Tag: KY-Sen

AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln’s closing ad for her campaign is really, really sad-sack. “I know you’re angry at Washington – believe me, I heard you on May 18” and “I’d rather lose this election fighting for what’s right than win by turning my back on Arkansas.” Gawd.

CT-Sen: Dick Blumenthal is out with his first TV ads of the cycle, featuring people he helped in his capacity as attorney general. You’ll need to click over to his site to watch them. No word on the size of the buy (grrr).

FL-Sen: Boy, Joe Trippi sure has shacked up with one serious shitball. Jeff Greene, who spent his entire adult life registered either as “no party” or a Republican, donated five grand to Meg fucking Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign just last year. Lately he’s given a bunch of money to Dems, but jeez – to Whitman, of all people? Oh, and he also gave money to Pete Wilson back in 1988. That should help him with the Hispanic vote.

IL-Sen: Where to start with Mark Kirk? How about this: Liberal blogger Nitpicker first nailed Mark Kirk for misleading people about his military service record all the way back in 2005 (while chasing down a bullshit attack on Paul Hackett, interestingly enough). TPM also lists many more occasions where Mark Kirk did his best to make it appear he served in Operation Iraqi Freedom (he did not). Meanwhile, Bloomberg has another video of Kirk claiming to have won the Intelligence Officer of the Year award (he did not). And last but not least, the Navy itself is saying it alerted Kirk to the fact that the media was inquiring about the award story. Ouch.

KS-Sen: State Sen. David Haley officially kicked off his campaign to succeed Sam Brownback yesterday. Haley lost a bid for Secretary of State in 2006. He joins former newspaper editor Charles Schollenberger and academic administrator Lisa Johnston in the Democratic primary.

KY-Sen: Libertarian purity trolls in Kentucky have decided not to field a candidate to express their unhappiness with Rand Paul… mostly because they don’t have, you know, a candidate. Meanwhile, Kentucky Republicans are pretty pissed themselves. The GOP-led state Senate adopted a resolution on a voice vote expressing support for the Civil Rights Act, and criticizing those (like a certain nameless senate nominee) as “outside the mainstream of American values” and part of an “extreme minority of persons in the United States” for their opposition to the law. Double ouch.

NY-Sen: Will it blend? The answer is always yes, whether you’re talking about a blender from Blendtec or a Schumer from Flatbush. The NY GOP nominated former CIA officer Gary Bernsten, who vowed, a little too Jack Bauer-like, to “pursue Sen. Schumer in every town, on every street and every village.” Political consultant Jay Townsend, who may be in this just to sell more DVDs on how to run campaigns, will also be on the primary ballot – as will anyone insane enough to try to petition his or her way on. Whoever the lucky winner is, they’ll have to face the implacable Schumer whirling blades of death in November.

KS-Gov: Sen. Sam Brownback, running for governor, picked state Sen. Jeff Colyer has his running-mate. Colyer is also a plastic surgeon whose Google results lead with the fact that he performs breast augmentations.

NV-Gov: Jon Ralston points out that Rory Reid has $2.6 million in cash-on-hand, while likely Republican opponent Brian Sandoval has just $575K. Sandoval has had to fight a primary battle against incumbent Gov. Jim Gibbons, while Reid’s had the nomination to himself.

AR-03: Steve Womack has finally picked up an endorsement from one of the people he beat in the first round in AR-03, businessman Kurt Maddox. His opponent in the runoff, Cecile Bledsoe, has scored the support of also-rans Steve Lowry, Doug Matayo, and, of course, Gunner DeLay.

CO-07: Navy vet Lang Sias doesn’t live in the 7th CD, and he also hasn’t done something else there or anywhere else for the last decade: vote. In fact, the former Democrat (who donated to Mark Udall in 2002) didn’t even manage to vote for John McCain when he was volunteering for his campaign two years ago. Sias is fighting for the GOP nod against Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, who is whomping him in the cash department.

GA-07: GOP State Rep. Clay Cox is the first candidate on the air in the race to replace retiring Rep. John Linder. Amusingly enough, Cox’s ad features his support for the “Fair Tax” – one of the key issues which sunk Tim Burns in PA-12. Obviously it’s a different district, but I’ll be curious to see if it flies in a Republican primary. Anyhow, no word on the size of the buy (of course). (Also, is it just me, or does the part of the ad in front of the heavy vehicles look greenscreened?)

NY-03: Howard Kudler, a Nassau County teacher, will likely run against Rep. Peter King, says Newsday. Kudler challenged GOP Assemblyman David McDonough in 2008, losing 62-38.

NY-19: Biden alert! The VPOTUS was seen yesterday doing a fundraiser for Rep. John Hall in Bedford, NY. No word on the haul, though the event was described as “small.” In the evening, the elder Biden also did an event in NYC for his son Beau’s DE-AG re-election campaign.

Polling: Mark Blumenthal tries to pin Scott Rasmussen down on why his firm hasn’t been polling key primaries closer to the actual elections. When confronted with evidence that his patterns this cycle have changed from the last, Ras says that general elections and presidential primaries are “different” from regular primaries. He also claims that the AR-Sen race is only “of intense interest to some on the political left,” which doesn’t exactly gibe with reality, given how much ink has been spilled on this contest by the tradmed. Meanwhile, speaking of questionable polling, Nate Silver takes a look at Internet-based pollsters. While Zogby of course is the suck, Silver thinks that Harris Interactive and YouGov “are capable of producing decent results.”

Passings: Former North Dakota Gov. Art Link passed away at the age of 96. He served two terms in the 70s, losing a bid for a third term to Republican Allen Olson in 1980.

