Scott/Carroll ticket lead by 6, reach the Magic '50' mark

From Eric Dondero:

Folks, you could make the argument that the Florida Governor's race is one of the Top 5 most important races in the entire Nation, along with Nevada Senate, Illinois Senate, California and Massachusetts Govs races.

The Dems really wanted to pick off this seat. Not only is it important for the future of Florida's economy, but strictly politically speaking, it is enormously important for congressional redistricting.

There's one more major factor at work. Jennifer Carroll will instantly become one of the brightest rising stars in the Republican Party. She will be the highest ranking African-American female Republican elected official in the Nation.

This race has been looking a little iffy the last few weeks, with some polls suggesting Democrat Alex Sink was up by 3. Coming this late in the game, 6 points ahead for Republicans puts one's mind more at ease.

From Rasmussen today:

Republican Rick Scott now leads Democrat Alex Sink by six points in the race to be Florida’s next governor. It’s the widest gap between the candidates in six months of polling.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida shows Scott with 50% support for the second survey in a row. Sink, the state’s elected chief financial officer, earns 44% of the vote. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate in the race. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

This moves the race from a Toss-Up to Leans Republican in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Gubernatorial Scorecard.

From Eric Dondero:

The Republican Party is experiencing a huge surge in support on all fronts in the State of Oklahoma.

Party Registration booming for GOP

From NewsOK, Oct. 16:

Seven of 10 new Oklahoma voters registered as Republicans since Jan. 15 while Democrats failed to pick up 1 percent, according to figures released Friday by the state Election Board.

The GOP surge has Republican officials optimistic they have a chance to win many of the statewide and legislative races to be decided next month.

New voters since Jan. 15 total 40,394, with 28,499, or 70.5 percent, registering as Republicans and 11,482, or 28.4 percent, registering as independents.

First Female Governor in Oklahoma history, and she's a Republican

Continuing from NewsOK:

Oklahoma has never before elected a woman governor. The Republican Party which ended slavery and pushed for women's suffrage, will now add the honor of electing a female Oklahoma governor to its list of accomplishments.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Mary Fallin has been leading polls since winning the GOP nomination in July.

A poll released earlier this week indicated Republicans winning the governor's race and the seven other statewide offices up for election.

From Eric Dondero:

The State of Maine is poised to elect its first Republican Governor since the early 1990s. And he's a libertarian/conservative Tea Partyer.

Polls in recent weeks suggested that the race might be tightening. Paul LePage, Mayor of Waterville, held a substantial lead, even as high as the 20s throughout the summer. Then a couple run-ins he had with local media, and some gruff statements on his part, brought the race back into competitive territory.

But the very latest poll gives LePage a somewhat comfortable lead of 5 points. From Pan-Atlantic (via DownEast.com):

A new poll conducted by Pan Atlantic SMS shows a close race between Libby Mitchell and Paul LePage. LePage is ahead with 32.9% of the vote and Mitchell is slightly behind with 28%. Independent Eliot Cutler comes in at third place with 14%, Shawn Moody is at 4.6% and Kevin Scott garners just .4% of the vote, with 20.2% of those surveyed still undecided.

ME libertarian Republican, fmr. state legislator and RLC State Co-Chair Stravos Mendros sees this as good news. Pan-Atlantic he says "is a liberal firm" biased towards Libby. So his margin is probably much higher?

Matthew Gagnon, a libertarian Republican, and editor of the influential blog PineTree Politics, notes that this indicates the race has "stabilized."

But after a series of polls put the race at “dead even”, we have seen a stabilization of the race. After a somewhat flawed Critical Insights poll showed LePage losing to Mitchell for the first time, our own poll in partnership with MECPO showed LePage with a small lead. After that time, three successive polls have shown LePage regaining a decent chunk of his lost momentum – Critical Insights had him up six points, Rasmussen had him up three, and just today, Pan Atlantic showed LePage with roughly a five point edge.

So in short, LePage has lost his once commanding lead, but seems to have scrapped his way back into a comfortable – if tenuous – advantage.

Sidenote: It appears increasingly likely that a number of libertarian Republicans will win election to the Maine State Legislature.

Reporting from Maine...

From ABC News, "Meghan McCain wrong on Christine O'Donnell":

“With all due respect to my daughter, the primary voters of Delaware chose Christine O’Donnell and she’s the candidate.”

The Arizona Senator went on to side with Sarah Palin on the importance of newly-elected Republicans sticking to the Tea Party agenda after the elections.

