At a campaign event Thursday, Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul (R) tied the federal government's efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy to those of Roman emperors during the empire's decline.
He said Thursday that in the latter days of the Roman Empire, with the economy in shambles, emperors tried to appease people with food and entertainment to distract them.
Paul says this nation's leaders offered "Cash for Clunkers" and stimulus checks and tell people to shop at malls.
Paul faces Democratic opponent and state Attorney General Jack Conway in November's general election.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) will head to Kansas next week to stump for the Senate campaign of Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). Moran is locked in a primary race with fellow Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) in the race for Sen. Sam Brownback's (R) open Senate seat.
All of the public polling in the race thus far has shown Moran solidly in the lead. A Survey USA poll released earlier this week had Moran up 20 points. But Tiahrt's campaign is trumpeting an internal poll it says shows the race close, as well as endorsements from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and talk radio host Sean Hannity.
And with DeMint on one side of this primary and Palin on the other, the race pits two of the most active GOP surrogates this season against one another. Moran won DeMint's backing last September. Palin endorsed Tiahrt in June. Both have weighed in on a number of Republican primaries this year.
DeMint also has a campaign stop planned in Colorado next week for prosecutor Ken Buck (R), who's facing former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton (R) in the state's Aug. 10 primary.
Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias (D) plans to respond to the two TV ads released by his Republican rival this week with a TV spot of his own.
On Thursday, a Giannoulias spokeswoman told The Ballot Box the campaign decided to refrain from airing the ad over the holiday weekend because the ad rates were too high.
On Friday, a Giannoulias spokeswoman told The Ballot Box that "the ad will begin airing next week because, with the holiday weekend, not many families will be home."
The ad (seen below) will go up on the air next week.
The ad focuses on the recent scandal surrounding Rep. Mark Kirk's (R-Ill.) military record.
The five-term congressman had earlier released two ads that hit Giannoulias for his work at his family's failed bank and his connection to a lobbyist for BP.
The Giannoulias ad, titled "On and On," features a clips from Kirk giving a speech on the House floor, and sound from TV news segments playing over chyrons of newspaper and magazine reports that say Kirk was "caught in a lie" about his military service record. It was released online Wednesday.
Adelstein Liston produced the spot.
Meanwhile, Kirk's campaign announced Thursday it raised some $2.3 million in the second quarter — its largest quarterly haul to date — according to a release. Despite the rough treatment in the press, Kirk raised more than $1 million in June. He's left with close to $3.9 million in the bank after the double ad buy.
—An earlier version of this post indicated incorrectly that the ad was airing starting Thursday.
The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee will host a fundraising breakfast July 13 for Utah Senate candidate Mike Lee, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will host the event.
Last month, Lee bested Tim Bridgewater in the Republican primary for Sen. Bob Bennett's (R-Utah) seat. Bennett was denied a spot on the primary ballot in May at the Utah's Republican state convention.
Bennett backed Bridgewater over Tea Party favorite Lee in the June primary.
Wisconsin Senate candidate Ron Johnson (R) maintains a large lead over his primary rival despite allegations he used bribery and coercion to win the state party's endorsement at its May convention.
Johnson leads businessman Dave Westlake 49 percent to 11 percent in a Public Policy Polling survey of 400 GOP primary voters conducted June 26-27. Neither candidate is well known, which Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) must appreciate. More than half of the respondents said they had no opinion of Johnson, while 80 percent were "not sure" about Westlake.
Tea Party activists have recently been griping about how Johnson, who has never before sought public office, came out of nowhere to become the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to face Feingold.
Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul (R) raised $1.1 million in the second quarter, according to the Associated Press.
His campaign did not say how much cash was on hand.
The cash on hand number is significant because Paul's primary win was during the second quarter — on May 18th — and candidates usually unleash a flood of money leading up to that vote, particularly when it was a competitive race, leaving little in the bank for the general election campaign.
Paul, the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), is a prolific Internet fundraiser and tapped into his father's online support base to raise funds. His $1.1 million total includes $172,000 he raised online Monday, which was his first Internet fundraiser since he became the Republican nominee.
He raised more than $1.2 million in a series of Internet fundraisers throughout the GOP primary. Paul, a darling of the Tea Party movement, became a national figure after winning the primary because of his controversial comments on the Civil Rights Act.
His second quarter haul also includes money from a fundraiser the National Republican Senatorial Committee held for him in Washington last week.
The second quarter fundraising period ended June 30th. Reports are due to the FEC by July 15th.
Paul faces Democrat Jack Conway in the general election. Conway also had a competitive primary, so his cash on hand numbers will be closely examined.
A new Rasmussen poll out Thursday puts former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) ahead of Rep. Joe Sestak (D) by six points in the race for Senate in Pennsylvania.
Toomey leads with 45 percent of the vote to Sestak's 39, with 11 percent undecided.
The polling in this race has remained fairly static — Rasmussen notes that Toomey's support has remained in the 42-47 percent range in all of its previous polling on the Senate race.
Toomey also has stronger support among Republican voters than Sestak has among Democrats, according to the numbers. A full 81 percent of Republicans say they are backing Toomey, while 70 percent of Democrats say they are behind Sestak.
A PPP survey from mid-June had the race in a 41-41 tie. Those numbers also had Sestak with 70 percent support among Democrats, which marked a 10 percent jump for Sestak from a March survey.
After speculation swirled Wednesday that West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) might revisit succession plans for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), a Manchin spokesman told the Charleston Gazette the governor has not considered it.
The State Legislature will be in a special session in mid-July, and several lawmakers suggested Wednesday that the governor may put the election issue on the agenda for that session.
But Manchin spokesman Melvin Smith told the Gazette the governor has not held any discussions about doing so:
"The governor told me he's strictly focused on making sure we honor the memory of the late senator," Smith said. "He won't address anything involving this seat until after the memorial services."
Smith's statement seems far from definitive, but West Virginia state Senate President Earl Tomblin also said that Manchin informed him in a phone conversation Wednesday that he has no plans to inject the issue into the special session.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said there would be no special election to fill Byrd's seat until November 2012, at which point two elections would be held — one to fill the roughly five weeks of Byrd's unexpired term and a second for the full six-year term. A Manchin appointee would occupy the seat until 2012.
But in an interview with The Hill late Wednesday, Tennant said while she stands by her interpretation, an official challenge to her decision is certainly within the realm of possibility."When you're dealing with elections it's probably never case closed," she said. "There are a lot of people looking for holes in this declaration I made."
In a last minute appeal for campaign cash Wednesday, Rep. Charlie Melancon's Senate campaign sent out a fundraising email that referenced former Vitter aide Brent Furer.
"Last week, ABC News reported that David Vitter protected an aide who threatened, stabbed, attacked and held a woman hostage," Melancon campaign manager Bradley Beychok wrote in the email.
The fundraising appeal also includes a link to a new web video released Wednesday that markedly steps up the Melancon campaign's attack on Vitter over the incident.
Ahead of Wednesday's second quarter fundraising deadline, the campaign of Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) already announced that it raised more than $1 million for the quarter.
The latest Rasmussen poll that had Vitter leading Melancon 53 percent to 35 percent. A PPP survey from June 9 had Vitter up 46-37.
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