SSP Daily Digest: 1/18

• IN-Sen: The usually low-key Richard Lugar, all of a sudden, seems intent on reminding everyone in the press who’ll listen that he isn’t dead yet. Lugar says he isn’t sure how seriously to take the threat from the tea partiers since there’s no declared opponent yet, but he’s moving full speed ahead on fundraising, with a Friday event set with a $320K target.

• MA-Sen: I know that our comments section isn’t representative of the Democratic primary electorate in Massachusetts, but Bob Massie’s unexpected campaign rollout over the weekend, and his uniquely compelling personal story, seemed to get an overwhelmingly positive response here. Here’s another, and more in-depth, profile of the first Democrat to get into the race against Scott Brown.

• TX-Sen: San Antonio mayor Julian Castro is the latest Democrat to pass on the Senate contest, in the wake of Kay Bailey Hutchison’s retirement announcement. The up-and-comer says he “has no intention” of running in 2012 (which, I suppose, leaves open the possibility that he might find himself unintentionally running?).

• UT-Sen: Here’s kind of a strange poll in Utah, seeing as how it’s tests of configurations that I can’t ever see happening… and, in the case of the 2012 GOP Senate field, it’s not even a sample of the people who’ll be making the actual decision (given the Utah GOP’s heavy reliance on the convention). In fact, the GOP primary question is asked of all Utah voters. At any rate, local pollsters (here on behalf of Utah Policy, rather than usual client the Deseret News) Dan Jones find ex-Gov. and current Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman in the lead in a GOP primary, beating Rep. Jason Chaffetz and incumbent Orrin Hatch 48-23-21. I haven’t heard anything about Hunstman running, at least not for Senate, and there’s no Chaffetz/Hatch head-to-head polled. They also find that Hatch would win a general election against Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson (in the odd event that, a) Hatch would survive the convention, and b) Matheson would give up his House seat for a suicide run), 48-41.

• VA-Sen: This statement from ex-Gov./DNC chair Tim Kaine is simultaneously worrisome and reassuring: he says he won’t run for Senate, even if Jim Webb retires, problematic since he’s the Dems’ other top-tier candidate here besides Webb. On the other hand, he says that he has no reason to believe that Webb is planning anything other than re-election (although he doesn’t give any specifics on why he thinks that). Meanwhile, Jamie Radtke is already getting out in front of George Allen in the wake of reports that Allen is about to announce his bid. She challenged Allen to a series of debates, and rolled out an endorsement from RedState’s Erick Erickson. Allen didn’t respond, although he announced his own series of town hall events (presumably solo) through Americans for Prosperity.

• WV-Gov: Former Republican SoS and current gubernatorial candidate Betty Ireland seems to have some insider knowledge that nobody else does: she’s saying that she wouldn’t be running if Rep. Shelley Moore Capito was, and that she had spoken with Capito to get confirmation on that. There was no comment on that from Capito’s camp.

• AZ-08: There was much ado about nothing yesterday with brief blogospheric panic over an obscure Arizona state law that says that an elected official can be removed from office, via a declared vacancy, if she doesn’t execute her duties within a 90 day period. Turns out that applies only to state and local officials, and even if it didn’t, applying it to a federal official wouldn’t likely pass constitutional muster (in the same way that state term limits and recall laws don’t apply to House members).

• CA-49: With Rep. Darrell Issa about to take over the reins of the House Oversight committee, this long and remarkably thorough piece from the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza is today’s must-read, if you haven’t already seen it. It revisits various episodes in his checkered past, but presents an interesting, complicated picture of him.

• KY-AG: Even though he’s just dodged bids by his two most potentially serious rivals (SoS Trey Grayson and former state Supreme Ct. chief justice Joseph Lambert), now there are local rumors bubbling up that Democratic incumbent AG (and probably still a rising star) Jack Conway may not seek a second term. State Rep. John Tilley, state Sen. Ray Jones, and former state Dem chair Jennifer Moore have started talking themselves up for the job. While Conway publicly has said he intends to run again, Tilley says Conway has told him he hasn’t made a decision yet.

• Chicago mayor: Big Dog alert! Bill Clinton will be appearing in Chicago on behalf of former right-hand man Rahm Emanuel and his bid for Chicago mayor. (Also reportedly appearing: SNL star and Emanuel impersonator Andy Samberg.) Carol Mosely Braun’s take? “One outsider coming in to support another outsider.”

• Enthuasiam gap: Hooray! We’ve all been saved! PPP has officially declared that the “enthusiasm gap” is over. OK, I’m being facetious and it’s not that simple, but PPP finds that 85% of Democrats and 82% of Republicans are “very excited” or “somewhat excited” about voting in 2012, suggesting that young people and minority voters might actually get off their duffs and vote if there’s a president on the ballot. (In fact, the highest report of “very exciteds” is among African-Americans, at 71%.) Democrats were killed in 2010 by a high disparity in “not exciteds,” but currently only 16% of Dems and 18% of GOPers are in that condition, suggesting turnout parity.  

