Christine O’Donnell reveals in her new book that the “lowest moment” of her failed 2010 Senate campaign came when the Delaware Republican made the now-infamous assurance to voters: “I am not a witch.”

Writing in her memoir, “Troublemaker: Let’s Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again,” set to be released on Tuesday, the tea party-backed former candidate says she never wanted to make the ad but was urged to do it by an insistent media consultant.

“It was a wrong-headed move, made for all the wrong reasons, but it was mine,” O’Donnell writes, according to The Associated Press, which bought a copy of the book on Thursday

(…)

The “witch” ad, later parodied on “Saturday Night Live,” was “my lowest moment of the 2010 campaign,” O’Donnell writes.

The decision to create the ad came after a clip from the 1990s in which she said she “dabbled” in witchcraft as a teenager was posted on the internet last fall, though O’Donnell contends that it was leaked before she had seen or approved it.

The consultant who O’Donnell says urged her to create the ad, Fred Davis, responded to her claims in an email message to the AP on Thursday. “I wish her well with her book, and her future,” he said. “That was a very unusual campaign.”

To say the least.

In case you forgot:

Last December, Steve Driehaus, an Ohio Congressman who had been defeated in the 2010 elections filed a civil claim for defamation against the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group who had spent money advertising against him, claiming that he had voted in favor of taxpayer funded abortions by voting in favor of the Affordable Care Act. Yesterday, a Federal Judge in Ohio ruled that Driehaus’s defamation claims could proceed to trial, a decision that is somewhat surprising given the high standard that public officials must meet in such cases:

A federal judge in Ohio said Monday that the Affordable Care Act does not provide for taxpayer funding for abortion. The statement was the cornerstone of the judge’s ruling to allow a defamation lawsuit brought against the Susan B. Anthony List by a former congressman to move forward.

Former Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus sued the SBA List for defamation of character during the 2010 election cycle, when the anti-abortion group ran an ad campaign on the premise that Driehaus had voted for a bill “that includes taxpayer funding for abortion,” in reference to Driehaus’s vote in favor of the ACA.

Driehaus, an anti-abortion Democrat, had initially filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission over a billboard that said he’d voted for “taxpayer funding for abortion.” The OEC found probable cause that the statement was false, and the SBA List filed a complaint in federal court that its ads were based on the group’s own interpretation of the law. The billboard was taken down but radio ads and flyers against Driehaus continued, according to court documents. Driehaus then countersued SBA List for defamation.

SBA List is ready to go to trial, stands by its statements and said the ruling “chills free speech.”

(…)

Driehaus lost the election but Judge Timothy Black stated in a decision that the defamation lawsuit could move forward because “the express language of the PPACA does not provide for taxpayer funded abortion. That is a fact and it is clear on its face.” SBA List’s request for summary judgment on the case was denied.

“It is a very big deal when a court says you can move forward against the ‘malice’ standard,” said Paul DeMarco, Driehaus’s attoney. “This ruling allows us to go ahead with the next phase — discovery — where we believe we will find the SBA List either ignored the truth or purposely did not seek it out when making these claims.”

The Court’s opinion, the only currently available copy of which I’ve been able to find here, is fairly short and essentially deals with two issues. First, there’s the question of whether or not the statements that the SBA List made are false:

To support his position that the statements are false, Mr. Driehaus relies on the fact that the PPACA does not include any provision that appropriates taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. (Doc. 53, Ex. 1 ¶ 14) (See also supra at Section III.A.2.a). Specifically, Mr. Driehaus states:

Attached at Tabs 2 and 3 of the Affidavit are two reports issued by the Congressional Research Service, the public policy research arm of Congress. These reports set forth in detail the funds appropriated by the PPACA. Abortion is never mentioned in either report. Again, this is because the PPACA does not include any provision that appropriates taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. SBA List said the PPACA includes taxpayer funding of abortions. That is and always has been false.”

(Id. at ¶ 16). Moreover, Ms. Buchanan’s affidavits fail to identify any provision in the PPACA that appropriates taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. (Doc. 34, Ex. 2 and 3).

It is irrelevant whether an assertion that the PPACA “allows for taxpayer funded abortion” could have been proven to be true (Doc. 34, Ex. 2 at ¶ 18), because the SBA List made the far different statement that the PPACA “includes taxpayer funding of abortion.” (Doc. 7, Ex. 1 at 7). This statement has a clear and definite meaning — that funding is in this law. In fact, SBA List’s statement is made even more apparent in Ms. Buchanan’s affidavit where she states that SBA List “inferred” from statements Mr. Driehaus made before the PPACA was passed that the congressman “understood abortion funding was contained in the PPACA.” (Doc. 34, Ex. 3 at ¶¶ 4 at 2). Ms. Buchanan claims that this “in part” caused Ms. Dannenfelser to say — six months later, “It is a fact that Steve Driehaus has voted for a bill that includes taxpayer funding of abortion.” Id. However, as Mr. Driehaus points to in his affidavit, “I never stated that the health care reform bill included any provisions appropriating taxpayer funds to pay for abortions because, in fact, the bill did not contain any such provisions.” (Doc. 53, Ex. 1 at ¶ 16, at 6).

