Tag: NJ-Sen

• AK-Sen: Everyone’s watching Joe Miller’s next move, as tomorrow is the day he has to decide whether or not to appeal a trial court decision in order to keep fighting his largely-hopeless fight with Lisa Murkowski. On Friday afternoon, a state superior court judge ruled against Miller’s lawsuit, and in pretty withering fashion, saying he presented no evidence of fraud or malfeasance, only “hearsay, speculation, and… sarcasm.” This comes on top of other comments on Friday by state elections director Gail Fenumiai strongly disputing one of Miller’s cornerstone issues, that there was a strange sudden influx of felons voting in the state.

• CT-Sen, CT-04: Rep. Jim Himes confirms that he isn’t going to run for Senate in 2012 against Joe Lieberman (if Lieberman even decides to stick around). It’s also pretty clear confirmation that Rep. Chris Murphy is ready to run on the Dem line, as Himes said he’s deferring to his slightly-more-senior colleague and might consider running if Murphy changed his mind. (The article also mentions that Rep. Joe Courtney is “considering” the race. Ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz’s interest is well-known as well, although I doubt she’ll be able to manage to file her candidacy papers successfully.)

• HI-Sen: Sometimes the Beltway media’s parsing of every innocent word from a potential candidate gets a little maddening, but this throw-away line from Linda Lingle’s website flagged by David Catanese is actually pretty suggestive of a future run (probably against Dan Akaka in 2012): the site is titled “Looking Back, and Forward,” and her first blog post is “Continuing the Journey.”

• MD-Sen: Contrast that with Bob Ehrlich, who seems ripe to fall into the Dino Rossi trap but has just made it pretty clear that he won’t be running for anything else again. He says a Senate run would be “very highly unlikely.”

• ME-Sen: The only story that seems to be here is that the viable Tea Party candidate that has been promised to emerge to take on Olympia Snowe is starting to look like more of a mirage. A must-read (for sheer hubris and wtf?ness) interview with the state’s self-appointed head teabagger, Andrew Ian Dodge, makes it sound like the candidate that Dodge is allegedly talking to is either imaginary, or else is Dodge himself (seeing as how he’s from southern Maine and has his own money).

• MI-Sen: PPP includes a GOP primary portion in their Michigan Senate poll, and like a lot of other polls this far out, name rec seems to rule the day. Ex-Gov. John Engler, despite eight years out of the picture, has the lead (in fact, that may be good news, as the general electorate doesn’t remember him fondly; he underperforms Debbie Stabenow, losing by 7, compared with Peter Hoekstra, who loses by 1). It’s Engler 31, Hoekstra 24, with 12 for ex-AG Mike Cox, Terri Lynn Land (who may be interested in this race after all) at 7, Candice Miller at 5, Mike Rogers at 4, Thad McCotter at 3, and Tim Leuliette (the most-interested candidate so far) at 0.

• NJ-Sen: The Hill has an article that’s mostly about how no GOPers are stepping up to express their interest in an uphill fight against Bob Menendez, but it does include the obligatory list of possible contenders. Top of the list is a rematch from state Sen. (and gubernatorial progeny) Tom Kean Jr., but also mentioned are Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, Anna Little (a small-town mayor who was competitive against Rep. Frank Pallone this year), state Sen. Jennifer Beck, former state Sen. Bill Baroni, and state GOP chair Jay Webber if all else fails.

• NY-Sen: Rep. Peter King does some coulda-woulda-shoulda in a recent interview, saying he definitely would have run in 2010 had Caroline Kennedy been the appointee. As for a run in 2012 against Kirsten Gillibrand (when she’s up for election for her first full term), he’s only “keeping his options open,” apparently leery of her fundraising prowess.

• PA-Sen: Rep. Charlie Dent is usually at the top of the list for Senate race speculation, but a recent interview has him sounding rather un-candidate-ish: he’s about to land a plum spot on Appropriations, and speaks of it in terms of “one never rules anything out,” which to my ear sounds a few steps down the Beltway-ese totem pole from “considering” it. One other interesting rumor bubbling up is that ex-Gov. Mark Schweiker is being courted to run. The question is whether anybody even remembers Schweiker; he spent less than two years on the job in the early 00s after getting promoted after Tom Ridge moved to the Bush administration, and declined to run for his own full term.

• VT-Sen: Could Bernie Sanders see a real opponent? While he isn’t specifically threatening to run yet, State Auditor Tom Salmon is taking to Facebook to attack Sanders over his anti-tax deal agitating (including attacking Sanders for being a socialist, which doesn’t quite have the same effective power with Sanders as with most Dems since he’s likely just to say “guilty as charged”). At any rate, going after the entrenched Sanders seems like an odd move if it comes to pass, as Peter Shumlin, who narrowly won the open gubernatorial race, seems like a much easier target in a blue state that’s willing to elect Republican governors but has sworn them off at the national level.

• CA-Gov: Steve Poizner sounds likely to make another run at the governor’s mansion in 2014, publicly telling various people that he would have made a much better candidate than Meg Whitman. Poizner will have to step it up on the financial situation next time, though; self-funding only to the tune of eight digits, instead of nine, was pretty weak sauce.

• IN-Gov: With Evan Bayh apparently out of the gubernatorial sweepstakes, Brad Ellsworth seems to be jockeying to the front of the line today, although with some of the requisite hedging. The other main contender, of course, is Evansville mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel, although the impact of redistricting changes (at the hand of the now-GOP-held legislature) could drive Reps. Joe Donnelly or Baron Hill into the race. Two lesser Dem names who’ve been bandied about, Hammond mayor Thomas McDermott and former state House speaker John Gregg, are already taking their names off the table, lining up behind others for now: McDermott backing Ellsworth and Gregg backing Weinzapfel. One final new Dem name to keep an eye on: Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez.

• MS-Gov: For now, the Democratic side on the Mississippi governor’s race seems to be between two men: Hattiesburg mayor Johnny DuPree (that city’s first African-American mayor) and businessman Bill Luckett, who has his own money (and the backing of Morgan Freeman… apparently for real, unlike with NC-04’s B.J. Lawson).

• WA-Gov: Here’s a good take from Joel Connolly (dean of the local press corps) on the 2012 gubernatorial election in Washington state, which the Beltway press seems to treat like an open book but everyone local knows is going to be between Rep. Jay Inslee and AG Rob McKenna, who’s probably the best shot the GOP has had in decades of winning the governor’s race. (Chris Gregoire can, by law, run for a third term, but, in practice, that would be unheard of even if she weren’t already too unpopular to do so feasibly.)

• NY-15: Is the Charles Rangel era actually coming to a close? He’s not ruling out another run in 2012 but saying he’ll have to think about retirement. And in public comments he is actively pointing to a generation of successors, citing state Sens. Adriano Espaillat and Robert Rodriguez, and state Assemblyman Keith Wright. (Although Harlem is the core of the district, it now has more Hispanics than it does African-Americans… and the wild card is that the fastest growing group in this district is white regentrifiers.)

• LA-St. Leg.: The hemorrhaging of Dem state legislators to the GOP in Louisiana continues apace, with one of its most prominent state Reps., the mellifluously-named Noble Ellington, sounding about ready to pull the trigger on a switch. He’d follow two state Sens., John Alario and John Smith, who also recently crossed the aisle.

• Philly mayor: You’d think that at age 80, you’d want to think about retirement, but not if you’re Arlen Specter, apparently. There’s word of a poll making the rounds (from Apex Research, with no mention of who paid for it or why) that not only links the outgoing Senator to a mayoral run (in the city where he got his start generations ago as the DA) but actually has him in the lead. The poll has Specter at 28, with incumbent Michael Nutter at 19, Sam Katz at 9, Anthony Hardy Williams at 8, Tom Knox at 7, Bob Brady at 6, and Alan Butkovitz (anybody care to let me know who he is?) at 6.

• WATN?: Try as he may, Artur Davis just can’t get the douchiness out of his system. On his way to the private sector, he’s still taking the pox-on-both-your-houses approach on his way out the door, writing an op-ed calling for an independent party as the solution to all of Alabama’s woes. Meanwhile, Mariannette Miller-Meeks has landed on her feet, after losing a second run in IA-02 in a rare setback for the Ophthalmologists (who elected at least two more of their own to Congress this year): Terry Branstad just named her head of Iowa’s Dept. of Public Health.

• Census: Finally, this may be the most exciting news of the day: we have a reporting date for the first real batch of 2010 Census data. Dec. 21 will be the day the Census Bureau releases its state population counts, which also includes reapportionment data (i.e. how many House seats each state will get… at least prior to the inevitable litigation process among the most closely-bunched states).

• AK-Sen: When Norm Coleman… the man who has pretty much set all current standards for pointlessly dragging out an election for partisan purposes… is telling you to pack it in, believe me, it’s time to pack it in. The ex-Sen. from Minnesota is the latest GOPer to tell Joe Miller to stop the madness. (What’s his angle? He may have designs on behind-the-scenes Beltway leadership, possibly RNC chair, and with that in mind would probably like to discourage nonsensical R-on-R courtroom violence.)

