SSP Daily Digest: 3/14

• AZ-Sen: This is amusingly insane. I’m certainly all for it!

• CA-Sen: Our long national nightmare is finally over: Meg Whitman says she will “definitely not” run against Sen. Diane Feinstein (D) next year. Rather, she says she’s going to spend time campaigning for fellow rich guy Mitt Romney. (Also, here’s an amusing tidbit: Earlier this year, she joined the board of none other than Hewlett-Packard – the company her 2010 Republican ticket-mate Carly Fiorina nearly ran into the ground.)

• CT-Sen: In an interesting development, fans of magical realism have been making a push for Borges to enter the Connecticut Senate race. Ah, wait. What’s that? Fuck. So, um, former state Treasurer Frank Borges (D), who left office in 1993, says supporters are asking him to run, and while’s he’s thinking about it, he’s set no timetable for a decision. Borges is CEO of a private equity firm (so I’m guessing he’s pretty rich), and he’d be the state’s first black senator if successful.

• FL-Sen: Rep. Vern Buchanan (R) is starting to sound like a “no” for the Senate race. Now that he’s scored a spot on the Ways & Means Committee, he says he’s less likely to seek a promotion. In fact, he very explicitly said: “If this hadn’t happened, I would have been looking to do something else.” That sort of talk has to make you figure that the GOP’s takeover of the House has actually been bad news for one Republican: NRSC chair John Cornyn.

In much sillier (and related) news, Cornyn told The Hill that he had tried to recruit former congressman and current MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to run against Bill Nelson. Undoubtedly, this made make Rep. Connie Mack a little hot under the collar, because the NRSC wigged out and Cornyn weirdly tried to claim the story was “not true,” even though Scarborough confirmed it. Rather, said Cornyn, he had been asking Joescar about a potential Senate run in… New York. (The Atlanta-born, Alabama-educated, Florida-elected Scarborough’s tv show is based in NYC.) Then, the NRSC took a dump on Joe, saying: “There are already a number of far stronger candidates looking at the Florida Senate race….” Whoops!

Also, there’s a tenative Biden alert! – the VPOTUS supposedly will come down to Florida later this month to raise money for Bill Nelson.

• IA-Sen: Wingnut Bob Vander Plaats, who did surprisingly well against now-Gov. Terry Branstad in last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary (with an assist from some Democratic ratfuckers), was asked whether he’s contemplating a run against Sen. Tom Harkin in 2014. Said BVP: “I think about it daily. That doesn’t mean I’m going to run against him, Ok. I don’t know.”

• IN-Sen: Now this is fucking interesting. I’m just going to let SSP commenter Bob Bobson summarize the situation:

WISH-TV’s Jim Shella noted on his blog today that that there exists a hypothetical but plausible scenario in which state Democrats could sue to overturn the results of last year’s election for Secretary of State by arguing that Charlie White wasn’t a valid candidate for office. That’s not really anything new, and has been rumored in the Hoosier political press for a while.

What is new here is that Shella points out that such a lawsuit, were it ruled in favor of the Democrats, wouldn’t just remove White from office, but would also make the Republicans a “minor party” under state law. SSPers probably remember the whole [10]% threshold thing from the Colorado governor’s race last year where Dan Maes’ trainwreck candidacy nearly cost the Colorado Republicans their ballot position as a major party, and there’s a similar regulation at play here. The difference is that in Indiana, it’s the Secretary of State race that decides which parties are “major,” and the threshold is [also] 10%. If White’s candidacy is invalidated, though, that could mean that the Republicans, legally, received zero votes in the SoS race last year.

That outcome would also mean that their nominating process for statewide candidates for the next four years would be via convention and not primary. And that means Dick Lugar becomes the next Bob Bennett.

In related news, Sean Keefer, who as Deputy Secretary of State was no. 2 to Charlie White (and also served as his chief of staff, and before that, as his campaign manager) just resigned, and there’s a report that White’s spokesman will also quit. Even better: White staged a totally bizarro impromptu press conference on the courthouse steps after a hearing in which he pleaded not guilty to all charges. The presser only ended after White’s attorney told him to “shut up” and led him away by the elbow. Fun times!

