Campaign Diaries

Senate races are getting increasingly heated and that is spilling over on the airwaves, as we saw last week with Norm Coleman’s attack on Al Franken and Franken’s quick response. Today, Colorado’s Mark Udall started airing an ad of his own, a response to an attack ad released by an independent group that informed voters that they did not “know Udall.”

Udall rejects the accusation that he has raised taxes, pointing out he has lowered them 65 times and hitting Bob Schaffer for his ties to loosely-defined “special interests.” With the electorate very discontent and with the job ratings of the White House and of Congress at abysmal lows, many candidates in either party will try to run as Washington outsiders, no matter who they are running against and how many years they themselves spent in Washington. It is true that Mark Udall is better positioned than most given the scandals that have hit Schaffer over the past few months, associating him with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

But it is on the energy issue that these two candidates have hit each other on their ties to “special interests.” Schaffer is now running on his support for oil drilling and ANWR (as are many Republicans), while Udall has long been an advocate of environmental causes and devoted one of first ads to environmental issues. Udall and Schaffer have sought to portray each other as beholden to the environmental and Big Oil lobbies - the kind of campaign that is bound to heat up considerably and also the kind of campaign in which any further public opinion shift towards drilling could help the GOP candidate.

Speaking of Big Oil… energy issues are also heating up the Kentucky Senate race, in which Mitch McConnell already went up with an attack ad against opponent Bruce Lunsford. The ad blames Lunsford for being responsible for a raise in the gas tax, with “ordinary” Kentuckyians repeating “Thanks, Bruce” at the pump:

Lunsford just released its own response ad, quoting Kentucky newspapers to blast McConnell’s ad as dishonest and hitting the incumbent Senator right back for his own responsibility in the rising price of oil. It is hard to know what to make of this early back-and-forth. For McConnell to air a negative ad against his lesser-known opponent this early is a sure sign that McConnell is taking Lunsford’s as a threat, which is encouraging news for the DSCC. On the other hand, this serves as a reminder of the huge war chest McConnell has accumulated (more than $9 million), allowing him to spend freely and attempt to drown Lunsford because he can introduce himself to voters. The Democratic candidate can self-fund his race, but he will have trouble resisting McConnell’s spending pace.

Another race in which a candidate is trying to claim the outsider mantle is Oklahoma. State Senator Andrew Rice started airing his first ad last week (you can view it here). It is a biographical spot in which Rice (a Democrat running in a very Republican state in a presidential year) is trying to introduce himself in a way that will satisfy the state’s conservative electorate. Rice mentions his faith, his years as a Christian missionary and the fact that his brother died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 (Republicans are apparently not the only ones who refer to 9/11 in non sequiturs). Rice concludes by saying he wants to change the ways of Washington.

In other words, an ad that a candidate from either party could have run, with no mention of party affiliation or who Rice is running against. The theme is change, outsider status, and independence. None of this is surprising, of course (after all, it is Oklahoma), but Rice will have to attack Senator Inhofe more frontally in the coming weeks. Running as an nonthreatening young outsider could work in an open seat, but Inhofe is a fairly entrenched (though not entirely popular) incumbent. Whether or not Rice can go that extra step will depend on money and whether Chuck Schumer is interested in spending any resources on Oklahoma airwaves.

In non-ad related Senate news, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg continues his quest to build a national centrist movement. He is now planning to hold a fund-raiser for endangered Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. Said Bloomberg’s spokesperson: “He doesn’t agree with her on every issue, but she is a moderating voice in the Senate, and he appreciates the way she works across party lines.” John Kennedy, Landrieu’s Republican opponent, fired back with a press release entitled “Latest Landrieu Endorsement: Gun-Grabbing Liberal Mike Bloomberg:” “Now Mary Landrieu is raising money at the Manhattan townhouse of anti-gun, pro-gay marriage liberal Mayor Mike Bloomberg.”

Bloomberg thus continues playing both sides of the aisle, as he has met both Obama and McCain in recent months and is helping down-the-ballot candidates of both parties. There is a fine line between being non-partisan and appearing opportunistic, as Bloomberg’s flirtations with both presidential candidates often look. From Landrieu’s perspective, meanwhile, there is a lot to gain from portraying a moderate image as she is running in one of the only states in the country that is still trending Republican. Bloomberg is too culturally liberal to help Landrieu burnish her moderate credentials, though he is certainly not well known enough for Kennedy’s attempt to make him into a liability to hurt her.