Steve Israel and the DCCC freaked out when they realized that a progressive grassroots candidate, George Gollin, was serious about running against freshman GOP corporate shill Rodney Davis. With Dick Durbin at their side, they did everything they could to undermine Gollin and, in the end, Israel's mystery meat candidate, Ann Callis, won the primary, with 54.65%, having significantly outspent Gollin. From the moment she won the primary, the Democrats could have written off the swing district. She stands for nothing except her own career and offers no one-- except for blind partisans-- any reason to vote for her. That didn't stop Israel from earmarking $1,753,000 in attack ads against Davis for this fall. So far he's only spent $21,700 though and their are very loud rumors everywhere that Callis is one of the nothing candidates with no chance to win that he's cutting off at the knees-- and leaving to the incompetent hands of EMILY's List, who will pick over the carcass and drain whatever money she has for themselves-- while she goes down to a horrible defeat. Too bad all her eggs were in the rotten DCCC basket and she didn't build a credible campaign that could stand on its own. Or, even worse that the DCCC didn't just stay out of it and let Gollin win the primary and fight it out with Davis.Beltway pundits now see Davis, despite his 50/50 district as a safe bet for reelection. Obama won 55-44% against McCain and was in a 49-49% tie 4 years later that Romney won by a a few hundred votes. Alex Isenstadt, sharper than most of the Beltway pundits wrote on Tuesday that "Democrats have gradually narrowed their focus to protecting jeopardized incumbents and are likely to seriously invest in only the dozen or so candidates seen as realistic contenders for Republican-held seats. At the start of the cycle, for instance, national Democrats had been talking up the candidacies of Ann Callis, a former county judge running for an Illinois seat, and Amanda Renteria, a former Capitol Hill aide seeking a California seat. Neither candidate is now seen as likely to win, and neither is receiving as much attention." The DCCC claimed, hysterically, that he was wrong about Renteria but were less definitive about the fate they have in store of Callis, who is running into money problems as Israel's interest in her campaign wanes.And not just Callis. Another weak EMILY's List candidate, Pam Brynes is desperately fighting to maintain her backing from the fickle Steve Israel, who has told allies he's dumping her. Byrnes released two very Beltway TV adds yesterday (below). Over the course of the next month, more and more hapless Israel recruits will become victims of his terrible recruiting agenda. Kind of sad.And The Kochs Are Also Dumping Their Weak LinksStarting in Oregon, where their mess of a candidate, Monica Wehby, is being viewed as just a big waste of time and energy by the far right. She only has $646,831 cash on hand and the Koch-run American Partners Action SuperPac has already wasted $215,750. Carly Fiorina's shady New Republican PAC wasted another $507,076, the only electoral investment they've made this cycle, out of the $1,302,104 they've squeezed from right-wing suckers. The Register-Guard reported today that "Freedom Partners’ super PAC, the Virginia-based group affiliated with oil and gas magnates Charles and David Koch, confirmed Friday that it has canceled all the television ad time it had reserved in October to influence Oregon’s U.S. Senate race."
The cancellation wasn’t the only bad news for the Wehby campaign on Friday.Rasmussen Reports released its latest poll for the race, which found that Wehby remains 13 percentage points behind Merkley.…On Thursday, Wehby said she wasn’t concerned that Freedom Partners could pull back its spending, and was focused on her own campaign.
The Kochs also pulled their ads from the hapless, sinking Terri Lynn Land campaign in Michigan, although another neo-fascist, Joe Ricketts, former CEO of Ameritrade and the owner of the Chicago Cubs, has already pumped $2,153,309 into that race on Land's behalf, through his extreme right wing Ending Spending Action Fund. Just last week Rove dumped $763,962 into the race for Land, on top of the $500,000 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has already put in. So far-- even without Koch cash-- right-wing groups have spent $3,505,361 smearing Gary Peters and another $838,994 talking up Land.