Tag: Elections

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CA-50: Can a Dem Take Dukester’s House Seat in Special Election?

Jon Ponder

Ripe for the picking? There is a good chance that a Democrat might win the special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Duke Cunningham, the Republican who resigned after admitting to taking $2.4 million in bribes from a defense contractor:

Democrat Francine Busby, the Cardiff school district board trustee and the party’s 2004 candidate for the 50th District seat … secured the endorsement of EMILY’s List late last week, ensuring she will have the financial backing to be competitive. EMILY’s List President Ellen Malcolm said Monday that Cunningham’s resignation and “the whole constellation of issues” (i.e. Iraq and rising gas prices) “could change the mood” enough to elect Busby.

House Republicans aren’t worried yet. “Busby got 36% in the last election. NOTHING has changed in this district outside of the current congressman resigning. And she is not running against the current congressman,” said Carl Forti, spokesman at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Martha McKenna, political director of EMILY’s List, said the organization has been working with Busby for some time and believes she is a much improved candidate following a 58 percent to 36 percent defeat at the hands of Cunningham last November. (As the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter notes, Busby underperformed John Kerry in the district by eight points in 2004, a worrisome sign for her ability to unify the Democratic base behind her candidacy.) McKenna compared Busby to Reps. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) and Stephanie Herseth (D-S.D.), both of whom lost their first race for Congress. “[Busby] is much more serious about her campaign,” said McKenna.

[…]

Another Idiotic E-Mail from the Florida Democratic Party

Buck Banks

Clueless and useless: Karen Thurman, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, is at it again. Please, stop her before she e-mails again! Here’s her latest:

I am writing you to make a correction in my previous email about the 2006 Florida Democratic Conference. US Senator Barak Obama will be the only featured speaker at our dinner on Saturday, December 10.

Also, if you are interested in signing up to be a delegate at the 2006 Conference,please cut and paste this url into your browser: www.fladems.com/donate/ConferenceHome.php
and scroll down the page to the link marked “Apply online to be an appointed delegate”. This link will take you to signup page. If you plan to sign up to be a delegate, please do so by 5 PM Friday, December 2.

The www.fladems.com website occasionally has problems with congestion when registering people for meal tickets. You can register or buy meal tickets by phone. Just call us at 1-800-925-3411 between 8:30 AM and 6:30 PM.

Have a great weekend and then join us in Orlando next Friday!

Karen Thurman

If I wanted to be a delegate to a function that Ms. Thurman doesn’t seem to be very clear about, I would have been out of luck because her e-mail was dated Saturday, Dec. 3, at 10:16 a.m. — nearly 17 hours AFTER the deadline to apply. With Dems like this, it’s little wonder that Florida is a red state.

An Example of What’s Wrong with the Democratic Party

Buck Banks

Clueless losers: I received this e-mail today from someone purporting to be the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, though the writer never identified itself other than by the cryptic e-mail address, kthurman@fladems.com. This e-mail is an example of what’s wrong with the Democratic Party — they are clueless on how to mount a communications and marketing campaign. Here’s an example of the limp drivel the Dumbocrats think will inspire and incite their constituents:

As the Chair of the Florida Democratic Party, I want to remind you that our 2005 Conference is coming up in just over a week. We still have room for a few good Democrats and I wanted to take this last chance to let you know what we have planned.

That might have been a good place to mention WHERE the conference is being held, but that little detail is missing from the entire text of the e-mail. And we won’t mention the embarrassing random capitalization of nouns that was popular in the 17th century.

First up, for the dinner on Saturday, December 10, we have featured speakers US Senator Barak Obama and our National Party Chair, Dr. Howard Dean. Senator Obama and Dr. Dean will talk about the Democratic Party’s message for the 2006 election cycle, and discuss the many opportunities ahead for Democrats from all over the country to be part of our march to victory next year. We also have former US Senator John Edwards and Governors Mark Warner and Tom Vilsack making presentations. But these three prospective Presidential candidates are just the beginning. All of our statewide candidates will be with us: US Representative Jim Davis and State Senator Rod Smith, who are running for Governor; State Senator Walter Campbell, running for Attorney General; Alex Sink, running for Chief Financial Officer and Eric Copeland, running for Agriculture Commissioner.

There will also be exciting opportunities for training. We will have workshops on Small Donors Fundraising, Campaign Finance Compliance, our new Voter File application (the Voter Activation Network, known as “VAN”) Early & Absentee Voters and Earned Media. Our Outreach Caucuses will be meeting to discuss the issues affecting African-Americans, Women, Young Democrats, GLBT Democrats, Hispanics, Democrats with Disabilities and Carribbeans. The Small Counties Coalition will also meet.

