Tag: MO-Sen

• AZ-Sen: Sources are telling Roll Call that Rep. Trent Franks is planning to run for Sen. John Kyl’s open seat. I personally think Franks will get in – Jeff Flake definitely will not have this race to himself.

• HI-Sen: Former part-term Rep. Charles Djou (I’d say we hardly knew ye, but I think we got to know him pretty well) says he’s considering a senate bid, but it sounds like he wants to wait and see what his fellow Republican (and next-door neighbor) Linda Lingle does first.

• MO-Sen: Remember when Claire McCaskill said she’d co-sponsor Bob Corker’s CAP Act – the bill designed to take an axe to, among other things, Social Security? Now she’s telling her constituents in a letter that she’ll “vote against” any cuts to SS. So either she’s backtracking on her idiotic support of Corker’s bill, or she somehow thinks this pledge doesn’t conflict with that piece of legislation. In other words, she’s come to her senses – or she’s talking out of both sides of her mouth. We’ll see.

• NV-Sen: The committee investigating John Ensign’s affair-and-hush-money scandal just interviewed Sen. Tom Coburn, which Politico claims is a sign that the inquiry is “intensifying,” but who knows – the whole thing could be winding down, especially since the Justice Department pathetically dropped their entire case against Ensign. I’d be surprised if any serious punishment is meted out here.

• AZ-07: Some Dude Gabriela Saucedo Mercer announced a challenge to Rep. Raul Grijalva (D). Saucedo Mercer volunteered for fellow Republican Ruth McClung last time, who herself said after the election that she will “probably” run again.

• CA-36: This can’t be the sort of news Republicans were hoping for: Redondo Beach Mayor Mike Gin said he’s joining the field of candidates hoping to succeed the now-departed Jane Harman. Why is this a problem? Because Gin is now the second non-Some Dude Republican running – Redondo’s elected city attorney, Mike Webb, is already in the race. If the GOP ever had any, any chance whatsoever of sneaking out a win here, it could only have happened with a single candidate to unite behind. Now, it seems impossible for one of their own to make it into a runoff, unless the Democratic field gets absurdly fractured.

• MD-02: Huh. So it looks like fifth-term Dem Rep. Charles Albert Ruppersberger III – you know him as “Dutch” – already has a non-Some Dude opponent. Republican state Delegate Patrick McDonough (who is also a talk radio host) represents a reliably red district and has already managed to score Christine O’Donnell to headline a fundraiser for him. This district went 60% for Obama and 54% for Kerry, and I can’t imagine the Dem-held legislature would risk making this seat any redder if Ruppersberger looked genuinely threatened, so McDonough will have a hell of a challenge.

• MI-12: Rep. Sandy Levin became the latest veteran Michigan Dem (along with Johns Dingell & Conyers, and Dale Kildee) to confirm that he’ll seek another term.

• NY-26: Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz has told Democratic leaders to drop his name from consideration as a possible candidate for the upcoming special election. Is it just me, or is it a little worrisome that we still seem to be so far away from choosing a nominee? Just another reason why we should have primaries for special elections in New York.

The legislature did just pass one small bit of elections reform: Once Gov. Cuomo signs the bill, special elections will now be held 70 to 80 days after their announcement by the governor (as opposed to 30 to 40 right now), to give county boards more time to handle military and overseas ballots. This was done to bring NY into better compliance with federal law, but still note that there is no specific timeframe in which a governor must actually call for a special – this law only applies to the time period after one has been called.

• OH-01: Cincinnati NAACP President Christopher Smitherman tells Dave Catanese that he thinks Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory is “floating the idea of a run” against Rep. Steve Chabot. Mallory is black, and Smitherman notes, of course, that President Obama will be at the top of the ticket. The current OH-01 is 29% black, as strong black turnout was responsible for Steve Chabot losing in 2008.

• IN-SoS: Republican Secretary of State Charlie White was just indicted on seven felony counts, “including voter fraud, perjury and theft.” White is accused of intentionally voting in a precinct he didn’t live in. Funny how after all their bogus charges of “voter fraud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111,” the one guy who actually gets hauled up on charges is nothing less than the guy responsible for ensuring the integrity of elections – and a Republican, to boot.

• Idaho: Due to a court challenge, which found Idaho’s system of open primaries unconstitutional under the First Amendment, Idaho looks like it will be moving toward closed primaries – or at least, a setup where you have to register with the Republican Party in order to vote in GOP primaries.

• MS Redistricting: So it looks like Mississippi may be the first state in the nation to adopt any sort of actual redistricting map – not a surprise, seeing as the state holds legislative elections later this year. The state House will vote on its own map as early as this Friday. (Click here for the map, and click here for the demographic breakdowns.) Believe it or not, the state House is actually still run by the Democrats, and predictably, Republicans don’t like their plan, calling it an incumbent protection plan for Dems. Still, it will likely pass – Dems insist all lawmakers have had a chance to give their input, and the GOP, which controls the state Senate, will need Democratic cooperation in the lower body to get their corresponding map approved.

• PA St. Sen.: Craziness – local Republicans are reportedly preparing for a special election in the 40th district to replace the seemingly-doomed state Sen. Jane Orie… whose corruption case just ended in a mistrial today. But it’s not the kind of bad trial thingy a defendant typically roots for (i.e., a hung jury). Rather, the judge dismissed the jury because documents entered into evidence by the defense contained forged signatures. Said the judge to Orie’s attorney: “Ray Charles could see that those signatures were doctored.” So it seems like Orie may live to fry another day.

As I am sure everyone would agree, the race for Missouri’s senate seat is going to be competitive. The Republicans have a solid roster of candidates that will force Sen. McCaskill to work very hard to keep her seat.

For better or worse, a lot of people seem to be quite negative on McCaskill’s chances to keep this seat. Missouri, they say, is red and getting redder. They acknowledge the center-right status of the state, how hard she had to work last time in a very Democratic year, how much the Republicans will devote to unseating her, and how well the Republicans did this past November.

Of course, Robin Carnahan’s performance in 2010 wouldn’t inspire anyone. Despite being strongly reelected in 2008 with the most votes of any candidate in the history of the state and being from one of its most famous political families, she lost, badly, to Roy Blunt. In fact, “badly” might be too kind. It was, quite simply, a breathtakingly awful loss.

In every county in the state, Carnahan lost support from what McCaskill previously had. Some of that was bound to happen, considering the sharp differences in Democratic fortunes between 2006 and 2010, but we’re not talking about small decreases. In a lot of counties, she lost between 30 and 40 percent of what McCaskill received in 2006. Aside from perhaps Blanche Lincoln, who else running on the Democratic ticket oversaw such losses for her party?

