NY State Congressional District 1 Decided

Final House Race Decided; GOP Net Gain: 63 Seats

Excerpt:

Rep. Tim Bishop (D) has defeated Republican challenger Randy Altschuler in New York’s 1st district, a victory finalized by an Altschuler concession Wednesday morning in the nation’s final outstanding House race that cements GOP gains in the 2010 House midterms at 63 seats.

It was a roller-coaster ballot-counting process that saw several lead changes and court hearings over the past 36 days, but Bishop’s ultimate margin of victory was 263 votes out of more than 194,000 cast in the Long Island district.

Comment: Now on to 2012!

Congress: One more for the Republicans

Republican House Gain Now at 61 Seats

Excerpt:

The Republican triumph in the House of Representatives has grown a little wider, with the party now capturing 61 seats in this month’s midterm elections. The latest victory comes in Illinois’s Eighth Congressional District, where Representative Melissa Bean, a Democrat, conceded to Joe Walsh, a Republican.

Mr. Walsh defeated Ms. Bean by 291 votes out of more than 200,000 ballots cast.

Five House races, all with Democratic incumbents, now remain uncalled. In California, Representatives Jim Costa and Jerry McNerney appear likely to withstand challenges. But Representatives Dan Maffei and Timothy H. Bishop of New York and Solomon P. Ortiz of Texas are all narrowly trailing their Republican challengers.

The outcome of the Illinois contest underscores the depth of Democratic defeats across the country on Nov. 2. Ms. Bean captured the seat in 2004, knocking off a Republican veteran, Phil Crane, who represented the district in the northern suburbs of Chicago for more than three decades. Her seat was seen — even by many Republicans — as reliably Democratic.

Mr. Walsh is among one of the many incoming freshman members of Congress who was seen as a long shot. Republican leaders in Washington didn’t give him much of a chance, but he has credited his victory to volunteer support and the strength of the Tea Party movement.

Comment: Who says one's vote doesn't count! 291!

Six races to be determined

Six House Races Remain in Limbo

Excerpt:

Representative Ben Chandler has been declared the winner – again – of his close House race in Kentucky. But six other House races remained in limbo Friday, meaning some incumbent Democrats will be on hand for the lame-duck session next week unsure about whether they will return in January for the 112th Congress. And some potential Republican freshmen will arrive for orientation uncertain about whether they will ultimately serve in Congress next year.

After a re-canvass of the vote tally, Mr. Chandler, a moderate Blue Dog Democrat, narrowly beat his Republican challenger, Andy Barr, defying the anti-Democratic surge that felled many of his Democratic colleagues in the South on Nov. 2. Mr. Barr conceded Friday afternoon.

The counting in other races might not be finished for another week or so. In New York’s 25th District, officials on Friday were tallying absentee and provisional ballots in the contest between Representative Dan Maffei, a freshman Democrat, and his Republican opponent, Ann Marie Buerkle. While Mr. Maffei currently trails, votes in one of his political strongholds won’t be counted until next week, leaving his future cloudy.

In a second New York race, Representative Tim Bishop, the 1st District Democrat who was believed to be winning on Election Night before a tabulation error was discovered, is asking for a hand recount to determine the outcome in his race against Randy Altshuler.

In Illinois, Representative Melissa Bean, who won twice as a Democrat in a Republican-leaning suburban Chicago district, is trailing and is in danger of losing her seat to Joe Walsh, a Republican and Tea Party favorite. Final votes are due to be assessed there next week.

One race is still officially undecided in Texas, where Solomon Ortiz, a Democrat elected to the House in 1982, is running behind Blake Farenthold, a Republican. Mr. Ortiz has been trying to force a recount.

Two races remain officially undecided in California but both are leaning toward the Democratic candidate seeking re-election. Representative Jerry McNerney took the lead over his Republican opponent, David Harmer, in a Bay area seat while in an even closer race, Jim Costa appeared poised to pull out a narrow win over Andy Vidak, the Republican challenger, in the Fresno area.

