October 26, 2006

Blogometer Extra

AL GOV: Nall's To The Wall

  You might have heard of Loretta Nall, the Libertarian write-in candidate in Alabama's gubernatorial race.  She gained recent notoriety for a print ad in which she appears with her ample cleavage just above the words "More of these BOOBS!!" while pictures of 'Bama politicians are on the bottom, framed by "And Less Of these BOOBS!!"

  Jeralyn at TalkLeft endorses Nall, and not just because she's a "long-time reader" with whom "we've emailed several times over the years."  Despite the press coverage, Nall is serious about her run and is pushing four key platform points, to wit:

  Nall just appeared on Keith Olbermann's show (vid here) and says if she loses the race, "she'll run for Congress in 2008," taking on a whole new set of boobs.

AZ 01: Feeding Renzi

  The press is salivating over what could turn out to be yet another Congressional implosion, namely the campaign of incumbent GOP Rep. Rick Renzi.  Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has the scoop (or scoops, as it were):

  Just a short while ago we alerted you to the AP story breaking the news that Renzi is the subject of a federal investigation centering on a shady land deal.  We'd been working on that story too.  And a short time after the AP story broke, TPMmuckraker.com followed up with more details we have about the transaction and the subsequent investigation.

  Because of that we weren't surprised to see the New York Times following on these stories with their own piece about the Renzi probe.

  But I got a bit more surprised when I read the Times piece by David Johnston and realized that they were reporting an investigation into what appears to be an entirely separate bad act.  This one's about an investigation into a piece of legislation Renzi introduced to help what the Times calls a telecom company that happens to employ his Renzi's father.

AR GOV: Kos's Ark

  Markos Moulitsas over at Daily Kos is gloating over new SurveyUSA figures which show Dems are set to "sweep the state" in the gubernatorial division.  "With a sweep of the statewide offices, two US senators, three of four congressional seats, 27 of 35 state senate seats, and 72 of 100 state house seats," Kos writes, "Arkansas is well on its way to becoming a ... Democratic state," making one-party rule sound like a good thing.

CT 04: Shayskopf

  Noting that he's "taken more and more stands with which we have profound disagreement," the New York Times pulls its past support for incumbent GOP Rep. Chris Shays and instead endorses Dem opponent Diane Farrell, Greg Sargent reports at TPMCafe.  More from the endorsement:

  [In the past,] The Times chose to endore [Shays] as a rare voice for moderation within a Republican caucus that seemed bent on distracting the electorate with assaults on gay marriage, flag burning and abortion while running up the deficit, encouraging a ruinous war in Iraq and supporting a White House bent on exalting the power of the president at the expense of the Constitution.

  Now it is time to draw the line.  Mr. Shays may be a beacon of integrity, but if he is re-elected, he will vote to continue House control by a party that has repeatedly sold out the country to special-interest lobbyists.

  While DemFromCT remarks at Daily Kos that "this should make at least a small difference," Sargent feels that it "could tip the race."

ID GOV: Otter Pops

  mcjoan at Daily Kos, writing from Idaho, says to "relish the thought that this deep red state is starting to tinge just a little bit purple."

  What's prompting mcjoan's glee is a new poll that puts Dem candidate for Gov Jerry Brady finally ahead of GOPer Butch Otter after a year and a half of, in Rumsfeldian terms, hard slog.  (mcjoan notes that the race is more accurately a dead heat, but "a dead heat in Idaho two weeks before the election" is good enough.)

  So why the sinking Otter and the bouncing Brady?  mcjoan explains:

Brady ... hit particularly hard on the public lands issue.  It resonates in this land where hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation reign.  And against Butch Otter particularly, who earned the wrath of many westerners when he co-sponsored legislation for a massive one time sell-off of western public lands for Hurricane Katrina relief. ...

