IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Nothing like collateral damage on the campaign trail. Mark Kirk has been trying to make a weird issue out of the fact that Alexi Giannoulias didn’t pay any income taxes last year. It’s weird because Giannoulias lost millions of dollars last year, and it would be a little hard to tax a negative number. But it’s also been a foolhardy crusade, because Kirk’s ticket-mate, gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady, is in the exact same position as Giannoulias – and so Kirk was compelled to criticize his fellow Republican as well, for a total non-issue. D’oh!
Meanwhile, Giannoulias fired back with a hit of his own, attacking Mark Kirk for pulling a Kasich and refusing to release his tax returns. But wait, there’s more! Kirk’s also been busy pulling yet another Kirk, too:
Also during Kirk’s news conference, the congressman would not discuss the latest question about his military career, this time from a statement he made in a Sun-Times questionnaire that he was “shot at” while serving with a Dutch armor unit in Kandahar.
IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth is out with his first ad of the campaign. As always, NWOTSOTB (that’s “No Word On The Size Of The Buy” in English – get used to seeing that around here).
OH-Sen: Cap-and-trade has proven to be perilous territory for more than one Republican candidate this cycle, with flip-flops as persistent as vuvuzela blasts at a World Cup match. That’s because trading emissions credits had long been one of those rare non-insane Republican ideas that a lot of Republicans had cottoned to. But because Dems have embraced the idea, too, it’s now political poison in GOP circles. So, no surprise to see Rob Portman blasting cap-and-trade a “job killer” – and then getting instantly hammered by Dems for having supported it during his career in Congress. Whoops!
GA-Gov: Dem Roy Barnes is out with a new ad whaling on the idiocy regularly perpetrated by Republicans in the state legislature – like attempting to ban stem cell research, passing bills “about microchips in the brain,” and talking about seceding from the union – which he says makes it hard to recruit jobs to the state. NWOTSOTB.
HI-Gov: Outgoing Gov. Linda Lingle (R) vetoed a civil unions bill yesterday, her final day to do so. Whether this becomes a potent issue on the campaign trail remains to be seen, but at least two of the big three candidates in the race have come out with statements on Lingle’s action: Neil Abercrombie (he’s for civil unions) and Duke Aiona (he’s against them).
FL-25: GOP state Rep. David Rivera, a hardline extremist when it comes to supporting the Cuban embargo, has taken some heat for his alleged friendship with businessman Ariel Pereda. Pereda has been an active proponent of trade with Cuba, and Rivera has denied that the two have a relationship. But Mariana Cancio, another Republican candidate, posted a video of Pereda standing behind Rivera at Rivera’s campaign kick-off.
IN-09: Republican Todd Young has an internal out from Public Opinion Strategies (feel like I’ve been seeing that name a lot) which shows him trailing Baron Hill by 41-34. Note that the poll had just 300 respondents. (When you click the link, scroll all the way to the bottom for the poll press release.)
LA-03: In a bit of a throwaway sentence in a bigger article about the start of the candidate qualifying period in Louisiana, the Times-Picayune notes that Dems are still trying to recruit interim Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle to run for Rep. Charlie Melancon’s open House seat.
LA-05: Teabagging businessman (but I’m guessing Some Dude) Todd Slavant is planning to challenge notorious Democrat-cum-Republican turncoat Rodney Alexander in the GOP primary. I tend to doubt that Alexander will meet with Parker Griffith’s fate, though.
MO-08: Dem Tommy Sowers is out with his first ad, a semi-biographical spot which features his “combat bible.” NWOTSOTB.
MT-AL: This is a weird echo of something in the not-too-distant past of Montana’s political world. Denny Rehberg is suing the Billings fire department for allegedly failing to contain a fire that occurred on his property almost exactly two years ago. The fire chief is saying that saving, you know, lives is their number one priority (none were lost) – and pointing out that the folks who worked to put out the blaze had given up their holiday weekend. Oh, and that odd rhyme? Folks with keen memories will recall that former Montana Sen. Conrad Burns went out of his way to insult bone-weary firefighters to their faces who had schlepped all the way from Virginia to put out blazes back in 2006.
