• NY-20: The Troy Record, one of the major papers in the district, calls out GOP candidate Jim Tedisco in an angry editorial for not living in the district and for sticking to the Republican negative campaigning playbook.
• OK-Gov: Former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts says he’s weighing a run for governor and will make a decision in 45 days. (Mark your calendars for April 17th.) But how will Watts, who made tentative pro-Obama noises last year, play in a GOP primary? (D)
• CA-19: More R-on-R fun: A wealthy Republican fundraiser in California is itching to recruit a primary challenger for GOP Rep. George Radanovich. Assemblyman Mike Villines might be interested. Radanovich’s district supported Bush by monstrous margins, but only went for McCain by 52-46 last year. (J) (UPDATE: Villines’ office writes in to say that he will be supporting Radanovich in 2010.)
• CA-Sen: Best wishes to Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who moved on to Republican politics and had been mentioned as a possible candidate against Barbara Boxer in 2010. She’s been diagnosed with breast cancer, which may put her political activism on hold.
• DC Voting Rights: The House vote on the DC Voting Rights Act has been pushed back until next week, as leadership figures out how to prevent the GOP from adding language that strips most of what remains of DC’s gun laws (after the Supreme Court partially struck them down last year).
• 2010 House: The Hill has a nice preview of some of the hot House races in two years, and candidates bubbling up to fill those slots.
This could explain why Radanovich signed onto the “Bush Won in Iraq” legislation that Steve King introduced, which says that we’ve won in Iraq thanks to Bush and anything that goes wrong is now Obama’s fault.
31 pieces of nutso signed onto co-sponsor, including Rep. Radanovich. It’s some esteemed company.
DC absolutely should have the right to enact whatever constitutional gun control laws that they desire. Congressional interference belies Republican claims of believing in the principles of federalism. Just one more example that they really do not care about federalism and all their talk is just lip service (see also Schiavo). This is just one example where I might like Republican talking points (pro-federalism) but their party simply has zero credibility with me because of their actions.
Politico.com/scorecard
repeat challengers in AZ-05 (Mitchell), CA-03 (Lungren), CA-44 (Calvert), ID-01 (Minnick), and OH-01 (Driehaus).
Out of all of them, the only ones I find likely to succeed are Bill Durston and Bill Hedrick, running against Lungren and Calvert respectively.
I also find GOP optimism over a potential open seat in Hawaii to be misplaced. Ignoring Obama’s performance, the state has still swung hard towards the Democrats on a local level, the only GOP-leaning mayor got booted in 2006, and the Republican state legislators lost 75% of their caucus in just a few elections. Abercrombie’s seat is very, very safe.
Pete Sessions?
As of 2/22-2/24:
http://www.surveyusa.com/50Sta…
Senators:
Boxer (D-CA) – 43/47
Feinstein (D-CA) – 47/45
Grassley (R-IA) – 71/23
Brownback (R-KS) – 50/40
McConnell (R-KY) – 46/49
Bunning (R-KY) – 41/44
Klobuchar (D-MN) – 59/33
McCaskill (D-MO) – 54/40
Udall (D-NM) – 60/31
Gillibrand (D-NY) – 41/33
Merkley (D-OR) – 42/39
Webb (D-VA) – 52/37
Warner (D-VA) – 65/29
Governors:
Riley (R-AL) – 64/32
Schwarzenegger (R-CA) – 25/71
Culver (D-IA) – 46/47
Sebelius (D-KS) – 56/40
Beshear (D-KY) – 48/46
Patrick (D-MA) – 28/68
Pawlenty (R-MN) – 48/44
Nixon (D-MO) – 55/35
Richardson (D-NM) – 41/53
Paterson (D-NY) – 30/66
Kulongoski (D-OR) – 38/52
Kaine (D-VA) – 57/37
Gregoire (D-WA) – 38/58
Doyle (D-WI) – 40/55