Will the MS-01 GOP Primary get bloody?

It is no secret in Mississippi that the NRCC cleared the way for State Senator Alan Nunnelee to run against Travis Childers in Travis's reelection bid for the MS-01 Congressional district. Although Nunnelee is a weak candidate, who comically touts his work on getting "In God We Trust" on a plaque in every classroom as a top legislative accomplishment on the Nunnalee website, Nunnalee has a geographic political advantage of being from Tupelo.

Tupelo is the base area for Childers. If Travis loses badly in the Tupelo area his chances diminish rapidly. Anyone who followed the 2008 race knows how big this dynamic is. The Republicans are willing to run an inadequate candidate for Congress in the race just to possibly win a seat back. Let there be no doubt Nunnalee will be a puppet on a string for the Republican leadership. (it looks they are all are based on the Frum article)

What is interesting is the upstart primary challenge from Fox Newsie Angela McGlowan. McGlowan is a proud teabagger, challenging Nunnelee on his conservative credentials. She has gone as far as suggesting to privatize Social Security, a wingnut's nirvana. This could get interesting in North Mississippi, much to the chagrin of the national GOP leadership.

DCCC Release on McGlowan and Nunnelee for March 3

New York Times: Republican troubles

I am not one to gloat but, in this case I can't help it. The gold standard of journalism, The New York Times, described the level of panic in the GOP. It is every man for himself...

But Mr. McCain’s advisers said the Mississippi race underlined his intention to distance himself as much as possible from Congressional Republicans. Mr. McCain has already been openly critical of some of President Bush’s strategies.

The level of distress was evident in remarks by senior party officials throughout the day.

OK, so McCain is going to distance himself from Bush and the Republicans in Congress? That sounds as lonely as the Maytag repairman, and achievable as perpetual motion. Do you think for one minute the DNC or Barack Obama is going to let him get too far from Bush? He has already bought into the big two, the Bush tax cuts and the endless war in Iraq. The American public will see the truth...




And here is one while our people suffered during Katrina. This picture shot on 8/29/05.




Republican Representative Tom Davis of Virgina had this to say,

“They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,” Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”

They might seriously need to bolt the upstairs windows down at the NRCC, RNC, and NRSC to prevent a tragedy.

The Hill: Childers victory gives Dems a third straight takeover

The Hill, a favorite political website of mine posted their post-results piece on last night's election in north Mississippi. The meat of the article has some great quotes by the soon to be fired, in this blogger's opinion, NRCC chairman Tom Cole.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), issued a somber and self-reflective statement following the loss, saying Republicans were “disappointed” and that they need to prepare to run against Democrats campaigning as conservatives.

“Though the Democrats’ task will be more difficult in a November election, the fact is they have pulled off two special election victories with this strategy” in Louisiana and Mississippi “and it should be a concern to all Republicans,” Cole said.

Cole added that “the political environment is such that voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general. Therefore, Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward-looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change voters are looking for. This is something we can do in cooperation with our presidential nominee, but time is short.”

DCCC: Democrat Travis Childers Wins

Lifted from the DCCC website.

DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen released the following statement on Travis Childers' victory in the special election runoff in Mississippi's 1st Congressional District. With tonight's win, the Democratic majority in Congress has expanded to 236-199.

"Congratulations to Travis Childers on his stunning victory. His victory has sent a political thunderbolt across America tonight. It is yet another rejection of the House Republican agenda, the Bush Administration's misguided policies, and John McCain's campaign for a third Bush term.

"For the first time in more than 30 years the Democratic Party has picked up three Republican seats in special elections in one cycle. Republicans and their outside groups pulled out all the stops in an attempt to nationalize a congressional race and distract voters away from their own candidates' failure to stand up for middle class families. The NRCC broke the bank and spent nearly 20 percent of their cash on hand on a ruby red district. Travis's victory proves that a Democrat who puts the economy, health care, and homegrown values front and center can win anywhere in America. After three consecutive Special Election defeats in districts President Bush twice won easily, it is abundantly clear the American people have turned their back and shut the door on the special interest driven agenda of the Republican Party. There is no district that is safe for Republican candidates because President Bush's failed policies have hurt every community in America.

"Travis will be a tremendous asset to our Democratic Caucus and a powerful voice in the fight to strengthen our economy, improve education, and make health care more accessible and affordable for America's struggling middle class families."

More national coverage of MS-01

The Washington Post covered the MS-01 special election over the weekend. Here are a few excerpts. They even mention Cheney's visit to South Memphis.

As Losses Mount, GOP Begins Looking in the Mirror

Since losing 30 seats and their 12-year stranglehold on power in 2006, House Republicans have kept asking themselves the same question: Can it get any worse?

On Tuesday, they may get another answer they won't like.

