A Misguided Attack on Stanley Kurtz's Radical-in-Chief and Other Anti-Obama Books

From Ron Radosh, at Pajamas Media:

I knew that Stanley Kurtz’s new and important book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, would be the subject of attack. I predicted that at first, the mainstream press would either ignore it or, if they found that they could not, would seek to go on the offense by comparing it to the score of rather knee-jerk screeds written against Obama by other conservatives, many of them rather easy to ridicule, dismiss, and demonize.

Clearly, Kurtz has his hands full, having to try to distinguish his contribution from the rest of the pack and hope that it is taken seriously. I have tried to do my own on its behalf by writing a serious review of the book that will be published in the next issue of National Review. I hope readers buy that issue if they do not subscribe, and take my arguments about it into consideration. I go so far as to write in my conclusion that if the work Kurtz has done for this book had been able to be accomplished during the 2008 campaign, “Barack Obama would not have been elected President because he is simply not who he claimed to be.”

Those who actually bother to read Kurtz’s book know immediately that he bases his analysis on rigorous scholarship, a careful look through the archives of various political groups with which our president has been associated with and influenced by throughout the years. No one else has done this work. The other volumes criticize Obama by talking about his record and his views. Some of the authors easily score points — after all, the Obama administration is not hard to criticize — but at times, they are way off base and issue arguments not backed up by real evidence.

Now, the centrist conservative commentator John Avlon has written a column he calls “The Obama Haters Book Club.” I usually find Avlon to be someone who makes shrewd and sound observations, and I have in past blog posts linked to him and singled out some of his earlier articles for praise.

What he does in this particular column, however, is purposely link together virtually every anti-Obama book as all being the same. As he puts it, “at this point the titles all blur together in a manic mad-lib, always accusing Obama of something close to war-crimes against the American people.” He next attacks the motives of the authors, writing, “You might not be able to distinguish between the self-published pathology and the semi-professional polemics — they are all fear-mongering for personal and partisan profit. And that’s the larger point.”

More at the link.

Ron Radosh is an old school kinda guy, from David Horowitz's generation, so it's interesting that he'd give Jon Avlon such credibility. I don't. Avlon's a typical leftist-claiming-to-be-centrist. Folks like this are socialist enablers at the least. The Avlon essay's here. I've read at least four previous anti-Obama books. And while Kurtz's Radical-in-Chief is a standout, the overall quality of the research on Barack Obama has been excellent. Critics dismiss these works --- for example, Michelle Malkin, Aaron Klein, Pam Geller and Robert Spencer --- for opening up the truth on a presidency that's been wrapped in mystery and lies. Amazing, really. But typical for leftists.

See also, "Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism."

Why Democrats Support Pat Toomey

At Midnight Blue: "PA Senate and Congressional Races Update."

RELATED: It turns out that Joe Sestak is getting down and dirty, literally: "Pennsylvania's Race Gets Dirty as Sestak Slings Feces" (via Memeorandum). Also, Gateway Pundit, "Sick. Joe Sestak Smears Dog Sh*t on Toomey in Attack Ad (Video)."

Whitman Ends Campaign by Lashing Out at Media, Brown

Yeah.

Sounds kinda whiny, actually:

As Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman seeks to regain momentum before election day, she is lashing out at the media and rival Jerry Brown, while trying to soften her persona in advertisements and mailers.

Her campaign insists that she is following a charted course and that the race remains tight. But political observers say that a rapidly changing strategy is a tacit acknowledgement that Whitman's campaign juggernaut — fueled by $141 million of her own money — has stalled.

"It's like in sports: You don't change a winning strategy and you always change a losing strategy," said Bruce Cain, a political science professor at UC Berkeley. "The fact they're changing strategies … usually signifies they know what the truth is, and the truth is not good."

On the campaign trail and in interviews, Whitman is increasingly interrupting her standard jobs-and-schools talking points to emphasize that she feels under attack.

"I have been called a liar, I've been called a whore and I've been called a Nazi by his campaign," she said Wednesday morning on Fox News Channel's America's Newsroom.

Days earlier, she flogged Brown and his labor allies for exaggerating her position on immigration to the Latino community, repeatedly saying that "It makes me mad."

Whitman is going out of her way to criticize as "bunk" a Sunday Los Angeles Times/USC poll that showed Brown leading by 13 points among likely voters.

Her criticism has not extended to other recent public polls, which have consistently shown Whitman trailing Brown by high single digits.

At campaign events Wednesday, she insisted that her internal polling shows the race to be tight.

"Our polls show this is a dead heat and you're going to start to see some polls come out that show that this is a dead heat," she said in Riverside. "And in a dead heat, we win because the people who want to take back Sacramento are going to come to the polls in huge numbers."

But the candidate is clearly responding to poll findings that suggest voters are skeptical of her character. In the Times poll, more than half of likely voters had a negative view of Whitman. By almost a 2-1 margin, voters said Brown was more truthful.

She's flailing.

See, "Majority Now Views Whitman Negatively."

Majority Now Views Whitman Negatively

From the new California Field Poll, "INCREASED SUPPORT FROM WOMEN, LATINOS, NON-PARTISANS AND L.A. COUNTY VOTERS PROPELLING BROWN TO A TEN-POINT LEAD - Whitman’s Image Has Deteriorated. A Majority Now Views Her Negatively."

The background's at S.F. Gate and Memeorandum.

Democrat Jerry Brown has amassed a 10-point lead in the California governor's race over Republican Meg Whitman, whose negative ratings have reached record levels despite her spending $162 million in the largest self-funded campaign in American history, a new Field Poll shows.

