We are all quite aware of how the President and Democrat Party misread the 2008 election and went on a leftist, hyper-partisan rampage in DC. Now some on the right are already misreading the 2010 election – and I can already hear the cries of “RINO” and “squishy centrist” coming.

Power corrupts, it’s one of humanity’s major dysfunctions. When given the opportunity to take on responsibility and lead, too many succumb to the desire to dictate their own limited view of how things should be on everyone else. It is always simpler to force others to do your bidding than it is to face up to giving ground to move forward at a slower pace than one wishes. But that is what sets leaders apart, the ability to keep a common principle in everyone’s sites while they work together making progress towards the goal adjusting the path and plan along the way through inputs and consensus.

The force behind this election was the independent center. The voters were not drawn to the right of the political spectrum. They gave conservatives an opportunity to propose – not dictate. The country was repulsed by the over-reaching of the liberals in DC. As we in President Obama’s morning after press conference, our young inexperienced president still has not figured this out, and I don’t think he ever will. The myths surrounding his personnel gift’s were greatly exaggerated.

The impetus behind the center’s rejection of the Democrats was about the massive deficit spending, high taxes, government over reach, government incompetence. The rallying flag for the Tea Party, the energy behind much of this election cycle, was “Don’t Tread On Me” – something the new GOP better understand and appreciate:

The Tea Party movement attracted a lot of people from the left of center to the far right. But now, some on the far right are assuming this was all about ‘true conservatism’, not about fiscal responsibility through minimal government, low taxes and personal responsibility. For example:

The Brody File has coined a new phrase: The “Teavangelical Party.” The polling from the 2010 Midterm Elections proves it.

According to a Public Opinion Strategies poll that has assessed the Midterm Election results from Tuesday, (conducted for the Faith and Freedom Coalition) 52 percent of all people who identified themselves as part of the Tea Party movement are also conservative Evangelicals.

If 52% are evangelicals (give or take a few percent) then the other half are not. This is not the Teavangelical Party or movement. The quickest way to screw up like Obama and the liberals is to run out and claim a turn at telling the nation how to live their lives.

Coherence seems to be in short supply all around these days. If Obamacare is the epitome of government invasion into the privacy between a citizen and their doctor, what is the demand to ban contraceptives by the same government (a tenant of the hyper right to life wing of the conservative movement)? If Obama telling us what our health insurance must be is too much government, why is the government telling a woman or a family how to deal with a pregnancy not too much government?

In my view, we need to demonstrate scientifically and legally conception creates the instance of a human being – because that is the fact of life. There is no scientific ambiguity here, and the DNA tests used in courtrooms across this nation prove this without any doubt. But proving pregnancy creates a human life does not give license to one group of individuals over others to determine how to deal with that situation. As with all things in life, we need to leave the judgment of determining the course of that life to the parents, as we do throughout their journey to adulthood. We either believe in the individual or we don’t.

I for one am all for educating, counseling, supporting a new mother to avoid a tragic decision. I have promoted before the idea of having women who have faced both situations (birth and abortion) be the voices of reason and hope for those simply afraid of the responsibilities. But in the end, there are situations were decisions have to be made, and they can only be made by the family or mother. I am pro life and against abortion for convenience, but I am not for government rule here.

Let me give another example of how this new partnership can turn into disaster. Most people are religious in some manner, and most of us abhor the liberal efforts to wipe religious expression from the public square. This year in Loudon County, VA the spot usually occupied by the images of the birth of Christ will be replaced with what is, for all intents and purposes, a billboard from Atheists:

That organization’s display will be a banner in an 8×8 freestanding wooden frame, with the top reading “Greetings from your friendly Loudoun County Atheists” and the lower portion reading, “Solstice is the Reason for the Season.” The main body of the banner will include language recognizing the principle of separation of church and state, and text that reads, “Religion is the business of churches, not of government. This is not a church.” The display will be up from Dec. 16 to Jan. 1.

Dipstick bureaucratic rules led to this insanity and intolerance. The Atheists are not forced to believe, but they can neither force others to be silent. The common ground that could be achieved in the next Congress is to unshackle freedom of religious expression by individuals. Allow voluntary prayer back in school. Put limits on what whiny Atheist can do to religious expression. This is all fair game and would not meet much resistance. No more bands of citizens misusing courts to silence others. That is not the reason government was created. It was created to protect rights.

