Slobber And Spittle (Archive)

Image credit: PuppyDogWeb.com

As of this evening, this is where the remaining Slobber And Spittle Blue candidates are doing:

• Eric Massa, the former Navy Commander from the NY-29 Congressional district, has apparently won his race against incumbent Randy Kuhl. Eric won't claim victory, he wrote in an e-mail to supporters, until the last vote is counted, since the margin is pretty thin:
  

  
  While many prominent news organizations such as the Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, and Politico have already called this race in our favor, my respect for our democratic system prevents me from making such a declaration until every vote is counted. To do any less would be a disservice to our democracy and our men and women serving overseas whose votes are yet to be counted.
  

  
  I can't blame him. We've been burned by such predictions before, haven't we?
  



• Sam Bennett has lost her race against incumbent Bush enabler Charles Dent. Just to give you an idea of why, here are a couple of quotes from the Morning Call, the principal newspaper in her district:
  

  
  Bennett came out on the attack from the start, seeking to portray Dent as a George Bush Republican who had walked lockstep with the unpopular president. Bennett lobbed several accusations at the incumbent in hopes to sway thousands of undecided voters to support her.
  
  Dent countered with jabs at the nonprofit Bennett runs, Properties of Merit, focusing on her salary, which until last summer accounted for nearly one third of the charity's total budget.
  
  Dent Retains Seat In 15th
  

  
  In other words, Bennett criticized Dent's voting record, and Dent retorted with personal sliming, and this is equivalence in the eyes of the Morning Call. Here's the other quote:
  

  
  Dent, 48, is a moderate who has sought to distance himself from Bush throughout the campaign.
  
  Dent Retains Seat In 15th
  

  
  Why even make such an observation, which is certainly going to evoke the obvious question: Does a moderate vote with the most out-of-control President of all time more than 85 percent of the time, including all the most important issues like FISA, the PATRIOT Act, and the Iraq War? The only things he didn't support Bush on were the things he knew he'd pay for in his home district, near as I can see.



• As expected, Andrew Rice lost his race for Oklahoma's U.S. Senate seat. The most dismaying thing about this loss was the margin: 57 - 39. Unfortunately, Oklahoma is one of the least Democrat-friendly states in the country, as the AP notes:
  

  
  Oklahoma voters gave Republican John McCain his biggest percentage victory of any state despite the Democratic tide that swept Democrat Barack Obama into the presidency.
  
  Oklahoma loses federal stroke in election
  

  
  I have no idea what a "federal stroke" is, but if it's anything to do with knowing who is screwing them, Oklahomans lost it a long time ago.



• Darcy Burner is in yet another tight race for the WA-08 Congressional district with incumbent phony Dave Reichert. Darcy was slimed recently by Reichert, with the willing help of one of our local papers. This egregious piece of shilling may end up being the difference in this race, although at the moment it's hard to tell who is going to win. Burner is trailing by about 500 votes, with almost half the votes in King County, the main part of her district, still to be counted. She just sent an e-mail to her supporters indicating she will wait for more votes to be tallied before either conceding or claiming victory.
  
  There may be a recount in this one.


• Finally, Donna Edwards has won a lopsided victory in her MD-04 Congressional district. This is a heavily Democratic district, and the only real contest was the one she faced against reprobate Democrat Al Wynn in the primary.

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to the other fine candidates for your efforts.

I've been spending some time over at Pollster today, looking over polls. There is some good news and bad news there for the remaining Slobber and Spittle Blue candidates.

First, the good news. Polls came out this week showing that Darcy Burner is ahead in the race for the WA-08 Congressional district. This has been an up-and-down struggle against faux independent Republican Dave Reichert. The Pollster trends chart now looks like this:

Image credit: Pollster.com

Reichert's numbers began falling in early September. Lynn Allen, an astute observer of the race (and someone who worked for Burner's campaign), guesses at the reasons:

Yes, I'm pleased to see that Darcy appears to have pulled ahead. I'm not sure that enough people watch those debates but some combination of the debates, her ads pointing out Reichert's lack of effectiveness in Congress and the economy in general did it.

Comments: Contempt and the Last Debate

I suspect she's right, but whatever the reason, it's welcome news.

Meanwhile, in the NY-29 district, Eric Massa appears to hold a lead over his opponent, incumbent Republican Rich Kuhl. I say "appears" because there are only three polls listed on Pollster's trend chart for this race, which isn't enough polls to even draw a trend chart. This is good news also, as this race is one the Republicans probably feel they have to win. It's in what's considered a Republican-leaning area. Losing it means that the Republicans will have only a handful of representatives from the state.

In the department of bad news, Andrew Rice is still far behind in his race for the Senate in Oklahoma against Republican incumbent James Inhofe, who's been yet another congresscritter willing to let the Bush Administration drive us over a cliff. Speaking of cliffs, Rice came up with the best commercials of the political season. According to the Pollster trends chart, Rice has been gaining ground recently:

Image credit: Pollster.com

This race may not be over yet, but Rice has more than twelve points to make up between now and election day. Unless the polls there are badly skewed, it looks like a rough road ahead for Andrew.

