Obama Hurt Deeds in Virginia

Pollster Glen Bolger (a founding partner at my wife's firm) looks at the data in the Virginia governor's race and concludes that Barack Obama hurt Democrat Creigh Deeds. At the end of tracking, we added some questions paid for by the Republican National Committee specifically to measure the Obama effect. [...] The dominant national issue at that time (and still) is health care. ...

BRAC, Ft. Belvoir, and Northern Virginia Traffic

Virginia Congressman Jim Moran argues that the Defense Department ought to step up and pay for the increased traffic BRAC is about to bring to his district: The latest round of BRAC (Base Realignment and Closing) moves is poised to create a daytime nightmare of traffic congestion for Northern Virginia. Over the next two years, the on-base population at Fort Belvoir in ...

D.C. Marriage Rate Lowest in U.S.

Tyler Cowen points me to an interesting discussion on the subject "Why So Few D.C. Residents Are Married." Washington City Paper's Amanda Hess cites a Pew survey finding that "Only 23 percent of women and 28 percent of men and in D.C. are married, compared to 48 and 52 percent nationwide. The rates in D.C. are so low that they ...

Naked Coffee Guy Truth Exposed

Yesterday, Radley Balko passed on the story of Eric Williamson, the Springfield, Virginia man who has been charged with indecent exposure for being naked in his own house.    According to Williamson's version of events, he was making coffee at 5:30 in the morning when a woman and her 7-year-old cut across his yard and spied him through a window ...

Who Cares About McDonnell’s Thesis?

Virginia GOP Gubernatorial candidate Robert McDonnell is taking quite a bit of flak for a thesis he wrote in college in 1989.The media spotlight is on gubernatorial hopeful Robert McDonnell who is currently launching his 2009 campaign for governor of Virginia. McDonnell finds himself in hot water for his 1989 thesis, which outlines a position hostile to women's interests and ...

American Political Math

When Republicans controlled the presidency and had strong majorities in the House and Senate, I often read calls from bloggers on my side of the aisle for purging the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) from the ranks.  After all, the likes of Arlen Specter and  Lincoln Chaffee were a giant pain in the butt and always seemed to be in ...

Blue America!

This map resulting from a Gallup poll on party identification is making the rounds: The lede from Jeffrey Jone's write-up: An analysis of Gallup Poll Daily tracking data from the first six months of 2009 finds Massachusetts to be the most Democratic state in the nation, along with the District of Columbia. Utah and Wyoming are the most Republican states, as they ...

State Liquor Stores

Glenn Reynolds points to a story by Doug Winship about Washington State's liquor stores running out of, um, liquor just in time for the July 4th weekend during which all good Americans celebrate their country's independence by getting hammered. Naturally, all liquor stores in Washington State are run by the government of the state of Washington who 1) screwed up ...

Great Compromise Not So Great?

Matt Yglesias has discovered the facts that 1) each state gets two Senators and 2) some states are bigger than others, a condition that has obtained since the inception of our current system in 1789.  There was, as some may recall having read, this thing called the Great Compromise whereby delegates representing sovereign states under the extant Articles of Confederation ...

Virginia Governor Primary: Deeds Trounces McAuliffe and Moran

While I live in Virginia, I've paid only scant attention to what has been a lackluster governor's race. But the polls suddenly shifted a couple days ago and it appears that the general election will be interesting, indeed. Running with the least money and fewest ties to vote-rich Northern Virginia, State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has won the three-way Democratic ...

Premier League vs. American Team Sports

To illustrate that US professional sports have a lot of "hilariously anticompetitive interferences in the market" compared to the English Premier League, Daniel Davies constructs an artificial sports league based on all major professional teams in "Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington DC" in order to achieve a comparable population and economic basis to compare ...

North Carolina Bans Smoking in Restaurants, Bars

We're in Asheville, North Carolina for a couple of days, the first stop on a road trip to see friends and family. I awoke to find a copy of the Asheville Citizen-Times at the door with a headline I thought I'd never see: "NC approves ban on smoking." North Carolina, a state built on tobacco, will outlaw smoking in ...

Tom Ridge Maryland Resident, Pennsylvanian?

Taegan Goddard passes on word that Tom Ridge, once Pennsylvania's governor and putatively contemplating running for Arlen Specter's seat representing that state in the Senate, is a resident of Maryland for the purposes of federal tax and lobbying filings. Do these sort of things matter in statewide elections?   Is anyone otherwise disposed to vote for Ridge going to be dissuaded by ...

Washington’s Wealth Boom

Radley Balko has a new column at Fox on "Washington's Wealth Boom." The new top three [wealthiest counties in America according to per capita income] are now Loudon County, Virginia; Fairfax County, Virginia; and Howard County, Maryland. All three are suburbs or exurbs of Washington, D.C. In 2000, 14 of the 100 richest counties were in the Washington, D.C., area. In ...

DC Roads Close for Obama

[caption id="attachment_29679" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Secret Service motorcade carrying 7-year-old Sasha Obama departs Sidwell Friends School after dropping off her sister Malia, on the first day of school on January 5, 2009 in Washington, DC. The incoming first family are staying at the luxury Hay-Adams Hotel, with a view of the White House before moving to the president's official guest ...