Tag: Claire McCaskill

SurveyUSA for Axiom Strategies (1/21-24, registered voters, no trendlines):

Claire McCaskill (D-inc): 48

Sam Graves (R): 44

Other/undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4%)

I think this is the first SurveyUSA poll of the 2012 cycle, and it seems consistent with the few other polls we’ve seen so far in the Show Me State: Claire McCaskill is below 50% in the danger zone but with a small lead against a non-Jim Talent candidate. In this case, it’s Sam Graves, the MO-06 Rep. and potential Senate candidate who has suddenly started to throw his weight around in this race with the Jim Talent decision not to seek a rematch. They find McCaskill with a 48/45 approval (no comparable numbers for Graves).

Worth noting: this poll wasn’t commissioned by a media outlet, but by the Republican consulting firm Axiom Strategies. From Tricia Miller’s description, it sounds like they polled other general election matchups and the GOP primary as well, but only released the Graves numbers, saying that Graves tested the best against McCaskill. (The Roll Call article also gets fellow Reps. Todd Akin and Blaine Leutkemeyer on the record as saying they won’t run, so now all the non-frosh GOP Reps. in the state are accounted for.)

As far as how we know that Jim Talent isn’t going to run, well, we have word from the horse’s mouth. Talent, in fact, publicly leaked it himself today (which means it really isn’t that much of a leak, doesn’t it?), telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that tomorrow he would make an official announcement that he wouldn’t run. As expected, Talent confirmed that he’s going to be focusing on Mitt Romney’s campaign instead.

• AK-Sen: With the book about to close on 2010, so too is the last outstanding race of 2010, the Alaska Senate race. Today the state is planning to certify Lisa Murkowski as winner of the race, including hand-delivering the certification papers to Washington DC so there won’t be any possible obstacles to Murkowski’s swearing-in next week (and ensuing temporary loss of state clout). This, of course, follows a legal one-two punch to Joe Miller’s hopes: last week’s loss at the Alaska Supreme Court, which upheld the trial court’s decision that the write-in votes for Murkowski were properly counted, and then this week’s ruling by a federal district court judge dismissing his related federal suit and lifting the hold on the race’s certification. Miller will not stand in the way of the certification, although he says he is still considering whether to continue litigating the matter (which, if he did, would feature the 9th Circuit as the next stop).

The most ironic part of the whole tale is that the Tea Party Express, in their ill-advised RINO hunt, seem to have only succeeded in making Murkowski into more of a free agent. If you’ve noticed that Murkowski seems to be toeing the GOP line less since winning the election without running under the GOP banner, you’re not alone: she was the only Senate GOPer to vote with the Dems on all four big action items during the lame duck session (the tax compromise, DADT repeal, START, and the DREAM Act).

• DE-Sen: SSP isn’t about re-litigating old elections, but this is indeed relevant because Christine O’Donnell, looking to capitalize on her newfound celebrity, may yet be a fourth-time candidate for the Senate against Tom Carper in the future. That fourth run might be more difficult, though, if she’s in prison… perhaps possible as it seems like the federal government has decided it’s had enough of her once-every-two-years grifting tours and is now criminally investigating her use of campaign funds for personal purposes during her 2010 campaign. Anyway, she put out a truly epic statement today on the matter that ought to have you reaching for your copy of the DSM, so laden with paranoia and delusions of grandeur it is.

• MA-Sen: While everyone seems to be wondering which U.S. Rep. will step into the gap if nobody named Kennedy runs for the Senate, there’s always the outside possibility that someone with a business background and lots of his own money tries to move to the head of the pack in the Bay State. Robert Pozen may fit that bill, and he’s apparently been talking to party insiders about the possibility. The investment banker-turned-Harvard Business professor has some liabilities, though: he served briefly in Mitt Romney’s cabinet, which may help his bipartisan bona fides but could be poison in a primary, and his personality has been described as [John] “Silberesque,” which would just be all-purpose poison.

• MI-Sen: If the NRSC ever had any interest in Tim Leuliette as their Senate candidate in Michigan, that probably evaporated this week. The auto-parts magnate just said that he’s not comfortable with self-funding his campaign and wouldn’t put much of his “large fortune” into a run. Considering that that was the main (if not only) selling point for a candidacy from an otherwise unknown political newcomer, that should pretty much be end-of-story.

• MO-Sen, MO-Gov: A poll from Republican pollster Wilson Research (commissioned by consulting firm Axiom Strategies) has (big surprise) good news for Republicans in it, most notably Jim Talent. The ex-Sen. has a significant lead in a rematch against Claire McCaskill, ahead 51-40. Talent seems to have a big electability edge over Sarah Steelman, who’s tied 44-44 with McCaskill. McCaskill’s approvals are 48/45. They also look at the Governor’s race, finding a more competitive race than PPP did but not the lead that a Peter Kinder internal showed. They find Dem incumbent Jay Nixon leading Kinder 45-42, with Nixon’s approvals at 52%. Worth noting: the poll’s a little stale, taken Dec. 1-2.

• ND-Sen: It’s starting to look like Kent Conrad will face some serious opposition from Republicans this cycle (assuming the 62-year-old runs for re-election), although it’s not clear exactly from whom. Perhaps the heaviest-hitter available, the state’s ex-Gov. and the former Bush administration Agriculture Secretary, Ed Schafer, has just ruled it out. For now, the likeliest-sounding one right now seems to be Brian Kalk, one of the state’s three Public Service Commissioners, a statewide elected position. Kalk says he’s giving it “serious thought,” which contrasts with oft-mentioned AG Wayne Stenehjem’s statement that he doesn’t have “any plans” (although not closing “any doors” either) and with newly-promoted Gov. Jack Dalrymple, for whom it’s the “last thing” on his mind.

• NE-Sen (pdf): In case you weren’t sure whether or not Ben Nelson’s in trouble for 2012, um, yes, he’s in trouble. Republican pollster Magellan is out with a poll finding Nelson with an overall 29/59 re-elect, and trailing GOP AG Jon Bruning 52-38. He’s also trailing state Treasurer Don Stenberg (not yet a candidate, but sounding likely to run as well) 46-40. Hopefully we’ll get a look from PPP at this one soon for confirmation. It seems like the Dems are already treating Bruning as a serious threat, though, with the state party trying to throw obstacles in his path by filing FEC and IRS complaints against Bruning over shoddy campaign-committee setup.

