Swing State Project

Well, it took some time, but Democrat Colleen Callahan just hit the airwaves with a new ad smacking Aaron Schock over the biggest policy-based gaffe of any major House candidate this cycle: his plan to sell nukes to Taiwan.

No time to waste on pleasantries, it seems.

(H/T: TPM EC)

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/23-25, likely voters):

Joe Garcia (D): 41

Mario Diaz-Balart (R-inc): 45

(MoE: ±5%)

The only other poll we’ve seen of this race was a Bendixen survey from June that showed GOP incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart in a similarly tight spot: leading Garcia 44-39.

The most impressive part for Garcia? Obama is losing this district by a 53-38 margin, so he’s outperforming the top of the ticket by a significant margin. Markos notes that a new SUSA poll shows Obama on the upswing in Southeast Florida, so perhaps this margin may improve.

Garcia still faces a tough fight ahead of him in this R+4.4 district, but this is clearly shaping up to be the toughest battle of Mario Diaz-Balart’s career.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Public Policy Polling (9/27-28, likely voters, 9/17-19 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 46 (46)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 38 (41)

Christopher Cole (L): 6 (6)

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±3%)

Dole under 40%? Whoa — those are some pug-ugly numbers for any incumbent. PPP’s Tom Jensen has the key finding:

Particularly [troubling] for Dole is how well Hagan is connecting with white voters. She trails Dole just 47-38 with that group. Usually for a Republican to win statewide here they need at least a 20 point advantage with whites to offset overwhelming African American support for Democratic candidates.

And Crisitunity offers his take:

And while a lot of this movement must have to do with the turmoil in the banking and finance industries (which is a major employer in Charlotte), bear in mind that this was taken before today’s announcement of Citi’s acquisition of NC-based Wachovia, which seems likely to drive current trends even further.

You want some gravy with that? Obama has pulled ahead of McCain in North Carolina by 47-45. It really is the economy, stupid. PPP, I believe, will now be doing weekly polls of North Carolina, so there won’t be any shortage of data from this race.

The Mellman Group for the DSCC (9/24-28, likely voters, 8/6-10 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 34 (36)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 37 (42)

Allen Buckley (L): 3

(MoE: ±4%)

Fresh off the wire. A very nice spread (if accurate), but it doesn’t look like Mellman was pushing leaners heavily. This race will be a tough one, but the DSCC still seems to be interested in it.

Throughout the campaign I’ve been involved in several candidate forums with my opponents for the open seat in the 5th Congressional District.  Additionally, during the final 5 weeks of the campaign there will be several additional opportunities for voters in the 5th district to watch all three candidates debate the important issues facing the district and the nation.  The important question voters should consider while watching or listening to these events is which of the three candidates really understands the important problems facing our nation.

There are several issues that clearly define and differentiate where I stand and what I believe in versus my two opponents.  I’ve found that my stances on Health Care Reform, the future of Social Security, understanding the economic problems in the 5th district and, most importantly, fiscal responsibility by the federal government separate me from my two opponents.

Starting with Health Care Reform, my Republican opponent has repeatedly stated “the United States has the best healthcare system in the world” and says “we don’t turn people away.”  But, the sad fact is there are 45.7 million uninsured people in the United States and many more underinsured.  He also regularly says that a “tremendous debate needs to occur” and that the way to solve the nation’s health care crisis is to “peel away the layers of federal regulations.”  

In contrast, I understand that too many of our citizens, both here in the 5th district and across the nation, lack access to affordable health care.  The statement that “we don’t turn people away” is completely false.  The fact remains that people who have no health care coverage do get turned away and those who finally get treatment once it is a critical situation that requires a trip to the emergency room are then faced with harassment from the billing department at the hospital or by a collection agency.  

On health care reform, my opponents are wrong on several counts — we don’t need a “tremendous debate” we’ve talked long enough and we need more detailed solutions than just “peeling away the layers of federal regulations.”  Throughout the campaign, I have proposed as a first step a voluntary national health insurance purchasing pool to provide low cost health care coverage for individuals and small businesses.  Once this proves successful, then we can move forward on the real solution which is universal health care for everyone.

On Social Security, the contrast is also clear.  On numerous occasions my Republican opponent has touted his strong support for the idea of allowing young people to take part of their Social Security to invest in private accounts.  I have stressed that we must work to save and strengthen Social Security for all future generations and any policy that includes private accounts like those proposed by my Republican opponent would only weaken Social Security.  

