Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Many have speculated that former President Trump suffers from a mental illness best described as pathological narcissism, or a self-regard so inflated that going into a room with him may result in your smothering. Smotherment.

And this suggests the problem is getting worse. It doesn’t come from a poster, an electronic advertisement, or even a boasting volume of self-praise. It comes from the legal paperwork of a suit Trump has filed against New York AG Letitia James:

As a private company, nobody knew very much about the great business that then–business man Donald Trump had built but now it is being revealed by James and much to her chagrin.The continuing witch hunt that has haunted and targeted Donald Trump since he came down the “golden escalator” at Trump Tower in June of 2015 continues. President Trump built a great and prosperous company but a company nevertheless that must be carefully, delicately, yet powerfully managed, and the appointment of a political monitor or the interference by a political hack like James who is using this lawsuit for political gain,would bring great harm to the company, the brand, the employees and its overall reputation. Likewise,it could virtually destroy the highly profitable Florida properties, which include the legendary Trump National Doral Golf Club and Resort (one of the most successful in the world),Trump International Golf Club in PalmBeach, Florida, Trump Jupiter Country Club in Jupiter, FL, and,of course, one of the greatest and most successful clubs in the world, The Mar-a-Lago Club.

Boasting in legal paperwork is really pathetic and indicative of someone who has gone speeding over the cliff. It impresses no one and tells everyone of your psychological weaknesses.

It’s sad. You have to wonder if the many candidates who’ve pledged allegiance to him are doomed to such an end themselves.

The end is nigh. Sing it, kitty! In other news …

• A rated Monmouth University Poll’s last survey of Pennsylvania’s Senate race gives Lt Governor Fetterman (D) a 49% to 44% lead over Dr. Oz. How broken is this race? Will Oz pull it out? Even thrash Fetterman? Emerson College may be indicating that, giving Oz a 48% to 46% lead. Susquehanna Polling and Research, B+ rated, believes Dr. Oz has a lead of 47.6% to 46.6%, or another dead heat. Remington, more on them below, has Dr. Oz ahead 47% to 44%, while B+ rated Suffolk University, while finding their recent debate may have hurt Fetterman due to his stroke-affected performance, gives Fetterman a 47% to 45% lead, or too close to really call. Notable: The contest is up for grabs, the survey shows, with an unusually high 19% of independents undecided, even as early voting has opened. 19% of independents are undecided? Are you yanking my starter cord? Or is this article from WaPo, quoting Dr. Oz as saying Senator McConnell runs the party and not the former President, a deal-breaker for MAGA voters in PA? Daily Kos’s Joan McCarter seems excited about it.
• B rated Remington gives Arizona Senator Kelly (D) a 48% to 47% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R) in Arizona. On RealClearPolitics, Remington Research Group has (R) after their name, which appears to mean they’re Republican leaning. If so, Kelly may have a somewhat larger lead than shown here. For instance, A+ rated Siena College just gave the Senator a six point lead. But GOP linked Insider Advantage makes it a dead heat at 48%.
• B/C rated University of Arkansas has issued a poll for the Arkansas Senator Boozman (R) vs Natalie James (D) race, but there are no numbers in the document. The RealClearPolitics link for it, though, claims Boozman now has a 33 point lead. While not surprising, it’s disappointing in that the two previous available polls gave Boozman a much more surprisingly slim 13 point lead. But University of Arkansas does not have an impressive rating, either.
• GOP linked Insider Advantage gives Florida Senator Rubio (R) a 51% to 45% lead over Rep Val Demings (D). This seems broadly consistent with other polls. Although this guy claims to have interviewed a Florida pollster who says Crist (D, formerly R) leads Governor DeSantis (R) in the Florida gubernatorial contest by six points, which would be a real outlier. I don’t doubt either of the guys, I just don’t believe the result, not only because most other polls show DeSantis way out ahead, but this guy gets his results from online polling.
• A rated SurveyUSA has Georgia Senator Warnock (D) up 49% to 43% over challenger Herschel Walker (R), while Republican pollster Remington turns the lead around, Walker 49%, Warnock 45%.
• Emerson College suggests the Kansas race has broken open, with Senator Moran (R) leading 54% to 33% over challenger Mark Holland (D). As Moran’s On The Issues page suggests he’s a rabid anti-abortionist, this is a little on the unbelievable side. I guess we’ll find out in five days.
• The Trump – McConnell feud continues in the GOP. This sort of thing, common in organizations that have as foundational principles arrogance, self-regard, greed, idolization of wealth, and etc, often leads to failure to reach organizational goals, and sometimes the dissolution of such organizations. Whether that happens here remains to be seen.
• GOP linked Trafalgar continues the Saint Anselm’s College findings by giving Don Bolduc (R) a small lead over New Hampshire Senator Hassan (D), 47% to 45.7%. Just call it a dead heat. However, trekking in outlier land, UMass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion gives Senator Hassan a 51% to 41% lead. That’s huge. And out of line with other pollsters. But Lowell’s is a B+ rated pollster, so sneezing is out of the question.
• The latest Marquette Law School Poll, A/B rated, gives Wisconsin Senator Johnson (R) a 52% to 46% lead over Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D). Another six years of dread stupid rumors? Say it isn’t so! However, A+ rated Siena College gives Johnson a much smaller 47% to 45% lead, or technically a dead heat. And in this poll Johnson isn’t over the 50% hurdle.
• Remington is giving J. D. Vance (R) a 48% to 43% lead over Rep Ryan (D) in Ohio. And there’s Baldwin Wallace University, B/C rated, giving Ryan the advantage at 50.2% to 46%, which I don’t call an outlier, but I lay in bed at night debating the point. From The Center Square regarding this poll, Notable: Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy that detailed his family’s crisis in Appalachian Ohio surrounding opioid addiction along with other economic and socioeconomic issues became wildly popular and led to a movie. To Sutton, “airing dirty laundry” of the region could create problems for Vance with voters in the area. “J.D. Vance became very well know because of his memoir and has been seen as a great success,” Sutton said. “But if you’re from these communities dealing with these issues, you look at your brethren here and he aired the dirty laundry. For the folks that live in those areas he committed a cardinal sin. I think those folks in those areas are either voting for Ryan or sitting this race out. So, one of the things I’m going to be looking at is the vote gap between those who vote for DeWine and those who vote for Vance.” I look forward to hearing if this hypothesis proves out.
• Emerson College gives North Carolina Rep Ted Budd (R) a 50% to 45% lead over Cheri Beasley (D). Balancing them, B- rated Civiqs has these two nominees tied at 49%, with a margin of error of ± 4.9 points.
• Finally, SurveyUSA shows Trudy Busch Valentine (D) closing the gap too slowly and too late in Missouri, as Eric Schmitt (R) leads 50% to 41% to replace the retiring Senator Blunt (R). A previous poll showed a 12 or 13 point lead, I forget which.

Last time? I spilled something on it. Here it is.