Iowa: Ugh: Iowa SoS Michael Mauro reports that the 100,000 voter registration edge Democrats held in the Hawkeye State just six months ago has been cut in half. However, Mauro points out that the Dems had a 40K deficit in 2002 and yet both Sen. Tom Harkin and then-Gov. Tom Vilsack won re-election.
Maryland: Candidate filing closed in Maryland yesterday. Click the link for a full list of candidates. Incidentally, only five states still have open filing periods: LA, WI, NY, HI, and DE, which brings up the rear with a July 30th deadline.
Fundraising: Reid Wilson has a few fundraising nums we haven’t seen before, including figures from AL-07, LA-03, and MA-10. Shelia Smoot’s weak haul in AL-07 is disappointing but not surprising.
The gubernatorial race is almost a dead heat.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…
Lots of quotes there but I agree most with the one that says “…it is a sign of Brown’s strength that he is running even with Whitman despite a significantly smaller and quieter campaign.”
Excellent, now people can stop pretending that Lingle is a moderate. Hopefully if she tries to run for Senate or anything else there will be lots of “pink money” slamming her down.
make action figures of HIM. oh my monkey fighting god…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…
hat tip taegan goddard politicalwire.com
A sample size of 300 is pretty standard for a Congressional District.
Looks like we have someone non-crazy this year:
http://montanaformcdonald.com
While Rehberg will be hard to unseat, it’s always good to have someone competent running in case this issue (or another one) starts to to damage him.
For those of you who don’t remember, our 2008 nominee’s strategy was to backpack around the state and to “talk to people he met on the trail” about the issues of the day and his bid for office.
I think the Ellsworth ad is pretty good, and sets up how he’s going to broadly frame this campaign — the local law man vs. the corporate lobbyist. I’m still waiting for the bombshell ad (probably will come early fall) that incorporates Dan Coats saying North Carolina is a better place to live than Indiana.
Did you type this on purpose?
Thank you Republican Party, you guys really know how to make my day 😀
It’s worrying, because so much of the Democratic advantage came from new registrants in 2008. Don’t bank on most of those people voting in an off-year election.
No-party voters are still a plurality in Iowa and in most of our state legislative districts. If Democratic incumbents are able to hold their own among independents, they can often overcome a small GOP advantage in registrations. Not only were Harkin and Vilsack re-elected in 2002, we picked up seats in the state legislature.
Direct voter contacts and the success of our early voting program will determine whether Democrats hold the Iowa House and how much our majority shrinks in the Iowa Senate.
Politico says July 30 is the primary, not the filing deadline. I assume they made a mistake?
http://thehill.com/homenews/ca…
I believe she cited the sanctity of marriage as part of her reason to veto – She’s been divorced twice >.< sigh
Hey, do you guys remember when Mark Kirk was supposed to be the awesomely formidable, near-ideal candidate who could win a Senate seat even in blue Illinois? Ah, those were the days….
I hope the ad buy’s not too big with that ad–did anyone watch it? It’s a good idea, but why does he talk so slowly? His delivery is just … off. Maybe it’s just me.
On the plus side, he reminded voters he’s a Christian and a veteran (and a hottie), and I actually like that he’s attacking Emerson directly. He’s gonna need to to knock off an incumbent that regularly wins with 70% of the vote. But hey, anti-incumbent fever, baby, catch it.
http://www.rasmussenreports.co…
Man, this dude irritates me.
Thank God Shelia Smoot can’t raise any money. She has been on the Jefferson County Commission during the sewer bond refinancing mess (she was the third and decisive vote in several of those disastrous decisions) which has left the county’s finances in truly dire straits. They are on the brink of being the largest municipal bankruptcy ever, furloughed county employees and had to put everyone on a 4 day workweek.
We do not need more Democrats with ethics problems. William Jefferson all over again.