Comment: Five days ago was 9. Earlier post

9 races still in play

Republicans Poised to Widen Gains in House as Nine Races Remain Undecided

Excerpt:

Republicans may expand the majority in the U.S. House they won in the Nov. 2 election by picking up seats among nine Democratic-held districts where the results remain too close to call.

Over the weekend, the re-election of Representative Tim Bishop, a four-term Democrat from New York’s Long Island, was thrown into doubt after a fresh count of ballots, according to Republican challenger Randy Altschuler. Eight other contests for Democratic-held seats also haven’t been decided, with just hundreds of votes separating the candidates in some races, according to the Associated Press.

“It’s expected that Republicans will hold on and pick up a total of 63 or 64 seats, though recounts can occasionally produce a surprise,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Republicans gained at least 60 seats in the House that will be installed in January, the biggest swing in the party’s favor since 1938. Republicans also picked up six seats in the Senate, trimming the Democrats’ control in that chamber to 53-47.

Comment: All are currently Democratic seats so any Republican win would be a pickup

1. Kentucky District 6 (Democrat in lead)
   
2. New York District 1 (Democrat in lead)
   
3. Washington District 2 (Democrat in lead)
   
4. California District 11 (Democrat in lead)
   
5. California District 20 (Republican in lead)
   
6. Texas District 27 (Republican in lead)
   
7. Illinois District 8 (Republican in lead)
   
8. Virginia District 11 (Democrat in lead)
   
9. New York District 25 (Republican in lead)
   

White Southern Men can't Democrat and other Tidbits

Election nearly wipes out white Southern Democrats

Excerpt:

The white Southern Democrat - endangered since the 1960s civil rights era - is sliding nearer to extinction.

After this week's elections, the Democratic Party barely holds a presence in the region outside of majority-black urban areas such as Atlanta and Memphis. The carnage for the party was particularly brutal in the Deep South, where just one white Democrat survived across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

The Republicans' effort to win over the South, rooted decades ago in a strategy to capitalize on white voters' resentment of desegregation, is all but complete.

"Right now in most of Dixie it is culturally unacceptable to be a Democrat. It's a damn shame, but that's the way it is," said Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, a campaign strategist for conservative Democrats such as Jim Webb of Virginia, one of the few remaining Southern Democratic senators.

Comment: Serious: Heath Shuler still stands. And I like him! Not serious: I'm going to change my middle name to "Mudcat". Jim "Mudcat" Peet ... has a nice ring to it!

Mort Zuckerman: America's Love Affair With Obama Is Over

Excerpt:

[Obama] He came across as a young man in a grown-up's game—impressive but not presidential. A politician but not a leader, managing American policy at home and American power abroad with disturbing amateurishness. Indeed, there was a growing perception of the inability to run the machinery of government and to find the right people to manage it. A man who was once seen as a talented and even charismatic rhetorician is now seen as lacking real experience or even the ability to stop America's decline. "Yes we can," he once said, but now America asks, "Can he?"

Comment: The old "empty suit" syndrome

Noonan: Americans Vote for Maturity - Obama gets a rebuke, but so do Republicans who seem unqualified.

Excerpt:

On to the aftermath of the election. On Wednesday, President Obama gave a news conference to share his thoughts. Viewers would have found it disappointing if there had been any viewers. The president is speaking, in effect, to an empty room. From my notes five minutes in: "This wet blanket, this occupier of the least interesting corner of the faculty lounge, this joy-free zone, this inert gas." By the end I was certain he will never produce a successful stimulus because he is a human depression.

Actually I thought the worst thing you can say about a president: that he won't even make a good former president.

Comment: President Carter is a better former President than he was a President (but that's not saying much!). Obama had better quickly learn from his mistakes or he will be a one-termer! An empty suit in an empty room!

Obama: poor salesman or bad product?

Obama On ’60 Minutes’: ‘Leadership Isn’t Just Legislation’

Excerpt:

After suffering a “shellacking” in the midterm elections, President Obama acknowledges what many have seen as his chief weakness – failing to sell the importance of several legislative milestones to the American people.

“I think that’s a fair argument. I think that, over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that, we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation. That it’s a matter of persuading people. And giving them confidence and bringing them together. And setting a tone,” Mr. Obama told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft in an exclusive interview set to air Sunday.

