Warrant Issued for Suspect with "Direct Ties" to Tracey Brooks for Theft of Steck Signs
There will have to be some follow up on a breaking report from Capitol Confidential. The headline reads Cops probe theft of Steck signs and was out on the blogs just before the six o’clock news cycle.
Police are preparing to obtain an arrest warrant for a man charged with stealing congressional candidate Phil Steck’s lawn signs after the suspect refused to turn himself in, Chief Steve Heider said this afternoon.
A complaint was filed July 17 by a Steck campaign worker that signs were removed from along Route 9 in the Loudonville area. A week later the case was assigned to an investigator, Heider said.
Steck’s campaign sent out a statement this afternoon saying the person has direct ties to one of his opponents, Democrat Tracey Brooks. Kyle Kotary, Brooks spokesman, said he hadn’t gotten in touch with Brooks to comment as of 6 p.m.
OH-11: First and foremost, we note again with sadness the passing of the late Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio, the chairwoman of the House Ethics Committee.
The Congresswoman was a true trailblazer whose career represented a series of firsts - she was the first African-American woman elected to Congress from the state of Ohio, the first ever to sit on the Ways and Means committee, the first to serve as Cuyahoga County Prosecutor.
Our deepest condolences and best wishes go to her family and friends.
National: Courtesy of Jonathan Godfrey and Marisa McNee comes the latest web resource for following U.S. House races online: House Race Tracker.
The site serves as a resource for polling results, cash-on-hand numbers, TV ads, and PVI. Soon, apparently, they hope to expand to including independent expenditures in House races as well.
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the site is its layout; the entire content of HouseRaceTracker is laid out on the front page in user-friendly chart form.
While there's no real commentary on the site as of now, HouseRaceTracker looks to be a nice one-stop shop for elections junkies. It's well worth visiting, and bookmarking, for anyone interested in House races.
NC-Sen: Now, for the exciting polling news! InsiderAdvantage has polled the North Carolina Senate race, and finds Caribou Liddy Dole deadlocked with Democratic challenger Kay Hagan:
Hagan (D) 40
Dole (R) 40
Lot of undecideds in this poll. Here are the most promising indicators: Hagan leads 38% to 27% among independents, and takes a slightly larger share of Republicans than Dole does of Democrats (despite the high percentage of conservative Democrats in North Carolina).
The DSCC and Majority Action have been absolutely hammering Caribou Liddy on the airwaves for the past month or so (including in the DSCC's "Rocking Chairs" ad, one of the very best ads from anyone this cycle).
Meanwhile, Hagan has put up two positive ads to spread her own name recognition.
Pollster's average now shows Dole at 49%, Hagan at 41%, but the last two polls on the race have shown very good movement in Hagan's direction. It appears the race is starting to trend her way.
AK-Sen: Ted Stevens' bid to get home-field advantage in his federal corruption trial failed miserably, with a federal judge ruling against Stevens' bid to get his trial moved from DC to Alaska.
The upshot of this is that Stevens will also not be able to campaign this fall, a rather unfortunate bit of news as he currently trails Democrat Mark Begich by double digits.
He's also begging his colleagues on the Ethics Committee to permit him to set up a legal defense fund:
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Stevens has asked the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee to approve a legal expense fund to help pay the cost of his criminal defense.
Stevens, R-Alaska, joins Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, who set up such a fund earlier this year to help defray the cost of mounting legal expenses connected to a federal probe into campaign donations and other matters.
The Senate Ethics Committee must approve the legal expense fund, but generally does so for senators if the legal expenses are connected to their role as an officeholder. Stevens was indicted last month on seven felony counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts and home repairs from the now-defunct oil services company Veco Inc.
Individuals and political action committees can contribute up to $10,000 to the Senate fund. Lobbyists, corporations, foreign nationals and labor unions are barred from making contributions. The fund, which would be managed by a trustee, would file quarterly reports detailing the contributors. Stevens is not allowed to solicit contributions and said Wednesday he won't accept donations until the ethics committee has signed off on creating the fund.
Alaska's Senate race is beginning to look a lot like a very good production of Shakespeare's Richard II.
CO-Sen: VoteVets nails Bob Schaffer to the wall:
KY-Sen: Bruce Lunsford is fighting the good fight against Mitch McConnell. Here he calls McConnell a failure, to his face, in their recent debate:
And here is Lunsford's latest ad:
House Races
MO-09: Though we are still saddened over the humiliating primary loss of GOP candidate Brock Olivo, there's reason to believe the field may be clear for good old Brock to return in 2010.
