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Independent Expenditure Roundup: 10/28

by: James L.

Wed Oct 29, 2008 at 2:57 AM EDT


The following independent expenditures were filed by the DCCC and the NRCC in the last 48 hours:

Now, uh, I suspect that this post will be met with "scattered boos" once again, but keep in mind that the DCCC isn't done yet -- they will most likely be filing more reports tomorrow evening. (For instance, they have new ads up in WV-02 and VA-02.) Maybe we'll see a surprise or two -- or maybe not.
James L. :: Independent Expenditure Roundup: 10/28
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Independent Expenditure Roundup: 10/28 | 38 comments
NM-02?
I didn't see any expenditures in the FEC filings for NM-02 by the NRCC. This would be huge news if they did this, as they have essentially pulled out of the more moderate NM-01 and left Darren White to his own devices.

New Mexico politics from the local perspective.
My bad!
I accidentally misfiled that as NRCC -- it was actually a D-trip expenditure.
[ Parent ]
According to thehill.com
http://thehill.com/campaign-20...

Democrats have a significant registration advantage in New Mexico's 1st and 2nd congressional districts, which were held by Republican Reps. Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce, respectively, in the 110th Congress.

Democratic candidates are poised to capture both seats. Republicans in Washington have written off their chances in the 2nd, where candidate Ed Tinsley has decided to pull his ads off the air during the final days of the campaign, even though President Bush carried the district with 58 percent of the vote in 2004.

Wow! That is great news for Harry Teague!  

[ Parent ]
Haha
Remember after the 2006 election when NM Dems were floating the idea of a mid-decade gerrymander to make NM-01 more democratic at the expense of making NM-02 more republican?  I'm sure glad they passed on that idea!
[ Parent ]
The Dem registration advantage in NM-02 is misleading
There has always been a big registration advantage for Democrats in that district, but that's because there are a whole lot of Reagan Democrats who behave as though they are Republicans. To put this in perspective, if Bush won 15% of Democrats state-wide in 2004, he probably got a good 30% in NM-02.

Your go-to source for great sarcasm
[ Parent ]
DCCC, make this your last ad against Thelma Drake:
hit her over her greed and conflict of interest in making money off of foreclosed homes.
Also:
ID-01 isn't an open seat, although I bet the Republicans wish it were.
IN-09?
Why do they keep spending here?  200 grand more?  Come on, guys.

And where's the love for WY-AL?  

Agreed
There's no reason for it
[ Parent ]
well perhaps the reason is that
the DCCC first goal is to protect its incumbents otherwise, sitting members will not feel obligated to give money to the DCCC (like what is happening to the NRCC). Why should they if the DCCC won't come to the aide of a sitting member. Hill probably will win but if it ends up being relatively close, members might grumble that the DCCC didn't do enough and Hill will have to potentially face Sodrel again for the 5th time.  
[ Parent ]
Republicans Defending Wyoming
I was struck by the almost $350K by the NRCC in Wyoming. That's a lot of money for a cheap seat (no disrespect to Wyomingans) in a traditionally deep red state for federal candidates. Trauner must have these folks really, really worried, because the NRCC doesn't have that much money to spend.
Lets see
IL-10, nearly a million right there.  Wowzas.  That really cuts into Kirk's money advantage.  Seals is someone I'm really pushing for but worried wont quite make it.  But if he wins, he'll hold this seat for awhile.

IL-11  They must have promised Halvorsen a doozy to run.  I do remember hearing when the seat first opened that she was really gunning for state Senate President as she'd be the first woman to do it and may not run for Congress.

NE-2  Quite a bit of action happening there now.  That seems like a firewall seat for the GOP.  Same with IN-3.  Hahahaha, IN-3  R+16 a firewall.  If only that truly made like every seat R+10 and below competitive.  This why you need to run strong candidates in every race, years like this happen.

WA-8  Burner simply gets no love from the DCCC.  What the hell, the polls clearly indicate a better shot here than in like IN-3.

WA-08
DCCC has dumped over 1 million into this race including 580k last week. They probably are cycling the ads to not drown out Burner if she is up this week.  
[ Parent ]
OT: An inspiring early voting story from my hometown
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DO...

