What are the hottest races in the House for 2010? To get answers to that question, you need to visit Stuart Rothenberg at http://www.rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/. His December 3, 2009 column says the following about key House races:
There are two caveats that go with the list. First, there are strong arguments for including at least half a dozen other districts on the list. So, not being on this list doesn’t mean a contest is not extremely competitive. Second, since the midterm elections are still almost a year off, this list is likely to change significantly before November.
Louisiana’s 2nd: Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, the only Republican to vote for the House’s health care reform bill, had no business winning this majority-black district. He won only because of the timing of the 2008 elections and the unique problems of then-Rep. William Jefferson (D). This time, Democrats are likely to have an unindicted nominee, which should end Cao’s service in Congress at one term. Two state Representatives have already announced they are running. Expect a turnover.
Delaware’s At-Large: Rep. Mike Castle’s decision to run for Senate was great news for the National Republican Senatorial Committee but bad news for House Republicans. Former Lt. Gov. John Carney (D) was already running when Castle made his announcement, so Democrats have a serious candidate in the race. Since the state leans Democratic, Republicans will need to find a formidable nominee even to contest the seat seriously.
Louisiana’s 3rd: With Rep. Charlie Melancon (D) running for Senate, this open seat gives the GOP an excellent takeover opportunity. The district gave President Barack Obama only 37 percent of the vote in 2008, so the Republican nominee should benefit from normal midterm dynamics. Of course, with a late August primary, the race won’t shake out for months.
Virginia’s 5th: Freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D) seems more interested in doing what he thinks is right than getting re-elected. That’s the only way to explain his votes supporting House Democrats’ cap-and-trade and health care reform bills. State Sen. Robert Hurt (R) is expected to challenge Perriello, and the Congressman is in deep, deep trouble. Obama’s 48 percent showing last year in this district understates Perriello’s challenge next year.
Maryland’s 1st: Unlike Perriello, Rep. Frank Kratovil (D) has voted as if he is trying to be re-elected. But he barely scraped by Republican Andy Harris in an open-seat contest last time, and the midterm electorate will make his re-election bid more difficult. He has a chance to win another term, but the odds aren’t in his favor. Obama drew only 40 percent of the vote in the 1st in 2008.
Kansas’ 3rd: When Rep. Dennis Moore announced his retirement last week, Democratic prospects tanked. While Obama won this district with 51 percent, it generally leans Republican, and the open seat during a midterm election looks like a juicy GOP target.
Ohio’s 1st: Rep. Steve Driehaus (D) knocked off then-Rep. Steve Chabot (R) last year, and now Chabot is trying to return the favor. Expected lower turnout among Democratic core groups, especially younger voters and blacks, places this district at great risk even though Obama won it with 55 percent.
Ohio’s 15th: Freshman Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D) has many of the same problems — and the same challenges — that confront Driehaus in the state’s 1st district. Unlike Driehaus, Kilroy faces a rematch against an opponent who has never won district-wide. But former state Sen. Steve Stivers (R) should be a formidable foe.
Florida’s 8th: Rep. Alan Grayson (D), another freshman, has gone out of his way to be partisan and inflammatory. That’s a good way to raise money and attract the fawning admiration of liberal activists, but it isn’t the best way to get re-elected in this Republican-leaning district that went for Obama with 52 percent. The GOP doesn’t yet have a “name” challenger, and the party may never get one. But given Grayson’s recent behavior, they may not need one to take back this district after a single term.
New Mexico’s 2nd: Rep. Harry Teague faces former Rep. Steve Pearce (R), who gave up his seat in 2008 to run for Senate. Teague has tried to vote his district, but he isn’t being helped by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Obama, who drew 49 percent of the district’s vote in 2008. Definitely a midterm problem for Democrats.
New Hampshire’s 2nd: The Granite State has swung strongly Democratic of late — probably too strongly considering the state’s fundamentals. This open seat, and the likely candidacy of former Rep. Charles Bass (R), should give Republicans at least an even money chance of winning back the district during the midterm elections. But attorney Ann McLane Kuster, the early favorite for the Democratic nomination and the daughter of a former liberal Republican state legislator, should be a formidable standard-bearer for her party.
