2010: Defending their votes
Posted: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 9:10 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
2010
The Hill looks at how vulnerable Democrats who voted for and against the health care bill are starting to defend their votes.
CONNECTICUT: "Connecticut Republicans are facing their first contentious battle for a Senate nomination in more than 15 years, but it’s not clear whether spending big bucks now -- as some candidates are doing -- will help in the long run. With about 1,600 GOP delegates poised to pick the party’s nominee at their annual convention in May, this could be one contest in which spending heavily on television ads has diminished returns."
FLORIDA: The Club for Growth's endorsement of Marco Rubio in the Senate GOP primary should help Rubio with fundraising, "but while the club saturated television airwaves in upstate New York with ads leading up to the special election, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to do the same across a state as large and expensive as Florida," Roll Call argues.
MASSACHUSETTS: "Opening up a major fissure in the US Senate race, Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday that she opposes the landmark health care bill approved by the House Saturday because it contains a provision restricting federal funding for abortion," the Boston Globe reports. "Coakley, in her boldest gamble of the campaign, said that fighting for women’s access to abortions was more important than passing the overall bill, despite its aim of providing coverage for 36 million people, establishing a public insurance option, and prohibiting insurers from discriminating against patients with preexisting conditions."
And the Boston Globe editorial page criticizes her for the decision. Coakley, it writes, "should indeed be angry over the provision in the House-approved health-reform bill that denies abortion coverage to the 36 million people who would receive subsidized insurance. But her position that she would have voted against the bill -- thereby possibly denying any coverage to those 36 million people -- is self-defeating."
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Ovide LaMontagne, a Manchester lawyer, has gotten into the Senate race, offering a primary challenge to GOP frontrunner Kelly Ayotte, the state's attorney general. "It is his third bid for public office. He was the Republican nominee for governor in 1996, losing to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen after defeating Rep. Bill Zeliff in a GOP primary. Previously, Lamontagne ran unsuccessfully for the 1st District U.S. House seat in 1992, losing to Zeliff in the primary."
VIRGINIA: Roll Call looks at how two Virginia Democratic freshman congressmen have taken different approaches since being elected in 2008. "Perriello and Nye are taking different tacks in their voting behavior and campaign styles as they prepare to seek re-election against vigorous Republican opposition. Perriello has been more of a populist and risk-taker in his votes and public statements. On closely divided votes, Perriello has sided with his party more frequently than Nye -- even though Perriello’s district, located in the mostly rural Southside area of the state, backed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2008 election and Nye’s district, a more geographically compact area in and around Virginia Beach, backed President Barack Obama."
