A Double-Edged Sword

While trolling Kos this morning [note: I do so for 2 reasons: 1) often times some real gems in their if you can strip away the reality-free spin and 2) whenever I find myself despising the GOP, a brief visit to Kosland reminds me that as bad as they may be, the alternative is incomparably worse], I came across a diary entry by Russ Feingold, the contents of which I feel are worth reporting and discussing.

Progressives/socialists/whatever label you love while despising corporations/Republicans/private property: you can exhale. Your knight in shining armor (I apologize for not using a gender neutral term like "person") is not running for President.

To clarify, this is the same Senator Feingold who voted against the Patriot Act, against the tax cuts, against the partial-birth abortion ban, and to restrict missile defense. Basically, if you were to combine every element of Democratic wackiness into an animate form you'd either get an ass or Russ Feingold...though I'm not sure the two are much different. On another note, Feingold is slated to be Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights & Property Rights...I'm hoping he doesn't think Kelo v. New London didn't go far enough!

But why do I say this is a double-edged sword? Although I think Feingold could be a semi-dangerous candidate, perhaps even winning himself a Cabinet post were he to make a decent enough showing (and at worst he'd STILL be in the Senate!), he would also adversely affect the whole race by dragging the rhetoric in the Democratic primaries far to the Left. If Tuesday was an aberation then this would be a good thing for the GOP. If, however, Tuesday was more than a moment of temporary insanity, and the American people are ready to vote Democratic regardless of the drivel they spout, this is noticeably a bad thing.

However, given that I'm optimistically embracing scenario 1 for the time being, and hoping the American people were only pissed off and will return to their senses about a hundred hours after Pelosi grabs the Speaker's gavel, then I would say Russ Feingold should run. Why? Because he'll bring out the true-blue loons on the left of his party, and the American people would get to see the Democrats for the head-cases they really are (as if a John Conyers-chaired Judiciary wouldn't do that already!)

Somewhere in all of this, one of my favorite Churchill aphorisms keeps bubbling up: "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

Let the Infighting Begin

I would say that only the Democrats are about ready to go to the mattresses over leadership positions but sadly it's not true. In the new majority, Pelosi's rise to the Speaker's seat seems uncontested. But that means that the majority leader's position is open, as is that of majority whip (the old whip, Steny Hoyer, is ostensibly the heir apparent for the majority leadership). Hoyer has obviously thrown his hat into the ring; Roll Call says he's gotten support from a broad cross-section of the party. But crazy old Jack Murtha wants to run too, though for reasons that have many Democrats scratching their heads. If I had to guess I'd say Steny wins this one, though perhaps not without making some concessions to the Murtha faction (probably on the war). As to the majority whip, Rahm Emmanuel is said to be considering a run. I despise Rahm with just about every fiber of my being - but I'll say this for the man, he's a damn good politician and his party owes him everything. If he runs, expect him to be a shoe-in (the fact that he's an all-star fundraiser certainly won't hurt his chances).

On the other side in the GOP minority, Hastert made headlines when he (rather as expected) announced that he will seek to be minority leader. Fact of the matter is he deserves to be stripped of his seniority - I'm blaming him for Foleygate. That of course leaves a wide-open seat...and if there's one thing our new minority doesn't need, it's a civil war. Thus far, I've only heard of two candidates seeking the spot: currently Majority Leader John Boehner and Mike Pence. Boehner hasn't been in the spotlight long enough for me to get a good sense of him. Pence has, however: he's conservative as hell (and may piss off the handful of moderates who didn't get blown away) but a great mind and a good leader. I think Pence could keep a minority pretty disciplined, which may prove invaluable but I'm not sure whether or not Boehner wouldn't be able to do the same. I can't make any sort of prediction on this one, but if the survivors are feeling embittered about where the present leadership has taken them, expect Boehner to be returned to the party ranks.

First of the 08s

The Senate only "officially" went blue yesterday (Allen is expected to concede at some point today, making it really official), but already things are shaping up for 2008. Unofficially, contenders have been locking up key operatives in states like Iowa for months. According to the Des Moines Register, however, things are getting rolling today with an announcement by outgoing Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack that he will be running for the Democratic nomination in 2008.


