Dems Have Good Chance To Win Georgia Senate Race

A year ago, few people would have given the Democratic Party much chance of winning the open U.S. Senate seat in Georgia. Georgia is a very red state, and most people figured the Republicans would have an easy time holding on to that seat. But that's before Michelle Nunn (daughter of popular ex-senator Sam Nunn) entered the race. For a couple of months now, polls have shown she would give a generic Republican a good run for the seat.

Now, after the first round of the Georgia Republican primary, we know the GOP candidate will be either Jack Kingston or David Perdue (both of whom are on the far-right). The Rasmussen Poll decided to see how Nunn would do against either of these two GOP candidates. Their survey was done on May 21st and 22nd of 750 likely Georgia voters, and has a margin of error of 4 points.

The poll results were a pleasant surprise for Democrats. It shows Michelle Nunn leading both Kingston (47% to 41%) and Perdue (45% to 42%). Those aren't big leads, and there's still several months before the election -- but the one thing the poll shows is that the Democrats have a real chance to snatch this senate seat away from the Republicans. That's bad news for the GOP, because they need to hold this seat to have any chance of winning a majority in the U.S. Senate.

Begich Could Be Tough To Unseat In Alaska

A few months ago the political pundits were saying the Republicans could win several senate seats currently held by Democrats, and flip the Senate over to Republican control. But their obstructionism has caused voters to rethink their views about the GOP. Now the Republicans may be fighting to hold on to several seats they thought they had in the bag -- like the GOP seats in Kentucky and Georgia.

One of the Democratic seats the GOP was counting on winning was the seat currently held by Mark Begich in Alaska. Alaska is a pretty red state, and Begich was believed to be in trouble their. But now a new poll shows he could be in a lot better shape than anyone thought. That survey is a Hays Research Poll released on August 30th. It is an independent poll (not financed by either party) that surveyed 388 likely Alaska voters, and has a 4.9 point margin of error.

That poll showed that Begich has a comfortable lead over his probable opponent -- Republican Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell. Begich is polling at 50.4%, while Treadwell is at only 38.5% (and 11.1% of voters are unsure of who to support). That's a lead of nearly 12 points for Begich.

Of course it is still very early to put much credence into a poll for a 2014 race. There is plenty of time for anything to happen. It is even remotely possible that someone could beat Treadwell for the GOP nomination -- but that would probably have to be Sarah Palin, who has been teasing her supporters with that possibility for a while now. I doubt that would worry Begich much though, since another poll by Hays Research, released on August 21st, shows he has an even wider lead over a possible Palin candidacy (54.8% to 37.3%) -- a 17.5 point lead.

The Republicans could rebound and win this seat, but as this poll shows, it's going to be a lot harder than originally thought.

Palin For Senate? Bring It On!

The latest news about Sarah Palin is that she says she is "considering" running for senate (to replace the current Democratic senator from Alaska -- Mark Begich). Some liberals on the internet seem upset by this idea, and just wish she would go away. I have a different take on this.

I hope she does run, and I hope she gets the Republican nomination in that state. That's because while she might be able to get the GOP nomination, I don't think she could beat Begich in a general election campaign. Poll after poll has shown she is very unpopular in Alaska, and I doubt the voters there would elect her to any political office again. After all, she let them down the only time she won statewide office, by resigning after only serving half of a term. I don't think they'll make that mistake again.

Unfortunately, I do not believe she's really interested in running. She's just tossing out some fodder for the few fans she has left -- in the hope of milking a few more dollars from them. She has no interest in the hard work of governing (as she showed when she resigned as governor). She just wants to spout off and keep the dollars flowing in -- and if she has to tease her fans with a phantom candidacy to do that (like she did in the last presidential election), then so be it.

But I can always hope, since I would like to see Begich re-elected. He's not as liberal as I would like, but we need to keep a Democratic majority in the Senate -- and he's certainly better than any Republican Alaska would send to Washington.

(The above caricature of Sarah Palin is by DonkeyHotey.)

The Devious Plan Of GOP Senators

The lady in the picture above is Susan Rice. Ms. Rice graduated with honors from Stanford University. She then received a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford University, where she earned her doctorate degree. She served in the Clinton administration as a member of the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997 (as well as Director of International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995, and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs from 1995 to 1997). In 2009, she was appointed by President Obama as this country's U.N. Ambassador and was unanimously approved by the United States Senate. To say she has competently and faithfully served her country would be an understatement.

Rumor has it that she is the favorite to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. That has been met with a chorus of disapproval from several Republican senators (McCain of Arizona, Graham of South Carolina, Ayotte of New Hampshire, and Collins of Maine), who say they will do everything in their power to block Rice's approval for that post.

