Huge fundraising quarter for Ashwin Madia

The numbers are coming out for the third quarter fundraising and MN-03 DFL candidate Ashwin Madia raised almost a million bucks ... $997,632. Apparently, this is the most of any House candidate in the country this quarter. In the context of this race, this is awesome news.

Ashwin has built a strong grassroots campaign to go along with some seriously fat cash. He can get the word out about himself with people knocking on doors, over the phone and on TV. His ads have been great. Simple, clear messages. His volunteers are excited and motivated.

Furthermore, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has ten times the money that the NRCC has. They've run a number of ads pointing out how wrong Erik Paulsen is on the issues. Compounding the DCCC ads, the NRCC even canceled one week's worth of their ads for Paulsen so they could run ads for bat-**** crazy Michele Bachmann. The NRCC is stretched and they aren't helping Paulsen as they'd promised. They weren't planning on having to defend Bachmann, but the economic collapse has brought the MN-06 race into play.

On top of that or possibly because of it, yet another poll is showing that Our Brave Captain is kicking butt. Republican-owned KSTP paid for a SurveyUSA poll which shows Ashwin leading 46-43%. I've pointed out that when KSTP runs a poll, the Democrat/Republican ratio is more favorable for Republicans. In this poll, 35% are Democrats and 33% are Republican. Details here, warning PDF.

Statewide the ratio is 40% D and 25% R. To give you an idea of how favorable this poll is, Obama is only leading Grandpa McSame 49-47%. Many other polls are now showing Obama with a commanding lead. Despite these favorable numbers for Paulsen, Ashwin is still winning.

I wonder what the Paulsen internal polling is looking like. It's gotta be ugly.

With the news of strong Madia fundraising, strong polling numbers, the Paulsen campaign is doing the only thing they can ... go negative. The campaign that hired the most divisive and negative blogger, the campaign that has done little except go negative ... yea them ... rolled out Jim Ramstad.

Retiring U.S. Representative Jim Ramstad is lashing out at Democrat Ashwin Madia for his verbal attacks on Madia's 3rd district opponent, Republican Erik Paulsen.

Madia and Paulson are vying to succeed Ramstad in Minnesota's 3rd district, which includes Brooklyn Park, Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Edina, Maple Grove, Plymouth and Wayzata.

Ramstad is criticizing Madia and fellow Democrats for smearing Paulsen by linking him to a Las Vegas strip club.

Ramstad says it is one of several "outrageous fabrications."
(Fox9)

Of course, neither Ramstad or Paulsen can refute the claim that Paulsen received money from a Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) who's leadership PAC held a fundraiser at a Las Vegas casino. Neither mentioned that this was a DCCC ad. I certainly haven't heard Paulsen condemning his union-busting buddies card-check lies against Ashwin. Funny how that works.

The problem for Paulsen is that he has run a virtually issue-free campaign. He steers clear of Iraq, healthcare, the economic collapse. The only way we found out his stance on Iraq was he appeared on WCCO ... and we found out that he is incoherent.

Compare him to Ashwin and ... well ... there is no comparison ... as the saying goes.