Tag: Roy Blunt

• AK-Sen: As is often the case, Alaska dominates our headlines today. Perhaps biggest in its implications is a hot-off-the-grill ruling from a judge that says that the state can’t provide a list of possible write-in candidates for people in the voting booth. Obviously, that hurts the cumbersome-named Lisa Mukrosky Morkoski Gibr Murkowski. Also, in the good news (well, maybe not, considering how far her star has fallen in-state) column for Joe Miller: Sarah Palin will be returning to the Last Frontier to stump for him tomorrow.

On the bad news front for Miller, though, first, he had to shout “I LIE!” yet again. That’s a confession from his own work e-mails, over his now-well-known reprimand for hijacking (and covering up his tracks) of co-workers’ computers to rig a local Republican online straw poll. That’s at the core of his Fairbanks personnel files, released last evening after he declined to appeal their release to the state supreme court. On top of that, now the Army is investigating his use of its soldiers from Fort Richardson to act as his personal paramilitary force during their off-hours; in addition to rules prohibiting active military members from involvement in political campaigns, it’s unclear whether they had their commander’s permission to seek outside employment.

• CA-Sen: Here’s some good news; Carly Fiorina bounced back quickly from her hospitalization yesterday for an infection associated with her breast cancer recovery, and left the hospital today. She’ll be back on the trail tomorrow, says her campaign.

• CO-Sen: Would you believe this is the biggest-money Senate race anywhere in the country? It is, if you go by outside group expenditures. 27 different IE groups have spent nearly $25 million in Colorado, with the NRSC leading the way. (Nevada will still probably wind up the most expensive overall, factoring in the candidates’ own accounts.) Meanwhile Ken Buck is in the news for two other reasons, first, his questioning of the separation of the church and state… handled more elegantly than Christine O’Donnell’s palm-to-forehead method, but still probably a liability as he seeks to downplay his extremism. And also, he’s now agnostic on whether he’ll support Mitch McConnell for GOP leader (Buck, of course, owes Jim DeMint big-time for getting him as far as he’s gotten).

• WV-Sen: Wow, this stuff literally writes itself. John Raese, under fire from Joe Manchin and the DSCC for his Florida mansion (and, for all practical purposes, residency), is now going to have to put some spin on this. The current item on the agenda for the Palm Beach planning commission: approval for Raese to replace a six-by-eight-foot “giant dollhouse” on his property with a fourteen-by-fifteen-foot “glass conservatory,” perfect for those real-life Clue re-enactments. I know that’s a problem that most West Virginians grapple with on a day-to-day basis.

• AZ-Gov: Now here’s an October Surprise that’s pushing the envelope (close to a November Surprise). Old documents reveal that Jan Brewer, a state Senator at the time, was involved in a 1988 auto accident where she was suspected at the time of driving under the influence. While she was immune from arrest at the time because the legislature was in session, it’s not clear why the case wasn’t pursued after that.

• MS-04: This might provide a small boost (dozens of votes?) to Gene Taylor: the Republican who lost the primary to state Rep. Steven Palazzo threw his backing to Taylor. Joe Tegerdine, interestingly, was the Tea Party candidate in the GOP race (with Palazzo the establishment pick), and finished with 43% of the vote; Tegerdine seemed to frame his decision very much in terms of pissing off the Republican establishment, in fact.

• Dark Money: If you look at only one link today, it should be this one, where a picture is worth way more than 1,000 words. It shows the octopus tentacles linking all the various shadowy outside groups that have poured in hundreds of millions of undisclosed dollars, and how they all kind of link back to Republican leadership. It’s almost worthy of Glenn Beck’s blackboard (well, if it had Woodrow Wilson and Diego Rivera on there somewhere).

• DNC: To quote Don Brodka, “if I wanted smoke blown up my ass, I’d be at home with a pack of cigarettes and short length of hose.” Nevertheless, the DNC is out with a memo today showing in various ways how the Republican wave hasn’t materialized, at least not in the form of early voting patterns so far, that’s worth a look-see (especially the graphs).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC has two spots in Colorado, both with citizens reciting the litany of why they can’t vote for Ken Buck

• IL-Sen: The DSCC links Mark Kirk to George W. Bush, while Alexi Giannoulias trots out the Obamas in his own ad

• MO-Sen: I seriously can’t summon up anything interesting to say about the last ads from Roy Blunt and Robin Carnahan; it’s been that sort of race

• NV-Sen: The DSCC finishes in Nevada by pointing out how Sharron Angle consistently brings teh crazy

• PA-Sen: The DSCC hits Pat Toomey on outsourcing yet again, while Pat Toomey goes blandly autobiographical for his closing spot

• WA-Sen: The DSCC’s parting shot is to hit Dino Rossi over his web of connections to unsavory real estate and lending partners

• WI-Sen: Both candidates close by ragging on each other; Ron Johnson hits Russ Feingold for only being fake “mavericky,” while Feingold asks why Johnson is being so vague and cagey about his agenda

• WV-Sen: The DSCC’s newest ad hits John Raese on the Florida residency issue yet again

• ND-AL: This may be the most interesting ad of the day: Earl Pomeroy faces the camera and says “I’m not Nancy Pelosi, and I’m not Barack Obama” (yeah, that’s pretty evident by looking at you); he pivots off people’s anger to say they’ll be even angrier, though, if Republicans go against the farm bill, Social Security, and so on

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s last ad beats the ‘change’ drum, and focuses on the Seattle Times endorsement again

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 42%, Mark Kirk (R) 46%, LeAlan Jones (G) 5%

• MD-Sen: Barb Mikulski (D-inc) 56%, Eric Wargotz (R) 38%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 35%, Brian Sandoval (R) 58%

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 46%, Chris Dudley (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 42%, Scott Walker (R) 52%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 49%, John Raese (R) 46%

(ooops, time for Scotty to get in line with everyone else on this one!)

Site News: Holy moly. We just passed ten million all-time visitors yesterday. Wow. Just really have to take a step back for a moment. When I started this site almost exactly seven years ago, I never, ever imagined we’d achieve anything like this. Just a huge thank you to every reader who has checked in since Oct. 19, 2003 to today – and beyond.

AR-Gov (Mason-Dixon): Mike Beebe (D-inc) 59, Jim Keet (R) 26

CA-Sen, CA-Gov (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner & American Viewpoint for the LA Times/USC): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 50, Carly Fiorina (R) 42; Jerry Brown (D) 52, Meg Whitman (R) 39

CA-Gov (John McLaughlin & David Hill (R) for Meg Whitman): Jerry Brown (D) 46, Meg Whitman (R) 43

CO-Sen, CO-Gov (SurveyUSA for 9News/Denver Post): Michael Bennet (D-inc) 47, Ken Buck (R) 47; John Hickenlooper (D) 46, Dan Maes (R) 15, Tom Tancredo (ACP) 34

Bonus: SUSA also tested the state AG, SoS, and Treasurer races.

CO-Gov (Magellan): John Hickenlooper (D) 44, Dan Maes (R) 9, Tom Tancredo (ACP) 43

FL-Sen, FL-Gov (Ipsos for Florida media): Kendrick Meek (D) 20, Marco Rubio (R) 41, Charlie Crist (I) 26; Alex Sink (D) 41, Rick Scott (R) 44

Bonus: Ipsos also tested the AG, Ag Comm’r, and CFO races.

FL-Gov (Susquehanna for Sunshine State News): Alex Sink (D) 45, Rick Scott (R) 45

IL-Sen, IL-Gov (Mason-Dixon for St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV): Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40, Bill Brady (R) 44; Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41, Mark Kirk (R) 43

Note: The poll apparently asked respondents about “Alex Giannoulias.”

