SSP Daily Digest: 2/14

• AZ-Sen, AZ-06: Rep. Jeff Flake, who announced his bid today, had to wait only a few hours before getting a valuable (for the GOP primary, at least) endorsement from the Club for Growth; he’s a natural fit for them, given his draconian budgetary views and laissez-faire social views. Even before Flake had announced, his potentially strongest rival for the GOP nod, ex-Rep. John Shadegg had announced that he wasn’t going to run. Shadegg’s AZ-03 replacement, Rep. Ben Quayle confirmed that he won’t be running either. The same goes for another Republican freshman, Rep. David Schweikert (that article also helpfully points out that famous Arizona residents Meghan McCain and Bristol Palin, who’ve both accomplished so much in the social media sphere in their short lives, are both too young to run for Senate). Former NFL player Kurt Warner has also taken himself out of consideration.

Buried in a Roll Call article on the whip race to replace Jon Kyl are a few more interesting bits: Trent Franks is “not expected” to run, while state Senate president and prime mover behind SB 1070 Russell Pearce is “out,” but “plans to run” for AZ-06, being vacated by Flake. There’s not much to report on the Dem side today, but there are further reports that ex-Gov., and current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (who didn’t poll well against Kyl according to PPP a few weeks ago, although they didn’t test her against Flake) has been calling around to gauge her support.

• CT-Sen: Ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz rolled out her own long list of endorsements from local Dems, in response to a list unveiled several weeks ago by primary rival Chris Murphy. While Murphy’s list was heavy on the 5th District, naturally, Bysiewicz’s list is heavy on the 2nd District (which is interesting, as it may be an indication that Rep. Joe Courtney has decided against running… or it may be a preventative shot across Courtney’s bow). Bysiewicz is from Middletown, which is in the 2nd although kind of on its periphery. In terms of the Republican field, there was a straw poll taken of state Tea Party Patriots members this weekend. Given the sample size of 54 and the self-selecting nature of the nuttiest of the nuttiest, it’s barely worth mentioning, but they found Linda McMahon only barely winning with 15 votes, compared to Peter Schiff’s 14. Rob Simmons and Tom Foley each got 6, with state Sen. Scott Frantz at 5 and Danbury mayor Mark Boughton at 4.

• FL-Sen, FL-13: Like I’ve said before, don’t count out Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan for the Senate; the owner of numerous car dealerships is sitting on a big campaign account, has wealthy friends, and can self-fund too. And now he’s publicly saying he’s “not ruling it out.”

• MO-Sen: Over the weekend in Joplin was the first public joint appearance between the two announced GOP candidates so far, Sarah Steelman and Ed Martin. While they superficially only attacked Claire McCaskill, Martin sneaked in some anti-Steelman attacks by implication, saying that he’ll support “tort reform every time” and “take on the public sector unions.” (While Steelman has the support of the DC-based tea party astroturfers, the local teabaggers are skeptical of her insufficient purity on those two issues.)

• NV-Sen: Given behavior lately that might charitably be described as “erratic,” I’ve pretty much given up on trying to figure out Sharron Angle’s plans (her travel schedule seems to take her mostly to early presidential states these days, in case you had any doubts about the scope of her delusions of grandeur). But now she’s talking about Nevada Senate again, saying that she’d like to talk to John Ensign before deciding whether or not to challenge him in the primary.

• NY-Sen: As she becomes better-known to New Yorkers, Kirsten Gillibrand’s numbers keep going up. Siena’s newest poll finds her at 57/18 favorables, with a 52% re-elect (including even a plurality among Republicans). Liz Benjamin also notes that two Republican 2010 Gillibrand challengers – Joe DioGuardi (whom Gillibrand flatted) and David Malpass (whom DioGuardi beat in the GOP primary) – are both still considering the race. Ex-LG “Batshit Besty” McCaughey (who once ran for governor on the Liberal Party line) was also down in DC this past weekend, once again relishing her role as healthcare fabricator-in-chief at the loonier-than-thou CPAC conference – and also possibly trying to raise her profile for a potential run (something we noted a couple of weeks ago). Bring it on!

• OH-Sen: Newly elected state Treasurer Josh Mandel got some buzz at some point last month, and here’s some more for him: the Plain Dealer, in a longer piece wondering why the Republican field (in what could be a pickup opportunity with the right candidate) isn’t taking shape at all, points to him as a possible alternative in the face of disinterest from the A-list. Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor seems to be working on building her portfolio (taking over the state Dept. of Insurance), suggesting a plate too full for a Senate bid, while Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve LaTourette are enjoying their newfound majority. Mandel seems to have the best fundraising chops of anyone beyond that initial top tier.

• VA-Sen, VA-01: Here’s one more Republican name to add to the list in Virginia, and it’s kind of an unexpected one, in that usually low-profile guys with safe red districts in the House tend to stay where they are. The 1st’s Rob Wittman is saying he’s “considering” the race, along with the requisite “never say never.”

• WI-Gov: The AFL-CIO is already weighing into Wisconsin, even though the next gubernatorial election is three and three-quarters years away. In response to Scott Walker’s ham-fisted attempt to limit collective bargaining rights for most state employees, the union is taking to the airwaves with TV spots. Obviously, the target isn’t the next election but swinging public opinion against the members of the state legislature, who’ll have the final say on the matter. (As a more general question, though, I’ve gotta wonder if we’ll see much more of this type of issue advertising in off-years in the future, as we move more and more into “permanent campaign” mode and the ground needs to be seeded for the on-years.)

• WV-Gov: With Saturday’s filing deadline come and gone, we have an official list of all the candidates in the gubernatorial special election, and with 14 names total, it’s a doozy. Not much in the way of surprises, though; the only person expected to run who, in the end, didn’t seems to be Dem state Sen. Brooks McCabe. For the Democrats, it’s acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, state Sen. Jeff Kessler, SoS Natalie Tennant, state Treasurer John Perdue, state House speaker Rick Thompson, and some dude Arne Moltis. For the Republicans, it’s ex-SoS Betty Ireland, Putnam Co.  Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia, state Sen. Clark Barnes, state Del. Mitch Carmichael, ex-state Del. Larry Faircloth, and some dudes Bill Maloney, Cliff Ellis, and Ralph William Clark.  National Journal’s Sean Sullivan makes a good observation that in fields this crowded and in a state without runoffs, ballot position (which studies have shown can add 1-3% to a candidate’s vote) may actually wind up making the difference here. The positions were determined by random draw; for the Dems, Tomblin is at the top while co-frontrunner Tennant is at the bottom. For the GOP, Ireland is 7 out of 8, while Maloney is listed first.

• CA-36: LA city councilor Janice Hahn keeps rolling out more endorsements in her attempt to get an early lock-down on the Dem nomination in the special election. Three big ones: two very relevant to California (new Assembly speaker John Perez, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein), one, um, not so much (Dick Gephardt).

• NY-10: Gov. Andrew Cuomo just tapped Democratic Assemblyman Darryl Towns to be the state’s new Homes and Community Renewal agency. Ordinarily, a special election in the remarkably-blue AD-54 would be too far in the weeds even for us, but you may recognize his name: he’s the son of long-time Rep. Ed Towns. The 76-year-old Towns is routinely viewed as a candidate for retirement (and his son a likely replacement), so this move is a puzzle: is it a sign that the elder Towns isn’t going anywhere (perhaps permanently fastened to his House seat by all the moss growing there), or perhaps a way for the younger Towns to burnish his credentials a bit and differentiate him a bit from his somnolent dad?

• NY-26: One more name to strike off the Republican list in the 26th (not that I’d known he’d been on the list): Assemblyman Dan Burling said he wouldn’t run, and threw his support behind fellow Assembly member Jane Corwin for the nomination.

• Redistricting: This local news piece on redistricting in Indiana exposes the most mind-numbing and tedious part of the process, one that gets easily overlooked: the process of turning census data into precinct data, seeing as how precincts exist in their own little world apart from blocks and tracts. Even though Indiana was one of the earliest to receive their data, this data-cleaning process is expected to take several weeks before the legislature can even begin tackling the numbers. Also, Indiana is one of the states that will allow citizens to get their hands on the data to try making their own maps… but because of licensing issues of some sort, they won’t be making the data available online. If you’re in-state, you can drop into one of a number of stations they’ll be setting up around the state where you can tinker with the data in person, though.

