The audacity of Nancy Pelosi is astounding. She fully expects Democratic politicians to follow her off the proverbial cliff and sacrifice their political careers to vote for Obamacare.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue's massive role in this election year.
Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week." "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people.
Emphasis mine and shows Pelosi's midset. She knows what is best for you and should force it on you whether you like it or not.
By a larger 52% to 39% margin, Americans also oppose the Democrats in the Senate using a reconciliation procedure to avoid a possible Republican filibuster and pass a bill by a simple majority vote.
Politicians are elected to represent their constituents, not to follow the leader against the will of their constituents.
Now lets see how many Democratic politicians will indeed commit political suicide for Nancy Pelosi.
From The Marston Chronicles Charlie Cook has us really confused at this point. We have watched a video in which he says, "And it's very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don't lose the House." Then we look at his competitive House races tally which shows a grand total of 6 Democrat held House seats going to the Republicans. Since he says that the Republicans will lose the seat in Delaware and thus would need to pick up 41 Democrat held seats to regain control of the House, what scenario is he talking about? Even if we give the Republicans all 21 seats listed as Democrat toss-ups, that only gives them 27 new seats, still 14 short of control.
It would seem to us that Charlie Cook already has a scenario in which Republicans do not regain control of the House, namely his own charts. So where does he come up with this scenario that is not hard to imagine giving the Republicans 41 Democrat held seats? Now he does say that those seats are not there right now but surely there are more than 6 that the Republicans would pick up if the election were held today. We are curious as where Charlie thinks the other 35 seats might come from. To help him out, we are going to construct a new chart for him showing what it might look like.
There have been polls taken in several House districts, so where the polls have show the Democrat losing by 10 or more points, we will make them likely Republican. If the Republican is up less then ten but more than three points we will make the seat leaning Republican. For a race from tied to up by three points we will make the race a Republican toss-up. That would add 10 seats to the Republican group which would not all be coming from the Democrat toss-up group either. MA-10 comes from the likely Democrat group and ND-AL comes from the leans Democrat group. The Republican groups would then look like this:
This is much more realistic but surely a scenario that will eventually give the Republicans control of the House should have more than 16 seats going to the Republicans already. So let's give the Republicans those seats where the Democrat won by less than 6 points in 2008 with less than 2 points being likely, 2 to 3 being leaning and 4 to 5 being a toss-up. The problem here is that several races would be coming from the likely Democrat or leans Democrat and not just the toss-up group. From the likely Democrat group, we would have to move CT-4, NY-20 and PA-3 over to the Republican side and not to the toss-up group either.
Scott Murphy in NY-20 wins with a 0.45% margin while Obama only wins by a 3% margin in a terrible year for Republicans and that is a likely Democrat seat? Kathy Dahlkemper wins in PA-3 by a 2.47% margin while the Presidential candidates are essentially tied and that is a likely Democrat district? This does not compute. This means we will also have to move NJ-3, NY-23, NY-24, NY-29 and PA-11 from the leans Democrat as well and not to the Republican toss-up group either. Perhaps those districts needed to be re-evaluated anyway. With these changes we would add 21 more seats to the Republican groupings for a total of 28 seats.
Surely this would be more in line with a quote about it being hard to imagine the Republicans not regaining control of the House. That still leaves needing 13 more seats to gain control of the House but there are only 8 seats left in the Democrat toss-up group so we had better move some of the leaning and likely Democrat seats over to the Democrat toss-up group. Let's pick those seats where the incumbent Democrat won by more than 6 but less than a 10 point margin. That moves AZ-5, FL-22, ME-1, MI-9 and WI-8 to the Democrat toss-ups. Oops, ME-1 is not even listed as being in play. Oh well, surely a seat that was won by less than 10 points should be in play anyway.
With these now 13 seats in the Democrat toss-up group plus the 28 in the Republican group, we can at least see where the 41 seats would come from to give the Republicans control of the House. This way Charlie's charts would match his quote and the confusion would be alleviated. Doesn't this make more sense, Charlie? Please feel free to adopt any of our suggestions that make sense to you in the now revised chart below:
LIKELY DEMOCRATIC
LEAN DEMOCRATIC
DEMOCRATIC TOSS UP
DIST.
