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Operation Counterweight after-assessment

Operation Counterweight after-assessment

Operation Counterweight 2012 is over.  I reported the results in an earlier post, here is my assessment.

The first thing you need to understand is that by definition we chose difficult races, not easy ones.  The goal was to try to flip Democratic seats or protect vulnerable Republicans in races which (with a couple of exceptions) were not receiving national attention at the time. 

So while the batting average below was low, that alone doesn’t bother me.

What I am most proud of is that we made a difference in several of these races, by raising and pushing issues, or through fundraising and media exposure.

Before this cycle I learned that there are limits to what this blog can do.  I think we pushed those limits to the max this time around.  But there still are limits.

Senate

Scott Brown (MA) – LOSS — obviously a big focus for me, and one which seemed insurmountable at times because Massachusetts liberals simply did not care that Elizabeth Warren falsely claimed to be Cherokee, or about any of the issues raised here.  Had the roles been reversed, and Brown been caught, the media and public reaction would have been unforgiving.  It’s Massachusetts, the state which turned someone who left a girl to die in a ditch, then waited to report it to police, then used political muscle to avoid prosecution, then was lionized, and now has the Senate seat named after him. 

Richard Mourdock (IN) – LOSS — The most misunderstood loss of the year.  Mourdock’s late in the game controversial comment would not have doomed his campaign but for the fact he barely was tied or already behind Joe Donnelly because Richard Lugar and his supporters wanted payback.  Had Republicans united behind Mourdock after the primary, Mourdock would have won.  To a meaningful slice of Indiana Republicans, being able to say “I told you so” was more important than winning the seat.

Barry Hinckley (RI) – LOSS — identified as a long shot at unseating Sheldon Whitehouse.  It’s Rhode Island (more below).  Barry worked really hard, but Whitehouse had the name, the unions, and the money.  I’m glad to have met him, and he deserved praise for fighting the machine.

Dan Bongino (MD) – LOSS — also identified at the start as a long shot.  Whatever long shot he had was killed by a bizarre third party candidate.  Another good guy in a tough state.

House:

Allen West (FL-18) – LOSS — still possibly in recount, but not looking good.  He was targeted specifically by multiple SuperPACs and a big get for Democrats.  The redistricting (done by the Republicans in Florida) killed his chances.  That it was so close was to his credit.  Hopefully he can stage a comeback in the future.

Mia Love (UT-04) – LOSS — This one hurts perhaps the most, as we lost a rising star … for now.  This is similar to what happened to Democrats in 2010, when they lost almost an entire generation of younger congressmen.  Mia lost by just 3000 votes.  I frequently warned that Jim Matheson was the Harry Houdini of politics, and he proved it again. 

Brendan Doherty (RI-01) – LOSS — Nothing proves the impossibility of being a Republican in Rhode Island more than this race.  Even the liberal Providence Journal could not stomach David Cicilline being “untruthful” about Providences finances, but government-dependent Rhode Island voters don’t care.  Cicilline ran his typical Mediscare campaign, and it worked.  Rhode Island is hopelessly in the pockets of unions and Democrats.

David Rouzer (NC-7) – RECOUNT — Rouzer down 400 votes as of now.  Keep hope alive.  Still a chance to flip a seat.

Lee Anderson (GA-12) – LOSS  — We added this race to our list before Anderson was chosen, because it was an opportunity to pick off a vulnerable Democrat.  Unfortunately, Anderson was not up to the task, the result of a three-way primary in which he squeeked by.

Updates NY Races —

Chris Gibson (NY-19) – WIN
Matt Doheny (NY-21) – LOSS
Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-24) – LOSS
Maggie Brooks (NY-25) – LOSS
Chris Collins (NY-27) – WIN

We actually did okay here.  The Buerkle loss was the only loss of a seat, which became untenable due to redistricting.  The Gibson and Collins races were pick-ups. 

Honorable Mentions:

Nan Hayworth (NY – 18) – LOSS  — while not on our list, this was unexpected.
Chip Cravaack (MN – 08) – LOSS  — it’s still Minnesota.
Jackie Walorski (IN – 02) – WIN — fills Joe Donnelly’s old district.
Ricky Gill (CA – 09) – LOSS — young candidate, a future star.

Endgame:

Would do it again, with the same choices.

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Comments

Ted did not leave mary Kopchne in a ditch.