Blah blah blah. Right? In other news…

• A+ rated Siena College/The New York Times Upshot has the Nevada race of Senator Cortez Masto (D) and challenger Adam Laxalt (R) as a dead heat at 47% apiece. It seems they do not take the University of Nevada – Reno’s poll giving Cortez Masto a 13 point lead seriously. Notable: Their report consistently misspelled Cortez Masto’s last name as Cortez Mastro. Gonna be some red faces at the Siena College Research Institute office. Emerson College, a respectable A- rated outfit, gives Laxalt a largish 50% to 45% edge. And Suffolk University, B+ rated, gives Cortez Masto a 45% to 44% lead, much like Siena. If the Hispanic community comes through for the first Latina in the US Senate, then Masto will be reelected; otherwise, it’ll be a long night.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot gives Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) a 49% to 44% lead over Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) in the race for the open Pennsylvania Senate seat. GOP linked and B rated Insider Advantage takes an opposite position, giving Dr. Oz a 46.9% to 44.0% lead. And Muhlenberg College/Morning Call, the former B+ rated, stakes out a middle position and calls this Senate race a dead heat at 47% apiece.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot gives Georgia Senator Warnock (D) a 49% to 46% lead over challenger Herschel Walker (R). If only that lead were larger. Walker was a great football player, but every time he opens his mouth I either don’t understand him, or he’s out and out frightening. The last AJC poll has this race as a dead heat: In the race for the Senate, Walker is at 46% and Warnock is at 45% — a difference of a fraction of a percentage point that’s within the poll’s margin of error 3.1 percentage points. Libertarian Chase Oliver has about 5% support, and an additional 5% are undecided. A failure to break the 50% barrier will result in a runoff, just like last time. That may be to the Senator’s detriment, as Chase Oliver (L) will no longer be around to split the conservative vote.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot does not give Arizona challenger Blake Masters (R) a lead in Arizona, unlike some polls, but rather Senator Kelly (D) has a 51% to 45% lead. OH Predictive Insights, B/C rated, has Senator Kelly also leading, 48% to 46%, giving Marc Victor (L) 3%. And Fox News has Kelly up 47% to 45%. In other news, aforementioned Marc Victor (L) won’t be fulfilling the implicit nominative determinism-linked prophecy, as abc15 Arizona is reporting: Libertarian candidate Marc Victor is dropping out of the race to be Arizona’s next U.S. Senator. In a video on his website Tuesday morning, Victor made the announcement and added that he was endorsing Republican candidate Blake Masters. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. I hadn’t heard of Victor until just a few days ago, but I expect he provided a refuge for those moderate Republicans who couldn’t stomach Masters and didn’t want to vote for Senator Kelly. Will they suck it up and pick either of the remaining two candidates, leave their ballot blank – or vote for Victor as a protest? Reportedly, he’ll still be on the ballot, and I doubt ballots can be modified to reflect his capitulation – and generally campaign advertising is banned at voting sites, so some voters may not be aware of his withdrawal. And what of mail-in ballots? Will Victor voters seek to amend their votes, or will they shrug it off? But if the Siena poll is accurate, Masters has to persuade some Kelly voters to vote for him, and that will prove difficult, outside of a black swan event.
• The Siena College/The New York Times Upshot offered some rarities: polls of House of Representative races. I picked the Kansas offering of KS03, as it shows a Democrat creaming a Republican in Kansas: “In this rematch between two candidates well known to voters, Davids, the Democratic incumbent, has a significantly better favorability rating and a solid 14-point lead over Republican Adkins, who previously represented the district. Davids beat Adkins two years ago by 10 points. Davids has the support of 97% of Democrats, picks up 13% support from Republicans and has a two-to-one lead with independents. Adkins trails with men by two points and with women by 26 points.” Politics is mostly local, so drawing national conclusions from this is a touchy business, even in today’s unusually national environment, brought on by the blowback from the January 6th insurrection and the Dobbs decision overturning what is turning out to be the highly popular Roe vs. Wade decision – but it certainly sounds as if the conservative voters of KS03 are beginning to realize that Democrats can be good elected representatives as good as, or even better, than Republicans. Nor does it sound like a red wave. While 13% of the Republicans voting for the Democrat is not a large percentage, it’s a beginning to healing the frightening abyss between political factions. Or it’s part of the birth of at least one new political party. And it may indicate voter exhaustion with what passes for the Republican Party these days.
• Speaking of Siena College/The New York Times polls, it’s noteworthy that they’re more in line with other polls from past top-of-the-line pollsters than with the pollsters that happen to be GOP linked, such as Cygnal, Trafalgar, Insider Advantage, and maybe one or two others – and are not as highly rated. Indeed, this diarist on Daily Kos thinks those GOP linked pollsters may be slanting their results in order to influence voters, perhaps encouraging GOP voters and discourage Democratic voters, rather than measuring voters, as is more proper. Keep this in mind when reading Republican optimistic opinions, such as Erick Erickson’s prediction published today: The GOP really could get to 53 seats. And he’s absolutely confident that Walker will win the general election, and may even exceed 50%, which would permit him to skip the runoff otherwise required by Georgia law. If Republican boosters are basing their optimism on slanted polls designed to discourage Democratic voters who are, nevertheless, motivated by any or all of the extraordinary events of the last two years, it could be a deeply unpleasant surprise for the far-right extremists.
• And just because I’ve mentioned the Oklahoma gubernatorial race before, the latest is that the race is tightening, with Republican-turned-Democrat Joy Hofmeister narrowly leading Governor Kevin Stitt (R), and now comes a new endorsement from a Republican: It was the “honor of a lifetime” to represent Oklahoma in Congress, [Former Rep. J.C.] Watts says, adding, “I was a Republican then, and I am a Republican now, and friends, I’m voting for Joy Hofmeister. All the scandal and corruption is too much. Joy is a woman of faith and integrity. She’ll always put Oklahoma first. I know Joy personally. I trust her, and you can, too.” File that under another rejection of the current state of Republican politics. Will Oklahoma have a Democratic governor? Or is this late Emerson College poll showing Stitt with a stiff nine point lead presaging the future?
• In New York, Emerson College follows up a recent poll with another that shows Senator Schumer (D) stretching his lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R) to 55% to 36%. Will they have an afternoon poll to complement their morning poll?
• Hallelujah, Alabama has a poll: GOP-linked Cygnal’s poll has Katie Britt (R) leading Will Boyd (D), 57.1% to 27.5%. I’m not feeling the tension, no matter how much Cygnal may be leaning.
• I missed this Iowa poll from a two or so weeks back: Change Research, B- rated, replicates the Des Moines Register poll results, 48% to 45%. Note to Franken: it’s only a shocker if you actually win. Grassley is no longer fit for service and needs to be put out to pasture. Notable: With three weeks to go, Grassley is weak with his own base. Just 92% of Republican voters and 89% of 2020 Trump voters say they will vote for Grassley. Grassley gets near universal support (98%) among self-identified MAGA Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020 (about half–47%–of those who voted for Trump in 2020 identify as MAGA Republicans), but only 81% of non-MAGA Trump voters say they will vote for Grassley in this election. Wow. Being a close ally to Trump doesn’t guarantee slavish support, apparently, from Trump or his supporters. Franken has a ten point lead among independents, and if he can pick up a few more, he may pull this most unexpected upset off. Remember, though, Change Research only has a B- rating.
• A/B rated Saint Anselm College has the New Hampshire Senate race at a razor thin lead for challenger Don Bolduc (R) over Senator Hassan (D), 48%-47%. Call it a head heat with a margin of error of ± 2.5 points. Maybe the SLF canceled any more ad buys because it thinks Bolduc has the win in the bag? (See previous New Hampshire news at the link.)
• An Emerson College poll shows a potential blowout in the contest between Oklahoma Senator Lankford (R) and challenger Madison Horn (D) as the former appears to have a 57% to 33% lead.
• The same poll shows Kendra Horn (D) trailing Rep Mullin (R) 56% to 35% in the Oklahoma special election. It’s a real pity to reward a Trump-worshipper like Mullin with a job of this magnitude of responsibility.
• Utah has been one of the most mysterious races this cycle, with challenger Evan McMullin (I) barking at Senator Mike Lee’s (R) heels, according to Deseret News polls as well as McMullin-sponsored private polls. However, OH Predictive Insights, B/C rated, isn’t going along with the other pollsters, public and private, and gives Senator Lee the edge a cliff of support at 53% to 34%. This 19 point lead is surprising, and if Lee performs as they expect it’ll be a boost to their mediocre rating. If, on the other hand, Lee substantially underperforms, then there may be questions as to their competency. In fact, Emerson College also recently released a Utah poll, and it gives Lee a still surprising 49% to 39% lead. A 10 point lead is substantial, but not an imposing 19 points. Notable: The economy is the top issue for 47% of Utah voters in determining their November vote, followed by “threats to democracy” (12%), and abortion access (10%). Someone should remind these voters that, without democracy, there is no flourishing economy, and Senator Lee apparently doesn’t comprehend that.
• GOP linked Insider Advantage has Washington Senator Murray (D) leading challenger Tiffany Smiley (R) by only 48% to 46.4%. This is at some variance with other recent Washington polls, such as the Seattle Times poll giving Murray an 8 point advantage, or this recent poll from Triton giving Murray a 5 point lead.
• Fox News surveys Wisconsin and finds Senator Johnson (R) and his conspiracy nuttiness holds a 48% to 45% lead over challenger Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D). Can former President Obama turn sentiment around for Barnes?
• Emerson College, busy as a bee, surveys Missouri and finds Eric Schmitt (R) has a bigger lead over challenger Trudy Busch Valentine (D), 51% to 39%. It appears Schmitt has saved this seat for the Republicans; if former Governor Greitens (R) had won the primary, this would have been a far different race.

