Tag: Paul Kanjorski

• AZ-Sen: Looks like the Maverick has finally been broken (as he’s decided that it’s preferable to spend six years chewing his cud while fenced in the GOP pasture, instead of getting sent prematurely to the glue factory). In the face of a potentially serious primary from the right from J.D. Hayworth, John McCain says not only is he no longer a maverick, but he “never considered himself a maverick.” (Except for in all those campaign ads from two years ago?) In response, Hayworth said McCain is trying to “encourage amnesia.”

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s a new LA Times/USC poll of the two major races in California, with a mixed bag of results for Democrats. Like most pollsters, they find that Republican Meg Whitman has pulled into a small lead over Jerry Brown in the governor’s race, thanks to her nonstop deluge of self-funded advertising; she leads Brown 44-41, while she leads Steve Poizner in the GOP primary 60-20. On the Senate side, Barbara Boxer leads a Generic Republican by a surprisingly wide 48-34. Polling Generic R seems pretty weird, though, considering that there are only two likely opponents for her: Tom Campbell leads Carly Fiorina in the GOP primary 29-25, with Chuck DeVore lagging at 9. One other bit of good news for Dems: by a 46-29 margin, voters prefer to back a candidate who backed health care reform.

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet is playing it safe, making plans for a petition drive to make sure his name is on the ballot in November. He needs at least 30% at the Democratic state convention to qualify, but his Plan B seems to be an acknowledgment that he may be facing a rough time at the convention too. Remember that he lost at the caucus level to former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff (whose main source of strength seems to be insiders and activists, rather than the broader population).

• IN-Sen: CQ takes a look at the NRSC’s private teeth-gnashing over the possibility that kooky ex-Rep. John Hostettler might beat ex-Sen. Dan Coats in the primary, something that can’t be ruled out in an anti-establishment year like this one. They’d then have to decide whether they want to financially prop up Hostettler, a legendarily poor fundraiser who’s relied on shoestring campaigns and religious right ground troops. Still, a reasonably competent Hostettler ought to be able to make short work of Coats in the GOP primary, given the amount of material he has to work with: for instance, it turns out that Coats, when lobbying for King & Spaulding, lobbied Congress in favor of cap and trade, the same legislation he claims he now opposes.

• NV-Sen: If there’s one reason not to quite count out Harry Reid yet, it’s his ability to bring in the campaign cash. He brought in more than $1.5 million for the quarter, giving him more than $10 million in receipts so far this cycle. Sue Lowden, ostensibly the GOP’s top contender, says she raised about $500K and will match that dollar-for-dollar from her own personal stash. Danny Tarkanian raised $445K last quarter.

• NY-Sen-B (pdf): These numbers are a little stale, but we found there were some more useful numbers buried in that Marist poll from last week where the topline was just the usual rigamarole about the Kirsten Gillibrand vs. George Pataki matchup that’s very unlikely to happen (especially not if Al D’Amato has anything to say about it). They also tested some head-to-heads with the lesser GOPers who are actually in the race: Gillibrand beats Bruce Blakeman 54-25, Joe DioGuardi 54-27, and David Malpass 54-25. They also looked at the GOP primary, finding DioGuardi winning it with 18, followed by Blakeman at 10, Malpass at 9, and non-candidate Dan Senor at 4. A permutation including Pataki finds Pataki at 62, with DioGuardi at 7, Blakeman at 4, and Malpass and Senor at 2. In other news, Gillibrand picked up an endorsement today from one of her biggest skeptics, Assemblyman and Kings Co. Dem chair Vito Lopez. Lopez had been considering backing Harold Ford Jr., way back in those heady days of February.

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi is still saying he’s “completely undecided” about running for Senate, but will do it if he thinks he has a “50% chance” of winning. Here’s one more bit that might help move his decision along, though: financially, he’d be starting from scratch against Patty Murray, who raked in another $1 million last quarter, bringing her total war chest to $5.9 million.

• AL-Gov: I gather from the comments that SSP is full of mustache aficionados, and this news might prove heartbreaking to them: Ron Sparks shaved off his legendary ‘stache. He says this was a spur-of-the-moment decision at the barber shop (and hopefully not the result of thorough focus grouping?). I just hope Travis Childers doesn’t decide to follow suit.

• NY-Gov: Wealthy businessman Carl Paladino has decided to go ahead with his teabaggish-sounding campaign for Governor, kicking off his bid today in Buffalo. He’ll be running in the GOP primary, although he’d previously made noises about a possible independent run. Unfortunately, his rollout might be overshadowed by other news today… that he had a daughter with his mistress 10 years ago, and kept the child secret from his wife until last year.

• OH-Gov: In response to pressure to release his financials, John Kasich released his 2008 tax returns. Kasich earned $615K from now-kaput Lehman Brothers in 2008, including $183K base and a $432K bonus (but no “golden parachute” as Lehman Brothers collapsed). Oh, by the way, he also earned $265K as a Fox News commentator, $166K in speaking fees, $62K as an associate for Schottenstein Property Group, $45K as an Ohio State Univ. lecturer, $77K for being on the board of directors of two companies, and $122K in interest and dividends. Just your average teabagging Joe Lunchpail.

• HI-01: Charles Djou is trying to get some mileage out of the fact that neither Ed Case nor Colleen Hanabusa lives in HI-01. This kind of thing usually doesn’t matter much even in most other states, and seems to matter even less in Hawaii, though, where the island of Oahu gets split between the two districts and no one seems to care that Mazie Hirono lives in the 1st instead of HI-02.

• CO-04: Rep. Betsy Markey is near the top of most people’s vulnerable Dems lists, especially after her pro-HCR vote, but her cash haul may go along way toward allaying fears. She pulled in $505K, with $355K of that coming between Mar. 21 (the HCR vote) and Mar. 31. Her vote (plus being in Sarah Palin’s sorta-metaphorical crosshairs) seems to have helped, not hurt. Likely GOP opponent Cory Gardner raised only $75K last quarter after the HCR vote.

• ND-AL: One GOPer who is doing well on the fundraising front is state Rep. Rick Berg, who pulled in $483K in the first quarter. $330K of that came in the last 10 days of the quarter, although that seems to have more to do with his winning the state party’s endorsement rather than the HCR vote. Most of the rest of that took the form of $100K from his own pocket. Between this and the downdraft from John Hoeven at the top of the ballot, looks like Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s in for a real race this year.

• PA-06: Doug Pike picked up another labor endorsement, and it’s a big one: the AFL-CIO. They also backed Paul Kanjorski in the 11th, who’s being challenged by Corey O’Brien in the primary.

• RI-01: Here’s one more huge House Democratic fundraising haul, although this isn’t a race that the DCCC has been sweating too hard. Providence mayor David Cicilline pulled in a huge $725K (although some of that was checks re-written away from his mayoral fund to his newly-established House fund). His main Democratic rival, former state party chair William Lynch, raised $230K (including $100K of his own money).

• TX-17: Bill Flores pulled in an endorsement that will help in his GOP primary runoff against Rob Curnock, from perhaps the most unlikable man in the entirety of American politics, ex-Sen. Phil Gramm. In fact, that district may be conservative enough that it might still be a positive in the general.

• LA-LG: Republican SoS Jay Dardenne’s plan for an easy upgrade to the position of Lt. Governor (left vacant by Mitch Landrieu’s move to mayor of New Orleans) ran into a bit of a snag. He’s facing GOP primary opposition now from the state GOP chair, Roger Villere.

• CA-Init: Proposition 15 looks to be the only interesting initiative on the June primary ballot in California, and it lays some important groundwork for countering the flood of corporate money into elections. The Fair Elections Act, as it’s called, is a pilot program for public financing of state races; if passed, it’ll publicly fund the 2014 and 2018 Secretary of State races, which, if successful, could lead to a broader system.

• Fundraising: There are a number of other fundraising roundups today, courtesy of National Journal’s Reid Wilson and also the crew at TPM. Other highlights include Tom Campbell, Pat Toomey, Bob Dold!, Colleen Hanabusa, Bruce O’Donoghue, and various OR-Gov contestants.

• Teabaggers: Ed Kilgore continues his hot streak of dismantling the myth of the teabaggers, pointing to today’s Gallup/USA Today poll as more evidence that they’re nothing more than louder, angrier Republicans (who’d like access to a time machine). Only 7% say they’re Democrats, and while many say they’re independents, all evidence suggests they’re not from the center but those indies who think the GOP is too establishment, too liberal, or just too unsalvageable.

• RNC: You might remember several weeks ago the RNC lost a case in the D.C. District Court, squelching their desires for unlimited “soft money” contributions, which they felt they should be able to do in the wake of Citizens United. The RNC has decided to go ahead and appeal the case to the Supreme Court, although it doesn’t seem likely it’ll be decided in time for this year’s general election. (If you’re wondering why the case is bypassing the DC Circuit, McCain-Feingold allows challenges to it to leapfrog directly from the trial level to SCOTUS.)

• Census: Here’s an interesting tidbit: despite her early anti-Census fearmongering, Michele Bachmann’s district is actually well outpacing much of the nation on Census form return rates. Counties in her district have had an especially high return rate, ranging from 68-71% (compared with the current national average of 50%). Perhaps Republicans have decided it’s better in the long-term to, y’know, get conservative parts of the country to get accurately represented, rather than to try to appeal to the black-helicopters fringes, if Karl Rove cutting an ad urging Census participation is any indication.

• O2B: Finally, over at the Great Orange Satan, there’s an open call for nominations for the Orange to Blue program. Stop by and suggest some names of candidates who should get the netroots’ financial help this year.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Lots of pollsters that I’ve never heard of seem to be coming out of the woodwork to poll California lately, and here’s yet another one of them: some firm called ccAdvertising. They polled the Republican primaries, finding, on the Senate side, that Tom Campbell leads at 24, with Carly Fiorina at 12 and Chuck DeVore at 8. On the gubernatorial side, Meg Whitman leads Steve Poizner 40-15.

