Happy Birthday to Jessica Pare, 31.
And very quickly, some good stuff:
1. Barack Obama's speech on the economy -- which Ezra Klein calls his best on that subject.
2. Jamelle Bouie on the president's speech.
3. John Sides has a preliminary forecast for 2014 House elections.
4. Adrianna McIntyre on Medicaid.
5. And Brendan Nyhan on polarization.
Showing posts with label 2014 cycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014 cycle. Show all posts
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Charles Martin Smith, 60. The Toad. Also directed "Welcome to the Hellmouth," for which, as long-time readers might remember, he earned an appearance in my epic Reagan thing (which I do try to link back to every once in a while. I like it).
Well, whether you're in the mood for Reagan or not, surely you want some good stuff:
1. The Wall Street Journal really, really, really, shouldn't run op-eds by "expert" Suzanne Somers. Alex Seitz-Wald explains.
2. I think Andrew Sullivan basically gets it right on surveillance, including Obama's role to date -- although my view would be that all of it exploding on him this year suggests that he should have been more aggressive on it early, despite the likely short-term political fallout. In other words, while I have a fair amount of sympathy for a president who ducks an issue for (electoral) political reasons, I think the answer here is that the best political play was to find a way to take it on.
3. Marc Ambinder is also very good on intelligence, although I'm not really buying his Bill Clinton hook -- the rest of the column though is excellent.
4. The latest 2014 forecast from Alan Abramowitz.
5. An explainer about insurance cancellations, from Sarah Kliff.
6. And Chris Cillizza backs off his earlier comments about redistricting when presented with evidence. Excellent!
Well, whether you're in the mood for Reagan or not, surely you want some good stuff:
1. The Wall Street Journal really, really, really, shouldn't run op-eds by "expert" Suzanne Somers. Alex Seitz-Wald explains.
2. I think Andrew Sullivan basically gets it right on surveillance, including Obama's role to date -- although my view would be that all of it exploding on him this year suggests that he should have been more aggressive on it early, despite the likely short-term political fallout. In other words, while I have a fair amount of sympathy for a president who ducks an issue for (electoral) political reasons, I think the answer here is that the best political play was to find a way to take it on.
3. Marc Ambinder is also very good on intelligence, although I'm not really buying his Bill Clinton hook -- the rest of the column though is excellent.
4. The latest 2014 forecast from Alan Abramowitz.
5. An explainer about insurance cancellations, from Sarah Kliff.
6. And Chris Cillizza backs off his earlier comments about redistricting when presented with evidence. Excellent!
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Here Comes the "Special" Hype
The death last week of long-time Member of the House C.W. Bill Young last week means we're going to get something that this Congress has managed to put off so far: outrageous hype over a special election.
All House elections are important, and this Tampa-area one will be in one of the relatively rare competitive seats. So it will be an important election.
However, whenever it winds up being scheduled (with March 11 apparently the best guess so far) it will tell us nothing about the November 2014 elections, other than perhaps indicating what will happen in that district. It is not an early warning sign, or anything else. It's just one election.
Does it matter at all beyond the one election? Only to the extent that expectations of electoral swings can, in the right circumstances, become self-fulfilling prophesies. However, if this one does happen in March, then it's a little late to affect candidate recruitment (not all state filing deadlines are by then, but many are). And candidate recruitment is the biggest factor when it comes to "waves" created by elite-level self-fulfilling prophesies. Availability of other campaign resources can matter some, as can press coverage, probably, but those can change over the course of the year, so a single well-timed event is a lot less likely to affect them much.
Mostly, however, expect plenty of unjustified hype. Hey, reporters! Any chance you can avoid it this time?
All House elections are important, and this Tampa-area one will be in one of the relatively rare competitive seats. So it will be an important election.
However, whenever it winds up being scheduled (with March 11 apparently the best guess so far) it will tell us nothing about the November 2014 elections, other than perhaps indicating what will happen in that district. It is not an early warning sign, or anything else. It's just one election.
