I’m not sure how you fix this. If you appoint a non-partisan person, some elected official or body has to do it. So that appointed person would likely be someone agreeable to whoever does the appointing, making them a bit less than impartial.
This is how the GOP is trying to save the seat. Among other things it involves savaging Orman, incurring the risk that they will alienate Orman so much that he won’t caucus with the GOP if he wins.
Well, you know, he has some unappetizing connections to Wall Street fatcats, and shelters money in Cayman Island accounts, which are practices that Republicans find repulsive and disgusting. Today.
Not only that, Kobach is a member of the campaign committee of the other Republican Senate nominee, Pat Roberts. So it’s not even as though he’s supposed to pretend to be temporarily nonpartisan.
You may recall that Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, who forced through the original vote totals in the 2000 election, was GWB’s Florida campaign chairperson. :eek:
Of course he IS supposed to execute the powers and duties of his office in a non-partisan manner. There are a lot of state and local elected officials who’ve been who’ve been convicted for crimes related to using their office for partisan political gain. Often, however, this kind of thing comes out when they direct their office staff to do partisan political work on the side, and some disgruntled staffer complains.
BTW, there ARE non-partisan elections held at the local and state level. Usually, that just means that the candidates themselves don’t mention their party affiliations, though their respective parties work for their campaigns.
Hows that working? Well, the candidates of the WI state supreme court are supposed to be non-partisan, but a couple of years back one accused another of assaulting and attempting to strangle her – in full view of the other members. And state law turned judicial discipline into something something of a travesty. If there is a complaint against a justice, the other justices are supposed to have some form of disciplinary hearing and render a judgement. But since the justices were also witnesses, they recused themselves from sitting in judgement. Hence, no disciplinary procedure.
So he’s Katherine Harris’ son she gave up for adoption. Don’t look so surprised.
That was never a realistic possibility in any case – even in the GOP best case of taking the Senate this year, the map is hopeless for them in 2016 and not much better in 2018. Orman presumably does not want to spend four years as Assistant Deputy Sub-Committee Chair of Paper Towel and Toilet Paper Supply.
There is speculation that he could be the swing vote that would give Republicans control of the Senate. Should that happen (and I don’t know the odds), they will offer him all kinds of primo stuff to play with them.
There is a hilarious line in that story:
The map is hardly hopeless. It certainly favors Democrats, but I’d love to know which GOP incumbents you think they’ll take out? Because there won’t be open seats like the gifts your way too old Senators gave us this year.
Assuming the Democrats can find a candidate who isn’t as terrible as Alexi Giannoulias, Mark Kirk (R-IL) will be a one term Senator, especially in a presidential cycle election.
That’s quite an assumption, akin to Susan Collins being beaten. Is there a reason Mark Kirk would lose other than him being a Republican?
Incumbents are never easy to knock off, and another Democratic retirement or three is more likely in 2016 than Republican retirements. Your caucus is decrepit. Harry Reid, anyone?
Finally, you have to assume a Democratic year, which is quite an assumption given that the current Democratic Presidential incumbent is sitting with a 41% approval rating. You don’t think that will weigh down the Democrat running to be his third term, plus everyone down ticket?
Anyway, less we get too far into this digression, my point is that Orman can’t assume what’s going to happen in 2016. 2016 is a Presidential election year, which means that the Presidential candidate will have coattails, depending on who wins. Chances are, whoever wins the Presidency will control the Senate as well. And if Democrats’ only hope is Hillary Clinton, then that’s not as much hope as they think it is given her close ties to Obama.
Not really. Collins regularly wins by large margins and is quite popular. Kirk won by 1.5% during a tremendous Republican wave and against a guy whose campaign and performance was, frankly, pathetic.
I don’t need to assume a “Democratic year”. Presidential elections draw out many more voters than midterms and “many more voters” translates to more Democratic votes due to voting patterns between the two parties. In a state like Illinois, that’ll mean the end close of Kirk’s senatorial career (baring a complete idiot getting the Democratic senate nomination).
Close ties to Obama will not be a problem. She’s got problems, but her performance as part of the current administration is something that will help, not hurt.
As a Kansas, and living in the capital city at that, all I want is for the election to be over.
The ads are ugly. The ones from Robert’s campaign are the worst.
Orman’s ads are tolerable though. He mentions how both major parties don’t tout their own virtues, but attack the others, and that he will be beholden to no party. Then he has a short list of his plans, if elected. He’s rich enough to pull this campaign off with mostly his own money too.
Collins’ first election was actually fairly close. She only won a plurality:
Kirk won by only a little, sure, but has he pissed off his constituents? Incumbents rarely get turned out unless they give voters a reason to turn them out. Being of the opposite party the state tends to prefer isn’t enough. It took a Democratic superstar to beat Scott Brown. It’ll take a pretty important Democrat, like maybe Rahm Emmanuel, to beat Kirk.
It’s true that general election years are almost always better for Democrats than midterm years. However, this does not mean Democrats will necessarily win, nor does it mean they can expect the kind of turnout they had in 2008 and 2012. Barack Obama won’t be on the ticket. Turnout ratios will be different in 2016 than they were in either 2008 or 2012. And if the GOP candidate ends up being the winner, he probably takes out a couple of Democrats in the Senate while doing so, such as Harry Reid, whose seat may be vacant in 2016.
Good point. She got great ratings as Secretary of State. But I think that ties to Obama will hurt her more. John McCain wasn’t even in Bush’s administration and had a long cultivated reputation as a maverick. Didn’t do him much good in the end. I don’t think Clinton will be able to separate herself from Obama. She’ll basically have to run on, “Yeah, he sucked, but that’s because he didn’t listen to me.” which isn’t exactly going to excite Democratic voters to turn out for her.
Trying to put distance between yourself and an unpopular President of the same party is a very hard thing to accomplish, even for an outsider. It’s going to be even tougher for someone who actually worked for him.
That’s what they said in 2012. Built a whole school of “unskewed polling” off of the insistence, in fact. Worked out great for them.
Turnout patterns were different. 2 million fewer younger voters. They’ll be different again in 2016 with a different candidate at the top of the ballot. Think you’ll get Obama levels of turnout for Martin O’Malley?