Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Zero hour in Fla., Ariz., more - Romney backs 11 in Mich. - Hagel stumping for Sestak - Tarkanian group targets Reid - Mitch Landrieu endorses - Hickenlooper takes a shower
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:34:44 -0400 (EDT)

By Alexander Burns (@aburnspolitico, [email-masked])

SCORE EXCLUSIVE - MR. MICHIGAN: Mitt Romney, campaigning in Michigan this week for former Gateway CEO-turned-gubernatorial nominee Rick Snyder, plans to back 11 new Republican candidates in the state and send them a total of $28,400. Romney will endorse Reps. Dave Camp, Thaddeus McCotter, Candice Miller, Mike Rogers and Fred Upton for reelection and put his seal of approval on challengers Dan Benishek, the GOP nominee for retiring Democrat Bart Stupak's seat; former Rep. Tim Walberg, who's running to reclaim his old House seat from Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer; and former state Rep. Rocky Raczkowski, the candidate against Democratic Rep. Gary Peters.

Romney will also announce his support for open-seat candidates Bill Huizenga and Justin Amash, the heavily favored Republicans running to succeed outgoing Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Vern Ehlers, and officially endorse Bill Schuette, the GOP nominee for attorney general. Every one of those federal candidates will get a $2,500 check from Romney's Free and Strong America PAC, while Schuette previously received $3,400. All told, it's a significant financial investment in Romney's native state, which he won during the 2008 primaries and where his father once served as governor.

As four states vote, careers teeter on the brink and tens of millions of self-funded campaign dollars threaten to go up in smoke, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily cheat sheet for the 2010 midterm elections.

VOTING BEGINS - VIEWER'S GUIDE TO AK, AZ, FL, VT - Here's a quick glance at some of the most important items to watch for as returns roll in across four states tonight, on one of the last, best primary days of the 2010 campaign. From POLITICO's Charlie Mahtesian, with your Score correspondent:

“The seniority argument. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski … outspent her underfunded opponent by a wide margin and resorted to the tried-and-true Alaska congressional incumbent's strategy - reminding voters of the value of her seniority. … Florida's presidential playground. In Florida's gubernatorial race, national Republicans -- including several presidential prospects -- have lined up squarely behind Bill McCollum. …. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have both interceded in the campaign for attorney general … The Grayson primary. Republicans are eagerly awaiting the outcome of Florida's 8th District GOP primary to see who will carry the flag in November against Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson … Dan Webster, a former state House Speaker and state Senate majority leader, has landed a roster of A-list endorsees -ranging from former Gov. Jeb Bush to Mike Huckabee to Sen. George LeMieux to Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. … Jeff Greene Country. There's one race in Florida where the polls all agree: Rep. Kendrick Meek is strongly favored to beat real estate billionaire Jeff Greene for the Democratic Senate nomination. But Greene's performance could offer clues about Meek's strength - and potential points of weakness - for the general election. The self-funding first-time candidate has courted Jewish voters in particular. … As Chittenden County goes. Regardless of Tuesday's turnout, it won't take a lot of votes to win Vermont's five-way Democratic primary for governor-fewer than 50,000 votes as expected to be cast, according to some estimates.” Read more. http://politi.co/c6Owt3

FOLLOW THE RETURNS, in real time, with maps and in color, at the POLITICO homepage and at politico.com/2010

THE BIG ONE - FABRIZIO'S PREDICTION: GOP pollster and Rick Scott strategist Tony Fabrizio projected explosive turnout in the Republican primary for governor of Florida, forecasting a ceiling-busting participation of “at least 1.7 million.” From his crystal ball: “This would represent roughly 41% of registered Republicans, a 70% increase over the 2006 gubernatorial primary. This is consistent with the increased turnout we have seen in Republican primaries across the country where outsiders have shocked the establishment candidates.”

PRE-MORTEM FROM JMART - “Money for nothing in Fla. primaries” - “Rick Scott, the multimillionaire GOP gubernatorial hopeful, and Jeff Greene, the billionaire Democratic Senate candidate, have together plowed more than $60 million from their personal fortunes into ads that have saturated Florida airwaves and turned them from total unknowns into contenders. Yet while their cash won them instant viability, their baggage-laden backgrounds, lack of identity in the state, rookie mistakes on the stump, establishment opposition and Florida's ferocious press corps have together proved as important as what the pros call 'paid media' …Call it the plausibility factor. More than anything else, Scott and Greene were hurt because they were unknowns who were susceptible to being defined by their seemingly exotic pasts. … 'If you're a well-known commodity like a [former Gov. and Sen.] Lawton Chiles, it doesn't matter as much what the papers say about you because most people already have an opinion of you,' explained former state GOP Chairman Al Cardenas. 'But these guys were an empty canvas.'” http://politi.co/9dSUTd

