Author: DavidNYC

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Going forward, you’ll find all of SSP’s great content at DKE. Archives will remain available here at SSP, but comments, diaries, and new account creation have been disabled.  For more information on this transition, please check out this diary.

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Senate:

• MT-Sen: TPM’s headline says it all: “23rd Richest Member Of Congress: I’m ‘Struggling Like Everyone Else.'” Those words were indeed uttered by Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg, who is worth anywhere from $6,598,014 and $56,244,998. It’s not quite Fred Heineman, but it’s not exactly far off, either.

• NM-Sen (PDF): Republican robo-pollster Magellan has a new survey out for the GOP primary. They find ex-Rep. Heather Wilson at 59, Lt. Gov. John Sanchez at 17, teabagging businessman Greg Sowards at 2, 11 other and 11 undecided. The supposedly RINO Wilson has what seems like preposterously good favorables, 84-12, among members of her own party. The linked PDF has faves for a whole host of other candidates, including some who weren’t tested in the head-to-heads.

• NV-Sen: Joe Trippi’s really becoming the go-to guy for rich vanity candidates whom no one wants to see run, isn’t he? Fresh off the vomit-caked Jeff Greene debacle, Trippi’s been hired by wealthy lawyer Byron Georgiou, who so far as refused entreaties to clear a path for Rep. Shelley Berkley. Georgiou’s also arranged to bring on Dan Hart, a local consultant, and pollster Paul Maslin (as in Fairbank Maslin).

• WA-Sen, WA-Gov: Republican Rep. Dave Reichert suggested back in January that he might be thinking about a gubernatorial run, something he affirmed in a recent interview with a local tv station. What seems to be new is that he says he’s also thinking about a run against Sen. Maria Cantwell. I can’t imagine that working out well for him, and he’s also quoted as saying that the “hardest part” of adjusting to life in DC was “getting used to sitting on the airplane.” If he’s still grumbling about those transcontinental flights all these years later, then it sounds to me like he’d prefer the governor’s mansion to the Senate.

Gubernatorial:

• WV-Gov: Rick Thompson has a new spot specifically noting that “across the country, the rights of workers are under attack” – and promising that he’ll “stand up for workers” in West Virginia.

House:

• NH-01: Joanne Dowdell, who is described as a “Portsmouth businesswoman” and has had some involvement in national Dem politics (she was a DNC committeewoman), says she plans to go up against ex-Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in the Democratic primary. It sounds like her politics, by her own admission, are pretty similar to CSP’s, so I’m not really sure what the point of this is.

• NV-02: Gov. Brian Sandoval has set Sept. 13 as the date for the special election to replace Rep. Dean Heller. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Ross Miller will announce the rules for the special at a press conference later today. Oh, and Sharron Angle’s sent out a fundraising email (decrying the “left wing of the Republican Party”), so she’s obviously hoping Miller’s framework leaves the door open for her.

• NY-13: The New Yorker has just about the most fearsome fact-checking department in the English-speaking world, so if you’re going to call them liars, you’re probably going to get your ass handed to you. That’s exactly what’s happening to Rep. Mike Grimm, who called Evan Ratliff’s piece on his FBI days “fiction,” “a witch hunt,” and “a hatchet job.” Ratliff has responded, and in so doing nailed Grimm on a few mistruths of his own. I don’t know that this whole saga is going to have a huge impact in Grimm’s district (I think the Ryan vote is a much bigger deal), but there are still a lot of documents we haven’t seen. We may never see them, but they still loom out there like a sword of Damocles.

• NY-26: New ads from Jane Corwin and Crazy Jack Davis. Corwin’s touts her record on creating jobs, while Davis goes on a rampage, talking directly to the camera about how both parties give bailouts to Wall Street, but he “can’t be bought.” NWOTSOTB in both cases. Meanwhile, NARAL is endorsing Dem Kathy Hochul, but also no word as yet if money will follow.

Other Races:

• Wisconsin Recall: A local judge agreed with the Government Accountability Board that eight recall elections (so not including one for GOPer Rob Cowles) could get consolidated on July 12. Democrats had asked that the recalls against Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper be certified right away, since those petitions were turned in first, and they’re the two most-vulnerable Republicans, but the request was denied. Things may still get delayed if there are petition challenges, which are all but certain – indeed, Dems have already discovered the signature of a Democratic state Rep.’s long-dead father on one. (Republicans amusingly accused Democrats of planting the sig.)

The Journal Sentinel also has a look at state Assembly members who may run in these recalls, on both the Republican and Democratic sides. It’s a tempting proposition because it’s a free shot: These folks don’t have to give up their current seats in order to run. Some of these names have already announced, while others are still considering. And finally, WisPolitics has a roundup of fundraising numbers for all the recall targets.

