Talk:2006 United States House of Representatives elections/Archive 1

message: I removed the statement concerning the election to replace the near iconic Marchi helping mobilize Staten Island's Republican vote and thus ensure Fossella's re-election, because it won't.  If anything it partitions the party.
Marchi handpicked his chief of staff and former Staten Island Republican Party chairman Robert Helbock to be his successor, but councilman Andrew Lanza has decided to run as well.   Helbock already has the Conservative party nomination and has said he would run under that banner in November even if he loses the Republican primary to Lanza.  Helbock despite being an insider, doesn't have much of a base and is expected to lose to Lanza.  If Helbock manages to prevent Lanza from getting 40 percent of the vote in the general election, the once long shot Democratic candidate Matt Titone could sneak in with an upset.  
The openly gay son of a prominent Staten Island judge, Titone was originally drafted to be the sacrificial lamb against Marchi, and many expected him to lose 80-20.  By the time he formerly accepted the nomination however, Marchi decided to retire and suddenly because of lack of Republican unity, Titone has more than a fighting chance at replacing Marchi.  24.168.108.195
Removing NY'13th district from the list of competitive races, which I restored was an act of partisan vandalism.  This is a highly competitive race despite the editors removing and stating that its not.  
Without even factoring in recent media coverage of campaign finance misdeeds and use of tax payer money for promotional mailings by the incumbent Fossella, this probably going to the closest race Vito has had to face.
Fossellla won by only 33,000 votes in 2004 in a presidential election year, which usually yields 40 percent greater turnout than in off years.  All things being equal (and there are many variables that indicate all things are not equal such a Bush's low approval ratings) the margin shrinks 20,000.  Despite low voter turnout even in presidential years, there are 500,000 adults 18+ residing in the district, which means a 20,000 vote margin is not difficult to overcome if some of the non voting 330,000 turnout.  If the negative media coverage continues, Fosella may be in serious trouble.  
I am going to fix this article into what it was meant for, competitive races and not their primaries. This means that not every state will be represented because not all races are competitive.72.84.30.102 07:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable Races

message: I believe that this page and the U.S. Senate election, 2006 would be much better organized by alpha state.  Any comments?
--Noitall 03:15, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
I approve. - The Kooky One 00:09, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree, but I'm wondering if we can create a page that is a complete list of all 435 races.  This page is good for open seats and notable races, but we need somewhere people can go for a complete list.  Chadlupkes 01:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Seeing no objection, I'll start it myself.  I'm going to follow the pattern from the 2004 elections, and create a page that can be renamed or merged with the existing article after the election is over.  I'm going to copy over the 2004 list, and start to modify it with those election results.  I'll probably need some help with that  :) Chadlupkes 00:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: State Organization

message: This article is not a news source. We don't need to have every minor tracking poll listed. Wikinews is more appropriate for daily tracking polling.
"There are lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
--8bitJake 19:28, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not a daily news source 

message: I added this article to the :Category:Terri Schiavo and User:Marskell removed it.  Terri Schiavo is an excellent tool for studing the candidates, but User:Marskell, who is a Canadian, would prefer that we U.S. citizens vote in ignorance.  I am adding the category back in and I expect the admins to intervene and stop this crazy man if he continues to destroy my work. I note that, while a Canadian citizen, he prefers to live in country that does not know Democracy. Perhaps his time over there has effected his judgement in some adverse way.  -- Pinktulip 14:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I, an American citizen and registered voter, do not think that this article should be in the Schiavo category. Let individuals or institutions related to that affair be in the category, but not a future event. I will remove this article from the category. It seems to me that your POV regarding Canada and regarding American politics may be affecting your actions in this matter. NatusRoma 01:07, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Under duress, I came up with a more creative, and condescending solution for which you have no reasonable means of resistance: :Category:Terri Schiavo minor players .  -- 71.198.189.137 04:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Condescension is hardly appropriate here. Nor is Wikipedia a place for "Rorschach Tests". The involvement of politicians such as Frist and DeLay in the Schiavo case is noted in their articles. Including this article in a Schiavo-related category presumes via a crystal ball that her case will prove to be a major issue in these elections. That cannot be effectively judged until after the fact, and original research cannot be what leads us to include it before or after. NatusRoma 04:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I want the extra functionality of STARTING at the Terri Schiavo page and then browsing to the other people.  Kinda of like that review of Watergate that the Washington Post did with all those profiles.  In politics, you start with the ISSUE, and then you hunt down the PEOPLE who DID anything about the issue. Not all, but a LOT of it works that way because it is ISSUES that get traction, drag a lot of people into them and go kablooy.  Like the way Terry Schiavo attracted all those religious, right-wing politicians to make fools of themselves with them passing unconstitutional laws and whatnot.  -- Pinktulip 07:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is certainly valuable, but it is not a valid function for this encyclopedia. Government involvement in the Terri Schiavo case has links to the prominent figures involved if you want a place to start. NatusRoma 21:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terri Schiavo as [[Rorschach Test]] 

message: A non registered user from 24.164.148.158 is hell bend on taking out text and is being disingenuous with his edits with claiming that his is not taking text out. I suggest locking the article for a while. 
--8bitJake 00:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vand Edits from 24.164.148.158 

