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Dems throw millions behind Clinton ally in search of House win

In a midterm cycle where the best Democrats can hope for is Republicans not taking complete control of Congress, the party has found something to lift its spirits: a race for a House seat in Colorado that could actually flip to blue in November. 
The race between incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Coffman and former Democratic state House speaker Andrew Romanoff is competitive in large part because the once-solidly Republican district was redrawn after the 2010 Census -- it's now evenly split among Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters. 
Coffman, who easily won in 2008 with more than 60 percent of the vote, now finds himself in a scramble to hold onto his seat, as an unprecedented amount of money pours in for his Democratic opponent. 
Romanoff, a well-known Colorado politician and longtime Clinton family ally, has attracted a flood of donations as Democrats see the 6th District race as perhaps their best chance of picking up a House seat this fall from Republicans. According to the latest financial filings, Romanoff had raised $3.4 million as of the end of June, with nearly $2.7 million on hand (similar to Coffman's numbers). 
The figure reportedly is more than any House challenger has raised this year. 
The circumstances have Coffman fighting for his seat, and rewriting his playbook -- as he noticeably softens his tone on immigration. 
The 2010 redistricting changed the makeup of his district from 8 percent Hispanic to 20 percent Hispanic overnight. Coffman had been seen as especially vulnerable on border issues because of his past votes against comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act. 
"His opponent is hitting him really hard on that issue," Colorado-based political analyst Abraham Morales said. "Immigration has become the issue where Romanoff hopes to set himself apart from Coffman." 
In a debate last month, Coffman explained his immigration stance as a "step-by-step" approach, with the first step being security. "We've got to secure our border and enforce our laws. But I think we also need to be compassionate in keeping families together." 
Romanoff wasted no time zeroing in on the congressman's comments. "The congressman has mentioned a step-by-step approach," he said. "That would be fine if Congress were willing to take a single step." 
Coffman is even learning to speak Spanish so he can talk directly to Hispanic voters. 
"Last week he was at a popular Latino supermarket in Aurora talking to Latino voters," said Morales, adding: "If he is able to connect [on a personal level] he may be able to get Latino voters to see him as more than just this one issue." 
As Morales points out, in a district so evenly divided in terms of party affiliation, "The Hispanic vote becomes more important than ever. It will probably win the district." 
Coffman told Fox31 KDVR that the competition and changes in the district have made him a "better congressman," but downplayed the notion that he's modified his positions. 
"It wasn't so much I had to change, it was listening to people," he said, discussing the re-drawing of the district. 
The demographics in the re-drawn district now closely mirror the state as a whole, which itself has become a battleground in presidential elections. This has drastically changed the dynamic in the district where Coffman originally took over for anti-illegal immigration firebrand Tom Tancredo in 2009. 
"You just don't survive in Colorado politics if you can't find the middle ground," Colorado pollster and political analyst Floyd Ciruli said. 
Coffman already faced a tough re-election in 2012, winning by a mere 7,000 votes. Romanoff, though, is a formidable opponent. 
In 2010, Romanoff scared the daylights out of the national Democratic establishment by offering incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet a far stiffer primary challenge than expected. In that race, Bill Clinton endorsed Romanoff over the incumbent; Romanoff had backed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential primaries. 
Bennet went on to squeak out a victory against Republican challenger Ken Buck in the general election, winning by fewer than 30,000 votes. He did so in part by portraying Buck as an anti-woman, anti-immigration extremist. 
Ciruli says Romanoff's campaign has not hesitated to adopt the same formula. "They are using the playbook of focusing on women's issues and Hispanic issues." 
The new voter breakdown -- mirroring that of the nation -- has also turned the race into somewhat of a bellwether, and national parties and political pundits everywhere are watching it closely. 
"It's a metaphor for the Republicans," Ciruli said. "If they can't win here, that says a lot about their ability to win these kinds of close competitive races in other parts of the country."

