Tag: Greg Zanetti

• IL-Sen: Today’s the day for Mark Kirk’s official entry into the Senate race, despite the fact that everyone and his dog already knows he’s running. He got one unwelcome piece of news over the weekend, though: a primary challenge, from retired state trial court judge Don Lowery, from Pope County downstate. Apparenty the unknown Lowery doesn’t pose as much of an obstacle as state GOP chair Andy McKenna would have, as Kirk didn’t storm out of the race this time.

• NV-Sen: The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s newest poll finds that John Ensign’s numbers continue to slip. His approval rating is 31%, down from 39% last month (post-scandal, but before news of his parental payoff) and from 53% pre-scandal. Only 34% think he should resign, though.

• NH-Sen: Businessman Fred Tausch launched a subtle attack against likely GOP primary opponent Kelly Ayotte over the weekend, accusing “the governor, the attorney general, and legislature” of putting the state on the path toward an income tax.

• NY-Sen-B: Ooops. Rep. Carolyn Maloney was caught using the N-word in an interview with City Hall News. She was quoting someone secondhand, but still sounds bad out of context.

• NC-Sen: Guess who’s a member of the Run, Elaine, Run! Facebook group that’s trying to get Elaine Marshall to run for Senate? Elaine Marshall! Now I don’t know if that’s a tea leaf that she’s interested or just a friending-someone-to-be-polite situation, but it’s interesting. (H/t possumtracker1991.)

• NJ-Gov: The New York Times reports that Jon Corzine, in the wake of a costly divorce and a big hit to his portfolio, is having raise campaign funds from contributors like a mere mortal. His goal is $15 million from donors, on top of no more than $25 million of his own money. (That’s compared to the $60 million he spent on his 2000 Senate race.)

• NM-Gov: Dona Ana County DA Susana Martinez, who we mentioned last week, went ahead and just full-on into the GOP primary for the open governor’s race in New Mexico, skipping the exploratory phase. Meanwhile, investment advisor and National Guard brigadier general Greg Zanetti, who for most of the was the only declared GOP candidate although without seemingly getting much traction, dropped out of the race, citing family concerns.

• PA-Gov: Auditor Jack Wagner confirmed on Friday in a TV interview that he’ll run for Governor in 2010. A formal announcement will come later, he says, but he’s still the first Democrat to sort-of-kind-of pull the trigger.

• NH-01: Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta has had a nose for bad news in the last few weeks, although “unpaid sewer bills” doesn’t sound quite as bad as “bar brawl…” y’know, unless you’re running as the “fiscal responsibility” candidate. For the second time, Guinta has failed to stay current on the sewer taxes on an apartment building he owns in Manchester (while, at the same time, he can afford to shore up his weak fundraising with a $20,000 personal loan).

• NY-23: This is poorly sourced and slightly incoherent, but a local GOP blog is reporting that Democratic state Sen. Darrel Aubertine did, in fact, get in the race for the NY-23 special election to replace Rep. John McHugh. (UPDATE: The Syracuse Post-Standard reports that the Democratic county chairs in the district have extended their deadline for candidates to express their interest in the race to Thursday, July 23rd at 5pm. Reading the tea leaves, it seems that the county chairs are eager to give the nomination to Aubertine, if he wants it.)

• OH-16: Buried deep in a story about friendly local teabaggers protesting Rep. John Boccieri’s cap-and-trade vote are the names of a couple potential GOP candidates in the 16th, a race that has escaped much of any scrutiny so far. Named are former Canton mayor Janet Creighton and businessman Jim Renacci, who owns the Columbus arena football franchise.

• KY-Lt. Gov: It’s never to early to start thinking about 2011. Steve Beshear chose his running mate for his re-election campaign (as current LG Dan Mongiardo won’t run again, as he plans on being Senator at that point); he’ll run with 20-year Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson.

Ex-Rep. Steve Pearce was last seen playing Wile E. Coyote to Tom Udall’s Roadrunner on some New Mexico backroad last year. Today, he announced that he’ll be back in 2010, to try and reclaim NM-02 from Democratic Rep. Harry Teague, who picked up the open seat in 2008. This comes as a bit of a surprise, as Pearce was considered a top contender for the GOP nomination for New Mexico’s open gubernatorial race in 2010. Pearce framed his decision in terms of Teague’s recent vote in favor of cap-and-trade in this oil-and-gas dependent district:

Former New Mexico congressman Steve Pearce told POLITICO today that he is running for his old House seat – primarily because of Teague’s vote on the energy bill. Pearce had been preparing to run for governor, but said Teague’s vote forced him to rethink his priorities.

“The cap-and-trade vote [from Teague] is the thing that put my decision over the hump,” Pearce said in an interview with POLITICO. “I was absolutely stunned over his vote. When he made the cap-and-trade vote, the hostility in the district was reflected in the way we feel out here. There are 23,000 statewide jobs in the oil and gas industry – and if this bill is passed, this will kill many of those jobs.”

NM-02 may also be a more fruitful target for Pearce than running statewide, as it’s an R+6 district that barely went for John McCain, 50-49, compared with Obama’s 57-42 win statewide… and also considering the one poll of NM-Gov (for the DGA) showed him getting squashed. Plus, this way he doesn’t have to introduce himself to the other two-thirds of the state (since clearly whatever he was doing in 2008 didn’t take). Unfortunately for the Republicans, however, this leaves a field of nobodies in the hunt for the GOP nod for NM-Gov, led by National Guard Brig. Gen. Greg Zanetti. Ex-Rep. Heather Wilson is the only heavy hitter who hasn’t said “no” yet.

Harstad Strategic Research for the DGA (5/31-6/4, likely voters):

Diane Denish (D): 57

Heather Wilson (R): 35

Undecided: 8

Diane Denish (D): 57

Steve Pearce (R): 35

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4%)

As far as we know, no one has polled the New Mexico governor’s race until now… or even paid much attention to the race. That’s because, with the current field, this open seat is looking like, if not a slam dunk, then at least a poorly contested lay-up for Team Blue. Not only is there New Mexico’s big shift to the left in the 2008 election, but also a huge disparity in recruitment. Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has been the long-time heir apparent for the Dems (although state Senate majority leader Michael Sanchez is looking at the race), while all the GOP has cobbled together is official candidate National Guard Brig. Gen. Greg Zanetti, along with two explorers: state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones and Allen Weh, former state party chair best known for his supporting role in the U.S. Attorney scandal.

Still, the possibility has loomed in the distance that the GOP might field a higher-profile candidate: either one of the two former Reps., Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce, who basically destroyed each other en route to Tom Udall’s easy 2008 Senate victory. If this internal poll for the DGA is even remotely close to reality, then there’s not much of a race here even if Wilson or Pearce show up, as both of them lose 57-35. Denish even leads Wilson 53-40 in NM-01, Wilson’s base of operations for over a decade as she kept America safe from stray nipples. Pearce has also been weighing a run to get back his old seat in NM-02; if this poll is any indication, that’d be a better use of his time. (H/t Campaign Diaries.)

RaceTracker: NM-Gov

• PA-Sen: Tom Ridge’s appearance on Hardball yesterday may have set a new bar for equivocation. He wouldn’t commit to whether or not he’d vote for would-be rival Pat Toomey in the GOP primary, instead veering off into extolling the virtues of the secret ballot. On the flipside, in a nice bit of symmetry, Arlen Specter told Fox News that he can’t promise to vote with the Dems “all the time” on procedural votes. So, the takeaway is: nobody’s promising anything.

• NY-Sen-B: Charles Schumer has ratcheted up his efforts to grease the wheels for Kirsten Gillibrand’s re-election path in 2010, hooking her up with donors, lobbying to get her on the good committees, and trying to tamp down possible primary challenges. “There is not going to be a primary!” he recently announced at a fundraiser (to the laughs of the audience… although I’m not sure whether the insiders were laughing due to his comic timing or the audacity and/or futility of his statement).

• IL-Sen: Roland Burris is starting to seem like that last guest at the party who isn’t getting the message that it’s time to go home. Burris says he would like to keep his Senate seat, but will have to make “a formal decision in the next few weeks based on his ability to raise money for a campaign.” With a total of $845 raised so far… well… you do the math.

• KY-Sen: One more Kentuckian is touring the state gauging potential support for the GOP Senate primary, which may or may not contain Jim Bunning. It’s Rand Paul, a doctor who’s never held elected office before but has one important ace in the hole: he’s the son of Rep. Ron Paul, which, if nothing else, establishes his liberatarian bona fides and gives him a nationwide fundraising base of fringe weirdo small donors.

• NM-Gov: Two new candidates have emerged as possible contenders for the Republican nomination for governor in the Land of Enchantment: former state GOP chair Allen Weh (who was intrumental in the firing of US Attorney David Iglesias), who opened an exploratory committee this week, and state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, who’s in the “considering” stage. National Guard Brig. Gen. Greg Zanetti is already in the race. This race could get more interesting if ex-Rep. Heather Wilson joined this paltry lot, but with the Dems already coalesced behind Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the GOP is starting out in a hole here.

• CA-47: Remember how Bill Sali had his campaign HQ in the wrong district? GOP assemblyman Van Tran seems to be following in Rep. Brain Fade’s fine footsteps, at least in the map skills department. He kicked off his campaign with an event in the Little Saigon neighborhood in Westminster… in CA-46.

• CA-32: In the run-up to the May special election, state Sen. Gil Cedillo has turned his fire toward the race’s third wheel: Emanuel Pleitez. Pleitez, a 26-year-old up-and-comer who was part of the Obama transition team, threatens to eat into Cedillo’s share of the Latino vote (which he’ll need to dominate if he’s to beat Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu). Cedillo is sending flyers using photos grabbed from Pleitez’s Facebook page to make the case that he’s too young and immature for Congress.

• TN-04: A stem-winding progressive-sounding speech came from a very unlikely place: Blue Dog Rep. Lincoln Davis, holder of a newly-minted R+13 seat, speaking at last weekend’s Tennessee Democratic Party summit.

• Mayors: There’s another batch of big-city mayoral elections this Saturday, all in Texas. In San Antonio, 34-year-old former city councilor Julian Castro is favored to win. Castro finished second four years ago to Phil Hardberger, who’s now termed-out. In Austin, the best-known mayoral contender is Carole Strayhorn, who was mayor of Austin in the 1970s and ran for governor as an independent in the crazy 2006 gubernatorial election. Strayhorn, however, is probably too conservative for today’s Austin, and the frontrunner seems to be city councilor Brewster McCracken.

• Census: The state of New York is ponying up $2 million in state funding to bolster participation in the 2010 Census, mostly for outreach campaigns to traditionally undercounted populations. Assumedly, they think this money will pay much greater dividends later, if a more accurate count reveals more New Yorkers and thus brings in more federal funding for social programs.

• LA-Sen: In a tantalizing item, the Hotline teases that “The DSCC won’t let Rep. Melancon (D) alone.” Does this mean Melancon could be back in the recruiting crosshairs, despite previously saying he was “not contemplating a run”? The Hotline’s note is behind a subscription paywall; if you have access to it, please feel free to elaborate in comments.