Tag: Rick Scott

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• SSP TV:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ipsos for Reuters (9/10-12, likely voters, 8/6-10 in parentheses):

Kendrick Meek (D): 21 (19)

Marco Rubio (R): 40 (33)

Charlie Crist (I): 26 (38)

Undecided: 13 (10)

Alex Sink (D): 45 (31)

Rick Scott (R): 47 (33)

Undecided: 8 (18 + 17 for Chiles)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

From Ipsos, here’s more confirmation of what a number of pollsters have seen: Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek are mostly competing over the same voters, and as Meek gains ground, Crist loses ground — and here, that’s apparently compounded by losing voters to Rubio as well. (In fact, they make that explicit with a hypothetical question asking how a two-way Rubio/Crist race would go: it would be a 46-45 Rubio win.) Wondering what this month’s Crist slump/Meek and Rubio surges look like visually? Here you go:

This poll is another example of the enthusiasm gap at work: among RVs, Rubio still leads, but it’s only 32-29-22 over Crist and Meek, while Sink leads 45-41. Finally, there’s one other bit of news that isn’t going to help Crist. His ballot position got announced, and he’s all the way down in 9th, out of 10. (In Florida, the big two parties get the top 2 spots, with the one currently holding the governor’s seat the first one, so Rubio gets the first spot.) (Yes, I know Crist is officially an independent at this point, but he was elected a GOPer, so that counts in the state’s eyes.)

• AK-Sen: Two positive developments in the Alaska Senate race, as Scott McAdams seeks to introduce himself in this suddenly-competitive race. He was the recipient of a Mark Begich-headlined fundraiser yesterday in Washington DC, and he’s also out with a radio ad stressing his Alaskan roots and that he’ll keep fighting for “schools, hospitals, roads, and other nuts and bolts” – both key ways to differentiate himself from Joe Miller. As for Lisa Murkowski’s plans, she’s saying that she’ll make her intentions known by Friday whether she wants to make a write-in bid (but her plans to return to DC might be a “no” tea leaf).

• DE-Sen: After running far, far away from Christine O’Donnell last night, the NRSC has done an about-face today, giving her the maximum $42K (with Mitch McConnell chipping in his own $5K). I’d be surprised if they give any more than that; this seems like an attempt to placate the base before they go ballistic. Mitt Romney is also backing O’Donnell and giving his own $5K, apparently more worried about getting past the base in the 2012 GOP primary than support for O’Donnell might look for him in the 2012 general. Meanwhile, for those hoping for outright support for Chris Coons from Mike Castle, the Castle camp has said there won’t be an endorsement. (Assistance can take a variety of other forms, though, that aren’t as likely to be apparent.) Finally, if you’re wondering about how Christine O’Donnell sees herself within the Middle Earth context, now you can find out.

• NH-Sen: Although New Hampshire recount law would allow Ovide Lamontagne to seek a recount (since he finished within 1.5% of the total votes cast), he just opted against such an action, conceding the race to Kelly Ayotte. He had until the end of the day to request it.

• AK-Gov: It’s the last day to get his name on the ballot in Alaska in any capacity (and not really at issue, since the AIP and Libertarians weren’t open to subbing him as their candidate). That leaves 2nd place GOP gubernatorial finisher Bill Walker with a write-in bid as his only option, too, and he sounds like such a bid is “unlikely.”

• CA-Gov: I don’t know if all is truly well now between Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown, or Clinton is just feeling that he’s adequately established himself as the alpha dog in the wake of Brown’s capitulation following their ill-advised sparring, but Clinton gave his endorsement to Brown. It remains to be seen what exactly Clinton does on Brown’s behalf, though.

• CO-Gov: Tom Tancredo is able to stay on the ballot, said a U.S. District Court judge yesterday. He’d been the subject of a challenge from local GOPers, but the judge ruled that it wasn’t relevant that Tancredo had been a member of the Republican Party up until launching his Constitution Party bid.

• FL-Gov: The DGA just plowed $1 million into the Florida governor’s race, showing that they indeed think this (thanks to Rick Scott’s presence) is one of their best pickup opportunities but also that the route to doing so will be through a whole lot of money.

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal is fighting back against reports that he’s in such financial disarray right now that he might need to sell his house to avoid default on a large business loan. The $2.3 million loan is due on Feb. 1, which exceeds the Deal family’s net worth. (This was an investment in a business started by his daughter which failed completely; it’s entirely separate from the family auto salvage business that’s at the heart of the Ethics complaint that chased him out of the House.)

