Hey, this is Kenneth Quinnell, the New Media Director for the Kendrick Meek campaign. Wanted to make sure that everyone saw that we released our third TV ad, this one a positive ad introducing voters to Kendrick and his background. Give us feedback on this and let us know if we're going in the right direction.
If you haven't seen it yet, the campaign released a new web video this morning, asking the question, "How do you find the real Democrat in the Florida U.S. Senate race"? Take a look and tell me what you think. Video and transcript after the jump...
I am unable to do much blogging betwee now and Tuesday morning, so Davej, Taniel and Kagro X will be most of hte front-page content during those weekdays--Chris Bowers
Florida, California: Self-funders continue pouring in money
Cable TV channels are falling over themselves to air the most cringe-worthy interview with the Democrats' South Carolina Senate nominee Al Greene, with CNN's Don Lemon disgracefully pressing Greene on whether he is mentally impaired. Sure, it's bizarre that someone with no obvious qualifications landed a Senate nomination. But it's a shame wealth is often by itself enough to get other candidates portrayed as credible contenders. With self-funders rarely facing any fallout over their attempt to buy themselves electoral office, lack of restrictions on billionaires' spending makes for a far greater travesty of the electoral process.
Take Meg Whitman. Fresh off her triumph in California's Republican primary, which cost her $70 million, we learned a few days ago that she was dumping yet another $20 million of her money. That brings the total to an eye-popping $91 million. She's only $12 million away from the record Michael Bloomberg set in his 2009 re-election race. And the general election has just started.
But in recent weeks self-funders have made their biggest splash in Florida, where Jeff Greene and Rick Scott have upended the Democratic and Republican primaries for Senate and Governor, respectively.
As you know, Floridians are disproportionately affected by the actions of British Pretoleum that led to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm talking to Floridians every day who enraged at BP and want to make sure that BP pays the full price for it's actions. I'm listening.
I also want to listen to you. I'm going to be one of the leading voices in holding BP accountable. I want your feedback. Tell me actions you'd like to see taken to make sure that BP pays the price for this oil spill.
Updates on five Senate primary campaigns this evening:
1. North Carolina looks like a run-off The May 4th Democratic primary in North Carolina looks like it is headed for a runoff. In order to avoid a run-off, the winning candidate needs at least 40.01% of the vote. While Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham are well ahead of the rest of the field, neither is close to 40% right now. Here is the Pollster.com trendline in the campaign since February 1:
There are six candidates in the campaign. At this point, the role of the other four seems to be to prevent either Cunningham or Marshall from reaching 40%. The run-off in five weeks time should actually be a positive for the eventuall winner, however, as it will keep attention and resources focused on the campaign, thus raising Democratic interest and name ID of the candidates.
Fisher has the support of the DSCC, so this is an uphill battle for Brunner. It is still just one poll though, and primary polling is notoriously inaccurate. The primary is on May 4th.
3. Specter wonders if he should have stayed a Republican In an odd moment, on the one-year anniversary of his switch, Arlen Specter wonders if he should have stayed in the Republican Party:
''Well, I probably shouldn't say this,'' he said over lunch last month. ''But I have thought from time to time that I might have helped the country more if I'd stayed a Republican.''
Specter mused that perhaps if he'd remained in the caucus he could have persuaded one or two of his GOP colleagues to support health care reform.
It seems pretty unlikely that Specter could have convinced anyone in the Republican Party to vote for the health care bill, given that Specter would have always been heading toward a crushing defeat in the Republican primary. His credibility among Republicans would have been extremely low.
Personally, I am glad that he switched. Specter has proven surprisingly easy to pressure when he wants your vote. As such, it is a rock-solid guarantee that Specter would have voted, and acted, much more right-wing over the last year if he was seeking Republican votes rather than Democratic ones.
Still, publicly musing about whether he should have stayed in the Republican Party raises a lot of the fears that many progressives have had about Specter over the last year. There is good reason to worry that, if he wins the Democratic nomination on May 18th, we will see a very different Arlen Specter for the rest of the year, and maybe the next seven years, than we have had over the past year.
Still, the situation is fluid. The next big shoes to drop in this campaign will be when Crist announces which party he will caucus with should he win the election, and if the FBI investigation of Marco Rubio heats up.
It may be the worst-kept secret in American politics today, and it's apparently about to become a reality. Reliable sources informed me today that embattled Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whose early lead in his US Senate Republican primary race against former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio has essentially reversed itself in the polls, is preparing to announce sooner rather than later that he will leave the GOP and continue his run for Senate as an independent. Sources add that the speech Crist will use in his announcement is now being drafted.
This isn't a surprise, as Crist had been openly considering this possibility lately.