With election day on Tuesday, Brown holds a 49 to 39 percent lead over the former eBay CEO in the race, with 5 percent of voters favoring other candidates and 7 percent undecided, the poll showed. The Field poll last month showed the two candidates in a virtual tie.

"I don't think voters have warmed up to Meg Whitman," said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo.

It's no surprise. Whitman's given the voters nothing to get warm about.

GOP Election Day Advantage Aided by Surge in Independents who Lean Republican

At Gallup, "2010 Electorate Still Looking More Republican Than in the Past" (via Memeorandum):

The Big, Blue D Stands for 'Devil'

Great piece from Kyle-Anne Shiver, at American Thinker:

Whenever Democrats are scared down to their woolies that Uncle Sam's gravy train is about to get a new force of conductors -- who actually check for tickets and promise to balance the books -- their conservatives-are-haters reflex goes into overdrive. And it doesn't take a triple-digit IQ to see through this tacky ruse.

This reverse use of the hate card is so silly, really, when anyone with half a grain of true historical knowledge and an ounce of common sense knows that the big, blue D stands for "devil."

And, of course, the devil lies. Any second-grade Sunday-schooler knows that, honey.

Richard Warman Sues Blazingcatfur For Linking to 'Far Right' Mark Steyn — UPDATED!!

Blogging is the new hate speech.

UPDATE: There's a Memeorandum thread now for Blazing Catfur, and I'm cracking up at Aaron Worthing's comment that "'Blazing Catfur' is a blogger I have known since the Everyone Draw Mohammed controversy." I've been hanging with BCF since at least 2006, so I wonder if you can feel "old" in the blogosphere!

And via Glenn Reynolds, more at Five Feet of Fury:

Warman is suing for $500,000.

Arnie has already spent $10,000 in legal fees. We've put off asking for help for more than a year, but we now are coming to you for assistance.

I'm lucky: my readers have so far paid all my legal fees through their generous donations, which were made when the economy was much healthier.

We know that times are worse than hard for most of us. But all we can do is ask you to read the details of this SLAPP suit and consider helping us out in some tiny way.

These suits are designed to shut down conservative bloggers, and prevent public discussion of the censorship, bullying and bureaucratic abuses being carried out in your name, with your tax dollars.

Thanks in advance for your support!

More from Mark Steyn:

WARMAN WATCH

During my battles with the Canadian "human rights" regime, we relentlessly exposed the corrupt relationship between the Commissars and Canada's self-appointed Hatefinder-General, Richard Warman. See here and here, among many other places. I also spoke about him when testifying to Parliament. Almost as soon as the truth about his Nazi website postings became known, Warman began suing. He sued Ezra Levant, with whom I'll be appearing on Saturday, as well as Kate McMillan, Kathy Shaidle, Free Dominion and anyone else who got in his way. At the time, many people asked me why he hadn't sued me, both for columns that appeared in Maclean's and for posts such as this one at SteynOnline.

Well, the reason he didn't sue me is because (a) Maclean's is a corporate entity with very deep pockets and (b) SteynOnline is based in the United States, where no court would give him the time of the day. So considerably more vulnerable Canadians have had to bear the brunt and serve as proxy targets for Warman's shakedown racket. He is now suing Blazing Cat Fur merely for linking to "far-right web site" SteynOnline, and demanding half-a-million dollars for damage to his "reputation". "Lame," says Instapundit. Warman will not win, but please go over and drop a few bucks in the Cat's kitty for his legal defense fund. The disgusting Warman has already been rebuked by a CHRT judge for his dress-up Nazi activities, and we owe the exposure of that not to his doting stenographers at The London Free Press but to a few plucky bloggers like Cat Fur. Do help out if you can. (More on this from Mrs Cat Fur. See also Cat On A Hot Trudeaupian Roof - and some cartoon advice for both Warman and the Prophet.)

As for being a "far-right web site", during the period Richard Warman is suing over, SteynOnline featured my acclaimed obituaries from The Atlantic Monthly, my column from The Irish Times (one of the most liberal newspapers in Europe), interviews with Oscar-winning songwriters, and baking advice from Martha Stewart. By contrast, during the same time-frame, Stormfront member Richard Warman was busy posting racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay comments all over Nazi websites. You be the judge. As they say at NPR, maybe he should see a psychiatrist.

~While North America's shrinking commitment to its free-speech inheritance is shameful, in many parts of Europe it's even worse. Like Geert Wilders, like Lars Hedegaard, like Ezra Levant, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff should not be on trial. Let's help her get a bit more media attention.

Brownshirts

Technically, it's Sturmabteilung, which is the German name for the SA, the Nazi Party stormtroopers that helped leverage Hitler to power in the 1920s and 1930s.

"Brownshirts" is the left's latest fad terminology to slur tea partiers are Nazis. Scotty Lemieux has been having a blast pretending to know a little history, and now here's Chris Matthews:

I gotta wonder when people are going to start wearing uniforms…I mean it isn’t far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform.

Tea Party Antics Could End Up Burning Republicans

That's the headline at WaPo:

The tea party's volatile influence on this election year appears to be doing more harm than good for Republicans' chances in some of the closest races in the nation, in which little-known candidates who upset the establishment with primary wins are now stumbling in the campaign's final days.

In Kentucky, a volunteer for tea-party-backed Senate candidate Rand Paul was videotaped stepping on the head of a liberal protester. In Delaware and Colorado, Senate hopefuls Christine O'Donnell and Ken Buck, respectively, are under fire for denying that the First Amendment's establishment clause dictates a separation of church and state. In Nevada, GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle is drawing rebuke for running TV ads that portray Latino immigrants as criminals and gang members.

