Sean Duffy: Yeah So I Have Another Lumberjack Ad Out
Ace: Really? Greg the Troll Thinks There's Not Gonna Be a Wave
Sean Duffy: Oh? Can You Give Him A Message For Me?
— Ace

Here's the new ad.

Posted by: Ace at 01:30 PM | Comments (110)
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Rasmussen Final Generic: +12
— Ace

51-39.

If these results hold, it could lead to the election of more Republicans to Congress than at any time since the 1920s.

With just one day left until Election Day 2010, these new numbers reflect an increase in the Republican advantage from nine points in each of the preceding two weeks.

More: a 31 point (yes, 31 point) lead with independents (!!!); a six point lead with men. Did I say men? I meant a six point lead with women. With men, it's a 20 point lead.

But, as disposable-cigarette-lighter distributor Weglan Wolf advised, "Gentlemen, let's not start trucking each other's Bics just yet."

Thanks for the p-shop to BrendanG.

Posted by: Ace at 12:57 PM | Comments (227)
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Well, It Turns Out You Don't Need To Watch ABCNews On Election Night After All
— Ace

Andrew Breitbart had been asked to participate in some sort of "digital townhall" and provide commentary during the night.

After the typical caterwauling of the censors of the left, ABCNews has withdrawn the offer, apparently, or at least guaranteed to the lefties that Breitbart will not appear on TV.

After ABC claimed he was never to appear on TV -- they claimed he would just be hanging out at the online forum or something -- Breitbart produced an email from them contradicting them.

Upshot? The fuck with ABCNews. They sure do hop-to when lefty bloggers demand they do, eh?

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (152)
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Report: Cargo Plane Bombs Were Meant To Bring Down Planes In Flight
— DrewM

Friday there was speculation that the devices were aimed at synagogues in the Chicago area. Now it seems they were supposed to bring down the planes themselves. In other words, we got very lucky.

"At this point we, I think, would agree with the British that it looks as though they were designed to be detonated in flight," said the adviser, John Brennan, speaking Sunday on the CBS program "Face the Nation."

The assessment, combined with the revelation that one of the packages traveled on passenger flights in the Middle East, underlined just how narrowly authorities had averted a potential catastrophe. It also raised puzzling questions about why the packages, which contained bombs skillfully packed inside modified printer cartridges, were addressed to two synagogues in Chicago, a potential warning flag given that the packages originated in Yemen.

...The devices employed cellphone technology, but it remains unclear why they were built that way. Among the questions authorities are asking: How and when, during a transatlantic passage, would the cellphone components have been in range to receive a signal?

"There are a whole lot of theories being kicked around about whether [they were set] on a timer, whether somebody was going to call, or another triggering mechanism would set them off," the counterterrorism official said.

Previously, Al Qaeda has tried to knock down passenger jets for the obvious death count and spectacular effect. Either they are switching to a softer target set in cargo jets or they were hoping that the packages would fly on passenger planes at some point.

While killing people and terrorizing passengers would be a win for them, so would slowing down or shutting down the flow of goods around the world. That would be a big economic hit and we aren't in the position to take one of those right now.

The good guys have to be right 100% of the time, while the terrorists only have to get lucky once.

Related: It seems the Saudis, acting on information from a former Gitmo detainee, tipped off western intelligence agencies about the plot.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:16 PM | Comments (88)
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The Hottest Race in the Senate
— Geoff

What's the most heavily-funded battle for a seat in the Senate? The answer is, a little surprisingly, Ken Buck (R) vs. Michael Bennet (D) for Salazar's seat in Colorado. For the past 3 weeks, this battle has received the most funding by interest groups and political parties. Here's the spending for all Senate candidates in 2010 (through 10/25/2010, with spending listed by incumbent):

The Colorado race has received $10 million more in outside funds than any other race! As you can also see, Blanche Lincoln is desperately trying to hold on to her spot, while the Republicans are hunting seats belonging to some of our favorite Dems. Excepting the outliers, Republican supporters have outspent Democrats by 10 to 30 points in these races.

The last reported week of spending shows which races are hot at the moment:

Democrats have been pouring it on in the Perreillo race, trying to make up their gap (somewhere between 1 and 6 points). [Update: Kasper Hauser points out that I let Perreillo's race for the House creep in here amongst the Senate races. To discipline myself, I'll be refrigerating my pudding tomorrow night.] But I think the Republican candidate, Hurt, is safe - President Obama doomed Perreillo with a supportive visit last Friday.