However, if some on the right want to impose creationism or intelligent design into public schools – forget it. That would result in the current political alliance that swept the dems out of power to totally collapse. This country is not in the mood for minority views to be imposed on the general public in terms of mandates. Minority views of course can be held and expressed, but never mandated. It is a balance that has worked and it the foundation of this nation.

These are but two examples of where common ground exists, and where disaster looms. Outside that common ground is where people can produce nothing but an opening for the left to arise again. No more recklessnes, the nation’s patience has worn too thin. Sarah Palin said it well in her piece yesterday – almost:

The last, and possibly most important, lesson is that a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted. If candidates are going to talk boldly on the campaign trail about entitlement reform and reducing the size of government, they must be prepared to word it in such a way as to minimize the inevitable fear-mongering accusations of “extremism.”

She is both right and wrong here. Governor Palin is beginning to become part of the Political Industrial Complex, she needs to tread carefully here (pun intended with respect to that flag above). This is not just a message crafting challenge. It requires making sure the proposed changes will stand up to scrutiny and be accepted. They must stand on and remain within the common ground of broad support. And since none will be perfect initially, they will need to be adjusted to gain acceptance to become law. Be prepared for reasonable adjustments. There is no consensus yet on what is the minimal size required, and how we can safely transition to it.

That is the right answer at this moment. We need the public debate on how to proceed – and it cannot be a stage show run by special interests and power players. The American people need real buy in, therefore real input. Some of us will smell a PR stunt a mile away. Don’t trip up over message management.

All this silly talk about ‘compromise’ in DC is missing the point. There is not a score card, where each side gives something on a basic screwed up approach. Some things are wrong and need to be taken off the table. The day of big government is over – that is not going to be negotiable. And the day of social conservatism has not arrived – that too is not negotiable. There is a center of mass the country agrees on and can be passed. Focus there and leave other fights for another day. For example:

(1) Taxes: Extend all the existing tax rates for two years. Make the middle class ones permanent, revisit the upper income ones in two years with the promise if taxes must be raised it will only be on the obscenely rich, not those just peaking out of the upper middle class. Ban the estate tax forever.

(2) Don’t extend unemployment – 2 years of safety net is enough for any person. We cannot afford people sitting around taking hand outs. Sorry to be hard about this, but personal responsibility made this country, not handouts.

(3) Cancel all non-essential stimulus projects. No more wasting money on dog runs, etc.

(4) Cut wasteful spending and begin the national debate on shrinking government down to a manageable size. Make sure there are ways to manage job cuts in the government sector. It can take a year to close up programs, facilities, etc – give people time to find new work as they are paid to close things down gracefully. The GOP does not have the votes to do too much, but it can engage the nation and make the case for actions after 2012.

(5) The government contains a wealth of assets and resources that can be privatized. As government shrinks it can sell a lot of its efforts and resources to the private sector – thus creating new business opportunities and kick starting this economy. Lower taxes and the selling of the wasteful and redundant aspects of government can provide a path out of this mess (just look to the examples of governors like Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie).

(6) Slow down Obamacare. Hold hearings on all its short comings and unintended consequences. Obama started giving out waivers to companies – make them permanent and universal (he cannot object to actions he has taken). It is trivial to suspend Obamacare if done right. There is no repealing Obamacare the next two years. But it can be suspended as it’s unintended consequences arise. Premiums are up, lots of policies are on the verge of being stopped, etc. Focus on the economy, and simply push to slow Obamacare down to stop the damage.

These are not carefully crafted messages, these are well founded strategies. Governor Palin needs to appreciate the difference. It will help her from making the same mistakes as we saw in this year’s Tea Party candidates. They all spouted great messages, but that is not sufficient. Not by a long shot. She enjoys a life far from DC, which means she is fairly naive to its pitfalls and landmines. She knew how to deal with Big Oil in Alaska because that was her home turf. To be a national force (instead of a farce) she is going to need to broaden out her pool of advisers and be prepared to make lots of real time adjustments.

Just ask Barak Obama, once he figures out what went wrong in his first two years attempting to lead.

You can click the image above to see a series of excellent images of the International Space Station (ISS) from orbit. Our little stepping stone into the final frontier today is celebrating 10 years of continuous human occupation.

