Governing through Reason
A House Divided: August 23 Edition
The Republican and Democratic conventions will occupy much of our interest for the next two weeks, so I want to take this opportunity to check in on the House races and see if anything is different since our August 6 update.
Short version: not much has changed.
The Cook Political Report’s Competitive House Race chart seems to be out of commission, or perhaps hidden behind a paywall now. I still have access to the Cook race changes, and there’s not much difference from last report. One less race is competitive (was 91, now 90) according to Cook. The Democrats have picked up one more Likely D and one Likely R has moved into safe territory.
This report, I’m comparing Cook to Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball (last updated July 11), and The New York Times (last updated date unclear). There’s also race reports at the National Journal’s Hotline (updated July 18).
The House now stands at 191 Democrats, 240 Republicans, with four vacant seats (two from each party).
After the jump, I’ve made a graphic comparing Cook, Sabato and the New York Times.
Related Articles
- Cook Political Report moves Missouri from “toss up” to “likely Democrat”; Update: Romney, Scott Walker call on Akin to quit (hotair.com)
- Todd Akin skips withdrawal deadline, stays in Senate race (latimes.com)
- How safe is the GOP House majority? (politico.com)
- Favorites headed to victory in four U.S. state primary elections (reuters.com)
- Democrats’ nerves start to show as Ryan fires up conservative voters (guardian.co.uk)
- A House Divided (logarchism.com)
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#2 written by rgbact 9 months ago
Yes Fili–
It is interesting to compare how incumbents are faring vs. people’s general disgust.The Senate is a mixed bag for incumbents.….Obama appears to be hanging in.….and the House appears to be better for incumbents than one would expect. Voters seem to have run out of people to blame or they have no good options left. I’m generally surprised a 3rd party hasn’t emerged. Seemed like the best year ever for it.
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@rgb… Voters seem to have run out of people to blame or they have no good options left.
You know, I get exactly the same feeling. People are just so exhausted and disillusioned. They’re tired of the fighting, tired of being scared and depressed and uncertain, tired of politics overall.
I suspect what we are going to see this time around is significantly lower turnout, and that makes the whole thing a “known unknown.” All bets are off, really, and polls aren’t even that meaningful, because I don’t think we even know who tends to have the advantage in a low-turnout election year.
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filistro,
What’s happening, in part, is that people don’t like Congress, but they love their own representative. I’m in that boat — Keith Ellison is one of the few bright lights among a chamber full of dim bulbs.
This is, by the way, precisely the mood Republicans have been trying to achieve. They loves them some anger at gubmint, but they want their own constituents to love them. They want a lack of enthusiasm, since enthusiasm is most often caused by anger, and an angry electorate is more likely to kick out the incumbents — and Republicans currently hold a majority in the House.
This is where the “pox on both your houses!” and all the false-equivalence rhetoric comes in — making sure the blame for the current broken government falls on both parties, when in fact, it was intentionally engineered by Republicans and their strategy of obstructionism. As convincingly documented in Michael Grunwald’s The New New Deal, Republicans intentionally did what they could to shut down the machinery of government, and to prevent any of Obama’s major policies from being enacted. Their theory is that if things got better, the public would, as it normally does, reëlect most incumbents (and that includes elected Republicans) — whereas if things got worse, Republicans could blame it on the Democrats. And in any case, voters would be turned off by the negativity, shut out what was really going on, and only the most rabid hardcore extremists would remain active.
To a great extent, they succeeded in their plot, but they don’t have a viable presidential candidate to take advantage of the disaster they’ve created.
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filistro,
When approval of Congress is in single digits, how can there only be half a dozen seats changing hands? Is incumbency really such an advantage? Or maybe it’s just the awesome power of gerrymandering.
It’s both, but more the gerrymandering than anything else. Consider this: most Representatives run unopposed. A huge number run against token opposition, in districts that are gerrymandered to guarantee one party the seat. It’s hard for any of those to change hands.
And what sort of national dynamic does it take to create a “wave” election?
Anger and/or disgust directed at one party. This explains the Republican model this round of heavy tu quoque. As long as they can cast the discussion as “it’s both parties’ fault”, it counters a potential Democratic wave.
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#6 written by channelclemente 9 months ago
I haven’t digested the entirety of the article, but in looking carefully the first figure, I was struck by how different those probabilities are than the electoral college odds as shown on 538. Anyone care to speculate on how much much of the difference is due to gerrymandering congressional district lines?
