Posted on 10/20/2010 4:33:00 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
As much as I like Bielat, not until this very moment did I think this seat might really be in play.
Frank isn’t a tremendously wealthy guy. What on earth are his internal polls showing him to make him cough up 200 grand?
Longtime Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank has given his re-election campaign $200,000 as he faces his toughest race in years.
A campaign finance report filed Tuesday showed that Frank, the chairman of the powerful House Financial Services committee, lent himself the money Tuesday…
A longtime public servant, Frank isn’t exactly a rich man. Financial disclosures filed with the House show he has assets between $560,000 and $1.5 million. He is not required to disclose the worth of his primary residence.
Maybe he’s just playing it safe. According to the new WSJ generic ballot poll out tonight, this hurricane has now increased to a Category Four:
Among likely voters, Republicans hold a 50% to 43% edge, up from a three-percentage-point lead a month ago. And in the 92 House districts considered most competitive, the GOP’s lead is 20 points…
“It’s hard to say Democrats are facing anything less than a category four hurricane,” said Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster who conducts the Journal poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. “And it’s unlikely the Democratic House will be left standing.”…
The Republican edge in intensity of support, after falling from a 19-point lead in August to a 14-point lead in September, is now at 20 percentage points.
“After seven weeks of a powerful counteroffensive, the dynamics haven’t changed,” Mr. McInturff said of Democratic efforts to diminish GOP momentum.
Does Hart know that there’s such a thing as a Category Five ‘cane? If so, electorally speaking, what would that look like? A 20-point lead in enthusiasm and in battleground districts is pretty much the apocalypse, no?
Exit question: I’m calling for predictions right now. Will Bielat take this seat?
Nonsequitur of the century. Just ask Harry Reid.
He’s skeered. And he should be.
Oh no. Less honey money for his heckling boyfriend.
That’s a lot of male escort visits...
Another limousine socialist.
A Dem spending their own money - haha!
I wanna know what interest rate he’s getting on repayment from all those donated funds...
It’s about time he started loaning out his own money instead of ours.
$200,000 is alot of bath house tips.
In the past, the main issue has been that the Republican Party here has been virtually non-existent in this state. The only successful "Republicans" at the statewide level have been RINOS like Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, Joe Malone and Mitt Romney. Of those, only Mitt Romney even remotely resembles a conservative.
Well the good news is that we have a new crop of Republicans coming up the ladder that may actually give us a real chance to become a red state. Sean Bielat is only one of the examples. We have others like Sandi Martinez, Jon Golnick, Bill Hudak, Karyn Polito, Marty Lamb and Jeff Perry, etc.
Getting back to Barney Frank, yes, I believe Sean Bielat has him running scared. I think Sean is going to do very well a week from Tuesday and even if he does not prevail this time - he'll be back. This guy has a future.
Alright - does this mean he's worth 560k to 1.5 million not including his house? Or is the house included in those figures and that's why we've got the huge range? Because if he's got 1.5 million in assets not including his house, I don't care what this article says, he's a rich man and can easily afford to loan his campaign 200k.
He gave a sub-prime loan to a deadbeat borrower. Never learns.
Ugh....gotta go find some mental bleach..
I bet he charges himself a healthy interest rate. That way when he holds campaign fundraisers after the election, he'll end up making a profit.
Here is the math that I just started to do - we currently have about 177 republicans in the House - a 66% 2/3rd house majority is about 285 - So, if we get a Tsunami in this election and take over 108 house seats, then guess what? Obamacare CAN BE FULLY REPEALED!~
First, Frank loaning his campaign $200,000 does not really put his $200,000 at risk. He is likely, even if defeated, to raise that money and then pay off the loan to himself.
What he said though is what he is trying to sell to his constituents. He claimed the money is money he had saved for his retirement because he did not sign up for a government pension. When he became a Congresscritter in 1980, all members of Congress were covered by the Civil Service Retirement System. To the best of my knowledge there was not an opt out option.
But there was a way for people to cash in the funds they paid into the retirement fund whenever they left government service. My guess is Barney left government service at the end of each of his two year terms and with drew the money he had paid into the account.
Isn’t that wreckless? Not really, a person who withdraws the funds upon leaving government service can pay them back prior to retirement (with interest that is pretty low, lower than he could get on the funds).
I believe many members of Congress used this option every two or six years and then just before retiring removed a portion of the funds from their brokerage accounts to make the required deposit into the retirement fund so they could retire.
But it would be mathematically impossible to win a 2/3rds majority in the Senate even if we won every single seat up for election this cycle.
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