Tag: Ryan Bucchanieri

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist went the full-on “I” today; he made a big show of switching his own party registration to “no party affiliation” today, to match having filed as an independent to run for Senate. Free from his Republican shackles, Crist is also following through on plans to call a special legislative session on oil drilling, which could result in Floridians voting on a constitutional amendment to ban offshore drilling in Florida waters. And one final middle-finger to his former Republican allies: after previously saying he was open to refunding money to donors unhappy with his party switch, today he said he wouldn’t be giving any contributions back.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP’s out with another quick poll of the runoff for the Democratic Senate nomination between Cal Cunningham and Elaine Marshall. It’s a tie, with Cunningham and Marshall both at 36. While this would initially suggest that Cunningham (who finished 2nd) is picking up the bulk of the also-rans’ votes, that’s not the case; Marshall is still leading among liberals and African-Americans, which probably means she’s getting most Kenneth Lewis voters. PPP’s analysis is that Cunningham’s improved standing is a result of an enthusiasm gap between their supporters; Cunningham backers seem likelier to actually show up for the runoff.

• NV-Sen: Here’s something we haven’t seen in probably more than a year, which is half a lifetime in politics years: Harry Reid is posting a lead. Now, granted, this is a Democratic poll, although not a Reid internal; it was taken by Dem pollster Fairbanks Maslin on behalf of the New West Project. But still, this shows that the chickens have come home to roost for Sue Lowden, in the wake of her quadrupling-down on her HCR gaffe; she’s now trailing Reid 42-35 (with 5 for Tim Fasano, 3 for Scott Ashjian). Reid is tied with Danny Tarkanian, who isn’t gaffe-tainted (and in fact is now trying to tar and feather Lowden with it in the primary), at 37-37 (with 7 for Fasano and 2 for Ashjian).

• UT-Sen: One impure collaborationist down, one to go. With Bob Bennett out, teabagger frenzy is now turning to Orrin Hatch. Mason-Dixon finds Hatch’s 2012 numbers pretty weak, with a 35% re-elect and 51% wanting someone else. And that “someone else” is already making his interest known, more than two years out (probably with an eye toward goading the 78-year-old Hatch into retirement): ambitious freshman Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

• WI-Sen: Wealthy businessman Ron Johnson, the teabaggers’ horse in the Wisconsin Senate GOP derby, made it official, filing as a candidate today. He’ll officially launch his bid next Monday.

• AL-Gov: Bradley Byrne, the supposed moderate (by Alabama GOP standards) in the race, has had to two-step to the right and defend his creationist cred, after an ad from the “True Republican PAC” attacked him for the unforgivable sin of teaching evolution in schools. Turns out that there’s some tasty Democratic dirty pool behind all this: the True Republican PAC is funded by the state teacher’s union, the Alabama Education Association (who are also Ron Sparks’ biggest financial backer). Their rationale seems to be that they’d rather, Gray Davis-style, torpedo Bradley Byrne in the GOP primary, on the assumption that he’d be the most difficult Republican to beat in the general.

• CT-Gov: On the Chris Cillizza hierarchy of endorsements, I think this one falls under the category of “10) Wtf?” State Sen. minority leader John McKinney, who’d considered a gubernatorial run himself, endorsed neither of the GOP frontrunners, but rather the random businessman with the weird name, Oz Griebel. The former head of the Hartford Chamber of Commerce has been polling in the low single digits.

• OH-Gov: Lehman Brothers keeps turning into a bigger and bigger albatross around John Kasich’s neck. It turns out that Kasich, while he was head of Lehman’s Columbus office in 2002, tried to convince two state pension funds (OPFPF and OPERS) to invest with the now-imploded investment bank.

• OR-Gov: Yet another poll of the primaries in the Oregon gubernatorial race, confirming what’s come into pretty sharp focus lately, that it’ll be a John Kitzhaber/Chris Dudley matchup in November. Local pollster Tim Hibbitts, on behalf of assorted media outlets including Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Portland Tribune, found Kitzhaber beating Bill Bradbury 53-23 on the Dem side. For the GOPers, Dudley leads Allen Alley by a not-overwhelming 33-23, but there’s little time left for Alley to make a move. (John Lim is at 8 and Bill Sizemore is at 6.) They also looked at the Dem primary in the special election for Treasurer, finding a competitive race with lots of undecideds: appointed incumbent (and ex-Multnomah Co. Chair) Ted Wheeler leads state Sen. Rick Metsger 29-24.

