(Note: The content of this post was written entirely by DavidNYC.)
FL-Sen: If there’s one small upside to the terrible tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, it’s that the drill, baby, drill brigade is being made to squirm painfully. Larry Kudlow, of all people, beat it out of Marco Rubio that he “opposes a moratorium on offshore drilling, opposes forcing BP to stop paying dividends to shareholders, and supports continued drilling off Florida’s coasts in the long run.” I like it when clear lines are drawn.
KY-Sen: This reminds me of C3PO’s advice to R2D2 after the latter beat Chewbacca in chess: “I suggest a new strategy – let the Wookie win.” Rand Paul’s new defeatist strategy is to only take questions from reporters in writing. I just hope libertarian whackjobs don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose.
NV-Sen: Like Hyman Roth introducing Michael Corleone to his network of gangsters, John Ensign is putting his arm around Sharron Angle’s shoulder and shepherding her to a lunch today with Republican senators. (Actually, if anything, Ensign reminds me of Senator Geary, also of Nevada.) Meanwhile, Harry Reid’s streak of good fortune continues: Mitch McConnell announced that he won’t campaign against the Majority Leader. Does anyone really believe that McConnell is doing this to restore the supposed “comity” that Bill Frist allegedly shredded when he campaigned against Tom Daschle in 2004? If it would even give the GOP the slightest edge, I’m sure Mitch would be in Vegas tomorrow. Nah, I think even McConnell must sense the tide turning in this race.
AL-Gov: The recount to see who gets to make the GOP runoff is set to get underway. Tim James trails Robert Bentley for second place by 167 votes (almost half a million total were cast in the primary). James has had to mail checks to every one of Alabama’s 67 counties to pay for the recount, totally some $200,000. Officials expect results either Thursday or Friday.
SC-Gov: It looks like Henry McMaster has a little more sense than Andre Bauer: the state AG is going to endorse front-runner Nikki Haley today in the runoff, while the Lt. Gov. previously endorsed Gresham Barrett, widely seen as a no-hoper at this point.
FL-08: At the link is what will supposedly be Alan Grayson’s first TV ad of the cycle. It’s not up yet – he’s busy flogging it to push people to donate so that he can air it, since he only has $1.5 million in the bank. Pretty weird, disjointed ad if you ask me, with a garbled message.
GA-04: Shirley Franklin, who was mayor of Atlanta until this year, endorsed Dem Rep. Hank Johnson in his bid for re-election. Johnson faces a primary challenge from DeKalb County Commissioner Connie Stokes, and former DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones.
NM-03: Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Dale Peterson – step aside. Tom Mullins has officially come up with the most insane Republican idea of the cycle: he thinks we could put land mines (!!!!!) along the US-Mexico border to deter illegal immigration. I love it when Republicans get all eliminationist with their rhetoric.
MS-01: The Tarrance Group (R) for Alan Nunnelee (6/8-9, likely voters, March in parens):
Travis Childers (D-inc): 42 (51)
Alan Nunnelee (R): 50 (42)
(MoE: ±5.6%)
Nunnelee favorables: 44/8. Childers favorables: 49/30. Obama approval: 36%.
SC-04: Bob Inglis has a week left in his runoff against Trey Gowdy, but it sounds like he’s already playing his swan song. Inglis has dropped all negative attacks on his opponent and instead is launching a final ad which takes swipes at Washington, DC – a tough move for an incumbent to pull off, to say the least. Politico speculates that perhaps Inglis is trying to win over supporters of the also-rans, but that seems like a fridge too far at this late date. P’co also notes that Inglis isn’t revealing the size of the ad buy. Also curious to me is the fact that the NRCC doesn’t seem to have done anything to help one of their own here.
Polltopia: It’s that time again: Head over to Public Policy Polling’s website to vote on your favorite place to poll.
Not terrible results considering it’s a Republican, and one of the toughest districts for the Democrats to hold onto.
won’t matter if he spends it on ads like that one. If I knew nothing about Grayson I might have come away from it thinking it was a preview for a documentary. There really is no central message for the ad.
PPP released this poll today. Full results with the downloadable PDF are at this link:
http://realclearpolitics.blogs…
The results are shown as:
Romney 25
Huckabee 22
Palin 19
Gingrich 15
Paul 6
Other 5
Und 6
I would’ve liked to see Pawlenty’s name included since he’s clearly running, but oh well. Also…do you guys not include polling for the presidential contest simply because it’s too early?
The NPR-commissioned battleground poll is really bad for us. This is a good bipartisan poll of endangered districts, 60 Dem and 10 GOPers, and we’re clearly down.
Right now I’d say it’s 50-50 the House flips, which is worse than how I’ve usually felt about it since HCR was enacted. If we hang on to it, it will be very narrowly.
I still feel better about the Senate landscape than in a long time, but Stu Rothenberg’s column dismissing Reid’s chances against Angle do dishearten me a little. None of these guys is always right, and my head says Stu is missing badly on how bad a candidate Angle is, but it’s one more thing to drag me down this morning.
Charlie Cook said his basis for expecting the House to flip is macrotrends staying the same in spite of small microtrend improvements for Dems, and that in 2006 he learned the hard way that macrotrends trumped microtrends. I think that’s pretty reasonable.
Someone make me feel better!
Most people (and most household pets, for that matter) have more sense than Andre Bauer.
Assume that Democrats win none of the 10 Republican districts. And that the Republican margin in those districts is greater than their overall margin. So, a Republican lead of 6% in the other 60 districts, assuming a uniform swing, gets them how many seats? 32 by my count. Not enough to take over. And not that different from the 25-30 I’m predicting now.
As for Cook and Rothenberg, don’t even bother reading them. They’re frontrunners of the first order. Sabato is better.
I’m encouraged by these numbers, esp. with off shore drilling being a bright line issue in this campaign.
A new Magellan Strategies poll in Louisiana shows Sen. David Vitter (R) crushing Rep. Charles Melancon (D) in their U.S. Senate race, 51% to 31%.
Update: A new Public Policy Polling survey shows Melancon trailing Vitter by just 9 points, 46% to 37%.
I think it is funny how Ras and Magellan have been so busy polling but show vastly different numbers. I know that PPP isn’t the gold standard for pollsters but I don’t think they have an agenda and they are one of the few pollsters that seem to be polling a lot this cycle.
The latest Public Policy Polling survey in Illinois finds Alexi Giannoulias (D) edging Rep. Mark Kirk (R), 31% to 30%, with Greene Party candidate LeAlan Jones at 14% and another 24% undecided.
I think Kirk’s gaughs cost him an easy election. I just wish the dems hadn’t elected Alexi… I think that this race would have been so easy to hold with a half way decent candidate.
good god man, we should get you a babka.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmsp…
MUCH closer than I expected. Vitter leads 46-37.
http://politicalwire.com/archi…
wut