Tag: 2008 Elections

(Should Hagel decide to run for President, this would be a map-changing event for Senate Democrats’ 2008 battle plans. For months, I’ve assumed that Hagel was disinclined to run for President, but perhaps he sees an opening for a solid conservative challenger to the Romney/McCain/Giuliani triangle that’s been giving grief to so many conservative activists. We’re just reading tea leaves here, for now. – promoted by James L.)

Originally posted at UNO Democrats

[The rumors are flying fast now in Nebraska, and it seems like in the next couple of weeks we’re going to see some real movement on Hagel’s plans. I thought I’d repost this here to pass along the info for all of you – Dave.]

OWH:

  WASHINGTON – For a guy who hasn’t announced a presidential bid, Sen. Chuck Hagel’s schedule next week looks a lot like that of a candidate.

  He’s slated to appear with nine declared presidential hopefuls – including John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama – before a national firefighters’ group.

  He’s meeting with his political action committee’s steering committee. He’s scheduled to attend a Nebraska GOP fund-raiser in Washington.

  And speculation was running high among key Nebraska Republicans that Hagel might announce something Monday.

Follow the money, they say. If Hagel is indeed gearing up for a run, he’s got to start raising money and fast. So, this item from the same World-Herald article is noteworthy:

  The day before that speech, Hagel is expected to attend a Nebraska Republican Party fund-raiser in Washington. Then, on Thursday, he’s to sit down with the steering committee of his Sandhills PAC.

  For months, Hagel’s fundraising had been all but dormant. But he held two fundraisers in the last week, including one Friday in New York City, raising $80,000 for his Senate and PAC campaign funds.

While the money from his Senate campaign account can be transferred into a Presidential account, it is the PAC activity that would hint strongly at a run for President. This article adds a bit of fuel to the months of speculation about Hagel’s political future, and its potential impact on the Nebraska political scene. Hagel’s decision – whether or not to run for re-election, whether to run for President – is going to impact the U.S. Senate race, possibly the race for our Congressional seat, all the way down to the Omaha city elections in 2009. But it seems that Hagel’s starting to mobilize. He’s running for something – the only question is what he’s running for.

UPDATE (3:53 PM CST) by DaveSund: The New York Times reports that Hagel will hold a press conference Monday to “discuss his future plans.”

UPDATE (4:42 PM CST) by DaveSund: The press conference will be on Monday at 10 a.m. at UNO’s campus, according to the AP.

Race Tracker: NE-Sen

That’s the question that has been on my mind since having these dizzying special election results seared into my cortex last weekend:

On Saturday, February 24, there were three special elections for vacancies in the Louisiana House of Representatives.  All three seats were previously held by Democrats, and Democrats easily held on to two of these seats by capturing both run-off slots.  This was no surprise, as both of these retained seats were African-American majority districts.  The other seat, HD01, however, was not a sure thing for Democrats.  Louisianagirl, in her coverage last weekend, wrote:

Although it was previously held by a Democrat named Roy “Hoppy” Hopkins, who recently died of cancer, this open seat can be won by either party.  Indeed, the district has a tendency to vote for Republicans in federal races: John Kerry only received 32.28% of the vote in 2004; Kathleen Blanco received 44.15% of the vote in 2003; and Mary Landrieu received approximately 45.34% of the vote in 2002.  A populist Democrat who understand agricultural and infrastructural issues can win in this district that includes rural Caddo and Bossier Parishes, but it will be a difficult seat for Democrats to hold in November.

And here’s what she had to say about what was at stake:

LA-HD1 is what I consider to be a bellwether race.  If we hold it, we will hold the Louisiana House in November.  If we lose it, then we need to prepare ourselves for the fight of our political lives in November.  Watch the returns of this race, as this race will determine how hard Louisiana Democrats will have to fight if they want to hold on to their majorities in the state legislature.

