Don't despair . . . there is good news.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RNC Chairman: 2014 Effort “Light Years Ahead” Of Past Campaign. The Federalist interviewed Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, on his expectations for the coming election. The Federalist: How optimistic are you about this election? Where do you see the real possibility for turnovers, and where are you concerned just in terms of seats that are being defended? Reince Priebus: Generally, I’m very optimistic. I’m always nervous. I can’t wait to declare victory but I’m nervous about it. I think that we’re doing really well in purple states like Colorado and Iowa and North Carolina and New Hampshire. I think that we’re going to win some of those. I think obviously if that happens then I don’t see a way that we don’t net six and get the majority. You can kind of see where a lot of our money today is being spent. It’s being spent on the ground on early vote and absentee ballot voting. Bodies on the ground. Targeting our data to the people that we want to make sure they turn in a ballot. As these races get closer and closer, our role at the RNC becomes greater and greater as far as making sure we’ve got enough resources on the ground with people, bodies, data that we can possibly have. We’re doing things where you take an area in Alaska that’s the size of the state of New York and you’re trying to speak to 75,000 people. Some of which have dishes and you’re working through digital efforts and in some cases you have to actually hire people to get in over there on the ground and get the people. The field operation and what we do as a national party is not some sort of vague thing out there in the sky where we just talk about a bunch of interesting, vague issues and wonder who is going to win. There’s a science to targeting and to understanding consumer data and messaging and then execution on the ground. We’re following these things on a daily basis. Every day we know obviously what the A-B vote is in Iowa or in North Carolina. If we’re up or down, that changes where we’re sending bodies and people. I feel good about it, but I will tell you it’s an every -day adjustment to make sure in two and a half weeks we win something that I think most people think rightfully should be ours. The Federalist interviewed Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, on his expectations for the coming election. The Federalist: How optimistic are you about this election? Where do you see the real possibility for turnovers, and where are you concerned just in terms of seats that are being defended? Reince Priebus: Generally, I’m very optimistic. I’m always nervous. I can’t wait to declare victory but I’m nervous about it. I think that we’re doing really well in purple states like Colorado and Iowa and North Carolina and New Hampshire. I think that we’re going to win some of those. I think obviously if that happens then I don’t see a way that we don’t net six and get the majority. You can kind of see where a lot of our money today is being spent. It’s being spent on the ground on early vote and absentee ballot voting. Bodies on the ground. Targeting our data to the people that we want to make sure they turn in a ballot. As these races get closer and closer, our role at the RNC becomes greater and greater as far as making sure we’ve got enough resources on the ground with people, bodies, data that we can possibly have. We’re doing things where you take an area in Alaska that’s the size of the state of New York and you’re trying to speak to 75,000 people. Some of which have dishes and you’re working through digital efforts and in some cases you have to actually hire people to get in over there on the ground and get the people. The field operation and what we do as a national party is not some sort of vague thing out there in the sky where we just talk about a bunch of interesting, vague issues and wonder who is going to win. There’s a science to targeting and to understanding consumer data and messaging and then execution on the ground. We’re following these things on a daily basis. Every day we know obviously what the A-B vote is in Iowa or in North Carolina. If we’re up or down, that changes where we’re sending bodies and people. I feel good about it, but I will tell you it’s an every -day adjustment to make sure in two and a half weeks we win something that I think most people think rightfully should be ours.
Spike, most of us do not consider McCain a conservative. A nutcase, yes. He demonstrated how nutty he is by that interview you posted. He thinks the thing to get people to vote republican is to tell them he will insist on going back into Iraq and into Syria, two of the most unpopular ideas around. How about importing more ebola too? His idea of how to get people to vote republican is to tell them he will demand to be Chairman of Armed Services,where he can push to get us involved not only in the middle east but maybe in Ukraine too. The thought of him being in a position of influence would be one thing that would make me rethink voting republican. Particularly if we get some neo-con presidential candidate like Romney.