New York’s 23rd: Special election winner Rep. Bill Owens won his seat with less than 50 percent of the vote, and if Republicans find a nominee who can appeal to both conservatives and moderates, Owens will find himself in trouble. His first vote was for the House health care reform bill.
Tomorrow (New Year's Day), I'll be writing (and not for the last time) about what Republicans must do to take back the House of Representatives . . . and end Nancy Pelosi's tenure as Speaker of the House.
Showing posts with label MD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MD. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, March 24, 2008
BLACK CONSERVATIVE & OBAMA ENIGMA
I will be posting a new column later today (Tuesday, about 5 p.m.) but for now I want to keep featuring Lloyd Marcus' fascinating "Confessions" (scroll down a few lines). My next column will begin with the following quote from Martin Amis' satirical book called Money: "My theory is -- we don't really go that far into other people, even when we think we do. We hardly ever go in and bring them out. We just stand at the jaws of the cave, and strike a match, and quickly ask if anybody's there." What I've been trying recently is to "bring out" the real Barack Obama -- particularly to determine why says one thing in his books and something very different in his speeches and commercials. Who is Barack Obama? And does he even know the answer to that question?
Dear Friends: I hope you'll read Larry Perrault's fine essay titled, "Why Conservatives MUST Support John McCain." A Texan, Larry has been a strong and effective supporter of Mike Huckabee, but like the vast majority of people who "like Mike," he's now behind Senator McCain. You can find his piece at: http://larryperrault.blogspot.com.
Lloyd Marcus (above), then . . .
Here's a powerful autobiographical piece by an important Black conservative, Lloyd Marcus. Later today (Monday), I'll write below Lloyd's piece about how McCain must appeal to Black moderates and conservatives -- frankly, a huge group -- in his race for the presidency against Barack Obama. I met Lloyd on the Black Conservatives (Yahoo) Group. I urge everyone to join that group, whether you're a Black conservative or moderate or a supporter or that political group. I also urge people to back an allied group, The National Black Republicans Association. If John McCain can win 20% of the Black vote (rather than Republicans' usual 10%), he might carry 45 or more states in the general election.
A urine smell permeated the stairwell. In the darkness, due to smashed light bulbs, the sound of broken wine bottles underfoot echoed off the concrete walls. I was nine years old. With the elevators out of service half of the time due to vandalism, many times I was forced to take the scary trek into the shadow of death up the stairwell to our sixth floor apartment in the projects of East Baltimore.
This was a far cry from the brand spanking new building we moved into just two years earlier. I remember our excitement when my parents, three younger siblings and I moved in our apartment. It was a dream come true moving from our leaky roof ghetto into a place where everything including the appliances were new. We were one of the first in the eleven story all black residents building. While a few people kept their apartments lovely, most seemed committed to destroying the building.
All I kept hearing was that everything was the 'white man's fault'. Even at age nine, I sarcastically thought to myself, “how can we stop these evil white people from sneaking in here at night peeing in the stairwell, leaving broken wine bottles, smashing the light bulbs and attacking people?”.
My early experience living in the government project taught me that some folks simply have a ghetto mindset. I also witnessed the trap of government welfare. And why was so many around me angry and violent despite getting free housing, food and health care?
It was the late 50s when my dad was one of the first blacks to break the color barrier into the Baltimore Fire Dept. The sight of him in his crisp dress blue firefighter uniform made everyone proud, though none more than me. With dad's new job, the government raised our rent to $72. per month. I remember my dad saying, “Seventy-two dollars! They must be crazy. We're movin'!” We moved to a suburban black community. I truly believe I would not be who I am today had we stayed in the projects.
Several of my cousins stayed enslaved to the system and the bigotry of low expectations. Because true self esteem comes from personal achievement, they possessed very little. They lived angry and bitter lives consumed with serial impregnating, out of wedlock births and substance abuse. An outrageously high number died prematurely.
So when I hear politicians pandering to the so-called poor of America, it turns my stomach. I've witnessed the deterioration of the human spirit, wasted lives and suffering that happens when government becomes 'daddy'.
