Congressman Leonard Boswell’s campaign finally released some results from its internal polling today. An e-mail from campaign manager Scott Ourth said that according to a survey by Anzalone Liszt Research, 65 percent of likely primary voters would vote for Boswell.

If Boswell did win 65 percent of the vote on June 3, he would do slightly better than 8-year incumbent Jane Harman did in the 2006 primary to represent California’s 36th district. Harman, who like Boswell was backed by pretty much the whole state Democratic Party establishment, defeated peace activist Marcy Winograd by 62.4 percent to 37.5 percent.

The e-mail from the Boswell campaign did not contain details such as:

-which days the poll was in the field

-the number of respondents surveyed

-what criteria were used to code a respondent as a likely voter

-the pollster’s projected turnout for June 3

-support for the candidates among men vs. women and in various age groups

-the percent for Ed Fallon versus undecided.

I have asked for more information about the poll and will update this post if I receive answers from the Boswell campaign.

It mentioned that 63 percent of those who attended the Iowa caucuses in January said they would vote for Boswell if the election were held today–though it is not clear from the e-mail whether those who attended caucuses were automatically included in the likely voter pool for the primary.

About 58,000 people in Iowa’s third district attended Democratic caucuses on January 3. Only about 38,000 people in the third district voted in the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary.

I have not heard any projections from the Boswell campaign about how many people they expect to turn out on June 3.

Ourth’s e-mail alludes to mailing in early ballots. Presumably there has been an extensive effort to get supporters to return absentee ballots. Fallon’s campaign has also been urging supporters to vote early.

The e-mail also boasts that Boswell doubled Fallon’s fundraising during the latest reporting period, from April 1 to May 14. It links to this report from the Des Moines Register:

Federal Election Commission records show that Boswell, of Des Moines, took in more than $180,000 in contributions between April 1 and May 14. Of that sum, $93,000 came from political action committees, or a little more than half of his total donations.

Boswell, who’s been in office since 1996 and sits on the House agriculture and transportation committees, reported $709,000 cash on hand. He spent $311,000 during the period battling Fallon.

Fallon, also of Des Moines, reported that he collected nearly $73,000, including a $25 contribution from his own pocket. Fallon has been endorsed by groups such as Democracy for America that have assisted him in gaining individual contributions on the Internet, which he has needed since he does not accept PAC money.

Fallon spent about $64,000 during the period and said he had about $28,000 cash on hand by May 14.

Fallon’s campaign strategy has focused on building a strong field operation. During his liveblog session at the EENR blog today, he expressed optimism based on his campaign’s direct voter contacts, and mentioned that yesterday alone the campaign had over 2,200 phone calls and door knocks. Lacking the money to match Boswell’s spending on direct-mail and advertising, Fallon’s chance to pull off an upset depends on the success of his efforts to identify and turn out supporters.

As for the issues, Boswell is still trying to downplay differences between himself and Fallon, telling a reporter for the weekly Cityview,

“If you look at the issues, there’s just not a lot of difference between us,” Boswell said. “He’s taking things out of context and trying to conjure up differences that don’t exist.”

That same article quotes Boswell as promising to support the winner of the primary, which is the first time I’ve heard him make that pledge. He must be feeling very confident, since earlier this spring his campaign would not give me an unequivocal statement promising to support the winner of the primary.

Meanwhile, Boswell’s Congressional office will not take my phone calls or return my voice mail messages seeking clarification of his stand on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. More background on that issue is in this post.

If Boswell has quietly agreed to go along with Republican efforts to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies, despite his public stand with House Democrats on this issue in March, the voters of the third district deserve to know about it.

The full text of today’s e-mail from campaign manager Scott Ourth is after the jump.

The conservative pundits who favored Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson for president are fully on board with John McCain, but he still has a big problem with other elements of the conservative base.

Exhibit A: the results from the GOP primary in Pennsylvania last week. More than two months after it became clear that McCain would be the GOP nominee, he gained just under 73 percent of the vote from Pennsylvania Republicans. Ron Paul got almost 16 percent (more than 128,000 votes), and Mike Huckabee got about 11 percent (more than 91,000 votes).

