SSP Daily Digest: 11/22

• AK-Sen: A new profile of Sitka mayor Scott McAdams has him sounding unsure about using his newfound celebrity to run statewide again, as he cites the very apparent difficulty of winning statewide as a Democrat in Alaska. In the article is an interesting number that also shows just how well Lisa Murkowski did at getting moderates (and even Dems doing the game-theory thing) to fall in line behind her: Ethan Berkowitz, the Dem candidate in the standard 2-way race for Governor, picked up 96,000 votes, way more than McAdams’ 67,000.

• MA-Sen: Here’s a name that we haven’t heard associated with the Senate race, sounding more interested than assumed (well, he’s not sounding interested, but “mum” is not not interested). Barney Frank, who skipped the special election and was assumed not interested at the time because of his age and his chairmanship, is saying “ask me later” about challenging Scott Brown. Maybe being in the minority has changed his mind, since he has no gavel to give up anymore.

• ME-Sen: If there was any doubt that Olympia Snowe’s main problem in 2012 will be in the GOP primary, against a teabagger-to-be-named-later, check this out: she just signed on to an amicus brief challenging the constitutionality of the mandate portion of health care reform. That’s, of course, the same bill that she helped vote out of committee (though she voted against it on the floor).

• MI-Sen: The GOP field to go against Debbie Stabenow hasn’t really started to take shape yet, but here’s one potential name that’s getting some encouragement within conservative circles to run: soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who lost the GOP gubernatorial primary. He isn’t ruling it out, but is “predisposed to say no.”

• NE-Sen: While the entry of AG Jon Bruning (who has an exploratory committee) is considered pretty much an inevitability, there’s already one Republican formally in the race now: investment adviser Pat Flynn, who sounds like he’ll be flying the tea party flag. Flynn got 22% of the vote in the 2008 Senate GOP primary, losing to Mike Johanns.

• NM-Sen: If you’re waiting on pins and needles to find out whether Jeff Bingaman will run for another Senate term, you’ll need to wait a little longer. Bingaman is expected to announce his 2012 plans in March (the usual timetable he’s followed for previous re-elections). The article points out he recently raised $400K at a fundraiser, certainly the actions of a man planning another run.

• NV-Sen: It would have taken the confluence of a great Harry Reid campaign and a terrible opponent’s campaign for Harry Reid to win in a year like this, and it looks like that’s what we got. You’ve all seen the post-mortems about how effective Reid’s campaign was, and now here’s a nice Politico piece on the amateur-hour efforts from Team Angle, focusing on her campaign manager Terry Campbell, who often seemed unaware of the timing of ad buys or even how much money they had at a given moment. Maybe most telling: the Election Day phone bank shut down at 5 pm (despite polls being open until 7) in order to go set up the victory party. Never fear, though, it sounds like yet more Angle is on tap for 2012. However, it’s sounding more and more like the plan, instead of running against John Ensign in the Senate primary, will be to run for the open seat in NV-02 assuming Dean Heller runs for Senate. (Another option is running for the state Senate, as her long-time nemesis Bill Raggio will be vacating his Reno-area open seat.)

• TX-Sen: Here’s a boilerplate article on the speculation as to whether Kay Bailey Hutchison runs for re-election, but there’s an interesting tidbit buried within: Chet Edwards, who’ll be looking for work soon and has a better profile for running statewide than for his blindingly-red district, is getting a strong push to run on the Dem side. (The Texas Tribune has more on Edwards here. Another, maybe likelier, possibility, is an Obama administration job.)

• VA-Sen: The Virginia state GOP has decided to hold a primary to nominate its Senate nominee in 2012, not a convention (as they did in 2008). This is seen as a boost to establishment fave George Allen, who, flamingly right-wing as he is, would still be vulnerable to someone even to the right at a convention, which is dominated by the hardcore faithful. (As seen by Jim Gilmore’s near loss at the ’08 convention to the obscure state Del. Bob Marshall, reported to be interested in another try.)