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/
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channelclemente,
Anyone care to speculate on how much much of the difference is due to gerrymandering congressional district lines?
I’d say most of it. That’s an easy conclusion at which to arrive, considering that we just had a new round of redistricting and more states have Republican legislatures than have Democratic legislatures.
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#8 written by channelclemente 9 months ago
Weiss,
I know here in CA, a test case could be made for the harm gerrymandering does on both sides of the isle. GOP and Dem districts have pretty much all been manipulated into safe districts. The proposition process, meant to be a rare event, has become the major means by which most high impact legislation is made. You’d think after the disaster of Prop 13 in the late 1970s, and the vast panoply of unintended consequences it yielded, folks would have learned. It’s done nothing to raise the stock of the concept of ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’.
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channelclemente,
I know here in CA, a test case could be made for the harm gerrymandering does on both sides of the isle. GOP and Dem districts have pretty much all been manipulated into safe districts.
Indeed they have. They’re pretty much all safe, though the balance of red and blue is much better than in, say, Texas. Outside of New England, Republican states are far more heavily biased toward Republican Representatives than Democratic states are toward Democratic Representatives. You can see what I mean in this map.
The proposition process, meant to be a rare event, has become the major means by which most high impact legislation is made. You’d think after the disaster of Prop 13 in the late 1970s, and the vast panoply of unintended consequences it yielded, folks would have learned.
Cart before horse. Proposition 13 forced the initiative process to the fore by stripping so much power away from the legislature.
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Speaking of “The Wisdom of Crowds”… everywhere you go on the Internet, it has become settled wisdom that there is a massive liberal bias in the media. Conservatives hold this handy whipping boy to blame for everything from Romney’s invisible tax returns to Todd Akin’s all-too-visible opinions. Even at so-called “smart” conservative sites like National Review, the whining and bellyaching is just enedless. “Wah wah sniffle… the Lamestream Media is so mean to us! No wonder we look bad when all they do is badmouth us and talk up liberals all day long!”
In fcat, a study just released by the 4th Estate project shows a significant bias toward conservatives in coverage of the 2012 election.
“The myth of the liberal media empowers conservatives to control debate in the United States to the point where liberals cannot even hope for a fair shake anymore,” says Eric Alterman.
The infographic released today by The 4th Estate
indicates that this conservative strategy is succeeding. “Our data
clearly shows that if the mainstream media does have a liberal bias,
that bias isn’t manifesting itself in the current campaign,” says Max Krieg, a 4th Estate Strategic Media Analyst. “In fact, the data shows that Republicans are quoted 44% more than Democrats, and the coverage of Mitt Romney is significantly less negative than coverage of Barack Obama.” -
#11 written by rgbact 9 months ago
Fili–
That study appears pretty weak. When outfits like Media Matters start ripping on the likes of CNN or CBS for various issues, I’ll believe the bias is equal. Just went to Media Matters website. The entire thing appears dedicated to Fox News. That basically proves that Fox is really the only conservative bias going. 4th estate would do far better counting the charges of bias by each side from sources other than Fox or MSNBC, which people already assume are biased sources.
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#13 written by channelclemente 9 months ago
Weiss,
whether you think proposition 13 fell out of Pandora’s box or was used to open it, it certainly is open. Michael, any question about whether you’re a splitter or lumper is now clear.
On another note/aside, A host of previously private Romney financial documents have fallen (?) into the public domain. Some of them germaine to strategy in his investment are particularly interesting.
http://gawker.com/5933641 the list
http://gawker.com/5933641 investment strategy
If you’re inclined, enjoy the tour of Delaware and the Cayman Islands. I would suspect tonight and tomorrow, a lot will be said. The route to the light of day was via the British press, The Guardian.
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#14 written by channelclemente 9 months ago
fillistro,
I’m not sure what bias means in the straight news. When you are unable to get a simple question answered as a reporter and repeat it, you’re called bias, if you ask a third time, you’re a hack.. In any case, since most news seems to be targetted at capturing a narrative upon which the occasional factoid can be draped, it’s protecting that narrative that seems the focus of most journalism.
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@cc… I’m not sure what bias means in the straight news.