The opposition was kicked off by Senator McCain, which said Ambassador Rice was just "not very bright". That's more than a bit ironic coming from the man who finished in the bottom 10% of his class at the Naval Academy and nominated the dumbest politician in America to be his running mate in 2008. That argument produced nothing but jeers, so he quickly dropped it.

But he didn't drop his opposition to Rice becoming Secretary of State. He then attacked her for misrepresenting the Benghazi tragedy to the American people, and he was joined in this effort by Graham, Ayotte, and Collins. The fact is that Ms. Rice has been very honest in her endeavors to explain what happened in Libya -- even to the point of visiting each of the senators named above to clear up any misunderstandings that may have occurred.

But there hasn't been any misunderstanding. These senators are not opposing Rice on grounds of competency or anything she has said about the tragedy in Libya (and they have to know she was in no way responsible for that tragedy). No, they are playing a different game -- a much more devious game. And the outcome they desire is revealed in the candidate they say would make a great Secretary of State, and whose nomination would breeze through the Senate for approval. The candidate they want is Senator John Kerry.

They are not being honest about their approval of Senator Kerry. These right-wingers have disapproved of Kerry for a long time, and I doubt they have agreed with him on any legislation in decades. He's a die-hard liberal, and they know it. And he would run the Secretary of State's office in a very similar manner to Ambassador Rice. That doesn't matter to them. They are after something else -- Kerry's senate seat.

They were shocked when Republican Scott Brown lost to Elizabeth Warren in the recent election. That was a seat they were counting on holding, and it hurt when they lost it. Now they want the other Massachusetts senate seat to replace the one they lost. If Kerry is appointed Secretary of State, there will be a special election to replace him -- and they know that Scott Brown will have a very good chance of winning the seat and returning to the Senate (taking a senate vote from the Democrats and giving an additional one to the Republicans).

The president needs to stand firm, and refuse to be bullied into nominating Kerry. While I have no doubt Kerry would make an excellent Secretary of State, he is much more valuable to the Obama administration in the Senate. The president should go ahead and nominate Susan Rice for the position. If Harry Reid follows through on reforming the filibuster, the Republicans won't be able to deny her a vote for very long -- and if her nomination is voted on, she will be approved.

The Republicans are playing a devious game. I just hope the president doesn't fall for it. I don't think he will though.

Paul Sadler Is A Blue Dog After All

Paul Sadler is a candidate for the Democratic nomination to run for the U.S. Senate in the state of Texas. Before the first round of the Democratic primary, he did a pretty good job of posing as a progressive -- saying he was in favor of women's rights and gay/lesbian rights. I was fooled, and even wrote a post saying I could support him if he won the Democratic primary (which he will probably do). It now looks like I'm going to have to eat those words, because in the debate with his only remaining opponent (retired school teacher, Grady Yarbrough), Sadler exposed himself as just another Texas blue dog.

During its recent state convention in Houston, the Texas Democratic Party re-affirmed its progressive roots and beliefs. It is just sad that this party, who finally seems to be finding itself after wandering in the electoral wilderness for so long, will not have a proud progressive senatorial candidate to lead it into the next election.

The party voted for a progressive platform in Houston, but Sadler had already abandoned that platform. I might be able to forgive his opposition to decriminalizing marijuana, even though that is a platform plank. There are too many Democrats without the courage to take a reasonable stand on marijuana (including the president). But Sadler's ideas on how to "fix" the economy are well over the line. He has made it clear that he would vote with the Republicans to cut spending further and refuse to find the money for job creation.

That is inexcusable. Cutting the programs that help hurting Americans will not balance the budget -- and neither will continuing the Bush tax cuts. Their is only one way out of our economic mess, and that is through massive job creation. And that can't be done without some additional government spending. Once people get back to work (and paying taxes) the deficit will be brought down -- and that's the only way it'll be brought down without throwing this nation into a deeper recession. We need look no further than the economic mess in Europe to know this (where "austerity" has been a disaster).

It looks like Sadler is running on the same old blue dog program that has caused defeat for other Democrats for years -- the program that tells voters "I'm a conservative, too, so vote for me." This is a plan guaranteed to fail. Those wanting to vote for a conservative will vote Republican (where the real right-wingers are). Why would they choose a "pseudo-Republican" when there are real Republicans on the ballot?

Frankly, I doubt I'll even vote in the primary run-off. I don't even want to have to choose between an incompetent (Yarbrough) and a blue dog (Sadler). And the Green Party candidate is looking pretty good for November. I don't even know who that is, but at least I can be sure he/she is a real progressive.

Arson At FW Democrat's Office

Is this what the state of politics is devolving into in Texas these days? If you can't vote someone out of office, you try to burn them out? The picture above shows the front door of the office of State Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth). About 4:00pm on Tuesday, someone set fire to the outside door of the Democrat's office, probably with a Molotov cocktail. The senator called it a "homemade explosive device".