Of even greater concern is the fact that private financial investments fail as we’ve clearly witnessed in recent weeks.  What happens in the future if funds diverted from Social Security to private accounts fail?  Will the taxpayers in the future have to bailout millions of individuals who chose to go the private accounts route when their investments fail and they have no retirement to fall back on.  The choice must be to save and strengthen Social Security for our children and grandchildren.  Policies that would weaken the system while placing the future retirement of millions of our young people at risk is unacceptable and candidates proposing these ideas should be rejected.

Finally, the one issue that I’m asking the voters in the 5th district to really judge the candidates on is the issue of fiscal responsibility in Washington.  This is an issue I understand as a citizen, as a former school board member and now as a county commissioner.  I will continue to stress that the most important thing we need from Congress is fiscal responsibility with a commitment to balancing the federal budget which currently has a $482 billion deficit, building a solid surplus and, most important, paying down the $9.7 trillion federal government debt.  My Republican opponent continues to build his campaign around “extending the Bush tax cuts” while at the same time proposing increases in spending.  

As proof of my commitment to supporting fiscal responsibility and my honesty with the voters in comparison to my Republican opponent’s mixed signals on fiscal matters go to www.yourcandidatesyourhealth.org and compare both of our responses on increased federal funding for research.  Throughout the campaign and in surveys I’ve been asked to complete, I stress that there is a fiscal crisis in Washington and there is NO MONEY for increased domestic spending until we make the commitment to solving the fiscal crisis.  In contrast, my Republican opponent continues to support the failed fiscal policies from the last 8 years and he continues to suggest that federal funding increases are possible in many areas.

In the closing weeks of the campaign, I’m going to stress to voters to use the fiscal crisis as the key issue to decide the 5th district race.  The question voters must ask themselves is this:  Do you want a person representing you in Congress who understands our biggest problem is the $9.7 trillion debt owed to nations like China and Saudi Arabia OR do you want a person who disregards this threat in favor of extending tax cuts that benefited the most wealthy and affluent citizens?  Perhaps more important to consider is this:  Will we send people to Congress who will confront and solve this threat now, or will we pass responsibility for this problem on to our children and grandchildren?

More on the Bush bailout plan:  I wrote last week of my concern about President Bush’s plan to provide a $700 billion bailout to rescue failing financial institutions.  Earlier this week I watched President Bush speak to the nation about his plan where he attempted to explain what he was doing and why he wanted to do it.  While we heard the what and the why, he failed to offer the most important information the nation needed to hear — How is he going to pay for it.  Sadly, the facts are out in his proposal that the $700 billion bailout will be paid for by increasing the federal debt limit which means the bailout will be funded with more borrowed money AKA fiscally irresponsible policies.  

If I was a member of Congress now, I could not support any bailout bill that fails to address funding the bailout and I would strongly and vocally oppose adding this cost to the debt.  However, I would be offering solutions on how to raise the funds to pay for the bailout.  Specifically I would suggest the following recommendations to raise revenue to fund the bailout:

1. I would call for immediate investigations to identify any corporate executives who were responsible for this financial fiasco and would demand that the bailout bill include language to freeze and seize the assets of those responsible for the mess.  The assets of those responsible would then be liquidated to pay restitution to the federal government to help fund the bailout.

2. I would propose 2 funding streams that would expire once the bailout costs are recovered.  First, there would be a ½ % stock transfer fee.  In order to waive this fee for private citizens who dabble in the stock market, the first $5,000 per year would be exempt from the fee.  Second, there would be a ½ % mortgage fee that would be waived from the first $75,000 of the mortgage amount so it would not severely impact first time home buyers.

These two suggestions would raise significant revenue to fund the bailout plan and would also keep the cost from being applied to the federal debt.  It would also place responsibility for funding the bailout costs on those who will benefit from the bailout rather than the middle class taxpayers.  The most important language that would be included in regards to both the stock transfer fee and the mortgage fee is that they will expire once the crisis is over.  This will provide the incentive for leaders in the financial services industry to do everything they can to get us through the financial crisis so the added fees to the federal government will expire as soon as possible.

Schedule for the Upcoming Week:

Monday — Newspaper Interviews — The Progress / Clearfield, Clarion, Ridgway and St. Marys, Daily Collegian

Tuesday — WJAC Interview,  Meet the Candidates — Clearfield Chamber of Commerce at Elks Club

Wednesday —  Meeting with Fayette Resources / DuBois, Interviews with PCN and Lewistown Sentinel,  State College Borough Democratic Committee event — 6 PM Ramada Inn in State College

Thursday — Newspaper Interviews during the day,  Debate in Bradford at Pitt / Bradford Campus 6 PM

Friday — Event in State College with PSU Students

Saturday — Clarion Leaf Festival and Parade

FUNDRAISING REMINDER — Keep talking with people about the 5,000 Friends to Flip the Fifth project.  We can win the 5th District Congressional District for the first time in 32 years but we need to be organizing our forces heading into the final weeks.  The only way to turn this country around is to send people to Washington who will make the tough decisions.  The choice in the 5th district is clear.  My opponent regularly states that he supports the fiscal policies of the Bush administration AKA “the Bush tax cuts” and will continue them — More of the Same.  While I continue to stress that we must balance the budget, built a surplus and pay down the debt.