message: Democrats being perceived as being weak on security is a valid reason for possible Republican wins. This fact should not be edited out.24.164.148.158 23:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair Balance

message: The "Current Speculation" section is horribly written and unencyclopedic.  I suggest that it should be deleted, but for now I'm going to move it to the end of the article so it doesn't get in the way of the actually useful information. --Ajdz 05:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest there needs to be something somewhere about major factors that might influence the parties and election, however I don't know where it should go. 68.39.174.238 08:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's better at the end so people get to the actual races first.  Another concern with this page is the fact that it is more than twice the recommended article length.  Currently: "This page is 73 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size." I'd try to cut some of it back but I don't want to deal with the misplaced outrage from editors attached to their favorite parts of the litany of POV attacks. --Ajdz 05:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can see leaving it @ the end with a link somewhere in the heading to it. I've done some work adding citation signal tags to the (vast majority) of speculations that need them and formatting the ones that have them. Personally I'm not so strongly annoyed by its presence, just its near total lack of backing up. 68.39.174.238 13:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Current Speculation" 

message: This article seems a little too left-leaning. Does anyone have some thoughts about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Betty Yves (talk • contribs) 
:The "Current speculation" section is definitely bad, as I noted above.  It so poorly written as to hardly be worth fixing.  The rest is probably a result of the leanings of the editors.  It is far easier to trash a candidate than to come up with anything good (or to recognize unencyclopedic trash if you're not from the district). --Ajdz 06:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good luck. --Ajdz 06:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: It is definitely questionable, and to be complete it would have to be far too long for the article.  After all, all politics are local.  I initially moved it from the beginning to the end so that it wouldn't get away of the truly useful information, but with the article already more than twice the recommended size (currently 79k) something should go. --Ajdz 04:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was asked by User:Adjz to comment on my recent reversion. Upon further review, I have no problem with the edit. It appears as though the edit was made after discussion on the talk page. I was doing RC patrol and noticed that a huge chunk of text was taken out of the article (a signature of vandalism). The edit was also made by an edit without a user page (another signature) with very few edits (yet another signature). On top of that, there was no edit summary regarding the rationale for the change, considering the text removed appeared to be significant to the article's content (signature #4). Usually, when there are four signs of vandalism, as there were in that case, that means it is vandalism. Unfortunately, that was not the case in this incident. Feel free to remove the content if that is what you see fit (although an edit summary would be helpful to those looking through the history in the future). joturner 04:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutral? 

message: There has been discussion lately about the appropriateness of this section. I will be going out-of-town for the next 5 days, but in my absence I highly encourage the frequent editors of this section to realize the need (and act upon it) to permanently remove this section. Its existence violates:
  NPOV (nuetral point of view)
- No one can truly say how or even if the listed items will affect voters
Types of bias include:
Ethnic or racial bias, including racism, nationalism and regionalism. 
Corporate bias, including advertising, coverage of political campaigns in such a way as to favor corporate interests, and the reporting of issues to favor the interests of the owners of the news media. 
Class bias, including bias favoring one social class and bias ignoring social or class divisions. 
Political bias, including bias in favor of or against a particular political party or candidate. 
Religious bias, including bias in which one religious viewpoint is given preference over others. 
Sensationalism, which is bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary. This includes the practice whereby exceptional news may be overemphasized, distorted or fabricated to boost commercial ratings. 
Geographical bias which may for example describe a dispute as it is conducted in one country without knowing that the dispute is framed differently elsewhere. 
The presence of this section is biased on several of the basses listed above
Wikipedia articles are not:
Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view. You might wish to go to Usenet or start a blog if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views. You can also use Wikinfo which promotes a "sympathetic point of view" for every article. 
This article is adversely some ones' political movement.
Please permanently honor my deletion of this section of the article.
:It's impossible to "permanently honor" anyones edits to anything, barring extraordinary intervention (Which has happened probably less then 5 times total). 68.39.174.238 07:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current Speculation 

message: Ajdz,
It wouldn't bother me if the Hitler thing was removed.  The prior edit was inflammatory and inaccurate in my opinion, so I figured I would make it acceptable to those who might feel its necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Montco (talk • contribs) 
:Thanks, your revision was an definitely improvement.  I just went beyond that after reading the details in the Cole article. I'm not sure if Cole should even be mentioned in this article without an opponent. --Ajdz 00:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tom Cole

message: I'm not entirely sure I see how he deserves to be on the "vulnerable incumbents" list, as a long time resident of Lake Arrowhead, planted firmly in the 41st district, I've heard nothing that hints at his being vulnerable. Can I get any justification for his being on the list? Imdugud 22:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your input. Do you know what the unsourced claim of "misconduct" is?  The Abramoff reference is probably dubious as well. --Ajdz 00:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems to me like the original points were lifted from a Daily Kos post here  and I've heard no connections to Abramoff. The "major" opponent's website is rather scant, , with its last update in early December of 2005, and I see very few references to him on the web, aside from a Daily Kos posting or two and a short DCCC action page . Considering the sheer size of the "Inland Empire," the length of the incumbent's term of service, and how very Republican the area has been for many years, I see no current evidence for even a close election.Imdugud 01:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to go ahead and delete it since no one is stepping forward to give good reasons for this to be a vulnerable seat. --Ajdz 06:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jerry Lewis

