Tag: Neil Abercrombie

• AR-Sen (pdf): Here is a very weird set of numbers out of Arkansas, courtesy of a poll from somebody called Talk Business Quarterly. Blanche Lincoln has a 49% job approval rating, with 40% disapproval — no surprises, about what I’d expect. But on the re-elect question, the results are 27/60! (There’s some polling sleight of hand going on here, though; the question is phrased “would you vote to re-elect Blanche Lincoln as your U.S. Senator no matter who ran against her?” Well, I dunno… is Jesus going to run against her?) Also, in Arkansas, Republican wealthy guy/gaffe-prone crackpot Curtis Coleman has apparently gotten his shots and visa and can now go safely campaign in southeast Arkansas, as he officially launched his campaign today.

• CT-Sen: Chris Dodd underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer yesterday and is resting comfortably. He’ll be back to full activity in a few weeks, probably just in time for the end of recess.

• IA-Sen: Democrats nailed down a candidate to go against Chuck Grassley, although he’ll be hard-pressed to make a dent in the well-funded and inexplicably well-liked Grassley. Tom Fiegen, a former state Senator and bankruptcy attorney, will announce his candidacy on Friday. Another Dem, Iowa Democratic Veterans Caucus chair Bob Krause, is already exploring the race.

• NV-Sen: Here’s a telling little tidbit from an interview with Rep. Dean Heller, suggesting that he may have just as much of a non-aggression pact with Harry Reid as does John Ensign (or else he just lives in perpetual fear of Reid). When asked if it was best for Nevada if Reid were defeated, Heller’s response was a 14-second pause, followed by “Um. My position is that I’m going to support the Republican candidate. If we have a viable Republican candidate, that is going to be my position. So I think that speaks for itself.”

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte made her public debut yesterday (although she maintains she’s not a candidate yet, despite having filed her candidacy papers), and shed a little more light on her hitherto-unknown positions on, well, everything. She seems to be running on mostly a law-and-order image, but she did reveal that she’s anti-abortion rights and anti-gay marriage.

• NY-Sen-B: With Carolyn Maloney now out of the picture, Bronx-based Rep. Eliot Engel endorsed Kirsten Gillibrand today for re-election. That brings to 12 (out of 26) Dem members of the New York House delegation who’ve endorsed her.

• HI-Gov: Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who’s running for Hawaii governor, ran into a sticky wicket: he won’t be able to transfer the $900K in his federal fund to his state fund, according to Hawaii’s Campaign Spending Commission. This puts him behind, in the fundraising game, both Republican candidate Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona and possible Dem primary opponent Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann, although he’s well-connected and should be able to catch up with some effort.

• NJ-Gov: In a revelation that should surprise no one, it turns out that Karl Rove discussed with Chris Christie the possibility of running for New Jersey Governor while Christie was serving in the ostensibly non-partisan position of U.S. Attorney.

• SC-Gov: Democrats may be sensing an opening in the South Carolina governor’s race after l’affaire Sanford, as yet another Dem jumped into the scrum: Dwight Drake, an attorney and lobbyist who hasn’t been elected before but is a prominent behind-the-scenes Democrat in Columbia.

• UT-Gov: Gary Herbert was sworn in as Utah’s Governor yesterday, replacing new Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman. Although Herbert is universally viewed as conservative, he rankled some conservatives by throwing a bone to the state party’s moderate wing by picking state Sen. Greg Bell to be Lt. Governor. He now has nine months to prepare for the GOP nominating convention for the 2010 special election, where possible candidates he may face include state Senators John Valentine and Steve Urquhart, state House speaker David Clark, and law professor Kirk Jowers. With Rep. Jim Matheson declining a run, the Dems’ next best bet is Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon.

• VA-Gov: Rasmussen takes its monthly look at the Virginia Governor’s race. Republican Bob McDonnell leads Democrat Creigh Deeds, 49-41, when leaners are pushed; the 8-point gap mirrors the R2K poll from last week, but is a drop from the 3-point gap in the July Rasmussen poll. Voters still like both of them; McDonnell’s favorables are 53/30, while Deeds’ are 48/39.

• GA-02: Rep. Sanford Bishop has an honest-to-gosh state Rep. opposing him this time, instead of the usual token Republican opposition: Mike Keown. Bishop should face little difficulty in this black-majority district he’s held since 1992, though. (H/t TheUnknown285.)

