Occasional OpenLeft blogger and Kentucky native Dave Meyer called me with an update on Kentucky that suggests Lunsford is doing much better than he appears. McConnell's base is Louisville in Jefferson County, since that's where he's from. He always does substantially better than other Republicans in that area. His weaker areas are the west and the north of the state in Boone County, where Bunning in 2004 was strong. Look to Boone County, which hasn't reported yet, to see where the race hangs. For a reference point, Boone is where the creationist museum is located.
Based on all the polling, voter registration, and absentee/early voting data I am seeing, and on conversations with key operatives in the field and other analysts following Senate races, I believe Kentucky and Georgia should be moving up on everyone's radar screens.
Here's the ad running against Jim Slattery, the Democratic Senate candidate in Kansas. It's a vicious attack against Slattery from Pat Roberts, who promised to run an entirely positive campaign on the issues.
That Roberts is going negative this early, and lying about his intended campaign strategy, is evidence that he is taking this challenge very seriously. If I were Roberts, I'd do the same thing, and Slattery risks being defined as a Washington lobbyist. I'm intrigued by Slattery; he's not the most progressive guy in the world, but he stood up to Reagan, Colin Powell, and the neoconservatives in the 1980s on Nicaragua.
In Kentucky, Democrat Bruce Lunsford is beginning to self-fund against Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell is the smartest Republican operative in the Senate, so getting rid of him would go a long way toward destroying Republican cohesion. He has $9M in the bank, having raised a total of $15M so far this cycle, good rewards for a lifetime of legislating on behalf of big oil, big telecom, defense contractors, etc.
Lunsford will put huge sums of money into his race, which reduces the need to put progressive money into Kentucky. The Supreme Court, by striking down special privileges for opponents of self-funders for House candidates, might have also given Lunsford an additional boon to his race.
Kentucky is going to be a more localized race, since Obama doesn't play well there. Kansas is a place where Obama has more traction, so Slattery could hitch his wagon a bit more to the leader of the Democratic party. Both races are longshots, but a wave could help create a far more progressive Senate next year.
In the last couple days, there have been several posts across the blogosphere citing what various candidates running for Congress have said on FISA and retroactive immunity for the telecoms. But so far, it's been all over the map. I'll try to corral all their statements into this diary, so you can see who the "good guys" are.
First, let's start off with the current House and Senate members who voted against this bill. They do deserve credit, as it's their jobs on the line.
Follow me below the fold to see the dozens of Democratic challengers who are standing up for the Constitution, and are against this FISA bill and retroactive immunity.
Well I suppose it's not a surprise that Obama is going to be our nominee, with him claiming a majority of pledged delegates. What is odd is how badly the Clinton campaign is performing; Hillary Clinton, though pretty much no one else in the campaign, must still believe she can win, because going into a $31M debt at this point makes no sense otherwise.
Jeff Merkley narrowly won the primary against Steve Novick. Novick pledged to help Merkley. Congratulations, Senate Guru, your guy won, and Merkley's pretty progressive. Now let's beat Smith in the fall.
Lunsford beat Fischer by 51-33. Fischer just did not have enough time to make this competitive.
Minority Leader Boehner wants illegal wiretapping protections and $1M for himself.
We're at 60 contributors for our OpenLeft fundraiser. That's amazing. Join in and help us expand this summer as the general election ramps up. Whatever you can throw in, even if it's a small amount, makes a difference. And thanks to everyone who has chipped in so far.
Here's Jay Inslee on the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.
Paul Tewes will apparently take over from Howard Dean at the DNC when Obama formally takes the nomination.
The new SUSA poll in Kentucky is out, and Lunsford is way up, 47-26. Fischer has actually lost ground since the last poll, and Lunsford has consolidated his support. Lunsford will be the Democratic nominee in Kentucky, which is a shame. Establishments are strong, and Chuck Schumer wins a lot, though this one is going to end up with Mitch McConnell staying in the Senate.
Novick leads Merkley by 29 percent to 23 percent among likely Democratic voters, but 43 percent of the voters are still undecided. The poll has a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points, meaning the numbers could be off by that amount in either direction.
Undecideds are the overwhelming proportion of the vote, so the ground game is incredibly important. Who has the activists, and who is handing out flyers to uncommitted Obama supporters? I'm going to guess Novick is the candidate of change, but it's a guess.
