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Dems have a decided advantage in volunteers willing to give up what most likely will be the last nice days of the fall and even a Bear's romp to come out and canvass and phonebank for their candidates. Most of the young people I've seen getting off those buses are students from Northwestern, U of Chi., Depaul and Loyola. Smart kids who know that Bush and the Republicans are mortgaging their future with their wasteful spending, disastrous war in Iraq and massive tax cuts for the top 1 percent.
In the IL-06 Peter Roskam has so few canvassers and phonebankers I hear the Republican powers that be in DC flew out over 80 hill staffers this weekend to walk the district and call voters. I hope they're not being payed by the federal government to electioneer. I also understand they don't actually talk to voters one on one and ask for their votes. They simply doorhang literature. I guess their accents would give them away.
I tried calling Roskam's office last week to ask what he thinks of "occult promoting" Harry Potter books and before I had a chance to say more than hello I was put on hold by a harried staffer who evidently forgot about me. I hung up after 10 minutes. They're not going to get many volunteers that way but evidently he doesn't need them.
The NRCC and the RNC are putting so much money into IL-06 they're actually mailing packages about 7" long x 3" wide by about an inch high labeled "America's start up kit". Inside are just 3 pieces of attack literature with slander about Duckworth. That's a lot of cash to fool people into looking at that junk.
Another dirty little trick they're using is right out of Rove's playbook from the RNC in DC is robocalling with a recorded message that starts out, "I have some important information for you about Tammy Duckworth". Most people hang up on robocalls and that intro is made to sound like a Duckworth call. If they listen to the full message they get an earful of Republican attacks on Duckworth. If they don't they are redialed, sometimes immediately but always multiple times a day. One guy said he got 14 of these calls in one day. This is an attempt to block Duckworth's phonebanking advantage. Numerous times voters have screamed in my ear "Quit calling me!".
Roskam knows he can turn out his anti-abortion and gun nut base. He also knows serious Dems won't be dissuaded by these tactics. But if he can get independents to stay home, to say a pox on both their houses he can sneak in.
But they unleased the Foley scandal too soon. If they launched it as they had originally planned it this week, then they would be in the driver's seat. But not anymore.
Duckworth has peaked. Bean has peaked. The continuing damage from Stroger and Blagojevich continues, and voters are pretty cynical. There is little reason in Illinois to cheer the Democratic ticket right now.
The Democrats need another October/November surprise to feed to a willing MSM. Perhaps they have it. Right now, we are seeing a slow ebb away from the gains they made last month.
Bean still looks pretty good to keep her seat, but Duckworth's challenge is fading. As expected.
Everything. In matter of fact it was a Republican staffer who gave Brian Ross of ABC News the info.
He did what the St. Petersburg FL and Miami papers
and the FBI refused to do when they got wind of this and actually made a few phone calls to the kids and found the story to not only be true but got corroborating evidence. Now the House Ethics Committee has finished it's investigation but refuses to release their findings for political purposes. Hmmmm.
Vanillaman you're wrong about Duckworth but don't take my word for it. You'll find out soon enough.