Monday’s political round-up

August 14, 2006

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* In Massachusetts’ three-way gubernatorial race, a new Rasmussen poll shows all three Dems — [tag]Deval Patrick[/tag], [tag]Tom Reilly[/tag], and [tag]Chris Gabrieli[/tag] — with double-digit leads over Lt. Gov. [tag]Kerry Healey[/tag] (R) and [tag]Christy Mihos[/tag] (I). Gabrieli has the biggest margin, leading Healey by 20 points. The Dem primary is Sept. 12.

* A new St. Petersburg Times poll shows Florida Attorney General [tag]Charlie Crist[/tag] (R) cruising to the Republican gubernatorial nomination, leading [tag]Tom Gallagher[/tag] (R), 50% to 26%. On the other side of the aisle, there are reports of the Dem primary getting more competitive, but this poll showed Rep. [tag]Jim Davis[/tag] (D) with a double-digit lead over state Sen. [tag]Rod Smith[/tag] (D), 35% to 21%, with a whopping 44% still undecided with just three weeks before the Sept. 5 primary.

* Speaking of Florida, the same St. Petersburg Times poll also found that Rep. [tag]Katherine Harris[/tag] holds a “commanding lead over three largely unknown opponents” in the Senate GOP primary, but the controversial candidate isn’t even close to keeping up with incumbent Sen. [tag]Bill Nelson[/tag] (D). The poll found Nelson ahead, 60% to 25%.

* A new Las Vegas Review-Journal poll shows incumbent Sen. [tag]John Ensign[/tag] (R-Nev.) with a big lead over [tag]Jack Carter[/tag] (D), 54% to 33%. A recent Rasmussen poll showed the race tightening to single digits, but these numbers suggest it was an outlier.

* And in the always-fascinating Connecticut Senate race, Taegan Goddard reported this morning that White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said today that the president will not endorse GOP candidate [tag]Alan Schlesinger[/tag] over Joe Lieberman. Yesterday on Meet the Press, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman also hedged on official Republican support for Schlesinger.

“White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said today that the president will not endorse GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger over Joe Lieberman.”

The Lamont ads just write themselves. “George Bush, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney support Joe Lieberman…Vote LAMONT!”

  • ***…the president will not endorse GOP candidate Alan Schlesinger over Joe Lieberman.***

    Um…perhaps that should have been “the president will not endorse Alan Schlesinger over GOP candidate Joe Lieberman.”

    Schlesinger should go on the offensive—with what little support he has left, that is—with everything being 100% anti-Lieberman. Hit this guy as being a kiss-up to the admionistration. Hit him for placing his job on a higher plane than the legitimate voices of the People of Connecticut. Tie the debacle of Iraq to Lieberman—and let each and every name, of each and every Iraq casualty—be a reason to deny “the Dark Lord of the Reich” a fourth term in the Senate….

  • The way I do it is to work with our leadership in the states, and what my leadership in the state has said to me is, “You ought to stay out of this one. You ought to focus on the House races and focus on the governors’ races.” -Ken Mehlman

    That’s a little more than hedging, I think.

    But this says it all:

    MR. GREGORY: Do you support Senator Lieberman as senator?

    MR. MEHLMAN: I do not.

    Of course, he forgot the most important question:

    If you aren’t supporting Lieberman of Schlesinger, who do you want to win in CT? Lamont? 🙂

  • Just curious, is Schlesinger one of those “moderate Republicans” who Neil was talking about would have to worry about “idealogical purity” should he choose to join the Dems? Heck – the Republicans won’t even support their own candidates – so why criticize Democrats, when state-wide they’re at least supporting their candidate.

  • Can someone tell me why Lies-er-man thinks he’s a Democrat? And the Clinton’s support for him is mind-boggling. Are they trying to prove Ralph Nader correct when he said that their are no differences between the Dems and Retaliban? Leiberman should simply switch over to the dark side, since it is clear that’s where is alliance is anyway. The more he claims to be a Democrat, the more he blackens our eye, and the bigger poser he displays himself to be. He has been “Hannitized”, doing his best to do perform his Zell Miller II imitation, and I don’t think there’s a vaccine for that yet. (Unless Von Rumsfeld could make a sweet profit off it, like he did with his stock ownership of the company that manufacturs the Tamaflu/birdflu vaccine. Then, all bets are off.)

  • I live in Land O Lakes, FL (that’s just north of Tampa). I think part of the reason most Democrats are undecided is that many of them probably don’t know who the candidates are. The two main Republican candidates have dominated the airwaves with ads for the last two months. By contrast, I’ve seen Jim Davis’s ad twice in that time span. That might explain alot of what’s going on.

    • Comments are closed.