Tag: Nancy Pelosi

• MO-Sen: Well, it looks like Claire McCaskill has been trying to make me look like an idiot. After this site’s repeated smack-downs of the “airplane” story as Politico-fueled b.s., it turns out that there is quite a bit more to it: McCaskill now says she owes $287,000 in unpaid property taxes on the plane. That’s quite a bit. Of course, she says she’s paying them, and she’s also having her husband sell the plane – and she further notes that this problem only came to light because she reviewed the plane’s records herself. But how do you forget to pay over a quarter mil in taxes? Man.

In other MO-Sen news, former state GOP chair Ann Wagner was in DC last week meeting with the NRSC about her bid. She still claims her first preference is to run for Senate, but based on the quotes in Roll Call’s piece, it’s sounding more and more like Rep. Todd Akin (R) will get in and she’ll run for his seat. Of course, who knows what MO-02 will look like in a few months….

• PA-Sen: The National Journal’s Alex Roarty says that Ed Stack, longtime CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods and Pittsburgh native, is thinking about seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Bob Casey. Stack is, of course, very rich.

• ND-Gov: Horse’s mouth: Ex-Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D) is leaving the door just slightly ajar to a gubernatorial run, saying “I am not excluding anything nor am I focusing on politics right now.” But he repeatedly told the Fargo-Moorhead Forum that he was concentrating on his new legal/lobbying job at Alston & Bird in DC.

• WV-Gov: SoS Natalie Tennant released a poll from GQR showing acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin leading the Dem primary field with 31, but with herself just behind at 27. Treasurer John Perdue is at 14, while state House Speaker Rick Thompson and state Sen. Jeff Kessler take 5 apiece.

• CA-36: Debra Bowen got her first endorsement from a member of Congress: Rep. Judy Chu, who filled Hilda Solis’s 32nd CD seat when the latter became Secretary of Labor. Several other local officials have also endorsed. Also of note: The Courage Campaign is holding a candidate forum on Thursday, and if you click the link, you can submit a question.

• IA-03: Longtime SSPer (and blogger in her own right) desmoinesdem points out that Nancy Pelosi is coming to Iowa to do some fundraisers with Rep. Leonard Boswell, including one at the home of 2010 Dem Senate nominee Roxanne Conlin. Is this a suggestion to Christie Vilsack that perhaps she ought not run?

• KS-04: One political scientist is calling him “the congressman from Koch” – and you’ll probably want to as well. Mike Pompeo, a loathsome man hated by many fellow Republicans, took in $80K in donations from Koch employees, was supported by the Koch front group Americans for Prosperity, and, for good measure, hired a Koch Industries attorney as his chief of staff. (Or more like, David and Charles installed a fixer to make sure their new paisan did as he was told.) Pompeo’s been delivering: He’s promoting legislation to defund a new consumer complaints database, and an EPA catalog of greenhouse-gas polluters. Personally, I think this dickbag could be very vulnerable to a GOP primary.

• NY-26: Crazy Jack Davis and David Bellavia both filed signatures to appear on the ballot as independents – but of course, now the fun can truly begin. If you weren’t already aware, New York has just about the most draconian requirements for petitions in the land – they can be invalidated for as little as using the wrong color ink. I’d be pretty surprised if the GOP didn’t try to nuke both of these guys from orbit, though Davis might be invulnerable, since he said he submitted over 12,000 petitions. Bellavia’s camp would only say that they submitted “more” than the required 3,500. Unless he has at least double that number, once Christian Szell starts asking “Is it safe?”, it’s a good bet that Bellavia won’t survive scrutiny.

• OR-01: Kari Chisholm of Blue Oregon has an excellent roundup of recent OR-01 stories, so I’m going to recommend you click through for his summaries and links. Two items of note: Republican state Sen. Bruce Starr says he won’t challenge Rep. David Wu, and Wu is apparently starting to actively fundraise again, with an event this week in Portland. I’ve gotta ask: Who the heck would want to show up to such a thing?

