Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Democrats find their man in AZ-01 — Rick Perry likely won’t make debate cut
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2015 08:04:57 -0600

By Theodoric Meyer

With Kevin Robillard 

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. (
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc2323e67357e98bd9b3f09a48ddcc31d7c9f560a7a51cc9d7392 
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GETTING IN - Former Republican running in AZ-01 as a Democrat: Democrats finally have a candidate in Arizona's most competitive House race: Tom O'Halleran, a former Republican state senator who mounted an unsuccessful comeback bid as independent last year. O'Halleran previously served several terms in the state House and one in the state Senate before losing his seat in 2008. Democrats have been without a candidate in Arizona's enormous 1st District, which stretches from the Grand Canyon to the Tucson suburbs, since Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick announced in May that she'd challenge GOP Sen. John McCain. O'Halleran is unsurprisingly positioning himself as unafraid to buck his party. "I have a record
 of taking on tough challenges and delivering - even when it meant standing up to party leadership," he said in a statement. Ken Bennett, the former secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate, is running on the Republican side.

GOING UP (ON THE WEB) - Portman campaign hits Strickland with web ads: As the first GOP presidential debate in Cleveland approaches, Sen. Rob Portman&#39;s reelection campaign is using famous debate moments in a series of digital ads hitting Democrat Ted Strickland for job losses while he was governor. The ads, provided first to Campaign Pro, declare there is 'no debate' that 'Retread Ted is bad for Ohio.' The ads feature clips of Al Gore&#39;s famous sighs from the 2000 presidential debate and Ronald Reagan&#39;s famous 'There you go again' line from his showdown with President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Two of the ads are geotargeted to specific cities - Cincinnati and Wilmington - and mention
 specific job losses there. The third ad is running statewide. The ads are part of a larger six-figure buy focused on job losses under Stickland. Watch the ads: 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc2321fb2cfde0ad27df79b72f3c3da59189c48ada879e4ae9238 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc2321fb2cfde0ad27df79b72f3c3da59189c48ada879e4ae9238 , 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc23286e61b6fc2a61ca654bc269bb23ec6e30e747d41f2506622 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc23286e61b6fc2a61ca654bc269bb23ec6e30e747d41f2506622 , 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc23286e61b6fc2a61ca654bc269bb23ec6e30e747d41f2506622 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc23286e61b6fc2a61ca654bc269bb23ec6e30e747d41f2506622 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS - "New Hampshire Voters First Forum: 5 takeaways," by POLITICO's Eli Stokols in Manchester, N.H.: "The candidate forum that drew 14 Republican presidential candidates to New Hampshire Monday night served as a practice round ahead of first official GOP primary debate in Cleveland - and a chance for the candidates unlikely to qualify for Thursday's prime-time event to stand on equal footing with the front-runners. ... As much as anything else, the crowded forum was a form of protest by New Hampshire and the other early states against the 10-candidate debate format adopted by Fox News for its Aug. 6 debate. Most of the candidates were content to earn points just by showing
 up, although some proved more desperate to breakthrough." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc2323559263c4766d221851e02d89bbfa376b65894ebdcef1f5c 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=244779d571dfc2323559263c4766d221851e02d89bbfa376b65894ebdcef1f5c 

Days until the 2015 election: 91. Days until the 2016 election: 462.

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BILLBOARD OFFENSIVE - NRSC goes after Senate candidates in two states: The National Republican Senatorial Committee has launched billboard campaigns in Green Bay, Wis., and Philadelphia targeting the Democratic candidates trying to unseat Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. The Green Bay billboard hits Democrat Russ Feingold for running a PAC that the ad calls "a slush fund," while the Philadelphia one attacks Democrat Joe Sestak for supporting a mileage tax while he was in Congress. The seats represent two of Democrats' best pickup opportunities.

- The NRSC is also going up with a new web video on Tuesday painting Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth as "another Chicago politician." The ad, shot in a faux film noir style designed to call to mind the movie "Chicago," attacks Duckworth for her role in allegedly mistreating a whistleblower while she ran the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. (A pretrial hearing in the case is set for Tuesday.) "If you like Blagojevich," the narrator says, referring to the now-imprisoned Democratic governor under whom Duckworth ran the department, "then you'll love Tammy Duckworth."

