Welcome to Diary Rescue. Tonight's Rangers are grog, Louisiana 1976, Got a Grip, shayera, YatPundit and sunspark says, who also is once again running the edit machine.

It's September 15. On this date in 1853 Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell was ordained becoming first female minister in the United States. 102 years later, in 1955, Betty Robbins became the first woman cantor. One decade later, in 1965, "Green Acres" premiered on CBS TV. Women were clearly on an unstoppable roll.

Here are tonight's treasures rescued from the flotsam of cyberspace by your kindly rangers. Enjoy them and send them all kinds of kudos.

• praenomen tells a tale of friendship and the housing bubble in Too Toxic To Survive. (shayera)
• JDWolverton looks at the other extreme of treating aches and pains in the system: Strained Care - Health Care Over Spending. (grog)
• With a hat-tip to to Sheryl Crow, Miep shares the anxieties of being a 50-something in No One Said It Would Be Easy. (YatPundit)
• QuietObserver looks on the grocery shelf and calls a charade a charade in Children of the (High Fructose) Corn (Syrup). (sunspark says)
• Is this the end of "Drill, baby, drill"? kgosztola discusses how O'Donnell's Victory Renews Her Fight Against the Scourge of Sex in America. (sunspark says)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: September 14, 2010.

sardonyx has Top Comments: Downticket Races Edition.

One last word about September 15, sans comment.

In 1995, The U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing, where the One Child policy had been in place since 1978, resulting in untold instances of female infanticide.

While the confetti has long been swept up from the victory parties all over the East Coast (well...Wisconsin excepted), there was actual news and data emanating from other races. Which means that we have a pretty darned full edition of the Wrap for this Wednesday evening.

We have the SurveyUSA buzzkill tour going coast-to-coast, while CNN/Opinion Research looks at several more races. Also, if Virginia is for lovers, New York is apparently for spoilers.

All that (and more!) in the mid-week (AND mid-month) edition of the Wrap...

THE U.S. SENATE

AK-Sen: Murkowski decision expected by end of the week
The "will she or won't she" speculation surrounding deposed Republican incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski is coming to an end at the close of this week. Murkowski will apparently reveal whether or not she will pursue a write-in bid for the Senate this Friday. The odds are long (Ron Packard of California, if memory serves, is the last person sent to Congress via a write-in candidacy back in 1982), and polling from PPP made it an open question as to whether a Murkowski long-shot candidacy would help or hurt Democrat Scott McAdams.

FL-Sen: Another poll confirms Rubio/Meek surge, Crist plummet
If the new Reuters/Ipsos poll in Florida is correct, Charlie Crist is now a good deal closer to getting passed for second place than he is to frontrunning Republican Marco Rubio. The survey shows Rubio at 40% of the vote, with Crist back at 26% of the vote and Democrat Kendrick Meek at 21%. In an interesting twist, Ipsos polled the possibility of a head-to-head Rubio/Crist matchup. That race would be a coinflip, with Rubio up by a single point (46-45). They did not, in an even more interesting twist, pursue a Rubio/Meek trial heat.

NC-Sen: SUSA says long-vulnerable GOP Senator now in a blowout
It is polls like this that have a lot of folks on the left either (a) thinking SurveyUSA has lost it or (b) hiding under the bed, on the chance that SUSA hasn't lost it. The pollster's most recent foray into the Tar Heel State shows that incumbent Republican Richard Burr, long considered somewhat vulnerable, is now up 22 points on Democrat Elaine Marshall (58-36). The margin is a big enough departure from the balance of the polling in the race that, in a somewhat unusual moment, it caught the attention of another pollster, who was somewhat dubious about the results.

NV-Sen: Two pollsters confirm toss up status of Reid-Angle race
Over the past 48 hours, two prominent pollsters have chimed in on the high-profile Nevada Senate tilt between incumbent Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Sharron Angle. CNN/Opinion Research chimed in this afternoon, putting Angle up front by a single point in the race (42-41) with Tea Partyer Scott Ashjian sitting at 5%. The voice of Nevada politics, Jon Ralston, isn't feeling this particular poll. Reuters/Ipsos also weighed in, and they stake Reid to a very slight edge (46-44) over Angle.

NH-Sen: PPP has Ayotte-Hodes closing to just four points
Even before establishment GOPer Kelly Ayotte's razor thin victory over Ovide Lamontagne, her lead over Democratic Senate nominee Paul Hodes had already eroded significantly, according to PPP. The poll, conducted before Tuesday's primaries, gave Ayotte a four-point edge (47-43) over Hodes. Ayotte's favorabilities have taken a beating since the primary season began, a reminder that while primaries are often a good thing for a party's nominee, they can also come at a price, on occasion.

OH-Sen: Pair of pollsters confirm widening Portman edge
No matter which polling poison you pick (CNN/Opinion Research or SurveyUSA), Democrats are bound to feel more than a little queasy about the current outlook for the open-seat Senate race between Democrat Lee Fisher and Republican Rob Portman. The CNN/Opinion Research poll gives Portman a double digit lead over Fisher (52-41), while the crew at SUSA is only slightly less pessimistic for Fisher, giving Portman a 49-40 lead over the Democratic nominee. One thing killing Fisher, at least in the SUSA poll: Portman is getting 25% of the African-American vote (which is already, at 9%, quite a bit less than normal).