• AZ-St. Sen.: A recall effort is underway against notorious Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant legislation known as SB1070. The leader of the best-organized group claims they have thousands of signatures and are meeting their goals, but they aren’t releasing any actual numbers.

• NYC-Mayor: Another Republican campaign, another fortune embezzled. Mike Bloomberg hired John Haggerty to forklift over a million bucks to the state’s Independence Party, but instead, Haggerty laundered most of the cash through a consulting firm he owned and spent $750K on a home in Queens. Now a judge says that the evidence of Haggerty’s guilt is “overwhelming.” Can’t say I feel too bad for Bloombo! (Other recent similar incidents involved Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey and ex-Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut.)

• California: California Republicans are doing their best to ruin whatever advantages the state’s new top-two primary system might give them – on purpose. While the top-two might free more moderate GOPers from the ultra-conservative stranglehold on primaries, the activist base wants none of that. Starting in 2014, the party will conduct “pre-primaries” by mail and award their formal endorsement to whoever wins those beauty contests. These people will get assistance from the state party and will also be listed as the “official” GOP candidate for that race. David Atkins thinks, though, that this is a feature, not a bug: The CA Republican Party needs just 1/3 of the members of one of the chamber of the state legislature to maintain California’s absolutely dysfunctional system of state governance, and this helps ensure that they elect uncompromising crazies to the few seats they do win – which is all they require.

Redistricting Roundup:

• California: Good news: The Republican firm that was a finalist to serve as the redistricting commission’s mapping consultant was unanimously rejected in favor of an Oakland company called Q2 Data and Research. And while Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, which was selected as the panel’s law firm, does have some well-connected Republican partners in their DC office (like Ted Olson and Miguel Estrada), it’s big enough that you’ll probably find the entire gamut from good to evil working under their umbrella (so let’s hope we get “good”).

• Louisiana: This Times-Picayune piece details the backroom wrangling going on over Louisiana’s congressional map, which painfully has to shrink from seven to six seats. Scroll down to that grey call-out box on the left for links to actual maps. I believe we linked the Gallot maps before, but the Kostelka and Jackson maps should be new. (You’ll find them at the end of some very long PDFs.) I note that of these plans seem to keep one Dem district by marrying New Orleans with Baton Rouge.

• New Jersey: NJ legislators are being weirdly good about not sharing their proposed state maps with the public, but folks who have seen them are chatting up reporters. One such person, Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray, thinks that the GOP is running afoul of the edicts set by commission boss Alan Rosenthal, and could get in trouble for their attempts to over-reach.

• WV-Gov: I’ve complained at length before about the sheer haziness of West Virginia’s succession laws, and they aren’t going to get any clearer: Joe Manchin, as one of his final acts as Governor, isn’t going to call a special session to clarify. The law is clear that Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin becomes Acting Governor upon Manchin’s resignation (which will probably happen as soon as the election results are certified, as Manchin is able and ready to serve in the lame duck session in place of temp Carte Goodwin), but all it says is that a special election must be held to fill the vacancy, without saying, y’know, when. Legislative counsel have made the best guess that two elections should happen in Nov. 2012 (one special election for the remaining two months of the term, the other regularly scheduled one for the following four years), but that doesn’t have the force of law yet.

• AZ-07: This was one where victory was pretty clear yesterday, but today it’s officially been called for Raul Grijalva. He’s up more than 6,000 now, as friendly Pima County precincts have kept reporting.

• AZ-08: Looking right next door, things are also looking up for Gabby Giffords. She’s up by about 3,000 votes. 30,000 votes remain to be processed in Pima County, although it’s unclear how many of those are in the 7th or in the 8th. The local paper says it’s expected the race will be called in her favor today.

• CA-11: J-Mac looks to be coming back, if today’s news is any indication. Jerry McNerney’s lead over David Harmer has edged up to 568 votes (although potentially that could erode a bit in today’s further counting as there are still some San Joaquin Co. votes outstanding). California doesn’t have an automatic recount provision, but Harmer seems to already be laying groundwork: he’s filed a suit in Contra Costa County saying his team should be able to stop the vote-by-mail signature-verification process in order to challenge signatures.

• KY-06: Ben Chandler is declaring victory, despite Andy Barr’s plans to pursue a recanvass. The final count is Chandler up by 649, although that’s not SoS-certified yet, and the recanvass may change that (although probably not to the extent that Barr could win).

• NV-St. Sen.: 84-year-old long-timer Bill Raggio won’t be the Republican leader in the Nevada state Senate for the first time in ages. He pulled his name from consideration for another stint as minority leader after it was clear that he wasn’t going to win the internal struggle against Mike McGinness. Raggio’s sin? Endorsing Harry Reid over Sharron Angle (who, you might remember, ran and lost to Raggio in a 2008 GOP primary battle in his Reno-area seat).

• Leadership: The big news on Capitol Hill today, of course, is that Nancy Pelosi has made clear that she will seek to become minority leader. One more indication how quickly the daily CW (which had a quick transition to Steny Hoyer penciled in yesterday) can change on a dime. Hoyer is likely to stay in place, so Pelosi will probably only face a minor challenge from Heath Shuler. Only a few other surviving conservadems are publicly opposing Pelosi so far (no surprises: Altmire, Boren, Matheson). Chris Van Hollen, unsurprisingly, is also out as DCCC chair… although it’s hard to tell how much his star has dimmed for future leadership endeavors, as a third term at the DCCC would have been unlikely even if the Dems had salvaged a majority. (There’s plenty of other discussion on this topic, including the GOP leadership ladder and committee chairs, underway over in MassGOP’s diary.) UPDATE: Here’s some last-minute tension: Dems are less one leadership slot, having to drop down to the minority, and it looks like that’s going to be resolved with a battle for minority whip between Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn. That could produce some fireworks.

• Polltopia: Nate Silver went there: his newest post is called “Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate.” His graph of major pollsters’ performance finds Rasmussen both off by the widest average margin, and with the most greatest amount of bias in a particular direction (the Republican direction, natch). (Quinnipiac had the smallest average error, and PPP was the closest to having no bias. He also has kind words for SurveyUSA and YouGov.) PPP’s Tom Jensen also has some interesting divining from Tuesday’s entrails: if you were wondering whether the dropoff was from Obama voters staying home, or Obama voters voting for Republicans this time around, he finds it was almost exactly half-and-half of each.

CO-Sen: Colorado Dems are concerned that if Andrew Romanoff topples Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary, he’ll be badly hamstrung in the general by his refusal to take PAC money. This problem is compounded by the fact he’s been a pretty crappy fundraiser in general. Romanoff also supposedly said he won’t accept the DSCC’s help – though luckily for us, independent expenditure rules mean that he can’t tell the DS what to do. This all reminds of Russ Feingold demanding that outside groups not spend money on his 1998 re-election campaign, which he won by barely 3% in an otherwise very strong Democratic year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is up with a quarter million dollar ad buy on behalf of Jane Norton, touting an endorsement from Jan Brewer (whose instant celebrity strikes me as something on the level of a reality TV star).

FL-Sen: So it turns out that Kendrick Meek, who was initially left off some notices, will participate in Barack Obama’s August 18th Miami Beach fundraiser. But a Meek staffer tells Politico that he wants nothing less than a “prominent role” at the event and is “expecting the president to strongly reaffirm his endorsement.” If you have to float these kinds of things via blind leaks to the beltway press… well… that doesn’t exactly evince a great deal of confidence, does it?

Meanwhile, Tom Jensen confirms empirically something I’ve felt intuitively for a while (and mentioned on our panel at Netroots Nation): Charlie Crist is better off with Jeff Greene winning the Democratic primary rather than Kendrick Meek. In particular, black voters support Meek 39-33 over Crist, while they support Crist 61-17 over Greene.

IL-Sen: It’s confirmed: A federal judge ruled that the candidates on the special election ballot to fill out the remaining months of Sen. Roland Burris’s term will be the same as those on the regular election ballot – meaning Burris won’t be able to seek “re-election” for those two extra months (something he actually had considered doing). Phew.

