RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/02/dems-risk

I am not a crier. One of my best friends teases me that Satan cries more than I do; my husband jokes about my “six-second cry” when I finally shed some tears.

But as I watched Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday, I cried—and for more than six seconds. I wept for him, for his crushed wife seated behind him, for his young daughters, and for his friends. I cried for our country. It was an emotional release of sympathy, frustration and rage.

I wasn’t alone. Several of my friends admitted they had the same reaction. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway mirrored the feelings of millions of women when she choked up that evening during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News: “I was sobbing when I was watching it,” Hemingway said. “I heard that a lot from people as well. It was hard just to watch those clips here.”

A bungled political assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh will cost the Democrats more than a seat on the Supreme Court: The party might also have killed its edge with suburban women just weeks before the pivotal midterm elections. The near-unanimous reaction to this travesty among my fellow suburban moms is unlike anything I’ve seen in the Trump era.

Until now, Democrats have been confident that women living in the suburbs would propel the much-vaunted “blue wave” this fall because President Trump remains unpopular with this traditionally Republican constituency. Polling conducted over the summer indicated suburban women had a strong preference for Democratic candidates over their Republican opponents. Several vulnerable Republican-held congressional districts are located in suburban areas.

But Democrats have overplayed their dirty hand, and women might exact their revenge in November. Republican women are outraged at Democrats and their media accomplices for what they’ve done to Brett Kavanaugh and his family. One poll taken right after Kavanaugh’s testimony showed 71 percent of Republican women believed Kavanaugh was telling the truth. In a Morning Consult poll released late Monday, 58 percent of Republican women described Dr. Christine Ford as “opportunistic.” Republican women are the only voters whose support for Kavanaugh’s nomination has increased post-hearing.

The majority of women voters in red states with vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection next month support Kavanaugh’s confirmation; a Harvard/Harris poll shows identical voter enthusiasm between Republican and Democratic women for the midterm election.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/09/30/elizabeth-warren-to-consider-a-2020-presidential-run-after-midterms/23546556/

A presidential run may soon be on the horizon for Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The Massachusetts Democrat announced on Saturday that she will seriously consider running for the White House following the midterm elections in November.

“It’s time for women to go to Washington and fix our broken government and that includes a woman at the top. So here’s what I promise, after November 6 I will take a hard look at running for president,” she declared to a standing ovation as seen in an online video.

Warren, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump who has said he intends to seek re-election, shared her plans at a town hall meeting in western Massachusetts. She expressed concern about the nation’s general state of affairs and in particular decried Republicans’ handling of sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“I watched 11 men who were too chicken to ask a woman a single question,” she said of the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who relied on outside attorney to question Kavanaugh’s alleged victim, Christine Blasey Ford, at a hearing on Thursday. “I watched powerful men helping a powerful man make it to an even more powerful position.”

Of the president, Warren said, “Let’s face it, Donald Trump is taking this country in the wrong direction … I am worried, down to my bones, about what Donald Trump is doing to our democracy.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/oops_arizona_dem_senate_candidate_krysten_sinema_caught_lying_about_her_past.html

The race to replace retiring Arizona senator Jeff Flake has been polling as a statistical tie. Until now, at least. Republican candidate Rep. Martha McSally has an incredible life story to tell, with 26 years of service in the Air Force and a historic milestone – the kind that actually means something:

She is the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat and first to command a fighter squadron in combat in United States history.

This is literally leadership under fire.

So her opponent, Krysten Sinema, faced a challenge in coming up with a compelling life story and settled on something that would appeal to Democrats. In place of accomplishment and heroism, she turned to victimhood. In a campaign video, she tugged at heartstrings, claiming (via the Daily Caller):

“First we lost our car, then we lost our home,” Sinema says in an ad. “For nearly three years, we lived in an old abandoned gas station without running water or electricity. Sometimes we didn’t have enough food to eat, but we got by, thanks to help from family, church and sometimes even the government. Those were tough times, but I knew it could be different. I never believed that being homeless was going to stop me from being who I wanted to be.”