One of the colleges in my hometown of Daytona Beach, FL closed down all campus courses on Monday 10/27 in order to let all of their students participate in early voting.  Bethune Cookman College, a historically African-American school not only halted classes for a day but marched together for a the several mile trek to the early voting site at my local library.  Check out the pictures on this link.  It was an amazing success!

And on a side note
I'd like to give kudos to Governor Crist for extending early voting hours to keep the polls open 12 hours per day.  He's taking a lot of heat from his party for this because it benefits Dems, but it was clearly the right thing to do to lessen lines atthe polls.
[ Parent ]
DCCC just cut an ad for PA-12
Uh oh. . .
falling off the list
they've got a few days left to save themselves, but I've stil lgot 29 seats they haven't played in yet that they should and if they don't get a few more of them, the DCCC will never see another donation from me again.  

The amount of money they are wasting on some of these seats is rediculous.  

Check out http://electioninspection.word... for the latest news, election results, poll analysis, and predictions

Rather measley numbers from the NRCC
They really do have no money to spare.
Lots more today
Including a lot more waste and some good stuff (WY-AL, WV-02, VA-05, etc)
The DCCC seems more concerned with its winning percentage
in races it plays in than winning the most seats by expanding the playing field.
longer-term strategy
I don't know if it is the right strategy or not, but as a former DCCC staffer commented recently, if you can get a first or second-time candidate above 55% it significantly improves their chances in the following election. So, yes, they are trying to run up the score in some races in order to make those seats look unattractive to Republicans in the future.
[ Parent ]
Aha. The Perlmutter effect.

[ Parent ]
now vs future
what the DCCC doesn't seem to understand is that each victory now makes a seat easier to defend later.  

Do you really think the NRCC is going to have the money to defend say, Delaware in 2010 assuming Castle retires if we are holding na additional 10 red seats they need to go after.  The answer is no.  

The more Segalls that win this year, the less likely it is that the NRCC can go after Kirkpatrick in 2 years.  

Besides, if I had to bet money, I'd bet that Kirkpatrick is already going to wipe the floor with Hay and get more than 55%.  She doesn't need anymore money to do that.  Tha same thing can be said about Hill.  

Compared to what they are spending on a daily basis, 3 million would give all 29 of the races I listed that they haven't played in yet just over 100,000 dollars.  With all the money they have, is that really too hard to ask?  They just got 5 mil from the DNC for christ sakes.  

Check out http://electioninspection.word... for the latest news, election results, poll analysis, and predictions

[ Parent ]
With you and
The DNC should have borrowed $20 or $30 million. The Democrats will not have any problem raising the money to pay back the loan.

And after all, our nation's President, George W. Bush has been urging the banks to start making loans again.

[ Parent ]
That's Pragmatism in American Politics for you.

[ Parent ]
that's how it looks to me
and I don't like the strategy.

Two months from now, no one will remember the DCCC's winning percentage. But spreading around more money in a bunch of longer-shot races could pick up an extra seat or two.

[ Parent ]
two months from now
you (and some others on here) may not remember the winning percentages -- but the nrcc and potential republican challengers definitely will. it is a lot steeper climb to challenger an incumbent who wins with 57% of the vote than it is to challenge one who gets 52%.
[ Parent ]
Really?
We have plenty of great dems running just fine this year against repub incumbents who took 57%+ of the vote in 2006.
[ Parent ]
exactly
I don't care how much of the vote total some Republican took in 2006 or 2008.  There are several races that I am more than displeased that we did not get a strong candidate in.  

Look at Gerlach, we held him to 50%+ a few and he;s coasting this time.  Does that mean we don't go after him again next year?  Of course not.

Ryun beat Boyda 56-41 in 2004, does that mean Boyda didn't win in 06?  I don't think so.  

Don Young beat Diane Benson 57-40 in alaska   so Berkowtiz must be going down in defeat.  

Shadegg got 58%  so Bob Lord is a waste of our time

Looks like Feeney, Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers won't lose either,  they all got over 57%.  

No,   higher totals don't mean jack.  Kanjorski's 71% win in 06 isn't stopping the Republicans from targetting him.

Time to spread the money around and win some winnable seats.  The only real defense is to have too many seats for the Republicans to target.    

Check out http://electioninspection.word... for the latest news, election results, poll analysis, and predictions

[ Parent ]
McNerney (CA-11) and Bass (NH-02) also
McNerney got crushed in a 61-39 landslide in 2004 before beating Pombo by a solid margin in 2006.

