Democrats Outspend G.O.P. in TV Ads in House Races

Despite a deluge of campaign spending over the last few months by Republican-leaning outside groups, Democratic candidates and their allies have outspent Republicans over all on television advertising in House races, according to data provided by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. In Senate races, however, Republicans outspent Democrats.

The most recent numbers available, through Friday, showed that Democratic candidates and their allies spent $142 million on television advertising across all House races in the general election, compared with $119 million by Republican candidates and their backers. In the Senate, Republican candidates and their allies outspent Democrats, $159 million to $120 million.

The Democratic advantage on television spending in House races was something of a revelation, given all the attention that has been garnered this year by the staggering expenditures by Republican-oriented independent groups after a Supreme Court ruling in January that lifted restrictions on corporate political spending.

But it appears that the Republican-leaning groups were able to make a significant impact in many House races by leveling the playing field for underfinanced Republican challengers, who in previous elections might have had little chance against Democratic incumbents.

“Republican groups basically provided the advertising version of bridge loans for the underfunded challengers, running ads before they could go up on the air for themselves,” said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group.

The pro-Republican groups were able to expand the political map, going up early with attack ads against Democratic candidates who had seemed to be in comfortable positions and putting them on the defensive.

What has remained something of an open question, however, was which party ultimately has had the financial upper hand, when spending by party committees and the candidates themselves was added to the spending by outside groups.

Democratic Party committees, for instance, have raised significantly more money than their Republican counterparts. And, in competitive House races, Democratic candidates have generally had a financial edge over their Republican opponents as well.

Making accurate total comparisons is difficult, in part because of limitations in the data available from the Federal Election Commission. A truly comprehensive analysis of candidate spending would also require diving into figures for specific expenditures.

As a result, the tabulations of television spending by the Campaign Media Analysis Group are useful. Those tallies, however, do not include spending on other activities, like radio and direct mail or local cable TV ads.

The overall Democratic spending advantage on television in the House holds true not only for all races, but also when just the 105 races that the group classifies as competitive are considered. Democrats have so far outspent Republicans on television in 68 of those 105 contests. In all House races, Republican-leaning outside groups spent $38 million on television, compared with $13 million by Democratic-oriented groups. But Democratic candidates outspent Republican ones, $97 million to $49 million. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also outspent the national Republican Congressional Committee, $30 million to $26 million.

In the Senate, television spending by the candidates has been roughly equal, with both sides spending more than $80 million, while Republican-leaning third-party groups have swamped their Democratic counterparts, $58 million to $21 million. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has outspent its Republican counterpart, but the difference comes nowhere close to eliminating the gap among independent groups.

Nevertheless, Democratic candidates and their allies have managed to battle Republicans essentially to a draw on TV spending in certain crucial Senate contests — notably, Nevada and Colorado, according to the data. They had a slight advantage in Washington. But in races in Illinois, Missouri and Pennsylvania, Republicans had the edge. (source)

On 2010 Election Eve, Barry Can't Fill A 13,000 Seat Auditorium

CLEVELAND — President Obama wrapped up a weekend of last-minute campaigning in Ohio on Sunday, addressing Democrats in an indoor arena that, in a sign of the “enthusiasm gap” that the president is working so hard to close, was little more than half full.

About 8,000 people attended the Democratic National Committee’s Moving America Forward’ rally at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center, a hall where the capacity is 13,000. The rafters were largely empty.

Organizers noted the president was competing on a Sunday afternoon with church, football and Halloween. And Mr. Obama drew a huge crowd of about 35,000 when he was in nearby Columbus, Ohio, in an earlier October rally. Still, the thin crowd was perhaps a foreboding sign in the waning days of the midterm races, when Mr. Obama, who was joined Sunday by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., considers getting Democrats to the polls his most important mission.

Mr. Obama was in Ohio to give a final push to Gov. Ted Strickland, who is in a tight race for re-election. Lee Fisher, the lieutenant governor and Democratic Senate candidate, also attended, and Mr. Obama gave a pitch for him as well, though he is trailing badly behind his Republican opponent.

“We’ve got to get Cleveland out to vote!” Mr. Obama said. “We’ve got to get everybody in Ohio out to vote.’’

He made a pitch for early voting: “There is early voting just a few blocks from here, so you can go right after this rally if you haven’t voted. Because if everyone who fought for change in 2008 shows up to vote in 2010, we will win this election, I’m confident that we will.’’(source)

MSM Diary: What Media Bias? (Reporters Accidentally record Their Plans To Wreck GOP Campaign Rally)

UPDATE:

From the Miller Campaign:

Now the media has gone from trying to create stories to openly lying. The audio was pulled directly from the voicemail message. Nothing was altered. “Everything that was recorded on my phone is what we released without change,” said Randy Desoto.

***

The following voice mail message was inadvertently left on the cell phone of Joe Miller campaign spokesperson Randy DeSoto.

The voices are believed to be those of the news director for CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA, along with assignment editor Nick McDermott, and other reporters, openly discussing creating, if not fabricating, two stories about Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller.

The following is a transcript of a call recorded after CBS Alaska affiliate KTVA called Joe Miller’s Senate campaign spokesperson. The call failed to disconnect properly. It was later authenticated by McDermott, who sent a text to Randy DeSoto stating, “Damn iPhone… I left you a long message. I thought I hung up. Sorry.”

Clearly the reporters were conspiring to set up some type of smear of Joe Miller. With glee, they even cite a recent controversy over an incident involving the Rand Paul campaign, while discussing how they would spread the story via social media after whatever incident they had in mind came off. It also brings to mind another recent episode that ended with Jerry Brown’s California gubernatorial campaign being caught up in controversy when someone from Brown’s camp called Brown’s opponent, Republican Meg Whitman, a “whore.”

This calls into serious question what type of campaign coverage CBS’ KTVA has been providing Alaskans all along, given their reporters’ willingness to conspire against Miller. (source)

Profiles In Collagen: Nancy "El Duce" Pelosi

It took Democrats in the House of Representatives 40 years to become out-of-touch enough to get thrown out of office in 1994. It took 12 years for the Republicans who replaced them to abandon their principles and be repudiated in 2006. Now it appears that the current Democratic majority has lost voter confidence in only four years.

How did this happen? And what does the increasing speed of voter backlash mean for Republicans who will likely take control next Tuesday?

For answers, I decided to chat up Rep. Brian Baird, a six-term Democrat from Washington state. Even though he's never won re-election with less than 56% of the vote, Mr. Baird is retiring because the brutal congressional commute makes it impossible for him to see his twin five-year-old boys grow up. He's not sticking around, like so many former members of Congress, to lobby inside the Beltway. That allows him to be candid about Congress and his party.

"It's been an authoritarian, closed leadership. That style plus a general groupthink mentality didn't work when Tom DeLay called the shots," Mr. Baird says. "We've made some of the same damn mistakes, and we were supposed to be better. That's the heartbreak."

Mr. Baird, 54, is a loyal Democrat who voted for all of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's legislative priorities, including the stimulus bill, cap and trade and ObamaCare. But he admits all three have serious flaws.

Mr. Baird recalls that he was "very excited" when his party took control of Congress in 2006, but he saw ominous signs early on. Before the 2006 election, he says, Mrs. Pelosi had 30 members working on a rules package to make the House more ethical and deliberative. "We abandoned all that work after the election, and leaders told us we should trust them to clean things up. I don't know a single member of the Democratic caucus who saw the final rules package before they voted on it."

Democrats also watered down efforts to practice fiscal responsibility. "We initially had numbers a bit more honest than the Republicans—we at least included war costs in the budget," he says. "Now we're authorizing programs for three years instead of five in an attempt to pretend we're saving money."

When President Obama was elected in 2008, Mr. Baird was again optimistic that Democrats could bring real reform. But fierce Republican partisanship and the White House decision not to focus on job creation as its "number one, two and three" priority dashed that hope.

"Obama decided we weren't going to have a highway transportation bill because it might have required a gas tax increase," he recalls. After passing a misdirected stimulus bill, Mr. Obama made the fatal error of pushing forward with other priorities: cap and trade, financial services reform, ObamaCare. Each became compromised quickly.

"You don't get real reform by pandering to every special interest. With cap and trade we wound up with a bill that didn't accomplish much, was enormously complicated and expensive." Mr. Baird is especially upset that "good solid members will lose this fall because they took a tough vote for a cap-and-trade bill that never made it through the Senate." He has told environmental groups that they lost sight of the goal of reducing carbon emissions by focusing on the minutia of regulation to achieve it.

For some of the shortcomings of financial regulatory reform, Mr. Baird blames the disillusioning battle over ObamaCare. "When the House had to pass the Senate version of health care unchanged, some members asked why should they invest the mental effort in mastering the details" of financial reform. Mr. Baird found parts of the bill mind-numbing.

Although he voted for it, he says he was troubled that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the entities at the heart of the housing meltdown, weren't addressed. They have clearly exercised undue influence on Capitol Hill, he notes. "When I was first elected I was puzzled why they were holding events in my honor as a mere freshman. I asked myself, why is a federal entity so involved in political activity?"


Regarding health care, his specialty, Mr. Baird gave House Democrats real heartburn. He voted against the first version of ObamaCare in November 2009, because the Congressional Budget Office and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services hadn't yet analyzed the bill's impact on insurance premiums and medical costs.

"What the hell were we doing voting on this? I had labor groups come to me and insist the bill was so important we couldn't wait to know what was in it," he recalls. "I asked them if they were handed a new union contract and told it was so important they had to agree to it without reading it, would they go along?" They continued to insist he vote for the bill and threatened him with a primary challenger.

Mr. Baird had developed his own health-care proposal that drew on his 23 years of experience as a licensed clinical psychologist treating patients with cancer and brain injuries. His plan would have provided universal health care but held down costs through vouchers for the poor, medical savings accounts for the middle class, and reform of malpractice insurance.

He admits to being frustrated that ideas like his never got a fair hearing in a Congress dominated by inertia and interest groups. "Our problems are now so grave we can't afford petty partisanship and closed thinking," he tells me.

The health-care bill experience spurred Mr. Baird to push harder for a "72-hour rule" that would require all non-emergency legislation to be posted online, in final form, for at least 72 hours before a floor vote. "Members are too often asked to make decisions on bills that can be longer than telephone books, and are given only a few hours to actually read them," he complains. "Both parties are guilty, and both should stop doing it."

Mrs. Pelosi eventually allowed a 72-hour pause before the final passage of ObamaCare, and Mr. Baird is pleased that Republicans have agreed to adopt the 72-hour rule if they take the House majority. He just hopes they honor it even when it's inconvenient.

Mr. Baird stands by his vote for ObamaCare, noting that something had to be done for those denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions. But he acknowledges that the bill carried within it the seeds of its unpopularity. These include the nightmare mandate that all companies report to the IRS all of their business-to-business transactions over $600, so the government can capture unreported business income. At a recent forum with small business owners in his district, Mr. Baird was stunned at the complexity of the rules they now must follow.

"I warned my fellow Democrats that the insurance companies they were whacking could increase premiums just before the midterm election and blame them for it," he sighs. "I pointed out that the major benefits wouldn't kick in till 2014, but the costs were up front. I asked them, where was the political win? There was no real answer."

In his new book, "Character, Politics and Responsibility," Mr. Baird argues that in order to afford caring for the needy, liberals will have to challenge "unsustainable entitlements." "I would eliminate the concept of entitlements and move to needs-based social insurance," he says. "The key is to both promote personal responsibility while lowering expenditures by not promising or giving money or other benefits to those who don't need it."

Although Mr. Baird believes that Republicans blocked compromise on ObamaCare and that tea party activists raised false fears, he acknowledges the political harm that Democrats have done themselves. "It looks like we're going to lose the House, possibly badly, and could lose the Senate," Mr. Baird laments. "We will lose a lot of centrists while the people in the party some voters are most mad at survive in safe districts."

"A lot of rethinking is needed" after Democrats take their drubbing, Mr. Baird says, especially since he anticipates "a huge number of retirements" from Democrats unwilling to serve in the minority. He proposes that the House elect an independent speaker who would help drain partisanship from the body. Britain's House of Commons uses such a model.

Democrats, he says, will also have to recognize why they lost touch with voters. "Back in September, we had pollsters and strategists from my party tell members that the mass of people didn't care about the deficit. The mind-boggling lack of reality coming from some of the people who give us so-called advice is stunning."