WA-Sen: CNN/Opinion Dynamics echoes Elway Poll--Murray up
The bright spot in the mini-dump of CNN/Opinion Dynamics polls today comes from the great Northwest, where incumbent Democrat Patty Murray has moved out to a nine-point lead over Republican Dino Rossi (53-44). This result echoes one earlier this week from the locally-based Elway Poll, which also gave Murray a lead of nine points over Rossi.

THE U.S. HOUSE

CA-19: GOP almost certain to hold open seat, according to SUSA
GOP state legislator Jeff Denham is overwhelmingly likely to follow in the shoes of longtime Republican Rep. George Radanovich. Such is the verdict from SurveyUSA, who says that Denham holds a 63-30 lead over Democratic nominee Loraine Goodwin. Denham also enjoys a huge resources advantage, which is probably why this race is on absolutely no one's target list.

CA-20: Is this Democratic seat about to turn red? SUSA says "Maybe"
Either SUSA is off this year, or the level of suck for Democrats in this cycle is going to reach 1930-esque levels of partisan mass extinction. The latest piece of evidence comes from California's Central Valley, where the pollster sees Democratic incumbent Jim Costa up by only two points over Republican rancher Andy Vidak (48-46). The district is mixed at the presidential level, but has backed Democrats for Congress for decades. Before Costa, the district was represented for nearly two decades by Democrat Cal Dooley. The Hispanic vote is key here--while Latinos make up the majority of the population of the district, SUSA only sees an electorate which is 30% Hispanic in November.

NY-23: Doheny leads, Hoffman refuses to concede
Bill Owens probably owes conservative accountant-turned-teabagger Doug Hoffman a nice steak dinner. In the wake of an apparent narrow victory for Matt Doheny in the GOP primary in the 23rd district, Doug Hoffman is making it clear that he is not interested in conceding any time soon. There are still ballots left to count, but Doheny's lead is wide enough that said ballots will almost certainly not make the difference. Local teabaggers, for what it's worth, seem to be ready to coalesce around Doheny, saying that Hoffman lost because of a lousy campaign run by people from outside of the district.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

CA-Gov: Whitman puts Bloomberg in the rearview, gets tagged as a liar
Meg Whitman has now made history as a political candidate. But Whitman's foray into the record books is at least a little bit nauseating, to be sure. With six weeks still remaining until Election Day, Whitman has now cut checks for an almost inconceivable $119 million to fund her massive air war in California. The gubernatorial candidate just kicked in an additional $15 million to her coffers. Meanwhile, Jerry Brown (fresh off a Bill Clinton endorsement that diffused a pretty sizeable Brown gaffe over the weekend, when he was caught on tape dissing the former president) is out with new advertising where he takes the Republican to task for lying. He broke out the Pinocchio metaphor, which while not breaking new political ground, seemed fairly apt in this case.

CT-Gov: Q poll puts Malloy up nine points in gubernatorial race
Quinnipiac, on the heels of reporting that Republican Linda McMahon is within six points on the Senate side, weighed in on the open-seat gubernatorial race. Democrats still appear to be on track to pick up this state house, with Democrat Dan Malloy leading Republican Tom Foley by a nine-point margin (50-41). On most of the key electoral intangibles (shares values, has the right experience, can bring change), Malloy's numbers are markedly better than Foley's, hinting that Foley's upside might be somewhat limited.

FL-Gov: Reuters/Ipsos poll says Scott up narrowly
One reason for the Crist/Meek campaigns to take some heart about that ugly Senate poll is that the corresponding numbers in the gubernatorial race are...interesting, to say the least. Ipsos/Reuters has Republican health care gazillionaire Rick Scott leading Democrat Alex Sink by two points (47-45). No other pollsters (not even the Fox News/Ras Subsidiary effort earlier in the week) have had Scott doing that well, and most have him down in the mid-single digits.

ME-Gov: Thin-skinned GOP nominee flies off handle, out of presser
Well, if voters in Maine knew little about the Republican nominee for Governor (Paul LePage), they know something now: the dude is touchy as Hell. During a Monday press availability, LePage was peppered with questions about a potential tax evasion issue where his wife had claimed residency (and tax exemptions) in both Maine and Florida. This led him to upbraid a reporter by declaring "let's stop the bullshit." Later, he whined that he learned from the experience that "it's not about fixing the state. It's about destroying people."

NV-Gov: Two polls agree on outcome, which is bad news for Reid
If CNN/Opinion Dynamics and Ipsos/Reuters are right, it is going to be an ugly November for Democratic nominee Rory Reid. The CNN poll puts Republican Brian Sandoval up by a 58-31 margin over Reid. Ipsos/Reuters, painfully, finds Reid in even worse shape, losing by twenty-nine points (60-31). As mentioned earlier, noted Nevada political writer Jon Ralston is becoming quite the critics of Nevada polling, saying it is tilting GOP.

NY-Gov: Lazio looks likely to soldier on, as Con Party nominee
Holy Doug Hoffman! Not that Democratic nominee Andrew Cuomo is liable to need the help against Republican Carl Paladino, but it looks like the vanquished GOP candidate in the race (Rick Lazio) is looking forward to November. Lazio won the nod of the Conservative Party last night, and his post-primary speech strongly hinted that he will continue campaigning in that role.

OH-Gov: Incumbent trails in pair of new polls
Incumbent Ted Strickland has been trailing in polls for several months now, a trend confirmed by a pair of polls released today. The CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll was incrementally more gentle to Strickland, putting him down seven points to the GOP nominee, former Congressman John Kasich (51-44). Meanwhile, SurveyUSA is even tougher on the incumbent, with Kasich polling at 52% of the vote and Strickland well behind at just 40% of the vote.

UT-Gov: State pays out eight figures amid Herbert bid scandal
This has the potential of dinging incumbent GOP Governor Gary Herbert to the extent that it could make this once-lost cause a potential race to watch. The state of Utah reached a settlement of nearly $13 million with one of the losing bidders in a billion dollar infrastructure job reconstructing Interstate 15. The losing consortium, Flatiron/Skanska/Zachry, accused the state of giving favorable treatment to the winning firm, Provo River Constructors. As it happens, that firm has donated a total of over $82,000 to the campaign of Governor Herbert, who is being challenged by Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, a Democrat.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA

I will give Rasmussen (a little) credit. They polled a race that has long needed polling--the open-seat battle for Governor in Vermont. Surprisingly, they put the Democrat out front. This is a pretty clear sign, by the way, that the orchestrated unity tour by the five Democratic candidates even as the state recount was being conducted was an inspired move that paid big dividends for Democratic nominee Peter Shumlin.

Aside from that poll, Ras is...well...Ras-like, except perhaps for Colorado, where they have John Hickenlooper pulling away from the Maes-Tancredo train wreck.

CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 46%, Tom Tancredo (I) 25%, Dan Maes (R) 19%
CO-Sen: Ken Buck (R) 49%, Sen. Michael Bennet (D) 45%
FL-Sen: Marco Rubio (R) 41%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%, Kendrick Meek (D) 23%
NV-Sen: Sen. Harry Reid (D) 48%, Sharron Angle (R) 48%
OH-Gov: John Kasich (R) 50%, Gov. Ted Strickland (D) 43%
OH-Sen: Rob Portman (R) 49%, Lee Fisher (D) 41%
PA-Sen: Patrick Toomey (R) 49%, Joe Sestak (D) 41%
VT-Gov: Peter Shumlin (D) 49%, Brian Dubie (R) 46%
VT-Sen: Sen. Pat Leahy (D) 62%, Len Britton (R) 32%

   This Rescue Diary covers the period from 6 PM, Tuesday, 9/14 to 6:00 PM EDT, Wednesday, 9/15

Today's Menu Includes :
48 Diaries Overall

- 11 On House races

- Covering 9 individual Districts in 8 states

- 22 On Senate races

- Representing 7 different states

- 9 On Various election races and ballot issues

- Encompassing Governor, Secretary of State, Local, and more

- 7 General election-related diaries

And be sure to follow the Election Diary Rescue on Twitter

(Tonight's compilation and more after the jump............)

To recap the melodrama of the Colorado governor's race:

• In early September, the establishment Republicans try to force Dan Maes out of the race.
• They also try to force Tancredo out, and even sue to get him off the ballot.
• The Tea Party wing of the party says Tancredo has betrayed them and break entirely with him.
• Tancredo and an 83-year old lady, who is also a leading anti-tax crusader in the state attack Maes in a new ad, saying he lied to them.
• Establishment Republicans now unenthusiastically embrace Maes and continue to gripe about Tancredo.

Oh, and yeah, Maes did kind of lie about being a secret agent.

Where we stand today? Tancredo remains on the ballot, after a judge ruled Tuesday that it wasn't the court's role to decide this issue of whether he changed his party affiliation in time to be placed on the ballot.

Meanwhile, Dem John Hickenlooper is sailing along, unscathed by the slow motion implosion of the Republicans in this race. A new Rasmussen poll shows Tancredo leapfrogging Maes, now leading him 25-21. Hickenlooper leads with 46%, a 10 point gain in two weeks, since the previous Ras poll.

Via Joe Sudbay, The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld scopes out the votes for next weeks' DADT repeal effort.

Repeal advocates expressed optimism that they would find the necessary votes to send the legislation to the floor.

"We feel fairly confident that we will have the 60 votes to break a filibuster of the National Defense Authorization Act," said Alex Nicholson of the gay veterans group Servicemembers United. "This bill contains important provisions for all troops and important funding provisions for the entire military. It would be hard — and shameless — for lawmakers to hold up this critical bill because of opposition to one or two of its myriad smaller provisions."

Although some Democratic senators, such as Jim Webb of Virginia, might break with their party and support the filibuster, some Republican senators could help compensate for the deficit.

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana has already indicated he would not support a filibuster; Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted for the repeal measure in the Senate Armed Services Committee and is a good candidate to also break with her party. Other GOP senators who might vote to break the filibuster include Olympia Snowe of Maine and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.

Nicholson noted that no Democratic senator has given a strong indication to date that he or she would join a Republican filibuster....

"A lot of the vote estimations really come from pre-recess intelligence," he said, noting that senators just returned to Washington Monday. "I don’t think any organization has gotten a feel for how the August recess has impacted members positions on this issue."

Nicholson added that the decision in the Log Cabin Republican case, which found "don't ask, don't tell" unconstitutional, could also play a role in the mood on Capitol Hill.

Joe notes that Scott Brown has also indicated that he wouldn't support a filibuster, so there's solid reason to hope that this chapter of active discrimination on the part of our government could finally be coming to an end. But, as Joe says, the "best thing to do: Call your Senators. Both of them: 202-224-3121."

Update: Title fixed. How embarrassing.

At long last, the primary season is entirely over. As you probably already know, on the last day of primary season, the tea party handed Democrats the gift one a Senate seat in Delaware:

Senate Snapshot, September 15th
(With Rasmussen)

(Without Rasmussen)

Now, answering two questions that have come up in the comments:

Q1. Why does the non-Rasmussen snapshot say Democrats win 53 seats, even though they are ahead in enough to make 54 seats? (ATL Dem).

A1. Even though Democrats are ahead in enough campaigns to make 54 seats in the non-Rasmussen snapshot, their narrow leads in Wisconsin, California, Illinois and Nevada actually make 53 seats the most likely outcome. As you can see, in the non-Rasmussen snapshot, there are no campaigns where Republicans have a lead as small as Democrats have in all four of those seats.

Q2. Any comment on the difference between the Senate Snapshot and FiveThirtyEight? (Dismalest Scientist).

A2. There are two major differences. First, Nate Silver is attempting to calculate the odds of victory in November, while I am attempting to calculate the odds of victory if the election were held today. I stick with projecting the odds if the election were held today because it requires introducing far fewer assumptions into the methodology

Second, while Nate adjusts and weights poll results in several, largely intuitive, ways (sample size, recentness, house effect, past accuracy), and also introduces a demographic regression into his formula, I am simply conducting an unweighted simple mean of polls taken over the last 25 days.

I think my methodology has two advantages. First, an unweighted simple mean is easy enough, and transparent enough, for almost anyone to understand. Second, from 2008 to 2010, it was noticeably more accurate across the 52 general election campaigns where we both projected final margins. That doesn’t mean my methodology will be more accurate in 2010, but even I really do like testing the comparative accuracy of an unweighted simple mean against Nate’s complex formula.

Keep your questions coming...

Notes
--This is a snapshot, not a forecast. All of the odds presented here are based on if the election were held today. It is not a prediction of future trends.

--Only campaigns within 11% or less in the snapshot that includes Rasmussen polling are listed. If a campaign isn't listed here, then it is not currently as close as any of the campaigns listed here. In the case of Delaware, it is listed in this specific forecast because of all the hoopla surrounding it yesterday.

--All polls used in the averages are taken from Pollster.com.

--A complete description of the methodology behind this snapshot, along with all the research and a FAQ, can be found here.

Earlier, Steny Hoyer set some heads scratching when he suggested that he was willing to talk about an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. He's moved quickly to clarify his comments, voicing his opposition to extending Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

"I [am] willing to talk to others about their positions," Hoyer says in a statement. "Unfortunately, the reports of my answer implied a willingness to support an extension of Bush policies. That is incorrect. Neither the adverse effect on the deficit, nor the lack of positive economic benefit, justifies such actions. As a result, I said: 'that, [the willingness to talk] does not mean that you take actions which you don't believe are appropriate.'"

Hoyer's comments come as President Obama continued to push his proposed middle-class tax cuts. In a statement delivered at the White House, the President urged passage of his proposal and criticized GOP threats to hold the middle-class tax cuts hostage:

Right now, we could decide to extend tax relief for the middle class.  Right now, we could decide that every American household would receive a tax cut on the first $250,000 of their income.

But once again, the leaders across the aisle are saying no. They want to hold these middle-class tax cuts hostage until they get an additional tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

We simply can’t afford that.  It would mean borrowing $700 billion in order to fund these tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans -- $700 billion to give a tax cut worth an average of $100,000 to millionaires and billionaires.  And it’s a tax cut economists say would do little to add momentum to our economy.

Now, I just don’t believe this makes any sense.  Even as we debate whether it’s wise to spend $700 billion on tax breaks for the wealthy, doesn’t it make sense for us to move forward with the tax cuts that we all agree on?  We should be able to extend right now middle-class tax relief on the first $250,000 of income -- which, by the way, 97 percent of Americans make less than $250,000 a year.  So right off the bat, 97 percent of all Americans would get tax relief on all their income.  People who are making more than $250,000 a year, say, you’re making half a million dollars, you’d still get tax relief on half your income.

    And everybody agrees that this makes sense.  Middle-class families need this relief.  These are the Americans who saw their wages and incomes flat-line over the last decade, who’ve seen the costs of everything from health care to college tuition skyrocket and who have been hardest hit by this recession.

    Extending these tax cuts is right.  It is just.  It will help our economy because middle-class folks are the folks who are most likely to actually spend this tax relief -- for a new computer for the kids or for maybe some home improvement.

    And if the other party continues to hold these tax cuts hostage, these are the same families who will suffer the most when their taxes go up next year.  And if we can’t get an agreement with Republicans, that's what will happen.

On policy grounds, there's no question that President Obama's tax plan is the right course for the country. Moreover, it represents the smartest political move -- one need look no further than his election as President or the sheer tonnage of polling on the issue to figure that out. As long as Democrats stick together, they'll win on this -- the only question is when.

Ladies and gentlemen, Delaware's Republican nominee for the United State Senate, Christine O'Donnell:

Harry Reid has announced that, in addition to a a DADT repeal vote in the defense authorization bill--the only major legislative vehicle likely to move before October--he will include a DREAM Act amendment. The DREAM Act would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented students who came to the U.S. as children.

It’s been a long time coming for the DREAM Act, which was first proposed in 2001. It went up for a vote once, in 2007, but was eight votes short of overcoming a filibuster. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the original sponsors, introduced the bill in this session in March 2009.

Reid had previously expressed doubt that he could find the votes to pass the act, but at a stakeout today seemed confident it could pass as part of the defense authorization bill.

"When that passes, millions of children will be able to get the  education they need to contribute to our economy," he said. "Boys and girls who  come here before they turn 16 and have been here for five years — kids who grew up as Americans — should be able get their green card after go  to college or serve in the military."

It's not the comprehensive immigration reform, the country really needs, but it is a much needed reform for all those young people living in limbo. Republican Senators, of course, are making threatening noises.

"It’s made it needlessly controversial," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday. "I can’t tell you right now how easy it will be to go forward with that bill, but it’s certainly created an element of controversy that would not have been otherwise there."
....

"This is an all-time low for me being in the Senate and that’s saying something," Lindsey Graham told Foreign Policy’s The Cable yesterday. "The one area that has been kept off limits from partisan politics has been the defense of our nation. To say that you’re going to bring up a defense bill and put the Dream Act on it ... to me is very offensive."

So dealing proactively with immigration is offensive to Lindsey Graham, who has a very short memory for all-time Senate lows. This is probably mostly bluster. Senators, Republicans particularly, are generally not inclined to vote against big defense bills. Meanwhile, pressure from activists is ramping up to lobby for the bill, and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are meeting with President Obama tomorrow.

Update: If you're wondering what the DREAM Act has to do with Defense Authorization, the Wonk Room has the answer:

In fact, the DREAM Act is included in the Department of Defense’s FY2010-12 Strategic Plan to help the military "shape and maintain a mission-ready All Volunteer Force"....

That’s because a specific provision of the DREAM Act  would allow those who meet all eligibility requirements, serve in the U.S. armed forces for at least two years and maintain "good moral character" to obtain regular lawful permanent resident status after six years. Many Military experts have come out in support of the DREAM Act because it would significantly increase the pool of qualified recruits in the Latino population, which comprises the majority of undocumented immigrants and which research indicates are more likely to enlist and serve in the military than any other group.

There you go.

As you can see, Meek's gains have essentially come at Crist's expense, boosted by his primary victory (see? Primaries are good!). That's a positive for Meek, but he's still 18 points away from Rubio. And that gap is apparently growing:

Republican candidate Marco Rubio has opened a clear lead in a Florida Senate race, becoming the latest "Tea Party" favorite to benefit from voter anger at Washington, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Wednesday.

Six weeks ahead of Nov. 2 congressional elections, Rubio leads state Governor Charlie Crist, an independent, by 40 percent to 26 percent among likely voters, the poll found. Democrat Kendrick Meek trails at 21 percent.

I certainly don't see a path to victory for Meek, and I'm now having a hard time seeing one for Crist -- both Rubio and Meek have unloaded on him (as has the US Chamber of Commerce) and he's having a hard time fending off the attacks from both the right and the left. His ads seem, at best, blah -- sporting all the passion of a cypher whose political values shift with the blowing winds.

But with Crist trying to appeal to Democrats, and with Meek attacking Crist, where does that leave Rubio? Home free, without a single group or candidate taking him on. It's like the red carpet was laid out for him, so he could casually stroll into the Senate, while the other two candidates split the Democratic vote:

Crist, a former Republican who turned independent, and Meek are likely splitting Democratic votes, according to the poll.

When voters were asked their choice between Rubio and Crist if Meek was not in the race, the contest is essentially tied -- Rubio 46 percent, and Crist 45 percent.

An aide to defeated Rep. Mike Castle:

"She is a con artist who won by lying about Castle's positions and her own life," said Kate Dickens, a Castle aide. "Out of state support was enough to pull her through yesterday so she can rely on it through November."

Karl Rove:

“I’ve met her. I wasn’t frankly impressed by her abilities as a candidate,” Rove said during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “One thing that O’Donnell is now going to have to answer in the general election that she didn't in the primary is her own checkered background.”

“There were a lot of nutty things she has been saying that don't add up,” Rove added.

“Why did she mislead voters about her college education? How come it took nearly two decades to pay her college bills so she could get her college degree? How did she make a living?”

Some random GOP "strategists":

In Wilmington, Republican strategist Don Mell and his wife, Jeanne, who is a Democrat, walked across the street from Castle's party to Coons' primary watch party at a nearby pub. The couple donned Castle pins when they arrived at the Coons event and picked up one of the Democrat's yard signs.

"I'm not voting for that woman-she's crazy," Don Mell said. "There isn't going to be any discussion about that."

O'Donnell's supporters punch back.

Back at O'Donnell's party in Dover, the mood was triumphant, rather than conciliatory.

O'Donnell supporters wearing light blue t-shirts that read, "Team Christine" gloated over their victory by posing in front of a Castle yard sign in front of the stage, on which someone had scribbled "GOOD BYE!" in bright red letters under the congressman's name.

"We could care less about the Republican Party," said O'Donnell volunteer Brad Flora of Camden, Delaware. "We want our government back.

And Rove is suddenly not so popular. One conservative blogger wrote:

Rarely have I seen such childishness from the supposed leaders of a political establishment, who set the very rules and customs they now want to ignore because they just got embarrassed on a national stage. Grow up, shut up, and get to work."

Another called for Rove to be kicked off Fox News and "investigated".

Especially given his comments on Fox News tonight, until this is resolved, it seems impossible to trust Rove as an objective analyst. In terms of the conservative movement, we should not simply ignore him, but proactively work to undermine Rove in whatever ways we can, given his obvious willingness to undermine us.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are furious at Jim DeMint:

“It speaks volumes that in Jim DeMint’s world, the ‘principles of freedom’ are more important than a candidate who pays their taxes, is honest with voters and who isn’t a complete fraud,” said a senior GOP aide. “Senator DeMint may be patting himself on the back tonight but many Republicans look forward to post-November 2nd when he has to explain why he helped the Democrats retain the majority for yet another two years.”

This is but a taste, people, for what's to come if Republicans don't take the Senate and/or House this fall. This is a hint of the glorious civil war that will break out amongst the GOP if we can hold the line.

They expect outright control. If we deny them that, they will fracture like we've never seen them fracture before.

If for nothing else, this preview of (possible) coming attractions should motivate you for some serious GOTV this fall.

Stan Greenberg's Democracy Corps has released the polling data that he briefed the House Dem caucus on last night. The basics, it's a win-win for Dems.

Democrats should embrace a tax debate. Frankly, they do not have many issues where:

  1. There is a 17-point margin in favor of the Democratic position, 55 to 38 percent.

  2. The strong messages gives a disproportionate lift to the Democratic candidates – scored 13 points better than named Democratic candidates while Republican messages performed half as well.

  3. There is an opportunity to show seriousness on the deficit, while undermining Republicans on the issue.

  4. The choice re-enforces Democrats’ core values and strongest framework for the election (for the middle class versus Wall Street).

The payoff from this debate comes in a 2-point narrowing of the Republican lead in the congressional vote after hearing the debate.  And for the most powerful Democratic messages, it narrows the vote by 5 points, to 45 to 47 percent....

Some of the key findings include:

   * Over half – 55 percent – support increasing taxes by letting some or all of the Bush-era tax cuts expire. Specifically, 42 percent say the cuts should remain in place for the middle class, but expire for those making more than $250,000. Just 38 percent say all the tax cuts should remain in place. This is not a purely base issue – by a 17-point margin, independents favor raising taxes on the wealthy.

   * This message is even more popular when it is contextualized by broader economic messages. By a 10-point margin, voters are persuaded and reassured by the idea of raising taxes on the wealthiest so that revenue can be used for deficit reduction and investment in jobs.

   * Majorities clearly side with extending the cuts for the middle class, at least for some time. Voters favor extending the tax cuts for the middle class for two years, as some have proposed, while a similar majority favors extending these cuts permanently. The proposals receive intense popular support from Democrats, with all proposals advocating expiration of tax cuts getting more than six-in-ten support.

That would be poll number seven in the list of current polls showing strong support for the Obama middle class tax cuts, and the plan to tax the rich.

A new policy memo from Anzalone Liszt [pdf] to the White House makes the case.

The president’s recent proposal to extend tax cuts for the middle class, while letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy, is a smart political move for a number of reasons: 1) it enjoys rising public support; 2) it protects against the loss of swing independents; 3) it allows Democrats to drive a contrast with the GOP; and 4) it allows Democrats to address voters’ overlapping economic concerns.

Being scared of having a tax debate is insane when the tax debate is about Mitch McConnell's $4 trillion tax cuts for the rich proposal and Boehner's continued bumbling. This is a no-brainer, and Congressional Dems should follow Obama's lead and welcome the fight.

Had the GOP establishment had their way, Kentucky would not be a competitive state. Their nominee, Trey Grayson, would have a comfortable lead today en route to an easy hold. Yet because the teabaggers nominated Rand Paul, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has been forced to drop its first big chunk of change in KENTUCKY, of all places. Specifically, the NRSC is spending at least $250,000 on the ad in the Lexcington and Louisville markets.

Meanwhile, the US Chamber of Commerce is also spending money on this race. A Democratic tracker sends me the following info:

Do the math, that's over $300,000. So the bad news is that Conway is now bearing the brunt of over half a million in ads from the bad guys. The good news is that 1) the GOP is freaked out enough about this race that it's their first target of the season, and 2) the teabaggers are costing the GOP opportunities. This is money that could be spent in Washington, Wisconsin, California, Nevada, and myriad other targets (it's a big playing field this year). Yet here they are, in Red Kentucky, defending what should've been an easy hold.

The ad itself is incoherent:

Big government health care is bad! Except for big government Medicare, which is good! And horses are bad, in Kentucky, or something!

You can help Jack Conway fight off the NRSC and Chamber of Commerce.

p.s. GRPs are "gross ratings points".

• You know who should be REALLY worried about last night?

  The overall trend is unmistakable — the GOP’s radical fringe has decided that its party’s establishment are ideological apostates and is systematically purging them. And while the primary season is now over this cycle, there’s at least one Republican who has to be rethinking her party allegiance just about now: Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe.

  Snowe faces reelection in 2012, and her genuinely moderate credentials — while popular with her state’s overall electorate — are proving electoral poison within her own party. Pollsters at Public Policy Polling tested her viability in early September and found Republican voters in her state want a more conservative alternative by a 63-29 margin. (Disclosure: While Public Policy Polling polls for Daily Kos, I did not commission the Maine poll referenced.)

  While one could argue that Snowe should be OK given the dearth of high-profile conservative challengers in her state, the success of both Alaska’s Miller and Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell should disabuse anyone of that notion. The Tea Party contingent measures viability through ideological fealty, not a list of accomplishments or an impressive résumé, and they are now capable of taking political non-entities and turning them into credible challengers overnight. Maine is fertile territory for the Tea Party crowd. Indeed, they have already taken over the state GOP.

• Dear DNC, your new logo sucks. It's painfully bad. Hugs and kisses, kos

  

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway internal poll has it 47 Paul, 45 Conway. This thing is genuinely tight.
• DE-Sen: Sounds like college is a lot more fun these days than when I attended.

  Dorm life has evolved into a blending of the sexes, from coed buildings to coed floors, coed bathrooms and now even coed rooms.

  "What's next? Orgy rooms? Menage a trois rooms?" asked Christine O'Donnell, spokeswoman for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Wilmington, Del., which publishes a college guide.

  All this coedness is outside normal life, said Miss O'Donnell. "Most average American adults don't use coed bathrooms - if they had the option of a coed bathroom at a public restaurant, they wouldn't choose it." Coedness "is like a radical agenda forced on college students," she said.

• DE-Sen: More O'Donnell:

  O’DONNELL: A lie, whether it be a lie or an exaggeration, is disrespect to whoever you’re exaggerating or lying to, because it’s not respecting reality.

  MAHER: Quite the opposite, it can be respect.

  IZZARD: What if someone comes to you in the middle of the Second World War and says, ‘do you have any Jewish people in your house?’ and you do have them. That would be a lie. That would be disrespectful to Hitler.

  O’DONNELL: I believe if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing righteously. I believe that!

  MAHER: God is not there. Hitler’s there and you’re there.

  O’DONNELL: You never have to practice deception. God always provides a way out.

  You know who else wouldn't lie in that situation? Yup. Hitler.

• Nice!

  On Tuesday, Sept. 14 – with a wide swath of primary elections across the country – the National Organization for Marriage focused its attention on one race: a challenge to marriage-equality supporter D.C. City Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr.

  NOM failed.

  Thomas, a Democrat who voted for the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009, is confident that his vote was not just right, but also good politics, saying, ''[I]f I had been on the other side of this issue as a councilmember, I wouldn't have been as successful [in my re-election campaign].''

  Thomas represents Ward 5 in Northeast D.C., which – as he described it to Metro Weekly at his campaign headquarters during a victory party on Tuesday night – has ''a large African-American population, a large Catholic community, a large Baptist and religious community.''

  Referring to NOM's perceptions of his ward, Thomas said, ''People automatically assumed they would be so adamantly against someone's rights.''

  NOM was wrong about the bigotry of that ward. Thomas won the race with 65 percent of the vote in the four-person race. The NOM-supported bigot got 17 percent.

• Evan Bayh, whiner.

  But when you get here, the pressure by the two caucuses to kind of go along with the “team” is pretty constant.  And it’s gotten more so over the years, where any deviancy from party orthodoxy is viewed as an act of betrayal or a lack of moral fiber or something like that.  So you not only have the internal pressure from your colleagues, but then you've got the external pressure from the blogosphere and the cable networks and all of that.

  Accountability sucks. Why, once upon a time, you could be bought off by corporatist interests in the cloakroom, and no one would notice!

  Someone shared me with me the other day an interesting theory -- that losing a presidential bid changes a politician. That if you're arrogant enough to think you're good enough to be president, that getting rejected by the voters breaks you. And seeing Dodd's latest assholeness, or McCain's, it starts to really make sense (even if there are exceptions like Teddy or Gore). Bayh fits into that "asshole" category nicely.