Per Wiki: “The Chappaquiddick incident took place on July 18, 1969 and refers to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a female passenger of U.S. Senator Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy when he accidentally drove his car off a bridge and into a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Kennedy swam free and left the scene, not reporting within nine hours, but Kopechne died in the vehicle. In the early hours of July 19, Kopechne’s body and the car were recovered. Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury and received a two-month suspended jail sentence. ”

Kenneedy’s own statement was as follows:
“On July 18, 1969, at approximately 11:15 p.m. in Chappaquiddick, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, I was driving my car on Main Street on my way to get the ferry back to Edgartown. I was unfamiliar with the road and turned right onto Dike Road, instead of bearing hard left on Main Street. After proceeding for approximately one-half mile on Dike Road I descended a hill and came upon a narrow bridge. The car went off the side of the bridge. There was one passenger with me, one Miss Mary [Kopechne],[22] a former secretary of my brother Sen. Robert Kennedy. The car turned over and sank into the water and landed with the roof resting on the bottom. I attempted to open the door and the window of the car but have no recollection of how I got out of the car. I came to the surface and then repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock. I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the backseat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period and then going back to my hotel room. When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police”

    Ragspierre in reply to george. | November 7, 2012 at 2:42 pm

    Yes. It was a tidal pool or its channel to the sea.

    MaryJo is just as dead, and Ted is just as guilty.

      george in reply to Ragspierre. | November 7, 2012 at 3:02 pm

      A tidal pool filled with many feet of salt water from the tides from the Atlantic Ocean is not a ditch. It was called Poucha Pond. Ted drove of a bridge. A pretty sizable tidal pond at that. It was so deep that they needed to send a scuba diver down with air tanks to retrieve her body. It was not a ditch. It is far worse. Apaprently, she did not drown, but died of lack of air. There apparently was an air pocket in the submerged car. In other word she was alive for hours until the air ran out. Meanwhile Ted was running across Chappaquidick then swiming over a several hunder yard inlet and hidding in his hotel . . .while Mary Jo slowly suffocated. Sickening.

      Had he gotten help sooner she would have lived.

      Sorry, it was not a ditch or anything like a ditch.

      JackRussellTerrierist in reply to Ragspierre. | November 8, 2012 at 1:51 am

      Senator Hiccup committed no offense against the ‘rat party, labor unions, the media or the sensibilities of the people of MA, so of course he served like 80 terms in the United States Senate. The United States Senate. Think about that. Are we any different from the Romans?

      The drunken swine is burning in the lowest ring of Hell right now, parked on a pity pot cursing Mary Jo (“Damn that bitch! Oh, DAMN THAT BITCH!!”) for getting in the car with him, thus spoiling his chance at the WH and the opportunity to measure up to his big brother.

      It was all her fault.

    I am not sure the distinction of a ditch vs. a tidal channel. But she drowned and he left her there.

    As for the election yesterday: There were a number of factors that led up to last night…

      george in reply to EBL. | November 7, 2012 at 3:13 pm

      She suffocated. Not Drowned. The Scummy Kennedy’s say she drowned, impying she died within minutes of entering the water and there was Nothing poor Teddy could have done. He tried.

      She was probably alive when he abandoned her. She probably died while he slept in his hotel room.

      Not a ditch
      Not a drowning.

For the first time in my life, I want to abandon the state where I was born, raised, educated, married, raised my children.

Elizabeth Warren should be answering to a judge right now for practicing law without a license.

But, instead, she is my new Senator.

And I think I might just throw up.

Prof., this was a great idea and a noble effort.

We can take it as a pattern for our next try at putting fine people in office.

And that is being Breitbart.

1. Point taken about picking challenging races, but your I wouldn’t change a thing digs in your heels a bit much for my comfort.

2. I’ve been keeping my lip zipped about Scott Brown. Brown is stupid and he deserved to lose. He is not a nice guy. I refer to his dumping the Tea Party which worked its heart out to get him elected in 2010. Not all Tea Partiers would have supported him when he came out as a centrist, but maybe enough would have done so to make a difference. One Tea Partier is worth (at least) a dozen union hacks.

Had I foreseen what Brown would do, I would have voted for Martha Coakley in 2010. Coakley is an amoral hack. Warren is dangerous.