Lloyd Marcus
Deltona, FL
http://lloydmarcus.net/
The following is a comment by another Black conservative, Randy, on Obama's relationship with his America-hating pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright:
Pastor Wright's mentoring and advice to Obama can have policy effects that can damage the entire country, and possibly even damage the entire world.As for the excuse that Obama is "guilty by association", there is a simple way to fix that. Obama must disassociate, fully and completely and specifically regarding any anti-American policies or statements. No evasions, no weasel words, no equivocations, no moral equivalency.Unless, of course, Obama is only running for the Presidency of the angry blacks of America.It is an issue for many people, so it must be addressed. His choice.
--Randy
Dear Friends: I hope you'll read Larry Perrault's fine essay titled, "Why Conservatives MUST Support John McCain." A Texan, Larry has been a strong and effective supporter of Mike Huckabee, but like the vast majority of people who "like Mike," he's now behind Senator McCain. You can find his piece at: http://larryperrault.blogspot.com.
Lloyd Marcus (above), then . . .Here's a powerful autobiographical piece by an important Black conservative, Lloyd Marcus. Later today (Monday), I'll write below Lloyd's piece about how McCain must appeal to Black moderates and conservatives -- frankly, a huge group -- in his race for the presidency against Barack Obama. I met Lloyd on the Black Conservatives (Yahoo) Group. I urge everyone to join that group, whether you're a Black conservative or moderate or a supporter or that political group. I also urge people to back an allied group, The National Black Republicans Association. If John McCain can win 20% of the Black vote (rather than Republicans' usual 10%), he might carry 45 or more states in the general election.
Confessions of a Black Conservative
A urine smell permeated the stairwell. In the darkness, due to smashed light bulbs, the sound of broken wine bottles underfoot echoed off the concrete walls. I was nine years old. With the elevators out of service half of the time due to vandalism, many times I was forced to take the scary trek into the shadow of death up the stairwell to our sixth floor apartment in the projects of East Baltimore.
This was a far cry from the brand spanking new building we moved into just two years earlier. I remember our excitement when my parents, three younger siblings and I moved in our apartment. It was a dream come true moving from our leaky roof ghetto into a place where everything including the appliances were new. We were one of the first in the eleven story all black residents building. While a few people kept their apartments lovely, most seemed committed to destroying the building.
All I kept hearing was that everything was the 'white man's fault'. Even at age nine, I sarcastically thought to myself, “how can we stop these evil white people from sneaking in here at night peeing in the stairwell, leaving broken wine bottles, smashing the light bulbs and attacking people?”.
My early experience living in the government project taught me that some folks simply have a ghetto mindset. I also witnessed the trap of government welfare. And why was so many around me angry and violent despite getting free housing, food and health care?
It was the late 50s when my dad was one of the first blacks to break the color barrier into the Baltimore Fire Dept. The sight of him in his crisp dress blue firefighter uniform made everyone proud, though none more than me. With dad's new job, the government raised our rent to $72. per month. I remember my dad saying, “Seventy-two dollars! They must be crazy. We're movin'!” We moved to a suburban black community. I truly believe I would not be who I am today had we stayed in the projects.
Several of my cousins stayed enslaved to the system and the bigotry of low expectations. Because true self esteem comes from personal achievement, they possessed very little. They lived angry and bitter lives consumed with serial impregnating, out of wedlock births and substance abuse. An outrageously high number died prematurely.
So when I hear politicians pandering to the so-called poor of America, it turns my stomach. I've witnessed the deterioration of the human spirit, wasted lives and suffering that happens when government becomes 'daddy'.
Lloyd Marcus
Deltona, FL
http://lloydmarcus.net/
The following is a comment by another Black conservative, Randy, on Obama's relationship with his America-hating pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright:
Pastor Wright's mentoring and advice to Obama can have policy effects that can damage the entire country, and possibly even damage the entire world.As for the excuse that Obama is "guilty by association", there is a simple way to fix that. Obama must disassociate, fully and completely and specifically regarding any anti-American policies or statements. No evasions, no weasel words, no equivocations, no moral equivalency.Unless, of course, Obama is only running for the Presidency of the angry blacks of America.It is an issue for many people, so it must be addressed. His choice.
--Randy
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