I’m not sure why this is the case–please chime in with details if you know them–but whatever the reason, I thought it might be helpful to visualize the changes from 2006 to 2010. One of the reasons people are down on McCaskill’s chances is that they believe the non-urban areas of the state are becoming out of reach for the Democrats, but a look at the numbers doesn’t necessarily suggest that. In fact, it almost suggests the opposite: the reason for Carnahan’s poor performance wasn’t so much a huge move towards the Republicans but rather a complete implosion of support for the Democrats. You could almost say that the Republicans are close to hitting their peak in the state’s smaller counties.

Below, I’ve attached a Scribd link to a spreadsheet compared the totals for McCaskill and Talent in 2006 to Carnahan and Blunt in 2010. Overall, the gains for the Republicans were impressive, but hardly earth-shattering. In 2006, Talent received 1,006,941 votes, while in 2010, Blunt received 1,054,160 votes. The difference was 47,219 votes, or about a 4.7 percent increase for the Republicans. Meanwhile, in 2006, McCaskill received 1,055,255 votes, whereas in 2010, Carnahan received 789,736 votes. The difference was 265,519 votes, or about a 25 percent decrease for the Democrats. I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s an astonishing figure.

But as bad as those figures might seem, it’s not nearly as awful as it appears upon first glance. It’s pretty obvious that Blunt didn’t simply win over all of the former supporters of the Democrats. Even if you assume that every single additional voter Blunt received over Talent came from McCaskill, you’re still left with 218,300 votes. Split that number in half, giving Carnahan an additional 109,150 votes, and she would have received 43.7 percent of the vote. Had she received all of those additional votes, her total would have been 46.62 percent. (Both figures assume that the Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates received the same number of votes.) With the numbers readjusted, Blunt would have received 51.35 percent in the first example 48.75 percent in the second. In both cases, Carnahan would have lost, but she would have been a lot closer, particularly in the second example.

So what, you say. Blunt still received 47,219 more votes than Talent received. That’s true, of course, but this was during the best year Republicans are likely to have in a long, long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Republicans are nearing their ceiling in the state, particularly in the smaller counties. It’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to keep seeing increases of eight to ten percent, if not much more, each cycle (adjusted for population growth and all that). Hell, even a five percent increase is tough to see unless you are are starting from a point of extreme low turnout and are see continuous gains in population, something the Republicans aren’t doing.

Consider Camden County. In 2010, for instance, Blunt received 11,305 votes, up 1,940 from the 9,095 Talent received in 2006, an increase of about 21 percent. In contrast, Carnahan received 4,558 votes, down 1,890 votes, almost 29 percent, from the 6448 votes that McCaskill received. (Interestingly, in absolute terms, these numbers line up almost exactly, so perhaps here, Blunt really was taking from the Democrats.) In percentage terms, Talent received 55.6 percent of the vote while McCaskill received 39.4 percent, whereas Blunt received 66 percent compared to Carnahan’s 27.2. In comparison, McCain received 63.6 percent while Obama received 35.1 percent.

Let’s assume that the Republicans do incredible things and maximize turnout like we could barely imagine. In Camden County, there are 40,705 people, and about 19.2 percent of the population is under 18 years of age. That leaves about 32,890 people. Assuming five percent can’t vote for whatever reason, that leaves about 31,245 people that can. In 2008, 21,133 voted, so there are roughly 9,100 possible voters left. If the Republicans managed a 15 percent increase from McCain’s 2008 total of 14,074, they’d get roughly 2,111 more votes. But the Democrats could get more votes, too. Even if they only saw a five percent increase, they’d get an additional 389 votes from the 2008 total of 7,773. Assuming third-party totals don’t change drastically, in this example, the Republican would get 65.7 percent of the vote, about what Blunt received this past year. In this situation, the net gain for the Republicans is about 1,722.

To me, this suggests that the Republicans have to grow by leaps and bounds to keep up with minor Democratic improvements. Indeed, that looks to be the case. It’s important to consider the sheer size of the counties that form the base of the Democratic party in the state. In St. Louis County, where Blunt amazingly lost a significant percentage of Talent’s total from 2006, a small gain easily could erase if not surpass the increase from a tinier county. Let’s assume there was a similar increase in overall voters of about 11.5 percent, similar to my example above, which bring roughly an additional 64,380 voters to the polls for a total of 624,234. (Just in case that sounds impossible, it’s not. There are probably around 195,000 people in the county that didn’t show up but could have in 2008.) In 2008, Obama received 59.5 percent of the vote, giving him 333,123 votes. If he received just 59.6 percent in 2012, he’d get about 372,044 votes, or an increase of about 38,921 votes. The Republicans would go from 221,705 to about 248,445, a difference of 26,740. (Again, this assumes the third-party totals stay similar.) Had Obama received his 2008 percentage, he would have received about 371,419 votes. The increase of one-tenth of a percentage point, in this example, is worth about 625 votes. Imagine if he simply raised it to 60 percent of the vote, an increase of half a percentage point. In this example, he’d be up to about 374,594, a gain of 3,175 votes. If he could somehow really maximize his potential returns and get 65 percent of the vote, he’d get about 405,811 votes, a gain of about 34,392 votes.

Achieving such totals might seem ridiculously hard, but again, we are talking much smaller increases than the Republican has to see. Just in case what I described above was a little convoluted, let me try to make it more concise. Take Camden and St. Louis County yet again as examples. In 2008, McCain received 14,704 votes in Camden County. If the Republican nominee were to increase on that total by 15 percent, he’d get an additional 2,205 votes. If Obama were to receive just a two percent increase on his 2008 totals in St. Louis County, he’d get about 6,663 more votes. Such an example is simplified, of course, because it’s unlikely that the totals for one side go up while the totals for the other side do not, and there are obviously more small counties than there are big urban ones. But the point is to illustrate that the Republicans probably have to experience incredible, probably unheard of gains just to meet the small gains of the Democrats–and in basically every county of the state.

I brought up Obama, in case it wasn’t obvious, because 2012 will be a presidential year, and the campaign will almost certainly be working the state hard. It’ll probably have the resources to find a small but important (when part of the total sum) number of votes. When you consider that McCaskill is likely to outperform Obama in the smaller counties, giving her an even bigger base erodes the advantage the Republican senate candidate might otherwise have in the smaller counties. And with the Republican senate candidate likely being overwhelmed in the urban areas by the Obama campaign turnout efforts, McCaskill has even more of an edge.

