Tag: Joe Miller

AK-Sen: Hello! McFly! You ever heard of the Commerce Clause? Joe Miller evidently got quite a fine education at Yale Law, since he somehow believes that the minimum wage is “not within the scope of the powers that are given to the federal government.” Oh, yeah, “merit scholarship.” Now make like a tree and beat it!

P.S. Miller’s personal financial disclosures – which he promised to file last week, after ignoring the law since April – are still “going to take a little while.” Anybody home, McFly?!

DE-Sen: By now, you’ve probably all seen Christine O’Donnell’s new ad. If not, drop everything and watch it. It might just blow your mind. But I don’t want this other crucial item to get lost in the shuffle: In a 2006 debate, O’Donnell said that “China was plotting to take over America and claimed to have classified information about the country that she couldn’t divulge.” Reminds me of one of my all-time fave Michele Bachmann quotes.

KY-Sen: Rand Paul is no slouch when it comes to slagging the social safety net. At a debate this weekend, he announced that he wanted to cut Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age. And at a meeting with (who else?) the state Chamber of Commerce, he also declared that Medicaid – a program which benefits some 800,000 Kentuckians – has created “intergenerational welfare.”

GA-02: Those federal indictments in Alabama regarding bribery-for-bingo charges are having effects across state lines. Jay Walker was “chief strategist” for Republican Scott McKeown, who has been making some serious headway against Rep. Sanford Bishop of late. Walker, unsurprisingly, has resigned his post.

MN-08: Republican Chip Cravaack (yep, that’s how you spell it) is touting an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies (n=300) showing him nipping at longtime Rep. Jim Oberstar’s heels, 45-42. Oberstar’s campaign claims that the survey was a “push poll,” but Cravaack’s campaign denies it (though they won’t release the questionnaire). I’d be surprised if a firm like POS did anything outright shady, though. Anyhow, Cravaack had just $42K on hand as of July 21 and had only raised $100K overall. Oberstar has $1.1 million in the bank.

WA-03: This is weird – the Lower Columbia Daily News asked GOPer Jaime Herrera for a list of campaign events she’s done since the August primary, but she refused to provide one, claiming it might be used to attack her. Denny Heck’s campaign, for their part, says they think Herrera’s all but disappeared from the campaign trail. An unofficial list shows that she supposedly did about a dozen events in this timeframe, to some 30-odd by Heck.

NY-State Sen: Did you know that Iona College was in the polling biz? I had no idea. Anyhow, it looks like they’ve released a couple of state Senate polls in the last few weeks (but no telling exactly how many, since I can’t seem to find a central hub for them anywhere). I’ve come across two surveys, though: In SD-35 (PDF), Dem Andrea Stewart-Cousins leads Republican Liam McLaughlin 44-37. Meanwhile, in SD-40, GOPer Greg Ball leads Dem Mike Kaplowitz 45-35. (A Siena poll yesterday of the same race had Ball up just 45-44.) The sponsor of these polls is a right-wing business group called the Westchester County Association, which also promises to poll SD-37 and NY-19.

Fundraising:

• ID-01, OH-15: The Hotline has numbers for Walt Minnick and Mary Jo Kilroy
• NY-20: Scott Murphy, $900K raised
• NM-01: Martin Heinrich, $575K raised, >$1m on hand
• WA-02: Rick Larsen, $500K raised

Independent Expenditures:

• Ophthalmologists: Those rogues are backing a rare Dem, Glenn Nye (VA-02), and a guy whose name hasn’t come up in well over a year, Erik Paulsen (MN-03), to the tune of about $65K each
• CT-Sen: The DSCC is spending half a mil on TV for Richard Blumenthal

SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: Uh, is it just me, or does this ad seem like a parody of itself?
• ND-AL: I like seeing this a lot. It’s not the greatest ad of the cycle, but here Earl Pomeroy proudly touts his support of healthcare reform (I think he was the Dem in the reddest district to vote in favor), while attacking Rick Berg for supporting the never-popular insurance companies. If you know they’re going to attack you anyway, you need to just go strong

• CT-Sen: This might get swallowed up by Linda McMahon’s minimum wage comments, which are still dominating the coverage of this particular race, but here’s a new instance of McMahon getting tripped up by those annoying little facts. At a tea party rally in April, she fended off a question about lobbyists, saying “I have not spent lobbying dollars in Washington.” Disclosures show that WWE, between 2001 and 2008, spent $680K on lobbying expenses, including $340K in 2007-2008 during the period when Congress was investigating use of steroids in sports.

• DE-Sen: When asked about his plans for the Delaware race, John Cornyn (after having gotten goaded into giving Christine O’Donnell $42K post-primary) has returned to sounding disinterested: “We will be supporting Christine O’Donnell as appropriate if that race is competitive. Right now it looks like it is not as competitive as other places around the country.” (Counting down to another blast of anti-NRSC teabagger fury in 3… 2…) Meanwhile, travel back in time (for the future of mankind) to 2002, and check out this great photo of O’Donnell and friends (which ought to further alarm some of her more conservative supporters worried about her witchcraft past… did it involve bat-head biting too?). Is O’Donnell just Paranoid, or is she really riding the Crazy Train?

• AR-Gov: Here’s a poll from the one (count ’em, 1) gubernatorial race in the country where the incumbent Democrat is more or less safe. Hendrix College, on behalf of Talk Business, finds Mike Beebe leading Republican Jim Keet 49-35. That’s a bit of an improvement from their previous poll in July, where Beebe led 50-41.

• CA-Gov: Realizing that she’s on the wrong end of written evidence, Meg Whitman’s trying out a new tactic: blaming her husband (the soap-opera-named Dr. Griff Harsh). Whitman denied knowing about the letter, but now says she “suspects” that the handwriting on the letter regarding her housekeeper’s Social Security number is his. Meanwhile, here’s a link to that Spanish-language TV ad on the housekeeper issue that we mentioned yesterday, as part of the SEIU’s huge cash infusion to this race.

