Posted on 11/12/2008 6:44:18 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
But now, in its current configuration, President Obama doesn't have a vote to spare, which means Arkansas' own Sen. Blanche Lincoln will be forced to cast some very unpopular votes. She will no longer be able to straddle the ideological fence between a Republican administration and her own party. Lincoln would have been vulnerable heading into 2010 regardless of the outcome of the presidential contest, but with her party taking a decidedly left-of-center approach, many state and national Republicans believe Arkansas could be a GOP pick-up.
With respect to the other chamber of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's majority is a three-legged stool comprised of liberals, DLC-types and newer moderate-to-conservative members. The latter will find it hard to embrace the Democrats' leftist agenda with the prospect of re-election looming in 2010. Had the Democrats captured 30-plus seats they could have allowed those members to walk on all the tough votes, but by only picking up 19 additional seats, the votes may be close and a lot more contentious.
Closer to home, the state GOP stopped the bleeding by picking up legislative seats after losing numbers for two consecutive election cycles. In fact, of the four major races in which Gov. Mike Beebe openly campaigned for Democratic candidates, the Republican won. Greenwood's Republican Terry Rice defeated Democrat Bill Walters for Walters' wife's old House seat. In Russellville, after being outspent by her Beebe-backed Democratic opponent, Andrea Lea won her House race, and North Little Rock Republican Jane English won despite the governor openly appearing in her opponent's political advertisements. And, in the state's highest profile political race, Conway's incumbent Republican state Sen. Gilbert Baker was re-elected despite Beebe's aggressive campaign for his Democratic opponent.
All was not lost for Republicans Tuesday night.
(Excerpt) Read more at arkansasnews.com ...
The key to beating Lincoln starts with actually running a candidate.
If you didn’t already know who was a Republican and who was a Democrat in these races it would be hard to tell because the Democrats don’t mention their party in the ads. They also run as conservatives which is a lie but it helps get them elected.
I thought Brock was more of a Dubie Republican, but I’m not entirely sure. He didn’t sound like an outright liberal in literature I read in the past. It’d be interesting to see if, heaven forbid, anything happened to Leaky or the Socialist, Douglas appoint Brock to the vacancy. Of course, since Brock is a Republican, if he lost the special, the media would just chock it up to “will of the people.” Were he a Dem, “profoundly racist.”
Yes, incumbent Whig Erastus Fairbanks got a plurality, but he apparently made enough enemies at the time over the issue of prohibition (successfully passed in the House during his Governorship), and enough anti-Fairbanks Whigs and Brainerd supporters, along with regular Democrats, handed Robinson the Governorship by a single vote.
Interesting that Robinson never tried to run again, although he probably saw the writing on the wall with the collapse of the Whigs and Free-Soilers, reforming into the super-powerful Republican party in 1854. There were no longer going to be any more competitive three-way splits, as the new GOP would usually get at, above, or a bit below 2/3rds of the vote for decades to come. Indeed, not until 1926 did another regular Democrat eclipse his 38% showing for the Governorship (and they got 39%).
Robinson’s last action in public life was when he was elected to attended the raucus 1860 Democrat National Convention in Charleston as the chairman of the VT delegation — so raucus, in fact, that the 55-year old ex-Governor had a massive stroke two days into the April meeting and died there. His short bio said he didn’t even leave any children behind.
****
Regarding VT’s political decay, I’ve written about that in posts in the past (you’d probably have to go hunting for them as I’m lazy about documenting my essays - shame on me). The short version is essentially when the GOP decided to go with its more liberal wing over its Conservative one in the mid-century, that was the recipe for disaster. Democrats made gains by the late ‘50s and into the ‘60s, partly sped up by the influx of liberal out-of-staters. NH, conversely, went with their Conservative GOP wing for the most part, which kept the state from going downhill for awhile — although now we’re seeing how long they held off the barbarians for.
Here’s some of your musings about Vermont’s political slide into liberalism:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757723/posts?page=7#7
The economy crashed. It’s as simple as that. Of course McCain would outrun any national Republican there.
Wow, almost 2 years ago. You sure found that in a jiff. Thanks. ;-)
Huh ? Norm, he ran BEHIND Dubya — in EVERY New England state. Conversely, in mine, he ran ahead of Dubya.
There were all sorts of pre-gen. election polling showing McCain running strong in NE. The economy crashed. He did well in the South because they just plain don’t like Obama.
Let me put it another way: if Dubya had run in 2008 he would’ve ran far behind McCain in NE.
Polls are worthless. It’s the final votes that matter. He still failed to do what his biggest boosters claimed, and run ahead in New England. Faulty economy or no, the outcome may have ended up the same. I think had we run an actual down-the-line Conservative who blasted that appalling bailout, we had a far better chance of improving those numbers (and I’ll state Palin probably saved McCain from an even larger wipeout).
Well, absent the Constitutional amendment, had he been permitted to run a third time, he’d have never been renominated. A bit of a red herring.
Baloney. He did everything I claimed except out west where they didn’t put in enough campaigning. I never said he’d pull off a miracle. In fact I had known he would win (and polls up until the meltdown proved it. I never saw that happening and from then on I accepted it was an uphill battle. I felt we still had a decent chance - and we did. PA fell out because of the last minute Wright ad which probably hurt. Ohterwise McCain kept the margins in the east and midwest very close for an anti-GOP, wrong track election.
