Category: Elections

Payback’s A Bitch

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Case in point, the official drive to recall Koch sucker Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has officially begun, and right now the polls show a majority supporting kicking his sorry ass out:

Gov. Scott Walker has lost support among his Republican base, according to a poll released Tuesday that shows a majority of respondents want to recall him from office.

The Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert College Survey was released the same day that Democrats, labor unions and others, angry over his moves to curb union rights, began circulating petitions to get the 540,000 signatures needed to force a recall election next year.

The poll showed that 58 percent of respondents believe Walker should be recalled from office. That compares with 47 percent who said in April that he should be recalled.

The growth in support for a recall came, surprisingly, from Republicans. In the spring, only 7 percent of Republicans supported recalling Walker but that grew to 24 percent in the fall. Support among Democrats held mainly steady at 88 percent in the spring and 92 percent in the fall.

Let’s be clear: The recall effort is not a done deal.

They have to collect 540,000 signatures in just 60 days for Walker, and smaller numbers for the State Senators that they are targeting, and the Republicans are in full whine mode over this, complaining that this is an “abuse” of the law.

Case in point, Wasuau Senenator Pam Galloway, who bleated that, “I don’t know why I am being recalled. I haven’t broken any laws.”

Ma’am, you are being targeted for recall because you are a jerk who does not represent the interests of her constituents. That’s what the law is for, we have the criminal justice system to handle corruption.

If I were collecting signatures for this, I would be seeing how to get people who are part of the “Occupy” movement involved.

It’s a Good Election Night

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But not a great one, with Ohio overturning Governor John Kasich’s union busting bill, while in Mississippi, they defeated the “fetal personhood” referendum, and Maine defeated the elimination of same day voter registration by the ‘Phants.

On the other side, it’s likely that Virginia’s state Senate will flip to the ‘Phants, (actually a 20-20 tie, but the Lt. Gov, who breaks ties is a Republican) with the pivotal seat having the Republican leading by 86 votes, and Mississippi approved a poll tax strict photo ID requirements.

I will say that the recall of über wingnut, and state senate leader, Steve Pearce in Arizona, made famous as the sponsor of Arizona’s “Papers Please” law, does make me chuckle.

Italy’s Cancer of the Body Politic Offers to Step Down

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Silvio Berlusconi has offered to resign:

The European debt crisis appeared to claim its most prominent victim on Tuesday when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, cornered by world markets and humiliated by a parliamentary setback, pledged to resign after Italy’s Parliament passes austerity measures demanded by the European Union.

Although Mr. Berlusconi’s exit was not immediate — weeks of political wrangling over the austerity measures probably lie ahead — political commentators said they could see no escape this time for the prime minister, whose Houdini-like ability to wriggle free from scandals is legendary.

“A season is over,” said Mario Calabresi, the editor in chief of the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa, who said Mr. Berlusconi told him that he was not only stepping down, but also would not run for office again.

In the end, it was not the sex scandals, the corruption trials against him or even a loss of popular consensus that appeared to end Mr. Berlusconi’s 17 years as a dominant figure in Italian political life. It was, instead, the pressure of the markets — which drove Italy’s borrowing costs to record highs this week — and the European Union, which could not risk his dragging down the euro and with it the world economy.

It’s good that he’s going, but the bigger picture is that Berlusconi’s continued political success has been almost entirely due to his near complete dominance of Italian television.

Self-serving clowns like Silvio are the inevitable result of media consolidation, whether it’s the Italian monopoly on commercial TV (and effective control of state TV), or the media oligopoly in the United States.

The problem is that while one can have free and fair elections, but without an independent and heterogeneous media, you stand a real risk of not having a free and fair campaign.

It Would Be Ironic If…………

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Pass the Popcorn

The first big name bankster to get put in the dock is Barack Obama’s biggest backer, Jon Corzine for his role in the collapse of MF Global.

You see it appears that first he successfully lobbied regulators to allow the trades that did his firm in, and then the firm commingled customer funds with their own private risk capital,* so now he is hiring a lawyer:

Jon S. Corzine has hired Andrew J. Levander, a leading white-collar criminal defense lawyer, according to three people briefed on the matter, as the former New Jersey governor deals with fallout from the collapse of MF Global, the brokerage firm he has run since last year.

