Cross-posted (as always) at The Thorn Papers. Y'all come by now.
Seems as though Senators Wicker and Cochran (along with 8 other lockstep Republicans) have found themselves on the wrong side of a Medicare issue, siding (as per usual) with the president and the insurance industry over patients and doctors. Shocking, I know.
The American Medical Association is taking action, running ads, calling out these senators by name. From CQ Politics, a little background:
The American Medical Association, the influential trade association for doctors, began running television ads Tuesday targeting 10 Republican senators who voted last week against a bill that would reverse a scheduled cut in Medicare’s physician payments.
Listening to a discussion of the Shaheen-Sununu rematch on NPR just now, I was struck by how Sununu's leading talking point was "I was first to oppose President Bush on lots of issues."
And Johnny S. isn't alone. From the presumptive nominee on down, GOP candidates are stumbling over themselves and each other to get to the "We Support the President" hall. Just google the phrase GOP candidates distance from bush and read the 268,000 results, if you have a couple of months on your hands.
But you know something? I think they're screwing up.
I know, I know...it's not likely, but a brother can dream can't he?
Following up on my post from yesterday and incorporating some of the suggestions/corrections from the comments made there, let's take a look at our best case scenario in the November Senate elections.
Right now, we're at 49 Ds, 49 Rs and 2 I's. When the smoke clears on election night in November we'll be at 62 Ds, 37 Rs and 1 I.
Here's how it's going to happen....
Normally, you'd think Senators facing tough reelection battles would want the highest-profile help their party had to offer. You'd think that for Republicans that would be the incumbent president -- but of course, Bush has the worst disapproval rating since they started measuring that.
So in this, as in so many things, McCain will be standing in for Bush, going on the road for New Hampshire's John Sununu, Maine's Susan Collins, Oregon's Gordon Smith, and Minnesota's Norm Coleman. Because, as the Cook Report's Jennifer Duffy says:
"The interesting thing about McCain is that he may not help anybody, but he's not a drag on anybody," she said.
Yet. He's not a drag on anybody yet. Because he hasn't yet faced a settled Democratic nominee. Because the traditional media has given him a free ride, rarely pointing out that on the votes that matter, McCain's no maverick. When the Republican party and George W. Bush need him, John McCain is reliably there for them.
How alike are McCain and Bush? MoveOn puts you to the (f'ing difficult) test -- a test a lot of reporters could stand to take before they write their next stories squeeing over all the awesome straight-talking maverickness. If they start writing the story of the John McCain who actually stands in front of them instead of the one in their heads, by November he'll be as much of a drag on Sununu, Collins, Coleman, and Smith as Bush is today.
No one was going to pay much attention to this until after the New Hampshire primary, but in the two months since, we've seen Shaheen maintain a steady lead now in two of the more reputable polls following the race. Good news for us.
"First and foremost, today we remember the fallen heroes of our armed services and their families. We pray for the men and women serving our country and we honor the veterans who have sacrificed so much for all of us.
"Today, we are five years into a war we were told would last a matter of weeks, five years into a war that has taken almost 4,000 American lives and is costing us $12 billion a month, five years into a war that has diverted our military focus from pursuing terrorist threats around the world. This morning, President Bush asserted once again that the war in Iraq has made America safer, while our intelligence agencies tell us that exactly the opposite is true – we are more vulnerable to terrorist threats now than we have been at any time since 2001.
The Presidential race is incredibly important this election and I'm glad the electorate is fired up. However, if we want to pass progressive legislation in 2009 and beyond, we need to start paying attention to the Senate. The Senate Democrats have been split on numerous issues like FISA immunity to voting for the horrid 2005 energy bill. Besides the problems within our own party, we also have the Republicans to deal with. You and I both know that they will never be on board with progressive legislation. IMO, with the exception of the Presidential race, electing more and better Democrats to the Senate is the only way we progressives will accomplish our goals. Follow me below the fold to take a look at a few Republicans we have to send packing......
Phony libertarian John E. Sununu (Vulnerable R-NH)spent some time with the Free State Project Liberty Forum last January trolling for votes from the Ron Paul crowd.
The thing I really like about the Paul people? They tape everything. And for once we have the real John E. Sununu speaking his mind in front of a friendly audience. No obfuscating, cloudy, SenatorSpeak here. John E. goes full force with ridiculing Obama's campaign slogan, followed by an open admission of his dream goals for change: a flat tax and the privatization of Social Security.
Are you excited? I am a proud Obama supporter, I am stoked for his chances to take back the White House. But it is not enough to get from a 49-49 Senate to a 54-44 Senate with cowards and pathological enablers.
