PolitiFact: 'Full Flop' for Scott Brown
On May 23, 2011, Politifact reported:
Did Scott Brown flip-flop on supporting Paul Ryan's budget plan?
Bloomberg: Democratic Groups Pool Money Efforts to Take On Rove, Republicans in 2012
Three Democratic political groups will team up with a new organization founded by former White House aides to try to keep President Barack Obama in office and win House and Senate seats in 2012, parroting a strategy deployed successfully by Republicans last year.
Mother Jones: Inside the Democrats' Outside Money Machine
The last piece of the equation is American Bridge 21st Century, the brainchild of media guru David Brock. Brock is the founder of Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog that, in seven years, Brock has grown from a three-person shop to a $10-million-plus operation employing upwards of 90 researchers, trackers, and more. Now, Brock is looking to replicate that success in the arena of electoral politics. American Bridge will serve as a clearinghouse of opposition research and candidate tracking that will feed information to the other three independent expenditure groups for use in TV ads, mailers, or other advertisements. It won't look like your typical oppo research shop, said a Bridge official who requested anonymity to discuss early planning. Traditionally, an outside research firm would dig up everything it can find on a candidate and then hand over a thousand-page tome stuffed into a three-ring binder. Bridge officials, however, want "to make it a living, breathing operation," says the official. That could mean publishing the group's research and tracking on a standalone website, and maintaining constantly updated profiles of GOP candidates available to the public.
AP: Snowe, facing primary fight, shifts to right on votes
On May 7, 2011, the Associated Press reported:
Maine’s Olympia Snowe has long thrived as one of the Senate’s leading GOP moderates, but she has recently sided with Tea Party movement activists on high-profile votes as she braces for a primary challenge from the right. Such votes could help Snowe fend off conservatives who mock her as a RINO — Republican In Name Only — and hope to sink her bid for a fourth term next year. Snowe insisted she has been true to her moderate roots. “I am who I am,’’ Snowe said. “I haven’t changed.’’
POLITICO: The Justice Department joins suit against firm chaired by Olympia Snowe's husband
On May 6, 2011, POLITICO reported: The Department of Justice has joined a whistleblower lawsuit against an education company chaired…
Boston Globe: Brown admits he was fooled by fake pictures of bin Laden body
On May 4, 2011, the Boston Globe reported:
US Senator Scott Brown said in several televised interviews today that he had seen perhaps the most controversial and closely guarded photos in the world: those showing Osama bin Laden’s dead body. Brown, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested he had viewed them as part of an official briefing, and he argued that they were too graphic to be released to the public and could enflame terrorists. Oops. Brown later acknowledged that he had fallen victim to a hoax, apparently the same doctored images that were making the rounds on the Internet.
POLITICO: Former DNC research director to American Bridge
Shauna Daly, the respected former research director for the Democratic National Committee, and deputy research director on Senator Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, has been hired as research director and senior adviser at American Bridge 21st Century, one of a handful of new Democratic outside groups.
RELEASE: American Bridge 21st Century Hires Shauna Daly To Lead Research Efforts
WASHINGTON -- American Bridge 21st Century president Rodell Mollineau today announced the hire of Shauna Daly as Research Director and Senior Adviser. At American Bridge, Daly will build and manage the largest and most aggressive opposition research and tracking operation in American politics...
Think Progress: Rep. Rehberg, Whose Net Worth Is $31 Million, Says He’s ‘Cash Poor’ And ‘Struggling’
On April 30, 2011, ThinkProgress reported:
At a town hall earlier this week in Montana, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) began comparing the plight of every day middle class Americans like those at his town hall with his own economic circumstance. He droned on about how he’s ‘struggling’ as a small businessman. A constituent asked him what his own net worth is and he said he’s “land rich and cash poor.”
National Journal: "American Bridge signifies just how far-reaching outside groups have become."
Democrats appear eager not just to match the conservative outside-group infrastructure but to exceed it. Another part of the plan: American Bridge 21st Century, which is modeled after the watchdog group Media Matters, will serve as a sort of “war room” of opposition research, feeding its three sister organizations material that they can use in independent expenditures, while pressing traditional media outlets for coverage.