Well anyway, this diary is probably long enough. Suffice it to say that as long as it’s not an awful year, McCaskill has, at worst, a fifty-fifty shot of keeping the seat. If she is able to not drop off too much from her totals in the smaller counties from 2006, she should probably win. If she’s able to meet or exceed them, she will [knock on wood] almost certainly win. Whatever the case, I wouldn’t use 2010 as a basis for much of anything. It was a terrible year and saw, as the the title suggests, a complete collapse in Democratic support. Despite what the Republicans might wish, I’m skeptical they will witness this again any time soon.

Note: if my math or comparisons seem off, please let me know. I am almost certain I didn’t make an error, but despite appearances to the contrary, I am not perfect.

Links:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4980…

http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrweb/e…

http://quickfacts.census.gov/q…

http://quickfacts.census.gov/q…

• AZ-Sen: Maybe, just maybe, this will be the last time we’ll hear ridiculous speculation about, Joe Arpaio, the thug sheriff of Maricopa County, running for higher office. The 78-year-old Arpaio said he won’t seek Arizona’s open senate seat, following his announcement a few weeks ago that he won’t seek re-election as sheriff, either. I’m wondering if the two developments are not unrelated – Arpaio can silence the senate gossip because he no longer needs to use it to raise money for his next local race. Anyhow, I’ll be glad to be done with this guy. UPDATE: My mistake. I misread a line in the link and thought Arpaio was finally retiring, too – but only Kyl is, unfortunately. Still, Arpaio did say that he will not seek Kyl’s seat.

In other AZ news, what if you threw a teabagger convention and the Republican senate candidate didn’t come? Jeff Flake was a no-show at the Tea Party Patriots’ confab in Phoenix this past weekend, and the ‘baggers seem happy he stayed away. Unlike, say, Maine’s Olympia Snowe, Flake doesn’t appear to be interested in making nice with the nutters. I’m convinced that a more suitable (to the movement conservatives) candidate will emerge.

• FL-Sen, FL-13: Not quite sure what to make of this – John Boehner was just down in Sarasota, FL, headlining a high-dollar fundraiser for a guy who hardly needs the money, super-rich car dealer Vern Buchanan. Is this Boehner trying to convince Buchanan to seek re-election to the House and avoid a throw-down with fellow Rep. Connie Mack? Or just the Speaker earning chits while playing a few rounds of golf during a Congressional recess?

• HI-Sen: This piece on the Hawaii senate race is worth reading in full. The nominal hook here is Sen. Dan Inouye’s comments that, as Chair of the Appropriations Cmte. (and President Pro Tem of the senate), he won’t have as much time to raise money for his old buddy Dan Akaka, who is facing re-election next year. But there are a whole host of other questions implicated here: Is this just Inouye trying to kick Akaka’s ass into gear? (Akaka only has $66K on hand and faced a serious primary challenge from Rep. Ed Case in 2006.) Will Akaka (88 yo in 2012) actually even run again? Is former Gov. Linda Lingle going to run? If Akaka steps aside, who might take his place on the Dem side? Again, click the link to see the state of play.

• ME-Sen, ME-Gov: Eliot Cutler, the independent candidate for governor last year who came in just a couple of points behind the winner (Republican Paul LePage), says he is “unlikely” to challenge Sen. Olympia Snowe, proclaiming he has “no desire to live in Washington.” He also says he isn’t ruling out another gubernatorial bid in 2014. Also, one possible Dem candidate, former AG Janet Mills, just joined a law firm, suggesting she probably isn’t interested in a senate race. (Mills became the first woman AG of Maine in 2009, but because the position is selected by the legislature, she was replaced by a Republican after the GOP swept into power last fall. NB: This is how you avoid Kelly Ayottes.)

• MI-Sen, MI-15: Rob Steele, last seen losing to Rep. John Dingell by 17 points in 2010, says he’s considering a challenge to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (who lacks any real high-profile opposition at the moment). Steele also says he doesn’t think he’ll run again Dingell again, whose district might get re-drawn to still include heavily blue Ann Arbor.

• MO-Sen, MO-02: I thought Rep. Todd Akin had definitively said “no” to a senate bid, but in response to some renewed chatter about a possible run, he would only say: “Some people want to draft me for Senate but you know engineers. It’s just one thing at a time.” You know engineers! Anyhow, if there’s a chance Akin might get in, this could help explain former state GOP chair Ann Wagner’s recent remarks that she might run for MO-02. (Wagner, of course, is also in the mix for the senate race.)

• RI-Sen: State GOP chair Gio Cicione says he won’t take on Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, citing (like Cranston Mayor Matt Fung before him) the high cost of a race. These guys think a Rhode Island senate race would be expensive? They ought to check things out a state or two to the west. Anyhow, Dave Catanese caught up with former Providence mayor (and well-known felon) Buddy Cianci, whose name surfaced in PPP’s most recent poll of the race. Cianci hasn’t completely ruled out a run, but says it’s not “realistic.” Also of note, PPP has a report card out on Rhode Island politicians’ job approval ratings.

• TX-Sen: Former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, who resigned just a few days ago, made it official: He’s running for senate.

• VA-Sen: The already-painful Tim Kaine watch – is it a pimple or a boil? – will soon be over: the DNC chair promises he’ll make a decision in a week, according to the AP’s Charles Babbington. (I predict “gummy bear.”) On the other side of the equation, ultra-far-right insano-Republican, state Delegate Bob Marshall, says he’s considering another run. Marshall almost stole the GOP nomination for VA-Sen in 2008 from the super-sad Jim Gilmore, but that near-upset took place at a Republican convention – this time, the party’s nominee will be selected in a primary.

• MO-Gov: Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder says he’ll make an announcement “this spring,” and if it’s anything other than, “I’m running for governor,” I think people will be shocked. Anyhow, mark your calendars – this means Kinder might open his trap again any time between March 20th and June 21st!

• NC-Gov: Since North Carolina is their home state, it looks like PPP will be testing NC-Gov just about every month. Incumbent Dem Bev Perdue trails almost-certain opponent Pat McCrory 49-37. (Last month it was 47-40.)

• CA-36: 2010 and 2006 primary candidate Marcy Winograd announced she’s entering the special election for departing Rep. Jane Harman’s seat. The CW says Winograd is likeliest to hurt SoS Debra Bowen, but I’m not really sure she’s capable of making any material difference in this race.

