Details, details, don't bother House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) with details. Especially for the economic speech he gave in Cleveland on Tuesday, where he left at least 2.5 billion of them out when he said:

Last year, House Republicans launched the State Solutions project to bring Republican governors and state legislators together to fight big-government policies and promote better solutions to Americans’ everyday challenges.  [...]

In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell entered office facing an unprecedented $4.2 billion deficit.  His predecessor, the chairman of the Democratic party, proposed closing the shortfall by imposing the largest tax increase in the state’s history. Governor McDonnell refused to balance his state’s budget by making it harder for Virginia families and business owners to balance their own… Both governors forged bipartisan cooperation, set priorities, cut spending, and closed their shortfalls – without raising taxes.

And what better way to fight big-government policies than to take $2.5 billion in stimulus money from the fed?

According to a Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis report released this week, last year’s Recovery Act provided $2.5 billion in stimulus relief to ‘maintain crucial services for [Virginia] citizens’ and ‘help close the state’s budget shortfall in 2010-2012.’ Virginia legislators relied on $1.3 billion in enhanced Medicaid funding, $1 billion in funding for K-12 and higher education, $39 million for public safety, and $200 million in general support to reduce ‘what would otherwise have been a $5.4 billion budget hole.’”

But mentioning that would probably have been as awkward as mentioning the $10 billion in stimulus money that his home state of Ohio is receiving.

For a party that denounces “big government” and “socialism” at every turn, Republicans are oddly terrified of the alternative: privatization.

Case in point: Republican Senatorial candidate and former Club for Growth chair Pat Toomey. Although Toomey favors moving Social Security out of the public sector and into the stock market--aka, privatization—he will never, ever use the word privatization. Further, he will adamantly deny that he favors privatization. Consider how Toomey reacted to a question at the National Press Club yesterday when asked about Social Security privatization:

Q: Do you continue to favor privatizing Social Security?

A: I’ve never said I favor privatizing Social Security. It’s a very misleading — it’s an intentionally misleading term.

Privatization is exactly what Toomey supports. He wants to take Social Security money out of the public sector of the government and put it in the private sector of the stock market. That is why it is called "privatization." The DSCC catalogued 36 instances where Toomey supported exactly that policy.

What Toomey, and most other Republicans, oppose is not actual privatization, but the word “privatization.” Republicans used to use the word when discussing their plans for Social Security but in the fall of 2002, they made the linguistic slide away from the term en masse. They did this once it became known how poorly variants on the word “private” poll in regards to Social Security. Talking Points Memo documented some Republicans making this shift:

Rep. Chris Chocola (R) of Indiana before word came down from party headquarters (Nov. 1, 2000) ...

Bush's plan of individual investment of 2 percent of the money is a start. Eventually, I'd like to see the entire system privatized. It's not a 'risky scheme.'

Rep. Chris Chocola (R) of Indiana after word came down from party headquarters (Sept. 3rd, 2002) ...

I do not support the privatization of Social Security.

Bob Novak before the word came down from party headquarters (Capitol Gang, Sept. 14th, 2002 where we find Mark Shields at mid-Outrage of the Week) ...

Mark Shields: In an Orwellian abuse of the language, conservatives, including even the respected Cato Institute, insist that they're now for Social Security choice, not for dreaded 'privatization'. Yes, and war is peace.

Robert D. Novak.

NOVAK: I'm still for privatization.

Bob Novak after the word came down from party headquarters (Crossfire, Oct. 28th, 2002) ...

[Democratic consultant] Steve McMahon: I thought they were accusing the Republicans of wanting to privatize Social Security which, after all, is what Republicans wanted.

NOVAK: That's a Democratic term.

Conservatives favor turning Social Security over to the private sector. However, they will vehemently deny wanting to privatize Social Security because it polls poorly.

With the possible exceptions of Muslims, the LGBT community, and immigrants, there may not be anything Republicans fear more than the use of the word, “privatization.” As such, Democrats need to keep hammering away at Republicans with the term. Maybe if enough Democrats do so, all of them will come to oppose privatization, too.

As the traditional media continues to flog the story about opposition to building a mosque at ground zero turning a Burlington Coat Factory in lower Manhattan into a community center, CNN decided that giving a known racist airtime to voice his deep thoughts on the subject was a good idea:

In an interview with CNN's Jeff Simon, [former Tea Party Express spokesman Mark] Williams said he's on a new mission when it comes to the Cordoba House -- he told Simon he will "personally commit myself to coming up with funding" for what he called a "mirror image" of Cordoba built in Mecca "that would be dedicated to showcasing American values."

"How about we reinforce the peaceful, moderate nature that Islam claims to be and how about we have an Uncle Sam center to introduce people to the understanding of human rights?" Williams told CNN.

The right to build such a building would be all it takes for Williams to "drop his opposition to Park51," he told the network.

Mr. Williams raised an interesting question. Others might be, why should zoning decisions made in New York City need a clearance from an out-of-work teabagger from Texas? Or, why does someone's support for tolerance and freedom of religion in America hinge on an imaginary building in one of the world's most repressive regimes? Or, most importantly, why is CNN giving a platform to this nitwit?

