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Charlie Cook Sees a Rout by Dems in November

Jon Ponder

Charlie Cook strikes me as a straight-shooter. He calls ’em as he sees ’em. Well, get a load of this:

In a very large tidal wave election, as this one appears to be, it would not be unusual to see all tossups go to one party, along with a few out of the leaning column as well.

With fewer than 100 days left before the Nov. 7 election, certain assumptions can now be made, contingent upon the absence of a cataclysmic event.

First, the political climate will be extremely hostile to Republican candidates. Second, while Republicans benefited from turnout in 2002 and 2004, this time voter turnout will benefit Democratic candidates. And third, the advantages that the GOP usually has in national party spending will be significantly less than normal.

In terms of the political climate, the facts are clear. All of the traditional diagnostic indicators in major national polls taken in the past 10 days show numbers consistent with an electoral rout.

In the latest Cook Political Report/RT Strategies poll, conducted last Friday through Sunday among 809 registered voters, only 27 percent said the country was headed in the right direction and 63 percent said it was off on the wrong track. In polling for NBC and the Wall Street Journal, conducted July 21-24 and for CBS and the New York Times, taken July 21-25, the right direction numbers were 27 and 28 percent, respectively, while wrong track results were 60 and 66 percent respectively. These numbers are about the same as they were at this point in 1994 and going into Election Day that year […]

In the House, where Democrats need a 15-seat gain to win a majority, Republicans have 15 seats that the Cook Political Report currently rates as tossups. No Democratic seats remain in that column. Another 21 GOP seats are rated as leaning Republican.

In a very large tidal wave election, as this one appears to be, it would not be unusual to see all tossups go to one party, along with a few out of the leaning column as well. Republicans might lose their House majority just in the seats in which they are behind or in which their edge is within a poll’s margin of error.

In the Senate, while it is easy to get Democrats to a four- or five-seat net gain, six is tougher. But keep in mind that in the last four non-“wave” elections, between 67 and 89 percent of the races rated as “tossups” in the final Cook Political Report pre-election ratings broke toward one party each time, a domino effect, with the close races breaking toward the party with momentum.

Midterm Alternatives Shaping Up to be ‘Pretty Pathetic’

Buck Banks

Hobson’s choice: “National Journal’s” Charlie Cook sums up the rather cynical state of our two-party system as we approach November:

For all the talk about Democrats needing to “be for something,” a stronger case can be made that the Democrats should just stay out of the way and let events take their course. If Democrats prevail on November 7, their success won’t be due to any great idea they have or great message they are selling.

It will be because they are not Republicans and because people voted against Republicans. The Republicans’ only hope of retaining control on both sides of Capitol Hill is to get across the message that “no matter how angry or disappointed you are in us, Democrats are far worse and would screw things up even more.”

Pretty pathetic, isn’t it: Either one side wins because of what it isn’t, or the other side wins because it convinces voters that it is the lesser of two evils.

GA Lt. Gov: Reed Trailing Badly in Early Ballots

Jon Ponder

At 9:41 PM, Georgia time, Ralph Reed, the scandal-plagued rightwing Christian operative, is tanking in his bid for lieutenant governor, according to the Hotline:

LG (R) 33% in
Casey CAGLE: 55.2% 59,623
Ralph REED: 44.8% 48,344

Mood Dampens at Reed Headquarters:

At 9:15 p.m., Reed still had not come down to greet supporters at the InterContinental Buckhead Hotel, but was huddled with close friends watching returns come in. On his cell phone, Cobb County GOP chairman Anthony-Scott Hobbs got word that Reed was losing Cobb County by 10 percentage points, 11,000 votes to 9,000 votes. “You can’t win without Cobb,” he said.

Update: Reed conceded at 6:55 Pacific.

Polls: Primary Races are Getting Hot

Buck Banks

Tussling toward midterms: National Journal’s PollTrack notes that as we move into the last of the midterm primaries, several races are making for interesting political drama — if you like that kind of stuff — and we do.

PollTrack analyzed recent poll numbers for four of the more hotly contested races with upcoming primaries:

  • Connecticut Senate: In perhaps the most closely watched primary race of the cycle, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman is enjoying a 25-point lead among state Democrats over his anti-war primary challenger Ned Lamont, according to a Quinnipiac University survey conducted a little over a month ago. The results dovetail with Lieberman’s approval ratings among likely Democratic voters; about the same percentage — 56 percent — who would vote for Lieberman in the Aug. 8 primary said they approved of the job he is doing.

    Pollsters also tested a hypothetical three-way matchup with Lamont as the Democratic nominee and Lieberman running as an independent. In that scenario, pollsters found Lieberman would win with 56 percent — but Lamont would garner about a third of the Democratic vote.

