Merlin's Take on the 2010 AL Races

by: Merlin

Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 4:28 PM EST

AL-05: Parker Griffith Can Lose

by: DavidNYC

Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 10:10 PM EST

Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks (R) said Tuesday afternoon that he won't be clearing out of the GOP primary in Alabama's 5th district to make way for Rep. Parker Griffith, who announced earlier in the day that he was switching parties and joining the Republican Conference.

Brooks also warned the Congressman that his party switching ways will not go over well with GOP primary voters, who make up the vast majority of the 48 percent of the 5th district electorate that voted against Griffith in the 2008 general election.

"That's a tough jury to sell, particularly when you've voted with [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] 85 percent of the time," Brooks said. "It's unbelievably good fortune that Parker Griffith would jump into our pool and want to play. ... He has just propelled us to favored candidate status."

This just goes to show you: You can vote against the Democrats on every single big-ticket item - the stimulus, the Obama budget, cap-and-trade, healthcare, finacial regulatory reform, and even equal pay for women - and they'll still find something to hit you on. In this case, Mo Brooks is smacking Griffith for his WaPo "Voting with Party" score. Nevermind that Griffith has one of the lowest scores on the list - trying to fight from a defensive crouch is almost always a recipe for failure. The GOP would surely have used this number against him had he stayed a Dem; it's nice to see he'll still get whaled on with it as a Republican. (And let that be a lesson to other conservadems who think they can hide behind lousy voting records.)

But don't worry - Griffith's new Republican buddies have plenty more ammo:

But just five years ago, Griffith donated $1,500 to the presidential campaign of liberal icon Howard Dean - with one donation coming when Dean's campaign was already faltering in February 2004.

(Griffith also gave $1,000 to Sen. Harry Reid [D-Nev.] in December 2003 - something his conservative detractors will be sure to point out.)

Howard Dean! LOL! Who knew that me and Grif had so much in common? I was a big Dean supporter back then, too! But I think that even I knew it was time to jump ship by February (hell, his campaign folded in the middle of that month). You can bet that if a guy pretending to be a Southern-fried conservative was at one point a Dean backer, he's said and done a lot of other libruhl shit over the course of his career. Like this:

A Dem source noted that while all of his back-and-forth with GOPers was going on, Griffith actually took the time to attend the 12/9 DCCC holiday party, an event that featured Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That doesn't exactly paint the picture of a man wavering in his party commitments.

You can bet that isn't the only time Grif has hobnobbed with Pelosi. But wait - there's more! Plenty more. I think Griffith's primary opponents could run this old ad - courtesy of the NRCC, circa 2008 - without changing a single word:

I know you didn't think I was done yet. Our compadres at the Club for Growth is happy to Scozzafava good ol' Grif, too:

Griffith's voting record is far from conservative, too. Granted, he voted against the Big 4 - Obama's first budget, the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and ObamaCare.  However, his vote on the budget is slightly deceptive since he originally voted for 9 of the 12 spending bills that make up the budget.  And he voted against all the Stimulus amendments that would reduce its size.

But just a quick perusal of 2009 shows that he voted  YES on the 2009 pork-filled Omnibus; YES on Cash for Clunkers, NO on waiving the harmful Davis-Bacon provision, and had a pathetic 0% score on the 2009 RePORK Card.

This party switch signals Griffith's nervousness, but it doesn't signal that his incumbency is safe.

Zing! I think it's very possible that it will be easier for Brooks to beat Griffith in a primary rather than a general. The DCCC is squeezing Grif to get back their money (something they did successfully with Rodney Alexander), so that'll hurt him on the financial front. What's more, he's got a bit of a "damned-if-he-do, damned-if-he-don't" situation on his hands: If the NRCC decides to openly support Griffith, it would almost certainly provide major fodder to the teabaggers - Charlie Crist 2.0. On the flipside, if they don't back him (very possible, since they have to care more about blue seats than red ones), well, then, he loses out on major institutional backing. Not a good problem to have.

It's important to remember that to remain a member in good standing of the conservative movement, it isn't enough just to vote a certain way. You have to evidence a very particular tribal belonging - you need to hate the right people, be ignorant of the right facts, be fearful of the right bogeymen, and be arrogant about the whole enterprise. If you somehow fail this tribal litmus test, it doesn't matter how right-wing you are - that's how, for example, a wildly conservative guy like former Rep. Chris Cannon could lose a primary to another wildly conservative maniac.

And Parker Griffith is no Chris Cannon. Good luck, li'l buddy.

SSP Daily Digest: 6/29

by: Crisitunity

Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 3:06 PM EDT

• MN-Sen: Despite the fact that Tim Pawlenty (not running for re-election, but probably running for the Big Show in 2012) is now answerable to the nationwide GOP base rather than to all Minnesotans, he's not going to obstruct the all-but-inevitable seating of Al Franken. He confirmed on CNN that he'll certify Franken if Norm Coleman loses his Minnesota Supreme Court case.

