Subject: POLITICO'S Morning Score
From: "POLITICO'S Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:53:29 -0400 (EDT)

POLITICO's Morning Score, June 18, 2010 5:49 am

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Colo. Dems jump on Norton video - Friday standings: Who's better off now? - Foreclosure hits Rubio, Rivera - S.C. Dems stick with Greene - Etheridge opponent fumbles - Palin picks three more

By: Alexander Burns

Fri 18, 2010 05:46 AM EST

SCORE EXCLUSIVE -- THE 9/11 CARD: Democratic veterans in Colorado plan to target Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton Friday for posting what they'll call a "deeply offensive web video that seeks to exploit the tragic events of September 11th and politicize the brave service of our men and women in uniform." In the video, Norton warns that "liberals in Washington seem to have forgotten" -- at which point the screen goes dark, and the sound of airplane jets is briefly heard before Norton returns to view and concludes: "But we haven't. Let's win the war on terror."

State Rep. Joe Rice, an Army reservist, and retired Army Capt. Jason Crow, a Democratic attorney, will circulate a petition calling on Norton to pull the video and return any contributions given in response. "We believe that the events of that day are to be met with solemn reverence; Jane Norton seems to believe they are to be met with a campaign contribution," they write. "Jane, you have done a disservice to our troops by degrading their effectiveness and bravery. You should be ashamed." This is more than a tactical drive-by against Norton: it's a preview of how Democrats will take advantage of the increasingly strident rhetoric the former lieutenant governor's using as she attempts to fight off a primary challenge from conservative Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck.

As Charlie Melancon swats Joe Barton, Lowell Weicker hits Dick Blumenthal and Alan Nunnelee preempts the NRA, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily cheat sheet for the 2010 midterm elections.

FRIDAY STANDINGS -- ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW? There are just nineteen-odd weeks until Election Day and every one of them matters. So, at the end of this week, which campaigns can say they're better off now than they were seven days ago? Here's how we think some of the biggest ones should answer that question:

YES -- (1) Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who followed up a boffo fundraising report by capturing the NRA endorsement, maintaining one of the best campaign performances of any incumbent governor; (2) Alabama gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne, who tested out his message for the GOP runoff primary while two runners-up fought over a recount; (3) Florida Gov. and Senate candidate Charlie Crist, who toured Pensacola with the president while his Democratic opponents in the Senate race kept nuking each other.

NO -- (1) Former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, whose Senate campaign has been sidetracked by questions about her office's failure to detect the largest Ponzi scheme in state history; (2) California Attorney General Jerry Brown, who's still talking about Nazis a week later; (3) Vic Rawl, whose long-shot Senate campaign against Jim DeMint came to an end Thursday night.

POLITICO SNEAK PEEK -- COMING TODAY: Alabama state Rep. Robert Bentley plans to declare victory today in the contest for second place in his state's GOP gubernatorial primary, following the end of a recount paid for by third-place finisher Tim James. Bentley will announce the launch of his runoff campaign against Bradley Byrne, including a Monday flyaround tour of Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile.

GOING NOWHERE: Alvin Greene, the unemployed veteran with a pending obscenity charge who won the Democratic Senate nomination in South Carolina, will stay on the ballot as the party's candidate against Jim DeMint after former state lawmaker Vic Rawl failed to convince the Democratic state committee that the integrity of the election was compromised. The committee voted 33-7 to uphold Greene's win.

BACKUP PLAN: Some Democrats are urging former 2008 House candidate Linda Ketner to jump into the Senate race as an independent, and they're gathering petitions to put her name on the ballot. Ketner hasn't waved off the staffers organizing the petition drive, CNN reports.

DEADBEATS? Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio and state Rep. David Rivera, who's running for the House, drew a foreclosure suit this week after missing five months of mortgage payments on a jointly owned Tallahassee property, the Palm Beach Post reports. From the paper: "They received an adjustable rate mortgage that allowed them to make interest-only payments until April 1, 2010. Burgos said Rubio and Rivera began withholding payments in February because of a dispute about how the payments would be calculated after the interest-only period ended. ... Court documents show Rubio and Rivera owe the bank $138,394 with interest and late charges." Rubio's camp said the issue had been addressed, but there's no indication yet that the foreclosure has been withdrawn.

MORE: POLITICO's David Catanese reports that Rubio cut a check to deal with the foreclosure issue -- only after media inquiries about the property. "A Rubio campaign spokesman said the issue had been resolved after the two co-owners wrote a check for $9,524 Thursday, one day after POLITICO originally inquired about the suit."

BIG IDEA -- ON A KNIFE'S EDGE: Emory University Professor Alan Abramowitz writes on the website of UVA's Center for Politics that if House districts behave more or less the way similar seats did in 1994, Democrats could lose the House by a one-vote margin. Abramowitz: "While the total number of Democratic House seats is the same today as in 1994, changes in the demographic composition and geographic distribution of the electorate over the past 16 years have resulted in an increase in the number of strongly Democratic House districts. ... If we project the 1994 loss probabilities onto the 2010 distribution of Democratic seats in terms of party strength and incumbency status, we would expect Democrats to lose 42 of their current seats in November. Since Democrats are given a good chance of picking up at least three current Republican seats (one each in Hawaii and Louisiana and the at-large seat in Delaware), we would expect a net loss of 39 House seats, leaving Republicans with the narrowest possible majority: 218 seats to 217 for the Democrats."

PILING ON BARTON: Democrats found a made-for-TV-ads electoral punching bag Thursday when Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, apologized to BP for a "shakedown" from the White House. He later retracted that apology under pressure, but Democrats don't plan to let the issue drop. The DCCC will point out Friday that the Republican Study Committee, led by Georgia Rep. Tom Price, has made essentially the same charge as Barton -- that the White House inappropriately leaned on BP to get the company to establish a fund for Gulf Coast compensation claims.

