Thursday, November 05, 2009

Phantom voters

The Senate is saying that non-citizens count for apportioning Representative and Electoral-College slots, but are leaving alone whether the non-citizens ought to vote. If pressed the Democrats would have to admit that they can't let them vote.

We can't exactly say the Democrats are abandoning principle. I'm just surprised they're counting non-voters as a full spot and not as three-fifths of one.

We can say that the Democrats are, this time, scoring an own goal. They are allowing Texas to send a pile of extra Representatives and Electors to D.C. who will vote in the proportionate voting of the state's citizens - i.e., Republicans. To a lesser extent (due to the other party doing the gerrymandering) the same is true of California.

The Republicans would be foolish not to exploit this tactical mistake from the other party.

Labels: horserace, race

posted by Zimri on 16:43 | link |

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Post-mortem on NY-23

Here's what Drew at AoSHQ had to say about NY-23: "the 'roof top highway' and year round navigation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Hoffman and his surrogates really didn't address that. It may rankle the independent streak in this area."

Sometimes "local issues" boil down to "pork", a cutesy way of describing "federal-scale larceny". When voters pull that card, and my preferred candidate loses, I blame the voters.

I can't blame the voters here. Maintaining the St. Lawrence is inherently a federal issue. It involves dealing with Quebec, and with Canada in general. It also involves Pennsylvania and other states upstream who send their own traffic past NY-23. Hoffman should have been up to speed on all that.

If Hoffman wasn't the most-informed candidate, then it should have been up to his aides to help him. Unfortunately finding decent help for non-executive candidates, like prospective Representatives, is supposed to be the job of the Republican Party which, in this case, invested in that left-wing fraud "Scuzzy" Scozzafava. The RNC has a problem understanding outlying provinces.

And Palin and Thompson, and Beck, and (granted that I don't like him) Limbaugh all should learn a few things about how to endorse candidates. Hoffman's allies did great at destroying Scozzafava, but as they were doing that they forgot to build up Hoffman. Hoffman needed help also to tailor his message to the area. They didn't give that help; they instead made Hoffman look like an imposed outsider.

As for Owens: what did he even do in this campaign? It seems to me like he just sat back and watched the Republicans and Conservatives get stupid. Owens ended up, by comparison, looking like the safe sensible moderate.

As a (very?) minor postscript: we have the Man Who Would Be Kingmaker; the Markos Moulitsas to Hoffman's Ned Lamont - Robert Stacy McCain. Not, in the end, as helpful to Conservative candidates as some bloggers imagine.

Labels: horserace, republicans

posted by Zimri on 22:34 | link |

Election watch

I voted here in Houston at 9AM-ish. The Houston Press is having a laugh at how uninspiring this race was. I can attest to a lack of long lines and general interest.

I'll be watching V at 8 PM EST, as aforementioned, but I hope that the Republicans (and, in NY-23, Conservatives) in the East will take time to ensure that the Democrats don't CHEAT so bad this time around. Put the show on TiVo if you have to - be around to place calls and make a general stink if there is something going wrong. For those who aren't in the thick of things, you may as well watch V and chill out for an hour...

Labels: horserace, republicans

posted by Zimri on 17:47 | link |

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