Does it matter at all beyond the one election? Only to the extent that expectations of electoral swings can, in the right circumstances, become self-fulfilling prophesies. However, if this one does happen in March, then it's a little late to affect candidate recruitment (not all state filing deadlines are by then, but many are). And candidate recruitment is the biggest factor when it comes to "waves" created by elite-level self-fulfilling prophesies. Availability of other campaign resources can matter some, as can press coverage, probably, but those can change over the course of the year, so a single well-timed event is a lot less likely to affect them much.
Mostly, however, expect plenty of unjustified hype. Hey, reporters! Any chance you can avoid it this time?
Friday, October 18, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Erin Moran, 53.
Good stuff
1. I absolutely agree with the premise of Ezra Klein's post: Democrats should give up on the goal of raising revenues. Trickier, however, is how to do that. But he's exactly right about this.
2. The latest on 2014, from David Wasserman. Very reasonable.
3. Sarah Binder's postmortem on the shutdown deal.
4. Paul Waldman is very good on the Robert Costa phenomenon.
5. And another good one from Ross Douthat on Boehner.
Good stuff
1. I absolutely agree with the premise of Ezra Klein's post: Democrats should give up on the goal of raising revenues. Trickier, however, is how to do that. But he's exactly right about this.
2. The latest on 2014, from David Wasserman. Very reasonable.
3. Sarah Binder's postmortem on the shutdown deal.
4. Paul Waldman is very good on the Robert Costa phenomenon.
5. And another good one from Ross Douthat on Boehner.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Mike Ivie, 61. The list of guys with a 152 OPS+ at age 26 who never exceeded 300 PA/year again (OK, 306) can't be all that long, can it? The bullpen article says that he had a hand injury before that 27 year old season. Maybe that was it.
Plenty of good stuff today:
1. Abby Rapoport's case for why Wendy Davis should run for governor.
2. First-term Members running for the Senate? Aaron Blake looks at the history.
3. Brian Beutler is largely correct about media bias and the ACA rollout.
4. The GOP shortage of women in Congress, from Sarah Mimms. She doesn't mention that they've already had a resignation since the 2012 election, plus a retirement (Bachmann).
5. Dan Larison isn't fully convinced by my case about Marco Rubio.
6. Philip Klein with the anti-Obamacare, anti-shutdown argument.
7. And more about media bias, from Riccardo Puglisi and James Snyder.
Plenty of good stuff today:
1. Abby Rapoport's case for why Wendy Davis should run for governor.
2. First-term Members running for the Senate? Aaron Blake looks at the history.
3. Brian Beutler is largely correct about media bias and the ACA rollout.
4. The GOP shortage of women in Congress, from Sarah Mimms. She doesn't mention that they've already had a resignation since the 2012 election, plus a retirement (Bachmann).
5. Dan Larison isn't fully convinced by my case about Marco Rubio.
6. Philip Klein with the anti-Obamacare, anti-shutdown argument.
7. And more about media bias, from Riccardo Puglisi and James Snyder.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
PunditPAC Signing Up To Contribute...
...to a possible Louie Gohmert primary challenge to John Cornyn.
Seriously, this would be pretty much the best thing since Christine O'Donnell. Gohmert would be certain to say nutty things Monday through Saturday and twice on Sundays, and he'd drive plenty of traffic to both Tea Party and liberal media. Hey, he'd probably even have his buddy Michele Bachmann campaign with him!
I don't really have anything else to say about it...well, only that I suppose one can't rule out the possibility that Gohmert could actually defeat Cornyn. At least there's probably some real differentiation between the two; Cornyn is a mainstream extremely conservative Republican, while Gohmert appears to be a raving lunatic. Given the choice, it's not immediately clear which way most Texas Republican primary voters would go.