It also makes sense. Crist trailed Marco Rubio by 25.5% in the Republican primary for Senate:
However, in a three-way general election, he only trailed by 7%:
Florida Senate, three-way general election, 60-day polling average Rubio (R): 34.5%
Crist (I): 27.5%
Meek (D): 25.3%
With the vote split three-ways, and $7.56M cash on hand (compared to $3.91M for Rubio and $3.37M for Meek), Crist actually has a chance in the Florida Senate campaign. He had no chance in the Republican primary, so this was an obvious, unsurprising, and necessary move.
At least according to current polling, this move does not actually help Democrat Kenrick Meek much. In a two way campaign against Marco Rubio, Meek only trailed by 6.0%, less than the 9.2% he trails by in the three-way matchup:
Florida Senate, Rubio vs. Meek general election, 60-day polling average Rubio: 43.8%
Meek: 37.8%
So, this is actually a set back for Meek, at least right now. He is facing a larger deficit, and much more money, in the general election than he would have against Rubio. Then again, reaching 40% is a much more doable task for Meek in this state than reaching 50%+1 would have been.
Meanwhile, in a separate inquiry, the IRS is also looking at the tax records of at least three former party credit card holders - former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson - to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry.
Even though Rasmussen will inevitably release a poll later this week showing Rubio with a commanding lead in the three-way general election, at this point it looks like all bets should be off in this campaign. Any of the three have a chance to win at this point, and with the situation so fluid, it is too early to declare a frontrunner.
In the Florida Senate race, "speculation" has increased that Republican Governor Charlie Crist will run as an Independent now that he unexpectedly vetoed an elections bill passed by the Republican-dominated Florida legislature. While it is difficult to justify increased "speculation" as worthy of a news story, it is worth noting that Crist would greatly improve his chances of winning the campaign by running as an Independent.
In March, there were three polls (Daily Kos, PPP and Rasmussen) that surveyed both the Republican Senate primary in Florida, and a hypothetical three-way general election matchup featuring Marco Rubio, Charlie Crist and presumptive Democratic nominee Kendrick Meek. While Crist trailed in both the Republican primary and a three-way campaign in all three polls, he was 17 points closer in a three-way general election than in a two-way Republican primary against Marco Rubio:
Crist deficit, Florida Senate campaign
Poll
Republican Primary
3-way General election
Average
27.3%
10.0%
Rasmussen
24%
20%
PPP
32%
7%
Daily Kos
28%
3%
While Crist is clearly pretty unpopular and would still face an uphill battle, he actually has a shot in a three-way general election campaign, versus no chance in a three-way Republican primary.
Democrat Kendrick Meek would actually not be helped by this scenario, however. These same three polls show Meek 6.7% behind Rubio in a two-way matchup, but 10.3% behind in a three-way matchup.
In all three scenarios, Rasmussen is the outlying poll. Rasmussen shows the Republican primary closer than the other two outfits, and shows Rubio much stronger in either a two-way or three-way general election than the other two pollsters. There is good reason to wonder about Rasmussen this cycle, given how frequently it is the outlying poll in averages, but I will continue to include it in averages unless some sort of methodological flaw is found.
TPMDC makes a notable catch--Marco Rubio, darling of insurgent conservative candidates everywhere, has not actually been embraced by the Florida tea parties:
In the midst of Sunday's heated Florida Republican Senate primary debate on Fox News Sunday, moderator Chris Wallace asked Marco Rubio a question that surprised many viewers up early on a Sunday to watch the festivities.
Wallace read Rubio a viewer email. "'Ask Marco Rubio why he refuses to be vetted by the Florida Tea Parties. I want to hear from Rubio or I will not vote for him,'" Wallace said. "We got this from a bunch of Tea Parties all over the state."
Behind the question is an interesting discovery: Despite carrying the torch for insurgent conservatives everywhere, Rubio actually has a problem connecting with the tea parties in his home state, according to several tea partiers I spoke with yesterday.
Wait-so tea parties actually have nothing to do with Rubio's success? But, at least they elected a guy from Massachusetts who stopped health care, and who has stayed true to tea party principles while in office! Oh wait...
Monday night, Brown announced that he would join four other Republicans in voting to block a GOP filibuster and move forward with a $15-billion jobs bill designed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Almost immediately, the political blogosphere exploded.
Cries of "letdown," "betrayal," "sellout," and "RINO" -- "Republican in name only" -- flew around Twitter. By late Tuesday afternoon, more than 4,200 people had left comments on Brown's Facebook page, most harshly negative. (And liberals engaged in some cyber-schadenfreude at the same time.)
