Campaign and Election News – Covering Key Races Around the Country
Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?
281 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”
to the FINAL FOUR………….
It was set to be enacted on the 25th, but that is delayed. The judge states that it seems that if they did indeed violate Open Meetings as evidence indicates, such a violation would outweigh the value of enacting the bill. The A-G will, of course, appeal this even though he was hoping that Judge Vinison down in FL would put an in injuncion on HCR.
He and other negotators indicated that he could scale back the cuts to the original GOP proposal (i.e. an austere ~35 billion instead of the destructive ~61 billion) and pass it with roughly half of his caucus (the pragmatic side) and the majority of the Dem caucus.
And I’m still a little shocked to see that the DC pundits are now realizing NV-02 may be competitive! 😉
Politico article on American Crossroads and all of those dark money groups Democrats have nothing on:
Crossroads’ tax status – as a “social action” network, effectively a charity – allows the group to keep its donors secret, as it does for the other groups as well. But it also requires them to prove to the IRS that they deserve that special, non-political status, and the perks that go along with it. They do so by balancing out the millions spent on campaign ads with millions more spent on issue ads, which sound almost exactly like the campaign ads.
Does anyone remember Republican Danny Tarkanian slamming Republican Sue Lowden over and over and over again in last year’s U.S. Senate race for having contributed to Democrat Harry Reid 30 years ago when he was in Congress?
Well guess who Mr. Republican just endorsed in the Las Vegas mayor’s race? Republican George Harris? No. Republican Victor Chaltiel? No.
According to RalstonFlash, Tark yesterday endorsed Democrat-turned-independent Carolyn Goodman.
And ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!! She and Oscar endorsed Harry REID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There goes Baby Tark’s chances of winning any other GOP primary ever again. 😉
Not only was she hired to a state position, but she is being paid 27% more than her predecessor.
In all of American history, there has never been progressive nominee for President who made his/her political reputation from west of the Texas/North Dakota strip of states, except Republican John C. Fremont in 1856. Democrats have never even nominated a westerner.
At the same time, the mountain west and southwest has definite blueing tendencies, which pretty likely would be encouraged if a westerner emerged as a party leader.
So who could be such a nominee, and how to get there? I don’t mean just throw out a name of some good person, but… for example, most obvious choice, Gabrielle Giffords is elected Senator in 2012, and then runs for the Presidency in 2016. (I would say it isn’t plausible that she runs if just a House member. Likewise, Kamala Harris has no path to be the nominee in 2016.)
Brian Schweitzer and Jeff Merkley would be other obvious choices, Tom and Mark Udall likely too old… but besides these folks, who else? Senator Martin Heinrich?
The second one looks like something one of our posters here came up with. It’s one of the best options Democrats could push for.
part of the artice:
In the Senate committee, the partisan balance is 4-4. There has been a commitment made by some senators to not utilize a little-used Senate rule that would allow a bill to be pulled out of committee, so a majority vote would appear needed to advance in the upper chamber.
Who was the most recent president to come from the house of representatives? (i.e. they couldn’t serve in ay other positions in between their election to president no senator, governors, or directors of the CIA, etc.)
BONUS: list all of them
how the GOP has Scott Walker and Randy Hopper in Wisconsin and Sharon Runner in California? (Although in all fairness, Jerry Springer is a Democrat) how long till they get a Jumper or Crawler?
This blog post from National Journal lists Pam Gulleson, a former state director and chief of staff to Dorgan and currently a state represenative is giving the race a close look, and Kristin Hedger, who was also a former Dorgan aide and the 2006 nominee for Secretary of State, as considering a run. It also mentions the usual names, like Heidi Heitkamp, but not, for some reason, Jasper Schneider.
I don’t remember hearing Gulleson’s name before, but I do remember hearing about Hedger. Perhaps it was the year more than anything else, but she came within eight points of defeating a long-serving Secretary of State when she was only 26 and a first-time candidate. That’s pretty impressive. Now, she’s obviously older, and she’s been an executive at her family’s business Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing. If she’s the candidate, perhaps she could play the whole “I’m a business person, not a career politician” angle effectively.
Suffice it to say, I realize it won’t be easy to keep this seat, but I don’t think there’s been particular sharp turn to the right in the state. If we can find a candidate that is willing to work as hard as Tom Perriello and can support him or her thoroughly, I wouldn’t be surprised if we can keep the seat as long as it’s not a bad year. There’s no reason not to try. Hopefully, we’ll be hearing something sooner rather than later, as the article hints.
