63 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”

  1. im curious to see how all the newer members of PA’s delegation hold up over the long run, Kathy Dahlkemper PA-3, Jason Altmire PA-4, Chris Carney PA-10. I feel more confident about Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy holding their seats cause the philly suburbs are trending more and more Dem. every year. Also im wondering whats gonna happen to Paul Kanjorski in the next cycle,same with Charlie Dent and John Murtha. Although i think that Kanjorski will be safer now because Barletta was his strongest challenger in a really long time? Dent seems to hold on every cycle so i think we need to find a really good candidate to run against him and im wondering if that Russell guy that ran against Murtha will hurt him more and/or defeat him next cycle.

  2. I’m working on compiling the numbers, similar to what someone did for Washington a few weeks ago.  If anyone’s interested, I could post them in a diary when finished, or put them on google docs.

  4. Here’s what’s on my radar for 2009-10:

    – CA-Supreme Court/Prop H8: The court will be hearing the case in March. A ruling will likely be out by June. Whatever happens, we need to be ready to (once & for all!) secure marriage equality in The Golden State in 2010 so we’ll finally have an electoral win under our belt & start winning in more states.

    – CA-44: This will likely be one of the hottest races in 2010. I hope Bill Hedrick is preparing now to run again. He did a fantastic job pulling off a near-upset last year, and he’s already built up a good Riverside County base. If he can only win a few more Orange County votes, he can win outright.

    – CA-50: Will Nick Leibham run again? Or can we convince a local elected to run here? Fmr. SD City Council Member Scott Peters, perhaps? The Mayor of Encinitas or Solana Beach?

    – CA-03: I can hardly wait for Bill Durston to announce again! I can see he wants this, and he improved GREATLY his performance last year. With perhaps a little more CDP & DCCC help, I think he can beat Lungren in this rapidly bluing district.

    – CA-48: This is still a slightly tougher district than CA-44, but it’s certainly doable. Obama won outright here, and the underfunded “sacrificial lamb” still managed to run a good enough campaign to get 41% to Campbell’s 56%. If we can get someone on the Irvine City Council or perhaps an elected from Tustin or South County to run, we can win here.

  5. I owe this may a HUGE deal of gratitude.  Myself and millions of former college students might not have been able to graduate from college without the program he helped start, the Pell grant.  A true legend in the Senate for six terms.  RIP

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITI…

    Ex-Sen. Claiborne Pell, proponent of student grants, dies

    (CNN) — Former U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell, who was largely responsible for the Pell grant program for U.S. college students, died Thursday morning at his Rhode Island home, his family said.

    Pell, 90, “died peacefully in the presence of his wife, Nuala, and family members” in Newport, the family statement said. He had Parkinson’s disease for a number of years.

    Pell was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Rhode Island in 1960, and served from January 3, 1961, to January 3, 1997, when he retired.

    He was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1987 to 1994, and was named U.S. delegate to the United Nations in 1997.

    “Claiborne Pell was a man of extraordinary integrity, grace and decency,” said Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who served with Pell in the Senate and who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee from 2001 to 2003 and for the past two years.

    “Chairman Pell was a mentor to me and one of our nation’s most important voices in foreign policy for over 30 years.”

    Pell’s great passion lay in education and the arts and humanities, believing that the country’s people were its greatest asset. Largely through his efforts, Congress created Pell grants, which are need-based awards to low-income undergraduate and certain other students, in 1973.

    He also was the main sponsor of the bill creating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

    “The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people,” he once said.

    Describing his job as a senator, Pell said his work was to “translate ideas into actions and help people.”

    “Public service was stamped in Claiborne Pell’s DNA,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts. “He was a quiet giant and a gentleman to the core, a dignified man who always did what he thought was right.

    “Claiborne Pell will be recorded in history as a leader whose moral compass pointed him to do great things.”

    After Pell’s retirement from the Senate, Rhode Island renamed its Newport Bridge the Claiborne Pell Bridge, and Salve Regina University established the Pell Center of International Relations and Public Policy in Newport.

    Born in New York City, Pell graduated from Princeton in 1940 and Columbia University in 1946, serving in the U.S. Coast Guard in between and later in the Coast Guard Reserve. Pell also worked for the State Department and as a foreign service officer from 1945 to 1952 in Czechoslovakia, Italy and Washington.

    Pell is survived by his wife of 64 years, Nuala O’Donnell Pell; a son, Christopher T.H. Pell; a daughter, Dallas Pell; five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

  6. Perhaps I’m overreacting here but can anyone explain to me why this district improved 9 points for us this year? I know Obama flipped NC and all but to get 45 percent in the suburban Charlotte district is very strange but encouraging. Perhaps we should run someone and see how vulnerable Myrick really is.  

  7. I’m interested to see what candidates jump in. Also KS-Sen, whether Sebelius runs, and who runs for OR-Gov.

    I am anxiously awaiting the 2010 race tracker…

  8. Watching the feed from the Uptake, they just finished counting the absentees. The projection is that Franken currently leads Norm by 223 votes once these ballots are allocated.

    Fan-freaking-tastic! Let Coleman sue away, he can’t overtake that margin.

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