SurveyUSA (5/25-27, likely voters, 10/30-11/2/2009 in parens):

Jack Conway (D): 45 (44)

Rand Paul (R): 51 (39)

Undecided: 4 (17)

^{(MoE: ±4.2%)}

Well, at the very least, I’m pretty sure that Rand Paul isn’t leading by 25 points.

• CA-Sen: For a brief shining moment there, Tom Campbell had some good news: in the April 1-May 19 reporting period, Campbell actually outraised Carly Fiorina from outside donors. Campbell pulled in $990K while Fiorina got $909K. Fiorina’s response? She wrote herself another seven-figure check.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist’s 7-word-long Google ad attacking Jeff Greene (almost haiku-like in its simplicity: “What has Jeff Greene done? Experience matters.”) prompted a 300-word press release from the Greene camp landing some solid hits on Crist.

• KY-Sen: In terms of rocking the political boat, this probably isn’t as eye-opening as his comments about the Civil Rights Act or the NAFTA Superhighway, but it’s one more weird, sketchy act by Rand Paul: in 1999, he created a whole new certifying body for ophthalmologists, the National Board of Ophthalmology, in order to compete with the establishment American Board of Ophthalmology. The NBO has looser certification requirements than the ABO.

• NH-Sen (pdf): Republican pollster Magellan has been really active lately in GOP primaries where they don’t have any skin in the game; they’re back to looking at the New Hampshire Senate race. They find the real race here between Kelly Ayotte, at 38, and Bill Binnie, at 29. Ovide Lamontagne is lagging at 9, with Jim Bender at 4.

• OH-Sen, OH-Gov (pdf): The Ohio Poll, conducted by the University of Cincinnati, is out today with pleasant results for Democrats (perhaps doubly so, considering they have a reputation for producing GOP-leaning results). They find Dem Lee Fisher with a one-point lead over GOPer Rob Portman in the Senate race, 47-46. They also find incumbent Dem Ted Strickland looking OK in the gubernatorial race, leading John Kasich 49-44 (and sporting a surprisingly high 55/35 approval, suggesting that whatever he’s been doing lately has been working).

• FL-Gov: Ad wars are reaching a fever pitch in the GOP primary in the Florida gubernatorial race; Rick Scott placed a sixth major media buy for another $2.9 million, taking his total to $10.9 million. We’ve also found out more about that mystery group that’s planning to spend nearly a million hitting Scott (primarily on the issue of the fraud charges against his company): it’s the Alliance for America’s Future. While it’s not clear what their interest in Bill McCollum is, the group is headed by Mary Cheney (daughter of Dick).

• HI-Gov: After many months of operating in running-but-not-running limbo, Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann made it official yesterday: he’ll run in the Democratic gubernatorial primary against ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie.

• NM-Gov: Former state GOP chair Allen Weh, who’s turned into the main GOP primary opposition to Susana Martinez by virtue of his money, just loaned himself another $600K for the home stretch, on top of $1 million he’s already contributed. Lt. Gov. Diane Denish is unopposed in the Dem primary, but watching Martinez catch up to her in polls of the general, has launched into a fundraising frenzy as of late; she’s raised $464K from donors in the last three weeks.

• SC-Gov (pdf): Two different polls are out in South Carolina: one, from Insider Advantage, continues the trend of giving an advantage to Nikki Haley (and the survey period was May 25, after the current imbroglio broke). Haley is at 31, Andre Bauer at 21, Gresham Barrett at 14, and Henry McMaster at 13. On the Dem side, Vince Sheheen leads at 26, with Jim Rex at 17 and Robert Ford at 12. SCIndex didn’t look at the primaries, but had some rather heartening numbers for November: Generic Republican leads Generic Dem only 46-44 in the gubernatorial race, while in the Senate race, Jim DeMint leads Democratic challenge Vic Rawl only 50-43.

• IN-03: Mitch Daniels made it official today, setting the date for the special election to replace resigned Mark Souder on Nov. 2, at the same time as the general election. (So the special election’s winner will only serve during the House’s lame duck session.) The state GOP will pick its candidates for both elections at a June 12 caucus; presumably, they’ll choose the same person for both.

• MO-08: Where’s the New York Times when you need them? Rep. Jo Ann Emerson just lied big-time about her Dem opponent Tommy Sowers’ military record, saying that her opposition to DADT repeal was based on talking to actual commanders, as opposed to Sowers, who “never commanded anybody.” Um, yeah… except for that platoon of combat engineers that Sowers led in Kosovo.

• MS-01: Wow, even Mississippi Dems are now taking a page from the Gray Davis playbook. A Dem 527 called “Citizens for Security and Strength” is hitting presumed Republican frontrunner state Sen. Alan Nunnelee prior to the primary as a “hypocrite on taxes.” Apparently they too are sensing some late-game momentum by Henry Ross, a teabagger whom they’d much rather Travis Childers face in the general than financially-flush establishment figure Nunnelee, and would like to facilitate a Ross victory (or at least a runoff).

• NC-08: Thinking that Barack Obama is a Kenyan secret Muslim? Check. Wanting to repeal the 17th Amendment? Great! Thinking that there’s a 1,000-foot-high pyramid in Greenland? Sorry, that’s a fridge too far even for the teabaggers of North Carolina. Six leaders among the local Tea Partiers publicly switched their allegiances to Harold Johnson in the runoff in the 8th, following revelations of just how off-the-rails their one-time fave Tim d’Annunzio is.

• NY-23: Determined to relive the NY-23 special election over and over again, the Concerned Women of America are sticking with their endorsement of Doug Hoffman, who seems on track to pick up the Conservative Party line while the GOP line goes elsewhere (like Matt Doheny, most likely).

