Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Patrick Murphy declares for Florida Senate — N.C. Dems fret about 2016 — Cruz in
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 08:04:26 -0600

By Kyle Cheney

With Alex Isenstadt, Tarini Parti and Theodoric Meyer

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro&#39;s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races - and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day&#39;s most important campaign news - sign up for Campaign Pro today. (
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BREAKING - PATRICK MURPHY JUMPS IN - POLITICO's Marc Caputo: "Florida Rep. Patrick Murphy formally announced his campaign for Senate on Monday, saying he's ready to fight for the highly competitive seat regardless of whether or not Marco Rubio runs for reelection. A one-time Republican with a centrist voting record that reflects his South Florida swing congressional district, Murphy said he's running to put an end to the "hyper-partisanship in Washington" and to focus on problems like preserving Social Security, Medicare and the environment, a classic Democratic platform. 'I'm doing this because I think I can make a difference,' Murphy told POLITICO. 'I'm not running or thinking about all
 the different options - I mean, there are hundreds of different potential people and options to game this out.' Murphy likes to point out he's a certified public accountant and understands the numbers. And when it comes to one of the most-important aspects of a statewide campaign in expensive Florida, Murphy, who's been a strong fundraiser as a House candidate, has done the math and figured he can raise the money and win. Contested Florida campaigns can top $100 million." 
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TODAY ON CAMPAIGN PRO - "N.C. Democrats try to get excited about 2016," by Campaign Pro's Tarini Parti and Elena Schneider:
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CRUZ'N - Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will launch his presidential campaign on Monday during an appearance at Liberty University in Virginia, two advisers confirmed. Cruz, a Republican who was elected to the Senate in 2012, will become the first announced candidate of the presidential campaign. Over the next few weeks, several other candidates - including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul - are expected to launch their campaigns. 
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 - The tweet, at 12:09 a.m. Eastern time: "I'm running for [p]resident[,] and I hope to earn your support!" 
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As Arizona House races get crowded and Jeb Bush lags in the Limbaugh primary, here&#39;s POLITICO&#39;s Morning Score: daily news, notes and essential information for the 2015 and 2016 election cycles.

Days until the 2015 election: 225; Days until the 2016 election: 596

Thanks for joining us. We're eager for your news and feedback. Email us at 
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kyledcheney .

WAITING FOR HILLARY - "Democracy Alliance wants to push Hillary Clinton to the left," by POLITICO's Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti: "An influential coalition of the biggest liberal donors is quietly distancing itself from the national Democratic Party and planning to push its leaders - including Hillary Clinton - to the left. The Democracy Alliance funders club at a private April gathering in San Francisco is set to unveil a long-term plan to boost causes on which some of its members contend leading Democrats like Clinton have been insufficiently aggressive ... It aims to steer more than $30 million a year toward groups committed to fighting income inequality, climate change and the
 influence of political money. A particular focus is on groups waging those fights at the state level, reflecting a sense among donors that political gridlock in national politics drastically limits chances for progress on their issues, regardless of the specific candidates." 
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 - "Iowa's uneasy embrace of Hillary," by POLITICO's Gabriel Debenedetti from Des Moines: "There's a sense of certainty surrounding her prospects in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, yet it's accompanied by a deep sense of unease that's rooted in Iowa's complicated history with the Clintons. Few expect she'll get much of a challenge, but almost no one is under the illusion she'll be campaigning in Iowa as a happy warrior either ... The feeling that Clinton doesn't much like or trust Iowa is a commonly-held perception among state Democrats. It dates back to 1992, when favorite son Harkin ran away with the presidential caucus, leaving Bill Clinton in fourth place behind former
 Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas and "Uncommitted." 
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2016 GOP - "Jeb's talk radio problem," by POLITICO's Michael Kruse: "He has a talk radio problem, conservative activist and writer Brent Bozell said, because he has 'a conservative problem.' He has a talk radio problem, Ingraham said, because he has an 'electability' problem. 'To me,' Ingraham told POLITICO, 'Jeb is the easiest candidate for Hillary to beat by far because he divides the GOP at a time when we need a candidate who unifies the party. ... He's made it fairly clear that he believes he can win without conservatives.' The way Glenn Beck has put it: 'I think Jeb Bush ... despises people like us.'

Bush, who's all but officially announced he's running for president, has said he would want to run a 'joyful' campaign. He's said he would want to have 'adult conversations.' It's phrasing that hints at his general distaste for conservative talk radio. Some Bush allies privately refer to some of the medium's leaders as 'warlords' - a description meant to convey the unreasonable, unrealistic and pugilistic agenda of those who thrive off of conflict. Bush, on the other hand, believes a winning Republican campaign a decade and a half into the 21st century must promote inclusion and optimism, not discontent and fear. People think he's too moderate in part because Limbaugh and the Limbaugh-like
 are saying he is. So here, almost a year before the 2016 Iowa caucuses, the primaries have started already - the fundraising and positioning of the so-called invisible primary, but a visible one, too, or at least an audible one. Call it the Rush primary." 
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CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'I couldn&#39;t tell you how we found the super PAC or how the contribution was caused to be made. But in the closing days of a campaign, we make a lot of contributions in a lot of places.' - Nassau County GOP spokesman, on a mysterious $50,000 contribution to an out-of-state PAC that ran ads in the closing days of the NY-04 race last year, as reported by Newsday: 
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