Florida Democrats and Jewish groups expressed outrage over U.S. Rep. Allen West’s comments yesterday likening Democrats to Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels.

“This outrageous comparison is extreme, even for Congressman Allen West,” state Rep. Mark Pafford, a West Palm Beach Democrat who is Jewish, said in a statement issued by the Florida Democratic Party on Friday. “Likening Democrats to Nazis is despicable and offensive. Floridians deserve more from their elected officials than inflamed rhetoric that has brought Washington to a stand-still and left the middle class out-to-dry.”

Politco reported the blunt-speaking West’s comments yesterday:

Tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Thursday that Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would be “very proud” of Democrats for shifting public sentiment against Republicans, and he blamed the press for helping spread their message.

“If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine,” West told reporters in the Capitol. “I think that you have, and let’s be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit in this, in enabling them to get that type of message out.”

No stranger to controversy, the freshman Republican whose district lies largely in Palm Beach County clarified that he wasn’t linking Democrats to the Nazi party and predicted the fall-out from his remarks.

Again, from Politico:

“I’m talking about propaganda, OK,” he said. “Don’t start taking my words and twisting it around. I’m talking about propaganda. And I think that’s a very important thing. When you tell me that everyone thinks that the only people on Capitol Hill are House Republicans, it’s because that’s what’s being portrayed, is that there’s nobody else up here.”

“Once again, you guys will take whatever I say and you will spin it to try to demonize me or demagogue me,” West added. “What I’m talking about is a person that was the minister of propaganda. And I’m talking about propaganda. So please. I’ll be prepared to wake up tomorrow and you guys make up some crazy story. Whatever.”

The Anti-Defamation League called West’s comments “outrageous” and demanded an apology in a letter to West Friday.

“Such outrageous Holocaust analogies have no place in our political dialogue. They are offensive, they trivialize real historical events, and they diminish the memory of the six million Jews and millions of others who perished in the Holocaust,” ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a press release.

In his letter to West, Foxman – a Holocaust survivor – wrote: “It is high time to excise analogies to Nazi and Hitler from the political vocabulary. It doesn’t serve us as Americans, and cheapens our political discourse.”

It’s not the first time West provoked Jewish groups. In his campaign last year, West accused Democratic campaign trackers of using “Gestapo-like intimidation tactics.” (Read the ADL’s first demand for an apology on that here.)

The American Jewish Committee also slammed West on Friday.

“To make a linkage between any mainstream political party in the United States and the heinous atrocities committed by the Third Reich should be simply beyond the pale, whatever political differences may arise in a heated electoral season,” AJC Executive Director David Harris said.

National Democrats launched an attack on U.S. Rep. Allen West today, blaming him for the failure of the Congressional “super committee” to reach a consensus and accusing the Plantation politician of “demanding more tax breaks for billionaires.”

Click here to listen to the robo-call.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee unleashed the robo-calls today, and the campaign also includes live telephone calls, online ads and a website for voters to fill out letters to the editor today, according to a release issued by the DCCC. The calls are supposed to start going out to voters in West’s district that includes Palm Beach County today.

Democrats have targeted West in his reelection bid. The tea party favorite is being challenged by Democrat Patrick Murphy.

Here’s the script of the robo-call:

Hi, this is Rick calling on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee calling about Congressman Allen West and Republicans forcing the Super Committee to fail.

Americans demanded a bipartisan, big, bold, and balanced plan to reduce the deficit and grow our economy – but that’s not what we got. The Super Committee failed because Republicans insisted on extending the Bush tax breaks for millionaires and refusing to include a jobs proposal – while ending the Medicare guarantee! That’s something that Democrats stand strongly against.

By rejecting a balanced approach, Republicans chose to protect the wealthiest one percent at the expense of seniors and the middle class. Now they’re even talking about raising the payroll tax.

Please call Congressman West at 561-655-1943 and tell him it’s time to focus on us.

UPDATE: Florida Republicans call the Dems new website “desperate.” This from Republican Party of Florida spokesman Brian Hughes: “With the most recent state reports showing RPOF outraised Florida Democrats by 5-to-1, it’s no surprise they are desperate to raise money. But this lame website demonstrates a level of desperation that is even worse than we thought possible. Instead of touting their anointed leaders, Barack Obama or Debbie Wasserman Schultz, they recycle ridiculous, cheap attacks. This tactic is more evidence why Floridians reject Democrats on Election Day.”

The Florida Democratic Party launched a new website today blaming Gov. Rick Scott and his fellow Republican lawmakers for the state’s dire economic straits.

The website accuses “Rickpublicans” of ethical lapses and causing teacher layoffs, among other things, and blasts Scott for “backsliding” on his campaign pledge to create 700,000 jobs over seven years as governor.