• Votes: The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell cleared the House by a 234-194 margin yesterday, with 5 GOPers voting yes and 26 Dems voting no. The GOP ‘ayes’ were Judy Biggert, Joe Cao, Charles Djou (in his first week of work), Ron Paul, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Dem no votes were — no surprise — mostly vulnerable members in culturally conservative areas: Berry, Bishop (GA), Boucher, Bright, Carney, Childers, Costello, Critz, Davis (TN), Donnelly, Edwards (TX), Etheridge, Green (TX), Lipinski, Marshall, McIntyre, Ortiz,  Peterson, Pomeroy, Rahall, Ross, Shuler, Skelton, Spratt, Tanner, and Taylor.

• Polltopia: Somebody must have slipped some Red Bull into Nate Silver’s Ovaltine lately, as he’s just landed his third hard hit on Rasmussen in as many days. Today, it’s their Wisconsin Senate race poll showing the unknown Ron Johnson competitive (and known by 68% of likely voters) that’s drawing Nate’s ire.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (5/24-26, likely voters, 5/10-12 in parens):

Jack Conway (D): 41 (39)

Rand Paul (R): 44 (42)

Undecided: 15 (19)

(MoE: ±4%)

Coming off a close primary victory, Jack Conway is more beat up than Rand Paul, holding a favorable rating of 48-43 compared to Paul’s 53-33, but he’s still holding the line reasonably well. Conway wins among Dem voters by 75-7 but is losing independents by 31-42. The congressional district breakdowns are interesting, too, with Conway winning only the Louisville-based 3rd CD (by 63-26) and pulling a 43-43 draw in Ben Chandler’s 6th District. Conway’s weakest spot is the Western/Central-based 2nd CD (which contains Paul’s home base of Bowling Green), where he loses to Paul by 24-54.

• Idaho: The numbers from Idaho’s primary election last night that everyone is focused on is state Rep. Raul Labrador’s somewhat surprising victory over Vaughn Ward in ID-01, by a 48-39 margin. This means that the NRCC-preferred, Sarah Palin-endorsed candidate lost… although given the way Ward’s wheels fell off over the last few weeks, Republicans may be breathing a sigh of relief. Not that Labrador may turn out that well either, as he’s poorly-funded and apparently not a favorite of the local establishment (as he’s tight with ex-Rep. Bill Sali). Democratic freshman Rep. Walt Minnick may actually be feeling… dare I say it… confident going into November?

ID-02 had some eyebrow-raising numbers too, consistent with mediocre primary performances from establishment incumbents on both sides of the aisle in previous months; Rep. Mike Simpson — not exactly a moderate, but certainly not the flamethrower you’d expect in such a dark-red district – had an unexpectedly rough time in the GOP primary, winning against Chick Heileson only 58-24. And incumbent GOP governor Butch Otter, who’d looked dominant in polling, got a teabagging of his own, scoring only 55% while rancher Rex Rammell (the only guy around with a name even manlier than “Butch Otter”) got 25%, as apparently there was a lot of resentment on the right over Otter’s failed attempt to raise the state gas tax. Dem nominee Keith Allred has a fundraising lead over Otter and good bipartisan credentials as former head of group Common Interest; combined with Otter’s underperformance in the primary, that leaves us thinking Allred might have a legitimate shot here.

• CA-Sen: Anti-abortion group the Susan B. Anthony List (whom you might remember from their involvement in the WV-01 Dem primary) is getting involved in California, in support of Carly Fiorina. They’re spending $215K in IEs, as Fiorina opposes the pro-choice Tom Campbell in the GOP primary.

• IN-Sen: The spotlight is starting to turn back toward Dan Coats’ lobbying past, with state Democrats demanding that Coats disclose a full list of his lobbying clients. Coats (who worked for law firm King & Spaulding as a lobbyist) is citing attorney-client privilege as a reason for keeping mum, although recent court cases have made clear that the privilege doesn’t extend to lobbying activities.

• KY-Sen: No matter how pure you try to be, someone’s always going to be more pure than you: dissatisfied with Rand Paul’s sops to Republican orthodoxy, the Libertarian Party is saying that they’re planning to run a candidate against him in November. They’re accusing Paul of having deviated from the Libertarian line on social issues and foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Paul camp’s emergency retooling continues apace; he’s hired Jesse Benton as his new campaign manager (to replace David Adams, who was the behind-the-scenes equivalent of Some Dude). Benton’s not a GOP establishment figure, though; he was the communications director for the 2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign.

• NV-Sen: The feathers are flying in the Nevada GOP primary, where the Club for Growth is taking aim at the very large target on Sue Lowden’s back, hitting her for voting to raise taxes while in the state Senate and her previous support for Harry Reid. The CfG, of course, endorsed opponent Sharron Angle last week.

• CA-Gov: MoveOn co-founder Peter Schurman apparently got tired of polling at 1% in the Democratic primary, and ended his recently-launched bid against Jerry Brown. Seeming satisfied that Brown has been stepping up his game lately, he threw his backing to Brown.

• FL-Gov: It’s looking like insiders are realizing that Bill McCollum screwed up by letting wealthy health care magnate Rick Scott run rampant on their airwaves for the last month, letting him get a major foothold in the GOP primary. Now rumors suggest that an unnamed independent group is about to start a major advertising blitz on McCollum’s behalf, to try and level the playing field.

• NV-Gov:  The most recent batch of polls have shown incumbent GOP governor Jim Gibbons down but not out in the Republican primary. But with the primary only a few weeks away, this new poll from the RGA by POS looks like Gibbons is in too deep a hole to dig out of: Brian Sandoval is at 50, with Gibbons at 27 and Mike Montandon at 11.

