Month: June 2009

Research 2000 for the Great Orange Satan (6/1-3, likely voters, 5/18-20 in parens):

Terry McAuliffe (D): 26 (36)

Brian Moran (D): 27 (22)

Creigh Deeds (D): 30 (13)

Undecided: 17 (29)

(MoE: ±5%)

This is the third public poll (of the last four) to show Deeds grabbing the lead, but with the number of undecideds as high as they are and the primary voter ‘verse as uncertain as ever, the nomination is effectively a three-way jump ball right now. It would be quite the Cinderella story if Deeds could pull this off.

Meanwhile, McAuliffe is rolling out an endorsement from a surprising source: Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer… who is also serving as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association this cycle. The DGA, in case you’re not familiar, is the campaign and fundraising arm for Democratic gubernatorial candidates across the country. While Schweitzer’s people are claiming that he’s only making a personal endorsement, doing so while serving as DGA chair is misguided and unacceptable — especially when the chances are very real that McAuliffe won’t end up being the Democratic nominee on Tuesday. When you’re in the position that Schweitzer is in, the only smart and sensible move is to remain neutral until the nominee is decided by the primary electorate.

And I won’t even begin to get into the issue of McAuliffe being about as antithetical as possible to the populist, DC-despising image that Schweitzer has carefully crafted for himself over the years…

• CT-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Simmons needs to look like one of those allegedly-not-quite-extinct moderate New England Republicans in order to get elected in Connecticut, but he’s not doing himself any favors by appearing with Newt Gingrich at the annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner. With a large Puerto Rican population in Connecticut, Simmons probably doesn’t want to be anywhere near Sonia Sotomayor’s loudest and most toxic critic. Another problem for Simmons: businessman Tom Foley, the former ambassador to Ireland, made his official entry into the GOP primary field today. Foley, unlike Simmons, has deep pockets he can self-fund with.

• MN-Sen: Sources close to Norm Coleman are suggesting he won’t appeal at the federal level if he loses his case with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Republicans still publicly say they’ll try to stop any Dem efforts to seat Al Franken until Coleman has conceded or exhausted his appeals. John Cornyn has sent some mixed signals, though, saying it’s “entirely” Coleman’s decision whether to keep fighting and that he’s “amazed that Sen. Coleman’s been willing to persevere as long as he has.”

• NV-Sen: Wondering why the GOP is having a hard time attracting a challenger to supposedly-vulnerable Harry Reid? Maybe it’s because of his deep levels of support among much of the state’s Republican establishment. The Reid camp released a list of 60 GOP endorsers, including, most prominently, soon-to-be-ex-First Lady (and former NV-02 candidate) Dawn Gibbons, Reno mayor Bob Cashell, and, in a move guaranteed to nail down the key 18-29 demographic, Wayne Newton.

• NH-Sen: Could it be that the NRSC could actually be stuck running Ovide Lamontagne against Rep. Paul Hodes? Just the very fact that the NRSC is talking to Lamontagne (a businessman whose one claim to fame is losing the 1996 governor’s race to Jeanne Shaheen) with an apparently straight face should be a red flag that their top-tier possibilities (ex-Sen. John Sununu, ex-Rep. Charlie Bass) aren’t looking likely.

• NY-Sen-B: Joe Biden reportedly had a sit-down earlier this week with Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who may or may not be running in the Senate primary against Kirsten Gillibrand. Presumably the meeting would contain some of the same content as Barack Obama’s now-famous phone call to Rep. Steve Israel.

• OH-Sen: If a candidate falls in the woods with no one around, does he make a sound? State Rep. Tyrone Yates has been exploring the Senate race for several months, and apparently found nothing that would help him overcome Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and SoS Jennifer Brunner, as he bowed out of the race.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen has the first post-primary poll of the New Jersey governor’s race. Chris Christie may have gotten a bit of a brief unity bounce in the wake of his primary victory, as he’s up to a 51-38 edge over Jon Corzine now, as opposed to 47-38 last month. There’s one spot of ‘good’ news, as it were, for Corzine: his approval rating is back up to 42%.

