IL-Sen: The Sun-Times razzes Rep. Mark Kirk for his move to the Right as he seeks to shed his "moderate" label in order to grab teabagger support.
In June, he disavowed his crucial vote in favor of a climate bill. Then it came out this week that Kirk wants Palin's support. She is coming to town later this month to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show.
We appreciate the political realities Kirk faces. To win, he must appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, including the most conservative.
Those pressures forced another moderate Republican out of a special election for a New York congressional seat just last weekend.
Leading national conservatives went after the moderate, with many, including Palin, rallying behind one opponent, Conservative Party candidate Douglas Hoffman.
Knocking off the moderate initially looked like a win for conservative Republicans.
But the final outcome offers a cautionary tale for Kirk. In Tuesday's election between a Democrat and conservative Hoffman, the Democrat prevailed in a district that has been a Republican stronghold.
For Kirk, courting conservatives may help him solidify a primary win; he is the presumed front-runner. But it also could easily cost him a general election win in Democrat-leaning Illinois.
Of course conservative white southerners are whining about being held down by "the man". It's what they do. Whine.
But regardless of the reason for the pattern we noted in 2007 and again now, even the appearance that Democrats are biased against southern white men is a potential problem for the party generally, and for President Obama’s goal of transcending old racial divisions.
Nothing transcends old racial divisions like nominating a disproportionate number of white southerners. And given the geographic shifts in partisan politics the last few years, it won't be that much of a problem for the Democratic Party. White southerners have long since abandoned the Democratic Party, and somehow, we've survived.
But we've really come a long way. It wasn't too long ago that conventional wisdom dictated that only southerners could win the presidency, and that Obama made a huge mistake when he didn't pick a southerner as his running mate. It turns out that the rest of the country is much larger.
Nate on independent voters:
Too often in "mainstream" political analysis, once it is pointed out that independents have swung in one or another direction, the analysis stops. The pundit inserts his own opinion about what caused the independent vote to shift ("Obama's far-reaching proposals and mounting spending", says the Washington Post), without citing any evidence. It's a neat trick, and someone who isn't paying attention is liable to conclude that the pundit has actually said something interesting.
But in New Jersey, there's literally almost no evidence that the Democrats' agenda had anything to do with Jon Corzine's defeat. Voters who cited a national issue were more likely to vote for Corzine, and voters who cited a local one, the Republican Chris Christie.
In Virginia, the evidence is certainly a little stronger, insofar as the national agenda may have affected the lopsided turnout (the electorate which turned out Tuesday had voted for John McCain by 8 points, a near-reversal of the actual results). Even there, however, the quarter of the electorate that cited health care as their main issue went for the Democrat Deeds 51-49. And in NY-23, which was supposed to have been the ultimate smackdown of the Democrats' agenda, the Republican Conservative candidate unexpectedly lost.
Part of the problem is that 'independents' are not a particularly coherent group.
The big green ad on the site today makes a good point -- make sure you make your voice heard on health care and call your congresscritter to make health care reform happen. Today is the day, folks. No procrastination on this one.
Your phone calls are ESPECIALLY important if you are represented by one of these potential holdouts:
Harry Mitchell (AZ-05), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08), Marion Berry (AR-01), Dennis Cardoza (CA-18), Jim Costa (CA-20), Betsy Markey (CO-04), Laura Richardson (CA-37), Allen Boyd (FL-02), Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24), Dan Lipinski (IL-03), Melissa Bean (IL-08), Joe Donnelly (IN-02), Brad Ellsworth (IN-08), Baron Hill (IN-09), Ben Chandler (KY-06), Michael Michaud (ME-02), Stephen Lynch (MA-09), James Oberstar (MN-08), Ike Skelton (MO-04), John Adler (NJ-03), Harry Teague (NM-02), Michael McMahon (NY-13), Scott Murphy (NY-20), Dan Maffei (NY-25), Eric Massa (NY-29), Bob Etheridge (NC-02), Heath Shuler (NC- 11), Steve Driehaus (OH-01), John Boccieri (OH-16), Kurt Schrader (OR-05), Jason Altmire (PA-04), Chris Carney (PA-10), Tim Holden (PA-17), Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD-AL), Jim Cooper (TN-05), Bart Gordon (TN-06), Chet Edwards (TX-17), Glenn Nye (VA-02), Tom Periello (VA-05), Rick Boucher (VA-09), Brian Baird (WA-03), Jim McDermott (WA-07), and Adam Smith (WA-09).
You know the teabaggers are letting their voice be heard. We can't sit idly by and let the Right out-do us on this front. Make sure these congresspeople hear from the true majority. Clicking on the ad, AFSCME makes it really easy to call in.