NY-20: The Last Days Of Tedisco

I don't know much about Scott Murphy, the Democratic candidate in NY-20, other than that he said he'd join the Blue Dogs and that's enough for me to know that I won't endorse him or give him a dime. We have enough Democrats in the House, and the major problem over there is the power and influence of that corporate whore caucus, so I have little interest in seeing it grow.

At the same time, I understand that Republicans failing to pick up a seat in a heavily Republican district would be kind of an embarrassment and may signal the end of Michael Steele's tenuous hold on the RNC. So it's with a sense of bemusement that I see Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate, freaking out because he's sinking in the polls (by the way, James L. wins the award for title of the year for "Panic! At Tedisco")

Reacting to his Democratic opponent's surge in the polls, Tedisco said Thursday he's taking control of the content of his advertising from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
"I'm taking over and we're going to run a campaign that relates to the people of the 20th Congressional District," he said.

The first depiction of "the real Jim" will air in a new television commercial set to debut this evening, he said. [...]

Tedisco blamed his drop in the poll on an advertising strategy that has focussed heavily on attacking his Democratic opponent.

Tedisco said going forward the content of his ads will be more positive with him making the decisions instead of the national party.

Even more amusingly, the NRCC, the Republican campaign arm in the House, will run their ads anyway despite Tedisco's demands for them to stop. Hilarious.

The rub here is that the NRCC ads may be hurting Tedisco. A recent Siena College poll found that Tedisco commercials made 12% more likely to back him, and 28% less likely.

While it’s unclear whether the ads that are backfiring are the Tedesco campaign’s or the NRCC’s, it’s very possible that the national GOP’s spots are doing the damage, Siena pollster Steven Greenberg tells me. “It is certainly plausible that the NRCC commercials are the ones that are turning off voters,” Greenberg says.

This was Kirsten Gillibrand's seat that she vacated to go to the Senate, and now she has an ad up for Murphy. By contrast, there's this free-for-all on the right.

I really don't care who wins, but it has a certain train-wreck quality to it.

Why "I Won"

Republicans STILL think the fundamentals of our economy are strong.



The way I see it, we really have two separate countries having two separate conversations in America. The difference is that one is based on facts and the other on fantasy. And the fantasy crew is shrinking with each passing day. It's the "recession of lunacy" theory of politics.

The House And Senate Picture

Just wanted to update the look of things in the Congress (outside of California this time):

• MN-Sen: Al Franken has surged ahead of Norm Coleman and looks like he's going to take this one in Minnesota. The Coleman campaign tried to drive up Franken's negatives over the summer by scrutinizing some ticky-tack tax statements, all of which had very simple explanations. This turned out to be a fatal mistake considering all of the skeletons in Coleman's financial closet, especially all the gifts he receives from lobbyists and contributors - his rent, his utility bills, and even his CLOTHING. This led to an excruciating press conference where his spokesman was resigned to repeating "The Senator has reported ever gift he's ever received" over and over. Wow, what a flameout.

• AK-Sen: In Alaska, however, I'm not nearly as sure of this one as I was. The prosecution has been so incompetent in the Ted Stevens corruption case that the judge tossed out key evidence and the defense will again call for a mistrial. If Stevens is exonerated, whether through mistrial or acquittal, there will be a significant rebound in his poll numbers, and he's already nearly even right now. This ad from the DSCC is good, but I'm not sure it'll be good enough. I think Mark Begich is in some trouble.

• NC-Sen: VoteVets is back. They've revived their wildly successful body armor ad and set their sights on Elizabeth Dole. It's just as powerful as it was in 2006.



Liddy Dole is toast.

• ME-Sen: Interesting happenings in Maine. Susan Collins was popular enough for national Democrats to kind of leave the Tom Allen challenge for dead, but the twists and turns in the economic picture makes any Republican toxic. Sensing the changing winds, Planned Parenthood, which has endorsed Collins in the past as a bone to throw to a Republican for a couple good votes, turned around and endorsed Allen. Recent polls are tightening and there really could be a late rush.