It's already been a bad week for economic news, and we've got three days yet to go.  The Republicans, under the anything-but-sotto voce direction of their unofficial leader Rush Limbaugh − who delights in anything that can be twisted into an example of Democratic failure − are no doubt viewing the latest stats with glee. Anything that might give them a propaganda edge for November, no matter how much pain it causes Americans caught in this meat-grinder of a recession, is going to be hyped via compliant media as a good reason to reject Democrats on election day.

The GOP's malignant amnesia regarding the economy would be hilarious were it not for the wreckage they caused. That includes a 30-year-long rhetorical crusade against deficit spending they deployed while piling up four times as much public debt as all previous administrations combined, reaching all the way back to George Washington's.

The economy is clearly not in good shape. The past four quarters have met the technical parameters of a "recovery." But down where people actually live instead of in the arena of experts and the realm of gated communities, a red alert is flashing as the outcome of the disastrous consequences of dismantling the middle-class, bath-tubbing our social and physical public infrastructure, busting unions, deregulating banks, taxing regressively, globalizing without fetters, engaging in criminal financial shenanigans, ultra-concentrating wealth, spending too much on the military, and failing to keep our eyes from becoming too large for our wallets. Tens of millions of Americans don't just think we're still in a recession because they're ignorant of economic terminology, but rather because they are still in a recession, although at least one expert not only agrees with them but goes further.

While it's sadly true that not enough Democrats are attuned to dealing with these chronic problems, the Republicans not only are unified in their determination to make these worse, they also have put up obstacles from day one of the Obama administration against cooperating to take action for ameliorating the economy's acute problems. They only intone their decades-old mantra: cut taxes. Not even Band-Aids for hoi polloi; full-time care for hoi oligoi. Daily they pronounce their debunked claptrap, making the most of bad news without ever copping to their role in producing it.

As noted above, what we've seen in the most recent numbers is not encouraging. Existing home sales showed the worst results in 14 years. Retail sales as measured by activity at chain stores weakened. Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said that while a "double-dip" recession is still not likely, the chances it might occur have risen.

A Commerce Department report released this morning on durable goods orders, which have declined two months in a row, increased in July, but only by 0.3 percent, far below the 3 percent median estimate of 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.  A report on new home sales, which are exceedingly weak but might have made a marginal gain in July, will be released later this morning. Thursday we'll get the weekly report on initial jobless claims. The consensus is grim and may clock in close to the half-million claims filed last week. And come Friday, we'll see the first of the Commerce Department's two revisions of gross domestic product for the second quarter. Last month, the "advance" calculation of GDP came in at a mediocre 2.4 percent. With more information available now, the consensus of experts puts the revision at 1.3 percent, a dismal result, if it turns out to be true. Also on Friday, consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan/Reuters will be announced. And Ben Bernanke will be in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to give a speech on the economic outlook that is not likely to be upbeat. A week from Friday, we'll see another monthly jobs report. Predictions there are not soothing.

Under the circumstances, it might seem the administration is without a paddle against the excremental GOP deluge over who's at fault for this situation and their (groan) solution. But the Congressional Budget Office provided some help in that regard on Tuesday. According to its analysis [pdf], from April-June 2010, the Democratic stimulus package raised the inflation-adjusted GDP 1.7 percent to 4.5 percent and reduced the numbers of jobless by 1.4 million to 3.3 million. That ain't peanuts.

Legitimate objections have been raised about how the stimulus was put together and how it has been delivered. But every chance the administration and Democratic congressional candidates get between now and Nov. 2 - that is, every single day - they should hammer home that without the stimulus, which the Republican Party did everything it could to smother in its cradle, the economic pain right now would be far, far worse than it is.

It was good, therefore, to see the Democratic National Committee deliver what the Christian Science Monitor called a "prebuttal" Monday to House Minority Leader John Boehner over his pathetic economic proposals. A well-done zinger. Smackdowns on the economy, however, shouldn't always be reactive, as even prebuttals are. To effectively put the Republicans on the defensive, the administration needs more than a message of the-economy-would-be-a-whole-lot-worse if-these-guys-had-been-in-power, even though that assessment is absolutely true.

To this end, combined with a thorough thrashing of the GOP for its devil-take-the-hindmost policies, shortly after Labor Day, the administration should present basic elements of a new economic program for the next two years. It should be a program emphasizing our acute emergency, of course. But it should also lay the foundation for resolving some of the chronic problems that helped generate the emergency. That means, as so many critics have said, new approaches to trade, industrial policy, off-shoring, wage stagnation and arbitrage, and regulation. It should also look even deeper, how to deal with people's needs for economic security in a world in which automation and other productivity-enhancing changes make the old job paradigm obsolete.

No way, obviously, can reforms in all those areas be achieved in a mere two years, but a start can be made, a direction laid out. Such an economic program ought also to boast one big project, not just a flashy eye-catcher, but something practical, job-generating and an investment in the future. Replacing all our coal plants with clean-energy sources over a decade would be one possible choice with multiple benefits. But there are others.

