Governo avança com privatização de 49,9% da TAP

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Murkowski to Declare Victory in Anchorage

By Scott Conroy - November 17, 2010

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is set to claim an "historic" victory in her write-in reelection campaign against Joe Miller on Wednesday night in Anchorage, Murkowski's campaign manager told RealClearPolitics.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... 07986.html

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As eleições são já amanhã!

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Why the Dow Usually Rallies After Midterm Elections

Ben Baden, On Monday October 25, 2010, 2:39 pm EDT

Democrats and Republicans may both have something to celebrate in the months following the midterm elections: A stock market rally. From 1922 to 2006, the average gain of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the 90 trading days following midterms (roughly November until mid-March) was 8.5 percent, according to a new study authored by Brian Gendreau, market strategist for Financial Network. That's almost 5 percent higher than the Dow's gains in non-election years.

Historically, the post-election period has been a good one for stocks. "So the question is, 'Did the markets go up in the midterm election years by more than average in non-election years?' Gendreau says. "And the answer is, 'Yes, by a huge amount more.'" The Dow has risen following 19 of the last 22 midterm elections.

In the weeks before midterms, the market generally tends to perform well. "The market starts to go up beforehand and it just doesn't stop," he says. And generally, the party of the president tends to do poorly in midterm elections. (Since 1942, the party in control of the White House has lost an average of 28 seats in the House and four in the Senate.) During that period, the only time the ruling party gained seats in both the House and Senate was in the 2002 elections, and the market fell afterward--making it the only time the Dow has fallen after a midterm election since 1942.

Since the midterms tend to be an equalizing force on Capitol Hill, many experts have said in the past that this proves the markets like gridlock in Congress. Gendreau offers a different explanation: The markets hate uncertainty. "Before the mid-term election there's a lot of uncertainty, and often one party swept in a lot of seats along with the presidential election and that gets reversed to some extent," Gendreau says. "Then everyone knows what the playing field is and has a better idea of what might happen going forward."

Also, after the midterms, there is generally a more balanced share of power between the president and Congress, so the chance for compromise is more likely. "The market seems to like that," he says.

So what about this year? Gendreau is the first to admit that he's not the first economist to release a survey like this. His research just covers a longer period of time. He also notes that given the ever-increasing wealth of information available to traders today, the effects of this trend may be somewhat weaker going forward. But so far this year, the Dow has been steadily rising in anticipation of the midterms, gaining about 7 percent year-to-date.

Looking further out, the year following the midterms or the president's third year in office is usually the best year for the Dow, according to an older study by Gendreau. From 1871 to 2005, the average return of the S&P Composite Stock Index during the third year of a president's term was 10.1 percent. During the fourth year in office the index was up 7.5 percent, on average--a marked improvement over average returns in the first year (3 percent), and the second (2.7 percent).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Why-the-D ... 93bWF5?x=0

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Estados Unidos: Apenas dois terços dos que votaram Obama vão escolher democratas nas eleições de novembro - sondagem

2010-10-19

Apenas dois terços das pessoas que votaram em Barack Obama nas presidenciais norte-americanas de 2008 deverão votar novamente nos democratas nas eleições parlamentares de meio do mandato a 02 de novembro, segundo uma sondagem divulgada hoje.

De acordo com o inquérito realizado pela cadeia televisiva CBS e o grupo Knowledge Networks, 67 por cento dos eleitores de Obama em 2008 dizem que vão votar nos democratas, oito por cento que escolherão agora os republicanos e 21 por cento declararam-se indecisos.

Por outro lado, a sondagem sublinha que a quota de popularidade do presidente continua alta (82 por cento), entre os que votaram nele em 2008.

Entre o eleitorado centrista ou independente (nem republicano, nem democrata), a popularidade de Obama tem decaído: apenas 42 por cento dos independentes que votaram no presidente em 2008 vão votar novamente nos democratas.

Enquanto 12 por cento indicam ir votar em candidatos republicanos, 38 por cento continuam indecisos, o que constitui uma boa notícia para os democratas face aos conservadores anunciados como os grandes vencedores das próximas eleições.

Os republicanos, que beneficiam de uma grande insatisfação dos eleitores devido a uma taxa de desemprego que continua elevada, poderão recuperar a maioria na Câmara dos Representantes ou no Senado.

A sondagem foi realizada em todo o país com uma amostra de 1077 norte-americanos que disseram ter votado em Barack Obama em 2008. A margem de erro é de mais ou menos três por cento.

http://www.correiodominho.com/noticias.php?id=36695

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Alaska Senate Race Remains Chaotic, Fluid

By Scott Conroy - September 30, 2010

There may be no other major race in this year’s election cycle that is replete with as much uncertainty as the Alaska Senate contest featuring Republican Joe Miller, Democrat Scott McAdams, and write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski

A CNN/Time poll released on Wednesday showed Miller with a narrow 38 percent to 36 percent lead over Murkowski - the incumbent senator whom he defeated in the GOP primary- with McAdams trailing far behind at 22 percent.

But the new poll and other surveys conducted to this point have raised more questions than they have answered.

