In what has become one of the stranger twists in an already bizarre Governor’s race, a bag of uncounted ballots was found in Bridgeport Thursday night.

Republican officials were approached by Democratic operatives and told about the surprise ballot bag, according to Bridgeport GOP Chairman Marc Delmonico.

Delmonico said Democrats asked to have several people deputized to count the uncounted ballots, but Republicans objected, claiming that wasn’t proper procedure in the vote-counting process.

Instead the GOP asked police to take custody of the bag of ballots until the matter could be sorted out.

Heh, never assume malice where incompetence will suffice… I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation, but the cynic in me wants to know the whole who, what, when, why and how of that bag before it’s counted.

More from WTNH:

Edit: I should add regardless who ultimately wins the Governors race here, there are going to be lingering doubts in about legitimacy of the election because of ballot boondoggle and the actions outgoing Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz. In short Ms. Bysiewicz shouldn’t have made any public statements about the outcome of the race until all the counting was finished and the final tallies were delivered to her office.

Related

• Cost cited in Bridgeport ballot shortage – WTNH TV
• Voter Fraud In Bridgeport? Video shows ballot bungling – Jim Vicevich

A few quick comments…

First, 5-6 to seats in the Senate where all we could realistically hope for. Anyone predicting Republicans would pick-up 10 seats and gain control of the Senate was deluding themselves.

Second, even in a wave election candidates and campaigns matter. Republicans lost winnable races in Nevada and  Colorado because of flawed candidates or bad campaigns. In Colorado Dan Maes, the Republican candidate for Governor imploded after a series of mini-scandals including revelations he had embellished his resume.

In Nevada, Sharron Angle had every advantage imaginable… She was running against Harry Reid, a wildly unpopular incumbent in a state that leads the nation in unemployment and foreclosures and she lost.

I don’t think Ms. Angel was a bad candidate, I do think she ran a bad campaign. For starters her campaign was slow to transition from the primaries to the general election and she was savaged by Harry Reid for weeks before she responded. Yes, I know she was short of cash after the primaries, but she raised and spent a record amount of money in the general election… It wasn’t a lack of money that lead to her loss — ultimately I think it was the combination the pounding she took from Sen. Reid and his allies coupled with one to many seemingly small gaffes and her unwillingness to engage the media.

I can’t overemphasize that last point… The media may be a bunch jackals, but whenever a candidate refuses to engage and answer question it leaves voters thinking they have something to hide. Whether they want to or not candidates have to engage with reporters. When they don’t voters get suspicious.

Lastly, I agree with Haley Barbour, it’s time for new leadership at the RNC. Whatever Michael Steele’s strengths the RNC was wholly ineffective in this election cycle and for that reason alone the committee needs to choose a new chairman when Mr. Steele’s term is up.

Anyway, a few interesting election tidbits… In Iowa voters fired three Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of gay marriage. Color me unsurprised, I’m agnostic on the issue of gay marriage… I think it’s an inevitability. That said, the decision to legalize  gay marriage should be made by state legislatures not the courts. If the courts are continue insert themselves into the debate and usurp what should be a legislative decision there’s going to continue to be a backlash, including calls for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

In Oklahoma voters approved a measure that would bar judges from using international law or Islamic law when deciding case. Liberals are of course incensed and threatening to sue.

Voters in Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah all approved ballot measures that would amend their state constitutions to better protect the secret ballot in organizing elections. Call it a shot across the bow of unions who are pushing for a “card check” check law that would do away with secret ballots in union organizing elections. For the most part Americans don’t like idea the government to taking away a workers’ right to a secret ballot and they certainly don’t like the idea of workers to be pressured into joining a union.

Voters in Florida Overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding resolution calling for an amendment to the Constitution that would require the federal government to balance the budget without raising taxes. This got 3.5 million votes so it can’t be dismissed  as some obscure nonbinding resolution people paid no attention to… It really is the spending, stupid.

