Georgia US Senate race essentially tied in polls

The Politico has this:

The poll shows Chambliss leading Martin by three points, 50 to 47 percent, with three percent of respondents undecided. The first-term GOP senator's lead is within the poll’s four-point margin of error. . . .

“This thing’s going to be a nailbiter. We don’t know who’s going to turn out and we don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but it’s going to be a close race,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery . . .

Towery said the race was close enough that if Obama appeared at a rally just before the election and urged his supporters to vote for Martin, it might be enough to put the Democrat over the top.

“This whole race is on Barack Obama’s shoulders,” said Towery. “If he wants Georgia to vote Democratic, he could come down here the day of the election, hold a rally in Atlanta and get prepared to send people to the polls.” . . .

I am glad that I wasn't the only person who noticed the changing numbers in the MN Senate race

The Minnesota Secretary of State is not engendering a lot of confidence. Of course, with his support of ACORN, he already had some trust issues.

St. Paul, Minn. — We've been hearing several different today for the margin of Norm Coleman's victory over Al Franken in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race last night; 725, 344, 694.

Whatever the number is, it's very small, and we'll be carefully watching the recount this razor-thin margin will trigger.

But we want to know why, with 100 percent of the precincts reporting, that number keeps changing. The man who knows is the man who will be the center of attention of a recount, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Ritchie talked to Tom Crann about this margin and the impending recount.

Why do voters blame the Republicans in Congress and not the Democrats for Congress' problems

If you look at these polls from the NY Times, congress has become increasingly unpopular over the last two years, but people are blaming the Republicans and not the Democrats. Weird, given that that was also the time over which the Democrats have controlled congress. Some how people need to educate voters that the Democrats have been in control of congress.

Democrats feel that they will have an effectively filibuster proof Senate

This quote was from the WSJ's Political Diary. One can only imagine the legislation that they will get through if this happens.

"Democratic politicians and activists are giddy over visions of a 60-seat majority in the Senate next year, but experts say they don't need quite that many to rewrite a wide range of national policies to reflect the priorities of their presidential nominee, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, if he is elected. Primarily, that's because Senate rules provide for expedited consideration of the budget bills, known as 'reconciliation' measures, that have become the favored legislative vehicles for the most ambitious spending and tax plans of recent presidents... [E]ven outside the reconciliation process, Democrats are likely to be able to attract crossover Republican votes on various domestic and foreign policy measures . . . and there is a strong possibility that a President Obama would be operating with more senators from his own party than any president since Jimmy Carter, even if Democrats do not make it to 60 seats" -- Congressional Quarterly's Jonathan Allen.

New Op-ed with Investor's Business Daily: Subsidize Unemployment, Get More Of It

My newest op-ed at Investor's Business Daily on the impact of greater unemployment insurance payments is available here.

Palin holds first press conference

She pointedly refused to endorse to Republicans in Alaska who were running for re-election. Quite a response for a Republican to be willing to take.

She also wouldn’t say whether she supports the reelection bids of embattled Alaska Republicans Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young.

“Ted Stevens' trial started a couple days ago. We’ll see where that goes,” she told reporters in what amounted to her first press conference since accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination.

New Op-ed at Investor's Business Daily: Unions Bargain At Table With Governor Whose Re-election They're Helping Fund

Sonya Jones and I have a new piece at Investor's Business Daily:

Democrats are expected to make strong gains in state legislatures this fall, but what do these stronger Democratic majorities mean? A look at Washington State may show what is in store for the rest of the country.

Public employee unions are handing over vast amounts of money to the incumbent governor's re-election campaign, while the governor is simultaneously sitting at the bargaining table negotiating contracts with these very unions. . . .

Dems starting to worry about the November Elections

Some amazing quotes in the Financial Times:

Democratic jitters about the US presidential race have spread to Capitol Hill, where some members of Congress are worried that Barack Obama’s faltering campaign could hurt their chances of re-election.

Party leaders have been hoping to strengthen Democratic control of the House and Senate in November, but John McCain’s jump in the polls has stoked fears of a Republican resurgence. . . .

“There is a growing sense of doom among Democrats I have spoken to . . . People are going crazy, telling the campaign ‘you’ve got to do something’.” . . .