IL-Sen (Market Shares Corp. for the Chicago Tribune): Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41, Mark Kirk (R) 44

LA-Sen (Anzalone-Liszt (D) for Charlie Melancon): Charlie Melancon (D) 45, David Vitter (R-inc) 48

MA-Gov (Western New England College): Deval Patrick (D-inc) 44, Charlie Baker (R) 36, Tim Cahill (I) 8

MA-Gov (UNH): Deval Patrick (D-inc) 43, Charlie Baker (R) 39, Tim Cahill (I) 8

MD-Gov (OpinionWorks for the Baltimore Sun): Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 52, Bob Ehrlich (R) 38

ME-Gov (Critical Insights): Libby Mitchell (D) 20, Paul LePage (R) 32, Eliot Cutler 19

MN-Gov (Princeton Survey Research for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune): Mark Dayton (D) 41, Tom Emmer (R) 34, Tom Horner (I) 13

MO-Sen (Mason-Dixon for St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV): Robin Carnahan (D) 40, Roy Blunt (R) 49

NY-Gov (Marist): Andrew Cuomo (D) 60, Carl Paladino (R) 37

PA-Gov (Quinnipiac): Dan Onorato (D) 44, Tom Corbett (R) 49

WV-Sen (Global Strategy Group (D) for Joe Manchin): Joe Manchin (D) 48, John Raese (R) 43

Margins & Errors: On Sunday, Pat Toomey moved out to a 3-point lead in the Muhlenberg tracker, while Tom Corbett is +9… some sketchy details of IN-02 internals from Brian Howey: “Howard County Republican Chairman Craig Dunn said internal polling has shown Walorski chipping a 9-point Donnelly lead to “at the margin of error” around 4 percent.” … CNN sources tell them that Harry Reid’s internals have him up 6 over Sharron Angle in NV-Sen… PPP will have polls out for CA, CO, KY & WV this week

• AK-Sen: Congrats to Scott McAdams, who just cleared the McMillion hurdle with $1 million in fundraising so far. The majority of contributions were from Alaska, with 88% contributions of $200 or less.

• KY-Sen: Matt Taibbi’s new Rolling Stone article as he works the Rand Paul beat is a must-read even if it doesn’t have any revelations as freaky as the “Aqua Buddha” story, although there’s some vague and anonymous racism from the newsletter that his snarky secret society put out. The prize-winning quote, though, deals with the Tea Partiers don’t seem terribly phased by any of this:

(“Well, I used to use that cologne myself,” was the response of one Tea Partier to a question I posed about “Aqua Buddha”)

• MO-Sen: American Crossroads has declared victory in Missouri, and is pulling out of advertising there, where Roy Blunt has a consistent but single-digit lead. (As for the actual party committees… well, it’s probably not relevant, seeing as how Crossroads and its ilk have made them basically irrelevant this year.)

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid racked up a couple endorsements from the big-in-Nevada gaming industry, including PokerPAC. He also got the endorsement of the former chair of the RNC, Frank Fahrenkopf, who warned of the threat Sharron Angle (with her ties to anti-gambling Gary Bauer) might pose to the state’s gaming industry.

• PA-Sen: Ah, sweet Schadenfreude. The Club for Growth is having to plug $1 million into the Pennsylvania Senate race in order to bail out their former boss, Pat Toomey.

• WI-Sen: Yet another story with Ron Johnson with his hand in the trough he so regularly decries: he says he’s not quite sure how five of his employees (and 10 dependents) at his plastics firm Pacur wound up on BadgerCare, the state’s health insurance program for the poor. That would seem to contradict previous statements from the Johnson camp that all Pacur full-time employees are covered by the company’s plan.

• AZ-07, AZ-08: I know John McCain has refudiated all his old mavericky ways, but did he actually have to go so far as to violate his signature piece of mavericky legislation, the McCain-Feingold Act? He recently cut spots for GOP candidates in the 7th and 8th, in which he and Jon Kyl appeared, and paid for them out of Friends of John McCain (his campaign committee). Dems have filed FEC complaints against McCain, saying that if he coordinated with the Ruth McClung and Jesse Kelly campaigns, he would’ve been limited to $4,800 contributions to each (they’d be legal independent expenditures if there was truly no coordination).

• CO-03, CO-04: The gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight strikes twice, in two different neighboring Old West districts. In the 3rd, an anti-abortion group has been hitting the airwaves attacking Ken Salazar. That’s fine, but Ken Salazar is the Secretary of Interior. His brother (the one with the mustache) is John Salazar, the Rep. from the 3rd. OK, understandable, since they’re brothers… but how do you explain the confusion in the 4th, where not just some outside group but the Cory Gardner campaign mixed up Betsy Markey with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey? They accused her of voting for the Obama budget, which she didn’t; that was the other Markey.

• FL-25: I don’t know how far this will get, but give local Dems in south Florida credit for audaciousness. A Joe Garcia backer filed a lawsuit trying to get David Rivera removed from the ballot. The suit alleges that Rivera should be removed because of state election finance disclosure irregularities, concerning Rivera’s mysterious claims of being a contractor to USAID despite USAID saying he wasn’t. While they cite a comparable case where a state senate candidate was recently stricken from the ballot from similar problems, I’m wondering if it may be too late to do anything about that even if it succeeds on the merits (although if it only serves to move the USAID deception into the spotlight, that’s good too).

• MO-04: More triage news… on the Republican side? Despite news of a Vicky Hartzler internal poll yesterday that showed a tied race, the NRCC is packing up, at least from the Kansas City market. I wonder if that has more to do with feeling neighboring KS-03 is locked down, as there are other smaller media markets in the 4th where they might still spend, but I think this has to count as at least a partial pullout.

• SD-AL: This is an interesting counterpoint to the anti-Pelosi (or at least Pelosi-skeptical) tide that seems to be rising among threatened Blue Dogs, including Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (who’s in the skeptic camp): GOP challenger Kristi Noem is saying that if she wins her race, she’s not sold yet on John Boehner as Republican leader, but would like to see who else might run. Recall that Noem previously politely told Sarah Palin to stay far away from her race, so this isn’t the first time she’s pantomimed independence.

• Early voting: There’s been some buzz today about a CBS News story that says that Dems are doing better than expected in early voting, although it’s kind of shy on actual numbers. It mentions that Dems have outpaced GOPers in early voting in Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, and Clark Co., Nevada, while there’s a Republican edge in Florida and Colorado. Jon Ralston, of course, has more data on Nevada, while Politico has some Iowa tidbits, involving early ballot requests in IA-03 (where 50% of requests are from Dems, but where Dems are 36% of the electorate) and IA-02 (51% of the requests, 38% of the electorate).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund is out with a “high six-figure” buy in Colorado, with the first TV ad to take on Ken Buck’s failure to prosecute that 2005 rape case (the “buyer’s remorse” incident)

• KY-Sen: The DSCC hits Rand Paul on his support for the 23% sales (aka “fair”) tax

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle wonders how Harry Reid made all that money in her new ad (helpful fact from Jon Ralston: he was a millionaire even before he was in the House)

• WV-Sen: Outsourcing seems to be the hot button issue coming out of focus groups that works for the Dems these days, as the DSCC keeps hitting John Raese on it with their new spot

• AZ-03: Jon Hulburd has another TV ad against Ben Quayle, poking at his values and overall maturity

• HI-01: Colleen Hanabusa’s new ad has a special guest star in the form of Barack Obama

• IN-09: The SEIU goes after Todd Young on Social Security privatization

• NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter, in her own ad, also works the SSP angle against Frank Guinta

• VA-05: Is the DCCC trying to drive up indie teabagger Jeffrey Clark’s numbers? They’re out with a spot hitting Robert Hurt for all the tax-raising he did in the state legislature

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 37%, Bill Brady (R) 45%, Rich Whit(n)ey (G) 2%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 52%

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 42%, Rick Berg (R) 52%

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 54%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 33%

• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 38%, Nikki Haley (R) 47%

• AK-Sen: Where even to start in Alaska? With vague reports of Joe Miller in “free fall” in private polling, both the NRSC and his own personal kingmaker, Jim DeMint, are having to step in with advertising in order to back him up. The NRSC’s buy is for $162K, which I’m sure they’d rather spend putting out fires in Pennsylvania and Kentucky instead of on a should-have-been-sure-thing… and the ad (which focuses on Barack Obama, not Lisa Murkowski or Scott McAdams) can be seen here. DeMint’s ad is for $100K and touts Miller’s pro-life credentials.

