The Cook Political report has released a new batch of ratings for competitive House races.

The two Washington state races that make the list are WA-1, the seat being vacated by Rep. Jay Inslee for his gubernatorial run, and the new WA-10. (Here is a map of the new Washington state Congressional districts.)

WA-10 is rated Safe Democratic, and Cook’s Partisan Voter Index (PVI) for the district is D+5.

WA-1 is rated Lean Democratic, with a PVI of D+3.

These ratings have been stable for awhile.

Nationally Democrats have 20 seats rated as lean or toss-up, Republicans have 32. Just a month ago, Democrats had 23 and Republicans had 29.

Update: Here is a graph of the count of lean/toss-up seats since the beginning of the year:

The trend in this graph lends credibility to suggestions that Democrats may win back the House in 2012….

Wingnuts believe in voter fraud the way they believe cutting revenues increases revenues. For them, the topic of voter fraud induces apoplectic foaming at the mouth the way a good Pentecostal revival induces intense spells of speaking in tongues.

And it’s bizarre because actual cases of voter fraud are few and far between.

Well…we now have one more example—someone who has actually been convicted of voter fraud.

I know it is totally “impossible” to believe but the voting fraudster is a Republican.

Not just any Republican, but Charlie White, former chairman of the Republican Party in Hamilton County [Indiana]. Oh…and current Secretary of State.

So, just keep in mind, when a Republican gets all alarmist about voter fraud, they are likely engaging in an exercise of psychological projection—they are expressing fears of what they would do if they had the opportunity.

An interesting question is what will happen now in Indiana. Indiana law requires the removal of public officers convicted of a felony, and the Governor gets to appoint the replacement.

The Governor—that would be Republican Governor Mitch Daniels—presumably has the power to appoint at his pleasure. But….

Separately, a Marion County judge in December ruled that White was not eligible to run for secretary of state in 2010 because he was not properly registered at his own address. White has been allowed to stay in office while he appeals that ruling.

The Marion County judge ruled that the Democrat White defeated by more than 340,000 votes in 2010, Vop Osili, should be declared the winner of the election.

This is going to get real interesting!

Thom: AZ Gov. Brewer’s latest war…on public workers.

ONN: Panelists discussing debate clearly didn’t watch it.

Jennifer Granholm: Why GOP policies don’t address income disparities in America.

Young Turks: Republicans busting public employee unions in AZ.

Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

The SuperPAC Bites Back:

• Ann Telnaes: Feeding the SuperPac beast
• Stephen on the Americone Dream Super Pack pack.
• Mark Fiore: Generic SuperPac Advertisement.
• Stephen: The Greatest American SuperPAC donors.
• SuperPAC meets the Superbowl.

Young Turks: The rectal exam amendment to anti-abortion bill.

White House: Tuskegee Airmen visit the White House:

Pap: How will the Occupy movement evolve?

Ed: “Wisconsin on steroids”.

Young Turks: Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast (Romney vs the poor).

Sam Seder: Indiana state Senate find Scientology in their Creationism.

Flashback: Newt Gingrich talks about asking advice from Penn State football coach Joe Paterno about assistant coaches (via Political Wire).

Young Turks: Nutcase Senator Hatch to Obama “You’re not Jesus”.

The G.O.P. Primary Freak Show:

• Sam Seder: Anonymous exposes Ron Paul.
• Rick Santorum suffers from some Bad Lip Reading:
• ONN: GOP race now between Mitt and total voter apathy and other news of the week.
• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Newt hates freedom of religion.
• Actual Audio: Sarah Palin defends Newt (or is it a poetry slam?)
• Ed and Pap: The end of Newt?
• Newt would like to live on the moon.
• Ann Telnaes: Newt’s ideas are hard to digest.
• Thom: Did the Gingrich campaign commit election fraud?
• Alyona: Romney will ‘fix’ safety net by gutting it.
• Jon on Mitt’s lack of concern for the poor (via Political Wire).
• Young Turks: Romney doesn’t care about poor people.
• Mitt’s most out of touch moments.
• Jennifer Granholm: UAW president says Mitt Romney can’t win Michigan.
• Young Turks: Romney ‘misspoke’ on ‘very poor’ comments.
• Red State Update: Mitt hates old people and wins Florida anyway.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Spotlight on Mitt
• Mitt commits ANOTHER unforced error:
• Jon: Mitt, Donald and the coalition of the wealthy.
• Thom: That’s not Punxatawney Phil…it’s…Trump!
• Mitt gets glitter bombed (and can’t sing) (via Crooks and Liars).