• AZ-08: Construction company executive and ex-Marine Jesse Kelly seems to be the establishment GOP’s choice to go against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2010. He announced endorsements from three House members: Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, and Frank Wolf. (Not quite clear how endorsements from Hunter and Wolf help him in Arizona, though.)

• KS-01: State Senator Jim Barnett got into the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Jerry Moran, who’s running for Senate. Barnett may quickly become front-runner, based on his name recognition from being the 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate (where he lost the state as a whole to Kathleen Sebelius, but won the dark-red 1st). He’s up against a more conservative state Senator Tim Huelskamp, and Sam Brownback’s former chief of staff, Rob Wasinger. The primary is the whole shooting match in this R+23 district.

• KY-01: After the purchase of “whitfieldforsenate.com” got people’s attention yesterday, Rep. Ed Whitfield had to tamp that down, confirming that he’s running for re-election in his R+15 House seat.

• MN-06: Even if this goes nowhere, it’s great to have a GOPer doing our framing for us… attorney Chris Johnston is publicly mulling a primary challenge to (his words, on his website) “‘anti-American’ hurling, malaprop-spouting, ‘they took me out of context'” Rep. Michele Bachmann. He confirms that he and Bachmann share “strong conservative beliefs;” he just thinks the 6th would prefer someone “who thinks before they speak.”

• NH-02: Attorney Ann McLane Kuster is launching an exploratory committee to run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Paul Hodes. St. Rep. John DeJoie is already in the primary field, and they may soon be joined by Katrina Swett.

• NY-03: Dems are scoping out potential candidates in Long Island’s NY-03 (which fell to R+4 in the wake of 2008), thinking that even if Rep. Peter King doesn’t vacate to run for Senate he’s still vulnerable. The biggest fish would be Nassau Co. Exec Tom Suozzi, who seems to have bigger fish to fry (reportedly AG if Andrew Cuomo vacates). The next-biggest fish would Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice. Smaller fish listed include Isobel Coleman of the Council of Foreign Relations, and minor league baseball team owner Frank Boulton.

• NH-Legislature: It took a rewrite of a couple sentences that Gov. John Lynch didn’t like, but after a few weeks of back-and-forth New Hampshire finally enacted gay marriage. Both chambers passed the amended bill yesterday (clearing the House 198-176) and Lynch signed it into law on the same day.

Florida Democratic state Senator Dave Aronberg has made up his mind, and he will indeed be running for attorney general:

Casting himself as a consumer advocate and a protege of popular former Democratic attorney general Bob Butterworth, state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, announced today he’ll run for attorney general in 2010. […]

Aronberg, who could face a tough Democratic primary for the job, highlighted his work as an assistant attorney general under Butterworth, who left office in 2002 because of term limits.

“I learned from the best… We need to return to the days of Bob Butterworth, of an Attorney General who stands up for consumers,” Aronberg said.

Aronberg is the first candidate to throw his hat in the ring for the office that Republican Bill McCollum is vacating in order to pursue his gubernatorial ambitions, but he may not have the field to himself: fellow state Sen. Dan Gelber and ex-state Sen. Rod Smith have also expressed interest in the job. While no one wants to see a contested primary here, it may be unavoidable. Opportunities to move up at the statewide level in Florida don’t grow on orange trees.

This also means that the DCCC will have to go back to the well for a challenger to frosh GOP Rep. Tom Rooney in the 16th CD. Aronberg was their top choice, but the committee’s recruiters have also been talking to St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft as an alternative.