Meanwhile, the drip-drip of unsavory stuff from Miller’s past keeps coming. It turns out he worked for one of Alaska’s top law firms after graduating from Yale, prior to sliding down the food chain to working for the borough of Fairbanks; while they wouldn’t elaborate because of personnel policies, a firm partner said they were “not eager” to have him stay on and “relieved” when he left after three years. Also, a CPA with commercial property knowledge should double-check a look at this story before we start alleging wrongdoing, but it’s an interesting catch: Miller may have been paying himself ridiculously-above-market rents on the law office he owned, in order to game his taxes. And finally, with the damage already done, it looks like no charges will be filed in the “irrational blogger” handcuffing incident, either against Tony Hopfinger or Miller’s hired goons.

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway succeeded in getting an NRSC ad pulled from a local TV station, seeing as how the whole premise was based on a lie (that Conway has supported cap-and-trade). WHAS-TV pulled the ad after the NRSC was unable to provide convincing sources for the alleged quotes.

• MO-Sen: This might be too little too late, but Roy Blunt is the third Republican candidate in the last month to get a bad case of housekeeper-itis. State Democrats released documents yesterday showing that in 1990 Blunt hired an “illegal worker” and then tried to expedite the citizenship process for her. Blunt’s campaign says she never worked directly for them, only for some church events, but the documents say she had “done some work” for Blunt’s wife at the time.

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer, one of the few people anywhere routinely polling over 60%, has decided to dole out more of his gigantic war chest to other Democrats rather than spending it on himself. (It may not be entirely altruistic, as he may still have a Majority Leader battle in mind if Harry Reid can’t pull it out.) In recent weeks, he gave an additional $1 million (on top of a previous $2 mil) to the DSCC. He’s also given widely to state parties, including $250K in both New York and Nevada, as well as smaller amounts in 11 other states.

• PA-Sen: Before you get too excited about the major shift in polling in the Pennsylvania Senate race, absentee ballot numbers out of the Keystone State should be considered a dash of cold water. Of the 127,000 absentee ballots requested, Republicans have requested 50% and Dems have requested 42%, and also returning them at a faster clip. (I’m sure you could parse that by saying that Republican voters are likely to be older and thus less likely to want to vote in person, but either way it’s not an encouraging figure.)

• WV-Sen: Rush Limbaugh’s endorsement of John Raese last week — apparently predicated on the fact that they have lockers near each other at an expensive private country club in Palm Beach, Florida — may have done more damage to Raese beyond the obvious problem of making him look like a rich, entitled carpetbagger. After a little digging, it turns out that the Everglades Club is an all-white affair. Although it doesn’t have specific membership requirements, it’s never had a black member, and only one Jewish member. (In fact, remember that membership in this club was considered one of the disqualifying factors when Limbaugh was making noises about buying the St. Louis Rams several years back.)

• CO-Gov: Credit Dan Maes for entrepreneurial spirit: when he needed a job, he created one for himself… running for Governor. In the last year, Maes’ campaign has reimbursed his family $72K. That’s actually his campaign’s second-biggest expense, and nearly one-third of the paltry $304K he’s raised all along. Maes says much of that money was “mileage,” though.

• OR-Gov: Here’s something that we’ve been seeing almost nothing of this cycle, even though we saw a lot of it in 2008 (especially in Oregon, with Gordon Smith): kissing up to Barack Obama. But that’s what Chris Dudley did in an open letter published as a print ad in the Oregonian this week, saying that while they might have their differences he’ll work together with him on educational issues (one area where Dudley’s been making some Democratic-sounding promises, albeit without any discussion of how to do that and pay for his tax cuts at the same time). With Barack Obama more popular in Oregon than much of the nation, and about to host a large rally with John Kitzhaber, the timing is not surprising.

• MA-04: I don’t know if Barney Frank knows something that his own internals aren’t telling us, or if he just believes in not leaving anything to chance, but he’s lending himself $200K out of his own wallet to fund the stretch run in his mildly-interesting House race.

• MA-10: The illegal strip search issue (where Jeff Perry, then a police sergeant, failed to stop an underling from strip searching two teenage girls) is back in the media spotlight in a big way today, with one of the victims ending her silence and speaking to the press. Perry has defended himself saying it wasn’t “in my presence,” but she says he was a whole 15 feet away, and that he tried to cover up the incident.

• NJ-03: It seems like every day the honor of dumbest person running for office changes, and today the fickle finger seems to be pointing at Jon Runyan. When asked in a debate what Supreme Court case of the last 10 or 15 years he disagrees with, Runyan’s answer was Dred Scott. As TPM’s David Kurtz says, given the crop of GOPers this year, maybe we should just be grateful that he disagrees with Dred Scott.

• VA-05: If Tom Perriello loses this cycle, he’s one guy who can walk out with his head held high:

In return, Hurt asked Perriello if he was willing to admit his votes on stimulus funding, health care and energy were mistakes.

Perriello stood behind his votes and the positive impact he says they have had or will have on the district….

“Leadership is about making tough decisions,” he said.

• IA-St. House: The Iowa state House is one of the most hotly contested (and likeliest to flip to the GOP) chambers in the nation this cycle, and here’s a Des Moines Register analysis of the 23 biggest races to watch in that chamber. (Bear in mind, though, that although Iowa is on track to lose a House seat, it uses independent commission redistricting, so the state legislature is not pivotal in that aspect.)

• DNC: The DNC somehow raised $11.1 million in the first 13 days of October, putting them on track for one of their best months ever for a midterm election. Wondering what’s happening with that money? The DNC is out with a new TV ad of their own, saying don’t go back to failed Republican policies and decrying the flow of outside money into this election. I have no idea where it’s running, but the non-specificness of the pitch leaves me wondering if it’ll run in nationwide contexts. (The DNC is also running $3 million in radio ads on nationally syndicated programs, particularly targeted to black audiences.)

• Independent expenditures:

• America’s Families First Action Fund (all anti-GOP buys): ND-AL, FL-02, WI-08, VA-05, AZ-07, WI-07

• NRSC (variety of buys, including Alaska)

• AFSCME (all anti-GOP, naturally): OH-16, MI-07, CO-Sen, PA-03

• Hospital PAC (multiple buys, all pro-GOP)

• First Amendment Alliance (anti-Joe Manchin)

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Someone called WFUPAC (funded by SEIU and AFT) hits Mark Kirk for being buddy-buddy with George W. Bush in the bad ol’ days

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte’s out with a boilerplate litany of everything Dems have done wrong

• WV-Sen: The NRSC returns to the “Manchin’s a good governor, keep him here, and send a message to Obama” theme

• MN-01: The DCCC has to push the playing field boundaries a little further with their first ad in the 1st, hitting Randy Demmer on Social Security privatization

• NH-02: Ann McLane Kuster has two different ads out, both on outsourcing and job creation, one hitting Charlie Bass and one positive

• PA-03: Here’s that AFSCME ad (see above for the IE) hitting Mike Kelly

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi says Washington hasn’t been listening to you

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s fourth ad touts her as “smart moderate” and wields her Seattle Times endorsement

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 50%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 20%, Marco Rubio (R) 43%, Charlie Crist (I) 32%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 44%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

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

• AK-Sen: I thought Joe Miller (last seen praising the COMMUNISTS!!1! in East Germany for their wall-building skills) wasn’t going to talk about his personal life anymore (i.e. personal stuff like his on-the-job politicking while working for the borough of Fairbanks)? Well, now he is, and he’s openly admitted on CNN that he was disciplined by the borough for an ethical violation. “John, I’ll admit I’m a man of many flaws,” he said. Apparently one of those flaws was using his various co-workers’ computers while they were away for lunch to rig an online poll intended to displace Randy Ruedrich as state GOP chair, then wiping out their caches to cover his tracks, then getting caught when the wiped caches were discovered. Miller said he was reprimanded and docked pay as a result. However he maintains the incident had nothing to do with his departure from the office a year and a half later (which others maintain was imminently before he was about to be fired). So… a guy is possibly about to go from not being able to hack it as a contract attorney for a city of about 25,000, to a Senator, in the space of about a year? Geez, only in America.

