TN-SEN: Corker Also Doesn’t Like RNC’s Playmate Ad, Obviously Can’t Be Expected to do Anything About It

Crooks and Liars has video of the latest development in the RNC Harold Ford, Jr. attack ad madness. Ford opponent Bob Corker doesn’t like the ad one bit. But come on now, who is he to do anything about it?

WOLF BLITZER: All right. I know this is not your ad, but if you really, really wanted to get it lifted, you probably could.

BOB CORKER: No, that's not true. We actually have been on national TV, as we are now. We've asked senators to call. These are independent expenditure groups. We want it down. We do not believe that — certainly it does not represent our campaign. We have nothing to do with it. We believe that it's tacky and has no place in this race.

BLITZER: Is it — you say it's tacky, but is it racist?

CORKER: You know, it's tacky and certainly has no place in this race.

BLITZER: But do you see why some are suggesting, including former Republican senator, former defense secretary, William Cohen, here in "THE SITUATION ROOM" yesterday, that it's certainly almost like playing the race card?

CORKER: Well, again, I've seen the ad one time on a computer. I've never even seen it on television. I don't like it. I've asked for it to come down. I don't know what else we can do.

…

BLITZER: Mr. Corker, excuse me for interrupting, have you called Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican Party, and asked him to pull it?

CORKER: Our campaign officials have talked to people at very high levels there and asked that this comes down. I don't know who specifically has talked to who, but I know it began the very first day…

BLITZER: But what about you? Have you made a call to the RNC? Have you made a call to the White House and told…

CORKER: They are — they are…

BLITZER: … and told Republicans, you know what, I think this is
hurting the state of Tennessee, hurting this debate, and I'd like to see it go away?

CORKER: Everybody at the RNC, from the top down, knows that I want this down. There are senators who are my friends, some of which are inside, that are making calls, to do the same. Everyone knows that we want it down.

For more…

A Contentious Campaign in a Battleground State (WaPo)

Tennessee ad ignites inter-GOP squabbling (MSNBC)

GOP attack ad draws heat for racial overtones (LA Times)

Is Senate campaign ad racist? (Chicago Tribune)

But here’s an interesting development…

Ford says he went to Playboy party, makes ‘no apologies’ (Nashville City Paper)

Ford says he did attend Playboy party at Super Bowl (The Tennessean)

This contradicts what Ford told George Stephanopoulos on ABC last week. The Midterm Roundup has plenty more thoughts on this whole thing that it will get into tomorrow morning.

MT-SEN: What a Liberal Rag

Exasperated at the thought of its childhood hero Senator Conrad Burns (R) being written off by the one last conservative stalwart it thought it could rely on to defend him, the Midterm Roundup has no recourse but to frantically and desperately ROUNDLY DENOUNCE the Weekly Standard for its unctuous puffery of challenger Jon Tester (D), How the West Was Won: Is Montana Senate candidate Jon Tester the new face of the Democratic party? Um, HELLOOOO Weekly Standard! Didn’t you read that unassailable Barron’s report? Burns is going to win! So is Mark Kennedy in Minnesota! And Republicans will lose only 8 House seats! It’s on ice baby!

(CQ shifts its MT-SEN race rating from No Clear Favorite to Leans Democratic.)

VA-SEN: Let’s Clarify

Yesterday Josh linked to a Daily Kos item about a WaPo article about how Jim Webb – the Democratic challenger in one of the most important races in the entire country in determining which party controls the Senate on November 8 – will have his entire last name cut off from the ballot, appearing as “James H. ‘Jim.’” And the problem apparently won’t be fixed by Election Day. Considering the stakes of this race; the general importance of a fair, consistent, and unobstructed voting process for a functioning democracy; and (admittedly) its own searing dislike for George Allen; this was one of the most flabbergasting and incensing pieces of news the Midterm Roundup has read all year.

But upon reading the actual WaPo piece, the Roundup noticed that the Kos diarist omitted a fairly important segment from the excerpt he posted. The second graf of the WaPo piece reads:

“Although the problem creates some voter confusion, it will not cause votes to be cast incorrectly, election officials emphasized. The error shows up only on the summary page, where voters are asked to review their selections before hitting the button to cast their votes. Webb's full name appears on the page where voters choose for whom to vote.”

