I’m not sure I should be paying this much attention to polls with almost a year to go until the election, but given that the Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown race incorporates all the themes of contemporary politics in the 21st century, particularly the 1% vs. the 99%, it’s worth pointing out that this message is resonating [...]

If Elizabeth Warren were no threat to the established order, they wouldn’t get around to any effort to stop her ascension in the Massachusetts Senate race until much later in the cycle, if at all. But her surge over Scott Brown, and the possibility that she would have an even bigger perch from which to [...]

Today was the day that challengers in the Republican Presidential primary took out their heavy machinery on the front-runners. In two pretty devastating Web ads, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are filleted, cut down by their own past public statements. First, we have Ron Paul going after Gingrich: This one includes the TV ad Gingrich [...]

At midnight last night, organizers in Wisconsin commenced a recall against Scott Walker and three Republican state Senators, kicking off the next wave of a process that began when Walker pushed for an anti-union law that stripped most collective bargaining rights from public employees. There were over 100 events last night across the state – [...]

There are elections for statewide officers next week in Mississippi and Kentucky, though aside from the Mississippi personhood amendment that is even giving conservatives second thoughts, they offer little drama. The Louisiana gubernatorial election already completed when Bobby Jindal broke 50% in the primary. There’s also a primary for OR-01, the seat vacated by Democrat [...]

Occupy Wall Street has an ad. It’s a 30-second spot with members of the protest movement explaining their perspective, why they are in Zuccotti Park, simply and clearly. And it’s set to run on national television, thanks to a savvy crowd-funding group: LoudSauce was started founded [sic] by Christie George and Colin Mutchler as a [...]

Incredibly, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching a half-million dollar ad buy into New York City with one weekend to go until a special House election in NY-09, the seat once held by Anthony Weiner. That half a million dollars would have come in very handy next year, when Democrats make a push to take back the House, no? Instead, it’s being chewed up in the expensive New York City media market to protect a bad candidate whose district will probably get chopped up in redistricting anyway.

The money in the Wisconsin recall races is bordering on obscene, as expected, and on both sides. We Are Wisconsin, the labor coalition, has raised close to $10 million for the recalls. And on the other end of the scale, the Club for Growth has put in about $3 to $4 million, and they’re just [...]

I haven’t commented on today’s special election in CA-36, my home district, but I’m so amused by these previews from the national media that I’m compelled to respond. To get you up to speed, the race pits Janice Hahn, the establishment LA City Councilwoman and labor-backed candidate, against Craig Huey, a tea partier and direct [...]

When Stephen Colbert’s SuperPAC was granted the ability to form last week, you could be forgiven for assuming that “SuperPAC” was some term Colbert invented to show the superiority of his independent expenditure group over everyone else’s. But no, the SuperPAC is a new term of art to describe a new kind of political action [...]

The above ad against House Republican freshman Chip Cravaack represents new avenues in corporate branding, with what amounts to product placement for Chevy in a political ad. But putting aside the hit that Cravaack has a taxpayer-funded SUV, the ad from House Majority PAC against him and close to a dozen other Republicans highlight that [...]