PLUS -- SHOTS FIRED: Louisiana Rep. and Senate candidate Charlie Melancon took one of the hardest shots at Barton of any Democrat Thursday, in an appearance on CNN's "Situation Room." "Joe can be quite blunt, and I don't have a problem with people that are matter of fact," he told Wolf Blitzer. "I just don't think that was a very well-thought-through statement or maybe we just found out where Joe is going to work when he leaves the Congress."

OFF THE HOOK? North Carolina Rep. Bob Etheridge started the week in hot water when video surfaced showing him getting into a physical altercation with a young man asking him questions on the street. But despite a brief surge of interest in his opponent, Renee Ellmers, Etheridge is looking safer again after Ellmers consultant Carter Wrenn suggested to the Charlotte Observer that the NRCC might have had a hand in the incident. Saying that the NRCC knew the identity of the young people involved in the incident, Wrenn said: "It wasn't clear whether the students worked for them or not."

Said one Republican insider familiar with the situation: "If you need proof that Renee Ellmers is a long way from viable, here it is. Why her consultants think it wise to relieve Bob Etheridge of negative attention and instead cast aspersions on their own campaign committee is beyond me, and demonstrates a level of incompetence rarely found in winning campaigns."

THE BIG MAP -- with POLITICO's Tim Alberta:

SENATE:

CONNECTICUT: Former independent Gov. Lowell Weicker dinged state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Thursday, during a discussion of Connecticut's fiscal situation. "The attitudes of the state have not been particularly business friendly," said Weicker. "I don't mean to criticize any one individual, but I'm saying there's an awful lot of lawsuits thrown around the state of Connecticut on business. So the question would be asked: why would you move to Connecticut?"

FLORIDA: Democratic billionaire Jeff Greene has gone harshly negative on primary foe Kendrick Meek, airing an ad that calls for an ethics investigation of the congressman's ties to an indicted real estate developer. But oere's the punch line: the ad is airing in the DC media market, far from Florida voters but close to the opinion makers who've been skeptical of Greene's seriousness as a candidate.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Republican Senate hopeful Bill Binnie is hosting a campaign event on June 29 at NRSC headquarters in Washington. The NRSC hasn't endorsed Binnie, but it allows candidates to use its space. Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes will host a breakfast fundraiser in Washington the next day, which Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, John Kerry, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse will attend.

WASHINGTON: Former NFL player Clint Didier, competing with Dino Rossi to be Sen. Patty Murray's Republican opponent, expects Sarah Palin will make a trip for his campaign before the primary. Didier says Palin told him she "just loved the campaign," and one Didier aide said Palin told the candidate she's "all in."

HOUSE:

KS-04: A columnist for the Palm Beach Post has written a story latching onto Kansas congressional candidate Wink Hartmann's residency issues, pointing out that the wealthy self-funder has been listed as a Florida voter despite having flatly stated: "I never did move to Florida." Hartmann is competing with Mike Pompeo for the Republican nomination to succeed Rep. Todd Tiahrt.

MS-01: State Sen. Alan Nunnelee, the GOP's nominee against Democratic Rep. Travis Childers, preempted an expected NRA endorsement of Childers by highlighting his past support from the organization and pointing to the NRA's tendency to stick with incumbents "I accept their expected decision to endorse the incumbent," Nunnelee said, "but I remain immensely proud of their previous support due to my diligent advocacy on gun owners' behalves."

PA-11: Rep. Paul Kanjorski announced he won't participate in any town hall meetings in person this summer, opting instead for a series of virtual town halls over the phone. "Telephone town meetings provide a unique and convenient forum to hear the concerns of my constituents and answer their questions live over the phone," explained the 13-term Democrat, who faces Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta in the general election.

VA-05: Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello and state Sen. Robert Hurt, his Republican opponent, have agreed that independent House candidate Jeffrey Clark should be included in their debates. "If there's one thing that I've learned from my first 18 months in Congress, it's that there are a whole lot of opinions across our district," explained Perriello, who could benefit if the conservative Clark picks up any traction.

GOVERNORS:

FLORIDA: Former health care executive Rick Scott, who's already spent $15 million in a state where matching funds kick in once one candidate spends over $24.9 million, is funneling campaign cash through a new 527 called Let's Get to Work in order to stay below that spending mark. Scott's primary opponent, state Attorney General Bill McCollum, also has a 527 called the Florida First Initiative.

ILLINOIS: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush stumped for Republican nominee Bill Brady's campaign, praising him as a reformer for the state: "Leadership matters and I have confidence he has some big ideas and can restore growth to Illinois." Brady said he'd like to emulate Bush's record in Florida, saying "his insights will help us turn Illinois around," Brady said.

IOWA: Democratic Gov. Chet Culver is up with his first television ad of the general election -- a negative spot that accuses former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad of keeping "two sets of books" when he was governor and blaming Branstad for "deficit spending, increased taxes."

TEXAS: Former Houston Mayor Bill White called Republican Gov. Rick Perry a "part-time" governor Thursday after showing that the incumbent had conducted no state business on 38 of the first 109 business days of 2010. Charging that Perry has spent too much time on politics and travel, White said: "Real leadership consists of setting a good example at the top." http://bit.ly/9LsAB6 and http://bit.ly/9CdurG

2012:

THREE MORE: Sarah Palin announced a new set of endorsements via Facebook Thursday. She backed two very strong candidates, incumbent Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and outgoing Oklahoma Rep. Mary Fallin, who's running for governor, as well as a third candidate, Star Parker, who has virtually no chance of defeating California Rep. Laura Richardson.

Go to POLITICO's Morning Score Now >> http://www.politico.com/morningscore

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