This is because, according to a recent internal poll, Democrat Judy Baker stands an excellent shot at winning this R+7 seat. From pollster Momentum Analysis:
Baker (D) 41
Luetkemeyer (R) 39
Millay (R) 3
Baker leads 45% to 36% among women voters, the source of a good bit of her strength.
Most notably, Baker enjoys 30% favorable ratings, against just 13% unfavorable. In fact, she enjoys positive favorable ratings even from Republicans, which is truly impressive.
If the poll is accurate, it's serious trouble for Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer. Apparently, his people know it, too:
"Judy Baker’s poll is like a NASCAR driver bragging about being ahead after the first lap of this weekend’s Sharpie 500, which in case Judy didn’t know is a car race enjoyed by ‘those people’ often derided by liberal Democrats like herself," said Luetkemeyer spokesman Paul Sloca in a statement.
Despite Sloca's hysterics, however, it appears that Judy Baker is in fact quite the NASCAR fan:
State Sen. Chuck Graham and state Rep. Judy Baker announced the plans to designate Route WW from Highway 63 to Olivet Road as "Carl Edwards Drive." Graham said he intended to file legislation in the General Assembly today. If passed, Edwards would join former Kansas City Royals star George Brett and former St. Louis Cardinals star Mark McGwire as the only sports figures to have their names affixed to state highways. "So stay away from steroids and subpoenas from Congress," Graham joked.
Ooooooops.
NH-01: Rep. Carol Shea-Porter is one of the most endangered Democrats in Congress this cycle, but fortunately for her, her Republican opponents, John Stephen and former Rep. Jeb Bradley, seem intent on tearing each other apart in their primary.
Stephen attacking Bradley:
And Bradley attacking Stephen:
Gotta love Republicans eating their own, especially as Shea-Porter is hitting the airwaves with her own ad.
NY-13: Meanwhile, in the district of disgraced Republican Rep. Vito Fossella, the Democratic primary appears to be Mike McMahon's to lose. McMahon faces 2006 candidate Steve Harrison, and leads by more than 45 points:
McMahon (D) 64
Harrison (D) 18
Given the GOP's well-documented difficulties finding anybody halfway decent to run for the seat, Mike McMahon looks like he's going to Congress.
This is a poll, however, of registered voters and not likely voters. So it is possible, even likely, that the race is a good bit closer than the poll indicates. McMahon surely has a significant lead, though.
Josh Marshall has a piece on McCain's house memeory and posted this video that McCain's daughter put up YouTube about the fun, really cool day when all the national press showed up at their "ranch".. (my father was an Arizona rancher..20 acres in Sedona creekside don't qualify unless you count ranching bullshit)...
McCain Cous Cous BBQ in Sedona House Compound
As for being elitest, she mentions the couscous at the BBQ... I suppose that was next to the arugula....
Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) has represented New Jersey's 4th Congressional District since 1980. He is one of the most powerful Republicans in the House. Now he is becoming one of the most dangerously fanatic as well.
Metropolitan Phoenix's foreclosure problem has spread. Many Valley neighborhoods closer in, particularly in south, west and central Phoenix, now have the highest foreclosure rates, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of real-estate data from the Information Market.
Foreclosures across metro Phoenix number 16,647 for the first half of the year compared with 9,966 during all of 2007 and 1,070 in 2006.
Meanwhile, John and Cindy's old home is on the sales block and getting some "celebrity" attention. So much for the little people struggling to pay for their mortgages...
A Momentum Analysis poll shows Judy Baker with a slim 41% to 39% lead over Blaine Luetkemeyer for the MO-09 open House seat.
Baker has a 30% favorability to 8% unfavorabilty rating and has higher favorability than unfavorability even among Republican voters (especially Republican women).
Luetkemeyer's favorability is 33% to 16% unfaovarbility.
This is a District that was Bush +19 in 2004 and that the Republican Hulshof won 61% to 36% in 2006.
The poll was an internal Democratic poll conducted by Momentum Analysis. In the primaries Momentum analysis gave Baker a 6 point lead over Gaw in their only internal poll of the primary (she won by 13 in that race).
...until the New York Primary Election on September 9 and he needs our support now.
This great Orange to Blue candidate has been on the receiving end of a well-funded multi-pronged attack by millionaire Crazy Jack Davis... the man who took the Millionaire's Amendment to the SCOTUS and got Scalia and Company to rule in his favor and declare it unconstitutional. Some Democrat, that Jack.