Sam Seder: Washington seat close to passing same-sex marriage bill.

Liberal Viewer: Michelle Malkin &Bill O’Reilly lie on Gitmo lawyers exposed.

Stephen: Tea Party demands to rewrite history.

Thom: The GOP all out assault on workers.

White House: West Wing Week.

Shuster with Michael Musto on a recent study showing that lower IQs lead to conservative views:

Sam Seder: In Alabama, God says “don’t raise Teacher pay”.

The Komen Kaper:

• Young Turks: Komen severs relationship with Planned Parenthood.
• Newsy: Funding pulled from Planned Parenthood for political reasons.
• Buzz 60: Uproar as Komen pulls plug on Planned Parenthood
• Young Turks: Planned Parenthood donations soar.
• Ann Telnaes: Komen v. Planned Parenthood.
• Young Turks take on anti-abortion activist.
• Shuster: The backlash.
• Young Turks: Komen reverses decision.
• Newsy: Komen restores Planned Parenthood grants.

Thom with some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Jennifer Granholm: Will voter ID laws make voting more secure—or more selective?.

Newsy: Jobless claims drop for 5th month in a row.

Young Turks: 243K jobs created in January.

Thom: More Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

When Gov. Christine Gregoire signs same-sex marriage into law the week after next, Washington state will be catching up to that uber-liberal state known as Iowa.

So when they heard the news, the Des Moines chapter of Drinking Liberally couldn’t resist teasing us a bit at the same time they sent a congratulatory message:

Senate Bill 6239 that legalizes same-sex marriage, passed tonight.

The Senate was the big hurdle for this bill, pushed by Gov. Christine Gregoire as part of her final agenda as Governor.

The bill passed 28 to 21. That’s quite a shift from two weeks ago, when only 23 Senators publicly supported it.

Sen. Ed Murray, who has fought for many years to end discrimination against same-sex couples, will now get married to his long-time partner, Michael Shiosaki.

Congrats, guys!

By “Romney family member,” I mean the Romeny’s former family dog, an Irish Setter named Seamus.

Seamus achieved fame and glory during the 2008 presidential campaign cycle after one of Romney’s sons told a treasured family story:

In June 2007 the Boston Globe reported that in 1983, current Republican presidential hopeful (and former Massachusetts governor) Mitt Romney had placed his Irish setter in a dog carrier on the roof of his station wagon for a 12-hour trip to his parents’ cottage on the Canadian shores of Lake Huron. He’d built a windshield for the carrier to make the ride more comfortable for the dog. He’d also made it clear to his five sons that bathroom breaks would be taken only during predetermined stops to gas up the car.

The dog spoiled this plan by letting loose with a bout of diarrhea during its rooftop sojourn, necessitating an unplanned gas station visit for the purpose of hosing down the pooch, its carrier, and the back of the car.

There are now two competing theories on the fate of Seamus. The orthodox theory is that Seamus was eventually given to Mitt’s sister:

The Romneys eventually dealt with Seamus’s apostasy, and nervous stomach, by fobbing him off on Mitt’s sister, Jane, who lived in California and was said to have space for the dog to roam freely, unfettered by straps, crates or station wagons.

