On the heels of Mike Lux putting the race between Rep. Tom Allen and Susan Collins as the 4th most important this cycle and with Collins holding only a 7 point lead in a recent poll (with Collins less than 50% for the first time), the DSCC has released this viral ad:
Knocking down the myth that Susan Collins is a moderate will be the hardest thing about this campaign, especially since the media in Maine seems intent on continuing to promote it. Ads like this help, and I urge you to help circulate it to those you konw with connections to the Pine Tree State. Thanks.
We all know that Senator Susan Collins is no friend of progressive politics. With Holy Joe at her side, however, she is trying to create the appearance of being a moderate. So much for that image (which we all know is an illusion). The Maine Senator said today, at a hearing of the Senate's committee on homeland security and government affairs, that she is opposed to a proposal to ban large institutional investors from investing in commodities, a proposal floated by her own BFF Sen. Joe Lieberman. Give that she is in a tight race with Tom Allen, with recent poll numbers showing Collins vulnerable, tacking to the right of Joe Lieberman can only help unseat her...
In light of recent reports in the New York Times and the BBC Jonathan Kaplan has this in today's Portland Press Herald reporting on Rep. Tom Allen's renwed criticism of Susan Collins' work as chair of the Senate committee tasked with overseeing all Federal contracts:
Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, on Friday used the recent reports to renew his accusation that Republican Sen. Susan Collins did not conduct sufficient oversight of private contractors providing services to U.S. troops in Iraq when she chaired the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee from 2003 through 2006.
"Sen. Collins should have been doing investigations, holding hearings and calling contractors on the carpet," Allen said in a phone interview that his campaign initiated. "These horror stories would be very much minimized if she had done her job."
Allen has been quietly, steadily closing the gap in polling numbers between himself and Collins for months now, and finally finds himself within striking distance of Maine's junior Senator.
Allen has managed to seal 72% of the Democratic vote, an increase over previous Rasmussen polls, but Collins still takes 24% of the Dem vote and the lion's share of the indie vote. She has, however, only 81% support from Maine Republicans. If Allen can hold her to that and shore up indie and Dem support, he has a shot to win. I'd consider this race "likely Republican" at this juncture.
The lead Republican incumbent Collins has held over Democrat Tom Allen continues to degrade. According to Rasmussen, in April, the lead was 16. In May, it was 10. Now the June poll has the lead down to 7. At present the poll is:
Collins 49
Allen 42
Lost in the shuffle yesterday was this news brief in the Portland Press Herald:
The Pentagon’s harsh interviewing tactics against detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba cribbed from the U.S. military’s resistance training programs were "inappropriate," Republican Sen. Susan Collins said on Tuesday.
The Senate Armed Services Committee revealed at a hearing on Tuesday that top Pentagon lawyers began compiling lists of interrogation methods used by the military’s elite Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Schools in July 2002, much earlier than previously had been known.
"It seems that it was more logical for the (Pentagon) to go to the FBI for assistance than to try to figure out how the SERE techniques could be re-engineered for interrogation since that’s not at all what the purpose of the SERE techniques were," Collins said during the hearing.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that the Senate is just now getting around to investigating how SERE techniques were used on detainees held by our government at Git Mo and other places, since this was first reported in the media nearly three years ago.
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....
David Letterman made an observation last night, which I paraphrase. First it was lettuce, today it is tomatoes.
Who would have thunk it that bacon was the safest thing on a BLT?
This morning we have two diaries scrolling down with regards to the Iowa floods, and there are going to be many debates about politicization of disaster.
But our common cause is holding somebody accountable, and I suggest that all eyes and ears need to be pointed at Senators Susan Collins and Joseph Leiberman, who united to quash hearings post-Katrina, the Homeland Security Committee has been AWOL in oversight.
"To fix the economy, to help small business and to compete globally, we have to fix healthcare. Piecemeal measures won't fix the problem and are just more of the same. Under my plan, every American will have access to quality, affordable healthcare coverage. It builds on the strengths of the existing American health care system by providing new and better choices for businesses, families and individuals who are left out of the system or lack the health care security they should have throughout their lives."
Among the highlights:
>> Every American will have new options and choices. But Americans who like their current health care coverage can keep it.
>> The new Healthy Americans Program will offer quality, affordable health insurance choices like those available to Members of Congress to businesses, the self-employed, families and individuals.
>> Benefits will include essential medical services, including preventive services, maternity and mental health care, and access to a wide range of specialists.
>> Businesses and employees enrolling in a national plan can keep their plan even if they change employers, move to another state or experience changes in medical conditions. This will ensure continuous lifetime coverage and access to preventive services.
>> To ensure that all Americans have ready access to health insurance, the enrollment process will be simple.
>> Insurers will compete for business on the basis of cost and quality, not profit from and discriminate against people because of age or a pre-existing condition.
Allen explains his plan via the You Tube here and you can support his campaign here
I'd tell you what opponent Susan Collins' health care solution is, but it seems her web site is missing a basic issues page. We'll just assume it's, "Take your vitamins and pray you don’t get sick."
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Gretchen Peters reports that the Pentagon has awarded an international fugitive, shadowy Saudi financier Gaith Pharaon, an $80 million contract to supply jet fuel in Afghanistan (h/t Ron Beasley). Pharaon is a fugitive from the FBI as well as the subject of investigations by France and Italy.
The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.
The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to informal money transfer networks called hawala, known to be used by traders and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.
Interestingly, Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy.
