Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (372590)	7/12/2010 4:29:19 PM
From: SmoothSail	3 Recommendations Respond to of 793597

It's gonna get ugly. Open season. They know they won't be prosecuted now.

To: longnshort who wrote (372590)	7/12/2010 4:29:21 PM
From: average joe	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793597

Yikes! A 50-Foot Nancy Pelosi youtube.com And other scare tactics for the November elections. A preview of the “fun” to come. As the November election inches closer, conservatives are offering a preview of a major strategy with an ad portraying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a 50-foot monster hellbent on destroying small-town America in a taxpayer-money-devouring rage. The Pelosi-hating campaign isn’t new, of course; the Republican National Committee launched the Fire Pelosi Web site the day of the health-care vote. But the anti-Nancy campaign seems to be picking up steam. The polls partially explain why. A Gallup/USA Today poll from March found that 36 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the speaker, while 54 percent have an unfavorable opinion. For all the fire that Republicans and the Tea Party lob at President Obama, his approval ratings are significantly higher (48 percent in the latest NEWSWEEK poll). But Pelosi’s success as speaker also explains the big target on her forehead. Despite tough opposition, Pelosi succeeded in getting the president’s health-care-reform package through Congress, and more recently, the financial-reform bill. As Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post writes, “her infamy among conservatives is partly the product of her often-imperious manner, a rougher media culture, and a superheated political climate. But it is also a backhanded acknowledgment of how effective she has been.” Gail Collins of the The New York Times, in a piece called the “The Age of Nancy,” said, “The Republicans have turned Pelosi into the Demon Grandmother” even as she “seems utterly indifferent to the endless public pummeling.” Matt Smith of SF Weekly’s blog offered a harsher critique of the Pelosi-monster ad, saying that while entertaining “the ad smacks of Republican desperation.” And the fact that it calls upon voters to vote against liberal San Francisco in favor of a candidate in Pennsylvania, “channels the idea that the poor local sap has nothing going for him other than antipathy for the sensibilities of a far-off city,” Smith adds. Desperate or not, the Fire Nancy site raised more than $1.5 million in less than a week. And another new ad, launched by the National Republican Congressional Committee, blasted Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), chair of the House Budget Committee, as “Nancy Pelosi’s Budget Chair.” The Pelosi haters are just getting started.

To: longnshort who wrote (372590)	7/12/2010 11:49:23 PM
From: FJB	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793597

JULY 13, 2010. Tea Party and the Path to Power By GERALD F. online.wsj.com Here are two big questions hovering over this year's congressional elections: How radical is the mood out there, and do Republicans have a real chance of taking back control of the U.S. Senate? And here's a simple way to track the answer to both: Simply keep an eye on four tea-party amigos chasing Senate seats in the key states of Nevada, Kentucky, Florida and Colorado. In those four states, candidates with tea-party inclinations and the support of tea-party activists have either won the Republican nomination or, in Colorado and Florida, are making serious runs for it. A couple of those candidates are people who would have been given little chance six months ago of winning a nomination, much less a general election. In each case, Democrats and some outside analysts think Republicans may be shooting themselves in the foot by nominating candidates who can be painted as extremists with conservative views outside the mainstream, in a year when simply nominating safe, garden-variety Republicans would be good enough to win. But are these candidates really going to be a drag for Republicans? Or are they canaries in the national coal mine, telling us that the disenchantment, fear and anger that have developed in the wake of the worst economic recession in 75 years are driving voters to seek out-of-the-box candidates and ideas they wouldn't have embraced before? Those questions are being tested in Kentucky by Rand Paul, ophthalmologist, political novice and son of libertarian Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. In Nevada, it's former state representative Sharron Angle who has won the nomination by pushing a brash populist message. In a Colorado race that's gotten less attention nationally than it deserves, Ken Buck, a little-known former county prosecutor who made a mark by targeting illegal aliens for prosecution, is challenging Republican establishment favorite and former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. And in Florida, conservative former state House Speaker Marco Rubio marshaled enough energy from tea-party supporters to drive Gov. Charlie Crist out of the GOP nomination fight and into a candidacy as an independent. Both Florida and Colorado have August primaries; Mr. Rubio is virtually certain to win the nomination, and Mr. Buck is rising fast. What's interesting about these four is that they are running in states where it isn't obvious that a hard-edged, tea-party conservative approach is a winner. Instead, each state hangs in the balance between the two parties this year, making them especially good testing grounds. They also happen to be test cases crucial to the national political balance of power. The Cook Political Report, a well-respected independent newsletter that tracks congressional races, rates all four Senate races as toss-ups in November. So far this election cycle, most attention has been focused on Republicans' chances of taking back control of the House, which appears a much easier feat than winning the Senate. But increasingly Republicans think winds are blowing so strongly in their direction that they have at least a shot at taking the Senate as well. If Republicans are to pull off that trick, though, they may well have to win all four states where the tea-party amigos are running strong. A quick look at the math explains why. Republicans need to pick up 10 Senate seats now held by Democrats to win full control of the Senate. They appear to be leading in North Dakota, Delaware and Indiana, states where incumbent Democrats are retiring and the Republicans appear to be on the rise. That would leave the GOP needing seven seats. To get there, they would first need to avoid losing any of the five seats of their own where the incumbent Republican is retiring and where Democrats have a reasonable chance of turning the seat their way. That list includes Kentucky and Florida, as well as Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio. If Republicans hold onto those, their best shot then would require picking up all six seats where the Democrats' hold appears shaky—a list that includes Nevada and Colorado, as well as Washington, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Arkansas. After all that, Republicans would still have to find at least one more state where a safer Democratic seat could be put into play, such as Connecticut, California or someplace else. The bottom line, then, is that it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Republicans pull off a surprise conquest of the Senate without winning at least three of the four states where tea-party candidates are surging. Tea-party activists insist they aren't linked to the Republican party. But at least on this important front, the Republican party, for better or worse, is linked to them.