Michigan’s largest teachers union is stirring up possible teacher strikes – perhaps a statewide strike – to protest what the union calls attacks by Gov. Rick Snyder and the Republican-led Legislature on unions, school funding and middle-class taxpayers.
A letter by Michigan Education Association President Iris Salters to 1,100 locals asks them whether the union should authorize “job action,” up to and including illegal strikes, to “increase pressure on our legislators.”
The union and other education advocates have criticized Snyder’s proposal to cut funding to schools by $470 per pupil as excessive.
…
Pratt said if approved by members, the union actions could range from informational picketing to strikes.
Salters’ letter states it would not be possible for schools to replace all or most school employees in the state, should they have an illegal strike – suggesting a statewide action.
…
Snyder’s personally not anywhere in the same league of obnoxious as Kasich or Walker, but they’ve ruined it for everyone, now, it seems.
Not really seeing much net change that can solely be attributed to redistricting next year, largely on account of Republicans focusing on protecting their over-extended majority and Democrats not having much chance for offense with the loss of legislatures. However, the odds do seem to favor us gaining a net handful of seats just from redistricting.
Overall, the biggest change in a single state due to redistricting is guaranteed to be Illinois which has an 11-8 GOP majority under an old incumbent-protection map which the new Dem map-drawers can take an axe to. Plus Obama will be at the top of the ticket as Republicans try to defend districts he will be winning by double digits and you see how badly they will get screwed. The end result could easily be an 11-7 or 12-6 Dem majority.
The next biggest shift is likely to be California where I’m guessing the commission will draw a map much more competitive than the old incumbent-protection map, which clearly favors us (since very few of our incumbents are in swingy districts whereas most of their incumbents are). We could knock off 2-4 incumbents in a new map (probably would have been more were it not for the commission drawing it).
Texas and Florida are likely to be washes as there are no vulnerable Democratic incumbents left to attack, and the new seats will probably split 50-50 on account of where the growth has been, and due to Republican attempts to create new Dem vote sinks to shore up their new incumbents.
LA and MA will cancel each other, and OH and NY will be bipartisan losses.
After that, there’s a bunch of states where Democrats and Republicans have a chance to gain, lose, or flip a single seat through an edge in redistricting, even in commission states where the outcome seems likely to favor one party, or in other cases of split control where one side has the upper hand based on the reality of any compromise map…the GOP has the advantage in IN, NC, MI, PA, UT, SC, MO, and GA, and Dems have the advantage in WA, WV, MD, IA, NJ, and NV. I can’t really peg who has the advantage in commission-drawn AZ yet for the new seat. I don’t expect any other states to see any net change in delegation purely due to the new maps that will be drawn.
So all together, we gain maybe 4-6 seats through redistricting alone (mostly due to IL and CA) and Republicans lose a similar amount. Not too bad, but we will be hard pressed to gain enough to take control of the House, given how Republicans will be protecting a lot of their recent gains.
Excitement building…
The expectation is that the first map proposed by the Legislative Services Agency will look something close to the one Bleeding Heartland user ragbrai08 discussed here. The first district will include the current population centers of IA-01 (Quad Cities, Dubuque, Waterloo/Cedar Falls), plus some other counties in NE Iowa, including the Mason City area. The second district will include Cedar Rapids/Iowa City and much of SE Iowa. The third district will include the Des Moines area and most of the surrounding counties. The fourth district will be most of the western half of Iowa.
The big question is whether Iowa Republicans (who control the state House and the governor’s chair) would accept that kind of map. It’s not great for Tom Latham (R, IA-04). They might raise some of the same objections used regarding the first map proposed in 2001. The GOP-controlled legislature rejected that map; the next option had a better district for Latham.
And this is something fun I discovered, Cook County, MN, which is the NE tip, was won by Dayton in 2000 by 5%, and in 2010, he won it by 27%. That’s some shit. Going through the numbers over the last decade for every race shows a pretty decisive shift some swing (Bush managed to win it in 2000) to solid DFL just like it’s sister counties, St. Louis and Lake.
It isn’t a secret.
Did you know that, other than Obama, only Jimmy Carter has gone from a state legislative seat to the Presidency since WWII? I was thinking of looking at some female state legislators, but saw a post on the NCSL blog to this effect: Of the 23 presidents who have been state legislators, 14 served before the civil war, and only Teddy Roosevelt, Harding, Coolidge, and FDR served during the 20th century.
Perhaps this is just a coincidence along the lines of the long lack of Senator-Presidents, but thought it was worth noting, regarding thinking about future candidates.
