Author: DavidNYC

Call it the “Deathwatch Watch” – the Hill writes about us:

Swing State Project, a blog focused on congressional races from the 2004 swing states, started the “Tom Cole Deathwatch” in March, after Democrat Bill Foster won former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) old seat in a special election. The blog updated the “deathwatch” last week, asking readers to guess how long it would be before Cole was ousted.

The optimism among liberal blogs over this year’s congressional races is in stark contrast to the mood of conservatives.

“Unless congressional Republicans plan on making a dramatic course correction on Iraq withdrawal, SCHIP [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program], healthcare reform and fair trade, they’re in for a world of hurt in November,” said James Lambert, one of Swing State Project’s editors.

The premise for the article, though, is that rightwing bloggers are furious with Cole and want to see him get booted. Given how utterly impotent the conserative blogosphere is, this probably means that Cole is actually more likely to stay on.

In fact, a separate Hill piece about the Republicans who (well, sorta) matter – ie, the House Republican caucus – suggests that Cole (and John Boehner) are safe. That’s why I love this deathwatch – we win whether Cole stays or goes.

What’s in your wallet?

1Q, 2Q, 3Q, 4Q: First Quarter, Second Quarter, etc. Refers to the quarterly periods at the end of which campaigns must submit fundraising reports to the FEC. Note: Some organizations must file reports more frequently. Also, campaigns usually have to file additional reports around election time, including primaries.

DCCC: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

DNC: Democratic National Committee.

DSCC: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

FEC: Federal Election Commission. Tasked with ensuring compliance with our nation’s election laws.

GOP: Grand Old Party – i.e., the Republicans, aka the enemy.

IE: Independent Expenditure. An expenditure “expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate” made by an outside group. IEs may be made in unlimited amounts. (Though groups making them have to comply with the relevant laws that govern their fundraising.) Crucially, groups which make IEs are prohibited by law from coordinating with the campaign they are supporting. IE reports can be found here.

MoE: Margin of Error. A statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in a survey’s results. Used in describing polls. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one should have that the poll’s reported results are close to the “true” figures. See also “N.”

N: Mathematical notation used to denote sample size, i.e., the number of respondents contacted for a particular poll. The greater the n, the lower the margin of error. See also “MoE.”

NRCC: National Republican Congressional Committee.

NRSC: National Republican Senatorial Committee.

PVI: Partisan Voting Index. A measure created by the Cook Political Report that compares the presidential vote in each congressional district to the presidential vote nationwide. A PVI of D+5, for instance, means the district voted five points more Democratic than the nation as a whole; R+5 means it voted five points more Republican.

RNC: Republican National Committee.

This is it, folks. The one. The final piece of straw set atop the shambling camel of the GOP, the one which clove its dessicated humps in two.

Only it’s more like a ton of bricks crushing the Republican roach.

Let’s take stock of this race to see what I mean:

• This district has a PVI of R+10. It voted for Bush 62-37 in the last election. Only seven Democrats sit in comparably red seats – and not a single Republican sits in a seat as blue as this one is red. And almost every major prognosticator (at least at the start) treated this as a safe seat.
• The GOP had a perfectly serviceable candidate in Greg Davis – a standard wingnut with none of the baggage of Woody Jenkins in LA-06 or Jim Oberweis in IL-14.
• The NRCC spent $1.3 million on this race. Freedom’s Crotch spent at least $400K more – and used illegal tactics to boot. And of course Davis himself raised over a million.
• They sent in Mike Huckabee, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Haley Barbour, and Roger Wicker.
• And when that wasn’t enough, Darth Cheney came to town, to stump and raise money.
• The GOP played up Obama/Pelosi/”librul” fear-mongering to the hilt. They were shameless in exploiting whatever racial angle they thought would work.

And yet what happened? Despite all this, Travis Childers just became the newest member of the Democratic Caucus with a resounding 54-46 win. It’s utterly unspinnable. Even Tom Cole knew not to try.

But a sober press release only sees him through until tomorrow morning. Then he has to face the same vast universe of problems he had before him today, except they will loom much larger and much more sharply. Almost every potentially contestable Republican seat is in play now. The “every man for himself” mentality that has taken hold amongst the GOP will become even more firmly entrenched, dooming already-weak NRCC fundraising. In Congress, discipline will likely suffer as vulnerable members (ie, much of the caucus) are tempted to side with the Dems. And we may even see some more retirements. Things are going to get much, much worse before they ever get better for the GOP – if they do at all.

For a lot of reasons, this to me is the sweetest of our three recent special election victories. But to the GOP, seldom has more bitter medicine passed their lips. Glib commentators will say that the Republican brand is tarnished. The fact is, it is the Republican Party which itself is broken.

And this election is what helped break it.

I’d like you to imagine, for a moment, that you are the NRCC’s junior press secretary. You’ve just been tasked with the impossible: Spin tonight’s disastrous election loss in the deep red, R+10 first congressional district in Mississippi. Well, it would be impossible for normal people, but we’re talking about Republicans. No spin is too absurd! Anything will do! Those saps in the “emm-ess-emm” will dutifully transcribe whatever you write, anyhow. (Remember how they bought your line about how LA-06 was a bad portent for… Democrats? Delicious!) The key thing is, whatever explanation you decide on, it absolutely, positively, cannot be the fault of any Republican anywhere.

