Mitt Romney declares that any economic recovery is completely unrelated to the stimulus package. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
Anti-abortion extremists are raising money for the defense of Scott Roeder, the accused murderer of George Tiller, with murder-glorifying art ‘commissioned’ by Roeder while in prison. The group is also auctioning a ‘prison cookbook’ from Shelley Shannon, who is currently serving time for shooting Tiller back in 1993.
We now have the final Siena poll out for the NY-23 special election. Like last night’s PPP poll, it has Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman in the lead. But by a far smaller margin. PPP had a 16 or 17 point margin, depending on whether Dede Scozzafava (the regular GOP nominee who has now left the race) is included. Siena has it at Hoffman 41%, Owens 36% with fully 18% undecided. Read More
If Democrats have a bad night tomorrow night it will be a real headache for the White House. But I don’t think there’s any question that the big loser as of this moment is Charlie Crist and, potentially, a string of other moderate Republicans angling for 2010 nominations. Already yesterday, folks on the right who were most vocal in pushing Hoffman’s candidacy were explicitly pointing to Crist as their next target and seeming genuinely confident they could deny him the Florida GOP senate nomination and hand it to Marco Rubio.
In other news Newt Gingrich has a little egg on his face too since he was almost alone among high-profile conservatives defending Scazzofava on party unity and big tent grounds, only to see her drop out and support the Dem.
Remember Michael Hilton?
Aka, “Captain” Michael Hilton, the California con man who set up American Police Force to take over that jail up in Hardin, Montana?
In court in California last week on an unrelated charge, Hilton all but admitted that the whole APF episode had been a scam from the start and that he’s now broke and having trouble paying his own rent.
We’ve now got a third poll out this morning of the NJ governor’s race. This one from SurveyUSA: Christie 45%, Corzine 42%, Daggett 10%. As with the Quinnipiac poll, the margin itself is very small. But each of the polls out today has shown movement in Christie’s direction. More details here.
Late Update: And now there’s a fourth. Democracy Corps, a Dem-affiliated but highly respected poll has final poll out showing Corzine over Christie by four points. And, not surprisingly, Corzine does better the higher the turnout you estimate.
Another important read from Ezra Klein on why the current version of health care reform is missing the boat.
Roberts Gibbs, on President Obama’s congratulatory call to Hamid Karzai, “Obviously he is the legitimate leader of the country.”
Anti-abortion activist organizing auction of murder-glorifying art by accused murderer of George Tiller says that pictures do not glorify violence.