REPRESENTATIVE
PVI
AZ-1
Ann Kirkpatrick
R+6
AR-4
Mike Ross
R+7
CA-18
Dennis Cardoza
D+4
CA-20
Jim Costa
D+5
CA-47
Loretta Sánchez
D+4
CO-7
Ed Perlmutter
D+4
CT-5
Christopher Murphy
D+2
FL-2
Allen Boyd
R+6
GA-8
Jim Marshall
R+10
GA-12
John Barrow
D+1
IL-8
Melissa Bean
R+1
IL-11
Debbie Halvorson
R+1
IN-2
Joe Donnelly*
R+2
IA-1
Bruce Braley
D+5
KY-3
John Yarmuth
D+2
KY-6
Ben Chandler
R+9
MN-1
Tim Walz
R+1
MO-3
Russ Carnahan
D+7
NM-1
Martin Heinrich
D+5
NY-25
Dan Maffei
D+3
NC-11
Heath Shuler
R+6
OH-6
Charlie Wilson
R+2
OR-1
David Wu
D+8
OR-5
Kurt Schrader
D+1
PA-4
Jason Altmire
R+6
PA-17
Tim Holden
R+6
SD-AL
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
R+9
TN-4
Lincoln Davis
R+13
TX-23
Ciro Rodriguez
R+4
VA-11
Gerald Connolly
D+2
WA-2
Rick Larsen
D+3
WV-3
Nick Rahall
R+6
WI-3
Ron Kind
D+4
WI-7
Dave Obey
D+3
34 DEMOCRATS 0 REPUBLICANS
DIST.
REPRESENTATIVE
PVI
AZ-8
Gabrielle Giffords
R+4
CA-11
Jerry McNerney
R+1
CO-3
John Salazar
R+5
DE-AL
OPEN (Castle)
D+7
FL-24
Suzanne Kosmas
R+4
HI-1
OPEN (Abercrombie)
D+11
IL-14
Bill Foster
R+1
IA-3
Leonard Boswell
D+1
MO-4
Ike Skelton
R+14
NY-1
Tim Bishop
R+0
NY-13
Mike McMahon
R+4
NY-19
John Hall
R+3
NC-8
Larry Kissell
R+2
OH-13
Betty Sutton
D+5
OH-16
John Boccieri
R+4
OH-18
Zack Space
R+7
PA-8
Patrick Murphy
D+2
PA-10
Chris Carney
R+8
SC-5
John Spratt
R+7
TX-17
Chet Edwards
R+20
VA-9
Rick Boucher
R+11
20 DEMOCRATS 1 REPUBLICANS
DIST.
REPRESENTATIVE
PVI
AZ-5
Harry Mitchell
R+5
CO-4
Betsy Markey
R+6
FL-22
Ron Klein
D+1
ME-1
Chellie Pingree
???
MI-9
Gary Peters
D+2
MS-1
Travis Childers
R+14
NM-2
Harry Teague
R+6
PA-7
OPEN (Sestak)
D+3
PA-12
VACANT
R+1
TN-8
OPEN (Tanner)
R+6
WA-3
OPEN (Baird)
D+0
WV-1
Alan B. Mollohan
R+9
WI-8
Steve Kagen
R+2
13 DEMOCRATS 0 REPUBLICANS
REPUBLICAN TOSS UP
LEAN REPUBLICAN
LIKELY REPUBLICAN
DIST.
REPRESENTATIVE
PVI
FL-8
Alan Grayson
R+2
IL-10
OPEN (Kirk)
D+6
MA-10
Bill Delahunt
D+5
NV-3
Dina Titus
D+2
LA-2
Joseph Cao
D+25
VA-2
Glenn Nye
R+5
VA-5
Tom Perriello
R+5
2 REPUBLICANS 5 DEMOCRATS
DIST.
