Pat Toomey
Can The Senate Stop The Iraqi Jewish Archive From Being Returned To Iraq?
A bipartisan group of senators is advocating for the archive to stay in the United States.
Republican Jewish Coalition Spends $500K on Pennsylvania Senate Race
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending $500,000 in Pennsylvania to protect the state’s incumbent senator, Pat Toomey. Matt Brooks, the RJC director, told JTA on Monday that the ad campaign targeting Toomey’s challenger, Katie McGinty, had topped $500,000, twice what a political action committee affiliated with J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East…
Bagels & Ballots: Frozen Chosen Edition
Finding Jewish Candidates Where You’d Least Expect Them: Forward Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman takes us beyond the usual suspects New York in Florida and into … well, other places where Jews are running for office. Hint: think “beyond the lower 48.” (MitzVote)
Bagels & Ballots: Counting the Days
Counting on Labor: Two candidates included in our Races to Watch are the subjects of negative union-backed ad campaigns: Pat Toomey for Pennsylvania senate, and Mark Kirk for Illinois senate, Republicans both. In Pennsylvania, the union will announce $2 million in campaign efforts, including a push for voter turnout for Democrat Joe Sestak. In Illinois, a union PAC is running an ad against Kirk. (YouTube via Politico’s Morning Score
Bagels and Ballots – Monday
Glass Half Full: With the election 29 days away, Democrats are gaining hope as polls make them out to be more competitive than they seemed over the summer. Or at least talking heads are saying so: As Axelrod said last week in Google/Politico’s election preview, “You’re going to see Democrats winning in places that you didn’t expect them to win…. I think we are going to win some races that you guys perhaps don’t think we’re going to win.” Strategists still expect Republican gains, but say their projected impact has diminished. This change in tone comes just as the Democratic National Committee posts record fundraising stats in this election cycle: $16 million in September. (Politico)
J Street Gets Taken to The Woodshed
Is the discovery of George Soros’ donations to J Street beginning to take its political toll?
Bagel and Ballots -- Monday
-The Jewish Wife Gambit: Gov. Charlie Crist, the independent in the three-way race for Florida’s senate seat, is gunning for the Jewish vote. In front of a crowd of 600 mostly Jewish retirees, he called his wife, Carole, a “nice Jewish girl who grew up on Long Island.” (Sun-Sentinel)
Bagels and Ballots- Friday
-Philanthropist and liberal activist George Soros has been funding J Street, the Washington Times has revealed. Though J Street’s executive director, Jeremy Ben Ami, has denied any donations to the dovish group by Soros in the past, tax records reveal that Soros and his two children have contributed a total $245,000 to J Street from a Manhattan address in New York from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009.
Sestak (Catholic) Offers Obama (Protestant) A Jewish Embrace
Joe Sestak, the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat, wasn’t President Obama’s first choice for the job. The White House and Democratic leadership backed Arlen Specter for another term, in appreciation of his decision last year to cross party lines and join the Democratic side. But things didn’t work out that way. Sestak went on to win the Democratic nomination, and now he’s facing a tough race against Republican, Tea Party-endorsed Pat Toomey.