We’ve crossed the psychological barrier and this spells bad news for Dems unless they can turn it around in the next couple months. Because this is the highest rate since 1983 and you’ll be hearing that time and time again in the next month.

Here’s more about those numbers:

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.7 percent) and whites (9.5 percent) rose in October. The jobless rates for adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (27.6 percent), blacks (15.7 percent), and Hispanics (13.1 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed over the month at 5.6 million. In October, 35.6 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed over the month at 65.1 percent. The employment-population ratio continued to decline in October, falling to 58.5 percent.

Thankfully, only 190,000 non-farm jobs were lost last month. That’s lower than September’s 216,000 so the trend is in the right direction.

Also, some good news for those without work…jobless benefits are being extended:

After weeks of partisan debate, the Senate voted on Wednesday to lengthen unemployment benefits by up to 20 weeks and to extend the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit.

The closely watched legislation would extend jobless benefits in all states by 14 weeks. Those that live in states with unemployment greater than 8.5% would receive an additional six weeks. The proposal would be funded by extending a longstanding federal unemployment tax on employers through June 30, 2011.

The measure would apply to those whose benefits will run out by Dec. 31, which is nearly two million people, according to Senate estimates. Those whose checks have already stopped would be able to reapply for another round.

The vote was 98 to 0.

How’s that for bipartisan?

More as it develops…

Also, do check out some of the other categories, as there are many great blogs (and bloggers) that are nominated every year.

It bugs me when either party peddles a false meme before a certain event, as was the case last night with the “GOP is making a comeback if we win anything” talking points.

And yet today the media is grabbing it hook, line and sinker.

But why?

Let’s look at the facts…

Republicans won the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. And hey, good for them. They ran good races. But Governors have little effect on the national agenda when it comes to policy. So while it may be a nice night for the GOP at the state level, it doesn’t really do much for their counterparts in Washington. Well, except give them a false meme to spread.

But let’s dig in more…

Virginians voted for Obama in 2008, but before that you have to go back to 1964 to find the last time the voted for a Dem for prez. And while they’ve had Dem governors in the past 8 years, that hasn’t been a hard and fast rule. Also, anybody watching that race knows that Creigh Deeds didn’t run a very impressive race, while Bob McDonnell ran an incredible campaign and could be poised for bigger things in 8 years if Dems are still in power on the national level (Although he could do with a little charisma injection).

In New Jersey, while many think it’s a Democratic stronghold, Christine Todd Whitman was Governor for 7 years (until she foolishly left to join the Bush administration in 2001). Plus, Corzine has been an ineffectual Governor (he bought his way in with his Goldman Sachs war chest), his approval rating has been low for quite some time now and there has been some pretty bad corruption scandals in NJ. So the fact that this swung back red isn’t a huge shock.

However, in the two Congressional races, Dems won BOTH and actually added to the number of Dems that are in the House.

Let me repeat that…Dems added to their majority in the House last night.

In California the seat was already Democratic, but in New York the Dems gained one.

Didn’t hear that particular nugget in today’s news? Only hearing about how Dems are nervous? How conservatives are rejoicing? How curious! It couldn’t be because the media wants something to talk about, could it? Nawww…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…the only people that voters like less than Congressional Dems are Congressional Repubs. The gubernatorial pick ups were fine, but they mean very little when put in proper context.

So I ask again…what Republican resurgence?

142,817 VOTES FOR BLOOMBERG ON COLUMN C DELIVERS MARGIN TO CITY’S FIRST INDEPENDENT MAYOR

New York, NY-The Independence Party vote for Mike Bloomberg yesterday broke numerous records and re-enforced its ongoing mandate for independent governance and non-partisan reform.

Unofficial returns released by the Board of Elections put the IP total on Column “C” at 142,817 votes, nearly 26% of Bloomberg’s total and 13% of all votes cast. This means that 1 in 4 Bloomberg voters chose to vote on the Independence Party line.

The vote for the mayor on the Independence Party line was an increase of 91% over its total four years ago, when it drew nearly 75,000 votes on its crucial Column “C”.

Jacqueline Salit, who has run all three IP campaigns for Bloomberg stated:

“The Independence Party’s 143,000 votes grows out of the strength of our grassroots organization, the popularity of political independence as a new option and a longstanding partnership with our independent mayor, Mike Bloomberg. This record breaking vote makes plain our growth and our role in the emerging shift in New York City politics. We’re a new kind of minor party with an agenda for non-partisan reform. We have a broad and diverse base of support. We gave Mike his margin in a close race. And we made history by electing the city’s first independent mayor.”

