Fraud in Russian Elections...

I'm sure you've heard the news reports concerning the allegations of election fraud in the recent Russian elections.  Here Finnish blogger “Anton” does some statistical analysis that strongly indicates two things:

1.  The elections were indeed fraudulent.

2.  The party that benefited from the fraud was United Russia (Putin's party).

Elections Have Consequences...

...and this consequence I like.  Colonel West, elected to the House of Representatives from Florida this past November:



Oh, more like this, please!

Peggy Noonan has an interesting column up at the WSJ, well worth your time to read.  The column covers several issues related to Tuesday's election, and concludes with this:

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can't just bully them, you can't just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.

Americans don't want, as their representatives, people who seem empty or crazy. They'll vote no on that.

It's not just the message, it's the messenger.

Well, All Righty Then!

The obvious good news is that the Democrats lost the House, and that's really, really good news.  In fact, that's such good news that you'd think whatever else happened, I'd be riding a wave of good cheer.

But wait...it gets even better.  The Democrats lost big time in state races: governorships and legislatures.  This bodes well for the 2012 election, and has a long-term impact for a reason many people don't know about: the redistricting that will happen over the next two years because of the 2010 census.  In most states, some combination of the governor and the state legislature control redistricting (aka gerrymandering).  Many fewer such redistrictings will be controlled by Democrats, thanks to this election.

So then why am I not feeling terminally cheerful this morning? 

Well, for starters, there were some big disappointments from across the country, Democrats who kept or won their seats even in this year of the rebellious electorate: Reid, Boxer, Frank, Dingell, Coons, Blumenthal, Manchin, Hanabusa, Brown, and so on.  Some of these were wins against the, er, less plausible opposition (Angle, O'Donnell, etc.), but still...big disappointments.  For example, I don't understand how Frank could win if he were running against Attila the Hun, resurrected by genetic engineering miracles...and yet he did.

Another source of disappointment: even though I knew the odds were agin me, I still held out hope for a Democrat trouncing of epic proportions.  Specifically, an even bigger loss in the House, and loss of the Senate as well.  And most especially, the loss of those safely ensconced Democrat “icons” that so visibly represented the Obama agenda (Reid, Pelosi, Frank, etc.).  We didn't get that epic trouncing.

But the major cause for my disappointment is closer to home.  California appears to have mostly opted out of the anti-Democrat electoral rebellion.  Boxer beat Fiorina.  Brown (Governor Moonbeam, for god's sake, folks!) beat Whitman.  Pelosi won her seat with 80% of the vote.  In any just world, surely there are only two votes Pelosi should have been able to count on: hers and her husband's.  And I'm not too sure about his.  The proposition to defer our state cap-and-trade system went down in flames.  Bottom line, the wackos overwhelmingly won here in California.

So, a mixed reaction to the election, though logically I should be turning cartwheels.  Debbie and I will continue carefully reading the tea leaves to see if we will end up staying in California, or leaving for less demented territory.  We're not considering leaving anytime soon, mind you; this is more a long-range planning exercise.  One thing that occurred to me as I mulled over the impact of this election on California: the results make it substantially more likely that California will need a federal bailout of some kind – and at the same time make it less likely that the U.S. Congress will be receptive to the idea.  This is a recipe for Golden State fiscal disaster, and in the not-too-distant future, too...

Shame...

Both parties do this sort of spinning, but this is particularly egregious:

The Obama administration has secured pledges from senior Mideast leaders to continue their fitful peace negotiations until after next month's U.S. midterm elections, largely to avoid handing the Obama administration an embarrassing diplomatic setback before the Nov. 2 elections.

So the peace talks have been a big flop (no surprise there, given the history for the past 80 years or so), and Obama doesn't want the flop to register on the election.

Somehow I don't think this is going to make much difference today...

Quote of the Day...

From Dave Carter, writing over at Ricochet:

...are political ads designed to entice viewers to jam railroad spikes in their ears? It seems that I see the same ads at least 117 times per hour. From what I can tell, all of these nefarious candidates have engaged in every diabolical act except the sinking of the Lusitania and there is some conjecture about that. Are voters really deemed to have the IQ of bread mold?

