Tag: James Molinaro

• CT-Sen: This might get swallowed up by Linda McMahon’s minimum wage comments, which are still dominating the coverage of this particular race, but here’s a new instance of McMahon getting tripped up by those annoying little facts. At a tea party rally in April, she fended off a question about lobbyists, saying “I have not spent lobbying dollars in Washington.” Disclosures show that WWE, between 2001 and 2008, spent $680K on lobbying expenses, including $340K in 2007-2008 during the period when Congress was investigating use of steroids in sports.

• DE-Sen: When asked about his plans for the Delaware race, John Cornyn (after having gotten goaded into giving Christine O’Donnell $42K post-primary) has returned to sounding disinterested: “We will be supporting Christine O’Donnell as appropriate if that race is competitive. Right now it looks like it is not as competitive as other places around the country.” (Counting down to another blast of anti-NRSC teabagger fury in 3… 2…) Meanwhile, travel back in time (for the future of mankind) to 2002, and check out this great photo of O’Donnell and friends (which ought to further alarm some of her more conservative supporters worried about her witchcraft past… did it involve bat-head biting too?). Is O’Donnell just Paranoid, or is she really riding the Crazy Train?

• AR-Gov: Here’s a poll from the one (count ’em, 1) gubernatorial race in the country where the incumbent Democrat is more or less safe. Hendrix College, on behalf of Talk Business, finds Mike Beebe leading Republican Jim Keet 49-35. That’s a bit of an improvement from their previous poll in July, where Beebe led 50-41.

• CA-Gov: Realizing that she’s on the wrong end of written evidence, Meg Whitman’s trying out a new tactic: blaming her husband (the soap-opera-named Dr. Griff Harsh). Whitman denied knowing about the letter, but now says she “suspects” that the handwriting on the letter regarding her housekeeper’s Social Security number is his. Meanwhile, here’s a link to that Spanish-language TV ad on the housekeeper issue that we mentioned yesterday, as part of the SEIU’s huge cash infusion to this race.

• FL-Gov: With a number of public polls this week showing Rick Scott having moved back into the lead, Alex Sink is leaking an internal poll. She’s leading, although by a much smaller margin than the Mason-Dixon poll from just last week that had her up 7. Instead, she’s up by only 1, 45-44, in the poll taken over Sept. 23-29 (no word on who the pollster is).

• IN-Gov: Retiring Sen. Evan Bayh, of the eight-digit war chest, just gave $500K to the Indiana Democratic Party (after having given $1 million earlier in the year). Presumably that’s to help with the three tight House races there, but many are interpreting it as a sign of goodwill oriented toward bolstering his shot at taking back over as Governor in 2012.

• MA-Gov: I’ll just quote DavidNYC on this: “I hope they sell sacks in XXXL size for Tim Cahill to put his sad into.” How craptacular is your campaign when not just your campaign manager but then your actual running mate bails on you and endorses your opponent? That’s what happened to indie candidate Tim Cahill, whose Lt. Gov. running mate, Republican state Rep. Paul Loscocco, announced that he’s leaving the ticket and backing Charlie Baker instead, perhaps realizing that Cahill’s presence is the main thing keeping Baker from a shot at winning. (Also recall that Loscocco had originally wanted to be Baker’s running mate but got snubbed for that, and accepted Cahill’s offer as something of a fallback.) Cahill, pretty much friendless at this point, just announced in a press conference that he’s staying in the race, though.

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo got an unusual endorsement today, from the always-unpredictable world of Staten Island politics. The Conservative borough president, James Molinaro, threw his backing to Cuomo. (Molinaro is a key ally of Michael Bloomberg. Don’t confuse him with ex-Rep. and county Conservative party chair Guy Molinari, who’s the real power behind the throne on Staten Island.) Also, the war between Carl Paladino (last seen going ballistic on the venerable Fred Dicker) and the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post seems to be intensifying, if the latest opus from editor-in-chief Col Allen is any indication (note the intentional use of plural form!). If you’re a Republican in New York and you’ve lost the Post, well, you’ve lost.

