Two days ago, Republican candidate Renee Ellmers wasn't on anyone's political radar. Then came Rep. Bob Etheridge's (D-N.C.) confrontation with two purported students on a street in downtown Washington, which was captured on video and spread across the Internet.
Etheridge's GOP rival is taking advantage of his Internet infamy to raise her profile and to do a little fund raising.
Late Tuesday, Ellmers's campaign posted a video on its website calling on Etheridge to apologize in person to the two men involved.
Ellmers campaign manager Al Lytton said the candidate has collected more than $25,000 in contributions in the last 24 hours and is looking to parlay that into some sort of momentum. "That's the hope behind this Web ad," said Lytton. "And we've seen a ton of new Facebook traffic, too."
The campaign is running ads on Facebook and is readying Google ads. It's using North Carolina-based online consultancy Majority Connections for its online outreach.
Republican media consultant David All said it's the sort of moment an agile campaign can turn into an online cash cow. All was one of the consultants who orchestrated Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) online operations after the congressman's "You lie" moment last September.
"It's very rare that you get an opportunity like this to help build support from a national audience," he said. "A couple of million dollars can help change the viability of any candidate."
After Wilson shouted "You lie" at President Barack Obama during a joint session of Congress, both he and his Democratic opponent parlayed the attention into millions of fundraising dollars. Democrat Rob Miller actually redirected his website to Act Blue, the online Democratic fundraising portal the next day. Wilson quickly countered with an online fundraising effort of his own, eventually topping what Miller was able to raise in the weeks after the incident.
The Ellmers campaign is far from that sort of visibility. But it's surely the campaign's best chance to make some noise.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has committed its "full resources" to help Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) win in November, according to Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), NRSC chairman.
"I have made it clear that Sharron and her campaign will have the full resources and support from the NRSC and from my Republican colleagues in order to ensure her victory against Harry Reid this November," he said in a statement. "I look forward to welcoming her into our ranks next year."
Angle didn't receive any contributions in 2010 from sitting members, according to her Federal Election Commission filings.
Cornyn met with Angle earlier on Tuesday as part of her first trip to Washington since claiming a surprise victory in last week's Senate primary. The Texan said Angle was in the process of "assembling a strong general election campaign team."
During the primary, she ran a grassroots effort with little campaign infrastructure. Angle will face Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in November.
Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman (R) will spend more than $100 million of her personal fortune on her run for governor of California.
Two days after winning the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Whitman injected another $20 million of her own money into her campaign, the Sacramento Beereported Tuesday.
She has already spent $88 million on her effort to succeed outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R).
Whitman is approaching what New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent on his race last year. During the 2009 mayor’s race, Bloomberg spent $109.9 million getting reelected.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported Monday than in 2007, "an eBay employee claimed that Ms. Whitman became angry and forcefully pushed her in an executive conference room at eBay’s headquarters." As a result, eBay had to pay close to $200,000 to avert a lawsuit.
Whitman faces state Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) in November.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has a 37-point lead over
Democratic rival Alvin Greene, according to a Rasmussen poll out
Tuesday.
The
poll has DeMint ahead of Greene 58 percent to 21 percent among likely
voters. Nine percent of respondents preferred someone else and 13
percent were undecided.
For Greene, whose primary win stunned observers, the numbers are rough
by every measure. Only 50 percent of Democrats polled said they support
Greene, and his favorability numbers stand at 20 percent favorable
versus 51 percent unfavorable.
Former
state lawmaker Vic Rawl, who lost to Greene in the primary, has appealed
to the state Democratic Party to review last Tuesday's results, and state Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler has asked Greene to step
aside. The party is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss their nominee.
The Rawl campaign said election experts who looked into the
voting at the campaign's behest found irregularities in the results,
and Democrats in the state are now pointing the finger at possible voting machine malfunction.
DeMint was not expected to lose his seat no matter who won the Democratic nomination.
The survey – the first of its kind this election cycle – underscores that the challenges facing Democrats are even greater than shown in national surveys. The Republican candidates lead in the 60 Democratic seats – and the ten Republican seats aggregate to a significant GOP advantage.
Just as importantly, the poll lays out some significant guidance on Republican messaging for the campaign on the big issues of the economy, the deficit, Wall Street reform, health care, and the Obama Presidency. Be sure to read the wording of questions 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26 – because those are going to be message battles that define this election.
In the survey, respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with statements that described each party's positions on those central issues. Campaigns may be able to shape their talking points from the results.
Greenberg's firm called the results a "wake-up call for Democrats whose loses in the House could well exceed 30 seats."
