Free Republic

Campaigns hate it when I suggest they have their races won, so let’s include all the traditional caveats. In a New York minute, everything can change; every candidate is one gaffe away from self-destruction, October surprises may abound, the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. At this point, the story of the election is the number of statewide races that were supposed to be competitive that aren’t. This morning’s poll in Ohio suggests that Ohio’s Senate race isn’t going to be all that competitive, and neither is the governor’s race. In Pennsylvania, Patrick...

President Obama declared for the first time yesterday that he was prepared to steamroller his troubled health reform legislation through Congress with only Democratic support; a move Republicans denounced as the “nuclear option”. Signalling that his patience had snapped after a year-long fight, Mr Obama laid the ground for Democrats in Congress to muscle the Bill through using a high-risk legislative manoeuvre known as reconciliation, which overrides a Republican filibuster. Although he did not use the word “reconciliation”, Mr Obama made it clear that that was the route he intended to take. Democrats will, as a result, be able to...