In three consecutive elections, under varying circumstances, the Independence Party has made its mark on the NYC mayoral. In 2001, its 59,091 votes gave Bloomberg his margin over Democrat Mark Green, who lost by 35,000 votes. In 2005, the IP vote for Bloomberg grew by 26%, making it the only political party to demonstrate growth at the polls that year. This year, the IP delivered 13% of the total  votes cast- the largest percentage ever-by a minor party for a cross-endorsed mayoral candidate.

For the last 20 years, other minor parties polled between 32,551 (the Working Families Party vote for Mark Green in 2001) and 62,469 (the Liberal Party vote for Rudy Giuliani in 1993).

Cross-posted on The Hankster

Yes, it’s not even close.

Gee, I wonder why we’re going bankrupt…

And those are just 3 graphs! Want to see the other 19? Click here to download the whole report (.pdf).

I’ve already asked the question, but I’ll ask it again…why do we pay so much more for health care????

Just watch…

Here’s the thing, the reason these folks can get away with nonsense like this is because congressional districts have been so gerrymandered as to be almost completely red or blue. And given that Rep. Foxx is from North Carolina’s 5th district (very safely Republican) she can keep on talking like this till she’s blue (or red) in the face. And it’ll get her famous, quick.

Just look at Michele Bachmann, a virtual nobody before she started talking crazy on shows like Hardball and Glenn Beck’s cavalcade of crazy. Now she’s being favorably profiled by George Will? And let’s not forget Foxx’s South Carolina cousin Rep Joe Wilson. He jumps so far over the line that even his fellow Republicans chide him, and yet he becomes a folk hero and raises $1M in donations online in short order.

And trust me, this isn’t limited to just Republicans. Dems have said their fair share of nonsense too. But why are these folks being applauded, promoted and revered? Why aren’t they seen as the sideshows they really are?

Yes, yes, I know I’m posting this video and so I’m part of the promotion of this meme, but I point this out to raise the broader topic question….How in the hell did we get here? And is there any way back?

As I’ve said numerous times before, voters aren’t stupid. They know who piloted our economic collapse last year and it’s going to be extremely hard for Republicans to convince them otherwise.

Still, it is kind of telling that Republicans blame Obama more for the economy than Bush, even though it’s by a very small 6 point margin. I mean, come on folks…we’re 10 months in and you REALLY believe that Obama is the reason why we’re still only treading water?

Also note how the number of Republicans is skewing the total to be 7 points more than what Independents think. Because that number is really what you should be looking at since they’ll determine whether or not Republicans make serious gains in 2010. And since the economy is bound to be the #1 issue at that time, this doesn’t bode well for the GOP.

Still, I predict that if the economy doesn’t get better by this time next year Obama and Bush will be even. At least among Indies. Because at that point it’ll be about 20 months in and, fair or not, Obama will own it.

But what do you think? When will Obama own the economy in swing voters’ minds?

Slowly, but surely, we’ll be getting health care reform in a matter of months. That is, if Democrats don’t overplay their hand.

From NY Times:

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucus of Montana, described “a sense of inevitability, the sense that, yes, we’re going to pass health reform.” In interviews, senior advisers to the president said the progress on Capitol Hill vindicated Mr. Obama’s strategy of leaving the details up to lawmakers, though they are wary of sounding overconfident. [...]

In the House, where leaders have vowed to pass a bill by Nov. 11, a fight over abortion coverage could still imperil the legislation, and Mr. Obama could lose some votes from liberals upset that the bill includes a weakened “public option,” a government insurance plan to compete with the private sector. Mr. Obama, trying to keep progressives in line, met with them Thursday night in the White House Roosevelt Room.

“He is making the case to them that this isn’t the exact bill you’d write, however, let’s take a step back and look at what we’re about to do here, and what a historic moment this will be,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting.

Now, it was my understanding that Obama had let the health care legislation form in the early days, but now they were getting involved with drafting specific legislation. Maybe that’s not the case at this point, but one has to think they’re beginning to get more and more involved.

However, going back to my biggest concern, will the more liberal Dems get out of the way and acknowledge the reality that this isn’t going to be exactly what they want, but it’s a hell of lot better than nothing?

We shall see…

Hello, Donklephanters! I’ve been on the stump over the past number of weeks for NYC independent mayoral candidate Mike Bloomberg and the word on the street is that Column C (the Independence Party line) is the vote for nonpartisan grassroots people’s power.

