Archives for October 2014

With just a few days until the midterm elections, one of the most accurate political forecasting groups says the Republicans are poised to win the majority in the U.S. Senate and strengthen their existing majority in the House of Representatives.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball is the product of University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato and his team at the school’s Center for Politics.  On Friday, the Crystal Ball headline told readers to bet on a Republican majority in the Senate.  Forecasters believe seven to eight seats held by Democrats will fall into GOP hands in the next Congress.

According to Crystal Ball Managing Editor Kyle Kondik, there are a trio of factors working against Democrats this year.

“It’s a combination of the terrain and the president’s unpopularity.  I guess the third factor is just the very consistent trend in American history that the midterm is generally not good for the president’s party,” said Kondik.

When it comes to Obama’s impact on the race, Kondik says there’s no question he’s an albatross around the necks of Democrats in competitive races.

“Midterms are often a backlash against the president’s party.  This year is no exception, particularly when the president is unpopular as Obama is.  You sort of put those two together and the Republicans are poised for a pretty decent night,” said Kondik.

The map is also a major advantage for Republicans.  The huge Democratic wave of 2008 flipped several red state Senate seats into the Democratic column.  Kondik says those states appear to be reverting to form this time around.

“The Democrats are very much overextended on the Senate map.  It was last contested in 2008, which of course was a very good Democratic year.  It’s pretty natural in American politics for there to be kind of a surge.  That was the Democrats in 2008 and then it declined, particularly six years later in the second midterm of a two-term president.  Just structurally, the Republicans were set up well,” said Kondik, noting seven states defended by Democrats are usually deep red.

“Most of those states were deeply Republican states that went for Romney in 2012.  It looks like Republicans are going to win most of them eventually.  Louisiana, they’re probably favored in, but that state is going to a run-off in December.

Crystal Ball projects the GOP to score easy wins in open seats in West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana, where Democrats are retiring.  It also projects Republican pick-ups in Arkansas, Iowa, Colorado and Alaska.  Louisiana and Georgia also lean to the GOP, but no projections are being made since both races are expected to see run-offs since no candidate is expected to claim a majority of the vote.  Polls suggest Republicans are narrowly but consistently ahead in Iowa, Colorado and Alaska and Kondik says when one party is badly outperforming the other, the close races have a tendency of turning out the same way.

“Generally speaking, if your party’s doing poorly nationally, a lot of the seats get wiped away,” he said.

Kondik says Democrats could still pull out wins in one or more of those states.  On the other hand, he says the Crystal Ball is predicting Democratic wins in tight races in North Carolina and New Hampshire but one or both could easily end up won by the Republicans.  The sole toss-up to be decided on Tuesday is in traditionally-Republican Kansas, which is also one of the few races where an incumbent Republican is in trouble.

Kondik says it could be a huge night for Republicans, but believes they’ll ultimately lose some winnable races and take a narrow majority into the new Congress in January.

“I don’t think the Republicans are going to have as big of a night as is possible.  I think the maximum number of seats they could come out with is 55, which is (a pickup of) 10.  I don’t think they’re going to get that.  I think it’s going to be closer to 51, 52, 53 seats.  Obviously, Republicans came in hoping to win the Senate back.  A few days out, I think they look in pretty good shape to do that,” he said.

Very little attention has been paid to the battle for the House of Representatives since virtually all analysts expect the Republicans to keep their majority and probably add to it.  Kondik says the vast majority of House districts tilt heavily towards one party or the other.  Out of 435 seats, only 22 are deemed competitive.  The Crystal Ball expects the GOP to gain nine seats, which would give it 243 seats to the Democrats’ 192.

“I think that’d be a pretty decent night for Republicans.  I think Democrats are worried it could go higher.  Republicans, on the other hand, are worried it could go lower,” he said.

The one area where the Crystal Ball suggests Democrats have a chance to gain seats is in the governor’s races but even those gain would be modest.  Kondik says the Democrats look better in many of these races for the same reason Republicans are poised for success in the Senate contests.

“When we go back six years in the Senate, Democrats have a good year and now they’re overextended.  Well, you go back four years in the governor’s races and of course that was 2010.  The Republicans won a lot of new governorships and now they have to defend those governorships,” said Kondik.

With midterm elections looming on Tuesday, Democrats are trying to prevent a good Republican year from turning into a major wave.  The Capitol Steps take us inside the apprehension of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Joe Biden as Election Day draws near using music ranging from Les Miserables to the Jackson 5.  Our guest is impressionist Mark Eaton.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review rip Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu for suggesting she and President Obama are unpopular in her state due in part to latent racism and sexism in the South.  They also slam South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham for joking to an all-male club that white men would do very well if he were elected president.  They rip new allegations of government waste, including taxpayers paying for $30,000 in coffee for Homeland Security officials.  Jim shares a pair of Ronald Reagan stories from the recent National Review dinner and both reveal how their kids will be dressed for Halloween.

