SSP Daily Digest: 3/10

• UT-Sen: With the possibility of a serious primary challenge to Sen. Bob Bennett looming, SSP is adding this contest to our “Races to Watch” list. (D)

• TX-10: A spokesman for Michael McCaul claims he’s running for re-election to his House seat; earlier McCaul said he might run for TX AG, but this situation still bears watching. Dem Jack McDonald apparently plans to run no matter what McCaul decides. (D)

• PA-Sen: Peg Luksik, a pro-life activist who has made several unsuccessful runs for governor (both in the GOP primary in 1990 and on the Constitution Party line in 1998, when she pulled in 10% of the vote in the general), is planning to run in the Republican primary against both Arlen Specter and Pat Toomey. This may actually be good news for Specter, because a split between the religious fundamentalists and free-market fundamentalists in the primary could let Specter sneak through.

• SC-01: The lackadaiscal Henry Brown, fresh off of barely beating Linda Ketner last year, is facing a primary challenge from a young go-getter with a prominent (if laughable) family name: Carroll “Tumpy” Campbell III. (His father was SC governor in the 1990s.) Many in the local GOP are worried about the safety of the seat in Brown’s idle hands, and this early announcement may be done with the hope of goading Brown into retirement.

• IN-05: More primary drama in another solidly Republican district. Dan Burton suddenly looked vulnerable after winning his primary by only 7% against former Marion County coroner John McGoff last year. McGoff’s back for a re-run, and now three other GOPers are swarming the race: state rep. Mike Murphy, former state GOP chair Luke Messer, and former 7th district candidate Brose McVey. Marion County prosecutor Carl Brizzi also says he plans to run if Burton retires, although he seems likelier to retire in 2012.

• NRCC: Seeing as how there may be a lot of major GOP primaries in 2010, the NRCC has announced that it may get involved in primaries this cycle, a departure from Tom Cole’s self-destructive hands-off policy last time. The NRCC has also privately signaled that they may let flawed or insufficently aggressive incumbents get picked off in the primaries rather than have to prop them up in the general.

• FL-12: The GOP and Dems already have front-runners for the nominations in the open seat race (to be vacated by Adam Putnam), GOP state representative Dennis Ross and Democratic Polk County elections supervisor Lori Edwards. But Doug Tudor, who held Putnam under 60% last year without DCCC help, is coming back for another bite at the apple. State senator Paula Dockery is also considering jumping in on the GOP side.

• Caucuses: Meow! (Or woof?) The Blue Dogs are suddenly sounding catty, miffed at seeing their position as the go-to caucus for watering down progressive legislation usurped by the New Democrats in the wake of the mortgage modification bill.

44 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 3/10”

  2. that’s a fantasy. The one to watch, Napolitano or not, is McCain. That’s the race to watch. He is not popular with anyone here. He’s tolerated by the middle, and despised by those on either wing.  

  3. Well he’s one republican cabinet pick who seems to be working out just fine.  

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

    Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood hit back hard on Monday to charges from White House critics that President Barack Obama’s economic policies — focused on leveraging government spending to stimulate demand — had exacerbated the recession and constituted a form of socialism.

    In an interview with the Huffington Post, LaHood, one of the few Republican members of the Obama administration, scoffed at the recent talking points emanating from the congressional leaders of his own party. His voice rising at times with emotion, the transportation czar tackled first the notion that the president was a socialist in disguise.

    “I don’t agree with it,” LaHood said. “If you go out and interview these people working on this road in Maryland… these people are thrilled. They are thrilled that they are working in March on a good paying job building roads, which is what they were trained to do. That’s going to be happening all over America. So the idea that this is socialism — it is not socialism, it is economic development. It is going to provide an economic engine around communities all over American for jobs; good paying jobs; and help people pay their bills. I don’t call that socialism…. We are the model for the world when it comes to infrastructure. We are the model for the interstate system. I don’t call that socialism. Our $40 billion [for the Department of Transportation]: not socialism. It is good paying jobs that is going to drive the economies in a lot of states and a lot of communities.”