Perhaps the most dramatic tea party problems are in Alaska, where Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller is suffering another round of unfavorable headlines after it was revealed late Tuesday that he had admitted lying about his misconduct while working as a government lawyer in Fairbanks.

Miller was conducting his own poll in 2008 in an effort to oust a state GOP chairman, and he used his colleagues' computers to vote in the survey, then erased their computers' caches to try to hide what he had done.

"I was beyond stupid," he wrote in a letter of apology included in documents ordered released by a judge Tuesday. He was suspended for three days without pay, according to the documents.

Miller, who was considered a shoo-in just two months ago when he defeated Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary, was already falling quickly in GOP and Democratic internal polls before Tuesday's revelations, strategists said. Last week, he was in the spotlight when a campaign-paid security guard handcuffed a reporter who tried to ask Miller a question.

Such moments are giving Democrats hope that the few undecided voters who remain may become turned off and move away from Republicans in the closer races nationwide, including those in Colorado, Nevada and Kentucky.

"In state after state, Republicans nominated a less viable general-election candidate, and that's more on display than ever in these final days of the campaign," said Eric Schultz, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Miller's latest travails are more likely to give the advantage to Murkowski, who began a write-in campaign shortly after her primary loss, than to Democrat Scott McAdams, the little-known mayor of Sitka. But even in Republican-leaning Alaska, no one is counting out McAdams: Both Murkowski and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is backing Miller, are running ads targeting the Democrat.

The Miller campaign did not respond to inquiries Wednesday. But the Murkowski team jumped on the latest disclosure. "The bottom line is Joe cheated, he lied, tried to cover it up, lied again, then finally got caught and had to admit it, just as he lied to Alaskans when he initially denied any problems with his employment at the [Fairbanks North Star] Borough, claiming his record was 'exceptional' and 'second to none.' "

Miller's most ardent supporters say they are unfazed. Asked whether her group plans to pull its support for Miller, Amy Kremer, head of the national Tea Party Express group, said via e-mail: "Absolutely not! As a matter of fact, we are going back up on the air for Joe Miller because he is the only candidate addressing the important economic issues facing America while Lisa Murkowski is following the Democrat game plan around the country of only making vicious attacks on her opponent."

In addition, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will appear with Miller on Thursday at a rally in Anchorage.

I haven't been following the Alaska race much at all (so check Dan Riehl), although clearly WaPo sees these dramatic "tea party" incidents as a chance to slam the grassroots right. The media's demonization of Delaware's Christine O'Donnell is pretty much played out; Sharron Angle long ago proved that's she's the real deal in Nevada; and the Rand Paul headstomping story in Kentucky isn't even about Rand Paul. For the MFM, these stories --- now with stuff like Joe Miller's missteps in Alaska --- are opening up an alternative media line as we move into the last week of the campaign. And of course things are looking simply disastrous for the Democrats. (California Senator Dianne Feinstein went off message yesterday, suggesting things are just plain old "bad" for the party.) I'm not holding my breath for any big breakthroughs in the Senate anyway. I won't be surprised with 7 or 8 seats, but it's an extreme longshot for taking all ten needed to restore GOP control. Maybe James Carville's weird kinda hunch that voters will just sweep everyone out will come true. Mostly though, it's going to be sweet to win back the House. Democrats will be on defense for the next two years, and only a strong economy will save them from losing the White House in 2012.

VIDEO HAT TIP: The Other McCain.

Kid on the Street Campaign Endorsements

Robert Stacy McCain reporting:

Change! Voters Abandoning Democrat-Socialists Faster Than Rats From Sinking Ship!!

And nearly four out of five respondents rate the econony as "fairly bad" or "very bad"; a majority of 54 percent say they are "disappointed with the Obama presidency so far"; and 55 percent say they would "rather have a smaller government providing fewer services" than a "bigger government providing more services."

See "New York Times/CBS News Poll: Majorities of Women, Independents and Other Groups Switching Allegiances to G.O.P." (via Memeorandum):

Critical parts of the coalition that delivered President Obama to the White House in 2008 and gave Democrats control of Congress in 2006 are switching their allegiance to the Republicans in the final phase of the midterm Congressional elections, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Roman Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents. All of those groups broke for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for Congressional Democrats when they grabbed both chambers from the Republicans four years ago, according to exit polls.

If women choose Republicans over Democrats in House races on Tuesday, it will be the first time they have done so since exit polls began tracking the breakdown in 1982.

The poll provides a pre-Election Day glimpse of a nation so politically disquieted and disappointed in its current trajectory that 57 percent of the registered voters surveyed said they were more willing to take a chance this year on a candidate with little previous political experience. More than a quarter of them said they were even willing to back a candidate who holds some views that “seem extreme.”

JammieWearingFool has more.

Bounce Boxer!

Longtime readers here will note the delicious irony in this, from Michelle, "Babs Boxer tries to recruit kiddie campaigners in L.A. public schools." (Via Memeorandum.)

Here's the clip social studies teachers were encouraged to share with their students, in violation of the California Education Code:

AND REMEBER: It's okay if Democrats do it, but not conservatives: "Bulletin Board Defacement - Leftist 'Tolerance' at LBCC!"

'You've Got to Know Who Your Enemy Is...'

Hey, if Obama wants to slam his opponents as enemies, that's fine by me:

In a radio interview that aired on Univision on Monday, Mr. Obama sought to assure Hispanics that he would push an immigration overhaul after the midterm elections, even though he has not been able to attract Republican support.

