Tag: Kendrick Meek

AR-Sen: Former President and governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton cut two radio ads on behalf of Blanche Lincoln. One of them highlights Lincoln’s alleged support for Clinton’s economic agenda back in the 1990s – not an issue likely to resonate, especially in today’s economic climate.

FL-Sen: A Public Opinion Strategies poll for Charlie Crist, taken before he left the GOP primary, had him at 36, Marco Rubio at 28, and Kendrick Meek at 23. A McLaughlin & Associates poll (taken for “the Associated Industries of Florida,” also before the switcheroo) had Crist up as well, 33C-29R-15M. Meanwhile, The Buzz takes a look at which boldfaced names showed up to Crist’s first fundraiser following his political party reassignment surgery.

On the Dem side, zillionaire mortgage-shorting mogul Jeff Greene says he’ll “spend whatever it takes” to win his primary against Rep. Kendrick Meek. That must be music to Joe Trippi’s ears. Greene is unelectable but thanks to his monstrous bankroll, he can do a lot of harm to Democratic chances in this race. Trippi is aiding and abetting this bullshit, and will profit handsomely.

NY-Sen-B: Chris Dodd, in the midst of working on financial regulation reform, says he won’t attend a Wall Street-sponsored fundraiser on behalf of Kirsten Gillibrand in NYC tonight.

UT-Sen: A poignant poll for Bob Bennett: While Republican delegates to the state convention despise him (he’s in third place with just 16%), rank-and-file Republican voters like him much more (first place, 39%). In other states, the GOP would have cause for concern, since a convention process like this is clearly aimed at producing the most conservative candidate imaginable. But in Utah, it probably won’t matter. Though if Bennett gets toppled, I wonder if other nervous establishment officials might consider eliminating the convention and replacing it with an ordinary primary.

MI-Gov: Thank god: Geoffrey Feiger, Jack Kevorkian’s attorney and the Dems’ disastrous 1998 gubernatorial nominee, says he won’t run again. Now all we have to worry about is Andy Dillon.

HI-Gov, HI-01: Hawaii’s legislature unexpectedly passed a civil unions bill on the last day of the session, which now goes to Gov. Linda Lingle (she has until July 6th to decide whether to sign the bill into law or veto it). Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona (R), running to succeed Lingle, wants her to veto it. Ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie is strongly in favor of the bill (and gay marriage), while his Democratic primary opponent, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, opposes gay marriage but hasn’t expressed an opinion on the current bill.

This may also have repercussions in the HI-01 race, where state Sen. President Colleen Hanabusa may have pushed the bill through in an attempt to repair relations with the LGBT community after the same bill got scuttled in January. Hanabusa says she doesn’t support gay marriage, though, while Democratic rival Ed Case does. Republican Charles Djou opposes the measure.

FL-05: Unsurprisingly, local Republicans are grumbling about Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite’s filing-deadline handoff to Sherriff Ted Richard Nugent, including state Sen. Mike Fasano, who apparently has had his eye on this seat for some time. You have to wonder if this is the kind of thing which will taint Nugent and make him vulnerable to a primary challenge next cycle. Also among the complainers, interestingly, is state Sen. Paula Dockery, whose current district overlaps with the 5th CD. Dockery’s gotten nowhere in her FL-Gov primary against AG Bill McCollum, so you have to wonder if she isn’t gnashing her teeth about a lost opportunity here.

FL-25: Joe Garcia’s candidacy is a rare bright spot for Dems in this otherwise putrid cycle. Now the DCCC, which lobbied heavily for him to get into the race, has given Garcia their official stamp of approval, adding him to their Red to Blue list once again.

GA-09: Dems never had a chance in the special election in this ruby red district, but you gotta figure it’s almost always better to actually have a Democrat on the ballot rather than not. We had a candidate here, pastor Mike Freeman, but he dropped out a couple of weeks ago. Now, though, he says he’s back in the race, but his website is offline.