“Making an argument that people can understand,” Mr. Obama continued, “I think that we haven’t always been successful at that. And I take personal responsibility for that. And it’s something that I’ve got to examine carefully … as I go forward.”

Comment: He is delusional to think that it is a communication problem. The product (Obamacare, stimulus, and direction that he would like to take us (eg cap and trade) was rejected. We understand clearly what the product is ... and we don't want it!

I'm a Republican because I'm not always thinking clearly when I'm scared

Elitism: The Charge That Obama Can’t Shake

Excerpt:

“Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared,” he told a roomful of doctors who chipped in at least $15,200 each to Democratic coffers. “And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.”

The notion that voters would reject Democrats only because they don’t understand the facts prompted a round of recriminations — “Obama the snob,” read the headline on a Washington Post column by Michael Gerson, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush — and fueled the underlying argument of the campaign that ends Tuesday. For all the discussion of health care and spending and jobs, at the core of the nation’s debate this fall has been the battle of elitism.

Mr. Obama’s remark that autumn evening played into a perception promoted by his critics that he is a Harvard-educated millionaire elitist who is sure that he knows best and thinks that those who disagree just aren’t in their right minds. Never mind that Mr. Obama was raised in less exalted circumstances by a single mother who he said once needed food stamps. Or that although he went to private school, he took years to pay off his college loans. Something about Mr. Obama’s cerebral confidence has made him into a symbol of something he never used to be.

Comment: Yes that ... and I'm a capitalist .... and I'm a fiscal conservative .... and about a dozen other reasons!

One to watch: Kentucky 6th District

Kentucky 6th District

Comment: Just 5 days out ... check out the NYTimes profile and how close the polling is!

Will the midterms be a rebuke to Democratic leadership?

Signs of the Democratic Apocalypse

Excerpt:

Next Tuesday Democrats will receive a crushing rebuke. More to the point, voters will be delivering a verdict on the first two years of the Obama administration.

Midterm elections are almost always unpleasant experiences for the White House, especially when the economy is weak. But key races that should have been safe for the party in power demonstrate the extent to which President Obama and his policies have nationalized the election.

In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a huge war chest in a state Mr. Obama won in 2008 by 12 points. Mr. Reid trails Sharron Angle by four points in the latest Rasmussen poll.

Comment: If Reid gets dumped and Pelosi is out as Speaker .... YES. Good read by Karl Rove

NYTimes: House prediction 1 week out

Comment: Should be interesting

The Isaac Hayes Who Doesn't Sing

Young Boozer, Krystal Ball, Say 'Vote for Me' Despite Odd Names

Excerpt:

Isaac Hayes is a Republican minister and first-time candidate running for a congressional seat in Illinois. He's up against Jesse Jackson, Jr., the current Democratic congressman and son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Mr. Hayes, 36, is not the late singer-songwriter famed for the theme song from the 1970s cult film, "Shaft." The son of a minister, "my parents allegedly named me after Isaac in the Bible," he says. He didn't like that as a kid. Now, he says, "I think my mom and dad were geniuses."

Mr. Hayes, who is black, has themed his campaign, "Let's give Jesse the SHAFT."

He hasn't the money to conduct polls or use the Shaft riff for his radio advertisement, but Mr. Hayes says he is running a strong challenge to Mr. Jackson. The shared name, he believes, is an "icebreaker" among African-Americans suspicious of the politician's conservatism. Mr. Jackson's campaign says the congressman is still solidly in the lead.

"I'm not the musician, but I do have hot-buttered soul," says Mr. Hayes, referring to the artist's 1969 album, "Hot Buttered Soul."

Comment: Others: Young Boozer, "Dick" Swett, Krystal Ball, Rich Whitney (his surname was misspelled as "Whitey" on touch-screen voting machines in some mostly black wards)

At one point in his race, Mr. Boozer received a cryptic email. "I predict you are going to win your election," it read. It was sent by Krystal Ball.