Grab Bag:

• Dark Money: Democrats have finally followed the GOP’s lead and decided to create organizations to counter Karl Rove’s American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS. Former Obama aide Bill Burton and former Rahm Emanuel aide Sean Sweeney will head up “Priorities USA” and “Priorities USA Action,” with a goal of raising $100 million to help President Obama. These groups will be allowed to take in unlimited undisclosed donations. No word yet if they also plan on getting involved downballot.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Colorado: Election lawyers out west looking for work now have at least one redistricting battle they can probably look forward to. Steam is coming out of Republican ears now that they’ve seen the Dems’ new map, and I can’t imagine any sort of compromise taking place now. The map the Democrats are going with is one that they’ve released before, called “City Integrity 4”; you can find a PDF of the bill as formally introduced before the legislature here.

• Missouri: Finally, the Dems do something right in redistricting: Gov. Jay Nixon just vetoed the legislature’s last-minute compromise map, almost right after it landed on his desk. The CW said Nixon would wait until the very end of the legislative session to veto, to make an over-ride that much more difficult (or possibly push it into September), but it looks like Nixon chose instead to look publicly magnanimous. He’s asked the GOP to send him a new map before the session ends, which makes him look gracious. I suspect that he also knows they can’t over-ride, and his veto letter offered no specific complaints about the map, so he’s cleverly made it impossible for the Republicans to satisfy him.

The GOP could try to make Nixon look bad by forcing a second veto, but given how difficult it was to hammer out a deal between the House and Senate, I think they’d have a hard time sending him a map that looked any different from the one he just axed. So it would look like silly gamesmanship if they tried to put forward the exact same plan. (That didn’t exactly work out for Dick Saslaw in Virginia.) As long as the over-ride fails and Nixon sticks to his guns, this map will end up in court, which would count as a big win for Team Blue.

• Mississippi: I have to say, I never imagined this would work – but here we are. A three-judge federal court says they are “inclined” to agree with Democrats and the NAACP that state legislative elections should be held this year under maps that were approved in each chamber but not the other (and hence never signed into law), in order to correct serious one-person, one-vote imbalances. The court could still choose to allow elections under current lines, or draw its own map, but this seems to be the path of least resistance. Note that in VRA cases which go before three-judge trial court panels, appeals are taken directly to the Supreme Court – and the SCOTUS must rule on the case (they can’t kick it by declining certiorari), which is a real legal rarity.

• Nevada: Nevada Democrats have released their congressional map, but we can’t seem to find a copy of it online. If you see it anywhere, please let us know in comments.

• Virginia: Well, it’s a done deal. Gov. Bob McDonnell signed the new legislative maps into law. (You can see them here.) Now we move on to the congressional map. The GOP could (and I guess will) probably try to wait until 2012 to do that, since they’ll have a chance at re-taking the state Senate this fall. My view is that Democrats would be idiots to compromise and should take their chances with the voters this fall so that they can kick the map-making to the courts next year. Even if we get rocked this year, what’s the worst the Republicans can do to us? Draw an 8-3 map? That’s the only “compromise” they’ll accept now anyway, and even that might not pass VRA muster. So there’s no reason not to wait.

Site News:

• REMINDER! We’re moving over to Daily Kos Elections tomorrow, Tuesday, so bookmark our new home and be sure to create an account immediately, since there’s a 24-hour waiting period before you can post comments. Full details on the move here.

(Bumped – promoted by DavidNYC)

Guys, it’s time to shell out to help Dave’s Redistricting App. I mean it.

For two years, countless Swingnuts have drawn innumerable maps using Dave’s App, which filled a huge void in an enormously crucial way. Indeed, as we wade further and further into redistricting season, it’s almost impossible to imagine what things would be like without the app. If it weren’t for one man’s vision, energy, talent, and dedication, we’d still be mucking around with Microsoft Paint. In short, Dave’s has been a total game-changer for us, and we owe him a great deal.

Until now, we haven’t had a good way to show our appreciation for Dave’s generosity, but fortunately Dave’s app recently became a project of Progressive Congress – and we can support his efforts through his new partner to improve and expand the app. As Dave himself explained:

This means that more members and visitors of Progressive Congress will get to know about DRA and that more users of DRA will get to know about Progressive Congress. This means that the Progressive Congress team will be providing advice and guidance for DRA. (Some of Darcy [Burner]’s suggestions have already been included in the app, in fact.) This means that Progressive Congress and DRA will be teaming up to help you better understand what’s going on with redistricting and what you can do about it. And this means working together to make government better for the people!

In seven-and-a-half years of running SSP, I don’t think I’ve ever solicited money for anyone or anything other than Democratic candidates running for office. This is going to be my one big exception, and I’m going to be blunt here:

If you’ve ever drawn a map with Dave’s App, or enjoyed a diary that featured maps drawn with the app, you need to plunk down some change to support Dave.

