Tag: Joe Biden

• IN-Sen: An unnamed “Democratic strategist” quoted by The Hill suggests that ex-Rep. Tim Roemer (whose name hadn’t really come up before this year) is unlikely to run for Senate. Honestly, I’m not sure if the wankerish Roemer would really excite anyone… but we don’t seem to have a long list of possible names for this race.

• OH-Sen: PPP has another “everyone and the kitchen sink” primary polls, this time of the Republican senatorial primary in Ohio. In this case, the kitchen sink is named “Kenneth Blackwell,” and he comes in first in an eleventy-billion-way test, with all of 17%. I don’t think I’ve even heard Blackwell (last seen losing the 2006 gubernatorial race to Ted Strickland very badly) as a possible contender. Click the link for the other numbers.

• VA-Sen: I’ve got a new name you can root for: Tim Donner, a wealthy television production executive who is considering whether to challenge George Allen in the Republican primary. A spokesman tells Dave Catanese he’s a “couple weeks away” from making a decision. It’s not 100% clear whether he’s a teabagger, but I suspect he is, given that his mouthpiece attacked bona fide teabagger (and hopeless Some Dude) Jamie Radtke for “working in government since she graduated from college,” and because Donner thinks none of the candidates currently running “believe in the concept of a citizen legislature.” That sounds like something a teabagger trying to channel Patrick Henry might say, no? At the very least, we should be hoping he’ll rough Macaca up with a million or few.

• WV-Gov: This was expected, but it’s still an important get: State House Speaker Rick Thompson (D) scored the backing of the AFL-CIO, a key endorsement in what will likely be a low-turnout special primary. (As we noted last week, Thompson also picked up the support of a couple of teachers unions.) The election is May 14th.

• CA-36: Marta Evry at Calitics takes a look at the ActBlue fundraising numbers so far for the key Democrats in the race. The numbers are a moving target, but as of Friday, Janice Hahn had taken in $49K from 200 donors, while Debra Bowen had pulled in $41K but from a much larger 474 donors. Oh, and Marcy Winograd has now achieved joke status, with $1K raised. Also, some teabagger also joined the race, making him the fourth Republican to get in.

• Wisconsin Recall: Some very good sleuthing by Madison TV station WKOW27: The alleged mistress of GOP state Sen. Randy Hopper (the name you can’t forget) recently scored a government job, and Hopper said: “I want to keep my involvement of anything as a private matter. So, I’m going to maintain that.” He didn’t maintain that for very long, calling the station back and denying his involvement with the hiring. I’m not sure Jack McCoy ever got a witness to change his story so quickly – and incredibly. Even better, discovers WKOW, the woman in question got a 35% pay boost over the person who previously held the job. Scott Walker’s government austerity in action.

In other news, Greg Sargent says that GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies is in the field with a survey testing anti-union messages on recall target Alberta Darling’s behalf.

• DCCC: Biden alert! The VPOTUS was in Philadelphia on Friday, raising a cool $400K for the D-Triple-C. A long list of PA pols was in attendance, including ex-Rep. Patrick Murphy and a couple of unsuccessful 2010 candidates, Bryan Lentz and John Callahan. Also nice to see present: Arlen Specter, a guy whose age, brief tenure as an elected Dem, and inglorious exit from office would give him more than enough reason to stay away from this sort of thing forever. Too bad he didn’t have the sense to join our team decades ago!

• Redistricting Roundup:

With the bulk of census data out, redistricting stories are coming fast and furious now.

• Arkansas: Talk Business has copies of a few different congressional maps proposed by various lawmakers, as well as descriptions of some others. Click the link to have a look.

• California: Ugh, gross: One of two finalist consulting firms to help California’s new redistricting commission has hardcore Republican leanings, while two of four finalist law firms are similarly oriented. Of course, this is exactly what you risk when you leave things to a supposedly independent panel (that features a ridiculous level of Republican over-representation).

• Florida: One Democratic consultant thinks that Florida’s population growth suggests that new districts (the state is getting two) could be anchored to regions that would favor two Republicans in particular: ex-LG Jeff Kottkamp and state Sen. Paula Dockery. Kottkamp lost the GOP primary for AG last year, while Dockery dropped out of the gubernatorial primary.

• Iowa: The Hawkeye State’s independent redistricting commission will release its first proposes congressional and state maps on March 31st. (Remember, IA loses a House seat.) As the Des Moines Register points out, “Either chamber of the Iowa Legislature or Republican Gov. Terry Branstad can reject proposals twice. If they don’t like the third, the Iowa Supreme Court decides the boundaries.”

• Louisiana: A bunch more proposed maps have been released by the state lege. Republican state House Speaker Jim Tucker’s plans can be found here, while Democratic state Senate President Joel Chaisson’s are toward the end of this document.

• Missouri: Show Me State lawmakers are starting their work on redistricting, but if they don’t have a congressional plan by May 13th, then it’ll get kicked over to the courts. State legislative maps aren’t due until September.

• Mississippi: I’m not really sure I’m getting this: The NAACP is suing the state of Mississippi over its redistricting plans, but the legislature hasn’t even passed anything yet. It seems like this case would fail from the get-go on ripeness grounds (i.e., a court would say that the dispute isn’t ready to be heard because the plaintiff doesn’t have actual maps to complain about), so I’m not really sure what the NAACP’s angle is here.

• Pennsylvania: PoliticsPA talked to some insiders who are crediting Dave Wasserman’s sources and saying that his most recent map is apparently pretty close to the plan that the state’s Republicans are supposedly reaching consensus on. (Maybe both share the same sources, though – who knows?) Click through for all the details. The most salient feature is something a lot of people here have also proposed: a matchup between Jason Altmire and Mark Critz, the two most junior Democrats in the delegation, in order to deal with PA’s loss of a seat.

• Virginia: Lawmakers are potentially looking to release state legislative maps as early as the end of the month – which makes sense, since VA holds its House and Senate elections this November.

• FL-Sen: Biden alert – confirmed! There was a rumor that Joey Jo-Jo Biden Shabadoo would soon be doing a fundraiser for Bill Nelson. It turns out he’s doing two, on March 25th: One near Orlando and the other in Tampa.

• OR-01: Not a particularly good addition to the resume for Rep. David Wu (D). As The Oregonian puts it, Wu “crashed his vehicle into a parked car in Northwest Portland last year, but passed a police field sobriety test and the incident never showed up in a police report.” A police official notes that a lack of a report is not uncommon, and says that Wu didn’t identify himself as a congressman.

• VA-11: Republican Keith Fimian, who lost to Rep. Gerry Connolly in 2008 and 2010 (by a whisker), says he’ll run again – but only if the 11th CD “redistricts well,” something he doesn’t expect to happen… nor should he, given the likelihood that the state lege will adopt an incumbent-protection map.

• LA-Gov: He doesn’t have any declared opponents for the November election, he’s got an astounding $9 million in the bank, and Democrats have been getting their asses kicked in Louisiana for years, but that’s not stopping Gov. Bobby Jindal from going on the air with his first television ad. The buy, according to a Jindal spokesman, is for “six figures,” so I guess that means anywhere from $100,000 to $999,999.

• SC-LG: Republican Lt. Gov. Ken Ard has just been charged with 92 counts of violating ethics rules, in which he’s accused of putting campaign money to personal use and failing to properly disclose his spending. Among other things, Ard spent campaign funds to attend the SEC championship football game in Atlanta last year (the University of South Carolina got crushed), and he also bought his wife a gown to wear to the state’s Inaugural Ball.

• Wisconsin Recall: The linked article has some vague but somewhat more specific figures on the number of signatures gathered in the recall efforts. One interesting detail: If some collection efforts finish earlier than others, that means we could have staggered recall elections. I personally think we’d be better off waiting to submit all our signatures at once so that we can have a unified effort. (And also, we should keep gathering sigs until the last day, to ward off challenges.)

Greg Sargent also has a new version of an ad in support of the recall from the PCCC and DFA (NWOTSOTB). Oddly, the final title card calls out Alberta Darling, Glenn Grothman, and Mary Lazich by name – but as you’ll recall, Grothman and Lazich are the two pretty much untouchable senators, thanks to their super-red districts.

On a related note, Think Progress observes that Michigan’s state constitution has similar recall provisions to those in Wisconsin. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is also pushing anti-union legislation there, and he and his allies in the legislature could be subject to a recall movement as early as July.

