Why Would Any Normal Person Give A Damn If Dull Conservatives Gwen Graham Or Steve Southerland Wins?

If you live Inside the Beltway instead of in America, there's a decent chance your involvement with politics centers on Team Red vs Team Blue horse races. And I'm sure that Abby Livingston from Roll Call really and truly meant it today when she tweeted this:

Excluding friends and family and horse race aficionados, there is virtually no reason to be interested in the FL-02 race. It pits a run-of-the-mill, extremely unexceptional conservative Republican against a run-of-the-mill, extremely unexceptional conservative Democrat. The Republican is worse than the Democrat. He would do more harm than she would. Neither is any good and the seat would be better left empty than to either reelect Steve Southerland or replace him with Blue Dog Gwen Graham. Both want careers at the public trough but neither has presented a reason for bestowing that honor on them. Not that the Beltway media worries about that kind of thing. Who's up, who's down, who's all around… that's what they care about in DC. Dear Abby:

A new Democratic poll shows Gwen Graham with a slight lead over Rep. Steve Southerland II, R-Fla., but still within the margin of error.

Graham, the likely Democratic nominee, had the support of 45 percent of survey participants, while Southerland trailed with 43 percent. Eleven percent of respondents were undecided.

Ocean Champions, an environmental group that endorses Democratic candidates, commissioned the poll.

The margin of error is 4.4 points, which means the survey reinforces the view of many national operations hold on Florida’s 2nd District race: It’s a dead heat. The race is rated Tossup/Tilts Republican by the Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call, and Southerland is on Roll Call’s most recent list of the 10 Most Vulnerable Members.

As for the incumbent, 42 percent of respondents viewed his job performance favorably, while 47 percent viewed him negatively. Southerland is running for a third term and was the subject of negative advertising in previous campaigns.

Graham scored positive marks from respondents: 39 percent of those surveyed viewed her positively, while 15 percent saw her in a negative light.

As of the June 30 FEC deadline, Southerland has raised $1,980,194, spent $687,227 and was sitting on $1,394,749. Graham's daughter had raised $2,354,222, spent $779,702 and had $1,574,521 cash-on-hand. This race, though is probably going to come down to what outside groups spend in the district. The DCCC, their House Majority PAC and Ocean Champions have already spent $285,784 slamming Southerland and the NRCC and NRA have spent $111,552 attacking Graham (like in the ad up top).

In 2012 Southerland won this R+6 district against state Sen. Al Lawson 175,842 (53%) to 157,599 (47%). Lawson took the biggest county, Leon (Tallahassee) with 62%, as well as Jefferson and Gadsden counties, but Southerland spent all the rest, 11 counties-- several with insane margins, like 80% in Holmes and 73% in Bay. Obama also won just those 3 counties that same day but not only did Democratic Senator Bill Nelson do better in the 3 Democratic counties, he also won Liberty and Franklin counties and held down Republican Connie Mack's winning margins in the red-leaning counties to help him win the district. Yes, it can be done. But can Bob Graham's daughter do it? Probably. She's very conservative and uses Republican talking points to frame he arguments, hoping Democratic base votes won't notice and will still come out and vote for her.

Yesterday Rove's PAC, Crossroads announced their first round of congressional targets of the cycle:

• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)- $895,000
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $705,000
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)- $640,000
• Bill Enyart (proto-New Dem-IL)- $565,000
• Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV)- $335,000

Smart targeting; Rove is going after undistinguished conservative Democrats, all Big Business shills, who have minimal connection to any kind of progressive grassroots. Their voting records range from worse than so-so to absolutely unsupportable. Next up will be Rove's attack schedule against Democratic challengers like Graham's daughter, which will wipe out her financial advantage and probably neutralize her favorable/unfavorable advantage as well. Steve Israel's miserable batch of conservative recruits are mostly doomed. Graham's daughter may have a better chance that most of them, but betting on her is a fool's errand since a- she'll probably lose and b- even if she wins, it just means another rotten Blue Dog crossing the aisle consistently to vote with the GOP. (Actually Graham's daughter has been endorsed by both factions of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dogs and the New Dems and by another mainstay of that wing, EMILY's List, who have been busy losing races all cycle, the latest two being dreadful conservatives, Donna Mercado Kim and Colleen Hanabusa, in Hawaii.) This morning the DCCC released this ad slamming Southerland and Graham's own ad is below. Any way to guess which party she's with from her ad?