- Watch the ad: 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7bab32cfde4713c3218303a85e55b5815dc8072dc24cb7ec2e 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7bab32cfde4713c3218303a85e55b5815dc8072dc24cb7ec2e 

THE LONG GAME - "Democrats unveil plan to fight gerrymandering," by The New York Times' Jonathan Martin: "The Democratic Governors Association is creating a fund dedicated to winning races in states where governors have some control over congressional redistricting, the party's first step in a long-range campaign to make control of the House more competitive. Billed as "Unrig the Map," the effort will target 18 of the 35 states in which governors play a role in redistricting, and where new congressional maps could allow Democrats to win House seats that are now drawn in a way to favor Republicans. ... Democratic officials said that they hoped to raise "tens of millions" for the effort and
 that they believed they could gain as many as 44 House seats if lines were more favorably redrawn in the 18 battleground states." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7bf83ec628855f60769f919ee8ac351dbedda86d20f3e0205f 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7bf83ec628855f60769f919ee8ac351dbedda86d20f3e0205f 

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING - "RNC's chief techie launching startup on the side," by POLITICO Pro Tech's Nancy Scola: 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b006a6d4ceb151162c4c60777e9964d03a8ed69aaf0349bec 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b006a6d4ceb151162c4c60777e9964d03a8ed69aaf0349bec 

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "A primary like no other," by POLITICO's Katie Glueck, Kyle Cheney and Eli Stokols: "On the eve of the first Republican primary debate, state party leaders across the nation say the 2016 contest is in a state of flux, as unpredictable and wide-open as any they can remember. A sprawling field of contenders, no clear front-runner, still-unsettled primary election dates and rules, the combustible presence of Donald Trump - all of it has top GOP officials scratching their heads over which direction the nominating fight is going and how it all ends. That's according to a survey of 50 Republican state party chairmen from across the country, more than half of whom spoke
 with POLITICO ahead of Thursday's Fox News debate in Cleveland, a prime-time spectacle already infused with chaos and drama surrounding which candidates will qualify for a slot onstage." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b1e028778f0895d93987b5652cb49e88a20f9bc4f62952a47 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b1e028778f0895d93987b5652cb49e88a20f9bc4f62952a47 

-- "Cash-strapped Santorum campaign shuffles staff," by POLITICO's Katie Glueck: "Several top staffers have left Rick Santorum's campaign to create a new super PAC, a move spurred by the cash-strapped candidate's anemic fundraising. Campaign manager Terry Allen, Iowa state coordinator Jon Jones and digital strategist Steve Hilliard - Allen's son-in-law - departed several weeks ago, leaving the winner of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses without a campaign manager and raising questions about whether Santorum can last until Iowa votes on Feb. 1 next year. The reshuffling comes on the heels of another key departure - Karen Fesler, a prominent Iowa activist who had been aiding Santorum's efforts in the
 state. She now serves as Rick Perry's Iowa co-chair, the latest of a number of prominent Santorum activists who helped propel him to GOP runner-up status in 2012 but aligned with different candidates in 2016." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b26c87c749d007927df4c5b687104232927a63954d91a2cdd 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b26c87c749d007927df4c5b687104232927a63954d91a2cdd 

- "New polls suggest Rick Perry out of debate," by Campaign Pro's Steve Shepard: "It appears increasingly unlikely that Rick Perry will get a chance to atone for his disastrous 2012 debate performance - or attack his 2016 nemesis, Donald Trump - when Republicans spar for the first time Thursday in Cleveland. A Fox News poll out Monday night pegs the former Texas governor, who entered the race last cycle as the nominal favorite but has failed to gain traction this time around, at just 1 percent. That puts Perry at only 2 percent in an average of polls that Fox News, which will air the first GOP presidential debate, will use to determine which candidates get the prime-time audience." 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b099ae4126f6639a595b7ff4173526d6df03edfa784cd63d9 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b099ae4126f6639a595b7ff4173526d6df03edfa784cd63d9 

- "'Super PAC' supporting Ted Cruz to post Internet ads," by The New York Times' Maggie Haberman: Keep the Promise I - one of the four almost identically named super PACs supporting Ted Cruz - is starting to burn that money by going up "with two Internet ads as part of what officials with the group described as a seven-figure media expenditure to be spread over the rest of this year." The super PAC is almost entirely funded by the hedge funder Robert Mercer. 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7bbf0b957df219ca1cabd6ff768c972fb6bebdf6b8b9569e71 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7bbf0b957df219ca1cabd6ff768c972fb6bebdf6b8b9569e71 

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'Mr. Trump attended the great Wharton School of Finance, a school that has more important things to do." - Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Donald Trump, who disparaged the Harvard Lampoon staffers who tricked Trump into thinking they worked for The Harvard Crimson and were endorsing him as "fraudsters and liars." (Hat tip to 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7b1a7544d715a5583a04a9306e6a50ca07c0427d657e3c1605 
Alexander Burns ) 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7baa957d93c8857dd3098d064873251cf4c4e226f0d9269063 
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ac1f962227902a7baa957d93c8857dd3098d064873251cf4c4e226f0d9269063 

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