• IL-Sen: The 59-41 Dem edge in the Senate drops to 58-42 for the rest of the lame duck session today, as Rep. Mark Kirk gets sworn in as the newest member. (Illinois, of course, was the only of the special election seats that flipped to the GOP.)

• IN-Sen: This NYT story doesn’t really have any new specifics about Richard Lugar’s upcoming teabagging that you don’t already know, but it has a spectacular quote from former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, another Republican who occupied the same pretty-conservative-but-not-a-jerk-about-it space as Lugar:

If Dick Lugar… having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.

• MA-Sen: The Boston Globe takes a look back at Deval Patrick’s reelection town-by-town, and also wonders what it may mean for Scott Brown’s first re-election battle in 2012. Patrick, for instance, won back many of the larger blue-collar (and usually Democratic) communities like Lowell and Quincy that Brown won. The question for 2012, though, is: how much of Brown’s initial success was unique to Brown (more charismatic than your garden-variety blue-blood Republican like Charlie Baker), and, by contrast, how much of that was unique to the turnout model produced by the special election?

• MD-Sen: Republicans may already be settling on a favorite for the Maryland Senate race in 2012, and they’re considering the same strategy as 2006, running an African-American against Ben Cardin. (In ’06, recall, Michael Steele, well, still lost badly, but made the race more competitive than Maryland is used to.) There’s a lot of buzz surrounding Charles Lollar, who just ran against Steny Hoyer in MD-05 and apparently wowed a lot of people on the stump. Of course, he also lost 64-35, but, well, you’ve gotta start somewhere. (Eric Wargotz, who just lost to Barb Mikulski, is also reportedly interested in trying again.)

• MO-Sen: The Beltway seems abuzz about a potential Claire McCaskill/Jim Talent rematch (thanks to McCaskill tweeting about her random airport meet-up with Talent, no doubt), but the missing part of the story seems to be that Talent, if he runs, could be walking right into a juicy establishment/tea party battle. Ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who lost a feisty gubernatorial primary in 2008 and threatened a 2010 primary run against Roy Blunt, has been turning up the volume on a potential run too. Ed Martin, last seen losing narrowly in MO-03, has also become the subject of some speculation. One unlikely run at this point, though, is former Ambassador to Luxembourg (which is code for “very wealthy donor”) Ann Wagner, who has been linked to the Senate race but just announced a bid for RNC chair instead this morning.

• NJ-Sen: When did Bob Menendez’s numbers start to look like Richard Burr’s? A poll from Fairleigh Dickinson (favorables only, no head-to-heads) finds vast indifference about the Garden State’s junior Senator. At least he’s above water, with 31/25 faves, but 29% are unsure and 15% have never heard of him.

• NM-Sen: Jeff Bingaman, assuming he runs again, is already facing his first GOP opponent, although one from the Some Dude end of the spectrum. William English ran (apparently in the GOP primary) for the open NM-02 seat in 2002, although he seems best known for saying controversial things in his local newspaper, perhaps most notably that Barack Obama “literally amounts to an African dictator.”

• TX-Sen: Yet more names are surfacing on the GOP side for possible primary challenges to Kay Bailey Hutchison: today, it’s Houston-area state Sen. Dan Patrick.

• VA-Sen: Corey Stewart is the Prince William County Supervisor and a likely candidate in the GOP Senate primary, if his latest pronouncements are any indication. He’s started firing shots across the bow of presumptive favorite George Allen’s comeback, saying he had a “mediocre” Senate record and that his base has moved on.

• MN-Gov: The recount of the 2.1 million ballots in the Minnesota gubernatorial race officially kicks off today. You probably already know the candidates, but the Star-Tribune today profiles the really key players at this juncture: the lawyers. One of them, interestingly, is Eric Magnuson, who you may remember from the 2008-09 recount as state supreme court chief justice and head of the canvassing board; having left the court, now he’s on Tom Emmer’s team.

• WV-Gov: It’s still not clear when the election will even occur (to set a permanent replacement for Joe Manchin), but acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin isn’t going to get a free pass in the Dem primary, facing likely opposition from two of the people most actively involved in establishing when that election will happen. Both SoS Natalie Tennant and state House speaker Rick Thompson are eyeing the race, with Thompson “planning” to run and Tennant “seriously considering.”

• CA-20: Look for a likely rematch in the 20th, which turned into one of the nation’s closest races this year. Andy Vidak “promises” he’ll try again vs. Jim Costa in 2012, although if he couldn’t make it this year, the odds of him getting over the hump in a presidential year model seem even slimmer. (Unless, of course, the boundaries of the 20th get changed by the citizens’ commission, but the VRA is likely to keep compelling a Hispanic-majority Fresno-to-Bakersfield district.)

• CA-45: Further south, Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet is another potential rematch. The Democrat already filed for a 2012 campaign, although he says he hasn’t ruled another race in or out and is establishing the committee to settle up some unpaid bills from his 2010 race.

• CT-05: And here’s one more: Justin Bernier, who was initially the GOP’s preferred candidate in the primary in the 5th but got shoved over after Sam Caligiuri dropped down from the Senate race, is saying he’s considering another run in 2012 (motivated in part by the likelihood of an open seat with Chris Murphy’s likely Senate run).

• PA-11: Don’t assume that Corey O’Brien is going to be the Dem nominee in the effort to take back the 11th in 2012, as there’s a long list of possible contenders on the bench in this bluish seat. At the top is Scranton mayor (and, briefly, gubernatorial candidate) Chris Doherty, but other names you might see are Wilkes-Barre mayor Tom Leighton, former Pittston mayor (and Paul Kanjorski crony) Michael Lombardo, state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, Wilkes-Barre solicitor William Vinsko, and new state Sen. John Yudichak.

• California: Finally, those of you not living on the West Coast may be unaware that there are parts of the country where the Republicans are the ones in “what did we do wrong?” soul-searching mode. The WaPo looks at the epicenter of that, in California (where they didn’t pick up any House seats, lost all the statewide races, and even lost ground in the state legislature), where local GOPers are flummoxed by the state’s changing demographics.

(General h/t to Brian Valco, bearer of many of today’s links.)

• AK-Sen: Is there anyone other than Joe Miller left who wants Joe Miller to keep contesting the Senate race? The state GOP organization is now saying it “stands ready to embrace Lisa Murkowski” as the winner of the race, despite her not having won its primary. I’m sure they were secretly ready all along to do so… recall that the person issuing the statement, state party chair Randy Ruedrich, was the guy that Joe Miller was trying to orchestrate a palace coup against, which got him fired from his Fairbanks borough job. I can’t imagine much love lost between Ruedrich and Miller.

• IN-Sen: Richard Lugar, who just announced that he’s running for re-election, is laying down a pretty big marker (and one that probably helped convince him to run again). He’s out with an internal poll from American Viewpoint that, while it doesn’t specifically poll the 2012 GOP Senate primary, shows him with huge approvals, though apparently among all voters and not just registered Republicans. He’s at 66% favorable. Two of his potential GOP opponents, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock and state Sen. Mike Delph, have faves of 14% and 7% each.

• ND-Sen, NM-Sen: This Politico article doesn’t actually contain any hard facts that are newsworthy, but it does contain one alarming sentence, that both Kent Conrad and Jeff Bingaman are “weighing retirement” (without anything beyond that). Conrad and Bingaman, though both long-timers, are still in their early 60s. Buried deep in the article is also a throwaway line that Jon Kyl is also the subject of retirement “speculation.”

• NJ-Sen: That tea party push to have a recall election for Bob Menendez (despite, of course, the universally accepted legal principle that you can’t recall federal officials) seems to have finally died, courtesy of the New Jersey Supreme Court. I’m just surprised the case rose that far through the courts before, y’know, someone thought to crack open their 1L Con Law textbook, but the bright side is that every dollar right-wingers spend on pointless appellate legal fees is a dollar not spent on actually electing somebody. Menendez is up for a regularly scheduled election in 2012, anyway.

• NV-Sen: Everyone seems in a fit of instant nostalgia for Sharron Angle today, with the revelation that in the course of the campaign she said “Sometimes dictators have good ideas” (in reference to Augusto Pinochet and privatized pension systems), and the leaked release of the ad that she cut that never got released, probably because it takes a minute to make a point that should take five seconds and because the 70s-disaster-flick-style overacting overshadows any possible message. (You can click here to see the ad, bearing in mind that it opens in Windows Media Player.) The real news that got leaked today that might impact the 2012 race, though, is that none other than John Ensign helped Sharron Angle prep for her debate by playing the part of Harry Reid. I wonder if that’ll be the last nail in the coffin for the reputed Reid/Ensign non-aggression pact?

