TC
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Post by TC on Sept 22, 2009 8:31:59 GMT -5
A Given that the Democrats set up a massive machine in Virginia a year ago, and given that they've had a hot streak that now includes two senators and two governors, and given that Virginia went blue for the first time in a while, a Deeds loss is a big thing. Is it? You're making the argument that a turnout-based odd-year non-midterm election is a huge win for the GOP. What would it prove other than superior GOTV?
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Sept 22, 2009 9:05:29 GMT -5
A Given that the Democrats set up a massive machine in Virginia a year ago, and given that they've had a hot streak that now includes two senators and two governors, and given that Virginia went blue for the first time in a while, a Deeds loss is a big thing. Is it? You're making the argument that a turnout-based odd-year non-midterm election is a huge win for the GOP. What would it prove other than superior GOTV? Democrats have been big for a few years on turning Virginia "blue", especially based on demographic trends as the northern, more Democratic part of the state becomes a greater percentage of the votes. They've usually cinched this by picking candidates who run well in the non-NoVa areas even though they're from the north. It's why the Republican Convention included oodles of jokes about McAulifffe and a few about Moran - trying to denigrate them as "not real Virginians" early on. Deeds represented a break from that - he's not from NoVa. Deeds represents the Democratic playbook in its purest form for winning in Virginia. Both the national parties have identified Virginia as a big red bullseye (admittedly easier to do when there are only two major races). The RNC has contributed a lot of money here, and Obama has done some minor campaigning for Deeds (though, during the debate, he demurred from being an Obama Democrat and called himself a Deeds Democrat). The Republicans also have a good candidate who isn't spending all his time giving himself self-inflicted wounds. Oh, and if McDonnell wins and does a good job (Virginia's governors are limited to one term), he's a darkhorse VP pick and, more importantly, a good choice to go up against Webb or Warner. So, yes, it's a big deal.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Sept 22, 2009 9:39:59 GMT -5
A Given that the Democrats set up a massive machine in Virginia a year ago, and given that they've had a hot streak that now includes two senators and two governors, and given that Virginia went blue for the first time in a while, a Deeds loss is a big thing. Is it? You're making the argument that a turnout-based odd-year non-midterm election is a huge win for the GOP. What would it prove other than superior GOTV? Aren't all Virginia governor's elections off-year? If so, you could say that the Kaine and Mark Warner's elections were also due to superior GOTV.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Sept 23, 2009 18:17:55 GMT -5
Democrat Creigh Deeds, nominee for governor of Virginia, has been criticized for not having a transportation plan so today the Washington Post allowed him to publish an op-ed piece giving his newly developed plan. What his "plan" consists of is a plan, after the election, to appoint a commission to come up with a plan that has bi-partisan support. The second feature is he is willing to consider tax increases to pay for it. Here's the "plan": www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/22/AR2009092202643.html
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Sept 23, 2009 18:25:35 GMT -5
Is it? You're making the argument that a turnout-based odd-year non-midterm election is a huge win for the GOP. What would it prove other than superior GOTV? Aren't all Virginia governor's elections off-year? If so, you could say that the Kaine and Mark Warner's elections were also due to superior GOTV. Warner was elected last year. Only the governor elections occur in the off year.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Sept 23, 2009 18:42:41 GMT -5
Aren't all Virginia governor's elections off-year? If so, you could say that the Kaine and Mark Warner's elections were also due to superior GOTV. Warner was elected last year. Only the governor elections occur in the off year. Warner was elected governor before Kaine.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Sept 23, 2009 19:02:33 GMT -5
Democrat Creigh Deeds, nominee for governor of Virginia, has been criticized for not having a transportation plan so today the Washington Post allowed him to publish an op-ed piece giving his newly developed plan. What his "plan" consists of is a plan, after the election, to appoint a commission to come up with a plan that has bi-partisan support. The second feature is he is willing to consider tax increases to pay for it. Here's the "plan": www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/22/AR2009092202643.htmlPolicy decisions are frequently made on the basis of what is "least bad." This kind of thing smacks of a realization of that and an attempt to avoid it by hiding the ball. I would be curious to see McDonnell's plan discussed by a third party (stripped of talking points) to consider (i) what it provides for and (ii) how it is funded. My observation of the current "tax cut and spend" mindset of the Republicans is that their plans are not sound from the point of view that they bankrupt the government and refuse to acknowledge that we must pay for what we spend instead of hiding the ball through bonds, deficits, and the like. This approach is designed to avoid current spending (and response to such from the electorate) and is no more transparent than the proverbial commission proposed by Deeds. When the idea is raised that we should raise taxes to pay for what we've already spent, we end up with a Pavlovian response or an implicit acknowledgment that the spending is good as long as someone else pays for it.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Sept 24, 2009 10:31:43 GMT -5
McDonnell's transportation plan is in writing for all to see. It says there will be no tax increase to pay for it but will be financed from the general fund. You may not like his plan but you can read it and decide whether you like it or not. Deed's "plan" is "I will appoint a commission" to come up with a plan. His "plan" also says he is open to additional taxes to pay for whatever the commission comes up with.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Sept 24, 2009 10:58:23 GMT -5
McDonnell's transportation plan is in writing for all to see. It says there will be no tax increase to pay for it but will be financed from the general fund. You may not like his plan but you can read it and decide whether you like it or not. Deed's "plan" is "I will appoint a commission" to come up with a plan. His "plan" also says he is open to additional taxes to pay for whatever the commission comes up with. That's not a third party website. I attempted to view the McDonnell plan yesterday only to find that it does not appear to be MAC-compliant and, funnily enough, contains no text. In any event, it appears as though the plan is not funded entirely through Virginia's general fund. Indeed, he will raise tolls,* reapportion sales taxes, and privatize liquor stores (leading to higher taxes on those small businesses), among other things. Whether this skimming will raise enough money is an open question and leads to the question of whether the plan is good enough not to raise taxes but bad enough that it does not work well enough without tax hikes. It also includes a political non-starter in taking money from the general fund that would otherwise be used for education, health, and other purposes. I don't consider that kind of proposal - robbing the general fund - transparent. Interestingly enough, Deeds' plan is consistent with an earlier criticism of Obama - that he should not be concocting plans to force on the legislature. This being said, I am, at best, luke warm toward Deeds but would have supported him against Baghdad Terry** and Moran. If there was a passable, liberal alternative, that would have been ideal although fatal to Democrats' hopes in November. *This kind of provision, while not reduceable to a "he will raise taxes" riff in a 30 second spot, places a tax-like burden on a certain group of people disproportionately. It is good politics from the point of view that this group does not overlap considerably with McDonnell's base. **So named for his prognostications in 2008 that were no more truthful than those of the Baghdad newsman on Iraq state television at the beginning of the war.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Sept 24, 2009 21:37:29 GMT -5
InsiderAdvantage has it as a 48-44 race right now. So, the current polls have this as between a 2 and 4 point race, flirting with the MoE at this time.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Oct 1, 2009 11:01:10 GMT -5
Don't look now but that tightening race? Maybe not so much. McDonnell back up by 9 in Rasmussen, by 14 in Survey USA. This is not to say that the whole thing can't still turn around, but I think we can come to one conclusion at this point in the race: McDonnell's comfortable lead, it seems safe to say, was damaged greatly by the attack from The Washington Post about his thesis. McDonnell responded by putting up a series of ads: one with his daughter, an Iraq veteran, condemning the attack, one with his transportatation plan (in which he cleverly noted how that same same newspaper praised his plan while trashing Deeds' non-plan), and I think there was one more general ad about his plans to increase jobs. They've all been running pretty regularly in Virginia. There was not a single ad that could be remotely considered an attack ad (at least not by today's standards -- there was criticism of Deeds in the ads, but the focus of all the ads was McDonnell, not his opponent). Deeds on the other hand has run at least four different versions of a TV ad in which all he does is go after McDonnell on the basis of his thesis. He has run exactly zero ads about what he will do for Virginia....at least none that I've seen. And it doesn't seem to have worked one iota. The DNC seems to agree, with the rumor being they are keeping the $5M they had slotted for this campaign's final push. LINKPut aside for a moment the implications of this race on President Obama, 2010 or the national fortunes of the Republican or Democratic parties. Is it possible -- even the tiniest bit possible -- that this election may have a more important implication...that people are weary of negative campaigning in elections and don't want to hear it anymore? [slaps self across face] Naaahh. Who am I kidding? But good for Bob McDonnell not stooping to the bait, standing up for his record and running a good closing campaign. Deeds' campaign has been pretty much a joke, right down to this hilarious incident with his aides and a lone protester.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Oct 1, 2009 11:05:05 GMT -5
As to the negative campaigning bit, it may be working in NJ, where Corzine is closing the gap on Christie. The difference there is that Christie took his gloves off to a greater extent, even at the beginning of the campaign. The election seems to be coming down to who is more corrupt, whose driving is worse, and the like.
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TC
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Post by TC on Oct 1, 2009 11:12:24 GMT -5
People are always weary of negative campaigning. It always works at tearing down opponent's numbers though.
Corzine/Christie is now a 3 point race (down from 18), Deeds looks like he is dead in the water. Sabato keeps suggesting that he'll get Mark Warner and Clinton and Kaine campaigning for him and that that might make a difference, but it didn't seem to do the job for Terry McCauliffe.
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TC
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Post by TC on Oct 1, 2009 11:20:35 GMT -5
The election seems to be coming down to who is more corrupt, whose driving is worse, and the like. Yeah, none of the candidates in either of the two races are very good. Who has the least amount of tickets they applied political pressure in order to skip out on in their glove box shouldn't be a metric for electing a Governor.
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Oct 1, 2009 11:23:21 GMT -5
Oh, please. This isn't negative campaigning.
You know what negative campaigning was? Willie Horton. A big part of the '88 race was being tough on crime. George W. Bush said he was tough on crime, and used Willie to help convince people that Dukakis wasn't.
Family issues really aren't an issue in the Virginia race - if they are, Deeds would add "As governor of Virginia, I pledge to do X", where X is something related to working women that everyone would support. But they're absent - all they are is this bugaboo that McDonnell is this evil person. McDonnell's response ads have been 10% "Deeds is lying", 70% "Deeds doesn't have any plan" (really the big issue in this campaign), and 20% "I do have a plan".
Deeds represents nothing. All of his ads feature McDonnell (which increases his name recognition) and nothing about what he will do. And it's going to get him crushed.
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TC
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Post by TC on Oct 6, 2009 11:39:40 GMT -5
Corzine +1, McDonnell +11
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Oct 6, 2009 11:44:27 GMT -5
If Corzine pulls it out (and I think he will), but that remains a big if, I don't believe there would be much ground to claim a Republican victory in November, much less a "trouncing." That would be a terrible showing to lose with someone who maintained upside-down poll numbers for most of his first term.
At most, you have repenetration into a historically red but purpling state and continued failure to rise above asystole north of the Mason-Dixon line. In New Jersey, there simply are not too many popular Republicans from out-of-state who could help out Christie here in any measureable way, except for Giuliani possibly.
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Post by williambraskyiii on Oct 6, 2009 12:03:09 GMT -5
At most, you have repenetration into a historically red but purpling state and continued failure to rise above asystole north of the Mason-Dixon line. quote] WTF talks like this? like are you serious right now? sorry, i know this doesn't contribute to the discourse, but you are honestly ridiculous. do you talk like this in person?
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Oct 6, 2009 12:11:11 GMT -5
The interesting thing about the polls in the New Jersey race (at least to me) are not the numbers between Christie and Corzine. They're still in a dead heat, and I'm guessing they are going to remain so up to Election Day.
No, the interesting thing is that the numbers for both of them have plummeted into the high 30s, while Independent Chris Daggett is now up to 17 in the polls...up 10 points from a week or two ago.
It'll be REAL interesting to see if Daggett can gain any more on either of them in the finals weeks.
If he continues to rise like this, there might actually be a legitimate three-way race. When's the last time we had one of those???
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Oct 6, 2009 12:11:56 GMT -5
At most, you have repenetration into a historically red but purpling state and continued failure to rise above asystole north of the Mason-Dixon line. quote] WTF talks like this? like are you serious right now? sorry, i know this doesn't contribute to the discourse, but you are honestly ridiculous. do you talk like this in person? I think you can probably assume that my posts are made with a certain sarcasm in many cases. I care less about ridiculousness or not as opposed to making my point, but I probably would not use "asystole" in a conversation. I would argue that others on this board are ridiculous but for other reasons but that goes largely unnoticed, perhaps depending on party affiliation.
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