• CT-05: Former one-term state House Rep. Elizabeth Esty announced she’s running for Chris Murphy’s now-open house seat. Esty (not to be confused with the DIY craft-selling website) narrowly lost a rematch in 2010 after narrowly winning a traditionally Republican district in 2008.

• NJ-06: Teabagger Anna Little, who won an upset primary victory in 2008 but lost to Rep. Frank Pallone by 11 points in the general election, says she’s back for a rematch. The woman Little beat for the GOP nomination last year, richie rich Diane Gooch, is also weighing another bid.

• NM-01: Dem state Sen. Eric Griego says he’d “seriously consider” running for Rep. Martin Heinrich’s seat if Heinrich makes the jump to the open-seat senate race.

• NY-26: Well, that explains that. In other news, Conservative Party chair Mike Long seems to be tipping his hand that his party will in fact support GOP nominee Jane Corwin.

• MO-SoS: MO SoS Robin Carnahan says she’s running for re-election to her current post. Republican state Sen. Bill Stouffer, who lost a primary last year to Vicki Hartzler (who went on to beat Ike Skelton in the general), also says he’ll run for the post.

• Census: Our friends across the pond in England and Wales will take their census this year. What makes this interesting is that for the first time, Britons will be able to submit their census forms online.

Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso has the goods on tomorrow night’s special elections:

After the excitement of last week, this week is a bit of a letdown. There are three seats up: Florida’s SD-33, formerly held by Frederica Wilson, is merely a formality, with the Democrat likely going to win 80-20 or so. There’s also a formerly Dem-held Senate seat in Mississippi, SD-12; despite no party ID being on the ballot, I’m pretty confident in guessing all three candidates running are Dems (it’s along the Mississippi River, so in heavily-Democratic territory). And in Maine, HD-11, an extremely Republican seat, is up. It would be helpful if Dems picked this one up, as the Republicans only have a slim majority in the House, but this was a seat that went 3-1 for the incumbent in 2010. There was apparently a split among Republicans, so there’s a Republican running a write-in campaign, but it would still be one hell of a long shot.

• AZ-Sen: Former GOP Rep. Matt Salmon says he’s considering getting into the senate race. Salmon held current candidate Jeff Flake’s seat in the House before losing the 2002 gubernatorial race against now-DHS chief Janet Napolitano. Speaking of Flake, he was one of only three House Republicans to vote against the GOP-backed spending bill which contained $60 billion in cuts. Teabagger eyebrows were raised, but Flake claims he voted against it from the right, saying it didn’t go far enough.

• MA-Sen: Speaking of teabaggers, Scott Brown, when directly asked if he was one (okay, he was asked if he was a “tea partier”), said “No, I’m a Republican from Massachusetts”(and I drive a truck!). I maintain that a tea-fueled primary challenge to Brown is still possible.

• MO-Sen, MO-02: GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson says she won’t try to challenge Sen. Claire McCaskill. Dave Catanese thinks that Emerson’s “moderate profile” would have made it hard for her to win a primary. Also, former MO GOP chair Ann Wagner says she’s still considering the race – but, interestingly, says she also might primary Rep. Todd Akin in MO-02.

• NV-Sen, NV-02: Major bummer, sports fans: Sharron Angle says she is NOT running for president, repeat NOT running for president! Hopefully, though, this means she’ll go for the senate again, or possibly the 2nd CD.

• RI-Sen: Cranston Mayor Allan Fung says he won’t seek the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, citing the huge fundraising hurdles he’d face.

• VA-Sen: Attorney David McCormick becomes the latest Some Dude to enter the GOP nomination battle for Virginia’s open senate seat.

• WI-Gov: By now you may have already gotten wind of the AFL-CIO poll conducted by GQR on the battle in Wisconsin. It was actually two separate polls taken a few days apart, combined into one. The topline numbers for Gov. Scott Walker don’t look good – 51% job disapproval, and underwater unfavorables to the tune of a 39-49 spread.

• CA-36: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) released a poll on the Dem primary in the race to succeed soon-to-resign Rep. Jane Harman. The numbers, from PPP, show SoS Debra Bowen leading LA city councilor Janice Hahn 33-29, and just 21-20 without leaners. Obviously there are still tons of undecideds.

Hahn also released a poll of her own, taken by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates. She refused to release toplines, claiming only that she has a “five-point lead.” Misleadingly, her poll memo says that “Hahn’s lead is larger than the survey’s margin of error.” The MoE is ±4.9%, so technically, yes, her lead is literally “larger” than the MoE, but it’s not “outside the MoE,” which is the metric people are usually concerned with. The press release accompanying the memo also repeats an amusingly idiotic line of attack on PPP, saying the PCCC survey “is not reliable given the fact that it was conducted by a robo call, rather than by an actual researcher.”

One other detail: Hahn also just picked up the endorsement of new state Sen. Ted Lieu, who won a special election last week. Lieu’s name had briefly surfaced as a possibility for the CA-36 race, too.

• CA-41: GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis, seventy-six years old and skipped over for key leadership roles after the GOP takeover of the House, won’t say yet whether he’ll seek an 18th term. Redistricting may play a big role here, as Lewis won’t benefit from another incumbent protection plan, thanks to the new independent redistricting commission CA voters approved last fall.

• NY-14: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is in New York City today, doing a fundraiser to benefit both Rep. Carolyn Maloney and the DNC. A little surprised to see Maloney benefitting from this largesse, since Reshma Saujani said she won’t try to primary Maloney again this cycle. (Then again, Reshma’s already flip-flopped on that, so maybe she’ll change her mind yet again.) I suppose it’s possible that this district’s lines will change enough to offer the possibility of a different primary challenger emerging, so this could be a defensive maneuver. Or it could just be a reward to a loyal backer.

• NY-24: Did Rep. Richard Hanna plagiarize a Cato Institute paper for an op-ed of his own in the Syracuse Post-Standard? Check it out and decide for yourself.

• NY-26: Carl Paladino, already on record as backing Jane Corwin’s candidacy before she was tapped as the nominee, officially (re-)endorsed her. Some teabagger, Lenny Roberto, also endorsed Corwin, but there’s always People’s Front of Judean/Judean Popular Front splits between these guys.

Case in point: Iraq vet (and teabagger) David Bellavia’s been calling local Conservative Party chair Ralph Lorigo, trying to scarf up the Cons’ nomination. Crazy Jack Davis has been doing the same, but Lorigo didn’t speak highly of him. Lorigo is responsible for Erie County, which carries the most weight in the 26th district. His Monroe County counterpart, Tom Cook, is the second biggest cheese, and says he’s also gotten calls from Bellavia, Corwin, and, believe it or not, nominal Dem frontrunner Kathy Hochul. Cook didn’t have kind words about Bellavia, but he noted the obvious truth: state party chair Michael Long is going to make all the decisions, and he appears to be leaning hard toward Corwin.

