# 2008 U.S. Senate Races: Speculation and Commentary Thread #1 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 27, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790 "2008-05-27T18:03:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/21 "2008-05-28T14:53:00Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] If Ronald Reagan could be president, and Arnold Schwarzenegger can be governor of the seventh largest economy in the world, then why not Franken a senator in Minnesota? As much baggage as he has, he does know about public policy. But I agree he’s mouthed off a lot, and that doesn’t help at all. Jesse Ventura, for all I know, didn’t say much at all before his political career. [/QUOTE] Jesse Ventura had a morning radio show before he ran for Governor in which he ran his mouth off every day for years. He was very much a known quantity. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/22 "2008-05-28T14:56:33Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Jesse Ventura had a morning radio show before he ran for Governor in which he ran his mouth off every day for years. He was very much a known quantity. [/QUOTE] I didn’t know that. Here it’s the reverse. First they get into office, then they have a radio show. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/23 "2008-05-28T15:11:39Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] If Ronald Reagan could be president, and Arnold Schwarzenegger can be governor of the seventh largest economy in the world, then why not Franken a senator in Minnesota? As much baggage as he has, he does know about public policy. But I agree he’s mouthed off a lot, and that doesn’t help at all. [/QUOTE] Doesn’t it? How many Senate candidates start out with **national** name recognition? And any use of one of Franken’s soundbites in an attack ad will only draw public attention to the, probably, book in which it was published, which is all to the good. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/24 "2008-05-28T17:18:57Z")
I have some speculation … … with the Dems firmly in control of congress and likley to gain seats, we won’t hear much conventional wisdom about how Americans like divided government coming from ABCNNBCBS and their cohorts in the print media. Unless they need to rationalize an Obama loss due to his liberalness and inexperience and can’t blame it on Willie Horton-like ads. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/25 "2008-05-28T17:34:38Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] I have some speculation … … with the Dems firmly in control of congress and likley to gain seats, we won’t hear much conventional wisdom about how Americans like divided government coming from ABCNNBCBS and their cohorts in the print media. [/QUOTE] No, we won’t . . . nor should we. What reason have we to think Americans “like divided government” as an end-in-itself anyway? It’s just that, electoral politics being what it is, the separation-of-powers system sometimes happens to produce that result. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/26 "2008-05-28T17:50:23Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] I have some speculation … … with the Dems firmly in control of congress and likley to gain seats, we won’t hear much conventional wisdom about how Americans like divided government coming from ABCNNBCBS and their cohorts in the print media. Unless they need to rationalize an Obama loss due to his liberalness and inexperience and can’t blame it on Willie Horton-like ads. [/QUOTE] Oh, look! It’s the UTTER MYTH of the “liberal media”… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/27 "2008-05-28T17:53:12Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Oh, look! It’s the UTTER MYTH of the “liberal media”… [/QUOTE] A zombie myth, too, killed over and over and [coming back more times than Jason.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052703047.html?nav=hcmodule) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/28 "2008-05-28T17:54:01Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] I have some speculation … … with the Dems firmly in control of congress and likley to gain seats, we won’t hear much conventional wisdom about how Americans like divided government coming from ABCNNBCBS and their cohorts in the print media. [/QUOTE] So your theory is that if the people don’t vote for a divided gov’t, then we won’t hear much about how people like to vote for a divided gov’t? I can’t really argue with that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/29 "2008-05-28T18:37:52Z")
Wrong thread. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/30 "2008-05-28T19:20:18Z")
There’s a pretty good discussion of ticket-splitting and the claim that Americans yearn for divided government already going on over in the [Obama Bonanza](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=469461) thread. Not that there’s anything wrong with discussing it here, but just pointing it out. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/31 "2008-05-28T21:10:57Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Doesn’t it? How many Senate candidates start out with **national** name recognition? And any use of one of Franken’s soundbites in an attack ad will only draw public attention to the, probably, book in which it was published, which is all to the good. [/QUOTE] He’s pretty well off. I don’t think he’s running to sell books. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/32 "2008-05-28T21:49:46Z")
