Money, Money, Money

Interesting that many think that the withdrawal of the DCCC from funding an advertising blitz is an indication of "having the race in the bag."

The truth is that things aren't going as well in the House elections as Democrats had hoped and the money is needed elsewhere at this point in the race, especially in New York where the GOP is holding strong in 4 of the 5 districts the Democrats had counted on going blue. I believe that the Republican and Democratic Congressional PACs are just about equal in terms of fundraising, so the NRCC moving its money to New York, for instance, would be a huge problem for the DCCC if left unanswered. Especially since there five competitive races in New York and only two (if one is generous)in Arizona.

All that said, this is a tremendous advantage for Graf as The NRCC was never really going to donate any more than it could get away with after their failed primary incursion. This is further mitigated by the fact that Graf will get a lot of help from non-Party PACs. I would argue that his advantage here is far greater than Giffords.

The last tidbit is that the Graf Campaign has picked over the festering, rotted carcass of the Huffman Campaign and tapped fundraiser Julee Dawson. It could easily be argued that she is the only member of that group that still has any business being in politics. Huffman certainly had no problems fundraising, and I doubt it was due to his glittering personality.

The word is that Team Graff has set some very ambitious goals for her, and she is performing admirably. Between the new Campaign Manager, Gregg, and Dawson, I believe that Graf's former weakness at fundraising has been overcome.

The coming weeks should be interesting, although I do not believe that we have seen the last of either party committee.

I'll talk about those "polls" in just a bit.