For those of you stepping in late, today’s recall elections of Democrats Jim Holperin (12th District) and Robert Wirch (22nd District) against, respectively, Kim Simac and Jonathan Steitz, are the last of the series of recalls that originally stemmed from the budget repair battle that saw all 14 Democrat Senators flee the state in an ultimately-futile attempt to keep all of the exhaustive and expensive collective bargaining privileges public unions had in Wisconsin. The Democrats were initially more energized once recall efforts began, and forced 6 of 8 Republican Senators to face recall elections, while Republicans were only able to force 3 of 8 Democrat Senators to face recall elections. Last month, the first of the Democrats, Dave Hansen, easily survived his recall after the better of the two potential challengers was tossed off the ballot. Last week, Republicans held onto 4 of 6 seats up for election to keep a 17-16 majority in elections that approached the turnout of November’s gubernatorial election (and in one case, exceeded the turnout).

The early reports suggest that, despite control of the Senate not being at stake, turnout in both the 12th and 22nd Districts are very high. While the claims that the turnout will approach Presidential elections will, like last week, almost certainly fall short, they appear to be close to the gubernatorial election last year, and greater than the Supreme Court election back in April.

Just a quick note before I direct you to the Cover It Live window (direct link/mobile link if for some reason your browser doesn’t suport iframes), which will open for business about 8 pm when the polls close – this is a “news” liveblog, so keep it clean.

12th District

There are a pair of dueling polls, one from Public Policy Polling for their biggest partisan client, Daily Kos, and one from We Are America for the right-advocating Red Racing Horses (crosstabs of the latter courtesy WisPolitics). Even though both polled roughly the same number of people over the weekend and have an effectively-identical 2.6% margin of error, the top line can’t possibly be more different. While PPP/DKos has Holperin up 55%-41% overall, and 51%-43% among “independents”, WAA/RRH has Holperin up 51%-49% (actually a few tenths less) overall, and Simac up 52%-48% among “independents”.

The big difference is, as is often the case, the partisan weighting. PPP/DKos has the Democrat/Republican/”independent” ratio at 35%/26%/39%, while WAA/RRH has it at 28%/28%/43% (with 1% refused, and the Dems with a statistically-insignificant advantage). As followers of Wisconsin politics know, there is no such thing as partisan registration in Wisconsin, so one has to dig into the results to figure out which is right and which is BS. My “generic R-v-D” calculation, averaging out the 2008 Presidential and 2010 gubernatorial results, gives the generic Republican a 5.0 percentage point advantage. The high-water mark for the Democrats in competitive races this past decade was, ignoring minor-party and write-in candidates, a 7.0 percentage-point margin, gained by long-time incumbent state Senator Roger Breske in 2004 (who departed for a state job in 2008, opening the door for Holperin), US Senator Russ Feingold in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008. Holperin, against the same opponent as Breske, managed only a 2.4 percentage point margin in 2008.

I could almost argue that both polls overweight Democrats, especially since Red Racing Horses cited Republican internal polls that have Simac up by at least 4 percentage points, and last week, incumbency was worth an average of roughly 3 percentage points over “generic”. However, the race is all about turnout, and despite both campaigns pouring everything into it (story via WisPolitics), nobody really knows what the turnout is going to be.

The problem is nobody is going to have fully-collated reporting-unit-level results, partly because not every county clerk will have them available on their websites. If those numbers are available, I’ll be looking at the following places for the trend:

Strong Republican areas - Towns of Minocqua (R+17) and Three Lakes (R+19) in Oneida County, towns of Boulder Junction (R+24), Lincoln (R+15, and Simac’s home) and St. Germain (R+25) in Vilas County
Strong Democrat areas - City of Tomahawk (D+8) in Lincoln County, Menominee County (D+60), city of Rhinelander (average of D+24 in the various wards) in Oneida County, town of Lac du Flambeau (D+17) in Vilas County

22nd District

There haven’t been nearly as much focus on this district, though WTMJ-AM’s Charlie Sykes got an interview with Steitz (go to the 39:00 mark), and WISN-TV’s Mike Gousha did a joint interview with both candidates. I haven’t seen any TV ads the past week (though I don’t watch much TV) and what little music radio I catch (including a Kenosha-licensed station) has been essentially ad-free, though Steitz’s ads have been on conservative talk radio stations.

The only recently-released poll is a PPP/DailyKos poll from the weekend that had Wirch up 55%-42%. While the partisan split is 39% D/28% R/34% I, given the generic Democrat has a 4.8 percentage point advantage, and up until last year, the only Republican to win a district-wide election the past decade was Congressman Paul Ryan, that split is actually closer to reality.

It’s basically the city of Kenosha (and to a lesser extent, the town of Somers) versus the rest of the district. If Steitz can get to 41% in the city of Kenosha (what current RNC chair Reince Priebus did in his unsuccessful run at Wirch in 2004 and a couple points less than what Scott Walker did in the 2010 gubernatorial election) and 64% in the city/town of Burlington (again, a couple points less than what Walker did, though several points more than what Priebus did), he may well pull off the upset.

The one bit of good came from the 12th Senate district, where the number of votes for winner Kim Simac (11,301 votes according to the Associated Press) and Robert Lussow (7,767 votes) came very close to the 19,255 signatures that Simac and her group gathered to force the recall election of incumbent Democrat Jim Holperin. Among what can be fairly described as the “anybody but the incumbent” crowd, that 99% “retention” rate from the recall to the election is the second-best of any effort.

The percentages were not nearly as good in the 22nd Senate district, where the votes for winner Jonathan Steitz (5,981 votes, again according to the Associated Press) and Fred Ekornaas (3,369 votes) totaled under 55% of the 17,138 signatures gathered by the recall group. That is the worst “retention” effort of the bunch, even worse than Democrat Nancy Nusbaum’s 59% “retention” rate last week or David VanderLeest’s utter failure against Sen. Dave Hansen in the 30th last night, with a 71% “retention” rate.

That leads me to the 30th Senate District. The 66% (once write-ins are considered, something the Associated Press did not track) of the vote Hansen received went above the 65% “trouble” level I set based on a DailyKos/PPP poll that had Hansen beating VanderLeest 62%-34%.