To call that information "interesting" is to put it rather mildly. Can you imagine the hoo-hah that would erupt in the American trad media if a Democrat such as Barack Obama, say, were connected by even two degrees of separation to an international crook like Pharaon?
And yet Pharaon was a Harvard classmate of Bush's and a key investor in Arbusto/Harken Energy. He has a notoriously unsavory record. During the Carter administration he was involved in the disgrace of Bert Lance, and then a dozen years later in another banking scandal, the collapse of the shady BCCI due to massive fraud that cost the bank's clients billions of dollars. In the US, he was the second largest shareholder in CenTrust when it went belly up. The Federal Reserve then barred Pharaon from doing business in the US, and the FBI indicted him. Pharaon has been a fugitive ever since.
The FBI accuses the Saudi millionaire of fraud "involving millions of dollars" in the case of the Bank of Commerce and Credit International...In 1995 a US judge ordered Pharaon to give up $102m of his assets for his role in the BCCI fraud. He is alleged to have acted as the frontman for BCCI to acquire illegal stakes in American banks.
American pilots in Afghanistan depend for their lives upon the fuel supplied by this crook. Another in a long line of scandalous war-contracts from the Bush "administration".
Update: The ABC reporter is Gretchen Peters, not Brian Ross as originally stated.
How's this for craven hypocrisy; the party that brought you "Call Me, Harold" in 2006, is now begging for Democrats to keep national money out of Senate races.
Leading the way, of course, is the very selfsame Senator who chaired the NRSC in 2006, when that odious RNC ad ran.
One of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's top campaign advisors says he has asked the state and national Republican parties, as well as the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to steer clear of advertising in North Carolina's U.S. Senate race.
And he's calling on Jerry Meek, chairman of the N.C. Democratic Party, to do likewise with his Democratic counterparts.
"You can agree to not run advertising targeting Senator Dole during the 2008 election cycle as well as encourage your Senate nominee and national parties to abstain from third party advertisements," Mark Stephens, Dole's chief campaign strategist, said in a letter today to Meek.
So, let me get this straight; former NRSC chairwoman Elizabeth Dole, whose very job description put her in charge of steering national money to Senate races around the country in 2006, and running NRSC ads in those states...the same Elizabeth Dole who spent millions of NRSC dollars attacking Jon Tester, Jim Webb, Sheldon Whitehouse and Sherrod Brown...is now asking that the national parties stay out of her race?
Where does she get the gall?
Is it because the DSCC's been a fundraising juggernaut this cycle? Because the cash-strapped NRSC would be bringing a knife to a political gun fight for these candidates?
Nah. It's got to be in the name of civility, of course.
Strange, but when I think of Senate races, national party ads, and civility, my mind goes to this:
Dole isn't alone, naturally. Maine's Susan Collins has asked for the same:
"One of the biggest sources of negative ads are the national parties. We [Susan Collins' campaign] would make Congressman Allen this offer - if he will tell the Democratic Party not to run any television or radio ads in this campaign, we would make the same demand of the Republican Party. An arrangement such as that would be a huge step toward ensuring that the campaigns control the tone and the content of the television ads in this campaign."
As Senate Guru notes, Collins had no problem taking national money in her 2002 race. Neither did Dole, when she faced Erskine Bowles. Of course, the NRSC was positively flush back in those halcyon days.
From the Guru (props to him for picking up this story):
The only, I repeat - only, reason that Dole and Collins made these politically theatrical comments to their Democratic challengers is that the DSCC has $20 million more than the NRSC to spend on their candidates.
And, you know, it's just not fair that anybody has more money to play with than Republicans! They're supposed to be the rich ones!
I received an email from Tom Allen last week asking that I refrain from funding 3rd party groups who may intend to launch "vicious" attacks against Susan Collins. Below are some excerpts from todays Lewiston Sun Journal taking shots at groups such as MoveOn, who I support.
There is no doubt in my mind that Lieberman’s request to YouTube was meant to be a shot across the bow of the U.S. Constitution. A harbinger, if you will, of the coming all-out assault on the First Amendment.
I knew this day was coming. I had just lost track of its progress in the Senate over the past 3 or 4 months. Lieberman thinks we're not paying attention because of the primaries. If you ask the original bill’s author in the House, Rep. Jane Harmon (D-CA), if the VRHTPA passes muster regarding the Constitution, she’ll no doubt say that every consideration was taken in accordance of the Bill of Rights.
Kagro X had this diary on Friday that links to the original video, an expose about Susan Collins tenure as chair of the Senate's HS&GA Committee, the one tasked with overseeing ALL Federal contracts. Watch the first video before you view this follow-up:
The important part is at the end, where the Collins campaign strategy is made clear: do not deny the truth, but attack the messenger that brings it:
Most importantly on this point, neither Sen. Collins nor Rep. Allen dispute the key facts we tried to establish: that waste, fraud, and abuse did occur in Iraq and that a lack of oversight was a factor.
Their dispute is about who's to blame, and what should have been done about it in Congress.
You would have to have had your head up your ass to be the Chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for the first four years of the Iraq war and not have seen the need to hold hearings on contractor abuses pretty much every damned day.
But that's just what Susan Collins did.
In all those years, with all those stories about Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, and what have you?
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Maine voters shows that the state’s U.S. Senate race has gotten a little bit tighter this month. In her bid for re-election, Republican Senator Susan Collins now leads Democratic challenger Tom Allen 52% to 42%.
Finally, with rounding...there's a healthy chance this was only a single digit poll, and Rasmussen always leans a little right so I am thinking this is definately a single digit race! More analysis below