In the immediate future, these two messages could reinvigorate voters whose enthusiasm for keeping the Party of No out of office has waned during the past few months. Together, they would provide inspiring talking points to activists in the phone-bank and door-to-door trenches for their use in persuading Americans that staying at home, or choosing Republican candidates, will worsen the economic situation. But a far-sighted economic program must ultimately be about something far more important than merely winning an election.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Ted

One year ago today, we---meaning America---lost a real "champion for the little guy." Ted Kennedy was gone after 77 years, the last 47 of which were spent as a United States Senator. His wife, Vicki, reflects:

"In so many ways, it’s still hard to believe he’s gone," Vicki said, "Teddy is still such a huge presence in my mind and in my life. I hear him; the echo of his voice is always with me and it totally comforts me."

No argument from us:

"What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system"
-
"The great adventures which our opponents offer is a voyage into the past. Progress is our heritage, not theirs."
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On the Iraq war: "There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud."
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"This is the cause of my life---new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American---North, South, East, West, young, old---will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege."
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"The Constitution does not just protect those whose views we share; it also protects those with whose views we disagree."
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"I won’t yield to anyone about guns in our society. I know enough about it."
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"I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity."
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"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Said President Obama at Ted's funeral:

The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the United States Senate -- a man who graces nearly 1,000 laws, and who penned more than 300 laws himself. [...]

It was only a few years ago, on St. Patrick's Day, when Teddy buttonholed me on the floor of the Senate for my support of a certain piece of legislation that was coming up for vote.  I gave my pledge, but I expressed skepticism that it would pass. But when the roll call was over, the bill garnered the votes that it needed, and then some. I looked at Teddy with astonishment and asked how had he done it.  He just patted me on the back and said, "Luck of the Irish." Of course, luck had little to do with Ted Kennedy's legislative success; he knew that.

Lord knows he had flaws aplenty, but who doesn't? All I know is, for the first 45 years of my life Ted Kennedy was in Washington, "voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium, a veritable force of nature" (Obama's words again). He was both a battering ram and a master of jiu jitsu. And also a guy you'd never turn down having a beer with. Even though I'm not from Massachusetts, he still felt like "my" senator. His "vim ahnd vigah" are sorely missed.

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...

Wednesday punditry, now with 35% less doubt. Winners will crow, the press will over-react (It's the year of anti-incumbency! No, it isn't! Yes, it is!)... politics as usual, as summer winds down.

NY Times editorial:

In a huge overreach, a federal judge has decided that the legal interpretation that has governed federal support of embryonic stem cell research for more than a decade is invalid. If the ruling stands, it will be a serious blow to medical research...

Although the injunction is temporary, the ruling is ominous because it means that the judge believes the two plaintiffs — scientists who do research on adult stem cells — have a "strong likelihood of success" if this issue proceeds to trial.  

ABC News:

The U.S. District Court's freeze on federally funded embryonic stem cell research  has sparked a firestorm of controversy as scientists in the field cope with the devastating blow this ruling deals to their work.

Dan Balz:

Results deliver mixed verdict, demonstrating that the ability of establishment candidates to withstand challenges inside parties remains strong but not invincible.

Chris Cillizza with Alaska too close to call:

But the "tea party"-backed Miller was boosted by an endorsement from Murkowski's longtime foe, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin  (R), as well as a controversial ballot measure, Proposition 2, that would require doctors to inform parents in order for a teenage girl to undergo an abortion.

The measure appeared to be turning out conservative-leaning voters in record numbers: As of early Wednesday morning, total turnout on Prop 2 exceeded the combined turnout in the Republican and Democratic Senate primaries by more than 10,000 voters, with 55 percent voting in favor and 45 percent opposed.

Susan MacManus,  Professor, University of South Florida:

One thing the GOP has to do is to heal the schism within the party, since the vote was pretty split. Scott has to keep Republicans from straying to Alex Sink. The fractures run deep with this kind of attacks, and it really kind of made it a big challenge for the Republican nominee. [If you were a McCollum backer], you might have some trouble with warming up to Rick Scott since he has been so vicious.

Once again, this shows the volatility of politics and that polls can’t predict turnout. We had very bad weather – it was pouring rain in the key parts of the state – and turnout was very, very light. That probably hurt McCollum. Turnout is lower in bad weather in heavily urbanized areas. Turnout is higher in suburban areas regardless of weather.

Tom Curry:

Sometimes forgotten today is the wide support McCain's bill enjoyed in 2006.  It passed the Senate 62 to 36, with 22 Republicans (including today's GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell) joining McCain in voting for it.

But the bill languished and died when House GOP leaders decided to emphasize border security and ran the 2006 campaign partly on an anti-amnesty platform.

This year, attentive to an aroused citizenry in his state, McCain has used the tagline "complete the danged fence" and urged that more troops be deployed on the border to keep illegal immigrants out.