Mr. Caputo should check his facts before making charges against Post personnel. In addition, Mr. Paladino should not be surprised by the media’s interest in his families…

• OH-13: Now this is seems like it has some game-changing potential here: Tom Ganley, the moneybags car dealer who’s turned the Dem-leaning 13th into a real race, just got sued for sexual assault by a former enthusiastic supporter who says she met him at a Tea Party rally and tried to volunteer for his campaign. Ganley, she says, wanted her to volunteer for some rather different duties:

While she waited in Ganley’s office, the suit says, he made sexually suggestive comments and invited her to join him and his friends at a condominium he owns in Strongsville. Ganley gave her a $100 bill and told her to buy some lingerie and high-heeled shoes, according to the lawsuit.

Ganley told her he wanted her to dominate her, parade her on a leash and have sex with her in front of his “play friends,” the suit says. It accuses him of grabbing her from behind, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her and, despite her resistance, reaching into her pants.

Naturally, the Ganley camp is calling the suit “extortion” and politically motivated.

• PA-07: Now that primary season is over, we’ve pretty much stopped reporting on union endorsements, as they shouldn’t come as any surprise at this point… except when they endorse the Republican. That’s what happened in the 7th, though, as the United Aerospace Workers local gave its backing to Pat Meehan. (They’re a major presence in the district, given the large Boeing helicopter plant near the Philly airport.)

• Enthusiasm gap: PPP hasn’t been putting out very encouraging numbers lately, but they do offer some cause for optimism that may or may not pan out: with Republican unity pretty much maxed out, the enthusiasm gap can’t do anything but shrink. They point out that there are many more Democratic undecideds than Republican ones right now. They show that’s especially profound in the Illinois races (and that late coming-home may be what’s propelling Pat Quinn all of a sudden), and, although it’s not on their chart, I’d guess also in Pennsylvania, where the Dem undecideds have always been strangely high and we may be seeing some gap-closing beginning too.

• Money: If you’ve noticed that there’s a crapload of independent expenditures coming from billionaire-funded 527s and 501(c)(3)s in the last month, pretty much wiping out whatever cash advantage the Democratic congressional committees had over the GOP committees, you’re not alone in that realization. Bloomberg calculates that independent organizations have outspent the parties combined in trying to buy shape the election: $33 million from folks like American Crossroads and the Chamber of Commerce, compared with $20 million from all of the party committees.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski works fast to turn Joe Miller’s ill-advised drapes-measuring tweets against him, with a new radio ad

• IL-Sen: Here’s another ad with cute babies, this time from Mark Kirk, but this time not about abortion but how DEBT WILL CRUSH US ALL!!1!

• NH-Gov: Wow, the RGA must suddenly sense they have an opportunity here, and they have an ad up hitting John Lynch on spending

• TX-Gov: Rick Perry can’t coast to re-election this time and he’s up with another ad, this time hitting Bill White on one of his perceived strengths (emergency management during Hurricane Rita)

• FL-08: The NRCC hits back against Alan Grayson for his “Taliban Dan” ad against Dan Webster, calling Grayson “a national embarrassment”

• IL-10: The DCCC does a half-and-half ad, touting Dan Seals’ business background and hitting Bob Dold! on pro-life and tea party connections

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 41%, Rick Scott (R) 46%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 40%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 44%, Scott Walker (R) 50%

DE-Sen: Biden alert? Dem senate candidate Chris Coons says a Biden fundraiser is “in the works.” I sure hope so! I think Coons is a sleeper candidate, and it would be ridic for Biden not to help a fellow Dem out in his own state (which is just outside of DC, anyhow).

NV-Sen: It may be too late to save her fricasseed campaign, but Sue Lowden has an over-the-top ad out hitting Sharron Angle for her support of a Scientology-backed plan to offer massage therapy to recovering drug addicts. Be sure to check out the cameo of a certain couch-jumping Top Gun star at about 20 seconds in.

NY-Sen-B: So as you know if you’re a faithful SSP reader, the state GOP put two dudes on their ballot line for the September primary: Bruce Blakeman and David Malpass. They did not include ex-Rep. Joe DioGuardi, but (and this is a big “but,” DioGuardi did score the Conservative Party’s ballot line all to himself. Though DioGuardi says he’ll try to petition his way on to the GOP ballot, Republicans don’t seem to have a lot of faith in him becoming their nominee, and they want to avoid a split ticket. So Conservative chair Mike Long got a bunch of calls asking him to bounce DioGuardi from his party’s line, but he refused, pointing out that DioGuardi got 70% of the vote at the Conservative convention. Ah, the New York GOP – still a train wreck.

ID-Gov: The Idaho Statesman has a pretty good profile on Dem gubernatorial nominee Keith Allred, who is running a surprisingly vigorous (and decently-funded) campaign against the not-so-hot incumbent Butch Otter. The most interesting detail is the fact that the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, a chamber-of-commerce-type big business lobby, is already attacking Allred – not something you usually bother doing with an un-serious candidate.

SC-Gov: Rudy Giuliani jumped in with a last-minute endorsement of AG Henry McMaster yesterday – though note that the unlovable loser finished sixth in the South Carolina primary in 2008. (Though Joe Lieberman reassured him that it was actually an eleventy-way tie for fifth.) And in a seriously weird last-minute desperation move, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer released, uh, well… you’d expect me to say “released a poll,” right? Nope – he released the results of a polygraph test (!), which he claims show he had no involvement in the various Nikki Haley affair allegations. Talk about protesting a wee bit too much, huh?

AL-05: A douchey move from a douchey guy: Bud Cramer, the Democrat who held this seat before giving way to Parker Griffith, is not “ready to endorse any candidate for Congress” – even though, you know, we have a nominee (Steve Raby). Cramer actually pulled this same shit last cycle after he announced his retirement, dithering for several weeks before finally endorsing Griffith. Back then, Cramer suggested he might endorse a Republican – and I guess he finally got his wish when Griffith switched parties. Jesus, though – do the right thing already.

FL-24: Former Winter Park Commissioner Karen Diebel scored an endorsement from Mike Huckabee in her bid to become the GOP nominee against Rep. Suzanne Kosmas.

MA-10: Republican Jeffrey Perry has been under fire for his oversight of a police officer under his command while Perry was a police sergeant in the early 1990s. The officer, Scott Flanagan, was ultimately fired and pled guilty for illegal strip-searching a 16-year-old girl. Now, the Cape Cod Times reports that Perry’s own accounts of the incident and its aftermath are contradicted by police records from the time. In an earlier interview, Perry suggested that he had acted with alacrity in handling the situation, but now it appears he waited 24 hours to write up the officer, and almost a week to take a statement from a witness to the search.

NC-08: Heh, he actually went ahead and did it. Weapons-grade wingnut Tim D’Annunzio launched a defamation suit against his runoff opponent, Harold Johnson, for a “radio ad targeting D’Annunzio for his ‘life of drugs, crime and time served in prison’ and for supposedly failing to pay an employer payroll tax, having tax liens, and withholding child support.” D’Annunzio had previously threatened to sue the chair of the NC GOP, but this is so much more fun.

NY-13: Rep. Mike McMahon scored the endorsement of the Independence Party, which means he’ll have their ballot line in November (something he didn’t have last cycle). And while he won’t get the support Working Families Party thanks to his “no” vote on healthcare, the WFP isn’t expected to nominate any kind of challenger, so their line will likely remain blank in this race – thus avoiding a split of the left-leaning vote. A Dem primary challenge at this point also looks remote. Meanwhile, McMahon raised $140K at a fundraiser hosted by none other than Mike Bloomberg. He was also expected to take in some $90K at an Anthony Weiner event, which was also slated to feature Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, a Conservative.

NY-29: Judge David Larimer of the Western District of New York ruled against Republicans who were seeking to force Gov. David Paterson to call the special election for this vacant seat earlier than November, saying Paterson was empowered to call it for the fall. An appeal to the Second Circuit is possible, but no word yet on whether one is planned.

VA-11: This seems really lame.

CA-SoS: I guess maybe we were too busy laughing when we first heard stories that Orly Taitz was running for California Secretary of State to bother writing it up… but not only is she on the ballot, the CA GOP is worried she might win the primary! She’s running against Damon Dunn, another ex-NFLer (what is with those guys running for office this year?), but Dunn’s deliberately ignored her rather than attack. The Republicans have little chance against Dem incumbent Debra Bowen, but Orly as their nominee would be a nice, months-long goiter for them to deal with.

Blue Dogs: I think I agree with everything Chris Bowers says in this post.

Games: Several folks in comments were recommending a new game called Congress Forever the other day, where you battle for control of the House and Senate. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like the perfect nerd timewaster.

Polling: Nate Silver just released the latest version of his pollster ratings, which analyzes a truly massive data set of “4,670 distinct polls from 264 distinct pollsters covering 869 distinct electoral contests” going all the way back to 1998. He lays out his methodology in a separate post, which is a must-read. Also, that gang of polling maniacs over at PPP are soliciting your votes again: The choices this time are LA, MA, PA, WA or WI.

