• CA-Sen: The Carlyfornia Dreaming commenced today, as former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina officially announced her bid for the GOP Senate nomination. In a development that’s both DeLightful and DeLovely as the GOP barrels headlong into civil war, though, SC Sen. Jim DeMint endorsed GOP Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the GOP primary, in his ongoing quest to have a Senate caucus of 30 pure Republicans.
• DE-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, the movement/establishment split is even spilling over into Delaware, which most pundits look at as the GOP’s closest to a sure thing. Conservative activist Christine O’Donnell, who lost badly to Joe Biden last year, will stay in the GOP field with or without Castle. O’Donnell is sitting on $2K CoH, along with $24K in debts from her previous run.
• IL-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, one of Rep. Mark Kirk’s minor-league GOP primary opponents — not Patrick Hughes, but even lower down the food chain: Eric Wallace — is looking at Doug Hoffman and saying “That could be me!” Wallace is dropping out of the GOP field and planning to run as an independent — which could conceivably tip the race to Alexi Giannoulias in a close contest. Kirk, sensing trouble brewing on his right flank, is asking for help from an unlikely source (based on his attacks on her inexperience during the 2008 election). He’s asking queen teabagger Sarah Palin for her endorsement!
• NH-Sen: Also on the GOP civil war front, wealthy businessman William Binnie made official his run for the GOP nod in New Hampshire’s Senate race. Sounds like lots of Granite Staters aren’t buying GOP establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte’s smoke-and-mirrors campaign.
• OH-Sen: Finally, one item from what passes for the Democratic civil war. DSCC chair Bob Menendez all-but-endorsed Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher in Ohio, by mentioning only him in Ohio when talking about pickup prospects. Fisher faces a primary (for the time being) against underfunded SoS Jennifer Brunner.
• CT-Gov: It looks like Ned Lamont, who beat and then lost to Joe Lieberman in 2006, is going to take a whack at the Connecticut gubernatorial race. Lamont just formed an exploratory committee; he’ll face an uphill fight just to get out of the primary, though, against SoS Susan Bysiewicz.
• FL-Gov: So many Kennedys, so little time. Yet another random member of the Kennedy clan is considering a quixotic run for office; this time it’s Maria Shriver’s brother Anthony Shriver (founder of a disabilities-related nonprofit), considering a race in the Democratic gubernatorial primary (which Alex Sink already seems to have locked down).
• NY-Gov: If there’s any doubt that AG Andrew Cuomo is gearing up for a gubernatorial run next year, Cuomo will be holding a big fundraiser in Washington in several weeks, hosted by DC power couple Tony and Heather Podesta.
• CO-04: While state House minority whip Cory Gardner seemed to have impeccable conservative bona fides (running against freshman Dem Rep. Betsy Markey), there’s some new information that calls that into question: it turns out in 1998 he was an active volunteer for Democrat Susan Kirkpatrick, who ran against then-Rep. Bob Schaffer in the 4th. (He even gave the seconding nominating speech for her at the Dem convention in the 4th.) In his defense, Gardner claims he was raised a Democrat, but became a Republican convert in college — but he graduated from college in 1997. Looks like the teabaggers have one more insufficiently pure specimen to add to their hunting list.
• FL-08: The netroots love them some Alan Grayson. Nov. 2’s online moneybomb event netted the Florida rabblerouser over $500,000, from over 13,000 contributions averaging $40 each. (The GOP also has an answer site up — “mycongressmanisnuts.com,” a nice third-grade response to “congressmanwithguts.com”, as apparently “poopyhead.com” was already taken — which so far has brought in $4,000.)
• FL-19: Charlie Crist has set a special election date for the election to replace resigning Rep. Robert Wexler (although there doesn’t seem to be much drama here in this dark-blue district, as the wheels seem to be greased for state Sen. Ted Deutch). The primary will be Feb. 2, and the general will be April 6.
• KS-04: Republican state Sen. Susan Wagle was considered on the short list for the open seat being left behind by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, but yesterday she confirmed that she won’t run for it next year.
• NY-23: The gift that keeps giving. Doug Hoffman is reportedly already sounding interested, via Twitter, in running again in the 23rd. (No clue as to what ballot lines he’d seek to run on.)
• PA-19: Here’s a surprise: long-time Republican Rep. Todd Platts may be looking for an exit strategy. He’s applying to become the Comptroller General, an appointed position at the top of the government’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. Platts has been safe so far in his York-based R+12 district, but as a Main Street Republican, he’s rather out-of-whack with his red turf and may suddenly not be relishing the thought of having teabaggers using him for target practice in 2010.
• NYC-Mayor: Well, somebody at the White House is feeling defensive over the decision not to get involved in the surprisingly-close mayoral race. When Rep. Anthony Weiner (who’d considered running) asked maybe if Obama should have helped out, an anonymous leaker snarled “Maybe Anthony Weiner should have manned-up and run against Michael Bloomberg.”
• NRSC: Having gotten the message from the rabid teabagging hordes, NRSC head John Cornyn is announcing that the NRSC won’t be spending money in any Republican primaries next year. The NRSC has endorsed in four primaries so far (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania), but it’s sounding like they may not endorse in any more, either… Cornyn admits “Endorsements, frankly, are overrated. They can to some extent be a negative.” Guess who is coming to play in GOP Senate primaries, though? That’s right, the Club for Growth, who are now threatening involvement in Illinois and Connecticut, saying that the best Mark Kirk and newly-converted teabag-carrier Rob Simmons can hope for is to be “left alone.”
• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 2? All over the punditosphere today are proclamations of the NRCC head as one of yesterday’s top “losers,” as the NRCC’s special election losing streak had two more notches added to it. George Stephanopolous makes the case that Sessions actually managed to lose NY-23 twice, once with Scozzafava over the long haul, then over the weekend again with Hoffman.
I don’t know why we didn’t grab that one for Bachman.
Hoffman starting running for the regular seat, a welcome no surprise there.
Owens winning though denies us the year long spectacle of DeDe switching to Dem to face Congresscritter Hoffman. That would have been fun.
On the other hand, Hoffman getting totally pounded next year will be fun too.
small and earning their right to run for office do they? First Caroline Kennedy tries to get appointed a Senate Seat despite little to no involvement in public policy her entire life, now two more Kennedy’s looking to run against stronger Democrats in two high profile races.
The Landrieu’s at least worked their way up, starting off at the level of state representative and spending two decades each working their way up political ladders and gaining experience and credibility before running for statewide office.
I wonder if they would back Schiff or that State Senator Caliguri. I would love to see Schiff and the Paulists run third party after the primary so Dodd could have a better chance at both seats. I wonder which moderate the Club for Growth would attack given McMahon’s socially liberal views and Dem donations or Simmons due to his voting record in the House.
for that sentiment.
Weiner himself decided against running for mayor in part because he didn’t think he’d win. A little hypocritical there. Not to mention, some of the stuff Weiner’s been saying/doing on health care reform has been a play to the base in case he wants to run for mayor in four years. The WH has reason to be annoyed with Weiner.
Capitol Fax heard that Kirk is planning to swing to the right. That might be delayed now, with NY-23 collapsing, but since it’s not like the teabaggers are gonna stop, I suspect Kirk will do it eventually.
Which is just bizzare. He’s really not got much competition in the primary, and even if he did, it’ll absolutely kill him in General. This isn’t even upstate NY, you can’t run a conservative campaign here. Even toying with the idea is gonna damage you.
Why is Mongiardo still leading in the primary after his temper tantrum on tape about Gov. Steve Beshear. He can’t win and we have an absolute money bomb and strong candidate who could win if Mongiardo would just aside. This is rediculous!
If that Chocola interview isn’t a shot across Crist’s bow, I don’t what is.
If NY-23 was a warm up battle in the GOP civil war; FL-Sen should be a real doozy.
Especially with Crist’s recent approval numbers dropping to 42, his lowest ever:
Crist’s approval rating hits new low
Seeing that painted blue will make me so happy!
was apparently having second thoughts about continuing his now failed reelection campaign over the summer.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.s…
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
Think he gives a damn about NY-Sen if he does give a damn about who the Manchester, NH mayor is?
She’s a staunchly pro-life, FOX News-style conservative, and Castle’s a pro-choice, pro-stem cell, pro-gay RINO. No way does he sail through the primary unscathed.
I have the bad political junkie habit of thinking way too far ahead to races that are eons away as far as politics go. Nevertheless, with the GOP getting the Gov/LG) positions in Jersey and all three statewide offices (Gov./AG/LG) in Virginia, is anybody else worried about the potential ramifications this could have for Dem held Senate seats down the road? Beyond the damage these guys can do in their statewide positions, it hurts to give the GOP potentially viable Senate candidates down the road.
No matter what the political environment looks like in 2012, I think it is likely that the GOP will mount a credible challenge to Jim Webb, be it in the form of Bill Bolling, Ken Cuccinelli or Macaca himself.
Bob Menendez seems less vulnerable in 2012 considering NJ’s demographics and his political acumen, but Sen. Frank Lautenberg is in his mid-80’s and he was just re-elected. If his seat became vacant, Christie would certainly appoint a Republican to fill the seat until a special election.
We need a Constitutional amendment mandating special election laws for vacant Senate seats.