• MD-Gov: Looks like we won’t have any lingering bad feelings here, unlike a lot of other establishment/Tea Party GOP primaries: Brian Murphy, who lost badly to Bob Ehrlich, has offered his endorsement to Ehrlich “if he’s willing to accept it.”

• DSCC: I guess Charles Schumer looked at yesterday’s election results and decided he didn’t have much to worry about in November from Jay Townsend. He just transferred $1 million to the DSCC from his own cash yesterday, on top of a previous $1 million in August. That leaves him with “only” about $22 million CoH… about the same amount of cash on hand that the DSCC has!

• DCCC, NRCC: The DCCC and NRCC are out with slew of independent expenditures advertisements. (Expect to see that phrase in every digest for the next month and a half.) The DCCC rolled out three new IEs in HI-01, MI-01, and AL-02. The NRCC’s buy is in 10 districts: most significantly in IN-02 (for $135K), but also AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, MS-01, TX-17, VA-05, WI-07 (for $79K), and TN-08 (for $105K). If you want more details on the NRCC’s bid, you can check out the actual FEC filing.

• Self-funders: The Wall Street Journal has a helpful rundown on how self-funders are faring this year. As with, well, pretty much every other year, they’re faring quite poorly. Of the 10 biggest self-funders in this cycle’s Senate races, only three actually are still running (Linda McMahon, Carly Fiorina, and Ron Johnson); the other seven (Jeff Greene, Steve Pagliuca, Bill Binnie, David Malpass, Sue Lowden, Jim Bender, and Terrence Wall) all fell by the wayside, often in spectacular fashion. Same story in the House, where only three of the top 10 self-funders (Tom Ganley, Randy Altschuler, and Matt Doheny) are still functional.

• Redistricting: Any SSP readers out in Arizona? Here’s your chance to get out from behind Dave’s App and actually get your hands on the real thing! The state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission is seeking applications from the public for appointment to the 5-member commission.

• SSP TV:

• 60+ Assoc.: The health care astroturfers are running anti-Dem ads in WI-03, WI-08, NY-01, NY-20, and PA-10

• AFF: AFF launches a total $2.3 million buy in seven Dem districts: AL-02, GA-08, MI-01, MI-07, NJ-03, SC-05, and WV-01

• American Crossroads: Rove, Inc., is spending $330K on a MO-Sen ad and $550K on a CO-Sen ad

• FL-Sen: The US Chamber of Commerce hits Charlie Crist, pointing to his many flip-flops

• NV-Sen: The Sharron Angle camp has another anti-Harry Reid ad, calling him “the best friend an illegal immigrant ever had”

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand’s out with her first ad, more or less explicitly introducing herself despite her two years or service

• NC-02: Bob Etheridge isn’t leaving anything to chance this year, rolling out an ad that’s mostly a pleasant bio spot

• OH-18: I mentioned Zack Space’s anti-NAFTA ad yesterday, but here’s an actual link to the ad

• PA-06: Jim Gerlach’s first ad has him stepping away from the Republican label, saying he’s “an independent voice for taxpayers”

• PA-10: Chris Carney’s ad goes there, hitting Tom Marino on his ties to sketchy casino entrepreneur Louis DeNaples

• SC-05: Mick Mulvaney’s new ad hits John Spratt for having gone native in Washington

• WI-07: Is the DCCC taking a page from the Fred Davis “Celebrity” ad that seemed to bizarrely work against Obama? Their new ad against Sean Duffy is rife with clips from his days on The Real World

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 23%, Marco Rubio (R) 41%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 41%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• VT-Gov: Peter Shumlin (D) 49%, Brian Dubie (R) 46%

• VT-Sen: Patrick Leahy (D) 62%, Len Britton (R) 32%

• DE-Sen: It’d D-Day for the Republican Party: the “D” could stand for “Delaware,” or maybe for the “dipshits” in the Tea Party who we’ll see tonight whether they’ve fully succeeded in taking over the asylum. At any rate, the state GOP is rolling out a robocall from a former Christine O’Donnell 2008 staffer who’s now supporting Mike Castle; she says O’Donnell isn’t a “true conservative” (although that’s evidenced by her inability to get her own spending under control). O’Donnell’s camp responds saying the disgruntled staffer was fired after a week, rather than leaving on her own. The Beltway CW of today, at least as far as Politico goes, seems to be that Castle has regained some momentum over the last few days what with the increased scrutiny of O’Donnell, pointing to changes in responses to phonebanking in recent days.

• FL-Sen: Here’s an interesting endorsement for Charlie Crist, that may help him with the growing Haitian community in the Miami area. Haitian-American State Rep. Yolly Roberson, who recently lost the FL-17 Democratic primary, gave his backing to Crist instead of Kendrick Meek, whose newly-vacated seat he was vying to occupy.

