Sen. Cornyn: We'll Filibuster Franken

Despite the numerous court rulings that have gone against incumbent Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman, Republican Sen. John Cornyn (TX) pledged on CNN this morning that Republicans would block the seating of challenger Al Franken's because it "ignores Minnesota law."

During the long effort to resolve the narrow election, matters such as the type and manner of ballot counting have appeared regularly before the Minnesota courts, which have ruled regularly against the Coleman efforts. The result is that the Minnesota Secretary of State is ready to certify the election in favor of Franken.

The Coleman campaign, which in November encouraged the Franken campaign to concede defeat in the face of a vote difference measures in the dozens in order to begin the "healing process" has now pledged to tie the matter up in court. Coleman's Republican colleagues in the Senate have pledged to reinforce his efforts in the Senate.

- Murphy

Whats the matter with Alaska?

Lots of questions in Alaska. Reported turnout falls short of 2000 and 2004 levels despite a record turnout for the Presidential Primary in the spring. That and none of the pre-election polling numbers held up; including Rassmussen which was accurate in calling every other Senate race it polled.

Alaskan officials are left scratching their heads, reports the Washington Post.

- Murphy

Monster Mash

Paul Krugman succinctly describes the shift the voters' rejection of Sen. McCain and the Bush wing of the party implies.

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

An administration that embraced torture, spied on its own people and misused the levers of power to maintain its control deserves such invective. As the next few years progress, and the people who have been reticent to pipe up out of fear of retribution begin to pass along their stories, the Bush administration's place in history will be thrown in sharp relief. 

Such a sharp blend of incompetence and maliciousness will hopefully never again roam the halls of power.

- Murphy

The Left's Secret Weapon

That would of course be academia...

Tenured Radicals Coming Home to Roost? [Andy McCarthy]
Preliminary indications are that the youth vote (ages 18-29) was way up: an increase of somewhere over 2.2 million (maybe way over) from 2004 (a year in which it was very high), and as much as 13% over 2000. The Left's dominance of the academy is now having a material impact on electoral politics. As we think about the future of conservatism, we ignore that at our peril.

Roger Kimball's new edition of Tenured Radicals seems like an excellent starting point for that urgent discussion.

11/05 03:21 PM

Despite the regularity of this claim (it is usually combined with some knowledge of an effort to drum conservatives off campus. Oddly, it seems the business schools seem to often be the recipient of a substantial administrative attention) McCarthy may be correct in that the conservative movement stands to lose major ground in the future, based mostly on demographics.

Often voters absorb the political winds of the time they grow up in, and generally stay with the party they begin voting for. 

The youth vote went substantially in President-elect Obama's favor, about 70% to 30% for 18-29. Those voters are likely to continue to trend in this same direction. In 2000 the youth split between Sen. Gore and Gov. Bush, 48% to 46% with Ralph Nader picking up the difference. In 2004, the youth vote went to Sen. Kerry with 54% to President Bush's 45%. 

So, in 8 years the size of the vote increased as well as the percentage voting Democrat. That can't be comforting for McCarthy and others.

As for the impact of college, that's still up in the air. About 1/2 of the 18-29 year-olds in America did not attend college. But of those who voted in this year's primaries, 79% attended college. 

So at best, we can be sure that college attendance boosts voting, but given the election night outcome, is the increase in youth votes for Democrats a natural reflection of a changing country? 

- Murphy

The Campaign You Get....

....is the campaign you deserve.

The McCain campaign stumbled across the finish line last night and barely had time to grab a drink before it was waylaid by a bus. 

Even in the final hours of the campaign the two camps-the Palin and McCain camps that is-were continuing to take shots at each other through leaks to the press. The blood-letting there still continues, this time more on the record (Laura Rozen of War and Piece calls it, "Sheesh. The stuff of sit-com. If not of governing.")

The two sides are trying to lay blame for who hobbled an already shaky campaign, McCain or Palin. Yet the two are inextricably intertwined. 

