assume the electorate is stupid. I can understand after the butterfly ballot why you muight think liberal voter are stupid but that's not true with serious voters. Neither the MSM more the DNC has a clue about these voters. They're serious people and they understand the issues. That is precisely why Foley is NOT an issue and Gay marriage is an issue. Actually a better issues might be embryonic stem cell research. This group knows Denny Hastert and understands your charges as spurious. More important they understand the difference between Denny Hastert and Nancy Pelosi and the difference between Harry Reid and Bill Frist. These pundits predicting a 30 vote pick-up are out of their minds. This has been a seriously mis-managed effort by the Democratic leadership. This could be 1994. Iraq is a huge black cloud and you are focused on all this side stuff that is minor by comparison. No one knows what the Democrats would do on anything except raise taxes and cut and run. There's no contract. There's no reason to vote FOR Dems because your leadership decided NOT to give them a reason. All of your hopes are for folks to vote against the GOP. That's based on a fundamental misreading of Americans. We're optimist. We are motivated by positives. You are trying to motivate using negatives. You define GWB as a loser and a dope yet he beat you soundly in 2002 and 2004. Well if you couldn't beat a loser back then using negativity what makes you think it'll work this time? What I find so impressive about Bush and Rove is after 2000 they realized they had a problem with GOTV. They expected a 3% win and it obviously didn't happen. They then did a state by state, county by county review of what happened and what they needed to do. They never assmed the voters are stupid. They didn't blame your party. They didn't blame the late DUI. They blamed themselves. When you accept the blame for a failure you can do a real assessment and take real corrective action. This Foley thing is a classic example. It's pure pandering. You've followed the story intensly. 98% of your supposed target audience tuned it out almost immediately. They knew within 24 hours there was no sex, no minor and stubbs was worse and re-elected 6x's. These people do not watch ABC. They don't watch 60 minutes and the Foley story reminded them why they don't watch ABC or 60 minutes. I would have thought after John Kerry and Dan Rather and the SBVs you would have figured out the MSM is not enough to get you elected. Liberals are going to be outraged after the election when the leadership stays the same and GOP losses are consistent with a 6th Year President. A case by case basis will show those GOP candidates that lost, lost due to self-inflicted wounds (Santorum, Chaffee) or we nominated really weak candidates (Keane) George Will wrote a column 2 weeks ago suggesting if the Democrats can't win the leaderhip now they'll never win it. GWB has done it a 4th time. Expectations are so low for the GOP and so high for the DNC you can't win. There won't be enough prozac in hollywood after this one. Posted by: rdw on October 28, 2006 at 9:06 AM | PERMALINK one of Are you out of your friggin mind? What is actual netsex? Are you trying to do a comedy routine? Actual pretend sex? Is that what you are saying? You are killing George Clooney. He wants to restore the term 'liberal' as a term of respect. You can't make statements like this and be taken seriously. It was moronic to even attempt to redefine oral sex as something other than real sex. It was silly. No one with a brain took it seriously and even those no excused for a temporarty bout of insanity look back with embarrasment. Put your thing in someones mouth that's sex. Squirt all over then, that's sex! There's no debate. Fools holwing to the moon isn't debate. There's no debate about phone sex, net sex, virtual sex either. That's not sex. All me to give you a clue. In order to have sex with another individual, or group of individuals, you must actually be in the same state. That reminds me of one of my favorite moments during the Monica affair very early on long before we knew about the blue dress. Lucianne GoldBerg (Jonah's Mom) was on Chris Matthews. Chris was actually pretty outraged over the Paula Jones thing but fully aware Clinton was a pig and quite capable of being guilty. He knew Lucianne was close to Ms. Tripp who was close to Monica and she had the dirt. In his usual attack fashion he did everything he could to find out what she knew but she gave him nothing. Lucianne was one of the few defenders of Tripp. She was the one who told her to tape her meetings with Monica for her own protection and she was the one who told Tripp to tell Monica to put the dress in storage and absolutely do not dry clean it. Both were well aware of the bimbo eruption squad and knew the Clintons would crush them given the opportunity. It was great TV. Lucianne is a very savvy, experienced and hard-nosed operator. Matthews knew she knew a lot more than she could tell. They had a series of exchanges when he fired his questions and she sat there smiling infuriating him. There was never much of a lull because Matthews can't shutup BUT he'd finally say, "are you going to say anything" She'd respond, "Chris you know I can't because they were private conversations but I can tell you Clinton was very, very closer to Monica and I can tell you he will not send his squard after her. We are all going to find out the truth and we'll know it as the truth." That would of course set his head on fire. Lucianne had a grin the entire time, and she was on several times, because she knew about the blue dress and she knew Monica was in a corner and that's all she had. If there's one scene in the WH I'd love to see on video it's Bill Clinton giving the FBI DNA evidence. Because at that time he knows the game it up. 4 people knew about the blue dress. Bill and Monica, Linda Tripp and Lucianne. As soon as Bill learned Ken Starr found it he knew he was getting impeached and would be the most humiliated President in history. Those were fun times. Posted by: rdw on October 28, 2006 at 9:56 AM | PERMALINKOh really? You mean like the Clinton-haters who read every last line of the Starr Report? I never read it and only saw a few clips in the paper and on TV. I saw what Fox played and the WSJ printed. I don't recall blogs.
