Democratic Governors Association: "We're going to pick up Florida"

[WI_DEM]

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, the national group that focuses on gubernatorial contests predicted it would buck the expected wave of expected Democratic congressional defeats this November and actually pick up seats in open governor’s races — particularly Florida, where DGA Executive Director Nathan Daschle called “one of the marquee races this year.”

There are 24 open gubernatorial races this fall, but Daschle suggested they would focus their $50 million on a more tightly focused group of them in states like New Hampshire, Colorado, California and Florida.

The reason he is so confident? In a word, Scott.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better candidate to run against,” said Daschle, who called Scott “the Madoff of Medicare” in reference to Scott’s former company, Columbia/HCA, which was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

Daschle also said his group was more confident in the race than it was two weeks ago because Democratic candidate Alex Sink “just keeps getting better and better” and independent candidate Bud Chiles had dropped out of the race and reduced the possibility of siphoning Democratic votes from Sink.

Democratic pollster John Anzalone also said Scott’s bruising primary left him with a fractured party base, and it would be more difficult for Republicans to court white Democrats — the typical path of statewide victory in Florida — because of Scott’s tainted business background.

The DGA has put $2 million into Florida’s gubernatorial contest so far with plans to dump more, while the Republican Governor’s Association has spent $4 million — although $2 million of it was to help defeated primary candidate Bill McCollum.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2010/09/dga-were-going-to-pick-up-florida.html

[savalez]

1. Yay! Now help Brown beat Whitman in CA too!

[lib2DaBone]

2. Rick (almost indicted) Scott has started his negative TV campaign in Florida

It really is unbearable. Negative attack ads almost every other commercial on every channel... the lowest road possible.

He even called opponent Alex Sink.. "A Liberal". Ohhhhhh... now those are fighting words...I could NEVER vote for a liberal...



:sarcasm:

[Change Happens]

3. My wife and I will be helping too..............nt

[Recursion]

4. But probably lose MA, sadly NT

[Mass]

5. Probably not. Deval Patrick has been ahead and continues to be in every single poll.

Not by a large margin, unfortunately, but enough that your pessimism is not warranted.

[Recursion]

6. Did you watch the debate last night?

Maybe it's just because I work next to Baker's campaign HQ but I think he's probably going to pull it off, if Cahill keeps spoiling moderate dems.

[Mass]

7. Baker is pretty bad in debates. He is wooden and does not communicate well.

(Even his ads are a good remedy for insomnia.) It is also not obvious that Cahill is stealing that many voters to Patrick. My guess is that he is also stealing some social conservatives to Baker, with his play to the Tea Party. Why do you think the GOP and the RW media wants him to drop out of the race?

Now, I am not saying Patrick should not stay careful, but I think that Patrick will pull it off, short of a big problem on his part or a major Democratic scandal. He is not Martha Coakley and Baker does not have half of the personality of Brown.

[Recursion]

8. I think it's because I've seen him in person

He's actually really charismatic when you're in the same room; he might come off worse on camera, but since I saw him in real life first I'm filling in the missing bits of charisma.