• NY-Gov: It’s convention time in New York, and now that Andrew Cuomo isn’t playing coy any more, his first order of business is picking a running mate. He’s chosen Rochester mayor Robert Duffy for the position. Duffy will still need to win his own primary, though, before getting joined to the ticket (a la Scott Lee Cohen in Illinois). Cuomo also got welcome news from the Independence Party: he’ll be getting that centrist third party’s line on the ballot in November. (The IP backed Eliot Spitzer last time, but rich weirdo Tom Golisano three times before that.)

• OH-01: In the War of the Steves, Republican ex-Rep. Steve Chabot is out with a poll giving himself a substantial lead over freshman Democratic Rep. Steve Driehaus. The poll by POS gives Chabot a 53-39 lead. That’s actually a smaller Chabot lead than that notorious Firedoglake poll from January, but regardless, Driehaus is going to need huge African-American turnout in Cincinnati if he’s going to pull this out.

• OH-16: If that wasn’t enough, there’s also a Republican poll of the 16th giving a significant lead to Jim Renacci, who has a 47-35 lead over fellow Democratic freshman Rep. John Boccieri. The press release touts this as an independent poll, but it was conducted by Republican pollster Fabrizio, McClaughlin, & Associates, and it was paid for by the innocuous-sounding U.S. Citizens Association who, if you go to their website, have a major ax to grind over health care reform (for which Boccieri was a ‘no’ to ‘yes’ vote).

• TN-06: Illegal immigration isn’t the kind of issue you’d expect to take center stage in rural Tennessee, but in the race to succeed retiring Bart Gordon, the two main GOP contestants are trying to outflank each other to the right on the issue. State Sen. Jim Tracy is accusing state Sen. Diane Black of trying to water down legislation requiring local authorities to report the arrest of illegal immigrants to ICE.

• Polltopia: Jonathan Chait joins the chorus of Rasmussen doubters, pointing nicely to Rasmussen’s role in the cycle of right-wing epistemic closure. Nate Silver also an interesting tidbit that promises to be part of a forthcoming larger revamping of his pollster ratings, one that seems likely not to see Rasmussen in as positive a light as his previous ratings: he finds that while Rasmussen was OK in 2004 and 2006,  its performance in 2000 was way off, as they missed seven states, with a Republican bias of 3.5%.

AR-Sen: The Big Dog is coming back home to stump for Blanche Lincoln, the first time he’s done so this race. Meanwhile, the SEIU just tossed in another $100K for phonebanking and another $100K for field on behalf of Bill Halter. (There’s also an amusing negative $100K entry for “reverse phonebanking.”)

CA-Sen: Chuck DeVore is as insane as this ad. A true must-see. In news of the normal, President Obama kept to his promise to return to CA for two more Barbara Boxer fundraisers. The events raised $1.75 million, $600K of which will go to Boxer and the balance to the DSCC.

KY-Sen: Heh, that was quick. Rand Paul is already planning the dreaded “staff shakeup.” The only problem is that he can’t fire himself. Barring that, Mitch McConnell is telling his least-favorite fellow Kentuckian to shut the fuck up and hide under a rock – “for the time being.”

PA-Sen: I agree – this is a magnanimous move. Arlen Specter introduced Joe Sestak to his Senate colleagues at their weekly lunch yesterday. Very gracious.

AL-06, AL-07: Unsurprisingly, corporate lawyer Terri Sewell is the only Democrat airing TV ads in the primary to succeed Rep. Artur Davis, spending about $200K so far. With $783K, she’s far outraised her chief competitors, Earl Hilliard, Jr. ($328K) and Shelia Smoot ($100K). Sewell can also count among her contributors Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

Crazily, though, ten-term GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus is also airing ads in advance of his primary in AL-06, some $70K worth. Bachus has spent an amazing $680K on his campaign so far, even though his challenger, teabagger Stan Cooke, has raised just $29K total. This is the reddest district in the nation according to Cook PVI (R+29), which may explain Bachus’s anxiety, since he is the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee and voted in favor of the bailout.

AR-01: A similar situation in AR-01 as in AR-02 below, where first-rounder David Cook endorsed the somewhat less-conservative Chad Causey over the extremely conservative Tim Wooldridge in (you might be a little surprised to hear me say this if you don’t already know the names) the Democratic runoff.

AR-02: Some runoff endorsements on both sides from the also-rans. Patrick Kennedy and John Adams (great names, huh?) both endorsed Robbie Wills in the Democratic race, while David Boling endorsed Joyce Elliott. I suspect national Dems would prefer Wills over the more-liberal Elliott, but this race is probably too touchy to get involved in.

DE-AL: Joe Biden returned home to do a fundraiser in Wilmington for John Carney. No word on whether he’ll also do one for Senate candidate Chris Coons, but it’s not like it’s a big schlep.

FL-25: The statewide Florida AFL-CIO, following the lead of its South Fla. branch, endorsed little-known longshoreman Luis Meurice in the Democratic primary, rather than Joe Garcia. The union, Florida’s biggest, backed Garcia in 2008.

IN-05: This is exactly the kind of weird that Dave Weigel specializes in. Tim Crawford, the teabagging “Democrat” who snuck to victory in the Democratic primary here, abruptly dropped out of the race after an unpleasant meeting with, you know, actual Democrats… and then wrote a long, rambly email saying he was un-dropping-out. Ah well.

IN-09: Speaking of Joe Biden, he’ll also be doing a fundraiser in late June for Rep. Baron Hill in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

NC-08: I would really freakin’ love to see Tim D’Annunzio pull this one off. The entire NC House GOP delegation just collectively endorsed former TV sportscaster Harold Johnson, terrified as they are of the spastic-fantastic Tim-diana Jones. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here stat.

