Thursday Open Thread

Filed in National by on October 28, 2010

Welcome to your Thursday open thread. Only 5 more days until election day and 3 more days until the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive. It’s going to be an exciting few days!

Interesting news out of Alaska. GOP candidate Joe Miller is tanking and both McAdams and Murkowski are surging. McAdams appears to be picking up some of the Miller support. I think this is possibly winnable by the Democrat considering the write-in law in Alaska.

A new poll conducted by Hays Research confirms what we already intuitively know. Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller’s candidacy is in big trouble.

The percentage of those who feel either “somewhat negative” or “very negative” about Miller has skyrocketed in recent weeks to an unbelievable 68%. Only 8% feel “somewhat negative” and the remainder, a jaw-dropping 60%, feel “very negative” about Miller as a candidate.

The result? Scott McAdams surging ahead of Joe Miller with 29%, Joe Miller with 23%, and the write-in candidate (most of which are presumably Lisa Murkowski) with a small gain bringing her to 34%, and undecided voters still at 13%. This is the first time that McAdams has polled better than Miller, and he did it by six points, comfortably outside the margin of error of 4.8% – a watershed moment for the McAdams campaign.

I think the Alaska Senate race is going to come down to a recount. The write-in rules in Alaska are tough – the name must be spelled properly and the precincts can’t display a list of write-in candidates. It’s possible a large number of Murkowski votes will be thrown out. I don’t know but my gut says at least 5%. That would put McAdams and Murkowski in a tie. I just hope the DNC has recount lawyers on speed dial to be sent to Alaska.

There’s another candidate in Kentucky besides Rand Paul that doesn’t think much of women. Check out KY-03’s Tom Lally:

In Kentucky, one Republican is standing firm against the concept of gender discrimination. Todd Lally, insurgent GOP nominee for Congress in the state’s 3rd Congressional District, says he’s never personally seen women be discriminated against — and therefore, he says, gender discrimination may not exist at all.

The question of gender roles in Kentucky came up in an Oct. 11 debate between the 3rd Congressional District candidates on the state’s public television network. The topic was raised by one of those female voters both Tally and Yarmuth will be relying on to win Nov. 2. Here’s how that sounded:

It is well known that we are the third-worst state for women to live in the nation. We rank at the bottom third of the nation in terms of health and well-being, equity, political leadership and education. I’d like to ask each gentleman what they have in their platform to address these disparities?

Here’s what Lally said:

I look at women’s issues like any other issue. We have equal rights in this country, we have fought — women have fought very hard for those equal rights. Uh, it’s up to them. I mean my wife is a working woman, she works very, very hard and she’s been very successful. I’ve not seen any barriers in her career and I don’t believe that exists.

Luckily he’s up against John Yarmuth, he lead in the last poll. So hopefully there’s one less Congressman for the He Man Woman Hater’s Club.

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (40)

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  1. Another Mike says:

    “the name must be spelled properly and the precincts can’t display a list of write-in candidates”

    The spelling requirement might remain, but Murkowski got some help from the Alaska Supreme Court yesterday when it ruled that voters can see a list of certified write-in candidates when they go to the polls.

    blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/10/sen-lisa-murkowski-gets-a-boost-from-alaska-court-decision-allowing-write-in-lists-.html

    Joe Miller is a slimebag, and it’s about time the people of Alaska woke up to his hypocrisy and general slimebagginess.

  2. yeoman says:

    UI, are you sure about your understanding of Alaska write in laws? My understanding is that the laws are very lenient – “voter intent” is the buzzword, and Gail Fenumiai (the state elections director) has signaled she would be very accepting of spelling errors.

    I think the 5% throwout rate for Murkowski votes is an overestimate. Wouldn’t it be great though if McAdams won?!

  3. Auntie Dem says:

    I heard that Murkowski’s campaign is passing out lick-and-stick tattoos that people can stick on their wrist, palm (like Palin), and then copy the correct spelling on to the write-in line. If true, this is pretty clever.

    Miller was awful on Rachel Maddow the other night, and what’s with the facial hair?

  4. anon says:

    Mark, that is gold! Nothing wrong with having a good time, but this certainly contrasts her “holier than thou” image!!!

  5. Actual headline from today’s Dead Trees edition of the News-Journal:

    “Incumbent Defends Record Against Challenger”.

    Wow, that’s NEVER happened in ANY election EVER before! No mention until the 2nd graf of the story of the names of either the incumbent or challenger.