Today 10 years ago Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko & Sergei Krikalev, as Expedition 1, entered the ISS from Soyuz TM-31, initiating a decade of continuous occupancy of the outpost by humans. More than 196 people have since visited the complex, and by the exact time of the anniversary (5:21 a.m. this morning), the station has completed 57,361 “inhabitated” orbits of the Earth, having travelled some 1.5 billion miles. Representatives of the five international agencies that built and operate the station have agreed in principle to continuing its use for another decade. More than 600 different research and technology development experiments have been conducted on the station, many of which are producing advances in medicine, recycling systems and a fundamental understanding of the universe. Happy Birthday, ISS!

A real cool flash movie at USA Today shows the 12 years of construction required to build this human outpost in orbit. Happy Birthday ISS!

Tags: International Space Station, ISS, NASA

This post will be at the top for a few days, for obvious reasons!

Given the fact there are 60+ new house members and 6 new senators from the GOP coming to town I would like all of them to know I would be very interested in consulting to them on matters of space, technology, information & computer systems, DoD or NASA programs, etc. I grew up on Al Gore’s internet and have been involved with some of the nation’s largest and most complex programs (Space Station, GCCS, SDIO to name a few older ones). Being a native of the beltway (50 years now) and a long time federal contractor (25 years now) I probably can help you navigate the more valuable and complex regions of the federal bureaucracy, as well as pointing out many of its sink holes and quicksand traps. I have many years reviewing programs of various sizes and challenges, and am very capable of righting efforts that have gone astray or need revamping.

Any interested parties can contact me at ajstrata@strata-sphere.com. And welcome to the swamp!

President Obama is not getting what the election was about. As the press is asking repeatedly now, Obama has to face up to the fact he went down the wrong path. He is still defensive and unwilling to go where the people want to go.

Clearly he sees himself as the one who gets to decide whose ideas will be implemented. He has not figured out that he is being rejected. He won’t even admit it was the Democrats failed actions which racked up $5 trillion dollars in debt in 2 short years! That used to take over a decade.

This is going to be a lousy 2 years.

Update 1: The guy is babbling now. Now he is blaming being ‘rushed’ – who is in charge ‘dude’!

Update 2: He will never get it. He thinks bad results ave nothing to do with failed approaches. He is taking tax and spending cuts off the table since he has ‘looked at them and considered them’.

Update 3: Obama really does not get what happened. He moans about China’s high speed trains while saddling businesses with taxes and mandates and regulations which suck up money best spent on innovation. The government DOES NOT innovate – trust me on this. They fund the private sector to innovate (Lockheed’s skunk works, the internet, nuclear medicine, etc).

Take that lunatic 1099 reporting requirement in Obamacare. It is so obviously a stupid money waster to anyone who has been in business. He simply admits his lack of any real world experience caused him to totally miss the implications of that little detail. He has missed uncountable little details (like there are no shovel ready jobs) since coming to office.

And while he inherited a deficit ($1 trillion from TARP), he is the one who signed into law policies that exploded that deficit 5 fold! He really is either seriously delusional or a chronic liar. He thinks his foggy and misleading rhetoric still mesmerizes and confuses.

He refuses to admit he needs to give up his big government solutions. As I said in my post this morning, because the GOP only has the house they will be forced to simply hold hearings and stop further deployment of Obama’s foolish, liberal ideas. And that puts them in a risky position. They need to handle our young, inexperienced and stubborn president carefully. Make sure it is always his naive arrogance that causes the coming gridlock.

OK, Upon some reflection I have to admit the GOP wave in the House and Governor races is quite impressive. The GOP candidates in the Governor races showed how to win statewide races while appealing to a broad portion of the electorate. Right now the GOP has won 10 Democrat governor seats in PA, OH, OK, MI, WI, IA, WY, TN, KS and NM. Sink just conceded in FL (a hold). The one big loss was zombie-voting CA. The GOP is leading in AK, OR and ME. Dems have small leads in IL and MN. All in all a great day at the state (and redistricting) level.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has much more on the foundation that was created to build a majority party on going into 2012.

Thanks for the patience, the site would never have stayed up with comments on – my apologies. Have at it!

Or the morning after headache (3:00 AM is such a long road to travel).

I, for one, did not wake up feeling enough was accomplished yesterday. Yes, the GOP won a lot of seats. lost no major ones, retired a lot of Democrats – many senior ones. But in the end, the Tea Party fell way too short and failed Main Street at the national and state level. I do not blame the Tea Party candidates, many of whom are just what we need right now – imperfect citizens storming the ramparts of the Political Industrial Complex. Sadly, that Political Industrial Complex is pretty strong if it motivate people to vote to continue down the same wrong path in the highest unemployment states like California and Nevada.

