Nice try:
http://rhrealitycheck.org/...
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst, at a recent chamber of commerce meeting in Iowa, responded to a question about negative attack ads against her opponent Bruce Braley, saying that she has no connection to the third-party groups producing some of the ads.
“When I’m talking through ads I’m going to stay positive,” Ernst said, adding that her campaign was committed to running positive ads. “I can’t control the outside groups with independent expenditures. I don’t have contact with them.”
But, as the grassroots web news series The Undercurrent has pointed out, Ernst, who serves as an Iowa state senator, attended and spoke at a Koch brothers retreat in June, telling conservatives there that the Kochs’ politically connected network launched her political career.
“The exposure to this group and to this network and the opportunity to meet so many of you—that really started my trajectory,” she said. “And it started a very strong victory that we’ve progressively built upon throughout the campaign cycle.” - RH Reality Check, 10/27/14
The last thing Ernst could use is more bad press. And she's even getting Hell from this guy:
http://www.politicususa.com/...
During Monday morning’s broadcast of Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough took Joni Ernst to task for canceling meetings with the editorial boards of Iowa newspapers and local news stations. Last week, the GOP candidate for Iowa’s open US Senate seat skipped out on planned meetings with the Des Moines Register and two other Iowa newspapers. Apparently, Ernst didn’t feel like defending her positions or dealing with tough questions from the papers’ editors. It seems that she was willing to deal with any negative fallout from the local media, which would likely come from critical articles and endorsements of her opponent, Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley. (The Des Moines Register endorsed Braley over the weekend.)
After discussing a number of tight Senate races with former White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod, Scarborough brought up Ernst’s decision to skip out on the meetings. While the former Republican Congressman and forever GOP apologist tried to provide ‘legitimate’ reasons, such as liberal bias and unfair coverage, why Ernst would want to avoid the Register in particular, he eventually concluded that there is “[n]ever a justification for not showing up at an editorial board meeting.”
Per Scarborough, even if you think a newspaper is unfair to you, it is far better to show up in front of the editors and writers and defend yourself and your campaign. If you blow off a newspaper or other media outlet who can provide an editorial endorsement, you are inviting far more negative coverage. Scarborough, along with panelist Donnie Deutsch and others, formed the opinion that humanizing yourself as a candidate and sitting down with editors and columnists is always a positive, even if you know they won’t endorse or support you in the end. - Politicus USA, 10/27/14
And Democrats are back up on the air with this attack:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Now, in the final push, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going up with a new ad that lacerates Ernst for signaling openness to privatizing Social Security, contrasting that with Democrat Bruce Braley’s flat-out opposition to privatization:
The ad, which is part of an ongoing multimillion-dollar buy, claims Ernst is “so extreme, she’d risk seniors’ retirement on the stock market, ending the guaranteed minimum benefit.” The ad offers no source for this claim, which looks like an extrapolation of the general risks involved with privatization. The spot does feature footage of Ernst saying: “Yes, I have talked about privatizing Social Security.” Ernst has subsequently confirmed she’s discussed privatization “as an option.” As PolitiFact notes, it’s going too far to say that Ernst would definitely do this, but it’s fair to say Ernst is open to doing it, and that embodies a real contrast between the two candidates.
A national Democratic strategist involved in the Iowa race tells me internal polling shows airing out Ernst’s true views on Personhood and Social Security is largely responsible for Braley bringing the race within two points. - Washington Post, 10/27/14
And Braley has another bid name hitting the campaign trail for him:
http://www.politico.com/...
Joe Biden’s warning to Iowa: Elect Bruce Braley to the Senate, or the whole country will have you to blame for the tea party for most of the next decade.
“This election in Iowa is more important than Iowa,” Biden told a crowd that organizers estimated at about 150, at a campaign stop for Braley and Rep. Dave Loebsack at Modern Woodmen Park, a minor league baseball ballpark on the banks of the Mississippi. Braley is running against Republican Joni Ernst.
Democrats have been trying to juice turnout by urging voters to think of the midterms as being as important as a presidential election. Biden went further.
“This election is even more important than the two elections you elected Barack [Obama] and me, for a simple reason: If we don’t stop the march of the tea party now, those majority Republicans in the House and Senate who know better are never going to have courage to stand up and vote the right way,” Biden said.
“If the Koch brothers can elect the woman running against Bruce, then if they move, they’ll be scared to death they’ll be primaried,” Biden said. “If we lose, we’ll be pushed back another six to eight years.”
But if Braley wins and the Senate stays Democratic — which Biden predicted will happen — “it’s going to break the back of the hard right, and you’re going to see reasonable people in the Republican Party start to vote reasonably again.” - Politico, 10/27/14
Click here to donate and get involved with Braley's campaign so he can defeat Ernst:
http://www.brucebraley.com/