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Sure. I'm down bro. "You've got to know who your enemy is" (from Canada's D.O.A., here, here, and here):

Meg Whitman Profiled at Los Angeles Times

By now I've pretty much laid out my feelings about Meg Whitman. But what the heck, I'll post today's profile at the Times anyway, in keeping with my election reporting. See, "Meg Whitman is All Business, All the Time." I'm not seeing any choice passages to quote, so readers can read it all at the link. The main thesis is that Whitman's obsessively private. She refused multiple interview requests by the Times. She's kept her family completely off the campaign radar screen, and her husband's been relegated to the sidelines (and he's only given one interview in 30 years of marriage). Perhaps, as some interviewed at the following campaign clip suggest, Meg Whitman's a genuinely down home woman who represents old-fashioned, small-town values. But how would anyone ever know? I met Steve Poizner during the primaries, but Meg Whitman must have considered the tea parties undignified. Maybe massive media buys would propel her to Sacramento. Who knows? Mostly, she's not run an effective campaign. She's especially failed to offer the voters something genuinely different. Why should we elect you, Meg? You don't sound so different than the dozens of cookie-cutter moderate Republicans who've come before. Indeed, by appearing as though you'd do just about anything to win office you've revealed more of yourself than you could ever buy with that endless spigot of campaign cash. It's seems like such a waste, and some say that it's not going to matter much on election day anyways. So there you go. See, "Good-Bye, California."

Lauren Valle Claims She Was 'Chased Around' Rand Paul's Car Before Being 'Pulled Down' and 'Stomped On' — UPDATED!!

A full report from Red State: "Exclusive Video: Lauren Valle Before The Head Stomp Vid." As noted at the post, and to reiterate, no one should be excusing head-stomping. It's not okay. That said, Lauren Valle's a liar? Here's her statement to Keith Olbermann, and at the top video. Below is a clip showing Rand Paul's vehicle pulling up to stop, just before the altercation. It's clear from the images that Lauren Valle's account is inaccurate, especially her claim that Paul supporters "chased me around the car":

Well just before the tape I was identified by the Rand Paul campaign because they’ve seen me around town at these events. And they realized they know me because of my work and they don’t support it. So they actually formed a blockade around me once they realized that I was there. And as Rand’s car pulls up they step in front of me and start to block me so I stepped off the curb to try and get around them and at that point they pursued me around the car, chased me around the car, and what you see in the video is when I’m in the front of the car and that’s when I’m pulled down and then my head is stomped on.

More details at Red State. But honestly, she's a young woman with a criminal history. And as we can see she's obviously lying about being "chased around the car," which is typical for leftists. And of course, commie idiots like Blue Texan and Scott Lemieux are simply suborning the dishonesty. It's all plain as day. Pathetic.

Lots more on this at Memeorandum.

**********

UPDATE: No More Mr. Nice Blog suggests I get an eye test. Is that Lauren Valle at 53 seconds running around the front of the car? Could be, so I'll concede the point, although that post is from "Red State Insider" and not Erick Erickson, so perhaps Steve M. will join me in getting an eye test:

Negative Ads Roil California Governor's Race

I don't see why folks are complaining. Some research shows that negative advertising supplies voters with more information on the candidates than any other source. At RCP:

Also: "Brown, Whitman Challenged to Pull Negative Ads in California Governor Race."

RepubliCorp

Neon Tommy has the background: "MoveOn Recruits Olivia Wilde From "House" For New RepubliCorp Ad." And let it be noted: This isn't gonna help lefties for squat.

Mayor-Elect Rob Ford

At the Toronto Sun (via Blazing Cat Fur, who's been blogging the Toronto mayoral election almost exclusively of late, on this stuff, for example, "Ontario Minister Accuses Mayor-Elect Rob Ford of Bigotry").

Typical leftists. Anyway:

Given the huge endorsement he received from Toronto voters Monday, Mayor-elect Rob Ford now has the moral authority to do what he said he would do at City Hall.

That is, grab the place by the throat, cut taxes, eliminate waste and, as he repeated thousands of times on the campaign trail, “stop the gravy train.”

Monday’s election was clearly a game-changer. With a new mayor and at least 14 new councillors, one-third of council was replaced in one fell swoop.

Five incumbents were defeated, one is teetering, virtually unheard of in a municipal election. Torontonians — with a stunning 52% voter turnout — made it clear they want massive changes at City Hall and they want them now. They want their municipal politicians to start listening to them and an end to the tax-and-spend madness and political and bureaucratic indifference and arrogance of the last seven years.

As mayor, Ford now has an obligation to work with this new council and to govern for the good of the entire city.

But make no mistake. Both newly-elected and incumbent councillors also have an obligation to work with Ford in the interests of doing what taxpayers want, especially given the size of Ford’s victory.

So let’s have no more foolish, arrogant talk as some on council’s left-wing started, that they would choose their own mayor and freeze Ford out.

Torontonians won’t stand for it and the voters are never wrong ...

And at National Post, "A Right Turn."

'I'm Voting for Liberty in November'

From the Chicago Tea Party:

Hat Tip: AT THE POINT OF A GUN.

Van Tran Sends Out Scratch-and-Sniff Mailer

At the Fresno Bee:

Something stinks in the 47th Congressional District race.

Republican candidate Van Tran has sent voters a scratch-and-sniff mail piece taking aim at Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

"Something smells rotten about Loretta – it's the stench of Washington," the mailer reads.

Wrote one Capitol Alert reader who received the mailer: "It is a horrible odor – like a combination of five or six of the worst possible scents you can imagine."