And now we have a competing theory:

Mitt Romney may not have told the whole truth about the scandalous tale of his Irish Setter, Seamus, being strapped to the roof of his car during a 12-hour family road trip to Canada. According to a trusted Politicker tipster, two of Mr. Romney’s sons had an off-record conversation with reporters where they revealed the dog ran away when they reached their destination on that infamous journey in 1983.

That’s right…Seamus became a “draft” dodger by running away in Canada.

The Obama campaign uses the incident to draw a distinction between the two men.

The Darcy Burner campaign has released a second in-house poll for WA-1 (and accompanying memo). And it looks very good for Burner on the Democratic side.

Campaigns normally don’t release internal polls unless there is some advantage to doing so. So we’ll look at the positives, and then read between the lines for the rest.

The good new for Burner is that she leads the Democratic pack:

Among primary voters who vote for one of the Democratic candidates on the initial ballot, Darcy Burner currently leads the pack with a decisive lead. Burner leads with nearly half of the vote (45%), followed by Laura Ruderman (15%), Steve Hobbs (13%), Suzan DelBene (12%), Roger Goodman (10%), and Darshan Rauniyar (5%).

More good:

Moreover, Burner is well-regarded among primary election voters who pick a Democratic candidate in the initial ballot. More than half (54%) of these voters have a favorable opinion of Burner, while 9% have an unfavorable opinion. DelBene is less well known, with 21% of voters having a favorable impression of her. Seventeen percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Ruderman. A majority of these Democratic voters have no impression of Ruderman or DelBene, while most are familiar with Burner.

The findings are consistent with the previous internal poll released by the Burner campaign.

What these numbers tell us is that, contrary to certain media naysayer, Darcy is the front-runner among Democrats in this race.

These results debunk, what I’ll call, the Connelly meme, named after the Darcy Burner naysayer-in-chief, SeattlePI.com’s Joel Connelly. Joel has, of late, has made something of a specialization in portraying Burner as an outside interloper—as some kind of ultra-liberal Daily Kos Manchurian Candidate destined to be an also-ran. The Connelly meme is bullshit.

The new poll results bode well for Darcy Burner in a Democratic primary race.

Unfortunately, Washington state doesn’t have a Democratic primary. Rather, we have this top-two primary. And that brings me to what this poll doesn’t tell us.

Take a look at the poll methods:

These findings are based on 504 telephone interviews with a random sample of likely 2012 primary election voters in Washington’s new 1st Congressional District. Interviews were conducted from January 23-26, 2012. Sampling error is +/- 4.4%.

What we never learn is how many of the 504 interviewees chose to not select one of the Democratic candidates. There were two Republican candidates in the race when the poll was taken (one has since dropped out), yet we don’t see numbers for these candidates, or an “other” category if the pollster made a (dubious) decision to not name Republican candidates as well.

The absence of reporting on the Republican (or “other”) tally in a poll of “likely 2012 primary voters” is telling. It suggests to me that the “votes” for non-Democrats matched or exceeded those for the Democratic candidates. That is, the numbers don’t make Darcy look strong enough in a general election that the campaign was willing to release ’em.

The numbers support the idea that Darcy is the Democratic front-runner, but it leaves me feeling a little bit nervous about the prospects that any Democrat will be taking the district.

I look forward to seeing some independent polling in the race.

It’s a clusterfuck down there. But somehow you just can’t help but gawk at the carnage.

Yep…we’re talking Florida, where Mitt Romney is prepared to slam Newt Gingrich to the matt—revenge for South Carolina.

I’m at the Montlake Alehouse, and maybe Lee and Carl will show up and partake of the live-gawking.

Have at it in the comment threads.

5:00: CNN just called it for Mitt Romney, 48% to Gingrich’s 31%, Santorum’s 13%, and Paul’s 7%. 56% of the vote is in, so that pretty much seals the deal. No Iowa repeat here, folks.

5:01: That was fast.

5:04: Is the race over? Is Romney the nominee? My inclination is to say, “yes”. I’ve been saying that for awhile. But then some ground truth emerges….