This part is something we already knew, of course. The argument that the PPACA, whatever else won might think about it, allowed taxpayer funding for abortions was perhaps the final battle that was fought in Congress over the law. When Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat who had been opposed to the bill because of the abortion issue, changed his vote to yes he was called a “baby-killer” on the House floor. Prior to that, the issue led Congressman Joe Wilson to shout out “You lie” during a Presidential Address to Congress [although this incident had nothing to do with abortion - DM]. And, of course, it was a big issue in the 2010 elections. It was also untrue. The PPACA did nothing to alter the Hyde Amendment, and the arguments of groups like the Susan B. Anthony List were utterly false.

However, when you’re dealing with a defamation claim made by a public official, that’s only part of the story. In New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court set forth an incredibly high standard for public officials pursuing a claim of libel or defamation related to their official conduct:

A rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions — and to do so on pain of libel judgments virtually unlimited in amount — leads to a comparable “self-censorship.” Allowance of the defense of truth, with the burden of proving it on the defendant, does not mean that only false speech will be deterred. Even courts accepting this defense as an adequate safeguard have recognized the difficulties of adducing legal proofs that the alleged libel was true in all its factual particulars. See, e.g., Post Publishing Co. v. Hallam, 59 F. 530, 540 (C.A. 6th Cir. 1893); see also Noel, Defamation of Public Officers and Candidates, 49 Col.L.Rev. 875, 892 (1949). Under such a rule, would-be critics of official conduct may be deterred from voicing their criticism, even though it is believed to be true and even though it is, in fact, true, because of doubt whether it can be proved in court or fear of the expense of having to do so. They tend to make only statements which “steer far wider of the unlawful zone.” Speiser v. Randall, supra, 357 U.S. at 526. The rule thus dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate. It is inconsistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with “actual malice” — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

In dealing with the SBA List’s Motion for Summary Judgment, which requires the Court to enter judgment for the moving party if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law,” Judge Black ruled that there was still sufficient evidence to create a material fact as to whether or not the group acted with malice when it falsely claimed that Black had voted for a law that allows for taxpayer funded abortions:

As a public figure Mr. Driehaus must prove that SBA List made false statements with “actual malice” in order to prevail on his defamation claim. N. Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-80 (1964). SBA List argues that Mr. Driehaus could never make such a showing because the affidavits that he submitted show there was no actual malice. (Doc. 34, Ex. 1 at 26-27). The Court recognizes that this is not a simple analysis. Herbert v. Lando, 441 U.S. 153 at 170 (1979) (a plaintiff may “rarely be successful in proving awareness of a falsehood from the mouth of the defendant himself). However, “[f]alse speech, even political speech, does not merit constitutional protection if the speaker knows of the falsehood or recklessly disregards the truth.” Pestrak v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 926 F.2d 573, 577 (6th Cir. 1991).

Mr. Driehaus can evidence “public figure” defamation by: (1) demonstrating that the alleged defamation was an outright fabrication, or (2) showing that SBA List purposefully avoided the truth. Reckless disregard for the truth “is likely to be found `where a story is fabricated by the defendant, [or] is the product of his imagination.” A&B-Abell Elevator Co., 641 N.E.2d at 1293 (quoting St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 732 (1968)). A showing of actual malice may also be premised on evidence demonstrating that the alleged defamer purposefully avoided or deliberately ignored facts establishing the falsity of its statements. Perk v. Reader’s Digest Ass’n, Inc., 931 F.2d 408, 411 (6th Cir. 1991). Mr. Driehaus may prove SBA List’s state of mind using circumstantial evidence, and motive may bear on the actual malice inquiry. Harte-Hanks Comm’ns v. Connaughton, 491 U.S. 657, 667 (1989). Objective circumstantial evidence can suffice to demonstrate actual malice and can even “override defendants’ protestations of good faith and honest belief that the report was true.” Moore v. Vislosky, 240 Fed.Appx. 457, 468 (3rd Cir. 2007).

The proper inquiry is whether SBA List acted with actual malice when it asserted that Mr. Driehaus voted for a bill that “includes taxpayer funding of abortion.” (Doc. 7, Ex. 1 at 7). The Court finds that there are issues of material fact regarding whether SBA List acted with actual malice based on the following undisputed facts: (1) after the Ohio Elections Commission complaint, SBA List continued to claim that “It is a fact that Steve Driehaus has voted for a bill that includes taxpayer funding of abortion,” (Doc. 53, Ex. 1 at ¶¶ 8-9); (2) after the Ohio Elections Commission found probable cause that such a statement was false, the SBA List continued to make the false statements, and said that even if the Ohio Elections Commission were to prevent SBA List from putting up the particular billboards — in other words, even if the OEC finds the statement is false — “we will double down and make sure that our message floods his district. We’ve got radio ads going out all across his district”23; and (3) despite multiple requests to point to a provision in the PPACA that included taxpayer funding of abortions, SBA List refused to do so.

