Tag: Christine O’Donnell

AK-Sen: Joe Miller sure sounds like he’s measuring the drapes here, doesn’t he, with his talk about how much he’d “love” to serve on the Judiciary and Armed Services committees? Donate to Scott McAdams and help make sure we force Joe Miller to make a humiliating, droopy-dog run back to Neiman Marcus to return those curtains.

DE-Sen: Oh, I’m afraid the Tea Party Express will be QUITE operational by the time Mike Castle arrives! The NYT reports that the TPX is going up with five different ads (two TV and three radio) on behalf of Christine O’Donnell, and they have a rough cut of one of the TV spots (check the link). As for how big a buy we’re talking, the TPX just filed its first independent expenditure report, for $46K. Their usual practice is to dribble things out in smallish reports one at a time – but don’t worry, it’ll snowball.

FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is spending over half a million on a new TV buy. We don’t know what ads he’ll be running, but the St. Petersburg Times has some pretty good info on where they’ll appear (notably in Dem-leaning markets). Check the link for full details.

WI-Sen: GOPer Ron Johnson raised $1.2 million between July 1 and Aug. 25th, while Sen. Russ Feingold took in $920K. Johnson also loaned his campaign another $2.9 million out of his own coffers (which of course have been greatly bolstered over the years by government loans and grants to his plastics company). RonJo has been outspending Feingold, though, and has $1.6 mil in the bank compared to the senator’s $3.1 mil.

FL-Gov: Alex Sink has a new ad, touching on the oil spill and calling for a diversification of Florida’s economy. NWOTSOTB, but the spot is apparently airing in Florida’s panhandle.

GA-Gov: Nathan Deal just performed a classic document dump – and not one that’s likely to help him. He made public 28 years of his personal income tax returns, but none of this has anything to do with his auto salvage business which was the focus of a probe by the Office of Congressional Ethics.

CO-04: The House Race Hotline reports that the NRCC has reserved over $1 million in air time in the 4th CD. Let’s see if they actually come through with all that scrilla, though.

FL-08: Put away your can openers – no cat fud here. All six of Dan Webster’s Republican primary rivals have endorsed him, including teabagger Patricia Sullivan. However, Peg Dunmire is still in the race, on the actual Tea Party line.

IN-02: Joe Donnelly has a new spot out (NWOTSOTB), hitting Jackie Walorski for her support of a 23% national sales tax (as well as her desire to eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction). This issue is one that helped sink GOPer Tim Burns in the PA-12 special, so it has potency. I know that sometimes when Dems sink their teeth into this one, weenie liberals like to whine that what Republicans really mean is that they want to replace other taxes with this one. You know what? Let them make that argument. You don’t need to make it for them.

IN-09: Republican Todd Young has a new ad out, featuring footage of Baron Hill imperiously telling a journalism student that she couldn’t videotape a town hall. NWOTSOTB, but CQ notes that the spot is “currently airing only in the Louisville, Ky. market.”

LA-02: With Al Franken acting, you know, senatorial, it looks like Joe Cao has decided to take up the mantle of Stuart Smalley. Sayeth Cao: “I love the president, and I believe he truly likes me.” What a wiener.

MA-09: Labor activist Mac D’Alessandro scored the endorsement of NARAL in his primary bid against anti-choice incumbent Rep. Stephen Lynch. D’Alessandro raised $178K in the pre-primary period (7/1-8/25) and had $158K on hand for the stretch run. Lynch took in only $66K but had a million bucks in the bank.

NJ-03: Dem Rep. John Adler received the endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which did not back anyone in the race two years ago. They also say they’ll provide financial help. (The Courier Post notes that the district includes Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.) Adler’s also got a second negative spot out, hitting Republican Jon Runyan for his minimalist voting record. NWOTSOTB, and get a load of this stonewalling: “Campaign manager Geoff Mackler would not disclose the size of the buy, where the ads were committed to air or for how long they would air, saying he does not discuss strategy with reporters.” But I don’t think that should be the end of the story for a journalist. Hell, one of my jobs on a campaign I worked on in the 90s was to track down enemy ad buys. Reporters can do it, too. (And BTW, if you haven’t seen Adler’s first ad, I highly recommend you do so.)

NH-01, NH-02: John DiStaso has an asburd wealth of updates on New Hampshire’s two House races, including word that Charlie Bass is set to release his first ad (watch it here), a $40,000 buy on New Hampshire TV. There’s also news of a GOP primary poll in the 1st CD, taken by Cross Target on behalf of the right-wing group Americans for Prosperity. Sean Mahoney is at 33, Frank Guinta at 26, Rich Ashooh at 10, and Bob Bestani at 5. Mahoney’s been out with a positive/negative ad comparing his record to Guinta’s, making it clear that he thinks this poll is right about who the real contenders are. Guinta apparently has a new response ad coming this week.

NY-24: Mike Arcuri is up with a new ad, a positive bio spot. NWOTSOTB, though he has two slightly different versions, one of which is airing in Utica, the other Syracuse (see both here).

PA-07: A nice break for Dem Bryan Lentz: After a series of adverse rulings, Pat Meehan’s campaign withdrew its legal challenge to the candidacy of Jim Schneller, a teabagger who petitioned his way on to the ballot… thanks to a lot of help from Lentz supporters.

PA-10: Interesting: Back when he was a US Attorney, Tom Marino served as a reference for a casino application for a man his office was investigating. In fact, the news was so explosive it led to the DOJ transferring the investigation to another office – and to Marino’s resignation as USA. Back in May, though, Marino told a radio host that the DOJ had given him written permission to provide that reference, but he hasn’t produced it (yet). Dem Chris Carney is hitting him for this, asking, “Where’s the letter?”

WI-08: Steve Kagen is up with his first ad, and it’s a good one. Among other things, he touts the fact that he has refused congressional health coverage until everyone in America has health insurance. He also refers to himself as “Dr. Steve Kagen,” which is probably a helpful alternative to “Congressman” these days.

Enthusiasm Gap: Tom Jensen takes a look at a painful “what if” – as in, what if there were no enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans this year? Among other things, he thinks Alex Sink would have a double-digit lead and that Elaine Marshall would be running slightly ahead of Richard Burr. But check out his full chart.

Dumping Ground: We’ve brought up some serious methodological issues in the past that we have with those zone-flooding American Action Fund House race polls, so it’s best if we just confine the following to their own quarantine zone. (Those issues, by the way, included extremely aged samples and the fact that the GOP pollster, Ayres McHenry, asked respondents about their opinion of the healthcare bill right before diving into the topline match-ups.)