The second latest, and therefore useless, installment in this series is here.

My Arts Editor plan for Halloween is to hand these out.

They were a hit with the teenagers last year.

From an endorsement from The Denver Post against sitting Representative Lauren Boebert (R):

We beg voters in western and southern Colorado not to give Rep. Lauren Boebert their vote.

Boebert has not represented the 3rd Congressional District well. Almost exclusively, she has spent her time and efforts contributing to the toxic political environment in this nation.

The good people in this district are not angry and abrasive; they are not hateful and caustic; they do not boast of their own prowess or sling insults as entertainment. The ranchers we know working the Uncompaghre Plateau, the teachers in Durango, the steel mill workers in Pueblo, and the farmers setting down roots in the San Louis Valley keep to themselves, watch their families grow, and pray for better days.

Boebert’s unproductive approach, combined with the efforts of others, has helped erode Congress’ ability to honestly debate public policy that could help people in her district.

This is a measure of the moral failures of the MAGA candidates: they don’t service their constituents, they don’t provide leadership, they are simply their for the ego-fulfilling aspects of the position.

Kudos to The Denver Post.

Some runners are beginning to stagger. Don’t let them touch you! In other news…

• As Senator Mark Kelly’s (D) lead in most polls of Arizona has dwindled, some wonder if the Republicans will be swallowing him up. azcentral’s article on the subject points out Democratic strategist Andy Barr’s observation: “A blowout win for Democrats in Arizona is winning by like 3 points,” he said. “There are more Republicans than there are Democrats, period. And there are very few people who switch allegiances based on who the candidates are.” An example of toxic team politics at work. Better to vote for your own highly flawed candidate, such as Masters, than for the evil opponent. That attitude, a result of the win at all costs! of former Speaker Gingrich (R-AL), is an example of the American empire tearing itself to pieces, if we pay attention to Turchin’s scholarship. And in other news, Insider Advantage gives Senator Kelly (D) a 45% – 43% lead over challenger Blake Masters (R).
• Data For Progress, B rated, gives a 51% to 44% lead to Florida Senator Rubio (R) over challenger Rep Val Demings (D).
• In New York challenger Joe Pinion (R) is making little progress against Senator Schumer (D), Emerson College Polling reports: In the election for US Senate, 51% plan to support incumbent Chuck Schumer, while 36% support Joe Pinion. Eight percent are undecided. With their support allocated, Schumer’s support increases to 53% and Pinion to 40%. Since September, Senator Schumer has lost three percentage points and Joe Pinion has gained five percentage points.  Pinion has little more than a week to make up a serious amount of ground.
• GOP aligned Insider Advantage believes Dr. Mehmet Oz (R) has a 47.5% to 44.8% lead over Lt. Gov John Fetterman (D) in Pennsylvania. Insider Advantage is B rated. This is probably the first lead for the snake oil salesman.
• C/D rated Triton Polling & Research gives Washington Senator Murray (D) a 50.6% to 45.4% lead over challenger Tiffany Smiley (R). This might need the extra large salt shaker, although the numbers are not entirely out of line with other pollsters. Meanwhile, conservative pollster Trafalgar has a much closer race at 49.4% to 48.2% for Murray. In some ways, that’s even further out of line than Triton’s.
• A Daily Kos diarist delivers the argument that the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the Speaker of the House, will be to the Democrats’ advantage this cycle. Erick Erickson disagrees, although I think most of his arguments are specious or stripped off context. Me? I don’t think it’ll have an effect. Most folks will figure the attacker is an extremist and maybe out of his head, much like the guy who tried to shoot a bunch of Republican legislators at a Congressional baseball game a few years back. And we’ll probably never know for sure.
• Yet another Insider Advantage poll, this time in Georgia, suggests Herschel Walker (R) ahead of Senator Warnock, 48% to 45%, with a margin of error of ± 4.2 points. Chase Oliver (L) has 2% of the vote.
• Trafalgar gives Adam Laxalt (R) a 49.8% to 45.6% lead over Senator Cortez (D) in Nevada.

Getting near the end here. Oh I so hope. The last edition, grievously out of date, is here.

When the financial underpinnings of society give a hiccup, it’s time to stop and sniff the coffee.

Trouble is brewing in the world of U.S. Treasury bonds, prompting concern among investors and some Washington policymakers.

U.S. Treasury bonds are a key pillar of the global financial system, but there are signs that the pool of interested buyers could be in danger of drying up as an unintended consequence of rising U.S. interest rates.

For now, no one is panicking. But the market for U.S. Treasury bonds has lately displayed a level of volatility not seen since the beginning of the pandemic-related crisis in 2020, when the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero and went on to buy $1 trillion of treasuries and other financial assets to keep the global financial system functioning. [WaPo]

It’s not mentioned in the article, but you have to wonder if the potential takeover of all, or parts of, Congress by the Republicans are giving investors in American Treasury bonds pause. After all, it’s no secret that the House, if controlled by the Republicans, has threatened to not lift debt ceilings. If these investors, often foreign and savvy, are realizing that the Republicans are fourth raters who would likely implement their threats, they may come to the conclusion that exposure to American Treasuries that may fail is not in their best interest.

Some people are overjoyed, some are appalled.

An emboldened cast of anonymous trolls spewed racist slurs and Nazi memes onto Twitter in the hours after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over the social network, raising fears that his pledge of unrestricted free speech could fuel a new wave of online hate. [WaPo]

Me? It’s the most primitive of the social media platforms that I’ve seen, and seems to be built to inculcate addiction, just like all new sports and television shows. Musk claims this:

On Thursday, Musk tried to assuage advertiser worries in a tweeted letter in which he promised that the site would not become a “hellscape” or a “free-for-all” and pledged that the app would remain “warm and welcoming to all.”

Motivated trolls, desperate to satisfy their employers, their own egos, or both, will prove to be exceedingly difficult to control if Musk does, in fact, try to follow through on his stated intention of 1st Amendment absolutism. It’s the way it goes.

My guess on the future? He caves on the absolutism, or his $44 billion investment, which he tellingly tried to escape, will shrink in value to $44 million as advertisers and users walk away. But that’s a weak prediction, because the addictive, narcissistic power of Followers and Likes and All That Garbage is catnip to anyone who was not the Prom King or Queen.

Hey, I’ve been there. Uh, no, not Prom Royalty. The other thing.

So it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. I think he’ll institute a set of rules to keep the trolls in check, wrapped in new clothes in order to claim he’s nothing like the C-suite folks he just fired. But social media addiction, the horrible anchor so many drag behind them, could save Musk.

Gape and wonder, but no autographs, please.

Just a couple of blocks from our place. I hope he’s an exile and not a scout.