• OR-01: Rep. David Wu apologized for his behavior and said he’s getting treatment (including medication) for whatever ails him… but that he has no plans to step down. Meanwhile, 2010 GOP challenger Rob Cornilles (who lost by 13 points last year) is being talked up for another run but hasn’t decided yet.

• UT-02: The NRCC has an ad up (yes, already) attacking Jim Matheson over spending, but NWOTSOTB, so I’m guessing this is what Nathan Gonzales would call a “video press release.”

• Philly Mayor: Wealthy businessman Tom Knox says he won’t challenge Mayor Michael Nutter – and in fact, went ahead and endorse Nutter. It looks like the incumbent is probably set to cruise in the Democratic primary.

• Crossroads GPS: The Karl Rove dark money front group is launching a $450K radio ad buy, attacking a dozen Dems on spending and supporting ten Republicans. Full list at the link.

• AZ-Sen, AZ-06: Rep. Jeff Flake, who announced his bid today, had to wait only a few hours before getting a valuable (for the GOP primary, at least) endorsement from the Club for Growth; he’s a natural fit for them, given his draconian budgetary views and laissez-faire social views. Even before Flake had announced, his potentially strongest rival for the GOP nod, ex-Rep. John Shadegg had announced that he wasn’t going to run. Shadegg’s AZ-03 replacement, Rep. Ben Quayle confirmed that he won’t be running either. The same goes for another Republican freshman, Rep. David Schweikert (that article also helpfully points out that famous Arizona residents Meghan McCain and Bristol Palin, who’ve both accomplished so much in the social media sphere in their short lives, are both too young to run for Senate). Former NFL player Kurt Warner has also taken himself out of consideration.

Buried in a Roll Call article on the whip race to replace Jon Kyl are a few more interesting bits: Trent Franks is “not expected” to run, while state Senate president and prime mover behind SB 1070 Russell Pearce is “out,” but “plans to run” for AZ-06, being vacated by Flake. There’s not much to report on the Dem side today, but there are further reports that ex-Gov., and current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (who didn’t poll well against Kyl according to PPP a few weeks ago, although they didn’t test her against Flake) has been calling around to gauge her support.

• CT-Sen: Ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz rolled out her own long list of endorsements from local Dems, in response to a list unveiled several weeks ago by primary rival Chris Murphy. While Murphy’s list was heavy on the 5th District, naturally, Bysiewicz’s list is heavy on the 2nd District (which is interesting, as it may be an indication that Rep. Joe Courtney has decided against running… or it may be a preventative shot across Courtney’s bow). Bysiewicz is from Middletown, which is in the 2nd although kind of on its periphery. In terms of the Republican field, there was a straw poll taken of state Tea Party Patriots members this weekend. Given the sample size of 54 and the self-selecting nature of the nuttiest of the nuttiest, it’s barely worth mentioning, but they found Linda McMahon only barely winning with 15 votes, compared to Peter Schiff’s 14. Rob Simmons and Tom Foley each got 6, with state Sen. Scott Frantz at 5 and Danbury mayor Mark Boughton at 4.

• FL-Sen, FL-13: Like I’ve said before, don’t count out Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan for the Senate; the owner of numerous car dealerships is sitting on a big campaign account, has wealthy friends, and can self-fund too. And now he’s publicly saying he’s “not ruling it out.”

• MO-Sen: Over the weekend in Joplin was the first public joint appearance between the two announced GOP candidates so far, Sarah Steelman and Ed Martin. While they superficially only attacked Claire McCaskill, Martin sneaked in some anti-Steelman attacks by implication, saying that he’ll support “tort reform every time” and “take on the public sector unions.” (While Steelman has the support of the DC-based tea party astroturfers, the local teabaggers are skeptical of her insufficient purity on those two issues.)

• NV-Sen: Given behavior lately that might charitably be described as “erratic,” I’ve pretty much given up on trying to figure out Sharron Angle’s plans (her travel schedule seems to take her mostly to early presidential states these days, in case you had any doubts about the scope of her delusions of grandeur). But now she’s talking about Nevada Senate again, saying that she’d like to talk to John Ensign before deciding whether or not to challenge him in the primary.

• NY-Sen: As she becomes better-known to New Yorkers, Kirsten Gillibrand’s numbers keep going up. Siena’s newest poll finds her at 57/18 favorables, with a 52% re-elect (including even a plurality among Republicans). Liz Benjamin also notes that two Republican 2010 Gillibrand challengers – Joe DioGuardi (whom Gillibrand flatted) and David Malpass (whom DioGuardi beat in the GOP primary) – are both still considering the race. Ex-LG “Batshit Besty” McCaughey (who once ran for governor on the Liberal Party line) was also down in DC this past weekend, once again relishing her role as healthcare fabricator-in-chief at the loonier-than-thou CPAC conference – and also possibly trying to raise her profile for a potential run (something we noted a couple of weeks ago). Bring it on!

• OH-Sen: Newly elected state Treasurer Josh Mandel got some buzz at some point last month, and here’s some more for him: the Plain Dealer, in a longer piece wondering why the Republican field (in what could be a pickup opportunity with the right candidate) isn’t taking shape at all, points to him as a possible alternative in the face of disinterest from the A-list. Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor seems to be working on building her portfolio (taking over the state Dept. of Insurance), suggesting a plate too full for a Senate bid, while Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve LaTourette are enjoying their newfound majority. Mandel seems to have the best fundraising chops of anyone beyond that initial top tier.

• VA-Sen, VA-01: Here’s one more Republican name to add to the list in Virginia, and it’s kind of an unexpected one, in that usually low-profile guys with safe red districts in the House tend to stay where they are. The 1st’s Rob Wittman is saying he’s “considering” the race, along with the requisite “never say never.”

• WI-Gov: The AFL-CIO is already weighing into Wisconsin, even though the next gubernatorial election is three and three-quarters years away. In response to Scott Walker’s ham-fisted attempt to limit collective bargaining rights for most state employees, the union is taking to the airwaves with TV spots. Obviously, the target isn’t the next election but swinging public opinion against the members of the state legislature, who’ll have the final say on the matter. (As a more general question, though, I’ve gotta wonder if we’ll see much more of this type of issue advertising in off-years in the future, as we move more and more into “permanent campaign” mode and the ground needs to be seeded for the on-years.)