Has anyone heard about this? The paper charges for content.
to the FINAL FOUR………….
It was set to be enacted on the 25th, but that is delayed. The judge states that it seems that if they did indeed violate Open Meetings as evidence indicates, such a violation would outweigh the value of enacting the bill. The A-G will, of course, appeal this even though he was hoping that Judge Vinison down in FL would put an in injuncion on HCR.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…
Also, Boehner’s going to need more Maalox.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…
He and other negotators indicated that he could scale back the cuts to the original GOP proposal (i.e. an austere ~35 billion instead of the destructive ~61 billion) and pass it with roughly half of his caucus (the pragmatic side) and the majority of the Dem caucus.
Chris Cillizza named us #10 in his “Top 10 States to Watch in Redistricting” List! For one, it’s nice to see us not on another list of worst schools, worst housing market, or worst something else…
And I’m still a little shocked to see that the DC pundits are now realizing NV-02 may be competitive! 😉
Politico article on American Crossroads and all of those dark money groups Democrats have nothing on:
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/s…
Chris G now really is on TV!
Meanwhile, here’s the ad I’ve been catching quite a bit on Cox Cable lately:
And she got a couple more celebrity endorsements…
But one is leading Chuck Muth to stir up plenty of controversy on the far right.
And ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!! She and Oscar endorsed Harry REID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There goes Baby Tark’s chances of winning any other GOP primary ever again. 😉
Not only was she hired to a state position, but she is being paid 27% more than her predecessor.
http://addins.wkow.com/blogs/s…
Assume in 2016 that neither Biden or Hillary run.
In all of American history, there has never been progressive nominee for President who made his/her political reputation from west of the Texas/North Dakota strip of states, except Republican John C. Fremont in 1856. Democrats have never even nominated a westerner.
At the same time, the mountain west and southwest has definite blueing tendencies, which pretty likely would be encouraged if a westerner emerged as a party leader.
So who could be such a nominee, and how to get there? I don’t mean just throw out a name of some good person, but… for example, most obvious choice, Gabrielle Giffords is elected Senator in 2012, and then runs for the Presidency in 2016. (I would say it isn’t plausible that she runs if just a House member. Likewise, Kamala Harris has no path to be the nominee in 2016.)
Brian Schweitzer and Jeff Merkley would be other obvious choices, Tom and Mark Udall likely too old… but besides these folks, who else? Senator Martin Heinrich?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Next week’s Census releases.
Almost done.
http://www.thecitywire.com/?q=…
http://talkbusiness.net/assets…
http://talkbusiness.net/assets…
The second one looks like something one of our posters here came up with. It’s one of the best options Democrats could push for.
part of the artice:
In the Senate committee, the partisan balance is 4-4. There has been a commitment made by some senators to not utilize a little-used Senate rule that would allow a bill to be pulled out of committee, so a majority vote would appear needed to advance in the upper chamber.
Will the Dems actually follow through with this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03…
Who was the most recent president to come from the house of representatives? (i.e. they couldn’t serve in ay other positions in between their election to president no senator, governors, or directors of the CIA, etc.)
BONUS: list all of them
how the GOP has Scott Walker and Randy Hopper in Wisconsin and Sharon Runner in California? (Although in all fairness, Jerry Springer is a Democrat) how long till they get a Jumper or Crawler?
This blog post from National Journal lists Pam Gulleson, a former state director and chief of staff to Dorgan and currently a state represenative is giving the race a close look, and Kristin Hedger, who was also a former Dorgan aide and the 2006 nominee for Secretary of State, as considering a run. It also mentions the usual names, like Heidi Heitkamp, but not, for some reason, Jasper Schneider.
I don’t remember hearing Gulleson’s name before, but I do remember hearing about Hedger. Perhaps it was the year more than anything else, but she came within eight points of defeating a long-serving Secretary of State when she was only 26 and a first-time candidate. That’s pretty impressive. Now, she’s obviously older, and she’s been an executive at her family’s business Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing. If she’s the candidate, perhaps she could play the whole “I’m a business person, not a career politician” angle effectively.
Suffice it to say, I realize it won’t be easy to keep this seat, but I don’t think there’s been particular sharp turn to the right in the state. If we can find a candidate that is willing to work as hard as Tom Perriello and can support him or her thoroughly, I wouldn’t be surprised if we can keep the seat as long as it’s not a bad year. There’s no reason not to try. Hopefully, we’ll be hearing something sooner rather than later, as the article hints.
http://hotlineoncall.nationalj…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
The Wall Street Journal has a good run down on the race:
http://online.wsj.com/article/…
Anybody know anything about any of the candidates other than Luther?
