Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Vitter skipping debates in final week - Air war, in Kentucky
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2015 08:02:50 -0600

By Elena Schneider | 10/22/2015 10:01 AM EDT

With Kevin Robillard and Theodoric Meyer

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro's Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races - and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day's most important campaign news - sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

TODAY ON CAMPAIGN PRO -- Campaign Pro's Kevin Robillard looks at how -- and why -- Sen. David Vitter is skipping this week's televised debates in Saturday's Louisiana gubernatorial primary: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc9575c88689685fd1bbe1db5b806545a04e00e0c636be1242939a

-- And in Campaign Pro's Morning Score, we have Senate fundraising reports from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak, new details on an IA-01 internal poll and the latest on whether Sharron Angle will take a second shot at Harry Reid's Senate seat: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc957530ce0862a6fedb58183f02d6248103bb252e17830031eb6c

Days until the 2015 election: 12. Days until the 2016 election: 383.

Thanks for joining us. Email tips to the whole Campaign Pro team at [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked] and [email-masked].

You can also follow us on Twitter, where we tweet a lot about campaigns and occasionally about the third-best record in baseball: @politico_steve, @kyledcheney, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin and @theodoricmeyer.

HOUSE PATH CLEARS -- "Ryan to proceed with speaker bid," by POLITICO's Jake Sherman and Lauren French: "Rep. Paul Ryan will proceed with plans to run for House speaker despite not securing the formal endorsement of the House Freedom Caucus, according to a source close to him. Ryan's decision, which came after a high-stakes meeting with the group of House conservatives earlier in the day, all but ensures that the Ways and Means Committee chairman will succeed John Boehner as Republican leader at the end of the month." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc95752a9067761f4d9fce562460992330e44b8f8bcba8a03fdf89 

FIRST IN SCORE -- AIR WAR, IN KENTUCKY -- FreedomWorks for America, a conservative super PAC, announced $25,000 in cable airtime for an ad backing GOP Rep. Tom Massie. The ad will air on Fox News for the next ten days. It calls Massie, who represents a safely Republican seat with no current challengers, "a leader we can be proud of," who can't be "bought" by lobbyists and special interests. The super PAC has spent $200,000 on ads supporting Reps. Dave Brat (R-Va.), Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). 

WHITE HOUSE STAYS OUT IN FL-13 -- Charlie Crist may have aggressively campaigned for President Barack Obama, but he's not going to return the favor in his Democratic primary, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The White House will still stay neutral as Crist and Eric Lynn, a former Obama administration official, will likely face off. Lynn also picked up an endorsement from St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc9575c8a4b6bf5cd96fbd5865c1eaebc30dbfc0ec59354be43f15 

TAR HEEL THROWBACK -- A watchdog group filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service, accusing Carolina Rising, which spent millions backing now-Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) in 2014, of violating tax law by posing as a social welfare group, the Charlotte Observer reported. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc9575e89e4efb72a2babba47ffaf7fc19871439e93b76c84356a7 

PRESIDENTIAL SPEED READ - "Inside Biden's final deliberations," by POLITICO's Edward-Isaac Dovere and Glenn Thrush: "In true Joe Biden form, the entire enterprise was always a little haphazard. ... On Wednesday morning at around 9 a.m., Ricchetti was telling people he wasn't sure what Biden would do. West Wing staffers were still trading theories about what would happen, when he might decide, what he was going to do, all through the morning. President Barack Obama started his day without knowing yet, either. The vice president's office declined to comment. But conversations with people in the Biden orbit, advisers, White House staffers and others involved with the discussions about a
 possible presidential run over the last few weeks and days help explain why the prospects of a run ebbed and flowed so dramatically: Biden was ebbing and flowing that dramatically himself. Yet many of them went into the weekend thinking that at the last moment, Biden was going to be a yes." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc957504c9b438f648157c4acdff0e4254302dfd77f444b8504103 

"How Clinton boxed out Biden," by POLITICO's Annie Karni: "Scratch Joe Biden off Brooklyn's list of worries. ... Clinton allies credited Biden's ultimate decision not to run with the Clinton campaign's success in boxing him out behind-the-scenes, and publicly refusing until the very end to engage with him. "The idea was to give Biden the room to make a decision while letting him know it would be hard to win," explained a close Clinton ally." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4bcc78d1f2d6604cea1a10c7559869ffc0f831108c8d14cd81686205b5555e7c 

-- And now she may see an uptick in fundraising, too, as Clinton fundraisers said they've "already started hearing from new donors in the hours after Vice President Joe Biden announced he would not run in 2016," POLITICO's Gabriel Debenedetti reported. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=4bcc78d1f2d6604c525d13723d16d66396ca0766b95b300f8f201e855a2d66f8 

-- But the International Association of Firefighters, who gave Biden a union boost, are holding out on giving another endorsement, the Huffington Post reported. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc9575c933b7825d0a1c3009c0fb481a018ee1a212ab6c7e7998d0 

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "He put this city on the map. ... If this was proven true or there was an indictment, this might be different story. This is Sacramento. We have drunk legislators being arrested all the time. People are like, 'Whatever.'" - Steven Maviglio, a political adviser to outgoing Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who announced late Tuesday he wouldn't seek a third term amid allegations of sexual abuse and harassment. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=90ad84731ecc9575193c875f24fb12a75b7165d196cfa1d17133f4cc813f9d89

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