  The public lands issue can't be oversold in a state like Idaho... Otter's support for the sell-off alone accounts for the overwhelming support Brady has received from all of the hunting and fishing organizations.  Not only do these sites provide for recreation for the states' residents, they are the backbone to the growing tourism industry in both states--dollars that shore up both states' economies.  It's hard to overestimate the resonance Brady's theme "Idaho is Not For Sale" has with Idaho voters.

  But he's also been doing work on the ground.  He's been to every one of Idaho's 44 counties and has organized all over the state.  His opponent has approached this race from the beginning with the sense that it was his birthright, though he did take a cynical step or two to make himself more palatable to the state's more morally conservative voters, particularly the Mormons.  He finally married his girlfriend of ten years (after they both got annulments from their previous marriages).

IN 03: Making Hayhurst

  James L. at Swing State Project takes note of something amazing building in Indiana's 3rd District.

  Recently, Democrats added Dem challenger Tom Hayhurst, in a "longshot" race against GOP incumbent Rep. Mark Souder, to its list of hot races.  "At the time," James writes, "I was skeptical, being inclined to believe that the move was merely a recognition of Hayhurst's fairly good fundraising more than anything else."  But lo, what light through yonder tunnel end breaks?

  I might have to change my mind, though, after I read this Hotline piece, detailing the NRCC's decision to buy $72,000 worth of ad time for Souder.  That's not a large amount, but at the same time, it shouldn't be necessary for the NRCC to buy any ad time at all in a district this reliably Republican.

  The NRCC is fanning their money around wide.  Mighty wide, it seems, for a piece of it to end up defending their hold on IN-03.

MN 05: Oh Ellison, My Aim Is True

  John continues Power Line's jihad against Democrat Keith Ellison's candidacy for the open 5th District seat, and can't help but gloat a little that someone other than Blogometer and a few schadenfreudal voyeurs are taking note.  Apparently.  John writes:

  [W]ord of the seamier side of Ellison's character appears to have percolated into the awareness of quite a few voters, mainly through Scott's efforts.  How else explain the fact that CAIR, a terrorist-linked organization, has bought time on local television for an ad that tries to distance the Muslim religion from mass murder?

  CAIR's effort is fundamentally misguided, I think, and attacks a straw man.  The relevant question is not whether Muslims in general support terrorism.  The questions are 1) whether CAIR, Ellison's patron, supports terrorism, and 2) whether Ellison himself has a long history of advocacy in favor of gang members and other criminals who murder and attempt to murder policemen.  CAIR's ad, needless to say, sheds no light on these issues.

  But it may shed some light on whether Ellison is cruising to victory quite so easily as had been expected in Minnesota's heavily Democratic 5th District.

NY 24: Arcuri Hears A Horton

  Robert B. Bluey at the conservative Human Events's The Ballot Box openly admits that a recent GOP ad "attacking Democrat Mike Arcuri's record as district attorney ... strikes a theme similar to the Willie Horton ad that sank Michael Dukakis' presidential ambitions in 1988.  (The ad is viewable here.)  Bluey writes:

  The ad begins with a photo of a man named Thomas Griffiths, who the announcer says served time for felony sex abuse and was later jailed for another sex crime.  After Griffiths cooperated with the Oneida County district attorney's office, one of Arcuri's deputies wrote a letter on Griffiths' behalf to the parole board.  But Griffiths was arrested again after his release, leading the announcer to accuse Arcuri of breaking his promise to "create a safer community."

  What type of impact will the ad have on Arcuri?  There's no question that the attacks on his character are will pay off to some degree on November 7.  Whether voters decide to stay home or simply refuse to pull the lever for someone they view with suspicion (thanks in part to the stir created by the phone-sex ad last week), it's a strategy the NRCC seems eager to push from now until Election Day.

  Stepping away from the slight "ick" factor, meanwhile, Bluey throws some light on--oh yeah!--the GOP candidate for the open seat, Ray Meier, a "solid conservative who is running this competitive race."