3. I somewhat disagree about Mourdock. I agree that the gaffe by itself did not lose the election, no more than Gerry Ford’s Poland gaffe did. However, as with Ford, Mourdock had gotten into a position in which he was exceptionally vulnerable. (And good grief, he knew what was happening to Akin.) As with Ford, it is irrelevant how he got into that position.

4. Sorry about Mia. When I assess a candidate, I like her to have been reelected to her existing office with a greater margin than she was originally elected by. The rule has exceptions. Mia tried to be one and fell just short.

    Pablo in reply to gs. | November 8, 2012 at 7:54 am

    If you’ve ever thought Brown was anything but a MA Republican, aka RINO, you were kidding yourself. And had Brown been hardcore, there’s no way on Earth he could have beat Warren. MA is lost to the progressives. RI is too. Much of America is.

America was the big winner last night.

Just a few points different in a few states … and she’d have been the most horribly racist nation the world has ever known.

Just ask Chris Matthews. He’s very upbeat on America right now.

We had a bad ticket. NEver again should we allow the libs pick our candidate for us. They are not doing it for our own good, they are trying to destroy us. I remember the fear, and how freaked out the libs were when they realized their was a chance Newt would win. I remember how relieved they were when Romney finally got the nod. Never Again. No more Romney’s, no more McCain’s

    jdkchem in reply to imfine. | November 7, 2012 at 5:28 pm

    Libtards, lame-stream media, and/or establishment Republicans. And fake independents, i.e. coffee party, bloomboogers.

Raquel Pinkbullet | November 7, 2012 at 3:18 pm

How Mia Love lost still baffles me. Mitt won the district 77%-21%

    If you lived in that part of the world, you would be baffled that she came as close as she did. Matheson is old lineage Mormon, political family (father was UT Gov; grandfather US attorney, etc.)

    The fact that she made it close speaks well for both her and the voters in her district. Unfortunately, close doesn’t count.

    I sent her a few bucks.

    I agree–that one hurts.

Really sorry that Gill and Love lost. Both are fine people. I hope they try again, some day.

Operation Counterweight was a worthy effort.

impeach obama | November 7, 2012 at 4:11 pm

I’ve read this blog for years – one of my first in the morning.
For the life of me, I can’t understand the pseudo-optimism.
This election is a disaster both for the USA and Israel.
I feel like the guy in the video weeping, seeing the Germans marching into Paris.
The stock market today down 2%, just a portend of things to come.

Until the stupid Republican candidates can learn to stay away from the abortion issue [are you listening Akin and Mourdock?], we will continue to have our asses handed to us by the democrats. When a Republican candidate is asked what his position is on abortion, the CORRECT answer should be, “I am focused on creating jobs, reducing the budget deficit and paying down the debt.” That way these dumb bastards will not continue to step on their dicks and screw us.
Then they must not let the liberal “moderators” control the debates.
PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF GOOD.

    JackRussellTerrierist in reply to Towson Lawyer. | November 8, 2012 at 1:25 am

    While that is one answer, another answer could be that the question is moot inasmuch as even if Roe ever was overturned by the SCOTUS, all the states allow it through their own laws anyway, although some states have permissible abortion restrictions just as states have restrictions concerning the right to keep and bear arms, a right enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

    Love her or hate her, she is right on the point about those two dickheads Akin and Mourdock. They grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. We could have had the Senate. Then we could have done some good even without Obama. Bastards. Next we have to get rid of Boehner and McConnell. They have done nothing to help the conservative cause. They have led us into the traps set up by Reid and Obama.

    http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-11-07.html#read_more

    Both comments came in response to a question on the subject. That makes it hard to stay away from it. What they need to do is have their answer prepared so that there’s no catch phrase to rip from it and beat them with. Which is just sad. The media is the enemy.

impeach obama | November 7, 2012 at 4:20 pm

One more thing what happened to the republican voters from just 4 years ago – 59,934,814 vs ?57,560,435 ?

impeach obama | November 7, 2012 at 4:31 pm

last comment on this thread –
my conclusion: Dems have no problem voting for incompetent liberal black –
Pubs – those on the fringe – won’t support Mormon, we are doomed to continued losses –
to quote Ben Franklin
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

We lost in a blowout. Gallup/Rasmussen party ID polls showed R+1 or R+6, the exit polls showed D+6.

So, no surprise that we lost most of the tossups in the Senate and House as well as the tossup states for EV votes for president.

