Tag: NY-23

• CT-Sen: Moneybomb! Economist Peter Schiff, favorite of the Paulist set, is considering running in the Connecticut Senate race in 2010, and has already raised $800,000 toward his bid. More than $300,000 came from 4,800 online donations over the weekend as part of a coordinated money bomb.

• IL-Sen: Like the party guest who just won’t get the message it’s time to go home, Roland Burris is suggesting that he might still “change his mind” about his decision not to run for a full term in the Senate. Maybe he sees more of an opening with the increasing likelihood that Chris Kennedy won’t run? (Seems like the opposite would be true, though — he’d need multiple top-tier candidates to split the vote in order to sneak through.)

• NV-Sen: Republicans continue to search for a top-tier challenger to Harry Reid, but they have at least a warm body willing to go up against him: Danny Tarkanian, never before elected but best known for losing the 2006 Secretary of State race. He also lost a state Senate race to Mike Schneider, although he did win a libel suit against Schneider over claims made during the campaign. (If his name sounds vaguely familiar, he’s the son of The Shark, towel-biting former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.)

• TX-Sen, TX-06: Smoky Joe Barton, who’s been a Republican Representative in the Dallas suburbs since 1985, is reportedly interested in running for the Senate seat to be vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. Although he’s a long-time power in the House, as one of 32 representatives he may not have the statewide name rec to go up against, for instance, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — but it’s a freebie, as he won’t have to give up his seat to run in the special election.

• AL-Gov, AL-02: I hadn’t heard that Rep. Bobby Bright had considered running for Governor — after all, he just got to the House — and it sounds like he never really did, other than publicly saying “never say never.” But today his office reaffirmed that he’s running for re-election in the 2nd.

• MN-Gov, MN-01: Minnesota’s Republican Lt. Governor, Carol Molnau, is contemplating her place on the totem pole, with an open governor’s seat in 2010 but every heavy-hitter in the state already running for it. She won’t rule out the governor’s race, but is also considering running in the 1st against Rep. Tim Walz, where she’d presumably have the primary to herself but would be running uphill against Walz, who had one of the most resounding re-elections of anyone from the Class of 06. (H/t MinnesotaMike.)

• SC-Gov: Week from hell for Mark Sanford: first, his wife moves out, then it comes out that Mr. Fiscal Conservative has been using the state plane for personal trips, in violation of state rules, including for a birthday party and the kids’ sporting events. Most notable: a trip between Myrtle Beach and Columbia just to get his hair cut, at a cost of $1,265.

• NY-23: It’s August 10, and that means candidate interviewing day for the Democratic party chairs in the 23rd. By the end of the day, we may know who the candidate will be. There’s still no timetable on the special election, though; it may take a while for the nomination of Rep. John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army to go all the way through, as both Kansas Senators have put a hold on him in a tangentially-related effort to prevent Guantanamo detainees from being transferred to the military brig at Fort Leavenworth.

• PA-10: Democratic Rep. Chris Carney finally has an announced opponent, Iraq vet and teabagger Christopher Bain. Considering that it’s a red district, this seat seems to have been a low recruitment priority for the GOP.

• Census: Elected officials in the Gulf Coast states are worried about how the Census Bureau will count people who are still displaced by Hurricane Katrina (general Census policy is to count people based on wherever they’re residing on Apr. 1). This is a particular problem in New Orleans, which is hurting for funds but is down to a population of 311,000 (from 484,000 before the storm), and where a lower count means less funding; the city is hiring a full-time employee just to focus on local census issues.

• Polltopia: Our friends at PPP are running another “Where should we poll?” poll. This week, you can vote for Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania. Also, interesting food for thought from Jay Leve, head of SurveyUSA, as he contemplates the future of polling, in a world where the old paradigm (where people are sitting around the house ready to answer their landline and take the time to respond to a pollster) is about to vanish.

• DE-Sen: Rep. Mike Castle yesterday told a radio interviewer that he’d decide “in the next month or so” what, if anything, he’s going to run for. One possible hint, though, is that he said that there are some “good young elected officials in the state who possibly could run on a statewide basis and should be looked at,” and he specifically named some state legislators like state sen. Charlie Copeland and state Reps. Tom Kovach and Greg Lavelle.

• FL-Sen: Here’s another sign of trouble looming in the GOP primary for Charlie Crist, at least within the activist base, hot on the heels of his big loss in the Pasco County straw poll. The Volusia County GOP actually voted to censure him, over a list of grievances including his moderate judicial appointments, support of the Obama stimulus, and lack of support for Tom Feeney and Ric Keller last year. (Volusia Co.’s main city is Daytona Beach and population is over 400,000, so this isn’t one of those little Dixiecrat panhandle counties, either.)

