The short answer is yes, but it's not going to be pretty.
Nate Silver says there is an 80% chance the Democrats hold 50 seats (a majority with Joe Biden as tie-breaker) based on a comparison of 2010 to the last six election cycles. In his model, we hold 52 or 53 seats.
Is he right? If so, it's better than a while back when it looked like we were going to lose states (like Nevada and Florida) in which we now have a fighting chance. Still, I have my disagreements with Nate. He and I use slightly different ways of calling races. Here at DCW, we look at D, DL, T, RL and R. Nate uses a probability to indicate whether the incumbent party will lose that seat.
California: Nate has this at a 41% chance that Boxer will lose, which is probably toss-up or DL. I have it as strong Democratic, as I think that in the end, Fiorina will be shown for what she is, and Boxer will prevail.
Colorado: Nate has this at a 77% loss-chance, and I have it as DL. I don't see Bennet winning so much as I see Buck losing. This is a race that the DSCC and DNC have, and will, poured a lot of resources into, and I believe that will make a large difference in the end.
Florida: While Nate sees this as a pure toss-up (48%), I see this as a Democratic win. And I say that whether Meek or Crist wins the race. If Charlie wins, he'll have to pick a side, and so long as we hold the chamber (and we will), he'll caucus with us because we'll make him a better offer than the IIE, including the committee assignments he wants.
Indiana: Nate sees this a a pure Republican pick-up, and I still view it as a toss-up.
Kentucky: Once again, Nate is seeing a Republican hold, and I believe we have a chance here, citing it as a toss-up. There is a lot of negative dirt on Paul, and this may well be a state with an October surprise.
Missouri: Nate has given up on Robin Carnahan (9%). I have this as a lean, because she might actually pull her campaign together. It doesn't matter as it would be a pick-up not a loss, but still...
New Hampshire: Nate sees a middling chance that Hodes can pull it out, but I believe that the DSCC and DNC will end up pumping a lot of money into this race, and Ayotte may well be too far right for most of the Granite State.
Nevada: Nate has Harry at a 59% chance of losing. I see him winning.
Pennsylvania: Nate sees Sesak losing (88%). I just don't see that. I see the ads coming on the TV in droves from all the candidates, and they're nasty. There are too many people who poll at not knowing enough about either candidate, and thus high undecideds. Once people hear about how Pat Toomey wrote the derivatives legislation while a Congressman, they tend to hate him.
So, my number? I see us with a minimum of 55 seats, with an additional 7 toss-ups. We obviously hold the 40 Class 1 and 2 seats not up for election, white the IIE only has 23. Of the remaining 37, I believe we split 15/15 with the other side.
Alvin Greene has a right to run for the US Senate. Lots of people have the right to do all sorts of things. But he should quit the race, and he should do so for the good of the Democratic Party. I have felt this way since the night he won the election, but couldn't quite explain why. Now I can.
Watch this:
Most Americans can't name a Supreme Court Justice, nor five Senators, and we'll skip the state capitals. All they know is what they get from TV ads, and the local news. That's it. Alvin Greene is, for many Americans, the Senate candidate they know. If you showed them a card with a bunch of head shot photographs of any 10 US Senators, there's a chance they'd get Al Franken if they remember SNL, but likely wouldn't know he was a Senator. Any nine others would provoke blank stares.
But the sound of a man wailing in his house, afraid to come out and talk to a reporter? That's something that people will remember. And not in a positive way. If I worked for the dead tree press, my headline would be "The Cowering Candidate." This is NOT the image I want for the most prominent candidate of my party.
If you think I'm joking about what people know, consider this. People who read DCW tend to know more about the races and the candidates and the issues than most people. They also tend to read other blogs, and keep up with the polling numbers. So, offhand, do you know how many open Senate races there are this year? There are 13, and they are CT, DE, FL, IL, IN, KS, KY, MO, ND, NH, OH, PA, and UT. How many of the candidates can you name? The incumbents are from the following states: Democrats - AR, CA, CO, HI, MD, NV, NY (two), OR, VT, WA and WI. Republicans - AK, AL, AZ, GA, ID, LA, NC, OK, SC, and SD. Could you name all of them and their challengers?