• MA-Sen: Deborah Shah, a consultant to Newton Mayor Setti Warren, sent around an email (I’m guessing to some listservs) looking for college kids interested in working on a potential Warren Senate campaign, set to be staffing up at the end of April. (Aren’t most students stressing about finals at that point?) Shah says that “This is just the first step to make sure you’re prepared.”

• MI-Sen: Pete Hoekstra hasn’t yet said if one of these days a Congressman from Michigan’s gonna come back home and run a Senate race, but he expects to decide this spring. One tea leaf suggests he’s rather stay focused on his lame-ass-looking consulting firm: He just shuttered his House campaign account, which he could have instantly turned into a Senate fund.

• OH-Sen: In response to ex-Gov. Ted Strickland calling him “scurrilous,” “bigoted,” “reprehensible,” and “laughable,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Republican state Treasurer Josh Mandel “said Strickland is a good person.” Maybe that makes Mandel look big, I dunno, but does it also make him look like a wuss to his biggest supporters, the teabag contingent? At the same q-and-a with other GOP elected officials, SoS Jon Husted (who has declined a run) said he’d like to see Mandel take on Sherrod Brown, while AG (and ex-Sen.) Mike DeWine much more amusingly said that a Brown-Mandel matchup would be “fascinating.” Is that Mr. Spock fascinating, or a trainwreck fascinating?

• AZ-08: Rep. Gabby Giffords’ doctors gave an update on the congresswoman’s recovery on Friday, and they sounded very upbeat about her progress (though they noted that it’s not a sure thing whether she’ll attend her husband’s space shuttle launch next month, contra what a staffer said last week). Meanwhile, 2010 Republican candidate Jesse Kelly, who very nearly beat Giffords, set up a new campaign committee for a potential rematch.

• CA-37: Though Rep. Laura Richardson (D) previously denied it, a letter of resignation sent by her former district scheduler suggests that the congresswoman is indeed the subject of an ethics probe, pertaining to misuse of staff. Now Richardson’s office is simply refusing to comment. The staffer’s letter is really brutal, citing “constant verbal and emotional abuse” and requests that she perform tasks “on the ethical borderline.” I can’t imagine Richardson has a very long future in Congress (she originally won office in a 2007 special with just 37% of the primary vote in this very blue district), so who do you think could replace her?

• NM-01, NM-Sen: State Sen. Eric Griego (D), who is considering a run for the House if fellow Dem Martin Heinrich decides to go for the Senate race, says he expects “the smoke to clear” by April or May, in terms of people making decisions about what they’re gonna do.

• NV-02: Jon Ralston says that retired Navy Commander Kirk Lippold is “in” the race for Nevada’s 2nd congressional district, which ought to have a very interesting GOP primary, at the least. Lippold, who was captain of the USS Cole when it was bombed by Al Qaeda a decade ago, was touted as a possible challenger to Harry Reid last year.

• NV-03: Freshman Rep. Joe Heck was the only Republican to vote against defunding the Federal Housing Administration Refinance Program (designed to help homeowners with underwater mortgages). Anticipating criticism, he put out a video press release (an actual video press release, not a “tv ad with a tiny buy designed to get free media attention”) defending his vote. Could Heck be worried about getting teabagged?

• NY-26: Republican nominee Jane Corwin just received the Independence Party’s nomination for the special election as well, and ya know, this is a pretty darn good demonstration of why the Democrats’ dithering on selecting a candidate has been a pretty dumb move. I mean, even if the IP wanted to endorse a Dem, they couldn’t! (Or at least, couldn’t do so yet.)

Anyhow, 2010 NY-Sen-A GOP primary loser (in other words, the guy who couldn’t beat the guy who got vaporized by Chuck Schumer) Gary Bernsten sent out an email asking supporters to help teabagger David Bellavia petition his way on to the ballot as an independent. I’d be surprised if this effort is successful, though – Bellavia has only until March 19 to collection 3,500 signatures. Crazy Jack Davis is doing the same thing, but at least he has a shot, since he’s putting his millions to work for him.

