SSP Daily Digest: 10/27 (Afternoon Edition)

• AK-Sen: As is often the case, Alaska dominates our headlines today. Perhaps biggest in its implications is a hot-off-the-grill ruling from a judge that says that the state can’t provide a list of possible write-in candidates for people in the voting booth. Obviously, that hurts the cumbersome-named Lisa Mukrosky Morkoski Gibr Murkowski. Also, in the good news (well, maybe not, considering how far her star has fallen in-state) column for Joe Miller: Sarah Palin will be returning to the Last Frontier to stump for him tomorrow.

On the bad news front for Miller, though, first, he had to shout “I LIE!” yet again. That’s a confession from his own work e-mails, over his now-well-known reprimand for hijacking (and covering up his tracks) of co-workers’ computers to rig a local Republican online straw poll. That’s at the core of his Fairbanks personnel files, released last evening after he declined to appeal their release to the state supreme court. On top of that, now the Army is investigating his use of its soldiers from Fort Richardson to act as his personal paramilitary force during their off-hours; in addition to rules prohibiting active military members from involvement in political campaigns, it’s unclear whether they had their commander’s permission to seek outside employment.

• CA-Sen: Here’s some good news; Carly Fiorina bounced back quickly from her hospitalization yesterday for an infection associated with her breast cancer recovery, and left the hospital today. She’ll be back on the trail tomorrow, says her campaign.

• CO-Sen: Would you believe this is the biggest-money Senate race anywhere in the country? It is, if you go by outside group expenditures. 27 different IE groups have spent nearly $25 million in Colorado, with the NRSC leading the way. (Nevada will still probably wind up the most expensive overall, factoring in the candidates’ own accounts.) Meanwhile Ken Buck is in the news for two other reasons, first, his questioning of the separation of the church and state… handled more elegantly than Christine O’Donnell’s palm-to-forehead method, but still probably a liability as he seeks to downplay his extremism. And also, he’s now agnostic on whether he’ll support Mitch McConnell for GOP leader (Buck, of course, owes Jim DeMint big-time for getting him as far as he’s gotten).

• WV-Sen: Wow, this stuff literally writes itself. John Raese, under fire from Joe Manchin and the DSCC for his Florida mansion (and, for all practical purposes, residency), is now going to have to put some spin on this. The current item on the agenda for the Palm Beach planning commission: approval for Raese to replace a six-by-eight-foot “giant dollhouse” on his property with a fourteen-by-fifteen-foot “glass conservatory,” perfect for those real-life Clue re-enactments. I know that’s a problem that most West Virginians grapple with on a day-to-day basis.

• AZ-Gov: Now here’s an October Surprise that’s pushing the envelope (close to a November Surprise). Old documents reveal that Jan Brewer, a state Senator at the time, was involved in a 1988 auto accident where she was suspected at the time of driving under the influence. While she was immune from arrest at the time because the legislature was in session, it’s not clear why the case wasn’t pursued after that.

• MS-04: This might provide a small boost (dozens of votes?) to Gene Taylor: the Republican who lost the primary to state Rep. Steven Palazzo threw his backing to Taylor. Joe Tegerdine, interestingly, was the Tea Party candidate in the GOP race (with Palazzo the establishment pick), and finished with 43% of the vote; Tegerdine seemed to frame his decision very much in terms of pissing off the Republican establishment, in fact.

• Dark Money: If you look at only one link today, it should be this one, where a picture is worth way more than 1,000 words. It shows the octopus tentacles linking all the various shadowy outside groups that have poured in hundreds of millions of undisclosed dollars, and how they all kind of link back to Republican leadership. It’s almost worthy of Glenn Beck’s blackboard (well, if it had Woodrow Wilson and Diego Rivera on there somewhere).