I can't find any polling information on either Sam Bennett's race in the PA-15 Congressional district, nor in Donna Edwards' MD-04. In the latter, I suspect Edwards will do fine, but in Bennett's case, the issue is still in doubt. While Bennett led by a mile in the primary vote, that isn't the one that counts.

So, at this moment, it looks like SnS Blue will be batting .500 this year. Maybe Sam can put us over the top. I certainly hope so. These are good people - we need more like them in Congress.

Most of the results (99.44 percent) are in for the Pennsylvania primary, and here are the results as reported in the unofficial count on the PA Department of State's elections page:

CLINTON, HILLARY (DEM) 1,237,696 54.6%
OBAMA, BARACK (DEM) 1,029,672 45.4%

That's as of 11:00 AM PDT. So it looks like it will end up being a 9 percent margin of victory. That's not huge, but she beat the spread. This means nothing's decided yet, which isn't what some folks want to hear.

There was a good sign, though. In the 15th Congressional District, the vote totals looked like this:

15th Congressional District
Democratic Primary

BENNETT, SAM (DEM) 62,600 100.0%

Republican Primary

DENT, CHARLES W. (REP) 23,485 100.0%

Results are here. While neither candidate was opposed, and more Democratic voters could be expected to show up than Republican thanks to the fact that the Republicans had already decided their Presidential primary, this still strikes me as a hopeful sign. Out of a total of 86,000 votes, Democratic challenger (and Slobber and Spittle Blue candidate) Sam Bennett won almost 73 percent of the vote. Eighty-six thousand votes is quite a few votes for a congressional district even in a general election.

If I were in Charles Dent's campaign, I'd be concerned right now. This doesn't prove he's in trouble. I'd bet only half the folks who would have voted for him showed up for this election. This does show that it's not going to be easy for him, though.

You can help replace Dent by contributing to Sam Bennett through Slobber and Spittle Blue.

Image credit: Taken from ActBlue's page for Sam Bennett.

Lots of stuff has happened in the last two weeks. One of them was that Siobhan "Sam" Bennett, who is running for Congress in the 15th District of Pennsylvania, officially announced her candidacy:

A well-known Allentown businesswoman officially begins to campaign for a seat in Congress. Siobhan "Sam" Bennett held a news conference at her newly opened campaign headquarters in Allentown tonight. She's running for the Democratic nomination in the race for the 15th congressional district. Republican Congressman Charlie Dent holds the office now. On education... Bennett says she wants to get rid of what she calls the flawed "No Child Left Behind" act. She also says she wants to fight for equal health care for all Americans. "we all know that our nation and this lehigh valley have not been going in the right direction." "we're here because we absolutely know we can do better."

Allentown Businesswoman Running for Congress

I don't know why Mrs. Bennett prefers "Sam" to her given name, but it might have something to do with growing up as the daughter of a Marine. As she explained in a chat last year at FireDogLake:

I come from a military family. My father served in Vietnam, was Marine officer and pilot. My uncle is a retired Naval Base Hospital Commander — an R and strong financial supporter of my race — and he says “I didn’t leave my party, it left me”. I was in ROTC my freshman year of college and attained Ranger status at the end of that year.

When Darcy Burner Said “More And Better Democrats,” She Could Have Meant Sam Bennett In PA-15

Anyway, that's the explanation for another female Sam, and that plus her passing resemblance to Amanda Tapping certainly make her more convincing to this old Stargate fan.

Bennett's experience as part of a military family is one of the reasons she, along with Donna Edwards, Eric Massa, and six other Congressional candidates, co-sponsored Darcy Burner's "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq" (PDF):

"It's not enough for me just to talk about, 'We need to get out of the war in Iraq,' I have to show how determined I am to make that happen," she said. "Coming from a military family, the best way that we can support our troops is end the war and bring them home."

Bennett kicks off challenge to Dent in the 15th

From her own campaign website, she adds:

One of the reasons that I am challenging Congressman Dent for his seat is that he has voted to support Bush’s war 100 percent of the time – voting over and over again to fund a war that is not working, that is endangering our own national security and bankrupting our government – including the dishonorable treatment shown to veterans.

The War In Iraq

Dent, while posing as a maverick Republican, has voted with President Bush most of the time on a number of critical issues, including the Military Commissions Act, the second Patriot Act, and against Net Neutrality. He's been no friend of freedom in any meaningful sense, and has, as Bennett observes, been supporting the Administration on Iraq at every opportunity.

Bennett is running in a strongly Democratic district. As the (Allentown) Morning Call observes:

The 15th District is made up of Lehigh and Northampton counties and parts of Montgomery and Berks counties.

The latest state voter registration numbers show Democrats in the district holding a substantial lead over Republicans. Democrats have made gains over the past weeks as thousands of voters have switched parties in advance of the April 22 primary.