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk downplayed the story of his Tweeting while on active military duty (as a Naval Reservist) at a news conference yesterday, but apologized for having done so.

• NH-Sen: Skepticism behind-the-scenes seems to be growing in New Hampshire, especially among conservative activists, about the ordination of Kelly Ayotte as Senate candidate, handed down from on high from the Beltway. Various on- and off-the-record insiders are unsure of her political leanings, ‘meh’ about her speaking style, and worried that she’s never had to raise funds before. A lot of this agitation has been coming from the state’s largest paper, the Manchester Union-Leader, which has a notably hard-right editorial page and has been fannish of likely primary opponent Ovide Lamontagne in the past.

• MN-Gov: This seemed to slip through the cracks last week, but Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak is sounding more like a candidate now. While giving a stump-ish speech to local Democrats, Rybak said that he’s “very likely” to enter the open seat gubernatorial race.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): In another indication that things are getting worse, not better, for Jon Corzine, the new poll from Monmouth shows him trailing Chris Christie by 14 points among likely voters, 50-36, with 4% to independent Chris Daggett. This is particularly troublesome because Monmouth has been the pollster most favorable to Corzine; he trailed by only 8 in the July poll. Interestingly, though, Corzine trails by only 4 (43-39) among registered voters, a narrower gap than in July — suggesting that his only hope is getting a lot of unlikely voters to turn out. Democrats countered with their own internal poll (pdf) today, showing Corzine down by “only” 7, 42-35-6.

• TX-Gov: You may recall that the Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign decided to pull the hidden phrase “rick perry gay” from its website’s code, but left a bunch of other hidden phrases (in the code, not meta-tags). That’s a big-time search-engine optimization party foul, though, and it led to Google and Yahoo pulling the website from their search indexes this weekend.

• CA-10: State Senator Mark DeSaulnier may have lost one of his most potent weapons: the State Department asked him to stop using the endorsement of his predecessor (and current Undersecretary of State for arms control) Ellen Tauscher. It’s not illegal, but they want to avoid any ethical impropriety. The primary special election is Sept. 1.

• FL-24: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas may find herself up against a celebrity candidate next year: former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, who now lives in the Orlando area. Holtz has been in contact with the NRCC about the race, and certainly brings name recognition, but comes with a couple drawbacks: one, he’s 72 years old, ancient for a House freshman, and two, he raised some eyebrows last year after having to apologize for calling Hitler a great leader.

• LA-02: Kudos to Rep. Joseph Cao for having the courage to say out loud what we’re all thinking: “I know that voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career.” Strange to give that sort of ammunition to potential opponents when it’s clear from his fundraising that he’s intending to run again.

• LA-03: Scott Angelle, natural resources secretary under both Kathleen Blanco and Bobby Jindal and former Democratic St. Martin parish president, is maintaining his interest in the possibly-vacant LA-03 seat. However, rumor has it that he may run for the seat as a Republican, and he did go on the record saying he’d “consider” swapping party labels (which are especially porous in Louisiana). State Rep. Nickie Monica says he’s in the race (as a Republican) regardless of whether or not Charlie Melancon pulls the trigger on a Senate run. One other Democrat not mentioned before who’s considering the race is 27-year-old New Orleans corporate lawyer Ravi Sangisetty, who grew up in Houma.

• MD-01: State Sen. Andy Harris is taking steps to solve one of the two problems that hampered him in last year’s election against Rep. Frank Kratovil: he’s coming to the Eastern Shore. He isn’t moving, but he will be working part-time (he’s a mild-mannered anesthesiologist by day) at the hospital in Salisbury, in order to bolster his Eastern Shore cred. It’ll be a little harder to paper over his other problem, which is that he’s a Club for Growth wacko. Harris was just named one of the NRCC’s Young Guns, despite the fact that he might still face a primary against less conservative and Eastern Shore-based state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, who seems like he’d pick up most of the votes that went for Wayne Gilchrest in the 2008 primary (although Pipkin may be looking at running for state Comptroller instead).

• NY-23: Despite interest from some colorful-sounding “activists,” it looks like the Conservative Party line in the upcoming special election is likely to go to a more establishment figure, accountant Doug Hoffman, who you may recall was one of the Republican wannabes not selected by the party apparatus. Hoffman attacked the hypothetical Democratic nominee and GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava as “Mr. Bad or Mrs. Worse.”

• MO-03: Rep. Russ Carnahan doesn’t usually draw more than a passing glance from the GOP in his D+7 district, but it looks like he’ll have a somewhat credible opponent in 2010. Ed Martin opened an exploratory committee for the race; he hasn’t been elected before, but has consummate insider credentials as Gov. Matt Blunt’s chief of staff for four years.