• DNC: To quote Don Brodka, “if I wanted smoke blown up my ass, I’d be at home with a pack of cigarettes and short length of hose.” Nevertheless, the DNC is out with a memo today showing in various ways how the Republican wave hasn’t materialized, at least not in the form of early voting patterns so far, that’s worth a look-see (especially the graphs).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC has two spots in Colorado, both with citizens reciting the litany of why they can’t vote for Ken Buck

• IL-Sen: The DSCC links Mark Kirk to George W. Bush, while Alexi Giannoulias trots out the Obamas in his own ad

• MO-Sen: I seriously can’t summon up anything interesting to say about the last ads from Roy Blunt and Robin Carnahan; it’s been that sort of race

• NV-Sen: The DSCC finishes in Nevada by pointing out how Sharron Angle consistently brings teh crazy

• PA-Sen: The DSCC hits Pat Toomey on outsourcing yet again, while Pat Toomey goes blandly autobiographical for his closing spot

• WA-Sen: The DSCC’s parting shot is to hit Dino Rossi over his web of connections to unsavory real estate and lending partners

• WI-Sen: Both candidates close by ragging on each other; Ron Johnson hits Russ Feingold for only being fake “mavericky,” while Feingold asks why Johnson is being so vague and cagey about his agenda

• WV-Sen: The DSCC’s newest ad hits John Raese on the Florida residency issue yet again

• ND-AL: This may be the most interesting ad of the day: Earl Pomeroy faces the camera and says “I’m not Nancy Pelosi, and I’m not Barack Obama” (yeah, that’s pretty evident by looking at you); he pivots off people’s anger to say they’ll be even angrier, though, if Republicans go against the farm bill, Social Security, and so on

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s last ad beats the ‘change’ drum, and focuses on the Seattle Times endorsement again

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 42%, Mark Kirk (R) 46%, LeAlan Jones (G) 5%

• MD-Sen: Barb Mikulski (D-inc) 56%, Eric Wargotz (R) 38%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 35%, Brian Sandoval (R) 58%

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 46%, Chris Dudley (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 42%, Scott Walker (R) 52%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 49%, John Raese (R) 46%

(ooops, time for Scotty to get in line with everyone else on this one!)

532 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 10/27 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. news for Murwokksyki and McAdams because Palin is pretty unpopular in Alaska after quitting part way through her governor’s term.

    I am confused on the AZ-Gov note:

    Old documents reveal that Jan Brewer, a state Senator at the time, was involved in a 1988 auto accident where she was suspected at the time of driving under the influence. While she was immune from arrest at the time because the legislature was in session, it’s not clear why the case wasn’t pursued after that.

    Legislators get immunity while in session? That can’t be right. What if a legislator killed someone would the cops have to wait until the session ended to arrest them?

  2. but I’d like to know why any sort of combined campaigning between the candidates for governor and/or Senate in states like Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York isn’t being talked about. As I’ve said before, if those campaigns can each drag one or two House members over the finish line, it could make the difference between holding it and losing it. Is it that there’s really no story there? If so, why? There aren’t any obvious laws, to me at least, preventing this sort of thing. There’s always the possibility that someone like Andrew Cuomo is far more popular downstate than he is upstate, but would he be so unpopular in, say, Hall’s NY-19 that he couldn’t help him at all? Maybe this is happening so far under the radar so as to not prevent any sort of response to counteract what the Democrats are doing, but leaks happen. It seems like a story that is just waiting to be reported.  

  4. I have been thinking, how do we end this problem of corporate influence in our elections?

    The only idea I can come up with is only 100% public campaign financing.  That could be a little extreme, but I think it would be the only way to end these shadowy groups and their corporate sponsors.

    I mean honestly, you could pass something like the disclose act, but typical voters are too busy watching Teen Mom and Jersey shore to even care about that crap.  What do you guys think?  This is probably a problem that won’t be addressed for a decade unfortunately.

  7. Looking past next Tuesday

    http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-…

    Cook County (Ill.) Sheriff Tom Dart announced Wednesday he will not run for mayor of Chicago, becoming the fourth high-profile politician to decline to run.

