We’ve gone through the last six months or so assuming that Sue Lowden, the establishment anointed Republican in the Nevada Senate race, would be the one to take on Harry Reid this fall. But yet another poll suggests she’ll very likely lose on Tuesday. The latest poll out over the weekend from Mason-Dixon shows new frontrunner and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle at 32%, followed by Danny Tarkanian at 24% and Lowden at 23%.
Lowden’s downfall started with the chickengate fiasco. But what really hurt her about it wasn’t simply Reid and the Democrats hammering her but her fellow Republicans — Tarkanian taking the lead. Lowden then got hit by a series of other ethics related problems. And the real killer was when the Club for Growth and the Tea Party Express both endorsed Angle, spending about $400,000 and $500,000, respectively, on adds supporting her campaign.
At this point Reid would probably be happy to take on Lowden in November. But I would assume his campaign would be pretty happy with an Angle win too.
It’s been not so much a bad as a surreal two weeks for South Carolina gubernatorial frontrunner Nikki Haley. And the latest poll — the first since the firestorm had any real chance to take a toll — shows the controversies have taken little if any damage on her public standing. She’s twenty points ahead of the guy in second place.
Two New Jersey men arrested just before traveling to Somalia as part of what the government alleges was a plan to join al Shabaab, a jihadist group in sympathy with al Qaeda.
How long can you pretend the Gulf Oil spill really isn’t such a big deal while you’re the governor of one of the most affected states? Pretty long, it turns out.
Disgraced and now indicted former Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer is now saying, through his lawyer, that Gov. Charlie Crist (R) knew about his diversion of funds plan and that placeholder U.S. Sen. George LeMieux (R) actually came up with the idea.
Linda McMahon, former WWE CEO and Connecticut senate candidate, says the jury’s still out on whether there are long term health risks to steroid use.
Robert Reich responds to Theda Skocpol on what the president should do …
I like Theda Skocpol and consider her a friend, but she’s got this one backwards. It’s not “political lunacy” for the president to take charge of this mess. It’s political lunacy for him not to. Would she propose that if a military contractor accidentally fired off a missile, or a the owner of a nuclear reactor accidentally allowed it to melt down, or a food processor accidentally sent off deadly bacteria into America’s food chain, that the President should not take control because he couldn’t “fix” these disasters right away? Or he shouldn’t get involved because the political right might subsequently use his efforts to reinforce its message that the government doesn’t work?
The oil’s visible effects on Gulf Coast wildlife:
After reading the latest news out of the South Carolina governor’s primary, I’m remembering why Southerners seem to have such a leg up on the political novel. But who writes this one? One moment I’m thinking Robert Penn Warren, the next Ron Jeremy. Who could capture this train wreck in a novel or on film? Read More
Those thousands of pages of White House records from Elena Kagan’s time on President Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council have been released.