Democratic Mass Hypnosis Continues - It's always sunny in Demsylvania edition

Are you feeling sleepy yet?  Suddenly feeling the urge to dig in your pockets and donate to the Democratic war chest?  As Democrats head home to their districts the orchestrated effort to change the national narrative from doom and gloom for Democrats to it's always sunny in Demsylvania is in full swing.  All is well people, all is well.

Some of the latest efforts to induce sudden euphoria for Democratic prospects are far more transparent than anything that has passed through the Congress or White House since Democrats have had control.  Take this latest ray of hope Charlie Cook offers from Gallup's recent generic ballot polling:

We're currently experiencing one of those periods of uncertainty. One interpretation of recent results is that the momentum in this critical midterm election has shifted and the Republican wave has subsided. Another interpretation is that it's too soon to tell whether much has changed at all...

Oops, sorry Charlie it looks like Republicans are back on top again:

Registered voters favor Republicans by 48% and Democrats by 43% in Gallup's generic congressional ballot for the week of July 26 through Aug. 1. This follows two weeks when the numbers were nearly reversed.

While the five-percentage-point edge for Republicans is not statistically significant, it represents a return to the prevailing 2010 pattern, seen since mid-March, whereby Republicans were tied or held a slight advantage over Democrats in most Gallup Daily tracking weekly averages. If sustained through Election Day, this competitive positioning for the Republicans among registered voters would point to major seat gains for that party in November given the usual Republican advantage in turnout.

Never fear, hope springs eternal as PPP offers this sunny scenario:

If you look at the trends in the actual races though things are getting sunnier for the Democrats. In June and July PPP polled eight Senate match ups that we had a previous poll to compare to- in all eight the Democratic candidate improved his/her position, by an average of 4.25 points.

PPP explains the sudden shift back to the "It's always sunny scenario," with the usual litany of Democratic talking points.  You have heard them all before, Republicans have crazy candidates, yada, yada, yada:

 And then of course there are the races with flawed Republican candidates: Charlie Melancon and Alexi Giannoulias have seen improvement as David Vitter and Mark Kirk have had to deal with character issues and Jack Conway has seen his standing rise as Kentuckians have had to consider whether Rand Paul is an extremist.

 I would be careful pointing to Alexi Giannoulias when discussing flawed candidates if I were on the left.  Of course if I were on the left I might be looking to distance myself from Tony Rezko's ATM machine.  What say you Barack? As for David Vitter, Democrats have a long way to go before they take a victory lap in that race.  Of course in the long run trends do matter in polls but what PPP offers here is as substantive as Charlie Cook's analysis of the Gallup poll.

Things aren't always sunny for Democrats, folks and there is little on the horizon to suggest their prospects will get brighter.  This will not stop certain pointy-hatted people from trying to convince her base Democrats have this completely under control.  Fortunately, it doesn't seem many people are buying it:







Thanks to Scared Monkeys for linking this post.

Is the Senate In Play?

Last night's win by Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois coupled with the announcement Dan Coats will come out of retirement to challenge Evan Bayh in Indiana has led to speculation control of the Senate may be in play. Chris Cillizza of The Fix notes the NRSC has wasted not time pointing out the weaknesses of Alexi Giannoulias by releasing the following ad:



Handwringing at The Fix:

With the developments in Illinois and Indiana over the past 24 hours, theCook Political Report now carries 10 Democratic-held seats in their most competitive categories -- meaning, theoretically, that if Republicans ran the table (and lost none of their own toss up seats in Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio) they could get to 51 seats and the Senate majority.

Is it a longshot? Absolutely. But, remember that recent history has shown that in a national political landscape tipped in favor of one party a strong majority of toss up contests tend to fall that party's way.

Charlie Cook has been sounding the alarm bells for Democrats much longer than  most and has warned the enthusiasm of the right puts everything in play:

Democrats would have to set up machine-gun nests to keep these people from voting, while the lethargy among Democratic voters is palpable.

 With momentum on our side, we still need strong candidates in key areas as well:

"Now? No. Absolutely not," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report. Republicans "would need top-tier candidates in places like Wisconsin, Indiana, Washington and New York, and after that, they would need everything to fall in place."

"Right now, they don't have serious opportunities in 10 states with Democratic-held Senate seats up this cycle," he said.

Momentum has a way of shaking stronger candidates out of the trees.  The Senate may still be a long shot but it is looking less like a long shot than it did before Massachusetts.   There is a lifetime politically between now and November, but as of now, the ball is clearly in our court:

The long-shot bid by Republicans to retake control of the Senate is suddenly in play, as the prospect of high-profile Republican candidates entering the fray has pushed the GOP even or ahead in polling for 10 races.