As far as I can gather from an exhaustive study of conservative sites, their complaints of media bias seem to arise chiefly from their perception of editorial decisions about what to cover, and how much. When Obama does something stupid that doesn’t get as much coverage as they would like, they will howl “If Romney did that, the press would be talking about nothing else for weeks.” Conversely, if the press covers idiotic stuff from a Todd Akin or a Sarah Palin, they will unfailingly whine that “if a Democrat says something like that, you never even hear about it from the media.”They are so deep in the persecution-and-denial complex that presenting them with facts does no good at all. They are, for instance, completely incapable of remembering that gaffes like “bitter clingers” and the sermons of Jeremiah Wright played in endless media loops for weeks on end. When facts interfere with the conservative persecution complex and their frothing grievance with the media, the facts get thrown overboard without a moment’s hesitation.
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There isn’t any doubt 1) Republicans complain about the media, and 2) the media as a collective has a conservative bias.
It really made me laugh to hear Akin’s problems attributed to “the liberal media,” when people like Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, the Republican National Committee, Crossroads GPS, and other such bastions of liberalism were calling for Akin to get out of the race.
What’s happened, I think, is that Republicans now honestly believe “media” is pronounced “lib-ruul-mee-deyah,” and aren’t aware it used to be two words. That, and they have a victim complex.
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#18 written by channelclemente 9 months ago
You seem to me remarkably skilled in pointing out a difference without a distinction from time to time, Michael. It’s your flexibility that I admire. Its like when you walk the dog on a leash, an argument can be made about who’s walking who, or is it whom. ‘Smiling’.
As to proposition 13, its intent may have been to ‘force power out of government hands’, but what it did was move control of CA schools and the property tax base to Sacramento from local goverment. One could argue, I suppose, that it helped those elderly citizens who carried the day in 1979 (?) in the near term with their tax burden, but upon their death and properties sale, the taxes were levied on the sales price. Since people have these problems with death and such, the CA populace in their aggregate wisdom forgot that the refineries (as an example) didn’t. So that sort of commercial property is currently valued at a miniscule fraction of its value, circa 1979. No matter what valuation might have been negotiated in the interim without Prop 13, I dare say a lot of needed tax income was lost. Another interesting development, the next generation discovered was that since the money was in Sacramento, so was control of the public school systems. As a consequence of the political kabuki dance in the state capital that ensued, CA schools, arguably the best in the nation in the 1960-70s, are worse than those in Mississippi today.
IMO, direct democracy is a sham and a disaster, and a bad substitute for demanding good goverance from elective officials. The initiative process was created in CA to deal with mining and railroad power and not elected officials of questionable competence. After all, the people who elected those persons, also voted for the initiative process. Not much of a model for wisdom begatting wisdom, it seems to me.
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#19 written by channelclemente 9 months ago
dc,
I don’t see most of the media as inherently conservative, I just think conservatives are better at creating the narrative the media hangs its stories on. Edward Bernays created the formula for controlling the narrative, and many a despot and Republican has utilized it. He felt if you controlled the narrative, you controlled the truth. Since he successfully advised such historical luminaries Adolph Hitler, American Tobacco Co., Calvin Coolidge and United Fruit, it must work. Who would have thought Sigmund Freud’s nephew would coin the term ‘banana republic’ in service to United Fruit Co. and the CIA.
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I don’t see most of the media as inherently conservative
I do. It’s not their fault. Most large media outlets are owned by enormous corporations. It’s in their interest to snuggle up to politicians and political movements that will feed them money. That’s what a for-profit corporation does — strive to make profit.
Since the big-business big-money interests are in bed with the social conservatives who are in bed with the religious right who are in bed with the fiscal whackjobs who are in bed with the tricorn hat people who are in bed with the anti-civil rights throwbacks, its sort of inevitable that the big media will have a conservative — or at least, what passes for “conservative” these days, which is off-the-wall Republican — bias.
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#21 written by channelclemente 9 months ago
dc,
I suppose much of what you say true, but I’m not sure how dominant an issue it is or has to be. Conservatives just are better at planting the narrative or meme that news organizations follow in a story. No serious person believes climate change isn’t real, even the conservatives, but there have been few voices saying how really ignorant such a position is. Liberals, moderates, or if you will, rational people who inhabit the otherworld or middle class need to force the Democrats to be that effective. It’s no longer enough, IMO, to simply rely on common sense in the electorate. For christ sake, 50–60 % don’t believe in evolution.
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@cc…I don’t see most of the media as inherently conservative, I just
think conservatives are better at creating the narrative the
media hangs its stories on.
