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Leading Off:
• NY State Senate: For months, there've been rumors, leaks and half-heard reports of all sorts that the renegade Democrats who've handed control of New York's state Senate to the GOP were brokering a deal whereby they'd rejoin their mainstream counterparts—since, after all, Democrats control a majority of seats in the chamber. Now the wayward members of the so-called Independent Democratic Conference, in a joint statement with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, want the world to believe that they are in fact coming back:
[Bunch of b.s. about how great the IDC is.]
"Therefore all IDC members are united and agree to work together to form a new majority coalition between the Independent Democratic Conference and the Senate Democratic Conference after the November elections in order to deliver the results that working families across this state still need and deserve."
Note a few things of things here. For one, the IDC isn't saying they're definitely going to return to the Democrats—no, they're hedging, saying only they "agree to work together" to form a new coalition. That only means the IDC
has agreed to work amongst itself on the concept of rapprochement. Hooray!
That leads us to the next thing: the timetable. The IDC isn't saying it's rejoining the Democrats now, which it easily could if it wanted to. They're just promising to possibly do something in the future, after the elections. The statement mentions November, but the real issue here is the September primaries, where so far two IDC members are being challenged by real Democrats: Sen. Jeff Klein (by Ollie Koppell) and Sen. Tony Avella (by John Liu). The IDC is just trying to undermine these challengers, to give voters less of a reason to fire their senators by making vague pledges that they'll be good. Some day.
That brings us to the final key point about this statement—specifically, what's not in it. The mainstream Senate Democrats didn't sign it—only Cuomo and Klein did. That means there's no actual deal here, nothing of substance. Again, it's just an airy-fairy promise about something that the IDC might do months and months from now.
And no one should ever trust any promise made by Cuomo, considering he started walking back his pledges to the Working Families Party scarcely a day after he earned their endorsement less than a month ago. No one should believe Klein, either, who's spent years trying to convince everyone that he's furthered the cause of progressivism by allying with Republicans.
So in the meantime, progressives need to keep their eyes on the ball. The IDC's promised nothing, and it still needs to go.
Senate:
• MS-Sen: We have not one but two map-and-chart-filled retrospectives on Thad Cochran's surprising victory over Chris McDaniel in Tuesday's Republican Senate runoff. Dreaminonempty calculates just how many Democrats must have crossed over to help Cochran come from behind, while David Jarman looks at the similarities between where Cochran gained votes the second time around and where the state's African-American voters are. (David Jarman)
Gubernatorial:
• CA-Gov: A new Field Research poll finds Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown handily defeating Republican Neel Kashkari by a 52-32 margin. That's very similar to the 53-35 lead Brown sported in a USC poll last month.
House:
• CO-05: GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn barely survived his primary on Tuesday night, squeaking by underfunded challenger Bentley Rayburn with a slim 53-47 win. Then he went psycho:
Lamborn blamed the close race on President Barack Obama and said that voters are so frustrated with the Affordable Care Act that they are taking it out on Republicans who have been unable to stop the healthcare reform despite their best efforts.
Holy flonking sheep! Obama is now responsible for close shaves in Republican primaries? And this is coming from a guy who voted to
keep the government shut down (and to repeal Obamacare a zillion times, of course). So he's saying he didn't oppose the president
enough? The scary thing is that Lamborn almost certainly believes this—and a lot of other Republicans probably do, too. My word.
• MA-06: The student-run Emerson College Polling Society finds Republican Richard Tisei taking a 45-40 lead on Democratic Rep. John Tierney, compared with a 44-all tie back in April, but note that the sample is a beyond-feeble 253 likely voters. If you can't scarf up a minimum of 300 respondents, you really shouldn't even bother releasing your polling.
Other Races:
• CO State Senate: One of the legislative chambers Democrats will have to work very hard to defend is Colorado's state Senate, where two Democratic lawmakers were recalled last year, leaving the GOP just one seat shy of the majority. But Team Blue caught a big lucky break this week—or rather, two of them—and in a nice stroke of irony, the same gun fanatics who successfully pushed the recalls are responsible. That's because pro-gun extremists won Republican primaries in two competitive, Democratic-held Senate districts on Tuesday night, beating out more moderate (and more electable) candidates.
In the 19th District, court reporter Laura Woods beats out attorney Lang Sias, who came within a hair's breadth of picking up this seat from Democratic state Sen. Evie Hudak in 2012. Hudak resigned earlier this year rather than face another recall, so now Woods will run against appointed state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger. Meanwhile, in the 22nd, businessman Tony Sanchez crushed attorney Mario Nicolais; he'll square off against state Sen. Andy Kerr in November.
Both seats (located in the Denver-area Jefferson County) are only light blue at best, giving around 52-53 percent of their vote to Barack Obama. But both Woods and Sanchez are radicals supported by the equally radical Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which (for instance) sent mailers accusing Sias of getting help from a "liberal millionaire homosexual." Even former state GOP chair Dick Wadhams declared that his party's nominees were the "wrong candidates" who "cannot win." If he's right, Republicans have once again proven they'll never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
• Providence Mayor: He's back! The one and only Buddy Cianci, who served two stints as mayor of Rhode Island's largest city, announced Wednesday that he will run for his old job once again as an independent. The colorful Cianci left office both times due to his troubles with the law, and he even served time in prison for racketeering.
A number of Democratic candidates are vying for this open seat (incumbent Mayor Angel Taveras is running for governor), and one of them will emerge from the Sept. 9 primary to face Cianci. Cianci is a controversial figure at home, but he retains enough support that it's far from impossible for him to win again in November. (Jeff Singer)
Grab Bag:
• (Jeff Singer) Ads: Now 100 percent Chris McDaniel-free!
(Jeff Singer)