I am going to be so pissed at Massachusetts if Scott Brown wins the Massachusetts Senate race next week. I may have to go there and smack the lot of them. Do you hear that, Massachusetts? Beware the wrath!
The rightie blogosphere is declaring the race over and Brown already the winner. Of course, they were saying that about Doug Hoffman before the New York 23 election earlier this year. Nate Silver says it really is a tossup, though.
Update: Variations on a theme — see John Cole, “Money Well Spent,” and then Nate Silver, “Liberal Website Helpfully Tests Messages Against Vulnerable Democrat, Finds Them Wanting.” First rate snark.
maha–should buddhists smite?
And FDL gets their scalp.
http://washingtonindependent.com/74105/did-firedoglake-take-out-vic-snyder
The funny thing is, as Weigel points out, Snyder is pretty progressive reltive to his district, and he’s not a Blue Dog, even though he’s representing an R+5 district which, I believe, Obama did worse in than Kerry in 2004. And if Weigel is right about Jane’s “hit list,” that mkes Mary Jo Kilroy her next target. So maybe we’re about to be treated to the great populist crusade to elect a bank lobbyist to Congress.
All hail Jane’s ego.
You would think that with the evidence of the destruction of this country caused from 2000-2008 by the Bush Administration and the Republican majorities in the Senate and the House that another Republican couldn’t get the time of day from voters; but, Massachusetts voters seem to be oblivious to this. How sad to see what used to be a large group of voters who had the nation’s respect sink so low as to vote for a man who will not even give his staff health care coverage (see Talking Points Memo).
…one of the more unsettling aspects of aging – aside from the aching joints, failing teeth, and hair loss – is the ability to distinctly remember Pogo’s comments about meeting the enemy. On those truly dark nights when I ponder that whole question of “why do I bother”, it’s difficult to quell the welling anger and disgust with those who have never been able to competently frame progressive arguments sufficiently to convince majorities of voters in districts across the nation to vote for progressive candidates but are more than capable of effectively forging a link with the opposition to tear down Democratic incumbents who don’t pass a specific progressive litmus test…
Much is made of the supposedly antidemocratic tests of ideological purity that the Teabaggers are trying to impose on Republican candidates; I wonder what exactly is the difference between those wingnuts and people like the Fire Dog Lake crowd…
the ability to distinctly remember Pogo’s comments about meeting the enemy.
I so miss Pogo. He helped us all through another dark time. I wish he could come back.
Maha… Maha… Maha… I’m on the ground here in Massachusetts. What’s in the air is the semi-annual ritual of Dem/Liberal panic. This is, as you ought to know, something we do apart from facts on the ground. Contradicting polls are causing mass hysteria amongst those who are ordinarily rather numerate. in addition, the pious are coming out of the woodwork to opine (whine…) that the candidate who passed their purity test, but who couldn’t get passed the primary, would have been the better choice. Sigh… Being a Democrat puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional.
But Martha Coakley, despite what the uninformed are saying, is running a good campaign and has a ground game to be envied…. She has several dozens of phone banks stretching all across the state. Her opponent, Scott “Dubya” Brown, has five… and he’s virtually given up on the entire western half of the state. At an appearance recently with Rudy Guliani, about 70 people showed up to cheer him on. When Bill Clinton was in Worcester for Coakley, well over 1500 showed up.
The polls, such as they are, are all over the place. The pollsters, in a transparent attempt to sex up the race, are slicing the ‘likely voters’ into sub-categories. One poll differentiates between ‘very interested’ and ‘extremely interested’. It’s kinda pathetic. If you take the last half-dozen or so statewide races and normalize the results for generic democrat vs generic republican the split is pretty solidly 60/30… almost across the board. The few outliers are Mitt Romney (who didn’t break 60% and had to lie about what he believes) and Bill Weld, who despite being a Republican was more liberal than the erstwhile Dem who opposed him, John Silber.
So don’t panic.
What’s in the air is the semi-annual ritual of Dem/Liberal panic.
I’m hoping this is true. It does appear a lot in the Ted Kennedy memoir & bio I’ve been reading.
I sure hope ‘Grok’ is right …
I just finished watching NOW on PBS on the threatened demise of journalism. The point was made that the exchange of opinions IS NOT journalism. Journalism is the search for the truth. That is what seems to be missing from the current MSM. THey estimated that that our government in the beginning spent the equivalent of 30 billions dollars for a robust journalism for the health of the Republic. Several other countries continue to spend that equivalent and guess wha, they score higher on democracy scale than we do. There were ways in 2000 to actually find out who got the most votes in Fl. but we put up with who shouted the loudest. Shame on us. We ALMOST deserve what we got.
I live on the Left Coast so I am not nearly so in touch with the candidates as I might otherwise be but Gail Collins of the NYTimes suggests that:
Also that:
Entire article here Lend Me Your Ears.
The situation here in Massachusetts rests completely on the charisma-free shoulders of Martha Coakley, who basically ran no campaign until a couple weeks ago, smugly assuming she had it in the bag, only to be blindsided by a charming, personable Republican. I’m reminded of the defeat of the harsh, annoying Shannon O’Brien to (I still can’t believe it) slimy-suave Mitt Romney for governor. Coakley won with the Dems simply because she’s a woman and because of voters’ short memories. She’s a moral imbecile, and I’m voting for her on Tuesday with great distaste. As AG she destroyed the Amirault family of the Fells Acres day care case, keeping the clearly innocent Geralt Amirault in jail against the unanimous advice of his parole board, and of almost every expert who knew understood what went on with the day-care abuse hysteria. Just to show herself tough on child abuse. I’ll hold my nose and vote for her, but send a letter explaining to her my distaste in doing so.