More troubling than the percentage is the raw number of votes Hansen received. Special elections, which is what a recall election is, are “turnout” elections. The 22,052 votes Hansen received is nearly 88% of the 25,192 votes fellow Democrat Tom Barrett received in the gubernatorial election last November. It is also greater than the number of votes either Supreme Court Justice David Prosser (20,536) or challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg (18,706) received in April, and far greater than the 15,540 signatures VanderLeest’s group gathered to force the recall election.

I toyed with the idea of titling this “Big Trouble in Little Suamico” because the results from that town in Oconto County and the 30th Senate District perfectly illustrates the current enthusiasm gap. In November, now-Governor Scott Walker beat Barrett 1,115 to 554. In April, Prosser beat Kloppenburg 549-348. Yesterday, Hansen beat VanderLeest 520-385.

That is not, to say, all is lost. The two challengers to the incumbent Democrats still under election threat who I consider to be stronger won last night. As we found in both November 2010 and April, a “max effort” from the Left can be beaten; however it takes a “max effort” on our part. We also know, thanks to the Supreme Court election, even a belated “max effort” can carry the day. In this regard, I am (almost) thankful John Nygren screwed up on his nomination papers – we know there is an enthusiasm gap and there is just under three weeks to counter it.

Revisions/extensions (9:34 am 7/21/2011) - Craig Gilbert took a different tack on turnout, looking at total turnout versus “opposition” turnout. While he noted that none of these races were expected to be competitive, he also noted the one serious precedent, the recall of George Petak down in Racine County after he flipped on the Miller Park tax vote, saw a turnout of estimated 37% of voting-age-population.

Assuming the Democrats actually had a “max effort/near-max turnout” in the 30th, Hansen would have been in trouble had turnout been 34% instead of 25%, may well have lost had turnout been the 37% it was in Racine in 1996, and would have lost had turnout been the 42% it was in November.

Over at Shorewood Patch, Marie Rohde explains why those municipalities still using Optech Eagle opitical-scan machines and seeking to upgrade to the current version of the software are going to go through a hand recount of those ballots – the software update that would allow the storage of both the election-day run of ballots and a recount of that election on the same memory cartridge took close to three years to be approved by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (in fact, it was approved only earlier this year) and has yet to be approved by the Government Accountability Board, a process which will likely take another several months.

Thanks to that, the recount will cost just Miwlaukee County an additional $500,000 over the cost of doing the recount by-the-book (optical-scan ballots are run through the machines, the DRE/touch-screen ballots are hand-counted). That is expected to drive up the cost of the recount to close to $1,000,000.

I wonder how many modern optical-scan machines could be bought with that money. I know Oak Creek has a few of those, as not all the wards here will need a full hand recount, but unfortunately, none of them were at my polling place on April 5.

Revisions/extensions (5:57 pm 4/25/2011) - The story gets curiouser and curiouser. Even though the Government Accountability Board lists ES&S as the vendor of the majority of the Eagle systems in use in Wisconsin (the link lists all the voting systems by municipality), it’s actually a Sequoia Voting Systems (since acquired by Dominion Voting Systems) machine. Moreover, not only is no system from Dominion currently certified by the Election Assistance Commission, it appears that the version that includes the Optech line that is still under testing (WinEDS 4.0) does not include the Eagle as part of the test.

R&E part 2 (6:43 pm 4/28/2011) - Things are quite a bit clearer after representatives from Dominion contacted me. To wit, Dominion Voting Systems says that WinEDS 4.0 does work with the Optech Eagle optical-scan machine, and once the underlying system is approved by the EAC, the GAB will test the software with the Eagle.

There are two choices the Kloppenburg campaign has at this point. They could decide to not ask for a recount, and let the pending GAB re-canvass be the final word. That would result in GAB announcing on May 15, the date assigned for the announcement, that Justice Prosser has won another 10-year term on the Supreme Court.

They could also decide to ask for a recount. It doesn’t matter how many or few wards they request, because, if they choose this path, the goal is not going to be to overcome the 0.4881-percentage-point lead Prosser has. No recent recount with at least 1.5 million votes at stake has resulted in a change of margin of more than 0.05 percentage points, even with a post-recount judicial challenge to boost the margin-of-change.

Assuming that the Kloppenburg campaign strategy is to “win” by any means possible, their goal, under this scenario, is to get a post-recount judicial appeal into what will amount to a kangaroo court, presided over by a reserve (retired, for those of you outside Wisconsin, and thus no longer accountable to the voters) judge appointed by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who has a thinly-veiled vested interest in a specific outcome. Their strategy will be to have declared, at a minimum, the city of Brookfield (which Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickoulas forgot to report to the Associated Press on election night, but which was reported on the county-level canvass) incompetent to determine the affairs of Wisconsin the Kingdom of Dane. Assuming no margin change in a recount, tossing out the city of Brookfield results woudl give Kloppenburg an 87-vote “lead”.

Of course, if the recount finds a further net gain for Prosser (after all, the county-level canvass found, not counting Brookfield, a net gain of 117 for Prosser over the election-night numbers collated by the AP), they might be forced to have declared the entirety of Waukesha County incompetent to determine the affairs of the Kingdom of Dane. Tossing the entirety of Waukesha County would give Kloppenburg a 52,000-vote “lead”.

Any state-level appeal would probably be pointless on its own as it would first go to the Madison-based 4th District Court of Appeals. They would be expected to uphold whatever novel “judicial finding” the kangaroo court creates out of thin air to justify disenfranchising either an entire municipality or an entire county. At best, since either Justice Prosser would need to recuse himself or the seat would be vacant pending a final disposition, a further appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court would result in a 3-3 deadlock.

However, whatever novel “judicial finding” the kangaroo court would create out of thin air would almost certainly invoke an equal protection claim a federal court could latch onto. I would expect that, no later than the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, that claim would find a friendly judicial panel, and after tens of millions of dollars wasted under this scenario, the result would end up being what it is as of today – a Prosser victory.

The ball is in the Kloppenburg campaign’s court. I urge them to consider that, at the end of the day, they can’t win, and spare the state the pain and expense of a “by any means necessary” strategy.

