• PA-Sen: Seems like Joe Sestak cleared his Senate run with his family, as now he only has to run it by the Almighty: “It would take an act of God for me to not get in now,” he said on Saturday. Meanwhile, the state’s political establishment, led by Ed Rendell, feted Arlen Specter at the state party’s quarterly meeting on Friday (with Sestak in attendance).
• FL-Sen: From sitting Senator to punchline in a few short years: Bob Smith’s announcement that he’s running for Senate again seemed to generate mostly just shrugs and giggles. Of course, part of the problem is that he’s running in Florida instead of New Hampshire, where he looks to be barely a blip on the radar screen in the titanic Crist/Rubio faceoff. This may benefit Charlie Crist a bit by shaving off some of the die-hard conservative vote from Marco Rubio, but Smith in his announcement didn’t even seem to have any ammunition to use against Rubio, saying only that he offers “strong political leadership” in contrast to Rubio’s “wheeling and dealing.” Meanwhile, Crist got hammered in a St. Petersburg Times editorial for his role in gutting Florida’s growth management act, which damages his environmental credentials for the general.
• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand snagged two more endorsements from her former colleagues in New York’s House delegation: Nydia Velazquez and Ed Towns. Rep. Carolyn Maloney continues to staff up for a potential challenge, though, and words comes that she’s looking to hire Joe Trippi as strategist, and Mark Penn’s polling firm (now there’s an odd combination).
• IN-Sen: Indiana Republicans have located a challenger for Evan Bayh: 32-year-old state Senator Marlin Stutzman. While Stutzman probably doesn’t have Bayh shaking in his boots, it seems like a way for him to grow his statewide profile for future endeavors.
• CA-Gov: Another California governor’s poll bubbled up last week, from Probolsky Research for Capitol Weekly. They look only at the primary fields: former Governor Jerry Brown continues to lead the field at 24, while SF mayor Gavin Newsom is at 16 and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is at 15. On the GOP side, “undecided” is running away with it, with 64%. Among the human candidates, here’s a surprise: moderate ex-Rep. Tom Campbell leads at 13, leading the two more-highly-touted and richer candidates, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman (10) and Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner (8).
• IA-03: Rep. Leonard Boswell may face a rematch with the guy he barely beat in the 1996 open seat race to take office: former state GOP chair Michael Mahaffey. IA-03 is a very different configuration now, though; it used to be a mostly rural district then, but now is centered on Des Moines (although Boswell still manages to find ways to get elected by narrow margins).
• TX-23: Rep. Ciro Rodriguez may face a primary challenge in 2010, from lawyer and Iraq vet Miguel Ortiz. Rodriguez and Ortiz are both from San Antonio, so Ortiz doesn’t have the advantage of a geographical hook.
• FL-AG: State Senator (and former U.S. Senate candidate) Dan Gelber confirmed that he’s running for Attorney General (against friend and fellow Senator Dave Aronberg). Gelber had also been considered for Lt. Gov., seemingly leaving Dems back at square one to fill that slot.
• FL-16: Speaking of Aronberg, with him out, St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft seems to be DCCC’s person of interest to take on freshman Rep. Tom Rooney. They’ve also talked to Craft’s fellow Commissioner, Doug Coward.
• VA-Legislature: Here’s another interesting look at our best chances of taking control of the Virginia House of Delegates in 2009, this time from our own diaries courtesy of Johnny Longtorso.
Trippi is a big get. Ask President Dean and President Edwards.
State Senator David Adelman (D-West-Central DeKalb County, including the DeKalb portions of Atlanta and Decatur) is heavily rumored to be a candidate for a U.S. Attorney spot. Should he get the job, one of the rumored replacements is Jimmy Carter’s grandson Jason Carter.
http://blogs.ajc.com/political…
The GOP has already done a wonderful job turning Florida into an ugly slab of concrete, and one that’s had a piss-poor job market for ages despite the promises of economic growth. This would be a powerful issue if the voters knew more about it. Meek needs to run with it. Any Floridians know if he’s having any luck continuing to raise money?
Trippi and Penn working together? That’s up there with pigs flying and hell freezing over, right? If that happens, I think the netroots might just collapse in a ball of confusion.
Still, any movement by Maloney is good news for the DavidNYC for Congress movement. Should someone be registering DraftDavidNYC.com?
Chuckles aside, how is it that he’d draw more “die-hard conservative votes” from Rubio? I thought he was from the moderate-ish wing of the party… did he reconstruct himself while no one was paying attention?
Read it and weep.
Methinks the two conservative Latino Dems from New York City might have been feeling the pressure within their caucus on the gay marriage issue and decided to bail.
if the two newest members of the House from Florida are Reps. Courage and Coward.
even though Poizner is currently in office.
Campbell versus Brown would be great for California, since the other choices are so weak, but for Dem-only swing staters, Campbell should be feared because of the six people mentioned, he is head and shoulders the best candidate.
I can’t imagine voting for either of the lame-o mayors over Campbell.
There was a story in the LA Times this weekend noting the irony of how Moonbeam Brown was the “normal” Democrat compared to the mayors.
We need a wingnut to enter on the Republican side, because the moderate vote will be split between the existing candidates. Any Democrat would beat a wingnut, even the Larry, Moe and Curly Joe we got running.