Vilsack has neither the star power nor the fundraising ability to truly challenge a top-tier candidate of the Obama/Clinton/(Edwards?) league. In fact, I don't even think he's a viable #2 like Richardson or Bayh might be. But as the Iowa hometown boy, he could be something of a spoiler in that state's caucus. By later throwing his support to Clinton or Obama, he could certainly lock up some cushy post like Ag Secretary...which is probably what he's really aiming for.

Let me reiterate: the important part of this story is not that Vilsack is running. It's that two days after the midterm elections, people are starting to throw their hats in the ring.

I'm Back!

So sometime in September school/political disillusionement caught up with me. My decision (not made explicitly) not to blog was also a product of being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of news about the elections.

However, Tuesday night, the Democratic wave wiped away much of my disgust with the party and was replaced by the knowledge that we can better ourselves in the minority. And because I feel like I can do some good by keeping an eye on the new Democratic Congress, I'm back!

Ohio Called

D Strickland over R Blackwell...while it's not surprising, I am surprised they've called it now.

First Round of Updates

Things are looking up in the IN2, down in the IN8...

KY3 is looking worse than the KY4 (which is surprising...)

Lugar wins. Big surprise.
MSNBC has already called it for Sanders in VT.

Gubernatorial Scorecard

State	Republican	%	Democrat	%
Alaska	Murkowski		Knowles
Arizona	Goldwater		Napolitano
Arkansas	Beebe		Hutchison
California	Schwarzenegger		Angelides
Colorado	Beauprez		Ritter
Florida	Crist		Davis
Illinois	Topinka		Blagojevich
Iowa	Culver		Nussle
Maine	Woodcock		Baldacci
Maryland	Ehrlich		O'Malley
Michigan	DeVos		Granholm
Minnesota	Pawlenty		Hatch
Nevada	Titus		Gibbons
Oklahoma	Istook		Henry
Oregon	Kulongoski		Saxton
Rhode Island	Fogarty		Carcierri
Texas	Perry		Bell		Strayhorn		Friedman
Wisconsin	Green		Doyle
Wyoming	Hunkins		Freudenthal

House Scorecard

Arizona	GOP	%	Dem	%
1	Renzi		Simon
5	Hayworth		Mitchell
8	Graf		Giffords
California
4	Doolittle		Brown
11	Pombo		McNerney
50	Bilbray		Busbee
Colorado
3	Tipton		Salazar
4	Musgrave		Paccione
5	Lamborn		Fawcett
7	O'Donnell		Perlmutter
Connecticut
2	Simmons		Courtney
4	Shays		Farrell
5	Johnson		Murphy
Florida
13	Buchanan		Jennings
16	"Foley"		Mahoney
22	Shaw		Klein
Georgia
8	Collins		Marshall
12	Burns		Barrow
Idaho
1	Sali		Grant
Illinois
6	Roskam		Duckworth
8	McSweeney		Bean
10	Kirk		Seals
13	Biggert		Shannon
17	Zinga		Hare
Indiana
2	Chocola		Donnelly
8	Hostetter		Ellsworth
9	Sodrel		Hill
Iowa
1	Whalen		Braley
3	Lamberti		Boswell
Kentucky
2	Lewis		Weaver
3	Northup		Yarmuth
4	Davis		Lucas
Minnesota
1	Gutknecht		Walz
5	Fine		Ellsworth
6	Bachmann		Wetterling
Nebraska
3	Smith		Kleeb
New Hampshire
1	Bradley		Shea-Porter
2	Bass		Hodes
New Mexico
1	Wilson		Madrid
New York
19	Kelly		Hall
20	Sweeney		Gillibrand
24	Meier		Arcuri
25	Walsh		Maffei
26	Reynolds		Davis
29	Kuhl		Massa
Nevada
2	Heller		Derby
3	Porter		Hafen
North Carolina
11	Taylor		Shuler
Ohio
1	Chabot		Cranley
2	Schmidt		Wulsin
6	Blasdel		Wilson
13	Foltin		Sutton
15	Pryce		Kilroy
18	Padgett		Space
Pennsylvania
4	Hart		Altmire
6	Gerlach		Murphy
7	Weldon		Sestak
8	Fitzpatrick		Murphy
10	Sherwood		Carney
Texas
22	Write-In		Lampson
Vermont
0	Rainville		Welch
Virginia
2	Drake		Kellam
Washington
8	Reichert		Burner
Wisconsin
8	Gard		Kagen
Wyoming
0	Cubin		Trauner

Senate Scorecard

Arizona

Kyl

Pederson

Connecticut

Lieberman

Lamont

Schlesinger

Maryland

Steele

Cardin

Michigan

Stabenow

Bouchard

Minnesota

Kennedy

Klobuchar

Missouri

Talent

McCaskill

Montana

Burns

Tester

New Jersey

Menendez

Kean

Nevada

Ensign

Carter

Pennsylvania

Santorum

Casey

Rhode Island

Chafee

Whitehouse

Tennessee

Corker

Ford

Virginia

Allen

Webb

Vermont

Tarrant

Sanders

Washington

Cantwell

McGavick

GOP Bids Adieu to AZ08?

