Happy Independence Day everyone!! Today our nation celebrates it's Declaration of Independence from the British Empire. After much sacrifice from that generation, our nation would go on to become the first that was built upon the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment. Our nation would become a bastion of freedom, and the "city on the hill" for the world to aspire to.
You know your legal problems are bad, when you're spending more on your campaign manager's legal fees than he makes, and more than you're spending on campaign polling despite facing the two toughest challengers you've seen in nearly twenty years.
With an election-year corruption investigation looming, Rep. Don Young has tapped his campaign war chest to pay not only his own million-dollar legal tab but also to hire lawyers for his campaign manager, who is also under FBI scrutiny.
The Alaska Republican spent more than $35,000 between October 2007 and April on lawyers for longtime campaign manager Steven Dougherty. That's more than Dougherty himself made during that period and nearly as much as the campaign spent on political polling, according to campaign finance reports.
It's fortunate that Young has amassed such a formidable war chest over the years, as his campaign coffers are taxed on three fronts now. One, of course, is keeping him in Congress.
One is keeping him out of prison.
And the third, apparently, is keeping his cronies out of prison with him.
The payments, which are legal under federal law as long as they are associated with the candidate's official duties, are another indication of how the FBI investigation has become a drag on the congressman. Instead of coasting to a 19th term, Young is shelling out money to pay his bills and Dougherty's even as he faces a well-funded opponent in August's Republican primary.
The best part is, he's spending all his campaign money to defend himself from an investigation into, yup, his fundraising practices.
Young and Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens are under scrutiny for their relationship with VECO Corp. executives, who have admitted bribing Alaska lawmakers to push legislation favorable to their oil field services company. VECO executives were, until recently, Young's largest contributor and hosted an annual pig roast fundraiser for him.
He's on the hook for over $1 million in legal fees so far, so I hope it was all worth it.
Young still has not been charged; nor has Dougherty, or Senator Ted Stevens, who is also under federal investigation.
Yet another reason why leasing more territory for offshore drilling is a ridiculous idea: 30 million acres of land already leased for oil and gas drilling has gone unused.
AL-03, Mike Rogers
CA-46, Dana Rohrabacher
FL-09, Gus Bilirakis
FL-18, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
ID-01, Bill Sali
IN-03, Mark Souder
IA-04, Tom Latham
KY-02, Ron Lewis (open seat)
MN-02, John Kline
NE-02, Lee Terry
NV-02, Dean Heller
NJ-05, Scott Garrett
NC-10, Patrick McHenry
OH-07, Dave Hobson (open seat)
PA-05, John Peterson (open seat
PA-15, Charlie Dent
TX-07, John Culberson
TX-10, Michael McCaul
VA-05, Virgil Goode
VA-10, Frank Wolf
WY-AL, Barbara Cubin (open seat)
From Likely Republican to Lean Republican:
FL-08, Ric Keller
FL-21, Lincoln Diaz-Balart
PA-03, Phil English
WV-02, Shelley Moore Capito
From Toss Up to Lean Democratic:
NY-13, Vito Fossella (open seat)
NY-25, Jim Walsh (open seat)
From Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic:
PA-11, Paul Kanjorski
Wow.
That's an astonishing number of changes, first of all, but I'm equally amazed by the particular districts on this list. Most of the rating changes involve long-shot flanking races, the kind of races that would never be competitive in normal years, but happen to have unusually strong Democrats running this year, in an unusually favorable climate for Democrats. Some of these districts - like ID-01, IN-03, KY-02, NC-10, and TX-07 - are just wildly Republican, and many of them didn't even feature competitive races in 2006.
Many of those races added to the "Likely Republican" category won't be especially competitive this fall. But some of them will, and a few might even be Democratic pickups.
Even if it's just for this cycle, in the perfect storm of 2008, Democrats are making inroads into areas they have written off for years. The world is grown so good, it seems, that we are making prey where angels have long feared to tread.
HOLY CRAP. The Cook Political Report House Honcho David Wasserman just released his latest House ratings, and he has opened the blue floodgates on 30 House districts. And some of them are HUGE news.
MN-Sen: So, Norm Coleman is having a mini-scandal, apparently, involving a sweetheart deal he supposedly got on his Washington apartment.
Long story short: Coleman rents a basement apartment from a friend and Republican operative, Jeff Larson, who owns a townhouse on Capitol Hill, just four short blocks from the Capitol Building. The two of them have a longstanding relationship: Larson's wife works in Coleman's St. Paul office, and Larson's company has done a great deal of work on Coleman's Senate campaigns (earning more than $1.6 million in fees and expenses).