Mr. Corzine resigned from MF Global on Friday morning and will not seek $12 million severance payments.

Federal authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission, are investigating the $630 million in missing customer money at MF Global.

Mr. Levander could not be reached as he is out of the country, according to his assistant. He did not return an e-mail seeking comment. Daniel O’Donnell, the chief executive of Mr. Levander’s law firm, Dechert, declined to comment.

In Mr. Levander, the chairman of Dechert, Mr. Corzine has retained a New York lawyer who is no stranger to defending prominent Wall Street executives. He represented John Thain, the former chief executive at Merrill Lynch, in a government inquiry related his role in Merrill’s sale to Bank of America. Ezra Merkin, a hedge fund manager who invested with Bernard L. Madoff, hired Mr. Levander to defend him against a New York attorney general’s lawsuit connected to the Madoff case.

The only question now is who is first, Barack Obama, claiming never to have known the guy, or the Republicans, who will try to super glue Corzine to him.

Pass the popcorn.

*The technical term for this is “stealing”.

OK, Maybe She Has a Chance

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Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaign raised $3.15 million in the 3rd quarter, more than double Wall Street darling Scott Brown’s haul of $1.55 million:

 Consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren is off to a quick start when it comes to raising money for her Senate campaign in Massachusetts, with a debut total — $3.15 million — that may even out-perform some of the Republican candidates for president.

Warren, who helped set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and is a favorite candidate among progressives, announced the impressive third-quarter haul in an email to her supporters Monday. She said that 96% of the contributions came in donations of $100 or less.

Note that, “Most of the money was raised since she formally joined the race for the Democratic nomination in mid-September.”

You gotta figure that she’s going to get a lot of sweat equity out of her supporters as well.

I think that the primary campaign is basically over, but I still think that Scott Brown, particularly with the enthusiastic backing of the banksters, and what will surely be tepid support from the Wall Street living Democratic establishment *cough* Obama *cough* will be a though nut to crack.

But I am no longer making a prediction about the outcome.

Like I Said, the Manchurian Democrat

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Click for full size


Democrats are not feeling the audacity


But the Republicans are all fired up

In 2008, Barack Obama convinced millions of young voters to enthusiastically vote for him.

Between 2009 and now, he has convinced these same folks that they and their votes do not matter:

In thinking about the 2012 presidential election, 45% of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic say they are more enthusiastic about voting than usual, while nearly as many, 44%, are less enthusiastic. This is in sharp contrast to 2008 and, to a lesser extent, 2004, when the great majority of Democrats expressed heightened enthusiasm about voting.

The most depressing thing about all of this that it’s likely that a lot of the new voters who came into the process are now likely to be apathetic for  years.

We know what happens when the only reason that people are given to vote Democratic is “The Republicans are Scary”.  Just look at John Kerry’s 2004 run, and I think that the Dems are progressively making this their only talking point, particularly if Obama gets his way and manages to gut cut Medicare and Medicaid.

H/t Americablog.

And The Knives Come Out for Elizabeth Warren

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You go, girl!

It appears that the powers that be in finance are trying to gin up a story about how there were irregularities on Elizabeth Warren’s TARP oversight panel because the details on compensation are not as granular as they would have liked.

It’s the usual suspects:

  • Politico, who has never seen a Republican talking point that they won’t echo.
  • The Boston Herald, which even if Rupert was forced to sell it, is still in his pocket.

In addition to being hostile to the idea that banks should be able to rip people off without consequences, she has also eloquently made the point that, “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” because the accumulation of wealth is an artifact of the support that the rest of society provides you: (see the vid as well)

In the video (at left), which was filmed at an event in Andover, Mass., Warren rebuts the GOP-touted notion that raising taxes on the wealthy amounts to “class warfare,” contending that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.”

Warren rejects the concept that it is possible for Americans to become wealthy in isolation.

“You built a factory out there? Good for you,” she says. “But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.”

She continues: “Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

It’s kind of an anti-Randroid philosophy that Democrats should be shouting from the heavens, but the only other political figure of any national stature who does is Bernie Sanders, and he ain’t a Dem.