• NC-Sen: While former state Sen. Cal Cunningham is making some senatorial noises, he says that he won't commit to a timeline on getting into the race, saying only that he'll make a "timely decision."

• AL-Gov: We're up to six Republican gubernatorial candidates now; Bill Johnson, the state director of Economic and Community Affairs, resigned his post on Friday and declared his candidacy. Despite his statewide position, Johnson seems like kind of an odd duck; he was the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri in 1994.

• SC-Gov: The behind-the-scenes battle is heating up between Mark Sanford and his Lt. Governor and possible successor (either via resignation or the 2010 election), Andre Bauer. Bauer's would-be opponents (who would be at a disadvantage if Bauer comes into the election as an incumbent) are already dusting off old lines of attack from his LG primary campaign in 2006, that Bauer is too much of a fast-driving, plane-crashing party boy and not sufficiently conservative. (Bauer's spokesperson does some very strange pushback in this article, seemingly protesting too much that Bauer is merely a "red-blooded American male" and "straight.") The New York Times details efforts by Bauer's camp to exert pressure on legislators to pressure Sanford to resign (which came to public light when Bauer's camp inadvertently contacted an ally of potential 2010 rival AG Henry McMaster).

Meanwhile, State Rep. Nikki Haley has been encouraging Sanford not to resign (which he says he won't do) -- on the surface because she was one of Sanford's few legislative allies even before the scandal, but at this point, more importantly because she's also running in 2010 and would be at a disadvantage if Bauer comes in as a one-year incumbent. She has also issued a statement "fear[ing] for the conservative reform movement" if Bauer takes office. Similarly, McMaster seems reluctant to launch criminal investigations into Sanford -- again, the subtext being that would make Sanford's immediate replacement by Bauer likelier.

• WI-Gov: Here's an interesting rumor: Gov. Jim Doyle may be in line to take over as the next head of the Peace Corps. Not only would this spare us a 2nd re-election run by Doyle, who's been posting mediocre poll numbers, but, assuming he resigns to take the new post, it would give Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton the chance to run in 2010 with a year of incumbency under her belt.

• AL-05: Despite earlier reports that the GOP was happy with their recruit to run in AL-05, businessman and local GOP "minority outreach" coordinator Lester Philip, they've recruited a higher-profile figure to run against freshman Rep. Parker Griffith. Madison Co. (location of Huntsville) Commissioner Mo Brooks said he'll formally enter the race this week.

• CA-11: After first flirting with the CA-10 special election and then flirting with the idea of running against Rep. Jerry McNerney in CA-11 in 2010, Contra Costa Co. Sheriff Warren Rupf declared that he isn't running for Congress, period. Rupf, in fact, basically gave Congress the middle finger, saying his values "don't line up with the fringes of either party and compromising my values or my priorities is a price I am not willing to pay."

• CA-24: The DCCC has been cajoling Peter Jim Dantona, a local political consultant, to get into the race against longtime Rep. Elton Gallegly in the 24th. Dantona proved his bona fides by almost winning a seat on the Ventura Co. Board of Supervisors in a heavily Republican district. (Another consideration is the possibility that Gallegly, who's tried to retire before, may turn this district, which Obama won 51-48, into an open seat if faced with a stiff challenge.)

• CA-50: A Francine Busby fundraiser in a supporter's backyard turned into a bit of a melee when the police were called over a noise complaint, ending with the party's 60-year-old host getting pepper-sprayed and arrested when she wouldn't give the police her name and date of birth.

• FL-24: GOP State Rep. (and former mayor of Port Orange) Dorothy Hukill announced her interest in taking on Rep. Suzanne Kosmas. The NRCC was already highly touting Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel in this race, so it'll be interesting to see if Hukill is doing this on her own, or if the NRCC kept looking after pre-emptive Dem attacks on Diebel's stability may have damaged Diebel.

• MI-03: Rep. Vernon Ehlers, who's 75, sounded a little ambivalent about running for another term in 2010. Roll Call does some interesting dot-connecting: Ehlers and SoS Terri Lynn Land are friendly, and her sudden jump out of the governor's race, where she looked competitive, may have something to do with her getting some insider information on MI-03 being available instead.

• NC-08: The GOP is still wondering what to do about a challenge to freshman Rep. Larry Kissell. Oddly, their first choice is a rerun by former Rep. Robin Hayes, who looked clueless en route to losing in 2008 by over 10 points. (Hayes is still considering it, but also helping to recruit other candidates.) Another possible (and more ominous) contender, who hasn't ruled it out, is Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, who lost the 2008 gubernatorial race and will be looking for something else to do after his seventh mayoral term ends this year. Union Co. District Attorney John Snyder was also cited as a possible GOPer.

• NE-02: Rep. Lee Terry seems to be under a lot of stress lately, as seen by his recent F-bomb-laced freak-out when trying to cross the street in Washington.

• Fundraising: Just a friendly reminder: the fundraising quarter ends tomorrow. If there's a candidate out there who you want to give some early momentum to, now's the time to contribute.