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Friday, November 14, 2008
Another (Republican) group joins the U.S. Senate runoff
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yet another group has walked into the U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia.
We’re hearing that the conservative pro-business group Americans for Job Security has reserved $600,000 to $700,000 in TV air time in metro Atlanta, presumably on behalf of Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss.
If the group is engaged in a statewide hit, the buy is likely to amount to $1 million or so.
AJS has played heavily in U.S. Senate and House races across the country this political season:
— As of Oct. 31, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune said AJS had spent $452,000 in the Minnesota Senate race;
— USA Today says the group dropped $1.2 million in races across the country during six weeks of the general election;
— In a quick Googling, National Public Radio has the most detailed look at the new player.
This from September:
Americans for Job Security — a pro-business advocacy organization with a long record of running election-season ads without disclosing donors — is targeting Democratic Senate candidates in three key races with negative radio messages.
One ad blames Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) for rampant “pork-barrel spending,” and accuses her of trading an earmark for campaign contributions. Another says that Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken’s economic plan “reads like a bad joke.” Yet another warns that New Hampshire Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen is all about taxes, taxes, taxes.
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Chambliss leads, but Martin close behind, Democratic poll says
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll this week is showing Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss leading in the U.S. Senate runoff, with Democrat Jim Martin close behind.
The poll commissioned by the Democratic-oriented web site puts Chambliss at 49 percent, and Martin at 46 percent. Margin of error is 4 percent.
A separate poll by Survey USA has no horse race figures, but the poll had something else: 15 percent said a visit to Georgia by former GOP presidential candidate John McCain would make it more likely that they would vote on Dec. 2.
But 30 percent said a visit by President-elect Barack Obama would encourage them to head to the polls.
Statistician Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com says to take all these stats with a pail of salt. Many, if not most, of the people who say they are likely voters will find themselves doing something else on the first Tuesday in December, he said:
The tricky thing for pollsters will be in figuring out just which of these people are lying about their intent to participate and which of them aren’t. Pollsters like to root their models in recent precedent, but things like runoffs and special elections happen so rarely that there’s just not very much to key oneself off of.
The point is … if the polls going into December 2nd say that Saxby Chambliss is going to win the runoff by 7 points, you shouldn’t be a but surprised if Jim Martin actually wins instead. And you also shouldn’t be surprised if Chambliss wins by 20. This will be a return to the high margins of uncertainty that we saw in the primaries.
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At times, you wonder how ‘Comedy Central’ could survive without Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens has made the big time.
On “The Daily Show” last night, Jon Stewart and John Oliver spent four minutes riffing on the Republican congressman’s fears that President-elect Barack Obama could establish a dictatorship along the lines of Stalin or Hitler.
A bit of the dialogue:
Oliver: Broun had the keen eye to see what so many had missed. That Barack Obama is incredibly similar to Hitler.
Stewart: Adolf.
Oliver: That’s right, Jon. Not Keith Hitler. Not Tommy Hitler. Not little Sarah Hitler. The main Hitler. Adolf Hitler. That is the Hitler most similar to Barack Obama.
Stewart: You’d have to be crazy not to see that.
Oliver: You’d have to be nuts.
Stewart: A mad man.
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