Posted on 06/07/2005 8:10:55 PM PDT by Jean S
Heres good news to the cause of good government. West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, styled by partisan Democrats as the conscience of the Senate and by those who are less biased as the last troglodyte in the body, could be defeated in his bid for his umpteenth term in the Senate.
Hes up for election in 2006, and the latest polling in West Virginia indicates that an attack of sanity and judgment may, at last, be hitting an electorate that has routinely elected the 87-year-old Byrd to the Senate eight times with never less than 59 percent of the vote. A survey by RMS Strategies, a West Virginia firm, shows Byrd barely ahead of Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, 46-43 percent.
Byrd, who still boats a 62-28 favorable-unfavorable ratio, may have met his match and master in Capito, who has a statewide rating of 57-35.
While the West Virginia electorate remains 56-32 Democrat over Republican, it is also conservative as opposed to liberal by 67-30. (The survey likely includes moderates among the 42 percent who style themselves somewhat conservative.)
Nevertheless, West Virginia went for President Bush by 56-43 in 2004 and 52-46 in 2000, and voters who back the GOP nationally are getting less and less forgiving of their Democratic representatives and senators in Congress. As party-line voting increases in Washington and the well-publicized partisan feuds animate the body, voters are getting the point that as long as the legislators vote a straight party line, so should they.
According to The Wall Street Journals John Fund, the number of turnover districts those voting for a House member of one party and a presidential candidate of the other has shrunk from 110 in 1996 to 86 in 2000 to only 59 in 2004.
The Senate would realign 62-38 if every state elected senators from the same party as the presidential candidate they supported, and nine Republicans and 16 Democrats would be defeated. But if we refine the calculations further and eliminate the swing states, which went narrowly for Bush or John Kerry in 2004, we have three Republicans from overwhelmingly Democratic states and 11 Democrats from states Bush carried handily.
The Republicans in deep-blue states are Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, which Kerry won by 54-45, and Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, which Kerry won by 60-39.
The Democrats who represent bright-red states are Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas (Bush carried it by 54-45), Evan Bayh of Indiana (Bush 60-39), Mary Landrieu of Louisiana (Bush 57-42), Max Baucus of Montana (Bush 59-39), Ben Nelson of Nebraska (Bush 66-33), 2002s narrow escapee Tim Johnson of South Dakota (Bush 60-39), Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota (Bush 60-36) and Jay Rockefeller and Byrd of West Virginia (Bush 56-43.)
These senators had better start splitting their tickets and stop toeing the party line if they expect their voters to do likewise. The lesson of Tom Daschle in South Dakota in 2004 should be written large enough for all to see.
But Byrd needs beating for a host of other reasons. His defense of the filibuster was natural, since it was he who conducted a lonely 14-hour attempt to kill the 1964 Civil Rights Act by talking until he almost dropped. He stays in office by being a pork-barrel machine who waxes eloquent, at the same time, on the perils of deficit spending.
If he is the Senates conscience, the body is in deep trouble.
You dont have to be a Republican to like Capito, just somebody interested in restoring a modicum of integrity, intellectual and otherwise, to the once-august United States Senate.
(The RMS Strategies poll was taken May 11-18 among 401 registered voters in West Virginia by telephones at the call center in Charleston. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.)
Morris is the author of Rewriting History, a rebuttal of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clintons (D-N.Y.) memoir, Living History.
Hey, let's start a Novena for West Virginia NOW! Can't we get Byrd in bed with some hot chiquita with pics? (Oh, how stupid of me...we don't have enough money in this whole country to pay anyone to do that !)
One day West Virginia and Louisiana will crack. Morris is right from a numbers standpoint, but Byrd is a fixture. The only way for him to lose is medical. Most mountaineers will say, "oh, the old coot's been in this long, why not let him go one more?"
"Hes up for election in 2006, and the latest polling in West Virginia indicates that an attack of sanity and judgment may, at last, be hitting an electorate that has routinely elected the 87-year-old Byrd to the Senate eight times with never less than 59 percent of the vote. "
Next Massachusetts...next Massachusetts...next Massachusetts...if I say it enough, might it not come true? Could we finally dump that rotund disgrace from Hyannisport? And then Monsieur Kerry...!
Morris is an interesting read during elections but off-season he's kind of a blow-hard with a crappy track record.
Man, it would be even sweeter than beating Daschle on the off-chance we could knock off Byrd (unlikely, but apparently not completely impossible anymore.) I would just love to see Biden and Kennedy trying to explain to him that he doesn't work in the Senate anymore, and Sheets forced to stand on a street corner in Wheeling making speeches about Henry Clay or the Punic Wars.
I implore anyone who suspects that they may be carriers of this disease, PLEASE VISIT MASSACHUSETTS IMMEDIATELY!
We did crack in 2004 when we sent David Vitter to the Senate, the first time since Reconstruction Louisiana sent a Republican there.
We do need to get rid of Landrieu. One down, one to go. :)
Leni
He really needs to be retired.
I've got a feeling this hill girl might pose with Sheets:
http://www.thinkingmonkeythinking.com/films/images/Hungry%20Hillbilly%20girl.jpg
She looks like his type and she doesn't look shy.
Yup. Figure it would cost us about 2 six packs of beer. Problem with her is they would mistakenly think its his cousin.
BYE BYE BYRDY! And Shelley Moore Capito knows how to win elections in overwhelmingly Democratic areas, TWICE having won her congressional seat in Dem. territory. And Moore Capito's political consultants are the best in the nation. I use to work for them, Public Opinion Strategies. These people win nearly every election they put their hands on. Senile Bob is toast!!!
He needed to be retired loooooooong ago.
Yes indeed. I just hope the WVA voters retire him this time. That crass old goat thinks he owns the senate.
He gives me the creeps, onyx. You're right, he thinks he owns the Senate. I won't soon get over the Senate giving him a very expensive office. The old fart has em' snowed up there on Crapitol Hill just like his constituents in WV.
He's aiming to break Strom's record for longest serving senator. I really, truly, want him retired and I'd love to see him soundly defeated!
She's higher class than that. Looks like she cost the last guy an arm and a leg.
Yep, let him go down into defeat just to let him know he's not invincible. That would be so sweet!
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