Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: McCollum leads FMA/Tarrance poll - Friday standings: Who won the week? - Bush 41 backs Colin Simpson - Louisiana air war turns harsh - Trumka rallies in L.A. - Jeff Greene threatens lawsuit
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 06:08:40 -0400 (EDT)

By Alexander Burns (@aburnspolitico, [email-masked]

FIRST IN SCORE -- MCCOLLUM'S SURGE: Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has retaken the lead in the Republican primary for governor, edging four points ahead of health care executive Rick Scott in a poll taken for the Florida Medical Association, which has endorsed McCollum. The survey, conducted by the Tarrance Group, shows McCollum ahead of Scott by four points, 44 percent to 40 percent, and comes a day after a Mason-Dixon poll placed McCollum up, 34 percent to 30 percent. The FMA numbers give McCollum a 14-point lead among seniors, an 11-point lead among primary voters in the I-4 corridor and a six-point lead among Republicans identified as “extremely likely” to vote. The poll is a fresh one, testing 900 likely primary voters from Aug. 10 to Aug. 12. Read pollster Dave Sackett's memo here. http://politi.co/9ZkVhc

MORE -- COUNTDOWN TO AUG. 24: Timothy Stapleton, the FMA's executive vice president, said in a statement that the poll shows voters “increasingly admire Bill McCollum's integrity and history of public service, while rejecting Rick Scott's multimillion fraud against Florida taxpayers.” That's the line of attack McCollum's used to help edge back into contention, going so far Thursday as to say he's “withholding judgment” on whether he could support Scott in a general election. Scott has returned fire with a set of scathing new ads, hitting McCollum's position on immigration and votes to raise congressional pay. There are 11 days left before the primary vote, and it looks like every one of them will be brutal. http://bit.ly/9gWQBC

AND -- NEXT UP: McCollum and Scott may not have the airwaves to themselves much longer, as the Orlando Sentinel relays chatter that Democratic state CFO Alex Sink may be readying ads. Sink spokeswoman Kyra Jennings confirmed that commercials “will begin very soon.” http://bit.ly/910yAN

As Colorado Democrats make up, Sharron Angle keeps it close and Dan Maes forges on, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily cheat sheet for the 2010 midterm elections.

FRIDAY STANDINGS -- ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW? The winners and losers of this week's primaries have already been picked over extensively -- but there's a lot more to the last few days than the most immediate winners of those elections. Here's Morning Score's weekly take on how some of the top candidates, groups and causes should answer the question: Are you better off now than you were one week ago?

YES: (1) New York Rep. Charlie Rangel, who thumbed his nose at Democratic leaders with a speech rejecting the ethics charges against him -- and still managed to draw state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Chuck Schumer to a late-in-the-game fundraising bash for his reelection; (2) Mike Huckabee, who placed a big bet on former Rep. Nathan Deal in the Georgia GOP's runoff primary for governor, and saw it pay off big-time; (3) Monthly magazines, which proved they can still swing for the fences when GQ published an embarrassing profile of Rand Paul's youth and Esquire topped that in an even more damaging interview with Newt Gingrich's ex-wife.

NO: (1) Illinois Democrats up and down the ticket, who will soon see the Rod Blagojevich case reach resolution -- and very possibly in a way that angry voters won't find satisfying; (2) Florida gazillionaires, whose political prospects took a turn for the worse as Scott's poll numbers fell and and state and national newspapers dismantled Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene's record; (3) “The Year of the Woman,” a 2010 narrative that got a bit more complicated after Karen Handel and Margaret Anderson Kelliher's hair's-breadth defeats in the Georgia and Minnesota gubernatorial primaries.

LOUISIANA AIR WAR: Republican Sen. David Vitter and his challenger, Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon, are up with new negative ads in Louisiana's race for Senate. The Melancon commercial is a powerful hit that targets Vitter's personal scandals and his record on women's issues with the following script: “We know how David Vitter handled his 'serious sin.' And when Vitter's staffer violently abused his girlfriend, Sen. Vitter let him keep his job, working on women's issues ... He voted against equal pay for equal work, against coverage for mammograms, even against protections for women raped on the job. David Vitter: for women, his 'serious sin' isn't even his worst.” Vitter's ad takes aim at Melancon's voting record, saying that when Louisianans feel they “just can't work any harder,” they should remember: “Melancon voted to use your money for bailouts for Wall Street millionaires. Melancon voted to use your money for benefits for illegals.” See Melancon's ad. http://bit.ly/97HYAN . And Vitter's. http://bit.ly/9R0lPA

41 ENDORSES: Former President George H.W. Bush gave his strong endorsement to Wyoming House Speaker Colin Simpson's campaign for governor Thursday, issuing a message of support for the son of former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson days before the Republican primary. “You fully understand the energy industry that provides so many jobs in Wyoming and for us here in Texas,” Bush said in his endorsement, “and you always have worked hard to bring people together around conservative solutions for Wyoming instead of using politics to drive people apart.” http://bit.ly/9rLDdd

TODAY -- TRUMKA GOES WEST: AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka is in California today, rallying a crowd of thousands Los Angeles City Hall with a speech going after Republican candidates Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. Joined by Sen. Barbara Boxer, state Attorney General Jerry Brown and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Trumka will go on offense against the California GOP. “In the political showdown between Wall Street and Main Street, California is Ground Zero. Nowhere else in the nation are voters' choices in November so stark,” he will say. “Two clueless CEOs: Meg Whitman, who was too shady even for the board of Goldman Sachs; and Carly Fiorina, who laid off 30,000 Hewlett Packard employees, shipped jobs overseas, got fired-with a $20-plus million golden parachute-and was labeled one of the worst CEOs of all time. Sisters and brothers, this is crazy!”

ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOVE FEST: Defeated Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff strongly his victorious rival, Sen. Michael Bennet, at a unity rally in Denver Thursday, purging some of the bad blood from their brutal primary campaign. POLITICO's David Catanese reports from the scene: “'It is an easy call for me, it should be an easy call for all of you as well,' Romanoff said on the steps of the state capitol before hundreds of cheering Democrats. 'I am proud to stand with Sen. Bennet.' Romanoff, who lost to Bennet by 8 percentage points after a vicious closing month to their primary campaign in which he questioned his opponent's ties to corporations and his financial judgment, walked down the steps with Bennet and his three daughters and introduced the newly minted nominee as 'the next senator from Colorado.' Bennet heaped even more profuse praise on Romanoff, noting that his record as a Colorado Democrat 'inspired thousands.'” http://politi.co/cofzTk

ALSO IN COLORADO -- ALL BY HIMSELF -- The Denver Post notes than Dan Maes, the Republican Party's nominee for governor, has been embraced by almost no one after beating former Rep. Scott McInnis in Tuesday's primary: “[N]ot one national or local GOP-backed group or individual sent out a news release congratulating Maes for his win. Powerful donors are not expected to give Maes much, if any, money, and influential endorsements are unlikely to emerge, according to GOP leaders who were involved in pre-election discussions about finding a new candidate. ... Maes said he will campaign hard on exercising state rights to defy 'the overreaching arm of Washington,' singling out the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for bogging down the Colorado economy.” http://bit.ly/9IWYYm

POLL OF THE DAY: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Nevada Assemblywoman Sharron Angle are separated by just two points in a new Mason-Dixon poll for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Reid leads Angle, 46 percent to 44 percent, as both candidates continue to chip away at the number of undecided voters. Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston notes that Angle has actually outspent Reid on television the last two weeks, and her most recent ad attempts to push back on one of the Reid camp's most aggressive attacks. It features the candidate declaring, “I'd like to save Social Security by locking the lock box.” See the poll. http://bit.ly/923YJM ; Ralston's tweet. http://bit.ly/cx68mp ; Angle's ad. http://bit.ly/dqMSCG

