Two days ago, Republican candidate Renee Ellmers wasn't on anyone's political radar. Then came Rep. Bob Etheridge's (D-N.C.) confrontation with two purported students on a street in downtown Washington, which was captured on video and spread across the Internet.
Etheridge's GOP rival is taking advantage of his Internet infamy to raise her profile and to do a little fund raising.
Late Tuesday, Ellmers's campaign posted a video on its website calling on Etheridge to apologize in person to the two men involved.
Ellmers campaign manager Al Lytton said the candidate has collected more than $25,000 in contributions in the last 24 hours and is looking to parlay that into some sort of momentum. "That's the hope behind this Web ad," said Lytton. "And we've seen a ton of new Facebook traffic, too."
The campaign is running ads on Facebook and is readying Google ads. It's using North Carolina-based online consultancy Majority Connections for its online outreach.
Republican media consultant David All said it's the sort of moment an agile campaign can turn into an online cash cow. All was one of the consultants who orchestrated Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) online operations after the congressman's "You lie" moment last September.
"It's very rare that you get an opportunity like this to help build support from a national audience," he said. "A couple of million dollars can help change the viability of any candidate."
After Wilson shouted "You lie" at President Barack Obama during a joint session of Congress, both he and his Democratic opponent parlayed the attention into millions of fundraising dollars. Democrat Rob Miller actually redirected his website to Act Blue, the online Democratic fundraising portal the next day. Wilson quickly countered with an online fundraising effort of his own, eventually topping what Miller was able to raise in the weeks after the incident.
The Ellmers campaign is far from that sort of visibility. But it's surely the campaign's best chance to make some noise.
The survey – the first of its kind this election cycle – underscores that the challenges facing Democrats are even greater than shown in national surveys. The Republican candidates lead in the 60 Democratic seats – and the ten Republican seats aggregate to a significant GOP advantage.
Just as importantly, the poll lays out some significant guidance on Republican messaging for the campaign on the big issues of the economy, the deficit, Wall Street reform, health care, and the Obama Presidency. Be sure to read the wording of questions 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26 – because those are going to be message battles that define this election.
In the survey, respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with statements that described each party's positions on those central issues. Campaigns may be able to shape their talking points from the results.
Greenberg's firm called the results a "wake-up call for Democrats whose loses in the House could well exceed 30 seats."
The effort by individual campaigns will have to push against walls that seem very hard to move at this point. We tested Democratic and Republican arguments on the economy, health care, financial reform and the big picture for the 2010 election. The results consistently favored the Republicans and closely resembled the vote breakdown. Democrats are hurt by a combined lack of enthusiasm and an anti-incumbent tone.
A former campaign manager for Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) denied an assertion by a top Democrat that he and his firm ran an unknown Democrat's successful primary bid for Senate in the state.
Preston Grisham, a former campaign manager for Wilson who now runs his own political consulting firm, called an assertion by House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) that he or Wilson's current staff had run Alvin Greene's Senate campaign a "laughable" one.
"I had never even heard of Alvin Green until after the election last Tuesday," Grisham said in an e-mail message. "Clyburn's claims that myself or my firm had anything to do with that election are a figment of his imagination and quite laughable."
Grisham, a former Wilson congressional staffer who served as campaign manager some time ago before leaving to start his own firm, Stonewall Strategies, acknowledged to the Washington Post one of its clients was one of Clyburn's primary challengers, Gregory Brown. Those ties led Clyburn to assert ties between Wilson's campaign and Alvin Greene, the man who improbably won the South Carolina Democratic Party's nomination for Senate, and who was called a "plant" -- potentially by Republicans -- by Clyburn.
"The only federal campaigns on the ballot, all three of those were being run out of the same shop, and that shop was Joe Wilson's campaign manager and former staffer on his congressional staff," Clyburn said Monday afternoon on MSNBC. "So that's all the proof I need."
Wilson's current campaign manager also emphatically denied any ties to Greene, or any of the other Democratic candidates who unsuccessfully challenged the third-ranking House Democrat.
"While I'm flattered by the vote of confidence, I can take no credit for Alvin Greene's landslide victory," current Wilson campaign manager Dustin Olson said in response to Clyburn's accusations.
The ultimate proof may come in Greene's yet-to-be filed reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which would presumably detail both the source of money for his campaign, as well as any disbursements it might have made in its primary campaign.
Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has endorsed John Koster
for Washington state's second congressional district.
Foster, a dairy
farmer, Snohomish County councilman and former three-term state
representative, is running against five-term incumbent Rep. Rick Larsen.
"John is a strong pro-family, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-development fiscal
conservative who will work to rein in the excesses of an out of control
federal government," Palin wrote Saturday night on her Facebook page. "He’s just the sort of Constitutional Commonsense
Conservative we need in DC."
