A vote against Dems, not for the GOP

From Scott Rasmussen of The Washington Post on Nov. 1:

In the first week of January 2010, Rasmussen Reports showed Republicans with a nine-point lead on the generic congressional ballot. Scott Brown delivered a stunning upset in the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election a couple of weeks later.

In the last week of October 2010, Rasmussen Reports again showed Republicans with a nine-point lead on the generic ballot. And tomorrow Republicans will send more Republicans to Congress than at any time in the past 80 years.

This isn't a wave, it's a tidal shift—and we've seen it coming for a long time. Remarkably, there have been plenty of warning signs over the past two years, but Democratic leaders ignored them. At least the captain of the Titanic tried to miss the iceberg. Congressional Democrats aimed right for it.

While most voters now believe that cutting government spending is good for the economy, congressional Democrats have convinced them that they want to increase government spending. After the president proposed a $50 billion infrastructure plan in September, for example, Rasmussen Reports polling found that 61% of voters believed cutting spending would create more jobs than the president's plan.

Central to the Democrats' electoral woes was the debate on health-care reform. From the moment in May 2009 when the Congressional Budget Office announced that the president's plan would cost a trillion dollars, most voters opposed it. Today 53% want to repeal it. Opposition was always more intense than support, and opposition was especially high among senior citizens, who vote in high numbers in midterm elections.

Rather than acknowledging the public concern by passing a smaller and more popular plan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama insisted on passing the proposed legislation by any means possible.

As a result, Democrats face massive losses in tomorrow's midterm election. Based upon our generic ballot polling and an analysis of individual races, we project that Nancy Pelosi's party will likely lose 55 or more seats in the House, putting the GOP firmly in the majority. Republicans will also win at least 25 of the 37 Senate elections. While the most likely outcome is that Republicans end up with 48 or 49 Senate seats, Democrats will need to win close races in West Virginia, Washington and California to protect their majority.

Read more.

Senate fails to advance campaign finance bill

From Jordan Fabian and Alexander Bolton of The Hill on July 27:

The Senate failed to advance a campaign finance bill Tuesday, dealing a blow to Democrats who were trying to pass a key piece of their agenda before the August recess.

The legislation, called the Disclose Act, would require corporations to make detailed public reports on political spending. It failed on a 57-41 vote that went along party lines. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voted against the motion, a procedural move to allow another vote to occur in the future.

The three Republican centrists considered most likely to support the bill, Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Scott Brown (Mass.), all voted against it.

They declined to support the bill despite heavy lobbying from liberal groups such as MoveOn.org, which has strong membership in Maine and Massachusetts.

Democrats were also missing the vote of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who was absent from the Senate on Tuesday because he was attending a funeral.

Reid said Lieberman assured him that he would vote for the legislation upon his return.

Still, that leaves Democrats one vote short of the 60 they need to advance the bill, meaning that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate sponsor of the legislation, may need to make additional changes to bring Republicans on board.

The House passed the bill last month by a vote of 219-206.

The failure comes one day after President Obama held a Rose Garden press conference to urge Senate passage of the Disclose Act.

“You’d think that making these reforms would be a matter of common sense,” Obama said Monday. “But, of course, this is Washington in 2010, and the Republican leadership in the Senate is once again using every tactic and maneuver they can to prevent the Disclose Act from even coming up for a vote.”

Ahead of the vote, Schumer made changes to the legislation to address Republican concerns.

He eliminated a carve-out that would have exempted labor unions from reporting fund transfers between affiliates.

But that did not satisfy GOP holdouts. Despite the failure of the vote, Schumer promised that Democrats would hold additional cloture votes until the legislation passes.

“And we will go back at this bill again and again and again until we pass it,” he said before the vote. “It’s that vital, not to Democrats, not to Republicans, but to the future of people’s faith in the functioning of this government.”

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The GOP's counterinsurgency by spenders

From Marc A. Thiessen of The Washington Post on July 20:

The Republican establishment in Washington is bracing itself for an influx of fiscally conservative insurgents this fall, as Tea Party candidates from Utah, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wisconsin, Nevada and other states have either secured their party's Senate nominations or are running strong. Bemoaning the earthquake their arrival on Capitol Hill portends, former Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told The Post this past weekend, "We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples" in the Senate, adding "as soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them."