Just one little problem, as the Daily Caller notes:

[C]ourt documents obtained by TheNYT reveal that Sinema’s mother and stepfather had provided a judge with records detailing monthly payments they made for electricity, phone and gas bills during that time.

Her response does not inspire confidence:

Sinema did not have an answer when asked by The NYT why her stepfather made payments for power and gas, nor did she address directly whether she had ever embellished details about her upbringing in the Florida gas station in the mid-1980s.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/kirsten_gillibrand_wont_confirm_kavanaugh_but_confirms_that_she_is_an_idiot.html

I confess that I have always found Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to be a vacuous politician, someone who blows with the wind, seeks shallow advantage, and lacks good judgment. But last night, speaking on MSNBC, where she has no reason to worry about being challenged for verbal excesses, she let slip a statement so appalling that it ranks with her colleague Mazie Hirono’s notorious injunction to the male half of the populace (and her constituency) that its members “shut up.”

On Chris Hayes’s program, these words actually left her mouth:

Every time you hear on Fox News, “assume you’re innocent,” “you have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” they’re trying to confuse voters.

To this mental midget, the assumption of innocence before proven guilty is indeed “confusing.”

Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/beto-orourke-wont-get-brett-kavanaugh-treatment/

The media are curiously uninterested in investigating the unanswered questions surrounding criminal misconduct in O’Rourke’s past.

I used to see the mainstream media as an adjunct of the Democratic party. That’s debatable; it could be that the party is the adjunct. Either way, the most brazenly overt aspect of the partnership is that the press no longer even feigns interest in allegations against nominees; it is interested only in allegations against Republican nominees.

We await the next shoe to drop in the Judge Kavanaugh saga. Rest assured that if there’s a rumor that, in third grade, young Brett yanked on the ponytails of the girl in the second row (war on women!), the New York Times, NBC News, and phalanxes of their journalistic colleagues will be all over it.

Meanwhile, Representative Beto O’Rourke had a pair of felony arrests in his mid-to-late 20s, including a reckless drunk-driving incident in which he crashed into a car and allegedly tried to flee from the scene. The cases appear to have mysteriously disappeared without serious prosecution, notwithstanding that O’Rourke continues to deny basic facts outlined in at least one police report.

So, what really happened? We don’t know. See, Representative O’Rourke is a Democrat.

Not just that. O’Rourke is the Democrat running for a Senate seat against Ted Cruz, the Republican incumbent who is a favorite of grass-roots conservatives. Consequently, the press and Democrats have about as much interest in probing O’Rourke’s checkered past as they do in exploring allegations against Keith Ellison — the hard-Left Minnesota congressman, attorney-general candidate, and deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who has been accused of physically abusing his longtime girlfriend.

O’Rourke appears to be quite the character, notwithstanding the media’s indifference.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-trump-creating-new-republicans-1537560515

Current polls suggest that Republicans could be in for a rough November, but not as rough as one might expect among a key voting constituency.

Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report writes today that Democrats are confident about their support among suburban women, but enthusiasm among female Democratic voters “isn’t being replicated among another group of voters that theoretically should be as motivated — or more — to vote for Democrats: Latino voters.”

Ms. Walter explains:

Latino voter drop-off in midterm elections is nothing new, but the thinking was that President Trump’s rhetoric and policies around immigration, especially the issue of separating children from their parents at the border, would be a catalyst for higher Latino engagement in 2018. At this point, however, recent polling by New York Times Upshot/Siena College and Monmouth University, suggests that’s not the case.

In California’s 39th district — a racially diverse district that Hillary Clinton carried 52 to 43 percent — a Monmouth poll out this week found Republican Young Kim leading Democrat Gil Cisneros 46-42 percent.

