Sen. Jon Kyl will announce his plans to retire at a press conference in Arizona later today, a source confirms to POLITICO.
Kyl's retirement could make this into a competitive race, depending on who pulls the trigger for Team Blue. (Kyl's own numbers were fairly strong against a number of high-profile Dems.) More as we get it.
UPDATE: 6th CD GOP Rep. Jeff Flake is very likely to enter the race in the coming days. The Politico has some comments from a few other possibilities, including Brock Landers himself:
Former Rep. John Shadegg told POLITICO he was "very surprised" at the news and called Kyl's retirement "a loss for Arizona and a loss for the nation."
"I hope that the rumors are wrong. I hope Jon Kyl is running again," he said, declining to discuss his interest in the seat.
Reached on his cell phone, first-term Rep. Ben Quayle said he had no comment on Kyl's plans, accused the reporter of calling the wrong number and then hung up.
In a text message, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth wrote, "stay tuned."
ANOTHER UPDATE: Real Clear Politics reports that Janet Napolitano (Democratic ex-Gov. and current DHS Sec.) has been calling around about the race. It also mentions the possibility of GOP Gov. Jan Brewer, who's termed-out and can't run again in 2014... and since every other Rep. in the state has been mentioned, Trent Franks too. Via the Twitter, there's word of two more guys who've been hitting the phones: Democratic Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon, and Republican Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio (the repellent Arpaio, who's in his 70s, seems to threaten to run statewide every two years and then not do it, though).
In light of the fact that Arizona has no less than five(!) competitive congressional races next week, I wanted to put together county-level vote baselines for each of the competitive races. Of course, three of those five congressional districts (AZ-03, AZ-05 and AZ-08) are mostly or entirely within one county so baselines don't do much good there. I'll go ahead and provide baselines for AZ-01, AZ-07 and throw in AZ-08. For AZ-03, AZ-05, and again AZ-08, I will be providing information about the State Legislative districts within their boundaries and give you some idea of what to look for based on which LDs report first.
First, though, a few general notes about election night. Polls close at 7pm local time (that's 10pm on the East Coast and 7pm in California because most of Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time). Nothing will be reported, however, until 8pm, when counties will release most or all of the Early Voters and Vote-by-Mail results. Precinct level results will then start to come in.
• CO-Sen: In case there was any doubt about where Ken Buck is on abortion, new video has come out from June that he's not only against Roe v. Wade, but against the whole concept of a right of privacy (on the usual teabagger grounds that it wasn't explicitly laid out in the Constitution).
• PA-Sen: Although there will be a Barack Obama appearance in Philly proper this weekend, Bill Clinton is left with the task of headlining rallies around the rest of the state. Today Clinton appears on Joe Sestak's behalf in the Philly suburbs, in Bryn Mawr and Cheyney. Clinton also appears with Dan Onorato and John Callahan in Bethlehem today.
• WV-Sen: Good news for John Raese on two different fronts. The Palm Beach architecture commission approved his plans to replace a "giant dollhouse" in the yard of his Palm Beach mansion with a glass conservatory! (Just be sure to hide all the blunt objects when Colonel Mustard comes over for a visit.) Also, it turns out he's a +13 handicap, occasionally getting down into the high 70s, so he's definitely got some game on the links. (Unfortunately for Raese, the reason we know this is because somebody leaked his self-reported scorecards from the golf ladder at the Everglades Club, the all-white country club in Palm Beach about which he's stonewalled on inquiries on whether he's a member or not.)
• HI-Gov: Credit Mufi Hannemann for good sportsmanship. In response to evidence that his supporters from the primary (who tended to skew socially conservative) were tending to break toward Duke Aiona, Hannemann recently cut a TV ad urging his backers to vote for Neil Abercrombie. The ad's part of a $200K buy by Hawaii labor unions.
• AZ-03: It's sounding like that PPP poll that gave him a lead wasn't a total fluke. Whatever Jon Hulburd is seeing is enough to get him to open up his personal checkbook and hand his campaign another $250K for a final push. No specific numbers are available, but the article says that his internal polling sees him "within the margin of error." (That's not usually the phrasing of someone who's leading in his internals, but maybe he still can gut it out.)