Well that's a big Obama rally in Oregon. 75,000 people? I wonder how much that indicates general voter interest and how much that indicates lower coordination costs. As Seth Godin notes, the "web is notoriously bad at reaching the unreachable".
Merkley and Novick are basically tied, 31-27 Merkley-Novick, with a huge swath of undecideds.
SUSA is coming out with a new poll between Fischer and Lunsford today. Lunsford's people are going around the state pretending Fischer has endorsed Obama; Kentucky is similar to West Virginia in demographics, so this is a nasty and effective tactic.
New Jersey Senate primary candidate Rob Andrews is now saying that his co-sponsorship of the Iraq war resolution was 'responsible'.
As a co-sponsor of the resolution, Andrews concedes he did talk to other Democrats to vote in favor of the resolution and defends the vote, saying the intelligence presented at the time made it a "responsible vote."
"I think I made the right decision" at the time, said Andrews, quickly pointing out Lautenberg, out of office at the time, also supported the war in 2002 in his campaign to return to the Senate.
Putz.
McCain is facing problems among young voters. I watched a youth-oriented show called 'Greek' on youtube while traveling, and one of the characters was a Republican Senator with great hair who denied global warming and cheated on his wife. That's how Republicans are seen by 21 year olds today, I suppose.
Last week, I blogged about a nasty fight in Kentucky between progressive businessman Greg Fischer and Bruce Lunsford to take the Senate nomination. It's an incredibly important race, because the winner will take on Mitch McConnell, and Lunsford can't beat him. Lunsford's nursing home company defrauded Medicare of a few hundred million dollars, and he keeps losing statewide primaries, but for a variety of reasons, the Kentucky Democratic establishment is behind him (along with Chuck Schumer).
After Fischer pointed out Lunsford's horrible record, he gained a quick 13 points in the primary voting universe from 47-9 to 43-18. Both Fischer and Lunsford have been on the air, and Lunsford has now been pounding Fischer with strong negative ads. Still, in the last week, Fischer has gained another six points according to the last Survey USA poll to 41-22. That's a 19 point race, which looks steep until you consider that three weeks ago the race showed a 38 point gap.
I did a bit of math, and it looks like Fischer is gaining between .75 and .9 points a day with the ongoing air war, with his rate of gain slowing. That makes sense, as his TV campaign introduced himself to a lot of voters who didn't know him and so a large boost was inevitable. The counter-attack by Lunsford, and the endorsement by top Kentucky Democrats slowed his momentum. Fischer simply can't put it away without seriously ratcheting up his TV buys, but he can and is closing the gap extremely quickly. By 5/20, this should be a five point race. Moreover, Lunsford is dropping, which means that he will probably end up with a floor in the high thirties while Fischer will have a floor in the low thirties. That's election day. And that means this one could come down to the undecided voters.
Fischer does have a shot here, though it is uphill. There is more to come in this race.
Progressive outsider businessman Greg Fischer and conservative Bruce Lunsford are fighting tooth and nail in Kentucky for the Democratic nomination to go up against Mitch McConnell. Lunsford is far ahead of Fischer, 43-18, but the fight is vicious, as Fischer has gained 13 in the last two weeks and Lunsford has a history of falling really far really fast after taking big leads in primaries.
So it's not surprising that Lunsford is coming after Fischer with an ad like this, breaking his promise 'not to go negative' on other Democrats.
The issue at play is Lunsford's handling of his nursing home company, Vencor. Every newspaper in the state is now putting out articles that say things like this.
The Lunsford ad began airing yesterday on broadcast stations around the state and, in addition to attacking Fischer's ad, tries to put a favorable spin on Lunsford's stewardship of Vencor Inc., a nursing home company he founded that was forced into bankruptcy in 1999 after the federal government cut reimbursement fees to nursing homes.
Lunsford is working with the Bush Department of Justice to get Fischer's ad on Vencor pulled, leading to stories like this.
"They're a public agency that issued public documents," he said. One of those documents was a three-page Justice Department press release from 2001 outlining a $219 million settlement Lunsford's nursing home companies paid to resolve charges that, among other things, the company "knowingly submitted false claims to Medicare."
But Geveden dismissed the Lunsford campaign as whiners. "This is typical Bruce and his D.C. handlers. They want to whine about every little thing except for the facts," he said.