Christine Stansell:

Looking back on the adoption of the 19th Amendment 90 years ago Thursday — the largest act of enfranchisement in our history — it can be hard to see what the fuss was about. We’re inclined to assume that the passage of women’s suffrage (even the term is old-fashioned) was inevitable, a change whose time had come. After all, voting is now business as usual for women. And although women are still poorly represented in Congress, there are influential female senators and representatives, and prominent women occupy governors’ and mayors’ offices and legislative seats in every part of the United States.

Progress comes only with effort.

Washington Post:

President Obama's much-maligned economic stimulus package added as many as 3.3 million jobs to the economy during the second quarter of this year, and may have prevented the nation from lapsing back into recession, according to a report released Tuesday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

That's great. Where's that second stimulus?

Apparently, the political surprise deities have saved their best for last:

Alaska--US Senate (Republican)--29% 33% of precincts reporting

That. Is. Not. A. Misprint.

Bear in mind a few things. It is very early. That two-percentage point spread in sparsely-populated Alaska adds up to 537 votes. One of the areas already largely in is none other than the Wasilla region.

But Miller is very much in it against incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski.

In other news from the early returns in the Land of the Midnight Sun (and...it would seem...vote tallying):

• The Democrat who will likely challenge the survivor of the Miller/Murkowski GOP Senate primary is Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams. At present, McAdams leads Jacob Kern by a wide 49-18 margin.
• Both gubernatorial primaries are a bit closer than some pundits might have predicted. Incumbent Republican Governor Sean Parnell (who took over for Sarah Palin when she up and quit the governor thing back in 2009) leads Bill Walker by just a 48-35 margin. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, it's even closer, as Ethan Berkowitz (last seen giving Don Young the race of his life in 2008) leads Hollis French by just a 48-41 margin.
• Speaking of Don Young, he has a breather this time around. That is a sharp contrast from two years ago, when the aforementioned Sean Parnell almost knocked him off in the GOP primary. This time around, Young is cruising with 70% of the vote.

Expect a complete rundown of this race, and the rest of the primary schedule's final results (including, if it has even been called by tomorrow, that cliffhanger of a Democratic primary in Vermont), tomorrow (or, for your folks on the East Coast, later today).

In case you missed John Boehner's speech at the City Club of Cleveland Tuesday, or Jed Lewison's takedown of it, you might find it good for laughs. Except that the House Minority Leader is dead serious. Robert Borosage at the Campaign for America's Future writes:

There are some major problems with the Boehner plan. It is a joke. We have over 25 million people unemployed, with an economy that is slowing. The Boehner response is to keep tax rates where they are for the rich, and cut all recovery spending, slashing 25% from domestic discretionary spending. We know two things about this program: It will kill more jobs than it creates; and it will add to, not subtract, from projected deficits. It's half-baked. It is as if Boehner hasn't noticed what is going on in this country over the last decades of conservative domination. Instead he would exacerbate the worst ruinous trends. For example: We suffer from the worst inequality ever. The top 1% pockets about 20% of all income, and has captured two-thirds of all income growth in the Bush years before the recession. Boehner's extension of the Bush top-end tax cuts will simply add to that in after-tax income. We suffer a costly and growing public investment deficit—in everything from sewers and roads, to education and training, to research and development—areas vital to sustaining a competitive private economy. Slashing non-defense discretionary spending —which includes spending on education, on energy, on the environment, on everything the government does outside of defense and entitlements like Social Security and Medicare -- will only worsen that. (And the hints Boehner offers about future plans aren't reassuring: more of the trade treaties that led to the ruinous trade deficits  that force us to borrow $2 billion a day, largely from Chinese and Japanese central bankers; less regulation in the face of what deregulation of the big banks did to the economy, to the citizens in the Gulf, in the coal mines, and most recently to egg buyers in grocery stores; turning Medicare into a private insurance voucher, and more.) ... [A]s a plan to get the country going, a plan to put people to work, a plan even to "break the ongoing economic uncertainty," this is just silly. The time would have been better spent working on his tan.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:

After waiting for a good long while to post any results, Arizona really managed to get it cracking within the past hour. And it took less than an hour for the AP to arrive at the result that pretty much everyone in Political-land anticipated--J.D. Hayworth will NOT be the next Senator from Arizona. AP declared McCain the winner with less than 10% of precincts in, based on the absentees and early returns. At present, he owns a nearly two-to-one edge (59-30) over Hayworth.

