{"id":762,"date":"2010-10-18T06:56:49","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T13:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=762"},"modified":"2010-10-18T13:57:34","modified_gmt":"2010-10-18T20:57:34","slug":"needed-unmistakable-signal-hughhewitt-com-10-18-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/18\/needed-unmistakable-signal-hughhewitt-com-10-18-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Needed: Unmistakable Signal | HughHewitt.com | 10.18.10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why were the president and vice president campaigning last week for Christopher Coons, the Democrat\u2019s Senate candidate in Delaware?<\/p>\n

Delaware is an eleven-point race in favor of Coons, who is facing Christine O\u2019Donnell, the most reviled GOP insurgent in the nation. \u00a0Normally campaigns don\u2019t send their big guns into blow-aways that they are winning and where the other candidate is receiving lukewarm, at best, support from her party\u2019s official apparatus.<\/p>\n

Here is a clue. Coons\u2019 lead may be eleven points in the latest public poll, but not long ago it was twenty points. \u00a0And despite the media selecting soundbites that cast her in as poor a light as possible, O\u2019Donnell was by far the more impressive performer in the recent televised debate. \u00a0Coons merely repeated Obama administration lines, word for word. \u00a0O\u2019Donnell knew her issues and never hesitated to come back at Coons and his allies in the White House. \u00a0Worse for him, Coons didn\u2019t seem capable of fielding the balls she hit his way, at one point whining that his college Marxism was just a joke.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s dynamic is playing out most tellingly in debates. \u00a0The O\u2019Donnell-Coons match up is one. \u00a0In a race that Real Clear Politics rates among the most likely Democrat wins, the Republican is the decidedly more confident, incisive, and assertive debater.<\/p>\n

Another example is the Sharon Angle-Harry Reid \u201cman up\u201d match up in Nevada. \u00a0Everyone \u2013 Democrat and Republican \u2013 who has reviewed their evening of head butting gave the win to Angle, hands down. Again, the Republican challenger was more self-assure and cogent, scored more points, knew the issues better than, in this case, the Senate majority leader.<\/p>\n

Handicapping the next Senate has become a Washington pastime. \u00a0The city has already as much as conceded the House to the GOP. Betting now has the Senate staying in Democratic hands. \u00a0Real Clear Politics forecasts the final seat count at 52 for the Democrats, 48 for the GOP (see http:\/\/tiny.cc\/8ss4d<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But consider this. In its no-toss-up tally, RCP keeps West Virginia. Illinois, and California in Democratic hands. \u00a0Its averaged of each state\u2019s polls shows either a tie or the incumbent (in West Virginia the sitting governor) Democrat slightly ahead. \u00a0But generally late-in-the-game undecideds break for the challenger. \u00a0If voters know one candidate well and can\u2019t make up their minds for him or her, odds are that at day\u2019s end they go the other way. \u00a0Then, too, in recent decades Republicans have often polled about five points worse than their final vote.<\/p>\n

In West Virginia, ten percent of voters are undecided, in California eight percent are. Illinois\u2019 undecideds total 18 percent of the likely electorate.<\/p>\n

In apparent desperation the White House is throwing mud. \u00a0The attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for having overseas members is the most recent example, a charge even The New York Times<\/em> rejects.<\/p>\n

Still, the Democrats may have a secret weapon. \u00a0Politico<\/em> headlined this week that Harry Reid is mounting the most lavishly funded get-out-the-vote drive in Nevada history. With the unions, particularly the teachers and public employee unions ready to spare no expense to save the Senate for the Democrats, the massive Reid effort will undoubtedly be duplicated all over the nation. \u00a0\u00a0That may in fact be the reason for the fatuous charges of GOP foreign funding, to divert media and opponents away from the scent of over-the-top, under-reported union and Democratic special interest group money going to ground games in the last weeks of the campaign.<\/p>\n

Even so, it may not be enough to stop the tidal wave of opinion. \u00a0Trillions upon trillions of new Federal spending have put the nation\u2019s most fundamental finances in jeopardy. \u00a0And all that money hasn\u2019t even got us out of the recession. The President keeps invoking the \u201cfailed policies of the past.\u201d \u00a0But as nearly as anyone can tell, the policies that have failed are his and those of such allies as Barney Frank. \u00a0After all, the housing crisis was a direct result of policies that Frank imposed on the government over the warnings and objections of the Bush administration.<\/p>\n

Here is the key fact of 2010: \u00a0Without a massive GOP victory, there will be no chance \u2013 zero \u2013 in the next two years of repealing Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial industry takeover legislation, stopping the spending of unspent stimulus money, extending current tax rates, cutting spending to balance the budget, reversing the rampant reign of recent regulation, and returning the Federal government to its constitutional limits.<\/p>\n

All elections send signals. \u00a0Some are clear, some not so clear \u2013 and margins matter. \u00a0If action is to follow, the 2010 election must send a signal that is unmistakable. \u00a0Why were the president and vice president in Delaware? \u00a0To try to make sure it does not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why were the president and vice president campaigning last week for Christopher Coons, the Democrat\u2019s Senate candidate in Delaware? Delaware is an eleven-point race in favor of Coons, who is facing Christine O\u2019Donnell, the most reviled GOP insurgent in the nation. \u00a0Normally campaigns don\u2019t send their big guns into blow-aways that they are winning and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-commentary-general","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}