There's a reason Lunsford tends to fall really far really fast in primaries. This is not the best way to deflect an attack, by getting into an argument about whether it's reasonable for your opponent to run ads on the $219 million your nursing home company had to pay for defrauding Medicare, a company which of course went bankrupt under your stewardship.
UPDATE: On cue, the Kentucky establishment, which had cut a series of deals with Chuck Schumer to keep everyone out of the primary against a knowingly corrupt Lunsford, whines about Fischer's ad.
Four prominent Democrats -- state Auditor Crit Luallen, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, Attorney General Jack Conway and Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, signed a letter to U.S. Senate candidate Greg Fischer asking him to stop running an ad against his rival.
I like Luallen a great deal, but this is a pretty weak 'party elder' intervention: "I'm not endorsing in the Democratic primary. I just want a Democrat to win in November and I think negative advertising among Democrats is not healthy for the party."
This is interesting. According to SUSA, Fischer is now behind 43-18 against Bruce Lunsford. Two weeks ago, he was behind 47-9. That's a stunning 13 point gain, and both Fischer and Lunsford have been on the air. The poll was taken before Fischer's negative spots against Lunsford hit the air. The Fischer campaign also unveiled a website, The Lunsford Collection, detailing Lunsford's long history of bad behavior. Lunsford is a corrupt conservative, and definitely the worst Democratic candidate for Senate in the country.
Fischer has an uphill climb, but with the right set of circumstances he can sneak up on this one. The primary is on May 20, so he has to gain roughly a point a day on Lunsford to win. That's doable but extremely tough. Still, Kentucky Democrats hate Bruce Lunsford, Fischer has surprised people with his haul of cash in the last quarter, and Lunsford dropped 26 points in the last 21 days in his gubernatorial race last year.
The Democratic primary in Kentucky for the Senate nomination is remarkable. I got this over email from my favorite in the race, Greg Fischer.
While Democratic Senate candidate Greg Fischer greeted a reported 3,000 guests at Saturday's Ruby Laffoon Democratic Dinner, Democratic opponent Bruce Lunsford refused to attend. Instead, Lunsford reportedly choose to attend the Dubai World Cup in Dubai, United Arab of Emirates...
U.S Senator and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Governor Steve Beshear, Democratic Party Chair Jennifer Moore and Fischer attended the Laffoon Dinner along with thousands of Democrats from across Kentucky. Fischer also attended the First District Democratic Woman's Club Meeting in Princeton, Kentucky earlier that day.
Lunsford also just bought a new golf villa in Arizona. He is hated by Kentucky Democrats for engaging in these kinds of incomprehensibly and offensive activities, like hanging out with Arab sheiks in Dubai instead of going to Democratic events a few months before a primary.
One of my disappointments this cycle has been Kentucky, where Mitch McConnell, while vulnerable, looks like he's going to cruise to reelection without a real challenge. Bruce Lunsford, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is probably the worst presumptive Democratic nominee in the country. Lunsford is basically a corrupt conservative. He is a donor to Mitch McConnell, and made his money defrauding Medicare as an operator of nursing homes. Chuck Schumer is pushing him aggressively because he knows that Lunsford can self-fund, forcing McConnell to waste money instead of using it to campaign for other Republican Senators. It's an exceptionally cynical ploy on all accounts, cutting out the grassroots in Kentucky that absolutely loathe Lunsford.
A variety of candidates have decided not to enter the primary, including Ben Chandler, a cautious politician beloved in Kentucky because of his family legacy, and Andrew Horne, the veteran who couldn't raise enough money to compete. But one candidate that came onto my radar recently is Greg Fischer, a progressive businessman who is well-liked in the state. I noticed him when he endorsed A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, and after doing a little more digging, it's possible that he could be a real surprise.
I'm keeping an eye on his end of quarter numbers. There is no way Lunsford beats McConnell, but a genuine progressive like Fischer actually could. The primary is May 20, and it's an uphill battle as Lunsford has locked up labor support. But the Presidential primary is screwing things up and could drive up real and significant turnout. Lunsford is not well-liked among Democrats because of his endorsement of Republican governor Ernie Fletcher and his support of Mitch McConnell, and basically everything about him. But he has name ID and institutional backing.
So we'll see. But this is a promising development, and I'm keeping my eye out for Fisher.
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