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon’s no slouch either on the self-funding front: she loaned herself $20 million last quarter, bringing her all-cycle total to $41.5 million. (No word, of course, on how much of that $20 million actually has been or will be spent.) Meg Whitman was heard sniffing disdainfully and saying McMahon should call once she reaches the eight digits.

• DE-Sen: Sometimes, it’s best to keep your mouth shut and let everyone assume you’re a fool, rather than open your mouth and categorically prove it. The highlight of last night’s debate:

Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion….

“The First Amendment establishes the separation, the fact that the federal government shall not establish religion,” Coons said.

“The First Amendment does?” O’Donnell interrupted. “You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?”

• KY-Sen: With Aqua Buddha suddenly back dominating coverage of this race, no one’s really stopped to ask Aqua Buddha lady what she thinks of all this. She thinks that Jack Conway’s ad’s tone is over-the-top, but agrees with the fundamentals, that it’s an accurate reflection of Rand Paul’s past views and that he should acknowledge that he’s just changed his religious views since then (instead of playing the victim).

• MA-Sen: Wait, the 2010 election hasn’t happened yet? Still not too early to talk about 2012. Rep. Mike Capuano, runner-up in the Dem primary in the special election and considered the likeliest opponent against Scott Brown in two years, is openly “mulling” the race, although his official line is “Talk to me in December.”

• NV-Sen: We finally have some confirmation on what we’d suspected, regarding Sharron Angle’s burn rate, thanks to Salon’s crack team. She may have raised $14 million, but she also spent $5.3 million on direct mail expenses last quarter in order to get that money. $920K of that went to BaseConnect and its affiliates, with $1.5 million to somebody called Patton-Kiehl, who seemed responsible for the actual printing and postage. Another $4 million went to TV ads, leaving her with the $4 million CoH she reported.

• MD-Gov: This one looks closer and closer to being wrapped up in favor of Martin O’Malley. On top of today’s Gonzales poll, there’s also news that the RGA is scaling things back in Maryland, planning to spend less than $200K for Bob Ehrlich in the final two weeks. O’Malley may also benefit from an across-the-aisle endorsement (although it’s from a figure who’s committed his fair share of apostasies): ex-Rep. Wayne Gilchrest gave him his backing today.

• MN-Gov: Here’s one more across-the-aisle endorsement (the only kind we’d bother reporting on, at this stage in the game). Tom Horner, the Independence Party candidate in Minnesota, got an endorsement from Mike Ciresi, a wealthy attorney who you might remember from losing the 2000 DFL Senate primary to Mark Dayton (wonder if there are any hard feelings there?) and ran again for Senate in 2008 but dropped out pre-convention. That may make things a smidge harder for Dayton, who needs Horner to draw votes mostly from the R column.

• AL-02: This has to be one of the weirdest IEs of the cycle: Blue America is spending in AL-02 of all places, and they’re spending $48K against Bobby Bright. I guess they hate Blue Dogs just that much.

• FL-22: You know, if you’re fighting allegations that you have links to the outlaw biker gang conveniently known as the Outlaws, probably the best way to do that is by not having bikers providing security at your rallies. Well, that’s what happened at an Allen West appearance, where bikers physically drove off a Ron Klein tracker. Video is available at the link. (At least “Sympathy for the Devil” wasn’t playing in the background.)

• NC-07: Here’s some interesting scuttlebutt out of the 7th, where Mike McIntyre is joining the I-won’t-vote-for-Pelosi brigade but where he’s also saying that he’s heard that she won’t be running for Speaker again. (That would, of course, presume having a majority; no word on whether he’s heard if she plans on running for minority leader.) Relatedly, even Mike McMahon, who’s looking like a good bet to survive his red-leaning district this year, is now sounding noncommittal but at least Pelosi-skeptical.

• OR-04: Wondering who the mysterious Concerned Taxpayers of America are, who’ve trained most of their advertising firepower on Peter DeFazio, turning this into at least a mildly competitive race? Well, it turns out there’s a grand total of two of them, each of whom has ponied up hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of them, Robert Mercer, appears to be the one with the beef against DeFazio, probably because he’s a hedge fund manager and takes issue with DeFazio’s leadership on taxing major hedge-fund transactions.

• VA-05: I guess demanding the moon and the sun when you make your initial offer in a negotiating session is a good strategy, but independent teabagger Jeffrey Clark may have taken that ridiculously far in his attempts to negotiate a dropout from the race and an endorsement for GOP candidate Robert Hurt. Clark offered to drop out if he got the chance to debate Hurt one-on-one, and then if subsequent polling didn’t have him at 25% of the vote! Hurt has refused to appear any at any debates where Clark is included, and doesn’t seem any likelier to do so now.

• WA-08: I know it’s fashionable to paint Dave Reichert as not being one of the sharpest tools in the shed, but it’s hard not to do so when he gives you so much material: at a forum with opponent Suzan DelBene, confessed in response to a question that he wasn’t familiar with the Glass-Steagall Act. (The resurrection of Glass-Steagall was one of the main things being debated as part of the financial reform package passed this year.)

• DCCC: Here’s some activity from the D-Trip that doesn’t bode well: they’ve started going on the air in NC-11 for Heath Shuler, previously thought safe based on most of the polling we’ve seen so far but has been in the crosshairs of a lot of third-party advertising from folks like Americans for Job Security. (NWOTSOTB.) They’re also increasing their buys in the coming weeks in neighboring districts SC-05 (John Spratt) and NC-07 (Mike McIntyre). Also, file this under a sorta-kinda triage decision: the DCCC is cutting off ads in NM-02, on behalf of Harry Teague. Chris Van Hollen says they’re leaving Teague in “great position,” which (shades of Steve Kagen here) is probably code for “he’s personally wealthy” and it’s time for him to buy his own bandaids.

• Polltopia: PPP is letting you choose an unprecedented six states to poll in, as part of their final round of polling. They must be renting some extra robots, because they’re planning to poll 18 different states the week before the election, although 12 states (basically, the most obvious ones) are already locked in. Go vote!

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: EMILY’s List is out with a TV spot featuring an opera guy singing a ditty about Carly Fiorina (and her time as Hewlett-Packard CEO)

• NV-Sen: Both the DSCC and NRSC are out with ads; the DSCC says that while you’re angry, don’t take it out by voting for Sharron Angle, while the GOP says Harry Reid lives in a fancy hotel and parties with supermodels

• WA-Sen: One of the Dems’ few big-money behind-the-scenes groups, Commonsense Ten, looks at Dino Rossi’s cozy connections

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s new ad just flat out says “John Raese uses people”

• CA-Gov: Too bad this is only a Jerry Brown web ad, because it’s one of the most effective ones we’ve seen this cycle: it ties Meg Whitman to unpopular Arnold Schwarzenegger, matching them quote for quote (UPDATE: Good news, everybody! The ad is going to be running on television, despite its one-minute length! It’s that good.)

