More Senate

Continuing with my predictions

New Jersey

For another election cycle, the democrats have an incumbent senator with corruption swirling around him. Menendez has been trailing Kean lately and I think this is the one seat republicans will gain. The former governor's book coming out now probably doesn't help Menendez, putting the focus on yet another NJ dem with ethics problems. NJ is trends blue, but I think the Dems picked a dog and Kean will win.

Missouri

I haven't followed this one very closely, Missouri leans red, and the polls are close. If gas continues to decline, I think this goes to Talent. I predict a republican hold.

Montana

Conrad "Monty" Burns is under a cloud of suspicion, said a lot of stupid shit and is widely unpopular in a very conservative state. His opponent is one of these meating eating, gun shooting, plaid wearing democrats that would never play on the east coast, but is comfortable enough for westerners to vote for when they don't like their republican choice. Burns has been down for so long, I don't see him ever pulling ahead. Tester should win.

If my math is correct, that is a pick up of five democratic seats. Which would leave the Senate in a tie, assuming the other races fall as planned and that the onslaught against Lieberman doesn't get him to change.

Other races that some thought might be competative have not turned that way, such as the one in Michigan. Stabenow has run what I consider a very smart campaign. Her ads have come under attack by nutrooters who dislike her bipartisan tone or her focus on the economy. She is an incumbant in a state that has a shitty shitty economy and she has to run on something more than "Republicans won't let me do anything". And she sure as hell can't run away from the economy, so she has run on bills that she voted for that Bush signed. This is too vichy for some, though Stabenow is a smart campaigner who has won more races than her wacky critics have. She knows the electorate in Michigan is not all a bunch of republican hating , fierce parisans who want blood and revenge. They want jobs not political fireworks.

The Senate Races

For the Democrats to take over the Senate, they need a gain of six seats, and they feel those are within their reach. With about six weeks left, here are my predictions.

Connecticut

My first instinct was that after Lieberman lost the primary, Dems would flock to Lamont, the middle would splinter, and the Republicans would have a fair share who would vote for Lieberman to spite his left wing critics and their ugly attacks (rape gurney Joe, the black face incident). I have been wrong so far, evidenced by a brand new poll that puts Lieberman up by 10 points. Lamont has failed to connect with independent voters and hasn't had a good run of things lately, with a lot of stories that haven't been all that favorable hitting the presses. For him to win, he needs a huge turnout in the democratic base, especially at the upper end of the income scale, since Lieberman polls better with blue collar democrats. Voter intensity favors Lamont, but I predict Lieberman will pull this off because he has been winning the independents.

Rhode Island

This is a very blue state and this is just about the worst year to be running as a Republican in a blue state, even if you are as moderate as Lincoln Chafee is. The democrats have an adage about given a choice between a republican and a republican lite, the voters will choose the real republican. I agree with that statement at times, and I think given that democrats are in no mood to vote republican this year, they will choose the Democrat over a liberal republican. Whitehouse should win this, giving the democrats a gain in RI.

Virginia

Here is a case where the democratic adage will probably be wrong. George Allen is running against a democrat who worships Ronald Reagan and holds deep resentment towards John Kerry and his anti-war protests from Vietnam. Yet Allen has done something remarkable by opening his stupid mouth, slurring people in front of everyone and has taken a secure seat and moved it to a probable democratic pick up. From what I have read, Webb was pretty shaking in his first debate, even resorting to immigrant bashing, but shined brightly in this last debate. The polls show Allen still up, though it has had huge day to day swings. Trading accusations of who dropped the "N" word are bound to make it even more so. I would bet on Webb, but I am not very certain.


Tennessee

This one is dead even, I think Harold Ford is one of the shining future stars of the democratic party, eventhough he rubs a lot of people on the left the wrong way. His vote for the detaining bill is already making some fume. This is perhaps the most difficult pick, Tenn leans republican but Ford is the better candidate. If it weren't an off year election, I would say Corker, but midterms are usually bad news for the incumbent party. I think Ford will manage to win.

