This is amazing, in the original sense of the word--the very idea of a Democrat holding such a lead here would be unthinkable, were it not happening in real life.

The last poll to be released in the race for Katherine Harris's seat showed that Democratic nominee Christine Jennings was leading Vern Buchanan by eight points among likely voters.  You can see the poll memo (pdf), taken Sept. 8-12, here.

Since that poll was released, Vern Buchanan has unleashed an incredible barrage of negative attack ads against Christine Jennings, in the hopes of tarnishing her image to the point where he could still compete despite his numerous shenanigans in his business life.  Vern has spent so much on negative ads that he tripped the Millionaire's Amendment, giving his campaign over $650,000 since the primary.

And what did all that negative advertising get him? Higher negatives--for himself:

Buchanan's favorable rating has remained constant over the last three weeks, while his unfavorable rating has increased (35% favorable - 45% unfavorable - 20% cannot rate).
<u>October 2006</u>
Buchanan Favorable 35%
Buchanan Unfavorable 45%
<u>September 2006</u>
Buchanan Favorable 35%
Buchanan Unfavorable 38%

Vern also added to the mountainous load of baggage he's already carrying, as a result of the Foley affair. It's rough on a guy to be one of only 8 House candidates to receive a contribution from Foley's PAC, and rougher to have a fundraiser headlined by Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-Cover Up) the same week as he's implicated in a major scandal, and even rougher to have proudly touted endorsements from ALL the key players in the scandal (Foley, Hastert, Reynolds, Shimkus and Boehner all endorsed Vern Buchanan). Now Vern's getting hit with the news that, despite spending millions of his personal fortune on this campaign ($2.7 million and counting...), he's still losing ground to Christine Jennings.

But it would be wrong to think that Vern is solely responsible for the lead that Christine now has. She's an incredible candidate, a woman who worked her way up from an 18 year-old bank teller to be the President and CEO of a bank she co-founded. She's spent over twenty years active in this community, working with the Mental Health Alliance, the Community AIDS Network, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and the United Way of Manatee County.

The poll shows that Christine has the support of 81% of likely Democratic voters, 60% of Independent/Non-Party voters, and an incredible 25% of Republicans. That's actually not so surprising to those of us down here who saw how vituperative the Republican primary was (you probably saw it wherever you live--we had one candidate declare that "blacks are not the greatest swimmers, and may not even know how to swim" (the video is here), one candidate declare his support for profiling all Muslims at airports (forgive the CNS link!), and through it all Vern Buchanan running the most expensive, most negative campaign in America, winning a whopping 32% in the primary at a cost of only $200 per vote. Jennings, for her part, won the Democratic nomination with 62% of the vote, and won 3000 more votes in her primary than Vern did in his.

To help his efforts to hold this pivotal seat in the Red column, Vern is flying in a special guest this morning--Dick Cheney. (Everyone in town has been advised to wear bright colors and to avoid sudden movements while he's visiting, and there are more than a few elderly lawyers taking day trips out of town today).

To help us take this seat, we need your help. <u>Christine has raised almost $45,000 on ActBlue, but we need to do better if we're going to withstand the barrage of attacks sure to be coming in the next few days. Please contribute whatever you can via ActBlue to help us fend off the assault of Vern's negative ads and get Christine elected!</u> Even if it's just ten or twenty dollars, it will go a long way towards helping us retake the House.

I'll keep you posted as the campaign continues. We need every bit of help we can get if we're going to turn this seat around. Please volunteer if you're nearby, or contribute if you can.

-JR with Christine Jennings for Congress