The Republican Party has been somewhat secretive about their future plans.  In the past, they have been the party of NO.  They have obstructed virtually everything that Obama and Democrats have tried to accomplish.  They have set records for personal holds and filibusters in the Senate.  They have even gone so far as to filibuster their own proposals when Democrats agreed to endorse them.  Often they have claimed that their future plans are too secret for us to know, until now.

From this weekend’s Meet the Press, RNC Chairman Michael Steele wants us to believe that Republicans have not been obstructing everything President Obama has tried to achieve legislatively as a political tactic and that they really, really did want to cooperate with him. Yeah, sure Micheal. That’s why the GOP decided they liked the health care bill when it was Bob Dole’s idea, or something akin to Romney-care, but once a Democrat put it out there for a vote, suddenly it was "Socialism" and the Republicans all voted against it. Spare me.

Of course heaven forbid it was too much trouble for the hapless David Gregory to point this out for the viewers. Steele also claimed that they’re "hoping for a better relationship come January" which means they’re hoping President Obama will rubber stamp a Republican agenda or they’re going to stomp their feet and hold their breath until he does. Pretty much the same nonsense we’ve seen out of them for the last two years. Obstruct and then blame the other side for not getting anything done. And in the mean time, the country suffers while they play politics… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

The author makes a good case, but that is not proof.  However, Mitch McConnell has come right out and admitted it, as Keith Olbermann and Eugene Robinson discuss.

Mitch is one bought bitch, but so are the rest of the Republican politicians.  The bottom line is this.  If any legislation, no matter how needed it may be, might make Obama look good.  Republicans will do everything in their power to obstruct it.  Jobs for Americans is the last thing they want.  That would make Obama look good.

The last time Republicans were in power, there was no law they would not happily break in their attempt to establish an irreversible Republican Reich.  America survived as a republic (of sorts), only because they began to strip mine the poor and middle classes through their greed and incompetence before their takeover was complete.  Thus the Fourth Reich lasted for only eight years.  They do not care whom they have to hurt to establish a Fifth Reich.  And there is only one way to stop them.

Vote!

If you don’t believe that climate change is the result of human activity, there’s no point in reading the rest of this article, because your eyes are closed.  On the other hand, if you agree with me that the scientific data overwhelmingly confirms that human activity is responsible for the greatest threat our planet has faced since the dawn of humanity, it is imperative that we stop the corporate criminals on a global scale, whose lust for profit trumps the continuation of life as we know it.

As the Wonk Room has extensively documented, nearly all of the Republican candidates for Senate — both incumbents and challengers — dispute that the United States must take action to fight global warming pollution, while many of them deny that global warming exists in the first place. “There is much debate in the scientific community as to the precise sources of global warming,” claims Pat Toomey, the GOP Senate candidate in Pennsylvania. “Global warming is ‘the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,’” says [wingers delinked] Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK).

It remains to be seen if that stance will pay off at the polls, but for many of these global warming deniers, it already has paid off in the form of sizeable donations from overseas polluters. A new analysis by Climate Action Network Europe has found that large European companies that are among the continent’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters have been dumping large amounts of money into U.S. Senate races, almost exclusively to candidates that oppose the idea of taking action to stop global warming.

ThinkProgress has already documented how money from foreign oil companies is being directed to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is running a $75 million ad campaign against Democratic candidates, and these direct candidate contributions from European polluters exceed the amount that oil billionaires Charles and David Koch have donated to Senate campaigns.

Through U.S. subsidiaries and employees, large European polluters like BP, BASF, Bayer and Solvay have donated $240,200 to candidates who have either voiced opposition to addressing global warming, or who have actively blocked legislation that would do so. For example, Bayer — which emitted 2 million metric tons of CO2 in Europe last year — gave almost 73 percent of its donations to such candidates, like the $5,000 it gave to Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who opposes the EPA finding that greenhouse gases are pollution and opposes a cap-and-trade market to limit global warming pollution. The donations largely favored Republicans, but — demonstrating that stopping progress on addressing global warming was the key goal of these companies — select Democrats were given donations as well. Bayer gave even more money to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), who has been a key swing vote in the Senate and also opposes EPA action on global warming pollution… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Personally, I also oppose cap and trade.  I think a combination of strict regulation with a carbon tax, the proceeds from which are targeted to green energy development and subsidies, but I’d rather see a cap and trade than no reform at all.  There is only one way to stop them, and that is to overwhelm them with votes for Democratic candidates in national elections, except in those cases (like Lincoln) where the Democrat offers zero chance for environmental responsibility.

