Hey everybody! I promised weekly updates last time I wrote (on the 7th), but it just isn't in the cards - sorry!
That doesn't mean I'm not looking in or trying to keep the Kossacks posted; we're just really busy. You'll notice Israelhand has been posting less, Jeff Seeman is posting less...busy is good, but it means less Kos time. As always, no names - we refer to the candidates as the Senior Senator and the Opponent.
So, since the last update things continue to go really, really well. A Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates poll from 10/3 to 10/7 put us up 53-38, and a
Survey USA poll from 10/15 to 10/18 has us up 56-38. They have a poll showing a 49-41 difference, but it's Strategic Vision - a partisan R polling outfit. Their numbers have been an outlier the whole cycle; while our lead went from 11 to 20 to 18 in other polls, Strategic Vision has stayed EXACTLY the same. I think they're calling the same 800 people every time.
We're winning the endorsement race, BIG. We now have a total of 10 major/mid-major paper endorsements: Tacoma News-Tribune and Seattle P-I came out early, and the Stranger (weekly) in September. In the last week, we've gotten endorsements from the Seattle Times, Tri-City Herald, Yakima Herald-Republic, Vancouver Columbian, Olympian, Oregonian, and the Seattle Weekly. The Tri-City Herald and Yakima Herald-Republic are especially sweet - I love that we're winning endorsements in Eastern WA. No buzz on the Opponent's hometown paper, the Spokesman-Review. I have a good feeling, but they endorsed Bush and Dino in addition to Barbieri, so who knows? They're a wild card, and they may go for the homegrown candidate - I'll try to let Kos know if that endorsement comes. You can also find links to the endorsements, if you want to read them, at our blog. I'd appreciate the traffic, if you can stop by!
FEC fund-raising numbers were released for the period between Aug 26 and Sep 30 (dates may be slightly off - I'm not the treasurer, gimme a break! I don't need to know filing dates!). We raised $1.43 million to the Opponent's $1.2 million - he raised more than I thought he would, but he also has helpers coming in out of state - we haven't really had surrogates visiting for a while. Still, we raised more than him, and have more CoH. This doesn't mean it's over! He's still rasing money as fast as he can, and he isn't going to give up; they've convinced their base that we're vulnerable (apparently by never sharing polling data).
The Senator had the first of two televised debates on Friday - it went well; I was only able to watch parts of it because my phone rang off the hook for a Dean event I was helping to coordinate (more on that in a moment). The Senator stayed on message and talked about her votes on the issues; the Opponent used some of the R talking points that we've been seeing in abundance lately (she voted to raise taxes a billion times/I don't question her patriotism, I question her judgement/it was the wrong vote/Iraq was the right thing to do, etc...), and danced. I'm happy to say we got an e-mail from an R who watched the debate and decided to vote for the Senator because of her performance and grace under fire from the Opponent. It was a really nice mail, and I've thanked her. You can see the first debate here.
The second debate is tonight - in fact, it'll be live on C-SPAN2 at 8:00pm PST, 11:00pm EST. The Sox need to win quickly, so people will watch!! We had 150 supporters show up outside the Spokane debate on Friday, completely outclassing the Opponent's group. :-) He'll be going all out tonight, so I'm going to head down shortly to see the crowd; check the website tomorrow morning for photos.
Finally, we've launched two issue ads on TV, one on social security, and one on healthcare, and 10 localized radio spots - these were recorded by local Dems at the county level. You can hear them at the website (scroll down). I think they're really good for radio spots!
That's pretty much it for me tonight. I'll post next week - we have something big planned, and I'll let you know as soon as I'm able. GOTV is huge, we're focusing on it, and we are ready for big wins on November 2nd! I love the mojo, but I also have a job to do here, so if you can spare it, we'd love some turkee! Even a little bit helps (and I know we're all stretched, so a little bit is all anyone has). Take care, Kossacks! I'm off to check out the debate rally, so I may not respond to anyone until later tonight, but if you have questions or comments, leave 'em and I will reply later tonight.