Those are rhetorical questions. I assume you can name all the incumbents, all of the major party challengers, and even most of the third party candidates. Do you think most people could? What about Alvin Greene? Do you think they've heard of him? And that's why he should drop out of the race today. Because the face and sound of our most prominent candidate should not be some guy with no experience currently under a felony indictment. The obscenity charge may well be specious, but the obscenity of him staying in the race is not.
Congress has gone home. To your neighborhood. What these boys and girls are supposed to be doing is visiting with you, the voter. All the reps and Senators have websites. These sites will either list the public activities they'll be attending, or give you contact information for their local offices which you could call for information or to set up a meeting.
Some people interact with Congress on a regular basis. You know if you're one of these people: when you call, the staffers either sigh in a way that indicates "I cannot believe it's you, again" or ask after your family, all of whom they know by name. We can't all be like that. You actually can develop a personal relationship with your elected officials. My mom for many years had an interactive relationship with a Senator who will remain nameless, but his initials were Bob Torricelli. He had a position on one issue that, um, resonated with her. He'd have a speaking engagement where there was audience participation, and she'd be there. Everywhere he went. They were on a first name basis. For years. There's art.
But on a more normal basis, they will all be out and around, and if you want them to know what you think, you should consider going to an event, calling, and/or stopping by the office. This is true whether you have an elected official you love, or one you are actively working to replace. While the public events will likely not be as rude and contentious as they were last summer, and might not involve forging flooded roadways to get there, they will likely still be interesting and potentially worthwhile.
Elected officials only get re-elected if they have the support of their constituencies, or at least that's what's supposed to happen. They can only vote your opinion if you let them know what it is. Even Rick "Spawn of Satan" Santorum was known to change votes based on his constituency input. Sure, not always, but on occasion. Point is, you say nothing, and they don't know how the populace feels beyond what polls tell them. And national polls may well not reflect local sentiment.
Today, a grand jury in Richland County indicted Alvin Green for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity – a felony – as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.
Not surprisingly, Greene has refused to say anything. Much like his supposed primary campaign.
So, I have questions: He's out on bail from the initial arrest, will he have to post a higher amount now? How will he afford a lawyer? Can you run for the Senate if you need a Legal Aid lawyer? I guess you can, but you have to admit it doesn't look good. Does this mean he won't be able to attend the September debate with Jim DeMint? Would DeMint be willing to debate from a jail setting? If they try and convict him prior to the election, will he be able to get a day pass to go to DC to be sworn in, if I'm right and the voting was rigged, and gets rigged again in November?
Will Greene have the decency to drop out of the race and let an actual candidate run?
Biggest question of all: if everyone but me is right and he actually won the primary, WILL VOTERS LEARN ANYTHING FROM THIS???????????
Here it is, from side remarks made after his speech at the Hartford Club...
“I haven’t decided fully, but I’d say I’m probably going to run again.”
He's got a while to decide, and personally, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, if he runs, he'll lose. The Nutmeg State couldn't possibly make the same mistake twice. Could they? On the other hand, if he doesn't run, he's out of the Senate. Either way is a good ending from my perspective. If he did run, would he start out as an independent, or try the Democratic primary route again? As it happens, he's still a registered Democrat, and will be voting in the Democratic primary today.
Missouri will head to the polls on Tuesday for Primary elections.
For the Democrats, Robin Carnahan is a clear favorite with no serious challengers to win the US Senate nomination. Likewise, current State Auditor Susan Montee should be nominated for a second term. With no serious contest in either state-wide race, that means that turnout for the Democratic Primary will be driven by local races. Of course, there are primaries for local offices (and the General Assembly) in the areas with a strong Democratic presence, so Democratic turnout may not be that much different from 2006 (which was similar in not having any major state-wide contest). There is one interesting Democratic Congressional Primary (in the 7th District to replace Roy "I'm part of the Washington Establishment except when I am not" Blunt). It is unlikely that either Democrat can win the General Election as the 7th is a significant part of the base of the Missouri Republican Party, but Scott Eckersley might be able to make it closer. Additionally, as someone who was fired from the legal counsel office of former Governor Matt Blunt (Roy's son) for raising ethical question, Scott would be a thorn in the side of the Republican ticket.
