Posted on 02/14/2014 1:14:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Similar to last week’s lackluster result from Survey USA. Unless Bevin catches fire, looks like the best-case scenario for the GOP is an exhausting dogfight to the bitter end between McConnell and Grimes that sucks in untold millions of establishment dollars aimed at protecting the Senate minority leader. Again — that’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario, that that dogfight ends in decisive defeat, comes from Sean Davis:
To put Wenzel's data in perspective, it had Thompson in WI (lost by 5), Mandel in OH, (lost by 5), Romney in OH (lost by 2).
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 14, 2014
In 2012, a week before the election, Wenzel had Romney at 60% favorability. Highest of any pollster all cycle. Avg. of other polls: 50%.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 14, 2014
@AndrewCQuinn I'm dangerously close to thinking we could flip 5 seats for the cost of defending Kentucky.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 14, 2014
Three of the four Kentucky polls taken so far this year have come from left- or right-leaning pollsters but the topline numbers have been roughly consistent. Two have McConnell up by one, one has the race a dead heat, and the fourth has Grimes up by four. Today’s data, as Davis notes, may be overstating McConnell’s support, if anything. Survey USA had his favorable rating at 27/50, which makes sense given that the entirety of the left and now a sizable chunk of the right consider him an enemy. Wenzel Strategies, the pollster behind this morning’s data, has his favorables at 50/47, which makes … less sense. This race may become for the GOP establishment what Wendy Davis’s race is for abortion warriors — an exceedingly challenging cause celebre that sucks money away from more winnable races.
Solution: Nominate Matt Bevin instead? He does roughly as well against Grimes as McConnell does (trailing by two instead of leading by one) and some polls have shown him outperforming him in the general against her. The risk would be that, as an unknown, he’d be easier for Democrats to define and marginalize than a bigger name like Mitch the Knife, but then that was also true of Rand Paul circa 2010 and he did okay. And yet, despite conservative groups attacking McConnell relentlessly, he still leads Bevin 59/17 in the new Wenzel data and 55/29 in Survey USA’s data last week. Why is that? I get that he’s still all but unknown to voters, but that shouldn’t matter this much; he’s running as Not Mitch McConnell, after all. You don’t need to know his name to signal your preference for ousting McConnell in a poll.
This isn’t helping either:
Matt Bevin, campaigning for Kentucky’s Senate seat in the Republican primary, said his signature on a document expressing support for the 2008 Wall Street bailouts was just a formality. But legal experts — including Bevin’s own lawyer — are dismissing the excuse.
“As a general matter if you put your signature on anything you would be at least acknowledging you don’t have a major issue with the content,” Wade R. Bridge, the attorney listed on Bevin’s 2008 filing, told Breitbart News…
“It may be true that he signed as a CEO but it would be an odd thing for a CEO to disagree with a letter that he signed and sent to the company’s shareholders or a filing that was made with the SEC,” [Cornell law prof Charles] Whitehead told Breitbart News…
Several sources told Breitbart News that the SEC would consider that the signators of the cover letter are attesting to its contents.
Securities law experts said the same thing to National Review and the Weekly Standard. (“If you express an opinion you do not hold, you violate the securities laws.”) Either Bevin’s lying when he says he opposed TARP from the beginning or he’s telling the truth but ended up on the wrong side of proper securities practice. Probably won’t matter to Not Mitch McConnell voters, but as time wears on, I think tea-party voters increasingly look at primary challengers from the following baseline: “Is this guy more Mike Lee or more Christine O’Donnell?” I.e. is this someone worth risking a seat Republicans already hold on or is this someone likely to implode in the general? Bevin’s TARP position won’t matter a bit after the primaries, but I bet he’s on a shorter leash in some GOP voters’ minds in terms of permissible mistakes than he would have been if he was running in 2010 or 2012.
Exit question: Let’s say McConnell leads Bevin by three points with a week to go before the primary and he tells Rand Paul he badly needs him to come home and do some campaigning. What does Rand do?
Good old K street insider and pal of Leftvwing nutter Nate The phony pollster.
Allahidiot is a DC insider Karl Rove groupie who spreads there lies and astroturf !
This moron was chanting Ken C election was over by quoting Lettvwing PPP push polls which were dead wrong !
Don’t beliveva verb written by the creep.
Don’t believe anything from HotGas website its K street owned and Allahpundit is a Karl Rove groupie and a Gop insider and a liar.
