With less than a hundred days to go before Election Day, we decided to bring Cook Political Report analyst Jennifer Duffy on the show to preview the major contests for the Senate at stake this year. Jennifer is not willing to go beyond saying that it’s a “50-50” chance the Republicans win a majority… a much more reserved judgment than some other media outlets who have been talking about anything from a 60 percent to an 86 percent chance of GOP control.
We also focus on three Senate races in particular: in Hawaii, where appointed Democratic incumbent Brian Schatz faces Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa in the Aug. 9 Democratic primary to fill the last two years of the seat of the late Dan Inouye; in Georgia, where a campaign memo describing strategy for Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn was leaked; and in Montana, where embattled Democratic Sen. John Walsh has been rocked by a plagiarism scandal. Joining us to discuss these races are, respectively, Molly Solomon of Hawaii Public Radio, Emory University’s Andra Gillespie, and Chuck Johnson of Montana’s Lee Newspapers chain.
People may be unsure about who will take over the Senate this year, but nobody is uncertain about how Sarah Palin‘s dream of impeaching President Obama will turn out: it’s just not going to happen. But that hasn’t stopped Democrats from warning people about it (and fundraising off the possibility at the same time). Professor John Pitney of Claremont McKenna College talks about what’s going on.
Finally, it’s been 25 years since Mickey Leland, the Texas congressman and advocate of the poor and hungry, perished in a plane crash in Ethiopia, in one of his many visits to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Africa. Craig Washington, his longtime friend and successor in Congress, talks about Leland’s legacy.