It's all attack ads and fundraising reports in the Orange to Blue race news today.
Speaker Pelosi Project:
CA-10, MN-08, NH-01: Jose Hernandez, Rick Nolan and Carol Shea-Porter are all new targets of the American Action Network (AAN) and its Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), which is spending $2 million against both Hernandez and Shea-Porter and $100,000 against Nolan. Two million dollars of attack ads from one group in a single congressional race. Unbelievable.
FL-26: Rep. David Rivera is kind of a sleazebag. Here's just one point of evidence in another long and complicated saga about the man's legal woes, in which he produces voicemail recordings from some of his accusers that are supposed to prove . . . something. Anyway, three weeks ago WPLG invited Rivera and Joe Garcia to have a televised debate that was to take place yesterday. Garcia agreed, Rivera refused. So the Garcia campaign decided not to do it. Fast forward three weeks, and Rivera decides at the last minute to try to do some damage control, agreeing to the appear Sunday appearance on Saturday night, leaving the Garcia campaign with no time to prepare.
NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter's opponent, Rep. Frank Guinta, is getting support from an anti-union construction lobby group. The Associated Builders and Contractors already named Guinta its 2011 legislator of the year. Now it's running newspaper ads supporting him, on top of $20,000 in PAC contributions.
OH-16: The NRCC is hitting Betty Sutton with a bizarrely photoshopped ad showing her holding a sign saying she wants to raise taxes on small companies. Because for all Republicans, the definition of "small business" is anyone making more than $250,000 annually.
PA-06: Manan Trivedi is getting hit today with an attack ad from opponent Rep. Jim Gerlach, claiming that his politics are "extreme" because he supported the stimulus. Okay. Trivedi racked up a respectable $433K for this quarter, on par with Gerlach, but Gerlach has nearly $750,000 on hand.
WI-07 Bwaaack-bwack-bwack. Rep. Sean Duffy is refusing to do any live, televised debates with opponent Pat Kreitlow, agreeing only to two, non-televised meetings. Former Rep. David Obey makes Duffy an offer: “Would he instead agree to debate me, a second-string, stand-in retiree?"
Upgrade the Senate:
HI-Sen: Mazie Hirono had a kick-ass fundraising quarter on the grassroots front, with "more than $1.42 million from nearly 24,000 individuals during the third quarter of 2012." Republican Linda Lingle had the worst quarter she's had yet, raising $822,700. That's probably a sign that the GOP thinks she's toast. Which she probably is.
WI-Sen: Tammy Baldwin continues to whomp opponent Tommy Thompson in campaigning and in fundraising. She's raised $3.5 million on hand, he's got $2 million. And, "Baldwin says she raised nearly $4.6 million over the three-month period that ended Sept. 30. Thompson says he raised $2.2 million since the Aug. 14 primary."
Oh, and Thompson is a cranky old fart with a birther son. Name-calling runs in the family. Thompson the elder says that Baldwin is "anti-Israel" and "anti-Jewish" because he loves the Jews so much she didn't vote for Iran sanctions soon enough.
Daily Kos for Marriage Equality:
Maryland: The leadership of the NAACP is urging black Marylanders to vote in favor of marriage equality, "saying it is a civil rights issue, not a theological one."
Benjamin Jealous, national president the organization, drew on the history of civil rights, and that of his own family, to make the case for marriage equality.
"This is question of what side of history do you want to be on," he said. He referred to the marriage of his parents, an inter-racial couple. "My parents were married in 1966 in Washington, D.C. They were married in D.C. because it was against the law for them to be married here in this great state," Jealous said.
Washington: Here's another
reason to love Nordstrom.
The Seattle retailer joins other prominent Washington corporations such as Starbucks Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. in favor of approving Referendum 74 to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.
Company president Blake Nordstrom sent a companywide memo—co-signed by brothers Erik and Pete, also executives at the retailer—laying out the retailer's "philosophical approach" to business, which includes a workplace where "every employee is welcomed and respected." [...]
"It is our belief that our gay and lesbian employees are entitled to the same rights and protections marriage provides as all our employees," the memo continues, adding that "the decision is consistent with our long-time philosophy of inclusivity and equality."