“A GOP Takeover? Not So Fast”: There’s Room For Democrats To Make Up Ground In The Battle For Senate Control
You’ve seen the ads and heard the robocalls. Yes, it’s election season, and everyone wants to know who will win. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republicans will likely hold onto their majority as there simply aren’t enough competitive House races to allow Democrats to gain enough seats. The real battle this election year is for control of the U.S. Senate. Democrats currently control the chamber with only a slim majority, making them vulnerable to defeat. Election watchers everywhere are already offering up predictions, but it’s still far too early to know which party will be victorious in November.
At this point in time, Republicans appear to have an edge in the Senate races and, indeed, many political observers are starting to forecast a Republican Senate majority in 2015. This week, Fox News released several polls showing Republican candidates are ahead in five key Senate races. There are some good reasons for the GOP advantage. Democrats have more Senate seats to defend than Republicans. Additionally, the president’s approval ratings are low, which is always a disadvantage to his party’s candidates. The fall season has also been full of potential government missteps regarding the threat of Ebola, controversy over the handling of the danger posed by the Islamic State group and scandal in the Secret Service. All of these have the potential to work against Democratic Senate contenders, but it’s too soon to count them out.
As the Washington Post points out this week, the GOP path to a Senate takeover is far from clear. Recent developments in key states such as South Dakota and Georgia have given Democrats reason to hope. Additionally, the Post points out, some Republican candidates have not performed as well as expected, taking some potential gains out of play. In the Fox News poll, none of the candidates are polling at over fifty percent, which means none of the candidates are close to a decisive victory and that the races are, in the words of the news organization, “still far from settled.” There’s room for Democratic candidates to make up ground
Election Day is still four weeks away, and in an election year that is an eternity. Anything could happen over the course of the next month to completely change the election-year landscape. Further, it doesn’t appear that voters have completely made up their minds yet. Although national trends seem to be favoring one party, as Democratic pollster Mark Mellman told the Washington Post, “Senate races are not just about national trends. The candidates and the local circumstances do matter.” There is also the possibility that, due to election laws, results in some states may be delayed for weeks or even months. If the control of the Senate comes down to one or two seats, these delays could create significant uncertainty. Who will win the race for control of the Senate? It’s still up for grabs.
By: Cary Gibson, Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, U. S. News and World Report, October 10, 2014
“Money Grab”: It Gets Worse For David Perdue
Speaking of politically damaging material the New York Times is looking into, Jonathan Weisman today notes the bankruptcy deposition that revealed Georgia GOP Senate candidate David Perdue’s bland revelations of a long career in outsourcing contains some other interesting stuff:
A bankruptcy court document that surfaced last week has roiled the Georgia race for retiring Senator Saxby Chambliss’s seat and put the Republican David Perdue on the defensive over his record as a business executive and his role sending jobs to low-wage countries.
Though most of the attention — and the attacks from his opponent, Michelle Nunn — have focused on comments he made about outsourcing, a close reading of the 186-page deposition, first disclosed last week by Politico, paints Mr. Perdue as a hard-charging hired gun who was so aggressive in claiming his compensation perks from his failing textile company that other executives accused him of a “money grab,” a characterization he hotly denied.
In page after page, Mr. Perdue, who had come from a lucrative post at Reebok, expresses more concern with his own financial security than with the tanking business and the 7,600 jobs that were going down with it….
As his company was heading toward bankruptcy, Mr. Perdue pressed the board for a $700,000 payout to cover taxes he owed on a signing bonus and $100,000 for a relocation he never actually took. He received both, as well as a $500,000 stipend to stay on during final, failed takeover negotiations that could have rescued Pillowtex. He announced his resignation that spring, effective after a two-week paid vacation.
Sounds like we’re about one juicy quote away from the text of another Michelle Nunn or Super-PAC ad. And given Perdue’s penchant for gaffes, he might well just serve it up in the present tense.
The lessen here is that if you’re going to run one of those CEO/outsider campaigns, you should probably have a business career that doesn’t sound as damaging to regular folks–or as self-serving–as a political career.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 10, 2014
“An Unlikely Opportunity?”: It Could Come Down To Kansas, Where GOP Trails Badly
The news for Democrats in the latest round of Senate polling is sobering: Republicans have +4 point leads in enough states to give them a 50 Senate seats. That’s just one short of what they need to win control of the Senate.
Four other seats are also up for grabs, placing Democrats in danger of losing the majority in Iowa, North Carolina, Colorado and Kansas. Even so, while polling shows the first three of these races as tossups, Democrats have been showing remarkable resilience maintaining slim edges or even odds.
If Democrats do hold their ground in Iowa, North Carolina and Colorado, control of the Senate would come down to Kansas. Not exactly fertile ground for Democrats under normal circumstances, but the rank incompetence of the GOP combined with the distant hubris of Senator Roberts has allowed independent Greg Orman to open up a blistering 10-point lead.
That’s a big deficit to make up before the first mail-in voters get their ballots less than two weeks from today, and there’s little indication that Greg Orman would caucus with the Republicans should he be elected.