You lose on this one. The facts are on my side, not yours.
That leaves the sex fans and political fanatics. You couldn't resist.
You were obviosly wrong day one and it took years. I am right. There's nothing here. The FBI will not file charges because there's no crime. The sleezebag has been fired and he'll disappear. Having voted for a true pedofile 6x's, congressman stuggs, libs can't say a word. Ergo, foley is out of the news. Posted by: rdw on October 28, 2006 at 10:04 AM | PERMALINKjust as Christian voters followed Monica Your ignorance of, and contempt for, Christian voters is our greatest edge. That's just one reason why Dean is so perfect. He wears his contempt on his sleeve. EVERYONE followed Monica. It was and remains a great story. As long as Bill Clinton is out on the campaign trial and/or any libs try to act sanctamonously Monica will always be there. How many people thought Congressman Stubbs was forgotten? Monica and Stubbsis are that secret bank account or that rainy day fund. They're always there. Often forgotten but always available in an emergency. We will find out if these voters are staying home. I do know this. Karl Rove is optimistic and it's authentic optimism. It's a classic Bush/Rove set-up. Expections are very, very low and the table is set yet again for surge of liberal nervous breakdowns. If I remember correctly you're one of the ones furious Bush gets credit for a good performance if he doesn't slobber all over himself because expectation are so low. He's been doing this for 10 years. You know it and he still keeps doing it. And he's the dumb one! Posted by: rdw on October 28, 2006 at 10:15 AM | PERMALINKrdw: *sigh* ... you really are incredibly thick-headed. I stopped reading halfway through your second-to-last message because rebutting your inaccuracies is becoming *so* tiresome ... It didn't take *years*, Wooten. Lewinsky broke in the late fall. By late spring, Clinton had owned up. I defended him on the NYT forum for a couple months. I wasn't active on blogs or fora during the impeachment. It's so funny how you got StuDDs wrong -- and then use this howling inaccuracy to argue for a gay-bashing double standard. Well, hold on to your hat, Wooten. Gerry Studds (recently deceased) was GAY :) In 1983, he and a Republican colleague, Dan Crane, were both busted at the same time for schtupping pages. Studds' dalliance happened a decade earlier in 1973. Crane's fling, with a 17-year-old female page, was more recent. They were both censured -- they both stood in the well of the House and were denounced by their colleagues. If the Democrats didn't cut Studds loose -- neither did the Republicans cut loose Crane. Crane was from the midwest -- Indiana, I think. The voters rejected him. Studds represented the most liberal district in Massachusetts. You can maybe argue re-electing Studds makes Democrats more comfortable with sexual sleaze -- but you certainly can't use Studds to argue for a double standard with gays in the Democratic Party. After all, who's one of the most quotable and re-elected Massachusetts Democrats? Barney Frank. We've heard the, umm, factually accurate equivalency argument. Studds had actual sex with an underage boy and yet the Dems re-elected him. But there's an important difference between Studds and Foley. Studds wasn't a serial predator; his relationship with the page lasted for years. In his press conference after censure, that young man -- 27 at the time -- stood in the room and stepped to the mic to talk about how much he admired Studds, how strong their relationship remains. Sexual predators aren't lookin' for love, Wooten. They don't make long-term committments with the kids they prey on. Foley, OTOH, stopped talking to the 21-year-old after he fucked him. Predators seduce and abandon their victims. The voters in that ultra-liberal district forgave Studds because even though having sex with an underager is always wrong (but it happened in Europe so it violated no American laws) -- the human heart is funny that way. They saw the genuine, loving relationship that grew out of it and cut him slack. Netsex isn't sex? No, it's mutual masturbation. But tell that to the mom who walked in on her son right after Foley IM'ed him that he'd love to "grab that one-eyed snake." If, you know, you have the nerve ... Netsex is stalking behavior. Its purpose is to establish a sexual connection that Foley could act on later after the kid turned 21. You keep denying that Foley actually had sex. Well, you tuned out the scandal. You missed it -- that kid once again was interviewed by the FBI. Like all these kids, he's no Democrat. Nobody put him up to it. He came forward because he realized it's important to establish facts about a guy who's quite obviously a sexual predator. Camille Paglia isn't a "serious lib," good gods. That only shows how little you know about both Camille Paglia and serious liberals. Camille Paglia made an ass of herself a decade ago by DEFENDING DATE RAPE. She's a contrarian, a concern troll liberal -- just the sort of "quotable liberal" that guys like Jonah Goldberg love. You know -- like liberals love David Brock and David Kuo :) Camille's point -- essentially the same point she made during MonicaGate -- is that Americans get extremely silly about sex scandals. And you know what -- she's right, of course. But