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The home stretch of Michigans governor race runs through Detroit, where voters have endured takeover and bankruptcy, and where Democrat Mark Schauer hopes to ambush the man who oversaw them, Republican incumbent Rick Snyder.

Schauer, 53, a former Battle Creek congressman, has stayed within striking distance in polls, accusing Snyder of shortchanging schools and cutting business taxes at retirees expense. Snyder, 56, counters that he put the state and its biggest city on sounder footing.

Whichever man wins, the withered auto manufacturing capital will play a central role. For Snyder, it provides evidence of a challenge tackled. For Schauer, its a well of support.

If Schauer can get over 200,000 votes in Detroit, he has a chance, said Democratic state senator Virgil Smith Jr., during a neighborhood appearance where Mayor Mike Duggan introduced Schauer to voters. The energy is there.

That sum is 38 percent of Detroits mostly Democratic registered voters, a tall turnout order in a non-presidential election. It happened twice since 2002 for Democrat Jennifer Granholm, Michigans first female governor. Now, Republicans command all of state government. Schauer says changing that situation is a matter of mobilization.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder spent almost $6 million of his own on his 2010 campaign. Close

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder spent almost $6 million of his own on his 2010 campaign.

Close

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder spent almost $6 million of his own on his 2010 campaign.

Look, were a blue state, he said at a campaign stop last week in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb. President Obama won here two years ago by nine percentage points.

Read more here:
Road to Victory Over Snyder in Michigan Runs Through Detroit

Democrat Charlie Crist is laying out a plan to govern the state, if he wins the race for governor next Tuesday. Crist says he'll focus on cutting property taxes and increasing education funding, if he beats incumbent Rick Scott.

"We need to restore education funding, to make sure our kids have good schools that can perform for them, so they can get good jobs when they are done with school. That's how you start," says Crist in a one-on-one interview with Mike Walcher of WINK News.

Crist says he would like to get the per-pupil funding, back to pre-recession levels.

Crist claims that Rick Scott forced up property taxes, and Crist says he will change those actions to lower property taxes.

The former governor says he would concentrate on small businesses in helping the economy and job growth. He says he would not follow the Rick Scott example, of trying to attract large companies to Florida with big incentive packages.

Several years ago, Charlie Crist opposed same-sex marriage. Not anymore. He says it is right that the state license same-sex marriages. "It's the right thing to do," he now believes.

Crist tells WINK News that climate change is an issue that we don't hear much about in the governor's race, and an issue that differentiates him from Gov. Scott.

"We have to get re-focused on climate change and protecting our environment....I will fight for Florida's environment, to protect it," vows Crist.

The Republican-turned Independent, turned Democrat, believes he can work with a Republican legislature if he's elected.

"I have met some of the house and senate leaders in my travels around the state, and I think we can all get along just fine," declares Crist.

Continue reading here:
Democrat Charlie Crist on how he'd Handle Top State Issues

TIME Politics 2014 Election The Surprising Struggles of Mark Udall to Win Colorado Women U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) speaks to supporters as he kicks off his 'Mark Your Ballot' bus tour on Oct. 15, 2014 in Denver. Doug PensingerGetty Images He is not the only Democrat in trouble with the one demographic Democrats bet would save them the midterms

If you live in Colorado, you might be forgiven for thinking the 2014 midterm elections are about one thing: abortion. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Monday released a new television ad hitting GOP Rep. Cory Gardner, who is challenging Sen. Mark Udall for his Colorado seat, for not being honest with women.

Cory Gardner is trying to hide that he is sponsoring a new law to make all abortions illegal, even for victims of rape or incest, says the DSCC release. The ad features OB-GYN Dr. Eliza Buyers, who slams Gardner: Cory Gardner is wrong to make abortion illegal and just as wrong not to tell the truth about it.

Udall himself has two other ads up targeting female voters. In one, another Colorado OB-GYN talks about Gardners long record of fighting to roll back womens access to health care. And a second ad calls out Gardner for personhood lies. About half the ads he has run again Gardner have highlighted what Democrats call Gardners extreme stances on womens reproductive rights.

The problem is Gardner refuses to play along. In June, he retracted his support for so-called personhood, or the belief that life begins at the moment of conception, and has since backed making contraceptionthough not all forms of itavailable over the counter.

Now, with a week to go before the election, Udall is down 2.8 percentage points in polls, according to an average of Colorado polls by Real Clear Politics. More troublingly hes down amongst female voters in at least two polls. If Udall loses women, hes lost his seat.

Udalls narrow focus helped cost him the support of the Denver Post, the states largest paper. Rather than run on his record, Udalls campaign has devoted a shocking amount of energy and money trying to convince voters that Gardner seeks to outlaw birth control despite the congressmans call for over-the-counter sales of contraceptives, the Post said in its endorsement of Gardner. Udall is trying to frighten voters rather than inspire them with a hopeful vision. His obnoxious one-issue campaign is an insult to those he seeks to convince.

And Udall isnt the only Democrat struggling to turn the focus on women into a winning strategy. In Kentucky, Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes is even with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell with women, as is Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat fending off a strong GOP challenge from Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas. Like Udall, both Grimes and Pryor have invested heavily in turning out the womens vote.

The War on Women is a playbook Democrats ran successfully in 2012, with significant assists from GOP senatorial candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock whose inopportune remarks on women and rape helped paint the party as out-of-touch on female issues. Unfortunately for Democrats, there have been no Akin and Murdoch repeats and candidates like Gardner have been much savvier in their messaging on womens issues.

A myopic focus on reproductive freedom and the War on the Women does not seem to be an effective way to mobilize and motivate women in a year when the economy and jobs are at the forefront of voters minds, and GOP candidates have not made the same kinds of mistakes that Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock did in 2012, says Jennifer Lawless, director of American Universitys Women & Politics Institute. In other words, courting the womens vote is a smart move; the way several Democrats have gone about doing it has been not so smart.

Excerpt from:
The Surprising Struggles of Mark Udall to Win Colorado Women

Liberal Democrat Party President Tim Farron has slammed Labours plans for housebuilding, pointing to their terrible record when in government.

By the time they left office the number of new homes being built had fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s and the number of families waiting for a social home nearly doubled from 1 million to 1.8 million.

Commenting, Tim Farron MP said:

Labour want us to pretend that the housing problems we face in Britain are nothing to do with them, but they totally failed to deal with the issue in office.

Under Labour, the number of affordable homes fell by 421,000. They have no right to lecture about how we solve a housing problem they did not nothing to address.

Labour didnt have the solutions in government and they dont have the solutions now. Building 200,000 houses a year is an unambitious target that does not even keep up with household demand.

The Liberal Democrats plan for 300,000 new homes a year would help clear the backlog and address Britains housing problems.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

At Liberal Democrat Conference in Glasgow, the party passed the motion Building the Affordable Homes we need. The press release from Conference is below:

Read more here:
Labour has no right to lecture about housebuilding

Kentucky Democrat Obit: Retracted
Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Is Alison Lundergan Grimes back from the dead? (Source: Bloomberg)

By: Bloomberg News

Excerpt from:
Kentucky Democrat Obit: Retracted - Video