This was not due to any lack of effort.

The effort made was absolutely worthwhile and should be repeated in every election.

Keeping that vile poseur Warren out of the Senate was a cause worthy of maximum effort. That she ultimately managed to gain that seat doesn’t negate that.

In response to criticism of George W.’s presidency, my favorite defense was, “He kept two of the sorryest sum bitches that ever served the in the Senate from being President”.

    stevewhitemd in reply to Aarradin. | November 7, 2012 at 5:18 pm

    While it’s tempting to blame some of that spread on fraud, one does have to concede the point that the OFA/Obama ’12 campaign, in their hundreds of millions of dollars of spending over the past four years, got really, really good at identifying potential voters who were off the radar of the pollsters.

    Pubs need to learn how to do that.

    That’s going to take a LOT of money and organization; it’s not something that a presidential campaign can conjure up between the end of the final primary and the start of the general election season. If the donors to the conservative super-PACs want to be useful the next couple of years, they could spend the time generating a conservative lookalike to OFA, and figure out how to reach the voters that Pubs and conservatives aren’t currently reaching.

OPCOW8 was a good thing; do it again. I admire greatly decent people who are willing to swim with the things that live in the political muck; I could not do it. The candidates must appreciate the visibility and positive reinforcement from beyond their own backyards and it’s good for the rest of us to know of them – and for their opponents to know that we know. Some losses genuinely hurt–Allen West particularly, and Mia Love. Though less familiar, the others would have been good wins to have. Also, I think Nan Hayworth is a genuine loss for NY State. Her aspirations are unknown to me but she is accomplished, really has her head on straight, and might one day have been a formidable opponent for Kirsten Gillibrand, our little sweetie-pie place holder in the senate.

If this election confirmed one thing it’s that standards and decency don’t matter; people will vote for anyone. The notion that Elizabeth Warren believes she represents anything I stand for or offers anything that I want, is repulsive to me. She’s just one from a long list of similar winning candidates from yesterday, all the way up to the president. Massachusetts, New York, and California continue as national electoral embarrassments. (Joined by your now better known little Rhodie one supposes?)

Stay with it, professor. I’ll work at continuing to believe that the rule of law is important and still means something to people: It will not be easy.

Among other points of wisdom to be gleaned from this election is this one: certain aging moderate Republicans refuse to lose gracefully.

I mean you, Dick Lugar.

There are a few other examples out there but this one was especially bad. Lugar could have taken the senior statesman role, guiding light role, gentle retirement into a foundation role, but no, he had to stomp his feet and get mad.

Now we have a Dem in the seat for the next 6 years.

Let this be a lesson to us: make it clear that when a Pub is successfully primaried, he/she had BETTER be a good sport and graceful loser or ELSE that Pub will never, ever get another dollar, vote or shot at anything.

    Excellent point about Lugar. He could have been a gentleman, campaigning for Mourdock and advising him, but, no, he had to be a small, petty, vindictive little man.

    Some “statesman” you turned out to be, Dick.

    huskers-for-palin in reply to stevewhitemd. | November 7, 2012 at 8:10 pm

    After the Lugar incident (big cry baby…just like Murkowski) I no longer send money to parties but to candidates (and selected Pacs) only.

I made a similar comment some time ago. Stop being “nice” to libtards. Taking the so called high road with a group of freeloading incompetent hacks whose only concern was for their vaginas gets you nothing. Were the lame-streamers going to do anything but campaign for their opiate of incompetence? Why bother being “nice”.
After what grandpa huntsman did to Mia Love he and his progeny should be banned from the Republican party along with DICK.
The next time the Republican establishment clown posse pulls out the moderate BS they’ll get a GFY to go with the boot in the ass. It is time to start purging the party of puss-cakes.

It is long past time to start bloodying the libtards. The lib-monkeys want to play at scorched earth. Give it to them. When they whine give them the finger and tell them to FO.

JackRussellTerrierist | November 7, 2012 at 6:07 pm

I think Mourdock could have won his race in spite of any chicanery from Lugar or the GOP if he hadn’t opened the door to a major negative story toward the end of the race.

Lugar et. al. may have shot Mourdock in the foot, but Mourdock then took an axe to his entire leg. He got full of himself and lost circumspection.