From The New York Times:

“President Obama intends to nominate Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman from Iowa who is now a professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, as the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the White House said on Wednesday.[…]”

I think this is a great appointment. Leach, who represented IA-2 (numbered IA-1 from 1977 to 2003, according to the Wikipedia article on Leach) for 30 years until being upset by David Loebsack, was pretty liberal for today’s Republican Party, is a strong supporter of education and the humanities (the Times article mentions that he “founded and was co-chairman of the Congressional Humanities Caucus” in the House), and was among the higher-profile Obamacans. This is a good way for President Obama to pick a highly qualified guy who will get a good reception among his former colleagues in Congress, reward a supporter, and strengthen the meme of bipartisanship all at the same time.

[Title edited; “NEH” had been erroneously typed as “NEA”]

Hi, everyone. This is my first diary, so please let me know if it isn’t appropriate.

I haven’t seen any coverage here of the resolution of the case against the New Black Panther Party and two of its members for alleged voter intimidation in Philadelphia. Most of the coverage I’ve seen is in right-wing sources (see here for an article in The National Review), which makes me suspect that there may not be much to the story and that it’s being distorted and sensationalized for partisan reasons. However, the above-linked story is from cnn.com. I’m sure some of you know this story much better than I do. On the face of it, it seems somewhat bad. This is from the CNN story:

“On Election Day, two men in uniforms stood outside the polling station with one of them holding a police-style baton weapon and saying he was providing security there. Justice has alleged that person was Shabazz.”

No-one will serve any time or pay any fine. Is it sufficient to “[win] an injunction[…]against a third member, Samir Shabazz, that prevents him from ever brandishing a weapon outside a polling place again”?

I’m skeptical of relying on anything in the National Review article, which includes tendentious claims that Judge Sotomayor is a racist, so take it for what it’s worth, but here’s part of what it says:

“As a former DOJ alumnus, I have never, ever heard of the Division refusing to take a default judgment, especially in a situation where the defendants are basically admitting they violated the law. The facts indicting the DOJ seem damning, and no good explanation seems possible.”

The only reason I know about this story in the first place is that a right-wing friend of mine posted a link to the Washington Times (UGH!) story about this on his Facebook page. No matter what assurances you give me, there’s no way I could convince my right-wing friends that there isn’t some kind of left-wing conspiracy here, so that’s not the point. I’d just like my own reassurance as a liberal Democrat who believes in fair play and doesn’t believe in tolerating any voter intimidation. I feel like there should have at least been a fine, and I’d like to understand why the Justice Department might have decided against that. I look forward to your replies and hope this diary about a matter of voting mechanics and legalities is not too much of a tangent from the usual diaries about candidates.

By the way, I also realize that by posting this kind of diary as my first, I run the risk of seeming like a right-wing troll. My only defense is that you will know what I’m really like through my posts in the future.

SurveyUSA (5/31-6/2, likely voters, mid-May in parens):

Terry McAuliffe (D): 35 (37)

Brian Moran (D): 26 (22)

Creigh Deeds (D): 29 (26)

Other/Undecided: 11 (14)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Cap’n, will you have a look a’ that!

Deeds was also the only candidate of the three to improve in head-to-heads against Bob McDonnell – in the last poll, he trailed 46-40, but is now just a point back at 44-43. McAuliffe and Moran both treaded water. The primary is this coming Tuesday, June 9th. Once again, SSP will be here to liveblog the results.

UPDATE (James): Suffolk has released a poll this morning showing Deeds with 29% to McAuliffe’s 26%, with Moran at 23%. And with that, Deeds takes the lead in Pollster.com’s graph.

The lede of this CQ piece has a surreal feel to it:

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney plans to announce a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on her Web site Thursday morning, according to two sources including a member of New York’s congressional delegation.

Maloney disputed that characterization in a brief hallway interview.

“Where did you get that from?” she asked. “It’s not true.”

Regardless of the timing or venue, several of her New York colleagues, including Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Anthony D. Weiner, said Maloney has told them she will run. She has also indicated to political allies in her “silk stocking” district on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that she is preparing a bid.