In print news, note  that the majority of voters in the Garden State, from north to south, are independent and will play the decisive role in Tuesday’s Gov election there.

Elsewhere in New York, independent candidates, parties and voters are the name of the game…

And in Last Word(s) — I hope you’ll take a peek at the left/right Dem/Repub dialogue that permeates the print media and the blogosphere. As a long-time activist with the independent (non-Dem) left, I’m always happy to see progressives take on the right wingers as in Radical? Not! (By Eugene Debs, New Majority) below.

-NH

NJ Gov Race

• Bergen County a key factor in governor’s race (By Cynthia Burton, Philadelphia Inquirer) Democrats outnumber Republicans there, 169,000 to 111,200. But the biggest voting group, as it is everywhere else in the state, consists of unaffiliated voters, who number 250,300. Unaffiliated voters have recently been voting with the Democrats.
• Election not a big draw to Gloucester County voters (By Jessica Landolfi, NJ News-Star Ledger, Trenton Times) Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 with 70,744 registered Democrats, 35,637 Republicans and 82,607 unaffiliated.

NY Races

• Poll: NYC Mayor Bloomberg up by double digits in home stretch (From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser)
• Thompson Endorsed by Cuomo (By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, NY Times)
• Hoffman and Owens in a Tie for New York Special Election (CQ Politics/PollTracker)
• A GOP Civil War in Upstate New York (By KATE PICKERT, Time) But then, the race in the 23rd is no longer about local issues. It’s about a Republican Party with little current power inside the Beltway searching for a way out of the wilderness. And it’s about conservative Republicans sending a message — the future of the party is the conservative base. (It’s also, incidentally, about money; according to the Federal Election Commission, more than $650,000 has flowed to the candidates from independent groups just since Oct. 24.) “The 23rd has as little significance as Gettysburg. It’s just where the Armies met,” says Bob Gorman, managing editor of the Times and my old boss. “Everybody was looking for a fight and that’s where they found each other.”
• ACORN: Vann, go (By DAVID SEIFMAN, NY Post)
• Court of Appeals won’t hear Bethlehem WFP case (by Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, Albany Times Union/Local Politics)

Last Word(s)

• Radical? Not! (By Eugene Debs, New Majority)
• Our Heritage:  Newt Gingrich weighs in on events current and Founding-era. (interview by Robert Costa, National Review Online)
• Self-Image and Party Politics (By DAVID BROOKS AND BOB HERBERT, NY Times/The Conversation) Is it possible for both parties to lose at the same time?
• More Signs of Trouble for 2010 (William Galston, The New Republic)

More news headlines for independent voters at The Hankster

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting a lot in the past couple weeks and that’s because the day job has been VERY consuming…but in a good way.

Basically, over the past year I’ve been working on developing a new website for AMC Theatres and it just launched Monday. On it you can find movie trailers, show times, movie news, a community based around our collective love for movies and much, much, much, much, much more.

So drop by AMCEntertainment.com, sign up and tell me what you think at our Get Satisfaction feedback site.

And MANY thanks to my fellow Donklephant contributors for helping fill in the gaps. It is very appreciated.

Over time, the vice president has been granted the wonderful ability to see into the future (of newspaper headlines) and he’s shown more poise and reserve in his speech… although that may not necessarily be a good thing, according to recent poll numbers that show a Gaff-able Joe Biden is far more likable than this serious character he’s become. Oh, but there have been gaffes… don’t you worry about that. It’s just that no one’s really been talking all that much about them, since Balloon Boy’s dad has been toying with our emotions and Joe Lieberman has been all over the TV flapping his yap about healthcare filibusters. In other news, you’ll be happy to hear that some new Bidenisms have been printed in David Plouffe’s new book, The Audacity To Win.