The potential candidacies of former Republican Govs. George E. Pataki in New York and Tommy G. Thompson in Wisconsin are improving the polling fortunes of the party as it pursues seats long in the hands of Democrats, while the anti-government “tea party” movement has provided momentum to Republican challengers in states such as Florida, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.

“If the election were held today, the Republicans could come close to winning back the Senate, if not actually win it,” said pollster John Zogby.

Illinois Results

Tonight there was a bit of a disappointment for Andrzejewski who finished fifth in a field of seven.  It appears he ended up splitting votes with Dan Proft another candidate with tea party support. In a packed field there is always the danger good candidates will cancel each other out.  RS McCain reported Proft had approximately 45,000 votes and Andrzejewski was behind the leader approximately 40,000 votes.  As you can see the five top candidates finished quite close to one another:

The good news, however, is the current leader with a slim 2000 vote lead is reported to be a "good guy" according to Andrzejewski.  Blake Dvorak of Chicago Now seems to agree:

Brady's showing is also a win for conservatives tonight, although not the one perhaps they were looking for. While Andrzejewski and Proft fought over the activist vote, Brady captured the middle-America vote, which is not as ideological, but no less conservative.

While many conservatives were hoping that Hughes would pull out a win in the Senatorial primary, Rep Mark Kirk won decisively.  He will be going up against Alexi Giannoulias mentioned in yesterdays post, who is an Obama crony and Chicago pol from way back.  Fivethirtyeight notes Nate Silver thought Illinois "blue enough" for a Democrat win, despite Giannoulias being a less a less than terrific candidate.  They did say that in Massachusetts though didn't they?  Will the conservatives and tea party candidates rally to support Kirk on the chance they could pick up Senator Barack Obama's former seat?  Stay tuned.

Via Memeorandum

Illinois Primary Tomorrow - Andrzejewski Gets Big Endorsements

The Other McCain has been hot on coverage of the Illinois primary elections tomorrow.   In his latest article The American Spectator, McCain notes the Andrzejewski campaign for Governor has caught fire with conservatives online:

The Andrzejewski campaign has caught fire with conservatives online -- including Red State, Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, First Things blogger Jim Hoft and Glenn Reynold's Instapundit mega-blog -- and the candidate was featured last week on Andrew Napolitano's Fox Business Channel program. That kind of New Media coverage has helped compensate for the paucity of attention the campaign has received from traditional media in Illinois.

Rush Limbaugh threw his support behind  Andrzejewski eliciting a "Holy Mackerel" from the candidate:

"We're gonna win this race . . . That's got to be the closer," said Andrzejewski, whose GOP gubernatorial campaign was also reportedly endorsed today by Glenn Beck on the eve of tomorrow's primary. "It's a historical election for Illinois. Nothing like this has ever happened here before."

Andrzejewski had another high profile endorsement over the weekend when Lech Walesa flew in to throw his support behind Andrzewjewski.  The Other McCain has audio of Limbaugh, Walesa and Glenn Beck endorsing Andrzejewski.  Amusing Bunni has a report after attending a Chicago tea party rally and links to local news coverage of the event as well.

It seems Andrzejewski is building momentum going into election day which is often key in determining the outcome of a race.  Recent polls in the seven person race for the Republican nomination are tight:


Though the polls show McKenna with a lead, Anne Leary at Backyard Conservative reported McKenna violated the party's code of ethics by commissioning the poll without obtaining GOP State Central Committee's approval. The poll leaned a bit heavy toward favoring McKenna which would make the results at least somewhat questionable. The violation was exposed by another candidate Dan Proft who has the support of Anne Leary whose opinion I certainly respect.  I would add that after reading Anne's links on Proft he certainly does seem to be a strong candidate.

Adam Brickley at Race4 2012 has more recent poll information and analysis including a recent internal poll from the weekend showing Andrejewski within two points of the lead.  Though this is an internal poll Brickley thinks this may be an accurate picture considering the dynamics of the race.  There are a large number of undecided voters who could be Tea Partiers deciding between Proft and Andrzejewski or "downstate" conservative deciding between Andrejewski and Brady.  I guess we'll see tomorrow night how they voted in the most important poll, the election itself.

Final note, Anne Leary mentions the winner may have the pleasure of facing Alexi Giannoulias, the banker who bankrolled Obama along with Tony Rezko:

 Alexi Giannoulias, who bankrolled Barack Obama early on....along with Tony Rezko...who hasn't been sentenced yet by the way. He's been sitting in jail for over a year now....

...and Blago's trial starts in June. A nice prelude to the election in the fall.

Should be fascinating to watch that all play out.