Only from the DCCC thus far, but apparently NRCC has pulled all of their ad buys from the AZ08 - which may or may not be translated as an admission of defeat. Randy Graff seems to be the consensus wrong candidate for the district, and this just confirms that yup, the GOP thinks so too.

Coup Brewing in Thailand?

Clearly not the first to get this one - but it looks like the military is undertaking a putsch against the Thai government, taking advantage of the fact that the PM is presently at the UN. Thailand has never been a model democracy, but it's been better than the alternative. I'll try and keep an eye on this one.

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows

But within a party, this may be the strangest yet: Obama's stumping for the Old Man of the Senate, Robert Byrd. Now that's all well and good - party members stump for eachother regularly - but Obama is only the Senate's sole black man, and Byrd a former KKK member. Either Obama truly buys into Byrd's shtick about his membership being a political necessity back in the day (isn't that a sign that you might want to work for another line of work? Did they hold fundraiser lynchings?), or he's holding his nose in a big way. But this also says a little something else to me - even though Byrd looks ready to romp to reelection (I've said before only death will take this man from his seat), someone's a little nervous if they're pulling out the big guns like Obama for $5k a head.

Primary Preview

Let's start with the less complicated of tomorrow's two high-profile primaries. In Rhode Island, as I blogged last Wednesday, two polls are painting two different numbers. I still think the NRSC's numbers from Public Opinion Surveys might be closer to the fact, especially since there is no doubt in my mind that Chafee will have a significantly better turnout operation. But should Laffey win, no one dares suggest that the GOP can hold this one. The DSCC and Sheldon Whitehouse's hopes are pinned on Chafee going down in flames; if he holds on, it's going to be a great race.

Let's turn our eyes to the border and the Arizona 08 where retiring Republican Jim Kolbe is giving
the DCCC one of their best pickup chances of the cycle. On the left, it looks like Gabrielle Giffords will wrap up the Democratic nomination. But the real fight is on the right, between former Kolbe challenger Randy Graf (a true conservative) and Steve Huffman (a more moderate Republican) who has the backing of both Kolbe (or at least Kolbe has said that Graf is too conservative to win in the district) and the NRCC. Problem is all of this is backfiring; not only is Huffman's campaign poorly run, some analysis suggests that Graf will better motivate the base. More than that, according to a friend of mine observing the race closely, "Huffman's excessive use of negative campaigning has also turned off a great deal of the electorate to him" to the point that he's at risk of splitting the GOP base in a district that is already less than bright red. But according to my friend, Huffman's problems only get worse from here:

Huffman has also been very short on public appearances this campaign season. This could be because he is such a poor public speaker and a weak presence. It is difficult to see him as "congressional" and against a stronger Gabrielle Giffords (the likely Democratic nominee for the seat), he may be torn to pieces in any sort of debate. Randy Graf (currently the leader in the polls for the Republican nomination by more than 10 points) has been written off by many as having no chance of winning in a general election. However, more good may come from his nomination. Graf's supporters are extremely passionate about his election and would fight hard for his victory, more so than Huffman's from my personal experience. In addition, the other three candidates (Mike Hellon, Frank Antenori, and Mike Jenkins) all have pledged to support Randy should he win. Randy is far more confident, a better speaker, and a stronger presence than Steve Huffman, and this will certainly help him in any sort of debate.

So the NRCC has picked the politically palatable moderate who happens to be a stiff, over someone with better base credentials and more charisma - does anyone else see this as a sign of extreme nervousness? After all, they have an unabashed conservative at the top of the ticket in Jon Kyl, and while the 8th is more liberal than other parts of the state, a well-motivated candidate might still hold the district. Chris Cilizza said today that this race would vaunt into the top 2 House races should Graf win, meaning that Cilizza thinks it's likely to flip blue. But voices on the ground are saying otherwise. Bottom line? Kolbe had a lot of success here; the NRCC picked someone who might be his ideological heir, but they may have picked the wrong man. No matter how tomorrow turns out, the GOP isn't out of the woods just yet.