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s new ad hits Rick Perry on his rental mansion

• SC-02: Joe “Yewwwwww Laaaaaah!” Wilson talks about dodging mortar fire in his newest ad (mortar fire that apparently landed on the other end of the airport while on what Rob Miller has been calling a Congressional junket, but that’s OK)

• TX-17: Here’s a sign that Chet Edwards has done something to show that he’s stemmed the bleeding (or at least that he called in some serious favors), as the DCCC’s back on the air here with an effective ad about bailout funds for Bill Flores’ oil company

• Original recipe Rasmussen:

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 42%, Rand Paul (R) 47%

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero (D) 34%, Rick Snyder (R) 54%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 37%, Brian Sandoval (R) 56%

• Extra crispy Rasmussen (aka Fox/Pulse):

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 48%, Meg Whitman (R) 43%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 48%, Carly Fiorina (R) 44%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 40 45%, Dan Maes (R) 10%, Tom Tancredo (C) 45 40%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 46%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 49%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 45%, John Raese (R) 48%

What better way to celebrate SSP’s seventh birthday than to give you another firehose blast of polls?

AL-02: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D) for the DCCC (10/9-12, likely voters, 9/26-28 in parens):

Bobby Bright (D-inc): 51 (52)

Martha Roby (R): 39 (43)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

AR-01: Anzalone Liszt for the DCCC (10/11-13, likely voters, 9/13-16 in parens):

Chad Causey (D): 44 (46)

Rick Crawford (R): 42 (44)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

AR-01: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/17 in parens):

Chad Causey (D): 34 (32)

Rick Crawford (R): 42 (48)

Ken Adler (G): 4 (4)

Undecided: 20 (20)

(MoE: ±4.7%)

AR-02: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/17 in parens):

Joyce Elliott (D): 38 (35)

Tim Griffin (R): 50 (52)

Lance Levi (I): 3 (3)

Lewis Kennedy (G): 3 (1)

Undecided: 7 (9)

(MoE: ±4.6%)

AR-03: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/25 in parens):

David Whitaker (D): 21 (31)

Steve Womack (R): 59 (55)

Undecided: 20 (14)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

AR-04: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/25-26 in parens):

Mike Ross (D-inc): 52 (49)

Beth Anne Rankin (R): 34 (31)

Joshua Drake (G): 3 (4)

Undecided: 11 (16)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

CA-47: Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Van Tran (10/13-14, likely voters, no trendlines):

Loretta Sanchez (D-inc): 39

Van Tran (R): 39

Ceci Iglesias (I): 5

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±5.7%)

FL-Sen: Suffolk (10/14-17, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kendrick Meek (D): 22

Marco Rubio (R): 39

Charlie Crist (I): 31

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±4.4%)

FL-Gov: Suffolk (10/14-17, likely voters, no trendlines):

Alex Sink (D): 45

Rick Scott (R): 38

Undecided: 13

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Misc.: In the AG race, Pam Bondi (R) leads Dan Gelber (D), 38-30. Also, a poll by Voter Survey Service (aka Susquehanna) for the right-wing Sunshine State News site has Adam Putnam (R) leading Scott Maddox (D) in the Ag Comm’r race, 40-35. Tea Party candidate Ira Chester takes 14%.

MA-Gov: Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Charlie Baker (10/11-13, likely voters, no trendlines):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 35

Charlie Baker (R): 42

Tim Cahill (I): 10

(MoE: ±3.5%)

MA-10: MassINC Polling Group for WGBH (10/13-15, likely voters incl. leaners, no trendlines):

William Keating (D): 46

Jeffrey Perry (R): 43

Other: 5

Undecided: 4

(MoE: ±4.9%)

MI-Gov: Foster McCollum White and Baydoun Consulting (D) (PDF) (10/7, likely voters, no trendlines):

Virg Bernero (D): 37

Rick Snyder: 50

Undecided: 13

(MoE: ±2.1%)

MO-Sen: Public Policy Polling (D) (PDF) for Robin Carnahan (10/17-18, likely voters, 8/14-15 in parens):

Robin Carnahan (D): 41 (38)

Roy Blunt (R): 46 (45)

Jerry Beck (C): 3 (5)

Jonathan Dine (L): 3 (3)

Undecided: 7 (9)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

NM-Gov: SurveyUSA for KOB-TV (10/12-14, likely voters, 5/23-25 in parens)

Diane Denish (D): 42 (43)

Susana Martinez (R): 54 (49)

Undecided: 4 (8)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Note: Among the 13% of respondents who say they have already voted, Martinez has a 60-36 lead.

NY-25: Siena (10/10-12, likely voters, no trendlines):

Dan Maffei (D-inc): 51

Ann Marie Buerkle (R): 39

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Note: Maggie Haberman tweets that Karl Rove’s American Crossroads plans to get involved here.

NY-Gov: New York Times (PDF) (10/10-15, likely voters, no trendlines):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 59

Carl Paladino (R): 24

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±3%)

OR-04: Grove Insight (D) for Peter DeFazio (10/11-12, likely voters, no trendlines):

Peter DeFazio (D-inc): 53

Art Robinson (R): 39

(MoE: ±4.9%)

OR-05: Moore Information (R) for Scott Bruun (10/13-14, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kurt Schrader (D-inc): 40

Scott Bruun: 44

(MoE: ±5.7%)

PA-15: Muhlenberg (PDF) (10/5-13, likely voters, 9/11-16 in parens):

John Callahan (D): 32 (38)

Charlie Dent (R-inc): 49 (49)

Jake Towne (I): 5 (3)

Undecided: 13 (10)

(MoE: ±5%)

UT-Gov: Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret News/KSL-TV (10/11-14, “active voters,” 10/7-13 in parens):

Peter Corroon (D): 33 (31)

Gary Herbert (R-inc): 58 (52)

Undecided: 6 (13)

(MoE: ±4%)

Note: The Deseret News says that Dan Jones has also done polling for Herbert. Should we be regarding them as an (R) pollster?

UT-Gov: UtahPolicy.com/Western Wats (9/30-10/3, likely voters, no trendlines):

Peter Corroon (D): 27

Gary Herbert (R-inc): 58

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±4%)

Note: Dan Jones also has UT-Sen numbers. UtahPolicy.com also has UT-Sen, UT-01, and UT-03 numbers.

VA-05: Roanoke College (10/5-14, likely voters, no trendlines):

Tom Perriello (D-inc): 40

Rob Hurt (R): 46

Jeffrey Clark (I): 1

Undecided: 13

(MoE: ±4.1%)

WI-Gov: St. Norbert College (PDF) for Wisconsin Public Radio (10/12-15, likely voters, 3/23-31 in parens):

Tom Barrett (D): 41 (28)

Scott Walker (R): 50 (44)

Undecided: 6 (17)

(MoE: ±5%)

Margins & Errors: The Fix publishes an alleged WA-Sen poll without either field dates or sample size… Bill Kristol (yeah, that Bill Kristol) claims he has his hands on an OH-10 poll – he has the n, but won’t say the pollster’s name, who paid for the poll, or when it was taken… Pollster.com has a PDF from ccAdvertising with numbers for WV-Sen, WV-01, and WV-03 – but not only does ccA report to hundredths of a percent, they get taken to the woodshed by Mark Blumenthal for refusing to divulge the poll’s sponsor

• IL-Sen: Serial exaggerator Mark Kirk has a new one on his hands: he was previously claiming that he was the driving force behind a bill that cracked down on companies that do business with Iran (but that got turned into a Howard Berman bill so it could pass the Democratic House, says Kirk). Berman says that’s not the case at all, and that his committee didn’t even consider the Kirk version of the bill.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle had possibly the weirdest ever visit to a group of Latino high school students, first telling them that those weren’t supposed to be Latinos in her ad featuring scary-looking dark-skinned persons crossing the border. Maybe those are actually Arabs, and maybe they’re crossing the Canadian border, she mused? She then turned the tables back on the students, saying that “I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me.” Asian like… Middle Eastern terrorists, maybe? With Sharron Angle speaking, who even knows?

