Author: DavidNYC

Hard to believe we’re seeing any Republican anywhere pining for the good ol’ Bush days, but Bob McDonnell went there:

Many of you probably remember after 9/11 we did something to stimulate the economy then, too. You know what we did? We cut taxes. President Bush put in a ten-year tax-cut on everything from the death tax to capital gains tax, and it was followed by an unprecedented period of economic recovery and economic growth. In fact, it almost overheated the economy through about 2006. So, I think that’s the way you stimulate business. And that’s the kind of governor that I’m going to be – to reduce those impediments to entrepreneurship, to let small businesses grow and thrive and create some opportunity.

Maybe tax cuts have tested well in McDonnell’s internal polling. But I refuse to believe that Bush nostalgia sells well to anyone but the most hardcore bitter-enders.

Tonight’s vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act was the closest so far on a final bill in the House this year. The legislation passed by just seven votes (219-212), with eight Republican “yeas” providing the margin. Forty-four Democrats voted no. The Republicans in favor were you usual handful of threatened “moderates,” with Chris Smith of New Jersey being the closest thing to an outlier:

Meanwhile, the Democrats opposed were almost entirely from conservative districts, with a few liberal purity votes and a classic Artur Davis defection thrown in:

Among Dems in D+ seats that we don’t typically see on lists like this, Pete Stark called the bill “watered-down,” Visclosky said it would cost jobs in the Northern Indiana steel industry, Jim Costa’s objection is inscrutable, and Jerry Costello has nothing on his website, though a tradmed story paraphrased him as believing the legislation would “result in higher electric bills.”

Oh boy:

Republican Rick Lazio, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000, is planning to run for governor of New York next year, his spokesman said Thursday.

“He fully intends to,” said Barney Keller when asked if Lazio was running.

Lazio has made no public announcement and Keller said the former congressman from Long Island is still deciding when to make the decision formal. Lazio has formed a campaign committee and his website is soliciting contributions.

In 2000, Hillary Clinton flattened Rick Lazio by twelve points – and the state, while very blue, is even more Dem now. Any Dem ought to be able to steamroll him today. The guy has been out of politics for almost a decade, and currently works at JPMorgan/Chase, at a time when the Wall Street brand isn’t exactly selling like hotcakes. Buuut… sadly, we don’t have just any Dem. We have Gov. David Paterson, whom Marist had losing to the Rickster, 40-37. (The same poll showed Cuomo up by a punishing 67-22 margin.) The thought of Gov. Lazio gives me the heaves.

I can’t imagine Lazio and Rudy fighting it out in a primary, so either this means Rudy ain’t running (what I’ve always suspected), or Lazio will go for a hike on the Appalachian trail (it runs through New York) if Rudy enters. And, once more, I cannot resist this “Zagat’s” review of the guy:

RaceTracker: NY-Gov

Franklin & Marshall College (pdf) (6/16-21, registered voters, no trendlines):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 33

Joe Sestak: 13

Undecided: 48

(MoE: ±6.1%)

These numbers seem a little hinky – not only is the MoE pretty portly, but half undecided? No other poll has shown the Democratic electorate that indecisive. More interesting are Specter’s favorables, which sunk from 48-24 in March (before his switcheroo) to just 31-37 now. His job approvals have also crashed (52-37 to 34-55) as did his re-elects (40-46 to to 28-57).

Is this just a weird outlier? Or have Pennsylvanians grown seriously discontent with Arlen? Either way, I still maintain that he’d be very vulnerable to a Sestak primary – and if there’s any truth to these numbers, Specter’s in a world of trouble.