Meanwhile on the right coast of the country, it seems that voters are also stubbornly refusing to play the roles they’ve been assigned in the conventional media narrative. Ms. Walter elaborates:

Republicans in Latino majority districts in South Florida are holding up better than their underlying infrastructure suggests they would. In a district Hillary Clinton carried with almost 57 percent, Republican Carlos Curbelo (FL-26) has a narrow lead over his Democratic opponent in the NY Times Upshot/Siena poll. And, in the 27th district, where moderate GOPer Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is retiring, private polls show former Clinton administration HHS Director Donna Shalala struggling to open a lead in a district Clinton carried by more than 58 percent.

In the sprawling southern Texas 23rd district — a district that is more than 70 percent Latino and voted narrowly for Clinton in 2016, Republican Rep. Will Hurd had a solid 51-43 percent lead over his Democratic opponent in the latest NY Times Upshot/Siena poll.

Finally, in the Los Angeles County 25th CD, a district that is majority minority and which Clinton won with 50 percent of the vote in 2016, the NY Times Upshot/Siena poll found Republican Steve Knight with a narrow lead over his Democratic opponent.

There’s another interesting campaign update, this one from the middle of the country. This week the Texas Monthly reports that expected Hispanic support for Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lupe Valdez, who’s running against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, hasn’t met expectations. Notes the Texas Monthly:

First came news that Valdez’s lackluster campaign is delivering equally lackluster results. A new Quinnipiac University poll on Tuesday—the first this season to measure sentiment among likely voters in Texas instead of simply registered voters—shows that Hispanics actually prefer Abbott to Valdez. Hispanic respondents, in fact, preferred the incumbent Republican by a margin of 49 percent to 45 percent over Valdez. While the 4.1 percent margin of error tightens that race a bit, the fact that Abbott leads with his substantial war chest mostly intact, suggests an election night slaughter for that race that could extend to higher than normal Hispanic support for the governor and potential coattails for people like Cruz. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/09/21/menendez_in_jeopardy_as_senate_challenger_makes_push_138139.html

The New Jersey Senate race was supposed to be a done deal with incumbent Bob Menendez easily cruising to re-election. It’s rated solid or likely to remain Democratic by most election watchers, and the Democrats were certainly putting it in their win column as they mapped out plans to retake the Senate.

But someone forgot to tell New Jersey voters that this race was uncompetitive. The polls show it to be tight — Menendez simply has not shaken Republican challenger Bob Hugin in a state Hillary Clinton carried by 14 points over Donald Trump two years ago.

Part of the reason seems to be that despite his acquittal in court on federal corruption charges, Menendez has not escaped the taint that came with his 2015 trial. Another is that Hugin, the wealthy former CEO of a biopharmaceutical company, had already spent nearly $16 million in the race. Throw into this mix a state with the worst affordability index in the country and an expected increase in the gasoline tax on Oct. 1 — on top of significant increases in state taxes enacted this spring. It seems a combustible mix in which an attractive and well-funded outsider with a sterling resume can give the political establishment heartburn.

Meanwhile, Menendez has a lot of baggage to defend. In 2015, he was indicted on federal corruption charges pursued by his fellow Democrats — the first U.S. senator to be indicted by the administration of his own party in 30 years. He was accused of doing favors for Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, who is now serving 17 years in prison for Medicare fraud. Prosecutors presented evidence of 19 free private plane trips and campaign donations, which they asserted came in exchange for political favors. According to prosecutors, one such trip to the Dominican Republic supposedly involved underage prostitutes. Menendez strongly denied those allegations, but in the #MeToo era, any lingering suspicion is unhelpful for a politician. And though he was not found guilty by the jury, Menendez was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee.

While he may have survived his legal battles, New Jersey voters have apparently not forgotten. In a June primary, an unknown Democratic opponent who raised less than $5,000 got 38 percent of the vote against Menendez. That challenger, Lisa McCormick, didn’t have enough money to run ads reminding the electorate of Menendez’s legal troubles. But Bob Hugin did. Hugin’s campaign began running hard-hitting television spots against the incumbent in February. Menendez was pounded by ads titled “Guilty,” “Screwed” and “Dead Last.” By July, Menendez was leading Hugin by two percentage points, and in an August poll he was up by only six.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cory-booker-it-would-be-irresponsible-not-to-consider-presidential-run/

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey seemed to confirm suspicions of a 2020 presidential run Wednesday, telling New York Magazine it would be “irresponsible not to” at least consider challenging President Trump.

