CA:Chamber Backs Fiorina, Faces Document Hold

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday endorsed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, who is setting out on a two-day, six-stop tour of California to highlight the group’s backing and aspects of her economic agenda.

Bill Miller, the U.S. Chamber’s senior vice president and national political director, said in a statement that the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive “understands the challenges businesses are facing and will stand up for the people of California during these tough economic times.”

“On issues ranging from competition in the healthcare industry, to lowering taxes, to reducing energy costs, California’s businesses and workers will have a tireless advocate in Carly Fiorina,” said Miller, who will be traveling with Fiorina on Monday in Southern California and the Central Valley.

The chamber, which has been building a broad grassroots network, has signaled that it intends to play a major role in this year’s midterm elections -- more than doubling its spending on congressional elections from $35 million in 2008 to at least $75 million this year.

The Huffington Post reports:

Election fraud attorney Bob Fitrakis is sending letters today to attorneys representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads requesting that they retain all documents, emails, accounting records and other records. This "document hold" is the first step toward legal action based on the groups' alleged laundering of illegal campaign contributions from large corporations.

Bush Bashing 2010 and Reagan Bashing 1994

In an article earlier this year, I pointed out similiarities between the 1994 and 2010 midterms. The likenesses continue to mount.

Michael Shear reports in The Washington Post:

As they brace for difficult fall elections, dispirited Democrats hoping to get back some of that 2008 magic are turning to the president for inspiration.

President Bush, that is.

Grainy images of the former president flashed across the screen in a recent ad by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) is attacking his GOP rival in a Senate race for his "advancement of the Bush agenda."

Even President Obama has begun taking direct shots at his predecessor, something he had been careful to avoid in recent months.

"They don't have a single idea that's different from George Bush's ideas -- not one," Obama said during speeches this week at fundraisers in Atlanta and Chicago.

In interviews, mailings and television ads, Democratic candidates are again hauling out the specter of the former president to use as a foil. Nearly two years after he left office and virtually disappeared from public view, Bush -- his image, his policies, his legacy -- are being dragged back into the public arena.

Democrats tried the same approach in 1994. On October 13 of that year, the Post reported:

In a memo to the Democratic congressional leadership Oct. 12, [Stanley] Greenberg says this message "is much more powerful when it includes references to Reaganomics and Reagan's trickle-down policies."

Greenberg tested several phrases among voters -- "trickle down," "Reaganomics" and "Star Wars" -- and the results showed that voters had more negative than positive feelings about those phrases. Among undecided voters, 23 percent expressed "warm" feelings about Reaganomics while 48 percent expressed "cold" feelings. But when "Ronald Reagan" and "the 1980s" were tested, the results were not so good for Democrats. Forty-nine percent of voters surveyed had a "warm" feeling about the '80s compared with 20 percent who had a "cold" feeling.

Not surprisingly then, the Democratic message attempts to link the GOP contract to the most negative images of the Reagan years, using language such as "explode the deficit" and "trickle-down economics." The ad campaign focuses on tax cuts for the wealthy, deep cuts in Medicare, education and veterans benefits, and "billions in defense increases."

One ad features GOP congressional candidates signing the contract on the Capitol steps Sept. 27, with a closeup of House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) as sinister-sounding music plays in the background. Another portrays a similar scene along with footage of senior citizens as an announcer concludes: "The Republican contract is designed to return to the Reagan years... . But why would we go back to that?"

American Crossroads and RNC Woes

Jonathan Martin reports at Politico:

The expectation – and it’s only that because the party is barred from coordinating with third-party groups – is that the new organizations that have sprung up amid the RNC’s woes will step in to pay for such GOTV efforts in statewide contests.

Senior Republicans are particularly hopeful that the group American Crossroads, founded in part by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, is planning to fill the void in turnout funding.

“You're not going to spend $200,000 on micro-targeting if all you're doing is TV ads,” said one top GOP operative, alluding to the money American Crossroads has spent so far to identify voters.

POLITICO reported last month that the third-party group has hired veteran Republican strategist Carl Forti to run a micro-targeting effort and, according to a “concept paper,” would spend $15 million on “targeted grassroots advocacy” – paid voter contact.

...

Because of laws against coordination, spokesmen for both the RNC and American Crossroads were cagey in describing their efforts.

"We are thrilled they have joined the fight," said RNC spokesman Doug Heye of the new groups, noting that Democrats have had effective outside groups in previous cycles while Republicans paid a price for not having any such outfits.