5:05: New polls released today:

• Missouri Primary poll: Gingrich 30, Santorum 28, Romney 24, Paul 11. Missouri hates Romney!!!
• Ohio Primary poll:Gingrich 26, Romney 25, Santorum 22, Paul 11. Ohio likes Gingrich a little better than Romney.
• National GOP Primary poll:Gingrich 28, Romney 27, Santorum 17, Paul 13. America seems to prefer Gingrich a little over Romeny

It ain’t over yet!

5:11: Don’t forget about the Oregon special election tonight. We’ll be anxiously awaiting those results.

5:22: Okay…so Lee is here and he started a competing thread to liveblog the results. This has now become an HA primary contest. Who will get the most comments? Just to be a good sport, I put his post on top. See what a great guy and good sport I am? Please leave a comment HERE if you agree.

5:32: Lee writes, “Finally at the Ale House only to find out that Darryl fucked up the Live blog plan.” Oh, man, after all Lee and I have been through. I feel just like Dominic.

5:35: As long as we are engaging in negative campaigning here, I though I would point out that in 2004, Lee voted for Dino Rossi. But voted for Gregoire in 2008. What a flip-flopper!

5:59: The next primary event is the Nevada caucus. Most of last year, Romney has led Gingrich by double digits in Nevada. That was through last October. The only more recent poll is this poll taken in mid-December. That poll has Romney leading Gingrich by +4%. Nevada may end up being more interesting than Florida!

6:04: As my opponent (Lee) mentions, the sound is off on CNN here at the Montlake Alehouse. We just had about 30 minutes of Santorum on the screen. What the fuck, CNN? That’s just disgusting!

6:06: Even though I am watching CNN, I am listening to NPR. Reporter in Florida just points out what a big win this is, “It’s the first state where [Romney] doesn’t have a house in the state or where he governed the neighboring state.”

6:08: Lee responds to the previous comment: “He doesn’t have a house in Florida?!?

6:10: Newt takes the stage, but more importantly, I see three comments on this thread and two on Lee’s thread. You LIKE ME! You REALLY LIKE ME!!!

6:11: There are two great things about Newt being in the race. First, he is one nasty motherfucker. Second, he has tons of baggage. When Newt first started boasting about running (in Dec 2010), I wrote:

But mostly it [a Gingrich run] would be fun for the memories: Contract with America, government shutdown, impeachment over a blow job. And there is, of course, that scarcely explored aspect of Newt life: his marriages:

Gingrich has been married three times. In 1962, he married Jackie Battley, his former high school geometry teacher, when he was 19 years old and she was 26. They had two daughters. In the spring of 1980, Gingrich left Battley after having an affair with Marianne Ginther. According to Battley, Gingrich visited her while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery to discuss the details of their divorce. Six months after it was final, Gingrich wed Ginther in 1981.

In the mid-1990s, Gingrich began an affair with House of Representatives staffer Callista Bisek, who is 23 years his junior; they continued their affair during the Lewinsky scandal. In 2000, Gingrich married Bisek shortly after his divorce from second wife Ginther.

The blogosphere really hasn’t had the opportunity to explore this side of Gingrich’s life. It’s fucking gold!

6:31: What I REALLY want to know is what Roger Rabbit thinks of tonight’s events. And yesterday’s. And maybe the entire week before. Roger?

6:34: Carl Ballard is here. He notices that at the Ron Paul speech there are three guys on stage…one with a bow tie, one with a regular tie, and one with no tie whatsoever. And they say there is no diversity amongst Republicans.

6:38: At least Ron Paul isn’t wearing a fucking sweater vest. (Carl is.)

6:46: The TeeVee tells me that “there are eight Santorum delegates.” Word to the wise: Be careful if you use the words “eight Santorum” in a conversation.

7:08: Damn! Lee is kicking my ass. But somehow his post got pushed back…. Clearly WE’VE BEEN HACKED!