“Of course the presidency will be something I consider. It would be irresponsible not to,” Booker said.

Booker, the former mayor of Newark, has emerged in recent years as a leader of the younger, more progressive wing of the Democratic party. Having just returned from campaigning for “almost every candidate in Nevada,” Booker described the physical toll of his midterm barnstorming.

“You’re catching me on a day when I’m physically depleted,” he said. “My spirits are up, but I just campaigned for nearly every candidate in Nevada: secretary of State; guy for AG; guy running for governor; uh, Jacky Rosen, who will hopefully be my colleague; some assembly and legislative leaders. Then flew to Seattle, landed, headlined an event there, and then got right on a plane at 6 a.m. and came back.”

Long considered a favorite for the 2020 Democratic nomination, Booker has taken a number of steps since Trump’s inauguration to position himself to the left of his older, more established colleagues, embracing Senator Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” proposal and focus on income inequality.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/09/18/electorate_makeup_will_be_key_to_midterm_outcome_138090.html

With the last primary of the 2018 midterm cycle over, it’s now official: The general election has begun. With 50 days to go, who are midterm voters?

“A midterm voter is little bit older, a little bit whiter and more educated” than a presidential election voter, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball Report. While this demographic is usually a positive for Republicans, he cautioned that “educated voters are becoming more Democratic with each election.”

Midterms tend to be low-turnout affairs. In presidential elections, somewhere between 60 to 70 percent of registered voters typically go to the ballot box, whereas in a midterm the number hovers around 40 percent. The drop-off is pronounced among millennials and minority voters.

Millennials are enthusiastic about issues but unreliable on Election Day, particularly in midterms. In the 2016 presidential election, 19 percent of the electorate was millennial voters, while only 13 percent of that group made it to the polls in the 2014 midterms. Similar trends are present among black and Hispanic voters.

In primaries, the top priority for candidates is to attract party loyalists, who are generally more partisan. But in a general election, candidates need to appeal to a wider audience by capturing centrist voters. Exit polling from the 2014 elections show that about 40 percent of the voters identified their ideology as moderate whereas 23 percent identified as liberal and 37 percent as conservative. In 2014, independent voters supported Republicans by 54 percent to 42 percent, and Republicans picked up 13 seats in the House. In 2016, independent voters supported Donald Trump by 46 percent to 42 percent, a margin that likely provided the difference in his victory. In tight elections, independents are often the voting bloc most crucial to victory.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/09/17/historic_midterm_trends_tell_usnothing_138087.html

There’s one question on Washington’s collective mind that hovers above the never-ending swirl of Trump news: Who will control Congress after the midterms?

As with everything in politics these days, there are lots of predictions – and those who manage to be right will be celebrated. But here’s the problem: It’s almost impossible to figure out if a blue wave will happen – and how big it might be – until it happens.

A quick look at House turnover in midterms since 1960 reveals one thing: uncertainty. The average midterm House loss for the sitting president’s party is 22 seats. Yet the actual numbers have been all over the map, ranging from +8 in 2002 for George W. Bush to -63 in 2010 for Barack Obama.

But can’t we look at some key indicators today to figure out what’s going to happen? Sadly, no. Here are just a few “leading indicators” that indicate… almost nothing.

GDP growth was at 4.2 percent in the second quarter – the highest since 2014 – which should help Republicans, right? Yes, that’s a strong number. But looking at second-quarter GDP over the past 58 years shows no correlation to House gains or losses. Indeed, Obama’s large loss in 2010 came at a time when second-quarter GDP was 3.7 percent. And Bill Clinton’s 54-seat loss happened with GDP sitting at 5.5 percent. By contrast, George W. Bush gained eight seats in 2002 with GDP growth at 2.4 percent.