"This is going to be a very tough election for the Blue Dogs"

Blue Dogs Face Sharp Losses in Midterms

Excerpt:

More than half the members of the Blue Dog Coalition—the organization of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House—are in peril in next week's election, a stark indicator of how the balloting could produce a Congress even more polarized than the current one.

The Blue Dogs are often seen as a kind of human bridge, connecting left and right in the House. But that bridge is imperiled by the coming Republican wave in midterm elections, the most stark example of how the midterms are likely to weaken Capitol Hill's political center.

Of 54 Blue Dogs in the House, six already have retired or decided to seek other offices. Of those trying to stay, 39 are in competitive races, according to the Cook Political Report, and 22 of those are in pure toss-ups.

Among those facing the toughest races are some of the Blue Dog Coalition's leaders. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, one of the co-chairs of the group, is locked in a contest with State Rep. Kristi Noem; in the most recent polling earlier this month, conducting by Rasmussen Reports, Ms. Herseth Sandlin trailed 47% to 43%.

Similarly, Rep. Baron Hill of Indiana, a fellow Blue Dog leader, is battling Republican attorney Todd Young in a deadlocked race both parties see as an indicator of the size of the GOP wave.

The bottom line is that the Blue Dog population could be cut significantly, conceivably by half, in next week's voting.

Blue Dogs tend to come from more conservative swing districts, where their hold on their seats is more tenuous in any case, and where voters are more likely to move right when the national winds push strongly in that direction.

"This is going to be a very tough election for the Blue Dogs, because many of them had success in districts where Democrats are always an endangered species," says Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a think tank promoting the ideas of moderate Democrats. "If they lose, some of them may come back in a future wave election, but those are never safe seats."

Comment: Image source. See earlier blog post How will the Blue Dogs fare?

Final comment: I tend to think of the Blue Dogs as the "good Democrats". But to the ones who vote for Obamacare .... I hope they lose!

Races I'll be watching and why

In the past I've actually stayed up all night watching election returns, sometimes even taking the next day off to fully digest the returns. Two of the elections of my youth were of particular interest:

• The 1960 presidential election. I was 11. Kennedy won by just 113,000 votes. Nixon won California, Kennedy Texas, and most of the South
  
• The 1968 presidential election. With Nixon's winning California he clinched it. While I was 19, I was not able to vote as this was before the 26th Amendment.
  

I won't be staying up all night this year (I'll be traveling to Charlotte on business that week), but these are the races I'll be following and why they interest me.

• The Minnesota races in which I've already voted. Predictions: Mark Dayton (DFL) for Governor, Erik Paulsen (R) for Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District, Terri E. Bonoff (DFL) for Minnesota Senate District 43, and Sarah Anderson (R) Minnesota State Representative - 43A
  
• The other Minnesota congressional races interest me as well. Three in particular: Minnesota 8th (Prediction James Oberstar (DFL) but I sense that Chip Cravaack is closing); Minnesota 6th (Prediction Michele Bachmann (R). Interesting because of the big money in the race!
  
• The Owatonna school district proposal to purchase Pillsbury is also of interest. There is scant polling to indicate how this may go but I predict it will fail because of general anti-tax sentiment. "Businesses are generally supportive of the Owatonna school district’s plan to purchase the former Pillsbury Baptist College campus in the heart of Owatonna. When the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism recently asked its members how they feel about the school district’s proposed acquisition of the Pillsbury College Campus, 41 percent said they favor the acquisition. In addition, 30 percent of respondents said they were still undecided about the proposal and 24 percent opposed."
  
• Gubernatorial races of interest with predictions:
  
  • California: Prediction: Jerry Brown (D). I'm pulling for Meg Whitman but don't see it going that way. Brown will win and California will continue to remain ungovernable (see the Race to Save California)!
    
  • Pennsylvania: Prediction: Tom Corbett (R)
    
  • Wisconsin: Prediction: Scott Walker (R)
    
  • Texas: Of interest: Polls indicate and anti-incumbent sentiment. Prediction: Rick Perry (R)
    
  • Florida: Of interest because of the ways the polls have fluctuated. Prediction: None but hoping for Rick Scott R.
    