NC 11: Tattle Taylor

  Jonathan Singer at < a href="http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/25/142120/68">MyDD is covering the latest in another of the seemingly endless parade of GOP Congressmen being probed, investigated, scrutinized etc. in the final weeks of the election season.

&nsbp; Taylor's folly, it seems, are "shady land deals" that have incumbent GOP Rep. Charles Taylor "in some heat."  Singer quotes from The Hill:

  Public land records in Haywood County, N.C., show that a company registered to [Taylor] owns 17 plots of land in the mountain community of Maggie Valley, an interest that tax records indicate is worth more than $500,000.

The records raise questions about an assertion Taylor made in an Oct. 12 statement, part of a strong public defense mounted by the House Appropriations "cardinal" after a Wall Street Journal report alleged this month that Taylor steered federal funds to projects that would benefit businesses in which he has an interest.

  Taylor, Singer notes, is "already facing his fair share of scandals," including one involving, in a roundabout way, the KGB (!).  "In short," says Singer, "this guy exudes the stench of corruption (or at least ethical impropriety), and the news that he lied about his land holdings in an effort to distract voters from yet another scandal isn't going to change many minds in his favor."

PA 04: Hart In The Right Place

  Jay Cost at The RealClearPolitics Blog gets wind of some recent poll data showing incumbent GOP Rep. Melissa Hart with "only a 4% lead, with 11% undecided" against upstart Dem Jason Altmire.  Cause for alarm?  Au contraire, writes Cost:

  This week I hypothesized that one reason that second- and third-tier districts show soft GOP leads was because GOP candidates had yet to unload their expansive war chests.  Accordingly, voters were still "floating" with the national news media and their assessment of the mood.  This district would be an archetypical example if this hypothesis is true.  Hart, as of 10/1, had more than $1.1 million in the bank, compared to Altmire's $275 K.  By that date, she had only spent $763 K.  According to the theory I offered: when she unloads that war chest, these numbers will move in her direction.  The internals of the poll are consistent with this "floating" hypothesis. ...

  It seems that Altmire's support does not seem to reflect genuine pro-Altmire sentiment, but rather a general political mood.  Hart can, and will, spend $2 million in all to define both him and herself -- setting herself apart from what the district is upset about, and casting Altmire as an unacceptable alternative to what frustrates the voters.  And Altmire lacks the cash to respond.

  In other words, money talks and... well, you know the rest.  Cost helpfully points out that "this poll is a sign that the GOP is going to have to spend money to defend its 'outer-rim' districts... I think money will save all of them, but money is what is needed. 

  "That," wraps the coincidentally-named Cost, "is the price they must pay for their unpopularity."

WY AL: Rankin Yanker

  "Seriously, what is it Republicans and their tempers this cycle?" asks Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos.  "They're cracking under the pressure."

  He's speaking of the incident in which incumbent GOP Rep. Barbara Cubin "went psycho on the disabled, wheelchair-bound Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin."  Per the Casper Star Tribune:

  The verbal sparring between two candidates for Wyoming's lone U.S. House seat didn't end when the televised debate ended Sunday evening.

  Immediately after the lights and cameras shut down, incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin walked to Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin, who had criticized her for receiving contributions from former House Speaker Tom Delay, R-Texas.

  "'If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face,'" Cubin told Rankin, he said Monday.

  What specifically smoked Cubin's cigar?  Per her spokesman, Rankin "misrepresented her and insulted her integrity during the debate."  Kos doesn't buy it, noting that Cubin has taken over $22 grand from Tom DeLay's ARMPAC.  "Rankin told the truth," writes Kos.  "So what the hell was Barbara Cubin's problem?  She's feeling the heat, that's her problem."

  For her part, Cubin later apologized, and it remains to be seen whether anyone actually in "blood-red Wyoming" was even paying attention.

Posted by Conn Carroll at October 26, 2006 06:03 PM