KS-Sen: A final SurveyUSA poll of the GOP primary shows Todd Tiahrt, who has trailed badly for the entire race, closing the gap with Jerry Moran. Moran still leads by a sizable 49-39 margin, but two weeks ago, it was 50-36, and Tiahrt has gained 10 points over the last two months. The problem is, time’s up: The primary is tonight.

KY-Sen: The Club for Growth just endorsed Rand Paul, and undoubtedly it’s because of College Libertarian Society bullshit like this which comes out of his mouth:

The Republican running to replace outgoing Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) in the coal-mining hub of Kentucky said recently that Washington has no business formulating mine safety rules.

“The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia, according to a profile in Details magazine. “You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

“I know that doesn’t sound… I want to be compassionate, and I’m sorry for what happened, but I wonder: Was it just an accident?”

CA-Gov: Fellow humans of Earth! I have traveled back through time from the year 3000! And I come to tell you that in our wondrous and awesome future, the spending record for candidate self-funding is still held by Meg Whitman! I cannot tell you how much she spent in total, lest I create a temporal paradox and cause all of you never to have been born, but I can inform you that she has already spent one hundred million of your Earth dollars! Also, everyone in the future eats Dippin’ Dots!

Meanwhile, a more chronologically closer reporter informs us that Jerry Brown has $23 million on hand.

FL-Gov: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Florida’s public financing law, whereby candidates whose opponents spend more than $25 million (as Rick Scott has) get added matching funds from the state. Apparently this system “chills free speech” (whatever). Bill McCollum is obviously none too happy, and is weighing a possible appeal – or an attack on another part of the law which limits the size of donations he can accept.

GA-Gov: Landmark Communications, a Republican pollster which says it has no ties to either candidate, is out with the first poll of the GOP runoff. They find Karen Handel leading Nathan Deal by a 46-37 margin. Deal, meanwhile, is out with a new ad, and props to the AJC’s Jim Galloway for getting the Deal campaign to cough up that the buy is for 850 gross ratings points in the Atlanta area. One rating point is equal to one percent of a potential audience, but because the same viewer might see the same ad more than once, you need a lot more than 100 GRPs to reach your full target audience. As things go, 850 is a pretty decent-sized buy, especially in an expensive market like Atlanta.

CA-47: This really doesn’t seem wise: Rep. Loretta Sanchez, locked in a competitive race with Assemblyman Van Tran, filed paperwork for state bid in 2014. She really couldn’t have waited until after November? Now-Rep. Tom McClintock (CA-04) did something similar last cycle, and it certainly did not seem to help him (he barely eked out a win in a decidedly red district). Speaking of Tran, by the way, here’s an interesting item from late last week: He secured the backing of the grifters running the Tea Party Express – not exactly a popular gang, I’m sure, in this 60% Obama district.

FL-08: You know how they say that if you wind up in prison, you should act all crazy on your first day so that the other inmates know better than to mess with you? Well, Alan Grayson’s tack seems to have been to act crazy so as to get his opponents to act even crazier and thus blow themselves up in the process. Republican state Rep. Kurt Kelly, reacting to Grayson’s absence during a vote on an Afghanistan war funding bill, spazzed: “He put our soldiers, our men and women in the military, in harm’s way and, in fact, maybe he wants them to die.” Said a Grayson spokesperson in response: “Kurt Kelly thinks the stupider he sounds, the more Republican votes he’ll get.” Heh.

HI-01: GOP Rep. Charles Djou is out with an internal poll from the Tarrance Group showing him up 50-42 over Colleen Hanabusa. Djou has about $380K on hand to Hanabusa’s $220K. I wonder if Hanabusa will release her own internal.

ID-01: I swear, some days it really feels like Bill Sali actually is running again. This time, apprentice fuckup Raul Labrador moved his campaign headquarters outside of the 1st Congressional District – a pretty remarkable feat given that Idaho has only two CDs. If this sounds extremely familiar, that’s because it is: Sali himself did the exact same thing, situating his campaign office in ID-02 as well. Let’s hope history repeats in November, too.

IL-10: Dem Dan Seals has donated $5,000 he received from ethically embattled Rep. Maxine Waters to charity – even though she gave that money to him last cycle. I wonder if other candidates will follow suit, ala Rangel.

NY-10: Even though he’s already spent an absurd $1.1 million and held 2008 challenger Kevin Powell to just 32% in the primary, Rep. Ed Towns is taking no chances in his rematch and is attempting to get Powell kicked off the ballot. However, Powell (who has raised very little and has just $30K on hand) collected 8,000 signatures, far more than the 1,250 he needed. So unless there are massive flaws (or fraud), this is going to be difficult for Towns.

WI-08: Organic farmer, Door County supervisor, and teabagger Marc Savard, who had raised very little, dropped out and endorsed roofing contractor Reid Ribble in the GOP primary. Ribble, who leads the fundraising field (but only has about $180K on hand), still faces former state Rep. Terri McCormick and current state Rep. Roger Roth. (And here’s a rather disturbing item we missed: While we noted retired radiologist Marc Trager’s departure from the race in mid-June, we were previously unaware that he committed suicide just a couple of weeks later.)

DCCC: Obama alert! The POTUS will do a fundraiser for the D-Trip on August 16 at the Los Angeles home of “ER” and “West Wing” executive produce John Wells. Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen are also expected to attend.

FL-Sen: Not unexpectedly, Charlie Crist vetoed a bill (passed by Flordia’s Republican state lege and supported by anti-choice groups) which would have required women seeking an abortion to first get an ultrasound. Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meek both fired off press releases attacking Crist – the former for abandoning conservative principles, and the latter for trying to “run away” from his “anti-choice past.”

KY-Sen: We’ve mentioned this before, but now the Louisville Courier-Journal has a lengthy piece looking at Rand Paul’s renegade ophthalmology certification organization, called the National Board of Opthalmology. It turns out that the American Board of Medical Specialties – the meta-group which certifies this country’s certifying organizations – doesn’t recognize Paul’s concoction. Rather, they recognize the American Board of Ophthalmology, from whom Paul used to have a certification, but which he let lapse some years ago.

SC-Sen: So now even the White House is weighing in on the mysterious primary victory of Alvin Greene, with senior advisor David Axelrod saying he thinks Green’s win “doesn’t appear” legitimate. This widespread establishment skepticism may enoucrage loser Vic Rawl to file a formal protest with the state Democratic Party, something he has until noon today to do. The party could void the result if it found serious flaws, but state chair Carol Fowler says something like that is “pretty rare.” And Nathan Gonzales also makes a good point: Greene may have spent $0 on this race, but Rawl didn’t spent a whole lot more – just $45K.

UT-Sen (pdf): Wilson Research Strategies for Mike Lee (6/10, likely voters):

Mike Lee (R): 39

Tim Bridgewater (R): 30

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±5.7%)

AL-Gov: This seems a little odd: lame duck AG Troy King (who just lost the GOP primary) issued an advisory opinion saying that the July 13th Republican gubernatorial runoff ballot should feature the names of Bradley Byrne and Robert Bentley – even if third-place finisher Tim James displaces Bentley in a planned recount. King advises that another runoff take place if James’s recount is successful.

MI-Gov: Fifth CD Rep. Dale Kildee endorsed Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero in the Democratic primary, the first member of the House from Michigan to weigh in in the gubernatorial race. His nephew Dan Kildee, who considered running himself, also got behind Bernero.

NH-Gov: Democratic Gov. John Lynch formally filed for re-election last Friday. He’s seeking a fourth consecutive two-year term, something no one has won before in New Hampshire history. A piece in the Laconia Citizen looks at the challenges Lynch faces in achieving this goal.