Revisions/extensions (11:43 am 4/18/2011) - I swear that, while Kevin Binversie and I discussed the Butch Coolidge/Marcellus Wallace question, I didn’t crib from Kevin’s take (both his and mine are featured on this morning’s WisOpnion’s round-up). His close – “Because the worst fear the Kloppenburg legal team truly has, is not ‘losing’ a recount. It’s if Waukesha County is allowed to re-run its ballots through its machines again, and the numbers come out the same.”

Just as a reminder, if Kloppenburg opens the recount door, Prosser will be able to force a recount in any ward Klopenburg doesn’t have recounted before any judicial appeal. Given the last anybody heard of GAB’s investigation into Waukesha County was that the as-canvassed numbers from Brookfield were legitimate, one has to wonder if Kloppenburg wants to politically go down that road.

Meanwhile, Republican Scott Walker (and his running mate as lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch) beat Democrat Tom Barrett (and his running mate, Tom Nelson) by a statewide 52.25%-46.48% margin, with the remainder either voting for a couple other candidates who qualified for the ballot or writing somebody in. With that background, let’s take a county-by-partial-county look at how Walker did versus how Lee did:

• Columbia County (whole county, 21,385 votes in the gubernatorial election and 21,149 votes in the Congressional election) – Walker 51.71%/Barrett 46.83%, Lee 52.93%/Baldwin 47.01%. Advantage – Lee by 1.03 percentage points.
• Dane County (whole county, 220,273 votes in the gubernatorial election and 218,865 votes in the Congressional election) – Barrett 67.96%/Walker 30.98%, Baldwin 66.56%/Lee 33.38%. Advantage – Lee by 3.80 percentage points.
• Green County (whole county, 13,187 votes in the gubernatorial election and 13,227 votes in the Congressional election) – Barrett 49.00%/Walker 48.46%, Baldwin 51.03%/Lee 48.92%. Advantage – Walker by 0.78 percentage points.
• Jefferson County (just the portion in the 2nd Congressional District, 18,194 votes in the gubernatorial election, 18,005 votes in the Congressional election) – Walker 54.45%/Barrett 43.98%, Lee 52.24%/Baldwin 47.66%. Advantage – Walker by 5.90 percentage points.
• Rock County (just the portion in the 2nd Congressional District, 23,657 votes in the gubernatorial election, 23,606 votes in the Congressional election) – Barrett 53.07%/Walker 45.01%, Baldwin 53.18%/Lee 46.79%. Advantage – Lee by 1.68 percentage points.
• Sauk County (just the portion in the 2nd Congressional District, 11,228 votes in the gubernatorial election, 11,262 votes in the Congressional election) – Barrett 51.41%/Walker 47.13%, Baldwin 51.52%/Lee 48.42%. Advantage – Lee by 1.18 percentage points.
• Walworth County (city of Whitewater specifically, 3,377 votes in the gubernatorial election, 3,346 votes in the Congressional election) – Barrett 52.09%/Walker 46.14%, Baldwin 55.77%/Lee 44.11%. Advantage – Walker by 5.70 percentage points.

The bottom line:

Out of 311,301 total votes in the gubernatorial election, Barrett beat Walker by a 62.44%-36.33% margin. Meanwhile, out of 309,460 total votes in the Congressional election, Baldwin beat Lee by a 61.77%-38.16% margin. By my math, Lee did better than Walker by 2.50 percentage points, and I don’t hear anybody (other than the sore losers on the far left) calling Walker a “bad” candidate. I’m sorry to have to break the bad news to Stevens that the 2nd District will elect a Democrat as long as the district has roughly its current borders.

Somebody cue Capt. Louis Renault – Democrat election officials are up to the newest versions of their old tricks in trying to steal elections in both Nevada and North Carolina.

Las Vegas’ KVVU-TV reports that voters in Boulder City found that before they had voted for the United States Senate race, Harry Reid’s name was already checked on the touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, the New Bern Sun Journal reports that voters who attempted to select a straight-Republican ballot had a straight-Democrat ballot selected by the touch-screen voting machines.

Clancy is the 12th person to be convicted by the Election Fraud Task Force for electoin fraud, created by the Wisconsin Attorney General’s and Milwaukee County District Attorney’s offices.

Before I get to the “Who the hell screwed up and how?” question, I first must clarify what the new requirement is. From page 133 of the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2010’’, which is amending the states’ requirements under the Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act:

(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 102 of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (42 U.S.C. 1973ff–1(a)(1)), as amended by sections 577 and 578, is amended—
(1) in subsection (a)—
(A) in paragraph (6), by striking ‘‘and’’ at the end; (B) in paragraph (7), by striking the period at the end and inserting a semicolon; and
(C) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
‘‘(8) transmit a validly requested absentee ballot to an absent uniformed services voter or overseas voter—
‘‘(A) except as provided in subsection (g), in the case in which the request is received at least 45 days before an election for Federal office, not later than 45 days before the election; and
‘‘(B) in the case in which the request is received less than 45 days before an election for Federal office—
‘‘(i) in accordance with State law; and
‘‘(ii) if practicable and as determined appropriate by the State, in a manner that expedites the transmission of such absentee ballot.’’;

The first part is going to be blown because Wisconsin takes 19 days to certify the primary results and get the ballots printed. However, the second part won’t be a problem becuase Wisconsin already allows military/overseas absentee ballots to be sent out if the request comes in 30 days prior to the election, and as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pointed out, somewhere less than 4% of the military/overseas ballots were rejected in the 2008 general election for all reasons, not just for being late.

So, what is the consequence of not having the absentee ballots out 45 days prior to the election? That is covered by 42 USC § 1973ff–4, which gives the US Attorney General the power to seek federal judicial relief. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which handles those lawsuits, says in their FAQ on the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act:

If a county is late in mailing absentee ballots to soldiers, what can the Department of Justice do?