While Colorado Sen. Mark Udall is on the ropes in his bid for re-election, his cousin, New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, is now trying to fend off the momentum of retired U.S. Marine Corps Col. Allen Weh, who is near or within the margin of error in the latest polls.

Just a week ago, Udall led Weh by 16 points.  Since then, an Albuquerque Journal survey shows a seven-point race (50-43) while a Vox Populi poll released Monday suggests a 47-43 Udall lead.  Weh says another poll has the margin down to two percentage points.  Weh says there are good reasons for the eleventh hour momentum.

“We’ve presented a sharp contrast to Tom Udall.  It’s been done based on his record.  I’ve made no personal attacks on the man and don’t intend to and don’t have to,” said Weh, citing the economy, health care, national security and “other lesser-related issues in New Mexico” as the areas of sharpest difference.

“On every one of those, Tom Udall’s on the wrong side of the issue.  He cast the deciding vote for Obamacare that stripped $716 billion out of Medicare and that’s starting to hurt seniors right now as we speak.  That was a train wreck.  He made it worse,” said Weh.

On the economy, Weh says the two couldn’t be more different because they come at issues like economic growth and job creation from opposite directions.

“He’s been a career politician.  He’s never created a job or saved a job in his life.  I created a business and I can relate to that and I can relate to helping stimulate our economy and what it needs to have done to do that,” he said.

However, Weh may be most frustrated with Udall’s performance on national security issues.  Weh is a retired United States Marine Corps colonel, who was awarded a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts and five Air Medals among other honors for his heroism in combat.  The 71-year-old Weh served the nation in uniform in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Somalia and the Iraq War.  He is appalled by Udall’s foreign policy and military records both personally and professionally.

“On national security, no contest.  He’s never served in uniform a day in his life.  In fact in 1970, when he graduated from college, he decided to go to England to avoid service in Vietnam.  That may not matter to a lot of people, but I’ll tell you what.  It matters to a whole lot of Vietnam veterans,” said Weh.

This is the arena Weh sees himself having the greatest and most immediate impact if elected to the Senate.  He believes President Obama needs to get congressional authorization for a long-term military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but first he says we need a real plan to win.

“We don’t have a comprehensive strategy.  The national command authority, the president, has not woken up to the fact that this is an existential threat to the United States and acted accordingly.  He’s dealing with it almost in a way to just make it go away,” said Weh, who says Udall has been marching in lockstep with Obama.

“Unfortunately, my opponent, Tom Udall, votes with him 94 percent of the time and on matters of national security hasn’t broken with him.  So when the president’s failed leadership, or leading from behind at best, Tom Udall’s never had the political courage to step up and say, ‘Hey Mr. President, you’re the commander-in-chief.  You’ve got to do what’s right to keep America safe and America’s families safe.”  He hasn’t done that,” said Weh.

The 26-year Marine Corps veteran says his voice is badly needed in the Senate.

“That particular part of my life is going to be put to good use.  Right now there’s only one combat veteran in the United States Senate (Arizona Sen. John McCain).  If I’m elected, I’ll be one of two or three,” said Weh, referring also to Iraq War veteran Tom Cotton who is the GOP nominee in Arkansas.

“That’s not a whole lot of men who’ve had that experience,” he said.

Another national security flash point also happens to be in New Mexico’s backyard as the debate over border security and immigration reform continues in both parties.  Weh describes the borders as porous and directly blames the president for allowing it to happen.

“We’ve got to secure the border and that’s the responsibility of the executive.  This executive, this president, this administration does not want to secure the border or else it would have or it could have,” said Weh, who sees one decision above all others hindering border security and another instance of Obama and Udall seeing eye to eye on key policy.

“When Barack Obama took office, he suspended construction of the remaining fence that had been authorized in 2006, which by the way, when in the House of Representatives, my opponent Tom Udall voted against,” said Weh.

The colonel says we only need to look to the Middle East to see the impact a fence can make on security.

“The fence is necessary in those built-up urban areas, much like the fence has been very effective in Jerusalem to prevent terrorists from coming into Israel,” he said.

“The border as it is now is essentially porous simply due to the decisions and actions of this administration,” said Weh.

The Udall campaign is returning fire on a number of issues.  Like most Democratic candidates this year, Udall is accusing Weh of waging a war against women.  In addition, he is hammering the GOP nominee for suggesting he was fine with a four dollar minimum wage and alleging Weh is hostile to working families.