• RI-02: In an almost-one-party state like Rhode Island, primary challenges are a routine part of life. Rep. Jim Langevin fought off a primary challenge from professor Jennifer Lawless in 2006; in 2010, he’ll likely face state Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan (who had been planning to run for Lt. Governor, but had to drop that plan when incumbent Elizabeth Roberts decided to run for re-election instead of Governor). Although abortion was the flashpoint in 2006 (Langevin is pro-life), Dennigan says she won’t make much of an issue of it.

• TX-23: Pete Sessions is probably pounding his head on his desk right now. After getting self-funder Quico Canseco to come back for a clear shot at Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the 23rd, Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, who upset Canseco in the GOP primary in 2008, is saying he’s thinking of coming back for another try — potentially setting up another self-destructive primary.

• WI-03: Rep. Ron Kind is facing a real opponent for the first time in a while. State Sen. Dan Kapanke, who’s been acting candidate-ish for a long time, made it official yesterday that he’ll challenge the 14-year incumbent in 2010.

• OH-SoS: With Jennifer Brunner giving up her job to run in the Senate primary, the Secretary of State open seat race is turning into one of Ohio’s hottest tickets. While Democratic Franklin Co. Commissioner Marilyn Brown is in the race, she is trailing GOP state Sen. Jon Husted (who has $1.3 million) by about a 10-to-1 ratio for cash-on-hand. Now a second Democrat, state Rep. Jennifer Garrison from Marietta in the state’s southeast, is getting into the race. It’s a key race, as the SoS is one of the votes on the 5-member state legislative apportionment board, which Dems currently control 3-2, and which they’ll need to hold if they’re going to undo Republican-favorable gerrymanders in the state legislature.

The Albany Times-Union got its mitts on a list of candidates who have submitted their resumés to the Democratic county chairs in New York’s 23rd District. Here’s the rundown:

• Andy Bisselle (Essex County): A local YMCA executive director who was recently rebuffed by GOP leaders after he sought the Republican nomination.
• Stu Brody (Essex County): Attorney, former Essex Co. Democratic Chair, and head of the Democratic Rural Conference from 2002 to 2008. He played a round of golf with Bill Clinton in 2000.
• Steve Burke (St. Lawrence County): A new name; not much information about him is publicly available right now. Presumably, he is the same Stephen Burke who is the town Democratic chairman of Macomb.
• Danny Francis (Jefferson County): Vietnam veteran, ’94 nominee against McHugh.
• Bob Johnson (Jefferson County): Surgeon, ’06 nominee against McHugh.
• Rudolph Johnson (Franklin County): Some dude.
• Brian McGrath (Lewis County): NYC attorney, willing to “drop six figures” on a campaign. He’s put $200K into his campaign already and says that he can raise $700K more through his contacts. Sounds like he wants to present himself as the next Scott Murphy.
• David Ryan (Franklin County): Another dude.
• John Sullivan, Jr. (Oswego County): The former head of the state Attorney General’s Watertown office and ex-Oswego mayor.
• Michael Oot (Madison County): Attorney, ’08 nominee against McHugh.
• Bill Owens (Clinton County): A Plattsburgh attorney and registered independent. A “national Democratic source” recently told the New York Daily News’ Elizabeth Benjamin that “everybody is talking about this guy Owens, saying he’s the best of what’s left”.

One of the few remaining Democratic state legislators in the district who had yet to declare her intentions, Assemblywoman Addie J. Russell, announced yesterday that she won’t be a candidate. (Understandably, being eight months pregnant, a special election would be awkwardly-timed for her.) Former US Attorney and Dan Moynihan aide Dan French has also pulled his name from consideration.

We’re definitely left with a dog’s breakfast here. The 11 Democratic chairs will interview each candidate at Syracuse University on August 10th, and will announce their selection that evening.

RaceTracker Wiki: NY-23

• CA-Sen: Sorry none of us could be bothered to talk about this poll on Friday: Rasmussen polled the California Senate race again and found former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gaining some ground on Sen. Barbara Boxer. Boxer leads 45-41 (it was 47-38 in March). Interestingly, though, Fiorina, who quite publicly drove HP into a ditch, already has negative favorable ratings (30/35, with 35% unsure), which has to be a bad sign for any challenger. Boxer is still in positive territory (50/47), so I have no idea to square those results with the head-to-head.

• IL-Sen: State treasurer Alexi Giannoulias had his official campaign launch this weekend, where he name-dropped Barack Obama at every opportunity.

• NY-Sen-B: Is this a sign that Rep. Carolyn Maloney may be backing away from the Senate race, or is she just sidetracked by the chaos in the House? She had been scheduled to announce her primary campaign against Kirsten Gillibrand today or tomorrow, but now Maloney tells the New York Post that the timetable is no longer in effect, and didn’t say anything about a new timetable, other than to say that “This week we are confronting health care.”

