RandySF
RandySF's JournalFormer HOUSE SPEAKER JIM WRIGHT denied TX voter ID card
FORT WORTH — Former House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office.
“Nobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn’t give me an ID,” Wright said.
The legendary Texas political figure says that he has worked things out with DPS and that he will get a state-issued personal identification card in time for him to vote Tuesday in the state and local elections.
But after the difficulty he had this weekend getting a proper ID card, Wright, 90, expressed concern that such problems could deter others from voting and stifle turnout. After spending much of his life fighting to make it easier to vote, the Democratic Party icon said he is troubled by what he’s seeing happen under the state’s new voter ID law.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/11/02/5300503/voter-id-law-snags-former-house.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
Newsmax/Zogby Poll: McAuliffe Pulls Ahead in Virginia Gov. Race
Democrat Terry McAuliffe is rallying his party's base as well as independent voters and has seized the momentum heading into Tuesday's election for governor of Virginia, a just-completed Newsmax/Zogby Poll shows.
Moreover, the biggest fear of Virginia Republicans appears to be coming true: that Libertarian nominee Robert Sarvis will drain significant votes that otherwise would have gone to GOP nominee Ken Cuccinelli, the state attorney general
Zogby found that among likely voters statewide, McAuliffe, former chairman of the Democratic National chairman, leads Cuccinelli by a margin of 43 percent to 36 percent.
The poll also showed Sarvis holding firm with 9 percent, other candidates with 3 percent, and 9 percent still undecided.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/newsmax-zogby-poll-virginia/2013/11/02/id/534444#ixzz2jZCtvagk
I like Christmas....but not right now, please.
I love the Christmas season, but I am still basking in the afterglow of a fun Halloween season. The orange of jack o'lanterns and dark of night still drift through my mind. Now, it's time to enjoy Election Day, some college football and a long weekend at the end of November. Then, and only then, so I care to think about Christmas. Each season in its own time, please.
Dkos: The GOP has achieved third party status in Delaware
erhaps is was Christine O'Donnell, or it might have been the government shutdown. But a recent The University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication poll shows that the two largest parties in the State of Delaware are the Democrats (40%) and Independents (34%), with the GOP bringing up the rear at 22%.
Independents, Other Party, Don't Know Party lean Democratic 33%, Republican 30% - so even among the I's the Democratic Party is the party of choice.
That is polling data. In other words, a mere 22% percent of Delaware voters admit to being republicans. The actual voter registration numbers are lagging behind voter sentiment, but are nearly as bad:
Out of 303,157 voters in Delaware 180,041 (48%) are Democrats. 123,116 (28%) are registered Republicans, and 24% are other.
Basically, the GOP in Delaware is hemorrhaging members. If another 6,000 people make their preference official, the GOP will be a third party.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/02/1252602/-The-GOP-has-achieved-third-party-status-in-Delaware
Toronto Mayor's approval rating ticks upward with news of crack video
Mayor Rob Ford’s approval rating rose slightly after Police Chief Bill Blair confirmed the existence of a video in which Ford appears to smoke crack cocaine and make homophobic and racist remarks, according to a poll taken Thursday night by Forum Research.
The poll found that 44 per cent of voters approve of the job Rob Ford is doing as mayor, while an Oct. 28 poll found that just 39 per cent approved.
“That may sound counterintuitive. It could be a sampling, margin-of-error thing, or it could be just some sympathy,” said Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research. “If you saw him during that media scrum yesterday, it might have generated some sympathy.”
Ford has been bolstered by a seemingly unshakeable core group of supporters known colloquially as the Ford Nation. Ford’s high approval rating comes despite an “unbelievable” awareness of the video scandal, with 98 per cent of respondents saying they were aware of the news.
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/11/01/mayor_rob_fords_approval_rating_ticks_upward_with_news_of_crack_video.html
Virginia blame game begins
National Republicans agree on this much about the 2013 campaign in Virginia: It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
Well before the last votes are cast in the state’s off-year governor’s race, GOP leaders are already engaged in a spirited debate over why, exactly, a fight against a Democrat as flawed as Terry McAuliffe has turned into such a painful slog of a campaign. Even Republicans who haven’t yet counted out their nominee, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, view the governor’s race as a profile in frustration for the GOP – an election that should have leaned toward the Republicans, but where Democrats have held a persistent lead in polling, money and tactical prowess.
