Election

Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, the Democratic nominee for the South Carolina First Congressional District special election, is listed twice on today's ballot. Colbert-Busch is also the nominee of the Working Families party.

The special election is today. Here's a screen shot of the ballot those South Carolina voters will see today, courtesy of the South Carolina State Election Commission:

With President Obama's State of the Union Address coming up to night, the Washington Post's David Ignatus is wondering:

As we survey the political wreckage of 2012, it’s worth highlighting once again that Republicans lost the presidential election for two main reasons:  They failed to get their best candidates to run, and their eventual nominee failed to make the case to voters.  The result was a relatively lopsided defeat.  In fact, if Mitt Romney had managed to swing the margin by 5 points in his direction in each and every state, he still would have lost (272 electoral votes to 266).

As hard as it is to believe, it’s been only a little over three weeks since Election Day. But there are already plenty of signs that Republicans are learning many of the wrong lessons from that debacle.

Two thoughts for those TWS readers who—for some reason!—may be a bit down in the dumps, and especially for those who may have spent considerable time and effort trying to secure a better outcome on Election Day 2012.

"The people have spoken, the bastards."

Since the House passed Obamacare 961 days ago, on March 21, 2010 — two days before President Obama signed it into law — all eyes have been on November 6, 2012.  As Bill Kristol wrote on March 22, 2010:

Mitt Romney will win.  The tie in the polls goes to the challenger. Here’s why:

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, is politicizing the clean-up of Hurricane Sandy and, he says he offered help to the Democratic mayors of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Emanuel does not appear to have made the same offer to Republican governors whose states have been hit by the storm. 

The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent.  The poll also found that Romney has an even greater advantage among middle class voters, 52 percent to 45 percent.

Attorney Gloria Allred has reportedly been planning a pre-Election Day surprise targeting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The key for the attention-seeking lawyer, it seems, is to uncover "Mitt Romney’s 1991 testimony in the divorce of Staples founder Tom Stemberg," the Boston Globe reports. But a document revealing the judge's ruling on the case in 1994 suggests the case has long been legally settled.

It’s bad enough that the administration has repeatedly cut defense spending in the midst of fighting a war but it now appears it is also shirking its duty to make sure those serving in that war are able to vote and have their vote counted.