Author: DavidNYC

Big story in today’s Buffalo News:

Congressional candidate Chris Lee acknowledged Friday that he was fired from Ingram Micro years ago because he “made a mistake.” Sources familiar with the mistake say he hacked into a company computer for personal gain.

Lee was a young salesman with Ingram Micro, a computer products distributor that in 1989 was known as Ingram Micro D and operated from offices on Elmwood Avenue.

Lee, according to his co-workers at the time, somehow obtained a company credit manager’s password. Then, with that password, he raised the credit limits for some of his customers and the customers of other sales people, the employees said.

That way Lee could sell the customers more of the company’s products, on credit, before the billing system would flag their accounts for payment and halt further purchases.

It might have helped with sales, but it also put the company at greater risk if those customers failed to pay. A few others knew of the scheme, according to one of the former employees, who asked to remain unidentified fearing retaliation from Lee or Republican Party forces.

The irony is almost too great to bear. Chris Lee broke his own company’s rules to extend credit to people who didn’t deserve it, thereby putting his firm at risk. I could not imagine a more perfect echo of today’s credit meltdown. This sordid story might be just enough to make voters in the 26th CD take a second – and unflattering – look at Lee and go with Alice Kryzan instead.

Finally, some cheesecake photos at SSP. No, not those kind of cheesecake photos. I’m talking the real thing:

Those of you who’ve read The Thumpin’ know that Rahm Emanuel loves to send cheesecakes as inspiration to campaigns. (More on that here.) This particular cake was sent to the Himes campaign, and below, you can see delighted staffers with the confection – presumably moments before they devoured it:

Maybe I need to start personalizing the babkas I’ve been sending!

Public Opinion Strategies for Phil English (10/22-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kathy Dahlkemper (D): 45

Phil English (R-inc): 47

(MoE: ±5%)

You know the sail barge is listing badly over the pit of the Sarlacc when your own internal shows you up two and under 50. I’d love to see the trendlines on this sucker – I’m sure this isn’t the first poll POS has done for Philly. But it may very well be the last.

The NRSC has pulled out. The DSCC has pulled out. The Dem has had an unassailable and growing lead in the polls. Recriminations have already begun on the GOP side. And Barack Obama is running away with the state.

In short, Mark Udall is in a commanding position to win this race. An upset by Bob Schaffer at this late date is a remote possibility at best. Therefore, we’re changing our rating on this race from Lean Democrat to Likely Democrat.

For your enjoyment, we will also once again present the leaked internal Republican strategy video for the state of Colorado:

Mason-Dixon (10/22-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Jim Martin (D): 39

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 45

Allen Buckley: 5

Undecided: 11

(MoE: 4%)

Sneaky, sneaky. NBC commissioned this poll from Mason-Dixon and announced the results on Meet the Press – but they apparently haven’t really pushed it out online (hence the link to Pollster above). This is the first poll in some time showing daylight between the two candidates, and it also has a relatively high number of undecideds. The good news here is that Chambliss is still under 50 and if he doesn’t get too lucky with the undecideds, we’ll be headed to a runoff.

Check out the Quick Hits in the top-right corner: They now have comments enabled. Now, clicking on a Quick Hit will take you directly to a page for that QH alone, where you should see a “Post a Comment” link at the bottom. Hard-refresh your browser if you don’t see the changes.

A big thank you to Paul Preston (aka “soapy”) of SoapBlox for installing this, and to Open Left for helping to develop this feature.

So go ahead and give it a whirl!

Rasmussen (10/21, likely voters, 9/29 in parens):

Rick Noriega (D): 40 (43)

John Cornyn (R-inc): 55 (50)

Undecided: 5 (7)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Blink and you’d have missed it: We actually briefly changed our rating on this race to Likely R, thinking that an upset could not strictly be ruled out. But we didn’t even have time to write it up before this poll came out – and before we learned about private polling which shows things even worse for Rick Noriega.

Let’s face it: Three-and-a-half million or so raised is just never gonna cut it in Texas, especially not when Cornyn’s raised over $18 mil. What’s more, the DSCC isn’t going to play here, and without their involvement, beating an incumbent senator is just about impossible. The good news, though, is that Texas is trending bluer, and we not only have several opportunities further down the ballot this year, we’ll have many more in the future as well.

The Swing State Project is changing its ratings on twelve House races:

• NY-24: Likely D to Safe D
• OH-18: Likely D to Safe D
• AZ-01: Lean D to Likely D
• AZ-08: Lean D to Likely D
• KY-03: Lean D to Likely D
• FL-24: Tossup to Lean D
• NM-01: Tossup to Lean D
• OH-15: Tossup to Lean D
• CA-04: Lean R to Tossup
• FL-25: Lean R to Tossup
• ID-01: Lean R to Tossup
• FL-16: Lean R to Likely R

All of these moves except FL-16 are in favor of the Democrats. We are also adding IA-05, GA-06 and PA-12 to our “Races to Watch” list. Look for our writeups to follow soon. Our full race ratings chart is available here.

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution

Take a bow for the new revolution

Smile and grin at the change all around me

Pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I’ll get on my knees and pray

We don’t get fooled again

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters, 9/17-19 in parens):

Dennis Shulman (D): 40 (34)

Scott Garrett (R-inc): 47 (49)

Other: 2 (2)

Undecided: 11 (15)

(MoE: ±5%)

This is a tidy improvement over R2K’s first poll in this district, reflecting in part the fact that Shulman went up on the air between the two surveys. It also helps explain Scott Garrett’s wild freak-out and sick smears against Shulman. (My favorite: Shulman, an ordained rabbi, is “soft on Israel.” Uh huh.) You may also recall that earlier this week, the Club for Growth, which usually cares naught for incumbents, endorsed Garrett and may be getting ready to drop some bucks on his behalf.

In this expensive NYC metro district, Shulman will likely need some outside help of his own if he is to unseat Garrett. There’s still time for the DCCC to come in with a big moneybomb in this (and many other) districts. (Last cycle, for instance, they nuked Charlie Bass in NH-02 on Halloween.) We’ll soon see if Shulman has the momentum to pull off a major upset here.

Bonus finding: McCain leads Obama 51-39 (it was 52-37 in the last poll).