August 26, 2006
The Saturday Brunch
An exclusive Saturday political news digest and tip sheet from the editors of the Hotline.
WHAT'S BREWING
No one should be surprised: Republicans starting to feel queasy about the President's direction on Iraq and starting to endorse Democratic-ish plans for withdrawal timeslines. Rep. Chris Shays will offer specifics next month. Per WSJ's Washington Wire, Dems may push for a no confidence vote on Rumsfeld in September, too. There's a good chance that Democrats will enter -- and exit -- September more united on Iraq than ever before. That would be good for Republicans IF -- IF -- public opinion were on their side and their own conferences weren't on the verge of fracturing. It's hard to exploit contrasts if, in the districts that you must hold, your challengers are skittish about drawing those contrasts.
Sen. John McCain, in a statement: "I have never intended my concern that the American people be fully informed about the conduct and consequences of the war to indicate any lessening of my support for our mission there."
A war widow, a critic of the war, cried with President Bush and chastized him. And she told her tale to Greg Sargent.
Howard Wolfson is joining Ned Lamont's campaign as an adviser. Wolfson, of course is a member of the Clinton Board Of Directors, that small group of men and women who constitute the New York Senator's closest political and policy advisers. There's a tendency for reporters to overanalyze items like this, but it speaks for itself, really.
Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) is in Oakland, Co. for the MI GOP convention. Last night, he hosted a pizza party. Per MI GOP chair Saul Anuzis: "Governor Romney was clearly the 'hit' of Friday night. He worked the convention hall and his tent reception like a classic 'candidate'". Not to be outdone, McCain's Straight Talk America co-sponsored a reception last night; 1,000 Republicans showed up as did several major statewide Republican elected officials. A video featuring Sen. Trent Lott was played; Lott calls McCain a "Reagan conservative" who believes in "strong national defense" and is the "strongest deficit hawk in the Senate" who has "helped lead Arizona's efforts to define marriage as between a man and a woman."
We get the feeling that the hold on S-2950 will be quite an issue in September and October.
Nice guy: Sen. Bill Frist bought burgers and fries for about 100 GOPers in Spartanburg, SC.
In his weekly radio address, a humble POTUS talks about the government response to Katrina. Other key words: Rockey Vaccarella. Pledge. Stronger levees. $110 billion. State and local officials. Long road to recovery. Democrats will try to take advantage.
PhRMA won't comment, but it seems that they helped pay for some of the Chamber of Commerce's ads on the new perscription drug bill. Per the AP: "The pharmaceutical industry quietly footed the bill for at least part of a recent multimillion-dollar ad campaign praising lawmakers who support the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, according to political officials." Funny -- we seem to remember that PhRMA's new team sort of said they wouldn't do these types of things anymore and would be up front about the ads they fund.
The Family Research Council is on a tear about Plan B. Among the questions they have for the government: "Can the FDA assure us that adult men will not be able to obtain this powerful Over-the-Counter (OTC) drug for their under-age girlfriends?"
Moderate GOPers have a presidential straw poll going.
A prominent TN GOP activist has been arrested on voter fraud charges.
The NH Dem party outraised the NH GOP.
BTW: Click here to see Christopher Hitchens give the finger to an audience of Bush haters.
In bookstores now: Tom Edsall's "Building Red America." It's a blistering examination of the structural, demographic and psychological factors that have allowed, in Edsall's view, conservatives to take power and propell a conservative majority forward.
'06 SENATE RACES
WA: Ah, the late Friday self-oppo dump. Republican Mike McGavick admitted a '93 drunk driving conviction. He also talked about his divorce. Unbidden, apparently. (Was there a newspaper article McGavick wanted to get in front of?)
Sen. Elizabeth Dole blogs!
TN: A new DSCC ad targets Bob Corker's alleged ties to Big Oil.
Chafee/Laffey gets World News with Charlie Gibson's attention. ABC's Jake Tapper reports that Chafee is caught between a hard place (less tolerance for moderates) and a harder place (an angry GOP primary base).
Redstate is pissed at the NRSC for the Chafee ad.
MD: In the DC market, we saw one of Michael Steele's ads tagged on to the end of Jeopardy last night. Since his candidacy is a Mehlman special, we wonder if he's microtargeting....