I'm no expert, but it sure seems that way to me, Dave. What scares me is that targeting those with the IQ of bread mold may actually be the right thing for those politicians to do...

American Hero...

Via reader Simi L., an excellent video to watch before you go to the voting booth:

This is So Close!

RCP's current poll averages have the U.S. Senate post-election seat count as follows:

 Democrat:   49

 Republican: 45

 Toss-up:     6

At worst, it looks like the Democrats will retain their majority in the Senate, but with a much lower margin.  At best, the Republicans could gain an outright majority.  This is more likely than the poll results indicate, as some of the constituent polls are clearly biased toward the Democrats, probably because of likely voter sampling error.  The California polls may be biased toward the Republicans, because young voters may vote in higher-than-expected numbers to support the marijuana legalization initiative.

There's another interesting possibility that emerges if the Democrats end up with a one or two seat majority (and this is actually looking like quite a likely outcome).  In that environment, Senators who currently caucus with the Democrats have a huge incentive to switch to the Republicans, as they can likely cut an interesting deal to incent them to switch.  For example, one could imagine Lieberman getting chairmanship of a committee relating to foreign affairs or military interests in exchange for switching.

Next Tuesday night will be a cliffhanger.  I'm not planning on getting much sleep!

Your Morning Voter Education...

James O'Keefe – the guy who's been making those videos that look shockingly like actual journalism instead of the press release parroting normally seen in the lamestream media – has done it again.  This time, he took his video cameras under cover into the New Jersey Education Association's (NJEA) Leadership Conference.  The video below is the first volume of the results; it's a graphic illustration of what happens when you get generations of parasites sucking on the public teat.  Click over to YouTube to see the rest.




Remember: the teacher's unions (that's what the NJEA is) are, nationwide, the number one source of funds for Democrat candidates.  Remember that when you vote.

All Your Housez Be Ourz...

The Iowa Electronic Markets are predicting a solid Republican takeover of the House, and trending more strongly that way every day...

The Senate numbers are still strongly favoring the Democrats to retain control.  The trend we saw moving the other way a few weeks ago was completely derailed by Christine O'Donnell's win in Delaware, which conventional wisdom says will cause a seat that was a surefire Republican win to go to a Democrat.  Recent poll results, though, show some interesting trends the other way, wherein candidates like Blumenthal, formerly thought to be an impossible-to-shake Democratic win, are starting to look a bit, well, shaky.

It's gonna be an interesting night on November 2...

Exciting Election!

I'm looking forward to watching the returns from Brown vs. Coakley tonight, much more so than last November.  The latest polls have Brown ahead by 9 points, but the track record of the pollsters is so bad that I don't think this actually has much meaning, other than to be pleasant for Brown supporters to gaze at.

Meanwhile, the funniest thing I've read all morning is this, from Neo-Neocon:

Brown is the male Sarah Palin—with a law degree.
Coakley is the female John Kerry—without the charm.

Har!

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!!!

The Republicans took the New Jersey governor's race.  That's kind of like a Southern Baptist minister running for pope, and winning.  The fix was in on this race, and the Republican (Christie) won anyway.

I'm going to guess that the usual New Jersey Democratic shenanigans were worth 5 to 10 points in the election.  Christie won over Corzine by 49% to 45% according to the official results – so I'd guess that if that election could somehow have been held fairly, the results would have been something between 52/43 and 54/40.  Those are big margins considering the context.  Corzine was an incumbent Democrat, well-supported by the DNC (not to mention personally by Obama and Biden), very wealthy and free with his own money in the campaign.  As of late October, the Corzine campaign had spent a whopping $28m.  On top of all that, Corzine had the full-throated support of New Jersey's legendary “machine” – from thugs to dirty tricks, all was available to him.  Christie, on the other hand, was a relative unknown.  He'd been a U.S. Attorney, a Freeholder (a local NJ political position), and a private lawyer.  He got modest backing from the RNC, no big-name personal visits, and as of late October his campaign had spent just over a quarter of what Corzine spent: about $8m.

But Christie won anyway.  Wow.

You can bet on this: every incumbent Democrat is looking at these results and is reconsidering their commitment to the Obama/Reid/Pelosi wing.  I'm not saying that every one of them is going to change their behavior – but I am saying that a lot of them will.  These results – not just in New Jersey, but in all the off-year elections yesterday – are just too clear to ignore.  Only the most ideologically driven politico will bull ahead without thinking this through.

By the way, the news wasn't all rosy from New Jersey.  I went through all the results, and except for the governor's race, it is all business-as-usual.  The Virginia races were quite different: the Republicans took virtually every contested seat there.  Every incumbent New Jerseyian who ran won their race, and no seat changed party affiliation.  So Christie is walking into a lion's den of rapacious machine politicians – most of whom have every reason to feel completely secure.

But still I have a smile on my face.  The voters, bless their pointed little heads, sent a message last night that I believe will have immediate impact.  Watch what happens with the healthcare bill this week.  Pelosi promised a vote on Thursday (tomorrow!).  My bet is that it gets delayed, probably until next year.  Reid is already signaling that the Senate bill will be delayed to January at the earliest.  After last night, Pelosi and Reid are going to have much more trouble getting votes for that beast from their own party, much less the Republicans...

Momentum and Messages...

Today's elections for governor (Virginia and New Jersey) and Congressman (in upstate New York) are going to be more important for the messages they send to policitians outside those districts than they will be to the people in those districts.

New Jersey's politics are so hopelessly screwed up that electing Mr. Incredible would probably have little effect.  Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but I did grow up there...

Virginia's new governor will almost certainly be Republican, and will almost certainly be unable to make any radical changes there.  That's good, but not important in the long run.

The new Congressman from upstate New York will have no impact at all on a House that's overwhelmingly Democratic.

But...if two or three of these races go to the Republicans, that does indeed send a very clear message to the incumbent Democrats facing reelection next year. It says, loud and clear: tying yourself to Obama and his policies is not the way to win an election.  And there is nothing those Congresscritters care more about than their job-for-life.  They will hear and pay close attention to that message.  And their defensive, back-tracking reactions will build a conservative-leaning momentum that would be quite welcome right now, especially in fiscal terms.

So here's hoping that the voters in those districts take the opportunity to smack Obama upside the head.  Unless the polls are completely wacked out, Virginia is already decided for the Republican candidate.  New Jersey and New York are still too close to call, and could go either way.  Knowing New Jersey as I do, it's easy to predict that every shenanigan you've ever heard of, plus 14 you never heard of before, will be used to lie, cheat, and steal the way to a Democratic victory – and in the past, 99% of the time, those methods have worked just fine.  Probably will again.  In update New York, I have some hope that Acorn and it's ilk haven't yet incorporated themselves into the semi-rural society's fabric – so it's possible that something like a fair election might be held there.

Here's hoping for some Republican success at the polls today!

Election Results...

After reading quickly through the California and San Diego election results, here's some quick reactions:

• Propositions 98 and 99: big disappointment, though I can't say it's a surprise. The developers and cities put on a big, slick, and persuasive advertising campaign that bet on the public not even bothering to read the analysis on the ballot pamphlet – and they won their bet handily.
• San Diego mayor: Sanders wins, no runoff. The best of an unimpressive field won.
• San Diego city attorney: Aguirre and Goldsmith are headed for a runoff, and Goldmith had a very strong showing. My bet would be that many of the challengers not making the runoff will throw their support to Goldsmith; the incumbent (Aguirre) has made a lot of enemies. Peters and Maienschein – two of the city council members closely associated with the city's pension fund disaster – both had very weak showings. This is a welcome gust of sanity from the voters.
• San Diego city council seats: these surprised me in a positive way. One reformer (Carl DeMaio) won outright, three other reformers are headed for runoffs with strong showings. We just might endup up throwing the bums off the council (meaning: the candidates supported by the city employees unions might lose, or at least enough of them so that the unions lose their strangehold on the council). Good.
• Duncan D. Hunter wins the Republican nomination to succeed his dad. Excellent.