I understand why the knives are out.  The Objectivist view of the divine right of wealth is an unspoken common wisdom among much of the political class, and real populism, as opposed to the teabagger rent-a-crowds,  is a threat to that.

Quote of the Day

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Politico, who always shorts Democratic Party Prospects, is saying that the Democrats’ chances of retaking the house are not good, and they uncork this one:

Now, resigned to the likelihood that the president will be a down-ballot drag in many races and absent signs of an electoral wave on the horizon, Democrats are scaling back their expectations.

(emphasis mine)

I tend to think of Politico as a bunch of shallow inside the beltway lizard brains (as in medulla oblongata), but they nailed it here.

Obama is a huge drag on the ticket, and the 2010 results, which were a reversal of historical proportions were the direct result of nationalizing the election and making Obama the issue.

I’m beginning to think that the eventual Republican nominee will have to do the equivalent of, “putting half a dozen children on a spit, and toasting them at the flame that comes out of their mouth,” to paraphrase Christopher Fry, in order for Obama to win.

Luckily for him, all the ‘Phants seem intent on doing this.

Well, Pull Down My Pants, and Paint My Butt Blue!

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The latest poll has Elizabeth Warren up two points over Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race, which, while within the margin or error, is still a 17 point swing in her favor:

Elizabeth Warren has had an incredibly successful launch to her Senate campaign and actually leads Scott Brown now by a 46-44 margin, erasing what was a 15 point deficit the last time we polled the state in early June.

Warren’s gone from 38% name recognition to 62% over the last three months and she’s made a good first impression on pretty much everyone who’s developed an opinion about her during that period of time. What was a 21/17 favorability rating in June is now 40/22- in other words she’s increased the voters with a positive opinion of her by 19% while her negatives have risen only 5%.

I would note that the general rule of thumb is that undecideds break 2:1 to the challenger, so this is a pretty ugly picture for the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts.

There are some important caveats here as well though.  Warren just announced, and so is likely experienced a bounce, and this is just one poll.

What’s more, Brown’s approval numbers are falling as well. (see chart pr0n)

My guess is that Massachusetts voters are beginning to understand that he is much more of a cog in the Republican party machine than he said while he was campaigning in the special election.

DoJ Files Against Texas Congressional Districts

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They are saying that the new districts violate the Voting Rights Act:

The Justice Department said Monday that Texas’ state House and congressional redistricting plans didn’t comply with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), indicating they thought the maps approved by Gov. Rick Perry (R) gave too little voting power to the growing Latino population in the state.

Officials with DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said the proposed redistricting plan for the State Board of Education (SBOE) and the state Senate complied with the Voting Rights Act, but indicated they had concerns with the state House plan and the plan for congressional redistricting.

The federal government “[denied] that the proposed Congressional plan, as compared with the benchmark, maintains or increases the ability of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice in each district protected by Section 5,” DOJ lawyers write in a filing. “Defendants deny that the proposed Congressional plan complies with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.”

For all I complain about Obama, the fact that the professional staff in the DoJ’s civil rights division are allowed to do their jobs is an improvement over Bush and His Evil Minions™.

Oh Crap

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As Dave Weigel, notes, “Pennsylvania Ponders Bold Democrat-Screwing Electoral Plan,” which would serve to award most of the states electoral votes to the Republican regardless of the vote count:

Laura Olson reports on the happenings in Harrisburg, where Republicans now control all of the branches of government:

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi is trying to gather support to change the state’s “winner-takes-all” approach for awarding electoral votes. Instead, he’s suggesting that Pennsylvania dole them out based on which candidate wins each of the 18 congressional districts, with the final two going to the contender with the most votes statewide.

In other reports, Pileggi sounds awfully sanguine about the effect this would have on PA as a swing state. Why even bring that up? Pennsylvania is typically a closely-divided state, and while it’s gone Democratic in every election since 1992, it’s been heavily campaigned-in every year.

So, let’s pretend this is a totally political neutral decision. If the next Republican candidate breaks the streak and wins the state, it would be horrible for him — he’d shed electoral votes. But if the president wins, he’s down at least nine, possibly ten electoral votes, because congressional districting is slanted towards the GOP.