• NV-Sen, NV-Gov: The first of three (count ’em) polls out in the Nevada Senate race has what just about everyone else has seen in this quickly-getting-overpolled race: Harry Reid leads Sharron Angle in the low single digits. Ipsos/Reuter’s second poll of the race gives Reid a 46-44 lead. (It was 48-44 in favor of Reid in their first poll in early August.) Apparently this wasn’t the respected pollster showing a single-digit gubernatorial race that Jon Ralston was rumbling about, though: their gubernatorial numbers are 60 for Brian Sandoval, and 31 for Rory Reid. (The trendlines were 50-39 for Sandoval, so that’s quite a drop, especially when considering that the Senate race has barely budged.)

• WA-Sen: Republicans hoping for some sort of reconciliation in Washington are out of luck. Clint Didier is still holding out on endorsement for Dino Rossi, popping up briefly yesterday to tell Politico that he won’t do so unless Rossi capitulates to Didier’s three demands regarding action items.

• RI-Gov: Michael Bloomberg parachuted into yet another race with an endorsement, as part of his nebulous goals of advancing some sort of center-left post-partisan zeitgeist. He offered his backing to moderate GOPer-turned-liberal indie Lincoln Chafee, who seems to fit the Bloomberg worldview pretty well.

• NY-St. Sen.: Veteran political reporter Liz Benjamin is out with her handicapping of the New York state Senate races this year (New York elects all Senators every two years, so everybody’s up this year, as always). She points to seven Tossups, four of which are Dems and three of which are GOPers (thanks in large part to open seats). That means that control of the body, currently 32-29 (with 1 previously-GOP vacancy), is truly up for grabs this year. It’s all presented in a nice-looking map format, although the functionality needs some help.

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer’s campaign’s first ad emphasizes veterans, small business, and green jobs

• MO-Sen: The winning ad of the day may just be a little radio ad from Robin Carnahan, which actually uses a jingle (how many political ads do that anymore?); the song goes amusingly negative against Roy Blunt

• KY-Sen: The newest Jack Conway ad works the law & order angle, saying Rand Paul is soft on crime, while the NRSC is out with an ad that seems to be poking fun at Conway’s horse-owning ways as a means of linking him to Barack Obama… or something like that

• CO-Gov: The Colorado trainwreck continues unabated, as Tom Tancredo’s first ad is an anti-Dan Maes hit job, featuring a nice little old lady who says that Maes conned her out of her money without getting into any of the specifics

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott’s back on the air after letting his money have a few weeks off, trying yet again to tie Alex Sink to Barack Obama

• MA-Gov: An anti-Charlie Baker spot from Bay State Future hits Baker on his stewardship of the Big Dig, a 90s public works debacle that turned into a collective scar on the Massachusetts psyche

• CA-03: Ami Bera’s first ad focuses on Dan Lungren’s last minute pay raise that he gave himself as state AG, boosting his pension

• CO-07: Ed Perlmutter’s out with his first ad, a positive spot

• IL-11: Debbie Halvorson’s first ad uses testimonials from the unemployed to hit Adam Kinzinger hard for his support of free trade agreements

• OH-15: Mary Jo Kilroy, similarly endangered, also opts for the negative ad route, hitting Steve Stivers for his work as banking industry lobbyist

• OH-18: Sensing a theme? Zack Space hits Bob Gibbs on his support for free trade agreements too

• PA-07: Bryan Lentz is out with two separate ads, one a basic intro spot, the other making an argument that all Dems should be making: that supporting extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy doesn’t jibe with wanting to reduce the deficit

• PA-08: Patrick Murphy talks to the camera to do some compare & contrast with Mike Fitzpatrick

• SD-AL: Two dueling ads from Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Kristi Noem: Noem’s first ad is a generic attack on Washington, while Herseth tries to rebut an ad from AFF, saying, no, she’s actually conservative

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 46%, Dan Maes (R) 21%, Tom Tancredo (C) 25%

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

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 41%, Rob Portman (R) 49%

• A Rasmussen By Any Other Name Would Still Smell: When a gigantic slew of polls for Fox News came out, showing, as one might expect from Fox, bad results for Democrats, I wasn’t surprised. Something seemed off, though: I first noticed that this wasn’t Fox’s usual pollster (which is Opinion Dynamics), but someone called Pulse. Then some of the details really made my antennae twitch: these were auto-dialed polls conducted over one day (meaning no callbacks), and the day they chose was not only a Saturday (when young people tend to out, y’know, doing things) but freakin’ 9/11! Then Taegan Goddard helpfully pointed out this, which explains it all: Pulse Research is a subsidiary of Rasmussen. You may recall some discussion earlier in the year of a new Rasmussen venture that would let people pay $600 to poll anything or anyone they wanted… that’s Pulse. So, they’re just going in the Rasmussen containment pool with the “real” Rasmussen polls; for what it’s worth, the numbers are pretty much in line with where Rasmussen sees the races, so at least we know Pulse isn’t doing anything differently.

