The margin is significantly less than the number of absentee ballots, and possibly smaller than the number of provisional ballots, so a final count may be weeks off, and then there will be the challenges.
IIRC, the provisional and absentee ballots will be counted in about 2 weeks.
There is a special election in the 20th congressional district of New York tonight. I hope the Democrat, Scott Murphy, wins. However, I am also frustrated that Murphy has received nearly $360,000 on Act Blue from around 2,000 donors. Given that Murphy has made it clear that he will attempt to join the Blue Dogs if he wins the election, the progressive small donor world should not have given him a single dime.
We–participants in blog and email list small donor fundraising efforts–have to completely stop raising money for Blue Dogs. We should not give a single cent to any current member of the Blue Dog coalition. We should not give any money at all to any candidate who refuses to rule out joining the Blue Dogs once in Congress. If we hope to improve Democratic behavior in Congress, this break has to be as public and as thorough as possible.
Agreed.
Scott Murphy may be the very best we can get in that district, and if that is the case, then liberal campaign contributions are better spent elsewhere.
I would “embrace and extend” his message, and include the corporatist “New Democratic Caucus” on the list of people that we should not contribute to.
This goes double for folks in safe Dem districts, which NY-20 is not, Republicans have a registration advantage there, but why pay for someone who will, when the going gets tough, shoot down your agenda?
But I still want Murphy to win, I just won’t give him my money or time.
Honestly, even with the new poll numbers, this is a heavily Republican distract, so I my guess would be that the Republican has the advantage, particularly given the low turn out in special elections, so I would expect the ‘Phant to win in this Tuesday’s election.
In either case, Jim Tadesco (R), and Scott Murphy (D) contest is much closer than the district’s fundamentals would suggest.
Benyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak have come to an agreement for a coalition government, and the Labor Party central committee voted to approve the deal, so it appears that there is now a governing coalition is Israel.
It appears that Netanyahu gave labor much more than just the Defense portfolio:
It’s clear from this deal that Netanyahu was desperate to have this, given Labor’s poor showing (only 13 seats), and it also represents a return by the Labor Party to the interests of, well, (small l) labor, which may go a long way towards distinguishing themselves from Kadima.
I think that Netanyahu could have gone right for the coalition, but the idea of actually having to follow up on his hard line rhetoric during the campaign scares him.
Benyamin Netanyahu is aggressively pursuing a coalition with Labor, and strange as it sounds, it might happen because Ehud Barak really wants to stay on as head of the Defense Ministry, though some of his fellow Laborites are aghast at the prospect.
I would also take issue with one of the points that the author of the second link, Jeff Barak, has with Avigdor Lieberman being the Foreign Minister: It’s actually one of the two positions where his positions are least likely to cause a problem, because his three basic planks are a two state solution (and as FM he won’t get to draw those boundaries), hostility to the Arab population inside the Green Line, and staunch secularism.
I’d much rather see him being the Minister of Religious Services, but when all is said and done, the FM position keeps him away from internal Israeli politics.
So, we now have a New York Post reporter breathlessly reporting that he is planning a “secret” tax hike on the rich.
Well, considering the fact that the Wall Street masters of the universe upon whom he hoped to fund his reelection bid are now less popular than either Dick Cheney or a case of the clap,* this is not surprising, though according to Dicker, Paterson wants to appear to be against the tax hikes while pushing them through, which indicates once again that he has the political instincts of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, or a packet of Fleishmann’s active dry yeast.*
My guess is that he’s flailing around because the polls show him being crushed by Andrew Cuomo in the primary, and by Rudolph Guiliani in the general by numbers that exceed what a banker can supply to him by the way of campaign funds.
*For some reason, I always confuse the two.†
†I love it when I get to “twofer” footnotes.
She has accepted the offer to be the undersecretary of State for arms control and international security, and this means that a line is already forming for the special election.
This is a safe Democratic district, so let’s hope that she is replaced by a member of the “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.”
