Polls close in Louisiana at 8pm Central/9pm Eastern tonight. We’ll be liveblogging the returns as they come in, but until then, feel free to use this thread to post your predictions. (Remember, three independent candidates will be on the ballot: Ashley Casey, Peter Aranyosi, and Randall Hayes.)
Voters in the redder-than-red LA-01 will also head to the polls today to pick a replacement. Feel free to post your predictions for that one in the comments, too.
With filing deadline for congressional candidates in Florida passing last night, let’s check in with a few key races:
Four Republican candidates have filed to run, but the party establishment appears to have closed ranks around state Sen. Bill Posey, who is currently sitting on more than $200K cash-on-hand.
Earlier today, the NRCC posted a $350K expenditure against Travis Childers. Here are the late-evening updates:
The NRCC posted an additional $31,000 in Mississippi tonight, with $10K on direct mail, $17K on media production, and $4400 on another poll. The committee’s total tab in this district is now $982,600.
The DCCC went up with $139,000 of their own expenditures: $71K in media buys, $33K in direct mail, $30K for media production, and $4400 in field organizing for Childers. I’m quite pleased to see the last tally, as the ground war will be crucial in a race where voter fatigue is likely running very high. To date, the DCCC has spent $1,282,835 in Mississippi.
It also looks like Freedom’s Crotch has reared its ugly head in Mississippi hitting Childers on taxes (what else?). However, Cotton Mouth reports that the local Fox affiliate in Memphis has pulled the ad due to its “false claims and inaccuracies”.
Former Mississippi Gov. William Winter also endorsed Childers on Thursday.
Special election: 5/13.
Today was the filing deadline for both Georgia and Florida. Each had a short filing week with few surprises. In Georgia, Democrats filed in all 13 seats while Republicans filed in 11 of the state’s 13 districts. The exceptions were the super safe seats currently held by Hank Johnson and John Lewis. Johnson holds the seat formerly held by Cynthia McKinney. Lewis has held his seat for more then 20 years and is a Committee chair. He drew expected opposition and the unexpected opposition of state legislator “Able” Mable Thomas. The “issue”: Barrack Obama.
Three Florida Democrats went through without a Republican opponent in Florida. That was down from six in 2006 and five in 2004. The three who will have no major opponent in November are Corrinne Brown in Florida-7, Kendrick Meek in FL-17 and Debbie “Dubya” Wasserman Schulz in FL-20.
The four other districts gerrymandered as safe Democratic produced seemingly weak challengers for Allen Boyd in FL-2, Kathy Castor in FL-11, Robert Wexler in FL-19, and Alcee Hastings in FL-23 as well as stronger challengers for Tim Mahoney and Ron Klein. In a disappointing result, C.W. Bill Young filed for re-election although he lookes to get more than the token opposition that has sometimes come his way.
In response to the DCCC’s decision to spend a whopping $700,000 in Mississippi on Wednesday, the NRCC has followed up with a $350,000 media buy against Travis Childers.
The new bill brings the NRCC’s total expenditures in this R+10 district to an eye-popping amount of $951,203. To put that in perspective, that’s 13% of the NRCC’s cash-on-hand.
The DCCC has invested $1,143,668 on this race so far.
Special election: 5/13.
Tomorrow night will be a lively night here at SSP — we’ll be following the returns from the LA-06 special election. Be sure to check back with us then. Cazayoux wins!
In other news, here’s a copy of the doorhanger that the DCCC is dropping off at houses in Mississippi’s 1st District:
Rep. Vito Fossella of Staten Island might be facing a mandatory sentence of five days in jail after being arrested with DWI charges yesterday:
According to court documents in Alexandria, Va., Mr. Fossella, the only Republican member of Congress from New York City, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17.
S. Randolph Sengel, the commonwealth attorney for Alexandria, said that a blood-alcohol level higher than 0.15 would require a mandatory jail time of five days.
Ruh-roh.
(H/T: ChadinFL)
Crossposted from Michigan Liberal
Friends,
First, I’d like to begin by thanking all of you for your support. Because of contributions from people like you, our campaign has just been ranked in CQ’s list of the top ten best funded challengers in the country. The voters in Michigan’s 9th Congressional district are tired of the failed leadership they’ve gotten from my opponent, Congressman Joe Knollenberg, for the past sixteen years, and they’re eager for a real change in Washington.
As a former Lt. Commander in the Navy, I wanted to take a moment to write to you this week as we pass the fifth anniversary of one of the most shameful moments in recent American history. On May 1st, 2003, President George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, in front of the now-infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner and said these words: “My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
More after the break.
Five years later, another 3,919 brave American soldiers have been killed in combat in Iraq, the country has descended to the brink of all out civil war, and the Republican candidate for President has suggested the possibility of remaining in Iraq for another hundred years.
Five years later, we have more troops in Iraq today (155,000) than we did back then (150,000).
Five years later, we are spending $1 billion every two and a half days in Iraq – money that we could be investing in jobs, infrastructure, and rebuilding our economy here at home.
Five years later, even though it is tragically clear that the mission was not accomplished, Congressman Knollenberg has continued to vote for President Bush’s failed policies. Our men and women in uniform deserve real leadership and a responsible plan to start bringing them home now.