• WA-Gov: The rumor du jour is that Chris Gregoire is now on the short list to become Solicitor General, assuming Elena Kagan gets promoted to the SCOTUS. Allow me to say: bad idea, if only because it means at least several months of Governor Brad Owen. Under Washington law, though, Owen wouldn’t serve for long, as a special election would be held. The timeline varies, depending on when Gregoire might quit as Governor. If it happens before May 31, a primary would be held, followed by a two-person general in November. If it happens after May 31 but before October 3, it would result in a jungle-style election in November. And if it happens after October 3, we’d be blessed with two full years of Owen. One other major wrinkle: if this looks like it has legs, it may shut the door on a Dino Rossi run for the Senate, as it’s a poorly-kept secret that he’d really prefer another gubernatorial run rather than wasting his third strike on getting pasted by Patty Murray, and this would be the way for him to do it.

• NY-29: David Paterson did the unthinkable and called a special election for the 29th. Heh… except he called it for the regularly-scheduled election day in November, so the winner will get to serve for a few weeks in the lame duck session, Snelly Gibr-style. Smart move by the Gov, as it saves Dems from a potentially embarrassing special election on a day when that’s the only story. Instead, the outcome will probably be that Tom Reed gets to start work a few weeks early.

• PA-12: Two polls are out today in the 12th, both giving a single-digit lead to Democrat Mark Critz. One poll is a Critz internal, so you’d expect a lead there: Global Strategy Group gives him an 8-point lead of 44-36 (up from 41-38 in mid-April). But the other is from Susquehanna, a pollster who often works for Republican candidates but here is polling on behalf of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the GOP paper in town). They find Critz up 44-38, and Critz even leads by 19 among “super voters” (who’ve voted in 3 of the last 4 primaries). Interestingly, they find Republican Tim Burns’ woes increasing on two different fronts: he’s also in a “dead heat” with BaseConnect stooge Bill Russell (who got passed over for the special election nod) in the regularly-scheduled GOP primary on the same day. For some reason, specific numbers weren’t available for the GOP primary or the Dem primary, although it says Critz has “a majority” against Ryan Bucchanieri.

• CA-Sen: Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell is getting an endorsement that may boost his cred with the socially conservative right: from the man who couldn’t even beat Gray Davis, Bill Simon. Simon hopes socially conservative voters will still take a look at Campbell’s fiscal credentials.

• IN-Sen: Retiring Evan Bayh hasn’t said anything specific about what he’s doing with his gigantic $13 million federal war chest. But a spokesperson gives some hints: “What he has said is that you can expect him to help the Democratic Senate nominee in Indiana and to help like-minded Democrats – people who want to get things done, who are practical and who want to reach out and forge principled compromises.”

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway is pointing out an important ideological fracture line, which seems to have gotten little media attention in the Democratic primary in the Bluegrass State. Conway says he supports the health care legislation passed yesterday, while Dan Mongiardo has previously said he’d “throw it out and start over.”

• NH-Sen: Speaking of HCR, Kelly Ayotte was quick to abandon her previous flavorless, position-less campaign and get on the “repeal!” bandwagon. With Paul Hodes having been a “yes” in the House, this may become one of the marquee issues in this race, and by extension, the battle for the Senate.

• NY-Sen-B (pdf): Siena has a new poll out of the Empire State which includes a couple head-to-heads in the Senate race. They just won’t let up on the George Pataki front, finding that he leads Gillibrand 45-39 in a hypothetical race, while Gillibrand leads actual candidate Bruce Blakeman 48-24. There are a couple other names on the “actual” candidate front they might want to try out instead — Joe DioGuardi and David Malpass — and now it looks like one more is poised to get in. Dan Senor apparently has enough Wall Street support behind him to go ahead and launch his bid. One other name who’s now saying she won’t run, though, is former Lt. Gov. and malfunctioning health insurer spokesbot Betsy McCaughey, who it turns out is backing Malpass.