I pretty much agree with both halves of that statement. I don’t think the media is particularly “anything,” other than a business. They have no particular interest in a message or an ethos, they are only interested in ears and eyeballs. They need to attract and keep viewers so they can sell the advertising minutes which allow them to make money and stay in business.I do believe the conservative message sells better, even when people don’t agree with it, and I actually spend quite a lot of time pondering why that might be. I think the marketing appeal in the conservative message is probably the fact that it is largely visceral, while liberalism tends toward the cerebral.
Outrage is more entertaining than economics. Pugnaciousness has more mass appeal than philosophy. Sanctimony and sentiment are more generally popular than seriousness. And so it goes.
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#24 written by Mainer 9 months ago
Why isn’t that just ducky. We are quite likely about to have a government based on the lowest common demonitors. S T U P I D I T Y, B I GOTRY, AND RACISIM. and I leave out S E X ISM, H O M O P H O BIA and a natural trend to F A S C IS M. Isn’t that just ducky. I hope all the lame brains that vote Republican lose every thing and end up slaves.
Fili, not easy to pull up stakes after ones family has been here since 1635 but it is now looking more likely. PEI is a lovely place. Thank goodness my wife has family there.
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channelclemente, channeling his Inner Canadian, asserted:
No serious person believes climate change isn’t real, even the conservatives
According to my friend Scotty:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters finds that 64% say global warming is at least a somewhat serious problem, including 30% who say it’s Very Serious.
One-in-three voters (33%) believe climate change is not a serious problem, with 14% who feel it’s Not At All Serious.Interestingly, among my Canadian friends, only 2 percent do not believe in climate change.
Thereby proving that Canadians are 7 times more serious than people from the United States.
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#28 written by rgbact 9 months ago
“No serious person believes climate change isn’t real”
No serious person uses the argument “no serious person believes”. Sure sign of a partisan hack. I suppose no serious people believe in Keynesian economics though.
“2) the media as a collective has a conservative bias”
Again,you need to provide specific evidence, else your just on another “corporations are evil” rant. Most conservatives point to specific incidences when they refer to media bias.I will visit Media Matters this week (bravely) and try to document how many non-Fox articles they post. I doubt its that many.
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#29 written by BritinSeattle 9 months ago
Frequent lurker, first time commenting (I used to read voraciously and occasionally comment on the old FiveThirtyEight).
A couple of observations from a Brit who has been living the past six years in the US and is fascinated and appalled by US politics and the US news media in pretty much equal measure.
Firstly, it does seem to me that the US media does show a conservative bias, not because necessarily stemming from any policy decisions at the top, but because the Republicans are so good at concerted indignation and outrage. Relatively minor media criticisms of the Republicans are greeted with such a shitstorm of outrage that the temptation to keep schtum and do anything for a quiet life must be overwhelming at times. On the contrary some quite heinous lies and criticisms of the Democrats can be repeated without fear of concerted repercussions, and so of course they are.
I also believe the media here has a another very dangerous bias, which is rarely explored; and that is towards keeping races competitive at any price. I don’t believe the TV companies care who wins, all that’s important is keeping the races CLOSE. They have to, both for enhanced ratings AND for all the juicy advertising dollars. Any sort of lopsided race is anathema to them and I sometimes think they’ll do or say anything to make races seem closer than they actually are.
In comparison the British TV companies, who have absolutely no skin in the political advertising game, can afford to be far less sensationalist, except for the few weeks before an election when they care about ratings.
As an aside I do often wonder what would happen to the political landscape in the US if, as in much of Europe, political TV advertising was banned. Campaign finance, lobbying and the news media would be utterly and totally revolutionised. Not that it would ever happen of course.
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#30 written by rgbact 9 months ago
On the contrary some quite heinous lies and criticisms of the
Democrats can be repeated without fear of concerted repercussions,
and so of course they are.Welcome. Can you provide a recent example. I”m really trying to see this conservative bias you all speak of.
and that is towards keeping races competitive at any price
I’ll give you that one.The horse race mentality is strong– in polls and in general. Hey,people like their politics somewhat entertaining too. Maybe not in Europe.
if, as in much of Europe, political TV advertising was banned.
We’d be as screwed up as Europe? Ok,sorry about that. People seem to like free speech in the US though.
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BritinSeattle,
Welcome, and thanks for joining.See, all you lurkers! We don’t bite. Much.
Seattle is a fine city. And being so far north, residents got an earlier warning about global warming. Weather hasn’t been “normal” for about a decade now. Cherries in bloom in early February…
But, of course, it’s all been a liberal plot. I just want to know what the liberals have been doing to get those early blooms.
