Tag: PA-11

• CT-Sen: Remember how Linda McMahon was touting how the WWE dialed things back to “PG-rated” entertainment this decade? That didn’t seem to take into account some corporate synergy between WWE and the Girls Gone Wild empire, who collaborated on a 2003 pay-per-view. My Left Nutmeg has the rundown on GGW’s greatest legal hits, and also some compare and contrast with WWE’s own most luridly misogynist moments from its pre-PG days.

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth, after a few weeks in the dark, is going back on the air with an ad hitting Dan Coats on outsourcing, including his lobbying ties to job-shippers and his own NAFTA vote in the early 90s. However, it looks like this ad is coming out of the Ellsworth campaign coffers, as the DSCC (contrary to a brief flurry of reports) still doesn’t seem to be buying any time here.

• MD-Sen: Washington Post (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Barbara Mikulski (D): 61

Eric Wargotz (R): 29

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Here’s the Senate half of WaPo’s last Maryland poll, with Barbara Mikulski looking like she might match the 65% she got in her 2004 re-election. Her lead is 59-24 among RVs, so Maryland, like many solidly blue states, has less of an enthusiasm gap problem than the swing states. Her opponent’s problem is, naturally, name rec: he has 10/9 favorables, with 81% with no opinion.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle will be in Washington DC tomorrow, fundraising at the NRSC headquarters at a minimum-$500 event replete with many lobbyists and ex-Senators. If that causes a little head-spinning cognitive dissonance for you — in the wake of revelations of her inexplicably tape-recorded summit with Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian in which they both agree that the GOP has been corrupt since, oh, at least 1994 — well, then, clearly you’re not a Republican.

• CA-Gov: While Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown have actually gotten down to some debating lately, tomorrow’s planned debate is suddenly off… and without any explanation it’s by mutual agreement, not purely a Whitman pullout (while she retrenches in the wake of her illegal employment arrangement with her housekeeper). If you’re wondering what the first poll of the race taken since the story broke looks like and whether it’s hurting Whitman, well, there’s a box called “Rasmussen” down at the bottom of the digest…

• CO-Gov: Here’s a little more info on what happens to the Colorado GOP if Dan Maes doesn’t reach 10% in the gubernatorial race. You probably know they get stuck in “minor party” status, which affects their ballot position in both 2012 and 2014. But (this is new, at least to me) it also has major fundraising ramifications for state legislative candidates in those cycles, halving what they can raise from individual donors.

• MA-Gov: Tim Cahill, whose right-leaning indie campaign lost its wheels months ago and last week seems to have lost most of its chassis as well too, still plans to go on the air with $1 million worth of attack ads (his only ads so far have been positive, which may explain why he’s polling in the single digits). And here’s the good news… he’s going after Republican Charlie Baker. If he were to join Baker in training his guns only on Deval Patrick, that could be a problem, but he won’t. (Makes me wonder if he was a Patrick plant all along? Probably not, but it’d be one of the greatest stories in the history of ratfucking if true.)

• NY-Gov: Now here’s one big financial disparity, at least on paper. Andrew Cuomo’s warchest, as of required reports last week, is more than $19 million CoH. That contrasts sharply with Carl Paladino’s $209K. Of course, Paladino can write his own checks, and has promised to spend up to $10 million of his own money if necessary. (Even if he did, that’d still be a 2:1 disadvantage, with little likelihood of ‘recouping’ that money in the form of a win, so don’t count on it.) Cuomo spent almost $3 million on TV ads in the last few weeks, so he’s leaving nothing to chance.

• AL-02: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for DCCC (9/26-28, likely voters, 8/23-26 in parentheses):

Bobby Bright (D-inc): 52 (52)

Martha Roby (R): 43 (43)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Not a typo. The numbers seem to have stayed exactly the same over the last month, since GQR’s previous internal on behalf of Bobby Bright. In this climate, consistency is good.

• IA-01: If, like me, you’ve been wondering why AFF is pouring $800K into the race against Bruce Braley in the 1st, which no observer has taken much interest in or seen any smoke coming from, well, now you have an answer: Sandy Grenier is the head of AFF. She’s also running for state Senate in her spare time… in Iowa. In other words, she’s pouring money into a race that’s her own personal hobby horse, at the expense of other races that are actually competitive. (And that’s not even the main point of the article… it turns out that Grenier, like so many other members of the current wave of GOP candidates, is a big believer in sucker-punching the government with one hand even as you take money from it with the other. Her family has received over $935K in farm subsidies over the last 15 years.)

• NY-20: Grove Insight for DCCC (9/28-30, likely voters, no trendlines):

Scott Murphy (D-inc): 51

Chris Gibson (R): 38

(MoE: ±4.9%)

We haven’t seen an internal in this district until now. While the numbers are nice, this actually isn’t as good as Siena’s poll of the district mid-September, which put Murphy up 54-37.

• WV-03: Anzalone Liszt for Nick Rahall (9/27-29, likely voters, no trendlines):

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 59

Spike Maynard (R): 34

(MoE: ±4.5%)

With the DCCC out with a poll a couple weeks ago giving Rahall a 55-37 lead (and even that round of AFF polls showing him up by 16), I think it may be time to stop discussing this race as competitive. What’s most remarkable here is that the Dems manage to have a 47-37 edge on the generic ballot question, and Maynard (a controversial ex-state Supreme Court justice) still manages to underperform that low bar.

• DCCC: Now who’s copping out on their DCCC dues payments? CQ finds that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been particularly remiss on making its payments, with only junior leadership member Xavier Becerra having paid all his dues as of the Aug. 24 tally. (Two more, including CHC chair Nydia Velazquez, report having paid up since then.) Some members cite failure to move immigration reform as a reason for holding out and giving directly to cooperative individual Reps instead.

• AL-St. Sen.: Despite having a 25-10 20-15 Democratic edge in the Alabama state Senate, many observers are thinking it’s high on the list of legislative chambers that could flip this year, given a perfect storm of local and national dynamics. And this isn’t going to help: 4 different members of the 35-person body got snared in a federal probe of a bingo operation. One is a retiring Republican, but the others are a Dem running in a tossup seat, a Dem running in a safe seat, and an independent running for re-election who was expected to caucus with Dems next session (Harri Anne Smith, whom you might remember from the AL-02 2008 GOP primary). This scandal looks like it’ll drive the legislative race conversation in the state for the remaining weeks.

• NY-St. Sen.: There are four more polls from Siena of state Senate races in New York, showing two pretty safe incumbents (one from each party) but two open seats in true tossup territory. The safe-ish incumbents are Dem David Valesky in SD-40 (beating Andrew Russo 50-40) and GOPer James Alesi in SD-55 (beating Mary Wilmot 55-35). The other two races seem close mostly because of their screwy circumstances. In the Hudson Valley’s GOP-held SD-40, GOPer Greg Ball (an inflammatory teabagger out of step with a district more amenable to moderate GOPers) leads Dem Michael Kaplowitz 45-44. And in Buffalo-area Dem-held SD-58, GOPer Jack Quinn (not the ex-Rep., but a relative) leads at 42, but that’s because Tim Kennedy (on the Dem and Con lines) is at 39 and William Stachowski (whom Kennedy beat in the Dem primary) is at 12 on the WFP and IP lines.

• State legislatures: At SSP, we’re always about finding ways for you to maximize the leverage you get out of your political contributions, and there’s no better way to do that than through giving at the state legislative level, where a little money can go a long way (especially a lot of vulnerable chambers and redistricting looming.) The DLCC is out with its second list of Essential races, in the contests they consider important ones in the quest to hold important legislative chambers.

One other resource you should check out is the “Win Big By Thinking Small” ActBlue page, courtesy of Progressive Kick. They have 18 different progressives in important state legislative races all in one place. (One name you might remember is Patsy Keever, who ran in NC-11 in 2004.)

• SSP TV:

• CT-Sen: The DSCC is out with an ad simply called “Bad” focusing on Linda McMahon as bad CEO of WWE; meanwhile, the McMahon camp is out with an ad calling Richard Blumenthal a liar for the nth time over his Vietnam service

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski seems to have an easy race, but is still hitting the airwaves touting her education record

• OH-Gov: John Kasich says that 400,000 Ohio jobs were lost under Ted Strickland’s watch (without, of course, guessing at how many of those job losses were proximally related to the devastation of the credit market in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers)

• CA-03: Ami Bera hits Dan Lungren for using ethical loopholes to party with lobbyists in Hawaii

• FL-12: Faced with a state Rep. opponent, Dem Lori Edwards tries running against Tallahassee instead of Washington (and against big insurance, while she’s at it), in what’s definitely today’s most cut-through-the-clutter ad

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski keeps going to the well of how bad a mayor of Hazleton Lou Barletta was

• NRCC: The NRCC is out with freakin’ 27 different ads today… you can see the full list at their blog, and even watch them if you have 13½ minutes of your life you don’t want to get back

• Rasmussen:

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 51%, Jim Keet (R) 41%

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln (D-inc) 37%, John Boozman (R) 55%

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 49%, Meg Whitman (R) 44%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 41%, Susana Martinez (R) 51%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 41%, Tom Corbett (R) 53%

• WY-Gov: Leslie Peterson (D) 25%, Matt Mead (R) 61%

FL-08: A poll for Sunshine State News, apparently by a firm called Voter Survey Service, finds GOPer Daniel Webster leading Rep. Alan Grayson 43-36. Tea Party candidate Peg Dunmire is at 6, and independent George Metcalfe takes 3.