As I said when I first wrote about this case, there are several things about this type of defamation case that are disturbing. If there’s any one thing that the First Amendment was clearly intended to protect it is political speech, specifically speech regarding a candidate for election about an issue of public controversy. The idea that a candidate could turn around and file a civil action against a citizen, or in this case a group of citizens, for statements made in the heat of an election campaign is, to say the very least, extremely disturbing.

For one thing, the very act of filing a suit can have a chilling effect on other speech. If someone who wants to speak out against a candidates position on particular issue sees that doing so can lead to the possibility, or threat, of a lawsuit, they are less likely to speak out, regardless of whether or not they are right. For another, determining truth and falsehood in the context of a political argument isn’t always easy because it is so typically laden with exaggeration and hyperbole. Would Judge Black say, for example, that Paul Ryan has a cause of action against the people who say his budget plan ends Medicare, because that is clearly untrue?  There are plenty of exaggerations like this strewn throughout political debates, the idea that each one of them would suddenly become subject to a defamation suit is deeply concerning. Saying that a politician raped a child when one knows that to be false is one thing, saying that the plan they favor would have a certain policy impact strikes me as being quite another.

There’s a final issue in the case that Judge Black’s decision doesn’t really touch on, the question of whether or not Driehaus has suffered any actionable damages as a result of this alleged defamation. In his original complaint, Driehaus essentially claimed that the List’s false statements caused him to lose his “trade or occupation,” in other words his Congressional seat. It strikes me that it would be next to impossible for Driehaus to prove that it was the List’s billboard campaign that caused him to lose his seat. In fact, given how the election went nationwide it seems unlikely that he’d be unable prove that any one factor was responsible for his loss. Without actual damages, Driehaus shouldn’t be able to recover anything, although the jury could find that he suffered some unspecified damage to his reputation if the evidence supported it.

Hopefully, this decision will not stand.

Update: Here is a copy of the decision:

Driehaus v. SBL List Order On Motion for Summary Judgment

As part of a long article about why the GOP has found it hard to compromise on fiscal issues, both during the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations and during the FY 2011 negotiations earlier this year, Nate Silver provides this chart of likely Republican voters in races for the House Of Representatives:

Whereas self-identified moderates constituted roughly 40% of the Republican electorate up until roughly 2002, in the most recent House elections, they constituted only 30%. Moreover, in 2010 especially there was a noted enthusiasm gap between conservatives and moderates, which is one of the main reasons that the GOP won control of the House. As Silver noted, if voter turnout had been the same as it had been in 2008 or 2006, the GOP’s gain would have been roughly 27 seats, a gain but short of what they would’ve needed to gain a majority. The consequences, it would seem are rather obvious:

This is why Republican politicians find it difficult to compromise on something like the debt ceiling, even when it might seem they have substantial incentive to do so. Republicans are still fairly unpopular — only about 40 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the party, which is barely better than their standing in 2006 or 2008 (although Democrats have become significantly less popular since then). As long as conservative Republicans are much more likely to vote than anyone else, the party can fare well despite that unpopularity, as it obviously did in 2010. But it means that Republican members of Congress have a mandate to remain steadfast to the conservatives who are responsible for electing them.

Things don’t work the same way, of course, in Senate or Presidential elections, but has long as the House GOP stay attached to their conservative base they will continue to play the role they’ve been playing since January. Right now, compromise is a bad word among the conservative base and tax increases are seen as  evil incarnate. Hence, you see the House GOP acting like they control the Senate and the White House as well, and asserting, at least in public, that they aren’t really interested in compromising with the opposing. That may be smart politics, but it isn’t smart governing.

John Sides at The Monkey Cage tends to disagree with Silver and points to other factors that influence Republican representatives:

Here’s a more important caveat: Republican members of Congress are more conservative than Republican voters.  In fact, representatives from both parties are more ideologically extreme than voters in their parties.  That’s the conclusion of a recently published paper by Joseph Bafumi and Michael Herron (gated; ungated).   In their study of the 109th and 110th Congresses, they use a large national survey that asked voters their positions on key roll call votes taken in Congress.  Thus, Bafumi and Herron can measure the ideologies of voters and members on the same scale.  Once they do so, representatives emerge as far more extreme.

(…)

In general, I don’t think we get very far attributing the Republicans’ reluctance to compromise on the budget to what their constituents want.  It likely stems much more from the opinions of interest groups and activists, which have become ideologically polarized (pdf) and which play a crucialrole in selecting candidates.  Or it stems simply from the ideologies of members themselves.  People underestimate how much the behavior of politicians is sincere.