That wasn’t immediately clear to the Roundup the first time it read the Kos post. Still and all, the Roundup agrees wholeheartedly with Trapper John (the diarist) that this is absolutely inexcusable. It’s a voting machine. What is a voting machine’s job? To display the names of all candidates. That’s it! We’re not talking about the latest version of Microsoft Windows here, people. It’s not like a voting machine performs such mind-bogglingly myriad wizardry that a small glitch somewhere in the system is pretty much inevitable. Displaying the full name of the candidate is the only freaking job a voting machine has! A voting machine that fails to perform this job is, as Trapper reckons, “worthless.” Exactly worthless. How can this problem not be fixable? How can this possibly be acceptable?

Anyway, as that second WaPo graf clarifies, this glitch probably won’t actually cause voters to mistakenly cast their votes for George Allen or anything. And this, from later in the WaPo piece, is reassuring:

“In the meantime, Jensen said, the three affected jurisdictions have begun educating voters to prevent confusion on Election Day and will place notices in each of the polling booths that explain the summary page problem.”

The Roundup will admit that other than the whole 2000 recount mess and a couple “Diebold is Satan incarnate” articles, it has never paid much attention to or educated itself much about the vast number of voting difficulties in this country. As Alexandria Registrar Tom Parkins says in the Post piece, “There have been far worse problems around the country.” We’ll see what else goes wrong in 2 weeks, but just having sort of realized its own visceral reaction to this relatively small problem in Virginia, the Roundup is not looking forward to learning about the worse stuff.

NY-20: Sweeney Dodges Debate… Again

The Glens Falls Post-Star reports, “The Post-Star has canceled a debate between candidates in the 20th Congressional District race because U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, would not participate. Sweeney spokeswoman Melissa Carlson informed Post-Star Managing Editor Ken Tingley on Monday the congressman would not participate unless Democratic candidate Kirsten Gillibrand releases copies of her personal income taxes.”

Gillibrand hasn’t released her tax returns, as candidates are not required to do so. But she has filed financial disclosure forms with the Federal Election Commission, which she claims “show more details about her finances than tax returns would.” Sweeney and Gillibrand, locked in what is widely seen as a very tight race (these (pdf) 2 polls notwithstanding), have not debated at all yet.

A couple weeks ago the Albany Times Union reported on a feisty back and forth between the 2 candidates regarding the tax return/debate question.

NY-29: Kuhl the Conqueror

No, the Midterm Roundup is not referring to the transcendent 1997 Kevin Sorbo masterpiece, but rather a recent boost for Roundup favorite, Representative Randy Kuhl (R). Roll Call reports, “A group of veterans in New York’s 29th district have formed a committee to help freshman Rep. Randy Kuhl (R) beat opponent Eric Massa (D), a former Navy officer who has touted his military experience throughout the campaign.”

The veterans praise Kuhl for his work in preserving the Canandaigua VA Medical Center, a leading institution in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

It’s apparently not quite that simple, however. As Massa himself writes in a post at Daily Kos, “It appears that the Acute Psychiatric treatment ward at the Canandaigua VA Hospital, just down the road from Rochester, is slated for closure just after the election.” With contradictory details, it certainly appears that there’s some two-faced shadiness going on concerning the hospital’s future. If you’re interested, the Roundup recommends reading the entire post by Massa here.

WY-AT-LARGE: Cubin Apologizes, But Rankin’s Not Satisfied

The AP reports that Representative Barbara Cubin (R), who threatened to slap wheelchair-bound Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin following a heated debate Sunday night, has now apologized for her comment. According to Rankin, Cubin “walked over to me and said, ‘If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face.’” In a telephone interview with reporters Tuesday, Cubin said: “It was person to person and it was not an attack on the disabled. In retrospect, I was wrong in what I said and I apologize.”

However according to the AP, Rankin says that Cubin hasn’t apologized to him personally and that he still considers it an “open issue” until she does so.