• WI Sup. Ct.: In other Wisconsin news, Republican Supreme Court Justice David Prosser is up with an oddly narrated ad that touts some healthcare-related decision he once made. I find it pretty gross and unseemly that high court judges are elected in the first place, and to see them speaking of judicial decision-making in such nakedly political terms is disturbing. But it’s the system we’ve got – and with any luck, Democrat JoAnne Kloppenburg will have a fighting chance against Prosser in next month’s election.

• Models: Harry Enten has published a model for forecasting the results of House races in presidential years. He predicts that Republicans will win 238 seats, which, assuming the GOP holds NY-26, would mean a loss of only four seats for the party in power. But the model has a margin of error of ±10 seats, so conceivably the Republicans could hold as many as 248 seats and as few as 228. Obviously, you’ll have to click the link for the full details of Harry’s model.

• Votes: Seven House Republicans voted against banning all federal funding to NPR: Rob Woodall (GA-07), Chris Gibson (NY-20), Richard Hanna (NY-24), Pat Tiberi (OH-12), Steve LaTourette (OH-14), Dave Reichert (WA-08), and Sean Duffy (WI-03). Weirdo teabagger Justin Amash (MI-03) voted “present.” And yeah, I had to look up Rob Woodall, too: He’s the freshman who replaced the retired John Linder last year (Woodall was Linder’s chief of staff). This vote really stands out because GA-07 is one of the reddest districts in the nation (it gave 40-point margins to Bush, though “only” 20 to McCain), and all the others on this list have quasi-semi-some-of-the-time moderate reputations.

• WATN?: In case you really care about Joe Miller, I guess you can click the link….

Redistricting Roundup:

• Louisiana: State Rep. Rick Gallot, who chairs the LA House’s redistricting panel, released three different preliminary proposals. (Scroll down to the bottom for PDFs of the maps.) All of the plans involve pitting Republican incumbents against each other: two of the maps throw freshman Rep. Jeff Landry in with Charles Boustany; the third combines Landry with Bill Cassidy. A fourth plan (not linked in the article) by Rep. Joe Harrison (R) would combined John Fleming and Rodney Alexander. By the way, Gallot is a Democrat, yet he’s apparently heading up the GOP-controlled House’s redistricting efforts. Louisiana confuses me.

• Mississippi: Uh, wow. Dem House Speaker Billy McCoy absolutely flipped out and seems to have turned what was a winning situation for the Dems into a disaster. For a moment there, it looked as though Republicans (who control the Senate) were ready to agree to incumbent protection plans for each chamber – and give the kiss-off to Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, who wanted to take a more aggressive approach. But McCoy crumbed the play, releasing a statement saying… well, click the link for the whole thing – it’s really berserk. He says he won’t recognize any further maps from the Senate, he considers the whole thing a done deal, and he’s sending the maps to the Department of Justice for preclearance – even though they haven’t been passed into law! I have a strong feeling that he’ll get an envelope back marked “Return to Sender,” but the more important fact is that this now strengthened Bryant’s hand and probably makes Senate Republicans much more likely to jettison a bipartisan gerrymander and take Bryant’s approach. Ah, well, it’s just delaying the inevitable – even with the most favorable of maps, I can’t imagine Dems in MS holding the House for very long.

• New Jersey: It’s a classic problem, and one that puts Republicans in the rare position of siding with minority communities, while the Democrats are on the outs. Hispanic and Asian political leaders in New Jersey are unhappy with their communities’ under-representation in the legislature, and they want to see more majority-minority districts drawn. Republicans are all too eager to help – and Democrats are, of course, unhappy, because that means packing Dem voters into darker-blue districts, rather than spreading them around to make more seats competitive. This is a miniature, state-level version of what happened in the early 90s on the federal level and reflects an ongoing, hard-to-resolve tension.

• CA-Sen: Best wishes to Carly Fiorina, who’s temporarily off the campaign trail and in the hospital after an infection associated with reconstructive surgery that she had over the summer after recovering from breast cancer. She’s says she’ll be back in action soon.

• CO-Sen: The Democrats in Colorado have filed an FEC complaint with Ken Buck, alleging illegal coordination. The coordination was between Buck and Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund (which has spent $370K here so far). This doesn’t look likely to get addressed before Election Day, though.

• KY-Sen: Rand Paul eventually got around, today, to cutting ties with and condemning a volunteer involved in assaulting a MoveOn activist before last night’s debate, outside the venue. An activist trying to give a fake award to Paul was shoved to the ground and kicked/trampled.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle has always been the prime example of the GOP’s apparent strategy for its more troublesome candidates (which is to have them hide from the media), but this is a little extreme: all manner of sleight-of-hand was used at a Reno appearance to keep her away from about 40 reporters who were looking for her, to the extent of using a decoy to get into her official vehicle while she left through a side door. Also, here’s an interesting catch, especially since Angle supposedly has a lot of cash these days: her latest filing has nothing about salaries for her staff. Oversight, or is there more of a burn rate problem than we’d been led to believe?

• WA-Sen: This CQ article is your generic this-race-is-tight-and-important piece, but it has a few interesting tidbits buried in it: one, Patty Murray’s internals have her up “around 4,” although that’s all we get to find out. And two, this election is already effectively more-than-half over: the state SoS’s office says that 50% of all voters have submitted their ballots, on track for turnout of at least 66%, which would be third-highest non-presidential turnout ever in the state. (I assume you all know which party tends to do better in higher-turnout models.) Finally, Dino Rossi’s doing a little hiding from the media himself: on a conference call with reporters, Rossi actually refused to say where he was calling from, just that he was “traveling all over right now.” (Maybe we should be looking for the guy in the red and white striped shirt?)

• VT-Gov: Biden alert! Here’s one election where every single vote will count (seeing as how it has fewer constituents than most House districts), and the veep is trying to roust out some votes with a Burlington appearance with Dem nominee Peter Shumlin the day before the election.

• CA-47: This was a weird election even before this, with stark racial overtones, and now it’s even weirder: an independent candidate, Cecilia Iglesias, is making her presence known with a TV ad buy (although just on local cable on Univision). Who will this hurt? The GOP says it’ll hurt Loretta Sanchez, because it splits the Latino vote. The Dems say it’ll hurt Van Tran, since Iglesias is a “known Republican.”

• CT-05: Hmm, here’s a novel strategy for dealing with ads from third party groups that contain blatant lies: push back against them, and TV stations just may stop running them. That’s what happened in Connecticut, where the American Action Network’s ads against Chris Murphy got taken down, by Fox-CT (on cable) no less. (The ad is part of the series saying that you can go to jail for not having health insurance.)

• VA-05: This is big all around: that the President is stumping on behalf of a House candidate (albeit one within a helicopter ride away from DC), and that said House candidate in a red district is welcoming him. In case you didn’t guess, it’s Tom Perriello, who’ll be rallying UVA students with the Prez in Charlottesville.

• American Crossroads: Here’s part of the Crossroads road map for the last week: at a cost of $3 million altogether, they’re moving into NC-11, NY-20, and GA-02, as well as continuing their presence in HI-01 and NY-22. They’re also launching ads in CA-20, IN-02, MO-03, ND-AL, TN-04, OH-16, and TX-23.

• SSP TV:

• KY-Sen: The NRSC and Rand Paul both turn the tables on Jack Conway, saying he wants to talk about Paul’s checkered past (i.e. Aqua Buddha) to avoid talking about Obama

• NV-Sen: The NRSC is out with a rather incoherent ad about how Harry Reid fancies himself a superhero, while Sharron Angle‘s out with another border-themed ad with menacing shadowy men who, of course, aren’t actually Latino

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s closing argument cites his independence

• WV-Sen: Thank God for trackers… Joe Manchin’s camp strings together John Raese’s greatest hits at various appearances to demonstrate his “crazy” ideas

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown wins the jujitsu black belt for his closing ad (if not the overall Zen master award for his whole campaign): unlike the very busy Manchin ad, he only needs one quote from Meg Whitman to make his own case for himself… she says she came to California 30 years ago because it back then it was a land of opportunity and it worked (uh, Meg? who was governor of California 30 years ago?)