IL-10: Bob Dold! must have superpowers. That’s because Bob Dold! can seemingly exist in two places at once. He claimed the city of Chicago as his “primary residence” from 2004 to 2006, and received a tax credit for doing so… but somehow also claimed the town of Winnetka as his “permanent residence,” enabling him to register and vote there during the same time period (which he did). So if I’m wrong and Bob Dold! is actually a mere mortal, it seems like it’s either tax fraud or voter fraud. Bob Dold!

IL-11: I think this is going to be the last cycle we keep track of this whip count, because now it’s becoming routine. The NRA endorsed Debbie Halvorson.

NY-20: Yep, definitely the last cycle. The NRA endorsed Scott Murphy, too.

PA-08: Yesterday we mentioned there was a Dem pol of this race, but that we lacked the toplines. Well, now we have the memo. A Harstad Research poll for the SEIU and VoteVets has Dem Rep. Patrick Murphy leading Mike Fitzpatrick 49-46 among likely voters. Interestingly, the poll shows slightly larger Murphy leads when an even tighter voter screen is applied.

VA-05: Ugh, this again? SurveyUSA’s latest in VA-05 is pretty much the same as last time (and the time before that). They have Rob Hurt leading by an eye-popping 58-35 margin, a gap not seen in any other polling. Teabagger Jeffrey Clark takes 4%.

NRCC: The NRCC claims to be out with a bunch of internal polls, but they only provide the alleged toplines for races in seven districts. Forget about field dates or margins of error – they don’t even bother to tell us who the pollsters are! If you want to know the numbers, you’ll have to click the link.

SSP TV:

• KY-Sen: Is mockery better than scolding? Compare this Jack Conway ad, which wryly features seniors saying they “don’t know what planet Rand Paul is from” when it comes to his Medicare views, with the Halvorson spot below
• WV-Sen: John Raese attacks Joe Manchin for being soft on coal and buddies with Barack Obama
• IL-11: A bunch of seniors scold Adam Kinzinger (on Debbie Halvorson’s behalf) for his anti-Social Security views
• NV-03: Grr… Dina Titus seems to have pulled her latest ad off of YouTube!

Independent Expenditures:

CO-07: American Future Fund drops $560K against Ed Perlmutter

A massive stack of DCCC outlays:

AL-02
AR-01
AZ-05
GA-02
HI-01
IA-03
IL-10
IL-14
MD-01
MI-01
MI-07
MO-04
MS-01
NC-08
NY-24
OH-13
OH-16
PA-03
PA-11
SC-05
VA-02
VA-11
WI-07
WV-01

• IA-Sen: Selzer & Co. for Des Moines Register (9/19-22, likely voters, 11/8-11/09 in parentheses):

Roxanne Conlin (D): 30 (30)

Charles Grassley (R-inc): 61 (57)

Undecided: 6 (10)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

Not much to see here other than the remarkable consistency over the almost one year’s period since the previous Selzer poll of this race. (I just learned a new word today, while searching for how to describe this race, linked to the Chet Culver vortex: “syntropy.” It’s synergy + entropy.)

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov: American Research Group (9/22-26, likely voters, Dec. 2009 in parentheses):

Paul Hodes (D): 32 (36)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 46 (43)

Undecided: 20 (21)

John Lynch (D-inc): 42

John Stephen (R): 40

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±3.5%)

ARG, mateys! Here be a mighty treasure trove of undecided scallywags! (And here be the gubernatorial link.)

• OH-Sen, OH-Gov: Univ. of Cincinnati for various Ohio newspapers (9/16-20, likely voters, 5/11-20 in parentheses):

Lee Fisher (D): 40 (47)

Rob Portman (R): 55 (46)

Undecided: 5 (6)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 45 (49)

John Kasich (R): 49 (44)

Undecided: 6 (6)

(MoE: ±3.4%)

University of Cincinnati hasn’t been in the field for a while, so they missed the very steady decline of the Dems in Ohio, making it look like more of a sudden collapse. At any rate, this is actually Ted Strickland’s best non-internal showing since early August.

• WA-Sen: Commonsense Ten is out with a $412K independent expenditure in the Washington Senate race, on Patty Murray’s behalf. (Wondering who they are? This Hotline article from July explains how they’re something of a Dem answer to groups like American Crossroads, as well as giving some legal background on just how it came to be that the super-wealthy can give endless money to 527s to spend endlessly on IEs.) Meanwhile, there are dueling ads in Washington. As one might expect, Patty Murray lets Dino Rossi hang himself with his own anti-Boeing words, while Rossi hits Murray on her support of tarps. (Since most Washingtonians own several tarps — they only thing that allows them to go camping during the ten rainy months of the year — I don’t see what the big deal is.)

• WV-Sen: The Dems are definitely getting active in here: the AFL-CIO is out with a huge direct mail blitz in West Virginia, and the DSCC is placing a major ad buy there starting tomorrow. In the meantime, John Raese, Tweeter and Facepage aficionado, is sticking to the GOP party line on global warming: it’s all volcanoes’ fault! (Wait… I thought it was sunspots. They’d better get their stories straight.)

• AK-Gov: Bill Walker, after weeks of dithering in the wake of losing the GOP gubernatorial primary, has formally decided against a write-in bid (despite having an easier-to-spell name than Murkowski). No word on an endorsement of either Sean Parnell or Ethan Berkowitz, although Berkowitz has been steadily reaching out to Walker.

• GA-Gov: With Nathan Deal not really having done much to deflect the attention being paid to his family’s imminent financial collapse, now he’s having to run damage control on another issue: his campaign is accused of having spent $135K to lease aircraft from a company where Deal himself is a part-owner. State ethics law bars candidates from using campaign funds for personal benefit, although the open legal question here is whether this turns into “personal benefit.”

• NM-Gov: Third Eye Strategies for Diane Denish (9/21-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Diane Denish (D): 46

Susana Martinez (R): 46

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±4.4%)

This is kind of odd… we just got a Diane Denish internal poll from a totally different pollster (GQR) in the middle of last week. Does she have two different pollsters working for her? At any rate, the news is decidedly better in this one, showing a tie where last week’s poll had her down by 5.

• TX-Gov: Blum & Weprin for Texas newspapers (9/15-22, likely voters, 2/2-10 in parentheses):

Bill White (D): 39 (37)

Rick Perry (R-inc): 46 (43)

Kathie Glass (L): 4 (-)

Deb Shafto (G): 1 (-)

Undecided: 8 (13)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

The Texas race is extremely stable (check out the flatness in Pollster‘s regression lines, with a mid-single-digits spread). While I’d like to think that Bill White can get over 50% on his own, his best hope at this point might be for Libertarian candidate Kathie Glass to start taking a bigger share (presumably out of Rick Perry’s hide, via the same crowd who went for Debra Medina in the primary).

• FL-24: Hamilton Campaigns for Suzanne Kosmas (9/22-23, likely voters, 8/25-29 in parentheses):

Suzanne Kosmas (D-inc): 45 (43)

Sandy Adams (R): 43 (49)

Undecided: 12 (9)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

This is the first internal we’ve seen from Team Kosmas, and while it’s not the kind of numbers that fill you with great confidence (up 2 in one’s own internal), it is an indicator that we’re still looking at a Tossup here instead of Lean R (which is where some of the other prognosticators have been sticking this one). The movement in Kosmas’s direction suggests that voters have found out more about the crazier side of Adams in the wake of her surprise primary victory.

• MS-04: Tarrance Group for Steven Palazzo (9/21-22, likely voters, December 2009 Tarrance Grop poll for NRCC in parentheses):

Gene Taylor (D-inc): 45 (68)

Steven Palazzo (R): 41 (24)

(MoE: ± ?%)

There were reports last week that the NRCC was starting to smell smoke in this race (despite having an underfunded, low-name-rec candidate in Palazzo), and was going to try out a round of polling. Seems like their hunch may be right, as long-time Rep. Gene Taylor (who hasn’t given Dems much reason to take interest in him lately… well, ever, really) is up only by single-digits in a new poll from the Palazzo camp.

• PA-10: Momentum Analysis for Chris Carney (9/23-25, likely voters, no trendlines):

Chris Carney (D-inc): 46

Tom Marino (R): 38

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Chris Carney, having been slightly on the wrong end of a public poll from the Times-Leader (and on the very wrong end of that sketchy AFF poll last month), rolls out an internal giving him an 8-point lead over Tom Marino. Marino (who’s pretty underfunded, although the NRCC is starting to get involved) is little-known (only 26/24 faves), so this is going to be one of many races where the Dem’s survival is based on localizing in order to fend off Generic R.

• PA-16: I’m not sure what to make of this: the uphill campaign of Lois Herr (going against Joe Pitts in the 16th, which is solidly Republican but moved a lot in the Dems’ direction in 2008) is out with a second internal poll from PPP that has her within single digits of the GOP incumbent. Pitts leads 41-34, which seems kind of bizarre considering that we’re seeing polls in Pennsylvania with incumbent Dems losing by larger margins than that in much friendlier districts.

• SD-AL: Bennett Petts and Normington for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (9/22-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc): 51

Kristi Noem (R): 38

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Here’s one race that seems to be becoming a little more comfortable for the Democrats. (Recall that Herseth Sandlin led in the last Rasmussen poll of this race, after months of trailing.) I wonder how much of that has to do with the reveal of Noem’s atrocious driving record, given voters’ memories of leadfooted ex-Rep. Bill Janklow?

