• FL-Sen: Another sign that the wheels are falling off the Marco Rubio bus: he’s cutting back on senior staff. His campaign manager, Brian Seitchik, will be off the payroll next week, and his fundraiser, Ann Herberger, is also gone. About the changes, Rubio said, “This is not a purge or anything, quite the contrary.” In other words, they’re probably out of money.
• NH-Sen: Ovide Lamontagne picked up a key backer, as the conservative base continues to look for an alternative to the may-be-a-RINO Kelly Ayotte. Former State Rep. Maureen Mooney, who was John McCain’s liaision to NH conservatives during the 2008 primary campaign, has said she’s backing Lamontagne, saying he’s a “principled and experienced conservative.”
• SC-Sen, SC-01: Interesting rumblings out of the Palmetto State: now that Jim DeMint has turned himself into Public Enemy #1 in the last few weeks, all of a sudden people sound interested in challenging him. State Senator Brad Hutto was in Washington meeting with the DSCC about the race; Hutto has been looking for a chance to move up, starting with the 2010 governor’s race, but deferred to friend and state Sen. Vincent Shaheen on that one. Attorney Ashley Cooper (a former Fritz Hollings aide) is reportedly also interested in taking on DeMint, or also in running in the 1st, where Rep. Henry Brown barely won last year.
• NC-Gov: Civitas, a local Republican pollster, stops to gawk at the Bev Perdue trainwreck, finding that her approval is at 30/44 and that right now only 26% would vote to re-elect her. They also look all the way ahead to 2012 and find that Republican Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory would win a rematch, 46-32.
• MN-06: Independence Party 2008 candidate Bob Anderson, whose 10% of the vote may have tipped the balance to Rep. Michele Bachmann last year, says that he may make another run in 2010. (Don’t forget that while Elwyn Tinklenberg received the IP’s endorsment in 2008, Minnesota doesn’t allow fusion voting with candidates running on multiple ballot lines, so Anderson went ahead and ran in the primary, winning it and getting the IP nod for the general. Our best hope here may be for Minnesota to follow Oregon’s recent lead and legalize fusion voting.)
• NY-23: In the 23rd, with Darrel Aubertine out (and New York Senate fans heaving a sigh of relief), the Dems still seem to be casting about for a replacement. Yesterday evening was the extended deadline for receiving applications, and some of the remaining serious contenders still haven’t applied. Dan French, a lawyer and former Daniel Moynihan aide, and former NY-23 candidate Robert Johnson seemed to have not been planning to run (but contingent on Aubertine running), and said yesterday that they were interested but would have to have the requisite talk with their families first. (So do the Dems extend the deadline again? That remains to be seen.) 2008 candidate Michael Oot has already submitted his application, though. Another name for the Conservative Party nom has surfaced: “locally famous” conservative activist Jon Alvarez, who is currently serving in Iraq.
What exactly did Bev Perdue do that is resulting in her getting all these low approval ratings.
I’m disappointed in how Rubio seems to be doing. Seems like the far right is ambiguous about whether to go all in here. The more they sit on their hands, the more likely it will seem Rubio cannot win, which just encourages them to stay out. It’s a downward spiral right now for Rubio. He needs to latch onto some issue to stir things up. Maybe he could go wingnut on immigration? I’d think the national anti-immigrant crowd would embrace a Hispanic spokesman on the issue to give them cover for any racism charges.
I suspect former SC Dem Party Chair Joe Erwin’s announcement that he would not seek the seat had more influence on Hutto’s decision to run than DeMint’s latest antics did. (Though DeMint’s worried response to the new DNC ads in SC helped show would-be challengers that he’s not invincible.)
I hope Ashley Cooper also considers getting in the race. With Robert Barber, state Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, and Col. Robert Burton all eying the SC-01 seat, the Dem race is likely to be crowded. Cooper might have more impact in the US Senate race.
When is Carolyn Maloney going to marry Ralph Nader?
Seems like kind of a no-lose proposition, at least for progressive interests. We keep hold of the NY Senate now, hopefully the dissatisfaction with Dede (not even trying) means the Dem, whoever it may be, has a leg up anyway, and even if not, Dede’s probably a vote for at least half of our agenda.
According to this snippet from Hotline, Dan French already submitted his application:
http://hotlineoncall.nationalj…
Jon Corzine picks State Sen. Loretta Weinberg as his Lt. Gov.
What do we know about her? Is this a smart pick? At first glance, it obviously sounds much better than that guy from the Apprentice.
Looks like Alexi Giannoulias will get an easy primary since Dan Hynes is running for governor. The only possible known candidates are Cheryle Jackson and Chris Kennedy who wont be that much of a challenge. This will make it easier for Giannoulias to beat Kirk in the general. I would love to see Mark Kirk finally loose an election after barely getting elected to his first term in 2000 and having trouble getting re-elected in 2006 and 2008. If Kirk was a true moderate he would have voted for Obama’s stimulus and would be supporting the health care bill. In fact the cap and trade is the only time I have even heard of Kirk going against the republicans.