I think California is the biggest head-scratcher out there. They voted against two accomplished business women and instead went with two proven bad politicians. Of course the people there have been running that state into the ground for a decade now, so I guess expecting them to change course would be too much to ask. I mean who else destroys whole farming communities to save a silly little fish and sees nothing wrong with government? California has now put the accelerator down towards their fiscal cliff (lean forward folks, this is going to be a doozy). Their taxes will continue to rise, forcing more businesses and talented people to leave. Who would even consider immigrating there with all that debt and dysfunction? Unless you are from south of the border. So sad. But as someone tweeted last night (I think it was Ace of Spades) they are on their own. No bail outs from the rest of the country after this result.

Update: In CA not a single incumbent has yet to lose – that is what I mean about zombie voting. That place is best avoided.

2nd Update: Was lamenting to LJStrata about her one-time home state and she pretty much nailed it. It was a choice between “The New Hotness” from Ebay and HP or “Old ‘n Busted” Brown and Boxer. If there is no greater sign that California’s golden days are behind it, it was the choice for “Old ‘n Busted” yesterday. – end update.

And let’s get to the nut of it – Gallup was way wrong. Something is not right with their likely voter model. Same thing with that Field Poll which came out and predicted a huge GOP wave. I put a lot of weight on their results being close – and they were not. For some strange reason Gallup (and others) over estimated the force of the GOP wave.

In all fairness, something probably happened on the larger scale to halt the wave. Either people stayed home who said they were voting. Or the Dem GOTV is way superior than the GOP version. Or the GOP has to do something about the urban areas (the places where many of these states were lost). The GOP cannot just be a countrified, suburban and rural centered party. They need to break into the population centers, which helped the Dems hold on in CA and NV, etc.

Now for the headache part of the assessment:

(1) Obamacare will not be stopped for another two years. Our premiums and copays are going to rise – unless you have the political clout to win exceptions as many companies are doing for God knows what price. Most of us will lose our health care in order to go into government approved plans. And businesses will spend a lot of money complying with idiotic, one-size fits all health care mandates out of DC instead of hiring and expanding. Seniors will see their services cut back, and a lot more doctors will be opting out of Medicare/Medicaid since they don’t pay to cover costs.

(2) The massive Obama, Reid & Pelosi deficits will continue for another two years. The only way to even begin to chip away at them is for taxes to go up, since the economy will not rebound enough to increase revenues. While the Dems hold the senate there will be too much compromising on the libertarian side of the ledger. Tax hikes and wasted spending will continue, as we fall further into debt.

(3) The Federal bureaucracy will not shrink, but grow. There will be no course correction – we don’t hold enough seats. The EPA may be stopped from controlling nature’s most basic gas (CO2) threw investigations coming out of the House. But this investigative approach requires a deft hand. It requires an appreciation of science and math to expose the flaws in the global warming propaganda. The Dept of Ed will not be shrunk and re-focused. Nothing major will happen with regard to the major problem of bloated government.

I can go on and on about opportunities lost, wrong paths still being traveled.

And I have to say the Tea Party and Sarah Palin have really hurt their credibility in many ways. You cannot just pick candidates because they spout platitudes – they need to be accomplished individuals. For this I will compare the best and the worst of the Tea Party senate candidates: Joe Miller in Alaska and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. I came to like O’Donnell, never could admire her or see her as a leader. She just seems to float in life, pretending to have accomplished great things (and this comes from someone who could never lay claim to anything great outside our family – which is awesome if you ask me). Joe Miller, decorated veteran, lawyer, etc is a very accomplished person. I expect him to win in the end, when all the dust settles.

The choice of O’Donnell had ramifications across the board. Her foibles began to spill over on Angle, Fiorina, Whitman and McMahon. I feel so sorry for all these extremely accomplished individuals, because to lump them in with O’Donnell is unfair – but that is how politics work. After O’Donnell’s win something caused the electorate to hold back and recall the GOP’s high negatives from 2006 and 2008. I think O’Donnell’s win and questionable bona fides helped create that hesitation that stopped the wave.

While the Tea Party did have a lot of successes, their failures were of equal import. There is a reason Rubio, Toomey and Johnson did well and Buck, Angle and O’Donnell struggled. I still support Angle and Buck and wished their Main Street imperfections were more asset than liability in the eyes of the voters. And Fiorina and Whitman had no such problems – that state is just zombie voting apparently. Whatever the case, much more scrutiny on potential candidates is required going forward, and we need to watch out for someone who can take a whole group down by association.

