Hotline Sort: Clinging Edition

By Julie Sobel  //  September 18, 2012 | 8:15 a.m.

Welcome back to Hotline Sort. Romney has his "guns and religion" moment, Warren edges Brown in another poll, Crossroads GPS is launching their first House ad, and Angus King talks trackers.

10) How Angus King really feels about trackers: The Maine Senate candidates met for a debate and King pointed out a man in the audience that he said the National Republican Senatorial Committee pays to follow him around. "He goes everywhere I go and I assume he wants to get a picture of me slugging a baby," said King.

9) Biden: Bad presidential candidate, good VP? While campaigning in Iowa, VP Biden said that he spent 120 days in Iowa before losing in 2008, sarcastically noting "how effective" he was. "But I'm a good vice president," he added.

8) The Maryland Democratic Party endorsed physician John La Ferla to run as a write-in candidate in the state's 1st District. However, Democrat Wendy Rosen -- who resigned from the race last week -- will still appear on the ballot, as the deadline to remove her had passed.

7 A new Siena College Research Institute poll shows Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-N.Y., with a double-digit lead over Democratic challenger Sean Patrick Maloney -- Hayworth leads Maloney 46 percent to 33 percent in New York's 18th District. But the poll included a Working Families Party nominee siphoning liberal support, and the third party's executive director said he expects Maloney to be on the WFP line in the general election. Still, it should worry Democrats: NY-18 is a seat Democrats need to pick up if they have any real shot at taking back the majority.

6) It's official: Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., won't hit the trail for Richard Mourdock, the man who beat him in a nasty May GOP primary.

5) The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee hit Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg in another television ad Monday, saying he's "given lobbyists what they want: Tax loopholes for millionaires," and tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs. 4) Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., goes hard on the ethics issues, releasing a new ad calling Democratic opponent Shelley Berkley the "texbook definition of corrupt -- two years in a row," for her "dishonorable mention" on CREW's Most Corrupt 2012. 3) Amid a new ad blitz, Crossroads GPS is releasing their first commercial in a House race this year, Politico reports. The ad is aimed at Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop, running for reelection in New York's 1st District and facing Republican Randy Altschuler. A Crossroads spokesperson said it was just the start of a push "in the tens of millions of dollars" to help Republicans keep the House. 2) Another poll shows Elizabeth Warren with an edge in the Massachusetts Senate race: A Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll released Tuesday night shows Warren edging Brown, 48 percent to 44 percent -- within the margin of error. It comes on the heels of a poll released Sunday also showing the Democrat with an in-the-margin-of-error lead, and both represent improvement for Warren over previous polls. The surveys come after Warren's prime-time speaking role at the Democratic National Convention, and as she began running her first negative ad. 1) Here's National Journal's Alex Roarty on Mitt Romney's comments, secretly taped at a fundraiser, that 47 percent of Americans want government handouts and will be with President Obama "no matter what:"

Concerns about the Romney campaign's ability to win are now amplified. If the campaign wanted to change the subject from its own troubles, Monday's videotaped revelation will make the task impossible for at least a little while longer. Instead of telling people why they should vote against President Obama during the race's home stretch, the campaign will be forced to explain why it can still win. That's not in itself fatal, but it's hardly the discussion a presidential campaign wants to have in mid-September. ... In a sign of the campaign's own worry about the fallout, Romney responded to the controversy Monday night in a question-and-answer session arranged so quickly that TV networks were not able to carry his remarks live. Speaking in Costa Mesa, Calif., Romney said his remarks were not "elegantly stated" and were made "off the cuff" -- but declined to back down from them.

Meanwhile, part two of the fundraiser video, in which Romney says Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace," was released by Mother Jones.

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Reid Wilson, Editor-in-Chief
Steve Shepard, Executive Editor
Julie Sobel, Editor
Kevin Brennan, Deputy Editor


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