Free Republic

In the beginning, there was the 23rd district of New York. Sarah Palin shook up a 2009 special election in that district - left vacant when Obama appointed Republican John McHugh secretary of the Army - by endorsing conservative Doug Hoffman. The accountant who lived outside the district and who ran on the Conservative Party line had been discarded by local Republican leaders in favor of moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava. Hoffman, supported by a flood of outside money, proved to be a spoiler. When it became clear that he was splitting the Republican vote, Scozzafava dropped out and endorsed the...

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele predicted Monday night that the GOP will not regain control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections. Steele said during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Republicans will see some “nice pick-ups in the House” but would not predict the number of seats the GOP will win. “I can't give a number yet,” Steele said. “We are just now beginning to look at races.” Asked if Republicans will retake the House, Steele responded: “Not this year.” Steele added: “We still have vacancies that need to get filled. “If we do that,...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Republican state lawmaker and tea party favorite Raul Labrador rode a wave of voter discontent with Democrats to upset the better-funded Democratic U.S. Rep. Walt Minnick. Labrador worked hard to tie Minnick to President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the minds of voters and his efforts paid off Tuesday.

-snip- An Associated Press tally had 20 races tilted toward Republicans, with only four toward Democrats. If that holds, Republicans would gain control of the 24-seat Senate after four years of a Democratic majority. "We could well end up with 18, 19 seats in the Senate. It would be historical," said Mike Dennehy, whose Dennehy Group handled Senate campaigns for six Republican candidates. He said many of the Republican candidates had a business background who promised to restore fiscal sanity to Concord. Democrats took control of the Senate in 2006, when the party swept election contests across the country and...

November 2, 2010 Republican Party Time By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON Talk about fired up and ready to go. At a Republican victory party suffused with vengeful glee, the man who body-surfed the anti-establishment wave to become the next Speaker of the House was looking very establishment. Even though it was predicted, it was still a shock to see voters humiliate a brilliant and spellbinding young president, who’d had such a Kennedy-like beginning, while electing a lot of conservative nuts and promoting this central-casting congressman as the face of the future: a Republican who had vowed in a written pledge to...

The Obama Kids Sing for Der Leader (flashback)

Sen. Lieberman to speak about bipartisanship Nov. 4 at OU Daily Staff Reports/The Daily Wednesday, October 27, 2010 U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., will speak to the OU community at 2 p.m. Nov. 4 in Beaird Lounge of the Oklahoma Memorial Union. Lieberman will discuss the “War on Terror” and bipartisanship in the federal government from the prospective of an independent. “As a political Independent in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Lieberman is uniquely qualified to help the public understand how partisan polarization is impacting the political process,” said OU President David Boren in a press release. Leaving the Democratic Party...

Morgan Freeman has a very distinctive voice, but the actor swears it's not the one you hear in an attack ad against North Carolina Democrat David Price. The ad, paid for by Republican challenger B.J. Lawson's campaign, features a narrator who sounds eerily like the iconic actor. And Lawson invoked "The Shawshank Redemption" star's fame as part of his campaign strategy in a statement issued on Monday. "In response to numerous queries and enthusiastic feedback, the Lawson for Congress campaign confirms that its latest radio and TV ad is indeed narrated by actor Morgan Freeman," the press release states. "Lawson...

Edited 01 November, 2010, 20:36 An 85-year-old woman is in a coma after being viciously mauled and nearly killed by her neighbors’ pit bull terriers, in her own yard, in Southern Russia. Alarmed by her screams, another neighbor called the police. When the officers arrived, the two raging animals turned on them. “One of the officers blew his whistle,” said Krasnodar police deputy press attaché Maria Pirogova. “The dog dropped the victim and attacked the policeman, badly injuring his arm. The officers had no other option, but to shoot both animals dead.” By that time, the woman was unconscious. She...

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2010 Rossi holds small lead Every time PPP has polled the Washington Senate race this year it's found the race to be within 2 or 3 points and our final poll there is no exception. But there is one twist- for the first time we find Dino Rossi leading Patty Murray, by a 50-48 margin. Neither candidate has much in the way of support across party lines- Rossi's winning 93% of Republicans and Murray's winning 91% of Democrats. That means independents, as they are in so many races across the country, are making the difference for the...

Democrats urge reelection of dead Long Beach senator October 29, 2010 | 3:18 pm A week after the death of state Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), Democrats have sent mailers to residents urging them to vote to reelect her. That would trigger a special election and give the party a chance to put up a new candidate. The mailers featuring Secretary of State Debra Bowen and Democratic Party general counsel Martha Escutia do not say explicitly that Oropeza has died or that a vote for her will allow another Democrat to be considered. "Senator Jenny Oropeza’s illness has been a...

