October 17, 2010

Something's afoot..

O.K., just this one post today and then I really must get something done around the house.


It was noticed over at Fleming & Hayes via Michelle Malkin as well as other places that Sean Bielat -- Barney Frank's rival for "his" House seat -- was heckled during a brief interlude with reporters yesterday:

Upon exiting the most recent debate with Barney Frank, located at WGBH studios in Boston, MA, Republican Congressional candidate, Sean Bielat, gets heckled by a Barney Frank “supporter” while talking to the media. While watching this video, we realized that we recognized this “supporter”. We received confirmation from two eyewitnesses that the mysterious cameraman was none other than Barney Frank’s pot-growing boyfriend, James Ready.

Fleming & Hayes correctly observe (emphasis mine):

This brings an interesting element to the race when such a prominent "supporter" of Frank feels the need to try and pick a fight with the opposition. While Frank continues to promote his theory that, "According to our numbers we are up by more than 20 points no matter what we do.", this type of action smells of desperation and fear. Not to mention, he clearly has no campaign staff to speak of, obviously, because the only person he could muster up to heckle his opponent was the antithesis of anonymous. We've got to give Barney a break, though, this is the first time in 30 years he's had to campaign and he clearly doesn't know how to go about it.

There is news afoot -- over at THE BIG FEED, for example -- that Barhey Frank's numbers have slipped below 50% and Biellat's closed in within ten points. This yet might become a race a la Scott Brown and Martha "I don't shake hands in the cold outside Fenway" Coakley.

But there is an interesting subtext here. As LCR observed on scene in Santa Ana on Friday for the Sanchez rally, Clinton stumped for Lovely Loretta, the Latina sex-fiend, and only drew 1,000 to the rally. That is not a lot especially in a heavily Hispanic area and the heart of Sanchez's district 47 with the only person in the Dem party whose "reputation" (such as it is) still intact and the only one with any star power this year.

The very next day he went to UCLA and spoke to a crowd of 6,000 for Jerry "My opponent's charging $25 per trick" Brown. To put this in context: (1) UCLA had a bye this week (i.e., was not playing football in the Rose Bowl), (2) this was NOT before any finals or anything, and (3) SC was playing CAL in the Coliseum. I know this borders on senile non sequitur, but work with me. The point is that there was nothing going on in Westwood, SC (whose fans and students are more conservative than my alma mater) were occupied, and even an appearance by THE Dem Mega-Star for the Dem gubernatorial candidate only filled 1/3 of Pauley Pavilion. Even when UCLA was stinking up the barn with their roundball team last year, they drew 10,000.

Nationally, there's something afoot that belies what even the terrible polls are saying for the Democrats. The POSOTUS and his FLOTUS are making YET ANOTHER trip to campaign, this being either the 18th or 37th or 111th. They have thrown everything including the kitchen sink at Jahn Kasich and he still comfortably leads Strickland for the Governor's race there. Karl, over at Hot Ais a few days ago observed again, my emphasis):

Pres. Obama’s campaign schedule tells the tale. The president will spend the home stretch of the midterm campaign in states that he won two years ago. Even in what should be reliably Blue states, a number of his stops are fundraisers instead of rallies.

Similarly, first lady Michelle Obama makes her 2010 campaign debut today, headlining three Democratic fund-raisers. She kicks off with an appearance for Mr. 42%, Sen. Russ Feingold (who decided not to appear with the president for a recent rally in Madison) in Milwaukee, before heading south in support of endangered House and Senate candidates in her home state of Illinois. The rest of her tour includes places she should not have to be, like California and Washington state. The NYT reports the first lady will pursue “a limited campaign schedule that is focused on giving a boost to selected Democrats,” which is a far cry from two months ago, when Dems hoped she would be their “secret weapon.”

I hearken back to my observations while phone-banking for Carly Fiorina. We were two-three down it the polls (slightly outside MOE) and they gave me these sheets of phone numbers of people who had not voted in years. I complained to the precinct boss that we should be courting the more reliable voters and weren't we wasting time on these folks? I meant that we should be getting in touch with the more enthusiastic segment of our base.

"What makes you so sure we haven't done that already? Just shut up and make the calls and everything will be all right," he told me with a knowing wink.

So I ain't giving up -- not by a long shot -- and I'll still be making the calls to 83-year-old "non-voting" women as directed. But I'll also be following these contradictory campaigning patterns that have Dems defending supposedly safe districts and states with great interest.

The 83-year-old women? They'd surprise you! One of them that I talked to last week said about voting for Carly and Meg, "Oh, most definitely young man! I want to throw Boxer's ass out!"


UPDATE/CORRECTION: The UCLA rally was held in Dickinson Court which is a pretty large expanse of ground in the Eastern edge of the campus. The attendance was revised down to 4,000 by the Daily Bruin report on the rally:

After 40 minutes of speeches by Bill Clinton, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, about 4,000 attendees of the California Democratic Party’s Vote 2010 rally at UCLA filed out of Dickson Court.
Again, the three headliners should have pulled in many, many more students and lefties from Los Angeles but then again, times have changed and I guess these guys got better things to do on a Friday night than listen to the failed mayors of California's two biggest cities and the former Cohibatator.

-30-

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