As we head to Election Day 2009, everyone is talking about the Yankees and the Phillies. And a few people are talking about the Mayoral race in NYC, where independent candidate Mike Bloomberg is poised to become the first independent mayor of New York, running on the Independence Party (Column C) and Republican lines. But not Karl Rove. Kind of a big omission, don’t you think? Check out Jon Noltie’s Examiner article. However, other independent and Independence-backed candidates in New Jersey, New York and Virginia are soaking up the ink. See today’s news for independent voters below:

• Tuesday’s Elections and the Democratic Agenda (By KARL ROVE, Wall Street Journal) A year ago, Democrats crowed that Mr. Obama had reshaped the political landscape to their advantage. Voters have lived under Democratic rule for nine months, and many of them, especially independents, don’t like what they’re seeing.
• Strength of independent candidates indicates GOP missing opportunity (Columbus Republican Examiner, by Jon Noltie) In 2 of the 3 most watched electoral races this year, the GOP stands a good chance of losing due to the strength of independent candidates, in addition to not even fielding a candidate in the New York City mayoral race.
• Dividing And Conquering In State Races (John Zogby, Forbes)
• Quinnipiac Sees a Different New Jersey Race Than Rasmussen, PPP (National Review)
• Corzine Up 5 Points In New Jersey Gov Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Governor Tops Christie On ‘Honesty’ Score (Quinnipiac) Corzine leads 79 – 8 percent among Democratic likely voters, with 10 percent for Daggett. Christie leads 79 – 7 percent among Republicans, with 9 percent for Daggett, and 45 – 30 percent among independent voters, with 20 percent for Daggett.
• NJ Gov Poll: Corzine Takes 5-Point Lead (RealClearPolitics)
• Daggett: Republican urged him to quit gov’s race (The Associated Press, Philadelphia Inquirer)

More news for independent voters at The Hankster

These decorations are an easy, relatively inexpensive way to acknowledge the holiday. They require little or no thought beyond which one to buy and where to buy it. The set-up is easy, so is the clean up and off-season storage.

Easy is good.

The unfortunate trade-off is that most inflatables are hollow caricatures of tradition and a lousy representation of the individuals upon whose lawn they are displayed.

I took three classes in college with a professor who made every class read George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

The essay warrants contemplation. The criticisms he makes of modern writing can be made of most modern pursuits. Holiday decorating for example.

He writes:

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. [...] If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious.

When you use ready-made decorations, you don’t have to untangle lights, build scarecrows or hang bats from trees. Just “gum together” a ghost and pumpkin that’s “already set in order by someone else” and you’re good to go. The result is cute, maybe. Mostly it’s uninspired and unremarkable.

The trouble with such thoughtlessness, Orwell writes, is that it feeds on itself:

[...] an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

It is rather the same thing that is happening to all arenas of our life. The more we choose to rely on the convenience of prefabricated expressions (of thought, holidays or anything else), the less effort we put into all aspects of our lives, and the more we become generic caricatures of ourselves.

Look at what passes for political discourse these days. The majority of people are vehemently arguing about which inflatable lawn ornament is better for the country – your goofy-grinned liberal scarecrow or my fat conservative, Disney witch.

The good news is that the condition is reversible – without taking a BB gun to the neighbors yard:

One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase [...] into the dustbin, where it belongs.

I suppose that means I’ll go outside and make a scarecrow.

DOUBLE STANDARD? When John Cusack bombards his girlfriend's home with music, it's cute. When the CIA uses a boombox, it's torture.

So, a pretentious group of musicians is upset that their music is being used to torment America’s most dangerous enemies?

And now they want the U.S. government to release an official song list?

I can’t imagine that such a document actually exists. Are we supposed to believe that CIA and Pentagon interrogators around the world were issued official playlists by some audio-torture DJ?

It’s a safe bet that the music choices used to keep terrorists awake 24/7 were straight from a gazillion different iPods.

However, there WAS an official songlist when the U.S. Army flushed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega out of hiding in 1989. The psychological warfare guys surrounding the Vatican Embassy during “Operation Just Cause” called in their requests to Army Radio.

How retro.

Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" made this dictator's skin crawl!

THE OFFICIAL 1989 MUSIC TORTURE SONG LIST FOR NORIEGA

Straight from U.S. Army records, here is a portion of the radio playlist used to annoy Manuel Noriega.

1. (You’ve Got) Another Thing Coming — Judas Priest
2. All I Want is You — U2
3. Big Shot — Billy Joel
4. Born to Run — Bruce Springsteen
5. Bring Down the Hammer — Georgia Satellites
6. Don’t Look Back — Boston
7. Don’t Fear the Reaper — Blue Oyster Cult
8. Eat My Shorts — Rick Dees
9. Feel a Whole Lot Better (When You’re Gone) — Tom Petty
10. Give It Up — KC and the Sunshine Band
11. Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down — Paul Young
12. Guilty — Bonham
13. Hang ‘Em High — Van Halen
14. Hanging Tough — New Kids on the Block
15. I Fought The Law and the Law Won — Bobby Fuller
16. Judgment Day — Whitesnake
17. Never Gonna Give You Up — Rick Astley
18. No More Mister Nice Guy — Alice Cooper
19. Panama — Van Halen
20. Paranoid — Black Sabbath
21. Stay Hungry — Twisted Sister
22. The Party’s Over — Journey
23. The Star Spangled Banner — Jimi Hendrix
24. They’re Coming to Take Me Away — Henry VIII
25. Time is on My Side — Rolling Stones
26. Wanted Dead or Alive — Bon Jovi
27. We Didn’t Start the Fire — Billy Joel
28. We Gotta Get Out of This Place — The Animals
29. Who Will You Run To? — Heart