Weh says that line of attack is a clear distortion of the truth.  He calls it “gotcha politics” and says he is actually taking an innovative approach to the issue by pushing an increase in the minimum wage for Americans 26 years and older but eliminating it altogether for those younger.

“The traditional party line of Republicans is we’re opposed to the raise.  I said I’m not opposed to raising the minimum wage.  It hasn’t been raised in 6-7 years.  Cost of living has gone up.  We ought to raise it.  But in exchange for that, I’d want a two-tiered system.  We’ve got a terrible youth unemployment problem in this country.  It’s particularly bad in New Mexico.  Twenty-four percent of Hispanic youths are unemployed.  When you have that kind of condition, what you get is a sharp rise in juvenile delinquency and crime,” said Weh.

“So instead of a kid having a job, if he gets involved in juvenile delinquency in a criminal act he’s got a strike against him for life instead of a hand up.  In that context, I said, ‘So what if he’s working at Burger King for four bucks an hour?  He’s got a job and he’s off the streets and out of trouble and he’s learning something,'” said Weh, who believes this episode raises even more questions about Udall.

“They had a tracker recording me in that group and then they took that little sound bite and they made an ad on it.  That’s the problem of politics today.  I challenged him yesterday in the debate.  He brought that up.  I said, ‘Tom, whay don’t you engage in a conversation?  Why don’t you be constructive in a dialogue to solve the teen unemployment problem.  All you care about it gotcha politics,'” said Weh.

Weh says New Mexico may be a blue state but it’s not a deeply liberal state, stating the Democrats there are blue-collar, gun-owning types who have elected Republicans to the Senate and the governor’s mansion in recent years.

As for a final message, Weh hopes the people of his state relate to him, his story and his vision.

“I’m a normal guy.  I came from a middle class background, worked my way up and have enjoyed the American Dream.  I want that opportunity for everybody and I’m willing to go to Washington to put common sense to work,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Andrew Johnson of National Review cheer a Washington Post poll showing only 15 percent of Hispanics care if the Democrats keep the majority in the Senate.  They also react to a new lawsuit in Maryland alleging illegal immigrants are voting and La Raza openly announcing where people can vote without showing identification.  And they get a laugh out of reports that Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke was fired by her own family from their bicycle business years ago.

Middle East expert Dr. Mike Evans is ripping the Obama administration for profanely disparaging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and for constantly misunderstanding who the real troublemakers are in the region.

On Wednesday, an online piece in The Atlantic quoted an unnamed “senior Obama administration official” who labeled Netanyahu as “chickenshit” for only being interested in his own political security rather finding common ground with adversaries in the region.

“The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states,” the unnamed official told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.  “The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He’s not (Yitzhak) Rabin, he’s not (Ariel) Sharon, he’s certainly no (Menachem) Begin. He’s got no guts.”

Evans says there is a great deal of frustration with Netanyahu inside the Obama White House and the reasons are pretty simple.

“Obama is wanting Netanyahu to surrender leadership to him and he won’t do that.  Those two have never got along.  This goes back further than Obama.  It goes back to the Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton days.  I know.  I was there in Washington,” said Evans.

“It’s a problem because of (Netabyahu’s) ideological right leanings.  His hero was Ronald Reagan.  He’s ideologically right to the core and this is the heart of the problem he said,” said Evans, who also asserts Obama knows he cannot match Netanyahu intellectually.

“Netanyahu is a Muhammad Ali in the ring against a Pee Wee Herman.  He’s a heavyweight,” said Evans.

“He’s the smartest leader on the planet IQ-wise.  His IQ is 185.  He’s absolutely brilliant, one of the most articulate leaders in history.  Obama can’t compete with him,” he said.

In addition to the vastly different political ideologies, Evans says a major frustration for the Obama administration is that Netanyahu simply won’t bow to its demands when it comes to the Palestinian question.

“He has told them from the beginning, ‘I will not accept a Palestinian state that has an army, that has treaties and is armed.  I’m not going to define a Palestinian state that way.’  He’s never changed.  That’s always been his policy.  They know that and they don’t like it.  (Netanyahu) won’t bend,” said Evans.

According to Evans, the Obama administration is also quietly fuming over Israel’s increasingly close relationship with Saudi Arabia as they both try to prevent a nuclear Iran.

“The Sauds are not friends of Obama.  They’re not happy with Obama’s policies on Iran.  They’re not happy with Obama’s policies on Syria.  And, shockingly, the Sauds are very happy with Netanyahu.  So the Sauds have aligned themselves with Netanyahu with plausible deniability.  It’s happening behind the scenes and it’s over Iran,” said Evans.