• RI-Sen: Add one more potential name to the roster for a Republican challenger to Sheldon Whitehouse: the state’s GOP chair, Giovanni Cicione (who has been encouraging outgoing Gov. Don Carcieri to run, as well as floating his own name as a last resort), is touting John Robitaille as a possible candidate. Robitaille (Carcieri’s former communications director) performed above expectations in the gubernatorial race in which he was supposed to be a sacrificial lamb, finishing second (though helped along by Frank Caprio’s last-minute implosion).

• VA-Sen (pdf): PPP’s Virginia Senate poll had a GOP primary portion that just got released separately; right now, George Allen is the consensus pick, although that may have more to do with the ex-Gov. and ex-Sen.’s broad name rec compared with the rest of the field. Allen is at 46, with the very-unlikely-to-run Eric Cantor at 18, right-wing AG Ken Cuccinelli at 16, Lt. Gov. Bill Boling and ex-Rep. Tom Davis both at 4, and state Del. Bob Marshall (who almost sneaked into the 2008 Senate nomination) at 2.

• NY-01, NY-25: Good news in the 1st, bad news in the 25th. Tim Bishop has made up some ground, as of the second day of absentee counting. Bishop picked up 108 votes on Randy Altschuler, cutting Altschuler’s lead down to 275, and that’s with Smithtown, Altschuler’s strongest area, having almost entirely reported. Bishop’s strongest turf is East Hampton, which will begin counting tomorrow. Ann Marie Buerkle, however, gained a small amount of ground in the 25th, contrary to expectations. Her lead is up to 824 votes, after a batch of small batch (230) of challenged ballots from Monroe County got opened and counted. The county to watch, though, will be Onondaga County, which is Dan Maffei’s base and where 7,000 absentees are yet to be counted.

• Redistricting: There are three different redistricting articles out today that are worth a read. One is about Texas, where it seems like the GOP is extended about as far as it can go (thanks to victories in TX-23 and likely TX-27); compounding the problem there is something that I’ve been pointing out for years, which is that at least two, possibly three, of its expected four new seats are going to have to be VRA seats, seeing as how the vast majority of Texas’s growth in the past decade has been among Hispanics. Trying to limit the creation of new Hispanic-majority seats will only make it harder to protect Quico Canseco and Blake Farenthold.

There’s also a piece looking at Nevada, more specifically the fight within the Dem-controlled legislature about for whom to tailor NV-04 (which will probably be a Dem-leaning suburban district, conceding a GOP-leaning NV-03 to Joe Heck). Both state Senate majority leader Steven Horsford and new state Assembly speaker John Oceguera have their eyes on the new seat. Finally, there are questions in Florida about just who’s behind the lawsuit, fronted by a bipartisan coalition of Mario Diaz-Balart and Corrine Brown, to stop implementation of Amendment 6, the one bright spot from Florida on Election Day (a new initiative that makes gerrymandering more difficult). The Orlando Sentinel traces the money trail back to a number of state legislators’ groups, including one led by GOP state Sen. Don Gaetz, the guy who… big surprise… is tasked with leading redistricting for the state Senate.

• FL-Sen: As much as Charlie Crist seems to have benefited from his switch to an independent bid, he still has to deal with blowback from a lot of ticked-off Republicans. A group of GOPers, led by state Rep. Tom Grady, has filed a class action lawsuit against Crist to get back their contributions which they thought would be used to support a Republican. Meanwhile, with Crist running around looking gubernatorial amidst the oil spill crisis, and the media having lost interest with the Republican primary settled, Marco Rubio now finds himself in an unusual position (which may be reflected in recent polls): the guy who isn’t getting any attention.

• IL-Sen: Well, it took Mark Kirk a couple months to do what Richard Blumenthal took a few days to do, but he finally got around to apologizing today in a press conference for his various “careless” embellishments of his military and teaching records.

• KS-Sen: SurveyUSA (6/24-27, likely voters, 5/21-23 in parens):

Jerry Moran (R): 53 (52)

Todd Tiahrt (R): 33 (29)

Other: 5 (4)

Undecided: 9 (15)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

SurveyUSA also looks at the Democratic Senate primary (where little-known college professor Lisa Johnston is the surprise leader, at 24, followed by somewhat higher-profile candidates like former newspaper editor Charles Schollenberger at 16 and state Sen. David Haley at 11), and at the Republican gubernatorial primary (where I didn’t even know there was a contest anymore, but where Sam Brownback leads Joan Heffington 76-17).

• KY-Sen: With the primary resolved and with Rand Paul having gone into media-related hiding, his fundraising seems to have dwindled accordingly. He held another online moneybomb yesterday, which used to be his bread and butter, but the bomb was more of a dud this time: he banked only $90K by yesterday evening. That’s was off from the $400K generated by his largest one last August.

• NJ-Sen: A couple items of good news for Frank Lautenberg: first, he’s announced that, after having been treated for lymphoma, his cancer is now in remission. And today, he got Robert Byrd‘s gavel for the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle, in contrast to Rand Paul, is at least temporarily breaking her media silence tonight… and she’s doing it not exactly the friendliest environment either, going on local reporter Jon Ralston’s TV show. (Ralston is one of the best left of the dying breed of state-level political reporters; his Twitter feed is highly recommended.) Meanwhile, Nevada Dems are hitting Angle for her decidedly extreme position on abortion (legal under absolutely no circumstances), while the once-thought-ominous Karl Rove 527 American Crossroads is out with a new ad attacking Harry Reid over unemployment.

• WV-Sen: There’s quite a long list of potential temporary appointees developing in West Virginia, but ex-Gov. (and current College Board president) Gaston Caperton won’t be one of them; he took his name out of the running. In addion to former state party chair Nick Casey and current chair Larry Puccio, other names, all of whom are well-connected with Gov. Joe Manchin, bubbling up today include former Manchin counsel Carte Goodwin, businessman Perry Petropolis, former state Supreme Court justice Richard Neely, and first lady Gayle Manchin.

• AL-Gov: Robert Bentley is touting an internal poll from Dresner Wicker & Associates giving him a substantial lead over Bradley Byrne in the GOP runoff; Bentley leads 46-27, and has 59/9 favorables. Bentley has also pledged no negative ads from his camp, which may be a relief to many Alabamians (and which may have been the secret to Bentley’s surprise success in the primary, as he dodged the heavy crossfire between Byrne and Tim James).

• CA-Gov: There’s a clear difference in strategy in California’s governor’s race, with Jerry Brown (who needs to draw Meg Whitman out into the open) agreeing to ten debates and Whitman (who needs to hide behind her ads) agreeing to one. New ads run by Brown surrogates seem to be taking increasing aim at Whitman’s tendency to hide behind her large piles of money, too.

• RI-Gov, RI-01, RI-02: The Rhode Island Democratic party issued its endorsements yesterday, and the results weren’t good for the party’s former state chair (or his brother). Bill Lynch lost the RI-01 endorsement to Providence mayor David Cicilline, while AG Patrick Lynch lost the RI-Gov endorsement to state Treasurer Frank Caprio. In the 2nd, incumbent Jim Langevin got the endorsement over primary challenger state Rep. Betsy Dennigan.

• TX-Gov: The situation with the Texas Greens ballot line isn’t quite going away yet. A lower court decided last week to block them from the ballot because their petition drive was illegally funded with an in-kind corporate contribution (with roots tracing back to Rick Perry’s former chief of staff). The decision, however, was just appealed to the Texas Supreme Court (which, of course, is Republican-controlled and not averse to the occasionally nakedly political decision).

• ID-01: Here, maybe, is another instance of the Chamber of Commerce realizing that conservative Democrats do a better job of addressing big business’s needs for a functioning physical and educational infrastructure than do the group of anarchists who seem to have seized control of the GOP? The US Chamber of Commerce just gave freshman Dem Walt Minnick their endorsement.

• LA-02: Rep. Joe Cao has had to back down on a fundraising letter that strongly implies that the local Catholic diocese and Archbishop Gregory Aymond backed his candidacy. Cao apologized for taking Aymond’s praise for him out of context.

• MI-03: Well, at least we now know who to cheer against in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers. The Club for Growth announced yesterday that they’re backing state Rep. Justin Amash, meaning that Amash must have impressed the far-right group with his level of disdain for public spending. (JL)

• PA-07: Philly’s just a short Amtrak ride from Washington DC, and Joe Biden will be there July 19 to host a combined fundraiser for the DCCC and for the Dem candidate in the 7th, state Rep. Bryan Lentz.

• TX-17: Here’s an article that’s an interesting reminder of how all politics is, in the end, local, and how it can turn on stuff that’s a million miles away from inside-the-Beltway concerns. Politico looks at the race in the 17th, which is very much a Waco/Baylor (Chet Edwards) vs. College Station/Texas A&M (Bill Flores) contest, with the recent (now irrelevant, though) proposal to break apart the Big 12 a key flashpoint.