Congressional Republicans have rebounded tremendously

There is still a difference between individual candidates and these overall polls, but this is a huge improvement.

If the elections for Congress were being held today, which party’s candidate would you vote for in your congressional district: the Democratic Party’s candidate or the Republican Party’s candidate?

. . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 2008 Aug. 2008 Jun. 2008

Republican . . . . . 50% . . . . .42% . . . . .42%

Democratic . . . . . 45% . . . . 51% . . . . .52%

Other / Unsure . . . 6% . . . . . 7% . . . . . . 7%

Source: Gallup / USA Today
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 823 likely American voters, conducted from Sept. 5 to Sept. 7, 2008. Margin of error is 4 per cent.

Right Now Dems Looking to Pick up Six Seats in Senate

If true, this would probably effectively let Dems overcome any filibusters. A detailed discussion can be found here.

Some Polls on Media Bias

1) 50% say Media Makes Economy Look Worse Than it Really Is

50% believe the media makes economic conditions appear worse than they really are, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. . . .

Only a quarter (25%) think reporters and media outlets present an accurate picture of the economy and 18% believe they actually portray it as better than it is. Just 34% trust reporters more when it comes to news on the economy, and 32% see stockbrokers as more reliable. . . .

2) Belief Growing That Reporters are Trying to Help Obama Win

In the latest survey, a plurality of Democrats—37%-- say most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of the campaign. Twenty-seven percent (27%) believe most reporters are trying to help Obama and 21% in Obama’s party think reporters are trying to help the Republican candidate.
Among Republicans, 78% believe reporters are trying to help Obama and 10% see most offering unbiased coverage.
As for unaffiliated voters, 50% see a pro-Obama bias and 21% see unbiased coverage. Just 12% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the reporters are trying to help McCain. . . .

Pennsylvania Democrats use millions of dollars in state funds to do opposition research on opponents

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette has this story:

"We are mainly looking for bad things: liens, bankruptcies, homicides ... you get the picture," Mr. Webb advised a dozen House colleagues via their state e-mail accounts. Employees were asked to use LexisNexis, an online search service that makes use of thousands of databases. The state had several LexisNexis accounts that a grand jury later said were used for opposition research.

Mr. Webb told staffers to send results from the searches to Dan Wiedemer, executive director of the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee, at Mr. Wiedemer's political campaign address.

Many of those targeted in the project were sponsored by PACleanSweep, a group formed to oust lawmakers who had voted for an unpopular legislative pay raise.

Democrats ultimately won a majority in the state House that year, but the victory was tainted, according to a grand jury report that found that millions of dollars in state resources were diverted to cover the cost of running Democratic campaigns. . . .

Al Franken in trouble in Minnesota over gun control?

You would think that this would be an issue in Minnesota.

"Congressional Approval Falls to Single Digits for First Time Ever"

Rasmussen Reports releases this new poll:

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.
Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008. . . .

But as I mentioned previously, only 40 percent know that Senator Harry Reid is a Democrat.

Possibly it isn't too surprising that Rasmussen finds: "Despite these negative attitudes towards Congress, Democrats continue to enjoy a double digit lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot."

Congress may have low poll numbers, but most don't know that they control Senate

While 71 percent know that Pelosi is a Democrat, only 40 percent know that Senator Harry Reid is also a Democrat. Of course, it is amazing to me that only 71 percent know that Pelosi is a Democrat. The Rasmussen poll reports:

Seventy-one percent (71%) of American voters know that Nancy Pelosi is a Democrat, but most don’t know enough about other Congressional leaders to even hazard a guess. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that only 13% of voters had never heard of Pelosi, the first woman to ever serve as Speaker of the House and the highest ranking Democrat in government today.

However, 32% have never heard of Pelosi’s counterpart in the United States Senate, Harry Reid. Another 20% don’t know if he’s a Republican or Democrat while 40% correctly identified him as belonging to the same party as Pelosi and Barack Obama.
Forty-five percent (45%) have never heard of Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader. Another 29% can’t guess at which party he belongs to but 22% identify him correctly as a Republican.

The Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, is even less well known to the nation at large. Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters have never heard of him while 27% don’t know his party affiliation. Sixteen percent (16%) correctly identified Boehner as a Republican.

The Republicans might think about talking about the Democratically controlled congress more often.

