NH Progressive Blogs
Betsy Devine
Citizen Keene
Democracy for NH
Equality Press
The Political Climate
Granite State Progress
Chaz Proulx
Susan the Bruce
NH Political Links
Graniteprof
Granite Status
Kevin Landrigan
NH Political Capital
Political Chowder (TV)
Political Chowder (AM)
PolitickerNH
Pollster (NH-Sen)
Portside with Burt Cohen
Bill Siroty
Swing State 2008
Campaigns, Et Alia.
Carol Shea-Porter
Paul Hodes
Jeanne Shaheen
Barack Obama (NH)
ActBlue Hampshire
Stop Sununu
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC
National
Bob Geiger
DailyKos
Digby
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
The Next Hurrah
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talk Left
Talking Points Memo
50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
So that you don't have to plow through the love letter editorial dressed as interview journalism, a summary:
* John Sununu wears sweaters and has a folksy manner, so it's easy to forget he votes with Bush 90% of the time to protect Big Oil & Big Pharma, prolong the Iraq war, etc. etc...
* John McCain thinks John Sununu is the Smartest Man in the Senate. So smart that, like Sarah Palin, he refuses to acknowledge the influence of humans on climate change.
* Ignore all the data about our shifting state demographics, please. We have an election to keep close.
Sprintin' Sununu put out another ad today which consists largely of him about to break out into actual sprinting, and plenty of misleading metaphorical sprinting away from his Republican, Bush-enabling identity. For example, it touts how he called for Gonzo to be fired, but nowhere mentions that he supported him as AG in the first place despite the scandal of the torture revelations.
Shaheen and the DSCC both fought back today too. The first ad shines a light on Fergus' ridiculous "radical community organizing" talking point (for much more on this see Kathy's outstanding diary), and the second is just pretty straight ahead hard-hitting on how out of touch John E. is:
There's a new "poll" out today from the cash-strapped NRSC showing a much tighter race than any of the previous polling on Shaheen-Sununu.
Despite a desperate desire to counter the trend, they still can't pull off a Sununu lead, showing him trailing Shaheen 46-44.
Republican outfit Public Opinion Strategies conducted the poll. They sampled 500 likely voters, and have made available no word on how many were registered voters, no data on party affiliation. The one-page .pdf linked to on the NRSC site has no crosstabs. And to top it off, they polled smack in the middle of the Republican convention (9/2-9/3).
Expect a breathless front-page UL headline tomorrow.
Don't get me wrong - the race will tighten, if it hasn't happened already. But the circumstances surrounding a poll should always be noted.
The Wise Old Men of Washington (and the GOP operatives whispering in their ears) will tell you that Bush is not on the ticket this year.
He isn't, that's for sure. Rather, he's all around us as we try to climb out of eight years of catastrophe aided and abetted by his Senate Republican enablers.
Now, Bob Geiger is back, after an 11 month hiatus. And this is very bad news for John Sununu:
I'm not sure the Democratic Senators' press offices will welcome me being back in their faces all the time and I know for damn sure that staffers in Republican offices will not welcome my return. To the GOP office staff I say, tell your bosses to watch what they say on the Senate floor because that boring dude who reads the Congressional Record cover-to-cover, every day is coming back.
Why is it that with the miles and miles of media outlets out there, the return of one blogger means a hell of lot more transparency for what goes on under the Capitol dome than we had a week ago?
And he's back just in time. Here's a lovely tour of what McCain hasn't done about Katrina.
This is almost too good to be true. Sprintin' John Sununu's first TeeVee ad highlights... actual sprintin'!
(he doesn't bother to waste any of the thirty seconds on issues, but hey, would you, if you were George W. Bush's handmaiden for the past eight years in House and Senate?)
But here is the best part, by far. Something about the utter vapidity of the piece, combined with the narrator's voice, reminded me of another ad.
Sure enough, Strategic Perception Inc, the producers of this ad, were also behind the hands down funniest Republican ad of the cycle, Big Bad John:
FYI: Strategic is also the source of some of those hateful McCain "celebrity" ads, and you can see some visual similarities in the Cornyn piece with those, imho. So, a real classy outfit the Sprinter's gone with.
"I feel very positive about not just my race, but about all of our Republican races," said Sununu.
Standard caveat: Sununu's hoarding a pile of treasure to be spent after Labor Day, lots of out of state shadow GOTV group helping him, the race will tighten, etc, etc.
Pigs are flying! For once, ARG comes out with a poll at the same time* as another major outfit (Rasmussen), and it shows almost exactly the same results:
The Washington Times' Sean Lengell is apparently auditioning for The Onion:
Sen. John E. Sununu is in serious political trouble, and it's largely no fault of his own.
The first-term New Hampshire Republican is one of the most vulnerable sitting members of Congress facing re-election this year, a victim of surging anti-Republican and anti-Bush sentiments that have swept the Granite State in recent years.