• VA-Sen: So apparently all you have to do is append “Tea Party Activist” to your job description, and all of a sudden you’re magically promoted from Some Dude to Very Serious Candidate Worthy of National Media Attention. Or at least that’s the case with the campaign announcement from Jamie Radtke, head of the Judean People’s Front People’s Front of Judea Virginia Federation of Tea Party Patriots, whose main claim to fame seems to be organizing a gathering of 3,000 ‘baggers in Richmond. At any rate, Radtke is the first actually announced GOP candidate. Meanwhile, Jim Webb seems to be moving closer to making a decision on whether to run for re-election (though no clues on how he feels), saying he’ll sort it out over the holiday break and make an announcement in the first quarter of 2011.

• IN-Gov: This comes as a surprise, since there had been a lot of buzz about her as the nominee, with increasing moves from Rep. Mike Pence toward a presidential run instead. But Becky Skillman, Indiana’s Lt. Governor, recently announced that she wouldn’t run for Governor in 2012, citing “minor health issues.” Does this make likelier a Pence gubernatorial run, now that he’d have an easy stroll to the nomination? And if Pence doesn’t run, that seems to point to a truly wide open field, as no one seems to have contemplated a GOP field that didn’t include Pence or Skillman. Who else might step up? (I hear Mike Sodrel may still be looking for a job…)

• NC-Gov: Rounding out the troika of Republican polls showing Dem incumbents in trouble is one from North Carolina from Civitas, who have coordinated with a variety of pollsters and this time went straight to the big daddy of GOP pollsters, POS. The poll finds GOP former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory cruising in a rematch against Dem incumbent Bev Perdue, who never really seemed to gain her footing after a narrow 2008 win: he leads her 51-36 (with Perdue getting only 64% among Democrats).

• WA-Gov: Two interesting developments mean this race isn’t as open-and-shut as I’d thought. One is that there’s increasing buzz linking Dow Constantine, just elected in 2009 as King County Executive, to the governor’s race. I’ve regarded Constantine (who’s 47) as a very likely Governor starting in 2020, but with Dems seeming a little edgy that none of their biggest-name candidates (Rep. Jay Inslee, whose WA-01 is centered in suburban Snohomish Co., Snohomish Co. Exec Aaron Reardon, Spokane-based state Sen. majority leader Lisa Brown) are from their stronghold of King County while likely GOP candidate Rob McKenna is, there might be some pressure on Constantine to move up his timetable. (It’s worth noting that Gary Locke became Gov. in 1996 after three years as King Co. Executive.) The other develompent is that Chris Gregoire isn’t categorically ruling out an attempt at a third term, which she’s legally entitled to do but Just Isn’t Done. (Although she might point out that the last time it was tried, 1972, Dan Evans was successfully re-elected… in fact, the last time a Republican was re-elected Governor in Washington.) She registered as a 2012 candidate with the Public Disclosure Commission, in order to “keep her options open.” (UPDATE: Big h/t to meekermariner, who points out in comments that this Gregoire article is nearly two years old, leaving me to wonder why Politico was linking to it with such enthusiasm. At any rate, the Gregoire committee remains open today, although that in itself isn’t much of a suggestion that a third term may be in the offing.)

• WV-Gov: This week was the deadline for filing briefs for the lawsuit that’s attempting to move up the special election to replace Joe Manchin up to 2011. We still don’t have an answer to when it will happen, but at least we know who’s on what side in the case: the state’s major unions (including the AFL-CIO and WVEA) want it sooner, and so does likely candidate and Dem state House speaker Rick Thompson. State Auditor Glen Gainer supports the expedited election too, while SoS Natalie Tennant (another possible Dem candidate) has basically punted on the issue. And if you’re wondering about Joe Manchin’s decision to duck DADT and DREAM Act votes in order to enjoy family holiday festivities, it seems like it wasn’t, first and foremost, a self-protecting profile in cowardice. With Manchin having survived probably his toughest challenge, he’s more interested now in clearing the way for ally and acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, and not interested in provoking a social issues-based civil war within the state Dem party that could undermine Tomblin’s shot at getting elected to a full term.

• OH-01: Guess who’s sounding like he’s gearing up for a rematch? Steve Driehaus, in an interview with the Cincinnati paper, took a variety of potshots at Steve Chabot, calling him a Boehner “follower” and saying he shouldn’t “sit too easy.” Driehaus has previously said he’s “open” to another attempt. (This is Cincinnati-based district is notorious for steep dropoff in African-American voting in off-years, so if any time would be the right time for Driehaus to try again, 2012 would be it.)

• LA-St. House: There was a long period of threatening and flirting, but now it’s official: state Rep. Noble Ellington switched to the Republican Party, formally flipping control of the state’s lower legislative chamber to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction. Functionally, it may not make much perceptible difference, since there was already a Republican speaker, and many Dems were already quite conservative.

• NY-St. Sen.: Looks like the end of the line in one other outstanding race (which ultimately had the balance of the New York state Senate in play): the state’s Court of Appeals said no thanks to incumbent Dem Craig Johnson’s appeal of a lower court decision that said there didn’t need to be a hand recount of machine votes in New York’s 7th District. GOPer Jack Martins had been declared the winner in the race by several hundred votes, handing the state Senate back to the GOP by a 32-30 margin.

• PA-St. Sen.: Pennsylvania’s state Senate has been even more stubbornly Republican over the years than New York’s, and it looks like the Dems are going to have play a bit more defense there in an upcoming special election. Democratic minority whip Michael O’Pake (the state’s longest-serving legislator) died several days ago at age 70, leaving a vacancy in SD-11 that will need to be filled by special election at some point between March and May (date TBD). On paper, this looks like the kind of district that would be a major test case for whether the Dems are going to continue their run of bad luck in the Keystone State from the 2010 election: while it works out to about D+4 (going 59/40 for Barack Obama and 51/48 for John Kerry), it also gave 55% of the vote to Tom Corbett and 50.6% to Pat Toomey this year. However, this may all boil down to bench strength in a traditionally-Dem district (centered on the blue-collar city of Reading, although made purple by inclusion of its suburbs, too): insiders from both parties are treating Democratic former Berks Co. Commissioner Judy Schwank as “prohibitive favorite.”