Last but not least, according to net neutrality opponent Scott Cleland all 95 Democrats who signed the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s net neutrality pledge lost their reelection bids. I’m not sure what to read into that other than Tuesday was really bad day for Democrats. Regardless, I have to wonder when so called “net neutrality” supporters will get it through their heads that too much government regulation is the problem?

Edit: It occurs to me  I should mention the biggest winner of the night was Sarah Palin… Ms. Palin endorsed 43 House candidates and 12 Senate candidates in this election cycle. Of the candidates she endorsed, 30 won House seats and 7 won Senate seats. And their were several races still to be decided.

Sure, a couple of her higher profile candidates lost, but at a minimum that’s a 67% average.

Related

• 2010 Election Maps – ABC News
• Poll: GOP candidates top Obama in hypothetical 2012 race – Cnn.com
• President Obama still isn’t listening to the American people – Nile Gardiner, Daily Telegraph
• Racist Tea Party? GOP Welcomes Diverse Cast of Newcomers – Buy Benson, Townhall.com
• You think ’10 was tough? Check out ’12 – The Hill
• The Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward – Sarah Palin, National Review Online
• Devastation: GOP Picks Up 680 State Leg. Seats – National Journal
  

As Scott Rasmussen noted in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

Voters today want hope and change every bit as much as in 2008. But most have come to recognize that if we have to rely on politicians for the change, there is no hope. At the same time, Americans instinctively understand that if we can unleash the collective wisdom and entrepreneurial spirit of the American people, there are no limits to what we can accomplish.

In this environment, it would be wise for all Republicans to remember that their team didn’t win, the other team lost. Heading into 2012, voters will remain ready to vote against the party in power unless they are given a reason not to do so.

Elected politicians also should leave their ideological baggage behind because voters don’t want to be governed from the left, the right, or even the center. They want someone in Washington who understands that the American people want to govern themselves.

Too many of our elected leaders have forgotten that they are our elected representatives, not our rulers. They have become an arrogant and condescending “aristocracy” that is openly contemptuous and dismissive of people they represent and the Constitution they swore to bear “true faith and allegiance to”.

Hope and Change will never come Washington, it comes from us… We the People. To quote Samual Adams “It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

We are that irate, tireless minority and it’s time to make ourselves heard… Get out and Vote!

A firm handshake is usually seen as a good thing in business and even in politics.

Not so much in South Florida. A candidate for the Broward County School Board wants the cops to lock up her opponent after what she claims was akin to battery after a recent debate.

Jaemi Levine filed a complaint with the Broward Sheriff’s Office claiming David Thomas squeezed her hand so hard during a post-debate handshake Tuesday that it now hurts.

Let me guess, Ms. Levine is a Democrat?

Anyway, the Broward Sheriff’s Office reportedly hasn’t decided what to do with the complaint yet… my guess, they’re still laughing at the sheer idiocy of Ms. Levine’s complaint.

The U.S. economy grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the third quarter as consumer spending climbed the most in almost four years, a sign the expansion is developing staying power.

The increase in gross domestic product matched the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and followed a 1.7 percent gain the prior three months, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Household purchases, about 70 percent of the economy, rose at a 2.6 percent pace, the best quarter of the recovery that began in June 2009.

The only real bright stop in the report was rise in consumer spending, which rose 2.6% in the quarter. The best gain in four years. The bad news is the economy is essentially stagnant…  2.0% growth in GDP isn’t enough to create jobs, and will likely to lead to more layoffs.

Anyway, if the trend continues and the GDP numbers are revised downward next month the blame will fall on President Obama, not the lame duck Congress.

I’m not going link to Gwaker’s sleazy anonymous tell all… frankly, I’m ashamed to admit I read even part of it. Go read Michelle Malkin’s take on it or go read Tracy Clark-Flory’s Salon.com piece on it.

Even NOW has delivered a rebuke:

Sexist, misogynist attacks against women have no place in the electoral process, regardless of a particular candidate’s political ideology.