Jim DeMint can rest easy. It is unlikely that folks like Mike Lee, Ron Johnson or Sharron Angle will be co-opted if they win. But come November there may be some new Republican senators eager to join the club. While the media has focused on the rise of the Tea Party movement and the success of conservative insurgents in GOP primaries, there is another smaller insurgency taking place under the radar screen -- a quiet insurgency of more moderate Republicans for whom fiscal discipline is not a top priority.

With the departure of Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party, it seemed as if Republican moderates were a dying breed. All that was left of the troika that put President Obama's $787 billion stimulus over the top were the women from Maine -- Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe. But then Sen. Scott Brown arrived in January, and he has hewed a centrist course -- recently joining Collins and Snowe in providing the GOP votes needed to pass both President Obama's big spending "jobs" bill (a.k.a. "son of stimulus") and his financial regulation bill filled with budget gimmicks that will eventually add more than $5 billion to the deficit. Judging from the comments on Brown's Facebook page, many Tea Party activists believe they were duped. But the Republican senator from Massachusetts is simply voting like, well, a Massachusetts Republican.

Others may soon join the big-spending ranks. In Delaware, one of the most liberal Republicans in the House, Rep. Mike Castle, is the favorite to become the state's next senator. And in Illinois, moderate Republican Rep. Mark Kirk holds a narrow lead in the Illinois Senate race for Obama's seat. Both have weak records on fiscal issues. Castle rates a lowly "C" from the National Taxpayers Union, while Kirk gets a slightly better "C+" rating.

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GOP's Scott Brown to vote for financial regulation overhaul

From Michael Muskal of the Los Angeles Times on July 12:

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said on Monday that he will support the financial regulation overhaul, becoming one of the Republicans needed to moved one of the Obama administration’s key pieces of legislation into law.

Brown had announced that he would oppose the compromise bill that had been negotiated by the House and Senate, but shifted his support after bargainers went back to the table and restructured about $19 billion in payments that was opposed by banks in Brown’s state. A final Senate vote could come this week.

“I appreciate the efforts to improve the bill, especially the removal of the $19-billion bank tax. As a result, it is a better bill than it was when this whole process started. While it isn't perfect, I expect to support the bill when it comes up for a vote,” Brown said in a prepared statement.

Brown joined Sen. Susan Collins of Maine as two crucial Republican votes for the legislation.

Democrats need 60 votes to prevent a GOP filibuster. Even with Brown and Collins, the vote is expected to be close. The death of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) has costs the Democrats a sure yes vote, and at least two Democrats have said they were unhappy with the final form of the bill, though at least one said she is likely to vote for it.

Two other Republicans, Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Charles Grassley of Iowa, are possible yes votes. The two supported an earlier version of the bill.

The bill is one of the Obama administration’s legislative goals as it heads into the midterm elections. The bill includes new regulations to make derivative trading more transparent and includes a consumer agency.

In his statement, Brown warned that there was more work to be done.

“Further reforms are still needed to address the government’s role in the financial crisis, including significant changes to the way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operate,” he said. Seeking new regulations on the agencies that handle mortgages is a GOP talking point.

Dems enter freak-out mode

As if MoveOn.org's e-mail wasn't telling enough, the Democrats outright admit it: They are freaking out from Sen. Scott Brown's Republican victory Tuesday night in Massachusetts. (And rightly so!)

Straight from the horse's mouth:

Politico.com

• “If there’s anybody in this building that doesn’t tell you they’re more worried about elections today, you absolutely should slap them,” said Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
• Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called the Massachusetts race a “wake-up call” for his party and said his colleagues were in a “reflective” mood at a private lunch Wednesday.
• “Every state is now in play,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who faces the toughest reelection battle of her career — most likely against wealthy Republican Carly Fiorina.
• Asked if red-state Democrats up in 2010 and 2012 should be nervous about the electorate, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told POLITICO, “Oh, yeah."
• Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), also up in 2012, said Democrats made a mistake by allowing bipartisan negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee to extend into the fall, saying that the lag time allowed the GOP to mischaracterize Democrats’ attempts to reform the health care system.
• Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the more conservative members of the caucus, said some in the Democratic Party were “overreaching” and “advocating more government” than her constituents want.
• [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert] Menendez [(D-N.J.)] said the party has already learned one lesson from [Martha] Coakley’s losing campaign in Massachusetts: Democrats have got to be aggressive, defining both themselves and opponents early on — and frame the debate well before Republicans do. Menendez also said his party has to “find a way to engage independent voters in a meaningful way,” and he suggested that a focus on Obama’s proposed “financial crisis responsibility fee” might be a way to do that.