• SD-AL: I linked this story in the Pete Hoekstra item above (see MI-Sen), but ex-Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has also closed her campaign account, suggesting that Steve Israel’s efforts to woo her into a rematch with Republican Kristi Noem haven’t been successful. The Fix has a long list of other Dems (and a few Repubs) who have shut down their FEC committees – click the link for the rest.

• TX-LG: Texas Ag. Comm’r Todd Staples isn’t ruling out a run for Lt. Gov., a seat which could become open if the current occupant, David Dewhurst, wins Kay Bailey Hutchison’s Senate seat. Other possible aspirants include Comptroller Susan Combs and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. (And yes, since this is Texas and everyone I just mentioned holds statewide office, that means they’re all Republicans.) While you might be wondering why we’re going so far down into the weeds here, the LG job is considered one of the most powerful in Texas (some like to say even more powerful that the governor’s), because the LG is also President of the state Senate.

• Wisconsin Recall: The DLCC just launched a TV ad against GOP state Sen. Luther Olsen, attacking him for flip-flopping to support Scott Walker’s anti-union legislation – though it does not mention anything about the recall effort which Olsen is (among others) the subject of. The ad (which you can watch here) is running in Green Bay, and a spokesman tells me that the buy is “about 1000 points.”

Also, check out this piece from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert, which begins:

Number of state lawmakers removed from office by recall in all of American history: 13.

Number of state lawmakers currently facing recall campaigns in Wisconsin: 16.

• Hawaii: In order to avoid another Charles Djou, the Hawaii House just passed a bill to institute instant runoff voting (aka IRV) for special Congressional elections. Of course, they could just hold primaries instead of jungle elections.

• WATN?: Scott Lee Cohen, the disastrous Lt. Gov. candidate whose utterly failed gubernatorial bid probably saved Pat Quinn’s ass, is hoping to replace ex-state Sen. Rickey Hendon, who resigned last month. Given that the replacement gets picked by a panel of Chicago Democratic Party committeemen, I’m guessing that Cohen’s chances are somewhere between zero and nil.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Idaho: At least one local expert is confirming what we observed last week: population shrinkage in the 2nd CD will likely require it to absorb the entire city of Boise, which is currently split between the state’s two districts.

• New Jersey: Richard Lee has some interesting historical details about the 1990 round of redistricting, focusing on two politicians who are still part of New Jersey’s congressional delegation today: Rep. Frank Pallone and Sen. Bob Menendez. Menendez’s federal career was launched when New Jersey’s loss of a seat led to the creation of an Hispanic-friendly district. Pallone, meanwhile, was targeted for elimination by his own party. Said one Republican: “I’d like to see Mr. Pallone defeated. But apparently I don’t want to see him defeated as much as the Democrats do.” Obviously, Pallone lived to fight another day.

Meanwhile, Rutgers Prof. (and state redistricting tiebreak vote) Alan Rosenthal supposedly put out a memo outlining his vision for a fair legislative map, reportedly leading state Dems to believe their vision is much more closely aligned with Rosenthal’s than is the Republicans’. But it doesn’t seem like this memo, if it exists, has been released online.

237 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 3/14”

  1. Sounds like delicious instant karma for the fuck-you the Republicans in Wisconsin gave to their entire state. Let’s not forget similar antics were attempted in Indiana, or that copycat attempts are being made in Michigan, Ohio, and Maine. The time for playing nice is surely over. If it’s on the books that Secy. White, if ruled an invalid candidate for office retroactively, can have his entire vote total erased – thus giving the Indiana Libertarian Party major-party status at the Indiana Republican Party’s expense – I say Democrats lobby for that law to be enforced with all their might. Besides, Vop Osili would make a decent secretary of state, and he’d give Democrats and African Americans alike some representation in the Indiana state government.

    As for another black Democrat, Connecticut’s Frank Borges, I have no comment other than that I’m an awfully big fan of Rep. Chris Murphy. I don’t know much about Borges, but it sure would have been nice to have an alternative to then-Atty. Gen. Blumenthal last year; fortunately, Linda McMahon could be relied on to self-destruct in a way now-Sen. Marco Rubio could not.

