WISCONSIN
There is a story of a man who was elected Senator from Wisconsin in 1946 after beating a name synonomous with the term “Progressivism” — the third generation Bob Follette.  Follette was beaten, in a Republican Year that brought into the Congress a whole slew of right wing Republicans – one of whom would survive for a quarter century by re-creating his identity several times (Nixon) and others be washed out by at the latest the Democratic landslide of 1958.  Follette picked his fight in the Republican Party, despite Democratic entreaties.   The Conservative “Stalwart” wing of the Republican party kept alive through the long duration of Follette, and were chomping at the bit to finally defeat the Follettes once and for all, and found their candidate in a man who had eyed combat duty in the War as a pre-requisite for a political future, and whose Combat Duty became more and more impressive every time he spoke of it.  (Shades of Mark Kirk in Illinois, shades of Hillary Clinton’s Bosnian Snipers, to a lesser extent shades of Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut.)
Joseph McCarthy entered the Senate considered something of a moderate, based off of the company of the Republican Class whom with he entered.  Not in his character, and besides, the financial interests that backed him was a whos who of wealthy reactionaries — Robert Welch , for instance.

You know it’s true:

BP and several other big European companies are funding the midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites who deny the existence of global warming or oppose Barack Obama’s energy agenda, the Guardian has learned.

An analysis of campaign finance by Climate Action Network Europe (Cane) found nearly 80% of campaign donations from a number of major European firms were directed towards senators who blocked action on climate change. These included incumbents who have been embraced by the Tea Party such as Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, and the notorious climate change denier James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.

The report, released tomorrow, used information on the Open Secrets.org database to track what it called a co-ordinated attempt by some of Europe’s biggest polluters to influence the US midterms. It said: “The European companies are funding almost exclusively Senate candidates who have been outspoken in their opposition to comprehensive climate policy in the US and candidates who actively deny the scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is caused by people.”

Ron Johnson is, theoretically, self-financed.  But with the roving this:
The anonymously financed conservative groups that have played such a crucial role this campaign year are starting a carefully coordinated final push to deliver control of Congress to Republicans, shifting money among some 80 House races they are monitoring day by day.

To guage some conservative talk radio hosts, the great shot against Feingold is McCain Feingold, which by now has been shot to Hell.
DeMint is an interesting figure here.  He once said that he’d rather be in a sub-40 minority with solid Conservatives than a majority with moderates.  The strategy he espouses, as much as anything else, is putting Feingold on the defensive, as it has floated the required vote total up to the 60 mark.  Consider his proper misgivings about voting on the Health Care Reform measure, which came to the wire of “Either this or nothing”, and bound him to Obama and the Democratic Party.

KENTUCKY.
One more thought on the paranoid Alex Jones “all hands on deck against the NWO” view on behalf of Rand Paul’s “Aqua Buddha”:

Imagine if such an incident came out about, say for instance, Bush or Kerry involving Skull and Bones (or Bohemian Grove for that matter).  One college secret society and its antics show the degneracy of the Establishment, the other not so much — its “victims”‘s words suspect, and its mission one of tweaking at the Establishment.

Alaska:  Joe Miller went and did it.  He pulled a Christine O’Donnell. 
The reason Alaskans will pass over some prior past misdeeds is because they’ll “get to understand that, hey, they’re electing somebody like them”.
Also, Ben Stein endorses Lisa Murkowski and blasts Joe Miller.
You know, Scott McAdams is actually on the ballot and more likely to get his name counted.
But I guess anti-Miller Republicans in the heavily Republican state need somewhere to go.  Better write her name in — gives a second chance to defeat a crank.

Oregon.  The Weekly Standard talks up Doug Huffman.
No word on the “What’s the Matter with Maryland” question.  Why aren’t all of the Democratic races everywhere up for grabs?
About the governor’s race… and the ads back and forth are characteristically hilarious in their dual schizophrenia… I think Kitzhaber is coming up to a victory based off a simple premise — Oregonian voters have taken stock of Chris Dudley, and can’t find an answer to the simple, basic question of “Huh?”

Arizona.  Look at the Nate Silver 538 chart for the Governor’s race.  See if you can spot where Jan Brewer amped up her campaigning on Illegal Immigration.

Colorado.  That’s swell of Ken Buck.  I’m sure the mother of the gay teen welcomes this clarificaction.
Nevada.  Thanks for the clarification, Sharron Angle.
“I think that you’re misinterpreting those commercials,” she said. “I’m not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence, and there are people coming across that fence.” Her point was that the men could in fact be Asian, because dark is dark. No word yet on how the Asian voters of Nevada feel about being depicted as coyotes, but we’re staying tuned.

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