More silliness involving the word “Freedom”
Earlier we told you that a group called “Freedom’s Watch”, headed by Ari Fleischer, is running ads in NY-29 and NY-25 to try to gin up support for the war, or perhaps to try to frighten Kuhl and Walsh into rubber-stamping more “surging.” Here’s some more “freedom-related” news:
Boehner’s leadership PAC, known as The Freedom Project, made donations to 10 GOP candidates last month that party leaders have identified as being especially in need of early campaign cash — and all of them are incumbents, including Shays and Ferguson. The others are James T. Walsh of New York, Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado, Dean Heller of Nevada, Vern Buchanan of Florida, Thelma Drake of Virginia and John R. “Randy†Kuhl Jr. of New York.
Of this group, all but Dent survived closely contested races in 2006; all but Heller are among the 25 Republican-seats currently rated by CQPolitics.com as the most vulnerable to Democratic takeover next year.
A leadership PAC is just one of several conduits a member of Congress can use to provide financial assistance to a congressional candidate. Members can give from their personal campaign committees, transfer unlimited funds to the national party campaign committees from their personal campaign accounts or write a personal check to a candidate.
The article quoted from above (from CQ Politics) notes that Democratic leadership PACs are focusing on knocking out Republicans while Republican PACs are focused on protecting Republican incumbents. This is why I would advise everyone to ignore all the nonsense about Congressional approval ratings the Sunday morning gasbags are yakking about — Democrats will probably pick up more seats in the House in 2008. Remember that morons like David Broder and Howard Fineman aren’t punished when they screw up; political consultants (at least Republican ones, to that party’s credit) are. If Republicans are throwing money behind incumbents, not challengers, it means they’re in a defensive mode and most likely have a good reason to be.
Someone ought to tell the Republican party, by the way, that all this “freedom” crap doesn’t play in this part of the country. Save it for people who live in Mississippi.
(h/t to reader B)
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