Because they voted against taxing the AIG bonuses, and they are among the most right wing Democrats in the house of representatives:
Challengers, start your engines, you have an issue that they won’t be able to avoid.
Al Franken has filed paperwork with the election court for the Coleman campaign to reimburse them for court costs.
Seeing how Coleman has raised more money for his court challenge than he did for his campaign, I would really like to see the smarmy bastard soaked.
This is the first deal signed, and it takes Netanyahu to 42 of the 61 seats needed to govern.
About the only bright side on this is the possibility, however slight, that Israel Beiteinu rather militant secularism will to some degree inform the political discourse regarding the Heredim* Schnorers.†
But that still does not excuse IB’s rather militant racism.
*Ultra-orthodox.
Well, it looks like I was premature about Franken resting his case.
They have a few more witnesses who could not make it to court yesterday, so they should wrap today.
Thank God! It looks like the Minnesota Senate contest is finally in the end game.
Hopefully, the election judges can rule shortly, though since the ‘Phants are paying Coleman lots of money to string this out, I would be surprised if Al Franken is sworn in before the end of March.
And considering how moderates have deserted the party, I would expect Pat Toomey to beat him this time, as last time the margin in the primary was less than 1%.
Thankfully, I do not think that Toomey can win the general election though….Though Pennsylvania did give us Rick “that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex” Santorum.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has proposed a bill making it illegal, which is nice, but I don’t see the word “felony”.
In reviewing the full text of the bill it appears to be just a fine, though I guess a perjury prosecution could be possible too, if you can show truly malicious intent.
Here. Word is that he is the 2nd best guy running, after Tom Geoghegan.
He was endorsed by the Tribune, which is probably why he won.
He does not appear to be a part of Mayor Richie Daley’s machine, but I think that this will result in a primary challenge in 2010, not support of his opponent in the special general election.
It appears that opponents to the Mayor of a small part of Kabul President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is attempting to move up the date for a presidential election from August to April, in order to prevent his rivals the time necessary to organize and campaign.
Seriously, this is a guy that the US put there, because he a close contact of the CIA in Poppy Bush’s time, and because of his ties to American energy companies, and we’re surprised that he wants to game the election process in his Favor?
Is there anything that Bush and His Evil Minions&trade touched that didn’t turn to crap?
Rod Blagojevich gift that keeps on giving, Roland Burris, has launched a web site dedicated to his reelection.
Great googley moogley, please make it stop.
Roland Burris not only thinks that he can win a primary, but that he can win a general, but at this point, I think that Dick Cheney is more likely than he is to win a state wide election in the state of Illinois.
*I mean this in the meaning of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
Less offensive words have been created in the many languages of the galaxy, such as joojooflop, swut and Holy Zarquon’s Singing Fish.
The use of bad language can have unforseen circumstances. One example is the war between the G’gugvunts and the Vl’hurgs, caused by a casual remark made by Arthur Dent being mistaken as a terrible insult.
Simultaneous Babel Fish translation also means that any being can be rude to any other being without the need for extensive explanations. This has also started many wars.
The reason the Earth has been shunned for so long is also due to a language problem. On Earth, Belgium refers to a small country. Throughout the rest of the galaxy, Belgium is the most unspeakably rude word there is.†
†Rumor has it that this came from Douglas Adams’ experience hitchhiking across Europe. He got where he needed to generally, but not in Belgium, so he had to walk across the whole country.
It’s an open secret that the Republicans do not want Jim Bunning to run for reelection in 2010, and it appears that the former hall of fame pitcher has said in private conversations that he will quit the Senate and allow Democratic Governor Steve Beshear to appoint his successor if the party establishment tries to push him out.
If he quits, with or without Franken, and with or without a successor, the Dems have cloture without a single Republican vote.
Heh.
Still going on, but I’m tired of this, so just go here for updates.
I think that the judges want to hang Coleman’s lawyers by their tongues from a flagpole.
This development is not a surprise.
Once Lieberman said that he wanted Likud, Perez really had no choice.
Livni, however, is having none of a unity government.