Both parties had a "record month for fund-raising" as the wealth inequality gap grows by the minute. Think there is a correlation between that and policy?
"Democrats top House fund-raising for month" Associated Press October 21, 2014
WASHINGTON — Despite long odds of winning a majority, the Democratic Party’s campaign committee for House races picked up $16.7 million in September, compared with $11 million for the Republican committee.
Democratic fund-raising for House contests last month surpassed both parties’ campaign efforts focused on the Senate, which is very much in play.
If Republicans net six Senate seats and win handily as expected in the House, they will control both chambers in Congress for the final two years of President Obama’s term.
Monday was the deadline for both parties to disclose how much cash each raised last month and how much they had on hand as October began. Each had a record month for fund-raising....
Meaning corporations and other well-connected concerns have their bases covered.
--more--"
Related: Democrats Blue About Black Voters
"Democrats’ hopes for gains in House fading fast" by Jonathan Weisman | New York Times October 15, 2014
WASHINGTON — After countless dire e-mails and months of fading bravado, national Democrats in recent days have signaled with their money what they have been loath to acknowledge out loud: They will not win back the House and they will most likely lose additional seats in November.
Since last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has essentially given up efforts to unseat Republicans in several races, pulling advertising money from a dozen campaigns in Republican-held districts to focus on protecting its embattled incumbents.
But don't let that spoil the campaign $hit-$how fooleys!
********
“This is shaping up to be the quintessential sixth year of a president’s term, and a referendum on this president,” said Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
(Blog editor gives thumbs-down sign)
Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic campaign committee, doggedly refused on Tuesday to admit the basic math that had put control of the House out of reach.
Somehow that seems right to me.
“I haven’t even conceded the Mets aren’t in the World Series this year,” he said.
He's a delusional as the mad-dog nation he's named after.
But campaign committee aides now say they never really expected to make a run at the majority, and had not been able to gain traction because of President Obama’s low approval ratings, Senate races that have gone poorly for the Democrats in states like Colorado and Iowa, and governor’s races that went sour (Illinois) or never really developed (California, New York.)
They called the continuing retrenchment a “fine-tuning” of the battlefield.
I will say this: this is well-crafted propaganda and a steamer of a stinker if you like that sort of stuff.
“I absolutely would not say we’re in triage mode,” Israel insisted. “There’s a difference between triage and making strategic decisions.”
No matter what they call it, the moves in the last week have been drastic. The campaign committee has withdrawn from races once seen as the most promising in the country.
Representative Mike Coffman of Colorado, once seen as one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country, will no longer face advertising by the campaign committee. His opponent, Andrew Romanoff, the speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, was considered one of the Democratic Party’s best recruits for 2014. But the money that was supposed to take Romanoff to the finish line was hastily shifted to California to save Representative Ami Bera, who Democrats feared was being buried in an avalanche of Republican spending.
I wonder if the immigration issue had something to do with it?
Democrats spent months painting Virginia state Delegate Barbara Comstock as too conservative for her suburban Washington district. Last week, the committee left her opponent, Fairfax County Supervisor John Foust, to fend for himself.
“The net effect of the decision is there is no effect,” said Shaun Daniels, Foust’s campaign manager, who maintained that Foust remained poised for victory.
In California, Representatives Jeff Denham and David Valadeo, Republicans in districts carried by Obama, were supposed to be doomed by their party’s refusal to embrace immigration reform. A year ago, Democrats hailed their recruits in those races as rising stars.
Last week, the Democrats pulled out.
Because the rollout of that issue failed miserably and backfired on them, like everything they do these days.
Two years ago, Representative Rodney Davis, a Republican, won his southern Illinois House seat by a mere 1,000 votes, and Democrats saw former Circuit Judge Ann Callis as a candidate who was tough enough to knock him off. Last week, the committee also took its money from her.
“That is such a death blow to a campaign, when the national party pulls out their money,” said Andrea Bozek, the Republican campaign committee’s spokeswoman. “It’s ‘see you later.’”
The Republican committee, by contrast, remains active in pursuit of 16 House districts held by Democrats, from Maine to California to Florida. Of those, 13 were won by Obama in 2012.
Republicans set out to win what House leaders called a “governing majority” of 245 seats — 12 more than they hold now. Three weeks before Election Day that appears to be difficult, but not impossible.