So CQ has knowledgeable, high-level sources who say that Maloney is preparing a run, but Maloney denies it to their faces? Perhaps she was just disputing CQ’s claims about the “timing or venue,” as they say, but even so, this is kind of embarrassing. If you’re going to take on someone with as much grit, fundraising prowess, and establishment backing as Kirsten Gillibrand, faltering out the gate like this is seriously small-time. I guess we’ll find out the truth tomorrow, but still… weak.

Anyhow, if Maloney does run, I’m sure it will set off a hot primary in her safe blue (D+26) seat – which just so happens to be the Congressional district I’ve lived in for my entire life. So what do you say, folks? State Sen. Liz Krueger, Assemblyman Jonathan Bing, Councilwoman Jessica Lappin… or SSP Blogfather and People-Powered Prophet DavidNYC? James will be accepting applications for my campaign staff in the comments.

• MN-Sen: Despite the seemingly increased likelihood that he’d jerk Al Franken around now that he doesn’t have to worry about re-election and how impatient Minnesotans feel about the Senate vacancy, Gov. Tim Pawlenty says he’ll certify Al Franken as winner of the Senate race if the state Supreme Court directs him to do so. Also, many are interpreting John Cornyn‘s comments about how the Senate GOP doesn’t have the votes to filibuster Sonia Sotomayor, even if they wanted to, as being a tacit admission that Franken would be seated soon.

• NC-Sen: It never quite seemed likely, but Elizabeth Edwards silenced any speculation that she might run for Senate against Richard Burr next year.

• KY-Sen: Here’s a new name sniffing out the Kentucky Senate primary. A staffer for Rep. Ed Whitfield from KY-01 just bought both domain names for “whitfieldforsenate.com” and “whitfieldforgovernor.com” (and inexplicably paid $800 for the two names). Maybe SoS Trey Grayson may have some company in the primary if Jim Bunning truly does bail out?

• VA-Gov: Ex-Del. Brian Moran leaked an internal poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to Political Wire. Lo and behold, it shows Moran in the lead, with 29% to 27% for Creigh Deeds and 26% for Terry McAuliffe. (Meaning that in the last week, each of the three primary candidates have led a poll.) (UPDATE: PPP points out a flaw here: this isn’t a topline, but the result from a subsample that’s disposed to do well for Moran: people who’ve participated in Democratic primaries prior to last year’s presidential race.)

Fundraising numbers for the three candidates also just came out: McAuliffe is way ahead on the money front, with $1.8 mil raised last quarter and $1.3 mil CoH ($7 mil total). Deeds raised $676K with $521K CoH ($3.8 mil total), and Moran raised $844K with $700 CoH ($4.8 mil total).

• MN-Gov: With T-Paw getting out, a flood of second-tier Republicans has spilled out in search of the nomination. State Sen. David Hann, state Sen. Geoff Michel, state Rep. Marty Seifert, state Rep. Paul Kohls, and former legislator Charlie Weaver are “interested.” Former Auditor Pat Anderson is going so far as to say she’ll announce in a month or two. Others mentioned include state Rep. Laura Brod, national committee member Brian Sullivan, and former state House speaker and current Labor and Industry Commissioner Steve Sviggum. The Star-Tribune also mentioned former Rep. Jim Ramstad (who’d do well in the general but may be too moderate to survive the nominating convention), state Sen. minority leader David Senjem, and one very big wild card… Norm Coleman, although his dragging-out of the Senate race can’t have helped his favorables. One prominent name who apparently isn’t interested: Rep. Michele Bachmann.

• MI-Gov: The Republican field in the Michigan governor’s race got even more crowded, as Oakland Co. Sheriff Rick Bouchard got in. (Bouchard lost the 2006 Senate race to Debbie Stabenow.) Bouchard’s entry was faciliated when his boss, Oakland Co. Exec L. Brooks Patterson, declined to run — but Bouchard may do exactly what Patterson would have done, which is split the Detroit suburban vote with AG Mike Cox, making it easier for Rep. Pete Hoekstra from the state’s west to sneak through.