• AK-Gov: If the world seems a slightly lighter place today, it’s because it’s our first Sarah Palin-free day in a while; she turned the keys to the state over to Sean Parnell yesterday. I guess now I and other members of the media can, in honor of the American soldier, quit makin’ stuff up about her.

• MA-Gov: The Boston Globe polled Deval Patrick’s prospects and found he’s still in trouble. (The poll was conducted on the Globe’s behalf by often-clueless UNH, so take with the requisite spoonful of salt.) His job approvals are 35/56, and he narrowly loses head-to-heads with both prospective GOPers, 41-35 to Charlie Baker and 41-40 to Christy Mihos. If Dem-turned-Independent treasurer Tim Cahill gets in the race as planned, though, the Republicans fade into the background, as Cahill seems to vacuum up the anti-Patrick votes. Patrick and Cahill tie both matchups: 30-30-20 with Baker, and 31-31-18 with Mihos.

• NJ-Gov: Jon Corzine picked his Lt. Gov. running mate: state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a 74-year-old granny from Bergen County noted for pushing for ethics reform. This comes instead of, as rumored, Apprentice winner Randal Pinkett. Those in the know seem to think that Corzine may have been motivated to pick her in order to emphasize ethics in the wake of the federal arrests of a swarm of lower elected officials, including some Corzine allies. The New York Times presents a dark picture of Corzine’s campaign, framing the corruption sweep as one more blow that he can’t handle, and actually starts speculating on what Dem might replace Corzine at the top of the ticket should be back out (it mentions Newark mayor Cory Booker and Rep. Frank Pallone). The NYT says Corzine still has no plans to bail, but state machine boss George Norcross is making no secret that he wants Corzine out of the race.

• VA-Gov: Barack Obama will be coming to Virginia to stump for Creigh Deeds, with both a public rally and private fundraiser on Aug. 6. This comes as GOP candidate Bob McDonnell has been seeking to increasingly go after Deeds on national issues, as at their first debate where McDonnell challenged Deeds on cap-and-trade and EFCA. Deeds may need some outside help, as he’s had trouble nailing down some of the local big names, most prominently former Gov. Douglas Wilder.

• IL-10: State Rep. Julie Hamos says she’ll officially announce tomorrow that she’s running for the Democratic nod in the now-open 10th. She had been planning to run for AG until Lisa Madigan surprised everyone by deciding to run for another term. Instead, she joins a top-drawer field with state Sen. Michael Bond and 06/08 candidate Dan Seals already in.

• NY-23: We’ll have to wait until tomorrow for Democrats in the 23rd District to have even a plan for picking a candidate, let alone have a candidate, as they seem to have not had much of a Plan B in the event that Darrel Aubertine didn’t run. The Dems say they’ve received about 18 applications; Watertown Daily Times gotten confirmations from 06 nominee Michael Oot, 94 nominee Danny Francis, attorney Stuart Brody, attorney Keith Caughlin, and state assistant inspector general for Medicaid John Sullivan that they are among the 18. Meanwhile, Jim Kelly (no, not the quarterback) sounds like he’s gearing up to run on the Conservative line.

• VA-05: Ex-Rep. Virgil Goode made it official that he won’t be running against Tom Perriello to get his seat back. (Now maybe he can stop running around the district handing out oversize checks.) Speculation turns to GOP state Senator Rob Hurt and delegate Rob Bell, who don’t have the name rec or fundraising power of Goode, but don’t have the polarizing reputations either.

• FL-Sen: Another sign that the wheels are falling off the Marco Rubio bus: he’s cutting back on senior staff. His campaign manager, Brian Seitchik, will be off the payroll next week, and his fundraiser, Ann Herberger, is also gone. About the changes, Rubio said, “This is not a purge or anything, quite the contrary.” In other words, they’re probably out of money.

• NH-Sen: Ovide Lamontagne picked up a key backer, as the conservative base continues to look for an alternative to the may-be-a-RINO Kelly Ayotte. Former State Rep. Maureen Mooney, who was John McCain’s liaision to NH conservatives during the 2008 primary campaign, has said she’s backing Lamontagne, saying he’s a “principled and experienced conservative.”

• SC-Sen, SC-01: Interesting rumblings out of the Palmetto State: now that Jim DeMint has turned himself into Public Enemy #1 in the last few weeks, all of a sudden people sound interested in challenging him. State Senator Brad Hutto was in Washington meeting with the DSCC about the race; Hutto has been looking for a chance to move up, starting with the 2010 governor’s race, but deferred to friend and state Sen. Vincent Shaheen on that one. Attorney Ashley Cooper (a former Fritz Hollings aide) is reportedly also interested in taking on DeMint, or also in running in the 1st, where Rep. Henry Brown barely won last year.