Gordon Smith, the GOP incumbent in Oregon, is in no danger of being unseated. He’s been consistently rated one of the more liberal Republicans in the Senate, and his district is overwhelmingly rural, conservative, and religious. I’d like to see it, and I’ll vote against him, but there’s not much hope. EDIT: Two caveats: he could be unseated fairly easily by a “macaca” moment and possibly unseated if a high-profile Democrat, like a popular former Governor, ran for the seat. But it would take one, possibly both of those to oust him, and he’s not that conservative; the Democrats are better off spending their money elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/33 "2008-05-28T21:56:27Z")
[QUOTE=guizot] He’s pretty well off. I don’t think he’s running to sell books. [/QUOTE] No, he isn’t; by “all to the good,” I meant, if more public attention (in Minnesota) is directed to his books (even by way of attack ads), and more voters read them, he’s more likely to win. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/34 "2008-05-29T00:05:40Z")
[QUOTE=appleciders] Gordon Smith, the GOP incumbent in Oregon, is in no danger of being unseated. He’s been consistently rated one of the more liberal Republicans in the Senate, and his district is overwhelmingly rural, conservative, and religious. I’d like to see it, and I’ll vote against him, but there’s not much hope. EDIT: Two caveats: he could be unseated fairly easily by a “macaca” moment and possibly unseated if a high-profile Democrat, like a popular former Governor, ran for the seat. But it would take one, possibly both of those to oust him, and he’s not that conservative; the Democrats are better off spending their money elsewhere. [/QUOTE] Two comments: Oregon just had their primary. The Democratic nominee is the Speaker of the Oregon House. Second, and I hope this is a case where I’m not fully understanding your remarks: Senators are elected statewide. Mind you (as is stated above), I currently am not expecting this seat to flip. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/35 "2008-05-29T02:40:21Z")
> [@](#): > > If Obama (as nominee) campaigns hard in Kentucky, endorsing Lunsford, does that help or hurt the Lunsford campaign? Just wondering. Hard to say. Obama is not as unpopular in Kentucky as his spanking in the primary would indicate. The issue is that a lot of counties in Kentucky are so overwhelmingly Democratic that one has to be a registered Dem to have any vote at all in local elections. (We have closed primaries.) So the average KY Democrat is way to the right of the average nationwide, and a whole lot of them can be expected to vote GOP in the fall. A lot of other factors went into his defeat, including good old fashioned racism, but that’s the big one. Those conservative Democrats are the ones who have kept McConnell in office, since Dems are a strong majority across the state. A big push from Obama might draw some of the lefty voters that wouldn’t have come out for Lunsford on their own, but it might lose just as many conservative Dems who otherwise would have considered getting off the McConnell boat. Mitch apparently thinks Obama can only hurt Lunsford, as he’s been out there talking about the “Obama-Lunsford Plan for America”. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/36 "2008-05-29T02:44:26Z")
[QUOTE=DoctorJ] Mitch apparently thinks Obama can only hurt Lunsford, as he’s been out there talking about the “Obama-Lunsford Plan for America”. [/QUOTE] Shouldn’t it be the “Obama-Lunsford-Jeremiah Wright-William Ayers Plan for America”? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/37 "2008-05-29T18:12:55Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] No, we won’t . . . nor should we. What reason have we to think Americans “like divided government” as an end-in-itself anyway? It’s just that, electoral politics being what it is, the separation-of-powers system sometimes happens to produce that result. [/QUOTE] I’m not suggesting that Americans do like divided government. I’m suggesting that the argument has been trotted out most often if it can be used to help elect Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/38 "2008-05-29T18:15:08Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] I’m not suggesting that Americans do like divided government. I’m suggesting that the argument has been trotted out most often if it can be used to help elect Democrats. [/QUOTE] I see. Cite? More importantly, relevance? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/39 "2008-05-29T18:16:29Z")
nvm ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790/40 "2008-05-29T18:48:15Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I see. Cite? More importantly, relevance? [/QUOTE] I thought it was relevant to your comment … maybe it wasn’t relevant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2008-u-s-senate-races-speculation-and-commentary-thread-1/450790.md?page=3)