And a much broader appeal is required too. Lots of hyper-partisans look to closed primaries and other ways to control the purity of their candidates. I think this is a death sentence. As I said before, the GOP needs to broaden out and penetrate the urban areas, while holding the suburbs. They will never get candidates with broader (yes, more centrist) balance if they keep their primaries closed to only the pure ideologues.

At some point centrists will be embraced again. We saw the potential of what could happen for a party if they moderated their hyper-partisan wings and allowed centrists an equal voice. And that means not shouting each other down and questioning motives when the debate is over HOW to achieve a goal.

It was a good night for the GOP and conservatives and a major thumping for the Democrats. But the real measure of power in DC did not shift enough. Sad to say this, but when it comes to making changes, you have to have enough of your team’s hands on enough controls to execute the change. Being a pure minority that talks a lot but does not have any important levers is nothing but fantasizing about accomplishing change. To get enough hands on enough levers you have to agree to common ground and some compromise.

This is a fact of life.

Update: Not surprisingly, Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard concurs with my assessment of where we go from here:

Republicans need to recognize that while conservative principles can win in America, they require candidates with broad appeal. Clearly, Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, and Christine O’Donnell are not these kinds of candidates. The goal of the Republican party in the next two years should be to articulate the conservative case with an eye to persuading as many voters as possible. After all, that is how change really happens in the United States — it comes through building a broad political coalition that stretches all across the country. Conservative principles have won such broad mandates before — in 1896 and 1900, in 1924, in 1980 and 1984 — and that should be the goal of the Republican party moving forward.

12:10 AM Eastern: Reid wins, and this puts a huge shadow over the Tea Party, and the risk if going too far from the center. Leaving Reid in power is an example of cutting of the nose to spite the face. Now all the other tea party candidates who were strong (Rubio, Johnson, etc) are now not in a position to do much. Need better vetting of tea party candidates and make sure they are balanced. Good night!

12:10 AM Eastern: Kirk wins IL! Keeping an eye on WA, NV, CA and CT

12:10 AM Eastern: VA11 has two machines in Fairfax not working and locked up. Tomorrow will be the final canvas and recount plans. If CA, NV and WA hold then it was not as good as I had hoped. Will contemplate impacts tomorrow – but not much can be done in DC to fix things. Expect extended economic pain.

11:48 PM Eastern: GOP just won 41 seats, Nancy has been retired.

11:47 PM Eastern: Attempting to put comments back on – if it gets bad will have to turn them off again.

11:42 PM Eastern: Scratch that and reverse it (late night) Connolly up by 500. Still up to absentee ballots in strong GOP locales. Fimian takes 550 vote lead in VA11 with 100% reporting. Down to absentee ballots in regions heavy GOP. If this holds GOP takes 4 out of 6 dems out in VA!

11:30 PM Eastern: PA Update – Toomey up 126K with 96% reporting, should be called soon for Toomey

11:24 PM Eastern: In IL Kirk is up 59,300 votes with 89% reporting. That looks like a GOP pick up. Toomey looks he is pulling out a tight one. Fox called CA Senate and Gov, CNN did not yet (for good reason). Dino ahead in WA with 20% reporting, and I am still watching CT to see if it was called too soon!

10:53 PM Eastern: Toomey moving moving ahead finally, Kirk moving ahead finally, Feingold finally loses, Spratt gone, Chet Edwards gone. Looking very strong still – and watch CT. May have been called too early.

10:05 PM Eastern: There are tons of races not being called in the east (GA2, GA8) which should start falling soon. And I am still watching the CT Senate race to see if that was called prematurely.

9:37 PM Eastern: OK, I do not see the GOP getting as far as I had hoped, but I am watching some races called by exit polls (specifically CT Senate). I have some issues with polls this year and I am surprised to see races come in higher and lower for the GOP than expected. The key that the wave is not that big is VA11 between Fimian and Connolly. A few hundred votes separate the two. This D+2 CD seems to be the high water mark for Dems. A lot more Dems will be falling in the House, but unless we see something surprising, the Dems could hold the Senate. Unless something big breaks, plan to watch and enjoy the night.

9:00 PM Eastern: VA2 goes to the GOP which means they have picked up 3 seats in VA. So far only 2 Democrats are left standing. It comes VA11 Connelly-Fimian race. Taking out 2/3rds of the Democrats in VA is a huige night for GOP.

