Only one digest a day this week. Too much candy is bad for you!
Tag: Charlie Crist
SSP Daily Digest: 3/26 (Afternoon Edition)
• CA-Sen: Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore is still lagging in the single digits in polling, but prominent conservatives keep coming to his aid. He just got the endorsement of libertarian-minded Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake, and also of the Tea Party Express (the corporate wing of the teabaggers’ movement).
• DE-Sen: “Repeal!” of HCR has become the rallying cry for almost every Republican candidate for federal office lately, but Rep. Mike Castle has stood out from the crowd with his reluctance, saying repeal is not “realistic.” Now that’s turning into an issue in his GOP primary, where his far-right opponent, marketing consultant and occasional Fox News contributor Christine O’Donnell, is accusing him of “breaking faith” with Delaware voters by not supporting it. A few other of the more sensible GOPers running in blue states, like Rob Simmons and Tom Campbell, are also keeping repeal at arms-length.
• FL-Sen: Good news for Charlie Crist, I suppose: Mason-Dixon has polled the GOP primary, and they find that he’s losing to Marco Rubio by a mere 11 points (much less than a number of other pollsters, ranging from Rasmussen to R2K, have found): 48-37. Crist leads Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek 50-26, while Rubio leads Meek 44-29, although half of respondents didn’t know who Meek was. Meanwhile, you might have forgotten (as I often did) that ex-New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith was, as far as he was concerned, in the GOP primary as well. Well, not anymore: Smith shuttered his campaign today, citing (big surprise) fundraising problems.
• WA-Sen: If there’s one group that should be getting behind Dino Rossi’s possible Senate candidacy, it’s the Washington Association of Realtors. Not only are they a usually conservative-leaning organization with close ties to the builders’ lobby, but also Rossi is one of them: his day job is real estate salesperson. So, hot on the heels of yesterday’s R2K poll, here’s another problem Rossi needs to seriously contemplate: WAR just endorsed Patty Murray.
• CA-Gov: Remember Pete Wilson? The former Governor is largely responsible for turning the California Republican Party’s name into mud, among Latinos, in the 1990s with his support for anti-immigrant Proposition 187 — a decision that may have had short-term benefits but has turned into a long-term disaster as the state’s demographics change. The California Accountability Project is shining the spotlight back on Wilson in his new job: campaign chair for Meg Whitman.
• MI-Gov: Um, no. Just no. Mop-topped attorney Geoffrey Fieger is best known for his defense of Jack Kevorkian, but he also somehow wound up with the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nomination and went on to lose to John Engler by a 62-38 margin after a slew of bone-headed remarks. Fieger now says he’s considering another run at the Democratic nomination.
• NY-Gov (pdf): Marist has a new poll of the New York gubernatorial race, finding that party-switching Suffolk Co. Executive Steven Levy is in for a rude reception from the GOP. He’s losing the primary to ex-Rep. Rick Lazio, 53-21. Andrew Cuomo dispatches either one, 61-30 against Lazio or 65-26 against Levy. Meanwhile, the saga of David Paterson (with a 16/80 job rating according to Marist) keeps getting sadder/weirder/yuckier, with a NYT article today about his attempts to secure an endorsement from the woman involved in a domestic dispute with one of his top aides.
• TN-Gov: The GOP side in the gubernatorial race shrank today, with the withdrawal of Shelby County DA Bill Gibbons from the race. He had the advantage of being the only western Tennessee candidate in the primary, but he never got very far on the fundraising front. Meanwhile, among what’s left of the Democratic field, beer baron Mike McWherter just got an endorsement from Memphis’s new mayor, A.C. Wharton. McWherter’s only remaining Dem opponent is former state House majority leader Kim McMillan.
• AR-03, PA-07: Mike Huckabee offered up two different endorsements, one right on his home turf. He endorsed former state Rep. Doug Matayo in the open seat race to succeed John Boozman in the dark-red 3rd. The other place seems kind of odd: endorsing ostensibly moderate Pat Meehan in the Dem-leaning, heavily Catholic, decidedly non-Southern-fried PA-07.
