Month: May 2008

According to the lastest Survey USA poll Tom Udall is crushing both potential republican foes.  In head to head matchups Udall leads Pearce by 24 points and Wilson by 26.

http://www.surveyusa.com/clien…

Udall (D) – 60

Pearce (R) – 36

Udall (D) – 61

Wilson (R) – 35

In the Republican primary poll Pearce currently leads Wilson by 3.

Pearce – 49

Wilson – 46

My money is on Pearce winning the republican nomination rather easily given he is more conservative than Wilson.  It seems to matter little though which candidate Udall faces, Wilson and Pearce have bloodied each other so badly that neither can win the general.  Then number that really jumps out at me is Udall carrying >70% of the Hispanic vote.  That is HUGE in a state like NM.

Unlike former Congressman Duke Cunningham–who is now serving time–recently-indicted New Orleans Congressman William Jefferson is not accused of putting earmarks into Congressional bills for companies that gave him things of value. Jefferson got no golden commodes or multi-million dollar yachts nor Jack Abramoff golfing trips to Scotland.

His family got some contracts to provide Internet services in Nigeria and other countries. And, in return, they… well, they provided Internet services. It’s kind of hard to make a case against a Congressman for a thing like that.

The U.S. Attorney (eager to keep his job by making a case against a Democrat?) was convinced Jefferson was doing bad stuff, but what?

So the U.S. Attorney decided to nail him the way 7 poor saps in Miami were nailed in that “major terrorist plot”–they took FBI money to participate in a plot the FBI dreamed up…something about blowing up a building in Chicago. These homeys were induced to take the money (with which they bought sneakers and other goodies for themselves) and they participated in conversations about blowing up that building, and they’re still in jail.

Ergo, the pizza-parlor owners in New York–FBI money, FBI plot, poor boys taking money that was lavished upon them and going with the flow, saying naughty things about blowing up the Pakistani ambassador with a shoulder-fired missile, which was never going to happen: they didn’t know the Pakistani ambassador from a pepperoni sausage and couldn’t have cared less, but what struggling entrepreneur is going to turn down $60,000 that falls from the sky?

The FBI scheme worked in those cases and others, so $90,000 was assembled, FBI undercover agents posing as businessmen gave it to Congressman William Jefferson to use as a bribe that was to be paid to the Vice-President of Nigeria, and Jefferson took the money.

And put it in his freezer.

He never bribed the vice-president of Nigeria, nor any other official.

Jeb Bush’s company did.

And the president of Nigeria gave Jeb a 1300-horse parade.

Nigeria borrowed money from the U.S. government to buy faulty pumps from MWI (Moving Water Incorporated.) Millions of these U.S. taxpayer dollars went into bribes for Nigerian officials. More millions went to Bush’s partner. Bush himself got $300,000 from a company he co-owned with the owner of MWI for work he never did. The rusty water pumps were delivered, but never used.

(The same company, MWI, delivered faulty water pumps to New Orleans under a huge contract. The pumps can’t function as promised, but the Corps of Engineers approved them anway. The corps, as well as MWI, are being investigated. )

(There’s also a Department of Justice investigation of the Bush-MWI deal with Nigeria, but that’s been going on for years with no end in sight.)

Justice moved swifter for Congressman Jefferson. He didn’t pay that bribe to the Nigerian vice-president. He took the FBI’s money and stashed it in his freezer. The FBI raided his Congressional offices and even Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert was outraged. It was the first time in the 250 year history of Congress that such a thing had happened. The FBI raided his home and found their marked money in his freezer. Talking points went out to the media and Jefferson was convicted by the networks. But not in court. Not yet. And, quite possibly, not ever.

Jefferson has already been convicted in the media, but don’t count on a conviction in court.

This has been a guest post by Randy Reynolds.  

The Cook Political Report’s House editor Davis Wasserman just revised his outlook for Democratic gains and now estimates a 10 to 20 seat pickup for Democrats.