Ohio

Another state where the democratic challenger is a house member who voted for the Detainee bill. Looks like there is a trend developing. Brown is one of the more liberal guys running and I wouldn't think his brand of politics would play well in Ohio statewide , but the Republican party is in horrible shape in this state, beset by scandals and a horrible statewide economy. Brown should win this one .

Pennslyvania

Santorum has survived political death before, dodging huge deficits in poll numbers, but I think he will lose this time. The democrats have decided to give in on the abortion issue by selecting the anti-choice Bob Casey, so it undercuts Santorum's support with some voters who pick solely on abortion. Santorum had some movement in the polls earlier, but that seemed short lived, or could have been polling error. (regardless of what RFK Jr. says, polls aren't always accurate) This will tighten, but I think the lead is too big to over come.

The rest of my picks will be upcoming in the next post

Video finds

I was scouring youtube for some songs, and came across two great ones.

First is a Joy Divison video for Atmosphere. It is a great song, the video is pretty good




This second one is Johnny Cash's cover of NIN's Hurt. The performance and the video are about as good as it gets.

Does college make us more stupider?

There are numerous reports about how in the US, the K through 12 education lags a lot of the industrial world, but we have an overwhelming majority of the World's top universities. However, USA Today had story on a recent finding that college students don't always leave college knowing more than when they entered. At some of our most elite schools, seniors scored lower than freshman on a history test.

Seniors at selective colleges tended to show less evidence they gained
knowledge in civics-related subjects than students at more representative
colleges. At 16 schools, including Brown, Cornell and Yale, seniors scored lower
than freshmen.

The recommendation this group came up with is more history, poly sci and econ classes. I am all for people taking more of these classes, I took a lot of economics, a few political science courses and 2 or 3 American history classes. Yet, my experience with the classes wouldn't have helped my score much. I got all four sample questions correct, though I used an educated guess on the Preamble question, but I am fairly certain I learned none of these answers in college. I was taught Yorktown and All men are created equal in secondary school, and learned the other two answers from watching the news. My recollection of college history is that names, dates, and palces are not stressed much at all. Attention was given on examining events and fitting it into a larger context, such as learning about the long and short term causes of the Civil War as opposed to knowing who won the Battle of Gettysburg.

It was my impression that professors overtaught what interested them, or what their own area of expertise was. One prof spent weeks explaining why progressive reforms such as the ICC, Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting and regulation, and FDR's New Deal weren't progressive, but were tools of the oligarchy to give an inch and take a mile. There was no teaching about the Revolutionary War, nor was their much about the Constitution, or the World Wars. Many college classes have very narrow focuses, one of the history classes I took was Economics in American history. Other options exist such as women in history, Black history, history of pop culture, history of sports and so on, that would not give students a well rounded view of the country from its inception through today. Which is fine, I find all those topics interesting, but not terribly far reaching.

One thing that really stood out was that less than 20% knew that social security is the largest federal expenditure. I got into an arguement with people who are very well educated and they didn't believe me when I asserted that in a discussion. If the question were impossibly difficult, you would expect twenty percent to get it correct, assuming I remember my stats class correctly. That would lead me to believe that students are being taught or led to believe incorrect information. Maybe liberal professors teach or fellow students focus on the US spending too much on the military, so they assume it is the largest program. If students have a lot of conservative instructors, (however unlikely that prospect is) or listen to too much right wing radio, those students might tend to believe welfare or education is the largest.

If I had to venture a guess as to why people do poorly on these tests, I imagine it is a lack of interest in history and civics, and requiring additional class work would do little to increase understanding if the interest just isn't there.

Interview with Clinton

Former President Bill Clinton appeared on Fox News on Sunday to talk about his post presidency initiatives and as many have seen, got into a bit of skirmish with Chris Wallace. Questions arose about whether Clinton did enough to destroy Bin Ladin and his terrorist outfit.

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?
CLINTON: No, because I didn’t
get him
WALLACE: Right…
CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the
difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me
now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they
didn’t….. I tired. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive
anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… So you did
FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me.
But what I want to know..