• Approvals: PPP does us the favor of consolidating all their year-end Senate approval ratings and gubernatorial approvals in one (or two, really) places. In the Senate, the most popular Senator overall, in addition to most popular one up in 2012, is Amy Klobuchar (59/29); while outgoing Roland Burris is the overall goat, Joe Lieberman is in worst shape of anyone up in 2012 (33/54). Among the few governors facing 2012 re-election, Jack Markell is tops at 50/32 (with Jay Nixon not far behind at 44/30), while Chris Gregoire fares the worst, in case she actually runs (although this might dissuade her sudden interest in a third term); her 40/53 is actually a worse spread than Bev Perdue’s 35/44.

• Redistricting: The Fix has a good piece on redistricting out, that should pretty much serve as the last word on why GOP purely-redistricting-related House seat gains are likely to be limited to the single digits for 2012: thanks to their 2010 overperformance, they’re thoroughly maxed out in the big four prizes where they have total control (Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania). That’s compounded by, in Florida, the new Fair Districts initiative, and in Texas, the need to create at least two more VRA districts while still protecting Blake Farenthold. Also, here’s one other redistricting implication that’s gotten totally overlooked in all the last few weeks’ discussion: although California didn’t lose or gain a seat, there’s been enough population shift within the state (thanks to stagnation in the Bay Area and rapid growth in the Inland Empire) that the net result will be the moving of most of one district from NoCal to SoCal. It’ll be interesting to see whether the new independent commission is able to do that in a way that lightly shifts boundaries southwards and protects the jobs of all 53 incumbents, or if someone from the north actually gets turfed out and an effectively new seat opens up in the south.

• Chicago mayor: A lot has happened in the Chicago mayoral race since we last checked: first, Rahm Emanuel cleared the first hurdle in ascertaining that he is, indeed, a Chicago resident and not a Kenyan (although there will be inevitable courtroom appeals for weeks to come, with opponents willing to go to the state Supreme Court). The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners last week rejected claims that Emanuel had abandoned his Chicago residency when he went to work in the White House. Also, we’ve seen two of Emanuel’s erstwhile opponents drop out of the race, narrowing the number of African-American candidates but still leaving that part of the field split between Danny Davis (last seen publicly urging Bill Clinton against coming to Chicago to campaign for Emanuel) and Carol Mosely Braun. State Sen. James Meeks dropped out, saying he didn’t want to further split the black vote, and Roland Burris also withdrew, via press release, from the race (although it’s unclear whether he ever really was in the race, since he never made any public appearances). Finally, we got another poll of the race from We Ask America, which may be most noteworthy for showing Gerry Chico in position to make the runoff. They find Emanuel at 44, Chico at 12, Braun at 8, Davis at 7, Miguel Del Valle at 6, and Meeks at 4.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (11/29-12/1, Missouri voters, no trendlines):

Claire McCaskill (D): 45

Sarah Steelman (R): 44

Undecided: 12

Claire McCaskill (D): 45

Jim Talent (R): 47

Undecided: 8

Claire McCaskill (D): 44

Peter Kinder (R): 46

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.3%)

With Sarah Steelman’s surprise announcement today already declaring her candidacy for the 2012 Senate race, PPP rushed out some numbers for the race (apparently cutting their sample a little short — note that the sample period extends as far as today!). In a state that’s polarized deeply between urban and rural voters and has become accustomed to extremely close races — this was the narrowest Obama/McCain margin of any state, and Claire McCaskill’s 2006 defeat of Jim Talent was by only 2% — it looks like we’re on track for yet another close one. McCaskill has a statistically insignificant lead over Steelman and a similar deficit against Talent (and also against Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who is pretty well committed to the gubernatorial race at this point).

The innards show pretty much what you’d expect in this light-red and deeply-split state: McCaskill’s popularity is pretty middling (43/44, with 77% of Dems approving and 77% of GOPers disapproving), though better than Barack Obama’s (43/52). The main problem for the GOPers is that they aren’t especially well-known and are basically functioning as Generic Rs (even ex-Sen. Talent, who may not have made much of an impression in his initial four years). Talent is at 36/32, while Steelman is 59% unknown at 22/19. McCaskill should feel lucky she’s running in 2012, a presidential year when turnout by casual Dem voters is likely to be high, instead of having had to run in 2010.

After a few days of suddenly ramped-up chatter about Sarah Steelman getting in the Senate race, all of a sudden, she’s officially in:

Before filing as a candidate with the Secretary of the Senate this afternoon, Steelman will launch a campaign website this morning that outlines her decision to become the first Republican in the race against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.

“I want to do my part in fighting for America’s future. That’s why I have decided to run for the United States Senate,” Steelman writes on the homepage of her revamped website, www.SarahSteelman.com.

Steelman’s entry complicates matters greatly for Jim Talent, who’d been expected to seek a rematch against Claire McCaskill (who beat him in 2006) but now must go into a GOP primary flying the establishment flag against a challenger with a cadre of tea-party supporters. Steelman, of course, played the same role in the 2008 gubernatorial primary, badly damaging then-Rep. Kenny Hulshof en route to his wide loss in the general; she had also briefly considered running in 2010 against Roy Blunt in the GOP primary. Yesterday she got some assurances from the NRSC that they wouldn’t take sides in a Talent/Steelman primary, and (unlike 2010, where Blunt’s early entry seemed to drive her off) that was apparently enough for her to jump in quickly before Talent (who says he’ll have a decision in coming months) could get entrenched.

• AK-Sen: When Norm Coleman… the man who has pretty much set all current standards for pointlessly dragging out an election for partisan purposes… is telling you to pack it in, believe me, it’s time to pack it in. The ex-Sen. from Minnesota is the latest GOPer to tell Joe Miller to stop the madness. (What’s his angle? He may have designs on behind-the-scenes Beltway leadership, possibly RNC chair, and with that in mind would probably like to discourage nonsensical R-on-R courtroom violence.)

• IL-Sen: The 59-41 Dem edge in the Senate drops to 58-42 for the rest of the lame duck session today, as Rep. Mark Kirk gets sworn in as the newest member. (Illinois, of course, was the only of the special election seats that flipped to the GOP.)

• IN-Sen: This NYT story doesn’t really have any new specifics about Richard Lugar’s upcoming teabagging that you don’t already know, but it has a spectacular quote from former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, another Republican who occupied the same pretty-conservative-but-not-a-jerk-about-it space as Lugar:

If Dick Lugar… having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.

• MA-Sen: The Boston Globe takes a look back at Deval Patrick’s reelection town-by-town, and also wonders what it may mean for Scott Brown’s first re-election battle in 2012. Patrick, for instance, won back many of the larger blue-collar (and usually Democratic) communities like Lowell and Quincy that Brown won. The question for 2012, though, is: how much of Brown’s initial success was unique to Brown (more charismatic than your garden-variety blue-blood Republican like Charlie Baker), and, by contrast, how much of that was unique to the turnout model produced by the special election?