Bennett kicks off challenge to Dent in the 15th

Part of the reason for that edge in registration may be that Bennett's been chairman of the Lehigh County Democrats' get out the vote committee. Her biography reads like a who's who of local activist groups:

In 1998, concerned about the direction of her city of Allentown, Sam focused on non-profit, civic and political leadership endeavors, driven by the desire to make a difference in her Lehigh Valley home. She created Good Neighbors as a parent- and community-driven advocacy organization for the Allentown School District. Key projects included the William Allen Construction Company (now the pilot program for potential programs statewide through Properties of Merit), and the founding of the Allentown Academy of the Arts non-profit at William Allen High School. In 2002, she led the regional Mayfair Festival of the Arts from a $250,000 deficit to the only black ink in its 20-year history.

In 2001 she nearly defeated long-time state Senator Roy Afflerbach in a race for mayor of Allentown, losing by just 46 votes. She also ran in 2005, and after her primary loss, helped ensure current mayor Ed Pawlowskiâ's come-from-behind win by running the most effective GOTV effort in county history. Currently Sam is the elected chair of the Allentown Democratic party and vice-chair of the Lehigh County party, in charge of GOTV operations county-wide. In 2004, she was Lehigh Valley Regional Field Director for America Coming Together (ACT) and spearheaded the strongest results of any swing region in the country in that Presidential election while also helping tip the registration percentages in Lehigh County.

NPWC: Siobhan "Sam" Bennett

Bennett's current job is as CEO of Properties of Merit of PA, Inc, a non-profit corporation dedicated to improving the quality of life in neighborhoods that have become run down:

Often the power of a simple thank you is overlooked. The bulk of municipal energy goes towards punishing quality of life offenders, leaving no resources to thank those that for no other reason than personal and civic pride take the extra time to plant flowers, tend lawns, weed sidewalks, and replace street trees. As a volunteer driven 501 c 3 non-profit organization Properties of Merit ™ programs make sure the thank you is given. By delivering that thank you others are encouraged to do the same. Michele Unger, Allentown, PA member of the Old Allentown Historic District and past Properties of Merit ™ Awards Program Nominating Captain, felt the effect in her Properties of Merit ™ Nominating Area. "Three years ago, I had to really search some of the neighborhoods to find qualifying properties. Now I see a difference."

Properties Of Merit: About Us

Whether she learned it there or helped give it to this organization, it's clear that Bennett has absorbed the lesson that creativity, adaptability, and understanding of a community's needs are important things for governments to have when they're trying to address its problems.

While I no longer live in the Lehigh Valley, I grew up there. I still have roots there, and for that reason, this feels like a local election to me even though it's almost three thousand miles from home. For her choice to support Burner, et. al., on Iraq, and for being just the sort of community activist we ought to have in Congress, Sam Bennett has earned the absolutely crucial endorsement of Slobber And Spittle, plus a spot on the Slobber And Spittle Blue contributions page. Hopefully, this will turn out better than the last time SnS endorsed a candidate.

UPDATE (Apr. 14): I'm going to go out on a bit of a rhetorical limb and thank Congressman Dent's office for so many visits this morning. No fewer than eight visits came from what appears to be at least two different offices from the house.gov domain today. One started with a blogsearch for "Charlie Dent", the other office appears to have gotten the word via e-mail that there was something interesting or amusing here. I can't be sure it's Dent's office, but it seems logical given the chain of events. Looks like someone's doing a bit of oppo research on his lunch hour, eh? I've taken screenshots of the visits, in case anyone thinks I'm making this up.

UPDATE 2 (Apr. 14): Doing the same search that the house.gov office did, I found this quote from Howie Klein about Dent's voting record:

Charlie Dent voted 30 times on legislation relating to the Iraq war. Would you like to guess how many times he voted against Bush and Cheney? If you guessed zero, give yourself a pat on the back. Charlie Dent, despite representing a moderate, reasonable district (Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley), rubber stamped every single hideous proposal Bush and Cheney made regarding Iraq. Of course Dent's blind support for Bush goes way beyond Iraq. Whenever Bush needs a reliable lap dog, he knows Charlie's number. Dent is always stingy when it comes to giving a helping hand to ordinary Americans, but when it comes to subsidies for Big Corporations, Charlie Dent is the king of welfare. Since getting into Congress he's voted, for example, on 10 pieces of legislation involving corporate subsidies for big oil and gas-- and, again, he backed the Bush position (lots of taxpayers' dollars transferred to Big Oil) every single time.

What Do Tom Reynolds, Charlie Dent And Dave Reichert Have In Common?

The links are from the original. Looks like Dent's people need to come up with a few explanations in the next six months.

I also removed the quotes from around the word "maverick" above. Under the circumstances, it looks like I'm quoting Dent calling himself a maverick, which as far as I know I'm not.

UPDATE 3 (Apr. 19): Replaced the bad airbrushed version of Sam Bennett's head shot with the one from ActBlue.