In order to get the message out to voters we will need to advertise which costs money.  Please contact your family and friends and urge them to financially support our campaign as we move into the final weeks.  Donations can be made online through www.actblue.com or by direct mail to McCracken for Congress, PO Box 332, Clearfield PA 16830.

Mark B. McCracken

Your Candidate For Congress

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This diary is cross-posted at McCracken’s campaign blog, PA’s Blue Fifth

Mark McCracken for Congress

ActBlue page

You’ve already seen this poll and that poll, but here’s one poll of the Kentucky Senate race that you haven’t seen:

Following the news that a SurveyUSA poll and a Louisville Courier-Journal survey of the Kentucky Senate race found Sen. Mitch McConnell and challenger Bruce Lunsford locked in a tight race, a third poll – this one not released – confirms the dead heat. (emphasis added)

Fresh off his vile, shameful attacks on Dem Sharen Neuhardt for giving shelter to a refugee of the Rwandan genocide, Republican Steve Austria’s crack finance squad sent out this blundersome plea for funds:

What a hilariously naked ask for PAC dough – it’s as though Austria is just begging the moneyed interests to let him sell out. (Evidently, the cognitive dissonance of accusing your under-funded opponent of trying to “buy the race” didn’t trouble the trog who hit “send” on this puppy.)

But the best part is the hilariously awful syntax and spelling. They’ve worked very hard to put a strong grassroots support in order! It practically reads like a Nigerian 419 scam letter. There’s only one word to describe something like this: morans.

(Great catch by bluefiftytwo.)

Zogby International for the Press of Atlantic City and the Richard Stockton College (9/18-20, likely voters):

David Kurkowski (D): 26

Frank LoBiondo (R-inc): 62

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±4.5%)

First off, note that this is from Zogby International, not the ridiculous internet-based polling of Zogby Interactive. The 2nd CD is a D+4 district that supported Gore by a wide margin, but gave Bush a single-point win in 2004. While this district seems ripe for a takeover attempt at some point, LoBiondo has tirelessly worked the constituent service side of his job over the years, and he retains some significant popularity at home. Don’t count on a shocking upset here.

And now for the open seat race in NJ-03:

John Adler (D): 37

Chris Myers (R): 39

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±4.5%)

The only other poll we’ve seen of this race, a McLaughlin & Associates internal for Myers from earlier this month, showed a similarly close (but wide open) race: 33-29 for Myers. South Jersey, and this District in particular, isn’t accustomed to sending Democrats to the House of Representatives, so perhaps these numbers are an accurate snapshot of the race as it stands today — or at least, as it stood last week.

However, the poll was taken before the DCCC kicked in with a TV buy against Myers. It’s also a question of money — Adler held a commanding $1.46 million to $155K cash-on-hand advantage at the end of June. While Myers recently was aided by a fundraiser from his political hero, President Bush, he’s still playing catchup here.

Zogby finds Obama edging McCain by 46-44 in the 3rd CD. That would be a slight improvement over the two-point Bush win here in 2004, but not nearly the 54-43 Gore romp of 2000.

Growing up liberal during the Reagan years taught me to go into elections expecting to be disappointed. Watching high-ranking Democrats in Congress fail to challenge the premise behind the dreadful and unnecessary proposed bailout of Wall Street, I share thereisnospoon’s concern that Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again.

But looking at the polling trends in the presidential race and in key Senate races, even a pessimist like me has to admit that a big Democratic wave seems quite possible.

Currently Democrats seem poised to pick up 12 to 18 seats in the House and five to six Senate seats. If we are on the verge of a wave, Democrats could win more than that, including a few districts where the Republican incumbent never saw it coming.

Waves can drag down well-funded incumbents with tremendous clout. Democratic losers in 1994 included House Speaker Tom Foley and my own 18-term Congressman Neal Smith.

This is a thread for discussing House districts and Senate seats that may seem likely Republican holds today, but which could shock us on November 4.  

I’ll get the ball rolling by telling you about Iowa’s two House districts currently held by Republicans.

In the fourth district (D+0), Becky Greenwald faces Tom Latham, who has remarkably little to show for his seven terms in Congress. I went over many reasons I think Greenwald can win this race here.