IN-08: Democratic state Rep. Trent Van Haaften, running to fill Brad Ellsworth’s open seat, has been talking to local teabaggers to see if they might support him. Yeah, I’m in as much disbelief as you are. But, as is always the case, there’s a lot of hostility between the tea partiers and the establishment, and at least one ‘bagger says they want to “teach the machine a lesson.”

PA-12: Freedom’s Defense Fund, an arm of the incredibly dodgy Base Connect (formerly BMW Direct) has made a $20K “independent” expenditure on behalf of Bill Russell, who is challenging Tim Burns in the GOP primary. (Recall that there’s both a special election and a primary on the same day.) FDF is supposedly distinct from Base Connect, but given that they share the same office (according to TPM), the idea that their expenditures are actually “independent” is a real stretch.

More importantly, the NRCC just threw down another quarter million bucks on behalf of Burns, bringing their total spending on this race to over $725K. The DCCC has yet to respond to this latest blast.

DCCC: The DCCC is about to begin its biennial rite of splitting off its independent expenditure arm. Thanks to stupid federal laws against “co-ordination,” the DCCC staffers who make spending decisions about IEs can’t be in contact with the rest of the D-Trip, because those folks are in contact with individual campaigns. This is senseless. Anyhow, political director Robby Mook will head up the IE arm, and John Lapp (who once ran this shop himself) will serve as a “senior advisor.” Incumbent retention director Jennifer Pihlaja will replace Mook as PD of DCCC proper (and keep her current title).

Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to speak to your community.  

I’m traveling all across the state getting to know Floridians and telling them about my story.  I can’t talk to everyone personally, though, and since I’m running for U.S. Senate Americans outside of Florida may be interested in who I am as well, since the important work of the U.S. Senate affects all Americans.  

Our campaign produced this video to help introduce people to me, my background and where I come from.  

http://www.kendrickmeek.com/page/s/video

We know this is a competitive election, but we have a real chance to bring progressive change to Florida and Washington, D.C. and we need your help getting the word out.  

You’ve heard a lot about my opponents and you’ll hear a lot more about them as they continue to fight a divisive primary over ideology and partisanship.  I’d rather spend my time working hard and fighting to bring jobs to Florida, help our economy recover and continue to pursue the progressive platform of the Democratic Party.

P.S. Not on our mobile list yet? Make sure to sign up today by texting JOIN to 35736. Text messages are a great way to stay updated – no matter where you are – with everything happening on the campaign!

Kendrick

Originally posted at kendrickmeek.com

Quinnipiac (4/8-13, registered voters, 1/20-24 in parentheses):

Charlie Crist (R-inc): 33 (44)

Marco Rubio (R): 56 (47)

Undecided: 10 (8)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 24

Marco Rubio (R): 30

Charlie Crist (I): 32

Undecided: 13

Kendrick Meek (D): 38 (35)

Marco Rubio (R): 42 (44)

Undecided: 17 (19)

Kendrick Meek (D): 34 (36)

Charlie Crist (R): 48 (48)

Undecided: 14 (12)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

A whole lot has happened in the last 24 hours since this poll from Quinnipiac came out. I’m not sure if seeing this poll was Crist’s “fuck it” moment, or if he’d already decided to act, but yesterday he took a sorta-bold step back on the path toward independence that he once walked: Crist vetoed legislation passed by Florida’s GOP-held legislature, near and dear to conservative hearts, that pushed merit pay and limited teacher tenure. His veto is a thumb in the eye to the local GOP establishment, and probably ends any remaining vestigial possibility of him winning the Senate primary against right-wing darling Marco Rubio.

The reaction from the rest of the state’s GOP was pretty swift: he lost endorsements from state legislators almost immediately, NRSC chair John Cornyn (who’d previously sheepishly stuck by his Crist endorsement) started warning Crist about getting any ideas about straying off the reservation, and by the end of the day, Crist had lost his campaign chair: Connie Mack (the former Sen., not the current Rep.).

Rumors were flying this morning that Crist advisers were now pivoting toward an independent run, or else dropping out altogether and moving toward a 2012 run against Bill Nelson. And just hours ago, despite having made a Shermanesque statement last week about an indie run, Crist said something that the media is running with as an indication that the indie bid is imminent: in response to questions about an indie bid, he said, “I’m not thinking about that today. We’ll look at that later on.” Not quite political oratory on the order of “We having nothing to fear but fear itself,” but certainly a provocative question mark. (Although with the filing deadline coming up within weeks, “later on” can’t be much later.)

In the event the indie bid happens, Quinnipiac shows that the GOP near-slam-dunk turns into a three-way frenzy where Crist, Rubio, or even Dem Kendrick Meek have a credible shot. Interestingly, Quinnipiac also finds that Meek has been gaining on Rubio in the head-to-head (down only 4), as Meek works his tail off under the radar (as seen with his unnecessary, but framework-building petition gathering scheme) while Rubio’s right-wing leanings may be getting more apparent to the casual viewer. So, whether or not this turns into a three-way race, the Dems need to watching this one closely.

UPDATE: I’m not sure if this was planned or the veto was the last straw, but Mitt Romney, about as establishment a GOP figure as you can get, just endorsed Marco Rubio in this race.

Only one digest a day this week. Too much candy is bad for you!

FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek will qualify for the ballot today in an apparently unprecedented manner. Rather than pay the $10,000 filing fee, he plans to submit 130,000 signatures from across the state. (You need 112,500, so he has some wiggle room.) While this obviously was a vastly more expensive undertaking, Meek’s earned a bunch of free media as a result, and has also padded out his campaign database. On the GOP side, Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist squared off in their first debate yesterday. The Politico also has a take on the proceedings.

MA-Sen: Rachel Maddow took out a full-page ad in the Boston Globe to deny rumors that she had any interest in running against Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. But actually, it’s much better than that – click the link and check out her letter for yourself. She lands some good blows on Brown, who had sent out a letter trying to raise money off the oogedy-boogedy threat of a Maddow run. Says Maddow: “It’s standard now for conservatives to invent scary fake threats to run against.” Like her.

UT-Sen: Republican Gov. Gary Herbert says he won’t take sides in the primary battle against his fellow GOPer, Sen. Bob Bennett. Given that incumbents usually stick together, this seems worrying for Bennett – a guy who already has a long list of worries.

AL-05: Local conservative activist Hugh McInnish is seeking to bar Rep. Parker Griffith from the GOP ballot, calling him an “impostor.” A petition he filed with local party leaders was shot down in January, but he’s going to try to make his case to the state party next week.

CT-05: Former Hill aide Justin Bernier is complaining about how the House Conservatives Fund (a PAC run by Rep. Patrick McHenry) decided to endorse state Sen. Sam Caligiuri rather than himself. The HCF asked Bernier to fill out a survey and return it to one Evan Kozlow. The problem? Kozlow does work for the HCF, and he’s also Caligiuri’s general consultant.

MN-06: Dems in MN’s 6th CD have given their endorsement to state Sen. Tarryl Clark. Clark will still have to face off against Maureen Reed (formerly a member of the Independence Party) in an August primary.

NY-29: Upstate Dems are staying tight-lipped about their pick for a nominee in the special election to fill ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s seat. They are meeting today to interview six candidates, one of whom is Assemblyman David Koon. The other names are still unknown, though Paterson aide Mary Wilmot may be among them.

PA-10: A group called Catholics United, which pushed Chris Carney to support the healthcare reform bill, is now running an ad (on FOX News!) to thank him for his “yes” vote. No word on the size of the buy, but obviously it’s a cable dealie, so probably not big.

WA-03: Nurse and Democrat Maria Rodriguez-Salazar is dropping out of the race to succeed the retiring Rep. Brian Baird. This cuts the Dem field down to Denny Heck, Craig Pridemore, and Cheryl Crist.

