The Blue State

Casey advances to face Santorum, and GOP attacks are coming

Out of Pennsylvania, it is official.  Bob Casey will be the one to square off against Republican Senate incumbent Rick Santorum.  Casey won Tuesday's primary in a landslide with around 85% of the vote.  Almost immediately after Casey's victory was announced, the Republican attack machine began its frontal assault on the Democratic challenger:

"Come out from behind the name and stand before the voters ofPennsylvania and talk about the issues important to the people of thisstate," Santorum told supporters at his campaign headquarters justoutside Pittsburgh.

CBS News reported last month that Rick Santorum has a 2-to-1 fund-raising advantage on Bob Casey, with more than $9 million on-hand.

Please, if possible, give all the support that you can to the Casey Campaign.  The Republicans know that if Santorum goes down, many of the other GOP incumbents across the country will go down too, giving the Senate majority to the Democrats.  This is the one "domino effect" that might actually work!

If conservatives hate the media, then why shadow them?

You'll notice that the cable news media is still reporting from the Gulf Coast from time to time in order to keep viewers up to speed with the ongoing reconstruction efforts.  What the same media has for the most part been ignoring is the harsh floods that ravaged the state of Hawaii.  It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, with Oahu getting hit just about the hardest.  But the same news media willing to spend money to fly their news teams to New Orleans barely said a word about storms in Hawaii.

With legislative majority hanging in the balance this November, of the two recovery efforts you can bet which one some conservative Republicans in the Senate did not want to fund:

The Senate voted Tuesday to protect homestate projects added by someof its most senior members as the tide turned against efforts byspending hawks to strip them out. The bill heads to a final Senate voteWednesday.

While conservatives pressed and lost a 59-40 vote to cut $6 millionin aid to Hawaii sugar companies to recover from flood damages causedby recent torrential rains, they allowed without protest $1.6 billionto be added to the measure for levees and other flood control projectsin and around New Orleans.

Thankfully the bill passed.  But the point is that some conservative lawmakers -- such as Rick Santorum, who wanted to cut Hawaii aid from the bill -- are so desperate for exposure that they will not support any spending measure unless there is sufficient press coverage of it.  This is especially surprising considering how bad conservatives hate the media.

Oh, and by the way: the amendment to strip Hawaii of its economic aid package was authored by none other than John McCain.  So much for Senator McCain being a compassionate conservative.  (See the vote for yourself!)

Sopranos comment doesn't help Santorum's deficit in the polls

The Rick Santorum Senate Campaign is still unhappy about the negative publicity they got from Sunday night's episode of the Sopranos:

On Sunday night's episode of "The Sopranos," Tony (James Gandolfini) told his shrink Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco)that when it comes to homosexuality, he agrees with "that Sen.Sanatorium, who says if we let this stuff go too far, pretty soon we'llbe f---ing dogs." Santorum, several years back, made similar remarks,only he used more delicate language than Tony did.

We called Santorum's office yesterday to ask if he was flattered about getting a shout-out on a popular show.

Apparently not.

"We're not gonna dignify that comment by commenting on it," said Santorum communications director Rob Traynham.

This is not what Rick Santorum needs now.  He still trails Democratic challenger Bob Casey by 11 percentage points in the latest Quinnipiac poll.  In order to make up some ground, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani has agreed to open for him at events.

Santorum has a whole lot of Casey to worry about

Look out Rick Santorum!  The right-wing Republican incumbent Senator from Pennsylvania has a headache to deal with it, and the name of that headache is Bob Casey.  The current state treasurer-turned-Democratic Senate challenger has raised a whopping $2.6 million over the last three months in his bid to unseat Santorum, and put the Democrats one step closer to taking back the Senate.

So how significant is Casey's $2.6 million in the first quarter of 2006?  Very significant.  In 2002, Ron Klink, Santorum's previous Democratic challenger, raised only $3.6 million during the entire campaign.  So for Casey, or any Democrat for that matter, to raise $2.6 million in only three months is almost unheard of.  The only Democrat to raise more money so far in 2006 is Hillary Clinton -- but she is obviously in her own league.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll has Casey with a 48% to 37% lead over Rick Santorum.

(Click here to show your support for Bob Casey's Senate Campaign)