• IL-17: There’s a fair number of defeated Dem House members that seem like it’d a good idea for them run again in 2012, but here’s one that, well, isn’t a good idea, who’s still quick to state his interest. Phil Hare (who lost by a significant margin to a pizza parlor owner in his first actively-contested election) says he’d like to try again. The real question may be what district he’d even be running in, considering that the weird-looking 17th (intended as a downstate Dem vote sink, albeit not a very effective one if the Dem can’t even hold it) is likely to be vaporized in redistricting.

• DCCC: It’s official: Rep. Steve Israel will be running the DCCC for the 2012 cycle, as the Dems seek to get back on the offensive. Israel will still need to be approved by the larger House caucus, but having gotten the Pelosi imprimatur, it’s considered a done deal.

• Polltopia: Pew is out with even more data on the cellphone polling issue, and it confirms what you probably already know, that the cellphone gap is not only real but growing. They found that in the polls they conducted in fall 2010, the landline-only surveys skewed in the Republican direction by 5.1% more than dual-frame surveys. That’s up from the 2.4% cellphone gap they found in 2008 polling. They also found that dual users (both cellphone and landline) reached by cell are still significantly more Democratic than dual users reached by landline, which would explain much of the skew.

• Redistricting: Good news for Dave’s App users. Having just unveiled Dave’s App 2.0 a few weeks ago, now he’s up to Dave’s App 2.0.1, incorporating a few tweaks (such as showing all districts all the time).

272 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 11/22”

  2. excuse on voting for the HCR bill w/the mandate in the Finance committee:

    “Snowe was the only Republican to support any version of health care reform, but ultimately voted against the final bill. The version Snowe supported did include an individual mandate, but her aides said she opposed that provision and hoped to change it through the amendment process.”

    What a lame excuse. You’re still gonna be teabagged anyway.  

  3. That article is some tasty cat fud.

    Rightwing Politio and their sources aren’t merely throwing Campbell under the bus- they’re driving back and forth over the body several times.

    Sounds like he’ll be lucky to get to run a campaign for dog catcher anytime soon.

    Favorite bit (out of many to pick from): Campbell calls the NRSC to find out if they’ve heard any rumors about Obama visiting NV to campaign for Reid. As a matter of fact, yes, Obama had been there two days earlier…

  4. I would be surprised if Hoekstra doesn’t run.  His comment sounded like a typical “I’m running but don’t want to announce it yet” response.  It would be an interesting race.   I think he would definitely have some big issues, like his tendency to reveal classified national security information or him having a news conference to talk about “finding” weapons in Iraq.  Supporting NAFTA probably wouldn’t go over well either.    

  5. Out yet. Not even for US Senate. Heller said he won’t make any decisions until next year, and The Hill piece suggesting Angle will run for NV-02 clipped from this Lahontan Valley News article on Sharrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrron keeping all her options open:

    State Republicans met in Fallon on Saturday and enthusiastically received Angle, who spoke before the delegates. She also spoke to the Lahontan Valley News in her first interview with Northern Nevada media since the general election.

    Since that time, Angle participated in a Veterans Day parade and took a week-long vacation with her husband, Ted.

    Unlike other politicians who disappear after losing an election and are never heard from again, Angle said she enjoys meeting with people and is looking toward 2012. Politics are in her blood.

    “I will always be involved in politics. I have a lot of options next cycle,” she said. “Lots of options.”

    State Sen. Bill Raggio will be termed out of office and unable to run again. Angle lost to Raggio two years ago. She said Sen. John Ensign will be running for re-election, and if Congressman Dean Heller decides to challenge the incumbent junior senator, that opens up his District 2 seat.

    Angle narrowly lost to Heller in 2006 when she challenged the then secretary of state as the Republican nominee.

    However, Angle said she is in no hurry to make a decision.

    While I definitely think it’s possible Angle decides to run in NV-02, I also think another NV-Sen run is also quite possible. NEVER underestimate Angle’s appeal with hard-core GOP primary voters, or for that matter her own opinion of her political instincts.

