Daily Kos

Time was, Big Dog was going to win this thing for Obama. Now, it's Big Bird instead.

• Yet another embarrassing action by the homophobic, theocratic Boy Scouts:
  

  Ryan Andresen has spent a decade completing the requirements for the coveted Eagle Scout award, and now that he is just about to turn 18 -- the cut-off date for attaining the highest honor -- his Boy Scout troop won't approve it because he is gay.

  His project, a "tolerance wall," was inspired by the years of hazing he endured in middle school in Moraga, Calif., and later at Boy Scout summer camp, where his nicknames were "Tinkerbell" and "faggot."

  "I had I had no idea what gay was at that point," said Andresen, who described hazing that included, among other rituals, having the word "fag" written in charcoal across his chest.

  Yep. In the world of the Boy Scouts, bullies can get badges just fine. The people they bully? Not so much. "Duty to God" and all that.
• No, really:
  

  When women are given access to birth control at no cost, the rate of unintended pregnancies and abortions among them drops dramatically, according to a new study published on Thursday in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

  The Contraceptive Choice Project, conducted by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., enrolled 9,256 women and teens from 14 to 45 years of age in the St. Louis area between 2007 and 2011. The participants were all uninsured, low-income, or otherwise determined to be at risk for unintended pregnancy.

  You mean, when women have easy access to medication that will prevent pregnancies, pregnancies are prevented? What a shock!
• For those keeping score at home, conservatives seem to think that President Obama is a lazy, shiftless and stupid black man who somehow has the capacity to arrange a wholesale conspiracy to fudge the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report while leaving absolutely no evidence of ever having done so. Because, logic!
• Steve Doocy is insane:
  

  Fox News co-host Steve Doocy on Friday suggested that Pennsylvania state lawmaker Babette Josephs (D) should not use U.S. currency that includes the words “In God We Trust” because she has said that she does not pray in public.

  During a Pennsylvania House State Government Committee meeting on Wednesday, Josephs had declined to lead the Pledge of Allegiance because it included the words “under God.”

  “Based on my First Amendment rights and based on the fact that I really think it’s a prayer,” she explained. “I don’t pray in public.”

  Remember that Doocy is the same jackass who wondered if the 47% percent deserve to be able to vote.

• Some good news out of Los Angeles County. California just implemented online voter registration, and according to a release, about 60% of those who registered to vote in the county in the first week of its availability registered as Democrats:
  

  LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles County Democratic Party (LACDP) reported that in the first week of online voter registration being available in California almost 60% of all those in LA County registered with the Democratic Party, and announced the next phase of the Party's outreach efforts focusing on spreading the word about registering to vote by mail online

  Eric C. Bauman, LACDP Chair and Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party said, "I'm proud to announce our new public awareness campaign to heavily push online vote-by-mail registration, because even a small increase in Democrats voting by mail will help us re-elect President Obama and Senator Feinstein, pass Prop 30, beat back Prop 32, make major gains in the State Assembly and Senate and put the Speaker's gavel back in Nancy Pelosi's hands."

  According to LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan, approximately 50,785 voters registered online during the first week of availability, 30,340 of which registered as Democrats.

  This number may not seem hugely important because Los Angeles is a blue county--but as of a month ago, Democratic voter registration in the county was a shade over 50%, which would make 60% of new registrants being Democrats a huge improvement.
• A sane Republican? Who knew?
  

  DENVER, Colorado — A Republican Congressman has broken with his party and announced his support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a key piece of legislation that would make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT individuals in the workplace.

  “I don’t believe we ought to be discriminating against people for their private lives,” Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) explained to ThinkProgress outside Wednesday’s presidential debate. “I’m a businessman. When you walk in the door, if you’re able to do the job and you’re focused on your job, that’s all that’s important."

  A Republican who doesn't think being gay makes you unqualified to exist? Radical!
• The New York Times annihilates Romney's claim of being a successful bipartisan governor.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson Last spring, student teachers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst refused to participate in a pilot teacher licensing program that would replace real-life classroom observation with a take-home test and edited videos of the prospective teacher in the classroom. The new teacher licensing would be done for profit by testing company Pearson, and 67 of the 68 student teachers training for middle school and high school teaching at UMass said no. Within weeks, the director of the secondary-teacher education program who had trained them and had spoken out against the new licensing system got a letter saying her contract wouldn't be renewed when it expired a year later.