The GOP’s internal discussion about the race mirrors much of the broader national tug of war within the conservative coalition, between officials and strategists who want the party to trim back some of its most confrontational tactics and hard-edged rhetoric, and activists bent on drawing the starkest possible lines of contrast with the Democratic party of President Barack Obama.
The clearest battle lines will emerge after Tuesday; but the Washington community has groused for months about Cuccinelli’s history of incendiary, ultra-ideological stances, while rank-and-file activists have watched with horror as well-tailored GOP donors have defected to McAuliffe. Everyone in the party – establishment and tea party alike – has fumed over the ongoing ethics controversies that have rocked outgoing Gov. Bob McDonnell’s administration and undercut Cuccinelli’s anticipated advantage over McAuliffe on personal integrity.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/virginia-gubernatorial-election-2013-republican-ken-cuccinelli-99249.html#ixzz2jWAUEZC6
Michele Bachmann: 'God, I'm A Loser'
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) won the Iowa straw poll for presidential candidates in August 2011, but dropped to barely 5 percent in the Iowa caucus vote in January 2012. According to the new book, Double Down, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, she did not take the loss well:
Sitting in her campaign bus, in the same seat where she cried with joy in August, she now sobbed over her drubbing. "God, I'm a loser," Bachmann said. "God, I turn people off." With two debates ahead in New Hampshire, some of her advisers thought she should consider staying in the race. Bachmann wanted no part of it. Let's draft a withdrawal speech for tomorrow, she said.
Bachmann withdrew from the race the day after the Iowa caucuses.
Double Down also reports that she had been encouraged to run for president by conservative media hosts Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh. Her advisers, including campaign consultant Ed Rollins, were "surprised to discover how bookish, frugal, and un-diva-like she was," the authors write, noting that she paid $19 to have her hair styled at the Fantastic Sams franchise.
The Iowa anecdote is one of many telling moments in the new book on the 2012 campaign, set to be released Tuesday. The Huffington Post independently obtained a copy of Double Down before its release.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/01/michele-bachmann-iowa_n_4193039.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Hawaii Republicans Try To Block Marriage Equality From Advancing
Thousands of people have signed up to testify for and against marriage equality in hearings that will resume Friday in the Hawaii House. In the meantime, however, some House Republicans are trying to find ways to obstruct or compromise the bill to prevent it from passing.
Some lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Aaron Johanson (R), have proposed a broad religious exemption that would provide small businesses (those with five or fewer employees) a license to discrimination against same-sex couples. Such a provision would spare a photographer, baker, florist, or wedding planner from having to provide services to same-sex couples — unless they’re the only business in a rural area that can provide it. Even if such an amendment is considered in the House, it is not likely to survive consideration by the Senate, which passed the marriage equality bill 20-4 earlier this week.
One opponent of the bill is taking a different approach: he’s suing the state, arguing that the legislature is constitutionally prohibited from passing marriage equality. According to Rep. Bob McDermott (R), when the people of Hawaii voted in 1998 to amend the state constitution so that “the legislature shall have the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples,” they were actually voting to ban same-sex marriage. If the people perceived that’s what they were doing, McDermott argues, then that’s the force of the law.
Because he wants the people to decide, McDermott has also proposed a constitutional amendment removing the 1998 language and explicitly limiting marriage to the unions of one man and one woman. In an ironic twist, this seems to betray the very claim made by his lawsuit. If a new amendment is necessary to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage, then that suggests the legislature still has the power to legalize it.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/11/01/2873881/hawaii-republicans-try-block-marriage-equality-advancing/
Covered CA looks good to me.
I already have medical coverage, but I decided to take a look at the Covered California site and it looks pretty damn good to me. It's simple to navigate and clearly states how much one pays per month and out of pocket for care. Also, the rates rock for a family of three or more!! Hello, MSM, Obamacare may not not be single payer system I want, but it beats the hell out of what the Republicans want us to all go through.
There will be exit polls in Tuesday's elections.
'THERE WILL BE EXIT POLLS' - Joe Lenski of Edison Research, the company that has conducted exit polls for the five networks and AP since 2004: "FYI - there will be Edison exit polls for New Jersey, Virginia and New York City next Tuesday." [@JoeLenski]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/huffpollster-whats-the-re_n_4179253.html?utm_hp_ref=@pollster
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