I originally posted this last night, but I wanted to get it into the Monday mix.

According to this Washington Post article, the GOP has decided to play dirty.

From today’s Washington Post story:

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest in the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which this year assigned six operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

With polls showing the Republicans’ House and Senate majorities in jeopardy, party strategists said they have concluded their best chance to prevent big Democratic gains is a television and direct-mail blitz in the next eight weeks aimed at raising enough questions about Democratic candidates that voters decide they are unacceptable alternatives.

“When you run in an adverse political environment, you try to localize and personalize the race as much as you can,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

This presents a dilemma for GOP candidate Mike McGavick, who has pledged to run an issues-oriented, civil campaign. In fact, instead of campaigning on the issues, McGavick’s been campaigning on campaigning civilly.

I wonder if he’ll be tempted to rethink his strategy. The latest poll—a Rasmussen Poll—has McGavick down 17 points. The previous Rasmussen poll, one that the McGavick campaign touted, had McGavick trailing by just 5 points.

Conservative bloggers at Free Republic got an early glimpse at the poll.

Cantwell leads by 17 in Washington over McGavick (Rasmussen) Dave Leip’s Atlas of Presidential Elections ^ | 6 September 2006 | Dave Leip

Posted on 09/08/2006 12:15:26 PM PDT by okstate

This is a Rasmussen poll that’s still on the premium portion of Rasmussen’s site but got leaked to Leip’s site.

Cantwell 52%
McGavick 35%
Undecided 13%

MOE +/- 4.5 percent from a sample of 500 likely voters.

Should be released publicly in a couple of days. The teaser on Rasmussen’s site reads
“Washington Senate The fallout from Mike McGavick’s (R) recent drunk driving confession has had an impact in our latest poll. See how McGavick now fares against incumbent Maria Cantwell (D).”

Last week SurveyUSA released two different polls from Washington, both of which showed 17 point leads for Cantwell.

Previously Rasmussen found a six point lead for Cantwell, on August 15th.

Taking all this into account, I think it’s clear that we should now focus more on New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, and even Minnesota over Washington.

However, Cantwell is now potentially in trouble over connections to lobbyists and their money. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Meanwhile, Charlie Cook, of the Cook Report—who I cited last Spring to substantiate a McGavick surge —now says McGavick’s stock has gone South.

This morning on C-Span Cook said the Cantwell/McGavick race was “one where the Republicans looked like they had a decent shot of taking out a seat” but that “McGavick has hit a bad spell and it’s not terribly competitive anymore.”

The $28 million question: Will McGavick abandon his civility rap to get competitive?