REPRESENTATIVE
PVI
AR-1
OPEN (Berry)
R+8
AR-2
OPEN (Snyder)
R+5
CA-3
Dan Lungren
R+6
CT-4
Jim Himes
D+5
IN-8
OPEN (Ellsworth)
R+8
IN-9
Baron Hill
R+6
KS-3
OPEN (Moore)
R+3
NH-2
OPEN (Hodes)
D+3
NJ-3
John Adler
R+1
NY-23
Bill Owens
R+1
NY-24
Michael Arcuri
R+2
ND-AL
Earl Pomeroy
R+10
PA-3
Kathy Dahlkemper
R+3
PA-6
Jim Gerlach
D+4
PA-11
Paul Kanjorski
D+4
PA-15
Charlie Dent
D+2
3 REPUBLICANS 13 DEMOCRATS
DIST.
REPRESENTATIVE
PVI
AL-2
Bobby Bright
R+16
AL-5
Parker Griffith
R+12
AZ-3
OPEN (Shadegg)
R+9
CA-44
Ken Calvert
R+6
CA-45
Mary Bono Mack
R+3
FL-12
OPEN (Putnam)
R+6
ID-1
Walter Minnick
R+18
LA-3
OPEN (Melancon)
R+12
MI-7
Mark Schauer
R+2
MN-6
Michele Bachmann
R+7
NE-2
Lee Terry
R+6
NH-1
Carol Shea-Porter
R+0
NY-20
Scott Murphy
R+2
NY-29
Eric Massa
R+5
OH-1
Steve Driehaus
D+1
OH-2
Jean Schmidt
R+13
OH-12
Patrick Tiberi
D+1
OH-15
Mary Jo Kilroy
D+1
SC-1
OPEN (Brown)
R+10
SC-2
Joe Wilson
R+9
TN-6
OPEN (Gordon)
R+13
WA-8
Dave Reichert
D+3
12 REPUBLICANS 10 DEMOCRATS
Italicized name denotes Freshman member * denotes possible incumbent retirement # denotes possible serious primary challenge
“Hello, I’m Dr. Tom Coburn, a practicing physician from Oklahoma and a member of the United States Senate.
“This week I had the opportunity to join President Obama and my Democrat and Republican colleagues for a summit on health care. We had a respectful and constructive discussion.
“While we listened to one another, I’m concerned that the majority in Congress is still not listening to the American people on the subject of health care reform. By an overwhelming margin, the American people are telling us to scrap the current bills, which will lead to a government takeover of health care, and we should start over.
“Unfortunately, even before the summit took place the majority in Congress signaled its intent to reject our offers to work together. Instead they want to use procedural tricks and backroom deals to ram through a new bill that combines the worst aspects of the bills the Senate and House passed last year.
“The American people have rejected the majority’s plan for good reason. Their plan includes a half trillion dollars in new tax increases, a half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, job-killing penalties for employers, taxpayer funded abortion and new boards that will ration care to American citizens. At its core, their plan continues a government-centered approach that has made health care more expensive. Federal and state governments already control 60 percent of health care. If more government spending and control was the answer we could have fixed health care long ago.
“Republicans in Congress have a different vision for reform. We have put forward several proposals that lay out a common sense step-by-step path to reform. Our solutions are patient-centered, not government-centered. We believe in expanding options, not government; increasing access, not taxes; and reducing costs, not quality. Most importantly, we believe that no one has the right to step between you and your doctor.
“I introduced a health care bill called the ‘Patients’ Choice Act’ last May along with Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina and Representatives Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Devin Nunes of California that includes several step-by-step ideas for reform. The ‘Patients’ Choice Act’ and other Republican plans accomplish all of the president’s goals, including expanding coverage, without raising taxes, bankrupting the country or rationing care.
“Our ideas address the core problem in our health care system – skyrocketing costs – by using the only force that ever lowers cost – competition and consumer choice. Health care is so expensive today because third-parties – government and insurance company bureaucrats – have stepped between you and your doctor.
“Our solutions restore the doctor-patient relationship and put you – not your insurance company, your boss or the government – in charge of your health care dollars and decisions. The ‘Patients’ Choice Act,’ for instance, provides generous tax credits that let you buy, and keep, the plan of your choice. We also limit lawsuit abuse which causes doctors to order costly tests that protect themselves rather than you, the patient.
“Our proposals to rein in the massive amount of fraud, waste and duplication in our health care system drew widespread praise from Democrats at the summit, including the President. One in three dollars in our more than $2 trillion health care system does not do anything to help people get well or prevent them from getting sick. Democrats and Republicans agree that eliminating waste and inefficiency would lower costs and improve access tomorrow.
“The majority now has a choice. We can continue to make progress like we did at the summit. Or, they can try to ram through a partisan bill that will divide and bankrupt America.
“I wholeheartedly share President Obama’s desire for more civility and bipartisanship in Washington and I’m proud of the work that we did together when he was a member of the Senate. True civility, however, is measured by actions, not words.
“I was disappointed the President rejected my suggestion that he host another summit. The President himself proposed that such meetings be televised more than a year ago. Last year, dozens of Democrat-only summits were held in secret, behind closed doors and produced many unsavory deals. Had those meetings been open and bipartisan I believe Congress could have passed a bipartisan health bill months ago.
“If the President and the leaders in Congress are serious about finding common ground they should continue this debate, not cut it off by rushing through a partisan bill the American people have already rejected. If the majority agrees to work together they will find many Republicans ready to help them pursue our common goals of helping all Americans access quality and affordable health care for themselves and their families.
“Thank you so much for listening.”
When Republicans say the Democrats are not listening to the American public, it isn't just rhetoric as Lutz's focus group, consisting of 13 Obama supporters and 13 McCain supporters, shows clearly when they are asked whether they believe the political leadership is "listening" to them, not one person in the room raised their hands.
The most recent Gallup poll also confirms that the majority of Americans are opposed to Democrats using the procedure called reconciliation to jam through Obamacare.
By a larger 52% to 39% margin, Americans also oppose the Democrats in the Senate using a reconciliation procedure to avoid a possible Republican filibuster and pass a bill by a simple majority vote.
The plurality, 49 percent to 42 percent also "oppose rather than favor Congress passing a healthcare bill similar to the one proposed by President Obama and Democrats in the House and Senate."
What isn't know yet is whether vulnerable Democrats in the upcoming 2010 elections, will allow themselves to be sacrificed and toss their careers away to jump over that cliff with Obama, Pelosi and Reid.
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D.-N.Y.) claims he didn't know he was violating rules governing gifts that lawmakers can accept from corporations.
The House ethics committee says Rep. Charles Rangel's aides tried at least three times to show him that his Caribbean trips had corporate sponsors, but he denies seeing any of the written communications.
The ethics committee report released Friday is important in determining how aware Rangel was that he was receiving corporate gifts. The powerful Ways and Means Committee chairman says he did nothing wrong because his staff never told him about corporate sponsors.
The report says investigators could not determine whether Rangel, D-N.Y., saw two staff memos to him in 2008 and a letter addressed to him in 2007.
Rangel refuses to step aside as top House tax writer because of the report, which accuses him of violating rules governing gifts that lawmakers can accept.
Investigations are still outstanding as well on other issues:
Still looming is a much larger ethics investigation that focuses in part on Rangel's use of official stationery to raise money for a college center in his name and also his belated financial disclosure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously unreported assets.
Even Democrats are calling for Rangel to step down:
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., became the first Democrat to suggest that Rangel should give up chairmanship of the committee, which originates not only tax laws but also benefit programs that now pay nearly half the costs for Americans' health care.
Taylor told reporters Rangel should "either step down or step aside until this is resolved."...
Taylor isn't the only Democrat asking for Rangel to step down either.
After months of holding ranks, some Democrats are finally turning on House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) in the wake of an ethics committee finding that he violated House rules by accepting a Caribbean junket.
Early Friday, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) told POLITICO he wants Rangel to quit his powerful committee post — and that was quickly followed by similar statements from a pair of deep south Democrats, Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor and Alabama Rep. Bobby Bright.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to defend Rangel, but lawmakers like Hodes are calling for Rangel’s gavel.
"I honor and respect Charlie Rangel’s lifetime of service as a soldier serving our country in Korea and as a public servant. But Washington must be held to the highest ethical standards. Regrettably, with the finding of ethics violations, Charlie Rangel should step down from his leadership position.”
Others include Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor and Alabama Rep. Bobby Bright.
When a reporter prefaced a question about Rangel by noting that Pelosi had promised to run the “most ethical and honest Congress in history” she interrupted him to say: “And we are.”
Watching things like this make me wonder if people like Pelosi are even aware of the reality of the situation and the political atmosphere around the Democrats in the House and Senate.
A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, shaking the capital of Santiago for 90 seconds and sending tsunami warnings from Chile to Ecuador. Chile’s TVN cable news channel was reporting 78 deaths, with the toll expected to rise.
The quake downed buildings and houses in Santiago and knocked out a major bridge connecting the northern and southern sections of the country.
It struck at 3:34 a.m. local time and was centered about 200 miles southwest of Santiago, at a depth of 22 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The epicenter was some 70 miles from Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live.
CNN reports the Pacific is under tsunami warnings for the entire Pacific basin.
While Barack Obama and congressional Democrats spend their time focusing on Obamacare, to which the majority of Americans are opposed to, joblessness rose more than projected.
Unemployment claims filed last week rose unexpectedly, coming in at 496,000, up 22,000 from the previous week.
Taken with other discouraging news released this week -- record-low January new home sales and a slide in consumer confidence -- the new jobless claims number describes a slow and uncertain recovery.
Forecasters had expected 460,000 new jobless claims to be filed last week
The four-week moving average of new jobless claims -- which smooths out volatility in the week-to-week numbers -- rose 6,000 to 473,750.
Perhaps Democrats should turn their attention towards our unemployment rate and stop trying to jam unpopular legislation through the House and Senate.
The video shows that 13 McCain voters and 13 Obama voters in 2008 mostly agree on a coupe points. Republicans did much better than expected and Democrats did not. They also tell Lutz.
"Democratic dismissal of any attempt by Republicans to start a dialog"
"They're not listening to us, they're not listening to the people"
Lutz asked the whole group, and remember, these are half McCain voters and half Obama voters, "how many of you feel they are listening to you, raise your hands?"
Not one single person raised their hands.
Next question, "How many of you think Washington is still ignoring you?"
Yesterday Gallup reported that if an agreement was not reached at the Doc and Pony show aka bipartisan healthcare summit, "Americans by a 49% to 42% margin oppose rather than favor Congress passing a healthcare bill similar to the one proposed by President Obama and Democrats in the House and Senate. By a larger 52% to 39% margin, Americans also oppose the Democrats in the Senate using a reconciliation procedure to avoid a possible Republican filibuster and pass a bill by a simple majority vote."
The Democrats expected to be able to show Republicans as not willing to work in good faith, instead they portrayed themselves as the party refusing to work in a bipartisan manner.
The Democrats have been pounding on the false notion that Republicans weren't putting forward and ideas and this political show has now informed the public that the Republicans not only have ideas, presented them, but have summarily had them dismissed by Democrats.
Some choice quotes from CNN, The Hill and Fox are provided by Republican.senate.Gov:
CNN’s WOLF BLITZER: “It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
CNN’s GLORIA BORGER: “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
• BORGER: “They took on the substance of a very complex issue. … But they really stuck to the substance of this issue and tried to get to the heart of it and I think did a very good job.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
• BORGER: “They came in with a plan. They mapped it out.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
CNN’s DAVID GERGEN: “The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
• GERGEN: “He doesn’t have a strong Democratic team behind him.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
THE HILL’S A.B. STODDARD: “I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.” (Fox News’ “Live,” 2/25/10)
THE WEEKLY STANDARD’S STEVE HAYES: “I think to me the most important thing to come out of the morning so far is that Republicans have spent a great deal of time talking with great passion, and I think eagerness about their plans, detailing the plans that until this morning them democrats had been saying didn't exist. Well, you now see, I think, in great detail that Republicans do have plans, that they care about the same issues and that they feel passionately about it.” (Fox News’ “Live,” 2/25/10)
When the idea of the summit was first presented by Barack Obama, many on the right were convinced that it would be set in a manner that would make mincemeat out of Republicans, but I said, and I quote:
Actually I think that is a great idea.
Finally, instead of consistently hearing the Democrats claim the Republicans have presented no ideas, the President himself will give Republicans the opportunity, a forum and a public one at that, to which to present their ideas, the ones Democrats have tossed to the side time and time again without allowing discussion in either chamber.
Brilliant idea in my humble opinion.
Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, was one of the stars of the event and the video below shows you why. (H/T Weekly Standard)
Paul Ryan: Hiding Spending Doesn't Reduce Spending
My favorite quote from Ryan comes at the end of the clip where he says:
"The American people are engaged and if you think they want a government takeover of healthcare, I would respectively submit 'you're not listening to them'".
Americans are skeptical that lawmakers will agree on a new healthcare bill at Thursday's bipartisan healthcare summit in Washington, D.C. If an agreement is not reached, Americans by a 49% to 42% margin oppose rather than favor Congress passing a healthcare bill similar to the one proposed by President Obama and Democrats in the House and Senate. By a larger 52% to 39% margin, Americans also oppose the Democrats in the Senate using a reconciliation procedure to avoid a possible Republican filibuster and pass a bill by a simple majority vote.
I am ignoring the health care meeting. It is a waste of time, since President Obama is involved. Today is about Priuses. As sorry as I feel for Toyota, I am glad fewer Priuses are on the road. I have Prius rage.
The Republicans need to gain a net of 40 seats to regain control of the House of Representatives. Since every analyst seems to predicting they will lose both the Delaware at large seat and the Louisiana 2 seat, they will need to capture 42 seats currently held by the Democrats. That brings up the question of where these 42 seats will come from. We have our own idea of 74 seats which we believe are either odds on bets or are quite possible for the Republicans to capture. We will list them along with what other analysts think are the chances in the table. Notice that in the top 40 ending with CO-4, the margin of the incumbent Democrat does not go over 10% unless Obama lost the district. Also notice that in addition to the top 40, other analysts think that PA-7 and PA-12 are primarily toss-ups because there is no incumbent Democrat. That makes 42 seats for the Republicans and control by 1 seat after losing two seats. See if you think there are more than 42 seats in the table that the Republicans can capture.
You can see that the analysts seldom agree on any given seat. This is because the other three analysts use subjective criteria which produces a "seat of the pants" rating than using purely objective criteria like we do. We use a mathematical formula based strictly on the incumbent's winning margin and the margin that Obama-Biden got in the 2008 presidential election. We feel that any other approach invites introducing too many judgment calls that are hard to statistically evaluate. In our opinion, these judgment calls lead to what what can only be called many surprising ratings by the other analysts.
You will see three D's in several districts when the winning margin is less than 5% and in two cases where Obama did not even carry the district (NY-29 and PA-3). Rep. Murphy in NY-20 won by less than one-half of 1% in a terrible Republican year and yet all three think he will win easily in what looks to be a banner Republican year. You will also notice that the other analysts ignore all of Massachusetts but MA-10 even though Scott Brown carried six districts by over 56%. They also ignore Maine 1 even though Rep. Pingree won by less than a 10% margin. They say that CT-5 is in play when Rep. Murphy got over a 20% margin and Obama had almost a 14% margin, yet in TX-27 they say that Rep. Ortiz is home free with a margin of less than 20% but where Obama got a margin of less than 8%. Go figure. Perhaps now that Rep. Ortiz has hints of a scandal, the other analysts will change their ratings.
A final note about our own ratings which are expressed in the percentage probability of the district being captured by the Republicans. When there is a # in front of the Democrat margin, it means we did not use the 2008 margin. This could be due to the fact that the seat is open so we used a margin from an earlier election under similar circumstances. It could also mean that the Democrat was unopposed by the Republicans and we were forced to use an earlier election in which the Democrat did have Republican opposition. Finally there are a couple of cases where polls or later election results (VA, NJ, MA) indicate that the election will be closer than the 2008 margin would predict so we have used a margin from a year with closer results.
Just because we list a district as having a better than even chance (50% or better) of going Republican does not mean we believe it will necessarily go Republican. An odds on bet is never a sure thing even when the percentage is above 90%. For example a Public Policy Polling result shows Rep. Perriello in VA-5 is tied with his best Republican opponent even though he has a 93.0% chance of losing. Our present mathematical formula does not allow for local conditions that vary from district to district. As we get closer to the election, we will introduce more variables into the formula to account for such conditions. One thing we may introduce quite soon is an allowance for the Democrat voting no on the Pelosi health care bill whichbased on some polls seems to be insulating some Democrats from being in trouble compared to others who voted yes.
