Category: Elections

The Republican Party in Staten Island is Having a VERY Bad Year

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When I heard the news that Francis H. Powers, Republican candidate for Congress in Staten Island had died was :

My condolences to his family, but the sequence of events was:

  • The incumbent was busted driving drunk to his mistress, who bore him a daughter, and decided not to run for reelection.
  • When Francis H. Powers (Frank), was chosen as the Republican candidate, his son Francis M. Powers (Fran) decided to run for election against him, making Frank the but of the late night talk shows.
  • And now Frank Powers is dead, and Republicans cannot find anyone else interested in running.

This has gone from challenge to fiasco.

Tsvangirai Withdraws from Zimbabwe Runoff, Calls for International Intervention

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Basically, he’s saying that any election would be a sham because of the levels of violence.

Needless it does not help that Mugabe is claiming rule through divine right:

“Only God, who appointed me, will remove me, not the MDC, not the British,” Mugabe declared in the city of Bulawayo on Friday. “Only God will remove me!”

Tsvangirai is also calling for international intervention, though it is clear that as long as Thabo Mbeki is involved in the process, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will do nothing, so any meaningful intervention will have to go through the UN, as South Africa is the colossus of the region, but Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president, is the functions as the moral pygmy shielding Mugabe.

Thankfully, he should be succeeded by Jacob Zuma in the less than a month.

Hopefully, individual countries will go the route of Australia, and impose tough sanctions, such as, “financial sanctions and suspending non-humanitarian aid, and defence and ministerial links, besides travel bans on members of the Zimbabwe regime.”

Zimbabwe: Mugabe Rejects Mbeki Plan (Page 1 of 1)

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What I find remarkable is that even with the violence and criminality of ZANU-PF in the runoff, they are still not sure that they can win an election, because there are now reports that there are arguments among the leadership as to what should be done if he loses.

Seriously, it appears that they are running up against their limits as vote riggers.

It has apparently gotten so bad that Mbeki is actually starting to propose solutions, specifically something similar to what happened in Kenya, with a PM and a unity government.

I think that this is unlikely, as Mugabe’s government is proceeding with the trumped uptreason trial of Tendai Biti, the secretary-general of the MDC.

Senate Polling Numbers

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In Maine, we have Susan Collins(R) fading, she is now leading Tom Allen(D) by 49%-42%, but any incumbent below 50% is in trouble, and not so long ago it was something like 52-39.

The one that surprises me though are the numbers for Mississippi, where the kinda-sorta incumbent* Roger Wicker(R) is behind Ronnie Musgrove(D) 46%-47%.

I would not expect that in Mississippi.

*Wicker has been in the Senate for only a few months, he was appointed to replace Lott when he retired to become a lobbyist .

Zimbabwe Update

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Things are not looking good there.

First, we have Mbeki visiting Zimbabwe, and my best guess would be that he told Mugabe that he was doing just fine. Certainly Mbeki’s visit did nothing to prevent Mugabe from expelling a UN human rights official.

It increasingly appears that the Jacob Zuma, who is under investigation for corruption, is the only leader in the ANC who is showing moral authority. This time, he’s saying that the runoff has been tainted by Mugabe’s actions.

Assuming he stays out of jail, Zuma should succeed Mbeki shortly, which would be to the benefit of everyone in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is also worth noting that Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, himself no stranger to stolen elections, has called on Mugabe to step down.

Finally, we have the continuing problem of violence by the opposition’s skulls against ZANU-PF batons and pipes. The mayor of Harare and 4 MDC activists bodies were found bludgeoned to death.

Mugabe Calls on Opposition to Stop Breaking Batons With Their Skulls

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Also, I believe that he objects at the opposition’s attempts to stain perfectly good steel toed boots with their blood.

I am, of course, speaking metaphorically. He’s actually threatening to arrest members of the opposition because he claims that they are instigating violence.

I actually find it reassuring. We in the US don’t have the most shameless leader in the world.