    All four announcements stand to benefit President Obama’s former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who left the White House earlier this month to seek the office of mayor, which is being vacated by six-term Mayor Richard Daley (D).

  9. It’s a sad day when Charlie Melancon, Robin Carnahan and Brad Ellsworth are going to lose to the three “public servants” that they face.  The ads write themselves for these three races.  I hope Melancon and Ellsworth run for something in the future, but truly they probably can get more good done in the private sector given how ideological/partisan Congress is.  

  12. http://politicalticker.blogs.c…

    (CNN) – Christine O’Donnell, the surprise Tea Party-backed Senate candidate in Delaware, threatened to sue a local radio station if it did not turn over a videotape of an interview it conducted with her.

    O’Donnell’s campaign later apologized to the station for the threat, WDEL reports.

  13. http://www.time.com/time/polit…

    NV-Sen:

    Angle 49%

    Reid: 45%

    MoE 3.5%

    CO-Sen

    Buck 47

    Bennet 46

    CO-Gov

    Hickenlooper 51

    Tancredo 37

    Maes 10

    Polls can’t agree here, which is surprising since they all say the same thing on the Sen race

    PA-Sen

    Toomey 49

    Sestak 45

    PA-Gov

    Corbett 52

    Onorato 45

    CA-Sen

    Boxer 50

    Fiorina 45

    CA-Gov

    Brown 51

    Whitman 44

    Prop 19

    No 53

    Yes 45

    KY-Sen

    Paul 50

    Conway 43

  14. based on a DNC memo, ref http://www.theatlantic.com/pol…

    Seems especially encouraging for WV, IL, and OH (aka Manchin, Alexi G, and Strickland), among others.

    (The original memo is in docx format, and I don’t feel like converting into  something readable by OpenOffice.org right now….)

  16. Huge gaps in the RV/LV in the CNN/Time Polls.

    Boxer/Brown have huge double digit leads among registered voters.  Bennet/Sestak/Buck all ahead among the RV sample.  I guess it all depends on GOTV on election day.

  18. Lets look forward to 2012

    Any thoughts on whether Dave Freudenthal might challenge Barrasso in Wyoming?  I mean, if Walt Minnick could win in ID-01…

    Snowe in Maine is pretty much DOA, there is no way she can survive a primary, who would be the best candidate to take that seat if it become open?

    I have a feeling Brown is toast, even if Coakley somehow ran for that seat AGAIN.  I would personally like to see Mike Capuano run for that seat and win it.

    Lieberman is DOA, and if Ned Lamont couldn’t win the Gubernatorial primary, I think he probably wouldn’t be that great a nominee.  I think Chris Murphy would be a good pick.

    I think Kyl could be a good target, I don’t know AZ well enough to have a good candidate on our side though

    Ensign is in trouble, maybe Goodman could run for that seat?

    Texas is interesting, is White doesn’t win this year, I think he should TOTALLY run KBH’s senate seat.  Does anyone remember if she is even retiring anymore?

  26. leave out “others” in almost every state. However, for Pennsylvania, I referred to the 2006 exit poll and plugged in the Senate race numbers. Assuming that Toomey and Sestak split non-black, non-white voters (a poor assumption–Sestak will win them), this is a 1-2 point race.

    Money on the street in Philly could make the difference.  

  28. I remember conservative sites reweighting polls in 2008 until they thought the poll looked better.  It looks good on paper but it does not help on election day.  