    Who, exactly, writes heds like that? Does the ‘University of Phoenix’ have a J School now?

    This would be the hed for a ‘Dog Bites Man’ story…if either the man or dog (in this case, the hapless union lackey Gerald Brady and Greenville’s latest Great White Hope, Rick Carroll) were actually mentioned in the headline.

    Sorry, but journalistic sloppiness like this just bugs me.

  6. heragain says:

    The Gawker story makes me laugh.

  7. RSmitty says:

    Thanks to Mark’s link, I now consider Tornoe’s earlier post reference to “O’Donnell’s Shadow” in a whole different light.

  8. mediawatch says:

    I think the rule at the NJ is that you are allowed to use that headline once per election cycle.

    You’ll notice that if you subbed Brady or Carroll for incumbent or challenger, the head would have been too short. Must have been what they were thinking, if thinking is the word.

  9. Mark H says:

    +1 to Smitty 🙂

  10. Joe Cass says:

    Just got a call from the O’Donnell camp. Blah millions for Coons family blah blah will you support her? Hells Yeah! Hah! Stick that into her internals and seep it.

  11. aaa says:

    El Som,

    The general rule of headline-writing is that you don’t use names unless they’re well-known – Biden, Markell, O’Donnell, Clinton, Harker, etc. Schwartzkopf, Copeland, etc., might count, but Brady or Carroll wouldn’t.

    I’m not defending that awful headline – just explaining why the names weren’t included.

  12. cassandra m says:

    That Gawker story is hilarious and the comments are even better.

  13. MJ says:

    Kendrick Meek needs to withdraw from the election and tell the Dems to vote for Crist. Might be the only way to prevent Rubio from winning.

  14. heragain says:

    So, Cass. Write me a post explaining why so many people who positively glory in seeing R male pols taken down on family values feel defensive about Christine.

  15. Yes, she’s a sexual hypocrite, but we knew that already.

    The sympathy comes from the fact that O’Donnell did nothing wrong, in most people’s opinion. It’s not the same as a married man frequenting a prostitute.

    The other issue is the issues of sex and body image are often used to humiliate women. This is no exception.

  16. OpenMinded says:

    Just read that Gawker story…seriously, do any of you for a minute think that hypocritical Christine doesn’t have something along these lines in her (even recent) past? I’ve been wondering why it’s taken until a few days before the election for something like this to come out. But is this particular story true? I doubt it. Someone found a bunch of pictures of her in a funny costume and wrote a bad facsimile of a Penthouse letter to go along with it. I’m not dumb enough to fall for any of her crazy teabagger’s tactics, which means I’m also not dumb enough to fall for this.

  17. anonone says:

    America’s Police State continues to rise:

    “A Pennsylvania couple claims in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that their newborn was taken by county officials when a drug test the mother took came out positive because she had eaten a poppy seed bagel.”

    I am surprised that they did not Tase her for good measure.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101028/ap_on_re_us/us_bagel_drug_test

  18. Joe Cass says:

    people who positively glory in seeing R male pols taken down on family values feel defensive about Christine.
    There is an old precept, you might have seen in the film “The Godfather” that being caught with a dead hooker or a live boy destroys your candidacy. A female, lets say Olympia Snow, has the genetic make up to remain stable. Men, on the other hand, who used to be the majority but still hold all the strings, have what we call “moral latitude”. Men get caught with dead hookers and live boys. So the right wing populacewant to believe that a wingnut is NOT capable of the same fallacies that Dick Armey and Karl ROve are. Yes, Rove has killed live boys and Armey has had relations with dead hookers.

  19. skippertee says:

    She is UNHOLY! She has resisted the KVORKA.
    The evidence I have seen with my own eyes.
    Stay away from her if you value your soul.

  20. Joe Cass says:

    So the right wing populacewant to believe that a FEMALE wingnut is NOT capable of the same

  21. aprice says:

    a1, that is tragic! it is so sad that they will never see their baby again because of the evil, heartless, Obama Police state….

    oops

    “The suit says the couple’s 3-day-old daughter was taken from the couple’s home and held for five days before authorities admitted they had made a mistake and returned the child.”

  22. heragain says:

    You know what she did wrong, UI? She’s stupid, that’s what she did wrong. She was ALREADY running for office (and probably spending campaign funds for her residence, as an expense of an active campaign) and she (at the very least) got drunk in public with a young moron. And had pictures taken. If she was 22 and my child I’d tell her she was an idiot, and that those pictures would wind up on facebook and in her employers hands. She was older than that, and she’s a fool.