• WV-Gov: With Saturday’s filing deadline come and gone, we have an official list of all the candidates in the gubernatorial special election, and with 14 names total, it’s a doozy. Not much in the way of surprises, though; the only person expected to run who, in the end, didn’t seems to be Dem state Sen. Brooks McCabe. For the Democrats, it’s acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, state Sen. Jeff Kessler, SoS Natalie Tennant, state Treasurer John Perdue, state House speaker Rick Thompson, and some dude Arne Moltis. For the Republicans, it’s ex-SoS Betty Ireland, Putnam Co.  Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia, state Sen. Clark Barnes, state Del. Mitch Carmichael, ex-state Del. Larry Faircloth, and some dudes Bill Maloney, Cliff Ellis, and Ralph William Clark.  National Journal’s Sean Sullivan makes a good observation that in fields this crowded and in a state without runoffs, ballot position (which studies have shown can add 1-3% to a candidate’s vote) may actually wind up making the difference here. The positions were determined by random draw; for the Dems, Tomblin is at the top while co-frontrunner Tennant is at the bottom. For the GOP, Ireland is 7 out of 8, while Maloney is listed first.

• CA-36: LA city councilor Janice Hahn keeps rolling out more endorsements in her attempt to get an early lock-down on the Dem nomination in the special election. Three big ones: two very relevant to California (new Assembly speaker John Perez, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein), one, um, not so much (Dick Gephardt).

• NY-10: Gov. Andrew Cuomo just tapped Democratic Assemblyman Darryl Towns to be the state’s new Homes and Community Renewal agency. Ordinarily, a special election in the remarkably-blue AD-54 would be too far in the weeds even for us, but you may recognize his name: he’s the son of long-time Rep. Ed Towns. The 76-year-old Towns is routinely viewed as a candidate for retirement (and his son a likely replacement), so this move is a puzzle: is it a sign that the elder Towns isn’t going anywhere (perhaps permanently fastened to his House seat by all the moss growing there), or perhaps a way for the younger Towns to burnish his credentials a bit and differentiate him a bit from his somnolent dad?

• NY-26: One more name to strike off the Republican list in the 26th (not that I’d known he’d been on the list): Assemblyman Dan Burling said he wouldn’t run, and threw his support behind fellow Assembly member Jane Corwin for the nomination.

• Redistricting: This local news piece on redistricting in Indiana exposes the most mind-numbing and tedious part of the process, one that gets easily overlooked: the process of turning census data into precinct data, seeing as how precincts exist in their own little world apart from blocks and tracts. Even though Indiana was one of the earliest to receive their data, this data-cleaning process is expected to take several weeks before the legislature can even begin tackling the numbers. Also, Indiana is one of the states that will allow citizens to get their hands on the data to try making their own maps… but because of licensing issues of some sort, they won’t be making the data available online. If you’re in-state, you can drop into one of a number of stations they’ll be setting up around the state where you can tinker with the data in person, though.

• Site news: DavidNYC here. I’m back from my vacation and I’ve had the chance to read through all of the comments (every last one) in the post where I announced our impending move to Daily Kos. While many of my replies are “thank yous” for the very kind expressions of support you offered, I also did my best to answer specific questions where I could. Rest assured that this won’t be the last I’ll have to say on the subject before we make the changeover. I’ll also take this opportunity to encourage you to create an account over at Daily Kos if you don’t have one already, and to play around with the new site (DK4 just launched this past weeked). (D)

• CA-Sen: There’s that quote about people who can’t remember the past… what does it say again? They’re likely to be very, very successful, right? Anyway, PPP looks at the California GOP Senate primary for 2012, and finds the Republican electorate’s preferred candidate to go up against Dianne Feinstein would be… Carly Fiorina?!? She’s at 23, beating out even Meg Whitman, who in fact is tied with Darrell Issa at 16. Tom Campbell’s at 15, Arnold Schwarzenegger is at 6, Steve Poizner’s at 5, Kevin McCarthy’s at 4, and Mary Bono Mack is at 2. (As I’ve said before, I’d be surprised if any of these people find their way into primary.)

• CT-Sen: State GOP party chair Chris Healy is starting to sound antsy waiting for Linda McMahon to declare her next Senate candidacy, even sounding a little snippy about it (“I think if you’re serious about doing something this big, no matter what your background, you’ve got to make some indication that you’re serious about it.”). Healy probably has a lot on the line in terms of getting McMahon to get in, considering how many former allies he had throw under the bus (starting with Rob Simmons) to get her and her millions in place the first time.

• FL-Sen: This is odd: despite most people considering him a lock for a Senate run, Rep. Connie Mack IV, when asked about whether he’d run yesterday by Greta Van Sustern, laughed and said “I have no idea.” Could he be getting cold feet? This ought to have a foot-chilling effect: state Sen. President Mike Haridopolos, already declared as a candidate, seems to have the midas touch. He raised $1 million at one (1!) fundraiser in Orlando last week.

• MO-Sen: Apparently there were some rumors yesterday which I didn’t hear that said that Rep. Jo Ann Emerson was ready to announce she wasn’t going to run for Senate. It’s just as well that I didn’t hear them, as now Emerson is publicly disputing that, saying she has yet to decide, and will take “a few more weeks.”

• NM-Sen: If you’re thinking that that PPP poll that showed him overperforming other Republicans in next year’s Senate race may have gotten Republican ex-Gov. Gary Johnson interested in dropping his vanity presidential bid and running locally, guess again. Buried in this Politico article is a quote from Johnson confirming that the only office he’s interested in is the presidency.

• VA-Sen: So, with Jim Webb’s retirement confirmed, what now? Ex-Gov. Tim Kaine is the top Dem possibility (performing just as well as Webb, if PPP’s poll of a few months ago is to be believed); his statement yesterday, however, didn’t betray any intentions to run or not run (he’d previously said he wouldn’t run if Webb retired, but somehow nobody seems to believe that, with most observers saying that Kaine could be swayed if Barack Obama leans on him to run). Rep. Rick Boucher, who’s 65 and lost VA-09 after decades in 2010, hasn’t said anything either (one advantage he has is that he still has a lot of money left in his federal account, after getting caught napping), but is getting some consideration for being able to put his red corner of the state in play. Another 2010 loser, Glenn Nye, is some Dems’ wish list, along with 2009 losing LG candidate Michael Signer, state Sen. Chap Petersen, state Sen. Donald McEachin, and state Del. David Englin. Another state Del., Kenny Alexander, is floating his name (no idea if he’s actually on anyone’s wish list, though). Terry McAuliffe, the former DNC chair who lost the 2009 gubernatorial primary, says he’s “not ruling it out,” although he’s generally expected to pursue another gubernatorial run in 2013 instead.