• NY-01: Speaking of Bishops, Rep. Tim Bishop also drew a bigger challenger than he’s used to, in the form of wealthy businessman Randy Altschuler, whom the NRCC had been trying to lure into the race. It remains to be seen if Altschuler, who’s never run for office before, has any political chops; the NRCC may have been loudly touting him more for his fundraising abilities, as he was a big McCain bundler and can open up his own wallet as well if need be. At any rate, it at least puts this D+0 district onto the map for 2010.

• NY-St. Sen.: It’s amazing what being in the majority can do for you: New York State Senate Democrats are now way in the lead in the fundraising, compared with the once-dominant Republicans. Dems have raised $6.9 million so far this year, compared with $2.5 million for the GOP, driven largely by shifts by unions who previously felt the need to play ball with the Republicans in order to avoid getting shut out of the discussion. The GOP still retains a cash-on-hand edge, though.

• MO-Sen: This is actually starting to be a theme with Rep. Roy Blunt: he’s willing to go on the record as hating Medicare. An interview this weekend included the comments:  “We’ve had Medicare since 1965, and Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy.” I think tens of millions of senior citizens might take exception to that.

• NC-Sen: SoS Elaine Marshall is “pretty seriously leaning toward” getting into the race against Richard Burr, according to strategist Thomas Mills in CQ (although with no mention of whether or not he was speaking on her behalf or just running his mouth). He says she doesn’t have a firm timeline, but will let us know in late summer or early fall.

• TX-Sen/Gov: When the tradmed actually refers to a conversation with a Senator as a “bizarre series of interviews,” you know something’s seriously gone awry. Kay Bailey Hutchison seemed to try to walk back her resignation announcement from yesterday when talking with the Houston Chronicle, but after some more probing, made it sound more like all she wanted was for Rick Perry to get out of the race. Because it’s her turn. Sounds exactly like something someone who’s leading in all the polls would do for her.

In the meantime, Rick Perry said he’d consider moving up the date of the special election to replace KBH, by way of mocking her resignation sort-of-decision, saying that there were too many important things going on in Washington. (Although I’m not sure Texas law would let him do so; it’s pretty clear about the election’s date.) Also, all this dissonance can only help Democratic Houston mayor Bill White in the special election, who got some good news from the FEC yesterday: they issued an advisory opinion saying he can go ahead and additional funds for the special election that technically doesn’t exist yet. (It’s kind of complex; he’s already raised $4 million in his regular 2012 Senate fund, but now he can raise additional money from the same maxed-out donors in the new fund.)

• CA-Gov: It’s not just Democratic governors who are taking a hit in approvals. Arnold Schwarzenegger is running at 28% approval and 59% disapproval in California, according to PPIC. (By contrast, Obama is at 65/27 in the state!)

• PA-Gov: Rep. Jim Gerlach is making coy reference to an internal poll that shows him losing the GOP primary to AG Tom Corbett, but with “the profile” to win. The poll says Corbett beats Gerlach (and Pat Meehan) 39-11-7 overall, but that Gerlach leads in the Philly area and that he wins when only biographical info is read. (For those not familiar with the concept, the “biographical info” poll question is the internal polling equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.)

• UT-Gov/Sen/02: Here’s one more name to take off the Open Seat Watch: Jim Matheson verified that he will run for re-election to his House seat, rather than roll the dice on a Senate bid or a run in the 2010 gubernatorial special election (despite having a conceivable shot against as-yet-to-be-promoted Gary Herbert or whatever other weirdo makes it out of the convention process).

• AK-AL: Nice to see that Rep. Don Young isn’t being forgotten, despite the gravitation of all of Alaska’s Democratic talent (ex-state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz, State Sen. Hollis French) toward the gubernatorial race. State Rep. Harry Crawford says he’s interested in the race, and has met with the DCCC in DC about it.

• CT-04: Here’s a bullet dodged for Democrats, and a miss for the NRCC, who’ve haven’t had too many targets decline them lately: state Senate minority leader John McKinney, a noted environment-minded moderate and son of former Rep. Stewart McKinney, who represented the area prior to Chris Shays, said he won’t run against freshman Rep. Jim Himes. The GOP may look to fellow state Sen. Dan Debicella instead.

• HI-01: Another bit of good news on the recruiting front: state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa has met in DC with the DCCC about the open seat being left behind by gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie. She’d probably be our best bet at keeping ex-Rep. Ed Case from making a comeback.