What’s out lying in the backyard? You go look, I’m curled up in a chair. Meanwhile …

• The Cortez (D) vs Laxalt (R) contest in Nevada has been one of the closest in the nation. And then along comes the pollster University of Nevada-Reno, unknown to FiveThirtyEight, and they award a 52% to 39% lead to … Senator Cortez. With a margin of error of … it’s not entirely clear.  ± 4 points. A sudden jump from a dead heat to a thirteen point lead? Or is this the Mother of all Outliers? Do they know more about Nevadans than the out-of-state interlopers pollsters? Stay tuned.
• The Florida contest of Senator Rubio (R) vs Rep Demings (D) is another of the hottest contests in the Senate this cycle. But now the University of North Florida, an A/B rated pollster, is giving the Senator a surprising 54%-43% lead, with a margin of error of a largish ± 4.7 points. Notable: “The surprise in these numbers is that a statewide race in Florida is closer to a blowout than a recount,” said Dr. Michael Binder, PORL faculty director and UNF political science professor. “Florida has become a red state; it will likely take an exceptionally weak Republican candidate for Democrats to win statewide — and Rubio is not a weak candidate.” Rubio’s weakness on immigration legislation nearly a decade ago suggests otherwise, and his responses to recent events have been nearly as bad as Georgia candidate Herschel Walker’s. If Demings is blown out, Democrats nation-wide had better take a close look at themselves. Or is this just another outlier poll?
• Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) is either profoundly put-upon by nefarious characters, to borrow my Arts Editor’s phrase, or he doesn’t believe in self-restraint. Why do I say this? Here we are, less than two weeks out on Election Day, and another woman has claimed that Walker pressured her into having an abortion years ago. The timing of the accusation is certainly suspicious, but on the other side of the pivot is Walker’s history of sincere, steadfast mendacity. Simply typing that sentence should convince every Georgia voter to either vote against Walker or stay home; the blot on their honor in the event of an actual vote, not to mention the fortunes of Georgia in the US Senate, are too hideous to contemplate. In the area of polls, A rated Monmouth College is out with their latest poll, giving Senator Warnock (D) a 49% to 44% lead if I do my math properly, with an unusually large margin of error of ± 5 points. Notorious GOP-optimistic pollster Rasmussen Reports, still B rated, has Walker ahead of incumbent Senator Warnock (D) 48% to 43%, with a margin of error of ± 3 points. This is outside the range of most other pollsters’ numbers. We may be experiencing the Night of the Outliers, folks. Anyone tracking Roger Corman’s activities these days?
• Kansas‘ list of resources doesn’t seem to include polling – yes, there was one, see the link – but a recent article on Democratic challenger Mark Holland can be dug up with a minimum of effort. Notable, besides his optimism: “We don’t need to apologize for being Democrats,” Holland told Steve Kraske in an Oct. 11 interview on KCUR’s Up To Date. “We have a better message on health care, a better message on public education, a better message on wages, a better message on guns, a better message on women’s rights.”
• In Pennsylvania’s Senate debate, Dr. Oz’s (R) response to a question concerning how to regulate abortion has fallen with a thud to the floor, or at least so Democrats believe. Oz’s statement? “I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all,” Oz said. “I want women, doctors, local political leaders letting the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.”
  Republicans are convinced that Lt Governor Fetterman’s (D) difficulties with audio processing, stemming from his stroke, have convinced swing voters that voting for a snake oil salesman is a better choice than a dedicated public servant. GOP-aligned Insider Advantage follows through by giving Oz a rare lead in their recent survey, 47.5% to 44.8%. Insider Advantage’s B rating is better than SSRS’s C rating, which we saw on the last update giving Fetterman a six point lead. Which is the outlier?
• Alabama still has no polls that I can find, but pastor Will Boyd (D) believes he has a chance against Katie Britt (R) in this conservative state where they use accusations of being ISIS supporters against each other in the primaries. Boyd explains his optimism in this News19 report from last month. Notable: But Boyd, the former college professor lists reasons for his optimism. It starts with voter enthusiasm, he says. He told News 19 that national polling data shows voter enthusiasm is on the side of Democrats. It seems unlikely. But how can we predict if someone stole all our goats there are no polls?
• Hey, finally Illinois gets another poll, this time from Emerson College, which is A- rated. Senator Duckworth’s (D) lead is down to 10 points, 49% to 39%, meaning challenger Salvi (R) still has a hill to climb in this last week and a half or so.
• North Carolina is another hot Senate race, but not outlying here: Marist Polls, A rated, has the race as a dead heat at 44% among registered voters, but a four point lead, 49% to 45%, among those definitely planning to vote, for Rep Budd (R) over Cheri Beasley (D). Notable, because they say so: Among independents, Beasley receives 40% to 39% for Budd. A notable 17% are undecided. A 31-point gender gap exists, with a majority of men (53%) favoring Budd and a majority of women (51%) favoring Beasley.

When you just need that dollop of out of date news from XX22, you can go here.

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) has a critique of his Democratic colleagues – two of them, anyways – via Politico:

What’s happening: Sen. Rick Scott criticized two female senators — Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Maggie Hassan (N.H.) — for being unlikeable, a political barb frequently used against female politicians.

The details: During a Wednesday interview on the Hugh Hewitt show, the Florida senator discussed the Washington and New Hampshire Senate races, showing support for the Republican candidates while hitting the female senators for being unlikeable.

Here’s what he said:

“Patty Murray, who’s been there 36 years, Patty Murray is just not likable. I mean, who’s likes Patty Murray? She’s not nice to anybody. And so I think unfortunately for Patty Murray, to Hassan in New Hampshire, they know her. They don’t like her.”

Uh huh. It won’t be classy, but I have to wonder if Scott is going to be met with something along the lines of Oral Sex Scott! chants at public rallies by those opposed to him.

Or who just don’t like him. Maybe Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL), rumored to dislike Scott, will lead the chanting.

The Republicans are riven with factionalism and outright, no holds barred rivalry:

The McConnell-aligned super PAC Senate Leadership Fund has spent more than $5 million in ads attacking Tshibaka in a bid to help Murkowski win reelection. [WaPo]

This appears to be overwhelming the toxic team politics stricture of the Republican Party, and this is no surprise. The current inhabitants of the Republican Party have mostly pushed out the former, middle of the road, inhabitants through the RINO  (“Republican in Name Only”) accusation tactic, and are motivated by greed (see: Trump), social prestige, and acquisition fever.

Of course, we’ve been seeing this for years, such as the attempted, and perhaps successful, RINOing of now-former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and the bloody Republican primary in Alabama for Jeff Session’s open Senate seat, in which extremist Rep Mo Brooks was accused of being an ISIS supporter.

But when it happens between McConnell and Trump, two of the top political leaders, you have to wonder if it signals another step in the dissolution of the Republican Party.

