The 2010 election cycle starts in earnest today.

Voters go to the polls today in Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio in one of the busiest days on the 2010 primary calendar. The tri-state voting also will initiate a five-week burst of election activity that will see 23 states hold primaries and three states hold special House elections.

Today’s returns will provide the clearest sign to date of the mood of the electorate six months before the midterm elections as well as test the clout of the political establishment and the national parties that have promoted preferred candidates in some contested primaries.

Today, and in the weeks to come, we should get a sense of the real political mood of the country. It’s going to be an interesting 26 weeks.

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I have a new post up at Reclaim Conservatism. Here’s a taste.

Looking at the results from yesterday’s elections I see different meaning in the different races we all were following. It’s almost as if people are individuals with differing outlooks and ideas of what is important. (Yes, that was sarcasm)

Please go over and read the whole thing and leave your comments. While you’re there why not add Reclaim Conservatism to your feed reader and/or blogroll, and follow @ReclaimCons on Twitter. Thanks.

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Doug Ross peers into a crystal ball and “reports” the news from the 2010 elections.

Read the post and see if you aren’t a little bit fearful of what could very easily be true.

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I have not participated in early voting. I like going to the polling place on election day and filling out my ballot. There is something special about voting that I enjoy, the idea that I contributed to the system that helps make our country the greatest on earth.

And while I’ve done my small part in trying to articulate why voting for McCain-Palin is the right thing to do, and that casting a vote for Obama-Bidden is a huge mistake, I realize that the only vote that I have complete control over is mine. What matters now isn’t the polls, isn’t the endless ads, and it isn’t the non-stop talking heads. What matters now is my vote.

Like everyone else, I get one vote; one opportunity to use my voice to say how I think our country should be governed. I don’t get an extra vote because I am such an influential member of the new media and all around good guy. My ballot isn’t counted less because I don’t have the money to pay the internet and electric bills. I get one long sheet of paper that gives me the right and the opportunity to have my choices count.

It’s a right I cherish.

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You need one to cash a check. It’s a necesity if you want to drive a car. Unless you look as old as I do (and if that’s the case, I’m sorry) you need one to buy and adult beverage or a pack of cigarettes. If you want to rent an apartment, a hotel room, or even a dvd from the video store you better have one.

It’s what most sixteen year olds can’t wait to get. I had to wait until I was seventeen in NJ. I’ve had one now for over thirty years from three different states.

It is the most common form of personel identification — the state issued photo id.

The House passed a bill to require an ID before voting.

Republican sponsors of the voter identification bill said it was a commonsense way to stop fraud at the polls. People need photo IDs to board planes, buy alcohol or cash checks, said Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Administration Committee. “This is not a new concept.”

This is just comon sense. So naturaly there are those on the left who are already having a cow.

But Democrats assailed the legislation, saying it could hurt minorities, the poor and the elderly — groups that tend to vote Democratic — who might have trouble producing a photo identification.

“This bill is tantamount to a 21st century poll tax,” said Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “It will disenfranchise large number of legal voters.”

Sorry, but I’ve gotta call BS on that.

It’s not going to hurt minorities.
It’s not going to hurt the poor.
It’s not going to hurt the elderly.
It’s not tantamount to a 21st century poll tax
It’s not going to disenfranchise large numbers of legal voters.

It will help prevent fraud. You lefties are against fradulent voting, aren’t you?

Don Surber put it this way:

Let us uphold My Rights as a voter not to have my vote dilluted by felons, foreigners and frauds.

[...]

I hope the Senate makes voter photo ID the law of the land. If necessary, amend the U.S. Constitution. Voter fraud undermines the Republic.

Yes, it does.

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For a while I was concerned about the 2006 and 2008 elections. The more I hear the left speak, the less worried I become. Perhaps it is my unique sense of humor (some say bizarre, some say off beat, some say warped. Take your pick) but I just find the things the left says totally funny. Take this story about potential 2008 Presidential candidate Christopher Dodd:

He [Dodd] went on to rouse the group with a speech that criticized the war in Iraq, called for a minimum wage increase, stressed the need for alternative fuels, declared education as the nation’s most important issue, promised to protect Social Security and pointed out problems in the health care system.

Dodd said people are “nauseated” by the country’s polarization under President Bush.

Maybe it’s just me, but those two paragraphs together are just funny. Don’t you need two polls to be polarizing?

But I really laughed when I read this paragraph:

Jacqulyn Mack, 36, of Sarasota said she likes New York Sen. Hillary Clinton but questions whether she can win the presidency and would love to see a run by former Vice President Al Gore, who lost the presidency in 2000 after Florida’s five-week recount gave Bush a 537-vote win.

She questions whether Hillary can win the presidency and would love to see a run by Al Gore? Al Gore was wide left when he lost and has fallen off the farthest left side of this warming world in the six years since.

Oh, please DemocRATS, please get Gore to run again. If laughter is the best medicine I won’t need Medicare.

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GOP Bloggers is once again running their unique straw poll. For each candidate you can choose either acceptable or unacceptable. The net results will be tallied, showing not only preferences but also each candidates net acceptability.

Votes will be tallied by web site (so you can see how readers of a particular blog voted) and as an overall total. VOTE!

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Coffee, according to the women of Denmark, is to the body what the Word of the Lord is to the soul. ~ Isak Dinesen

Confederate Yankee Cohen Blames Israel — “Cohen rails against “the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims,” in a land where Jews predated the very existence of Islam by more than three millennia. It was only during the first two centuries AD that the Jews were forced from their ancestral homes in Israel and into slavery around the world, and it wasn’t until after then that Muslims usurped Israeli lands.”

Wizbang (Jay Tea) If you wanna send a message, use Western Union — “One does not wage war to “send a message.” One wages war to kill people, people who pose a demonstrated threat. And wages war until that threat is gone, or you can’t fight any longer.”

Blue Crab Boulevard Culture Of Corruption — “I’ve said it repeatedly, anyone who is in favor of blocking requirements for positive ID when voting is in favor of vote fraud. Period. You can dress that particular duck up in anything you like, try to make it sound all high-minded and very self-righteous. At the end of the day it is still a duck. Requiring an ID to vote is common sense. Forbidding the use of IDs is voter fraud.”

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