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@Brit… welcome! I can’t tell you how much I loved your post. As a Canadian who spends a lot of time in the US and suffers the culture shock of going from one media market to the other, I was nodding agreement with everything you said (and yelling “Yes! Yes! YES!!!” like Meg Ryan.
).…not because necessarily stemming from any policy decisions at the
top, but because the Republicans are so good at concerted
indignation and outrage.Yes, yes…
Any sort of lopsided race is anathema to them and I sometimes think
they’ll do or say anything to make races seem closer than they
actually are.
Oh, YES!!!Sometimes I feel like I’d give anything to hear an American news anchor say (as they frequently will in Canada)… “Polls show that the race is more or less a foregone conclusion. Harper’s conservatives have this one nicely in hand, with almost a month to go until we take to the polls. Moving on to other news.…”)
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#34 written by shortchain 9 months ago
In an increasingly complex and shaded world, where it’s becoming ever harder to distinguish, among the shades of gray, which is darker, it’s a lot simpler and easier to sell a vision of black and white to people who can’t afford to spend the time — or aren’t capable of it — to make their own judgments.
Simple is easier to sell. A horse race is easier to understand than an election. And yes, the right wing has developed bullying to a fine art. Say something that raises their hackles, and they’ll work themselves up into a spitting fit. They don’t like to even hear nuance.
And the basis for all this is that it’s been a very long time since it actually mattered that much whether it was a Democrat or a Republican who inhabited the WH, or who had the majority in Congress — there were shadings in the precise way compromises were structured, but the good of the country came before the good of the base — and a lot of people haven’t caught up to the fact that the current GOP is not their father’s GOP, but rather a changeling from some alternate right-wing universe.
And when people do catch on, it won’t be the comfortable news media, who are doing alright, thank you, who catch on early.
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#35 written by rgbact 9 months ago
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#38 written by Max 9 months ago
fili,
“ Jeez, rgb. I just provided you with an entire study on the topic! What more do you want? ”
Perhaps that you sit him on your knee, read it to him, and explain all those difficult parts that don’t have pictures.
And AGAIN rgbact asks SOMEONE to write an article! I note that HIS typing fingers aren’t broken, even if his Google key may be.
As a reminder, comment #27 from the “Caterpillars” thread.
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#39 written by rgbact 9 months ago
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Don’t worry, rgbact, it’ll be a LONG time before liberals catch up to you guys. Mud still has a favorite slinger. (I’ve now got this image in my head of Paul Ryan dressed as a cowboy and pulling a handful of mud from his holster. Too bad the Golden Age of Mudslingers is still with us. Do we need a real showdown at the Not-OK Corral?)
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@rgb… sorry, dear. We truly don’t mean to insult you. In fact, we all love you… your posts probably generate more interesting responses than anybody else at the blog.
But you must realize it’s terribly frustrating when you say stuff like this…Again,you need to provide specific evidence, else your just on
another “corporations are evil” rant. Most conservatives point to
specific incidences when they refer to media bias.
Don’t you see, that’s the whole problem! Pointing to a ’”specific incident”… like when Rachel Maddow says something mean about Reince Preibus, whom she enjoys mocking.… is not an indicator of pervasive media bias. A real indicator of media bias is the study I linked to which shows, using charts, graphs and references, that Republicans are quoted in the media 44% more often than Democrats… or that negative references to Romney are reported significantly fewer times across all media than similar negative references to Obama.THAT is a confirmation of conservative media bias. “Specific incidents,” OTOH, mean exactly… well.. bupkus.
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#42 written by Max 9 months ago
rgbact,
Quite frankly, I would RATHER NOT resort to insults. But when you post comments that are so easily disproved with a couple of keystrokes, when you spout talking points, when you constantly ask OTHERS to do research that you should do, when you make claims similar to what fili just chided you about, AND you do it consistently, then you are insulting the good folks here who DO act in an honest and deliberate manner, putting some originality and thought into what they write.
I, and others, have BEGGED you to do the same and quit the lackadaisical comments for a LONG time. But you travel the same road in spite of the pleas.
As I have told Mule, you choose the path on which we walk.
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#43 written by rgbact 9 months ago
Thanks Fili for an actual thoughtful response. Yeah, I like tangible examples.…random studies just doesn’t cut it. I guess conservative bias just comes in different forms than liberal bias. Booking more conservative guests vs. say accusing shooters of being Teapartiers.
I agree that many have gotten reflexive with the “liberal media” charge. CNN for instance seems to have improved. I thought people ripping on Candy Crowley for moderating the debates was way out of line.
