Monday’s political round-up

September 11, 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 a very unusual move, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has announced that it will give up on Rhode Island’s Senate campaign if Cranston Mayor [tag]Stephen Laffey[/tag] defeats Sen. [tag]Lincoln Chafee[/tag] in tomorrow’s GOP primary. “If Laffey won, on Day 1 of the general election, it would be over for us,” said Brian Nick, the communications director for the Republican Senate campaign committee.

* In Virginia, Senate hopeful [tag]Jim Webb[/tag] (D) is using video footage of praise from Ronald Reagan in a new TV ad, prompting Nancy Reagan to ask him to pull the ad. As of now, the Webb campaign has no plans to do so. “If [tag]Ronald Reagan[/tag] made any speeches about [tag]George Allen[/tag], I would imagine George Allen would be wanting to use the footage,” Webb said. “I would encourage them [Allen’s campaign] to try to go find some.”

* Speaking of Virginia, a new Mason-Dixon poll suggests Allen has every reason to be worried. A similar poll in July showed Allen leading Webb by 16 points, but now that margin is just four, 46% to 42%. The “macaca” controversy has done wonders for Webb’s support among African Americans in Virginia — his support has jumped from 39% in July to 73% now.

* New York will host three statewide Dem primaries tomorrow, but a new Quinnipiac poll suggests none of them will be particularly competitive. In the Senate race, [tag]Hillary Clinton[/tag] leads Jonathan Tasini, 85% to 9%. In the gubernatorial race, [tag]Eliot Spitzer[/tag] leads Tom Suozzi, 79% to 12%. In the attorney general primary, Andrew Cuomo is ahead of Mark Green, 50% to 31%.

* In West Virginia, Sen. [tag]Bob Byrd[/tag] (D) will apparently have no trouble winning another term. A new Rasmussen poll shows him leading Republican [tag]John Raese[/tag], 63% to 30%. Byrd’s 33-point lead is eight points more than it was a month ago.

* And in 2008 news, [tag]Al Gore[/tag] is once again renewing speculation about his possible interest in another presidential campaign, telling an audience in Australia yesterday that he hasn’t ruled anything out. “I haven’t completely ruled out running for president again in the future but I don’t expect to,” Gore said. “I offer the explanation not as an effort to be coy or clever. It’s just the internal shifting of gears after being in politics almost 30 years. I hate to grind the gears.” In May, Gore had reportedly instructed many of his biggest financial supporters to help get the word out, instructing, “Tell everybody I’m not running.”

I love Webb’s comment. Nancy is surprisingly bitchy in fact (all second hand hearsay but I believe it), but I suppose she wants to be the keeper of the RR haliography. I’m glad that Webb is sticking to his guns and getting a dig into George Felix Allen Junior at the same time 😉

  • The RI race is really fascinating, and I agree with those who criticize the MSM for not paying it anything like the level of attention that the CT battle has drawn. (Maybe if Chafee ran to, say, Air America to criticize the Repubs even a third as often as Holy Joe goes to Faux, more attention would be paid…)

    I actually wonder how it would play out if Chafee holds off Laffey tomorrow. He clearly can’t win the general without Laffey’s support and the active engagement of his far-right backers, but it doesn’t sound like the wingnut would be able to offer it in a convincing way. And Chafee would have to balance his “independence” with the strong and likely very visible and prominent support from the NRSC, against a candidate who seems pretty solid in Whitehouse. If nothing else it would be fascinating to watch, and potentially a good drain of Repub resources in a race they’d still likely lose.

    Even so, I guess I’d prefer Laffey to win tomorrow and make the general election a layup; Schumer could then largely ignore the race as well, and funnel resources to the likes of Webb and Ford.

  • I actually saw a really good piece on the RI race on “This Week with George S-somethingGreek” a couple of Sundays ago. It had long conversations with Chafee and Laffey and talked about the parallels with CT. Maybe the MSM spent more time on Lieberman/Lamont, but frankly the proof will be after the primary, to see if the same level of coverage of the “Purge” occurs. Assuming Laffey can win.

  • Does RI have an open Primary? Can Dems go to the polls tomorrow, vote Laffey and basically win the seat?

  • Lance, that was George Stephanopoluous. I’m shocked, just shocked that you don’t know who he is. Disappointed too. Before becoming a TV Pundit George was best known as Tatoo’s Stand-in on Fantasy Island. Clenis was a huge fan of the show and made him part of his entourage.