• Senate races with predictions. (Comment: All are important and of interest but I highlight a handful)
  
• Nevada: Prediction: Reid defeated! Yeah!!! (Republican pickup)
  
• Illinois: Prediction: Kirk (Republican pickup)
  
• Kentucky: Prediction: Rand Paul (R)
  
• Florida: Prediction: Marco Rubio (R). Interesting because looks like Crist is not a factor.
• Wisconin: Prediction: Feingold defeated (Republican pickup)
  
• Alaska: Prediction: Joe Miller (R). Interesting because of the Murkowski write-in campaign. I don't think results will be known for several days or more! If Murkowski and Miller split, Scott McAdams could win and it would be a Democrat pickup.
  
• Pennsylvania: Prediction: very close. Polls are closing. I'm hoping for a Republican pickup here
  
• California: Prediction: Carly Fiorina won't win but a Boxer defeat would be huge!
  
• West Virginia: Prediction: Unclear but the polls are very close. A Republican win would be a pickup.
  
• Arkansas: Prediction: Republican pickup
  
• Senate balance after elections: 52 Democrats / 48 Republicans. Pickups in California, Washington state, and West Virginia would be huge and tip the balance for the Republicans.
  
• House of Representatives:
  
  • Ohio will be very interesting to watch (also for the Senate race and Gubernatorial). See Two More Ohio Races to Watch and 2010 Congressional races: "a strategy of triage"
    
  • The Democrat Blue Dogs who vote for Obamacare are all at risk. See my earlier blog post about these races.
    
  • The Republicans winning the house and Nancy Pelosi being out as Speaker (2nd in presidential line of succession) would be huge and welcome news!
    
  • Balance after elections: Perhaps 225-210 to as high as 230 to 205.
    

Way out on the line for 2012:

• I think that the Republican ticket could be Mitt Romney (for President) paired with Tim Pawlenty. Evangelicals are skeptical of Mitt because of his Mormon faith. Pawlenty has strong Evangelical credentials and could balance "the faith" of the ticket and placate the social conservatives (who are largely Evangelical Christians). Both Romney and Pawlenty are well-qualified to have the highest office!
  
• I personally think that Sarah Palin would be a disasterous pick for the Presidential ticket!
  
• I think that it is probable that President Obama will be a one-term President.
  
  
  

Image Source: flickr

The tea party released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.

Tea Party to the Rescue: How the GOP was saved from Bush and the establishment.

Excerpts:

The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration's spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush: "We had to, boss, it was a political necessity!" They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.

And they not only freed the Washington establishment, they woke it up. That establishment, composed largely of 50- to 75-year-olds who came to Washington during the Reagan era in a great rush of idealism, in many cases stayed on, as they say, not to do good but to do well. They populated a conservative infrastructure that barely existed when Reagan was coming up: the think tanks and PR groups, the media outlets and governmental organizations. They did not do what conservatives are supposed to do, which is finish their patriotic work and go home, taking the knowledge and sophistication derived from Washington and applying it to local problems. (This accounts in part for the esteem in which former Bush budget chief and current Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is held. He went home.)

The GOP establishment stayed, and one way or another lived off government, breathed in its ways and came to know—learned all too well!—the limits of what is possible and passable. Part of the social and cultural reality behind the tea party-GOP establishment split has been the sheer fact that tea partiers live in non-D.C. America. The establishment came from America, but hasn't lived there in a long time.

...

This election is about one man, Barack Obama, who fairly or not represents the following: the status quo, Washington, leftism, Nancy Pelosi, Fannie and Freddie, and deficits in trillions, not billions.

Everyone who votes is going to be pretty much voting yay or nay on all of that. And nothing can change that story line now.

Comment: Good read from Peggy Noonan

Missing from the Republican plan is a clearly articulated vision for the future of America.

How the Republicans Can Win in November--and Still Lose the Republic

Excerpt:

The message of the American people in primary elections from Alaska to Kentucky and from Delaware to Utah has not been, "We want the same old Republican ideas." Quite the contrary, most Americans (including a majority of Republican voters) have made it abundantly clear that they have no use for a "third Bush term." Even so, Americans also intuitively understand that, like it or not, if the Democrats continue to control both Congress and the White House, the America that they have known and cherished-the America of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, of Pilgrims and pioneers, of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Reagan, of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution-will vanish forever.