Coleman pays $600 a month in rent, which appears to be almost a nominal agreement. On one occasion, he missed rent payments for two successive months until reporters asked him about it. On another occasion, Larson failed to cash his rent check for three months until reporters asked him about it. Now, this appears to be quite a nice apartment; not only is it a stone's throw from the Capitol, but it's described as being quite lovely inside:
Downstairs, a huge English basement with a media center, office space, gorgeous custom marble and oak bar, plus an airy guest bedroom and bath. (A C of O allows you the flexibility of an income unit).
Simply divine!
Coleman's people claim he is paying market value for the apartment. The Minnesota DFL, however, has looked into the issues, and disagrees.
They note that similar apartments in the neighborhood can rent for nearly three times as much (see here).
English-basement apartments and studios on Capitol Hill comparable to
Coleman's for rent at amounts far in excess of $600 per month. In
addition to the research that it released last Monday, the DFL Party
today released more research showing that rentals of English basements
and small apartments comparable in location, safety and amenity to
Coleman's run from $1,100 to $1,800 per month. One Capitol Hill
one-bedroom English basement is nearly identical to Coleman's in
location and safety, for $1,700; another at $1,475 per month sits on a
block with five times the number of crimes committed in the last year,
including 12 times the number of violent crimes; and another at $1,350 a
month is a mere 625 square feet in size.
As a result, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed an ethics complaint against Coleman:
CREW’s executive director Melanie Sloan stated, "Few Americans have landlords who sometimes fail to cash their rent checks, ignore unpaid rent, or accept furniture in lieu of rent. That Sen. Coleman has just such a landlord, who also happens to financially benefit from his relationship with the senator creates exactly the sort of appearance of impropriety that undermines the public’s faith in government." Sloan continued, "Senators must abide by the ethics rules at all times, not just when they get caught flouting them."
AK-Sen: Ted Stevens really is losing it. His latest nugget of wisdom: "Chuck Schumer runs the Alaska Democratic Party".
I am not making this up.
The fellow is getting a mite paranoid, methinks.
ID-Sen: Polling for Idaho Senate candidate Larry LaRocco shows his Republican opponent, former Governor and current Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch, under 50% in a matchup against LaRocco and indie Rex Rammell.
Risch (R) 43
LaRocco (D) 28
Rammell (I) 6
Not a terrific poll for LaRocco, but not that bad, either. The poll also indicates that when given basic background information about the candidates on the issues, LaRocco rated a slight edge:
But LaRocco took the lead when respondents heard about Risch and LaRocco's stances the issues and were asked to vote again: LaRocco had 40%, Risch 37%, Rammell 5%, Other 5% and Undecideds dropped to 13%.
I'm unsure LaRocco will actually have the resources to get his message out, but one never knows.
ME-Sen: I'm a native New Englander, and as such, I love nothing so much as eating food from the ocean. So this DSCC Road to Victory video about the plight of Maine lobstermen (due to astronomical fuel prices) makes me cry.
NH-Sen: I wrote yesterday about how medical associations were targeting John Sununu for his vote on the Medicare bill. Well, it seems that one of his staffers actually informed doctors that Sununu would support the bill:
Dr. James Fieseher, a primary care physician in Portsmouth, traveled to Washington, D.C., in May to personally lobby Sununu and Sen. Judd Gregg for support to stop the cut and said a staff member for Sununu said he would support the bill.
"I'm concerned and disappointed," said Fieseher, who added that as Medicare providers keep getting squeezed, it's likely that fewer younger doctors will be able to afford to become primary care physicians like him. "We (doctors) are being hurt really bad by this. ... Our profit margins are already narrow. It won't do anyone any good if we are run out of business."
Also, Sununu was one of those shiny happy people who repeated the GOP myth about Big Bad China drilling off the coast of Florida. Thing is, someone bothered to tell him it was a myth.
So now, Sununu has neatly changed Big Bad China to Big Bad Cuba, and is back to spreading the Great White Lie:
Sigh. Sigh. Double sigh.
House Races
AK-AL: As a 36-year incumbent and former chair of the House Transportation Committee, Don Young has built quite a network of power - and a formidable campaign warchest - over the years.
This is very fortunate, as his legal troubles - and those of his cronies - are mounting, to the point where he is not only forced to lawyer up, but to obtain legal representation for his campaign manager as well. More on this later.