I ask Mr. Baird what he would tell the incoming class of freshmen Republicans if given the chance to address them before the new Congress convenes. He summarized his bottom line:

"Governing isn't as easy as you think. Many of you have taken pledges that are contradictory—to balance the budget and cut taxes, for example. You must be honest about the numbers, since our annual deficit now exceeds all discretionary spending combined. If you set as your goal to roll back the size of government, you have an obligation to answer the tough questions and show real courage, not just appeal to ideology. Treat the voters like adults." (source)

Barry As President: Reducing The Sentence For Murderers Of America's Soldiers

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — A military jury on Sunday gave teen terrorist Omar Khadr a 40-year prison sentence for killing an American commando in Afghanistan, but the sentence was merely symbolic — the United States already had agreed to limit Khadr's prison time to eight years, and Canada last week said it would allow Khadr to serve the bulk of his sentence there.

Canada had been cagey in public about its agreement to the deal, under which Khadr pleaded guilty to war crimes. But the military judge at Khadr's trial on Sunday released an exchange of diplomatic notes between the U.S. and Canadian governments that included Canada's assertion that it "is inclined to favourably consider Mr. Khadr's application to be transferred to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence'' or whichever portion Canada's National Parole Board decides is required.

The note was signed by the Canadian Embassy on Oct. 23, with no name attached.

That agreement will allow Khadr to be released from prison by age 32, if not earlier under Canadian parole provisions.

Khadr, 24, looked straight ahead when the jury foreman announced the 40-year sentence. The widow of his victim, Tabitha Speer, 40, cheered "yes," and then wept.

"He will forever be a murderer my eyes,'' Speer said.

The 40-year sentence, even though it will never be enforced, provided a sense of finality, she said -- along with assurances that Khadr would never be allowed to enter the United States or ride on an airplane.

The seven-officer jury was unaware that Khadr's sentence had already been set before they began deliberating Saturday.

Jurors were told only that Guantánamo's youngest captive had pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including hurling the grenade that mortally wounded Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, during a July 2002 assault on an al Qaeda compound. Khadr was 15.

The prosecution sought a 25-year sentence. Defense lawyers recommended repatriation.

In a rebuke, the jury said he should be imprisoned until age 64.

The Toronto-born Khadr also admitted that, in the days ahead of his capture, he planted mines intended to maim or kill U.S. and allied forces. He was captured near dead, treated by U.S. forces and sent to Guantánamo soon after his 16th birthday.

The Pentagon's Chief War Crimes Prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said he made the eight-year plea deal with Khadr to secure the certainty of a conviction for the victims of the so-called "child-soldier.''

He cited Khadr's youth at the time of the crime, calling him a "minor.''

"I hope he will be rehabilitated in the future,'' said Murphy.

Khadr's military judge, Army Col. Patrick Parrish, made the plea agreement public moments after the jury was led from the hilltop tribunal chamber on Sunday at about 5 p.m.

The jury deliberated for five hours Saturday, broke for the night, and resumed Sunday afternoon after church services at Guantánamo. While they deliberated, a guard raised and then lowered a flag belonging to an unidentified family member of one of Khadr's victims, a traditional military souvenir from a historic place or time.

Khadr, raised in a militant Muslim family between a suburb of Toronto and Afghanistan, is Guantánamo's last Western-born detainee among the 174 held here. Critics had said he should have been afforded the protections of "child soldier'' and given rehabilitation rather than spend a third of his life at Guantánamo.

Former Army Sgt. Layne Morris, who lost an eye in the firefight that captured Khadr, said he was concerned that an eight-year sentence put the Canadian "on frankly the fast-track to freedom'' and "the prime of his life.' '

Khadr's Canadian attorney, Dennis Edney, lambasted the military commissions process, which has so far yielded five convictions, three through plea bargain.

"We may choose to believe that through his plea Omar finally came clean and accepted his involvement in a firefight when he was 15 years of age,'' he said, "or that this was one final coerced confession from a victimized young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time because his father placed him there.''

As a convicted war criminal, Khadr was to be moved Sunday night to a single cell in a maximum security lockup where the prison camp staff segregates its convicts.

He had spent the last two years in Guantánamo's most relaxed camp, sleeping at night in a bunkhouse with four other captives and by day praying and dining with at least a dozen at a time.

The Pentagon's Chief Defense Counsel, Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, said Khadr's coming harsh conditions are "outweighed by the fact that he knows he's going home.''

"There's closure here today,'' the Marine said, adding that Khadr's 40-year jury sentence "was hard for our team to swallow.''

All the jurors refused through a Pentagon spokeswoman to speak to the 19 members of the news media on the base for more than a week to report the story.

Amnesty International Canada's secretary general called the sentence the latest ``fiasco'' in the Khadr case.

"It comes as no surprise that the sentencing phase and this stunningly punitive jury decision has so starkly highlighted the injustices of this process,'' said Alex Neve, who had been a war court observer. (source)

Barry As President: To The Homeless: "Let Them Eat Cake"

A man gets on his knees next to a car carrying U.S. President Barack Obama as he pulls away from Valois restaurant in Chicago, October 31, 2010.

Christians Massacred In Iraq: The Anti-Christian Legacy Obama Leaves Behind

BAGHDAD – Iraq's dwindling Christian community was grieving and afraid on Monday after militants seized a Baghdad church during evening Mass, held the congregation hostage and triggered a raid by Iraqi security forces. The bloodbath left at least 58 people killed and 78 wounded — nearly everyone inside.

The attack, claimed by an al-Qaida-linked organization, was the deadliest ever recorded against Iraq's Christians, whose numbers have plummeted since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as the community has fled to other countries.

Outside Our Lady of Deliverance church, Raed Hadi leaned against the car carrying his cousin's coffin, waiting for the police to let him bury him on church grounds.

"It was a massacre in there and now they are cleaning it up," he said Monday morning. "We Christians don't have enough protection. ... What shall I do now? Leave and ask for asylum?"

"Now they make a show," said Jamal Jaju, who watched as Iraqi forces set up a chain link fence around the church and pushed back observers. "What can I say? I lost at least 20 friends in there."

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the assault as "ferocious" and called for renewed international efforts to broker peace in the region.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also condemned the siege, saying it was an attempt to drive more Christians out of the country.

Islamic militants have systematically attacked Christians in Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. Catholics made up 2.89 percent of Iraq's population in 1980; by 2008 they were merely 0.89 percent.

Sunday's bloodbath began at dusk, when a car bomb went off in the area and then militants wearing suicide vests and armed with grenades attacked the Iraqi stock exchange.

The car bombing and the attack on the stock exchange, in which only two guards were injured, may have been an attempt by the militants to divert attention from their real target — the nearby church in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood.

That attack soon followed. The gunmen went inside the church and took about 120 Christians hostage.

At least 58 people were killed, including 12 policemen as well as five bystanders thought to have been killed by the car bombing and blasts outside the church before the attackers stormed inside. Forty-one Christians inside the church also died, including two priests.

It was unclear whether most hostages died before or during the rescue.

An Iraqi official who was on the scene as the hostage drama unfolded said he talked on a cell phone with one of the hostages during the siege. He said the hostage described how insurgents began shooting wildly when they went into the church and said he could see about 40 wounded people lying around him on the floor.

The Iraqi official said he then spoke on the phone to one of the militants. During the four-minute conversation, the militant demanded that Iraqi authorities release its al-Qaida prisoners and stressed that all female prisoners should be released immediately. The official said he judged by the militant's accent and speech that he was not Iraqi.

When Iraqi special forces joined police and other officials already on the scene, they heard gunshots and decided to enter the church "to prevent the further loss of innocent lives," said Lt. Col. Terry L. Conder, a spokesman for U.S. special forces.

When the Iraqis stormed the building, the militants were shooting at the hostages, the Iraqi official said.

According to two security officials, most of the deaths took place in the basement where a gunman killed about 30 hostages when Iraqi forces began to storm the building. One official said the gunman set off an explosives vest he was wearing, but the other said the gunman threw two grenades at his hostages.

The security officials and the other Iraqi official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

Video footage from an American drone showed a black plume of smoke pouring out of the church followed by flashes before security forces charged inside. U.S. forces often supply air support to Iraqi forces conducting operations on the ground, feeding them video footage from their aircraft.

Conder said Iraqi forces rescued 70 hostages, and Baghdad military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said they arrested five suspects, some of whom were not Iraqi.

Others, however, questioned whether the raid was wise.

Younadem Kana, a Christian member of the Iraqi parliament, condemned the operation as "hasty" and "not professional."

"We have no clear picture yet whether the worshippers were killed by the security forces' bullets or by terrorists, but what we know is that most of them were killed when the security forces started to storm the church," Kana said.

About 4 1/4 hours passed between the car bombing and the end of the siege shortly after 10 p.m., said an American military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

A cryptically worded statement posted late Sunday on a militant website allegedly by the Islamic State of Iraq appeared to claim responsibility for the attack.