AZ-01: Ann Kirkpatrick (D-inc) 41%, Paul Gosar (R) 47%

AZ-05: Harry Mitchell (D-inc) 44%, David Schweikert (R) 50%

AZ-08: Gabby Giffords (D-inc) 46%, Jesse Kelly (R) 46%

CA-11: Jerry McNerney (D-inc) 44%, David Harmer (R) 45%

CA-47: Loretta Sanchez (D-inc) 45%, Van Tran (R) 43%

CO-03: John Salazar (D-inc) 43%, Scott Tipton 51%

CO-04: Betsy Markey (D-inc) 39%, Cory Gardner (R) 50%

NM-01: Martin Heinrich (D-inc) 49%, Jon Barela (R) 41%

NV-03: Dina Titus (D-inc) 45%, Joe Heck (R) 48%

OR-05: Kurt Schrader (D-inc) 44%, Scott Bruun (R) 36%

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell’s radio interview on a local station yesterday should answer any doubts about whether or not the new Tea Party fave is ready for prime time (the answer: she isn’t). Mostly it’s notable for how testy it got, but also for O’Donnell pushing back on rumors that Mike Castle is gay – rumors that apparently no one has ever heard until O’Donnell brought them up in the first place. At any rate, Castle isn’t content to just stand back and let her dig her own hole: not wanting to fall into the Lisa Murkowski trap, his camp confirms that his last-minute pre-primary ad buy will be negative against O’Donnell. He also said he won’t be debating with (or otherwise even talking to) O’Donnell… ordinarily a safe decision for a quasi-incumbent, but who knows, maybe a mid-debate implosion by O’Donnell would be all Castle needs to put this one away.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist’s out with an internal today from Fredrick Polls, and while it gives him the lead, it’s a small enough edge compared with his rather robust leads pre-Dem primary that it shouldn’t fill anybody with much confidence about where his trendlines are headed. He leads Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meek 35-34-17. That comes against the backdrop of getting squeezed in both directions, with the NRSC “pledging” (I don’t know what that means, but it’s not actual reservations) $2.5 million for the race, and Meek airing a new radio ad going after Crist’s GOP past, airing Crist’s own words, including calling himself “pro-life” and a “Jeb Bush Republican.” At least Crist is getting some backing from one rather unusual corner: state Sen. Al Lawson, who just lost the FL-02 primary to Allen Boyd, just endorsed Crist.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Maybe I should’ve been patient yesterday instead of complaining about Quinnipiac’s lack of New York primary numbers, because they rolled them out today. At any rate, they find, as I’d suspected, things tightening in the GOP gubernatorial primary: Rick Lazio leads Carl Paladino 47-35. (“Tightening” may not be the right word, as this is their first look at the NY-Gov primary, but it’s what other pollsters have seen.) In the Senate special election, Joe DioGuardi leads David Malpass and Bruce Blakeman, 28-12-10. And in another sign that Democratic voters are only dimly aware that there’s an election this year, fully 77% of Dem voters have no idea who they’ll vote for in the Attorney General’s race. Kathleen Rice leads Eric Schneiderman by a margin of 4-3. (That’s not a typo.)

• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson has been outspending Russ Feingold 3-to-1 on the TV airwaves, which goes a long way to explaining why this is a tied race, but that may not matter much if he keeps stepping on his own free-market-fundamentalist message. Johnson found himself, in a recent radio interview, tying himself into knots by praising Communist China for having a more favorable investment climate for business than America, in part because of its “certainty.” So, let’s see… to stop America’s descent into socialism, we need to become more like the Communists, because the path to freedom is actually through the kind of “certainty” that comes from a command economy? Finally, this is probably too little too late, but Terence Wall, the guy who dropped out in a huff from the GOP field after the state convention, is now publicly touting the idea of a write-in campaign in the upcoming primary. I don’t know if he actually thinks he has a shot against a stumbling Johnson or is just engaged in some last-minute sour grapes.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin continues to rake in the bucks in the West Virginia Senate special election. (Facing self-funding John Raese, the money issue is the main threat to Manchin… well, that, and the perilously low approvals for national Dems here.) He reported raising $393K last week, bringing his total to $1.5 million. Raese reported $717K, but $520K of that was self-funded, with only $22K from donors.

• AZ-Gov: This may not get much press in the wake of her amazing debate performance, but Jan Brewer is also engaged in an interesting strategy of retaliation, pulling her campaign ads off the local CBS affiliate, whose news department dared to question Brewer’s relationship with a key advisor who’s also connected to private prison company Corrections Corporation of America, which stands to make significant money incarcerating illegal immigrants rounded up under Arizona’s SB 1070. That’s not the same station whose reporter aggressively questioned Brewer post-debate last night… my advice to Brewer would be to go ahead and stop advertising on all local network affiliates as punishment. That’ll show ’em!

• CO-Gov: This may be kind of repetitive, but Dan Maes again turned down calls to drop out of the race today, after former state Senate president John Andrews withdrew his endorsement and told him to get out. Andrews wasn’t alone in the endorsement rescinding department: it looks like the whole ooops-no-I-actually-wasn’t-an-undercover-cop-in-Kansas thing was the fridge too far for former GOP Senator Hank Brown, who is now saying he’s “looking around” for a new candidate. Meanwhile, on the touchy subject of water law, maybe Maes should take a page from Scott McInnis and just plagiarize all his work on the subject, as at least that way he wouldn’t appear completely ignorant of the law. He just introduced an entirely new water law doctrine with his proclamation that “If it starts in Colorado, it’s our water” – ignoring the 7-state compact on use of Colorado River water and the whole concept of prior appropriation. As much as I’d like to see Jan Brewer using the Arizona National Guard to invade Colorado and reclaim its water, I don’t think the courts would let it get to that point.  

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink is expanding her current TV advertising buy, throwing another $600K into keeping her introductory spot on the air in a number of non-Miami markets. Oddly, Rick Scott has been taking the week off since the primary, at least from advertising.

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber has finally decided to go negative on Chris Dudley… it might be too little too late, but at least he’s recognizing what he needs to do (as recently as last week, he negged a DGA ad that went negative on Dudley… and this is the first time he’s aired a negative ad since 1994). The ad attacks Dudley for having “never managed anything” and never “shown much interest in Oregon” before (as seen in his decision to live in income-tax-free Washington while playing for the Trail Blazers).

• CT-04: Republican state Sen. Dan Debicella offers up a recent internal poll, via National Research. It has him within 4 points of Rep. Jim Himes, trailing 42-38 (the same 4-point margin seen in the recent round of AAF polling).

• FL-25: Here’s an offensive opportunity for House Dems that nobody should be writing off. Joe Garcia posted a lead in a recent internal poll (taken in wake of the primary, and revelations about various unsavory moments from Republican opponent David Rivera’s past) for his campaign. Garcia leads by 4 points in the poll from Benenson, 40-36 (with 5 for the Tea Party candidate and 1 for the Whig).

