• IN-Sen: Wow, for a late-70-something, Dick Lugar’s got a major pair of huevos. He keeps on giving the tea partiers the middle finger despite the great likelihood of a primary challenge, and maybe took that up a notch yesterday, calling the movement out for offering only “cliché” and not being able to “articulate the specifics.”
• MI-Sen: You’d expect a poll from Republican pollster Wilson Research to offer worse news for Debbie Stabenow than PPP would, but that’s not the case, as they find wider margins against Peter Hoekstra and Terry Lynn Land. Not that Stabenow should be popping the champagne corks yet, as she’s still in the proverbial danger zone; she beats Hoekstra 47-41 (whom she led by only 1, in PPP’s December poll) and beats Land 46-41. She also sports a definite re-elect of 33%, compared with a “consider someone else” of 36% and 23% definitely “vote against.”
• NV-Sen: Well, this is a vague tea leaf that Sharron Angle might be too busy to run for Senate in 2012 as some have speculated; instead, she might be too busy running for President, if her strange visit to Iowa is any indication.
• UT-Sen: This is a striking piece of news, considering that the Tea Party Express attacked pretty much every Republican to the left of Jim DeMint in 2010 and seemed to be gearing up for another round in 2012 (with rumors that he was looking into a primary challenge to John Barrasso!). But today TPX’s head, Sal Russo, said that Orrin Hatch, one of the big three teabagger targets among GOP incumbents up in 2012, won’t be a TPX target. He even went so far as to call Hatch “an original tea partier.” Gotta wonder what Russo’s angle is here. This comes only shortly after John Cornyn basically said that Hatch was on his own in the primary, that the NRSC wouldn’t be getting involved on his behalf.
• AL-Gov: “Sir” Charles Barkley has been threatening to run for Alabama Governor for seemingly ages, but it seems like the dream has finally died. He says he’s no longer considering it, saying politics is “a bad business right now.” Also, speaking of Alabama, it looks like 2010 gubernatorial loser Ron Sparks has quickly landed on his feet, picking up a job in the administration of the man who defeated him, new Gov. Robert Bentley. Sparks will be the first head of the newly-created Alabama Rural Development Office.
• IN-Gov: Today was supposed to be the big decision day for Mike Pence, but we really wound up only getting half a decision (although the other half looks pretty clear, by implication). He said that he won’t be running for President, and that his “heart is in Indiana.” That seems a pretty clear suggestion that he’ll be running for Governor instead, but he stopped well short of actually saying that today, simply saying he’ll decide “later this year” what to do next.
• CT-05: Here’s some more movement in the GOP field in what’s the earliest-developing open seat race of 2012. Justin Bernier, who narrowly lost the three-way primary in 2010 (and who’d started in pole position until Sam Caligiuri dropped down from the Senate race), makes it official, saying he’s going to run again. Also, state Sen. Andrew Roraback is talking himself up for the race; he’s loudly touting his moderate credentials, even citing Mike Castle as a legislative role model.
• PA-St. House: It looks like the Pennsylvania state House didn’t quite get the memo on civility that was passed around a few weeks ago. Video of the House floor meltdown is available at the link, although as far as legislative riots go, they still have a long way to go before they can rival the Taiwanese.
The rep in the picture with the scarf over her mouth is mine, Babette Josephs. She’s a character.
of the upsides of a parliamentary system is that you are openly encouraged to engage in angry shouting matches with the other party. And even take shots at the majority leader’s character:
I’m sure someone tea-flavored will mount an effort to unseat Sen. Hatch. Someone will probably take a cut at Sens. Snowe, Scott Brown, and Corker, too, even if some Tea Party leaders profess disinterest.
Alan Keyes, anyone?
http://www.theatlanticwire.com…
He’s going to Iowa in March….
http://www.gallup.com/poll/145…
GOP at 47%-43% positive
Dems at 46%-47% negative
For a party that’s brand was “dog food” as recently as 2008, they sure made a V-shaped recovery.
Can anyone else think of a time a party has recovered so quickly? The only time I can think of is Republicans recovered everything they lost and more in 1966 after 1964 and how Democrats recovered in 1982 after 1980.
It took Democrats until 2006 to recover from 1994 and it took Republicans until 1980 to recover from 1974.
Will it take Democrats another twelve years to recover from 2010?
Does SSP have the most awesome google ads? now had “draft Petraeus”, a banner ad of “Chavez’ Venezuela prevents US and Europe from a financial collapse” and all the time so many awesome ads, some time because of a word in an article.
outside groups like the NRSC. Hatch has seen the light and is meeting with teaparty member to try and avoid what happened to Bob Bennett.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
In the Republican nominating convention, a couple thousand delegates decide the nominees for the primary. So, basically, it’s retail politics and meeting with these people in order to secure their support. I think Bennett ended up with about 1 million dollars when he lost at the convention. There was really nothing the NSRC could do except look like outsiders coming in. Hatch is better off with them staying “neutral.”
What topics are dominating the hallways and panels at the World Economic Forum? From low-income countries to Larry Summers, David Kirkpatrick on six things everyone is talking about. Digital + Business = Everything The realities of digital…
Bellaplex
Acceleration in last quarter. Great news for the president but probably for House Republicans too. People will likely see jobs in 2011 coinciding with split government which I’ve alluded to before. We might just get our first non-wave election since 2004 in 2012.
Here is Charlie displaying his amazing ability to use many words to tell us what we already know and basically provide zero real analysis.
http://www.nationaljournal.com…
Hoekstra confirmed to The Hill that he’s looking at challenging Stabenow. This of course surprises exactly no one. It will be interesting to see who else gets in on the GOP side, Hoekstra would probably be the primary favorite regardless of who else gets in, but does Anuzis really want to run for office (never mind whether he should or not) and of course Terry Lynn Land.
I’m not that well tuned into Michigan repblicans anymmore (most my people have moved away), but those I have spoken to don’t think Land has the stomach for a primary fight and Anuzis would only run if all the A-listers passed.
Interesting take, would he really be able to clear a primary after 1 month in the House?
“Rick Berg would be the likely one to take that seat on because he’s already in Washington. If he decides to do it, I don’t see anybody challenging him. He’s a pretty powerful candidate,” said North Dakota Republican National Committee member Curly Haugland. “He’s the only one who had a contest against a sitting incumbent Democrat; he beat him by 10 [percentage] points. No one else was demonstrating strength or doing a power check. He did.”
Because his cabinet is currently all-white (the first time since ’61), some leading AA state lawmakers asked if they could help him find some minority applicants, Kasich said “I don’t need your people.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/…
politically to the right of Snowe, Collins, Brown, and possibly Kirk, Richard Lugar is my favorite Republican senator and, IMO, one of the best overall.