And the Dems remind viewers that Republicans have had a stranglehold on the state legisalture and governor’s mansion for more than a decade.

The site gives this definition of a “Rickpublican:”
[rick-puhb-li-kuh´n]
noun
1. Proper name for Florida Republicans wrought with greed and corruption who are hell-bent on selling out to the corporations and special interests while leaving Florida’s middle class families out-to-dry.

The Dems also use “Six Degrees of Separation” to link half a dozen GOP politicians – including Palm Beach County’s Adam Hanser and U.S. Rep. Allen West – to Scott, whose popularity among voters remains dim.

About 25 protesters calling themselves members of Occupy Palm Beach, 99 Percent or just citizens with a message, stood in the rain this morning as West spoke at a town hall at the Bethesda by the Sea Church in Palm Beach.

They chanted, “hey, hey, ho, ho, Allen West needs to go!” and rallied against “the war on the poor.”

Eddie Venero, who’s a member of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, drove up from Miami for the event.

“We’re trying to make it clear that programs like social security don’t add a penny to the deficit and shouldn’t be scapegoated for tax credits for the rich that don’t effectively create jobs,” Venero said.

Lisa Epstein, who helped organized the Occupy Lake Worth events, said West is trying to “delegitimize the movement” by saying it’s a bunch of kids who need to go to work.

“We’re not just a bunch of kids,” Epstein said. “We have a message.”

Most of the protesters this morning have been middle aged men and women, including a group of about four Hispanic protesters who chanted in Spanish about the need for jobs.

John Tracey, who said he was the event’s facilitator, said he was very pleased with the turnout.

“Even without rain this would have been a great turnout,” Tracey said. “It’s a Tuesday morning, and this isn’t a movement of unemployment people. This is a movement of taxpayers, and most of them have jobs and couldn’t be here.”

Tracey said that unlike the Tea Party protesters, “We have respect for decorum, and we are respectful when we ask questions (at the town hall). The other difference is funding. We are bottom-up, and we’re not sponsored by a media outlet.”

Tracey said there are also similarities with Tea Party movement. “When they first started it was about the bank bailouts, and we have some of the same questions we want addressed,” Tracey said.

Several drivers on the island honked in support, and one man drove by and flipped his middle finger at the protesters.

Police officers said the protest was lawful, although they wouldn’t allow a bullhorn because of a Palm Beach ordinance.

One officer told a valet driver that he was wishing for lightning to strike the protesters. The officer, who said he was eager to break up the protest, asked if there were any noise complaints.

 

U.S. Rep. Allen West has officially shut the door on a U.S. Senate run and will instead seek reelection to his current seat, West said in a statement issued today.

The outspoken West, a tea party idol from Plantation and the only Republican in the Congressional Black Caucus, recently made news when he called himself a modern-day Harriet Tubman during an interview with FoxNews’ Bill O’Reilly.

“Over the last several weeks, numerous leaders of the Florida Republican Party, including current and past elected officials, have spoken to me about the race for the United States Senate. Out of respect, I was willing to listen,” West said in the release.

“I have been given one of the highest honors to serve in the House of Representatives and I will continue to serve the citizens in that capacity. I will not seek the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in 2012. With regard to my future, the only goal I have is to do my very best to represent the constituents of the Congressional District and to restore the exceptionalism of our nation.”

Last week, West told reporters the door was open “a crack” to the possibility that he would run, saying it would be disrespectful to supporters to “slam the door in their face.”

Ft. Lauderdale businessman Patrick Murphy, a Democrat, is running against U.S. Rep. Allen West, a tea party favorite who unseated U.S. Rep. Ron Klein in November.

“I love my country. I love South Florida. I’m not going to stand by while right wing extremists like Allen West divide us,” Murphy, vice president of Coastal Environmental Services, said in a press release today announcing his candidacy for District 22, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties.

National Democrats have targeted West in next year’s elections.

“South Florida simply deserves better than what it’s now getting out of Washington. If we’re going to actually create jobs and protect families, we need representation that isn’t looking backwards,” Murphy said.

Murphy’s company specializes in disaster relief and environmental cleanup, and last year, the native Floridian spent six months in the Gulf of Mexico doing clean-up work after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. West, who lives in Plantation, supports offshore oil drilling.

The Sierra Club has pumped $800, 000 into last minute television ads for three Democratic Party Congressional campaigns around the country and one of them is the District 22 race in South Florida.

“With ‘Big Oil’ doing everything they can to try to buy back Congress, today the Sierra Club launched three new television ads in key congressional races – Michigan’s 7th District, Arizona’s 8th District, and Florida’s 22nd District,” said a press release by the environmental group.

In District 22, U.S. Rep. Ron Klein,D-BocaRaton, is locked in a tight race with GOP contender Allen West.