This isn’t the last roundup. Not yet. In other news…

• Alaska’s Senator Murkowski (R) has been endorsed by Alaska Rep Peltola (D), who shockingly won the special election to replace the late Rep Don Young (R) last month, and Murkowski has endorsed Peltola. Or at least that’s how I read this: Asked if she would rank Peltola first on her ballot next month in Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system, Murkowski paused. After a full 18 seconds, she said, “Yeah, I am.” She then mumbled, “I’m going to get in so much trouble.” And in return: Asked to respond to Murkowski’s de facto endorsement, Peltola said, “I’m voting for her, so we’re even-steven.” In case you missed it, my take on this is here.
• CNN and SSRS, the latter only C rated, suggest that Senator Johnson (R) of Wisconsin holds a 1 point lead at 50% to 49%, with a margin of error of ± 4.5 points for likely voters. Salt shaker? Yes.
• CNN and SSRS also suggest that Lt. Governor Fetterman’s (D) hunt for the soon-to-be empty Pennsylvania Senate seat is going well, giving him a 51% to 45% lead over Dr. Oz Mehmet (R), with a ± 4.6 point margin of error. Again, salt shaker. Maybe hang them from your ears. CBS News/YouGov, on the other hand, gives Fetterman a much smaller lead of 51% to 49%. In other news, unaffiliated Senate candidate Everett Stern (I), who was supposedly polling at 3% – he doesn’t show up in the aforementioned CNN/SSRS poll – has dropped out, according to sharecare on Daily Kos. No data sources are given by sharecare, but a tweet from Stern announces his withdrawal and endorsement of Fetterman. Take it for what you will, but he is listed on Ballotpedia as a candidate for this Senate seat, so this may be more or less accurate information. If Fetterman wins by less than 3 points, he’ll owe Stern a beer.
• Paywalled The New York Times reports Senator McConnell’s (R) Senate Leadership Fund is canceling any further support for challenger Don Bolduc’s (R) pursuit of Senator Hassasn (D) in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Emerson College gives Hassan a 48% to 45% lead and GOP aligned Insider Advantage, B rated, gives Hassan a 47.6% to 47.1% advantage. Question: If it’s that close, you’d think the SLF would stick around, wouldn’t you? Perhaps Bolduc is simply too revolting even for McConnell. Or maybe SLF’s internal polling isn’t congruent with Insider Advantage.
• WaPo notes that the ranks of independent voters are growing, suggesting unhappiness with at least one party. Notable: Christopher Cooper, political science professor at Western Carolina University, recently co-wrote research examining the rise of the unaffiliated voter in North Carolina and nationally. “Voters are signaling something to us. A lot of smart folks might disagree with me and say, ‘Look, so many of these are shadow partisans. Don’t worry about them,’ ” said Cooper, referring to voters who say they are nonpartisan but lean toward one party mostly. “I think the voters are trying to say they may not be able to escape the two-party system, but they’re going to push back on it when they can.” In other words, cut out the extremism, the bulging eyes, the hair-on-fire arrogance of modern politics. If you can’t cut it out, then return to the barstools from whence you came, because positions ranging from strict anti-abortionism to defunding the police are not acceptable to many voters, and they’re leaving the parties and making a point. How this will affect the Senate races? I’m guessing independents, appalled by Dobbs, will lean to the Democrats, but they may just stay home out of disgust.
• In Connecticut a Quinnipiac University poll gives Senator Blumenthal (D) a 56% – 41% lead over challenger Leora Levy (R), which seems far more reasonable than the last Connecticut Senate poll from ten or so days ago, in which pollster Fabrizio found Blumenthal had only a five point lead. Fabrizio is B/C rated, while QU is A- rated. Final results will show if Fabrizio has improved and QU degraded – or not.
• GOP-aligned Trafalgar is now giving challenger Herschel Walker (R) a 48.9% to 46.5% lead over Senator Warnock (D) in Georgia. Chase Oliver (L) has a 4.6% proportion of the survey, and the survey has a margin of error of ± 2.9 points.
• B+ rated Cygnal gives J. D. Vance (R) a 46.9% to 43.3% lead over Rep Tim Ryan (D) in Ohio.
• Oregon’s Senator Wyden (D) continues to lead challenger Jo Rae Perkins, 51% to 40%, according to B rated Data For Progress. While closer than the last poll, Perkins still has an immense amount of ground to make up in the next two weeks against a sitting Senator, even with this poll’s margin of error of ± 3 points.

Last update here.

In case you’re not paying attention to the financial metrics of the political parties and are just assuming that Republicans are right when they assert that Democrats are spendthrifts, Steve Benen has a restorative chart for you:

Yes, that’s right. For the last half a century, the Democrats have to clean up the Republicans’ financial messes.

And that’s something to keep in mind two years from now.

Sure, go ahead and scream. Two years ahead is too much just now.

I’ve not had time for blogging over the last few days, but I’ve been a little fascinated by this WaPo article, entitled Murkowski, Peltola cross party lines to endorse each other in tight Alaska races. The title doesn’t quite say it all, either:

[Richard Peterson, president of the Tlingit and Haida tribes], the tribal president, said another motivating factor for his tribe to endorse [Rep Peltola (D), who upset Sarah Palin (R) in the special election to fill Rep Don Young’s (R) seat] was that the other candidates “take hard lines.”

Culture wars have been the norm on the right for decades, but now they’re showing up on the left, principally in the area of transgenderism, although one might make the argument that gay marriage is another cultural war object. To me, it was thoroughly discussed and best served to be legalized by either SCOTUS, as it was, or Congress, as an even treatment of the marriage status of citizens is an important and fundamental aspect of American society, unlike, say, gas taxes.

Errr, back to the point, the Alaskan tribes are on point when they express disinterest or disgust with the cultural wars. They have hard problems to solve, and have little time or interest in stroking the egos of cultural warriors such as are found in the lower 48 states.

And I think a lot, even most, independent voters throughout the States share the value of getting important things done with the Alaskan Indigenous People. Politics as performance art a la McConnell, Jordan, Gaetz, Greene, Cruz, Rand Paul, and so many others on the Republican side of the aisle, but I fear increasingly on the Democrats’ side as well. So far, if the Democrats have echoed the far-right extremists’ cry of baby-killers! with their own child-killers!, I have missed it, but I won’t be surprised if I hear it soon.

So what’s so small, per the title of this post?

A beginning. The beginning of a moderate party. I’m aware of a Forward Party, backed by former Presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andy Yang and others, but if it’s making progress, it’s not clamoring for my attention. But in Murkowski and Peltola, you have members of Congress who are representing a State with strong needs and, frankly, facing a tough future, when we factor climate change into it. That tends to strip away dross and, frankly, minor issues such as transgenderism or the faux horrors warned of by religious zealotry.

So will Murkowski and Peltola found some sort of a moderate party, maybe the Alaska Moderates Party? I don’t know. But there’s surely some potential here, especially if they are successful in reelection campaigns and in the projects they take on and succeed in bringing to fruition.

The far-right extremists of the Republican Party should be looking on in fright, and the Democrats need to take warning. Members of both who pride themselves on their extremism may be seeing their diminishment in Murkowski and Peltola.

Who both still have to survive the ballot box in November.

Perhaps the news is slowing. Perhaps I’m squinting.

• 

  Once again, it’s Scylla and Charybdis, last used here!

  Erick Erickson, in the face of fourth-rate – or worse! – Republican candidates, remains confident of success in a couple of weeks. Why? In an email that doesn’t appear to be on his blog: Oregon Democrats are panicking as Nancy Pelosi’s campaign team has pulled money from historically blue house seats because the Republicans are so far ahead. If true, that has to be of concern for those voters who find the candidates behind which Erickson stands to be of an enormously substandard variety. But of more interest from him is this post, which can be read, with only a few changes, as a condemnation of both parties for their absolutist elements. For the Democrats, their transgenderism stance, seemingly unconscious of the societal directive that parents guide and raise children, and not succumb to their every demand, is just one of his criticisms; while, Erickson completely unconscious of it, the absolutism of anti-abortion stands forth as a crippling intellectual failure for the Republicans. In a sense, these two positions are Scylla and Charybdis, a metaphor I’ve used before, the terrifying sea monsters between which mariners must sail, and independent voters are heading for that deadly whirlpool wherein they can pick a Republican Party that abandoned the principles of liberal democracy a decade or more ago, or a Democratic Party that has become increasingly arrogant and certain of itself, and flouted liberal democracy itself when it promoted transgenderism as the law of the land sans discussion. But if Erickson is right, then there’s the question of even those he might assume are his allies are instead abandoning him; see the next two news items.

