• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio seemed to beat Charlie Crist to the punch on calling for repeal of the health care reform bill passed over the weekend, but now the allegedly-moderate Crist is getting in on the act too, saying he opposes the entire bill and supports the lawsuit by Republican AGs (including Florida’s Bill McCollum) against the package.
• KY-Sen: I really can’t decide who I’d rather have in my corner. Rand Paul has the backing of lots of crackpots with computers and open wallets, as he had another online moneybomb yesterday to the tune of $262K. Trey Grayson, on the other hand, has the backing of establishment favorite… Dick Cheney?
• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B: Earlier in the day, there were rumors that the state GOP in New York was desperately trying to get someone from the GOP field against Kirsten Gillibrand (which doesn’t have any top-tier talent, but at least has a bunch of warm bodies) to switch over to the even more unenviable task of facing off against Chuck Schumer, where they’ve got nobody. Their favored candidate for that job seemed to be former Bush spokesperson Dan Senor. Maybe that rubbed Senor the wrong way, or maybe there’s more to the story, but either way, that changed by mid-day today, as Senor suddenly said he not only wasn’t running against Schumer but not running for anything, period, saying the timing wasn’t right for him. (Well, maybe they’ll have better luck getting David Malpass to switch over.)
• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): More up-and-down numbers from Franklin & Marshall this month, as their latest look at the Senate race finds Pat Toomey beating Arlen Specter 33-29 among RVs. Last month, Specter (currently at a terrible 30/45 favorable) led by the same 33-29 margin. (Recall that for the last couple months, F&M was releasing separate numbers for RVs and LVs. They seem to have dropped that unwieldy formulation in favor of RVs only, for now.) They find Toomey beating Joe Sestak 27-19 in the general, Specter beating Sestak 32-12, and in the forgotten GOP primary, Toomey defeating pro-life activist Peg Luksik 30-4. They do only the primaries in the slow-to-take-shape Governor’s race, finding Dan Onorato leading among Dems at 11, followed by Jack Wagner at 7, Joe Hoeffel at 5, and Anthony Williams at 4. Tom Corbett leads state Rep. Sam Rohrer 28-4 on the GOP side.
• UT-Sen: Last night was caucus night in Utah, where precincts chose delegates to the state convention which may or may not be Bob Bennett’s Waterloo. It’s hard to gauge, at this point, how things turned out for Bennett last night; the convention, which will determine whether he can avoid (or even make it to) a primary will be real proof. With filings closed in Utah, Democrats left a lot of seats unchallenged in the dark-red legislature, leaving 15 of 75 House seats and 2 of 15 Senate seats without Ds.
• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi was spotted in DC yesterday to meet with Michael Steele about a possible Senate run. He isn’t expected to make a decision until close to the June 11 primary, though (which seems odd, since he’d be basically starting from scratch at that point to go against Patty Murray’s mammoth war chest).
• IL-10: Bob Dold doesn’t need this. Turns out that Dold, who cozied up to the teabaggers in his primary run and touted his opposition to abortion (in order to squeak past moderate state Rep. Beth Coulson), has turned on a dime and is now calling himself “pro-choice” and “a fiscal conservative and social moderate” in order to run against Dan Seals in the general in this D+6 district.
• MA-10: Republican flavor-of-the-month Scott Brown has weighed in on the GOP primary in the open seat in the 10th, not coincidentally the district where he fared the best in the special election. And he chose new over old, opting for state Rep. Jeff Perry instead of long-ago state Treasurer Joe Malone.
• MI-01: Connie Saltonstall’s primary challenge to Bart Stupak may have lost some of its raison d’etre over the weekend, but it’s still proceeding full speed ahead with some new supporters that may be able to make it rain money for her: Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s PACs. NOW had previously endorsed Saltonstall as well.
• NJ-12: Scott Sipperelle, the random businessman running against Rush Holt in the D+5 12th, apparently has money to burn as he’s already hitting the TV airwaves, with an ad blasting Holt for his health care vote. It’s a cable buy, though (in case you were having visions of him blanketing the NYC and Philly markets), so it could be a tiny expenditure aimed at getting free media for all we know.
• SD-AL: Even with Scott Hildebrand having folded his hand quickly on a threatened Stephanie Herseth Sandlin primary challenge, it sounds like another less-known Dem is getting in on it. Rapid City doctor Kevin Weiland is sounding out a run.
• VA-05: “We’ve given the word ‘mob’ a bad name.” The gas line at the Perriello household was mysteriously cut, after Rep. Tom Perriello’s gutsy HCR vote. Um, oooops… that was the Bo Perriello household, as several local teabaggers mistakenly posted the Congressman’s brother’s address on their websites and urged protesters to stop by for a friendly visit. The guy who posted the address (and refused to take it down after finding out it was the wrong Perriello) is now publicly “shocked” that one of his ilk would resort to violence. Oh, and the FBI is investigating. Tom Perriello, on the other hand, displayed only sangfroid, saying “If the worst thing that happens is that special-interest groups spend millions of dollars against me and my most ardent opponents organize against me, it’s hardly a ‘cry me a river’ moment – as long as people act civil and within the law.”