The effort by individual campaigns will have to push against walls that seem very hard to move at this point. We tested Democratic and Republican arguments on the economy, health care, financial reform and the big picture for the 2010 election. The results consistently favored the Republicans and closely resembled the vote breakdown. Democrats are hurt by a combined lack of enthusiasm and an anti-incumbent tone.
Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) is in Washington Tuesday, where she'll join Senate Republicans at their weekly policy luncheon on Capitol Hill.
Angle, who is challenging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), will be dining just a few steps away from where Reid will be eating with the Democratic Caucus.
After the luncheon, Angle will meet with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, about her campaign.
Angle has been on an East Coast swing this week and has done interviews with Fox News.
The Tea Party-backed candidate had taken a different tack than that of fellow Tea Party Senate nominee Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who came under fire after his primary win for his controversial comments about civil rights. Paul appeared on several national news outlets after his win and retreated from the national press after fallout from his comments questioning the Civil Rights Act.
Angle appeared on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" Monday morning and on "Hannity" Monday night, where she offered to debate Reid on the news channel favored by conservatives.
"I'd like to dare Harry Reid to come on your show and debate me on the issues," she told host Sean Hannity.
Hannity offered them the time. "Listen, if Harry Reid will come on this program, I will offer an hour [of] airtime and I will just get out of way as much as I can, throw out a few issues, stay out of the way, and let you guys have at it for an hour. He won't have the courage to come on this program," he said.
The two also talked about allegations that Angle isn't doing a lot of national media interviews.
"It's obvious the media wants to attack you just like Rand Paul, who was on this program last week," Hannity said. "Are you going to give them what they want? Are you going to go on their shows or are you going to run your campaign locally in the state? What are your plans media-wise for this campaign?"
"You may have heard that I've been dodging the media. But I actually I've been doing five to seven interviews with folks that can really help me, every day I'm on somebody's talk show," she said.
Meanwhile, Reid is getting some White House help again.
President Barack Obama will be in Las Vegas in early July to campaign for Reid, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Monday night.
Obama has been in the state twice for Reid. First lady Michelle Obama held events with Reid in Nevada in the beginning of June, and former President Bill Clinton campaigned for him in the state last week.
The tricky relationship between President Barack Obama and Gov. Charlie Crist (I) appears to have come full circle.
Crist
famously hugged Obama while they were campaigning for the
stimulus package together, but later distanced himself from the president while
seeking the Republican nomination for Senate.
Now, with Obama visiting Florida, the two are strolling on the beach together, according to pool reports.
Crist
and Obama rode together to the Pensacola beach, and walked down the shore to survey the beach for damage. According to the pool
report, there was no oil in sight.
As the two examined the water, "a couple seagulls sat near their feet," the report reads.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) will be in Iowa later this month for "private meetings" with the state's GOP leadership and for several press events.
On June 25-26 he'll be in Davenport and Des Moines, where he will speak at a luncheon during the Republican Party of Iowa's state convention.
He'll also make a stop in Ainsworth, a small town south of Iowa City, for a fundraiser for state Senate candidate Sandy Greiner (R).
"Each time I visit the Hawkeye State, I am struck by how concerned Iowans are about the state of our nation," he said in a statement.
Santorum, considered a possible 2012 presidential candidate, said Iowans "are fired up about the midterm elections."
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Tuesday blamed balloting machines for an unknown Democrat’s Senate primary victory last week.
"There was something wrong with those machines," Clyburn told the hosts during an appearance Tuesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Clyburn previously suggested Republicans were to blame, stating that Democratic Senate nominee Alvin Greene was a "plant."
"I don't know if he was a Republican plant; he was someone's plant," Clyburn said during an appearance on the Bill Press radio show last week.
He reiterated his comments Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News.
"He was someone's plant," he said. "I do believe that very sincerely."
He again called for an investigation.
The accusation of ballot tampering comes in addition to Clyburn and others' concerns over whether Greene received his $10,400 filing fee from outside sources, a claim Greene has denied.
"I saved the money from the Army," the veteran told the Washington Post.
Greene won the June 8 primary with 58 percent of the vote, defeating Vic Rawl, a Charleston County councilman, by more than 30,000 votes.
On Tuesday, Clyburn said the machines, which were used in 300 precincts statewide for last Tuesday's primary, had been purchased secondhand from "Louisiana, of all places."
They're the same machines, he said, that Ohio refused to use in past election cycles "after they tested them extensively and found the results to be unreliable."
Clyburn also said the machines were easily hacked.
He stopped short of accusing state Republicans of having tampered with the machines, saying only that "outside parties" were likely involved.
Clyburn also debuted a new, softer tone when talking about Greene than he had previously used — even suggesting he would help his campaign.
The majority whip said he knows Greene's family personally, and he praised some of its members as "retired educators."
He went on to say he wants to make sure that Greene and his family "have what they need."
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