• MD-Sen: Republicans may already be settling on a favorite for the Maryland Senate race in 2012, and they’re considering the same strategy as 2006, running an African-American against Ben Cardin. (In ’06, recall, Michael Steele, well, still lost badly, but made the race more competitive than Maryland is used to.) There’s a lot of buzz surrounding Charles Lollar, who just ran against Steny Hoyer in MD-05 and apparently wowed a lot of people on the stump. Of course, he also lost 64-35, but, well, you’ve gotta start somewhere. (Eric Wargotz, who just lost to Barb Mikulski, is also reportedly interested in trying again.)

• MO-Sen: The Beltway seems abuzz about a potential Claire McCaskill/Jim Talent rematch (thanks to McCaskill tweeting about her random airport meet-up with Talent, no doubt), but the missing part of the story seems to be that Talent, if he runs, could be walking right into a juicy establishment/tea party battle. Ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who lost a feisty gubernatorial primary in 2008 and threatened a 2010 primary run against Roy Blunt, has been turning up the volume on a potential run too. Ed Martin, last seen losing narrowly in MO-03, has also become the subject of some speculation. One unlikely run at this point, though, is former Ambassador to Luxembourg (which is code for “very wealthy donor”) Ann Wagner, who has been linked to the Senate race but just announced a bid for RNC chair instead this morning.

• NJ-Sen: When did Bob Menendez’s numbers start to look like Richard Burr’s? A poll from Fairleigh Dickinson (favorables only, no head-to-heads) finds vast indifference about the Garden State’s junior Senator. At least he’s above water, with 31/25 faves, but 29% are unsure and 15% have never heard of him.

• NM-Sen: Jeff Bingaman, assuming he runs again, is already facing his first GOP opponent, although one from the Some Dude end of the spectrum. William English ran (apparently in the GOP primary) for the open NM-02 seat in 2002, although he seems best known for saying controversial things in his local newspaper, perhaps most notably that Barack Obama “literally amounts to an African dictator.”

• TX-Sen: Yet more names are surfacing on the GOP side for possible primary challenges to Kay Bailey Hutchison: today, it’s Houston-area state Sen. Dan Patrick.

• VA-Sen: Corey Stewart is the Prince William County Supervisor and a likely candidate in the GOP Senate primary, if his latest pronouncements are any indication. He’s started firing shots across the bow of presumptive favorite George Allen’s comeback, saying he had a “mediocre” Senate record and that his base has moved on.

• MN-Gov: The recount of the 2.1 million ballots in the Minnesota gubernatorial race officially kicks off today. You probably already know the candidates, but the Star-Tribune today profiles the really key players at this juncture: the lawyers. One of them, interestingly, is Eric Magnuson, who you may remember from the 2008-09 recount as state supreme court chief justice and head of the canvassing board; having left the court, now he’s on Tom Emmer’s team.

• WV-Gov: It’s still not clear when the election will even occur (to set a permanent replacement for Joe Manchin), but acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin isn’t going to get a free pass in the Dem primary, facing likely opposition from two of the people most actively involved in establishing when that election will happen. Both SoS Natalie Tennant and state House speaker Rick Thompson are eyeing the race, with Thompson “planning” to run and Tennant “seriously considering.”

• CA-20: Look for a likely rematch in the 20th, which turned into one of the nation’s closest races this year. Andy Vidak “promises” he’ll try again vs. Jim Costa in 2012, although if he couldn’t make it this year, the odds of him getting over the hump in a presidential year model seem even slimmer. (Unless, of course, the boundaries of the 20th get changed by the citizens’ commission, but the VRA is likely to keep compelling a Hispanic-majority Fresno-to-Bakersfield district.)

• CA-45: Further south, Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet is another potential rematch. The Democrat already filed for a 2012 campaign, although he says he hasn’t ruled another race in or out and is establishing the committee to settle up some unpaid bills from his 2010 race.

• CT-05: And here’s one more: Justin Bernier, who was initially the GOP’s preferred candidate in the primary in the 5th but got shoved over after Sam Caligiuri dropped down from the Senate race, is saying he’s considering another run in 2012 (motivated in part by the likelihood of an open seat with Chris Murphy’s likely Senate run).

• PA-11: Don’t assume that Corey O’Brien is going to be the Dem nominee in the effort to take back the 11th in 2012, as there’s a long list of possible contenders on the bench in this bluish seat. At the top is Scranton mayor (and, briefly, gubernatorial candidate) Chris Doherty, but other names you might see are Wilkes-Barre mayor Tom Leighton, former Pittston mayor (and Paul Kanjorski crony) Michael Lombardo, state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, Wilkes-Barre solicitor William Vinsko, and new state Sen. John Yudichak.

• California: Finally, those of you not living on the West Coast may be unaware that there are parts of the country where the Republicans are the ones in “what did we do wrong?” soul-searching mode. The WaPo looks at the epicenter of that, in California (where they didn’t pick up any House seats, lost all the statewide races, and even lost ground in the state legislature), where local GOPers are flummoxed by the state’s changing demographics.

(General h/t to Brian Valco, bearer of many of today’s links.)

• AK-Sen: All signs are pointing to Lisa Murkowski winning this race, and joining Strom Thurmond in the won-a-Senate-write-in-race club. At the end of yesterday’s counting, which took us up to nearly half of all the write-in votes analyzed, the state Division of Elections is reporting that nearly 98% of all write-ins are being successfully counted for Murkowski. Even the rate of challenges, even if they were all successful (and few of them are), is inadequate for Joe Miller to make up all the needed ground (he’d need to shave off 12%, and isn’t even challenging at quite that rate). 45,132 write-ins have been analyzed so far, and only 1.52% have been successfully challenged by the Miller camp. Seemingly realizing the gap can’t be made up, the Miller camp, while still harping on the spelling issue and keeping that line of argument alive, is now turning to nebulous claims of voter fraud as their next line of attack, threatening a second potential lawsuit. His team is setting up a voter fraud hotline for people to report fraud, voter intimidation, and voter bullying. (Kind of a strange angle to explore, when you’re the campaign that has its own paramilitary goon force.)

• HI-Sen: The Republican bench in Hawaii basically begins and ends with outgoing Gov. Linda Lingle. As far as her running against octogenarian Dan Akaka in 2012, she says she’s going to take six months off from thinking about politics, and then give the race some “serious consideration” at that point.

• IN-Sen: Baron Hill is also looking for work in a few months, and he’s one of the biggest names on the Dems’ bench in Indiana. However, even with his potential choice of running for the Senate, for Governor, or his old seat in 2012, it sounds like he doesn’t plan on any of those.

• MO-Sen: Could we see a 2006 rematch in the 2012 Senate election in Missouri? Ex-Sen. Jim Talent seems to be prepping toward that, with GOP operatives saying he’s “furthest along” of all potential challengers to Claire McCaskill, who beat him in 2006. Other potential GOP names include ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (who’s probably likelier to run for Governor in 2012), and Ann Wagner, wealthy person (former RNC vice-chair and Ambassador to Luxembourg, the kind of goodies doled out to itinerant rich donors) and former campaign manager to Roy Blunt.

• ND-Sen: Jeremy Jacobs lists a few possible challengers for Kent Conrad, who looks vulnerable after Republicans ran up the score in North Dakota this year. Mentioned are Jack Dalrymple (the Lt. Governor, who’s about to become Governor once John Hoeven resigns, although he may be likelier to run for a full term as Gov. in 2012), AG Wayne Stenehjem, and Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk.

• Chicago mayor: And here I thought I was done with having to laboriously type out “Alexi Giannoulias” every day, like I have for the last few years. The recently vanquished Senate candidate is now at least considering the idea of pivoting over to the Chicago mayoral race, presumably under the principle of striking while the iron is hot in terms of his name recognition and donor base. He’s getting urging from several anti-Rahm Emanuel aldermen. (UPDATE: OK, scratch that. A Giannoulias spokesperson now says no, he’s not running for mayor.)

• DSCC: I think we’ve gotten closer to getting someone willing to hold the burning bag of dog doo than we have so far: Harry Reid personally asked Michael Bennet to lead the DSCC next cycle, and Bennet “didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no.”

• DCCC: Dan Boren is moving the anti-Nancy Pelosi push to a new front: demanding that the position of DCCC chair be up for a true vote by the whole caucus, not a de facto appointment by leadership. He’s being seconded in the effort by Larry Kissell, of all people (the same guy who got $1.7 million in DCCC aid this cycle after stinking it up on the fundraising front, and may be worried that another Pelosi ally might cut bait with him next time and make him catch his own fish). It’s not clear who they’d rather see than likely chair Steve Israel, especially since they both had praise for departing chair Chris Van Hollen.

• Redistricting: Guess who’s leading the push for Utah to switch to a independent redistricting commission, instead of it being done by the heavily Republican legislator? Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, who may figure he’ll be given an even worse version of UT-02 in 2012 than he currently has. (Interestingly, there’s the possibility that a commission might give him a worse district, though; it’s also possible that a GOP gerrymander might decide to concede a swing seat to him (probably the best Matheson could hope for) and go for three safe GOP seats, instead of risking a push for a 4-0 map.) Also on the redistricting front, here’s a good overview from Real Clear Politics’ Sean Trende, who goes state-by-state with possible outcomes.

• WATN?: Ashwin Madia (whom you probably remember for losing the MN-03 race in 2008) is taking over the helm for VoteVets for the time being while its current head, Jon Soltz, is deployed to Iraq. Also in the news is Andy Dillon, who lost the 2010 Dem gubernatorial primary after being termed-out as state House speaker. Turns out the centrist Dillon is crossing the aisle one last time: he just signed on as state Treasurer at Rick Snyder’s request (it’s an appointed position in Michigan).

• Money: When they write the tale of the 2010 election, the role of the Chamber of Commerce (and other third-party GOP backers, but especially the Chamber) will probably loom a lot larger in retrospect than it does right now. The Chamber spent $32 million, almost entirely on GOP candidates. The Fix also takes a look at self-funders, and calculates how much they spent per vote. The biggest fail was probably Linda McMahon, spending $97 per vote in a losing effort, outpacing Meg Whitman who spent only $57 per vote to lose by a similar margin (albeit for a much bigger price tag overall). Rick Scott spent “only” $29 per vote to win; the biggest bargain may have been Ron Johnson, who won spending only $7 per vote (although he did a lot of conventional fundraising too). In House races, Tom Ganley spent $29 per vote to lose ignominiously; the biggest spender was the victorious Scott Rigell in VA-02, at $30 per vote.

• Post-mortem: If you’re still feeling down about last week’s losses in the House and need some rationalization about it, here are a couple pieces that don’t really try to put a happy face on the results but still show how very predictable the whole thing was. Alan Abramowitz, certainly no mindless cheerleader for the Dems, points out some of the ways in which it was something of a mile-wide, inch-deep victory for the GOP. And while the teeth-gnashing that accompanies the graph is worth a read too, here’s a piece built around an amazing scatterplot from John Sides that shows how Democratic House candidate performances tracked presidential preferences district by district.

• Maps: If you’re tired of looking at glitzy, state-of-the-art political maps, here’s an amusing look back at the New York Times’ earliest attempts at mapping the nation’s political geography, going back as far as 1896. (As you might expect, their graphics capacity has evolved considerably.)

• FL-Sen: It seems like the “permanent campaign” is pretty much the new normal these days, as everybody’s already talking about who’s gonna run in 2012. In Florida, the list of potential GOP challengers to Bill Nelson is deep even if Jeb Bush doesn’t follow through on an unlikely bid. Appointed (and soon to be ex-)Sen. George LeMieux seems to be ramping up for a bid, although he might suffer for his Charlie Crist ties. Other GOPers mentioned include Rep. Connie Mack IV, state House majority leader Adam Hasner, state Senate president Mike Haridopolos, and newly-elected Rep. Daniel Webster.

• MA-Sen: As for the Dem field in Massachusetts, one prominent potential candidate is staying mum for now. Boston mayor Tom Menino welcomes the attention but is “focused on being mayor.”

• MT-Sen: And then there’s Montana, where freshman Jon Tester is probably one of the most vulnerable Senate Dems. At-large GOP Rep. Denny Rehberg is usually the first name you hear mentioned in that context, but he seems to be in no hurry to decide. Two other GOPers are making moves, though: businessman and losing 2008 Lt. Gov. nominee Steve Daines, and Neil Livingstone, CEO of a “crisis management firm” and frequent anti-terrorism talking head, are both actively looking at the race.

• WV-Sen, NE-Sen: It looks like Joe Manchin’s spokesperson’s denial yesterday of any interest in switching parties wasn’t vehement enough, because Manchin had to reiterate that, no, he isn’t considering it; in addition, Senate GOP spokespersons said those conversations alleged by Fox News apparently never even took place. The same situation applies in Nebraska, where Ben Nelson says that not only is he not interested in switching but that no one has reached out to him to do so. Encouragingly, at least from a rhetorical standpoint, Nelson also says “the party hasn’t left me.”

• MS-Gov: With two well-liked former Reps. idling around wondering what to do next year (Gene Taylor and Travis Childers), you’d think the Dems might actually be able to field a competitive candidate for Mississippi next year. According to at least one local pundit, a Childers comeback doesn’t seem likely (more interested in state party chair), while Taylor seems to have running for something in mind but potentially just his old seat again in ’12.

• OH-Gov: Here’s a good post-mortem on Ted Strickland from Jonathan Chait, which suggests that Strickland managed to keep things close (despite the rest of the wipeout in Ohio) because a solid campaign that focused on just the right amount of populism. He ran well ahead of national Dems on average among groups like seniors and persons with high school educations.

• FL-22: Is Allen West the Bizarro World version of Alan Grayson? He’s an ideological mismatch with his Florida district that leans the wrong way away from his party let alone his own amped-up version of its message, he has no built-in self-censor like most politicians, and he was elected more so by nationwide online supporters than the locals. And now he’s hiring from his own echo chamber, turning for his Chief of Staff not a Capitol Hill pro but the conservative talk show host who helped bolster his campaign. Joyce Kaufman is the one who said on her show this summer that “if ballots don’t work, bullets will.”

• NY-23: Doug Hoffman is truly the gift that keeps on giving. The election’s over, and he’s still giving. He now says he didn’t mean to send out a statement that he put out last week post-election, calling local Republican bosses the real “spoilers in this race.” (Hoffman, of course, pulled in 6% of the vote last week, saving Bill Owens yet again.)

• NY-25: Trailing slightly with the absentee-counting process looming, Dan Maffei (like Tim Bishop in NY-01) is requesting a hand count of ballots (the electronic voting machines generate a paper trail). A judge also ruled that both camps may inspect the list of 11,000 absentee ballot requests, a prelim to each camp developing the list of which ballots they want to challenge.

• DCCC: It’s sounding more and more like Rep. Steve Israel will be on tap to head the DCCC for the 2012 cycle. He was one of the three key deputies at the DCCC last year (along with Joe Crowley, who seems to be edging away from the job, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who seems interested too but not in as strong a position with the Pelosi-led core of leadership).

• House: Here’s an interesting piece of trivia: only eight (8) House Dems did better, percentage-wise in 2010 than they did in 2008. Most are from safe urban districts (most notably Nancy Pelosi herself, despite the seven figures the right-roots raised for her opponent), although Jim Himes and Chellie Pingree were in competitive races and managed to gain ground.

• Polltopia: PPP puts together a helpful table of approval ratings on the various Senators up for re-election in 2012. It corresponds pretty closely with the general conventional wisdom about who’s vulnerable: Joe Lieberman is in worst shape at 33/54, followed by Claire McCaskill and Debbie Stabenow (who actually are in slightly worse condition than John Ensign, though his problems go well beyond his approvals). Interestingly, the best-liked Senator statewide (Olympia Snowe at 56/34) may also be one of the most vulnerable, not in a general but to a teabagging in the GOP primary.

AK-Sen: It looks like Democrats will have a warm body to challenge frosh GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski this year. The Alaska Democratic Party is touting Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams as their man, and he says that he’ll make an announcement about the race on June 1.

AR-Sen: The SEIU is spending $307,000 on their latest ad buy for Bill Halter, bringing their total investment in this race close to $2.5 million. That’s some serious pie.

CT-Sen: Last week, Joe Lieberman said he was undecided on whom to support in the race between Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon. This week, Lieberman is still saying that he’s “not eliminating [a McMahon endorsement] as a possibility.” What a major league asshole.

FL-Sem: This is both amusing and rather extraordinary. Libertarian Party candidate Alexander Snitker released an internal poll conducted by Telsel Inc. showing Charlie Crist at 40%, Marco Rubio at 34%, Kendrick Meek at 10%, and Snitker at a whopping 2.5%. I’m not sure what’s more remarkable: the fact that this guy paid for a poll, or the fact that he’s touting its results as proof that he can win.

MO-Sen: Because it’s never too early to start planning for 2012, ex-Sen. Jim Talent says that he’s mulling over a rematch with Democrat Claire McCaskill, and will make a decision early next cycle.

NV-Sen: We had heard of the Dump Reid PAC before, but I didn’t realize that their name was an acronym. Yes, their formal title is actually “Decidedly Unhappy Mainstream Patriots Rejecting Evil-Mongering Incompetent Democrats”. Anyway, those bozos have spent $30,000 against Harry Reid, mostly on direct mail.

AL-07: EMILY’s List has now spent $110,000 on the candidacy of former Wall Street securities attorney Terri Sewell, most of that on direct mail. My one-word editorial: Yeesh.

AR-03: Wilson Research Strategies (5/19-20, likely voters):

Steve Womack (R): 53

Cecile Bledsoe (R): 24

Undecided: 23

(MoE: ±4.9%)

CT-04: It looks like the GOP primary to take on Jim Himes will be a four-way. State Sen. Dan Debicella, businessman Robert Merkle, and Easton First Selectman Thomas Herrmann will be joined on the ballot by Paulist businessman Rick Torres, who says that he’s collected the required amount of signatures to land on the ballot. Torres also announced a cross-endorsement of fellow weirdo Peter Schiff, who’s waging an uphill campaign for the Republican Senate nomination. Torres says that his campaign will help Schiff collect signatures in the coming days.

IN-03: Republicans now have more than ten dudes running for the seat of disgraced ex-Rep. Mark Souder, the latest entrant being state Rep. Wes Culver.

NY-13: After being rebuffed by disgraced ex-Rep. Vito Fossella, the Staten Island GOP formally nominated lawyer Michael Allegretti to take on Dem Rep. Mike McMahon. In advance of the committee’s vote, Allegretti’s primary opponent, former FBI agent Michael Grimm, wrote a blistering letter to the borough party, calling their Fossella shenanigans “dysfunctional” and their endorsement a “sham”. Grimm is vowing to soldier on to the primary. Meanwhile, McMahon picked up the endorsement of the Staten Island Conservative Party this week.