“I think she is right to this degree, that obviously when we gain the majority, when Republicans gain majorities, they betrayed our base typically in the area of fiscal responsibility,” he said.

“And what Sarah’s saying is that we’ve got to get a fiscally responsible majority in Congress of Republicans and act in a fiscally responsible manner"

An official list from the Indiana Debate Commission. There will be a debate-watching party held in Fishers, IN held by the Libertarian Party of Hamilton County. Click Here to find out the details. Where to Watch and Listen Friday, October 22, 2010 U.S. Senate Debate 7 PM – 8 PM Eastern Note: Please check local [...]

Rebecca Sink-Burris participate in the first of three debates between the three candidates for US Senate Monday night. Often times, she looked like a buffer between the other two, but always like the grown-up in the room. The contrast was stark: Rebecca answered the questions, while the Republican and Democrat slung mud at each other. [...]

Conventional wisdom holds that Libertarians are former Republicans. In reality, disaffected Democrats are every bit as likely to become Libertarians. Ed Angleton is a good case in point. He comes from a family of Democrats, and even shook Bobby Kennedy’s hand as a youngster. But with civil liberties as an absolute, an aversion to political [...]

Conversations with US Senate candidate Rebecca Sink-Burris: Why I am a Libertarian and on her family life. This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video. Find more Conversations with Rebecca at her YouTube Channel.

Libertarian Economic Plan for New York State

Cut Corporate Taxes

Cut Property Taxes

Legalize Marijuana and Casino Gambling

Chard Reid, Libertarian Candidate for U.S. House District 5, has been endorsed by the Indianapolis Star. The state’s largest newspaper gave praise to both third party candidates, but ultimately decided to endorse Reid. “Reid, a young economics teacher at Plainfield High School, has taken the fight to Burton on taxes and the deficit. He maintains [...]

With a couple exceptions here and there

by Clifford F. Thies

With less than two weeks to go, the true battleground states of this year’s election are being revealed. Last week, the national organizations left the Florida Senate race. This week, they are leaving the Missouri Senate race. They are shifting resources such as ad buys to remaining battlegrounds. Let’s take a quick look at the top-of-the-ticket contests:

In New England: Kelly Ayotte has now pulled out to a commanding lead in New Hampshire’s Senate race and Linda McMahon remains in contention in Connecticut’s Senate race. And, five of the six Governor contests are going down to the wire (all but New Hampshire).

In the Mid-Atlantic: The Pennsylvania Senate race has tightened up and the Delaware Senate race has not. For Governor, the Republican is slightly ahead in Pennsylvania and slightly behind in Maryland.

In the South: It’s all Republican, except for Governor in Arkansas, with the qualification that the leads are small for Rand Paul and John Rease in the Kentucky and West Virginia Senate races and Rick Scott in the Florida Governor race.

In the Mid-west: Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin are all looking Republican, although we do not expect Senator Feingold to give up easily. Illinois appears to be breaking Republican; but, there are still a lot of undecideds. Minnesota is close and susceptible to last-minute shifts by voters continuing to indicate that their first choice is a third-party candidate who is now sure to lose.

In the Rocky Mountain states: It’s all Republican, except for Governor of Colorado. Even so, third-party candidate Tom Tancredo can be elected if half of those still indicating a preference for the disgraced nominee of the Republican Party shift to him. Sharon Angle and Ken Buck have small leads in the Colorado and Nevada Senate races. Susanna Martinez now has a significant lead in the New Mexico Governor race.

In the Pacific region: Almost every race is a toss-up. Dino Rossi in the Washington Senate race, and Duke Aiona and Chris Dudley in the Hawaii and Oregon Governor races are neck-and-neck with their Democratic rivals. In California, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman are only slightly behind in the Senate and Governor races. In Alaska, Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski have turned the general election into Round II of the Republican primary.

To comment briefly on House and state legislative races: Things are looking very good for the Republicans all across the country. There will be many “surprises” on election day, even in places like Massachusetts and New York where the Republican Party has fallen on hard times in recent years. Republicans will continue to consolidate their position in the rural districts, revive in the suburban districts, emerge as competitive with Hispanic and Asian voters and breakthrough with African-American voters. The Gender Gap is now history. We continue to anticipate a net pick up of 60 to 80 seats in the House and, to put a number to it, 400 seats in state legislatures.

