Senate Guru
{First, a cheap plug for my blog Senate Guru.}
The last day of the 3rd fundraising quarter of 2009 is this Wednesday, Sept. 30. Our Democratic candidates for Senate must make a big splash to refute the growing CW among the tradmed pundits that 2010 could be a GOP year.
Please consider contributing today to our Democratic candidates for Senate via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.
Please click on to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and make a contribution to help stop ongoing Republican obstruction in the Senate. Every contribution makes a real impact! Thank you SO much!
{Originally posted at my blog Senate Guru.}
We've heard from a number of conservative Democratic Senators that a public option can't be included in a health care reform bill because the votes just wouldn't be there to pass it. (All emphasis added by me.)
Joe Lieberman (I/Dem caucus-CT), 6/16/09:
probably the most important, the votes are not there for a public health plan, government run option and this can stand in the way of a historic achievement for President Obama
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), 6/21/09:
She told CNN's John King: "Well to be candid with you, I don't know that he has the votes right now. I think there's a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus."
(Much, much more below the fold.)
About two weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled "FL-Sen: Marco Rubio Crushing Charlie Crist Among Florida Republican Grassroots." I went through seven Republican County Committees in Florida that have either censured Gov. Charlie Crist, come very close to censuring Charlie Crist, or held a straw poll in which Gov. Crist was crushed by his 2010 Republican Senate primary opponent, conservative former state House Speaker Marco Rubio. While Crist enjoys the higher profile, heftier fundraising, and backing of the Republican establishment in Washington D.C., it's clear that significant resentment toward Crist exists among Florida's grassroots conservatives.
On Senate Guru's Expand the Map! ActBlue page, created to raise funds for Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, New Hampshire's Paul Hodes is currently at $471.
In other words, he's just $29 away from an even $500.
Now, I'm like Adrian Monk when it comes to nice, round numbers. So is there anyone in the Daily Kos community who can step up and send Congressman Hodes' 2010 Senate campaign $29 via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page to put him at an even $500 and put my addled mind at rest?
Good karma for you, a more relaxing weekend for me, and a little more scratch in Congressman Hodes' campaign account. Win-win-win! Thanks SO much in advance.
Just a quick reminder that today, at 5pm Eastern Time, Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak will hold a liveblog session for about an hour at Senate Guru.
Congressman Sestak will take your questions, discuss health care reform and the President's address last night, and give us an update on his primary campaign against recent Republican Arlen Specter. It should be a terrific conversation and a great opportunity for you to get 1-on-1 with one of our terrific Democratic candidates for Senate. I hope you can join us today at 5pm ET at Senate Guru.
On the web: Joe Sestak for Senate Senate Guru Senate Guru Facebook Group Senate Guru's Expand the Map! ActBlue Page
I'm thrilled to let you know that Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, will join us at Senate Guru tomorrow, Thursday Sept. 10, at 5pm ET for a live blog session. I'm sure he will update us on how his campaign is going, discuss a variety of issues, offer his thoughts in response to tonight's Presidential address on health care reform, and, of course, field your questions.
I hope you'll be able to join us for the first candidate liveblog session of the 2010 cycle at Senate Guru. Bring your questions for Congressman Sestak and spread the word to all the political junkies you know!
This is what Nebraska's Democratic Senator, Ben Nelson, said on Sunday morning regarding the public option and a possible "trigger" mechanism:
Well I think he [Obama] has to say that if there’s going to be a public option, it has to be subject to a trigger. In other words, if somehow the private market doesn’t respond the way that it’s supposed to, then it would trigger a public option or a government-run option. But only as a fail-safe backstop to the process.When I say trigger, out here in Nebraska and the midwest, I don’t mean a hair-trigger. I mean a true trigger — one that would only apply if there isn’t the kind of competition in the business that we believe there would be.
(Much more below the fold.)
The most telling polling item I have seen in 2009 regarding the 2010 Republican Senate primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and conservative former state House Speaker Marco Rubio is the following tidbit from a late-June Mason-Dixon poll:
Among Republican voters who recognize both candidates, 33 percent back Crist and 31 percent back Rubio.
Crist has been acknowledged to have near-universal name recognition among Floridians, while Rubio is working to introduce himself to many voters - even many Republicans - for the first time. However, among Republicans who know both men, we have a statistical dead heat. This bodes well for Rubio, indicating that, as he increases his name ID, he will continue to sap support from Crist and even things up.
With the 2010 Senate races in Ohio and Kentucky featuring two of the most competitive Democratic primaries of the cycle, in two of the key Senate battleground states, Senate Guru contacted the Democratic primaries' major candidates - in Ohio, Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner; in Kentucky, Lieutenant Governor Dan Mongiardo and state Attorney General Jack Conway - to ask them all one question:
Why should the progressive netroots support your campaign in you state's 2010 Democratic Senate primary?
To see the Ohio candidates' responses side-by-side, click here. To see the Kentucky candidates' responses side-by-side, click here.
On the web: Senate Guru Senate Guru Facebook Group
Y'all remember John Ensign, right? He's the Republican U.S. Senator from Nevada who recently announced that he cheated on his wife with an aide. But he's not resigning - despite the fact that he called on President Clinton to resign for his marital infidelity. Why the different standard?
Nevada U.S. Sen. John Ensign told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his affair with a friend's wife was different from former President Bill Clinton's affair in the White House because Clinton committed a felony when he lied about it to a grand jury."I haven't done anything legally wrong," the Nevada Republican said."President Clinton stood right before the American people and he lied to the American people," Ensign said. "You remember that famous day he lied to the American people, plus the fact I thought he committed perjury. That's why I voted for the articles of impeachment."
Golden parachute recipient Carly Fiorina is considering running for Senate in 2010, but that campaign would be one of her first brushes with the democratic process as, it turns out, she barely ever votes:
Poll 121 votes Show Results Does a spotty voting record make you less likely to support a candidate? Yes. No. 121 votes Vote Now! Does a spotty voting record make you less likely to support a candidate? Yes. 110 votes No. 9% 11 votes
First thing's first. I'm not a doctor. I'm not suggesting that Republican Chuck Grassley has any particular illness. Simply, I have noticed that Chuck Grassley, over the last many months, has been making increasingly bizarre, aggressive, explicit, and violent remarks - and that such comments coincidentally happen to be early symptoms of dementia, particularly frontotemporal dementia. It stands out to me because, as a political junkie, I have long considered Grassley to be among the most mild-mannered denizens of the Capitol. 2009 has apparently become the year that the 75-year-old Grassley (he turns 76 next month) has shed his mild-mannered image, perhaps by choice, perhaps not.
In response to the story this Spring about AIG executives receiving exorbitant bonuses after the company was rescued by a massive infusion of public dollars, Grassley said on March 16, 2009:
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