    All Mourdock did was express the basic Christian position on the value of life. That this is shocking to anyone says far more about our electorate and the state of our nation than it does about Mourdock. All it says about Mourdock is that he is a Christian. Apparently, that’s a bad thing in America now.

Surely you must admit that Richard Mourdock’s loss was part of God’s intended plan! God intends everything that happens, right? If he intends a pregnancy from a rape, then he must have intended this loss for Mourdock!

Scott Brown’s standards for truth have already been shown to be less than touted her (see my earlier post to the “empty chair”.

Your part lost because it has ignored demographics as I predicted several days ago.

    JackRussellTerrierist in reply to Jeanne Dyer. | November 8, 2012 at 12:37 am

    We lost the main race because y’all are chronic, professional cheaters and because Romney may not have been conservative ENOUGH.

    The only meaningful demographic change is that your indoctrination camps, also known as the public education system from pre-school through doctoral programs, have succeeded in their goal of rendering half the electorate as stupid as humanly possible. THAT is the new demographic.

    As for your idiotic argument about rape and pregnancy, it is a false argument disguised in sheep’s clothing. The entire whine from the left about “a woman’s right to choose” and fetuses not being ‘persons’ is nothing but an attack on our founding principles, in particular the most profound and powerful human rights language ever written, to wit: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” That’s the part that really sticks in you leftie’s craw, isn’t it? That God is acknowledged as our Creator, and that it clearly states that the government is established by and serves at the will of the people, and that sweet liberty is a foremost human right and, thus, we are NOT subjects. Add to that the fact that abortion will never be abolished in this country, even though a majority believe it is evil, because even if Roe ever was overturned, the decision becomes a state issue. No state is going to overturn its state laws allowing it because states don’t want the financial burden of supporting anymore unwanted wards than they already support. So, the entire assault on the pro-life supporters is moot from the standpoint of being able to stop abortion. You baby killers aren’t really supporting “choice” or anything like that. Your goal is to undermine our founding principles and faith through the necessarily attendant claim that an unborn child is not a person, and thus was not a creation of God. Thereby you undermine the entire precept of the DOI which is what you need to have happen so that the State becomes the giver and taker of rights, although your tactics in this regard are not limited to your baby-killing advocacy.

    Little is taught about these essential founding documents in school, which is why our electorate was so stupid as to elect obama in the first place and the main reason you strive to dumb this country down to the lowest common denominator. Failing that or just as another prong in the pitchfork you wield against this country every day, you drive a stake through E PLURIBUS UNUM with class warfare and racist, anti-white policies and campaigns.

    “Changing demographics” is just another transparent strawman you use to cover your tactics and true motives. People everywhere, except parts of the Middle East, want the same things, and most important to them is liberty. For you to convince them to seek public largesse in exchange for their liberty and in exchange for their votes for Statism makes you and your ilk the scourge of this earth. So take your bullshit propaganda and hit the fucking road.

Some here think we should perhaps hand out condoms with the elephant logo on them instead of sticking to our beliefs. Sorry fellows, you go and try to be like them any more then we already are, you’ll see the rise of a third party faster than you can say planned parenthood. That will destroy the republicans and perhaps the country. We’ve tried the establishment candidate these last two times, how about one that will speak truth to those in power instead of cowering all the time (or at least being differential)?

Thank you for your efforts Professor.

[…] Legal Insurrection’s Professor Jacobson has a review of the status of “Operation Counterweight” elections.. A few successes — but it would be more helpful in the future if Tea Party candidates stuck […]

As a RI 1st Cong district resident, it pains me to see that David Cicilline will get two more years in Congress. If he were the CFO of a $500 million per year corporation as opposed to mayor of a city with similar annual ‘revenues’, he would have been prosecuted for financial fraud. But as a politician, he gets a pass, just like BHO’s campaign bundler, Jon Corzine, who performed magic in making $1.6 billion of client monies disappear from MF Global.
I honestly think we’d have been better off with Patrick Kennedy, a harmless sort with substance abuse issues.
Professor, thanks for your effort here. Let’s get’em next time.

This was a first try and a first cut. The results are a bitter pill to swallow, and I intend to lay low for a few days, and let the disappointment air.

In the the next two years, we need to be sure that the integrity of our voting process is protected. We need to figure out how to counter an out-and-out lie in the media. We need to figure out how to bring out a story that the dishonest media chooses to spike.