Who knew that Billy Joel and New Kids on the Block would ever serve their country so effectively?

Wanna see the full list of Noriega torture tunes?  CLICK HERE.

Atlanta, GA — Georgia Independent Voters (GIV), a state-based association representing independent voters, announced today its endorsement of former State Senator Kasim Reed for mayor of the City of Atlanta.

“We’re proud to announce our support for Kasim Reed for Mayor of Atlanta,” said Thyrsa M. Gravely, a long-time independent political organizer and a key player in GIV’s candidate screening process. “Reed has been on the just side of important electoral issues here in Georgia, and in our conversations he indicated a willingness to address our concerns regarding political reform by being a spokesperson at the state and national level.”

“I am very grateful to receive the endorsement of Georgia Independent Voters. A political process that is open to all is a major concern of mine,” said Reed. “Too many voters are disillusioned and kept out of the political process. As Mayor, I will work with the Governor and the state legislature towards opening Georgia’s electoral process, and making it more accessible to all voters.”

GIV’s endorsement came as a result of candidate screening sessions and numerous dialogues over the course of the summer. In July the group met with nine of the hopeful candidates, but elected not to endorse at that time. “We wanted to see how the field would shape up after the filing period closed in early September,” said Murray Dabby, a co-founder of GIV. “We wanted to endorse when we thought we could have the biggest impact.”

Numbers of independents continue to grow, and independents currently form 39% of the electorate according to a recent Pew Research poll. As a result, independents have played an increasingly important role in elections around the country. In the 2008 presidential election, independents tipped the scales for Obama, helping him secure the Democratic Party nomination over Clinton.

“Kasim Reed is a part of a new generation of Democrats, like President Obama, who appreciate independents. Reed is very conversant on issues of concern to us and is clearly the most independent-minded, and most reform-minded candidate in the race,” said Dabby. “Issues of political reform are a mystery to many old-guard, traditional politicians, but things like lowering ballot access barriers, making voter registration easier, and making the redistricting process less political are issues that are important to independents, who are left out of the political process in so many ways.”

Georgia Independent Voters is a grassroots organization working to reform the political process and develop the voice of independent voters around Georgia.

http://www.georgiaindependentvoters.org

Well, at least the opt out version.

Here’s Joe…

“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”

And guess what? They don’t have the votes in the House either…

The House Dem leadership has conducted its preliminary whip count and has tallied up less than 200 likely Yes votes in support of a health care reform bill with a robust public option, well short of the 218 needed for passage, according to an internal whip count document I’ve obtained.

The document — compiled by the office of House leader James Clyburn — was distributed privately at a meeting between Clyburn and House progressives today where the fate of the public option was the subject of some contentious debate, with liberals demanding that House leaders push harder to win over votes.

Clyburn spokesperson Kristie Greco would only say: “We currently do not have the votes for a robust public option.”

So Harry Reid, who ignored all of the warnings, is now set to put forth a bill that will most likely get filibustered?

I don’t think so.

My guess was that this was one last public push to show liberal interests group that there isn’t enough support.

Back to the co-ops…

Washington – A poll released today by the Club for Growth shows Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman surging into the lead in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district to replace John McHugh, the former congressman who recently became Secretary of the Army.

The poll of 300 likely voters, conducted October 24-25, 2009, shows Conservative Doug Hoffman at 31.3%, Democrat Bill Owens at 27.0%, Republican Dede Scozzafava at 19.7%, and 22% undecided. The poll’s margin of error is +/- 5.66%. No information was provided about any of the candidates prior to the ballot question.

This is the third poll done for the Club for Growth in the NY-23 special election, and Doug Hoffman is the only candidate to show an increase in his support levels in each successive poll. The momentum in the race is clearly with Hoffman.