• NC-Gov: Civitas, a local Republican pollster, stops to gawk at the Bev Perdue trainwreck, finding that her approval is at 30/44 and that right now only 26% would vote to re-elect her. They also look all the way ahead to 2012 and find that Republican Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory would win a rematch, 46-32.

• MN-06: Independence Party 2008 candidate Bob Anderson, whose 10% of the vote may have tipped the balance to Rep. Michele Bachmann last year, says that he may make another run in 2010. (Don’t forget that while Elwyn Tinklenberg received the IP’s endorsment in 2008, Minnesota doesn’t allow fusion voting with candidates running on multiple ballot lines, so Anderson went ahead and ran in the primary, winning it and getting the IP nod for the general. Our best hope here may be for Minnesota to follow Oregon’s recent lead and legalize fusion voting.)

• NY-23: In the 23rd, with Darrel Aubertine out (and New York Senate fans heaving a sigh of relief), the Dems still seem to be casting about for a replacement. Yesterday evening was the extended deadline for receiving applications, and some of the remaining serious contenders still haven’t applied. Dan French, a lawyer and former Daniel Moynihan aide, and former NY-23 candidate Robert Johnson seemed to have not been planning to run (but contingent on Aubertine running), and said yesterday that they were interested but would have to have the requisite talk with their families first. (So do the Dems extend the deadline again? That remains to be seen.) 2008 candidate Michael Oot has already submitted his application, though. Another name for the Conservative Party nom has surfaced: “locally famous” conservative activist Jon Alvarez, who is currently serving in Iraq.

Here’s the full statement, which includes some nice barbs at the GOP:

“There has been a lot of speculation as to whether I would run in a special election for the 23rd Congressional District.

“My priority must continue to be the work I have started in the state Senate, representing Oswego, Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties. My commitment is to the people of the 48th Senate District and has been all along. Before I could even consider the possibility of serving another eight counties, I had a duty to finish out this year’s session.

“This seat in Congress belongs to the people who live in these 11 counties, not any elected official or political party.

“Unfortunately, the National Republican Party has viewed the seat differently. National Republicans have demonstrated their belief that party registration matters more than the issues by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to attack and vilify me.  They never mentioned the important issues we care about here in the 23rd, whether it’s our military and Fort Drum, border security and international trade, agriculture, energy and the economy of the future, or rural healthcare.

“It’s no small wonder why the Washington Republicans are going extinct, and contributors should question why the money they’ve given was squandered here for no good reason at all.

“I support the process that the Democratic Party has put in place to come up with a candidate to run for the expected vacancy in the 23rd Congressional District. I’m certain the 11 county chairs involved in the process will continue to move toward finding a qualified candidate who understands the issues here and will embark on an honest campaign that puts people before politics.”

Count me as relieved. Control of the state Senate going into the next round of redistricting (both congressional and legislative) is too precious a commodity right now. We need every seat we can get in the state Senate.

While Aubertine would have been a very strong candidate for this seat, hopefully the local Democratic chairs can pick a strong, qualified nominee to give us a fighting chance against Scozzafava. More updates as we get ’em.

RaceTracker Wiki: NY-23

• AR-Sen: It took new Arkansas Senate candidate Conrad Reynolds only the first day of his candidacy to descend to the same levels of right-wing gaffe insanity as fellow candidates Kim Hendren and Curtis Coleman. Speaking before about a dozen Young Republicans yesterday, he said, “I never thought it would be domestic, but in today’s world I do believe we have enemies here,” and then said “We need someone to stand up to Barack Obama and his policies. We must protect our culture, our Christian identity.” Following his speech, though, before he took questions, he said he’d be careful with answers, as “I don’t want to do a Kim Hendren,” he said.

• NH-Sen: It looks like Ovide Lamontagne is going full speed ahead on a run in the New Hampshire Senate primary, with his path, be it as it may, gaving gotten easier with fellow renegade Fred Tausch dropping out. He hired two key members of the Mitt Romney camp: Charlie Spies, who was the Romney campaign’s CFO, and Jim Merrill, who managed Romney’s NH campaign.

• NV-Sen: Here’s another bad sign for John Ensign: his chief of staff, John Lopez, just bailed out. The timing, with Ensign facing fallout over trying to cover up an affair with a staffer, probably isn’t coincidental.

• PA-Sen: In the wake of yesterday’s ominious Quinnipiac poll, Arlen Specter has retreated to the last refuge of troubled politicians: attacking the poll’s composition. (Hey! That’s our job!) Nate Silver re-ran the numbers using the actual 2008 party split (D 44, R 37, I 18) and found it really didn’t make much difference: 46-43 in Specter’s favor. Meanwhile, a popular new activity among Democratic party bigwigs in Pennsylvania is telling Joe Sestak to shut up; both Allegheny Co. party chair Jim Burn and Philly-area official Penny Gerber took loud exception to implications from the Sestak camp that they were backing him.

