“How can you be this stupid?”

— Jay Leno, in an interview with Eliot Spitzer.

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Roll Call: “After the drip-drip of campaign fundraising leaks over the past two
weeks, it’s now clear that the amount of money it took to look
impressive is staggering. Challengers and incumbents raised the bar so high that to be
considered a standout this time around, a candidate had to have raised
$2 million for a Senate campaign or more than half a million for the
House.”

Gothamist runs an anonymous piece from a staffer for Eliot Spitzer’s campaign who says he was paid $800 per day to collect signatures to get the former governor on the ballot for New York City Comptroller.

Norm Ornstein: “American history has many examples of a party going off the rails and taking a long time to recover. It was true of the Democrats in the 1890s and again in the 1960s and early ’70s. One rough rule of thumb is that a party has to lose three presidential elections in a row to make it clear that the problem is not just individual presidential candidates and their failures but something deeper, enough to motivate a party to move to expand beyond its ideological base and capture the center. But if that happens in 2016 — if Democrats make it three wins in a row — I am not sure it will be enough for the GOP.”

“That is because I see at least five Republican parties out there, with a lot of overlap, but with enough distinct differences that the task is harder than usual. There is a House party, a Senate party, and a presidential party, of course. But there is also a Southern party and a non-Southern one. The two driving forces dominating today’s GOP are the House party and the Southern one — and they will not be moved or shaped by another presidential loss. If anything, they might double down on their worldviews and strategies.”