Latham understands that it will be a big Democratic year in Iowa, judging from his first television commercial (which glosses over his lockstep Republican voting record). David Kowalski noticed that Latham’s campaign website avoids mentioning that he is a Republican (see, for instance, this bio page). Aside from the odd newspaper clipping on his site that refers to him as R-Iowa, you would never be able to tell which party he belongs to.

IA-04 shows up as “likely Republican” on House rankings, in part because Latham sits on the House Appropriations Committee and in part because he has been re-elected by double-digit margins in the past. However, 2002 was the only time Latham faced a well-funded challenger, and that was a bad year to be a Democrat running for Congress. Greenwald had raised more by June 30 than our 2006 candidate against Latham raised during his whole campaign, and she’s fundraised aggressively since then. She is already up on television and recently got the endorsement of EMILY’s list.

Whatever pork Latham has brought back to his district is nothing compared to what Neal Smith brought to central Iowa during his 36 years in Congress, and that didn’t stop voters from giving Smith the boot in 1994.

Now let’s look at Iowa’s fifth district (R+8), where Rob Hubler is running against one of the most atrocious House Republicans, Steve King. I laid out my case for why Hubler can win this race at Bleeding Heartland, but here are the highlights.

Hubler is the first Democrat to run a real campaign against King, who does not have a big war chest and has not been campaigning actively. Although Republicans maintain a voter registration edge in IA-05, Democrats have made big gains since 2006, putting Hubler in position for an upset if he wins independents by a significant margin. King’s extreme views and tendency to make bigoted, embarrassing statements are a turn-off to moderates.

Also, an internal poll of the district for Hubler’s campaign showed the generic ballot for Congress virtually tied at 36 percent for the Democrat and 38 percent for the Republican.

Nearly three months ago, the editor of the Storm Lake Times newspaper wrote:

Republican despondence also may be a threat to incumbent Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron. Scoff if you will, but again recall that Harkin defeated incumbent Bill Scherle and Bedell knocked off incumbent Wiley Mayne in the post-Watergate landslide. The atmospherics may be similar this year.

Like I said at the top, upsets happen in wave elections. After winning in 1974, Tom Harkin represented most of the southwest Iowa counties now in IA-05 for five terms, until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1984. Berkley Bedell represented most of the northwest Iowa counties now in IA-05 for six terms, until he retired because of health problems caused by Lyme’s disease.

Despite Sarah Palin’s presence on the ballot, I do not believe Republicans in western Iowa are going to be fired up to turn out this November. During the past month five separate polls have shown Barack Obama above 50 percent in Iowa and leading John McCain by double digits. McCain has never campaigned much in Iowa, skipping the caucuses in 2000 as well as 2008. He’s against ethanol subsidies, which causes him to underperform in rural Iowa. Certainly McCain lacks the appeal George Bush had to conservatives here in the last two elections.

Harkin is cruising against a little-known Republican challenger for the U.S. Senate, and King is not giving his supporters any reason to believe he’s concerned about Hubler. Why should the western Iowa wingnuts put a lot of effort into getting their voters out?

Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign has at least half a dozen field offices in both IA-04 and IA-05 to drive up turnout among Democrats and other Democratic-leaning voters.

Clearly, Greenwald and Hubler go into the home stretch as underdogs. But who thought Dave Loebsack was going to beat Iowa Congressman Jim Leach two years ago? Democrats put tons of money and effort behind a strong challenger to Leach in 2002 and came up short. As a result, Loebsack got no help from the DCCC or outside interest groups in 2006, and just about everyone viewed IA-02 as “likely Republican.”

Carol Shea-Porter’s amazing victory in New Hampshire’s first district seemed just as improbable two years ago. She was massively outspent by the Republican incumbent and got no help from the DCCC. By the way, NH-01 is D+0 and mostly white, as is IA-04.

The partisan lean and demographic profile of IA-05 (mostly white and largely rural) is similar to KS-02 (R+7), where Nancy Boyda came from behind to beat a Republican incumbent in 2006. The DCCC did get involved in that race, but it didn’t appear to be a very likely pickup before the election.

Two weeks ago Stuart Rothenberg mocked the DCCC for putting “absurd races” (including the Hubler-King matchup) on its list of “Races to Watch” and putting long shots on the “Red to Blue” and “Emerging Races” list. James L. already took down Rothenberg in this great post, so I won’t pile on.

I will say, however, that I have put my money where my mouth is by giving as much as I can afford to Hubler and Greenwald.

Somewhere, somehow, some unheralded challengers will give House or Senate Republicans the surprise of their lives on November 4. I ask the Swing State Project community, who’s it gonna be?