Palin will go down as one of the least viable candidates ever added to a major-party ticket. Her inexperience and inexplicable ability to view the world will mark her as either kryptonite for the reasonable world, or the choice of the far right for 2012.

McCain himself, however, has only himself to blame for foisting the Alaskan albatross on the Republican party. His blind roll of the dice doomed what little chance he had with moderate America. At that point his attacks and desperate pleas of acceptance to the right-wing of the party had already taken the shine off the memory of John McCain most moderate and independent voters had of him from the 2000 Presidential campaign. But many were likely to begrudge the man a bit of gamesmanship in his ambition. 

Unfortunately for McCain, Palin was the nail and his own erratic and deconstructive response to the fiscal calamity befalling the country was the hammer that sealed the coffin on his campaign. 

There were a dozen little things that helped take out the tires on the "Straight Talk Express" (the complete reversals of position, the lack of discipline, zero message, a dismissal if not a disdain for practical policy ideas, the lack of money, to name a few). 

However, I prefer to believe that the voters were registering a rejection of what Palin and McCain stood for-an unserious campaign running on smears and fear in a time in which the American public were hyperaware of their desire for serious leadership. In challenging times the public wants someone who can offer them a solution, a way forward, or a future. Simply dredging the bottoms for the next missile won't cut it.

- Murphy

Obama and McCain Trade Leads in Missouri

In the post-primary season Sen. John McCain held a fairly consistent lead across the various polls with some tightening as November progressed, from 5 to 2-3 points. 

However, October has shown a significant shift, with Obama trending ahead of McCain in the state. Obama's lead is approximate to the lead McCain had entering October.

It's a result that makes this state a dead heat. While the Obama campaign might be happy to see the spread move through the margin of error in their favor, it gives them no assurance of squeezing out a victory.

The McCain campaign, however, can not be pleased. In 2004 President George W. Bush trounced Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) by seven percentage points.

What must also give them pause is that the Democratic candidate for Governor, the popular Attorney Jay Nixon, has a double digit lead over his Republican opponent, Rep. Kenny Hulshoff. The two are vying to replace an unpopular Republican governor-Gov. Matt Blunt-who is bowing out of running for a second term (his reason; that he has achieved all he sought to achieve in one term. The real reason? Speculation is about as rampant as the number of commenters on political websites). 

- Murphy

Campbell Carries Water

That pail Colleen Campbell is carrying must be getting heavy. Campbell spent her time in today's Post-Dispatch Op-Ed section carrying water for the McCain campaign.

Rather than construct some argument that Sen. Barack Obama's tax proposal-which proposes to cut taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year while slightly bumping up taxes on those who make more-was a plan that made no fiscal sense, she instead trotted out the McCain campaign's second front, that Obama-by modifying existing progressive taxes-is a socialist.

In that respect Campbell both flunks the test for recognition of well-defined political systems, as well as the pop-quiz to see if you are keeping up with your homework.

Even a critical reading of what Obama has proposed elicits nothing more than an increase in already-existing taxes for folks making more than $250,000 a year. At the same time it looks to lessen the tax burden on those who earn less.

The entire point of her column was to continue the line that Obama is somehow a socialist by readjusting the existing tax system.

Had she spent a little less time copy-and-pasting from the McCain campaign emails, she may have noticed that McCain supported the current economic bailout. The one that not only funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to the massive banking industry, but takes an ownership stake in many who accept the deal-the specific term is recapitalization. A less judicious explanation would be the state taking an ownership stake in the means of production: a.k.a. a potentially satisfactory condition for socialism.

The McCain campaign and its surrogates have spent incredible amounts of time trying to weave a narrative that has little to do with reality as you and I know it.

Retooling a tax structure so that is slightly more progressive-Obama's proposed increases in taxation would bring them up to the levels of the 1990's when we all suffered through the tech boom and the economic expansion it created-is a far cry from the government taking an ownership position in banks.

