Tuesday’s political round-up

August 29, 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:

* Since [tag]Ned Lamont[/tag] defeated [tag]Joe Lieberman[/tag] in the Connecticut Dem Senate primary, a handful of Dem senators have said they’d ignore the will of the party’s voters and back Lieberman anyway. Yesterday, the handful shrunk a little. Sen. [tag]Daniel Inouye[/tag] (D-Hawai’i) initially said he’d back Lieberman’s independent campaign, but Hawai’i’s senior senator said he was disappointed when Lieberman made a speech “very critical of the Democratic Party.” “I told some of my friends after he gave his speech saying the party isn’t the party he knew that he doesn’t get my support,” Inouye said in an interview.

* In Florida, an Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion poll shows the Republicans’ gubernatorial primary race tightening a bit in advance of the election. The poll showed [tag]Charlie Crist[/tag] (R) leading [tag]Tom Gallagher[/tag] (R), 39% to 29%, though most recent polls showed Crist well above 50%. (via Taegan Goddard)

* Sen. [tag]George Allen[/tag]’s “macaca” controversy, and the ensuing controversy which Allen bungled badly, led Bob Novak to say the other day, ” It’s hard for them [Democrats] in the Senate to pick up the six seats. You can even count to five and not get to six, but Senator George Allen of Virginia is doing his best to try to, try to make that sixth seat viable for a Democratic win.”

* In Connecticut Rhode Island, GOP Senate hopeful [tag]Stephen Laffey[/tag] is scrambling a bit to explain some anti-gay columns he wrote 20 years ago. In one piece, Laffey wrote, “I have never once seen a happy homosexual. This is not to say there aren’t any; I simply haven’t seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet. All the homosexuals I’ve seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life.” Over the weekend, asked if any of the columns represented his views, Laffey said, “No. Not now, nor then, or ever . . . Do I regret writing some of these things? Sure. But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny.”

* And in Maryland, a Zogby/Wall Street Journal poll showed Lt. Gov. [tag]Michael Steele[/tag] trailing three Dems in hypothetical, general election match-ups. The poll showed Rep. [tag]Ben Cardin[/tag] (D) leading Steele 50% to 41%, former Rep. [tag]Kweisi Mfume[/tag] ahead 47% to 43%, and businessman [tag]Josh Rales[/tag] leading by a similar margin, 46% to 42%. Most polls show Rales trailing badly in the three-way primary race.

In Connecticut, GOP Senate hopeful Stephen Laffey

I thought Laffey was going up against Chaffey in Rhode Island, or was it Maryland…

  • Ooops! Steven Laffey is the GOP candidate running in Rhode Island against Chafee. Not in Connecticut. Minor glitch.

    The (nominal) GOP candidate in Connecticut is the compulsive gambler, not the bigot, as in Rhode Island — and Virginia, etc.

  • The bad news is that the latest Zogby polls showed Jim (I was for torture before I was against it) Talent pulling ahead of Claire McCaskill by 5%.

    C’mon Missouri readers. Open up your wallets!

  • Yesterday, the handful shrunk a little.

    Any Democrat supporting Lieberman now should find themselves with a healthy challenge the next time they’re primaries come around and they should also find themselves without party money since they’re so willing to ignore the will of the voters.

  • Append a quote time:

    “Over the weekend, asked if any of the columns represented his views, Laffey said, “No. Not now, nor then, or ever . . . Do I regret writing some of these things? Sure. But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny. Sort of like W blowing up frogs as a kid. I am sure it was funny for him back then too.”

    You have to be one of them to understand…

  • The (nominal) GOP candidate in Connecticut is the compulsive gambler, not the bigot, as in Rhode Island

    All that talk about Lieberman led to a little confusion. It’s fixed.

  • Can life get any better?

    yeah…when after the 2006 midterms Novakula opines how terrible it is that Felix handed the Senate to the Dems. That will be sweet, sweet, sweet.

  • As Koryel pointed out, these rightwing scumwads arethe kind of twisted little shits who think it’s funny to kick people, blow up frogs, harm things in general. Sick psychopaths the lot of them.

  • Touche Edo!

    Pull it out Jim Webb. Put some money into the race Chuck Schumer. Be real Americans and don’t let this California boy ruin your reputations Virginians.

    One can hope and pray.

  • Lieberman continues to lead in EVERY poll since the primary… Better get the Rev Al back up to CT to help his boy Ned out!

    In an Aug 29th poll Zogby found U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a New Haven Democrat running without his party’s endorsement, leads Democratic nominee Ned Lamont of Greenwich 49.4 percent to 39.4 percent, with 2.1 percent going to the Republican nominee, former Derby Mayor Alan Schlesinger. Lieberman held a 12-point edge over Lamont in an Aug. 17 Quinnipiac poll.

  • Pull it out Jim Webb. Put some money into the race Chuck Schumer. Be real Americans and don’t let this California boy ruin your reputations Virginians.

    One can hope and pray. — Lance (#13)

    I don’t have much faith in the power of prayer; could be because I don’t have much faith, period. Jim Webb doesn’t seem to be doing much, seemingly counting on Allen to do most of his work… So it’s up to us.

    Sign up (if you haven’t yet) with your local Dem committee for grunt work (I told them — anything but door-to-door or phone, because of my spoken English not being too good)

    Pass on the Fightin’ Felix’s website to everyone with a sense of humour, in Virginia or elsewhere:
    http://georgefelixallen.blogspot.com/
    It’s getting better *daily* (no, it’s not mine, and I have no idea who it is that’s running it)

    And promote the establishment of the “Official Desert of the GFAllen Campaign”: the banana split

    The banana is to feed the monkey (macaque); the chocolate is to represent the caca (that Allen has so lavishly dribbled all over himself), the bits of the whip cream are the lily white supporters of Allen and Bush and the cherry is the tax cuts for the rich!! Oh, and the nuts are for the 50,000,000 American voters who think its all okay.

  • ‘Macaca’ is a nasty racial epithet alright. Why did our senator used this word to describe the Asian American covering this meeting? It is often used by American white supremacists to describe black people. Senator Allen, I deserve an apology!

  • I hope this is not the reason for the drop in Crisp’s support, but he has recently come out in favor of gay civil unions with benefits — though not gay marriage. It’s a gutsy stance to take in a Republican primary. (It was in the Yahoo/Planet Out Gay and Lesbian news RSS.)

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