Still the fight in Colorado, with Ken Buck currently leading by 1 point, reigns as the most expensive contest; a spot it has held for the past 3 weeks. Save for Buck's gaffes* over the past month, this race would not be this close, but as soon as the Dems spotted an opportunity, money flooded in. Tomorrow we'll see which group is celebrated as wise investors, and which group is mocked as chumps.

Should be an exciting night.

*where I use the word to mean openings for the opposition, not necessarily genuine mistakes.

Posted by: Geoff at 11:42 AM | Comments (76)
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Oh God: Iraqi Security Forces Botch Church Raid; 52 Killed
— Ace

I thought for certain our special forces would be involved.

I guess I was wrong.

An al Qaeda attack that killed 52 hostages and police in a Catholic church in Baghdad was aimed at driving the embattled Christian minority out of the country, Iraq's human rights minister said on Monday.

Church officials described the attack, which began when gunmen seized the Our Lady of Salvation Church during Sunday mass, as the bloodiest against Iraq's Christians in the seven years of sectarian war that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

A Christian lawmaker said the botched raid to free the hostages proved that the Iraqi security forces lack the capability to maintain peace.

"Botched" may not be the best word for it, as the gunmen were wearing explosive vests. Though I have to imagine that such threats can in fact be taken down by the right man with a rifle. (What, we can't drill small holes through the walls of the church?)

As far as I can tell the US military presence was limited to overflying helicopters.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (353)
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PPP: Joe Miller Up By Seven
— Ace

Polling in Alaska is giving me a heart attack, but I figure Joe Miller pulls it out by 10.

Oh, and Lisa Mulva? She's pulling a Charlie Crist and saying she'll caucus with the people of Alaska.

But she acknowledged that the experience will make her a different kind of senator if she returns to Washington, and called the break from the GOP "really very liberating."

"I know very well who will have returned me to Washington, D.C., to the United States Senate," Murkowski said. "And it will be these people in this state and nobody else."

She skirted the issue when asked what party she would caucus with in the new Congress and said she would be returning to represent "Alaskans interest," instead of the Republican Party's.

Yeah -- if she wins, she flips. Count on that, Alaska voters.

Do you really need two Democratic Senators representing you?

Posted by: Ace at 10:02 AM | Comments (186)
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Jim Geraghty: I Predict +70 Seats, And I'm Being Conservative;
Jay Cost: Gamma Rays Are Pushing Me Into Hulk Mode And I'm Citing (Without Endorsing) a Prediction of +76
— Ace

Geraghty's come up with a prediction he calls conservative, calling for Republicans to flip 76 seats and Democrats to flip 6 (!!?!), for a net of +70.

I'm not really sure why he thinks the Democrats will flip six. Three, maybe? But he is, as he says, erring on the side of caution. Update: Here's the actual list of every House prediction. All 435.

Jay Cost again makes the point that Gallup's congressional generic has been very accurate since 1994 (more accurate than any other poll) and furthermore has no real partisan skew. (In three of four years, it has actually skewed Republican by about a point.)

[T]here has really only been one pollster in 15 years that has not exhibited a systematic partiality, and that is the Gallup poll. This was my point last week, that the Gallup final likely voter generic ballot number is extremely accurate. And as you can see it is more accurate, on average, than any other poll. In fact, itÂ’s even substantially more accurate than an average of all the other final likely voter polls. In three out of four years, tossing out all the other polls and following only Gallup would have gotten you closer to the actual result.

This suggests, in turn, that our best approach to minimizing error when it comes to predicting the final popular vote spread is to favor heavily GallupÂ’s final likely vote projection.

Indeed, a regression analysis conducted by Emory UniversityÂ’s Alan Abramowitz suggests an extremely close fit between what Gallup predicts and what the final result will be.

...

A victory of 15 points suggests Republican gains well in excess of my previous estimate of 61 seats. The Abramowitz model suggests a pickup of about 76 seats, but I wouldnÂ’t take that at face value.

His caution is that this is unprecedented so it is outside the usual parameters of modeling. He'll be making his actual prediction tomorrow (before voting begins, I trust!).

Abramowitz (the analyst he cites) offers a chart which tops out at a +68 seat gain, if Republicans have +12 in the national popular vote.

FWIW, and it's not worth much, my own current prediction is 70+, emphasis on the plus.

The Plural of Anecdote is Not Data But It Still Is Information: Geraghty
notes an AoS reader's report from last night about the serious electricity in the Patrick Murray camp in VA-8 and confirms, there are barely any Jim Moran signs in this heavily Democratic DC suburban area.

Then he starts singing show tunes.