Campbell gleeful quoted the Orlando news anchor (whose Q & A should be recorded in history simply for the absolute dissonance exhibited in the interview, with one interlocutor demanding the interviewee essentially pull a rabbit from their nose, while said interviewee simply tries not to double over in laughter) who kicked off her batty performance with a Karl Marx quote. She went on to demand that Bided prove that Obama was not a socialist, or a Marxist; her evidence being that Obama wants to tweak the existing tax system.

Campbell also chucks in Obama's supposed plan to "spread the wealth", which pulls from a comment Obama made about helping reassert the economic power and potential of the middle class-thus increasing the wealth of the majority of the population.

It was once bragged-though I never saw the numbers, it was touted by enough serious folks that it was likely true-that there was more wealth in the collective bank accounts of the folks living in working-to-middle class South St. Louis that in the sections of the Western St. Louis County known for its big homes and expensive cars.

South City is an example of the source of ingenuity and wealth production Obama's tax plan is targeted at, not the folks whose names sit atop the buildings South City works in.

This country is rightfully renowned for its history of giving a nobody with ambition the chance to become captains of industry or occupy the highest seats in the land. That happens because we encourage and foster new entries and new ideas. Protecting existing business and business owner by giving them tax advantages is not only unfair, but undercuts a future we have promised to the hopeful.

- Murphy

Whip It Good

Missouri's own Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Springfield) blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) speech today for turning key Republican votes against the financial rescue package. Even the 12 members he thought he had whipped in line bailed on the bill.

It's worth noting that Blunt is the Republican whip in the house, charged with bringing members in-line when the leadership (of which he is a part) decides to press an issue.

An issue, perhaps, like the package President George W. Bush, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) all promised would pass with the support of their Republican colleagues in the House. 

Sen. McCain went so far this morning as to remind voters that he went so far as to suspend his campaign for President, in order to go back to Washington and help hammer out a deal (which he believed in taking credit for this morning, but since the vote has been incommunicado on the subject).

After two-thirds of the Republicans in the House bailed on the bill, Boehner and others tried to place the blame squarely on Pelosi whose speech (read the transcript here) emphasized the role deregulation and Republican support for pulling economic oversight played in the economic catastrophe before us. It was a rebuke to Republican policies, to be sure. And even perhaps badly timed (it couldn't have hurt to wait until after the vote?). 

Yet if the Republican members had been serious about supporting the bill, in the belief it was the correct move, than it certainly should not have dissuaded them.

In fact, it looks more likely that a majority of Republican members were not happy with the bill and after not convincing their leadership that their alternative (assuming they had a practical one and not simply the "insurance" plan) was preferable to amended Bush-Paulson proposal, they decided to deep-six the entire deal.

Where does that leave the markets and the American voters? With the greatest one-day point drop in stock market history and greater uncertainty for the workers and business owners who are wondering where their retirement funds went and whether they will be able to maintain the lines of credit necessary to allow their businesses to continue.

There was an unattributed comment circulated late last week that said, essentially, "better to risk a Great Depression, than sacrifice the 'free market'". I guess we can chalk it up to the Republican members of the 110th Congress.

- Murphy

McCain May Want To Look Away

Despite the general consensus that the debate was "soporific" draw, it is hard to look back at it and not see it as a win for Sen. Barack Obama.

While it did not provide the fireworks many were hoping for, on both the substantive and stylistic fronts, the meeting explained much.

Much of the McCain campaign has been about defining Obama as unserious, unprepared and inexperienced. In fact, after stripping away McCain's own confusing mix of proposals and rants, his entire campaign is based around attacking Obama on those terms.

Last night Obama deftly dealt with those attacks, excepting the experience issue. Yet even there he deflected those attacks by again raising the question of judgment.

The inexperience issue may still be "operative" but as conservative commentator George Will wrote in a column criticizing McCain's tempestuous temperament and questioning his fitness to be President, "Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"

McCain pushed his experience and tried to deflect Republican-fatigue by wrapping himself in the "Maverick" flag-even calling himself a Maverick, violating rule one of being a Maverick-but can that overcome a steady effort by the Obama campaign to highlight McCain's record of supporting President George W. Bush (a.k.a. He Who Will Not Be Named) 90% of the time?

