....aarggh , I can understand why you oppose Dewine but Pepper is a Yaley elite with zero experience for the job...and a shitty parker to boot.....just stay home

Fred Kudrata, our congressional district 1 Democrat running against Steve Chabot is much worse

Definition of carpetbagger. I'm pretty sure he even ran as a Republican in a few elections....he just wants to win an office so bad lol. When I met him I asked if he had any ideas on how to deal with skyrocketing homeless due to mental illness in his district and he started talking about school shootings and trying a gun control bill to a mental health bill, obviously pandering to who he thought I was. The guy who ran against him in the Democratic congressional primary was a local college professor from the area who mentioned Plato in his platform, so I was obviously disappointed when this spray-tanned turd curbstomped him at the polls.

Even in state legislature election we have Democrat Thomas vs. Republican Winburn. Retired police officer Cecil Thomas, when he was on city council, was part of a bill that turned possession of under 400 grams of marijuana from a ticketable offense to a criminal offense with long jail sentences and up to $10k fines for possession. This has lead to such a heavy burden on our incarceration systems that the sheriff's department is constantly begging for money, plus for a black leader doing something like that has thrown thousands and thousands of young black men in jail and ruined their future chances of employment and leaving them dependent on entitlements, which is unconscionable. Winburn is highly respected by both sides of the isle here in Cincinnati and even our (not very liberal) Democrat mayor praises him. He has strong support in the black community, especially the middle class.

The GOP is just the better party in Ohio at the moment, at least in my part of it. I know there are some loons that get in office from rural and small town Ohio, and that is what gives me the most hesitation to give the GOP the keys completely in the state, and honestly opposition to their kind of agenda would be my choice if I do vote. I don't want to vote against the better candidate for political pragmatism though. You see my conundrum.

...I was actually going to make a thread for us Ohioans and urge everyone to maintain the status quo . The turnaround in our economic status has been so profound I'm surprised that Kasich doesn't get more national buzz .

Well I'm not organizing or otherwise rallying the troops this cycle, and I think I'm more politically active than the average person. I'm pretty sure nobody is wanting to rock the boat.

And you're right, I've actually seen businesses move their headquarters from Northern Kentucky and South East Indiana move across the border here in Ohio. There is a big to do about the Cincinnati International Airport which is actually in Northern KY and people on the board being from Ohio. People on the board arguing against Ohio having three seats (Cincinnati Mayors office, Ohio Gov, and some other representative) had little bitchfits about Kasich stealing businesses, and honestly it made me happy to read that. There is no greater testament to success than bitter tears of defeated enemies

I know quite a few blue collar liberal voters who like Kasich. The way he didn't just press on with an ideological war against the unions impressed me. He seen how divided his state was and didn't just disenfranchise half the state like Scott Walker did. Zealots with power scare me. I'm glad Walker's star is falling and Kasich's star is rising. I always believed the strength of the GOP was in the quality of its governors.

...I really think Kasich's biggest drawback on the Presidential level is how bad he looks on HD TV . It's a sad commentary when physical appearance is such a large part of the decision making process but it's the reality .

The GCB swung back towards the Democrats recently. Pew has Democrats +1 (4-pt swing), CNN has Democrats +1 (5-pt swing), and the funniest of all is that Faux News has Democrats +1 (4-pt swing) but decided to use the headline "Americans lack confidence in Obama, Ebola czar" anyway. That's their (predetermined) story and they're sticking to it, facts be damned! Taken in total with other (outlier) surveys, the GCB is predicted somewhere between 0-2 points for either party. That's in line with the House swing predicted here. As far as the Senate goes, today is another "models agree" day with the likelihood of a Republican majority around 62%. That's generally a good guess based on the available polling and "state fundamental" data, but the big question remains: will polling have the same pro-GOP bias that it had in 2008 (GCB), and 2010 and 2012 (everywhere), because if it does then the models will be off on some major races. Some quick race-by-race updates:

AK-SEN: Ivan Moore Research has Begich up 48%-42%. It's the second implausible-seeming outlier we've seen in a couple of days, but IMR is experienced in AK and fared better than the other firms who tried to poll the Senate race in 2008.

AR-SEN: The DSCC is going up with a multi-million ad buy here after a Pryor internal showed him up by 1 point.

IA-SEN: Loras College now finds Braley up 45%-44%, amid a Republican-leaning sample that still shows him winning Independents by 4%.

KS-SEN: SurveyUSA's newest poll has Orman leading by 2 points.

NC-SEN: Democrats are still dominating the early voting in the state, expanding their large lead in in-person voting.

LA-SEN: The Democrats have also been successful in early voting here, too. African-Americans make up about 32% of the 190,000 ballots cast, giving Landrieu a real shot to make it into the high 40s on Election Day. Her making it to 50% in order to avoid a runoff is unlikely, but not impossible.

CO-SEN: This is the lone early-voting bright spot for Republicans among the Senate contests. They continue to lead among early-voters, as they typically do, and Democrats have not really started to send in their ballots in order to cut into the GOP's current 10.5% lead.

KY-SEN: Turnout in Jefferson County is predicted to be around 65%, much higher than it was in 2010 and even in 2008 when McConnell was last on the ballot. The Grimes campaign is hoping for high turnout and a big margin here to have a shot at victory.

SD-SEN: A couple of new polls from SUSA and Monmouth show Rounds in the mid-40s with Weiland stuck in the low 30s and Pressler's support eroding. Pressler's gaffe probably helps Rounds finally put the race away, because soft-Weiland supporters are sticking with Pressler while soft-Rounds supporters have left him.

GA-SEN: Republicans got a boost here when a Superior Court today decided to not intervene and force the Republican Secretary of State to process 40,000 voter registrations that he has been obstructing in hopes of running out the clock. SUSA's new poll has Perdue with a 48%-45% edge but early voting still points to a slight advantage for Nunn. Local media is hammering Perdue for yet another gaffe.



I'm not one for the "all politicians are x" or "all politicians do y" talk because I don't like the kind of false-equivalence horseshit that it leads to. I let the facts determine how I should view each specific case as not to generalize and then go from there. As it pertains to the Rounds situation: there's a good chance he ends up in jail, so the idea that the details of his scandal are coming out due to a politically-motivated FBI is just pure fantasy-land bullshit, plain and simple. I'm obviously not going to indulge that nonsense because it runs contrary to what we know.

HA! The only conviction they were going to get is dead.

Not really sure why the American people are seriously considering giving the GOP the Senate, too, after the circus sideshow we've seen in the House (and the Senate actually) these last 4 years.

doesn't gerrymandering play a role in any of this?

Not in the Senate, Senate is a state wide election. It matters for the House however.

This post was edited by nobrow on Oct 29 2014 10:53am