The Democrat vying to succeed retiring Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) released her first TV ad of the campaign Thursday, which focuses on her would-be Congressional paycheck.
In the 30-second ad, state Sen. Julie Lassa (D) says she’ll fight to cut Congress’s pay by 10 percent until they lower unemployment. She doesn’t say by how much unemployment should be lowered.
She also says she won’t accept a pay raise until the budget is balanced (members automatically receive pay raises unless they vote to freeze the increase, as they recently did for 2010-11).
According to the Lassa camp, it's a major buy that will be seen by a "majority" of voters in the seventh district. It's airing on broadcast and was produced by Tom King and Murphy Putnam.
The National Republican Congressional Committee was quick to claim that Lassa accepted a pay increase during her time in the state Legislature.
"In the state Senate, Lassa accepted a taxpayer-funded raise when 60,000 Wisconsinites lost their jobs," Tom Erickson, an NRCC spokesman, said in a statement. "If Lassa would take a bonus while thousands of Badger Staters were given pink slips, how can Wisconsin families trust this career politician to stand up for them?"
The Lassa camp disputed the claim, saying that she returned the salary increase.
"While Julie Lassa is voluntarily giving back 3 percent of her salary to taxpayers, Sean Duffy has consistently received taxpayer funded pay raises in his seven years in office," Haley Morris, a spokeswoman for Lassa, said in a statement.
Lassa, who's already been hit by TV ads by outside groups, faces Republican Sean Duffy in November.
--Updated at 12:13 p.m. and 1:33 p.m. and 8:18 p.m.
A major union this week waded into the grudge match brewing in Michigan's seventh district between Rep. Mark Schauer (D) and his 2008 foe, Tim Walberg.
The freshman Democrat took the seat from Walberg last cycle after the Republican had held it for a single term. Walberg is now running to get it back, but Schauer's labor allies are closing ranks around him.
The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees spent $750,000 on a TV ad called "Burned Dignity" that went up on Monday in the Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek media markets.
The ad notes that Walberg skipped the vote on the auto industry bailout but "sided with big oil and hedge funds — gave them tax loopholes."
"Haven't we been burned badly enough?," the announcer says in the spot.
In 2008, Schauer beat Walberg by about 7,500 votes.
In its first foray into the Colorado Senate race, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is accusing Republican Ken Buck of supporting a repeal of the 17th Amendment.
"For nearly 100 years now, we the people have picked our senators," the ad's narrator says. "But Ken Buck proposed a radically different idea. Buck said he wanted to rewrite the Constitution to let state legislators pick our senators instead of voters."
Buck is "too extreme for Colorado" the ad concludes.
Last year, Buck did tell a group of voters he thought the 17th Amendment has had "a horrendous effect" on federal government spending and expressed some support for its repeal.
But the candidate has since backtracked on that statement. Buck now says he does not support repealing the 17th Amendment. Campaign spokesman Owen Loftus said that was a position he clarified just one day after his original statement.
"The DSCC and Bennet want to talk about anything other than the Obama-Bennet record that helped push over 90,000 Coloradans to the unemployment lines and brought the nation's home sales to their lowest point in 15 years,” Buck campaign manager John Swartout said in a statement Tuesday.
The Democratic line of attack is one they will continue against Buck through the fall. According to one strategist, the national party plans to be "aggressive in defining Buck as the extremist he is."
Staten Island Republican Michael Grimm is using an endorsement from Rudy Giuliani in his latest TV ad. The former New York City mayor says Grimm "knows first-hand the destruction caused by terrorists."
The ad comes on the heels of a TV spot released Michael Allegretti, Grimm's rival for the nod to face Rep. Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.). Allegretti's spot focused on the economy, and featured several shots of downtrodden-looking residents staring forlornly at the camera.
New York's primary is Sept. 14. Grimm is considered the frontrunner, having been backed by Giuliani and other high-profile Republicans such as Sarah Palin and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
If Democrats are going to minimize their losses this fall, the party has to mobilize enough of last cycle's so-called "Obama coalition" — largely young, minority and first-time voters in 2008.
Those are all groups that are usually less likely to vote in midterm election years but will be key for Democrats in November.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is promising a robust get-out-the-vote effort this fall and is touting its start Monday with a Web video.
It features Democratic field organizers talking up their efforts in scenes from the districts of several endangered Dems in 2010, including Reps. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio) and Tom Perriello (D-Va.). Watch it here.
The committee has a series of house parties set for this week to drum up attention for Saturday's "National Day of Action." The goal is to knock on some 200,000 doors in what the committee says is the earliest it has ever started its GOTV efforts.
The DNC is also promising a $50 million effort in 2010, largely focused on field operations.