• DLCC: If you’re looking to really micro-target your financial contributions to where your dollars get stretched the furthest and the leverage is the greatest (given the knife-edges on which many state legislatures, and the entire 2012 redistricting process, rest) the DLCC has rolled out its “Essential Races” program. This points to some of the tightest races in the tightest chambers; the link details their first wave of 20.

• CA-Init: There are some Field Poll leftovers to look at, concerning three of the biggest initiatives on the ballot this year. The news is good all around, although the margins aren’t decisive: Proposition 19 (marijuana legalization) is passing 49-42 (it was failing 44-48 in the July Field Poll). Proposition 23 (undoing greenhouse gases limiting legislation) is failing 34-45. And maybe most importantly, Proposition 25 (allowing budget passage with a simple majority) is passing 46-30.

• Florida: Mason-Dixon’s latest Florida poll (we gave you Sen and Gov numbers over the weekend) has a lot of miscellany in the fine print that’s worth checking out. They find the GOP leading narrowly in three major downballot races: Pam Bondi leads Dan Gelber in the AG race 38-34, Jeff Atwater leads Loranne Ausley in the CFO race 29-27, and Adam Putnam leads Scott Maddox in the Ag Comm race 36-32. They also find that Amendment 4 has a shot at passing; it’s up 53-26, although bear in mind that you need to clear 60% for a Florida initiative. Amendment 4 would require localities to put changes to comprehensive zoning plans up to a public vote; Josh Goodman has a good discussion of it today along with several other initiatives in other states that may pass despite having both sides of the entire political establishment lined up against them.

• SSP TV:

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio rolls out his first ad en espanol, a biographical spot

• PA-Sen: How many freakin’ ads has Pat Toomey come out with? Anyway, here’s another one

• CT-02: Joe Courtney stresses his independence, especially regarding TARP

• CT-05: Chris Murphy’s new ad focuses on stopping outsourcing

• PA-03, PA-11: The DCCC is out with new ads in the 3rd and 11th, continuing the trends of hitting Mike Kelly as out-of-touch millionaire and hitting Lou Barletta for sucking as Hazleton mayor

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 30%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 58%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 50%, Linda McMahon (R) 45%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 49%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 40%, Mike Castle (I) 5%

• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 36%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 52%

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver (D-inc) 37%, Terry Branstad (R) 55%

• ND-Sen: Tracy Potter (D) 25%, John Hoeven (R) 68%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 21%, Jim DeMint (R-inc) 64%

AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski is seeking clarification on just how expansively the state elections board will view misspellings or variants of her name. Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell, who’s in charge of all this, previously said he leans “toward a liberal view” of how to count Murkowski ballots, but now he’s refusing to get more specific. See you in court?

DE-Sen: Bill Maher keeps serving up the goodies:

O’DONNELL: You know what, evolution is a myth. And even Darwin himself –

MAHER: Evolution is a myth?!? Have you ever looked at a monkey!

O’DONNELL: Well then, why they – why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?

FL-Sen: Former Rep. Robert Wexler became one of the most prominent Democrats to break ranks and endorse Charlie Crist. Wexler, who has long had a close relationship with Crist, famously abandoned his party earlier this year by resigning his seat in the middle of the term, before the final votes on healthcare reform.

FL-Gov: Douchebag zillionaire Rick Scott really just out-did himself with only three words. When asked if he had forked over another million bucks to his campaign (he had), Scott responded: “I don’t know.” I guess it’s easy to forget writing seven-figure checks when you’re Rick Scott!

IA-Gov: This race has been depressing for a long while now, and the latest news is no different. A Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register shows GOPer Terry Branstad crushing Gov. Chet Culver 52-33. Just ugh.

ME-Gov: Greenberg Quinlan Rossner (D) for Libby Mitchell (9/22-24, likely voters, July in parens):

Libby Michell (D): 34 (32)

Paul LePage (R): 38 (44)

Eliot Cutler (I): 10 (8)

Shawn Moody (I): 8 (5)

Kevin Scott (I): 2 (2)

Undecided: 7 (10)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Mitchell also says her internal shows LePage’s favorability weakening from 33-19 to 38-36 over the same timespan.

AZ-01: CQ got ahold of a month-old internal poll for Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick by Lake Research Partners, which shows the race to be very tight. Kirkpatrick had a 43-39 lead over Republican Paul Gosar. But of course, we’re talking about late August. Who knows what’s changed since then.

CO-03: Nice catch by Colorado Pols. Check out Republican Scott Tipton trying to backpedal away from his earlier statements that he’d eliminate the Department of Education:

Tipton said his plan for that department is the same as his plan for the entire federal government, to cut it in half. He said he plans to do that without cutting government services….

That is some seriously lulzy shit right there, my friends. Even better is the fact, as CO Pols points out, that Tipton already tried to back away from this plan (“slice the gov’t in half”) a few days ago, but he’s already re-un-flip-pivot-flopping back to it. Man.

CT-05: Smaller, fun-size cat fud: Mark Greenberg, who lost in the GOP primary to Sam Caligiuri, showed up on Caligiuri’s hometown to make an endorsement… of the Republican running in Rosa DeLauro’s district. A Caliguri endorsement sounds unlikely.

FL-22: I’m not a big fan of Politifact for a variety of reasons, but they sink their teeth into a good one here. At a recent candidate forum, Allen West claimed, “If you look at the application for a security clearance, I have a clearance that even the president of the United States cannot obtain because of my background.” This is obviously insane, points out Politifact, because security clearances exist because of a presidential executive order… which is signed by, uh, the president. The other possible way of viewing this (which is what West’s campaign proudly says is their view) is as a birther-esque claim that grew out of right-wing email forwards. This “school of thought” holds that Obama’s shaaady personal background means that he’d never have gotten security clearance by normal means (if he hadn’t been elected). Yeah, okay.

MS-04: Remember when, a few weeks ago, Heath Shuler suggested that he might run for Speaker of the House? Well now Rep. Gene Taylor is the latest ConservaDem to take up residence in fantasy-land, saying that he’d prefer 78-year-old Ike Skelton for Speaker, rather than answer a question about whether he’d vote for Nancy Pelosi again. Taylor also refused to answer how he’d react if Republicans approached him about a party switch.

NV-03: In response to a claim by the Smart Media Group that the DCCC was cancelling a week-long buy on behalf of Rep. Dina Titus, the D-Trip announced that three panzer divisions were reconsolidating on the Eastern front the cancellation was actually a sign of strength. Later that same day, perhaps realizing that sounded like bullshit, the same Dem spokesman said that the party was still committed to a million-dollar ad buy.

PA-10: After an AP report cited an anonymous Dept. of Justice source on this story, the Scranton Times Tribune obtained an on-the-record statement from the DoJ confirming that the department has no record of having given approval for then-US Attorney Tom Marino to serve as a reference on a casino license application for his buddy Louis DeNaples. If you’ve been following this story, you know that DeNaples was a possibly-mobbed-up “businessman” who was under investigation by Marino’s own office – and when Marino got busted for providing the reference, he resigned in disgrace, and then took a sinecure with DeNaples. Marino claimed back in the spring that he had received permission from the DoJ to give a reference for DeNaples, but this has clearly turned out to be bullshit. Dem Chris Carney has gotten a lot of mileage out of this so far.

While we’re on the subject, Maine-based pollster Critical Insights tested this race for the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. They found Marino ahead of Carney 40-36. But the n on this poll was extremely low – just 196 LVs.

PA-11: The Times Leader also polled the 11th CD. Again, with a very small sample (211 LVs), they found Republican Lou Barletta leading Rep. Paul Kanjorski by a 43-32 margin. The Kanjorski campaign blistered the poll, offering some slightly dumber lines of attack (“Makes you wonder if The Times Leader didn’t cook the numbers”) and some sharper ones (noting that the TL doesn’t seem to be very adept at polling, given that last week they tested the Lt. Gov. race, even though Pennsylvanians don’t elect the LG separately). They also questioned the partisan makeup of the sample, and its small size.

NRCC: The NRCC just made $3.2 million in expenditures on a ton of different races – too many to list here. It looks like it’s mostly for paid media, as well as a bunch of polls in a number of districts. Be interesting to see if any see the light of day.

SSP TV (by James L.):

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons’ latest ad touts reform and fiscal conservatism
• KY-Sen: Jack Conway’s out with a great ad that personalizes Rand Paul’s nagging hostility to federal anti-drug funding
• FL-Gov: Alex Sink attacks chrome-domed creep Rick Scott for attacking her over the Florida state pension fund
• CO-04: Dem Rep. Betsy Markey paints Cory Gardner as a career politician with his hand in the trough
• FL-08: Dem Rep. Alan Grayson takes off the gloves… and straps on a set of brass knuckles. In his latest ad, he paints his Republican opponent as a radical religious fundamentalist, going so far as to call him “Taliban Dan Webster”. In another ad, Grayson hits Webster for his Vietnam deferrals. Also worth mentioning is this ad, which came out two weeks ago but went unmentioned here, where Grayson resurrects his famous “briefcase” theme from last cycle.
• HI-01: GOP Rep. Charles Djou responds to the DCCC’s latest attack ad
• IA-03: Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell unleashes a decent ad hitting Brad Zaun on “personal responsibility” hypocrisy
• IL-14: Dem Rep. Bill Foster goes after GOP state Sen. Randy Hultgren for his company’s  role in fueling the mortgage crisis (and profiting from it)
• NY-13: Frosh Dem Rep. Mike McMahon’s first ad touts his accomplishments and votes, including his vote against healthcare reform
• OH-15: Dem Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy touts her votes, while, in another ad, smacks Steve Stivers over his support of a national sales tax.
• OR-05: A six-pack of seniors form a chorus to sing Dem Rep. Kurt Schrader’s praises, and wave their hickory walking sticks in Republican Scott Bruun’s direction
• PA-11: GOPer Lou Barletta responds to Paul Kanjorski’s attacks

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck is running back to the middle, or at least the far right field instead of completely out of the ballpark, as he faces a close race in the general. He’s backing down on his previous support of Colorado’s “personhood” amendment (granting legal rights to embryos) that’s on Colorado’s ballot again, saying he’s against it despite loudly touting it during his primary bid.

