Elections Blog

…with 24% of likley GOP voters, but Condi is a surprise #2 with 18%, followed by McCain at 17%. 
In potential general election matchups, Rudy ties Hillary with 46% each, but leads Obama and Al Gore. 
Full results here…

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…comes this ‘breaking news’: Rick Santorum will not run for President in 2008.
Wow, color me shocked!…

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…despite what some of you may think; I’m an easy-going, live-and-let-live type who is all in favor of peace, love, and understanding. Still, sometimes the news is so bad that you can’t sugar-coat it, and Iran’s nuclear program is one such story:
New traces of plutonium and enriched uranium — potential material for atomic warheads [...]

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The Republican race for the 2008 nomination just got a HELL of a lot more interesting…Rudy G. has seemingly answered months of on-again/off-again speculation with…it’s on, baby!

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a moderate Republican best known for his stewardship of the city after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has taken the first step in a [...]

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…marred only by the appearance of MoDo (transcript here).  Said MoDo:

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, here’s the cover of Newsweek magazine. “Father Knows Best.” With Bush 41, Bush 43, and it’s subtitled “With Congress Lost, Iraq in Chaos, Bush Calls In His Dad’s Team. Can James, James Baker and Company Save the Son’s Presidency?” Very similar [...]

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Some very interesting results from a post-election poll by Newsweek:
Just about everyone believes the Republicans lost the 2006 midterms more than the Democrats won it. Presented with a list of factors that may have contributed to the Democrats’ success, 85 percent of Americans said the “major reason” was disapproval of the administration’s handling of [...]

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…John McCain is one step closer to declaring his candidacy:
ABC News has learned that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his political team have decided it’s full steam ahead for his 2008 presidential campaign though he has yet to make the final, official decision.
Sources close to McCain say on Wednesday in Phoenix, he and a half [...]

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Yet another voice adds itself to the chorus of those who do not see a defeat for conservatism in Tuesday’s results, that of Charles Krauthammer:
… [T]he great Democratic wave of 2006 is nothing remotely like the great structural change some are trumpeting. It was an event-driven election that produced the shift of power one would [...]

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…and the Republicans lose the Senate:
A Democratic takeover of the Senate is appearing likely after an ongoing canvass of votes in Virginia produced no significant changes in the outcome of the hard-fought race led by Democratic challenger Jim Webb, sources told CNN Wednesday.
Wednesday night, with Webb leading Republican Sen. George Allen by about 7,200 votes [...]

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…though an honest observer must admit the momentum has been going Webb’s way.  On the outside chance that I have any undecided Virginia readers, let me remind you once more why a vote for Allen is your best option (it’s the economy, stupid! - oh, wait, if I’m trying to sway your vote, I shouldn’t [...]

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I’ve been harping on Republicans to run on tax cuts and the economy for literally months now, and with the exception of George Allen, I’ve heard mostly crickets chirping.  Maybe that’s changing now:
Republicans seized on a drop in the unemployment rate to assert on Friday that tax cuts were invigorating the economy, highlighting just four [...]

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…it’s still not a sure thing:
…[T]hree races [are] clear Toss Ups: Missouri, Virginia and Montana. Assuming a Ford loss in Tennessee, Democrats will need to sweep all three of these states to win control of the Senate. Montana had been a race that Democrats felt they had in the bag due to Burns’ Abramoff problems, but [...]

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With the elections little more than two weeks away, I still don’t see enough of a coordinated effort by the Republicans to use perhaps their best remaining argument to stay in power.  I’m talking about the Bush tax cuts.  Here’s George Will:
…[S]ince the Bush tax cuts went into effect in 2003, the economy’s growth rate [...]

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The George Allen blog notes The Nation looking on with approval at James Webb’s nods to…Marx and Engels.  I’ve noted before Webb’s solid progressive (read: populist or socialist, pick your poison) credentials on economic matters, causing one commenter to note with exasperation:
Can we all agree that we’re OK with the free market system? Can we [...]

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Hillary’s presidential campaign seems to be in real danger of running out of steam, and that’s bad news for Democrats, as, if the primaries were held today, the number one candidate would appear to be the not-ready-for-prime-time (and horrible campaigner) John Edwards:
Today’s Iowa Poll of the 2008 race for president in the Hawkeye state ought [...]

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The brouhaha over George Allen’s newly discovered Jewish roots has clarified one thing: progressives really, really, really don’t much care for Virginians:
What do the liberal allies of Jim Webb think of Virginians?

“the racist crowd” (Kos)
“the bubba vote” (Kos)
“Virginia. Eeewww.” (MaxSpeak)
“He may have been concerned that Jewish roots wouldn’t play well in [...]

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If you didn’t see it, there was a good (if you’re a Republican) debate on Meet The Press today between incumbent George Allen and his Democratic challenger James Webb.  Jon Henke live-blogged it here; it’s actually still on-going in my time zone, but I do want to share a few impressions.
First, Webb is not a [...]

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Part of an excellent interview/profile in the Examiner:
Huckabee has an unusually keen understanding of the political threat posed to the GOP by Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is widely regarded as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. He says the New York Democrat, who spent years in Arkansas, has a [...]

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The answer, of course, is anyone that would buy her book.  Radar Online, which seems to be succeeding to the same extent as the print edition is failing, reports:
The right-wingers who think nothing but the worst of Cindy Sheehan probably won’t change their minds after reading Peace Mom. In the book, which hits bookstores September [...]

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Always a wise policy, that:
Five years have passed since the horrific attack on our American homeland, and, still, there is one serious, undeniable fact we have yet to confront: We are, today, not where we wanted to be and nowhere near where we need to be.
In April of 1861, in response to the firing on [...]

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