This is called Mitchy propaganda which is meant to discourage voters Allah did the same thing to
Ken C in Va by peddling PPP push polls which were all wrong but kep enough Gop voters home so he lost by 2 pts.!
“Go to a barbershop in KY and listen to what the barbers are saying and what they say customers are saying. Then be one who speaks for Bevin.”
My point is that you may be right on principle, however, IF your argument about reality and how it is expressed is, to too many voters, more Washington D.C. beltway kind of talk (over their heads, as far as “them vs us”) and it does not have any resonance with what concerns them locally, and someone like Bevin cannot convert it, translate it, into a framework of the local interests, then, as right as you may be, it does get enough mass voter support. And, as right as you are, and even if Bevin agrees with you (and me) it is up to him to find the arguments that will work, in order to win.
Hello the Chamber of Crony capitalists have spent millions on Bevin smear ads !
This one is meant to be hurting Grimes.
“Allahidiot is a DC insider Karl Rove groupie who spreads there lies and astroturf”
Indeed. The number of people who fall for the garbage propaganda from GOPe AllahPundit is ridiculous. All his fans do is squat like apes behind their keyboards and shit and bitch.
Blahh!
The campaign waged against McConnell has been extraordinarily incompetent. Bevin’s first ad straight of the gate was one with him personally attacking McConnell - not a positive biographical sketch, and you never, ever personally appear in an ad attacking your opponent - that all blows back on you - and of course, prompted McConnell to immediately respond with a barrage of counter attacks which overwhelmed Bevin as McConnell had a ton more cash on hand. So, Bevin squandered his opportunity at a positive first impression - and you only get that chance one time. That’s a very bad start. Multiple ads have been run against McConnell as purely attack ads from conservative groups - none to positively portray Bevin - and they have run with ads from the left also attacking McConnell. This strategy doesn’t help Bevin because still relatively few know who he is - is just ups McConnell’s negatives with the voting public at large all the more. Bevin therefore is going nowhere at all in his effort to defeat McConnell in the primary. There are also more candidates on the ballot against McConnell than Bevin, so just getting people to vote against McConnell doesn’t assist Bevin in the least as that splits the vote between multiple other choices. Moreover, even if Bevin somehow does manage to beat McConnell, he has not been defined in a positive light to have a head start against Grimes and allow Grimes to define him first. This is a losing strategy all around.
Speaking of which, the Clintons are heavily involved in this Kentucky race for Grimes.
No, Trey Grayson was not McConnell's personally picked candidate - he had two of those - David Williams and then Cathy Bailey - Williams evidently polled horribly (no brainer) as he got out of the mix not long after he started, and then Cathy Bailey was next in line - but she had a huge family tragedy in the midst of this and opted not to run. McConnell didn't even get involved to help Grayson directly until the last month...which given how horribly that campaign was run up to that point was pretty evident McConnell's people had no hand in that debacle. Bevin's campaign so far has reminded me a great deal of Grayson's.
I understand, and you may be right
but also read the post from Republican Wildcat
he’s making my case
that Bevin himself is not doing himself any favors
simply attacking McConnel may not connect with
what will really interest the local voters and interests
he cannot just say McConnel is not good
he has to be selling who he is
What the HE|| do you know about the senate race in GA?
Other than the fact we have TWO (2), squishy, RINO traitors (Just Like McConMan in KY) NO GEORGIAN (especially the bitter clingers) want another Senator named Nunn...
We plan to upgrade now and again when Isaksons sorry a$$ is up for re-election...
Stick to the thread! McConMan MUST GO AT ALL COSTS. The damage he does BEHIND the scenes is MUCH WORSE than his individual votes...
“I wish I could believe a Republican Senate would do anything different, but I don’t. It isn’t Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi walking all over the Republicans, it is Obama.”
Control the House and Senate and you can control everything O’bastard finds on his desk. He couldn’t veto everything or the people would revolt and demand impeachment.
Bush had no choice but to sign crap bills his last few years when the RATS controlled everything. He couldn’t just shut everything down.
Bush was a compassionate conservative and wanted an amnesty deal.
Michelle Obama is not Hilary Clinton. She is not running for office on her husband’s coattails. Obama’s are leaving public life in 2017. Bill Clinton had to seem reasonable with GOP congress to help Hilary Clinton’s career.
And that has nothing to do with control of the House and Senate.
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