The House may be lost

Some additional insights here from electoral-vote.com worth knowing.

Long-time political observer Charlie Cook is predicting the Republicans are likely to win 198 seats in the House, with another 47 being tossups. If the Republicans win even half of these, that gives them the majority. But in wave elections most of the tossups go the same way, so the odds of the Republicans winning 30 or more of the tossups are reasonably good. Cook's best guess is that they will pick up something in the range of 48 to 60 seats. This would put this election on a par with 1994, when they picked up 52 seats in the House.

In the Senate, he is predicting a Republican gain of about 8 or 9 seats. If that happens, all eyes will be on Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to see if they jump ship. However, both of them are keenly aware of what happened to Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) when he did just that: he was defeated in a primary. Both of these could expect nasty primary fights if they became Republicans, especially if it were to save their own skins rather than out of some deep-seated convictions that have been rather absent until now. Nelson has to worry about the fact that Nebraska is full of Republican politicians who would primary him with the slogan "vote for a real Republican." If he decided to switch, his real battle would be the primary--where only Republicans can vote--rather than the general election, where Democrats can, too. Lieberman is so unpopular and unpredictable that anything is possible with him, but he has nothing in common with Jim DeMint and even less with Rand Paul and Sharron Angle, so he is likely to continue to caucus with the Democrats.

If the Republicans capture the House, as Cook, Nate Silver, and other close observers predict, the new Speaker of the House is virtually certain to be Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) (which he prefers to pronounce "Bayner" rather than "Boner" or "Booner"). Boehner has an everpresent deep tan and smokes two or three packs of cigarettes a day. The Washington Post has a long profile of him today.

Boehner has a strange history within the caucus. He was one of the authors of the Republicans' "Contract with America" that propelled them to victory in 1994. But in 1998, he was booted out of his leadership position, only to be elected majority leader in 2006. He is more of a back-room wheeler-dealer type person than an "ideas" man, as former Speaker Newt Gingrich fancied himself. Still, if the Republicans have a small majority starting in January, he is going to need all his people skills to rein in the fractious tea partiers intent on changing Washington the moment they arrive. It is likely that the tea partiers will form their own coalition. If they get more members than the Republicans' majority, they get a de facto veto on everything he does, much as the Blue Dogs have with the Democrats. However, since the brunt of the voters' wrath is going to fall on the Blue Dogs next Tuesday, the Democratic caucus is going to move to the left, and with the tea party members of his own caucus pulling him to the right ... he is not likely to accomplish much.

If Boehner moves up, the other Republican leaders will move up. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the only Jewish Republican in Congress, is likely to become majority leader and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) would then become whip. Boehner is not very close to either of these -- just as current Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn't especially care for her #2, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Boehner tends to hang with some of the rank-and-file Republicans, especially Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA). Boehner lives in a basement apartment he rents from one of his many lobbyist friends. His wife, Deborah, lives in Ohio.

The Weekly GOTV Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes you all have voted or will be voting soon as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

This week at McBlogger, we take a look at the increasingly desperate campaign being run by Todd Staples. Last Friday they attempted to eavesdrop on an internal Gilbert campaign conference call, if that tells you much. You simply won't believe the rest...

Letters From Texas spent most of the week pointing to Republican efforts to scapegoat and alienate minorities, first pointing out both Parties' failure to communicate effectively with Hispanic voters, then pointing out Republicans' blatant attempts to prevent them from voting, and showing that they'd planned to do it in Texas too. Most shocking, however, was the release of a photo of the most disturbing political sign in Texas.

Off the Kuff published his last interview of this cycle, with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White.

Bay Area Houston would vote for Proposition 1 in Houston if....

Ever wonder why republicans have gotten so batsh*t crazy? CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks they're locked inside their own tiny, tiny minds.

The news of the week in Harris County spread all across the country: well-fed Caucasian conservatives are going places they've never gone before -- minority early voting polling locations -- and doing their damndest to keep as few of 'those people' from casting a ballot as possible. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs kept the story up to date.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson shows the choice for governor comes down to this very simple issue: We must end Perry's unprecedented time as governor - he's been in office too long.

Martha Griffin at musings has questions about Prop 1 on the ballot in Houston. Why the lack of details about the plan and where is the political muscle to get this passed?

BossKitty at TruthHugger just decided to vent about the direction this election is trying to take the country ... with me in it: Federal Government in the crosshairs – OpEd.

Public Citizen is getting into the fray over early voting and intimidation activities across the state, with a press release and conference Monday afternoon in Houston with the League of Women Voters and a blog over at TexasVox. Keep watching for more coverage as this story continues to develop.