• FL-Gov: With a number of public polls this week showing Rick Scott having moved back into the lead, Alex Sink is leaking an internal poll. She’s leading, although by a much smaller margin than the Mason-Dixon poll from just last week that had her up 7. Instead, she’s up by only 1, 45-44, in the poll taken over Sept. 23-29 (no word on who the pollster is).

• IN-Gov: Retiring Sen. Evan Bayh, of the eight-digit war chest, just gave $500K to the Indiana Democratic Party (after having given $1 million earlier in the year). Presumably that’s to help with the three tight House races there, but many are interpreting it as a sign of goodwill oriented toward bolstering his shot at taking back over as Governor in 2012.

• MA-Gov: I’ll just quote DavidNYC on this: “I hope they sell sacks in XXXL size for Tim Cahill to put his sad into.” How craptacular is your campaign when not just your campaign manager but then your actual running mate bails on you and endorses your opponent? That’s what happened to indie candidate Tim Cahill, whose Lt. Gov. running mate, Republican state Rep. Paul Loscocco, announced that he’s leaving the ticket and backing Charlie Baker instead, perhaps realizing that Cahill’s presence is the main thing keeping Baker from a shot at winning. (Also recall that Loscocco had originally wanted to be Baker’s running mate but got snubbed for that, and accepted Cahill’s offer as something of a fallback.) Cahill, pretty much friendless at this point, just announced in a press conference that he’s staying in the race, though.

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo got an unusual endorsement today, from the always-unpredictable world of Staten Island politics. The Conservative borough president, James Molinaro, threw his backing to Cuomo. (Molinaro is a key ally of Michael Bloomberg. Don’t confuse him with ex-Rep. and county Conservative party chair Guy Molinari, who’s the real power behind the throne on Staten Island.) Also, the war between Carl Paladino (last seen going ballistic on the venerable Fred Dicker) and the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post seems to be intensifying, if the latest opus from editor-in-chief Col Allen is any indication (note the intentional use of plural form!). If you’re a Republican in New York and you’ve lost the Post, well, you’ve lost.

Mr. Caputo should check his facts before making charges against Post personnel. In addition, Mr. Paladino should not be surprised by the media’s interest in his families…

• OH-13: Now this is seems like it has some game-changing potential here: Tom Ganley, the moneybags car dealer who’s turned the Dem-leaning 13th into a real race, just got sued for sexual assault by a former enthusiastic supporter who says she met him at a Tea Party rally and tried to volunteer for his campaign. Ganley, she says, wanted her to volunteer for some rather different duties:

While she waited in Ganley’s office, the suit says, he made sexually suggestive comments and invited her to join him and his friends at a condominium he owns in Strongsville. Ganley gave her a $100 bill and told her to buy some lingerie and high-heeled shoes, according to the lawsuit.

Ganley told her he wanted her to dominate her, parade her on a leash and have sex with her in front of his “play friends,” the suit says. It accuses him of grabbing her from behind, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her and, despite her resistance, reaching into her pants.

Naturally, the Ganley camp is calling the suit “extortion” and politically motivated.

• PA-07: Now that primary season is over, we’ve pretty much stopped reporting on union endorsements, as they shouldn’t come as any surprise at this point… except when they endorse the Republican. That’s what happened in the 7th, though, as the United Aerospace Workers local gave its backing to Pat Meehan. (They’re a major presence in the district, given the large Boeing helicopter plant near the Philly airport.)

• Enthusiasm gap: PPP hasn’t been putting out very encouraging numbers lately, but they do offer some cause for optimism that may or may not pan out: with Republican unity pretty much maxed out, the enthusiasm gap can’t do anything but shrink. They point out that there are many more Democratic undecideds than Republican ones right now. They show that’s especially profound in the Illinois races (and that late coming-home may be what’s propelling Pat Quinn all of a sudden), and, although it’s not on their chart, I’d guess also in Pennsylvania, where the Dem undecideds have always been strangely high and we may be seeing some gap-closing beginning too.

• Money: If you’ve noticed that there’s a crapload of independent expenditures coming from billionaire-funded 527s and 501(c)(3)s in the last month, pretty much wiping out whatever cash advantage the Democratic congressional committees had over the GOP committees, you’re not alone in that realization. Bloomberg calculates that independent organizations have outspent the parties combined in trying to buy shape the election: $33 million from folks like American Crossroads and the Chamber of Commerce, compared with $20 million from all of the party committees.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski works fast to turn Joe Miller’s ill-advised drapes-measuring tweets against him, with a new radio ad

• IL-Sen: Here’s another ad with cute babies, this time from Mark Kirk, but this time not about abortion but how DEBT WILL CRUSH US ALL!!1!

• NH-Gov: Wow, the RGA must suddenly sense they have an opportunity here, and they have an ad up hitting John Lynch on spending

• TX-Gov: Rick Perry can’t coast to re-election this time and he’s up with another ad, this time hitting Bill White on one of his perceived strengths (emergency management during Hurricane Rita)

• FL-08: The NRCC hits back against Alan Grayson for his “Taliban Dan” ad against Dan Webster, calling Grayson “a national embarrassment”

• IL-10: The DCCC does a half-and-half ad, touting Dan Seals’ business background and hitting Bob Dold! on pro-life and tea party connections

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 41%, Rick Scott (R) 46%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 40%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 44%, Scott Walker (R) 50%

AK-Sen: Another great catch by the Mudflats, and I’m ashamed I missed this one myself. In trying to explain why he applied for an indigent hunting license (for people making less than $8200/yr), Joe Miller claimed he was on a merit scholarship at Yale. Fortunately, Mudflats catches something about my alma mater that managed to slip my mind: Yale doesn’t offer merit scholarships. What lie will come next from the Miller camp?

