From Politico:

After the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a recent email urging supporters to sign a petition backing the wave of Occupy Wall Street protests, phones at the party committee started ringing.

Banking executives personally called the offices of DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and DCCC Finance Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) last week demanding answers, three financial services lobbyists told POLITICO.

“They were livid,” said one Democratic lobbyist with banking clients.

(more…)

From the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) home page:

Protestors [sic] are assembling in New York and around the country to let billionaires, big oil and big bankers know that we’re not going to let the richest 1% force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial programs on Main Street Americans.

Out-of-touch Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor said he is “increasingly concerned by the growing mobs.” Mobs? That must be what Republicans refer to as the middle class, or maybe the millions of unemployed Americans across the country.

As Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “The message of the American people is that no longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street…”

Send a message straight to Eric Cantor, Speaker Boehner, and the rest of reckless Republican leadership in Congress: (more…)

From The Hill:

Polling leading up to the race indicated Obama was dragging down the Democratic candidate. Democratic pollster Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling said that a Turner win would be “largely due to the incredible unpopularity of Barack Obama dragging his party down in the district” after PPP’s polling found Obama with just 31 percent approval in a district he won with 55 percent of the vote in 2008.

A Democratic strategist said Obama has become such a problem for down-ticket Democrats that he was wary of encouraging candidates to run next year. “I’m warning my clients — ‘Don’t run in 2012.’ I don’t want to see good candidates lose by 12 to 15 points because of the president,” said the strategist.

(more…)

Republican Bob Turner holds a 6-point lead over Democrat rival David Weprin, 50-44, in the race to replace Anthony Weiner in New York’s 9th congressional district, as the campaign heads into its final days ahead of the special election on Tuesday, September 13.

The lead is significant, outside the poll’s 3-point margin of error, and suggests that Turner heads into Tuesday’s contest as the slim favorite.

Turner has surged 12 points in the past several weeks to overtake his rival, amidst a flurry of endorsements from Democrats, including former New York City mayor Ed Koch. President Barack Obama’s poor treatment of Israel and his failing economic policies are key factors in the race.

The poll follows news of Democratic disarray, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee scrapped an expensive television ad showing a corporate jet flying low over New York City, just a few days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Follow BigGovernment.com for continuing coverage…

Tea Party groups in New Jersey are outraged over ads that have mysteriously surfaced in support of a supposed Tea Party candidate.  The sponsored ads on Google are being served up all over the web, in places like BlogTalkRadio, in support of one Peter DeStefano, and direct viewers to the website of njteapartycoalition.org.

The problem is, the NJ Tea Party Coalition, the owners of that website, did not purchase any such ads.

“I find this ad extremely troubling,” Brian Baldwin of the NJ Tea Party Coalition told local press. “We did not authorize this nor are we supporting Mr. DeStefano.”

What’s worse is that the group – and every Tea Party group in NJ that I’ve communicated with – has been denouncing DeStefano as a “fake” Tea Party candidate for months now.  They’ve all been complaining about this to the appropriate authorities for some time now.  After seeing these latest ads, Tea Party leaders in NJ are urging their members and other like-minded leaders to contact the local election officials and the Secretary of States’ office to look into DeStefano’s candidacy.

After hounding the press about their suspicions, some in the media had taken notice of the Tea Party’s claims in NJ.  And they agreed.

(more…)

It wouldn’t be an election without an October surprise, and sure enough, the 2010 cycle will not disappoint.  This time, it’s not some 11th hour accusation about unpaid taxes, illegal nannies or secret love affairs, but an appearance from the Mad Hatter of pollsters whose crazy talk in the final days of the election is making black sound like white and and Nancy Pelosi sound…sane. Well, almost.

Who is the Mad Hatter of the 2010 elections?  Friends, follow me on a trip down the rabbit hole…

Dave Schweikert (AZ 5), who I met while in AZ in August and really like, has been ahead consistently by six to eight points against Rep. Harry Mitchell through the first of September.

So I became quite concerned when two polls in October showed him down by seven!  A 15 point swing in 30 days!

This is particular bizarre since Arizona is ground zero for voter angst this cycle.  My uncle, a retired professor of labor law, has never voted for a Republican in his life.  This summer, he started a blog against Harry Mitchell.  And it is nasty.

What moved him to do so?  His daughter (my cousin) narrowly avoided two rounds of layoffs from a major pharma company, each accompanied by a letter citing “recent changes in health care policy.” His premiums have gone up 15%.  Both his kids are under water on their houses.

Polls are moved by news. What could be happening in Arizona to turn Schweikert’s race around and make people like my uncle abandon his blog and let bygones be bygones?

(more…)

Last week on the PBS NewsHour, Judy Woodruff asked Nancy Pelosi if the GOP would take back the house.  Pelosi replied “We take it one district at a time.”

“Will the Republicans take back the House?” is perhaps the most frequently asked question in Washington, and is usually followed up with “By how much?”  Regardless of what you think about Speaker Pelosi, the lady didn’t get to be Speaker of the House by not being able to count votes. So lets have a look “…one district at a time.”

Republican challengers and open seat candidates lead in at least 51 House districts currently held by Democrats, according to public polling.

Following Nancy’s methodology, if the election were held on October 9 instead of November 2, the GOP would gain back the majority with 230 seats, assuming all tied races and races where Dems cling to a narrow lead break against the Republicans. Note that 17 more seats are within the margin of error of a standard poll.

Thanks, Nancy, for the vote of confidence.

(more…)

Last Wednesday, I announced on Big Government the launch of a new initiative that would enable taxpayers to directly propose federal spending cuts on the House floor. Today, over a quarter-million Americans will get to see whether their representatives in Congress share their specific fiscal priorities.

For those who hunger to hold their elected officials accountable for perpetuating a culture of reckless runaway spending in Washington, meet YouCut.

This first-of-its-kind interactive initiative empowers taxpayers with direct democracy at a time when their faith in Congress’ fiscal prudence has reached its lowest. YouCut allows the public to vote each week on one of five wasteful spending items that they would like to strip from the federal budget. Once the votes are tallied, Republicans force a vote on whether or not to take up and debate the cut on the House floor.

During the first week, a plurality of voters – over 81,000! – chose to axe a recently created $2.5 billion annual welfare program that undercuts cost-saving welfare reforms made in the mid 1990’s.  Within 5 days of the experiment, 280,000 Americans have cast a vote either online or by text message.  At several points, more than 5,000 votes were being cast per hour, with less than one percent of votes originating from inside the beltway.

The overwhelming response speaks to the extreme levels of frustration that you feel toward a Congress that refuses to listen to you.  Over the last decade, taxpayers have grown weary of the incessant federal spending binges – no matter which party has been in power. They now look across the Atlantic with horror as Europe collapses under the weight of its own debt. Fear that America will go down the same road has only amplified calls for spending restraint.

Through YouCut, concerned citizens are cracking through the wall of resistance put up by big spenders in Washington to create a new culture of savings. This poses a threat to several in Congress who are invested heavily in preserving the status quo – hence the Democratic National Committee’s vigorous effort to discredit the program.  Worse, rather than listening to the hundreds of thousands of Americans, Tim Kaine (Chairman of the DNC) and Chris Van Hollen (Chairman of the DCCC) chose to mock the opinions of those who voted.  Not listening – a common theme for Democrats.

(more…)