SC-03: I don’t have a dog in this race, but a good rule of thumb when it comes to contested GOP primaries is to root against whatever nutcase the Club for Growth has endorsed. That said, the Clubbers are spending $110K on a media buy in support of real estate broker and auctioneer Jeff Duncan in the open seat race to replace GOP Rep. Gresham Barrett. Write that one down on your scorecard!

TN-08: And speaking of “independent” expenditures, it’s been mentioned several times in the digest that Robert Kirkland has been filing independent expenditures on behalf of his brother, physician Ron Kirkland, who’s locked in a Republican primary battle with agribsuiness kingpin/humble gospel singer Stephen Fincher to replace retiring Dem Rep. John Tanner. For those keeping score, Rob has now spent a quarter of a million bucks on the race in a show of brotherly love.

AR-Sen: Bill Halter has a new ad up going after Sen. Blanche Lincoln for her vote in favor of TARP – aka the bailout. As is all too often the case with these kinds of reports, there’s no indication of how big the ad buy is.

CA-Sen, CA-Gov: Man, the news cycle moves fast these days. The RNC bondage-themed nightclub scandal (which I’m sure you’ve read all about) already had some same-day blowback. GOP senate candidate Chuck DeVore says he’s “severed all ties” with Erik Brown, a consultant who seems to be responsible for the expenses racked up at Voyeur West Hollywood. The Daily Caller (which broke the story originally) also says that Brown did work for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner. Meanwhile, Politico’s Dave Catanese tweets that freshman Sen. Claire McCaskill is sending out a fundraising email for Barbara Boxer.

CT-Sen: In the somewhat strange Connecticut Republican senate primary, Paulist economist Peter Schiff has put out his first TV ad… and it doesn’t mention that he’s a Republican. Schiff is spending half a mil to run the ad statewide for two weeks. Schiff also promised to run in the August primary even if he doesn’t get the party nomination at the May convention.

KS-Sen: Things have gotten a little worse for Todd Tiahrt in his race against Jerry Moran in the GOP primary to succeed outgoing Sen. Sam Brownback: SUSA now shows Moran up 42-32. Two months ago, Moran led by seven points – and by just three two months before that. The Kansas primary is not until August 3rd, so Tiahrt still has time, but he doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction.

KY-Sen: Now things are getting good:

Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state, used his latest ad to again hammer his rival, Bowling Green eye surgeon Rand Paul, on national security issues.

“Paul even wonders whether 9/11 was our fault,” a female announcer says in the spot that began airing Thursday. The commercial then shows Paul speaking at a Blue Grass Policy Institute forum in March 2009, saying: “Maybe some of the bad things that happen are a reaction to our presence in some of these countries.”

I just hope that Grayson doesn’t nuke Paul before our nominee (hopefully Jack Conway) gets a chance to pummel him in the general.

NC-Sen: A good get for former state Sen. Cal Cunningham: Gen. Wesley Clark endorsed his fellow Army veteran for the Democratic senate nod. Interestingly, Clark specifically noted Cunningham’s support for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

NY-Sen-B: Marist finds ex-Gov. George Pataki with the narrowest of leads over Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, 47-45, essentially unchanged from last month’s 48-45 margin. This is all well and good for Republicans, but Pataki hasn’t given the slightest indication that he’s interested in running.

GA-Gov: Looks like Nathan Deal didn’t quit quite fast enough. The Office of Congressional Ethics found (according to the NYT) that Deal “appeared to have improperly used his office to pressure Georgia officials to continue a vehicle inspection program that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for his family’s auto salvage business.”  I wonder how much of an impact this will have in the governor’s race, though, since Deal had mostly been floundering in the polls. Maybe it’ll just be the final nail in his political coffin – a suiting end for a party-switching ex-Democrat.

IA-Gov: GOP ex-Gov. and comeback hopeful Terry Branstad is up with his first TV ad of the campaign. No word on the size of the buy, though.

MD-Gov: The Baltimore Sun profiles would-be GOP gubernatorial candidate (and ex-gov) Bob Ehrlich and finds that his current job is “‘rainmaker’ for the Baltimore branch of North Carolina-based law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice. Ehrlich describes his job as being ‘the face of the firm,’ with his duties including ‘speeches, coffees, dinners, lunches, meetings.'” Sounds like Ehrlich’s been working on honing his Dan Coats/Tommy Thompson pedigree.

FL-08: Rep. Alan Grayson, one of the wealthiest members of Congress and a man who has largely self-funded his past campaigns, raised almost half a million dollars in a recent “moneybomb.”

NY-13: It looks like the GOP has some primary woes of its own in the 13th CD. Though the Republican establishment is coalescing around former FBI agent Mike Grimm, lawyer Michael Allegretti is vowing to fight on. He’s recently gone up with an ad on cable (so presumably a small buy) demanding repeal of the healthcare reform bill.

NY-23: Hah! Could the unlikable Doug Hoffman foment yet another right-wing split? Hoffman is laying claim to the Conservative Party line in this fall’s election, and he’s making the argument that whoever runs for the Republicans will need both lines in order to win. (Pretty plausible!) This is pissing off local GOP leaders, though, who are taking this as a threat to nominate Hoffman – or else face yet another divided ballot. This is some Fancy Feast-level cat fud we’re talking about.

NY-29: A more complete list of candidates interviewed by upstate Dems as potential nominees for the special election to fill ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s seat:

Mary Wilmot, an aide to Gov. David Paterson, Assemblyman David Koon of Perinton, past candidate for state Senate and businessman David Nachbar of Pittsford, Southern Tier native Matthew Zeller, and Michael McCormick of Allegany County

Wonder if we might be missing a name, though, since yesterday word was that the Dems would be interviewing six people.

OH-16, OH-18: CQ: “Businessman Jim Renacci, who is taking on freshman Rep. John Boccieri in the 16th district, and state Sen. Bob Gibbs, who is running against two-term Rep. Zack Space in the adjacent 18th district, established a joint fundraising committee, ‘Gibbs-Renacci for Congress’ and will split the proceeds evenly.”

PA-06: Manan Trivedi is chipping away at Doug Pike’s big lead among organized labor. He picked up a couple of local union endorsements, from the Transport Workers and the Iron Workers.

TN-08: Republican potentates are showering even more love on Steve Fincher, this time in the form of a campaign tour with GA Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (of “Obama is uppity” fame). Fincher has a lot of money, but like almost every GOP candidate with establishment backing, he faces a primary from ever-truer conservatives.