Riiiight, Sprintin' John Sununu is a "victim" and his lack of support is "no fault of his own." Surely, Sununu's lack of support among Granite Staters cannot be attributed to his votes for an endless Iraq War, his decisive vote killing stem cell research, his opposition to cheaper prescription drugs, and his votes against increasing the minimum wage. Sununu is just a victim of circumstance.
And the award for the funniest LOL statement of the race goes to... the Mooney Times:
Sen. John E. Sununu is in serious political trouble, and it's largely no fault of his own.
I remember Charlies Bass explaining away his loss the same way back in 2006, but at least he had the decorum to wait until after he got defeated.
In other party of personal responsibility news, Shaheen will be speaking slot at the DNC convention, but still, at this late date, we have no idea whether Sununu has decided if he's a Republican and will be attending his own convention.
I seriously cannot keep up with all these out of state shadow GOTV slime merchants - good thing there's a website wholly devoted to keeping track of them:
Masquerading as a non-profit organization, [American Future Fund] claims it can accept unlimited corporate money without disclosing its donors. Despite prohibitions on the use of this money to influence elections, AFF has run ads in 6 states, every one of them attacking Democrats or supporting Republicans. The Minnesota Democratic Party has already filed a complaint against AFF for these election law violations.
Although AFF remains secretive about its organization, two leaders of the group have helped orchestrate other dirty campaign tactics to help Sununu get elected. Ben Ginsberg serves as AFF’s legal counsel, and he also worked for for Americans for Job Security, a Sununu front group that has already spent over $250,000 in dishonest negative ads this election. Ginsberg previously gain notoriety as chief outside counsel to Bush-Cheney 2000 and Bush-Cheney ‘04 while simultaneously representing the supposedly independent Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He was eventually forced to resign his position from Bush-Cheney ‘04 over the conflict of interest.
Another AFF leader with long ties to Sununu is David Kochel, who has served as spokesperson for AFF. Kochel’s previously worked as executive vice-president and war-room manager at DCI Group - the same group that masterminded the scheme to help Sununu and illegally jam the phones at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s and the Manchester firefighters on election day in 2002. Two people were convicted on felony charges and served jail time as a result of these illegal acts. Recently, it was exposed that DCI’s clients have also included the military junta in Burma and Exxon.
I bring this up because AFF is up on the air with an overtly political ad.
Is this another job for AG Kelly?
Update: To phone jamming and swift boating, you can also add Willie Horton, in a must read piece about AFF.
Rasmussen (which weighs for party affiliation) continues to show a clear lead for the former Governor, and the Sprinter once again falls well below the 50% incumbent danger zone
Shaheen 51%
Sununu 40%
With "leaners"
Shaheen 52%
Sununu 43%
Combined "very" and "somewhat favorable"
Shaheen 55%
Sununu 49%
Combined "very" and "somewhat unfavorable"
Shaheen 39%
Sununu 44%
Look for the local papers to cover this non-horesrace showing with as much breathless vigor as they did the summer UNH one < /snark>.
Well, yes, obviously, though some of them have a funny way of showing it.
Quite a few surprises are in store by looking at the numbers put together in a front-paged diary by Sven on Open Left. He's gathered all the figures on what the Democratic Senators have given to the DSCC and to senate candidates up to June 30th for the 07/08 cycle.
Now, context is key, so we should start right off by granting a few allowances.
If you are a freshman senator who just went through a grueling election last cycle and have a tiny amount of cash-on-hand (Tester), or a recent presidential candidate perhaps still paying off debts from that race (Dodd), or someone recovering from a significant medical issue (Johnson), or if this is your own re-election cycle and you are in a competitive race (Landrieu), or if you have dangerously low CoH (Cantwell), it makes total sense why your contributions to the DSCC and/or senate candidates might be a bit low, even given the historic opportunity in front of us to have a filibuster-proof majority.
And then, on the other side, there is the amazing generosity of some Dem senators who are going above and beyond the call of duty. Max Baucus, who is running for re-election this year (albeit safely) has given almost $700 grand to the cause! Jeff Bingaman, with only 759K CoH, managed to pony up 279K. Sherrod Brown has almost the same numbers as well. Tom Carper, who has under a million in CoH, nevertheless gave almost half a million to the dream of 60 seats. And Dianne Feinstein offered up just that, half a million. Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller each gave in the mid-300K range. There are others.
Then there's this:
Evan Bayh - 10.6 million CoH - 12K given
Dick Durbin - 8.1 million CoH - 180K given
John Kerry - 8.8 million CoH - 67K given
Frank Lautenberg - 1.2 million CoH - 0 given
Carl Levin - 4.3 million CoH - 28K given
Ken Salazaar - 1.8 million CoH - 85K given
Chuck Schumer - 10.3 million CoH - 0 given
Sure, Durbin, Kerry, Lautenberg, and Levin are in races right now, but each one of them is as safe as can be.
And I'm reserving criticism of Chuck because he's the head of the DSCC and I have to imagine there's some kind of tradition or conflict of interest that prevents him from giving. Or maybe he's waiting until later. Because it's simply beyond belief that a person who has such a degree of influence over the senate candidates themselves would have by choice given nothing from his own 10 million pile.