In many states, early voting is underway and it is clear that, where they don’t have to wait, Republicans aren’t waiting for election day to cast their ballot. Democrats, on the other hand, are just hoping that they can hold on to the Senate and that – for the first time in history – socialism will work so that the economy will recover in time for the 2012 election.

Editor's Note - I will be in southern New Hampshire today campaigning for the GOP ticket.

ALG Launches DefundPublicBroadcasting.org Petition

October 22nd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) launched a petition drive to defund public broadcasting in the wake of National Public Radio's firing of Juan Williams earlier this week.

ALG President Bill Wilson announced the move stating, "It is outrageous that taxpayers are forced to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's hard left agenda. It is time for Congress to save $400 million a year by cutting off their funding."

The petition is at: http://www.defundpublicbroadcasting.org.

The San Francisco Bay Area Congressional seat

From Eric Dondero:

No debate for Nancy Pelosi's constituents. A John Dennis backer pegs her on the subject unexpectedly at a recent local forum. She reacts:

"Time is money"

Watch the video til the end. Pelosi makes a friendly gesture to the Dennis supporter by complimenting his newborn. He politely asks her again, on the debate issue. Her negative and condescending reaction as she turns away, is priceless.

Dems manipulating the Third Party vote to their advantage

From Eric Dondero:

A little last minute election shenanigans in this heavily Democrat-controlled State perhaps?

Just by pure coincidence at least 20 heavily African-American precincts on the southside of Chicago will see the name "Rich Whitey" appear on their ballots as the Green Party candidate. Richard Whitney, his real name of course, was the Green Party candidate for Governor in 2006 and polled 8% of the vote.

The Governor's race is tight, with Republican Bill Brady leading incumbent Democrat and former Rod Blagojevich crony Pat Quinn by 3 to 4 points in most polls. Dems have long feared that Whitney polling another 8% this year, could spell trouble for Quinn's reelection prospects.

Just Breaking from WFIE TV News:

The Chicago Board of Elections apologized Thursday to the Green Party and Whitney for the spelling error, which affected every voting machine already deployed.

The Board of Elections admitted Wednesday that they mistakenly printed Whitney's name as "Whitey" on electronic-voting machines in 23 wards, including about half in African-American communities.

Whitney is quoted:

"I don't want to be identified as "Whitey," Rich Whitney told the Sun-Times. "If this is happening in primarily African-American wards, that's an even bigger concern. I don't know if this is machine politics at play or why this happened."

Note - regular LR readers may recall that back in August (article - "Illinois Democrats use Libertarian Party to attack Mark Kirk"), Democrat candidate for US Senate Alexi Giannoulias sent out a mass mailing urging conservatives to vote for Libertarian Party candidate Mike Labno for the Barack Obama Senate seat, as the "real conservative," rather than Republican nominee Mark Kirk.

by Clifford F. Thies, Senior Editor

Since we last commented, there have been no major changes in GOP prospects. This is good news because the Democrats have now shifted into high gear in terms of their campaigning and have not had much effect in moving the numbers. The White House is now talking about how the Republicans in Congress will have to work with the President.

Republican chances in the House are firming up. Polling data is flooding-in showing Democrats in trouble all over the place. Money is being hoarded by the Democrats to protect their leadership in the House and to set up a “firewall” in the Senate. We stand by our forecast of a 60 to 80 seat pick-up.

As for now outlook 50/50 tie in the Senate

In the Senate, The Republicans are on line to pick-up 6 seats (AR, CO, IN, ND, PA and WI) and not lose any. They need a net pick-up of 9 for a tie and 10 for a majority in the Senate. What was impossible earlier this year is now a 50-50 proposition. As for the “4 Aces + 1 Joker” that will decide the matter:

NEVADA - In the more credible Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen polls, Angle is slightly ahead and knocking on the door of Mr. 50 Percent.

WASHINGTON - The more credible Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polls show this to be a 1 point race one way or a 3 point race the other way. This is consistent with the results of the jungle primary, a very reliable indicator. Some less credible polls show a substantial lead for Sen. Murray, but nobody should buy it.

WEST VIRGINIA – The most recent Rasmussen poll puts Raese slightly ahead. Two others, not as credible, put the race as even or give an equally slight advantage to Gov. Manchin. With each of these three races, the races are close and there are very few undecideds. The final result may come down to turnout.

ILLINOIS – Four recent polls show the difference in this race to be 1 or 2 points. But, neither candidate is in the mid 40s. This race is wide open. This one could break either way or stay close though election day. My hunch is that, since this state is strongly Democrat, "undecideds" will break toward the Republican.