The New York Times' Michael Winerip, who last spring wrote about the 67 students' refusal to film themselves for licensing by Pearson, writes now of Barbara Madeloni that:

Ms. Madeloni is 55 and has been overseeing the university’s program to train middle and high school teachers for nine years. During that time, she has repeatedly been rated “outstanding.” (“We applaud Dr. Madeloni for her work,” read her December 2011 evaluation.) [...]

“They’ve been angry at me for a long time, but I believe the article pushed them over the edge,” she said this week. “For several years this has been building inside me, this reliance on standardized tests to evaluate teachers.

“It’s so degrading,” she said. “For a long time I decided not to fight it. I wouldn’t have been able to do this at 40. I don’t think I could have stayed as grounded. You have to be able to manage people saying awful, awful things.”

The university administration insists the decision not to renew Madeloni's contract was completely unrelated to her anti-standardization activism and the publicity that resulted. (It's always a coincidence!) Ironically, the way the administration was able to get rid of her was to convert her position into a tenure-track one—so the next person hired to fill this role will be able to speak up from a less vulnerable position. But how much do you want to bet that they do their best to hire someone who'll be complacent?

(Continue reading below the fold.)

Yup, it's that time of the quarter, when having been hit up by a million fundraising emails, you're now hit up with the responsibility of picking the best hate email of the last three months.

Meet the competitors, below the fold!

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired of the Republicans' War on Women? Sick and tired of being told we're "not ladylike" when we challenge them? That we "neuter" them when we stand up for our rights? That we shrink their penises with our feminism? (Well, okay, that one's actually kind of fun, amirite, ladies?)

Are you sick and tired of this?

• H.R. 212: Sanctity of Human Life Act: "To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization."
• H.R. 1096: Sanctity of Life Act of 2011: "To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception, and for other purposes."
• S. 91: Life at Conception Act: "A bill to implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and unborn human person."
• H.R. 374: Life at Conception Act: "To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person."
• S. 314: Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2011: "A bill to ensure that women seeking an abortion are fully informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child."
• S. 2103: District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act: "A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to protect pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes."
• H.R. 3805: Ultrasound Informed Consent Act: "To ensure that women seeking an abortion receive an ultrasound and the opportunity to review the ultrasound before giving informed consent to receive an abortion."
• H.R. 3130: Heartbeat Informed Consent Act: "To ensure that women seeking an abortion receive an ultrasound and an opportunity to review the ultrasound before giving informed consent to receive an abortion."
• H.R. 3802: National Pro-Life Waiting Period Act of 2012: "To require an abortion provider, before performing an abortion, to wait for a period of at least 24 hours."
• S. 3290: Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) of 2012: "A bill to prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or gender, and for other purposes."
• H.R. 5646: Homeland Security Respect for Life Act: "To prohibit funds appropriated for the Department of Homeland Security from being used to pay for an abortion, and for other purposes."
• H.R. 6173: PRO-LIFE Act: "To amend the General Education Provisions Act to prohibit Federal education funding for elementary schools and secondary schools that provide on-campus access to abortion providers."
• H.R. 3: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act: "To prohibit taxpayer funded abortions and to provide for conscience protections, and for other purposes."

 

The Republican Party really doesn't like us. They don't want us to have health care. They don't want us to have equal pay for equal work. They don't even want to fund programs to fight domestic violence.

Yet, they say there's no such thing as the War on Women.

They're wrong. They're dead wrong. So let's make them pay. They started this war, but we're going to win it. And that means sending more, better women to Congress to fight for us.

Please give $3 to each of our Daily Kos-endorsed women candidates for the House and Senate.

---

This weeks good, bad and ugly below the fold.

The biggest news this week came Tuesday when Republican Judge Robert Simpson, under pressure from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, blocked the most important part of the state's much-disputed voter-ID law.

Simpson did not overturn the whole law (or his previous decision in the matter). In fact, the law is still valid. But for the November election, even though poll workers can ask for one of the few approved forms of ID, Pennsylvanians without one will be allowed to vote just like any other citizen. Before the ruling, they would have only been allowed to cast a provisional ballot. The court will further examine the law after the election.