The ad being screened in South Florida pictures smoke spewing from British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded April 20 and was finally plugged Sept. 9, not before dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The ad also shows a pelican covered in oil and then superimposes West next to an offshore oil rig.

“For five months BP spewed oil into the gulf – polluting Florida beaches and devastating our economy,” says the narrator. “ But Allen West still supports drilling for oil off the Florida coast. And West says he ‘sees nothing about the situation in the Gulf that will change his mind’”

“No wonder West received thousands in contributions from oil companies,” continues the ad. “Ron Klein has a better way – protect our beaches and develop alternative energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Ron Klein for Congress.”

The Klein/West race is believed to be the most heavily financed Congressional contest in the nation.
(more…)

The morning after winning his Republican primary — and drawing an attack ad from incumbent U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton — Allen West releases his first 30-second TV spot, an upbeat message featuring kids saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

West campaign manager Josh Grodin says he’s still rounding up documents that will show a 2005 IRS lien against West in Indiana, the centerpiece of Klein’s ad, was a mistake that the IRS corrected.

None of that feel-good introductory stuff for U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, as he begins his general election race against Republican challenger Allen West.

With the polls barely closed from today’s primaries, the Klein campaign tonight is launching the first ad of the fall campaign — a 30-second spot slamming West for some financial issues originally reported here plus a claim that West had an $11,000 IRS lien filed against him in Marion County, Ind.

West campaign manager Josh Grodin says he’ll provide proof Wednesday that the document cited in the Klein ad is not valid.

Says Grodin: “It’s sad that Klein has chosen to play politics as usual at a time when our country needs principled leadership – especially considering the fact that he flat out lied about Allen ever having an IRS lien in Marion County. Let me say this again. Allen West, and his wife Dr. Angela M. Graham-West have never resided, nor owned property in Marion County, IN, and there was never a valid IRS lien placed upon them. Since Ron Klein approved this message, then Ron Klein owes the West family a formal public apology for this outrageous lie in his first campaign ad in 2010.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein’s campaign has launched a new YouTube channel featuring videos of Republican challenger Allen West. The Klein camp contends the videos will show the conservative West is too “radical” and “extreme” for the swing-voter sensibilities of Palm Beach-Broward congressional District 22.

West says he has nothing to hide. In fact, in the above video, taped March 8 and posted by Klein’s campaign last week, here’s what West says around the 6:15 mark:

“Now I don’t know if we got some Ron Klein supporters here that are trying to tape me or if we have some people that are going to try and bring something against me later on. If so, please come up to the front. Because I want you to clearly hear what I have to say. I am not afraid of saying it…”

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Here, by the way, is the double-platinum YouTube video of West that has helped him raise nearly $3.5 million since last October while Klein has raised just under $1.5 million during the same period.

The Federal Election Commission reports are in for the July 1-Aug. 4 money dash and Republican challenger Allen West’s $530,806 in receipts topped incumbent Democratic Rep. Ron Klein’s $142,704.

Klein spokeswoman Sarah Rothschild noted that Klein holds a “significant” advantage in cash on hand: $2.84 million to $2.25 million. But Klein’s overall money edge is getting less significant with each reporting period. Last October, Klein had nearly $2.2 million in the bank to West’s $247,416.

West continues to spend heavily. He disbursed $462,717 during the last five-week period, much of it on a direct-mail campaign.

Another interesting West number: more than half of his latest receipts — $298,969 — came from contributors giving less than $200. Those are prime prospects for West to hit up again over the next two months. Klein got $6,519 from the under-$200 crowd.

Republican congressional candidate Allen West raised more than $532,000 from July 1 to Aug. 4, his campaign manager Josh Grodin said this afternoon. That five-week figure — more than Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein during the last three-month reporting period — should keep West among the top congressional money-raisers in the nation.

Because Florida has an Aug. 24 primary, the latest round of Federal Election Commission finance reports are due by midnight tonight. Klein hasn’t filed his report yet. Klein raised an impressive $511,150 from April 1 to June 30, but West raised $1.4 million during that quarter.

From Marathon to the Battle of Tours to Gettysburg to the Battle of the Bulge, one often gets a synopsis of military history when Republican congressional hopeful Allen West speaks. Here West, aiming to knock off Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein in November, mentions Leonidas “at that gap in Thermopylae” in the 5th century B.C. offering his legendary “come-and-get-them” challenge to the Persians who demanded the Greeks’ weapons.

Later, West also mentions The Palm Beach Post editorial page’s recent endorsement of his unknown rival in the Aug. 24 Republican primary and (around the 6:15 mark) says, “I have every intention of making The Palm Beach Post pay for endorsing David Brady.”

PostOnPolitics, which is not connected to the editorial page or the paper’s endorsement decisions, asked West to elaborate. West, in an e-mail, explained that “…bottom line about PB Post paying for Brady endorsement, we are going to win. The best revenge is always success.”