• CO-Sen: Tonight is the first step in the Colorado caucus process, with precinct-level gatherings. The results are non-binding, really more of a straw poll than anything, but are monitored as a sign of candidates’ strength. (Of course, in 2004, neither Ken Salazar nor Pete Coors won the caucuses yet went on to win their primaries.) The bigger hurdle is in May, when candidates must clear 30% at the state assembly to make the primary ballot (although those that don’t can still get on by collecting signatures). With the Governor’s race pretty much locked down, there’s still action aplenty on both the Dem and GOP sides in the Senate. Michael Bennet comes into tonight’s caucuses with a boost: he just got the endorsement from the state’s AFSCME, which may help fight the perception that rival Andrew Romanoff is labor’s one horse in the race.

• CT-Sen: Paulist economist Peter Schiff is finally dipping into the spoils from his moneybombs, running ads on Connecticut radio introducing himself to Republican primary voters and touting his having predicted the financial crisis of 2008.

• ID-Sen: Democrats are already way ahead of where they were in their last race against Mike Crapo in 2004: they’re actually fielding a candidate. Two, in fact, have filed, although they’re little known: Tom Sullivan and William Bryk.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk is up with his first TV spot for the general election campaign, calling himself an “independent-minded Republican.” Having beaten back various teabagger challengers in the primary, he’s now free to label himself as such.

• MD-Sen: File this under news of the weird: Bob Ehrlich is confirming he’s interested in running for office this year, but one idea he’s floating is running for Senate against Barbara Mikulski instead of for Governor against Martin O’Malley. That’s a very strange choice, as Mikulski is more popular than O’Malley and generally considered unassailable, but maybe Ehrlich thinks he can goad the 73-year-old Mikulski into retirement.

• NC-Sen: Two polls of the Democratic primary in the Senate race show fairly different pictures, with the main difference being how well Cal Cunningham is keeping pace with Elaine Marshall. PPP’s most recent poll of the primary shows Cunningham gaining four points from last month, trailing Marshall 20-16, with 11 for Kenneth Lewis (up from 5). On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 58%, with his minor rivals all in the low single digits. Marshall, on the other hand, released her own internal yesterday, from Lake Research. The poll’s a little stale (in the field mid-February), so if the PPP poll reflects late movement to Cunningham, Marshall’s poll wouldn’t capture it. At any rate, her internal has her up 31-5 over Cunningham, with Lewis at 4.

• NJ-Sen: A weird-ass ruling from a New Jersey appellate court says the Tea Party may proceed with collecting recall petitions to recall Bob Menendez. The court, however, stayed its own decision in order to allow Menendez to appeal, presumably to a federal court which will disabuse the state judges of the notion that one can recall federal officials. (Adam B. points to the crux of the case here and here).

• AL-Gov, AR-Gov: Financial filings for gubernatorial candidates in Alabama and Arkansas are both available. In Alabama, Tim James ($2.6 mil) leads the GOPers, while Artur Davis ($2.1 mil) has the most cash among the Dems. In Arkansas, Mike Beebe is sitting on $1.2 million (having raised $313K in February); his opponent, Jim Keet, hasn’t been in long enough to report.

• ME-Gov: It looks like there won’t be a Green Party candidate on the ballot this year; Lynne Williams suspended her campaign after failing to gather the 2,000 required signatures. That’s good news for Dems, as this could turn out to be a close race (although with this little information and the fields this cluttered, who the hell knows?) and Greens often poll well in Maine, getting 9% of the vote in the convoluted 2006 gubernatorial election.

• PA-Gov (pdf): There was a gubernatorial portion to that poll from Republican pollster Susquehanna released yesterday, too. As with every poll of this race, undecideds are still very heavy, but Republican AG Tom Corbett leads Democratic state Auditor Jack Wagner 37-26, and leads Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato 39-24. Wagner has been dominating in terms of getting the endorsements of county-level party apparatuses, and he picked up one more yesterday, getting the nod from Cambria County (i.e. Johnstown) Democrats.

• WY-Gov: To almost no one’s surprise, Republican state House speaker Colin Simpson pulled the trigger, officially entering the gubernatorial race. (If his name sounds familiar, he’s the son of popular ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.) He faces three other high-profile GOPers, while Democrats, sorting out what to do after Dave Freudenthal’s late decision not to seek a third term, are still lining up a candidate.

• AK-AL: Rep. Don Young is refusing to get with the program, as far as the GOP’s new self-imposed ban on earmarks goes. Considering that Young seems most valued by his constituents for his ability to bring home the bacon (which may have saved his bacon twice, in both the primary and general in 2008), that may actually be the politically savvy thing for him to do.

• HI-01: The first debate was held in the special election in the 1st, and it may be most interesting in that ex-Rep. Ed Case was trying to stake out positions that sound pretty, well, Democratic. Case spoke out in favor of both health care reform and the stimulus package. Moderate Republican Charles Djou tried to differentiate himself by railing against both.

• IA-03: I don’t know if this is just one ex-wrestling coach sticking up for another, or if there’s an establishment movement afoot to coronate Jim Gibbons in the 3rd, but ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert is showing up to host a Des Moines fundraiser for Gibbons tomorrow. They’ll be joined by ex-Rep. Greg Ganske.

• PA-07: I love the smell of cat fud in the morning. While former local Fox affiliate news anchor Dawn Stensland didn’t file to run in the Republican primary as has been rumored, now she’s not ruling out an independent, teabagger-powered run instead. While she hasn’t begun gathering signatures, she is looking to move into the 7th. Even if she only garners a few percent, that could still tip the balance in what promises to be a very close race between Democrat Bryan Lentz and GOPer Pat Meehan.

• House: The Hill has an interesting survey of eight different primaries where the one participant’s vote on TARP could weigh heavily on the results (as it seemed to do in the Texas gubernatorial primary). Most are on the GOP side, but one Dem race to watch is PA-11, where Paul Kanjorski, the chair of the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, was one of TARP’s architects.

• NRCC: The NRCC is threatening to go on the air against Dems who change from “no” to “yes” votes on HCR, targeting them with the dread “flip-flop” label that served them so well in 2004. They have 42 Dems in mind to target, although there’s still the little wee matter of the NRCC finding the money to pay for the ads.

• NY-St. Sen.: Tonight’s the special election in SD-13 in Queens, where Hiram Monserrate is trying to win back the seat he just got kicked out of after his assault conviction. Monserrate, now an indie, is running against Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta. Peralta had a dominant lead in the one poll of the race made public.

• Ads: With the Demon Sheep and Boxer Blimp ads having established Carly Fiorina’s campaign as the new gold standard in bizarre advertising, Huffington Post has a nice wrapup of some of the other craziest political ads of the last few years, ranging from the well-known (Mike Gravel skipping rocks, Big John Cornyn) to the “huh?” (Nancy Worley on strangling cats).

• TV: Obsessive-compulsive political junkies and opposition researchers alike are dancing a jig right now, as C-Span has announced that it’s releasing its entire archives onto the Web. All 160,000 hours worth. (If you don’t have a calculator handy, that’s 18 years.)

• Redistricting: Eager not to get behind the redistricting 8-ball in 2012 like they were ten years ago, the DLCC has launched a $20 million push aimed at keeping control of state legislatures in key states. They point to “swing” chambers in 17 states that have the capacity to affect almost half of all House seats. Dem-held chambers they’re focusing on are the Alabama State Senate, Colorado State Senate, Indiana House, Nevada State Senate, New Hampshire State Senate, New York State Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, Wisconsin Assembly and the Wisconsin State Senate, while GOP-held chambers are the Michigan State Senate, Missouri House, Oklahoma State Senate, Tennessee House, and the Texas House.

• AR-Sen: Bill Halter’s netroots haul has crested $1 million, between MoveOn and ActBlue (led by the PCCC and Daily Kos). On top of all that, the Sierra Club is joining the fray, with its own attack ads against Blanche Lincoln over her attempts to limit EPA regulation. The ads don’t mention Halter by name, though.

• AZ-Sen: John McCain is getting the newest GOP sensation, Scott Brown, to come to Arizona to stump for him. Because, you know, nothing says “Hey teabaggers, vote for me instead of J.D. Hayworth!” than bringing in the New England RINO who gladly took all the teabaggers’ money and support and turned around and voted for a Democratic piece of legislation on his first week on the job.

• CO-Sen: Having seemingly scored big time with his public option letter (at least to the extent of raising his previously very low profile), Michael Bennet seems to be getting very ambitious. The freshman Senator just unveiled a comprehensive package of Senate reforms that he’s authored that’s aimed squarely at undoing the quagmire that the Senate has become, including filibuster reform, eliminating anonymous holds and private-sector earmarks, and barring lawmakers from lobbying… for life.

• KS-Sen: Rasmussen finds that (big surprise) all the action in the Kansas Senate race is the GOP primary (although they didn’t bother polling the hotly-contested primary). Rather than test possible candidate state Sen. David Haley, they just take the “Generic D” route, and find both Reps. Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt beating G.D., 51-26 and 50-29 respectively.

• ND-Sen: The Dems’ leading candidate for contesting the likely takeover of the open Senate seat in North Dakota by Republican Gov. John Hoeven decided against a run, probably sensing the long odds. Former AG Heidi Heitkamp said no (on her brother’s radio show), although rumors suggest she’s interested in running for Governor in 2012, meaning she probably wouldn’t want a big defeat as people’s last memory of her. State Sen. Tracy Potter is already in for the Dems, and businesswoman Kristin Hedger may also get in, as she said she’d defer only to Heitkamp.

• NY-Sen-B: Is Kirsten Gillibrand going to actually be able to waltz to re-election, or will some other moneybags celebrity pop out of the woodwork next week? After having sent Harold Ford Jr. packing, now billionaire publisher Mort Zuckerman decided against a Republican bid (couching it oddly, in that being a Senator would take up too much time from his actual day job). Zuckerman is wise to save his money, as Rasmussen finds Zuckerman losing to Gillibrand 47-36 (not as bad as Marist yesterday, but still not encouraging). Rasmussen also finds Gillibrand beating even George Pataki, 44-42 (although for some reason they don’t poll actual candidate Bruce Blakeman).

