Month: March 2009

• VA-Gov: PPP’s latest has McAulliffe 21, Moran 19 and Deeds 14 for the Dem gubernatorial primary. Last month it was 18-18-11. The election is three months off. (D)

• PA-Sen: An opening for Pat Toomey? Susquehanna has a new poll showing Snarlin’ Arlen’s re-elects at just 38% – and an awful 26% among Republicans. (D)

• TX-Gov: Tom Schieffer, a former State Rep. and Bush Ambassador to Australia, has announced that he’s forming an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Texas. When questioned by reporters, Schieffer says that he does not regret voting for Bush for Governor and President. A recent PPP poll has Kay Bailey Hutchison crushing Schieffer by a 54-30 margin, while incumbent Gov. Rick Perry leads Schieffer by only 45-35. (J)

• IN-Gov: Is Baron Hill getting ready for a 2012 gubernatorial campaign? There was some brief speculation that he might run in 2008, but of course that never panned out. (J)

• OR-Gov: This may be a tea leaf that Gordon Smith is passing on the 2010 governor’s race, or it may simply be a way to stay in the Beltway money loop for a year while laying groundwork, but Gordo is staying in DC and taking a “senior adviser” position (since he’s subject to the two-year lobbying ban) with prominent DC law/lobbying/soul-devouring firm Covington & Burling.

David Vitter continues to dodge bullets:

Late last week, former Rep. John Cooksey (R-La.) was reportedly interested in taking on Vitter in the primary. But the former 5th district Congressman announced Monday that he is not running, in a statement that included some nuance.

“While I do not always agree with David Vitter’s position on social issues, I believe David Vitter does a good job representing the people of Louisiana on fiscal matters,” Cooksey said in a statement to the Concordia Sentinel. “If David Vitter emerges as the Republican nominee in the 2010 Senate race in Louisiana, I will vote for him.”

I think we all know which “social issue” in particular Cooksey is referring to. In more good news for Vitter, Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon says that he’s probably not going to run:

Despite the urging of state and national Democrats, local Congressman Charlie Melancon says that, at least for now, he has decided against running for the U.S. Senate in 2010. […]

“Never say never,” Melancon told The Courier Thursday, “but I’m not contemplating a run at this time.”

Democrats still have a number of other potential candidates on the table, including ex-Rep. Chris John and Shaw Group CEO Jim Bernhard. I remain convinced that Republicans have a more-than-good shot at retaining this seat, but we’ll have some raw data to look at soon: Daily Kos will release primary and general election polling numbers from Louisiana later this week.

The St. Petersburg Times:

Polk supervisor of elections Lori Edwards tells us she’s decided to run for Adam Putnam’s congressional seat. “I think I have what it takes,” said the Democratic former legislator, citing pressing needs for veterans, agriculture and local government.

She so far faces Republican former state Rep. Dennis Ross in the district that George Bush won overwhelmingly in 04 and John McCain narrowly won in 08.

“The voters here really are quite independent and I’m pretty independent,” said Edwards, who has a track record of winning in GOP-leaning Polk county.

Without knowing too much about Lori Edwards (a skeleton description of her current job is available here), she seems like a pretty good recruiting score for this reddish district. According to our Prez-by-CD number-crunching project, McCain won the portions of Polk County in the 12th CD by a 53-47 margin last year — and this is the vast bulk of the district’s vote. With a history of getting re-elected in Polk since 2000, Edwards could have a fighting chance in a general election.

While Obama almost tied McCain in this CD (being edged out by only a 49-50 margin last year), Bush won the district by 16 and 10-point margins in 2004 and 2000, respectively. There are also a decent number of conservative Democrats around these parts: as of last October, Democrats held a 193K-165K voter registration advantage over Republicans here.