When Democrats come to power, they try to do things and mend fences, and when Republicans come to power, they try to tear things down and use the political process in the relentless pursuit of power.

Considering that the American public generally considers Terri Schiavo to have better ideas to Republicans, but they remain competitive politically seems to indicate that they play the game a lot better than the Democrats do.

I think that it’s likely to happen, the idea of shaming Republicans into doing the right thing is laughable, though there is opposition, both from the Pennsylvania Republican Congressional delegation, as well as people who feel that the state would be ignored, as it would lose its swing state status.

Elizabeth Warren Announces Run for Massachusetts Senate

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Elizabeth Warren has officially declared her run for the Senate.

I understand why she feels the need to run, but I am pessimistic.

First, whatever you say about Republican Scott Brown, he is a very good campaigner, second, the Dems are rooting for her to lose almost as much as the Republicans are, because they can then argue that people don’t want real consumer protections.

And if she wins, she ends up in the Senate, where she would enter a seniority driven and hidebound old boys club that would do their level best to keep her away from any meaningful voice on finance.

I wish her luck, but it’s a lose-lose for her us.

Well, at least she’s better than Brown, who’s a smarmy right wing ratf%$#.

Her campaign web page is here.

Thanks Barack

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So, the Dems just lost the special election to replace Anthony Weiner, losing the Congressional district to the ‘Phants for the first time im almost 90 years. (!)

While the Democrat, David Weprin, by all accounts ran a horrible campaign, we also need to understand that that the Republicans aggressively tried to make this campaign national rather than local, and it does not bode well for keeping the White House, or the Senate, or retaking the House in 2012.

I understand that no will save it publicly, but this is not good news for Barack Obama or the Democratic party.

Unfortunately, particularly inside Obama administration’s reality distortion field, they are telling themselves that it’s not about them, and so will not learn from this.

And the Daily Show Writers Rejoice

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Yes, the wife of wrestling magnate Jim McMahon, Linda, following a failed campaign in which she dumped millions of her husbands dollars on a epically failed campaign for the Senate in 2010, has decided to run again for the Connecticut Senate seat:

Linda E. McMahon, the wrestling mogul who spent $50 million of her own money in an aggressive but failed Senate run in Connecticut last year, will announce in the coming week that she will try again, according to two Republicans who are close to her.

Ms. McMahon, the two Republicans said, will seek the party nomination next year for the seat being vacated by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and who announced that he would not run for re-election. They requested anonymity to avoid being seen as upstaging Ms. McMahon’s announcement.

Her candidacy has the potential to alter the calculations of other candidates and potential candidates, if only because she has demonstrated an ability to finance a statewide campaign with little difficulty.

In last year’s Senate race, Ms. McMahon built a formidable political organization in just months and then led a hard-charging campaign that transformed a political newcomer into a highly visible figure in the state.

In the end, however, Ms. McMahon, the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, lost to Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.

This time, Ms. McMahon plans to raise money from private donors instead of relying strictly on her own money, according to one Republican close to her. She decided to take this approach partly because of criticism last year that she was using her wealth to buy herself a seat in the Senate, the Republican said.

And because she understands the concept of throwing good money after bad, so she is looking for some useful idiots.

Still the comedic possibilities are endless.

Cheesehead Jim Crow

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Wisconsin passes a voter ID law, which included a provision for a free voter ID card, and now the head of the Wisconsin DOT has instructed his staff to do their best to conceal this fact from potential voters:

An internal memo from a top Department of Transportation official instructs workers at Division of Motor Vehicles service centers not to tell members of the public that they can obtain voter identification cards free of charge — unless they know to ask for it.

The memo, recently obtained by The Capital Times, was written by Steve Krieser and sent to all state Department of Transportation and Department of Motor Vehicles employees on July 1, the same day employees were to begin issuing photo IDs in accordance with a controversial new voter photo ID law adopted earlier in the year.

As laid out in the memo, failure to check a box when applying for photo ID with the Division of Motor Vehicles will result in the payment of $28. Interviews conducted about the memo suggest the state is more interested in continuing to charge the fee, which is required for a photo ID used for non-voting purposes, than it is in removing all barriers and providing easy access to a free, photo ID.