So let’s put it all on the table: at a combined 27% of the vote, the two Democratic candidates in this special election did even worse than John Kerry’s performance in the district in 2004.  When the locals can’t break Kerry’s benchmark, you know that we’ve written a new definition for “rock bottom” in Louisiana.

So what happened?  By the looks of it, Republicans showed up ready to wrestle this seat to the ground, and Democrats simply did not.  Their candidate, “Jim” Morris, as a Caddo Parish Commissioner, had a high profile in the local government, while Hollier was something of an unknown.  Based on his experience alone, Morris easily snatched up the endorsement of the Shreveport Times, and the rest is written on the wall.  By not putting forth a proven candidate and funneling the appropriate resources to this race, the Louisiana Democratic Party is sending signals of apathy and resignation, rather than the do-or-die, balls-to-the-wall ethos that they will need to exhibit in order to come out of 2007 alive.

Having a drag like Gov. Kathleen Blanco at the top of the ticket this year would be bad enough for the Democratic majorities in the state legislature, but Louisiana Democrats will have to deal with another vulnerability: term limits.  As louisianagirl wrote in her authoritative diary on the subject, half of the 60 incumbent Democrats in the Louisiana House will face mandatory retirement after this year.  With only 53 seats needed to obtain control of the House, that leaves a lot of room for an aggressive, district-by-district challenge by a renewed Louisiana GOP in coordination with a strong top of the ticket challenge to Gov. Blanco.

The stakes of this are fairly high.  Without friendly control of the LA legislature, Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon could see his U.S. House district, and his job security, go up in smoke due to creative redistricting by state Republicans.  On the other hand, if Democrats controlled the redistricting levers, Louisiana’s congressional delegation will almost assuredly lose at least one Republican member of the House in 2012, after the census readjusts the state’s representation to account for population loss.

Additionally, how does ceding certain “swing” districts to the Republicans bode for Democrats’ ability to retain the offices of Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Sen. Mary Landrieu?  Not well, I would argue.

If the Louisiana Democratic Party is serious about staying a relevant political force in the state after November, it has to aggressively defend these seats.  With the disturbing revelation that our one potential savior at the top of the ballot, former Senator John Breaux, is likely ineligible to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination after he registered to vote in Maryland after he retired in 2005, this defense is all the more crucial.  Just as the New York GOP put everything into holding the State Senate in a wave year, the Louisiana Democratic Party should be preparing something similar for the legislature.

The Louisiana Democratic Party has a shot at redemption coming up very quickly–the March 10th special election for the 94th House District. Louisianagirl contends that, with candidate Deborah Langhoff at the helm, this is a legitimate pick-up opportunity for Team Blue–one of only a precious few that Louisiana Democrats will see during this cycle.  Is the Louisiana Democratic Party doing all that it can to help her out?  Given what pitiful lengths they went to keep the 1st District competitive, I almost dread to hear the answer.

Race Tracker: LA-Gov | LA-Sen | LA-03

The fine folks over at The Albany Project have some good news for Democrats in New York’s 29th Congressional District: Eric Massa is in for a rematch against “Shotgun” Randy Kuhl.  According to the Star-Gazette:

Democrat Eric Massa, who nearly unseated incumbent Rep. John R. Kuhl Jr., R-Hammondsport, last November, will seek the 29th District Congressional seat again next year.

Massa announced today that he is officially opening an exploratory committee to prepare for the contest.

“I was going to be very happy to stay in retirement,” Massa said. “But the issues of today underline the need for an honest debate of the issues.”

Massa, a retired Naval officer who lives in Corning, said he is starting from “ground zero” to build a campaign staff, raise money and establish a headquarters.

Massa, a former Naval officer and aide to General Wesley Clark, was an incredible candidate in 2006.  In particular, he was one of the most proactive candidates in terms of his enthusiastic use of the netroots to generate interest and support for his run.  One only needs to look at how quickly his highly-readible diaries are catapulted to the recommended list over at DailyKos to see the mark that his run has left on the blogosphere.  He also raised over $400,000 on Actblue.com (including nearly $60k from the Dailykos/MyDD/SSP Netroots Candidates page), using the power of the internet to outraise his opponent–not an easy feat against an incumbent.