When it comes to Republican governors imposing harsh, new voting restrictions, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is hardly the first name that pops up. The Republican vetoed an early-voting bill last year, he’s offered some odd criticisms of same-day registration recently, and he played someshameless political games when scheduling his state’s U.S. Senate special election last year, but in general, Christie isn’t known for electoral mischief, at least not by contemporary GOP standards. But that’s all the more reason to take note of Christie’s comments this week on “voting mechanisms.” The Bergen Record reported this morning: Governor Christie pushed further into the contentious debate over voting rights than ever before, saying Tuesday that Republicans need to win gubernatorial races this year so that they’re the ones controlling “voting mechanisms” going into the next presidential election. Christie stressed the need to keep Republicans in charge of states – and overseeing state-level voting regulations – ahead of the next presidential election. In remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the New Jersey governor said, “Would you rather have Rick Scott in Florida overseeing the voting mechanism, or Charlie Crist? Would you rather have Scott Walker in Wisconsin overseeing the voting mechanism, or would you rather have Mary Burke? Who would you rather have in Ohio, John Kasich or Ed FitzGerald?” I’m not sure which is worse: the prospect of Christie making these remarks without thinking them through or Christie making these remarks because he’s already thought this through. In theory, in a functioning democracy, control over “voting mechanisms” shouldn’t dictate election outcomes. Citizens consider the candidates, they cast their ballots, the ballots are counted, and the winner takes office. It’s supposed to be non-partisan – indeed, the oversight of the elections process must be professional and detached from politics in order to maintain the integrity of the system itself. So what exactly is Chris Christie suggesting here? One possible interpretation is that Republican victories will lead to control over elections, which in turn will lead to more Republican victories. If this is what the governor meant, Christie almost seemed to be endorsing corruption. A more charitable interpretation is that the governor thinks Democrats will try to cheat, so electing Republicans will ensure the proper “voting mechanisms.” Still, political scientist Norm Ornstein paraphrased Christie’s comments this way: “How can we cheat on vote counts if we don’t control the governorships?” Steve Benen
Don't Let Them Eat Cake: More U.S. Cities Are Banning Feeding the Homeless By Liz Dwyer Reading through the latest report from the National Coalition for the Homeless might spark one of those moments when you wonder, what would Marie Antoinette say? French peasants who had no bread to eat were so enraged by rumors that their queen uttered the phrase “Let them eat cake” that she ended up decapitated. Well, the coalition’s modern-day researchers found that since Jan. 2013, twenty-one cities have restricted or flat-out banned feeding the homeless at all—and 10 municipalities have similar ordinances in the works. At the heart of the bans and restrictions, write the authors, is the misguided belief that feeding people who are sleeping on the streets or in shelters encourages homelessness. Apparently, some of our nation’s politicians and policy makers are convinced that thousands of Americans are so eager for a free bowl from a soup kitchen that they’ll quit their jobs and begin sleeping in doorways and on bus benches to get it.
Making it illegal to give another human being food is just the latest example in a long history of government not minding it's own business.
Shrinking white majority in Georgia threatens GOP’s hold By Ewa Kochanska 10/22/2014 12:42:00 Shrinking white majority in Georgia threatens GOP’s hold "Georgia electorate is changing quite quickly after all, according to an analysis of the state registration database by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), which found that percentage of white active voters declined from 61.6 percent in 2010 to less than 58 percent in 2014. "The Georgia GOP has heard warnings about changing state demographics for a while now, yet they’ve managed to keep their hold on the Peach State, maintaining a strong majority in the Legislature and staying in the governor’s office for over a decade now. As a result, many pundits and analysts concluded that while the state is certainly increasing diverse, the change is not happening as quickly as it was once predicted. "But according to AJC’s findings, 30 percent of active voters in the state are African-American, which leaves 12 percent of voters who are also minorities. With less than 58 percent of the electorate Caucasian, with not all of it voting for Republicans, and combined 42 percent of minorities, Republicans are clearly looking at a difficult dynamic. In addition, among the new voters less than one-third were white, more than one-third were black, and the rest were other minorities. "Race is supposed to indicate voting trends in Georgia, with minorities turning out for Democrats, and whites for Republicans. Republican Georgia Governor Nathan Deal won 77 percent of the white vote in 2010, to his Democratic opponent Roy Barnes’ 23 percent. But when it comes to the black vote, around 90 percent turns out for Democrats, and other minority groups are not far from that. "The midterm elections are usually more difficult for Democrats, who have trouble convincing their electorate that even when the president is not on a ballot, voting matters. Republicans are still favored in the 2014 midterms across the country and in the Peach State, but unless they find a way to appeal to minority groups, they’re not likely to stay in power in Georgia for very long. "