Month: October 2008

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters):

Bobby Bright (D): 45

Jay Love (R): 47

(MoE: ±5%)

Yesterday we highlighted a DCCC poll that had Bright up 50-43, which was encouraging to see after we’ve been seeing Bright losing steam on both the polling (his own internal had him up by only 1) and fundraising fronts.

Today, however, in their first poll of this race, Research 2000 shows a small edge for Jay Love, 47-45. Encouragingly, the sample give shows Bright picking up 14% of Republicans as well as 89% of Democrats, while Love picks up only 7% of Democrats and only 74% of Republicans. Unfortunately, the sample contains a lot more Republicans than Democrats (48% to 31%), which is also reflected in its presidential numbers (McCain leads in AL-02 by 56-39, although that’s still a big improvement from this district’s 67-33 performance in 2004).

UPDATE (James L.): Well, here’s one thing we missed about this poll, which is a huge red flag — the sample is only 17% African-American. This district is 30% black according to the most recent figures, and even Anzalone-Liszt pegs the black vote at a “conservative” (their words) 25%. If you adjust the sample accordingly, Bright would be leading.

Heinous wingnut Michelle Malkin is breathlessly reporting a leaked GOP internal poll in PA-12 showing incumbent John Murtha (D) losing by approximately 13 points to GOP challenger Bill Russell.

Dane and Associates (R) (10/22, 800 likely voters)

John Murtha (D-inc): 34.8

Bill Russell (R): 47.6

Update: I should point out that we don’t have a full press release on this, and as one commenter pointed out, for all we know this could be a message-testing poll. In other words, they might be preceding the poll question with negative information about Murtha and/or positive info about Russell. If more info is released, I will update further.

Murtha had a reverse-Macaca moment recently when he called western Pennsylvania a “racist area” and said that the area until recent years used to be “really redneck”. Predictably, these comments have not been received well, much as Michelle Bachmann’s “anti-American” comments changed the dynamic in her district. Another poll by Republican pollster Susquehanna Polling & Research conducted a day prior for consevative rag the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the Mellon Scaife outfit) showed Murtha up by 5 points but very vulnerable.

Susquehanna POlling & Research (R) (10/21, 400 likely voters)

John Murtha (D-inc): 46

Bill Russell (R): 41

(MoE: ±4.9%)

It should be noted that Russell used BMW Direct for fundraising, a scam company that raises huge amounts of money for longshot candidates and keeps most of the money for itself. In the 3rd quarter, Russell raised an eyebrow-raising $1.592 million, and “spent” $1.529 million (ie, about 95% went to BMW Direct from the looks of it). Murtha, on the other hand, raised $457k and spent all of it presumably on defending his seat. The CoH picture is not really confidence-inspiring – Murtha reported $591k to Russell’s $333k. The PVI of this district is D+5, so if we do lose this seat, it will become a top priority challenge next cycle. Bill Russell is way more conservative than this district (Malkin has been pumping for him all year), but his millitary-hero story is likely to win him some points.

Unfortunately for Murtha and Kanjorski, the fierce anti-incumbent mood that has been playing in Pennsylvania since 2006 (causing huge turnover in state legislative races) can topple Democrats as well as Republicans.

I’m sure Rep. Kaptur is sweating bullets over this.

http://briefingroom.thehill.co…

‘Joe the Plumber’ Mulling Run for Congress

Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. “Joe the Plumber,” said Friday he may consider running for Congress in 2010, challenging longtime Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) in the Toledo-area district.

You all know what’s at stake in this election. Democrats have a rare opportunity to not only win big in November, but to sweep out a great deal of crusty, Bush-enabling Republicans in the House. I know you guys are working hard to make this happen as you donate your time and money to local campaigns. However, there’s one thing we can all do that could have a big impact on how many districts Democrats seriously contest, and that’s encouraging the slowpokes in the House Democratic caucus to pay their DCCC dues in full.

Working behind the scenes with Chris Bowers over at Open Left, we’ve dug up a list of House members who are behind on their dues to the DCCC. All told, we’re looking at 54 members and $6.5 million worth of missing dues. Campaign contact information for each member is available here.