Think about that. More than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania went to the trouble of voting for someone other than McCain last Tuesday.

McCain did the worst in conservative counties where Republicans need to run up big margins to have any hope of winning statewide in Pennsylvania:

Mr. McCain’s worst showing was in Juniata County, near the center of the state. He received only about 59 percent of the vote, while Mr. Paul took nearly 28 percent. In 2004, President Bush won Juniata with 72 percent of the vote.

Mr. Bush had his biggest win that year in southern Fulton County, with 76 percent of the vote. Mr. McCain picked up 71 percent there, but Mr. Huckabee had 21 percent, his highest percentage in the state.

The conservative Washington Times has more bad news for McCain:

The McCain campaign has said it is on the same timeline for uniting the Republican Party as then-Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. In that year, Mr. Bush won 73 percent of the Republican vote in Pennsylvania’s primary, held April 4. His biggest challenger was McCain himself, who won 23 percent, despite having dropped out of the campaign weeks earlier.

But McCain was a far more imposing figure in 2000 than Paul and Huckabee were in 2008, and McCain has also had more time before Pennsylvania to consolidate his lead than Bush had in 2000. To continue to post less-than-dominant showings will only prolong talk that McCain has more work to do within his own party.

And to truly match Bush’s 2000 performance may be out of the question for McCain. Out of 18.5 million votes cast in the primaries so far he has won 43.2 percent. By contrast, Bush finished 2000 with 62 percent of the Republican primary vote.

Then I learned from this diary by sarahlane that Ron Paul says he doesn’t plan to campaign for McCain, and Paul supporters outnumbered McCain supporters at the Nevada Republican Party’s state convention last weekend.

Finally, the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a complaint against McCain with the Federal Elections Commission. If you’re too young to remember Judicial Watch, this group repeatedly attacked Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s.

Click the link to read the MyDD post by Jonathan Singer. Judicial Watch’s FEC complaint relates to a possibly illegal in-kind contribution from a foreign national to McCain’s campaign.

As I’ve mentioned before, prominent bloggers have filed a separate FEC complaint relating to McCain’s failure to abide by the spending limits imposed on candidates who agree to take public matching funds during the presidential primaries.

Very dishonest.

Over at MyDD, Josh Orton picked up on a story from Sunday’s New York Times, which

exposes two more broken McCain pledges: to not to fly on corporate jets, and to not exploit his wife’s wealth for campaign advantage.

First, the campaign finance side – by exploiting a loophole left open by the non-functioning FEC, McCain flew for months on a corporate jet owned by his wife’s company, but only paid a fraction of the cost […]

Not only is he exploiting a loophole to save millions, he’s actually going back on an earlier pledge. In early 2007, McCain’s campaign swore off the practice of using corporate jets […]

Oh yeah, and McCain is also breaking a promise not to use his wife’s vast wealth for his presidential campaign. Click over to Orton’s diary for details on that.

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post had a good write-up of McCain’s recent visit to New Orleans. The candidate criticized the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, but conveniently failed to mention his many Senate votes “against relief measures for Katrina victims” and “against an investigation into the failures of the government response” to Katrina. The article notes that “McCain also voted against providing additional funding for first responders’ communication systems”.

If you click that link you can also view a slide show of George Bush and John McCain celebrating with a birthday cake for McCain in Arizona on August 29, 2005, the day the levees broke in New Orleans.

Speaking of McCain in New Orleans, MoveOn.Org sent out an e-mail with details on the results of

its recent petition drive, and the media coverage they were able to generate:

Amazing. The very morning that John McCain visited New Orleans, 140,000 of us signed a petition calling on him to reject the support of extreme right-wing evangelist John Hagee, who said that Hurricane Katrina was a case of God punishing the city for its sins. At the same time, a group of local MoveOn members rallied outside his town hall event with the same message. McCain was asked about the issue at the event, and again by reporters after.

