Old Folks in the Senate?

This article is all about the geriatric nature of the Senate. While it is humorous, it is also worrisome. One of the reasons that is often given for the imposition of term limits (along with the "fresh blood" line of reasonsing) is that it prevents people like Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd from hanging on for years, being re-elected and serving after they have anything left to give. My apologies to Byrd, who seems to still have all of his mental faculties about him, but he's now the longest serving Senator in history so I decided he was the poster child (or, poster geezer, if you prefer) for this issue.

I said in a previous post that I am opposed to term limits because I view them as undemocratic. If the people want to elect a particular representative, they should be allowed to do so. It is for the very same reason that I am opposed to the idea of mandatory retirement ages for elected officials. The people have a right to choose who is going to represent them in Congress. Who am I to say that Robert Byrd is too old to do his job right? Isn't that something that should be decided by the people, rather than by a rigid rule saying "80 is too old?"

There is one way I can see in which my argument can effectively be countered. Since the political parties have so much influence on who runs (or at least, who can run effectively), there is tremendous pressure on people not to challenge some of these elderly office-holders in primaries. As a result, a Democrat in West Virginia isn't going to get a legitimate option in a primary, because no one with a chance to win is going to challenge Byrd. As a result, the case can be made that mandatory retirement prevents the parties from stopping challeges before they get going by writing the retirement age into law. While I understand this argument, I don't place that much faith in it. I still think the people can choose whether or not they want to elect the old man. And if it's such a huge issue, then even a well-funded, non-party endorsed candidate should be able to win in the primary against the old fella (or lady).

One final note: while I do not support mandatory retirement ages for elected officials, I most certainly do support them for appointed officials, most notably federal judges, who hold lifetime appointments. Past history indicates that too often, judges don't listen to common sense or to their bodies. There is no question that if some of these elderly judges who died on the bench had to face an election, they would lose. The nation finds itself lacking all confidence in their ability to do their job, and yet there is no way to remove them from office. So, I say set a mandatory judicial retirement age at 80. I'd be tempted to go lower, to say 70 or 75, but the actual age isn't as relevant as the idea. The constitution would need to be amended, so this isn't going to happen. Nevertheless, I think it should be done. Incidentally, the current judges (especially the Justices of the Supreme Court) could be grandfathered in to avoid any suggestion that politics is the motivating factor. Court packing this most certainly is not.

Never Believe Dick Morris

Dick Morris had this article published today in The Hill. I'm now going to tell you why a significant part of what he wrote is dead wrong.


First, I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Republicans will not lose control of the Senate this year. I'll post more detailed information on this as the election draws nearer, but Democrats have no shot. Can they get closer? Yes, probably. But they would have to not only win all of the close races, they would have to make sure they didn't lose any surprises AND they would have to generate some genuine upsets. Not going to happen. (Incidentally, if you're a Democrat, just wait until 2008 when the Republicans will be defending 22 seats to 11 for the Dems - THEN you will see a Democratic Senate).

Next, Morris suggested that corruption is an issue that favors the Democrats almost exclusively. The Republicans, says Morris, are the only party that is subject to corruption problems in this falls elections. He suggests that the spectacle of Tom DeLay leaving the House dwarfs the Cynthia McKinney, Patrick Kennedy, and William Jefferson debacles. He may be right about McKinney and Kennedy, but he's dead wrong about Jefferson. The DeLay story is complicated and clouded by issues of whether the DA was "out to get" DeLay. It's a story that most Americans don't care much about, and have already forgotten. DeLay left the House with little fanfare.

Contrast this with Jefferson. This story is easy: Jefferson took money. Who cares for what, or why. HE TOOK MONEY. Everyone knows about this story. It just happened. And now, he is refusing to step down from his leadership position, let alone resigning from the Senate. That is prolonging the story, making it more compelling. It is also making Democrats look worse and worse. I don't understand how Dick Morris can suggest that Democrats don't have to worry about corruption.

How someone who has been around the powerful and in the political game for so long can be so completely wrong, I don't know. If I were you, I wouldn't listen to a word this man says. Then again, I'm just a student with a computer who likes to spend my free time thinking about politics and baseball. Guess that's kind of a toss-up...

Maine Senate Primary

It took awhile, but the race to determine Senator Olympia Snowe's (R) opponent in the general election has ended with Jean Hay Bright (D) beating out Eric Menhert (D) 51%-49%.

I don't think that Snowe is very vulnerable. She is a two-termer who has become well known as a leading moderate voice in the Senate. Bright will have significant work ahead of her if she wants to make a dent in Snowe's armor, and I think the fiercely independent Maine voters will stick with Snowe.

Lieberman the Independent?

Reports are coming in on a fairly regular basis that Ned Lamont (D) is gaining on Joe Lieberman (D) ahead of Connecticut's August 8 primary. This Quinnipiac poll from June 8, for instance, shows Lieberman leading Lamont by about 15 points, which demonstrates a significant gain from where Lamont was just 6 weeks ago.

As a result, speculation is building that Lieberman may chose to pursue a run as an Independent if he fails to secure the Democratic nomination in August. This article from Breitbart discusses the situation.

It seems to me that Lieberman would probably win the election if he ran as an Independent. He'd lose the hardcore Democrats, but I think a good number of moderate and conservative voters would vote for him, believing that the Republican candidate didn't have a chance. The polling seems to support this idea as well.

It will be interesting to watch this situation develop over the two months until the Connecticut primary.

Tonight's Primaries

Unlike last week, when there were primaries in states from all across the country, including the biggest enchilada of them all in California, this week's primaries were all concentrated in the East. There is a little uncertainty remaining in a few of these races, but I will wait until tomorrow to post final results. Here are the evening updates.

Maine Senate
Senator Olympia Snowe (R) was not opposed in this year's primary. At this point, the identity of her opponent is still unknown, as Jean Hay Bright (D) and Eric Menhert (D) are neck and neck, 51%-49%, with just under 60% of precincts reporting.

Maine Governor
Governor John Baldacci (D) was renominated tonight with 75% of the vote. He will face Chandler Woodcock (R), who won a tough three way race with 41% of the vote. His closest opponent had 35%.

South Carolina Governor
Governor Marc Sanford (R) was renominated tonight with a surprisingly low 65% of the vote. His opponent will be Tommy Moore (D), who received 64% of the Democratic votes.

South Carolina CD 1
Congressman Henry Brown, Jr. (R) will have to wait a couple of weeks to find out who he will be facing in November. South Carolina requires a candidate to receive over 50% of the primary vote in order to advance to the general election. No candidate did in this race, and so Ben Frasier (D), who received 47% of the vote, will face off against Randy Maatta (D), who received 32% of the vote, on June 27.

South Carolina CD 2
Congressman Joe Wilson (R) will face off against Michael Ellisor (D) in November. Ellison won tonight over David White (D) with 59% of the vote.

South Carolina CD 3
Congressman Gresham Barrett (R) will battle Lee Ballenger (D) in November. Ballenger recieved 67% of the vote in beating Philip Cheney (D) tonight.

Virginia Senate
Senator George Allen (R) will face James Webb, Jr. (D) in November, following Webb's 53%-47% victory over Harris Miller (D) in a minor upset tonight. I have to eat a little bit of crow here, since I suggested in an earlier post that Miller would win the race.

Virginia CD 8
Congressman Jim Moran, Jr. (D) will face Thomas O'Donoghue (R) in November, after O'Donoghue defeated Mark Ellmore (R) 69%-31%.

Virginia CD 11
Congressman Tom Davis III (R) will face Andrew Hurst (D) in November, following Hurst's victory over Ken Longmyer (D) by a 55%-45% margin in tonight's primary.

Democrat Chances in 2006

It wasn't supposed to be this way. When the 2006 Congressional race began in earnest this January, Democrats were riding high. Karl Rove, architect of Republican victories in 2000, 2002, and 2004 was facing an indictment; Tom DeLay was facing internal trouble in his bid to stay Majority leader of the House; the Duke Cunningham story had just broke, leaving Republicans even further embattled on ethics issues; President Bush's poll numbers were preparing to take a sharp dive. If you talked to a Democrat in the early months of this year, the optimism was near boundless; the party would take back the House, get close in the Senate, and be poised to take over the White House in 2008.

Ummm...hold on. Over the past few weeks the conventional wisdom that the environment was ripe for huge Democratic gains has been falling by the wayside. Yes, Tom DeLay is gone, but he slipped away quietly, and replacement John Boehner has been scandal free since taking over. The President's poll numbers, while still horrifyingly low, are beginning to rebound. Democratic attempts to paint Republicans as the party of corruption suffered a severe setback with news of Congressman William Jefferson's alleged shenanigans, and that gift just keeps on giving. Last week, Brian Bilbray succesfully held on to the Cunningham's southern California House seat, stunning Democrats and making Republicans giddy. And now, today, Karl Rove found out that he will not be indicted in the Valerie Plame mess.