House Editor David Wasserman examines the outlook in the House following the special election outcome in Mississippi’s 1st CD. The Cook Political Report now estimates that Democrats will gain between 10 and 20 seats in the House.

In addition, he has revised the WV-02 race slightly in our favor.

MS-01- Travis Childers- Republican Toss Up to Democratic Toss Up

WV-02- Shelley Moore Capito- Solid Republican to Likely Republican

Good news all around!

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (5/12-14, likely voters, 12/3-6 in parens):

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 50 (49)

Don Young (R-inc): 40 (42)

(MoE: ±4%)

I really believe that Young is doomed this year, but I fear that he won’t survive his party’s primary.

On the other hand, with no meaningful primary challenge against him, Stevens very likely will go all the way to November:

Mark Begich (D): 48 (47)

Ted Stevens (R-inc): 43 (41)

(MoE: ±4%)

Damn, son.

Another fun fact: Obama only trails McCain by seven points in Alaska, so Begich and Berkowitz won’t be dealing with a John Kerry-like drag at the top of the ticket (Hillary trails by 18 in the same poll).  This is roughly in line with another recent Rasmussen poll, which showed Obama trailing McCain by only five points here.

Alaska could just be a major battleground not only for Berkowitz and Begich, but for Obama, as well.

SSP currently rates AK-AL as “Tossup” and AK-Sen as “Leans Republican“.

Bennett, Petts & Normington (5/6-8):

Glenn Nye (D): 32

Thelma Drake (R-inc): 48

Any incumbent under 50 against a challenger who only has 9% name recognition is not in stellar shape.  Indeed, Drake’s re-elects are at 40%.  After hearing positive statements about both candidates, Nye closes the gap to 45-47.

Democrats have had heartbreak here before, losing narrowly in ’06.  Mark Glenn Nye, who only began his campaign earlier, as a candidate to watch.

SSP currently rates this race as “Likely Republican“.

A few years ago, when Republicans mentioned the name of Dick Wadhams, a Coloradan protege of Karl Rove, they did so with hushed, awe-struck tones.  It was Wadhams, after all, who guided South Dakota Sen. John Thune to his stinging defeat of Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.  He was considered to be Rove's heir-apparent, and thus, in 2006, positioned himself as the top strategist for what was presumed to be an easy re-election race for the GOP's likely 2008 presidential candidate, Virginia Sen. George Allen.  Unlike the tough battle to unseat an incumbent in South Dakota, the Virginia race was supposed to be a cakewalk.  We all know how that turned out– Allen's campaign completely imploded in the wake of his careless use of the word “macaca,” leading to a victory for our candidate, now-Sen. Jim Webb.

A better strategist might have been able to pick up the pieces after “macaca-gate” and get the Allen campaign back on track.  Rove himself was able to do as much with the 2000 Bush campaign, pushing it upright every time its feckless candidate capsized (the incident in which Bush referred to New York Times reporter Adam Clymer as a “major-league asshole” while a microphone was still on, jumps to mind).  Nevertheless, even with this defeat on his resume, Dick Wadhams returned to his native Colorado, to become the state GOP chairman, and to run the campaign for 2008 senate candidate Bob Schaffer, a former congressman.

Because of Wadhams' Colorado roots, the establishment expected him to do much better there than in Virginia.  So far, it's not exactly working; fresh off a scandal involving a Jack Abramoff-funded junket to the Mariana Islands, things were looking bad enough for the Republican candidate.  Now, Team Schaffer has unleashed a new blunder, one that points to ineptitude in the strategy department.

Unlike Wadhams, Bob Schaffer was not born and raised in Colorado; he came to the mountanous state as a young adult, after growing up in Ohio.  As such, Wadhams advised Schaffer to run an ad emphasizing the latter's connetion to the state.  So, the candidate unveiled an ad set against the breathtaking backdrop of a snow-capped mountain, and, in the text of the ad, refers to having proposed to his wife on Pike's Peak, implying that that, the most well-known mountain in Colorado, is the mountain in the background.