Carl Costas (photo at left) and Jay Mather Bee file Democrat Ami Bera, left, and Republican Rep. Dan Lungren will tangle in their only debate of the election campaign this morning on radio station KQED. They're competing to represent the 3rd Congressional District.

The mailer was designed by Ryan Clumpner, a former California Republican campaign operative and legislative staffer who now works for the Missouri-based Axiom Strategies.

"It's definitely eye-catching when you have all sorts of mail pieces in the last couple of weeks," Tran campaign manager George Andrews said.

The Sanchez campaign found the mailer's smell and approach nauseating. "Talk about bad taste," Sanchez spokeswoman Caroline Hogan wrote in an e-mail. "While our opponent is busy spamming voters with ill-smelling mailers, Rep. Sanchez is talking about the issues that matter to Orange County families."

Tran isn't the only candidate making an olfactory appeal. Republican Carl Paladino, the tea party candidate running for New York governor, has mailed out fliers that smell like garbage to make a point about corruption in Albany.

Palestinians Back Hamas Murders in Hebron, Poll Finds — 49 Percent Support Killing 'Israeli Civilians Inside Israel'

Background via Melanie Phillips, "The True Reason for the Middle East Impasse."

But check the full survey, "PSR - Survey Research Unit: Poll No. 37":

... a majority of 51% supported and only 44% opposed Hamas's latest armed attack near Hebron which led to the death of four settlers.

And also at Question #55, 49 percent support:

... armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel.

There's a roundup at Solomonia: "Murder Near Hebron."

Nate Silver: '52-Seat Gain For G.O.P.'

Sounds about right:

If Democrats were hoping for a late surge to improve their chances of retaining control of the House, there isn’t any evidence of it yet. Instead, Republicans have generally had the better of the polls in individual House districts released in the past 24 hours.

FiveThirtyEight’s forecast now projects the most likely composition of the House to be 231 Republicans and 204 Democrats. This is a one-seat improvement for the Republicans from yesterday’s forecast, and would mean that they’d gain a net of 52 seats over all.

There is uncertainty in the forecast: Democrats have a 20 percent chance of maintaining control of the House, essentially unchanged from a 21 percent chance yesterday. Much of this 20 percent probability reflects the potential for there to be systematic errors in the polling, as there were in years like 1998.

Since there are a very large number of competitive seats, relatively small anomalies in the polling could potentially affect the outcome of dozens of races. Although the Democrats’ overall position is poor, it is not yet so poor that it couldn’t be salvaged if they beat their polling averages by 2 or 3 points nationwide.

Still, such errors could also work in Republicans’ favor, potentially enabling gains in excess of 60 or even 70 seats....

Oh, a Storm is Threat'ning...

My favorite Rolling Stones song, ever since I was a teenager. Admire the idealism, enjoy the sounds. "Gimme Shelter":

Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
My very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away...

Death to Blue Dogs Coming From Both Sides

Actually, I thought leftist Ari Berman made a perfectly good attack on centrist Democrats in Sunday's New York Times, "Boot the Blue Dogs." He's a little hypocritical on GOP "ideological purity," since his push to purge the Blue Dogs amounts to a de facto endorsement of the right's resurgence and unity at the conservative base. And thus for the Blue Dogs, with the clear loss of support among progressives, these centrist Democrats in Congress are taking fire from both sides. Why should voters reelect a waffling Democrat when they can get a real fighter in a conservative GOP partisan? The Wall Street Journal has more, with a piece mentioning former Democrat star Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, now expected to fall to Kristi Noem, the Assistant Majority Leader in South Dakota's House of Representatives. See, "Blue Dogs Face Sharp Losses in Midterms":

WASHINGTON—More than half the members of the Blue Dog Coalition—the organization of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House—are in peril in next week's election, a stark indicator of how the balloting could produce a Congress even more polarized than the current one.

The Blue Dogs are often seen as a kind of human bridge, connecting left and right in the House. But that bridge is imperiled by the coming Republican wave in midterm elections, the most stark example of how the midterms are likely to weaken Capitol Hill's political center.

Of 54 Blue Dogs in the House, six already have retired or decided to seek other offices. Of those trying to stay, 39 are in competitive races, according to the Cook Political Report, and 22 of those are in pure toss-ups.

Among those facing the toughest races are some of the Blue Dog Coalition's leaders. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, one of the co-chairs of the group, is locked in a contest with State Rep. Kristi Noem; in the most recent polling earlier this month, conducting by Rasmussen Reports, Ms. Herseth Sandlin trailed 47% to 43%.

Similarly, Rep. Baron Hill of Indiana, a fellow Blue Dog leader, is battling Republican attorney Todd Young in a deadlocked race both parties see as an indicator of the size of the GOP wave.

The bottom line is that the Blue Dog population could be cut significantly, conceivably by half, in next week's voting.

More at the link.

And obviously, there's no sanctuary for Democrats, Blue Dog, Harry-Pelosi dawg ... it's the same thing.

Jerry Brown Profiled at Los Angeles Times

Continuing my coverage of California's elections, today's Times features a glowing profile of Jerry Brown, "Older and Wiser, Brown Proudly Embraces His Father's Legacy":

At times, Jerry Brown seemed to go out of his way to distance himself from his father.

Edmund G. Brown Sr., California's governor from 1959 to 1967, called himself a "big government man." He built aqueducts, universities and freeways. He liked to shake hands with strangers and slap them on the back. A block might take him half an hour to walk because he greeted everyone he passed.

His only son, Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr., could be aloof, even acerbic. He became governor eight years after his father lost a bruising race for a third term. The son preached an "era of limits" and railed against the kind of politics his father practiced.