• NC-11: A handful of Democrats in tough races have said that they'd rather vote for someone other than Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, but no one has actually stepped forward until now to volunteer himself as a receptacle for Blue Dog votes. Heath Shuler, previously declared as one of the "no" votes, said he'll do it if no one else will. There's not telling how this gambit would work out if the Dems keep the House, or if he'll be running for minority leader if not.
• Passages: Condolences to the friends and family of Owen Pickett, the former long-time Democratic Rep. from VA-02. Pickett, who was 80, served there from 1987 to 2001.
• SSP TV:
• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon's closing argument is an endorsement from her daughter, celebrexecutive (that should be a word, if it isn't) Stephanie
• LA-Sen: Assuming Charlie Melancon loses, still give him credit for using all the material at his disposal: his TV spot hits David Vitter as hard as possible, saying his taxpayer-paid salary paid for prostitutes and it's a "sin" he represents Louisiana at all
• WV-Sen: Credit to Joe Manchin, too, for not Coakleying this one up; once he found himself in an unexpected close race, he buckled down, found messages that worked, and hammered on them, as in his final ad
• FL-22: Ron Klein goes positive with his last spot, touting endorsements from a variety of citizen groups
• NH-02: Ann McLane Kuster's ad is a combo platter of hitting Charlie Bass on his Wall Street ways and going positive on her own job creation plans
• Rasmussen:
• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%
• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 44%, Ken Buck (R) 48%
• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 45%, Rick Scott (R) 48%
• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 29%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 59%
• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 26%, Paul LePage (R) 40%, Eliot Cutler (I) 26%
• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 44%, John Kasich (R) 48%
• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 47%, Dino Rossi (R) 48%
(um, do you really want that to be your final answer on WA-Sen?)
14 of these changes favor Republicans; 6 races have moved in the Democratic direction. If anything, we're seeing a continuation of the pattern where the Dems in some high-profile statewide races seem to have bottomed out and there's a little bounce-back, but where things seem to be keeping on worsening in the House. (Although that probably doesn't have as much to do with the overall national atmosphere continuing to get worse, as it just does with additional polling coming to light that lets us see more underserved races in sharper relief.)
• AK-Sen: Congrats to Scott McAdams, who just cleared the McMillion hurdle with $1 million in fundraising so far. The majority of contributions were from Alaska, with 88% contributions of $200 or less.
• KY-Sen: Matt Taibbi's new Rolling Stone article as he works the Rand Paul beat is a must-read even if it doesn't have any revelations as freaky as the "Aqua Buddha" story, although there's some vague and anonymous racism from the newsletter that his snarky secret society put out. The prize-winning quote, though, deals with the Tea Partiers don't seem terribly phased by any of this:
("Well, I used to use that cologne myself," was the response of one Tea Partier to a question I posed about "Aqua Buddha")
• MO-Sen: American Crossroads has declared victory in Missouri, and is pulling out of advertising there, where Roy Blunt has a consistent but single-digit lead. (As for the actual party committees... well, it's probably not relevant, seeing as how Crossroads and its ilk have made them basically irrelevant this year.)
• NV-Sen: Harry Reid racked up a couple endorsements from the big-in-Nevada gaming industry, including PokerPAC. He also got the endorsement of the former chair of the RNC, Frank Fahrenkopf, who warned of the threat Sharron Angle (with her ties to anti-gambling Gary Bauer) might pose to the state's gaming industry.
• PA-Sen: Ah, sweet Schadenfreude. The Club for Growth is having to plug $1 million into the Pennsylvania Senate race in order to bail out their former boss, Pat Toomey.
• WI-Sen: Yet another story with Ron Johnson with his hand in the trough he so regularly decries: he says he's not quite sure how five of his employees (and 10 dependents) at his plastics firm Pacur wound up on BadgerCare, the state's health insurance program for the poor. That would seem to contradict previous statements from the Johnson camp that all Pacur full-time employees are covered by the company's plan.