The trouble is, it's not Pike's Peak. The stock photo used in the ad turned out to be a picture of Mt. McKinley in Alaska.  While not in the same league as “macaca-gate,” it is certainly a blunder– one that I'm sure is giving Wadhams a headache, as he heads for what may be another major loss on his resume as a strategist.

Frankly, the whole thing comes as a pleasant surprise to me; the conventional wisdom holds that the GOP is the party of message discipline, whose marketing strategies come straight from the world of big business and are, consequently, successful, while the Democrats fumble around and make gaffes all over the place.  The other side has always had its ruthless, amoral Lee Atwaters and Karl Roves, slyly slithering their way to electoral victory while our inept, mealy-mouthed, overly-apologetic strategists like Bob Shrum kept getting re-hired to run the same losing campaign many times over. I'm sure I'm not the only Democrat who gets a satisfying sense of schadenfreude as the GOP runs itself into the ground.

Candidate filing is sailing along with lots of states now having completed candidate filings and others with a full slate of Democratic House candidate long before filings close.

Below the fold for details and once again go and take a look at the 2008 Race Tracker Wiki.  

***I have included Cook PVI numbers where possible after blogger requests to do so!***

3 more House races have a Democratic candidate that has filed in the last two weeks:

MI-03 – R+9,

MI-06 – R+2.3,

MI-10 – R+4,

And one race comes off the list entirely!:

MS-01 – R+10, following Travis Childers superb special election victory!

So 417 races filled! This of course includes 236 districts held by Democratic Congresscritters.

But we also have 181 GOP held districts with confirmed Democratic opponents.

So here is where we are at (GOP Districts):

Districts with confirmed candidates – 181

Districts with unconfirmed candidates – 0

Districts with rumoured candidates – 4

Districts without any candidates – 3

Filing closed – No Democratic candidate – 11

The GOP held districts with confirmed Democratic challengers are as follows:

AL-01 – R+12,

AL-02 – R+13,

AL-03 – R+4,

AL-04 – R+16,

AK-AL – R+14,

AZ-01 – R+2,

AZ-02 – R+9,

AZ-03 – R+6,

AZ-06 – R+12,

CA-02 – R+13,

CA-03 – R+7,

CA-04 – R+11,

CA-21 – R+13,

CA-24 – R+5,

CA-25 – R+7,

CA-26 – R+4,

CA-40 – R+8,

CA-41 – R+9,

CA-42 – R+10,

CA-44 – R+6,

CA-45 – R+3,

CA-46 – R+6,

CA-48 – R+8,

CA-49 – R+10,

CA-50 – R+5,

CA-52 – R+9,

CO-04 – R+9,

CO-05 – R+15.7,

CO-06 – R+10,

CT-04 – D+5,

DE-AL – D+7,

FL-01 – R+19,

FL-04 – R+16,

FL-05 – R+5,

FL-06 – R+8,

FL-07 – R+3,

FL-08 – R+3,

FL-09 – R+4,

FL-10 – D+1,

FL-12 – R+5,

FL-13 – R+4,

FL-14 – R+10,

FL-15 – R+4,

FL-18 – R+4,

FL-21 – R+6,

FL-24 – R+3,

FL-25 – R+4,

GA-01 – R+?,

GA-03 – R+?,

GA-06 – R+?,

GA-07 – R+?,

GA-09 – R+?,

GA-10 – R+?,

GA-11 – R+?,

ID-01 – R+19,

ID-02 – R+19,

IL-06 – R+2.9,

IL-10 – D+4,

IL-11 – R+1.1,

IL-13 – R+5,

IL-15 – R+6,

IL-16 – R+4,

IL-18 – R+5.5,

IL-19 – R+8,

IN-03 – R+16,

IN-04 – R+17,

IN-05 – R+20,

IN-06 – R+11,

IA-04 – D+0,

IA-05 – R+8,

KS-01 – R+20,

KS-04 – R+12,

KY-01 – R+10,

KY-02 – R+12.9,

KY-04 – R+11.7,

LA-01 – R+18,

LA-04 – R+7,

MD-01 – R+10,

MD-06 – R+13,

MI-02 – R+9,

MI-03 – R+9,

MI-04 – R+3,

MI-06 – R+2.3,

MI-07 – R+2,

MI-08 – R+1.9,

MI-09 – R+0,

MI-10 – R+4,

MI-11 – R+1.2,

MN-02 – R+2.7,

MN-03 – R+0.5,

MN-06 – R+5,

MO-02 – R+9,

MO-06 – R+5,

MO-07 – R+14,

MO-08 – R+11,

MO-09 – R+7,

MS-03 – R+14,

MT-AL – R+11,

NE-01 – R+11,

NE-02 – R+9,

NE-03 – R+23.6,

NV-02 – R+8.2,

NV-03 – D+1,

NJ-02 – D+4.0,

NJ-03 – D+3.3,

NJ-04 – R+0.9,

NJ-05 – R+4,

NJ-07 – R+1,

NJ-11 – R+6,

NM-01 – D+2,

NM-02 – R+6,

NY-13 – D+1,

NY-23 – R+0.2,

NY-25 – D+3,

NY-26 – R+3,

NY-29 – R+5,

NC-03 – R+15,

NC-05 – R+15,

NC-06 – R+17,

NC-08 – R+3,

NC-09 – R+12,

NC-10 – R+15,

OH-01 – R+1,

OH-02 – R+13,

OH-03 – R+3,

OH-04 – R+14,

OH-05 – R+10,

OH-07 – R+6,

OH-08 – R+12,

OH-12 – R+0.7,

OH-14 – R+2,

OH-15 – R+1,

OH-16 – R+4,

OK-05 – R+12,

OR-02 – R+11,

PA-03 – R+2,

PA-05 – R+10,

PA-06 – D+2.2,

PA-09 – R+15,

PA-15 – D+2,

PA-16 – R+11,

PA-18 – R+2,

PA-19 – R+12,

SC-01 – R+10,

SC-02 – R+9,

SC-03 – R+14,

SC-04 – R+15,

TN-01 – R+14,

TN-02 – R+11,

TN-03 – R+8,

TN-07 – R+12,

TX-03 – R+17,

TX-04 – R+17,

TX-06 – R+15,

TX-07 – R+16,

TX-08 – R+20,

TX-10 – R+13,

TX-12 – R+14,

TX-13 – R+18,

TX-19 – R+25,

TX-24 – R+15,

TX-26 – R+12,

TX-31 – R+15,

TX-32 – R+11,

UT-01 – R+26,

UT-03 – R+22,

VA-01 – R+9,

VA-02 – R+5.9,

VA-04 – R+5,

VA-05 – R+6,

VA-06 – R+11,

VA-07 – R+11,

VA-10 – R+5,

VA-11 – R+1,

WA-04 – R+13,

WA-05 – R+7.1,

WA-08 – D+2,

WV-02 – R+5,

WI-01 – R+2,

WI-06 – R+5,

WY-AL – R+19,

The following GOP held districts have a candidate that is expected to run but is yet to confirm:

None at this stage

The following GOP held districts have rumoured candidates – please note that some of these “rumours” are extremely tenuous!

LA-07 – R+7,

NY-03 – D+2.1,

OK-03 – R+18,

OK-04 – R+13,

The following districts have not a single rumoured candidate:

LA-05 – R+10,

OK-01 – R+13,

WI-05 – R+12,

And last but not least the list I did not want to have to include.

The following Republicans will not have a Democratic opponent in 2008:

AL-06 – R+25,

AR-03 – R+11,

CA-19 – R+10,

CA-22 – R+16,

KY-05 – R+8

TX-01 – R+17,

TX-02 – R+12,

TX-05 – R+16,

TX-11 – R+25,

TX-14 – R+14,

TX-21 – R+13,

Finally due praise to those states where we have a full slate of house candidates – Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennesee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

It is also interesting to note that we have only one race left to fill in New York and Wisconsin. Thats 41 states with a full slate, and 2 states with one race to fill!  

There are also 5 states where filing has closed where we do not have a full slate: Arkansas, Alabama, California, Kentucky and of course Texas. Lets hope the last 4 –  Louisiana, New York, Oklahoma and Wisconsin fill out.

Please note that in some races others at the racetracker site have confirmed candidates that I haven’t. This is because to satisfy me a confirmed candidate has either filed with the FEC, The Sec of State or has an active campaign website, or even if they come and blog and say yep I am running. Others are not so rigorous.

It is also great to see candidates in AZ-06, CA-42, FL-12, LA-06, MS-03, VA-04, VA-06 and WI-06; 8 of 10 districts we did not contest in 2006! The other 2, TX-11 and AL-06, will again go uncontested by Team Blue in 2008.

With 11 uncontested Republicans we will not reach our great 2006 effort of 425 races filled but we will do really well nonetheless.

*** Tips, rumours and what not in the comments please.***

In the wake of Democrat Travis Childers’ stunning eight-point special election victory over Republican Greg Davis in Mississippi’s 1st District last night, the Swing State Project is moving its rating of this race from “Tossup” to “Leans Democratic“.  Several factors give Childers the edge here:

1) First, the size of his victory.  At 8 points, this wasn’t nearly as close as many had predicted.  In fact, it was a romp.  After winning 16 of the district’s 24 counties on April 22, Childers won a stunning 20 of 24 counties last night, improving his performance virtually across the board. Notably, he even improved upon his 17% in the ultra-conservative DeSoto County (Davis’ base), winning a full 25% of the vote there in the second round.

2) While John McCain will likely carry this district by a wide margin in November, Childers now enjoys the advantage of incumbency for a brief time. And, if the history of Mississippi’s congressional delegation tells us anything, Mississippi voters like their incumbents.

3) Most importantly, history is not on Greg Davis’ side here. It is extremely rare for the victor of a special election to be defeated in the next general election. Indeed, the only recent example of this scenario occurring was in the 1998 elections, when Republican Bill Redmond of New Mexico lost the Democratic-leaning seat that he won in a 1997 special election. Of course, Redmond’s special election win was a truly special circumstance: a strong Green Party candidate won 17% and split the left-leaning vote. Davis has no such excuse here.

4) Finally, Davis may be left out in the cold by the national GOP the second time around.  The NRCC dumped $1.3 million into the special election here — nearly 20% of their cash-on-hand at the beginning of April — and came up astonishingly short. The NRCC may decide, given their enormous financial disadvantage, that they may have other priorities this fall — like saving their incumbents. The same goes for Freedom’s Crotch.

The full list of SSP’s House Race Ratings is available here.

Strategic Vision polls the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Georgia:

Vernon Jones: 28

Dale Cardwell: 20

Jim Martin: 15

Rand Knight: 11

Josh Lanier: 5

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±5%)

In a general election match-up, neither Jones, Knight, Cardwell, or Lanier can crack a 30-point gap against Saxby Chambliss (a Martin/Chambliss matchup was not polled, for whatever reason).

Still, it’d be a shame if this nomination was handed to a shady, Bush-voting pol like Jones or a joker like Cardwell — just on the off chance that this race gets interesting.

Primary: 7/15; Runoff: 8/5.

Public Opinion Strategies for Jim Ryun (4/27-28, likely voters):

Jim Ryun (R): 65

Lynn Jenkins (R): 21

(MoE: ±5.7%)

Jenkins is holding her fire, stockpiling resources for a big push here in the summer, but this is the second poll in a row to show a big edge for Ryun.  You’ve gotta wonder: just how negative is Jenkins willing to go in order to tighten this race up?

Primary: 8/5