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Democratic Opponent Says Special Forces Colonel “Not Qualified” for Congress

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A retired Army colonel who served with the elite Special Forces — and who is now running for Congress — is being accused by his Democratic congressional opponent of being unqualified to serve in Congress.

Chris Perkins is running for the 11th congressional seat in Virginia, which encompasses the Washington, DC, suburbs and a large constituency of federal government employees. Perkins served most of his 24 years in uniform as an Army Green Beret overseas.

But incumbent Democrat Gerry Connolly recently told The Washington Post, which has endorsed his candidacy, that Perkins’ military service makes him unqualified to hold federal office because he has not been civically engaged in the 11th District.

In response, Perkins says Connolly has been bragging about his career in government.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Clings to Slim but Shrinking Leads in Virginia, Minnesota

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Obama’s Virginia Lead Shrinking

Amy Gardner and Scott Clement. President Obama is clinging to a slender four-point lead over Republican Mitt Romney in Virginia as both sides ramp up already aggressive campaigns in the crucial battleground state, according to a new Washington Post poll.

Obama outpolled Romney, 51 to 47 percent, among likely Virginia voters, although he lost the clearer 52-to-44 percent advantage he held in mid-September.

Unlike in the Washington Post-ABC News national tracking poll, Obama still has an edge when Virginia voters are asked who better understands people’s financial problems, and he has not fallen behind a surging Romney on the question of who would better handle the national economy. Nor has Obama lost significant ground among self-identified independents in Virginia, as he has nationally.

The results underscore the importance of swing states like Virginia, with its 13 electoral votes, as both campaigns seek to secure a path to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

Perhaps the poll’s most striking insight concerns the many voters the two campaigns have contacted in Virginia this fall. A staggering 44 percent of likely voters polled said they had been contacted by the Obama campaign; 41 percent said the same of Romney’s. More than one in four had heard from both campaigns. Read more from this story HERE.

And Obama is Losing Ground in Minnesota, Too

By Rachel Stassen-Berger. As the presidential race tightens across the country, a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll has found that it is narrowing here as well, with President Obama holding a 3-point lead and Republican Mitt Romney making gains in the state.

The poll shows Obama with support from 47 percent of likely voters and Romney earning backing from 44 percent — a lead within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Last month, Obama had an 8-percentage point advantage in the Minnesota Poll. Romney has apparently cut into the Democrat’s advantage among women since then and picked up support from Minnesotans who were previously undecided or said they would vote for a third-party candidate.

Independents, on the other hand, are leaning more toward Obama. Barely a third supported him last month, but that number has grown to 43 percent. Romney’s support among independents remains virtually unchanged, with 13 percent of that group remaining undecided.

In an indication of how close the race has become, both campaigns have started airing ads in the state targeting Minnesota and western Wisconsin voters. Read more from this story HERE.

Congressman’s Son Resigns From Campaign After Videoed in Vote Fraud Scheme in Battleground State (+video)

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While the State Board of Elections was investigating one case of alleged voter fraud, board members got word of another case they’d have to probe.

The son of Democratic congressman Jim Moran is resigning from his father’s campaign, according to CBS News, after a video was leaked by a conservative group which says it recorded Patrick Moran talking with an undercover volunteer about a voter-fraud scheme.

“What we’re now seeing is a video that is going to go viral,” says CBS 6 political analyst, Dr. Bob Holsworth. He watched the video and says it’s not clear if Moran was serious or just joking, but, goes on to say the release of such a video comes at a bad time. “This kind of electoral sting is going to get a lot of attention,” says Holsworth.

It’s going to get a lot of attention not just because Virginia is a battleground state, but, because of other cases centered on alleged voter fraud, Holsworth tells CBS 6.

Just last week, Colin Small, who was contracted by the Republican Party to register voters, was arrested, accused of tossing voter registration forms in a Harrisonburg dumpster. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the Project Veritas video of the Congressman’s son scheming to commit vote fraud (CAUTION: profanity):

Effort to register your pet to vote for Obama moves to Virginia; Romney complains

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign is asking Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to launch an investigation into voter-registration forms that are being sent to Virginia residents and addressed to deceased relatives, children, family pets and others ineligible to vote.

The errant mailings from the Washington-based nonprofit group Voter Participation Center have befuddled many Virginia residents, leading to hundreds of complaints.

The organization has been mass-mailing the forms — pre-populated with key information such as names and addresses — to primarily Democratic-leaning voting blocs such as young adults, unmarried women, African-Americans and Latinos.

In a letter to Cuccinelli’s office and the State Board of Elections, Kathryn Bieber, an attorney for the Romney campaign, calls for an investigation into the matter by law-enforcement officials, claiming that the mailings appear to violate “at least one and maybe several Virginia laws aimed at ensuring a fair election.”

Bieber refers to the mailings as “tactics that amount to, or at the very least induce, voter registration fraud,” and says the issue “presents a very significant risk to the proper administration of the upcoming general election.”

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Labor Battle at Center of Virginia Senate Race

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The new Boeing Dreamliner plant in North Charleston, S.C., is a few hundred miles from George Allen’s campaign headquarters in Richmond, but if Allen and the Old Dominion’s GOP have their way, the bitter battle between the airline manufacturer and the National Labor Relations Board will help determine Virginia’s next U.S. senator.

That race, expected to be among the most expensive and competitive of 2012 U.S. Senate contests, most likely will pit Allen, a former Virginia governor and senator, against Tim Kaine, who also served a term as Virginia governor and who most recently chaired the Democratic National Committee. The two are vying for the seat held by Democrat Jim Webb, who chose not to seek re-election after just one term.

Five years ago, George Allen was a popular Republican senator often talked about in conservative circles as a potential presidential candidate. His near-certain path to re-election was compromised when he referred to a 20-year-old Democratic volunteer as “a macaca” at a political rally. The volunteer, then a University of Virginia student who worked for Webb’s campaign, is of Indian ancestry, and the previously unheard-of term was widely perceived as an ethnic slur.

Allen later apologized, but he paid for the gaffe with his Senate seat. (He repented again at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference last month.) Now he is attempting a comeback based not on personality but on curbing spending, growing jobs and allowing businesses to be more competitive. Specifically the GOP candidate is invoking a specter that’s also been a feature of the presidential contest: Democrats’ close ties to Big Labor.

Allen’s campaign is seeking to capitalize on a lawsuit filed by the National Labor Relations Board against Boeing for opening new manufacturing plants in South Carolina instead of in Washington state, partly to avoid the labor trouble that has prompted recent strikes by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The machinists union sued Boeing, alleging that moving some of its manufacturing operations to a right-to-work state was a form of retaliation prohibited by federal law.

Read More at Real Clear Politics By Caitlin Huey-Burns, Real Clear Politics