SSP Daily Digest: 9/1 (Afternoon Edition)

• DE-Sen: Wow, the mounting establishment/teabagger war in the GOP Delaware primary is actually getting physically violent. A Christine O’Donnell supporter got into a scuffle with a tracker from the state GOP party who was videotaping O’Donnell at a candidate forum

• IL-Sen: The Constitution Party is still trying to get back on the ballot in Illinois, maybe most notably in the close Senate race where Randy Stufflebeam would be their candidate. They’re going to court to get back on the ballot after the state Board of Elections kicked them off for not having enough valid signatures.

• NV-Sen: School’s out for the summer/ school’s out… forever! The latest daily nugget of crazy from Sharron Angle is her recounting last week of her struggles back in the state legislature in 2003 against a supplemental budget bill that would have paid for emergency funding to make sure that the state’s public schools could actually open at the start of the school year. Meanwhile, Harry Reid is continuing his apparently successful advertising strategy of letting Angle say the usual things she says, and just turning them straight into his own ads against her, as with his newest ad launched this week.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Despite the utter lack of drama in the big races in the Empire State, Quinnipiac just keeps polling it. (I guess that’s OK; we’ll take good news where we can get it.) In the governor’s race, Andrew Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25 and Carl Paladino 60-23. (Unfortunately, there aren’t GOP primary numbers, as it’d be interesting to see, as other pollsters have seen, whether Paladino might actually be able to overtake the insufficiently-crazy Lazio for the nomination.) In the Senate race, Kirsten Gillibrand beats Bruce Blakeman 44-26, David Malpass 45-24, and Joe DioGuardi 43-28.

• CO-Gov: If either Dan Maes or Tom Tancredo is going to drop out and stop their tragic pas de deux, it’d better be soon. Friday, it turns out, is the last day before the November ballot printing is finalized. Meanwhile, here’s the kind of headline you don’t want to see when you’re already fighting public perception that you’re a bit of a paranoid wackjob who thinks that bicycles are a United Nations plot:

GOP gubernatorial candidate Maes backs off claims of undercover police work

• KY-Gov: The establishment slate for Kentucky Republicans for the off-year gubernatorial race (only a year from now!) seems like it’s officially coalesced. David Williams, the state Senate president, will run for Governor, and Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer (who’d been a rumored governor candidate himself) will run for Lt. Governor. They’ll still have to get past businessman Phil Moffet, running under the teabagger banner, in the GOP primary before facing Steve Beshear, who’ll be seeking re-election. A recent poll had Farmer and Beshear neck-and-neck, but there hasn’t been any Beshear/Williams polling yet.

• MA-09: Mac d’Allesandro’s against Stephen Lynch in the Dem primary in the 9th is raising some decent cash in the late innings. Since July 1st, the SEIU, MoveOn, and Act Blue have raised $178K for d’Allesandro.

• PA-06: DNC DGA head Tim Kaine heads to Philly to fundraise on Manan Trivedi’s behalf, as part of a tour on behalf of Asian-American Dem candidates. Trivedi’s also had help on the stump this week from Bob Casey and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

• RGA: Good thing the RGA already has an unprecedented amount of money squirreled away… because they’re going to have to give a decent chunk of it to Chris Bell, the ex-Rep. who was the 2006 Dem gubernatorial candidate in Texas. A Travis County judge ordered the RGA to pay Chris Bell a cosmic $2 million because of campaign finance violations in the ’06 election (where the RGA gave an undisclosed $1 million to Texans for Rick Perry).

• WATN?: This isn’t really FL-Sen anymore, but Jeff Greene is insisting on staying in the limelight even as his vomit-covered yacht sails into the sunset. In fact, the phrase “vomit-covered yacht” is really what’s at stake here; he says he’s following through with a libel suit against the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald over their reporting of his many foibles. Good luck proving actual malice!

• Maps: They’re rapidly scrolling their way down the front page, so if you haven’t had a chance to check out jeffmd’s maps of Alaskan elections past, do it now. Begich/Stevens, Murkowski/Miller, and Young/Parnell all played out in similar ways, geographically, so if you’re wondering what Scott McAdam’s path to a win might look like, check it out.

• Ads:

• NH-Sen: We told you a few days ago that Ovide Lamontagne was finally going on the air; his first ad is a talk-to-the-camera introductory spot.

• PA-Sen: The DSCC is out with another ad, attacking Pat Toomey on the derivatives trading issue.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s new ad is testimonials from a variety of (as C. Montgomery Burns would say) Joe Lunchpails and Sally Housecoats.

• IN-02: Jackie Walorski is out with an introductory bio spot.

• NE-02: Tom White is also out with an introductory bio spot, carefully steering clear of anything Democratic-sounding.

• NJ-03: John Adler may actually win the advertising day today, with a negative spot that slams Jon Runyan for his tax break for his “farm” (a.k.a. McMansion plus one donkey).

• NV-03: Dina Titus hits Joe Heck for comments that “it’s not Congress’s role to create jobs.” (This comes on top of the AFSCME’s huge buy of anti-Heck ads.)