The Republicans, of course, recognize this dynamic and are eagerly waiting in the wings to re-ensconce themselves in powerful chairmanships and, one cannot help but speculate, to reestablish themselves as the dispensers of federal beneficence in the form of government contracts, earmarks, and entitlement spending. In other words, if history is a guide, it is reasonable to expect the Republican to abandon their rhetoric about limited government, lower taxes, and traditional values and revert back to business as usual as soon as the election is in hand.

But business as usual in Washington for the better part of eight decades has included the piecemeal dismantling of the Constitution-or at least of those parts of the Constitution that impose meaningful limitations on the power of the federal government. The mandate in the Democrats' healthcare law requiring every American to purchase health insurance-or face a hefty fine-is only the newest accretion of a long train of abuses and usurpations of Congress's legitimate authority.

Members of Congress from both political parties routinely minimize or altogether fail to consider the long-term damage they cause every time they choose to transgress constitutional boundaries. And though it may be theoretically possible to restore our system of limited representative government as long as free and fair elections continue, such a restoration at this late stage has become a monumental task. One legislative transgression has led to another-debts have accumulated across generations, entitlements have grown beyond any sane hope of sustainability-and over time the boundaries of congressional power have been all but obliterated.

We should not then, perhaps, be surprised that the Republican Party, in its "Pledge to America," fails to signal a categorical departure from its own history of disregarding constitutional limits and expanding entitlement spending. Certainly, the Pledge, if followed, represents a step away from the brink-a return to fiscal discipline, self-restraint, and free market solutions. Unfortunately, these steps, while laudable, are insufficient to halt America's long-term slide into a debilitating form of socialism.

Missing from the Republican plan is a clearly articulated vision for the future of America. Americans are not in the mood for business as usual; they (overwhelmingly) know the country is off course and want someone to lead them back to prosperity, and dignity, and greatness. And if the Republicans hope to accomplish anything with their new majority other than to preside over the dismantling of the republic, they must learn to appreciate this aspect of the American psyche.

Comment: Frankly the Republican party has been a disappointment. I don't have much hope for a political solution for America.

2 weeks out: House and Senate

Comment: From NYTimes. One week ago Senate .... House

Midterm election: A correction or a rebuke?

First thoughts: The Corrections

Excerpt:

In a way, midterms serve as a midcourse correction of sorts to the previous presidential contest, especially a president's first midterm cycle. Political observers sometimes forget this fact since Republicans -- due largely to 9/11 and its aftermath -- actually gained seats in George W. Bush's first midterm. Here are the numbers: Since World War II, a president's party has lost, on average, nearly 25 House seats and four Senate seats in a midterm cycle. The numbers are essentially the same in a president's FIRST midterm, 25.5 House seats and 2.5 Senate seats. (However, the average is lower -- nearly 20 House seats and slightly more than one Senate seat -- if you don't count Truman's and Ford's first midterms in 1946 and 1974 because they had assumed office instead of being elected to it.)

*** But not your average correction: That said, all signs are pointing to this NOT being an average midterm cycle for President Obama's party. Our current Voter Confidence Index stands at -41. To put that into perspective, the VCI was -35 in 1982, when Ronald Reagan's party lost 26 House seats; it was -30 in 1994, when Democrats lost 54 House seats; and it was -65 in 2006, when Republicans lost 30 House seats. Right now, both the Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg Political are projecting Republicans to pick up 40 to 50 House seats. They need to net 39 to take control of the chamber. By the way, what's really making that 40-50 prediction seem more likely by the day: the fact that more Democratic seats are moving into the "battleground." We're up to more than 100 Democratic seats in play now (what we count as in play are incumbents we think will poll under 60% on election day or even 55%).

Comment: My own take is that if Harry Reid is defeated AND the Dems lose the House (Pelosi out as Speaker of the House), that the midterms will be a giant slap in Obama's face!

How will the Blue Dogs fare?