With lots of help from Washington -- including more than $1.3 million in campaign cash and a last-minute visit by Vice President Cheney -- Mississippi Republicans are desperately trying to retain a congressional seat in one of the most reliably conservative districts in the nation.

The stakes in the 1st District special election couldn't be higher, strategically or symbolically. The loss of a traditionally GOP seat to a Democrat would be the third in a special election this spring and the second in the Deep South after the May 3 victory of Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-La.).

Rank-and-file Republicans say that would force a day of reckoning for their leadership. "When you connect three dots in anything, that's a bad thing. This connects the dots. At that point, everybody's got to come together and have a come-to-Jesus meeting," said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), a retiring centrist who will help form a new advisory panel at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"It's a time of sober reflection and, to some extent, resolve. I hope these special elections are a wake-up call," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), the leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

Democratic leaders have stopped tamping down expectations and instead have set a new goal for the November elections of establishing a long-lasting majority that could dominate the chamber.

Independent analysts agree that a loss Tuesday would leave Republicans with no excuses. They blamed poor candidates in races in Louisiana and Illinois, where the GOP lost a special election for the seat long held by former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

"The Republicans would be ignoring reality if they try to explain away this race," said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report.

Since 1994, Republican Roger Wicker has been reelected to his House seat with between 63 and 79 percent of the vote. But with Wicker appointed to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by Trent Lott, who retired, Republicans are having difficulty unifying behind Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, a Memphis suburb in the northwest corner of the 1st District. Davis beat a Republican from the eastern portion of the district in the March primary. That win puts Davis on the ballot in November, whether he wins or loses this week's special election.

The NRCC already has committed $1.3 million to the approach in Mississippi, triple the amount it spent in Louisiana.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), a former Republican National Committee chairman, has collected donations for Davis from party committees in such far-away states as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Cheney arrives Monday evening for a get-out-the-vote rally.

"Republicans are committed to winning in Mississippi, and we believe the momentum is on our side," said Ken Spain, NRCC spokesman.

Democrats say they have nothing to lose. "It's hard to see any upside for Republicans," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which had a cash advantage of $44.3 million to $7.2 million over its counterpart on March 31.

By pouring $2.9 million into the Louisiana and Mississippi special elections, the Democrats have forced the NRCC to spend $1.7 million to defend its territory.

MS-01: The stretch run expenditures

The following expenditures were posted yesterday for the big race Tuesday.

From Swing State Project

The NRCC posted a big list of expenditures in Mississippi today, just days before this hotly-contested special election comes to a close on Tuesday:

$151,000 on an ad buy
$17,500 on media production
$7500 on phonebanking
$35,000 on direct mail
$4400 on polling

The DCCC:

$63,000 on media buys
$13,500 on literature
$14,500 on media production
$7000 on field organizing

Total spent:
NRCC: $1,273,145
DCCC: $1,742,121

New MS-01 Expenditures

Swing State Project is the king of information for campaign expenditures. Not to mention they raised $2,700 for Travis Childers. I want to thank them for all they do.

The NRCC just made an additional $31,000 buy in MS-01, while the DCCC reported expenditures totaling $139,000.

New totals:
NRCC: $982,600
DCCC: $1,282,835

Swing State Project:: MS-01: More Money Moves

NRCC makes $350,000 buy in MS-01

Thanks to Swing State Project for the lead.

The NRCC made a $350,000 buy today for an ad to be run against Travis Childers.

The new bill brings the NRCC's total expenditures in this R+10 district to an eye-popping amount of $951,203. To put that in perspective, that's 13% of the NRCC's cash-on-hand.
The DCCC has invested $1,143,668 on this race so far.

NRCC Attack Ad: Childers, Obama, and Rev. Wright

Well it was only a matter of time before the Republicans hit the panic button. With Childers being outspent 2-1 and still kicking their asses, you knew it would get ridiculous soon. Here we go with a new attack ad that is borderline insane, and deeply embarrassing for the state. With the attention the NC ad received, I would not expect this to go away soon. We now have a black-eye for the state. In the Washington Post today:

Another Republican congressional candidate thinks he can get electoral mileage out of linking his Democratic opponent to the presidential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and the controversies around his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Barely two weeks before a special election to fill a vacant U.S. House seat, GOP nominee Greg Davis has begun airing a political attack ad featuring grainy images of Obama, his former pastor and Davis's Democratic opponent, Travis Childers, who is running an unexpectedly strong campaign in a conservative northern Mississippi district.

"Travis Childers, he took Obama's endorsement over our conservative values. Conservatives just can't trust Travis Childers," the narrator says over pictures of the candidate, Obama and the Rev. Wright.