• WV-01: Old man yells at cloud? Initially, the idea of a legendary West Virginia Democratic politician setting up a PAC with the pure intent of stopping Democratic nominee Mike Oliverio from winning in November sounds like a game-changing impediment. From the backstory, though, it sounds like former SoS Ken Hechler may not have that much oomph behind his vendetta, which seems mostly motivated by Oliverio’s 2004 failed primary challenge to him in the SoS primary, where Oliverio’s entire argument seemed predicated on the fact that Hechler was 89. (If you do the math, that makes him 95 now. I guess the secret to longevity is to become a Democrat in West Virginia!)

• CA-Init: Don’t count on California making the switch to the Washington-style top-two primary just yet, despite the passage of Proposition 14 earlier this month. The major and minor parties are weighing legal challenges to it, and they’re watching with interest the latest round of litigation on the matter in Washington. (The US Supreme Court has already upheld a state’s authority to switch to a top-two primary, but there’s a new suit pending on new grounds.)

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Lots of pollsters that I’ve never heard of seem to be coming out of the woodwork to poll California lately, and here’s yet another one of them: some firm called ccAdvertising. They polled the Republican primaries, finding, on the Senate side, that Tom Campbell leads at 24, with Carly Fiorina at 12 and Chuck DeVore at 8. On the gubernatorial side, Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 40-15.

• CO-Sen: Tonight is the first step in the Colorado caucus process, with precinct-level gatherings. The results are non-binding, really more of a straw poll than anything, but are monitored as a sign of candidates’ strength. (Of course, in 2004, neither Ken Salazar nor Pete Coors won the caucuses yet went on to win their primaries.) The bigger hurdle is in May, when candidates must clear 30% at the state assembly to make the primary ballot (although those that don’t can still get on by collecting signatures). With the Governor’s race pretty much locked down, there’s still action aplenty on both the Dem and GOP sides in the Senate. Michael Bennet comes into tonight’s caucuses with a boost: he just got the endorsement from the state’s AFSCME, which may help fight the perception that rival Andrew Romanoff is labor’s one horse in the race.

• CT-Sen: Paulist economist Peter Schiff is finally dipping into the spoils from his moneybombs, running ads on Connecticut radio introducing himself to Republican primary voters and touting his having predicted the financial crisis of 2008.

• ID-Sen: Democrats are already way ahead of where they were in their last race against Mike Crapo in 2004: they’re actually fielding a candidate. Two, in fact, have filed, although they’re little known: Tom Sullivan and William Bryk.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk is up with his first TV spot for the general election campaign, calling himself an “independent-minded Republican.” Having beaten back various teabagger challengers in the primary, he’s now free to label himself as such.

• MD-Sen: File this under news of the weird: Bob Ehrlich is confirming he’s interested in running for office this year, but one idea he’s floating is running for Senate against Barbara Mikulski instead of for Governor against Martin O’Malley. That’s a very strange choice, as Mikulski is more popular than O’Malley and generally considered unassailable, but maybe Ehrlich thinks he can goad the 73-year-old Mikulski into retirement.

• NC-Sen: Two polls of the Democratic primary in the Senate race show fairly different pictures, with the main difference being how well Cal Cunningham is keeping pace with Elaine Marshall. PPP’s most recent poll of the primary shows Cunningham gaining four points from last month, trailing Marshall 20-16, with 11 for Kenneth Lewis (up from 5). On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 58%, with his minor rivals all in the low single digits. Marshall, on the other hand, released her own internal yesterday, from Lake Research. The poll’s a little stale (in the field mid-February), so if the PPP poll reflects late movement to Cunningham, Marshall’s poll wouldn’t capture it. At any rate, her internal has her up 31-5 over Cunningham, with Lewis at 4.

• NJ-Sen: A weird-ass ruling from a New Jersey appellate court says the Tea Party may proceed with collecting recall petitions to recall Bob Menendez. The court, however, stayed its own decision in order to allow Menendez to appeal, presumably to a federal court which will disabuse the state judges of the notion that one can recall federal officials. (Adam B. points to the crux of the case here and here).

• AL-Gov, AR-Gov: Financial filings for gubernatorial candidates in Alabama and Arkansas are both available. In Alabama, Tim James ($2.6 mil) leads the GOPers, while Artur Davis ($2.1 mil) has the most cash among the Dems. In Arkansas, Mike Beebe is sitting on $1.2 million (having raised $313K in February); his opponent, Jim Keet, hasn’t been in long enough to report.

• ME-Gov: It looks like there won’t be a Green Party candidate on the ballot this year; Lynne Williams suspended her campaign after failing to gather the 2,000 required signatures. That’s good news for Dems, as this could turn out to be a close race (although with this little information and the fields this cluttered, who the hell knows?) and Greens often poll well in Maine, getting 9% of the vote in the convoluted 2006 gubernatorial election.

• PA-Gov (pdf): There was a gubernatorial portion to that poll from Republican pollster Susquehanna released yesterday, too. As with every poll of this race, undecideds are still very heavy, but Republican AG Tom Corbett leads Democratic state Auditor Jack Wagner 37-26, and leads Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato 39-24. Wagner has been dominating in terms of getting the endorsements of county-level party apparatuses, and he picked up one more yesterday, getting the nod from Cambria County (i.e. Johnstown) Democrats.

• WY-Gov: To almost no one’s surprise, Republican state House speaker Colin Simpson pulled the trigger, officially entering the gubernatorial race. (If his name sounds familiar, he’s the son of popular ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.) He faces three other high-profile GOPers, while Democrats, sorting out what to do after Dave Freudenthal’s late decision not to seek a third term, are still lining up a candidate.

• AK-AL: Rep. Don Young is refusing to get with the program, as far as the GOP’s new self-imposed ban on earmarks goes. Considering that Young seems most valued by his constituents for his ability to bring home the bacon (which may have saved his bacon twice, in both the primary and general in 2008), that may actually be the politically savvy thing for him to do.

• HI-01: The first debate was held in the special election in the 1st, and it may be most interesting in that ex-Rep. Ed Case was trying to stake out positions that sound pretty, well, Democratic. Case spoke out in favor of both health care reform and the stimulus package. Moderate Republican Charles Djou tried to differentiate himself by railing against both.

• IA-03: I don’t know if this is just one ex-wrestling coach sticking up for another, or if there’s an establishment movement afoot to coronate Jim Gibbons in the 3rd, but ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert is showing up to host a Des Moines fundraiser for Gibbons tomorrow. They’ll be joined by ex-Rep. Greg Ganske.

• PA-07: I love the smell of cat fud in the morning. While former local Fox affiliate news anchor Dawn Stensland didn’t file to run in the Republican primary as has been rumored, now she’s not ruling out an independent, teabagger-powered run instead. While she hasn’t begun gathering signatures, she is looking to move into the 7th. Even if she only garners a few percent, that could still tip the balance in what promises to be a very close race between Democrat Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• House: The Hill has an interesting survey of eight different primaries where the one participant’s vote on TARP could weigh heavily on the results (as it seemed to do in the Texas gubernatorial primary). Most are on the GOP side, but one Dem race to watch is PA-11, where Paul Kanjorski, the chair of the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, was one of TARP’s architects.

• NRCC: The NRCC is threatening to go on the air against Dems who change from “no” to “yes” votes on HCR, targeting them with the dread “flip-flop” label that served them so well in 2004. They have 42 Dems in mind to target, although there’s still the little wee matter of the NRCC finding the money to pay for the ads.

• NY-St. Sen.: Tonight’s the special election in SD-13 in Queens, where Hiram Monserrate is trying to win back the seat he just got kicked out of after his assault conviction. Monserrate, now an indie, is running against Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta. Peralta had a dominant lead in the one poll of the race made public.

• Ads: With the Demon Sheep and Boxer Blimp ads having established Carly Fiorina’s campaign as the new gold standard in bizarre advertising, Huffington Post has a nice wrapup of some of the other craziest political ads of the last few years, ranging from the well-known (Mike Gravel skipping rocks, Big John Cornyn) to the “huh?” (Nancy Worley on strangling cats).

• TV: Obsessive-compulsive political junkies and opposition researchers alike are dancing a jig right now, as C-Span has announced that it’s releasing its entire archives onto the Web. All 160,000 hours worth. (If you don’t have a calculator handy, that’s 18 years.)

• Redistricting: Eager not to get behind the redistricting 8-ball in 2012 like they were ten years ago, the DLCC has launched a $20 million push aimed at keeping control of state legislatures in key states. They point to “swing” chambers in 17 states that have the capacity to affect almost half of all House seats. Dem-held chambers they’re focusing on are the Alabama State Senate, Colorado State Senate, Indiana House, Nevada State Senate, New Hampshire State Senate, New York State Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly and the Wisconsin State Senate, while GOP-held chambers are the Michigan State Senate, Missouri House, Oklahoma State Senate, Tennessee House, and the Texas House.

• AR-Sen: Local publication Talk Business has polled Blanche Lincoln’s approval on a regular basis for the last year, and she’s in the worst shape yet, they find: her approvals are down to 38/56, down from 45/45 three months ago.