• NV-Sen: Observers are wondering if this is Sharron Angle’s true chickens-for-checkups moment (in a campaign that’s already littered with quotes that contend for that honor). A video from a 2009 tea party rally by a Dem tracker shows Angle taking issue with a recently passed Nevada state law requires insurance carriers to cover “autism.” (And yes, she makes exaggerated air quotes while saying “autism.”) I suppose she thinks it’s nothing a good massage, sauna, and some aromatherapy can’t fix.

• CO-Gov: While John Hickenlooper seems to skate toward the Governor’s Mansion, Dan Maes and Tom Tancredo are descending even more comically into fighting to see who can garner a smaller share of the minority. Maes just called Tancredo “an illegal immigrant” (given Tanc’s fixations, probably the single worst thing he could be called) in the gubernatorial race, seeing as how he “cheated his way in the back door.”

• ID-01: Another day, another endorsement for Walt Minnick from another conservative organization looking to back one token Dem as a badge of bipartisanship. Today, he became the only Dem with the seal of approval from the Citizens Against Government Waste PAC.

• KY-06: Republican challenger Andy Barr, having been on the very wrong end of a couple Democratic polls in the last few weeks (giving Ben Chandler 20 and 14 point leads), comes out with his own internal to demonstrate that he’s not that dead yet. His own poll, from the Tarrance Group, gives Chandler only a 49-42 lead, in the wake of Chandler attack ads tying Barr to his previous boss, disgraced ex-Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

• PA-08: Franklin & Marshall (9/14-19, likely voters, no trendlines):

Patrick Murphy (D-inc): 35

Mike Fitzpatrick (R): 49

(MoE: ±4.5%)

It’s unexpected to see Patrick Murphy, in the friendlier confines of the 8th, in worse shape than Kathy Dahlkemper in the 3rd (trailing narrowly in a different F&M poll with the same timeframe). He’s down 46-36 among RVs.

• PA-11: The Realtors® ride to Paul Kanjorski’s rescue yet again! I’m not sure why they have such love for Kanjo in particular among Dems, but today they’re slapping down $243K on his behalf. Recall that they spent over $1.3 million saving his hide in 2008.

• TX-17: Wow, that’s a big lead. Republican pollster OnMessage, on behalf of Bill Flores, gives their client a 55-36 lead over Dem incumbent Chet Edwards, over 9/19-20. I wonder if this’ll motivate Edwards, who notoriously holds his cards close to his vest, to roll out a response (if he has one). The article also notes that AFF is going on the air in the district with a new ad tying Edwards to (gee, guess who) Nancy Pelosi.

• DSCC: Reid Wilson has three new big buys from the DSCC in key states: $335K in Colorado, $235K in Illinois, and $470K in Pennsylvania.

• Redistricting: Here’s an interesting piece from Josh Goodman, for those of you among us who like looking at long lists of population figures. (I know I do.) It suggests that the redistricting axe is going to have to fall hardest on rural areas, which is a positive note for Dems; Census data (based on the 2009 ACS… you’re going to have to wait a few more months for 2010 data!) shows that the almost all of nation’s largest cities have grown (some remarkably so) or at least held steady.

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina calls Barbara Boxer “arrogant,” citing her notorious examination of Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo has a target-rich environment for negative ads with Carl Paladino; one hit from his new ad includes Paladino’s job creation record (or lack thereof)

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland belatedly tries out “You want angry? I’ll give you angry!”

• OR-Gov: The SEIU hits Chris Dudley on his proposed income tax cuts for the wealthy

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi does the jujitsu move on Jim Gerlach’s hits on his residency, pointing he was busy, y’know, serving the military overseas during the years in question

• AJS: Americans for Job Securities targets four Dem-held seats with cookie-cutter neg ads: IN-08, OH-18, PA-04, and PA-07.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Gov: Ron Sparks (D) 35%, Robert Bentley (R) 55%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 39%, Nathan Deal (R) 45%, John Monds (L) 5%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 44%, Roy Blunt (R) 52%

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 45%, Rick Berg (R) 48%

• AK-Sen: If anything makes clear the depth of the NRSC’s change of allegiance from Lisa Murkowski to Joe Miller, check out the list of five different NRSC-organized, Senator-filled fundraisers that’ll be held on Miller’s behalf next week. Murkowski, meanwhile, is shrugging off the loss of her leadership post (which went to John Barrasso) and ranking committee position, seeming more focused on the mechanics of her write-in bid. She’s going to have to do a little better than this, though (although Alaska doesn’t require precise spelling of write-ins): the original version of the ad telling people about her write-in bid directed people to a URL that misspelled her name (LisaMurkwski.com). (I wonder if some cybersquatter has already grabbed that URL by now?)

• AR-Sen: Ipsos, on behalf of Reuters, is out with a look at Arkansas, a Senate race that’s hardly worth looking at anymore. Nevertheless, they show a closer race than anybody else has lately: Blanche Lincoln trails John Boozman by “only” 14, a 53-39 gap among LVs. Lincoln’s favorables seem to be improving a bit too, but time’s running out for a full-fledged comeback.

• CO-Sen: Here’s a tantalizing tidbit, although it doesn’t have any bearing on the current race, just likely to exacerbate the seemingly-escalating war between the NRSC and Jim DeMint. It turns out the NRSC gave the maximum $42K to Jane Norton, just four days before the GOP primary. Not much of a vote of confidence in Ken Buck, is it?

• NH-Sen: Unfortunately, where many Republican primaries have dissolved into acrimony afterwards, we’re seeing lots of unity in New Hampshire. Ovide Lamontagne is helping to raise funds for narrow victor Kelly Ayotte at a DC fundraiser scheduled for Sep. 27.

• WA-Sen: Considering the play this has gotten in the local press, this small comment on a parochial issue looks to be a major faceplant for Dino Rossi… he dared depart from the party line on the mighty Boeing. He suggested that Boeing should get no favorable treatment from the Pentagon in its competition with Airbus (whose efforts are subsidized by European governments) over who gets to build the next-generation Air Force tanker. (To put that in context, that would be like a candidate going to Iowa and dissing ethanol, or going to West Virginia and dissing coal.) Boeing had already explicitly endorsed Patty Murray, but now she has a nuclear-grade weapon to use against Rossi in the Boeing-dependent swingy suburbs.

And here’s a hat tip to Horsesass’s Goldy, who spots some interesting details in the fine print of that Elway Poll from last week. People were surprised when that CNN/Time poll found a reverse enthusiasm gap for the Dems in Washington (with Murray faring better among LVs than RVs), but Elway actually shows something similar. The 50-41 topline was LVs, but pushed leaners. Include only the “definite voters” and that pushes up to a 13-pt lead for Murray (43-30). I don’t have one good explanation for this phenomenon, but I’d guess it’s a combination of a) Dems being more diehard liberal in Washington and less swingy and/or sporadic than in other states, b) the economy being somewhat better in Washington than many other places, and c) teabagger ennui after Clint Didier lost the primary to establishment leftover Dino Rossi.

• NM-Gov: We’ve got dueling banjos internals in the Land of Enchantment. Susana Martinez whipped it out first, rolling out a POS poll from last week with a 50-40 lead for her. Not to be outdone, Diane Denish pulled out her own poll from GQR from the same timeframe, showing that Martinez is leading “only” 49-44. Um… take that?

• NY-Gov: Rick Lazio is hedging on what exactly he’s going to do with his spot on the Conservative Party line, sounding like he wants to wait and see how Carl Paladino fares before making up his mind. Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo got a pretty significant endorsement, from NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, which may sway a few moderate indies but is probably mostly helpful from a GOTV organizational standpoint within the city. Meanwhile, you might have also heard something about a poll of this race today? I’ve heard a few rumblings. Anyway, we’re deferring discussion of today’s Quinnipiac poll until the Siena and SurveyUSA polls, due tomorrow, also come out, offering us a better yardstick.

• RI-Gov, RI-01: Quest for WJAR-TV (9/15-17, likely voters, no trendlines):

Frank Caprio (D): 36

John Robitaille (R): 13

Lincoln Chafee (I): 24

Ken Block (M): 2

Undecided: 25

David Cicilline (D): 49

John Loughlin (R): 26

Undecided: 25

(MoE: ±4.7%)

This is probably the biggest lead we’ve seen for Frank Caprio in the Governor’s race, and also the first post-primary poll of the race in the 1st, which looks to be an easy race for Providence mayor David Cicilline despite being an open seat in a dangerous year. The poll also finds the Dems easily winning the LG, AG, SoS, and RI-02 races.

