Gumbo PAC ad attacking Republican David Vitter
Leading Off:
• LA-Gov: Republican David Vitter's foes have not been shy about invoking his 2007 prostitution scandal, but a new spot from Gumbo PAC goes where no ad has gone before. The commercial starts with the narrator decrying outgoing Gov. Bobby Jindal before hitting Vitter's record in Congress. The narrator then invokes the prostitution scandal, while the viewer hears the sound of a baby crying the whole time: We finally see the crying baby is wearing a diaper.
It's not new for politicians to compare their opponents to babies: Georgia Republican David Perdue in particular made great use of this theme during his successful Senate race last year. But Gumbo PAC is making a very unsubtle reference to rumors that Vitter, ah, indulged in a diaper fetish while consorting with ladies of the night. While 2010 Democratic opponent Charlie Melancon aired ads referencing Vitter's scandal and the Louisiana Water Coalition has been bringing the story back to the airwaves this year, no one has gone this far.
There's no word on the size of the buy and it's unclear where it's airing. Gumbo PAC initially said the spot would air during Thursday's gubernatorial debate and the buy would then be expanded. However, the network airing the debate said that the event is commercial free, and they would not "run an ad of that nature either during or adjacent to a debate."
Senate:
• IL-Sen: Rep. Tammy Duckworth just scored an important get in the Democratic primary for Senate, earning the endorsement of the Illinois AFL-CIO, a major labor umbrella organization that represents over 900,000 members. Duckworth, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to take on GOP Sen. Mark Kirk, faces former Chicago Urban League president Andrea Zopp, whose campaign responded with one of the three classic forms of loserspeak: "This is another example of the D.C. elites tipping the scales to try to coronate Tammy Duckworth."
• IL-Sen, WI-Sen: The GOP and its allies spent months bombarding the airwaves early last cycle before Team Blue returned fire. This time around, the Democrats hold the early spending edge in Illinois and Wisconsin, two seats where Republican incumbents are facing tough re-election campaigns. The National Journal reports that Democratic interests have outspent the GOP $1 million to $650,000 in Illinois, and $1.8 million to $1.2 million in Wisconsin. Of course, it's debatable how much of a difference early spending makes: Ads tend to lose their impact shortly after they've stopped airing and voters have forgotten about them.
• WI-Sen: In the past, Democrat Russ Feingold has proven to be reluctant to raise large amounts of money, but it seems like his 2010 defeat has changed his strategy. Feingold raised $2.4 million during the last three months, and he has $3.4 million on hand.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: Following initial reports that Republican Matt Bevin's latest ad buy was for a paltry $78,000, Bevin now claims his campaign has bought $1.1 million in TV time for the final month of the campaign. That might sound like a lot, but to put that figure in context, the RGA had spent a reported $3 million in less than three months before infamously kicking Bevin to the curb. Now Bevin has to go it alone, so while he's spending at roughly the same rate as the RGA had been, it means he's not ramping up his presence on the airwaves in the crucial final weeks.
• VT-Gov: After initially expressing interest in another gubernatorial campaign, 2012 GOP nominee Randy Brock has announced that he will run for lieutenant governor instead. Brock was the last notable Republican who was publicly considering a bid and barring a major surprise, the primary will remain a duel between Lt. Gov. Phil Scott and former Wall Street executive Bruce Lisman.
House:
• IA-02: While Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack had some close calls during the last two midterm cycles, he's won with ease during presidential years. However, state Sen. Mark Chelgren is hoping that 2016 will be different, and he's kicked off his campaign for this eastern Iowa seat. Chelgren pulled off a close win in an Obama 53-45 seat last year despite being heavily targeted, so he may have the chops he'll need for what will be a tough race. But Chelgren comes with his own baggage: He made news in 2011 when he compared preschool to Nazi indoctrination, though he's mostly kept his mouth shut since then. Obama won the 2nd District 56-43.
• MN-02: On Thursday, Democratic state Rep. Joe Atkins announced that he would not run for this open swing seat. Two wealthy Democrats, Angie Craig and Mary Lawrence, are already in, and it doesn't look like any other major candidates will be joining them in the primary.
• NY-24: Democrats haven't had much luck finding a viable candidate against Republican freshman John Katko this cycle, but that may have finally changed. Colleen Deacon, who ran Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's local regional office, announced that she would run for this Syracuse-area seat. We won't know until next year if Deacon can raise the type of money she'll need, though she could get a boost if Gillibrand goes to bat for her. Deacon joins college professor Eric Kingson in the primary, but Kingson has left national Democrats unimpressed. Obama carried this seat 57-41, but this area is amenable to moderate-sounding Republicans.
• OH-08: It's going to be a while before the GOP field takes shape in this safely red seat, but Dayton-area Rep. Mike Turner isn't waiting to endorse. Turner is backing state Sen. Bill Beagle, who is the only credible contender so far. None of Turner's old seat is in OH-08 but about half of the 8th District sits in the Dayton media market, so Turner may have some influence in this area.