Anyway...Jon needs our help to fund more air time for the following ad:
"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." -Robert F. Kennedy
Running for Congress as a full time school teacher with a family is not easy. In fact, I count on your support and inspiration more than you know. Because this election for North Carolina's 8th District is so important, and you are so important to me, I thought I'd share one decision I made earlier this week I hope will help bring us to victory in November.
For almost a decade I have been tracking Jack Abramoff and the Culture of Corruption and since I became uid 9214, I’ve written about that work here on Daily Kos. For years, I have been writing about the many ways that John McCain covered-up the Abramoff Scandal.
I could write about how the Obama campaign is taking that fight to Curveball John:
There is more to that story and more reasons why McCain should worry about Jack, but I doubt it would break through the waves of panic shaking the netroots.
Yikes! The polls have tightened. Well, what did you expect?
Take a deep breath. Get a backbone. FOCUS.
It’s time to call out the summer supporters and sunshine campaigners.
Ashwin Madia blog day has generated a lot of posts from those of us in the lefty blogosphere. The candidate himself even got into the act. He posted at The Hill. Yow!
There’s a word in Washington for a taxpayer-funded endeavor that grows without limits, busts every budget projection, and which Members of Congress are loathe to confront.
The word is Iraq.
Today, the Republican Party announced that the loudest defender of status quo policies on Iraq, Senator Joe Lieberman, will be a prominent speaker at the Republican National Convention in my home state of Minnesota. Senator Lieberman and I do have one thing in common. We’ve both changed political parties. I left the Republican Party in 2002 after it replaced “balance our budget” with “borrow and spend” and after we started a war without a plan for success; a war we did not need.
(The Hill)
Here's a list. I hope it's comprehensive, but I'm sure I missed someone. Remember, it's not malevolence, just incompetence.
I first met Paul Tonko outside the first candidate’s forum in late March, shortly before he announced his candidacy for Congress in New York’s 21st Congressional District. I was hanging out after the debate had ended, determined to not only get back on the blogs to cover the event unlike any mainstream media outlet, but also because I’d had a crazy idea: why not set up some extensive interviews with the candidates as well?
For a college student wearing long hair, a scruffy beard, and a Bob Marley tee-shirt, I can see where the candidates might have seen me as going out on a limb. After I asked Paul Tonko, a 20-plus-year veteran of the Assembly who’s name is synonymous with the politics of the Capital Region, I wondered myself just what I’d gotten myself into.
The rest of the Soundpolitic Interview with Paul Tonko is below the fold as it appeared originally on The Albany Project.
It is no big secret that we need real solutions to our energy crises. We need to end our dependence on oil from nations that hate us. Our energy costs are skyrocketing and Americans need real relief, not failed solutions. We could be creating millions of new clean-energy jobs, and we need to deal with the emerging climate crises.
NC-Sen: Another day, another steaming stack of stupid emanating from the smiling empty seat that is the very senior Senator from the great state of North Carolina.
Responding to criticism from her rather perceptive Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, that Sen. Dole spends remarkably little time in the state she purports to represent, Liddy had this to offer.
After her speech, Dole said she’s spent lots of time in North Carolina lately.
"Lately", eh? Senator, it would have been nice if you'd paid a modicum of attention to the state at, you know, some point in the last 35 years, when not running for the Senate.
But one can't have everything, I suppose.
Dole said she also supports drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, where drilling would have a small footprint that wouldn’t harm much wildlife.
"Even the caribou like to snuggle up to the pipeline," she said.
Indeed. Every caribou I have interviewed in the past six months has expressed his support for banging a big fat honking pipeline through his home, so as to give him warmth and comfort as he sleeps.
Would there was oil in New York City, so that I, too, could snuggle up next to a pipeline as I lay me down to sleep. I think some pipeline would look great in my apartment. Really tie the room together, you know.
The overall goal must be to cut reliance on foreign oil imported from nations run by the likes of Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin, she said.
"A lot of that comes from people who don’t necessarily like us," Dole said.
Gee, it might help if our foreign policy had not been an outright fiasco of late, Liddy. And whose fault is that, anyway?
Amid Liddy's laments about gas price, by the way, she has given a boatload in tax breaks to Big Oil. Naturally, MoveOn is all over this:
AK-Sen: A hearing was held this morning in federal court in Washington, DC, to determine whether indicted Senator Ted Stevens would get to move his trial back to his home turf of Alaska.