If this election is going to be truly historic and aligning. If we want to crush and humiliate and set straight the GOP's real nature, brutality and their status in the minds of Middle America for some years.
And I think we both do. We cannot just gain pickups here. We need to have the kind of quantitative and qualitative type of victory in our Senate and House races that is both a) realistic and broadly sustainable and b) transformative.
Shaheen's lead has been steady in UNH polling; in November, SUSA had her up over Sununu 53-42, while in September, Rasmussen showed Shaheen leading by just five points, 48-43.
As Dean Barker points out in a Daily Kos diary, strong Democratic presidential primary turnout is fantastic news for Shaheen's prospects; on the flip side, in a comment at Blue Hampshire, one of Shaheen's strongest supporters urges against complacency. To echo her, it's great to have any lead (let alone a 17 point one) over an incumbent, but Sununu will not go down without a fight and we can't take this one for granted.
Some very encouraging news out of the Granite State tonight. Former NH Gov and challenger Jeanne Shaheen is trouncing incumbent Senator John E. Sununu 54-37 (MoE 4.2%) in the latest UNH poll. And moreover, from a screenshot taken from the .pdf of the poll results, it looks like Sununu hasn't been able to build any traction for half a year now.
(Important to note: this poll was conducted by the U. of NH, not NH-based ARG, a frequent NH-Sen pollster, but one declared recently to be one of the most inaccurate of the prez season)
Today brings us news that former governor Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is once again trouncing incumbent John Sununu (R-NH and Dubya sycophant extraordinairre) by a solid 17%, 54 to 37. This seat is looking good. (There was an outlier poll a few weeks back by ARG, the most craptastic of pollsters, which showed Sununu with a lead, but as expected, it was indeed an outlier...)
And in other wonderful news over the weekend, looks like Udall (D-NM) is well on his way to pummeling either/both the reprehensible Pearce (R-crazytown) or the self-proclaimed moderate (but clearly not) Heather Wilson by double digits, so much so that CQ Politics has changed the race to Dem Favored, meaning that Udall is now the frontrunner :)
Hey all - I'm taking a break from the presidential politics to inform you of a great candidate running for the U.S Senate in New Hampshire. That women is Former Governor Jeanne Shaheen. This year she is running in a rematch against Senator John Sununu. Some of you might remember the election of 2002 when the "phone gate" phone jamming incident happened in New Hampshire. This year that's not going to happen and we're going to boot do-nothing Sununu from the Senate.
The headline reads, "SUNUNU APPOINTED TO SENATE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE", but buried within the press release is his leaving the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Senator John E. Sununu is trying to clean up his act before his reelection bid and thinks, or actually his bosses in the GOP think they can hide the fact that he was one of the enablers of the current mortgage crisis. Give us a break and give New Hampshire citizens some credit, Senator.
If you, like New Hampshire's John Sununu, are a Republican senator facing a tough reelection battle in a state that went blue in 2006, you can't like last week's primary results:
The turnout results were dramatic – 50,000 more Granite Staters voted in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary, with nearly 280,000 voting in the Democratic race and only 229,000 turning out for Republicans. This was the first time since the establishment of the modern New Hampshire primary system that more people voted in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary when both were contested. Republicans actually turned out 10,000 fewer voters for their primary than in 2000, the last time there was a contested Republican presidential primary in their state. On the Democratic side, there were 125,000 more voters than in the 2000 primary, and 61,000 more voters than the 2004 primary, which was then a Democratic record, largely due to the fact that there was no Republican contest that year.
New Hampshire independents also showed that they are trending Democratic. According to exit polls, in the Democratic primary, 42% of voters were independents, up 1% from 2000, while in the Republican primary, only 34% of voters were registered independents – a 7% drop from 2000.
John Sununu now faces an electorate that produced 50,000 more votes last night for Democratic candidates than he won in his election in 2002, a stunning deficit that shows the extent of the challenge he faces in November.
New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu is probably watching the news and polling stations and seeing the incredible Democratic turnout. Right now, a cold sweat is probably balling up on his brow as he realizes that 2006 was not a fluke year and the days of Bush enablers like him are limited.
This fall, the supporters of Obama, Edwards and Hillary will unite to support the Democratic nominee for President as well as supporting the senate campaign of former NH Democratic Governor, Jeanne Shaheen.
Our message to John Sununu - start packing beotch, your days are numbered. Your dirty tricks are not going to work this year! The polling is not in your favor already. Also, that polling does not anticipate the type of democratic turnout we are seeing today!!! Not only are the democrats pumped and excited to end the Bush years, we have a great candidate in Jeanne Shaheen running against Bush enablers like you.
