SSP Daily Digest: 4/2

by: Crisitunity

Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 2:03 PM EDT

• NY-29: In an example of political chaos theory at work, the NY-20 election may wind up protecting Rep. Eric Massa several seats over. If Jim Tedisco wins, he's out of his current job as Assembly Minority Leader, and even if he loses, there have been rumblings to replace him anyway. His replacement as Minority Leader would likely be Brian Kolb, who, if he took the position, would probably want to focus on that and no longer be the top GOP pick to take on Eric Massa in NY-29. (Other potential GOP candidates in NY-29 include Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks and state senators Cathy Young and George Winner.)

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter is already defending his right flank with ads attacking ex-Rep. Pat Toomey, in preparation for the 2010 primary. Specter's ad sounds a bit, um, Democratic, attacking Toomey for favoring deregulation, wanting to privatize Social Security, and for the unforgivable sin of having traded CDSs when he was working on Wall Street.

• MN-Sen: The next step in the MN-Sen saga has national implications: governor Tim Pawlenty has to decide, once the Minnesota Supreme Court rules, whether to go ahead and sign the certificate declaring Al Franken the winner (and, y'know, follow the rule of law)... or whether to continue to obstruct Franken in order not to alienate the rabid Republican base he'll need in 2012 if he's going to have any hope in the presidential primary.

• OH-Sen: I know I wouldn't buy a used car from Rob Portman, but he finally has some competition in the GOP primary, and it's a guy a lot of people apparently have bought used cars from. Cleveland-area car dealer Tom Ganley has also entered the race (although he shouldn't be more than a speed bump for the heavily-funded Portman).

• AK-AL: Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell is "considering" another primary run at Rep. Don Young. One negative for Parnell is that, this time, he'd have to give up his LG slot for a 2010 run. But there's also the possibility that the federal investigation into Young may actually yield something in the next few years.

• DCCC: The DCCC launched a new radio spot in the districts of six GOP representatives in Democratic-leaning seats, attacking them for voting against the middle-class tax cuts contained in the stimulus package. The targets are Mike Castle (DE-AL), Ken Calvert (CA-44), Bill Young (FL-10), Thad McCotter (MI-11), Charlie Dent (PA-15), and Mike McCaul (TX-10).

• LA-02: The Anh Cao Watch continues! GOP leading lights John McCain and Rep. Paul Ryan (WI-01) were recently seen jawing with Cao, who hasn't yet decided how he'll vote on the Democrats' budget resolution. Would he really defect? And would it even matter? (D)

• Census: The new pick for Census Director has been announced, and if the squealing emitting from Patrick McHenry is any indication, it's a good pick. It's Robert Groves, a Univ. of Michigan professor who was the Census's associate director for statistical design in the early 90s. Groves is a proponent of statistical sampling, which is the main flashpoint in debate over the census. Commerce Sec. Gary Locke has indicated that sampling won't be used for redistricting purposes, but will be used for increased accuracy (for purposes of allocating federal funds, for instance).

Minnesota Elections Post-Mortem

by: Mark

Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 10:37 AM EST

I had a feeling in the closing weeks of the campaign that Democrat Tim Walz would pull off a victory in what only a few months earlier seemed like a kamikaze run against six-term Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht, but I didn't think he'd win by a solid six-point margin.  Considering Gutknecht's mid-summer radio ad buys, I don't necessarily think that Gutknecht was unable to see this challenge coming.  Nonetheless, his response to the challenge was absolutely abysmal, with boilerplate TV ads where the incumbent couldn't even be bothered to make an appearance in his own commercials and a series of mismatched debate performances where Gutknecht was very clearly on defense at all times and losing badly to the charismatic Walz. 

I wrote a diary in September on how Tim Walz could eke out a victory in MN-01 with huge margins in his native Mankato and the college town of Winona, along with fighting Gutknecht to a draw in his native Rochester.  In the end, Walz won by huger margins that I would have deemed possible in Mankato and Winona, but also managed to win Rochester by an astounding eight percentage points.  Walz outperformed my expectations pretty much everywhere, padding his margin with wins in a few of the more conservative southwestern farm counties.  It'll be interesting to see how Walz holds up in 2008 and (hopefully) subsequent election cycles.  The one thing that concerns me is that Walz's presence on the campaign trail is his chief asset....and that presence will not be as abundant if he's stuck legislating in DC rather than travelling the district full-time as he did in 2005 and 2006.  Nonetheless, an excellent win for Walz, who I saw speak on two occasions and evoked a level of passion that I haven't seen since Paul Wellstone.  Keep an eye on this guy.  Big things could be coming from him.

As for MN-06, a number of things went wrong and helped voters in this conservative district fall into the arms of wingnut Republican Michelle Bachmann even though I predicted last summer that Bachmann was too conservative even for MN-06.  Since Bachmann got 50%, it's not fair to say that center-left Independence Party candidate John Binkowski cost Wetterling the election, but it would have probably at least been close without him in the race.  Nonetheless, far too many things went wrong in this race for Binkowski to shoulder the blame.

Wetterling hemmed and hawed for months, stating at one point that she couldn't win in this district and then pursued a Senate run.  When it was clear she wouldn't get the nomination against Amy Klobuchar, Wetterling made an eleventh hour leap into this House race, breaking her word against a moderate Democrat El Tinklenberg who, in hind sight, would have probably been a much better candidate against Bachmann.  Bachmann's reputation as the Legislature's wingnut-in-chief helped Wetterling pull off a small lead in September polls, but that's when the bottom fell out of her campaign. 

The polished Bachmann always mopped the floor up with the political novice Wetterling in debates and public forums and managed to mask her nutball tendencies to the voting public, all while the Wetterling campaign failed to effectively define her opponent.  In the end, some controversial ads by the Wetterling campaign (which I never saw) were heavily scrutinized by the local media and by the final week of the campaign, my dad was hearing from campaign insiders that Wetterling was toast. 

In retrospect, Wetterling's respectable performance in 2004 was the product of running against Mark Kennedy and having him step into the trap of swiftboating a figure as sympathetic as Wetterling.  Without Kennedy making her look good by comparison this time around, Wetterling's flaws were more easily apparent.  I'm expecting that Bachmann will make a regular habit of embarrassing Minnesota on the national stage, and could find herself perennially vulnerable in her district.  Here's hoping the Dems give El Tinklenberg another shot in 2008.

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