• CO-04: Ex-Rep. Marilyn Musgrave fired off a rather unhinged-sounding fundraising letter on behalf of her new employers in the culture war, the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List. This may actually work to Rep. Betsy Markey’s advantage; she made reference to Musgrave’s letter in her own appeal for contributions.

• FL-17: Politics1 has an interesting, if a bit unsavory, rumor coming out of south Florida: 83-year-old former Rep. Carrie Meek may get on the ballot in FL-17, essentially to act as a one-term placeholder for her son, Rep. Kendrick Meek. (If he lost the Senate race, she would re-retire in 2012 and thus let him get his old job back. Or, if Meek won the Senate race, she’d still retire and let someone new take over FL-17.) Meek denied the rumor, though, to National Journal.

• FL-25: Here’s a potentially big name to take on Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who beat Joe Garcia by a small margin in 2008. Miami Mayor Manny Diaz is reportedly taking a look at the race; his name has also been mentioned in connection with the open Lt. Gov. slot.

• NC-11: PPP’s Tom Jensen looks at possible Democratic successors in this R+6 district if Rep. Heath Shuler gives up the seat to run for Senate. He cites state Sens. John Snow and Joe Sam Queen as likeliest. (He also links to a great map from Civitas that calculates the PVI for all of North Carolina’s state Senate districts.)

• SC-01: Rep. Henry Brown threw a “thank you” party in Myrtle Beach for his supporters, and at least 11 people walked away with the best possible tokens of his gratitude: diarrhea and nausea. State health officials are investigating to see if it was the result of food poisoning or just of the Republican rhetoric. Also, 2008 challenger Linda Ketner, who came close to knocking off Brown as an openly lesbian candidate in a dark-red district, may not be looking to run again. She did a refreshingly honest interview with FireDogLake, maybe a little too refreshing vis-a-vis her future viability, in terms of referring to “the conservative, religious crazy vote” and outing several prominent South Carolina politicians.

• UT-LG: A third generation of Romneys is getting warmed up (in a third state). Mitt Romney’s 33-year-old son Josh has been in talks with soon-to-be-Gov. Gary Herbert about the open Lieutenant Governor’s position.

• AL-St. Senate: Democrats can still be a downballot force in Alabama, managing to hold a state Senate seat in a deep-red part of rural Alabama north of Mobile. State Rep. Mark Keahey (who’s only 28) narrowly defeated Republican former state Rep. Greg Albritton, in a special election triggered by the January death of Democratic Sen. Pat Lindsey. (UPDATE: Actually, it turns out that the margin wasn’t so tight. Keahey crushed Albritton by a devastating 58-42 margin.)

• NH-St. House: In another special election, Democrats held a state House seat based in Lebanon, New Hampshire, as fire captain Andy White beat Republican Randy Wagoner. It’s Democratic-leaning turf, but the GOP turned this into a proxy battle over gay marriage (White is a vote in favor of it), and out-of-district money enabled Wagoner to outspend White at least 4-to-1.

AJC:

Roy Barnes will announce today that he intends to become the first former Georgia governor in a half-century to reclaim the office after being turned out by voters.

The announcement is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in Marietta. Barnes, we’re told, will delay the actual start of his campaign until July, in order to wrap up some trial work and finish up as chairman of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

Barnes has been keeping his cards close to his chest for most of the year, sometimes sounding like a candidate with a lot of issues burning in his blood, but also informing folks that he’s reluctant to terminate his retirement from the political arena. He’ll be joining an already-crowded field of Democrats for the gubernatorial nomination: Attorney General Thurbert Baker, House Minority Leader DuBose Porter, and former GA National Guard commander David Poythress are all in the race.

It’s possible, though, that Barnes’ entry could clear the field somewhat. A Strategic Vision poll from April showed Barnes crushing Baker by a 56-29 margin, with Poythress and Porter in the low-single digits. While Poythress has nothing to lose by continuing his candidacy, Porter and Baker may be thinking twice about giving up their safe jobs in order to roll the dice on a tough primary.

In the diaries, fitchfan28 has more.