Justin Lamar Sternad (D), whose failed congressional campaign became the subject of a federal grand-jury investigation, has told the FBI that Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) was secretly behind his run for office, the Miami Herald reports.
Sternad’s account to federal authorities supports what two campaign vendors said, that the congressman was the driver behind a botched attempt to plant a candidate in the district’s congressional primary.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds 54% of Americans have unfavorable views of Mitt Romney’s comments — caught on film at a fundraiser — regarding the “47 percent” of people who pay not federal income taxes and simply would not vote for him. Just 32% saw them favorable.
In addtiion, 61% of all Americans “express negative views of how Romney is running his campaign. That number is up significantly from July — the near-certain result of the much-publicized comments by Romney.”
Meanwhile, Nate Silver says President Obama’s odds of winning the election, according to his forecast model, have increased by 7% — 80% chance of winning the Electoral College from 73% — since the hidden camera video of Romney making his comments came out.
A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds 72% of Americans think President Obama’s health care law will go fully into effect with some changes, ranging from minor to major alterations.
Just 12% say they expect the Affordable Care Act to be repealed completely.
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A new Bloomberg News poll finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney among likely voters by six points, 49% to 43%.
Key findings: 48% to 39% give Obama an advantage for his economic plan over Romney’s even though 60% say the nation is on the wrong track.
Virginia Republican Party officials ordered their Mecklenburg
County affiliate to remove photos portraying President Obama “as a witch
doctor, a caveman and a thug from its Facebook page,” the Washington Post reports.
But chairman Wally Hudson refused: “If that group is that sensitive, I’m sorry, they’re just not human. It’s not American. If they’ve got a problem with it, we’re not going to change what we do.”
A video has surfaced showing Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson (R) telling a Tea Party group back in June…”who better than me, who’s already finished one of the entitlement programs, to come up with programs to do away with Medicaid and Medicare?”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “There was some national media on hand at Todd Akin’s news conference Tuesday, apparently there in the belief that he might announce a last-second withdrawal from the U.S. Senate race on today’s withdrawal deadline.”
“But anyone who’s watched Akin in the six weeks since his ‘legitimate rape‘ comments made him a household name knew that wasn’t going to happen.”
SaavySugar pulls out the wealthiest politicians from the Forbes 400 list.
“He attacks the 47 percent of the American people who he says pay no federal taxes. And he attacks, he, Romney? Attacking someone on taxes? I mean, Woah! That’s like me attacking someone for being passionate in politics.”
— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by ABC News, commenting on Mitt Romney’s remarks which were caught on hidden camera video.
Charlie Cook: “Leading Democratic and Republican pollsters and strategists privately say that the Obama lead is around 4 or 5 points and is neither widening nor narrowing. The convention bounces have dissipated, but Romney’s negatives remain quite high and are not diminishing. In the Gallup three-week super-samples–almost 10,000 interviews–the percentage of Democrats saying that they will definitely vote has moved up to the point that it is now virtually tied with Republicans.”
The Obama campaign launched a second TV ad slamming Mitt Romney over his “47%” hidden camera video remarks, NBC News reports.
The ad will run in eight states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia. The first TV ad seizing using the hidden camera video — released yesterday — was aimed to just Ohio.
Dick Morris told Sean Hannity that, “barring any debate debacle,” Mitt Romney will win the presidential election by “4 or 5 points” and will win Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said he didn’t plan to write a book about his “first-hand experience of the financial crisis, the aftermath, and the politics of Washington” but joked that, “A lot of people are telling my story,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
“The comment came the same day former FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair’s memoir, Bull by the Horns, was released. Ms. Bair and Mr. Geithner spent years at war with each other over what to do during the financial crisis, and her book reveals many of their battles in detail.”
Mitt Romney political director Rich Beeson told BuzzFeed the campaign’s internal polls are telling a different story than the public polls.
Said Beeson: “The public polls are what the public polls are. I kind of hope the Obama campaign is basing their campaign decisions on the public polls… I have great faith in our data.”
He added, “We are, by any stretch, inside the margin of error in Ohio.”
Police investigating the weekend break-in at Rep. Michael Grimm’s (R-NY) campaign office tell the New York Times that “experts had examined the campaign’s computer systems and concluded that nothing had been erased or tampered with” and that “there was no evidence that an intruder had been in the office.”
“At this point, there is no indication that it was anything other than an act of vandalism.”
However, Grimm told the Staten Island Advance that the incident was nothing less than an “attack on free elections.”
Update: The AP reports police now say a teenager has admitted to the vandalism.
Greg Sargent: “Mitt Romney might still win this election, but he’s now stuck in a trap that will be difficult to escape. Americans are rejecting his argument that they should view their choice mostly as a referendum on Obama’s economic performance, because they blame the sluggish recovery on the magnitude of the mess Obama inherited from George W. Bush, and believe things will get better in Obama’s second term. That is putting pressure on Romney to be more specific about why his alternative, such as it is, would spark a faster recovery than is occurring under Obama.”
“But Romney can’t be too much more specific about that alternative, because it risks reminding voters of the degree to which his policies resemble those of the aforementioned George W. Bush, under whom the meltdown happened in the first place.”
Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) staffers chanted Indian “war whoops” and made “tomahawk chops” during a campaign rally for the senator this week, WCVB-TV reports.
A video shows Brown staffers holding campaign signs “chanting and making tomahawk chops, presumably in reference to Elizabeth Warren’s claims of Cherokee heritage.”
Here are the latest polls from the battleground states, updated as needed through the day:
Florida: Obama 51%, Romney 47% (Washington Post)
Nevada: Obama 52%, Romney 43% (PPP/LCV)
Nevada: Obama 46%, Romney 46% (Bolger)
Ohio: Obama 52%, Romney 44% (Washington Post)
Ohio: Obama 45%, Romney 44% (Gravis)
Pennsylvania: Obama 48%, Romney 40% (Mercyhurst University
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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