Under Section 105 of UOCAVA, the Attorney General is authorized to bring civil actions to enforce UOCAVA requirements. When states have failed to make sure that ballots are sent to qualified servicemembers in a timely manner, the Department of Justice has successfully obtained court orders and consent decrees. Many of these have required states to extend their deadlines for receiving these ballots and to count the late-mailed ballots, even when they arrived after Election Day. In some cases, the states were required to make permanent changes to their laws or procedures to make sure the problems are not repeated in future elections. Through these cases brought to enforce the federal law, the Department has ensured that qualified servicemembers were able to cast their ballots, and know that they were counted.

In short, we may not know who won the Senate race on 11/3 (the day after the election), or even on 11/11, when military ballots postmarked by the day of the election can arrive and still be counted under current state law.

Now, for who screwed up. As much as I dislike the Government Accountability Board, the date of the election and the timing of certification is really out of their hands. That is all set by state statute, with the final state certification due on the third Wednesday after the primary. Indeed, because state law (under the direction of federal law) requires military ballots postmarked by the day of the primary to be counted if they arrive up to 7 days after the primary, they cannot certify a federal election in the 4 days between September 14 and September 18.

The ball falls squarely on the Legislature and Gov. Jim Doyle. The MOVE Act became law on 10/29/2009. While the Legislature was in session at the time, I’ll give them a pass for not dealing with it in that particular floorperiod because that ended on 11/5/2009. However, they had three more floorperiods to deal with it – 1/19/2010-1/28/2010, 2/16/2010-3/4/2010, and 4/13/2010-4/22/2010. The Legislature didn’t even attempt to deal with any part of complying with the MOVE Act until the last session possible, and then rolled a very-partial attempt into the “Driver/Voter” bill that would have automatically registered everybody who receives a driver’s license, given the information to ACORN’s successors, and in general would have made vote fraud even easier to accomplish. Notably, they didn’t even attempt to change the date of the primary in that bill. From the Legislative Reference Bureau’s summary of the version that went the farthest along the legislative process (AB895, Assembly Substitute Amendment 1):

Under current federal law, states are required to transmit absentee ballots to military and overseas electors no later than 45 days before each federal election at which the electors are entitled to vote, if the electors have requested their ballots by that time. However, a state may request a hardship waiver from the federal government, for a single election only, if the state’s primary election date does not permit compliance with this requirement and the state takes other actions to ensure expeditious delivery of absentee ballots to military and overseas electors. This substitute amendment directs GAB to report to the appropriate standing committees of the legislature no later than January 1, 2011, concerning GAB’s recommended method for compliance with the federal timeline for the absentee voting process. To achieve compliance, this state will likely need to advance the date of the September primary, beginning in 2012.

Even after the last day of the general floorperiod of the Legislature passed without so much as a token effort to comply with just a part of the MOVE Act passing the Legislature, Doyle could have called the Legislature back into session to ensure compliance with something their fellow Democrats in DC wrote. I guess that lack of desire to do anything without further encouraging vote fraud by the Wisconsin Democrats trumps all else.

Immediately after that, the GAB began taking open public comments. Ald. Witkowiak was second on the list, and he explained how both same-day registration and a lack of an ID check can and does affect elections, even to the point of changing the results. I do recommend watching the entire appearance, which begins at the 1:50:50 mark of part 2 of WisEye’s coverage and runs to the end of part 2. A quick summary:

• In the spring 2000 election, Witkowiak lost his re-election bid by 17 votes.
• During the recount, after the campaign of Witkowiak’s opponent admitted to him they caused irregularities, Witkowiak found about 200 people who didn’t exist yet voted in the election, scattered between those who registered at the polls and those who claimed to be somebody they were not. The Milwaukee Election Commission did disallow a bunch of votes, but because there is no way to tell who the disqualified voters voted for, it was a random vote removal and thus did not change the result of the election.
• An assistant city attorney who sat in on the 2000 recount process said that Witkowiak, “There’s more meat in this sandwich than I’ve ever seen before in my life.” Of course, this is Milwaukee, so nothing was done..
• Witkowiak thought he was done with politics after 2000, but the residents of his district pulled him back into the race in 2004, and he once again became an alderman.
• Fast forward to 2008. Witkowiak found that 400 people had registered at the polls in the spring primary, which for the first time in Wisconsin also included the Presidential primary (previously, the Presidential primary was held with the spring general election). Since Witkowiak had a spring general election to run in, he wanted to get a hold of those 400 to campaign to them. After a bit of a delay, the Milwaukee Election Commission gave them to him.
• Witkowiak did a mailing to those 400, and about 80 of those mailings came back as undeliverable. He then went out to try to find those 80, and while he did find a few that existed, he couldn’t find about 75, with reasons ranging from people living at or managing apartments at the location never hearing of the alleged registered voter to the address being a non-residential property to the address simply not existing.
• Witkowiak turned over the evidence to the Milwaukee County District Attorney and the Milwaukee Police Department. Guess what happened? If you said, “Nothing,” give yourself a prize.

The difference between at-large voting systems and cumulative voting systems is, in an at-large system, one can only vote for each candidate once, casting votes up to the maximum number of offices being filled. Meanwhile, in a cumulative voting system, one can apportion votes up to the maximum number of offices being filled with no limit on the number of votes cast for a particular candidate.

The reason this “works” for the “aggrieved minority”, and indeed, worked for one Luis Marino, who The Journal News cheered as the first Latino elected in Port Chester, is a minority group can multiply their votes behind a single candidate, while the “high-minded majority” splits their votes among multiple candidates. The effect is enhanced if, like Port Chester, there is no primary to narrow the field to “the number of offices plus one”.

Bear in mind that, while what Jay Weber calls the Accomplice Media notes, correctly yet incompletely, that Latinos make up close to half Port Chester’s population, there is a small detail that most of them will miss, and I will give kudos to The Journal News for mentioning it – Latinos make up only roughly 20% of the voting-age citizens in the village. The fact that, up until yesterday, no Latino had been elected to the board is more a statistical quirk than anything else.

He inherited the recession

Banks were greedy

Insurance companies are greedy

Tea party people caused divisions in America

Congress was responsible for the back room Placebocare deals

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

Is there anything negative that President Obama has taken responsibility for?

