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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/11/03/fiorehowto.DTL

You think ’10 was tough? Check out ’12

 

For the first time in two cycles, Democrats will have more seats up for grabs than the Republicans, and the party could see its shrunken majority erased altogether.

Several of the senators up for reelection came in on the 2006 Democratic wave, when the party picked up six GOP seats and won control of the chamber. 

Sens. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) defeated GOP incumbents that year but will have to win reelection in 2012.

And two senators who won special elections Tuesday, Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), will face voters again in two years.

 Democrats lost at least six Senate seats Tuesday, with results in Washington and Alaska undetermined as of press time, but they retained control.

That could change in two years, when Democrats have 21 seats up for grabs, compared to only 10 for Republicans. Also up for reelection are Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.), the two Independents who caucus with Democrats — meaning the party has a total of 23 seats to defend.

“The numbers are really working against them, no question about it,” said Jennifer Duffy, a senior Senate analyst at The Cook Political Report. “It will come down to what it always comes down to: retirements and recruiting.”

Many of those Democratic seats up next cycle are in purple or red states, including those of McCaskill, Manchin, Tester, Webb and Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.).

Webb saw several House Democrats in his state lose reelection Tuesday, and McCaskill saw her party lose a Senate pickup opportunity when Roy Blunt (R) won retiring Sen. Kit Bond’s (R-Mo.) seat.

Some senators could opt to retire in 2012. Among those observers will be watching are Ben Nelson and Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.).Nelson is expected to face a difficult race, and Kohl saw his home-state colleague, Sen. Russ Feingold (D), lose on Tuesday.

Casey and Conrad also saw Democratic colleagues lose in their home states on Tuesday. And Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who’s up in 2012, watched fellow California Democrat Barbara Boxer fend off a tough challenge from the GOP. 

“It is certainly true that the landscape will be tilted in 2012 in terms of the seats at risk,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report. “[Democrats] will be defending more seats, so they could have more losses. On the other hand, it depends on the mood of the public.”

 The other Democratic incumbents up next cycle are Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), Tom Carper (Del.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Robert Menendez (N.J.) and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.).

 The 10 GOP senators facing reelection are John Barrasso (Wyo.), Scott Brown (Mass.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), John Ensign (Nev.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Richard Lugar (Ind.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Roger Wicker (Miss.). 

Of that list, the only senator who could be considered in a “dangerous” position is Brown, who represents Massachusetts, a blue state.

Hutchison could retire. She ran for Texas governor in 2010 but lost in the GOP primary. At the time, Hutchison hinted she could resign her seat; she never committed to running again in 2012.

Ensign could leave the Senate if he faces charges stemming from the fallout of an affair he had with a former staffer.

An unknown factor for the Republicans is the Tea Party. The grassroots movement took down several party favorites in GOP primaries this year and has threatened to do the same next cycle.

Already, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a Tea Party favorite, has said he’d consider challenging Hatch in the 2012 GOP primary.

Additionally, Republicans could always be doomed on pocketbook issues. If the economy rebounds, President Obama could be credited in the eyes of some voters. If it stays sluggish, voters could blame the GOP.

The top three Senate Democrats launched a strategy on that front on Wednesday, putting Republicans on notice that they expected cooperation now that the minority party is more powerful.

 “We have made the message very clear that we want to work with Republicans,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “If they’re unwilling to work with us, there’s not a thing we can do about that, but the American people can see that like a very slow curveball.”

Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University, notes that the Republican revolution of 1994, ushered in by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), dealt a major blow to President Clinton — though Clinton won reelection in 1996.

“My thesis is, we’re going to have a miserable two years, but this time not all the blame will go to the president,” Gans said. “Nobody knows what the climate will be in 2012.”

 Rothenberg agreed, saying much depends on the messaging and issues that will dominate the political landscape over the next two years.

 “There’s probably not likely to be as stark of a choice in 2012 as this year — however, it’s also true that most people think the president’s party runs things. It’s not as easy for Democrats to just say, ‘They share responsibility, too.’ ”

Dems find common ground: It's the White House's fault
Ben Smith
November 3, 2010 06:21 PM EDT

The bodies aren’t even cold yet in the House, but the Democratic Party has already opened up a bitter debate over who’s to blame.

The party’s bloodied moderates Wednesday released two years of pent-up anger at a party leadership they viewed as blind to their needs and deaf to the messages of voters who never asked for President Barack Obama’s ambitious first-term agenda.

Liberals pushed back hard: The problem, they say, was those undisciplined moderates, who won delays, unsightly compromises and a muddled message from a too-accommodating administration.

Yet a third group of Democratic politicians and operatives blamed not policy but a failed sales job for the party’s woes.

One thing all sides agree on: The White House blew it.

“It is clear that Democrats over-interpreted our mandate. Talk of a ‘political realignment’ and a ‘new progressive era’ proved wishful thinking,” the retiring Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh wrote in a New York Times op-ed posted online as the scope of last night’s losses became clear.

Bayh called the decision to focus on health care in a bad economy “overreach."

“We were too deferential to our most zealous supporters,” he wrote.

Bayh spoke for a wing of the party that had been, before the election, reluctant to criticize Obama’s management of the government, but which on Wednesday spoke loudly.

“Fundamentally, Democrats lost the middle,” the president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, Ed Gresser, said Wednesday.

“The party's apparent lack of interest in a long-term path away from emergency stimulus toward fiscal balance revived a pre-Clinton reputation for carefree attitudes toward public money.”

And Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a proponent of bipartisanship if not always a policy centrist, lamented “missed opportunities in the last two years” in terms of bipartisan initiatives from the White House, particularly on tax policy.

But if the center is speaking loudly, it speaks from a narrower platform. The nature of a wave is to shear off moderate members in swing districts, and the House lost half of its Blue Dog Caucus. And liberals were quick to note that Bayh could have chosen to stay in the Senate, rather than offering advice from the sidelines.

“Evan Bayh for the sake of being a patriot and for the sake of being a Democrat should have stayed in – he would have protected us,” Gerry McEntee, the president of the giant public workers union AFSCME – a key backer of Democrats this year – told POLITICO.

McEntee said he blamed both the White House and congressional Republicans for failing to act more aggressively to create jobs.

“I don’t think that there was enough effort – and may be there just wasn’t enough knowledge, or maybe there wasn’t enough support in the Congress to really truly attack this problem of jobs,” he said. “You can talk about the tea party, you can talk about the coffee party, you can talk about all kinds of things, but you’ve got to talk about jobs.”

Others said Obama had allowed moderates to distract and muddle his message.

“What killed us was the conservative [Democrats] dragging health care out too long,” said another labor leader Wednesday.

“Democrats who decided to play ball with corporate interests found themselves friendless,” said a spokeswoman for MoveOn.org, Ilyse Hogue, citing Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and other defeated moderates while making the case for a purer, more confrontational party. “Claiming to support Democratic principles while quietly pandering to corporate interests is no longer a winning political strategy,” she said.

The criticism from within the Democratic Party may make some of Obama's goals all the harder. House members who walked the plank on a "cap and trade" energy bill vote and barely survived are all the less likely to take hard votes now. Legislators of all stripes may be more eager to show their distance from the White House, and legislative leaders less likely to cooperate.

Some internal critics are calling on Obama to reach out to Republicans, but any threat of factionalism inside his own party will likely push the president in the opposite direction. Democrats' best home, many believe, is uniting around a common enemy in congressional Republicans, and Obama's best bet for rallying both a restive base and skeptical moderates is pointing to a common enemy.

In his news conference Wednesday, Obama gave few firm clues as to which way he thinks he must turn – to the left or toward the middle. On the one hand, he acknowledged his "shellacking" at the hands of voters and offered to try to work with Republicans, but on the other, he said finding any common ground with the GOP would be difficult. And he defended his moves that inspired the most voter anger, his health care package and stimulus spending.

It’s a sign of Obama’s weakened position coming out of Tuesday that partisans on both ends of the party’s ideological spectrum felt free to take potshots – hoping they could still sway him as he tries to settle on a course for the last two years of his term.

Indeed, the broad Democratic defeat gave fodder to any number of arguments. Conservative Democrats lost – but they were tarred with Obama’s ambitious policy agenda.

And members’ attempts to maneuver away from the wave largely failed: Twenty of the 39 members who voted against the health care legislation the first time it came up in the House lost their seats anyway Tuesday.

The breadth of Obama’s defeat left some Democrats arguing that the White House’s real problem wasn’t policy and ideology but strategy and tactics.

“If you look at the stuff that we did, it was on an issue-by-issue level popular – but we have to do something different in the way we talk about the challenges we face and the way we deal with them,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York.

“We clearly need much better air cover from the president,” he said, expressing skepticism of “this accepted wisdom that if you get things accomplished and explain them, you’ll win people over.”

To the degree Democrats had a bright spot Tuesday, it was their retention of the Senate, and one Democratic strategist argued that Senate campaigns kept their eyes on the ball when the White House wandered in the campaign’s final months.

“For a while there, they were focused on the oil spill, the Middle East peace process, Afghanistan, the anniversary of Katrina, the Ground Zero mosque, and redecorating the Oval Office,” said the Democrat.

And White House critics across the spectrum said the new focus would have to be almost entirely on core economic issues.

“Stop calling it ‘stimulus’ or ‘infrastructure’ or ‘R&E,’” former Clinton aide Paul Begala wrote Wednesday. “Call it jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.”

Neera Tanden, chief operating officer of the Center for American Progress, said: “Yesterday's elections were a vote of no confidence on Democratic stewardship of the economy. The President needs to both propose new policy proposals that will help foster economic growth and create new jobs and communicate every day that that issue is his priority. So that the American people understand that he knows their jobs are as important as his. "

WEST OC: Man says police wrong to arrest him while in baby costume

Staff Report

November 3, 2010

WEST OCEAN CITY — Maryland State Police arrested a 47-year-old man for disorderly conduct while he trick-or-treated on Halloween, saying he was wearing a diaper and shouting profanities at people. But Joseph David DiVanna, of Sarasota, Fla., said he was wearing a full baby costume for Halloween, complete with T-shirt, bib and bonnet, and was not simply parading around in a store-bought diaper.

He says he's angry a State Police press release implies otherwise — and angry that short news stories highlighting his odd dress when arrested spread across the country and overseas.

According to State Police, he was trying to get people to give him candy, and was cursing at adults and children. 

DiVanna said he had drinks earlier, but wasn't drunk, and said he was provoked by teens pelting him with candy. 

“I turned around and I go, guys, I don’t care if you follow me around, it’s Halloween, but you guys gotta stop throwing candy at me, this is ridiculous,” DiVanna said in an interview. "The kids were the ones who disorderly. I was running away from it all."

DiVanna has been living in West Ocean City for months while working on a long-term residential construction job. He had been invited by a friend, he said, to come trick-or-treat in the residential Fox Chapel neighborhood. 

“They said why don’t you stop by, work your way down, and have a beer?” he said.

He said he had worn the outfit out at two local bars a few hours prior to the incident, and that the fact his arrest has made national news is “outrageous.”

 “My phone’s ringing off the hook. This is amazing. I mean, just in a nutshell, the fact (police) didn’t mention I live three blocks down the road and I was going to meet somebody,” he said. 

He said there were adults in the neighborhood who were upset to see him trick-or-treating, and believes they alerted nearby police, who were directing vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

DiVanna is scheduled to face charges of disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace Dec. 10 in Worcester County District Court.

Joseph David DiVanna gestures at a costume he wore on Halloween night, when he was arrested for disorderly conduct. The baby costume includes a diaper, bib, bonnet, bottle and children's book. DiVanna says he's upset police charged him instead of the children he says harassed him that night, and he's also unhappy that news reports saying he was arrested while wearing a diaper have circulated widely. (Brian Shane photo)

http://photos.indystar.com/galleries/inline/11062-seeing-is-believing-unusual-photos-of-the-week

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44657.html

(CNN) – Long before rapper Kanye West ruined musician Taylor Swift's night at the 2009 MTV Music Awards, he single-handedly caused one of the lowest points in George W. Bush's presidency.

That's according to the former president in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer, during which he said West's unexpected outburst during a 2005 Hurricane Katrina telethon amounted to "one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency."
 
"That [means] 'he's a racist,' " Bush tells Lauer in an upcoming interview, according to the Today Show Web site "And I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now. I resent it, it's not true."

Pressed if Bush meant to say that the West moment was more difficult for him to deal with than witnessing the devastating destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, Bush said no.

"I also make it clear that the misery in Louisiana affected me deeply as well," Bush said.

"There's a lot of tough moments in the book. And it was a disgusting moment, pure and simple."
During the widely-viewed 2005 Concert for Hurricane Relief, West said in an unscripted moment said that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Telethon producers quickly cut West's microphone before he could say more.

Fox is top-ranked network, ends CBS winning streak

Obama's final narrative: A negative mélange of historic proportions

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2028959_2028935_2028925,00.html?hpt=C2

Police: Destin bank robber drops wallet, arrested

October 30, 2010 09:06:00 AM

JEFF BARKER

Florida Freedom Newspapers

DESTIN — A 26-year-old man was arrested a day after he robbed Union State Bank at gunpoint.

Jorman Sampaio of the 3800 block of Indian Trail Road walked into the bank on Airport Road about 10 a.m. Thursday and demanded cash, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office news release. Armed with a silver handgun, he made the employees get on the floor and left with about $6,000.

Click to see photos from the scene

http://nwfdailynews.emeraldcoastphotoswest.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=1105807&CategoryID=28208&ListSubAlbums=0

Sampaio fled on foot and dropped a surgical-style glove near the bank’s door, the release said. While investigators processed the scene, a man found Sampaio’s wallet at the intersection of Main Street and Kelly Avenue, along the most commonly used direct route between the bank and his home.

Investigators used the image from Sampaio’s ID card to create a photo lineup. One employee identified him with 80 percent confidence, another with 50 percent confidence, a third narrowed it down between Sampaio and another subject and a fourth was unsure.

When lawmen executed a search warrant at his home, they found a surgical glove consistent with the one found at the bank, a silver semi-automatic handgun and cash.

He was booked into the Okaloosa County Jail in Crestview.

Man robs Capitola bank; offers bystanders $1,000 for getaway ride

CAPITOLA - Police are searching for a man who robbed a bank on 38th Avenue Saturday then apparently offered bystanders $1,000 for a quick getaway.

Around 11:40 a.m., the man entered a bank on 38th Avenue and demanded $20 and $100 bills from a teller, police said. The man then jumped onto the counter and pushed the teller, opened the till and stole an undisclosed amount of money, police said.

Police said the man was not armed.

Witnesses told police a man less than a block away from the bank around the time of the robbery was acting suspiciously and offering $1,000 for a ride to Santa Cruz.

Capitola Police, California Highway Patrol, sheriff's deputies and Santa Cruz Police searched the surrounding area but did not find the man, police said. They are also looking for anyone who may have given the man a ride.

"That $1,000 belongs to the bank," Capitola Sgt. Mark Gonzalez said.

The robber was described as a white man in his 40s or 50s with brown hair and a thin build, wearing blue jeans, a gray zip up sweatshirt and black shoes. The man was unshaven, had yellow teeth and appeared to have bad hygiene, police said. He left behind a green Pacific Wave hat and cell phone charger, police said.

Police believe the man may be a transient, Gonzalez said.

Moss to be waived by the Vikings

Michael Lombardi of the NFL Network first reported that Moss had been waived, but later amended his report to note that coach Brad Childress, who has final say on the 53-man roster, informed Vikings players that the enigmatic receiver was being let go, but did not tell the front office.

"[He said he] just wanted to give everybody a heads-up and say this is what's going on, and that's it," Vikings linebacker Ben Leber told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune "He didn't really dive into any details, and just said that's what we're going to go with."

Moss's agent, Joel Segal, confirmed to the Star Tribune via e-mail that Moss, who remained behind in Boston yesterday to visit family, was "very sad" to find out about being waived.

"He has and always will remain fond of the fans in Minnesota. We will let the process of the waiver wire take its course and we will move on from there."

Any team that claims Moss would be responsible for the remainder of his $6.4 million. Segal told the Star Tribune that he has already heard from the Dolphins and Seahawks about his client.

While Moss has been made aware of his situation according to Segal, his status is uncertain until the Vikings officially place him on waivers. His name did not appear on the waiver wire released by the league this afternoon, according to Fox Sports's Jay Glaser.

Once Moss is officially waived, teams will have the chance to claim him over the next 24 hours. If you think the Patriots would be on that list of interested teams, they would have to wait awhile. Thirty other teams would have to pass on Moss before the Patriots would have a chance to bring him back to New England. The team with the worst record, Buffalo, would have the first chance to claim him.

Patriots receiver Wes Welker had a common reaction to the news that his former teammate was being let go after less than a month with his former team.

"Yeah, absolutely," Welker said in the Patriots' locker room when asked if he was surprised to hear the news. "Randy is obviously a great player so that’s a tough deal if it is true. Who knows? But I find that hard to believe."

Asked if he'd be open to Moss returning to the Patriots, Welker said: "You know that’s all Coach (Bill) Belichick’s decision. So whatever he decides we’re open to as a team and I’m sure he’ll do what’s best for the organization."

Welker wouldn't say whether there was any relief in the locker room after Moss was traded.

"I wouldn’t attribute it to Randy or anything like that," Welker said. "We’ve got a lot of guys coming in and working hard and doing their job and young guys getting better every week. It’s paying off for us, we just need to keep it going."

While the Patriots are 6-1 -- and 3-0 since trading Moss -- the talented Vikings are free-falling, dropping to 2-5 after yesterday's 28-18 loss at Gillette Stadium.

Moss didn't help matters when, in a postgame press conference, he praised the Patriots and Belichick while suggesting the Vikings coaching staff didn't utilize his advice on the Patriots' schemes.

"The bad part about it is you have six days to prepare for a team, and on the seventh day, that Sunday, meaning today, I guess they come over and say, 'Dag, Moss, I guess you was right about a couple plays and a couple schemes they were going to run,'" he said.

"And it hurts as a player, that you put a lot of hard work in during the week, and at the end of the week, Sunday, when you get on the field, that's when they acknowledge about the hard work that you put in throughout the week. That's actually a disappointment."

Shalise Manza Young, Greg A. Bedard, and Chad Finn of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Monday, Nov. 01, 2010

Tracy Bauguess

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/11/01/1803911/bond-is-set-for-penbombing-suspects.html#ixzz143T2LUTI

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/galleries/the_x_factor_amazing_xrays/the_x_factor_amazing_xrays.html