From this morning’s Jolt . . .

Frankly, That’s a Hell of a Lot of Money For Barney
Er . . . what? “Longtime Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank has given his re-election campaign $200,000 as he faces his toughest race in years. A campaign finance report filed Tuesday showed that Frank, the chairman of the powerful House Financial Services committee, lent himself the money Tuesday. Frank, a 15-term lawmaker from Newton, Mass., raised $316,644 last quarter and reported more than $1 million on hand with no debts. His campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The chairman is facing one of his toughest fights in recent memory against Republican Sean Bielat, a 35-year-old Marine veteran with degrees from Georgetown, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Republican Sen. Scott Brown won Frank’s congressional district, which President Barack Obama carried in 2008.”
At Hot Air, this news is turning even the Eeyore-like Allahpundit into a believer: “As much as I like Bielat, not until this very moment did I think this seat might really be in play. Frank isn’t a tremendously wealthy guy. What on earth are his internal polls showing him to make him cough up 200 grand?”
Sure, there have been weird little signs of Bielat having a prayer: Brown carrying the district, the internal poll showing him within 10, Frank’s partner throwing a fit and heckling Bielat in front of reporters. But as a guy who doesn’t want to raise his readers’ hopes without good reason, I kept coming back to the counterarguments: This is a D+14 district. Obama carried it by almost as wide a margin as hometown candidate John Kerry. Frank was unopposed in 2006, 2002, 1998 and 1994. His share of the vote in 2008 was tied for his second-worst since 1982 with . . . 68 percent.
Barney Frank has always been a jerk with a gargantuan sense of entitlement and ego larger than a Cape Cod Right Whale. What, his constituents are just noticing this now? I figured they had deemed his arrogance charming years ago. But maybe even the most patient district has its limits.
Our old friend David Freddoso spotlights another sign of . . . well, if not panic, certainly not business as usual from Frank: A fundraising letter that declares, “Mr. Bielat has boasted that his campaign will benefit from ‘independent’ expenditures from outside organizations. In addition to the pro-life group which has now vowed to defeat me, my opponent has the support of a Nevada PAC which backs Tea Party candidates and which plans to spend $200,000 in Massachusetts. He also has the allegiance of the Tea Party Express, which has announced that I am one of its top targets in the entire nation. I take these developments extremely seriously, not only because of the threat to my candidacy, but because of the dangers they pose to the values we share.”