SSP Daily Digest: 9/2

• AR-Sen: To few people’s surprise, Blanche Lincoln folded faster than Superman on laundry day on the public option issue when faced with a non-ridiculous challenge from the right. Still, her erstwhile GOP rival, Gilbert Baker, may not be quite as problem-free as the Beltway media have touted him as; ArkDem provides some essential local color in the diaries.

• CO-Sen: This isn’t going to endear the NRSC to the Colorado rank-and-filers (and even the party establishment, like state party head Dickwad Hams Dick Wadhams) any more: they just got caught building websites for former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. This may help fuel whatever fire is suddenly burning under Weld Co. DA Ken Buck.

• MA-Sen: After contrasting reports yesterday about whether ex-Rep. Marty Meehan might or wouldn’t run for Senate, Politics magazine got him on the record saying that he “hadn’t ruled it out” but that he was absorbed in his university chancellor job and that he’d defer to either Vicky or Joe Kennedy. No word on what happens to his $4 million if he doesn’t run.

• NY-Gov: The Eliot Spitzer boomlet lasted about one day before he laughed it off, but a quickie SurveyUSA poll verified that he’s still got some political mojo left. 15% of New Yorkers said they’d still vote for him no matter what office, 47% said they might, depending on the office, and only 39% said no way. He also won against David Paterson on the curiously worded question of “who’s better qualified” to be Governor, 41-24, although Rudy Giuliani wins the same question against Spitzer, 59-25.

• OR-Gov: As we reported yesterday, ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber made it official this morning: he’s in the race. Former SoS Bill Bradbury, who’s already in the Dem primary, now says he will be announcing something on Sept. 17 (he’d previously alluded to staying in even if Kitzhaber got in, but we’ll have to see what he says now that it’s happened). Meanwhile, SurveyUSA has another snap poll, this time of the favorables of the race’s announced players so far: Kitzhaber has a fave of 33/26, Bradbury is at 21/20, and moderate Republican Allen Alley (the 2008 Treasurer candidate, and a former deputy CoS to Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski) is at a woeful 8/10.

• VT-Gov: Two other names for potential GOP gubernatorial candidates have surfaced, in addition to Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie. One is Mark Snelling, who’s never held office before but benefits from a prominent family name (he’s the son of ex-Gov. Richard Snelling and ex-Lt. Gov. Barbara Snelling). Another possibility is former Auditor Randy Brock who served one term, 2004-2006, before losing re-election.

• CA-24: Marta Jorgensen, a nurse who held Rep. Elton Gallegly to 56% in 2008, said she’s back for another try in 2010. Gallegly, frequent retirement speculation target, hasn’t formally announced he’s running but informally said he’ll run again.

• IL-14: Another GOPer is taking a look at the race against Bill Foster, joining Ethan Hastert and Mark Vargas. Bill Cross is a former member of the Aurora City Council and owns two hardware stores in the district.

• KS-03: Rep. Dennis Moore has proven pretty entrenched in his light-red district in the Kansas City suburbs, repelling state Sen. Nick Jordan in 2008 without much trouble. Still, he’s drawn another credible challenge for 2010, from GOP former state Rep. Patricia Lightner.

• LA-03: One more name to add to the seemingly endless pile of possible candidates in the open seat in the 3rd: Craig Webre, sheriff of Lafourche Parish (popu. 90,000). The article is strangely unclear about what party he’d be running for — Webre is registered as a Republican, but Democrat Reggie Dupre (the former state Senator whose resignation triggered last week’s successful special election in SD-20) was advising Webre and was the article’s source — although considering how porous party lines can be in Louisiana, that seems typical. Dupre, who just took over as Terrebonne Parish levee director, confirmed that he himself wouldn’t run.

• VA-02, 05, 11: The trio of Virginia freshmen (Tom Perriello, Glenn Nye, and Gerry Connolly) have banded together in a joint fundraising committee. Connolly has to be seen as less vulnerable than the other two, but still needs resources for a potentially expensive rematch against Keith Fimian.