No doubt there are true believers among the House GOP caucus who are, arguably, more conservative than their constituents. Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann come to mind most immediately, and they’ve both been in Congress since before 2010 (in Paul’s case nearly two decades). They likely manage to stay in office because most people vote for their Member of Congress based on what they do for the district as much as, if not more than, their general political ideology. Both Paul and Bachamann have reputations of being fairly aggressive on constituent services issues.

Nonetheless, I don’t think we can discount the impact that the ideological makeup of the GOP electorate can have on the behavior of the caucus, especially when a single deviation from the conservative path will  subject them to denunciation from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. It makes it hard to do the right thing when making a tough choice means you could end up getting primaried by a more conservative candidate. Whether that’s good for the party, or the country, is another question.

Politico notes that the Republican health care agenda of “repeal and replace” is pretty much dead:

House Republicans haven’t held a floor vote on a bill or amendment trying to repeal, defund or even nick the law for six weeks, after a dozen attempts earlier this year. The stream of committee hearings to pick apart the law’s policies — held back-to-back-to-back earlier this year — has slowed to a trickle.

And not a single element of their “replace” agenda has gotten a House floor vote.

Senate Republicans — who made similar pledges to fight the Democratic majority to try to defeat the law — haven’t had much luck either. Republicans haven’t been able to force a vote on any proposal against the health plan since failed attempts to defund the law and Planned Parenthood in mid-April.

For all of their promises to do everything they can to stop the law, the only thing Republicans have been able to get to President Barack Obama’s desk is the bill to eliminate the requirement that businesses file 1099 tax reporting requirements.

None of this is entirely surprising. As I noted at the beginning of the year, there was simply no way that repeal of the Affordable Care Act was going to get any further than a party line vote in the House. The one provision that has been repealed, the 1099 reporting requirement, was widely derided on both sides of the aisle and its repeal had bipartisan support. The rest of the GOP health care agenda, though, ran up against cold hard reality:

Privately, Republicans cite a combination of factors as to why the health activity has slowed down. Other issues have come up, including the debt limit and military activity in Libya. Some question whether holding a vote now on the law’s most unpopular provision — the individual mandate— would undermine the various lawsuits against it, or would be more politically useful closer to the November 2012 election.

But there are also signs that House GOP leadership has grown weary of fighting an uphill battle on the issue. One possible reason for the fatigue factor: All but one of the repeal laws they’ve passed this year have died in the Senate.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of the House’s most ardent supporters of repealing or defunding the law at all costs, says it has become more difficult to get the attention of House leaders.

“I can’t get any traction,” he said of his effort to repeal or defund the law. “You can’t create something in this Congress unless leadership approves it.”

He questioned whether Republican leaders are willing to repeal the whole law if it means also repealing some of its popular provisions.

“There’s a little bit of an undercurrent that I pick up among well-positioned people in this Congress who think there could be some redeeming qualities of Obamacare,” pointing to statements Republican leadership have made in support of a handful of the law’s policies, such as banning insurers from denying patients because of preexisting conditions or allowing children to remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26.

In other words, it might not be smart politics for Republicans to head into the 2012 Congressional elections with a vote on their record that is purely symbolic and could be spun against them. Additionally, while the health care reform plan remains highly unpopular in the polls, the public is more sharply divided on the question of repeal. But all of that is largely irrelevant next to the simple fact that there are really only two ways that the Affordable Care Act is repealed. Either the Supreme Court ultimately strikes the law down as unconstitutional, or the GOP wins both the White House and a sufficient majority in the Senate in 2012 to permit it to push through a repeal bill in 2013. Both of those strike me as long shots.

Honestly, I always thought that the entire “repeal and replace” mantra was nothing more than a sop from the GOP to the Tea Party crowd, dressed up in a way to make it acceptable to the public. Rather than just saying they were going to repeal a law that contains some provisions that are politically popular — such as the ban on denial of insurance to people with pre-existing conditions — the GOP could tell the public that what they really were going to do was replace ObamaCare with something better. The fact that there was never any chance that such legislation could make it through Congress unless the GOP controlled both branches, and that it would never survive a Presidential veto, was glossed over. All that mattered was that they said they would repeal Obamacare.

The most important factor in all of this, though, is the fact that the GOP victories in November 2010 had nothing to do with repealing the health care law, and everything to do with the economy:

The results underscored the economic distress defining the 2010 election. Eighty-nine percent of voters said the national economy’s in bad shape — nearly as many as the record 92 percent who said so two years ago. What changed is the direction of their ire: In 2008, 54 percent of such voters favored Barack Obama. This year, 55 percent backed Republicans for the House.

(…)

Compounding the political impact of the long downturn, 87 percent remain worried about the economy’s direction in the next year — including half “very” worried. They voted more than 2-1 for Republicans this year, 70-28 percent.