  Of course, the counter-argument is that Bayh was an asshole before he flirted with the presidency. That would be a compelling argument as well.

• The prospect of going to prison sure makes people reflect on their sins.

  One year ago, when President Barack Obama gave his first back-to-school speech to the nation's schoolchildren, then-chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Jim Greer, accused him of using "taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda."

  Now, Greer is facing fraud and money laundering charges and has been thrown under the bus by the state GOP, which has accused him of living the high life on party money. And so he's had a change of heart.

  "In the year since I issued a prepared statement regarding President Obama speaking to the nation's schoolchildren, I have learned a great deal about the party I so deeply loved and served,'' Greer said in a written statement. "Unfortunately, I found that many within the GOP have racist views and I apologize to the President for my opposition to his speech last year and my efforts to placate the extremists who dominate our party today. My children and I look forward to the presiden't speech."

In a development apparently related to GOP leader John Boehner's announcement that he would in fact hold President Obama's middle-class tax cuts hostage, the following ransom note has been made public:

Authorities refused to comment on-the-record, but an official close to the investigation said the words appear to come from cut up copies of The Weekly Standard.

PPP. 9/11-12. Likely voters. MoE 3.2% (8/7-8 results)

PPP's Tom Jensen:

While O'Donnell may have ingratiated herself to Delaware's small group of registered Republicans over the last month she's turned off everyone else. An August Daily Kos/PPP poll in Delaware found her favorability rating at 23/33. It's now 29/50.

If Castle had won he would have received more Democratic support than any other Republican Senate candidate in the country. Now our polling suggests with O'Donnell's victory that Coons will win more Republicans than any other Democratic Senate candidate in the country. That's because of a general unwillingness to support O'Donnell from Castle's moderate base- folks from the centrist wing of the GOP are planning to support Coons 54-31. Overall he takes a full 25% of the GOP vote while also largely consolidating the Democratic base for a 72-13 lead on that front. He also has a narrow 42-36 advantage with independents, a group Democrats are losing with most everywhere else.

There's a reason the NRSC and the rest of the GOP establishment want to keep their distance from O'Donnell. The message was sent before O'Donnell even gave her victory speech -- you broke it, you bought it. It's up to Sarah Palin and the rest of the teabaggers to drag their nominee across the finish line.

Meanwhile, after originally saying it was cutting off O'Donnell, the NRSC has caved to pressure from their activists and decided to waste its money in the First State.

I reached out to Christine this morning, and as I have conveyed to all of our nominees, I offered her my personal congratulations and let her know that she has our support. This support includes a check for $42,000 – the maximum allowable donation that we have provided to all of our nominees – which the NRSC will send to her campaign today.

That's $42,000 that they can't spend in more hospitable territory. And note, in the statement, that there's no promise of additional support. The NRSC is already too busy spending their cash to try and rescue their Senate seat in Kentucky, of all places.

Washington Post (emphasis mine):

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday backtracked from remarks he made Sunday suggesting he would support extending the Bush tax cuts only for households with incomes below $250,000 a year, as President Obama has proposed.

At a news conference on Capitol Hill, Boehner repeatedly emphasized that he would support only legislation that kept in place all of the tax cuts. He sidestepped questions about how he and Republicans would vote if Democrats insisted on pushing through a measure that ends the tax cut on household incomes of more than $250,000 a year. Tax cuts for all incomes that passed in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush are due to expire at the end of this year.

"I want to extend all of the current tax cuts," Boehner said. "I want the speaker [Nancy Pelosi] to allow a fair and open debate on our two-point plan."

As I've been arguing, the best way for Democrats to retain the initiative here is to schedule two votes: one for the Obama tax cuts for the middle-class and the other for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. That way, nobody can hold either tax cut hostage.

Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi began the process of rallying her caucus to vote on the tax cut proposals, delivering an impassioned argument for enacting President Obama's middle-class tax relief proposal. Pollster Stan Greenberg presented survey research from Democracy Corps that shows Democrats will make big electoral gains by sticking to the tax proposal that President Obama has supported since the early days of his presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, even as GOP House Leader Boehner scrambled to recant his position from Sunday, Republicans in the Senate were divided over how to proceed. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a new $4 trillion tax cut package including not just Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy but also estate tax reductions for multimillionaires. That package would drive up interest on the national debt by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade and require an additional $3.9 trillion in borrowing.

But not all Republican senators are on board with McConnell's hardline position in favor of tax relief for the wealthy. Ohio's retiring GOP Senator, George Voinovich, said he might oppose extending the tax cuts for the wealthy contained in McConnell's plan, reminding reporters that he opposed Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy when they were first proposed nearly one decade ago. Adding to the intrigue: a growing number of Republican Senators are proposing a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, showing that even Republicans aren't willing to fall on their swords to defend extending tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.

Bottom line: everything here points the Democrats being in a very, very strong position, politically speaking, and as long as they stand their ground and keep up the pressure on the GOP, they will come out on top in this battle.