• IL-07: The first Democratic candidate has filed for the open seat that Danny Davis is likely to leave behind. Darlena Williams-Burnett is the Cook County chief deputy recorder of deeds; she’s married to Chicago alderman Walter Burnett.

• MI-07: Although ex-Rep. Tim Walberg is committed to running to regain his seat from freshman Democrat Mark Schauer, it looks like he’ll have some competition in the primary and may not even be the establishment’s choice in the GOP primary. Brian Rooney, an attorney at the right-wing Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney, and grandson of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, has been talking to the NRCC about the race.

• MN-03: One more recruiting tidbit. This one sounds like it’s far from a sure thing, but state Sen. Terri Bonoff has said she’s “undecided” but taking a MN-03 race “under consideration.” (Bonoff lost the DFL endorsement to Ashwin Madia in MN-03 last year.)

• TX-32: I’m not sure why stories involving blimps are just inherently funny, but Rep. Pete Sessions got into a bit of a blimp-related brouhaha. The ardent foe of all things earmark got busted by Politico, of all places, for very slowly and quietly steering a $1.6 million earmark for blimp construction to an Illinois company with no track record of government contracting, let alone blimp making — but it did have one of Sessions’ former aides lobbying for it.

• MN-Sen: Our long national nightmare is finally over: Senator Al Franken was sworn in today, without any weird last minute gambits by Norm Coleman. Harry Reid announced he’ll be on the HELP, Judiciary, Aging, and Indian Affairs Committees.

• KY-Sen: Jim Bunning, via his regular teleconference with reporters, reminds us that he’s still running for Senate. Bunning also thinks that he won’t outraise SoS Trey Grayson (who raised $600,000 in the 2nd quarter) for the quarter, but it doesn’t matter because Grayson won’t stay in the race if Bunning stays in too.

• OR-Gov: Here’s a surprise: Democratic rising star state Rep. Brian Clem suddenly made his presence known in the Oregon governor’s race, launching an exploratory committee and filling up his coffers with a $500,000 loan from his mother-in-law. The 37-year-old Clem, who has represented part of Salem since 2006, implied that he wouldn’t pull the trigger on a run, though, if former Gov. John Kitzhaber got into the race.

• SC-Gov: Mark Sanford may get to keep his job after all (thanks in part to Sarah Palin creating a distraction). The state GOP voted yesterday to censure Sanford over his doomed tango, rather than call for his resignation.

• HI-01: Roll Call takes a quick look at who might run for the seat being left behind by Rep. Neil Abercrombie. Top of the list is Ed Case, a Blue Dog who used to represent HI-02 but gave up his seat for an ill-fated primary run against Sen. Dan Akaka and pissed off a lot of the Democratic base along the way. They also cite state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, former state House majority leader Kirk Caldwell, state Democratic Party chair Brian Schatz, and also Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who’s currently exploring the governor’s race but conceivably could switch races if he doesn’t get any traction in the primary against Abercrombie. Also, we can’t rule out Republican Honolulu city councilor Charles Djou, who seems well-thought-of but faces a steep climb given the state’s lean.

• IL-07: CQ provides a similar laundry list of potential candidates in IL-07, assuming Rep. Danny Davis leaves an open seat to run for President of the Cook County Board instead. Davis’s former Chief of Staff Richard Boykin tops the list, but there’s also state Reps. LaShawn Ford and Karen Yarbrough, state Sen. Rickey Hendon, and Aldermen Dorothy Tillman and Ed Smith. (No mention of any Republicans here, unsurprising since it’s D+35.)

• NY-03: Here are some folks who’d especially like Rep. Peter King to Beat It, following his Off the Wall remarks disparaging the nonstop coverage of Michael Jackson. They’ve started “Michael Jackson Fans Against Peter King” on ActBlue and have already raised several thousand dollars for whoever steps up to run in the 3rd.

• NY-14: With Rep. Carolyn Maloney looking more likely to follow through on her Senate primary challenge, state Sen. Liz Krueger, whose turf closely overlaps the 14th, has been getting a lot of encouragement to run for the open seat. Krueger sounds politely interested, saying “I’ve never been in Congress so I don’t know if it’s less frustrating. But I suspect pretty much any job in the United States of America would be less frustrating than Albany in the last three weeks.”