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accusing shooters of being Teapartiers.
Wow. A single mass shooting, in which there was speculation by a handful of people for perhaps a couple of hours that maybe the shooter had right-wing tendencies, and you try to make that into an example of liberal bias. Meanwhile, there still are nutcakes out there pushing the birther meme, for years, and media outlets, as often as not, report it as “New questions have surfaced…” rather than “Yet another insane nutbat speaks out…” which would at least be accurate.
Here are some examples of media bias. We’re hearing a lot about the sequester of military funds that is scheduled to kick in come January 2013. The number $55 billion has been mentioned a lot. Do you know how much military spending is actually going to be cut on Jan 1?
And a second part of that — This sequester of military funds is only half the story. What’s the other half? How often do you hear about it?
Third question, for bonus points — Why is the sequester happening? Romney and Ryan are claiming that it’s a case of President Obama cutting the military budget. Is that accurate?
And here’s another question, unrelated to the first three (it’s a two-parter) — From what you hear in the media, has President Obama raised taxes during his first term, or lowered taxes? and … Has federal spending increased or decreased during President Obama’s first term?
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@rgb… I agree that many have gotten reflexive with the “liberal media”
charge. CNN for instance seems to have improved. I thought people
ripping on Candy Crowley for moderating the debates was way out
of line.See there, now that’s the rgb I’ve always been so fond of.
The problem as I see it is that politics particularly in the US has truly descended to the level of a sporting event, where the guys on the other team are all nasty cheating bums and thugs, while the guys on our side are gentlemanly princes with a Tebow-style direct line to the Almighty (and He incidentally wears a team jersey.)
This kind of rabid partisanship leaves little room for even-handed examinations of media fairness, or thoughtful objective analysis of any kind.
I almost expect to see attendees at the conventions with painted faces, beer cans in hand and hairy bare bellies tattooed with donkeys or elephants.
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#46 written by rgbact 9 months ago
“See there, now that’s the rgb I’ve always been so fond of”
Amazing what happens when you don’t insult people. I suppose “liberal media” is a reflexive defensive mechanism, just like “raaaacist” is for the left. When in doubt, its always a good goto.
“The problem as I see it is that politics particularly in the US has truly descended to the level of a sporting event,”
Well,I figure if thats what it takes to get people interested,maybe its not all bad. Comedy is also a big medium for politics, but hey if people get their news by watching the Daily Show, maybe its better than nothing. Course it offends us purists.
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Romney makes a birther joke in Michigan this morning. Freepers are thrilled.
Sane people, not so much.
What a baffling bonehead, unforced error. This is a guy who never, ever fails to step in the doggy-doo, even when his handlers are trying to steer him around it.
As if the convention coverage wasn’t already going to be overwhelmed with “legitimate rape” and “no exceptions” talk. Now it’s going to be seething with birtherism, too. Maybe Romney is trying to drive his personal approval numbers down far enough to match Congress?
A total headshaker. Wow.
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rgbact,
Yeah, I like tangible examples.…random studies just doesn’t cut it.
Tangible examples, however, are useless as evidence of a trend. If I say it’s cold in Minnesota, you can point to literally dozens of days a year that indicate that every city in Minnesota is much warmer than, say, San Francisco. Does that mean that Minnesota isn’t generally a particularly cold state?
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#49 written by shortchain 9 months ago
Michael,
Does that mean that Minnesota isn’t generally a particularly cold state?
Hey! We’re not cold, we’re cool! And this summer we’re not even that, although, relative to the hell that most of the west and southwest are enjoying this summer, you may not think so. But the dew point at this instant is in the mid-60s, which is uncomfortable, and the temperature is pushing 90.
You know, of course, that in any change there are winners and losers. Minnesota is predicted to get a somewhat moister, more temperate climate. Which will be nice in the winter, and I won’t miss those days when the temperature doesn’t rise to 15 below, but it carries a penalty: we’re seeing pests we haven’t had problems with. I expect the boll weevil any day to show up and start going after the cottonwood trees…
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This really baffles me. When approval of Congress is in single digits, how can there only be half a dozen seats changing hands? Is incumbency really such an advantage? Or maybe it’s just the awesome power of gerrymandering.
And what sort of national dynamic does it take to create a “wave” election? I can’t understand why there was a wave election in 2010 but apparently nobody expects anything similar in 2012, despite the truly foul mood that is abroad in the nation.