Jack Carter Getting Some Attention Outside Nevada

Sarah Carter at the Carter Blog points out an article published in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution headlined "Carter son seeks Senate seat in Nevada". It's generally a good piece and I wanted to point to a few paragraphs:

There is no question that the task his father has set for himself will be supremely difficult. His low standing in the polls aside, Jack Carter's run is also complicated by what some describe as a cordial working relationship between Reid and Ensign — who came within 500 votes of beating the Democratic leader in 1998 before winning the state's other Senate seat in 2000. Reid has given money to Carter's campaign, but at a joint press conference earlier this year, he brushed off Carter when he tried to interject a comment.

Carter's biggest challenge, though, is raising enough money to compete with a well-funded Republican incumbent.

"There are no optimistic signs for him," said Jon Ralston, who writes a political column and newsletter in Las Vegas. "If he had $3 million, I might be talking differently."

But Carter has seen another politician overcome such disadvantages — one who, because of his background as a peanut farmer, was comfortable chatting up Midwestern hog farmers, and put together an unexpected win in the 1976 Iowa caucuses that helped propel him to the Democratic presidential nomination.

First of all, I have to say that the poll numbers (and there have been very few polls, almost none of which are very reliable) are going up steadily as Sarah Carter pointed out recently. But that's besides the point. It's the money game. Jack Carter needs more contributions. That's why it's so important that Sarah is blogging on a daily basis and getting a lot of attention (and quite a few contributions) through her postings on Daily Kos.

You can help Jack Carter win by contributing to him through the Turn Tahoe Blue fundraising page.

What is of real importance, though, is that Jack Carter knows how to talk to and interact with the people of Nevada. Part of that effort is their rural strategy:

Part of the younger Carter's strategy is to improve on John Kerry's 2004 margin — the Democratic presidential nominee lost Nevada by about 21,000 votes — by working the small towns and rural pockets of the state where Bush rolled up huge numbers.

"They're the same kind of people here [as] they are in Georgia. Country people are the same everywhere," he said.

A briefer version of this article was also published in the Duluth News Tribune. In case you were wondering that is not the paper of the suburb of Atlanta but of the city of Duluth in Minnesota.