Ten days from now, I’ll be trying to figure out what happened.  My biggest fear is that people will stay home, discouraged by the steady drumbeat of doom from the Main Stream Media, based on polls that are probably inaccurate.  I say this based on several years in the public opinion business.  This election is unlike any in history, and the only way to approach it is to vote.  Then, if there is reason to be discouraged, do so after the election.  Consider this:

 

…This is the most unpredictable election in my memory, and, indeed, I can’t even think of one that rivals it….

…Consider the tools we usually use to project electoral outcomes. They are, without a doubt, providing as many questions as answers in this most unique electoral cycles.

Usually, an election forecaster makes the bulk of his/her determinations about how an election is going to go based on the polls. But this year, that has proven more difficult to utilize, and for two reasons.

1. The Likely Voter Thing: We have been told for years that pollsters use "likely voters" because it provides a more accurate landscape for taking a snapshot of the electorate. After all, what is the use of recording the preferences of voters who aren’t, in all probability, going to vote on Election Day, anyway?

While this is inherently logical, there is a problem with that assessment this cycle. There have always been gaps between the outcomes of polls between "likely voters" and the less restrictive screen of "registered voters." Historically, that gap has equated to better Republican performance among likely voters (as Alan Abramowitz noted over at Pollster a while back). But that hasn’t always been the case. In the Democratic wave election of 2006, the majority of the polls which offered both LV and RV data had their LV screens slightly favoring the Democrat. What’s more (and this could have big implications for 2010): those screens almost universally (75% of the time) overstated the Democratic performance in the race.

Indeed, in the last two election cycles, the "registered voter" screen has been closer to the final outcome more often than the "likely voter" screen. And it wasn’t all that close: the RV screen came closer 57% of the time, the LV screen was closer to the truth 38% of the time, and they split the difference 5% of the time.

Another unique feature of the electoral cycle has been the width of the gaps between RV’s and LV’s. In the 2006 and 2008 cycles, the majority of the gaps between RVs and LVs consisted of gaps ranging from 0 to 2 points. In this election, gaps as wide as 13 points have been reported (an early October CNN poll of Nevada). Of course that has been owed to the most oft-used phrase of the cycle: the enthusiasm gap. More on that later.

1. The Pollster Hegemony Thing: Around two months ago, I noted that a majority of the polls in my database for this cycle either emanated from Republican private polling or from Rasmussen (which, of course, could easily be described as Republican public polling). As the trickle became a flood of data (what was, at that time, around 1000 polls is now 2040 and counting), those numbers have changed, but only slightly. Even at this point, 47% of the polls released in this cycle have come from GOP or GOP-sympathetic (read: Rasmussen) sources. By contrast, just 8.5% of the polls have come from Democratic sources.

This can be read two ways. For one thing, in 2006, it was Democratic polls that swamped polls from GOP sources. Read this way, this can be interpreted as a bad sign for Democrats. Republicans are releasing more polls because…well…they can. The data contained in them is data they want to have the public consume. But there is an alternate viewpoint: they can also simply be skewing the reality of the electoral situation. As Nate noted last week, these polls come with a thumb on the scale. If (as has happened this year), twice as many sponsored polls have been come from the GOP side as the Dem side, it will paint a picture that is, perhaps, overly optimistic for the Republicans… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

I encourage you to read the entire article.

Based on my experience, the polls I have seen, and my knowledge of candidates’ positions, here are my projections.  I project that the next Senate will have 51 Democrats, 47 Republicans and two Independents, leaving an effective net of 52-48 (counting LIEberman as a Republican).  I project that the House will have a slim majority, but there are too many dead heat races to say whose majority it will be. Finally, I project that there is a strong possibility that I have no idea what I’m talking about!  There are just too many variables.

So, in conclusion, I urge you to act as if there were no polls.  In national races I urge you to vote for Democrats, with the caveat that in rare cases, that is not ethically possible.  I could not in good conscience vote for Blanche Lincoln, if I lived in AR, for example.

Vote!