SSP Daily Digest: 10/8 (Morning Edition)

  • FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, sensing that time is running out, decided to reject the endorsement of the Sierra Club. Why? Because they wanted to co-endorse Charlie Crist, and Meek needs to do anything he can to differentiate himself from the governor, since they’re largely drawing from the same pool of voters these days. Meek tried to cast this as a principled stance, saying “The Sierra Club has chosen to stand with a governor who stood on stage applauding as Sarah Palin chanted, ‘Drill, Baby, Drill.'”
  • MO-Sen: The Smart Media Group is saying that the DSCC has cancelled two weeks worth of ad buys in Missouri. Given how often the tea-leaf reading has been wrong with all this ad stuff, I’d like to see further confirmation before making up my mind about what this means. (And guys, I don’t think you’re using cutesy hashtags properly.)
  • DE-Sen: The Cliff Claven of American politics:

    • If Barack Obama vetoes that the year before his re-election, he’s setting himself up to be very vulnerable and I’ve seen many Hillary for President ads running.

    Christine O’Donnell, what color is the sky in your world?

  • AL-05: Oh god, this is NOT good:

    • Congressional candidate and veteran political consultant Steve Raby once ran four north Alabama political action committees that authorities say were used to route $200,000 from a Dothan casino owner to a state senator in a vote-buying scheme. Raby says he relinquished control of the PACs weeks before the money transfers.

    And this is just not a headline you ever want to see in your own race:

    Raby: I have not been accused of doing anything wrong

  • AR-04: Here’s a race that’s not on a lot of folks’ radars but probably should be, just because of the nature of the year & state. Republican Beth Anne Rankin is out with a one-day robopoll from Diamond State Consulting Group that shows Rep. Mike Ross leading by just a 44-41 margin, with 5% going to Green Party candidate Josh Drake. A poll from July had Ross up 55-33. But does Rankin have the resources to take down the Lord Satrap of the Blue Dogs? Ross had $1.1 million on hand as of June 30; Rankin, just $70K.
  • CT-04: Believe it or not, Merriman River Group is a Democratic pollster. But they sure have been putting out all kinds of numbers this week which are at odds with… well, everyone else’s numbers, particularly in CT-Sen and CT-05. In their most recent effort, they have Rep. Jim Himes at 49 and Republican Dan Debicella at 47, so I’ll be really curious to see if internals bear this one out. There are at least two things I don’t like about this poll: First off, they report numbers to decimal places, which is a bad practice because it gives a false sense of accuracy. Secondly, they refer to Himes’s opponent as “Dan DeBicella” throughout. C’mon, guys.
  • CT-05: Speaking of CT-05, here’s another poll from Chris Murphy (courtesy the Gotham Research Group), showing him up 48-34 over Sam Caligiuri. Murph’s last poll had a similar 50-38 margin. The only thing I don’t like here is the weak swipe at robopollsters (like Merriman) in the press release: “An automated computer survey can’t tell who is actually picking up the phone – a registered voter in the Fifth District, or a voter’s 10 year old cousin visiting from South Carolina.” Chris – we love you, man, but we know you can do better.
  • ID-01: In response to some rumor-mongering that showed up the other day in Roll Call, Walt Minnick said he “has no intention of changing parties.” I think the Parker Griffith party switch actually was a very good thing for us, as it demonstrated what is likely to happen to any other Dems who follow suit – you’ll get teabagged to death.
  • KS-01: In the race to succeed Rep. Jerry Moran (who is running for Senate), Republican Tim Huelskamp leads Democrat Alan Jilka by a 63-26 margin, according to SurveyUSA.
  • KY-06: Dueling internals in Eastern Kentucky. First up is Ben Chandler, whose poll from the Mellman group has him up 52-40 over Andy Barr. That’s actually a decline from his numbers a few weeks ago which had him up 53-33, but Barr’s gain seems pretty understandable – and importantly, Chandler hasn’t slipped. (These numbers are also backed up by a recent Braun poll.) Meanwhile, Barr’s survey has it 48-47 in favor of the Republican, which are the best numbers we’ve seen from his camp all cycle.
  • TX-17: Chet Edwards also has an internal poll out, from Bennett, Petts and Normington. It’s not particularly good news: Bill Flores leads 46-42. Still, it’s better than the most recent Flores own-poll, which had him up 55-36.
  • VA-05: Jesus, what is with this guy? Teabagger Jeff Clark has been pulling the Hamlet act more melodramatically than anyone since Mario Cuomo. Now he’s claiming he might drop out of the race because he’s being excluded from a series of debates between Rep. Tom Perriello and Republican Rob Hurt. Some of his backers say they might file a legal challenge, but that seems dubious.

    • SSP TV:

    • NH-Sen: Even though Democrats on the Hill were too fucking stupid to schedule a vote on the Obama tax cuts which would have given them great campaign fodder, props to Paul Hodes for cutting an ad on the issue regardless. Hodes says he supports extending middle class tax cuts, but is very explicit that he wants to let tax breaks for the wealthiest expire – unlike Kelly Ayotte
    • NV-Sen: Hah, if this works, I’ll be impressed: Sharron Angle’s ad hits Reid on a few votes (like the stimulus), and also includes this gem: Reid’s vote against Tom Coburn’s retarded “no Viagra for sex offenders” poison-pill amendment to the healthcare reform bill
    • NY-Gov: There is no fucking way I am watching this whole thing. The best summary: “Danny Devito’s version of the Checkers speech“
    • PA-Sen: Another fucking gong ad, this time from Joe Sestak, hitting the same themes as the DSCC ad from the other day. Do we seriously need to emulate Sixteen Candles?
    • MA-10: The DCCC hits Jeffrey Perry – and hits him hard – for his role as supervising officer when two teenage girls were strip-searched by a cop under his command in the 90s
    • DCCC: The D-Trip has a nice map where you can click around to see ads they’re running in key races. You can also check out their YouTube channel

    202 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 10/8 (Morning Edition)”

    1. SSP has gotten faster! (at this moment, the title of this diary is

      SSP Daily Digest: 10/8 (Morning Edition)  

    4. http://www.freep.com/article/2…

      Note the story refers to it as an “independent poll.”  Even though the Dingell campaign, correctly, notes:

      Dingell’s campaign said the survey — conducted by the Rossman Group of Lansing and Team TelCom — is a Republican front and is contradicted by other polls in recent weeks.

      A true independent poll released three weeks ago had Dingell ahead by 19.

      http://www.clickondetroit.com/…

    5. Suffolk University, LV, 10/4-6 MOE +/- 4.4%

      http://www.cas.suffolk.edu/440…

      Portman 47

      Fisher 37

      Kasich 46

      Strickland 42

      Spisak (G) 4

      Matesz (L) 2

      Attorney Gen.

      DeWine 44

      Cordray 38

      Treasurer

      Boyce (D) 37

      Mandel (R) 34

      Sec of State

      O’Shaughnessy (D) 40

      Husted (R) 33

      Generic Congressional

      48D/41R

      Fav/Unfav

      Obama 48/46

      Hillary 60/33

      If the Secretary of State numbers are right, there might still be some hope in redistricting.

    7. Sigh of relief unemployment didn’t hit 10% as that would have been the final nail in the coffin.

    11. Mike Ross is in trouble!

      Wait, no he’s not. If you are down in your own internal poll (this by 4), you are probably down by 10. And Ross has all the resources necessary to win by 15.

      Chet Edwards is doing better!

      Obviously something changed, because I thought his campaign didn’t release internals. He’s down 4, probably down 10 in reality.  

    12. Another horrible day.

      Jones stepping down (Although he didn’t really do his jobs, by most accounts Donilion is terrible), The horrible Unemployement numbers, The Ross poll, Brown’s Whore issue etc.

      We simply cannot win this cycle, its disgusting.

    14. I saw it last night in NJ (Philly market). There are lots of Asian Americans in the Philly area and they are a strongly Democratic demographic. We’re even trying to get one of them (Manan Trivedi) elected to Congress. Playing gong sounds every time you mention China is stupid. It would be like playing the Mexican hat dance in an ad about the border or immigration. A smarter ad would have said unlike in America, in China workers get paid so little and have no protection from the law, and that’s why Toomey sent American jobs there.

      If there is a part of the county where racism loses an election then this is it.

    20. As the 2nd Congressional District race takes a turn toward the nasty, Republican U.S. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao  has suggested that state Rep. Cedric Richmond, the Democratic nominee, steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to a nonprofit and then used its credit card to buy a Rolex diamond bezel.

      But a police report written as part of a 2004 investigation into theft at the nonprofit, New Orleans Community Enhancement Inc., includes the receipts from the agency credit card. They do not show a purchase of a Rolex — or any high-priced jewelry.

      http://www.nola.com/politics/i…

      Cao’s been going very negative since the Obama ad on Richmond for ethics: the charges are pretty much from barely sourced blogs.  Tearing down Richmond’s probably the only way Cao can win, though this will likely hurt Cao’s nice guy image.  

    22. Former Republican Congressman Joe Schwarz has endorsed Mark Schauer (D) over Tim Walberg (R), who ousted Schwarz in the 2006 GOP primary.

    24. Well he may fall into the Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin bucket of being lucky to have a flawed opponent. I am not sure that this will be enough but his anti-bailout oppponent had a bankruptcy that appears to have costed taxpayers $7.5 million according to the Dallas Morning News. Not sure what difference it will if Edwards is truly down double digits but if he is down 4 points? I am sure that this news is welcome in the Edwards camp:

      http://www.dallasnews.com/shar…

    26. Generic Ballot:

      GOP 52 (53)

      Dem 45 (44)

      I suppose you could see that as progress as it’s two points tighter, but it just looks like noise to me.  I see the GOP as up 6-8 right now and this falls right in that range.

    28. http://www.youtube.com/Vitterf…

      David Vitter’s ad from September. The last line- “What else could you ever need to know about Charlie Melancon?”

      Angle’s new Viagra ad from the digest, last line- “What else could you ever need to know about Harry Reid?”

      I think they must be using the same agency, since they both also used the same pic of illegal aliens in anti-immigration commercials.  

    30. In the three really competitive races they endorsed Bob Dold!, Bill Foster, and Adam Kizinger. They will probably endorse in the Senate and Governor races on Sunday but I’m guessing they stay neutral in the Senate race.

    32. “An automated computer survey can’t tell who is actually picking up the phone – a registered voter in the Fifth District, or a voter’s 10 year old cousin visiting from South Carolina.”

      Because when I think of South Carolina, I think of the same voters who nominated Alvin Greene. Is this what they were getting at?

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