• AK-Gov: Two Democrats both officially announced their candidacies to run, presumably, against Sean Parnell in 2010: state Senator Hollis French, and former Dept. of Administration Commissioner Bob Poe. Former state House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz also says he’ll officially become a candidate in late summer or early fall.

• MN-Gov: Democratic State Rep. Paul Thissen announced his candidacy for Minnesota’s governor today. Hard to see, though, how a state Representative stands out in a field that seems to contain every major politician in the state.

• CA-10: EMILY’s List finally got involved in the special election in CA-10. As you’d expect, they’re backing Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, who as the only woman in the race has a definite shot to sneak through while the better-known male candidates (Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier) split the vote.

• IL-10: A new Roll Call piece on IL-10 adds a few more names to the potential primary fields. For the Dems, Highland Park City Councilor Jim Kirsch may get in. And for the GOP, it sounds like state Sen. Matt Murphy is now thinking about running here; he’s currently running for Governor, in a crowded field of second-stringers, and might stand better odds here.

• NC-08: Lou Huddleston, an African-American veteran and defense industry consultant, may wind up being the GOP’s candidate against Larry Kissell; after having visited Capitol Hill for some wooing, he says he’ll decide by Labor Day. (His one attempt at elective politics was a losing campaign for a state House seat in 2008.) Some bigger names, including ex-Rep. Robin Hayes and Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, haven’t ruled the race out yet, though.

• NJ-03: The Burlington County GOP is saying that moderate state Sen. Diane Allen (who’d been on the short list for Chris Christie’s Lt. Gov. pick) is now their top choice to run against freshman Rep. John Adler. Interestingly, this is the same organization that basically torpedoed her interest in running for the open seat in 2008, leaving more conservative Chris Myers (and presumably less electable) to run instead. Allen is still sounding non-commital, especially since the party leadership in more conservative Ocean County continues to sound lukewarm about her.

• NY-23: The Conservative Party isn’t at all pleased with the selection of socially liberal Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava as the GOP’s candidate in the NY-23 special election. State party chair Mike Long said that likely Democratic candidate Darrel Aubertine actually has a more “palatable” record. The Conservatives plan to run their own candidate on their line, he says, and party activist Jim Kelly has expressed interest.

• OH-02: This is good news: the Democrats actually found an honest-to-gosh state Representative to go against Rep. Jean Schmidt: Todd Book. David Krikorian, who got a sizable share of the vote as an Independent in 2008, is already running as a Democrat in the primary, but looks like he’s getting shoved over: Governor Ted Strickland has already endorsed Book. (Book is from Strickland’s hometown of Portsmouth.)

• SC-01: A Georgetown restauranteur, Robert Dobbs, announced he’ll run for the Democrats in SC-01. He has electoral experience… but in Wisconsin, where he was a Manitowoc County Supervisor. (Although I hope it is, I assume this isn’t the “Bob” Dobbs.) Other more prominent Democratic figures, like state Rep. Leon Stavinrakis, are also considering the race.

• SC-03: Former Cincinnati Bengals coach Sam Wyche, who led the Bengals to the Super Bowl in 1989, is considering running as a Republican for the open seat in the 3rd, vacated by Gresham Barrett, running for Governor. Wyche isn’t a total newbie to politics, as he’s currently serving on the Pickens County Council. He’d bring a lot of name recognition to the field, where state Representative Rex Rice is probably current frontrunner. (Democrats are unlikely to strongly contest this freakishly red district.)

Politico:

Republican party leaders chose state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, a leading moderate in the state legislature, as their nominee to succeed Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.) in an upcoming special election.

The eleven Republican county chairmen within the 23rd Congressional District voted this afternoon, and Scozzafava won on the third ballot.

Scozzafava is a pretty rare breed these days — a socially liberal (pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, labor-friendly) Republican, so it’s a bit surprising that someone cut from her cloth could win a nomination battle in today’s GOP. Then again, she was chosen by the 23rd District’s county chairs, not the birther-dominated rank and file, so perhaps some sanity remains intact in the NY GOP intelligentsia these days. That said, she’s going to run into some serious problems with the conservative base, and it seems unlikely that she’ll win the Conservative Party’s ballot line, especially if Democratic state Sen. Darrel Aubertine jumps into the fray. (Update: Just to be a bit clearer here, I don’t think there’s any chance of the Conservative Party endorsing Aubertine, but they could field their own candidate in order to flip the bird to the GOP.)

