SSP Daily Digest: 1/13

• MA-Sen: No surprises are revealed in the Boston Globe’s post-Vicki-Kennedy-announcement state-of-the-Senate-field story (Mike Capuano, Stephen Lynch, Alan Khazei, and Robert Pozen are the Dems who get the ink). As far as Capuano goes, the story confirms that he’s taking a “hard look” at the race and will make a decision by late spring.

• MI-Sen: Here’s some actual confirmation of what everyone assumed a few days ago, that ex-AG Mike Cox’s joining a Detroit law firm meant he wouldn’t be running for Senate in 2012. Cox himself says he’s out of contention, and he talked up his former gubernatorial primary rival, ex-Rep. Peter Hoekstra for the job.

• ND-Sen: It’s been clear for a while now that Kent Conrad wasn’t going to be given a bye in his 2012 race, especially now that the GOP seems to be on an upswing in North Dakota. But now it’s looking clearer who the opponent will be: 44-year-old Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk is forming an exploratory committee. (There are three PSC Commissioners, elected statewide to oversee stuff like utilities and grain elevators.)

• NV-Sen: John Ensign seems undaunted by recent polling showing him in deep doo-doo in both the GOP primary and general election for 2012, and says he’s pushing ahead on ahead with his re-election plans, although also admitting that it’s going to be “very, very difficult.” He’s putting together a campaign team and “jump starting” his financial operations (which, considering they’re actually in pieces all over his garage floor, may require a little more than just jump starting). This was revealed yesterday at a rather awkward conference for human resources execs where both Ensign and Dean Heller were speakers; Heller told reporters afterwards that he “would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t thinking about it” and “don’t mind giving voters a choice if it winds up being a head-to-head,” although he also had no timetable for an announcement.

• WV-Gov: Five different potential candidates appeared at a forum for the West Virginia gubernatorial race. Not all of them have announced, but this makes pretty clear who’s seriously in the hunt for this (despite the fact that nobody has any idea yet whether the race will be in Nov. 2011 or 2012). Among the Dems, SoS Natalie Tennant, state Treasurer John Perdue, and state Sen. Brooks McCabe were there; representing the GOP were ex-SoS Betty Ireland and state Sen. Clark Barnes. This still leaves out some of the likeliest other candidates, including Dem state House speaker Rick Thompson and acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin.

• FL-23: Rep. Alcee Hastings, unbeknownst to many, is getting pretty long in the tooth, at 74. He says he has no intention of slowing down, though (not that he needs to work fast, to hold down his safe blue district); he just announced plans to run not only in 2012 again, but in 2014 as well, so long as he’s healthy. The article cites state Sen. Chris Smith as a likely replacement once Hastings does retire. (Which means the House would get two Chris Smiths, to go with its two Mike Rogers.)

• MN-08: Here’s a minor bombshell for Minnesota Democrats, where outgoing House majority leader Tony Sertich had been widely expected to take on fluky new Rep. Chip Cravaack in 2012 in this D+3 district. Having just been appointed Iron Range Resources Commissioner, though, he now says that he won’t run. The Duluth-area portion of the district has a pretty thorough DFL bench, so they won’t lack for a credible challenger, but Sertich had been at the top of almost everyone’s list so this scrambles things a bit.

• Redistricting: One thing that the Republicans have always been good at is making sure that stuff that can pay dividends down the line is well-funded, but this seems like an unusual case of ball-dropping: Making America’s Promise Secure (or MAPS), a 501(c)(4) oriented toward paying for the legal aspects of the 2012 redistricting battle, never really got off the ground and has almost no money, leaving the state parties to fend for themselves. There are also a number of interesting pieces today on the upcoming battles in individual states, including The Fix’s look at the impact of the citizen redistricting panel on California (where the switch away from incumbent protection has a lot of old-timers of both parties shaking in their boots). There’s also another look at Massachusetts, and also a nice piece about New Mexico that has lots of detail about previous decades’ battles. New Mexico is a state we haven’t thought about much in this context because its House boundaries aren’t likely to change much, but state legislative seats are likely to shift significantly from the state’s stagnant east into Albuquerque’s suburbs.

