Primary Results in Illinois and Florida

Lost in all the discussion over the Illinois primaries was the fact that Florida had a special primary for its 19th Congressional District yesterday. That cleared the way to elect a replacement for Rep. Wexler, who ostensibly retired to head up a think tank (the fact that he serially cheated on his wife, a la Edwards, and had no hope of re-election, of course had nothing to do with it). Despite the claims in this NPR story, the three GOP candidates have recently begun to rise in the polls against the potential Democratic challengers. Edward Lynch, who is well known among local GOP voters, won the Republican primary (Florida holds closed primaries), while Ted Deutch (a State Senator who also has high name recognition) won the Democratic primary. Florida's primary primary (it begged to be said) is August 24. At this point, Gov. Charlie Crist looks likely to lose the primary (to replace former Sen. Mel Martinez, who abruptly resigned last year) to State Representative Marco Rubio. Both men are polling well ahead of the main Democratic challenger, Kendrick Meek.

In Illinois, the most closely watched race was probably the primary for US Senate. Kirk won the Republican primary while Giannoulias won the Democratic primary. Kirk has an excellent reputation among state GOP voters, and in a state where just about every level of government is dominated by the Democratic party that has presided over multiple corruption scandals and failures, more conservative candidates have an excellent chance of picking off some key positions in November. The primary race to replace Blogo has yet to be called for either party.

The most recent RCP averages show polling trends generally swinging against the Democratic party, and in specific races, against the party establishment on both sides of the fence. I can't help but think this is healthy, both for the parties (which have become far too complacent and moribund) and for the country as a whole. It's going to be a fascinating election cycle to watch.

Oops - We Guessed Wrong But Don't Worry, We Know What We're Doing

According to the AP: 'Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that "everyone guessed wrong" on the impact of the economic stimulus, but he defended the administration's spending designed to combat rising joblessness. Biden said inaccuracies in unemployment predictions shouldn't undercut the White House's support of the $787 billion economic revival plan that has not met the expectations of President Obama's team. Instead, the vice president urged skeptics to look at teachers who kept their classroom assignments and police officers who kept their beats because of financial assistance from Washington. "The bottom line is that jobs are being created that would not have been there before," Biden said.'

Oh really? I notice two immediate problems with Biden's statements.  First, he conflates jobs created with jobs saved ("... teachers who kept their ... assignments and police officers who kept their beats" with "... jobs are being created that would not have been there before.").  Second, he fails to even claim (much less back up) that the stimulus plan is the best way to save or create jobs, and doesn't bother to look at the possibility that the jobs claimed as a victory by the White House may be unrelated to the stimulus dollars.  In other words, it's a lot of hot air (no offense intended to Ed Morrisey).

We've gone from millions of promised jobs to 600,000, and no one really knows how many jobs have been gained or retained.  The Wall Street Journal stated: 'Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures "jobs saved." As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama's jobs claims are "based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs." Nice work if you can get away with it.'

Are 600,00 jobs worth $787 billion in stimulus (not to mention the budget expenditures)?  Is it worth it to the country to spend billions per job?  One would thinks that if we're willing to spend billions on 600,000 jobs, we'd be willing to spread that wealth around in tax cuts.

In one of the states hit hardest by the recession, Michigan, residents report that they see no effect from the $3.8 billion allocated to date.  Ditto for here in Florida.  Our dysfunctional sister, California, is unable to move or decide, and we're spending billions on fictional numbers.  Mr. Biden, there's just no getting around the fact that your team (and your boss) doesn't know the first thing about creating, saving or counting jobs.