How hard is Lunsford running at this?

What I mean is how much of his fortune is he putting up and how energetic is he? Is his heart in it?

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by: conspiracy @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 16:17:30 PM UTC

Dates are 9/21-22

So I suppose its possible Lunsford could be getting traction from the Wall Street crisis. If so that could be temporary but hopefully we have a trend developing. It sure would be nice to add a tenth seat to the realistic pick up opportunities - VA, NM, CO, NH, AK, NC, OR, MN, MS.

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by: conspiracy @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 16:20:40 PM UTC

Doesn't seem to be a dodgy sample either

Little change in pres numbers, 18 versus 19 point McCain lead.

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by: conspiracy @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 16:22:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Mason-Dixon: FL-Pres - Obama by 2

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008...

Don't see a link yet, but MyDD is reporting the latest M-D poll has Obama up 47-45 in Florida.  Good news if true.  Mason Dixon is a great pollster.

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by: ChadInFL @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 16:26:13 PM UTC

The RK2000 poll was flawed IMO

greatly oversampled Republicans and undersampled Democrats - Registration hovers around 55% Democrats, but the RK2000 showed 46%. I don't think it's quite a 3 point race just yet, i still think that it's closer to a 6-8 point race (what the RK2000 would have shown with correct sampling), but Lunsford shouldn't be written off just yet - if he can consolidate Democrats around him, and yes he is a conservative Democrat, he may just be able to knock out McConnell in what would be a surprise on election day.

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by: KainIIIC @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 16:39:35 PM UTC

Lovely surprise it would be

Especially after 2004 when Mongiardo was ahead for most of election night only for Bunning to edge it.

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by: conspiracy @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 17:03:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I remember that

At one point, Daschle or someone in the Democratic caucus pretty much declared victory.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 17:26:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

If this is real, Lunsford has the money

to take this home. I think it would be funny if the NRSC had to choose between Liddy Dole and Mitch McConnell.  

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by: andgarden @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 18:05:12 PM UTC

I only see one winner in that scenario

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by: conspiracy @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 18:11:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And the Georgia race too

especially if it was 51-45 a few weeks ago, before the stock market troubles which seems to have given Democrats everywhere a temproary bounce, doubled by the fact the Palin/Republican convention bounce has worn off at the same time. Chambliss could conceivably be under 50 now, and if there was only one incumbent we could beat in the whole senate this year, Chambliss and Inhofe would be right on up their.  

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

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by: ArkDem the Ragin Cajin @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 19:57:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The problem in Georgia, as in much of the rest

of the south, is that the white people are just too overwhelmingly Republican. Increased AA turnout can't make up for whites voting 70/20 Republican.  

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by: andgarden @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 20:01:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

they won't

do that on the local level, in fact, on the local level, in states like Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, all a candidate has to do is get like 90% of the minority vote and around 30-35 percent of the white vote to squeak by with a victory. Younger white people aren't so conservative, still overwhelmingly, but maybe at a 60-40 break, and not a 70-30, which means the south could be more competitive in the future.  

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

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by: ArkDem the Ragin Cajin @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 23:07:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes, it varies by state

Places like MS, NC, FL, and VA are promising.  Mississippi probably has the best overall youth margin for us since blacks make up the majority of young people.

Judging by the polls, whites in most southern states are at the very least going to vote for Obama at a higher rate than Kerry in 2004.  That is promising given the history of whites in the south refusing to vote for black candidates in the past.

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by: ChadInFL @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 00:07:44 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

hopefully

the economic downfall really screws Republicans over this election.  It should, this is our strong part.  We are the party that solves economic meltdowns and turns them around.  This is our second wind after those horrible 2 weeks where the polls were not that great and the Palin effect scared the crap out of everyone.  (I was terrified)  Cant wait to take my LSAT and it be October where it's time to kick it into high gear and my life is campaigning.  I'm excited.

And woot, the guy I met clipboarding for Obama, seeing him again tomorrow, woot, thanks Obama!

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by: Andrew @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 21:45:23 PM UTC

Kentucky politics are strange!!

As someone who has lived for over 15 years in a bordering state, whenever I think I have a handle on Kentucky politics I get more confused!  For a state its size, it is extremely diverse and complicated.

I think part of the problem Democrats have faced on the statewide level is that to win, a very diverse group of consituencies need to be cobbled together -- Louisville (large black population, union voters, some white liberals), Franklin/Fayette Counties (Frankfort and Lexington -- basically the Bluegrass area, the wealthiest area of the state), and the mountain east, which is more like West Virginia than anywhere else (and actually Democrats have done better holding that region than WV itself).

Republicans right now have a stronger and seemingly more unified base to draw off of -- the northern counties along the Ohio border (espeically the Cincinnati exurbs), along with the Western and Southern parts of the state.  A lot of times, it seems like the battleground is often the 2nd District -- which has a potentially competitive open House seat.

The last Democrat to really do a good job on the state level of putting the pieces together was former governor Paul Patton.  He's from Pikeville in the far east, but appealed all over the state.  His come-from-behind run for governor in 1995 was tremendously important, coming one year after the 1994 Republican landslide.  He was all set to take on Jim Bunning in 2004, and would have won if he could have kept his pants on and not had a messy affair with a nursing home owner/manager that got tied up in state business and money.

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by: IndianaProgressive @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 00:01:37 AM UTC

Ya, my grandmother is from Louisville

She's 85 now and lived there until the early 70's before moving to Florida.  Her and my grandfather were both republicans most of their lives because oddly enough the republicans in KY tended to be more liberal than the democrats who dominated politics in that state for nearly a century.  There were almost no republicans in KY back then.

The state still has not completely abandoned it's democratic roots.  I believe democrats actually have a registration edge in every one of the six congressional districts.  Of course a large number of dems never actually vote for dems anymore like much of the south.

Take a look at this map if you want a good picture of how KY votes in close elections.  It's the 2004 Bunning-Mongiardo map.
http://www.uselectionatlas.org...

As you can see the rural southeastern part of the state went heavily for Mongiardo, along with Jefferson County (Louisville) and the college town of Lexington and surrounding counties.  The rest of the state was solidly for Bunning.

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by: ChadInFL @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 00:17:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]