Census: There’s some speculation that anti-government attitudes (and paranoid black-helicopterism) might be the cause of low Census response rates in Texas. Though the biggest challenge for the Census is typically presented by undercounted groups like blacks and Latinos, some of the lowest response rates are in fact coming from very Republican counties. It’ll be very interesting to compare response rates and voting history when all is said and done.

Redistricting: Nathan Gonzales has a detailed look at the powers that are gathering on both sides for the upcoming post-census redistricting battle.

I address this screed to Congressman Kendrick Meek and Congresswoman Deborah Wasserman Schultz.  I know that both of you have been under much scrutiny here in the blogosphere, based upon your recent recusals from campaigning against your neighboring Republican congresspersons.  I suspect that you probably have your eyes on a senate race at some point in the future. In preparation for that, you probably think that you're positioning yourselves to be perceived as moderates who can work well across the aisle. However, I'm here to show you that if you consider such positioning to be part of a winning strategy, you are terribly mistaken.

One need not look further than the results of 2006 to learn that authenticity works.  During that crucial election season, the Democratic party was faced with the outrageously tall order of winning at least six senate seats.  As is the usual tendency of the deck, it was once again stacked against us.  Our GOP opponents appeared to have financial advantages.  At the outset of the year, we didn't even have six, let alone seven, viable seats, and severe party infighting threatened at least one critical race (Ohio).  From that mess, the DSCC scrounged up seven viable challengers in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, and Montana.  Of these seven, six won.  I will not focus on the Rhode Island race, since it was an unusual scenario in a state whose dynamics do not mirror those of swing states or of the nation at large.  I'll also leave out Pennsylvania, since that was an instance of an incumbent who was so off his rocker, a piece of cardboard could've defeated him.  And the Virginia race has been written about ad nauseum, so I'll skip that one as well.  I will instead focus on Ohio, Missouri, Montana, and Tennessee; three wins and a loss, and why it turned out that way.

When Sherrod Brown prevailed over Paul Hackett in the primary for the Ohio senate, many Democrats became nervous; Hackett, an Iraq War veteran, seemed like a more viable option to run against incumbent Republican Mike DeWine than the unabashedly liberal Cleveland congressman whose record on the hot-button social issues was completely progressive.  In the fabled state that won the election for Bush in 2004, it seemed like a bad idea to run a candidate whose record was to the left of John Kerry's.  Well, as it turned out, Sherrod Brown proved to be an excellent candidate. Instead of fudging his answers and trying to make himself look like something he wasn't, he proudly stood up for his principles, emphasizing his economically progressive ideals, but without attempting to conceal his stances on the social issues.  His unapologetic championing of the disadvantaged called to mind another progressive who never backed down from his core beliefs: the late, great Paul Wellstone.  

Over in Missouri, then-State Auditor Claire McCaskill waged a tough fight against Jim Talent, the incumbent GOP senator.  The stem cell initiative was on the ballot in that state, a potential risk in a state with such a high number of evangelicals.  It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise when McCaskill put Talent on the defensive on that issue, and on the issue of abortion, in nearly every debate.  In a key appearance on Meet The Press, Talent lobbed Republican talking points at McCaskill, and, rather than attempting to fit her responses into those frames, she effectively twisted them around to leave Talent as the weaker candidate, hemming and hawing and making excuses for his every statement.  McCaskill's margin of victory was small, but in a very conservative state like Missouri, it was enough!

Out on the ranges, where libertarianism runs strong, the Montana senate race saw a battle between two very colorful characters: the doddering embarrassment Republican Conrad Burns, who was often looked upon as something of a senile uncle even by his fellow GOPers, and the plain-spoken, buzz-cut-sporting Jon Tester, who won the senate primary over a less progressive state official.  Burns trotted out the old canard of fearmongering, trying to to use Tester's opposition to the PATRIOT Act as a political bludgeon.  Had Tester been a weaker candidate, he would have attempted a nuanced explanantion, trying to convince people that he could be patriot without supporting the PATRIOT Act, accepting the right wing's frames instead of creating his own.  Luckily, Tester unleashed the no-nonsense directness that is a trademark of the Mountain West; in one key debate, in which Burns accused Tester of wanting to “weaken” the PATRIOT Act (clearly a standard GOP frame, portraying the Democrats as weak on terror and weak in general,) Tester famously responded, “I don't want to weaken the PATRIOT Act, I want to repeal it.”  Had John Kerry been anywhere near this bold in 2004, Bush would not have had a second term.

After looking at the victories of Brown, McCaskill, and Tester, I now turn to the only high-profile loser on our side, Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee.  Yes, I am well aware of the racist tactics that the Republicans used against Ford in the infamous “Call Me” ad (a frame-by-frame analysis is available here,) but I remain convinced that a stronger candidate, one with more backbone and more confidence in his own platform, would have been able to fight back and prevail. Ford embodied the ideals of a DINO at best.  He appeared in a clumsy ad in a church, going too far into the territory of unsubtlety in an attempt to prove his religiosity.  (I had serious flashbacks to John Kerry's 2004 proclamation of himself to be the “candidate of conservative values.”  The minute we accept the GOP frames, we're dead in the water). On the campaign trail in '06, Ford frequently trumpeted his opposition to gay marriage.  He spoke in tones that ranged from cautious to mildly complimentary toward Bush's Iraq policies, all the while distancing himself from the Democratic leadership in the senate.  In short, he ran as a Republican.  And why would anyone vote for a Republican who doesn't have the conviction to actually run within the party that actually represents the conservative values he preaches, when they could vote for an actual Republican whose voting patterns are more sure-footed? 

You see where I'm going with this.  2006 was a Democratic tidal wave, yet Harold Ford lost because of his own spinelessness and willingness to act like a Republican.  The moral of the story here is to stick to your guns, champion your own progressive record, and be who you are.  It's obvious that if you have achieved anything in Congress, you have been able to work with the other side.  Playing “footsie” with Republicans does nothing to further your goals; in fact, it undermines them, since progressive voters might doubt your convictions.  I certainly hope that your aides and advisors read this post, as it is crucial that you absorb its message.  (For all the readers of this blog, I suggest writing to these Florida congresspersons and calling their offices to relay a similar message).  Please, be a Sherrod Brown or a Jon Tester.  Don't be a Harold Ford.  Your political futures will be brighter for it, if recent history is any indicator!