It’s important that we support Dave’s hard work over the last two years and his continued work in the future, so any amount is appreciated. I know you can skip Starbucks for a week to find $5 or $10. (If a monetary contribution is genuinely beyond your means, then you should contact Dave to see how you can help with adding new data to the app.) And here’s a nice side-benefit: All contributions are tax-deductible.

I just threw down $100, and I hope everyone else here joins in. While there are many things which have made the Swing State Project a great site, I think it’s safe to say that Dave’s Redistricting App is definitely one of them, and I’m proud to support him. I hope you’ll do the same.

UPDATE: I just got a report from Progressive Congress, and we’ve raised $590 from 18 people so far. I’d love to hit $600 and 20 donors. Who can put us over the top?

Siena (PDF) (4/26-27, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kathy Hochul (D): 31

Jane Corwin (R): 36

Jack Davis (T): 23

Ian Murphy (G): 1

Undecided: 9

^{(MoE: ±4.5%)}

I have to say, I wasn’t expecting numbers like this, not at all, for a whole host of reasons. Republicans looked very unified in tapping Assemblywoman Jane Corwin – she was acceptable to the conservatives and even quite a few teabaggers, despite her establishment pedigree, and she also was personally very rich. Meanwhile, Democrats dithered, waiting weeks to pick a candidate after Corwin was already in the race. Furthermore, the one bona fide teabagger who hoped to run, Iraq war vet David Bellavia, screwed up his paperwork and failed to get on the ballot. And on top of that, Ian Murphy, the writer who achieved his 15 minutes with his fake David Koch prank call to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, decided to hop into the race on the newly-reconstituted Green Party line. And oh, yeah, the 26th is the most Republican district in the state. The GOP seemed poised to avoid the mistakes they’d made in the NY-20 and NY-23 specials. It didn’t seem promising for Dems.

But the one wild card has proven much wilder than I had anticipated: zillionaire nutball Crazy Jack Davis is having a much bigger impact than his shot-to-hell reputation would seem to warrant. Prior to this year, Davis had run for this seat in three successive cycles from 2004 to 2008, losing twice in the general and once in the primary – all three times as a Democrat. But he cut a strange figure for a Dem, sound like the most unhinged of right-wingers on his favorite issue, immigration. He also has a well-deserved reputation as a lunatic who is impossible to work with, abuses people, and can’t hold on to staff. Thus he earned the epithet “Crazy,” and he’s been Crazy Jack Davis for about as long as I’ve known of him.

He looked to cement that reputation a few months ago, when he decided he’d get into the mix for this seat yet again, following Rep. Chris Lee’s resignation. But this time, Davis wanted to score the Republican and Conservative Party lines – well, I told you he was crazy. He was quickly rebuffed by both, but this is where that unusual “T” line comes in next to his name in the blockquote at top. Thanks to his millions (he’s always spent his own money freely), Davis was easily able to get on the ballot as an independent, and cannily chose to name his ballot line the “Tea Party.” This caused an entertaining split among teabaggers in western New York, with the “real” teabaggers insisting that Davis was just trying to bogart their good name (yeah, I know, LOL)… but there was nothing they could do about it.

And thanks to his free-spending ways, it seems like Davis is screwing up what should have been a sure thing for Corwin. At the same time, he’s also hurting Hochul. Looking at the cross-tabs (PDF), Davis gets 24% of the Republican vote, 20% of the Democratic vote, and 27% of the independent vote. Rare to see a candidate with such cross-spectrum appeal! I figured Dems would be disgusted with him, and Republicans would want nothing to do with him given his Democratic past. But evidently that’s not the case, at least for everyone.

It’ll be very interesting to see how the major-party candidates react. Surely the campaign committees are doing their own polling, but even if it doesn’t match Siena’s, these numbers will have to make operatives second-guess themselves a bit. Does Corwin start attacking Davis? Or does she try to pound Hochul? Or both? As I see it, though, the strategy for Hochul is a lot simpler. As Siena notes:

They strongly oppose cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits to help close the deficit (59-38 percent); however, they strongly support increasing personal income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans (62-35 percent)….

Hochul’s most recent ad attacked Corwin on Medicare – Corwin said she’d have voted for the Ryan Republican budget – and I said the other day that she should make this her unrelenting theme for the final weeks of the campaign. The poll numbers bear that out. (I’m sure that Hochul won’t call for tax increases on the rich, despite that being super-popular in a red district, but that wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.)

We’ll also have to see if the DCCC and NRCC decide to get involved here. If Hochul can use Medicare the way ex-Rep. Scott Murphy beat Jim Tedisco over the head with the stimulus in the spring of 2009, this could be a real race – coupled, of course, with the Jack Davis factor. All of a sudden, things just got exciting in western New York.