The disparaging comments are not the only source of tension between the U.S. and Israel this week.  The State Department is catching heat for sending condolences to the family of Mohammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian with U.S. citizenship who was killed by Israeli Defense Forces as he allegedly prepared to throw Molotov cocktails at cars on an Israeli highway.  Abu Khdeir was buried wearing a green Hamas headband.

Nonetheless, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. did not view Molotov cocktails as an act of terrorism.

Evans is horrified by this mindset, but not surprised.

“They don’t look at them as terrorists.  They didn’t look at them as terrorists when they were firing thousands of rockets into Israel.  They think that they need education and money.  By the way, we’ve given them a lot of it.  (Secretary of State John) Kerry did the biggest fundraiser in my knowledge that’s ever happened for the Palestinians and raised billions for Hamas in Gaza.  To do what?  To reward them,” said Evans.

“This was completely insane.  It’s the kind of things that get people killed, appeasement.  The more you appease them, the more they think you’re afraid of them and the more they take advantage of you,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Andrew Johnson of National Review cheer the news that millennials are tired of Pres. Obama and the Democrats.  They also recoil as the State Department suggests bringing foreign doctors infected with Ebola to the U.S. for treatment.  And they laugh as the pro-abortion group NARAL accuses GOP Senate candidate Cory Gardner of wanting to ban birth control and being responsible for a “weirding of the weather.”

With critical midterm elections just days away, stories have arisen in multiple states suggesting voter fraud may be afoot, but a leading conservative advocate for fair elections says some of these concerns are greatly exaggerated while others are worthy of further scrutiny.

In just the past two weeks, Project Veritas released undercover videos of liberal activists tacitly or openly condoning voter fraud on mail-in ballots.  Thousands of non-citizens are feared to be on the voting rolls in North Carolina and reports surfaced of voting machines in Cook County, Illinois, registering votes intended for Republicans on the Democratic side.

True the Vote is an organization dedicated to ensuring integrity in elections through updated voter rolls, requiring photo identification for voters and other measures designed to guarantee only eligible voters are taking part in our political process.  It has been very visible in it’s battle with the IRS over unwarranted scrutiny into the group’s application for tax-exempt status.

Of those three controversies, True the Vote Communications Director Logan Churchwell says the Colorado story is the most alarming.  The Project Veritas video shows progressive interest groups encouraging undercover reporters to fish mail-in ballots out of trash cans, fill them out and mail them in.  One activist even directed Project Veritas to a predominantly black neighborhood where apartment buildings would have many unused ballots in the trash.

“One thing that Project Veritas seems to be very keen at is trying to expose the corruption that could lead to crime.  It looks like, yet again, there is that willingness that people are willing to play games in order to tilt the election in their favor.  It’s important that we continue to show that that kind of corruption is out there, it could occur and to be vigilant against it,” said Churchwell.

As for the North Carolina story of non-citizens being on the voter rolls, Churchwell says this is a classic example of why state and local officials have a solemn duty to verify that each person on the list is eligible to vote and failing to do that job compromises the system.

“This is what happens if you don’t stay on top of your data and you’re not constantly verifying that.  That requires action on the government’s level and the citizens holding it to account,” he said.

However, Churchwell doesn’t necessarily see anything sinister in the Tar Heel State.

“Yes, there were about 150 or so people that are shown to be non-citizens with no legal status in the United States but got their way onto the voter rolls out of a pool of 10,000.  They’ve got to figure out if there were more of that 10,000 that fit into that same category,” said Churchwell, who believes there may be a simple explanation for how those non-citizens got added to the rolls.

“In North Carolina, if you’re applying for citizenship and you’re in the normal pipeline, you can get a driver’s license too.  What they’ve got to figure out is of those 10,000 potential illegal aliens on the voter rolls, we have to figure out if some of those people were actually in the pipeline for citizenship and had actually been granted it.  So the jury is still very much out on the North Carolina issue,” said Churchwell.

In Illinois, Cook County has a long reputation for political corruption, but Churchwell says machines registering votes for the wrong candidate or wrong party is not a sign of corruption and is very easily corrected.

“You’re going to hear many stories about how a machine malfunctioned when someone went to vote.  This happens all the time.  It probably doesn’t get reported as much as it occurs,” he said.

“All that’s required is that you raise your hand and tell the election judge or whatever they’re called in your community, ‘This machine doesn’t seem to be working right.’  They can do a very quick recalibration, probably right there on the spot and reassign you to a different booth so you can vote correctly the way you intended to,” he said.

