For all the GOP’s money woes, the RNC is one Republican entity that is out-raising its Democratic counterpart.
I just wanted to flag for your attention that at TPM Election Central we recently started posting audio recordings of the conference calls the presidential campaigns regularly hold for reporters.
If you’re really into the nuts and bolts of the campaigns and the spin cycles, you’ll want to listen. As you might guess, some days’ calls are mundane even for the political junkie, but on a day like today, following a debate, they can be illuminating, in a meta-narrative kind of way.
We’ve got today’s Hillary camp call up now.
Late Update: You can listen to the Obama call here.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) posts at TPMCafe on a “Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights” and the various proposals currently pending in Congress for greater protections for consumers from credit card companies.
Turns out last night’s debate was the most watched of the entire campaign.
The GOP is trying to knock off U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a first-termer who defeated longtime Republican incumbent Nancy Johnson for the CT-5 seat in 2006. So they’re sneaking President Bush into town later this month for a fund-raiser at Henry Kissinger’s house to help the GOP candidate, state Sen. David Cappiello.
But let’s just say the President doesn’t hold the same cachet that he used to:
Area Republicans and local town officials who have been invited to, or informed of, the president’s visit to a small rural town known for its art galleries, chocolate and scenic beauty were told not to publicize or discuss the event.
However, an invitiation released to The Litchfield County Times by a member of the GOP confirms the president’s visit and provides details of a fund-raiser meant to inflate the war chest of the candidate hoping to unseat U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire) after only one term.
Attempts to reach Mr. Cappiello Thursday for comment on the fund-raiser were unsuccessful. A Danbury resident, Mr. Cappiello represents the 24th District in the General Assembly.
Reached by phone, one person working to raise money for Mr. Cappiello’s campaign gave a phone number for the press office at the White House in response to questions. A spokesman there said he could not confirm the president’s trip to Kent.
[Special thanks to TPM Reader CM for the tip.]
Just your run-of-the-mill case of a GOP official assaulting a Democratic congressional candidate and a newspaper reporter. So why shouldn’t local GOP bigwigs get to see the sheriff’s investigative report about the incident before the local Democratic prosecutor does?
The Delaware County [Indiana] prosecutor wants to know why Republican Party officials were given access to police reports on a fight involving a voter registration deputy, a reporter and a candidate before the documents reached his desk.
“The Republican Party chairman is not a member of the law enforcement community and does not have access to police reports,” Prosecutor Mark McKinney, a Democrat, said Wednesday. …
McKinney said GOP officials had access to investigatory documents such as witness statements that are not part of the public record and said he would look into how they were released.
[Thanks to TPM Reader MS for the link.]
George Stephanopoulos defends ABC’s trainwreck of a presidential debate in an interview with TPM Election Central.
Voting is underway now in the Senate on whether — and how — to investigate Rep. Don Young’s Coconut Road earmark.
Late Update: The Democrats’ preferred measure — the Boxer amendment, which requests that the Justice Department initiate an investigation of how the earmark was sneaked into the bill after passage — passes.
Later Update: A separate measure sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would have created a joint House-Senate panel to investigate Coconut Road has failed.