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DSCC targeting Coleman, Sununu |
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By Lynn Sweet
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Posted: 09/27/07 07:22 PM [ET] |
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, seeking to crank up DSCC totals for third-quarter fundraising — the door closes Sept. 30 — is hammering at two vulnerable Republicans in one of his latest direct e-mail appeals.
Senate hopeful Al Franken — the author and comic — is the biggest national name in a Minnesota Democratic primary where the winner will take on Sen. Norm Coleman (R). And Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) will face a formidable challenge from former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who just stepped down from her post as chief of Harvard University’s Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government to make her second Senate run.
Schumer’s pitch shows how the Democrats are using the 2008 contests to try to flip votes on Iraq war-funding measures — and to raise money.
“Republican Senators Norm Coleman and John Sununu — both up for re-election in 2008 — voted for the 6th time this year against a troop withdrawal in Iraq. Democrats only have a one-seat majority, and Coleman, Sununu and their ilk are blocking the change that all of you voted for in 2006,” Schumer wrote.
Few predicted in 2006 that the Senate would land in Democratic hands, and Schumer reminds potential donors: “Had only several thousand votes swung the other way in 2006, the Senate would still be in Republican hands. That means in 2008 we have to micro-target in more states, bolster our grassroots organizing, and use new technologies to deliver our message. Let’s not wait till the GOP spin machine is at full-force.”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has an interesting approach in his end-of-quarter pitch aimed at lower-dollar donors: He’s actually too busy in the Senate to run around the country for fundraisers, so please, just send him some money so he can get some work done.
“Already, several Republican candidates are amassing war-chests and lining up to challenge me next November,” Durbin writes. “But because I’m going to dedicate every waking moment in Washington, D.C. this week to working for an end to the war in Iraq and providing healthcare to our kids, I’m asking you to step up and help me close this quarter strong.”
House moved on
House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) seems to think there is still some juice to be squeezed from the ad the liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org ran in The New York Times condemning Gen. David Petraeus. Senate Republicans got a floor vote on a measure blasting the ad. “Each day that goes by without the House taking up either the Senate’s resolution or the one introduced by [House Minority] Leader [John] Boehner [R-Ohio] two weeks ago is a day that this chamber sends another terrible message to our troops in the field,” Blunt said in a statement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), not born yesterday, has no interest in recycling old news.
I’ve noticed that Republicans like to use MoveOn.org in fundraising appeals — in the same way Democrats have been running scary pictures of Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail:
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