Democratic Party officials say that despite a political environment shifting against them, a blowout is not coming.
Democrats in denial, how disgusting.
The Democrats should still win the Southern California seat of retiring Representative Gary G. Miller, a seat held by a Republican in a district dominated by Democrats.
What was he doing with it in the first place then?
But they are also making strong plays for more Republican seats in Arkansas, the panhandle of Florida, and in Iowa. They are even still in the running in Nebraska’s 2nd House district, where incumbent Representative Lee Terry is struggling.
Yeah, it's not as bad as if seems. That's why Clinton had to visit (does that really help?).
--more--"
And then there is this drivel:
"Midterm immigration ads may hurt GOP in 2016" by Noah Bierman | Globe Staff October 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — One ad in the Kansas race for Senate depicts shadowy men climbing a barbed-wire fence as a narrator warns that “illegal immigration is threatening our communities and taking jobs away from Kansans who need them.”
Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator running for Senate in New Hampshire, has run three border security ads, and cautioned that a “porous” border poses an Ebola threat.
And in Texas, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor produced an ad showing a caravan of Middle Easterners waving flags and brandishing high-caliber weapons, while claiming that “ISIS terrorists threaten to cross our border and kill Americans.”
The ads come less than two years after the Republican National Committee, following Mitt Romney’s loss, issued a report vowing to treat immigration issues differently, offering Hispanic voters “a more welcoming, inclusive message” and “positive solutions on immigration.”
But the party has not unified behind that message. Several Republican candidates are now attacking their opponents for supporting a sweeping 2013 immigration bill that passed the Senate with bipartisan support and was cowritten by several prominent Republicans, including Senators John McCain of Arizona, the failed 2008 presidential candidate, and Marco Rubio of Florida, a possible future presidential candidate.
As a result, some Republicans worry that while the party might be helped by such rhetoric in the midterms, it could haunt the GOP in 2016 and complicate the party’s efforts to remold its image to Hispanic voters.
“Unfortunately, this is like the fourth act of a play that Republicans keep using,” said John Weaver, a Republican consultant who advised McCain during part of his 2008 presidential run. “Playing on the fear of some Ebola-carrying, ISIS terrorist — marching from Brownsville, Texas, to Des Moines — they think they can play on that image and that fear. And they’re going to take advantage of it, even though it does long-term damage across the board.”
I find it comically ironic that an institution -- the newspaper -- whose business is agenda-pushing fear is now wringing their hands about fear and how nobody believes authority anymore, boo-hoo-hoo.
These goddamn $elf-$erving politicians are always peddling fear for tho$e certain $elect interests they truly represent, and this has become most distasteful, this political $hit.
Those who believe border security is a winner for Republicans have had much material to work with — first a summer border crisis when tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American children crossed, then new tensions with Islamic militants, and finally, when the first Americans contracted Ebola.
According to recent reports Ebola is beginning to ebb, which means that propaganda campaign is finished for the moment as the coverage is submerged. I will be posting about that a bit later as it looks like either the goals have been accomplished or the propaganda campaign has again mightily backfired.
“ISIS and Ebola, whether you believe these are actual risk factors or not, they are political realities,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican political consultant based in Florida. “They have changed the political dynamic.”
Many Republicans who have played up border issues come from states with relatively small Hispanic populations, such as Arkansas or New Hampshire, where Brown, who did not respond to a request for comment, has accused his Democratic opponent Jeanne Shaheen of supporting amnesty.
Related: In N.H. Senate race, suddenly the issue is abortion
Also see: New Hampshire has become a land of political ads
Fireworks in debate between Jeanne Shaheen, Scott Brown
Who gives a f***?
Senator Pat Roberts, a Republican in an unexpectedly tough fight in Kansas, released an immigration-themed ad in late September attempting to undermine his opponent Greg Orman’s credentials as an independent.
The ad shows Orman next to a fence, interspersed with pictures of President Obama and Senate majority leader Harry Reid, and accuses Orman of siding with them to “support giving amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.”
Representative Tom Cotton, a Republican challenging Senator Mark Pryor in Arkansas, ran an ad using footage of Obama talking about a “pathway to earned citizenship for 11 million individuals who are already in this country illegally.”