• IL-Gov: Whitey no more? Green Party candidate “Rich Whitey” will apparently get ballots in select Chicago wards changed back to his actual (and preferred) name, Rich Whitney. Apparently there was enough time to reprogram all the machines if crews work overtime.

• SC-Gov: I’m not sure whose side to take here: on the one hand, it’s good to see the DNC putting money into the late-breaking South Carolina governor’s race, where internals see it as a mid-single-digits race and a real opportunity now. On the other hand, South Carolina Dems just sound pissed, saying the $100K expenditure is too little too late (which is probably true).

• CA-03: Here’s an eye-catching independent expenditure: American Crossroads (aka Rove, Inc.) is pouring $682K into a TV buy against Ami Bera in the 3rd. That would tend to support the idea that Dan Lungren, who’s lost the fundraising game to Bera every quarter, is also putting up some middling internals too.

• PA-07: Now this isn’t good, especially this late in the game: the Pennsylvania state Teamsters suddenly revoked their endorsement of Bryan Lentz. There’s no official word on what caused the rift, but it seems to relate back to Lentz’s sponsorship of a bill that cracks down on construction firms that misclassify workers to avoid paying taxes.

• OH-St. House: The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a good profile of 10 of the most important races in one of our most important legislative chambers, where Dems have a small edge (53-46) and need to hold it for redistricting purposes. It’s a mix of suburban Cleveland, suburban Columbus, and the rural southern part of the state.

• AFL-CIO: Here’s an interesting memo out from the AFL-CIO’s political director today suggesting that they’ve made a lot of under-the-radar progress in the last few weeks, redirecting members who weren’t engaged or were flirting with the Republicans. In particular, Pennsylvania stands out, where they’re finding that Joe Sestak now has a 55-26 lead among union members, up from only 45-39 at the start of September. They also point out that Joe Manchin now has a 40-point lead among union members in another union-heavy state, West Virginia.

• Early voting: Early voting gets underway today in Florida and Texas, along with five other smaller states. Adding in the states where voting has already started, that means the election is truly afoot in nearly half of all states.

• Debates: We’re adding a new component to our digests: courtesy of our friends at C-SPAN, a list of all the debates that are on tap and on the air each night on C-SPAN. Because if you’re reading this, we know you can’t get enough politicking:

8 pm ET: WV-Sen

9 pm ET: WI-07

10 pm ET: IL-11

11 pm ET : AZ-05

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski may be the only Republican running a pro-pork campaign, with her new ad talking about how Joe Miller will cut off the flow of federal funds to Alaska

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet hits Ken Buck on Social Security privatization and his hardcore pro-life positions

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway moves quickly along from the ‘Aqua Buddha’ ad, turning the conversation back to mine safety, while Rand Paul continues to whine about it, spending an ad touting his Christian faith

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt tries out a little Medicare sleight-of-hand (the whole HCR-cut-Medicare!!1! line)

• NH-Gov: The DGA, via local group Citizens for Strength and Security, hits John Stephen for retaining his campaign manager even after he received a restraining order for stalking

• NRCC: If you’ve ever wanted to watch 40+ Republican House ads in one sitting, here’s your chance

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 39%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 52%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 45%

• HI-Sen: Dan Inouye (D-inc) 53%, Cam Cavasso (R) 40%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 47%, Charlie Baker (R) 42%, Tim Cahill (I) 6%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 50%

• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 66%

• UT-Sen: Sam Granato (D) 29%, Mike Lee (R) 54%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 46%

• AK-Sen: The story of how his employment with the city of Fairbanks ended is one of the key reasons why Joe Miller suddenly clammed up and said he wouldn’t answer questions about his personal background anymore. Now the city’s former mayor, Jim Whitaker, is offering his version of the story, saying Miller is “not truthful” about it. Whitaker says Miller’s use of borough resources for political purposes (namely, for gaming an online vote for state party chair in a Sarah Palin-orchestrated party coup) was a violation of borough ethics policy and it would have been a cause for termination if they hadn’t been so understaffed. Miller eventually resigned in 2009 anyway, partly because his request to go elk hunting got denied.

• FL-Sen: There are so many Kennedys I really can’t keep track which one is allied with who, but any time one leaves the reservation it’s interesting. Robert Kennedy Jr. announced that he’s backing Charlie Crist for Senate, saying that Kendrick Meek can’t win and the most important thing is blocking Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, with the current race not looking very interesting anymore, PPP has its eye on 2012 (which seems like it could be close, especially if Jeb Bush gets involved). They ran two other hypotheticals, one not very likely: Bill Nelson beats Rush Limbaugh 50-36 (if Limbaugh for whatever reason decided to take the huge pay cut). More plausibly, he also beats Rep. Connie Mack IV by 42-33.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with an internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt. Public pollsters have generally seen this as a double-digit race, but his poll, taken over Oct. 9-12, gives David Vitter a not-overwhelming 49-42 lead. The campaign says that’s a major improvement (no specific numbers, though) over their September poll.

• FL-Gov: The Florida Education Association (obviously a Democratic-leaning organization) polled the gubernatorial race, and found numbers very close to PPP’s results yesterday. The poll from Tom Eldon, taken Oct. 9-12, gives Alex Sink a 47-41 lead over Rick Scott. Scott’s faves are down to 33/50.

• IL-Gov: This is quite the screwup: Green candidate Rich Whitney’s name will appear as “Rich Whitey” on electronic voting machines in nearly two dozen wards in Chicago (half of which are predominantly African-American). And that leads inevitably to the question (to quote the Illinois Nazi Party): “Well, what are you going to do about it, Whitey?” Apparently, he can’t do much, as there isn’t adequate time left to reprogram and test the machines, although he’s looking into various legal options.

• AZ-07: I don’t know if there’s any hard evidence other than a Magellan poll and a McClung internal to prove there’s a real race here, but judging by efforts by some organizations on both sides, something’s going on. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee had members make 21,000 phone calls to the district to shore up Raul Grijalva, while Americans for Tax Reform is going to spend $230K on advertising in the district, hitting Grijalva with an ad for encouraging a boycott of his state in the wake of SB 1070.

• CA-44: Like CA-03, this is one offense opportunity in California that still seems to be alive and kicking. The Bill Hedrick campaign, short on cash but facing an underwhelming opponent that he nearly knocked off last time, is out with a Zata|3 internal poll showing Hedrick trailing GOP incumbent Ken Calvert by only a 48-43 margin (improved a 49-38 showing in September).

• GA-08: He made it implicit with his most recent ad (distancing himself from Nancy Pelosi, even going so far as to show 60s-era San Francisco hippies), but Jim Marshall is now explicitly joining Bobby Bright in the camp of incumbents saying they won’t support Pelosi for Speaker in the next Congress (if they’re there for it).

• IA-03: I didn’t think I’d be saying this a few months ago, but Leonard Boswell is starting to look like he’s in healthy shape for the election, thanks in large part of a variety of damaging details about Brad Zaun that went public. Boswell leads Zaun 47-38 in an internal from his campaign, taken Oct. 3-5 by Anzalone-Liszt.

• IL-10: Bob Dold sure can rake in the fundraising dollars, even if Bob Dold can’t seem to come up with a lead in the polls, in what’s looking like one of the Dems’ few pickups this cycle. Bob Dold raised $843K in the third quarter and is sitting on $979K CoH, enough to start running two broadcast ads this week, while Bob Dold’s opponent Dan Seals has yet to release any numbers. Bob Dold!