• Rasmussen:

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon (D) 33%, David Vitter (R-inc) 54%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 39%, John Kasich (R) 47%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 37%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%  

159 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 9/1 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. is now a Congressman.  I remember when he visited my school back in the fifth grade.  Even if you don’t like his politics, his biggest saving grace is that he’s incredibly nice.

    Also, I’d like to make a correction.  Kaine chairs the DNC, not the DGA.

  2. For those of who enjoy cat fud among conservative blogs, there’s an interesting potential civil war breaking out over at our favorite right-wing rat trap. Neil Stevens, who is one of their more reasonable writers, has a piece about how Republicans in Deleware actually favor Mike Castle over Christine O’Donnell, and that she’s not catching fire in the state. It’s not an endoresement of Castle, but it is interesting in light of Erik Erickson’s full throated endoresement of O’Donnell (even to the point of claiming the unproven and utterly ridiculous theory that Castle would drop out if he won so he could be replaced with Beau Biden).

    I don’t have the heart to actually link to Red State, but you know where to go.  

  4. In the WSJ today John Fund has a story about the problems Popular Governors have running for Senate. He even mentions the “Keep Koch Mayor” campaign Cuomo used in 1982:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/…

    I wrote about this the other day in the weekly thread (did John Fund steal this from me?).

    I also think that the chaos of the WV gubernatorial succession could be an issue. If Manchin is elected WV could have 3 different Governors in 1 year and 4 different Governors in 2 years!

  5. Gallup’s generic was likely an outlier, but the CW has solidified that November is going to be a debacle for Dems, and already both the lefty blogs and DC Dems are breaking out in angry pre-mortems. I’m not looking forward to the late 2010/early 2011 Dem civil war.

    I’m bracing myself for most of the forecasters to put out there new rankings soon. Sabato indicated in the FT that Crystal Ball’s forecast is going to be bleak. Nate says his House forecast will be up soon and hasn’t been much more encouraging. And of course, Charlie Cook is implying that losses could climb over 50 (“worse than ’94”). Cook, btw, completely irritates me because, while his forecasts may be correct, he clings to the “it was health care!” explanation that seems completely beside the point.

    Maybe I’m just grasping at straws, but the one consolation is these forecasts are, in some ways, “lagging indicators,” reflecting the terrible polling of August. If there’s a sustained uptick, it won’t get reflected in the rankings till the end of the month. And, hey, maybe there will be an uptick. Both Rasmussen and Gallup have Obama’s approvals up – Gallup to 47/45 (+2), and Rasmussen to 48/51 (-3). Hopefully this isn’t just a momentary Iraq-induced blip.  

  11. Right now, Texas and Maine lead on PPP’s poll. They will poll the top 2. Hurricane Earl will be affecting Maine on Saturday. Would that have any affect on the poll, with potential power outages and evacuations of island areas?  

  12. This ad is set to air on 3 Christian radio stations and 1 conservative radio station in the Phoenix area.  It brings up Quayle’s work for a raunchy site.

  14. May take until sept 18th to count all of the ballots.  There’s also some stuff about Dubie’s plan lacking specifics and Bernie going after Debt panelist Simpson.  (Trying to increase 7 days readership.  I just like the paper).

    http://www.7dvt.com/2010dont-s…

  16. watched Boxer and Fiorina debate for an hour on TV. Both of them seemed well prepared for the debate and countered each others talking points. Boxer was not running away from her record and neither was Fiorina.

    At one point during the debate Fiorina said Boxer was using HP to score cheep political points against her. When the moderators played a question from a former HP employee who is a Republican asking if Fiorina if she stood by her record of sending jobs overseas, Fiorina stood by it and talked about how other states and countries were luring jobs away from California. Boxer then said Fiorina must know a lot about that because according to her, she created jobs in China.

    Fiorina was caught flatfooted when the moderators asked if she supported Prop 23, the proposition that would suspend AB-32, California’s landmark climate laws. Fiorina then proceeded to talk about how any Federal Climate Bill would supersede that and how Boxer failed to get Cap and Trade through the senate. When the moderators pressed her if she supported it, Fiorina said she hadn’t decided yet. Then she basically said AB 32 was a job killer leaving me with the impression Fiorina should of come out in support of Prop 23 instead of saying she was undecided but trying to say she suspending AB 32 might be a good idea.

    Boxer addressed that infamous “Call me Senator” video clip and said she had asked the general if he could call her senator and she would call her general instead of “sir” and “ma’am.” She then mentioned she called the general asking if she should apologize and the general said no harm was done.

    Fiorina justified her opposition to the teacher bill by saying that it wouldn’t help and mentioned Sacramento and Washington D.C. were arguing over how the money could be spent. Fiorina also said Boxer was leaving the Central Valley high and dry by failing to use her position as Chair of the EPW to get more water into the Central Valley.

    (I could write more, but that would be suited for a diary. But those were some of the more lively moments of the debate.)

Comments are closed.