Today the tabloid website Gawker published an anonymous piece titled “I Had A One-Night Stand With Christine O’Donnell” that takes the routine sexual degradation of women candidates to a disgusting new low. NOW repudiates Gawker’s decision to run this piece. It operates as public sexual harassment. And like all sexual harassment, it targets not only O’Donnell, but all women contemplating stepping into the public sphere.

NOW/PAC has proudly endorsed women’s rights champion Chris Coons, O’Donnell’s opponent in the Delaware Senate race, and finds O’Donnell’s political positions dangerous for women. That does not mean it’s acceptable to use slut-shaming against her, or any woman.

NOW has repeatedly called out misogyny against women candidates, and this election season is no different. Let me be honest: I look forward to seeing Christine O’Donnell defeated at the polls, but this kind of sexist attack is an affront to all women, and I won’t stand for it.

Just when you think American politics can’t sink any lower some sleazy bastard grabs a shovel and starts digging… This is the single most pathetically juvenile attempted smear I’ve ever seen.

Update: A few quick updates… Gwaker reportedly paid in the “low four figures” for that crass O’Donnell hit piece. The Smoking Gun appears to have identified “Anonymous”. And AJ Strata thinks Ms. O’Donnell’s opponent, Democrat Chris Coons, will pay a “heavy price for this sick stunt.

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House in 2007, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

“After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.”

Pelosi has served as speaker in the 110th and 111th Congresses.

At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2007, Pelosi’s first day as speaker, the national debt was $8,670,596,242,973.04 (8.67 trillion), according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department.  At the close of business on Oct. 22, it stood at $13,667,983,325,978.31 (13.67 trillion), an increase of 4,997,387,083,005.27 (or approximately $5 trillion).

The President and Congressional Democrats love to criticize Republicans for “wanting to return to the policies that got us into this mess”… The problem with that argument is that Congressional Democrats have essentially doubled down on the big spending, big government policies of George W. Bush and former House Speaker Denis Hastert. Who as CNSNews notes “enjoys the distinction of having increased the debt more than any other speaker except Pelosi.” Having added $3.1 trillion to the debt during his tenure as Speaker.

To put this in to perspective it took 207 years from Frederick Muhlenberg who became the First Speaker of the House on on April 1, 1789 to February 23, 1996 more than a year into Newt Gingrich’s speakership for the amass $5 trillion in debt. Since then the national debt has skyrocketed to 13,667,624,992,210.96 (13.677 trillion) as of October 22, 2010.

The government’s current spending are unsustainable, it’s time we held our elected leaders accountable and returned to the type common sense, constitutionally limited, fiscally responsible government our founding fathers intended.

Previous

• Big Spender: Obama Has Now Borrowed $3 Trillion
• It’s the Spending, Stupid

Democrat Richard Blumenthal now leads Republican Linda McMahon by just five points in Connecticut’s race for the U.S. Senate in a survey conducted two nights after their third and final head-to-head debate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Blumenthal, Connecticut’s longtime attorney general, picking up 51% of the vote. McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, earns the vote from 46%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, while three percent (3%) are undecided.

Which one is right? We’ll find out on election day… I tend to put a little more faith in the Rasmussen poll than I do in the Quinnipiac poll just because I’m not convinced Dick Blumenthal has opened up that big of a lead at this point… I suspect this is going be very close race that’s fought down to the wire. Personally, although I’m not fan I’m pulling for Linda McMahon simply because as Ann Coulter notes “If the Bush administration ever treated terrorism suspects the way Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal treats law-abiding citizens and small businesses, even conservatives would have blanched.”

Note: in the spirit of full disclosure I should mention I was one of the 750 likely voters polled by Rasmussen last night.

Previous

• NYT: Blumenthal Lied About Vietnam Service

Related

• The Other Blumenthal Scandal – Wall Street Journal

I really can’t add anything here other than pointing you to a rather chilling analysis from Investor’s Business Daily: U.S. Won’t Recover Lost Jobs Until March 2020 At Current Pace.