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2010 GOP ahead in Illinois Republicans continue to lead the races for both Governor and Senator in Illinois, albeit by close margins. Mark Kirk is ahead of Alexi Giannoulias 46-42 for the state's open Senate seat and Bill Brady is ahead of Pat Quinn 45-40 for Governor. There are three main reasons Republicans are headed for big gains across the country this year and the Illinois races exemplify all three of them: -Independents are leaning strongly toward the GOP. Kirk leads Giannoulias 46-31 with them and Brady has a 45-27 advantage over Quinn with them. -Republican voters...

SHINNSTON, W.Va. — The day after Sarah Palin stumped for his Republican opponent, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin said he and the former Alaska governor are “friends.” “We get along; we’re friends,” said Manchin. “Sarah, Todd, and the entire family was always very nice at all of our National Governors Association meetings, and we worked well together.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44459.html#ixzz140c9SFuA

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2010 Miller leads in Alaska Joe Miller is favored heading into the final two days of the US Senate campaign in Alaska. 37% of voters say they'll pick him while 30% plan to vote for Scott McAdams and another 30% plan to write in Lisa Murkowski. Miller is winning despite having the worst personal favorability numbers of the three candidates. Only 36% have a positive opinion of him while 59% view him in a negative light. McAdams is by far the most popular with 50% rating him favorably to only 30% with an unfavorable one. Voters aren't...

Dawn breaks over New York City on Wednesday, Nov. 3. Democrats catching the early train to work are thinking about adding a little whiskey to their morning coffee. Because the headlines they are reading are truly terrible. Not only did Republicans take over the House, but they also did so going away — winning a net of 78 seats from Democrats. Seven seats in New York State changed hands; so did six in Pennsylvania, five in Ohio and four in North Carolina. Party luminaries like Jim Obertsar and Raul Grijalva were defeated. Barney Frank and Dennis Kucinich survived, but they...

When the midterm election cycle began, the prevailing opinion was that Barack Obama was cleverer and more inspirational than anyone else on the scene. As it ends, nothing appears to have changed. OH, YES, I know that Democrats have fallen into a peck of trouble and may lose control of Congress. But even if they do, Obama can still storm back to win a second term in 2012. He is that much better than the competition. In what respects is he enduringly superior? Let's start with the basics. He is much smarter than his challengers in either party, better able...

From NBC's Mark Murray In the final NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll before Tuesday's midterm elections, 49% of likely voters say they prefer a GOP-controlled Congress, versus 43% who want Democrats in charge. That's virtually unchanged from the NBC/WSJ survey from two weeks ago, when the GOP held a 50%-43% generic-ballot advantage among likely voters. Among the larger universe of registered voters -- a less reliable gauge of those who will participate in a midterm election -- the GOP edge in the current poll shrinks to two points, 46% to 44%. That's a reversal from two weeks ago, when Democrats...

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2010 GOP headed for PA sweep Pennsylvania flirted a little bit with Democrats in the final weeks of this year's election, making them think they might be able to pull off an upset in the Senate and/or Gubernatorial contests that had looked good as gone for most of the year. It looks like the GOP will in the end sweep those races though, if by smaller margins than they had shown in polling throughout much of 2010. In the Senate race Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak 51-46 and in the race for Governor Tom Corbett is up...

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2010 Paul headed for easy victory Rand Paul has expanded his lead in the Kentucky Senate race even further over the last week and is headed for a blowout win. His margin over Jack Conway is 55-40. Kentucky is obviously a conservative state. Conway's ability to win was always going to depend on getting a lot of folks who supported John McCain in 2008 to vote Democratic for the Senate this time around. The most amazing finding on this final poll is that Rand Paul is actually picking up more Obama voters (15%) than Conway is McCain...

GOP Likely to Recapture Control of House Pew Research Center’s final 2010 pre-election survey finds the Republican Party continuing to hold a solid lead in preferences for Tuesday’s midterm election. The poll, conducted Oct. 27-30 among 2,373 registered voters, including 1,809 voters considered the most likely to vote, shows that 48% of likely voters say they will vote for the Republican in their district, compared with 42% who favor the Democratic candidate. These results suggest little trend in voter opinion nationwide and they track results of a Pew Research Center poll conducted two weeks ago. That survey found the GOP...