SSP Daily Digest: 4/22 (Afternoon Edition)

CA-Sen, CA-Gov: I’m starting to think there’s some actual truth to this “Whitman is slipping (having passed the point of diminishing returns on saturation advertising)” meme that’s developing, perhaps illustrated most clearly in yesterday’s Rasmussen poll of the general. That may also be at play in the primary, though, where a new poll from Capital Weekly (by Probolsky Research) finds a smaller (though still dominant) edge for Meg Whitman in the GOP primary; she leads Steve Poizner 47-19 (a 28-pt. lead, quite different from the Field Poll’s 49-point lead last month). Over on the Senate side, Tom Campbell seems to be putting some distance between himself and his competitors; he’s at 31%, with Carly Fiorina at 17 and Chuck DeVore at 14. (No general election matchups were tested.)

FL-Sen: Although everyone’s sitting and watching, the other shoe still hasn’t dropped yet in Florida. The state GOP is already preparing for the likely independent bid from Charlie Crist, telling its other candidates that they can’t back anybody who isn’t running under the GOP banner. They’ve also rolled out their chief enforcer, Dick Cheney, who endorsed Marco Rubio and who will be inviting Crist-supporting GOPers on hunting trips. Meanwhile, there’s growing speculation that the credit card/fancy-livin’ scandal that’s engulfing the RPOF, and has taken some of the shine off Rubio’s halo, may actually spatter mud as far afield as Crist himself (via for state party chair and key Crist ally Jim Greer). The possibility of a split between two damaged GOPers may be luring a new Democrat to the race, too: billionaire investor Jeff Greene is considering jumping in the primary field (although, considering that every news account about him today seems to be more interested in his relations with Mike Tyson, Heidi Fleiss, and Ron Howard, than with his political chops, I doubt this will be more than a curiosity).

LA-Sen: While everyone’s still waiting to see if right-wing gadfly James Cain shows up to challenge David Vitter, another lesser-known member of the teabagging set has confirmed that he’s going to run as an independent in the Senate race. Mike Spears, owner of a web design firm, apparently doesn’t have self-funding capacity. He offers up a 5-point plan for “restoring the America he knew growing up,” point 1 of which is the rather ominous, if weird-sounding, “neutralizing party strongholds.”

PA-Sen: Joe Biden is making his first trip back to Scranton since his election, to stump for Arlen Specter. Fellow members of the local political establishment Bob Casey, Paul Kanjorski, and Chris Carney will be at the event too.

WA-Sen: Here’s some more food for thought for Dino Rossi, who may still be contemplating a Senate bid (and it seems to be what Tommy Thompson and George Pataki already seemed to understand). No one* in the last decade has launched a Senate bid this late in the game and gone on to win (* = Frank Lautenberg won under unusual circumstances as a last minute fill-in for Bob Torricelli). The closest anyone has come is Mark Dayton, who won in 2000 despite announcing on April 3. The majority of successful non-incumbents ran for more than one year. And prominent members of the state GOP are starting to see the handwriting on the wall, too: state House minority leader Richard DeBolt got tired of waiting and endorsed state Sen. Don Benton in the race instead.

KS-Gov: This isn’t the right time for Sam Brownback’s approvals to go negative for the first time in years; he’s at 41/47 according to SurveyUSA. Brownback, of course, is looking to make the leap to Governor, facing Democratic state Sen. Tom Holland. Fellow Senator Pat Roberts — less of social values warrior and more of an uncontroversial Main Street type — fares much better at 51/38.

MN-Gov: Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak picked up a couple more endorsements, starting with Rep. Betty McCollum (who represents mostly St. Paul, rather than Minneapolis). McCollum had previously backed Steve Kelley, who dropped out several months ago. And while the SEIU won’t be endorsing, its state president, Javier Morillo-Alicea, individually weighed in on Rybak’s behalf.

OR-Gov: Blue Oregon has a rundown on the money chase in the Oregon gubernatorial race. GOPer and ex-NBAer Chris Dudley has been raising the most, but also spending the most: raising $1.3 million over the course of the race, but with $276K CoH. Democrat John Kitzhaber has raised $1.2 million, but is sitting on $575K. Everyone else is down in the five digits.

MO-08: Tommy Sowers has been attracting a lot of attention this week with his second straight quarter of outraising Jo Ann Emerson, but she retaliated with an internal poll showing that Sowers has a long way to go toward knocking her off in this R+15 district. According to pollster American Viewpoint, she leads 71-18.

NY-23: More evidence that the institutional might is pushing away from 2009 spoiler Doug Hoffman and toward investment banker Matt Doheny instead, for the GOP nomination. Hoffman’s fundraising numbers for Q1 were weak: he took in $14K in outside contributions, and loaned himself $100K. He’s sitting on $263K CoH, but also $205K in debt.

NY-29: We Ask America has been trying to break into the polling game lately, although we gotta wonder what’s up with their love of significant digits. Are they that sure about their results? They polled the 29th, finding that, if the special election were held today, GOP Corning mayor Tom Reed would beat currently-little-known Democratic candidate Matthew Zeller 41.38%-24.01%. A majority also support having a special election, rather than waiting till November to fill the seat.

SD-AL: The first candidate to hit the TV airwaves in the GOP primary in South Dakota isn’t the well-known one (SoS Chris Nelson) or the one with money (Blake Curd), but, well, the other one. State Rep. Kristi Noem is up with an introductory spot.

VA-02: This may seem way, way down in the weeds, but it could help Glenn Nye out a lot, considering that he has the most Navy-centric district in the nation. The main fight of Nye’s short political career has been to keep the Navy from moving one of its carrier groups from Norfolk to Jacksonville; while he lost the first skirmish on that, the Navy now says the move won’t happen until 2019, sparing his district any immediate economic pain.

CA-LG: The Democrats in the California state Assembly somehow wised up and, reversing their previous decision, decided to confirm moderate Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado to the vacant Lt. Governor position. With the 51-17 vote, that means that Maldonado will be opening up the Democratic-leaning SD-15 on the central coast, which will be filled by special election (and has the potential to get the Dems one step closer to the magic 2/3s mark in the state Senate).

WA-Init: In the wake of Oregon voters approving a high-income surtax, it looks like Washington may follow their lead. Proposed Initiative 1077 would create an income tax (Washington currently has none) on individuals making more than $200K, and in exchange lower property taxes and eliminate the nettlesome B&O tax. SurveyUSA polled the topic and found an almost astonishingly high level of support: 66 are in favor, 27 against. More evidence that new taxes, when properly framed, can be a winner at the ballot box.

RNC: The RNC is subtly getting involved in the HI-01 special election, transferring $90K to the state party in March that went toward a TV spot for Charles Djou. The bigger story about the RNC today, though, may be about the financial disarray in its house: it’s spending more money courting top-dollar donors that it actually gets back from them.

WATN?: After weighing a variety of different possible candidacies (state CFO? FL-25?), we’re glad to see 2008 FL-18 candidate Annette Taddeo taking another stab at elective office, as we need to expand our Hispanic bench in the bluening Miami area. She’s running for a seat on the Miami-Dade County Council.

SSP Daily Digest: 4/21 (Afternoon Edition)

FL-Sen: The big rumor, all over the Interwebs today (courtesy of Southern Political Report/Insider Advantage’s Matt Towery), is that Charlie Crist has fully resolved to run as an independent for Senate. The announcement will be “sooner rather than later,” and he’s drafting the speech for the announcement. There’s no confirmation from anyone else, though. Crist’s camp has denied they’ve been scrubbing all references to “Republican” from Crist’s websites in preparation for the big switch. Meanwhile, GOP establishment support within Florida for Crist seems to be cratering, as current state House speaker Larry Cretul threw his lot in with Rubio today. John McCain also said today that he can’t support Crist’s independent candidacy. (Wow, that’s really going out on a limb there, Mr. Maverick.)

AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski may be one of the least endangered Senate incumbents out there, with no Democrats of note stepping forward to challenge her. Her GOP primary may turn out to require at least a little effort, though, as a challenger of at least something-of-note has stepped forward: former judge Joe Miller, whose only elective experience is losing a Fairbanks-area state House race. Miller is sounding teabaggy themes about the Constitution and socialism, but has endorsements from three state legislators, all from the socially conservative side of the GOP.

IN-Sen: Hey, big spender! John Hostettler reports raising $37K in the first quarter, spending $27K, and ending with $10K CoH.

NC-Sen: Cal Cunningham’s fundraising haul for Q1 was a weak $345K, leaving him $478K CoH. That’s still more than Elaine Marshall, who has $181K. Pundits are left wondering if the DSCC (who seem to prefer Cunningham) will intervene on Cunningham’s behalf to get him out of the primary, where polls have shown the former state Senator lagging behind Marshall, who as SoS is known statewide.

NV-Sen: Sue Lowden would do well to heed the old expression about finding oneself in a hole and stopping digging. After her disastrous comments about bartering chickens to doctors in exchange for surgeries and MRIs, she was given ample opportunity to back down, but she doubled down yesterday, saying no, she was serious, and now her spokesperson is tripling down today, saying, no, she was still serious, and presenting a quote from one doctor who says that, yes, he does accept payment in alfalfa and bathtub form. Meanwhile, over in the other Senate seat, badly-damaged John Ensign is also on the receiving end of a lot of derision after reporting $50 in receipts in Q1. TPM actually tracked Ensign’s one donor down, who shrugged off Ensign’s problems, saying “All men are dogs.”

UT-Sen: Mitt Romney will be at the Utah Republican convention next month to lend his support to faltering incumbent Bob Bennett. I’m not sure if Romney will be able to vote for Bennett, though, as Utah may not be one of the approximately 14 states in which he has residency.

WA-Sen: Dino Rossi seems content to pad out his waiting game all the way up to Washington’s June 11 filing deadline (seemingly blissfully unaware that he needs to raise a metric ton of money ASAP if he’s going to run). That’s not sitting well with John Cornyn, who’s amping up the public statements telling Rossi to get his ass in gear.

CA-Gov: Meg Whitman’s out with an internal poll via McLaughlin, giving her a 53-22 edge over Steve Poizner in the GOP primary. Some of you may also have noticed a Rasmussen poll out today showing the needle zooming back in Jerry Brown’s direction in the general. I’m very puzzled about this one… why is Rasmussen, of all people, putting up better California results for Dems than the Field Poll? I’m wondering if California is intensely blue enough that Rasmussen’s LV model works in Dems’ favor somehow.

MI-Gov: I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone went after Republican AG Mike Cox over the alleged coverup of a party-gone-very-awry at then-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s place in 2002. The ad (a small buy on Lansing-area radio stations) attacking Cox is from Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, who, if the name sounds familiar, is the handiwork of Rick Reed, auteur of the Swift Boat Vets ads. Fingers are being pointed at primary rival Rick Snyder, but he says he didn’t have anything to do with it.

NY-19: This ought to ease the risk of a NY-23 type situation in the 19th: Nan Hayworth, from the county club wing of the GOP and facing some teabagging opposition in the primary, managed to nail down the endorsement of the Putnam County Conservative Party. Of course, exurban Putnam County is only a small minority of the district, so we’ll have to see what happens in the other more populous counties.

NY-29: Speaking of New York and teabaggers, it looks like Corning mayor Tom Reed  — a moderate who managed to deter bigger GOP names from jumping into the race following Eric Massa’s implosion — is now drawing some teabagging opposition in the GOP primary from small businessman Angelo Campini.

NY-St. Sen.: It’s kind of sad that I had to debate over whether a New York state Senate majority leader’s office getting raided by the FBI and the state AG’s office even qualifies as newsworthy because it’s so totally expected. At any rate, Pedro Espada, who mere months ago held the linchpin of power in New York, now seems on his way to an ignominious end, as the scandal over Soundview Health Center heats up.

NY-St. Ass.: This feels more like “Where Are They Now?” than an actual state Assembly story, but Dede Scozzafava, who went in a few short weeks from likely U.S. Representative to historical footnote, has decided that she’s through with the Assembly (having gotten sacked from her deputy leadership position). She’ll be retiring at the end of her term.

Governors: Here’s a fun conversation piece: CREW has released its list of the 10 worst governors, in terms of corruption, unethical behavior, and general malfeasance. In a surprise to me, Jim Gibbons didn’t top the list. (I’ll give you a hint of who did: he’s thinking of running for President in 2012, and he seems to be made partly of Foghorn Leghorn DNA.) Only two Dems made the cut: David Paterson and Bill Richardson.

SSP Daily Digest: 4/21 (Morning Edition)

  • CA-Sen: Just a day after President Obama did three fundraisers for her campaign, Sen. Barbara Boxer says she expects the POTUS to be back next month for another event in San Francisco.
  • FL-Sen: The US Attorney’s Office, the FBI and the IRS are all investigating the possible misuse of credit cards by state Republican Party officials – a case which has already led to the indictment of former House Speaker Ray Sansom. In a separate investigation, the IRS is looking at Marco Rubio’s tax records to see if he misused his party credit cards for personal expenses. Meanwhile, state Rep. Tom Grady becomes the latest Charlie Crist ally to pull away from the campaign.
  • PA-Sen: PoliticsPA says that, according to a source, Joe Sestak’s week-long TV ad buy is “worth” $930,000. It’s not clear to me whether that’s how much Sestak is actually spending, though – it’s possible to lock in lower rates by reserving time in advance, which his campaign may have done here (thus inflating the “worth” of the buy). Meanwhile, in an email to supporters, Sestak is decrying Arlen Specter’s attacks on his service in the Navy as “Swift Boat-like.”
  • ME-Gov: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D) for Libby Mitchell (4/11-14, likely voters, no trendlines):
  • Libby Mitchell (D): 36

    Steve Rowe (D): 16

    Pat McGowan (D): 13

    John Richardson (D): 4

    Rosa Scarcelli (D): 3

    (MoE: ±4%)

    If these names – all of whom are running in the Maine Democratic gubernatorial primary – aren’t familiar to you, follow the link to the Hotline for some background details.

  • MN-Gov: Dem Matt Entenza is going up on the air with TV and radio ads after the DFL’s statewide convention this weekend – but of course, no word on the size of the buy. Speaking of the convention, things are about to either get very interesting or a lot simpler in the MN gubernatorial race. Entenza and ex-Sen. Mark Dayton, who can both self-fund, are both saying they’ll fight on through the primary, while the two apparent frontrunners, state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, are pledging to abide by the convention’s endorsement.
  • AL-05: Notorious turncoat Rep. Parker Griffith is still sitting on $20K that various Democratic lawmakers have given him, supposedly because they haven’t asked for it back. This includes money from Rahm Emanuel, Nydia Velazquez, Rosa DeLauro and the retiring Bart Gordon, among others. Gordon, for what can only be bizarre, unspecified reasons, isn’t asking for his money back. Rahm, since he’s serving in the White House, won’t make a formal request, but twists the knife, saying “Whether the contribution is returned or not will be left up to Rep. Griffith’s conscience.” As for the rest of you dudes, DEMAND YOUR MONEY BACK!
  • CA-19: SurveyUSA (4/16-19, likely voters, 3/15-17 in parens):
  • Jeff Denham (R): 27 (25)

    Jim Patterson (R): 26 (26)

    Richard Pombo (R): 16 (13)

    Larry Westerlund (R): 6 (7)

    Undecided: 25 (29)

    (MoE: ±3.6%)

    Loraine Goodwin (D): 18 (14)

    John Estrada (D): 15 (24)

    Les Marsden (D): 10 (8)

    Undecided (D): 56 (54)

    (MoE: ±4.9%)

    Seriously, of all the races they could poll? I realize this is on behalf of a media client, but still.

  • DC-AL, UT-AL: Sigh. Legislation which would have given the District of Columbia an actual voting seat in the House is yet again being derailed. Republicans insist that any such bill also eviscerate any remaining gun control laws in the district, and they’ve frightened enough conservative Dems into supporting such an amendment that you can’t have one (the voting rights bill) without the other (the gun provision). The pro-gun measure has become even more absurd, though, such that Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton asked Steny Hoyer to pull the bill altogether. On the Senate side, Orrin Hatch had spazzed about the fact that the bill’s other sop to Republicans (a temporary extra seat for Utah) would have been at at-large district – he wants to be able to re-draw the lines (and presumably screw Dem Rep. Jim Matheson) – and said he was glad the bill got scuttled.
  • HI-01: The D-Trip just spent another $55K on a second negative TV ad attacking Charles Djou, which you can see here. Meanwhile, in light of recent polling showing this unusual jungle race to be incredibly tight, SSP is changing its rating from “Lean Dem” to “Tossup.
  • MI-01: Term-limited Dem state Rep. Gary McDowell will apparently run to succeed Bart Stupak. McDowell is from the Upper Peninsula, which Crisitunity aptly described as the district’s “cultural center of gravity.” One possible holdup, though, is that it sounds like McDowell may be willing to defer to former House Democratic Floor Leader Pat Gagliardi, who has not yet made up his mind.
  • NY-29: Dem Matthew Zeller, tapped by county leaders as the Democratic nominee in the (potential) special election to succeed Eric Massa, formally launched his campaign on Monday. However, it’s starting to look like there won’t be a special election after all, which means there will be a primary. If that winds up being the case, businessman David Nachbar (who withdrew his name from consideration for the special) has said he might run.
  • WV-01: Rep. Alan Mollohan is going on the air with a TV ad that attacks his primary opponent, state Sen. Mike Oliverio, “for his ties to a conservative-leaning organization of state legislators.” Oliverio had previously launched an ad attacking Mollohan on ethical grounds. No word on the size of either buy.
  • Alaska: Alaska’s state legislature voted to increase its size, by two seats in the Senate and four in the House. AK’s population has tripled since statehood fifty years ago, but its lege had remained constant in numbers. What’s more, its rural districts are enormous, and would have gotten even larger after redistricting as the population concentrates in the state’s few big cities.
  • Polling: Reid Wilson, diving into recent FEC reports, notes that few Dems commissioned polls in the first quarter of this year – and among those who have, pretty much no one is sharing the data with the public. However, Reid doesn’t say whether Republicans have spent similarly on internal polling in the past quarter, or how Q1 2010 compares with prior years.
  • RNC: God bless Michael Steele. Under his stewardship, the RNC decided to blow $340K to hold a big staff meeting in… Hawaii. Because that’s both convenient and inexpensive. If Dems suffer anything less than an utter blowout this fall, we’ll be able to thank Steele in no small part.
  • WATN?: Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who already served 99 days in jail for obstruction of justice (among other things), may be headed back to prison for probation violations (including hiding assets).
  • NY-29: Dems Back Zeller

    Which dude? This Dude:

    Multiple Democratic sources now confirm that party chairs decided Monday night that Matthew Zeller is their candidate should a special election to replace Rep. Eric Massa take place. […]

    Zeller, 28, is a Rochester area native with family throughout the 29th Congressional District and roots in the Southern Tier.  Zeller is an ’04 alum of Hamilton College and also earned master’s degrees in public administration and international relations from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in ’06 according to a recent news release from Hamilton College.

    Also according to that release Zeller worked as an embedded combat mentor to the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police while on deployment in 2008.  Zeller, a friend tells me, got the urge to enlist in the Army following the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.  While attending college he was a member of the ROTC program.

    Assuming David Paterson calls a special election (which seems to be an unlikely turn of events at this point, but you never know), Zeller will be the guy. However, if there’s no special, Zeller will still have to compete for the Democratic nomination in the September primary. At this point, it’s unclear if he’ll get any competition, but Monroe County Democratic Party spokesman Sean Hart is telling the Politico that the local parties are discouraging anyone from challenging Zeller.

    I’m not sure what in particular gave Zeller the edge, but I’m looking forward to hearing more about him.

    (Hat-tip: tietack)

    SSP Daily Digest: 4/6 (Afternoon Edition)

    AZ-Sen: Maybe she was scared off by that R2K poll that had her down more than 20-odd points? Nan Stockholm Walden, a wealthy attorney and businesswoman who had been the subject of DSCC interest as a candidate in Arizona, decided not to run. That gives Tucson city councilor Rodney Glassman a pretty clear path to the nomination (assuming he runs; he’s still in exploratory mode).

    CT-Sen: Did you know that Linda McMahon actually held (until now) a political position, in addition to, of course, all the important work she does at WWE? She was on Connecticut’s Board of Education (an appointed position, courtesy of Jodi Rell), but just resigned from that role. She says that there are too many restrictions on political activities by board members for her to be able to remain in that position, as she tries to get the GOP Senate nomination.

    SD-Sen: John Thune may have dodged having to run against a Democrat in November, but he won’t be running purely unopposed. He’s still facing off against an independent, perennial candidate Kurt Evans.

    WI-Sen, WI-Gov: I had no idea that St. Norbert was the patron saint of fucked-up polls. A poll from Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert College is tilted even further in the Republican direction than recent offerings from Rasmussen and the decidedly conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. They find Russ Feingold losing to Tommy Thompson 45-33 (with 14% for an independent/third party, whoever that might be), and beating Generic R by only 40-37. Their gubernatorial numbers find Tom Barrett losing to Scott Walker 44-28 and to Mark Neumann 43-29. Even the GOP primary numbers seem screwy, with underdog Neumann almost even with Walker, who leads 24-23.

    CA-Gov: Meg Whitman rummaged around in her purse and found another $20 million to throw on the table, bringing her personal contributions to the race up to a whopping $59 million. Despite her big lead over Steve Poizner in the primary, she may need to prepare to shore things up, as Poizner has been telegraphing that he’s going to start going hard at her on the hot-button issue of immigration, in a last-ditch effort to get the state’s right-wingers to pay some attention to him.

    GA-12: There were some poorly sourced rumors yesterday that Rep. John Barrow — a conservadem in a swing district facing a primary challenge and the ire of a large swath of his African-American constituency after his HCR “no” vote — was going to switch parties. Barrow now says he was never even contemplating that, though.

    KS-03: After the Kansas City Star reported last week that Stephene Moore was going to run to replace her husband, Dennis, in the 3rd, she started acting coy about it (despite insider assurances that it was a done deal). As expected, though, today she made it official, filing a glaring hole in this R+3 open seat.

    LA-03: It looks like the NRCC is finally getting a top-tier participant in the open seat race in the 3rd (despite that winning it won’t be much of a prize, as the 3rd is poised to vaporize in 2012 redistricting). Former state House speaker Hunt Downer says he’ll announce his candidacy very soon. Probably the surest indication that Downer is serious is that state Rep. Nickie Monica, who may have been the strongest GOPer in the field to date, now says he’s getting out of the race to make way for Downer. With attorney Ravi Sangisetty the only Dem willing to stick his neck out for this one, this one’s pretty thoroughly in the GOP column.

    MN-06: State Sen. Tarryl Clark has been putting up some monster fundraising numbers against Michele Bachmann this cycle; I guess that’s what happens when you run against one of the nation’s top lightning rods for teh crazy. She pulled in $505K last quarter, bringing her to $1.1 million in total receipts this cycle. Unfortunately, Clark (or her primary opponent Maureen Reed, who’s also raised well but hasn’t released Q1 numbers yet) will likely have to contend with the presence of spoiler Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. Anderson pulled in 10% of the vote in 2008 (while Elwyn Tinklenberg lost by only 3%), and he’s seeking the IP’s endorsement again.

    NH-01: RNC committee member Sean Mahoney made a big show out of resigning his post, ostensibly out of disgust with the Michael Steele administration and its free-spending, strip-clubbing ways. Speculation, though, is that Mahoney is planning to run in the GOP primary in the 1st (where Manchester mayor Frank Guinta is considered frontrunner, although so-so fundraising has diminished his luster a bit), which would require him to resign anyway. Mahoney isn’t promising anything on that front yet, though.

    NY-29: The Democrats have literally chosen Some Dude as their standard bearer in the 29th. The party chairs in the eight counties in the district issued a statement where they said they’ve chosen a consensus nominee to replace Eric Massa in the special election that may or may not happen. However, they neglected to actually say who that candidate might be. We’ll know the masked man’s identity next week.

    TN-03: A Huck divided against itself cannot stand? In a prime example of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, HuckPAC (Mike Huckabee’s national financial arm) and Team Huck Tennessee (the local grassroots operation) are endorsing different candidates in the GOP primary in the 3rd. Team Huck is endorsing former state GOP chair Robin Smith, while HuckPAC (and presumably, Huckabee himself) is going with attorney Chuck Fleischmann.

    TN-08: State Sen. Roy Herron had another fine fundraising quarter as he tries to keep this open seat in Democratic hands; he pulled in $490K last quarter, leaving him with more than $1 million cash on hand. It’s not an expensive district, media-wise, but he has some strong fundraising competition from humble gospel-singing farmer agribusiness mogul Stephen Fincher, who pulled in over $300K himself and is sitting on $820K CoH.

    PA-St. Sen.: As if the Pennsylvania legislature couldn’t be held in any lower esteem, here’s another fresh scandal. Luckily, this one seems to be falling on the Republican side of the aisle: state Sen. Jane Orie, the body’s third-ranking GOPer, was just accused by a grand jury of repeatedly using her staff for political campaigns on the state’s dime (include the campaign of her sister, state Supreme Court justice Joan Orie Melvin). Charges are expected, but Orie is shrugging it off, saying it’s a politically motivated smear by Democratic Allegheny Co. DA Stephen Zappala.

    Filings: The filing deadline in Missouri has passed, on March 30. Rep. Roy Blunt wound up with (count ’em) 10 Republican primary opponents in the Senate race, although state Sen. Chuck Purgason seems the only one worth paying attention to. The number of GOPers vying to take on Ike Skelton in MO-04 also reached the double digits. Probably the biggest surprise and disappointment was in MO-09: not that the DCCC would likely have strongly contested this district that they barely lost in 2008 when it was open, but not a single Democrat showed up to run in this race.

    Teabaggers: Here’s a nice catch from Ruy Teixeira: teabagging is about as popular as socialism. In slightly-differently-worded questions from two different 2010 polls, Gallup found that 37% had a favorable opinion of “the Tea Party movement” (including 14% of Democrats), while 36% had a positive image of “socialism” (including 17% of Republicans?!?).

    NY-29: Paterson Won’t Schedule a Special Election

    A huge blow for mid-year liveblogging:

    NY Gov. David Paterson (D) will not call a special election to fill the vacancy created by Rep. Eric Massa’s (D) resignation earlier this month, according to news reports.

    “We have some serious concerns about the financial impact that a special election could have on the county level, especially because those counties are facing the same fiscal crisis that the state is facing,” Paterson spokesperson Maggie McKeon told the Gannett news service.

    That’s a blow to the GOP, which saw the Corning-based district as its best chance to win a special election before the Nov. midterms. The NRCC has said it has yet to make a decision about how much it will invest in a special election to replace the late Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), and the party hasn’t signaled it will get seriously involved in a special election to replace ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), who resigned to run for GOV.

    UPDATE: As mentioned in the comments, Assemblyman David Koon has pulled out of the race:

    New York Assemblyman David Koon said Thursday he won’t run in a special election for former Rep. Eric Massa’s vacant House seat, voicing dissatisfaction with the Democratic nominating process.

    “I’m withdrawing from the race because it’s gotten so messed up and there’s so much going on in Albany, I need to keep my constituents happy,” Koon told POLITICO. “The process has become such a distraction. Trying to raise money and spending time on the phone when I have other stuff that I need to be doing.”

    Koon said he had already received about $200,000 in donation pledges for the race. And he wouldn’t rule out running in a November general election, but said that’s not where he’s focusing his attention now.

    I’m not sure if Koon’s calculus may have changed now that it looks like Paterson is not going to call a special election, but there we are.

    SSP Daily Digest: 4/1 (Afternoon Edition)

  • AL-05: Wayne Parker, the GOP’s 2008 nominee, is endorsing Madison County Comm’r Mo Brooks as a “consistent conservative voice” – and pointedly not endorsing the party-switching Rep. Parker Griffith, to whom he lost. Parker also seems to be trying to consolidate support behind Brooks, who also has to contend with businessman Les Phillip in the primary.
  • AL-07: Radio journalist Patricia Evans Mokolo is dropping out of the Dem primary to succeed Rep. Artur Davis. This doesn’t really change the dynamics of the race much – the three main candidates are still Shelia Smoot, Terri Sewell, and Earl Hilliard, Jr.
  • MI-01: Cheboygan County Drain Commissioner (Drain Commissioner!!) Dennis Lennox, a 25-year-old Republican, won’t challenge Rep. Bart Stupak, instead endorsing surgeon Dan Benishek.
  • MN-01: Michele Bachmann’s toxic vapors are spilling over into the 1st CD: GOPer Jim Hagedorn, himself no stranger to inflammatory remarks, is attacking primary opponent Allen Quist for his supposed “allegiance” to Bachmann – and his propensity for outrageous statements. (Quist once said that men are “genetically predisposed” to be the head of the household.) This seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but it’s also a rare instance of one Republican trying to not out-crazy another.
  • ND-AL: Criticizing the state convention which backed state Rep. Rick Berg as “exclusive,” businessman (and, I’m guessing, Some Dude) J.D. Donaghe filed to run against Berg in the Republican primary. It doesn’t look like Donaghe has filed any FEC reports so far – but then again, neither has Berg.
  • NJ-12: Fair Haven Mayor Michael Halfacre is dropping out and instead supporting businessman Scott Sipprelle for the GOP nod to take on Rep. Rush Holt. Sipprelle, who has given his own campaign a quarter million bucks, still faces real-estate investor Dave Corsi in the primary.
  • NY-02: The Suffolk County GOP is backing former radio talk-show host John Gomez to run against Rep. Steve Israel. Can’t tell you much more than that, though, since the story is behind the Newsday paywall – and there are only 35 online subscribers!
  • NY-13: Rep. Anthony Weiner will fill in for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at a fundraiser for Rep. Mike McMahon. Quinn, you may recall, pulled out after McMahon voted against healthcare reform. Weiner was an outspoken proponent of the bill.
  • NY-20: Looks like the GOP got their huckleberry: Republican county committees have rallied around retired Army colonel Charles Chris Gibson to challenge Dem. Rep. Scott Murphy in the fall. In response, Gibson’s last remaining opponent, Patrick Ziegler, dropped out of the race, so it seems that there won’t be a primary here. Not sure if that’s a good thing, considering the poor success this same 10-county gang had in hand-picking all-time SSP fave Jim Tedisco last year.
  • NY-24: Epidemiologist Les Roberts is still weighing a primary run against Rep. Mike Arcuri, saying he’ll wait until at least April 9th to decide. That’s when the Working Families Party’s executive committee will meet to discuss the race. Roberts is also waiting to hear from county Democratic committees and local unions.
  • NY-29: Citing the state’s fiscal crisis and concerns about costs, a spokesperson for David Paterson is suggesting that the governor might not call a special election after all and will instead wait until the general election in the fall. This would also probably benefit Dems, who will (almost certainly) have Andrew Cuomo at the top of the ticket in November. (So, not surprisingly, GOP candidate Tom Reed is complaining loudly.) Here’s a question I have: If things unfold this way, then would the candidate selection process instead be replaced by a normal primary?
  • SC-02: Sigh. The story of Rob Miller’s campaign in one sentence: “The voice mailbox at his campaign office is full, and no one answered ITK’s repeated calls.”
  • VA-10: Navy vet and teabagger Jim Trautz has dropped his primary challenge to GOP Rep. Frank Wolf. I think we’re going to see the vast majority of teabaggers fizzle out in one way or another.
  • 1994: Pollster Stan Greenberg seemed to freak everybody out by saying at a recent breakfast that if the election were held today, it’d be 1994 all over again. But then he proceeded to explain why he thinks things might be different in November.
  • Census: Nate Silver, looking at state-by-state numbers, thinks there’s no hard evidence that the black helicopter crowd is letting itself get undercounted by refusing to return census forms. I think the county-level response rates will be more interesting, though.
  • Polling: An interesting tidbit: Quinnipiac has been steadily adding cell phones to its call lists. This is something that only pollsters who use live interviewers can do, because federal law prohibits automated calls to cell phones. Also, some fun polling on the political preference of sports fans, broken down by sport.
  • SSP Daily Digest: 3/31

  • IL-Sen: Have I mentioned lately that Mark Kirk is an utter wiener? No? Well, Mark Kirk is an utterly predictable wiener. After charging gung-ho in the direction of “Repeal!”, Kirk has decided to quickly drop his push to roll back healthcare reform, preferring instead to remind everyone how expensive it is.
  • NV-Sen: Here’s some bitter tea for fans of right-wing vote-splitting. It appears that Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian is facing criminal charges for theft relating to bad checks he allegedly wrote for his asphalt business. Ashjian won’t have to withdraw his candidacy if arrested, but headlines like these can’t help him syphon off any substantial amount of votes from the GOP’s flank.
  • PA-Sen: Arlen Specter landed a huge endorsement in his primary battle against Joe Sestak yesterday, with the news that the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO has elected to back the five-term incumbent.
  • TX-Sen: Kay Bailey Hutchison will announce her future plans in San Antonio this morning, flanked by Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn. I think it’s probably a safe guess to say that she’s likely going to serve out the remainder of her term, despite her many promises otherwise.
  • FL-Gov: Republican Bill McCollum leads Democrat Alex Sink by 49-34 according to the latest Mason-Dixon poll of the race.
  • GA-Gov: 31 douchebags Republican state legislators have signed a resolution calling for the impeachment of Democratic AG Thurbert Baker after his refusal to challenge the constitutionality of the recent healthcare reform legislation. Baker, who has been struggling in the polls for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against ex-Gov. Roy Barnes, is probably enjoying the free publicity, if nothing else.
  • MA-Gov: State Treasurer Tim Cahill got busted for sending out a mass fundraising solicitation for his Independent gubernatorial bid to state legislators from his official e-mail account, which is a violation of Massachusetts campaign finance rules.
  • MD-Gov: Former Gov. Bob Ehrlich confirmed on Tuesday that he will attempt a comeback against Democrat Martin O’Malley this year.
  • AR-01: This one ranks pretty low on the list of unexpected political news. Retiring Democratic Rep. Marion Berry will endorse his former chief of staff, Chad Causey, for the Dem nomination to succeed him. Causey also recently picked up the support of the Arkansas AFL-CIO.
  • FL-19: At least one of these things may strain your credulity. Republican Ed Lynch, running in the April 13 special election to replace Democrat Robert Wexler in the House, says that his fundraising has seen “probably a thousand percent increase” since Congress passed healthcare reform, and that “polling we’ve done” shows him ahead of Democrat Ted Deutch. Of course, his campaign isn’t coming forward with any evidence of the existence of any such polls.
  • GA-12: Republican Ray McKinney, a nuclear power project manager who lost the GOP primary in 2008 for the right to take on John Barrow, says that he’s going to try again this year. McKinney joins Thunderbolt Fire Chief Carl Smith, retired businessman Mike Horner, activist Jeanne Seaver and restaurant owner George Brady in the GOP primary.
  • MI-13: Metro Detroit pastor Glenn Plummer, the founder of the African American Christian Television Network, has announced that he’ll challenge Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick in the Democratic primary, joining state Sen. Hansen Clarke for a three-way race. Don’t expect Plummer to be a progressive choice, though: he freely admits that he voted for Bush in 2004, spoke to a GOP convention that same year, and has also used his pulpit to argue in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Yuck.
  • MO-03: Rusty Wallace — not the NASCAR champion, but a CAD technician and avid teabagger — will join the highly-touted Ed Martin in the Republican primary for the right to upset Dem Rep. Russ Carnahan.
  • MO-07: It looks like a couple of high profile candidates have slipped under the wire for the race to fill the seat of Senatorial aspirant Roy Blunt. Ex-state Rep. Steve Hunter will become the ninth GOP candidate in the mix, which some local observers suspect may be a ploy from one of the other candidates to syphon off votes from state Sen. Gary Noodler, who shares Hunter’s regional base. For the Democrats, Scott Eckersley, an attorney who served in ex-Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration, also filed to run for this R+17 seat. Eckersley settled a wrongful termination lawsuit with the state last year after alleging that he was dismissed for raising questions within the administration over the destruction of controversial state e-mails. Eckersley isn’t committed to a run, though, and said he filed in order to keep his options open.
  • NV-03: Ex-state Sen. Joe Heck (R) is leading Democratic frosh Rep. Dina Titus by 40-35, according to a new internal poll conducted by Wilson Research Strategies for Heck’s campaign.
  • NY-29: Local Democrats still haven’t settled on a nominee for the special election in this upstate New York district, but at least we now know the names of six of the potential candidates:

    The interviewed candidates include Southern Tier native Matthew Zeller, former Allegany County District 4 Legislator Michael McCormick, David Nachbar, a former state Senate candidate and businessman from Pittsford, Rush-Henrietta Central School District teacher David Rose, and Assemblyman David Koon, D-Perinton. Mary Wilmot, an aide to Gov. David Paterson, was the lone women interviewed.

  • PA-10: I never thought I’d say this, but why can’t we have more Dems like Chris Carney? After harshly criticizing Sarah Palin for putting his House district in literal cross hairs, Carney defended his HCR vote to a local TV station:

    “You can’t vote worried about your career, you have to vote the right way,” Carney said. “You have to vote your conscience and for me this was a vote of conscience.”

    Remember when the GOP tried to recruit Carney to join their caucus?

  • SC-05: John Spratt is a true hero. Just a day after filing for re-election in the face of persistent retirement rumors fueled by NRCC schemers and beltway natterers, Spratt has announced that he’s been diagnosed with early stage Parkinson’s disease. Spratt insists that his symptoms are mild and that his condition won’t impede his ability to serve in Congress — or run a vigorous re-election race.
  • SD-AL: Physician Kevin Weiland has dropped his plans to challenge Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the Democratic primary, citing his concern for party unity. Weiland issued a joint press release with Herseth Sandlin announcing the news, and based his decision partly on assurances from Herseth Sandlin that she would not vote to repeal healthcare reform. (Hat-tip: doug tuttle)
  • TN-06: Democrats have finally found a candidate to run for the seat held by retiring Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon. Marine Capt. Ben Leming, an Iraq War veteran, received permission from the secretary of the Navy to file his candidacy. However, Leming can’t actively campaign until his active duty ends on May 1st.
  • WA-01: This seat isn’t on anyone’s radar, but Republican businessman James Watkins recently released an internal poll, conducted by Moore Information, showing him trailing Democrat Jay Inslee by 41-27.
  • WI-03: Is this what state Sen. Dan Kapanke signed up for when he decided to run for Congress against Democrat Ron Kind? Kapanke jumped into the race with much fanfare in the anticipation that Kind would bail on the race to run for Governor. That didn’t happen, and now Kapanke is facing a primary from ex-banker Bruce Evers, who has some truly wild ideas on constraining government spending.
  • SSP Daily Digest: 3/30

  • AR-Sen: Bill Halter has a new ad up going after Sen. Blanche Lincoln for her vote in favor of TARP – aka the bailout. As is all too often the case with these kinds of reports, there’s no indication of how big the ad buy is.
  • CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Man, the news cycle moves fast these days. The RNC bondage-themed nightclub scandal (which I’m sure you’ve read all about) already had some same-day blowback. GOP senate candidate Chuck DeVore says he’s “severed all ties” with Erik Brown, a consultant who seems to be responsible for the expenses racked up at Voyeur West Hollywood. The Daily Caller (which broke the story originally) also says that Brown did work for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner. Meanwhile, Politico’s Dave Catanese tweets that freshman Sen. Claire McCaskill is sending out a fundraising email for Barbara Boxer.
  • CT-Sen: In the somewhat strange Connecticut Republican senate primary, Paulist economist Peter Schiff has put out his first TV ad… and it doesn’t mention that he’s a Republican. Schiff is spending half a mil to run the ad statewide for two weeks. Schiff also promised to run in the August primary even if he doesn’t get the party nomination at the May convention.
  • KS-Sen: Things have gotten a little worse for Todd Tiahrt in his race against Jerry Moran in the GOP primary to succeed outgoing Sen. Sam Brownback: SUSA now shows Moran up 42-32. Two months ago, Moran led by seven points – and by just three two months before that. The Kansas primary is not until August 3rd, so Tiahrt still has time, but he doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction.
  • KY-Sen: Now things are getting good:
  • Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state, used his latest ad to again hammer his rival, Bowling Green eye surgeon Rand Paul, on national security issues.

    “Paul even wonders whether 9/11 was our fault,” a female announcer says in the spot that began airing Thursday. The commercial then shows Paul speaking at a Blue Grass Policy Institute forum in March 2009, saying: “Maybe some of the bad things that happen are a reaction to our presence in some of these countries.”

    I just hope that Grayson doesn’t nuke Paul before our nominee (hopefully Jack Conway) gets a chance to pummel him in the general.

  • NC-Sen: A good get for former state Sen. Cal Cunningham: Gen. Wesley Clark endorsed his fellow Army veteran for the Democratic senate nod. Interestingly, Clark specifically noted Cunningham’s support for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
  • NY-Sen-B: Marist finds ex-Gov. George Pataki with the narrowest of leads over Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, 47-45, essentially unchanged from last month’s 48-45 margin. This is all well and good for Republicans, but Pataki hasn’t given the slightest indication that he’s interested in running.
  • GA-Gov: Looks like Nathan Deal didn’t quit quite fast enough. The Office of Congressional Ethics found (according to the NYT) that Deal “appeared to have improperly used his office to pressure Georgia officials to continue a vehicle inspection program that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for his family’s auto salvage business.”  I wonder how much of an impact this will have in the governor’s race, though, since Deal had mostly been floundering in the polls. Maybe it’ll just be the final nail in his political coffin – a suiting end for a party-switching ex-Democrat.
  • IA-Gov: GOP ex-Gov. and comeback hopeful Terry Branstad is up with his first TV ad of the campaign. No word on the size of the buy, though.
  • MD-Gov: The Baltimore Sun profiles would-be GOP gubernatorial candidate (and ex-gov) Bob Ehrlich and finds that his current job is “‘rainmaker’ for the Baltimore branch of North Carolina-based law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice. Ehrlich describes his job as being ‘the face of the firm,’ with his duties including ‘speeches, coffees, dinners, lunches, meetings.'” Sounds like Ehrlich’s been working on honing his Dan Coats/Tommy Thompson pedigree.
  • FL-08: Rep. Alan Grayson, one of the wealthiest members of Congress and a man who has largely self-funded his past campaigns, raised almost half a million dollars in a recent “moneybomb.”
  • NY-13: It looks like the GOP has some primary woes of its own in the 13th CD. Though the Republican establishment is coalescing around former FBI agent Mike Grimm, lawyer Michael Allegretti is vowing to fight on. He’s recently gone up with an ad on cable (so presumably a small buy) demanding repeal of the healthcare reform bill.
  • NY-23: Hah! Could the unlikable Doug Hoffman foment yet another right-wing split? Hoffman is laying claim to the Conservative Party line in this fall’s election, and he’s making the argument that whoever runs for the Republicans will need both lines in order to win. (Pretty plausible!) This is pissing off local GOP leaders, though, who are taking this as a threat to nominate Hoffman – or else face yet another divided ballot. This is some Fancy Feast-level cat fud we’re talking about.
  • NY-29: A more complete list of candidates interviewed by upstate Dems as potential nominees for the special election to fill ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s seat:
  • Mary Wilmot, an aide to Gov. David Paterson, Assemblyman David Koon of Perinton, past candidate for state Senate and businessman David Nachbar of Pittsford, Southern Tier native Matthew Zeller, and Michael McCormick of Allegany County

    Wonder if we might be missing a name, though, since yesterday word was that the Dems would be interviewing six people.

  • OH-16, OH-18: CQ: “Businessman Jim Renacci, who is taking on freshman Rep. John Boccieri in the 16th district, and state Sen. Bob Gibbs, who is running against two-term Rep. Zack Space in the adjacent 18th district, established a joint fundraising committee, ‘Gibbs-Renacci for Congress’ and will split the proceeds evenly.”
  • PA-06: Manan Trivedi is chipping away at Doug Pike’s big lead among organized labor. He picked up a couple of local union endorsements, from the Transport Workers and the Iron Workers.
  • TN-08: Republican potentates are showering even more love on Steve Fincher, this time in the form of a campaign tour with GA Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (of “Obama is uppity” fame). Fincher has a lot of money, but like almost every GOP candidate with establishment backing, he faces a primary from ever-truer conservatives.
  • Census: There’s some speculation that anti-government attitudes (and paranoid black-helicopterism) might be the cause of low Census response rates in Texas. Though the biggest challenge for the Census is typically presented by undercounted groups like blacks and Latinos, some of the lowest response rates are in fact coming from very Republican counties. It’ll be very interesting to compare response rates and voting history when all is said and done.
  • Redistricting: Nathan Gonzales has a detailed look at the powers that are gathering on both sides for the upcoming post-census redistricting battle.
  • SSP Daily Digest: 3/29

    Only one digest a day this week. Too much candy is bad for you!

  • FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek will qualify for the ballot today in an apparently unprecedented manner. Rather than pay the $10,000 filing fee, he plans to submit 130,000 signatures from across the state. (You need 112,500, so he has some wiggle room.) While this obviously was a vastly more expensive undertaking, Meek’s earned a bunch of free media as a result, and has also padded out his campaign database. On the GOP side, Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist squared off in their first debate yesterday. The Politico also has a take on the proceedings.
  • MA-Sen: Rachel Maddow took out a full-page ad in the Boston Globe to deny rumors that she had any interest in running against Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. But actually, it’s much better than that – click the link and check out her letter for yourself. She lands some good blows on Brown, who had sent out a letter trying to raise money off the oogedy-boogedy threat of a Maddow run. Says Maddow: “It’s standard now for conservatives to invent scary fake threats to run against.” Like her.
  • UT-Sen: Republican Gov. Gary Herbert says he won’t take sides in the primary battle against his fellow GOPer, Sen. Bob Bennett. Given that incumbents usually stick together, this seems worrying for Bennett – a guy who already has a long list of worries.
  • AL-05: Local conservative activist Hugh McInnish is seeking to bar Rep. Parker Griffith from the GOP ballot, calling him an “impostor.” A petition he filed with local party leaders was shot down in January, but he’s going to try to make his case to the state party next week.
  • CT-05: Former Hill aide Justin Bernier is complaining about how the House Conservatives Fund (a PAC run by Rep. Patrick McHenry) decided to endorse state Sen. Sam Caligiuri rather than himself. The HCF asked Bernier to fill out a survey and return it to one Evan Kozlow. The problem? Kozlow does work for the HCF, and he’s also Caligiuri’s general consultant.
  • MN-06: Dems in MN’s 6th CD have given their endorsement to state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Clark will still have to face off against Maureen Reed (formerly a member of the Independence Party) in an August primary.
  • NY-29: Upstate Dems are staying tight-lipped about their pick for a nominee in the special election to fill ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s seat. They are meeting today to interview six candidates, one of whom is Assemblyman David Koon. The other names are still unknown, though Paterson aide Mary Wilmot may be among them.
  • PA-10: A group called Catholics United, which pushed Chris Carney to support the healthcare reform bill, is now running an ad (on FOX News!) to thank him for his “yes” vote. No word on the size of the buy, but obviously it’s a cable dealie, so probably not big.
  • WA-03: Nurse and Democrat Maria Rodriguez-Salazar is dropping out of the race to succeed the retiring Rep. Brian Baird. This cuts the Dem field down to Denny Heck, Craig Pridemore, and Cheryl Crist.
  • IL-Lt. Gov: Illinois Democrats went the ultimate outsider route to pick a replacement Lt. Gov. candidate, choosing… the child of a former senator. Uh, I’m sure Sheila Simon, the daughter of the late Sen. Paul Simon, is a great person. But considering the lengths IL Dems went to try to open up this process and look like they weren’t just conducting another backroom deal (you could even apply online!), this almost seems like an absurd result. Not to mention the fact that this isn’t exactly the kind of year where a gubernatorial candidate wants to remind voters of any ties to DC. Seriously strange move here.
  • DSCC: Joe Biden just did a Dallas fundraiser for the DSCC, which took in $250,000. He also did a DNC fundraiser the same day. No word on how much that netted, though.