SSP Daily Digest: 6/17 (Morning Edition)

  • CT-Sen: Despite having no shortage of cash, the Journal-Inquirer of north-central Connecticut says Paulist freakazoid Peter Schiff might be having trouble petitioning his way on to the ballot. What an ignominious end! Anyhow, we’ll know for sure by the end of this week. (Also, see our CT-04 bullet for another Nutmeg state petitioning debacle, only worse.) Meanwhile, Aaron Blake lays out some possible circumstances under which Rob Simmons’ zombie campaign might come back to life (though ultimately he thinks reanimation of this particular corpse is unlikely).
  • WI-Sen: I like what Russ Feingold is doing here: He’s putting his opponent, richie rich Ron Johnson, on the defensive by linking Johnson to Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, and charging that he hasn’t said whether he supports Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act. Interestingly (at least according to Politico), Johnson’s spokesbot shot back with some pablum – and didn’t bother to say whether he does support any of these three pillars of modern society.
  • ME-Gov: An op-ed by George Smith in the Kennebec Journal suggests that environmental lawyer Eliot Cutler, running as an independent, could win Maine’s gubernatorial race. Cutler apparently has personal wealth, and Smith suggests he could split the GOP vote, earning the support of some of its more moderate members while the teabaggers stick with the very conservative Paul LePage. (And remember, Maine’s last governor before Dem John Baldacci was also an independent, Angus King.)
  • SC-Gov: So Politico has a piece claiming that the South Carolina GOP establishment, including the SC Chamber of Commerce, is going all-out to try to stop Nikki Haley from winning the run-off. But CNN notes that former First Lady Jenny Sanford is stumping for Haley, and of course third-place finisher and state AG Henry McMaster endorsed her as well.
  • AR-01: Dem Chad Causey is “in talks” about an endorsement with Tim Wooldridge, whom Causey beat 51-49 in the runoff.
  • AZ-08: Remember Randy Graf? If you don’t, all you need to know is that he craaazy. He also ran for this seat in 2006 and, after the NRCC abandoned him, got beat badly by now-Rep. Gabby Giffords. Anyhow, he endorsed veteran Jesse Kelly in the GOP primary, who was once touted but then got outshined by the later entrance of state Sen. Jonathan Paton.
  • CO-04: Man, I bet Cory Gardner really wishes Rep. Steve King would shut up. The other day, Gardner cancelled a fundraiser in Colorado with King after King declared that President Obama “favors the black person.” Now King is lambasting Gardner for spurning him – and claiming that Gardner agrees with what he said! Gardner of course disputes King’s claims. I don’t know if you can properly call this cat fud, but it sure smells like it.
  • CT-04: This sack is so very, very sad. Republican Tom Herrmann flushed his campaign down the toilet today like your kid’s dead goldfish, only there won’t be any trips to the pet store to buy a replacement. Turns out Herrmann’s campaign engaged in a little bit o’ ye olde petition fraud (something we mentioned the other day), meaning he won’t have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. I admit that I was initially skeptical of this story, but it turned out that where there was smoke, there was indeed fire.
  • DE-AL: Republican Kevin Wade dropped out of the race, leaving Michele Rollins and Glen Urquhart to compete in the September primary. Wade endorsed neither, but touted Some Dude Rose Izzo.
  • LA-02: In a story about state Rep. Cedric Richmond formally kicking off his campaign, there’s a throwaway line suggesting that state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson is still considering a run. Carter Peterson (then known only as Karen Carter) lost badly to ex-Rep. Bill Jefferson in a 2006 run-off. She also infamously supported Republican Jim Tucker to be Speaker of the Louisiana House in 2007, over (of all people) Dem Don Cazayoux.
  • NC-08 (PDF): Damn, I hope PPP is wrong about this. They have Harold Johnson leading beautiful maniac Tim D’Annunzio 49-39 in the runoff (which takes place next week). Surely the Ark of the Covenant can help turn the tide for Timmy D, no?
  • ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy’s team did some nice work in getting a bullshit third-party ad yanked off the air. The spot accused Pomeroy of supporting healthcare taxes which led to lost jobs. The only problem(s): No new healthcare taxes have gone into effect yet, and the jobs in question related to reform of the student loan system, not healthcare. Yeah, whoops is right.
  • NY-13: Does the name Kieran Lalor ring a bell? He ran against Rep. John Hall in NY-19 in 2008 and got pasted. He’s resurfaced of late, but this time, he’s attacking a fellow Republican, Michael Allegretti. Lalor claims to represent a group of Iraq veterans, and he’s miffed that Allegretti has pictures of himself with members of the military on his website. Lalor’s hands are not exactly clean here, as his group’s own website has a picture of Allegretti’s opponent, Michael Grimm – whom Lalor says his organization will likely endorse.
  • NY-14: SEIU 32BJ, an important, 70,000-strong building workers union, endorsed Rep. Carolyn Maloney, citing her work in securing $4 billion in federal money for major east side transit projects.
  • PA-07: What a huge – and unforced – blunder. GOPer Pat Meehan tried to accuse Bryan Lentz of having been involved in the big “bonusgate” scandal (where Dem campaign workers were paid with state money). First problem: He had no such evidence, and the press (to their credit) had no trouble realizing this. Second mistake: He held his press conference in the state capitol – where the state legislature (of which Lentz is a member) is still in session. This meant that Lentz got to watch Meehan’s presser in person – and then when Meehan was done and the cameras were still rolling, Lentz strode up to the same podium and delivered a biting rebuttal to Meehan’s bullshit. Lentz’s impressive political skillz are matched only by Meehan’s lack thereof.
  • VA-05: Is there a word in English which expresses the idea that a debacle for one side is actually a boon for the other? No, it’s not schadenfreude, and it’s not crisitunity, either. But in any case, this is what seems to be brewing in VA-05, where the second-place finisher in the GO primary, Jim McKelvey, finally announced that he ain’t endorsing no one – at least, not yet. We can only hope he’ll give his backing to independent teabagger Jeffrey Clark rather than state Sen. Robert Hurt.
  • NRCC: The NRCC is setting a $20 million goal for its “Battleground” fundraising effort from members of its caucus. In 2008, their goal was $12 million, though it’s not clear whether they actually met it. In 2006, they started at $17.5 mil but later bumped it up to $22.5 mil.