Man, don’t that sound exciting? Makes me want to go, if I knew where it was.
[…]

Did Someone Leak Bush’s Speech to Hil?

Trish

Or is she just that good?

In case you missed the memo, Sen. Hillary Clinton did a brilliant job of emailing people yesterday with the facts — as opposed to the spin — on Bush’s call for Congressional support of disarming Saddem Hussein way back when.

Of course, now we refer to this as “Quagmire in Iraq.” But Hillary still remembers why she voted to give the president the authority to make decisions in 2002.

“It is time for the President to stop serving up platitudes and it is past time for the President, Vice President, or anyone else associated with them to stop impugning the patriotism of their critics.” – Sen. Hillary Clinton

I voted…on the basis of the evidence presented by the Administration, assurances they gave that they would first seek to resolve the issue of weapons of mass destruction peacefully through United Nations sponsored inspections, and the argument that the resolution was needed because Saddam Hussein never did anything to comply with his obligations that he was not forced to do.

Their assurances turned out to be empty ones, as the Administration refused repeated requests from the U.N. inspectors to finish their work. And the “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda turned out to be false.

Before I voted in 2002, the Administration publicly and privately assured me that they intended to use their authority to build international support in order to get the U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq, as articulated by the President in his Cincinnati speech on October 7th, 2002. As I said in my October 2002 floor statement, I took “the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a U.N. resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible.”

Instead, the Bush Administration short-circuited the U.N. inspectors – the last line of defense against the possibility that our intelligence was false. The Administration also abandoned securing a larger international coalition, alienating many of those who had joined us in Afghanistan…

I take responsibility for my vote, and I, along with a majority of Americans, expect the President and his Administration to take responsibility for the false assurances, faulty evidence and mismanagement of the war.

Hillary’s email went out a full day before Bush’s speech but in it she correctly anticipates both the speech’s contents and its themes.

After all, if ever there was someone who could stand in front of a meticulously staged backdrop before a crowd of hand-selected supporters and spout absolute inanities with an air of bluster and arrogance, that man is George W. Bush.

It is time for the President to stop serving up platitudes and present us with a plan for finishing this war with success and honor — not a rigid timetable that terrorists can exploit, but a public plan for winning and concluding the war. And it is past time for the President, Vice President, or anyone else associated with them to stop impugning the patriotism of their critics.

You go girl.

Potential Feinstein Opponent Drops Out, Leaving Senator Virtually Unopposed in ’06

Jon Ponder

Scared away: Sen. Dianne Feinstein is going to be tough to beat in her re-election bid next year – and the GOP knows it. But frankly, I’d never heard of Bill Mundell until today:

Bill Mundell, the only Republican making serious preparations to challenge U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bid for reelection, said Tuesday he has decided not to run, leaving the GOP with no clear contender for one of California’s top races for 2006.

The move by Mundell, an education software executive, reflects the difficulty Republicans face in finding a strong candidate to challenge the popular Democratic incumbent.

In an interview, Mundell said he was willing to spend several million dollars of his own money on the race, but would have needed to collect much more from donors to mount a viable campaign. He said his conversations with the party’s major contributors in California made clear that donors do not plan to put substantial money behind any push to oust Feinstein, and he had no interest in running a “vanity campaign.”

Mundell, chief executive of Vidyah Inc., had raised his public profile this year as a major supporter of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Nov. 8 ballot measure to strip state lawmakers of their power to draw district maps for themselves and members of Congress.

Katherine Harris Staffers Can’t Get Out Fast Enough

Trish

The average member of Congress holds on to high-level folks for four to five years, but nine months is about all anyone can stand with Florida U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris. Great job by the Sarasota Herald Tribune, which uncovered the red flag in the Harris office.

Her turnover rate is so rare it prompted a longtime GOP consultant to describe it as “chewing through staff like an industrial wood chipper.”

In just under three years, U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris has had four chiefs of staff, four district directors and four press secretaries…

Turnover isn’t limited to Harris’ congressional office, either. As she prepares to run against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, Harris has been hampered by turnover on her campaign staff. Her campaign manager quit last week, after just a few months on the job and not long after she lost a pollster and a campaign finance director earlier this year.

Harris can explain each and every departure, and why each former staffer is unwilling to talk to the media about the experience of working for her.

