Quick Hits, 2006 Election Edition

Here's a roundup of some interesting (to me) campaign stories:

• The Foley Effect is most deeply felt in PA-10, a red district where the Democrat, Naval Reserve Officer Chris Carney, is already leading the incumbent, accused mistress-strangler (not making that up) Don Sherwood. It appears Sherwood is so jittery about the whole "moral values" collapse that he felt he had to publicly acknowledge his extra-marital affair in a campaign ad. I personally don't think it matters that Sherwood had an affair, though assault and battery is probably not a value you'd want in your Representative. And Chris Carney is a solid candidate with a great bio and good ideas.

• The happiest Republican in the post-Foley universe has to be George Allen, whose campaign just got the national spotlight off their back after continuing allegations had dogged him. Interestingly, and like Sherwood, Allen also gave a version of the Checkers speech the other day, buying airtime on every major network in Virginia for a two-minute speech acknowledging mistakes and seeking to move forward. I watched it, and though his wife is more robotic than Laura Bush I imagine it was pretty effective in a "raising the level of debate" kind of way. Jim Webb is going to need to use the decent sums of money he's raising.

• Electoral-Vote.com, which I watched religiously in 2004, is back. They predict a 50-50 Senate right now, and a 217-217 tie in the House. That's got to be some sort of record, but I think the momentum has shifted more than they'd like to admit.

• Good article from Congressional
Quarterly on the state of the CA-11 race between Richard Pombo and Jerry McNerney. The NRCC has ALREADY spent a half a million dollars on this supposedly "safe" race. They're quaking in their boots.