RI-01: Scott Brown is coming to Rhode Island for a fundraiser with state Rep. John Loughlin, the GOP’s candidate in this open seat. To date, Loughlin’s raised about $344K, which might not seem too bad, but in fact he’s been running for a long time, since well before Rep. Patrick Kennedy announced his retirement.

VA-11: Businessman Keith Fimian has a new poll from McLaughlin & Associates showing him with a 36-23 lead over Fairfax Co. Supervisor Pat Herrity in the GOP primary. A March poll had Fimian up 29-17. Herrity had his own poll out last month, though, showing him with a 42-21 lead – and pointed out that Fimian claimed his internals had him just three points behind Gerry Connolly before election day 2008, but lost by twelve.

DSCC: Uh, good, I guess. The DSCC has cancelled plans to have EPA chief Lisa Jackson headline an NYC fundraiser next week – but what a retarded idea in the first place. It seems pretty inappropriate to me to have cabinet members doing hackwork like this (can you imagine Hillary Clinton or Eric Holder shilling for dollars?), but it’s even worse when you’re talking about the head of the EPA in the midst of the oil spill crisis in the Gulf. I also find it unctuous that the original invitation promised that the event would be “intimate, so each of you will have a real opportunity to get to know and to speak to Lisa about issues of concern to you and our nation.” Pretty gross when it’s our team selling access to the ultra-wealthy. Barf.

Ideology: Alan Abramowitz has a great piece up at the Democratic Strategist, looking at the correlation between ideology (as measured by DW-NOMINATE) and election performance by Republican senators. Using a modified eight-point DW-N scale, Abramowitz finds: “For every additional one point increase in conservatism, Republican incumbents lost an additional three percentage points in support relative to their party’s presidential candidate.” But shhh… don’t tell the Republicans!

AR-Sen: The SEIU is looking to finish the job, throwing down another $450K on behalf of Bill Halter. The union has spent almost $2 million dollars on this race so far.

AZ-Sen: Perhaps sensing some vulnerability on John McCain’s part, ex-state Rep. and former AZ health department chief Cathy Eden is jumping into the Democratic primary, where she’ll face former Tucson city councilman Rodney Glassman. Eden served in the state House in the early 1990s, then ran a brief campaign for the Dem nod for Arizona’s open Senate seat in 1994, dropping out before the primary. She’s also apparently tight with Janet Napolitano.

CT-Sen: So it turns out the NYT did have in its possession a copy of the full video of the Dick Blumenthal speech where he first said he served “during Vietnam,” only later to cloud things by saying he served “in Vietnam.” Yet despite having the entire video, the Times only posted a truncated clip showing the latter bit. Sheesh.

FL-Sen: The normally Dem-friendly Florida Education Association endorsed both Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek for Senate on Friday, as a thank-you to Crist for his veto of a controversial teacher “merit pay” bill. Crist tried to parlay that victory by attempting to steal another endorsement from Meek, enthusiastically courting the backing of the AFL-CIO. Unfortunately for Crist, the union decided to endorse Meek and only Meek. (J)

KY-Sen: You probably saw that Rand Paul abruptly cancelled a “Meet the Press” appearance scheduled for yesterday. What you may not have known is that the only other people in recent history to do so are Louis Farrakhan and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar. Also, if you check out that first Politico link, you’ll see exactly how uncomfortable Paul’s post-primary “unity” roll-out has been. Even Trey Grayson couldn’t stay on-message long enough to avoid admitting to reporters that the whole thing has been “awkward.”

NV-Sen: This is the chicken that laid the golden egg: Nevada election officials have banned people from wearing chicken suits into polling places on primary day. Though Dems have been sending people in chicken costumes to Sue Lowden campaign events, no one had any apparent plans to do electioneering while so garbed. But what this means is another day of chickens in the news. I think that calls for some Chicken Dance!

PA-Sen: Weird – Joe Sestak repeated his claim that the Obama administration offered him a job so that he’d drop his challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter. The weird part is that White House press secretary Bob Gibbs, in response, said only that  “nothing inappropriate” happened, but didn’t confirm or deny Sestak’s claim.

WI-Sen: This is a surprise: One-time beer baron Dick Leinenkugel has dropped out of the race after less than a month. He endorsed teabaggy businessman Ron Johnson, which seems like an odd fit, since the Kugel had worked in Dem Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration (a pretty big and obvious knock against him in a GOP primary). Hey, Beer Man – we hardly knew ye! Meanwhile, Johnson picked up the GOP’s endorsement (by a wide margin) at the state Republican convention this past weekend. Terrence Wall and David Westlake are apparently still staying in the race, though.

FL-Gov: God bless chrome-domed creep Rick Scott. He’s blasting McCollum on the airwaves for failing to support Arizona’s new “papers, please” immigration law with sufficient gusto. Though I usually complain when tradmed accounts fail to detail the size of ad buys, since it’s Scott, we can probably assume there’s plenty of money behind it, as he’s already spent approximately eight zillion dollars on the race. You know McCollum is sitting at home with his head in his hands, just wondering, “What the hell did I do to deserve this shit?”

Meanwhile, third wheel state Sen. Paula Dockery said she wouldn’t put her personal wealth into her campaign – and also opined that she’d veto an abortion bill she voted for if she became governor. I’m not even sure John Kerry could come up with something that good.

ID-Gov: This is interesting – Dem Keith Allred raised $240K since January, outstripping Gov. Butch Otter’s $193K. Otter has $201K CoH while Allred has $130K.

