• NY-20: As we pass the two-week mark on the special election, Jim Tedisco has a new TV ad out that’s apparently the first salvo in his new decision to run far, far away from those mean national Republicans. Says Tedisco: “Like the president said, we’re not Republicans or Democrats, we’re Americans. And that’s the team I’m on.” So this is what we’ve come to, in just a few short years… a panicked and fearful Republican has to abandon the noble American rhetorical tradition of attack ads, and instead stoop to craven positive messaging?
• PA-Sen: Shortly after publicly spurning attempts by Democratic bigwigs to get him to party-switch, Arlen Specter sends up an interesting trial balloon: he may consider running as an independent in 2010, with the understanding that he would continue to caucus with Republicans. Since Pennsylvania has a sore loser law, he’d have to decide ahead of time to take this route rather than only after losing the GOP primary. The article gives the last word to Joe Lieberman: “I’d be delighted to have him in my caucus.”
• Maps: Pew Research Center has released a really interesting series of maps showing migration patterns between the four census regions of the country. The results shouldn’t be surprising (the most dominant pattern is northeast to south, followed by midwest to south, with the west basically holding steady), but they illustrate what we’re looking at with redistricting in 2010 (and also illustrates why we’re starting to see better results for Dems in the non-Deep parts of the South).
• Media: On a personal note for me, my daily newspaper is dead; long live my daily newspaper. This is the first day with no dead-tree edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in about 150 years, but as you can see, seattlepi.com (with a dramatically reduced staff) just keeps humming right along (which doesn’t really affect me, since I was part of the problem; I only read only it online for free). Time will only tell whether this is the first bold step in reimagining the media business… or one more nail in journalism’s coffin as ‘newspapers’ keep moving toward aggregating other people’s information and not doing the actual work of reporting.
• WI-08: Republican John Gard, who lost two consecutive races to Democrat Steve Kagen, tells a local Fox affiliate that it is “highly unlikely” that he’ll run in 2010. Meanwhile, Door County Board of Supervisors member Mark Savard is in the race, and is already running radio ads. (J)
Joe made a funny. First time for everything!
Specter – next best thing to becoming a Dem or losing the GOP primary. On the positive side it makes him more likely to vote for parts of the Obama agenda and still means a Dem can win next November. Torsella, Shapiro or whoever will not be Alan Schlesinger-lite!
NY-20 – I wonder if the AIG furore gives Tedisco a chance to start over.
Demographics – Migration gives the south more electoral power but also makes parts of it (metro areas) more open to Dems.
Any thoughts on Evan Bayh’s “Blue Dog style” coalition of senators?
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com…
if Specter runs independent, it’s a good bet no one gets over 40% of the vote. Republicans will likely split between those that think Toomey or whoever the GOP nominates can win, and those who realize Specter is their only hope of keeping a Democrat out, with the former being the larger group. Democrats will likely split between party-line voters, and those who for some reason still like Specter, again with the former group being the larger. Independents will probably go big for Specter.
The question is whether the Democrats actually get a top-tier opponent in there to clean up in the Dem-friendly areas and easily win statewide, or if we do end up with a relatively unknown insider like Torsella who will have to depend on metro Philadelphia alone to push him past Specter.
if upstaters are going to believe Tedisco in sheep’s clothing?
…and could be a redux of 1980 when D’Amato got elected in New York state after liberal incumbent Republican Javitz running on the Liberal Party and Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman split the non-conservative vote. (This happened previously in New York in 1970 when William F Buckley’s brother, James, got elected to the US Senate in a race that also featured a liberal Republican incumbent splitting the vote with a Democrat.)
The question is how many people who would normally vote for Toomey would vote Specter instead if Specter got in the race.
I posted a few days ago that the NM state house and senate passed a bill ending the death penalty. Now it’s official. Governor Richardson signed it into law. New Mexico is the 14th state to end the death penalty.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/…