What an embarrassment for the state. You would think with our poverty levels, the war, and the economy, we could avoid racial politics in Mississippi. But when that is one of only three pages in your playbook (GOP), I guess what else do you do?

It is time to put an end to the politics of fear. Let us make a statement to Greg Davis, the GOP, and the rest of the US that we are not putting up with scare tactics veiled as political ads any more. Let send Childers to Washington on May 13. Please donate to Childers for Congress now, time is running out.

Welcome to a New Democratic Party: A Party That Fights Back!

The DCCC has bought advertising in response to a combined assault by Charles Gregory Davis and the crooked NRCC.

Here's the Report.

Chrississippi at Daily Kos describes the ad:

It's kind of a cartoony look at Davis' spending city money as Mayor to buy himself a tricked-out SUV "to pick up energy leaders" and then how energy prices skyrocketed. The cartoon SUV keeps driving right up the steps of the Capitol building, and the tag line is something like "If Greg Davis gets into Congress, he'll fit right in."

This is backed up by facts unlike the NRCC's ad that relies on websites of unknown origin.

Thank you DCCC!

Today's NRCC: Crooked And They Just Don't Care, Sloppy Too

You may have read about how their treasurer was stealing from them.

Or perhaps you read about how they inflated their cash on hand and then had to backtrack.

Well now there is pretty solid information that they're breaking clear, long established campaign finance law:

The DCCC filed a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Freedom's Watch and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Freedom's Watch, a shadowy outside group, and the NRCC illegally coordinated their political attack ads against Democratic candidate Don Cazayoux (LA-06).

The Freedom's Watch and the NRCC's television ads are stunningly similar. A little digging revealed why – electronic identifiers show that the NRCC wrote the Freedom's Watch ad.

"The DCCC is filing this FEC complaint to hold Freedom's Watch and the NRCC accountable for their illegal coordination that is being used to mislead voters about Democratic candidates' positions," said Brian Wolff, Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Tom Cole may have gotten his wish when Freedom's Watch came to the NRCC's rescue, but breaking the law will be the NRCC's worst nightmare. Freedom's Watch own Word document clearly shows that the script for their ad came from the NRCC – that's clearly illegal."

Freedom's Watch is operating as the cash-strapped NRCC's de facto independent expenditure campaign:

• The script that Freedom's Watch provided television stations running their ads included electronic identifiers indicating that the NRCC created the Word document.
• The NRCC's ad buy in LA-06 ended the day the nearly identical Freedom's Watch ad began airing. The NRCC ad ran from 4/10/08 through 4/16/08. The Freedom's Watch ad began airing as the NRCC went dark – 4/16/08 and is scheduled to run through the special election on 5/03/08.
• The message, images, and citations in both the Freedom's Watch ad and NRCC ad are nearly identical. See for yourself – click here to see images of the ads side by side.
  
• Freedom's Watch is being run by Carl Forti, a longtime NRCC veteran who was responsible for the NRCC's independent expenditure campaigns and communications for nearly a decade. [Washington Post, 3/30/08] This is the same Forti who's responsible for attacks that led Republican Members and Republican candidates to call the NRCC "a rogue attack shop," responsible for "smears," "over-the-top accusations," "demonstrably false" and "misleading" attacks and "political mudslinging." [Boston Globe, 3/04/07]
  
• For the first time in memory, NRCC Chairman Tom Cole welcomed the participation of Freedom's Watch and other outside groups like it in House campaigns, saying "We hope we see them in political races all across the board." [Washington Post, 3/30/08]
  

Tom Cole: at long last have you left no sense of decency?

(The text of the complaint can be found in the comments)

Truth Check on Childers & Nursing Homes

Below is information sent out in a release today from the Democratic Party outlining the truth about Travis Childers' nursing home. What is disparaging about this situation is that there are some really awful nursing homes out there, and if there is a good, quality care facility that does care for the elderly of the state, we really don't need to tarnish it's reputation in the name of politics. I'm sure many people who read this blog can share stories about family members were abused or neglected in a facility.

Here is the real story about how Travis Childers takes care of Mississippi seniors:

TRUTH: In 2008, Childers was honored with a “Nursing Home Quality Award Certificate” by Information & Quality Healthcare (IHQ), the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Mississippi.

TRUTH: In 2002, the Mississippi State Department of Health found Childers’ nursing home in compliance of federal requirements for nursing homes participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

TRUTH: Travis Childers’ beloved mother and mother-in-law both reside in the Landmark Community, an assisted living center Childers owns.