Len Hart at BlueBloggin looks at A Party of Panic and Depression, the Republican world of economics, death and destruction, K-Street and war. The administration of Ronald Reagan ushered in a depression of some two years, a contraction of the economy, and a transfer of wealth upward to the upper quintile, the nation’s richest 20 percent. A windfall of this nature is not stimulus to invest but rather to transfer the gains offshore.

Lightseeker at TexasKaos reports that according to a recent Gallup poll, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans... basically our non-white/non-black population... are going to vote for the Republicans in this election by a 52%-42% margin. Turns out that polling on this mid-term election has some serious problems. There is more at The Polls are Off and Nobody Knows by How Much!

Neil at Texas Liberal offered his election endorsements for Texas in 2010. And as a long-time former resident of the Buckeye State, he also made endorsements for Ohio.

The finish line in sight

When even poor ol' Karl-Thomas is down in the dumps over the polling, you know there's some gloomy Guses out there. But leave it to Kuffner to destroy that stubborn inevitability meme again. Only fools and Republicans -- there's a difference? -- believe it anyway. Look what the Texas Democratic statewides are doing:

-- Hank Gilbert is working West Texas hard in the closing days before the election.

Gilbert will meet and greet voters in Amarillo, Clyde, Panhandle, Pampa, Canadian, Perryton, Dalhart, Dumas, Stinnett, Fritch, Borger, Canyon, Tulia, Levelland, and Midland.

What, no Plainview?! These are not the kind of Texas towns in which a Democratic candidate usually spends the week before Election Day getting out the vote. But Gilbert has won over many Republicans and Tea Partiers in his campaign this year, and he's going fishin' where they're bitin'.

Update: jobsanger has photos from Amarillo yesterday.

-- Barbara Radnofsky kicks Greg Abbott in the pants again...



As she pointed out in her debate with the suddenly-proud-he's-wheelchair-bound attorney general, the amount of money the Wall Street banksters cost Texans comes pretty close to equaling the amount of money the state budget is lacking.

So even though the governor won't acknowledge the budget deficit, why aren't Perry and Abbott trying to recoup those billions? Because it would anger their fat cat donors, that's why. Perry's already been exposed for having pushed TRS trustees to invest in his cronies' companies, an investigation into which was essentially whitewashed. Harvey Kronberg had more on the curious case of Roel Campos last Friday:

Earlier this week, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White released a whistleblower memo reporting that the Perry appointed Teacher Retirement System board reversed staff investment recommendations which benefitted the Governor’s campaign contributors.

The Governor’s office responded to Dallas Morning News' Wayne Slater: "This matter was brought up over two years ago. TRS had an outside lawyer review the facts and they said they had no merit or such, the matter was then turned over to the state auditor's office and they took no action."

Of course, the identity of “outside lawyer” proved to be a entirely separate issue of bad judgment on its own. Roel Campos of Cooley Godward Kronish LLP was the attorney that issued the report that ignored most of the substantive issues raised by the whistleblower and essentially reported that bosses get to over rule staff.

Our colleague Paul Burka called the report “pablum” and he may have been too gentle.

But the real question is how did someone with Campos’ resume’ ever get close to TRS and not once, but twice?

There is more to the story of Roel Campos and the Teacher Retirement System.

-- Speaking of the governor, he's lying again.



Border security is the signature hot button issue with the freak right. But Perry is demagogueing it by repeating the same "sanctuary city" BS his base keeps mumbling.

-- Bill Clinton is in Brownsville today rallying voters.

There's more, but you get the picture. This year's election results are still a cake in the oven.

MoDo is making me ill again

It's just too early in the morning to be this nauseous. Two excerpts I can manage to keep down:

It’s too late to relitigate the shameful Thomas-Hill hearings. We’re stuck with a justice-for-life who lied his way onto the bench with the help of bullying Republicans and cowed Democrats.

... and ...

The 5-to-4 Citizens United decision last January gave corporations, foreign contributors, unions, Big Energy, Big Oil and superrich conservatives a green light to surreptitiously funnel in as much money as they want, whenever they want to elect or unelect candidates. As if that weren’t enough to breed corruption, Thomas was the only justice — in a rare case of detaching his hip from Antonin Scalia’s — to write a separate opinion calling for an end to donor disclosures.

In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court chose the Republican president. In Citizens United, the court may return Republicans to control of Congress. So much for conservatives’ professed disdain of judicial activism. And so much for the public’s long-held trust in the impartiality of the nation’s highest court.

Justice Stephen Breyer recently rejected the image of the high court as “nine junior varsity politicians.” But it’s even worse than that. The court has gone beyond mere politicization. Its liberals are moderate and reasonable, while the conservatives are dug in, guzzling Tea.

And if you want more of this, vote Republican.