The real interest in Missouri will be on the Republican Primary. For the U.S., Senate, there are nine candidates running. Most polls have Roy Blunt winning. Roy Blunt has also gotten the support of the national party, including leaders of the Tea Party movement like Michelle Bachman. The only national figure of note supporting the main alternative, State Senator Chuck Purgason is Joe the Plumber (which has drawn an ethical complaint). Howerver, leaders of the Tea Party movement in Missouri have been critical of Representative Bachman for endorsing Roy Blunt. And, while signs do not vote, I have seen many Purgason signs in Republican (Theocrat version) areas. The expectation is that Representative Blunt will win, but this race may be closer than the experts project.
For State Auditor, you have a potentially very close two-way contest between former Ambassador Tom Schweich and State House Budget Chair Alan Icet. Ambassador Schweich had been touted as a potential moderate candidate for U.S. Senate but made a deal with the state party to drop down to the State Auditor's race. State Representative Icet was not willing to back down. Ambassador Schweich has gotten the support from the official leadership of the Missouri Republican Party, but State Representative Icet has gotten the most support from the Republican caucus in the General Assembly. This race is a real battle for control of the Republican Party between Washington and Missouri.
There are also two significant Congressional Primaries. In the Seventh, eight Republicans filed for the open seat. It is hard to tell which of the candidates is the most insane and which candidate is leading. Thirty percent could very well win the nomination. Given the nature of the Seventh, the Republicans could nominate someone to the right of Michelle Bachman, Rand Paul, and Jim Demint and still win the general election. But, a close race might make a difference in how the lines are drawn for 2012.
In the Fourth, nine Republicans have filed for the opportunity to challenge very conservative Democratic Representative Ike Skelton. The Fourth District, when it becomes an open seat, will be tough for the Democrats to hold (there are currently three Democratic State Representatives and 0 Democratic State Senators from the Fourth). For readers of this site, Representative Skelton's votes are probably too conservative. However, his voting record is probably about as progressive as a Representative from the Fourth could be. There are two major Republican candiates -- former State Representative Vicki Hartzler, and State Senator Bill Stouffer. The question is whether they have managed to get enough name recognition to stand out from the other seven candidates. Again, 30% might just win this race.
Finally, there is Proposition C. Prop C is a meaningless proposition that will be interpreted by the Missouri Courts as holding that there is no state law requirement that individuals participate in health care insurance and also provides for dissolving inactive insurance companies. There are no express references in the proposition to federal health care laws. However, it is being touted by conservatives as a referendum on federal health care reform. Given the likely turnout in the respective party primaries, it will likely pass.
Who is running the worst Senate campaign in the country?
A month ago, I might have said Alvin Greene. But he now has a website and a campaign team. He's given a speech that, while short and a bit awkward, showed he could string a thought or two together. There's a viral video (Thanks to Leah for finding it, and confirming that despite the end credits Greene didn't actually have anything to do with it.) and quite a few grass-roots sites.
Still, "amateur" doesn't begin to describe the Greene campaign. It's not possible there's a worse general election Senate campaign for a major-party candidate, is there?
On the other hand, Greene didn't call a press conference and then duck out on answering any questions:
Remember Ken Buck disagreeing with Tom Tancredo? It didn't last....
Pat Waak, Chair of the Colorado Democratic Party issued this statement on Ken Buck’s flip flop at the Conservative Western Summit.
"Colorado voters simply can't trust Ken Buck. Last week in an attempt to hide his extreme views, he told everyone that he didn't believe that the President of the United States was the 'greatest threat' to America. Yet today, in front of a group of ultra-conservative activists, he flip-flopped and decided that the President is. Ken Buck needs to be held accountable for the dangerous agenda that he supports and intends to forward in Washington."