CT-Sen: Heartless bastard Linda McMahon said she wants to lower the minimum wage – and even admitted she didn’t fucking know what the current minimum wage is! I love it when zillionaire assholes think that the guys on the bottom rung should be shoved down a rung further. Eh, fuck you, Linda McMahon.

Connecticut’s Working Families Party also took this opportunity to slam McMahon and endorse Dem Richard Blumenthal, who will benefit from having the WFP line. (Connecticut, like New York, allows fusion voting.) In case you were wondering, all five of CT’s Congressmembers have the WFP’s backing, as does gubernatorial nominee Dan Malloy.

DE-Sen: When called on the fact that her LinkedIn page made the extremely lulzy claim that she’d studied at Oxford, Christine O’Donnell claimed someone else had posted the profile. Now a different version has been uncovered at ZoomInfo (which says the profile was claimed – presumably by O’Donnell – through a “double opt-in process”), and it, too, has the Oxford bullshit. I’d say “busted!”, but is this even remotely a surprise?

KY-Sen: Have you seen Jack Conway’s excellent new ad about Kentucky’s drug problem? Well, Rand Paul thinks it’s “kind of tacky and really dishonest and kind of creepy.” Mike Donta, the man featured in the ad who lost his son to drug addiction, said Paul’s childish reaction is an “insult,” both to him and other families battling this problem.

And one other important note: The ad buy that the DSCC supposedly cancelled here has been “bought back,” according to Aaron Blake.

OH-Sen: The Cleveland Plain Dealer obtained an internal Lee Fisher finance document, which lays out a bunch of different scenarios for keeping the campaign financially afloat in the final month of the race. It’s not a pretty picture – one nuclear option involves laying off ten staff members to pay for TV time. And worst of all, Fisher apparently raised less than a million bucks in the quarter. Sigh.

WV-Sen: Despite John Raese’s efforts to paint him as weak on coal, Dem Gov. Joe Manchin secured the endorsement of the West Virginia Coal Association, which “represents 90 percent of the state’s coal producers.”

HI-Gov: He doesn’t sound quite like an anti-vax nutter, but Republican Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona is refusing to get a flu shot himself, saying he’s “not convinced that vaccines are more beneficial that harmful,” despite encouraging state residents to get vaccinated. Yeah, that’s helpful.

CO-04: If I had my dream job, newspaper writers would refer to me as “Democratic ratfucker DavidNYC,” because really, I love nothing more than a good ratfuck. So kudos to “Our Community Votes,” which is running a radio ad “attacking” a conservative independent candidate, ostensibly in the hopes of raising his profile and making him more appealing to wingers. It’s not clear who’s behind the group, but “public records shows that it shares Washington, D.C., office space with other groups tied to Steve Rosenthal, a longtime labor movement and Democratic strategist and former political director of the AFL-CIO.” And there’s real money behind this buy, too: $100,000 worth.

CO-07: The douchebags at the American Future Fund are spending $560K trying to unseat Ed Perlmutter, and apparently in a first for them, this includes a canvass operation, not just ad buys.

IL-10: Another day, another legal hassle for Bob Dold! The FEC dinged him for failing to report a $17,000 expenditure for “a motor coach that was used in Dold’s ads as part of a bus tour.” Dold submitted amended reports which showed several other expenditures and debts that somehow went missing from his earlier filings. How do you just forget about $17,000? Bob Dold!

WA-08: Ugh – this is pathetic. Evidently the League of Conservation Voters – another one of those ostensibly liberal groups that loved to endorse so-called “moderate” Republicans – enjoys getting abused. Earlier this year, Dave Reichert admitted that he occasionally votes a pro-environment line simply to remain in office. Despite this, the LCV is endorsing Reichert on account of his cap-and-trade vote. Glad to see they admire sincerity so much.

Site News: The Swing State Project just enjoyed its biggest month ever, with over 700,000 pageviews and more than 350,000 visitors. Here’s hoping the trend continues!

SSP-TV:

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan attacks Roy Blunt for being a “prodigious pork-meister.” Does anyone else think this is as lame and boring as when Republicans try to pin this on us?
• NV-Sen: Harry Reid has led the way with relentless, hard-hitting, and just plain good attack ads this cycle. Yeah, Sharron Angle provides a lot of fodder, but all Republicans have weak spots. This ad nails her for trying to repeal a law which requires insurance companies to cover mammograms
• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin hits John Raese with his own words, including Raese’s infamous “I made money the old-fashioned way – I inherited it” gem
• CO-Gov: Dan Maes (yeah, I know!!) has a really boring minute-long intro ad. No word on the size of the “buy,” but I doubt he could even afford to run Google ads on SSP
• FL-25: Two ads from GOPer David Rivera – the first a boring spot about cutting government spending (check out the weird artifacts bouncing off his shirt at 27 seconds – you think YouTube? or is the broadcast version also messed up?); the second, a litany of attacks on Joe Garcia (and the production values are weak here, too). Meanwhile, Garcia has a much better ad hitting Rivera for the infamous “ramming a truck off the road” incident
• IL-10: Bob Dold! thinks that Dan Seals is a job killer
• ME-02: Fuck, these veteran ads always make me well up a bit. Another good one on VA health clinics, from Mike Michaud (his first in four years)
• OH-09: Rich Iott attacks Marcy Kaptur as a “liar” for a supposedly misleading ad (I think this is it) and brings up the 11% unemployment rate in Toledo

Independent Expenditures:

• Concerned Taxpayers: $92K for GOPer Art Robinson (OR-04) and $47K against Frank Kratovil (MD-01)
• FIRST!… Amendment Alliance: $117K against Harry Reid (NV-Sen) (Topic: The First Amendment Alliance doesn’t care about the first amendment or alliances. Discuss)
• Realtors: $1.3 million spread among Bill Foster (IL-14), Pat Tiberi (OH-12), Ken Calvert (CA-44), and Dave Reichert (WA-08), including polls
• Revere America: George Pataki’s band of fuckwits is spending over $400K on ads against Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) and over $350K against John Hall (NY-19) (note second buy was made 9/17 but report filed 9/30 in violation of FEC rules)

• CA-Sen: PPIC (9/19-26, likely voters, 7/6-20 in parentheses):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 42 (49)

Carly Fiorina (R): 35 (40)

Other: 6 (-)

Undecided: 17 (11)

(MoE: ±3.6%)

One more poll for the pile with a high-single-digits lead for Barbara Boxer, this time from the very trustworthy PPIC. They also look at the Governor’s race (see below) and a few initiatives: they find Prop 19 (pot) passing 52-41 and Prop 25 (simple majority budget) passing 48-35, but also finding Prop 23 (suspending greenhouse gas limits) passing 43-42.

• IN-Sen: We’d speculated that this was a possibility back around the time of the Indiana GOP primary, when Dan Coats (an unusually tepid gun supporter as far as GOPers go) won. The NRA today endorsed his Democratic opponent, Brad Ellsworth, who’s pretty much walked the pro-gun line in his red House district. (I know we’d said we’d shut up about NRA endorsements of conservaDems, but this one actually has the potential to move some votes in a key race.)

• PA-Sen: Susquehanna for Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (9/23-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Joe Sestak (D): 42

Pat Toomey (R): 45

(MoE: ±3.5%)

I wish this had come out in time for our monstrous Pennsylvania wrapup from early this morning, as it’s an interesting post-script. Susquehanna (a Republican pollster, but one who’ve demonstrated that they know what they’re doing in Pennsylvania; for instance, they got the PA-12 special pretty close to right) sees it as a surprisingly close race, finding Sestak within 3. Is this the first sign of Sestak closing, or is this just the optimistic edge of the stable mid-single-digits band that the race has usually been pegged at?

• CA-Gov: PPIC (9/19-26, likely voters, 7/6-20 in parentheses):

Jerry Brown (D): 37 (46)

Meg Whitman (R): 38 (40)

Other: 7 (-)

Undecided: 18 (14)

(MoE: ±3.6%)

Unfortunately, this poll closes out the end of a run of remarkable luck for Jerry Brown of polls showing him spiking into the lead (although there’s a lot of movement from both candidates to “Other,” though I’m not sure who that would be). Importantly, though, the polling period ended before Meg Whitman’s illegal housekeeper problem burst into public view. The SEIU is doing its part to keep the issue front and center, pumping $5 million into a Latino outreach effort that’s largely field efforts but also includes an ad starting in a few days hitting Whitman on the housekeeper issue. Whitman’s also doing her part to keep it in the news, saying she’ll employ the scoundrel’s last refuge — a polygraph test — to prove she was unaware.

• NY-Gov: Marist (9/27-29, likely voters, 9/14-19 in parentheses):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 53 (52)

Carl Paladino (R): 38 (33)

Rick Lazio (C): – (9)

Undecided: 8 (6)

(MoE: ±4%)

Marist strikes back quickly with another poll following up on the news that Rick Lazio is no longer a candidate, preferring to enjoy the great prestige that comes with a trial court judgeship in the Bronx. At any rate, they don’t see anything changing other than what you’d expect: most of Lazio’s voters from the Conservative line gravitated over to GOP nominee Carl Paladino, with a few, unappetized by the bombastic Paladino, joining the ranks of the undecided.

• OR-Gov: One major explanation for how Chris Dudley has made a major race out of what looked like an easy Dem pickup hold a year ago is… money. (As with so many other races this year…) Dudley has raised $5.6 million all cycle long, as of Tuesday’s reporting deadline, more than doubling up on John Kitzhaber’s $2.6 million, the largest disparity between the two parties ever seen in an Oregon gubernatorial race. (The SEIU has been running ads on Kitzhaber’s behalf, and the DGA has $750K ready to go, but that’s still a big deficit.)

• RI-Gov: Fleming & Associates for WPRI-TV (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Frank Caprio (D): 33

John Robitaille (R): 19

Lincoln Chafee (I): 30

Undecided: 15

(MoE: ±4.4%)

There’s been a general trend in the last month or two toward the Democrat, Frank Caprio, in this race. But the newest poll (apparently the first of this race from Fleming & Associates), on behalf of local TV stations, shows a much closer race, with Caprio up only 3 on his indie opponent, Lincoln Chafee.

• GA-08: American Viewpoint for Austin Scott (9/26-27, likely voters, late July in parentheses):

Jim Marshall (D-inc): 38 (44)

Austin Scott (R): 46 (39)

Undecided: 13 (14)

(MoE: ±5.7%)

Well, there’s only one alarming GOP House internal poll today, unlike yesterday’s onslaught. (Also, note the hypertrophied margin of error, based on an n of 300.) Still, this is another race that’s tended to be on the “Lean D” or at least “Tilt D” side of the equation, and one more juggling ball that the DCCC is going to have to keep in the air.

• ME-01, ME-02: Critical Insights, like last time, included both Maine House districts as part of their poll, so we actually have some trendlines now. In the 1st, Chellie Pingree is expanding her lead over Dean Scontras, 54-26. However, in the 2nd, Mike Michaud’s lead over Jason Levesque is a little smaller, down to 44-32 (from 48-28). (In a way, that’s reassuring, because that’s evidence that Critical Insights didn’t just stumble into a much Dem-friendlier batch, and that the flight from Paul LePage seems real.)

• DSCC: The DSCC is having to put some money into Connecticut, a race they probably thought they could avoid spending on when Richard Blumenthal got into the race. They’re starting with a smallish $250K, though. Other DSCC outlays today include $720K in CO-Sen, $464K in IL-Sen, $362K in MO-Sen, and $386K in WV-Sen.