RaceTracker: PA-Sen

Quinnipiac University (6/16-21, registered voters, 5/5-11 in parens):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 23

Carolyn Maloney (D): 27

Undecided: 44

(MoE: ±3%)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 44 (4)

Peter King (R): 28 (28)

Undecided: 26 (28)

Carolyn Maloney (D): 42

Peter King (R): 26

Undecided: 30

(MoE: ±2%)

David Paterson (D-inc): 20 (17)

Andrew Cuomo (D): 57 (62)

Undecided: 20 (18)

(MoE: ±3%)

David Paterson (D-inc): 34 (32)

Rudy Giuliani (R): 52 (54)

Undecided: 7 (8)

Andrew Cuomo (D): 51 (47)

Rudy Giuliani (R): 39 (41)

Undecided: 8 (9)

(MoE: ±2%)

Quinnipiac sees a slight uptick for Paterson – a trend? Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani had an op-ed in the NYT yesterday (and has been carving out a slightly higher profile for himself of late by complaining, along with everyone else, about the mess in Albany). We speculated that a recent NYT op-ed by Tom Suozzi was a signal that he’s ready to start ramping things up. Perhaps the same is true here.

In the Senate department, the first test of Gillibrand vs. Maloney shows what almost all NY-Sen-B primary polls have shown – that the players are still mostly unknown throughout the state, and that Peter King would be doomed. Recognizing that King is not much of a foil, Gillibrand of late has been raising the specter of a Pataki run in her fundraising emails. While the NRSC, as CQ notes, may want him to run, George P. hasn’t made any affirmative moves in that direction yet.

More discussion in mkpowers’ diary.

RaceTracker: NY-Sen-B | NY-Gov

Man oh man:

Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, said he had conducted an extra-marital affair with a woman in Argentina, ending a mystery over his week-long disappearance that had infuriated lawmakers and seemed to put his rising political career in jeopardy. He apologized for the affair and the deception surrounding his trip in a rambling news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Governor Sanford, 49, admitted that he had been in Buenos Aires since Thursday, not hiking on the Appalachian Trail as his staff had said. In revealing an affair that had gone on for about a year – and which he had disclosed to his wife, Jenny, five months ago – he said: “This was selfishness on my part.”

Mr. Sanford announced on Wednesday that as a result, he was resigning his position as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. His term leading the state of South Carolina is set to go through 2011.

I’m speechless. Given the pack of lies Sanford and his staff have been perpetrating over the last week, who even knows what else is going on here.

UPDATE: Haley Barbour will take over the RGA. That’s actually a good thing for Republicans, as Barbour actually understands something about politics.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (6/17-19, registered voters, 1/17-18 in parens):

Jennifer Brunner (D): 40 (34)

Rob Portman (R): 32 (42)

Undecided: 29 (24)

Lee Fisher (D): 41 (39)

Rob Portman (R): 32 (41)

Undecided: 27 (20)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

The trendlines are a little musty, but they look quite good for the Democrats, despite pretty mediocre favorable ratings (low thirties on either side of the equation for both Dems). Brunner’s faves are largely unchanged, but Fisher’s seen a bit of a slide. Portman’s favorables are also worse, though – 22-34 now, after a 28-23 reading in January. The samples are also a little different – it was 45D-35R-20I in the first poll, and 50D-35R-15I in this one.

Research 2000/Daily Kos will likely be in the field here soon. We will hopefully shed some light on the baffling OH-Gov polling disparities, and we’ll probably also test the Senate Dem primary.

RaceTracker: OH-Sen

This piece in Roll Call mentions a couple of potential candidates on both sides to replace Charlie Melancon, who looks all but set to challenge Sen. David Vitter. It got James and me thinking: Why not take a look at all the state legislators whose districts are covered, either in whole or in part, by LA-03? So, after poring over maps and sifting through precinct results, we’ve come up with two lists – one for state senators, the other for state reps.

Note that some of these legislative districts are only partly within LA-03, and therefore some of these folks might not even live in the 3rd CD and/or may only represent a tiny slice of it. Interestingly, despite this area’s conservative bent, it’s represented by quite a few Democrats at the state level. This isn’t an uncommon phenomenon in many parts of the South (look at AL-05 in 2008, for instance), so hopefully this means we have something of a bench to look to here.