  29. groups doing pro-Dem canvassing, phone calls today:

    Votevets.org:

    PA-SEN

    PA-07

    PA-08

    Voces de la Frontera:

    WI-SEN

    Working America:

    CO-SEN

    IN-SEN

    KY-SEN

    MO-SEN

    NV-SEN

    PA-SEN

    AR-02

    CO-07

    MI-07

    NM-01

    NM-02

    NV-03

    OH-01

    PA-03

    PA-08

    Florida New Majority:

    FL-25

    Working for Us:

    MI-01

    USAction:

    NH-01

    PA-08

    National Wildlife Federation:

    PA-SEN

    NM-01

    Advancing Wisconsin:

    WI-07

    WI-08

    these are the ones that had expenditures to file, who knows how many out there that are solely volunteer, or ran by campaigns and not by outside groups.

  30. Heard my 1st ad on radio today re WA-6 race. A radio ad by Doug Cloud that sounded like they spent all of $10 to produce.  Monotone announcer says under Norm Dicks’tenure, Boeing has lost 30,000 jobs, replaced by “lower quality” public sector jobs. I guess Cloud came on at the end to state his name and paid for by his campaign committee.

    The ad seemed to try and hit the Republican talking points re lost jobs, etc. But if this ad is all they got I doubt it will have much impact.

  31. http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b…

    mostly small ad buys and media consulting/research/surveys it looks like.  they just bought on Friday, so these look like districts they decided to increase spending in after seeing DCCC buys I guess, or maybe radio buys… maybe spiderdem can make more sense of it than I can.

    noteworthy:

    WI-03: $151K

    this was promised a couple days ago.

    NY-01: $44K

    what?  first time they’ve spent here, but so piddling in the NYC market as to make me wonder why they bothered.

    VA-05: $177K

    Perriello will just not quit.

    KY-06: $40K

    NRCC had skipped this race Friday, not sure what they think $40K is going to accomplish.

    NV-03: nothing still.

  33. This Rasmussen poll has a turnout model of 36D-30R-34I.

    Their previous survey, which had Bennet actually closer, down 47-45, had a turnout model of 30D-30R-40I.

    So supposedly indies have plummeted and Dems have skyrocketed, and yet Bennet has LOST ground?

    Thus is the randomness of Rasmussen results.

  35. Dems = 2,326 (47.85% of two-party vote)

    Reps = 2,535 (52.15% of two-party vote)

    All = 5,793

    Two-party vote percentages before today:

    Dems = 46.8%

    Reps = 53.2%

    So relative to previous days, this is a pretty good showing – with a margin of less than 200 votes.

    These are much smaller absolute numbers relative to Clark, so let’s hope those numbers run strong for us through Friday.

    http://www.co.washoe.nv.us/vot…

  37. I just looked at CNN’s Nevada ’06 exit poll, it has indies as 26% of the electorate, according to Jon Ralston’s tweets, that’s exactly the number of indies in today’s Ras poll, which he said is too many indies. Can anyone explain why? Thanks

  38. I’ve stated this before as my fear about PA.  I think Obama wins a second term in 2012.  

    But my super long-term prediction is that the Repub VP nominee in 2016 is….Gov Tom Corbett of PA.

    Figure in 2016 GOP will still nominate an uber conservative, and with little if any bench in the Northeast, it will probably be a SOutherner or Westerned.  Corbett would balance the ticket in so many ways.  And put PA in play.

  39. and lots of us are talking about Presidential politics in ’12 and ’16, something I thought was at least discouraged here.

    Are people here already burned out on ’10?

  44. to trumpet his vote against Nancy Pelosi’s agenda (as if anybody thinks about Pelosi when they vote).

    I guess he wants to reach Ocean county? The rest of his district is in the Philly TV market.  

  45. Seems like a good sort. Not much of substance was said other than that the congressman doesn’t support marijuana legalization. Not exactly a hot-button issue in Virginia this year.

  49. The message here that I think is most effective is where he says he wants to shake up DC the way he shook up WV, implying he will still be the same as Senator as he is as Governor.