Now the brash young governor who thought he knew it all marvels at his father's accomplishments, both privately and publicly. He is acutely aware of Pat Brown's admired legacy, and invokes his name with reverence.

Brown says he is wiser now — an admission that he was wanting before — and that he has mastered the nuts and bolts of governance. He even tries to smile more.

"I was looking for new ideas," Brown said of his first two terms as governor. "I wanted to break the stagnation. Right now the ideas are pretty clear. We need management and forging a consensus and a common purpose regardless of party…. The very extreme positions will not hold."

Is he attempting to vindicate himself, eying his father's legacy and finding his own lacking? Or is his candidacy a calculated stroke, fueled by the strong ego and ever restless spirit that has primed his previous reinventions?

For answers, Brown points to the writings of a 4th century philosopher and developer of Christian thought.

St. Augustine wrote about "not going back to what was said before, always creating and finding new things…," Brown said. "Life is a discovery, and you are always learning and formulating anew."

Folks can read the rest.

I'm not finding anything inspiring, and my thoughts are pretty clear on a Brown governorship: Been there, done that. He's an old-fashioned Democrat --- in the pocket of big labor --- who won't do much to improve California. The state needs major structural reforms. Known previously as an independent free-thinker, Brown is all washed up. He's basically riding the pubic gravy train into retirement, hoping to put even larger stamp on his father's big government legacy. Pat Brown took office nearly 40 years ago, ultimately presiding over the gargantuan expansion of state government and popular expectations for more. Jerry Brown could do well to revisit his early motto claiming the "era of limits," except it's the state government that should be limited, not the people of California. Cut taxes and regulations, reform budgeting and pensions, and revitalize the entrepreneurial spirit. The populace will respond. California always leads the nation. We can do it again, for the next era of innovation and growth. We just need good leadership, and I'm underwhelmed by the promise of Governor Moonbeam.

Lauren Valle, MoveOn Activist and Accused Criminal Trespasser, Subdued While Attempting to Harass Rand Paul

Well, that's an alternative headline you won't get from the MFM. See Gateway Pundit, "Unhinged MoveOn.org Activist Tackled and Stepped On at Rand Paul Rally," and "UNHINGED LEFTIST Who Lunged at Rand Paul Is Paid Far Left Activist." And some criminal background on the alleged attacker, "Activists Face Felony Charges." Valle is a Greenpeace militant and environmental extremist, as The Other McCain notes:

Given the nature of the May vandalism in Louisiana – which seems to have aroused security concerns for two Cabinet secretaries — Valle’s actions in Kentucky take on a completely different cast. Environmentalists have been known to commit acts of violence and, in the mob scene outside the Lexington debate, some of Paul’s supporters might have feared that this wild-eyed person shoving her way through the crowd was trying to do some kind of weird Squeaky Fromme thing.

Iraq Casualty Myth

At GSGF:

An important article of faith among faithless Great Satan haters (that for decency's sake shall remain linkless) is that Operation Iraqi Freedom unleashed horrific new millennium warmaking on a hapless, helpless populace of a wonderfully despotic illegit Ba'Athist regime and gleefully slaughtered nigh unto a million innocent Iraqis...

RELATED: IBD, "Iran's Imperialism."

Van Tran Counts on Big Vietnamese Turnout in CA-47

At RCP:

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. - California's 47th may be the only congressional district in Orange County where Democrats have a registered voter advantage over Republicans. Still, GOP challenger Van Tran argues that D.C. pundits who assume Democratic incumbent Loretta Sanchez has an inherent edge over him are missing a key point.

The blue-collar district may be two-thirds Hispanic, which offers Sanchez a clear leg up, but it also has one of the lowest voter turnout records in the nation. Tran, a Vietnamese-American, is banking on the likelihood that his own ethnic community, which makes up about 15 percent of the district, will vote in massive numbers to help him unseat Sanchez - a 14-year incumbent who is facing her first serious challenge since first winning office.

"The Viets come out," Tran said in an interview with RealClearPolitics on Monday. "Although they're small, they're powerful and potent because they come out in force as a bloc."

Tran's campaign operates a satellite office in the district's Little Saigon, and the candidate said that he expected to benefit additionally from the presence of other Vietnamese-Americans on the ballot, including a Vietnamese Democrat who is running to replace him in the California State Assembly.

Sanchez drew national condemnation last month when she said in an appearance on the Spanish language network Univision, "The Vietnamese and the Republicans are, with an intensity, trying to take this seat from which we have done so much for our community - to take this seat and give it to this Van Tran, who is very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic."

The Sanchez campaign downplayed the remark's impact, but it was clearly a major distraction, as the Democrat was forced to devote precious time and resources to explain what she meant.

Sanchez is counting on her appeal to the district's blue-collar Democrats, who overwhelmingly backed Barack Obama in 2008 but also twice voted for George W. Bush.

"Loretta is a very moderate and in many ways conservative Democrat," Sanchez chief of staff Adrienne Elrod said. "Every vote she casts, she looks at the issue and how it will affect the district. She has no problem bucking her party whatsoever."

More at the link.

Also, "California 47th District - Tran vs. Sanchez."

