The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged senate

Can Campaign Finance Reformers Work With Ken Buck or Rand Paul?

By | 11.02.10 | 2:43 pm

Most Republican candidates who might nab Senate seats tonight don’t look like such good friends of the campaign finance reform community on the surface, but might a few end up lending a sympathetic ear to the cause once in Washington? At least on the topic of donor disclosure, The Washington More…

A Grand Bargain on Campaign Finance Reform?

By | 11.02.10 | 1:10 pm

The flood of political spending, coupled with the likely defeat of campaign finance hero Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), is making the elections a pretty grim spectacle for campaign finance advocates, but The Wall Street Journal opinion page is feeling positively giddy:

As for the rest of us, we can

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How Likely Is Another Franken-Coleman-Style Recount?

By | 11.02.10 | 10:01 am

With allegations of voter fraud swirling in several swing states and both parties dispatching lawyers into the field at record rates, there’s been a lot of buzz about the chances of a repeat of the kind of contested election the country witnessed with Sen. Al Franken (D) and former Sen. More…

The Palin Factor in Today’s Elections

By | 11.02.10 | 9:05 am

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) decided to lavish perhaps her last endorsement of the election cycle yesterday evening on former GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo, who’s now running for governor in Colorado as a member of the American Constitution Party and has pulled within striking distance of Denver mayor More…

Fact Checking the RNC’s New Al Franken Website

By | 11.01.10 | 4:28 pm

In the RNC’s latest fundraising appeal, a website called nomorefrankens.com, the group makes a number of claims about the contested 2008 Minnesota Senate race between Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). Now, someone who was there for nearly every minute of it — Jay Weiner, More…

What Would the White House Consider a Success on Tuesday?

By | 11.01.10 | 9:16 am

If you want to understand what kind of outcome the White House would consider worth celebrating on Tuesday night in spite of inevitable GOP gains across the map, look no further than President Obama’s four-city trip this weekend, meant to help close the enthusiasm gap and put the Democrats More…

GOP Can Win Seats, But Can It Claim an Ideological Mandate?

By | 10.28.10 | 12:25 pm

Following midterm elections, what kind of mandate can the Republican Party claim? A new Bloomberg National Poll indicates that while voters are ready to elect Republicans, they’re not especially keen on the GOP itself or a majority of its proposals:

The poll finds Republicans in an unusual position: on

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Sestak Hopes Clinton’s Magic Will Carry Him

By | 10.28.10 | 9:24 am

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) is pounding the pavement all day today, traveling around the greater Philadelphia area in an attempt to raise turnout in the area where he’ll need it the most, and he’s bringing out his secret weapon: Former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton, who employed Sestak on his counterintelligence More…

In Defense of Obsessive Coverage of Outside Group Spending

By | 10.27.10 | 9:23 am

Democrats have raised more money than Republicans, as stories in both The New York Times and Politico point out today. It’s no secret among those tracking political spending, but the news could come as a surprise to some readers who have closely followed the coverage of reporters (including More…

Raese’s Companies Relied on Government Contracts in West Virginia

By | 10.25.10 | 9:57 am

With the Senate race in West Virginia between sitting Gov. Joe Manchin (D) and businessman John Raese in a virtual dead heat going into the final week, Manchin’s camp is touting an article in Sunday’s Charleston Gazette which calculates that Raese’s corporation, Greer Industries, benefited from about $32 More…