…Harris said most of the employees have left because they’ve gone on to better jobs. If anything, the turnover shows her staff members are in high demand after gaining experience in a “high-profile” office.

“They always get stolen away,” Harris said.

She also said the Capitol Hill lifestyle — long, unpredictable hours and bad pay — make it hard for her to keep staff.

But her turnover rate is so rare it prompted longtime GOP consultant Rick Wilson to describe it as “chewing through staff like an industrial wood chipper.”

Poor communication and micromanagement seem to be big factors in making Harris the Boss from Hell.

Harris failed to tell her congressional staff that she planned to run for U.S. Senate before she announced it to the media. Some staffers, including her now-former district director Kim Hutchens, called the newspaper to hear about her decision.

She’s also not averse to making her employees redo their work, even after it has been sent out. In October, after a press spokesman released a statement answering questions about her fund-raising totals, Harris required him to send out a revised statement with minor wording changes.

Gov. Bill Richardson Commits Political Suicide for Baseball

Trish

Another Democrat saves Republicans a bullet by shooting himself in the foot so they won’t have to. New Mexico’s Gov. Bill Richardson has established a credibility issue which will make great late night fodder now and in the 2008 presidential race, if he decides to enter it.

“After being notified of the situation … I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A’s,” Richardson said.

For nearly four decades, Richardson has maintained he was drafted as a pitcher in 1966 by the Kansas City Athletics.

But an Albuquerque Journal investigation found no record of Richardson being drafted by the A’s, who have since moved to Oakland, or any other team.

Richardson’s explanation for the claim is even lamer than the issue of whether he was drafted by the A’s.

“After being notified of the situation (by Journal reporter Toby Smith) and after researching the matter … I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A’s,” Richardson said.

Well there you go. With those feeble words, another one bites the dust, and without even having to be smeared by Repug goons.

Richardson included the fact in a brief biography released when he successfully ran for Congress in 1982. The Clinton White House mentioned it in a 1997 news release, when Richardson was about to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Over the years, several media organizations have reported it as fact, including The Associated Press, the New York Times and New Republic magazine, along with political almanacs.

Richardson, who was a star right-handed pitcher in high school and played at Tufts University, maintained, though: “I was actively scouted by several major league teams.”

Yeah, blah blah, Ginger. Look, it’s really simple: don’t lie, don’t embelish, don’t go there. It will absolutely bite you in the ass sooner or later, and now the Dems — and Latinos — stand to lose a great candidate. Thanks Bill. You pitched a real no-hitter this time.

Kolbe (R-AZ) Retires – House Cleaning in 2006 May Hinge on the West

Jon Ponder

Liberal Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona – the only out gay Gop in Congress – announced his retirement this week opening up another vunerable GOP seat in the West.

Kolbe’s district includes Tucson, which President Bush carried by only 53 percent, so this is a seat that is a possible pick up for Dems next year.

Other possibly vulnerable seats in the West include:

Katherine Harris in Trouble – and Denial

Trish

Hope springs eternal for Florida’s U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris in her bid to take Sen. Bill Nelson’s seat in 2006, no matter how bad things look. And they look awful.

Last week, the news climaxed when, on the same day, word broke that Harris’ campaign manager had quit and a poll showed her 24 points behind Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

That followed stories in October about how her fundraising, considered her strong point, was disappointing.

Not to worry, Harris said, showing a Rove-worthy capacity for surreal spin.

…in an interview late in the week, Harris insisted the campaign remains healthy, the bad news has been over-hyped and “We have turned a corner.”

The problems, Harris said, are only temporary. “We’re completely viable, and we have a great chance.”

Harris went through the predictable routine of questioning the poll’s accuracy and citing how early it is in the process. Oddly, she also took the unusual tactic of blaming the weather and her own record.

She acknowledged the campaign has had stumbles — caused in part, she said, by the fall hurricanes and a focus on her congressional work.

“The only issue where we have to focus now is fundraising,” she said. “We will not pay much attention to polling a year out. A year to go is a world of difference, and polls won’t change until we go up on TV.”

The scary part is, she’s right. Bill Nelson, God love him, isn’t Mr. Excitement when speaking. And Katherine has started working the cult of personality thing pretty hard.

I wish I felt safe ruling her out but even if she fails to win over her own party by its unofficial Dec. 31 deadline, the prospects for her possible replacements – like Florida House Speaker Allan Bense – worry me even more. Let’s hope the newfound questioning of Republicans by the voters continues and intensifies.