• GA-Sen: I knew the polls were very close in Georgia, and nobody deserves to lose more than Saxby Chambliss, who unleashed that shameful ad in 2002 relating Max Cleland to Saxby Chambliss, but I didn't know a lot about Jim Martin the person. Turns out he's a progressive in Georgia:

With little money, but with a lot of gumption, energy, and a truly progressive message, Jim Martin has closed to a dead-heat in this race. He is pro-choice, pro-gay rights (supports ENDA and LLEA), a consumer advocate, committed civil libertarian (with ACLU awards for his efforts), opposes FISA telecom immunity, opposes the war in Iraq, is a strong environmentalist, a strong labor guy, a strong supporter of affirmative action, and so on. He is also a Vietnam vet, so perhaps he's destined for a Chambliss Special, but we can get his back. This is the kind of Democrat we can't even get in some Blue states, yet running on an explicitly progressive agenda, has a chance to represent the great state of Georgia while ousting the odious Chambliss at the same time.

If he can pull it off, it would be a clarion call that progressives can win anywhere and Democrats shouldn't be afraid of standing up for their policies.

• House of Reps.: I can't keep up with all the developments in the House - that's what Howie Klein is for. But what is clear is that the Republicans have a ton of seats to defend, more every day, and not a lot of cash to do it. That's why their campaign arm, the NRCC, is taking out an $8 million dollar loan to compete. Wait, House Republicans can GET A LOAN? In this credit market?

What A Poor Excuse For A Political Party

Conservatism isn't going anywhere, and I assume the Republican Party will one day get their sea legs again. But the incompetence and mismanagement that has contributed to the country turning violently against the Bush Administration has infected their campaign operations, too. Two stories highlight this.

The GOP has been boasting for months about their dark horse candidate taking on John Kerry in Massachusetts. That they're targeting the John Kerry seat in one of the nation's bluest states instead of finding half-decent candidates to run in friendlier states like West Virginia, South Dakota or Iowa is problem number one. Problem number two is that Jim Ogonowski, their white knight, savior of the party, young gun with the stuff to slay the dragon, couldn't get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

When the deadline for certification passed yesterday, Jim Ogonowski, the Republican leadership's choice to challenge US Senator John F. Kerry, was 82 signatures short of qualifying for the GOP primary ballot, according to the state's central voter registry.

But Ogonowski's campaign aides contend there are enough certified signatures at various town offices around the state not filed yet on the computerized registry to put him across the 10,000 threshold [...]

Even if Ogonowski does get the 82 signatures he needs, his fight probably is not over.

Election specialists say he will not have the needed cushion of extra signatures to insulate himself from legal challenges.

Ogonowski's only primary opponent, Jeff Beatty, is expected to challenge the validity of his signatures before the ballot law commission.

How weak is that? This is literally one of the only Senate challengers that the national GOP is talking up and he can't find enough signatures? George Bush got over a million votes in Massachusetts in 2004. You can't find 10,000 of them?

The next bit is from a McCain campaign email sent today:



For a donation, you can get a personalized McCain banner for yourself. And the person they use as the example to highlight it is Frank Donatelli. Who's a big-time corporate lobbyist.

McCain Tapped Lobbyist Frank Donatelli To Run His Efforts At RNC. McCain tapped lobbyist Frank Donatelli to become deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee. The New York Times reported Donatelli will “act as the main liaison between the committee and the McCain campaign.” Donatelli is a lobbyist at McGuire Woods and previously served as a lobbyist at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. His clients have included AT&T, Exxon Mobil, PhRMA, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Verizon. [New York Times, 3/7/08; McGuire Woods, accessed 5/12/08; Senate Lobbying Disclosure Records, accessed 5/12/08]

Donatelli Enlisted to Improve Ethiopia’s Relationship with U.S. In a September 2005 letter sent to Ambassador Kassahun Ayele of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Donatelli set forth his obligations under their contract, namely to provide “government relations and related public communications services to assist and work with Ethiopia in Washington, D.C., in promoting and strengthening Ethiopia’s relations with the United States and, in general, providing such other appropriate advice and assistance as will serve to achieve these purposes.” [FARA Database, accessed 3/18/08, Letter signed by Frank Donatelli on 9/6/05]

• Human Rights Watch: “The Ethiopian Government’s Human Rights Record Remains Poor.” According to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2008, “The Ethiopian government’s human rights record remains poor, both within the country and in neighboring Somalia, where since early 2007 thousands of Ethiopian troops have been fighting an insurgency alongside the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. Government forces committed serious human rights violations, including rape, torture, and village burnings, during a campaign against Ethiopian rebels in eastern Somalia Region (Region 5). Abuses took place in other parts of the country, notably in Oromia State where local officials carried out mass arrests, extra-judicial killings and economic sanctions.” [Human Rights Watch, accessed 5/12/08, emphasis added]

Really, it's like the entire campaign arm of the party all withered up and died. They couldn't find any random person to pose for a picture except a lobbyist?