Geraghty also smells desperation in CA-51, where incumbent Filner has launched a completely-disproven (and immediately so) negative attack against Nick Popaditch. Why would he do that, if he weren't in trouble? The negative charge was kinda lame to begin with (Popaditch hasn't voted in 11 years!), plus Popaditch had a pretty good excuse (Hey, sorry, when I was recovering from my grievous injuries sustained while defending the country I didn't manage to vote), and wasn't even true-- Popaditch immediately proved he had voted in every election, even when he was in combat or convalescing from injuries sustained thereby.

So what is this? Why would Filner toss such a lame grenade right into his own tent?

Posted by: Ace at 09:36 AM | Comments (169)
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Boehner's Closing Argument: The President Of The United States Of America Shouldn't Be Calling Citizens "Enemies"
— DrewM

From Politico.

House Republican Leader John Boehner plans to hammer President Obama tonight during an election-eve rally in Cincinnati, pivoting off an Obama comment to Univision radio that got huge play in the right blogosphere. The president said: "If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies, and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us' -- if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election -- then I think it's going to be harder. And that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd."

--From Boehner's prepared remarks: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as 'our enemies.' Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word 'enemy,' they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators -- enemies of the United States. Enemies of freedom. Enemies of our country. Today, sadly, we have president who uses the word 'enemy' for fellow Americans -- fellow citizens. He uses it for people who disagree with his agenda of bigger government -- people speaking out for a smaller, more accountable government that respects freedom and allows small businesses to create jobs. Mr. President, there's a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution, and the values of limited government that made our country great. We don't call them 'enemies.' We call them 'patriots.'"

It's pretty scary to think what the next two years are going to bring in terms of rhetoric from Obama. He was vindictive and divisive in victory, one can only imagine what he's going to be like when he's backed into a corner and besieged from all sides.

Tomorrow is not the end of the line, it's really just the beginning. We need to stop the worst of the Obama abuses and tomorrow should go a long way in that effort.

Once the celebrating is over we're going to need to focus on getting Obama's post-American ass out of the Oval Office and destroying the left in this country. They need to be made so toxic that when future Democrats think of the Obama years, they recoil in horror. We need to move that party back towards the mainstream of America and away from the destructive leftist policies they've been following for decades. Democrats won't do it themselves, so we are going to have to do it for them.

Of course, we must be vigilant with out own side. That means holding the Boehners and the rest of the old guard to account and ensuring the huge class we send to the House tomorrow (and hopefully in '12) don't lose their way.

We let our guard down before and as a country we're paying the price. From now on everyone, Republican and Democrat, is on notice. We the people have got the whip hand and we can't let it go.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:14 AM | Comments (219)
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Democrat Tears: Labor Edition
— DrewM

Oh noes! The mean Republicans are coming to town and now the thug union leaders won't be able to rip off taxpayers for their members.

It's somewhat ironic that the bitterest tears are the sweetest.

“Republicans are likely to pursue a version of what Samuel Gompers often said: ‘Reward your friends and punish your enemies,’ ” said Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University.

One bill that is popular among Republicans would prohibit employers from ever agreeing to unionization through “card check,” a process often used today in which an employer recognizes a union as soon as a majority of workers sign pro-union cards — without holding a secret-ballot election. Another bill would severely crimp labor’s campaign spending by barring unions from using any portion of a union member’s dues money for political purposes unless the member first gives written permission.

A Republican-led House or Senate is expected to be more eager than a Democratic-controlled one to approve free trade agreements that unions oppose, and to be more reluctant to enact stimulus plans that unions have supported, like the recent bill that gave states $26 billion to help save the jobs of teachers, police and other government employees. A Republican-controlled House or Senate would probably block a labor-backed bill that would give firefighters and police officers in every state the right to unionize.

“We fear that the Republicans are on the march, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to stop them,” said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is spending $91 million in the two-year campaign cycle.

Mr. McEntee praised the $26 billion jobs bill. “That saved literally thousands of public-sector jobs,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll see something like that passed under John Boehner,” the Ohio Republican who is expected to become House Speaker if the Republicans win control.

Wait. $26 billion dollars saved "literally thousands" of jobs? Not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands but "literally thousands"? Yeah, you guys gotta go.

It's going to be hard to get new restrictions on unions with Obama in the White House vetoing everything as a down payment on labor's support in '12. Hopefully in 2 years Republican reinforcements will arrive in the White House and we can roll this crap back. In the meantime we can stop the bleeding and enjoy their tears but mostly...well, both.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:48 AM | Comments (174)
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