“While you should certainly help customers who come in asking for a free ID to check the appropriate box, you should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it,” Krieser writes to employees.

Like this is not a blatant attempt at voter suppression.

As to “Bull” Kreiser’s response when the story broke, he’s saying that:

In the meantime, Krieser says the Department of Transportation is planning to place signs at each of the DMV service offices that say people need to check the box on the form in order to receive an ID for free. He says the signs are “in the design phase” and could not give a date when they would be placed in DMV offices.

My guess is that there some serious typography issues here, so it will be 2022 before the signs are ready.

A family friend of ours grew up in Mississippi, and is old enough to remember the literacy tests.

Hers was straight forward, a simple section of the Mississippi constitution, and when she finished, the clerk says with a smile, “You should see the ones [section] we use for the n*****s.”

This feels just the same.

ActBlue — Elizabeth Warren Draft Fund

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Well, it looks likes Elizabeth Warren has a fundraising issue in her naisant bid for Senator from Massachusetts, specifically that Scott “Wall Street’s Bitch” Brown is raising money hand over fist from the Banksters, because the idea of someone who would prevent them from cheating the average consumer scares the sh%$ out of them:

Elizabeth Warren’s combative history with Wall Street could create a fundraising dilemma for her burgeoning Senate campaign.

Her ardent grassroots following on the left — forged during stints as TARP watchdog and as mastermind of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — would likely make her a formidable Senate candidate in Massachusetts.

But her reputation as sheriff to Wall Street could also be a liability against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), a popular Republican who has been stockpiling campaign cash in anticipation of a tight 2012 race.

If Warren runs, she will have to decide whether to court high-rolling donors in the financial services community — an awkward choice both personally and politically, given her carefully crafted image as antagonist to big finance.

“I think it’s pretty clear she’s going to run the classic, grassroots campaign here in Massachusetts,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a longtime Democratic operative in the state. “That means she’s going to rely on folks here to give low-dollar donations here a number of times.”

But without the support of heavy-hitting donors in Massachusetts, many of whom work at hedge funds and other financial firms, Warren might find it difficult to keep up with Brown’s fundraising juggernaut.

I tend to think that her bigger problem is that she has to fairly explicitly criticize Obama, but the (IIRC) she needs a modicum of support from the party establishment to net enough votes in the party caucus to even get on the primary ballot.

I tend to think that Warren will do more good outside of the Senate than inside the Senate, if just because being a woman with no seniority in what is a pretty misogynist institution is not a high impact position.

In any case, you can donate here, or via Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page

H/t Sarah Burris at Crooks and Liars

Kasich Blinks

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With Democrats almost retaking the Senate in Wisconsin, and his union busting bill down significantly in the polls, Ohio wingnut Governor John Kasich is asking for Democratic Party and labor groups if he could negotiate to forestall the referendum:

Gov. John Kasich and fellow Republicans William Batchelder, Ohio House speaker from Medina, and Senate President Tom Niehaus of New Richmond, offered today to revise the controversial collective bargaining law, known as Senate Bill 5, if public unions will drop their campaign to repeal the bill on the November ballot.

We Are Ohio, the coalition of unions behind the repeal effort, has rejected earlier back-channel efforts by some Republicans to strike a deal, citing the GOP-controlled legislature’s unwillingness to compromise when the bill was written.

Following a press conference by Kasich, We Are Ohio issued the following statement rejecting a call for a compromise.

“We’re glad that Governor Kasich and the other politicians who passed SB 5 are finally admitting this is a flawed bill,” said Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio. “Just like the bill was flawed, this approach to a compromise is flawed as well. Our message is clear. These same politicians who passed this law could repeal it and not thwart the will of the people. They should either repeal the entire bill or support our efforts and encourage a no vote on Issue 2.”

Good for them.

The only reason to call off the referendum that you are certain to win is if he backs down completely, which will not only weaken Kasich among the average voters, but will poison his relationships with Republicans in the state house, because he seriously twisted arms to get SB 5 passed in the first place.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.