Rasmussen Weekly Roundup

Just got my Rasmussen Report weekly newsletter and I thought I'd pass along, and reanalyze, a gem within.

Our focus today is on New Jersey, where I think it's worthwhile to quote Rasmussen at length before offering my own take (the original piece can be found here).

Republican State Senator Tom Kean Jr., son of the former NJ Governor, again leads Democratic Senator Bob Menendez in New Jersey's race for U.S. Senate. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll shows Kean with 44% of the vote while Menendez is at 39%. In our last two polls, Menendez, an appointed incumbent, held a six-point lead.

To reflect the reversal, we are now revising our assessment of the contest from "Leans Democrat" to "Toss-Up" in our Senate Balance of Power ratings. Menendez thus becomes the only Senate Democrat not favored to win re-election. Three Republican incumbents (DeWine, Burns, Chafee) find themselves in Toss-Up races. Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s (R) race is ranked as Leans Democrat.

The new numbers in the Garden State represent a dramatic shift from the last two polls, but the contest has been close all year. Neither candidate has been able to move above the low-40s in terms of voter support.

Kean has a famous name, but New Jersey leans Democrat. The candidates have been swapping charges of corruption and ethical conduct, and it may be that the incumbent is getting the worst of it. Kean has been slamming Menendez hard about rent he collected for several years from a nonprofit agency for which he helped get federal funding.

Menendez now attracts just 70% of Democrats (down from 77% in June, whereas Kean's support from the GOP base is now at 85%. Twelve percent (12%) of Democrats are "not sure" who to support. That's a pretty wobbly base as the race enters the home stretch.

Meanwhile, Kean enjoys a clear advantage not only with Republicans and conservatives but also with unaffiliated voters (43% to 29%) and moderates (52% to 33%).

Kean's "very favorable" number (14%) is twice as high as his "very unfavorable" (7%). The reverse is true for Menendez whose numbers are 16% "very unfavorable" and 9% "very favorable."

Forty-one percent (41%) of all voters see Menendez as politically liberal while 33% say he’s a moderate. Twenty-one percent (21%) don’t know enough to have an opinion. That’s high for an incumbent, but Menendez was appointed by Governor Corzine (D) and has held office for less than a year.

A plurality (42%) see the Republican challenger as politically moderate. Thirty-two percent (32%) say he’s a conservative and 19% are not sure.

So what stands out? First of all that Kean's coming back in a year where everyone says the Democratic tide is insurmountable. I think Rasmussen underestimates the effect of name recognition on Kean's success; it can't hurt when your father is a prominent ex-governor. Second is, as Rasmussen states, Menendez's unsteady base of support. This has also been proclaimed the year of change and a house-cleaning to rid Washington of corrupt members of Congress. On both counts, Menendez is hurting - he's the stereotypical crooked New Jersey pol, and he was never elected to this seat, merely appointed to serve out Corzine's term last year. Thus he also lacks a real record to run on. Given McGavick's recent personal admissions out in Washington, I think New Jersey might now be the GOP's best opportunity to pick up another Senate seat.

The Triumph of Order in Mexico

Though it hasn't been as well-reported as I had thought it would be, Mexico's seven person Electoral Court finally and officially declared Felipe Calderon president-elect, after months of challenges by Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Obrador's protests have not been confined to the halls of power, spilling on the streets chaotically, while driving down his popularity among Mexican citizens who might understandably desire stability more than anything else at this moment. Problem is, Obrador still refuses to admit defeat, and is planning to launch a huge protest in Mexico City on September 16th, where (according to some reports) he might declare himself the head of a parallel government.

In the interest of the Mexican nation, this is the last thing the country needs. Calderon faces enough problems without having this populist thorn in his side, threatening to block critical reforms (i.e. limited privatization of Mexico's state oil company and pension reform). But at the same time, and against the desires of some Mexicans, he should resist calls to disperse AMLO's protests violently - he holds the barest of majorities right now, and not everyone views him as legitimate; violence will merely further weaken his credibility and legitimacy.