150 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 1/18”

  1. http://www.publicpolicypolling…

    The current field unsurprisingly shows Dems getting clobbered by Reps in hypothetical 2012 Senate matchups, but what I was most surprised by was the crosstabs of 18-29 (it’s a small sample, 100 people, but still…) and that demographic being overwhelmingly conservative voters.

    For example, with 18-29, Dewhurst is ahead of Edwards 58/21.  In most matchups, the 18-29 subset is the most conservative.  Could be just due to various issues with the small sample and only landlines, but PPP’s age numbers in the 2010 cycle usually made sense.

    If their numbers are close to correct, I’d say that predictions of TX moving into swing state territory over the next decade are a bit premature, what do you think?

  3. If Capito doesn’t run for Governor I’d be very surprised, and while I suppose Ireland might be lying about having spoken to Capito about it (and how dumb would you have to be, like no one will ask her to confirm), I’m guessing there is fire to this smoke.

    I’m not sure if this means she is more likely to challenge Manchin or just take the safe house seat for life, her committee assignments aren’t THAT great.

  4. UT: Matheson might pull the trigger if (as I suspect) he gets the shaft again in redistricting. It’d be a hell of an uphill climb, given how partisan the state is, but running against Jason Chaffetz would probably be the best possible scenario for him.

    KY: Conway had better decide soon, the filing deadline is in a week or so.

  5. 1. This past weekend, I saw an uncle I had not seen in a long, long time. He’s always had political opinions but hasn’t, he said, voted in years. For whatever reason, he became enamored with Lincoln Chaffee (it’s all he would talk about, in fact) and decided to volunteer for his campaign. (Strangely enough, he missed the registration deadline, so he couldn’t vote for him, but he ended up volunteering for him. He reregistered to vote after the election to avoid this mistake again.) He told me that he shook Bloomberg’s hand, which was very cool, the day before the election, and waited in line for an hour and a half either on the day of the swearing or at some other point to meet Chaffee and shake his hand. When he finally got a chance to do this, he mentioned how much he liked him and how long he waited, something he’s never done before, not even for Bob Dylan tickets. (Dylan is his lifelong obsession.) Chaffee’s response? “Well, I can’t sing for you, but I’ll try to do anything else to make you happy.”

    2. I think the picture from the link below is amusing, so whether you need to be cheered up because of Kent Conrad retiring or for some other reason, take a look.

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com…

  6. I think that saving Castro for Governor is going to be important in keeping Hispanic voter turn out up in a mid-term election.  The TX Dems would be wise to arrange this, Presidential year brings out HIspanics, mid-terms, run a Hispanic at the top of the ticket so we aren’t going two steps forward one (or five depending the cycle) steps back.  

  8. I was about to post an article up on RRH I have been working on and… well, it is just not working. I originally wrote it in Word and did a copy/paste with it and added in the hyperlinks. However, when I went to save it this came up:

    Disallowed HTML tag:

    I cannot actually post the tag as SSP won’t allow me to, but if anybody could illuminate me it would be much appreciated.

    I also tried to insert a table I made in Word from a bunch of exit polls, but this too had some problems. Can anybody help? Thanks!

  10. Not content with just sitting with Republicans at the State of the Union address, Tim Walz has invited probably his biggest potential rival to attend as his guest.

    http://www.bluestemprairie.com/

    Today, Congressman Tim Walz announced Republican State Senator Julie Rosen will accompany him to the President’s State of the Union address next Tuesday. Both will highlight the need for civility and respect in our national and local debates.

  12. His retirement is now confirmed by “a person informed of his decision,” says the Times.

    http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes….

    I remember seeing the start of the Lamont campaign back in 2006.  They looked like a bunch of amateurs (partly cause they were mostly idealistic volunteers), and they were going up against a CT institution.  And yet, here we are.  Talk about your testaments to the power of grassroots action.

  15. either david vitter or jim demint will be committee chairs, depending whether snowe wants to keep small business or replace hutchison on commerce. shudder

  16. Especially w/r/t those posters who choose to post on both boards.

    It feels like some users who post here and at RRH are saying different things about the same topics.

    Some of it is probably emphasis, and a customizing of a message to a target market. Perhaps it’s just human nature that people who post on sites with different PoV will say different things.

    OTOH, some dual posters seem incredibly consistent.

    Or maybe I’m just seeing things.

  18. My early assumption that the far right field would be crowded with Radtke, Corey Stewart, Bob Marshall and/or a handful of Some Dudes who would each get ~5-10% and allow Allen to coast by with ~60-70% of the vote, similar to Hurt in VA-05 last year. That could still happen, but it’s seeming less likely now. If Radtke gets an endorsement from someone like Cucinelli, she probably has a shot at the nomination.  

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