The economy has deeply affected the broader public mood. Sixty-one percent in the national exit poll said the country’s headed seriously off on the wrong track; they supported Republicans by 75-23 percent. More broadly, 38 percent said they expect life for the next generation of Americans to be worse than it is today, vs. 32 percent better — a negative balance on one aspect of the American dream.

(…)

Exit polls have had varying “most important issues” lists since 1992 with “the economy” as an issue. This year, 62 percent of voters picked it as the single most important issue in their vote — and they voted 53-44 percent for Republicans for House. It was the first time economy voters favored Republicans.

Only 19% of voters in November 2010 said that health care was an influence on their vote. So, the idea that the GOP won any kind of a mandate on this issue is simply false. The less time they spend on it, the less time they appear to be ignoring the issues that matter to the voters who sent them to Washington.

The GOP can choose to make repeal of the PPACA, and the Ryan Plan’s Medicare changes, an issue in 2012, and perhaps they should. However given recent polling I’m not sure they’d get an enthusiastic reception from the public.

Photo via Politico

It’s a little too early to see how things shake out, but the April 15 vote on the Ryan Plan will, I think, one day go down in history as a textbook example of the dangers of believing your own hype. How the House Republicans went from having a major campaign themes demonizing the Democrats for cutting Medicare funding to, less than a year later, overwhelming voting for a plan that pretty much ends Medicare as we know it is an absolute mystery.

Merits of the policy aside (though for the record it’s poorly thought out and imprudent), how the GOP bungled the politics of it all is nothing short of breathtaking.

“After the election, I sat down with my consultants, and their names were John Walker, James Beam and Jose Cuervo, my Hispanic consultant. When I finished with them I was done with that consultation.” – Florida Democratic chairman Rod Smith, declining to be specific in assessing his party’s shellacking in the recent gubernatorial elections.

via Taegan Goddard

Under the headline “MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN A LITTLE NICER TO MURKOWSKI,” Steve Benen catalogs Lisa Murkowski’s spate of votes as the lone Republican siding with Democrats:  gays in the military, the DREAM Act, and New START.   And she’s now urging her colleagues to give up on trying to repeal ObamaCare and get on with legislation they have a chance of passing.

Says Steve, “I don’t imagine all of this will be well received by Republican leaders, but don’t forget, Murkowski not only doesn’t care, she actually has an incentive to annoy them.”

But this is exactly why she got primaried in the first place!  She was never a reliable Republican vote and, as befitting someone originally handed her job by her daddy, was dismissive towards Alaska Republicans who scoffed.   No wonder Joe Miller seemed so attractive.

(And I say that as someone who agrees with Murkowski on all four of the issues in the lead paragraph.)

Presidential-year elections are driven by a completely different demographic. Good luck trying that “Second Amendment remedies” crap on swing voters in the suburbs. It just won’t fly. And neither will the cacophony of crazy talk that has gripped the far right for the past two years.

It’s time to grow up, act responsibly and start planning for the 2012 election.

If you can’t be civil because it’s the right thing to do, then do it because it is in your party’s best interest.

There is absolutely something to this notion, as the electorate that turns out in a midterm election is not the same one that turns out in presidential elections, and therefore different kind of campaign strategies are in order.  Certainly suburban swing voters are likely to be made rather uncomfortable by gun-based rhetoric.

Of course, it is worth noting that the “‘Second Amendment remedies’ crap” didn’t work in 2010, either (at least in terms of the Nevada Senate race).  Indeed, if Sharron Angle has been a tinge less fringe, or if the NV GOP had nominated a slightly more mainstream nominee, then Harry Reid would be at home tending his garden rather than bearing the title “Senate Majority Leader.”

However, it is worth continuing to note that the variable of most significance to the electoral outcomes in November 2012 is the state of the economy, not the quality of the civil discourse.  Indeed, one of the major reasons that there was a lot of angry rhetoric (and the commensurate violent imagery within that rhetoric) was because we, as a country, were angry over the state of the economy.

Michael Steele is substantially behind some guy I’d never heard of until last week, and who seems to be known mostly for having a really funny name.  Nonetheless, a report for The Hill argues, he’s the odds-on favorite for a second term as RNC chair.

Wisconsin GOP Chairman Reince Priebus remains the front-runner for the Republican National Committee chairmanship, which some observers predicted could spell trouble for his bid.

Priebus leads the field with 36 RNC members publicly backing him, according to a count by National Review Online.

Current RNC Chairman Michael Steele is a close second with 27 members backing him.

Priebus’ front-runner status could prove a liability, according to Mike Duncan. The former RNC chairman, who was Steele’s predecessor serving from 2007-2009, said the leader typically “loses momentum after the first or second ballot,” he said recently.