• Voter suppression: Wisconsin’s newly-Republican-controlled legislature is already taking some pains to make sure that it stays that way, with one of their first legislative priorities imposing photo ID requirements for all voters at polling places (and to push for a constitutional amendment that would make that law more difficult to repeal later). They’d also like to move on ending Wisconsin’s well-known same-day-registration, although that may not be as likely a target seeing as how it’s not only popular but would also cost a lot of money (because federal law says that the state would then need to implement a motor-voter registration system instead).

• Congress: This may be the single most useful thing you’ll read today: the Hill’s guide to pronunciation of all of the names of the Congress members with hard-to-pronounce names. I learned that I’ve been mentally mispronouncing at least a dozen names; I’m sure everyone will find at least a few surprises.

• Meta: Curious how my own gifts for inspiring oratory would look in “word cloud” form, I ran SSP’s front page through Wordle.net, and the net result is, well, not very inspiring… it’s about as sober and nuts-and-bolts as it gets. None of our favorite neologisms made it on there (NWOTSOTB? Some Dude? Cat fud?)

238 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 1/13”

  1. we were also close to having two Mike Thompsons!

    As for name pronunciations, it’s nice to no longer have to check campaign ads on Youtube when I’m curious about a Congressman’s name’s pronunciation (although still for some place names). I’m still going to stick to the Italian pronunciation of Renacci and the Japanese pronunciation of Inoue, and I have to raise my eyebrow at Ensign (come on, people, it’s an English word).  

  2. That sucks, I hope we don’t have recruiting failures this year, we really need to compete in almost every district to maximize our potential, losing a top flight candidate like this really hurts.

  3. Texas LG sounding very much like a candidate for TX-Sen. He’d be a prohibitive favorite in the GOP primary IMO, LG is the most powerful state official in Texas.

  4. here’s one very interesting scenario:

    4. The map could well be drawn by a court in the end. If the panel cannot agree on a map or, for example, doesn’t draw enough districts where a majority of residents are racial minorities, the process could go to the courts and wind up in the hands of a court-appointed map-drawer.

    There is only ONE Democratic justice on the CA Supreme Court. The rest are Republicans.  

  6. We do need a pro-turtle fencer in the Senate.  And I didn’t check out the article yet, but I bet Rep. Lummis is one of the most messed up names.  People think it’s Loomis but it rhymes with hummus.  

  7. The spot that was created with Coons entrance into the Senate . I’ll keep you updated with the results. To give you the idea of the turnout, when I voted at 1PM, I was the only one in the polling place. Furthermore, the polling lady flipped through pages and pages of empty registration sheets to get to my name to sign me in. In case it matters, I voted for Kovach.  

  9. I mentioned this in yesterday’s digest, but here’s an amazing interview with Kirsten Gillibrand and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz regarding Gabby Giffords.

    It’s the second interview down after Gibbs’.

    I literally was tearing up reading it.  This woman is a tank…she’s incredible.

    http://thepage.time.com/2011/0…

  11. referring to Alcee Hastings as a Congressman. Any ex-Federal Judge thrown out of his judgeship by Congress after being convicted on charges of racketeering and perjury for accepting a $150,000 bribe for a handing down a lenient sentencing. I hope he retires after this cycle and the residents of FL-23 get a clean Congressman. The US Senate made a huge mistake by allowing him to run for Federal Office after his conviction.

    There is also a probe in the House on his reckless travel expenses on the taxpayer’s dime.

    From Sunshine State News:

    “Through 2005, Hastings billed the government $152,378 for overseas travel, ranking him second in the House during the previous decade, according to a report compiled by Political Money Line. That dollar amount, which does not include costs for staff or use of military aircraft, covered 57 trips to 116 countries.

    On one three-day mission to Belgium in 2004 with legislative assistant Vanessa Griddine, Hastings spent $14,193 at taxpayer expense, according to Political Money Line.”