This also comes on the same day that a significant amount of oppo dirt was released on Scozzafava, who was vetted and courted by Democratic operatives as a potential party-switcher:

But their interest cooled after they found out her brother’s business, Seaway Capital Partners, owed over $192,000 in unpaid state and federal taxes – which operatives thought could be a liability in the special election.

The conservative blog Red State — one of her leading critics — recently posted copies of the liens from the company’s subsidiaries. On her legislative website, Scozzafava is listed as the COO of the company’s investment arm, though she claims she hasn’t had any direct ties to the company since 2007.

Not exactly the best press to receive on your launch date, huh? For what it’s worth, the Republican online wingnut brigade is encouraging its readers to support Aubertine over Scozzafava. God bless those magnificent idiots.

RaceTracker wiki: NY-23

• FL-Sen: Looks like Charlie Crist has decided that, despite mediocre polling and worse fundraising from Marco Rubio, he’s facing a bigger threat in the primary than he is in the general. Crist came out in opposition to the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor yesterday, trying to shore up what remains of his conservative bona fides.

• IL-Sen/Gov: Here’s an explanation for why Chris Kennedy has been dawdling on declaring for the Illinois Senate primary: he’s considering whether or not to jump over to the Governor’s race instead. This seems very odd… not that he’d have a good chance in either race, but it seems like he’d have a better shot in a primary in an open seat race against Alexi Giannoulias, who has some vulnerabilities, than against Pat Quinn, who’s fairly popular and has the benefits of incumbency. Apparently Giannoulias’s fundraising scared him off.

• MO-Sen: Here’s an interesting tidbit out of Missouri, suggesting that former Treasurer Sarah Steelman is getting less and less likely to run in the GOP primary. Jeff Roe, who ran Steelman’s 2008 campaign, has started working for Rep. Roy Blunt. Blunt still faces a primary challenge from state Sen. Chuck Purgason, though, but he doesn’t pose the same level of threat that Steelman would.

• NH-Sen: This is a big surprise, as he’s been pouring a lot of money into advertising (for his STEWARD organization, though, not as a candidate) and starting to build a staff. Anti-tax businessman Fred Tausch announced today that he won’t be running in the GOP Senate primary after all (or for anything, including the House). Considering that he was lobbing bombs at AG Kelly Ayotte just a few days ago, this is a sudden change of heart. Former Board of Education member and 1996 gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne may still provide a challenge from the right, though.

• NY-Sen-B: Last night was the vaunted Bill Clinton/Carolyn Maloney fundraiser, which pulled in about $300K for Maloney’s House account. Meanwhile, the Albany Project has an interesting catch in this race. It turns out that there was one question from the internal poll in May that gave Maloney a 34-32 lead over Kirsten Gillibrand that didn’t get released to the public, and only came out in that City Hall News profile from a few days ago: “Asked whom they would vote for if they knew Gillibrand had the support of Schumer and Obama, people chose Gillibrand over Maloney 50-24.”

• IA-Gov: A fifth candidate officially got into the GOP field in the Iowa governor’s race yesterday: little-known state Rep. and pastor Rod Roberts, who represents a rural part of western Iowa. Roberts polled a whopping 1% in a poll last week by the Iowa Republican blog of the GOP primary field; the poll found Bob Vander Plaats leading the field with 46%, trailed by Chris Rants at 16%, and Paul McKinley and Christian Fong each at 3%. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Chet Culver defeats Vander Plaats 48-39 and Rants 46-36.

• NV-02: Ooops, back to square one in the 2nd. Douglas County school board president Cindy Trigg, who said she’d run against Rep. Dean Heller in 2010, has backed out, saying she needs to focus on the school board for now instead.

• NY-23: The NRCC has gone on the air in the 23rd, launching pre-emptive TV attacks on state Sen. Darrel Aubertine before he’s even a declared candidate for the special election, for voting for new taxes in the state Senate. Meanwhile, word has leaked (perhaps from GOP rival Matt Doheny’s camp) that moderate Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava was in fact under consideration for the Democratic nomination, but that they were scared off by unpaid tax problems associated with her brother’s business (for which she’s listed as the COO).

• VA-11: Home inspection company owner Keith Fimian has decided on a rematch with Rep. Gerry Connolly in the now-blue 11th. Fimian, who can self-fund, lost the 2008 open seat race to Connolly, 55-43.

• NY-LG: A New York judge put the kibosh on David Paterson’s appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lieutenant Governor, issuing a temporary injunction to stop it, saying the state constitution does not appear to permit appointment to fill a vacancy in that position. Still, even if the appointment never goes through, it looks like it may have succeeded for Paterson, in terms of forcing Pedro Espada’s hand and breaking the state Senate deadlock.

• OH-AG: As was previously leaked, former Senator Mike DeWine announced today that he’ll run for state Attorney General. He’ll face off against Democratic incumbent Richard Cordray.