In a sign of true leadership, President Obama is teaching those willing to learn, the fine art of blaming someone else.  At a fund raiser for challenged California Senator, Barbara Boxer, President Obama laid the blame for her potential defeat squarely on……Boxer’s supporters!

“I don’t want anyone here taking this for granted,” he said at a reception at the California Science Center, the first of a trio of fundraisers Monday night for Boxer and the Democratic National Committee.

“Unless she’s got that support she might not win this thing, and I don’t think that’s an acceptable outcome. So I want everyone to work hard,” the president said.

Just like Obama’s previous deflections, Obama believes that none of the actions of the person responsible for their actions are the reason for the rejection they now face.  No, Boxer’s challenges have nothing to do with her vote on health care or her unblemished support for Obama’s far left agenda.  According to Obama, the sole reason Boxer might lose is a lack of support and effort from her supports.

Just keep dreamin’ those unicorn dreams Mr. President.  November is rapidly approaching!

Hopefully, the following is worthy of a 2 year blogiversary posting!

Quick, what do the following actors have in common?

Alan Alda, Carroll O’Connor, Ted Danson, James Garner and Kelsey Grammer.

Each of these actors, while having a varied and successful career having played numerous other characters, are immediately recognized for a single role that they played.  Alan Alda is forever Hawkeye from MASH.  Carroll O’Connor is immortalized as Archie Bunker.  Ted Danson is Sam Malone, James Garner is Jim Rockford (or Bret Maverick if you’re of a certain age) and Kelsey Grammer was Frasier Crane across two long running sitcoms.  These actors are victims of typecasting. 

Typecasting occurs when an actor or actress becomes so associated with a type of role, or specific role that no matter how hard they try, they are never able to fully keep people from thinking of a new role as an extension of the role they were type-casted as.  Typecasting varies in severity.  Some people, like James Garner, while fondly remembered for a role, go on to have very successful careers with other roles and genres.  In the most severe cases, typecasting can be so severe that actors or actresses are unable to get another role beyond the one that they were typecast in.  The most notorious of this level of typecasting was George Reeves who once he became Superman, was Superman even on TV shows that had no connection to the character.

President Obama has released his budget proposal for the next year.  His budget encompasess total spending of $3.8 trillion and a deficit of $1.56 trillion.

While President Obama has taken nothing from the Scott Brown victory, numerous Democrats in both the House and the Senate seem to be attempting to position themselves as aligned with the fiscal sensitivities of the populous.  From the WSJ:

“I guess I don’t understand…the vision of the administration when it comes to putting in place economic policy that works for our nation in today’s economy and the economic climate today,” Sen. Lincoln said during the same hearing with Mr. Geithner.

and:

“I don’t know anybody in business who hires an employee because they’re going to get a tax credit,” said Rep. Thompson during the hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee.

There are scores of additional examples of Democrats now trying to convince their constituents that they aren’t aligned with those tax and spend liberals in Congress.

The problem for those Democrats now attempting to become the next Ron Paul is that nearly every one of them seem to have limits to their new found fiscal conservatism.  From the Baltimore Sun:

A headline on the 2010 campaign website of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), blares her opposition to Obama’s farm budget: “Blanche stands up for Arkansas farm families,”

And

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), a recent party-switcher, questioned trade policies battering the steel industry. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked about health care for first responders involved in the Sept. 11attack. The message from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.): “California is hurting.”

And

Elsewhere around the country, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas — a freshman Democrat from a Republican leaning part of Florida — minced no words in complaining about Obama’s proposed cuts to the NASA budget. The space industry is one of the largest employers in her district.

“The president’s proposal lacks a bold vision for space exploration and begs for the type of leadership that he has described as critical for inspiring innovation for the 21st century,” said Kosmas.

And

In the swing state of Missouri, Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan wasted no time this week denouncing Obama’s budget as profligate.

“I’m disappointed in the president’s budget recommendation,” she said. “Missouri families have to balance their checkbooks and our government is no different.”

Clearly, Democrats are trying to show their fiercer, budget hawk side.  After all, it wasn’t just the threat of health care that got Scott Brown elected and has put a number of the Dem’s jobs in jeopardy.  Equally, the ever ballooning spending and deficit has also gotten people’s attention.  Also clearly, while they talk budget hawk out of one side of their mouth, the Dem’s hawkishness ends right at the end of the particular program or jurisdiction that they have their nose stuck into!

As hard as Democrats may try from now until November, to paint themselves as characters other than the fiscally  irresponsible characters they are, it won’t work.  The Dems have become victims of their own “success”.  They were swept into office promising not one, but a whole flock of chickens in every pot, never considering how they were going to pay for those chickens.  Now that they find that those chickens actually cost money, and they don’t have any, they are left with the choice of not providing the chickens or attempting to con the public into believing that continuing investment we get from China each month is not really anything to worry about. 

The public is not buying a word of the Dems attempt to claim fiscal responsibility.  Like George Reeves the Dems are irreversibly typecast.  Try as they may, no one, at least not for this election cycle, will believe their claims that they can actually play a different role.

A week ago I told youabout the debate that Birdman and I were having about placebocare.  In a nutshell, Birdman believes that eventually, self preservation will rule and some portion of the Democrats will jump from the placebocare express.  My argument has been that this train was not going to stop.  Democrats who got in the way would be rolled over and those who voted for it and got nailed by their constituents, would have cushy administration jobs promised to them.

I told you so!

You’ve heard the news, Byron Dorgan of ND and Chris Dodds of CT have both announced they will not run next year.  The reasons for not running are obvious.

For Dorgan, he represents one of the most conservative states in the nation.  He has ignored polling that made Ben Nelson look wise in his placebocare vote and flipped his constituents the bird by voting for placebocare.  Numerous polls are out showing that if the current Republican Governor of ND ran, Dorgan would pine for the level of support that Walter Mondale received in his race against Ronald Reagan.

Dodd’s the same but different.  Placebocare isn’t his undoing, the financial debacle of last year was.  Turns out Chris was getting some special favors from the folks he was supposed to be policing.  Even the normally reliable Democrat voters of Connecticut couldn’t stand the level of corruption and hypocrisy that Dodd portrayed.  All recent polls showed Dodd losing to everyone and anyone in a Senate rebid.