Just dispense with ‘booster’ and use my name. It’s much more forthright!
Carter was renominated and Bush was/is not a worse President than him.
Thats iffy. The pre-primary polls showing McCain beating Obama in the all the battleground states stemmed from the fact that Obama wasn’t well known at the time. Once Obama picked up steam, he was able to defeat Hillary and eventually McCain. McCain did appeal to indies at a higher rate than other GOP candidates. However that indie appeal was soft. I’ve seen suburban independents sit on the fence between Obama and McCain. The financial crisis pushed them to Obama. However, even if the financial crisis didn’t happen, those surburban indies may have gone for Obama anyway for the sake of trying something new.
McCain had no ground game and little money. Thats why he took public financing. The base didn’t want to do anything for him before Palin came long.
In retrospect, I think Romney may have been able to do marginally better. The base tolerated Mitt more than McCain. Romney would have been able to raise $100 million more (no way any GOP candidate could match Obama’s warchest). Plus, he would have developed a better ground game. Because of that, Mitt would have maintained IN and NC, but lose all the other battleground states.
Not the pre-primary polls, but the post-primary polls which had McCain doing mostly exceptionally well in OH and FL (in particular), close or slightly up in the west, and leading mostly in Virginia until late September.
Look you’ve got not argument from me. He was running a brilliant campaign during the month of August and early September and I wish they had kept it up. Romney likely would’ve done somewhat better after the crash. But I’m not a predictor of uncommon events and I won’t apologize for my support of McCain now or ever.
Oh, hell’s bells, Norm. I wasn’t talking JUST about you, since if I was, I’d have said you specifically. I’m not blaming you here, at least not exclusively. ;-) There were a number of McCain supporters (media types, pundits, etc) making the same claims that McCain was going to just outdo Dubya, especially in New England. It never materialized. You can cite all the polls you want, but those were ultimately bullcrap. Aside from Gov. Palin, who was mishandled by McCain’s people, this was the lousiest f’ing campaign for President in my lifetime, even eclipsing Bush, Sr’s meltdown in ‘92 (and that was bad because he seemed so bored that he didn’t even want to win). McCain had ample opportunity to go for the jugular, and he didn’t.
I remember seeing ex-OK Gov. Frank Keating on tv about a month ago or so, and in a very short answer, he forcefully made the case for why the False Messiah was incredibly dangerous (indeed, Keating was one of the FBI agents in the ‘70s who pursued his mentor, William Ayers). I thought for a moment, holy crap, we should’ve nominated Keating. He wasn’t scared for a second about calling a spade a spade on the criminal connections and following through in connecting the dots.
McCain couldn’t and wouldn’t do it, partly because he’s never demonstrated a killer instinct against Democrats (unlike against Conservatives in his party, which he always never hesitated to attack) and also partly because he was engaged too much in collegiality towards a fellow Senator. I was waiting for the moment in the debates to see him rip into him with, “You’re DAMN right I’m questioning your patriotism ! I’m questioning your experience ! I’m questioning your connections ! I’m questioning your agenda !And I’m g’damned questioning your place of birth ! Where the hell is your birth certificate ? I had to produce mine because I was born in the Panama Canal Zone, where’s yours, FRIEND ?” And... nothing. Half-hearted comments and pulled punches.
But, hey, I still schleped my absentee ballot off because I didn’t want to be accused of “electing ‘Him’” and tried to persuade an anti-McCain Conservative to bite the bullet and do the same. As somebody who did vote for him, I’ve damn well earned the right to say he failed ME and others as a candidate in stopping this horrific madness about to ensue in 2 months and 7 days. He forgot this election wasn’t just about him, it was about all of US. WE pay the price with his loss, since Johnny keeps his Senate seat, same as before. I think if he had dispensed with the grating “my friends” schtick and had shown that he TRULY wanted to win (which lasted for all of 5 minutes after picking Palin), we’d not be in the $hit we’re in right now. The wrong candidate at the wrong time.
And remember, Norm. It’s not like I didn’t warn you what would happen.
That's because he was too busy going for his own jugular.
Carter was renominated despite being damaged because Ted Kennedy imploded after an embarrassing interview in which he failed to enunciate WHY he wanted to be President (aside from his grandiose sense of entitlement). His approval rating was also higher than Dubya’s, too. If Dubya tried to run for a 3rd term with approvals in the 20s or 30s, he would’ve been destroyed.
I'm gonna contest that and say he would've done worse. The man's record was simply horrible, and the media would've spent from the Spring until Election Day exposing what I've been saying about him for close to two years on FR, he was nothing but a pretty face and an empty suit (with a non-Conservative record). Add to that, Slick Willard would've picked a total sycophant/flunkie/cypher for VP, in keeping with his usual M.O. He would've had a BIG problem in the South, from his liberal record as a failed Massachusetts Governor, the Mormon issue, and just the slick, used-car salesman persona. He wouldn't have even been able to carry a single New England state, either. A lot of folks I know that could bite the bullet, including yours truly, to vote for McCain, would've not only not voted for him, but would've voted against Slick Willard had he been the general nominee. It would've been an even bigger disaster from top to bottom, and rightfully so.
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