Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?

UPDATE (David): Check it out – every time you use bit.ly to create a short URL for a link here at the Swing State Project, you’ll now get a link to our new “ssp.bz” (think “buzz”) micro-domain, such as: http://ssp.bz/7se2hb. This is especially great for Twitter users – whenever you see an ssp.bz link, now you’ll always know the source, regardless of who tweets it. This hotness is courtesy bitly.Pro, a free service which launched tonight.

P.S. You should follow @SwingState on Twitter.

UPDATE 2 (David): So I didn’t have my explanation of bitly.Pro quite right. It turns out that for now, only the editors of SSP can create ssp.bz links. The ability to make that universal hasn’t been rolled out yet. But even so, any time you see an ssp.bz link on Twitter or elsewhere, you’ll know it’s from us.

Also, since sapelcovits brought up the “What congressional district do you live in?” question, I thought I’d bring back this Frappr map we created when we first asked this question a couple of years ago. You can joint to show fellow SSPers where you’re from (no personal information is revealed):

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

  1. But I heard that more democrats are Saints fans, while more republicans are Colts fans. Well I have to say that this Dem is a colts fan!!!!!!!

    GO COLTS!!!!!

  2. out of curiosity what CDs do people here live in/have they lived in? I do have a sense of where SSP posters are from but I’m just curious. (especially for people who live in districts with interesting races :))

    As for me, I’m from RI-01 but I go to college in IL-01.

  3. I am basically just the north of San Francisco, Pelosi’s home. In our district, we are not as Liberal as San Francisco or Berkeley but we are definitely very Liberal, especially on the environment. There are a few enclaves with a more moderate tone (for Marin County.)  

  6. Chet Culver (D) is stepping up his appearances around the state. He’s had a very rough stretch the last several months, with lots of media attention on state budget problems. Compared to most other states, Iowa is in a strong fiscal position, but it doesn’t seem that way when Iowa Republicans are continually pounding on Democratic “overspending” leading to a “huge” projected budget deficit. Culver had to cut current-year spending across the board by 10 percent in October because revenues fell below projections.

    Terry Branstad and Bob Vander Plaats, the main Republican contenders, are on the campaign trail full time now. Branstad said some dumb things recently about same-sex couples that “should” hurt him in a GOP primary, but I don’t think Vander Plaats will have enough money to make a strong case against Branstad, a former four-term governor.

    Mike Huckabee is coming back to Iowa later this month to do a rally and fundraiser for Vander Plaats, who was Huck’s Iowa chairman during the 2008 presidential race. What Vander Plaats really needs is for the national conservative netroots to go to war against Terry Branstad.

    The Des Moines Register is coming out with a new Iowa poll on Sunday. I don’t think it’s going to be good news. I hope it shows a reasonably competitive GOP primary race at least, but I fear Branstad will be miles ahead.

    Jonathan Narcisse, former Des Moines School Board member who supported Culver in 2006, is running for governor as an independent. He had considered challenging Culver in the Democratic primary. I don’t see him getting a huge number of votes, but he has been a community activist for a long time and owns several small publications oriented toward AA or Latino readers. Narcisse is the second prominent African-American in Iowa to come out against Culver. The head of the Iowa/Nebraska NAACP chapter endorsed Vander Plaats in the fall, largely because of the gay marriage issue.

  8. Here’s how I’m voting Saturday:

    Mitch Landrieu (Mayor)

    Susan Guidry (City Council District A)

    Arnie Fielkow (City Council At-Large)

    Frank Minyard (Coroner)  I hadn’t planned to vote in this one but after the utterly insane ad run by Minyard’s opponent I can’t wait.  Here’s the ad for anyone who hasn’t seen it: http://www.politico.com/blogs/…

    I feel bad leaving the other spots blank but I really don’t know anything about them and don’t have the time to do informed research.  Though if any NOLA SSPers want to make the case for any of the things I’m not voting in (Assessor, Juvenile Court Judge) that would be cool.

    I’m canvasing for Guidry and Landrieu (separately) for about 4 hours each.  Should be a fun day.  

  9. Billy Kennedy will be filing on Monday to challenge Virginia Foxx.  He represents the first serious challenge that Virginia Foxx has had.  He’s a strong populist and provides a stark contrast to the bigot that currently represents the district.  If he can get his message out in this district that has been hit hard by the economy he has a chance to unseat her.  You can check out his filing day schedule here:

    http://www.facebook.com/event….

  10. NC 4 – David Price, Fred Heineman

    CO 4 – Wayne Allard, Bob Shaffer, Marilyn Musgrave

    GA 2 – Sanford Bishop

    CO 4 – Betsy Markey

    CO 3 – John Salazar

  15. This is mainly addressed to the Republicans of the site. Is there a site similar to Swing State Project with the opposite political affiliation? Thanks a bunch

  17. Looks like Perry v KBH may be going to a run off, but just to make sure it does, I’m voting for KBH so she and Perry can have a shoot out for another month and drain their cash reserves while at it.

    Naturally (as I hope most Texans with sense will realize), I’m voting for Bill White in the general.

  19. Yes, we do have a lot of seats to defend.  But do not forget that even though they have only 10 to defend, half or more of those could likely become competitive.

    MA-2012, very likely pick up for us.

    IN-2012, if Lugar retires, the Republicans could have difficulty defending this seat.

    ME-2012, if Snowe retires, this is an automatic pick-up.  I’ve heard rumors that she does want out, so this isn’t that unliekly.

    NV-2012, Nevada won’t vote for Ensign again, and is likely to vote for a Democratic senator with Obama on the top of the ticket.

    AZ-2012, Kyl had a close call last time, and if Obama does well in Arizona, he could be in trouble, especially cause he’s such a douchebag.  If Giffords runs, he could be in trouble.

    TX-2012, Hutchinson might retire after her disastrous governor run.  If Obama does well in Texas again, this could make things very difficult for the Republicans to hodl the seat.

    TN-2012, could an entry from someone like Bredeson make things difficult for Corker?

  21. Apparently, my Assemblyman Marc Molinaro is thinking of running against Murphy. Molinaro’s a pretty talented politician. I’d be somewhat surprised if he actually went through with it though, given that he seems to be more interested in state politics, and because he can’t exactly “tailor his views for his audience” as much with the scrutiny on the national level.

  23. off topic question here. Is there anyway the Republicans in the senate can prevent the entire senate from taking a vote on Obama’s budget this year? Seeing their tactics on trying to stall HCR last year and their willingness to place holds on Obama’s nominees to get more earmarks, I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to stop the budget from being voted on. From we’ve seen also, it wouldn’t hurt the Republicans either.

  24. How many are watching the Super Bowl tomorrow and why? I’m watching mainly for the halftime show, but I’m rooting for the Saints.

  26. She lost the 2006 run-off to soon-to-be indicted incumbent Bill Jefferson.  We’l she’s wound up a lot better then him: Karen Carter Peterson as she’s now called has just won an election to the state Senate.  

  27. Iowa Republicans are still trying to stir up retirement rumors about Leonard Boswell (IA-03), but his spokeswoman told me emphatically on Friday that he is running for re-election. He had nominating petitions out at our off-year caucuses on January 23.

    The filing deadline is in March, so if Boswell did retire now, he wouldn’t be leaving other Democrats much time to organize a campaign and collect petition signatures.

  30. My parents house is in CO-06 just across the border (represented by the slightly-less-odious-than-its-former-occupant-Tom-Tancredo-Rep. Mike Coffman). I went to college in CO-05 at Colorado College (Go Tigers!), as my handle indicates.

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