UPDATE: I meant to include this new bit of news in the post, and was reminded in comments. Davis just said he would caucus with the GOP if he wins. That can only help him with would-be Republican voters and hurt him among Democrats. In other words, good news for us!

Senate:

• FL-Sen: Do you remember Craig Miller? I barely do. He’s the wealthy former steakhouse exec who was the Republican Plan C in the FL-24 primary last year… and in an amusing bit of synchronicity, came in third, behind now-Rep. Sandy Adams and the batshit nuts Karen Diebel. Hoping to fail upward, Miller is now looking at the Senate race and plans to decide “within the next few weeks.” I have no idea what he thinks he niche might be, and it’s not clear to me that he has the money to overwhelm the field.

• IN-Sen, IN-Gov: Former Rep. Tim Roemer says he’s stepping down as ambassador to India. Could this presage a return to Hoosier politics? I’m skeptical, as Dems already have legit candidates lining up for both marquee statewide races. (And for what it’s worth, an unnamed source told The Hill last month that Roemer wasn’t likely to run for Senate.)

• MA-Sen: This is just weird. Despite repeatedly saying he isn’t interested in running for Senate, Deval Patrick somehow keeps finding himself talking about the subject. This time, he said that he had talked with the President about other jobs, but wouldn’t say whether Obama had asked him to run against Scott Brown. Patrick again said he doesn’t want to run, and added: “I would say no to the president of the United States.”

• ND-Sen: When the Club for Growth takes aim at an otherwise top-tier Republican candidate, you know you have premium-grade cat fud ready to be served. Le Club’s target now is freshman Rep. Rick Berg, who went from a seemingly distant possibility to not-running-but-virtual-frontrunner status almost instantly a week ago. They’re accusing Berg of being insufficiently pro-dystopia, i.e., not supporting enough cuts to federal government spending. I really hope they can find a dog… er… cat for this fight.

• NV-Sen: Sometimes PPP deliberately polls for the lulz, and sometimes, the lulz find them. In this case, it’s the latter: Tom Jensen’s band of merry robodialers found Dean Heller beating Sharron Angle in a hypothetical GOP primary by a score of… LOL… 84-8. (“El Exigente, what more could you want?” “Their names.”) Meanwhile, on the Dem side, where there does appear to be an actual primary, Rep. Shelley Berkeley leads wealthy attorney Byron Georgiou by a 65-8 margin. Good times.

• PA-Sen: Apparently, there’s two things Quinnipiac won’t do: a) release sample compositions and b) test incumbents against hypothetical opponents whose names don’t start with “Generic.” Anyhow, Sen. Bob Casey has inched up to a 46-34 lead against “the Republican candidate.” He was 45-35 two months ago.

• UT-Sen: Speaking of the Club for Growth, they just put out their 2010 scorecard, and Orrin Hatch’s numbers really demonstrate the Club’s power. Despite a lifetime score of 74% (30th among Senators in office last year), Hatch managed to rack up a 97% rating last year, tying him with several other Republicans for third place. What a difference a sword of Damocles makes.

• VA-Sen: Hmm. Ultra-wingnut Del. Bob Marshall’s 2008 campaign manager just got hired by George Allen… and the dude didn’t even tell his old boss first. Marshall’s been looking at a possible Senate run, and I think he’s the best hope (albeit not a great hope) we have of knocking off Allen in the GOP primary, but it’s not clear what impact this will have on his plans. One positive tea-leaf: In response to the news, Marshall said, “You can tell who the candidates are not by where the consultants go, but where the volunteers go.”

Gubernatorial:

• PA-Gov: Uhh… did Gov. Tom Corbett just say that state universities sitting atop the Marcellus Shale should plug their budget gap by allowing exploitation of the natural gas reserves beneath them? Why yes he did. If you aren’t familiar with the deeply fraught issue of hydraulic fracturing (also known as “hydrofracking” or just “fracking”), this NYT piece is a good place to start. Fracking is a devastatingly poisonous method of extracting gas, and Pennsylvania is at the epicenter of the fracking debate. Indeed, the EPA is investigating a fracking spill that took place there just last week. UPDATE: Hah, sheez. Corbett literally lifted this idea from an episode of Saved by the Bell! NOT kidding! Click the link!

• WV-Gov: Former Republican SoS Betty Ireland is finally out with her first TV ad, which I think has a weird soundtrack, odd staccato pacing, and (at least in the version her campaign posted to YouTube) crappy audio quality. I think she could definitely lose.