There have been several Democrat Representatives that have announced their retirement.  However, none of those have the visibility of either of the two Senators who recently announced their retirement.  Rumors and most prognostication, say that we are no where near the end of the announced retirements.  I expect we may well hear similar announcements from Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter and (get ready, here’s my big bet) Harry Reid.

The latest generic Congressional ballot poll by Rasmussen shows the Republicans now leading by 9 points.  The most notable part of this astounding lead is that it is not so much that the Republicans are getting more support as it is that the Democrats are losing support on each and every front.

As they do every time they get power, the Democrats have over reached and tried to foist their vision of remaking the country not in the mold of Europe, but Eastern, Soviet Bloc, Europe, upon all of us.  Fortunately, they are being resisted on all sides and will surely lose their stranglehold on both Houses this year if not their leadership altogether.

While I’m obviously happy about what is happening to the Democrats I am disappointed by one thing.  The people who think Marxism is such a great thing that they are voting to have it implemented against the people’s will should have to stand for another election and get the final verdict of their constituents.  If they did, I have no doubt they would hear, loudly, clearly and in a snarky British accent:

“YOU are the weakest link.  Goodbye!”

You may not be able to precisely define “killer instinct” but all sports fans know it when they see it.  Nobody left a Joe Montana and the Fortyniners game no matter what the score.  You knew that Joe was going to play until the last down of the game scoring at every opportunity he had.  Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, some years of the Yankees and the Edmonton Oilers with Wayne Gretzy are all examples of athletes and teams that played with “killer instinct”

But, you say, this is a political blog.  What’s going on with the sports analysis?

As with sports, politicians are separated by the ability to have a “killer instinct.”  Look at Norm Coleman against Al Franken.  Ahead in the polls until he decided to side step ANWAR, vote for the stimulus and decide that he no longer wanted to run a “negative campaign” even though he had done that from day one until they day he changed with 6 weeks left.  Norm is the perfect example of a politician who not only didn’t have a killer instinct, he showed he had little political instinct of any kind.

The race between John McCain and Barack Obama also came down to killer instinct.  One had it and one didn’t.  You can probably figure out which was which.

Anyone paying attention can see that the health care plan is on the ropes and cap and trade may well be on life support.  The public, across all demographics except the extreme loons, are responding to polls with the equivalent of “I didn’t vote for Obama!”  We see early contests in Virginia and New Jersey showing polls that seem to support a significant and sudden swing towards Republicans.  Everything is pointing towards a significant resurgence for Republicans.  The question is, do they have the killer instinct?

Unlike the left who has never had any concern about “rubbing their nose in it” when winning, Republicans seem to have an inbred need to be liked by the other side.  The result is that when they get a chance to gain ground, Republicans often feel the need to “compromise” to allow the other side the ability to save face.

The Republicans (I use this term generically and certainly don’t mean all people who run under that banner) have gained ground, not through their own actions.  Rather, the Republicans are gaining in popularity mostly because in a two party system, they are the only other option.  While the Republicans benefit from being “the only other choice” today, I wouldn’t be betting my house on it sticking.  Based on the fact that a large portion of the general population are revolting against their political masters I think there is a fair chance that a “throw all the bums out” mentality takes hold if the Republicans look to cave on health care or once again become Democrat lite.

You don’t think the Republicans could be that dumb again right?  Wrong!

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, a Michigan Republican Representative, has introduced a bill that would provide a $3,500 deduction for “qualified pet care expenses.”  The Representative is concerned of family hardships as a result of pet care costs during this time tough economic time.

How can any clear headed Republican think that providing a tax deduction for pet care makes sense when A: we have a hellacious deficit already,  B: human health care costs are subject to a 7% threshold of adjusted gross income and C: most of the Republicans and the general public are fighting to abolish further government intrusion into health care for people.  Does Thaddeus really think there is an urgency of any kind for the government (me and you) subsidizing health care for animals when we don’t want to do it for humans?

A stupid bill like this proves that Thaddeus McCotter does not have the killer instinct!  I hope to hell the rest of the Republicans have better political instincts.  If they don’t I’ll lead the parade for a third party.

• The number of adult citizens went up 9.1 million, from 197.0 million in 2004 to 206.1 million in 2008, a 4.5% increase.
• The number of registered voters went up only 4.2 million from 142.1 million in 2004 (72.1% of citizens) to 146.3 million in 2008 (71.0% of citizens), a 3.0% increase. Of note, the number of registered voters as a percentage of citizens went down 2.1 percentage points.
• The number of those who showed up to vote went up from 125.7 million in 2004 (63.8% of citizens, 88.5% of registered voters) to 131.1 million in 2008 (63.6% of citizens, 89.6% of registered voters). While that is a 0.18 percentage-point drop among citizens, that is also a 1.18 percentage-point increase among registered voters. It also is the highest registered-voter percentage since 1992.
• In Minnesota in 2008, there were 132,000 more adults (+3.5%), 33,000 more adult citizens (+0.9%), 144,000 fewer registered voters (-4.8%), and 128,000 fewer people who showed up to vote (-4.4%).
• In Wisconsin in 2008, there were 86,000 more adults (+2.1%), 125,000 more adult citizens (+3.2%), 130,000 fewer registered voters (-4.0%), and 123,000 fewer people who showed up to vote (-4.1%)
• Four states (Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Georgia) had adult citizen population increases of at least 10%. Three of them (excepting Utah) also had double-digit percentage voter registration increases and double-digit percentage voter turnout increases.
• Five states (Michigan, Maine, West Virginia, Connecticut and Louisiana) had adult citizen population decreases, with Mighican defying logic with a voter registration increase and Michgan, Connecticut and Louisana defying logic with turnout increases.
• Five states (Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina) plus the District of Columbia had double-digit percentage voter registration increases, with corresponding double-digit percentage turnout increases.
• Eighteen states (Pennsylvania, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, Vermont, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Utah) had absolute voter registration decreases, with Louisiana and Missouri having absolute turnout increases, and a couple other states having a significantly-lower turnout decrease than registration decrease.
• No state had a double-digit registered-voter increase as a percentage of citizens, though Virginia came closest at 7.3% (or 5.08 percentage-point increase), and 12 other states/DC (Rhode Island, Georgia, Mississippi, Connecticut, North Carolina, Louisiana, DC, Michigan, Delaware, Nevada, Maryland and Hawaii) increased their registered-voter/citizen ratio.
• Ten states/DC (Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia, Mississippi, DC, Arizona, South Carolina, Idaho and Colorado) had double-digit percentage absolute turnout increases, while 18 states (Ohio, Massachusetts, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Montana, Oklahoma, Vermont, Maine, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Arkansas, Minnesota, Oregon, West Virginia and Utah) had absolute turnout decreases.
• Mississippi (13.1%, 8.08 percentage points) and Georgia (13.0%, 7.40 percentage points) had the largest turnout increase as a percentage of citizens, and they were joined in the increase by North Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia, DC, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, South Carolina, Nebraska, Indiana, California, Hawaii, Tennessee, Nevada, Colorado, Delaware and Michigan.
• Eighteen states (Wisconsin, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Montana, Delaware, Ohio, Michigan, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona and West Virginia) had turnout decreases as a percentage of registered voters.