• WV-01: In the choice between conservadem and even-more-conservadem in the Democratic primary in the 1st, it’s becoming pretty clear which one is which: state GOP chair Douglas McKinney praised Alan Mollohan’s opponent state Sen. Mike Oliverio, saying he “has always been a conservative guy. He votes with the Republican on committees. We’ve joked for years he needs to come over to the party who thinks like he does.”
• HCR: Are some of the saner GOP members of Congress starting to come to their senses as the fog of war starts to dissipate? (Or are they just seeing the shift in the polls and engaging in some pre-emptive ass-covering?) The oft-blustery Rep. Pete King is urging his fellow GOPers to “get constructive” and “stop demonizing” health care reform and the Dems. And Chuck Grassley, almost single-handedly responsible for bogging the bill down and giving legs to the “Death Panel” lie in the August of Dems’ discontent, is now happily talking up his own positive contributions to the bill, regarding tax-exempt hospitals.
• DNC: The DNC is wheeling out a seven-figure budget for running ads in the wake of health care’s passage. It’s two-pronged, with attack ads against vulnerable Republicans who voted “no” (I guess the “voted no” part is redundant): Mark Kirk, Jim Gerlach, Dave Reichert, Mike Castle, and Joe Cao. And “thank you” ads are planned for vulnerable Dems, tentatively including John Boccieri, Dennis Cardoza, Brad Ellsworth, Paul Hodes, Tim Walz, Bob Etheridge, Tom Perriello, Leonard Boswell, Betsy Markey, and Gerry Connolly.
• SARAH’s List: Shortly after tweeting for her supporters not to retreat, but RELOAD, Sarah Palin’s website posted a map with gunsights targeting 20 Representatives for her supporters to shoot. Or to work to defeat for re-election, I suppose. It’s pretty much all the districts that went for McCain in 2008 and where there was a “yes” on HCR, without much regard for the race’s actual vulnerability or whether it’s an open seat: AR-02, AZ-01, AZ-05, AZ-08, CO-03, CO-04, FL-02, FL-24, IN-08, IN-09, ND-AL, OH-06, OH-16, PA-03, PA-10, SC-05, TN-06, VA-05, WV-01, and WV-03.
• Teabaggers: Quinnipiac released another poll showing the peril and promise of the teabagger movement for the GOP, as seen in the contrast between the basic generic ballot (44 R, 39 D) and one with a third-party element thrown in (36 D, 25 R, 15 T). Various commenters, like Ed Kilgore and TPM’s Zachary Roth are paying close attention to the poll, wondering, as they’ve done in the past, if there really even is a new-and-different “Tea Party” movement or if it’s just a new name for the most-extreme, riled-up part of the Republican Party that’s always been there (through the militia movements of the 90s and the Birchers of the 60s).
• NRCC: The NRCC claims to have pulled in $7 million last night at their annual fundraising dinner. That’s a lot of scratch, but bear in mind much of that’s in “pledges,” mostly from House members, some of whom haven’t had a good track record of helping the NRCC in the past.
• Census: Two neat Census-related maps worth checking out. One is a constantly-updated real-time map at the Census website which shows the response rates by state and municipality so far. (While the national return rate so far is 16%, the best municipality return rate so far is the civic minded folks of Westside, Iowa at 74%. And despite the popular image of it being full of paranoid militia types living in the hills who would rather use fiat money than fill out a Census form, Montana has the best return rate of any state, at 33%.) The other map is much sadder, courtesy of the Prison Policy Initiative: it shows state-by-state how much distortion of districts occurs through the counting of prisoners where they’re incarcerated rather than where they’re actually from.
I take it this is an indication that he isn’t running as an Indie? Joining the somewhat fringe effort to lob a constitutional challenge against the healthcare bill is not the act of a centrist, but rather the act of someone desperate to win a GOP primary.
…they’re becoming increasingly desperate and crazy.
A lot of people in IA-03 expect State Senator Brad Zaun to win the GOP primary, rather than NRCC favorite Jim Gibbons. It could end up getting decided at a district convention, because 7 Republican candidates qualified for the ballot.
but if this tweet from Mayor Bloomberg is correct, I’m one of only a few:
From reading his healthcare position, Oliverio seems to be using the Republican point of view:
Government takeover. Pass the pieces we can all agree on.
He doesn’t go to say what that root cause is. Somehow I feel the next statement would be something along the lines of “doctors ordering more tests than necessary” or “frivolous lawsuits.” Or the combination from Tom Coburn loves: doctors order more tests because they’re scared of getting sued.
Brown’s about the most important possible endorsement in a GOP primary in the Bay State right now.
Malone starts with a name rec advantage and probably more of an ability to attract the support of what remains of the old-line Republican establishment in state. It’s not clear many people remember his stint as Treasurer, which might be for the best for him since it was marred by the ethically challenged conduct of some of his underlings.
