SSP Daily Digest: 6/8 (Morning Edition)

  • 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.

    • 94 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 6/8 (Morning Edition)”

    1. Didn’t Larry Kudlow say back in ’09 that he was strongly leaning towards running against Schumer in ’10?  Was he just blowing smoke (as usual) against an enemy of his?

    2. And Sue Lowden might be the biggest crash-and-burn candidate of the cycle.  But my “Douche of the Year” award so far would have to go to Andre Bauer.  Unless she is shooting for the “Best Actress in a Statewide Role” award, I tend to believe Nikki Haley here, and she’s really been hit with some of the nastiest stuff I’ve seen in my 20+ years of observing politics — all because the good old boys don’t want to see a woman of color be the Republican candidate for governor of a Deep South state.  I wouldn’t be shocked if she gets 50% outright and avoids a runoff.

    4. Remind me to write a check to the conservative party. We owe them so much.

      If Orly somehow wins then I laugh my head off. But seriously Republican’s can’t be that crazy.

      Glad to hear about Biden, I don’t think we can automatically write Coons off.

      Bud Cramer, seriously? I suppose he could be considering a return to politics someday but all the same this all kinds of stupid.

      If the Republicans screw up Nevada Senate then they are really, really stupid. Seriously any living breathing body could beat Reid and this stupidity they are doing right now appears to be the only thing that can save him. Just amazing.  

    5. And I express similar sentiments in my diary, but also discuss some other political implications of rescuing or not rescuing state governments.

      My feeling is the Blue Dogs would rather have it both ways – not put their names on legislation that saves states from calamity but see that legislation pass, anyway. In other words, they’re trying to see if they can get away with being cowards. And so far, they can’t.

    6. Given the polling and expectations of a Haley win, why would he endorse at this time?

      He is running for Prez in 2012 right?  And Haley is the likely governor right?  Wouldn’t endorsing Haley’s opponent 2 years earlier kind of harm his chances in SC, especially since Haley will be able to deliver a solid ground operation to whomever she wishes.

      Maybe I’m being very “simple” in my thoughts, but why did Giuliani endorse in this contest?  And does McMaster have anything to gain from the endorsement of a NY liberal Republican former mayor.

    7. Just voted in Cali–voted for Brown’s token opposition Aguirre and couldn’t hold my nose for Boxer–her competition is so weird (Kaus and another guy no one any has talked about)–so I skipped the Senate race altogether.

      Voted Yes on 13, 14 and 16 and No on 16 and 17.

    8. and you did not fail us now. Coons in DE is indeed one to watch and support. I feel some November magic that may call for Republicans to build a mote around their Castle!

    9. I think the criticism of Cramer is a little overboard. He’s always been about the space programs in North Alabama, even to this day, since he’s a lobbyist for the city of Huntsville.

      Obviously I hope he endorses Raby, but just because he doesn’t come out of the gate the day after the Primary is not a reason for concern.

    11. It sounds like something that I would love and would be up my alley, but I’d like to hear from people here who have played it before burning $20

    12. I literally nodded up and down while reading that entire Chris Bowers post.  The problem is that none of these Blue Dogs are actually listening to their constituents, they are listening to the tea-baggers who care enough to call in and complain, they are watching the Fox News motivated stories, and they are straight up listening to GOP talking points.  And as Bowers points in the first sentence, they dont care about budget deficits or have an actual ideology, and we all know how much many of them love their government pork, they aren’t any exception in this department.  What makes me dislike the Blue Dogs is that instead of working with the Democrats to have a coordinated message, a coordinated strategy, a strategy that will keep us all afloat, they instead are working with the GOP to make our bills be less effective.  How on Earth can we argue that extreme action and government interference was necessary to prevent total economic destruction when we have a giant segment of our caucus saying the complete opposite?

      I will say I dont hold House Blue Dogs to such a poor degree as I do with with the Lieberdems in the Senate who 100% completely fucked us over in HCR.  If they had just followed along, shut their fucking mouths, and rolled over, well, they’d all still be in the Senate come 2016.  Instead Lincoln is pretty much DOA, Lieberman has tier 1 challengers waiting and the party will abandon him this time, and it seems likely Nelson and Landreiu will both be retiring because they think they’ll lose anyway.  And the worst part is that they took us all down with them.

      One ray of light for us that makes this differently than the GOP is that they got taken down because their policies got us to where we are.  We got here because of 4 douchebag Senators who made HCR take 6 months longer than it should have and made the Democrats look weak, ineffectual, and like we cant even get a flipping piece of legislation passed after taking A YEAR of working on it.  Hell, let’s make that 5 Senators, August through November was Baucus’ fault.

    13. I just voted in Simpsonville, SC, in the Dem primary.  I voted for Vincent Sheheen for governer (to avoid a runoff), Tom Thompson for Education Super (a teacher/college dean vs an education dept. bureaucrat), and Vic Rawl for Senator (the other guy’s not a serious candidate).  

      I was Dem voter #14.  By the time I voted, the Rep voters were up to 114.  I don’t know if this is because the number of Rep voters is much higher in the Upstate, or if Dems are crossing over to vote in the Rep primary because it’s the “only primary that matters”.  I’m against crossing primaries.  The Dems will never build a strong party if no one’s bothering to vote in their primaries.  And I worry that if few Dems vote in their own primaries, jokes like Robert Ford and Alvin Greene might win.

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