IL-Lt. Gov: Illinois Democrats went the ultimate outsider route to pick a replacement Lt. Gov. candidate, choosing… the child of a former senator. Uh, I’m sure Sheila Simon, the daughter of the late Sen. Paul Simon, is a great person. But considering the lengths IL Dems went to try to open up this process and look like they weren’t just conducting another backroom deal (you could even apply online!), this almost seems like an absurd result. Not to mention the fact that this isn’t exactly the kind of year where a gubernatorial candidate wants to remind voters of any ties to DC. Seriously strange move here.

DSCC: Joe Biden just did a Dallas fundraiser for the DSCC, which took in $250,000. He also did a DNC fundraiser the same day. No word on how much that netted, though.

• CA-Sen: Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore is still lagging in the single digits in polling, but prominent conservatives keep coming to his aid. He just got the endorsement of libertarian-minded Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake, and also of the Tea Party Express (the corporate wing of the teabaggers’ movement).

• DE-Sen: “Repeal!” of HCR has become the rallying cry for almost every Republican candidate for federal office lately, but Rep. Mike Castle has stood out from the crowd with his reluctance, saying repeal is not “realistic.” Now that’s turning into an issue in his GOP primary, where his far-right opponent, marketing consultant and occasional Fox News contributor Christine O’Donnell, is accusing him of “breaking faith” with Delaware voters by not supporting it. A few other of the more sensible GOPers running in blue states, like Rob Simmons and Tom Campbell, are also keeping repeal at arms-length.

• FL-Sen: Good news for Charlie Crist, I suppose: Mason-Dixon has polled the GOP primary, and they find that he’s losing to Marco Rubio by a mere 11 points (much less than a number of other pollsters, ranging from Rasmussen to R2K, have found): 48-37. Crist leads Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek 50-26, while Rubio leads Meek 44-29, although half of respondents didn’t know who Meek was. Meanwhile, you might have forgotten (as I often did) that ex-New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith was, as far as he was concerned, in the GOP primary as well. Well, not anymore: Smith shuttered his campaign today, citing (big surprise) fundraising problems.

• WA-Sen: If there’s one group that should be getting behind Dino Rossi’s possible Senate candidacy, it’s the Washington Association of Realtors. Not only are they a usually conservative-leaning organization with close ties to the builders’ lobby, but also Rossi is one of them: his day job is real estate salesperson. So, hot on the heels of yesterday’s R2K poll, here’s another problem Rossi needs to seriously contemplate: WAR just endorsed Patty Murray.

• CA-Gov: Remember Pete Wilson? The former Governor is largely responsible for turning the California Republican Party’s name into mud, among Latinos, in the 1990s with his support for anti-immigrant Proposition 187 — a decision that may have had short-term benefits but has turned into a long-term disaster as the state’s demographics change. The California Accountability Project is shining the spotlight back on Wilson in his new job: campaign chair for Meg Whitman.

• MI-Gov: Um, no. Just no. Mop-topped attorney Geoffrey Fieger is best known for his defense of Jack Kevorkian, but he also somehow wound up with the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial nomination and went on to lose to John Engler by a 62-38 margin after a slew of bone-headed remarks. Fieger now says he’s considering another run at the Democratic nomination.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Marist has a new poll of the New York gubernatorial race, finding that party-switching Suffolk Co. Executive Steven Levy is in for a rude reception from the GOP. He’s losing the primary to ex-Rep. Rick Lazio, 53-21. Andrew Cuomo dispatches either one, 61-30 against Lazio or 65-26 against Levy. Meanwhile, the saga of David Paterson (with a 16/80 job rating according to Marist) keeps getting sadder/weirder/yuckier, with a NYT article today about his attempts to secure an endorsement from the woman involved in a domestic dispute with one of his top aides.

• TN-Gov: The GOP side in the gubernatorial race shrank today, with the withdrawal of Shelby County DA Bill Gibbons from the race. He had the advantage of being the only western Tennessee candidate in the primary, but he never got very far on the fundraising front. Meanwhile, among what’s left of the Democratic field, beer baron Mike McWherter just got an endorsement from Memphis’s new mayor, A.C. Wharton. McWherter’s only remaining Dem opponent is former state House majority leader Kim McMillan.