• NARAL: NARAL rolled out endorsements of twenty different Dems running in House races, almost all of whom received $5K each. You can click for the full list, but it includes Cedric Richmond, Steve Pougnet, John Hulburd, and Joe Garcia on offense (the rest are defensive picks).

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski’s out with two different ads, one hitting Joe Miller as outsider, the other a PSA-type ad that verrrry slowly and carefully explains to people how to vote for her

• KY-Sen: Here’s a powerful new ad from Jack Conway hitting Rand Paul on the drug issue yet again, complete with tombstone and tagline “He doesn’t know us” (interestingly, though, the DSCC is following the NRSC’s lead here with an ad buy cancellation for the week of the 5th) (UPDATE: Looks like the DS un-cancelled)

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt hits Robin Carnahan over the stimulus, pointing out that another member of the extended Carnahan clan got money for his wind farm

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold tries going back to firing up the base, running an ad based on the merits of health care reform

• MI-01: The NRCC weighs in with an ad in the 1st, an endless circle of meta wherein Dan Benishek attacks Gary McDowell for attacking

• WI-07: Julie Lassa goes back to the theme of Sean Duffy having prematurely abandoned his day job as DA to run for the House

• AJS: Americans for Job Security tries again in VA-09 (remember that’s where their previous ad got bounced for being too egregious), as well as in CO-03 and NY-24

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 43%, Ken Buck (R) 51%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 41%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%

• IA-Sen: Roxanne Conlin (D) 37%, Charles Grassley (R-inc) 55%

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 38%, Rand Paul (R) 49%

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

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 53%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 48%, Sharron Angle (R) 47%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 42%, John Kasich (R) 50%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 47%, Dino Rossi (R) 48%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 42%, Ron Johnson 54%

Ivan Moore Research (9/23-27, likely voters, no trendlines):

Scott McAdams (D): 28

Joe Miller (R): 43

Frederick Haase (L): 2

Lisa Murkowski (volunteered): 18

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4.1%)

We saw two polls yesterday finding Lisa Murkowski either winning or in a dead heat, but those polls made no mention of Murkowski’s unusual status as a write-in candidate, which should be viewed as a methodological problem. But now we have the first poll that seems to deal head-on with the write-in problem, and as an added bonus, it’s Ivan Moore, probably Alaska’s best-regarded local pollster. The result shows that Joe Miller might want to stop measuring the drapes.

Stay the same: 55

Write in Lisa Murkowski: 31

Not sure: 15

Scott McAdams (D): 14

Joe Miller (R): 36

Frederick Haase (L): 2

Lisa Murkowski (WI): 44

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±4.1%)

So here’s what Moore did: his first round of questioning omitted Murkowski but permitted respondents to volunteer her; then he asked, as a follow up question “As you may know, Lisa Murkowski is running a write-in campaign for U.S. Senate. Knowing this, would your vote for U.S. Senate stay the same or would you write in Lisa Murkowski?” The second set of results are then re-computed based on prompted Lisa Murkowski votes. That still may not re-create the actual voting experience, where there isn’t a voice reminding you that Lisa Murkowski is running. But this still seems an improvement from just listing her with the other candidates.

Here’s Moore, with some circumspect analysis of what he tried:

Now, the reality of the situation is that neither of these results is going to be correct. The first should be perceived as a minimum for Lisa, the latter a maximum. The reality lies somewhere in between… the question is where? Personally, I think the second measure is what will happen in an ideal, impediment-less world, and should be adjusted downwards by what we’d reasonably expect the attritional effects of the write-in to be. I have always maintained these will be relatively minimal, maybe not much more than a few percent of people who somehow remain unaware come election day that Lisa is an option, or get her name wrong, or don’t fill in the oval, or decide they can’t be bothered to write a name.”

There are also results from the (comparatively uneventful) gubernatorial and House races.

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 35

Sean Parnell (R-inc): 53

Other: 6

Undecided: 6

Harry Crawford (D): 32

Don Young (R-inc): 65

Undecided: 4

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Was Joe Miller’s Twitter account hacked, or is he really this astoundingly arrogant?

The Mudflats, linked above, has even more. Just wow.

Recall that Miller was previously heard openly speculating about what committees he’d like to serve on. And, of course, this wasn’t the first time that Miller was apparently caught tweeting something that he shouldn’t have – before deleting it.

Fundraising: Today is the last day of the fundraising quarter, so now is a good time to donate to any Dems you like out there. Decisions on whom to help will be made in the final weeks of the election season based in part on who shows fundraising strength in this final quarter.

AK-Sen: It’s not small – no no no. Republican Joe Miller has failed to file a personal finance disclosure with the Senate, something any candidate who raises or spends more than $5,000 is required to do within 30 days by law. Miller’s been out of compliance with the law since at least April. The penalty? Up to $50,000. Politico caught up with Miller at a fancy DC fundraiser, but he refused to answer any questions about the issue.

Meanwhile, Dem Scott McAdams sends out a fundraising ask via email in response to word that the Tea Party Express will be pouring resources into the state to finish the job they started. McAdams reminds us of something we’ve been saying all along: “In some Alaskan towns it costs only $30 to run a radio ad and $200 for a TV spot.” So if you still have some spare change to give, he still needs your help – and it will indeed make a difference, no matter how much you can afford to give.

PA-Sen, PA-07, PA-08: VoteVets is launching a half-million dollar canvassing effort on behalf of Joe Sestak, who of course is one of them. They’ll also be helping out another pair of veterans, Bryan Lentz and Patrick Murphy.

FL-Gov: Man, dejected gubernatorial loser Bill McCollum is serving up the cat fud personally, on a fucking silver platter. Rick Scott’s been hitting Alex Sink on the airwaves over her alleged mismanagement of the state’s investments while serving as Chief Financial Officer. But at a recent public meeting of the board of trustees of Florida’s pension funds, McCollum made sure to repeatedly question a top administrator about the soundness of the funds – and was assured they were. It’s like he’s fact-checking and doing p.r. for Sink all at once! Someone hire this guy!

NY-Gov: Here’s something that’s no surprise: Carl Paladino was awarded the Conservative Party’s ballot line. Here’s something else that’s no surprise: He’s a motherfucking spazz who can’t control his temper – even around reporters, even on camera. The video is fuzzy and the sound quality poor, but watch Paladino get into it with conservative New York Post political columnist Fred Dicker. The most amusing thing is that Paladino seems to think Dicker, who, uh, as I said, works for the Post, is a Cuomo plant.

AL-05: This parsing almost reaches Clintonian levels: Dem Steve Raby has been hammering Mo Brooks for opposing earmarks, thanks to some teabagger pledge that Brooks signed. This is not a popular position in Alabama, and Brooks had his name removed from the group’s website – but claimed he was only opposing pork, not earmarks. Someone buy this poor fucker a thesaurus, stat!

AZ-05: Harry Mitchell’s got a poll out from Bennett, Petts & Normington, showing him up 43-40 over David Schweikert.

LA-03: In the very last primary of the year, coming up this Saturday, a survey by a robopollster called ElectPoll shows Jeff Landry crushing fellow Republican Hunt Downer, 66-34. Can’t say I’m too surprised, given that Landry missed avoiding a runoff by less than 200 votes. I doubt Downer made the right choice by continuing the fight. Meanwhile, Ravi Sangisetty becomes the latest anti-Pelosi Dem, saying he wouldn’t vote to keep her as Speaker of the House. Somehow I doubt he’ll have the chance to vote on that issue one way or another.

NM-01: So classic – another anti-government spending Republican who has embraced government spending for himself. It’s really no different than the teabaggers who declare “Hands off my Medicare!” Anyhow, Jon Barela is the latest offender. His film production company has received cash assistance from taxpayers thanks to a special New Mexico rebate program designed to encourage movie-making in the state.

NY-20: Always gotta be careful not to read too much into stories about staff departures, but this is awfully late in the game to be losing your campaign manager – which just happened to Republican Chris Gibson. One red flag: That they didn’t have someone lined up to replace Patrick Ziegler, who was supposedly recruited by the RNC to help with broader election efforts in the Hudson Valley. Another: Ziegler had almost no political experience and apparently was overwhelmed by the job. And finally: Ziegler himself has sought the GOP nomination, but dropped out of the race in March. A week later, he was hired by none other than Gibson. So perhaps this was not quite a match made in heaven in the first place.

OH-18: SEIU is sending out a mailer attacking Dem Zack Space, who flip-flopped and voted against healthcare reform in the end. No word on how much they’re spending, though it seems to me that this fight really should have happened during the primaries. I mean, would they really prefer Bob Gibbs?

PA-06: A nice get for Manan Trivedi: He secured the endorsement of the Sierra Club, one of those groups which likes to back “moderate” Republicans to bolster their supposed bi-partisan cred. While they haven’t backed Jim Gerlach in recent years, they haven’t supported his opponents, either, so it’s good to see them take the right side this time.

VA-02: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, typically friend to Republicans the world over, endorsed Democrat Glenn Nye. Somehow I don’t think it’ll stop the attacks that he’s a libruhl who votes with Nancy Pelosi 743% of the time.

NRSC: Aaron Blake says Tom Coburn’s going to give $1 million to the NRSC.

NRCC: Meanwhile, John Boehner just gave $1 million more to the NRCC, and supposedly succeeded in getting $4 million more in pledges from his buddies.

NRA: We are most definitively done with the NRA whip count, which got boring long ago. If you really want to keep checking up on it, keep this link handy.

SSP TV:

• AR-02: Dem Joyce Elliott touts her non-DC background as a teacher, and links herself to still-popular Gov. Mike Beebe
• NC-02: Renee Ellmers accuses Bob Etheridge of cutting half a trillion from Medicare to pay for “Obamacare”
• NM-02: Harry Teague attacks Steve Pearce for being pro-shipping-jobs-to-India
• SC-02: Rob Miller’s campaign asks people how they know Rep. Joe Wilson has “gone Washington,” but apparently folks need the help of a poster to answer

Opinion Research for CNN/Time (9/24-28, likely voters, no trend lines):

Scott McAdams (D): 22

Joe Miller (R): 38

Lisa Murkowski (I): 36

(MoE: ±3%)

Craciun Research for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (9/24-25, likely voters, no trend lines):

Scott McAdams (D): 19

Joe Miller (R): 30

Lisa Murkowski (I): 41

(MoE: ±5.7%)

Nate Silver, however, hits on some problems with the methodologies of both polls:

The issue with each of these polls, however, is that they made no particular accommodation to account for the fact that Ms. Murkowski will be a write-in candidate, as her name was mentioned alongside Mr. Miller and Mr. McAdams.

Indeed, and as Nate later tweeted, perhaps the best approach that pollsters should take would be to ask voters if they’re voting for McAdams, Miller, or a write-in. That would then be followed by a prompt to ask who they’re writing in (rather than offering Murkowski as a choice). However, this methodology would be difficult for a robo-pollster to accommodate (though it shouldn’t be too hard for Opinion Research or Craciun, who use live interviewers). After all, the way these pollsters are framing the choice doesn’t reflect the realities of the ballot.

It’s also worth noting that Scott McAdams only went up on the air last night for the first time, so add that as another reason why these polls may represent something of a high-water mark for Murkowski that she is unlikely to obtain in November.

Meanwhile, CNN/Time also polled the gubernatorial race…

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 38

Sean Parnell (R-inc): 57

(MoE: ±3%)

Interestingly, Berkowitz’s margin is actually slightly worse among registered voters (at 58-36). The guy is tenacious, but this looks pretty tough.

