Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Fla. Dems aim death blow at Crist - Melancon unleashes prostitution attack - DSCC poll: Close in Colo. - Webster raises off Grayson - NFIB on air for Toomey - Planned Parenthood preps voter guide
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 06:04:28 -0400 (EDT)

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

SENATE SIREN I - IN FOR THE KILL - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is about to get the full Arlen Specter treatment as he struggles to hold on to Democratic support in his independent bid for the U.S. Senate. The Florida Democratic Party is throwing money behind a crushing new ad that reminds voters of Crist's past as a partisan Republican, cutting together clips of the governor praising George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, talking up offshore drilling and calling himself "a Jeb Bush Republican." The clips of Crist come one by devastating one: "I'm about as conservative as you can get," he says in the opening video. In another: "President Bush - he is a leader of courage and conviction." In a third: "I was impressed at Gov. Palin being picked. I watched her speech today. I was very impressed." 

The commercial is running in select broadcast markets throughout Florida, including the politically pivotal I-4 corridor, according to a source familiar with the buy. The FDP ad comes days after a Mason-Dixon poll showed Crist's support dropping to 28 percent, just five points ahead of Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek and 12 points behind Republican frontrunner Marco Rubio. Meek had a seven-point lead among Democrats, and the new spot's closing frames won't help Crist make up that gap. "I'm a pro-life, pro-gun, anti-tax Republican," Crist says, insisting in the last clip: "I think it's important for people to understand who the true conservative is in this race. And it's Charlie Crist." Watch the ad here. http://bit.ly/cyZ8tE  

SENATE SIREN II - MELANCON GOES NUCLEAR - Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon is about to begin airing a once-in-a-cycle ad for his Senate campaign: A two-minute spot that will run in every market in Louisiana, detailing Republican Sen. David Vitter's prostitution scandal in astonishing detail. The ad, an abridged version of a longer Melancon campaign film titled "Forgotten Crimes," features the recorded account of a "former French Quarter prostitute," who recalls her encounter with Vitter: "He went in, took a shower, spoke very little to me at first. He did his thing. He wasn't there 15, 20 minutes at that." 

The commercial shows several Louisiana voters, with their identities concealed, condemning Vitter as a criminal. "If you're writing the laws, you should abide by the laws," says one man identified as a retired firefighter. Another man, introduced as a retired school teacher, explains: "For me, it's not about hookers or cheating on his wife. The man broke the law, and there ought to be consequences for that." A source familiar with the buy said the commercial will initially run largely on cable - possibly during the Saints or LSU games this weekend. Seeing is believing with this ad - watch it here. http://bit.ly/9ryt3X  

As Mitch McConnell heads to Charleston, Jim Edgar lends a hand and Russ Feingold makes a very important date, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily cheat sheet for the 2010 midterm elections. 

POPPING IN SCORE - ROCKY MOUNTAIN TIED: The Colorado Senate race is a two-point contest, with Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet taking 46 percent of the vote to Republican prosecutor Ken Buck's 46 percent in a poll commissioned by the DSCC. The survey, conducted by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, also asked voters to rate their feelings about each of the two candidates on a 100-point scale, with zero being a "very cold" rating and 100 being a "very warm" rating. Bennet scored six points higher than Buck on that scale, pulling an average rating of 43 points to Buck's 37 points. The numbers underscore just how competitive this race is, six weeks after the primary, as both candidates and Senate committees have gone on the air. The poll tested 800 likely voters from Sept. 22-26. 

