Content by dingo
Posted at 8:01pm on May 21, 2008 Tom Cole gets slapped down and other congressional updates
By dingo
@ Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) "will remain the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, but House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) demonstrated this morning at a Conference meeting who's really in charge by announcing a series of changes designed to shake up the campaign arm in the wake of three special election losses in the span of two months (and a financial scandal). Key changes: 1) The NRCC will now wade into competitive GOP primaries when appropriate; 2) There will be an "audit" of the three special election losses conducted by two as-yet-unnamed Republican lawmakers, designed to figure out what went wrong and how to avoid repeating those mistakes in the future; 3) The party will step up its efforts to establish special fundraising committees for seats with contested GOP primaries occurring late in the season; 4) Some personnel changes will be made. (On a personal not, thank god, fellas – you took away Rep. Cole’s shovel and stopped him from expanding the hole the NRCC is in!)
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Posted at 8:18pm on May 1, 2008 May Congressional Updates - not so good
By dingo
LA 6 - A day after Gov. Jindal made the rounds and appeared at a rally with Republican Jenkins, the newspaper Roll Call released a Survey USA poll that stated that State Rep. Don Cazayoux (D) was the choice of 50% of 501 LVs, while ex-state Rep. Woody Jenkins (R) claimed just 41% (with a 4.5 margin of error). In contrast, Jenkins has claimed that his own internals now show him up by about three points. However, when choosing between an unreleased internal, and a public Survey USA poll, one would have to go with the Survey USA poll. Thus, this race is shaping up to be a big disappointment for the GOP, considering that the NRCC has dropped more than $325K here, with Freedom’s Watch spending another $500K, the Club For Growth dishing out more than $110K, and Republican business owner Lane Grigsby spending more than $100K. (The Dems have spent at least $600,000.) The only good news - state Rep. Michael Jackson (D), who is black, says he is considering running in the fall as an independent, and black voters make up 30% in the district. The special election is this Saturday.
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Posted at 10:23pm on Apr. 2, 2008 Shake up in NJ
By dingo
Rep. Robert Andrews is shaking up NJ politics. The nine term Democratic Congressman announced today that he is challenging Senator Frank Launtenberg in the June 3rd Primary. Lautenberg is seeking a 5th term, and if he wins it, he will reach age 90 in the US Senate.
This is Andrews statement:
"2008 is a year of great change in American politics. Millions of new voters have chosen to enter the political process as a means to make our country better.
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Posted at 4:55pm on Mar. 30, 2008 Is McCain doomed by the third term curse?
By dingo
The conventional wisdom is that it is very hard for a President’s Party to win a third straight term in the White House because American voters, in the modern era, tend to view the Presidency as the most important office in our nation, and thus they tend to hold its incumbents responsible for virtually everything that goes wrong, our right, in our nation and in the world. Since there are always plenty of things that can go wrong, this presents a problem for an incumbent Party when that Party seeks a third straight term in the Presidency (and, since 1952, without the benefit of the incumbent running for re-election).
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Posted at 5:10pm on Mar. 1, 2008 Congressional Updates
By dingo
Promoted by Jeff
Some Congressional updates:
* According to Bob Novak, despite recent favorable polls, Illinois Democratic leaders fear that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's IL-14 district is too Republican for a Democrat to win in next Saturday's special election. Democrat Foster has been doing well in polling, perhaps because he is outspending Republican Oberweis nearly two to one. This is an embarrassing fact for Oberweis, who like Foster is a millionaire.
* In MD-01, it looks like ousted Rep. Wayne Gilchrist will be a bad sport and endorse the Democratic nominee, Queen Anne’s County State’s Attorney Frank Kratovil, for his seat. Gilchrest was defeated by conservative State Senator Andy Harris (R) in a February primary. Gilchrest's chief of staff and campaign manager Tony Caligiuri complained the NRCC and the GOP in general were not helpful. This, even though the NRCC has always had to provide Gilchrist with his money – since he is a poor fundraiser – and this time around Gilchrist was endorsed by President Bush and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, among others. This kind of stuff really ticks me off, since I am always ready to back a liberal Republican who has legitimately won in the interests of party unity.
More below the fold.
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Posted at 3:51pm on Feb. 3, 2008 predicting hillary's attacks on the gop nominee
By dingo
I have to admit I am getting a little tired of the same old, everyday columns attempting to evaluate and rank the electability of our two remaining GOP candidates, John McCain and Mitt Romney. (Sorry Huckabee and Paul fans, but your guys are going nowhere fast.) Both of these gentlemen could, and presumably would, run competitive general races against the likely Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton (sorry Barack, but she is just too nasty for you). But, at the same time, Hillary would –certainly – be running a very different kind of race against each of them, although the centerpiece of each race will still be nasty personal and ideological attacks. (It has long been my contention that Hillary can only win by dragging down her opponent to her level. She just doesn’t have enough positives on her own to get herself elected otherwise.) Each of these Republicans would have very different weaknesses that the Clinton War Machine would seek to exploit. So, in this column, I will attempt to see if I can’t predict how Clinton will tackle her Republican opponent for the Presidency. (A similar column on how the GOP nominee can tackle Hillary will have to wait until the primaries are over.)
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Posted at 12:18am on Jan. 23, 2008 Open Letter to Sen. John Ensign
By dingo
The Honorable John Ensign:
Senator Ensign, I know that things are looking very bad for the Senate GOP. Although the current Senate split is only 51 Democrats/49 Republicans (counting the independents as Democrats) the coming 2008 elections are heavily tilted against the GOP, with 23 Republican seats up versus only 12 Democratic seats (because of the death of Sen. Thomas and the resignation of Sen. Lott). The Democrats also have a huge fundraising edge, and seem to be running with momentum, based on their sweep in 2006. And they have the open seat advantage, as there are NO Democrats retiring, versus five GOP open seats (Domenici, Craig, Hagel, Allard, and Warner) plus two semi-open seats (appointed Senators Barasso and Wicker). Plus, incumbents in trouble include GOP Sens. Sunnunu, Coleman, Collins, and Smith, with only one Democrat in that category, Mary Landrieu of LA.
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Posted at 10:12pm on Jan. 17, 2008 (Relatively) good news in the House for the GOP
By dingo
Things have been trending up (marginally) for the House GOP. Among the positive events occurring recently:
@ Rep. Doolittle, scandal plagued, finally retired. The seat should now be safely Republican.
@ Jennifer Horn jumped into NH 2. Horn is a well-known radio host, with a credible chance of winning (although she is still the underdog). Considering that the House GOP looked like it wasn't go to even play in this district, this is really good.
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Posted at 7:09pm on Jan. 7, 2008 poll panicking is bad
By dingo
The constant fretting by the right wing blogosphere over current polls, either primary or general election, has gotten me to the point of exasperation. According to the new conventional wisdom, the all poll powerful Barack Obama will win the Democratic nomination by ten points, and then sweep to a landslide general election victory over the hapless Republican. But before the Obama people start measuring the White House drapes (I know, old joke), I would like to reiterate an earlier blog piece of mine cautioning against anyone reading too much, too soon, into today’s polls. While a candidate’s current poll position is always important, people, it is never the end of the electability story.