SSP Daily Digest: 7/15 (Morning Edition)

  • CO-Sen: This story is from late last month, but it’s very much worth reading. While an assistant U.S. Attorney a decade ago, Ken Buck was formally reprimanded for “bad-mouthing a felony case to defense lawyers representing Aurora gun dealers.” In fact, he revealed confidential information – an unthinkable breach of attorney ethics – which may well have undermined the entire prosecution: Only one of the three defendants was convicted, and only of a misdemeanor. Buck’s opponent, former LG Jane Norton, has been making an issue of this in radio ads. The craziest thing is that the convicted gun dealer, Greg Golyansky, showed up at a debate yesterday between the two candidates, and when the subject of Buck’s reprimand came up, he jumped out of his seat and started screaming expletives at Norton. Oh, and Golyansky just happens to be a Buck donor. Weird, huh?

    • One unrelated note on the Dem side: Sen. Michael Bennett raised $1.26 million in the second quarter. No word on his cash-on-hand, though.

  • CT-Sen: The other day I wondered what Rob Simmons’ plan was – after all, several reasonably high-profile folks were announcing their support for him, even though he wasn’t actually, you know, running for office. It’s starting to look like he might have a super-genius plan after all: running for office. Simmons spoke with Rick Green of the Hartford Courant, who concludes that “it’s looking more and more like he will revive his dormant campaign for Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.” As Green says, stay tuned.
  • IL-Sen: When your integrity and honesty are called into question, stonewalling is pretty much exactly opposite the approach you want to take. Yet that’s what Mark Kirk is doing, pulling a John Kasich when it comes to his military records. He says he won’t release any more such records, claiming that he’s already released “absolutely the most sensitive part” of his personnel record. But if that’s the case, then why should he care about releasing the less-sensitive stuff?
  • NV-Sen: Handsome Harry Reid raised $2.4 million in Q2, according to Jon Ralston, and has $8.9 million cash-on-hand.
  • CO-Gov: After getting a day-long purple nurple, Scott McInnis is finally apologizing for the plagiarized articles he “wrote” for the Hasan Family Foundation, but he’s still blaming the researcher who worked for him – and that guy says that McInnis was responsible. Big Mac still apparently hasn’t said anything about the purloined Rocky Mountain News op-ed he pretended to pen in 1994, either – and as we relayed yesterday, his continued candidacy is looking very much in doubt.
  • SC-Gov: Nikki Haley outraised Dem Vincent Sheheen in the second quarter, $543K to $366K. But Haley’s coffers were drained more quickly, thanks to her runoff, meaning Sheheen has more cash-on-hand, $262K to $183K. What’s more, Sheheen’s outraised the latest GOP belle of the ball for the cycle, $1.7 mil to $1.4 mil.
  • IA-03: The Des Moines Register says that Bill Clinton will be coming to town to do a $250-a-head fundraiser for Rep. Leonard Boswell later this month. The paper also mentions that the Big Dog will be swinging through Minnesota and Michigan on the same trip to help out other House candidates. Any word on who those might be?
  • MO-03: Republican Ed Martin, who has been semi-touted as a legit threat to Rep. Russ Carnahan, has been busy showing he’s a good fit for the district… if that district were, say, Alabama’s 1st CD. Get a load of this:

    • And that’s one of the things that’s most destructive about the growth of government is this taking away that freedom, the freedom, the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation, and to find Christ for me and you, and I think that’s one of the things we have to be very, very aware of that the Obama Administration and Congressman Carnahan are doing to us.

  • PA-11: Tarrance Group (R) for Lou Barletta (7/12-13, likely voters):

    • Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 37

    Lou Barletta (R): 56

    (MoE: ±4.9%)

    Barletta also has his first ad up, airing on broadcast and cable in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre market, but NWOTSOTB. His campaign says he’s raised over $500K to date, which would mean he took in over $200K in the last quarter, based on his last FEC report.

  • SD-AL: Props to Nathan Gonzales for digging up this bit of info: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s initial ad buy – for the spot where she touts her vote against healthcare reform – is just $10,000. As Nathan says, this makes it little more than a video press release.
  • TN-08: George Flinn, who had mostly avoided the firefight between Ron Kirkland and Steve Fincher in the GOP primary, is now wading in with negative TV ads and mailers accusing his opponents of being too close to Democrats. Flinn was likely goaded into this move by recent attacks from Kirkland’s brother, Rob, who has hit Flinn for his ownership of a Memphis hip-hop station. NWOTSOTB, of course, but the primary is soon (Aug. 5), and Flinn has put a lot of his own money into his campaign.
  • Fundraising: Buncha links for you – you’ll have to click `em all: AZ-08 | MD-01 | MS-01 | ND-AL | NY-13 | NY-14 | PA-17 (Ha ha!) | VA-02
  • Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal takes an in-depth look at SurveyUSA’s recent experiments with combined landline-and-cellphone sampling. So far, we’ve seen little variation in the topline numbers in the two races SUSA has looked at in this manner so far: NC-Sen and WA-Sen. But Blumenthal goes deeper, looking at both how the pollster has approached this problem on a technical level, and what it means for the costs of polling. The whole post is worth a read.

    • 62 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 7/15 (Morning Edition)”

    2. With these private, internal polls.  Quite frankly I think they are all bogus.  I mean really, like I’m supposed to believe that Bobby Bright is 20+ up on Martha Roby, but that Paul Kanjorski and Bryan Lentz are trailing by 20+ against Lou Barletta and Patrick Meehan?  Just like I’m supposed to believe that Frank Kratovil and Tom Perriello are winning their races, and yet Steve Dreihaus and Debbie Halvorson, reps in friendlier districts, are DOA based on their most result poll results?  I mean really, and there have been other examples too along the line that have been quite outlandish too (Patrick Tiberi leading Marilyn Brown by 25 and Joseph Cao leading Cedric Richmond by 20?  Please.  Just stop.)

      The more I see these polls, the more I think I should simply exclude any internal polls from my house analysis and stick with public polls only.  I’d probably do better on gut feeling than by following these screwy internals anyhow.  

       

    3. Then he should not believe that the government can take away his salvation. Sometimes I wonder why fellow Christians insist on spreading falsehoods and over exaggerations about the faith. If they are true Christians they wouldn’t be doing stuff like this, even for political expediency.

    4. an “unthinkable breach of attorney ethics.” He was outside normal channels, to be sure, but prosecutors are supposed to provide defense attorneys with possible weaknesses of their case. Its unethical not to do so, and they are encouraged to favor broad over narrow disclosure, even when it is not constitutionally required. Now, are they supposed to disclose internal discussions to state senators? Probably not. But its an awful fine line if the internal documents disclose tangible information that was not otherwise provided.

    5. In the last week, I’ve now seen polling showing Handel crushing, showing Oxendine crushing, and now one showing Deal and Handel tied with Oxendine in third. This one is shaping up to be a barnburner for part 1 of the primary.

      Also, I think it was Geraghty that had a pretty good post up on the Buck allegations awhile back. I’ll try to find it.

    6. Boy this guy is the poster child for “candidates matter” as well as serving your district and voting the will of who elects you.  I know he’s not a favorite on this site but jeez that man wins in even the hardest of cycles and he is about as entrenched as a Dem in a D+25 district.

    13. Despite a very bad week of campaign coverage, Baisley alluded to the infamous words of former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, who predicted it would take a catastrophic sex scandal to bring him down, and forecasted that McInnis would survive.

      “This is not a dead woman or live boy issue, it was plagiarism years ago that didn’t have an enormous effect on anybody’s lives,” Baisley said. “In a week or so, once it’s played out, it could look different. I don’t expect him to step down.”

      Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s…

      Not exactly plagiarism, just kinda funny, to a lonely me anyway. What, is today the SSP Convention that no one told me about? I’m lonely!!

    14. Initial unemployment compensation claims dropped a stunning 29K from the previous week, now down to a 2-year low of 429K.  That comes after the preceding week saw a plenty big-in-its-own-right drop of 17K.  That’s a whopping drop of 46,000 initial claims in 2 weeks!

      I’m hoping and guessing the July job growth numbers are going to be good.  And if we have any hope of reversing public opinion by early November we NEED that to be the case.  If we can get good job growth in July and again in August and September, I think public confidence will turn for real.  We’ll still lose a lot of seats, but we’ll be much more likely to keep the House.

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