WI-Gov: Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker was forced to return $44K in illegal contributions for an amazingly simple reason: a railroad exec used company money to reimburse employee donations to Walker! Talk about shady – and dumb.

HI-01: Colleen Hanabusa made it clear she’s going to run again after Saturday’s lost to Charles Djou, but Ed Case sounded surprisingly non-committal, saying only that on Monday, he planned to “wake up, go body surfing and cut the lawn. We’ll figure out the rest of it later.”

IN-03: Ala NY Gov. David Paterson and the NY-29 race, Gov. Mitch Daniels is reportedly considering holding the IN-03 special election in November, on the same day as the regular general election, in order to save the state money.

VA-09: Morgan Griffith, majority leader of the state House of Delegates, won the GOP nod at a district convention this past weekend on the first ballot. I’m not sure if there even would be a primary here on account of the convention, but in any case, it sounds like the other Republican candidates are rallying behind Griffith, who will take on Dem Rep. Rick Boucher in the fall.

NY-State Sen.: New York Dems seem to have landed a good recruit against the 78-year-old Sen. Hugh Farley in the 44th district upstate. Susan Savage, chair of the Schenectady county lege, is entering the race in this 50-48 Obama district.

Fundraising: The WaPo has a great interactive graphic illustrating corporate PAC giving to Dems vs. Republicans, dating all the way back to 1989.

Polling: A new Pew study shows that question responses in landline + cell phone surveys are starting to differ from landline-only answers, sometimes as much as four or five points (and in one case, seven). In general, landline-only surveys tend to underestimate Democratic support.

Passings: One-time GOP Rep. Donald “Buz” Lukens died on Saturday at age 79. He was best known for his conviction for paying a 16-year-old girl for sex, which led to his 1990 loss in the GOP primary to none other than John Boehner.

WATN?: Former senator and general d-bag Bob Kerrey may go and head up the Motion Picture Association of America. He’d follow in the footsteps of another former member of Congress from the middle of the country, Dan Glickman.

AR-Sen (5/19, likely voters, 4/26 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 28 (29)

John Boozman (R): 66 (57)

Bill Halter (D): 33 (31)

John Boozman (R): 60 (56)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

AZ-Sen (5/17, likely voters, 4/13 in parens):

Rodney Glassman (D): 28 (32)

John McCain (R-inc): 57 (54)

Rodney Glassman (D): 33 (39)

J.D. Hayworth (R): 49 (48)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

AZ-Sen (R):

John McCain (R-inc): 52 (47)

J.D. Hayworth (R): 40 (42)

(MoE: ±4%)

AZ-Gov (5/17, likely voters, 4/27 in parens):

Terry Goddard (D): 39 (40)

Jan Brewer (R-inc): 52 (48)

Terry Goddard (D): 40 (38)

Dean Martin (R): 41 (42)

Terry Goddard (D): 42 (40)

John Munger (R): 41 (40)

Terry Goddard (D): 38 (39)

Buz Mills (R): 45 (43)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

AZ-Gov (R) (5/17, likely voters, 4/13 in parens):

Jan Brewer (R): 45 (26)

Dean Martin (R): 18 (12)

Buz Mills (R): 18 (18)

John Munger (R): 3 (14)

(MoE: ±4%)

CT-Sen (5/18, likely voters, 5/4 in parens):

Richard Blumenthal (D): 48 (52)

Linda McMahon (R): 45 (39)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 50 (55)

Rob Simmons (R): 39 (32)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 53 (54)

Peter Schiff (R): 37 (29)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

FL-Gov (5/16, likely voters, 4/15 in parens):

Alex Sink (D): 35 (38)

Bill McCollum (R): 43 (45)

Alex Sink (D): 41

Rick Scott (R): 40

(MoE: ±4.5%)

FL-Sen (5/16, likely voters, 5/3 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 18 (17)

“Marcus” Rubio (R): 39 (34)

Charlie Crist (I): 31 (38)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

KY-Sen (5/19, likely voters):

Jack Conway (D): 34 (38)

Rand Paul (R): 59 (47)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

ND-AL (5/18-19, likely voters, 4/20 in parens):

Earl Pomeroy (D-NPL-inc): 43 (45)

Rick Berg (R): 52 (49)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

NY-Sen-B (5/12, likely voters):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 51

Joe DioGuardi (R): 28

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 51

Bruce Blakeman (R): 31

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 46

David Malpass (R): 27

(MoE: ±4.5%)

PA-Sen (5/19, likely voters, 5/6 in parens):

Joe Sestak (D): 46 (40)

Pat Toomey (R): 42 (42)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

PA-Gov (5/19, likely voters, 4/15 in parens):

Dan Onorato (D): 36 (36)

Tom Corbett (R): 49 (45)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

SC-Gov (D) (5/17, likely voters):

Vincent Sheheen (D): 30

Jim Rex (D): 22

Robert Ford (D): 4

Other: 10

Undecided: 32

(MoE: ±4.5%)

SC-Gov (R) (5/17, likely voters):

Nikki Haley (R): 30

Henry McMaster (R): 19

Gresham Barrett (R): 17

Andre Bauer (R): 12

Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±3%)

TX-Gov (5/13, likely voters, 4/15 in parens):

Bill White (D): 38 (44)

Rick Perry (R-inc): 51 (48)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

• CO-Sen: Colorado’s state party conventions are this weekend. Most of the drama is on the Democratic side in the Senate race — actually, even there, it’s not that dramatic, as underdog Andrew Romanoff is expected to prevail at the convention because of his connections to party insiders and his former fellow legislators (and also based on his performance at precinct-level caucuses). Michael Bennet is still expected to meet the 30% threshold that gets him on the ballot without signatures, though, and victory here for Romanoff may be pyrrhic anyway, as the Dem convention winners have fared poorly in the actual primary (ex-Sen. Ken Salazar, for instance, lost the 2004 convention to Mike Miles). The GOP convention should be less interesting because, realizing they have little hope among the revved-up base, establishment-flavored Jane Norton and Tom Wiens aren’t bothering, simply opting to qualify for the primary by petition, so Weld Co. DA and Tea Party fave Ken Buck is expected to romp.