Last Thursday at an event featuring Tom Tancredo and Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), in support of Ken Buck’s Senate campaign, former Rep. Tancredo stated,
"I truly believe this…I believe this with all my heart, that the greatest threat to the United States today, the greatest threat to our liberty, the greatest threat to the Constitution, the greatest threat to our way of life, everything we believe in, the greatest threat to the country put together by the Founding Fathers, is the guy who is in the White House today."[Denver Post, 7/9/2010]
Ken Buck was quick to disregard the statements, saying that he didn’t agree with them. According to the Denver Post, Ken Buck said,
“I don't think the man in the White House is the greatest threat to this country at all," [Denver Post 7/9/2010]
Today, at the Conservative Western Summit, Ken Buck told the crowd
“The other day my good friend and supporter Tom Tancredo said that the greatest threat to this country is the man who occupies the White House, Barack Obama. There is a lot of truth in what Tom Tancredo says.” [Colorado Independent7/10/2010]
Yesterday, Ken Buck's opponent in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Jane Norton issued a statement on her Facebook wall in support of Tom Tancredo's statements.
"There was a real measure of truth to what Tancredo said. Obama is spending this country into bankruptcy. Admiral Mullen said our debt is a greater threat than terrorism. It's time to end the culture of political correctness. Obama's brand of big government is a threat to America." [KDVR Fox 31 7/9/2010]
Most people can be doctors: you get through college, med school, residency, pass the boards, and you can call yourself a doctor. It doesn't make you a GOOD doctor. Face it, someone has to graduate last in the class and you do NOT want that person diagnosing or treating you.
Once you become a doctor, you probably want to become board certified. Why? Well, in addition to the fellowship and the extra training, you "re-up" on a regular basis (differing based on which specialty you've chosen.) To maintain board certification, you need to keep up with continuing education, which matters in medicine. Not that every advance is perfect, but you really want your doctor to be up to date with new things that are available.
Rand Paul is an actual ophthamologist. He was graduated from Duke, an excellent institution. But he didn't like the idea of being board certified SO HE CREATED HIS OWN BOARD and claimed certification. Hard to imagine, but true.
Here's the political thought: if he gets elected to the Senate and doesn't like that, will he start his own? If he doesn't win election, will he buy a building, stick a dome on it, and call himself "Senator" anyway? Rand Paul may well be the best thing that could possibly have happened to Jack Conway.
“South Carolinians would rather be 100% right than 90% uncertain.”
As we stated yesterday, our campaign began examining election data on early Wednesday morning. Over the course of the next 24 hours, our staff found several results that seemed unusual to us. We stress that, then and now, we very much hope that Tuesday’s primary was conducted fairly and that nothing untoward happened.
Expert Data Analysis
No one on our staff is a statistics expert or mathematician. As the unusual information began to accumulate, several unconnected people and teams who are far more expert in election forensics than our staff contacted the campaign and volunteered to look at results from Tuesday’s primary.
One of the teams was Dr. Walter Mebane of the University of Michigan and Dr. Michael Miller of Cornell University. Dr. Mebane is a professor of political science and statistics and a recognized expert in detecting election fraud. As of August 2010, Dr. Miller will be professor of political science at the University of Illinois, Springfield, and specializes in the analysis of election data. Neither is affiliated with the Rawl campaign.
Dr. Mebane performed second-digit Benford's law tests on the precinct returns from the Senate race. The test compares the second digit of actual precinct vote totals to a known numeric distribution of data that results from election returns collected under normal conditions. If votes are added or subtracted from a candidate’s total, possibly due to error or fraud, Mebane’s test will detect a deviation from this distribution.
Results from Mebane’s test showed that Rawl’s Election Day vote totals depart from the expected distribution at 90% confidence. In other words, the observed vote pattern for Rawl could be expected to occur only about 10% of the time by chance. “The results may reflect corrupted vote counts, but they may also reflect the way turnout in the election covaried with the geographic distribution of the candidates' support,” Mebane said.
Dr. Miller performed additional tests to determine whether there was a significant difference in the percentage of absentee and Election Day votes that each candidate received. The result in the Senate election is highly statistically significant: Rawl performs 11 percentage points better among absentee voters than he does among Election Day voters. “This difference is a clear contrast to the other races. Statistically speaking, the only other Democratic candidate who performed differently among the two voter groups was Robert Ford, who did better on Election Day than among absentees in the gubernatorial primary,” Miller said.