Final media buys will be made by the DCCC in just a few days, so ever dollar that the DCCC can scrape together means a great deal. If you want to help out, please call a few incumbents on this list who are close to you and urge them to pay up to the DCCC. As Bowers says, be polite and fair. You can also consult this second list of incumbents facing token opposition, and encourage them to be even more generous.

Time’s a-wastin’. Let’s do this thing, people!

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters, 9/30-10/1 in parens):

Dan Seals (D): 49 (38)

Mark “Tiberius” Kirk (R-inc): 43 (44)

Undecided: 7 (16)

(MoE: ±5%)

You got that, folks? It’s a shame that Mark Kirk has lost all of his credibility when it comes to disputing poll numbers — recall that he kvetched like a little kid when Daily Kos showed him leading Seals by six. When SurveyUSA turned around and released a poll showing Seals leading by eight, suddenly Kirk’s press flacks were praising the virtues of the Daily Kos/R2K poll. Pathetic.

Let’s look at the movement: Kirk’s favorable rating is taking a dive, currently sitting at 41-47 (down from 45-40). Seals has increased his lead among Dems from 70-12 to 83-10, and has taken a 51-42 lead among Independents. In the previous poll, Kirk had lead among these voters by a 45-34 margin.

While it’s worth noting that a recent Dem poll for Progress Illinois showed Kirk up by six, the incumbent has been well under 50% in every poll released this month. Seals has Kirk on the ropes, and could be poised to deliver a knockout blow on election day.

With the news that the NRSC is pulling out of Colorado, a reader of SSP — who clearly gets what we’re about — sends in the following detailed timeline of Bob Schaffer’s epic collapse.

---

January 15, 2007: Wayne Allard announces his retirement, opening up the Colorado Senate seat. Former Congressman Scott McInnis “all but confirmed that he will run for the open seat.” Other Republicans who said they would look at the seat include former congressmen Bob Schaffer, Attorney General John Suthers and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Bentley Rayburn.

January 25, 2007: Roll Call reports that Schaffer “indicated that he is inclined to sit it out absent being drafted as his party’s consensus nominee.”

January 30, 2007: Drafting begins? Schaffer flies to DC to have dinner with senators and meet with “political folks.”



March 21, 2007: Scott McInnis ends his Senate bid.

April 28, 2007: Schaffer announces to the Teller County Republicans that he’s running for Senate.



May 4, 2007: Schaffer denies that he announced a run for Senate.

May 12, 2007: Schaffer announces he’s running for Senate. This time he doesn’t deny it.

There’s more — much more — below the fold.

May 15, 2007: Schaffer clears the field: Suthers and Rayburn remove their names from consideration but the Denver Post writes, “Schaffer is hardly a consensus favorite of Colorado Republicans.”

Summer 2007: Cricket….cricket…

October 18, 2007: The Denver Post notes that Schaffer has completely avoided discussing issues on the campaign trail, but has instead “remained quietly on the sidelines.”

April 7, 2008: The comment that started it all: Bob Schaffer describes the Northern Mariana Islands as a “model” for a guest-worker program in the US.

April 10, 2008: The Denver Post breaks the first story on Schaffer’s ties to jailed-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It includes this now infamous picture of Schaffer parasailing while on his “fact finding” mission to the Northern Mariana Islands:

Following Days: Front page after front page, the Abramoff-Schaffer scandal unfolds.

April 11, 2008: The Associated Press reports that a 1999 memo from Schaffer’s staff alerted Schaffer that Abramoff’s lobbying firm arranged the Northern Mariana Islands trip.

April 11, 2008: The Denver Post reports that Schaffer supported Benigno Fitial, a candidate for Speaker of the House of the North Mariana Islands and an ally of Abramoff.  Schaffer endorsed Fitial in ads in the island newspaper, and his endorsement “was part of a concerted and public campaign by Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources to boost Fitial’s public career when he became key to extending a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract for Abramoff from the island’s government.”  After Fitial was elected speaker he pressured the Governor of the Marianas Islands to renew Abramoff’s lobbying contract.