8:30 PM Eastern: VA9 was my indicator for a 75 seat win for the GOP. With 79% reporting Griffith is leading 52-36 over Boucher. Surprisingly Moran’s race has not been called yet, which is interesting. Hurt should win VA5 soon. Looking good in House, now for some luck in the senate.

8:03 PM Eastern: Looks like Scott will survive in VA3, but he may be one of 2 Dems left standing.

CNN calling Coons in CT based on exit poll data – may be a risky move. Rubio wins.

7:45 PM Eastern: Amazing data in VA. VA5 Hurt is up by 12% with 28% reporting – this will be called soon and is a GOP take. VA9 Griffith is up 8% with 16% reporting. This is the race I said would indicate 75 seat pick up. The one race I never saw even in play was VA3, with 6% reporting incumbent Scott is down 3%. If this race goes GOP then who knows how big the wave.

7:25 PM Eastern: I am predicting IN2 and IN9 will be called for the GOP soon – superwave coming!

7:20 PM Eastern: It looks like IN and KY are going to have 2-3 Democrat Congressman left standing between the two of them. Looks like IN2 will go to the GOP (trending +25% with 8% of the vote in, when RCP had it +5 D in the final polls). This will be a huge wipe out.

7:00 PM Eastern: Fox Calls first senate race, Dan Coates in IN as the GOP take their first seat. Rand Paul also wins in KY (and early), holding the GOP seat! That was fast for KY.

6:57 PM Eastern: Reminder – exit polls are not final results, and Drudge is not reporting percentages of lead.

6:52 PM Eastern: Drudge adds Rubio to the exit poll winners for GOP (morning & afternoon) and Boxer (morning only only). Not buying the Boxer win yet, but explains why CNN & Dems don’t want to depress west coast dem voters.

Heavy voting in NoVA.

6:47 PM Eastern: NY Times has a great election returns map for The House and The Senate

6:40 PM Eastern: CNN democrats keep trying to claim there is hope in the afternoon exit polls (not likely). Drugde has Kirk (CO) and Paul (KY) well ahead in exit polls. Still awaiting the VA results to see how big this wave is. Be back closer to 7 PM.

6:09 PM Eastern: Wipe out. Drudge has 4 races called already based on exit polls:

Arkansas: Boozman (R) defeats Lincoln (D)
Ohio: Portman (R) defeats Fisher (D)
North Dakota: Hoeven (R) defeats Potter (D)
Wisconsin: Johnson (R) defeats Feingold (D)

4 Senate seat already! Fox reporting Youth and African American vote way down.

6:03 PM Eastern: Exits: 73% angry or upset with Federal government, 48% want to repeal health care. Not good for the big government dems.

5:55 PM Eastern: I will be adding to this post all night as information comes in. From Jim Geraghty we hear the initial exit polls are horrible.

I am watching the VA congressional races to measure the size of the wave, and now I have an eye on VA3 – the one race I never thought the Dems would lose. If Scott loses in VA3 there may be NO democrat congressman from VA come 2011.

I also cannot help but note CNN’s dark background music for the exit polls. Sounds like a cross between Jaws and the last Batman movie. Are they projecting?

5 Minutes to the first poll closings

Due to heavy traffic we need turn off comments for a while to see if that helps the site stay up. Being popular does have a price! Of course, those new here who wish to donate to more processor power are invited to donate to the cause (Paypal button in upper left column)

Major Update: Democrat in MD Govenor’s race now also raising the turnout alarm bells:

We are getting reports from the field that turnout is lighter than expected in a few key counties.

This is exactly what our opponent needs to close the gap–he needs you and your friends to sit back, get overconfident, and stay home.

– end update

First it was Coons in DE raising the alarm bells, now it is Blumenthal in CT sending out a midday alert that Dems are not coming out in the needed numbers:

Low supporter turnout for Richard Blumenthal has forced the campaign to send out an alert Tuesday afternoon urging supporters to get out to the polls.

“Voter turnout appears to be heavy in areas that benefit our opponent,” The campaign email read”.” It is critical that we maximize our efforts to get our supporters to the polls. We need your help”

If McMahon in CT and O’Donnell in DE are looking strong, then forget about Boxer in CA and Murray in WA and Manchin in WV. It means the pollsters were way to conservative this year with their turnout models, and Gallup was right. Superwave!