    I remember how you felt about Edwards & Raille Hunter. All that outrage was based on the fact he was MARRIED? I doubt it.

    If there’s a double standard here, it’s the ‘poor Christine’ standard.

  23. fightingbluehen says:

    Funny thing happened today, my comments stopped showing up on Delaware Politics, and I’m a Republican for crying out loud.

  24. liberalgeek says:

    LOL! welcome to the land of the banned, FBH. That’ll teach you to not vote for Christine!

  25. anon says:

    You are lucky you were only banned.

  26. liberalgeek says:

    Yeah, they could have stomped on your head!

  27. skippertee says:

    My friends.
    When I first resisted,
    we ran a pig,
    and he gathered many votes,
    opposed to the fascists in the Nixon administration.
    They rise again.
    I’m amazed and frightened at their power to hoodwink the masses.
    a.price harshly criticizes me here and beckons me to change my ways.
    I won’t.
    If I burn for my beliefs, so be it.
    I go wide-eyed and determined.
    I leave the judgment to my Maker.

  28. Blu_Coq says:

    And now for something completely different…

    Tuesday night… Results watching party? Where?

  29. aprice says:

    skip, what of the consequences you might bring to the cause? there is a very thin line between “martyr” and “selfish”. Please, by all means stick to your convictions. Just remember that the cause is infinitely more important that you or I and we have the responsibility to fight FOR it. not endanger it through our actions.

  30. Joe Cass says:

    skippertree, you count me as a brother-in-arms. this thing with APrice, let it lie. Surely you’ve respected conscientious objectors and you’ve dealt with psychos. Its a fine line and the labels are transferable. Please keep your honor and respect the honor of anyone who disagrees with you. How many words between offered a seat and be offed in your seat? With respect and sincerity, stand down.

  31. Auntie Dem says:

    They are attacking the League of Women Voters. If there was any doubt that these people want women back in their non-voting place think about all the violence in the past few days. Now read this that just hit my inbox from the national LWV.

    Here’s the almost unbelievable story: someone in the crowd at a Congressional debate hosted by a local League in Illinois called for the Pledge of Allegiance, and when told that this was not part of the pre-negotiated agreement reached by the candidates, many stood and recited it anyway.

    One of the candidate’s campaigns put the video up on the Internet soon afterwards—so it was likely a planned stunt. And now, fueled by Glenn Beck, conservative extremists are calling in threats to League offices and local League volunteers’ homes, accusing us of opposing the Pledge and being unpatriotic.

  32. cassandra m says:

    The other issue is the issues of sex and body image are often used to humiliate women. This is no exception.

    This IS an exception. If Christine hadn’t based much of her celebrity persona on being a virgin, or disdain for sexual messages and behavior, you might be right. But if you are out there trying to make your sexuality a cornerstone of your political persona, it is absolute fair game to show the hypocrisy in it all. Christine is being called out for the usual repub hypocrisy on sex. It will look different because she is a woman and a woman has this faux chaste thing going on, but she isn’t being victimized by this one bit.

  33. Jason330 says:

    Holy shit. It sounds more like Nazi Germany everyday.

  34. Joe Cass says:

    F-ing Jason330 raised the spectre so lets round it out:
    Martin Niemöller
    They came first for the Communists,
    and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
    Then they came for the trade unionists,
    and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.(i am)
    Then they came for the Jews,
    and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
    Then they came for me
    and by that time no one was left to speak up.

  35. Joe Cass says:

    The Young Turks just played the WDEL video and went through the entire truth inre COD. If you missed it, tomorrow I puts up the youtubes because I has it and I jumps in it. oh I crack myself uP

  36. Aoine says:

    dp has been banning out spoken critics one by one lately 0 LOL

    like that will silence us….they are so scared they cannot deal with a desenting opinion at all

    i think that is too funny….

  37. RSmitty says:

    Whoa! FBH was banned from DP?! They’re getting more purist than even I thought.

  38. pandora says:

    Amazing! FBH was very restrained over at DP. I can’t remember him/her crossing a line.

    DP is sinking deeper and deeper into delusion. David Anderson is the one in charge over there. He obviously approves this tactic.

    You know, when I think about it, DP banning FBH is good news for Dems. It shows DP’s panic.

  39. Joe Cass says:

    But isn’t it a temporary ban? I’ve been out but then I’ve been pretty obnoxious over there. I haven’t seen Apo around either.
    Think I’m going to make my Thursday their curseday. See ya in a minute.