The Fiorina campaign put out a broadside declaring Campbell’s fiscally conservative credentials expired long ago. In his recent run for governor Campbell supported a temporary gas tax increase to help balance the state budget.

I asked Campbell about that at his Friday news conference.

Campbell said his proposal for a temporary tax increase was a pragmatic, responsible approach to California’s budget problem. He said his overall proposal for the state budget was to cut three dollars of spending for every dollar of tax increase.
Campbell, however, said he would not sign a No-Tax Pledge because, he argued, no one can anticipate every situation that might arise. He asked voters to look at his record in congress to understand that he would not seek a tax increase but would pursue massive spending cuts if elected.
++++++
Sorry but Tom Campbell is a tax and spend RINO

An internal memo I obtained from Carly Fiorina’s campaign (authored by campaign manager Martin Wilson), notes that, “depending on the results today in Massachusetts where a Republican may win in the bluest of blue states, a mindset of ‘anything is possible’ becomes more the norm and not the exception.”
The obtained memo includes internal polling conducted during former Rep. Tom Campbell’s announcement tour (when he switched from the gubernatorial race to the senate race), which shows that in a first ballot match-up, Fiorina and Campbell are tied at 26 percent apiece, with DeVore at 11 percent.

But when voters are provided information regarding Cambpell’s questionable record on fiscal issues, Carly comes in with 35 percent, followed by DeVore at 18 percent. Campbell then trails at 11 percent.
++++++++++
Marty Wilson is a proven winner with Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina said today that California Sen. Barbara Boxer, the Democrat she hopes to unseat this year, is “extremely vulnerable,” particularly in light of the Senate upset in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

“I think Barbara Boxer is clearly extremely vulnerable. She was vulnerable a year ago and she’s more vulnerable today,” the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard said today in a small conference at the office of her Sacramento strategists.

Fiorina predicted jobs, government spending and the healthcare legislation in Washington would remain on voters’ minds throughout 2010. ”All of those things play in California just as they played in Massachusetts,” Fiorina said. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters swept Republican Scott Brown into the U.S. Senate over Democratic state Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley.
+++++
The GOP sees blood in the water and it is Boxer's

In a short talk with reporters Wednesday, Fionrina repeatedly hammered on incumbent Barbara Boxer, whom she hopes to face in November. But — when asked about recent polls — she also attacked Republican Tom Campbell, who announced last week that he would pursue Boxer's seat as well (he had been running for governor). It's a notable change from her M.O. prior to Campbell's departure, when she seemed to avoid talking about her other Republican challenger, state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. (She also mentioned him today.)

"I think what all those polls say is that Barbara Boxer is vulnerable. Tom Campbell has run for office now several times, and he obviously has strong name ID and when voters realize on many important issues his positions are indistinguishable from Barbara Boxer, his ratings will fall, just as Martha Coakley's did," she said.
++++++
Carly is going right after Tom Campbell

Former Gov. Sarah Palin will announce today that she's hitting the campaign trail for Republicans — including her former running mate John McCain.

Palin, who did not campaign in last year's governor's races or in yesterday's Senate race in Massachusetts, has committed to contests in three states, including two Republican primaries, an aide said.

She'll campaign in Texas for Gov. Rick Perry, who faces a primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison; she'll appear in Arizona for Senator John McCain, who faces a challenge from the right; and she'll appear in Minnesota for Rep. Michelle Bachmann, a conservative firebrand who has emerged as a national figure.

The upset victory of Republican Scott Brown Tuesday in the Massachusetts Senate race had an immediate effect in California, where GOP U.S. Senate Republican candidates wasted no time going on offense — vowing that Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer is on tap next.

Former South Bay Rep. Tom Campbell made the first move, issuing a jab at Boxer — along a claim that he will now take her on and address "the suicidal direction Congress and the President are taking our economy."
The combative statement from the ususally low-key Campbell hint at the pumped-up themes — and energy — to come from the GOP side in the 2010 CA U.S. Senate race against Boxer, where former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Irvine are already raring to go. And GOP state officials were positively bubbly in their reaction to Tuesday's election results in the Bay State, where Brown handily beat Democrat Martha Coakley.
++++++
Nevada, Colorado and Missouri are next and easier

My thesis, however, did not at all reflect conventional wisdom. That argument said that Campbell's entry would pull moderate voters from Fiorina– herself supposedly also a moderate, a claim I don't yet happen to find credible– to the benefit of DeVore.

Well, Red County has obtained an internal memo from the Fiorina campaign which we expect will be released later tonight or tomorrow. In it, there are some major surprises.

At first glance, the news, if accurate, is clearly troubling for one candidate– DeVore. The initial numbers, in a jolt to the conventional wisdom:

Fiorina: 26%

Campbell: 26%

DeVore: 11%

With his 64% name ID (vs. 41% for Carly), Campbell looks like an instant competitor, which is not a surprise given how well he was pollling the Governor's race.

When given more information, now quoting from the internal memo, "about Tom Campbell’s dismal record and stands on fiscal issues, the race turns upside down."
++++++
Carly Fiorina will be the GOP nominee

An e-mail sent out by Chuck DeVore's campaign — and possibly even written by the assemblyman — claimed similarities between himself and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, Scott Brown.
Patrick Ruffini, a Republican operative "doing some work" for Scott Brown's campaign, posted this to Twitter:
Note to candidates: Just because you say you're the next @ScottBrownMA doesn't make you the next @ScottBrownMA
+++++++
Patrick Ruffini is correct to slap down Chuck DeVore. But in the interests of full disclosure, Ruffini is doing some work as a web consultant for Tom Campbell who is running against DeVore and Carly Fiorina.

Working quietly and under the radar, the National Republican Senatorial Committee shifted $500,000 to the Massachusetts GOP in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s dramatic election, according to Republican sources.

The NRSC transfer, made in several dispersals beginning on Jan. 7, were used for phone and mail get-out-the-vote operations targeted at independent voters, said Rob Jesmer, the NRSC’s executive director.

NRSC officials kept quiet about the money transfers, despite public taunts from their Senate Democratic counterparts that the GOP leadership was declining to put money behind Brown’s candidacy.

“Working with the Massachusetts state party, we feel our investment and coordination with them will give us a leg up” come Tuesday, Jesmer told POLTICO.

The battle over health care legislation has taken its toll on U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson's political well-being, despite the Democrat's efforts to sell Nebraskans on his vote.

Nelson, who once enjoyed some of the highest job performance marks in the U.S. Senate, has now seen his approval rating dip below 50 percent in Nebraska, according to The World-Herald Poll.

Nelson said the poll results come as no surprise, especially since Nebraskans have been “bombarded” with millions of dollars in “misleading advertisements.”

He said he expects that people will come to appreciate the health care bill.
In the survey, Nelson's job approval rating was 42 percent and his disapproval rating was 48 percent. By comparison, Republican Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska, who voted against the bill, had a 63 percent job-approval rating.

Nelson has been under fire since he supplied the 60th vote to win approval for President Barack Obama's principal domestic policy initiative in the Senate.
+++++
Say good bye

The FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecasting Model, which correctly predicted the outcome of all 35 Senate races in 2008, now regards Republican Scott Brown as a 74 percent favorite to win the Senate seat in Massachusetts on the basis of new polling from ARG, Research 2000 and InsiderAdvantage which show worsening numbers for Brown's opponent, Martha Coakley. We have traditionally categorized races in which one side has between a 60 and 80 percent chance of winning as "leaning" toward that candidate, and so that is how we categorize this race now: Lean GOP. Nevertheless, there is a higher-than-usual chance of large, correlated errors in the polling, such as were observed in NY-23 and the New Hampshire Democratic primary; the model hedges against this risk partially, but not completely.
++++++
Handwriting on the wall?

In an interview on Monday, Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, who opposes the Senate bill because of provisions related to insurance coverage of abortions, said: "House members will not vote for the Senate bill. There's no interest in that."

When the idea was suggested at a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus last week, Mr. Stupak said, "It went over like a lead balloon."

"Why would any House member vote for the Senate bill, which is loaded with special-interest provisions for certain states?" Mr. Stupak asked. "That's not health care."
++++++
No, it isn't and Dem House members would be fools to ram this through should Scott Brown win.

Republican Scott Brown holds a lead in all 18 alternative models of the Massachusetts Senate race polls, now including all polls released through 6:00 p.m. Monday. Our standard trend estimate puts the race at a 6.2 point Brown lead over Democrat Martha Coakley. The less sensitive alternative linear model puts the Brown lead at 7.3 points. Across all models, Brown leads by between 1.0 and 8.9 points. Three quarters of the estimates have Brown ahead by 4 points or more.

Brown built this lead over the past week of polling with only some tentative sign of the trend flattening over the weekend. Of course the last available polls were completed Sunday evening so we do not know if any movement has occurred on Monday.
++++++++
Truly amazing campaign……

Massachusetts isn’t the only “blue” state where Republican Senate candidates are nipping at the heels of Democrats. According to Rasmussen,

Senator Barbara Boxer is now the latest Democratic incumbent to find herself in a tightening race for reelection.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely California voters finds Boxer with narrow leads over her three leading Republican challengers, including newcomer Tom Campbell.

Against each of the three Republicans, vying to oppose here, Ma’am holds at 46%. My gal Carly does the best at 43% (didn’t I see a poll last week that had the Massachuetts race at 43-46?). Tom Campbell, fresh from switching races (he had been barnstorming the state as a candidate for Governor, but had not been polling well against Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner in the contest for taking on Democrat Jerry Brown) is at 42, with longtime candidate Chuck DeVore at 40%.

Methinks Chuck might do well to shop for an open Congressional seat.
+++++
Yep….

The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders, scrambling for a backup plan to rescue their health care legislation if Republicans win the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday, have begun laying the groundwork to ask House Democrats to approve the Senate version of the bill and send it directly to President Obama for his signature.
A victory by the Republican, Scott Brown, in Massachusetts would deny Democrats the 60th vote they need in the Senate to surmount Republican filibusters and advance the health legislation.

And with the race too close to call, Democrats are considering several options to save the bill, which could be a major factor in how they fare in this year’s midterm elections.

Some Democrats suggested that even if their candidate, Martha Coakley, scraped out a narrow victory on Tuesday, they might need to ask House Democrats to speed the legislation to the president’s desk, especially if lawmakers who had supported the bill begin to waver…..

There has been a wider than normal range of polling results in the last two weeks from the Massachusetts Senate special election. This has been further clouded by a number of leaked internal polls and polling by relatively unknown and unproven pollsters, some partisan but others not. And most importantly, the rapid shifts in the race, reflected across all the polls, makes this a fast moving target. So let's take a moment to consider what we could reasonably conclude based on the data.

But no matter how you slice the data, the only reasonable conclusion is that Scott Brown has moved from well behind to a lead somewhere between 4 and 11 points.

The chart above shows all the polls we have available as of 12:36 a.m. Monday morning. That includes new PPP and Pajamas Media/CrossTarget polls released late Sunday evening. The chart also includes the leaked polls, mostly from the Coakley campaign but one from Brown as well.
++++++
Stay tuned – it will be quite a ride tomorrow.