• HI-01: The final candidate list for the May 22 all-mail special election in the 1st is out. The only three candidates of consequence are, as expected, Colleen Hanabusa and Ed Case for the Dems, and Charles Djou for the GOP. With the winner-takes-all nature, minor candidates may weigh heavily on the outcome, but there’s a pretty even split with three extra no-name Democrats and four extra GOPers, as well as four independents.
• KS-03: Stephene Moore, the wife of retiring Rep. Dennis Moore, backed off slightly from reports yesterday that she was entering the race to succeed him. She said that she was going to continue thinking about it and would have a formal statement soon. Chris Cillizza has sources, though, who say it’s a done deal.
• IL-LG: It sounds like Pat Quinn has settled on something of an outsider (albeit one with a famous family name) for his Lt. Governor running mate: Sheila Simon, the daughter of former Sen. (and former LG) Paul Simon. She’s a law professor at Southern Illinois Univ., whose only political experience seems to be losing a race for Carbondale mayor. State Sen. Susan Garrett appears to have been bypassed over not supporting Quinn’s income tax plan, which Simon supports. Meanwhile, supporters of African-American Rep. Art Turner are warning of depressed black turnout in November if Quinn doesn’t opt for Turner instead.
• RNC: A decision from the trial-level U.S. District Court in Washington DC was a fundraising setback for the RNC, which wanted to be able to raise unlimited soft money from corporations and individuals but didn’t receive the green light to do so.
SSP Daily Digest: 3/25 (Morning Edition)
SSP Daily Digest: 3/24 (Afternoon Edition)
• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio seemed to beat Charlie Crist to the punch on calling for repeal of the health care reform bill passed over the weekend, but now the allegedly-moderate Crist is getting in on the act too, saying he opposes the entire bill and supports the lawsuit by Republican AGs (including Florida’s Bill McCollum) against the package.
• KY-Sen: I really can’t decide who I’d rather have in my corner. Rand Paul has the backing of lots of crackpots with computers and open wallets, as he had another online moneybomb yesterday to the tune of $262K. Trey Grayson, on the other hand, has the backing of establishment favorite… Dick Cheney?
• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B: Earlier in the day, there were rumors that the state GOP in New York was desperately trying to get someone from the GOP field against Kirsten Gillibrand (which doesn’t have any top-tier talent, but at least has a bunch of warm bodies) to switch over to the even more unenviable task of facing off against Chuck Schumer, where they’ve got nobody. Their favored candidate for that job seemed to be former Bush spokesperson Dan Senor. Maybe that rubbed Senor the wrong way, or maybe there’s more to the story, but either way, that changed by mid-day today, as Senor suddenly said he not only wasn’t running against Schumer but not running for anything, period, saying the timing wasn’t right for him. (Well, maybe they’ll have better luck getting David Malpass to switch over.)
• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): More up-and-down numbers from Franklin & Marshall this month, as their latest look at the Senate race finds Pat Toomey beating Arlen Specter 33-29 among RVs. Last month, Specter (currently at a terrible 30/45 favorable) led by the same 33-29 margin. (Recall that for the last couple months, F&M was releasing separate numbers for RVs and LVs. They seem to have dropped that unwieldy formulation in favor of RVs only, for now.) They find Toomey beating Joe Sestak 27-19 in the general, Specter beating Sestak 32-12, and in the forgotten GOP primary, Toomey defeating pro-life activist Peg Luksik 30-4. They do only the primaries in the slow-to-take-shape Governor’s race, finding Dan Onorato leading among Dems at 11, followed by Jack Wagner at 7, Joe Hoeffel at 5, and Anthony Williams at 4. Tom Corbett leads state Rep. Sam Rohrer 28-4 on the GOP side.
• UT-Sen: Last night was caucus night in Utah, where precincts chose delegates to the state convention which may or may not be Bob Bennett’s Waterloo. It’s hard to gauge, at this point, how things turned out for Bennett last night; the convention, which will determine whether he can avoid (or even make it to) a primary will be real proof. With filings closed in Utah, Democrats left a lot of seats unchallenged in the dark-red legislature, leaving 15 of 75 House seats and 2 of 15 Senate seats without Ds.
• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi was spotted in DC yesterday to meet with Michael Steele about a possible Senate run. He isn’t expected to make a decision until close to the June 11 primary, though (which seems odd, since he’d be basically starting from scratch at that point to go against Patty Murray’s mammoth war chest).
• IL-10: Bob Dold doesn’t need this. Turns out that Dold, who cozied up to the teabaggers in his primary run and touted his opposition to abortion (in order to squeak past moderate state Rep. Beth Coulson), has turned on a dime and is now calling himself “pro-choice” and “a fiscal conservative and social moderate” in order to run against Dan Seals in the general in this D+6 district.
• MA-10: Republican flavor-of-the-month Scott Brown has weighed in on the GOP primary in the open seat in the 10th, not coincidentally the district where he fared the best in the special election. And he chose new over old, opting for state Rep. Jeff Perry instead of long-ago state Treasurer Joe Malone.
• MI-01: Connie Saltonstall’s primary challenge to Bart Stupak may have lost some of its raison d’etre over the weekend, but it’s still proceeding full speed ahead with some new supporters that may be able to make it rain money for her: Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s PACs. NOW had previously endorsed Saltonstall as well.
• NJ-12: Scott Sipperelle, the random businessman running against Rush Holt in the D+5 12th, apparently has money to burn as he’s already hitting the TV airwaves, with an ad blasting Holt for his health care vote. It’s a cable buy, though (in case you were having visions of him blanketing the NYC and Philly markets), so it could be a tiny expenditure aimed at getting free media for all we know.
• SD-AL: Even with Scott Hildebrand having folded his hand quickly on a threatened Stephanie Herseth Sandlin primary challenge, it sounds like another less-known Dem is getting in on it. Rapid City doctor Kevin Weiland is sounding out a run.
• VA-05: “We’ve given the word ‘mob’ a bad name.” The gas line at the Perriello household was mysteriously cut, after Rep. Tom Perriello’s gutsy HCR vote. Um, oooops… that was the Bo Perriello household, as several local teabaggers mistakenly posted the Congressman’s brother’s address on their websites and urged protesters to stop by for a friendly visit. The guy who posted the address (and refused to take it down after finding out it was the wrong Perriello) is now publicly “shocked” that one of his ilk would resort to violence. Oh, and the FBI is investigating. Tom Perriello, on the other hand, displayed only sangfroid, saying “If the worst thing that happens is that special-interest groups spend millions of dollars against me and my most ardent opponents organize against me, it’s hardly a ‘cry me a river’ moment – as long as people act civil and within the law.”
• WV-01: In the choice between conservadem and even-more-conservadem in the Democratic primary in the 1st, it’s becoming pretty clear which one is which: state GOP chair Douglas McKinney praised Alan Mollohan’s opponent state Sen. Mike Oliverio, saying he “has always been a conservative guy. He votes with the Republican on committees. We’ve joked for years he needs to come over to the party who thinks like he does.”
• HCR: Are some of the saner GOP members of Congress starting to come to their senses as the fog of war starts to dissipate? (Or are they just seeing the shift in the polls and engaging in some pre-emptive ass-covering?) The oft-blustery Rep. Pete King is urging his fellow GOPers to “get constructive” and “stop demonizing” health care reform and the Dems. And Chuck Grassley, almost single-handedly responsible for bogging the bill down and giving legs to the “Death Panel” lie in the August of Dems’ discontent, is now happily talking up his own positive contributions to the bill, regarding tax-exempt hospitals.
• DNC: The DNC is wheeling out a seven-figure budget for running ads in the wake of health care’s passage. It’s two-pronged, with attack ads against vulnerable Republicans who voted “no” (I guess the “voted no” part is redundant): Mark Kirk, Jim Gerlach, Dave Reichert, Mike Castle, and Joe Cao. And “thank you” ads are planned for vulnerable Dems, tentatively including John Boccieri, Dennis Cardoza, Brad Ellsworth, Paul Hodes, Tim Walz, Bob Etheridge, Tom Perriello, Leonard Boswell, Betsy Markey, and Gerry Connolly.