UPDATED with reaction from Klein’s campaign at end…

Saying he expects U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, to try to “distort and falsify my service in Iraq,” Republican challenger Allen West this morning released a video giving his side of the 2003 incident that led him to leave the U.S. Army.

As a battalion commander, Lt. Col. West supervised the interrogation of an Iraqi police officer suspected of having information about an assassination plot against West. West fired a pistol near the man’s head to get him to talk. After a military hearing, he was fined $5,000 and allowed to retire with a full pension.

Here’s one news account of the incident from 2003.

In the video, West says his actions were intended to protect the troops under his command.

“If it’s about the safety and the lives of my men…I would go through hell with a gasoline can,” West says in the video, essentially repeating what he said at his 2003 hearing.

Klein spokeswoman Sarah Rothschild offered this response: “Congressman Klein’s campaign has never made Allen West’s service or record an issue in this campaign. It is Allen West, who apparently is raising the circumstances regarding his retirement from the military, as an issue. Congressman Klein plans on campaigning on his record of fighting for South Florida and we would assume that Allen West will run on his record.”

Facing a tough and well-financed challenge from Republican Allen West and a difficult national climate for Dems, U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, sought to put a jolt in Democratic activists Saturday.

He mentioned Sarah Palin three times, the tea party movement three times and threw in a reference to the 1994 midterm elections, when there was a second-year Democrat in the White House and voters booted Dems from control of the House and Senate.

“We cannot afford to repeat what happened in 1994,” Klein told the crowd of 1,300 at the Florida Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for all of us.”

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Check out this searchable ‘n’ sortable Washington Post table on money-raising for key congressional and Senate races around the U.S.

U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, has the most available cash to spend of any congressional candidate with $2.9 million, edging a largely self-financed Ohio car dealer and Republican, Tom Ganley, who has $2.7 million. Klein’s Republican challenger, Allen West, ranks fifth in the nation with $2.2 million cash on hand.

West’s $1.4 million raised in the second quarter was the second-highest total for any congressional candidate in the nation, trailing only the $1.7 million taken in by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Among Senate candidates, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s $8.2 million in cash on hand is the fourth-highest total in the U.S. California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is tops at $11.3 million. Republican Marco Rubio had the second-best money quarter of any Senate candidate in the nation. His $4.5 million haul was surpassed only by Boxer’s $4.6 million.

U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, reported late Monday that he raked in $511,150 in contributions between April 1 and June 30 — an impressive figure, but only about one-third of Republican challenger Allen West’s $1.4 million haul over the same period.

It was the third straight quarter in which West out-raised Klein, a two-term incumbent who’s one of the top Democratic moneymen.

Klein still holds an advantage in overall cash on hand, with $2.9 million to West’s $2.2 million. But his lead has shrunk from $1.6 million three months ago to $722,719 now.

Klein defeated West in 2008. For their 2010 rematch, West has capitalized on YouTube popularity and frequent cable TV appearances to raise nearly $3.5 million while Klein has raised about $2.4 million.

West’s campaign announced his second-quarter fund-raising total last week. Klein released his figure shortly before the midnight Federal Election Commission deadline.

BOCA RATON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein’s campaign is blasting Republican challenger Allen West for saying last year that the U.S. Department of Education should be abolished.

West’s campaign manager says the fact that two-term incumbent Klein is going on the offensive shows he’s “desperate” and doesn’t want to run on his record.

Klein’s campaign today assembled three retired teachers — two of whom are active in Palm Beach County Democratic politics, the third a former Broward County teachers union leader — and a high school student to speak out against West’s “radical policies.”

In a speech last November that’s posted on YouTube (look around the 8:35 mark), West said there are “a couple of agencies up there” in Washington “that have to go.”

(more…)

Republican Allen West’s campaign will report they collected $1.4 million during the second quarter of 2010, The Palm Beach Post has learned.

That tops the campaign’s previous best quarter, which was $838,000 during the first three months of the year.

The totals mean West has collected a total of $3.5 million for his campaign and has $2.2 million on hand.

U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, reported $2.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the first quarter. He has not yet filed his latest report.

That’s the conclusion from our friends at PolitiFact Florida:

Klein’s fundraising e-mail said: “West has raised $2 million from those that would leave our beaches in ruins, end Social Security and Medicare and give corporations free reign.” The donors the Klein campaign cited added up to about $25,000 — only a sliver of his $2 million campaign. The West campaign could cherrypick too and likely find negative headlines about some of Klein’s donors — including BP in previous election cycles. But we don’t think that we can draw conclusions about all of Klein’s donors based on his BP donations. Similarily, there is no way Klein would know the viewpoints of all of West’s donors unless he researched all of their views on these topics — an impossible endeavor. We rate this claim False.