In other somewhat early returns out of the Grand Canyon State (though, given the high numbers of absentees, these might hold up fairly well):

• In the Democratic primary to face McCain, Rodney Glassman holds a modest lead (35-28) over Cathy Eden. John Dougherty (24%) and Randy Parraz (12%) linger farther behind.
• In AZ-01, early returns in the GOP primary to face freshman incumbent Ann Kirkpatrick have dentist Paul Gosar with a 33-22 lead over 2008 nominee Sydney Hay.
• In the wild, 10-candidate Republican primary, it is way too early to call a winner, given the narrow margins. At present, VP progeny Ben Quayle leads the field with 22% of the vote. Jim Waring is at 19%, and Steve Moak is at 18%. Pamela Gorman, famous for her television ad showing her shooting lots of guns, is missing the mark at the moment, running a distant fifth place with 7% of the vote. Democrat Jon Hulburd, who has impressed with his early fundraising, awaits the winner.
• Some amusement on the GOP side in Democrat Harry Mitchell's 5th district. Remember how 2008 GOP nominee David Schwiekert pulled his ads two weeks ago in a premature declaration of victory, only to reinstate his ads in the final weekend? It appears to have been a justified move. Schwiekert is up, but it's with an underwhelming 39% of the vote. Susan Bitter Smith is second with 25%, while Jim Ward is third at 24%.
• Finally, in the teabagger vs. establishment battle in Southern Arizona (where the winner awaits Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords), the early returns put their money on the teabagger. Twenty-something veteran Jesse Kelly leads NRCC recruit Jonathan Paton (a former state legislator) by a 50-39 margin.
• Lastly, the right-wing resurrection of Governor Jan Brewer is complete. The AP has already declared her the winner of the GOP nomination, which she has clinched with greater than 80% of the vote. She faces Democratic state attorney general Terry Goddard in November.

Tonight's Rescue is brought to you by Louisiana 1976, Got a Grip, ItsJessMe, HoosierDeb, ybruti, grog, and pico.

Diary Rescue is all about promoting good writers, so remember to subscribe to diarists whose work you enjoy reading.

State Politics:

• Reporting in from the 14th congressional district, first-time diarist East Village Blue recaps An evening with an upstart primary challenger, Reshma Saujani. (ItsJessMe)
• gjohnsit examines California's newest round of sleight-of-hand tricks and their ramifications, because It's California Budget Crisis Season again. (Got a Grip)
• wschafer clears up some misperceptions in California Public Employment: Myths vs. Facts. (ItsJessMe)

National Policies:

• Vinlander explains how bad government policy encourages the waste of an irreplaceable resource in And We’re Running out of Helium. (ybruti)
• Point by point, rfall takes apart Someone Else Who Doesn't Get Net Neutrality. (ItsJessMe)
• deaniac83 shows Consumers Ahead in the Battle to set Medical Loss Ratio Requirements despite vigorous, well-funded lobbying by health insurers. (ybruti)
• piratedan explains why Taxes shouldn't be a dirty word. (ItsJessMe)
• Muskegon Critic describes his parents' frustrating experience Running The Endless Home Loan Modification Rat Maze. (ybruti)

Best of the Rest:

• Lib Dem FoP shares how it's come to be that a Top Conservative's Wife Has Free Socialist Caesarean Birthing. (Got a Grip)
• Transactivist shares a compelling personal tale that illustrates how sometimes Silence = Death. (Got a Grip)
• YatPundit continues his series on New Orleans with Treme Tuesday - Washington Square in the Marigny. (ybruti)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: August 23, 2010.

Light Emitting Pickle has Top Comments 8/24 - My 25th Top Comments Diary!

Please suggest your own, and use as an open thread.

On a day when ballots are being tabulated in four states, there is also a bit of political news percolating in the other 46 states. And that, friends, is why there is a Wrap, even on a Primary Night...

THE U.S. SENATE

FL-Sen: Rubio returns to lead in three-way battle, says PPP
On a day when Kendrick Meek appears well on his way to achieving the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Florida, his renewed presence might have the side effect of propelling Marco Rubio back into the lead. At least that's the thesis of the crew over at PPP, whose new poll out of Florida puts Republican Marco Rubio back out front with 40% of the vote. Independent Charlie Crist sits at 32%, with Meek running third at 17%. One shift since the last time PPP came to town: Meek now leads among Democrats. In the previous PPP survey in the Sunshine State, Crist actually lead among Dems, and by a reasonably surprising spread (nine points).

WA-Sen: Rossi's primary challenger endorses him (no, not that one)
Republican Dino Rossi might have a ways to go to mend fences with his main opposition in the GOP primary last week, as Clint Didier made clear late last week that he cannot endorse Rossi (yet). Another also-ran in the GOP field, on the other hand, is willing to make amends: Rossi got the nod from Paul Akers, who got around 2.5% of the vote last week. Feel the reconciliation!

THE U.S. HOUSE

CA-52: The debate is on, and the hunger strike is off
The standoff over debates in the greater San Diego area is over, after quite the confrontation last weekend. For those who don't remember the story from last week's Wrap, Democrat Ray Lutz had embarked earlier in the month on a hunger strike to protest the unwillingness of Republican incumbent Duncan Hunter to participate in a debate. He was joined by the Libertarian candidate in the field, Mike Benoit, who joined Lutz in the hunger strike. They confronted Hunter at a local event Friday, accompanied by local media. Hunter agreed to a single debate on October 15th, and claimed he had planned to do that all along, anyway. With a debate in hand, Lutz and Benoit ended their hunger strike.

