On Tuesday, voters in Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia will head the polls to decide a number of hot gubernatorial and state legislative races. Which races are you looking at, and what are you looking for next week? I’m sure that the national party committees will be reading some of these results like tea leaves as we gear up for another bruising round of House and Senate battles in ’08.
Roll Call offers their comprehensive rundown here. Share your take in the comments.
What’s on your mind?
UPDATE (David): Umm:
We thought we’d add a little flavor to our open thread this week by including a caption contest. Let’s see what you can come up with for this recent photo taken of Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks (at left).
Let’s try something different this week. We’ve all endured a constant drubbing of political TV ads for most of our lives. Most of them suffer from their unremarkable sameness: cookie cutter ads dealing with issues and personalities in wholly superficial and misleading ways. Of course, what can you expect in 30 to 60 seconds?
Still, I think we all have an idea of what makes an ad a total dud. In the comments, please post links (YouTube preferred) to political ads by candidates, parties, or independent groups that you consider to be especially awful.
To get the ball rolling, I’ll kick things off with this 2006 ad by LA-01 Democratic challenger Stacey Tallitsch. The YouTube link implies that this thing actually made it onto the airwaves (“broadcast version”), but I have my doubts.
Apparently only 4% of LA-01 voters “had enough”. Ouch.
And who could forget this gem by wingnut hero Vernon Robinson?
Got anything worse? And when I say “worst”, I do not mean ads that advocate for bad causes/bad candidates (Bush, Mark Foley, etc). I mean ads with questionable marketing sense. Have at it–and do not let party affiliation inhibit you.
I have to admit, immediately after the 2006 election, I was worried that the ’08 Congressional races would be significantly more boring than the cycle we just saw. I certainly never would have predicted there would be this many Senate races in play, for instance — and the number of House races to watch keeps on growing by the week. I can’t wait for 2008, because it’s going to be a wild ride.
On another note, in addition to our usual open thread banter this week, why don’t we take a breather and discuss movies. This being the Swing State Project, the question to ask, of course, is: what is your favorite political movie of all time?
I’m looking forward to reading your responses — and grabbing the popcorn.
UPDATE (David): Rep. Jo Ann Davis (VA-01) has died after a battle with cancer.
It’s been a long week for all of us, so let’s kick back and take a breather tonight with another caption contest. Let’s see what you can come up with for this recent photo taken of Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks (far right):
Is it just me, or does the news get more surreal each week?
What a blockbuster week for Senate recruitment: former Governors Warner and Shaheen announcing their bids back-to-back!
Gaze into your crystal balls and tell me what the next bombshells will be.
Happy Rosh Hashanah, all. Sorry for the slowdown here at SSP this week. I’ve taken an internship gig in NYC (more details later), and I’ve just landed in town. We’ll be back up to our usual pace shortly.
(Bumped – promoted by DavidNYC)
Yet another busy week…