Although a news agency reported that Republican Gov. Tom Corbett would not appeal the law to the state supreme court, and I repeated that report here, so far he has only said he is leaning in the direction of not appealing the ruling. One reason behind the reluctance to do so is no doubt the previous ruling by the high court that vacated the original decision by Judge Simpson. The wording of that ruling would seem to make any appeal unlikely of success.

State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, the Republican legislator who pushed the law into existence isn't too happy. The judge's decision, Metcalfe said, "is skewed in favor of the lazy, who refuse to exercise the necessary work ethic to meet the common-sense requirements to obtain an acceptable photo ID."

Pennsylvania has the strictest new voter-ID law in the country, but it is only one 15 states that have tightened their ID restrictions since 2008. Courts have approved the laws of three states—New Hampshire, Indiana and Georgia. In addition to Pennsylvania, court rulings or other legal action have at least temporarily blocked the laws in Texas, Wisconsin, Mississippi and South Carolina, although a federal court could change the situation depending on its ruling in the last case.

The laws, all of which were passed in GOP-dominated legislatures, place a discriminatory burden on the poor, minorities, the elderly and other citizens who vote heavily Democratic.

Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice, the nation's largest non-partisan  source of voting rights research, said: “Every voter restriction that has been challenged this year has been either enjoined, blocked or weakened. It has been an extraordinary string of victories for those opposing these laws.”

However, said Penda D. Hair, a co-director of the Advancement Project, one of several groups that challenged the law Pennsylvania law:

“While we’re happy that voters in Pennsylvania will not be turned away if they do not have an ID, we are concerned that the ruling will allow election workers to ask for ID at the polls, and this could cause confusion. This injunction serves as a mere Band-Aid for the law’s inherent problems, not an effective remedy.”

In fact, Judge Simpson labeled this a "soft run," according to The New York Times. Amy Davidson raised cogent points in this regard:

What effect will that have on people standing on line, who see those in front of them asked to produce something that they themselves might not be carrying? And Pennsylvania has an obligation now to make sure that all of the people who’ve been admonished to get their photo on a card now know that they don’t have to. No state, and no country, is better off for reducing civic participation—we have, if anything, an extra interest in making sure that the people least likely to keep waiting in a long line do so. A person who has spoken by voting is more likely to listen.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party, Working America, the Voter ID Coalition and other groups that have been engaged in get-out-the-vote efforts, including informing citizens about the voter-ID requirements, have not packed up their operations. The Voter ID Coalition, comprising 140 civic, educational, legal, community and religious groups, will be retooling their door-hangers and other materials with the idea that while voter-ID will not be required this time, next time it will.

In addition, said Ellen Mattleman Kaplan, vice president of the Committee of Seventy, a century-old good-government group in Philadelphia, Simpson's ruling didn't change things for first-time voters or people voting for the first time in a new district. An older law already requires such citizens to show ID.

(Continue reading about voter suppression below the fold.)

We’ve come too far to turn back now. And we’ve made too much progress to return to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

President Barack Obama trumpeted yesterday's jobs numbers and for the third week in a row called on Americans to tell Congress to get back to work passing bills.

He pointed to tougher regulation of Wall Street and "the strongest consumer protections in our history" as accomplishments his administration pushed through—and ones Republicans are determined to tear down should they get the chance.

But for some reason, some Republicans in Congress are still waging an all-out battle to delay, defund and dismantle these commonsense new rules.

Why? Do they think undoing rules that protect families from the worst practices of credit card companies and mortgage lenders will make the middle class stronger? Do they think getting rid of rules to prevent another crisis on Wall Street will make Main Street any safer?

Of course not. But if they want to at least pretend to be putting the interests of middle-class Americans first, he said, there are three things they can do:

• Pass tax cuts for middle-class Americans
• Pass mortgage refinancing legislation
• Get a veterans job corps off the ground

But that, of course, would require Congress to do its freaking job. So ….

Ask them to get back to work and get these things done. If we’re going to keep this economy moving forward, there’s no time for political games. Even in a political season. Everyone needs to do their part. If you agree with me, let your Representative know where you stand. Tell them that if they want your vote, then they need to stand with you and not in the way of our recovery.

To read the transcript in full, check below the fold or visit the White House website.