• AZ-07, AZ-08: I know John McCain has refudiated all his old mavericky ways, but did he actually have to go so far as to violate his signature piece of mavericky legislation, the McCain-Feingold Act? He recently cut spots for GOP candidates in the 7th and 8th, in which he and Jon Kyl appeared, and paid for them out of Friends of John McCain (his campaign committee). Dems have filed FEC complaints against McCain, saying that if he coordinated with the Ruth McClung and Jesse Kelly campaigns, he would've been limited to $4,800 contributions to each (they'd be legal independent expenditures if there was truly no coordination).
• CO-03, CO-04: The gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight strikes twice, in two different neighboring Old West districts. In the 3rd, an anti-abortion group has been hitting the airwaves attacking Ken Salazar. That's fine, but Ken Salazar is the Secretary of Interior. His brother (the one with the mustache) is John Salazar, the Rep. from the 3rd. OK, understandable, since they're brothers... but how do you explain the confusion in the 4th, where not just some outside group but the Cory Gardner campaign mixed up Betsy Markey with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey? They accused her of voting for the Obama budget, which she didn't; that was the other Markey.
• FL-25: I don't know how far this will get, but give local Dems in south Florida credit for audaciousness. A Joe Garcia backer filed a lawsuit trying to get David Rivera removed from the ballot. The suit alleges that Rivera should be removed because of state election finance disclosure irregularities, concerning Rivera's mysterious claims of being a contractor to USAID despite USAID saying he wasn't. While they cite a comparable case where a state senate candidate was recently stricken from the ballot from similar problems, I'm wondering if it may be too late to do anything about that even if it succeeds on the merits (although if it only serves to move the USAID deception into the spotlight, that's good too).
• MO-04: More triage news... on the Republican side? Despite news of a Vicky Hartzler internal poll yesterday that showed a tied race, the NRCC is packing up, at least from the Kansas City market. I wonder if that has more to do with feeling neighboring KS-03 is locked down, as there are other smaller media markets in the 4th where they might still spend, but I think this has to count as at least a partial pullout.
• SD-AL: This is an interesting counterpoint to the anti-Pelosi (or at least Pelosi-skeptical) tide that seems to be rising among threatened Blue Dogs, including Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (who's in the skeptic camp): GOP challenger Kristi Noem is saying that if she wins her race, she's not sold yet on John Boehner as Republican leader, but would like to see who else might run. Recall that Noem previously politely told Sarah Palin to stay far away from her race, so this isn't the first time she's pantomimed independence.
• Early voting: There's been some buzz today about a CBS News story that says that Dems are doing better than expected in early voting, although it's kind of shy on actual numbers. It mentions that Dems have outpaced GOPers in early voting in Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, and Clark Co., Nevada, while there's a Republican edge in Florida and Colorado. Jon Ralston, of course, has more data on Nevada, while Politico has some Iowa tidbits, involving early ballot requests in IA-03 (where 50% of requests are from Dems, but where Dems are 36% of the electorate) and IA-02 (51% of the requests, 38% of the electorate).
• SSP TV:
• CO-Sen: Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund is out with a "high six-figure" buy in Colorado, with the first TV ad to take on Ken Buck's failure to prosecute that 2005 rape case (the "buyer's remorse" incident)
• KY-Sen: The DSCC hits Rand Paul on his support for the 23% sales (aka "fair") tax
• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle wonders how Harry Reid made all that money in her new ad (helpful fact from Jon Ralston: he was a millionaire even before he was in the House)
• WV-Sen: Outsourcing seems to be the hot button issue coming out of focus groups that works for the Dems these days, as the DSCC keeps hitting John Raese on it with their new spot
• AZ-03: Jon Hulburd has another TV ad against Ben Quayle, poking at his values and overall maturity
• HI-01: Colleen Hanabusa's new ad has a special guest star in the form of Barack Obama
• IN-09: The SEIU goes after Todd Young on Social Security privatization
• NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter, in her own ad, also works the SSP angle against Frank Guinta
• VA-05: Is the DCCC trying to drive up indie teabagger Jeffrey Clark's numbers? They're out with a spot hitting Robert Hurt for all the tax-raising he did in the state legislature
• Rasmussen:
• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 37%, Bill Brady (R) 45%, Rich Whit(n)ey (G) 2%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%
• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 52%
• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 42%, Rick Berg (R) 52%
• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 54%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 33%
• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 38%, Nikki Haley (R) 47%
If you haven't seen it yet, yesterday DailyKos presented a poll that was conducted for us by Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina-based Democratic polling firm. Despite it's affiliation with the Democrats, PPP doesn't have a big noticeable House effect though.
The poll's results were an absolute shocker: (relatively conservative) Democrat Jon Hulburd leads the former Vice President's son Ben Quayle 46-44 in the district that is still held by retiring Republican Representative John Shadegg, one of the most conservative Republicans in the House, in a district that has a Cook PVI of R+9- that means that in the last few election cycles it voted on average 9 points more Republican than the nation as a whole.
John McCain, who admittedly stems from Arizona, won 57% of the vote there, Bush got 54% in 2000 and 58% in 2004.
Another note: The huge paragraph breaks are intentional. They don't look very aesthetically pleasing, but I think that without them the numerical density of the diary would pretty much kill every reader.
Jon Hulburd (D): 46
Ben Quayle (R): 44
(MoE: ±3.8%)
Whoa. When Republicans have someone like Raul Grijalva on his heels but are having trouble locking down this conservative Phoenix-area district, you know that frat boy Ben Quayle has some serious residual issues leftover from his primary performance -- a performance that was catastrophic in every way, except for the fact that he actually won over a highly fractured field. Indeed, PPP finds Quayle's favorables at an extremely bruised 34-52 (compared to 33-20 for Hulburd). Hulburd wins moderates by 66-27, independents by 50-36, and even takes away 18% of Republicans.
Looks like you can mark this one down on the (very) small list of GOP-held House seats that Republicans actually should be concerned about.
AK-Sen: Scott McAdams reports raising $650K since the August primary, saying over half his donations came from Alaskans and some 90% were $200 or less. The DSCC also finally registered its first public interest in the race, sending McAdams a $42,000 contribution, the maximum allowable direct donation. McAdams described this as the DS's "first" check to him, suggesting more help might be on the way - but bear in mind that $42K was exactly what the NRSC gave Christine O'Donnell.
IN-Sen: Aaron Blake tweets that the DSCC appears to be up on the air with a "small ad buy... in the South Bend market." SSP hoosiers in that corner of the state, let us know if you see anything.
NV-Sen: Jon Ralston obtained a 38-minute tape of an apparently private meeting between Sharron Angle and Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian, wherein Angle (among other things) pleads with Ashjian to drop out lest he cost her the election. Ralston has links to the full audio, and also posts some transcribed excerpts. The question remains: Why the hell did Angle tape this meeting - and how did it get released publicly?
AL-Gov: Robert Bentley, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, just told Mitt Romney to take a hike. Romney endorsed a bunch of Alabama Republicans (obviously as part of his pre-campaign ass-kissing), but Bentley declined the singular honor. Not surprised, given that you can find something about Willard Mitt which probably makes his backing unwelcome in every state in the union.
SC-Gov (PDF): So there's a poll out by a firm I've never heard of, Cranston & Associates, purporting to show Republican Nikki Haley up just 45-41 over Dem Vincent Sheheen. There are more than a few problem with this poll, though - click a link and check out the responses to their questions. It's apparently an RV poll, but 100% of respondents say they're going to vote. The male-female split is twice what it was in 2008, and the African American percentage is equal to 2008. In other words, this sample is waaay too friendly.
CA-03: I can't summarize this charming bit of hypocrisy better than Torey Van Oot of the Sacramento Bee, whose lede reads: "Rep. Dan Lungren likened the federal stimulus plan to a "spending spree which will add to a growing mountain of debt," but he helped secure $30 million from the program for a local company whose leaders later contributed to his campaign." Click the link for the full details.
CA-47: Clinton Alert! The Big Dog is coming to do a rally for Loretta Sanchez (a Hillary supporter, natch) on Oct. 15th. Recall that Joe Biden was in town last month to support Sanchez, who needs all the help she can get these days. After telling a radio host that "The Vietnamese and the Republicans are, with an intensity, (trying) to take this seat" and that her opponent Van Tran is "is very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic," Sanchez came under intense fire and offered a bullshit "I'm sorry if you misunderstood me" non-apology. This one is not going well.
DE-AL: Republican Glen Urquhart is touting a Wilson Research Strategies poll (n=300) which supposedly has him just three points back of Dem John Carney, 45-42.
MA-04: Republican newcomer Sean Bielat, running against Rep. Barney Frank, says he raised $400K in September alone (and has the same amount on hand), after raising just $230K through August 25th. Frank has $1 million on hand. Even though Obama, Kerry, and Gore all won about 65% here, Scott Brown narrowly won this district, 50-49.
MN-06: Jebus - Michele Bachmann says she raised over $3.4 million in the third quarter alone. $3.4 million would be a lot for an entire cycle, let alone just one quarter. Put another way: That's probably 3 to 4 times what Lee Fisher raised last quarter.
PA-10: Given that things like "competence" and "judgment" were not on the list of criteria Karl Rove used when hiring US Attorneys, it's no surprise to hear that another legal impropriety has cropped up in connection with Tom Marino. During his days as Lycoming County D.A., Marino sought to get a friend's drug conviction expunged - and when one local judge refused to do so, he asked another, who granted the expungement, but then reversed himself upon learning what happened with the first judge. Pretty scuzzy - and why was Marino, who seems to have a history of wanting to do favors for unsavory characters, even seeking the expungement in the first place? The Luzerne County Citizens' Voice also tantalizes us with some other unexplored alleged Marino misbehavior "including claims he hired law enforcement colleagues to serve as an "entourage" and would go days at a time without going to the office."
Meanwhile, the Allentown Morning Call confirms what I've always assumed to be the case, that Marino resigned as US Attorney while he was under investigation in the Louis DeNaples matter (see PA-10 tags), which had the effect of halting the inquiry. Reminds me of Nathan Deal bailing on Congress to stop his ethics investigation.
TN-08: Uh-oh - time to get Steve Fincher on "Better Know a District." The Republican agribusiness kingpin didn't realize that the 8th CD includes parts of a small little town you might have heard of once... you know, Memphis, Tennessee. While declaring his ignorance, Fincher also informed the public that he wouldn't debate his opponent, Dem Roy Herron, nor would he release his tax returns (Herron has). Herron's also raised some questions about Fincher's personal financial disclosures, noting that they include zero liabilities - even though Fincher obtained a $250K bank loan that he in turn loaned to his campaign.
SSP TV:
AL-02: Bobby Bright runs through a litany of numbers which he says define him - including voting with John Boehner 80% of the time
AZ-03: In his first ad, Dem John Hulburd strikes out at Ben Quayle for his fucked-up moral compass
IA-01: Republican Ben Lange has his first ad up, a biographical spot
LA-02: Cedric Richmond features President Obama speaking directly to the camera (and making lots of hand gestures that look like someone speaking very broken sign language)
Independent Expenditures:
NRCC: $5.3 million worth of NRCC spending on too many races to count
SC-05: "Citizens for a Working America" spends $250K against Dem Rep. John Spratt
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.
CO-Sen: Like so many Republicans who rail against pork, Ken Buck still loves to gorge himself. Buck signed an anti-earmarks pledge pushed by Americans for Prosperity, but as Weld County DA, he asked then-Rep. Marilyn Manson Musgrave for a $2 million in federal funding for "expansions of North Range Behavioral Health center in Greeley." He also "won $235,000 earmarked for the Weld County Gang Task Force." In non-explaining this rather glaring contradiction, Weld said it "doesn't mean I don't want to change the system." In other words, vote for me because I'm a hypocrite.
FL-Sen: Marco Rubio agreed to participate in a debate with Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek, and then proposed six more. Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Buzz explains how this play might really squeeze Crist:
Charlie Crist is almost always good on TV, but this poses a real problem for him. In a three-person debate, it would be Rubio and Meek each taking turns hitting Crist and pressing him on flip-flops and inconsistencies. It's hard to stay above the fray when you're the main target.
But skipping most of the debates is equally problematic. If Meek agrees to these debates and the networks agree to televise them with or without all three candidates, Crist would be letting Meek raise his profile as the Democratic alternative to Rubio.
Tom Jensen also describes another rock-and-hard-place problem for Charlie: Kendrick Meek is starting to eat his lunch among Democrats, so how can Crist regain that support? Well, he could pledge to caucus with the Democrats... but that would, of course, hurt him among Republicans. Mark Blumenthal also has an in-depth post on the subject, looking at things from Kendrick Meek's perspective and wondering if he has a path to victory. Blumenthal concludes that Meek has a lot of room to grow, but thinks wining would be a "tall order."
KY-Sen: Rand Paul knows that when you are in a deep hole, you bring in a back-hoe. Then, you start using some C4. Finally, you send in an army of ten million moles. At last, once you can finally hear the sound of Chinese being spoken, you know you are deep enough - and you reiterate your opposition to doing anything about the drug problem in Eastern Kentucky.
NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall has become the first (I think) challenger so far to call for former WY Sen. Alan Simpson's resignation from what Atrios calls the "cat food commission" (not cat fud commission, sadly) - aka the president's stupid deficit commission. Simpson, if you haven't heard yet, wrote a vile email to the head of the National Older Women's League, calling Social Security "a milk cow with 310 million tits" - and telling his correspondent to "get honest work."
NV-Sen: His Mayoralness Michael Bloomberg will be hosting a fundraiser for none other than Harry Reid at Bloombo's home in September. The Hill notes that Bloombleman has endorsed both Dems and GOPers this cycle, including Michael Bennet and Joe Sestak for the good guys, and Mark Kirk and Mike Castle for the bad guys.
Getting back to Nevada for a second, both Reid and Angle have new ads up, which you can view here. Reid has really been smacking Angle relentlessly over all the crazy shit she's said - so I think you can understand why I said yesterday that it feels "limp" for Ron Klein to go after the similarly insane Allen West over tax issues rather than teh crazy. Anyhow, NWOTSOTB, though the Reid campaign says the ad "will be added to its rotation of statewide spots."
WI-Sen: Wait, could there actually be room in this digest for a second Republican hypocrite? Hell yes! And it's a repeat performance. It turns out that Ron Johnson's plastics company Pacur received a HUD grant in 1979 to build a railway line out to its factory. This is on top of the $2.5 million federal loan Pacur received in the mid-80s to build an addition to the factory. As one blogger says, Ayn Rand must be rotating in her crypt. Don't forget what Dagny Taggart did for a living!
AZ-03: Ben Quayle started a post-victory press conference by doubling down on his previous jerk-assedness, repeating his claim that "Barack Obama is the worst President in history.'" The douche really doesn't fall far from the bag, huh. Meanwhile, Quayle's former buddies at TheDirty.com were hit with an $11 million default judgment in a defamation suit brought by one of the many people they've wronged over the years. The only problem, however, is that the plaintiff's attorneys appeared to have crumbed the play by naming the wrong business entity in their lawsuit. Hooman Karamian, the scumbag behind the website, says that neither he nor his company was served process, which could seriously imperil the award. In any case, all this legal wrangling is gonna make it a little harder for Quayle to get past this issue, methinks. (And Karamian, for that matter, says that he'll stop blogging about Quayle's involvement with the site once he "admits that he is Brock Landers".)
"Dan Webster is deader than Elvis. ... He is the ultimate establishment candidate," Grayson quipped Wednesday, the morning after Republican voters picked the veteran former state legislator to run against him in District 8. ...
Grayson, of Orlando, is a bare-knuckle campaigner who has already begun referring to Webster as "Taliban Dan," for what he considers to be Webster's extreme religious views. Grayson made it clear his campaign plans a heavy onslaught of attacks against Webster's voting record.
"Stay tuned. You'll see: We'll be putting it out day after day, week after week," Grayson said. "Very soon people are going to realize that Webster can't possibly win."
While he's often infuriating, you gotta respect Grayson for being balls-out, and not sounding like such a wuss like so many other Democrats.
FL-17: The Miami Herald has an interesting post-mortem on the Dem primary in the 17th CD. Given the heavily Haitian population in the district, it seemed likely that it could send the first Haitian-American person to Congress. But the four candidates of Haitian descent in the race split the vote, allowing state Sen. Frederica Wilson to carry the day with 35% (a number which, given the huge size of the field, was actually considered pretty high).
FL-24: Put the can-openers away, boys - no cat fud here. Karen Diebel emerged from hiding to endorse state Rep. Sandy Adams, the winner of the GOP primary. Diebel lost by about 0.8%, but obviously this means no recount.
ME-02: Businessman Jason Levesque is up on the airwaves in his bid to upset Blue Dog Mike Michaud, touting his desire to reign in government spending. Levesque has raised over $250K for his bid, so you may want to consider adding this one to your list of races that are bubbling under. (JL)
NM-02: The other day, we mentioned that the Defenders of Wildlife threw down another $125K on a new attack ad against GOPer Steve Pearce. The New Mexico Independent has the ad, if you'd like to watch it.
NC-07: Here's something you don't see every day: Dem Rep. Mike McIntyre's 2008 Republican opponent, Will Breazeale, is endorsing him. Breazeale really has it in for GOP nominee Ilario Pantano - Breazeale attempted a repeat bid this year, but was beaten by Pantano in the primary. The odd thing is that the McIntyre campaign specifically said "no comment" in regard to the endorsement. Any thoughts on why?
NC-08: Larry Kissell is touting a new internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt, showing him beating Republican Harold Johnson 49-32, with Libertarian Thomas Hill at 7. The only other interesting finding actually released in the memo is Johnson's faves, 32-25.
NV-03: Actually, it turns out AFSCME's buy was a lot bigger than we thought: $750K, according to independent expenditure reports, rather than the $240K reported by the Smart Media Group. AFSCME really seems to like buying in three-quarters-of-a-million chunks.
NY-01: Randy Altschuler is out with a new ad attacking Republican rival Chris Cox for living in New York City, rather than in Suffolk County. (Apparently, Cox is crashing at his uncle's house in the Hamptons.) NWOTSOTB.
NY-13: GOPer Michael Allegretti has a new ad out, frenetically edited in the Dale Peterson style, which includes a "man on the street" declaring that Allegretti "is a paisan! He's one of us!" And here's an interesting detail the ad alludes to, which I think we missed: Allegretti's opponent Mike Grimm apparently has no job and has debts which far exceed his income, according to financial disclosure forms. Gotta wonder how he can afford to run for Congress in NYC.
NY-14: Looks like the New York Post got caught trying to ratfuck the Dem primary here in my backyard. Those scuzzes tried to claim that Hillary Clinton - you know, the Secretary of State - was "unofficially" backing Reshma Saujani. Clinton confidantes and the State Department have called bullshit, though, stating that the Secretary of State does not engage in partisan politics. Duh. Nice try, Posties.
SD-AL: In politics, going after a candidate's record traffic infractions is usually a rinky-dink play, but it turns out that Republican Kristi Noem's record behind the wheel is very troubled:
KELOLAND News checked the records for all five candidates for U.S. House and Governor; Noem has the longest list of violations, including 20 speeding tickets, three stop sign violations, two seat belt violations, and no driver's license. Noem also has six court notices for failure to appear and two arrest warrants.
Yikes! Meanwhile, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin is out with a new ad that, mercifully, doesn't feature her son's poop, but instead speaks in dour tones about how liberals in Washington are wrecking the heartland. Pretty bleak, defeatist-sounding stuff. (JL)
