SSP Daily Digest: 4/6 (Morning Edition)

  • AR-Sen: The Communications Workers of America, a union supporting Bill Halter, is firing back with an ad on black radio to combat Blanche Lincoln’s bullshit spot claiming she “stood with our president to pass healthcare reform.” CWA’s ad is in heavy rotation around the state, running “50 times a day” around Little Rock. They also have a new TV ad out, but no word on the size of the buy.
  • AZ-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has given its first endorsement of the 2010 cycle to Sen. John McCain – but apparently cash ain’t attached. I guess the CoC, the grand doyenne of “cheap labor conservatives,” doesn’t believe Johnny Mac’s nativist turn is for real. Given what a fraud McCain has shown himself to be from top to bottom, I guess this makes sense.
  • CA-Sen: No, the reason John McCain can’t be found in Arizona isn’t because they took him “to a farm upstate.” He’s out in California, campaigning with Carly Fiorina.
  • IN-Sen: It’s not just that Dan Coats has an unsavory record as a lobbyist – his voting record seems pretty out-of-step with the crazies who make up the modern GOP base. John Hostettler is hitting Coats (albeit in the form of a web video) for things like his votes in favor of the assault weapons ban, the Brady Bill, and the Clinton crime bill – a set of votes tradmed analysts usually like to ascribe many 1994 Dem losses to.
  • UT-Sen: While they haven’t picked a specific horse to back yet, the Club for Growth has nonetheless spent $133K against Sen. Bob Bennett.
  • AZ-Gov: Democrat Terry Goddard has finally made his gubernatorial bid official.
  • AL-02, AL-05: GOP State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, who endorsed Dem Bobby Bright for re-election, has been kicked off her own re-election ballot by the Alabama Republican Party in retaliation. Smith lost the GOP primary in 2008 to Jay Love and apparently is still smarting over that – but this has to sting quite a bit more. Smith hasn’t decided if she’ll run as an independent instead. (Switch! Switch!) Meanwhile, the AL GOP said that turncoat Parker Griffith could stay on the Republican ballot, despite a challenge thanks to his party-switching ways.
  • FL-08: I’ve totally lost track of how many Republicans are trying to challenge Rep. Alan Grayson, so what’s one more? Wealthy businessman Ross Beiling, owner of a medical parts supplier, is throwing his shrimp on the barbie.
  • MI-07: While two Michigan Republicans have endorsed ex-Rep. Tim Walberg in his comeback bid, five others are staying neutral in the primary, which also includes Brian Rooney, younger brother of Rep. Tom Rooney (FL-16).
  • NY-05: Dan Halloran, a Republican who won a Dem-held seat on the NYC City Council last year, is weighing a challenge to Rep. Gary Ackerman. Halloran, a practicing Theodist, thinks he can make Ackerman pay a price for voting in favor of healthcare reform. Ackerman, for his part, has $1.1 million on hand and the support of the Queens Independence Party. This district also went 63-36 for Obama (but notably, that’s the same percentage that Kerry got, suggesting there was something of a “conservative white ethnic New Yorkers for McCain” effect here).
  • NY-13: The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500 is backing Rep. Mike McMahon, in spite of his vote against healthcare reform, citing his support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Speaking of the CWA again, though, a day ago, its local vice president, Chris Shelton, called McMahon “the Judas from Staten Island.” Personally, I think that phrase is overused, and I’m going to start calling traitors “Brutuses.”
  • Across the Pond: Our friends in the U.K. have scheduled their elections for May 6th. Imagine if we only had one-month campaigns here!
  • 37 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 4/6 (Morning Edition)”

    1. I wonder what the Brits do differently w/r/t redistricting. Per 538 – http://www.fivethirtyeight.com

      That said, I’m no expert on U.K. politics, and if it’s really true that the Conservatives could win a 10-point plurality in the popular vote and still win fewer seats that Labour–and I’ll take Renard and Dan’s word that this is not just an oddity of multiparty voting but also caused in part by districting–then, yes, that sounds like a problem.

      They have “non-partisan” redistricting commissions, and yet Labour still gets more seats if they lose by a plurality of up to 10 points.

      Now how do we get a similar result here?

    2. This may be the only state in the Union where hitting a Republican for supporting things that normally bring Dems down in defeat might actually work.

      Between this, the usual teabagger crusades against establishment candidates, Coats’ epic campaign fail, and the fact that people in general here are really bothered by the carpetbagging, I think Hostettler’s chances of pulling off a primary upset are pretty good. Which is fine, because Ellsworth already beat him once, and can hit him harder than any other Dem we could’ve run, including Bayh. If Host ran a pseudo-populist, anti-big money campaign against Bayh downplaying Host’s kookiness on social issues, he might’ve actually won, or at least made it closer than it should have been despite Bayh’s huge money advantage. He can’t do that against a law and order conservadem who’s only been in Congress four years and voted against the bailout. Also, unlike any other candidate running, if Host makes personal attacks on Ellsworth, it’s automatically interpreted as a vindictive assault on the guy who beat him by 30 points four years ago. If he made the same attacks on Bayh or Hill, people would still say they were outraged, but deep down I think a lot of them would be nodding in agreement.

      Once mainstream Hoosiers figure out that Ellsworth is the kind of guy they like to vote for and Hostettler is an unhinged whackjob, Ellsworth will win easily.

      What kind of completely screwed up year is it when I’m more worried about losing the big-ticket races in California than I am about both competitive Senate seats in red-purple states like Indiana and Arkansas? (Not to mention the competitive Governor’s races in TX, GA, and SC).  

    3. I’ll be very generous and give him a nice fat 10 percent overperformance, and that’s still 46-53.  As long as Ackerman does not act like Coakley, it’ll be hard to lose.

      “Shrimp on the barbie”?  Business card in the restaurant lobby fishbowl?  Ten-dollar bill in the betting pool?  Slip of paper with one’s name in the hat?

    4. Although I wonder if that NYC councilman made the mistake of aligning himself with one of the racist varieties of Theodism.

      Also, wouldn’t calling someone Brutus be a compliment?

      Judas should be subject to his own Godwin’s Law though; it’s basically never appropriate to compare anyone to Judas, if only because it compares your own cause to that of God Himself.  Benedict Arnold is plenty enough a traitor for most purposes, especially political contexts.

    5. http://www.startribune.com/blo

      Unfortunately, Bachmann out-raised that with 591k, and this week is her rally with Palin which also has a big-dollar fundraiser at night.  But, Clark’s amount came prior to being the endorsed candidate, so she should even be able to pick up pace.

      It’ll be a good race!  Clark is going to run an appropriately negative campaign, which Tink completely neglected to do.  Same with the DCCC, none went for the jugular.  The attack ads were just, terrible, so stupid and stale.

    6. Can someone please explain this comment?

      This district also went 63-36 for Obama (but notably, that’s the same percentage that Kerry got, suggesting there was something of a “conservative white ethnic New Yorkers for McCain” effect here).

      I gather New York State on average voted for Obama at a higher percentage than we voted for Kerry 4 years earlier? How much higher?

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