Extended Unemployment Benefits will increase the Unemployment Rate right before the Election

The NY Times has the article here:

House leaders struck a bipartisan deal Wednesday night on a major spending measure that would provide money for the war in Iraq through the end of the Bush administration, establish a significant new education benefit for veterans and meet Democratic demands for added unemployment benefits. . . . .

In response to a Democratic push to aid laid-off workers whose unemployment pay is running out, the bill would extend jobless benefits for 13 weeks in all states, according to Congressional officials briefed on the contents of the measure. . . .

Congress is much more unpopular than President Bush, but the poll doesn't make clear that people know that the Dems are running Congress

The HarrisInteractive survey is here:

President Bush’s latest ratings are 24 percent positive and fully 75 percent negative. Previously, his worst numbers were 26 percent positive and 72 percent negative in April of this year. His ratings are substantially worse than those of any president, except for Jimmy Carter (22%-77% in July 1980), since Harris first started measuring themin 1963. . . . .

However, this dismal news for the administration has done nothing to help the Democrats. Most people seem to wish "a plague on all your houses". Congress, which of course is controlled by the Democrats, gets its worst ratings ever, only 13 percent positive and fully 83 percent negative. Its previous low point was in December of last year when it was rated 17 percent positive and 79 percent negative. And, Speaker Pelosi’s ratings have fallen to 24 percent positive, 57 percent negative compared to her previous low of 25 percent positive and 61 percent negative in February.

Will the voters be facing a constitutional ballot issue on Homosexual Marriage in November?

The WSJ's Political Diary has this today by John Fund:

Barack Obama is unlikely to be pleased by the court's decision. He will recall how the issue of judicial interference with the political process bedeviled John Kerry's 2004 campaign after the high court in Mr. Kerry's home state of Massachusetts legalized gay marriage. Anti-gay marriage initiatives eventually passed that year in nearly a dozen states.

In California, the issue is guaranteed to be a hot political topic this fall. More than 1.1 million signatures have already been collected to put a measure on the November ballot that would change California's ban on gay marriage from a statutory provision to a Constitutional clause. Putting their preferences into the state Constitution is the last recourse of the state's citizens against being dictated to by the state's Supreme Court.

Public opinion seems fairly clear. In 2000, 61% of California voters approved a statutory ban on gay marriage while also leaving open a chance for other legal protections to be extended to gays. The measure, Proposition 22, passed in all but four Bay Area counties and even won a third of the vote in San Francisco.

Supporters of gay marriage assert that public attitudes have shifted since 2000, but they seem unwilling to test that belief through the democratic process. . . .

Obama announces his support for the California court's decision here. As I have written before, if the courts are going to take away voters' ability to decide these issues, I don't see where the courts can draw a clear line between different types of marriages. If they allow homosexual marriage, the would presumably have to allow polygamy, if they are going to be logically consistent. It might be that the courts don't care about being logically consistent. However, I think that Fund has it exactly right in that supporters of homosexual marriage are unwilling to test their beliefs that voter support has swung in their favor.

Democrats ignoring House rules

Jed Babbin has this story:

In the midst of this bizarre episode -- in which the US House of Representatives is made to look and function as if it were some banana republic’s parliament -- Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) is heard scolding the House Parliamentarian, John Sullivan, who is objecting to the Democrats’ abuse of House rules and procedures. Hoyer is heard shouting, “We run this House, not the Parliamentarian.”

McCain's risky strategy

McCain's attack on the North Carolina Republican party last week was not only factually wrong, but those types of attacks may help ensure that if McCain wins, he will have massive Democratic majorities in congress to deal with. McCain's attack on the North Carolina Republican party and his references to their ad as being racist were completely uncalled for (the ad was very factually showing a clip of one of Rev. Wright's sermons and a picture of Obama and Wright together), but I am sure that it probably hurt the Republicans nationally as much as it might have helped McCain. The WSJ has some poll numbers that McCain might want to keep in mind:

Only 27% of voters have positive views of the Republican Party, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the lowest level for either party in the survey's nearly two-decade history.

Yet the party's probable presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, continues to run nearly even with Democratic rivals Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. His standing so far makes for a more competitive race for the White House than would be expected for Republicans, who face an electorate that overwhelmingly believes the country is headed in the wrong direction under President Bush. . . .