I see the National Review is running columns raving about the genius of the Founding Fathers for establishing a system where the Senate map of 2018 would be so heavily tilted toward the Republicans and conservative-wise.

None of this is to suggest that the Kavanaugh effect is not real. It is just to serve as a reminder that Senate elections are only a dim or distorted picture of public opinion. That was by design, as the Framers of the Constitution originally gave the power of selecting senators to state legislatures. But even after the passage of the 17th Amendment, which mandated popular elections for all senators, we still see the upper chamber’s strange relationship to public opinion. President Donald Trump is unpopular, and his Republican party looks likely to lose a substantial number of seats in the House, which was designed to reflect public opinion. But thanks to the peculiarities of the Senate classes, the GOP may walk away from the November midterm having netted a seat or two in the upper chamber.

The senate’s Democrats locked in by previous cycles when they did good for 2006 and 2012, and not able to advance into these southern and small states, and having to retreat in these border states.  Just as Jefferson had it: the lower chamber full of ruffians, the upper chamber –…

New Jersey:  It is worth noting, that embattled but probably safe Democratic incumbent Bob Menendez, is — due to committee seating — the Democratic face of any bi-partisan efforts in grilling President Trump on the Jamal Khashoggi Affair.  Or, I suppose, threading the fine line back to kissing Saudi butt.

Gives the guy something useful to do, instead of having to explain how he nearly escaped indictment.

Arizona:  The problem presented when your one time role as a social critic clashes with your growing political ambitions.  This particular one may not be too bad, per se, broadly speaking — the “Drain the Swamp” is about the same as calling out a “meth lab o democracy”, and in theory she’d be there to “fix it”… the specifics spell out the weathervane evolution.

Interesting in that it was the donor class speaking that tripped up Obama, Romney, and Hillary in previous elections.  Here, it’s the activist class for Kyrsten Sinema.

Missouri:  Republican candidate Josh Hawley has “pastor problems”… kind of.  Probably not.  Cue comments of “Jeremiah Wright” — which here and there I would heare the rejoinder of “Billy Graham’s phone conversations with Richard Nixon!”

I do find this noteworthy:

Barton’s 2012 book, “The Jefferson Lies,” which made the New York Times’ bestseller list, disputed what it called the “myth” of Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings and even cast him as a civil rights visionary.

I think I saw the book once.  His brother did it… his brother a rapscallion shady moral figure, evidentally.  It’s where you have to go to skip past the dna evidence, and does fail Oscam’s Razor.

The perils of being in the market of a competitive race.

Heye, the GOP operative, got an on-the-ground feel for how McCaskill’s vote against last year’s tax overhaul has become a rallying point for her opponent. He vacationed in Lake of the Ozarks over the Labor Day weekend and recalled constant ads on a music app hitting McCaskill for her vote.

“Every commercial break — regardless of whether it was the Tom Petty channel or Johnny Cash or some Top 40 — every actual commercial would be anti-McCaskill,” Heye said. “Quite often it would be an ad that hit her for voting against the growing economy by voting against the tax bill. I didn’t hear those ads four times. I heard them 40 times.”

Still, it may not resonate with voters, according to Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri, who has followed the race.

For one thing, isn’t this ad being shot at by the converted?  Can’t they micro-target it away from “Republican operative” to a more swingy demographic?

North Dakota:  Skipping past the atonal in not addressing the logic of the “Strong Women Prairie Pioneers” line, what I find myself is totally puzzled right about here:

“Well she admits she was a 15-year-old that had been drinking at a party that — I mean, how many 15-year-olds handle a lot of alcohol, you know, 36 years ago? When it wasn’t that common, by the way. … Thirty-six years ago it wasn’t that common for 15-year-olds to be at booze parties,” Cramer said.

I don’t understand.  High School Booze parties did not exist in 1980s America?  I don’t understand the world Representative Kevin Cramer is selling here.

West Virginia:  Well, what better use of the Opiod fighting money is there besides the helicopter?

Big question explored: why is Joe Manchin a Democrat?  Admittedly, diverting funds from one thing to another is a bi-partisan affair.

Montana:  Interesting enough.  Sarah Vowell’s dad is voting for Jon Tester.  Seems to be stylistic, frankly… he has the haircut going for him, and the missing fingers.

Tennessee:  So, the big news with the Phil Bredesen campaign … is that Jame O’Keefe’s old outfit — Project Veritas — has “shocking” video footage of low level certainly to the candidates’ left volunteer staffers rationalizing and justifying to prospective (“undercover journalist) liberal voters Bredesen’s stated moderation and support of Kavanaugh.

In addition to disapproval from volunteers and supporters, three staff members of the Tennessee Democratic Party at Bredesen’s campaign offices in Nashville also appeared disappointed in a secretly recorded video produced by the far-right political group Project Veritas Action Fund, known for its “sting” operations on Democratic politicians. The video, heavily edited and misleading or false at times, showed staff members claiming the move to support Kavanaugh was a political one to gain more support in the conservative state, rather than to show Bredesen’s true feelings about Kavanaugh.

Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini told Newsweek in a statement the people shown in the video are field organizers with Tennessee Victory 2018, an umbrella grassroots organization of the state party that works to elect Democrats across the state. They are not staff members of the Bredesen for Senate campaign.

“For weeks, a young woman claiming to be a supporter volunteered and gained their trust,” said Mancini, referring to the woman secretly recording the staffers who labeled herself as a “journalist” in the video. “Then, per the usual slimy tactics of [James] O’Keefe and Project Veritas, she betrayed that trust for cynical political gain.”

Federal Election Commission records show the three staffers identified in the video–Delaney Brown, Will Stewart and Maria Amalla–are paid by the state’s Democratic Party. Tennessee Democratic Party Spokesman Mark Brown told Newsweek they were “simply expressing their opinions to someone they thought was a friend” and do not have “access to any high-level campaign strategy or messaging, and no one in that video knows the inner thoughts of Governor Bredesen.”

Tennessee Victory 2018 said it was considering legal action against Project Veritas.  

It’s better than their other attempt.

Texas:  Beto O’rourke’s campaign war chest in what looks to be a losing effort … shouldn’t that be enough to string in a few Congessional critters and down-ticket state legislators?  And beyond which…

“It will be bad for everyone, Beto included, if he finishes his race with money in the bank when that money could’ve helped elect Democrats in Missouri, Tennessee or North Dakota,” Mr. Miller added.

At the moment, the only race of those three where this line of logic — “throw some of your money to the DSCC” — makes sense is the Missouri race.

I see the team of Nate Silver’s 538 postulate that should he go on to lose… he may just be Presidential timber for the Democrats!  (Should he win, of course, his career is now bogged down as “Senator”.  Such is the logic of our current politics.)

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