CO-03: GOP internal poll claims another Dem incumbent trailing
GOP pollsters Magellan Strategies have been quiet for a little while, but they rear their heads again, and what they found is a tad startling. Their internal poll for Republican Scott Tipton claims that the Republican has moved into modest lead over incumbent Democrat John Salazar (49-43). Magellan knows the terrain pretty well, having been Ken Buck's pollster during the GOP Senate primary.

LA-02: Richmond gets critical endorsement in advance of primary
With Louisiana's primary kicking off this Saturday, state legislator Cedric Richmond got arguably the most important endorsement a Democrat can receive in the New Orleans-based 2nd district. His website announced that New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu was endorsing Richmond, who is locked in a battle with fellow state legislator Juan LaFonta. The winner will battle Republican Rep. Anh Cao in November.

MI-01/MI-07: GOP gets big break in two competitive November battles
It could potentially be overturned by the courts, but for the moment, the Tea Party will not be on the ballot in two critical districts for November. The State Board of Canvassers deadlocked 2-to-2 on whether or not to permit Tea Party candidates Lonnie Lee Snyder (MI-01) and Danny Davis (MI-07) can be on the November ballot. Their candidacy were under challenge from the state GOP, who argued that their petition efforts were fraudulent. The GOP also argued that the Democrats had excessive involvement in the Tea Party's efforts.

NJ-06: Is longtime Dem endangered? GOP internal poll says he is
If this internal poll is to be believed (and the standard caveats, of course, apply), then the climate for Dems in this cycle might be even worse than has been often projected. A new internal poll, by National Research, for longshot Republican candidate Anna Little claims that she might not be a longshot, after all. The poll shows longtime Democratic incumbent Frank Pallone leading Little by just six points (40-34). This would be a stunning result, if true, in a district where Barack Obama won by 60-38 and where Pallone has won every election since 1992 with at least 57% of the vote.

NM-01: Previewing next weeks Albuquerque Journal numbers
An interesting piece out today from Joe Monahan looks ahead to next week's release of the Albuquerque Journal poll. With regard to the Albuquerque-based 1st district, Monahan appears privy to internal polling. And what he suspects is that "it is more likely that the race will show a several point gap and probably in [Rep. Martin] Heinrich's favor." This would stand in pretty stark contrast to last month's SurveyUSA poll in the race, which showed Jon Barela actually ahead of the freshman Democrat by six points.

OR-05: GOP internal shows...well, you get the picture
Take three on today's theme of hugely pessimistic polling for Democrats, courtesy of Republican pollsters. A new internal poll for GOP state legislator Scott Bruun claims that he has moved into a slight lead over freshman Democrat Kurt Schrader. The poll, from local GOP pollsters Moore Information, gives Bruun 41% of the vote, with Schrader sitting at 38%. Schrader easily won here in 2008 (54-38), against the deeply flawed GOP nominee, Mike Erickson. The district is somewhat swingy, though, as it was carried by both Barack Obama in 2008 and George W. Bush in 2004.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

HI-Gov: Look! It's a poll! With a Democrat leading!
One place where Democrats still hold pole position in the polls is Hawaii, where a new poll out today from Ward Research says that either Democratic contender (former Congressman Neal Abercrombie or former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann) would own a double-digit lead over the near-certain GOP standard bearer, Lt. Governor Duke Aiona. Hannemann, though trailing in the Democratic primary, actually does slightly better against Aiona (54-37) than does Abercrombie (53-41).

MD-Gov: New poll says Ehrlich a lock for GOP nod, trails in general
If a new poll from local pollsters Opinion Works is on the mark, Sarah Palin's endorsement of businessman Brian Murphy has rallied the political neophyte to a tiny little 62-point deficit (75-13) against former GOP Governor Robert Ehrlich. Ehrlich does not fare quite as well in a prospective general election contest, however, as he trails incumbent Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley by six points (47-41). Point of full disclosure: while the pollster (Opinion Works) is apparently a nonpartisan firm, the sponsoring entity for the poll (a nonprofit media outlet called Center Maryland) does have some past ties to Governor O'Malley.

NM-Gov: More Monahan--are the Dems trailing in this race, as well?
Earlier in the Wrap, I alluded to a piece from New Mexico blogger Joe Monahan, where he said internal polling in the New Mexico 1st hinted that Democrat Martin Heinrich likely has a slight edge there. The story, however, appears to be a bit different in the gubernatorial election, where Monahan writes:

Democrats are bracing for a weekend ABQ Journal poll that many of them think will show Republican Susana Martinez leading Diane Denish by three to six points. But the late August poll being done this week and to be published Sunday is only the beginning. And now there is a new Democratic narrative popping up on the radar screens of La Politica--that Martinez and the R's will get their peak performance this week and that we are headed for a photo finish.

It is true that not too many gloves have been laid on Martinez thus far, although that began to change last week, when incumbent Democratic Governor Bill Richardson blasted Martinez on the issue of education. This led to an odd reaction from Martinez, who challenged Richardson to a debate. The catch: Martinez hasn't locked down debate plans with the person she is actually running against: state Lt. Governor Diane Denish.