  2. I’ve just finished my NJ Congressional map. Because the 11th has been so far out of reach for the Democrats for so many years, I decided that it was the district I wanted to eliminate. Luckily for me, it turned out to be easy to accomplish while keeping all the other districts in roughly the same configurations. I’ll be posting it soon on http://www.dailykos.com/blog/w…

    I haven’t read anything so far that gives clues as to which district is expected to be eliminated, but once I do I’m going to make another map.  

  6. The remap will require a district to be removed in around those parts and it would make sense for Richardson’s seat to become a Long Beach-Lakewood centered one that Linda Sanchez could defeat her in. I’m thinking that places like Compton and Carson will get put in Waters district, in order to get a plurality to majority black seat and those places are where a lot Richardson’s primary numbers came from in the special election. Racial identity politics played a role in Richardson winning that primary.

  7. Style candidate should Angle run for Senate instead? He seems quite far to the right, and his military record has actually attracted some controversy. (Even Former Senator John Warner [R-VA] thought he should have taken some responsibility for not being prepared when the USS Cole was attacked.) Even with Brian Krolicki’s recent legal woes, he may still be the stronger NV-02 GOPer.

  8. First, this piece:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/…  …says McLean, where I live, is likely to be put into Jim Moran’s district.  “Hooray!” I say, if that comes to pass.  I realize Moran has a big mouth sometimes and some baggage, but being represented by a liberal Democrat would make me happy.  Frank Wolf is my Congressman now.

    Second, another tidbit I read somewhere in the past few days, and I can’t remember where, quoted Virginia state Senate Democratic Majority Leader Dick Saslow as saying there’s a gentleman’s agreement to let each chamber draw its own map.  That’s been speculated for a long time, but I was worried the lower chamber GOPers have such a huge majority that they could risk and outright surrender some seats in exchange for trying to force a state Senate map much more difficult for Dems.  If Saslow is right, then the Assembly GOPers have decided to take a bird in the hand and go home.  Of course, I hope Saslow hasn’t derailed the deal by speaking out of turn!

    In any case, give me Congressman Moran for McLean, and a continued Democratic state Senate, and I’ll be thrilled.

  9. David, you might consider taking care with the use of the f-word. Sometimes it’s appropriate. On occasion, it’s the only way to express a certain level of angst.

    But you’re more in the public spotlight. And you don’t (yet) have the stature of Hunter S. Thompson. With that in mind, three uses of the f-word in the same diary does not help the D cause.

  10. For the Nevada GOP and the NRSC? They’re pushing hard for Yucca Mountain, a project that’s still viscerally hated nearly everywhere south of Mineral County and not even liked from Washoe on east. And now with Japan in the news for all the wrong reasons, mainly a nuclear disaster in the making, Nevadans will be in even less of a mood to consider storing nuclear waste in a mountain lying on an active fault line.

    And as Harry Reid proved last year when he used this very issue against Sharron Angle, folks here still care about Yucca and still don’t want it in our backyard. And if the Dems can show that electing Dean Heller, Sharron Angle, or whomever else becomes the GOP nominee means another loyal vote for Republicans looking to shove Yucca down our thorats, it won’t be pretty (for the GOP).

  11. However, it may end up becoming a political issue depending on the United States’ reaction to this. But as an engineer, I can not stress enough how bad this is. I believe this plant is a Light Water Reactor (it is the most common type, but I haven’t read anywhere that it actually is a LWR). Regardless though, the fact that uranium rods are melting, and the fact they can not maintain the proper water levels in any of the cooling towers could be disastrous. The fact that one of the towers has NO water in it, scares the hell out of me. I really hope that they are able to get water flowing in at an acceptable level soon, because once the core starts eating away at the concrete it may be too late to stop the reaction.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/201…

  12. nomination due to a split GOP field.

    Because the nominating process has become so dominated by primary elections, with the vast majority of the delegates chosen by direct vote, it is entirely possible that with no presumptive winner or even favorites, a candidate who runs second or third in a great many primaries could go into the convention with a sizable block of delegates.

