(Does Karl Rove have “the math” once again, or is this for real? – promoted by DavidNYC)
[Cross-posted at my blog, Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races.]
Hearings were held on allegations of General Services Administration (GSA) misconduct, specifically using GSA staff, time, and resources for Republican partisan political purposes. Think Progress has more and YouTube has clips from the hearing.
Included in the hearing was a PowerPoint presentation from the White House Office of Political Affairs (i.e. Karl Rove’s desk), and one of the slides was titled “Battle for the Senate 2008.” States were broken down as “Republican Offense,” which includes six states, “Republican Defense,” which includes 8 states, and “Not Competitive,” which includes 19 states (though the math wizards in Rove’s office listed it on the slide as “21 states”).
The six states listed under “Republican Offense” are Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota. No huge shocks.
The eight states listed under “Republican Defense” are Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, and Virginia. Mississippi?!?! Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Oregon are the obvious top five Republican vulnerabilities. And Virginia and New Mexico are both purple states with possible retirees (even before the Domenici phone call scandal).
But Mississippi?!?! The only Democrat to make Mississippi competitive, at least in a top-tier (i.e. more competitive than, say, North Carolina or Kentucky, which are both listed under “Not Competitive”) sense, is former state Attorney General Mike Moore. And it is believed that Moore will only step up if incumbent Republican Thad Cochran retires.
So, does Rove have inside info that Thad Cochran is planning on retiring, after all? Certainly provokes curiosity. The Guru will keep an ear toward these developments as they unfold.
Why some of these guys don’t form exploratory committees. I think if Udall and Mike Moore formed exploratory committees they could force those incumbents into retirement.
I think he has a lot more faith in Liddy Dole than, well, even Liddy Dole does… She certainly seems more vulnerable than, say, Senator Warner in Virginia. Although he’s a likely retiree, iirc, she also is – she’s dropped from one of the most powerfull members of the Senate, head of the RSCC while the Republicans were in the majority, to one of the weakest, a freshman senator who mismanaged her own (now-minority) party into an amazingly devasting election loss.
She’s also going to have a lot of trouble with the carpet-bagger accusation.
…but ran out of time to blog it. So does Karl know something that we don’t about a potential Thaddy Cochran retirement? For the love of God, please give us an opportunity to run Mike Moore for a major office again while he still has some residual goodwill from Mississippi voters.
that Cochran screws over Democrats the longer he waits to declare. Rep Pickering (R) can fundraise right now for federal races, but AG Mike Moore (D) can’t until he declares (or apparently he could start an exploratory, but that’s almost the same thing these days). So Cochran’s incentive is to wait a long time, whereas Allard’s incentive was presumably to get out early so the inevitable GOP primary fight could be resolved.
Warner has incentive to wait too, cause the earlier he declares his retirement, the more time Virginia cons have to primary Davis.
Domenici… dunno his incentives. If he wants to coronate Wilson, he’s probably better off waiting. On the other hand, he wants Tom Udall declared before Richardson finds himself defeated in the pres primary. Unless Richardson would rather be Secretary of Interior than Senator, which I wouldn’t know but Domenici probably would.
Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that if Cochran were gonna retire, he’d probably tell Pickering and Rove early and then wait as long as possible to go public.
On the other hand, wasn’t this briefing in December or something? That’s a long time ago and Cochran probably had legitimately not decided at that time. If he even has now.
A few comments have mentioned the need to create “Draft [insert candidate]” groups and exploratory committees. I know Actblue has candidate funds for races with announced candidates. Perhaps we should donate to those, making sure potential candidates know the money is there.
I would say putting MS on the defense list implies that Cochran is a very serious retirement risk.
The “secondary defense” in the House portion is also illuminating. Only a couple of these aren’t in this category for potential retirement reasons – IL10, PA15 and MI7, for instance, are on everybody’s radar because of how close they were in 2006.
At risk of retirement are a pretty large set of names. Some of these are seats that are potentially pick-up-able if open. In order of PVI, from the latest Cook almanac:
DE AL – Castle – D+7
FL 10 – B. Young – D+1, a classic swing seat
OH 16 – Regula – R+4
IL 14 – Hastert – R+5
CA 24 – Gallegy – R+5
CA 25 – McKeon – R+7
CA 41 – J. Lewis – R+9, but possibly easier to win if he doesn’t retire, as he’s potentially in corruption trouble
CA 52 – Hunter – R+9. His namesake son is his most likely replacement.
MI 3 – Ehlers – R+9
AK AL – D. Young – R+10
KY 4 – G. Davis – R+12. Only in his second term; what does Rove know that we don’t? Still, I think our only candidate who could win here (Lucas) lost last cycle.
NC 9 – Myrick – R+12
MD 6 – Bartlett – R+13
LA 1 – Jindal – R+18. I assume he’s on this list because Rove thinks he’ll be governor.
One way to look at the Rove chart is to acknowledge that the “top defense” seats are going to be tough since they’re anticipating the challenge; the way to make them more vulnerable is to go strongly on offense where they’re suspecting it less.
There are a lot of worthwhile lessons to draw from the Rove chart, although the fact that it exists proves to us the most important one: these people have absolutely no interest n governance and policy, and they think the executive branch exists to advance a political party’s power. Creepy.
It could be that Cochran will wait until just before deadline and announce he is not running. It is strange that Rove would list Mississippi.
I thought someone said the two were chummy b/c they were law partners.
If true I expect you can rule out Moore challenging Cochran.
On the Democratic Side.
The following Senators are over 70
1)Levin(MI)
2)Lautenberg(NJ)
3)Rockefeller(WV)
All 3 of those Senators are running again. All are strongly favored to win re-election.
If Levin retire- Race becomes competive- Other than Jennifer Granholm- There is no other Democratic Replacement for the 2008 MI US Senate Race.
NJ and WV remains safe regardless of whether Lautenberg or Rockefeller runs or not.
The following Senators represent red states
1)Pryor(AR)
2)Harkin(IA)
3)Landrieu(LA)
4)Baucus(MT)
5)Johnson(SD)
Pryor(AR),Harkin(IA),Landrieu(LA),and Johnson(SD)won re-election with less than 60% of the popular vote.
On the Republican Side
Following Senators are over 70
1)Stevens(AK)
2)Roberts(KS)
3)Cochran(MS)
4)Domenici(NM)
5)Dole(NC)
6)Inhofe(OK)
7)Warner(VA)
Retirements of Domenici(NM),Dole(NC)and Warner(VA)will garantee Democratic pick ups. In KS,MS,and OK- Democrats have top tier challengers- Sebelius,Moore,and Henry. But Seat will remain Republican due to Presidential Coattails.
The following Senators Represent Blue States
1)Collins(ME)
2)Coleman(MN)
3)Sununu(NH)
4)Smith(OR)