• TN-Gov: Crawford Johnson and Northcott for WSMV-TV (registered voters, trendlines from early July):

Mike McWherter (D): 24 (34)

Bill Haslam (R): 55 (60)

Undecided: 19 (6)

(MoE: ±4%)

I’m not going out on a limb by saying we can expect Bill Haslam to win the Tennessee governor’s race. The only odd thing here is that this is WSMV’s second poll of the race, and the number of undecideds has shot up dramatically since July (of course, it’s a mystery how there were so few back then).

• FL-22: Anzalone-Liszt for Ron Klein (9/14-16, likely voters, no trendlines):

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 40

(MoE: ±4.4%)

While this isn’t an awe-inspiring lead for Klein in his own internal, it’s a good topline and there are some interesting numbers in the fine print. Most notably, West’s unfavorables have tripled (to 26%) since May as people have started paying attention.

• MA-04: OMG, even Barney Frank’s in trouble! (In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic.) (Or was I?) Anyway, the Republican candidate running against Frank, Sean Bielat, is out with a poll from GOP pollster On Message giving Frank a 48-38 lead over Bielat. I suppose a ceiling of 38% is plausible for a no-name GOPer in this part of Massachusetts, which went 63% for Obama but includes a lot of exurbs and went narrowly for Scott Brown in the special election, but I’m unclear on how he gets much further than that.

• PA-03: Franklin & Marshall (9/14-19, registered voters, no trendlines):

Kathy Dahlkemper (D-inc): 38

Mike Kelly (R): 44

(MoE: ±4.8%)

This seems to be the first truly independent poll of this race, although we’ve seen various internals and Republican third-party polls all showing Dahlkemper in trouble, though not always losing. Franklin & Marshall opts for the “losing” side, although it’s slightly less severe among RVs (42-38).

• VA-05: Benenson Strategy Group for Tom Perriello (9/14-16, likely voters, no trendlines):

Tom Perriello (D): 44

Rob Hurt (R): 46

Jeff Clark (I): 4

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Not much difference here than that DCCC poll by Global Strategy Group a few weeks ago that also saw Perriello down by 2. Again, not the most appetizing numbers for rolling out when it’s your own internal, but at least it’s some pushback against those SurveyUSA numbers.

• WA-09: Benenson Strategy Group for Adam Smith (9/18-20, likely voters, no trendlines):

Adam Smith (D): 54

Dick Muri (R): 35

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Hmmm, speaking of pushback against SurveyUSA numbers, here’s an internal from the Adam Smith camp (who were seen as being in a close race in a public poll from over the weekend). Now these are the kind of internal poll numbers we like to see… although the very fact that Adam Smith should have to be releasing internal polls in the first place is, well, a sign of the times.

• DCCC: Here’s some interesting money shuffling from the DCCC, which might portend an increased focus on GOTV. A CQ piece detailing some miscellany from their report this month included a number of transfers from the DCCC to state Democratic party committees. That includes $196K to Ohio, $142K to Arizona, and $132K to Arizona.

• American Crossroads: Wasn’t the “Crossroads” myth about selling your soul to the devil? At any rate, Politico is out with a nauseating story that’s a stark counterpoint to the normal old committee numbers that we released this morning: while the Dems have advantages at the committee level, they’re getting crushed in outside TV spending by third-party groups, to the tune of $23.6 million for GOP ads to $4.8 million for Dem ads. (Of course, some of that is money that in previous cycles would have gone to the RNC, which is way out of whack (or “wack,” as Michael Steele might say) and unable to do much with its usual task of helping state committees… making the GOP more reliant than ever on hoping that their air saturation can overcome disadvantages in the ground game.)

The largest of these groups, of course, is American Crossroads, which is out with six new attack ads in different Senate races: Illinois ($482K), Kentucky ($235K), Nevada ($320K), New Hampshire ($643K), Ohio ($260K), and Pennsylvania ($226K). I know the teabaggers like to think that when the 2010 election is written in the history books, the story will be about some sort of populist uprising, but more likely, their useful idiocy will be long forgotten and the story will be about the uprising of a dozen or so billionaires, leveraging tens of millions on ads in order to save themselves hundreds of billions in taxes.

• SSP TV:

• CT-Sen: The state Democratic party goes after Linda McMahon, looking at job cuts she oversaw at WWE

• MO-Sen: The DSCC wades back into Missouri, looking at how Roy Blunt keeps his corruption all in the family

• MD-Gov: A DGA-allied group hits Bob Ehrlich for being in the pocket of utilities during and after his gubernatorial term

• IL-10: Dan Seals goes negative against Bob Dold!, hitting him on social security and abortion rights

• IL-14: Nancy Pelosi’s coming for you! Booogetyboogetyboogety! (or so says Randy Hultgren’s second ad)

• NC-02: Renee Elmers found the money to run an ad? Well, it is cable only… Anyway, it’s about the Burlington Coat Factory mosque, despite that Bob Etheridge says he doesn’t support it

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski again goes negative on Lou Barletta on the bread and butter stuff, hitting for him opposition to a State Department security forces training center for the district

• PA-17: Even Tim Holden’s hitting the airwaves with two different ads, one that’s a soft bio spot for himself, and then an attack on his opponent’s role in legislative pay raises

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s second ad is against negative against Dave Reichert, especially for opposing financial reform

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 34%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 54%

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 47%, Meg Whitman (R) 46%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 44%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 27%, Paul LePage (R) 45%, Eliot Cutler (I) 14%

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero (D) 38%, Rick Snyder (R) 51%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D-inc) 58%, Jay Townsend (R) 36%

• AR-Sen: Move along, nothing to see here. Talk Business, via Hendrix College, is out with another poll of the Arkansas Senate race. They find John Boozman leading Blanche Lincoln 56-29, with 5 for indie Trevor Drown. (The previous Talk Business poll, taken by Zata|3, had it at 57-32.)

• DE-Sen: Trying to put his money where his mouth is, Jim DeMint, via his Senate Conservatives Funds, is going on the air with a new cable TV spot on behalf of Christine O’Donnell. The buy is for at least $250K. As I expected, it makes very obvious hay out of Harry Reid’s dumb reference to Chris Coons as his “pet.”

• FL-Sen: This is a long read, but worth checking out, not just from a partisan standpoint but also as insight into the constant revolving door between politics, big law, academia, and the nebulous world of “consulting.” It’s a thorough going-over of Marco Rubio’s finances over the years, looking at some of the already-known stuff (his foreclosure problems and overuse of state party credit cards) but also at the connections that have gradually allowed him to enrich himself.

• KS-Sen, KS-Gov: SurveyUSA finds… brace yourselves… Republicans in the lead in Kansas! The Senate race appears to be out in no-man’s land, with Jerry Moran leading Lisa Johnston 66-24. The Governor’s race, however, remains moderately interesting, with Sam Brownback up over Tom Holland 59-32. Still not a good result, but that’s a 15-point swing in Holland’s favor from last time, as he now leads among self-described moderates.

• KY-Sen: This poll from last week is probably interesting enough for the front page… but it’s getting more than a little stale, after our having repeatedly fumbled attempts to write it up, so we’re just dropping it off here (figuring many of you have already seen it on over at Daily Kos). PPP, on behalf of Big Orange, finds that Rand Paul leads Jack Conway 49-42. On the plus side, not much of an enthusiasm gap here, thanks to Paul’s polarizing nature; it’s just a solidly red state.

• LA-Sen: Two different polls in Louisiana tell different stories. Dem pollster Bennett Petts & Normington, on behalf of the DSCC, sees a 10-point race, with David Vitter leading Charlie Melancon 48-38. On the other hand, Republican pollster Magellan sees it as an 18-point race: 52-34. The truth, as is often said, probably lies somewhere in between.

• UT-Sen: The Senate half of the Dan Jones poll (for the Deseret News and KSL-TV) finally showed up. In what could be called “not a surprise,” the Republican is winning in Utah. Mike Lee (who turfed out Bob Bennett at the state convention) is easily beating Sam Granato, 52-25.

• WA-Sen: Here’s a nice story about hypocrisy… or hypoc-Rossi, in this case. Dino Rossi made a campaign stop at a Whidbey Island shipyard last week, one that’s nearly doubled its workforce from 130 to 210. Turns out, though, that the shipyard received $841K in stimulus funds, and the yard’s owner says the expansion is a direct result of the stimulus. (Interestingly, Rossi, without any guidance from Admiral Ackbar, may have sailed right into A TRAP: he showed up at the invitation of the yard’s owner, who has donated to Patty Murray in the past.)

• WI-Sen: If that Rossi hypocrisy story seems kind of small potatoes to you, well, don’t worry, because Ron Johnson seems to have, over the last few weeks, been exposed as the absolute master of hypocrisy about engorging yourself on the government teat all the while raging against it. While he can claim that building-a-rail-spur-to-Pacur thing was in the distant past, now it comes out that in March 2009, in his role as board member of Oshkosh’s Grand Opera House, he sought stimulus funds for renovations to the opera. Y’know, the stimulus bill that’s KILLING US ALL AND ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS!!1!  

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin has had good relations with the state-level Chamber of Commerce, who’ve backed him in the past. They must have put in a good word for him with the national organization, as now the US Chamber of Commerce is endorsing him too, quite the rarity for a high-profile Dem.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott’s previous defense against the massive Medicare fraud problems at his former healthcare company Columbia/HCA was that he’d have stopped them if only he’d known they were going on (which, considering his job was to run the company, should have demolished his credibility right there). But now it’s been revealed that his legal team was keeping him apprised, at least on the issue of trying to skirt a federal anti-kickback law.

