The Small Business Jobs Act, poised to pass the Senate this week, contains provisions that will do more to damage small businesses than all the decent provisions combined. The bill is another swing-and-a-miss for Democrats trying to bolster their small business creds…

There are a lot of angry people in the American electorate. There are the Tea Party folks who think that there has been some kind of revolution and they are in danger of losing their country (even though the country they imagine they were part of never really existed). They are fired up and they intend to vote for some of the most radically reactionary candidates in decades. They have helped nominate folks like Sharon Angle who believes that unemployment insurance is a bad thing, and thinks that it is not a huge problem if conservatives resort to so-called “Second Amendment remedies”, basically armed insurrection.

Then there are another group of angry folks, this time on the Left. They were the ones who suffered through eight years of Republican lawlessness and were inspired by the promise of change the Obama campaign offered. Many feel betrayed by the fact that change has not been as intense as they imagined. They point, with good reason, to the promises made by the President on issues like Health Care reform and the reality of what the legislative process gave us. No public option, lots of compromise and a bill that while it does good things for some is not the kind of transformational change that the Left (myself included) wanted.

I always thought the change meme was a dangerous one. It suffers from a lack of operational definition. If you say change to ten people you will get ten different expectations of change. If you say “we’re going to have a change from the past but not a radical one” you still get different views of what that is. This led to wide and high expectations from many people (again myself included) and was always going to make the failures and compromises seem more galling than normal.

Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell might not happen after all.

This is the first part of a series of posts analyzing competitive Senate elections in blue states. The first part, which analyzes Illinois can be found here.

Out of the three heavily Democratic states being analyzed, Republicans probably have the least chance of winning New York. A serious Republican challenger to Senator Kristen Gillibrand has yet to emerge. Moreover, Ms. Gillibrand has proven an adept politician willing to campaign hard.

Nevertheless, in a bad national environment with low name recognition, victory for Democrats is not assured. Under the right circumstances (perhaps a Gillibrand scandal), Republicans may be able to pull off a shocker.

Lealan Jones just needs 30% overall to win.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Over the next few posts I will be previewing a select few competitive Senate elections. These posts will focus less on individual personalities and more on overarching state dynamics – what parts of the state vote Democratic, swing, and vote Republican.

These states will be mainly Democratic strongholds, rather than swing states, because this election cycle is the first in many in which they have been competitive. Another opportunity for analyzing these places will probably not occur for a while.

Nietzsche said”

“When we look into the abyss, searching for monsters, the abyss looks into us as well”

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Right now we are staring the abyss in the face and there are indeed monsters there. This abyss is the elections this fall. The chance that radical Republicans will take over the House and perhaps the Senate has grown. The affect of constant lies from Fox News and Talk Radio have energized the Republican base. The limp leadership from the White House and from Majority Leader Reid has demoralized the Democratic base.

The passing of many of the Lefts long term wish list items, barely and with tons of ridiculous and galling compromise has created a situation where the Right is fired up and the Left is angry at its own leadership. The conditions are in place for a wave election and the wave is not likely to go the way that we Liberals are going to like in any fashion.

Pay close attention to the Florida Senate race this fall, and especially to conservative Republican Marco Rubio. The tricky path that would lead Rubio to victory in November is the same path the Republicans might take in the 2012 presidential race.

The propaganda tour has failed – 6 in 10 Americans want an end to the war in Afghanistan. Will Obama stick to his timeline, or will congress be forced to take drastic measures?

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is holding the treaty to reduce US and Russian arsenals hostage for $10 billion in pork for the nuclear weapons complex.