2010 Elections

Before Shooting, A Campaign Season Rife With Gun Rhetoric

Rachel Slajda | January 11, 2011, 8:30AM

Sarah Palin's controversial map.

The person who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), a federal judge and 18 other people Saturday may or may not have had a coherent political philosophy or a rational motive. But his actions still come after a campaign season rife with gun imagery and borderline violent rhetoric.

There is, of course, Sarah Palin's map in which targeted districts were marked by crosshairs (spun as "surveyor's symbols" by Palin aides), but there was much, much more over the 2010 campaign:

Target Practice
Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event in October. The event was at a gun range, and Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz's initials written next to it. He later said it was a "mistake."

Wasserman Schulz, who defeated Lowry, remembered that incident on Hardball Monday evening.

"Those kinds of actions, words and statements can lead people who are unbalanced to potentially engage and carry out that violence," she said. "It's out of line and we've got to dial it back."

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Sal Russo

Tea Party Express PAC Keeps Funneling Money To GOP Consulting Firm

Ryan J. Reilly and Melissa Jeltsen | December 21, 2010, 8:15AM

Sal Russo

For the Tea Party Express, old habits die hard. TPE's PAC, Our Country Deserves Better, continued through the election cycle with its track record of raising money in support of grass-roots tea party candidates and then funneling those donations to the Republican consulting firm that founded it, recent filings show.

In a month-long period surrounding the midterm elections, a whopping 73 percent of funds raised -- totaling $599,377 -- was paid out to Russo Marsh and Associates, the Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm that essentially founded the PAC in 2008, for miscellaneous costs including travel, consulting fees and media buys.

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Harry Reid

Angle Files Voter Intimidation Complaint With DOJ Over Reid E-Mails

Ryan J. Reilly | November 2, 2010, 10:19PM

In the final hours of Election Day, a lawyer for GOP Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle filed a complaint with the Justice Department alleging voter intimidation took place on behalf of the campaign of her opponent Sen. Harry Reid (D), Politico reports.

The complaint relates to an e-mail exchange between an unnamed Reid campaign staffer and the casino chain Harrah's, which was reported in a story published by the National Review. The National Review reported that the e-mails showed that "Executives at the casino giant Harrah's pushed company employees to vote early in an all-out effort to help the Harry Reid campaign."

Angle lawyer Cleta Mitchell -- co-chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association --said the e-mails showed "union intimidation tactics." Reid's campaign countered that the e-mails don't show anything against the law and mentioned that the conservative blogger who wrote the story told Fox News that she didn't think "anything either illegal or unethical was done here."

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NV-SEN

NV Secretary Of State: GOP Voter Fraud Complaint Unfounded

Rachel Slajda | November 1, 2010, 10:37AM

NV-SEN candidates Sharron Angle (R) and Harry Reid (D)

The Nevada secretary of state has declared that complaints made by Nevada Republicans alleging voter fraud are without merit.

Last Friday, Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, released a 20-page report responding to several complaints filed by a lawyer for the Nevada GOP Victory Committee. The complaints alleged that one- or two-ballot discrepancies in the number of early voters recorded and the number of ballots cast should be investigated for signs of voter fraud.

Miller checked out several of the complaints and ruled that they were simple clerical errors.

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voter fraud

Sharron Angle's PAC Fueled Anti-'Voter Fraud' Group

Ryan J. Reilly | October 28, 2010, 8:39AM

A voter and NV-SEN candidate Sharron Angle (R)

The Nevada Action Coalition is a conservative group that recently alleged that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was planning to benefit at the polls from illegal voter fraud.

It is also a beneficiary of Reid's opponent's largesse: a now-defunct non-profit run by Reid's Tea Party-backed opponent Sharron Angle gave nearly $100,000 to that very group in 2008, Delen Goldberg of the Las Vegas Sun reported Wednesday.

Angle's We the People Nevada PAC, which dissolved in May 2009, gave $92,000 to the Nevada Action Committee -- which has since joined other conservative groups alleging that Democrats in the state are involved with voter fraud and trying to steal the election.

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voter fraud

Angle Accuses Reid Of Bribing For Votes

Rachel Slajda | October 27, 2010, 8:44AM

Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R)

Republican Senate candidate from Nevada Sharron Angle has accused her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of committing voter fraud by offering free food to voters. And Reid's campaign has shot back, accusing Angle's "goons" of intimidating voters.

In a fundraising letter written by her campaign lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, Angle's campaign alerts voters to some "very grave news."

"Harry Reid has been offering free food and, according to other reports, some Democratic allies such as teachers' unions are offering gift cards in return for a vote for Reid," claims Mitchell, who is also the co-chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association. "Harry Reid intends to steal this election if he can't win it outright."

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Health Care Reform

Nevada Lawyer Says Health Care Reform Violates His Freedom Of Religion

Ryan J. Reilly | September 8, 2010, 9:41AM

Joel Hansen -- the Nevada conservative using some unique arguments in his suit challenging the new health care law -- told TPMMuckraker that his argument that health care reform imposed a form of slavery on the nation might not be his strongest argument, but it was a valid one.

"I think it is involuntary servitude, if they force you to buy a product," Hansen said. But, he noted, "It's not the same thing as the African-American slaves were under."

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Democratic Governors Association

Democrats Accuse Fox News Of Illegal Support To Ohio Republican Candidate

Ryan J. Reilly | September 2, 2010, 4:06PM

Former Rep. and current candidate for Governor John Kasich (R-OH)

Democrats allege in a legal filing that, by plugging an Ohio gubernatorial candidate's website in a chyron, Fox News illegally contributed to the Republican's campaign.

A seven-page complaint filed Thursday by the Democratic Governors Association with the Ohio Elections Commission accuses Fox News of making an illegal in-kind contributions to gubernatorial candidate John Kasich (R-OH), reports Sam Stein.

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Andy Schlafly

Rachel Maddow: 'The War On Brains Is Still Being Waged Every Day' (VIDEO)

Megan Carpentier | August 11, 2010, 9:39AM

Last night, Rachel Maddow picked up on TPMmuckraker's reporting that Conservapedia founder Andy Schlafly considers Einstein's Theory of Relativity -- which encompasses the famous equation E=mc² -- part of a liberal conspiracy. As she noted, Schlafly is in good company.

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Tea Party Express

Beating Reid Has Long Been Top Priority For Tea Party Express, Memo Shows

Zachary Roth | April 15, 2010, 12:14PM

Sal Russo

The defeat of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was from the outset perhaps the top priority of the Tea Party Express, according to an internal memo obtained by Politico. The group's focus on unseating the Democratic Senate leader appears to bolster the charge that its priorities dovetail more closely with those of the Republican party than with the more independent Tea Party movement.

The memo (pdf) was written in April 2009 by Joe Wierzbicki of Russo, Marsh -- the California Republican consulting firm, run by veteran consultant Sal Russo, that created the PAC that runs Tea Party Express. As Politico reported, Wierzbicki proposed launching the Tea Party Express as a bus tour across the country, arguing that it would "give a boost to our PAC and position us as a growing force/leading force as the 2010 elections come into focus."

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