The Arctic isn't the only thing that's shrinking. New analysis comes to the shocking conclusion that half of Australia's Great Barrier Reef is gone. The culprits?

Yet according to this new study, the degradation is less directly linked to these usual suspects. Just 10 percent of the loss was attributable to bleaching. The study found coastal storms were the leading culprit that caused 48 percent of the damage, and the remaining 42 percent was a result of an exploding population of the crown of thorns starfish that preys on coral.

Don’t mistake these causes for reason to think climate change isn’t responsible. After all, an increase in intensity of coastal storms is undoubtedly a symptom of planetary warming.

• That is one weird-looking dinosaur!
• Glenn Beck (yes, he's still barking in carnivals) invokes a less-than-scientific, convoluted religious explanation for why Romney is losing, he's really winning!
• As the Arctic melts and the Barrier Reef succumbs, our friends in the lucative denial industry continue to lie their way to riches, who cares if they're stone-cold busted?
• The Big Bang, evolution -- it's all lies from the pit of hell!
• Hell yes, I'd do it!

  After literally years of preparation -- physically, mentally, financially and technologically -- Baumgartner and his team are ready to execute his ultimate ascent via balloon-powered pressurized capsule to the intimidating height of 120,000 feet, at which point he will jump, freefalling to Earth at supersonic speeds through frigid and virtually airless stretches of atmosphere.

Mark Blumenthal:

For the moment, the only evidence of a Romney bump comes from a handful of one-night, automated, recorded-voice surveys released Friday whose methods and timing may exaggerate the change. At the national level, the daily tracking surveys are still based on interviews conducted mostly before the Denver debate.

David Corn:

So he's changed his tune. Big surprise? Not really. This is an indication, though, that he and his strategists believed his 47 percent minute are still an important factor in the race and a profound problem for him. Romney wouldn't otherwise shift his response at this stage. Focus groups conducted by the Obama and Romney campaigns have indicated that his 47 percent remarks have alienated independent voters and even "weak Republican voters." Apparently, the 47 percent effect is not fading fast.

AP:

Sasquatch might as well have traipsed across the White House lawn Friday with a lost Warren Commission file on his way to the studio where NASA staged the moon landing.

Conspiracy theorists came out in force after the government reported a sudden drop in the U.S. unemployment rate one month before Election Day. Their message: The Obama administration would do anything to ensure a November victory, including manipulating unemployment data.

The conspiracy was widely rejected.

Meanwhile, Kathleen Parker summarizes the pre-jobs post debate victory lap:

Contrary to conventional wisdom that debates are rarely, if ever, game-changers, the first presidential debate was a demolition derby.

Victory lap a bit premature?

AP:

The cheering stopped on Mitt Romney's campaign plane Friday morning.

The day before, aides had whistled and clapped when the Denver control tower commended the Republican presidential nominee's debate performance. It was a rare moment of exuberance for a campaign that had fallen behind President Barack Obama in a number of polls.

Click for bigger picture here

The euphoria ended after the morning report that the nation's unemployment rate had dropped to 7.8 percent, its lowest level in Obama's presidency. Romney and his team sat stone-faced and quiet on the flight to Virginia's coal country, taking in the good news for the country that's bad news for their political prospects.

While it's too early to tell, we are not seeing a game-changing poll just yet. And note to Kathleen, the idea is to win the election, not the debate.

Simon Jackman:

I thought it would be helpful to give a big picture review of the state of play before we're starting to see polls with post-debate field periods.

The graph below compares two-party vote share for Obama in 2008, by state, with last night's estimates from our model-based poll averaging. Pre-debate and nationwide, Obama was performing about a percentage point below the 2008 election result, from just over 53 percent (2008) to just over 52 percent (current estimate from our model-based poll averaging). Most states appear to be swinging away from Obama by a similar amount. This small amount of swing isn't translating into many states changing hands relative to 2008. A large win for Obama in the Electoral College is the clear implication of the current polling and our modeling.

Charles Blow:

Big Bird is the man. He’s 8 feet tall. He can sing and roller skate and ride a unicycle and dance. Can you do that, Mr. Romney? I’m not talking about your fox trot away from the facts. I’m talking about real dancing.