SPEAKING OF SOCIAL SECURITY: Democrats -- having seen attacks like Reid inflict real damage on GOP challengers -- will be hyping up the 75th anniversary of the entitlement program this weekend. The DSCC will put out a “Social Security Scorecard” showing how Republican candidates have weighed in on the issue. http://bit.ly/deBRf7

CLOSE-ISH IN KANSAS? Former RNC Committeeman Mike Pompeo, nominated last week for outgoing Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt's 4th District Seat, holds a single-digit lead over Democratic state Rep. Raj Goyle in the general election. An automated poll from SurveyUSA showed Pompeo taking 49 percent of the vote, versus 42 percent for Goyle. Republicans are confident of Pompeo's odds, but the nominee had to deal with an unexpected distraction this week after admitting that “the Pompeo for Congress Press office inadvertently posted a link to a tremendously offensive blog post” that referred to Goyle in racially charged language. http://bit.ly/dhs3lk and http://bit.ly/bs1kvY

JEFF GREENE'S NEWSPAPER WAR: The Democratic billionaire became this week's second Senate candidate to threaten a libel suit Thursday (following Rand Paul) when his lawyer sent a letter to the St. Petersburg Times charging that the paper's “reporting falsely accuses an extremely successful businessman and viable candidate for high office of serious crimes. The resulting damage ... can only be measured in the many millions of dollars unless the Times immediately corrects its libel.” The Times, which linked Greene to a $21 million California deal that resulted in massive mortgage fraud, responded through an attorney: “The Times is studying Mr. Greene's letter at this point. We're not seeing anything that needs correcting. ... [T]he public record shows what it shows. And that's what the Times reported.” http://politi.co/bOxIMT

ACROSS THE BIG MAP -- with POLITICO's Tim Alberta:

-- Rahall's mail mistake. West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall confirmed to POLITICO that in 2005 he used congressional stationery to write a letter asking a judge about felony robbery charges facing his son. The 17-term Democrat acknowledged, “I should have used different personal letterhead,” but said he'd “send the message again in a heartbeat.” He faces a challenge from former state Supreme Court judge Spike Maynard. http://politi.co/bE43hR

-- Brady camp goes for Gillibrand. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has endorsed New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, giving its seal of approval to a Democrat once criticized from the left for the 100 percent NRA rating she received in the House. The group acknowledged Gillibrand's past positions on guns, but noted “she has established a solid record on sensible gun laws as a U.S. Senator.” http://bit.ly/cjIOnR

-- Guinta's account. Former New Hampshire GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen has published a column in the Union Leader this morning criticizing Manchester Mayor and 1st District Congressional candidate Frank Guinta for having “a previously unreported personal bank account holding between $250,000 and $500,000” recently disclosed to the House of Representatives. Why does the account matter? Guinta has sent his campaign some personal funds, and some Republicans have alleged -- and Guinta has denied -- that the money may have come through a loan. The Guinta campaign said the candidate tweaked his disclosure forms after “discovering some clerical errors.” http://bit.ly/caNEP7

-- Not just for Sarah Palin anymore. Long-shot Maryland gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy picked up his second national conservative endorsement in two weeks, winning the support of the socially conservative Family Research Council. Murphy still faces a very difficult race against former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, who has embraced his moderate reputation in a comeback bid against Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley. http://bit.ly/8XGYlp

-- Perry's skipping the ed boards. Texas Gov. Rick Perry doesn't plan to meet with newspaper editorial boards ahead of his November showdown with Democratic former Houston Mayor Bill White, the Austin American-Statesman's Jason Embry reports. “We've made the decision that a better use of the governor's time is to talk directly to Texans and reporters throughout the state,” said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. http://bit.ly/bg2hXm

Go to Morning Score Now >> http://www.politico.com/morningscore

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