  • Florida Senate: Despite the recent turmoil surrounding her campaign, Republican Rep. Katherine Harris remains the front-runner for her party’s nomination in the latest Quinnipiac University survey. A plurality of the likely voters surveyed, however, said they were still undecided when presented with Harris and three other GOP candidates. In a general election matchup, incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D) leads all the GOP hopefuls with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Another poll from Strategic Vision (R) also favors Harris for the GOP nomination and Nelson in the general.
  • Georgia Governor: Today’s Democratic primary, which will decide whether Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor or Secretary of State Cathy Cox will face incumbent first-term Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) in the general, promises to be a nail-biter. In a dramatic turnaround from the earliest days of the race, Taylor has steadily inched his way up the polls and now leads Cox, 49 percent to 41 percent, in the latest Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion survey. But Cox has also experienced a bump in support over the past month as the number of undecided voters in the Peach State has dwindled.
  • Missouri Senate: With state auditor Claire McCaskill running solo in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary, the real story in Missouri — ranked the No. 3 Senate race in the nation by Hotline’s Chuck Todd — is the general election. The latest Research 2000 poll shows the candidates in close competition, with McCaskill edging out incumbent Sen. Jim Talent (R) by just 6 points.

GA Lt. Gov: Reed Tied with Challenger on Primary Day

Jon Ponder
Republican lieutenant governor candidates Ralph Reed and Casey Cagle are locked in a statistical dead heat, with each holding 43 percent of the responders in the survey.

Gullible Georgia Gops: Voters vote in the primary election today in Georgia, and if more evidence were needed that conservatives are as deluded as they are corrupt, you’ll find it in a last-minute poll on the lieutenant governor’s race:

Republican lieutenant governor candidates Ralph Reed and Casey Cagle are locked in a statistical dead heat, with each holding 43 percent of the responders in the survey. Voters who were undecided made up the remaining 14 percent of respondents.

“This race has been within the margin of error the entire week. We’ve seen a slight shift back in favor of Reed over the past two days,” Towery said. “This may well be because Reed has new ads on TV, and voters who are interested are hyper-sensitive to any new information concerning the race.”

What more information do Republican voters in Georgia need about Ralph Reed? He represents the Christian Nationalist wing of their party, and yet he was paid millions of dollars from gambling interests tied to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff who hired Reed to convince his Christian followers to lobby their political leaders against a gambling enterprise that would have harmed the business of the people who paid him millions.

New Doubts About Florida Win in 2000: Jeb’s Own Poll Showed Gore Ahead

Trish

A new book will likely show Florida was no redder in 2000 than Ohio was in 2004.

The new poll showed that Gore had pulled ahead by at least one percentage point. Even among white males the Texas governor was struggling.

Some dramatic new details about Jeb Bush and the final weeks of the 2000 presidential election in Florida are coming out in the new book One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century, by Tom Hamburger and (former St. Petersburg Times reporter) Peter Wallsten.

It seems Gov. Bush was a lot more worried about Al Gore’s Florida prospects than the Bush-Cheney campaign team in Austin, Texas, and became mighty frustrated that Karl Rove wasn’t listening to him seriously enough and taking his advice on Florida strategy.

“Something’s got to give,” Jeb Bush said at one tense meeting in the governor’s mansion with Bush-Cheney strategists, including Ken Mehlman and Chris Henick. “You guys are not listening.”

From the book: “In the final week, Jeb took matters into his own hands, ordering the state Republican Party to commission its own poll using his campaign’s Washington firm, Public Opinion Strategies. The new poll showed that Gore had pulled ahead by at least one percentage point. Even among white males the Texas governor was struggling. Sally Bradshaw, Jeb’s chief of staff, took the results to her boss.

“What do we do with these numbers?” she asked.

Jeb directed Bradshaw to call Austin immediately. But instead of moving swiftly to deal with the apparent erosion of support, Rove and his brain trust were furious that Jeb and his team had done a poll on their own. Campaign officials believed their numbers were better. The conversation grew so tense that at one point Bradshaw called Rove a jerk.

On Election Day, when the Florida problem finally became clear to Rove, Bradshaw advised him to pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into phone calls, especially in the conservative Panhandle, to mobilize voters.

Katherine Harris is Off the Chain: Helps Herself to Campaign Funds for Home Renovations

Trish

We have to find something else for Katherine Harris to do after she loses her Florida senate race because she’s just too entertaining. Right when you think she can’t top herself, the woman pulls out another shocker.

This time…well here, see for yourself.

“I have never heard of a candidate taking money out of a campaign coffer like it’s an ATM”

Katherine Harris gave her campaign more than $3 million to run for Senate, but then took back $100,000 to finish renovating her “historic home in Washington, D.C.” her campaign revealed…

One of Harris’ many former campaign managers summed the situation up best.

“I have never heard of a candidate taking money out of a campaign coffer like it’s an ATM. It absolutely boggles my mind,” said former Harris campaign manager Jim Dornan. “This is a woman who has completely lost touch with reality. You don’t take your campaign contributors’ money, whether it’s yours or not, and spend it to renovate your house. This is absolutely insane.”

Sen. Bill Nelson’s folks were equally astounded by Harris’ bold and unerring ability to do the wrong thing.