• MO-03: Republican challenger Ed Martin got the endorsement of the Missouri Farm Bureau, a change from their backing of Russ Carnahan in previous cycles. Carnahan didn’t show up for his meeting with the Farm Bureau, although it’s unclear whether that’s why he didn’t get endorsed or if he felt the endorsement was already lost.

• NH-02: EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL are all coordinating their efforts in favor of Ann McLane Kuster ahead of the Dem primary in the 2nd, where’s she’s running against Katrina Swett, who has supported parental notification laws. In addition to a joint rally, they’re sending out a joint mailer together.

• PA-12: The NRCC is out with a poll, via POS, of the 12th, giving Tim Burns a small lead in his rematch against special election victor Mark Critz. Burns leads 48-43, quite the reversal from Critz’s 53-45 win in May. (Bear in mind that POS’s final released poll before that election gave Burns a 2-point lead.)

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 44%, Joe Miller (R) 50%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 45%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 46%, Dino Rossi (R) 48%

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.

• DE-Sen: Wow, the mounting establishment/teabagger war in the GOP Delaware primary is actually getting physically violent. A Christine O’Donnell supporter got into a scuffle with a tracker from the state GOP party who was videotaping O’Donnell at a candidate forum

• IL-Sen: The Constitution Party is still trying to get back on the ballot in Illinois, maybe most notably in the close Senate race where Randy Stufflebeam would be their candidate. They’re going to court to get back on the ballot after the state Board of Elections kicked them off for not having enough valid signatures.

• NV-Sen: School’s out for the summer/ school’s out… forever! The latest daily nugget of crazy from Sharron Angle is her recounting last week of her struggles back in the state legislature in 2003 against a supplemental budget bill that would have paid for emergency funding to make sure that the state’s public schools could actually open at the start of the school year. Meanwhile, Harry Reid is continuing his apparently successful advertising strategy of letting Angle say the usual things she says, and just turning them straight into his own ads against her, as with his newest ad launched this week.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Despite the utter lack of drama in the big races in the Empire State, Quinnipiac just keeps polling it. (I guess that’s OK; we’ll take good news where we can get it.) In the governor’s race, Andrew Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25 and Carl Paladino 60-23. (Unfortunately, there aren’t GOP primary numbers, as it’d be interesting to see, as other pollsters have seen, whether Paladino might actually be able to overtake the insufficiently-crazy Lazio for the nomination.) In the Senate race, Kirsten Gillibrand beats Bruce Blakeman 44-26, David Malpass 45-24, and Joe DioGuardi 43-28.

• CO-Gov: If either Dan Maes or Tom Tancredo is going to drop out and stop their tragic pas de deux, it’d better be soon. Friday, it turns out, is the last day before the November ballot printing is finalized. Meanwhile, here’s the kind of headline you don’t want to see when you’re already fighting public perception that you’re a bit of a paranoid wackjob who thinks that bicycles are a United Nations plot:

GOP gubernatorial candidate Maes backs off claims of undercover police work

• KY-Gov: The establishment slate for Kentucky Republicans for the off-year gubernatorial race (only a year from now!) seems like it’s officially coalesced. David Williams, the state Senate president, will run for Governor, and Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer (who’d been a rumored governor candidate himself) will run for Lt. Governor. They’ll still have to get past businessman Phil Moffet, running under the teabagger banner, in the GOP primary before facing Steve Beshear, who’ll be seeking re-election. A recent poll had Farmer and Beshear neck-and-neck, but there hasn’t been any Beshear/Williams polling yet.

• MA-09: Mac d’Allesandro’s against Stephen Lynch in the Dem primary in the 9th is raising some decent cash in the late innings. Since July 1st, the SEIU, MoveOn, and Act Blue have raised $178K for d’Allesandro.

• PA-06: DNC DGA head Tim Kaine heads to Philly to fundraise on Manan Trivedi’s behalf, as part of a tour on behalf of Asian-American Dem candidates. Trivedi’s also had help on the stump this week from Bob Casey and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

• RGA: Good thing the RGA already has an unprecedented amount of money squirreled away… because they’re going to have to give a decent chunk of it to Chris Bell, the ex-Rep. who was the 2006 Dem gubernatorial candidate in Texas. A Travis County judge ordered the RGA to pay Chris Bell a cosmic $2 million because of campaign finance violations in the ’06 election (where the RGA gave an undisclosed $1 million to Texans for Rick Perry).

• WATN?: This isn’t really FL-Sen anymore, but Jeff Greene is insisting on staying in the limelight even as his vomit-covered yacht sails into the sunset. In fact, the phrase “vomit-covered yacht” is really what’s at stake here; he says he’s following through with a libel suit against the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald over their reporting of his many foibles. Good luck proving actual malice!

• Maps: They’re rapidly scrolling their way down the front page, so if you haven’t had a chance to check out jeffmd’s maps of Alaskan elections past, do it now. Begich/Stevens, Murkowski/Miller, and Young/Parnell all played out in similar ways, geographically, so if you’re wondering what Scott McAdam’s path to a win might look like, check it out.

• Ads:

• NH-Sen: We told you a few days ago that Ovide Lamontagne was finally going on the air; his first ad is a talk-to-the-camera introductory spot.

• PA-Sen: The DSCC is out with another ad, attacking Pat Toomey on the derivatives trading issue.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s new ad is testimonials from a variety of (as C. Montgomery Burns would say) Joe Lunchpails and Sally Housecoats.

• IN-02: Jackie Walorski is out with an introductory bio spot.

• NE-02: Tom White is also out with an introductory bio spot, carefully steering clear of anything Democratic-sounding.

• NJ-03: John Adler may actually win the advertising day today, with a negative spot that slams Jon Runyan for his tax break for his “farm” (a.k.a. McMansion plus one donkey).

• NV-03: Dina Titus hits Joe Heck for comments that “it’s not Congress’s role to create jobs.” (This comes on top of the AFSCME’s huge buy of anti-Heck ads.)

• Rasmussen:

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon (D) 33%, David Vitter (R-inc) 54%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 39%, John Kasich (R) 47%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 37%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%  

Oh please, oh please:

The Tea Party Express, which spent some $600,000 on Alaska Republican Joe Miller’s primary challenge to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), says it’s preparing to do the same on behalf of Christine O’Donnell (R) in Delaware. […]

Tea Party Express spokesman Levi Russell said Monday that his organization is already cutting TV and radio ads in Delaware and expects to be on the air by the end of the week. Russell said he hopes to match the support the group offered in GOP primaries in Utah, Nevada and Alaska this year.  

“All of our spending is dependent on the enthusiasm of the Tea Party Express members,” Russell said. “It’s up to that race and that candidate to capture their imagination.”

As to whether O’Donnell has done that to this point, Russell admits “not quite yet.” But he expressed confidence that the money will flood in over the coming days.  

“I’m sure we’ll be spending six figures in Delaware,” Russell predicted.

After powering Mike Lee, Sharron Angle and Joe Miller to stunning primary victories (or, in Miller’s case, a still-unconfirmed kill), the weight of the Tea Party Express’ independent expenditures cannot be ignored.

Establishment Republicans in Delaware appear to be livid at this news (and O’Donnell’s candidacy in general), with state GOP chair Tom Ross call O’Donnell “a perennial candidate who lacks the standing in Delaware to get elected to anything.” The Politico recently profiled O’Donnell’s long-shot bid, and she had some choice quotes on Castle, describing him as “not a church-friendly candidate” and “the most liberal Republican in the House” who could be toppled in a closed GOP primary. (Less savory was O’Donnell’s campaign manager spouting off about Castle being a “70-year-old bad heart Republican.”)

Meanwhile, the rest of us are hiding quietly behind the washing machine.

• AZ-Sen: Bad news! For John McCain! J.D. Hayworth still hasn’t conceded. He’s still waiting for those late-breaking absentee ballots to help him make up that oh-so-narrow 56-32 margin, apparently.

• CT-Sen: This doesn’t seem like it’ll end well for Linda McMahon, whose stance on WWE has been that it’s harmless soap opera. Harley McNaught, the father of recently-deceased pro wrestler Lance Cade (who died of heart failure at age 29 in the wake of painkiller addiction), is going on the offense against McMahon in response to her comments that she “might have met him once.” McNaught said that he’d been to several functions with his son where they’d met McMahon and she’d known him by name, and also ripped the company’s “Wellness Program,” which he says was more about PR than about helping employees.

• DE-Sen: There’s no third-party fallback option for teabagger Christine O’Donnell, challenging Mike Castle for the GOP Senate nomination. The Constitution Party had nominated O’Donnell for its ballot line, but didn’t even receive a ballot line after its membership dwindled to 287(!) members. (That’s less than something called the “Blue Enigma Party,” which still qualified for the ballot.) O’Donnell still can mount a write-in campaign after losing the primary to Castle (which she already did in the 2006 race after losing the primary to Jan Ting).

• KY-Sen: Our James L. summed this up pithily: “Douche Day Afternoon.” Losing Dem Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo’s latest statement of semi-support for Jack Conway was that Conway was “not the best” but that “he’s a heck of a lot better” than Rand Paul, whose “scare[s him].”

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): The newest Franklin & Marshall poll is another one of their choose-your-own-adventure specials, which shows the dimensions of the enthusiasm gap the Dems are facing, especially in the Keystone State. In the Senate race, Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak 40-31 among likely voters, but only 31-28 among registered voters, which isn’t much different from where we left off with their last general election poll in May. And in the gubernatorial race, it’s similar, with Tom Corbett leading Dan Onorato 38-27 among LVs, but only 29-28 (probably the best showing I’ve seen in a head-to-head in this race) among RVs.

• FL-Gov: With Hayworth and Murkowski already mentioned today, it’s just turning out to be the big day of GOP disunity and sour grapes all around. While figures like Jeb Bush and state party chair John Thrasher have gotten behind Rick Scott without any major hedging, Bill McCollum is continuing his sulk, flat-out not endorsing Scott.  

• KY-Gov: The aptly-named Republican Agriculture Commissioner, Richie Farmer (I guess “Rich Farmer” was a little too overly descriptive), is still mulling over a run for Governor in next year’s off-year election against Dem incumbent Steve Beshear, where early polling has shown he’d be competitive. He’s also been linked to a possible Lt. Gov. bid, as running mate to state Senate president David Williams.

• SC-Gov: In another sign that a chunk of the local political establishment prefers Dem Vincent Sheheen to GOPer Nikki Haley, Sheheen just got the endorsement of 30 mayors around South Carolina. Most of these mayors are in nonpartisan elected positions, although one, Greer mayor Rick Danner, said he was a two-time voter for Mark Sanford.

• VT-Gov: Faced with the unenviable task of certifying her own gubernatorial primary loss, SoS Deb Markowitz says that the final certification of the super-close race in Vermont will be done on next Tuesday. All five candidates appeared amicably at a unity rally yesterday, but only shortly after Doug Racine’s campaign manager called Peter Shumlin’s declaration of victory premature, saying to wait until Tuesday. Shumlin currently leads Racine by 192 votes.

• AL-02: Rep. Bobby Bright caused some hyperventilating today when it came out that, in meeting with constituents, had punted on the issue of whether or not he’d be voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker next session. He did so by listing a number of reasons why that might not be an issue, including the decidedly morbid “heck, she might even get sick and die.”

• CA-18: I don’t know who looks worse in this situation, Mike Berryhill (the Republican launching an uphill, but generally credible, challenge to Rep. Dennis Cardoza), or his former campaign consultant John Villareal. Apparently they parted ways in unpleasant fashion, as Villareal blasted Berryhill’s campaign as a lost cause… but did it in the form of a somewhat unhinged-sounding, 25-minute long rant posted to YouTube.

• OH-17: Jim Traficant may still yet be able to beam himself back into Congress. He just got an extension from Jennifer Brunner, giving him more time to prove that he did collect enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot as an independent. He previously got bounced for the ballot for not having enough valid signatures.

• OR-05: Hot on the heels of a too-good-to-be-true internal from Scott Bruun giving him a small lead a few days ago, Rep. Kurt Schrader hauled out his own internal from Lake Research giving him a pretty comfortable lead: 46-35. The poll’s from late July, though, so one wonders if there’s a more recent one that he’s not sharing.

• PA-08: The ubiquitous POS is out with an internal poll on behalf of ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, giving him a 7-point lead (48-41) over Democratic sophomore Rep. Patrick Murphy. Murphy hasn’t been one of the Dems’ top worries in Pennsylvania, but as we’ve seen in recent weeks, the Dem brand in Pennsylvania seems to be waning particularly quickly.

• VA-05: Tom Perriello, in an interesting bit of distancing from national Dems that’s ambiguous enough that it works from both right and left, called for the replacement of Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner, at a local town hall. He didn’t say who his preferred replacement would be (Robert Reich, anyone?).

• Ads: Lead-off ad of the day is from Alan Grayson in FL-08; the Hotline actually says it makes Grayson look “angelic” and they refer to it as the most positive ad they’ve seen so far from anyone. That Grayson… always zigging when everyone else is zagging. Other Dems out with their first TV ads for themselves today include Kathy Dahlkemper in PA-03, Julie Lassa in WI-07, and Tom Hayhurst in IN-03.

All the GOP ads today are anti-Dem ads being run by third party groups: America’s Future Fund running against Bruce Braley in IA-01, the Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm against Mike McIntyre in NC-07, and Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity running against Gabrielle Giffords in AZ-08 and a weird two-fer (aimed at the Phoenix market, I guess) attacking both Anne Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell in AZ-01 and AZ-05. NWOTSOTB, on any of the ads.

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 40%, Meg Whitman (R) 48%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 40%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%

• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 60%

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

• CO-Sen: On the Democratic side, we have a heart-warming love-in between Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff, bitter rivals until about 48 hours ago. Romanoff said supporting Bennet was “an easy call,” while Bennet praised Romanoff for his stances on the issues, especially campaign finance reform. On the Republican side, well, there are no plans for a comparable unity event between Ken Buck and Jane Norton. Buck did raise some eyebrows with news that he went the full-on Paulist last year, though, lauding the gold standard and saying the main thing that would keep us from doing it is because there isn’t enough gold available to do so (well, maybe we could stimulate the economy by hiring hundreds of thousands of grizzled prospectors to go out and find us that gold…).

• DE-Sen: Is this a sign of unprecedented confidence in Delaware, as the GOP is spinning it… or worries that they need to bolster their preferred candidate Mike Castle, over unelectable-in-November Christine O’Donnell in the primary? The national party is sending three full-time staffers to work on the ground game in Delaware, which is three more than they do most cycles.

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek is out with an internal poll from Diane Feldman, giving him an 8-point lead over Jeff Greene, 38-30, after a week in which Greene’s yacht (and the vomit that it was caked with) seemed to be the main story figuring in the press about the Senate race this week. (Perhaps confirming these numbers: Greene is now engaged in the last refuge of a guy about to lose a race, which is to start threatening libel suits, here against the St. Petersburg Times for its look into his real estate transactions.) Meek’s also bolstered by two new anti-Greene IEs for TV spots, for a total of $260K from “Florida Is Not For Sale.”

• KY-Sen: The GOP seems to have let Rand Paul off his leash a little in the last few weeks, but between his Fancy Farm performance and some new items, they may be rethinking a return to his undisclosed location. Paul just said that eastern Kentucky’s drug problem (where meth runs rampant and marijuana growth is common) is not “a pressing issue,” and he topped that off by ditching local affiliate Fox reporters after taping a national Fox TV appearance in Lexington, in their own studio.

• PA-Sen: If you’ve been wondering where the DSCC was going to launch its first IEs of this year, Pennsylvania seems like it’s a good place to start. They’re spending $452K on running an ad highlighting Pat Toomey’s Wall Street background (good for 300 GRPs in Philly, 400 in Pittsburgh, and more in selected smaller markets). This will let Joe Sestak focus on marshalling his resources, as is his wont, while keeping the pressure on Toomey, who’s been advertising continually.

• SC-Sen: In case you were wondering if South Carolina could get any more farcical, Dem nominee Alvin Greene just finally got indicited on his pending obscenity charges for showing porn to a college student in a computer lab. I have no idea what the trial’s timetable is, but maybe Dems could actually get a new candidate in there if he’s convicted before November?

• CO-Gov: Ruh roh. The Colorado rumor mill has Dan Maes, the guy who swore he wouldn’t drop out, meeting with the state GOP about… dropping out. They’ve already been conspicuous in their silent non-support of Maes, who won Tuesday’s primary. Despite the meeting, though, Colorado Pols still seems to think that the posture from the Maes camp is one of a man who isn’t dropping out, and he’s meeting with them to try and get some additional support. At any rate, something would need to happen by Sep. 3, at which point the November ballot is finalized.

• MD-Gov: Fundraising numbers are out in Maryland. Republican Bob Ehrlich has almost kept pace with Dem incumbent Martin O’Malley over the course of this year, with Ehrlich raising $3.2 million and O’Malley raising $3.3 million in ’10 (and O’Malley couldn’t fundraise until April, because of the legislative session). O’Malley’s been building up funds for a longer time, though; O’Malley’s CoH advantage is 3:1, with $6.7 million banked compared to $2 million for Ehrlich.

• WY-Gov: Hmmm, this should turn the dominant media narrative about next week’s Wyoming GOP gubernatorial primary into “OMG! Palin/Bush proxy battle!” The Bush in question, though is George H.W. (41) Bush, who extended an endorsement today to Colin Simpson, the state House speaker and son of his long-time pal ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.

• MI-01: The final count’s over in MI-01, and it’s Dan Benishek by a whopping 15 votes, over state Sen. Jason Allen. The ball’s in Allen’s court now; he has until Sunday morning to file a written request for a recount that would need to allege mistakes or fraud.

• TX-17: Here’s an interesting stance from Republican challenger Bill Flores, especially considering this is a red enough district that it may be one of the few places in the country where John Boehner has positive ratings. But in response to questions whether he’d support His Orangeness for Speaker if the GOP had a majority in the House, Flores ducked the question, saying he’d cross that bridge if he got elected.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 43%, Dan Maes (R) 31%, Tom Tancredo (I) 18%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 47%, Linda McMahon (R) 40%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 42%, Nathan Deal (R) 51%

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 45%, Tom Emmer (R) 36%, Tom Horner (I) 10%

• AK-Sen: Wow, now we’ve got Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin working in harmony in at least one place: Huckabee just endorsed Joe Miller, the little-known right-wing challenger to Lisa Murkowski in the GOP Senate primary.

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth is out with a new ad in a last-ditch effort to make up some ground on John McCain, and he’s relying on time-honored tradition of pulling a few of his opponents’ words out of context. In this case, he swipes the passage “I chose lying” from McCain’s 2002 audiobook, although in the book it was talking about the South Carolina confederate flag controversy, and Hayworth just slaps it down in an ad about immigration. The ad buy is for $365K.

• CA-Sen: This isn’t a surprise in terms of which of the candidates they endorsed, but it might be interesting that the Chamber of Commerce decided there was enough of a shot in this race for them to weigh in. They’re backing Carly Fiorina in the California Senate race, based on, y’know, her long track record of success at Hewlett-Packard.

• FL-Sen: A Mason-Dixon poll released late last week gives some hope to Kendrick Meek, who other polls had shown had fallen behind billionaire weirdo Jeff Greene in the Democratic primary. Their poll (conducted for “Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association”) gives Meek a 33-29 lead. Greene’s main problem seems to be that the press keeps on doing stories about, well, all those things that Greene has been doing for the last couple decades; yesterday the St. Petersburg Times looked at Greene’s involvement in a California condo deal that belies his claims that he was a high-level investor and not involved in any of the myriad ground-level predatory lending transactions that, when all added together, helped create the real estate asset bubble. Greene’s defense? “I don’t follow what happens after the sale…. All I care about is that I get my money.” Finally, whether Greene or Meek wins the primary, one more problem they’ll have to deal with is the movement of prominent Democratic money to indie Charlie Crist. Pollster Mark Penn hasn’t been anyone’s image of a reliable or useful Democrat lately, but he is at least a prominent Democrat; he’s now raising for Crist.

• KY-Sen: Will “I worship you, Aqua Buddha” become the newest political catchphrase that sweeps the nation? GQ has a hilarious (if somewhat disturbing) look back at Rand Paul’s hellraising days at an undergrad at Baylor (a school from which, by the way, he doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree). It’ll be interesting to see if this actually creates any blowback for Paul.

• WA-Sen: Interesting: another endorsement for the once-moderate Dino Rossi from another celebrity on the right in the Senate. Unlike Jim DeMint (whose backing he got last week), who has something of a fundraising network that comes with his endorsement, Tom Coburn (who just announced his support) just has cachet with right-wing fanboys. More evidence that Rossi, while publicly pretending to be focused only on the general, is scrambling to shore up his right flank before the Top 2 primary where he faces competition from various teabaggers, most significantly Sarah Palin-backed Clint Didier.

• FL-Gov: That Mason-Dixon poll had a Republican gubernatorial portion as well, and they do provide some confirmation for the sense that Bill McCollum is worming his way back into this thing, with not much time left on the clock. Rick Scott leads McCollum only 37-31. Worth noting: it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with people taking notice of Scott’s legacy of Medicare fraud at Columbia/HCA, but rather, McCollum consolidating the Republican Hispanic vote (where he leads 3-1), probably thanks to Scott’s demagoguery on the immigration issue and McCollum’s more even-handed stance. Meanwhile, not that Bud Chiles was gaining much momentum, but explaining this could be a big distraction: his former leadership of innocuous-sounding charity HOPE Worldwide, which it turns out is an arm of the cultish International Churches of Christ.

• IA-Gov: Social conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats ran a surprisingly close race against Terry Branstad in the GOP gubernatorial primary and then threatened an independent run when he didn’t receive the proper amount of fealty post-primary. However, he announced last Friday that he won’t attempt a third-party bid (which would probably give the advantage in the race back to Chet Culver). He’ll focus his energies on defeating members of the Iowa Supreme Court, in retaliation for its gay marriage ruling.

• MN-Gov: If there’s one campaign out there in need of a shakeup, it’s Tom Emmer’s, as polls have made clear that the GOP gubernatorial nominee’s trajectory post-nomination has been aimed almost straight down. Old campaign manager Tom Mason departed for a farm upstate, replaced by former ’08 Norm Coleman CM Cullen Sheehan.

• PA-Gov: Remember Sam Rohrer, the socially conservative state Rep. who persisted in the GOP primary against AG Tom Corbett (and lost big)? His supporters still haven’t given up hope, and, although Pennsylvania law prohibits him from a ballot line in November, are now launching an independent write-in campaign for Rohrer. (Rohrer hasn’t endorsed the idea, but isn’t dissuading them either.) The write-in campaign is a particularly difficult beast, though, meaning that it’s likely that Rohrer wouldn’t pick up more than a couple percent, and the race would have to get closer than it currently is for that to harm Corbett’s odds against Dem Dan Onorato.

• RI-Gov: Brown University is out with a poll on the Rhode Island gubernatorial race, and one thing is clear: no current Republican is going to win the race. Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio leads independent ex-Republican ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee, by a bare 28-27 margin. For some reason, they seemed to poll the two Republicans jungle-style, but it really doesn’t matter as both are non-factors: former Don Carcieri communications director John Robitaille is at 7 and ex-state Rep. Victor Moffitt is at 2.

• FL-08: Jeb! backs Web! Ex-gov. Jeb Bush cut an ad in support of ex-state Sen. Daniel Webster, who, with his dithering, managed to blow his early shot at consolidating GOP establishment support in the primary. Instead, he’s one of many guys stuffed in the clown car, fighting for the right to oppose Rep. Alan Grayson.

• ID-01: The omission of Raul Labrador from the NRCC’s Young Guns, which seems to admit any Republican who has enough opposable digits to successfully operate a telephone and call donors, seemed like it was becoming too embarrassing for even the NRCC’s skilled writers to spin away. Labrador says he “changed his mind” and is now willing to join the entourage. Labrador, who has $69K, is only entering at the “On the Radar” level, though, the bottom of the pyramid.

• IL-14: State Sen. Randy Hultgren thought he struck some electoral gold when he found a contribution to Rep. Bill Foster from fellow Dem Maxine Waters for $1,000, which then demanded Foster give back. Unfortunately, there’s something to be said for basic reading skills: the contribution wasn’t to Bill Foster, but rather to former music industry exec Gary Foster, who’s now head of a charitable org called Upliftment Jamaica. Naturally, the Hultgren camp blamed the FEC for forcing them to screw up.

• LA-02: Sen. Mary Landrieu announced her backing for state Rep. Cedric Richmond in the Dem primary in the 2nd, more evidence that the Dem establishment is trying to unite behind Richmond and put the squeeze on primary rival state Rep. Juan LaFonta.

• MI-09: As part of the transition from primary to general election, one item that’s high on GOP nominee Rocky Raczkowski’s to-do list is to walk back his previous birtherism. After telling Politico in a post-primary interview that he’d “love” to see Obama’s birth certificate, he’s now out with a statement that Politico took his out of context… without, of course, explaining what context such a comment should be taken in.

• OH-18: Stop the presses! (And hide the women!) Bill Clinton adviser turned Fox News talking head Dick Morris has announced he’ll be making appearances on behalf of at least 40 Republican candidates this year. That includes a fundraiser for Rep. Zack Space’s opponent, state Sen. Bob Gibbs, later this month.

• RI-01, RI-02: That Brown gubernatorial poll also looked at the Democratic primaries in the 1st and 2nd, although the margin of error is terribly high (7.4% in RI-01). In the 1st, Providence mayor David Cicilline is in command of the Dem field, leading former state party chair William Lynch 32-11 15, with 11 for businessman Anthony Gemma and 5 for state Rep. David Segal (who just got the local SEIU‘s backing, by the way). In the 2nd, Rep. Jim Langevin looks likely to weather his primary challenge with ease; he leads state Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan 55-12.

• SBA List: Anti-abortion group the Susan B. Anthony List has come out with polls of one open Senate race and three House races featuring Dem incumbents (where the common thread seems that all the Dems are anti-abortion), courtesy of that Republican pollster with the oh-so-creative name, The Polling Company. They find Dan Coats leading Brad Ellsworth 50-35 in the Indiana Senate race. The House races are an interesting mix of the good, the bad, and the so-so. For the good, Rep. Joe Donnelly seems to start on solid ground in IN-02, where he leads state Rep. Jackie Walorski 52-35. For the bad, Rep. Steve Driehaus may just be the most DOA of any House Democrat, as this is one more poll giving him a double-digit deficit against ex-Rep. Steve Chabot (51-41). And for the so-so, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (last seen losing in a too-good-to-be-true internal from GOP opponent Mike Kelly) is leading Kelly by a pretty plausible 46-42.