the Foley scandal isn't so much about sex. After all, if Foley didn't have physical sex with kids under 21 (the universal age of consent HIS LAW established for sex solicited over the internet), then there's no federal crime. The Foley scandal is, rather, about HYPOCRISY. This was the guy who chaired the Child Protection subcommittee. This is the guy who made it his duty to redefine the laws in the age of cyber-stalking with the Adam Walsh Act he sponsored. This is the guy who fiercely denounced Clinton over Monica. And this is why he resigned without spending as much as an hour thinking about it after the IMs came out. Note that the leadership had nothing to do with forcing him out. You know, seriously corrupt guys like Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney and Tom DeLay will spend months, years, in serious denial about their crimes before they bow to political pressure. The fact that Foley instantly folded shows you just how unspinnable is his behavior. The only way you can exonerate Hastert's office is if you believe that cyber-stalking by a congressman is "no big deal." If you, you know, play the excuse-making game you love to say is the sole property of liberals. "Ohh, Foley didn't have *actual sex* with minors." No -- but he was a cyber-stalker who had sex with young adults he netsexed when they were minors. The sine qua non of creepy-ass behavior. Netsex -- and showing up drunk at the male page dormitory after curfew, trying to get in ... Hastert didn't have to have access to this guy's IMs to know there was a problem. All he needed to do was spend a moment *listening* to the people who tried to bring it to his attention. Reynolds and Boehner, who claim they talked to Hastert a year ago and were told it was "taken care of." Jeff Trandhal and Kirk Fordham, who told Scott Palmer six years ago about the dormitory incident, among other things. There's a serious question here: Why is Scott Palmer -- Hastert's right-hand man, close friend and townhouse-mate -- claiming that "what Kirk Fordham says didn't happen"? That's why Hastert's in jeopardy. Scott Palmer is one of the most powerful guys on the Hill -- more powerful than all but a handful of senior congressmen. Hastert has said that anybody covering anything up gets the axe. THIS is the essence of the scandal atm. Denny may well wind up having to cut loose his best friend. Sucks to be him right now. Sucks to be Scott Palmer, too. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 28, 2006 at 2:07 PM | PERMALINKrdw: I'm trying to read your messages carefully. This jumps out: Hastert had *nothing whatsoever to do* with Foley's decision to resign. The page email in the first story didn't cause Foley to resign; in fact he said he'd fight it, that it was a dirty trick. The next day ABC received the first batch of IMs. They confronted Foley's office. Foley was gone within the hour. Hastert wasn't in the picture at all. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 28, 2006 at 2:27 PM | PERMALINKrdw: More generally about the dynamics of the election ... First, all midterm elections are driven by negative energy. Over 70% of voters didn't know what the Contract With America was. What motivated the landslide of '94? Outrage at HillaryCare, the so-called House banking scandal and a Congress full of decade-plus incumbents. Saying Democrats have "no positive message" is actually a testament to the genius and discipline of Nancy Pelosi. But it's not entirely true, either: The Dems have Six for '06: Raise the minimum wage, impliment the 9/11 Commission recommendations, change Medicare Part D so that the government can negotiate for lower drug prices ... I forget the other three points. But point of fact -- keeping a low profile on proposals simply gives the GOP that much less to attack. And the strategy is working beautifully: Democrats are solidly on message, whereas Bush has just FLIP-FLOPPED on his signature issue of the Iraq war. Nothing is sticking for them, so they're, of course, going massively negative in each district. But guess what: Scary brown people, a Nancy Pelosi Congress and "protecting marriage" doesn't amount to a particularly positive agenda. So spare us on the "positive message" palaver, please ... I don't have contempt for single-issue voters. You forget that I was a professional canvasser for years in the 80s and have talked to plenty of the sorts of people that would wind up on Mehlman's microtargeting list. They aren't necessarily stupid, Wooten. They *are*, however, deeply cynical and conspiracy minded. The main feeling they express about politics is outrage. They only way you can motivate people like that to vote is to convince them that who they're voting for is less outrageous than the alternative. And that's why this cycle will prove to be extremely difficult for Mehlman's new cohort of voters. These people once again aren't the people you meet on PowerLine or LGF. These are the sorts of people who tend to sit out elections unless something really compelling to them comes along. If they're cynical about the MSM, they're also cynical about blogs. They're curdled idealists who need white knights to champion their causes -- and it's very hard to be a white knight when you've been in control of Congress for 12 years. It's also very hard to be a white knight on social