Last night Obama looked composed, prepared, respectful and ready. In a word, he showed the voters he was "Presidential" material. The voters seemed to respond positively: CNN, CBS.

- Murphy

Fiorina's Out?

CNN is reporting that Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and top McCain campaign official, is likely to drop from view for the next few weeks. 

The likely cause of her disappearance follows her comments to journalists on two occasions that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin could not run a major corporation; something Fiorina did for a number of, sometimes tumultuous, years. On her second comment she tried to temper the perceived slight by adding that neither Republican candidate John McCain nor Democratic nominee Barack Obama could run a major corporation either.

Fiorina originally told St. Louis radio host McGraw Milhaven on Monday that Palin couldn't run a corporation. She then compounded her move by expanding on it to Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC this morning.

It was a bad slip and an even worse recovery. When a major figure in your campaign-who also happens to have been a very successful businesswoman who broke into one of the oldest boys clubs by being the first female head of a Fortune 20 company-says both the head and the number two members of the presidential ticket don't have what it takes to run a major company, that just hands two days of media to the Democrats. And who knows how many campaign ads.

Republicans have long used the imagery of government as a "business" in order to shore up their many business-beholden candidates. Remember President George W. Bush's "CEO President" line? Having a genuinely successful business executive (as opposed to a mediocre CEO like Bush, or the series of former government officials who leave the public sphere to land in well-packaged executive slots in friendly companies like McCain's former economic advisor Phil Gramm) cut down your candidates business acumen-not once, but twice-is a sharp blow.

Fiorina herself was once seen as being on the short list for McCain's VP slot. She has been very public as a McCain surrogate including debating Sen. Claire McCaskill-long a Obama supporter-on ABC's This Week this past Sunday.

Her less than convincing arguments on Sunday, combined with her recent slip, perhaps explains why Palin-who appears eminently scriptable-got the nod instead. 

Of course, there is also the fact that she is an ambitious, strong, capable and successful woman who made her mark in a world dominated by men. But that wouldn't factor into their thinking at all...right? Palin was clearly the most capable Republican woman available to run.

- Murphy

New Obama Ad Calls Out McCain-Palin On "Reformer" Claim

The Obama campaign has released a new ad that takes on the "Maverick" label the McCain-Palin campaign has embraced. The ad is expected to run in battleground states starting today.

Funny enough, it hits on exactly a point I wanted to write about.

That the McCain-Palin campaign has shown great chutzpa in running wild with the "reformer" label. Neither Sen. John McCain-especially in the last eight years-or Gov. Sarah Palin could truly take on the mantle with a straight face if they had any shred of respect for the voters.

McCain's campaign was made up almost entirely of major lobbyists, while Palin racked up millions of dollars in earmarks as a Mayor and hundreds of millions as a governor.

They have hoped to breeze through the last 60 days by dodging scruitiny (though 5 seconds on Google would blow a hole in their camapaign rhetoric), but given that even the Wall Street Journal (not exactly a liberal bastion) is starting to call them on their eggregious reshaping of the truth, their damn isn't likely to hold for long.

- Murphy

No New Missouri Polls Yet

While it appears there is a wave of new polling coming out of some battleground states (Ohio and Virginia, for example), there is little news from Missouri.

All we can currently go on were polls that showed a steady lead for McCain
(48% to 44%) right into the beginning of August. If the convention bounce that is showing up in national polls trickles down to us (as it is likely to do) then it is hard to see that gap narrowing at all.

I have to again say that if anyone is seeking in-depth, insightful coverage of political polling-from the latest results to what it means-Pollster.com is the place to go. I say this mostly because I lean on them for a great deal of coverage. They maintain an up-to-date list of the latest polls, run aggregate numbers and analyze what's going on behind the numbers. It's like having your own private pollster.

- Murphy