• Site news: DavidNYC here. I’m back from my vacation and I’ve had the chance to read through all of the comments (every last one) in the post where I announced our impending move to Daily Kos. While many of my replies are “thank yous” for the very kind expressions of support you offered, I also did my best to answer specific questions where I could. Rest assured that this won’t be the last I’ll have to say on the subject before we make the changeover. I’ll also take this opportunity to encourage you to create an account over at Daily Kos if you don’t have one already, and to play around with the new site (DK4 just launched this past weeked). (D)

189 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 2/14”

  1. The PD has been propping up Mandel since he first ran for the state legislature. He’s a dirty campaigner and I can’t imagine he would have played well in parts of the state and mostly got swept in on a wave.  

  2. if Pearce even lives in the new AZ-06. He lives pretty close to AZ-05 right now, and I could see a good argument for including his once-working-class-white (but rapidly becoming Hispanics who don’t vote mixed with a few white hanger-oners who haven’t fled yet and get outsized electoral influence) Downtown Mesa geographic base into a swing East Valley district with Tempe, Chandler and Ahwatukee. Ah well, there’s always going to be uber-Republican and uber-Mormon East Mesa/Gilbert for him to move to. We’ll see how much of the primary field he can clear. He is 63, but he’s tough (he actually survived a gunshot wound to the chest as a Maricopa County sheriff some years back). He also has tons of baggage, such as the whole “paling around with Neo-Nazis” thing and an incident in the 1980s in which his wife filed a court complaint [pdf] claiming he had a violent temper and was physically abusive towards her (she ultimately changed her mind on pursuing a divorce).

    I’m also surprised to see how many Republicans are moving out of Flake’s way, even though his support in the Republican base is, well, flaky. I still can’t imagine that he won’t get a major challenge in the primary due to his highly-controversial “Mexicans are people too” position.

  3. This is what I’ve heard called “re-writing the narrative”, basically going back and cherry picking factoids to justify the already passed result.  Anyway let me hear what you guys think…

    “But the bigger problem was the broader message that the Bayh and Dorgan retirements sent to a party already growing nervous about the political environment.

    Taken together, the two retirements created a sense of panic within the Democratic ranks as talk swung to whether Republicans could actually win back control of the Senate — a prospect that had seemed beyond outlandish just a year earlier.”

  4. I’d wager the Conservative Party backs her right out of the starting gate, leaving DioGuardi less leverage than in ’10 among the Tea Party crowd. Malpass is the favorite of the Giuliani/Lazio wing of the New York GOP, but that sect has proven so weak in primary politics lately. He might be able to eek-out around a 40% victory if the other two split the far-right, but it’s doubtful.  

  5. In other news, replacing the libertarian-flavored Rep. Flake with a (literal) neo-Nazi like Russell Pearce would be unfortunate. I’d rather see a Democrat – particularly the presently incapacitated Rep. Giffords – succeed Sen. Kyl than Flake, but of the Republican options in Arizona, Flake is definitely my top preference.

    Bysiewicz is definitely feeling the heat. It’ll be interesting to see whether she can make a race of it (I doubt Rep. Courtney will enter at this point, but I could be wrong) against Rep. Murphy, but she’s definitely trying to keep him from running away with the mo’.

    Ohio is on my list of races that could get uncomfortably hairy. New York decidedly is not.

  6. …when Angle has her “talk” with Ensign about…er…Angle primarying Ensign?

    Of course, since he knows in advance that’s what her next call to him is about, how does she get him to even take the call?  Does she have to confront him at a townhall, or at one of his fundraisers that she has to pay to attend?

    The Nevada GOP is just delicious.

  7. Maloney may not be a total some dude. He is one of the owners of the company that made the special tool needed to get to the miners early in the Chilean mining rescue, and may have self-funding ability. Cliff Ellis is also a former mayor of some city in WV.  

  8. California randomizes ballot order and for statewide offices rotates through their randomized list in each of the 80 assembly districts.  This got some attention in the recall election of 2003 where voters had to sort through a list of over 100 candidates.  Massachusetts is the worst in this regard.  Here it’s alway incumbent first, followed by name in alphabetical order.  At least they didn’t do it by alphabetical order of party!

  9. All the talk is coalescing around one more person from Clarence, NY.  Perhaps the issue is that right there.  When Genesee County was represented by someone other than a Republican from suburban Erie County, it had a solid representative.  In my lifetime, that would have been Barber Conable (R-Alexander), who went on to be president of the World Bank, and Louise Slaughter (D-Perinton).  Since then, the three Republicans from suburban Erie County (Bill Paxon, Tom Reynolds, Chris Lee) have left with a tinge of shame on them.  Perhaps its time for someone from outside suburban Erie County to be elected.  For other thoughts, see here.