• CA-Lt. Gov: With the now very-high likelihood that John Garamendi will be heading to Washington DC in a few months, the question arises of who Arnold Schwarzenegger will replace him with. Sorta-moderate state Sen. Abel Maldonado gets the most press; his appointment would open up a Senate seat in a Dem-leaning area that could get Senate Dems closer to that magic 2/3s mark. Assemblyman (and former minority leader) Mike Villines is another possibility; another idea is giving the job to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell in order to pry him out of the Governor’s race. Schwarzenegger is mavericky enough he might appoint a Democrat, too; one name mentioned is former Assembly speaker Bob Hertzberg, who has occasionally cooperated with the Governator.

• Seattle Mayor: The mayor’s race in Seattle, between two unknowns (Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan) who won the primary after incumbent Greg Nickels KO’d himself, briefly threatened to get much more interesting when prominent state Sen. Ed Murray started exploring running as a write-in, sensing an opening for someone who actually knows what the hell he’s doing. Although he could have counted on a lot of both labor and real estate developer support, he decided against it yesterday, aware of the extreme technical difficulty in mounting a successful write-in campaign on weeks’ notice. Murray instead remains the most-talked-about successor to Rep. Jim McDermott, although it seems like he could be waiting another decade for that seat to open up.

26 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 9/2”

  1. We finally have a candidate in district 141, which includes all of Baldwin County (Milledgeville) and a tiny sliver of Putnam County.  His name is Darrell Black.  A brief Google search indicates he’s in the flooring business.  I found no state or federal political donations from him.

    The race currently stands at Black, an independent, and two Republicans.  Qualifying has not ended.  The special election, to be held November 3, will be a jungle-primary type ordeal, with a runoff in early December.

    The 141st was vacated when Democrat Bobby Parham resigned to take a seat on the state transportation board.  It has a large black population and a state university.  Obama won it in 2008 (at a rate close to his national rate), but Bush won it in 2004.

  2. To wit:

    The first non-Bushie possible recruit mentioned is state sen. Gilbert Baker.  Though not a member of George W. Bush’s administration, he has not managed to avoid scandal.  First, Baker went to bat “as a character witness for a campaign worker and Republican officeholder who’d repeatedly brutalized a woman and was subsequently convicted of kidnapping. Some supporter of women.”  Here’s the situation:

    Recently, Baker sent out a press release claiming the issue of women’s rights is one he takes “seriously”. However, in 2005 Gilbert Baker asked the 1st Division Faulkner County Circuit Court for “leniency and mercy” for a campaign worker of Baker’s who repeatedly beat his female victim, held a knife to her throat, smothered her until she threw up, and  using a cigarette lighter burned her multiple times.

    Baker testified repeatedly as a character witness to help the defendant, also an elected Republican constable. The defendant was accused of rape, and convicted of kidnapping and assault against a Faulkner County woman. According to Circuit Court documents, Baker testified twice for the man, after knowing the horrible facts of the case and even admitted the defendant had “done wrong.”

    Baker acknowledged that this heinously degenerate person had “done wrong” and he still offered his testimony as a character witness multiple times (because this degenerate was a campaign worker?).  Pretty grotesque.  Another scandal, far less grotesque but nonetheless inappropriate, was also aired for public consumption.  Baker’s son allegedly received preferential treatment at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) and Baker used public property belonging to UCA for a campaign fundraiser while Baker delivered over half a million dollars to in public money to UCA.  The credibility of the allegations (particularly as a possible quid pro quo) were furthered when it was revealed that UCA President Lu Hardin used money from his discretionary fund to buy gifts for Baker.  Will the AR-GOP and the NRSC turn to this person, who appears to abuse his political power and defends his campaign workers when they abuse women?

  3. The trio of Virginia freshmen (Tom Perriello, Glenn Nye, and Gerry Connolly) have banded together in a joint fundraising committee.

    I do not feel comfortable referring to another blog here. Unfortunately, putting it up in NLS is just a waste of time.

  5. From the link above:

    U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln said today she opposes a public health insurance option because it would be too expensive.

    Bullshit! Single payer would be the cheapest, and the public option is much cheaper than subsidizing private insurance plans! And she knows it! I guess the only thing left is to hope that her vote isn’t needed and that she doesn’t filibuster a decent national health insurance plan.

    Why don’t Democrats understand that if they pass nothing or a plan that doesn’t really help people, they will screw themselves over politically, whereas if they pass a plan that DOES help people, they have a fighting chance?

  7. I said I’d write a state of the race post a while back, and I will once Dubie makes up his mind. This is a good time.

    Snelling is probably a non-starter; if his sister, moderate State Sen. Diane Snelling, ran, she’d be at least some concern. I spent about 16 years of my life in Vermont, and I didn’t even know Gov. Snelling HAD a son.

    Brock, however, is probably the most ambitious man in the state and a complete weasel. He deserves close attention if Dubie passes on the race.  

  8. If Marta Jorgensen can keep Gallegly to 58% (just a bit worse than 2008) that would be a victory in that it hopefully might persuade Dem redistricters to not be so cowardly insane this time, and mix the Capps district with the Gallegly one.  The area could have two blue districts instead of one absurdly deep blue and one moderately red.

    If Gallegly is held to 55 to 58%, he should retire in 2012 if faced with an even slighly rational (in a partisan sense) redistricting.

  9. From CQ Politics:

    What really got the crowd howling, however, was his likening of Burr to a “post turtle.” That, he explained, is something you encounter when “you’re walking down an old country road and you see a turtle sitting up on a fence post.”

    “You know he didn’t get there by himself, doesn’t belong there, and he’s not doing any good up there on that fence post, waving his arms. And out of a deep sense of compassion you just want to put him back down where he belongs.”

    I like it. The rocking-chair guys should be brought back in the general election.

  10. In my political-machine-run home state of New Jersey, state legislative candidates are technically nominated in the primary, but in general are picked by party bosses, as you may know. Sometimes these political machines have a nasty habit of forgetting that the people are supposed to nominate the candidates and withdrawing from the re-election campaign months later.

    Such is the case with veteran Democrat Joe Roberts of Camden, currently in his second term as Speaker of the Assembly. Roberts was nominated to another term in the Assembly in the June primary. (Camden City Council Pres. Angel Fuentes was also nominated in the primary; since he’s virtually assured of election in this heavily Democratic district, winning the primary was tantamount to winning. He’s replacing retiring Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez.) But on September 2nd, Roberts announced that he would not seek another term in the Assembly. Never mind the primary electorate; now the Democratic party machine can anoint a new Assemblyman. And since a certain labor leader named Donald Norcross wants the seat, ladies and gentleman, you have the Next Assemblyman from the 5th legislative district. Sure, he hasn’t even received the Democratic nomination yet, but this is South Jersey and Norcross fortuitously is the brother of South Jersey’s top machine boss, George Norcross.

    Meanwhile, up in Middlesex County, Democratic Party boss/actual elected county sheriff Joe Spicuzzo convened party leaders to vote on who to anoint as the Democratic nominee in the 19th legislative district. Assemblyman Joe Vas isn’t running for a second term, having been indicted on multiple counts not once but twice by state officials (and once by the feds). South Amboy Mayor Jack O’Leary ran without opposition in the primary and was Assemblyman John S. Wisniewski’s new running mate until he bowed to intraparty pressure and dropped out of the race in August. (O’Leary’s insurance business was under investigation by state authorities. Nevertheless, there are no charges against him.) Party leaders voted to put Craig Coughlin on the ticket. Coughlin is a retired municipal judge who’s been municipal attorney for Carteret and Woodbridge, not to mention a South Amboy councilman and a Woodbridge Democratic Party chair. A distinguished resume, no doubt, but one with scarcely any elective office on it. Indeed, instead of a mayor so popular in his hometown that he’s been elected and re-elected to that office for two decades, the Middlesex Dems anointed a party insider with lots of political connections in all the district’s towns but little to no connection to the actual people of the district.

    New Jersey democracy in action.

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