My must read of the day is "Bruce Braley’s Poll Numbers Fall Following Farmer Comments," in the Washington Free Beacon:
Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley’s recent criticism of a fellow senator, who he described as a farmer that never went to law school, has significantly hurt his standing among likely Iowa voters, according to a new Washington Free Beacon poll.
The Free Beacon poll found that 50 percent of likely Iowa voters surveyed would be less likely to vote for Braley after his comments, while 21 percent would be more likely. The Polling Company, Inc. conducted the survey.
Braley, a four-term congressman and former trial lawyer, made the comments to a group of lawyers at a January fundraiser in Texas. Braley told the lawyers that he would be their "voice" in Congress and warned that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), "a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school," could be the next Senate Judiciary Committee chairman if Republicans retake the majority this fall.
This survey of 600 likely voters shows that Braley’s comments have hurt him in the immediate aftermath, and they probably will cause significant damage down the road.
The comments are on tape, but they haven’t been intensely used against him. If it’s impacting him a little bit now, it could be incredibly damaging closer to the election when that video is placed in attack ads.
Braley’s comments might not be something that shocks or offends all of America, but this is a bad gaffe.
As David Catanese at US News explained, "Braley’s dis of the six-term Grassley as a simple ‘farmer’ takes place in Texas, where he’s selling himself as someone with ‘your background, your experience, your voice.’ This makes it sound like he’ll put Texas trial lawyers' priorities over those in Iowa." And quite simply, "He sounds elitist … It’s true that a third of all members of Congress have law degrees, but that doesn’t make it a selling point for modern candidacies."
It’s one thing to make fun of your parents at the dinner table; it’s an entirely different bag when you get caught making fun of them in front of the neighbors down the street. That’s what Braley did, and he sounded arrogant as he did it. That’s an incredibly damaging sound bite and it will be used again and again as we get closer to November.
What this survey is showing, may be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to disapproval amongst voters.