• AK-Sen: Daily Kos just added Scott McAdams to its Orange to Blue list, so if you’re still looking to throw some money in his direction, you can do so via Big Orange. Meanwhile, Lisa Murkowski is trying to gear up her write-in campaign, and with Ted Stevens having been laid to rest this week, she’s mulling whether to roll out those ads featuring Stevens that she had ready to go pre-primary but pulled because of his death. This can’t be good news for Murkowski, though: Rep. Don Young, more from the Murkowski/Stevens wing of the local GOP than the teabagger wing, is having a bout of self-preservation and is staying neutral, not endorsing anyone in the race. Finally, here’s one more page in Joe Miller’s ongoing saga of milking the system that he hates so darn much: when new to Alaska (but after he’d bought his expensive house and started working as an attorney), he obtained an indigent hunting/fishing license that required an income of less than $8,200/yr.

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell says she attended Oxford. Oh, no, wait, she took a course from something called the Phoenix Institute that “rented space from” Oxford. Why am I not surprised?

• FL-Sen: I always figured that the early love affair between the local teabaggery and Marco Rubio wouldn’t last; he seemed more from the mainstream Jeb Bush camp and it seemed more a marriage of convenience based on his charisma but mostly on the fact that he wasn’t Charlie Crist. Anyway, he’s pretty much severed the relationship and making a break for the establishment with his latest revelation, that he decided several months ago against privatizing Social Security after concluding the idea “doesn’t work.” (If Ken Buck gets elected, I wonder how long it’ll take him to make the same move?)

• IL-Sen: The DSCC is keeping on pouring money into the Land of Lincoln, bolstering Alexi Giannoulias. They’re adding another $400K to the pile, for another week on the air.

• KY-Sen: The NRSC is taking the opposite tack, engaging in a little advertisus interruptus and pulling out for a week from Kentucky. (They claim they’re doing so from a position of strength, naturally.) Meanwhile, this is kind of small ball ($1,400 in contributions from three guys), but it’s still the kind of headline you probably don’t want to see if you’re Rand Paul, especially once you’ve made your feelings on the Civil Rights Act clear:

Conway camp calls on Paul to return money from white separatists

• NY-Sen-B: Marist (9/19-22, likely voters, 5/3-5 in parentheses):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 52 (50)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 41 (30)

Undecided: 7 (20)

(MoE: ±4%)

Marist gives you a buffet of different numbers of choose from, as it’s 54-42 for Gillibrand when leaners are pushed, or it’s 55-36 when polling just registered voters (meaning there’s an enthusiasm gap worth 8 points here). They also find Chuck Schumer having no problems in the other Senate race, leading Jay Townsend 58-37 among LVs (and 63-32 among RVs).

• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson’s one act of political participation prior to this year — testifying before the state legislature in opposition to the bipartisan-supported Wisconsin Child Victims Act — is getting a second look in the press. His main interest in opposing the bill was that it could lead to corporations or other business entities being held liable for acts of employees, worried about the “economic havoc” it would create (and worried that those meddling “trial lawyers” would benefit). Think Progress has video of the testimony.

• WV-Sen: This seems like a new one to me… John Raese is actually paying people to write letters to the editor on his behalf. Not just offering them McCain Bucks that can’t be redeemed for anything in the real world, but running an actual contest giving money to people who get the most letters published. Also, I’ll give John Raese credit for being himself even when he’s being followed around by reporters. Here’s his reaction to finding out that the NRA endorsement went to Joe Manchin:

Raese speaks angrily into the phone, his words full of threat: “Tell them that I have an A plus rating with them, and that if they are fair they should include that. Tell them about the polling. Tell them I’m riding an elephant.” Raese pulls the cell phone away from his ear,  hands it back to Patrick the driver, and says “That has made it a lot harder.”

• CT-Gov: Little known fact: did you know that Jodi Rell still hasn’t endorsed Tom Foley yet, despite only weeks to go? Foley’s camp is saying it’s imminent, but it looks like Rell has summoned up even less enthusiasm in the general as she did for her Lt. Gov., Michael Fedele, in the GOP primary.

• FL-Gov: Here’s an interesting endorsement for Alex Sink: she got the backing of term-limited Republican state Sen. Alex Villalobos. Villalobos is also backing Charlie Crist (and even Dan Gelber in the AG race), so this exactly a sign of the Republican edifice collapsing, though.

• IA-Gov, SD-AL: Add one more to the long list of Dems who are getting a nice NRA endorsement as their box-of-Rice-a-Roni-and-can-of-Turtle-Wax-style parting gift on their way out the studio door. Chet Culver just got the backing of the gun lobby. (One state to the north, they also just backed Stephanie Herseth Sandlin today.)

• CA-44: PPP for Democrats.com (9/24-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Bill Hedrick (D): 38

Ken Calvert (R-inc): 49

Undecided: 13

(n=760)

Despite being woefully underfunded, Bill Hedrick’s keeping the race competitive in his rematch against Ken Calvert (recall that he almost won, out of nowhere, in 2008). How he makes up that last 12 points in this climate, though, I’m not sure.

• FL-22: Harstad Research Group for Project New West (9/20-22, likely voters, no trendlines):

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 43

Undecided: 9

(n=504)

There’s lots of back-and-forth in the polling of the 22nd, with each side sporting their own internal with a lead in the last week. Dem pollster Harstad weighs in with another one going in Ron Klein’s column.

• KS-03: Moore money, Moore problems? Retiring Rep. Dennis Moore is still busy emptying out his campaign coffers, transferring $100K more to the Kansas Democratic party (on top of a previous $100K in June). That’s probably with the understanding that the money will be used to pay for their newest mailer in support of Stephene Moore, running to succeed her husband.

• NH-01, NH-02: American Research Group (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 40

Frank Guinta (R): 50

Undecided: 8

Ann McLane Kuster (D): 36

Charlie Bass (R): 38

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±5%)

Here are some unusual results from ARG! (although should we expect anything else?): they find Carol Shea-Porter getting keelhauled in the 1st, while the open seat battle in the 2nd is a swashbuckling battle (contrary to other polls we’ve seem of these races, where the 1st has been a tossup or a narrow CSP advantage while the 2nd has looked bad).

• PA-08: I’ve been patiently waiting here for actual toplines for more than a day, but it seems like they aren’t forthcoming… so I’ll just let you know there’s a Harstad Research Group poll (on behalf of SEIU and VoteVets, not the Patrick Murphy campaign) out in the 8th that gives Murphy a 3-point lead over Mike Fitzpatrick and an 8-point lead among voters who voted in 2006. It was taken Sept. 20-22.

• WI-07: Garin Hart Yang for Julie Lassa (9/26-27, likely voters, in parentheses):

Julie Lassa (D): 41

Sean Duffy (R): 42

Gary Kauther (I): 7

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.4%)

I don’t know how good a sign this is, releasing an internal where you’re still trailing in a Democratic-leaning district. Lassa needs to let the donors know she’s still in this, I suppose.

• WV-03: Global Strategy Group for DCCC (9/23-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 55

Spike Maynard (R): 37

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4.8%)

Well, here’s one district where all the polls (even the one from AFF) are consistent in showing a nearly-20 point edge for long-time Dem Nick Rahall.

• NY-St. Sen.: Four polls from Siena of key New York State Senate races have, on the balance, bad news for the Democrats: Darrell Aubertine, the first Democrat in several geological epochs to hold SD-48 in the North Country, is trailing GOP opponent Pattie Ritchie for re-election, 48-45. Brian Foley, in Long Island-based SD-4, is also in a tough race, leading Lee Zeldin 44-43. Meanwhile, two Republican incumbents are looking fairly safe: Frank Padavan, who barely survived 2008 in Dem-leaning Queens-based SD-11, leads ex-city councilor Tony Avella 56-32, while in SD-44, Hugh Farley leads Susan Savage 55-37. (I’d rather see them poll the open seat races; that’s where the Republicans are at more risk.)

• Mayors: There aren’t a lot of big-city mayoral races where the decisive vote is in November (most were wrapped up in the primaries), but one interesting one is Louisville, where the longtime Dem incumbent Jerry Abramson is leaving in order to run for LG next year. Dem Greg Fischer (who you may remember from the 2008 Senate primary) is beating Republican city councilor Hal Heiner 48-42, according to SurveyUSA.

• DLCC: You probably saw yesterday that the DLCC is out with a first round of 20 “essential races” for controlling key state legislative chambers. Well, over in diaries, now they’re soliciting suggestions for further additions to the list, so please add some suggestions from races that are near and dear to your own hearts.

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce, trying to salvage this dwindling race, tries to hang the “career politician” tag on Barbara Boxer

• CO-Sen: The DSCC goes after Ken Buck on Social Security again

• CO-Sen: The NRSC runs an anti-Michael Bennet ad, hitting him on his support for health care reform

• DE-Sen: The DSCC crams as much Christine O’Donnell insanity as it can into 30 seconds

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk goes back to where he began, with another bio spot of small town boy made good

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s newest ad keeps on trying to tie Pat Toomey to Wall Street

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese for supporting eliminating the minimum wage and his own ooopses at his own company

• CT-Gov: The DGA hits Tom Foley on outsourcing in his former career as textile magnate

• MI-Gov: The RGA hits Virg Bernero on spending as mayor (OMG! he spent $1,277 on pencils!)

• NM-Gov: Another Susana Martinez attack ad hits Diane Denish for some bungled solar power thingamajig

• TX-Gov: Here’s a mindblowing stat: the DGA has never paid for advertising in Texas… until now. They’re out with an attack on Rick Perry, calling him what nobody wants to be called this cycle (“career politican”)

• KY-03: Todd Lally’s out with two ads, one a bio spot, the other a pretty funny attack on John Yarmuth using the K-Tel greatest hits album motif

• MI-07: Tim Walberg has to call on his mom for help: not to do any polling on his behalf, just to appear in an ad about Social Security

• NC-02: This was probably inevitable… AJS weighs into the 2nd with an ad using Bob Etheridge going apeshit on a poor innocent little tracker

• NC-11: Repent now or Jeff Miller will forever cast you into the fiery pits of Nancy Pelosi’s hell!

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy touts how well he cooperated with George W. Bush! (on Medicare Part D, though, which probably plays well among North Dakota’s aging population)

• PA-08: Outsourcing must be polling well for the Dems these days, as Patrick Murphy hits Mike Fitzpatrick on that

• VA-05: Indie candidate Jeff Clark scrounged up enough money to advertise? And he’s attacking GOPer Robert Hurt? That’s good enough for me

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 50%, Tom Foley (R) 40%

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

• Fox/Pulse (aka Rasmussen):

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 44%, Dan Maes (R) 15%, Tom Tancredo (C) 34%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 43%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 36%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 8%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 42%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 45%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 50%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 49%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 44%, Ron Johnson (R) 52%

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frank Caprio (D): 36

John Robitaille (R): 13

Lincoln Chafee (I): 24

Ken Block (M): 2

Undecided: 25

David Cicilline (D): 49

John Loughlin (R): 26

Undecided: 25

(MoE: ±4.7%)

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

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

Mike McWherter (D): 24 (34)

Bill Haslam (R): 55 (60)

Undecided: 19 (6)

(MoE: ±4%)

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

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

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 40

(MoE: ±4.4%)

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

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

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

Kathy Dahlkemper (D-inc): 38

Mike Kelly (R): 44

(MoE: ±4.8%)

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

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

Tom Perriello (D): 44

Rob Hurt (R): 46

Jeff Clark (I): 4

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

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

Adam Smith (D): 54

Dick Muri (R): 35

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

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

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

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

• SSP TV:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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