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Bad news for Bob Byrd
The Hill ^ | 6/8/05 | Dick Morris

Posted on 06/07/2005 8:10:55 PM PDT by Jean S

Here’s 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.

He’s 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 Journal’s 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), 2002’s 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 Senate’s conscience, the body is in deep trouble.

You don’t 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 Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) memoir, Living History.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: West Virginia
KEYWORDS: 2006; byrd; capito; electionussenate; prettyprettypretty; thegrandkleagle
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1 posted on 06/07/2005 8:10:55 PM PDT by Jean S
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To: JeanS

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 !)


2 posted on 06/07/2005 8:14:19 PM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9-11!)
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To: JeanS
we have three Republicans from overwhelmingly Democratic states and 11 Democrats from states Bush carried handily.

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?"

3 posted on 06/07/2005 8:19:15 PM PDT by AmishDude (Join the AmishDude fan club: "LOL!!!" -- MikeinIraq; "Bravo" -- EODTIM69)
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To: JeanS

"He’s 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...!


4 posted on 06/07/2005 8:21:49 PM PDT by LostInBayport (One Massachusetts conservative adrift in a sea of liberal lunacy...)
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To: JeanS
Don't anybody get too excited about Dick Morris' wishful thinking. Byrd is still the champ at bringing home the bacon and that counts for a lot. All politics is local as they say.

Morris is an interesting read during elections but off-season he's kind of a blow-hard with a crappy track record.

5 posted on 06/07/2005 8:25:55 PM PDT by Grim
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To: JeanS

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.


6 posted on 06/07/2005 8:27:29 PM PDT by speedy
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To: JeanS
...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.

I implore anyone who suspects that they may be carriers of this disease, PLEASE VISIT MASSACHUSETTS IMMEDIATELY!

7 posted on 06/07/2005 8:28:32 PM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts ("It's a 'dog eat dog' world out there and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear.")
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To: AmishDude

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. :)


8 posted on 06/07/2005 8:30:15 PM PDT by Galactic Overlord-In-Chief (Any Freepers who enjoy fantasy, I welcome to look at my FR homepage to take a look at my new book)
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To: JeanS
Bye, bye, Byrdie.....tra la

Leni

9 posted on 06/07/2005 8:30:43 PM PDT by MinuteGal (I Feel Like I'm Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe)
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To: JeanS


He really needs to be retired.


10 posted on 06/07/2005 8:31:11 PM PDT by onyx (Pope John Paul II - May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 = SANTO SUBITO!)
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To: Recovering Ex-hippie

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.


11 posted on 06/07/2005 8:32:51 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (NEW and IMPROVED: Now with 100% more Tyrannical Tendencies and Dictator Envy!)
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To: WorkingClassFilth

Yup. Figure it would cost us about 2 six packs of beer. Problem with her is they would mistakenly think its his cousin.


12 posted on 06/07/2005 8:36:12 PM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9-11!)
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To: JeanS

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!!!


13 posted on 06/07/2005 8:36:28 PM PDT by MikeA
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To: LostInBayport; BlackElk
Next Massachusetts...next Massachusetts...next Massachusetts...if I say it enough, might it not come true? !

No, it will not come true. The red states are getting redder, and the blue states are getting bluer. I left Connecticut largely because I saw it happening in '98, and did not want my children to grow up in the "new" Connecticut, even as I lament the loss of the one I grew up in. (I still visit for the pizza at Sally's in New Haven).

What I find is that even the conservatives in this states are softening up from the environment. Granted, my new state (Illinois) is blue, but it is an anomaly like Pennsylvania--Blue only because of a huge city or two. Non-Chicago area Illinois is quite red. We just have to seize the party apparatus from the Ryan/Edgar/Topinka wing.
14 posted on 06/07/2005 8:36:33 PM PDT by sittnick (There's no salvation in politics.)
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To: onyx

He needed to be retired loooooooong ago.


15 posted on 06/07/2005 8:40:00 PM PDT by Dawgreg (Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.)
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To: Dawgreg

Yes indeed. I just hope the WVA voters retire him this time. That crass old goat thinks he owns the senate.


16 posted on 06/07/2005 8:42:11 PM PDT by onyx (Pope John Paul II - May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 = SANTO SUBITO!)
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To: onyx

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.


17 posted on 06/07/2005 8:47:23 PM PDT by Dawgreg (Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.)
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To: Dawgreg

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!


18 posted on 06/07/2005 8:49:51 PM PDT by onyx (Pope John Paul II - May 18, 1920 - April 2, 2005 = SANTO SUBITO!)
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To: Recovering Ex-hippie

She's higher class than that. Looks like she cost the last guy an arm and a leg.


19 posted on 06/07/2005 8:50:26 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (NEW and IMPROVED: Now with 100% more Tyrannical Tendencies and Dictator Envy!)
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To: onyx

Yep, let him go down into defeat just to let him know he's not invincible. That would be so sweet!


20 posted on 06/07/2005 8:51:56 PM PDT by Dawgreg (Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.)
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