• The Tulsa World, which one would assume is reflective of its city and state of Oklahoma, and is thus traditionally a conservative rag, has issued an endorsement for the special election to fill Senator Inhofe’s (R) seat after his planned January ’23 resignation. The endorsement is not for Republican candidate Rep Markwayne Mullin, but, surprisingly, the Democratic candidate, former Rep Kendra Horn. Will this move the needle in Oklahoma? Probably not. But it remains a noteworthy move, remarkable in that it may alienate a number of subscribers. Notable: Her congressional stint gives Oklahomans a glimpse of what Oklahoma lawmakers of the past looked like. They were pragmatic legislators who looked after their state and found ways to get things done rather than cater to the fringes of their own parties. Mullin’s frantic attempts to get the former President’s attention and endorsement were, in the end, embarrassing, and indicative of a candidate willing to owe his political career to an ineffective, possibly even worse than that, President, rather than make his own reputation and way.
• There may be no polls for the Kentucky race between Senator Paul (R) and challenger Charles Booker (D), but we do now have an endorsement. The Lexington Herald-Leader has endorsed the Democrat, Booker, rather than the incumbent, a move virtually unheard of for respectably sized newspapers, and the Herald-Leader is the second largest (well, back in 1999) in Kentucky. Here’s the link, but it’s behind a paywall, so I didn’t give it a read. Regardless, disgust with Senator Paul’s (R) behavior is apparently spreading. Not that I expect an upset in Kentucky, but it’s a nice thought – I don’t much care for Paul’s behaviors, either.
• Unsurprisingly, challenger Natalie James (D) is not getting any attraction traction against Senator Boozman (R). The Arkansas Senator has a 52% – 32% lead over James, according to Talk Business & Politics, a pollster unknown to FiveThirtyEight. Last month the lead, measured by the same pollster, was just more than 13 points, and Boozman only had a 43.5% share of the survey answers. He’s now over the 50% mark, giving James a real challenge. For the record, in 2016 Boozman won by 23 points, so he’s not been notably damaged by the general fourth rate nature of the Republicans this cycle.
• Florida Atlantic University, an A/B pollster, gives Florida Senator Rubio (R) a 47.7% to 42% lead over challenger Rep Demings (D). While it may remain encouraging that Rubio is failing to find his way over the 50% mark, Demings remains in a challenging position herself, despite her superior credentials. The margin of error is ± 3.65 points.
• GOP-linked Insider Advantage, B rated, gives Nevada challenger Adam Laxalt (R) a 48.2% to 46.3% lead over Senator Cortez Masto (D).
• Insider Advantage also rates the Pennsylvania race as “neck and neck” at 46% apiece to Fetterman and Oz.
• Remember my report of a news item about Ukrainians alienated by Republican anti-Ukrainian statements? This may impact the Ohio races, according to WaPo, as they confirm the earlier report. Pissing off Ukrainians, whether over there or over here, would seem to be a very bad practice.
• A Seattle Times survey has Washington Senator Murray (D) leading challenger and moderate Tiffany Smiley (R), 49% – 41%. Murray is not over the 50% hurdle, which should be concerning for her, but Smiley continues to carry the burden of a Washington Republican Party loaded with extremists.

The previous edition, scorned by many, is here.

There’s little doubt that the Democrats and the left – two different entities – have been using apocalyptic messaging concerning the upcoming mid-term elections. So, of course, this morning I find out that inflation has become the death of democracy, according to Erick Erickson:

Whether the crisis of the third century, the French revolution, the Russian revolution, or the rise of Hitler, inflation tends to destabilize economies and governments. Democrats have been so focused on Republicans as a threat to democracy that they themselves have become the very threat. Democrats have caused inflation, caused economic deterioration, and now voters are going to sweep them out of power even as Democrats claim the GOP is a threat. Their rhetoric and policies are profoundly destabilizing and voters are about to hold them accountable.

The balance of Erickson’s argument is a radio polemic, to which I did not listen.

Sadly, at least for Erickson, we’re not seeing nation-killing inflation. It’s up a little bit while the Democrats, once again, clean up after the Republicans and their economic mess.

We’re not, for that matter, seeing organized, armed Democratic revolutionaries storming the Capitol, chanting for the deaths of top elected political leaders. In fact, the Democrats are the political conservatives in this scenario. They are not promoting a coup, they are not dissembling when asked about accepting election results – they say, Yes, I will accept the results. The worst that they can be accused of is their calling for the end of gerrymandering, and the inflation of the number of seats in SCOTUS.

Can monetary inflation kill a governmental system? Sure. It was a primary culprit in the death of the Wiemar Republic – but that inflation was not the result of foolishness on the part of the German government, but the misguided Treaty of Versailles and its mandate of reparations for World War I, which in turn was the result of  arrogance on the parts of, oh, let’s just say many governments of the nations of Europe and parts of Asia.

And their inflation was mind-boggling. Not this petty annual 8% that we’re seeing now. Yes, it’s annoying. There may even be lessons concerning unjust wages finally correcting to levels better for society present in that inflation. That is what we should probably be discussing.

But Erickson is off on his moral equivalence crusade, ever trying to balance January 6th insurrection – which, to be fair, drew a disgusted call from him to shoot the insurrectionists – with the horrors of the left. It’s hard to take him and his right-wing colleagues, who I notice tend to bray in unison, seriously.

So don’t.

Banging on the door, screaming to be let. In other news:

• In terms of general applicability to the Democratic case, Biden’s move to pardon non-violent marijuana possession offenses has proven to be quite popular. Will voters connect traditional Republican opposition with their election choices? Or will unexpected Republican silence on Biden’s announcement be a successful tactic?
• Apparently Senator Lee (R) of Utah is in serious trouble, as Erick Erickson is pulling out the big guns of Guilt and Shame to goad Senator Romney (R) into endorsing Lee, if he can. I just don’t think Erickson understands the situation because he’s embedded in it. What passes for the Republican Party these days, in large part, is repugnant not only to the left, but to the independents and moderate Republicans as well. Between the January 6th Insurrection and Dobbs, it’s hard to see how Republicans fit into an American way of life where we collectively choose our leaders, when they’re busy making winning paramount, along with fetishizing money, and engaging in absolutism that endangers pregnant women and anyone who knows the easily enraged with a gun. Trump childishly humiliated Romney, Lee is a close ally of Trump, and so why is it hard to understand that Romney would rather see Lee, a man who doesn’t even think Democracy is important, lose to McMullin under the appearance that Lee is not a defender of the Republic?
• No doubt you’ve heard, but in case you haven’t, early voting is bounding right along, way ahead of the 2018 and even 2020 figures, where available. From CNBC:
  

  Turnout from Georgia’s first day of early voting set a new state record for a midterm election, nearly doubling the figure from the same time period in the previous midterms, state election officials said Tuesday. … More than 131,000 Georgia voters cast ballots since early voting began Monday, according to the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The figure represents an 85% boost over the 2018 midterms, when nearly 71,000 early votes were cast on Day One, the office said.

  Georgia, of course, is the venue for the Warnock / Walker contest, so some the jump is attributable to that. Is it otherwise significant? Erick Erickson, exhibiting mainstream media paranoia, doesn’t think so: Some of you are falling for the doom scenarios that Democrats are turning out in record numbers in early voting so you might as well give up. Don’t fall into that mindset. It was obvious that would be a last-minute media narrative concocted by the Democrats and advanced by a partisan political press. Because voters are easy to discourage? No, they’re hard to encourage, but once they decide they’re voting, they’re voting. That’s one of the lessons of Kansas, earlier this year. The pro-choice voters were faced with polls predicting the proposed state Constitutional amendment that would enable the Legislature to strip them of their abortion rights would win. That didn’t stop the pro-choice voters, who rejected the proposal by 18 points.

• Continuing an inadvertent pundit review, lefty documentarian Michael Moore, who predicted the shocking Trump victory, is predicting a blue tsunami this year.
• The recently released Times/Siena poll for the generic Congressional ballot has shocked many pundits, as it shows a 32 point shift among independent women voters in a month. Kerry Eleveld @ Daily Kos thinks it’s an outlier and should be ignored.
• In Colorado, Democratic pollster Global Strategy Group, B/C rated, shows Senator Bennet (D) leading challenger Joe O’Dea by 11 points, with a margin of error of ± 3.5 points. That seems to be all we get. That’s a bigger lead than other Bennet / O’Dea polls have shown, so maybe discount that number a bit. Notable remark found in the Denver Post: O’Dea spokesman Kyle Kohli said Bennet’s campaign and his allies had spent tens of millions to beat O’Dea, who he said had Bennet “on the ropes.” I gotta wonder just big a loss qualifies as on the ropes.
• A rated Landmark Communications‘ latest poll gives Senator Warnock (D) of Georgia a 46.1% to 46% lead over challenger Herschel Walker (R). It’s disappointing to think a gibberish spewing candidate is even seriously considered by the electorate.
• CBS News/YouGov, the latter B+ rated, rate Nevada as a toss up, as each garners a 48% share in their latest poll.
• A rated SurveyUSA gives Senator Schumer (D) a 52% to 38% lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R). Traction is unavailable in New York, it seems, as those numbers are comparable to previous polls.
• Cheri Beasley’s slipping, but the pollster is GOP-linked Trafalgar, so their assessment of North Carolina’s Senate race at Rep Budd (R) 48.4% to Beasley’s (D) 44.2% might need a discount. Or not. In three weeks we’ll find out.
• GOP aligned Cygnal, B+ rated, gives J. D. Vance (R) a 47% – 43% lead over Rep Tim Ryan (D) in Ohio.
• For those voters worried about Pennsylvania Lt. Governor Fetterman’s (D) health, his doctor says don’t.
• Trafalgar sees the Arizona race as a 1 point affair of 47.4% for Kelly (D), 46.4% for challenger Masters (R). Seeing as OH Predictive Insights had Kelly holding a thirteen point lead, I suspect there’s a bit of a let-down.