7:12: Let’s see…we have me, Lee, N In Seattle, Carl Ballard, and Will showed up recently…Goldy is supposed to show up soon. The Montlake Alehouse has become a freakin’ HA class reunion!

7:18: Carl here. I’m not endorsing in this thread, but I’m opposed to typing on Darryl’s tiny computer. I guess I won’t get my passport stamped “Moon” any time soon.

7:24: Carl still. Rick Santorum is on CNN, and like Ron Paul, he’s also not wearing a tie. What the fuck? You’re on TV guys!

7:46: Darryl here…I’ve wrestled my computer (with its tiny little keyboard) back from Carl Ballard. Right now Seattle Jew is pontificating about Mormon church ownership of The Media. I notice that he speaks with as many typos as he writes with.

7:51: Goldy finally arrives. I guess the folks at The Stranger are done wringing whatever use they can get out him tonight to increase their page views.

8:15: Oregon Special Election: OR-1:

• Rob Cornilles (R) 53,215 37.52%
• Suzanne Bonamici (D) 79,386 55.97%

Please join us Tuesday for another evening of Politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

This Tuesday we’ll be rubbernecking the G.O.P. Florida presidential primary clusterfuck returns—I’ll be helping to live blog the mayhem.

The other election of interest is the special election in OR-1, the seat formerly held by Rep. David Wu (D). Former state Sen. Suzanne Bonamici (D) is likely to defeat her Republican opponent Rob Cornilles.

DL meets every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our normal starting time is 8:00 pm, but this week some of us will be there early for the Florida presidential primary polls results that should begin at 5:00 pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle? There’s also a meeting Tuesday night of the Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking Liberally. The Tacoma chapter meets this Thursday. And next Monday, there are meetings of the Olympia chapter, the Yakima chapter, and the South Bellevue chapter.

With 225 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

In case you haven’t noticed, I love collecting and analyzing polls—they tell me the score in the game of politics. Like I did in 2008, this year I’ll collect polls and do analyses for the presidential races, the Senate races, and the gubernatorial races.

What I won’t do (with a few exceptions) is analyze races from the House of Representatives.

Why ignore House polls? Because there are too damn many House races and too few polls released for them. That’s why.

Seriously, this is a hobby, and I can hardly keep track of the relatively small number of Senate and gubernatorial races without having to keep track of an additional 435 House races. Instead, I follow a few races of interest, mostly from Washington state. And I follow the “generic congressional polls.”

Generic congressional polls ask something like, “If the election for the U.S. House was today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate.”

Empirically, subtle swings in the results of these polls seem to be amplified into larger electoral swings. They somehow capture the mood of the electorate.

For the past year there have been over 80 generic congressional polls taken on a national sample. Here is what they look like in aggregate over the past year:

The trend is encouraging for Democrats, who have gone from a deep deficit in late 2010 to what looks like a tie in early 2012.

Notice anything funny about the graph?

Yeah…it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it. The “green” pollster seems to have a (roughly) 5% bias in favor of Republicans.

Wanna guess who that pollster is? If you guessed Rasmussen, you’re right. Here are the Rasmussen polls shown alone:

If you are a Republican, perhaps this is the only pollster you watch. If so, then things looked okay until today, when Rasmussen reported for the first time in a year a net advantage for the generic Democratic candidate. But don’t panic, my Republican friend…I mean, it could just be a fluke.

Or not. Here are all the other pollsters except Rasmussen:

If we are to take the collective findings of eight other pollsters over Rasmussen, the generic Democratic House candidate has led the generic Republican House candidate since sometime in August 2011.

In fact, you might say that, without the Rasmussen results, Republicans might have been in a state of panic for the past six months—instead of just the past 12 hours.

Young Turks: Barney Frank to marry his partner.

Darcy Burner: Never Give Up:

Young Turks: Conservative’s more likely low IQ and racist.

White House: West Wing Week.

Countdown with Dan Savage: Same-sex marriage equality.

The GOP Gladiatorial Games:
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