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal’s closing ad says Roy Barnes is too ambitious, and Deal is just a humble public servant

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s new ad says 10 years is too long, playing the dread “career politician” card on Rick Perry

• MA-10: The DCCC’s new ad in the 10th goes after Jeff Perry’s controversial police sergeant tenure, in case anyone there was unaware of it

• OH-18: Zack Space goes after Bob Gibbs on outsourcing and immigration

• VA-05: The Sierra Club’s out with an ad bolstering Tom Perriello

• CA-Init: I’m not sure I thought I’d live to see the day where there ads running in favor of the legalization of marijuana, but apparently the Yes on 19 campaign was able to scrape together enough stems and seeds for a TV buy

• Rasmussen Classic:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 46%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 39%, Nathan Deal (R) 49%, John Monds (L) 5%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 42%, Susana Martinez (R) 52%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 58 21%, Jim DeMint (R-inc) 21 58%, Some other 15%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 46%, Ron Johnson (R) 53%

• New Rasmussen (aka Fox/Pulse):

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%

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

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 39%, Bill Brady (R) 44%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 43%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 43%, Rand Paul (R) 50%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 47%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 46%, John Raese (R) 48%

AK-Sen: Joe Miller is taking a vow of omertà, insisting that he simply won’t answer any more questions about his personal background. He’s also taking a page right out of the Sarah Palin playbook, whining that he’s been the victim of “journalist impropriety,” and making up stories about reporters gaining access to his “confidential file,” in “violation of the law.” I despairingly think that Miller won’t pay the price for this that he ought to – look at Rick Perry, who refuses to meet with newspaper editorial boards, as an example.

Also of note: Miller is trying to unring that Seventeenther bell a bit – but not really. His stance now is that a constitutional amendment to eliminate the direct election of senators is not “practical,” but sure sounds like he’d love to do it if he could. What a weirdo.

NV-Sen: Clinton alert! The Big Dog will be in Nevada today to campaign with Harry Reid.

WV-Sen: Clinton alert (retroactive)! Bill Clinton was in Morgantown yesterday, campaigning for Joe Manchin. He made a point of saying that the “hick-y” ad “burns me up.”

KS-Gov: This creeptastic story is finally getting some play in the Kansas gubernatorial race. Back around 2002 or so, Sam Brownback was roommates in Washington, DC with a radical cleric named Lou Engle. You might remember Engle as the Talibangelist who led a “prayer” rally in Uganda right when the country was debating passage of a bill which would have implemented the death penalty for homosexuals. Though he later tried to distance himself from the measure, at the time, Engle “praised the country’s ‘courage’ and ‘righteousness’ in promoting the bill. In the past, Engle has also donated to Brownback’s campaigns, and Brownback has done events with him as recently as last year. Seemingly caught off-guard by all this, the Brownback campaign had no statement in response.

NY-Gov: When you’ve lost Rudy Giuliani… His Dingusness attacked fellow Republican Carl Paladino over his anti-gay remarks, calling them “highly offensive” and saying Paladino should apologize. Not really sure what Rudy’s angle is here, though.

TN-Gov: Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Haslam poured in another $2.8 million of his own money in the third quarter, for $4.3 mil total. He’s also raised a pretty amazing $12.5 million from outside donors, all told; combined, this apparently makes for a new Tennessee record. (Recall that Haslam had a very competitive GOP primary.) Dem Mike McWherter hasn’t released 3Q nums yet, but he’s raised just a fraction of what Haslam has.

FL-22: Barack Obama did a fundraiser last night at the home of former NBA great Alonzo Mourning (which we mentioned to you back in SSP Amazing Digest #88). The event raised a million bucks, split between the Ron Klein campaign and the DNC. In attendance were Miami Heat players Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade (but not LeBron James), as well as Magic Johnson.

ME-02: Looks like Jason Levesque is going to have to beg his mom for rides to campaign rallies: the Republican just got his license suspended, after three speeding convictions in the past year. Lifetime, he has 18 driving-related convictions (including nine for speeding), and his licenses has been suspended three times.

NV-03: Joe Heck has a serious problem wrapped around his neck like a twenty-pound goiter. It’s called Sharron Angle, and he just doesn’t know what do with it. When asked directly by a voter whether he planned to vote for his own party’s senate nominee, Heck responded: “I’m waiting to see all of the evidence before I make my choice.”

NY-01: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is coming to NYC to do a fundraiser for Tim Bishop on Oct. 26th. Seems awfully late in the game to be raising scratch, but I suppose a Biden event is such a sure thing that Bishop can max out the campaign credit cards against the expected take.

OH-09: As he watches his candidacy circle the drain, Rich Iott lashed out at the top-ranking Jewish Republican in the Milky Way, Eric Cantor, who had repudiated him a day earlier:

“I think that Representative Cantor did what so many career politicians do. He reacted before he had all the facts. He didn’t know the whole story. He didn’t understand what historical reenacting is all about, or the education side of it. And he just made a decision without all the facts. My opponent here is cut out of the same cloth. Those are the people who passed the health care bill before they knew what was in it. The same folks who passed the stimulus bill….”

Because comparing the minority whip to Democrats is a good idea for a Republican candidate with a future, right? Anyhow, for those of you who perhaps wanted to hold out hope that Iott was just some weird LARPer (but I repeat myself), please review this paragraph taken from the website of his fellow Nazi re-enactors:

Nazi Germany had no problem in recruiting the multitudes of volunteers willing to lay down their lives to ensure a “New and Free Europe”, free of the threat of Communism. National Socialism was seen by many in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and other eastern European and Balkan countries as the protector of personal freedom and their very way of life, despite the true underlying totalitarian (and quite twisted, in most cases) nature of the movement. Regardless, thousands upon thousands of valiant men died defending their respective countries in the name of a better tomorrow. We salute these idealists; no matter how unsavory the Nazi government was, the front-line soldiers of the Waffen-SS (in particular the foreign volunteers) gave their lives for their loved ones and a basic desire to be free.

OR-04: There’s no direct quote here, but the Douglas County News-Review reports that Rep. Peter DeFazio “says he favors replacing Pelosi as speaker if Democrats retain their majority.” DeFazio has long had an antagonistic relationship with Pelosi, most recently coming to a head with his refusal to vote for the stimulus, allegedly from the left.

OR-05: These Republicans have no respect for Godwin’s Law, do they? Speaking of the healthcare reform bill, Scott Bruun said:

“From a social perspective, it’s right up there, I would argue – probably the fugitive slave law was worse. But still, the healthcare bill was pretty darn bad.”

The Fugitive Slave Act, which “required any runaway slaves who had escaped their bondage and were living free in the Northern states be returned to their owners” – and was one of the causes of the Civil War. Right on!

PA-03, PA-12: Biden alert (retroactive)! The VPOTUS did a fundraiser in Pittsburgh with both Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper and Mark Critz in attendance. The Hill makes a big deal out of the fact that this event didn’t take place in Critz’s district – but I’m just going to guess that there are a lot more wealthy Dems in the P’burgh area than in the 12th CD.

PA-06: Can an internal ever be too good? Well, you tell me if you believe this Susquehanna survey that Jim Gerlach is touting, which has him up by a massive 61-31 spread. Still, now would be a good time for Manan Trivedi or the DCCC to show us something different.

PA-11: If Paul Kanjorski somehow, improbably, survives once more, he will owe his fortune yet again to the realtors, who have already spent three-quarters of a million on ads on his behalf, after spending a million bucks last time.

Polltopia: Time to help PPP pick their next state to poll.

SSP TV:

• FL-Gov: In a move we’ve seen a few times this cycle, Alex Sink is trying out the long-form political ad, this time with a 2-minute spot detailing Rick Scott’s Medicare fraud and his attempts to hide from it
• WA-08: In her third ad, Suzan DelBene hits Reichert on raising taxes & shipping jobs overseas

Independent Expenditures:

• AFSCME: Throws down $750K against Republican roofer Reid Ribble (WI-08) and $628K against GOPer Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08)
• NRA: Almost $3 million in senate buys (here & here)
• NRCC: Huge $8.25 million buy
• Realtors: CA-18 (for Dennis Cardoza); IL-14 & PA-11 (for Bill Foster & Paul Kanjorski)
• TX-23: A group called “The American Worker, Inc.” is running some $200K worth of ads against Republican Quico Canseco

IL-Sen: My god, Mark Kirk is an asshole. The excellent ArchPundit catches Kirk bragging about funding “the largest voter protection” operation in 15 years in “key vulnerable precincts” where “the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat.” And pray tell which precincts are those? Says Kirk: “South and West Side of Chicago, Metro East, Rockford.” Those aren’t just Dem strongholds – they happen to be the places where almost all of the African Americans in Illinois live. What a fucker. “Jigger,” huh.

KY-Sen: Clinton Alert! The Big Dog is coming to Kentucky to campaign for Jack Conway on Monday.

OH-Sen: Quinnipiac (9/29-10/3, likely voters, 9/9-14 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 36 (35)

Rob Portman (R): 55 (55)

Undecided: 8 (9)

(MoE: ±3.1%)

OH-Gov: Quinnipiac (9/29-10/3, likely voters, 9/9-14 in parens):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 41 (37)

John Kasich (R): 50 (54)

Undecided: 7 (7)

(MoE: ±3.1%)

IL-Gov: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is joining Gov. Pat Quinn for a rally in Chicago on October 12th at the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local 130 Hall.

NY-Gov: Carl Paladino, international man of mystery? The noted scuzzball is apparently buying time on all the networks for 5 p.m. today to make a “major announcement.” Sounds pretty stunty to me.

SC-Gov (PDF): Hamilton Campaigns (D) for Vincent Sheheen (10/1-4, likely voters, 9/24-28 in parens):

Vincent Sheheen (D): 44 (41)

Nikki Haley (R): 49 (51)

Undecided: 7 (8)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

CO-03: Morans.

IL-14: A Randy Hultgren internal from the Tarrance Group shows him leading Dem Rep. Bill Foster 44-38, with 4 points going to Green Party candidate Daniel Kairis.

MD-01: Clinton Alert 2.0! The Big Dog is holding a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. this Sunday for Rep. Frank Kratovil. Man, after all the work he’s done this cycle, I hope Clinton has a phat vacation planned for after election day.

SC-02: Rob Miller says he won’t vote to retain Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. He also said that he plans to draft Joe DiMaggio in his fantasy baseball league next year and that he’s getting his wife a jetpack for Christmas.

Fundraising:

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio, $5 million raised (a new record)
• NRCC: Securing a $6.5 million loan

SSP TV:

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick hits Charlie Baker for raising premiums as a healthcare CEO (while noting that he capped them as governor)
• FL-Gov: Rick Scott tries to paint Alex Sink as a hypocrite on various financial goings-on during her tenure as state CFO
• FL-08: A new spot from Alan Grayson hits Webster on women’s issues
• MA-04: Republican Sean Bielat is out with two ads (apparently cable only): the first attacks Barney Frank on the bailout (and features someone calling Bielat “a reasonable guy” – such praise!); the second is basically the same low production values, faux man-on-the-street shtick, and also has a dude saying, “If you don’t like the new guy, get rid of him in two years!”

Independent Expenditures:

• DCCC: Forty-eight different reports, all below











































































AL-02	HI-01	MI-07	OH-18
AL-02	IA-03	MO-04	OR-05
AZ-01	IA-03	MS-01	PA-03
AZ-05	IL-10	NC-08	PA-11
AZ-05	IL-14	NH-02	SC-05
CA-11	IL-17	NM-02	TX-23
CA-11	IN-02	NV-03	VA-02
CO-03	IN-09	NY-20	VA-05
FL-25	MA-10	NY-24	VA-11
FL-25	MD-01	OH-13	WA-03
GA-02	MI-01	OH-15	WI-07
GA-08	MI-07	OH-16	WV-01

• Concerned Taxpayers: MD-01: $38K on media against Frank Kratovil (D)
• Crossroads GPS: CO-Sen: $780K on media against Michael Bennet (D); FL-Sen: $350K on media for Marco Rubio (R); IL-Sen: $1 mil on media against Alexi Giannoulias (D); KY-Sen: $100K on media against Jack Conway
• EMILY’s List: CO-04: $160K on TV against Cory Gardner (R); WI-07: $20K on mail against Sean Duffy (R)
• NEA: OH-13: $550K on TV against Tom Ganley (R); AZ-05: $650K on TV against David Schweikert (R)
• NRCC: $111K on various media expenditures (they look radio-sized) in AZ-08, MA-10 & MO-04
• NRSC: $1.3 million on various media expenditures (these look more TV-sized) in CO-Sen, KY-Sen, WA-Sen & WV-Sen
• Revere America: NH-02: $356K on media against Annie Kuster (D) (see Blue Hampshire for more)

AK-Sen: Word is out about two forthcoming ad buys in Alaska: Lisa Murkowski is going up on radio and TV (NWOTSOTB), while Scott McAdams just threw down what Smart Media Group is calling “a partial buy of $48K in broadcast.”

Meanwhile, I don’t really give a fuck what John Kyl thinks, but it’s nice to see that he’s sweating the possibility that a Murkowski write-in campaign makes it less likely the GOP will hold on to the seat. (As an aside, don’t you wish Dems had handled Lieberman like this? Indeed, Republicans are supposedly weighing whether to strip Murkowski of her committee assignments.) But maybe Kyl is just being the idiot he always is, because a Republican source tells The Hill that internal polling “indicates Murkowski’s write-in bid takes an equal amount of support from Democrat Scott McAdams as it does Miller.” For once in my life, I hope Kyl is right!

MO-Sen: Global Strategy Group for the Missouri Democratic Party (9-14/18, likely voters, no trendlines, includes leaners):

Robin Carnahan (D): 39

Roy Blunt (R): 43

Jerry Beck (C): 3

Jonathan Dine (L): 3

(MoE: ±4%)

AK-Gov: NEA-Alaska, the biggest union in the state, just endorsed Dem Ethan Berkowitz for governor. And Bill Walker, the Republican primary loser who is still considering a write-in bid, is holding out the possibility of a Berko endorsement as well.

FL-22: The ghost of Casey Stengel is smacking his forehead and asking, once more, “Can’t anybody here play this game?” The Florida Democratic Party sent out a mailer hitting Allen West over his tax liens… but the managed to include his full Social Security number. Oy.

IN-09: Reid Wilson claims there’s a dispute between the IE arm of the DCCC and main HQ… but there isn’t a single quote in the piece, not even an anonymous one. Though the IE wing has cancelled ad buys on behalf of Baron Hill in mid-October, supposedly the “coordinated” arm “believes Hill is still deserving of spending.” I have no reason to doubt Reid, but if his source at main D-Trip wanted to get this message out there, this is a damn oblique way to do it – but maybe he or she was scared of accusations of “coordination via the media.” Anyhow, it all just shows how dumb these rules against coordination are.

KY-06: The Mellman Group for Ben Chandler (9/13-14, likely voters):

Ben Chandler (D-inc): 53

Andy Barr (R): 33

(MoE: ±4.9%)

This is the first poll that Chandler has released, though his campaign teased earlier in the summer that their internal from June gave Chandler a “strong double-digit lead”.

MI-03: This open-seat race hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, but Dem Patrick Miles just rolled out an impressive list of Republican endorsements, including a couple of former county GOP chairs… and two daughters of retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers! Based on the comments in the article, I get the distinct feeling that Republican Justin Amash must be a seriously unlikable dude for this many of his fellow party members to want to diss him so thoroughly. By the way, Amash’s fundraising has been unimpressive (just $380K), and he has less than half the cash of Miles ($227K to $112K).

NE-02: Biden Alert! The VPOTUS is coming to Omaha on Sept. 30th to headline a fundraiser for Dem Tom White. I’m gonna guess that Republican Rep. Lee Terry might have a harder time than most in tying White to the Obama administration, though, given that Terry put out flyers in the 2008 cycle touting his support from mythical “Obama-Terry voters.”

NY-18: Wow, the NY GOP sure is good at producing pariah leper candidates these days, huh? Republican Jim Russell, running against Nita Lowey, penned an essay for the racist Occidental Quarterly in support of ethnic and religious segregation a few years ago – but that description is way too anodyne to do his piece justice. For instance, he approvingly quotes T.S. Eliot, who said, among other things: “What is still more important is unity of religious background; and reasons of race and culture combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable.” Click through to Maggie Haberman’s piece for a much larger selection of choice quotes. Also note that the Westchester County GOP endorsed Russell in July, after another candidate dropped out.