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 43%, Meg Whitman (R) 49%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 46%, Carly Fiorina (R) 44%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 49%, Rick Scott (R) 41%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 41%, Charlie Crist (I) 27%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 38%, Brian Sandoval (R) 56%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 44%, Sharron Angle (R) 45%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 41%, Rob Portman (R) 48%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 40%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 41%, Pat Toomey (R) 47%

Opinion Research Corp. for CNN/Time (pdf) (9/2-7, registered voters, no trendlines):

Alex Sink (D): 49

Rick Scott (R): 42

Undecided: 3

Kendrick Meek (D): 24

Marco Rubio (R): 36

Charlie Crist (I): 34

Undecided: 3

(MoE: ±3.5%)

We’re clearing the decks with a couple Florida polls from late last week, including the Sunshine State portion of those CNN polls that seemed to have mostly good news for Dems, although that may have been largely by virtue of their use of a registered-voter model. Here, they find Alex Sink with a pretty convincing lead over Rick Scott. Sink has to be helped on an ongoing basis by Bill McCollum, who keeps popping up every few days just to say “Nope, still not endorsing,” thumb his nose at Rick Scott, and retreat to his sulking place again.

In the Senate race, it’s been pretty clear ever since Kendrick Meek’s convincing victory over Jeff Greene in the Dem primary that things were going to get rockier for Charlie Crist. The CW seemed to shift almost immediately from “OMG, he’s actually threading the needle” to “uh oh, he’s gonna lose.” This poll’s a case in point: Crist isn’t going to win with Meek polling in the 20s, as Meek’s pulling away too many of the Dems that Crist needs to pull off his feat. Nevertheless, Crist is still forging ahead, out with two new ads, looking resplendently tan on the beach and saying he’s drawing a “line in the sand” (presumably with regard to his independence).

Susquehanna for Sunshine State News (9/2-7, likely voters, no trendlines, gubernatorial numbers here):

Alex Sink (D): 44

Rick Scott (R): 42

Undecided: 16

Kendrick Meek (D): 23

Marco Rubio (R): 43

Charlie Crist (I): 29

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±3.1%)

In case you were wondering what these races look like with the switch to a likely voter model, we’ve got that too, thanks to Pennsylvania-based Republican pollster Susquehanna, here operating on behalf of local GOP-flavored online news outlet Sunshine State News. The shift in the FL-Gov race seems pretty plausible, with Sink up by 2 on the free-spending Scott in a sample that breaks 45 self-identified GOP and 41 Dem. (That’s thanks to a decent lead among indies, 47-36… how rare is that, among Dem gubernatorial candidates this year.) But it looks a little ambitious in the Senate race, where this seems to be the biggest lead Rubio’s had since Crist pulled his party switch (although certainly reflective of the recent trend).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Ads:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• 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.

Sweet score for Alex Sink:

Independent candidate Bud Chiles confirmed Wednesday he would drop out of Florida’s race for governor and back Democratic nominee Alex Sink. […]

In a statement, aide Jim McClellan said Chiles would make the announcement official at a Thursday morning news conference in Tallahassee.

Democratic pollster Tom Eldon said the rise of surprise GOP nominee Rick Scott ended up changing the electoral math for Chiles, the son of former Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, who had jumped into the race in June as a alternative to the two major party candidates.

“Democrats, independents and a healthy percentage of Republicans have been coalescing around Sink ever since Scott’s receipt of the GOP’s nomination and this has marginalized Chiles in recent polling,” said Eldon. “Chiles, like these voters, is rightly worried about the damage Rick Scott could do to the state if he were to be elected governor. Chiles could live with himself if Bill McCollum became governor. I don’t think he wanted to face the morning-after had Rick Scott just been elected governor.”

PPP’s most recent poll indicated that the bulk of Chiles’ support came from conservative-leaning folks who just couldn’t stomach Rick Scott. His exit may only have a net neutral effect, but his endorsement is surely welcome news here.

UPDATE: Some more from Chiles:

Chiles added that he came away from the meeting “feeling a whole lot better” about Sink’s stance on issues he cares about, such as renewable energy, children’s issues and spurring small business. “It seemed to me like that there was a lot more agreement than I might have thought.”