MEANWHILE - SINK AWAITS: As Florida Republicans prepare for the moment of truth in the McCollum vs. Scott battle royale, the Miami Herald's Mary Ellen Klas traces the task ahead for the presumptive Democratic nominee: “Sink is expected to emerge victorious Tuesday but with one big problem: in her quest to become governor, she is unknown to half of Florida's voters. ... `I'm fighting an uphill battle,' said Millie Spaner, a retired Duval County school teacher and Sink supporter. 'Most of my neighbors don't even know she's a woman.' Once people figure out she's a woman, pollsters say, Sink faces another problem: voters conventionally stereotype women Democrats as liberal Democrats. To win moderates and independents in the general election, Sink has to change that perception.” http://bit.ly/aKqlIK

DAD'S HOME! Former Vice President Dan Quayle authored a last-minute e-mail defending his son, Arizona congressional candidate Ben Quayle, from charges that he helped found a risqué Scottsdale website. “I have never in my 35 years of politics seen such an ugly, slanderous assault in the closing days of a campaign against a fellow Republican,” Quayle wrote. “Ben made a satirical fictional posting on a blog three or four years ago commenting on night life in Scottsdale. That blog no longer exists. Ben had absolutely nothing to do with the vulgar website.” http://politi.co/bAKDZ5

TODAY - HAGEL DOES PA: Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel plans to cross party lines and endorse Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak at events in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Hagel, a veteran like Sestak, told the AP yesterday: “I think he's exactly what our country needs more of. I think he's what the Senate needs more of - courageous, independent thinking.” http://bit.ly/b4WWh2

CAN'T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN: Danny Tarkanian, the defeated GOP Senate candidate from Nevada, is launching a new group to run ads against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this fall. Tarkanian's group, Harry Reid Votes, will do what the name suggests and gun for the incumbent's legislative record. “The votes that he has been making haven't been a big focus of the race,” Tarkanian said. http://bit.ly/9ekpmg

IF YOU WATCH ONE AD THIS WEEK: Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a strong favorite to hold the Colorado governor's mansion for Democrats, is the latest 2010 contender to cast himself as an anti-politician in a memorable television spot. “I guess I'm not a very good politician, because I can't stand negative ads,” Hickenlooper says in the commercial. “Every time I see one, I feel like I need to take a shower.” The memorable part: the commercial shows Hickenlooper climbing into the shower, fully clothed, dousing himself in water and drying himself off. http://bit.ly/bfKm61

ANOTHER LANDRIEU FOR RICHMOND: New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu followed his sister, Sen. Mary Landrieu, to become the latest Democratic leader rallying behind state Rep. Cedric Richmond's challenge to Republican Rep. Joseph Cao. Despite scattered personal legal problems, Richmond has emerged as the national favorite and DCCC-endorsed opponent for Cao, the most vulnerable GOP incumbent on the ballot this fall. http://bit.ly/cd26rb

UNITING THE CLANS: Several former staffers for defeated Georgia gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel have signed on to their party's general-election efforts, and one has even joined up with former Rep. and victorious Handel opponent Nathan Deal's campaign. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Galloway reports: “Jeremy Collins, political director for the Handel campaign, will have something like that position in the Deal operation. And Dan McLagan, the sharp-tongued Handel rhetorician, has been hired as a consultant for the state Republican party.” http://bit.ly/d4kNV1

DUFFY'S NEW GUN: Wendy Riemann, a top aide to Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, has been deployed to the state's 7th Congressional District to serve as communications director for former Ashland County DA Sean Duffy's campaign. Riemann, a Wisconsin native, ran communications for McCain-Palin in Missouri, Iowa and Illinois and has written speeches for Tommy Thompson and Jeb Bush.

PICKING HER OPPONENT: Susana Martinez has been running against Bill Richardson, figuratively speaking, for some time in New Mexico's gubernatorial race. But the Dona Ana County DA took that strategy one step further Monday, with a debate challenge to the outgoing governor. “When I debated Diane Denish last week, she clearly advocated continuing those same failed policies,” Martinez said in a statement, referring to the lieutenant governor and Democratic nominee. “If Bill Richardson wants to defend Diane Denish and their administration's abysmal record, he shouldn't hide behind press releases.”

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: “What really surprised me were the amount of stories the press can make up. It's like, wow, they really, like, exaggerate and take one thing and it's like that game, the whisper game.” - Mei Sze Chan, would-be senatorial spouse from Florida. http://politi.co/9dSUTd

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

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