• FL-22: They’ve had to call out the biggest fundraising gun of all for Ron Klein, seeing as how he’s up against a nutty opponent but one with a direct line into seemingly hundreds of thousands of teabaggers’ wallets in Allen West. Barack Obama will fundraise for Klein in the Miami area on Oct. 11 (at the home of former NBA star Alonzo Mourning).

• MS-01: The Tarrance Group is out with another Alan Nunnelee internal giving him a single-digit lead over Travis Childers in the 1st: this time, he’s up 48-41.

• NY-23: Would you believe the NY-23 count is still going on? Although it seems like Matt Doheny is the likely victor in the GOP primary, with a 582-vote lead right now, 1,969 military and overseas ballots remain to be counted. In Friday’s count, Doug Hoffman added 207 votes while Doheny added 177.

• American Crossroads: Rove, Inc., seems to be becoming the main conduit for billionaires looking to put their thumbs on the electoral scales but skeptical of the Michael Steele-helmed RNC: they raised $14.5 million in the last 30 days, almost doubling their year-to-date total.

• NRCC: The NRCC is out with a bonanza of IEs in 23 different districts (click the FEC link for specific numbers): PA-11, VA-09, PA-08, WI-07, NJ-03, PA-03, IL-14, MI-01, MI-07, PA-07, NC-07, IL-11, AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TN-08, TX-23, VA-05, IN-02, and IL-10.

• SEIU: So, while the CoC is endorsing the Dem in West Virginia, the SEIU is endorsing the not-Dem in Rhode Island: they’ve thrown their backing behind indie Lincoln Chafee. (United Nurses and Allied Professionals will also endorse Chafee today, and the AFL-CIO is currently meeting about which way to go.) The SEIU is also out with a couple IEs of their own, spending $250K against Tim Walberg in MI-07 and $435K against deep-pocketed Jim Renacci in OH-16.

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC is out with three different ads focusing on various aspects of Ken Buck’s nuttery, including the 17th Amendment and opposition to common birth control methods

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal’s ad focuses on pushback against various Linda McMahon misrepresentations

• FL-22: Ron Klein calls out Allen West for his various veiled calls for armed uprising

• HI-01: Charles Djou’s first ad of the general is a positive spot listing accomplishments from his short time in office

• IL-10: Bob Dold! ties Dan Seals to Nancy Pelosi in a health care-themed ad

• PA-10: Here’s the winner of the day: Chris Carney quickly and effectively summarizes the nasty links between Tom Marino and Louis DeNaples

• PA-15: Charlie Dent goes after John Callahan’s bookkeeping as mayor of Bethlehem

• WI-08: Steve Kagen dips into the well of 50s-era public-domain stock footage to hit Reid Ribble on his calls for Social Security phaseout

• Rasmussen:

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 50%, Bob Ehrlich 47%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 54%, Eric Wargotz (R) 38%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 48%, John Stephen (R) 46%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 54%, Carl Paladino (R) 38%, Rick Lazio (C) 0% because Rasmussen didn’t bother to include him

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 43%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 50%, John Raese (R) 43%

AK-Sen: This is pretty lulzy – Lisa Murkowski is busy reassuring people that she’ll still have the support of K Street as she pursued her write-in bid. In a year like this, that’s the message you want to run on? It’s even sadder that she probably feels like she has to reassure her corporate masters that she’s still there for them.

DE-Sen: Merry meet and blessed be! Bill Maher unearths a 1999 clip of Christine O’Donnell (a frequent guest on his show), and promises there’s more where this came from:

I dabbled into witchcraft – I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. […]

One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that. … We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

Yesterday, though, O’Donnell decided to skip visits to some other satanic altars, namely Sunday talk shows “FOX News Sunday” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Dissing Bob Schieffer I can understand – I mean, that’s straight out of the Sarah Palin/Sharron Angle hide-in-a-deep-underground-bunker playbook. But the friendly confines of FOX? How will she get a job there when she moves on to her next gig in the grifter’s circuit?

AK-Gov: Last week we learned the disappointing news that Republican Bill Walker, who scored 30% running against Gov. Sean Parnell, would not make a third-party gubernatorial bid. But now he’s saying that Lisa Murkowski has inspired him and he might yet wage a write-in campaign. Godspeed, good buddy!

IL-Gov: GOP-affiliated robopollster We Ask America has their first survey of the race, finding Republican Bob Brady at 42, Gov. Pat Quinn at 32, and everybody’s favorite, Scott Lee Cohen, at 5.

NY-Gov: Speaking of SLC, it looks like the NY GOP has a reverse Scott Lee Cohen situation on their hands. Basically, the less-crazy guy – Greg Edwards, who was supposed to be Rick Lazio’s running-mate, won the Republican Lt. Gov. nomination. Revolting meat-bucket (and, dear lord, gubernatorial nominee) Carl Paladino preferred many-time loser Tom Ognibene instead. There’s chatter now that Edwards may stay on the ballot but not really run, or will try to drop out (a somewhat tricky proposition in NY). If he does successfully bail, the state GOP would appoint a replacement (presumably Ognibene, if Paladino’s in charge). Anyhow, I suggest you click through for Celeste Katz’s full story, because there are so many layers and permutations to this story that I simply can’t summarize them all.

Ognibene may be the only guy actually not running away from Paladino as fast as he can. GOP comptroller nominee Harry Wilson has refused to endorse Paladino, and attorney general nominee Dan Donovan is basically saying the same thing. Haven’t seen any word yet as to whether senate nominee Joe DioGuardi feels the same way.

CO-03: Republican Scott Tipton is now saying he’s no longer a Seventeenther (you know, a maniac who wants to get rid of the direct election of United States senators), despite having answered a teabagger survey on that very question in the affirmative. He’s also claiming that he doesn’t want to abolish the Department of Education. Live by the yes-no question, die by the yes-no question.

MO-04: Another day, another Dem gets endorsed by the NRA. This time, it’s veteran Ike Skelton.

NY-15: Adam Clayton Powell, who took just 25% against Charlie Rangel’s 53% in a fractured field, is saying he already has plans to run again. Of course, this district’s lines (and even number) could change substantially before 2012.

NY-19: Big Dog Alert (retroactive)! Bill Clinton did a fundraiser for Rep. John Hall in Cortland Manor this past weekend. Of course, Clinton lives (“lives”) just outside the 19th CD in Chappaqua (in the 18th).

PA-10: In a previous digest, we related the story of then-U.S. Attorney Tom Marino providing a personal reference for “businessman” Louis DeNaples’s bid to get a casino license – while DeNaples (euphemistically described as “having possible ties to organized crime”) was under investigation by Marino’s office. These dealings led to Marino’s resignation in 2007 (and, surprise surprise, he soon wound up with a nice sinecure as DeNaples’s in-house counsel). Marino claimed in April that the Department of Justice gave him permission to serve as a reference to DeNaples (then why did you resign?), but has never provided any proof. Now the AP is saying that a DoJ source tells them that there is no evidence that Marino ever received such authorization. The heat is on.

DCCC: The D-Trip has added Annie Kuster (NH-02) and Bill Keating (MA-10) to Red to Blue.

DC-Mayor: Deposed incumbent Dem Adrian Fenty says he won’t try to run in the general as a Republican. Given that there are probably 19 registered Republicans in the entire district, I’m not sure how this was even an idea in the first place.

Polltopia: Go tell Public Policy Polling where to poll next.

SSP-TV:

• DE-Sen: DSCC ad says Christine O’Donnell will “fit right in in Washington,” thanks to her personal fiscal irresponsibility. Uh, do they remember who is in charge in DC?
• IL-Sen: CQ reports that the DSCC is set to go up here this week for a quarter mil, but no links to actual ads yet
• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s new ad compares his navy service to Pat Toomey’s service on behalf of Wall Street
  

• FL-Gov: Two Alex Sink ads, one dinging Rick Scott for harping on endlessly about Obama, the other talking about schools
• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo’s second spot, featuring an endorsement from a former state Republican Party chair
• MA-10: Fresh off his primary win last week, Dem Bill Keating is up with an ad on a good issue: his pledge not to raise the retirement age for Social Security (contrasting with his Republican opponent’s desire to do so)
• MI-07: SEIU spot hitting GOPer Tim Walberg for failing to support the auto industry and wanting to eliminate Social Security (CQ says buy is for $250K)
• NC-11: Two spots from Heath Shuler: the first a touching ad about his efforts to build new veterans’ health clinics, the second hammering Jeff Miller for supporting the bad kind of SSP
• NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter’s first ad, a mostly positive spot emphasizing that “whether it’s popular or not,” she “always fights for what she believes in,”
• NY-19: George Pataki’s PAC Revere America has a spot hitting John Hall with scaaaaary music over his vote in support of healthcare reform
• NY-23: Bill Owens’ first ad, which redistricting geeks will appreciate, emphasizing just how big the district is physically
• NY-24: Richard Hanna personally narrates a negative ad attacking Mike Arcuri for his support of the stimulus and bailouts – I think it’s pretty effective
• OH-13: GOPer Tom Ganley’s spot touts his work with the FBI (as a civilian) to bring down some mob extortionists
• NRCC: CQ rounds up ads targeting Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03), Bryan Lentz (PA-07), Paul Kanjorski (PA-11) and John Adler (NJ-03) (click here for Adler ad)

Independent Expenditures:

• Americans for Job Security: The right-wing front group is launching some huge buys: $443K against Mike Arcuri (NY-24), $526K against Larry Kissell (NC-08), and $712K against Heath Shuler (NC-11)
• NY-19: Curses! Those meddling ophthalmologists! The (non-rogue) American Academy Of Ophthalmology, Inc. Political Committee (aka OPHTHPAC) is throwing down $143K on behalf of one of their own, Republican eye doctor Nan Hayworth (NY-19)

• AK-Sen: Once again, the Swing State Project is proud to issue one of its once-in-a-blue-moon endorsements, and to do it for Scott McAdams, the Democratic nominee in Alaska. We’re two-thirds of the way to our $2,400 goal, and we’ve just hit 50 contributors, so please join in!