(Read more.)

Gingrich: Republicans, learn your lessons

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spells out nine lessons Republicans learned (or should learn) from Scott Brown's victory Tuesday as Massachusetts' new Republican senator. Here's an abbreviated version of what Gingrich writes in The Lessons of Massachusetts:

1. Candidates and campaigns: The first lesson Republicans should take from Tuesday night’s victory is the GOP should run candidates everywhere this year and not worry about whether the district used to vote Republican.
2. Being positive matters, and congressional Republicans should take note: In the three winning campaigns (Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts) the Republican candidate has been issue-oriented and had a positive message. In each case, Republicans drew a principled, issue-oriented difference between themselves and the Democrats.
   
3. President Obama has had two bad anniversaries, and now is the moment for him to rethink what he is doing: The anniversary of the President’s victory in the 2008 election saw decisive Republican gubernatorial victories in two states he had carried. The anniversary of his inauguration was yesterday, and it is the same date a new Republican Senator was sent to Washington to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat, which Scott Brown reminded us is “the people’s seat.” ... The President now has an excuse to stop, rethink, recalibrate, and learn some painful lessons.
   
4. Republicans should offer to help solve America’s jobs, security, deficit, and health challenges through an open, transparent legislative process: This offer to work together [with Democrats] to help the nation would be well received by the American people and would represent a real shift from an opposition party attitude to an alternative governing party attitude.
   
5. The Tea Parties and populism are real: Both the Republicans and the Democrats should take notice of the scale and authenticity of the Tea Party movement. They will be back on April 15 and on dates after that. They will represent a healthy reform energy that will challenge both parties to rise to new levels of integrity and serious reform.
   
6. Trucks beat lobbyists: If your opponent has chosen a symbol for their campaign they may have had a reason for doing it. Be very careful about flippantly highlighting your opponent’s chosen campaign symbol.
   
7. National security matters: Every American concerned about our safety in an age of terrorism ought to read [Andy] McCarthy and look at Brown’s campaign and take heart that safety is a winning issue, and the left is absurdly on the side of putting terrorists’ rights above protecting American lives.
   
8. Secular radicalism is a losing theme, even in Massachusetts: As the left has grown more secular and more militant in its hostility to religion it has begun to arouse strong opposition. Among Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, and Orthodox Jews, [Democratic contender Martha] Coakley’s position represented an anti-religious bigotry which they fear.
   
9. The American people are sovereign, and when their leaders infuriate them, they will rise up and fire the leaders: As it was with Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the Progressive movement (especially Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson), Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan — again and again the American people find a way to overwhelm the establishment.

Naturally, I couldn't agree more with No. 5 :) Lesson learned!

Seat Scott soon!

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican contender in the 2008 presidential election, has started a petition to seat Scott Brown, Massachusetts' new Republican leader as of last night, to the Senate immediately.

McCain says:

Last night, Scott Brown won a stunning electoral upset and will be the first Republican Senator from Massachusetts in decades.

His victory sent a strong message that you and I have long known - Americans are furious with the liberal leadership in Washington. Their out of control spending and proposed takeover of health care are destructive to our country and we must continue to fight against it.

The Democrats can no longer ignore the will of the American people who oppose government-run health care and massive deficit spending. I gave you my pledge to actively fight this health care bill every step of the way and will continue to do so. Pushing to let Scott Brown represent the people that elected him is a critical step in stopping this bill from becoming law, and I hope you will make your voice heard today.

Please sign this petition to seat Scott Brown in the US Senate right away.

This was the kind of changed I'd hoped for

The Associated Press

BOSTON -- In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

The loss by the once-favored Coakley for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

More immediately, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation and the rest of Obama's agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

(emphasis added by The Real Polichick)

(Read more.)

This is huge.

I don't even live in Massachusetts, but I still felt that charge of election energy today, because no matter how the day ended, the results would affect the rest of the nation. Now that a Republican is in "Kennedy's seat," the Democrats' health care bill hits a major roadblock, as emphasized in the last graf above.

Welcome to the GOP, Mass! And congrats to Brown, the people's choice!

"Well, with all due respect, it's not the Kennedys' seat, and it's not the Democrats' seat. It's the people's seat."