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Sunday, October 29, 2006

Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?

Posted by DavidNYC

Man, so we did it - we raised $1.5 million on the netroots page, meaning we took in over $300K on Friday alone. Wow!

Anyhow, only two more of these open threads until election day. See any interesting, late-breaking fundraising reports? Let us know.

Posted at 10:00 PM in Open Threads | Technorati

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KY-2 KS-2 NH-2 Club of Growth districts

KY-2 is Mike WEAVER against Dem incumbent Ron LEWIS. Mike WEAVER is hateful and bigotted and unworthy of national party support after he stated publicly that Liberals were pedophiles. Baptist Minister Ron LEWIS was the one who brought up tolerance, not Democrat nominee Mike WEAVER. After what WEAVER stated I could never support him quite frankly.

KS-2 However because the DCCC has finally realized Nancy BOYDA is a significant threat to incumbent Jim RYUN I can look past KY-2. Nancy's ground game is in high gear and RYUN is a complacent incumbent who is media shy because he is gaff prone. It might take a wave election to knock him off, but lucky for us, 2006 is showing signs of being a wave election.

NH-2 Robert NOVAK was spinning this race as a lost cause due to incumbent lethargy. I was shocked how pessimistic NOVAK was quite frankly. HODES really does have a chance against BASS here and I am glad to see DCCC spending here even if it is late in the game.

Club of Growth

Anyone else notice how many seats were softened up for potential Democratic takeover after Club of Growth intervention in the GOP primaries?

RI-Senate CHAFEE never recovered from the pounding he took from CoG favorite Steve LAFFEY.

NB-3 Scott KLEEB v. Adrian SMITH This district was not on many people's list of possible takeovers until the primary left Adrian SMITH the winner of a nasty primary.

NV-2 Jill DERBY v. Dean HELLER. HELLER just nosed past CoG favorite Sharron ANGLE in the primary. HELLER spent everything he had holding off the CoG favorite and this allowed Jill DERBY to successfully define herself to the district after the primary as HELLER had to raise funds before he could go back on the air. This district is a tremendous election day upset choice because the state GOP is throwing their resources into NV-3 to protect John PORTER in the true swing district. The thinking reported is if HELLER loses it would be easier to retake NV-2 than NV-3 which might be lost for some time if HAFEN upsets PORTER. If we are lucky we just might take both these Nevada seats. Am watching Nevada for certain on election night.

And then there is the most improbable close election of all ID-1 Bill SALI v. Larry GRANT. The locals are truly hacked off at the CoG and feel their right to choose was interfered with. Bill SALI is detested, by other Republicans, and the CoG methodolgy of choosing who to back via questionaires backfired big time. I have relatives in this district who brought up CoG without any prompting by me. The anger up there is very real. Couple all the above with the astonishingly lousy Gubernatorial campaign GOP nominee Butch OTTER has run, which unbelievably put the Idaho Gov race into play. The GOP in Idaho has been out right incompetent from top to bottom in 2006 and the Club of Growth helped create the mess in Idaho.

About the only district where they seem to have backed a candidate supportable by the broad range of Republicans occurred in Mich-7 where CoG favorite Tim WALBERG took down incumbent Joe SCHWARZ in the primary. SCHWARZ was bitter, but nothing suggests that WALBERG will lose this seat thus far. The one true success story of the CoG in 2006.

Anyone else have thoughts about the impact of the Club of Growth in 2006?

Posted by: walja at October 28, 2006 04:32 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

For what it's worth, Weaver apologized for what he said and claimed it was misconstrued, but ill-advised, sarcasm.

I agree, though, that if he'll be elected, he's likely to be a very conservative Democrat. His campaign doesn't seem to be scoring the hits that it needs to, but oh well--he was never that high on the target list to begin with.

Posted by: James L. at October 28, 2006 04:47 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

NV Gov:

Over the past few months Republican Jim Gibbons has outspent Titus by millions of dollars, calling her "Dina Taxes" in his camapign ads (though Gibbons voted for the same tax increase cited in the ads). Titus was down 10% a few weeks ago. But now...

The Nevada Governor's race looks like it could fall into the Democratic colum after two big scandals for the Republican frontrunner.

The latest Reno newspaper poll puts the race at:
R-Jim Gibbons: 47
D-Dina Titus: 41
Undecided: 6

The above poll was taken BEFORE the woman who accused him of assult went public with a press conference AND before the illegal alien nanny scandal broke.

Titus now is using the illegal immigrant nanny scandal in her latest ad. Titus ad here. Titus refuses to comment on the other scandal (though she said that it shows bad judgment). Next week Titus will come out with a positive ad, setting herself up to be a great alternative for those who are wary of voting for Gibbons.

Posted by: mbcarl at October 28, 2006 06:21 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

This afternoon I'm off to a rally in Virginia with Jim Webb, Gov. Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, and northern Virginia Democratic congressional candidates Jim Moran (VA-08 incumbent), Andy Hurst (VA-11 challenger), and Judy Feder (VA-10 challenger). I recruited a couple of other people to go along, and we'll be doing a lit drop after that.

It was great to see Feder added to the DCCC Red-to-Blue list, though of course earlier would have been better. I hope she makes good use of the additional money.

Posted by: KCinDC at October 28, 2006 09:47 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Over at Blue America we've been all about congressional races from day one-- and this weekend we're doing one last drive for Tony Trupiano (MI-11) to raise money for a one-week TV ad campaign. Meanwhile, our special guest today at Firedoglake is Marc Dann, the Ohio State Senator who helped exposed that state's Republican Culture of Ultimate Corruption and who is running for Attorney General. He has a fascinating story.