The old adage used to be that Republicans didn't know how to govern, but they knew how to win elections. Maybe that's still true, but the stories here, repeated seemingly dozens of times ALREADY in this cycle, and more in 2006, aren't promising. There's a reason Republican incumbents are already running ads, leaving the Congress in droves, and generally frightened out of their minds about their prospects this fall. It's the fundamentals, but it's also the campaign operations. They can't qualify candidates for the ballot, they can't help but step around in scandal, their accountants are literally stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from campaign accounts, and they generally can't manage their way out of a paper bag. Democrats have closed the gap on the traditional operations where they were always behind - microtargeting, low-dollar fundraising, etc. But on the level of simple management, it's like there's some kind of Bush disease and all the operatives have caught it. I guess when your governing philosophy demands no oversight and lax regulation, it's no wonder that the same principle applies in these campaigns. The inmates are truly running the asylum.

The Good Guys Get Another Won

Democrats have picked up a seat in deep-red Louisiana.

Democrat Don Cazayoux defeated Republican "Woody" Jenkins in the race for U.S. Representative from the 6th Congressional District.

In the 1st District, Republican Steve Scalise easily defeated Democrat Gilda Reed.

So, this was a seat that went 59% for Bush in 2004, where the opponent and Republicans went after Don Cazayoux by trying to link him to "liberal extremists" like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. That dog clearly does not hunt.

Apparently, winning a Republican-held seat means that "this should come as a warning shot to Democrats," according to the NRCC. Yeah, keep trying with that one.

If the Mississippi seat comes through in a couple weeks, we will have virtually swept the contested seats in special elections leading up to November. Now, Cazayoux isn't going to be everybody's favorite Democrat on a lot of issues, but the optics are absolutely terrible for Republicans. They may end up with less than 200 seats in the 110th Congress.

What an embarrassment George Bush and the Republicans anymore. And oh by the way, they can't win seats by scaring people anymore, so worrying about "the Republican attsack machine" is officially nonsense.

Freedom's Whoops

Yesterday I mentioned that Freedom's Watch was dumping ads into the LA-06 race to try and save a Republican seat. Turns out that they broke election law by coordinating the ads with the NRCC.

Democratic Party officials said they will file a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission alleging that a conservative political group has illegally coordinated its advertising with a Republican Party campaign committee in advance of a May 3 special election in Louisiana.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the fundraising and campaign arm for House Democrats, alleges that the script for a television ad purchased by Freedom's Watch, an independent conservative political committee, can be traced to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The NRCC stopped running ads in the race yesterday. Freedom's Watch picked up the same day and the ad was on the same topic. And the Word document on which the ad was written has metadata tracing it to the NRCC. But Freedom's Watch says it's all a Three's Company-like misunderstanding:

Patrick McCarthy, the media consultant who wrote the (Don) Cazayoux ad for Freedom's Watch, said an innocent mistake caused the document to appear as if it came from the NRCC. McCarthy, who did consulting work for the NRCC for six years, said he pulled up an old ad template from his NRCC days and wrote the Louisiana ad script over it, then saved the file and sent it to the TV stations.

"It's absurd on the face of it. They're grasping at straws if they're saying recycling an old Word document is illegal," said McCarthy, who now works at Designated Market Media.

"See, I was in the other room and I heard Jack and Janet saying 'Push it in, pull it out,' and I thought they were having sex and not fixing the plumbing!"

Please, does anybody think that the cash-poor NRCC isn't begging for outside groups to get involved in these special elections and feeding them just the sort of information they should use?

The problem for Freedom's Watch and all the rest is that they don't have unlimited bank accounts, and there are going to be simply too many races to cover in November. As for now, we can only laugh.

Prospects in the House

The other day I wrote about possibilities for Democratic gains in the US Senate. Today it's time to look at the House. Obviously it'd be a stretch to plot out all 435 races as opposed to the more manageable 35 in the Senate. But there are some trends that look extremely encouraging for Democrats.

The first place to look is at the fact that over 30 House Republicans have retired this cycle, which is over 15% of their entire delegation. This is not the stuff of coincidences; it's borne out of a belief by these Republicans that they have no shot at regaining the majority and would rather not stick around in the minority. Thus, many of the seats that the Republicans are "targeting" this year happen to be open seats abandoned by Republicans. As a case in point, brownsox takes a look at the 10 latest members of the NRCC's "Regain Our Majority Program."

