October 2008

Daily Dolt: Fran Eaton is an Evil, Evil Woman

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

Grandma Obama is back

The comments are even worse

My grandmother died after breaking her hip in a fall.

Awesome New Google Voting Information Feature

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

Great resource

At Google, we pride ourselves on helping people find things on the Internet. And every four years in America, Google Trends shows that people are searching to find voting information, like how to register and where to vote.

It’s hard to believe that in 2008, information so important to U.S. citizens and the democratic process isn’t well organized on the web. To solve this problem, we’ve released our US Voter Info site, an effort to simplify and centralize voting locations and registration information.

We developed the site in the hope that it will increase voter participation. We were helped by a number of partners, including many state and local election officials, the League of Women Voters, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and others involved in the Voting Information Project.

Are you registered to vote? What’s the best way to obtain an absentee ballot? When people visit the site, answers to these questions appear. And anyone with a website can provide the same information. The US Voter Info gadget places a simple search box that expands to show a full set of voter information when someone enters an address.

We are also offering a simpler way to find out where to vote. By entering a home address, citizens across the country will be able to find their polling place for election day.

To encourage political participation, we’ve opened up this data to third-party sites and developers through an API developed by Dan Berlin, one of our open-source engineers. We’re excited to share this data, and hope that others will find it useful in encouraging citizens to vote.

Organizing information is our mission. We do that every day with web content, and we want to do the same thing with information to inform and empower voters and to help them get to the polls this election season.

Bachman Polling Data Tonight

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

Given the comments I’ve gotten on her McCarthyite outburst, I’ll pass along the numbers when they come out around late news time.

Cook Analysis IL-10

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

IL-10 Mark Kirk Lean Republican to Toss Up

Most private polling shows Kirk up in the single digits, but that’s not anywhere near a comfortable position for a Republican incumbent in a district like this one and in a year like 2008. The key to this race may be the extent to which the DCCC or Democrat Dan Seals use taped endorsement messages from Sen. Barack Obama to get over the top.

Democrats would love nothing more than to knock Kirk out before he could become a serious Senate candidate in 2010 if Obama wins and an appointed Democratic successor is up for a full term. While Kirk can no longer be considered a clear favorite in the race, he remains in slightly better shape than some other GOP moderates in marginal districts.

Callahan Ad

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

Going hard negative on Schock

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eU0NHEU9kU[/youtube]

Schock gave her the opening by not just manning up–whether Callahan can exploit it is pretty much what this race hinges on.

Anyone With Duffy Bass Cred Gets My Support

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

It was pretty obvious Dwight Kay was going to go after Jay Hoffman using the Governor as a bludgeon–that’s fair in politics and I’ve never understood Jay’s loyalty to Blagojevich–except for that explains it all–Jay Hoffman is loyal.  He’s also a target of the tort reform crowd given he’s a prominent trial lawyer. He’s had a tough year, but especially for my local readers to St. Louis Metro, go help Jay out.

On social issues, Jay is to the right of me, but he also fits his District well.  His Facebook group is here and there are far too few of us on it.  He’s been spending a lot of time trying to get Obama elected this cycle, probably a bit to the detriment of his own election–give him something back!

Stick a Fork in Ozinga

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

Third consistent poll on IL-11

A new Roll Call poll is echoing an already-somber tone for Republicans in central Illinois, as state Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson (D) has a double-digit lead against Chicago-area concrete magnate Marty Ozinga (R) two weeks before Election Day.

The automated SurveyUSA poll was conducted for Roll Call on Oct. 20-21.

In the poll, Halvorson, whom Republicans have worked overtime in recent months trying to link with Land of Lincoln’s scandal-plagued Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), was ahead of Ozinga, 50 percent to 37 percent.

Green Party candidate Jason Wallace took 9 percent of the vote.

The survey, which interviewed 623 likely voters had a 4-point error margin.

I don’t hide that I like Debbie a lot and think she’ll be a great Congress Critter as Rich would say.  That said, the job of tieing Ozinga to Blagojevich is audacious given Debbie’s role in being Emil’s lieutenant. That said, I also pointed out when Ozinga got in that the entire Republican case in Illinois had to be bashing Blagojevich and the Republicans chose the guy who couldn’t effectively do that.

As is becoming clear, this is a wave election–as I also predicted some months ago.  I would expect some surprises—my guess being Harper.  Roskam works his butt off and is a good campaigner.  He could get caught in a wave given the partisan breakdown, but it’ll be tougher to catch him.  Schock is a putz, but he’s seen as moderate even though he’s a movement wingnut and also works his butt off. The scandal has a chance to tarnish that a bit, but he’s a tough campaigner.  Manzullo has potential to be surprised, but he works the district hard so it’s a bit tough to surprise him.

Biggert seems to have only woken up in the last few days and as Rich posted a comment from someone, she fits the profile of someone about to be surprised.  Here’s Harper’s latest ad:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00B61p47ruU[/youtube]

My guess right now is that IL-10, 11, and 13 flip to Democrats giving Dems a 14-5 edge in Illinois Congressional seats with only one suburban seat.

You Hate Me! You Really Hate Me!

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

The good news for Rod Blagojevich is that compared to two recent polls, the Tribune poll has a higher approval rating for him.

The bad news is his approval rating is 13 %.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe Ryan got anywhere near that low.Of course, this begs the question of who is the 13%.  Even weirder are the 8% who think he’s carried out his promise to clean up corruption. One might presume they are family—err…well maybe not or just misheard the question.

Rich says he cannot believe Blagojevich will run again.  I say that there are many things I cannot believe about Rod Blagojevich’s tenure as Governor.  He may be under indictment by then, but he could well pull a Ted Stevens.

Cook Moves IL-10 to Toss-Up

ArchPundit October 23, 2008 No Comments

Another set of changes by Charlie Cook moves 11 races towards Democrats, 1 towards a Republican (Mahoney in Florida).

Lots of chatter about internals having this race close to or a tie now, though nothing confirmable.  Unless something changes, Kirk is in real trouble as early voting is incredibly high and high in areas where Seals does best.  On top of it, Kirk doesn’t appear to have a ground game from what I gather.

RNCC Gives Up on IL-11

ArchPundit October 22, 2008 No Comments

Progress Illinois covers it

Somewhere around 2 weeks ago the polling started to tank and the reality is starting to set in.  You cannot say it publicly, but it’s clear the entire Republican national apparatus knows it’s bad and it’s now simply about limiting how bad.