A new poll in Washington state shows Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) trailing Republican Dino Rossi, which might explain the tone of her first TV ad of the general election.
A SurveyUSA/KING-5 TV poll conducted Aug. 18-19 shows Rossi ahead of Murray 52 percent to 45 percent. And notably, Rossi leads among independents 59 to 35 percent.
The last SurveyUSA poll released earlier this month had Murray up 41 percent to 33 percent.
Meanwhile, Murray's new TV ad notes that "corporate lobbyists" held a D.C. fundraiser for Rossi, and "now Dino supports keeping tax loopholes for corporations that send our jobs over sees," the announcers say in the 30-second spot that was released Sunday. "Dino puts his lobbyist contributors ahead of our jobs, and that won't get us back to work."
A new ad from the campaign of Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) takes a major shot at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Donnelly touts his opposition to cap-and-trade in the 30-second spot, with the ad's narrator deriding the proposal as "Nancy Pelosi's energy tax," and calling Donnelly "Indiana's most independent congressman."
It's one of the most overt attempts this cycle from any House Democrat to distance themselves from Pelosi.
Donnelly faces state Rep. Jackie Walorski (R) in the fall. Walorski won the backing of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday and is on the National Republican Congressional Committee's list of "Young Guns."
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is up with its first spot in Pennsylvania's Senate race attacking former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) for his past as a derivatives trader.
The spot charges that Toomey "helped pioneer the use of derivatives" and accuses him of contributing to the financial crisis.
Toomey faces Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) in November.
Toomey's campaign is pushing back hard against the ad, which includes some questionable claims. The ad charges that Toomey wrote the law to weaken oversight of Wall Street.
The reference is to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed certain financial regulations. Toomey didn't have his name on the legislation as a co-sponsor, but he did vote for the measure and wrote on his congressional website at the time that he helped "craft" the bill.
The derivatives attack is also one that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) previously employed against Toomey to much criticism.
Toomey was a derivatives trader in the 1980s, but according to the Associated Press, he was not involved in the credit default swaps that backed mortgage securities.
The latest Rasmussen poll in the race has Toomey up 6 points. A Quinnipiac poll from June showed the race in a dead heat.
The air war has begun in the Louisiana Senate race. Democratic candidate Rep. Charlie Melancon and Sen. David Vitter (R) each released harsh TV ads this week. Vitter's spot links "millionaires, illegals and Charlie Melancon," while the congressman goes straight for Vitter's "serious sin."
Florida Senate candidate Kendrick Meek (D) and his allies are moving aggressively to beat back rival Jeff Greene (D) ahead of the Aug. 24 primary. On Thursday, he announced the endorsement of the National Organization of Women and released a TV ad targeting Greene. Meek's also getting some help from a new Democratic independent expenditure (IE) group.
Terry O'Neill, NOW's president, called Meek "a real friend to women's rights."
"He's been an ally for us on extremely important issues," she said, citing his support for women's access to abortion and support for gay and lesbian rights. "He's been a real advocate for measures to end violence against women," she added.
O'Neil wouldn't say that Greene, by associating with former madam Heidi Fleiss or boxer Mike Tyson, was out-of-step with NOW's interests. "I don't think that anybody should be guilty by association,” she said on a conference call with reporters Thursday.
"We really need to get away from the good ol' boy mentality," she said. "Kendrick Meek is not of the good ol' boy mentality."
Meek, meanwhile, brushed aside suggestions that Democratic pollster Mark Penn hosting a fundraiser for his would-be general-election opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist, was a sign the party was hedging its bets.
"It seems to make the news when the governor can get the wife of a Democratic pollster to do an event in D.C.," he said. "My relationships with Democrats — especially high-profile Democrats — far supercede dirt-grabbing efforts the governor is trying to put out to the public. … It's not even comparable."
The Miami-area congressman has the support of the White House and former President Clinton, who travels to Florida next week for three campaign events with Meek.
"For [Crist] to have a fundraiser or two, or a supporter or two, is not something that keeps me up at night. I have Republicans who have written checks to my campaign," Meek said.
He's also getting help from another Clinton Democrat, Ben Pollara, who was the Florida finance director for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid. He recently filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to establish a group called Florida Is Not for Sale. It intends to run an IE supporting Meek, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The TV ad Meek released Thursday hits Greene on his real estate investment strategy and uses a damning quote from a recent St. Petersburg Timesstory. "All I care about is that I get my money," Greene told the paper for a story it did about his property holdings in California.
The Greene camp was quick to respond.
"Kendrick Meek continues to launch false and vicious attacks against Jeff Greene because he doesn't have a record to run on — he's a failure," a Greene spokesman said in a statement.
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