The potential candidate who seems to get the most netroots attention is, of course, ex-Rep. Tom Perriello. He’s currently out of the country, and a spokesperson merely says he’s “keeping his options open” at this point; a Republican consultant, however, gives Politico 10 reasons why Perriello would be a particularly formidable candidate. Two of the state’s remaining Dem house members, Gerry Connolly and Bobby Scott, also are in the “not ruling it out” stage, though Scott says it’s “unlikely.” Finally, on the GOP side, it seems like Webb’s departure is getting Prince William Co. Supervisor Corey Stewart even likelier to run, as he says the odds of a Republican winning in November are greater now.

• NY-26: Chris Lee’s shirtless come-on may have been a metaphorical iceberg tip, which may have expedited his surprising resignation yesterday; recall that he was one of the several GOP Reps. particularly smacked down by John Boehner several months ago for excessive partying with female lobbyists. At any rate, let’s focus on the future here: it seems like establishment Dems already have a preferred pic here, in the form of Kathy Konst, a former Erie Co. Legislator and current county director of environment and planning who had considered the 2008 Dem primary but smartly decided not to barge into the middle of that insanity. Speaking of that primary’s murder-suicide duo, Jon Powers says on his Facebook page that he’s “definitely thinking hard about it,” while Jack Davis, three time loser in this district, is “seriously considering” another run… but this time as a Republican! (Um, good?) One other Dem name that’s unlikely but keeps bubbling up is the White House deputy press director, Bill Burton, who’s never held office but is a local.

On the GOP side, alas, it wasn’t meant to be: losing gubernatorial candidate/Acme Gaffe Machine Carl Paladino won’t run, although he is offering his support to state Assemblywoman Jane Corwin (who may be emerging as the consensus candidate, since she has some self-funding capacity). The other top GOP contender, besides Corwin, seems to be former Assemblyman Jack Quinn, son of the ex-Rep. Finally, it seems state Sen. George Maziarz has decided not to run… or maybe had it decided for him by majority leader Dean Skelos, in order to avoid losing a state Senate special election if Maziarz got the promotion and seeing the body devolve into 31-31 chaos.

• MD-St. House: You might have seen some stories about how a member of the Democratic party in the state House wound up joining the body’s Tea Party Caucus and in fact getting elected the caucus’s vice-chair, apparently after hearing from many of his constituents that they wanted lower taxes and joining up without doing any further research into what the teabaggers were all about. Well, after a bit of an intervention from his fellow Dems, Del. Curt Anderson quit the group and apologized.

• WATN?: With John Kitzhaber returning from the mists of time to reclaim the governorship, now an even more distant figure returns: Democrat Barbara Roberts, who preceded Kitzhaber in office (1990-1994), is putting her name in consideration for an appointment to an open seat on the Portland-area Metro Council. It’s unclear whether this is a temporary fill-in for the 75-year-old Roberts, or if she’d stand for re-election at the next general election. (Metro Council is a regional entity that spans the entire Portland metropolitan area with jurisdiction over public transit and land use planning.)

• Vote by mail: One more western state seems to be going down the road of all vote-by-mail elections in the future. A bill to switch Colorado to mail-in status is entering committee in the Republican-controlled state House; similar to Montana (where similar legislation is in the pipeline), the bill has bipartisan support, including a Republican as one of its two main sponsors.

• Census: This week’s Census data dump is available (at least in ftp form), for Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, and Vermont. Next week’s release schedule is Illinois, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas.

• HI-Sen: I don’t know whether this means that Linda Lingle isn’t interested in a Senate bid and attention is turning elsewhere, or if the now-unemployed ex-Rep. Charles Djou is just looking to parlay his accidental half-a-year in the House into something else to do. At any rate, Djou is getting back in the public eye with a new anti-Dem op-ed, and his name is correspondingly getting floated as a possible opponent to Dan Akaka. (Recall that Djou swore off electoral politics a few months ago though, in what seemed like pretty conclusive fashion at the time.)

• IN-Sen: Richard Lugar just keeps sticking it to the tea partiers, telling them one more time to “Get real” (this time in connection with their opposition to START… because nothing says “fiscal discipline” like buying a lot of nuclear missiles). Roll Call’s Tricia Miller also takes a look today at the increased efforts by the tea partiers to not split their votes against Lugar in the primary, which may actually lead to an informal statewide caucus in September to pick their prize pig. The latter article also mentions Rep. Joe Donnelly and ex-Rep. Brad Ellsworth (who officially says he “wouldn’t rule it out”) as potential challengers, suggesting that Dems are sensing this might turn into a winnable race if the primary teabagging is successful.

• MO-Sen: Ed Martin, who originally reported that he outraised both Claire McCaskill and fellow GOP primary candidate Sarah Steelman in December (with $229K raised and $176K CoH), has had to issue a little amended FEC report, seeing as how that number was… how do you say… completely wrong. He instead said he has $25K CoH, and blamed it on a “computer problem.” (A “computer problem” that gets it off by a factor of seven? What is he using, a Commodore 64?)

• MT-Sen: Hmmm, a little too soon after the murder of a federal judge to be making that kind of remark? Rep. Denny Rehberg (who seems to be running a full-throated teabagger campaign despite not having any primary opposition anymore), while appearing before the state legislature yesterday, remarked that he’d like to “put some of these judicial activists on the Endangered Species List.” That comes only a few days after his joint appearance with Michele Bachmann where he said “President Bachmann… that sounds pretty good” (although an adviser later appeared with mop and bucket to say that shouldn’t be construed as an actual endorsement).

• NE-Sen: You may have already seen this yesterday, but the bombshell revelation is that AG Jon Bruning, the apparent frontrunner for the GOP nomination to face Ben Nelson (and, let’s face it, frontrunner in the general too) was a librul!!1!! back when he was in college and law school. Some of his writings from that era surfaced, no doubt to the delight of potential primary opponents like Don Stenberg.

• VT-Sen: Fresh off his financial success in the wake of the publicity over Filibernie, Bernie Sanders actually seems to have taken to this whole fundraising thing with gusto. (It probably also helps that in 2012 he may face a challenger who’s credible, at least on paper, in the form of state Auditor Tom Salmon.) He’s holding a fundraiser in Boston this weekend.

• CA-36: Los Angeles city councilor Janice Hahn wasted no time in lining up some big name support for her House bid, from mayor (and the man who defeated her brother) Antonio Villaraigosa. (She also rolled out Joe Trippi as her media consultant.) We also have some additional names that we didn’t get yesterday: James Lau, former director of the California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and narrow loser of an Assembly race last year, is interested. However, former Assemblyman Ted Lieu (currently running for a vacant state Senate seat in a special election to be held later this month) and Assemblyman Warren Furutani have ruled it out. On the GOP side, ’10’s sacrificial lamb, Mattie Fein, says she may run again; higher up the food chain, former NFL player Damon Dunn is mentioned as a possibility (which could set up a strange rematch of last year’s SoS election). Speaking of which, Debra Bowen seems to be in the race, at least privately; she’s reportedly the only candidate who has told the state Dem party that she is running, and she has an ActBlue page already set up.

The Fix also has a few other possible names: on the Dem side, state Controller John Chiang, and on the GOP side, county commissioner Don Knabe, or Nathan Mintz, a tea party fave who lost an Assembly race last year. The Sacramento Bee also mentions Craig Huey as a possible GOP candidate; he runs JudgeVoterGuide.org to help evangelical conservatives pick judicial candidates.

• NC-07: Republican Ilario Pantano, who came fairly close to beating Rep. Mike McIntyre last year despite some, um, glaring problems on his resume (y’know, like that murder charge and that working for Goldman Sachs), confirms he’s back for another try. The real question here is what happens to the district in the redistricting process? I’m wondering if he could wind up running in NC-08 if the GOP legislature decides to target Larry Kissell instead of McIntyre (it’d be very hard to do both while trying to protect Renee Ellmers in NC-02).

• NH-02, WI-01: Want to see your netroots dollars at work? Americans United for Change and Daily Kos are running 60-second radio spots targeting Charlie Bass in NH-02 and Paul Ryan in WI-01, in their first foray into issue advertising hitting them on their support for HCR repeal. (I’m especially pleased to see R+2 WI-01 treated as a target.) Blue America PAC is also running similar ads in FL-24 and NJ-07.

• Mayors: As if he needed any more momentum behind his candidacy, Rahm Emanuel got the endorsement of the one figure in Chicago politics who actually seems mostly beloved instead of just feared: SoS Jesse White. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, incumbent mayor Michael Nutter is looking like he may have a similarly easy race this year. Perhaps his biggest-possible-name opponent, state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, has decided not to run; Nutter also picked up the endorsement of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia (I’m not sure whether the Williams dropout or the Clergy endorsement came first, but I’d bet they’re related.)

• Colorado GOP: Wow, you know the Republican Party has gone off a cliff when Dick Wadhams (Karl Rove protégé and svengali to George Allen) is suddenly the voice of reason in the room. Faced with a tea party challenge to his leadership, the Colorado state party chair just reversed course and said he won’t seek another term leading the state GOP. On his way out, he leveled some blasts at the very rank-and-filers that he helped whip up into a frenzy and lost control of:

“…frankly, I just got tired of the people who see a conspiracy behind everything we do, people who don’t have any clue what the role of the state party really is.”

• We Love the 90s: If you’re feeling the ground shaking, it’s because there’s a whole lot of dancing throughout the liberal blogosphere on the grave of the Democratic Leadership Council, which is shutting down. While I will gladly join in the Nelson Muntz-style ha-haing and agree that the primary factor in their demise was the fundamental crappiness of their product, it’s worth noting that their sudden rise in irrelevance seemed to go hand in hand with the sudden lack of celebrity power behind them, with the seeming end of the Clinton dynasty (and the failure of Harold Ford Jr. to pick up that flag for the next generation), and also just with the rise in polarization over the last few years, meaning less audience for their little portion of the political spectrum. I’d also point out that they provided a launching pad for some guys who are doing really good work these days, like Simon Rosenberg and Ed Kilgore.

A big break for Claire McCaskill:

Rep. Sam Graves will not run against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in 2012, the Missouri Republican announced Thursday, saying it was “an agonizing decision.”

“However, I also believe that I can have a greater impact on federal policy in the next six years as a chairman in the House,” the House Small Business chairman said in a statement. “I am the first chairman in the history of the sixth Congressional district and there is much I still want to accomplish in Washington.”

Translation: I’d rather be a big kahuna in the House than risk trading that for a back-bench seat in the Senate, where we might not even regain the majority. Of course, there’s still no shortage of GOPers lining up to take  on McCaskill – and indeed, the fundraising is starting strong, as Reid Wilson observes, with Ed Martin pulling in $229K in December alone, while Sarah Steelman collected $208K.

So even without Graves, McCaskill is likely to draw a strong opponent. That, combined with Missouri’s reddening, has to have the incumbent praying for a truly epic cat fud fight. All the more so, since McCaskill apparently has a political deathwish:

McCaskill, D-Mo., this morning joined with Republican senators in a far-reaching anti-deficit plan that could impose cuts on Social Security, Medicare and spending programs vital to Americans.

“This is a bold step; it has risks. If this bill is distorted and twisted, it could cost me my Senate seat,” McCaskill said on the Senate floor.

Make no mistake about it: McCaskill is signing up on a plan to cut Medicare and Social Security – and pretty much everything else. This is retarded and wrong on so, so many levels. It also shows how poor her political skills are, because a) it won’t take any “distorting or twisting” for her opponents to argue that she wants to cut these programs – that’s exactly what the CAP Act is designed to do; b) uh, of course the GOP will lie about McCaskill – they successfully cast themselves as the defenders of Medicare against evil, evil Democratic cuts last cycle, and this will be no different, even if it is Bob Corker’s bill; and c) of course the GOP will tar McCaskill as a big-spending libruhl regardless of what she does. She’s even making it easy for them:

She continued: “TARP? Let’s be honest. It was a genius decision in many ways and it stabilized our economy.”

TARP was genius. Jesus christ. I don’t think “I voted for it before I voted against it” was as bad. I don’t like where this is going one bit.

Here we go:

Republican attorney Ed Martin, who narrowly lost a bid for Congress last year, said Monday that he will challenge Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri’s 2012 U.S. Senate race.

Martin immediately sought to link McCaskill to President Barack Obama, decrying her support for the economic stimulus act and the health care overhaul and suggesting in a newsletter to supporters that their “ObamaClaire” policies were growing government.

This could turn out to be a pretty interesting primary, depending on the players. Martin will tout his near-win against Dem Rep. Russ Carnahan last year as an electability argument, but somehow I don’t see him scaring any House members off (like, say, Graves or Emerson), but you never know.

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.