Perry will attract more out-of-state “movement conservative” money and support.
MA is a semi-open primary state where unenrolled voters can vote in any primary they choose. Not sure which way that cuts at this point; GOP identification was already low and has been going down for a decade. Most GOP primaries are heavy on wingnut true believers; that has traditionally been less true in Mass, what few competitive primaries existed.
I do think Dems will retain the seat when all is said and done. It’s one of the few Dem-leaning districts where Obama underperformed so that the 2008 performance level isn’t a ceiling.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
Is Levy trying to go down in flames during the GOP primary? This may well be an even dumber party switch than Parker Griffith.
Should we take this as a sign? He resigned from the Board of Directors of CNS Response
http://www.washingtonexaminer….
“Texas is expected to gain four congressional seats after this year’s census.
Cuellar said 70 percent of the state’s growth in the last decade has been Hispanic. “Will three of the four new districts be Hispanic? I don’t think so,” he said.
The word leaking out of Republican leadership circles is that the current plan is to draw two strongly GOP districts, one strongly Democratic and one leaning Democratic. Only one is likely to be in South Texas.”
http://www.mysanantonio.com/op…
Could this be the beginning of the end for Chucky? Two of his early supporters have dropped their endorsements and handed them to Carly Fiorina. DeVore was reported to be considering dropping out of the race, so this could be the 1st sign he is making a move on that. http://carlyforca.com/2010/03/…
it’s Steve.
Rossi and his allies probably think that because he has such good name recognition ($45 million worth according to Rossi) he can wait until the last moment and run a shadow campaign before that time. They probably know that if he runs for Senate he can’t run the same information free campaign he ran for Governor. He will actually have to talk about his anti-abortion position since Senators vote on judges. So, as long as he doesn’t have to talk about issues, his poll numbers will hold up. I feel a little sorry for the Republicans who have declared since Rossi is killing their fund raising. Ultimately, should Rossi decide to run, he will be crushed like a bug under a tennis shoe.
in the meantime the “will he or won’t he” is really hurting the Rs that have declared.
In the state, blogs are buzzing with rumors that Dino realy wants to have another go at governor and that buzz has gotten louder now that McKenna has really killed his chances by joining the anit-health care reform law suit.
since the filing deadline passed, I see that a whopping 13 of 53 reps from California (almost a whole quarter of them) have no major opponent. Unless some can get on the ballot as write-ins and make it through the primary, then this will be the highest proportion of unchallenged representatives in California’s delegation since cross-filing was abolished in 1959. (The last time a higher proportion went unchallenged was 1952.)
Democrats
Barbara Lee (CA-09)
Jackie Speier (CA-12) – only opponent is a Libertarian
Sam Farr (CA-17)
Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Judy Chu (CA-32)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Grace Napolitano (CA-38)
Joe Baca (CA-43)
Republicans
Devin Nunes (CA-21)
Kevin McCarthy (CA-22)
Ed Royce (CA-40)
Duncan D. Hunter (CA-52) – only faces a primary challenge and a write-in candidate
Unchallenged reps in preceding elections
2008 – 8 of 53 (15%)
2006 – 6 of 53 (11%)
2004 – 5 of 53 (9%)
2002 – 1 of 53 (2%)
2000 – 4 of 52 (8%)
1998 – 7 of 52 (13%)
1996 – 0 of 52 (0%)
1994 – 2 of 52 (4%)
1992 – 3 of 52 (6%)
1990 – 3 of 45 (7%)
1988 – 3 of 45 (7%)
1986 – 1 of 45 (2%)
1984 – 3 of 45 (7%)
1982 – 2 of 45 (4%)
1980 – 0 of 43 (0%)
1978 – 2 of 43 (5%)
1976 – 1 of 43 (2%)
1974 – 4 of 43 (9%)
1972 – 1 of 43 (2%)
1970 – 0 of 38 (0%)
1968 – 1 of 38 (3%)
1966 – 0 of 38 (0%)
1964 – 1 of 38 (3%)
1962 – 0 of 38 (0%)
1960 – 2 of 30 (7%)
1958 – 5 of 30 (16%) – cross-filing abolished after this election
1956 – 3 of 30 (10%)
1954 – 4 of 30 (13%)
1952 – 13 of 30 (43%)
would really wanted “fiscal conservative and social moderate” – it’s difficult to imagine better candidacy then Coulson’s. But they preferred Dold by some reason)))
I’ve been tracking the number of state legislative seats being contested as the filing deadlines close. Texas is pretty bad: Democrats are leaving 8/11 Senate and 55/77 House seats uncontested. Idaho is even worse, as Democrats are failing to challenge 18/35 Republican Senate seats. Yes, I know there’s no way the Democrats could win a majority in Idaho, but in this case, Republicans get a majority by default.
On the other hand, Mainers deserve an award for civic engagement: all 35 Senate seats and all but 3 (1 D, 2 R) of the 151 House seats are being contested by both parties.