Somewhat fortunately for Young, he picked up the endorsements of the NRA and Mike Huckabee today. In other news, it appears that his primary opponent, Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, has his own problems to worry about. Parnell has been criticized for not issuing a public release on the Supreme Court's Exxon Valdez decision, and it's been murmured that this may be because his firm, Patton Boggs, defended Exxon in the proceedings.
When the Supreme Court’s decision on the Exxon Valdez litigation came out last week—slashing Exxon’s punitive damages to a tenth of the original $5 billion ruling—Alaskan pols were ultra-swift with their press releases condemning the court’s decision. Reporters’ email inboxes were flooded with indignant missives (Mayor Begich’s was titled, "Begich Angered by Exxon Valdez Ruling") from sitting officials, including Alaska’s entire congressional delegation, the governor, and also from the aspiring candidates who are in the thick of their respective campaigns.
The candidates for Alaska’s U.S. House seat were particularly vocal: Democrats Diane Benson and Ethan Berkowitz and Republican Gabrielle LeDoux (as well as Don Young, as part of the delegation’s statement) all denounced the decision (a compilation of the statements is available online at the Daily News’s website at http://community.adn.com/... Conspicuously absent from our inboxes, though, was any sort of message from Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, also running for the House seat.
Not that Parnell didn’t rebuke the decision as well, but his statement only appeared on his website (www.parnellforcongress.com), and there were subsequent whispers that Parnell was keeping his opinion on the Exxon decision on the down low, since in 2005 and 2006 Parnell was a partner at Patton Boggs, the international law firm that was representing Exxon in the litigation.
NE-02: I wrote recently on New Nebraska Network's investigation into Lee Terry's record of accomplishing nothing in Congress.
Well, it appears that the pro-Terry folks resemble their remarks, so they've been scrambling to find something, anything, constructive which Lee Terry has done in his time in Congress, and sending it all along to NNN, hoping that someone will buy it. Fortunately, the New Nebraska Network folks aren't suckers. Responding to their claim that
Under legislation introduced by Terry (HR 3117), all such centers must have at least one E85 fuel pump.
NNN does their due diligence, and reports
Terry did not "conceptualize" or "take the lead" on this issue.
The original idea was introduced in the Senate in 2006.
He did not submit it in a committee hearing as an amendment. Rather, Rep's Stupak and Inslee did that in the bill the committee submitted.
The same language was used in bills in the House and Senate, with the language eventually being pulled from a bill introduced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi by the House Rules Committee.
And Terry fought the legislation the entire way.
Ouch.
More bad news for Lee Terry: the Cook Political Report downgraded his race from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican".
Hooray for Democrat Jim Esch!
VA-05: While Democrat Tom Perriello has been doing excellent work in the fundraising race, incumbent Republican Virgil Goode has been spreading the Great White Lie.
You remember..."China, Florida, drilling, Cuba, Communists, stupid Democrats won't let us drill offshore".
Sadly, it doesn't appear to be helping him: Cook moved his race to "Likely Republican", too.
We set out yesterday to raise $150,000 for Darcy Burner, taking pressure off her fundraising efforts so she and her family can rebuild their lives. In 24 hours, the netroots have moved past the halfway mark, with $85,000 raised (we started at the $250,000 mark). That's 17 days she can focus on rebuilding rather than fundraising. As Goldy says:
This is more than just money, it is a gift of time and an outpouring of affection that has buoyed Darcy’s spirits just as the full impact of her loss finally started to sink in. The campaign tells me she has canceled her schedule at least through the end of the week and will reevaluate day by day after that.
I'm glad she has cancelled her schedule for at least this week. Let's help give her more time to put the pieces back together.
I agree with mcjoan that this wasn't the best compromise Democrats could get. At the same time, the FISA compromise wasn't worth a quixiotic fight, either. At the end of the day, below the fold is what this election is about:
George Fearing for Congress Please subscribe to my diary if you live in Central Washington or follow the race in WA-04. Thanks!
Soon I'll write in greater detail about why George is such an excellent candidate for Congress, and there are some great diaries already out there about why Richard "Doc" Hastings is as bad as they get, and why it's in the national interest to unseat him.
Keep your eyes posted for some entries from Mr. Fearing himself in the coming weeks. For now, for the skeptics and the pessimists, have a look at some of the many reasons why this race is VERY competitive -- much more so than Republicans would like to admit.
But trust me. The Hastings crew is getting nervous. We've seen folks drive by or even sit in their cars in front of the office, peering in. They've mentioned us in a fundraising letter. It's clear that Doc's campaign knows that we will fight for this. And this year, we can win.