• AR-03, PA-07: Mike Huckabee offered up two different endorsements, one right on his home turf. He endorsed former state Rep. Doug Matayo in the open seat race to succeed John Boozman in the dark-red 3rd. The other place seems kind of odd: endorsing ostensibly moderate Pat Meehan in the Dem-leaning, heavily Catholic, decidedly non-Southern-fried PA-07.

• HI-01: The final candidate list for the May 22 all-mail special election in the 1st is out. The only three candidates of consequence are, as expected, Colleen Hanabusa and Ed Case for the Dems, and Charles Djou for the GOP. With the winner-takes-all nature, minor candidates may weigh heavily on the outcome, but there’s a pretty even split with three extra no-name Democrats and four extra GOPers, as well as four independents.

• KS-03: Stephene Moore, the wife of retiring Rep. Dennis Moore, backed off slightly from reports yesterday that she was entering the race to succeed him. She said that she was going to continue thinking about it and would have a formal statement soon. Chris Cillizza has sources, though, who say it’s a done deal.

• IL-LG: It sounds like Pat Quinn has settled on something of an outsider (albeit one with a famous family name) for his Lt. Governor running mate: Sheila Simon, the daughter of former Sen. (and former LG) Paul Simon. She’s a law professor at Southern Illinois Univ., whose only political experience seems to be losing a race for Carbondale mayor. State Sen. Susan Garrett appears to have been bypassed over not supporting Quinn’s income tax plan, which Simon supports. Meanwhile, supporters of African-American Rep. Art Turner are warning of depressed black turnout in November if Quinn doesn’t opt for Turner instead.

• RNC: A decision from the trial-level U.S. District Court in Washington DC was a fundraising setback for the RNC, which wanted to be able to raise unlimited soft money from corporations and individuals but didn’t receive the green light to do so.

{First, a quick plug for my blog Senate Guru.}

As we await the historic vote on health care reform, it’s important to remember that we’re just ten days away from the end of the first fundraising quarter of 2010.  The fundraising totals reported in this quarter will be pivotal to determining the tenor of many races for the rest of the year.  If there is any time to contribute, now is the time!

Please head over to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and contribute whatever you are able to these terrific Democratic candidates for Senate.

Democrat	Currently At	End-of-Quarter Goal	Distance to Goal
Kendrick Meek	$25	$300	$275
Bill Halter	$445	$750	$305
Joe Sestak	$1,320	$1,600	$280
Paul Hodes	$1,447	$1,700	$253
Robin Carnahan	$1,163	$1,400	$237

Remember, the contribution you can make isn’t just a donation to a single candidate or political campaign.  It’s an investment against Republican obstruction (and conservaDem enabling) and an investment toward achieving that more perfect union.

{First, a cheap plug for my blog Senate Guru. You can contribute to terrific Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.}

Recent polling from Public Policy Polling and Research 2000 suggests that Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek is in terrific position to win Florida’s 2010 U.S. Senate race. With Republican Marco Rubio well ahead of primary challenger Charlie Crist in the polls, but far behind on fundraising, Rubio will likely emerge victorious from the primary, but out of campaign funds and politically badly bruised, as well as positioned to the extreme right ideologically. Congressman Meek, on the other hand, is steadily campaigning and fundraising and will be well-positioned for the general election.

As such, Senate Guru has added Congressman Meek’s campaign to its Expand the Map! ActBlue fundraising page, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates for Senate in the 2008 and current 2010 cycles.

To kick off the addition of Congressman Meek, we’re looking to start off with just $100 raised to get the ball rolling. Just five $20 contributions would be a great start! Can you chip in $20?

Visit the Expand the Map! ActBlue page to chip in if you can!

