Month: October 2008

Former Gov. Gaston Caperton explains why Anne Barth would be a tremendous representative for the people of West Virginia.

I attended the Campaign for Change event in Martinsburg, West Virginia today. It was rainy, autumnal day. We had a boisterous, fired up and ready to go crowd in attendance. Most of those who arrived early did visibility for our candidates outside the headquarters. We let our voices be loud enough so even those across the street at the Shelley Moore Capito headquarters could hear us even though she’s tried to not listen to her constituents for years.

Today’s event featured former Gov. Gaston Caperton, former Gov. Bob Wise, who also had served as the Congressional representative for the district, and West Virginia native son and U.S. Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware, currently the junior senator of his state and soon to be the senior senator once Sen. Joe Biden is elected our vice president.

More on the event and additional photos below.

Ywatta “Nessy” Mitchell is making her second bid for magistrate judge. She was out doing visibility in front of the headquarters. The Campaign for Change is not just about the presidential race, but also the down ticket races. I really hope she wins. I don’t like putting stickers on my vehicle, but I’ve got three this year: Anne Barth, Barack Obama and Ywatta “Nessy” Mitchell’s. There’s other candidates I really want to see win, but too many bumper stickers and they become less effective in my opinion.

Many of our Democrats arrived early so they joined Mitchell in a sign wave (early voting was on King Street just around the corner from our Queen Street office).

And then more…

People held up other candidate signs and began chants: “Anne Barth Anne Barth Anne Barth” and “Barack – Obama – Barack – Obama” and also the names of our other candidates as they arrived and joined us. This is earlier but eventually the area out of the rain was jammed with people with signs.

Across the street, not so much enthusiasm for their candidates.

“I’ve never seen anyone better prepared running for this seat than Anne Barth and that includes me when I ran the first time,” said former governor and U.S. representative Bob Wise. He vacated the seat in 2000 to run for governor. Barth was Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s state director before she left to run for this seat.

“Think of that team – Robert C. Byrd in the Senate, his most trusted confidant in the HOuse,” Wise said.

Former Gov. Bob Wise

Wise introduced Sen. Thomas Carper, the junior senator from Delaware and soon to be senior senator when Sen. Joe Biden is elected vice president.

Carper is a West Virginia native son, born in Beckley. “We grow them here and send them to other parts of the country,” Wise said.

Carper said he was happy to be in his native state to campaign for Anne Barth and Barack Obama and Joe Biden. When he was elected to the Senate, his mentor was Senator Byrd. He once offered to do anything to help Senator Byrd and Byrd said he needed him to go represent him at an event at Stonewall Jackson State Park that he was unable to attend. There he was to look up Byrd’s state director, Anne Barth.

He was impressed by her intelligence and her deep knowledge of the people of West Virginia.

“Anne Barth gives politics a good name,” Carper said.

Anne Barth, Sen. Thomas Carper, former Gov. Bob Wise, former Gov. Gaston Caperton.

Anne Barth spoke next, describing how many people are being hurt by the current economy except for the people who “don’t know how many houses they own, then they probably think the economy is doing well.”

That got a good laugh. She pointed out how Capito voted for Bush four out of five times over the past eight years.

“It’s not about us, it’s really about the future of our country,” Anne Barth said.

Former Gov. Gaston Caperton went next, who defeated former Gov. Arch Moore (Moore is Capito’s father).

“Now Anne I ran against a Moore,” Caperton said. “They said I couldn’t beat him. I did pretty good.”

The same group had been in Morgan County earlier and left Martinsburg to go to Jefferson County. It was a good event.

You can see the entire set of photos here, including Bobby the Obama dog.

…

Crossposted from West Virginia Blue.

A normal House cattle call (which we have done in the past) would require you to submit a list of seats in order of their likelihood of flipping, but frankly, I find that a bit boring. Instead, why don’t we try this: Confining ourselves to the realm of realistic expectations, what is the best possible scenario for House Republicans on election night? In other words, let me put it this way: Where is “the floor” for Democratic gains in the House?

2006 was pretty bad for Republicans, but it could have been worse. They dodged a few bullets and won a fair share of squeakers (NC-08, NY-29, OH-02, FL-13, etc). It’s not inconceivable that a few incumbents could hang on again by the skin of their teeth. But looking at the key races, we have a handful in the bag already, and a number that are either leaning or tilting our way. In a wave year, “tossup” races tend to break at a greater than 50-50 rate for the victorious party, so I suspect that Democrats will be wrecking shop in this column, as well. And it’s very possible that we’ll see upsets in districts that are seemingly “leaning” or “likely” Republican, too.