Gail Collins:

There are 33 Senate contests this year, although voters in some of the states may not have noticed there’s anything going on. In Texas, for instance, Paul Sadler, a Democrat, has had a tough time getting any attention in his battle against the Tea Party fan favorite Ted Cruz. Except, perhaps, when he called Cruz a “troll” in their first debate.

In Utah, Scott Howell, a Democrat, has been arguing that if the 78-year-old Senator Orrin Hatch wins, he might “die before his term is through.” Suggesting a longtime incumbent is over the hill is a venerable election technique, but you really are supposed to be a little more delicate about it. Howell also proposed having 29 debates. The fact that Hatch agreed to only two was, he claimed, proof of the senator’s fading stamina.

Believe it or not, only one campaign released a schedule for today and there's only one guy on it:

Mitt Romney — Apopka, FL

Fields of Fame, Northwest Recreation Complex
6:30 PM (EDT)                                                   

David Dayen has encountered a comment from Alan Simpson that ought to be bronzed and thrust into the face of every Democrat (including the one in the White House) who invokes the name of Simpson-Bowles in discussions of budgets and deficits:

SIMPSON: I get so damn sick and tired of listening to the little guy, the vulnerable, the veteran — I am a veteran, and the seniors and this and this and this and the meanwhile this country is headed for second-class status while everybody just babbles into the vapor. Where is the evidence that Alan Simpson has ever in his life listened to “the little guy?” He’s really sick and tired of the PUBLIC listening to those pleas – in other word, he doesn’t like the public thinking for themselves, with appeals from those who look and talk and think like them. He’d much rather the rest of the country worked the way it works in Washington, where the little guy remains silent while the blob of corporate lobbyists and consultants and associated grifters dominate the conversation. The vulnerable never penetrate the minds of the political class, save for maybe two or three weeks around election season. The rest of the time, they’re just 300 million moochers sucking at the public teat. Simpson really wants to shut down this thing we call democracy, so the enlightened, self-appointed guardians can go about looting the public treasury in peace. In your best interest. This, by the way, is why Simpson was supposed to be put out to pasture, in favor of younger model Judd Gregg. But Washington has elevated Simpson and his balcony partner Erskine Bowles to such heights, and elevated their B-S plan (that stands for Bowles-Simpson, what else could it stand for) as well, that he couldn’t extricate himself from the spotlight. And these are the results.

---

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—Ladies Against Women on their Way to Iraq:

Lynne Cheney, who once presided over the National Endowment for the Humanities and subsequently sought out other duchies in the Culture Wars, isn’t much in the news these days except to kudo her husband on his forensic skills and give an occasional speech. Behind the scenes, however, the second lady remains active in the halls of rightwingery that do much to set the American agenda. For instance, she sits, emerita, on the board of theIndependent Women’s Forum. Thanks to bloggers Hannah at Feministing.com and Echidne, we learn that the IWF recently: …has been awarded a grant to focus on the immediate promotion of women’s full political and economic participation in Iraq. The grant is part of the US Department of State’s $10 million Iraqi Women’s Democracy Initiative. As Iraqi women prepare to compete in Iraq’s January 2005 elections, IWF, in partnership with the American Islamic Congress and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, will provide leadership training, democracy education and coalition building assistance for 150 pro-democracy, Iraqi women leaders and political activists. […] Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal said, “Talk about an inside deal, the IWF represents a small group of right-wing wheeler-dealers inside the Beltway.” The IWF responded with a we’ve got as much right to be there as they do: "Neither the Feminist Majority nor any other women's organization has a monopoly on the principles and practice of democratic values or women's international human rights," said Michelle D. Bernard, senior fellow with the Independent Women's Forum. "This attack by Eleanor Smeal and company is wholly unwarranted." IWF was the spin-off of Women for Clarence Thomas. Its first executive director was Barbara Ledeen, wife of Michael Ledeen. Among other notables who have served on its board are Rumsfeld hagiographer Midge Dector, who wrote a 1972 book called The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation, Ted Olson and Larry Kudlow (yes, that Kudlow). The IWF mission: “to combat the women-as-victim, pro-big-government ideology of radical feminism.”

---

Tweet of the Day:

---

Today's Kagro in the Morning show notes the change in the air regarding Romney's debate "win," plus his new insistence that the 47% remarks were "completely wrong." An all-around fun Friday finale, with Greg Dworkin & special guest Andrew Jones (aka sluggahjells). Also: Nominations are open for the 2012 Stitcher Awards. Vote Kagro in the Morning! Then share on Facebook and Twitter to annoy your friends!

