links for 2010-10-12

One of the sharpest moments in the debate has come after moderator Tom Brokaw broached the recent recording of someone on Jerry Brown’s campaign calling Meg Whitman a “whore” during an endorsement phone call.

Brown began by dismissing the recording, calling it a “five-week-old private conversation” before eventually offering a half-hearted apology to Whitman for the “garbled transmission.”

She didn’t accept it. “It’s not just me but the people of California who deserve better than slurs,” Whitman said.

The remark, she said, was “not befitting of the office you are running for.”

Brown began to defend the recording again, saying he was “not even sure it’s legal,” suggesting the campaign had not consented to being recorded. Brown’s former communications director, in his attorney general’s office, resigned after secretly recording interviews with reporters.
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A poor response by Brown. Likely to be seen in ads.

An alliance of Republican groups is launching a $50 million advertising blitz this week in a final push to help the GOP win a majority in the House, representing the biggest spending blitz ever by such groups in a congressional election campaign.
The coordinated effort, which the groups have dubbed the "House surge strategy," tops what the official Republican House election committee expects to spend on television ads for the entire contest. It is aimed at the few dozen competitive races where Democratic candidates have significantly more money in the bank than their Republican opponents, eating into one of the Democrats' last financial advantages.

Democratic candidates, notably incumbents, have raised more cash than many of their Republicans rivals in this year's most competitive House races, according to a Wall Street Journal tally of Federal Election Commission data.
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This surge will offset the Democrat incumbent advantage in campaign money.

In the latest of personal skirmishes leading up to the last gubernatorial debate Tuesday, Jerry Brown's wife, Anne Gust Brown, is now at the center of speculation over who advised Brown to call Meg Whitman a "whore" in a private conversation recorded by a voice message machine last month.

A Fox News blog, quoting an unnamed source with reportedly close ties to Jerry Brown's campaign, said Brown's wife was the culprit, though the Brown campaign continued to insist it didn't know who it was. A woman can be heard on the audio tape saying "what about saying she's a whore?" in a private conversation among Brown's campaign aides about how to respond to an endorsement a small police union was giving to Whitman.
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Come on Jerry admit it….

President Obama will be spending one of those last precious days just before the election helping California incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer in her race against GOP challenger Carly Fiorina. It's yet another sign of the rising national attention on the California Senate race, which until now has been overshadowed by the gubernatorial contest between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman.

This direct from the White House: Obama will be at a DNC fundraiser in San Francisco on Oct. 20th and again in Los Angeles on the 22nd, after which he heads straight for Las Vegas to help embattled majority leader Harry Reid, a close Boxer friend.
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Will this pull it out for Boxer and Reid?

Doubtful

Nearly half the people who once considered themselves supporters of President Barack Obama don't anymore.

Other than that, his virtually nonstop cross-country campaigning for embattled Democrats in the Nov. 2 election is working perfectly. Monday night, he spoke to two party fundraisers of ordinary American millionaires in Miami, as The Ticket reported here.

A new poll released today by Bloomberg News finds all that hopey-changey stuff is rapidly turning to disappointment and disenchantment. While 47% of all voters approve of Obama's job now, ominously for 2012 only 36% of onetime Obama supporters now approve. Feeling jilted?

Someone named Hillary Clinton is now viewed favorably by fully 64% of Americans, even more than like Obama's wife.
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Hope and change has clashed with reality of governing

Progressive attack dogs are trying desperately to drag Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck’s name through the mud. They will only end up with the indelible smell of dog crap on their own hands.

The non-issue: Buck’s decision not to prosecute a five-year-old alleged rape case for lack of evidence.

Responsible district attorneys have to make tough decisions like these all the time. Since even the Huffington Post was forced to acknowledge that such prosecutorial calculations are “not entirely rare with such delicate cases,” the best they can do is accuse Buck of “insensitivity.” The lefties then contradict themselves by attacking Buck for sensitively and sensibly advising the accuser of the consequences of moving forward and going public given the ambiguities of her case:
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Read it all…

15. Michael Leahy, blogger

Author of the forthcoming book “The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement” and co-founder of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, Michael Leahy had a role in the coordination of the first round of Tea Party protests in 2009. Leahy hosts two programmes on Pajamas TV, The Tea Party Coalition Show and TCOT. Leahy is the publisher and managing editor of The TCOT Report, which publishes breaking news reported by conservatives from a list he created on Twitter called Top Conservatives on Twitter. Leahy calls himself a grassroots new media strategist and blogs about conservative issues.
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Michael was instrumental in Top Conservatives on Twitter which drove the early Tea Party Movement.

Republicans are expanding the battle for the House into districts that Democrats had once considered relatively safe, while Democrats began a strategy of triage on Monday to fortify candidates who they believe stand the best chance of survival.

As Republicans made new investments in at least 10 races across the country, including two Democratic seats here in eastern Ohio, Democratic leaders took steps to pull out of some races entirely or significantly cut their financial commitment in several districts that the party won in the last two election cycles.

Representatives Steve Driehaus of Ohio, Suzanne M. Kosmas of Florida and Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania were among the Democrats who learned that they would no longer receive the same infusion of television advertising that party leaders had promised. Party strategists conceded that these races and several others were slipping out of reach.
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The Dems will lose big or really big.

Republican challenger Ron Johnson continues to earn more than 50% of the vote in his U.S. Senate bid against incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold in Wisconsin.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Wisconsin finds Johnson with 52% support. Feingold, who has represented the state in the Senate since 1993, earns 45% of the vote. Two percent (2%) are undecided.
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Leans Republican as another long time Dem Senator finds himself in trouble