The last time they let is here.

Put your lip between your teeth and bite down, it’ll make this go by much, much slower. In other news:

• B/C rated East Carolina University gives Rep Budd (R) a 50% to 44% over former state Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley (D) in North Carolina with a margin of error Credibility Interval of ± 3.8 points. Pick the size of the grain of salt you prefer. If you prefer a different spice, unknown pollster Carolina Forward is giving Rep Budd a dead heat 46% – 45% lead, the balance of those surveyed undecided. Notable: Independents are split almost neatly in half, with just a 2-point advantage towards Budd and 16% remaining undecided[.] If independents continue to break towards the Democrats, then Beasley may win an upset victory. But she still has to make that case.
• Is Rep Ryan (D) seeing Ohio slip away, or is Suffolk University just slipping? The B+ rated pollster is now giving J. D. Vance (R) a 47% – 45% lead in Ohio, with a margin of error of ± 4.4 points.
• FabrizioWard/Impact Research’s latest poll for the AARP finds New Hampshire Senator Hassan (D) maintaining a comfortable 52% – 45% lead over challenger Don Bolduc (R), who must be eyeing that 50% barrier and wondering how to convince some of Hassan’s voters to change their minds. I think both pollsters are B/C rated. Or is it three firms? A read of the report is ambiguous.
• In New York, A- rated Quinnipiac University Poll has Senator Schumer (D) with a 54% – 42% lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R). This is, again, a drop for Senator Schumer, but the rate of decline is itself declining, and he would seem to have little to worry about.
• B/C rated Amber Integrated weighs in on the reelection effort of Senator Lankford (R) in Oklahoma, giving him a 16 point advantage over challenger Madison Horn (D). Yeah, that’s all we get. The latest Sooner Poll has Lankford by 12 points, but over 50%. While 16 points is more than comfortable, Lankford’s victory in 2016 was by 43+ points, suggesting either Lankford and the Republicans are too extreme, or Lankford is too moderate for many Republicans, or both. Yes, that is possible.
• In the same survey as above, Amber Integrated is giving Rep Mullin (R) a 13 point lead of former Rep Kendra Horn (D) in the special election to fill Oklahoma Senator Inhofe’s soon-to-be empty seat in the Senate, as he is retiring in mid-term. Former Rep Horn had reduced Mullin’s lead to 9 points in the latest Sooner Poll, so she must be a bit disappointed in his poll. While it’s worth noting that Inhofe’s final victory was by 30+ points, comparing relative newcomer Mullin’s lead to that victory margin hardly seems appropriate. Still, a drop of 17 points does mean disappointment in the Republicans, although from which direction isn’t clear. The survey has a ± 4.4 point margin of error.
• Any attempts to portray myself as competent at this job should be disregarded, as just moments ago I realized I have lost track of the Missouri race. Again. Not that it’s an exciting race: AG Schmitt (R) still leads nurse & heiress Trudy Busch Valentine (D) by 11 points, 49% – 38%, according to the latest (late September) poll from Emerson College. That gap is exactly the same in the four polls recorded by RealClearPolitics, regardless of the pollster. This is actually a larger gap than the margin of victory for the current occupant of the seat, retiring Senator Blunt (R), had in 2016, which was less than 3 points. Eleven points is substantially larger. I wonder if the state shifted right or if the independents are finding Valentine to be repugnant for some reason. On the other hand, Blunt won by nearly 14 points in 2010, so perhaps 2016 is more a commentary on Blunt’s extremism.
• Apparently, the Iowa survey by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register, showing challenger Admiral (ret.) Franken (D) down by three points, rather than Senator Grassley’s (R) normal margin of victory of around 33 points, hit a nerve out in pundit land. What struck me was WaPo’s resident data analyst cum political columnist trying to explain it away, and, I think, failing. I briefly wrote about what David Byler missed here.

The surprised! update from last time is here.

Spaceweather.com has a report on an event that happened maybe 2.4 billion years ago – and just affected us a few days ago:

Credit: NASA/Swift/A. Beardmore (University of Leicester)

Oct. 17, 2022: Astronomers have never seen anything quite like it. On Oct. 9, 2022, Earth-orbiting satellites detected the strongest gamma-ray burst (GRB) in modern history: GRB221009A. How strong was it? It caused electrical currents to flow through the surface of our planet.

Yeow! And then that age thing:

Researchers have since pinpointed the burst. It came from a dusty galaxy 2.4 billion light years away, almost certainly triggered by a supernova explosion giving birth to a black hole. This is actually the closest GRB ever recorded, thus accounting for its extreme intensity.

I see that, by contrast, NASA is estimating 1.9 billion light years. And gamma rays are potentially dangerous, as the Wikipedia page notes. I wonder how much damage we’d sustain if that gamma ray burst had happened within our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

A day or two ago in my Senate Campaign Updates I noted the shocking survey from A+ rated Selzer & Co showing 89 year old Senator Grassley (R-IA) with only a three point lead over challenger Vice-Admiral Mike Franken (D) in his reelection race. Today, I see David Byler of WaPo doesn’t think Grassley needs to be worrying:

In math, there’s a procedure called the “sanity check” in which, essentially, you zoom out and see whether the calculations you’re doing align with your common sense.

We can do a similar gut check on the Iowa race by looking at polls from races in other states.

In national House polls, the parties are roughly evenly matched. The FiveThirtyEight aggregate has Democrats leading Republicans by less than a point, and the RealClearPolitics average has the GOP barely ahead. In Senate polls, the picture is similar: The same purple states that were competitive in 2022 are competitive again.

But there’s an even better sanity check available here, a race wherein the same pollster and almost certainly the same polled citizens are tested in a different way. That’s the Iowa Governor’s race. Let’s take Byler’s assumption that Iowa is reliably conservative, an assumption that is itself somewhat dubious. If true, then we should assume that a flawed Selzer survey should show similar results.

Does it?

No. Incumbent Governor Reynolds, another Republican, has a 17 point lead.

This suggests that the survey has a very good chance of properly representing the political makeup of Iowa. Byler tried to justify his position by gesturing to other states, to other parts of the country, but that approach to political analysis is flawed, because politics is local, local, local. Yes, polarization has gotten worse, but politics is often focused, quite properly, on the particular. Flawed candidates in other parts of the country are thought to be in trouble, and that may be one of the few constants across the country: from Perdue to Loeffler to Walker to Majewski in Ohio, if you’re flawed, inarguably flawed, your constituents may decide to vote for someone else, or no one at all. Indeed, one might observe that the toxic team politics of the GOP is an attempt to mask off incompetency in favor of blind loyalties.

So don’t count Franken out. The counting of the votes in Iowa may be a nail biting affair; that’s what the survey’s Reynold’s result has to say about the Senate race.

I figure, after Senator Lee’s (R) likely upset in Utah, Senator Grassley is the most likely unexpected disaster.

As the current Republican Party continues to burn, the question of what becomes the conservative alternative – the real alternative, not this collection of fourth raters – to the Democrats?

Current Republican Senate candidate in Colorado, Joe O’Dea, isn’t given much of a chance of winning in November, and I’d prefer Senator Bennet (D) win anyways. But this CNN/Politics report may point to his political future:

Joe O’Dea, the Republican nominee for US Senate from Colorado, fired back at Donald Trump on Monday after the former President slammed him as a “RINO” and suggested Trump’s supporters wouldn’t vote for a “stupid” person like O’Dea.