The Washington Post’s fact-checker gave Cotton “four Pinocchios” for comments tying a lax border to the threat of Islamic terrorists collaborating with Mexican drug cartels to “attack us right here in places like Arkansas.”
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Those terms are mutually exclusive.
In some instances, Republicans in states with larger Hispanic populations have reached out to Hispanic voters. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a Republican, last week appeared in three US Chamber of Commerce ads for House and Senate candidates in California, Arizona, and Colorado — speaking in fluent Spanish.
Though most disagree on the merits, Obama and other Democrats have shown concern over the border issue’s short-term political potency.
Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat trying to unseat Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, drew criticism from liberals last week for running an ad that attacks McConnell for “voting to give amnesty and taxpayer-funded benefits to 3 million illegal immigrants.”
That's unwanted, is it?
The ad, defending Grimes from conservative attacks on the issue, refers to his support for Ronald Reagan’s 1986 immigration overhaul. He voted against the 2013 bill.
The White House, meanwhile, appears to be worried about a backlash.
Why? Agenda-pu$hing, ma$$ media, propaganda polls constantly tell us over half the country for immigration reform.
Obama last month delayed executive action to liberalize immigration policy until after the election, which infuriated immigration advocates and struck many on both sides of the debate as a political calculation meant to shield vulnerable Democrats.
What an underhanded move regardless of which side you are on.
Many Republicans have denounced Obama’s proposed moves — including potentially delaying deportations and granting more people temporary residence — as an unconstitutional power grab that will reward those here illegally.
Been a lot of that with the last two presidents.
Indeed, Obama has his own problems on the issue, potentially giving Republicans an opening. Obama won approval from just 29 percent of voters for his performance on immigration, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week, his worst issue in the poll. His approval among Hispanics dropped from 75 percent in December 2012 to 52 percent in November 2013, according to a Gallup poll.
Didn't this article start with the premise its hurting Republicans?
Nothing like a big fat distortion on the front page of the Globe to get your mind right with the agenda, 'eh? I love contradictions and mixed messages, don't you?
But in a general election, when turnout is greater and more diverse states have a larger influence, the recent tough talk on immigration could hurt Republicans. Romney won only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2012 presidential bid, according to exit polls.
“We can’t ignore demographics as a party,” said Henry Barbour, a Republican strategist in Mississippi who helped write the “autopsy” report after Romney’s loss. “The percentage of our traditional-base white voters goes down every cycle, every four-year cycle, just a little bit more.”
Why is it assumed all immigrants are monolithic and support illegals gaining amnesty? Why do all immigrants not care about security or safety?
Matt Barreto, cofounder of the Hispanic polling firm Latino Decisions, said Republicans should look closely at California, where many Hispanic voters associate the GOP with Proposition 187, a sweeping 1994 ballot measure that cracked down on illegal immigrants’ use of state services.
While passion behind the measure helped Republican Governor Pete Wilson win reelection in California that year, demographic changes have since inflicted severe damage on the party.
“The Republican Party branded itself as the anti-immigrant party just as the Latino vote was poised to double,” said Barreto, whose firm works with many immigration rights groups.
I try to think of myself as someone who BELIEVES in the LAW!
You know, that stuff I was told through my schools and ma$$ media was so important and what put us above everyone else.
“They may win in ’14 and they may think ‘Oh, this is a successful strategy,’ ” Barreto said. “Looking at the data, we have a hard way figuring out how they’re going to get enough electoral college votes on an anti-immigrant platform in 2016.”
Maybe it won't be the issue then like it hasn't been(?) lately.
At least we know the next Republican nominee is not going to be Mitt Romney -- unless it is some sort of sick joke.
--more--"
"Massachusetts granted REAL ID extension
Massachusetts residents will no longer find their driver’s licenses rejected from some federal agencies — at least for now. The Department of Homeland Security has granted the state a one-year extension to fulfill requirements for a federal law known as REAL ID. The measure pushes states to verify citizenship and update security standards when they issue licenses. Massachusetts failed to make a July deadline, which left residents unable to use their license to enter certain government buildings. If the state did not comply — or does not get a renewal — residents would eventually lose the ability to use Massachusetts identification to tour the White House or fly on a commercial plane."
UnREAL!!
NEXT DAY UPDATE: ‘Dark money’ helps fuel negative campaign season
