SSP Daily Digest: 3/11 (Morning Edition)

  • FL-Sen: Insider Advantage, polling on behalf of the Florida Times Union, confirms what PPP sees in the GOP primary. They have Marco Rubio eviscerating Charlie Crist, 60-26. Charlie Crist better figure out his exit strategy in a hurry, or else he’ll have a lot more time to spend on back waxes come September.
  • KY-Sen: Some Dude Bill Johnson said he’s bailing on the GOP primary to succeed Jim Bunning, saying his internal polling looked cruddy. He’d spent a few hundred grand of his own money, but yeah, I never heard of him either. He does have a perfect Some Dude name – according to the SSP tags, there’s another Bill Johnson running in Ohio this cycle, and still another running in Alabama!
  • NV-Sen: How is this man still in office? The New York Times reports:”Previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about Senator John Ensign’s efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress….”
  • CO-Gov: In an apparent bid to out-nut his party-mate Jane Norton when it comes to outlandishly conservative proposals on the “restructuring” of basic governance, Scott McInnis was caught on tape at a recent Tea Party candidate forum suggesting that the state Department of Education be looked at as a possible target for elimination. (JL)
  • GA-Gov: Georgia Dems are pressing the House Ethics Committee to wrap up its investigation of Rep. Nathan Deal, who is slated to resign from the House at the end of the month. If they don’t finish by then, there’s a good chance they’ll just drop the investigation – something, in fact, they just did with regard to Eric Massa.
  • HI-Gov: This is interesting. We noted the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s endorsement of Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hanneman in the Dem primary yesterday, but we didn’t look at their rationale. One of their reasons ought to appeal to progressives: Hanneman, like the ILWU and Sens. Dan Akaka and Dan Inouye, has backed Colleen Hanabusa over Ed Case for the HI-01 May special election. Rival Neil Abercrombie has stayed neutral, which looks like a big mistake, given how powerful the ILWU is in Hawaii.
  • NY-Gov: Trying to forestall attempts to find a better candidate (or shove him from the race), Rick Lazio rolled out a bunch of endorsements from a bunch of Republicans who are all retired these days: former Gov. George Pataki and former Reps. Amo Houghton, Sherwood Boehlert, and George Wortley. I had to look up Wortley – he hasn’t served since 1989.
  • MI-07: Look out, John Kasich! Tim Walberg says “I was Tea Party before there was a Tea party.” He also says he lost in 2008 “because McCain was not a true conservative and people were tired of moderates.”
  • NY-14: With Democratic majorities at risk and progressive power in Congress at a troubling ebb, too many powerful New Yorkers seem only too happy to back an unabashed pro-bankster neophyte challenging a liberal female incumbent. I’m talking about Reshma Saujani, who’s running on a platform of kissing Wall Street’s ass (“If you go to Texas, you’ll never hear a Congressional member speak poorly of the oil industry”) against Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Oh, but don’t worry – Saujani’s got all the important things covered. At a recent women’s fundraiser, one of her supporters assured the crowd, “But it gets better, look how fashionable she is. She’ll definitely be the best dressed person in Congress.”
  • NY-29: Former Rep. Randy Kuhl has decided he won’t try to win his old seat back. Instead, he’s endorsing ex-Corning Mayor Tom Reed. Incidentally, Kuhl must have had the worst oppo team ever when he was actually running for office, no?
  • SC-02: Ugh – Dem Rob Miller, who raked in a couple mil he never otherwise would have seen after Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst, is making some unforced errors. He kicked a TV reporter and camera crew out of a speech to a local Democratic club, and then tried to later claim he had done no such thing. Unfortunately, contemporaneous emails contradicted Miller’s claims. I really hope that Miller’s elevation to Red to Blue status means he’s going to get some professional campaign assistance, and that he’s not just being fleeced for his Brewster’s millions.
  • Redistricting: I love this diary – possumtracker takes us on a magical mystery tour of some of the most extreme possible majority-minority districts, in places you probably never thought such districts could exist. Let’s hope actual map-drawers (or the DoJ) don’t take too many cues, though, since these kinds of districts would likely kill many neighboring Democratic seats.
  • Robocalls: The Republican Attorney General of Indiana, Greg Zoeller, chastised the NRCC yesterday for its use of robocalls introduced by a live operator. Zoeller says that, while legal, the NRCC’s tactics violate the spirit of a tri-partisan treaty signed between the state’s Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties banning the use of robocalls in the state. Zoeller asked the NRCC to suspend its use of robocalling in the state. Typical for the NRCC, they told Zoeller to go twist. (JL)

    • 51 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 3/11 (Morning Edition)”

    2. From the way their conduct their business to their crappy fundraising, they haven’t been the strongest of organizations lately.  

      I question how much they are going to be able to help their challengers win seats this cycle.

    3. Northern Neck nutbag Catherine Crabill, last seen losing a race for the House of Delegates last year, is collecting signatures to challenge Rob Wittman in the Republican primary. Crabill is most notable for the video of her saying, “We have the chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box,” Crabill said. “That’s the beauty of our Second Amendment rights … Our Second Amendment rights were to guard against tyranny.” Not only that, she believes the Oklahoma City bombing was an inside job.

      Despite her general craziness, she only lost to Del. Al Pollard by a 52-48 margin. Most of that can probably be attributed to McDonnell’s crushing 69-31 win in the district. As to why she’s challenging Wittman, well… I think it may be personal.

    4. Give Saujani a break. She makes a very valid point. NY-14 is the Upper East Side of Manhattan! The HQs of Citi, JP Morgan and tons of other banks are in the district and employ residents of NY-14.

      No one is shocked if a Rep from Washington State defends Boeing or Microsoft so Saujani makes a very valid point about Maloney not not sticking up for her hometown industry.

      I think her critic of Maloney is fair. The silk stocking district makes more in political donations out than any other district in the country.

      Saujani is making a point that maybe the districts Rep should be a leader rather than just another hack politician.

      It’s a fair critic and I think it will be interesting to see how it plays out with voters in the district.

    5. I really enjoy this Walberg-Rooney dynamic. There were a lot of moderate Republicans who hated Walberg after the 2006 primary– enough to make Sharon Renier competitive, and many of whom crossed over for Schauer in 2008. As long as Walberg and Rooney try to out-teabag each other, it’s just going to alienate those moderates even more.

      And don’t forget that Schwarz will likely be on the ballot as an independent for governor. I don’t expect him to be a real contender in that race, but his GOTV campaign is bound to target his old base– moderate Republicans in Calhoun and Jackson counties.

      Schwarz’s old stronghold of Battle Creek (Calhoun County), as luck would have it, is also Schauer’s hometown and the Democratic base of the district. If Schwarz can drive up moderate GOP turnout there– and they stay disgusted by whomever the Republican nominee is– that might be enough to make up for depressed Democratic turnout. Schauer has to win big there to win, and the moderate Republicans might help out. At this point, I think Schwarz is probably going to help Schauer more than whoever the Democratic nominee for governor is.

      But that’s all wild speculation at this point.

    6. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…

      Newsom made it clear at Wednesday’s media event in the Tenderloin that a run for California lieutenant governor is a foregone conclusion. Just a few hours after the event Newsom pulled the paperwork at the elections office and paid the fee to run. He’ll make it official today or Friday.

      And CW Nevius burns him for the choice, calling him the next Gray Davis….

    11. I’m glad you liked my diary, it was fun to make and think about. The best part of this diary though has been the response from everyone, including other people designing and posting their own maps of districts in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Virginia, and Washington (as of 8:30 Thursday). This is why I love the Swing State Project so much, what an awesome community!

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