House:

• AZ-06: Yesterday we noted that state House Speaker Kirk Adams was resigning his post. Later that day, he formally announced he was, as expected, running in the GOP primary in the open 6th CD. Retiring Sen. Jon Kyl immediately endorsed Adams, while Rep. Trent Franks endorsed Matt Salmon, who is also running for this post

• NV-02: Roll Call’s Kyle Trygstad does a nice job digging up some facts about a 1954 special election to replace Nevada Sen. Pat McCarran, who passed away in September of that year. (If you’ve ever flown to Vegas, that’s the guy the airport is named after.) There was some legal wrangling as to whether a special election was actually required, but once the state Supreme Court ruled yes, the parties selected their nominees by committee, not primary. That could possibly serve as precedent as SoS Ross Miller decides whether state law requires that parties choose their candidates, but Nevada’s current statutes were revised only a decade ago, so the McCarran case may not be applicable.

• NY-23: A few weeks ago, the NRCC mocked a batch of miniscule radio ad buys by the DCCC and said: “At what point does a campaign committee blush when launching a ‘paid advertising campaign?'” Apparently, that point must lie somewhere below $4,550, which is the amount the NRCC is spending on a tiny TV buy in Rep. Bill Owens’ district. (It’s some lame Pelosi-related attack.)

I’d also like to give some props to Steve Peoples of Roll Call for basically ignoring the contents of the ad and focusing on exactly what the NRCC is trying to accomplish here. I don’t know if he wrote the headline, but it can’t be what Republicans were hoping for: “NRCC Takes Turn With Small Ad Buy Targeting Earned Media.” And in referring a radio ad against Rep. Mike Ross that we noted the other day, Peoples used the kind of language you might find on SSP, saying that the NRCC “convinced a local paper to write a story about the radio buy but refused at the time to disclose the size of the investment.” (It turned out to be $2,550.) If you’re going to write up a story like this, this is how it should be written.

Other Races:

• IN-SoS: The GOP-held state legislature has backed off a bit on attempting to rewrite the law in order to get around the Charlie White mess. (If this is the first you’re hearing of the whole saga, I would suggest checking out our IN-SoS tag.) The proposed new law would give the governor the power to appoint replacement officers only on a prospective basis, so it won’t affect the White situation. However, the legislation will still prevent the GOP from losing their major-party status (which was keyed to the SoS race) if the worst happens.

• NJ-St. Sen.: The legal wrangling over Democrat Carl Lewis’s ballot eligibility has heated up quickly. Lewis has filed suits in both state and federal court, and a federal court judge has already ordered LG/SoS/Chris Christie goon Kim Guadagno to explain her decision booting Lewis from the ballot earlier this week. Lewis is still busy campaigning, and if he’s ultimately declared eligible, I think all this rigmarole might wind up helping him, given that it’s free media.

Redistricting:

• Colorado: I’m guessing that Republicans are wishing state Sen. Greg Brophy hadn’t cracked out of turn and admitted that proposed GOP maps had been deliberately “skewed to the right.” That certainly won’t help them when the entire matter winds up in court, which Republican state Rep. Don Coram acknowledged was inevitable anyway. In a bit worthy of Stephen Colbert, Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post writes: “Brophy said Republicans got nervous when they heard Democrats were pushing so-called competitive seats, which he said favor Democrats….” Ah, indeed, the facts do have a well-known liberal bias.

Connecticut: According to the Greenwich Time, Dem state House Speaker Christopher Donovan has his eye on Rep. Chris Murphy’s open 5th CD, and would very much like to have the blue stronghold of Bridgeport drawn into it. That would remove it from Rep. Jim Himes’s district, but if you look at a map, it’s rather hard to envision this happening without doing a lot of reshuffling. Of course, anything is possible, but given how minor CT’s population deviations are, a serious reconfiguration of the map would seem to be uncalled for.

• Indiana: The Hoosier State is poised to become the fourth to finalize a redistricting map. The Republican-held state legislature has given its approval to a new plan, which now goes to GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels for his signature.

• Massachusetts: A seemingly clever bit of politics by Scott Brown, but there’s a “but.” Brown sent a letter to the state legislature’s redistricting committee, advocating for a majority-minority congressional seat to be drawn in the Suffolk County region, and also to press for more maj-min districts in the state lege. Who knows whether the idiots in the legislature will listen to him, but Brown of course is simultaneously pushing for new district lines which will ultimately favor Republicans (by packing minorities) and, more importantly, he gets to look like he’s protecting minority interests, all at no cost to himself.

Here’s the “but”: Brown doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about. Rep. Mike Capuano, who would be most affected by Brown’s proposal, fired back, saying his 8th CD already is majority-minority. It’s about 54.5% “white” according to the Census, but that includes Hispanics who also identify as white, so the non-Hispanic white %age is almost certainly below 50%. (Some 19% of 8th CD residents identify as Hispanic, of any race.) Oops.