AND, we need candidates. If we can’t win with the Republican party, then we need to take over the Democratic party.

I don’t know if this will amount to anything, but a local reporter tweeted this out from our Salt Lake county clerk:

“DEVELOPING:According to SLCO Clerk Sherrie Swensen more than 43,000 absentee & provisional ballots still to be processed & possibly counted” They do not know how many of those ballots are from the 4th district.

We’ll see. It’s unfortunate Jim Matheson continues to slither by as he has.

    lichau in reply to KathEfree. | November 7, 2012 at 9:46 pm

    He will.

    One of the cardinal rules of is: Recounts always increase the vote count of the Democrat. A corollary is: Recounts will continue until enough votes are found to elect the Democrat at which point the recount will immediately stop.

    I assume this rule holds even in Utah.

A GOP activist friend tells me that Scott Brown hurt his chances late in the campaign by running ads that emphasized his “pro-choice” and pro-Planned Parenthood positions. Driving pro-life supporters away, he couldn’t get people to hold signs for him.

Moreover, his ads said “vote for the person, not the party” — sending a message of scorn for the down-ticket candidates for State House and Senate, whom he refused to help. No wonder the party has so few in the legislature, when liberal/moderate candidates at the top of the ticket care only for themselves.

If John Kerry gets his wish and is nominated for SecState, Brown will try again. Who cares?

    JackRussellTerrierist in reply to Norris. | November 8, 2012 at 12:50 am

    I agree. Brown, a pleasant enough guy and probably somewhat sincere, would simply have been a statistic to help take the Leader spot. Since we didn’t get 51, he’s completely moot since he would not have been a reliable vote anyway. Hopefully he’ll just stick to state office or just disappear. If the latter, let him take Governor Hindenberg (R-NJ) with him. Hopefully the door will slam him in his lard ass hard enough to knock the BS out of him and make him STFU.

[…] comparison, note that Cornell Law School’s own William Jacobson compiled a list of mainstream Republican “rising star” candidates to promote. Of […]

Jack The Ripper | November 7, 2012 at 11:57 pm

John Kerry as Secretary of State?

That would be worse (in many ways) than the late Richard Holbrooke ever having made it to Secretary of State (sorry, Mr. Barone, for disagreeing with you about the merits of Mr. Holbrooke, who may have been a hard worker, but . . . ).

There is one way in which John F. Kerry as Secretary of State might be better than Richard Holbrooke as Secretary of State: It would justify the Israelis deciding to cut loose and pursue their own interests because John F. Kerry couldn’t convince a drowning man to buy a life jacket and presumably would not be able to out maneuver Israel on public relations in the United State. [Screw Europe: Their analysis of Middle Eastern affairs is rather consistent – Israel bad, “Palestinians” and Arabs good. Scratch a European, find an anti-semite (or someone who may or may not be anti-semite but cannot help but lust after the money to be made by doing business, however unsavory, with Baathists, Persians, Arabs, Palestinians, and, just on spiteful principle, whoever might be anti-thetical to America and Great Britain.)].

John F. Kerry is to foreign affairs what Joe Biden is to, well . . . , foreign affairs (and the Vice Presidency).

P.S. – Now that Barack Obama won re-election, will he be receiving a second Nobel Prize?

    JackRussellTerrierist in reply to Jack The Ripper. | November 8, 2012 at 12:53 am

    Kerry would be perfect for obastard’s cabinet – what with his testicles having been fried with phone wires or whatever. A perfect fit.

    Eunuchs unite.

NC Mountain Girl | November 8, 2012 at 12:05 am

Professor- keep this in mind in 2014. One price the Democrats will pay for the reliance on under 30 and affluent urban childless voters is such voters often don’t pay as much attention to off year races compared to some other voting blocks. When the national media attention wanes so does theirs. Students usually have only tenuous ties to the area they currently live in and don’t follow local races at all in an off year unless one candidate is a celebrity. Affluent urban childless voters often aren’t deeply rooted. Presidential races interest them a a lot. Senate and Governor’s races less so. House races hardly at all because in a large urban market you don’t see a lot about the House races on the big news sites and on TV.

20 Democrats have to defend US Senate seats in 2014. Several are in red state and several in swing state. A couple of them – Jay Rockefeller, Carl Levin and Frank Lautenberg are older than Methuselah. One our side Lindsay Graham is ripe for a primary challenger.