Mediaboss Marketing

When Republican Rick Scott ran for governor in 2010, he carried 52 of Florida's 67 counties, yet he barely beat Democrat Alex Sink.

How could that happen?

If you know your country, it's simple: A lot more people in suburbs, small cities and towns vote Republican and a lot more people in big cities vote Democrat.

Those numbers from 2010 are more revealing if you drill a little deeper.

First, Republicans are more likely to vote in nonpresidential election years like 2014 and 2010.

Republicans make up 35 percent of all voters in Florida, Democrats 39 percent. The other 26 percent are mostly registered with no party affiliation. But of those who actually voted in 2010, Republicans made up 44 percent, Democrats 40 percent and the rest 16 percent.

If a similar turnout happens in November, Scott will enjoy four more years in the Governor's Mansion.

Within Florida, some areas are bright red, such as Pensacola, Panama City, Fort Myers and Daytona Beach. Others are deep blue, like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando. And others are purple, like the state as a whole: St. Petersburg, Tampa and Jacksonville.

The best predictor of what might happen between Scott and Democrat Charlie Crist is the 2010 election. No two elections are alike, but here's what happened four years ago:

Voter turnout was higher in more Republican counties than it was in Democratic counties. Statewide turnout was 48.7 percent, but it was higher than that in 41 of the 52 counties Scott won, compared with eight of the 15 counties Sink won.

More:
Bousquet column: It's all about turnout in Florida governor's race

BY DAVE McKINNEY Springfield Bureau Chief September 21, 2014 9:00PM

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn speaks during an interview with The Associated Press Friday, Sept. 19, 2014, in Chicago. Quinn is running against Republican Bruce Rauner in the November general election. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

storyidforme: 72282323 tmspicid: 25363980 fileheaderid: 12841955

Updated: September 22, 2014 2:11AM

SPRINGFIELD After trailing Republican Bruce Rauner by double digits, Gov. Pat Quinn has brought the governors race to a statistical dead heat, new polling data released Sunday showed.

Among likely voters, the Winnetka Republican led Quinn by a 44 to 41 percent spread with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, according to automated polling done Thursday by We Ask America.

Libertarian Chad Grimm, whose campaign was permitted last week by a Sangamon County judge to remain on the Nov. 4 ballot, stood at 6 percent in the new poll.

We Ask Americas most recent polling on the race published Sept. 3 by Reboot Illinois had Rauner up on the incumbent Chicago Democrat by a 46 to 38 percent margin. An Aug. 6 poll done by the group for the Chicago Sun-Times had Rauner with a 13-point lead.

There is a lot of time left, but Mr. Rauner continues to lose ground, We Ask Americas chief operating officer Gregg Durham told Early & Often, the Chicago Sun-Times online political portal.

Whatever messaging Gov. Quinn has done is causing movement. But some of this movement is simply Democrats coming back home who early on werent so sure about staying with Gov. Quinn, Durham said.

See the original post:
Statistical dead heatin governors race

Republican Resigns After Saying Women on Welfare Should Be Sterilized
Russell Pearce, former State Senator, resigns after saying that women on welfare should be sterilized http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/09/15/3567392/ru...

By: David Pakman Show

Continue reading here:
Republican Resigns After Saying Women on Welfare Should Be Sterilized - Video

U.S. Representative Cory Gardner (CO-4) Delivers Weekly Republican Address

By: RNC Comms

Link:
U.S. Representative Cory Gardner (CO-4) Delivers Weekly Republican Address - Video

Herbert Slatery speaks about his appointment as attorney general in the Tennessee Supreme Court chamber in Nashville on Sept. 15.

NASHVILLE Newly appointed state Attorney General Herbert Slatery, who last week became only the second Republican in Tennessee history to hold the post, fully embraces the unusual process in which the state Supreme Court names the state's top lawyer.

But what Slatery, and most other people, may not know is that Tennessee's one and only previous Republican attorney general, Thomas M. Coldwell, who served from 1865 to 1870, also happened to be the last one popularly elected to the job.

"It's an interesting story," said former Tennessee Attorney General W.J. Michael Cody, who said he researched the history of Tennessee's unique approach with former Deputy Attorney General Andy Bennett, now a Court of Appeals judge. Most other states, including Georgia and Alabama, elect their attorneys general.

Indeed it is an interesting story, of suspected intrigues in the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. It ranks with the tale of Republican Slatery's own appointment over sitting Democratic Attorney General Bob Cooper by a Supreme Court dominated by Democrats.

In the present day the court's three Democrats -- Justices Sharon Lee, Connie Clark and Gary Wade -- survived efforts by Republican state Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey and national conservatives to unseat them in August elections.

Then the Democratic justices and their two Republican colleagues declined to reappoint Cooper and named Slatery, who was Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's legal counsel, instead.

The 19th-century story involves a former U.S. senator-turned Confederate from Tennessee, A.O.P. Nicholson, and his fellow Tennessean and Confederate Congress member Joseph Heiskell.

Both attorneys, the pair evidently became fast friends during the Civil War while cooling their heels in a Yankee prison.

With apparently a lot of time to daydream, Cody said, Heiskell decided he'd like to be attorney general. Well, Nicholson came back, he'd like to be a Supreme Court judge.

Originally posted here:
Last Tennessee Republican AG was elected in 1865