If Clinton didn't want to appear on a conservative station, he should have turned down the interview in the first place. Or maybe he felt obligated to show up on Fox after Rupert Murdoch raised all that money for his wife .

There were a few things in the overall exchange that were interesting, as brought up by Patterico explaining how Clinton was wrong (or in Al Franken's words, lying) when he stated Richard Clark was fired(he requested transfer) , and that Chris Wallace never asked those in the Bush administration about pre-9/11 terrorist actions.

But back to the substance of Clinton's statement. I agree with the part where he states he tried. I have no doubt that his administration wanted Bin Ladin and the terrorists dead. He wasn't following this touchy feely, "we just need to understand the terrorists" bullshit or that we need to blame the jews and pull out of Israel crap that you hear from the far left and Pat Buchananites on the right. It is difficult to fault him or Bush for not being able to find Bin Ladin. Our government had a hell of a time finding the Olympic Park Bomber and we pretty much knew what state he was hiding in, so plucking out a guy surrounded by allies in the mountains half a world away isn't as easy as many suggest.

Then he goes too far when he states: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some.
The way I read that, he is laying blame at Bush for not trying enough when Bush first took office. The left wing talking point is that Clinton had this great plan to destroy Al Qaeda and Bush tossed it in the circular file.

From Al Franken's book, Lies and Lying Liars:

Bill Clinton's far-reaching plan to eliminate al Qaeda root and branch was
completed only a few weeks before the inauguration of George W. Bush. If it had
been implemented then, a former senior Clinton aide told Time, we would be
handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office." Instead, Clinton
and company decided to turn over the plan to the Bush administration to carry
out.

While all the Bushies focused on their pet projects, Clarke was blowing a
gasket. He had a plan, and no one was paying attention. It didn't help that the
plan had been hatched under Clinton. Clinton-hating was to the Bush White House
what terrorism- fighting was to the Clinton White House.

Yet in a briefing with reporters, Clarke painted a very different picture of how things ran under Bush in those opening months. First point on the plan that Franken mentioned:

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go
through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there
was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the
Bush administration.

So there was no plan passed to Bush from Clinton according to the liberals' go to guy on all things relating to terrorism. A guy the was referenced favorably by Franken in his book. This is only Clarke's first point, it gets more substantive in his next few:

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place,
effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table
since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of
office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan,
changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And
in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing
strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been
decided on in a couple of years.
And the third point is the Bush
administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things.
One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert
action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.
And the point
is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal
findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do
is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for
a couple of years and get them decided.

So according to Clarke, Bush continued existing terrorism policies that had been started under Clinton, and in fact, the administration pushed for action on items that had been on the table and not acted upon during the Clinton years. So while Franken said we ignored the threat, one of his main men makes a different case. In his final point, Clarke continues to explain Bush administration policy relating to terrorism.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they
developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer,
approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the
increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the
policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance
assistance.
And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda
over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called
for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.

It is clear that there were people on the case who were continuing the fight on terror, reviewing suggestions and eventually implementing them, including items that were not acted upon for over two years during the Clinton administration.

Now for the most damning part of the exchange, for those who claim the new adminstration didn't want anything to do with terrorism and that it was brushed aside because it was a Clinton thing

QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002]
Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on
board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus
against the — general animus against the foreign policy?
CLARKE: I
think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not
have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where
the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and
kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus
against uh the previous team to me.
JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush
administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing
while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased
money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?
CLARKE: All of that's
correct.

It is important to remember the source of this. Richard Clarke is the guy Franken, Bill Clinton, and Michael Moore have all referenced. And here he is refuting Franken and Clinton's point that the Bush administration did not follow through on terrorism. It is easy for critics of Clinton and Bush to pick apart what could have or should have happened. But killing terrorists and keeping our country safe isn't as easy as it is portrayed on TV.


Further material on this can be found here:


Patterico
Frankenlies.com
Franken's chapter Operation Ignore