Massa had a couple of bad breaks towards the end of his campaign–he caught some unfortunate press coverage due to some unprofessional antics of his short-lived original campaign manager, and for reasons which I’ll never quite understand, the DCCC chose not to answer the NRCC’s $600,000 hit job against Massa in the final weeks of the campaign.  Since Massa ultimately lost by a mere 3 points, one has to wonder if history would have been different had the DCCC been more aggressive.

But 2006 may not go down as Eric’s last best chance.  According to the Fighting 29th, the district’s conservative base has been sniping at Kuhl–and giving him the ultimatum of lurching even further to the right, or facing a possible primary challenge (and some speculate that maybe even a general election challenge on the Conservative line could be in the works).  With the local GOP infighting and Iraq spiraling out of control, Eric could make another race of this.

Race Tracker: NY-29

As we all know by now, the DSCC is heavily courting former Virginia Governor Mark Warner to run for the U.S. Senate in 2008–and, remarkably, Warner is not ruling it out, even if longtime incumbent John Warner decides not to retire.

What this creates is a possible dream scenario in Virginia:  John Warner, having survived a close call by a self-funding Mark Warner in 1996, had a difficult enough time beating back a challenge against a political unknown, winning by only 5 points.  At the time, the elder Warner remarked:  “It was tough – a tough two years.”  The conventional wisdom is that John Warner, who will be 81 in 2008, would not mind another term in the Senate–he just doesn’t want to campaign for it.

So, Mark Warner enters the race.  John Warner gets the spooks and announces an early retirement, making way for his preferred successor: 11th district Rep. Tom Davis (R).  In fact, the WaPo has already indicated that Warner has signaled Davis to get ready:

However, some doubt John Warner’s commitment to run. One Republican active in Virginia politics said that Warner has told U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) to prepare to run if the senator decides against another bid. “Davis is actively calling people and is saying on the calls that he has been told by Warner to get ready,” the source said.

Davis would be a pretty strong candidate for the Republicans: he currently represents one of their weaker areas of the state–the rapidly diversifying D.C. suburbs in Prince William and Fairfax counties.  This is the one region that has been nudging Virginia closer and closer to the left.  Take a look at the district’s chronolgy:

2004: John Kerry wins 49.29% of the district’s vote to George Bush’s 49.92%
2005: Tim Kaine (D) wins 55.67% of the vote to Jerry Kilgore’s 42.42%
2006: Jim Webb (D) wins 54.69% of the vote to George Allen’s 44.20%

So Davis could be strong statewide against an average Virginia Democrat, but he wouldn’t stand a chance against Mark Warner, who retired with a mind-boggling 80% approval rate.  And with the recent robust victories of Tim Kaine and Jim Webb in the 11th, Democrats would clearly be well-poised to capture this open seat with a strong candidate.  Any idea who we’d run for it?

Man oh man, what a glorious twofer it would be: a pick-up in both the Senate and House–both of which will be badly-needed to protect and expand the Democratic majorities.  If Chuck Schumer pulls this off (and he has had some stellar success in the past in this area–see Missouri, 2006), he could very well be elevated to demigod status.

Race Tracker: VA-Sen | VA-11

[Cross-posted at Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races.]

As we look at the 2008 Senate map, and where we have pick-up opportunities, there are some obvious choices for who would be our best candidate, and there are some not so obvious choices.

From Sebelius in Kansas to Allen in Maine to Easley in North Carolina to a number of choices in New Hampshire to fewer choices in Idaho, there is much to discuss.

Who is your ideal 2008 Senate candidate? Who would you like to see run?

More below the fold.