And Hodes (NH-02) lost 58-38 in 2004 before winning handily in 2006.

[ Parent ]
Ros-Lehtinen gets special treatment
Notice that the DCCC has avoided giving any
help to Annette Taddeo in FL-18. Remember
that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is apparently
her best bosom buddy who had to be dragged
and threatened into even endorsing the three
South Florida challengers. Now the money goes
to two of them, but not to Debbie W-S's
Republican sorority sister.

WTF?

I do hope and pray that Annette Taddeo wins
this race and gets to sit in the Florida caucus
in a place where she can stare down Debbie W-S
for the rest of her miserable days. Well, Annette
seems like a really nice person and she may forgive
Debbie W-S for the repeated backstabs. I'm not
such a nice person and I will never forget it.

[ Parent ]
I'm sorry but Taddeo was never going to win
Is she a solid candidate? Yes.  But Ros-Lehtinen was never in the same kind of trouble as the Diaz-Balarts.  Ilena is much more in touch with her district and more highly respected by her constituents.  I don't like Debbie's love for Ilena any more than anyone else, but that's not going to effect that race much.  

There are a good 20 or so other legit pickup opportunities I'd prefer the DCCC spend it's money on that waste it in a hopeless cause like FL-18.

[ Parent ]
Higher totals don't mean much this late in the game
Are we still talking about who won re-election and by how much now?

It only matters early in the game, as to where the opposition party plans on thinking they may be able to play offense, and where strong challengers might say it's worth their time (or where the opposition party might try to convince strong challengers of that).  Of course, another thing that matters greatly is the quality of the losing candidate.  A moderate win against a scandal-plagued and way-too-conservative/liberal candidates could also be a sign of weakness, for example.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway: http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...

[ Parent ]
While...
I have some sympathy for your perspective, I think that overall, the D-trip has proven itself to be extremely skilled at incumbent defense in the last few cycles (indeed, only a handful for non-gerrymandered Dem Reps have lost in the last five or six cycles). I'd rather see the wealth spread around to a few more races -- aim to pick up a few more today rather than racking up the score in districts that are clearly in the bag for us (e.g. AZ-01). When Obama wins and the Dems have a mega-majority, the D-trip will be swimming in all kinds of disgusting PAC money. They won't be hurting for resources to play defense in 2010.
[ Parent ]
Maybe this is triangulation
Perhaps the DCCC doesn't want to "spread the wealth around" by giving it to the little longshot dems struggline financially and instead wants to feed the  fat cat, already wealthy incumbents in order to counter the republican argument that we are income redistributers.  I think I'm onto something here.
[ Parent ]
Very good point
If incumbents like Jerry McNerney and Baron Hill get 55%, 56%, 57% of the vote, a top tier Republican probably wont want to challenge them in 2010.  Same goes for AZ-01.  
[ Parent ]
already disproven
getting over 70% didn't help Kanjorski avoid a top tier challenger.  

How well you do in the district your first year means little to nothing.  

The seats they will go after year after year are the seats that have good PVI's for them and places where they have good candidates to run.  

A big win in AZ 1 will be worthless this year.  We're running against sydney Hay for chirst sake.  Its the same thing as giffords with Graf.  Her big win didn't stop Bee from coming out.  Big wins didn't stop us from challenging the Diaz-Balarts.  Big wins are meaningless.  Especially when they come against weak candidates like Sydney Hay.  Beat an incumbent whos relatively popular and your set (Klein, Courtney and even he wasn't getting a free pass till Sullivan turned back into a bumpkin) Beat the Republicans strongest candidate (perlmutter, Braley) and they will leave you alone as well.  Look at Donnelly, he lost by 10 points in 04 because he was outspent 2-1,  came back and won in 06.  Amazing how money makes the case.  

Any race we win this year will be back in 2010 as a target because the Repubs have been out raised and outspent all over the place and they know it.  

Check out http://electioninspection.word... for the latest news, election results, poll analysis, and predictions

[ Parent ]
DCCC not giving up on Lampson
nearly 600k today

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b...

Also putting it in big for Darcy (550k)

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b...

Independent Expenditure Roundup: 10/28 | 38 comments

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