• KY-Sen: It wouldn’t occur to me to assign great meaning to Jim Bunning’s decision to skip attending the Kentucky Derby this year, but apparently that’s a big deal, as there’s lots of behind-the-scenes elbows-rubbing with potential donors. It’s one more clue in the retirement puzzle, in view of GOP SoS Trey Grayson’s formation of an exploratory committee, supposedly with Bunning’s blessing, and the likelihood that Grayson’s emergence will further dry up Bunning’s fundraising.
• FL-Sen: With Gov. Charlie Crist poised to make a decision on whether or not to run for Senate upon the end of the Florida legislative session Friday, former state House speaker Marco Rubio has kept turning up the heat on him, suggesting that he’s running in the primary with or without Crist. Regarding Crist’s support for the stimulus package, said Rubio: “If you agree with Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe on some of these issues, you might as well become a Democrat.”
• LA-Sen: David Vitter posts some mediocre numbers in a new poll from Southern Media & Opinion Research. He gets an approval rating of 58%, but only 30% say they would definitely vote to re-elect him (with 28% saying definitely not and 35% open to an alternative). Most ominously, only 35% of white voters said they would definitely vote to re-elect. In related news, potential primary challenger Stormy Daniels is embarking on a “listening tour” of Louisiana. I got nothing here; make up your own lascivious pun.
• OH-17: Turns out that Gov. Ted Strickland talked the 36-year-old Rep. Tim Ryan out of jumping out of a promising House career and into the #2 slot on his ticket. (Strickland said that when he does announce his Lt. Gov., it’ll be a “huge surprise.”)
• Redistricting: Dave’s Redistricting blog is about to release a new feature that should keep SSP’s many redistricting fans awake into the wee hours: a free and allegedly easy-to-use Flash-based online redistricting tool. It sounds like it’s only based on Census population data and not precinct-level voting data, but even that would be a huge help for tinkerers like us. Keep your eyes peeled for the tool’s launch some time this week.
to crowdsource the precinct level data. His could turn into a very powerful tool in the next couple of years.
Maybe he’s trying to talk Brunner out of the Senate primary and into being his running mate (based solely on Q1 fundraising, the former is looking like an increasingly fruitless row to hoe)?
I hadn’t realized that Stormy Daniels is a Republican running in the Repub primary.
I guess I assumed that she’d be running as an independent, or something.
Vitter might be vulnerable to a serious candidate. Vitter Still Beatable. His polling is rather mediocre, plus I would think that most from Louisiana (with the hurricane season approaching) wouldn’t be pleased that he’s pulling this stunt:
Louisiana senator blocks nominee to lead FEMA.
(BTW, you didn’t call him “Diaper Dave”. Is SSP going soft?)
In my opinion, having a sex scandal is “get out”; having a sex scandal alongside a cancer-suffering wife is “get out and stay out”; involving said scandal in campaign finance is “get out and stay out, and don’t come back”.
Granted, I’m aware that the last allegation has not been proven yet.
From Specter’s appearance on Face the Nation.
That’s an odd quote coming from a guy who stayed a republican for nearly 30 years. I agree that more should be done to fight cancer, but that quote kind of steps over the line.