Now, Duncan’s expertise on the internal machinations of RNC politics dwarfs my own.  But from where I’m sitting, when you have a sitting chairman who 1) presided over an election cycle in which his party staged a major resurgence and yet 2) is almost universally thought to be an embarrassment and a buffoon, every candidate in the race is either the sitting chairman or Not The Sitting Chairman.

Steele has 27 votes, according to the NRO tally.

Priebus has 38 (he’s up 2 since the Hill report).

Two other candidates have 14 each, another has 12, and Undeclared leads the pack with 63.

So, by my count, that’s 27 votes for Michael Steele and 141 for Not Michael Steele.    So, Steele will need to hold onto his current delegates and pick off another 58 to win.    But he’s the sitting chairman.  Who just presided over a shellacking of the opposition party.  And they’re not with him now.   What is it that he could possibly do to persuade them that he’s actually a good chairman?

Ron Brownstein looks at the 2010 exit polls and concludes that President Obama’s path to re-election is to gin up turnout in states with large minority populations.

Fully 60 percent of whites nationwide backed Republican candidates for the House of Representatives; only 37 percent supported Democrats, according to the National Election Poll exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Not even in Republicans’ 1994 congressional landslide did they win that high a percentage of the white vote.

Moreover, those results may understate the extent of the white flight from the Democratic Party, according to a National Journal analysis of previously unpublished exit-poll data provided by Edison Research.

The new data show that white voters not only strongly preferred Republican House and Senate candidates but also registered deep disappointment with President Obama’s performance, hostility toward the cornerstones of the current Democratic agenda, and widespread skepticism about the expansive role for Washington embedded in the party’s priorities. On each of those questions, minority voters expressed almost exactly the opposite view from whites.

[...]

With so much of the white electorate, especially working-class whites, dubious about the president’s direction, to win a second term he will likely need to increase turnout and improve his showing among the groups that keyed his 2008 victory—minorities, young people, and white-collar white voters, especially women. In 2012, Obama may be forced to build his Electoral College map more around swing states where those voters are plentiful (such as Colorado, North Carolina, and even Arizona) and less on predominantly blue-collar and white states such as Ohio and Indiana that he captured in 2008.

[...]

Given the trends among the white electorate evident in these exit-poll findings, that formula might represent Obama’s most promising path to a second term. Because the 2010 elections dealt such a heavy blow to the Democrats’ old models of electoral success, the imperative of electoral transformation is looming ever larger for the president. “He has to make an effort to reclaim some of the lost [white] vote,” says Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a Democratic analysis and advocacy group. “But he’s got to push the new electorate harder.”

Which, ironically, will exacerbate white-Other tensions further.

Adam Serwer thinks this is a function of Republican scare tactics:

If you’re curious as to why we spent the late summer discussing the New Black Panther Party, the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, Shirley Sherrod, and birthright citizenship, I think you have your answer. Ever since the first genuine race pseudo-scandal, Barack Obama suggesting the the Cambridge Police acted “stupidly” in arresting Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home — Republicans sensed an opportunity in exploiting the anxieties of white voters.

So it’s no surprise that formula — blowing a minor incident out of proportion to suggest the president has, as Glenn Beck put it, “a deep-seated hatred for white people,” has been replicated over and over again ever since. Republicans characterized the Affordable Care Act as “reparations” and Finreg as “racial quotas.”

I think that gets things backwards, though.  Whites and blacks simply have fundamentally different reactions to the police and to government welfare programs.  Jamelle Bouie comes pretty close to getting it right:

Economic downturns almost always come with a spike in “us against them” thinking. And in the United States, “us against them” most often translates into “white against black,” or at least “white against other.” What’s more, political attitudes are strongly related to ethnocentric views; the more you view the world in ethnocentric terms, the more likely it is you oppose policies and parties that are perceived to help the other side.

This is mostly speculation, but I think it makes sense: As the economy worsened, ethnocentric views among whites strengthened, with this was most pronounced among conservatives and the less-educated, where ethnocentrism tends to hold more sway. It’s no surprise that these whites—more concentrated in the South and Midwest—turned sharply against the Democratic Party. It’s redistributive policies were perceived as being for the benefit of its minority voters and not the country at large.

While traditional white-black tensions are doubtless part of it, though, I think it’s relatively minor.   Instead, working class whites seem to be much more concerned with Muslims (which they perceive as disloyal, if not potential terrorists, as well as a threat to the predominance of the Judeo-Christian culture) and Hispanic immigrants (which they perceive as threats to both their jobs and their culture, as well as a drain on the public treasury).   The black-white gap is mostly a function of blacks being intrinsically loyal to the Democratic Party and especially to President Obama.

Digby (Heather Parton) and Atrios (Duncan Black) both have different takes on the details, coming as they do from the other side of the aisle, but we agree on the implications.  In the near term, this puts the Democrats in the position of having to scrape together and motivate a very diverse coalition.   In the longer term, as the old white folks die out, it means the Republicans are a permanent minority party on the national level unless they figure out how to broaden their appeal.

