2010 Senate Races

I am not an expert, but from analyzing the most recent polls I’ve come up with a quick break down of the 2010 US Senate races. 36 seats are up for grabs in November, 18 currently held by Democrats and 18 held by Republicans. If the election were held today, I think the Republicans would pick up at least 5 seats and as many as 11. The current Senate has 57 Democrats, 2 Independents (in name only) that caucus with the Democrats, and 41 Republicans. While many are predicting that the Republicans will take back the House, they are unlikely to take back the Senate in November. However, by picking up 5-8 seats they will strengthen their ability to protect America from Obama’s left wing agenda and set the stage for taking back the Senate in 2012. A lot can change between now and November, but things look good for the GOP.

The breakdown:

10 seats are in the bank for the Republicans: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona (although I’m not holding out much hope for McCain’s conservative challenger J.D. Hayworth), Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah.

5 seats are in the bank for the Democrats: Hawaii, Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont.

2 seats strongly Democrat (but then again, so was Massachusetts): Washington and Connecticut

8 seats strongly Republican: Iowa, Florida (Marco Rubio, a conservative rising star in the Republican party, is trouncing moderate Charlie Crist for the nomination), Louisiana, North Carolina, Delaware (Mike Castle is crushing Coons by 18 points for Biden’s former seat, no wonder Biden’s son pulled out), Nevada (Harry Reid trails Sue Lowden by 13 points), Kentucky (both Republican candidates for Jim Bunning’s vacated seat are outpolling both Democratic candidates by double digits – Ron Paul’s son Rand is the likely Republican nomineee) and North Dakota.

Ok, so far that’s 18 seats for the Republicans and 7 for the Democrats. Of the remaining 12 seats, any seat the Republicans win is a gain. Here’s where it gets interesting.

5 seats lean Republican:

Colorado: both Republican candidates are polling ahead of current Sen. Bennet (D) by 6-9 points.

Missouri: Kit Bond is retiring, but Roy Blunt (R) up 7 points on Robin Carnahan (D).

New Hampshire: Judd Gregg is retiring, but likely GOP nominee Kelly Ayotte leads Rep. Paul Hodes (D) by 7 points.

Arkansas: Blanche Lincoln (D) is in a primary fight, but should hang on. However, she trails likely Republican nominee Congressman John Boozman by 9 points.

Indiana: Evan Bayh’s retirement may have handed the seat to former Indiana Senator Dan Coats (R).

6 seats are tossups:

New York (Gillebrand): Former Governor Pataki is neck and neck with Gillebrand (D) in the polls, but hasn’t decided yet if he will run.

Illinois: Roland Burris is retiring (as if he had a choice) and centrist Republican Congressman Mark Kirk has a modest lead on 33 year old Alexi Giannoulias who just bankrupted his wealthy family’s bank under his leadership (he has cited this as a reason to vote for him – he feels your economic pain). This is Obama’s senate seat – would be a huge victory for the GOP.

California: Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP and tea-partier Chuck DeVore are both polling within about 5 points of Barbara Boxer, believe it or not.

Wisconsin: Former Governor Tommy Thompson is polling slightly ahead of liberal Russ Feingold. Hopefully he chooses to run.

Ohio: Rob Portman (R) is up 5 or 6 points on likely Democratic nominee.

Pennsylvania: The polls have been see-sawing a bit in this race between the likely Republican nominee, former Club for Growth president and US Representative Pat Toomey and current Democrat Arlen Spector.

As we’ve learned during the Bush years, it’s not good enough to have Republicans in Congress, we need conservative Republicans. Many of these candidates are quite conservative. I am excited about Marco Rubio, I think he is presidential material down the road.

The news should get even better for the Republicans in the 2012 Senate elections. 33 seats will be up for grabs, 23 Democrats (I've included the two Independents) and only 10 Republicans. This math creates greater opportunities for the GOP to establish a strong majority in the Senate.

Jodie Evans and Obama

Why does Obama continue to give so much face time to Jodie Evans? The founder of Code Pink and major fundraiser for Obama recently spoke for a while with Obama at a fundraiser.

Jodie Evans is one of the worst people in this country. Let's count the ways:

On the terrorists in Iraq fighting and killing US soldiers:

”We must begin by really standing with the Iraqi people and defending their right to resist. I can remain myself against all forms of violence, and yet I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. The Iraqi people are fighting for their country, to protect their families and to preserve all they love. They are fighting for their lives, and we are fighting for lies.” (AlterNet, June 26, 2005)

“There is widespread opposition to the occupation. Political, social, and civil resistance through peaceful means is subjected to repression by the occupying forces. It is the occupation and its brutality that has provoked a strong armed resistance and certain acts of desperation. By the principles embodied in the UN Charter and in international law, the popular national resistance to the occupation is legitimate and justified. It deserves the support of people everywhere who care for justice and freedom.”