This time the news comes from Marist:

New Yorkers are sending a strong message to Governor David Paterson, “Shape Up!”  Just 26% of registered voters report the governor is doing either an excellent or good job in office.  That’s a drop of 20 percentage points since the Marist Poll last asked this question at the end of January.  In fact, Governor Paterson’s approval rating is the lowest approval rating a New York State governor has received in the Marist Poll’s nearly thirty year history of statewide surveys.  Has the governor lost favor within his own party?  Here’s the party breakdown.  Among registered Democrats in New York State, 30% think Paterson is doing an above average job while 65% disagree.  Across the aisle, Republicans also overwhelmingly disapprove of Paterson’s performance.  Just 26% of members of New York’s GOP approve of the job Paterson is doing as governor while 72% think he is doing a fair or poor job.  Only 20% of non-enrolled voters agree that Paterson is doing well in the position.  Opinions across the state are consistently low.  24% of upstate voters approve of the job Paterson is doing as governor.  26% of suburban voters say he is doing an above average job, and 30% of New York City voters share this position.

The poll isn’t all doom and gloom: Schumer is as popular as ever, and Gillibrand seems set to be reelected. But my bottom line is this,  if Democrats don’t find a new Gubernatorial candidate, we will very likely lose the office.

I’ll admit it, my jaw dropped when I read it. Republicans control every statewide office in Texas along with the State Senate (19-12) and State House (by a very narrow 76-74 margin), so why would they consider giving up full control over congressional redistricting, or a commanding 4 out of 5 places at the redistricting table should the State House shift further in 2010? After all, this is Texas, land of the DeLay-mander.

But it’s true. A bill introduced by State Senator Jeff Wentworth (R! – North San Antonio/South Austin) is designed to give control of congressional redistricting to an independent panel. The bill has previously passed the State Senate twice but has failed in the State House because former Speaker Tom Craddick said so (no really, this is a good example of how he operated and why he needed to go). New Speaker Joe Straus (R-North San Antonio) seems interested.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/bl…

Sen. Jeff Wentworth’s redistricting commission bill, which has passed the Texas Senate twice, has a fighting chance this session since Tom Craddick’s no longer speaker.

Wentworth, who presented his bill to the Senate State Affairs Committee, tells me he has confirmed pledges from six of nine Senate committee members to vote for his plan to turn congressional redistricting over to an independent commission. He gave a compelling – if lengthy – argument at State Affairs today for a new congressional redistricting mechanism, noting that lawmakers of both parties have been guilty of overreaching, vengeful actions that lead inexorably to expensive court appeals every decade.

He’s optimistic about his chances in the House, since it died there last session since “Craddick personally killed it.”  Here’s the story: Wentworth had pledges from more than a majority of the House committee, but chairman Joe Crabb told him Craddick had instructed him to sit on the bill. Wentworth then collected signatures form 20 House chairman in support of his bill, but Craddick wouldn’t relent. Why? Wentworth says Craddick instructed him to go read  “Craddick vs. Smith” – a 30-year-old lawsuit over Craddick’s mistreatment during redistricting at the hands of Democrats. (Wentworth’s bill doesn’t touch legislative redistricting, but oh well, ….)

Wentworth also claims that Gov. Rick Perry “wants to sign this bill.”

If this passes, the previous maps that have been discussed could be trashed, and in 2012 we could realistically see a congressional delegation from Texas made up of 16 Democrats and 20 Republicans.

The waves keep getting smaller and smaller, as we wend our way closer to the conclusion of our massive presidential results-by-congressional district crowdsourcing project. For those of you who are counting, that leaves only six districts that we need to complete (AL-06 and AL-07, NY-02, NY-03, NY-04, and NY-05) in order to be not just the first outlet to make all this information public, but just plain the first outlet, period.

The geography nerds among you might be thinking, hey, that looks like we’re only two counties short of completion: Tuscaloosa County, AL, and Nassau County, NY. (You’re almost right: we also need Coosa County, AL, but it has only 12,000 people so I’m making a “close enough” call on AL-03 until we actually wrangle some data out of them.) Our ground forces in Alabama are already on the case of Tuscaloosa and Coosa Counties, but, to expedite matters, we need to switch on the SSP Batsignal over Gotham: we need an NYC-area correspondent to make the trek out to Mineola and have a date with the Nassau County Board of Elections’ copy machine. If you’re available to take this mission, please e-mail our intrepid publisher, DavidNYC (see the right column) and he’ll tell you what we need.

If you want to see a summary of the whole list of districts, click here. Waves one, two, three, four, and five provide additional detail, and for a truly ridiculous level of detail, each state’s database is accessible through our master database.

District	Obama #	McCain #	Other #	2008 %	2004 %	2000 %
AL-03	117,511	154,408	2,068	42.9/56.4	41/58	47/52
AL-04	58,863	199,858	3,133	22.5/76.3	28/71	37/61
CO-01	222,008	72,573	4,637	74.2/24.3	68/31	61/33
CO-06	202,100	229,715	5,925	46.2/52.5	39/60	37/60
CO-07	168,885	113,873	5,615	58.6/39.5	51/48	50/49
IN-02	153,369	126,801	3,347	54.1/44.7	43/56	45/53
IN-03	123,571	162,183	2,727	42.8/56.2	31/68	33/66
MO-02	172,368	215,175	3,839	44.0/55.0	40/60	39/59
MO-09	144,583	181,339	5,199	43.7/54.8	41/59	42/55
NY-26	148,588	166,890	4,570	46.4/52.2	43/55	44/51
NY-27	156,635	127,249	5,144	54.2/44.0	53/45	53/41
NY-28	184,132	81,445	3,332	68.5/30.3	63/36	60/35

Points of interest in this wave include AL-04, which, to our surprise, plummets past the West Texas districts to grab the dubious distinction of Obama’s worst performance (at 22%). This district used to send a Democrat to Congress until 1996, and even Gore got 37% here… but this is Alabama’s whitest and most rural district, where the southern end of the Appalachians and Birmingham exurbs meet.

Aside from some stagnation in NY-27 (the blue-collar white parts of Buffalo), everything else here is good news: huge swings in both Denver and its conservative suburbs, and even bigger swings in Indiana, where we not just flipped IN-02 (South Bend) but won it pretty convincingly.

As with our previous wave, our resident numbers guru jeffmd has been refining our figures as new data continues to trickle in, so we have another corrections table with 16 revised districts over the flip. Again, nothing major, but we know that many SSP readers are fans of utter and complete accuracy.

District	Obama #	McCain #	Other #	Updated %	What we’d said
CO-02	235,090	124,841	6,136	64.2/34.1	66.5/31.9
CT-01	218,794	108,572	4,404	66.0/32.7	66.0/32.7
CT-02	204,220	139,945	5,056	58.5/40.1	59.1/39.5
CT-03	201,741	117,114	3,953	62.5/36.3	62.5/36.3
CT-04	190,996	126,819	2,130	59.7/39.6	59.6/39.7
CT-05	182,021	136,978	4,054	56.3/42.4	56.3/42.4
IL-11	175,648	148,695	5,080	53.3/45.1	53.4/45.1
IL-14	174,341	139,187	4,445	54.8/43.8	55.2/43.5
IL-17	156,671	117,111	4,031	56.4/42.2	56.3/42.3
IL-18	149,524	154,805	5,095	48.3/50.0	49.1/49.2
MI-11	197,857	163,958	6,115	53.8/44.6	53.8/44.6
MI-13	200,387	34,231	1,933	84.7/14.5	82.9/16.2
MI-14	232,473	36,444	2,127	85.8/13.5	84.2/14.9
MI-15	224,505	110,833	5,861	65.8/32.5	66.2/32.1
TX-11	58,326	185,389	1,919	23.8/75.5	23.6/75.4
TX-23	124,995	118,391	1,634	51.0/48.3	50.9/48.1

  1. What is the most important issue in this race, and who is most qualified to deal with it? I believe it’s the economy, and that I’m uniquely qualified to deal with economic issues. I teach public policy at the University of Chicago and wrote a book called Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science that has been published in 10 languages. I’ve spent my entire adult life working on issues like education, health care, tax policy, and transportation.

  2. Why do we end up with so many corrupt politicians? Because we keep electing the same kind of people. Whenever we have a political opening – like this Congressional seat – we always go looking for a replacement in the same places, as if there is some kind of political farm league. But that means we usually end up with career politicians who have a powerful incentive to protect their careers.

     If you want a different outcome, elect a different kind of candidate. As I always say on the stump, “Chicago produced both Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama-but only one of them taught at the University of Chicago. So stick with that model!”

  3. Can one representative really make a difference? Yes. In fact, the U.S. has a long history of academics who have become highly effective politicians (on both sides of the aisle): Paul Douglas; Daniel Patrick Moynihan; Paul Wellstone; Newt Gingrich; Hubert Humphrey; Phil Gramm; Woodrow Wilson. They were all professors before they went to Washington. And they all “punched above their weight” because they brought an intellectual heft to the job that they could put to work right away on important issues.

This is a great time for substance over politics, and that is exactly what I would like to bring to the job.

So tomorrow before you vote, ask yourself these questions. I think you’ll feel very comfortable that the answers begin with voting for me.

Sincerely,

Charlie

Time for the daily ganja break…

• NY-20: Scott Murphy snagged the Independence Party line for the March 31 special election – a good get, even though it didn’t help Sandy Treadwell much last fall. Meanwhile, both Tedisco and the NRCC are up on the air with negative radio and TV ads. The DCCC also hits back with its first ad, attacking Tedisco for stimulus-related waffling while defending Murhpy against back taxes charges.

• IL-Sen: Oh god – Roland Burris has rolled out a campaign website, complete with “Donate” link. Also, it should come as no surprise, but state treasurer (and Friend of Barack) Alexi Giannoulias made his interest official today, launching his exploratory committee. Meanwhile, Rep. Jan Schakowsky says she’ll jump in if there’s a special election, though she sounds leery about giving up her seat for a 2010 run.

• DC Voting Rights: Steny Hoyer has promised a House vote this week on the DC Voting Rights Act. The bill should pass the House easily, given that a prior version sailed through in 2007. The real issue will be whether the conference committee settles on an at-large or traditional district for Utah. (D)

• UT-Sen: Damn, Ken Jennings won’t run. Says Jennings: “I’ve decided to bow out of the election before even announcing, in order to spend more time with my family. (And when I say “with my family,” I mean, “screwing around on the Internet.”)” At least that’s an excuse we can all understand and accept. (D)

• Polltopia: Public Policy Polling once again is letting readers decide which Senate race they’ll poll next. The choices: Connecticut, Delaware, and Kentucky. (J)

• CA-Gov: Looks like John Garamendi, Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown, and Antonio Villaraigosa are all dead serious about running for governor in 2010; they all jointly appeared before the San Fernando Valley Democrats this weekend.

• OR-Gov: As DeFazio, Kitzhaber, Bradbury, et al. try to figure out who’s running, a dark horse may be sneaking past them: Portland City Councilor Randy Leonard, who may be able to count on substantial backing from organized labor.

After withdrawing his name from the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate primary against GOP incumbent Arlen Specter in January, former Rep. Pat Toomey is now reconsidering the race:

Former Congressman Pat Toomey (R, PA-15), current Club for Growth President, just announced on Bobby Gunther Walsh’s 1-On-1 Show, WAEB, 790AM, that a Primary challenge to Senator Arlen Specter is “now back on the table.”

Mr. Toomey acknowledged that “Senator Specter cast the deciding vote on the very worrisome stimulus Bill, when he could have negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama for more productive tax cuts and less wasteful spending.” Pennsylvanians need to do some soul searching about who will really represent us in the Senate.

Hallelujah.

(H/T: Taegan Goddard’s Magic Carpet Ride)

UPDATE: More from Toomey:

Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, announced this afternoon that he is considering a bid for Senate in PA.

“As this disastrous recession worsens, I have become increasingly concerned about the future of our state and national economy,” he said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the recent extraordinary response of the federal government – more corporate bailouts, unprecedented spending and debt, higher taxes – is likely to make things worse. I think we are on a dangerously wrong path. Pennsylvanians want a US Senator focused on real and sustainable job creation that gets our economy growing again. That is why I am considering becoming a candidate for the US Senate.”

Now: is he serious, or is he just sabre rattling?