• Fonts: Ever wondered about the font that defined the Obama campaign in 2008? Here’s a profile of that “uniquely American” sans-serif typeface, Gotham.

• AR-Sen: I’m not sure what it is about the Arkansas Senate race that’s making it flypaper for never-before-elected wingnuts. At any rate, former Army colonel Conrad Reynolds, from Conway, announced his candidacy on Monday.

• FL-Sen: The Fix confirms that Marco Rubio will stay in the Florida GOP Senate primary, despite a terrible fundraising disparity and a brief public flirtation with dropping down to the AG race in the hopes of, y’know, not getting demolished.

• IL-Sen: Newly elected Rep. Mike Quigley became the third Democratic House member from Illinois to endorse Alexi Giannoulias today (although the endorsement may not even be necessary if Chris Kennedy doesn’t get around to showing up).

• MO-Sen: State Senator Chuck Purgason has been sending around e-mails telling the press that tomorrow he’ll hold a press conference (at the Ozark Cafe, in West Plains, if you happen to be in the area) where he’ll announce his plans for the GOP primary race against Rep. Roy Blunt. Spoiler alert! Purgason’s own e-mail goes on to say “It is expected that Purgason will announce that he will enter the race…”

• NH-Sen: Here are two items that fall in the “well, duh” file: Kelly Ayotte has set up an exploratory committee so she can consider running for Senate, and Senator Judd Gregg hints strongly that he plans to endorse her.

• WV-Sen: Here’s some good news, not just because we like to see our friends stay healthy but because he’s badly needed for cloture votes: Robert Byrd is back on the job on the Hill, after six weeks of hospitalization and some additional time to recuperate.

• KS-Gov: Kansas Democrats are back to Plan A in the 2010 Governor’s race (not that they ever really had a Plan B): going back to Gov. Mark Parkinson and begging him to reconsider his decision not to run for election to a full term. Parkinson remains adamant, though.

• ME-Gov: Another entrant to the Democratic field in the slow-to-take-shape Maine governor’s race: Portland businesswoman Rosa Scarcelli, who owns a housing company. Former state House Speaker and AG Steve Rowe still seems to have inside track for the Dems; the GOP, by contrast, doesn’t seem to have anyone yet.

• MI-Gov: The GOP primary in the Michigan governor’s race got even more cluttered today, when, as expected, businessman Rick Snyder got into the race. Snyder is a venture capitalist who briefly served as CEO of PC maker Gateway back in the 1990s.

• NJ-Gov: Chris Christie picked Monmouth County Sheriff Kimberly Guadagno as his Lt. Gov. candidate yesterday. It’s consistent with his approach of running a law and order, outsider-ish campaign. Christie supposedly also gave a lot of consideration to picking Rep. Frank LoBiondo, who, had he won, would have created a tasty pickup opportunity in NJ-02.

• UT-Gov: This week’s confirmation hearing of Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China is expected to be a quick affair. He could be in his new job before the summer recess, leaving Gary Herbert in charge of Utah in a matter of weeks.

• AL-07: In the wake of recent fundraising reports, Roll Call takes a look at the race to fill the open seat left behind by Rep. Artur Davis, running for Alabama governor. Corporate attorney Terri Sewell, thanks to her job, seems to have the best fundraising connections, and leads the money chase by far ($173K last quarter). However, she probably trails two other candidates in name recognition: state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. (son of the former Representative that Davis beat in a primary) and Jefferson Co. Commissioner Shelia Smoot, who is also known for having her own radio show. Also in the race are former Selma mayor James Perkins Jr., attorney Martha Bozeman (Davis’s former campaign manager), and businessman Eddison Walters (who racked up 9% against Davis in a 2006 primary).

• KS-02: Former Rep. Nancy Boyda landed on her feet, getting sworn in yesterday to her new job at the Pentagon, as deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for manpower and personnel. This would suggest she won’t be running again in KS-02, which is fine, as she seems better suited for a policy job than one that requires a lot of campaigning.

• NY-23: In other confirmation news, John McHugh’s confirmation hearing as Secretary of the Army won’t happen until after the August recess (although no one expects holds on the moderate Republican to be a problem). McHugh will remain in office until his confirmation, and after that there will still be several months’ lead time until a special election.

• TX-23: Republican lawyer and banker Quico Canseco is back for another whack at Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the San Antonio-based 23rd. Actually, Canseco never got that whack in 2008 — highly touted by the NRCC, Canseco was upset in the GOP primary by Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, despite spending over $1 million of his own money.

• Mayors: You may remember businessman Greg Fischer, who lost the 2008 Democratic Senate primary in Kentucky to Bruce Lunsford. He announced that he’ll run for Louisville mayor in 2010, as 20-year mayor Jerry Abramson recently announced he won’t run again.