NY-Gov: Paladino to debate with...a chicken?
While one debate standoff was peaceably resolved in Southern California, another one rages unabated in the Empire State, and it might start to get ridiculous sooner rather than later. Underdog Carl Paladino had challenged Rick Lazio to a debate in Syracuse on August 30th, even threatening that he would debate a man in a chicken costume (which has been shadowing Lazio) if Lazio was a no-show. With that kind of gauntlet tossed down, Lazio agreed to an appearance on August 30th. At a tea party forum. In Manhattan.

For what it's worth, my money is on the dude in the chicken costume.

WY-Gov: Indie candidate seeks slot of November ballot
A retired surgeon and rancher has submitted petitions to place his Independent candidacy on the November ballot for Governor of Wyoming. His name is Taylor Haynes, and his candidacy is expected to go after GOP nominee Matt Mead from the right, as he promises to be "the most conservative candidate" in the race. If successful, Haynes will be the first candidate to appear on the gubernatorial ballot in Wyoming as a nonpartisan candidate since 1958.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA

The House of Ras dropped three polls today. Democrats will probably howl the most at the one out of Missouri, but the big story here is the relatively small changes in Ras' numbers from session to session (although they do have Illinois' Democratic Governor, Pat Quinn, moving back within single digits).

IL-Gov: Bill Brady (R) 46%, Gov. Pat Quinn (D) 37%
MO-Sen: Roy Blunt (R) 51%, Robin Carnahan (D) 40%
OR-Gov: Chris Dudley (R) 45%, John Kitzhaber (D) 44%

There's still a lot of votes left to be counted, but former health industry executive Rick Scott appears to be riding his wealth to the GOP nomination for Governor in Florida. With nearly 80% of the precincts reporting, Scott has a 3 point, 37,500 vote lead over his opponent, GOP insider Bill McCollum.

Most pollsters -- with the notable exception of Public Policy Polling -- gave the edge to McCollum, but Scott's lead has been consistent throughout the night. James L at Swing State Project  says the trends are looking hot for McCollum:

10:05pm: Eagle-eyed watchers may have noticed that the Miami-Dade elections office is about 300 precincts further along than the AP (526, instead of 213). McCollum needs to make up about 40K votes statewide, and the further-along Miami votes only help him make up about 5,000, though. Anyway, according to the AP, 72% are reporting, and it's still 47-43 in favor of Scott.
9:51pm: Things are starting to look kind of locked in, in the Florida GOP gubernatorial race. With 65% reporting, it's still 47 for Lex Luthor Bizarro World Peter Garrett Rick Scott, 43 for Bill McCollum. There's still 2/3ds of Miami-Dade County left, though, where McCollum is doing well (up 63-30), presumably because of his support in the Cuban community over his less-insane immigration stance.

Personally, I'm rooting for Scott for two reasons. First, Sarah Palin endorsed his opponent. (Yeah, I'm petty that way.) (Actually, Palin stayed neutral in this race -- I misread an article about another endorsement she'd made in Florida.) Second, he was CEO of health care conglomerate that even Rudy Giuliani said had "serious fraud problems" because Scott's company was forced to pay a $1.7 billion fine for Medicare fraud -- and I think that makes him a perfect representative of the GOP.

Update by Steve: The AP just announced that David Rivera is the GOP nominee in FL-25. Congratulations, Congressman Joe Garcia (D-FL)....

Update 2: AP calls it for Rick Scott, the medicare fraudster Republican gubernatorial nominee that even Sarah Palin opposed! (Palin stayed neutral in this race -- I misread an article about another endorsement she'd made in Florida.)

The eyes of political junkies from coast-to-coast continue to be glued on the Rick Scott-Bill McCollum showdown in Florida, and eagerly await McCain vs. Hayworth in Arizona and Murkowski vs. Palin Miller in Alaska.

In the meantime, however, two other states had races on the ballot today worth keeping at least one eye on, and quite possibly both of them.

• In Vermont, it could scarcely be closer in the highly competitive five-candidate race to determine the Democratic nominee for Governor. After leading most of the night, Secretary of State Deb Markowitz has into a near tie with 2002 nominee Doug Racine. With one-third of the precincts in, Racine now trails by just 39 votes out of the more than 22,000 votes cast. Peter Shumlin is still in the argument, in third place but only 290 votes out of the lead. UPDATE: This is pretty damned amazing. With just over half of the precincts now reporting, it is Shumlin at 26, with Markowitz and Racine both at 25. First and third are still separated by just 226 votes. Now, with a few more precincts in...make that forty-one votes. Racine now up front. Unreal!
• In the Democratic Senate primary in Vermont, Patrick Leahy is winning in a landslide, notching 89% of the vote. His opponent, veteran Daniel Freilich, might still run as an Independent, according to Politics1, but it is hard to imagine either him or Republican Len Britton providing anything in the way of serious competition.
• Meanwhile, Oklahoma's primary came to an end tonight, four weeks after it started. Two districts held Republican runoffs today, with one upset and one expected result. The upset came in the 5th district, where former state legislator Kevin Calvey (long thought to be the frontrunner before his surprise second-place finish in a multicandidate primary) was easily defeated (65-35) by youth camp director James Lankford. Lankford is heavily favored in November in this largely Republican district. Meanwhile, in the 2nd district, lightly-funded Charles Thompson easily defeated lightly-funded Daniel Edmonds (66-34). The only way that uber-conservative Democrat Dan Boren loses here is if the national wave is worse than advertised, and sucks a guy who has barely broken the five-figure fundraising mark across the finish line.