• Nevada: I’m not going to get into this one in too much detail (my brain can only hold so much redistricting-related information), but Nevada Republicans are now bitterly split over new maps that GOPers in the state Senate drew for the state Assembly. Why didn’t the Assembly draw its own maps? They did, but the morons who drew them were advised not to release them because lawyers thought they didn’t comply with the VRA. Meanwhile, Dems in both chambers worked together to release a joint set of plans. However, they still haven’t released their congressional map. Anyhow, you can find more details under the “Related Documents” sections at both links.

• Oklahoma: Unsurprisingly, the map that the state House unanimously approved appears ready to sail through the state Senate, too. Shira Toeplitz suggested in her writeup (which is a few days old) that the new plan could be signed into law this week, but it hasn’t actually been voted on by the full Senate as of this writing.

• Texas: The cat fud is ready to fly in Texas redistricting, where ruthless Republican leaders are prepared to run roughshod over their own incumbents in the aims of preserving and maximizing their advantage to the greatest extent possible. In other words, they’re staying true to the spirit of Tom DeLay. In the abstract sense, it’s a ruthlessness I admire, and I wish Dems would adopt it. In any case, I wouldn’t be surprised if the final maps pass in spite of a lot of GOP defections – though maybe a few horse heads in a few beds will solve that problem.

• Virginia: I’m glad to see that Republicans in the state Senate are as happy to act like sheep as Democrats in the state House. The Democrats’ new map passed yesterday by a 32-5 margin. Reading the linked article really makes me feel like this whole thing has been a grand kabuki, with Gov. Bob McDonnell playing everyone – even members of his own party – like puppets. McDonnell simply had to show he could extract a price from Democrats, and so he has. However, I note that the congressional map is now completely untethered from the legislative maps. If Democrats agree to an 8-3 map now, well, fuck them. Once McDonnell signs the lege plans into law, there’s no going back, and there’s no reason at all not to force the courts to draw a federal map.

Other Races:

• Philly Mayor: Even though several labor organizations endorsed his crazy ex-con nobody of an opponent, Philadelphia’s largest union, the Federation of Teachers, came out for incumbent Michael Nutter earlier this week. But Nutter’s been having problems with the municipal unions, with the city’s white collar union (known as District Council 47… I’ve always wondered where they get these numbers) declining to endorse. (Several others have either backed Milton Street or no one at all.)

• Wisconsin Recall: As expected, Democrats filed signatures against Rob Cowles, making him the sixth Republican to face a possible recall election. Republicans have filed against three Dems and missed the deadline against three others. Meanwhile, the state’s Government Accountability Board asked a judge to give them more time to review the petitions, which would allow the agency to consolidate the elections on July 12. However, the MSNBC article linked first in this bullet suggests the elections may not take place until the fall.

• WI Sup. Ct.: Under state law, the Supreme Court recount must be completed very quickly, by May 9. It’s apparently only the third statewide recount in Wisconsin history. The most recent one took place in 1989… and the one before that in 1858! Unsurprisingly, things are off to a bumpy start in Waukesha, though fortunately the now-notorious Kathy Nickolaus has recused herself from the process.

Grab Bag:

• EMILY: EMILY’s List announced its first four endorsements of the cycle: Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01), Lois Frankel (FL-22), Christie Vilsack (IA-04), and Ann McLane Kuster (NH-02).

• Pennsylvania: PPP did something on their new PA poll that I like, and that I hope we’ll see more of: They included a statewide generic House ballot, which in this case showed respondents favoring Dems by a 42-36 margin, despite weak numbers for Obama.

• Town Halls: With Congress on recess and members back home doing town halls, we’re seeing some turnabout from the summer of 2009, with motivated liberals showing up to castigate Republicans for their votes to kill Medicare. Ordinarily, this would be the sort of topic we’d love to cover in the Daily Digest, but the good news/bad news is that there are just too many of them for us to keep track of. What’s more, other outlets are doing a great job of covering them, like ThinkProgress and the DCCC.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Michigan: We’ve been saying this for some time ourselves, but now the MI state lege is hearing it, too: In order to preserve Detroit’s VRA seats, a redistricting expert for the legislative black caucus agrees that new district lines will have to be drawn that cross the traditional “8 Mile” boundary separating the city of Detroit from its suburbs. Michigan’s maps must be complete by Nov. 1.

• Missouri: Republicans finally reached an agreement on a map at the 11th hour, sending it to Gov. Jay Nixon. (You can see the new map here.) Democrats in the state House are urging Nixon to veto the plan, where the map fell 13 votes short of a veto-proof majority. The governor has not yet said what he’ll do, but there’s also a dispute brewing as to whether the legislature will be even able to schedule an over-ride vote this session, or if they’ll have to wait until September.

• Nevada: Republicans have released their proposed maps, which you can find here. Democrats will put theirs out later today. Anjeanette Damon describes the congressional map as a 2-2 plan, but you be the judge.

