PPP: Dem Ron Barber Poised To Handily Beat TeaNut Jesse Kelly In AZ Special House Race Tomorrow !!!
A PPP poll just out has Dem Ron Barber beating TeaNut Jesse Kelley tomorrow by a whopping 53-41 margin with the Green Party guy taking the rest. This is significant. Why is it happening? It is true that this being Gabby Giffords old seat and especially with her surviving the gunshot wound gives the outgoing incumbent a whopping 67% approval. (She was pretty damn popular anyhow.) And Barber was her longtime staffer who also was injured.
But it is MUCH more than that. Barber, like Giffords, is a truly moderate-progressive Dem in a swing district and a STAUNCH supporter of veterans, the elderly, Social Security, and Medicare. And he has pounded and pounded away on this much like Kathy Hochul did in upstate NY. Kelly is a crazy Teabagger who has called SS and Medicare a ponzi scheme and says he wants to eliminate corporate taxes, sock us with a 23% sales tax, and it is a district with 25,000 more registered R's than D's, but with 30% registered indies. In the last several decades, it has only supported a Dem for President ONCE and Obama is 44-50 there now. But, it is a district that will split its votes between R's and D's in state level elections.
The Dems have run a damn good campaign with both the Barber campaign and the DCCC and a Dem Pac running both good positive ads and hard-hitting attack ads that trap Kelly in his crazy talk about wanting to kill SS and Medicare. They also have 400 volunteers on the ground and on the phones. Barber is well liked in the district and has a good number of high level vets and even some prominent R's endorsing his candidacy. This is GOOD. Barber is by no means a "DINO." He is a true MODERATE, a bit more conservative in some areas, but also a very staunch supporter of Medicare and SS right to the hilt, and a fair problem-solving pragmatist. He represents the moderate values of his swing district very well. He is fairly reserved, folksy, and likeable at age 66, and this is the first time he has run for office.
This is the second time Kelly has run for this seat, and he almost beat Giffords in 2010 in the "Red Wave." She beat him by just two percent. In this race, Dems are VERY motivated, and Barber's positives are high vs. Kelly whose NEGATIVES are high, thanks to the great media campaign the Dems have run in this race. Kelly has tried, actually, to moderate himself and backwalk on his crazy positions. Nothing doing. They have used his own words against him in a big way and made him look like a LIAR. Kelly has tried to nationalize the race and the R's have dumped a good chunk of cash into this.
This reminds me so much of the Hochul campaign. And it is the MODEL for Dem campaigns in blue, purple, and some red districts. You HAMMER your radical TeaPublican opponent with their own crazy words, put THEM of DEFENSE, make THEM backtrack and look like a flipflopper, and go with a message of "Medicare, Medicare, Medicare, Social Security, Social Security, Social Security !!!"
We need to look hard at this campaign, and LEARN FROM IT. And PS: We do NOT win if we do not win the MIDDLE !! Plain and simple. The truly moderate Republicans are DEAD AND GONE. We need to be the progressive-moderate party because THAT is where the country is and NOT in TeaPublican Crazyland.
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I'll feel better once all the votes are tallied.
