"If Democrats aren’t safe here, they aren’t safe anywhere"

While few have said so publicly, there is widespread recognition that a Brown victory in one of the most Democratic of states will go a long way for all Republican candidates, offering the clearest signal yet that voters are rejecting the ambitious Democratic agenda…

In South Texas, Republican House challenger Quico Canseco is converting his campaign offices into a phone bank for Brown. As of Thursday morning, Canseco’s campaign said the Saturday and Sunday call times had been filled, and that the campaign expected the Monday and Tuesday slots to be filled soon as well. Volunteers will use phone numbers from a list supplied by Brown’s campaign…

New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio is going one step further: He is privately urging his biggest donors to cut campaign checks to Brown, and on Tuesday Lazio announced that he himself had donated $1,000 to the Massachusetts Republican. Lazio is also asking his supporters to campaign in Massachusetts this weekend…

“You don’t have to wait another 10 months to tell Washington that its job-killing agenda will take us in the wrong direction,” wrote Portman. “Right now, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown is taking our fight to voters in Massachusetts … — much to the shock of Washington’s establishment — [and he] has a real chance to win the seat formerly held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.”