SSP Daily Digest: 5/28 (Morning Edition)

  • AK-Sen: It looks like Democrats will have a warm body to challenge frosh GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski this year. The Alaska Democratic Party is touting Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams as their man, and he says that he’ll make an announcement about the race on June 1.
  • AR-Sen: The SEIU is spending $307,000 on their latest ad buy for Bill Halter, bringing their total investment in this race close to $2.5 million. That’s some serious pie.
  • CT-Sen: Last week, Joe Lieberman said he was undecided on whom to support in the race between Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon. This week, Lieberman is still saying that he’s “not eliminating [a McMahon endorsement] as a possibility.” What a major league asshole.
  • FL-Sem: This is both amusing and rather extraordinary. Libertarian Party candidate Alexander Snitker released an internal poll conducted by Telsel Inc. showing Charlie Crist at 40%, Marco Rubio at 34%, Kendrick Meek at 10%, and Snitker at a whopping 2.5%. I’m not sure what’s more remarkable: the fact that this guy paid for a poll, or the fact that he’s touting its results as proof that he can win.
  • MO-Sen: Because it’s never too early to start planning for 2012, ex-Sen. Jim Talent says that he’s mulling over a rematch with Democrat Claire McCaskill, and will make a decision early next cycle.
  • NV-Sen: We had heard of the Dump Reid PAC before, but I didn’t realize that their name was an acronym. Yes, their formal title is actually “Decidedly Unhappy Mainstream Patriots Rejecting Evil-Mongering Incompetent Democrats”. Anyway, those bozos have spent $30,000 against Harry Reid, mostly on direct mail.
  • AL-07: EMILY’s List has now spent $110,000 on the candidacy of former Wall Street securities attorney Terri Sewell, most of that on direct mail. My one-word editorial: Yeesh.
  • AR-03: Wilson Research Strategies (5/19-20, likely voters):

    Steve Womack (R): 53

    Cecile Bledsoe (R): 24

    Undecided: 23

    (MoE: ±4.9%)

  • CT-04: It looks like the GOP primary to take on Jim Himes will be a four-way. State Sen. Dan Debicella, businessman Robert Merkle, and Easton First Selectman Thomas Herrmann will be joined on the ballot by Paulist businessman Rick Torres, who says that he’s collected the required amount of signatures to land on the ballot. Torres also announced a cross-endorsement of fellow weirdo Peter Schiff, who’s waging an uphill campaign for the Republican Senate nomination. Torres says that his campaign will help Schiff collect signatures in the coming days.
  • IN-03: Republicans now have more than ten dudes running for the seat of disgraced ex-Rep. Mark Souder, the latest entrant being state Rep. Wes Culver.
  • NY-13: After being rebuffed by disgraced ex-Rep. Vito Fossella, the Staten Island GOP formally nominated lawyer Michael Allegretti to take on Dem Rep. Mike McMahon. In advance of the committee’s vote, Allegretti’s primary opponent, former FBI agent Michael Grimm, wrote a blistering letter to the borough party, calling their Fossella shenanigans “dysfunctional” and their endorsement a “sham”. Grimm is vowing to soldier on to the primary. Meanwhile, McMahon picked up the endorsement of the Staten Island Conservative Party this week.
  • SC-03: I don’t have a dog in this race, but a good rule of thumb when it comes to contested GOP primaries is to root against whatever nutcase the Club for Growth has endorsed. That said, the Clubbers are spending $110K on a media buy in support of real estate broker and auctioneer Jeff Duncan in the open seat race to replace GOP Rep. Gresham Barrett. Write that one down on your scorecard!
  • TN-08: And speaking of “independent” expenditures, it’s been mentioned several times in the digest that Robert Kirkland has been filing independent expenditures on behalf of his brother, physician Ron Kirkland, who’s locked in a Republican primary battle with agribsuiness kingpin/humble gospel singer Stephen Fincher to replace retiring Dem Rep. John Tanner. For those keeping score, Rob has now spent a quarter of a million bucks on the race in a show of brotherly love.

    • 107 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 5/28 (Morning Edition)”

    1. Duncan and Rex rice are the heavyweights in this race.  Duncan has a good shot.  If he wins, SC could have 2 Clubbers, Tim Scott in SC-1 and Duncan in SC-3.  

    8. Kicking Leibermann’s ass, again, is going to be my favorite part about that.  No single race has the potential to top that satisfaction.  

    10. By some Miraculous intervention, Nikki Haley is maintaining her lead in the South Carolina GOP Gubernatorial primary.

      http://www.southernpoliticalre…

      I tell ya, she must be some candidate if she can overcome this affair, her unknown persona in the state, her chronic fundraising shortfall, running against popular congressmen, Lt. Govs and SofSs all of whom have big name endorsements and have multiples of her coh plus the fact that she’s both a young woman and Indian in the darkest depts of the deep south.

      If she can win this primary, Presidential race in 2016 will be a breeze!  

    11. Glad to hear the Democrats have found a credible live body in the Senate race. In all odds McAdams will be a sacrificial lamb against Murkowski.

      But don’t forget that there is a tea-bagger running against Murkowski in the Republican primary – Joe Miller (Todd Palin’s anointed candidate). If he somehow manages to oust Murkowski, having a viable Democrat in place could turn out to be a valuable thing.  

    13. I thought that the limit of crass stupidity had been reached with Sue Lowdens chicken swap for health care in Bartertown.  I admit I am wrong about that.  Her tea party/tea bagger opponent is even more brain dead.  Just do a Google search of Sharron Angle and Scientology and see what you get.  That’s right folks, she took a bite on the $cientology hook and swallowed it right up to the gut.  She backed Narconon, a phoney drug rehab outfit with a bad track record that is nothing more than a Scientology front group.  How stupid could she be?  Even the slightest bit of research would have been enough to tip her off to the link.  This shows a huge lack of judgement and after all, in the end, isn’t judgement what we are looking for in a politician??  And this was more than just a one time event, she has been in bed with this nasty cult for a while now.  All of this should worry the hell out of Nevada voters if she gets past the primary. -Rollo Weems

    14. So I looked at R2K’s most recent poll of each of the competitive Senate races for which the candidates are set, and projected the results assuming that undecideds break the same way as decideds.  Here are the results:

      IL – Kirk (R) 50.2, Giannoulias (D) 49.8

      IN – Ellsworth (D) 50.1, Coates (R) 49.9

      KY – Conway (D) 50.4, Paul (R) 49.6

      OH – Fisher (D) 51.2, Portman (R) 48.8

      PA – Sestak (D) 52.2, Toomey (R) 47.8

      That would make for an exciting election night.  Food for thought…

      The IL poll was right after the bad news broke on the Giannoulias family bank.  The IN poll was pre-primary and around the time that Coates was taking some flack for hating on Indiana.  The OH poll was pre-primary.  KY and PA were this week.  

    15. “As the first independent analyst to push the argument that Democrats would likely suffer significantly higher midterm losses than average for the party in power, I’m scratching my head over the 8-point Democratic margin of victory in the special election to replace the late Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.”

      You said it!

      “The week before the special election, the Cook Political Report changed its rating of the race from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up” after several weeks of off-track messaging by the Burns campaign and the National Republican Congressional Committee, and other telltale signs the campaign had lost its way.”

      A couple days after it was moved in the other direction!

      http://www.cookpolitical.com/n…

    17. All those Republicans really think they can defeat Hymes, eh? That district has a significant Democratic lean, and kept reelecting moderate Republicans until last time. Now, Hymes is an incumbent. I don’t give any Republican more than a weak chance to win. Likely-D.

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