Senate Polling

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  • SurveyUSA: Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 50%; Bruce Lunsford (D-MN) 46%: I’m surprised that it’s this close now. McConnell is still at the magic 50% number, but he’s the minority leader of the Senate.
  • Rasmussen Reports™: Ted Stephens (R-AK) 46%; Mark Begich (D-AK) 44%: Stevens is in real trouble. One of the truisms of politics are that undecideds break against the incumbent by at least 2:1.
  • SurveyUSA: Norm Coleman (R-MN) 52%; Al Franken (D-MN), if Jesse Ventura enters the race as an independent, it becomes (R)41%-(D)31%-(I)23%: This as me bumming. I hate that smarmy bastard Coleman. One hopes that the race will become more about Norm Coleman, and less about Al Franken.
  • Rasmussen Reports™: Mark Warner (D-VA) 60%; Jim Gilmore (R-VA) 33%: Virginia will have two Democratic Senators.
  • Rasmussen Reports™: Pat Roberts (R-KS) 48%; Jim Slattery (D-KS) 39%: The fact that the incumbent Republican in Kansas is below 50% is simply stunning. I think that this is unlikely Dem pickup, but the idea that a Democrat has a non-insane shot at this, Roberts is below 50%, is stunning.

Not Getting it in the EU

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Looking at this report on the responses to the failure of the Irish referendum on the new EU treaty, it’s clear that the many of the movers and shakers simply don’t get what their problem is.

I am generally not a big fan of the referendum as a process, but it is a valid process, and the degree that the Eurocrats are claiming that it is somehow illegitimate, they are reinforcing every negative stereotype about them.

The problem is quite simple, and has 3 parts:

  1. The new constitution is too damn complex. At 250 pages, no one understands all of its sections, and so this breeds distrust.
  2. The response to the failure of the last constitution, where France and the Netherlands had referenda that failed was to eliminate referenda, which further breeds distrust in the process.
  3. Among the Eurocrats, there seems to be the idea that the decision making structures of the EU must be insulated from politics, which means that they are insulated from democracy, which further breeds distrust.

Simply put, in order to update the EU governance structures such that they will win the support of the public, or at least the Irish public, since any change in Ireland mandates a referenda, these structures must be seen as less opaque and more democratic.

Updates on Various Races

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Rasmussen Reports™: has Norm Coleman at 48% and Al Franken 45%, and it is not good for an incumbent to be below 50%. This will be winnable, even with the phony scandals drummed up by Coleman’s bully boys.

The race for Fossella’s seat in Staten Island is a tossup, though it has historically been a fairly solid Republican district.

Rasmussen Reports™ has Liddy Dole with a 14-Point Lead Over Kay Hagan, 53%-39%. The last poll had Hagan up by 1 point, immediately after she won the primary, but Dole has been running ads, and Hagan has not.

Ireland Rejects EU Treaty

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They voted it down in a referendum.

There have been a couple of problems with the EU efforts to streamline how they operate:

  • There appears to be an organizational insulate many senior career bureaucrats from “political interference”, which means insulating their decisions from democracy, which was seen as a negative by the Irish voters because it is a negative.
  • The voters are looking at a 250+ page document, and they have no confidence that anyone can understand what it means.

If the EU comes back with a document where decision making rests in the hands of elected representatives, and one that is short enough to understand, they will likely get approval.

The US constitution is under 10 pages. There is no reason for a governing document to be that long.

Zimbabwe is Getting Worse

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We have food aid intended for children seized and handed out at a Mugabe rally, which would be bad parody if it weren’t true.

We’ve also had MDC’s number two man, Secretary General Tendai Biti, arrested and charged with treason, which carries a death penalty, for writing a document describing a transition to MDC rule.

It appears that the judiciary is functioning on some level though, as a judge has directed the police to bring him to court tomorrow.

Mugabe is merrily escalating the violance, deploying more ‘war vetrans’ to the campaign, and telling them that they should be Mugabe says war vets ready for battle.

The UN secretary general is sending Haile Menkerios as a high ranking envoy to Zimbabwe in an attempt to resolve this issue, but I do not think that it will do any good.

Update on Republithug Corruption

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Busy day.

We have former Congressman Curt Weldon tied into a Russian influence buying scheme, all laundered through a shady non-profit.

Curt Weldon was, of course one of those guys who saw agents of hostile governments everywhere…who knew he was one?

The fine folks at TPM note that former Rep. Sweeney’s (now ex-) wife, the one that he beat when he wasn’t driving drunk, was being paid for work she never did at a “fundraising firm” that she ran.

In the small fry category, we have Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) neglection to mention $286,278 in expenditures and $102,044 in contributions in her 2002 campaign. It could just be a clerical error, but seeing as how they neglected to mention a donation from “Friends of Duke Cunningham”, and over a hundred grand spent on her Daughter and Son-in-law’s “political consulting firm”, I’m thinking that we have some self dealing going on.