The New Republic has a post on its "convention blog" by Michael Crowley headlined "Team Mentality" that notes the stark contrast between Senate candidates at the Democratic Convention and Senate candidates at the Republican convention. Excerpt:
During last month's Democratic convention, it was hard to find any of the party's Senate candidates in Boston. Many of them avoided the convention altogether, fearing the effect of the Kerry-Democrat image back in their conservative states. Republicans don't seem burdened by the same concern. Today the National Republican Senatorial Committee held a press briefing here in New York, attended by six of its candidates: Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Pete Coors of Colorado, John Thune of South Dakota, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Bill Jones of California, and George Nethercutt of Washington. NRSC Chairman George Allen was bullish about his party's chances this November, particularly in light of a new poll (by the right-leaning Public Opinion Strategies) that shows Thune with a 50-48 lead over Tom Daschle among likely South Dakota voters. (The Daschle campaign, meanwhile, has released a new poll--by the left-leaning Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research--which shows Daschle with a 53-46 lead.)...Parties always spin their own candidates' chances, of course, so one has to take Allen's boosterism with a grain of salt. But surely if you're a Senate candidate, it's a lot easier if you can attend your party's convention and embrace your nominee than if you need to hide out at home, like so many Democrats did last month.
Senator Daschle, of course, left the Democratic Convention so fast that he skipped a party he was scheduled to host. Thune, on the other hand, is staying at the Republican Convention all week, and will be on hand to watch President Bush accept the nomination.
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