This election is probably one of the most critical in history, if can’t break the Democrats hold on Congress we’re doomed to years of high unemployment, limited economic growth and diminished liberty.

If at first you don’t succeed, get some friends in high places to shut your opponents up. That’s the latest Washington power play, as Democrats and liberals attack the Chamber of Commerce and independent spending groups in an attempt to stop businesses from participating in politics.

Since the Supreme Court’s January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass legislation to repeal the First Amendment for business, though not for unions. Having failed on that score, they’re now turning to legal and political threats. Funny how all of this outrage never surfaced when the likes of Peter Lewis of Progressive insurance and George Soros helped to make Democrats financially dominant in 2006 and 2008.

Chairman Max Baucus of the powerful Senate Finance Committee got the threats going last month when he asked Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate if certain tax exempt 501(c) groups had violated the law by engaging in too much political campaign activity. Lest there be any confusion about his targets, the Montana Democrat flagged articles focused on GOP-leaning groups, including Americans for Job Security and American Crossroads.

Mr. Baucus was seconded last week by the ostensibly nonpartisan campaign reform groups Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, which asked the IRS to investigate whether Crossroads is spending too much money on campaigns. Those two outfits swallowed their referee whistle in the last two campaign cycles, but they’re all worked up now that Republicans might win more seats. Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) affiliate of American Crossroads supported by Karl Rove, is a target because it has spent millions already in this election cycle.

Where were Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center in the last election cycle Barack Obama’s campaign was accepting millions of dollars in untraceable contributions? As the Journal notes they apparently swallowed their referee whistle while that was going on, but now that Republicans and conservatives appear to be on verge of retaking Congress in November they show up and start demanding investigations of conservative groups?

Regardless, when you combine these investigative requests with President Obama’s recent (and apparently baseless) attack on the Chamber of Commerce we appear to have reached a new low in American political discourse. Never mind that such attacks are beneath a sitting president, they smack of of same sort transparent McCarthyite tactics that Democrats love to accuse Republicans of using. It’s impossible to ignore the unprecedented level of hypocrisy here… never mind that Democrats are using the exact tactics they regularly attribute to Republicans. Barack Obama ran on the explicit central promise of uniting and healing the nation, instead his administration done nothing but divide us by resorting to the same tired class warfare rhetoric that Democrats have always used. If the President wishes to blame someone for the predicament Democrats now find themselves in he needs look no further than his own failed leadership.

It’s a sad testament to the character of the President and the Democratic Party that they’ve sunk to using the basest of political tactics — leveling baseless charges with the intention of damaging their opponents in the final weeks of a campaign to try and blunt what appears a coming Republican landslide… It’s beyond despicable. It smacks of desperation… and worse yet it only serves to deepen divides this administration has already created.

Update (October 12, 2010 @ 11:30 a.m.): Ed Morrissey hits the nail precisely on the head over at Hot Air this morning:

It’s not just “Democrats” who are demanding that the Chamber of Commerce prove itself innocent.  It’s the executive branch of the American government demanding it, including its two top officers, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.  They have publicly accused the Chamber of illegal operations without a shred of evidence, basing their official actions on an unsubstantiated allegation from John Podesta at the Center for American Progress.  That is nothing short of an attempt by this administration to intimidate its political opponents into silence.

That is an unconscionable affront to the rule of law, and it reeks of the McCarthyism that the Left supposedly reviles.  Without a public price paid for this attack on dissent from the highest offices in the government, this will become the norm and we will be less free as a result.

Ed’s right, the Democrats have been trying to criminalize political differences for years… And this is the result. If we don’t back push back it’s only matter time before they succeed and we find our liberties gone.

Related

• Rove, Gillespie Slam Obama for Spreading ‘Baseless Lie’ Over Foreign Contributions – Foxnews.com
• White House staff exodus exposes Obama to charges of disarray – The Guardian
• Why Obama Is Losing the Political War – Mark Halperin, Time.com
• Some Democrats uneasy with attacks on Chamber of Commerce – Los Angeles Times