"American Crossroads has said from the get-go that we'll be active in get-out-the-vote," said spokesman Jonathan Collegio, promising "in-depth voter contact programs in our targeted states and races."

CA: Poizner on John & Ken

It can't be good for Meg Whitman that her primary opponent is criticizing her on John & Ken. From the SF Chronicle's politics blog:

In the latest installment of an intra-GOP feud taking place over the radio airwaves, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said on Friday that Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman, who defeated Poizner in the primary, "needs to crystalize her thinking. She can't have it both ways on all these issues that are very controversial."

Here are some excerpts from his interview on the Southern California radio show John and Ken (although Ken was not there today):

On Whitman's nuanced campaign platform, which some see as flip-flopping:

"Meg Whitman has the potential of being a great candidate if she would focus in on both sweeping reforms without hedging and focus on what really needs to get fixed, whether it's popular or not in her initial polling, in order to solve some of these really crucuial problems here in California."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=69609#ixzz0vv5XJj3u

America Crossroads: Ethics War, "Shadow GOP"

Linda Feldmann writes at The Christian Science Monitor:

Republicans haven’t skipped a beat in trumpeting the Democrats’ woes. The conservative group American Crossroads put out a list Monday of House and Senate members who have received contributions from Rangel and Waters, or their political action committees, noting three who have returned money.

At Yahoo News, Holly Bailey offers a guide to related groups:

It's a nondescript office building just two blocks from the White House — but in politics, it's ground zero for what many are referring to as the "shadow GOP." On the 12th floor of this New York Avenue office complex, four separate conservative groups are collectively planning to spend at least $70 million to help Republicans win back control of Congress this November.

But the effort isn't limited to 2010. In an operation modeled after the ambitious fundraising, organizing, and research infrastructure that Democrats built up during the George W. Bush years, GOP political strategists are looking to achieve the same goal that their Democratic counterparts did in 2006: They want to win back the White House.

The four groups — American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS, American Action Network and the American Action Forum — are all part of a larger GOP network assembled in recent months to help rebuild the Republican brand. While dozens of former GOP lawmakers and seasoned Republican strategists are involved, the effort largely springs from the work of two former Bush aides: Ed Gillespie, the former Republican National Committee chairman who later served as White House counselor, and Karl Rove, the man Bush once described as the "architect" of his presidency.

A quibble: Bush called Rove the "architect" of his 2004 reelection campaign, not his entire presidency.

CA: More John & Ken

Carla Marinucci reports at The San Francisco Chronicle:

On Wednesday, former eBay CEO Whitman took to the airwaves in Southern California and again jabbed at Poizner, suggesting the state insurance commissioner refused Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request last year that state officers put their employees on unpaid leave as part of a plan to cut expenses during the budget crisis.

In her interview with KFI radio station hosts John and Ken, Whitman also said Poizner spent more than $30 million to attack her during the primary campaign.

Whitman's pointed remarks prompted Poizner, who has maintained silence since the primary, to issue a terse response. He said Whitman "apparently hasn't gotten the memo that the primary is over," adding that she is "still misrepresenting my track record."

In an e-mail to The Chronicle, Poizner said: "I opposed furloughs for the Department of Insurance because my team and I had completed a top-down review years ago - and I successfully cut operating expenses permanently by 15 percent."

Conservative Republicans in California, where Democrats hold a 14 percent voter advantage over GOP voters, are watching the set-to with concern. Some say the continued tensions suggest Whitman hasn't sufficiently reached out to Poizner to get his support - and his supporters.

"Since the John and Ken interview, I have gotten more e-mails and phone calls from people who are just furious about numerous things that were said," said Mike Spence, a conservative activist and state Republican Party official. "They're telling me that they're not going to vote for anyone. Or they'll vote third-party."

Spence had been saying such things even before the John & Ken interview, however.

CA: John and Ken and Meg

Meg Whitman is not ducking all tough interviews. John Myers reports at Capital Notes:

The issue of illegal immigration doesn't seem to be getting any easier for Meg Whitman.

In a bruising half hour interview with Los Angeles talk show hosts John Kobylt & Ken Chiampou this afternoon, the Republican gubernatorial nominee said she's against any path to citizenship for those who are in the country illegally, even though she seemed to be for such a path 10 months ago.

The KFI-AM talk show hosts were riled up about what they see as inconsistencies between Whitman's primary campaign rhetoric, her rhetoric now that she faces Jerry Brown, and her own statements compared to those made by her campaign ads.

John and Ken's website should have been a tipoff that it would not be ... easy.