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov: Likewise, the state conventions are scheduled for this weekend in Connecticut as well. Although there’s a competitive battle in the Dem convention on the gubernatorial side between Ned Lamont and Dan Malloy, it seems like all eyes will be on Richard Blumenthal instead, to see if there’s any sort of challenge to him that pops up (other than the minor candidacy of Merrick Alpert). If someone is going to get drafted as a last-minute Blumenthal replacement, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be the newly-freed-up Susan Bysiewicz, who, seemingly caught off-guard by this week’s Supreme Court ruling about her AG eligibility, is now saying she won’t run for anything in 2010. There’s also the Senate face-off in the GOP convention, where ex-Rep. Rob Simmons’ connections and institutional support will be measured up against Linda McMahon’s gigantic wealth; McMahon, for her part, is back to touting her camp’s leak of the Blumenthal story to the NYT after hiding it yesterday.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist couldn’t square his support for Elena Kagan today with his opposition to Sonia Sotomayor, telling the Miami Herald that he really couldn’t recall why he opposed Sotomayor. (Um, maybe because he was a Republican back then?) On the plus side, Crist is coming out in favor of the Fair Districts initiatives on the ballot this November, which would smooth out the most pernicious tendencies toward gerrymandering and thus is strongly opposed by the state’s large Republican legislative majorities.

• IL-Sen: Hmmm, I wonder where this ranks on the hierarchy of misstating your military credentials? Rep. Mark Kirk told a gathering last May that “I command the war room in the Pentagon.” Kirk does have a high-profile role in the National Military Command Center, but the war room is run by one-star general, and that’s something that Kirk most definitely is not. Let’s see what the NYT does with this one.

• KY-Sen: After a bad news day yesterday, Rand Paul is continuing to run his mouth, whining about how he was supposed to get a media honeymoon after Tuesday’s Randslide, and also going the full Bachmann against Barack Obama, saying it “sounds Unamerican” for him to be criticizing BP over its massive oil spill because “accidents sometimes happen.” (So that “B” in BP stands for American Petroleum now?) Paul is scheduled for this weekend’s Meet the Press, for what his handlers hope is damage control but may turn into extended hole-digging.

Paul also expounded yesterday on the Americans with Disabilities Act, and he should be lucky the media were too fixated yesterday on his Civil Rights Act statements to provide any fact-checking about his bizarre ignorance of the ADA. Paul’s example of the ADA’s suckage is that it would be reasonable, if an employee used a wheelchair at a two-story business, to just give that person a first-floor office instead of forcing the employer to install an elevator at terrible cost. That’s true; it would be “reasonable” — which is exactly why the ADA asks employers to provide “reasonable accommodation” to disabled employees, a prime example of which might be letting someone work on a lower floor. Removal of architectural barriers is not required if it isn’t “readily achievable” (in other words, easily accomplished, without much difficulty or expense) — which means, grab bars in the bathroom stall or a curb cut, yes, an elevator in an old two-story building, no. Paul’s attack on the ADA seems entirely based on having failed to, as the teabaggers have often urged us to do, “read the bill.”

• NC-Sen: There’s a late-in-the-game shakeup at the Cal Cunningham camp, as his campaign manager and communications director are out the door. Cunningham’s spokesperson says it’s a necessary retooling for the different nature of the runoff, with less focus on the air war and more on grassroots and shoe-leather.

• PA-Sen: Sigh. The DSCC, which isn’t exactly rolling in money these days, spent $540K in coordinated expenditures trying to prop up one-year Democrat Arlen Specter in his 54-46 loss to Joe Sestak in the primary.

• MN-Gov: Margaret Anderson Kelliher reached across the aisle, or at least in the pool of bipartisan budget wonkery, for a running mate, picking John Gunyou. Gunyou was the finance commissioner for Republican Gov. Arne Carlson; he also worked as finance director for Minneapolis mayor Don Fraser and is currently city manager of the suburb of Minnetonka.

• CO-07: The GOP already had its district-level convention in the 7th, as a prelude to the statewide convo. The two main rivals, Lang Sias and Ryan Frazier, both cleared the 30% mark to get on the ballot; the minor candidates didn’t clear the mark and won’t try to get on by petition. Frazier got 49%, while Sias got 43%. Sias’s nomination was seconded by ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, as well as the 7th’s former Rep. Bob Beauprez.

• CT-04: Thom Hermann, the First Selectman of Easton and a guy with a lot of wealth at his disposal, is making his presence known in the GOP primary field in the 4th, heading into the weekend’s convention. He’s out with an internal poll, via Wilson Research, giving him a large lead over presumed frontrunner state Sen. Dan Debicella among those primary voters who’ve decided. It’s reported in a strange, slightly deceptive way, though: he has a 44-25 lead over Debicella among those who’ve decided, but only 36% have decided! (So by my calculations, it’s more like a 16-9 lead in reality?)

• FL-02: Dem Rep. Allen Boyd seems to be taking nothing for granted this year. He’s already up with his second TV ad against his underfunded primary opponent, state Sen. Al Lawson, this time hitting Lawson for votes to cut back funding for healthcare and construction jobs. (J)

• HI-01: We’re up to 48% of all ballots having been returned in the 1st, with tomorrow being the deadline in the all-mail-in special election to replace Neil Abercrombie (152K out of 317K).