Carly's threat to Dem Majority no Joke

The Joker in the deck appears to be California. Why is this? If Carly Fiorina is within 3 points going into election day, she will be in a good position to win because of the news of Republicans victories from the eastern and middle states of the country depressing Democratic turnout on the west coast (which could make a difference in OR and WA, and also in HI).

As of yet, we have no indication that the Democrats are pulling the plug on PA, even though they have a non-incumbent and are close to, if not 10 point down. DE appears to be a goner. Conversely, the Republicans feel good enough about FL to shift money from there to pick-up opportunities. Several polls show O’Donnell 15 or more points down. In AK, Joe Miller is in a tough race with Lisa Murkowski, who has pre announced that she will caucus with the Republicans if re-elected. This means Joe will have to win a second GOP "primary," this one for all the marbles, with the NRSC being neutral..

PJ Media's Guide to the Economics of Democrats and Republicans

Watch Part II

From our friend Bryan Preston contributing editor at PJ Media.

Far-Left Publicly-subsidized Network says Massive Democrat losses

From Eric Dondero:

We're not talking Fox News, or Rasmussen, or the Drudge Report here. This is socialist loving NPR, now admitting that the outlook is grim for the Democrats. Their conclusion; Republicans easily pick up the House, and most likely will significantly padden their margin.

From The Hill this morning, "GOP has the edge in most competitive districts":

Republicans maintain an edge over Democrats in some of the most highly-contested congressional districts, a new poll found Friday.

GOP candidates have a four-point edge among likely voters in the 53 most competitive congressional districts held by Democrats, and they're tied with Democrats in an additional 33 seats that make up a group of the next-most-competitive Democratic-held seats, the new NPR Battleground Survey found.

If Republicans were to win most of the seats in the "tier one" districts alone, that'd be enough to hand them the House, where they need a net gain of 39 seats to take back the majority. If they were to pick off even some of the "tier two" seats, and hold the 10 districts that the NPR poll tested, they could add to the margin of their majority in the House after the elections.

Editor's Comment - an attempt by NPR to save their skins perhaps? With the GOP in charge of the purse strings in a mere few weeks, could NPR be on the chopping block? Let's hope so.

From Eric Dondero:

Fiscal conservative/Tea Party favorite Jaime Herrara has jumped out to a substantial lead in the Democrat-controlled district in southwestern Washington State.

SurveyUSA:

Open Seat in WA-03: Republican Herrera Still Atop Democratic Heck, Poised for Take-Away, Days Before Voting Begins: In an election for US House of Representatives in Washington State's 3rd Congressional District today, 10/13/10, Republican Jaime Herrera defeats Democrat Denny Heck 53% to 42%, according to this latest SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for KING-TV Seattle.

Jaime Herrera (R) 53%
Denny Heck (D) 42%

Herrera is up one point, Heck down one point from the previous poll.

From Eric Dondero:

An interesting photo of our friend Roger Stone appears at (Albany) Capitol Confidential. Roger gets "face-licked" by a semi-nude painted-breasts woman.

Roger expresses his distance from Carl Paladino on sexual freedom issues.

Stone has been an adviser to Carl Paladino’s campaign efforts, and Paladino said Monday that the parade is “disgusting.”

We found this blog item about the Heritage of Pride parade this year, which featured political consultant Roger Stone marching with Kristin Davis.

Yeah I marched with KRISTIN DAVIS in the Gay Pride Parade. Proud of it,” he wrote. “I’m a libertarian Republican. I support Marriage Equality.”

KristinDavis2010.com

Photo above is of a previous march with Kristin Davis. The woman with Roger Stone in the other photo is on Davis's right.

LR FOLLOW-UP

From Eric Dondero:

Yesterday, our story on the Maine Republican State Senator whose sign was vandalized with an Anti-Semitic slur went viral. We were picked up, excerpted and linked by Memeorandum, RightwingNews.com, TheOtherMcCain, Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit, Dan Riehl, Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs, and even Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller. Tim Daniels, a contributor to LR, and publisher of Left Coast Rebel was inspired to do some digging.

He came up with photos of the vandalized sign. The sign reads "Jew Pig." The other side of the side reads "ZOG" a clear reference to Zionist Occupation Government. Note - Augusta where the vandalism took place and other Maine communities such as Lewiston and Portland, have significant Islamic fundamentalist communities.

Meanwhile, it's being reported by As Maine Goes... blog that the Maine Attorney General's office is now investigating the matter as a Hate Crime.