VA: Dick Wadhams says "Oh my Lord. Wow." In the Washington Post. Is Sen. George Allen Jewish? Here's how he's answered the question before. In Staunton, VA, Allen was asked by a protestor if he'd ever used the N-word. Meanwhile, Allen's listening tour continues.
'06 GOVERNORS RACES
CA: What does it say about the political environment in California that an incumbent governor can settle a sexual harassment lawsuit against in the heat of a campaign... and really, not have it matter much?
FL: Some 'mo for Gallagher or a suspiciously well-timed survey? "Tthe Florida Chamber of Commerce released a statewide poll that reveals only a 10 point difference between gubernatorial candidates Charlie Crist (39 percent) and Tom Gallagher (29 percent), with the undecided voters at 29 percent. These poll results are the first to be released since the August 22 Republican gubernatorial candidate debate. This week’s poll, conducted by InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Research, was a phone survey of 500 likely voters in the Republican primary and was conducted August 23-24, 2006. It was weighted for age, race, gender, and geographic distribution. The poll has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percent."
OR: GOPer Ron Saxton's campaign has reserved $100K of Portland ad time to run a strong contrast ad against Gov. Ted Kulongowski (D).
'06 HOUSE RACES
IA 03: This is big: the DCCC has cancelled ads planned to boost Rep. Leonard Boswell (D). Why? Because the DCCC is satisfied that Boswell will win. The news comes as Speaker Dennis Hastert appears with GOP challenger Jeff Lamberti (R).
Stu Rothenberg's latest House prediction: 15-25 seat gain for Dems.
So you just got back to Jersey. You open up the local paper and there's a nice "Dem supports impeachment if they win back House" story. And the New York Times's Hulse digs into Dem caucus efforts to -- it seems -- move less polarizing Dems to positions of greater power.
Here's the final list of candidates for the five redrawn Texas congressional districts.
IA 01: Braley (D) enjoys the fact that Mike Whalen's website has lots of pictures of Bush and Cheney and few sentences about the issues.
NY 25: Jumping off an AFL-CIO endorsement, Dan Maffei is on the air with a populist economic ad.
NV 02: Anti-taxer Sharron Angle (R) plans to contest her narrow loss to Sec/State Dean Heller (R). If she wins, she gets a revote. Overseen by, uh, Heller. Angle will not ask for a recount. Heller's margin of victory was 421 votes. Angle's complaint alleges that "errors" plagued the voting process.
CROSSING OUR TRANSOM
Keep your eye on Offut AFB in NE on Tuesday. VP Cheney has a major speech planned.
National campaign committees are expected to finalize decisions about where to reserve time ahead of the October election push. So we should know this week of the DSCC is willing to committ resources to Virginia. We know that a friendly Dem organization had a VA poll in the field last week. If you read about the poll next week, it means that James Webb is within 10 points of George Allen. If you don't, he probably isn't.
President Bush spends the first part of the week in Alabama, Mississippi and New Orleans; he campaigns for Corker in TN and Hutchinson in AR on Wednesday.
Frist campaigns with Burns on Monday; Tuesday, GOPers hold an immigration hearing in Indiana; Giuliani campaigns with Steele on Wednesday; Russ Feingold is in Iowa.
CHEW ON THIS
Responding to a New York Times story on the Pew poll about American religious and political attitudes, Leonard Leo urges conservatives in a memo to focus on drawing contrasts with Democrats over judicial confirmations.
"If you survey the legislative and political landcscape for what kind of attention various issues are receiving within Congress, one noticeable shift has been on the judges front. The judges issue had, for several years, been a highly visible issue, with Senate Republican leadership placing a premium on floor debate, multiple cloture votes, and impassioned stump speeches around the country. Now, we hear almost nothing about the subject from the Senate, even though Democrats have been holding a number of nominees hostage, which, secondarily, slows down the overall process. As Senators standing for reelection meet with constituents back home, we should begin to think about how we can help to clarify the choices voters face at the ballot box this November."
It's interesting how few political strategists in either party think judges have ever (at least since '92) been a voting issue, even for social conservatives.
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