issues when your party hasn't advanced much of that agenda (true prior to Foley), a new book came out by an evangelical who claims Bush's inner circle has contempt for evangelicals -- and a claque of gay Republican staffers protected Mark Foley for a decade. The sort of voters we're talking about are not the core of the GOP base at all. You may be right that those folks have given up on the MSM and view the Foley business as a pseudo-scandal. But they also aren't a big enough group to win elections. That's why this outer circle of single-issue voters is so important to Mehlman and the GOP. And you're right -- they collapsed after the drunk driving story broke just before the election in '00. Unlike true rock-ribbed ideological GOP supporters, they tend to go wobbly over stuff like that. Think about the mind of somebody who would sit out this election unless they felt like they had to do something to "protect marriage." What sort of person is this? Are they engaged in following politics? No. Are they particularly sophisticated about the way Congress or the government works? No. If they're active, they're active in their churches or community groups or home-schooling their kids. They see politics as inherently corrupt -- and they're being asked to vote for incumbents. Incumbents who haven't done much to push their agenda. Now using the NJSC ruling to juice these people is a much tougher sell than it was two years ago, when Massachussets redefined marriage by judicial fiat. The "activist judges" argument cut there. Here, it really doesn't -- despite the lying we've seen about it from the values groups. The NJSC explicitly did *not* attempt to redefine marriage -- merely directed the legislature to craft something legally equal to it for same-sex couples. Since NJ already has a domestic partnership law and strong anti-discrimination protections, it's not exactly like they were cutting against the grain of popular opinion. And truthfully -- even many Christian conservatives have no interest in depriving gays of civil rights. While most people believe that marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman -- most people also support letting a gay person visit his partner in the hospital, too. And that's what civil unions are about. Think of how the anti-gay marriage referenda were sold two years ago: Massachusetts was going to begin the destruction of the traditional family. Well ... it's been two years and that hasn't exactly begun to happen. It's hard to keep saying the Apocalypse is coming when prediction after prediction is proven wrong ... The main thing you miss about these sorts of voters, Wooten, is that in their hearts they're not really political partisans. Politics is not a game to them; they care much more about their issues than they do about the GOP per se. That's why they're such easy prey to becoming cynical and disillusioned. That's why they have to be poked and prodded endlessly by Mehlman's machine in order to vote at all. Mehlman gives them the assurance that the GOP takes their views seriously. Well ... what happens when it starts becoming clear that the GOP doesn't take their concerns seriously at all -- but rather merely uses them to win elections? They become even *more* disillusioned. Indeed, Wooten, I think I have a better understanding of these sorts of voters than you do ... Now how is Foley going to play with these people? Certainly not the way you game it out. These people aren't interested in "proving" that the MSM is biased towards the Democrats. They simply turn on the news and see that a GOP congressman was *trying to have sex* with underage boys -- and the GOP leadership knew about this for years and did nothing to stop it. It may be true that they place the main onus on Foley as a sinner. But they can't be too happy about a GOP rife with gay staffers who apparently knew of his behavior for a long time. And again -- we're talking about the mind of someone who wouldn't vote except with a compelling reason to "protect marriage." Odds are, the Foley scandal only deepened their concern that the GOP is only using their concerns to get votes. These folks tend to loathe hypocrisy. Mehlman's going to have a much more difficult time of it this cycle. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 28, 2006 at 3:58 PM | PERMALINKThe Dems have Six for '06: I read the papers every day and this is the 1st time I've ever heard this term. Even you can only name 3. The Dems aren't running to win anything. They're not selling a thing. Everything is based on the GOP losing. Your 70% number on the contract with america is absurd. It was by far the biggest campaign news that cycle along with Clintons incompetence. 1994 will be the most famous election of the last 75 years in terms of it's management. Newt pulled off a stunning acheivement. GWB's inner circle does not have contempt for evangelicals and the big guy certainly doesn't. Their choice is the clearest of all. They know the libs detest everything they stand for and they detest everything the libs stand for. Don't worry about them. Rove isn't. They'll vote for their candidates just as they always do. They know if Reid had the majority Roberts and Alito would not be on the Supreme court. That's all they need to know. As far as the GOP being rife with Gays they know it's not at all true and it's not a problem anyway. It's hate the sin but love the sinner. It might be hard to believe but evangelicals can count votes too and know the GOP needs to big tent. This ain't rocket science. netsex and phone sex absolutely are not sex. You have to be in the same room with someone in order to have sex with them. It's a rule. I am amazed at your fascination and 'scholarship' within the sex industry. I lost interest in Foley day one. The only people who stayed past day one were the political hacks looking for an edge. Once it was clear ABC mis-reported everything the story was over as a serious issue. Even the 'priest' scandal was a major dud. The obvious hyprocrisy was in the comparison between Studds. He actually had sex with a minor and you re-elected him 6x's. Once people understood liberals praised studds for doing the same thing Foley became bad news for libs as well. Bob, Steele is only down 5 in MD in a rasmussen poll taken before his excellent ad in response to MJ Fox aired and before Cardin stiffed the NAACP. Steele is running an excellent campaign and will win this seat. If Burns can hang on and we get lucky with Keane the GOP will only lose 2 seats. The deaniancs will go crazy. Posted by: rdw on October 28, 2006 at 5:18 PM | PERMALINKrdw: You really do live in la-la land, Wooten. Roberts and Alito? Really? So where was the issue-defining abortion case after two terms? Where was the gay marriage case? Where was the stem cell case? Where was *any* high-profile social issue before the Supreme Court during their terms? You keep confusing this very specific cohort of single-issue voters with the core GOP base. They are not the same thing. If the Court doesn't move on a values agenda (and they control the docket), these voters wouldn't care if Pat Robertson Himself sat on the Supreme Court. They cut Ralph Reed loose, after all. Love the sinner, hate the sin, indeed. If you're not able to practice sympathetic introspection and imagine how people differently than you might feel about a situation, you really have no business commenting on voter groups. Not everybody shares your views of things. The single-issue voters went wobbly in '02, They came out on '04 because of the Mass ruling. '06 is promising to be '00 on steroids as far as single-issue voter disillusionment is concerned. Rasmussen sucks, btw. Who do *you* know who would actually spend more than ten seconds of their time answering the questions of a robot voice? There's going to be a reverse Ford effect in Maryland, sadly enough. Not enough white suburban Republicans are going to vote for Steele who'd say they would in polls, and Maryland Democrats are too Democratic to be wooed in large enough numbers to make the difference. Cardin may have been quite smart not to debate Steele in that forum. I don't know; it was a risky decision and can be argued either way. But I think you overestimate the identity politics card. Going to that debate may have simply served to *play* the identity politics card in a way that Cardin couldn't have hoped to win ... Kean isn't going to win in NJ. He's just not a strong enough candidate, and none of the "scandal" stuff has stuck. Besides -- you underestimate how strong Menendez's support is in the Latino community. And you underestimate how much Latinos are itching to repudiate the GOP demagoguery on immigration -- an issue that backfired very badly with those voters. And finally: If netsex "isn't sex" -- why did Mark Foley resign without a peep of self-defense over a bunch of words on a computer screen? Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 28, 2006 at 6:09 PM | PERMALINKrdw: It is the height of moral repugnance to a Christian who believes in personal responsibility to hear somebody attempting to excuse behavior by pointing the finger at others. A Christian takes responsibility for his actions. So all of your vigorous attempts to excuse Foley by pointing the finger at Studds has exactly zero effect on single-issue voters. Gerry Studds is *dead*; his sin happened 33 years ago. It's certainly true that Christians aren't going to hold their own congresscritters accountable for Foley's sins unless they happen to be directly implicated in the scandal, like Reynolds, Boehner and Hastert. But this nonetheless *will* add to the drip, drip, drip effect of all the other scandals, not to mention the mismanagement of the Iraq war and the disaster of Katrina. It won't be the most significant factor by far -- but it might serve as a catalyst to many voters trying to overcome their disgust enough to make it out to vote. Again, we're talking on the margins here. Foley can't have made Mehlman's job any easier with single-issue voters who have a tendency not to vote in many elections. And these voters, once again, are more motivated by pushing their issues than by an ideological hatred of liberals. They see the GOP as a means to an end -- but also recognize that politics is a corrupt game. They are motivated less by ideology than support for their cause. Politics is not a sporting event for them. Punishing the GOP for getting too worldly and comfortable in power is decidedly something within their religious faith to dictate to their consciences. Bob Posted by: rmck1 on October 28, 2006 at 6:28 PM | PERMALINK
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