• MI-Gov (pdf): It turns out there was a lot more meat to that Insider Michigan Politics/Marketing Resource Group poll than what got leaked on Friday. They also looked at the Democratic primary, finding state House speaker Andy Dillon in charge at 21, followed by Lansing mayor Virg Bernero at 9 and state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith at 6. They also did a whole bunch of general election permutations, all of which were won by the GOPers by suspiciously large margins (at least when compared with other recent polls): Mike Bouchard over Dillon 41-26, Mike Cox over Dillon 44-27, Peter Hoekstra over Dillon 43-27, Rick Snyder over Dillon 42-26, Bouchard over Bernero 45-23, Cox over Bernero 45-26, Hoekstra over Bernero 43-27, and Snyder over Bernero 44-24.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Naturally, Siena also has a gubernatorial half to its poll. They find newly-minted Republican Steve Levy’s entry to the field to be rather unwelcome: ex-Rep. Rick Lazio is beating him 45-16 in the GOP primary. Either way, Democratic AG Andrew Cuomo (with a 63/22 approval) seems to have little to worry about; in November, Cuomo beats Lazio and Libertarian candidate Warren Redlich 59-21-3, while beating Levy and Redlich 63-16-4.

• OH-Gov: John Kasich is still reaching out to teabagger nation as his core of backers, and consistent with that, he’s having Fox gabber Sean Hannity host a Cincinnati fundraiser for him on April 15. I sure hope Kasich gets a bigger cut of the proceeds than Hannity’s military charity recipients seem to.

• OR-Gov: The last big union left to endorse in the Democratic gubernatorial primary finally weighed in, and Oregon’s AFSCME went with ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber rather than ex-SoS Bill Bradbury, who’d gotten the teachers’ union endorsements. The AFSCME also endorsed newly appointed Treasurer Ted Wheeler in his primary bid against state Sen. Rick Metsger, and also, in an unusual step, endorsed two Republican state Reps. in rural eastern Oregon who voted “yes” on raising income taxes, probably figuring that non-wingnut GOPers is probably the best we’re going to do in those districts.

• LA-02: Republican Rep. Joe Cao probably ended any hopes of hanging onto his dark-blue (and 21.7% uninsured) seat by voting against health care reform yesterday, but just in order to emphasize the way in which he slammed the door shut on himself, he also compared abortion as a moral evil comparable to slavery. Because that’s a comparison just bound to go over well in his black-majority district.

• MA-10: Former Republican state Treasurer (from the 1990s) Joe Malone made it official: he’s running in the 10th to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt. He’ll still have to get past state Rep. Jeff Perry in the GOP primary, though.

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi and Doug Pike traded union endorsements in their Dem primary battle in the 6th. Trivedi got the backing of the Iron Workers local, while Pike got the nod from the local AFSCME.

• PA-12: Bill Russell seems like he just can’t take a hint, despite the GOP uniting behind Tim Burns. Russell says he’ll write himself in for the special election between Burns and Democrat Mark Critz, in addition to continuing to contest the same-day GOP primary against Burns. Meanwhile, the pro-life Critz’s main opponent remaining, Navy vet Ryan Bucchanieri, got an endorsement that ought to give him a financial boost, from the National Organization for Women.

• WV-01: We’ve heard rumors that the local Democratic establishment wasn’t very enthused about propping up Rep. Alan Mollohan, who faces both a credible primary challenge and a self-funding Republican opponent. Here’s some of the first public whiff of that: the state Democratic chair, Nick Casey, says he won’t be taking sides in the primary battle between Mollohan and state Sen. Mike Oliverio (although he did predict that Mollohan would be the eventual victor).

• Redistricting: Cillizza has a little more background on the Democrats’ efforts to gear up for the 2012 redistricting battles, which we discussed last week in terms of the DLCC’s efforts. The DGA is getting in on the act, too, with a Harold Ickes-led effort called Project SuRGe (for “Stop Republican Gerrymandering”), also focused on maximizing Dem control of state legislatures.

• Votes: Lots of slicing and dicing in the media today regarding who voted which way, and why, on yesterday’s historic health care reform vote. Nate Silver has a bunch of nice charts up, which show that district lean and Reps’ overall ideology was much more determinative than whether the Rep. is considered vulnerable in November in terms of a “yes” or “no” vote. And Some Dude over at Salon has a more concise look at Reps who most mismatched their districts with their votes. Finally, if you want to see the “(some) Dems are still doomed” conventional wisdom in full effect, they’ve got that in spades over at Politico.