The group, which is linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, said it would "exterminate Iraqi Christians" if Muslim women in Egypt were not freed.

It specifically mentioned two women that extremists maintain have converted to Islam and are being held against their will in Egypt.

The two are wives of priests. Some believe they converted to Islam to leave their husbands since divorce is banned by Egypt's Coptic Church. One woman disappeared in 2004 and the other this past July.

Egypt's Christians had originally maintained they were kidnapped and staged rallies for their release. In both cases, police subsequently recovered the two women, who denied they had converted. They were then spirited away to distant monasteries.

Iraqi authorities on Monday took extra measures to protect Christian neighborhoods and churches in Mosul, Kirkuk and Baghdad. Additional police cars and checkpoints were seen near many churches, and authorities were conducting extensive searches on cars and pedestrians heading to churches.

"This is more than a tragedy," said Iraq's Human Rights minister, Wijdan Mikheil, who is a Christian. (source)

Democrat Racism: Throw The Black Man Overboard To Sink The Hispanic Man

Former President Bill Clinton tried to persuade Florida Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of his U.S. Senate race and support Gov. Charlie Crist's independent candidacy in hopes of thwarting a victory by Republican Marco Rubio.

People familiar with the matter said the former president and other top national Democrats worry a win by the charismatic Mr. Rubio, a 39-year-old Cuban-American, would make him a political phenomenon capable of boosting the GOP's chances with Hispanic voters. These people said the conversation occurred during Mr. Clinton's Florida visit on Oct. 19. Mr. Meek wavered for several days—suggesting to some that he could leave the race—but decided against it.

"They had a conversation about the fact that the prospects of him winning had passed him by and that the only way the Republican would be defeated is to jump on board with Crist," said a Florida Democrat familiar with the discussion.

The conversation was reported Thursday evening by Politico.

Meek campaign spokesman Adam Sharon said he didn't know if Mr. Clinton asked Mr. Meek to drop out of the race. "They talked, they've been talking about this race all the time," Mr. Sharon said.

But in a written statement, Meek campaign manager Abe Dyk said Mr. Meek "was never dropping out of this race, is never dropping out of this race, and will never drop out of this race."

Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna confirmed the conversation took place.

Three people familiar with the discussion said Mr. Meek came very close to dropping out. The talk with Mr. Clinton occurred after days of shuttle diplomacy by Clinton counselor Doug Band, who acted as an intermediary between the Crist and Meek camps. The people familiar with the matter said the White House, which has publicly backed Mr. Meek, was aware of the discussion but was not involved. A White House official did not respond to requests for comment late Thursday.

The news of Mr. Clinton's intervention comes as the race appears to be a two-way affair between Messrs. Rubio and Crist, with Mr. Meek dropping far behind. A Quinnipiac poll this week showed Mr. Meek backed by 15% of respondents, while 42% supported Mr. Rubio and 35% backed Mr. Crist.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused Mr. Clinton of wronging black voters in his attempts to coax Mr. Meek out of the race. Mr. Meek, a Miami congressman, is African-American. The intervention would send a "chilling signal to all voters, but especially African Americans," said Mr. Steele, who is black.

Mr. McKenna declined to comment on Mr. Steele's statement. The former president and Mr. Meek are close friends.

Mr. Crist has been trying to build a coalition of Democrats and independent voters, and some Democratic strategists have argued that Mr. Meek's base could put Mr. Crist over the top.

Other Democrats argue Mr. Meek should remain in the race because he may turn out a higher black vote—which would help Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, locked in a tight battle with GOP businessman Rick Scott.

Crist campaign spokesman Danny Kanner called the report "accurate." He said Mr. Crist was focused on "uniting common-sense Democrats, independents, and Republicans behind his campaign because he is the one candidate who can defeat" Mr. Rubio." (source)

NAACP Leader Calls Tea Party Racist But Can't Defend The Claim

How The Left Is Guilty Of Exactly What They Accuse Of Us

Typical of Hollywood elites, Rob Reiner sees things like principles and ethics as constructs to be packaged, manipulated, and focus group tested for mass consumption.

Everything is for sell, you see.

No one can have a genuine love and care for America because Rob doesn't see any reason to love America. He can act like he does, but he's not in love with America. Watch how he defines a multi-million membership of Americans who are in love with their country and want to do something to preserve it:

Now watch as we see the titular head of the Democrat Party actually sell fear and hate: