Have you read this yet? I'll pull some excerpts in a bit.
Hugh was also on a conference call with Mehlman this morning. Among other things, he notes that 40 percent of the vote is already in in Tennessee, and it definitely favors Corker.
Rove on Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio:
KR: So Bouchard in particular, is a very attractive candidate for the Senate, because he’s the sheriff of Oakland County, the large suburban, one of the large suburban counties outside of Detroit. It’s the quintessential swing county in the state. If a Republican wins statewide, it is because they do well in Oakland County. He’s the sheriff. He also previously served in the legislature, where he was an accomplished legislator. So he understands the legislative process, and he’s got a big suburban base. And he’s been an articulate advocate of why Debbie Stabenow’s approach to politics in Washington, with higher taxes, more spending, more regulation, more junk lawsuits, greater barriers to trade, why these are all bad for the Michigan economy, which as you know, Michigan is the only state in the last 12 months that has failed to create jobs.
HH: Now I am very pleased to hear you talk about Michigan, Virginia and Missouri. I’m worried about Missouri about fraud, Karl Rove, and obviously, that happened in 2000, and there were problems in 2004. Is the party prepared to keep it clean in Missouri?
KR: Well, I was in Missouri on Friday, and met with some of the leaders of the campaign there, and talked to others, and they are well aware of the problem. They’re on top of it. They have lots of good boards of elections, which they feel will do a good job of providing an honest vote, but they also have a large number of lawyers that are standing by, trained and ready to intervene, because as you remember in 2000, they literally went to a judge in St. Louis, and got selected polls in African-American Democratic areas, kept open longer so that they could try and count us out. It didn’t happen, but nonetheless, is was a lesson which they will not forget easily and soon in Missouri.
HH: And Virginia, you’re confident about Allen? Because Democrats would have us believe that Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio are lost.
KR: Well, you know, it’s interesting. The Washington Post, you’ve got to remember the mindset. Most of the people who are commenting on these races live inside the Beltway, and get the coverage of the Washington Post. The Washington Post coverage of Virginia is so elitist, it’s unbelievable. They ran an article, which was one of the most revealing pieces of journalism I’ve seen. They ran it in the Style section, but the fact that the editors of the Post would consider this useful material….it contrasted Northern Virginia, NVA, with what they called the rest of Virginia, ROVA. And they said that language in Northern Virginia meant something different than the rest of Virginia. For example, they said in Northern Virginia, when you said the word lab, you were referring to your dog, your family dog. Whereas in the rest of Virginia, use the word lab, you were talking about the place where you cooked up methamphetamine.
HH: Wow.
KR: And I think that is indicative of how the Washington Post, and hence, a lot of people who read the Washington Post, understand Virginia, which is only through the eyes of what’s inside the Beltway in Northern Virginia. And George Allen was an accomplished governor of the state, and has served the state ably as both a Congressman and as a Senator, and people have not forgotten it. That’s why the dean of the African-Americans in the Virginia Senate has courageously crossed party lines and has endorsed Allen for re-election.
HH: That’s good news. Senators Santorum and DeWine…possible?
KR: Possible, particularly Santorum’s out there battling away, and has a very effective get out the vote operation. The polls in Ohio have shown a dramatic closing of the race here in the last couple of weeks. DeWine is a very, you know, sort of independent minded Republican. He’s been caught up in the rest of the morass that’s affected the Republican Party there, but he’s running a very good campaign, and is a very decent guy, and we have a very effective get out the vote operation in a lot of places in Ohio.
Chance in Foley and DeLay districts?
HH: Difficult House races in Florida 16 and Texas 22nd, because they’re so difficult to get the rules straight. Did the message on how to win get through in those two districts, Karl Rove?
KR: Absolutely. In fact, I was talking with friends who’ve been watching the race carefully in Texas, and the President was down there recently. And the early voting, which closed this weekend, is about…ahead of where it was in 2002, and particularly so in the Republican areas. People, the anecdotal evidence is that the people went into the polling booths…you’re allowed to take into the polls in Texas, a piece of paper with names of write-in candidates, plus the names of the write-in candidates are posted in the polling places. And the anecdotal evidence is all 13 early voting locations in Harris County, for example, were manned around the clock with people handing out material for Sheila Sekula Gibbs. But the anecdotal reports were that people walked up waiving their colored pieces of paper that they received in the mail in order to vote for her, and that people spent a lot of time in the polling places. There’s a recent poll that indicated that nearly three quarters of the people in the district knew that they had to write in her name in order to vote for her, and that they she was leading 53-38, with 5 points for the libertarian, and four points undecided.
HH: And in Florida, Joe Negron?
KR: Joe Negron is…I just was with Jeb Bush in Pensacola. He’d just come from, in the last day or so, being with Joe Negron. He’s absolutely convinced he’s going to win. I turned to Mel…Senator Mel Martinez, and said is the governor on target here? And Mel said don’t ask me, because Joe Negron is one of my great friends, and I’m campaigning for him, and yeah, absolutely he’s going to win. And he’s got a good campaign line. Punch Foley to vote for Negron. And he’s a very enthusiastic and outgoing accomplished legislator with a lot of support. I do know this, that about 44% of the people in Florida 16 are registered Republicans, and yet registered Republicans are responsible for 60% of the absentee ballots that have been returned.
To that I say, remember how CA-50 was supposed to go totally Democrat because of the Duke Cunningham scandal? Oops. Foley's and DeLay's districts may just be the same story, and extra points for Democrat demoralization if we hold onto those.
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