Almost instantly, the fact that McCain was pandering to the far right while playing “centrist” in the Big Easy became a national news story. The Associated Press and Reuters covered our actions, and the New York Times, Boston Globe, and MSNBC all reported on the disturbing links between Hagee, McCain, and the city of New Orleans.1

Best of all, the Baltimore Sun quoted New Orleans MoveOn member Harry Greenberg as saying, “Shame on John McCain for using New Orleans for a photo op while still courting support from hatemongers like Hagee.”2

A big “thank you” to the New Orleans MoveOn members who bravely spoke out for all of us against McCain’s courtship of hatemongers. And thanks to all of you who reacted so quickly to support them. We’ll be spending a lot more time in the next few months telling the truth about John McCain, and we’re glad you’re part of the effort.

-Eli, Daniel, Wes, Laura, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team

 Sunday, April 27th, 2008

P.S. If you want to get involved with rapid response actions like Thursday’s rally in New Orleans, consider joining your local MoveOn Council. You can join a council near you by clicking here:

http://operationdemocracy.org?…

Sources:

1. “McCain sharply critical of Bush response to Katrina,” Reuters, April 24, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3612…

“McCain to New Orleans: Never Again,” Associated Press, April 24, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3613…

“McCain Goes Where Few Republicans Dare, Deep in Democrats’ Territory,” New York Times, April 26, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3614…

“Hagee retracts Katrina comment,” Boston Globe, April 25, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3615…

“McCain criticizes Bush, Congress on Hurricanes,” MSNBC, April 24, 2008 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24…

2. “MoveOn calls for McCain move on Hagee,” Baltimore Sun, April 24, 2008

Welcome to the latest installment of my series about efforts by Leonard Boswell's campaign to make the third district primary about Ed Fallon's faults.

Boswell's staffers and supporters have criticized Fallon for the following four alleged ethical problems:

1. his work and fundraising for the Independence Movement for Iowa (I'M for Iowa)

2. the salary Fallon drew from unspent campaign funds following the 2006 gubernatorial primary

3. allegations that Fallon pondered running for governor as an independent after losing that primary

4. Fallon's stand against taking contributions from political action committees (PACs) while allowing PACs to encourage their individual members to donate to his campaign.

For my take on the I'M for Iowa allegations, see this diary and this follow-up piece.

I addressed the controversy over Fallon's salary from his gubernatorial campaign in this post.

This post looks at the evidence on whether Fallon considered running for governor as an independent.

Follow me after the jump for more on Fallon, Boswell and PACs.

Campaign finance law, that is.

Yes, the big campaign finance reformer is flouting the law that governs public matching funds for presidential campaigns.

A group of bloggers including Markos of Daily Kos and Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. The complaint accuses McCain of

violations of campaign finance law for spending beyond limits imposed by his decision to take public financing.

McCain has claimed he is backing off that decision, and justifies it with the fact that he never received any of that public money. However, the law clearly states that he is bound by those limits if he uses the promise of those funds in order to secure campaign loans — something he absolutely did.

Legal expert Adam B explains more about this issue today.

Also, MoveOn.org Political Action sent out an e-mail about this issue, and I’ve put the full text after the jump.

The e-mail includes a link you can click if you want to sign on to the FEC complaint as well.

Incidentally, I have read that McCain also used the certificate saying he had qualified for matching funds in order to avoid the onerous signature requirements to get on the ballot for the Ohio primary. So he didn’t just use the commitment to take matching funds to secure a loan, he also used it to get on the ballot.

Now, worried that he won’t be able to compete with the Democratic nominee financially, he is trying to back out. What a weasel.

Is it just me, or does John Edwards sometimes remind anyone else of your typical superhero?  You know, fighting for the little guy, saving democracy, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?  Well, OK, maybe not that last one, but the man is inspiring.

Today, John gave a speech in New Hampshire that was all about saving democracy.  After years of having politicians tell us that the best we can expect is incremental change within our broken system, it is quite astounding to hear someone actually tell the truth about what is wrong with our system, and propose major reforms to fix it. To me, having the courage to confront our big problems and offer real solutions makes John a real hero, despite the conspicuous lack of spandex in his wardrobe.