Since Murkowski’s name will not appear on the ballot, it is difficult to impossible for pollsters to accurately gauge the scenario Alaskans will encounter when they enter the voting booth on November 2.

The CNN-Time poll listed Murkowski’s name when it asked likely voters whether they would write it in - a prompting from which potential Murkowski voters will not benefit when they actually cast their ballots.

Alaska pollster Dave Dittman told RealClearPolitics that beginning on Friday, he will conduct a new round of polling that will attempt to address the issue.

Dittman’s new poll will use various methodologies to test the question of whether and how to prompt voters with Murkowski’s name, and he will then evaluate and attempt to make sense of the results of each method.

“We’re not releasing anything until I feel confident,” Dittman said, adding that his poll’s results will likely be made public sometime next week.

While Miller attends fundraising events in Washington, D.C., Murkowski and McAdams are continuing to spend most of their time campaigning in the Anchorage area, which is home to about half of Alaska’s population. Trips to southeast Alaska and the town of Bethel - the largest population center in the western part of the state -have also been on their itineraries.

A Murkowski campaign official said that the senator will announce on Friday that she intends to participate in several debates against Miller and McAdams.

The Murkowksi campaign recently launched a new ad specifically designed to educate voters about the write in process, and campaign co-chair Mary Hughes has been working with the Alaska Division of Elections regarding an impending ruling from the attorney general on how the state will determine voter intent for write in ballots.

Though recent polls have shown that McAdams may be in danger of becoming marginalized in the race as independent voters flock to Murkowski, an Alaska Democratic official told RealClearPolitics that the McAdams campaign will announce that he has raised about $500,000 since the primary - a very respectable sum in a state where advertising is relatively cheap.

McAdams’ first TV ad went up on Thursday, which his campaign hopes will introduce the still largely unknown Democrat to voters.

In the last month of the campaign, McAdams’ strategy will be to define the Tea Party-backed Miller as an extremist, while attempting to mitigate Murkowski’s presence in the race.

“We have to convince people that Scott can win this and that he’s got the experience, which he does,” the Democratic official said of McAdams, who is currently the Mayor of Sitka. “He has more experience than Lisa had when she was appointed to the seat.”

The Democratic state official said that McAdams has not received financial support from the national Democratic Party, adding, “We’re doing it on our own."

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Alaska Senate - Miller vs. McAdams vs. Murkowski
Candidates

9/30/10 -- The CNN/Time poll shows a much closer race between Murkowski and Miller. Incidentally, the problem with all of this polling is that voters won't be offerred a choice between Miller, McAdams and "write-in Lisa Murkowski." It's hard to replicate the situation that voters will actually confront in the voting booth.

Regardless, the polls seem to agree that Democrat Scott McAdams is becoming a non-factor in this race. The big debate in Alaska seems to be what kind of Republican Alaska will send to Washington for the next six years.

9/28/10 -- What little polling we have seems to show Miller with a substantial lead in the three-way race. Murkowski actually seems to be splitting the anti-Miller vote with McAdams. In addition, she's having some troubles with the write-in campaign; the early campaign ad that actually misspelled her last name sums up the difficulties she faces.

----------Race Preview---------

Alaska was initially admitted to the Union as the political counter-weight to Hawaii. Alaska was supposed to be the Democratic state, while Hawaii would be the Republican state. It worked out that way for a few years, but the party loyalties quickly switched -- Alaska became a staunchly Republican state by the 1970s, while Hawaii became equally as Democratic.

In 2002, Senator Frank Murkowski was elected governor. He created a controversy when one of his earliest acts was appointing his daughter, Lisa, as his replacement. The charges of nepotism led to Lisa Murkowski's narrow 2004 Senate victory, and Frank Murkowski's defeat in the 2006 primary by Sarah Palin.

In 2010, Palin endorsed Lisa Murkowski's opponent, Joe Miller. Miller is a decorated war veteran and Yale law graduate who carries the bearing of a lumberjack. Miller prevailed in the primary and looked to be headed for a closer-than-expected election campaign against Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams. But then Murkowski announced she would conduct a write-in campaign to keep her seat. This certainly scrambles the political calculus, making this race very difficult to evaluate.

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No dia 2 de Novembro haverá eleições para o Senado norte-americano.

Para quem não sabe, o senado é composto por 100 membros, à razão de 2 membros por cada Estado.

Os mandatos são de 6 anos, contudo não começam todos ao mesmo tempo; na verdade os senadores são divididos em três grupos chamados classes, sendo que cada classe reúne cerca de um terço dos senadores. A cada dois anos há uma eleição que abrange apenas uma dessas classes, pelo que a composição do senado só muda parcialmente (mas essa mudança pode ser suficiente para alterar a maioria). Os senadores que vão a votos daqui a dois meses pertencem à classe 3.

Actualmente o senado é composto por 59 democratas (dos quais 2 são independentes) e 41 republicanos, por isso o partido democrata tem uma maioria confortável. As sondagens indicam um resultado incerto em diversos estados e sugerem que os democratas conseguirão manter a maioria mas com uma margem menor.