Appointed Sen. John Walsh (D-MT) has been on the job for a few months now, as Democrats hoped to give him a leg up in the 2014 US Senate campaign. Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is even throwing his name on a bill simply to make him look strong and competitive as a candidate back home.
The problem? Apparently Democratic leaders still don’t think Walsh can handle simply taking questions. (You may recall that on the day Walsh announced his run for the US Senate, he was initially unavailable to the media. And even after he was embarrassed into doing interviews, he only did a select few)
@aaronflint @NationalJournal Remember day one of the @JohnWalsh campaign? #MTsen #MTpol #CultureOfCorruption pic.twitter.com/7BAOMxOgDx
— Bob Brigham (@BobBrigham) July 16, 2014
Now, Roll Call has this: Democrats Tout Walsh Bill to Bring Back Jobs — Without Walsh
But Sen. John Walsh, the Democrat appointed to fill the term vacated by the departure of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to be ambassador to China, didn’t appear before an array of cameras Tuesday afternoon with Senate colleagues, automobile and steel workers to tout his legislation.
That conference call with reporters last week did not feature an opportunity for national reporters to ask Walsh questions because of technical issues. Walsh spoke for about two minutes out of a twenty minute call that included Stabenow and three other private sector supporters.
“It’s a bill that’s designed for campaign rhetoric and failure — not to create jobs here in the U.S. But that’s not stopping our friends on the other side from bringing it up again — just as they did right before the last big election too,” (Senate Majority Leader) McConnell said.
Don’t worry Sen. Walsh, you shouldn’t expect too many tough questions from the Montana press corps. They’ll probably just copy and paste the entire press release that your staffer wrote for them, and re-write it to look as their own work. Their editors and producers will also tell you to ignore this little Roll Call story.
After National Journal last week placed the Walsh campaign on the “Dead Man Walking” list, Dems are desperate to show Walsh as competitive.
After bragging about a poll by a Democratic firm which showed them down 7 points Monday, the Walsh campaign also released the highly suspect “insider polling” to the liberal DailyKos website which they say has Walsh down 5 points against Rep. Steve Daines (R-MT).
DailyKos: Walsh Releases Internals Showing Down by 5
A Walsh internal from Harstad Strategic Research Inc., gives Daines a similar 43-38 lead. There are no crosstabs or field dates, but they find much more optimistic approval ratings for both candidates than PPP. Harstad gives Walsh a 47-32 job approval rating and also finds Daines at 49-36. Two unreleased Harstad polls from earlier in the year gave Daines a 14 and 8-point lead respectively.