• Texas: Score one for Rep. Lloyd Doggett: He snarfed up a copy of what he believes is the congressional map that Republican congressmen have proposed to leaders of the legislature. A copy is here (PDF). An unnamed source tells the Austin Statesman that they think the map is out-dated, but that Republican plans for splitting Travis County (home of Austin) four ways, as shown by the map, are in fact correct.

• Virginia: Well, it sure sounds like the Democrats have caved on the Virginia Senate map. A deal is reportedly done, and the key changes are summarized by the Richmond Times-Dispatch as follows:

Under the deal, the proposed new Democratic-leaning district in the Richmond area would be eliminated, according to Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan. Republicans would lose one of two senators in Virginia Beach and new districts would be created in Loudoun County and east of Lynchburg.

Also, the idiot Democrats in the House voted yet again for the newest Republican gerrymander (which makes mostly cosmetic changes). How stupid are these people? You don’t fucking vote for the other side’s gerrymander. I mean, it was one thing to act like this the first time around, when it appeared a multi-way deal was in place. But now these schmucks are like chickens voting to elect Col. Sanders. Hope you enjoy getting dipped in 11 herbs and spices and getting deep-fried to your doom, morans.

Senate:

• FL-Sen: George LeMieux is unsurprisingly trying to distance himself from the label “Charlie Crist Republican,” but all I can say is… good luck with that. The Miami Herald has a lengthy look at just how close the two men were, and while Crist himself won’t say a word against LeMieux, other former staffers are more than happy to detail just how tight their working relationship was.

• MA-Sen: Hey, Richie Neal: Shut the fuck up. Seriously. What is it with Democratic congressmen from Massachusetts who love to crack out of turn? First Barney Frank, and now this crap. And yeah, you’ll have to click the link if you want to know what I’m worked up about.

• TX-Sen: Over at Burnt Orange Report, Karl-Thomas Musselman, a long-time friend of SSP, has a good piece about Democrats’ flawed strategies in Texas statewide races over the last decade, and how Team Blue should approach things differently going forward.

Gubernatorial:

• IA-Gov: In a way, this might be the roughest “do-over” poll of all. Former Dem Gov. Chet Culver lost by double digits last fall, the worst performance of any incumbent governor, yet even he now beats Terry Branstad 48-46 in a hypothetical PPP rematch.

• PA-Gov: GOP Gov. Tom Corbett’s disapproval rating has soared in the past couple of months. He was at 39-11 in February, and is now at 39-37, according to Quinnipiac. I guess this means not a single new person in the state of PA grew to approve of Corbett in two months!

House:

• AZ-06, AZ-Sen: It’s getting hard to keep track of what Republican Russell Pearce’s plans are. The author of Arizona’s notorious immigration law supposedly was out of the running for the open Senate seat, was heavily talked up for the open 6th CD, then was talked down for it, and is now saying he’s leaving both doors open. He says he wants to stay on through the end of the 2012 legislative session, though, and Arizona has a resign-to-run law, so who knows.

On the other hand, House Speaker Kirk Adams just announced that he will resign from the legislature, which can only mean he’s gearing up for a run in the 6th. (We’ve mentioned his name a couple of times before as a possibility.) It’s going to be a crowded GOP primary, as the field already includes ex-Rep. Matt Salmon (who used to hold this seat, more or less) and former state Senate majority leader Chuck Gray.

• IA-04: These are statewide numbers, but still interesting: Steve King is the least-popular member of Iowa’s congressional delegation, with 27-34 favorables. Christie Vilsack, meanwhile, is at 38-23. Certainly these scores within the new fourth district would look different, but unless there is some wild base of support for King in northwest Iowa, I can’t see how you wouldn’t prefer to have Vilsack’s numbers.

• NC-11: Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell says he’ll challenge Rep. Health Shuler in the Democratic primary next year. Shuler, thanks to his vote against healthcare reform, took just 61% in a primary last year against Aixa Wilson, who did not even file any FEC reports.

• ND-AL: With a Rick Berg run for Senate looking likely, people are starting to look at filling his at-large House seat. On the Republican side, state House Majority Leader Al Carlson said he’s considering a race.  Other possible names, according to the linked piece, are state Sen. Tony Grindberg and Tax Commissioner Cory Fong. I wonder if PSC Commish Brian Kalk might slide down from the Senate race, too.

• NV-02: Oh well, I can’t always be right! Sharron Angle shot down an unsourced rumor in the LVRJ that she’d run as an independent in the special election to replace Dean Heller if she isn’t chosen as the GOP nominee. (She won’t be.)

• NY-13: Now it’s Mike Grimm’s turn to tell his side of the story about his instantly notorious nightclub incident from 1999. Meanwhile, NYC Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio is calling on the NYPD and DoJ to release their records from their investigations of the matter. Not really sure why DeBlas, of all people, is inserting himself into this one, except perhaps to try to take a GOP scalp as he eyes the 2013 mayoral race.

