NJ Rep get VA in state tuition for daughter at University.

[Fuzz]

Rep. Christopher Smith, a Republican who has represented central New Jersey since 1980, probably didn’t realize he was walking into a political minefield when his family requested a break on his daughter’s huge college bill.

Smith’s daughter, who until recently lived with him in the family’s Herndon, Va., home, obtained in-state tuition privileges at a prestigious Virginia university — saving the Smiths $20,000 per year off the $29,000 tuition charged to out-of-state students.

But what Smith saved in cash could end up costing him politically – Democrats says the claim to Virginia residency shows that Smith is out of touch with the New Jersey constituents he’s supposed to represent.

“What it says about Chris Smith is that after 28 years in Washington, he has a sense of entitlement, he thinks he’s entitled to things average folks aren’t entitled to and he ends up spending all of his life in Herndon, Va.,” said Steve D’Amico, spokesman for his Democratic opponent Joshua Zeitz, who is facing an incumbent who routinely wins with two-thirds of the vote.

Martin Gillespie, a Smith spokesman, said the application doesn’t violate any laws because Smith’s daughter does, in fact, live in Virginia. The in-state exemption, he added, was co-filed not by Smith but by his wife of 31 years, Marie, who works in Virginia as a non-resident and pays taxes in both Virginia and New Jersey.

Gillespie didn’t deny that the couple spends substantial time in Virginia but emphasized that their legal residence remains in New Jersey.

"Based on what is in the best interests of their children, Chris and his wife Marie made the decision in the early 80s to keep their family together in Washington while Chris is on assignment there,” Gillespie said. “Josh Zeitz has waged a uniformly dishonest and negative campaign. Zeitz is a desperate candidate—two weeks before the election—who is attempting to smear the character of Congressman Smith and his wife.”

Republicans aren’t the only ones feeling the sting. The GOP has accused Minnesota Senate hopeful Al Franken, who returned to his home state after years in Manhattan, of being a carpetbagger.

“Anything that tags someone as a Washington insider is dangerous this year,” says New York-based Democratic Sheinkopf, who likens the current climate to the kick-out-the-bums mood that resulted in Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980.

“It’s not just the perception that a politician is from Washington – it’s the perception that people in Washington are taking advantage of their power… It’s about the people in power vs. the people back home.”

North Carolina Democratic Senate hopeful Kay Hagan has sharply criticized incumbent Elizabeth Dole after a local newspaper found she had spent more time in Washington than in her Carolina home – with Senate travel records reportedly showing Dole spent less than two weeks in her home state in 2006.

Incumbent Democrat Nick Lampson and Republican challenger Peter Olson are both slamming each other as outsiders in the battle for the 22nd Congressional District outside of Houston.

Earlier this month, the Lone Star Project, a non-profit group that has clashed with the Texas GOP, filed a criminal complaint against Olson, alleging that he committed fraud by voting in a Connecticut municipal election when he was registered in Virginia.

Olson has denied the charge, which the group submitted to Fairfax County, Va., investigators.

Earlier today, the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee shot back at Lampson after RedState.com, a GOP blog, revealed that the congressman’s wife, Susan, is registered to vote at a house owned by the couple and occupied by several of the couple’s grandchildren.

“This is a campaign between Nick Lampson and Peter Olson and people shouldn’t be dragging family into it,” said Lampson spokesman Trevor Kincaid. “I don’t even know Mrs. Olson’s name, and we’re not dragging her into this campaign.”

POLL OF THE DAY. Rep. Chris Shays, the last of the New England Republicans, is deadlocked – 44 to 44 – with challenger Jim Himes in the fight for Connecticut’s Fourth District, according to a new University of Connecticut poll.

PLAY OF THE DAY. Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, a former Democrat, distancing himself from Rep Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who suggested Barack Obama holds “anti-American” views: “I would not label his views as anti-American. Clearly, folks can look at past relationships, but in the end I have a different perspective than that," he said.

AD OF THE DAY. Ben Bernanke isn’t willing to say the economy is in recession, but the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee is. In a new ad in Oregon, where GOP incumbent Gordon Smith is locked in a close race with Democrat Jeff Merkley, the NRSC is running an ad claiming: “Here’s the bottom line with no packaging. Oregon’s economy is in trouble. Huge job losses. Recession.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14771.html