SSP Daily Digest: 3/22 (Morning Edition)

  • CT-Sen: Mike Slanker, former political director of the NRSC when John Ensign ran the organization, has been caught up in connection with the investigation of his former boss’s attempts to steer lobbying work to his mistress’s husband. Slanker is currently running Linda McMahon’s media operations as a consultant, but the campaign is mum on whether he’ll stay involved with them.
  • NV-Sen: Republicans are trying to nuke the nascent candidacy of Tea Partier Jon Ashjian. Apparently, Ashjian was still a registered Republican when he filed as the Tea Party candidate, which may run afoul of Nevada election laws.
  • MN-Gov: State Sen. Tom Bakk, who represents the northeastern part of Minnesota known as the Iron Range, has dropped out of the gubernatorial race, citing what he felt were his slim chances.
  • CA-19: SurveyUSA, an uncharacteristically quiet pollster this cycle, is offering up a poll of the Republican and Democratic primaries for the open seat of retiring GOP Rep. George Radanovich. For the Republicans, state Sen. Jeff Denham leads the way with 26%, followed closely by ex-Fresno mayor Jim Patterson with 25%. Ex-Rep. “Dirty” Dick Pombo lags behind at 13%, while Fresno city councilor Larry Westerlund gets 7%. For the Democrats, real estate consultant John Estrada leads physician/attorney Loraine Goodwin by 24-14, with retired thespian Les Marsden clocking in at 8%. (JL)
  • CA-20: I really can’t believe we missed this one. Term-limited GOP state Sen. Roy Ashburn had been considering a run against Dem Rep. Jim Costa as recently as December, and it looked like he could have posed a pretty serious challenge. In January, however, he did an abrupt about-face and said he was taking a break from public life. Perhaps it was a portent. A few weeks ago, Ashburn, who had long cultivated an anti-gay voting record, was arrested for drunk driving after leaving a gay nightclub. He subsequently admitted on a radio show that he is gay.
  • GA-09: Nathan Deal previously said that he’d wait until March 31 to resign from the House, but he only waited about 31 minutes after HCR passed to say sayonara. (JL)
  • IN-03, IN-Sen: Hah, check out this multidimensional episode of wingnut-on-wingnut violence. GOP Rep. Mark Souder is already on the air with negative radio ads against his opponent, wealthy car dealership owner Bob Thomas. Souder is dousing some haterade on Thomas, who until very recently was an Indianapolis-area resident, for his shallow roots in the district. Thomas, for his part, is blasting Souder for his hypocrisy, citing his endorsement of beltway lobbyist Dan Coats in the state’s Senate race. (JL)
  • MA-10: Who gets hurt by this move? Taking a page from the playbook of Tim Cahill, lobbyist and former four-term state Rep. Maryanne Lewis has “unenrolled” from the Democratic Party in an apparent step to run for the seat of retiring Dem Rep. Bill Delahunt as an independent. State Democrats are on the record as saying that a Lewis candidacy would hurt Republicans more than Democrats, given Lewis’ more conservative record in the state legislature. (JL)
  • MI-07: Republicans have found yet another specimen itching to take on frosh Dem Rep. Mark Schauer. Potterville city councilman Mike Stahly has thrown his hat into the race, where he’ll face ex-Rep. Tim Walberg and Rooney clan member Brian Rooney in the GOP primary. Stahly, who is unemployed in his spare time, says that he’ll be “the only candidate in the nation” to refuse donations from outside the district. Sounds like a winner! (JL)
  • ND-AL: North Dakota Republicans have opted to endorse state Rep. Rick Berg over North Dakota Public Service Commission Kevin Cramer as their standard bearer against Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy. Cramer now says that he’s “95 percent sure” that he’ll run for re-election to the PSC now that Congress isn’t an option. (JL) As it happens, Berg’s campaign manager resigned last week for abusing a state party email list and then lying about it.
  • NY-20: David Harper, who recently resigned as an assistant district attorney in Saratoga County, has dropped out of the race for the Republican nod to take on Rep. Scott Murphy this fall. Harper endorsed his opponent, retired Army Col. Chris Gibson, who pretty much seems to be the GOP frontrunner now. None of these guys have filed any FEC reports yet.
  • NY-24: Well that was monumentally stupid. Despite the risks of being branded as a John Kerry-esque flip-flopper, of losing the Working Families Party line, and of earning himself a union-backed primary challenge, dumb-as-rocks Rep. Mike Arcuri voted “no” on healthcare reform anyway. Even before the vote, labor was busy looking for someone to take Arcuri on in the primary, and they’re already talking to epidemiologist and professor Les Roberts, who briefly ran for this seat in 2006 (when it was open) before deferring to Arcuri. Roberts sounds pretty interested. Some other possible names (my own speculation) would include Cortland Mayor Bruce Tytler and Utica attorney Leon Koziol, both of whom also ran in 2006 before bowing out to avoid a contested primary.
  • PA-12: More good news for Mark Critz – Cambria County Controller Ed Cernic Jr. has decided to drop out of the Democratic primary for the late John Murtha’s seat, citing party unity as a pressing concern. Critz will now face Navy veteran Ryan Bucchianeri and attorney Ron Mackell, Jr. as his only competitors in the Democratic primary. (JL)

    • 21 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 3/22 (Morning Edition)”

    1. We went to the local Portland Gay Men’s Chorus (PGMC) concert yesterday, the theme was “ABBA/Queen”. Lots of fun. It included a costume contest, with a few prominent judges – including

      former Gov Barbara Roberts (known as the state version of Grace, as in Will & Grace)

      Mayor Sam Adams

      and to me, most interestingly,

      Gov candidate Bill Bradbury

      Which made me think, OK, I’m voting for him in the D Primary.

      My next thought was “Where’s Kitzhaber?” I asked someone, and he said Kitzhaber wasn’t at any of the other PGMC ABBA/Queen concerts. It was just a quick chat in a noisy intermission area, so I may have heard wrong.

      I was a bit turned off during intermission by Bradbury riding a Segway from his seat, but then saw him leaning on a walking stick later, so I thought “d’oh” he probably really needs the Segeway.

    3. Having two Iron Rangers in the race just simply doesn’t work.  Our state legislative districts is one senate seat and then it broken down A and B for two state house seats.  So you’ve got pretty much three state legislators representing the main Iron Range parts and two of them ran.  (The other is in line to be speaker as majority leader, but I’ve read chatter.)

      The other, rep Rukavina, will probably get all of Bakk’s delegates, but that’ll still put him like 3-4th in line for the cutting block when you eliminate lowest vote getters per round.

      If it had just been one from the get-go, and with Rep. Walz out of the way, one of them could have really been the Greater MN candidate, which is 40% of the population, but they make up a lot smaller of the delegate portion beyond that due to the cities being the delegate centers due to the DFL being based there.  Although Im sure the Iron Range is better in drop-off due to them being the second most solid DFL stronghold in the state (St. Louis County is a big boon to MN’s overall margin every election cycle.)

    5. Rumor on Peach Pundit is that Gov. Perdue will call the special election on April 27. So far only one Democrat has announced, Mike Freeman from Oakwood, and with several Republicans running he stand sa great chance to make it to the run-off. Although this is tough district it will be interesting to judge what will happen to GOP enthusiasm now that HCR has passed. This is the only special election where a Democrat will be playing offense and not defense and I think it's a great opportunity to show we can contest every district in the country.

      *Full disclosure: I just took on a position with the Freeman campaign. 

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