Wouldn’t it be delicious if the GOP had to defend yet another Senate seat next year, should David Vitter resign? Oh, and, trivia question: There are already going to be two Senate elections in Wyoming in 2008, and there might be two in Louisiana. When was the last time that two states held two Senate contests in the same year?
UPDATE (James): If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated with HTML tagging while writing a diary, we’ve got good news for you. The Swing State Project has enabled a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get“) diary editing function. Of course, if you prefer to write out all your HTML tags, you can revert to the old “Auto Format” by selecting that option in the formatting prompt above your diary draft.
In other site news, we also hope to have DailyKos-style AJAX comments coming to the site in the near future. For a preview of what this will be like, check out our friends at the recently re-designed Blue Jersey.
Just a guess.
Not to mention, depending on the kind of bombshell Larry Flynt plans to drop on us, all bets are off as to how many headaches the NRSC’s going to have next year.
Why they call you the guru!
78, 62, 58.
A brief history, according to a terrific resource:
1992: California & North Dakota
1978: Alabama & Minnesota
1962: Idaho, Kansas & New Hampshire (a 3-peat)
1958: Alaska & West Virginia
1954: Nebraska, New Hampshire & North Carolina (another 3-peat)
1952: Connecticut & Nebraska
1950: Connecticut & North Carolina
I think that’s it for the last 60 years, though I easily may have missed one. An interesting side note is that in those 16 total races, only 3 (ID ’62, NH ’62, and CO ’42) saw both a Democrat and a Republican winning one of the seats (and narrowly at that). In 13 of the 16, one Party took both seats.
I really do not know much about him except what I have read in the papers and on the Net but Steve Sarvi sounds like an interesting canidate to challenge John Kline. Sarvi, the former mayor of Watertown MN, is just back from a 15 month tour in Iraq where he was a Sargeant First Class with the Minnesota National Guard. Sarvi was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Iraq. Minnesota has already sent one National Guard Sargeant to Congress, Tim Walz, why not another? It would be an uphill fight but with the right canidate MN-02 could be in play.
A more complete Diary was posted at Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos….
California and North Dakota in 1992
who would the best candidates be to run? lite gov landreau (no idea how to spell that, sorry)? would brother sister senators be hard for the state to accept, or would it be a nonissue? what about Breax as well. he seemed willing to return to run for gov, why not reclaim his seat after a short hiatus? the requirements for senate aren't as strict. also, this has nothing to do with politics, but, what page of the new harry potter book are you on? we may be political junkies, but hey, it's harry potter! i'm on 463 as of 12:02 AM EST July 22 2007.
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-happens-in-senate-if-vitter.html
It looks like A, C, and D are correct, but I'm pretty sure that the election would take place within a certain time after the resignation, which would mean a date seperate from the November '08 elections. This is similar to Oregon in 1996, when Wyden won in January and Smith won in November.
I'm assuming Louisiana is like the rest of the country in that the governor chooses the new senator before a special election, so isn't it possible Vitter will just wait until after the new governor is in office to resign (I'm going under the assumption that Jindal will win, though I'll admit that if things get worse and the scandal really hurts him, it'll probably hurt Jindal as well).
If they have to protect a new incumbent, the Louisiana party might be forced to divert resources from the fight against Landrieu.
I’m working on a diary and need some research help. I figured the bright brains here are the most capable group for answering a question like this. 🙂
Can folks think of examples where the success of a Governor in helping to fill other party seats has made a major difference in their future political career?
Obviously, filling the down ticket ballot and state house makes a difference for governing, but I’m thinking more about the less tangible cases of being popular enough (and using political capital) to help hold the Gov-ship after you leave and/or to elect more of your own party in Congress.
My fuzzy recollection is some of the early ’08 presidential hopefuls rose and fell on this measure after the ’06 election. IIRC, was is Vilsack that didn’t “deliver” and it hurt his reputation? On the other hand, Warner (D) in Virginia did deliver in Kaine and Webb, contributing to his rising star?
What do you think, do Congressional coattails make any difference for a future political career? Are there better examples?
This is a very interesting news story. Concordia College Professors Tim Walz-D and James Burkee-R have teamed up to run a bi-partisan challenge to James Sensennbrenner, one of the most repulsive human beings to currently sit in the House of Representatives.
Tim Walz will run as a Democrat, James Burkee will run against Sensennbrenner in the primary, and Walz & Burkeee will be campaigning together throughtout the primary season.
Story here: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=636631
So we can add Wisconsin to BEWANU's list of states that have at least one Democrat running for each of the House seats in 200, once all out incumbents actually announce re-elections campaigns which is expected.
Kirkpatrick is in. She's a good candidate, someone who'd be a serious challenge to even a non-corruption-wounded Renzi.