TX-23: What a fucking idiot: Republican Quico Canseco blanketed San Antonio with door-hangers that claimed Rep. Ciro Rodriguez voted in favor of TARP. But, uh, he didn’t. In fact, he voted against the bailout twice. Seriously, how fucking hard is it to Google this shit?

WA-03: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Denny Heck (9/7-9, likely voters, no trendlines):

Denny Heck (D): 44

Jaime Herrera (R): 47

(MoE: ±4.4%)

We say “no trendlines” because we don’t know the precise top lines from GQR’s previously poll for Heck (conducted in June), though we do know from Roll Call’s write up that Heck trailed Herrera by 7 points in that one.

SSP TV:

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink’s latest ad uses the words of local newspaper editorials against scumbag Republican Rick Scott’s campaign platform, while also touting her economic ideas. And, hey, some WOTSOTB: She’s spending $800K on the ad.
• AZ-05: One Harry Mitchell spot touts his fight against Congressional pay raises; another touts his support from three apparently reg’lar Republicans (but oddly leaves off the “I approve” message – is this not a broadcast ad?)
• AZ-08: Gabby Giffords hangs Jesse Kelly on the “flat tax” with his own words in support of a 23% national sales tax. I personally love going after Republicans on this issue because the dumb fucks who support this have to sputter that no, but, really, actually, what we mean is… ah, who gives a fuck what they mean.
• KS-03: An anodyne spot from Republican Kevin Yoder (people shouting “We’re Yoder Voters!”); and another pretty blah ad about small businesses (featuring a black-and-white photo of Pelosi without even mentioning her by name – odd)
• KY-03: John Yarmuth updates an effective ad from his 2008 campaign, featuring a disabled Navy veteran narrating about Yarmuth’s support for vets (ad is “expected to run for a week on all the networks in Louisville”)
• MD-01: Frank Kratovil also has a good ad hitting Andy Harris on the national 23% sales tax (see AZ-08 above)
• NY-20: A pretty clever ad from Scott Murphy, responding to attacks on his vote in favor of healthcare reform by pointing out some of the most popular parts of the bill, like closing the Medicare “donut hole”

• AR-Sen: Mason-Dixon takes another look at the Arkansas Senate race, on behalf of Arkansas News Bureau. Blanche Lincoln hasn’t gotten any deader than she was before: she trails John Boozman 51-34, with 4 for other minor candidates (no real change from the last time they polled, back in May pre-primary, where Boozman led 52-35). Lincoln’s faves have improved a smidge: now 30/47, instead of 28/53.

• DE-Sen: Whooo, where even to begin? The national media is just starting to dig into Christine O’Donnell’s gigantic and eminently mineable opposition file, with NPR and ABC detailing her history of getting fired from right-wing think tanks and her suing for discrimination in response, of IRS audits that she blamed on “thug politics” and liens that she blamed on “computer errors,” of failure to pay for her college, and of using her campaign money to pay the rent on her house as it’s also her campaign headquarters. We also know about her stance on AIDS prevention, thanks to helpful tipsters in the comments. At least O’Donnell’s faring well in the fundraising department, raising $1 million since her victory (with Chris Coons raising only $125K, showing the harmful effects of a short-of-the-endzone victory dance). Not leaving things to chance, reports are coming in that Joe Biden will campaign for Coons “next week” and that the DSCC is starting to put money into Delaware, starting with an $85K buy in the Salisbury market.

The establishment isn’t budging much on her: the state’s virulently anti-O’Donnell GOP chair, Tom Ross, is staying in place (though calling for “unity”), and Karl Rove, although he sorta backed down in the face of a Rush Limbaugh broadside, is still challenging O’Donnell to be “honest” to voters about her difficulties… and again running through the list of all those difficulties in his media appearances. Meanwhile, O’Donnell strips…. her website, perhaps at the urging of the NRSC; after her nomination, all issues stuff vanished and it just became a donation ask. Still, Harry Reid seems to be doing all he can to fuck this up, issuing a strange quote that should play right into the whole “Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda!!1!” messaging, expressing enthusiasm for Chris Coons but calling him his “pet.”

• NV-Sen, NV-Gov (pdf): Part of the CNN/Time onslaught yesterday was polls of Nevada (which we’re relegating to the digest, as this state, as we’ve complained before, is veering rapidly into over-polled territory). This raised some eyebrows for showing a Sharron Angle lead over Harry Reid (42-41, with 5 for Scott Ashjian) among LVs, but that’s only a point or three off from the narrow band of results that Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen have been consistently generating. (Reid leads 42-34-7 among RVs.) Many people (starting with Jon Ralston) also seemed surprised by some crosstabs weirdness, showing the race a dead heat in Democratic-favorable Clark County but giving Reid a big lead in swingy Washoe County. Brian Sandoval leads Rory Reid 58-31 in the Gov race.

• CA-Gov: It’s official: Meg Whitman is now the biggest self-funder in political history, having shown that piker Michael Bloomberg how it’s done. She gave her campaign another $15 million, which brings her personal spending on the race to $118 million overall.

• CO-Gov: Dan Maes just picked up Scott McInnis’s former campaign manager, George Culpepper, so it seems like the local GOP establishment isn’t totally abandoning him. The Colorado Independent has an in-depth piece, though, with a more nuanced look, based on interviews with at least a dozen county GOP chairs. Some of them fully back Maes, some grudgingly do so, some back Tom Tancredo, and some are still in a state of shock.

• GA-Gov: After doing some pushback yesterday, Nathan “Let’s Make a” Deal had to admit today that, yes, he is in some personally dire financial straits, saying his debts are even bigger than the $2.3 million loan that’s outstanding… but also saying that he isn’t releasing any more financial records to the press. It also turns out that he never disclosed that loan to the state Ethics Commission on his financial disclosure form, which he’s now scrambling to update.

• MI-Gov: EPIC-MRA’s out with yet another poll of the Michigan gubernatorial race; I think we can start relegating their frequent polls of this pretty-much-out-of-reach race to the digest, too. They give Rick Snyder a 53-29 lead over Virg Bernero (a slight improvement for Snyder over 51-29 three weeks ago).

• UT-Gov: OK, what kind of a world is it when we’re faring better in the Utah governor’s race than we are in Michigan? Not like this is a competitive race either, but it could be a good dress rehearsal for a 2012 rematch (remember that this 2010 race is a special election). Dem Peter Corroon trails Gary Herbert by “only” 21 points, 52-31, in a poll taken by Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret News and KSL. The numbers haven’t really changed since their previous poll in April (where Herbert led by 20).

• CA-11: As with 2008, Jerry McNerney rolled out endorsements from some local elected Republicans, as part of a list of 16 county supervisors and mayors who are backing him. Maybe most notable is the backing from the mayor of Manteca (or, in Spanish, Lard), Willie Weatherford, who had previously backed GOP primary loser Brad Goehring.

• CO-03: Here’s a boost for John Salazar, in a suddenly-tough race in this rural western district against Republican Scott Tipton: he got the backing of the National Rifle Association, with an “A” rating.

• IA-02: Another warning sign for David Loebsack: the Mariannette Miller-Meeks campaign is out with another internal poll, showing her creeping closer than her previous one. The Tarrance Group poll has her trailing Loebsack by only 1 point: 41-40 (with 6 for a Libertarian). She could do some damage her with more money.

• LA-02: Lawyer Ron Austin dropped out of the LA-02 race today, where he was an independent candidate. This is really the first I’d ever heard of him, so I can’t imagine he’d have been much of a factor here; I can’t glean whether he was running on the left or the right, but he is African-American, so that in itself may shift at least a handful of votes in Cedric Richmond’s direction in what may yet turn out to be a close race. Two other no-name indies remain.

• MD-01: One other internal poll got leaked to the Fix today, too, and this one’s a pleasant surprise for the Dems. Frank Kratovil is still claiming a lead over Andy Harris, who just won the GOP nod for a rematch. Kratovil’s poll by Garin-Hart-Yang gives him a 45-39 lead. (When I say “still,” Kratovil released an earlier internal with a 5-point lead. Harris has released two internals of his own giving him a lead.)

• MO-04: Here’s the good news: Ike Skelton got a shared endorsement from Missouri Right to Life, along with GOP challenger Vicky Hartzler. The bad news is: Skelton has generally had that endorsement to himself in the past.