In a statement to CNN, O’Dea, the CEO of a Colorado construction company, didn’t walk away from the criticism he’s been leveling at Trump, including on Sunday when he told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that he would “actively” campaign against Trump and for other GOP candidates if the former President runs again. O’Dea also told Bash that Trump should have done more to prevent the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

“I’m a construction guy, not a politician,” O’Dea said in his statement to CNN. “President Trump is entitled to his opinion but I’m my own man and I’ll call it like I see it. Another Biden, Trump election will tear this country apart. DeSantis, Scott, Pompeo or Haley would be better choices. These elections should be focused on Joe Biden’s failures – supercharged inflation, a broken border, rampant crime, a war on American energy – not a rehash of 2020. America needs to move forward.”

Sure, he’s wrong on several of those statements. Even crime isn’t rampant compared to other decades, and certainly Republicans of any stripe won’t be considered adults until they reconsider their stance on 2nd Amendment absolutism.

But these things come in steps, not gallumphs, and O’Dea is rejecting Trump, rejecting, by implication, the paradigm of the authoritarian leader who does what they wish, regardless of the law. Hopefully, he’ll continue down this path, rejecting the election denial disaster, affirming accepting the results of an election. As a non-politician, he has a better chance than most in the Republican Party of accomplishing these goals.

And if he does so? He and those like him may form the foundation of a future conservative party, the sort of party that respects liberal democratic tenets, and can balance a Democratic Party that desperately needs balancing by an articulate adversary.

This is like a spoonful of medicine, isn’t it? Just don’t drool, eh?

• In a surprising, at least to me, result, Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, B/C rated, reports Senator Blumenthal (D) of Connecticut leads challenger Leora Levy (R) by only five points, 49% – 44%. Notable remark from Professor Steven Moore of Wesleyan University: Clearly, the economy is the thing that people care about and it’s the thing they’re noticing. I can’t help but notice that the disruption is a result of the Democrats having to clean up after the Republicans’ blunders in economy management throughout the former President’s single term. Much like they did after both Bush I and Bush II. It should not be a surprise that in addition to Republican incompetence, in the wake of Putin’s War and supply line disruptions caused by the pandemic, inflation is up. I might point out that the job situation is currently excellent, if you’re a worker and not an employer.
• Another surprise for me: The Des Moines Register poll shows Senator Grassley (R) of Iowa, the dude within kissing distance of 90, leads challenger Admiral Franken (ret.) (D), but only by 3 points, 46% – 43%, with a margin of error of ± 3.5 points – technically, a dead heat. By comparison, the poll previous to this, run by A- rated Emerson College last week, gave Senator Grassley a 49% – 38%, 11 point lead. So, does the local rag know more about Iowa than Emerson College? Des Moines Register isn’t even listed on FiveThirtyEight … oh, wait, down here the Des Moines Register says the poll was run by Selzer & Co. Never heard of them. Probably not listed, either … oh, here they are. A+ rated. Sheeeit. Mumble! So what’s going on? Let me speculate:
  

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  In mid-late September, a news story surfaced in which Franken was accused of sexual assault way back in March. Des Moines police refused to file charges, calling the accusation unfounded. The Emerson College poll came a few days after that, and perhaps the news, even with Franken’s denial and the backing of the Des Moines police, led some voters to pick Grassley over Franken.

  ---

  Then the one and only debate between Grassley and Franken was held on October 6th, and the Selzer & Co poll occurred three days later. If Grassley’s performance in the debate was poor, or reminded voters that his positions are not consonant with their positions, then they may have swung back to Franken. Here’s a PolitiFact article fact-checking the debate.

  That’s just guesses, though. Iowa goes back on the Could be an upset list.

• The surprises keep coming: Hill Research, B/C rated, performed a survey in Utah recently and found challenger Evan McMullin (I) leading Senator Lee (R), and in two different metrics. First, if measuring without “leaners,” the lead is 46% – 42%. Second, if “leaners” are added to totals, then the lead is 49% – 43%. A B/C rating is not an A+ rating, so this poll must be taken with a medium sized grain of salt, and the numbers are at variance with other recent polls, including some cited below. However, they are congruent with Senator Lee’s begging Utah colleague Senator Romney (R) to endorse him. Much like Iowa, Utah is on the Could be an upset list.
• Erick Erickson is appalled that Senator Warnock of Georgia doesn’t support the name Braves, as in the Major League Baseball team based in Atlanta, claiming the American Indian tribes do support that use of this American Indian associated term. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, I’ve never heard; I believe they don’t support the “chop” used by fans to be part of the team, so why would they support the use of a name associated with them? But if the tribes do support the use of the name, and the left insists it be changed, then there’s a case to be made for a clear denial of self-agency by the left to the tribes. And that’d be fairly patronizing, no? But, as I said, I don’t know that the tribes have said it’s OK, and I don’t trust Erickson’s word on the matter.
• Enough with the surprises! GOP-aligned Trafalgar gives J. D. Vance (R) a 47.3% – 43.8% lead over Rep Ryan (D) in Ohio, with a margin of error of ± 2.9 points. This is seriously out of step with other polls.
• The Deseret News has published an article on the Utah race between Senator Mike Lee (R), a close Trump ally, and challenger Evan McMullin (I), Democrat-endorsed, which includes this paragraph:
  

  Lee’s internal polling shows him up 18 points, according to his campaign. McMullin’s internal poll shows him ahead by one.

  Someone’s in for a shock come November, but I’m not sure who. The last poll published by Deseret News gave Lee a four point lead, but with a large undecided segment, which arguably favors McMullin. Also, if you’re not a linear reader, then go back up above and see the Utah news about a poll by Hill Research.

That last update, already out of date, was a real mouthful.

On an administrative note, getting this blogging platform to retain paragraph breaks in the midst of “ul” lists is problematic, but I still apologize for extra-long, mixed topic paragraphs. Just because it’s the right thing to do.

Readers may recall the Tornado Cash platform, and an odd defense of it posted by industry insiders. Now Professor Henry Farrell and security guru Bruce Schneier have a response under the entertaining title “Tornado Cash Is Not Free Speech. It’s a Golem” on Lawfare:

We think that the most useful way to understand the speech issues involved with regulating Tornado Cash and other decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) is through an analogy: the golem. There are many versions of the Jewish golem legend, but in most of them, a person-like clay statue comes to life after someone writes the word “truth” in Hebrew on its forehead, and eventually starts doing terrible things. The golem stops only when a rabbi erases one of those letters, turning “truth” into the Hebrew word for “death,” and the golem ceases to function.

The analogy between DAOs and golems is quite precise, and has important consequences for the relationship between free speech and code. Ultimately, just as the golem needed the intervention of a rabbi to stop wreaking havoc on the world, so too do DAOs need to be subject to regulation.

It’s a curious statement, and the article makes for fascinating reading. Leaning into a ruling made in 1996 …

… U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled that computer code is a language, just like German or French, and that coded programs deserve First Amendment protection. That such code is also functional, instructing a computer to do something, was irrelevant to its expressive capabilities, according to Patel’s ruling. However, both a concurring and dissenting opinion argued that computer code also has the “functional purpose of controlling computers and, in that regard, does not command protection under the First Amendment.”

Which I suspect is in need of updating, as at least this informal description suggests a poor understanding of the function of natural languages vs computer languages, the latter of which are little more than enhanced instruction sets that do not involve free will. In an odd way, this ties in with a complaint of mine a ways back that programmers tend to freely analogize with real world constructs, and sometimes that’s inappropriate. Natural languages’ primary usage is communication with other humans and, potentially, other sentient beings; not so computer languages. Back on point, though:

This disagreement highlights the awkward distinction between ordinary language and computer code. Language does not change the world, except insofar as it persuades, informs, or compels other people. Code, however, is a language where words have inherent power. Type the appropriate instructions and the computer will implement them without hesitation, second-guessing, or independence of will. They are like the words inscribed on a golem’s forehead (or the written instructions that, in some versions of the folklore, are placed in its mouth). The golem has no choice, because it is incapable of making choices. The words are code, and the golem is no different from a computer.

Which is a more artfully put criticism than mine, but essentially the same. The balance of the article’s coverage of Tornado Cash is both frightening and horrific; I can’t shake the feeling that the hidden attitude is inarticulate defiance.

In other crypto news, Coinbase is being sued. Who will win?