    LaHood’s comments come amidst a growing chorus of GOP critics claiming that Obama is engineering a government takeover of the nation’s main economic organs. The theme has found its way into mainstream political dialogue as well. In an interview last week with the New York Times, Obama was asked bluntly whether he is a socialist. The president initially brushed the question off, then called the reporters back after the interview ended to supplement his response. “It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question,” Obama told the Times’ scribes. “I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks.”

    Perhaps more importantly, public opinion polls suggest that a large proportion of Americans are open both to additional stimulus spending as well as government intervention to revamp insolvent banks. Faced with these numbers, Republican strategists have deployed a separate strategy: portraying the president, with each passing day, as more and more responsible for the current crisis.

    Asked about this line of attack, replete with phrases like the “Obama recession,” Secretary LaHood offered a similarly ardent rebuke. If blame is to be cast, he declared, it can only, at this point, lie with the previous White House.

    This is not an Obama recession,” he said. “He inherited all of this. He inherited a $1 trillion dollar debt. He inherited the recession. He inherited the lousy stock market. All of this was inherited. The guy has been in office a little over a month and what he has tried to do is listen to every economist he could listen to. And he put in place some opportunities to get people to work quickly through the transportation bill portion of it, to help the banks, and to help the real estate industry. And it is going to take time.”

  4. Can someone explain to me why a guy like Chafetz is being talked up for a run against Bennett?  I mean first the guy beats Cannon and I know conservative crazy talk is popular in Utah, but why are people so high on Chafetz in particular?  Has the guy ever created a job or convinced a factory to move to his district/area where he lived?  What is so great about the guy? Does he shit rainbows or something?

  5. I’m reminded of the primary in MD-01.  People thought Gilchrist might be spared by virtue of having two credible right-flank challengers in the form of State Sens. Andy Harris and E.J. Pipkin.  In the end, Gilchrist was just too deeply unpopular among the GOP base to forge any sort of winning coalition, even to take a narrow plurality.  

    Given the drastically reduced number of Republicans in PA, and the fact that its a closed primary state… and just in the face of those staggering, lopsided disapproval numbers from his own base… I don’t see Specter making it through this thing.

  6. Carroll Campbell III’s candidacy is big news. He had been mentioned for Governor, but that would be too much of a stretch.  This makes a lot more sense.  

    Brown is already highly vulnerable.  His chances of retiring are soaring IMO.  Ketner is in the catbird seat.  The key will be Obama’s popularity in 11/2010.  

    The Campbell machine was a mega-force to be dealt with in it’s hey-day.  If “Tunky” can rebuild even a shadow of it, that might be enough.  

  7. Among his gems:

    1)  Advocating the death penalty for drug dealers, but being silent when his kid was repeatedly busted with a whole bunch of pot.

    2)  Saying we should send planes to eradicate coca fields in Bolivia, from a naval ship off the Bolivian coast.  Bolivia is a land-locked nation.

    3)  Being the main purveyor of the “Vince Foster was murdered” theory — including staging a demostration in his back yard with a handgun and a pumpkin.

    Seriously, though, all those guys mentioned as potential primary opponents are heavy hitters in the Indiana Republican Party.  Now, if they all end up running, Burton wins — but against any one of them, he very well could lose.

    One final really, really frightening thought — he’s not even the looniest wing-nut in his family.  His brother Woody, who serves in the Indiana General Assembly, is even crazier than he is!!

  8. Are social issues really gonna trump economics in this time of crisis? I know it happens to be a GOP primary but I have my doubts.

  9. “Congressional Democrats have reached a milestone with the highest recorded approval ratings since the party took control of both chambers in the 2006 election, according to the latest Gallup polling.

    Nearly four in ten, 39%, of Americans approve of Congress, a rating which has been on a steady incline-it’s an eight point jump from last month, and a 20 point jump since January. It’s also the most positive approval ratings for Congress since Feb. 2005, when Republicans were still in control.”

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/116…

  10. First there was her unconvincing passive-aggressive attack on OpenLeft, then there’s this even less convincing defence of her actions to The Hill, and then there’s her proud noting of the fact that “Many of us come from Wall Street.”

    Has she perhaps not noticed that Wall Street isn’t the most popular avenue in the country any more?

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