This result stands in contracts to the other recent polls conducted in the race, which seemed to show that the Democratic candidate was benefiting from a divided Republican electorate:

Of course, it’s worth noting that there are obvious reasons to discount the Daily Kos poll, and there are some serious doubts about the Club for Growth poll as well.

For one thing, Basswood Research appears to be an exclusively Republican polling firm and there’s absolutely no indication that it’s methodology is accurate or reliable.

For another, the 5 3/4% margin of error is unusually high, and means that the numbers themselves give no indication of who might be in the lead.

Finally, with one-fifth of the electorate undecided, a number that doesn’t seem to have changed all that much from the previous polls, it’s pretty clear that this race is far from being decided.

Personally, I’m going to wait until we get a poll from an unbiased source like Siena College to see where this race might really be going.

Despite the election of Barack Obama and the continuing misfortunes of the GOP, the United States is still a center-right country:

PRINCETON, NJ — Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

The 2009 data are based on 16 separate Gallup surveys conducted from January through September, encompassing more than 5,000 national adults per quarter. Conservatives have been the dominant ideological group each quarter, with between 39% and 41% of Americans identifying themselves as either “very conservative” or “conservative.” Between 35% and 37% of Americans call themselves “moderate,” while the percentage calling themselves “very liberal” or “liberal” has consistently registered between 20% and 21% — making liberals the smallest of the three groups.

Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008. By contrast, among Republicans and Democrats, the percentage who are “conservative” has increased by one point each.

As is typical in recent years, Republicans are far more unified in their political outlook than are either independents or Democrats. While 72% of Republicans in 2009 call their views conservative, independents are closely split between the moderate and conservative labels (43% and 35%, respectively). Democrats are about evenly divided between moderates (39%) and liberals (37%).

This isn’t really a surprise, it’s pretty similar to what we’ve seen from the public before, and it sends a signal to the GOP:

As I have noted repeatedly, data from the 2008 exit polling showed that more people considered themselves “conservative” than “liberal.” This new Gallup poll is in accord with that.

This goes straight to NY-23, where both the DCCC and NRCC are attacking Doug Hoffman, the conservative candidate. Apparently, unlike the NRCC, the DCCC sees a path to victory for Doug Hoffman.

When the GOP paints a clearly distinct picture of ideas and issues from the Democrats, they win. Voters do not want to vote for Democrat-lite when they get have the real thing. Instead, the GOP should present and alternative, better vision of moving this country forward.

I agree that far, but that strategy has to recognize that the “alternative, better vision of moving this country forward” may not be the same in, say, New Jersey as it is in Alabama.

The mistake that most on the right will make upon seeing a poll like this is to believe that it confirms that America is, mostly, just like them and that what the GOP needs to do is become more conservative. Past results, and other polls, however, would clearly indicate that isn’t the case.

In Virginia, for example, Bob McDonnell is succeeding not because he has run on a hard-right platform, but because he’s done a much better job of communicating alternative Republican solutions to the problems that Virginians are facing. Those ideas can largely be described as “conservative,” but they aren’t ideologically extreme in any respect, and they are packaged in a way is attractive to the generally center-right voters in areas like Northern Virginia. Except for the amazingly unsuccessful negative campaign that Democrat Creigh Deeds has been running, here’s been no talk of issues like abortion or gay marriage, and it’s pretty darn significant that the McDonnell campaign didn’t both to request a visit from conservative icon Sarah Palin — largely because they know that her presence would do as much to turn off the moderate voters McDonnell needs as it would to fire up the conservatives he already has.

There’s a lesson for the left here as well, but it can be seen in the declining poll numbers for the President, and the increasing sense that he’s been governing as something other than the moderate he campaign as in 2008.

Personally, I doubt either side will learn the right lesson from these numbers.

Unlikely, but he’s making noises yet again.

From C-Span via Politics Daily:

C-SPAN: “If you were to run, what factors would you take into account? What would lead you to think about running?”

GINGRICH: “Callista and I are going to think about this in February 2011. And we are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country. And we’ll decide, if there’s a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there’s not a requirement, if other people have filled the vacuum, I suspect we won’t.”

Here’s the thing…Newt knows he’d never win. His personal skeletons are simply too numerous and he doesn’t have mainstream appeal.

Still, as a VP candidate? I could see a Romney/Gingrich ticket being compelling to fiscal moderates.

See, Gingrich is like Cheney and Biden in that way. You’d never put him up for the top spot because he couldn’t win, but having that brain power behind the top guy/gal? All of a sudden his personal skeletons melt away…even though he’s still a heartbeat from the Oval Office.

What do you think?