How Obama spun the press on immigration delay — and sort of got away with it

The White House engaged in some truly masterful spinning of the decision to delay action on immigration, and the press half-bought it.
President Obama, for his part, was half-candid.
The upshot was coverage that was about half as tough as it should have been.
Obama was, after all, breaking a fairly recent promise. It was a few short months ago, when immigration reform died yet again in John Boehner’s House, that the president said he would get recommendations on acting unilaterally by the end of the summer and would act without delay.
And now he’s delayed.
This was duly noted in news accounts, of course—Politico called it a “sudden reversal”—but it wasn’t rendered as a “Read My Lips” moment. Think of all the times that Mitt Romney was depicted in the press as a flip-flopper. But I didn’t see anyone use the F-word in describing what Obama did. (Yes, he says he’ll act on immigration after the election, but he still broke his word.)
The dilemma for the administration was that any mealy-mouthed explanation—we need more time to study the issue, blah blah blah—would be immediately dismissed by the press. So the strategy was to leak the decision and admit it was political--but with an unnamed source that allowed journalists to write insidery reports. Rather than contest the obvious, that this was raw politics, the message mavens abetted the natural media instinct to depict such decisions as politically driven, but with the administration’s preferred spin.
Usually these things are done with a top official whispering to journalists for a couple of key print and television outlets. But the anonymous White House official actually put out a statement, on background, so everyone could quote the spin.
So when the story was leaked Saturday, Mr. Unnamed Official was quoted everywhere as saying: “Because of the Republicans’ extreme politicization of this issue, the president believes it would be harmful to the policy itself and to the long-term prospects for comprehensive immigration reform to announce administrative action before the elections.”
Get that? It was the Republicans’ fault! And acting now would be “harmful to the policy.”
Now most reporters were savvy enough to point out that what Obama was doing was trying to protect red-state Democratic senators who could lose their seats if they had to defend a sweeping executive order on immigration. And the angry reaction of immigration advocates, who felt betrayed, also made clear that the president was in retreat.
But since journalists also had to quote Boehner and other Republicans as ripping the decision, the stories devolved into spin and counterspin—taking the focus off the president doing a 180 off the high board.
The second phase of the strategy was Obama’s “Meet the Press” interview. The president didn’t deny to Chuck Todd that politics was involved, but only went so far--and like his unnamed aide, used the word “sustainable”:
“But here's the other thing, Chuck, and I'm being honest now, about the politics of it. This problem with unaccompanied children that we saw a couple weeks ago, where you had from Central America a surge of kids who are showing up at the border, got a lot of attention. And a lot of Americans started thinking, 'We've got this immigration crisis on our hands.' And what I want to do is when I take executive action, I want to make sure that it's sustainable.”
Obama followed that with “I'm going to act because it's the right thing for the country.”
Todd, to his credit, said it still sounded like election-year politics.
Obama basically copped to needing more time to sell the executive order because public support has been undermined by the border crisis. And that is true.
But he didn’t admit the other part, that he is trying to save the likes of Mark Pryor and Mary Landrieu from losing their Senate seats and guaranteeing a GOP takeover.
Obama and his team knew they would take a hit and managed the media about as well as could be expected. The press got the gist of the story right but allowed the impact to be blunted. Now the question is whether immigration will fade as an issue in the midterms, since Obama still insists he’ll act once Election Day is safely behind him.

US efforts to track Islamic extremists reportedly hampered by disputes with Europe

Efforts by U.S. intelligence officials to track American and European-born fighters who travel to the Middle East to join Islamic extremist groups like ISIS have been complicated by different approaches to sharing information and homeland security from their European counterparts, according to a published report. 
The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. officials are struggling to ascertain the movements of suspected extremists once they enter certain European countries. The gaps are occurring despite the fact that the U.S. and several European security services have developed close intelligence links, with intelligence from both sides of the Atlantic buttressing terror watch lists kept by U.S. officials, such as the no-fly list. 
According to the Journal, a particular cause for concern among U.S. intelligence officials is a series of anti-terror proposals made last week by British Prime Minister David Cameron, most notably to revoke the passports of British nationals who have traveled to fight for ISIS. The British proposal reportedly has been greeted warily by U.S. counter-terrorism officials, who say that any move to confiscate passports could prevent people who have traveled to Syria and Iraq from speaking to authorities and providing intelligence about what is happening there. 
Apparently buttressing the U.S. officials' concerns, a report in The Times of London last week suggested that up to 30 British-born ISIS fighters have been disgusted by the militants' brutal tactics and wish to return home, but are fearful of doing so due to the punitive measures advocated by Cameron. 
Meanwhile, President Obama is scheduled to meet with congressional leaders Tuesday afternoon to discuss his plan to combat the ISIS threat. Few details of Obama's plan have been revealed ahead of a scheduled Wednesday address to the nation, though the New York Times reported Monday that the White House was in the process of planning a three-phase campaign that some Pentagon officials believe would take at least three years to fully execute. 
The U.S. has already launched close to 150 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, and The Times reported that the final phase of the campaign would call for the extension of airstrikes into Syria, where ISIS has its home base. 
The Obama administration is also bringing pressure on allies to swing firmly behind action against ISIS. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to travel to to Saudi Arabia and Jordan to meet with Mideast leaders and gauge their level of commitment to a growing worldwide coalition. The Associated Press reported that Kerry pressed a core group of 10 countries  to form a loose coalition to go after last week's NATO summit. Along with the United States, the coalition comprises the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark.
As he weighs his next move, Obama was soliciting advice Monday from prominent foreign policy experts from across the political spectrum over dinner at the White House. Among the guests invited to join Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were former national security advisers from the Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton and Carter administrations, as well as Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass and former Acting CIA Director Michael Morrell.
In a call Monday evening, Obama congratulated new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for the approval of a new government. The White House said al-Abadi "expressed his commitment to work with all communities in Iraq as well as regional and international partners to strengthen Iraq's capabilities" to fight the Islamic State militants.
Obama also spoke with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on the need to keep addressing the ongoing threat from the Islamic State and to thank Australia for its contributions to humanitarian air drops in northern Iraq, the White House said.