• Blue Dogs: The Blue Dogs handed out a load of endorsements to Dem candidates, looking to replenish their soon-to-be-depleted ranks (thanks to a number of retirements, as well as many of their members being in many of the nation’s most competitive races). Endorsees are Steve Raby in AL-05, Chad Causey in AR-01, Roy Herron in TN-08, Trent van Haaften in IN-08, and Stephene Moore in KS-03.

• Rasmussen:

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 37%, Mike Castle (R) 49%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 46%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 36%

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver (D-inc) 36%, Terry Branstad (R) 52%

• KS-Gov: Tom Holland (D) 34%, Sam Brownback (R) 57%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 38%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 40%, Bill Binnie (R) 46%

• SD-Gov: Scott Heidepriem (D) 27%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 59%

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 42%, Kristi Noem (R) 51%

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff, who’s had seeming trouble articulating a motivation for his primary campaign against appointee Michael Bennet (other than “it was my turn”), still seems like he’s confident in his chances of winning the primary. He just doubled down by selling his house and lending the $325K proceeds to his campaign (or maybe he was just eager to sell the dump, anyway). Romanoff had $464K CoH on June 30, but most of that has been gobbled up by ad buys. Also on the ad front in Colorado, the shadowy, Ken Buck-backing 501(c)(4) Americans for Job Security is out with another anti-Jane Norton ad, attacking her over her support for anti-TABOR Proposition C.

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell, the forgotten right-winger in the Delaware GOP primary against Rep. Mike Castle, keeps hitting wingnut paydirt. Having already secured the Susan B. Anthony List endorsement, she’s now getting backing from two more of the engines pulling the crazy train: the Tea Party Express (the corporate astroturf umbrella org for the teabaggers), and Concerned Women for America (Phyllis Schlafly’s group). The Politico article includes a litany of O’Donnell’s baggage as rattled off by Delaware’s GOP state party chair, so it seems like the establishment is taking note and starting to push back.

• FL-Sen: Well, that was fast; I guess when you have a few hundred million dollars at your disposal, you can whip up ads pretty quickly (or just have  a couple extra sitting in the can, ready to go). With Kendrick Meek having launched his first Dem primary ad yesterday, a negative ad against Jeff Greene, today Greene hit back with two different anti-Meek ads. One focuses on Meek’s family connections to a corrupt developer, and the other focuses on the cigar-maker carveout from SCHIP. As always, NWOTSOB.

• KY-Sen: The Jack Conway camp has leaked Daily Kos an internal from Benenson giving them a 44-44 tie with Rand Paul, and a 48-46 lead over Paul with leaners pushed. The poll’s a little stale, having been taken June 26-29, but it’s good news; if nothing else, it’s confirmation for the most recent PPP poll, which also saw a tie. We have a copy of the full memo here. Another small reason for optimism in the Bluegrass State: there’s word of a new (and apparently nameless, for now) 527 headed by former progressive Democratic ’08 Senate candidate Andrew Horne, that will be playing in the Kentucky race. They have $2 million pledged by various business leaders to work with, and they’ve lined up Anzalone Liszt and Zata|3 to work for them.

• CT-Gov: This is one of my favorite headlines since “Lamborn Primaried by Local Crank“: “Looney Backs Malloy in Governor’s Bid.” (Martin Looney is the state Senate majority leader.)

• FL-Gov: Taking a page from Raul Labrador, Bill McCollum’s out with an internal. His own poll from McLaughlin & Associates finds him trailing Rick Scott 37-31. (The polling memo actually has the audacity to ask, “Why hasn’t Rick Scott done better?”)

• MD-Gov: Local pollster Gonzales Research is out with their second look at the Maryland gubernatorial race; they find a 45-42 lead for Martin O’Malley over Robert Ehrlich, which very closely echoes the PPP poll from a few weeks ago. Their trendlines go back to January, when a Ehrlich re-run was only vaguely being discussed; then, O’Malley had a 9-point lead.

• MN-Gov: Fundraising reports in Minnesota were due yesterday. GOPer Tom Emmer might well need to use that giant jar of pennies he had dumped on his table in order to buy some ad time, as he’s lagging on the financial front. Emmer has less than $300K CoH and raised under $800K in the first six months of the year, while DFL endorsee Margaret Anderson Kelliher has $385K CoH and raised about $1 million. Kelliher, however, still might not get out of her primary against two rich guys: Matt Entenza raised $360K during that period but also loaned himself $3.5 million (and spent $3.9 million, mostly on TV ads). Mark Dayton hasn’t filed yet.

• OR-Gov: Republican Chris Dudley is padding his financial advantage over John Kitzhaber in Oregon’s gubernatorial race: he’s raised $850K since the May 18 primary, compared with $269K for Kitzhaber. Dudley has raised $2.6 million all cycle long, compared with Kitz’s $1.7 million. (One historical note, though: Ted Kulongoski was easily re-elected in 2006 despite being outspent by opponent Ron Saxton and his $7 million.) Much of Dudley’s money seems to be coming in from out-of-state, as the former NBA player and current financial advisor is getting a lot of Wall Street and sports industry money. Interestingly, the timber industry, usually a Republican force in the state, is staying largely on the sidelines this election, as they’re fairly friendly with Kitzhaber.

• TN-Gov: Having nowhere to go in the GOP primary polls but up, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey is going the out-and-proud Islamophobe route. Spurred on by the ongoing controversy over the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Ramsey, in response to a question at an appearance, said, “You could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion or is it a nationality, way of life or cult, whatever you want to call it.”

• ID-01: Raul Labrador, a conspicuous absence from the NRCC’s anyone-with-a-pulse Young Guns program, says that he “opted out” of the Young Guns. (Yeah… just like I “opted out” of junior prom.) He didn’t give a specific reason why, although tensions between him and the NRCC have been high.

• MN-03: I’m not exactly sure why Jim Meffert thought it was a good idea to release this internal, but I guess he needed to let people know that he’s actually contesting this thing. His poll (no mention of the pollster in the article) finds him trailing freshman GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen 44-27, with 7% for an IP candidate. The number he’d probably like us to focus on is that Paulsen has only a 33% re-elect (although only 12% say they’re a definite “no”).

• MN-06: Seems like Johnny Law doesn’t like Michele Bachmann’s particularly freaky brand of law and order: the state’s police union, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, just gave its endorsement to Dem Tarryl Clark in the 6th.