• MD-01, VA-02, VA-05: Another testament to the unpredictability of elections: even a few months ago, who’d have thought, that at this point, the DCCC would have cut loose Debbie Halvorson and Steve Kagen, but would be keeping on pumping money into the races of Frank Kratovil and Tom Perriello? Those two, along with Glenn Nye, are among the survivors of the triage process and will receive continued ad buys.

• NH-02: This race is also turning out to be close, and this can’t help Charlie Bass this close to the election: questions are emerging about a stock buy (in New England Wood Pellet, his nephew-in-law’s company) that he made while in Congress the previous time. He then set up a meeting between company officials and Bush administration officials, which is a potential House ethics violation.

• OH-01: Credit Steve Driehaus for having some fire in the belly. After having gotten thrown onto the bring-out-your-dead cart by the DCCC, instead of just shrugging and starting to look for a lobbying job, he’s doubling down on his fundraising efforts, using it as an incentive to ask for more from his supporters. In particular, he’s pissed that the DCCC let him go even while giving money to various Reps. who voted “no” on health care reform.

• OR-04: Well, here’s one more race to add to the watch list. Peter DeFazio hasn’t faced credible opposition in… well, ever. And he’s still not facing credible opposition this year (Art Robinson is kind of a clown; his main action item seems to be the elimination of public schooling, which would kind of help him out considerably, since his day job is selling curriculum supplies for home schoolers). Nevertheless, the mysterious group Concerned Taxpayers (who’ve also made a six-digit ad buy against DeFazio) is out with an internal poll from Oct. 4-5 from Wilson Research showing a single-digit race, with DeFazio leading Robinson 48-42. (MoE is a hefty 5.6%.)

• PA-10: Chris Carney is on the wrong end of a Critical Insights poll of his district (which will be in our Poll Roundup later), but he’s already getting out in front of it with an internal poll. The Oct. 12-13 poll from Momentum Analysis has Carney leading Tom Marino 48-41. With both candidates able to point to leads not just in internal polls but public polls too, this is quite definitely a “Tossup.”

• TN-08: Whew! One last internal. Not much surprise here… GOPer Stephen Fincher has an internal out giving him a double-digit lead in the open seat race against Roy Herron, very similar to yesterday’s 47-37 Penn/Hill poll. The Tarrance Group poll from Oct. 11-12 gives Fincher a 47-36 lead (with 3 to indie Donn James).

• FL-AG: This is one of the higher-profile downballot races around, and it gets a fair amount of polling attention too. This time, it’s Susquehanna’s turn (on behalf of Sunshine State News), and they give a lead to Republican Hillsborough Co. Prosecutor Pam Bondi, who leads state Sen. Dan Gelber 50-42.

• Money: Zata|3 is out with more of their super-helpful charts on the behind-the-scenes money game, which is where the Republicans are really winning this cycle, even more so than the polls. Compared with 2008, spending on Senate races (from both sides) has nearly doubled, and it’s up more than 50% on House races. And Republican groups are leading the way: the top 5, and 8 of the top 10, outside groups, spending-wise are GOP-leaning. That starts with the cash-flush RGA ($12 mil so far), followed by the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads.

• Polltopia: You may have already seen the new Pew study on cellphone use, but it’s a real eye-opener, one that should cast some measure of doubt on the accuracy of current polls or even the whole sense that polls can tell us anything. Pew, which in 2008 found a certain amount of pro-Republican bias in polls because of the exclusion of cellphone-only users, is out with a new round of polling showing that bias has only increased. At this point, nearly 25% of adults are “cell-only.” Pew finds a 5-point Republican increase would have occurred in their most recent generic ballot test if they hadn’t polled cellphones.

Also, on the polling front, Daily Kos is taking a page from PPP and asking where readers what gubernatorial and House race they’d like to see polled in the coming weeks.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: This is actually kind of funny: Joe Miller spoofs Old Spice ads in an attempt to get voters to not write in Lisa Murkowski

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck’s out with a base-rallying ad using speech footage of him getting teabaggers fired up about how they got ignored for the last two years and are now out for blood; the NRSC is also on the air, hitting Michael Bennet over his support for the stimulus

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan’s new TV spot pushes back against various Roy Blunt negative ads, especially on the subject of an extended family member’s wind farm

• PA-Sen: This may be an interesting tea leaf that those Dem internals yesterday may be showing some actual tightening: the NRSC, after letting surrogate orgs do all the work here, is finally having to step in with its own IE ad (a basic HCR/stimulus/cap-and-trade troika)

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese again over the minimum wage

• CA-Gov: What is this, the 80s? Meg Whitman’s new ad hits Jerry Brown for being soft on crime

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad goes after Rick Perry’s seeming habit of steering state contracts to cronies

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 27%, Joe Miller (R) 35%, Lisa Murkowski (WI-inc) 34%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 4%, Rich Whitney (G) 2%

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 42%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

• AK-Sen: In the avalanche of various other acts of hypocrisy and self-dealing that have come out about Joe Miller in the last few weeks, somehow I missed this one: not only did he avail himself of low-income hunting and fishing licenses, but his family has received assistance from Medicaid and similar state-level Denali Kidcare. Somewhere, his most ardent supporters are hurling their copies of Atlas Shrugged into the fireplace in disgust, learning that their mighty Producer is nothing more than a parasite, weakly availing himself of every program under the sun designed to enslave man. (And somewhere, either heaven or Rick Barber’s fevered imagination, James Madison is hurling his copy of the Federalist Papers into the fireplace, upset that this ostensible patriot is availing himself of such a plainly unconstitutional program.)

• DE-Sen: I think this had been made pretty clear few weeks ago, but Mike Castle reiterated it in as official terms as possible on CNN yesterday: he’s not endorsing anybody in the Senate race.

• FL-Sen: Very-tanned centrist GOPer governors gotta stick together, and Arnold Schwarzenegger just gave his probably-not-worth-much backing to Charlie Crist yesterday. The Marco Rubio camp may have gotten the last laugh here, though:

“When it comes to inflicting ‘Collateral Damage’ on the economy, Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger are definitely ‘Twins.’  Charlie’s flip-flops have made him a master at telling ‘True Lies.’ We all know the only thing Charlie cares about is the next election. But this year, Florida will take an ‘Eraser’ to ‘The Running Man.'” – Rubio campaign spokesman Alex Burgos, responding to Schwarzenegger’s endorsement of Crist.

• PA-Sen: I wouldn’t start popping the champagne cork (or even buy a bottle of champagne) yet, but the DSCC seems to be seeing some negative-ad-driven progress in Pennsylvania. They’ve released an internal poll, via Garin Hart Yang, that actually gives Joe Sestak the lead. He’s up 44-42 over Pat Toomey, in a poll taken Oct. 8-10. With leaners pushed, Sestak expands to a 47-44 lead. No public pollster has seen anything like that (at least yet).

• WA-Sen: If you’re wondering what’s up with the huge disparities in Washington Senate numbers between the live-caller and auto-dialed polls, you’re not alone. Nate Silver doesn’t exactly have answers, pointing to unique Washington variables that confound pollsters, like its (almost entirely) vote-by-mail status and its large number of cellphone-only users. But he does have some interesting charts showing that Rasmussen and SurveyUSA have consistently overestimated GOP performance all decade long in Washington (while, at the same time, Elway has overestimated Dem performance).

• WV-Sen: Hot on the heels of PPP’s poll showing Joe Manchin back in the lead, the DSCC is out with an internal poll showing similar numbers. The GQR poll from Oct. 7-12, the height of “hicky” mania, gives Manchin a 49-44 lead over John Raese, whose 40/38 faves lag Manchin’s 63/28.