• PA-02: State Rep. Brian Sims never ruled out challenging indicted Rep. Chaka Fattah in the Democratic primary, and it sounds like he's gearing up for a campaign. Sims hasn't announced anything yet, but he's sent out invitations for a fundraiser for the "Brian Sims for Congress Exploratory Committee."
If Sims gets in, he'll join ward leader Dan Muroff and Lower Merion Township Commissioner Brian Gordon in the race against Fattah. Sims would be the most well-known challenger, and his activism on LGBT issues gives him a good fundraising base. However, the incumbent's opponents could very well split the anti-Fattah vote enough to secure him renomination in this safely blue Philadelphia seat. Sims, Muroff, and Gordon are also white politicians trying to unseat a black incumbent in a district where African Americans outnumber whites 58-29, which makes their task all the more difficult. State Rep. Dwight Evans, who is black, is also reportedly interested in taking on Fattah.
Legislative:
• VA State Senate: The swingy SD-07 was a top Democratic target until a few weeks ago, but things quickly went haywire. Democratic nominee Gary McCollum spent years saying he was "currently a major in the Army Reserve," but the Army confirmed he'd been discharged in 2001. McCollum insists that the Army had failed to inform him about his change in status and he believed that he was still serving until very recently, and he's airing a new ad that tries to turn the story around. The narrator starts off, "His military records now confirm: As a result of a clerical error McCollum wasn't informed of his discharge." The narrator then calls Republican incumbent Frank Wagner "a politician who attacks the service of a dedicated veteran."
The Virginia-Pilot's Patrick Wilson tells us that McCollum is correct that there was clerical error: The Army did not put his discharge order into his electronic personnel record. However, the Army did mail McCollum his discharge in 2001, and McCollum would have learned about it if he'd called Army Human Resources Command, as all reserves are required to do once a year. A bit weirdly, McCollum also offered to let the Pilot see his full file, but changed his mind when they took him up on it. In any case, it's hard to see McCollum putting this whole matter behind him with just a month to go before Election Day.
Mayoral:
• Columbus, OH Mayor: City Council President Andrew Ginther is out with a new spot starring the man he's hoping to succeed, outgoing Mayor Michael Coleman. Ginther's campaign hit a pothole in June after he was accused of taking money from a red light camera company executive in exchange for city contracts, and Coleman tries to turn the story on its head. Coleman tells the audience that when Ginther "learned of wrongdoing by a red-light-camera company, he immediately demanded an independent investigation and the contract was terminated." The second half the spot features an unseen narrator hitting Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott, accusing him of doing a bad job keeping the public safe.
Other Races:
• Demographics: You're probably familiar with the phrase "Will it play in Peoria?" which has roots going all the way back to when it was a test market for vaudeville acts, but also reflects its status for many more recent years as a hotbed of market research ... all because of its very typicalness. Peoria has become less typical in recent decades: it's currently much less Hispanic than the country as a whole. But that typicalness still remains, and it seems to extend to Illinois as a whole, which as the Washington Post's Philip Bump demonstrates, is the nation's most demographically "typical" state, followed by Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Or is it? Bump admits up front that his weightings for various demographic categories, and how much they should count toward a state's typicalness, is pretty arbitrary. That's the beauty of his post, though: it includes a widget that lets you change the weightings and see which state is most representative according to your own criteria. Want to de-emphasize race and age, and focus more on poverty and home ownership? You can do that. He also poses a challenge for readers: to find any possible combination of criteria that leave Iowa and New Hampshire -- the states most heavily tasked with choosing presidential nominees -- as the two most representative states in the country.
• Votes: Wednesday's votes on the "clean" continuing resolution weren't terribly dramatic; they passed both chambers by wide margins without any Democratic defections at all. However, these votes did split the Republican caucuses down the middle, so (with a few exceptions) they're pretty indicative of the GOP fault line between the moderates/endangered/establishmentarians and the electorally-safe, true believers.
On the House side, there were a few well-known conservatives who nevertheless voted "yes," but the common thread seems to be that they're the ones jostling for leadership positions (Patrick McHenry, Markwayne Mullin), and it looks they think it might be fruitful to reposition toward the less-insane side of the party to try and find enough votes within the caucus. On the flip side, Rod Blum and Frank Guinta seem to understand that they're not likely to be back for another term and thus are liberated to let their freak flags fly; they're possibly the two most electorally-endangered House GOPers, and they both voted "no."
On the Senate side, the only eyebrow-raising vote came from Pat Toomey, who voted "no" on both the cloture vote and the bill itself. Everyone else facing a competitive 2016 race voted "yes;" Toomey has occasionally feinted toward the center (as on guns), but on fiscal matters, his real raison d'etre, he doesn't seem able to help himself.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and Stephen Wolf.