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Yesterday, a special election was held in Mississippi to determine who would complete Roger Wicker's (R-MS) term in the House. Wicker took over for Trent Lott when Lott resigned from the Senate. This district is a very red district in a very red state. Losing it would be a warning signal of Noah-like proportions for the GOP. What happened?
With all precincts reporting, the Democratic nominee, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers, defeated Republican Greg Davis, 54 to 46 percent. Childers was able to expand his three-point margin of victory from the race's first round of balloting last month -- even as he faced an onslaught of Republican attacks.
This was not an anomaly. At this point, it's a trend -- and a BAD trend for the GOP. Needless to say, the GOP higher-ups are apoplectic:
The victory marks the Democrats’ third straight special election pickup in three months. It will be a serious blow to the Republican Party’s already-flagging morale and will surely prompt a new round of finger-pointing among the already fractured GOP caucus.
"This loss is going to prompt serious introspection by our conference to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it," said a GOP leadership aide. "We have time to do that, and we will if we learn our lessons leading into November. But the next couple of days are not going to be pretty."
And it's not like the GOP didn't try to win this one:
The $1.27 million that the NRCC spent in the heavily Republican district amounted to nearly 20 percent of the committee's entire cash-on-hand.
Folks, the GOP is in TROUBLE. Honestly, I don't think they can do anything at this point to stop the freight train that is coming. Barring some type of miracle, November will be a bloodletting for the Republicans. Seeing as they haven't really done anything or stood for anything in a long time, they will only have themselves to blame when it happens.
On Tuesday, the Democratic Party held its West Virginia primary (the GOP's contest was held at a previous date). The results were as follows:
Democrats --
Clinton: 67%
Obama: 26%
Takeaways:
Democrats --
There's not much new to say after this primary. Obama still has a BIG problem drawing in white, working class voters. Nevertheless, the race is pretty much over. Obama will be the nominee. This is a clear signal, though, that he needs to connect with this group. The sooner he can start doing that, the better off he will be. Otherwise, he is leaving a door open for McCain to have a shot in what seems to be an anti-GOP year.
Up next: Hawaii for the GOP on May 17th.
On more than one occasion, I've talked about McCain's stormy relationship with the Republican base. Conservatives don't trust him very much, and they certainly don't embrace him. We've seen this coming over the last couple of years (discussions can be found here and here), but it's evident that many Republican donors are not willing to shell out money for a candidate and a party that does a poor job of representing them. Now, it appears that even the most reliable donors -- the business community -- are not keen on McCain and the GOP brand. It's not that they aren't giving. They are. However, they are giving to the Democrats:
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is struggling to attract money from some of the same industries that helped bankroll President George W. Bush's record-setting fundraising.
Employees from the securities, construction, pharmaceutical and energy industries, who accounted for about a tenth of Bush's money in 2004, are turned off by his record and giving more to his Democratic rivals, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Below is a very telling insight from a Republican insider:
``A significant percentage of your base Republican support, whether financial or otherwise, are not fans of McCain because of various things he's done or said or sponsored,'' said Republican consultant Eddie Mahe, who is supporting the Arizona senator. ``Many of them don't see Mr. McCain as being a lot better'' than the Democrats.
Ultimately, the comment below gets at the crux of the problem:
``There's a great deal of dissatisfaction with the Republican Party,'' said Mallory Factor, a merchant banker who co-hosts a weekly meeting of conservatives in New York City and raised more than $1 million for Bush and his party four years ago. ``People are just fed up.''
All of this doesn't bode well for McCain and the GOP. And while the money concerns are a problem, the bigger problem is the reasoning behind the shift in donations. As we've seen, McCain's fundraising pales in comparison to the fundraising results from Clinton and Obama. As the country is mired in an unpopular war and an unfriendly economy, I certainly expect this trend to continue. Can McCain and the GOP overcome this? It's possible. However, the GOP brand and message is tough to sell these days -- and the lack of money is making that sales job even harder.
Fortune magazine had a great article last month on the biofuel industry. The article talks about a number of sources for biofuel, but it focuses a great deal on the use of algae (something I've written about in previous posts). It also speaks pretty favorably about the use of cellulosic ethanol. Especially useful was a section listing the pros and cons of the potential sources for biofuel. Below are the details on the use of cellulosic ethanol and algae:
Cellulosic ethanol
[ Click here to read more ]
The DNC will be meeting next month to decide what to do about Michigan and Florida. Will they redo the elections? Will they just split the delegates equally between Obama and Clinton? How many delegates will wind up being seated at the convention?
The DNC made a huge mistake when it opted to strip Michigan and Florida of all their delegates. In doing so, the DNC made those two elections meaningless. For a party that still complains to this day about the failure to "count every vote" in the 2000 presidential election, it seems heretical to disenfranchise the voters in the 4th and 8th most populous states in the country. They punished millions of voters because of the actions of a handful of state party officials
[ Click here to read more ]
Hillary Clinton, who is still trailing Barack Obama in total votes, states won, and pledged delegates, has vowed to stay in the Democratic race all the way to the convention. While Obama is leading the race in national polls, it is still close in most of them. The daily Gallup tracking poll actually had Clinton leading Obama as recently as two days ago. And, by most accounts, she is expected to win the upcoming primary in Pennsylvania (a large and vitally important state for Democrats). These circumstances help to provide her with a rationale for staying in the race.
On top of that, you must remember that this contest is no longer about the average voter. Neither Clinton nor Obama can win this race on the basis of pledged delegates. No, this race will be decided by the superdelegates. As such, Hillary's primary goal now is to convince undecided superdelegates that she is the better choice for the party in November. If she can hold on and if Obama makes some mistakes, she feels she can make the case to those superdelegates that Obama is not ready for prime time. She knows that the party establishment wants a victory above all else. If they get the feeling that Obama is the weaker of the two candidates, they could very well hand the victory over to Hillary. That would be a dangerous move, though, because doing so would essentially overturn the will of the people. However, winning is everything. If Obama looks like he can't win in November, Hillary could get the nod
[ Click here to read more ]
Food prices are rising quickly all throughout the world. In the US, this is starting to cause problems -- especially for those who are at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale:
The U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years, and analysts expect new data due on Wednesday to show it's getting worse. That's putting the squeeze on poor families...
[ Click here to read more ]
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