• Passings: Our condolences to the Udall family, which lost family patriarch Stewart Udall over the weekend. Udall, 90, was Congressman from Arizona and then John F. Kennedy’s Interior Secretary, and many of our environmental protections that we take for granted today bear his stamp.

• $$$: The fundraising quarter is almost over, and Adam B. is opening up another round of “We’ve Got Your Backs” over at Daily Kos (and cross-posted here), dedicated to showing some (financial) love to the House Dems in the most difficult districts who did the right thing on health care reform.

The Democratic nominee in the special election for the 12th will be former John Murtha district director Mark Critz:

The state Democratic Party’s Executive Committee on Monday selected Mark Critz to be the party’s nominee in the race to replace John Murtha, choosing the congressman’s district director over former state Treasurer Barbara Hafer, a Democratic official has told PoliticsPA….

Critz will now be placed on the May 18 special election ballot to determine who will serve out the remainder of the late congressman’s term in office. He will face Republican Tim Burns or Bill Russell, depending on whom Republican conferees select during their meeting Thursday.

This was looking pretty well sewn-up over the weekend, when delegates from around the 12th picked Critz. The state executive committee had the final say, though, and there were whispers over the weekend that they might look elsewhere than Critz, who opponents say shares some of his former boss’s ethical baggage.

Rivals Barbara Hafer and Ryan Bucchanieri still plan to contest the Democratic primary for the regular November election, meaning that Critz could still be in the Neil Abercrombie-esque position of winning a special election and losing the primary on the same day. UPDATE: The vote count’s out: it was Critz 30, Hafer 18, Bucchanieri 1.

RaceTracker Wiki: PA-12

• AZ-Sen: John McCain’s various Republican establishment friends keep showing up in droves to give him a boost in his primary fight against J.D. Hayworth. Today, it was the turn for former Tennessee senator and brief presidential primary rival Fred Thompson, who awoke from his slumbers long enough to give McCain the thumbs-up.

• KS-Sen: Wow, things are actually happening in Kansas. Not that it seems likely that Democrats are going to be in a position to make either the governor’s or senate races there competitive, but at least they’re filling the holes with credible candidates. In the wake of state Sen. Tom Holland getting into the gubernatorial race for the Dems, now Kansas City-based state Sen. David Haley is making noises about running for Senate. He’ll make a final decision within the month. Former newspaper publisher Charles Schollenberger is already a candidate, but Haley sounds like an upgrade.

• ND-Sen: Kristin Hedger, a 29-year-old businesswoman in North Dakota who lost the most recent Secretary of State race, is floating her name for the Democratic nod in the Senate race. She says she’ll defer to former AG Heidi Heitkamp if she gets in, but is interested in the race if not. State Sen. Tracy Potter is already in the race for the Dems. (And yes, it sounds like she’s aware about needing to be 30 to be a Senator; she’ll be 30 by swearing-in day.)

• NV-Sen (pdf): The legacy media keeps treating the GOP primary in Nevada like a two-way fight between Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian, but I’m going to keep maintaining that former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle is the real one to watch here (seeing as how Lowden gets tarred with the “RINO” label and is especially loathed by the Paulist set). A straw poll conducted during the Clark County Republican Party Central Committee meeting several weeks ago supports that idea, as Angle finished first, with 49 votes out of a total of 202. Tarkanian and Lowden were still, of course, right in the thick of things, at 48 and 46 respectively. In a bit of a surprise, Some Dude named Bill Parson was a solid 4th with 24 votes. (Parson seems to be working the hardcore teabagger angle. And check out the flattop – shades of Bob Conley all around.) Another potential wrinkle for the GOP: Sen. Jim DeMint, self-appointed kingmaker on the extreme right, while speaking at CPAC, wouldn’t rule out supporting third-party Tea Party candidates where the GOP fails to nominate “strong” candidates – and he explicitly mentioned one state: Nevada. Recall that the Tea Party just sprang into existence as an official 3rd party in Nevada, and already have a candidate lined up (Jon Ashjian).

• NY-Sen-B: I’m still chuckling over Mort Zuckerman’s trial balloons regarding the New York Senate race… but then, I was also chuckling about Harold Ford Jr. at first too. The super-wealthy publisher Zuckerman has gotten some encouragement from state party chair Ed Cox to look into running. Still, Cox is also encouraging other entrants (like Orange County Executive Edward Diana) as well, even while a number of county-level party chieftains have started lining up behind port commissioner Bruce Blakeman.

