Picking Winners and Losers

Stu Rothenberg looks at NRCC expenditures in various Congressional districts and finds that most of the money was well spent. He disagrees with the decision to spend money on defending Sali, Souder, Schmidt, Kuhl, Musgrave, and Bachmann.

While damaged GOP incumbents such as Sali, Schmidt and Souder continue to drain the NRCC’s cash in solid Republican districts, strong GOP open-seat candidates such as Darren White (New Mexico’s 1st), Erik Paulsen (Minnesota’s 3rd), Leonard Lance (New Jersey’s 7th), Chris Lee (New York’s 26th) and Steve Stivers (Ohio’s 15th) are fighting for their political lives.

Beware of the Dark People

An ad by the NRCC digitally alters photographs of an Indian-American candidate running for Minnesota's third district to make him look darker.

A Republican attack ad invites viewers to "meet the real Ashwin Madia," but the still photos featured in the spot present a noticeably darker version of the 3rd District DFL congressional candidate.

"At least three of the photos of Madia were obviously darkened, using one method or another," public affairs and media consultant Dean Alger told KARE 11.

H/T: Josh Marshall

Great Reads

Washington Post has an interesting article on Ashwin Madia, the Democrat running for the open seat in Minnesota's 3rd CD.

...But while that disparity in credentials may normally favor Paulsen, it is helping Madia in a climate in which voters appear to be hungry for something, anything, different.

"Here's a guy who has no government experience," University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs said of Madia. "He literally points to being involved in university student government."

Rolling Stone is back with an article on "GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots."

On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.