Month: October 2008

A round-up of all the major independent expenditures filed with the FEC in the past 24 hours:

The NRCC finally opens its wallet — they spent nearly $4 million today, while the DCCC threw down $3.8 mil (but were aided by groups like the Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society).

I’m sure the D-trip will be filing many more ad buys tomorrow. More details are available at SSP’s IE tracker.

What an asshole:

Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) has conceded that he did tell a North Carolina crowd that “liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God,” even though he initially denied making such a statement.

Now he says he didn’t mean it that way and he was just trying to rev up a campaign rally.

“I genuinely did not recall making the statement and, after reading it, there is no doubt that it came out completely the wrong way. I actually was trying to work to keep the crowd as respectful as possible, so this is definitely not what I intended,” Hayes said in a statement for Politico.

The comments were first reported by the New York Observer. When Politico linked to the Observer story on Monday evening, Hayes’ spokeswoman Amanda Little called and denied the report. Observer reporter Jason Horowitz told Politico he stood firmly behind the story. Politico left the quote in The Crypt blog but added the Hayes denial.

On Tuesday, two more reporters and two other witnesses confirmed the quote, but Little continued to deny it, calling the story “irresponsible journalism.” Little said she had just as many sources who would deny it, including Hayes’ staff and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who spoke before Hayes.

Needless to say, Patrick McHenry is a scuzzbucket, too.

Huh. So this pretty critical piece of information seems to have escaped a lot of people’s attention – including, I must admit, mine:

One possible scenario, which seems somewhat likely based on poll data, is that Chambliss wins a slight plurality, but not the 50% plus one required for a majority.

If Chambliss and Martin go into a run-off, the race will likely garner national attention and financial resources from national Democratic and Republican parties.

Andre in Atlanta explains the backstory:

After Wyche Fowler was defeated by Paul Coverdell in 1992, the Democratic-led Georgia General Assembly changed lowered the threshold for electoral victory to a plurality rather than a majority.  In 2005, the Republican-led General Assembly changed it back to a majority, 50% plus one, to win.

If necessary, a runoff would be held on Dec. 2nd, so props if you knew all this. Anyhow, with Libertarian candidate Allan Buckley in the race, a runoff is a definite possibility – Buckley’s been pulling about 5% according to the Pollster composites. What’s more, Georgia’s own Bob Barr at the, uh, top of the ticket on the Libertarian line, so that could draw in even more Lib votes.

The real question is whether a runoff would be a boon to us. On the one hand, you would no longer have Obama at the top of the ticket. On the other hand, you’d have the entire resources of what ought to be a pretty energized Democratic Party at the ready. Of course, the GOP thought the same thing in Louisiana in 2002 when they tried to eliminate Mary Landrieu. They had the hubris to call it “Operation Icing on the Cake” – but all they got was a pie in the face.

I’m very curious to hear what Swing Staters think about the likelihood of a runoff, and to whose benefit (if anyone’s) one would redound.

I am watching Keith Olbermann here on the West Coast and he reported that the Obama campaign will NOT send money downballot. The feel good about where the campaign is going but they don’t want to take chances and plan to bear down on the next two weeks into the finish line. Personally I think this is a good idea. The Congressional committees are flush with cash and the DNC may soon spend on the state legislative races. Don’t worry guys, there is enough money to go around.

“Shotgun” Randy Kuhl’s latest and greatest:

I firmly believe the Democratic majority wants the American public to suffer and to hurt so that they can make some political gains at election time, and I think that’s wrong.

The full clip is available here, with the offending soundbite coming at the tail end of a completely obsequious media interview (just listen to the reporter guffaw with a mix of approval and amusement at Randy’s deep thoughts).

Phil has more.

Elway (10/16-19, registered voters, 9/8-10):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 51 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 39 (44)

(MoE: ±5%)

This comes as a bit of a surprise: after month upon month of ties and minuscule Gregoire leads in Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polling (with a brief boomlet for Rossi during the peak of Palinmania), local pollster Elway shows up with a poll with Gregoire blowing off the doors with a 12-point lead.

Interestingly, Gregoire seems to be picking up a bit of Republican support. Gregoire is supported by 85% of Democrats (which is consistent with other polls I’ve seen, and pointed to her main problem: holding down the number of Obama/Rossi ticket-splitters), but Rossi may have lost a bit of his headlock on the state’s Republicans, as this poll reports his support among GOP Partiers as only 87%.

I can’t tell from the writeup whether this poll identified Rossi as “Republican” or “prefers GOP Party,” as he appears on the ballot (last time around, Elway tested it both ways and found that Rossi performed significantly better when identified as “GOP” rather than “Republican”); if Elway used only “Republican” this time, that may be what’s making the difference here. Although Elway has an excellent reputation in Washington political circles, their numbers have tended to be quite different from the robo-pollers; we’ll have to wait till Election Day to see who has the better model.

We began this bizarre tale with the news that one of GOP Rep. John Shadegg’s campaign credit cards was discovered on the floor in an Arizona Democratic Party office. The Shadegg campaign responded that the credit card slipped out of the pocket of a volunteer who purchased an Obama bumper sticker. The only problem? The Arizona Democratic Party has no record of the “volunteer” in question (who is actually Ryan Anderson, Shadegg’s deputy campaign manager and ex-lobbyist) purchasing a sticker. But they do have a record of the fake name and address that Anderson used on his disclosure form. Once again, here is the full press release from the Arizona Democratic Party:

Shadegg campaign staffer lied about identity in Democratic office

Democrats are demanding that Rep. John Shadegg fire his deputy campaign manager after learning that he accessed a Democratic Party office using a fake name and fake address.

Party officials believe that Ryan Anderson, who has claimed that he was at the party office to purchase a bumper sticker, provided the fake name and address. Anderson was only discovered because he left the Shadegg campaign’s credit card in the Democratic party’s office.

Records show that a person with the name “Bryan Anderson” filled out a contribution form, which is a legal document that the Arizona Democratic Party uses to report contributions to elections officials. The purchase of a bumper sticker is a contribution.

“Bryan Anderson’s” address is a near-match to Ryan Anderson’s. Every number in the street line of the address is one digit off. Democrats will not release Anderson’s home address.

Anderson, a veteran Republican operative, previously worked at a major Republican lobbying firm in Phoenix. He also worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

“It appears as though this was an orchestrated attempt by Ryan Anderson to lie about his identity,” said Emily DeRose, spokeswoman for the Arizona Democratic Party. “Why would Anderson need to lie if he was just there to buy a bumper sticker? Why would a Republican campaign operative go to a Democratic office to buy bumper stickers when they’re online? This story just doesn’t hold water.”

Lake Research for Annette Taddeo (10/8-10/21, likely voters, June in parens):

Annette Taddeo (D): 41 (27)

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-inc): 48 (58)

(MoE: ±4.6%)

That’s some big movement for Taddeo since June, and the gain is across the board for Democrats — Obama has pulled ahead of McCain by 47-45 here, after trailing McCain by 10 points in June. These results come after a Carlos McDonald poll from late September showed Ros-Lehtinen ahead by 48-35 — a wide margin, but also not a particularly strong top line for a longtime incumbent.

Taddeo has made a lot of progress, increasing her name recognition from 14% to 63%. With Democrats experiencing a remarkable voter registration surge in this district (cutting a 23,202 GOP registration advantage in 2006 down to a deficit of only 1,730 voters this year), Ros-Lehtinen could end up receiving a November surprise.

The full polling memo is available below the fold.

UPDATE: Barack Obama weighs in on this race:

Speaking at his “jobs summit” in Palm Beach Community College, Barack Obama dropped Congressional hopeful Annette Taddeo’s name.

He told the crowd she is a “future member of Congress — as long as you guys turn out to vote!”