All I know is: everyone who writes about politics or has TV shows or web sites or whatever devoted to politics, not to mention all political junkies, will now begin begging, begging, begging Gohmert to make this challenge. Also, of course, the Democratic Party -- even in Texas, I'd say that Gohmert against a generic Democrat is probably a toss-up, and I'd put my money on the Democrat.
Seriously, this would be pretty much the best thing since Christine O'Donnell. Gohmert would be certain to say nutty things Monday through Saturday and twice on Sundays, and he'd drive plenty of traffic to both Tea Party and liberal media. Hey, he'd probably even have his buddy Michele Bachmann campaign with him!
I don't really have anything else to say about it...well, only that I suppose one can't rule out the possibility that Gohmert could actually defeat Cornyn. At least there's probably some real differentiation between the two; Cornyn is a mainstream extremely conservative Republican, while Gohmert appears to be a raving lunatic. Given the choice, it's not immediately clear which way most Texas Republican primary voters would go.
All I know is: everyone who writes about politics or has TV shows or web sites or whatever devoted to politics, not to mention all political junkies, will now begin begging, begging, begging Gohmert to make this challenge. Also, of course, the Democratic Party -- even in Texas, I'd say that Gohmert against a generic Democrat is probably a toss-up, and I'd put my money on the Democrat.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Peter Bonerz, 75.
A bit of good stuff:
1. Brad DeLong: honest, classy. A mensch.
2. Stuart Rothenberg takes an early look at 2014 primary challenges.
3. Josh Marshall on the sale of the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos. I'm still mostly critical of the reporting of the sale because there wasn't enough emphasis on What It All Means for non-staff contributors to WaPo blogs.
4. And Scott Lemieux is absolutely correct about Alex Rodriguez in Texas.
A bit of good stuff:
1. Brad DeLong: honest, classy. A mensch.
2. Stuart Rothenberg takes an early look at 2014 primary challenges.
3. Josh Marshall on the sale of the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos. I'm still mostly critical of the reporting of the sale because there wasn't enough emphasis on What It All Means for non-staff contributors to WaPo blogs.
4. And Scott Lemieux is absolutely correct about Alex Rodriguez in Texas.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Ignore Those Polls! (Scandals and the Economy Edition)
There's a new Quinnipiac poll out with findings about scandalmania that are drawing attention, including a ranking of the scandals (respondents answered that the IRS scandal is more important than Benghazi or the AP stories) and something that sounds very nice at the moment for Democrats: by a large margin, respondents say that the economy is more important than the scandals.
Ignore those polls!
First: people are notoriously terrible about predicting how events will affect their votes, or even their future opinions. People may say that the economy is more important than scandals...but if scandals are in the news constantly, people will pay attention, and they could well affect vote choice even if in some abstract sense voters don't "think" they are important. What's more, constant news coverage -- if it continues -- will strongly signal that a scandal is important, and people will respond accordingly.
Second: the polling that really tells us something about voters and the scandals so far is already out, with the president's approval ratings holding steady over the last month (actually, Pollster's average has had Obama's approval ratings on a slow decline since the beginning of the year, but setting it to "less smoothing" shows that decline has decelerated since mid-March, and certainly no apparent new movement since the IRS thing broke). Here, the Q poll has a low Obama approval number of 45%, down three ticks from May 1, but as always the polling averages are more useful, and they've already told as that nothing's happening.
Third: So we know that unlike, say, Iran-Contra, the current scandalmania is not having a significant direct effect on the president's popularity. But we also know that absent new revelations, each of these stories will be ancient and forgotten by the time voters engage in the 2014 election cycle. Really, then, what's needed is good guesses about the scandals themselves, and voters aren't in a particularly good position to make those guesses.
In other words, if it turns out that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton secretly worked with zombie bin Laden to plan and carry out Benghazi, then nothing voters say now about the IRS story being more important, or the economy trumping any of the scandals, will matter. If on the other hand Benghazi continues to be about parsing the difference between terror attacks and terrorist attacks...well, we've long known that no one apart from dedicated partisans cares about it.