With that in mind, start writing!

UPDATE: The verdict is in: Tom Cole should have hired all the commenters on this thread! His staff has clearly forgotten how to write a Republican press release.

Polls have just closed in Nebraska, where the marquee race is the NE-Sen Democratic primary between Scott Kleeb and Tony Raimondo. Also of interest is the NE-02 matchup between Richard Carter and 2006 nominee Jim Esch.

Results: NE SOS | Omaha World-Herald

SSP is moving NC-Sen from “Safe Republican” to “Likely Republican.” Several factors contribute to this change:

1) Democrat Kay Hagan (who convincingly won her primary earlier this week) has done a good job raking in cash so far, raising $1.5 million since she got into the race, including $900K in the first quarter. She had to spend a lot of her warchest in her race against Jim Neal, but it looks like her fundraising will continue to be strong.

2) Democratic turnout rocked the house on Tuesday. In the most directly comparable races, the parallel gubernatorial primaries, the number of votes cast on the Dem side was almost three-and-a-half times greater than in the GOP contest. Of course, Dem turnout was likely to be greater given the presidential battle atop the ticket, but new Democratic voter registrations are far outstripping Republican registrations. There has also been a huge flux of new independent registrations, and early voting patterns show that indies overwhelmingly prefer Team Blue.

3) The Obama factor: Barack Obama almost certainly makes this state far more competitive than Hillary Clinton would have. We’re not saying Obama’s going to win NC, but it will be in play. And while Obama’s nomination has been inevitable for months, his grudging coronation by the tradmed finally allows him to focus on the general election. This is good news in the Tarheel State.

4) Finally, Liddy Dole’s polling is less than stellar. A Rasmussen poll a month ago put the race at 52-39, while a more recent Research 2000/DailyKos poll showed a tight 48-41 margin. Now that Hagan is past the primary, much like Obama, she can turn her attention to her Republican opponent.

SSP’s complete Senate race ratings are available here.

Remember, SSP will be live-blogging the MS-01 election results on Tuesday night. Polls close at 7pm 8pm Eastern time. If you haven’t yet signed up to do some virtual phonebanking, now is your chance!

Update (James): Russ Feingold’s PAC is itching to give away $5000 to one of 10 lucky House candidates.  Feel free to cast your informed vote to determine who gets a piece of Feingold’s booty.

I am as proud of the Swing State Project community today as I ever have been. Some time late Wednesday, we crashed past our fundraising goal of $2300 for Travis Childers. And as promised, I threw in my $250 matching contribution – though you guys were so generous yesterday that you busted right through my cap! All told, our take for the day was $667 – our biggest single day – for a grand total of $2585 from 57 contributors. I had set next Monday as our deadline, yet we’ve reached this point in little over two days. I am in awe at how deep SSP dug. Truly. You are mensches, all.

Though we’ve blown past our target, I do want to make one final ask. If you haven’t given yet, or if you’ve just dug up $5 out of your sock drawer you didn’t know you had, please consider making a donation. And here’s why:

Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you the greatest secret weapon yet developed in the War on Republicans, the Trent Thompson 72-Hour Program!

Over the last year, you’ve all gotten to know SSP Contributing Editor Trent Thompson. Trent, as you may be aware, hails from Alabama, and he’s the fellow who helped introduce us to Ron Sparks. While that race didn’t pan out, Trent has been active in helping out with another campaign – yep, Travis Childers’. MS-01 is not far from where Trent goes to school, and he’s volunteered there in his spare time. (He even dragged a carload of his buddies with him one weekend.)

Right now, Trent’s in the midst of exams. His last one is on May 9th. Three minutes after it ends, Trent will be hightailing it across the state line to hook up with the Childers campaign once more. He’ll spend every waking minute from then until election night knocking on doors, making phone calls, handing out lit, driving vans and – because he just can’t help it – charming the local women-folk.

Now, Trent is a skinny bastard, but he does need to eat something. He’ll also need plenty of Jolt Cola and some gas money. We’re hopeful that the Childers campaign will be able to reimburse him – after all, it’s not easy shelling out when you’re a college student. So if you give today, your money will (at least indirectly) be helping to pay the way for a damn fine political operative (and blogger, I might add) to kick some serious GOP ass for an extended long weekend. Okay, so it’s more than 72 hours – but that’s a good thing! Seriously, when it comes to crunch time, Trent Thompson is the kind of guy every campaign wants in their corner. Childers is lucky to have him, and we’re lucky we can help send him.

I promise that this is my very last nag for Travis Childers. We’ve all done our parts, and then some. But let’s do one final burst for Travis – and for Trent. Thank you!

Here’s the deal: We’re extremely close to our goal of raising $2300 for Travis Childers, as you can see by looking at the thermometer to the right. We know many of you have already dug deep to chip in. But if you haven’t given yet – or you’re thinking about giving again – here’s a big added incentive:

I will personally double the next $250 worth of contributions – but for one day only.

That means if you give $25, it’ll be worth $50 to Travis Childers; $50 and it’s a hundred. At the end of the day, I’ll look at our haul and match it in the appropriate amount. But this offer is good only for today, so give now! Childers needs you.

Previous posts:

Childers the Populist

What a Childers Win Means for Iraq

SSP Endorses Travis Childers

Introducing Travis Childers