O'Donnell Win Continues to Reverberate     Permalink

Christine O'Donnell's victory in the Delaware GOP senatorial primary Tuesday is continuing to echo all the way to 2012. The new conventional wisdom is that there will be two Republican presidential primaries in 2012: one for the tea-party vote and one for the big business vote. Then in the home stretch, the two winners will battle it out for dominance. However, this view may not make it past Nov. 2, 2010, when we will find out just how well tea party candidates do in general elections. That they do well in closed Republican primaries in an off-year with the economy in the toilet is not the same thing as saying they will do well in a presidential election year with a better economy in a general election. Still, catering to the whims of the tea party has replaced catering to the whims of the religious right as the wisdom du jour. The remaining moderates within the GOP House caucus are naturally upset about this development and fret about the party's long-term future if it continues to purge any politician to the left of Sarah Palin. Even conservative Republican pundits are now worried, recalling the ideologically pure, but not terribly successful 1964 campaign of Barry Goldwater.

Advice to Obama from Democratic Strategists     Permalink

Most Democratic politicians up for (re)election in November are slowly coming to realize that they can't run away from President Obama. For better or worse, their fate is tied to his and they are getting edgy that he is doing so little to help them. Politico canvassed 20 Democratic operatives to find out what they thought Obama should do and came up with five pieces of advice, briefly summarized as follows:

1. Stop talking about the administration's achievements; the voters aren't feeling them yet
2. Focus on economics: we are fighting for the middle class, the Republicans are blocking us
3. Play the crazy card: say that the GOP has been taken over by extremists
4. Reestablish Obama's personal connection with the people
5. Stop hammering House minority leader Boehner but have surrogates do it

Of course, if Politico had asked a different bunch of insiders they would probably have gotten different responses. For example, he could challenge each of the three Republican leaders, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rep, John Boehner (R-OH), and RNC chairman Michael Steele to debate him on the issues for an hour. But the basic message is that Obama is the leader of his party as well as his country and has to take a much more active role in the midterms than he has until now.

Palin to Speak in Iowa Today     Permalink

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is going to Iowa today to speak at a fundraiser for the Iowa Republican Party. All the tea-leaf readers see this appearance as the first step on the road to a presidential run in 2012. That may or may not be so, but Palin will certainly generate good will among Iowa Republican activists by helping the local party raise money and due to the way the Iowa caucus system works, their good will good translate into shoe leather on her behalf two years from now, should she decide to run. But a major obstacle to her candidacy is that her style of campaigning--issuing tweets from time to time--just won't work in Iowa, where many people won't consider voting for anyone until they have personally met the candidate two or three times. If she wants to win there, she will have to trudge through the snow for weeks like all the other hopefuls, and it is not clear if she has the stomach (and feet) for that. Still, a speech like today's can't hurt.

Today's Polls: AR DE IL NH NV VT WA DE-AL KS-04 MN-06     Permalink

New Senate Polls

New House Polls

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