• RI-01: The American Federation of Teachers, having just endorsed indie Lincoln Chafee instead of Dem Frank Caprio, also went for unconventional with their 1st District endorsement. They went for young up-and-comer state Rep. David Segal, who’s tried to stake out the most progressive turf in the Dem primary, instead of Providence mayor and presumed frontrunner David Cicilline.

• TN-09: On top of having gotten SSP’s annual John Hostettler Award for outstanding performance at filing quarterly reports (for failing to electronically file his FEC report on time, despite having only $19K CoH), Willie Herenton got a much worse piece of news: the Congressional Black Caucus either doesn’t think much of his chances, or think much of him. Although they wouldn’t let Steve Cohen join their club in 2007, they did just endorse him, and sent $5,000 his way.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 29%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 59%

• AZ-Sen (D): Rodney Glassman (D) 15%, Cathy Eden (D) 11%, Randy Parraz (D) 10%, John Dougherty (D) 7%

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 40%, Jane Norton (R) 44%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 39%, Jane Norton (R) 48%

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 38%, Charlie Baker (R) 32%, Tim Cahill (I) 17%

• AZ-Sen: Sounds like this weekend’s GOP primary, full of barbs and genuinely angry potshots between J.D. Hayworth and John McCain had only one beneficiary: random teabagger Jim Deakin, who didn’t seem to suffer any collateral damge.

• DE-Sen: The Susan B. Anthony List has endorsed minor-league primary challenger Christine O’Donnell instead of the pro-choice Mike Castle in the GOP Senate primary in Delaware. Delaware isn’t exactly known for its large social conservative vote share, so it remains to be seen whether this changes anything.

• MT-Sen: There have been odd rumors that Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who’ll be looking for something to do starting in 2012, was considering a primary challenge to Max Baucus in 2014, motivated at least in part over their different approaches to health care reform. Schweitzer ruled out running for the Senate, though (also ruling out a possible 2012 seat-swap with Jon Tester, which also had been rumored). The possibility of what he’d do if the septuagenarian Baucus retired in 2014, though, didn’t seem to get broached.

• NH-Sen: One more addition to the Mama Grizzly corral, and it’s a big name who’s, well, a woman, but has some competition from her right: Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. Interesting that Sarah Palin refudiated the more teabaggish challengers (Ovide Lamontagne and Jim Bender).

• CO-Gov: Scott McInnis is not dropping out and is still in it to lose it, he vows, pressure and polling notwithstanding. He will, however, be repaying that $300K to the foundation that employed him to write and not plagiarize his research papers for them. However, it seems some of his underlings are clearly seeing the handwriting on the wall. Three key staffers (his policy director, political director, and regional director) all announced they were leaving the campaign.

• MI-Gov: A Detroit News/WDIV poll (conducted by the Glengariff Group) finds, like everybody else, a very close race in the Republican primary. They have Mike Cox and Peter Hoekstra both at 26, with Rick Snyder at 20, Mike Bouchard at 12, and Tom George at 2. They see a possible route for Snyder to win over undecideds, based on his low unfavorables (he’s at 36/8). Mike Bouchard also has a couple new endorsements to his name, although they’re from the spouses of two once-important politicians: the wives of ex-Gov. John Engler and ex-Sen. Spencer Abraham. The spouse endorsement, of course, is the time-honored method of boosting your behind-the-scenes friend while still not getting your hands dirty wasting political capital on a sure loss (see the Deval Patrick spousal endorsement of Mike Capuano in the MA-Sen primary).

• NE-Gov: After much speculation that the Dems were simply going to leave their ballot line blank and let Dave Heineman run unopposed to another gubernatorial term, they’ve found a willing victim candidate to fill the place left by Mark Lakers (who dropped out post-primary but pre-convention). It’s Mike Meister, a trial attorney who lost the 2002 Attorney General’s race.

• OH-Gov: John Kasich’s new ad is weak. I know, I know, I’m a partisan, but if this were a Democrat running this ad, I’d be pounding my head on the desk. His first TV spot starts out with him on the defensive, pointing out that he didn’t run Lehman Brothers, just profited handsomely off it.

• OR-Gov: Chris Dudley ruffled some feathers over the weekend by ducking the decades-long traditional debate that opens the campaign season in this civic-minded state, held by the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. Dudley said that he’d already had plans for a family vacation then, and Democrats predictably said that this was part of a bigger pattern of ducking issues. (Note: don’t piss off the people who buy ink by the bucket. Newspaper e-boards across the state, even the conservative ones, have been scornful.) Then he got really busted: his family vacation just happened to be combined with a visit with the RGA, and its many donors, at an event in Aspen, Colorado. Oregonians aren’t likely to begrudge him for a little downtime, but lying about what he’s doing… not so much.

• WI-Gov: This seems a little too convenient. GOP Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker’s staff just gave a no-bid contract for emergency structural engineering inspections to Graef-USA… a contractor that just happens to be a major Walker campaign contributor.

• MI-13: There are two new polls that look at the Democratic primary in the 13th, and both give a small lead to Hansen Clarke, over Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. Clarke leads 38-30 in the Detroit News/WDIV poll, and Clarke leads 44-31 in an EPIC-MRA poll released last week. That’s on top of a third poll from last week that we already mentioned that also had a Clarke lead, so I’m sensing a pattern here. There’s a handful of other candidates, but they’re only polling in low single digits… it seems like having only one credible challenger (Clarke, a termed-out state Senator) to Kilpatrick, instead of two like in 2008, is the key to winning the race.

• Legislatures: There are two different stories out today looking at the lay of the land in two legislative chambers that seem among the likeliest to flip to Republican control this year: the Iowa State House, and the Pennsylvania State House, with mentions of some of the most competitive seats in each case.

• NRCC: With the House GOP pretty much assured of gaining a significant number of seats this year, it’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. But could it be time for another… Pete Sessions Deathwatch®? Texas GOPer Tom Pauken, a Rick Perry ally who was state party chair in the 1990s, has been talking Sessions down, saying he’s “not up to the job” and he should be replaced by “a smart conservative who knows what needs to be done.” That news comes on a day when NRCC staff are busy doing damage control, mopping up behind Sessions after his comments that “we need to go back to the exact same agenda” of the Bush years.

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 34%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 43 53%

• AK-Gov: Hollis French (D) 29%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 57%

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 36%, Ralph Samuels (R) 48%

• AK-Gov: Hollis French (D) 30%, Ralph Samuels (R) 49%

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 38%, Bill Walker (R) 46%

• AK-Gov: Hollis French (D) 32%, Bill Walker (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 38%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 44%, Scott Walker (R) 48%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Mark Neumann (R) 43%

Also a must read today: a new piece from Nate Silver makes the point that “Hey, YouGov’s internet-only polling isn’t that methodologically bad,” but that’s by way of comparing it to Rasmussen’s sampling techniques, which (no shock to SSP readers) aren’t likely to produce a very accurate cross-section of the population.