April 12, 2008: The Denver Post reports on its front page that after returning from a Jack Abramoff-sponsored trip to the Northern Mariana Islands, Schaffer aggressively sought to discredit critics of human rights abuses on the islands, carrying out “a strategy that had been literally mapped out by Abramoff a year and a half earlier in the memo addressed to Willie Tan, who is one of the islands’ biggest textile manufacturers and had input on the lobbying contract between the islands and Abramoff’s firm.”

April 21, 2008: Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, blasts Schaffer for defending human rights conditions in the Northern Mariana Islands, where factory workers were made to undergo forced abortions.

April 28, 2008: Schaffer and his campaign manager Dick Wadhams have a combative interview with a Colorado reporter when asked about the Abramoff scandal. The transcript circulates widely.

May 14, 2008: Whoops! In his very first ad, Schaffer tries to tout his ties to Colorado, noting that he proposed to his wife on Pike’s Peak. The problem? The mountain he shows in Mt. McKinley…in Alaska. Schaffer pulls the ads.

May 30, 2008:  Dick Wadhams flatly denies that Schaffer was paid for his service on the board of the non-profit group whose founder, Bill Orr, has been convicted of illegally using funds from a congressional earmark.

June 23, 2008: Whoops! Schaffer “estimated he was paid $1,500 for his service on the board.” But confusing matters more, Schaffer’s financial disclosure form filed with the Senate Ethics Committee notes his work on the board but doesn’t show any income.

July 10, 2008: The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel breaks the news that while working as an oil executive in Denver, Bob Schaffer violated official U.S. policy by negotiating an oil exploration deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government at a time when the State Department was warning American oil firms not to sign such deals because they would lead to destabilization in Iraq.

July 11, 2008: The Huffington Post debunks Schaffer’s claims that he was unaware of U.S. objections to pursuing Kurdish oil deals, and reveals that he worked on the oil deal while officially a candidate for Senate.

July 12, 2008: Foreign policy experts rip Schaffer, “saying an oil deal his company negotiated in a region of Iraq jeopardized the safety of American troops”

July 17, 2008: Schaffer admits that he was aware that U.S. government officials opposed oil deals like the one he arranged with the Kurdistan Regional Government, contradicting his previous statement that he had no such knowledge at the time.

August 2, 2008: The stress of losing begins to wear on Schaffer’s campaign: Dick Wadhams has an outburst with Lynn Bartles of the Rocky Mountain News saying, “We’re going to shove a bunch of 30-second ads up his a** on this issue over the course of the campaign.”

August 15, 2008: Big Oil Bob earns the title with this astonishing quote: “But because prices are soaring, the reality is the federal government is raking in a bunch of cash right now on the backs of energy producers.”

September 28, 2008: In their Meet the Press debate, Schaffer – who appeared fidgety and angry – defended oil company profits as “not too bad.”

September 30, 2008: Schaffer’s connections to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff resurface with a former labor official and a human rights activist holding a press conference in front of his office in Denver to describe him “as ‘a leader’ in carrying out a plan hatched by jailed former lobbyist Jack Abramoff to shield sweatshops from U.S. immigration and labor laws.”

October 15, 2008: The Denver Post reports, “After together spending nearly $2 million in Colorado Senate ads in the last two weeks of September, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Freedom’s Watch – two of Schaffer’s biggest backers – suddenly pulled out.”

October 21, 2008: The NRSC says they’ll stay in Colorado “until the end.”

October 24, 2008: “The end” comes early… NRSC pulls out of Colorado, conceding defeat.

The Alliance for Retired Americans says John Boccieri is the best choice to succeed retiring Rep. Ralph Regula in the race for Ohio’s 16th Congressional District.

The organization, which has nearly 271,000 members in Ohio and represents over 3.5 million seniors across America, wrote in their endorsement that Boccieri’s “election to the House of Representatives will enhance the quality of life for older Americans.”

The Alliance cited:

“Boccieri’s leadership on issues such as fighting Social Security privatization and strengthening the Social Security and Medicare systems… In addition, our members can support your candidacy because of your belief in the need to provide more affordable health care for older Americans, to create a Medicare drug program that benefits seniors, not insurance and drug companies, as well as the need for stronger retirement and pension security, and quality long term and nursing home care.”

Boccieri thanked the group for its endorsement and reiterated his commitment to standing up for seniors.

“If you’ve worked hard, played by the rules, and given back to your community your entire life, you deserve your pension benefits, affordable health care, and financial security in retirement. That’s the dream that has made America strong, and that’s the promise that I will fight for in Congress.”

Boccieri has a strong record of supporting seniors in the state legislature and has committed to use his voice in Congress to address the plight of local retirees like those from Republic Technologies who have been denied much of their promised pension benefits.

In stark contrast, when Republic Technologies retirees invited State Sen. Kirk Schuring to an October 11 meeting about their pension struggles, Schuring never showed up. And this Tuesday, the editors of the Akron Beacon Journal noted that Schuring has expressed “willingness to consider privatizing a portion of Social Security” if elected to Congress.

In 2001, Schuring cast the only Ohio House vote against creating the Golden Buckeye discount prescription drug program [“Legislation Would Give Seniors Drug Discount,” Dayton Daily News, 6/6/01], and more recently voted to raise the retirement age and strip half a billion dollars from state pension funds. [127 SB 148]

InsiderAdvantage (10/23, likely voters):

Jim Martin (D): 42 (45)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 44 (45)

Allen Buckley (L): 2 (2)

(MoE: ±3.8%)

Towery:

The Senate race appears in my judgment either headed for a runoff or a Martin win, and here’s why I say that: over 15 percent of blacks say they still are undecided. The largest undecided segment among party affiliations are Democrats, who mirror that black percentage – 14.5 percent – and independents at 18 percent, who are leaning toward Martin by a margin of 45-33 percent. Generally speaking, at this point in a race, unless something were to turn it around, we would treat the undecideds two ways: we would either lop it off and redistribute it, or we would assign it based on the relative positions of the candidates as they stand today. Under either of those scenarios, Chambliss and Martin would be in a runoff.

Strategic Vision (R) (10/20-22, likely voters, 10/5-7 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 44 (44)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 46 (47)

Allen Buckley (L): 5 (4)

(MoE: ±3%)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has some more chatter about runoff implications here. We should have a good idea of the DSCC’s endgame here by Monday or Tuesday — when final spending decisions are made by the major committees.

Minnesota Public Radio (10/21-23, likely voters):

Elwyn Tinklenberg (DFL): 45

Michele Bachmann (R-inc): 43

Bob Anderson (IP): 5

(MoE: ±4.7%)

Last night SurveyUSA showed Elwyn Tinklenberg zooming out of obscurity and past Michele Bachmann in the wake of her mac-carth-a moment on Hardball. Today gives us another poll (from Minnesota Public Radio) giving Tinklenberg a small edge.

This poll is also interesting because it delved into the specifics of whether or not Bachmann’s comments are driving voter decisions. Turns out, yes, they are:

Nearly four out of 10 voters in the 6th District said they were less likely to support the Congresswoman because of her comments compared to 8 percent who said they are now more supportive.

Bachmann is, in fact, suddenly less popular than even Norm Coleman, who posts a 14-point edge over Al Franken in this R+5 district.

UPDATE: According to Politico, Bachmann has now taped an apology ad that will air in the closing week of the campaign. Sounds good; just ask Tom Feeney how that worked out for him!

Jack Kingston has DECLINED to debate Bill Gillespie for GA-01. Is Jack afraid to debate his record? That’s understandable, since he’s worse than Saxby on the middle class, on veterans’ issues, and on the environment.

Or maybe  he just wanted to join the pack of his fellow Republicans who DECLINED: John Linder, leaving Doug Heckman the floor for GA-07; Tom Price, leaving Bill Jones free rein in GA-06; and Lynn “uppity” Westmoreland, leaving Stephen Camp GA-03 camped in front of the TV cameras.

Jack only debated Bill once, in Brunswick, where Bill trounced him, so it’s no wonder Jack has backed out of the two debates scheduled since then.

Guess we’ll get to see Bill Gillespie take 30 minutes instead of 3 to remind us why he’s better than Jack for Georgia’s First District.

That’s worth going to a debate party. Or, if you’re going to be in Atlanta, go on down to GPB and join the live audience.