ROMP 2008 has recently released the third instalment in its list of candidates favored for assistance, the first update to their list in calendar year 2008. I found it rather instructive as to GOP priorities, and I've posted it below:

Rep. Michelle Bachmann, MN-06
Rep. Vito Fossella, NY-13
Rep. Sam Graves, MO-06
Rep. Ric Keller, FL-08
Anne Northup, KY-03
Erik Paulsen, MN-03
Rep. Bill Sali, ID-01
Rep. Jean Schmidt, OH-02
Rep. Tim Walberg, MI-07
Darren White, NM-01

Notice that this ROMP program, ostensibly focused on regaining the Republican majority, seems disproportionately tilted towards protecting incumbent Republican Reps. In fact, out of these 10 districts where the elephants hope to ROMP, exactly one is currently held by a Democrat, John Yarmuth of Kentucky's 3rd District.

I find this to be a novel and fascinating method of Regaining Their Majority; by not targeting Democratic-held seats. I wish them the best of luck with this; I'm sure it's going to work out just splendidly. Keep avoiding the Dem-held seats, and they oughta have that ol' majority back in no time flat.

I noticed something similiar in this Wall Street Journal article hyping 17 Iraq war vets running as Republicans. Only the large majority of them are running in Republican open seats, or challenging incumbents in primaries! This is not the path to winning a majority.

By contrast, Democrats are targeting those Republican open seats as well as races where they came up just short in 2006, like Larry Kissell in NC-08 and Darcy Burner in WA-08. The DCCC has listed 59 seats they're taking a look at this cycle, and there are probably several others in addition to that. Add to this that the D-Trip has a huge financial advantage, and they'll be able to spread the field in a big way. Overall, the prospects are pretty bright for gaining additional seats. In fact, some of that might happen right away, in special elections in LA-06 and MS-01. That's right, in Republican-leaning seats in Louisiana and Mississippi, Democrats are dead even in polling. If we take either of them, it could be a big year.

Actual Audacity of Hope

Now that the Spitzer nonsense is over (although, in a very important sense, it isn't, more on that below), I have to feel heartened by the swearing in of a blind man in one of the most populous states in the nation to become the governor. From everything I've heard from people in New York, he's a good man and very progressive, who will use a different governing style to achieve similar goals as Spitzer, and who will command respect and admiration for succeeding through his own struggles. Here's a show of support from the New York net/grassroots:

The Progressive community of New York State - activists, bloggers, fundraisers, organizers, ordinary men and women from all walks of life - welcomes our new Governor, David Paterson, as he assumes our state's highest office. We recognize that Governor Paterson is the first person of color to hold the office of Governor of New York and the first legally blind person to ever hold the office of Governor in the history of the United States. We are inspired by his life achievements to date, by his impressive and daring record of reform, and we are supremely confident that he is ready to lead our state.

We understand that Governor Paterson will face challenges and opportunities as he takes office. Our new Governor's long history of working with all stake holders will prove a valuable asset in delivering for New Yorkers. We believe that both houses of our legislature require drastic changes in their operations. Transparency and open government still elude our state, and too often, our citizens are shut out of decisions that affect our lives. The voices of too many New Yorkers still do not get heard in our state Capitol. These things must change. Governor Paterson's distinguished record of reform gives us great confidence that he will be an agent of this change.

The Progressive community of New York State is ready to support our new Governor in bringing about the change New York needs; the change that New Yorkers voted for in the 2006 election. After the trials of the recent past, we believe that New Yorkers want Governor Paterson to step forward with a bold plan for change that returns our government to our people and creates a better future for all New Yorkers. We look forward to working with our new Governor as we build a lasting Progressive majority, in Albany and around the state, conversation by conversation, vote by vote, district by district, until New York is again a beacon of Progressive governance bright enough to illuminate our entire nation.

As for the former Governor, his downfall was his alone and he must own it, but the way in which it was revealed does raise concerns about the extension of the national surveillance state into all walks of life.

These events offer a window into a much larger phenomenon, the National Surveillance State, in which the state increasingly identifies and solves problems of governance through the collection, collation and analysis of information. Governments have always used information, but today's techniques are made more powerful and more prevalent by lower costs of computing and data storage. This story also shows the important role played by private businesses in constructing and implementing the National Surveillance State. The Times report suggests that the banks in question volunteered more than the letter of the law might have required, because the transactions in questions were wire payments rather than coin or currency. The banks erred on the side of caution, seeking to assist the state in its efforts. Moreover, they already had their own pattern recognition systems designed to identify suspicious behavior. (Many people are probably familiar with the programs devised by credit card companies which analyze consumer transactions to calculate the probabilities that a card is being used fraudulently.)