Evans travels the globe, meeting with every terrorist and tyrant she can find, offering her support. The President should denounce her publicly and refuse her contributions, not grant her face time.

Burning One Down

Marijuana growers from a Mexican drug cartel just caused an 88,000 acre wildfire in California. Do you think liberals will be more interested in protecting the border now? Hmmm, probably not.

The Drum-quarium

New post on Stuff White Christians Like: The Drum-quarium.

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

Focusing on the Family

Stuff White Christians Like #38: Focusing on the Family

Liberals: Not Wasting Crises Since 1933

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, let slip just after the election. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before," he continued. Obama has seized the opportunity, following the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took full advantage of the fear created by the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.

Let's review: in October 1929, two months after the crash, unemployment peaked at 9% and then declined to 6.3% by June 1930. Congress and President Hoover then passed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs with the intention of reducing imports and protecting American jobs. By November unemployment was 11.6% and the Great Depression was beginning. FDR was elected in 1933, promising in his acceptance speech:

"Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth... I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people... This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms."

FDR believed that through greater central planning of the economy, more powerful unions and massive social programs he could improve the economy and dramatically shift the power balance towards statism and the Democratic party. He succeeded only in the latter. The first of FDR's New Deal interventions in the economy after taking office in 1933 was the National Industrial Recovery Act, which set prices and wages. Then came the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which allowed FDR to control prices and output of all the nation's farmers. These interventions and others, combined with anti-business rhetoric from the White House created much unpredictability in the marketplace and business investment fell off the cliff. For the first 21 months of FDR's presidency, unemployment was above 20%. In 1940, after 7 years of FDR's New Deal, unemployment was 14.3%. When WWII started, unemployment declined dramatically as millions of unemployed men went to war and FDR changed his focus from radically changing the free market to winning the war.

Not only did FDR's policies extend the Great Depression, causing much suffering, but he left us with a much, much, much larger and oppressive federal government that continues to rob us of our liberty and tax dollars to this day. He took full advantage of the crisis at hand to move the country a long way toward statism.

Obama is seeking to do the same, having learned from FDR's example. Massive deficit spending didn't help the economy when FDR tried it, but it did help the federal government usurp more power from the people, so Obama rolled out a $1 trillion "stimulus" bill. His health care "reform" is a thinly disguised attempt to force us all into socialized medicine.

Most of Obama's efforts to revive the economy focus on creating government jobs. Unfortunately, creating more government jobs does not mean more net jobs, since the money used to create them is taken out of the market, which would have been more efficient at creating jobs with that money. However, as Obama learned well while in Chicago, government jobs create a group of people that rely on the government for their paycheck and will tend to vote for people that favor their continued employment.

FDR used the Great Depression to move this country away from individual liberty and limited government and toward statism. Let's hope Obama is not as "successful."

The Obama Birth Certificate

Attention conspiracy theorists: President Obama was born in Hawaii, please give that one up. As Andrew McCarthy points out in National Review, the controversy surrounding Obama's birth certificate should be about his honesty (or lack thereof) about his past.

During the campaign, Obama lacked experience, so he ran on a compelling story, as detailed in two auto-biographies. Much of this life story is a complete fabrication, as McCarthy details. McCarthy hypothesizes that Obama doesn't want the birth certificate released because it will reveal additional details about the Muslim heritage he alternately embraces and shuns whenever it suits him. The media has been very interested in Sarah Palin rumors, but hasn't bothered to examine the details of Obama's past:

Astonishingly, reporters see their job not as reporting Obama news but as debunking Obama news, or flat-out suppressing it. How many Americans know, for example, that as a sitting U.S. senator in 2006, Obama interfered in a Kenyan election, publicly ripping the incumbent government (a U.S. ally) for corruption while he was its guest and barnstorming with his preferred candidate: a Marxist now known to have made a secret agreement with Islamists to convert Kenya to sharia law, and whose supporters, upon losing the election, committed murder and mayhem, displacing thousands of Kenyans and plunging their country into utter chaos?

Obama has not been honest about his past and it's worth finding out the truth.

Stuff White Christians Like #36 Unofficial Church Roll Calls

#36 Unofficial Church Roll Calls