    Who would this favor? Does Sarah Palin come to mind? Although she is not viewed by most as strong enough to win, she is viewed by many as a person worth voting for to make a statement. And primaries tend to be populated by people who go to the polls with the purpose of making a statement.

    Finishing second and third isn’t really a big deal – until you get enough delegates to be the nominee. And picking a nominee who it seems would be easily defeated by President Obama might not be the best statement.

    Sen Gregg in The Hill

    It’s interesting that the GOP elites are really getting concerned about Palin and the lack of frontrunner to the GOP nomination.

  14. “fans of magical realism have been making a push for Borges to enter the Connecticut Senate race.”

    Your literary references are not lost on me! The Aleph FTW!

  15. Brown 53-27 favorable, job approval is 57-24, re-elect 52-28, leads Capuano 51-38.

    “Brown receives support from almost two-thirds of independent voters, who tend to be the deciding factor in statewide elections in Massachusetts. Brown also wins backing from about 20 percent of voters who identify themselves as Democrats.”

    He votes like Lamar Alexander. Gotta get that across to Baystaters. There is a path but it looks very tight at this stage.

  16. Kos with two successive tweets on situation in Wisconsin:

    “Just got WI state Senate results: In recall, Dems win 2 districts, three are tossups, one is lean GOP, and only 2 are safe GOP.”

    And:

    “Huge sample sizes in Wisconsin polling — older and whiter respondents means they answer landlines. 2-3K respondents per district.”

  18. I want to add here that user MichiganLiberal and I both independently were looking at Indiana election law and found that the Indiana Code specifies a minor party as being a party that had won between 2% and 10% of the vote in the last election for SoS, which is where the convention rule comes in.

    If White’s results from last year are invalidated, that wouldn’t make the Republicans a minor party, that makes them actually less than a minor party. At least, if I’m getting this right. I don’t know what the repercussions of that could be.  

  20. My apologies if this has been covered, but wow. Wow. I mean, we all know Arizona is more or less irredeemably awful, but um, has anyone mentioned how the Joe Arpaio-endorsed Republican Majority Leader Scott Bundgaard got into a fistfight with his girlfriend? And she kicked his ass? And then got thrown in jail while he got legislative immunity?

    Arizona Republic coverage here.  Phoenix New Times coverage here.

    It’s kind of a new twist on the ole “when did you stop beating your wife” question … because now the answer is “when she beat the crap out of me on the side of a major freeway.”

  23. http://www.redstate.com/erick/…

    Tonight on the Erick Erickson Show, we’ll be talking about Saxby Chambliss. He’s open to tax increases to balance the budget. He’s opposed to defunding NPR. Is he becoming a Democrat?

    If I remember right, Erickson lives in GA… The Red State diary makes me wonder — does he want to primary Chambliss personally?

  26. a week after calling for poulaton control for the mentally challenged and drug addicts.  Here’s an amusing quote: “so far I really don’t know what I’m doing . The few votes I’ve made so far I really didn’t know what I was voting for or against. Just looked at the people around me and went along with them.”

    Got to love those rugged individualists who actually THINK!!1!!1

    http://politicalwire.com/archi…

    Anyhoo, according to the New Hampshire Constitution, Art.] 16. [Vacancies in House, How Filled.] All intermediate vacancies, in the house of representatives may be filled up, from time to time, in the same manner as biennial elections are made.

    http://www.nh.gov/constitution…

  29. I’m gathering that auto production in Japan will be shut down for a week — but parts issues from affected supplier plants will slow production for a longer period of time.

    Assuming the just-in-time inventory model for Japan means parts shortages for at least certain cars,

    I’m reading some analysis that suggests a positive impact for US-based manufacturers, possibly starting in a couple of weeks or so (once cars in the current shipping pipeline are delivered).

    Unknown — how much does Detroit depend on parts deliveries from affected parts suppliers in areas affected by the earthquake/tsunami. (I assume dependence varies by model.)

    Bottom line: short term negative for west coast shipping (both directions), potential short term positive for US auto manufacturers who don’t depend on suppliers in affected areas.

    I’d hate to benefit from such tragedies, especially at the expense of people who are suffering so much right now, but that is part of life.

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