Posted on 10/15/2006 7:49:07 PM PDT by nj26
Senior Republican leaders have concluded that Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, a pivotal state in this year’s fierce midterm election battles, is likely to be heading for defeat and are moving to reduce financial support for his race and divert party money to other embattled Republican senators, party officials said.
The decision to effectively write off Mr. DeWine’s seat, after a series of internal Republican polls showed him falling behind his Democratic challenger, is part of a fluid series of choices by top leaders in both parties as they set the strategic framework of the campaign’s final three weeks, signaling, by where they are spending television money and other resources, the Senate and House races where they believe they have the best chances of success.
Republicans are now pinning their hopes of holding the Senate on three states — Missouri, Tennessee and, with Ohio off the table, probably Virginia — while trying to hold on to the House by pouring money into districts where Republicans have a strong historical or registration advantage, party officials said Sunday. Republicans also said they would run advertisements in New Jersey this week to test the vulnerability of Senator Robert Menendez, one of the few Democrats who appear endangered.
Senior national Republican strategists who had been briefed on decisions made during the party’s internal deliberations discussed the overall strategic thrusts but declined to provide specific dollar figures, saying that would give too much information to the Democrats.
The decision involving Mr. DeWine offers the most compelling evidence so far that Republicans are circling their wagons around a smaller group of races, effectively conceding some Senate and House seats with the goal of retaining at least a thin margin of control...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No, DeWine wins.
Who are the numbnuts who believe anything they read in the NY Times?
the polls in Ohio are not that bad for DeWine.
hopefully these stories from the liberal MSM will have the Dem voters thinking these races are "in the bag" for them, and will supress turnout.
November 8 will be a bad day to be a Democrat. Or a member of the media. But I repeat myself.
note this quote:
"Republicans also said they would run advertisements in New Jersey this week to test the vulnerability of Senator Robert Menendez"
Kean has been running ads against Menendez for weeks on the corruption issue - so what does this quote mean? the RNC thinks they can come in run "a few more ads" for 1 week and then poll to see if Menendez's numbers change suddenly? that's not going to happen, its going to be a close race, no single short-run ad campaign is going to crater Menendez - if he loses to Kean, it will be because of a consistent message delivered between now and election day.
I heard a similar story that the GOP is cutting back funding for both DeWine and Santorum, in essence, conceding defeat 3 weeks out. Maybe realistic, who knows? But my memory is Santorum won his first seat without serious party support, and I hold out hope he can still win.
The Dayton Daily News just endorsed DeWine today. Makes one wonder just how bad Brown must be in order for such a liberal newspaper to recommend DeWine. I am confident that DeWine will squeak through for the win.
NYTimes---
What do you think?
right now, my current prediction (for what its worth, which may well be very little):
- santorum loses
- burns loses
- chaffee loses
- we hold all others, including TN
- Kean has best chance to make a pickup
- my wildcard pickup is Steele in MD
If they vote Sherod Brown, they will deserve to have their taxes raised.....but being a Buckeye myself, I think they will hold their noses and vote Dewine. NONE of this had to happen if Dewine would have been more conservative. Thank God they defeated his son.
ping
This story makes it sound as if they are conceding PA, RI, MT, and now OH. "Firewall" states are VA, TN, and MO, with some effort for a pickup in NJ.
Polling seems to be getting worse for Kean in NJ so I don't quite understand that given relative cost of advertising (versus MT, RI, or even OH.) But who am I to outguess the wisdom of Liddy Dole?
Seems to me like too many so-called Republican, so-called leaders have decided it's gonna be a bad year and they are sucking up to the press in hopes of getting a job with them.
Along the same lines, perhaps they think if the Dems get power, they will launch investigations and people will go to jauil. So, they hope that being a "good source" will spare them some press scrutiny. In reality, it won't, but the spineless bastards don't ever realize that.
Allen would be a hold, not a pickup.
no doubt - if Allen loses VA, the Rs lose the senate for sure. if it gets so bad that Allen is taken out, its going to be bad everywhere.
chaffee is toast.
I gotta believe Santorum can pull this one out. He just knocked it out of the park at the last debate.
Burns could go either way, but I'm still fairly optimistic.
Kean is a long shot. Getting past the voter fraud in NJ is almost impossible. He'd have to be ahead by 10 points to win by 1.
Who are these senior republicans?
If I was ahead I would spend limited resources elswhere.
For example if Democrats don't spend on Nelson's race it does not mean the democrat is loosing, it means he is so far ahead the money is better spent elsewhere.
Only the NYT would look at this so unbalanced.
Then again FNC did the same thing.
no polls in NJ are ever going to show Kean "ahead" - watch Menendez's number, he can't seem to get above 46.
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