We have also not accomplished the mission of taking care of our troops and veterans when they return home from combat. The brave men and women who have sacrificed for our country deserve the best health care we can provide – instead we have given them the Walter Reed debacle and a VA system with a backlog of more than half a million benefits claims.
This failure of leadership for our veterans is having terrible consequences. Last week, the VA confirmed a truly appalling statistic – an average of eighteen veterans commit suicide every day. At that rate, over 6,500 brave men and women who served and sacrificed for our country will take their own lives this year. That’s nearly 1,500 more than the total number of soldiers who have been killed in combat in Iraq.
Sadly, the reasons for this situation are all too clear. A recent study by the American Psychological Association reported that over 32% military personnel who had been deployed to war zones said that they suffered a ‘negative impact’ on their psychological well-being – but only 1 in 10 sought treatment for mental health concerns. The rest stayed quiet, out of embarrassment, or fear that, if they asked for help, their military careers would be in jeopardy.
As a veteran, I take this very personally. Quite simply, the failure of our leaders in Washington to care for our veterans may be the greatest, unspoken tragedy of the entire Iraq war debacle. The failure to reach out to those veterans who may not have physical injuries – but whose psychological wounds can be even more severe – is not only a betrayal of the sacred trust between our nation and our veterans, but it has serious repercussions on our long-term military readiness and security.
Care for our veterans is a fundamental, guiding principle of our democracy that our greatest leaders have always understood. In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln spoke of our duty to “…care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan….” Three quarters of a century earlier, in 1789, George Washington put it this way: “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, is directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated.”
When Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, they started to address the serious failures in our VA and military health care system. Despite the objections of the President, Democrats passed the largest funding increase in the history of the VA. This was a good start, but we still need to do much more to care for our soldiers, veterans, and their families – and that will take electing real leaders to Congress, and replacing Bush Administration rubber stamps like Congressman Knollenberg.
When the House voted on a bill to guarantee that soldiers would have at least as much time at home as they spend deployed overseas, Congressman Knollenberg voted no.
When the House took up a bill that included $3.3 billion to improve military medical care, $1.8 billion for veterans care, and that would have started withdrawing troops this summer, Congressman Knollenberg voted no. After that bill was vetoed by the President, Congressman Knollenberg voted to sustain the veto.
In Washington, I will work to bring about a responsible end to the war in Iraq and start bringing our troops home now. As a veteran, I will be a voice for a strong foreign policy that keeps America secure and takes the fight to our real enemies, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that we keep faith with the men and women who served and sacrificed for our great nation.
Real leadership means taking action to solve our problems – not passing the buck and waiting for someone else to act – and that’s what I will deliver in Washington. Five years after ‘Mission Accomplished,’ it’s long overdue.
I’m not going to do this alone. This campaign to unseat one of the biggest obstacles to change in Congress will take a group effort. We’re doing well now, but Congressman Knollenberg is going to be very well funded by entrenched special interests who don’t want to lose their inside man in the House Appropriations Committee. If we’re going to be able to fight back against the GOP smear machine and the negative attacks ads that we all know are coming, and if we’re going to bring real leadership to Michigan’s 9th District, I will need your help.
Please visit http://www.petersforcongress.com/ to learn more, or click here to join the effort by contributing on ActBlue.
Per The Crypt, the GOP has found a wealthy magnate to take the place of Tim Baldermann.
Illinois Republicans selected concrete magnate Marty Ozinga III to be their nominee for the seat of retiring Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), replacing New Lenox mayor Tim Baldermann on the 11th District Congressional ballot.
….
Ozinga also announced he has raised over $400,000 since he began fundraising earlier this month, significantly closing the cash-on-hand gap between himself and his Democratic opponent, state Senate President Debbie Halvorson. Halvorson reported $673,000 in her campaign account at the end of March.
What piqued my interest was that though Ozinga’s wealthy, he’s not exactly a self funder. Why?
Ozinga told the Associated Press yesterday that, despite his substantial personal wealth, he was unlikely to put more than $350,000 of his own money into the race. He elaborated on those remarks in an interview with Politico today.
“It’s a mistake, a bad strategy to try to put your own money in yourself – it’s the broad base that gets people invested in the thing overall and makes you a better candidate,” Ozinga said.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Ryan Rudominer, meanwhile, attributed Ozinga’s fundraising haul to “cashing in on his rolodex of fellow fat cats who have made a career of gaming the system.”
OK, that may be well and good, but guess what else happens when you put in more than $350,000? You trigger the Millionaires’ Amendment. Methinks that was no coincidence he mentioned that specific amount as the one he didn’t want to break.
And a wag of the finger to the Politico for not catching that and mentioning it in their article.
Now even if the DCCC is correct that it’s Ozinga’s “fellow fat cats” giving to him, the bottom line is that he’s quickly become financially competitive against Debbie Halvorson, who was part of the DCCC’s first round of their Red to Blue program. She’s raised a total of $433,970 since the pre-primary FEC report on January 17, 2008. He’s raised over $400,000 in April alone. Ugh.
So, what can we do? Well, for starters, you can go to her ActBlue page and contribute!