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A Brief Update on 117 House Races October 18, 2010 2:57 P.M. By Jim Geraghty Tags: 2010 As promised, here is a quick update on that May list of 99 open seats or vulnerable Democrats. As you can see, quite a few have been added; we’re now up to 117. (I added one, WA-2, after initial posting.) However, this list includes some races that appeared as potentially competitive earlier and now aren’t, such as Rep. Dan Boren’s reelection bid in Oklahoma. My current assessment is in line with the conventional wisdom: Roughly 100 seats are in play under the broader...

On Sunday, ABC's Christiane Amanpour waxed nostalgic on the "long and venerable tradition of conservatism in this country" as exemplified by President Reagan and William F. Buckley Jr. "People are looking at the Tea Party and saying this is not conservatism as we knew it but it's extreme," she speculated. The supposed radicalism of today stands in contrast with what she called the "intellectual conservatism" of the Reagan era. This left-wing promotion to intellectual respectability would come as a surprise to Reagan, who was called a lot of things by liberals but never "intellectual." In general, liberals viewed the Gipper...

Democratic incumbent Patty Murray is barely ahead of Republican challenger Dino Rossi now as the lead seesaws again in Washington’s neck-and-neck U.S. Senate race. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Washington shows Murray with 49% of the vote to Rossi’s 46%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see question wording, click here.) Less than two weeks ago, the numbers were reversed with Rossi holding a minimal 49% to 46% lead, highlighting how close this race has been for months. The race remains a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports...

Andrew Breitbart has been introducing a myriad of Black Republican candidates running for office in November. Too many to post here. I'm sure the main stream media will pick right up on this./s

With a mere 18 days to go until the elections on November 2, Democrats have once again reached into their dusty old playbook, and are using the hail Mary strategy of politics: demonizing their opponents, a flea flicker of a play when you’re down by 17 with two minutes left on the clock. The play’s worked often enough that the old team is reluctant to discard it, no matter what the current game is. ...(more)

Democrats could revive the public healthcare option if they maintain their majorities in Congress, the House Democrats' third-ranking member said Friday. "Reelect me, keep Democrats on the field. And when we come back next year, maybe we will get to the public option," Majority Whip James Clyburn (S.C.) said during an appearance on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Clyburn has been traveling the country and making media appearances this week in an effort to drum up lagging voter enthusiasm on the Democratic side heading into the Nov. 2 midterms. The public healthcare option was a top prize for liberal activists...

An amazing revelation over at BigGovernment.com. They report Illinois has been “lying” about whether or not military ballots mailed on September 18 as required by Federal law. They lied to the DOJ.  Obviously if they did lie, this is not a happy day for America’s servicemembers. But take special note of why the lie worked: because the Department of Justice deploys a Keystone Kops enforcement operation. You can actually read the extent of the Justice Department’s inquiry to Illinois here.  It isn't much.  After the Illinois board of elections tells the DOJ that the ballots mailed in time in all the...

Obama: Republicans Will Have to Learn to Get Along With Me Published October 13, 2010 | FoxNews.com President Obama reveals in a magazine article that he is weighing what to do if Republicans win the House majority next month, and has come up with a novel approach: Make the GOP work with him. In a seeming twist on the post-1994 midterm calculation made by President Bill Clinton -- when Republicans pummeled Democrats in the congressional election -- Obama said he thinks Republicans will have to move in his direction no matter the outcome of the Nov. 2 vote. "It may...

House Race Changes Isaac Wood, House Race Editor October 14th, 2010 Polling, independent expenditures, and the general intensification of campaigns across the country provide us with new clues about the November outcome that is in store. Our overall view of the Republican wave remains the same, at a GOP net pick-up of 47 seats, but we now know more about which seats are truly endangered and where each side was just tilting at windmills. This week, we make 26 changes to our House ratings. Among our changes this week, there is a lone bright spot for Democrats. In OH-13, incumbent...

Ok...so I am hearing some talk of how the races, both house and senate--and the governors too and such--are "tightening up". Some here are getting worried--that maybe the GOP and the Tea Party will NOT do too well in a couple of weeks IN fact---some here--and elsewhere--fear we will not even win the house....let alone the Senate!! However....I am not too worried. I am not sure we will get "more than 100 house seats" as some say--but I expect 50-70 or so, and am hopeful for 12 senate seats too. The GOP STILL has a BIG edge in all of...

WASHINGTON -- As if voters don't have enough to be angry about this election year, the government is expected to announce this week that more than 58 million Social Security recipients will go through another year without an increase in their monthly benefits. It would mark only the second year without an increase since automatic adjustments for inflation were adopted in 1975. The first year was this year. "If you're the ruling party, this is not the sort of thing you want to have happening two weeks before an election," said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy commissioner at the Social...

But the other big force is political independents—voters who have no particular allegiance to either party and who don't tend to have strong ideological leanings. These are the voters who drifted toward the Democrats in 2006, allowing them to take over control of the House from Republicans. Then they jumped firmly onto Barack Obama's bandwagon in 2008, ousting Republicans from the White House and making Mr. Obama the first Democrat to win a majority of the national vote since Jimmy Carter. Now they have turned again, and are pushing the system the other way. "For the third national election in...

First he goes after Andy Cuomo with allegations of extra-marital affairs–this coming from a man who fathered a child with his mistress. Next comes comments about Cuomo's "prowess." Then just in time for National Coming Out Day–today–Carl Paladino obsesses about gyrating gay men in Speedos at a Gay Pride Parade. You think Carl is a little obsessed with sex? Actually, I think he’s obsessed with grabbing headlines and media exposure regardless of the impact of his sinking campaign for Governor of New York State....

You might think that a prominent veterans organization like the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) would actually reserve its political endorsements for, you know, veterans, or at least those politicians that actually demonstrate some level of respect for the military. But you would be wrong. And the problem is not just the VFW; rather, the VFW’s current lobbyist-driven fiasco simply serves to illustrate how out-of-touch the Washington in-crowd is with the feelings of us benighted souls dwelling outside the beltway. In the Florida 22nd Congressional District race, incumbent Democrat Ron Klien is running against Republican challenger Allen West. Actually, he’s...

With polls showing Republicans increasingly well-positioned to seize control of the House, the Democrats are planning TV ad blitzes to shore up their best-positioned incumbents and a handful of challengers in races they believe they can still win.

Mr. Donilon began as a young political operative for President Jimmy Carter and later was chief of staff for Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration. He has long operated in the area between politics and national security. He coached Mr. Obama on foreign policy for his debates in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Republican challenger Dino Rossi has edged slightly ahead of incumbent Democrat Patty Murray in Washington’s U.S. Senate race. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Washington shows Rossi with 49% of the vote, while Murray’s support stands at 46%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and two percent (2%) are undecided. (To see question wording, click here.) However, the race remains a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Senate Balance of Power rankings.

Remember November - Four Weeks - The Final Act Coming Soon

Ghailani is charged with conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The attacks killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans. He was smiling and conversing with his lawyers at the defense table after the judge ruled.

Candidates for high political office usually grovel for newspaper endorsements. Not Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Breaking from a decades-old tradition, the governor isn't even bothering to meet with editorial writers, much less ask for their blessing. The way Perry sees it, newspapers are old news and have lost much of their influence. In a rapidly changing media climate, Perry said he decided before the March primaries that seeking their endorsements was a waste of time. After winning by 20 percentage points, the governor said he sees no reason to switch strategies in his race against Democrat Bill White. "The most...