• NY-23: A potentially strong candidate for the GOP nomination in the upcoming NY-23 special election has taken himself out of consideration: Assemblyman Will Barclay. Unfortunately for us, this may make the primary path easier for moderate GOP Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who would be a tougher general election foe; the more conservative Barclay, remember, was the loser of the state Senate special election to Darrel Aubertine last year. Two other minor GOPers added their names to the list as well: YMCA director Andrew Bisselle and businessman Bart Bonner.

• OH-15: His candidacy was already well in the works, but GOP former state Senator Steve Stivers made it official today that he’s seeking a rematch against Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, who barely won the open seat in 2008. Stivers may have an opening in 2010 if there’s less Obama-driven college turnout in this district dominated by Ohio St., and no pro-life independent candidate siphoning votes from his right flank.

• TN-09: Burned-out Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton seems to have a pattern and practice of delaying his planned resignations whenever things don’t quite go right for him. Herenton, who’d planned to resign in order to devote himself full-time to his primary challenge to Rep. Steve Cohen, pushed back his resignation date (planned for July 11) to July 30, citing some unfinished items of business.

• House: The Hill throws together an interesting catch-all of ten “dark horse” House races, one of which is already threatening to be top tier (TX-10), one of which features an intriguing Dem primary (FL-02), and some of which are interesting because of changing demographics (TX-32) or changing political tides (all three Dem seats in Arkansas).

• DGA/RGA: In keeping with the sense that the real battlegrounds in 2010 are going to be the gubernatorial races, the DGA and RGA are both raising like gangbusters. The DGA raised $11.6 million in the first half of the year, a record for them, but the RGA nosed ahead of them, raising $12.2 million.

• Census: A coalition of Colorado local governments joins New York’s legislature in laying out its own funds to help assist the Census Bureau in putting together an accurate count by reducing undercounting. While Colorado isn’t likely to gain or lose a House seat in 2010, it’s still important in terms of securing federal funds, and with much of the state’s growth coming among Latinos, the risk of undercounting is high.

• Campaign Finance: Florida’s Republican SoS, Kurt Browning, has decided not to appeal a federal court’s ruling that found a state law regulating 527s was unconstitutional. With major implications for the Florida governor’s race, now 527s can operate without disclosure requirements on who they are and who funds them. (Florida has strict $500 limits on individual contributions, so 527s are especially important there.)

• Trivia: Wondering who the last Governor to resign in mid-term to focus on a presidential run was? New York’s Nelson Rockefeller, in 1973. He never made it to the presidential run, although he did wind up briefly serving as Gerald Ford’s fill-in vice-president.

• DSCC: Friend of SSP and once-and-future DKos editor Arjun Jaikumar (f/k/a brownsox) is not just the DSCC’s new media guru – he’s also up for The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful in DC. Vote for the good-looking bastard by sending an email. (D)

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (6/15-17, likely voters, no trendlines):

Gov primary (Dems):

Neil Abercrombie (D): 42

Mufi Hannemann (D): 22

Undecided: 36

(MoE: ±5%)

Gov general:

Neil Abercrombie (D): 45

James “Duke” Aiona (R): 36

Undecided: 19

Mufi Hannemann (D): 44

James “Duke” Aiona (R): 34

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±4%)

For those of you not familiar with the players out here, Neil Abercrombie represents HI-01 in Congress, Mufi Hannemann is the Mayor of Honolulu, and Duke Aiona is the current Lt. Gov. Abercrombie has already pulled the trigger on a run; Hannemann has formed an exploratory committee. It’s pretty interesting that Abercrombie has a material lead in the primary test, given that Hannemann has the better favorables (56-20 vs. 55-33).

I had thought that Hannemann wasn’t too likely to run, but his recent activities indicate otherwise. He does have $660K left over from his mayoral campaign last year he can transfer over to a gov account. On the flipside, he’s 16 years younger than the 70-year-old Abercrombie, and there’s a decent chance Sen. Dan Akaka’s seat will be open in 2012, if Hannemann’s interested in that alternative.

One interesting side note: These two have faced off before, and are 1-and-1 in an unusual set of circumstances. Both men ran for HI-01 in 1986 when the incumbent, Cecil Heftel, ran for governor. Hannemann won the primary, but Abercrombie won the special election to fill the final two months of the term. Hannemann wound up losing to the Republican in the general election.