• NY-Gov: When it rains, it pours, for David Paterson. The New York State Commission on Public Integrity just released its finding that he violated state ethics laws for securing World Series tickets for himself and friends and then falsely testifying under oath about it. That gets sent over to Andrew Cuomo’s desk on top of the whole meshugas about the state police, which kept building today with the resignation of state police superintendent Harry Corbitt. Maurice Hinchey just publicly said what I’ll bet most other New York Dems are privately thinking: he’s glad he won’t have to run with Paterson upticket from him.

Meanwhile, there’s a ton of snap polling out today about Paterson, of varying degrees of badness for him. Quinnipiac finds his approval at an all-time low of 24/62, although voters say 61-31 he should finish his term rather than resign. SurveyUSA, however, finds a plurality for resignation: 47 say resign, 44 say stay. Rasmussen finds 28 say resign, 53 say stay. Rasmussen also threw in some numbers for the gubernatorial election in November, finding Cuomo winning against Republican Rick Lazio, 55-30. They also tested out gadflyish businessman Carl Paladino, who’s made noises about running. With Paladino as the R, Cuomo wins 56-27, and with Paladino as an I, Cuomo is at 50, with 19 for Lazio and 15 for Paladino.

• OK-Gov: Here’s a path for Democrats to win the Governor’s race in Oklahoma, according to Rasmussen: find a way for state Sen. Randy Brogdon to win the GOP primary. Unfortunately, it seems like the very conservative Rep. Mary Fallin is well on her way to winning the primary against the ultra-conservative Brogdon. Fallin beats Democratic Lt. Gov. Jari Askins 51-37, and AG Drew Edmondson 51-36. Brodgon, however, loses to Askins 42-39 and beats Edmondson 42-41.

• PA-Gov: Quinnipiac released the gubernatorial half of its Pennsylvania poll, and Arlen Specter’s bounce doesn’t seem to have rubbed off much on the Democrats running for Governor… although their main problem, as always, seems to be that no one knows who they are. In the primary, “don’t know” dominates at 59, followed by Dan Onorato is at 16, Jack Wagner at 11, Joe Hoeffel at 10, and Anthony Williams at 2. AG Tom Corbett has no problems on the GOP side, beating state Rep. Sam Rohrer 43-5. In head-to-heads, Corbett beats Onorato 42-32, Wagner 42-30, and Hoeffel 41-30.

• TN-Gov: Here’s another state where it’s still just too damn early to be polling the gubernatorial race. MTSU doesn’t even bother with head-to-heads in the Tennessee race, but finds that Republican Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam (who’s been spending heavily on advertising) has a bit of a leg up, in that he’s the least unknown of the myriad candidates (19% of respondents were actually able to name him). Mike McWherter is the best known Dem (although that may be because he shares a last name with his dad the ex-Gov.).

• HI-01: We’ve gotten confirmation that the May 22 special election to replace resigned Rep. Neil Abercrombie will be an all mail-in affair, saving the state some money but possibly scrambling the parties’ GOTV plans. This election and the special election in PA-12 four days earlier pose a quandary for the NRCC — spend money they don’t really have, in order to take advantage of what seems to be nationwide Republican momentum… or fess up that they really don’t have much chance in either of these districts and save their money for November (or worse, spend the money and lose anyway, as with NY-20 and NY-23). NRCC spokesperson Paul Lindsey seems to telegraph which way the NRCC is leaning: “Considering that one district is the birthplace of President Obama and the other gives Democrats a voter registration advantage of more than 130,000, it is not lost on anyone that we face an incredible challenge in both races.”

• NY-15: Charles Rangel has finally put down his gavel as Ways and Means chair, after he was found to have violated ethics rules. He says it’s a temporary “leave of absence,” but the House’s presiding officer said “the resignation is accepted,” suggesting something more permanent. This comes in the face of a growing wave of opposition within his own party, with a number of members returning his PAC money (ranging from the very vulnerable, like Walt Minnick, to the theoretically vulnerable, like Niki Tsongas). Also, perhaps symbolically important, it came after Artur Davis (running for Alabama governor) became the first CBC member to call for Rangel to give up his gavel.

• OK-02 (pdf): The 2nd seems like a strange choice of a place to poll, but I guess it’s a good test case in terms of a Democratic Rep. in a dark-red district that hasn’t been on anyone’s radar screen as being vulnerable (in the face of utterly no-name challengers). True to form, Dan Boren doesn’t have much to worry about this fall. He’s having no trouble against his anonymous opponents, beating Dan Arnett 49-22, Daniel Edmonds 44-28, and Howard Houchen 48-26. (Teabagging independent Miki Booth pulls in 7 or 8 in each matchup.) Much of that has to do with the level of opposition, but Boren is the first incumbent Rep. PPP has found who’s polling above 50 in terms of approval, at 51/33. Boren’s occasional, um, departures from the party line can be better understood in terms of Barack Obama’s disturbingly low 27/65 approval in the district.

• PA-11: Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien got some help from the left as he fights a primary battle against crusty Rep. Paul Kanjorski; he got the endorsement of two local unions: the Northeast Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council, and the Scranton Building and Construction Trades Council.

• PA-12: Bill Russell released an internal poll showing him beating Tim Burns in the GOP primary in the 12th. That’s not really the newsworthy part; what’s interesting is his internal pollster is Zogby. The pollster that everyone treated as an oracle in 2004 has been reduced to polling on behalf of BMW Direct’s direct-mail-scam frontman? Lord, how the mighty have fallen.

• Census: Guess who’s finally learned to love the Census? Michele Bachmann! Probably after some of her staffers showed her a puppet show spreadsheet showing how a combination of not enough residents in her district + a Democratic governor and legislature = no more MN-06. At any rate, she’s planning to vote for a largely symbolic resolution to encourage Americans to participate in the Census.

• Election Results: With 99.1% of precincts reporting (97 remain, apparently mostly in Cook County), both sides of the governor’s race remain too close to call. Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn has declared victory, sitting on a 7,000 vote lead (50.4%-49.6%) and with the remaining precincts in Cook County likely to go his way, although Dan Hynes hasn’t conceded yet. On the GOP side, we’re looking most likely at a recount, as state Sen. Bill Brady leads fellow state Sen. Kirk Dillard currently by a 751-vote margin (20.3%-20.2%), as they both squeaked past the two presumed frontrunners, former state party chair Andy McKenna and former AG Jim Ryan. The fact that the remaining votes are from Cook County, however, may be poised to help the moderate suburbs-based Dillard, though, rather than the conservative downstate Brady, so this race seems likely to get even closer (Nate Silver actually projects a one-vote victory for Brady based on broader Cook County trends). Recount procedures make it sound like a protracted process – an initial vote tally won’t happen until March 5, and then the process “could take months to complete” – giving Quinn a big headstart on whoever the GOP victor turns out to be.

As expected, Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk are the Senate nominees, although both won their races with somewhat underwhelming percentages (39% for Giannoulias, and 57% for Kirk, who could have been in more trouble had the teabagging right coalesced behind one person in particular). Conservatives did triumph over establishment candidates in several GOP House primaries, though, as Bob Dold! beat state Rep. Beth Coulson in the 10th, and state Sen. Randy Hultgren beat Ethan Hastert in the 14th.

In Florida, as expected, state Sen. Ted Deutch easily won the special election primary to succeed Rep. Robert Wexler, beating former Broward Co. Commissioner Ben Graber 86-15. It looks like he’ll face Republican Ed Lynch (the 2008 nominee), who defeated Joe Budd by only 46 votes (but with only 8,000 total GOP votes, that’s outside the margin for an automatic recount). And here’s a surprise out of Kentucky: Democrats picked up a state House seat in the dark-red HD 24, which was recently vacated when Republican Jimmy Higdon got promoted to the state Senate in another special election. Terry Mills won, 54-46, based on an overwhelming edge (89-11) on his home turf of Marion County, reminding us that, at the end of the day, all politics is local.

Finally, last night was caucus and straw poll night in Minnesota. Only 80% of precincts have reported yet – I guess they go to bed early in Minnesota – but the straw poll in the Democratic governor’s race points to only a lot of chaos at this point. Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak led with 21.8%, followed closely by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 20.2%. However, “uncommitted” is a solid 3rd at 15%, there are five other candidates who managed to break 5% (John Marty, Tom Rukavina, Paul Thissen, Matt Entenza, and Tom Bakk), and ex-Sen. Mark Dayton doesn’t even seem to be bothering with the whole process, planning on going straight to the primary, so there’s not much clarity on how the field will shake out. The GOP field seems much more clear-cut, where former state House minority leader Marty Seifert beat state Rep. Tom Emmer 50-39, with the rest of the field in the low single digits.

• AZ-Sen: With the imminent entry of ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth into the Republican primary against John McCain, we’re already looking at dueling internal polls. McCain offers up a poll from POS, giving him a 59-30 lead over Hayworth. Hayworth has his own poll from McLaughlin, which, not surprisingly, shows him much closer, trailing 49-33.

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, NASCAR dad? Meek plans to call attention to his campaign by shelling out to be the lead sponsor of Mike Wallace’s car in an upcoming race at Daytona.

• IN-Sen: With the surprising announcement by ex-Sen. Dan Coats last night that he’s interested in a comeback and would start seeking the signatures to qualify for the Indiana GOP nod, the oppo pretty much writes itself. For starters, Coats can’t even sign his own petition – he’s been a registered voter in Virginia for more than a decade, not Indiana. And what’s he been doing for much of that time? Lobbying… for King & Spalding, on behalf of nice people like the Carlyle Group and Bank of America. The Plum Line also points to Coats accusing Bill Clinton of “wagging the dog” when he started going after al-Qaeda in 1998, allegedly to distract the press from his peccadilloes… and we all know how that turned out.