HOUSE RACE SNAPSHOT - WEBSTER CASHES IN - Former Florida state Sen. Dan Webster isn't just pushing back on the attack ad from Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson labeling him "Taliban Dan" - he's also raising money online at a quick clip. Webster sent out an appeal yesterday declaring Grayson's ad "ludicrous and false" - and pulled in about $70,000 online as of midnight. That's a big sum for a candidate who entered the race late and had $105,000 on hand as of Aug. 4. Webster's website now features a front-page debunking of Grayson's ad, which edited a clip of Webster urging religious conservatives, "Don't pick the ones [Bible verses] that say, 'She should submit to me,'" to make it look like he just said: "She should submit to me." A Sunshine State News poll released last night showed Webster with a seven-point lead over Grayson, putting him ahead 43 percent to 36 percent. Here's the poll http://bit.ly/aIdqO3 ; and the fact-check on Grayson's ad. http://bit.ly/cRUqPB  

ERUDITE TWEET OF THE WEEK - "@charliepolitico: Blowback from Rep. Grayson ad has a Felix Grucci-esque feel to it" http://bit.ly/bV1xGZ  

FIRST IN SCORE - RACE-BY-RACE CHOICE: The Planned Parenthood Action Fund will roll out its 2010 voter guide today, featuring an online map that highlights the group's endorsees and candidates' views on sex ed, birth control, abortion rights and more. States are shaded according to what percentage of its congressional delegation supports abortion rights, and users can search the map by lawmakers' names or by zip code. The tool is part of Planned Parenthood's broader strategy of sharpening the 2010 choice for female voters, for whom the group is an especially credible messenger. This is the site: http://bit.ly/bV5213  

HOUSE EXCLUSIVE - BYE-BYE, NYE? Democratic Rep. Glenn Nye is seven points behind Republican Scott Rigell in Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, according to a Public Opinion Strategies poll taken for Rigell's campaign. Rigell currently draws 42 percent of the vote to Nye's 35 percent, with independent candidate Kenny Golden at five percent. Voters who rated their interest in the election at 10 out of 10 picked Rigell by a 14-point margin, 49 percent to 35 percent. Read the full memo here. http://politi.co/90zFIS  

PLUS - TWO MAKES A TREND: The Rigell campaign poll is the second in two days that shows Nye down in his reelection fight, after an NRCC independent expenditure poll put Rigell up five points on the Democrat. The House GOP's campaign arm released a set of internals Tuesday showing seven Democrats, including Nye, tied or trailing in their reelection campaigns. Details here. http://bit.ly/bSxZLz  LAST NIGHT - "Brown, Whitman go head-to-head in first debate" - From the Los Angeles Times's Seema Mehta: "The candidates vying to be California's next governor had their first face-to-face debate Tuesday evening, a polite but contentious exchange in which Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown largely stuck to their campaign stump scripts ... Whitman repeatedly hammered Brown for his union ties, saying he would be unable to renegotiate pension contracts after labor unions spent millions of dollars propping up his candidacy. ... Brown countered that Whitman has received $25 million from wealthy contributors who would directly benefit from her plan to eliminate the state capital gains tax. 

MORE - "The most amusing exchange occurred when a moderator noted that Brown twice ran for president when he was governor previously and asked what would prevent him from doing so again. 'Age,' Brown said. Then he grinned and continued: 'Hell, if I was younger, you know I'd be running again.'" http://lat.ms/aUW1nV  

HAPPENING NOW - TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS: The National Federation of Independent Business has begun an independent expenditure campaign in 13 races, totaling over half a million dollars in campaign spending on ads that hit cap and trade, health care reform and the possible expiration of the Bush tax cuts. "Washington is poised to dramatically raise taxes on small businesses at the end of the year, destroying any hope for an economic recovery," one spot, for Pennsylvania Senate candidate Pat Toomey, warns. "That's why we need to elect people who understand how critical small businesses small businesses are to our economy - people like Pat Toomey, who know firsthand that it's time to ease the tax burden and job-killing regulations." Listen to the ad here. http://bit.ly/amm7Xk  

MORE NFIB - FULL DETAILS: Other targeted races include the North Carolina and Wisconsin Senate contests, the open-seat House races in Indiana's 8th District and Wisconsin's 7th, and the reelection contests of Democratic Reps. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, John Boccieri of Ohio, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Dina Titus of Nevada, Alan Grayson of Florida, John Spratt of South Carolina, Tom Perriello of Virginia and Steve Kagen of Wisconsin. 

RALSTON ESCALATES - 'PATHOLOGICAL'? That's a heavy word to drop on a Senate candidate and the Las Vegas Sun's Jon Ralston just about went there in a Tuesday post, taking Sharron Angle to task for denying she ever favored privatizing services like the VA. "All I said, is the VA could do a better job for our veterans," she said at an event Saturday, even though last May she told a radio host that the VA and Medicare shouldn't cover expensive prescriptions "if you're working towards a privatized system." Cue Ralston, the most influential political journalist in the state: "I am beginning to wonder about this seemingly pathological habit Angle has of saying she never said something when it is on tape and so easily retrieved. Does she really not remember, or does she think this is a 'Mission Impossible' world where all tapes self-destruct after five seconds?" http://bit.ly/demGrI   

THIS WEEKEND - BACK TO N.H. - Arizona Sen. John McCain will be back in his old stomping grounds of New Hampshire this weekend to campaign for GOP Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte. McCain will attend a rally with veterans and then appear at a barbecue for the former state attorney general. http://bit.ly/cXW4jH  

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE - MITCH TO CHARLESTON - The West Virginia Republican Party announced overnight: "Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will visit West Virginia October 22nd and keynote the West Virginia Republican Victory Gala that evening in Charleston at the Marriott Hotel. McConnell will be joined by the Republican candidate for United States Senate, John Raese, and candidates for the House of Representatives, David McKinley, Spike Maynard and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito." 

AND - TOTAL WAR: Both Senate campaign committees are now up with independent advertising in West Virginia, with the DSCC running its first ad, the NRSC expanding its ad blitz to radio and Republican John Raese rotating a new attack on energy into his television offensive. The NRSC ad effectively sums up the GOP's line of attack against Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin: "It's like there's West Virginia Joe, not bad as governor, then he becomes 'Washington Joe,' a yes-man for Barack Obama and the Washington liberals." Listen to the NRSC spot http://bit.ly/c0tMMZ  ; watch the DSCC spot http://bit.ly/a8v9mP  ; and watch the new Raese ad. http://bit.ly/9WUF6T  

IN WISCONSIN - YOU GOT OFF THE PLANE: Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold made a surprise appearance at President Barack Obama's rally in Madison Tuesday, flying back to his home state after a vote that was expected to keep him from the event. "The Washington Republican hacks said... that I didn't want to be here today. And the national press just ate it up! Well, it's a crock," Feingold said. "I am so glad to be here today with President Obama. I'll tell you something, Mr. President, you are my friend. You are my president. You are our president. And I am thrilled you are here with all of us Badgers." More on the president's trip from Kendra Marr. http://politi.co/d2NkFv  

O'MALLEY'S BFF: Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is one Democrat who's not running from President Obama - his campaign released a radio ad featuring the president telling voters: "You have a choice in this election. A choice whether you keep moving forward with the hard working leadership and vision of Governor Martin O'Malley, or do you slip backwards?" In the last line of the spot, Obama asks listeners to "stand with me, Barack Obama, in moving Maryland forward with my friend, Martin O'Malley." Listen to it here. http://bit.ly/cQYgOd  

UNITING THE CLANS: Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, a popular Republican who went nearly eight months without endorsing GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady, gave the state senator his full-throated backing on Tuesday. "We need a change in Illinois government, and Bill Brady will bring that change," Edgar said in a statement, predicting: "He will stop spending more money than the state takes in and bring fiscal responsibility back to state government." 

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The RNC is all about rebuilding our grassroots ... The best way to do that, particularly in a midterm election, is to energize as many potential Republican voters as possible, which means going to GOP strongholds as well as marginal districts." - RNC Chairman Michael Steele, in an e-mail to committee members reported by CNN, explaining why his "Fire Pelosi!" bus tour is visiting so many non-competitive House races. http://bit.ly/ddZGdI  

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