SSP Daily Digest: 9/14 (Morning Edition)

  • AK-Sen: Man, we are seriously close! Just $195 away from our goal of raising $2,400 for Dem Scott McAdams in the topsy-turvy Alaska senate race. We have 64 contributors right now – I’d love to see us get to 70 before all is said and done. And if we hit our target now, you get to stop seeing nags from me!
  • DE-Sen: One final (?) independent expenditure report from the Tea Party Express, good for another $20K of media on Christine O’Donnell’s behalf. Damn this one ought to be exciting tonight.
  • CA-Gov: Gah, this is just unspinnably bad. Meg Whitman releases an ad featuring footage of Bill Clinton attacking Jerry Brown in the 1992 presidential primary, so what does Brown do? He calls Clinton a liar – and manages to make a crack about Monica freakin’ Lewinsky. (Talk about stuck in a time warp.) After a day, Brown finally apologized.
  • FL-Gov: Alex Sink secured endorsed from two top law enforcement groups: the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolent Association. Her campaign says it’s the first time in two decades both orgs have endorsed a Dem (the FOP hasn’t does so in 16 years).
  • KS-Gov: Live by the bailout, die by the bailout. Dem Tom Holland smacked Republican Sam Brownback during a recent debate for supporting a $200 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – leaving Brownback to sputter that he voted against the bailout. Well, yeah, he voted against the infamous TARP. But Holland had him dead-to-rights on a separate vote, from July of 2008, which did in fact provide money to prop up the two government-sponsored mortgage enterprises.
  • ME-Gov: Watch GOP nominee Paul LePage get seriously testy when reporters ask him about the fact that his wife received homestead tax exemptions for properties in both Maine and Florida in 2009. (More details here.)
  • FL-02: Hah! This is why it pays to keep good records! Republican Steve Southerland claimed on a radio show that he had never donated money to Allen Boyd – so Boyd’s campaign dug up a $100 check from 1997 (!) that Southerland had made out to Boyd. Nice work!
  • FL-08: Tea Party candidate Peg Dunmire is out with her first TV ad of the cycle – notable, of course, because you don’t often see third-party candidates on the air (especially two months out from election day), and also because Dunmire has claimed she plans to put $250,000 of her own cash into the race.
  • IL-14: Idiot: GOPer Randy Hultgren made two separate contributions (totaling $2,000) to his federal campaign committee… from his state campaign committee. That, my friends, is not allowed (and which is why Hultgren is returning the money).
  • MI-01 (PDF): Republican Dan Benishek is touting an internal poll from TargetPoint Consulting, showing him with a 54-31 lead over Dem Gary McDowell. The polling memo is written in a pretty grossly sycophantic way, and my spidey sense is twigged enough for me to wonder if the ballot test was asked up top, or after some axe-grindy “issue” questions.
  • TN-04: Republican Scott DesJarlais is touting an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies, showing him four points behind Dem Rep. Lincoln Davis, 45-41. Note to TargetPoint Consulting: This is how a polling memorandum should look.
  • DCCC: Reid Wilson has a detailed report on the D-Trip shifting ad money around, but really, it doesn’t sound very good to me. In the waning days of WWII, my dad (in Poland) would tune in to Nazi-censored radio reports about the German troops “consolidating their positions” or “shifting to more strategically advantageous territory,” etc. It was all bullshit-speak code for “we’re retreating.” So you tell me if you think the DCCC is reducing its ad buys in Arizona because vulnerable Dems there “are running stronger than expected campaigns,” or if that, too, is bullshit. Similarly, should we be happy that the Dems are cancelling buys in North Dakota? Of course, those radio broadcasts my dad listened to were in fact good news….
  • Chicago-Mayor: I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep up with what I’m sure will be an avalanche of candidacy announcements, but former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun says she’s throwing her hat in the ring for the Chicago mayor’s race.

    • SSP-TV (written by James L.):

  • AL-02: The DCCC, as part of its huge $1.2 million ad reservation on behalf of Dem Bobby Bright, is hitting Martha Roby for being funded by “special interests working to privatize Medicare.” The ad is no longer publicly available on YouTube, though.

  • AZ-01: Rogue dentist Paul Gosar hits Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick over spending in irritatingly-produced ad

  • AZ-05: David Schweikert attacks Harry Mitchell on taxes, bailouts, the stimulus, and (ironically) negative ads

  • AZ-08: Republican Jesse Kelly dubiously claims that he’s running to protect Social Security (despite last year saying: “I would love to eliminate the program.”)