TRUTH: According to Healthgrades, a leading independent health care ratings organization, Childers’ nursing home significantly increased its score in comparison to the state average of senior care homes. In 2007, Childers’ senior care home received a perfect score and did not receive any deficiencies, a statistic that only one of 12 senior care homes can boast. [Healthgrades.com]

Since 2004, when data has been available, Childers’ senior care home did not receive a single violation. [Healthgrades.com]

TRUTH: In Childers’ senior care home in Booneville, there were NO reported violations regarding the mistreatment of residents and NO deviations from the
expected quality of care of residents. [Nursinghomerank.com]

Give to Travis Childers on the Left Side of this Page.

We've added a handy little thing that is a link to our fundraising page for Travis Childers.

He is the real deal and he CAN win, but ONLY with YOUR help. Please throw him some change.

The payment process is secure and the money will be put to good use fighting the Washington style politics of Greg Davis and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

....


Look soon for a new series on why Greg Davis is already one of Mississippi's biggest campaign hypocrites. And unlike our competitors we'll use some apples to apples comparisons.

NRCC Is Grasping At Straws / Attacks Childers For Being Businessman and Not Making Lofty Promises

Their spending big money to air this ad in attempts to tarnish him in the eyes of elderly voters in the district:

I went to the website they cited to check it out. www.abuse.com had no indication of who ran it and actually rated most aspects of the Landmark Nursing and Rehab Center as 2's. Here's how they explained a rating of Two:

Level 2: No actual harm with potential for more than minimal harm that is not immediate jeopardy. The violation has had minimal negative impact on the resident(s) or it has the potential to affect the ability of the resident(s) to reach their highest level of well-being

They don't claim any actual harm.

In addition they've put together this web video that attempts to prove who knows what:

He stated in an interview with the Daily Journal that they put online that he didn't have "a magic answer or a magic pill to solve everything." They appear to be criticizing him for being honest and realistic. Since when were those traits we didn't like?

If this is all the Republican have on Travis Childers, then I think that it would be hard to find a better man than he for the post.

District 1 Race Gets More National Press

The Hotline: (password only)

Tuesday, March 15, 2008

Hitting Home

In a worrisome sign for the NRCC, GOPers announced that the cmte is airing TV ads to hold MS-01, a seat in firmly anchored in its Southern base. It joins LA-06 in getting a DC helping hand.
-- But even though there's a 4/22 non-partisan special, a 5/13 runoff between Travis Childers (D) and Greg Davis (R) appears likely. The NRCC wants to define Childers, who's been tattooed with the "conservative" label, before Dems do. Still, it's interesting that the cmte is spending money now, when the two-way race is still a month away.
-- But the race appears to be the real deal. It was easy to dismiss the high Dem turnout in the primary, saying it was being boosted by the WH vote. But no such asterick can be attached to the runoff, which saw the same trends. The NRCC ad doesn't mention "Democrat" once. Is that a sign it's no longer a bad word, even in this CD? If so, that's a problem for GOPers.
-- This is not a position the NRCC expected to be in, and is a bad sign for the fall. If the NRCC spends resources in Nov. defending anything in the South, it'll be a bad year.

CQ Politics:

The conservative leanings and usual Republican voting tendencies in northern Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District would appear to give a strong advantage to front-running GOP candidate Greg Davis in his bid for Congress.

Yet Democrats insist that divisions within the district’s Republican ranks that surfaced during a recent primary campaign — and the emergence of Travis Childers, a local official with a conservative profile, as the leading Democratic candidate — gives them a shot at the seat that seven-term Republican incumbent Roger Wicker vacated in December after his appointment to the U.S. Senate.

Some Mississippi political analysts say the Democrats’ optimism may not be misplaced. “I even get some raised eyebrows around here when I say a Democrat can win in the 1st District,” said Marty Wiseman, a well-known authority on Mississippi politics who directs the John C. Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University. “But it’s not unreasonable to say it’s too close to call.”

CQ Politics is changing its rating of the race to Leans Republican from Safe Republican. The new rating reflects the competitive nature of the race, but identifies Davis as the candidate who holds an edge.

The 1st District is Close And Republicans ARE Scared / NRCC To Dump Advertising In MS-1

Republicans across the state are in denial that the 1st District race is close, but listen here.

The NRCC spent $12,000polling the district last week.

They will begin airing television ads either for Davis or (I suspect this is the case) against Childers early next week.

Tell me they aren't scared.

Listen HERE:

The most recent filings give the DCCC a cash-on-hand figure of $38 million, compared to a paltry $5.1 million for the NRCC.

They don't have money to throw around. If they are spending now they're scared. This race is crazy close.

Travis Childers is the Real Deal.

National News On The MS-1 Race / Childers Makes A Competitive Race

Swing State Project:
Swing State Project on the close poll
NRCC Spending Money To Defend Seat

Record of NRCC Spending Money in District One
HERE

Washington Post (Web Only)
The Closeness Of The Race

HotlineTV:

(Mississippi specific clip begins 3:35 into the video)