  • Lance, that was George Stephanopoluous -Bubble Boy

    Oh no, this whole time I’ve been calling him George Snuffleupagus.

    I thought he was Big Bird’s imaginary friend!

  • Even so, I guess I’d prefer Laffey to win tomorrow and make the general election a layup; Schumer could then largely ignore the race as well, and funnel resources to the likes of Webb and Ford.

    totally agree. Go Laffey!

  • Bubble Boy, I know exactly who George S-SomethingGreek is. He’s the object of the three girls admiring aaws when he drops his towel (off screen, and in fact across the street) in an episode of Friends.

    I watch him almost every week, and short of his letting George F. Will try to tell Liberals how to be liberals when he should not, George S. is about the best moderator of Pundits on TV today. He beats out John McLaughlin and Chris Matthews any day, and far outpaces Derick McGinty (probably just local to us in D.C.).

    But none of that is going to make me memorize the spelling of his name, or even bother to look it up.

  • The Sinatra Group was my favorite Lance, but alas, it had a very short run. Would’ve loved to see Frank give George Will the once over.

  • CB, you really need to write Koreyel and suggest that he be more careful with his ‘automatic responses’.

  • “Does RI have an open Primary? Can Dems go to the polls tomorrow, vote Laffey and basically win the seat? ”

    MNProgressive, I think the story is this:

    Both Rhode Island and Connecticut have a larger than average percentage of independent (or non-affiliated) voters for a given state. On primary day in Rhode Island, any registered independent can declare his party as whatever and vote in that party’s primary election. So, I think that the Rhode Island primary is “semi-” open.

  • Someone really ought to remind Nancy that Ron was once President of the United States. Everything he did is a matter of public record, and it’s in the public domain. A compliment paid to a veteran, during a commencement exercise, is applicable whether or not that veteran changes political affiliations. “Form battle line,” Jimmie!

  • I don’t know whether anyone reads round-ups or commentary this late in the day, but I’ll risk it, because I’d like to set the record straight on the Nancy Reagan/Webb campaign’s Gipper ad controversy.

    It appears that Mrs Reagan has never seen the ad, but has taken Allen campaign’s word for what was in there. Due to limited ‘puter skills, I have been unable to locate the full text of Mrs Reagan’s letter, but all the press releases quote her saying that the ad is negative.
    example:
    http://tinyurl.com/ee8gj

    Many of them also say that the voice of the announcer has been chosen to be as close as possible to Reagan’s own, so as to appear that Reagan is actually endorsing Jim Webb’s candidacy, not just saying those nice things at a graduation ceremony.

    Here’s the ad:
    http://tinyurl.com/hqvhc
    so you can judge for yourselves whether there’s anything negative in it (either about Reagan or anyone else) and whether the voices are so similiar that they can be confused (IMO, only if “an elephant stepped on someone’s ear”. Unfortunately, although it’s probably true and although it’s the common phrase in Polish, in English it’s “someone has a tin ear”)

    So it looks like the whole lot of them — Nancy Reagan, the ex-officials (including Meese) and the press — had done the same thing that the left has done on the Tortured Path. They made their minds up on the basis of hearsay, fed to them by a biased party.

    And, of course, Steve is right; Reagan was a public figure and the clip is taken from a public occasion moment. There are *scads* of photos of various politicians with Reagan, which are being peddled as a part of “image enhancement”, including Allen himself (which, if Nancy’s barring any usage of images etc were to pass, he’d have to pull too). But all Allen could scramble up is a handshake, not compliments…

    PS Regarding poll results: Zogby’s (official release today, but announced on RaisingKaine last night) has Webb more than 7 points *ahead* of Allen.

    May God grant us some more “macaca moments” and “borrowed legislature”… 🙂 And I’m not holding my breath, but maybe she can be turned around, given that Allen is strongly against stem cell research and Webb is equally strongly for it. And we all know where Nancy and her family stand on the subject.

  • VA-Senate

    OK, I found a copy of the N Reagan’s letter (on Allen’s website, where else? )
    http://tinyurl.com/f55ex

    Put it together with the video of the ad and see if it sounds like she knows what she’s talking about (or what her office is talking about on her behalf)

  • Good job finding the ad and letter Libra. I checked out the ad. There is absolutely nothing negative about it. In fact, it only mentions Jim Webb and his military experience. It doesn’t mention Allen at all. I guess this ad is negative in the same way Sidarth, Webb’s staffer, has a mohawk.

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