Meg Whitman Tries to Close the Deal

I'm tempted to say Whitman's trying to "pull it out at the wire," but she's trailing too far back for that metaphor to work. She's a businesswoman, so yeah, "closing the deal" sounds good, and that's the sense I'm getting from this ad buy, which I saw on TV yesterday morning. 2010 has been an anti-candidate year, so, since nobody wanted to run, Californians are stuck with the "unhappy" choices she enunciates. It's bad enough that Jerry Brown will bore the hell out of the state's residents (younger generations, including college students, simply weren't alive when Brown first held the governor's office), but with Whitman it's clear that politics provides an attractive post-business career path, and as we saw in the primary, she'll tell voters whatever they want to hear in order to be elected. It's the complete opposite of what the tea party movement represents (populist limited government), and the GOP is collectively kissing grassroots ass as the party prepares to take back at least the House of Representatives. As I've noted previously, I don't care for Whitman. I'll gladly take her over Jerry Brown, and if she'd opened up more like this throughout the campaign perhaps I'd have made an effort at an endorsement. But for her sake, let's hope she has better luck closing the deal with the California electorate than she has with me. The voters are ready for some good government, and that's what will matter most over the next election cycle. Performance count:

Lene Lovich

Change of pace freaky flashback, "Lucky Number" (Lene Lovich on Wikipedia here):

Udy, udy, udy, udy etc...

I never used to cry 'cause I was all alone
For me, myself and I is all I've ever known
I never felt the need to have a hand to hold
In everything I do I take complete control
That's where I'm coming from
My Lucky Number's one

I've everthing I need to keep me satisfied
There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
I'm having so much fun
My Lucky Number's one
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Ay ay ay ay ay...
I now detect an alien vibration here
There's something in the air besides the atmosphere
The object of the action is becoming clear
An imminent attack upon my heart I fear
The evidence is strong
My Lucky Number's rung
Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Something tells me my Lucky Number's gonna be changing soon
Something tells me Lucky Number's gonna be oweoweoweoweoweowe...

ObamaCare Already Driving a Wave of Health-Care Consolidation — and Higher Costs

The following graph is from the New York Times, "Health Care Overhaul Depends on States’ Insurance Exchanges." The chart is supposed to illustrate how the exchanges will facilitate "the right mix of regulation and competition." But I'll be darned, I can't see anything here that closely resembles the market, and hence competition. Folks go to the "state health insurance exchanges" (where firms are supposed to be competing for patients), then straight to federal-state Medicaid programs (after passing a means test), then to the Department of Health and Human Services (the federal agency running Medicare), then back to the state insurance exchanges, and then to the patient meeting the service provider. And the line for "eligibility" to Social Security, Homeland Security, and the Treasury Department is not clear. I mean, seriously, eligibility? The Department of Homeland Security is now part of the ObamaCare insurance overhaul? Looks pretty messed up if this chart is any indication. But we have better picture at the Wall Street Journal, "Big Insurance, Big Medicine":

ObamaCare's once and future harms have been well chronicled, but the major effects so far are less obvious and arguably more important: A wave of consolidation is washing over the health markets, and the result is going to be higher costs.

The turn toward consolidation among insurance companies is not new, and neither is it among doctors, hospitals and other providers. Yet the health bill has accelerated these trends, as all sides race to anticipate and manage political risk and regulatory uncertainty. This dynamic is leading to much larger hospital systems and physician groups, and fewer insurers dominated by a handful of national conglomerates. ObamaCare was sold using the language of choice and competition, but it is actually reducing both.

The first surge will come among the 1,200 insurers doing business in the U.S., given that a major goal of ObamaCare is to convert these companies into de facto public utilities. Those regulations are now being written—and once they're up and running some medium-sized carriers will collapse under the new mandates and higher overhead. State insurance commissioners warned the Administration this month that "improper or overly strident application . . . could threaten the solvency of insurers or significantly reduce competition in some insurance markets." They also implied that bankruptcies are likely.

With these headwinds, investors and Wall Street analysts are now predicting a lost decade for health insurance stocks. But it may be more accurate to say that there will be a lot of losers and some very big winners. Mergers and acquisitions will increase dramatically once companies get a better look at the regulation and figure out the valuation of M&A targets. Larger carriers will swallow smaller ones quietly before they fail.

Both publicly traded and nonprofit insurers have been heading in this direction for years, as in any industry where there are returns to scale. Size is also important in a low-margin business in which capital is costly and political clout vital. But scale is far more central now, because ObamaCare standardizes benefits. Once insurers lose the freedom to design their own products, they'll essentially be selling commodities, and survival will depend on enrollment volume and market share.

There's more at the link, but this is exactly what (tea party) critics warned all through 2009: ObamaCare would drive private firms from the market in a process of stealth nationalization, with the end result being state-planned health rationalization (or death panels, but nobody likes to talk about those).

Republicans Up 55 to 41 Over Dems in Latest Gallup Generic Ballot

That margin is for the "low turnout scenario," but still.

See, "Republicans Remain in Control of Race for House."

And from Charlie Cook, "Democratic House Losses Likely to be Enormous, but Senate is Hard to Read."

Rubber Stamp Man

The new ad from Christine O'Donnell (via Greta):

RELATED: "In new interview, O’Donnell: ‘God is the reason that I’m running’." And at The Hill, "O'Donnell: Prayer contributed to a bump in polls."