Speaking of Republicans, Duke Aiona has a decent 44-26 favorability rating, and has already raised $1.5 million. However, he’s charging against the blue tide here – Hawaii’s only ever had one Republican governor (the current incumbent, Linda Lingle), and gave the highest vote percentage to Obama of any state last year. SSP currently rates this race Lean Democrat.

And speaking of Linda Lingle, we also have some Senate numbers:

Dan Inouye (D-inc): 52

Linda Lingle (R): 40

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4%)

I don’t think anyone expects her to run, but she’s almost certainly the only Republican on any of Hawaii’s islands who could give Inouye a serious challenge. And even still, she trails by double digits with Inouye over 50. She sports better favorables than most governors, but at 51-43, they aren’t great, and are considerably weaker than Senator Dan’s 56-38 rating. SSP currently considers this a Race to Watch, but if Lingle doesn’t bite, it will move to Safe D.

RaceTracker: HI-Gov | HI-Sen

• HI-Gov: Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann looks like he’ll be running against Rep. Neil Abercrombie for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination; he launched an exploratory committee yesterday. Hannemann and Abercrombie actually faced off once before; Hannemann defeated Abercrombie in the 1986 primary for HI-01 (but lost the general to GOPer Pat Saiki). Either one would seem to have an edge over Republican Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona in the general, based on the state’s lean, although Aiona’s fundraising has been impressive so far.

• NJ-Gov: Quinnipiac may be finding a bit of a post-primary bounce for Republican challenger Chris Christie; he leads Jon Corzine 50-40 in their newest poll. (Last month was 45-38 for Christie, although this poll is a switch from registered voters to likely voters.) Corzine’s favorables are his worst-ever at 35-53; Christie’s are 36-16, but with 46% “haven’t heard enough,” allowing some room for Corzine to define him if he hits hard with his new ad blitz.

• NY-Gov: How’s this for an unsurprising headline: “Poll Finds Paterson Deeply Unpopular.” The NYT polled Paterson’s favorables (no head-to-heads, though) and found that Paterson has an approval of 21%, compared to a finding of 26% approval of ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer in the same poll.

• MN-Gov: CQ comes the closest I’ve seen to consolidating the name of every single person planning to run for Minnesota governor in one place. I count 10 Democrats and 11 Republicans, which I won’t bother trying to reproduce here.

• IN-08: Rep. Brad Ellsworth finally has a Republican opponent, auto worker Dan Stockton. Stockton hasn’t held office, but he is active in community theater and “heavily involved in motorcycle rights.” Well, I’m glad someone is willing to take a courageous stand for those oppressed motorcycles.

• MD-01: State Sen. Andy Harris may not get a clear path to the GOP nomination in his rematch with Rep. Frank Kratovil. State Sen. E.J. Pipkin is considering a face off with Harris again in the primary. (Pipkin finished third in the 2008 primary, getting 20% of the vote to 43 for Harris and 33 for then-Rep. Wayne Gilchrest. In fact, Pipkin may have thrown the election to BaltCo resident Harris, by vacuuming up more conservative votes on the Eastern Shore that may have otherwise gone to Gilchrest on the basis of geography.) Pipkin has the advantage of self-funding; he spent $2 million of his own money en route to racking up 34% against Sen. Barb Mikulski in 2004. While Pipkin isn’t as conservative as Club for Growth favorite Harris, he isn’t as moderate as Gilchrest. Other Republicans interested in the primary include Anne Arundel County Exec John Leopold and former state House minority leader Al Redmer.

• NH-02: The field to replace Rep. Paul Hodes got a third Dem contestant: former state Senator Mark Fernald got into the race yesterday. Fernald may retain a bit of name rec from his 2002 loss in the governor’s race (he lost to Craig Benson, who then lost in 2004 to John Lynch).

• NY-23: One GOPer is already launching his “campaign” for the nomination to replace John McHugh (in the sense that he’s publicly saying that he’s going around and talking to the right kingmakers on all the county party committees). It’s a guy who wasn’t on anybody’s list: Franklin County legislator Paul Maroun, whose day job is counsel to state Senator Betty Little (who doesn’t sound likely to run, especially since she lives in NY-20).

• Census: We’re less than a year away from the 2010 Census, and we’re still short a Census director, as the GOP has put a mystery hold on Obama’s nominee for the job, Robert Groves. The Census is also facing an appropriations fight in coming weeks, as it requested a 135% increase in funding for next year (seeing as how 2010 is the year when it does most of its work, but try explaining that to a Republican). A leaderless, underfunded Census isn’t likely to put together an accurate count, and an inaccurate count is likely to undercount traditionally Democratic harder-to-count groups.

• DC Voting Rights: The bill to give the District of Columbia a fully functioning representative in the U.S. House (and give an extra seat to Utah, increasing the size of the House to 437 and the Electoral College to 539) seems to be stalled for now, according to Steny Hoyer. Nobody seems to know how to get around the GOP-added poison pill attached to it that will strip DC’s gun laws, so it’s just going to sit.

We’re going to try out a new feature for weekday afternoons here at Swing State Project: four or five links to various items that we want to get out there but don’t feel like investing a diary’s worth of effort on. Enjoy the bullet points! (We encourage you to add your own bullet points in the comments, and otherwise treat this as an open thread.)

• UT-Sen: Daily Kos polls the 2010 Utah Senate race, where the action appears to be in the primary, but Bob Bennett looks safe for another 6 years. Bennett beats David Leavitt 44-23 in the primary, and, in the general, manhandles Rep. Jim Matheson 55-32 and Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings 57-21, not that we should expect either of them to run.

• OH-Sen: A third Dem has jumped into the primary field for the 2010 Senate race: state representative Tyrone Yates. He doesn’t have the stature of Fisher or Brunner, but as the only African-American and only Cincinnati-area candidate, he may well complicate things.

• WA-08: The first Dem challenger has announced, and it’s another wealthy ex-Microsoft executive, Suzan DelBene. Don’t look for her to have the field to herself this time, though.

• MN-Sen: In an indication that the Coleman camp has exhausted every possible legal argument that can win in court, he’s moved onto arguing that it was basically a tie so let’s just have a do-over election. Not the kind of thing that someone who has a hope of winning in court ever says.

• Census: The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing the White House to keep the Census within its portfolio even though reliable Dem Gary Locke will now be taking over at Commerce.

• Blogospheria: Blogger brainpower (including Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, Markos Moulitsas, and Nate Silver) and union bucks come together in the new Accountability Now PAC. The goal is to pressure (and where there’s a good target, primary) bad Dems and create more space for good Dems to maneuver on the left.

• RI-01: Republican state representative John Loughlin is strongly considering a suicide mission against challenge to Rep. Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy got 69% against no-names in his last two elections, but apparently his approval ratings are softening.

• HI-01: In another district where you might be surprised to know there’s an elected Republican, Honolulu city councilor Charles Djou has announced his candidacy for HI-01, which is expected to be vacated by Neil Abercrombie as he goes for governor. Djou claims the endorsement of every Republican in Hawaii’s legislature (all 7 of them).

• NC-Sen: Former state treasurer, and gubernatorial primary loser, Richard Moore won’t be getting involved in the Dem primary to take on Richard Burr in 2010. The field looks clearer for AG Roy Cooper.

I guess he’s learned how to quit Ted Stevens:

Hawaii Democrat Daniel K. Inouye , the third longest-serving U.S. Senate incumbent, has affirmed his plans to run for re-election in 2010, rebuffing speculation that he might not choose to run for a ninth term at age 86.

“Make no mistake, I am a candidate for re-election in 2010. I am calling upon my friends and supporters to once again stand with me,” Inouye said in a statement provided to CQ Politics. “I am taking nothing for granted in what I expect for be an exciting and vigorous campaign. I am looking forward to it.”

Even though I’m not personally too fond of Inouye,  this is probably for the best, since I’m a lot less fond of one of his would-be successors, former Rep. Ed Case. Case said he backs Inouye’s re-election, so we won’t be seeing him in the Senate any time soon.

Meanwhile, Gov. Linda Lingle (R) is term-limited, and it’s possible she’ll try running against Inouye. The coming vacancy in the statehouse might also prompt a round of musical chairs. In the simplest scenario, Case could run for governor himself. Alternately, if Reps. Mazie Hirono (HI-02) and/or Neil Abercrombie run for governor, Case might run for either of those two House seats. No matter what, decisions will have to be made soon.

So let me ask this: If Hirono or Abercrombie decide to try moving up, who do you like as replacements? I’d want to see State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa (who very narrowly lost the primary to Hirono in 2006) give it another shot if Hirono goes for HI-Gov. Your thoughts?