• NY-14: Give Reshma Saujani credit for one thing: she’s persistent. She’s already announced that she’ll try again in 2012 to unseat Carolyn Maloney in the NY-14 Dem primary.

• NY-23: Local teabaggers (or at least one of them) sound pretty upset with Conservative nominee (and GOP primary loser) Doug Hoffman, meaning that he, rather than the GOP nominee, may find himself in the third-wheel position this time around. Mark Barie, chairman of a local Tea Party organization criticized Hoffman for a listless campaign run by outsiders with little familiarity with the district. He threw his support behind Matt Doheny, who appears to have narrowly won the GOP primary despite a late close by Hoffman in late counting.

• CfG: The Club for Growth launched a five-state buy in Senate races, to a total tune of $1.5 million (no word on specific allocation). The states under assault are Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

• NRCC: Two different rounds of TV ad buys came from the NRCC today. The first one was in WA-03 ($900K) and NM-01 ($300K), and a second one covers PA-10 ($595K), NH-01 ($1 mil), NH-02 ($1 mil), FL-08 ($817K), FL-24 ($817K), and VA-09 ($?).

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer goes negative against Carly Fiorina in a new spot, hitting her on (what else?) her failed tenure at HP

• MO-Sen: A new spot against Roy Blunt from Dem group Commonsense Ten (never heard of ’em, either) hits his consummate insider credentials

• PA-Sen: Yet another ad from Pat Toomey, this one featuring an oppressed doctor who doesn’t like HCR (who just happens to be a big Republican activist too, not the ad says that)

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi’s first negative ad features him personally narrating an attack on Patty Murray (instead of using the off-camera voice of doom); he calls her “part of the problem”

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid’s newest TV spot, by way of fighting back against Angle’s attacks on immigration issues, just goes ahead and says it: it calls Sharron Angle “crazy”

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo doesn’t want to leave anything to chance despite his big lead (he has the money to burn, at any rate), and he’s out with a new bio ad (not that he needs much introduction)

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato tries introducing himself to Pennsylvania again, this time with a shorter 30-second ad that helpfully lets people know how to pronounce his name

• TX-Gov: Even Rick Perry’s going negative: three different ads go after Bill White, two trying to tie him to Barack Obama and one attacking his handling of Hurricane Rita

• VT-Gov: The RGA wades into Vermont with a negative ad against Peter Shumlin, hitting him on taxes

• CT-04: Jim Himes has not one but two new ads, stressing his independence and debt hawkishness

• KS-03: Stephene Moore’s first ad plays up her day job as a nurse

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy has two different anti-Rick Berg ads, one of which focuses on his crazy plans to drill for oil in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

• NH-02: Ann McLane Kuster (who’s now rebranded herself as “Annie Kuster”) goes negative on Charlie Bass in her first ad, framing him as failed retread

• NY-20: Scott Murphy’s newest spot focuses on his own personal record of job creation as businessman before entering Congress

• TX-17: Chet Edwards is out with a positive ad, touting his work on veteran’s issues like VA health care

• WA-02: John Koster tries to cram both a negative ad and a positive ad into a discordant 30 seconds

• WI-07: Sean Duffy plays up his lumberjack credentials, saying he’ll “take an ax” to Washington (I’ll admit, that’s kinda clever)

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 49%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 53%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 42%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 44%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 39%, Brian Sandoval (R) 52%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 39%, Tom Corbett (R) 49%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 51%, Dino Rossi (R) 46%

• AK-Sen: It seems like Lisa Murkowski’s meetings with the Libertarian Party didn’t lead to anything conclusive (while David Haase sounded amenable, the state party sounds opposed), as the signals she’s putting out now seem to point more toward a write-in campaign, if anything. According to Roll Call, she’s “strongly considering it” and will have an announcement as early as tomorrow. In case you’re wondering about TX-22-style hilarity ensuing, the Alaska Division of Elections confirms that a voter can spell her name incorrectly and still have the vote count, which makes the prospect of a write-in campaign for Linda Mukrosky somewhat more doable.

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck may have dirty boots, but he’s been busy scrubbing his website sparkly clean. The Michael Bennet camp has been observing lots of minor changes to Buck’s website to make it more mainstream-y, with softer-sounding rewrites on his issues page on Afghanistan, stem cell research, and immigration.

• DE-Sen: In another sign that the GOP primary between Mike Castle and Christine O’Donnell isn’t dialing down, both Castle and the Tea Party Express (on behalf of O’Donnell) are both extending their previous ad buys, starting today and running through next Tuesday’s election. Again, kudos to Hotline’s Jeremy Jacobs, who knows not only the Size Of The Buy but the complete breakdown (Castle, for instance, spent $75K in the Salisbury broadcast market, $27K on statewide cable, and $43K on radio, while the TPX spent $32K on cable only). He also susses out that at the current trajectory, the TPX will reach only slightly past the halfway point on its promise to spend $250K on O’Donnell, unless they want to blow a lot of money at the last minute in the pricey Philadelphia market. Meanwhile, TPM checks out how TPX’s ongoing moneybomb for O’Donnell has been going, who has raised $89K since TPX got involved. Despite O’Donnell’s frequent attacks on Castle’s use of out-of-state money to power his campaign, they highlighted their $250+ donors, and a grand total of one (of 56) was a Delawarean.

• FL-Sen, FL-25: Biden alert! With Kendrick Meek having raised some bucks at a New York appearance with Bill Clinton last night, now he turns his attention to an upcoming fundraiser with the VPOTUS. (Expect to see the usual GOP carping about “Big Hollywood,” seeing as how the fundraiser is in Hollywood. Hollywood, Florida, that is.) 25th District candidate Joe Garcia will also be a beneficiary.

• PA-Sen: The Philadelphia Inquirer has a rundown of Pat Toomey’s past history of earmarks, in of course blatant contradiction with the pledges of austerity that define his current campaign… yet another Republican example of government largesse for me, but not for thee. In his first term in PA-15, Toomey won $9 million in earmarks, including $3 million for one company (Air Products & Chemicals) that then became his single biggest campaign contributor.

• CA-Gov: Steve Poizner seems to have finally gotten the message, if a few months on the late (and tepid) side. The Republican primary loser gave his endorsement to Meg Whitman yesterday… via press release.

• MI-Gov: Local pollster Mitchell Research is out with what appears to be their first poll of the general election in the Michigan gubernatorial race; like most pollsters, they find Republican Rick Snyder with a solid lead. He’s ahead of Democrat Virg Bernero 53-26.

• OH-Gov: Bill Clinton will be in Ohio on behalf of (Hillary endorser) Ted Strickland on the 14th, also the day of his first debate with John Kasich. Clinton will stump for Strickland in both Cleveland and Columbus.

• NC-08: With the DCCC having rolled out a GQR internal poll yesterday giving Larry Kissell a decent lead (48-36) in the 8th (on top of Kissell releasing his own internal in late August with a 49-32 lead), GOP rival Harold Johnson offered up his own poll today to show he’s still in this thing. His poll from POS finds Kissell still leading, but by a more surmountable margin: 39-34.

• NV-03: Politico has details on EMILY’s List weighing into the 3rd, with a two-week TV ad blitz going after Joe Heck on women’s health issues (like his vote against mandated insurance coverage for the HPV vaccine). While the article doesn’t have a link to the ad, let alone the Size Of The Buy, it does have a very interesting look at the advanced micro-targeting they’re using, focusing on very specific TV shows as well as Hulu and Facebook users.

• OH-16: Someone get Jim Renacci a high school history textbook, stat! When asked at the candidates’ first debate what he’d like to do about civil rights, the Republican challenger to John Boccieri retreated to Rand Paul-style teabagger boilerplate, saying “We need to get our federal government out of the way,” and that it was better dealt with as “local issues.” Yeah, because local and state governments in the 50s and 60s were the paragons of tolerance and virtue during the civil rights movement, and that federal government just came in and screwed everything up…

• DGA: If you’ve been wondering what they’re up to at the DGA, they’re out with a strategy memo that outlines the next few months. Wisely, they’re most concerned with the states with the greatest population and hence greatest redistricting impact, meaning that the smaller states with Dem-held open seats (Kansas, Wyoming, etc.) have already probably been on the losing end of their triage decisions.

• TX-St. House: We at SSP have been remiss in focusing on state legislatures in the last few months (for the same reason everyone else has — it’s hard to get good intelligence on them, and there’s too dang much to focus on just at the national level alone), but Burnt Orange Report has done a bang-up job profiling the race for the Texas state House, one of the few legislatures where the Dems are on the offensive and have a slim but legitimate shot at a flip. They’ve written up summaries of the 21 hottest races, all helpfully collected in one place at the link.

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias ad rolling out his biggest gun: backing from Barack Obama

• PA-Sen: Not one but two ads from Pat Toomey ads with pretzel logic about how his time on Wall Street tells him that one shouldn’t bail out Wall Street

• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson ad hits Russ Feingold again for being a career politician

• TX-Gov: Bill White talks about border security

• VT-Gov: Dem group Green Mountain Future hits Brian Dubie on support for keeping local nuclear plant open

• FL-24: First Suzanne Kosmas ad hits Sandy Adams on teh crazy, especially the 17th Amendment

• GA-08: Jim Marshall ad tries to outflank Austin Scott on the right on the immigration issue

• MI-01: DCCC’s 2nd IE ad goes after Dan Benishek on Social Security

• NY-25: Dan Maffei’s first ad is anti-Ann Marie Buerkle, using Sarah Palin endorsement against her

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi’s second ad this week focuses on his time as a military doctor

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 38%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 60%

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 42%, Meg Whitman (R) 46%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 42%, Carly Fiorina (R) 47%

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 38%, Rand Paul (R) 51%

AR-Sen, AR-01: Bill Clinton is heading back home to Arkansas to do events for Blanche Lincoln (probably not a good use of resources) and Chad Causey (better use of resources). Incidentally, Politico notes that Causey’s primary opponent, Tim Wooldridge, still has yet to endorse him. Jeez.

DE-Sen: It’s official: The Tea Party Express has spooked Mike Castle into going up on the air before the primary, to a six-figure tune. In fact, the Hotline’s Jeremy Jacobs has an unusual level of detail on the nature of the buy, noting that “Castle has purchased $113K worth of airtime for Aug. 31 to Sept. 6 in the Salisbury, MD, media market,” as well as “$26K worth of time on cable in New Castle County and $42K on radio.”

NH-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is throwing down for a big buy against Paul Hodes. As the Hotline notes, the Chamber’s FEC filing says they’re spending $1 million, but apparently the buy is for less – a spokesbot will only say that it’s “sizable.” You can see their ad at the link.

AK-Gov: Republican Bill Walker, who held Gov. Sean Parnell to just 50% in the GOP primary while taking 33% himself, is talking to the Alaska Independence Party about filling their ballot line, since the AIP’s nominee, Don Wright, has withdrawn from the race. Remember that in 1994, Dem Tony Knowles very narrowly won the gubernatorial race because an AIP candidate split the right-wing vote, taking 13%.

FL-Gov: I’m not sure whether these are new names or not, but Alex Sink is trying to stick it to Rick Scott by putting out a list of ten Republican elected officials in central and south Florida who have endorsed her campaign. Speaking of Scott, he’s reportedly going to tap state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, an African American legislator from the Jacksonville area, to be his running mate.

NM-Gov: Local blog New Mexico FBIHOP has two new ads, one each from Republican Susana Martinez and Dem Diane Denish. NWOTSOTB in either case.

AZ-03: Dem Jon Hulburd is hitting noted d-bag Ben Quayle where it hurts: on Christian radio. Politico has the audio of the ad, which of course references TheDirty.com, but NWOTSOTB.

CA-47: Ya know, usually when we do an Obama Alert! or a Biden Alert! we’re at least a little bit excited at the prospect that the (V)POTUS is doing an event for some Dem or other. But once in a while, it just makes me nervous. This is one of those occasions. Joe Biden is headlining a fundraiser for Rep. Loretta Sanchez in DC on Sept. 15th. I’m thinking a rating change might be in order here soon.

MD-01: Dem Frank Kratovil is up with his first ad of the season. NWOTSOTB.

NJ-12: The so-called “Emergency Committee for Israel,” led by jerkass extraordinaire Michael Goldfarb and backed by lunatics like Bill Kristol and Gary Bauer, is now targeting Rep. Rush Holt with their latest bullshit. Holt, for his part, is fighting back, calling the ads “blatant lies” and trying to convince cable companies to pull them.

ND-AL: A break for Rep. Earl Pomeroy: The House’s Office of Congressional Ethics said earlier this week that they were dropping an investigation into Pomeroy’s fundraising practices.

NY-01: If anything saves Tim Bishop’s bacon, it might be the fact that the Republican primary has been a festering pit of raw sewage, with outraged attacks traded among Bishop’s GOP rivals daily – or more often. In fact, the three-way nature of the race seems to have tripled the likelihood of open warfare at any given moment – and it also makes things damn confusing at times. Anyhow, it looks like Chris Cox is hitting Randy Altschuler for failing to show up to a debate… but then the third dude, George Demos, also had a staffer show up at Altschuler’s offices and catch him on camera, right when the debate was supposed to start. Meanwhile, Cox also won a court ruling allowing him to fight Altschuler for the Conservative Party nomination, but he’ll have to run as a write-in.

NY-13: Another nasty New York primary also continues to get nastier. Local establishment fave Michael Allegretti keeps piling on attacks against Mike Grimm, the golden boy of national GOP figures like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Among other things, Allegretti is pointing out that Grimm has never voted in a single Republican primary in the 13th CD.

OH-17: Jim Traficant got beamed back on to the ballot yesterday, running as an independent. He’ll face Dem Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican Jim Graham, who has raised bupkes.

PA-15: PA2010 is reporting that Dem John Callahan is going up on the air with his first ad, perhaps as early as today. NWOTSOTB, and we also don’t have a link to the ad yet, but we’ll try to bring it to you once it’s public.

TX-23: Republican Quico Canseco is refusing to meet with the editorial board of the San Antonio Express-News, claiming they have an “inherent bias” in favor of Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. Only problem: The paper endorsed the last two Republicans who ran against Ciro.

WI-07: Republican Sean Duffy is finally scrambling on to the air with a positive bio spot. Dem Julie Lassa was up with her first ad last week, and the DCCC made its first independent expenditure (anywhere in the nation) here earlier this week. NWOTSOTB, though CQ notes the ad will air “in the Wausau-Rhinelander, Duluth-Superior, Minneapolis-St. Paul and LaCrosse-Eau Claire markets”.

WV-03: Republican Spike Maynard is out with a new ad (watch it here) in which he says he wants to “stop the Obama-Rahall-Pelosi war on coal.” That a serious mouthful, dude. (James Hell sez: “He should add Rand Paul to the list!”) Anyhow, props to the Charleston Daily Mail for these details: “The ad is the first of two ads that will be released by Maynard’s campaign as part of a $100,000 ad buy in the Beckley-Bluefield and Charleston-Huntington TV markets.”

For Nick Rahall’s part, he’s apparently going to go on the radio with biographical spots to “familiarize folks with the congressman and his record.” Uh, the guy has been in office since before I was born. The paper also reports that Rahall “is expected to run TV ads starting in late September.” Can’t say I love that pace.

Cat Fud: Think Progress has carefully stacked up an entire pallet’s worth of cat fud tins in one of those lovely supermarket displays. They’ve assembled a long list of Republican primary losers who have refused to endorse the winners. I can think of two more off the top of my head: Pamela Gorman, who didn’t want to catch Ben Quayle’s cooties in AZ-03, and of course Lisa Murkowski, who maybe kinda sorta doesn’t feel all that warmly about the guy who just called her a whore (or a john, take your pick) before the ballot counting was even over. Recall any others?

DSCC/DCCC: This is actually the same link that I got all emo about in that CA-47 item up above, but anyhow, uh, Obama Alert! The POTUS will be in NYC on September 22nd to do a joint event for the two congressional party committees.

AK-Sen: The Tea Party Express just threw down another $90K on behalf of Joe Miller (mostly on ad buys), bringing their total spent on the race to $367K. Still, as Lisa Murkowski’s fundraising reports show, they still have a pretty sizable gap to make up.

CT-Sen: Dick Blumenthal is taking the obvious tack of running against Washington, attacking both TARP (of course) and also the stimulus… but note that his critique of the stimulus is decidedly from the left. Said Blumenthal: “I believe that the stimulus was wrongly structured, because it failed to provide jobs and paychecks to ordinary Americans. It unfortunately was inadequately designed to invest in infrastructure, in roads and bridges and schools.”

LA-Sen: Chet Traylor, challenging David Vitter in the GOP primary, is apparently putting all of his meager campaign cash (some $50K) into a radio ad directly slamming the incumbent for his, uh, record when it comes to women. Traylor’s ad ain’t shy.

NH-Sen, NH-01: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is coming to New Hampshire on September 27th to do an event for Rep. Paul Hodes’s senate campaign and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter’s re-election campaign.

NV-Sen: Another day, another batshit Sharron Angle quote:

People have always said – those words, ‘too conservative,’ is fairly relative. I’m sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. And truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings, the things that made this country great, you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative.

Wait, we’ve got some more. Back in 1993, Angle (then a member of the Independent American Party) sent a letter to Harry Reid regarding the Clinton budget. Have a look-see:

I and the majority of my fellow Nevadans are sickened by the passage of the recent huge tax increase bill. With YOUR help the quality of life in America has taken another step into the pit of economic collapse. Clinton’s mother-of-all tax packages is the world’s biggest tax increase ever. It increases government spending by $300 billion, increases the national debt by $1 trillion, it is retroactive to January 1, and probably the most offensive, it schedules 80 percent of the promised spending cuts to take place after the next Presidential election. What a joke, and not a very funny one at that! …

The answer to this mess is clear. STOP FUNDING THE WASTEFUL SOCIAL AND ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS. MAKE THE DIFFICULT CHOICES THAT WILL KEEP OUR COUNTRY STRONG. THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE ELECTED TO DO!

With her mastery of ALL CAPS, Angle’d make a great comment forum troll.

WI-Sen: Wealthy teabagger and presumptive GOP senate nominee Ron Johnson is sounding a bit like Chauncey Gardner, wouldn’t you say? In denying the anthropogenic nature of global warming, Johnson says: “It’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time.” There will be growth in the spring!

CO-Gov: Really excellent and funny first ad from Dem John Hickenlooper – just go check it out. NWOTSOTB, unfortunately. Meanwhile, on the other side(s) of the aisle, CO GOP chair Dick Wadhams put out a statement claiming that Tom Tancredo told him he’d drop out of the gube race if Dan Maes did as well (presumably allowing for them to combine into a better candidate, Voltron-style). Maes told Tancredo to go dangle.

OH-Gov: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is visiting a Chrysler plant in Toledo on Monday, and afterwards he’s going to help raise some bucks for Ted Strickland.

AZ-08: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has a new ad up attacking those who have called for a boycott of Arizona on account of SB 1070. You can see the ad here. Neighboring Rep. Raul Grijalva is taking the ad personally, since he was among those calling for “economic sanctions” against his own state. NWOTSOTB, though Grijalva claims the buy “potentially total[s] $350,000.” (No idea where he got that figure from.)

Meanwhile, in the GOP primary, presumed front-runner Jonathan Paton is airing an ad attacking rival Jesse Kelly for alleged stimulus hypocrisy.

FL-25: Wow. GOP candidate David Rivera is one crazy motherf*cker. Back in 2002, while seeking election to the state House of Representatives for the first time, he ran a truck off the road because it was carrying flyers printed for his opponent, in the hopes of preventing it from reaching the post office on time. Man.

GA-12: Regina Thomas, who took 42% in her primary challenge to Rep. John Barrow earlier this year, says she wants to run as a write-in this fall. However, it seems like state law would prohibit this, though she’s claiming the relevant statute wouldn’t apply to her.

IN-09: You can’t deny that the GOP has done a good job in general with recruitment this cycle. They have a systemic problem, though, which is that their party is fundamentally insane, and so their candidates believe – and say – a lot of fundamentally insane things. Case in point: Republican Todd Young caught on camera deriding Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.” Baron Hill uses Young’s words no fewer that four times in a new attack ad that, of course, questions Young’s commitment to protecting the program. NWOTSOTB.

LA-03: It’s not really a surprise that the mouthbreathers running in the Republican primary in Louisiana’s 3rd CD are trying to out-crazy each other. (“Repeal the 17th amendment!” “Repeal the 14th amendment!”) What is a little interesting is that former state House Speaker Hunt Downer skipped the teabagger-sponsored debate where rivals Jeff Landry and Kristian Magar dueled each other to see who could shred the Constitution the fastest. Both Landry and Downer have raised real money (Magar hasn’t) and are probably the main candidates.

MA-10: In a cycle where you have a guy like Rick Scott seeking office, it’s pretty damn hard to be a contender for Douchebag GOP Candidate of the Year – but Jeffrey Perry is not giving up. Perry is best known for his failings as a police sergeant (he allowed an officer under his supervision to strip-search teenage girls – twice), so it’s not a surprise to hear that he abused his powers in yet another way. In sworn deposition testimony, a supervisor said that Perry played “the old red light game,” in which Perry purposely tripped a red light to catch drivers going through it, “creating motor vehicle violations.” Bonus bit of petard-hoisting: The testimony was given in lawsuits brought against Perry by the very girls his subordinate mistreated.

NH-02: Dem Annie Kuster is out with her second ad of the campaign, a jobs-related spot. NWOTSOTB, but it’s airing “on WMUR-Channel 9 and cable stations across New Hampshire.” (WMUR is the one NH-based broadcast channel which covers the whole state.) Primary rival Katrina Swett also has a new ad of her own… and seriously, people, what is with the references to bodily functions in political advertising? First there was Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s pooping kid, now we have an entire ad devoted to bad puns based on Swett’s last name? Ick.

NY-20: Another upstate Republican challenger speaks out in defense of the Cordoba House… only to quickly backtrack. Much like Richard Hanna, GOPer Chris Gibson put out a statement on Facebook, saying that “churches, synagogues and mosques should be treated the same.” After a CNN piece pointed out Gibson’s comment, his campaign deleted the post, and then put out a statement saying he opposes the cultural center. God, this whole non-controversy is really sickening to me, and the political spinelessness it’s led to is just revolting.

NY-24: Rep. Mike Arcuri just filed 7,300 signatures for his new “NY Moderates” ballot line (he needed 3,500). As we noted when we first mentioned this story, Arcuri doesn’t have a second ballot line to run on (he was denied the endorsement of both the Working Families Party and the Independence Party), so this is his attempt to make up ground.

OH-16: So of course GOPer Jim Renacci has come out against the Cordoba House (which wags have amusingly dubbed the “Burlington Coat Factory Mosque”). Frosh Rep. John Boccieri had a great response:

[If Renacci] wants to run for the zoning commission in New York City, I’ll be more than happy to pay his filing fee.

AND I WILL FUCKING RUN AGAINST HIM! If only it were actually an elected position. (Eh, it’s probably a good thing that it isn’t.)

SC-02: It’s Miller Time – finally. Dem Rob Miller, who has a huge pile of cash on hand, is going up with his first ad of the election campaign. The spot (which you can view here) features Miller’s fellow Marines describing their commander’s leadership during the battle for control of Fallujah. NWOTSOTB. Rep. Joe Wilson also has an ad up, apparently only on cable.

TN-06: Lou Ann Zelenik, who trailed Diane Black by just a tiny margin in the GOP primary on election night, has more or less conceded. Interestingly, Black’s husband had filed a lawsuit against Zelenik over a TV ad late in the campaign, and Zelenik’s statement basically asks Black to drop the case. Though Zelenik says she “congratulates” Black on her victory, I wonder if she’s holding out a formal endorsement in exchange for a dismissal.

VA-05: Earlier in the digest, I was bemoaning the lack of political courage we’ve mostly seen in the Cordoba House “debate.” Well, I’m not sure if there’s a more courageous dude in the House these days than Tom Perriello, who, among other things, unflinchingly keeps attending town halls, no matter how hostile the attendees are. Facing yet another tough crowd, here’s how he rose to the occasion:

“Let me start by saying, I cannot imagine wanting the government to be able to tell me and my faith community where we can build a house of worship on private property,” Perriello said. “… I have opinions on whether it’s a good idea or not, but … compared to the importance of solving the economy right now… this is a distraction of what our biggest priorities should be.”

The crowd overwhelmingly applauded his answer.

A lot of Democrats could learn a lot from this man.