Meanwhile, the Anchorage Daily News notes the role of new media in affecting public opinion on the Stevens scandal, to the point where new media are a screening point for potential jurors in the Stevens case:
Several joint questions seek to find out if potential jurors are political active or read about politics, especially the insider Capitol Hill publications. Do they listen to talk radio, read political blogs or go to Internet forums? The government, in particular, wants to know if they read the conservative Drudge Report or the liberal Huffington Post online.
Apparently, even Bush's Justice Department thinks reading Daily Kos is OK.
NH-Sen: Jeanne Shaheen is cooking with gas, as she seeks to unseat incumbent Republican John Sununu. Per Rasmussen:
Shaheen (D) 51 (50)
Sununu (R) 40 (45)
Ras' 3-poll average puts the race at 51-41, while Pollster's average has it at Shaheen 52.6%, Sununu 42%.
Shaheen's double-digit lead has remained remarkably consistent this cycle, and she has proven to be a formidable candidate.
House Races
OH-15: Here's the first ad of this cycle from Democratic candidate Mary Jo Kilroy, as she seeks to take the open seat she nearly won in 2006 against incumbent Deborah Pryce.
MN-03: The Minnesota blogs have named this "Ashwin Madia Blog Day", in honor of a fine progressive candidate (and Netroots Nation attendee) in Minnesota's Third District.
If you'd like to learn more about Madia's candidacy on Madia Day, check out MN Blue or MN Publius.
WY-AL: As we noted last night, Wyoming's Republican State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis has won her primary in the state's at-large district.
The Hotline thought her primary opponent, Mark Gordon, was the more formidable of the two:
The party's been searching for a way to stem the growing Dem tide in the region, and a return to its libertarian roots may be the answer. In addition, his profile as a rancher seems to be a better match against '06 nominee Gary Trauner (D) than ex-Treas. Cynthia Lummis (R), with her years of gov't service, can provide.
The most recent Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos shows Trauner leading Lummis, 44% to 41%.
WI-08: Meanwhile, Republican John Gard is still feeding the debunked myth (perhaps we should just start calling it an outright lie) that China is drilling off the coast of Cuba).
NY-25, NY-26, NY-29: Today is the pre-primary filing deadline for New York House candidates. We have no more than three terrific New Yorkers on the Orange to Blue list, and here's a golden opportunity to help them finish the pre-primary period with a bang. They are Jon Powers in NY-26, Eric Massa in NY-29, and Dan Maffei in NY-25.
Please head to the Orange to Blue ActBlue Page and give them a little (or a lot!) of love, as they head towards election day.
One of my favorite blogs, DownWithTyranny has just informed me that today is Ashwin Madia Blog Day. Ashwin Madia is running for the Jim Ramstad seat in MN-03.
New York has a pre-primary filing deadline for candidates tonight -- and wouldn't you know, the Orange to Blue list has three New York candidates on it: Dan Maffei, Eric Massa, and Jon Powers.
Maffei's fundraising has been dominating his Republican opponent for this open seat. But Massa and Powers face tough opponents. In the primary, Powers faces Jack Davis, a self-funding multi-millionaire who's engaged in a string of dirty campaign tactics and who on the issues is exactly the kind of Democrat we don't want to see elected. Meanwhile, for the general election, Massa faces Shotgun Randy Kuhl -- and if a Republican incumbent who's threatened his wife with a shotgun doesn't make you want to win, I don't know what will.
Powers' need is immediate: He faces a so-called Democratic opponent with bottomless pockets and a willingness to sink to the bottom of the slime pit in campaigning. We do not want Jack Davis in the House at all, let alone with a (D) next to his name.
As for Massa, he doesn't just face a Republican incumbent, he's being advertised against by Freedom's Watch. They've been on the radio in the district for a while, and a couple weeks ago the DCCC made an answering buy -- but Massa's campaign recently heard that Freedom's Watch is inquiring about buying TV time. Massa will need a lot of help to be able to answer Freedom's Watch].
These candidates are true friends of the netroots. They attend Netroots Nation, they post diaries here -- but more importantly, they're with us on the issues. We couldn't do better than to put Maffei, Massa, and Powers in Congress.
If you have a few dollars to spare, today is a great time to give since tonight's filing gives these candidates another chance to show big donors and the DCCC that they're doing what it takes and deserve further support.