There’s a lot more info than I can digest. I did, however, manage to get a state-by-state comparison put into an Excel spreadsheet, which also includes the total number of adults in each state, whether they are citizens, legal aliens, or illegal aliens.

For all the attention generated by Barack Obama’s candidacy, the share of eligible voters who actually cast ballots in November declined for the first time in a dozen years. The reason: Older whites with little interest in backing either Barack Obama or John McCain stayed home.

The decline in percentage turnout was the first in a presidential election since 1996. At that time, voter participation fell to 58.4 percent — the lowest in decades — as Democrat Bill Clinton won an easy re-election over Republican Bob Dole amid a strong economy.

Class, what did we learn?

1.  Give us “the next guy in line” again and we’ll sit out again!

2.  Give us someone who looks no different than a Democrat on many issues and we’ll sit out again

Oh and:

Minnesota and the District of Columbia had the highest turnout, each with 75 percent.

3.  If you have a crappy GOP candidate, even if we don’t sit out we won’t vote for them.

Revisions/extensions (8:12 am 7/21/2009; steveegg) - Newsmax didn’t exactly fact-check the numbers, which caused the error struck through above. According to the Census Bureau, the 2000 turnout percentage was lower than 2008′s. It still is, however, the first drop in voter turnout percentage since 1996.

Related to that, I’m sifting through the Census Bureau’s turnout numbers going back to 1980.

Do not mistake this for a call for public financing of elections, or for limitations on speech. Instead, it is a wakeup call for the right. The left is all-too-willing to buy elections, and we need to participate in the battle.

State Superintendent – Rose Fernandez. Education in Wisconsin needs an outside-the-box perspective, and who better than someone heavily involved with “virtual” schools? Fernandez recognizes that no one schooling solution works for every student, and that, outside merit pay, money is not the answer. Her opponent, Tony Evers, does have a lifetime of experience in the publicc-school structure. Sometimes, that can be a good thing; however, it usually, and in this case, is not. Evers is wedded to the idea that more money, especially more money to WEAC, is the answer.

State Supreme Court – Judge Randy Koschnick. This one is quite simple. Judge Koschnick’s opponent, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, is so liberal that even Bill Clinton could not nominate her for the United States Supreme Court. Justice Abrahamson simply went even further to the left since then.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court, Branch 15 – Daniel Gabler. He and opponent J.D. Watts have engaged in a “spirited” campaign (identifiable by the local deciders’ focus on only one side of said “spirit”). Both have attempted to reach out to local conservatives; however, Watts’ attempt to justify oral sex as not harmful, especially without offering what the judge in the case deemed any real basis belies that effort.

Oak Creek Mayor – I’ve tossed this one around quite a bit. I was quite disappointed when Mark Verhalen didn’t make it out of the primary, and almost as disappointed with his decision to press on in a write-in campaign. I see the two candidates on the ballot, Dick Bolender and Dimity Grabowski, as unsuited for the office; Bolender for his “spend every dime we can get away with” attitude, Grabowski for her general anti-business one. I honestly cannot recommend anybody.

Oak Creek-Franklin School Board – Again, no recommendations. None of the three candidates for the two seats, Thomas Robe, Kathleen Borchardt, or Jim Gilmeister, offer more than empty words on the need to live within the means of those that live in the district.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that 8 people in Clay County, Kentucky, including a then-sitting (and now-senior) circuit judge, the superintendent of schools in Clay County, the county clerk (one of 4 members of the county Board of Elections, along with the sheriff, and representatives from the Republican and Democratic Parties), the Democratic appointed member of said Board of Elections, and the Democratic and Republican election judges in Manchester, Kentucky for the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, were indicted yesterday for buying and corrupting elections between 2002 and 2006.

The indictment is a rather interesting read. A quick summary:

- The judge, Russell Cletus Maricle, and the superintendent, Douglas C. Adams, styled themselves as the political bosses of Clay County, causing the appointment of corrupt people to the elections board and “recruiting” local candidates to run on a “slate” that would be guaranteed to win election.
- The Democratic member of the election board, Charles Wayne Jones, appointed elections officers who would do the bidding of himself, Maricle and Adams, including buying votes and changing votes that voters thought were properly cast but were actually not (more on that last item in a bit).
- The clerk, Freddy W. Thompson, used his position, to which he was elected in 2002 (the start of this conspiracy) to instruct corrupt election officers on how to change votes. He also supplied money used to buy votes and also is charged with lying to a federal grand jury.
- William E. Stivers, the Democratic election judge in Manchester in 2002 and 2004, handled the marking of voters whose votes were bought, and also participated in extortion schemes.
- Paul E. Bishop, the Republican election judge in Manchester in 2002 and 2004, also handled the marking of voters whose votes were bought, and also hosted “fundraisers” for the vote-buying scheme.
- William B. Morris and Debra L. Morris, who own a sanitation business that has contracts with Manchester and Clay County, provided money for the vote-buying scheme.
- In addition, Maricle and Stivers are charged with instructing one of the two Manchester election judges in 2006, identified as “W.W.” in the indictment, as participating in the vote-switching scheme to lie to a grand jury. The other person, identified by the Herald-Leader as Charles “Dobber” Weaver, previously pled guilty to vote-switching charges.