Redistricting: Politico has a piece out which claims that Republicans are lagging in the race to raise money and set up legal groups to wage the coming round of redistricting battles. I’m a little skeptical, because the article says that Republicans are hurting thanks to a lack of soft money in the post-McCain Feingold world – but if anything, Dems were known as the party most dependent on soft money before campaign finance reform passed. Still, P’Co suggests that Dems are more organized because of some top-down control being exercised by the Obama political operation.

IL-Sen: In DC celebrating Greek Independence Day, Alexi Giannoulias also met with White House political advisors David Axelrod and Patrick Gaspard. No real word on what was discussed.

PA-Sen: Ouch – check out this blistering broadside directed at Joe Sestak from PA Democratic Chair T.J. Rooney. Rooney blasted Sestak in a sternly-worded letter for not paying his campaign workers the minimum wage and encouraged him to make a concerted effort to vote more often on the House floor. (JL)

TX-Sen: Will she resign or won’t she? The Politico catches up with GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, still fresh from her massively underwhelming performance in the Texas gubernatorial primary, and reports that she “has nothing to say, and I won’t for a while” regarding her future plans. Senate Republicans, apparently, are taking her silence as a sign that a resignation is not actually in the cards, despite KBH’s repeated promises in the past year that she would definitely be leaving the Senate regardless of the primary result. (JL)

CO-Gov: Teasing teaser Tom “The Teaser” Jensen teases us with this tease:

Well we’ll have Colorado Governor numbers out [today] and here’s a little preview – John Hickenlooper’s net favorability is 36 points better than Bill Ritter’s net approval. As you can imagine that makes Hickenlooper just a little more competitive in the horse race.

AL-05: It’s the party switch which keeps on backfiring. Unlike a lot of other, uh, Republicans, Parker Griffith accepted a bunch of money from Charlie Rangel, which he was in a hurry to give back. The problem is that Rangel donated in 2008 – and Griffith recently told angry ex-supporters (to whom he had promised refunds) that he couldn’t return their money from the previous cycle since it had already been spent.

GA-07: Ralph Reed says he’ll announce his plans today, but according to Roll Call, GOP bigs think he’s going to pass on a run. Reed’s previous run for office did not go particularly well – he got crushed in the 2006 Republican primary for GA Lt. Gov., losing 56-44.

LA-03: Lawyer Jeff Landry joined the GOP field to replace Rep. Charlie Melancon yesterday, but CQ thinks that there are bigger names still in the offing: House Speaker Hunt Downer and Scott Angelle, “a Democrat who was named by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal in late 2007 to serve as Louisiana’s secretary of the Department of Natural Resources.” Dems are also holding out hope for a more prominent candidate, such as state Rep. Fred Mills (who might decide after the legislative session ends on June 21) or former Rep. Chris John.

MI-01: Teacher and former Charlevoix County commissioner Connie Saltonstall plans to challenge Bart Stupak in the Democratic primary, specifically citing Stupak’s infamous anti-choice amendment and threats to vote against healthcare reform if he doesn’t get his way. Saltonstall lost a race against incumbent GOP state Rep. Kevin Elsenheimer in 2008, 61-37.

NM-01: NRCC Chair Pete Sessions will campaign in Albuquerque with fellow GOPer Jon Barela, who is hoping to unseat frosh Dem Martin Heinrich.

NY-13: Here’s a nice score for frosh Dem Rep. Mike McMahon. Richmond County Borough President James Molinaro, an elected Republican who came up with the Conservative Party, has endorsed McMahon for another term in the House. Molinaro endorsed McMahon in 2008, but that was against the detested specimen that was Bob Straniere, who seemed to turn off just about every member of the Republican and Conservative Staten Island hierarchy. (JL)

NY-29: David Paterson says that he’s going to call the special election “as soon as possible,” and that he doesn’t think the seat will be left vacant for the rest of the year.

House: Some chair shuffling as 69-year-old Rep. Norm Dicks, the second most-senior member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, takes over the reins in the wake of John Murtha’s passing, as expected. This mondo committee post potentially means tons more campaign donations will head Dicks’ way, giving him a chance to shower that wealth on others.

WATN?: Ex-Rep. Eric Massa is now under investigation “for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office.” Also yesterday, Glenn Beck apologized at the end of his Massa interview, saying: “America, I’m going to shoot straight to you. I think I’ve wasted your time.”