• SARAH’s List: Shortly after tweeting for her supporters not to retreat, but RELOAD, Sarah Palin’s website posted a map with gunsights targeting 20 Representatives for her supporters to shoot. Or to work to defeat for re-election, I suppose. It’s pretty much all the districts that went for McCain in 2008 and where there was a “yes” on HCR, without much regard for the race’s actual vulnerability or whether it’s an open seat: AR-02, AZ-01, AZ-05, AZ-08, CO-03, CO-04, FL-02, FL-24, IN-08, IN-09, ND-AL, OH-06, OH-16, PA-03, PA-10, SC-05, TN-06, VA-05, WV-01, and WV-03.
• Teabaggers: Quinnipiac released another poll showing the peril and promise of the teabagger movement for the GOP, as seen in the contrast between the basic generic ballot (44 R, 39 D) and one with a third-party element thrown in (36 D, 25 R, 15 T). Various commenters, like Ed Kilgore and TPM’s Zachary Roth are paying close attention to the poll, wondering, as they’ve done in the past, if there really even is a new-and-different “Tea Party” movement or if it’s just a new name for the most-extreme, riled-up part of the Republican Party that’s always been there (through the militia movements of the 90s and the Birchers of the 60s).
• NRCC: The NRCC claims to have pulled in $7 million last night at their annual fundraising dinner. That’s a lot of scratch, but bear in mind much of that’s in “pledges,” mostly from House members, some of whom haven’t had a good track record of helping the NRCC in the past.
• Census: Two neat Census-related maps worth checking out. One is a constantly-updated real-time map at the Census website which shows the response rates by state and municipality so far. (While the national return rate so far is 16%, the best municipality return rate so far is the civic minded folks of Westside, Iowa at 74%. And despite the popular image of it being full of paranoid militia types living in the hills who would rather use fiat money than fill out a Census form, Montana has the best return rate of any state, at 33%.) The other map is much sadder, courtesy of the Prison Policy Initiative: it shows state-by-state how much distortion of districts occurs through the counting of prisoners where they’re incarcerated rather than where they’re actually from.
FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Crist Still in a Tailspin, McCollum Up by Six
Research 2000 for the Daily Kos (3/15-17, likely voters, 11/16-18/2009 in parens):
Charlie Crist (R): 30 (47)
Marco Rubio (R): 58 (37)
Undecided: 12 (16)
(MoE: ±5%)Kendrick Meek (D): 36 (33)
Charlie Crist (R): 45 (50)
Undecided: 19 (17)Kendrick Meek (D): 40 (38)
Marco Rubio (R): 41 (30)
Undecided: 19 (32)
(MoE: ±4%)
Another poll, another dose of heartbreak for Charlie Crist, who entered this race a year ago with a million bucks in his wallet and a pocketful of dreams. What’s especially notable is that this poll was taken in the immediate aftermath of Crist’s first real counter-attack on Rubio, which centered specifically around Rubio’s use of Florida Republican Party credit cards for personal expenses, including some ridiculous allegations of back waxing. It doesn’t look like Crist’s new aggressive posture has paid his campaign any immediate dividends.
And how about a journey into the hypothetical?
Kendrick Meek (D): 24
Charlie Crist (D): 21
Undecided: 55
(MoE: ±5%)Kendrick Meek (D): 27 (31)
Marco Rubio (R): 32 (27)
Charlie Crist (I): 29 (32)
Undecided: 12 (10)Charlie Crist (D): 38 (45)
Marco Rubio (R): 40 (34)
Undecided: 22 (21)
(MoE: ±4%)
An indie run continues to look like the best bet for Crist, turning a certain defeat into a game of jump ball for all three candidates.
And, finally, the gubernatorial race:
Bill McCollum (R): 47 (45)
Paula Dockery (R): 9 (9)
Undecided: 44 (46)
(MoE: ±5%)Alex Sink (D): 35 (33)
Bill McCollum (R): 41 (35)
Undecided: 24 (32)Alex Sink (D): 37 (35)
Paula Dockery (R): 15 (13)
Undecided: 48 (52)
(MoE: ±4%)
This is a slightly more optimistic take than PPP’s poll last week, which had Sink trailing by 13 points. As we’ve said before, there are certain things that Sink can do right now to improve her campaign, but I hope that she has an effective paid media team on contract.
SSP Daily Digest: 3/16 (Morning Edition)
Our twice-daily digests are also open threads for any campaign-related news you might have. Interesting/helpful links always appreciated!
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Liberty Central can raise unlimited amounts of corporate money and largely avoid disclosing its donors.
Because of a recent Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the group may also spend corporate money freely to advocate for or against candidates for office.
Justice Thomas was part of the 5-4 majority in that case.
FL-Gov: Sink Trails McCollum by 13 Points
Public Policy Polling (3/5-8, registered voters, no trend lines):
Alex Sink (D): 31
Bill McCollum (R): 44
Undecided: 25Alex Sink (D): 27
Charlie Crist (R): 47
Undecided: 26
(MoE: ±3.4%)
Getting back into the gube race must look like a pretty tempting option for Crist at this point… were it not for the fact that McCollum is waxing Crist’s ass by a 49-35 spread in a hypothetical GOP primary.
This is PPP’s first look at Florida this cycle, and the numbers for the gube race have to be considered a big (if not unsurprising) disappointment for DGA strategists who were giving each other back-slaps when this race opened up last year. There’s nothing that Alex Sink can do at this point to fix the political environment, but there is a good deal of evidence out there suggesting that there are plenty of things that she can do to right the course of her campaign: a more coherent and substantive communications approach, a willingness to “work a room” and meet with grassroots activists, and perhaps signing up for a “Media Relations 101” boot camp. Let’s hope she gets her act together — and quickly.
SSP Daily Digest: 3/11 (Morning Edition)
FL-Sen: Nowhere to Run for Charlie Crist?
Public Policy Polling (3/5-8, registered voters, no trend lines):
Kendrick Meek (D): 33
Charlie Crist (R): 46
Undecided: 22Kendrick Meek (D): 39
Marco Rubio (R): 44
Undecided: 18Kendrick Meek (D): 25
Marco Rubio (R): 34
Charlie Crist (I): 27
Undecided: 14Charlie Crist (D): 34
Marco Rubio (R): 43
Undecided: 22
(MoE: ±3.4%)
It’s clear that the situation is pretty dire for Charlie Crist. Already facing a primary challenge that has proven so overwhelming that Crist has resorted in recent days to ridiculous allegations of back waxing against his opponent, it’s looking like the path to victory for Crist in a general election as an indie or a Democrat don’t look particularly promising, either.
While he once seemed invincible, Crist has plummeted back down to earth much like his fellow governors around the nation. His approval rating is at a quite bad 35-51, and almost half the electorate — 47%! — say they want him “out of elected office” next year. Ouch.
We’ve seen similar permutations of this race polled before. Back in November, Research 2000 had Crist doing quite a bit better as an independent or as a Democrat, but that same poll also gave him a 59-32 favorable rating. Even if PPP is not quite on the mark with this poll, I’d bet serious money that Crist’s favorables have taken a big hit since November.
FL-Sen: Free Fall for Charlie Crist
Public Policy Polling (3/5-8, registered voters, no trendlines)
Charlie Crist (R): 28
Marco Rubio (R): 60
Undecided: 12
(MoE: ±4.4%)
David teased this poll earlier in the digest, but as you can see, things are seriously getting bad for Charlie Crist.
This is PPP’s first poll on Florida, but Rubio’s more than doubling up on Crist now; Rasmussen had this race at 49-37 in Late January. Republican primary voters now disapprove of Crist by a margin of 29-56, which worsens to 20-64 among conservatives.
So what’s the road ahead for Charlie Crist? Probably not in the Governor’s race either:
Charlie Crist (R): 35
Bill McCollum (R): 49
Undecided: 16
Crist’s now also losing to conservative AG Bill McCollum by a hefty margin as well.
With 41% of Republicans wanting Crist out of the party as either an Indy (15%) or Democrat (26%) – compared to 43% who want him to stay, good ol’ Charlie should seriously consider a party switch.