SSP Daily Digest: 6/4

CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons needs to look like one of those allegedly-not-quite-extinct moderate New England Republicans in order to get elected in Connecticut, but he’s not doing himself any favors by appearing with Newt Gingrich at the annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner. With a large Puerto Rican population in Connecticut, Simmons probably doesn’t want to be anywhere near Sonia Sotomayor’s loudest and most toxic critic. Another problem for Simmons: businessman Tom Foley, the former ambassador to Ireland, made his official entry into the GOP primary field today. Foley, unlike Simmons, has deep pockets he can self-fund with.

MN-Sen: Sources close to Norm Coleman are suggesting he won’t appeal at the federal level if he loses his case with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Republicans still publicly say they’ll try to stop any Dem efforts to seat Al Franken until Coleman has conceded or exhausted his appeals. John Cornyn has sent some mixed signals, though, saying it’s “entirely” Coleman’s decision whether to keep fighting and that he’s “amazed that Sen. Coleman’s been willing to persevere as long as he has.”

NV-Sen: Wondering why the GOP is having a hard time attracting a challenger to supposedly-vulnerable Harry Reid? Maybe it’s because of his deep levels of support among much of the state’s Republican establishment. The Reid camp released a list of 60 GOP endorsers, including, most prominently, soon-to-be-ex-First Lady (and former NV-02 candidate) Dawn Gibbons, Reno mayor Bob Cashell, and, in a move guaranteed to nail down the key 18-29 demographic, Wayne Newton.

NH-Sen: Could it be that the NRSC could actually be stuck running Ovide Lamontagne against Rep. Paul Hodes? Just the very fact that the NRSC is talking to Lamontagne (a businessman whose one claim to fame is losing the 1996 governor’s race to Jeanne Shaheen) with an apparently straight face should be a red flag that their top-tier possibilities (ex-Sen. John Sununu, ex-Rep. Charlie Bass) aren’t looking likely.

NY-Sen-B: Joe Biden reportedly had a sit-down earlier this week with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who may or may not be running in the Senate primary against Kirsten Gillibrand. Presumably the meeting would contain some of the same content as Barack Obama’s now-famous phone call to Rep. Steve Israel.

OH-Sen: If a candidate falls in the woods with no one around, does he make a sound? State Rep. Tyrone Yates has been exploring the Senate race for several months, and apparently found nothing that would help him overcome Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and SoS Jennifer Brunner, as he bowed out of the race.

NJ-Gov: Rasmussen has the first post-primary poll of the New Jersey governor’s race. Chris Christie may have gotten a bit of a brief unity bounce in the wake of his primary victory, as he’s up to a 51-38 edge over Jon Corzine now, as opposed to 47-38 last month. There’s one spot of ‘good’ news, as it were, for Corzine: his approval rating is back up to 42%.

AZ-08: Construction company executive and ex-Marine Jesse Kelly seems to be the establishment GOP’s choice to go against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2010. He announced endorsements from three House members: Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, and Frank Wolf. (Not quite clear how endorsements from Hunter and Wolf help him in Arizona, though.)

KS-01: State Senator Jim Barnett got into the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s running for Senate. Barnett may quickly become front-runner, based on his name recognition from being the 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate (where he lost the state as a whole to Kathleen Sebelius, but won the dark-red 1st). He’s up against a more conservative state Senator Tim Huelskamp, and Sam Brownback’s former chief of staff, Rob Wasinger. The primary is the whole shooting match in this R+23 district.

KY-01: After the purchase of “whitfieldforsenate.com” got people’s attention yesterday, Rep. Ed Whitfield had to tamp that down, confirming that he’s running for re-election in his R+15 House seat.

MN-06: Even if this goes nowhere, it’s great to have a GOPer doing our framing for us… attorney Chris Johnston is publicly mulling a primary challenge to (his words, on his website) “‘anti-American’ hurling, malaprop-spouting, ‘they took me out of context'” Rep. Michele Bachmann. He confirms that he and Bachmann share “strong conservative beliefs;” he just thinks the 6th would prefer someone “who thinks before they speak.”

NH-02: Attorney Ann McLane Kuster is launching an exploratory committee to run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Paul Hodes. St. Rep. John DeJoie is already in the primary field, and they may soon be joined by Katrina Swett.

NY-03: Dems are scoping out potential candidates in Long Island’s NY-03 (which fell to R+4 in the wake of 2008), thinking that even if Rep. Peter King doesn’t vacate to run for Senate he’s still vulnerable. The biggest fish would be Nassau Co. Exec Tom Suozzi, who seems to have bigger fish to fry (reportedly AG if Andrew Cuomo vacates). The next-biggest fish would Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice. Smaller fish listed include Isobel Coleman of the Council of Foreign Relations, and minor league baseball team owner Frank Boulton.

NH-Legislature: It took a rewrite of a couple sentences that Gov. John Lynch didn’t like, but after a few weeks of back-and-forth New Hampshire finally enacted gay marriage. Both chambers passed the amended bill yesterday (clearing the House 198-176) and Lynch signed it into law on the same day.

44 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 6/4”

  1. that Wayne Newton has, over the last few years, worked secretly to bring down the GOP from the inside.

    Danke Schoen, indeed, Mr. Newton.

  2. Predictions?

    Anyone want to take guesses on the final numbers? And how many third parties are on the ballot? I got Corzine winning over Cristie 47-46 with 7% going to other candidates.

    NY-03 – I may be from Galveston County, TX, but I hate fish.

  3. Is Suozzi really qualified to run for Attorney General?  Being Nassau County Executive doesn’t seem like it is relevant to what the Attorney General does.  I think someone with a background in the state legislature with experience on the judiciary committee, or as a county District Attorney, or as an assistant Attorney General, or as a US Attorney would be much better equipped to run for AG.  Suozzi’s best moves for a promotion would be to run for Governor or Lieutenant Governor (not too familiar with NY politics but I think the nominee for governor would need to appoint him for him to run for LG).  Running for Congress might seem to be a lateral move for him because it is not an executive position.  He was in this type of position as mayor and is currently an executive in his County Executive role.  A while back, I raised the same critique when discussing Sam Olens, Chairman of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners, running for Georgia Attorney General.  

  4. I’d love to see Bachmann’s response when “un-American” Republicans start calling her BS out.  Not to mention a  shootout in the 6th, coupled with a potential vacancy in the 2nd and a wide-open Governor’s race could turn Minnesota into the Wild West of 2010.  I’d be all for that – the DFL would be in a great position to put in some truly progressive folks.

  5. That race was pretty much a tossup, for Attorney General – McDonnell by a hair. I imagine Governor will be equally close between them, and if Deeds can bring together the usual NoVA base and any appeal he might have in Southern Virginia I think he has a good shot at this.

  6. Can we please not screw this up? This will be the only chance we get for a long time to pick up this district. This district is winnable but if we run the owner of a minor league baseball team then we will lose. Better possible candidates can include the mayors of the larger cities in the district and congressional aides for Schumer and Gillibrand who happen to be from Long Island.

  7. You know, it’s kind of too bad we can’t really do anything to help him win, I obviously wont be donating anything to him since he can self-fund bazillions.

  8. Simmons isn’t a moderate and doesn’t even hardly know how to act like one. He was actually way to the right of Nancy Johnson and Chris Shays depstie representing a district supposedly more Democratic than either of them. He was nearly a mainstream conservative and gave 5000 dollars in 2006 to Tom DeLay’s legal defense fund. I’m only incredulous he only barely lost. I mean what’s wrong with his district? I could never figure out how a guy like him kept winning against credibile Democratic opponents in a Democratic district.

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