links for 2010-04-16

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is stepping up her role in supporting Senate colleague Barbara Boxer's re-election bid.

Feinstein, who is up for re-election in 2012, will chair Boxer's campaign.

A release announcing the leadership role plays up the collaboration between the two Democrats.

"Senator Boxer and I make a great team for California," Feinstein said in a statement. "That's why I'm so proud to chair Senator Boxer's campaign. Barbara is a proven and effective leader for California, and our strong partnership is essential in creating jobs and turning our economy around."

"We've built a strong working partnership, and I want to make sure we continue working side by side as an effective team for California," Boxer added.
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Boxer is in trouble. First Obama comes to town to raise Boxer some money and now DiFi.

But, will it help?

What needs to be said is that Erick has allowed his dislike for McConnell to get in the way of his judgment. And jeopardizing one's credibility as an honest broker because one doesn't like someone else in office and twisting oneself into knots to make arguments for a libertarian over a mainstream conservative to support that isn't the path to redemption. It's the path to looking like a DC hack willing to pander to the base that likes Sarah Palin to achieve a selfish end. Certainly Erick is free to support Rand Paul over Trey Grayson. But if he has to rely on cheap stunts and not sound arguments to do it, I believe it's fair to question both his judgment and his motivation on the issue.
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Dan has a point here especially with Erickson's DC gig with CNN.

A group calling itself California Citizens for Ethics in Government put out a press release Thursday saying that it had filed an official complaint with California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office over Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s “apparent usage of paid state staff in his U.S. Senate campaign.”

Citing “a recent news story” about two current or former members of DeVore’s Assembly staff who also work for his Senate campaign (which almost certainly was the The Watchdog’s recent story about that very topic), the press release cites the government code that makes it illegal for government officials to devote public funds to their own use and quotes the group’s president, Bob Davis, as saying, “We believe the Attorney General must investigate this incident to ensure taxpayer funds are not being used in a federal campaign.”
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Probably not associated with the Fiorina campaign but Trevino has some questions to answer

Combining its own race-by-race calculations with the results of national polls, The Cook Political Report officially projects a Republican gain of 30 to 40 seats. I suspect that the GOP will do even better if the trend over the past seven months continues.

On the other hand, the Intrade electronic markets give Democrats a 56 percent chance of holding the House. The views of other experts vary as well. Most political scientists who have weighed in tend to think that Democrats will suffer serious losses but retain control. Analysts who look at individual races and then add "macro" national dynamics to the mix, however, largely expect Democrats to have real trouble hanging on.

Despite all of this disagreement over whether the House will flip, there is pretty much of a consensus in the political community that President Obama's chances of getting re-elected will rise if his party loses the House or Senate. (In my book, the latter is quite unlikely.)
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House control will flip