• OR-01: Here’s another interesting bit of sub-text to the whole David Wu saga: Nike. The sneaker company has apparently never forgiven Wu for his vote against a bill that would have expanded trade with China back in 2000, and Nike’s chairman endorsed Republican Rob Cornilles last year. (The company also donated to him via their PAC.) It’ll probably be easier to get rid of Wu in the Democratic primary, though, so Nike may decide to get involved yet again.

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for long time, but with our pending move to Daily Kos, I figured now was definitely the right time. I’m putting together a list of terms and abbreviations that are commonly used at SSP but may not be super-familiar to newcomers. (They range from pretty common ones like DNC to home-grown specials like NWOTSOTB.) I think this will be a handy reference list (and one you can readily link to when explaining things to new people), but I’m sure I’ve left things off. So I’d really like your help in adding new terms (and improving any of the definitions below). Thanks!

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1Q (or Q1), 2Q, etc.: First Quarter, Second Quarter, etc. Refers to the quarterly periods at the end of which campaigns must submit fundraising reports to the FEC. Note: Some organizations must file reports more frequently. Also, campaigns usually have to file additional reports around election time, including primaries.

CD: Congressional District.

DCCC: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

DGA: Democratic Governors Association.

DLCC: Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. Not to be confused with the defunct DLC (the Democratic Leadership Council).

DNC: Democratic National Committee.

DSCC: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

FEC: Federal Elections Commission. Tasked with ensuring compliance with our nation’s election laws.

GOP: Grand Old Party – i.e., the Republicans.

IE: Independent Expenditure. An expenditure “expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate” made by an outside group. IEs may be made in unlimited amounts. (Though groups making them have to comply with the relevant laws that govern their fundraising.) Groups which make IEs are generally prohibited by law from coordinating with the campaign they are supporting. IE reports can be found here.

MoE: Margin of Error. A statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in a survey’s results, usually given in the form of plus-or-minus a particular percentage. Used in describing polls. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one should have that the poll’s reported results are close to the “true” figures. See also “N.”

N: Mathematical notation used to denote sample size, i.e., the number of respondents contacted for a particular poll. The greater the n, the lower the margin of error. See also “MoE.”

NRCC: National Republican Congressional Committee.

NRSC: National Republican Senatorial Committee.

NWOTSOTB: No Word On The Size Of The Buy. Many television and radio ads are released online without any information about just how much is being spent to put them on the air. This is because campaigns and political organizations often try to get media coverage for new ads that are backed with only very small buys. (In other words, very few actual voters will see them.) If there’s no word on the size of the buy, it will often (but not always) mean that the buy is small. This happens so often we had to create our own acronym for it, because typing the whole phrase out every time was starting to cause our hands to fall off.

PVI: Partisan Voting Index. A measure created by the Cook Political Report that compares the presidential vote in each congressional district to the presidential vote nationwide. A PVI of D+5, for instance, means the district voted five points more Democratic than the nation as a whole; R+5 means it voted five points more Republican. More information is available here.

RNC: Republican National Committee.

RGA: Republican Governors Association.

Schrödinger’s Seat: A district which has borders that, due to reapportionment and/or redistricting, are not yet known, but which candidates nonetheless are considering running for. Once the district lines are known, such candidates might find themselves in a very sweet spot – or they might find themselves without a district to run in.

Some Dude: Some candidates start out with certain built-in advantages: They already hold office, they have personal wealth, or they have a prominent public profile. Some Dude has none of these. If you Google Some Dude’s name, you’ll find very little information-probably just the news article or blog post where they were first mentioned as a possible candidate. A good hint you’re dealing with a Some Dude is that they’re described as an “activist” or “Tea Party member” in press accounts. Note: Some Dudes sometimes win!

I know you’re shocked:

Citing Nevada’s need for “an experienced voice in Washington, D.C.,” Gov. Brian Sandoval announced Wednesday that he will appoint Rep. Dean Heller to fill the vacancy of retiring Sen. John Ensign, whose resignation becomes official May 3.

“Dean is an experienced representative who is ready for the responsibilities of this office, and who will work hard, not just for Nevada, but for the entire nation,” Sandoval said in a statement.

“Just as Senator John Ensign fought for states’ rights and sound economic policies, Dean will speak out for the concerns of everyday Nevadans,” he said. “I am confident he will help get Nevada working again.”

The only surprising thing to me is that Sandoval actually mentioned Ensign by name, but Dave Catanese has the governor’s full statement, which ever-so-subtly jabs the resigning senator by calling Heller a man of “deep personal integrity.”

Anyhow, now that this is all but over with, we can move on to the craziness that will ensue in the special election to fill Heller’s 2nd CD seat. Should be some good times.