It could have been even worse if the fire hadn't been quickly discovered. Instead of just arson, it could have resulted in arson and murder -- because there were two workers in the office when the fire was set. Fortunately, they heard the device hit and one of them quickly put the fire out with a fire extinguisher.

The arson is being investigated by the Fort Worth Fire and Police Departments, and they are being aided in that investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety (State Troopers -- who investigate any attack on a state official). I hope they are able to quickly apprehend this criminal (or criminals) and deal out a severe punishment.This is not a political act, but a criminal act.

But it may well have been a criminal act based on some political beliefs. Davis has been a thorn in the side of right-wing Republicans since being elected. She opposed their deep cuts to Texas' already poorly funded schools, and she has strongly defended women's health and Planned Parenthood. She also took the state to court when the Republican legislature tried to gerrymander her district to prevent her re-election (and she won).

I don't think Republican officials had anything to do with this crime, but their over-the-top political rhetoric could well have persuaded some right-wing teabagging nut-job to do it. This is the kind of thing that can happen when you label political opponents as "enemies" of the state or country.

Texas Politics - A Couple Of Changes

The last couple of days has seen a couple of changes on the Texas political scene. The first regards the date for the state's primary. The second has a new candidate entering the race to replace outgoing senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison. We can only guess at this point whether either of them will work out.

Texas originally had its primary scheduled for early March. But that date was no longer viable after the Republicans appealed a federal court's tossing out of their redistricting plan, which ignored the influx of minorities into the state and gerrymandered the new districts to optimize the election of white Republicans. Both the Justice Department and the federal court said the new districts violated the Voting Rights Act by trying to reduce the possibility of minority representation. It was true, but the Republicans appealed the decision anyway, and the Supreme Court set January 9th as the day they will hear arguments in the redistricting case.

With the Supreme Court not hearing the case until January 9th, the March date for the primary  became untenable (at least for all races except the presidency). There simply wouldn't have been time to get the districts sorted out, for candidates to decide if they wanted to run in the new districts, and for the ballots to get printed and mailed out to absentee voters. Republicans had floated the idea of having two primaries (one in March for the presidency and another in May for everything else), but Democrats opposed that and wanted a single delayed primary.

Gov. Patrick Can Fill Kennedy's Senate Seat

The death of Senator Edward Kennedy recently seemed to make it harder for Democrats to pass health care reform. That's because with some Blue Dog Democrats siding with the "Party of No" (Republicans), every vote will be precious when the health care reform comes up for a vote in the Senate.

It was not expected that the Massachusetts senate seat would be filled until a special election could be held in early 2010, and that would be too late to help with health care reform. But it looks like the Massachusetts legislature has fixed that problem. They have just amended the law to allow the governor to appoint a replacement senator until the special election can be held.

Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, is expected to approve the legislation and appoint someone to fill the seat temporarily next week. Some expect him to appoint ex-governor Michael Dukakis (pictured) to the senate seat. The Massachusetts Senate is also expected to pass a resolution asking the appointee not to run in the special election.

Whether the appointee does or doesn't run in the special election, this will give Democrats one more vote (hopefully progressive) in the upcoming health care reform egislation, and that's a good thing.

The odds are still not great that real health care reform will be approved, but they are better now than they were last week.

Burris - The Truth Is Coming Out

A few months ago, Illinois' criminal governor, Rod Blagojevich, appointed Roland Burris to fill President Obama's vacant senate seat. At the time, I (and many others on the left) said a man of honor would have turned down the appointment. We urged the senate Democrats to refuse to seat Burris.

But the press was quick to paint Burris as an ethical man, and soon Harry Reid and his cohorts in the senate folded like a deck chair. Reid has never been a man of much political courage, and he took Burris' word that he hadn't "bought" the seat and allowed him to be sworn in as a senator.

Now it looks like that was a big mistake. A federal judge has released a tape of Burris and Blagojevich's brother Rob talking on the phone before Blagojevich was arrested. Burris claims the transcript clears him of wrongdoing, but he must be living in a fantasy world. The transcript of the telephone call actually makes him look guiltier than ever.

The two are nakedly talking about Burris donating money, and possibly getting others to donate, to the governor. And Burris makes it clear a couple of times that he expects to be considered for the senate seat if he donates. He is worried that it might look like he's "buying" the senate seat, so he talks about hiding the donation by funneling it through his partner. Burris ends the conversation by assuring the governor's brother that he would "personally do something before the 15th of December".

Burris has got to be one of the most ethically-challenged men in the senate. At best, he lied under oath by denying he talked to Blagojevich's brother about the senate seat and a donation. At worst, he actually did purchase the senate seat. Either way, he's not fit to be a senator.

The ethics committe should expell him from the senate, and either let the current governor appoint a replacement or hold a special election. I would suggest the special election would be the best option.

It's time the people of Illinois got a say in straightening out this mess.