  53. Biggest day yet on Wednesday (by over 1k), but we won’t know the party breakdown until tomorrow.

    Total vote = 21,891

    Previous record Tues 10/26 = 20,641

    Boulevard Mall 1,402

    Centennial Center Trailer 1,360

    East Las Vegas Community Center 267

    Galleria at Sunset 2,444

    Las Vegas Athletic Club 601

    Las Vegas Outlet Center 874

    Meadows Mall 1,490

    Doolittle Comm. Ctr / Pearson Comm. Ctr 327

    Regional Transportation Commission 483

    Mobile Team 1 352

    Mobile Team 2 1,243

    Mobile Team 3 1,208

    Mobile Team 4 863

    Mobile Team 5 1,339

    Mobile Team 6 1,097

    Mobile Team 7 967

    Mobile Team 8 810

    Mobile Team 9 1,340

    Trailer 1 1,035

    Trailer 2 805

    Trailer 3 871

    Trailer 4 713

    http://redrock.co.clark.nv.us/…

  55. Hey guys-

    I meant to bring this up a long time ago, but I was wondering if we would come out of this with a strong enough sample size of candidates in R districts, or at least tough toss up districts, that ran extremely progressive campaigns in the face of this wave and how they did.

    Examples:

    Tom Perriello

    A-Grayson

    Are there other candidates I’m just not aware of?  

    1. oh that poor guy.  Remember how they brought him on to attract AA to the party?  Tea flavored people made sure that never happened.  (maybe I’ll compromise on baggers, but they are not a party)

  57. I’ll post this again since it probably got lost further up the thread:

    WLNS Channel 6 News Poll:

    Mark Schauer (D) – 50%

    Tim Walberg (R) – 43%

    http://www.wlns.com/Global/sto…

    Walberg’s been bleeding independents for some time, and now it seems he’s even losing moderate Republicans.  I’d love nothing more than for this to be a rout for Schauer, as it’d probably put Walberg away for good down the road.

    1. But Carnahan and Jack Conway will almost certainly run for higher office again down the road. Conway’s young and is still AG, and Carnahan is still MO royalty and remains Secretary of State.

      As for Ellsworth? Maybe if Bayh runs for governor in 2012, he can select Ellsworth as his LG. Or maybe Ellsworth can run for Congress again in 2012. But given that he doesn’t have a background in politics, I could easily see him just returning to private life.  

    2. And it was pretty damning but it really didnt do anything for the numbers.  This is Missouri which isnt much of a bellwether anymore in a big GOP year is going to go GOP.

      Carnahan can try again for something.

  58. Not sure how this October Surprise is going to play in MI-01.  Personally, I don’t think it’s going to change much, but it keeps Benishek on defense for the remainder of the race:

    WASHINGTON – The Michigan Democratic Party is filing a complaint against Dan Benishek, the Republican nominee in northern Michigan’s 1st Congressional District, for what its chairman Mark Brewer called the “illegal use of a private aircraft.”

    Federal Election Commission rules prohibit House members and candidates from using noncommercial aircraft for campaigning. The state Democratic Party filed the complaint after a story in the Petoskey News-Review indicated that Benishek may have used a privately owned aircraft on two occasions. The plane is reportedly owned by Steven Zurcher, a Republican precinct delegate in Dickinson County on the Upper Peninsula and the owner of St. George Glass Co. in Iron Mountain. He is also a member of the Dickinson County Hospital Board of Trustees; Benishek, a general surgeon, practices at the hospital.

    Benishek, a Republican newcomer from Crystal Falls, is locked in a tight race with what a recent Free Press poll showed to be a slim 42%-40% lead on state Rep. Gary McDowell, a Rudyard Democrat. An independent, Rose City entrepreneur Glenn Wilson, had 8% in the poll and remains a factor in the race as well. The election is Tuesday.

    …

    At the news conference today, Brewer said it was his belief that Benishek used the plane at least three times and maybe more, even though they had only the single Facebook entry as independent proof. He asked Benishek and the aircraft’s owner to release flight schedules and logs so they could determine how often the plane had been used.

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