The court's ruling, then, is a great step forward for Mexico's democracy, but Calderon & Co. aren't out of the woods yet. For even the hope of serious reform, AMLO and his fellow Chavistas must accept the new administration, and members of Congress must come together to lend support to a series of reforms that, while necessary, will surely prove to be unpopular to entrenched interests.

Mixed News from the Ocean State

With the Rhode Island primaries only six days away, it's no secret that the fate of Lincoln Chafee's Senate seat hangs in the balance. Should Chafee win, the GOP has a shot at holding this seat in the general; should challenger Stephen Laffey win, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse wins in a landslide. It's sort of like a Lamont-Lieberman thing, but Laffey's running more as the anti-incumbent than the true conservative. What is rather like Lamont-Lieberman, however, is the confusion generated by the poll numbers. These two are best summed up by a post on WSJ's Washington Wire blog: two polls, conducted over roughly the same period, and with roughly the same sample size of likely Republican voters. One, from Rhode Island College (and possibly associated with the Laffey campaign, though I'm not certain on this point), shows the challenger up 51%-34%. The other, from Publican Opinion Surveys (but conducted on behalf of the NRSC), shows Chafee up 53%-39%. While at first glance the two effectively negate eachother, the POS numbers look significantly better when you realize that "Of the 53% of respondents who could actually name the primary election date, 58% support Mr. Chafee compared to 37% who back Mr. Laffey" (that from Washington Wire). Not only is that a good thing in and of itself for the Chafee campaign, I have to assume he'll also have the better GOTV operation. So while I'm not in any way calling this one right now, I feel like Chafee's not hurting as much as some might have you think, and I also think that RIC poll has got it wrong.

Santorum-Casey Debate

Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum debated his opponent, State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr. Casey comes across as a smug piece of sh*t...which of course he is, and I think Santorum comes out the winner - but I'm biased. Even Democrats hate this schmuck - so why did the DSCC back him? Still not sure, he's the anti-Lamont, and it's not even clear he's electable. Full debate can be streamed (only on Internet Explorer unfortunately) from the Meet the Press website.

Noteworthy that Cilizza's latest Senate rankings still had Santorum in the most vulnerable spot, but with the concession that "we seriously weighed moving Pennsylvania down to the second position" in their list. But while he still doesn't think Santorum's got a chance, I disagree. Based on Casey's previous implosions, the fact that (and he denies this in the interview, lying through his teeth in the process) bad blood exists between him and Rendell, Santorum's superior debate performance (and I expect it to continue in the future), and Santorum's perpetual underdog status (he never leads in a poll in any race thus making them more or less meaningless except for the magnitude of his opponent's lead), I still think Rick can pull it out, though it'll probably be something like 51%-49% and the sore losers on the Left will scream voter fraud and brand him as illegitimate for the next six years.

Welcome Back!

My own personal August recess is over, and though my posting will not be as prolific as it might have been earlier in the year, it will be more focused on the elections. Labor Day is the traditional beginning of campaign season, so here we go.

WaPo has a great analysis of the problems the GOP faces this fall, but one thing is clear in their conversations with operatives on both sides: no one's sure what's goin' down. Personally speaking, I expect the GOP to lose seats in both Houses, but I don't expect a '94 style tide.

Also noteworthy: the NRCC has backed the more electable candidate in the AZ-08, increasing their chances of holding that seat.

Lieberman Gets It

Lieberman's said something to stir up the blogosphere (though for the Left, his mere continued existance exacerbates them):

“I’m worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don’t appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us,” Mr. Lieberman said at the Waterbury event. He called that threat “more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet Communists we fought during the long cold war.”

The left is already screaming that he's done a disservice to Holocaust victims by comparing what they perceive as a limited threat to the fascism of the National Socialist party. Here's Kos on the topic (God I hate this man more every day):

More evil than the guys who gassed 6 million Jews?

More dangerous than the guys who had thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at us and could've snuffed out all life on the planet at the press of a button?

Lieberman has lost it. Completely and utterly. He is insane.