Nelson’s campaign manager Chad Clanton was almost speechless when he heard about the report.

“I don’t know what to say. It’s just another bizarre chapter in the Katherine Harris campaign,” he said.

And remember the hooey a few months ago about putting all her worldly wealth — um, $10 million, not $3 million — into the campaign?

Harris told John Donvan, of “Nightline,” that she intends to sell all her personal assets to fund the race. “My husband has real estate, but I will not own anything.”

Since making a pledge last week to put $10 million of her money into the race, Harris has made the phrase “putting everything on the line” a new campaign theme.

“I am willing to take this widow’s mite, this pearl of great price, and put everything on the line,” she told Donvan. “No matter how much you have, are you willing to take what you have and sell it all for a great price?”

On second thought, maybe not…

Harris announced on national television that she would spend $10 million of her own money on the race, but Friday’s press release referred to the money as a loan.

The Curse of Joe’s Dead Intern is Upon Katherine Harris

Trish

Miami Herald:

This wasn’t any old Joe.

It was Joe Scarborough, host of the prime-time MSNBC show Scarborough Country and a former Pensacola Republican congressman who was courted last summer by national Republicans to run against Harris. But before he could announce he wouldn’t, Harris called major donors and suggested Scarborough would have to answer questions about the strange death of a former staff member in 2001, according to two former high-level Harris staff members, a GOP donor and Scarborough.

”This [story] encapsulates everything wrong with her as a candidate,” Dornan said

”That was the first clue that something wasn’t right with Katherine Harris,” Scarborough told The Miami Herald in a recent interview, noting that a medical examiner found his staff member’s death was natural and not the result of foul play.

…Since then, Harris has been dogged by her connections to an indicted defense contractor and by heavy staff turnover from last fall through Thursday, when five top aides announced their departure a day after her spokesman quit. Her campaign had issued a news release Wednesday suggesting only spokesman Chris Ingram was leaving.

In explaining his decision to leave, campaign manager Glenn Hodas echoed predecessors Jamie Miller and Jim Dornan. Miller had said the campaign wasn’t good for Harris’ health. Dornan said Harris had been erratic, temperamental and sometimes unfair — and tried to blame him for the ”Joe’s dead intern” story when a furious Scarborough called, demanding to know what happened.

”This [story] encapsulates everything wrong with her as a candidate,” Dornan said. ‘She reacted without thinking. She made stuff up. She called people she had no business calling. And when confronted with the insanity of her — I use this term lightly — `strategy,’ she denied it and tried to blame someone else.”

Another One Bites the Katherine Harris Dust

Trish

Yet another Katherine Harris spokesperson has torn his hair out and high-tailed it.

Harris has had three campaign managers since getting into the race last summer, and has seen turnover in every key position

Rep. Katherine Harris’ communications director for her Senate campaign is resigning, the latest in staff turnover that has plagued the Republican’s effort to unseat Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.

“I wish Katherine Harris the best, and it’s been a pleasure working for her,” campaign spokesman Chris Ingram said Wednesday. “It’s been an experience.”

“It’s been an experience.” I like that. Sounds kind of like, “Have a day,” or “It’s been real.” Go Chris.

You might recognize poor Chris as the one who’s had to defend Harris when she claimed Democratic House members from Florida were winking and nodding at her that wanted her to beat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson this fall. Chris said it was all true, even though Harris could produce no specifics. He also backed her up when she tossed out a bogus line about Nelson accepting bribe money in response to a question about her own transgressions.

Meanwhile another Harris alum, Jim Dornan, keeps saying she’s nutso. The question is, how many more will make the inevitable dash for the parking lot with Chris?

Ingram, part of a new team put together after Harris’ core campaign staff quit this spring, didn’t talk further about the decision�

The same release added, “Contrary to earlier reports, Harris has only accepted the resignation of Chris Ingram,” an apparent attempt to downplay reports that other key staff members, including campaign manager Glenn Hodas and field director Pat Thomas, will also resign.

Hodas and Thomas didn’t immediately return calls.

Harris has had three campaign managers since getting into the race last summer, and has seen turnover in every key position.

NC11: GOP’s Taylor Trailer Dem Challenger

Jon Ponder

Interesting poll from the ancestral congressional district of our branch of the Ponder family, NC11, which includes Hendersonville and all points west:

Public Policy Polling (PDF). 7/10. Likely voters. MoE 3.7% (May results)

Without leaners

Taylor (R) 43 (42)
Shuler (D) 47 (46)

With leaners

Taylor (R) 45
Shuler (D) 51

After the recent fundraising numbers for the quarter, the candidates’ respective Cash on Hand numbers will reportedly look like this:

Taylor $100K
Shuler $550K

Looks incredible, until you remember that Charles Taylor is a gazillionaire and will be able to write himself as a large a check as necessary to trash the f’ out of Shuler.

Still, this race is living up to its top billing as one of the Republicans’ most endangered seats.