Blue America's Final Stretch-- South Dakota, Maine, MI-06, CA-33

For our final push, Blue America ran independent expenditures in 4 races, two for Senate seats and two in House races. When Adelson and his slimy allies jumped into the CA-33 race with a million dollars worth of racist smear against Ted Lieu, we decided to reach likely voters with a full page ad in the L.A. Times, which we think has worked very well. Early vote returns from Democrats started spiking very sharply as soon as the ad ran. Ted Lieu is now significantly ahead of the Adelson puppet in the race. The two Senate races are both long-shots, one in South Dakota against Mike Rounds and one in Maine against Susan Collins. Both are songs running for voting age adults in those two states only. If you click on the links, you'll hear the two songs. As of yesterday, 39,886 South Dakotans have opted to listen to at least 30 seconds of the song. In Maine-- maybe because of a lingering fondness for The Beatles, 74,987 voting age adults have decided to listen to at least 30 seconds of the song. The experts are betting against both of our candidates, Rick Weiland and Shenna Bellows, each of whom has been running a valiant grassroots effort against Big Money interests.

The national parties in DC have largely ignored both races, although in South Dakota perhaps "ignoring" would have been better than the undermining that actually took place. Rick Weiland, the progressive there, has urged his fellow Democratic Senate candidates across the country to vote out Reid as leader and replace him with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or Dick Durbin. This is a letter he sent out to the other candidates running for the Senate:

Today I am contacting you to report that, while my reasons for opposing Senator Reid, and the issues in my state, may both be different than those in yours, I thought you would be interested in what has happened in my campaign since I pledged to work for new leadership in the Senate.

There are obviously a host of factors at work in any political campaign at the end. Nevertheless, it is a fact that our tracking polls have tightened dramatically since that time, and that the effort to replace Senator Reid is being seen as an important indicator of a commitment to change and of the courage to challenge the powers that be on behalf of that change rather than as a procedural move with regard to a Senator they barely know.

I wish you the very best of luck in your campaign, and I look forward, should we each be fortunate enough to succeed in our campaigns, to working with you to bring new leadership to our party, the Senate, and the country at large.

Sincerely,

Rick Weiland
Democratic candidate for United States Senate
Sioux Falls, SD

Reid, who has worked consistently to sabotage Weiland since he decided to run had his spokesperson, Adam Jentleson, shoot back immediately, "Desperation is an ugly thing, and it’s sad to see Rick Weiland ending his ill-advised campaign and brief political career by attacking fellow Democrats."

Beltway trade papers were happier to cover the spat than they were to cover Weiland's actual campaign. "Reid himself," one wrote, "always preferred Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, and he successfully pushed for retiring Sen. Tim Johnson’s son Brendan, who is a U.S. attorney, not to run last year. But Weiland got in at the encouragement of former Sen. Tom Daschle, his onetime boss. That caused Herseth Sandlin not to run. National Democrats then sat on the sidelines for more than a year, until some internal polling showed that a four-way race-- and a visa-for-cash scandal made former Republican Gov. Mike Rounds look vulnerable. But now Weiland is making Democrats regret the play. He’s attacking Reid as a tool of big money interests. 'We need to stick a thumb in the eye of the corrupt old politics that has sold out to the highest bidder,' Weiland said in a press release today," a reference to Reid. With Weiland's super-corrupt GOP opponent, Mike Rounds, joined at the hip to Mitch McConnell, South Dakota voters are seeing what real independence from the Beltway power structure looks like.

The second House race Blue America is spending money in is one of this year's real cliff-hangers. Our ad running in southwest Michigan for the MI-06 seat Fred Upton has been occupying since 1987. As of yesterday, 41,535 voting age Michiganders living in the district had chosen to watch at least 30 seconds of it. Again, the DC power-mongers-- this time DCCC chairman Steve Israel in the lead-- have actively opposed the progressive Democrat, Paul Clements. Progressive champion Alan Grayson, though, made a compelling case for Clements. Lawrence Lessig, the reformer who's MayDay PAC has put over $2 million into exposing Upton is the hero of this campaign, stepping in to do the job the DCCC should be doing. Lessig:

A month ago, Rep. Fred Upton might have thought he was cruising to another landslide re-election, and then everything changed.

On Wednesday morning, a new internal poll from challenger Paul Clements shows Upton’s lead has been narrowed to just 4 points. And Wednesday afternoon, the Cook Political Report, one of the most respected political handicappers in the nation, downgraded Upton’s chances from “solid” to “likely.”

To be sure, Upton has reason to be concerned. On October 9th, MAYDAY.US, a Super PAC fighting to fundamentally reform the way campaigns are funded, announced it would spend $1.5 million to defeat Upton and elect reformer Paul Clements. MAYDAY has since announced its commitment to spend $2.15 million in this race.

Paul Clements is running the most competitive race against Upton in a decade in a district President Obama won by 8 points in 2008 and narrowly lost in 2012, when Upton won reelection by the smallest margin of his career.

When it comes to Fred Upton, the link between the people who fund his campaigns and the way he votes in Congress is crystal clear.

Upton has taken $10 million in special interest PAC money over his career. He took $2.1 million from Big Oil and energy interests, and he voted to give away billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies. He took $1.4 million from drug and insurance companies, and voted to make seniors pay more for the prescriptions they need.

Once MAYDAY started its campaign to inform voters in Southwest Michigan, Fred Upton’s campaign went into panic mode. Upton:

• Lobbed inaccurate attacks against MAYDAY
• Hastily threw together a response ad
• Abruptly cancelled his only scheduled debate with Clements
• Dramatically escalated his campaign spending
• Possibly violated House ethics rules by reaching out to MAYDAY donors

In the last week of the campaign, Upton has bought approximately 4,000 gross ratings points in the Grand Rapids market alone-- and half of those ads are in direct response to MAYDAY’s campaign.

In the midst of the Upton campaign’s scramble, a series of unforced errors by the congressman and his staff have started a simmering scandal that threatens to boil over in the closing days of this campaign. On October 17th, Upton told the Kalamazoo Gazette he had talked to several of MAYDAY’s major donors about our campaign against him. Three days later, the Huffington Post reported Gary Andres, Upton’s top committee aide, had reached out to “spook” MAYDAY donors whose businesses are regulated by the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee that Upton chairs.

Since then, the Upton camp’s story has, shall we say, evolved. After admitting that he spoke with several donors, Upton’s campaign first called the allegations “ hogwash,” then said Upton spoke to only one MAYDAY donor, who happened to call Upton. Following the Huffington Post report, Andres first denied “making angry calls,” but later told the Herald-Palladium he sent messages to a MAYDAY donor through the donor’s lobbyist in Washington.

This Upton saga is straight out of the pages of Peter Schweizer’s book Extortion, and serves as a perfect example of how politicians legally extort money from big corporations for personal and political benefit. It may also contribute to Upton’s undoing. I’ve recently written to the House Office of Congressional Ethics requesting an investigation into the reports that Upton and his staff tried to intimidate MAYDAY’s donors and the American Democracy Legal Fund has filed a similar request.

MAYDAY decided to work to defeat Fred Upton because he is the epitome of the modern corrupt politician and because we believed voters in the 6th Congressional District of Michigan care enough about taking big money out of politics to support a reformer like Paul Clements. Our own polling has shown significant movement in Upton’s job performance and favorability ratings since our campaign began.

As we enter the final days of this campaign, it looks like MAYDAY’s work and Upton’s unforced errors may results in a surprising result on Election Day.