Additionally, as I alluded to earlier, we’re likely to see even more polarization in the short term.  The gold mine for Democrats, frankly, is to figure out how to get as many Hispanics as possible on the voter roles.  So, fights over counting illegal aliens in the Census and, especially, over border enforcement, Spanish language services, amnesty for illegal immigrants already here, and related issues will only heat up.

My guess is that Republicans will win these battles in the short run because they’re on the side where the people are.   Even moderate to liberal whites would prefer to see America remain an English speaking country.  And it’s hard to make a case for privileging those who violated our laws over those who sacrificed by waiting in line and following the rules.  (The practical case, yes.  The moral and visceral case, not so much.)

But the short term win may well come at the cost of making Hispanics “permanent” parts of the Democratic coalition.  And, within my expected lifetime, that will mean a Republican Party that’s not competitive at the national level.

“We still would have lost the election because we had 9.5% unemployment. Let’s take it where that came from. The policies of George W. Bush and the Republican support for his initiatives, tax cuts are for the wealth, recklessness by some,” Minority Leader Pelosi told CNN.

Because, of course, the Democrats in Congress bear no responsibility for the actions they took between January 2009 and November 2010.

H/T: Jeff Dunetz

Over at FrumForum, Noah Kristula-Green writes about a little talked about consequence of Christine O’Donnnell’s divisive, and massively defeated, Senate for the statewide Republican Party:

O’Donnell had a consistently negative effect on the close down-ticket races in Delaware. Republican Party officials in the state who spoke to FrumForum on and off the record expressed great frustration with the damage she caused. O’Donnell did this in several different ways. She cost the GOP several candidates in the Delaware State House, giving the Democrats a super-majority. She hurt the campaign for the Republican nominee for State Treasurer. She boosted a Democratic party which has been growing stronger in the state, and solidified in the minds of many voters the view that the Republican party was an atavistic and unserious party, which the mainstream had rejected. In a year when Republicans had a wave to take advantage of and the opportunity to grow across the entire country, O’Donnell failed her party and brought it down.

The details are pretty, pretty grim:

The election results show several close Delaware State House races where Democrats won by incredibly small margins. Not only were the percentages that separated these races very small, they were also small in absolute terms. The closeness of these races speaks to the success of the Democrats’ get out the vote efforts, which were driven largely by motivating voters against O’Donnell.

There were seven State House races where the Democrat won by less than than 1,000 votes. In three of those races, the Republican candidate had been recruited to take on a Democratic incumbent. The power of incumbency is hard to defeat in any election cycle, and a wave election is a rare chance to counter it.  Yet in the races for the 6th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 18th, 32nd, and 41st districts, the GOP candidate lost. The vote margins were very small: 407, 282, 734, 879, 438, 296, and 939 votes respectively.  (The race for the 7th was also close, decided by 1,364 votes.)

Many of the candidates who were recruited to run in this cycle did so with the expectation that Mike Castle would be on the top of the ticket. Not only did the Republicans have a weak candidate on the top of the ticket, Democrats (and independents) were given more motivation to vote against O’Donnell and the entire GOP ticket. Neither Chris Coons nor any of the other Democrats on the ticket were considered exceptionally inspiring among the Democrats. One Republican told FrumForum: “There really was no motivation for Democrats to vote in this election until the O’Donnell thing happened.”

In a year when Republicans made gains in state legislatures across the country, the Republican caucus in Delaware’s State House got smaller, going from 17 Republicans to 15. This has given the Democrats a super-majority in the State House. They can now write revenue related bills without the Republicans if they choose.

Delaware is a Blue State and it’s likely to be one for a long time, but there was a time when it did produce Republicans who were capable of winning statewide. Not just Mike Castle, but guys like William Roth and Pete duPont. Thanks to the damage that the party suffered in 2010, it’s going to be a long time before Delaware produces a candidate like that again.

The point here isn’t to kick Christine O’Donnell yet again, but to point out that there are consequences to nominating a candidate who has no realistic chance of winning a General Election. Not only do you lose the race itself, but you hurt your party in down ticket races.

Republican Joe Miller said Friday that he is giving up his legal challenge of the write-in election win of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, even as he asserted that his fight was in the best interests of the state and country.

At a news conference at his campaign offices in Anchorage, at which he was flanked by his wife and dozens of cheering and whistling supporters, Miller said it was time to throw in the towel but not abandon the fight for conservative values.

“The time has come to accept the practical realities of our current legal circumstances,” he said, a reference to his series of legal defeats in state and federal courts. He added that he continued to have “grave concerns” about the nation’s direction.

“The way of the past, with its obsession for growing government, out-of-control spending, pork-barrel politics, corrupting earmarks and its disregard for individual liberty, is destroying our country,” he said.