• CO-Sen: After Rasmussen showed him in not-so-good shape over the weekend, Michael Bennet is out with his own internal poll from Harstad Research showing him up (barely) over Jane Norton. He leads Norton 41-40, and claims a 41-31 edge among independents. (If that disparity doesn’t seem to pencil out, that’s because the poll includes more registered Republicans than Democrats, reflecting the state’s registration balance.) The poll’s a little weird, though: it’s a combination of two different surveys, one in January and one in February, and there are no details on his primary matchup with Andrew Romanoff.

• FL-Sen: John Cornyn is sorta-kinda walking back the NRSC endorsement of Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race, saying that was made before anyone had an inkling it would turn out to be an actual race. He didn’t rescind the endorsement, but made clear the NRSC wouldn’t be spending any money trying to affect the primary between Crist and Marco Rubio.

• NJ-Sen: Here’s some welcome news: after receiving treatment for stomach cancer, Frank Lautenberg is back on the job. He was back on the Hill late last week, and participated in a St. Patrick’s Day parade over the weekend.

• NY-Sen: Good news for Chuck Schumer, I suppose. Conservative pundit Larry Kudlow confirmed that he isn’t currently planning to challenge Schumer in the Senate this year. So, Schumer goes from a race against a guy he was beating by 40 points, to having no opponent at all.

• OH-Sen: There will be only two Democrats on the ballot for Senate this year: Lee Fisher and Jennifer Brunner. The other two random interlopers who popped up several weeks ago, TJ Johnson (a former Fisher underling whose presence briefly aroused some suspicions of shenanigans) and Charlena Bradley, didn’t have the signatures to qualify for the ballot.

• OR-Sen: Law professor Jim Huffman, who most people became aware of only when Rasmussen polled him against Ron Wyden, went ahead and made it official: he’s running for Senate. Blue Oregon has a nice rundown of his strange campaign kickoff at a heavy machinery dealer (shades of Carly Fiorina?), intended to showcase how the stimulus hasn’t worked (except for the little detail that the same machinery dealer credits the stimulus for saving jobs there…).

• WI-Sen: Another Tommy Thompson acquaintance is fanning the flames, saying he’s “very seriously considering” a Senate bid and “could” soon form an exploratory committee. I’m not sure “could” is very newsworthy, but we’ll continue to keep an eye on the situation.

• AK-Gov: Appointed Gov. Sean Parnell’s GOP primary opponent, former state House speaker Ralph Samuels, raised some eyebrows with his prodigious fundraising. However, it looks like Parnell is still in good shape as far as the voters are concerned, at least according to an internal poll taken by Republican firm Basswood. They find Parnell with a 71/8 favorable and leading Samuels in the primary 69-9 (with 4 for Bill Walker).

• CA-Gov: Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner has been making some strong moves to the right lately in order to differentiate himself from Meg Whitman, even flip-flopping on abortion. (He got a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood six years ago, but now he’s against any government funding for abortion.) While he still lags in the polls, it’s at least gaining him some traction on the endorsement front, as he got the nod from the California Republican Assembly (which also endorsed Chuck DeVore on the Senate side) and from Rep. Tom McClintock.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Two more polls on David Paterson’s standing find voters fairly split on whether he should stay or go. Siena finds 55% think he should serve the rest of his term while 37% say resign (and only 21% saying he should be impeached if he doesn’t resign), while SurveyUSA finds 45% say he should remain in office and 50% say resign. (He has a 25/66 approval according to SurveyUSA and a 21/67 favorable according to Siena.) Siena also looks at November’s race, finding Andrew Cuomo leading Rick Lazio by an unsurprising 63-25 margin.

• OR-Gov: The state Republicans held their annual Dorchester Conference, which included a gubernatorial straw poll after appearances from the candidates. In a bit of a surprise, Allen Alley (considered the old-school moderate in the race, to the extent that he used to be deputy chief of staff to Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski) dominated, winning with 225 votes to 165 for substance-less former NBA player Chris Dudley. (Former state Sen. John Lim got 47, and antitax weirdo Bill Sizemore got 1.) Meanwhile, over on the Dem side, a lot of big labor endorsements got rolled out, and the two candidates both got their fair share. John Kitzhaber got the muscle – AFL-CIO and Teamsters – while Bill Bradbury got the brains: the Oregon Education Association and American Federation of Teachers. Finally, Oregon lost a well-liked political figure who briefly ran for Governor in 2006: Republican state Sen.-turned-Democratic state Treasurer Ben Westlund, who died from a recurrence of lung cancer over the weekend.

• CA-47: Businessman and veteran Quang Pham was mounting a strong challenge, at least on the fundraising front, in the GOP primary to Assemblyman Van Tran, to the extent that the NRCC took notice and put him “On the Radar.” However, he bailed out of the race on Friday, citing the need to get back to his day job, although he may also have been concerned that the three Vietnamese candidates competing in the primary might split the vote to the extent that it would let no-name Anglo Kathy Smith with the primary.

• IA-03, MO-04: Two old guys who’ve been on everybody’s retirement watch lists despite continuous reassurances that they’re running for re-election made it about as official as can be. Leonard Boswell and Ike Skelton have both filed to run one more time.

• KS-04: State Sen. Dick Kelsey, one of half a dozen Republicans fighting for the open seat in the Wichita-based 4th left behind by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, has suspended his campaign. He cited his wife’s health problems, and reserved the right to get back in the race later.

• MA-10: Some comings and goings in the Democratic field in the now-open 10th: as expected, Norfolk County DA William Keating is confirming he’ll run for the Dem nod. However, oft-mentioned state Rep. Ron Mariano said he’ll pass on the race.

• PA-12: As we wait for a verdict from the state Democratic Party’s executive committee, here’s some interesting scuttlebutt. Pa2010 cites an unnamed high-level party insider as saying it’s “highly unlikely” that Mark Critz (former John Murtha district director) gets picked by the state committee, which has the final decision despite the local party’s choice of Critz over the weekend. He cites concerns over Critz’s electability stemming from tax problems at a company he’d helped run. Pa2010 also hears rumors that Cambria County Controller Ed Cernic Jr., who made little impact at the local convention, could wind up being the compromise pick, as he fits the district’s blue-collar pro-life pro-gun mold better than Barbara Hafer but without Critz’s possible baggage. We’ll know soon whether this is actually happening, or the source was just a guy with an ax to grind.

• DCCC: The D-Trip has named Bruce Braley, Allyson Schwarz, Patrick Murphy, and Donna Edwards as chairs of this cycle’s Red to Blue program. While the DCCC has announced some “races to watch,” it hasn’t officially named anyone to R2B yet. Also, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Steve Israel “will take on additional responsibility this cycle with Democratic incumbents who are not on the DCCC’s Frontline Program.” I don’t know if this means helping folks like Ike Skelton who are vulnerable but not on Frontline, or harassing the crap out of safe members who haven’t fulfilled their dues payments. Hopefully both. (D)

• Fundraising: With Bill Russell back in the news with the PA-12 special election, TPM’s back on the case of shady GOP fundraising firm BMW Direct, which raises big bucks for gullible candidates with high-profile opponents and keeps almost all of the money for itself. They’ve changed their name to BaseConnect, but are up to the same old tricks. And I actually feel a little bad about this… Rep. Joe Cao looks like he’s gotten tangled up in their web, which explains his fundraising “success” and his near-total burn rate.

• State legislatures: In the diaries, Johnny Longtorso has a comprehensive look at the legislatures that the Dems control and are defending in the 2008 election. There are major redistricting stakes at issue in many of the races, including some where the odds don’t look too good, especially Pennsylvania’s House.

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln is up with her first ad, as she runs for the Republican nomination for the Senate race. Wait… what? She’s running as a Democrat? Hmmm, that’s not what her ad says, as it’s a list of every which way she’s bucked the Democratic party line in the last year (and closing by saying “I don’t answer to my party, I answer to Arkansas”). That’d make sense if she were running in the general election, but there’s a little matter of her having to get out of the primary first… Meanwhile, the base continues to abandon Lincoln; today it was EMILY’s List, who say they won’t be lifting a finger to help Lincoln. She may still get a lifeline from Bill Clinton, though, who’s continuing to back her. And Bill Halter better be committed to seeing this Senate primary thing through, because state Sen. Shane Broadway just filed to run to keep the Lt. Governor spot in Democratic hands.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Republican polling firm Magellan (apparently not working on behalf of any candidates) issued more polls of the two Republican primaries in California. The polls are pretty much in line with what everyone else is seeing: on the Senate side, Tom Campbell leads at 33, followed by Carly Fiorina at 20 and Chuck DeVore at least cracking double-digits at 11. For the gubernatorial race, Meg Whitman is cruising, beating Steve Poizner 63-12.

• CT-Sen: When it comes to the Connecticut senate race, Dick Blumenthal is the Superfly TNT. Hell, he’s the Guns of the Navarone. In fact, he lays a massive mushroom cloud on Linda McMahon (60-31), Rob Simmons (58-32) and Peter Schiff (57-27) alike — and yes, this is according to Rasmussen. (D)

• IL-Sen: In an interview with the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board, Alexi Giannoulias said he believes his family’s bank is likely to get EATED (as Atrios would say) by the FDIC in the coming months. Perhaps worse, the Trib says that Giannoulias isn’t being forthcoming about what he knew about the bank’s loans to convicted bookmaker and pimp (i.e. mobster) Michael “Jaws” Giorango. Ugh. (D)

• KY-Sen: If the Dems are seeing a bit of an uptick in selected polls lately, they aren’t seeing it in Kentucky yet, at least not if Rasmussen has anything to say about it. Rand Paul leads Jack Conway 46-38 and Dan Mongiardo 49-35, while Trey Grayson leads Conway 45-35 and Mongiardo 44-37. Not much change in the trendlines, except for, oddly, Mongiardo’s standing vis-à-vis Grayson improves while Conway’s slips. Meanwhile, Conway is hitting the airwaves with a new TV spot, wisely taking Jim Bunning’s one-man crusade against unemployed people and hanging it around the necks of Paul and Grayson.

• NJ-Sen: Apparently the 2010 elections are just too boring. Farleigh Dickinson University tested Sen. Bob Menendez versus his 2006 opponent, Tom Kean, Jr., finding a tie (39-38 for Kean, with 17% undecided). Seriously, though, testing horserace numbers this far out just seems silly. Can you imagine what similar polls would have shown for the GOP in 2004? (D)

• NV-Sen: Jon Ralston sits down for a chat with erstwhile Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian, a.k.a. the only man who can inadvertently save Harry Reid. Ashjian, a wealthy contractor (whose company has more than its share of complaints and liens), plans to fund his own way, and discounts claims that he’s somehow being put up to it by the Reid camp as a vote-splitter.

• NY-Sen-B: Sigh, what could have been… Harold Ford Jr. met with Karl Rove in 2004 to discuss the possibility of running for Senate in Tennessee in 2006… as a Republican. Ford isn’t denying the meeting, but, in his, um, defense? says that it was Rove’s idea.

• UT-Sen: Bob Bennett keeps on being a punching bag for the GOP’s right wing, and today the Club for Growth weighed in with an anti-Bennett ad, airing on (where else?) the Fox News Channel in Utah. It’s targeted purely at state GOP insiders, urging them to send anti-Bennett delegates to the state nominating convention. The CfG hasn’t settled on one particular candidate they’re for; all they know is who they’re against.

• GA-Gov: PPP follows up its Georgia general election numbers from yesterday with a look at the Republican gubernatorial primary. (The Democratic primary seems to look like an adequately foregone conclusion to them.) No surprises: Insurance Comm. John Oxendine leads at 27, followed by Karen Handel at 19, Nathan Deal at 13, Austin Scott and Eric Johnson at 3, and Jeff Chapman and Ray McBerry at 2.

• MD-Gov: There’s been lots of focus on the leaked RNC strategy document today, mostly for its rather shameless descriptions of its fundraising plans. There are a few noteworthy strategic items here, though — maybe most interestingly, they’ve totally left Michael Steele’s home state of Maryland off the list of gubernatorial races they’re pushing. It remains to be seen whether it’s because Bob Ehrlich isn’t getting in after all, they don’t think he has a ghost of a chance, or just general RNC bungling. (Also interesting: on the Senate side, they’re even targeting Charles Schumer, but they’ve left off Patty Murray, which may suggest it isn’t getting any better for the GOP than Don Benton in Washington.)

• MI-Gov: Two endorsements in the pipeline in the Michigan gubernatorial race. Mike Huckabee weighed in on the GOP side, picking AG Mike Cox, calling him the “pro-life, pro-gun” candidate over the probably more right-wing Rep. Peter Hoekstra. (I’m not sure how much pull Huckabee has in Michigan. As for me, I’m waiting to see who Ted Nugent endorses.) On the Dem side, this is still purely rumor, but the word is that the United Auto Workers plan to endorse Lansing mayor Virg Bernero (who showed he had their backs with his passionate televised defenses of the auto bailout). The stamp of the state’s most powerful union would go a long way toward uniting union backing behind one Dem.

• NY-Gov: The clock seems to be ticking even louder for David Paterson, as today one of his top aides, spokesperson Peter Kauffmann, resigned and distanced himself. Kauffmann said that, in light of the ethics ruling about the World Series tickets, he could no longer “in good conscience continue.”

• OH-Gov, OH-01: VPOTUS Watch: Joey Joe Joe Biden Shabadoo will visit Cleveland on March 15 to do a fundraiser for Gov. Ted Strickland. He’ll also be doing a separate event for Rep. Steve Driehaus. (D)

• AR-01: The fields for both sides in the open seat left behind by Rep. Marion Berry are slow to take shape, but it looks like the Democrats found a decent-sounding candidate who can bring some of his own money with him. Terry Green, an orthopedic surgeon with his own practice, has filed, sounding some populist notes in his first comments to the press.

• IL-08: Ah, the party of fiscal responsibility. Joe Walsh, the GOP’s candidate in the 8th, stopped making mortgage payments on his Evanston condominium in May 2009 and lost it to foreclosure in October. Putting a positive spin on it, Walsh says “This experience helped me gain a better appreciation for the very real economic anxieties felt by 8th District families.”

• MI-03: Here’s a positive development: Democrats are actually lining up to contest the R+6 open seat in Grand Rapids left behind by retiring GOP Rep. Vern Ehlers. Former Kent Co. Commissioner Paul Mayhue is about to enter the Dem field, where he’ll join attorney Patrick Miles.

• MI-06: Ex-state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, who was badly beaten by Carl Levin in 2008’s Senate race, is now setting his sights on knocking off incumbent Rep. Fred Upton in the Republican primary. Hoogendyk, who has yet to make a decision on the race, sent out an email to supporters blasting Upton for his votes in favor of TARP, No Child Left Behind, and S-CHIP. Upton’s district has an even PVI, and went for Bush twice by seven-point margins before Obama won the district by a comfy 54-45 spread in ’08. (J)

• NH-01: A run in the 1st by RNC committee member Sean Mahoney is now looking much likelier, even though he’d scoped out the race and decided against it last year. Last year, it was looking like former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta had the nomination to himself, but Guinta’s bad fundraising and bad press have lured a few other contenders into the GOP field.

• NY-15: With Charlie Rangel’s position looking increasingly precarious, CQ takes a look at some possible names who might replace him, should he decide not to seek another term (including state Sen. Bill Perkins, Assemblymen Keith Wright and Adriano Espaillat, and city councilors Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson). He already has a few primary challengers – former aide Vincent Morgan and possibly Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV. Meanwhile, the chairmanship of Rangel’s Ways & Means Committee has hopscotched around in the last few days, to California’s Pete Stark and today to the less-controversial Michigan’s Sander Levin. The chair of this powerful committee (which oversees tax laws) tends to rake in tons of campaign contributions – and dole them out to fellow caucus members, so it’s worth keeping an eye on who actually replaces Rangel on a permanent basis. (This is also why so many peeps have returned money to Rangel – because he’s given out so much.) (D)

• New York: Could he really be eyeing a comeback? According to Time Magazine, Eliot Spitzer is “bored out of his mind” these days, but also says he doesn’t want to subject his family to the inevitable ugliness that would ensue if he ran for something again. Meanwhile, former Spitzer confidante Lloyd Constantine, the man Spitzer called right before the news of his involvement with prostitutes broke, has turned on his former mentee with a new tell-all book. The stars are definitely not aligned for Spitz, if they ever were. (D)

• Maps: You know you love them (otherwise you wouldn’t be at SSP). And jeffmd has a whole new bunch of ’em, looking at the results of the Texas Republican gubernatorial primary and how they might translate into the general.

• Healthcare: The Wall Street Journal has a chart laying out how members of the House might vote on the next iteration of the healthcare reform bill, listing public statements (if any) they’ve made since the last vote. This really should be in wiki form, though – for instance, they don’t have Mike Arcuri’s remarks (see Morning Digest). (D)

• Redistricting: The NYT takes a look at the people who applied for a spot on California’s state legislative redistricting commission. Fourteen spots have been set aside for ordinary citizens… and 31,000 people (including probably at least a few SSPers!) applied. Progress Illinois also has a detailed look today at the new proposals underway to make the redistricting process fairer (or at least less random).

• Blogosphere: Finally, we’re sad to see one of our favorite blogs apparently calling it quits. Over the last two years, Campaign Diaries became a must-read, both for insightful analysis and for making sure that no comings-and-goings in any races fell through the cracks. We wish Taniel well in his next endeavors.

Frightening news:

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey’s 86-year-old senior senator, was diagnosed with treatable stomach cancer in the last 24 hours and will begin chemotherapy today.

The Democrat still plans to finish out his current term – his fifth in the Senate – and seek re-election in 2014.

“This doesn’t change any of that,” Lautenberg’s chief aide, Dan Katz, said of the senator’s political plans. “After he receives his treatment, back to normal.”

Moments ago, Lautenberg’s office issued a statement from the senator’s oncologist, James F. Holland, saying:

“We expect a full and complete recovery for Senator Lautenberg. The senator will be treated with chemotherapy administered approximately every three weeks. We anticipate that he will receive between six and eight treatments, and in between treatments, the senator is expected to be back at work in the Senate.”

Our thoughts go out to the Senator.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Michael Capuano picked up several more endorsements in the special election primary to succeed Ted Kennedy, although the clock is ticking loudly on trying to make up that last bit of ground against AG Martha Coakley. He got the endorsement of the Boston Herald (Boston’s smaller daily) and also fellow Rep. Ed Markey, who had seemed a likely candidate initially.

• NJ-Sen: With a Republican moving into Drumthwacket (sorry, I just like saying “Drumthwacket”) for four years and Sen. Frank Lautenberg not getting any younger (at 85), Democratic Assembly whip John McKeon has introduced legislation that would change the way that Senate vacancies are filled in New Jersey. Under current law, a governor can opt either to make a temporary appointment or call a special election. The proposed law, however, would require the governor to appoint a replacement within 30 days and it would need to be someone from the same political party as the departed officeholder. The temporary appointment would continue until the next general election.

• IA-Gov: His entry to the race provoked a lot of interest back when the rest of the field was just assorted wingnuts, but with the entry of ex-Gov. Terry Branstad, there wasn’t much room for young businsessman Christian Fong. He suspended his campaign today.

• MI-Gov: Lansing mayor Virg Bernero has been on some people’s wish list for a gubernatorial candidate, in light of the rather underwhelming Democratic field in Michigan. It sounds like Bernero has been hearing those calls (and noticing the polls showing Lt. Gov. John Cherry not only badly losing the general but not even summoning up much interest in the Dem primary), as now he says that he’s switching from “very unlikely” to “seriously considering” a race in the last few weeks.

• OR-Gov: This is the kind of thing that can put a big crimp in your newly-launched gubernatorial campaign. Initiative kingpin (and 1998 gubernatorial loser) Bill Sizemore just got charged with tax evasion for failure to file state tax returns for the previous three years. Although the state has known about this failure for more than a year, the timing may have more to do with the recent expiration of Sizemore’s amnesty period to file rather than his announcement last week of his intention to run for governor again.

• PA-Gov: Allegheny Co. Executive Dan Onorato isn’t well-known outside the Pittsburgh area, so he’s been focusing his early efforts on the Philadelphia area. He’s gotten a boost with endorsements from several prominent Democratic legislators in Montgomery and Chester Counties: state Sens. Daylin Leach and Andy Dinniman, and just yesterday, state Rep. Michael Gerber.

• CA-03: The once-crowded Democratic field in the 3rd, to go up against vulnerable GOP Rep. Dan Lungren, has gotten whittled down to one. Bill Slaton, an executive with Sacramento’s municipal public utility, dropped out and endorsed Ami Bera. With Elk Grove city councilor Gary Davis also having dropped out a few months ago, Bera has a clear shot; Bera, the former Sacramento County Chief Medical Officer, has been going gangbusters on the fundraising front, sitting on $586K (more than Lungren has). Slaton had loaned himself $300K but hadn’t seemed to make much progress beyond that.

• FL-10, FL-12: Two Democratic challengers who have favorable circumstances (an aging incumbent who’s barely fundraising in the 10th, an open seat in the 12th) but haven’t gotten far at fundraising yet are getting a boost on the money front. Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley is hosting a Tampa fundraiser for state Sen. Charlie Justice, while Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Allen Boyd are hosting a DC fundraiser for Polk Co. Elections Supervisor Lori Edwards (although perception-wise, it’s probably not good that it’s being held in a lobbyist’s office).

• MN-01: Another Republican challenger showed up to take on sophomore Rep. Tim Walz in Minnesota’s rural 1st. Unlike former state Rep. Allen Quist (who was at his peak in the 90s), Randy Demmer is a current state Rep.

• NH-02: State Rep. John DeJoie, who’s been expected to run, made official that he’s getting into the open seat race for the 2nd on the Democratic side. DeJoie has been a firefighter in Concord for 14 years; he joins attorney Ann McLane Kuster and may also be joined by Katrina Swett.

• NJ-03: Jon Runyan might want to be spending the next few months working on his message discipline instead of playing for the Chargers. Runyan, shortly after announcing that he’d be running against freshman Democratic Rep. John Adler after the football season, turned around and told San Diego reporters that he hadn’t committed to the race yet and was exploring his options. Runyan’s spokesperson then corrected Runyan, saying he’s definitely in the race, and bafflingly said that the latter comment was made “in jest.”

• PA-06: The Republican field in the open seat race in the 6th just keeps growing; the fifth entrant is Patrick Sellers, a former Republican committeeman. Sellers is apparently a Paulist, and made his announcement at a Philadelphia “End the Fed” rally. He joins state Rep. Curt Schroder, pharma exec Steven Welch, Chester Co. Recorder of Deeds Ryan Costello, and long-ago state Revenue Secretary Howard Cohen.

• PA-19: It’s not clear yet whether Rep. Todd Platts is even going to get chosen as head of the GAO, but Republicans are already lining up to take over his dark-red seat if he does. Roll Call lists a bunch of ’em, starting with state Rep. Scott Perry, who’s already making his interest public. Eyes are also on one of Platts’ 2000 primary opponents, York County Commissioner Chris Reilly. The article also lists a slew of other possible state legislators and county officials.

• NH-St. Sen.: Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty really, really wants to do lots of favors for the good people of New Hampshire, and he’s starting by hosting a fundraising event for Republicans in its state Senate, who are currently down 14-10 in that chamber. Interestingly, ex-Rep. Jeb Bradley (who downshifted to the state Senate) is on the host committee and a key recipient of the help, which may lead to the question of whether he’s looking for leverage for trying something bigger again in the future.

• KY-St. Sen.: Here’s a positive tea leaf as we head into the home stretch on the special election in the Bardstown-based SD-14 next week (one of the two seats strategically excised of its Republican occupants by Democratic governor Steve Beshear): Democratic former state Rep. Jodie Haydon has raised more than four times the funds as Republican state Rep. Jimmy Higdon ($546K for Haydon, including in-kind contributions from the state Dems, vs. $131K for Higdon). Much of Haydon’s money is coming from the horse industry, which has fallen squarely behind the Dems in recent months as state Democrats seek to allow video slots at horsetracks (something Higdon and most local GOPers oppose). A Dem pickup here would cut the GOP advantage in the state Senate to 19-18 (with one GOP-leaning indie).

• VA-St. Sen.: The special election to fill two vacant, formerly GOP-held state Senate seats has been set for Jan. 12. The race to take over the heavily Republican SD-8 in Virginia Beach (vacated by new Virginia Beach Sheriff Ken Stolle) doesn’t look to be very interesting; only two Republicans have signed up for it so far. Dems may have a shot at a pickup in the swingy SD-37 in Fairfax County, vacated by new AG Ken Cuccinelli. Democratic state Del. David Marsden has confirmed that he’ll run for the promotion. Dems have a narrow 21-19 edge in the Senate, which they’d like to pad in case incoming Gov. Bob McDonnell attempts any Beshear-style poaching.

• Mayors: The Atlanta mayoral runoff is tonight, between white city councilor Mary Norwood and African-American former state Sen. Kasim Reed. (The one public poll of the race gave Reed a small edge.) Norwood’s final ad, and the final debate, point to how the runoff has gotten racially fraught as it comes to a close. There are also four legislative runoff elections scattered around Georgia tonight, although two are Dem/Dem and one is GOP/GOP. The remaining one, in HD-141 in Milledgeville, is between independent Rusty Kidd and Democrat Darrell Black.

• Redistricting: Dave’s Redistricting App is starting to add partisan political data (the 2008 presidential election results). First up is Maryland. Give it a whirl, and leave your feedback in Dave’s diary. (D)

Redistricting fans may also want to head over to CQ today, where long pieces by both Bob Benenson and Greg Giroux give an overview of where the fireworks will be in the coming few years.

• AR-Sen: PPP’s Tom Jensen has some interesting crosstabs from their AR-02 poll, which shed some light on Blanche Lincoln’s unique set of problems. Lincoln generates only lukewarm enthusiasm from her base: Barack Obama gets a 78% approval among Dems in the district, Rep. Vic Snyder is at 75%, and Mark Pryor is at 61%, but Lincoln is at only 43%, with 30% of Dems thinking she’s too conservative (although that may be coming to a head right now with her obstructionist role in the health care debate, which may not be much of an issue one year from now). Moving to the left, though, will cause her to lose votes with independents, though, among whom 49% think she’s too liberal.

