From Dave Catanese at Politico:
"Yet even some Democrats acknowledge that Carnahan, a second-term secretary of state whose family has been synonymous with Missouri politics for decades, may have a tough sell when it comes to convincing an ornery electorate she’s an outsider . . . Carnahan has never led Blunt in a public poll this year, trailing him by an average of about 7 points in surveys taken since August."
There's a lot of prognosticating and double-speak taking place among the Democrats trying to make excuses for Robin - particularly on the subject of polling. Patrick Tuohey of the Missouri Record has been covering this for a while, but now the Cook Political Report is also weighing in. Jennifer Duffy argues that the situation from Carnahan is even worse than the polls suggest:
"The odds are better than not that Beck and Dine won't get a total of more than 3%, which means that Blunt may be a bit further ahead than these polls suggest. More worrisome for Democrats is that Carnahan hasn't been ahead in any survey since early January."
So where does that leave Carnahan? Stuart Rothenberg weighs in:
"Blunt is ahead in the race by at least a few points, and barring a major goof by the Republican nominee, he should win."
What else is on the horizon? Robin Carnahan might have some explaining to do about why her brother received $107 million in tax credits because of the stimulus. Right now Tom Carnahan is playing coy, telling the St. Louis Post Dispatch "I'll leave the political stuff to the politicians; that's not what we do. We build wind farms." But statements identified by the Daily Caller point to an acute awareness of how he can profit from politics and from lobbying - and how government handouts saved his company.
Ha! Looks like they've thrown in the towel: http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/10/dscc_moving_mon.php
Posted by: Tommy J | October 09, 2010 at 11:17 AM