Tomorrow, July 3rd at 5:00 PM Central Donald Betts Jr. will be liveblogging on FutureMajority.com. Betts is running in Kansas' Fourth Congressional District against 7-term incumbent Todd Tiahrt.
"Certainly, [US Representative Todd Akin, R-MO] seems as safe as any Republican can be in an otherwise bleak atmosphere for the GOP," writes Deirdre Shesgreen in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "The 2nd Congressional District includes the high-income, reliably Republican suburbs .... Akin won the seat in 2000, squeaking through a five-way GOP primary by 56 votes and then winning easily in the general election. He has coasted to re-election ever since."
Appearances can be deceiving. Todd Akin's seat isn't nearly as "safe" at it looks.
Looking into the black, collapsed interior of her home along the shore of Ames Lake on Tuesday, congressional candidate Darcy Burner was matter-of-fact.
"I'd say it's pretty much a total loss, based on the smoldering remains," she said. "We lost stuff. It's just stuff. The boy is fine. The husband is fine."
Burner, her husband and their 5-year-old son were home asleep when the 7 a.m. fire broke out, but they escaped unharmed [...]
Fire investigators said the blaze was caused by a malfunctioning electrical device that was plugged into an outlet in a bedroom, said Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff's Office. Burner said a faulty lamp in her son's room apparently was to blame.
Burner said she and her husband, Mike, were awakened Tuesday morning by their son.
"Henry came into our room screaming there was a fire," she said. "I scooped him up and got him out of the house. The fire started in his room. He did everything right."
"Thank goodness for smoke detectors," said Glaser. Investigators believe Henry was awakened when smoke alarms sounded, Glaser said.
I just went and re-checked the smoke detectors in my kids'' room. The thought of a fire starting in their room makes me want to throw up.
Darcy needs time to put her life back together. We're doing our part to make that possible, looking to cover her fundraising goal for the month ourselves.
NH-Sen: The Concord Monitor analyzes the differences between the 2008 Senate race between Jeanne Shaheen and John Sununu, and their previous match in 2002, when Sununu won a narrow victory.
Shaheen seems to think that the critical factor in the race is Sununu himself, and the record of failure he has compiled in his Senate term.
"This race is going to be about Jeanne Shaheen, but it's going to be about John Sununu," Shaheen, a former three-term Democratic governor, said in a meeting with Monitor editors and reporters last week. "This is about what he's done - or failed to do - over the last six years."
Shaheen chalks her 2002 loss up to "the environment we were in." Asked what's different this time around, Shaheen said: "This time I'm going to win."
Pithy, and accurate, given her substantial polling edge over the incumbent.
"I think this race is about the future of this country and the Senate. John Sununu wasn't running as an incumbent senator in 2002," Shaheen said. "He's running as an incumbent senator now, an incumbent senator who voted with this administration 90 percent of the time and got us to where we are today: with $9 trillion in debt, a war in Iraq with no end, a housing crisis, gas prices that are the highest in history, and no energy plan. . . . We need a dramatic change, and we are not going to get it with somebody who votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time."
Sununu's campaign didn't dispute the 90 percent figure but offered a statistic of its own.
"Senator Sununu has been an independent voice in the Senate and voted with New Hampshire 100 percent of the time," spokeswoman Julie Teer said in a prepared statement.
Sununu's been using that silly line for a while, it seems; it makes Dean Barker at Blue Hampshire chuckle.
It's settled - I think I can vote for Sununu. He's voted for our state 100% of the time! That's one more time than every time he voted with Mr. Bush! "Statistics" are so much fun!
ME-Sen: Apparently, this is how Susan Collins maintains her popularity in Maine: by concealing her actual record in the Senate from her constituents.
MS-Sen: Our beloved Decider is in Jackson, Mississippi today, holding a high-dollar fundraiser for Roger Wicker. Apparently, despite his party having lost his old seat in Congress in part due to Bush's unpopularity, Wicker is unconcerned about wearing Bush as a millstone around his neck.
"Sen. Roger Wicker is honored to have President Bush to Mississippi to support his campaign," Wicker campaign manager Austin Barbour said in a news release. "President Bush has offered America strong leadership in a unique moment of danger in our history."
So what does Wicker's opponent, former Governor Ronnie Musgrove, have to say about this event?
Musgrove's campaign has called out Wicker for holding a limited-access event instead of participating in a series of several town hall meetings - the first of which Musgrove wanted to have today.
