The first part is true, the Supreme Court has vacated the temporary restraining order that the GOP thought would help them stem the overwhelming tide of new voters for Obama. The second part is just a guess. The Dispatch is convinced that Brunner is acting as a partisan if she continually rules against the GOP when they complain. The problem is, even republican judges and appointees tend to think that the GOP are wrong on the merits almost all of the time. The Dispatch seems to think that a non-partisan SOS rules for one party half the time, and the other party half the time.
It's nice that instead of putting the Dems into a position where they ask Brunner to kick half the Republican candidates off the ballot, knowing that the Dispatch would support her kicking half of them off, a much more rational solution (aka the rule of law) was settled upon.
Ever get the feeling that what you're experiencing now is an exact duplicate of something you'll be experiencing again in the future? It's kind of a sickening feeling...
National Democratic operatives pulled out of Alabama’s 3rd District shortly before Election Day in 2002, conceding the newly redrawn open seat to the GOP so they could reallocate resources to districts in other parts of the country where they thought they had a better shot of winning.
The decision was made in part based on polling that showed Democratic nominee Joe Turnham underperforming among the district’s African Americans — who make up about 30 percent of the voting-age population — according to Rep. Artur Davis , the state’s only black representative in Congress.
The Democratic Party got a bit of a shock on Election Day that year: Turnham did better than expected with black voters and lost to current Rep. Mike D. Rogers by less than 4,000 votes out of more than 180,000 cast in a race that also included a libertarian candidate, leaving Democrats to wonder whether they might have picked up that seat if only they had kept their resources in place.
That was written in CQ Politics today. The story speculates about the effect of increased African American turnout due to the historic nature of this election this year.
In case you're wondering, the Demographics of OH-12 include: African-American alone or in-combination with one or more races: 23%
Number of new Franklin County registrations in 2008 in OH 12: 38,322
And Vuja De? Nothing but a made-up term for a silly delusion, right?
Ryan Meerstein is a political operative. As a teenager, he ran races in Pennsylvania, then attended college in PA. He played basketball in college against teams like Otterbein, so he had been in Central Ohio before he got the gig running Bush's 2004 Central Ohio office. He voted in Columbus in November of 2004. Then he left and did more political gigs. He was with the RNC inside the beltway, then worked on a Tennessee senate campaign. During the primaries, he was running a South Carolina campaign for Rudy Giuliani. If he voted for Giuliani in the Primary, he didn't do it in Ohio. Ryan hasn't, according to the admittedly spotty Franklin County voter file, voted in Ohio since he was here working on a campaign in November 2004. He is currently at the head of the McCain campaign in Ohio, working out of Columbus. On Sept. 26 he registered to vote. On Oct. 14, his absentee ballot was received in Franklin County. By December, Mr. Meerstein will be gone again.
Why is it okay for Mr. Meerstein to flit into Ohio every four years, register, vote, and leave? How many McCain staffers have registered to vote for the first time in Ohio during the last two months, and won't be here 30 days after the election? McCain staffers like Paul Lindsay, who arrived from D.C. at the same time as Meerstein and registered in Ohio for the first time on Sept 3. Lindsay registered at the same address as McCain staffer Jason Levine, a New Jersey native and Beltway professional who came before the primaries. Think he's signed a renewal on his lease?
Think about this when you read the stories about how the Franklin County prosecutor has opened an investigation against people who have come from out of state and are in Ohio working and volunteering for "Vote From Home."
For voting for Obama and Tiberi on the same ballot? Any at all? Republicans scared of a President Palin, perhaps. Otherwise? I'm usually pretty good at understanding both sides of an argument before I make a case, but I'm at a loss, here. Obama will win in the 12th District. I'm gonna guess by 3-5 points. Robinson has yet to show up on the radar of any of the major Congressional Race raters. This would seem to indicate that they believe a substantial portion of the electorate will make this particular ticket split. They're the professionals, so I'll give them some credit.
The problem remains, I can't make an argument against voting an Obama/Tiberi ballot until I can understand why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing. Little help here?
If you missed the first showing on Monday night, you can still catch David Robinson giving a very strong showing against a clearly peeved and surprisingly petty Pat Tiberi (and an amusingly befuddled Libertarian candidate). You can watch it or Tivo it Sunday at 1pm, or you can see it in its entirety on ONN's website.
Now, I'm not the most unbiased observer (ya think?), but I have to believe that it's a surprise to many people watching that Pat has turned into a blame-Pelosi-first and smear-your-opponent-with-reckless-plagiarism-charges type of candidate. He's always been that kind of legislator, but the lack of credible opposition and cover from a friendly majority in Congress have let him play the part of a bi-partisan nice guy in campaigns past.
By the way, for a guy whose idea of 'all of the above' is the noxious "No Excuses' bill, Pat's certainly willing to make a bunch of them himself. Most of them have to do with his growing Senate Envy. Why can't Congress get anything done on energy? Pat says that it's the crummy old Senate's fault. Why can't Congress do something about healthcare costs? It's the Senate's fault! Why did Pat vote against Children's Health Insurance before he voted for it? Because the crummy House had a bad bill and it was up to the great and powerful Senate to fix it before he could vote for it. Why did Pat vote against stabilizing the credit and banking industry before he voted for it? Because he was waiting for the god-like Senate to fix the rescue package.
A nice diary over on the Big Orange contained a newsclip I had missed, which I've embedded below. During the debate, Pat tried to make it out like David Robinson had focused his entire campaign in an anti-Tiberi rather than Pro-Robinson mode. There's a small grain of truth in this. Pat's entire campaign is based on the idea that the district "knows him" and "knows his record." They don't. And while papers like the Dispatch base their endorsements on explicit agendas, others like the Newark Advocate have endorsed the incumbent because, despite their obvious respect for David Robinson, they treat the election like a referendum, and they don't believe that the district should terminate Pat (although their readers on both the left and the right are pretty consistent in their disagreement). Under these conditions, where many actually do view the election as a yea-or-nay vote on Tiberi, and where many are quite misinformed about his views and values, the campaign would be nuts not to point out to the public exactly what Pat does stand for. On the other hand, people are not going to vote against Pat without a viable alternative. Which brings me to the video clip:
Robinson is clearly comfortable making the positive case for himself, in part because it's one of the better one's you'll hear among challengers. This guy belongs in Congress. IMHO, the DCCC really does need to get a coordinated Kilroy-Robinson-Neuhardt ad up in Columbus. In the meantime, watch the debate. If you think someone else needs to see it when you're done, email the link.
I went out of town for work last week. Came back and everything was going crazy. I've been putting in 15-hour days and trying to help my wife pick up her work slack that came of being on solo toddler patrol.
I'll try to update ASAP w/ opinions on the Tiberi/Robinson debate, Newspaper Editorial Boards, Issues 5&6, the Garland Campaign, etc.