Bye Bye Blue Dogs? Conservative Democrats who voted for the Obama agenda are an endangered species

Excerpt:

The Blue Dogs came to life in 1995, formed by Democratic House members who felt "choked blue" by a party shifting left. The coalition promised voters like those in Dixie County that they'd fight for fiscal conservatism and push back against tax-and-spend. Mr. Boyd was elected in 1996 on his pledges to the coalition and has been riding his membership ever since.

Today the Blue Dog label is a liability. At 54 members strong, the coalition had the muscle to block budget-busting Obama initiatives such as stimulus or health reform. Many of its members, including Mr. Boyd, instead gave the tax-and-spenders their victories.

Comment: Will be interesting to watch. Blue Dogs are fiscally conservative Democrats!

Blue Dog Coalition page

Highlighted (linked) ones at risk!

Altmire, Jason (PA-04)
Arcuri, Mike (NY-24);
Baca, Joe (CA-43)
Barrow, John (GA-12)
Berry, Marion (AR-01)
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)
Boren, Dan (OK-02)
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03)
Boyd, Allen (FL-02)
Bright, Bobby (AL-02)
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)
Carney, Christopher (PA-10)
Chandler, Ben (KY-06)
Childers, Travis (MS-01)
Cooper, Jim (TN-05)
Costa, Jim (CA-20)
Cuellar, Henry (TX-28)
Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03)
Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)
Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)
Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Gordon, Bart (TN-06)
Harman, Jane (CA-36)
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)
Hill, Baron (IN-09)
Holden, Tim (PA-17)
Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01)
McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)
Markey, Betsy (CO-04)
Marshall, Jim (GA-08)
Matheson, Jim (UT-02)
Melancon, Charlie (LA-03)
Michaud, Mike (ME-02)
Minnick, Walt (ID-01)
Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)
Moore, Dennis (KS-03)
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)
Murphy, Scott (NY-20)
Nye, Glenn (VA-02)
Peterson, Collin (MN-07)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND)
Ross, Mike (AR-04)
Salazar, John (CO-03)
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)
Schiff, Adam (CA-29)
Schrader, Kurt (OR-05)
Scott, David (GA-13)
Shuler, Heath (NC-11)
Space, Zack (OH-18)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Taylor, Gene (MS-04)
Thompson, Mike (CA-01)
Wilson, Charles (OH-06)

Comment: In cases where the Blue Dog Democrat voted for the health care bill, they generally are at risk (eg. Kansas 3rd District)

Another race to watch: Minnesota 8th District

Has Oberstar met his match?

Excerpt:

Rep. Jim Oberstar is learning that in a year of unpredictable politics, even household names have to defend their brand.

Former Navy captain and political novice Chip Cravaack is giving the 18-term congressman his first serious challenge in years -- enough that national Republicans are openly salivating about the prospect of toppling the dean of Minnesota's congressional delegation.

"This is the first guy that's appeared against him with a hammer," said Oberstar supporter Jean Laker, tucking into an early dinner at Vaughn's restaurant in Hoyt Lakes. "The rest of them had feather pillows."

Keeping the Eighth District in DFL hands has implications across Minnesota's political spectrum. The Eighth is known for delivering big for Democrats on election night. Losing support there could upend secure seats in the Legislature and possibly even cut into support for gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton.

Cravaack, 51, brings a military mindset to his campaign. He plans to deploy 500 volunteers -- many ranked as commanders, captains or precinct lieutenants -- between now and Election Day. He tours the sprawling district in a bannered motor home dubbed "The War Wagon."

It would take seismic political change for a GOP victory in the DFL stronghold of northeastern Minnesota.

No Republican has represented the Eighth District since 1947. But Cravaack, a former Northwest Airlines pilot, has galvanized local conservatives and prodded at least some Oberstar supporters into reconsidering their vote.

Comments:

• The NYTimes profile: Minnesota 8th District Profile (They don't see it as close!)
  
• Official site: Chip Cravaack for Congress
  
• Per Chip Cravaack site, he is closing: A poll released last week that showed Chip Cravaack within three points of 18-term incumbent Congressman Jim Oberstar
  

House Race - 3 weeks out

Comment: From NYTimes