SSP Daily Digest: 7/16 (Morning Edition)

  • FL-Sen: Charlie Crist raised $1.8 million last quarter – better than Kendrick Meek, but quite a bit behind Marco Rubio’s stellar pace. Still, considering there was a chance that Crist’s fundraising could take a major hit after his party switch, this strikes me as a pretty decent haul.
  • NV-Sen: Sharron Angle teabagged up quite a haul in the second quarter, taking in $2.6 million (with $2.3 million of that coming in the last six weeks or so, according to Aaron Blake). Even though she outraised Harry Reid, Jon Ralston points out that the Majority Leader has quite a bit more cash on hand than the Crazy Lady of Clown Town: $9 mil to $1.8 mil.
  • CO-Gov: The WSJ has a good piece gaming out the options for the GOP in terms of getting Scott McInnis out of the race, none of them particularly good. They can try to get both McInnis and rival Dan Maes to drop out and offer up a replacement candidate; they can hope McInnis wins the Aug. 10 primary and then push him to drop out; or they can put forward a write-in candidate in the primary. Maes is going nowhere, so option #1 is out, and a write-in at this late stage seems almost impossible. So perhaps their best bet is to ride McInnis for a few more weeks and then kick him to the curb. Good luck with that! Meanwhile, the RGA slammed earlier reports that it was abandoning McInnis, but as Mike Memoli points out, they didn’t mention McInnis’s name once in their press release.
  • NH-01: Former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta has been trying to paint himself as a peerless opponent of the stimulus, but it turns out that last year, he was complaining about the slow pace at which the state was collecting stimulus funds from the federal government. This problematic stance is getting some renewed attention now because of emails released by the state AG’s office, which include a note from – of all people – GOP senate candidate Kelly Ayotte calling Guinta a “grandstander.” Heh.
  • NH-02: I guess you’d have to say that Katrina Swett is objectively in favor of repealing gay marriage in the state of New Hampshire. A piece in the Nashua Telegraph is casting a renewed spotlight on the fact that Swett says she only supports civil unions, not marriage equality. That’s a pretty strange position to take in a Democratic primary, especially considering that same-sex marriage is already the law of the land in the Granite State. Fortunately, she’s not running for the state legislature – and hopefully this will help sink her Liebermanesque candidacy.
  • SC-05: Biden alert! The VPOTUS with the mostest is coming to Columbia on July 23rd to dedicate the Ernest Hollings Library at the University of South Carolina (named after the retired senator, a Biden pal). He’ll also squeeze in a fundraiser with Rep. John Spratt.
  • TN-09: Willie Herenton, will you please go home now? Harold Ford, Sr., who used to hold this seat, has cut a radio ad for Rep. Steve Cohen, whom he’s been backing over ex-Memphis mayor Willie Herenton. With Ford and President Obama in Cohen’s corner, you’ve got to wonder who exactly Herenton is hoping will power him to victory.

    • 49 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 7/16 (Morning Edition)”

    2. have said since about this time last year that once the Republicans finally picked a nominee they would see a drastic spike in fundraising. The Republicans hate Reid with a passion and it should not shock anyone. It is not at all surprising, in fact the only thing that is slightly surprising is the low haul. I honestly expected more, I think earlier this year I predicted something over 3 mil. I suppose Angle’s nuttiness could be hurting her numbers (fundraising and polling).  

    4. It probably has to do with the really random fact that Katrina Swett is Mormon. Even I was a little bit surprised when I found out, considering she was raised by a Jewish Holocaust survivor (Tom Lantos) and lives in New Hampshire. Still, I can’t think of a better explanation for why she would have such a weird out-of-step position on a social issue that’s been increasingly less relevant since 2004.

      Of course, it probably also has something to do with Katrina Swett having the worst political instincts of any Democratic candidate this side of George McGovern, but I think the Mormonism partly explains the neither here-nor-there position this late in the game. (And at least McGovern was liberal)

    5. The AP reports former Manchin aide Carte Goodwin will be the next Senator from WV. I was rooting for Barth but at least its not his wife.

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