All in all, other than tossing another number into the approval averages, I think we're safe ignoring this stuff. Given that scandalmania isn't doing anything significant now, the way that people rank the individual stories or how they compare them to other vote factors just isn't telling us anything.
Ignore those polls!
First: people are notoriously terrible about predicting how events will affect their votes, or even their future opinions. People may say that the economy is more important than scandals...but if scandals are in the news constantly, people will pay attention, and they could well affect vote choice even if in some abstract sense voters don't "think" they are important. What's more, constant news coverage -- if it continues -- will strongly signal that a scandal is important, and people will respond accordingly.
Second: the polling that really tells us something about voters and the scandals so far is already out, with the president's approval ratings holding steady over the last month (actually, Pollster's average has had Obama's approval ratings on a slow decline since the beginning of the year, but setting it to "less smoothing" shows that decline has decelerated since mid-March, and certainly no apparent new movement since the IRS thing broke). Here, the Q poll has a low Obama approval number of 45%, down three ticks from May 1, but as always the polling averages are more useful, and they've already told as that nothing's happening.
Third: So we know that unlike, say, Iran-Contra, the current scandalmania is not having a significant direct effect on the president's popularity. But we also know that absent new revelations, each of these stories will be ancient and forgotten by the time voters engage in the 2014 election cycle. Really, then, what's needed is good guesses about the scandals themselves, and voters aren't in a particularly good position to make those guesses.
In other words, if it turns out that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton secretly worked with zombie bin Laden to plan and carry out Benghazi, then nothing voters say now about the IRS story being more important, or the economy trumping any of the scandals, will matter. If on the other hand Benghazi continues to be about parsing the difference between terror attacks and terrorist attacks...well, we've long known that no one apart from dedicated partisans cares about it.
All in all, other than tossing another number into the approval averages, I think we're safe ignoring this stuff. Given that scandalmania isn't doing anything significant now, the way that people rank the individual stories or how they compare them to other vote factors just isn't telling us anything.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Christopher Newman, 58. Nope, I never heard of him, either. But he was on the crew -- assistant director or some such on...ready? Match Point; Sense and Sensibility; Much Ado; Brazil; Return of the Jedi; The Great Muppet Caper; and Supermans II and III. Also, Rome -- and he's a producer on Game of Thrones. And lots more. That's not bad! Enough to even mean we should forgive whatever contributions he had to, alas, The Phantom Menace.
Good stuff:
1. Sean Trende on the possible electoral effects of passing immigration reform.
2. Okay, there are lots of good reasons not to like Dilbert, but the basic point of Dilbert is one worth knowing. Kevin Drum doesn't talk Dilbert, but makes a good point about real government waste.
3. Reid Wilson has a good overview of Senate 2014 recent developments.
4. And no Medicaid expansion for Montana...because a state legislator hit the wrong button. Stochastic universe, anyone? Sarah Kliff has the story.
Good stuff:
1. Sean Trende on the possible electoral effects of passing immigration reform.
2. Okay, there are lots of good reasons not to like Dilbert, but the basic point of Dilbert is one worth knowing. Kevin Drum doesn't talk Dilbert, but makes a good point about real government waste.
3. Reid Wilson has a good overview of Senate 2014 recent developments.
4. And no Medicaid expansion for Montana...because a state legislator hit the wrong button. Stochastic universe, anyone? Sarah Kliff has the story.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Bruce Kirby, 85. Third-most-common Columbo occasional actor, despite not (unless I missed one) being a Cassavetes guy. Excellent, whether in sitcoms or cop shows.
The good stuff:
1. I rarely link to editorials, but I think the NYT gets points to something important here. One of the real hallmarks of the current group of Republicans is passing policies and then blaming Barack Obama and the Democrats for them; it's unusually irresponsible, but they keep going back to it.
2. Negative recruiting: very difficult to study. Reporters Greg Bluestein and Daniel Malloy look at Democrats in Georgia who are trying to prevent a nasty primary.
3. And I'm glad now that I didn't get into last week's discussion of baseball salaries, since instead I can just send you to Robert Farley, who totally nails the subject. I should say, by the way: getting rid of the reserve clause is a rare thing which should unite those of virtually all political views.
The good stuff:
1. I rarely link to editorials, but I think the NYT gets points to something important here. One of the real hallmarks of the current group of Republicans is passing policies and then blaming Barack Obama and the Democrats for them; it's unusually irresponsible, but they keep going back to it.
2. Negative recruiting: very difficult to study. Reporters Greg Bluestein and Daniel Malloy look at Democrats in Georgia who are trying to prevent a nasty primary.
3. And I'm glad now that I didn't get into last week's discussion of baseball salaries, since instead I can just send you to Robert Farley, who totally nails the subject. I should say, by the way: getting rid of the reserve clause is a rare thing which should unite those of virtually all political views.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Valerie Bertinelli, 53. Yes, of course I watch her retread show on TVLand, although I watch it the old fashioned way -- when I happen to see it when I'm flipping around the dial. If you haven't seen it...it's exactly what it should be, no better but no worse. Excellent idea, though.
Some good stuff:
1. Jay Ulfelder's guide for social scientists on twitter.
2. Dan Amira on the (un)reliability of Rand Paul on civil liberties issues.
3. 2016 (Republican) rules update, from Josh Putnam.
4. More on studies of the health care cost slow-down, from Sarah Kliff.
5. Nice Sean Trende item on the gun bill and midterms.
6. And Dan Larison on George W. Bush's foreign policy.
Some good stuff:
1. Jay Ulfelder's guide for social scientists on twitter.
2. Dan Amira on the (un)reliability of Rand Paul on civil liberties issues.
3. 2016 (Republican) rules update, from Josh Putnam.
4. More on studies of the health care cost slow-down, from Sarah Kliff.
5. Nice Sean Trende item on the gun bill and midterms.
6. And Dan Larison on George W. Bush's foreign policy.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Jamie Bamber, 40.
Right to the good stuff...yeah, last night was the first west coast night game of the season, and so there goes my sleep schedule for a while. Not that I'm complaining about staying up to watch Bumgarner shut out the Dodgers, mind you. Uh...yeah, the good stuff:
1. David Roberts on fracking and renewables. Interesting.
2. Good Stu Rothenberg item on House 2014. I think I agree down the line with him on this one.
3. The next Fed Chair? Neil Irwin handicaps the race and establishes Janet Yellen as the solid favorite. I'm just looking forward to hearing about the runaway inflation she's already responsible for.
4. Ezra Klein explains insurance premiums under ACA.
5. What's North Korea up to? It's probably about their domestic politics -- which we don't know too much about. North Korea scholar Stephan Haggard, via the Monkey Cage.
6. And a nice Opening Day (more or less) item: who represents Crash Davis? From Abby Livingston.
Right to the good stuff...yeah, last night was the first west coast night game of the season, and so there goes my sleep schedule for a while. Not that I'm complaining about staying up to watch Bumgarner shut out the Dodgers, mind you. Uh...yeah, the good stuff:
1. David Roberts on fracking and renewables. Interesting.
2. Good Stu Rothenberg item on House 2014. I think I agree down the line with him on this one.
3. The next Fed Chair? Neil Irwin handicaps the race and establishes Janet Yellen as the solid favorite. I'm just looking forward to hearing about the runaway inflation she's already responsible for.
4. Ezra Klein explains insurance premiums under ACA.
5. What's North Korea up to? It's probably about their domestic politics -- which we don't know too much about. North Korea scholar Stephan Haggard, via the Monkey Cage.
6. And a nice Opening Day (more or less) item: who represents Crash Davis? From Abby Livingston.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
How Much is $100M anyway?
Ed Kilgore sends some sympathy to the poor TV watchers of Florida at the news that Rick Scott intends to spend $100M to get himself re-elected governor.
It's almost certainly overkill, no? I'd imagine that diminishing returns starts setting in far below that mark, and most of the rest of the money is going to be wasted. Remember, we're talking about an incumbent governor in a general election: just how many voters will really be influenced by ads in that kind of election?
I actually don't know the answer to one key question about this: how would $100M for Florida rank in terms of money/voter? My sense is that it's not all that high...Linda McMahon just spent $50M in Connecticut, after all. Has anyone compiled a list of the highest spending per voter in statewide races?
The interesting thing to study here (and I'm not up to date on the literature, so if someone has done so I'm missing it) is whether the demise of newspapers has meant that fewer people really know anything about their state governments -- I mean, it's not as if voters ever knew very much, but perhaps they know less now. Or not! People apparently do still watch local TV news, which sometimes, I hear, does have a bit of actual news content. Presumably, the more information voters are exposed to from the news media, the less important advertising will be.
At any rate, here in Texas we have a decent chance of having a very nasty Republican primary for governor, and in those cases money almost certainly does play a big role. Should be fun.
It's almost certainly overkill, no? I'd imagine that diminishing returns starts setting in far below that mark, and most of the rest of the money is going to be wasted. Remember, we're talking about an incumbent governor in a general election: just how many voters will really be influenced by ads in that kind of election?
I actually don't know the answer to one key question about this: how would $100M for Florida rank in terms of money/voter? My sense is that it's not all that high...Linda McMahon just spent $50M in Connecticut, after all. Has anyone compiled a list of the highest spending per voter in statewide races?
The interesting thing to study here (and I'm not up to date on the literature, so if someone has done so I'm missing it) is whether the demise of newspapers has meant that fewer people really know anything about their state governments -- I mean, it's not as if voters ever knew very much, but perhaps they know less now. Or not! People apparently do still watch local TV news, which sometimes, I hear, does have a bit of actual news content. Presumably, the more information voters are exposed to from the news media, the less important advertising will be.
At any rate, here in Texas we have a decent chance of having a very nasty Republican primary for governor, and in those cases money almost certainly does play a big role. Should be fun.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Q Day 6: Midterms
It's still question day around here. Why not? Several good ones I wanted to get to. Such as this...
Bajsa asks:
One answer is: not much. It's just a basic truth that different demographic groups vote at different rates, and that midterms are lower-interest elections than presidential contests. So you're going to get fewer voters, which in practice means that you'll still get the every-time voters but far fewer of the sometimes voters.
The next answer is: electioneering probably can't do very much, but it almost certainly can make small differences on the margins. Which could be important! So, sure, run the best campaign that they can; the president can probably help the most by involving himself (carefully) in candidate recruitment and, yes, fundraising.
The third answer is: it may be less important than you think. Yes, it's true that midterm electorates are likely to lean more Republican, but we only have to go back to 2006 to find a Democratic landslide in a midterm. The biggest problem for Democrats in 2014 isn't that midterms are bad for Democrats; it's that midterms are bad for the party in the White House.
And the fourth answer is: the biggest thing that Obama can do to help Democrats in the midterms is to be a very popular president. Worked for Bill Clinton in 1998, and George W. Bush in 2002; failure to be a popular president had a lot to do with midterm disasters for Bush's party in 2006, Clinton's in 1994, and Ronald Reagan's in 1982. I suppose that's just obvious, but sometimes obvious is the truth.
Bajsa asks:
Off year elections are as important as years with Presidential elections. What can Obama do to get his coalition to vote in a mid-term election?It's a great question, so I wanted to highlight it, but I'm not sure I have much of an answer. So instead I'll give four answers.
One answer is: not much. It's just a basic truth that different demographic groups vote at different rates, and that midterms are lower-interest elections than presidential contests. So you're going to get fewer voters, which in practice means that you'll still get the every-time voters but far fewer of the sometimes voters.