---

High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Steve Singiser If today's rather modest amount of data is alarming or depressing to regular readers of the Polling Wrap, allow me to use, perhaps for the first time, a very old cliché: consider the source.

Perhaps I, along with the universe of political junkies, should have seen this one coming. Less than 36 hours after the first presidential debate, the two most well-known right-leaning "robopollsters" in the game are out with swing state polls, culled from single-day samples. And their results, perhaps not surprisingly, have been exceptionally kind to the Republican nominee.

What is interesting is that they take pretty different approaches to their polls, even though the toplines are somewhat similar.

What is even more interesting is how badly one of those pollsters might have pissed away their credibility in their polling memo. You'll have to read it for yourself, it really is that bad.

For now, though, on to the numbers:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama 50, Romney 45

NATIONAL (Ipsos/Reuters Tracking): Obama 46, Romney 44 (LV)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama 49, Romney 47

---

FLORIDA (Rasmussen): Romney 49, Obama 47

FLORIDA (We Ask America--R): Romney 49, Obama 46, Others 1

MONTANA (The Mellman Group for JET PAC [DGA]--D): Romney 48, Obama 44

NEVADA (Gravis--R): Obama 49, Romney 48

NEW MEXICO (PPP): Obama 52, Romney 43

OHIO (Rasmussen): Obama 50, Romney 49

OHIO (We Ask America--R): Romney 47, Obama 46, Others 1

VIRGINIA (Rasmussen): Romney 49, Obama 48

VIRGINIA (We Ask America--R): Romney 48, Obama 45, Others 2

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

NM-SEN (PPP): Martin Heinrich (D) 51, Heather Wilson (R) 41

NV-SEN (Gravis--R): Sen. Dean Heller (R) 52, Shelley Berkley (D) 36

OH-SEN (Public Opinion Strategies for the Mandel campaign): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 47, Josh Mandel (R) 44

VA-SEN (Rasmussen): Tim Kaine (D) 52, George Allen (R) 45

---

FL-02 (Lester and Associates for the DCCC): Rep. Steve Southerland (R) 43, Al Lawson (D) 43

HI-01 (Merriman River Group for Civil Beat): Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D) 49, Charles Djou (R) 44

HI-02 (Merriman River Group for Civil Beat): Tulsi Gabbard (D) 70, Kawika Crowley (R) 18

IL-12 (We Ask America--R): Jason Plummer (R) 44, Bill Enyart (D) 40

MT-AL (The Mellman Group for JET PAC [DGA]--D): Steve Daines (R) 36, Kim Gillan (D) 34

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Election Diary Rescue

TGIF - Gorgeous October Weather: Enjoy It!

Samples of Today's 14 Diary Collection:

[AZ-Sen] Carmona and Flake agree to 3 debates by ThatPoshGirl - Diarist reports that Dr. Richard Carmona (D) and Rep. Jeff Flake (R) have agreed to three one-hour debates in the race for the seat left by Senator Jon Kyl (R), who is retiring.

[NH-01] Congressman Guinta Is Not As Manly As These Men by NH LABOR NEWS - Diarist offers a New Hampshire video attacking incumbent Frank Guinta's (R-Teabagger) assault on women's rights and Planned Parenthood. Carol Shea-Porter (D) is his opponent in the NH-01 race.

[ME-St Sen, Dist.-25] Democratic Maine politician under GOP attack for World of Warcraft participaton by Horace Boothroyd III - The Maine GOP is attacking Colleen Lachowicz (D), who is running against incumbent state Sen. Tom Martin (R), for her participation in the online role-playing game World of Warcraft. The Democrats want to take that seat back from Martin, who was elected in 2010 and is the first Republican elected to that seat since the 1960s.

---

Today's EDR covers rescued down-ticket election diaries published between noon on October 4th till noon on October 5th. This edition of Election Diary Rescue includes the following gems dug up by our miners.

Diaries: (14)
Senate: (6) posts, (4) states
House: (3) posts, (3) states, (3) districts
Various: (1)
State: (1)
General: (3)

---

More diaries and information about this project beneath the
Orange Squiggle of Down-Ticket Power