    • 73 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 6/17 (Morning Edition)”

    2. Gang, that’s a link worth clicking on — the video is priceless, esp. when Lentz shows up half-way through and tells the press they should ask Meehan for gas money for the needless drive from Phila to Harrisburg.

    5. Republicans have corrected one of their larger recruitment failures from earlier this year and now have a candidate in Iowa House district 16. The incumbent is a first-term Democrat in a district that was long represented by a Republican. I think we will hold the seat, though. Republicans need a net gain of seven seats to take back the lower chamber of the Ioaw legislature.

    6. New unemployment compensation claims rose by 12K to 472K for the last week.

      As a reminder from my past primers, we need to get iniital claims down to 400K as a benchmark for believing the recession is “over” in people’s everyday lives.  We were inching down for many months, got down close to 440K, then a big spike a few weeks ago followed by this latest smaller spike.

      Jobs or the lack thereof is going to be our biggest downfall, drowning out most other stuff, if this doesn’t turn around.

      The flipside is that if we hold on to the House, even by only the skin of our teeth and with exactly 218 seats, we can credit the “save” to repeated Republican bungling like, in their latest, right-wing House members’ attacking the creation of the BP escrow fund.

      In sum, we may have lost a few more voters today for lack of jobs, but we gained some portion of those few voters right back thanks to Republicans making themselves an unappealing alternative.

    7. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06…

      On the floor of the House, in campaign commercials and during interviews, Mr. Kirk has invoked his experience in the classroom. At a speech this spring to the Illinois Education Association, Mr. Kirk declared, “as a former nursery school and middle school teacher, I know some of what it takes to bring order to class.”

      A review of public comments that Mr. Kirk has made over the last decade shows that while he may refer to himself as a former teacher, he does not talk about the brevity of his experience: a year in London at a private school and part-time in a nursery school as part of a work-study program while he was a student at Cornell University.

    8. Linda Ketner, the unsuccessful SC-1 congressional candidate  from 2008 (48% vs. Henry Brown) is the receipient of a ‘draft’ movement driven by her 2008 supporters.  

      On the surface, I am personally on-board with this. However, I don’t want to in any way jeopardize the overall Democratic ticket, especially for Governor.

      Any advice?  Should I sign the petition? 10,000 sigs are needed by July 15th.  

    9. It has SC Chamber of Commerce President Otis Rawl saying that Gresham, his preferred choice, “talked about specifics a lot more than the buzzwords of transparency and accountability that don’t mean much to our guys.”

      What he ostensibly meant was that “For our guys, when you start talking about transparency, there’s transparency right now”, which seems a fairly dubious claim itself. But damn .. talk about a quote that unwittingly says it all about doing business in a state of good ol’ boys: “transparency and accountability .. don’t mean much to our guys.”

    11. love Maine. It is one of those few states where an Independent or third party can be considered a serious contender. I am a loyal Democrat but all the same it is nice to see an indy win once in a while.  

    12.   I spent a lot of time in the Badger state in my youth and when the tea party,tea bagger crowd first came out I said that there is no mystery in my mind where they came from.  Hell, rural and small town WI 40 years ago was almost ALL tea party types.  Yet I find little evidence that the tea party folk are banding together in the land of LaFollette. Something has happened but I am not sure what, maybe we should ask David Keene, I used to eat fish fries at his parents tavern.  

        Back in those years conservative america was fighting the fight of their life. A cause so worthwhile they stood like Horatius at the gate.  They were ready to die in the last ditch rather than give up the fight.  And what was this issue which united the conservatives and the unwashed like no other?  It was guys wearing long hair down to their collar.  

        I don’t think Russ is in any real danger; he will make their cheese a bit more binding.  He LOOKS too much like a senator to be voted out.  He has class and brains; if I were to bet I would say when the dust clears he wins by 5 percent.  Rollo Weems, Humboldt Co. NV

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