    Even as a Republican, I’d support a primary challenge from his left(!) to get that man out of office.

  12. This is a county that went 70%-29% for Obama and 61%-39% for Kerry.  I guess the killer red wave will be there downballot as long as Obama is President.  

  14. If this website is any indication: http://mike2012.com/

    Luckily for us, he seems to be going by Mike or Mike H, so we don’t have to spell Haridopolos (which I have already mastered, even though I still can’t spell Sexi Lexi’s last name)

  18. Marist now has him at 48 approve, 43 disapprove (from 42 approve, 50 disapprove in early December)

    BTW, the ’12 horserace numbers are good too:

    Obama 51, Romney 38,

    Obama 30, Huck 38

    Obama 56, Palin 30

    Obama was actually trailing Romney by a few points in December in this poll.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/201…

  19. Looks like he’ll likely win another term.  Former KY SCOTUS Chief Judge Lambert was refused the deferment he needed to take a leave of absence from the Senior Judges Program in order to run for A-G.  He was refused the deferment by the current Chief Justice.

    http://bluegrasspolitics.blogi…

    The filing deadline is on the 25th.

    A second term as A-G is what Conway needs to rebuild goodwill after the divisive general election for Senate, IMHO.  He’s been very competent in this position.

  21. Congressman, in case you haven’t noticed, your name is spelled with the ‘T’ BEFORE the ‘K’. In inexplicably reversing the pronounciation order, you serve only to deepen the impression of some among us that the House Republican Caucus is beset by willful ignorance.

    Rant over. Any German grammarians in the SSP community care to refute?

  22. Congressman, in case you haven’t noticed, your name is spelled with the ‘T’ BEFORE the ‘K’. In inexplicably reversing the pronounciation order, you serve only to deepen the impression of some among us that the House Republican Caucus is beset by willful ignorance.

    Rant over. Any German grammarians in the SSP community care to refute?

  26. for politicspa.com:

    >>>>>>>

    Did GOP Just Lose Senate Prospect Mark Schweiker?

    It was announced this morning that former Governor Mark Schweiker is taking a position as Senior Advisor to the Government Affairs division of law firm Stradley Ronon. Schweiker will work with the firm in addition to his current position as President of Services for business consulting firm PWRT.

    Needless to say, taking a high-profile position as a lobbyist does not seem like the move of someone planning a run for statewide public office. According to Stradley Ronon’s website, Schweiker’s division oversees activities including lobbying for legislation and seeking government contracts.

    <<<<<<<

  27. By Jim Geraghty    

    North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad now has at least one potential challenger: Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk. He’s filed the papers for an exploratory committee; his official biography can be found here.

    Potential slogan: “If Washington is cracking up, let’s fix it with Kalk.”

  28. I am curious to see who will be running the show over there for this cycle. Steele is defiant in the face of calls for hise ouster. Any thought as to who will win?

  29. I was thinking of making this into a diary, but I don’t have much to add except to say that he has the right attitude: the Republicans should aim very, very, very high if they want to get done what they’ve been promising. I don’t think there are 40 more seats for them in the House, even with redistricting killing the Democrats, nor do I think they’ll get 13 seats in the Senate, because for that to happen, they’d have to win not only the seats in Nebraska, Virginia, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Jersey, and West Virginia, but also seats in Washington, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Mexico, and other seemingly safe states. That’s a ludicrously tall order, and short of the mother of all meltdowns in every way by the Democrats, it’s not going to happen. But because they are likely to try to expand the map, they could give us a run for our money, if not topple a few incumbents, in seemingly safe seats.

    My question to my fellow Democrats is, Why can’t we act the same way? We aren’t so ideologically rigid that we refuse to run candidates that are good fits for states that are more hostile to Democrats. We’ll run a John Sharp in Texas or a Harold Ford in Tennessee, while the Republicans will run a Carly Fiorina in California. And while we can’t predict the future, we can make plans that can be altered as the electoral conditions emerge. The defeatist attitude that so many display is just incredible.

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…

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