In short, stories of malfunctioning machines should not trigger conspiracy theories.

“A lot of people freak out when they see their votes change on them.  Then the mind begins to wander on what all could be causing it.  You do not need to panic,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review enjoy watching vulnerable Democrats run away from both President Obama and Harry Reid.  They also shake their heads as it becomes clear the White House had not considered any sort of quarantine for American troops deployed to fight Ebola.  And they get a kick out of the Democrat running for Senate in South Dakota accusing the national Democrats for intentionally sabotaging his campaign.

Those plunging gas prices you see are the result of a stunning oil and natural gas boom in the U.S. that is increasing supply, creating good jobs and making us less dependent upon countries that hate us, and Heritage Foundation Chief Economist Stephen Moore says all of it comes in the face of fierce opposition from the Obama administration.

Over the past several weeks, gas prices have plummeted across the country, falling well below three dollars per gallon in some part of the country.  Moore says it’s the result of an oil and gas bonanza across the U.S. that is leaving OPEC no choice but to slash prices to compete.  The irony, however, is that it’s an economic windfall the White House wished wasn’t happening.

“This is the biggest story of the American economy overt the last six years.  It dwarfs everything else.  The United States of America is becoming energy dominant, something nobody would have predicted six years ago and it’s happening under a president who hates this industry,” said Moore, who said the explosion in energy production could be much greater if there was an ally in the White House.

“Barack Obama hates the fossil fuels industry.  He hates coal.  He hates oil.  He hates gas because he’s so tied at the hip with radical environmentalists.  So it’s astonishing we’ve been able to produce this much oil and gas with a president who doesn’t like the industry.  Imagine how much faster this would grow if we had a president who wanted to nurture the industry and make it grow faster,” he said.

In addition to a number of Environmental Protection Agency regulations aimed at various sectors of the energy industry, the case for Obama as an opponent of this trend has been the stark reduction in permits to explore for energy on federal lands since he took office.  The vast majority of the boom, they say, are the result of permits granted for private lands and most of those were approved in the George W. Bush administration.

“The president has been trying to take credit for this but I think most people realize he will not build the Keystone Pipeline.  He’s got an EPA that is trying to regulate and strangulate this industry out of business.  He will not allow drilling on federal lands.  I think it makes it difficult for him to take credit for this boom,” said Moore.

An even greater oddity, according to Moore, is that Obama is hostile to the industry, even though it’s probably the reason he won a second term as president.

“If it weren’t for this energy boom, the president never would have been re-elected in the first place.  No way, because the economy would have still been in a recession.  So it saved his skin.  It’s technology and oil and gas that are really driving our economy right now.  I think even the president understands that,” said Moore.

Nonetheless, the growth in the energy sector in recent years has been remarkable.  Moore says American progress has radically altered the status quo when it comes to the energy markets.

“This great country of ours has become one of the dominant oil and gas producers in the world.  In just the course of the last five or six years, we’ve increased oil and gas output by over 60 percent, which is an enormous increase.  We have now surpassed Russia as the number one natural gas producer in the world and we’re about to surpass Saudi Arabia as the number one oil producer in the world,” said Moore

Moore calculates the recent plunge in gas prices is the equivalent of an annual $75 billion tax cut for the nation.  And he says those prices may very well go even lower.

“We’ve seen a 25 percent decline already, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw gas prices go as low as maybe $2.50 or $2.60 a gallon, which would be very welcome relief,” he said.

In addition to cheaper energy costs, Moore says there are several other major benefits for the U.S.  At the current pace of growth, he says, the U.S. could reach that elusive goal of energy independence rather soon.

“By my calculations, within five or six years, the United States of America could be energy independent.  That is we will be exportint oil and natural gas rather than importing it,” said Moore.

By diminishing and possibly eliminating our dependence upon foreign energy, Moore says our enemies will lose a lot of their leverage on the world stage, from Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons to many other areas.

“ISIS is getting five to six million dollars a day from petro dollars, so if we can produce more oil and gas here in the United States, it’s a good way to defund the terrorists who are trying to kill us.  It’s also a good way to put a nail in the coffin of OPEC, which has controlled the price of oil now for 40 years.  No longer does it have that pricing power,” said Moore.

Back at home, he says booming energy production means a lot of good job opportunities for Americans struggling to find work.

“These are good-paying jobs.  We’re talking about welders and drillers and people who are pipe-fitters and truckers and construction workers.  We’re talking about jobs that are paying $60-$100,000 a year.  These are good, blue collar, middle class jobs that we’re producing hundreds as we’re becoming energy independent,” said Moore.

“There’s nothing not to like about this picture,” he said.