Forum: What's Your Prediction For The House And Senate Midterms?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:What's Your Prediction For The House And Senate Midterms?

The Independent Sentinel : I honestly have no idea. We don't have the enthusiasm of 2010 that the promise of the tea party brought to the table. I think we will take the Senate and keep the House but I'm not counting on it. If we do, it will be because the Democrats are that bad and not because the Republicans offered much.

The Razor :The GOP has discovered the Palestinian talent of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The midterms is theirs to lose – which means they’ll probably lose them by keeping the house but not gaining enough seats in the senate to make a difference.

Still I had to give kudos to Al Franken’s challenger in MN for calling the senate “Land of 10,000 excuses.” Franken wasn’t funny on Saturday Night Live but his performance there was much better than his performance has been in the senate.

 JoshuaPundit: I'd say the House remains here it is, assuming things stay pretty much as they are for the next 90 days.The GOP at best might pick up a couple of seats - the reality is that there are very few competitive House seats. The Senate? Again, assuming things stay as they are for the next 90 days ( a big assumption!),I think the GOP is looking at 5 to 8 pickups. The Republicans have already effectively made pickups in West Virginia, Montana, (Dem. John Walsh just dropped out over a plagiarism scandal) and South Dakota.  Tom Cotton in Arkansas, David Perdue in Georgia and Thom Tillis in North Carolina all look like they're starting to pull away from their Dem opponents.

I also like Joni Ernst in Iowa. Alaska, Colorado and Louisiana are also possibilities.  Mississippi,OTOH could be a surprise Democrat pickup.

Keep in mind that most of these are Red States and lack the Democrat big city ghettos, except for Atlanta in Georgia.Wild cards will be the usual Democrat voter fraud,the disappointment of the Republican base over some of the candidates and the possible use of 'Libertarians' or 'Independents' financed by Democrats  to siphon off votes that would normally go to the GOP, ala' the last governor's race in Virginia.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the electorate is being changed by presidential diktat as we speak. The majority of illegal aliens are being sent to Texas, Arizona, California, Virginia and Florida. If they get amnesty as this president plans that they will, this may be the last time Republicans control the Senate for some time, let alone the White House.


 GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD :Over all - hoping it continues to look like a shellacking for the dems.

Aside from keeping a curious eye on Al Franken's re election bid in some yankee state, the open, up for grabs race in the 13th colony for senate is the main event for moi.

Since GOP Senator Saxby Chamblis is whee tiring from office and the primaries are over the GOP's Romneyesque David Perdue will be taking on former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn's Democrat daughter Michelle in a very close looking race.

See, early in the new millennium, Georgia did more like a somersault than a tilt. GA had been among the last in the olde confederacy to cling to her Democratic roots: 42 carried Georgia in 1992, and a coalition of dazzling urbanites and some rural cats had kept the Democrats in control of the governor’s mansion, the legislature and even a Senate seat.

All of that changed in 2002, as rural voters revolted, throwing out the Democratic governor, senator, and (two years later) the legislature. Two years later, GOP cat Johnny Isakson rolled to a 58 percent-40 percent win over Congresswoman Denise Majette. Democrats enjoyed a reasonably close race in the 2008 general election, but totally sucked in the runoff necessitated when neither Saxby Chambliss nor Jim Martin topped 50 percent.

Democrats are excited about Michelle Nunn’s chances of ending the 14-year democrat dry spell in the Senate, and changing demographics may indeed help the party of Jackson regain its footing here. Yet the 13th colony is still a GOP state, and even with massive urban turnout in 2008, Democrats couldn’t put the Senate seat away. This race starts out close, with Nunn and Perdue trading leads in the polls, but given the environment and the Republican lean of the state, Perdue probably starts with an edge.

Mr P's biz bona fides are stellar and he's got tons of expertise in getting things done. The real hand grenade in the commode is Michelle Nunn's affinity for terrorists.

41 estabbed a foundation thingy called Points of Light. Since 2007, Nunn has served as the CEO of Points of Light. Under Michelle Nunn’s leadership Points of Light has given money to some organizations that have less to do with fostering volunteerism than with fostering pet leftist causes. These include the Lesbian and Gay Band Association, which seeks to promote a global network of, yes, lesbian and gay bands.

She also gave grants to a sinister group that supports terrorism.

National Review got hold of a 144-page internal document drafted for the Michelle Nunn campaign in December. It includes plenty of juicy revelations on campaign strategy, including a potentially serious issue with a Points of Light connection to a charity that has ties to terrorists betwixt Suez and Jordan.

Points of Light, through a service called MissionFish, helped validate thousands of charities for EBay users who wanted to auction items and donate the proceeds to a specific charity.

One of those groups was Islamic Relief USA, which got $33,000 from individual donors through the Points of Light-validated system. Islamic Relief USA provides funds for emergency relief and other programs overseas. It has worked with the American Red Cross.

Islamic Relief USA states on its website that it “is an independent affiliate of Islamic Relief Worldwide and the Islamic Relief family of charities. We are completely separate legal entities that work together under the Islamic Relief Worldwide umbrella to provide aid.” It also says it shares a “common mission, vision and family identity” with the other “Islamic Relief” groups.

The worldwide group is where the politically explosive Hamas connection comes.

Islamic Relief Worldwide has ties to Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization. In June, Israel banned the charity from operating in the country because, according to Israeli officials, it was funneling cash to Hamas. In 2006, Israelis arrested Islamic Relief Worldwide’s Gaza coordinator, Ayaz Ali. They said he was working to “transfer funds and assistance to various Hamas institutions and organizations.” Ali admitted to cooperating with local Hamas operatives while working in Jordan and, on his computer, Israeli officials found photographs of “swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols,” and of Nazi officials, Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Islamic Relief USA highlighted the work of Islamic Relief Worldwide in Palestine in its 2012 annual report, in which it talks generally about the work of Islamic Relief charities in the region without drawing a distinction between the branches. The organization has raised eyebrows before. According to a 2012 report, its bank account was closed by UBS and it was “under constant scrutiny by other banks due to nervousness about counterterrorist regulations.”

The group’s terror ties extend beyond Hamas, according to a former Israeli intelligence official. He says that Islamic Relief Worldwide’s country director in Palestine, Muneed Abugazaleh, met in April 2012 with Dr. Omar Shalah, a leader of the terror group Islamic Jihad and of the Riyad al-Saleheen Charitable Society, which is affiliated with the group. He is also the brother of Ramadan Shalah, the leader of Islamic Jihad.

Though the campaign plan recommends emphasizing Nunn’s accomplishments at the Points of Light Foundation, which she has done on the campaign trail, her strategists express enormous concern about attacks that might arise from her work there. She has served as CEO of Points of Light since 2007 and, according to the document, it has made grants to “terrorists” and “inmates” during her tenure. The document also makes reference to a 2010 audit that concluded Points of Light’s accounting system was “not adequate to account for federal funds.”

Ask Marion : Based on all the problems America is faced with and the increasing proof that most of them were caused or exacerbated by the Obama administration conservative Republicans and Independent-type candidates should be retaining the House and taking over the Senate and Governorships in a landslide in 2014. Instead many of the those that would have been true ‘movers and shakers’ have been defeated in the primaries and many of the other races will be close or at least a fight to the end, which is a snapshot of how far America has slipped from the point of normal common sense.

From what it looks like right now, based on the various polls, the Republicans should pick-up 5 seats in the Senate, but in the end, Joni Ernst could also pull out a win in Iowa. Her Democrat opponent appears to have a very weak lead at the moment. Ernst has the support of both Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, a pretty wide swatch of the GOP, and she has a very impressive resume, so anything could happen in that race!! That 6th seat, of course, is the key to stopping the continued onslaught of Executive Orders, Executive Actions and the overreach by President Obama and the executive arm of the Federal government.

The Glittering Eye :I'm sticking with the prediction I've been making for the last six months or so. The Republicans will pick up a half dozen seats in the House and no more than five seats in the Senate, retaining control of the House and narrowly missing taking the Senate.

However, in recent months the Republicans' prospects for the Senate have strengthened a little. I now think it's possible they could take the Senate, especially if President Obama's approval rating goes down which may well happen depending on what he decides to do about Iraq.

Although you didn't ask, I'll answer it anyway. The Democrats will pick up two governors' seats.

Well, there you have it.

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