Rick, Rick, Rick; you’re doing it all wrong…
Snyder’s personally not anywhere in the same league of obnoxious as Kasich or Walker, but they’ve ruined it for everyone, now, it seems.
Not really seeing much net change that can solely be attributed to redistricting next year, largely on account of Republicans focusing on protecting their over-extended majority and Democrats not having much chance for offense with the loss of legislatures. However, the odds do seem to favor us gaining a net handful of seats just from redistricting.
Overall, the biggest change in a single state due to redistricting is guaranteed to be Illinois which has an 11-8 GOP majority under an old incumbent-protection map which the new Dem map-drawers can take an axe to. Plus Obama will be at the top of the ticket as Republicans try to defend districts he will be winning by double digits and you see how badly they will get screwed. The end result could easily be an 11-7 or 12-6 Dem majority.
The next biggest shift is likely to be California where I’m guessing the commission will draw a map much more competitive than the old incumbent-protection map, which clearly favors us (since very few of our incumbents are in swingy districts whereas most of their incumbents are). We could knock off 2-4 incumbents in a new map (probably would have been more were it not for the commission drawing it).
Texas and Florida are likely to be washes as there are no vulnerable Democratic incumbents left to attack, and the new seats will probably split 50-50 on account of where the growth has been, and due to Republican attempts to create new Dem vote sinks to shore up their new incumbents.
LA and MA will cancel each other, and OH and NY will be bipartisan losses.
After that, there’s a bunch of states where Democrats and Republicans have a chance to gain, lose, or flip a single seat through an edge in redistricting, even in commission states where the outcome seems likely to favor one party, or in other cases of split control where one side has the upper hand based on the reality of any compromise map…the GOP has the advantage in IN, NC, MI, PA, UT, SC, MO, and GA, and Dems have the advantage in WA, WV, MD, IA, NJ, and NV. I can’t really peg who has the advantage in commission-drawn AZ yet for the new seat. I don’t expect any other states to see any net change in delegation purely due to the new maps that will be drawn.
So all together, we gain maybe 4-6 seats through redistricting alone (mostly due to IL and CA) and Republicans lose a similar amount. Not too bad, but we will be hard pressed to gain enough to take control of the House, given how Republicans will be protecting a lot of their recent gains.
Excitement building…
The expectation is that the first map proposed by the Legislative Services Agency will look something close to the one Bleeding Heartland user ragbrai08 discussed here. The first district will include the current population centers of IA-01 (Quad Cities, Dubuque, Waterloo/Cedar Falls), plus some other counties in NE Iowa, including the Mason City area. The second district will include Cedar Rapids/Iowa City and much of SE Iowa. The third district will include the Des Moines area and most of the surrounding counties. The fourth district will be most of the western half of Iowa.
The big question is whether Iowa Republicans (who control the state House and the governor’s chair) would accept that kind of map. It’s not great for Tom Latham (R, IA-04). They might raise some of the same objections used regarding the first map proposed in 2001. The GOP-controlled legislature rejected that map; the next option had a better district for Latham.
And this is something fun I discovered, Cook County, MN, which is the NE tip, was won by Dayton in 2000 by 5%, and in 2010, he won it by 27%. That’s some shit. Going through the numbers over the last decade for every race shows a pretty decisive shift some swing (Bush managed to win it in 2000) to solid DFL just like it’s sister counties, St. Louis and Lake.
It isn’t a secret.
Did you know that, other than Obama, only Jimmy Carter has gone from a state legislative seat to the Presidency since WWII? I was thinking of looking at some female state legislators, but saw a post on the NCSL blog to this effect: Of the 23 presidents who have been state legislators, 14 served before the civil war, and only Teddy Roosevelt, Harding, Coolidge, and FDR served during the 20th century.
Perhaps this is just a coincidence along the lines of the long lack of Senator-Presidents, but thought it was worth noting, regarding thinking about future candidates.
Has anyone heard about this? The paper charges for content.
http://politicalscoop.wmur.com…
Does she run as an Indy or Dem? GOP sure wouldn’t invite her for coffee.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice up for reelection.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/…
The Wall Street Journal has a write-up on DIY redistricting, including Dave’s App. They mention SaoMagnifico’s Missouri map and abgin’s famous New York map. (And seeing SSP comments quoted in the WSJ probably made my night.)