SSP Daily Digest: 6/28 (Morning Edition)

  • NV-Sen: An interesting tidbit from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which Jon Ralston rightly knocks them for burying: Former Rep. Barbara Vucanovich, the first and only Republican woman to hold federal office in Nevada, says she isn’t sure whether she can support Sharron Angle, and might just vote “none of the above.”
  • WI-Sen: Former GOP candidate Terrence Wall is claiming that teabagging richie rich Ron Johnson engaged in “bribery” to win the state Republican convention in May – where “bribery” is characterized as, apparently, paying for some delegate hotel rooms. Johnson denies the allegations, and even his remaining opponent, Dave Westlake, isn’t buying them either.
  • WV-Sen: Sen. Robert Byrd, age 92, was admitted to the hospital over the weekend and is said to be “seriously ill” by his staff. We of course extend our wishes for his recovery.
  • AZ-Gov: While she has some distance to go before she reaches Sharron Angle or Rand Paul levels of foot-in-mouth disease, I think Jan Brewer is going to be one of those Republicans who really helps us by not knowing how to shut up. Case in point: She said on CNN this weekend that “the majority of the people that are coming to Arizona and trespassing are now becoming drug mules.”
  • CT-Gov: Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley is busy explaining two arrests in his past, both involving vehicular incidents. (Click the link for full details.) No charges were filed in either incident.
  • FL-Gov: Florida Republicans are drafting a new immigration law for their own state modeled after Arizona’s. We’re slotting this under the FL-Gov header because AG Bill McCollum’s office is helping to write this new bill. (Florida has one of the largest Hispanic populations in the country, with 21% of the state claiming Hispanic origin.) Meanwhile, the St. Pete Times takes a lengthy look at Rick Scott’s tenure at Columbia/HCA, the healthcare giant which engaged in massive fraud and eventually paid a record-setting $1.7 billion fine. Scott is trying to tout his experience as a CEO, but of course keeps attempting to distance himself from his former company. Ah, but what’s a little two-faced bullshit on the campaign trail?
  • IA-Gov: Ah, the Republican Party never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. As desmoines dem chronicles at her blog, Bleeding Heartland (bookmark it), Terry Branstad was dealt a pretty ugly vote-of-not-a-lot-of-confidence at the GOP state convention this past Saturday. Even though Branstad nominated his own Lt. Gov. candidate (the largely unknown Kim Reynolds), a state rep. put Bob Vander Plaats’ name into the hopper for the nod – and Branstad’s pick squeaked by with just 56% of the delegate vote. (Vander Plaats, of course, ran against Branstad for the gubernatorial nomination, losing by only about 10 points despite huge disparities in name rec and money.) And just the day before, BVP said he still wasn’t planning to support Brandsad, nor would he rule out an independent bid. Smell the cat fud, baby!
  • AR-02: I’m not really getting Joyce Elliott’s messaging here. On the one hand, she’s trying to tie former AG Tim Griffin to his one-time mentor, Karl Rove. On the other hand, she says she won’t run a campaign against Washington, DC. So not only is her message muddled, but she’s also unilaterally disarming. I hope she sees the error of her ways on this one.
  • MA-10: State Rep. Jeffrey Perry is touting an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies showing him with a 41-25 lead in the GOP primary over ex-state Treasurer Joe Malone. Perry also claims to have favorables of 44% and unfavorables of just 1%….
  • VA-02: Sarah Palin is going to be in town for a wingnut event called the “Freedom Fest.” But GOP nominee Scott Rigell won’t attend – and his campaign is offering some made-up sounding b.s. about FEC regulations preventing him from going. Unsurprisingly, teabagger Kenny Golden is hitting Rigell for his failure to appear. Ironically, Rigell is claiming the fact that Golden wasn’t offered equal time at the event is a reason he (Rigell) isn’t going!

    • 88 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 6/28 (Morning Edition)”

    2. http://www.boston.com/news/nat…

      Interesting poll… I suspect there are four ways of looking at this:

      1)  Brown’s riding a wave of popularity from his election.

      2)  Even Dems in Mass. are not happy with the national Democratic Party.

      3)  There is some localized issue with the Mass. Dems.

      4)  Some combination of all of the above.

      I lean towards Number 4.  Brown is the new guy, but the Mass. Dems generally politically stale with some exceptions.

    6. He says Haley leads 52-40. That’s actually pretty believable IMO but it’s never possible for me to feel at ease with Rasmussen. Think I’ll wait for PPP.

    7. That guy is at it again, and assuming he doesn’t lie about it again (like he changed his original declaration already), here’s the bet.

      hey, if you think he’s tied up wit elaine the insane [NC-Sen], then 1:1 should be a good bet. Or even 1.2:1. I wouldn’t take the other bet, at least not for the House because there’s too many variables I can’t reasonably price unless you give me 100:1 Odds. Random acts of personal misdoing, or etc.

      I’ll take it on the Senate side that no seat held by Republicans today, there will be a Democrat there at the start of the next session. 1:1 there too.

      Any takers?  Let me know, and I’ll let him know about it.  ðŸ™‚

    9. I am choosing to post this here instead of the official death of Byrd thread so that may remain on the topic of remembering the Senator’s legacy.

      But, this is SSP, so this is a question we are all thinking.

      Manchin will obviously appoint a temporary replacement, the question is who. I see it as 1 of two possibilities that we could take advantage of. The first is someone who could run for the open governor’s seat Manchin would leave behind in 2012, the other (which I like more due to the near sure thing of holding the gov’s seat) is someone who would then run for WV-2 and take out Capito with their high profile.

      So, does anyone have any names or ideas?

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