These findings concern the campaign, and should concern all of South Carolina. We do not know that anything was done by anyone to tamper with Tuesday’s election, or whether there may have been innocuous machine malfunctions, and we are promoting no theories about either possibility.
However, we do feel that further investigation is warranted.
Voting Machine Examination
With that in mind, another expert volunteer traveled today to the SC State Board of Elections in Columbia to conduct an examination of selected voting machines that were employed in Tuesday’s election. When we have the results, if any, of that examination, we will release them immediately.
Gathering of Anecdotal Accounts
While we believe, and urge others to note that “the plural of anecdote is not data,” our campaign is receiving calls and e-mails from people – voters and poll workers – who experienced significant problems with voting for whom they intended. We are looking into these reports and will release any information we find.
Judge Rawl and the campaign stress again that no one knows exactly what happened on Election Day. South Carolinians would rather be 100% right than 90% uncertain.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) began an investigation on Friday afternoon into the election. Likely it will center on the statistical anomolies details in the Rawl press release.
People keep asking why would someone bother to knock Vic Rawl out of the race? An internal poll for the Raw campaign showed a DeMint-Rawl match-up at 50%-43%, which is pretty good considering Rawl is a virtual unknown outside of political circle. (Or was, it's likely he's much better known in South Carolina now.) Even according to PPP, DeMint wasn't a shoe-in against Rawl.
What chance does Greene have? Well, it's now a sure thing for DeMint if Greene stays the challenger. He's going to have a lot of trouble proving where that $10,000 filing fee came from. He SAVED it over 2 years? That would mean that he saved about $100/week consistently for two years. The max you can make in South Carolina on unemployment is $326/week. Seems tough. There will be bank records: when he filed, he used a personal check, there are records of deposits. There is an issue of him never filing with the FEC. Plus that pesky morals charge. Amazingly, a sex conviction won't keep you out of Congress, but it's a no-no for any South Carolina state elected office. Plus, he's created a lot of bad blood amoungst the Democrats: it will be hard for him to garner any logistics or financial help. Greene's candidacy made sure that DeMint would win re-election: he is at best a spoiler.
I have always contended that US Senator is not an entry-level position, and I still hold to that. There are rare, exceptional people, who have spent their lives related to politics in some way, but they are the exception. I'm thinking of Al Franken, with his polisci degree from Harvard, and a life dedicated to a lot of political comedy, which actually DOES require understanding politics. Not some young man who just "feels like it".
There are currently 13 open Senate seats, meaning we will have at least 13 new Senators next January. Is this any sort of record? Well, not yet anyway. 1996 saw 16 new Senators elected, and 1980 (as far back as I've looked) saw the election of 18 new Senators.
But, of course, we're not done yet. In addition to the 13 open Senate seats (CT, DE, FL, IL, IN, KS, KY, MO, ND, NH, PA, OH, and UT), there's also the chance of new Senators in WI, CA, WA, CO, NV, AR (this may be open by Tuesday night!) , NC, LA and AZ, a total of 9 more seats. Now some of these are unlikely, so what do you think? How many new Senators will we have next January? Will we break the 14-year-old mark of 16? Break the 30-year-old mark of 18? And if anyone knows the record since we starting electing our Senators, please leave in the comments.
Update: 20 new Senators in 1978, 21 in 1946, as far back as I've now looked. The low-mark is only 4 new Senators in 1990, 3 retirements and only 1 incumbent lost. The average over the last 65 years is 11.8 new Senators, so the 13 so far this year is not really notable. Yet.
To the best of my knowledge, there has only been one Arkansas run-off poll, taken on 18 May, overnight after the primary. It shows Halter over Lincoln, 48% - 46%. Not like Pennsylvania, where there was a daily tracking poll. But the ads keep coming...
It appears that someone in the White House offered Joe Sestak a job last July if he agreed to not run against Arlen Specter. It's all somewhat hazy as to what the job actually was, or who specifically made the offer. What we know is that Sestak admitted something was offered, and he turned it down.
But since Sestak resoundingly won the primary, the story is back in the news.
It's not a deal killer for Sestak: if someone called and made the offer, he didn't do anything wrong besides answering the phone. Oh, and mentioning it. Not just last year, but this past Sunday on both Meet the Press and Face the Nation.
It's not good for the White House, which had this to say:
Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said Sunday that “nothing inappropriate happened.”
Bob Schieffer, the host, pressed Mr. Gibbs about whether the White House had actually offered Mr. Sestak a job to clear the field for Mr. Specter.
“I’m not going to get into it,” Mr. Gibbs said, “but people who have looked into it assure me the conversations were not inappropriate in any way.”
What likely happened is that someone at the White House, if I had to guess, I'd say Rahm Emanuel, said something like "we want to show our support for Arlen Specter because he's given us the 60th vote. For the good of the party, we'd like you to stay in the House, and let Arlen run unopposed for the Senate. If you really want out of the House, we're filling a lot of jobs in the administration, and we'd be glad to short list you for something appropriate to your background and talents. Is that something you might consider?"
Clean? Not really, but not illegal. The White House did (and does) have high ranking jobs to fill, and problems filling a lot of them. In all industries, there is a dance when someone is approached about the possibility of taking a job if one were offered. It's illegal to interfere in an election, but that relates to coercion, and packing ballot boxes, not asking nicely if someone would quit a race.
It's the opposite of pay-to-play, where it's the "getter" going to the "giver" to cut a deal. It's also different in that there is no financial gain to either side: no cash in the freezer, no asking what a Senate seat is worth in dollars.
Still, the White House position that everyone should just trust it and go away is unacceptable from any administration; it is especially hypocritical coming from this one. "I'm not going to get further into what the conversations were," Mr. Gibbs said Sunday. "People that have looked into them assure me that they weren't inappropriate in any way." This response would hardly have satisfied those who were upset during the previous administration about the firing of U.S. attorneys. If there was nothing improper, why not all that sunlight Mr. Obama promised?
To me, the real question is why the White House fought so hard to keep Arlen Specter in a race that, in the end, he couldn't win against Pat Toomey. Specter's people knew last fall that he wouldn't win the primary. Still, the White House, and state and national Democrats rallied. Perhaps in the fall out from this imbroglio, we'll find some answers.
Update:
For the right-wingers out there thinking this is a huge story... consider your bubble burst.
Mario Rubio thinks the retirement age should be raised to 70. He also is in favour of the Shrub plan to allow people to invest a portion of their SS payroll deductions in private investment vehicles. An idea so toxic that even the Republicans, under Bush, wouldn't bring it to the floor.
So there you have it. The Republican in Florida, the Sunshine State, home to millions of retirees, wants to raise the retirement age. Here's what AARP Florida has to say about it:
"Anytime our elected officials begin debating the future of Social Security, millions of Floridians pay attention," said Lori Parham, Florida director for senior lobby. "Social Security pumps $3.7 billion a month into Florida's economy. Without it, half of Floridians age 65 or older would be plunged into poverty."
Does Social Security need to be reformed? Sure. But this is an election in FLORIDA. If you were running for office in that state, would you make this your issue?
Kendrick Meek prefers a commission to look into Social Security changes, which has been the standard response to this third rail issue, from both parties, for decades. Charlie Crist proposes fixing Social Security and immigration at the same time.
Crist said Thursday that there are as many as 14 million illegal immigrants in the country as part of an underground economy. If they paid into the Social Security system, it would help increase the worker-to-retiree ratio.
He's got a point. Objectively, one of the ways to save Social Security is to pump more money into it by having more people contributing via payroll deductions. If we had the ratio we did decades ago, where 8 workers contribute to each recipient, there wouldn't a solvency problem. Um, if, of course, the government didn't steal the money and spend it on something else. (OH! For Al Gore's lock box.)
It's unclear how immigration reform will play in Florida. But campaigning on raising the retirement age is not going to work well for Rubio.
The short answer is yes, but it's not going to be pretty. 
Here it is, from 