While the vote-buying scheme was part of all three election cycles, the introduction of touch-screen voting machines in 2006 introduced a new, more-insidious method for this cabal to exploit. Summarizing Count 9, for which Maricle, Jones, Thompson and Stiver have been indicted:

- Thompson and Jones appointed Weaver and “W.W.” as the Republican and Democratic election judges in the Manchester precinct, and instructed them to “…tell voters that when they had pushed a button labeled ‘Vote’ that their votes had been cast, when, in fact, that function merely provided a review screen of the voter’s selections in each race, and that the further step of pushing the ‘Cast Ballot’ button was required.”
- When the misled voters left the voting booth with a ballot they thought they properly completed but hadn’t, one of those two would enter the booth, change the vote to the “slate” decided by Maricle, and then complete the casting of the ballot.

According to the Kentucky State Board of Elections, Clay County currently uses exclusively the ES&S iVotronic. While the current version does not use the verbiage mentioned in the indictment (it’s “review” to review and “vote” to finish casting the ballot), and I cannot confirm that the iVotronic was used in 2006, it otherwise does match up with the method described in the indictment. Further, the iVotronic does not produce a paper record, much less one that is actually handled by the voter, although there is now option for a “paper-under-glass” audit feature (again, I do not know whether this version is in use in Clay County).

Today, Dick Durbin took his frustration with Senator Roland Burris’ intransigence and unwillingness to resign his Senate seat to a new level.   In an interview  with the Chicago Sun-Times, reported by UPI, Durbin stated that race was a deciding factor in seating Burris:

Durbin said a combative and racially tinged appearance by African-American U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., at a Dec. 30 news conference called by now-impeached Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich to announce Burris’ appointment to the Senate added a racial overtone to the situation, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday.

“My colleague from Illinois, Congressman Bobby Rush, made strong statements along those lines,” Durbin told Chicago radio station WGN. “They were painful and hurtful, and it became part of this calculation.”

What?   Race baiting and racism on the Left?   Say it ain’t so!

Let me see if I have this correct:

• A leftist, black politician from Chicago, accusing his competitor’s voters of being racists because not all white voters will vote for him while virtually all black voters will, is elected President.
• Rather than hold an election, the Democrats in Illinois decide to have a Senator  appointed by a corrupt Governor.
• The corrupt Governor appoints a black replacement Senator largely because the previous Senator was black and he was getting flack from his black constituency.
• The appointed black Senator goes off to Washington and is refused seating by Harry Reid.   Only after Harry Reid got threats from amongst others, the Congressional Black Caucus, did he roll over.
• The appointed black Senator turns out to be at best, mentally infirm and is unable to remember specific, pertinent events related to Federal investigation or possibly a perjurer.   In either event, he  has become accustomed to his new positions and doesn’t want to leave.
• Black leaders are once again lining up to support Burris….because he’s black:

Rev. Willie Barrow, a leader of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, recently said of Burris, “We put him in, and we’re going to keep him in.”

The difference between the Left and the Right’s view of race was perfectly framed by Rush Limbaugh during his speech to CPAC on Saturday:

Let me tell you who we conservatives are:   We love people. [Applause] When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims. We don’t see people we want to exploit. What we see — what we see is potential.

Holder was right, there are a bunch of cowards in the US that are not willing to talk candidly about race.   Unfortunately that cowardice exists throughout the Democrat party and dictates that the value of an individual is based upon the race, sex or sexual preference group they come from.   That cowardice is what  will hold Burris in a role where because of his “distractions” he will be unable to serve the people of Illinois.

The next time Eric Holder wants to talk about race he may want to focus his comments to those who like him, assume race determines a persons value.   That group is predominantly within the Left.

Minnesota has consistently been in the top 5 states of highschool graduation rates.   It is similarly rated for college graduates.   Apparently none of the folks in these “oops precincts” have  accplished either of those mile stones.

While the vote totals appear to be substantially lower than the general election, they still managed to get about 55% of the folks to return for a second time.   55% is a pretty good overall return rate for a runoff.   However, the two candidates fared very differently compared to the average.

I’m working off of numbers from the Secretary of State as of about 10 PM.   At that time, Chambliss had about 64% of the general election total while Martin only received about 50% of his general election total.   95% of the precincts had reported in those numbers.   If this difference holds, and I suspect it will generally based on the precincts left to report, I’ve got the following questions questions:

• 93% of blacks voted for Martin when Obama was on the ballot.   They accounted for 56% of Martin’s vote total.   Did they come out and support an older white man when there wasn’t a black candidate on the ballot?
• With the Democrats within reach of the magic 60 number in the Senate, how many folks switched from Martin to Chambliss?
• Chambliss and Martin split the 29 and under group in the general election.   It will be interesting to see whether that group was able to show up a second time this year.
• Sarah Palin made several campaign appearances for Chambliss.   By all accounts the events were very well attended.   How much, or was she a factor in generating turn out for Chambliss?
• Do you remember how the MSM was carrying on about how the special elections for Mississippi and Illinois told us that conservatism was dead rather than the fact that Republicans know how to run crappy candidates.   Will the MSM be running stories about how Obama has lost his coat tails?

This and more I’d like to see.   I haven’t found any exit polls yet.   When I do, you’ll be the first to know!

- The two Districts are in different Assembly districts, with a contested race between incumbent Leah Vukmir and challenger Dave Hucke in District 22. The “solution” offered by Wauwatosa will disenfranchise those voters in that race. That is unacceptable, especially since a shift of, depending on the caucusing whims of freshly-”independent” Jeff Wood, two or three seats will change the balance of power in the Assembly.

- Mark Belling pointed out, even as I type, that Wauwatosa’s city clerk, Carla Ledesma, altered official election records to remove evidence of double voting by state Senator Jim Sullivan. I do not trust Wauwatosa’s election officials to correctly remark the ballots for the races that are common to the two districts.