Picture of the Day, 10-25-10

Via Theo Spark:

Daniel Ellsberg Works to Give Radical Imprimatur to Latest WikiLeaks Disclosures

I've been following the latest WikiLeaks document dump, but haven't had a chance to comment. Certainly the truth about the morally bankrupt Julian Assange is starting to go mainstream, "WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety." And it's no surprise that when under some real journalistic questioning the dude can't take the heat:

But the latest buzz over WikiLeaks has mostly bypassed the criminal corruption of the top leadership. And of course most MFM reporting, as well as leftist blog commentary, has gleefully focused on the charges that Iraq forces used torture and the allegedly "grim portrait of civilian deaths." Of course what was most astonishing, and by far much more important, was the latest evidence of massive Iranian intervention in the war, and not to mention the evidence that WMD --- long alleged by the left to have been a Bush administration lie --- were being used by insurgents as recently as 2008. And on top of all this, in one more interesting relationship, the New York Times featured a story on the Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, "WikiLeaks Founder Gets Support in Rebuking U.S. on Whistle-Blowers." Given how dramatically the MFM has been all over the Wikileaks agenda since we first were lied to with the doctored Apache video early this year, this latest report on the communist Daniel Ellsberg (shown here at an ANSWER protest in March) should be getting more attention than it has:

LONDON — Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, lashed out together on Saturday at the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, including those responsible for the release of secret documents on the Iraq war.

Mr. Assange also said that WikiLeaks, which released the trove of almost 400,000 Iraq war documents on Friday, would shortly be posting an additional 15,000 remaining secret documents on the Afghan war.

Mr. Assange, speaking at a news conference in a London hotel a stone’s throw from the headquarters of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, was joined by Mr. Ellsberg, 79, the former military analyst who leaked a 1,000-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

Mr. Ellsberg, who said he had flown overnight from California to attend, described Mr. Assange admiringly as “the most dangerous man in the world” for challenging governments, particularly the United States. He said the WikiLeaks founder had been “pursued across three continents” by Western intelligence services and compared the Obama administration’s threat to prosecute Mr. Assange to his own treatment under President Richard M. Nixon.

Both men hit out at what they described as the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, which Mr. Ellsberg said put the United States on a path to the kind of repressive legal framework that Britain has under its broad Official Secrets Act. He said the criminal investigations under President Obama of three Americans accused of leaking government secrets represented a new low.

The three men he was referring to were Pfc. Bradley Manning, a former military intelligence analyst suspected of providing the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks; Thomas Drake, an official with the National Security Agency who was indicted this year; and Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, an F.B.I. linguist who pleaded guilty to leaking five classified documents in late 2009.

Mr. Ellsberg said the Pentagon’s demand that Mr. Assange “return” any classified materials in his possession was carefully couched in language similar to that used in the aftermath of the Pentagon Papers release, when he was threatened with criminal prosecution for espionage. “Secrecy,” Mr. Ellsberg said, “is essential to empire.”

Nazis? Really? Leftist Academics Totally Wiggin' Over Tea Parties, Suggest Crushing Them Like the 'Wobblies'

Folks are making hay of Rob Reiner stupid freakin' comments, slurring tea partiers as Nazis:

But seriously, the real National Socialists were meeting up in the East Bay this weekend, "Lefty academics convene in Berkeley to try to make sense of the Tea Party movement." This is the elite of the elite, scholars and political scientists who feel simply violated that regular folks are more in tune with the country's founding than they are. And frankly, some of them are suggesting that's just not acceptable.

"I wonder if we're likely to see a Timothy McVeigh situation," says Nicholas Robert, an attendee originally from Australia, who basically wonders if any Tea Partiers can be arrested. "It seems to be that we're being very polite. I wonder if there are any legal mechanisms—one that comes to mind are the provisions used to crush the Wobblies."

The Wobblies. It was a Democrat administration that crushed them, and the ideological crises in Germany following shortly thereafter --- exacerbated by the Wilson administration's failed peace at Versailles --- helped give rise to the far right-wing extremism that elevated the Nazis to power in the 1930s. And here we have National Socialists in Berkeley calling for the exact same kind of repression. The difference is that the Wobblies were real communists and subversives. Today' tea partiers --- not so much.

Enthusiasm Gap Favors GOP in Early-Voter Data

At Politico "The Early Vote: Signs of GOP Passion" (via Memeorandum):

Just over a week before Election Day, signs of widespread Republican enthusiasm are apparent in the early-voter data, including in some places with highly competitive statewide races. Yet at the same time, for Democrats there are promising data in numerous states suggesting that the idea of a devastating turnout gap may be overblown.

POLITICO surveyed early voting through Saturday in 20 states, and in 14 of the 15 that have voter registration by party, the GOP's early turnout percentage is running ahead of the party's share of statewide voter registration — whether measured against 2006 or 2008, when President Barack Obama's campaign led to a surge in Democratic voter registration. As a result, Republicans say they're turning the tables on the Democratic dominance of early voting that paved the way for Obama's victory in 2008 — and that independents' lean toward the GOP this year will do the rest.

And here's this:

California provides an illustrative example of the complexities of interpreting early returns. According to data gathered by the Atlas Project, a private Democratic consulting firm, 43 percent of California early voters have been Democrats, while 39 percent have been Republicans. Considering the Democrats' current 44-31 registration advantage in the state, the GOP appears to be outpacing its share of the electorate, while Democrats appear to be staying home. Then again, in the 2006 early vote — a great year for Democratic candidates — each party drew 41 percent, a performance that was below Democratic registration and well above the Republican share.

Like all recent articles on early voting, the Politico report cites Michael McDonald, an expert on the topic at Brookings. See, "Web Chat: Voter Enthusiasm, Early Voting and the Midterm Elections." He suggests there that neither party necessarily enjoys a clear advantage in early voting, and that other factors come into play. Dems historically do better with GOTV, athough in California I'm seeing an extremely motivated conservative grassroots, so let's hope the numbers cited above in Politico hold up for election day.

RELATED: "New Los Angeles Times Poll is Outlier: Democrats Oversampled in Survey From Left-Leaning Greenberg Quinlan Rosner."

CARTOON CREDIT: Reaganite Republican.