OH-Gov: Gov. Ted Strickland reported raising $1.3 million between April 23rd and June 10th, giving him $7.7 million cash-on-hand and $11.5 million raised for the entire campaign (which his camp says is a record). Politico also says that Strickland has raised more than any other Dem governor seeking re-election, but note that only seven fall into this category. Meanwhile, Republican John Kasich raised the same amount but has $5.7 million on hand.

UT-Gov: Ah, timing is everything in politics. Just four days after Gov. Gary Hebert called for more oil drilling in Utah, a Chevron pipeline burst a leak, spilling 500 barrels oil into Salt Lake City’s Red Butte Creek, forcing the closure of the city’s biggest park. (Click the link for a pic. More here.)

AR-01: The link is behind a paywall, so we don’t have much to go on, but apparently Tim Wooldridge is “hedging” on an endorsement of Chad Causey, the man who beat him in the runoff last week. Let’s hope this changes soon.

AR-02: Also behind a paywall (at the Hotline) is this tidbit that state Sen. Joyce Elliott (D) said she “doesn’t know” whether she’d support Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Elliott, who has a liberal reputation, probably has some re-positioning to do to remain competitive in this race, but is acting Pelosi-agnostic really plausible? Even Mike Oliverio eventually backed down from this perch – and he’s infinitely more conservative than Elliott.

CT-04: A supporter of Dan Debicella says her name fraudulently appeared on a nominating petition for rival Tom Herrmann, who is also seeking the GOP nod to take on Rep. Jim Himes in the fall. Stories like this don’t tend to have much legs, though, unless there turns out to be widespread fraud.

GA-09: Representative-elect Tom Graves (R) will be sworn in to the House later today. Note that the two other remaining vacancies in the House – NY-29 and IN-03, both the product of resignations due to scandal – will not be filled until November. Also, Graves is not out of the woods yet, as he still faces a regular July 20th primary for the fall general election.

MD-01: Looks like Andy Harris has gone, at least, birther-curious. During a recent radio appearance, Harris refused to dismiss a caller’s accusation that Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship is “false”, saying that he doesn’t know why all the details on Obama’s birth certificate are “being hidden”. (J)

MS-01: Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya. There seem to be no hurt feelings in this GOP primary, after all. After initially refusing to endorse primary winner Alan Nunnelee, former Fox News commentator Angela McGlowan has endorsed his campaign in an email to her supporters. Second-place finisher Henry Ross also threw his endorsement to Nunnelee, making the circle complete and activating the powers of Captain Planet. (J)

NC-08: Mountain of Crazy Tim D’Annunzio has upped his personal investment in his bid for the GOP nomination against Larry Kissell to $1.3 million. Harold Johnson, the guy whom the NRCC desperately wants to see win the primary, is getting out-gunned; he only raised $49K in the pre-runoff period, and is getting outspent by a greater than 2-1 margin. (J)

NY-24: The Oneida County District Attorney’s office is investigating quid pro quo allegations surrounging a 2008 donation that Republican candidate Richard Hanna made to the Oneida County Independence Party. (J)

SC-01: Politico’s Alex Isenstadt tweets that House GOP leaders are “launching [a] full scale effort for Tim Scott”, the African-American state Rep. who’s locked in a runoff with legacy candidate Paul Thurmond. Karl Rove himself is even cutting a check for Scott. (J)

UT-02: Dem Rep. Jim Matheson certainly doesn’t appear to be taking any chances in his first-ever primary against retired teacher/activist Claudia Wright. Matheson’s pre-primary FEC filing shows that his campaign has brought in $142K and spent nearly $467K since Wright shocked Matheson by forcing a primary at the May Democratic convention, leaving the incumbent with just over a million in the bank. Wright, for her part, only raised $15K during that time, and spent $17K. (J)

WA-02: Moose alert! Sarah Palin gave her latest Twitter endorsement to Snohomish County councilman John Koster, who’s seeking a rematch against Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen. Koster faces absolute nutball John Carmack in the Republican primary. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of Carmack’s website. (J)

Counting on Medicaid Money, States Face Shortfalls

This is the title of an article in today’s New York Times that details a severe issue that, if not addressed very soon, will have multiple political effects. I’ll quote from some of the most important parts of the article and then talk about some of the effects I believe are likely in races for different positions.  

