SSP Daily Digest: 3/11

• AZ-Sen: I had sort of forgotten that J.D. Hayworth had said he was interested in running for Jon Kyl’s seat, but yeah, there he was, chatting up The Hill yesterday, and telling them that Jeff Flake has “delusions.” Jeff Flake is the one with the delusions? Anyhow, Hayworth refused to offer a timetable for his decision, and believe it or not, there’s actually one guy who cares: Joe Arpaio. As you’ll recall, the dipshit sheriff flip-flopped the other day and said that yeah, he’d like to continue pretending he’s interested in the race, but now he’s also saying that he’ll wait for Hayworth’s decision first. I’m not sure anyone has ever shown J.D. this much respect before!

• IN-Sen: Not only has Dick Lugar given no indication that he’s interested in running as an independent, but his flip-flopping cave on the House GOP budget bill is, to me, evidence that he plans to terminate his political life as a member of the Republican Party. Still, for fun, the National Journal looked at what it would take for Loogs to make the ballot as an indie. He’d need 35,000 signatures (2% of the vote cast in the most recent SoS election) – but he’d also have to drop out of the GOP primary, as Indiana has a so-called “sore loser” law which prevents someone who loses a primary from running in the general.

You might have also heard about newly-discovered issues Lugar’s voter registration. It came to light a few weeks ago that Lugar typically lives in a hotel in Indianapolis when he returns home (which reminds me a lot of Indiana’s other senator, Dan Coats, who preferred to spend his time in North Carolina). It also turns out that Lugar is registered to vote using the address of an old family home which was sold years ago. The senator’s spokesperson probably should have said something other than Lugar “remains a Hoosier in the eyes of the law.”

• MA-Sen: Newton Mayor Setti Warren told Wicked Local that he’ll make a decision on a Senate run “sometime in the spring.” (There words, not his.)

• MT-Sen: For those of you carping about the lack of Montana stories in the digest, here’s one: the Montana Retail Association and the Montana Convenience Store Association are running radio ads against Jon Tester, to, as Roll Call puts it, “dissuade him from delaying reforms to the debit card “swipe fees” that are scheduled to go into effect later this year.” NWOTSOTB (that’s No Word On The Size Of The Buy – remember it), but this ad seems much more genuinely issued-focused rather than some kind of attempt to bolster Tester’s opponent, Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg.

• MO-Sen: Ben Smith writes: “The questions around McCaskill’s flights are likely to be an issue in McCaskill’s re-election campaign next year.” Here, let me fix that for you: “The questions around McCaskill’s flights are likely to be made a fake non-issue by sensationalists like Ben Smith in McCaskill’s re-election campaign next year.” Hope that helps!

• NM-Sen: Well, someone at Roll Call is sleeping on concrete tonight: Lt. Gov. John Sanchez reportedly will not announce a decision about a Senate run until after the legislative session. That’s soon, though: March 19th.

• TX-Sen: John Cornyn says he won’t endorse in the very crowded field to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison. Local Republicans also say he isn’t engaging in any behind-the-scenes favoritism either.

• VA-Sen: Does anyone else remember the AP’s Charles Babington saying, back on Feb. 25th, that Tim Kaine would decide on a Senate run “within a week”? You should, because it was in the digest. But not, apparently, in real life, since the mind-numbingly painful Tim Kaine goes on (and on, and on). I think the Beltway media just have a particular fascination with this one, since Kaine is a DC figure and his next-door state always looms large. Annnyhow, Timmeh is attending a dinner in honor of ex-Rep. Rick Boucher in southwestern VA this weekend, but “an official who can speak for Kaine” tells Roll Call that her (his?) boss won’t be making any announcements this weekend. Just give us Tom Perriello already!

• AZ-Gov: Just watch the video and enjoy.

• LA-Gov: It’s from last week, but the New York Times had a good story on the dodgy campaign finance practices of the allegedly incorruptible (but obviously not) Bobby Jindal. If you are, say, a big telecommunications firm or an oil-and-gas giant and want to receive special treatment from the state of Louisiana, and you know contributions to the governor’s re-election campaign are capped at a measly five grand, you just make a plus-sized gift to Jindal’s wife’s charity and bam! there you go. Full details on this sordid practice at the link. Best ethics laws, my ass.

• OH-Gov, OH-17: Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan has been amping up his populist attacks on Gov. John Kasich and the Ohio GOP’s anti-labor and anti-middle class agenda (with the centerpiece being a the right-to-work piece of legislation known as SB5). Associates say he’s potentially gearing up for a run against Kasich in 2014, and notably, he’s being advised by ex-Gov. Ted Strickland. One Democratic operative speculates, though, that perhaps Ryan is trying to warn the GOP away from fucking with his district lines too much this year: if they forcibly turn him out of office in 2012, the 39-year-old Ryan will definitely be looking for a new job in 2014.

• WI-Gov: The Hotline asked Russ Feingold if he’d consider running against Scott Walker in a hypothetical recall election next year. An aide gave a typical non-answer, suggesting Feingold isn’t ruling it out, but noting that he’s teaching at Marquette Law School and writing a book at the moment.

• AZ-08: Hopefully this is a sign that Rep. Gabby Giffords’ recovery is going well: Not only will her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, go up on the space shuttle next month (this long-planned mission is his last chance to do so before the shuttle fleet is retired), but she’ll be there to watch the launch.

• NV-02: Two scoops of plump juicy raisins for the Nevada News Bureau yesterday. First, they announced that Rep. Dean Heller (R) would be getting into the Senate race. Now they’re following up with a report that, according to their sources, state Sen. Mark Amodei (R) will run for the 2nd district seat. You may recall that Amodei, who is also the GOP state party chair, briefly ran for the Senate last year before realizing he didn’t stand a chance against Chicken Lady and Crazy Lady.

• PA-15: The conservative David Koch front group Americans for Prosperity is running radio ads (NWOTSOTB) in GOP Rep. Charlie Dent’s district, in the hopes of “encouraging” him not to stray from the Republican pack and start voting against signature agenda items in a bid to preserve his so-called “moderate” voting record. I like this, because pressure on GOP “moderates” in the 2005-08 timeframe helped deliver a number of seats to us. Hopefully the same pattern will pick up once again now that Republicans have the majority in the House and start acting recklessly.

• Wisconsin Recall: MoveOn has leaked some data from two Wisconsin polls SurveyUSA took for the group. MoveOn tested a generic recall question against two Republican state senators: Randy Hopper and Dan Kapanke. Only 43% said they’d vote for Hopper, while 54% said “someone else”; for Kapanke, it was 41-57. Since I know you’ve bookmarked SSP’s indispensible post that shows presidential election results by senate district, then you’re aware that Kapanke sits in the bluest district, while Hopper won by the narrowest margin in 2008 (just 0.2% – a result which was the subject of a recount).

Meanwhile, Dave Weigel notes that four liberal groups – MoveOn, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and Daily Kos – have raised almost $2 million in support of the recall efforts.

• WI Sup. Ct.: As it happens, there’s another really important race going on in Wisconsin right now: a Democrat, JoAnne Kloppenburg, is challenging Republican state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser. The race is technically non-partisan, but Prosser used to be the Republican state House Majority Leader. More importantly, if Kloppenburg were to win, she’d shift the balance on the court from 3-4 to 4-3 in our favor, which could be crucial if the court is called upon to rule on any of Scott Walker’s legislative thuggery.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Mississippi: Yeah, this is definitely an example of saying the quiet part loud.

• Redistricting: While devoted Swingnuts will be familiar with much of this list, Aaron Blake has a good roundup of members of Congress who are potential redistricting victims – and who are deciding whether they’d rather jump (to another elective office) or get pushed (into oblivion).