Even the supposed tea-party success in the NY-23 special election, where conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman managed to push Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava out of the race, was actually engineered more by well-established groups like The Club for Growth than any new grassroots movement. The Club endorsed Hoffman early in the campaign (September 28th), and spent over $300,000 in support of Hoffman. This is several orders of magnitude beyond any material support offered by the tea-parties.
It is also worth noting that unlike the tea-parties, the Club for Growth has a long record of making huge impacts, including several big victories, in Republican primaries. Compared to the established success of the Republican primary-challenge machine, the tea parties are a new, and laughably ineffective addition.
OK, so elections where the Club for Growth isn't pulling the strings in the background haven't gone well for the tea partiers. But, at least they made a big impact, independent of existing right-wing infrastructure, on the health care debate with their town halls, right?
Despite conventional wisdom, polling indicates that the health reform plan actually increased in popularity last August during the tea-party assault on town halls. They were entirely ineffective at swaying popular opinion against the bill.
Even all of the protests, rallies and other grassroots enthusiasm around the tea-parties was clearly evident in 2008, after Sarah Palin's nomination, long before the term tea party was even coined. The anti-Obama rhetoric, and cries of socialism, was there too. About all tea parties have done is provide a long-standing right-wing political machine with a new image. This is actually a useful development for conservatives, since portraying their movement as based in grassroots energy, rather in than large corporate donations to the Club For Growth, plays better in the media. The new branding is undeniably a positive for the conservative movement, but really it is about all the tea parties have actually accomplished that existing right-wing infrastructure would not have achieved on its own.
As we await the historic vote on health care reform, it's important to remember that we're just ten days away from the end of the first fundraising quarter of 2010. The fundraising totals reported in this quarter will be pivotal to determining the tenor of many races for the rest of the year. If there is any time to contribute, now is the time!
Please head over to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and contribute whatever you are able to these terrific Democratic candidates for Senate.
Democrat
Currently At
End-of-Quarter Goal
Distance to Goal
Kendrick Meek
$25
$300
$275
Bill Halter
$445
$750
$305
Joe Sestak
$1,320
$1,600
$280
Paul Hodes
$1,447
$1,700
$253
Robin Carnahan
$1,163
$1,400
$237
Remember, the contribution you can make isn't just a donation to a single candidate or political campaign. It's an investment against Republican obstruction (and conservaDem enabling) and an investment toward achieving that more perfect union.
Recent polling from Public Policy Polling and Research 2000 suggests that Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek is in terrific position to win Florida's 2010 U.S. Senate race. With Republican Marco Rubio well ahead of primary challenger Charlie Crist in the polls, but far behind on fundraising, Rubio will likely emerge victorious from the primary, but out of campaign funds and politically badly bruised, as well as positioned to the extreme right ideologically. Congressman Meek, on the other hand, is steadily campaigning and fundraising and will be well-positioned for the general election.
As such, Senate Guru has added Congressman Meek's campaign to its Expand the Map! ActBlue fundraising page, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates for Senate in the 2008 and current 2010 cycles.
To kick off the addition of Congressman Meek, we're looking to start off with just $100 raised to get the ball rolling. Just five $20 contributions would be a great start! Can you chip in $20?
One ray of hope in the Florida Senate campaign is that the poll showing Charlie Crist ahead by 21% also showed him with 88% name recognition, compared to only 25% for Meek. It is possible that as Meek's numbers rise as he closes the name ID gap. Unfortunately, it is also possible that Crist will have much more money than Meek, and be able to define him in any potential advertising war.
Here is the latest Senate chart. With Florida removed from the equation, Democrats are now projected to gain only one seat:
2010 Senate Outlook: Net Democrat Gain of one seat, for a total of 61 Republican-Held Seats Democratic Pickups: 3 (Missouri, plus two of Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio)
(Note: Senate elections where there is no polling showing the incumbent party ahead by less than 10.0% are not examined in detail. Pennsylvania included due to expected popular demand.
*= Faces primary, but currently the heavy favorite against other announced candidates
** = There is no polling in Arkansas is not for Lincoln vs. Hendren, so previous polling on Lincoln versus other candidates is listed in its place.)
The only Republican incumbent who appears to be threatened is Richard Burr in North Carolina (although it is possible that David Vitter might find himself vulnerable, too). Depending on recruiting, Republicans might end up with more legitimate pickup opportunities than Democrats in 2010. Should Republicans score a "moderate" wave of former Governor George Pataki in New York, Representative (and former Governor) Mike Castle in Delaware, Representative Mark Kirk in Illinois (although that looks increasingly unlikely), and if former Representative Rob Simmons in Connecticut (he faces a primary and hasn't raised any money), then they will be projected to win seats in 2010.
Perhaps we are running up against the limits of how many Senate seats one party can have these days. Notes on how to read the chart in the extended entry.
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