• ID-02: I have no idea what this is about, but I thought I’d put it out there, as it’s one of the weirdest IEs we’ve seen in a while. Not only did someone plunk down $8K for polling in the 2nd, one of the most reliably Republican top-to-bottom districts anywhere where Rep. Mike Simpson only ever faces token opposition, but the money’s from the American Dental Association. Making sure Idahoans are brushing properly?

• IN-03: State Sen. Marlin Stutzman made it official today: he’s running in the special election for the seat just vacated by Rep. Mark Souder. Having performed well in the Senate primary (and having had a path cleared for him by Mike Pence’s lowering of the boom on Souder), he looks like the one to beat here.

• PA-07: Former local TV news anchor Dawn Stensland has decided to forego a vaguely-threatened independent run in the 7th. That leaves it a one-on-one battle between Dem Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• PA-12: The GOP seems to have settled on its preferred explanation for trying to spin away its underwhelming performance in the special election in the 12th, via their polling guru Gene Ulm. It’s all Ed Rendell’s fault, for scheduling it on the same day as the Senate primary, causing all those Joe Sestak supporters (of which there were many in that corner in Pennsylvania) to come out of the woodwork and vote in the 12th while they were at it.

• Unions: Now that’s a lot of lettuce. Two major unions are promising to spend almost $100 million together to preserve Democratic majorities this fall. The AFSCME is promising $50 million and the SEIU is planning $44 million.

• Enthusiasm Gap: This is something I’ve often suspected, but never felt like bringing up because the numbers weren’t there to prove the point (and also perhaps because saying so would put me at odds with the general netroots orthodoxy): the Democratic “enthusiasm gap” isn’t so much borne out of dissatisfaction with the insufficient aggressiveness of the Obama administration or the slow pace of getting watered-down legislation out of Congress as much as it’s borne out of complacency. In other words, there’s the sense by casual/irregular/low-information Dem voters that they did their job in 2008, got the country back on track, things are slowly improving, and because they aren’t angry anymore they don’t need to keep following up. PPP backs this up: among those “somewhat excited ” or “not very excited” about voting in November, Obama’s approval is a higher-than-average 58/35, and their supports for the health care bill is also a higher-than-average 50/38.

With the outsider and/or netroots candidates (I threw in the “and/or” because Jack Conway doesn’t really fit the “outsider” tag) having overperformed polling expectations in basically all the major primaries (Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and both sides in Kentucky), I thought it would be worth a quick look at what pollsters came closest to getting it right before Tuesday.

• Arkansas: The two polls in the two weeks, from R2K and Mason-Dixon before the primary both gave Blanche Lincoln a lead in the 10-ish ballpark, quite different from her 45-42 finish. The closest prediction came from back in mid-April, in the TalkBusiness poll (conducted by Zeta|3), which gave Lincoln a 7-point lead (38-31) and was also the only pollster to see D.C. Morrison breaking into the double digits (at 10 — he ended up at 13).

• Kentucky (D): The night’s closest result, a 44-43 win for Jack Conway, has to be seen as a surprise: no public pollster had given Conway a lead over Dan Mongiardo since PPP back in December. (A Conway internal in early May gave himself a 4-point lead.) Honors in this category probably go to SurveyUSA, who one week before the primary foresaw a dead heat, in the form of a 38-37 Mongiardo lead.

• Kentucky (R): The 59-35 Randslide was a bigger Paul edge than most pollsters saw, although if you follow the trendlines, there was a pretty clear break for Paul among undecideds at the end that put him on a trajectory for 59. The three last pollsters to hit this race all caught that trend: SurveyUSA on the 9th-11th saw it at 49-33, and PPP and Magellan on the 15th-16th saw 52-34 and 55-30 respectively. I’ll give Republican firm Magellan the nod, for almost nailing the margin.

• Pennsylvania: As I’d expected, Pennsylvania’s primary saw the incumbent rule making a comeback, as most undecideds broke Joe Sestak’s way for a 54-46 victory over Arlen Specter (the Pollster aggregate going in was 43-all). With most pollsters projecting a dead heat, I was a little skeptical at the time of Suffolk’s one-week-out prediction of a 9-point margin (49-40), but that turned out very close to the actual margin.

• PA-12: There’s not much polling data to compare here (Pollster doesn’t have an aggregate), but two of the pollsters that we tend to like, PPP and R2K, both whiffed, predicting a narrow Tim Burns victory (rather than the actual 53-45 Mark Critz win). The winner here is the Global Strategy Group poll that came straight from the Critz camp, accurately prediciting an 8-point spread (44-36); the best public poll came from, of all places, Susquehanna (a Pennsylvania-based Republican pollster, although working for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review rather than Burns here), whose last poll of the race gave a 44-38 edge to Critz.

While we’re talking about the 12th, how did we at SSP do? We had a sophisticated model running behind the scenes helping us with our projections as the night progressed, and our numbers guru jeffmd shares his assessment:

The model (in my not-so-unbiased opinion) did decently well, but as with these types of models, suffers from the all-too-tenuous uniform swing assumption. Uniform swing was clearly not out in force today, considering, for example, a 6.63% Critz overperformance in Cambria County (Critz’s base) and a 5.83% underperformance in Washington County (Burns’ home base). Variability in precinct size is also an issue. In terms of predicting percentages, the model got pretty close with about 1/3 of precincts in (see graph below), but in terms of raw votes, the model seemed to underestimate the number of votes cast (second graph). For what it’s worth, this is a problem also present in the Coakley-Brown model. Regardless, it’s something SSP Labs will continue to refine moving forward.