What's going on here, exactly?

Well, to begin with, notice that of the things listed above that have gone right for Republicans, the Dems could exert real control on only one of them (the California special election). And therein lies a tremendous amount of the problem. The Democrats were relying on the Republicans and the political climate to win the 2006 election for them. A combination of Republican's putting their house (pun intended) in order, bad luck, and foolhearty planning has left the Democrats at the mercy of the very forces they were counting on.

Elections are a dynamic, drawn-out process. Things change, sometimes drastically. It is far, far smarter to do what you can to control the news, rather than sitting back and waiting for the other side to self-destruct. The Democrats are beginning to learn that lesson now. Or at least, they should be. While Nancy Pelosi has appeared to catch on, she is facing obstruction from Rahm Emmanuel and Chuck Schumer, the heads of the DCCC and DSCC, respectively, who both are continuing to push for Democrats to emphasize Republican corruption rather than Democratic plans and ideas.

Sadly for the Dems, I think the Schumer/Emmanuel wing is going to win this fight. By the time they switch gears, it will be much to late. The result will be a difficult to stomach (for Democrats, anyway) moral defeat in the 2006 elections. They may gain a few seats in the House, but I don't think they'll win the number necessary to take over the body and make Nancy Pelosi the first female Speaker. They will be lucky to hold on where they're at in the Senate. And perhaps worst, they will fail to gain any traction for the 2008 election.

This is reversible. If Democrats wise up and start to put together a legitimate platform, begin to generate some legitimate ideas, they can take advantage of a political climate that still favors them. But time is rapidly running out for that approach to work.

Ann Coulter

I don't like Ann Coulter, which will come as no surprise to my friends who know that I'm to the left of center on the political scale. I don't want to harangue her, or suggest why she's wrong, or do any of the things I typically do when I'm actually discussing the finer points of an article. Instead, I'm just going to provide a link to something she just wrote.

Then I'm going to say "nutjob" to get it out of my system.

And then I'm going to say it's no wonder there can be no common dialogue, when this is what passes for a leading commentator on the Right. Before I get an angry comment or somesuch, I know that there are people just as absurd on the Left. I'm just too lazy to find them right now.

I don't know what she wants to accomplish, other than making a lot of money. I guess that's a good enough goal. I just don't understand this woman's appeal. She makes Maureen Dowd look sane, and that's saying something. Ok, maybe she doesn't...they're both snake women.

I'm going to let this rather uncharacteristic post die now, and promise to get back to some more substantive blogging tomorrow. I'm just completely mystified at the moment and had to put it out there...

2008 Des Moines Register Poll

Sitting here about 18 months before the 2008 Iowa Caucuses (they're actually closer than it seems), I don't put a whole lot of faith in polls showing one candidate leading another. That said, it's interesting to see where the early support is, and I have a little more faith in state polls than in national polls.

This Des Moines Register poll is very interesting because of who leads. Hillary Clinton has led virtually every poll on the Democratic side, making it seem that her nomination was inevitable. This poll shows that the Iowa caucuses may be a chink in her armor, and may open the door for more of a free-for-all than is currently anticipated.

Before I go further with that analysis, it's also interesting to note that John Edwards is leading in this poll. Honestly, I would be stunned if Edwards proved himself as a legitimate contender this time around, but it's easy to forget that before he was John Kerry's running-mate, he was doing fairly well in finishing second for the 2004 Democratic nomination. He has the experience of having run before, he has a folksy, Populist sort of charm to him. So when a poll from the first stop in the 2008 election calendar has him leading Hillary Clinton, and wiping out John Kerry and Tom Vilsack (more on this momentarily), it should probably be taken somewhat seriously.

Back to Hillary and why this could be a stumbling block. If you're the frontrunner, you're expected to win everything. It's not fair, but it's true. If Hillary were to come into Iowa with all of the steam, the expectations would be tremendous. Finishing second would be seen as a huge failure for her campaign, and it could cost her support in New Hampshire and the primaries to follow on the first big weekend. This is why it's absurd to have Iowa and New Hampshire first, because they are about as unrepresentative as states can get.

Finally, a note on Vilsack. One poll does not an election make, but this is terrible news for Vilsack, who couldn't finish above 4th in a place where the people know him. Ouch. Tom, you might want to start planning that career in the private sector.