My Election Predictions

For what it's worth...

Today is election day, but since it's an off-off-year there are just three races that have gained national attention: the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey, and the special election for an open congressional seat in New York's 23rd district.

Virginia Governor: I'm fairly confident in predicting that Republican Bob McDonnell will beat Democrat Creigh Deeds by a fairly comfortable margin. Deeds has run a pretty weak campaign and McDonnell has been pretty effective in tacking to the center to gain some votes in moderate northern Virginia that went to Obama last year. Not much mystery here.

New Jersey Governor: This is the race that is the hardest to predict. For most of the year Republican Chris Christie had a sizable lead over Democratic incumbent John Corzine, but Corzine is closing strong as some of the shine has come off Christie and now the race is literally tied in the Pollster.com average. What Christie has going for him are greater Republican enthusiasm and being a change agent in a bad economic year. Corzine has the structural advantages of incumbency and New Jersey's finely tuned Democratic get-out-the-vote machinery. I'll go down as predicting Corzine will eek out a win, but I wont be at all surprised if it comes out the other way. Additionally, there will be lots of punditizing about what these races mean for Obama and the Democrats, and most of it will be stupid, but this is the one race where it would be fair to extrapolate broader notions of the national mood. If the Democrats lose, they need to concentrate on ways to gin up enthusiasm before next year.

New York 23rd District: This is a crazy race. It was a three-way race that the Democrat Bill Owens was winning, but since Republican Dede Scozzafava dropped out, it's a two-way race between Owens and Conservative Party candidate and Teabagger Doug Hoffman. This is a heavily Republican district that elected a Republican even during the bloodbaths of 2006 and 2008, so it's no surprise that Hoffman is now in the lead since the conservative vote is no longer split. I think this race will say more about internal Republican dynamics than the direction of the country though. This race could be a surprise since there have been so many twists and turns, but I will go the safe route and predict a Hoffman victory.

EDIT: There is another congressional election going on today that I overlooked, and the Democrat is tethering himself to Obama and is likely to win. It hasn't gotten as much attention, probably because it doesn't fit the media's new narrative that the President is the most hated man in America.

Today In Urban Hellhole News

Historic preservationists like myself were weary of Weingarten Realty's plans to build a big-ass Barnes & Noble in the River Oaks Shopping Center because we were worried it would be the beginning of the end of the historic Alabama Theater down the street on Shepherd Drive, which housed another Barnes & Noble. As of right now that's thankfully not the case as the Alabama Theater will house the upcoming Cinema Arts Festival Houston. The festival will just occupy the theater temporarily, but hopefully it can serve to attract a new permanent tenant.

I've always thought building could be put to better use than a bookstore. I would prefer it were turned back into a movie theater, or perhaps a venue for plays and concerts.

We're just playing around...trust us.

So, this is encouraging: Russia playing war games with Poland staring as the target of their nuclear weapons.

I realize that countries carry out these exercises for a multitude of reasons, but it should raise an eyebrow given recent events of the U.S. pulling the plug on the missile defense system in Poland thereafter followed by Putin scoffing at the idea of increasing sanctions on Iran

Which makes an exchange that occurred a little over a month ago on the The Daily Ire (which can be found here and here) a little more interesting.

Wah, Wah your way...to the nearest EXIT!

Finally, an uplifting news story. It's not enough that parents get tax credits and whatever else it is that they want for their snot-nosed-swine-flu-incubating little brats. So if you needed one more reason to like Southwest Airlines, this may just be it.

And on a more serious (and slightly unrelated) note, the topic of children who rape. Call me cynical (and people often do), but a poster and a workshop condemning rape aren't going to cut it. That's all.

Not Homoween Anymore

Dan Savage on the heterozation of Halloween, and why that's not a bad thing.

I have to admit I find using Halloween as an excuse to dress like a whore to be somewhat aggravating, but if you dress up as a dead whore, then that's ok.

Change

In what is shaping up to be a nice trend, President Obama reversed another stupid policy from the 80s. Since 1987, thanks largely to Jesse Helm's homophobia, the United States did not allow people with HIV to enter the country. Early next year, the HIV Travel Ban will be lifted, further doing away with the stigma associated with that disease.

Classy

Liz Cheney is a terrible human being.

Today's Funny But Not Funny Headline

Canadian folk singer killed by coyotes, park officials say.

More Stupid Poll Questions

This time courtesy of a Fox News poll. They are asking who is more determined to win the war in Afghanistan: President Obama or al-Qaeda/the Taliban? First of all, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are now two very distinct entities. Some in the Taliban might be sympathetic to al-Qaeda, but many are just fighting because they oppose the Karzai government. Furthermore, the question should be whether the American people want to win the war more than al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and well, they're kind of all over the place.

No such question was asked in their poll during the previous eight years of the war. I have no idea why that could be...

Good ol' C.I.A.

An already Vietnam-esque situation gets even...Vietnam...ier with the revelation that the Afghan President's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is on the payroll of the C.I.A. President Karzai's brother is widely believed to be heavily involved Afghanistan's booming opium trade. I can imagine this would piss off the military who are trying to halt opium production because it funds the Taliban. Perhaps we're seeing some tension between the intelligence community and the military playing itself out on the pages of The New York Times.