John Boehner, Tuesday in Cleveland, giving Harry Reid a political gift by calling for the reopening of Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the nation's dumping ground for nuclear waste:

QUESTION: The only repository for nuclear waste planned or conceived or developed for this country is Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and it is stopped dead in its tracks by Harry Reid. If the Republicans can take back Congress, what position would the party take on opening Yucca Mountain so our nuclear reactors have someplace to put their waste?

BOEHNER: Most Republicans have supported Yucca Mountain for the twenty years that I've been here and the American people would be shocked to know how much nuclear waste is laying just miles from their home. It's laying at every nuclear plant in the country and why? Because we can't get Yucca Mountain finished because it's not politically correct. We've invested tens of billions of dollars in a storage facility that's as safe as anything we're going to find.

Why is that a gift to Harry Reid? For three reasons:

1. Yucca Mountain is incredibly unpopular in Nevada -- nobody in Nevada wants the Silver State to become the nation's dumping ground for nuclear waste.

2. Harry Reid is the number one reason why Yucca Mountain has been effectively closed (though a recent court ruling has given it a weak pulse).

3. Sharron Angle opposes Reid's position -- and supports Boehner's plan to reopen Yucca. That's right, she believes Nevada should become the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground.

In the absence of GOP support for dumping nuclear waste in Nevada, Angle's support for Yucca might be dismissed as a quirky but irrelevant detail, but Boehner's comments renews the relevance of her position. Thanks largely to Harry Reid and a unified opposition from Nevada lawmakers, the plan has been all but defeated, but if Sharron Angle were elected to the U.S. Senate advocates for dumping waste in Nevada would have an important ally -- and would probably end up getting their way.

There was never any question about the victors in the Democratic gubernatorial primary or the Republican senatorial primary and Alex Sink and Marco Rubio will be moving on to the November ballot respectively.

Kendrick Meek has also been declared the winner of the Democratic senatorial primary. With more than a third of precincts reporting, he's blowing out Jeff Greene by a 55-42 margin.

The gubernatorial primary is still close, with Rick Scott holding a surprising 2 point lead over Bill McCollum, the GOP insider who had been favored in many polls to win the primary. About 40 percent has reported in that race.

In House races: Taliban Dan Webster will be Alan Grayson's opponent and incumbent Democrat Alan Boyd has a tiny 2 point lead against challenger Al Lawson with about half the precincts reporting.

Update By Steve Singiser: One other House race in Florida is an upset in the making. Apparently the late ugliness between Ruths Chris CEO Craig Miller and Karen Diebel has allowed a candidate that spent half of what they did (state Rep. Sandy Adams) to move into a narrow lead with 62% of precincts reporting.

One of the more shadowy groups organized to protect Wall Street in the financial reform debate is now running ads in Washington State in the senate race, attacking Patty Murray.

The Committee for Truth in Politics ran ads in ads in Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin "aimed at confusing people by portraying the financial reform bill as a 'new $4 trillion bailout for banks.'"

And by "shadowy," here's what I mean:

The committee, incorporated two years ago in North Carolina, has refused to file paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission.

It is suing the federal government arguing that it should not file any spending reports with the FEC, alleging that reporting violates its 1st Amendment rights to corporate free speech.

One of the key players in the group, who we know anyway since the rest of the group remains secret, is attorney James Bopp, Jr., one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Citizens United case. He's also the guy who wrote the widely ridiculed and totally failed RNC "purity" resolution.So why are they getting involved in this race? He has a local connection, too.

He represented Washington gay marriage opponents in their recent unsuccessful effort to shield initiative petition signatures from public disclosure.

Bopp also represented Murray's Republican challenger, Dino Rossi, in a 2007 Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) complaint filed by the state Democratic Party.

The complaint alleged that a nonprofit Rossi founded had illegally acted as a political committee supporting his 2008 gubernatorial campaign. But the PDC investigation rejected that claim and cleared Rossi.

That PDC complaint was about Rossi's "Forward Washington Foundation," a non-profit he set up to pay him a $75,000 annual salary to travel around the state making speeches after his defeat in the 2004 election. Rossi stepped down from the Foundation when the investigation began. Another PDC investigation of Rossi centered on the support he got from the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), his primary funder in both failed gubenatorial campaigns, the primary funder behind most Republicans and conservative initiatives in the state.

True to form, Rossi is getting the slimiest folks he can to do his dirty work in this campaign.