His concession came nearly two months after Alaskans concluded voting. He mentioned Murkowski’s name twice: the first time criticizing her for her recent votes with Democrats in the lame-duck session of Congress, and the second in asking God to “guide Sen. Murkowski in her future actions.” He offered no congratulations and continued his attack of her support by Native corporations that get breaks in obtaining federal contracts.

And if you want an indication of what kind of person Miller turned out to be, consider this:

It was Miller’s first formal news conference since Oct. 11, which followed a debate at the Dena’ina Convention Center in Anchorage. That press event was a one-way affair in which Miller criticized the media, said he would no longer answer questions about his character or background, then turned and rushed out a back stairwell that led to the street while aides blocked reporters from following him.

The Oct. 11 press conference punctuated the testy relationship he had with the Alaska media. He largely shunned local reporters in favor of national cable channels like Fox News that allowed him to speak directly to his supporters around the country, many of whom opened their wallets for his campaign.

At a town hall meeting a week after the convention center event, his security detail handcuffed and detained a reporter who tried to ask him questions about why he was disciplined when employed as a part-time attorney with the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

Miller took about a dozen questions Friday. He acknowledged that “of course mistakes were made” by his campaign, which he said was run by neophytes, including himself.

But the only specific “mistake” he cited had nothing to do with his campaign. Rather, it was the involvement “of federal contractors,” he said, a reference to the Native corporations that contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to an independent effort in support of Murkowski.

Of course you didn’t make any mistakes, Joe. Because having your hired goons attack a reporter is normal campaign procedure, right?

Here’s video of the press conference:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was officially named the winner of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race Thursday, following a period of legal fights and limbo that lasted longer than the write-in campaign she waged to keep her job.

Gov. Sean Parnell and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who oversees elections, signed the paperwork certifying her win in the hotly contested race.

“It’s done,” Treadwell said after penning his last signature in front of cameras in Parnell’s office.

The paperwork was expected to be hand-delivered to Washington, D.C., by state Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai to guard against delays that could keep Murkowski from being sworn in with her colleagues on Wednesday.

With certification, Murkowski becomes the first U.S. Senate candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954 to win a write-in campaign.

Joe Miller, meanwhile, has scheduled a press conference for tomorrow at 2:00pm Alaska time, 6:00pm Eastern. My guess is that he’s going to announce that he’s abandoning his efforts and will not be appealing the dismissal of his Federal lawsuit. Why else schedule the presser for 6pm Washington time on New Years Eve?

And thus, dear readers, we come to the official end of the 2010 Election. Murkowski’s race was the last Congressional race in the country to be officially certified.

Three months after the Delaware GOP and and independent group filed separate complaints, the Federal Election Commission has apparently opened a criminal investigation into Christine O’Donnell’s campaign spending in previous campaigns for U.S. Senate:

A person with knowledge of the investigation says federal authorities have opened a criminal probe of Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell to determine if the former Senate candidate broke the law by using campaign money to pay personal expenses.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the identity of a client who has been questioned in the probe. The case, which has been assigned to two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents in Delaware, has not been sent to a grand jury.

I first took note of the allegations against O’Donnell before the September 14th Delaware primary when it became apparent that neither the Tea Party Express nor Sarah Palin had bother to vet O’Donnell on the issue prior to endorsing her. It wasn’t until after she defeated Mike Castle, though, that the details of just how fishy her campaign spending in 2006 and 2008 had been came out:

You can read both the letter to the U.S. Attorney, and the Federal Election Commission, but the most serious allegations seem to be two-fold. First, O’Donnell may have been using campaign dollars to pay for personal expenses like rent at her home, a clear violation of campaign finance laws. Second, as these exhibits from an FEC report filed in April 2009 show, O’Donnell was apparently still spending campaign dollars credited to her 2008 Senatorial campaign five months after the 2008 campaign ended. Some of these expenses were for things like gas and office expenses, others were for things like trips to a bowling alley and rent on O’Donnell’s home.

O’Donnell also appears to have violated FEC regulations by not having an independent treasurer for her campaign and appears to have placed her mother on the campaign payroll earlier this year.

Instead of answering questions, O’Donnell dodged them and generally adopted the Sarah Palin/Sharron Angle/Joe Miller strategy of dodging hard questions and only appearing on “friendly” media outlets like Fox News Channel. And her supporters accepted it without question.

O’Donnell is, of course, innocent until found guilty in a court of law and I am not going to presume to pronounce her a crook at this point. However, as I said three months ago:

These are not ridiculous questions about masturbation, or cloning, or witchcraft. These are serious allegations of violations of  campaign finance laws. You’re not supposed to use campaign funds for personal expenses, and I doubt that anyone who contributed to Christine O’Donnell in 2008 did so thinking they’d be helping her pay her rent, or covering her expenses long after the campaign was over.O’Donnell needs to answer these questions now, or she does not deserve to be taken seriously.

The only good thing is that O’Donnell lost the election, otherwise we’d have a newly seated Senator under criminal investigation.