Nevada is finally creating some buzz. No, not the Vegas kind. Politically. In the last few days there have been two different articles, one in the
North Lake Tahoe Bonanza, the other in the
The Times (of London). Both managed - independently from each other - to find Republican voters who plan to vote for Carter.
Now, the DCCC has recently realized that Nevada is a definite Swing State for the midterms in November by putting both Jill Derby and Tessa Hafen on their Red-to-Blue list of 22 top pick up opportunities. Hopefully the DSCC, Chuck Schumer and NV Senator Harry Reid will now take notice and pay attention to Jack Carter's campaign.
First, some quotes from those two articles, the
North Lake Tahoe Bonanza first:
Some 70 bi-partisan Incline residents showed up at Thursday night's North Lake Tahoe Democrat Club presentation of U.S. Senate candidate Jack Carter.
Carter, 58, son of former President Jimmy Carter, harkened back to a time and an administration that many Incline residents, both Democrat and Republican recall as a gilded age... and a president whose legacy as a humanitarian has only grown since leaving office.
...
"This is the most crucial election of our time," Carter said. "We have to take one of the houses back and put a tourniquet on what the republicans are doing. If we take the Senate back we can provide sanity and start investigations into what these guys have done to us. We need to investigate Iraq, Valerie Plame... how far the wire tapping has gone.
"I'm not for impeachment, not for censure, I'm for finding out what's going on."
Now, everyone of us knows that once you start investigations you'll probably find things this administration has done that are not pretty, to say the least. And everyone realizes that impeachment or censure or whatever else could follow once you have found out "what's going on". Carter is still lagging behind, in the polls and in the money race. So calling for "finding out what's going on" is a smart move. The rest will follow. First we need Carter and five others to replace Republican Senators.
As for the Republicans in that crowd in Incline Village:
Carter's candor won much of the crowd over.
"I am a Democrat and my husband is a Republican," said Incline resident Jane Hoff. "But we vote for the best candidate. Carter has really brought some people out here tonight and made them think."
...
Bob Westervelt, a Republican, watched Carter speak and recalled a few months in 1976 when he served as security for Jimmy during the Democratic Convention.
"Regardless of (politics) the Carters are nice people," Westervelt said. "There are quite a few people like me, Republicans that are fed up with this (administration), with getting lied to. We need good people."
Now, that emphasis is mine. But looking from afar there seems to be a real feeling that we (the progressive bloggers) are definitely not the only ones who are fed up with this administration. As I said, Carter is still behind in the polls, but that's probably because most people don't know him yet, as becomes apparent when you read the piece in The Times:
People appear fascinated. They are also surprised: many remember Amy Carter, the President's daughter who was a teenager when he lived in the White House, but few realise that he also had three grown-up sons.
That he is Jimmy Carter's son can only help. His campaign certainly wouldn't have been given attention in "The Times" otherwise. Meanwhile, the good news is that Ensign's approval rating as well as his place in a first poll against Carter is at 49%. Being below 50 as an incumbent with your opponent still relatively unknown can't be good.
As I said above, "The Times" also managed to find a Republican willing to vote for Carter:
Mr Carter believes that he can win against a Bush loyalist at a time when the country is deeply dissatisfied with the President and the Republicans.
He might be right. One of his audience, John Jackson, 55, said: "I'm a Republican and I'm voting for Jack Carter. I'm sick of the way the Republicans are going. And, like his father, he's a good guy."
So, good news from Nevada. Now, we need Chuck Schumer and the DSCC to act on it. That Washington is slowly realizing the potential of Nevada as a swing state was apparent last week when the DCCC, headed by Rahm Emanuel, released its Red-to-Blue list which has both NV-02 Jill Derby and NV-03 Tessa Hafen on it. (I wrote a diary about Jill Derby a week before the Red-to-Blue list came out: Jill Derby within the Margin of Error in Republican NV-02.
Surely, the attention Nevada will get by this will also help Jack Carter. But, unlike the House where things look fairly good, taking back the Senate is a whole other matter. It seems very uncertain that we'll manage to pick up 5 seats, let alone 6. In order to win back the Senate the DSCC needs to put more emphasis on the less likely races like Nevada, like Arizona, like Virginia. All of these are currently second-tier. I believe we need to move these on the front burner, especially Nevada.
So, please go and take a look at the Carter for Nevada site, there you will also find a blog, written by fellow Kossack Sarah R Carter! Contribute or volunteer, if you can!
PS: A major hattip to the Las Vegas Gleaner for unearthing the two articles!
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