Posted by: DownWithTyranny at October 28, 2006 02:00 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I am excited about Ohio. It looks like the Republican rejection is going to cut deeper than previously thought. In OH-5 Robin Weirauch is polling within 8 points of a 18 year incumbent Paul Gillmor. Please check her out and give her some love she is campaigning in a 16 county district that covers most of northwest Ohio. I think we are going to have alot to celebrate on November 7th.

Posted by: BrianL at October 28, 2006 08:00 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

CFG's spending spree and vicious gop primaries, which they enabled,may have netted them some candidate wins, however I think most of them are going to be unsuccessful in the general election. This,because CFG temds to go against the populist/libertarian nature of those albeit republican districts.
Therefore I think, Grant, Kleeb and Fawcett are well poised to take those districts. The CFG did a shoddy job in the arena of candidate quality, e.g. Sali. The Dems have had good fortune in their selections. In those races where the CFG was unable to pull off a primary win,e.g. Laffey & Angle, the damage they did in the primary may well result in Dems taking those gop seats.

The one sad example is MI-07 where the CFG was successful in unseating Cong. Shwarz-R, however, the Dem Primary did not result in a strong upper tier candidate with fundraising, etc. abilities to take advantage of the situation. (This is a District to target in 2008)

The CFG's pro-corporate & neocon nutjob morality won't play so well in most of these general election races.

Posted by: Predictor at October 28, 2006 09:35 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Still NY-13. Stephen Harrison just picked up the NY Times endorsement and appeared on MSNBC recently.

So I'm partial because I live in the district. We should not have a Bush lackey representing New York City of all places.

Daily Kos NY-13 tag
Retaking NY-13
Blue Spot blog

Stephen Harrison's web site
(Donate/Volunteer)

Posted by: NYGreg at October 29, 2006 01:11 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

NY-13: The Staten Island Advance (the dominant local paper, I'm told) also just provided an excellent run down of the policy issues between the two. Between that and the issues discussed in the NY Times endorsement all the major issues of this race have been touched upon in the media. I don't see how someone can read both of those and not vote for Harrison if their vote was ever realistically in play to begin with. I hope they get wide exposure and bring the Republican-voting Democrats on SI home, in which case we'd win easily. Maybe wishful thinking, but it's a wave year and this seat can certainly flip in the right circumstances.

Posted by: NYGreg at October 29, 2006 10:23 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

The Republican machine has stepped up negative adds here in missouri and it is paying off. Claire had a 2-3 point lead and now is trailling by the same. I hope she and the DSCC can step it up and counter this last week or I am affraid she loses by "that much".
Every race around the country is very important. Good luck to everyone.

Posted by: Kyle SF at October 29, 2006 10:38 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

NY State has just been remarkable this cycle Alan Hevesi B.S. excepted. All twenty of our incumbents Safe! All nine Republicans seriously challenged with none Safe, Two Likely R, Two Leaning R, Two Toss Ups and Three Leaning D! I rank Arcuri in NY24 as our strongest pickup for the Boehlart open seat. I think that Massa in NY 29 and Hall in NY 19 are the next two. Maffei NY25, Davis NY26, Gillibrand NY20 round out the five leaning D or Toss ups. I really am closest to the Dave Mejias NY 03 and feel that the momentum is there for a real huge vistory. Until yesterday I respected the efforts of Harrison in NY13 but thought his Fossello and Bob Johnson against McHugh were the two leqast likely to score. Than I read about Matt Titone's strong campaign for the open SI John Marchi State Senate race and the NY Times endorsement of Harrison and suddenly NY13 looks eminently doable! There is actually a chance that ALL NINE Republicans go down on election day. My bet is that a minimum of five will lose. In any event NY by itself will be one third to one hal the gains needed to retake the house! What are your thoughts?

Posted by: politics64 at October 29, 2006 11:47 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Here's the most important thing to remember for the races that we made competitive, but don't end up winning - we really made the incumbents blow their war chests this cycle! If we keep the pressure on, and fundraise early and well, and the winds stay favorable, we can pick off the ones we just missed in 2008!

Posted by: X Stryker at October 29, 2006 04:13 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Can't say enough about Tony Trupiano in MI-11. He's got many hundreds of volunteers gearing up for a final GOTV effort, and he may finally get some friendly TV airtime (unconnected with his campaign) thanks to the Blue America folks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq1ViumyvvM

Last week McCotter "donated" $250,000 from his war chest to the national party, to help them shore up other districts. The amount of arm-twisting involved in that donation is unknown...perhaps Thaddeus is overconfident, or perhaps he expects that his star will rise in the 110th Congress if he's reelected.

Doesn't matter. If we continue the work we started, HE WILL LOSE ON NOVEMBER 7, and it will be the Netroots that made it possible!

Posted by: helzapoppn at October 30, 2006 11:14 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

NB-3

Wow, Kos posted internals for Nebraksa-3 and they have Scott KLEEB ahead of Adrian SMITH and surging towards a true upset. If this plays out it is definite proof that the Club of Growth undermined the viability of the GOP in several safe districts.

I forget to mention NE-3 in my earlier post but others who commented on my Club of GROWTH impact observation did include NE-3.

Posted by: walja at October 30, 2006 05:35 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment