Tag: Marty Meehan

Rasmussen (9/8, likely Democratic voters):

Martha Coakley (D): 38

Stephen Lynch (D): 11

Ed Markey (D): 10

Michael Capuano (D): 7

John Tierney (D): 3

Some other candidate: 5

Not sure: 25

(MoE: ±4%)

Rasmussen acts quickly to get a look at the Democratic primary field in the Massachusetts Senate race, now that it’s clear that heavyweights Joe Kennedy II and Marty Meehan won’t be running. AG Martha Coakley, the only statewide official and the only woman in the race, has a big edge. She leads four Boston-area House members — each of whom represents 1/10th of the state, and most of whom pull in about 1/10th of the respondents.

Lots of other developments in the Bay State today. First and foremost, rumors were flying earlier today that Christy Mihos, the Independent-turned-Republican former convenience store czar and Turnpike Authority board member who’s currently running for Governor, would switch over to the Senate race, giving the GOP a top-tier candidate (albeit still a long shot for a federal office, in this dark-blue state). However, Mihos a few hours ago confirmed that he’s staying in the Governor’s race, where polls have shown him competitive.

Politico also rounds up a number of other odds and ends. One more Democrat is getting into the mix: Alan Khazei, the wealthy founder of City Year, a community service program for 20somethings. He has the potential to self-fund and might be able to tap into the youth vote. Martha Coakley, not exactly in a surprise, is getting EMILY’s List’s endorsement, which well help a lot with her fundraising (her one big disadvantage is she starts almost from scratch on money, while the House members all have huge stockpiles).

Finally, the Massachusetts legislature is poised to move on the legislation needed to create a temporary interim appointment until the special election can be held. Reportedly, legislation may be on the floor by day’s end. One other name has surfaced for the temporary appointment: Paul Kirk, former DNC chair and current head of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

Ex-Rep. Marty Meehan, who has the biggest war chest of any of the potential contenders for the special election to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat, has announced that he won’t run:

Meehan is currently the chancellor of UMass-Lowell.  He told Anderson he wants to finish the job he started there three years ago.

“While I am not ruling out the possibility of seeking public office in the future, I am fortunate to be leading a remarkable university that I love, and I just dont want to walk away,” Meehan wrote in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.

Now let’s see what happens with the $5 million that Meehan has been sitting on since leaving the House.

Meanwhile, Rep. Michael Capuano, who represents Cambridge and part of Boston in MA-08, pulled the papers to run for the Senate today.

An advisor briefed on Capuano’s intentions said the six-term Democratic congressman planned to draw nomination papers on Tuesday and will make a formal announcement about his intentions next week.

The dean of the state’s House delegation, Ed Markey, has not taken that step yet, but issued a statement over the weekend that, with Joe Kennedy II’s decision not to run, he is seriously considering the race.

• AR-Sen: To few people’s surprise, Blanche Lincoln folded faster than Superman on laundry day on the public option issue when faced with a non-ridiculous challenge from the right. Still, her erstwhile GOP rival, Gilbert Baker, may not be quite as problem-free as the Beltway media have touted him as; ArkDem provides some essential local color in the diaries.

• CO-Sen: This isn’t going to endear the NRSC to the Colorado rank-and-filers (and even the party establishment, like state party head Dickwad Hams Dick Wadhams) any more: they just got caught building websites for former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. This may help fuel whatever fire is suddenly burning under Weld Co. DA Ken Buck.

• MA-Sen: After contrasting reports yesterday about whether ex-Rep. Marty Meehan might or wouldn’t run for Senate, Politics magazine got him on the record saying that he “hadn’t ruled it out” but that he was absorbed in his university chancellor job and that he’d defer to either Vicky or Joe Kennedy. No word on what happens to his $4 million if he doesn’t run.

• NY-Gov: The Eliot Spitzer boomlet lasted about one day before he laughed it off, but a quickie SurveyUSA poll verified that he’s still got some political mojo left. 15% of New Yorkers said they’d still vote for him no matter what office, 47% said they might, depending on the office, and only 39% said no way. He also won against David Paterson on the curiously worded question of “who’s better qualified” to be Governor, 41-24, although Rudy Giuliani wins the same question against Spitzer, 59-25.

• OR-Gov: As we reported yesterday, ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber made it official this morning: he’s in the race. Former SoS Bill Bradbury, who’s already in the Dem primary, now says he will be announcing something on Sept. 17 (he’d previously alluded to staying in even if Kitzhaber got in, but we’ll have to see what he says now that it’s happened). Meanwhile, SurveyUSA has another snap poll, this time of the favorables of the race’s announced players so far: Kitzhaber has a fave of 33/26, Bradbury is at 21/20, and moderate Republican Allen Alley (the 2008 Treasurer candidate, and a former deputy CoS to Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski) is at a woeful 8/10.

• VT-Gov: Two other names for potential GOP gubernatorial candidates have surfaced, in addition to Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie. One is Mark Snelling, who’s never held office before but benefits from a prominent family name (he’s the son of ex-Gov. Richard Snelling and ex-Lt. Gov. Barbara Snelling). Another possibility is former Auditor Randy Brock who served one term, 2004-2006, before losing re-election.

• CA-24: Marta Jorgensen, a nurse who held Rep. Elton Gallegly to 56% in 2008, said she’s back for another try in 2010. Gallegly, frequent retirement speculation target, hasn’t formally announced he’s running but informally said he’ll run again.

• IL-14: Another GOPer is taking a look at the race against Bill Foster, joining Ethan Hastert and Mark Vargas. Bill Cross is a former member of the Aurora City Council and owns two hardware stores in the district.

• KS-03: Rep. Dennis Moore has proven pretty entrenched in his light-red district in the Kansas City suburbs, repelling state Sen. Nick Jordan in 2008 without much trouble. Still, he’s drawn another credible challenge for 2010, from GOP former state Rep. Patricia Lightner.

• LA-03: One more name to add to the seemingly endless pile of possible candidates in the open seat in the 3rd: Craig Webre, sheriff of Lafourche Parish (popu. 90,000). The article is strangely unclear about what party he’d be running for — Webre is registered as a Republican, but Democrat Reggie Dupre (the former state Senator whose resignation triggered last week’s successful special election in SD-20) was advising Webre and was the article’s source — although considering how porous party lines can be in Louisiana, that seems typical. Dupre, who just took over as Terrebonne Parish levee director, confirmed that he himself wouldn’t run.

• VA-02, 05, 11: The trio of Virginia freshmen (Tom Perriello, Glenn Nye, and Gerry Connolly) have banded together in a joint fundraising committee. Connolly has to be seen as less vulnerable than the other two, but still needs resources for a potentially expensive rematch against Keith Fimian.

• CA-Lt. Gov: With the now very-high likelihood that John Garamendi will be heading to Washington DC in a few months, the question arises of who Arnold Schwarzenegger will replace him with. Sorta-moderate state Sen. Abel Maldonado gets the most press; his appointment would open up a Senate seat in a Dem-leaning area that could get Senate Dems closer to that magic 2/3s mark. Assemblyman (and former minority leader) Mike Villines is another possibility; another idea is giving the job to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell in order to pry him out of the Governor’s race. Schwarzenegger is mavericky enough he might appoint a Democrat, too; one name mentioned is former Assembly speaker Bob Hertzberg, who has occasionally cooperated with the Governator.

• Seattle Mayor: The mayor’s race in Seattle, between two unknowns (Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan) who won the primary after incumbent Greg Nickels KO’d himself, briefly threatened to get much more interesting when prominent state Sen. Ed Murray started exploring running as a write-in, sensing an opening for someone who actually knows what the hell he’s doing. Although he could have counted on a lot of both labor and real estate developer support, he decided against it yesterday, aware of the extreme technical difficulty in mounting a successful write-in campaign on weeks’ notice. Murray instead remains the most-talked-about successor to Rep. Jim McDermott, although it seems like he could be waiting another decade for that seat to open up.

Just in case you missed it, eight-term Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan has announced that he will resign from Congress in July to become the next chancellor of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, which means that we will have a special election on tap to fill his seat within 160 days of the vacancy.

A few words about Meehan: ProgressivePunch gave him a rating of 87%, which is by no means bad, but that only fits him about midway in the Democratic caucus in terms of progressive voting patterns.  For a D+11 Massachusetts district, one would think that he could have afforded to play to the base a bit more.  My biggest knock against Marty, though, was his utter selfishness during the netroots-led “Use It Or Lose It” campaign last fall to arm the DCCC with the additional resources it needed to help expand the battlefield in closing weeks of the 2006 elections.  Despite sitting on a $5+ million warchest, Meehan only gave a paltry $125,000 (PDF) to the DCCC during the last cycle, and dug his heels in the ground while his House colleagues, such as fellow Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, donated up to 30% of their cash-on-hand on top of their required dues.  Like a squirrel burrowing more seeds than he could use underground for the winter, so too did Meehan cling to his oversized war chest in the hope that he could use it in the event of a Ted Kennedy or John Kerry retirement (which did not happen for Kennedy in ’06, and won’t for Kerry next year, either).  So, after all those months of stinginess to his fellow Democrats, Meehan won’t be able to use his warchest, anyway.  One wonders what will become of the $5m+.  Gifts to the DCCC, DSCC and other Democratic candidates?  Or will he hide it under the earth once more, hoping for a Kennedy retirement in 2012?  I’ll let you guess the answer.

In any event, it’ll be a new day for MA-05.  The question is: which one of the following names is both a suitably progressive Democrat and a team player?

Politicians eager to fill Meehan’s seat have wasted no time positioning themselves for a run, with at least 10 candidates flirting with a potential campaign. The list of Democrats include Niki Tsongas, wife of the late US senator Paul Tsongas; state Representative Barry R. Finegold of Andover; Eileen Donoghue, the former Lowell mayor and current city councilor; state Representative James B. Eldridge of Acton; and Stephen Kerrigan, a former aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy and to Attorney General Thomas Reilly.

Race Tracker: MA-05