SEEMS OBVIOUS

Colorado (Wayne Allard) – U.S. Rep. Mark Udall: he’s all-but-in, so no need for the hard sell, and he’s the frontrunner with momentum while the CO-GOP is looking to a potentially nasty primary

Kansas (Pat Roberts) – Governor Kathleen Sebelius: enjoys a 67-29 approval-disapproval as Governor

Maine (Susan Collins) – U.S. Rep. Tom Allen: one of only two ME Congressmen, he is routinely re-elected with 60+% of the vote

Mississippi (Thad Cochran) – Former state Attorney General Mike Moore: the most popular Democrat in Mississippi

Nebraska (Chuck Hagel) – Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey: a bright star on a relatively shallow bench

North Carolina (Elizabeth Dole) – Governor Mike Easley: already beating Elizabeth Dole in polling

Virginia (John Warner) – Former Governor Mark Warner: left the Governor’s office with an 80+% approval rating

SEEMS FAIRLY OBVIOUS

Alaska (Ted Stevens) – Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich: With Tony Knowles’ electoral results statewide dropping from ’98 to ’04 to ’06, it seems that Begich’s star is the fasting rising among AK-Dems

Oregon (Gordon Smith) – U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer: a popular Democrat re-elected with larger totals each successive election, he seems to be politically preparing for a statewide bid

Tennessee (Lamar Alexander) – Governor Phil Bredesen: enjoys a monstrous 73-24 approval rating, while Lamar is at 53-36

Wyoming (Mike Enzi) – Governor Dave Freudenthal/Former Congressional candidate Gary Trauner: pretty much the only two high profile Democrats in the state at the moment; Freudenthal enjoys a mammoth 77-19 approval, but has indicated no interest in the race; Trauner came within about 1,000 votes of winning the At-Large Congressional seat in 2006

SEEMS LESS OBVIOUS (deep benches) – who would you prefer?

Minnesota (Norm Coleman) – do we choose the high-profile satirist, the millionaire public interest attorney, or well-known legislators?

New Hampshire (John Sununu) – do we choose the popular, young Mayor, the prominent activist, the progressive businessman, or the medical professor/former astronaut? An embarrassment of riches that not only should scare Sununu but also Gregg in ’10

New Mexico (Pete Domenici) – several prominent Congresspeople and current and former statewide elected officials – just waiting on Domenici to make a retire or run for re-elect decision

SEEMS LESS OBVIOUS (slimmer or quieter benches) – who are your picks?
Alabama (Jeff Sessions)
Georgia (Saxby Chambliss)
Idaho (Larry Craig)
Kentucky (Mitch McConnell)
Oklahoma (Jim Inhofe)
South Carolina (Lindsey Graham)
Texas (John Cornyn)

You know, I figure that, since David has his hands full doing, um, whatever it is that ambitious attorneys do all day, I should seize the moment and completely overhaul the Swing State Project.  Perhaps I’ll start with a name change.  How does “RichterBlog” sound to you?

Anyway, in all seriousness, everyone’s favorite former New York Ranger turned prospective Democratic politician has been busy testing the waters in Connecticut for a potential run against lonely Republican Chris Shays.  The Associated Press has a great piece up which I suggest you read.  The latest scoop: it looks like we’ll know whether or not Richter will run within a few weeks.  Here are some key pieces:

Richter, a 40-year-old Democrat who lives in Guilford, said he expects to make a decision in the next few weeks about whether to run for the Fairfield County seat in 2008.

“I’ve considered entering public office in some form for a long time,” Richter told The Associated Press. “I’m getting positive responses.”

[…]

Richter worked last year for U.S. Rep. John Hall, a Democrat and former musician who upset six-term incumbent Republican Sue Kelly in upstate New York. Richter helped Hall, who opposed the Iraq war, win over police officers, fire fighters and other constituents who might not have otherwise voted for him, said Tom Staudter, Hall’s spokesman.