Josh noted yesterday that Rankin thinks Cubin should resign. KGWN NewsChannel 5 spoke with Rankin on Tuesday and confirms that he is calling for Cubin’s resignation. Rankin called Cubin a “loose cannon,” and recounted another instance when the congresswoman portrayed a certain dearth of critical sensitivity: on April 9, 2003, the House was debating an amendment to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act regarding the selling of firearms to people who use drugs. Here’s what Ms. Cubin had to say: “My sons are 25 and 30. They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean if you go into a black community, you cannot sell a gun to any black person, or does that mean because my----”

At that point Representative Mel Watt (D-NC), an African American and no stranger to racial controversy himself, cut Cubin off and demanded that her words be taken down. Cubin refused to withdraw her words, but offered this outstanding copout of an apology: “I certainly would never say anything or even think anything that would offend my neighbors on the other side, and well, obviously it did happen. So I would like to apologize to my colleague for his sensitivities, but certainly I would never do that.”

What ensued was a bizarre scene where Representative Johnny Isakson (R-GA), at the time the Chairman Pro Tempore, sough to clarify that Cubin apologized but did not seek to withdraw her words, then Watt insisted again that the words be taken down, then the Speaker Pro Tempore (Representative Ray LaHood (R-IL)) reviewed the words and determined that they were not unparliamentary under the rules and precedents of the House, then Watt appealed the ruling, then Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) moved to table the appeal, then a voice vote was taken on the question to table the appeal and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it, at which point Watt demanded that a recorded vote be taken (this is on the question to table an appeal to a decision that an insensitive comment did not have to be withdrawn), which it was, with the ayes taking it, 227 to 195. And you wonder why nothing gets done in congress.

(Note: the above link to the THOMAS page where this whole exchange can be found won’t work because apparently search results are retained only for a limited amount of time, but if you’re really that interested in reading it, or perhaps confirming that the Midterm Roundup did not in fact make all this nonsense up, you can go to the query page for the 108^th congress (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/r108query.html), type “black person” into the search, highlight Cubin’s name in the list of Representatives, and the first match that will come up will be April 9, 2003. Click on that and page H2989 contains the goods.)

Why is the Midterm Roundup spending so much time on this ridiculous story? Because a Republican congresswoman threatened to slap a guy in a wheelchair, that’s why! Actually, the Roundup perhaps has some legitimate justification here: this race might actually be close enough for this incident to really matter. A Mason-Dixon poll conducted earlier this month for the Casper Star-Tribune shows Cubin leading Democratic challenger Gary Trauner just 44% to 37 %, with 4% going to Rankin and a substantial 15% still undecided. CQ has this race rated as Leans Republican. Oh, and also – A REPUBLICAN CONGRESSWOMAN THREATENED TO SLAP A GUY IN A WHEELCHAIR!

IYI (If You’re Interested)

FL: Trio of linked districts could make Florida pivotal to House takeover (The Hill)

MD-SEN: A Sense of Service (WaPo profiles Maryland Senate candidate Ben Cardin (D))

NY-19: He’s Still the One (The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Huevel, doggedly insisting on invoking the “Still the One” pun at the slightest mention of NY-29 challenger and former Orleans frontman John Hall (D). Not only is this tactic incredibly tired (ok, admittedly, much of the general public may not be as tired of it as someone who has read as many things about John Hall as the Roundup has), but as the Roundup has advocated before, “Dance with Me” is the far superior song. And as long as journalists and bloggers continue to pound the “Still the One” hammer, the Midterm Roundup will stubbornly continue to conclude any of its own items regarding Hall like this:

Dance with meeeeeeeee, I want to be your partner. Can't you seeeeeeeee, the music is just starting. Night is falling, and I am falling. Dance with meeeeeeeee…

