The US elections in November, 2010.

[Coito ergo sum]

Tea Party/Sarah Palin favorite Christine O'Donnell just clinched the GOP senate primary in Delaware. And with that, the Republicans have pretty much lost all hope of recapturing the Senate in 2010.

Don't bet on it....

[Robert_S]

Tea Party/Sarah Palin favorite Christine O'Donnell just clinched the GOP senate primary in Delaware. And with that, the Republicans have pretty much lost all hope of recapturing the Senate in 2010.

Don't bet on it....

Don't bet what on it?

[Coito ergo sum]

Tea Party/Sarah Palin favorite Christine O'Donnell just clinched the GOP senate primary in Delaware. And with that, the Republicans have pretty much lost all hope of recapturing the Senate in 2010.

Don't bet on it....

Don't bet what on it?

That Chris O'Donnell can't win.

[Robert_S]

Tea Party/Sarah Palin favorite Christine O'Donnell just clinched the GOP senate primary in Delaware. And with that, the Republicans have pretty much lost all hope of recapturing the Senate in 2010.

Don't bet on it....

Don't bet what on it?

That Chris O'Donnell can't win.

I meant "Don't bet what on it" as in "What are you recommending ought not to be at stake"

[Ian]

Tea Party/Sarah Palin favorite Christine O'Donnell just clinched the GOP senate primary in Delaware. And with that, the Republicans have pretty much lost all hope of recapturing the Senate in 2010.

Don't bet on it....

Don't bet what on it?

That Chris O'Donnell can't win.

I think you know you're fucked when Karl Rove is calling you "nutty".
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42205.html

[Coito ergo sum]

Tea Party/Sarah Palin favorite Christine O'Donnell just clinched the GOP senate primary in Delaware. And with that, the Republicans have pretty much lost all hope of recapturing the Senate in 2010.

Don't bet on it....

Don't bet what on it?

That Chris O'Donnell can't win.

I think you know you're fucked when Karl Rove is calling you "nutty".
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42205.html

Time will tell. But, liberals never fail to underestimate people. You folks love the snarky one-liners, but the reality is pretty scary. These folks are kicking ass and taking names.

Take Rubio in Florida - he went from "unelectable" to a 14 point lead: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68E55P20100915

O'Donnell just raised $500,000 in ONE DAY, and may hit $1,000,000 raised in just a few days.

And, look what happened in Alaska.

John Dingall's seat in Michigan is in doubt: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42191.html

[drl2]

Tea Party/Sarah Palin favorite Christine O'Donnell just clinched the GOP senate primary in Delaware. And with that, the Republicans have pretty much lost all hope of recapturing the Senate in 2010.

They're highly unlikely to take Biden's seat at this point - the placeholder the Dems were running against Castle is suddenly enjoying a huge lead in the polls, and seeing as registered Democrats in New Castle County (the one that went for Castle in the primary) outnumber registered _voters_ in the other two counties (largely rural areas that went for Crazy Lady), that's not too likely to change. Stranger things have happened though.

The interesting dynamic in the longer term is what becomes of the DE GOP organization itself - even when we elect republicans, they're traditionally socially (somewhat) liberal, fiscally conservative ones, but that group has allowed itself to be marginalized by cozying up to the Kenyan Moon Nazi conspiracy theory crowd. Some are talking about openly supporting the Dem candidate, and there's much speculation about some potentially shifting over to the democratic party. (Of course our democrats are usually fairly moderate here as well, so it's hard to tell if that would make much of a difference.)

As for retaining the senate as a whole, it almost doesn't matter, because the House will likely change sides and nothing will get accomplished for four years amid a series of spurious investigations over whether Obama really did single-handedly slaughter all those white children with a sharpened butterknife,

[Warren Dew]

Time will tell. But, liberals never fail to underestimate people. You folks love the snarky one-liners, but the reality is pretty scary. These folks are kicking ass and taking names.

Take Rubio in Florida - he went from "unelectable" to a 14 point lead: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68E55P20100915

O'Donnell just raised $500,000 in ONE DAY, and may hit $1,000,000 raised in just a few days.

And, look what happened in Alaska.

John Dingall's seat in Michigan is in doubt: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42191.html

Rubio has a sensible platform focusing on the economy. He just needed name recognition. O'Donnell's kind of the opposite.

[Ian]

Time will tell. But, liberals never fail to underestimate people. You folks love the snarky one-liners, but the reality is pretty scary. These folks are kicking ass and taking names.

Okay, how about some math:

In what is probably the biggest upset since David beat Goliath in the general election for King of Israel, unemployed gadfly and perpetual candidate Christine O'Donnell (R) defeated Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE) for the Republican Senate nomination yesterday by a margin of 53% to 47%. With this result, the Republicans' chances of taking the Senate have dropped very sharply as this "must win" seat is now virtually certainly a Democratic hold. O'Donnell got about 30,000 votes yesterday. By way of comparison, the last midterm Senate election in Delaware was in 2002 when 230,000 people showed up to vote, 135,000 of them voting for Democrat Joe Biden. The primary yesterday was closed, with only Republicans allowed to vote for O'Donnell or Castle. In the general election, those 135,000 Democrats also get to vote, so O'Donnell's chances against New Castle County Executive Chris Coons (D), are slim to nonexistent. Miles of videotape with every Republican leader in the country calling her a flake can be expected to resurface quickly in Coons' ads.

[Warren Dew]

Miles of videotape with every Republican leader in the country calling her a flake can be expected to resurface quickly in Coons' ads.