• CO-Sen, CO-Gov: This is a real head-scratcher: Ken Buck’s camp is out with an internal poll by POS… showing him losing (despite what a number of public polls have said)?!? The poll gives a 43-40 edge to Michael Bennet, with 5 going to the Libertarian candidate. Either this is an odd attempt to mess with Dems’ heads, or, more likely, a message to his supporters to stop taking the race for granted and to keep the contributions flowing. UPDATE: OK, this isn’t a Buck internal; it’s a joint POS/Fairbank Maslin collaboration, and it’s not said on whose behalf this poll was performed. One other bit of news from the poll: it also includes gubernatorial numbers, and John Hickenlooper is closing in on the 50% mark. He’s at 48, to 25 for Dan Maes and 15 for Tom Tancredo.

• DE-Sen: Tax liens and penalties are sort of the common cold of political scandals, but this isn’t timed well for Mike Castle, who’s trying to stave off a last-minute zone-flooding from Tea Party Express on behalf of Christine O’Donnell. Castle had to make interest and penalty payments three times on his Capitol Hill pad in 2005 and 2006, although of course that pales in comparison to O’Donnell’s long track record of ducking her bills. Meanwhile, we have a sense of what the Tea Party Express‘s fully operational battle station looks like: they’ve spent only $60K on O’Donnell’s behalf so far, but plan to have spent $250K by the primary (including more airing of their TV spot and radio ad, as well as direct mail and out-of-state phone banking).

• KY-Sen: The moneybomb shoe’s on the other foot: Jack Conway’s doing an online one-day fundraising scramble today. As of 1 pm ET, the day’s total was up to $130K. Meanwhile, against that moneybomb backdrop, is an instance of a paid Rand Paul staffer having gotten caught sockpuppeting over at Daily Kos, concern-trolling against Conway from the left.

• NH-Sen: A lot of money ($10K from various officers and employees) has flowed into Kelly Ayotte’s campaign from a decidedly sketchy company in Texas: Tax Masters, one of those companies that relies heavily on late-night advertising to generate business for helping resolve debts owed to the IRS. The company and its CEO were charged with multiple violations of Texas’s consumer protection laws, in the wake of hundreds of consumer complaints.

• OH-Sen, OH-Gov: The Columbus Dispatch offers up some truly bad numbers for the Democratic candidates in Ohio, finding Rob Portman leading Lee Fisher 50-37 in the Senate race and John Kasich leading Ted Strickland 49-37 in the governor’s race (and the GOP winning all lower statewide races too), among registered voters. One important caveat, though: the Dispatch’s poll are notoriously an all-mail-in survey (why not just poll subscribers to Literary Digest?!?), and have consistently ranked dead last in most of 538’s pollster ratings (until the most recent installment, when they managed to leap ahead of a few other members of the rogues’ gallery, including Research 2000, ARG, and Zogby Interactive).

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray leaked an internal poll today to Politico, showing that the needle has barely budged in this race between two ubiquitously-known, well-defined candidates. The Fairbank Maslin poll gives Murray a 50-45 lead, and 53/42 approval. An April internal by the same pollster, back when Dino Rossi was only considering entering the race, gave Murray an 8-point lead.

• MA-Gov: A poll from local wire service State House News Service gives a decent lead to Deval Patrick, thanks to an assist from Tim Cahill. Their first poll of the gubernatorial race has Patrick leading Republican Charlie Baker, independent Cahill, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein 34-28-18-4, among registered voters.

• MD-Gov: For every Joe Miller, there’s, well, a Brian Murphy. The Washington Post takes a quick look at the upstart GOP gubernatorial candidate, whose Sarah Palin endorsement hasn’t turned into much of anything (other than a way for Bob Ehrlich to burnish his moderate credentials). In the pre-primary reporting period (all of which covers the post-Palin period), he’s raised only $35K, including $14K from himself, leaving him with $31K CoH. Ehrlich raised $725K over the 18-day period, taking him to $2.5 million CoH, while Dem Martin O’Malley raised $267K and has $6.5 million CoH.

• MI-Gov: While organized labor is the biggest force propelling Dem Virg Bernero in Michigan, there’s one union that isn’t falling in line. The state’s largest construction union, the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, is backing Rick Snyder instead. More alarmingly for Bernero, the much-larger Teamsters haven’t endorsed yet and could conceivably go for Snyder too.

• MS-Gov: The 2011 election is only fourteen months away, and things are taking shape in Mississippi. Phil Bryant, the first-term Republican Lt. Governor, is taking steps to prepare for a bid. Businessman Dave Dennis also seems likely to run, while the state’s great-named SoS, Delbert Hosemann, also sounds like he’s interested.

• TX-Gov: We have two wildly divergent polls in Texas, both from GOP pollsters. Hill Research, on behalf of the Texas Watch Foundation (in a poll that seems primarily about homeowners’ insurance reform, but where the gube race seems to have gotten thrown-in as an attention-getter), finds Rick Perry leading Bill White by only a 42-41 margin. On the other hand, GOPAC (perhaps having gotten an advance heads-up about the Texas Watch numbers) rolled out numbers showing Perry in better shape. Their poll, via Wilson Research Strategies, gives Perry a 50-38 lead over White.

• KS-04: With polling now pretty consistently showing Mike Pompeo leading Raj Goyle by single digits in the open seat race in the 4th, the last thing the Republicans can afford here is a high-profile third-party challenge on the right. That’s what they might get, though, if businessman (and former Tic-Tac-Dough host) Wink Hartman follows through on threats to pick up the just-abandoned Libertarian ballot line. The state party has started scrambling to lean on Hartman to get him to stand down.

• NY-various: There’s a bonanza of pre-primary fundraising reports in New York (where the primary is next week). The biggest raiser among the various Republican House challengers was Chris Cox in the 1st, who raised $103K to Randy Altschuler’s $59K (although Altschuler still has a big CoH advantage). In the 23rd, the numbers were much smaller: Matt Doheny raised $41K and Doug Hoffman raised $37K, although Doheny has about three times Hoffman’s CoH.

• WV-01: On the back of the DCCC’s wave of internal polls today, here’s one more poll that probably has to go in the “good news” file: an internal poll, from POS, has Republican David McKinley trailing Dem Mike Oliverio in the open seat race in the 1st. Oliverio leads McKinley 41-36. The only other poll of this race was an Oliverio internal last month that gave him a seemingly too-good-to-be-true 52-36 lead over McKinley, but at the very least, it seems like everyone’s in agreement that Oliverio’s in pole position for now.

• Ads:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC is out with an ad in Colorado, letting Ken Buck go after himself with his own words on Social Security and the 17th Amendment

• DE-Sen: Mike Castle’s new ad is out; predictably, it goes after Christine O’Donnell for her crazy finances

• FL-Sen: First TV ad from Charlie Crist, stressing his (what else?) independence; also Kendrick Meek’s first TV ad, which is him on a swamp boat and stressing his (what else?) Dem credentials

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt ad about how much he loves small business

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher’s first TV ad out of the gate is negative, going after Rob Portman for being George Bush’s job-exporting trade representative

• CA-Gov: Strangely sepia-toned ad is Jerry Brown’s first, seemingly to remind older Californians about how much things sucked less when he was Governor the first time (SOTB: $1.2 million for one week… that’s California for you)

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott’s first post-primary TV ad is an attack ad against… Barack Obama? (and Alex Sink, too, I guess)

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes goes negative against Nathan Deal on the issues of his recently-released tax returns, calling him “too corrupt even for Congress”

• SC-Gov: Nikki Haley’s first TV spot, outsider-themed with a jab at Mark Sanford

• FL-22: The new Ron Klein spot is another anti-Allen West spot, but still hammering on the tax liens instead of, well, West’s non-stop stream-of-consciousness crazy

• ID-01: Walt Minnick’s first TV spot: please disregard the “D” next to his name, because he’s independent

• IN-02: The NRCC’s first television IE of the cycle, hitting Joe Donnelly for, well, being a Democrat

• IN-08: Trent van Haaften’s first TV ad is a basic introductory spot

• PA-03: Kathy Dahlkemper’s second ad tries to cram “jobs” in there as many times as possible

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi’s first TV ad also works the outsider angle

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski’s second ad works the Social Security privatization angle, smart in such an aged district

• PA-15: Interestingly, Charlie Dent’s first ad is a negative shot against John Callahan (on local property taxes), indicating he may be feeling some heat here

• WI-07: Julie Lassa’s second ad goes after Sean Duffy for saying that he can’t do anything to create jobs

• AFSCME: Here’s the big buy of the day: the AFSCME is shelling out $1.5 million in four states (Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) for an ad attacking Republicans for voting against the state aid package in August)

• Rasmussen:

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 37%, Mike Castle (R) 48%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 47%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 36%

• ID-Gov: Keith Allred (D) 36%, Butch Otter (R-inc) 52%

• ID-Sen: Tom Sullivan (D) 24%, Mike Crapo (R-inc) 63%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 39%, Charlie Baker (R) 34%, Tim Cahill (I) 18%

• NE-Gov: Mike Meister (D) 28%, Dave Heineman (R-inc) 61%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 33%, Brian Sandoval (R) 58%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%, Sharron Angle (R) 45%

• WI-Sen: Know how you can tell that this hypocrisy-on-government-aid problem (see the last couple digests for backstory… Ron Johnson’s company Pacur has been repeatedly expanded with the help of government loans, y’know, the kind that of meddling in the free market that we have to get rid of) is putting a scare into the Johnson camp? Now he’s been rewriting history on Pacur’s website to adjust the founding date of his company, from 1977 to 1979. Johnson had previously claimed that the railroad spur built (with federal help, natch) to his company was in early ’79, before Pacur was founded. (Pacur’s predecessor company was founded in ’77; it changed names in ’79.)