John Sununu is sitting on 5 million worth of incumbent cash raised over the last six years. Despite Shaheen's record fundraising, that's a huge mountain to get around.
Now would be a good time for some of these senators to step up to the plate.
John E. is fond of saying how he votes with New Hampshire - 100% of the time!
Too bad, he funds his campaign with New Hampshire a a bit less than that. Finally, a race Sununu is winning:
Donors with out-of-state addresses have given Mr. Sununu $1.8 million, versus a tad over $566,000 from Granite State contributors. That's $3 and some change from donors elsewhere in America for every local dollar the campaign has reported. The Shaheen campaign also is getting more money from non-constituents than from the people who actually will be represented by the race's winner. The most recent breakdown of her contributions from individuals (as opposed to money from political action committees) is $1 million from outside New Hampshire and $428,000 from in-state addresses.
So much for the "librul, out-of-state special interests" meme Team Sununu has been pushing hard.
Rasmussen shows the POTUS race in NH a hair tighter than the last time, but I'll still take it:
Barack Obama 47%
John McCain 41%
700 "Likely Voters", MoE +/-4%, taken 7/23
FWIW, note that the poll was taken while McCain was in the Granite State. I wonder if that had any effect either way.
Another Rasmussen, this time on the Senate race. A tighter race than before, but outside the MoE, and when leaners are brought in Shaheen gains a point.
Jeanne Shaheen 50%
John Sununu 45%
500 "Likely Voters", MoE +/-4.5%, taken 7/23
Yet one more poll showing incumbent John E. still below the 50% magic threshold. To give some idea what this means, there has been no winning Senate incumbent in that position since Jesse Helms 24 years ago. Except he had already made up for the deficit in May. It's almost August.
It's great to see a bigger sample than ARG and UNH for POTUS. Also different from either of them is that Ras screens for party affiliation.
Finally, UNH tracks the Lynch-Kenney race (.pdf). This one's in the bag:
John Lynch 67%
Joe Kenney 16%
Undecided 16%
519 "randomly selected New Hampshire adults", taken 7/11-7/20, MoE +/-4.5%
Finally, based on these new polls, CQ has, correctly, imho, changed their rating to "Leans Democratic" from "No Clear Favorite."
Takeaway: conventional wisdom is starting to solidify nationally that Sununu is in serious trouble. And for us watching more closely, we have two more polls that still show him well below the magic 50% number needed for an incumbent to show any kind of job security. And as far as where the electorate is in reference to the two polls, my best guess is that it's probably somewhere in-between ARG and UNH, which is essentially where it was in previous polling.
The challenge: name just one incumbent in a Senate race in worse shape than John E. Sununu (i.e., leaving out open seat races).
Hint: Chris Cillizza and The National Journal and The Cook Report, The Rothenberg Political Report, and (now) Swing State Project won't be of any help.
Morning Update: I just changed the title from "Team Sununu" to "Someone" because there is no evidence from the call that this came from them directly. It could, after all, have come from some advocacy group or PAC that will be trying to help him out. End Update
I just got polled.
The person at the other end was very polite and very professional, but didn't initially know how to pronounce Jeanne Shaheen's name, so it clearly was out of state (caller ID was blocked on it). She identified up front that it was from The Tarrance Group, a major Republican polling firm, whose CEO currently is a strategic advisor for McCain. Interestingly, Sununu is not currently listed among their clients, though the poll was no doubt conducted for the benefit of his campaign strategy.
Clocking in at about 20 minutes, the poll started with generalities about the presidential race, but quickly moved to specifics on Shaheen v. Sununu. This is the kind of poll that sometimes gets confused with a push poll, but is not. It was, almost exclusively, an anti-Shaheen negative messaging vehicle, with statements three in a row about her that got progressively worse, punctuated by the question of whether I would vote for her based on those questions. I think I went through about three cycles of that.
(I should also note that the call was remarkably similar in structure to a poll I did last fall for Hillary Clinton, though in that case it wasn't negative messaging testing about her opponents, but positive statements about various issue platforms.)
I was writing down as fast as I could, so don't take this to be comprehensive, but the anti-Shaheen messaging that was tested out on me was not at all different from what I've already heard or expected from Team Sununu. Topics mostly involved her record as governor in the areas of tort reform, health care, education funding, and taxes, taxes, taxes, and taxes - in the order of property, sales, income, and business.
Other topics included ANWR, offshore drilling, eminent domain, gas taxes, and Iraq, the last of which was kept separate from the GWOT/homeland security. Interestingly, they allowed some open space for me to list reasons why I was not voting for Sununu. Boy did I feel bad for the nice lady on the other end of the line at that point - I could have gone on all day!
And finally, a note to The Tarrance Group: you would do well to try to keep FOX news framing out of your polls. When I heard "Democrat party" a minute or so into the call, your hand was tipped immediately.
Blue Hampshire RSS