"It's a disservice to Mississippians that Roger Wicker would choose to attend a high-dollar fundraiser rather than participate in a town hall meeting in front of voters," Musgrove campaign spokesman Adam Bozzi said.
MA-Sen: John Kerry is cruising in the Bay State, 58% to 27%, over his Republican opponent Jeff Beatty.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama leads John McCain 53% to 33%.
- Members of the American Medical Association are just beside themselves with rage over several Republican Senators' opposition to the recent Medicare bill.
Medical groups around the country are gearing up to target these bad seeds in several states. In Texas, John Cornyn has already been targeted, while other groups eye John Sununu in New Hampshire, Roger Wicker in Mississippi, and James Inhofe in Oklahoma.
Medical societies in Texas, Mississippi and New Hampshire — states where GOP senators face difficult reelection challenges this year — are taking a hard look at whether to withhold their support for incumbents who voted against the bill on June 26. One state group has already acted and others could follow, given the American Medical Association’s (AMA) vehemence on the vote.
This could be considered a major screwup for several of these Senators. In Sununu's case:
The New Hampshire group is especially piqued, Jones said, because Sununu personally assured them the cut would be prevented, as did aides to Gregg. "We all felt comfortable with the fact that they said, ‘We understand your concerns and we will not let a cut occur,’ " Jones said.
As for Inhofe, well, he's doing the only thing he knows how to do: blame Democrats.
Tulsa-area doctors are wondering if this might be the first year since 2002 that Congress won't intervene to avoid a cut to Medicare payments to doctors, since lawmakers failed to pass legislation before leaving for their July Fourth recess.
The Bush administration said Monday it will delay Medicare payments to doctors for 10 business days to give Congress time to reach a deal to block the cut.
...
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., insisted Senate Democrats were to blame.
"Despite knowing that their bill was doomed from the start, Democrats still refused to allow consideration of a Republican alternative," Inhofe said. "Both bills provide the same update to physicians, a 0.5 percent increase for this year and a 1.1 percent increase for 2009."
Gee, I was under the impression that voting to block the bill was his decision. But that's me.
House Races
NY-13: Due to the rather unbelievable circumstances surrounding this seat - not only the highly publicized demise of Rep. Vito Fossella, but the GOP's quixotic search for a candidate afterwards - CQ Politics has moved their ranking of this seat to "Democrat Favored".
Brooklyn political consultant Gerry O’Brien, who works with clients from both major parties, said Republicans’ recruiting problems all but assured Democrats would win the 13th District in November.
"It’s flabbergasting. That’s the only word I can think of. It is as if they seem intent on serving this seat up to Democrats on a silver platter with chocolate mints around the edge," O’Brien said.
I like chocolate mints. Ours is a good way.
VA-05: Showing surprising strength in a long-shot battle to unseat infamous Republican Virgil Goode, Tom Perriello has brought in an impressive amount of money in the second-quarter period.
Attorney Tom Perriello, the Democratic nominee in Virginia’s 5th district race against Rep. Virgil Goode (R), raised more than $300,000 in the second quarter of the year and will report more than $900,000 in total cash raised for the cycle in his next Federal Election Commission report, according to a news release issued by his campaign this week.
Democrats are starting to believe that Perriello has an outside chance of ousting Goode, a six-term incumbent who has never had to sweat re-election.
In the release, the campaign boasted that Perriello has refused all contributions from corporate political action committees and lobbyists and said that 96 percent of donations have come from individuals.
KY-04: This seat hasn't been on the radar up to this point, and with good reason, but this is a very interesting poll from SUSA, pitting incumbent Geoff Davis against underfunded, no-name Democratic challenger Michael Kelley:
Davis (R) 54
Kelley (D) 43
This was one of the hottest races of the cycle in 2006, but turned out to be a real dud in the end. Former Democratic Rep. Ken Lucas had narrowly defeated Davis in 2002, then retired in accordance with his term-limits pledge in 2004. Davis won the seat, beating Democrat Nick Clooney, and Lucas subsequently ran for his old seat again in 2006.
There was a lot of hype around this race, but Davis wound up beating Lucas badly, 52% to 43%.
I seriously doubt there's much chance of a pickup here, but it's nice to see relatively weak reelect numbers even in theoretically safe Republican seats.
MO-06: Sam Graves really is full of it, when it comes to the GOP's Great White Lie regarding offshore drilling.
It’s an urban legend that’s easy to believe for some Americans.
In early June, Vice President Dick Cheney told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that China was pumping oil from the Gulf of Mexico.
"...George Will pointed out in his column the other day that oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida," Cheney said. "But we’re not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply."
Similar assertions have been made by other elected officials who, like Cheney, support more offshore drilling. They include U.S. representatives Sam Graves and Roy Blunt of Missouri, George Radanovich of California, and John Boehner of Ohio. All are Republicans.
Here’s the problem with their claims: China is not drilling for oil off Cuba, according to independent energy experts. Cheney’s office has since acknowledged this.
According to these stellar GOP representatives, if you repeat lies often enough, they become truth.
Nice to see Graves, in particular, called out by his local paper, though.
Most people know that the cost of prescription drugs is going up, and that the drug companies are not hurting despite most business and industries taking a hit in the recent recession. We look at the cost in one county, and the causes nationwide.
Guys, as you might've seen, Orange to Blue candidate Darcy Burner lost her house yesterday to a fire. The tragedy has obviously upended her life, and she's struggling right now to put all the pieces back together. As such, she now faces a dilemma -- the more time she dedicates to dealing with her personal affairs, the less time she has to campaign and raise money.
We can't help with the "campaign" side of things, but we can help with the money side of things. Darcy would have to raise about $150,000 in the month of July to keep up with her Republican opponent. Us bloggers are going to try and raise that for her.
Darcy is currently at $250,000 across all of ActBlue. We want to get that to $400,000. A tall order, but no one deserves the respite from the rigors of fundraising more than Darcy.
One last point: Darcy is a huge netroots sensation because she is truly one of us -- a former Microsoft exec who is a geek at heart, and someone who has been with us on the war and FISA since she first started running in 2005. Some politicians can put up a facade or say the right things for the right audience, but there's no faking it when you've just run out of your burning house, seeing all your worldly possessions go up in flames as you frantically try to ensure your family is safe.
Look at the shirt she was wearing:
(Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)
She is family.
I know I promised a lull from the fundraising after the end of the quarter, but these are not normal circumstances. Darcy will be someone who will be there for us when she's in Congress. Now's our chance to be there for her during these horrible, trying times. Let's do what we can to help her out.
[...] that’s XML for “end war.” And the fact that this was the shirt that Darcy was wearing at 7AM when she and her family fled their burning house, tells us in the netroots all we need to know about Darcy Burner [...]
Darcy needs to raise about $150,000 this July to keep pace with Dave Reichert and her own 2006 fundraising, and everyday she takes off makes her campaign budget that much harder to hit. That’s about $5,000 a day.
And that’s why I’m joining with bloggers nationwide to ask our readers to contribute what they can today, to help give Darcy the breathing room she needs to tend to her own affairs without worrying about neglecting her campaign. Every $5,000 increment we raise represents a day that Darcy won’t have to dedicate to her own fundraising efforts. It is a gift more precious than money; it is a gift of time.
We told you in April about the latest incarnation of House Republicans' vaunted ROMP program. ROMP stands, amusingly enough, for the "Regain Our Majority Program".
Only thing is, the first installment of ROMP candidates in 2008 didn't really have anything to do with actually regaining the majority. Out of 10 Republicans on the list, seven were incumbents, and exactly one was targeting a Democratic-held seat.
Interesting way of regaining the majority, through incumbent protection.
Well, the GOP's Red Army has done it again. Per GOP leaders Roy Blunt and Eric Cantor, the newest incarnation of ROMP:
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, WV-02
Rep. Phil English, PA-03
Chris Hackett, PA-10
Rep. Tom Feeney, FL-24
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, FL-21
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, FL-25
Steve Stivers, OH-16
Pete Olson, TX-22
Give them credit for positive momentum. In April, ROMP targeted one Democrat, John Yarmuth of Kentucky. Now, at least,two out of the eight names on this list are chasing Democratic-held seats (Nick Lampson in TX-22, and Chris Carney in PA-10).
There's one open-seat candidate here, too, Steve "Window-Shopper" Stivers.
Everybody else is an incumbent, many of them in formerly safe GOP seats (like Feeney, English and the Diaz-Balarts).
It seems rather clear that even with this program, specifically designed for targeting vulnerable Democrats, the GOP is on the defensive, more focused on minimizing losses than, you know, regaining a majority.
Here in Kentucky we have been turning the page and returning to our Democratic roots. We are tired of the failed leadership Kentucky Republicans have provided in the Congress, and our Senate. It all began with Greg Stumbo's exposing of our corrupt former Republican Governor, Ernie Fletcher, the first Republican to hold that post in a generation. From there, our momentum has only increased.