• ND-Sen: Democrats have, well, somebody ready to go if ex-AG Heidi Heitkamp doesn’t get into the Senate race to replace retiring Byron Dorgan. State Sen. Tracy Potter, who represents Bismarck, will be announcing his candidacy on Friday. Other potential candidates seem to be holding back, waiting to see what Heitkamp does; she’s been strangely silent since initially expressing interest in the seat last month.

• NY-Sen-B: Quinnipiac’s first poll of the New York Senate race after the Harold Ford Jr. boomlet began finds, well, pretty much what everyone else has found: Kirsten Gillibrand beats him by a wide margin but doesn’t break 50%. Gillibrand beats 36-18, with Jonathan Tasini at 4. Quinnipiac also tests general election matchups against Republican port commissioner Bruce Blakeman (they don’t even bother testing ex-Gov. George Pataki, who doesn’t seem to be making any moves to get into the race). Gillibrand beats Blakeman 44-27, and Ford beats him 35-26. Gillibrand is slowly gaining some more name rec, up to a 42/28 approval. Blakeman may not have the GOP primary to himself, though, as a strange blast from the past is re-emerging to say he’s interested in the race: ex-Rep. Joseph DioGuardi. In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, DioGuardi served in the House representing Westchester County from 1984 to 1988, when he was defeated by Nita Lowey.

• NY-Gov: The same Quinnipiac sample looks at the governor’s race, finding huge approval gaps between Andrew Cuomo (54/16) and David Paterson (34/49). Cuomo wins the Democratic primary 55-23. Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25, while Lazio manages to get past Paterson 40-39. There’s also one other bit of good news for Cuomo (who’s seemed gunshy about taking on Paterson, perhaps out of bad memories of his race against Carl McCall). The poll asked if his candidacy would be “racially divisive,” and respondents answered “no” by an 80-14 margin, including 73-22 among African-Americans. Marist (pdf) also just released the gubernatorial half of its recent Senate poll, finding generally similar numbers. Cuomo wins the primary 70-23. Cuomo beats Lazio 64-27, while Lazio edges Paterson 46-43.

• TN-Gov: Add one more candidate running for higher office who’s publicly copped to being birther-curious: Lt. Gov. (and GOP gubernatorial candidate) Ron Ramsey. Not having made much of an impression in terms of polling (where Rep. Zach Wamp has an edge) or fundraising (where Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is cleaning up), this seems like the most attention Ramsey has gotten so far.

• TX-Gov: Here’s more evidence that the Texas GOP gubernatorial primary may be headed for a runoff: the new Rasmussen poll of the primary doesn’t have anyone coming even close to 50%. Incumbent Rick Perry leads at 44, with Kay Bailey Hutchison lagging at 29, and Paulist insurgent Debra Medina all the way up to 14 on the strength of some buzz coming out of her debate performances. KBH may be counting on a runoff as her only way left to salvage this race, but somehow it seems like, in a runoff, Medina votes are a lot likely to gravitate toward the secession-invoking Perry rather than consummate DC insider Hutchison. In the general, all three defeat Democratic ex-Houston mayor Bill White, although, as one would expect, KBH puts up the biggest margin: 49-36. Perry wins 48-39, while Medina wins by only 41-38.

• AR-02: One of the non-Tim Griffin candidates in the Republican field, David Meeks, dropped out of the race today, probably realizing he was in over his head with the kind of attention open seat races get. One other candidate, restaurant owner Scott Wallace remains, and he may well carry the teabagger flag against Beltway creature Griffin. Realizing the best way to win this is by painting Griffin as insider, the DCCC is turning their attention to Griffin’s past as GOP behind-the-scenes fixer, calling attention to his efforts at voter suppression. Over in the diaries, ARDem takes a look at the developing Dem field, which currently contains state House speaker Robbie Wills, liberal state Sen. Joyce Elliott, and retiring Vic Snyder’s chief of staff, David Boling. It won’t contain, however, Little Rock mayor Mike Stodola, or Public Service Commissioner Paul Suskie, who had seemed to be laying the groundwork for a run.

• CA-12, CA-AG: False alarm: Rep. Jackie Speier is staying put in the 12th District, where’s she been in place for only a couple years. Rumors that she was about to move over to the state AG’s race had many of the state legislators on the Peninsula angling to replace her.

• GA-04: In the wake of an internal from Rep. Hank Johnson showing him crushing his three opponents in the Dem primary in this solidly-blue district in Atlanta’s suburbs, one of those opponents got out of the way: DeKalb Co. Commissioner Lee May. May is an ally of former DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones, so it’s possible that he’s getting out of the way primarily so that Jones can get a bigger share of the non-Johnson vote.

• MA-10: With the general sense that this is the most vulnerable district in Massachusetts (as seen with its votes in the Senate special election last month), Republicans are taking more of an interest in challenging Rep. William Delahunt in this usually-ignored seat. Former state treasurer Joe Malone is probably the biggest name to express interest, but at least one other credible contender, state Rep. Jeffrey Perry, is already announcing his candidacy. State Sen. Robert Hedlund is also expressing some interest.

• NJ-07: One big hole in the Dems’ recruitment schedule has been the 7th, narrowly won by freshman GOP Rep. Leonard Lance in 2008. They’ve managed to fill the gap with Ed Potosnak, who’s elevated slightly above Some Dude status by the full Rolodex he brings with him after working for a number of years as a Hill staffer for Rep. Mike Honda.

• PA-11: Lackawanna Co. Commissioner Corey O’Brien has a compelling argument for why he should win the primary in the 11th: he says Rep. Paul Kanjorski has “zero” chance of defeating Republican Lou Barletta in their third face-off, citing Kanjorski’s low approval ratings. O’Brien has been fundraising well ($180K last quarter, not far from Kanjo’s $237K) and recently hit the airwaves with a small cable buy for his first TV spot.

• CA-LG: Is San Francisco mayor (and gubernatorial race dropout) Gavin Newsom actually thinking about a run for the dead-end job that is California’s #2? Officially he’s not interested, but he hasn’t said no, and a new public poll from Tulchin gives him a big lead in a hypothetical LG primary, with Newsom at 33 against the two declared candidates: Los Angeles city councilor Janice Hahn at 17 and state Sen. Dean Florez at 15. Meanwhile, the state Senate this week takes up the issue of filling the current vacancy in the LG’s chair (vacated by now-Rep. John Garamendi); there’s actually talk of blocking Ahnold appointee state Sen. Abel Maldonado, despite that getting the moderate Republican Maldonado out of his seat would open up his Dem-leaning district for a takeover and help push the Dem edge in the Senate toward the magic 2/3s mark.

• CT-AG: The story of Susan Bysiewicz just gets stranger and stranger; she decided that rather than run for governor, she’d prefer to run for AG, but now the job’s current occupant, Richard Blumenthal, says that possibly she can’t. An AG opinion interprets state law requiring ten years of legal practice as unclear and urges a declaratory ruling on Bysiewicz’s case from a court. Bysiewicz, for her part, said she won’t seek the declaratory ruling and is simply plowing ahead with her AG campaign, although it’s possible one of the other candidates in the race might force the issue in the courts.

• Polltopia: The skepticism toward those SurveyUSA polls commissioned by Firedoglake continues to grow, this time from political science professor and frequent Pollster.com contributor Alan Abramowitz. His gravest concerns are with the leading questions in the issues portions of the poll on health care reform, but he also points to serious problems with the samples’ compositions that we were quick to flag. He observes that the samples deeply underrepresent younger votes, and that the youth subsets are so small that there’s no good way to “weight up” younger voters to a more proportionate level.

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln seems like she’ll take a lifeline from anyone who’ll throw her one these days, and she got a big one today — although it’s not a surprise who’s doing it. The nation’s most famous Arkansan, Bill Clinton, authored a fundraising e-mail on Lincoln’s behalf.

• CA-Sen: The war of words between Chuck DeVore and the NRSC keeps flaring up; DeVore keeps claiming the NRSC won’t meet with him. DeVore’s camp claims they got an offer to meet with the NRSC’s executive director rather than John Cornyn, which he turned down… but that came after e-mailing the NRSC once and then faxing them follow-ups twice. I must admit I share in the incredulity of NRSC spokesbot Brian Walsh, who said “Remarkably, every [other of the 60 GOP candidates who’ve met with the NRSC] knew how to set up a meeting with the exception of Chuck DeVore who apparently believed sending a fax to Senator Cornyn’s official government office was the most direct route. That alone might demonstrate a lack of seriousness, or at least raise questions of competency, by a statewide Senate campaign.” The Hill’s Aaron Blake looks at this brouhaha in the context of GOP outsider campaigns in general, with a subtext wondering if DeVore’s camp is intentionally miscommunicating as a means of burnishing outsider credentials (seeing as how the way to lose your Seal of Good Teabagging is by becoming one of the NRSC’s golden children).

• FL-Sen: Those Rasmussen numbers on the Florida Senate general election finally showed up. Like last time, and contrary to conventional wisdom, they actually show Marco Rubio overperforming Charlie Crist, vis a vis Kendrick Meek. Rubio beats Meek 49-35, while Crist beats Meek 42-36. Seems strange, but Florida pundit Mike Thomas speculates that Crist is losing ground not among conservatives (whom he never really had to begin with) but rather among indies and moderates, simply by virtue of his empty-suit opportunism, which might explain why the blank-slate Rubio is overperforming. Meanwhile, Rubio keeps trucking along on the fundraising front, as the Club for Growth has bundled $100K in contributions for him in the last month.

• CT-Sen: CQ highlights one more way that price is no object for Linda McMahon; she’s paying her campaign manager David Cappiello a $280K salary, which is at least double what the Rob Simmons and Chris Dodd managers make. Who’s the lucky guy? It’s former state Sen. David Cappiello. If that name sounds familiar, he’s the guy who got spanked by 20 points by then-freshman Rep. Chris Murphy in CT-05 last year… which I’d think might be a bit of a red flag if you were a savvy businessperson looking to hire someone based on campaign skills.

• NH-Sen: The fault lines are remarkably clear in the Republican primary in New Hampshire. GOP establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte was busy hitting a $1,000 per individual Washington DC fundraiser sponsored by telecommunications lobbyists yesterday, at around the same time conservative primary challenger Ovide Lamontagne was getting the endorsement of radio talk show host and Coulter-wannabe Laura Ingraham.

• CA-Gov (pdf): The Public Policy Institute of California has a full poll of the California gubernatorial race (they’ve previously polled on approval ratings, but not the horserace). They see a race between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman that’s a little tighter (43-37 for Brown) than most pollsters have seen (although, of course, better than Rasmussen’s 41-41 tie). Brown makes short work of his other Republican opposition, Tom Campbell (46-34) and Steve Poizner (47-31). Whitman also has an edge in the GOP primary, at 32 with 12 for Campbell (who’s mulled moving over to the Senate race) and 8 for Poizner.

• GA-Gov: Rasmussen has numbers for the Republican gubernatorial primary (sorry, no numbers for the general, which I don’t think has ever been polled). This race looks pretty stable: they find Insurance Comm. John Oxendine with a sizable lead, as usual. He’s at 28, doubling up on SoS Karen Handel at 14. Rep. Nathan Deal is at 13, followed by Jeff Chapman, Eric Johnson, Ray McBerry, and Austin Scott, all at 2. I wonder if this might tarnish Oxendine a little, though: it was just revealed that he took a trip to the 2007 Oscars on the tab of a major campaign contributor who was also asking, at the time, for Oxendine’s intervention in an insurance dispute against Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

• MI-Gov: Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry has been lagging his Republican opponents in the polls lately, and a new poll from EPIC-MRA shows why: no one knows who the heck he is, and those who do don’t like him. Cherry is unknown to 39%, which is greater than any of his main Republican opponents. AG Mike Cox, for instance, has an unknown of 16%. (The release doesn’t mention any head-to-head numbers, at least not yet.)

• NE-Gov: The Democrats may actually get a good-sounding recruit in the Nebraska gubernatorial race? That probably doesn’t change Republican incumbent Dave Heineman’s “Safe R” status, but it’s still good news. Mike Boyle (who says he’s “considering” the race) was mayor of Omaha from 1981 until a recall in 1987; he’s currently in his third term as a Douglas County Commissioner. Boyle also ran for governor in 1990, losing the Democratic primary to now-Sen. Ben Nelson.

• OR-Gov: Former NBA player Chris Dudley officially embarked on his question to become the nation’s tallest governor, announcing his candidacy in a speech that didn’t give potential supporters much to judge where on the Republican spectrum he falls, other than the usual boilerplate on jobs and taxes. (He did mention in an interview, on the abortion issue, that he was “comfortable with [abortion laws] where they are now.”) At least he won’t have to deal with state House minority leader Bruce Hanna in the primary, who yesterday turned down conservative entreaties to get into the race.

• SD-Gov: PPP threw in some gubernatorial questions in its SD-AL poll, and it looks like Republicans have a generic edge here that should keep the state house in their hands, despite nobody knowing much of anything about any of the candidates. The good news for Dems is that their candidate, state Senate minority leader Scott Heidepreim, is better known than any of the GOPers (although 57% have no opinion of him). The bad news is that Heidepreim still loses to all four GOPers, even Some Dude Ken Knuppe (although only 32-30). He also loses to Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard 42-29, Senate majority leader Dave Knudson 39-29, and Brookings mayor Scott Munsterman 35-30.

• KS-03: Dems look to be getting closer to having a solid candidate for the open seat race in the 3rd. Kansas City, Kansas mayor Joe Reardon says he’s giving it “serious consideration,” and his mayoral predecessor, Carol Marinovich also said she’s not ruling out a run. Hopefully only one will run, at least giving the Dems smooth sailing into what’s likely to be a difficult general election.

• PA-11: The NRCC has to be pleased with Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta’s recently-announced third whack at vulnerable Rep. Paul Kanjorski in the 11th, and they just added him to their “Young Guns” program. He still starts on their lowest tier for now, though (“On the Radar”).

• PA-12: Septuagenarian Rep. John Murtha, who was briefly hospitalized this week for gall bladder trouble, is saying via his spokesperson that he has no intent to retire and will run again in 2010. This comes despite leaks of a memo written in October to the DCCC asking for legal advice on how to deal with his reelection funds if he decides to retire. (The request apparently originated with a constituent’s question.)

• Blue Dogs: The Blue Dogs added three new members yesterday: Scott Murphy (who I thought had been a member all along), Betsy Markey (not a surprise, given her tough district, although she’s taken some courageous votes like cap-and-trade), and Kurt Schrader. The decision by Schrader — who’s near the middle of the Dem caucus, in a slightly Dem-leaning district, and usually a good vote although a bit of a budget hawk — may raise a few eyebrows, but Blue Oregon’s Kari Chisholm offers a good defense of him.

• Texas: Lots to talk about as Democrats try to assemble a full slate of candidates to go with top gubernatorial recruit Bill White. Most notably, they have a former AFL-CIO executive VP interested in running for the all-important (in Texas, at least) Lt. Gov. spot: Linda Chavez-Thompson. They have another candidate interested in running for Comptroller (which ex-Rep. Nick Lampson has also scoped out): former Republican comptroller and then independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Strayhorn, who says she wants to run as a Dem this time. Finally, people are wondering whether Kinky Friedman even qualifies to run for Agriculture Commissioner. State statute requires actual agricultural experience, and Friedman is claiming that a ranch he owns with relatives has enough cattle on it for him to qualify.

• Pennsylvania: The Hill points to an interesting academic research paper that examined what’s going on with people who’ve participated in the widespread Republican-to-Democrat party switch that’s remade politics in suburban Pennsylvania in recent years. As one might expect, these are affluent people for the most part (with one-third making more than $80K). Unexpectedly, though, only 53% say they were driven out by “extremism” in the GOP’s positions, and they span the ideological spectrum (although with a plurality calling themselves “moderates”). Many, in fact, (over 40%) were at one point Democrats who had switched to the GOP and were now switching back.

• Votes: Yesterday’s House vote to lift the debt ceiling was another closely orchestrated one, passing 218-214. As might be expected, most of the most vulnerable members voted no… and also a few center-left types running for Senate who don’t want to get tarred with the ‘debt’ brush (Kendrick Meek, Paul Hodes). They were generously given some cover by three of the retiring Blue Dogs — Dennis Moore, John Tanner, and Bart Gordon — who all voted ‘yes,’ since their seats in the lifeboat weren’t needed (same with some of the other Blue Dogs facing lesser challenges this year, like Jim Marshall and John Barrow).

He’s hoping the third time’s the charm:

Republican Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta will announce today that he will mount a third run for Congress next year, two party sources familiar with his plans said.

An e-mail from his campaign said he will announce his decision at 10 a.m. through an Internet webcast on his campaign Web site, www.loubarletta.com.

The loudly anti-immigration Barletta lost by a substantial margin to Rep. Paul Kanjorski in 2002 when Barletta wasn’t widely-known. He came within 52-48 in 2008, after most polls showed Barletta winning. Obama (and local fave Joe Biden) coattails, and a truckload of DCCC dollars, helped Kanjorski get over the top.

This time, however, Barletta faces some primary opposition: attorney Chris Paige, who’s taking issue with Barletta’s stridently anti-immigrant stance (although it’s not exactly clear whether he’s doing so as a business moderate or a hardcore libertarian). Barletta also starts with one other disadvantage: he’s still saddled with $250K in campaign debt from last time, but he says that money raised now will go to his 2010 race, not paying down old debt.

There are two possibilities here: Barletta could do even better next year, as it’s a non-presidential year and his particular brand of conservatism (right-wing populism, rather than theocratic) is playing especially well right now. Or, he could stagnate at the same level of performance, as he may be showing some staleness and third tries usually don’t go so well. Actually, there are third and fourth possibilities: the 72-year-old Kanjo could say “screw this” and retire, or he could lose his own primary bid to 30-something Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien. In either case, the fresh-legged O’Brien might actually fare better against Barletta than the rusty and baggage-toting Kanjorski, benefiting from the D+4 district’s natural Democratic lean.

RaceTracker Wiki: PA-11

• Election results: There was a grab-bag of southern state runoffs and special elections last night; the main event was the Atlanta mayor’s race. It looks like Democratic African-American ex-state Sen. Kasim Reed defeated self-proclaimed-independent white city councilor Mary Norwood, but the margin is only around 620 votes (out of 83,000 cast). Reed has declared victory, but Norwood is talking recount.

There were also four legislative runoffs in Georgia; the only one that wasn’t an intra-party affair was in HD-141 (a previously Dem-held seat) where independent Rusty Kidd easily beat Democrat Russell Black. Kidd is staying mum on which party he’ll caucus with, although he’s the son of a prominent long-time Democratic legislator (Culver Kidd) and a stem-cell-research supporter. In HD-58 in Atlanta, community organizer Simone Bell becomes the first LGBT African-American elected to Georgia’s legislature. And in Tennessee, Republican state Rep. Brian Kelsey was elected easily in the vacant SD-31 in heavily Republican Memphis suburbs; he takes over for GOPer Paul Stanley, who resigned in disgrace after a sex scandal.

• IL-Sen: Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman is up with the first TV ad in the fast-approaching Senate primary. Hoffman lacks name rec, but uses the ad to highlight his corruption-fighting past (and take some implicit hits at Alexi Giannoulias’s banking background).

• NY-Sen-B: You may remember Michael Balboni, who was pried out of his Dem-leaning Long Island state Senate seat by Eliot Spitzer to become the state’s Homeland Security chief and paving the way for Democratic takeover of the state Senate. Now he’s reportedly considering a run against Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate, as the New York GOP starts casting its net wider for somebody.

• UT-Sen: A Deseret News poll has bad news for Bob Bennett, in the form of perilous re-elects: only 27% support his re-election, and 58% want someone new. Nevertheless, he has a big edge over the field of nobodies circling around him: he polls at 31%, with Democrat Sam Granato at 14, followed by a gaggle of right-wingers: Cherilyn Eagar at 5, Tim Bridgewater and Fred Lampropoulos at 4, Mike Lee at 3, and James Williams at 1. With the Republican nomination potentially to be decided at the state convention — dominated by hard-right activists — though, these numbers don’t help to project much of anything for next year.

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver’s campaign manager Andrew Roos is out, as Culver stares at double-digit deficits against ex-Gov. Terry Branstad. Culver mangled his Shakesperean shrug-off, saying it’s “much to do about nothing.”

• TX-Gov: Press releases are already going out saying that Houston mayor Bill White is announcing something big on Friday, and now leaks are confirming what most people have suspected, that he’s going to go ahead and jump into the Democratic field in the governor’s race.

• FL-10: Sorta-moderate GOP Rep. Bill Young has another challenger — this time from the right. Eric Forcade says he got interested in politics from participating in tea parties and the 9/12 movement. (In case you’re having trouble remembering where all these random teabagger primary challenges are popping up, Think Progress has a handy scorecard of all of them.)

• IL-10: Little-known rich guy Dick Green dipped into his self-provided funds and laid out $100K for a big TV ad buy, introducing himself to Republican voters in the 10th. While Democrat Julie Hamos already has hit the airwaves, Green beats out fellow GOPers Beth Coulson and Bob Dold.

• KY-03: Rep. John Yarmuth may not exactly be intimidated by the first Republican to show up to go against him in Kentucky’s lone Dem-leaning district. Jeffrey Reetz has never run for office before, but he does own 25 Pizza Hut franchises.

• MD-04: Rep. Donna Edwards, who got into office via primary challenge, is facing a big challenge of her own. Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey has formed an exploratory committee to go up against Edwards for the Democratic nod. Ivey worked as a senior congressional staffer in the 1980s and 1990s; although he expresses enthusiasm for moving the “progressive agenda forward,” he’s probably running at least a bit to the right of Edwards, one of the leftmost House members.

• MN-01: This marks the third entry to the field against Democratic Rep. Tim Walz in about one week’s time. Today, it’s Republican Jim Hagedorn, a former congressional staffer and a one-time blogger under the name “Mr. Conservative.” He joins ex-state Rep. Allen Quist and state Rep. Randy Demmer, although the party seems to still be watching what more moderate state Sen. Julie Rosen does.

• PA-11: Hazleton mayor and 2008 loser Lou Barletta is doing his best to stay in the news, announcing that he’ll make another announcement on Dec. 9 as to whether or not he’ll seek a third faceoff against Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski.

• TN-08, TN-Gov: In case you missed our late update last night, Democratic state Sen. Roy Herron got out of the governor’s race where he was something of a longshot, and into the now-open TN-08 field, where he’s probably the favorite to get the Democratic nod. (Although open seats are theoretically harder to defend, Herron’s long district presence and lack of ties to Washington could conceivably help him to perform better next year than long-time Beltway creature Tanner might have.) Party officials (and outgoing Rep. John Tanner too, although he declined to endorse anyone yet) are moving quickly to keep a contested primary from happening, although state Rep. Philip Pinion has also been publicly letting his interest be known. Also, in discussing his sudden retirement decision, Tanner claims he wasn’t scared off by the fundraising success of out-of-nowhere GOP challenger Stephen Fincher; he’d already been eyeing retirement and the challenge “got his competitive juices flowing” but finally decided to call it a career.

• UT-02: Morgan Philpot, a former Republican state Representative, is considering a race against Rep. Jim Matheson next year. Philpot is currently the state party’s vice-chair, so he would bring some insider backing to the race.

• NY-Comptroller (pdf): With all the sudden talk of recruiting NYC comptroller William Thompson onto the Cuomo “ticket” to wage a primary fight against current state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, it’s worth going back and noting that the most recent Siena poll from a few weeks ago actually polled this permutation. They found a 31-31 tie in the Clash of the Comptrollers. They also found that both would beat Republican John Faso in the general.

• TX-Comptroller: In fact, talking about comptrollers is so much fun I’m going to keep doing it. Ex-Rep. Nick Lampson, who couldn’t hold down dark-red TX-22 last year, says that’s he’s looking into next year’s comptroller’s race, which would bring top-tier Democratic talent to another statewide race in Texas.

• NY-St. Sen.: After a lot of optimistic predictions earlier in the day, the actual vote on gay marriage in the New York Senate today kind of fizzled. Eight Democrats voted against and no Republicans crossed the aisle, leaving it to go down 24-38. Ironically, Marist came out with a poll today showing public support in favor of gay marriage, 51-42.

• CA-St. Ass.: However, in the one-step-forward, one-step-back fight for LGBT equality, California looks like it’s poised to have its first-ever gay Assembly Speaker. Los Angeles Assemblyman John Perez apparently has the votes locked up to take over as Speaker from Karen Bass, who’s termed out.

• Nassau Co. Exec: Two-term incumbent Tom Suozzi, who was down by 377 votes to Republican challenger Ed Mangano after a recount, decided to concede rather than pursue legal options. Suozzi, who’d be considered a likely AG candidate next year, says he’ll be back in politics but he can’t “imagine it would be anytime soon.”

• Mayors: It looks like a premature end of the line for Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon, who was just convicted of misdemeanor embezzlement for helping herself to $1,500 worth of gift cards that had been donated to give to poor families. Dixon is supposed to be suspended from office, but post-trial motions and a possible appeal may push that until later. City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is in line to succeed her.

• DGA: There’s new leadership at the Democratic Governor’s Association, as fast-rising Delaware governor Jack Markell (who’s been in office only for a year) takes over from Montana’s Brian Schweitzer. One of the DGA’s first orders of business as they prep for 2010: committing $1 million to the GOP Accountability Project, whose first ad target is Florida Republican candidate Bill McCollum.

• AZ-Sen: There are conflicting messages in Arizona in the wake of that surprising Rasmussen poll showing J.D. Hayworth almost even with John McCain in a Republican primary. Arizona’s other senator, Jon Kyl, says Hayworth isn’t likely to run, saying that he’s better-off hosting his radio show. Hayworth himself, on the other hand, just sent an e-mail to his supporters, saying he is in fact considering a race against McCain but first needs help paying down his campaign debt from his 2006 race. A prelude to a real race, or just some conveniently-timed grifting from some easy marks?

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina is trying to play up her pro-woman cred, even if it means coming off very ideologically confused: she said she would have voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor, even though that gives Chuck DeVore a lifetime’s worth of ammunition to use against her in the primary. But yesterday she said she “shares Sarah Palin‘s values.” Um, all of them?

• IL-Sen: The NYT had a story yesterday giving voice to David Axelrod’s concerns about Alexi Giannoulias’s electability and his regrets about not recruiting Lisa Madigan, which got a lot of play elsewhere. They strangely left out one piece of information, though: Axelrod’s former consulting firm is working for the David Hoffman campaign.

• MA-Sen: More endorsements came out in the Massachusetts special election primary. AG Martha Coakley got the endorsement of Planned Parenthood, while Rep. Michael Capuano got the endorsements of the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters and Black Women for Obama for Change.

• NY-Sen-B (pdf): Yet another poll shows Kirsten Gillibrand in so-so shape, as Marist dribbled out the last few results from the poll where the other results were released last week. Even as she gets better-known she still has a middling approval rating (3% excellent, 22% good, 39% fair, 12% poor, 24% unsure). Gillibrand loses 47-45 to ex-Gov. George Pataki, although that race looks very unlikely now (this same sample had Gillibrand down 54-40 to Rudy Giuliani, which still theoretically could happen). One item of good news for Gillibrand, though: she finally nailed down the endorsement of former colleague Jerry Nadler.

• IA-Gov: Here’s one more guy who has the potential to get teabagged to death in his GOP primary: ex-Gov. Terry Branstad. Branstad endorsed and raised money for Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson in the 2000 Senate race. Branstad rival Bob vander Plaats says that, as a result, using the same logic that pervades all movies about time travel, Branstad is directly to blame for the current health care bill. And while he’s at it, Branstad is also responsible for the deaths of millions, because he didn’t find a way to kill Hitler.

• MA-Gov: Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker already announced his running mate for 2010, and is fits with his financially conservative, socially liberal, insidery approach: he chose state Senate minority leader Richard Tisei. Tisei, one of five Republicans in the Senate, recently came out as gay.

• NV-Gov: There’s a new poll of the general election in the Nevada governor’s race, taken by PMI (a firm that previously did a poll of the GOP primary for a conservative website, but this one seems to be taken for the seemingly nonpartisan Nevada News Bureau). They only try out one permutation, assuming that Democratic Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman follows through on his threat to run as an indie. Republican former AG Brian Sandoval wins with 35, followed by Goodman at 28 and Democrat Rory Reid at 21.

• OR-Gov: Anti-tax initiative activist Bill Sizemore is kind of like herpes; he goes away, but is never permanently gone. With the GOP field now in shambles, Sizemore surprised everyone by announcing that he’ll run in the gubernatorial primary in 2010. He’s been out of jail for almost a year, so OK… but he may be headed back there if he follows through, as he’s under an injunction preventing him from raising political money. He plans on challenging that in court, though, at least to the extent to be able to raise individual campaign funds and not more initiative funds. If he somehow prevails in the GOP primary, this could lead to a replay of the 1998 governor’s race (where John Kitzhaber demolished Sizemore, 64-30).

• LA-02: With early entries by a few heavyweights, maybe we’ll be spared a large and chaotic Democratic primary for the right to beat accidental Rep. Joe Cao in 2010. State Rep. Juan LaFonta, long interested in the race, made official that he’s running; he joins fellow state Rep. Cedric Richmond in the hunt.

• NV-02: Do it! Do it! Reno attorney Ken McKenna has apparently been listening to the subliminal voices in his head, and was motivated to pull the trigger on a run against Rep. Dean Heller. (He’ll still face a Democratic primary against elderly ex-state Sen. Jack Schofield.) McKenna represents both personal injury plaintiffs and those accused of Breaking the Law, but he’s best known for his ill-fated suit against Judas Priest over a fan’s suicide. If he thinks he’s likely to win this race, he has another thing coming.

• PA-03: Ooops, this isn’t going to endear him much to the party base. Paul Huber, a local businessman who got into the GOP primary field to go against Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, was registered as a Democrat from 1975 until just recently. He switched to the GOP earlier this year. In his defense, he claims he was a “Reagan Democrat” and finally got driven out of the party because of, well, all the usual right-wing grievances.

• PA-06: Various developments in the 6th: on the Dem side, state Sen. Daylin Leach pulled his Doug Pike endorsement and switched to neutral, now that it looks like there’s an actual race between Pike and Manan Trivedi. On the GOP side, state Rep. Curt Schroder is facing a difficult primary against wealthy pharma exec Steven Welch, but got a boost via endorsements from seven nearby conservative legislators — including Berks County’s Sam Rohrer, who’s looking at a longshot gubernatorial bid.

• PA-11: Anti-immigration wacko wants to run for higher office, but needs supporters to pay down his campaign debt first? Sorry to keep repeating myself, but that’s happening in PA-11 too. Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta has been talking up another run at Rep. Paul Kanjorski, and has set a pre-Christmas deadline for a final decision. But in the meantime, he’s focused on raising donations to pay for his last run while considering his next one.

• VA-10: Republican Rep. Frank Wolf has proven extremely tough to pry out of his swing district, and it’s not looking like 2010 will be the year either. Attorney Patrick Lewis, who seemed to be the best bet here, has shuttered his campaign, leaving only two even less-known Dems (Richard Anthony and Dennis Findley) in the field.

• CA-LG: As many had expected, Arnold Schwarzenegger picked state Sen. Abel Maldonado to take over as Lt. Governor (now that John Garamendi is in the House). Maldonado is a sometimes-moderate who was one of Ahnold’s biggest allies in the Senate, who broke with other Republicans on budget issues (and probably earned too much of their wrath to survive a 2010 re-election). The Dem-held state legislature is mulling over whether to approve the appointment, which they certainly have the numbers to reject. Calitics is all over it, though, because Maldonado not only has little likelihood of remaining in office come 2011 (Dems he might face would be either state Sen. Dean Florez or LA city councilor Janice Hahn), but also because it would open up SD-15. The 15th is Democratic-leaning turf on the central coast; combined with another opening in SD-12, that’s a route to get over the magic 2/3s hurdle in the state Senate and actually pass a decent budget.

• NJ-St. Sen.: Guess who’s kicking himself for not taking over for Jon Corzine during the gubernatorial race’s low-water mark this summer. Now Richard Codey isn’t just not Governor, but now he isn’t even state Senate President anymore. Codey may be beloved by the state’s electorate, but not by his colleagues: he got bounced out of his position to make way for new leader Stephen Sweeney.

• Mayors (pdf): It looks like the anti-incumbent sentiment extends all the way down to local races too (OK, that’s not news; Greg Nickels and Tom Suozzi will certainly confirm that for us). A new Clarus poll of next year’s Washington, DC mayor’s race finds a 43/49 approval for mayor Adrian Fenty. Fenty leads the field, but at only 34%, followed by three city councilors: Vincent Gray at 24, Kwame Brown at 13, and Michael Brown at 6.

• RNC: If you went to college in the 1990s, you may remember the purity test that got passed around freshman dorms, which went a little like this:

I have:

1) solicited anonymous sex in the airport men’s room

2) claimed to be hiking the Appalachian Trail while actually visiting my mistress in Argentina

3) given a patronage job to the cuckolded husband of my mistress

4) texted an underage page about the size of his member

5) attempted to strangle my mistress

Wait, that’s not it. Anyway, the RNC is passing around a new purity test for future Republican candidates, which they have to score 80% on if they want official party money and support. (There’s been some public pondering whether worldly fellows like Mike Castle or Mark Kirk would even make the cut on this test.) And now the Washington Times (wait, they’re still in business?) is reporting that this test may even apply to NRSC and NRCC money as well.

• Photo of the Day: Some days I just don’t know whether to weep for my country, or stand back and laugh my ass off at it.

• CT-Sen: Rumors are popping up that ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, still the GOP Senate primary’s frontrunner by most people’s estimation but financially outgunned on a variety of different fronts, may switch to the now-open gubernatorial race. Simmons, however, says his plans are “unchanged,” and touts his foreign policy background, saying that’s much more useful in the Senate. Meanwhile, an interesting CQ piece looks at pro wrestling svengali Linda McMahon’s role in the race, and wonders whether her vast fortunes will really help her that much in a state where a convention attended by party insiders (where Simmons would be favored) is decisive in shaping the field. (Although even if she doesn’t win the convention outright or meet the 15% threshold for getting on the ballot, she can still get on the ballot by collecting enough signatures — certainly an expensive process, but one she could pay for with whatever change she finds under her couch cushions.)

• FL-Sen: Here’s about as close as you can get to a Jeb Bush endorsement without his lips actually moving. Bush’s sons, Jeb Bush Jr. and George P. Bush, are headlining a Marco Rubio fundraiser in mid-December.

• CT-Gov: Ned Lamont is already staffing up, and a familiar face is going to be one of his key advisors: Howard Wolfson. Wolfson was adviser to Lamont in 2006, but is better known for his lead role in Hillary Clinton’s campaign last year, as well as Michael Bloomberg’s campaign this year.

• MN-Gov: Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak ran into a snafu with his campaign still on the launching pad, as the state’s campaign finance board ruled that he spent money on his campaign before he’d filed the campaign paperwork. Rybak paid for a message-testing poll, although it didn’t directly ask questions about the governor’s race. If you want to see the whole polling memo (not something you usually get to see with internal polls), check it out.

• WI-Gov: Politics abhors a vacuum, and Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett is acting quickly to fill the vacuum that has formed on the Democratic side of the gubernatorial race. He says he’ll make a decision “one way or the other” by the week’s end.

• CO-04: Although state Rep. Cory Gardner is clearly the NRCC’s favorite in the Republican field, that didn’t deter former Ft. Collins city councilor Diggs Brown, who will be announcing his candidacy on Saturday. He had been considered a likely candidate all year, but was on a year-long Army deployment and unable to announce until now. Univ. of Colorado Regent Tom Lucero rounds out the trio of GOPers seeking to take on first-term Dem Rep. Betsy Markey.

• FL-13: James Golden, an African-American minister, attorney and former Bradenton city councilor, launched his campaign last week against Rep. Vern Buchanan. Golden will face an uphill fight against the self-funding Buchanan — unless Buchanan, facing ongoing scrutiny over mysterious campaign finance machinations, goes down in a legal implosion.

• ID-01: This may be a surprise, or may not — state House majority leader Ken Roberts withdrew from the GOP primary race to take on freshman Dem Rep. Walt Minnick. Roberts cited health reasons. Roberts initially would have seemed to have a leg up based on name recognition, but veteran and former McCain campaign official Vaughn Ward seemed to be capturing most of the buzz, including a good fundraising start and NRCC touting.

• IN-03: Democrats have taken notice in the last few cycles of Rep. Mark Souder’s decidedly lackadaisical approach to re-election in this dark-red district, but now someone from the teabaggy right is taking notice too, and launching a primary campaign. Republican Attorney Phil Troyer (a former staffer to Dick Lugar and Dan Coats) announced his campaign today. (This seems less like an ideological challenge, as Souder is down-the-line conservative, as just opportunistic, taking advantage of his sloth.) Tom Hayhurst, who narrowly lost in 2006, is on track to the Democratic nod again.

• MN-03: Add a second Democratic challenger to the list in the 3rd: Minnesota PTA president, and executive director of the Minnesota Optometrists Association, Jim Meffert filed to run. He joins psychiatrist Maureen Hackett; they may still both be joined by state Sen. Teri Bonoff, although Meffert says that Bonoff has hinted to him that she’s likely to take a pass.

• NJ-03: Best wishes to state Sen. Diane Allen, who is entering treatment for an aggressive form of cancer. The moderate Allen, who lost the 2002 Senate primary and was short-listed for Lt. Governor this year, had been considered a possible candidate against Rep. John Adler in the 3rd.

• NV-02: We’ve got another Democrat lined up to go against Rep. Dean Heller in the 2nd (after Cindy Trigg dropped out several months ago), and he has a strong resume. Jack Schofield is a member of the state’s Board of Regents, and is a former state Senator. Unfortunately, he may not be running the most vigorous campaign in the world, as he was a state Senator in the 1970s, and is a World War II veteran (do the math).

• NY-23: The Washington Post has a nice, human-level retrospective on Dede Scozzafava’s collapse in the special election and the difference in how the GOP and the Dems treated her, leading to her Bill Owens endorsement. Meanwhile, things continue to play out, as Scozzafava either stepped down from or was stripped of her leadership role in the Assembly Republicans, depending on who you believe. Start counting down to her party switch (not that the Assembly Dems need the help, what with their 109-41 margin).

• OH-02: What’s with all these former Apprentice contestants thinking that’s somehow a stepping stone to political office? Surya Yalimanchili is now planning to run as an independent in the 2nd, currently held by GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt. He’s sounding centrist notes so far rather than sounding teabaggy, though, so he may not help the Dems too much by siphoning off far-right Republican votes.

• PA-07: One more Democrat is getting into the open seat field in the 7th, although it’s unclear whether she’ll get much traction against state Rep. Bryan Lentz. Environmental lawyer Gail Conner, an Obama convention delegate last year, threw her hat into the ring.

• PA-11: Third time’s the charm? It looks like Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta will give crusty Dem incumbent Paul Kanjorski another challenge next year. Barletta fell just a few points shy of knocking off Kanjorski last year, prompting Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien to enter the Democratic primary for the seat. With pressure from both sides, one has to wonder if Kanjo will hit the eject button. (J)

• PA-17: Here’s an example of how voting against health care reform does Blue Dogs a fat lot of good: Rep. Tim Holden got about two days of peace before a Republican state Senator started making noises about a campaign against him anyway. Holden has had little in the way of opposition recently, but now he may face David Argall, who represents Holden’s coal-country turf of Schuylkill County. Relatedly, over in Ohio’s 16th, a Cleveland Plain Dealer profile of fellow anti-HCR vote John Boccieri shows how he managed to win over exactly no Republicans while ticking off his base.

• PA-19: With Republican Rep. Todd Platts looking to bail on the House and head over to the GAO, candidates are already scoping out the potential special election. Although it’s a dark-red district (R+12), one good-sounding Dem is gearing up: Ryan Sanders, real estate developer, president of the Red Lion Area Business Association, and most usefully, an organizer for the Obama campaign in York County.

• UT-02: More fallout from the health care reform vote: Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson (one of the ‘no’ votes) may, as a result, be facing a primary challenge from the left from state Sen. Scott McCoy (Utah’s only gay state Senator and one of its few liberals). The Salt Lake City-based district is still strongly Republican, although it hasn’t presented Matheson with much trouble lately.

• MI-St. Sen.: Here’s an interesting look at the fight by Dems to reclaim the state Senate in Michigan (currently held 22-16 by the GOP, but where the majority of seats are open next year), which would give them the redistricting trifecta. Even if they don’t pick it up (or do while losing the gubernatorial race), the state Supreme Court breaks any logjam, making next year’s Supreme Court elections paramount too. The article also contains a map of the Dems’ preferred redistricting plan, to turf out Rep. Vern Ehlers by creating a Dem-leaning 3rd District linking Grand Rapids and Muskegon.

• NH-St. Sen.: A special election will be happening in New Hampshire, giving the Dems the chance to add to their narrow lead in the state Senate there (they currently have a 14-10 edge). Republican state Sen. Ted Gatsas is poised to resign after having been elected Manchester mayor. Democratic state Rep. Jeff Goley is set to get into the race, though several other state House Dems are looking at it too.

• Mayors: The Seattle mayor’s race has finally come to an end, with as late-breaking ballots are going more toward former local Sierra Club leader Mike McGinn. Joe Mallahan conceded after McGinn’s lead pushed up to nearly 5,000, for a 51-49 edge.

• Ads: In the wake of this weekend’s health care vote, the DNC is planning to target 32 House Republicans in Obama districts who voted ‘no.’ They aren’t planning on using paid media yet, but will use the OFA campaign e-mail lists to organize in those districts. Meanwhile, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is promising ads against 10 ‘no’ votes, saying it’s “payback” time: Barrow, Shuler, Herseth Sandlin, Murphy, Altmire, Nye, Kissell, Adler, Kosmas, and Ross.

• Demographics: If you’re like me, you may spend a lot of time wondering how Scandinavian-Americans got so liberal and Dutch-Americans got so conservative. Dreaminonempty takes a look at ancestry and voting patterns in a very interesting diary at Open Left.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: A new LA Times/USC poll (conducted by GQR and POS) finds a dead heat in the GOP Senate primary: conservative Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and vapid ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina are deadlocked at 27 each (despite the fact that DeVore is almost entirely unknown, with favorables of 6/4 — the deal is that Fiorina is, other than Ahnold, the state’s only political figure with negative favorables, at 9/12). They also looked at the GOP field in the governor’s race and find ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman leading the field at 35, followed by ex-Rep. Tom Campbell at 27 and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner at 10. No general election matchups, but probably the most disspiriting number of all is that a whopping 80% of all Californians think the state’s best days are behind it.

• FL-Sen: This seemed already pretty well established when they ran an anti-Crist ad last week, but it was made official today: the Club for Growth endorsed Marco Rubio in his primary challenge to Charlie Crist. Mmmmmm… cat fud.

• IL-Sen: State treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, whose easy path to the nomination seems to have gotten at least something of an obstacle in its way with the candidacy of former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, got a key endorsement: Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Giannoulias now has the endorsement of four of the state’s House Dems.

• KS-Sen: Also on the endorsement front, Rep. Jerry Moran got one today in the Kansas Senate GOP primary from Arizona’s Rep. Jeff Flake. Kind of odd, as Flake is one of the most conservative House members and Moran is the ‘moderate’ option in the race, but Flake is more on the libertarian side of things rather than a theocon.

• MA-Sen: Finally, something is happening in the sleepy Massachusetts Senate special election Democratic primary. Rep. Michael Capuano hit AG Martha Coakley from the left, attacking her for support for the death penalty, and the PATRIOT Act (Capuano was one of the few to vote against it). And now Coakley is saying she would have voted against the entire health care bill because of the Stupak poison pill, for which Capuano is now attacking her from the right (or at least the pragmatic).

• MT-Sen: Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg pushed back a bit against rumors last week that he was gearing up to run for Senate against Jon Tester in 2012, saying he had no “immediate” plans to run. Rehberg didn’t categorically rule it out, though.

• NH-Sen: He’s been acting like a candidate all year, but Ovide Lamontagne made it official: he’s running for the GOP Senate nomination in New Hampshire. Lamontagne, a lawyer who defeated the establishment candidate in the GOP gubernatorial primary in 1996 (and went onto get demolished in the general), is probably the highest-profile primary challenger to establishment choice ex-AG Kelly Ayotte.

• NY-Sen-B: In case it wasn’t clear that ex-Gov. George Pataki is interesting in running for President, not Senator, he’s making another appearance in Iowa tomorrow, addressing the Scott County GOP Ronald Reagan Dinner in Davenport.

• PA-Sen: Here’s a blast from the past, as one Arlen Specter opponent passed the torch to another. Lynn Yeakel, who lost the 1992 Senate race to Specter by only 3% amidst the media-designated “Year of the Woman,” threw her support to Rep. Joe Sestak in the Democratic Senate primary on Friday.

• NV-Gov: Las Vegas’s colorful Democratic mayor Oscar Goodman is still mulling over whether to get involved in the gubernatorial race (and sounding pretty lukewarm about it), but he says if he does it, it’ll be as an independent and not as a Democrat, setting up a confusing anything-can-happen three-way in yet another state.

• VA-Gov: Here’s a guy to add to the top of the “Do Not Hire” list right next to Bob Shrum: pollster David Petts, who it turns out is largely responsible for the Creigh Deeds strategy of going nonstop negative against Bob McDonnell, focusing on independents, and distancing himself from Barack Obama.

• IL-07: It was decisionmaking day for Rep. Danny Davis (who had previously signed up for both his House seat and Cook Co. Board President, but had to withdraw one filing today), and it’s a bit of a surprise: he’s running for re-election to the House. He had apparently become worried about the possibility of splitting votes with multiple other African-Americans in the race, so he heads back to his nice safe seat in the House. (The question will now be how many of the prominent local politicos who filed to run for the open seat primary now drop out.)

• IL-10: Democratic State Rep. Julie Hamos, who netted a big cash haul last quarter, is the first to hit the airwaves for the fast-approaching House primary against Dan Seals. She’s running a TV spot touting her stand on health care.

• LA-02: So I guess the future isn’t Cao, anymore? Rep. Joe Cao has drawn a lot of heat for his aisle-crossing on health care, but it doesn’t look like he’ll suffer any meaningful consequences from leadership, and he’s even pushing back against Michael Steele’s comments about “coming after” moderate rank-breakers, in understated fashion, saying “He has the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines, but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican party would need.” Also, Cao has picked up an unusual ally: Alaska’s Rep. Don Young is defending Cao’s vote and even stood watch over Cao as he cast his vote, fending off the horde of GOP arm-twisters.

• NY-23: One of the lingering questions from last week: what the heck happened to all those Doug Hoffman voters that the polls showed? Mark Blumenthal assesses that most voters simply were in flux over that last weekend of polling as two separate events scrambled the status quo, and only made up their mind shortly before voting — and that, in the end, Scozzafava voters disliked Hoffman more than they disliked Owens.

• PA-11: Hazleton mayor and narrow 2008 loser Lou Barletta is still trying to decide on a rematch with Rep. Paul Kanjorski. He’s set a timeline for a late November decision.

• CA-LG: Moderate Republican state Senator Abel Maldonado seems to have the inside track on getting appointed as California’s new Lt. Governor (left vacant by John Garamendi’s election to the House), according to rumormongers. Maldonado seems the likeliest because he’s about the only Republican who can clear the Democratic-controlled legislature, and Dems like the idea because he’d leave behind a Dem-leaning Senate district on the central coast that would be a good pickup target in a special election. There’s also one other GOP-held vacancy coming up in the state Senate (SD-37, a traditionally Republican area in the Inland Empire but one where Obama won), vacated by John Benoit (who became a Riverside Co. Commissioner). Democratic Palm Springs school board member Justin Blake is already running there (along with possibly three different Republican Assemblymen), so there may be two good opportunities for Dems to get closer to the magic 2/3s mark in the Senate.

• NY-St. Ass.: As the orgy of own-eating continues, the rest of the Assembly’s GOP leadership is considering stripping Dede Scozzafava of her status as minority leader pro tem (in retribution for her Bill Owens endorsement). If they do, start counting down the days until she switches parties.

• TX-St. House: Hopes still persist that the Dems can flip the Texas state House in 2010, where they were down only 76-74, but that got pushed back to 77-73 last week when long-time Democrat Chuck Hopson, representing a very conservative rural area in NE Texas, switched to the Republicans. Hopson still might not be able to save his butt; a GOP primary challenger, Michael Banks, already jumped in for 2010.

• HCR Vote: The AFSCME and HCAN are running “thank you” ads in 20 different districts for vulnerable Dems who voted for health care reform.

• Parties: I suppose it was only a matter of time before some clever wingnut figured this out. A conservative Orlando lawyer registered an official “Tea Party” with the secretary of state, making it one of 32 minor parties recognized in Florida.

• Polling: PPP wants your help! They’re asking for polling suggestions in their blog comments, and also have a poll up on where to go next (Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, or Ohio?).