• OH-Sen: The DSCC is starting to play offense against ex-Rep. Rob Portman, hitting the former Bush budget director, ardent free trader, and all-around consummate insider with a playful new website: “Mr. Portman’s Neighborhood,” conveniently located at the corner of K Street and Wall Street. (Which, seeing as how we spent an inordinate amount of time here thinking about redistricting, only served to remind us of this 2006 article from The Onion.)

• UT-Sen: Even though Club for Growth hasn’t settled on which primary opponent to Bob Bennett they want to back, it seems like Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks has made up their minds. They’ll be backing Mike Lee, who despite his conservative legal establishment pedigree (son of former Solicitor General Rex Lee, and former clerk to Samuel Alito) has been reaching out to the tea party platoons.

• HI-Gov: Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann is operating in a kind of legal limbo for now, and his gubernatorial primary rival, Rep. Neil Abercrombie, is crying foul. Hannemann has opened a campaign account (which has $2 million in it) and, as such, is listed as running for governor with the state’s Campaign Spending Commission, and he’s actively campaigning around the state. However, despite the state’s resign-to-run law, he’s staying in his current position as mayor, as he doesn’t have to resign until he actually files to run with the state’s Office of Elections.

• NY-Gov: This is the weirdest endorsement I’ve ever read (although, where Ed Koch and David Paterson are concerned, I wouldn’t expect anything else); in fact it may be more of a diss than an endorsement. At any rate, I’ll just let Koch speak for himself: “I am for him, in effect, out of sympathy for his being in a Kakfa-esque situation.’ You can’t do this to people, use rumors to destroy them…But I’m not really for him.”

• PA-Gov: As he’s been hinting for a few weeks now, Scranton mayor Chris Doherty finally ended his long-shot Democratic gubernatorial bid, plagued by weak fundraising. He’s still looking to move on from his mayoral gig, though, and instead he’s going to run for the state Senate seat being vacated by long-time Dem Robert Mellow. (He’d also apparently considered the Lt. Governor slot, but that option seemed closed after the state party endorsed former Philadelphia controller Jonathan Saidel by a wide margin.) Meanwhile, Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato seems to moving closer to something approaching frontrunner status with another big labor endorsement, this time from the United Steelworkers.

• DE-AL: Republicans had apparently been pinning hopes on wealthy businessman Anthony Wedo in order to help them retain Delaware’s at-large seat, vacated by Rep. Mike Castle and soon to be occupied by Democratic ex-LG John Carney. Wedo won’t be running, though, leaving another (and apparently less wealthy, which would explain the NRCC’s seeming indifference to him) businessman, Fred Cullis, as the only GOP face in the race.

• PA-12: Here’s a surprise: state Sen. John Wozniak, a longtime Johnstown ally of Rep. John Murtha and always at the top of the list when successors were discussed, has decided not to run in the special election to replace Murtha. I wonder if that gives some credence to this article from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (not Pittsburgh’s “real” paper, but rather the local mouthpiece for the right-wing Mellon/Scaife crowd), which made some provocative allegations: that both parties were basically prepared to write this depopulated district off, in preparation for its dismantling during the 2012 redistricting process. Rumors are that the GOP wouldn’t launch a top-tier effort and that Murtha’s widow, Joyce, would hold the seat for the three years until its elimination (and, according to the article, “Democratic leaders” say she’s emerged as the leading contender) – so for a key Murtha ally like Wozniak to stand down suggests there’s some truth to this. Notwithstanding this seeming master plan, though, former GOP state treasurer Barbara Hafer and Ryan Bucchanieri remain in the hunt for the Dems.

• CA-LG: I’m surprised that San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom would want to give up being executive of a major city in exchange for a do-nothing job with a fancy title, but maybe he sees that as a better stepping stone to becoming Governor someday (although he should ask John Garamendi how that ever worked out). Bolstered by polling giving him a big edge in the LG race, he’s filing a ballot statement to run and is in the process of reassembling a campaign team.

• Polltopia: Nate Silver weighs in on the great Firedoglake/SurveyUSA debate of ’10 (with what’s hopefully the last word on the matter), saying that he doesn’t see anything “untoward” going on here, although methodological choices seem to add up to some pro-GOP house effects.