Uhh Markos? You're the one whose lost it buddy. Ever heard of this little thing called MAD? Mutual Assured Destruction - yeah, maybe if your history classes didn't use Howard Zinn as the gold standard, you would have read about it. MAD ensured that although the USSR was dangerous, yes, they were never a truly existential threat to the United States. Why? Because we were an existential threat to them as well, in that we would wipe them off the face of the earth and that was that. Marx didn't prescribe a heaven for Communist martyrs who died spreading proletarian bliss. Mohammed, on the other hand, prescribed exactly that for those who give their lives for the expansion of Islam. Don't believe me? Try this on for size: "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter?" (Koran 9:38) A call to martyrdom, a promise of a better world beyond this one: such assurances (and remember, the Koran is infallible: to pious Muslims this is a promise) mean that MAD is useless to those seeking martyrdom. This sort of fanatical willingness to cast one's life away with reckless abandon was unknown to the Soviet Union's Politburo, and makes Islamo-fascism a much graver and more unpredictable danger that Communism.


What of fascism? I will not in any way attempt to be an apologist for Hitler - he was truly evil, and sought the destruction of worldy Jewry. But how much different, to Muslim literalists, are the commands of Mohammed? There exist among the Muslim scriptures a collection of what are known as haditha (sing. hadith), sayings attributed to Mohammed and treated as law. One of these also captures the eschatological worldview inherent in Islam, and sets as a precondition for Judgement day the destruction of Jewry:

The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews, and kill them. And the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!"

Can we honestly say that this is any less serious a threat than Hitler? Critics may reply that of course Hitler killed six million Jews and turned mass murder into a science. The world view of Islamo-fascists demands nothing less - there is a reason that among those seeking to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, Hitler was viewed with reverence. This, I think, puts Islamo-fascists on the same plane of evil as Hitler, because although the means differ, their end is the same. To push Islamo-fascism beyond the evil of Hitler requires a bit of thought, but is really a matter of personal opinion; I won't offer my own, merely the following observation. Hitler's goals were not clearly and demonstrably internationalist - he might not have sought to dominate the whole world.

The foe we face today is explicitly internationalist, calling for jihad until all non-believers submit, often in the face of a choice between submission and death (or conversion and death: in the Balkans, so frequent were such Ottoman threats that when locals were asked whether or not they accepted Islam, they refused by nodding their head up and down as if submitting - some say that tradition continues today so that a shake of the head signals agreement). For Islamo-fascists, their struggles end only when the entire world has either converted or submitted to Islamic rule; there is no American exceptionalism here, which, some may argue, renders it a more existential threat to our way of life than Nazism.

Was Lieberman right to say these things, and highlight the global underestimation of the threat before us? Given the harsh response of the Left, I think so - they cleary don't understand. We face a foe as equally bent on the destruction of Judaism as Hitler was, imbued with the same internationalism of Marxist ideology, but lacking the rational desire for self-preservation that permitted us to bring down Communism without the world suffering a nuclear exchange. In short, our present foe combines some of the worst traits of the two of our greatest 20th century enemies.

Lieberman was, and is, right - and for his clear perception he deserves reelection.

MI-07 = Bad News for Chafee?

Another primary I followed with whatever attention wasn't devoted to Lamont/Lieberman and McKinney's meltdown last night was up in Michigan's 7th District, where moderate Republican incumbent Joe Schwarz was offed by his conservative challenger, Tim Walberg, who had the support of Michigan Right to Life and the Club for Growth. There's a little on it from Hotline blog here. But my point in bringing up Schwarz's defeat was its parallels for another embattled moderate, namely Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. To me, the defeat of two relatively popular incumbents (Schwarz and Lieberman - I'm not counting McKinney on this list) verifies the oft-cited argument about unpopular incumbents - to a point. While I'm still not ready to concede an anti-incumbent spirit on the general level (still don't believe a large number of seats will flip), there is clearly a measure of intraparty anti-incumbent sentiment.

This of course is not a good omen for Lincoln Chafee, a moderate's moderate, a Senator who epitomizes the idea of a Rockefeller Republican. Not only is Chafee locked in a hard-fought political battle with insurgent mayor Steve Laffey, he's losing ground to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, who's up 6% in the latest Rasmussen poll. This was at one point Chafee's to win, but now that he's finding himself occupied with trying to maintain the party's nomination, I think Whitehouse has the momentum.

Of course all of this presumes that Chafee slips past Laffey in a year that's seen pissed off partisans on both sides, and one Club for Growth candidate already triumph. Again, I don't like taking bold positions on elections (not enough experience to do that yet) but I have a bad feeling about Chafee's chances on this one; a Chafee defeat on September 12th will probably mean the Democrats only need to take four seats to tie up the Senate (or five to give themselves true control).