The next answer is: electioneering probably can't do very much, but it almost certainly can make small differences on the margins. Which could be important! So, sure, run the best campaign that they can; the president can probably help the most by involving himself (carefully) in candidate recruitment and, yes, fundraising.
The third answer is: it may be less important than you think. Yes, it's true that midterm electorates are likely to lean more Republican, but we only have to go back to 2006 to find a Democratic landslide in a midterm. The biggest problem for Democrats in 2014 isn't that midterms are bad for Democrats; it's that midterms are bad for the party in the White House.
And the fourth answer is: the biggest thing that Obama can do to help Democrats in the midterms is to be a very popular president. Worked for Bill Clinton in 1998, and George W. Bush in 2002; failure to be a popular president had a lot to do with midterm disasters for Bush's party in 2006, Clinton's in 1994, and Ronald Reagan's in 1982. I suppose that's just obvious, but sometimes obvious is the truth.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Rocky Gone; Never Did Have To Spend It All
Jay Rockefeller today announced that he will not seek another term. He was going to have a tough time winning it, perhaps; Republicans had already recruited a tough challenger, Shelley Moore Capito. And of course West Virginia has been increasingly Republican lately, although more so in presidential voting than in statewide contests. Democrats do have some viable options -- and there's no guarantee that Republicans won't wind up with a Tea Party candidate after all. As Sean Trende suggests, any restraint that conservatives might have had about acting strategically in a primary may disappear completely now that it will be an open seat.
I've always thought of Rockefeller as an excellent Senator; very much someone who worked seriously through his committee assignments, although as far as I know there's no real signature legislative achievement. He flirted pretty seriously with a run for the presidency for a while, but never jumped all the way in.
As far as my obsessions...Rockefeller was born in 1937, so this first retirement going into the 2014 cycle is a good start at keeping the Senate from growing older in 2015 -- although Capito would be 62 by January 2015, keeping with the alarming (in my view) trend of too many new Senators over 60.
Shelley Moore Capito is the daughter of former West Virginia Governor Arch Moore, so if she does succeed Rockefeller it would be a missed chance for one fewer legacy Senator. Oh well; she's surely at least less of a dynastic politician than Rockefeller. Hey, I didn't realize that Rockefeller was married to (Senator) Charles Percy's daughter (great picture of them at his official site).
For what it's worth, this continues a lousy start for the Democrats and a good one for the GOP in the 2014 cycle. But it's a bit early to draw any conclusions from it...let's just say that I'm sure Democrats are very happy to have the unexpected extra seats they won in 2012.
(Update: for the Rockefeller family dynasty and where it stands now, see a nice article by Aaron Blake).
I've always thought of Rockefeller as an excellent Senator; very much someone who worked seriously through his committee assignments, although as far as I know there's no real signature legislative achievement. He flirted pretty seriously with a run for the presidency for a while, but never jumped all the way in.
As far as my obsessions...Rockefeller was born in 1937, so this first retirement going into the 2014 cycle is a good start at keeping the Senate from growing older in 2015 -- although Capito would be 62 by January 2015, keeping with the alarming (in my view) trend of too many new Senators over 60.
Shelley Moore Capito is the daughter of former West Virginia Governor Arch Moore, so if she does succeed Rockefeller it would be a missed chance for one fewer legacy Senator. Oh well; she's surely at least less of a dynastic politician than Rockefeller. Hey, I didn't realize that Rockefeller was married to (Senator) Charles Percy's daughter (great picture of them at his official site).
For what it's worth, this continues a lousy start for the Democrats and a good one for the GOP in the 2014 cycle. But it's a bit early to draw any conclusions from it...let's just say that I'm sure Democrats are very happy to have the unexpected extra seats they won in 2012.
(Update: for the Rockefeller family dynasty and where it stands now, see a nice article by Aaron Blake).
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