• CT-Sen, CT-05: Local GOP party poohbahs are sounding eager to push state Sen. Sam Caligiuri out of the Senate race, where he’s rather, uh, underutilized, and into the 5th, for a race against Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy; Caligiuri says he’ll consider it. Problem is, Justin Bernier is already running there, and has had some fundraising success and gotten NRCC “Young Gun” status; as you might expect, Bernier is crying foul.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has been trying to hide from his previous stimulus support, but Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson has the goods on him, dragging out an old interview from spring in which Crist says “absolutely” he would have voted for the stimulus had he been in the Senate at the time. Here’s one bit of good news for Crist, though; Marco Rubio‘s once-perfect A rating from the National Rifle Association is about to drop, thanks to Rubio’s compromise (from back when he was House speaker) on the take-your-gun-to-work law that recently became law.

• IL-Sen: Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman has an internal poll of his own now, and while it doesn’t give numbers for the Dem primary matchup between Hoffman and frontrunner Alexi Giannoulias, it does point to some vulnerabilities for Giannoulias. The poll claims that without message-testing, GOP Rep. Mark Kirk leads Giannoulias 40-37 and leads Hoffman 40-30, but once positives and negatives are read, Kirk beats Giannoulias 47-30 and Hoffman beats Kirk 42-36. The negatives involve the Giannoulias family bank, which apparently has been connected to Tony Rezko. Meanwhile, Kirk took an embarrassing hit from the conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board, whose response to Kirk’s flip-flopping and fearmongering on trying terrorists in New York boiled down to “Give us a break.” Wondering why Kirk is so transparently turning into a right-winger? Kirk’s looking increasingly nervous about erstwhile opponent Patrick Hughes, who is currently seeking out a Jim DeMint endorsement.

• KY-Sen, NH-Sen: The NRSC is claiming it’s not getting involved in primary fights with fundraising, but you can’t make party leadership’s intentions any clearer than when Mitch McConnell hosts a fundraiser in New York on Dec. 7 for Trey Grayson and Kelly Ayotte. With both candidates facing mounting anti-establishment challenges, it seems like the bad publicity back home generated by these appearances — more grist for the movement conservative mill — might outweigh the financial benefit.

• NJ-Sen: Now that recently unemployed TV pundit Lou Dobbs has some time on his hands, he told Bill O’Reilly he’s considering a run for the Senate in New Jersey. There isn’t a seat available until 2012 (when Dobbs will be 67) — he’d be going up against Bob Menendez that year. Dobbs vs. Menendez? Hmmm, you can’t get any more weighed down with symbolism than that.

• SC-Sen: The county GOP in Berkeley County (in the Charleston suburbs) was prepared to have its own censure vote against Lindsey Graham, but they called off the vote after Graham’s chief of staff promised to meet with them first.

• CA-Gov (pdf): Lots of people have taken notice that the Republican field in the governor’s race isn’t a diverse bunch: three sorta-moderates from Silicon Valley. San Jose State University took a poll of those who would seemingly know the candidates the best: Republican likely voters in “Silicon Valley” (Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus small parts of Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties). Perhaps thanks to Tom Campbell’s tenure in the House representing much of this area, he has a wide lead, at 39%, compared with 11 for Meg Whitman and 7 for Steve Poizner.

• MI-Gov, MI-08: In case there was any doubt that Rep. Mike Rogers (the Michigan one) was going to run for re-election to his House seat and not for governor, we found a statement from way back in February to that effect. (H/t to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, a blog devoted to all things MI-08.)

• MN-Gov: Rasmussen looks at the still-coalescing primary fields in the Minnesota governor’s races, and seems to be finding very name-recognition-driven results right now. On the Democratic side, most of the votes are going to former Senator Mark Dayton and Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak; both poll at 30, trailed by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 8 and former state legislator Matt Entenza at 6. On the Republican side, ex-Sen. Norm Coleman dominates, with 50%; however, he’s not in the race, at least not yet, and is probably the only name that people know. Among the rest of the rabble, former House minority leader Marty Seifert is doing the best, at 11, with 5 for Laura Brod and 1 for Tom Emmer.

• OR-Gov: Most people have already mentally ruled out Rep. Peter DeFazio from the governor’s race, but he just said that he’s still somewhat interested, and that he won’t be making up his mind on it until… next March? He doesn’t seem too concerned about the delay, as Oregon law would let him transfer over his federal dollars and he alludes to private polling showing him in a dead heat with John Kitzhaber. While I still doubt he’ll follow through, that raises the question of who might fill a vacancy in OR-04; it’s looking less and less like it would be Springfield’s Republican mayor Sid Leiken, who was just fined $2,250 by the state for the phantom poll that may or may not have been conducted by Leiken’s mom.

• TX-Gov: Little-known fact: Kay Bailey Hutchison, despite the seeming overall malaise in her campaign, has a big edge in endorsements from Texas House Republicans. She has the endorsements of 10 of 20 (including Kay Granger, Kenny Marchant, and Michael Burgess), perhaps indicative of Rick Perry’s increasingly strident anti-Washington rhetoric. (Not that that will help much when the actual electorate is in an increasingly anti-establishment mood.) A couple other Dems are looking at the race: hair care magnate Farouk Shami (who’s willing to bring his own money to the race) is officially launching his campaign on Thursday, while El Paso-based outgoing state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh is publicly weighing a run.

• FL-19: West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel, who would have been maybe the highest-profile possible primary challenger to state Sen. Ted Deutch in the upcoming special election in the 19th, has decided not to run. Deutch has been endorsed by outgoing Robert Wexler and has an increasingly clear path to the nomination. Meanwhile, the only GOPer looking interested in running in the dark-blue district is Ed Lynch, who lost to Wexler last year.

• IL-06: Here’s a little more information about Benjamin Lowe, who’s the only Dem running in the 6th against Peter Roskam. While he’s something of a political unknown, it turns out he’s well-connected in the religious left community as well as the green jobs movement. He’s a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College (which is in the district) and has been active in the last few years in organizing students at other evangelical colleges on issues of environmental stewardship.

• NY-13: I don’t know if anything can top last year’s NY-13 race for political trainwrecks, but the Staten Island GOP may have gotten switched onto that same track again. Michael Allegretti, a 31-year old who caught attention for raising $200K for the race already, is a lawyer who also owns a share of the family business, Bayside Fuel and Oil — which employed Gambino family capo Joe “Joe Butch” Corrao for several decades. Over $40K of Allegretti’s contributions came from family members working for Bayside. To add to the made-for-TV drama: Allegretti’s potential Republican primary opponent, Michael Grimm, was on the FBI squad charged with investigating said crime family.

• NY-19: Republican Greg Ball — who puts the “Ass” in Assemblyman — is out with an internal poll putting him within single digits of Rep. John Hall. Hall leads the Hall/Ball matchup, 48-43 — although for some reason the poll was taken only in the portion of the district that’s east of the Hudson River. Hall still has strong favorables, at 57/25, while Ball is at 40/28.

• NY-23: Recounting in NY-23 is still on track to see Rep. Bill Owens remain in the House; Doug Hoffman is down 2,951 votes with 6,123 left, so about the best he can hope for is to lose by about 2,000. The Hoffman saga just got weirder when yesterday Hoffman, goaded along by his patron Glenn Beck, unconceded on national TV — yet today, his spokesperson un-un-conceded, not that any of that is legally binding, of course.

• NRCC: If the Republicans are going to make a serious dent in the Democratic edge in the House next year, they’re going to have to refill the NRCC’s coffers, which are still lagging the DCCC. Party leadership smacked down members in a closed-door session, trying to get them to pony up their $15K dues. The Hill also has an interesting profile of CA-22’s Kevin McCarthy, an up-and-comer who’s the NRCC recruitment chair now and likely to head the NRCC at some point in the near future. Turns out that McCarthy is quite the student of Rahm Emanuel.

• Mayors: SurveyUSA polls the runoff in the Atlanta mayor’s race, and they have quite the reversal of fortune for Mary Norwood, who led all polls before November and finished first in the election. State Sen. Kasim Reed, who finished 2nd, now leads Norwood, 49-46. Reed leads 69-25 among African-American voters, indicating that he picked up almost all of 3rd-place finisher Lisa Borders’ support.

• Special elections: Two legislative specials are on tap tonight. The big one is California’s AD-72, a Republican-leaning seat in the OC left vacant by the resignation of Mike Duvall (who resigned in disgrace after bragging about his affair with a lobbyist). It seems to be mostly a contest between two GOPers, Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby and activist Linda Ackerman (who’s been making much of Norby’s four divorces). Since this is California, assuming one of the Republicans doesn’t finish over 50%, it’ll move on to another round where the top Republican faces off against Dem John MacMurray. Also, in Mississippi, there’s a contest in Biloxi-based HD-117, to replace Republican state Rep. Michael Janus; candidates aren’t identified by party on the special election ballot, but the contestants are Patrick Collins (who ran against Janus several times) and Scott DeLano.

• Redistricting: You might want to check out the website called “Redistricting the Nation,” presented by GIS software company Avencia but full of fun widgets. Most interestingly, you can evaluate the compactness of any congressional district by four different criteria, and see the worst offenders in each category.