The Service Employees International Union said Thursday that it has turned in the thousands of signatures necessary to qualify an independent candidate to run against Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.).
SEIU submitted more than 34,000 signatures in North Carolina to qualify Wendell Fant as a candidate against Kissell. Only 17,000 were needed to qualify Fant to run this coming November.
The House Democrat earned the ire of the union after he voted against the healthcare reform bill in March this year. Kissell is a freshman lawmaker who was elected with labor support. Fant is a former aide to Kissell. The lawmaker has filed an ethics complaints against Fant for using a government computer for personal use.
"These families are looking for leaders who are going to stand side-by-side with them and fight for their interests," Lori Lodes, a SEIU spokeswoman, said in a statement. "And that's what this effort is about — giving North Carolinians a choice to vote for someone who understands where they are coming from and can take their voice to Congress."
SEIU's 55,000 member-strong local union, the State Employees Association of North Carolina, has been leading the effort to create a third party in the state, called North Carolina First, to challenge the three North Carolina House Democrats who voted against the healthcare reform bill — Kissell, Rep. Mike McIntyre and Rep. Health Shuler. But that effort failed last month after the union could not submit enough signatures to qualify by deadline.
The support of an independent candidate against Kissell shows the labor movement is not backing down from challenging Democrats this year, despite seeing Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) fend off a union-backed challenger this week. That loss led to some friction between the White House and unions who have been supporting challenges to centrist Democrats that have moved against labor's agenda.
Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) wants to stymie a pending third-party challenge unions are mounting against him.
He filed a complaint Wednesday with the House ethics committee against a former staffer who is being recruited by the Service Employees International Union to run against him under the banner of a new political party.
Kissell angered labor groups when he voted against the healthcare reform bill in March. He won his party's nomination in May but had a relatively weak showing in the primary against a little-known opponent.
The union-backed party is called North Carolina Families First. It’s scheduled to submit petitions Thursday at the Mecklenburg board of elections to qualify for the November ballot in Kissell’s 8th District.
The group, backed by the State Employees Association of North Carolina, had been trying to recruit Wendell Fant of Concord who, until last month, was Kissell’s deputy district director.
In a letter to the chair of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Kissell said Fant had broken House rules by using his official title and government computer to work on his own Veterans Administration case.
In addition, Kissell said Fant failed to report outside employment as a representative and recruiter for a mortgage marketing company called Unlimited Dimensions.
Fant could not be reached.
The new party had tried to collect 84,600 signatures to get on the statewide ballot. That failed.
Spokesman Greg Rideout said Wednesday the group will turn in the last of 30,000 petition signatures required for an independent run in the 8th District this morning at the Mecklenburg elections board.
"Once the petitions are verified," Rideout wrote, "NCFF hopes the voices of these voters will persuade Wendell Fant to run as an independent candidate in the district."
"If Fant chooses to run, it will be an historic first: No independent candidate has been on the ballot for Congress in North Carolina."
Former NFL star Jon Runyan (R) is set to face Rep. John Adler (D-N.J.) after clinching his party's nomination Tuesday.
But it wasn't a whooping show of support for the one-time Philadelphia Eagle.
He took 56 percent of the vote in unofficial results, while Republican rival Justin Murphy was able to garner 44 percent despite having less than $5,000 to spend in the days before the primary.
Meanwhile, Adler defeated progressive Democrat Barry Bendar 78-22 percent, according to the Associated Press.
Runyan will have to do some significant fundraising in the coming weeks.
The top recruit for the National Republican Congressional Committee had only $134,692 cash on hand ahead of Tuesday's vote. From April 1 to May 19 he raised $75,095 but spent $77,961 during the same time period. His committee is also carrying $112,206 in debt.
Adler reported having $1,670,029 banked in his last quarter's Federal Election Commission report.
Freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) will face Republican Robert Hurt in November after the state senator clinched his party's nomination Tuesday.
Hurt bested a four-man field with 48 percent of the vote.
The Associated Press has declared him the winner with 278 of 287 precincts reporting.
Perriello voted for major pieces of the Democrats' legislative platform, including the healthcare reform bill.
He's a top target for the GOP, who congratulated their nominee on his win.
"I know that Robert will be an excellent Congressman, and will represent the 5th District well in the coming years," sad Pat Mullins, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia. "But I also want to thank the other six candidates for their efforts."
The Democrats didn’t wait to hit Hurt.
"Long ago, Robert Hurt decided it was more important to get elected than to tell the truth," said Fred Hudson, chairman of the 5th district Democratic committee. "He's changed positions on whether he supported tax increases so many times that even he's probably lost count."
Most Viewed RSS Feed »
