2016 may be Hillary Clinton’s year, but 2014 is no joke, either. For weeks now, Clinton has been on a non-stop national tour making campaign appearances on behalf of local Democrats. Yesterday she was in Iowa, today she’s in Maryland, tomorrow she’s in Kentucky and Saturday she’s in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, her money people are throwing thousands into select House races. It’s almost as if by next Tuesday, there won’t be a Democratic victory in the United States without Clinton’s fingerprints somewhere on it. Why on earth would she bother? We’ll mull that mystery in a moment. But first here’s …
Today’s number to chew on
Seven, or perhaps eight. We’re going to chew on two numbers today, because those are the point spreads in new polls in closely followed races that heretofore have looked neck-and-neck. In both cases it looks iffy for the Democrats. A Marquette University poll found Wisconsin governor Scott Walker up seven points on Democratic challenger Mary Burke, while a Monmouth University poll found the Republican senatorial candidate from Georgia, David Perdue, up eight points on the Democrat, Michelle Nunn. Now any polling analyst worth her slide rule will tell you it’s the polling average that matters. In the Georgia race that average is Perdue +0.4 and in Wisconsin it’s Walker +2. So … nothing to see here?
Here’s more on the state of the race:
Guardian Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts contributes a morning must-read on how the electorate is sleepwalking towards a Republican Senate. Dan goes inside the Republican thinking on what to do with their new prize, should they indeed win it:
According to one participant at the meeting, held last month, most of those present urged a cautious response, such as aiming to pass moderate economic and tax reform legislation with bipartisan support and daring the White House to use its veto to oppose the new Republican agenda.
Others in the party favour more combative assaults on Obama’s healthcare reform and his environmental concerns over the Keystone oil pipeline, which he is likely to block.
The campaign trail is crawling with surrogates from both parties. Today they include Barack Obama,who is scheduled to travel to Maine to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Mike Michaud. Likewise deployed today are Joe Biden, appearing in New York for Iowa candidate Bruce Braley, and Bill Clinton, appearing in Kentucky for Alison Lundergan Grimes. On the Republican side, there is the makings of a great buddy movie in a plan announced for Texas senator Ted Cruz and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney to make a series of appearances on behalf of Republicans in Alaska. (Romney is on a “feverish nationwide tour” in which he keeps encountering people begging him to run for president again, the Washington Post devilishly reports.) New Jersey governor Chris Christie, meanwhile, plans to hit no fewer than 19 states between now and 4 November.
The name not listed above, of course, is the most important of all: Hillary Clinton.
These midterms afford a great opportunity for voters to get a look, again and anew, at the prospective Democratic presidential nominee, and for the candidate to run through her paces. But some readers may notice that for all the campaigning she has been doing, Clinton has been strangely invisible, if you haven’t been out to a rally. This is not your imagination, Lisa Lerer reports in Bloomberg. For all her shoe-leather campaigning this year, Clinton has not been cutting TV ads on behalf of local candidates. Here’s the explanation her people give:
Hillary Clinton’s spokespeople refused to comment on her ad appearances, or lack of them. But people close to the former first couple say they’ve been turning down requests from candidates to star in ads, fearing that if they cut a spot for one, they’d have to do them for everyone who asked.
Clinton has made one exception, for Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, who has a new ad out featuring a fair chunk of a Clinton rally speech:
Is Hillary Clinton beatable in 2016? That question, rest assured, has already given rise to a cottage industry of political consultants and brand new opposition research, Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush report in must-read piece in Politico Magazine, How to Back Hillary Into a Corner:
How to beat her has become perhaps the most pressing question in American politics today, and what we found in interviews with two dozen operatives from both parties – including several Clinton insiders –is that the shadow campaign to find Clinton’s weaknesses and exploit them is already the defining aspect of the 2016 presidential race.
In other news
Nebraska congressman Lee Terry won the coveted mass murderer endorsement Wednesday when a killer whom Republicans had featured in a nasty attack ad against Terry’s opponent took the occasion of a courtroom hearing to loudly champion Terry.
“Vote Lee Terry guys, greatest Republican ever. He worships my [unintelligible],” said the convict, Nikko Jenkins, according to a local report.
Next door, in Iowa, an RV used for Republican senatorial candidate Joni Ernst’s campaign hit a deer Wednesday night. Everyone was reported to be OK (no word on the deer).
Thank goodness we are all okay RT @JoniForIowa: Reports are true. RV did hit a deer. No one injured. Campaign will continue on. #iasen
— Joni Ernst (@joniernst) October 30, 2014
The San Francisco Giants won the World Series on Wednesday night. That’s potentially bad news for Kansas senator Pat Roberts, who is running for re-election and whose home-state team, the Kansas City Royals, lost. A 2010 study of college football found that statewide politicians got a boost at the polls from local sports victories.
• Why Pat Roberts should be rooting extra hard for a Royals win tonight
$87m has been spent on the election so far – the 2016 election.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie got into a colorful confrontation with a protester at an event marking the second anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. The standoff ended with Christie telling the guy to “sit down and shut up”.
Whither the Senate
It continues to look good for the GOP. The average probability of Republicans taking the Senate, according to three top elections modellers (538, the New York Times and HuffPost Pollster), is 65% – down a precipitous 10th of a percent from a day before.
Dems, we're going to need a LOT of voter fraud to eke out a win on Tuesday. Let's step it up.
— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) October 29, 2014
The prospective incoming majority leader reassures the electorate that those years of Republican talk about repealing Obamacare was just that: talk:
McConnell Concedes GOP Senate Will Not Mean Obamacare Repeal http://t.co/7872kkspb3
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) October 29, 2014
Ad watch
A pro-choice group in Colorado warns that if Republican Cory Gardner is elected to the Senate, there will be a run on rubbers:
The bright side
Is your daily consumption of political news harming your ability to love your country? Take comfort in the knowledge that most Americans are not paying attention, like this moose:
Great photo of a moose on an early morning swim @GrandTetonNPS by Daniel D'Auria pic.twitter.com/4oUq3MULL6
— US Dept of Interior (@Interior) October 29, 2014
