Orange to Blue roundup, 9/27/2012

Do we have any plans for a very special edition of Hell to Pay this weekend? Why, yes, we do! Prepare yourself for "Extra Special Penis-Shrinking Edition" tomorrow and Saturday, all intended to benefit the kick-ass women on Orange to Blue.

In the meantime, here's a brief look at what's new in the Orange to Blue races.

Speaker Pelosi Project:

Special note: Rep. Donna Edwards will be joining us for a live G+ Hangout tomorrow at 3:15 ET to talk all things Congress, and particularly, how we're going to get the gavel back to Nancy Pelosi. Mark your calendars!

CA-07: GOP Rep. Dan Lungren is getting some well-deserved press for condemning Todd Akin on "forcible rape." Lungren's problem? He co-sponsored the original bill redefining rape. Oops. Making Lungren's bad day worse: AFSCME is in with an $800,000 ad buy against him. Things are looking better and better for Democrat Ami Bera. You can see their ad here.

FL-18 The DK Elections crew points out that Rep. Allen West has finally released some internal polling showing him up 52-41 over challenger Patrick Murphy, but it has some issues.

One big problem, though (which the Murphy campaign was quick to point out): The survey also has Romney up 51-44 over Obama, in a district Obama won 51-48 last time out. Given that most statewide polling has show the president improving his standing considerably, and doing at least as well as he did in 2008, it's hard to believe that Obama would be headed backwards in the 18th District.

FL-26: In the ongoing saga of Joe Garcia's fake primary opponent, the Rep. David Rivera creation Justin Lamar Sternad, this is just fun.

PA-08: Oh, the things Republicans will say to tea partiers when they think no one else is listening. Here's Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, going almost further than Mitt Romney went on the 47 percent.

"And one of the principles is that we need to support people who have a history and know what it is like to sign the front of a paycheck, not the back of a paycheck, the front of a paycheck also includes you took a risk and you build a business on your own without the federal government standing next to you as you're signing a personal guarantee it's just you and your wife and your banker, you know that's it. Taking that kind of a risk."

Hmmmm ... Fitzpatrick probably has direct deposit for the taxpayer-funded checks he gets every month, so maybe he's forgotten that he's one of those people signing on the back side. Democrat Kathy Boockvar can keep reminding him.

Upgrade the Senate:

NM-Sen: Call him the new GOP patron saint of lost causes; Sen. John McCain is stumping for Heather Wilson in her increasingly hopeless bid against Democrat Martin Heinrich to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Bingaman.

WI-Sen: Down in the polls, Republican Tommy Thompson is going to take a page from Scott Brown, and get nasty against Democrat Tammy Baldwin.

'We're going to define her, and people are going to see she's further to left than Nancy Pelosi,' said Lisa Booth, Thompson's communications director who was brought on after his August primary win.

The Baldwin campaign isn't panicking. As they point out, they've already withstood $6 million worth of negative ads against her. If in the face of that she's still surging in the polls, Thompson's going to have to look for another solution to his losing problem.

Daily Kos for Marriage Equality:

Maryland and Maine: Harry Potter to the rescue? Great story on how Harry Potter fans are uniting for good.

It's been five years since J.K. Rowling released the last installment of the Harry Potter series (today, she launched her first book for adults). And yet the Harry Potter fandom lives on'perhaps most prominently through a network of fans of the wily wizard calledThe Harry Potter Alliance. [...]

And a recent fundraiser called "Equality for the Win," whose funds will partly go to fighting for gay marriage rights in Maryland and Maine, raised more than $95,000.

Minnesota: Vikings punter and writer of legendary open letters to bigots has a challenge for any Minnesota politician opposed to marriage equality.
If any MN politician would like to logically debate the same-sex marriage issue (ala The Federalist Papers), please feel free to contact me.
' @ChrisWarcraft via Echofon We'll keep you posted on whether he gets any takers.