(P.S. Not to be a music snoot, or continue to pick on Vanden Huevel, but the Roundup is also pretty sure that Hall wasn’t the composer of Dancing in the Moonlight, as Vanden Huevel suggests. Orleans covers the song on their new album, which is called Dancin’ in the Moonlight, but the Roundup is pretty sure the song was originally composed by Sherman Kelly of the group King Harvest back in 1973. If anyone has further insight into this matter please don’t hesitate to pipe up. And just as a point of personal preference: the Orleans cover is an ill-conceived and contemptible bastardization of the original classic. But hey, otherwise Vanden Huevel’s piece is good. She links to a Colbert Report interview with Hall that includes perhaps the most stirring, poignant rendition of the national anthem since Whitney Houston’s performance at Super Bowl XXV (a.k.a. the greatest Super Bowl of all time); or, if that performance has forever been sullied for you by Houston’s subsequent descent into alleged crack addiction and tabloid fodder, then since Marvin Gaye’s performance at the 1983 NBA All Star Game; or, if that performance has forever been sullied for you by Gaye’s murder at the hands of his father just a little over a year later, then since Frank Drebin’s performance at the Angels-Mariners game at the end of The Naked Gun, which is by the Roundup’s estimation completely un-sully-able (well OK, except maybe for the involvement of O.J. Simpson)).

NATIONWIDE: Swinging Along (National Journal’s Charlie Cook compares the 2006 election environment to that of the last time a major wave shifted congressional power, 1994. Comparing the latest NBC/WSJ poll with one from the same time in 1994, Cook find, “In short, in four of the five diagnostic indicators, the situation is significantly worse for Republicans today than it was for Democrats in 1994. And in the remaining one, this year is marginally better.” He also rejects a popular talking point among restive conservative pundits. Fred Barnes writes in this week’s Weekly Standard, “Meanwhile, the mainstream media, like sportswriters cheerleading for the home team, is predicting a landslide in the interest of promoting one.” But Cook says in his column, “Before anyone can erroneously draw the conclusion that this survey is just another mainstream/liberal media effort, the poll was supervised by designates from both the NBC News Political Unit and the political editor of the Wall Street Journal, collaborating with a top pollster from each party.” IOW: Cram it, Barnes.

For more on Cook, WaPo’s Dana Milbanks has a curiously condescending profile of Cook that begins, “The pharaoh had Joseph. The Greeks had the Oracle at Delphi. Washington has Charlie Cook. Please tell us, Seer of Future Congresses, how many seats the Democrats will pick up in the House on Election Day.” The Midterm Roundup smells irrepressible envy.

FOLEYGATE CONSEQUENCES: From CQ Today: GOP Prospects Endanger Its Leaders (CQ featuring a CQ Today (normally sub. req.) piece about how the Foley scandal will play a large role in a possible post-election purge of party leaders if the GOP loses the House on November 7: “‘It’s not about issues or policy anymore, it’s about power, and that’s, to me, why the Foley thing keeps going and going and going,’ said a longtime Republican lobbyist and former Hill aide. ‘These guys were faced with this issue and they had a chance to think about the 16-year-old kid or preserving their seat, and what did they choose? Preserving their seat.’”

(Btw, the Roundup loves how election season is when all these political news services bring their subscription-only stuff out from behind the wall. CQ’s been trotting out their CQ Weekly and CQ Daily stuff, Roll Call is doing the same thing with its free Election 2006 stuff. Anyone remember the soda Surge? It was the hot new drink for a brief time back in the late 90s and was rumored to have so much caffeine that it was like, barely street legal and so forth. At a summer camp the Roundup went to as an adolescent there was a soft drink vending machine that for the first week of camp sold Surge for 25 cents. Consumption was predictably rampant. Kids that had never even liked soda were practically forced to buy it because it was so cheap. By the end of the week Surge consumption had reached campwide pandemic proportions. On the first day of week 2, when the vast majority of campers were legitimately chemically dependent on the soda, the price at the vending machine conspicuously spiked to $1.00. Campers were outraged, but many had no choice but to continue to feed their addictions. Camp administrators uniformly denied foul play. The incident went down in camp lore as “The Surge Soda Scandal.” The Midterm Roundup kind of feels like that’s what these websites are planning to do 2 or 3 days before Election Day. When their readers are jonesing their absolute hardest for election news, suddenly everything will be locked up behind the subscription wall, forcing the desperate population to subscribe en masse. The Midterm Roundup pledges to you now that it will not partake in any such coordinated effort by the midterm election news service cartel, even it means a resultant excommunication from said cartel.)