• NC-Sen: It looks like Elaine Marshall is fishing for campaign help outside of DSCC-approved circles. She recently hired A.J. Carrillo to “oversee day-to-day activities and coordinate strategy.” Carrillo, as you may recall, managed Greg Fisher’s ill-fated primary campaign against Bruce Lunsford in the 2008 Kentucky Senate race. Two years earlier, Carrillo had better luck, helping guide Jerry McNerney to an upset victory over the DCCC-backed Steve Filson in the CA-11 primary, and to another surprise win over GOP Rep. Richard Pombo in the general election. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Richard Burr seems to be wistfully nostalgic for the days of Bush, going so far as to tap Karl Rove to headline a fundraiser for him.
• NE-Sen: Rasmussen’s Magical Mystery Tour touches down in Nebraska today, and finds some frightening numbers for Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson. In a hypothetical race against current Gov. Dave Heineman, Nelson trails by 61-30. Nelson is not up for re-election until 2012.
• UT-Sen (?): I wonder if this failed amendment to prohibit full body scanning as a “primary” screening device by none other than noted civil libertarian Jason Chaffetz could be used as fodder against him if he ever decides to run for Senate. Glenn Thrush, meanwhile, thinks the vote might have broader repercussions. For his part, Chaffetz is taking a surprisingly principled stand on his proposed ban.
• MD-Gov: Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley has picked up a primary challenger in George W. Owings III, a former state delegate who served in the Ehrlich administration as his secretary of veterans affairs. Owings plans to run to O’Malley’s right in the primary. Good luck with that one.
• MI-Gov: GOP douche extraordinaire Pete Hoekstra is actually taking heat in the Republican primary from venture capitalist Rick Snyder for his recent fundraising email that invited contributions to stop “the Obama/Pelosi efforts to weaken our security” in the wake of the most recent attempted terrorist attack.
• MN-Gov: Josh Goodman has a good piece on Mark Dayton going public (but not fully) about his struggles with depression and alcoholism.
• WY-Gov: Will Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal try for a third term? He’s seriously weighing the possibility, and has hired Global Strategy Group as his pollster to gauge his popularity in the state — and very likely to see if voters would mind if he challenged the state’s gubernatorial term-limits law in the courts.
• AL-05: The Alabama Democratic Party doesn’t believe that Parker Griffith and his consulting firm will delete the data that they downloaded from the party’s database just hours before Griffith defected to the GOP. While the ALDP is threatening Griffith and Main Street Strategies with legal action over the data, the Alabama GOP is salivating over the prospect of getting its hands on it.
• FL-17: Hotline on Call takes a look at the bubbling-under Democratic primary to replace Kendrick Meek.
• PA-07: Democratic state Rep. Bryan Lentz, who’s running to replace Joe Sestak in the House, is seeking to stake out a position as the reform candidate in his race against his likely Republican opponent, former US Attorney Pat Meehan. Lentz has called for the removal of ethically-questionable state House Majority Leader Todd Eachus as the head of the Democratic caucus.
• WA-03: Reid Wilson takes a closer look at the field to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Brian Baird. All signs are pointing to a likely run by ex-state Rep. Denny Heck.
• KY-State House: Gov. Steve Beshear has set a February 2nd special election date to fill the central Kentucky House seat of newly-elected Republican state Senator Jimmy Higdon.
• Texas: SSP’s thunder from down under, benawu, reminds us that the filing deadline for Texas closes in a week, and Democrats still have a lot of congressional races left unfilled, including the sadly-vacant TX-10.
• Strategy: Steve Rosenthal, a respected name in Dem consulting circles, has a very good piece on the five-step recovery process he suggests that Democrats follow in order to mitigate electoral damage in 2010.
considering that Gov. Heineman was the one complaining about budget shortfalls and asked Nelson to bring home the bacon.
I’m not normally one to blow my own trumpet but when I suggested something similar with regard to boosting AA turnout most of you poo-poohed me.
Not sure if this is relevant or has already been brought up, but it looks like Paterson is pulling out all stops to thwart Andrew Cuomo from kicking his ass, which now includes playing the race card…with his own father throwing down the gauntlet. This to me seems like pretty low for the Governor.
What’s next? We’re going to see a tag team steel cage match between the Patersons and Andrew/Mario?
stem entirely from his decision to support the health care bill. If he had voted against, Nelson is only 10 points behind, instead of 31 pts. But of course, nobody has asked the more important question whether Dave Heineman will seek higher office. Heineman has good precedent to draw from: Nelson himself went from governor to senator.
We better get someone in TX-10. If we start fofeiting races left and right like Republicans did the past 2 years, we are in bad, bad shape.
Nelson seems likely to lose in 2012 no matter who faces him unless its token opposition.
I am hearing he could run for Governor of Alabama next year. Anyone have thoughts? I would think he may not be able to win the D primary but if he somehow did he would be a very strong general election candidate.
Irrelevant to the stories posted today but I thought you guys would find this amusing. Local teabaggers in my home state of Jersey are trying to recall Senator Bob Menendez for his support for the current Health Care bill. I guess they never found out that it’s not legal to recall a federal position holder within a change in the Constitution or a law passed by congress. Here’s the link
http://www.politickernj.com/ed…
The Dem consultant is Steve Rosenthal.
the date for the digest is shown as September 29. I almost got confused and thought it was the real September 29 digest.