• CA-Gov: All previous political self-funding records are quickly receding in Meg Whitman’s rearview mirror, as she just plowed another $20 million into her gubernatorial bid, bringing her all-cycle total to over $141 million.

• WV-Gov: I don’t know what West Virginians’ aversion to comprehensible succession laws is, but after emerging from the morass of how to replace Robert Byrd, now the legislature is grappling with what to do with the Governor position if Joe Manchin manages to win the Senate special election. Legislative lawyers say that unless the legislature takes some sort of action, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin would take over as “acting governor” for the entire remainder of Manchin’s term, until the regularly scheduled Nov. 2012 election… but that there would be two elections that day, one for the full four years and one for the lame-duck period.

• FL-25: I look forward to seeing David Rivera’s explanation:

Over the past seven years, Republican state Rep. David Rivera repeatedly said in sworn documents that his main source of income, outside of his salary from the Legislature, came from consulting work he did for the U.S. Agency for International Development. But USAID has no record of ever hiring Rivera — now a candidate for Congress — or his company.

• KS-04: SurveyUSA has shown an unexpectedly close race (for an open seat in a dark-red district in this climate), with several polls in high single digits, so GOP nominee Mike Pompeo is offering some pushback with an internal from Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates from Oct. 10-11. His poll gives him a 48-31 lead over Raj Goyle. (You may recall that this pollster works with the Club for Growth, and is responsible for highlights like this one. Senator Dick Zimmer vouches for their accuracy!)

• NY-24: Richard Hanna’s out with an internal poll, courtesy of  McLaughlin (no dates given by Politico, and with a big fat MoE of 5.6%). Hanna leads, but only by 46-43. Considering that Hanna is trying to push back against not a Mike Arcuri internal but an honest-to-gosh public poll (from Siena) with an Arcuri lead of 8, that seems like kind of weak sauce.

• MN-06: Today’s fundraising highlight is that Michele Bachmann pulled in $5.4 million in the third quarter. Interestingly, it looks like she’ll report “only” $3.4 million cash on hand, suggesting a similar phenomenon as Sharron Angle (for whom there weren’t any CoH numbers at all), where there’s a lot of churn going on not just for a TV blitz but also for widespread nationwide direct-mail marketing, which is expensive. (Just ask Joe Cao.) While these numbers certainly don’t bode well as far as unseating Bachmann this year, the bright side is that’s money that low-information voters might otherwise have given to GOP House challengers in tight races who could have actually leveraged that money a lot more effectively.

• TX-27: Even if you’re a political junkie like us, yesterday’s internal poll was probably the first you’ve ever heard of Blake Farenthold. The DCCC fills in some blanks, suggesting that you’re probably not likely to hear too much about him in the future, either. He’s somehow sitting on a negative $5K in cash, and… I’m not quite sure how this happened, but he appears on the front of what appears to be some sort of local tea party-oriented publication, in pajamas, in the company of what appears to be some sort of sex-industry professional (and not as an example of what not to do, but apparently because said publication is endorsing him). Yeah, I’m just as confused as you; you’ll have to check out the link.

• WA-08: Ordinarily, we don’t report on newspaper endorsements, since they don’t seem to move many votes and are usually pretty predictable based on each paper’s e-board leanings. We’ll make an exception in this case, since Dave Reichert largely owes his continued existence to the Seattle Times, who’ve clung to him as, in their eyes, the last remaining exemplar of the old-style moderate Republicanism they fetishize. So it’s a strange and wondrous thing to see them turning their back on him in favor of Suzan DelBene.

• Blue Dogs: CQ has an interesting piece about the yawning leadership gap at the Blue Dogs, where two of its key members, John Tanner and Dennis Moore, are skedaddling. It cites a number of possible new heads (most notably Allen Boyd and Jim Matheson), but there’s a certain amount of cart-before-horse here, because the Blue Dogs are disproportionately in the crosshairs this cycle and it’s unclear how many of the key ones (Boyd, especially, as well as Stephanie Herseth Sandlin) will even be back.

• DLCC: The DLCC is out with its third and probably final installment in its “Essential Races” series, pointing you (and your contribution dollars) toward 15 more legislators in key races that might determine chamber control in some of the most important state legislatures.

• Money: More evidence that the advantage by the Democratic committees and individual members was pretty illusory, given the myriad ways (527s and 501(c)(4)s, oh my) that the wealthy have to plow nearly-unlimited money into political races: an alliance of groups (Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Norm Coleman’s American Action Network, as well as a new one, Commission on Hope, Growth, and Opportunity) is planning a $50 million ad blitz focused on some relatively underserved House races. This includes IN-02, CO-07, and even Maurice Hinchey’s NY-22. (H/t Nathan Gonzales.)

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk revisits the Broadway Bank yet again with his newest ad

• LA-Sen: A solid ad from Charlie Melancon, hitting David Vitter on outsourcing and cozying up to BP

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan tries some anti-Washington (including congressional pay raises) shots at Roy Blunt

• PA-Sen: VoteVets boosts Joe Sestak with a hit on Pat Toomey for voting against veterans’ benefits

• CT-Gov: The RGA has a boilerplate attack ad on Dan Malloy as tax-raising career politician

• HI-Gov: It’s not your imagination, this race is looking competitive, at least if the DGA is advertising here: they’re out with an anti-Duke Aiona ad

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn’s new ad actually comes close to saying that Bill Brady will kill your dog if you vote for him.

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland’s ad goes back to the basics: hitting John Kasich on his outsourcing Wall Street ways

• SC-Gov: The RGA is having to advertise and staff up in SC-Gov, probably much to their chagrin, as this looks like it’s turning into a real race: their new spot calls Vincent Sheheen liberal, morphs him into Obama, and does all the usual

• IL-17: The SEIU backs up one of labor’s biggest backers in the House, Phil Hare, with a 10-day buy for $317K in the Quad Cities, for an ad hitting Bobby Schilling on free trade and outsourcing

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi’s new ad goes after Jim Gerlach and ‘special interests’

• PA-08: VoteVets is also out with a spot in the 8th, hitting Mike Fitzpatrick on veterans’ benefits votes during his brief stay in Congress

• WI-03: The National Federation of Independent Business is out with a slew of new ads that includes softening up not-quite-top-tier Dem districts, with 10-day ad buys including not just WI-03 but also CA-11, CO-03, MO-03, NY-19, NY-23, PA-10, OH-16, and SC-05.

• Rasmussen:

• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 32%, Paul LePage (R) 35%, Eliot Cutler (I) 21%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 53%, John Stephen (R) 43%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 48%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 45%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• OR-Sen: Ron Wyden (D) 52%, Jim Huffman (R) 36%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 46%, John Raese (R) 49%

Opinion Research for CNN/Time (10/1-5, likely voters):

MO-Sen:

Robin Carnahan (D): 40

Roy Blunt (R): 53

(MoE: ±3.5%)

NV-Sen, NV-Gov (9/10-14 in parens):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 40 (41)

Sharron Angle (R): 42 (42)

Scott Ashjian (T): 7 (5)

Rory Reid (D): 33 (31)

Brian Sandoval (R): 56 (58)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Interestingly, Harry Reid’s lead actually increased among registered voters — from 42-34 in September to 43-32 today. Without Ashjian on the ballot, Angle still leads by the same margin among LVs, 47-45.

NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov:

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 55

Joe DioGuardi (R): 41

Andrew Cuomo (D): 55

Carl Paladino (R): 41

(MoE: ±4%)

Again, turnout is a factor here. Among RVs, Gillibrand leads DioGuardi by 60-33, and Cuomo stomps the repulsively vile Carl Paladino by 65-31. This poll also tested Chuck Schumer’s re-election, and finds him up by 57-41 over Jay Townsend.