Kansas is a strange place for Democrats to pin their hopes, but it does provide hope that even in the reddest of red states, Republican overreach and self-destructive policies may open up unlikely opportunities for unexpected gains.
By: David Atkins, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 5, 2014
“Joni Ernst Loves The Constitution, But..”: Republican Senate Candidate Advocates Revolt Against U.S. Government
The Iowa Senate race is one of the closest in the nation, and what it seems to have come down to is the following two questions: Number 1, did Bruce Braley act like a jerk when he and his neighbor had a dispute over the fact that the neighbor’s chickens were crapping on Braley’s lawn? And number 2, is Joni Ernst a radical extremist?
You can argue that only one of these questions has anything to do with what Iowa’s next senator will be doing in office, and you’d be right. But the latest bit of information on Ernst is, if you actually understand the issue, quite a doozy:
State Sen. Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa, once said she would support legislation that would allow “local law enforcement to arrest federal officials attempting to implement” Obamacare.
Ernst voiced her support for that, as well as supporting legislation that would “nullify” Obamacare in a Iowa State Legislative Candidates survey for Ron Paul’s libertarian-aligned Campaign for Liberty in 2012. It can be viewed here.
The question was: “Will you support legislation to nullify ObamaCare and authorize state and local law enforcement to arrest federal officials attempting to implement the unconstitutional health care scheme known as ObamaCare?” Ernst answered that question as “yes.”
The “My opponent agreed to something crazy in a questionnaire” is its own genre of outrage, and seldom an enlightening one. It’s possible that a staffer filled this out, and it didn’t reflect Ernst’s actual views. If that’s the case, she should have the opportunity to clarify what she really thinks, and if this questionnaire doesn’t reflect her beliefs, then she needn’t necessarily be blamed for it.
But if this does reflect her views, then she’s not just a radical on the substance of issues (which she certainly is), but she’s a procedural radical as well. You can put words like “liberty” in the name of your organization all you want, but what Ernst was agreeing to here isn’t liberty, it’s insurrection against the Constitution of the United States.
States do not have the right to nullify federal laws they don’t like. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution makes that absolutely clear. And the idea that local cops should be arresting federal officials who implement duly passed federal laws isn’t just some colorful conservatism, it’s positively insane. If you believe that, you forfeit your right to say you love the Constitution, and you worship the Framers, and all the other things people like Ernst so often claim.
Like I said, maybe these aren’t Ernst’s actual views, and if they aren’t, then that’s fine. But she damn sure ought to say whether they are.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, October 3, 2014
“Ted Cruz’s A.G. Fight Already Misguided”: More So Than Usual, Cruz Has No Idea Of What He’s Talking About
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) does not believe in wasting time. Less than 24 hours have passed since Attorney General Eric Holder announced he’s stepping down, and at this point, no one seems to have any idea when the White House will announce a successor or who he or she will be.
But for Cruz, that just means now is a good time to start drawing battle lines.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) issued a political call to arms for conservatives, saying that outgoing senators should not vote on the nominee during the post-election lame-duck session. “Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder’s successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced,” Cruz said in a statement.
Perhaps more so than usual, Cruz has no idea what he’s talking about.
As Kevin Drum noted in response, “Unless Cruz is suggesting that they should be banned completely, then of course business should be conducted during lame duck sessions. What else is Congress supposed to do during those few weeks?”
Right. Members of the Senate are elected to serve six-year terms. The Constitution, which Cruz usually loves to talk about, is quite explicit on this point. Article I does not say senators’ terms end after 5 years and 10 months, with the final two months designated as goof-off time.
Indeed, if Cruz is still confused, he can look to very recent history to understand that nominating and confirming cabinet officials during a lame-duck session is the exact opposite of “an abuse of power.”
In November 2006, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he was stepping down at the Pentagon. Almost immediately thereafter, then-President George W. Bush nominated Robert Gates as Rumsfeld’s successor, and during the lame-duck session, the Senate held confirmation hearings, a committee vote, and a confirmation vote on the Senate floor.
Gates was confirmed, 95 to 2, and he was sworn in the week before Christmas 2006. Some of the senators who voted in support of the nominee, to use Cruz’s language, had “just been defeated at the polls,” but it didn’t make a bit of difference.
Why not? Because they were still senators who had a job to do. Indeed, 2006 was an especially important year: the Republican majority in the Senate had just been voted out in a Democratic wave election, in large part because of the Bush administration’s national-security policy. And yet, the Senate still moved quickly and efficiently to consider and confirm a new Pentagon chief.
This wasn’t an “abuse of power.” It was just the American political process working as it’s designed to work.
The same is true now, whether Cruz understands that or not.
Of course, there’s another scenario the far-right Texan may also want to keep in mind: the longer Cruz and his cohorts delay the process, the longer Eric Holder will remain the Attorney General. Indeed, Holder made it quite clear yesterday that he intends to stay on until his successor is ready to step into the office.
Under the circumstances, and given the right’s uncontrollable hatred for the current A.G., shouldn’t Cruz want the Senate to vote on Holder’s replacement during the lame-duck session? Has he really thought his current posturing through?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 27, 2014
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