Orange to Blue roundup, 10/31/2012

Here's your daily Orange to Blue race news. Not even scary today! Well, not very, anyway, though the Gary DeLong bit is a little weird ...
 

Speaker Pelosi Project:

CA-07: This is great to see:

Democratic congressional candidate Ami Bera is making women's reproductive health issues central to his closing argument in the 7th Congressional District.

With one week to go until Election Day, the Elk Grove Democrat brought in activist Sandra Fluke to speak to supporters and launched a new television spot attacking GOP Rep. Dan Lungren on abortion.

"This is an issue of an infringement on our individual liberties. They are encroaching on our individual freedoms, and that is a fight worth having," he said.

No worry about any kind of phony controversy by appearing with Fluke and no apology for being pro-choice. We need as many of these folks as we can get in Congress. Help Ami Bera get there.

CA-10: You get to have the coolest ads when you're an astronaut. Seriously, anyone but Jose Hernandez, shuttle astronaut, would just be silly putting a space launch shot in their ad. How cool would it be to have an actual scientist in the Congress? Very. This is a very tight race. Help Jose Hernandez if you can.

CA-41: Nice writeup in the Advocate for Democrat Mark Takano.

If Riverside, California educator and GSA adviser Mark Takano wins his race against Republican opponent John Tavaglione for the newly-created 41st Congressional District,  he'll become the first openly LGBT person of color elected to Congress.
'When I first ran for Congress in the 1990s, my background as an openly gay Asian was one of the focal points of the campaign, and in fact my opponent attacked me for it,' says Takano.[...]

'Times certainly have changed,' Takano said. 'And in my current race not a single voter has asked me about being gay.'

Progress. Mark Takano in Congress would mean even more.

CA-47: Craaaaazy shit here from Republican Gary DeLong.

If you thought communism was passe as a campaign issue, you haven't seen the Vietnamese-language mail hitting in the 47th Congressional District, which extends from Long Beach to Little Saigon.
Republican candidate Gary DeLong sent out a mailer in Vietnamese attacking Democratic opponent Alan Lowenthal for his 2008 authorship of a bill that would remove references to communism in the Education Code for community college employees.

As Lowenthal says, 'This is a slippery slope ' who is next on DeLong's list? Muslims? Homosexuals? Democrats." The education code is decades old, a Cold War relic that Lowenthal was attempting to update. True to form, the Republican turns it into a scare tactic, sending it only to Vietnamese American homes, figuring that it would reach families who fled communism decades ago. Help Alan Lowenthal fight this crap.

FL-18:  This was in my inbox today.

Last night Allen West's Republican primary challenger, longtime Martin County Sheriff Bob Crowder, endorsed Patrick!  Why?  Because he knows like we do that Patrick is the best person for the job, and that Allen West's hateful, divisive comments make him unable to work across the aisle to get things done.  

Sheriff Crowder said: "Patrick has the right temperament and will be a Congressman that residents of District 18 can be proud of."

Only if he gets there. Help Patrick Murphy close out this race.

MN-08: Rep. Michele Bachmann and Democrat Jim Graves debated the other night. This is easily the highlight. You really have to watch the video and the audience response to Bachmann saying: "It's insulting to say that these are political speech, because that's one thing I do not do, is political speech." Let's just say it's a very Graves-friendly audience.  Enough of the crazy. Boot Bachmann.

NH-01:  Rep. Frank Guinta has gotten the Susan B. Anthony List (the most annoyingly named anti-choice group ever) endorsement for his pledge to "vote for a no-holds barred ban on abortion with 'no exceptions.'" His opponent Carol Shea-Porter responds, via emailed statement:

'Congressman Frank Guinta's chilling position to let a woman die rather than to terminate a life threatening pregnancy is being 'honored' with an endorsement from the Susan B. Anthony group. Even the National Right to Life disagrees with Guinta's extremism. They would let women live.'

Let's put Carol Shea-Porter back into Congress. Upgrade the Senate:

CT-Sen:: Brian Williams took time out of the NBC Nightly News last night to blast Linda McMahon: "In this part of the country, those who do have TV are seeing attack ads from a woman named Linda McMahon who's running for Senate up in Connecticut'airing like nothing had changed'juxtaposed against the damage, it's just a very strange time." That's Linda McMahon for you. Don't burden the nation with her for the next six years. Help Chris Murphy.

OH-Sen: Polling, polling, polling. Quinnipiac is good: "Sen. Sherrod Brown leads State Treasurer Josh Mandel, the Republican challenger, 51 - 42 percent." University of Cincinnati a tiny bit less so: Sherrod Brown: 49, Josh Mandel: 44. And Rasmussen is, well, Rasmussen: Sherrod Brown: 50, Josh Mandel: 48. Let's keep Sherrod Brown in the Senate.

WI-Sen: Polling in this one, too. From Marquette Law School, movement in Tammy Baldwin's favor since their last poll two weeks ago (in parentheses): 47 (45), Tommy Thompson: 43 (46). Baldwin's internal pollster, Feldman basically echos that: Tammy Baldwin: 48 (47), Tommy Thompson: 44 (45). And for those of us who don't have to watch television in Wisconsin, be glad: "At least five spots rolled out on Tuesday alone. That followed three on Monday'and more are expected before the Nov. 6 election." Help Tammy Baldwin finish this one out..

Daily Kos for Marriage Equality:

Big money supporters of marriage equality, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, to name a few, have a new member: Brad Pitt. He's made a matching pledge of $100,000 to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to support their efforts towards marriage equality in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state if members donate that much. From his email message:

It's unbelievable to me that people's lives and relationships are literally being voted on in a matter of days.

In Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, voters will go to the polls to decide if gay and lesbian couples ' our friends and neighbors ' are worthy of the same protections as everyone else.

But that's the system we have and I'm not going to back down from the fight for loving and committed couples to have the ability to marry. Especially when groups like the Human Rights Campaign are fighting these battles day-in and day-out.

You can be like Brad Pitt, and who doesn't want to be?