Research 2000 for the Daily Kos (3/15-17, likely voters, 11/16-18/2009 in parens):

Charlie Crist (R): 30 (47)

Marco Rubio (R): 58 (37)

Undecided: 12 (16)

(MoE: ±5%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 36 (33)

Charlie Crist (R): 45 (50)

Undecided: 19 (17)

Kendrick Meek (D): 40 (38)

Marco Rubio (R): 41 (30)

Undecided: 19 (32)

(MoE: ±4%)

Another poll, another dose of heartbreak for Charlie Crist, who entered this race a year ago with a million bucks in his wallet and a pocketful of dreams. What’s especially notable is that this poll was taken in the immediate aftermath of Crist’s first real counter-attack on Rubio, which centered specifically around Rubio’s use of Florida Republican Party credit cards for personal expenses, including some ridiculous allegations of back waxing. It doesn’t look like Crist’s new aggressive posture has paid his campaign any immediate dividends.

And how about a journey into the hypothetical?

Kendrick Meek (D): 24

Charlie Crist (D): 21

Undecided: 55

(MoE: ±5%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 27 (31)

Marco Rubio (R): 32 (27)

Charlie Crist (I): 29 (32)

Undecided: 12 (10)

Charlie Crist (D): 38 (45)

Marco Rubio (R): 40 (34)

Undecided: 22 (21)

(MoE: ±4%)

An indie run continues to look like the best bet for Crist, turning a certain defeat into a game of jump ball for all three candidates.

And, finally, the gubernatorial race:

Bill McCollum (R): 47 (45)

Paula Dockery (R): 9 (9)

Undecided: 44 (46)

(MoE: ±5%)

Alex Sink (D): 35 (33)

Bill McCollum (R): 41 (35)

Undecided: 24 (32)

Alex Sink (D): 37 (35)

Paula Dockery (R): 15 (13)

Undecided: 48 (52)

(MoE: ±4%)

This is a slightly more optimistic take than PPP’s poll last week, which had Sink trailing by 13 points. As we’ve said before, there are certain things that Sink can do right now to improve her campaign, but I hope that she has an effective paid media team on contract.

• CO-Sen: Gee, tell us what you really think, Jane Norton! The supposed front-runner for the GOP nod just referred to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” while appearing at a teabagger forum. I’m sure the 600,000 or so Coloradans who receive Social Security will be glad to hear that.

• FL-Sen: PPP’s Tom Jensen has some observations on the Florida race, that also seem generalizable to the national landscape and pretty much every other race. Very few people are changing their minds between the parties, he finds: only 8% of Obama voters plan to vote for Marco Rubio, actually lower than the 11% of McCain voters planning to vote for Kendrick Meek. The difference is in the intensity between the parties, which shapes the likely voter model. Barack Obama won Florida by 3, while PPP’s sample went for McCain by 4; that 7-point shift is similar to what they found in New Jersey and Massachusetts as well.

• OH-Sen: We’re very short on details, but Chris Cillizza is pointing to a DSCC poll (taken by Mark Mellman) finding Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher leading GOP ex-Rep. Rob Portman 37-36 in the Senate race. (There’s no mention of primary numbers or a Jennifer Brunner matchup.) We’ll fill in the blanks more if we see a copy of the memo.

• MI-Gov: Michigan-based pollster Denno-Noor takes another look at the primaries in the Michigan governor’s race. On the GOP side, Rep. Peter Hoekstra leads at 28% (up from 21 in November), followed by self-proclaimed nerd Rick Snyder at 18 (up from 5). This poll confirms the most recent EPIC-MRA poll’s finding of Snyder’s advertising-based surge, and the subsequent decline for AG Mike Cox. He’s at 12 in this poll, down from 15. Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard is at 8, and state Sen. Tom George is at 2. On the Democratic side, they find a lot of uncertainty: state House speaker Andy Dillon leads Lansing mayor Virg Bernero 13-11, with 6% each for state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith and for Dan Kildee, who has since dropped out (although he was in the race while the poll was in the field). Undecided wins, at 56%. There are no trendlines on the Dem side, given the dropout of Lt. Gov. John Cherry since the last poll. (Speaking of Cherry, there are odd rumors out there that unions are asking the woeful Cherry to get back into the race, which doesn’t jibe with the UAW’s recent decision to back Bernero.)

• NY-Gov: This is what passes for a good news day for David Paterson: the growing likelihood that he won’t face any criminal charges over allegations of witness tampering in the domestic violence investigation involving a top aide. On the GOP side, ex-Rep. Rick Lazio rolled out one more endorsement from the party’s old war horses as party bosses keep looking elsewhere for a suitable candidate; today, it was Rep. Peter King‘s turn to give Lazio the thumbs-up.

• PA-Gov: More progress on the endorsements front in the fight for the Democratic nomination. Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato got the endorsement of the state’s largest teachers union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Meanwhile, Auditor Jack Wagner continued to dominate in terms of endorsements from county-level party apparatuses, getting the endorsement in Schuylkill County, out in coal country.

• MI-13: This isn’t a good day for Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. She and one of her aides just got subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, in the investigation into her son, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. On top of that, state Sen. Hansen Clarke made official his primary challenge to Kilpatrick. She barely survived the Democratic primary in 2008, and that was largely because of a split among several challengers.

• NY-23: Doug Hoffman is making a move… to the 23rd District, where he plans to run again. One knock against Hoffman last year was that he lived in Lake Placid, which is outside the district. He’s moving nine miles down the road to Saranac Lake, which falls in the 23rd’s lines.

• PA-07: With filing day having passed in Pennsylvania, now it’s time to count the signatures, and one candidates who’s running into some trouble is a surprise: the squeaky-clean former US Attorney Pat Meehan, the Republican running in the 7th. He’s asked the Delaware County DA to investigate his own signatures, after finding about some potentially fraudulent signatures on his lists. Meanwhile, Meehan seems to have dodged a long-rumored primary challenge from former TV news reporter Dawn Stensland, who never filed to run.

• CA-LG: San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom looks like he’s going to go ahead and voluntarily demote himself to the no-man’s land that is Lt. Governor. He paid his filing fee yesterday, and will have an official kickoff for his campaign either today or tomorrow.

• Demographics: Alan Abramowitz has a very interesting piece on demographic change and how it only bodes ill for Republicans (or at least the current angry-white-guy version of the Republicans) in the long run. That angry white base keeps shrinking as a percentage of the population, with non-whites on track to be 35% of the electorate by 2020.

• Branding: With his presidential run (and its ubiquitous star and blue background) fading in the rear-view mirror, John McCain has launched a completely new logo to go with his new persona. It has a flowing flag instead, on a background that’s much… um… whiter.

Public Policy Polling (3/5-8, registered voters, no trend lines):

Kendrick Meek (D): 33

Charlie Crist (R): 46

Undecided: 22

Kendrick Meek (D): 39

Marco Rubio (R): 44

Undecided: 18

Kendrick Meek (D): 25

Marco Rubio (R): 34

Charlie Crist (I): 27

Undecided: 14

Charlie Crist (D): 34

Marco Rubio (R): 43

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±3.4%)

It’s clear that the situation is pretty dire for Charlie Crist. Already facing a primary challenge that has proven so overwhelming that Crist has resorted in recent days to ridiculous allegations of back waxing against his opponent, it’s looking like the path to victory for Crist in a general election as an indie or a Democrat don’t look particularly promising, either.

While he once seemed invincible, Crist has plummeted back down to earth much like his fellow governors around the nation. His approval rating is at a quite bad 35-51, and almost half the electorate — 47%! — say they want him “out of elected office” next year. Ouch.

We’ve seen similar permutations of this race polled before. Back in November, Research 2000 had Crist doing quite a bit better as an independent or as a Democrat, but that same poll also gave him a 59-32 favorable rating. Even if PPP is not quite on the mark with this poll, I’d bet serious money that Crist’s favorables have taken a big hit since November.