Blogometer Update: House Edition

CA 45: Roth 'N' Roll

  The good folks working hard for unheralded Dem challenger David Roth are clearly enjoying their campaign to oust GOP Rep. Mary Bono, as TRex at Firedoglake reports.  It may be an uphill battle against this "name" incumbent and celebrity widow, but you'd never know from the zany pictures and tales from the Roth campaign--which, by the way, is travelling by RV instead of plane or bus.

  TRex introduces us to several of Roth's staff, a fun bunch including his campaign's field organizer, who when asked "what he does for the campaign, he says, 'I'm bringing "sexy" back!'"  You'll also get to meet the laughing Texan, the resident gypsy, the debate duck, and Roth himself, who plays drums in a band (and no, he's not related to David Lee Roth of Van Halen fame).

  Back to the politics, though... TRex shares an ad which has "Mrs. Bono's view of the situation in Iraq" (see it here) and is "Full-flavored, but 100% fact free!  All the inanity and none of the content!"

CO 04/05: Fawcett All And Fawcett No Regrets

  There is no better place to witness the topsy-turviness of Election '06 than in the Centennial State, where Democrats are making improbable inroads in formerly solid red zones lorded over by some of the most extreme on the right.  Take the 4th District, where GOP incumbent Rep. Marilyn Musgrave insists that gay marriage is the most important issue Americans face today (Iraq Shmiraq, hm?).  Dem challenger Angie Paccione "has been getting slammed by the Musgrave campaign and NRCC," writes Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos, "including this ad with a disabled vet, even though Musgrave has had a terrible rating from the Disabled American Vets."  Lo and behold, a Paccione internal poll shows her in a dead heat with Musgrave, and her pollster says the difference could be even larger, "since the sample of 600 likely voters included a larger percentage of Republicans that are registered in the district," according to The Coloradoan.  If that's accurate, writes Kos, Paccione "may have weathered one of the fiercest full frontal assaults of any Democrat this cycle."

  Meanwhile, in the 5th District, home to James Dobson's Focus on the Family and myriad military establishments including the US Air Force Academy and NORAD, Democratic candidate Jay Fawcett (an Academy grad himself) is charging forward with an impressive campaign against GOP hopeful—some might say hopeless—Doug Lamborn.  Fawcett was no doubt helped by retiring GOP Rep. Joel Hefley's refusal to endorse Lamborn, calling his primary run "sleazy" and "dishonest."  Kos writes:

  [T]he NRCC is having to dump more money to try and solidify a seat that should by all means be theirs.  I was told that Cheney is actually coming to the district next week to try and bolster the Republican in the race, Doug Lamborn.  Dick Freakin' Cheney is being forced to go to James Dobson territory, a district in which Bush won with 66 percent of the vote, in order to try to save their sleazy slimebag of a candidate against the impressive Jay Fawcett.

  The DCCC has given the Fawcett campaign money to buy into the state's coordinated campaign (which will handle field), and there is a second GOTV effort being put together by -- get this -- the Republicans for Fawcett operation.  This has always been a longshot race, but it may the only race in the country where Republicans are actively working to elect the Democratic candidate.

CT 04/05: Connectiklutzes

  Just when one might think the Chris Shays goob-athon is ebbing, along comes a new allegation in The New Republic about the incumbent GOP congressman.  Ben Adler at The American Prospect's TAPPED has the goods:

  Garance has a piece in The New Republic that should deliver a death blow to Shays.  Apparently Shays has taken to bragging about his first venture into Iraq, leaving out the part about how, stopping en route in Qatar, a small middle-Eastern monarchy, he told an audience: "This nation, like my small state, has always played a large role in advancing participatory democracy, civil discourse, and stable commerce."  But the scandal wasn't his royal ass-kissing -- it was how Shays, with his famously holier-than-thou stance on ethics, got there in the first place.

  Adler then quotes Garance Franke-Ruta at TNR:

  ... despite his record of pushing for meticulous record-keeping, Shays's privately sponsored trip to Qatar was notably absent from his own annual federal financial disclosure form, filed in May 2004, in violation of House rules.  Nor did he submit an amendment disclosing the sponsor of his Qatar trip until confronted in mid-October 2006 by The New Republic with internal Islamic Institute receipts for his plane tickets, which were provided by an Arab American source upset with Shays's foreign policy positions.