     

  6. At this point, he has so much seniority, why risk it all on a crowded primary field, and, presuming he thinks he can win the nomination, a general election showdown vs. a fairly popular incumbent? I actually think Frank would probably lose in the primary…his unfavorables among Dems would be as high as Coakley’s.

  7. Hutchinson is not the candidate, either because she retires or because she is Teabagged? If she isn’t on the ballot and Democrats don’t fight like dogs for this seat, including asking Obama to use his campaign to help, they are idiots. They don’t have that many pick up opportunities in 2012, and this could be one of them, particularly if their candidate is running against a Teabagger.

  8. Hutchinson is not the candidate, either because she retires or because she is Teabagged? If she isn’t on the ballot and Democrats don’t fight like dogs for this seat, including asking Obama to use his campaign to help, they are idiots. They don’t have that many pick up opportunities in 2012, and this could be one of them, particularly if their candidate is running against a Teabagger.

  12. I really have to say I have no idea why Snowe is acting so blatantly opportunistic with the health care law suit. Is anyone convinced that after she voted for the Health Care bill in committee that she really thinks its unconstitutional? The whole point to the vote in committee is to bring a preliminary bill to the floor for debate, amendment, etc.; if she didn’t want the mandate in the bill, then why did she vote to bring it out of committee? Dems had enough votes to do so without her vote, so she still could’ve brought an amendment stripping the mandate out of the final bill once it got to the floor. I don’t mean to be rude, by are Maine Democrats really so naive and gullible that they really believe she’s acting out of good faith anymore? It would seem to me that a competent Maine Democrat running for Senate would just need to say this on the stump to get attention:

    -Olympia Snowe voted for the stimulus, but only after it was lowered to an arbitrary lower amount then the initial size. And why? “It needs to be lower to get Republican support.” But Senator: You’re a Republican, and YOU voted for it? Why did you think it had to be lower.

    -Olympia Snowe said she wanted a health care bill, and voted for one out of committee that had an individual mandate in it. Then she voted to declare the bill she voted out of committee for unconstitutional, and says now that she wanted to “start debate.” Senator, why would you knowingly vote for something she thinks is unconstitutional? You said:

    “When history calls, history calls.”

    But later said:

    “My vote today is my vote today. It doesn’t foretell what my vote will be tomorrow.”

    Why oh why, Maine, do you keep sending such good people to the house, but such mealymouthed spineless doorstops to the Senate. Isn’t time we had a senator who can actually express a coherent set of beliefs? Vote for GENERIC DEMOCRAT JOHN/JANE DOE, 2012.

    MI-06 (home), MI-02 (college)

  15. name candidates you’ve crossed party lines to vote for, or supported if you were too young to vote.

    This cannot be for ethical reasons.

    You can list whether you regret it or not.

    My list: Lincoln Chafee in 2000, Arnold in 2006. Bush in 2000 (I was in 2nd grade and wanted to be different from my parents)

  16. http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews…

    Among independents, match-ups between Obama and Republicans Romney, Gingrich, Palin and Bush are very close. Versus all of these hypothetical opponents except Bloomberg, Obama draws between 36% and 39% of independents. He beats Bloomberg among independents, 26%-12%, but 49% of independents would choose neither. Obama beats Trump with independents, 36%-29%.

    That one is going to sting.

  18. does anyone know where to find good, preferably quick election results for judicial elections other than secretary of state pages?  these pages aren’t that good and don’t go back very far, if at all.  I’m looking for results in partisan and non partisan judicial elections going back to 1990.  any help is appreciated.

  22. Gov-elect Snyder and the base are already all over each other.  His pick for state party GOP chair is another business-type…who just so happen has donated money to Nancy Pelosi and some other state Dems:

    Some party members are concerned about thousands of dollars in campaign donations Schostak has made to Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Al Gore, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

    http://www.detnews.com/article…

    Bwahaha!!

    Now, the local Dem money could be explained away by the fact that he’s a Metro Detroit developer, so he has to work with Democrats, but the donations to Nancy Pelosi are just delicious.

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