Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: With race tightening, DSCC makes an ad buy in Connecticut

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' CT-Sen: Ruh-roh. Roll Call's Abby Livingston reports that the DSCC is coming in to Connecticut with a $320,000 ad buy to help Chris Murphy, who has found himself locked in a tossup with Republican Linda McMahon in recent polling. The sum isn't big, and it may just be a small precautionary gesture, but it could also be a sign that more outside assistance will be necessary to keep this race in the blue column. And either way, it shows that national Democrats are taking the McMahon threat seriously. (You can find the actual DSCC TV spot in our "Ads" sub-section below.)

In other news, McMahon secured the ballot line for the state's Independent Party; because Connecticut has fusion voting, voters will be able to pull the lever for McMahon either on the Republican line or the Independent line. For a polarizing figure like McMahon, that's a real bonus, because people who aren't comfortable voting for a Republican can still cast a ballot for her as a psychologically "safer" independent.

But McMahon might have over-reached on at least one front. A former C-SPAN scholar, Ilona Nickels, is furious that a McMahon mailer took remarks she made to a newspaper out of context'and when I say "out of context," I really do mean it here. In a story on Murphy's attendance at committee hearings, Nickels said:

"Every failure to attend can't be chalked up to, he's a lazy SOB. He doesn't want to do his work. He's a slacker. Members are overtaxed."

So what did McMahon's flyer say?
Nickels, in a letter to the McMahon campaign, has demanded that they "cease and desist using my words in such a blatant out of context and dishonest manner." Naturally, McMahon is trying to just brazen it out.

Meanwhile, Brian Lockhart at the Stamford Advocate did some actual reporting and learned that "experts agreed available evidence does not support" McMahon's bogus claims that Murphy "got a sweetheart deal or engaged in a quid-pro-quo arrangement with the bank" that gave him a home equity line of credit. McMahon is obviously trying to turn this non-story into a repeat of the Countrywide loan controversy that helped sink ex-Sen. Chris Dodd's political career, but there just aren't any similarities here.