Democratic Congressional candidates in states like Massachusetts, Virginia, Wisconsin and for some polls, Connecticut, are starting to inch ahead in heavily contested races. A month ago, polls were showing just the opposite. So why the change?
Up host Chris Hayes, in his Saturday show covering the shifting down-ballot races, zeroed in on the Congressional race in Las Vegas, where candidates are neck-and-neck in polls as they spar on largely national issues rather than tackle the topics that directly affect voters in their district. Las Vegas is still suffering a whole host of localized issues with some of the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the country, but the political campaigns are instead latching onto nationalized issues—particularly Medicare.
“I think Paul Ryan’s place on the ticket was part of that nationalization,” Hayes told his guest panelists on Saturday. “And for some reason strategically, Republicans have decided they want to have a debate about Medicare - about who is cutting Medicare more.”
Similar problems could plague down-ballot Republicans after what has been dubbed Romney’s “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.” From his divisive remarks criticizing 47% of the electorate, to the chatter over his tax returns, Romney hasn’t helped out members of his own party in heavily contested races. In fact on Wednesday, Wisconsin Senate candidate Tommy Thompson attributed his slide in the polls in part to the ebb and flow of the presidential race.
“The presidential thing is bound to have an impact on every election,” Thompson, a Republican, told the Madison television station WKOW. “You know, whether you're a Democrat or Republican. If you're a standard-bearer for the presidency is not doing well, it's going to reflect on the down ballot."
The National Review’s Kevin Williamson pushed back on the idea that the Romney/Ryan ticket was to blame, telling the Up w/ Chris panelists that the idea of Romney being toxic has been “way, way overblown.”
“Romney hasn’t had the best week ever, but it still is a toss-up race,” he said.
Early voting began in half of the 50 states on Saturday, meaning that slight poll bounces for Democrats in down-ballot races could potentially have a large impact in determining which party is likely to assume control of the U.S. Senate.
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Both R7R are firmly behind the Ryan budget and the "Personhood bill" so any talk of either in Vegas is death nail who wants to go to Vegas with no women? what woman wants men to treat them like a poker chip naw they are being conned if they think R7R are in it for them or the rest of the 47%
I would say the whole attitude of the Gop/Tp are the cause of their slide Romney/ Ryan are just icing on the cake, they haven't done a thing for the people in this country, No Jobs, No Farm Bill, knocked down our Credit Rating...just to name a few.. all we got from them is a lot of BS and Hot Smoke... with people paying more attention to this Election, they are starting to pay the price for their foolishness.
They don't seem to be able to get the party to be cohesive anymore. Surely they have run out of circus tricks. I'm waiting for the debates. I'll bring plenty of pop corn.
You had to go to the National Review to get an excuse for Romney's free fall? I'd expect no less from the National Review! Come on...
The problem isn't Romney, and it isn't Ryan. It's the Republican party. Romney's choice of Ryan just brought the issue back to front and center.
Republicans either don't want to think about it or don't have a clue. But look at what they've become: a gathering of increasingly old, angry, white plutocrats who have little use for anyone who isn't just like them. Look at the images of the Republican convention: it represents a vision of the past of America, and not the future. There was no hope there, only anger. There was no warmth there, only mechanical recitations of dedication to individual freedom that they in fact wish to curtail dramatically.
The Republicans have lost a sense of a social contract. In their fervor to destroy an Obama they despise, they are happy to destroy the government as a guardian of our safety and wellbeing as well. They have lost their sense that we are a country and that the people of this country count as more than cogs in some monstrous industrial or commercial machine.
There is no sense that government has a role in this country except to give the plutocrats more money, to subsidize defense contractors and to allow industrialists to do whatever they want.
They persist in seeing the election as a referendum on economic policies of the last 4 years. In so doing, they miss the boat. It is a referendum on visions of the future. And because of that, the Republicans, who seem to want nothing but the past, lose.
If the Republicans want to understand why this election is slipping away from them, all they have to do is look in the mirror.
Yes, it would be my opinion that Ryan has a very negative effect on Romney/Ryan ticket. Ryan is way too radical for mainstream America. In addition, Romney is a flawed candidate. The Republican Party do not like Romney so why should mainstream America like him. President Obama is likeable and a very good person and family person there is no reason too trade him. President Obama is more presidential material by far and Romney is not ready to take on such a critical position.
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%,,$$$$$$$$$$
Paul Ryan will work to reduce Mitt Romney's tax rate below 1%. That is a very good reason for Mitt to include Paul on the ticket.
Paul Ryan's understanding of economics is sophomoric. He cites as his authority Ayn Rand, a novelist with pretensions at being a philosopher and an economist.
Atlas Shrugged and other Rand novels are amusing reads, but to radically change American socioeconomic policies based on extrapolations from these fictions is going way to far.
But that's what ideologues do--hurt people by fanatical implementation of their ideological fantasies.
People just don't like cheaters. From Mitt Romney hiding this money in overseas accounts to avoid taxes and not taking his charitable deduction last year so his rate isn't 9%. Then we have republicans blocking any kind of job creating bills so the President o the flip laying off teachers, police, firefighters etc .Then we have voter supression that is disqusting .Ryan is just one more addition to the flip flop mentality to win
They will do any underhanded thing to win
Is Ryan to blame? Yes and No. It could have been any extreme, fact-challenged, logic-deprived, greed-monger that stepped forward to display to America the epitome of the GOP, but it was Ryan.
I don't think so. He is the only one in the race that has the guts to lay it all on the line and tell the American people like it is. We are broke, entitlement programs are unsustainable, the debt is unsustainable and things MUST change. Anyone who doesn't understand that is living under a rock somewhere.
This show is GREAT! Why is there no podcast, like Maddow? Even Olberman had a podcast.