So even at my most conservative guess, it’s hard for me to see Democrats picking up fewer than 20 seats. It’s amazing, but losing “only” 20 seats would count as a “good” night for Republicans — or perhaps “best-case nightmare” for the NRCC would be a better way of putting it. I’m sure that there are some people at the DCCC who would wring my neck for saying that, but increasingly, it seems to me like that’s the best that Tom Cole and friends can do right now. And even that is going to be a gloomy night for them.

One last note: that number doesn’t include any losses on our side. Tim Mahoney is a certain goner (just resign, dude), and while Kanjorski might still pull things out, he has an aura of political doom around him right now and it would be no shock to see him lose.

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.

Hey folks,  I just got home from the fabulous Merkley/Gore event in Portland and wanted to write up my reactions.  Besides finally meeting the lovely Sarah Lane in person, it was a great time and certainly worth reporting on!

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://loadedorygun.net/showDi…

I was not smart enough to bring a camera, unfortunately, so I can’t post any of my pictures but it was a fun event.  About a thousand showed up and we had really great fun, especially when we discovered that the metal bleachers a lot of us were sitting on could be stomped on to make lots of noise.  I was in the front row on one side of the stack about a third of the way back, so I had a great view!

Below is my review of the speakers who were part of this great event:

Governor Kulongoski: I love Ted, I really really do, and I really wish I saw the fire in his belly more often than occasions like tonight.  He did a good job warming up the crowd and MCing the first part of the evening.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR-3): What can I say, I love Earl.  He would make a great transportation secretary in an Obama administration, I’m just saying.

Rep. David Wu (OR-1): Except for an odd little bit about 9/11, he was great!  He got some audience callbacks going on Obama/Merkley/Schrader’s names.

Brad Avakian (Labor Commissioner): I love this guy.  He kept slipping the name “Jeff Merkley” randomly into his speech, and we went nuts whenever he said it.

Ben Westlund (State Treasurer Candidate/State Senator): Proof that Republicans can see the light and become Ds.  I wish he’d had a bit more time because if he gets going he can be a great speaker.

John Kroger (AG to be): Listening to him, you can really tell why he was such a good litigator.

Then they lowered the lights and played this little video (a new Merkley ad):

Jeff Merkley (next US Senator): He was his usual awesome self.  Did a great job both laying out his image but also clarifying why Smith’s time had passed.  That led us to the main attraction of the evening…

Al Gore: WOW!  He really would have been a great President if only given the chance.  He was on target all night, even when interrupted early on by a 9/11 conspiracy nut (to which the crowd chanted “Merkley, Merkley, Merkley” to drown out the noise of the guy on the megaphone).  Some memorable lines:

There’s a single common thread that runs through all these crises.  Our ridiculous, absurd dependence on dirty, expensive, carbon-based fuel. That’s the common thread

This is one of those moments in history when one era is ending and another era is beginning.  And you can almost hear the hinges creaking as that door opens up

Gore closed with perhaps his most powerful line of the night:

Do you want somebody who’s 10 percent of the time there (Smith)?  Or do you want somebody who’s committed, heart and soul?

After this I feel fired up and ready to go, 11 days to a new America, let’s make it happen!

Let me know what you think.

After the third quarter fundraising deadline, there’s one more report that candidates running for the House must file with the FEC: the pre-general fundraising report covering the period from October 1st through October 15th. DavidNYC and I have rounded up all the key numbers in this handy chart below (all figures are in thousands):

Note: Instead of listing totals raised by each campaign, we’ve gone with the broader category of receipts (which includes transfers, loans and the like).

SurveyUSA (10/22-23, likely voters, 10/4-5 in parens):

Baron Hill (D-inc): 54 (53)

Mike Sodrel (R): 39 (38)

Eric Schansberg (L): 5 (7)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Memo to Brian Wolff: Baron Hill is going to be okay. I know Sodrel gave Baron a surprise in 2004, but come on — that was 2004. No more $400K ad buys here, mmmkay?

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, 9/17-18 in parens):

Judy Baker (D): 42 (40)

Blaine Luetkemeyer (R): 47 (49)

Other: 8 (6)

Undecided: 3 (5)

(MoE: ±5%)

The open seat race in Missouri’s rural R+7 (but historically Democratic) Ninth District is one of those races that probably would have gotten written off most years, but between the size of the Democratic wave this year, a money influx, and good candidate recruitment, we’re in a credible position to pull off the upset here. Internal polls have, in fact, shown Judy Baker up by as much as 4.

Research 2000 finds that Baker is down 5, but the trendlines have improved nicely from last month. The battle here seems mostly over the independents (who make up 30% of the sample); Luetkemeyer leads 44-42 among them. At the presidential level, McCain leads Obama 54-40, a much better showing than 2004 when Bush won 59-41.

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).