  13. had a dream that it was election night (either midterm or presidential, not sure) and I was waiting for all the states to close. In my dream I looked at exit polls for Delaware’s house race only to find out they weren’t out yet. I was getting really excited and got really disappointed when I woke up. I think only people on this site could understand that feeling. Just had to share.

    Also, for some reason while waiting for the polls to close, I was looking at one of those Weather Channel satellite precipitation maps for Arkansas/Mississippi/Louisiana. no idea why.

    I guess for now I will have to be satisfied with Chicago (one week!!).

  14. If Wittman runs and vacates his house seat doesn’t this help uncomplicate redistricting a bit because despite the 1st being the most logical to take on some of the NOVA pop from the 10th he didn’t want to be moved north into PW?  If he’s out of the picture, the 1st is a blank slate with no incumbent to work around or tell to fuck off.

    Also a basically anonymous congress critter wouldn’t have the negs that Allen has and might be better for the Republicans – but if he’s serious he’s going to have to start doing something to distinguish himself.  Any press appearances or keynote speaches coming up?

  16. Is not in the 2nd district. It used to be in the 2nd until the last redistricting where it was put mostly in 3rd, and a little in the 1st.  This was done to protect Republican Incumbent at the time Rob Simmons.  

  17. Anyone have insights on this race?  John Lynch is already the longest-serving NH governor since the colonial era.  Is there any buzz on whether he will run for a fifth term in 2012?  I haven’t seen any.  I think it’s Likely D if Lynch runs, but it may be a tricky hold if he retires. The Dem bench does not seem overwhelming.  Kuster, Swett, Shea-Porter, and Hodes were all losers in 2010, although Kuster performed well.

    The only buzz I’ve heard on the race at all is that Ovide Lamontagne may run in the Republican primary, which I can only view as good news for Dems.  Wonder if John Sununu or Jeb Bradley would be interested.

  20. Maybe you should consider changing your login name after the move to Kos to your actual name.  That would be good for you talking-head interview and branding-wise.

    Time to put part-time DavidNYC to sleep, and become a full time brand name.

  21. The next gubernatorial election in Wisconsin isn’t necessarily so far away. Walker’s union busting has pissed off labor enough that talk of recall is in the air. Wisconsin has pretty generous recall laws. While the signature threshold is high (25% of the last Gov. vote, or 540,000), there’s no requirement that petitioners demonstrate malfeasance. There’s precedent in the state for policy-based recall: a state senator was recalled not too long ago for voting for a sales tax to pay for the Brewers stadium. If WI Dems can get a recall petition on the Nov. ’12 ballot downticket from Obama (and given the level of raw hatred for him, it’s definitely doable) Walker’s in serious trouble.  

  25. Check this out:

    http://www.publicpolicypolling…

    The eye-opener is 51%(!) of Republicans now openly admit they don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S.  Only 28% say he was, and the rest “not sure.”  I’m actually as a rule somewhat forgiving of “not sure” respondents on birther questions because I can easily see where there could be a lot of regular voters who don’t follow politics so closely and aren’t familiar with birtherism; those people, prompted to impulsively answer a question that seems strange to them, easily could say “not sure” without actually having questions about Obama’s legitimacy.

    To be a birther is to be racist, it’s racial code and dog whistle politics in the Obama era.  So it’s pretty striking that increasing numbers of Republicans are willing to actually admit what they really think of a black guy with a non-European name in the White House.

  28. Corker leads all people that PPP tested against him, except for Bresden, who leads by five. Are he and Corker really that close? How many female slaves will Patty Murray have to offer him to get into the race?

    Also, it’s interesting to note this paragraph:

    The other folks we tested are Congressman Jim Cooper who trails 50-32, country singer Tim McGraw who trails 50-28, and former Congressman Bart Gordon who trails 52-29. McGraw is a Democrat and has said he might be interested in running for office in the future. He is quite popular in the state with 38% of voters expressing positive feelings toward him to only 16% who rate him negatively. Democrats, Republicans, and independents all give him good marks. But he would have some work to do to establish himself as a credible political figure. Cooper (53% of voters with no opinion) and Gordon (58% with no opinion) are both largely unknown at this point.

    Would their numbers be even remotely competitive if they got into the race and weren’t savaged from the outset? Maybe this could turn out to be interesting.

    http://publicpolicypolling.blo…

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