• CO-Gov (pdf): Republican pollster Magellan is out with a new look at the Colorado gubernatorial race; they find the combined Dan Maes + Tom Tancredo vote still less than the John Hickenlooper vote. It’s Hickenlooper 46, Maes 27, Tancredo 17. (That’s a lot fewer undecideds than today’s Rasmussen poll; see below.)

• FL-Gov: Ah, the sweet smell of unity. Well, sort of… the state party finally got around to having its fete for newly-minted gubernatorial nominee Rick Scott, the one canceled last week for lack of, well, unity. Insiders like state House speaker Dean Cannon and next state Senate president Mike Haridopolos toasted Scott, despite the fact that up until last Tuesday they were working hard to defeat him. There was someone important missing, though, that kind of defeats that whole “unity” thing… it was Bill McCollum, who confirmed yet again today that he’s “staying out of” the governor’s race. Meanwhile, DGA head Nathan Daschle (here’s a guy who knows how the game is played) is out with a bit of concern trolling of his own, offering unsolicited advice to RGA head Haley Barbour and other interested Republicans that they probably don’t want to be seen campaigning next to Scott.

• NM-Gov: Biden alert! The Veep will be bringing his patented comedic stylings to the Land of Enchantment to host a fundraiser for Diane Denish, whose once slam-dunk gubernatorial bid has deteriorated into a jump-ball.

• NY-Gov: State GOP party chair Ed Cox is having a helping heaping of crow from breakfast, having to get behind Rick Lazio for the GOP gubernatorial nod… out of fear of the possibility of the even more objectionable Carl Paladino winding up with the nomination. (Remember, Cox recruiting Suffolk Co. Exec Steve Levy to not only get in the race but switch parties to do so, only to watch him crash and burn.) Cox issued a letter urging local party leaders to get behind Cox, filled with magnanimous praise, perhaps none more so than when he calls Lazio “credible.”

• AR-04: Rounding out their tour of the state, Talk Business Journal/Hendrix College take a look at the 4th, the only non-open seat in all of Arkansas. Despite the rough poll numbers that they found for the Dem candidates in the 1st and 2nd, they find Mike Ross in solid shape, probably thanks to an underwhelming opponent in the form of Beth Anne Rankin. Ross leads 49-31, with 4 going to Green candidate Joshua Drake.

• FL-08: In yet another example of Alan Grayson zigging when other Dems zag, he’s out with an internal poll, and it puts him in surprisingly strong shape against Daniel Webster, thanks in large part to a strong performance by “other” (presumably the Tea Party candidate). The PPP poll gives Grayson a 40-27 lead over Webster, with 23 for “Other” and 11 undecided. That’s all in the face of a new ad campaign from Americans for Prosperity, who are out with ads in the Orlando market attacking both Grayson and FL-24’s Suzanne Kosmas. (AFP, of course, is the front group for the right-wing billionaire Koch family, and the DCCC has recently filed IRS complaints against AFP for engaging in political advocacy despite its tax-exempt status.)

• FL-22: Allen West is out with a second TV ad focusing on economic issues, like that burdensome debt. (He’s talking about national debt, not his own debts.) Still, most of the buzz in this race right now seems to be about his latest round of unhinged remarks on his campaign website’s blog, in which he called opponent Ron Klein, calling him, among other things, a “cretin,” “little Lord Ron,” a “pathetic liberal,” “little Ronnie,” and “a mama’s boy” to Nancy Pelosi.

• IA-05: Rep. Steve King declined to debate opponent Matt Campbell in about the douchiest way possible: when Campbell showed up at a King town hall to ask King why he wasn’t willing to debate, King said that Campbell had “not earned it.”

• MI-01, MI-07: Well, it looks like the fake Tea Party is truly finished in Michigan. The Michigan Court of Appeals today upheld the Board of Canvassers’ decision them off the ballot because of irregularities in submitted signatures. There were Tea Party candidates ready to go in the 1st and the 7th, both competitive districts where Dems would be glad to have some right-wing votes siphoned off from the GOP candidates.

• MO-04: Rep. Ike Skelton is the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, and he wants you to know it. Instead of focusing on the endless jobs-jobs-jobs mantra like many Dems, he’s focusing on military issues and his commitment to veterans. His first two ads featured testimonials from a Marine mother and an Army veteran, and his third ad attacked GOP opponent Vicky Hartzler over her apparently insufficient support of the military.

• NC-11: Two Democratic House members out with internals? Let’s hope this is actually a trend. Buried in a CQ article about his new TV ad (with a buy in the “high five digits”), there are also some details about Heath Shuler’s most recent internal poll. The poll, taken by Anzalone-Liszt, gives Shuler a 51-34 lead over Jeff Miller. More ads are likely to follow, as Shuler leads Miller in the cash department, $1.4 million to $70K.

• NY-13: Rep. Mike McMahon’s getting some big name help on the stump. Bill Clinton will join McMahon for a Friday rally on Staten Island.

• NY-20: Scott Murphy’s dipping into his big war chest with another TV spot, this one focusing on his job-preserving efforts. Murphy opponent Chris Gibson, meantime, dropped a bombshell in his first debate against Murphy last week: that government intervention exacerbated the Great Depression rather than mitigated it (a theory advanced by Amity Schlaes and approximately, oh, zero other respected economists).

• PA-10: What’s up with former US Attorneys in Pennsylvania turning out to be thin-skinned, poor campaigners? There’s the Mary Beth Buchanan implosion, of course, but now video has turned up of Tom Marino’s recent encounter with protesters at a Williamsport appearance. Marino yells back to protestors “What do you do for a job?” and “What kind of welfare are you on?” (No word on whether these questions were punctuated with “You hippies!”)

• VA-05: Here’s a guy we haven’t thought about in a long time: Ross Perot. Yet, Tom Perriello is dusting off Perot and holding him up as a guy he liked, especially in terms of his deficit hawkishness. He did so in the context of meeting with the local Tea Partiers (where he also reiterated his support for canning the Geithner/Summers economic team), probably in an effort to find some common ground with them.

• State legislatures: The DLCC has a memorandum out that lays out where they’ll be focusing their efforts this year (and thus what they consider to be the most competitive state legislative chambers). The 10 chambers they’re emphasizing on defense are the Alabama Senate, Colorado Senate, Indiana House, Nevada Senate, New Hampshire Senate, New York Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly, and Wisconsin House. They’re also going on the offense in the Michigan Senate, Kentucky Senate, Tennessee House, and Texas House..

• WA-Init: SurveyUSA has polls of a handful of initiatives that’ll be on the ballot in November. Most significantly, they find continued (although reduced, from their previous poll) support for I-1098, which would create a state income tax for high earners. It’s currently passing, 41-33. Meanwhile, Washingtonians quite literally want to have their cake and eat it too: they’re favoring I-1107, by a 42-34 margin, which would end sales taxes on candy and end temporary taxes on bottled water and soft drinks.

• Dave’s App: Just in time for the school year, here’s a new time-wasting opportunity: Dave’s Redistricting Application now has partisan data for Pennsylvania. (There’s also partisan data for CA, MD, NC, NM, NY, and TX.)

• Polltopia: PPP wants to know where you think they should poll next. Interesting options include Maine and West Virginia (where there’s the tantalizing prospect of House races being polled, too).

• Ads:

• MO-Sen: Anti-Roy Blunt ad from Robin Carnahan

• NH-Gov: Positive jobs-jobs-jobs spot from John Lynch

• FL-02: Allen Boyd hits Steve Southerland on Social Security privatization, 17th Amendment

• IN-09: Anti-Baron Hill from Todd Young

• IN-09: Anti-Todd Young ad from Baron Hill (Social Security privatization… sensing a theme here?)

• MN-06: Bio ad from Tarryl Clark

• MN-06: Michele Bachmann wants you to know that she hates taxes

• NJ-12: Emergency Committee for Israel ad against Rush Holt (“modest but real” buy)

• OH-15: Positive bio ad about Steve Stivers’ military service

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski’s first TV ad, hitting Lou Barletta over what a shithole Hazleton is

• SC-05: Bio ad from Mick Mulvaney (his first ad)

• WI-07: DCCC ad attacking Sean Duffy over Social Security privatization (their first independent expenditure ad anywhere)

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 36%, Dan Maes (R) 24%, Tom Tancredo (C) 14%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 39%, Rob Portman (R) 44%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%