If computing power increases enough, there is no reason why governments might not lower the threshold for reporting of suspicious transactions, or, indeed, require that every transaction over 100 dollars be reported. All this information could later be sifted through by data mining programs, in order to spot patterns of suspicious activity. The only limit is the technology and the manpower that law enforcement is willing to devote to analysis of financial transactions.

Read the whole thing, you'll be nervous by the end. The real problem I have with it is prosecutorial discretion. The NRCC, the campaign arm of House Republicans, had a treasurer who was a thief - he stole over a million dollars over the course of several years and deposited it into personal accounts. Eve Fairbanks gets this right.

...how is it possible that a ten-thousand-dollar Spitzer transfer to a prostitution ring tripped up authorities while the NRCC's treasurer stole one million dollars and nobody noticed anything?

It depends on who's doing the watching, I guess.

P.S. I don't understand why anyone running for Congress would react to this desperation move from the NRCC and give back contributions from Spitzer. If anything, I'd throw it right back in their face and ask every Republican candidate to give back money raised by the NRCC, who has a felon running their books.

IL-14: Foster's!

It's Australian for "the Republicans are in deep shit," mate!

U.S. House - District 14 - Special General

Illinois - 564 of 568 Precincts Reporting - 99%

Name Party Votes Vote %
Foster, Bill Dem 50,947 52%
Oberweis, Jim GOP 46,125 48%

Put it this way: if I told you in the middle of 2006 that Democrats would control Tom DeLay AND Dennis Hastert's seats in Congress, would you believe me?

Now, Foster needs to be watched. He ran on ending the war in Iraq and stopping retroactive immunity for the telecoms. He needs to be held to those campaign promises. But clearly, this is a big victory for a new Democratic coalition that can win in formerly red districts and red states, that can capitalize on this uniquely horrible President and the trashed Republican brand. The NRCC spent a MILLION dollars, one out of every three dollars they have, to save this seat, and they came up short. Foster's win is a road map for how to win in these districts; run strong against the war and George Bush's lawbreaking, and offer a real contrast.

This is also a big victory for Barack Obama, who cut an ad that ran all week to help Foster. John McCain came in here to help Jim Oberweis and it didn't matter. Obama's reputation as a map changer is very enhanced by this. In a way it's bigger than his win in Wyoming today.

There are now DOZENS more seats in play than anybody thinks. This is going to throw the NRCC into total disarray. Tom Cole, their chairman, might have to resign. Money may dry up even more. This is awesome.

IL-14: More Than A Tossup

Stu Rothenberg finally catches up and notices that Bill Foster is very well-positioned to smoke perennial candidate Jim Oberweis in IL-14 this weekend and pick up a seat for the Democrats in the House. This comes on the heels of a public poll showing Foster up by 7 points.

This seat would really break the backs of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has enough problems:

According to The New York Times this morning, it all began to unravel when Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), a CPA, asked to meet with the audit firm that was supposedly checking the NRCC's books, an idea that apparently no one had had for several years. Christopher Ward, then the NRCC's treasurer, finally relented, but then chickened out 30 minutes before and fessed up that there actually hadn't been any audits.

It was ultimately discovered that Ward had been faking the audits since 2003. The Politico, which laid out this general outline of events early last month, reported that Ward had forged everything, including the letterhead. So when it came time to actually talk to the people who'd supposedly written those fake reports, it all unraveled.

The FBI is currently investigating, and it's not clear yet why Ward was so keen to hide the real numbers. But as the Times reports this morning, the signs are not good. NRCC internal audits since Ward's discovery show that "hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen." And it gets worse: there are apparently indications that "the financial irregularities might extend beyond the national committee to the campaign funds of individual Republican lawmakers who also worked with Mr. Ward, a longtime party operative."

We're going to take this seat, and the NRCC is going to be so tied up with legal issues that they'll be rendered virtually powerless in the fall. If you can help Bill Foster in any way please do so. His website is here.

16 Percent

That's how much of their cash on hand that the National Republican Campaign Committee has spent on the OH-05 special election.

That's already a victory. And tomorrow, Robin Weirauch might get a real one.

(I suppose that the Republicans could blame this on a bad candidate, and claim that the recent Massachusetts special election that put Nikki Tsongas in the House was close, too, but the difference is that didn't cost the DCCC 16% of their cash on hand. In fact, I don't think it cost them a dime.)