Taegan Goddard links today to a Congress Daily piece (hidden behind the subscription wall) which reports that the NRCC is running a radio ad slamming select Dems for voting for the stimulus package, highlighting a particular spending item in there (at the request of John Murtha, it seems) called the "Airport for No One."
Big deal, you might say. Campaign committees run targeted ads at incumbents that they see as vulnerable all of the time. What is intriguing here is WHO the GOP is going after. Go past the fold, and see if you can find "the one that is not like the others."
According to the article, the radio ad blasting Democratic "pork" is going after nine Democratic incumbents:
AR-02--Vic Snyder
MI-07--Mark Schauer
MS-01--Travis Childers
NH-01--Carol Shea-Porter
NM-02--Harry Teague
NY-24--Michael Arcuri
NC-08--Larry Kissell
OR-05--Kurt Schrader
SD-AL--Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin
Seven of these nine make a great deal of sense to me. Four of them (Kissell, Schauer, Schrader, and Teague) are freshman Congressman in districts that are not terribly blue. Obama beat his national margin of victory (7.2%) in only one of them--the Oregon 5th. Two of the others (Arcuri and Shea-Porter) are bound to be targeted because of close election contests in 2008. Finally, Childers is in one of the least hospitable districts for a Democrat in the country, and thus expect to be targetted on that alone.
But what the hell are Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin and Vic Snyder doing there??
The sole representative from South Dakota, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin represents a red state, but not a deep red state. Obama kept the margin within single digits in South Dakota last year, while Herseth-Sandlin was laying waste to her Republican opponent by better than 20 points.
Meanwhile, it has been a long time since Snyder has faced a serious threat for his Little Rock-based seat in Arkansas' 2nd CD. Indeed, he did not even receive a Republican challenger for the 2008 election cycle.
So...what gives?? Here is an educated guess.
On South Dakota, I am honestly wracking my brain. There have been a couple of rumored candidates for the Republicans in that at-large House seat, but none that strike me as top-tier. I thought this might be an attempt to knock Herseth-Sandlin down a peg in case she enters into the open Governor's race, but why would the NRCC be doing the dirty work for the SD Republican Party? Unless Governor Mike Rounds is planning on running for Congress, which seems pretty doubtful, this doesn't make a ton of sense.
Arkansas, however, might be a sleeper. It is no secret to anyone here that Arkansas is a state that politically has been slipping away from the Democrats for the last few cycles. Gore lost it by a handful of points (51-46). Kerry lost it by a few more (54-45). Obama, meanwhile, got absolutely blasted there (59-39). This has not been solely a rural phenomenon. The 2nd district is based on Little Rock, and it has slid throughout the decade, as well. While it is still the most progressive of the four Arkansas congressional districts, John McCain still won here by ten points (54-44).
Snyder, by southern standards, is a pretty progressive Democrat (considerably more so than his Democratic mates in Arkansas: Ross and Berry). That might make him an attractive target for the NRCC. Of course, you can't beat someone with no one. Up until now, talk about Republican candidates in this district has been awfully quiet. I have to believe that the NRCC is fishing for a candidate here. Otherwise, targeting Snyder in this series of ads is a pretty serious waste of cash.