  Commenter Patience remarks, emphasis as is:

  You're kind of burying the most fascinating finding, which is this: [T]he Islamic Institute sought and received $143,150.93 from the [Qatari] foreign ministry days before Shays boarded the plane to Doha... as reimbursement for, among other things, the congressman's travel.  Shays's aides sounded winded by this revelation.  The Constitution prohibits members of Congress from taking funds from foreign governments or their agents.

  Then we have incumbent GOP Rep. Nancy Johnson in the 5th.  She has a new ad against Dem challenger Chris Murphy, viewable here.  Matt Stoller at MyDD is not only not impressed, he's insulted by the effort.  He quips, "This ad has the advantage of being stupid, crass, and memorable all at once, the perfect vehicle for an entitled and bratty Nancy Johnson."

ID 01: Grant And Rave

  mcjoan at Daily Kos is nothing if not a believer.  And she definitely believes Dem candidate Larry Grant has a good chance of topping GOP challenger Bill Sali mostly on his own in what is historically a very conservative state.  "It's almost become conventional wisdom for this cycle that all of the GOP's woes can be summed up by looking at Idaho," she writes.  "The national press loves a Cinderella story, and Democrats in Idaho fit the bill."  She continues:

  To date, no independent expenditures have gone to the Grant campaign.  What the campaign has received, however, is a state party organization that stretches through the district.  When Howard Dean took over at the DNC, the Idaho Dems had one and a half staff people.  The party was disorganized, demoralized, and stretched to the limit.  The party now has five permanent staff and has been able to hire field coordinators.

  ... The good news with that is that there aren't any strings being pulled by outside forces, some of which are happy to offer lots of advice now that Grant's campaign is in the national spotlight.  Grant has the freedom to continue his thus far successful strategy in the campaign.  That strategy included "buying Idaho."

  An impressively telling sign that Grant is making waves is the news that Vice President Dick Cheney is making a stop in Idaho next week.  Just visiting, you know.  Maybe do a little hunting.  That's it.  No other reason.  "For all the coyness," writes mcjoan, "it seems pretty damned unlikely that a week and a half before the election Sali and Cheney just happen to be in the same remote Idaho town.  Maybe now the DCCC will take Idaho as seriously as the GOP does.

NY 03: Long Glib The King

  Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos gets a kick out of the latest audacious remark from the blustery incumbent GOP Rep. Peter King.  In a video viewable here, King refers to the AARP and NAACP as "radical organizations," to which the audience responds with chuckles, giggles, and even a few guffaws.  "Like all NY Republicans," Kos writes, "Peter King is in serious danger of being swept out in a terrible year for the NY GOP."

  His challenger, Dem upstart Dave Mejias, is no pushover either.  Mejias is accusing King of lying about his son not being a lobbyist, and lying that his son "doesn't work with clients with business before him or his committee," while a video suggests otherwise, as reported at Newsday.  King denies everything and calls Mejias "desperate."  No word on whether Mejias guffawed about the characterization.

PA 02: Stepping In Your Own Schmidt

  "I've always wondered whether Jean Schmidt (R-OH) might eventually be kicked out of the House just for being stupid," writes Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.  "Not likely given the general level of excellence in the body."  And with that, he fills us in on Schmidt's latest gaffery:

  Schmidt's opponent Victoria Wulsin (D) just went on the air with an ad [viewable here] lambasting Schmidt's notorious statement from the House floor where she called congressman and Marine corps veteran John Murtha a coward.  Didn't go over that well, if you remember.  And after making up a few lies about it, Schmidt had to apologize.

  Apparently the ad has the Schmidt camp worried.  So they hit back hard by pointing out that the ad breaks House Rule V, which prohibits recordings of House proceedings from being used in political advertisements.  "Her continued violation will land her in serious trouble with the House Ethics Committee," barked Schmidt spokesman Matt Perin.

  "Only, as the Wulsin camp pointed out," Marshall wraps, "House Rules don't apply to people who aren't members of the House.  Doh!"