I suspect running ads showing Rove calling her an idiot would actually help her get more votes from Democrats. Maybe Coons would be better off not running those particular clips.

[Ian]

Miles of videotape with every Republican leader in the country calling her a flake can be expected to resurface quickly in Coons' ads.

I suspect running ads showing Rove calling her an idiot would actually help her get more votes from Democrats. Maybe Coons would be better off not running those particular clips.

Democrats may not be enthusiastic about Coons, but they'll turn out to vote against O'Donnell. Meanwhile, quite a few moderate Republicans will not bother voting for her at all, or might even vote for Coons. Delaware is a rather blue state, after all. She's going to look like roadkill on November 3rd.

And what are the longer-term implications of this split in the GOP? Here's a thought:

If the Democrats hold the Senate with around 51 or 52 seats, in part because they won in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado, all states the Republicans could easily have won, a civil war is going to break out on the first day of the 2012 campaign (Nov. 3, 2010). The GOP leadership is going to be saying to the tea partiers something like: "You idiots, we want your votes, just not your dumbass candidates who lose." The tea partiers will respond with: "If you ran real conservatives, we could win, but you run fake Democrats everywhere. It's your own fault." It will get extremely nasty. Count on it.

The Republicans now have a Nader problem in spades. Remember how in 2000, 93,000 people in Florida voted for Ralph Nader, figuring that if Bush won that would force the Democrats to realize that unless they moved far to the left they were toast? Now the Republicans have the same problem, but worse. The tea party is far better established within the Republican Party than Nader was within the Democratic Party--in fact, he wasn't even part of the party, whereas tea partiers are the official Republican candidates in more than half a dozen states. The intramural battle that will play out will divert a lot of attention from the 2012 campaign. If Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee decides to run against the establishment favorite, Mitt Romney, we are likely to see a rematch of the bitter primaries of 2010, in which the newly empowered tea party wing of the party is at odds with the big business wing. The battle will dwarf the Obama-Clinton contests of 2008 because Obama and Clinton didn't actually disagree on anything whereas, say, Palin and Romney disagree on a whole lot of things,starting with whether it is better to have a smaller, but purer, party or a larger, but less pure, one.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

[Robert_S]

I'm just waiting for Palin to pull a Ross Perot when she doesn't get the nomination.

[Ian]

I'm just waiting for Palin to pull a Ross Perot when she doesn't get the nomination.

'Tis my dream. Other than the dream of her actually getting the nomination.

[Robert_S]

I'm just waiting for Palin to pull a Ross Perot when she doesn't get the nomination.

'Tis my dream. Other than the dream of her actually getting the nomination.

and then go rogue again and drop out to serve her country by continuing to work outside of government like a the maverick unbranded cow she claims to be.

[Coito ergo sum]

Time will tell. But, liberals never fail to underestimate people. You folks love the snarky one-liners, but the reality is pretty scary. These folks are kicking ass and taking names.

Okay, how about some math:

In what is probably the biggest upset since David beat Goliath in the general election for King of Israel, unemployed gadfly and perpetual candidate Christine O'Donnell (R) defeated Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE) for the Republican Senate nomination yesterday by a margin of 53% to 47%. With this result, the Republicans' chances of taking the Senate have dropped very sharply as this "must win" seat is now virtually certainly a Democratic hold. O'Donnell got about 30,000 votes yesterday. By way of comparison, the last midterm Senate election in Delaware was in 2002 when 230,000 people showed up to vote, 135,000 of them voting for Democrat Joe Biden. The primary yesterday was closed, with only Republicans allowed to vote for O'Donnell or Castle. In the general election, those 135,000 Democrats also get to vote, so O'Donnell's chances against New Castle County Executive Chris Coons (D), are slim to nonexistent. Miles of videotape with every Republican leader in the country calling her a flake can be expected to resurface quickly in Coons' ads.

Again, we'll see. But, of course the primary was closed, which means that Independents were also not permitted to vote, and there is traditionally low turnout for any primary election (Most Republicans didn't vote either). Interesting turn-of-phrase - "unemployed gadfly and perpetual candidate."

Some more numbers:

In a large sample Rasmussen Poll last autumn a hypothetical race between Christine and possible Democrat candidate Beau Biden (the iconic name in Delaware) was tested, with both she and Biden polling in the 40's. In fact, Christine bested Biden (D) among Independents by approximately two-to-one.

To me, the independent numbers really raise a warning bell.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... ly_14_2010 Delaware State Survey of 500 Likely Voters Conducted July 14, 2010 - 41% O'Donnell. 39% Coons.

So, again - hand waving these folks away and scoffing at them because they're so stupid is the not realistic. It's typical from what I've seen from liberals over the last 30 years, though. Anyone that is among the opposition is stupid, ignorant, racist or just something to be laughed at. The last Republican I can think of that was not called "stupid" by a good chunk of the liberals I know was Nixon. And, they didn't need to call him stupid because of Watergate. After that - of course Reagan was a buffoon and a big dummy. Bush I was a genial and well-intentioned idiot. Quayle, of course, couldn't tie his shoes. Bob Dole was a senile old fool. George W. Bush, was of course the stupidest President ever - McCain - another senile old fool. Palin is also dumb as a box of rocks. And, everyone in the Tea Party are idiots.

It's a trend I've noticed for decades from die hard liberals. Reasonable minds can't differ. If you differ with a die hard liberal, you're either ignorant, stupid, or racist (or all of the above). Obviously, that's a generalization and a "trend" that I have noticed in my personal experience, and I do not claim that ever single liberal fits this description.