  • CT-04: Dan Debicella goes after sophomore Dem Rep. Jim Himes on the usual GOP complaints

  • FL-22: Allen West hides the crazy in his new ad, instead hitting Dem Rep. Ron Klein on the economy

  • HI-01: Democrat Colleen Hanabusa reintroduces herself to voters

  • IA-03: GOPer Brad Zaun calls fans of government shrinkage to join his campaign

  • IL-10: Bob Dold! points the finger at Cap and Trade and Healthcare Reform for economic malaise

  • NM-02: Steve Pearce says he’ll create jobs somehow

  • MI-07: Mark Schauer gets a bunch of angry seniors to berate ex-Rep. Tim Walberg over his scary views on Social Security. I like this one.

  • MO-03: Republican Ed Martin airs his first ad touting his efforts to save jobs

  • OH-01: Dem Steve Driehaus says that Steve Chabot won’t stand up to the Tea Party

  • SC-02: Joe Wilson, via a retired General, hits Democrat Rob Miller on receiving fundraising assistance from MoveOn.org. His second ad touts his job platform. On a related note, Joe Wilson has a startlingly robotic voice – he sounds like something a Macintosh LC 630’s speech synthesizer would be spitting out in 1994.

  • UT-02: Republican Morgan Philpot urges change in his first spot, and says that he’s gonna “wear this sucker out” in ad #2

  • WI-08: Roofing contractor Reid Ribble touts his record of teaching high school volleyball

  • NRCC ads: AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TX-17, VA-05, WI-07

    • 84 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 9/14 (Morning Edition)”

    2. Skeptical as all hell about that poll.  My standard rural polling disclaimer applies especially since this district covers 30 counties and part of another.  It is roughly the size of West Virginia!

    3. The topline:  Blumenthal up 51-45.  Makes me nervous, justifiably.

      But the internals show that Blumenthal is in stronger shape than the topline suggests.  Favorability:  Blumenthal at 55-39, compared to 45-41 for McMahon.  Vietnam flap?  No issue, Blumenthal “honest and trustworthy” by 57-36 overall and 55-36 with indies, and 60% of voters, including 57% of indies, say explicitly the Vietnam flap itself “doesn’t make a difference” in their vote.  Who best to bring “change”?  Not Blumenthal, only 45% say yes and 48% no……but it’s the same 45-48 “no” spread for McMahon, so even on that point she has zero advantage.  On “right kind of experience” to be a Senator, it’s 72-25 “yes” for Blumenthal, and an eye-popping 39-56 “no” for McMahon.  And on “shares your values,” it’s healthy 55-38 “yes” for Blumenthal, but only 49-42 for McMahon.

      It’s actually stunning to look at these numbers and then see a topline showing just a 6-point lead.  That makes it obvious that the only thing hurting Blumenthal is the national environment.  This Q-poll has Obama’s CT job approval underwater at 45-52, which contradicts Rasmussen’s strong 55-44 showing for Obama in the state, but still it’s the only explanation for Blumenthal not leading by a bigger margin.

    4. …then Grayson should win.  TV ads win votes, and that ad and is good enough to pull some conservatives toward Dunmire if she airs it enough.

      Grayson might end up being one lucky ducky.  Of course, his own money and ad buys certainly help.

    6. Courtesy of political wire:

      Florida: Marco Rubio (R) leads Gov. Charlie Crist (I) in the U.S. Senate race, 43% to 27%, with Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) at 21%.

      Alex Sink (D) is ahead of Rick Scott (R) in the race for governor, 49% to 41%.

      Nevada: Sharron Angle (R) edges Sen. Harry Reid (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 45% to 44%.

      Pennsylvania: Pat Toomey (R) leads Rep. Joe Sestak (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 41%.

      Ohio: Rob Portman (R) leads Lee Fisher (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 41%.

      John Kasich (R) is ahead of Gov. Ted Strickland (D) in the race for governor, 48% to 43%.

      California: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) edges Carly Fiorina (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 46% to 44%.

      Meg Whitman (R) is ahead of Jerry Brown (D) in the race for governor, 49% to 43%.

      Not all that horrible.  Certainly better than Rass/SUSA.  Ohio and PA are within reach.  Nevada senate is within the MOE of the Mason-Dixon poll.  Sink looks like she’s in good shape.

    8. Good column by Stu Rothenberg on polling, and provocatively on his trusting partisan polls more than nonpartisan ones.

      But the kicker is where he disses the SUSA polling in VA-05 as “bizarre” and “a joke” and reveals that partisan polling on both sides shows Perriello losing only “narrowly” to Hurt.

      Rothenberg reveals what a lot of us here realized must be the case, but I know there were some here who insisted the SUSA poll was credible.  We now have confirmation that it’s not.

      http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmsp…

    10. http://www.13wmaz.com/news/bre…

      I do question the Libertarian numbers, however.  There is no way a Libertarian is going to get 9 points in the Governor’s race.  Yes, Georgia Libertarians like to point out that Monds got like 33% of the vote in 2008’s Public Service Commissioner race, but there was no Democrat running that year.  And Libertarians are getting 6 percent or better across the board.

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