Their timing is certainly suspect, namely that it's politically motivated by the administration. "Live race" with NBC/Marist at a 14 point lead? All for not including someone who has been drawing low single digits?

Bold: Thanks for the laugh.

No one poll determines the competitiveness of a race so what Marist (which is a subpar firm in any event) says about South Dakota isn't worth any more or less than what the rest of credible polling has shown over the last two months. Not including Howie, or upon further review including him but finding his standing much lower than other polling, is problematic due to where his support comes from: exclusively from respondents who would otherwise back Rounds. By Marist finding a questionable lack of support for Howie they registered Rounds as clearing 40%, a threshold he hasn't cleared in actual polls since the summer.

Though polling, especially public, didn't create the recognition that the race is competitive. There have been many signs, including:

Money -- Weiland easily outraisied Rounds in October.
Pushback from Rounds campaign -- Releasing an laughable internal complete with laugh track, even worse from a firm itself that's accompanied by a laugh track.
Overall quality of Rounds campaign -- Bungling EB-5 and Rounds' governorship, and choosing to duck debates where 3 opponents are free to gang up on you.
Outside groups -- Every Voice Action dropping in in September, Mayday in October.
National GOP constantly backpedaling -- "We're leading by 15," "we're still leading by 10," "we're still up 6-7 points."
DSCC investment -- It's well-known that the DSCC and national Democrats didn't support Weiland, there's a reason they invested a couple of weeks ago.
NRSC response -- The Republicans wouldn't have dumped money here, let alone pull it out of other states, if they didn't have to.

All that said, Rounds will always maintain an edge simply because it's a 4-person race in South Dakota. The outcome is still in question though, but now down to either him or Weiland. Pressler is done and it's far too late for Howie to surge.

"Thanks for the laugh." You may as well state "I have a simple mind, it's easily amused." They've been investigating for 2 years, and "confirm" that they're "actively" investigating weeks before the election? You buy that as a coincidence? Would you also like to buy my bridge?

If anyone has a simple mind it's quite clearly the person whose default is "hurr durr, it must be political." I laughed because your assertion is laughable. In reality, the details of EB-5 laid dormant for months and even years because no one knew any better or cared enough to ask. Rounds' entire governorship was held in high esteem by everyone, and even though there were some questions the issue never exploded the way it did over the course of this campaign. The FBI wasn't getting inquiries about EB-5 before, now they get hundreds per day.

Either way this thread's not meant for the merits of the EB-5 scandal, only its electoral significance. Take the conspiracy theory shit elsewhere.

Laughable because the Hack says so? Lulz.

The details laid dormant because there's not nearly enough to convict, but there's certainly enough to illegitimately tar and feather the candidate over it, just in time for the election. I can almost hear the pending "oops, my bad" after the ballots have been cast. These are perfectly reasonable conclusions from the available information. That doesn't make me a conspiracist, if anything, just cynical. Not that I put anything past your overall boss anyways.

Again, take the conspiracy theory shit elsewhere. There's no appetite for it here.



Governors: Republicans are continuing the blame game mentioned earlier, and their panic is spilling over into other races. While their outlook has improved greatly in some states (mainly Massachusetts, now their second-best pickup opportunity behind Arkansas) they are starting to really sweat in the high-profile races that this cycle is really about. There could be some real trading among the small-scale governorships this year in states like Arkansas, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Kansas, Alaska, and Maine, but the real battle is over the big prize governorships of Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Colorado.

Democrats were a lock months ago to pick up PA and both sides agree that their incumbent in CO is probably a small favorite to be reelected. That puts much of the focus on WI, MI, and FL, where three Republican incumbents are facing stiff challenges. The Democrats are the narrowest of favorites in FL despite being massively outspent, and Republicans have long been putting their hopes in Scott Walker and Rick Snyder to hold the GOP's most valuable governorships. The conservative Weekly Standard really started the "blame Christie" mantra that took hold recently as Scott Walker's campaign has sounded the alarm over how close the race is. The published another article [See: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/two-weeks-out-rga-reduces-spending-target-wisconsin_817099.html?nopager=1#.VEqgUCrX4L1.twitter] that took the RGA to town for disparities over how much they're willing to support Walker in the final weeks. Snyder in MI has a much better money edge over his opponent than Walker, but the early vote totals suggest that his race is just as close. The RGA has become the punching bag for Republicans who are unnerved at the possibility of losing the important governorships and only being left with less-consequential seats in smaller states. The RGA is getting blasted for dropping and then doubling-down on an ad that peddles outright falsehoods in CO [See: http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/] and their new ad in FL isn't going over well either [See: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/10/27/new_attack_ad_links_crist_to_sex_trafficking.html]

Expect Chris Christie to get the blame next week unless the Republicans get lucky and pull out some narrow victories across these 10-11 states. With him at the helm the RGA made many questionable decisions about where to place their money and considering their ability to accept limitless massive checks there's no excuse for their candidates to not hold large funding edges in every race. If Walker in particular goes down then Christie will have a major target on his back.

Given your affinity for shit, and inability to put 2 and 2 together, I am unconcerned with your appetite. Just like several Democrat Senators are facing an ethics investigation over pushing the levers of government to stifle their political competition, there is little reason to think it isn't at play here given the circumstances.

Nixon said something along the lines of politics being the art of helping your friends and punishing your enemies.

They all do it, it is like you're accusing politicians of being politicians. We know I think that deep down even JayQ knows that they're all morally compromised crooks, but elections are like sports to him and he has his teams he likes and I can't blame him for that as I feel the same in a lot of ways...Jay is more like an OCD bookie in Vegas who really really likes a certain team

As for me the big election I'm watching is the Wisconsin governors race. There doesn't even seem like much of a reason to vote in Ohio this cycle. I'm gonna show up for David Pepper but I'm not hopeful he will unseat DeWine for AG.

This post was edited by Skinned on Oct 28 2014 07:41am

And Nixon is held up to be the opposite of a pinnacle of virtue, and faced impeachment over his actions. Obama has actually pulled off far worse than Nixon, and people don't even bat an eye anymore.

WI is definitely the top spectator race to watch. Super close, with lots of punditry fodder in the offing over the results.

Last great president was Truman, IMO. Kennedy had potential.