“He was hugely popular,” Staudter said, describing Richter as bright and friendly. “He’ll be great.”

In a sign of his status, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani named his dog “Goalie” after Richter.

[…]

But Richter could pose a big threat given the reverence many Americans hold for sports stars, Rose said.

“That hockey background could actually be an attraction to some voters here,” Rose said. “It would be sort of a blast of fresh air in the 4th District.”

After two unsuccessful kicks at the can by former nominee Diane Farrell, who could not even beat an increasingly and bizarrely erratic Shays in a wave year like 2006, I’m ready for that fresh air.  Are you?

And don’t worry: SSP will resume its regularly scheduled programming soon.

Race Tracker: CT-04

A version of this originally appeared at West Virginia Blue.

I like Gov. Joe Manchin and have touted him here and elsewhere, but I think he should run for another term here and do the work that is needed in West Virginia before he considers a run for higher office. The often Republican friendly Charleston Daily Mail, hiding behind a “some say,” which really appears to hang on just one person commenting, believes Manchin is already making a bid as vice presidential material or U.S. Senate.

From the article:

The first-term governor has been catching the eye of national Democratic Party officials and is getting opportunities to speak before national audiences as he assumes leadership roles in a handful of influential organizations.

On Sunday he was a guest on Fox News talking about energy independence as the chairman-elect of the Democratic Governors Association, a post formerly held by Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

Richardson is a potential presidential candidate and Manchin ally.

Manchin, 59, also is the chairman-elect of the Southern Governors Association. The governor currently heads the Southern States Energy Board.

He’s becoming more visible in Washington, flying in state aircraft to the nation’s capital at least 30 times since taking office 28 months ago, according to state aviation records. He’s been there three times so far this year.

Manchin’s trips to Washington could easily be tied to his work on the national board of governors, which he will head next year.

The always interesting Lincoln Walks at Midnight points out that Manchin already has discussed his plans to remain West Virginia’s governor:

“I can honestly tell you I am not in any way, shape or form pursuing that whatsoever… You never know what will happen, but I can tell you that with the job I have right now, there’s so much still we have left to do in West Virginia.”

Personally I think he should run for governor in 2008 for another term and then run for Senator Robert C. Byrd’s seat should he retire in 2012 when Senator Byrd, now 89 and still one of the sharpest minds in the Senate, would be 95.

Another possibility from West Virginia: State Sen. John Unger (D) as a challenger to Rubber Stamp Republican Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito. He won big in 2006 in a very red Berkeley County and is well-respected in Charleston. I’ve not heard if he’s going to throw his hat into the ring in 2008, but he definitely should.

We all know who is out there being touted by the national press for 2008. Who else has potential to break into the national scene in 2008?

As we look toward the unsettled Senate race picture of 2008, one of the hot topics of discussion lately has been rampant will-they-or-won’t-they speculation surrounding the potential retirements of Republican Senators like Pete Domenici (NM), Thad Cochran (MS), and John Warner (VA).  All three of these Senators have sent signals with varying degrees of certainty that they will indeed be running again in 2008.  Cochran, for instance, has started to rev up his fundraising engines.  But as we look at these three Republican geezers and others like them, keep in mind the familiar refrain from SSP hero Chuck D: Don’t Believe the Hype!

Senators can be annoyingly coy about seeking re-election, often issuing firm statements and strong signals that they’ll seek another term while postponing a formal retirement announcement.  Let’s look at a few recent examples.

Halfway through his Senate term, Mark Dayton (D-MN) was firmly committed to his re-election prospects (at least publicly).  He hired a new public relations firm and made plans to tour his home state more extensively to increase his visibility, while at the same time hiring top shelf talent to bolster his anemic fundraising (as of January, 2004, he had a scant $60,000 in his re-election coffers).  A year later, he had already announced his retirement.  While Dayton’s move was borne out of a desire to avoid a costly defeat (something that popular Senators Warner, Domenici, and Cochran probably don’t have to worry about), it does illustrate that plans do indeed change.

Take Republican Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, for instance.  In 2001, he was heavily leaning towards retirement after he lost his chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs Committee when the Democrats took control of the Senate.  However, on September 25 of that same year, he announced quite firmly that the gravity of 9/11 compelled him to seek another Senate term.  It only took a few months before he reneged in March, claiming that he didn’t have “the heart” for another six years.

Or how about Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), who in June of 2003 was fundraising at a decent clip and making statements that he was indeed going to stay on for another Senate term?  It was not until March of 2004 that he decided that another Senate term was not in the cards.

And how’s this for another example?  Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).  After the 1998 midterms, he quickly promised that he would run for a fourth term.  “I’ve said I’m going to run, and I intend to,” he told the New York Times that November.  Three months later, in February 1999, he threw in the towel.  (But as we all know, it’s funny how these plans go: Lautenberg was Torricelli’s emergency replacement in 2002, and is preparing another run for 2008.)

My point here is that I highly doubt that John Ensign and the NRSC will escape 2008 without dealing with at least one more retirement (Colorado Senator Wayne Allard has already jumped ship).  With the 2008 and 2010 Senate race maps offering Republicans minimal obvious opportunities to reclaim the majority position, I suspect that we’ll see more retirements on their side of the aisle now that they’ve lost their swanky committee chairmanships and other trappings of power.  They just might not be admitting it yet.

Can anyone think of similar examples of other Senators sending firm re-election signals, only to issue a surprise (or not so surprising) retirement notice?

UPDATE: In the comments over at the Dailykos discussion of this diary, kywddavid takes a look at some historical numbers:

From 1920 through 2006 (the years covered by Wikipedia for this), 215 Senators retired in 44 cycles.  That’s an average of 4.88 Senate retirements per cycle.  The number of retirements has never been lower than two (most recently in 1964) or higher than eleven (1996) [thirteen, not eleven, Senators actually retired in 1996–James].  Over the last ten elections, the average was 5.7 but that included 1996’s eleven.

Senate retirements played a huge role in 2004 as five southern Democrats retired and Republicans won all of those seats.  Retirements have tended to run a tad higher in Presidential election years, maybe because it is [harder] to raise the cash needed to survive.

Even more evidence that lends weight to the theory that Allard probably won’t be the only retirement of the 2008 cycle.

Democrats hoping for an open U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi will apparently have to wait a few more election cycles. Incumbent GOP Sen. Thad Cochran started a major fundraising drive with a fundraiser in Jackson Tuesday night and is expected to raise some $650,000.00 this week.

While not yet committing to a 2008 race Cochran indicated he was leaning heavily toward a race despite reports in recent months that he would like to retire. If Cochran had retired the Mississippi Democratic Party had a number of strong candidates who would have a good chance to return the seat to Democratic hands. They included former Gov. Ray Mabus, former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, Cong. Gene Taylor, former Cong. Ronnie Shows, former Sec. of Agriculture and Cong. Mike Espy, and others.

http://bluesunbelt.c…

I just want to point out for everybody the existence of the “Victory Caucus,” a new GOP pressure group that’s intended to find primary challengers for House members who – like most of the country – oppose Bush’s escalation. The nearest equivalent of the netroots available on the right is all over this, demanding primary challenges.

An instructive comment:
The RINOS who vote for surrender with the Democrats should be removed from office. They join with the Party of Treason in sabotaging the war and in giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

To put this more practically: they’re talking about knocking moderate-ish Republican incumbents out of moderate-ish districts and replacing them with firebreathing conservatives who emphasize particularly their enthusiasm for continuing the war.

This would be of great assistance in preserving our majority. Can you imagine a Redstate-approved hawk trying to win in, say, IL10 or even MN3?

Is there any way we can encourage this? Maybe some direct mail to right-wing voters?