Of course, these lists don’t include countless other elected officials, prominent figures, and wealthy dudes who might make a run. But they are a good starting point – former state legislators make up over half of the House (PDF). So if you know anything about any of these folks, please let us know in comments.

RaceTracker: LA-03

 

I’m not joking:

Some politicians take their privacy more seriously than others, and are reticent about disclosing details of their personal lives. But it’s still very rare to see a sitting governor just up and go missing for days, leaving his office, his state’s law[] enforcement — even his wife — without any clue as to his whereabouts.

That’s what South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has been doing since Thursday, when he reportedly left the governor’s mansion in a black SUV owned by the State Law Enforcement Division, which handles his security detail. His phones have been turned off, and he hasn’t responded to phone or text messages, a local paper, The State, reports. The last clue as to his location came when a cell tower near Atlanta picked up a signal from his phone. His wife, First Lady Jenny Sanford, has told the Associated Press that she doesn’t know where he is — but she says she’s not concerned.

There have been conflicting explanations for the governor’s absence. Jenny Sanford told the AP that her husband needed some time away from their children in order to write something. But a statement from his office says he’s “taking some time away from the office this week to recharge after the stimulus battle and the legislative session, and to work on a couple of projects that have fallen by the wayside.” It adds that the office will not discuss any specifics regarding his trip.

This is really nuts. And ditching the family on Father’s Day weekend, no less.

UPDATE: More:

“We’ve been concerned by the Governor’s erratic behavior for some time,” said South Carolina Senate Leader John C. Land III. “We’re praying for him and his family. I hope he is safe and that he contacts the First Lady and his family soon.”

RaceTracker: SC-Gov

Today, in a very unexpected ruling, the Supreme Court upheld Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain covered jurisdictions to seek “preclearance” from the Department of Justice before making any rule changes that affect voting. Adam Bonin explains:

[M]any conservatives have believed that the rigors of Section 5 preclearance exceeded Congress’ 15th Amendment authorization, given how much time has passed since the days of Bull Connor, and they thought they had their ideal plaintiff in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One (“NAMUDNO”), created in 1987 to provide waste collection and other public works services to about 3,500 residents.  Before 2004, elections for its board were held in private homes or garages; they wanted to move the elections to public places like elementary schools.  Because they’re in Texas, Section 5 applied, even though there was no evidence that NAMUDNO itself had ever discriminated on the basis of race.

And many liberals feared, especially after oral argument (PDF), that this Court’s 5-4 conservative majority would use the opportunity to gut Section 5, especially given its disparate treatment of Southern jurisdictions, with the Chief Justice asking the NAACP’s counsel “So is it your — is it your position that today southerners are more likely to discriminate than northerners?” and Justice Scalia noting, “Wasn’t Virginia the first State in the Union to elect a black governor?”

Today, however, the bullet was dodged, albeit on somewhat technical grounds.  In an 8-1 opinion authored by the Chief Justice, with only Justice Thomas dissenting, the Court effectively rewrote parts of the Voting Rights Act to allow NAMUDNO to apply in federal court for a permanent “bailout” from the preclearance provisions based on a documented record of behaving itself in this realm, a remedy previously allowed only for states and counties as a whole, and chose not to reach the larger constitutional question.

Leaving aside all the questions about how this ruling came about despite Roberts’ apparent hostility to the VRA, or what its narrow technical nature means for future rulings on the same subject, Rick Hasen explains the political ramifications:

The key political point is that Section 5 will remain in place during the next round of redistricting, and it will be redistricting supervised by the Obama Administration’s DOJ. We have already seen that the Obama Administration appears more protective of voting rights than the Bush Administration’s DOJ. So this will matter a great deal for the next decade of politics in terms of minority electoral success, even if Section 5 is struck down next decade.

In other words, while Justice Roberts and his conservative brethren might dismantle Section 5 at some point, this is a very good ruling for us with the census and the start of redistricting just a year away.