message: I tried to rewrite but ultimately removed this section because it doesn't seem to say anything relevant.  
Influences
Since the only nationally directly elected office in the United States is that of the President (Who still has two more years of his term), much of the influences of the outcomes of the races is based on a state level for Senators, and regional/district level for Representants. In sparsely populated states such as Wyoming or Vermont, this IS the state.
It could be summed up as "Statewide races are influenced by statewide issues."  Is there something we need here, maybe to explain better to people that aren't very familiar with American elections? --Ajdz 06:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Morelike "Races are determined more by local or at most state issues rather then national issues because all Federal legislators are constituency based." (Rather then say, party list proportional). That and the "all 435 are up" would make a pretty fair summary for this page. 68.39.174.238 05:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influences 

message: It should be merged here under the new section heading, "Complete List".—Markles 12:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if all the content and commentary in United States House elections, 2006 is deleted.  Both articles are already excessively long (United States House elections, 2006 - 79k) (United States House election, 2006 complete list - 78k, not including district maps). --Ajdz 14:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I concur. All the speculative stuff will be eliminated after the election, anyway.  The maps can be deleted now, and a link to List of United States congressional districts provided instead.—Markles 15:11, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm concerned about the length of the pages as well.  I originally created the complete list page to help us put it together, with the intention of switching 'complete list' with this page, and this page to an archive or comment page about the important elections on this page.  Chadlupkes 02:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mergefrom [[United States House election, 2006 complete list]] proposed 

message: What I would like to see is a simple list showing which candidates are standing down in 2006 Harry Hayfield 18:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incumbents 

message: It says that there are 30 open races, but I can only find 29: Jim Kolbe, Bill Thomas, Joel Hefley, Bob Beauprez, Michael Bilirakis, Jim Davis, Katherine Harris, Ed Case, C.L. Otter, Henry Hyde, Lane Evans, Jim Nussle, Ben Cardin, Martin Sabo, Mark Kennedy, Tom Osborne, Jim Gibbons, Major Owens, Sherwood Boehlert, Michael G. Oxley, Ted Strickland, Sherrod Brown, Ernest Istook, Bill Jenkins, Harold Ford Jr., Bernard Sanders, Mark Green; and two vacant seats. Am I missing someone out? Jack Daw 17:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Open races? 

message: Does anyone really consider this race (at-large seat) to be at all competitive?  Here's the biography of the Republican candidate, running against a very popular Democratic incumbent.  Seems like a slam-dunk, and thus not a race to be listed (the page needs shortening, yes?).  John Broughton 21:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, hearing nothing, I've deleted it.  John Broughton 23:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is South Dakota listed? 

message: I have never heard this district being circulated as a target by Democrats. Additionally the added commentary has nothing to do with the 2006 Elections. At the very least it should be cleaned up. Massrepublican 27 July 2006
Alligators will ballroom dance before the Democrats win this district or Texas 2nd. I notice someone revmoved PA 12. Now I suspect Murtha will win that seat, and perhaps by a wide plurality, but it is a far more interesting race than some unknown Netroots guy running a hopeless race in a 65% opposition party district on party line talking points. Diane Irey is certainly drawing national media attention from the right side of the spectrum. But does that matter here?
Alright, I suspect it was just anti-Crenshaw properganda. Im going ahead and removing it. --Massrepublican 16:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW, CQ Politics rates FL-4 as "safe GOP", and PA-12 as "safe Dem".  -- Sholom 04:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is Florida 4th listed? 

message: I started a page for Tramm Hudson, the leading contender in the Republican primary for Krazy Katherine's seat. He has some racial issues of his own. Richardjames444 15:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Florida 13th Congressional race 

message: Anyone know to ensure POV isn't getting pushed? The Diana Irey article, for exmaple is getting hit, and it'd be nice to have some collective eyes. C56C 22:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  is there a vandalsim watch list of candiate articles?  

message: I'm a little concerned about the quote that is in there and where it is attributed to. Simply stating, until such time as the citation is put forth, it should not be even in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kagurae (talk • contribs) 
:The source of the quote is given at the end of the paragraph (viz., it comes from CQPolitics.com) -- Sholom 14:02, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oregon's 5th 

message: Someone added the claim that Jim Ryun is losing to the Democrat.  I have maked it dubious claim because the Kansas 2nd District is large district that stretches from Nebraska to Oklahoma in Kansas, one of the most Republican states in the country.  Other than Topeka and a small part of Lawrence there really is not any areas that a Democrat could hope to win.  Also, Ryun is the former world record holder for the one mile and he attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, neutralizing any advantage that a Democrat might possibly have in Lawrence.  The editor did not provide a citation for the claim so I have marked it.  Without a verifiable citation in a few days I am going to remove the dubious claim  Also, Ryun has way more money in the bank than the Democrat and Ryun defeated the Democrat last time.--Getaway 02:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kansas' 2nd