Starting Lineup: Focus On Fiorina
Good Thursday morning and welcome to the Starting Lineup. On tap today: Carly Fiorina emerges from a nasty debate as a legitimate contender, Castle's dilemma in Delaware, '12 GOP contenders flock to Iowa, and another round of bad House projections for Dems.
Cali-Fiorina: Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (R) squared off against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) last night in their first debate. Fiorina, who to this point hasn't been the most impressive candidate, should be pleased with the results. She withstood a barrage of attacks from Boxer, most of which focused on her tenure at HP, and aggressively and effectively attacked Boxer on the economy -- and her record.
"She is one of the most bitterly partisan members of the U.S. Senate," Fiorina said, adding that Boxer's policies "have been devastating for our state."
In a dig at Boxer's leadership skills, Fiorina said: "[The energy] bill was taken away from her and given to John Kerry [because] he had a better chance of getting bipartisan support."
Boxer had some reason to celebrate as well: She forced Fiorina to stand by conservative positions on abortion (she's pro-life), man-made global warming (she sidestepped a question on whether it exists and whether she'd support overturning state environmental laws) and the assault weapons ban (she opposes it).
That being said, this race is looking more and more like a true toss up. That's especially true when you consider the $100M CA GOV contender Meg Whitman (R) is going to funnel into the state -- money that will boost turnout for Fiorina. Check out the debate on C-SPAN here: http://cs.pn/9PeU2H
King Of The Castle? Hold on to your horses in Delaware, it looks like we're in for a wild ride. Or at least Rep. Mike Castle is. The GOP primary in the Senate race between Castle and Christine O'Donnell -- which at first appeared to be a sleeper -- is ramping up, in large part because the Tea Party Express is getting heavily involved. Chris Good at The Atlantic has an exclusive look at the audio of TV ads the Tea Party Express is going up with.
"Mike Castle is so liberal he voted for Barack Obama's agenda nearly 60% of the time," one of the ads says. "He voted for the bailouts. He voted for the anti-business cap-and-trade. He supports in-state tuition for illegal aliens. And he even opposes repealing Obama's health care scheme. That's why the Tea Party Express and Mark Levin support commonsense conservative Christine O'Donnell for Senate."
Nothing groundbreaking there, but the Tea Party Express is reportedly planning to spend $250K on the race. Their involvement clearly has Castle worried: Hotline On Call reported on Wednesday that Castle dished out about $180K on an ad buy for before the primary.
It's hard to say what effect the Tea Party Express will have on the race. Up until this point, it looked like Castle was firmly in control. But it's hard to argue with the organization's record -- from Joe Miller in AK SEN to Sharron Angle in NV SEN. Keep in mind that if Castle loses, he'll be the eighth establishment GOP candidate to go down in the primary. http://bit.ly/9kSxT9, http://bit.ly/aVITL9
Another Bad Forecast For Dems: UVA Professor Larry Sabato is out with his latest batch of projections this morning and the news, again, is bad for Dems. Sabato has Republicans picking up 47 seats in the House, slightly more than Charlie Cook's 35-45 seats.
Dems may take solace in this: Sabato doesn't say the GOP will take the Senate. He has upped his projection in that chamber, though, from the GOP picking up 7 seats, to picking up 8. http://bit.ly/9PSn7I
What else are you watching today? The comments section awaits below.