Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races

Keeping a close eye on developments in the 2008 U.S. Senate races

Monday, May 14, 2007

Changing Colors

  • Minnesota: The Star Tribune nutshells the whole enchilada in an article entitled "Sen. Coleman: Independent thinker or political chameleon?":

    Will Coleman's opponents be able to brand him as a lapdog of an unpopular president and a symbol of the unpopular Republican Party line, or will Coleman succeed in portraying himself as an independent-minded, common sense centrist?
    That will be the crux of the Senate race. It should be rather easy to portray Coleman as a "political chameleon." In his first two years in the Senate, Coleman's party unity scores were in the low-90's. Then he realized how far to the right he was of mainstream Minnesota and dove back to the left, bringing his party unity score down to the high-70's in '05-06. His agreement with Bush has stood between the mid-80's and high-90's throughout his term. The article makes the following summation: "From 2003 to 2006, Coleman has moved further from the right to the center than all other senators but two." Political chameleon.

    Meanwhile, MN Publius highlights that Mike Ciresi has started a YouTube channel. Creative use of multimedia.

  • Nebraska: Chuck Hagel is doing nothing to blunt speculation about a third-party Presidential candidacy. On yesterday's Face the Nation, Hagel decried the current state of the Republican Party and the following exchange took place between Hagel and host Bob Schieffer:

    SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. Could you see a ticket that had Mayor Bloomberg and Chuck Hagel, in no particular order there, but those two names on the same ticket? Would that be--can you see something like that?

    Sen. HAGEL: It's a great country to think about a New York boy and a Nebraska boy to be teamed up leading this nation.
    No wonder the number of Nebraskan Republicans publicly proclaiming interest in a Senate bid is growing.

  • Kentucky: Courtesy of Ditch Mitch KY, Mitch McConnell proclaimed that the wishes of the Iraqi parliament are the definitive factor in determining Iraq withdrawal policy - not the wishes of his constituents or the input of the military leaders on the ground. McConnell's statement also flies in the face of the bogus "We have to fight 'them' 'there' so they don't follow us home" rhetoric. McConnell may be downshifting into "covering his backside" mode.

  • The delightful Arianna Huffington offers a missive on issue and narrative framing.

  • 8 Comments:

    Blogger Will Cubbison said...

    Does he know that a majority of the Iraqi Parliament has signed a resolution asking for specific timetables for withdrawal? If so, does that mean he agrees we need to leave or will he learn about that fact and come up with a new requirement for leaving?

    2:02 PM, May 14, 2007  
    Blogger VA Blogger said...

    I think he knows that the Iraqi resolution for withdrawal specifies that the U.S. pull out when the Iraqi security forces are able to stand up on their own--basically the same thing President Bush has says.

    Maybe we should re-elect Senator McConnell because his reading comprehension skills are far superior to those of liberal bloggers.

    2:21 PM, May 14, 2007  
    Blogger Will Cubbison said...

    Thanks for your nonpartisan comment.

    By the way, why has it taken 4 years for Republicans to agree to actually think about maybe, possibly, forcing the Iraqis to be responsible for their own government?

    2:31 PM, May 14, 2007  
    Blogger VA Blogger said...

    What are you talking about? That's been the goal all along. The problem is that they're not ready, and rather than prematurely leave and create a power vaccuum, Republicans want to make sure that the country is left as best as we can possibly make it.

    Its nice of the Iraqi Parliment to echo the President's call for success, though.

    2:46 PM, May 14, 2007  
    Blogger Will Cubbison said...

    If I were you I wouldnt say that was the goal all along. It makes the Republicans in charge look like incompetent idiots instead of just normal partisans.

    3:09 PM, May 14, 2007  
    Blogger Will Cubbison said...

    What looks to an outsider (me) like a pretty thorough run down of possible candidates in Georgia is available here

    11:49 PM, May 14, 2007  
    Blogger VA Blogger said...

    Steven Sauerberg to challenge Sen. Durbin in Illinois. Of course its a long-shot, but did anyone expect this race to be competitive?

    Also, Norm Coleman is up by 22 points against Franken according to MN Public Radio, and up 23 points on Cerisi.

    I tried telling you on multiple occasions that different polls with different methodologies produce different results; therefore, its disingenuous to say that Franken enjoyed a ten point bump from the SurveyUSA to the Rasmussen poll in February and March, respectively. Its much more likely the result of two different polls rather than any positive trend for Franken. Only a week ago, however, you continued your assertion that Franken improved ten points in polling, looking at just the raw data and excluding any other explanations for the two different results except for the ones which fit into your "Democrats good, Republicans bad" narrative.

    Now Franken is down by 22 points, which is worse than he started at in SurveyUSA's poll back in February. According to your own logic, Franken's numbers are on a negative trend, and the "seemingly vulnerable" incumbent Senator Coleman looks a lot more secure than some observers initially thought.

    After your debacle last week where you desperately tried to spin a 25-point deficit as more dangerous to the incumbent than a 15-point deficit, I'm very interested to see what kind of logical contortions you can twist yourself into now to "explain away" such bad news. Let's see if you even attempt consistency, or just blow right past it in your usual partisan bluster.

    9:27 AM, May 15, 2007  
    Blogger VA Blogger said...

    Apologies, I misspelled Mike Ciresi's name.

    9:28 AM, May 15, 2007  

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