Having counted on Washington for money that may not be delivered, at least 30 states will have to close larger-than-anticipated shortfalls in the coming fiscal year unless Congress passes a six-month extension of increased federal spending on Medicaid.

Governors and state lawmakers, already facing some of the toughest budgets since the Great Depression, said the repercussions would extend far beyond health care, forcing them to make bone-deep cuts to education, social services and public safety.

Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, for instance, penciled $850 million in federal Medicaid assistance into the revenue side of his state’s ledger, reducing its projected shortfall to $1.2 billion. The only way to compensate for the loss, he said in an interview, would be to lay off at least 20,000 government workers – including teachers and police officers – at a time when the state is starting to add jobs.

“It would actually kill everything the stimulus has done,” said Mr. Rendell, a Democrat. “It would be enormously destructive.”

There are are other quotes from or references to the urgent concern of Republican Governors Schwarzenegger of California and Douglas of Vermont, Republican Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, Democratic Governor Paterson of New York, and Michael Bird, federal affairs counsel for the National Council of State Legislatures.

The first electoral issue is that any combination of biting tax or fee increases and brutal service cuts from state and municipal governments will sour voters even further on incumbent politicians, almost certainly causing more losses, including some surprising upsets, of incumbents from both parties. Undoubtedly, this would extend to Federal races – as it should, because the Federal government would have failed to meet the need for a new rescue package for state and municipal governments.

The second issue is that the lost jobs from layoffs of government workers (teachers, firefighters, police officers, social workers, God only knows who else) would worsen the economy palpably, leading to even more damage to incumbents.

As we all know, state and municipal governments are already doing very poorly around the country – undoubtedly, along with the generally weak economy and high unemployment, one of the reasons that incumbent Governors (and, I’m guessing, state legislators) are much more likely to be defeated in reelection bids this year. Failure to infuse state budgets with Federal money for their Medicare programs would surely amplify this effect.

Governors and state lawmakers were caught largely by surprise by the House’s removal of the appropriation. Over the previous 10 months, the Medicaid money had been included in separate bills passed by each chamber, and President Obama had wrapped the extension into his executive budget proposal.

“There was every reason to think they’d get together,” Mr. Rendell said.

But in recent weeks, Republicans and conservative Democrats began to complain that the proposed spending would add to the deficit because it was not “paid for” with new revenues or other cuts. Their success in reducing the size of the bill reflected a deepening debate in Congress, and on the campaign trail, about the long-term consequences of using deficit spending to slay the recession.

To get a conference report with restored Medicaid money in it – which Harry Reid favors – through the House, some Representatives who wouldn’t vote for it the first time would have to take the political risk of being labeled as spendthrift deficit-busters. And of course the Senate, which plans to start consideration of the bill this week (that is, the bill itself, not yet a conference report), would be blamed by deficit hawks for taking the initiative to reinsert such a fix.

Of course, should they fail to get this through, a lot of them risk losing their seats because – correct me if you have data to prove me wrong – as much as the voters care about deficits, they care more about jobs, taxes, and services.

Democratic aides in both the House and Senate said state officials had not pressed their case forcefully enough.[…]

Republican governors in particular, the aides said, had been reluctant to petition for relief while the party’s leaders in Congress were scorching Democrats for driving up the national debt.

“Governors need to make it clear that it is vital that their states receive this money, instead of blasting Congress for ‘out-of-control spending,’ ” said a senior Democratic aide in the House, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the issue publicly.

Republican Governors have less room to be nihilists than do the members of the minority party in Congress. Some of them may not care much about poor people, but they have the responsibility to actually administer states and are accountable to the voters. Therefore, in times of emergency, even a hypocritical posturer like Governor Jindal of Louisiana begs for Federal help. We’ve seen this again and again recently. When there’s a flood, tornadoes, or a huge industrial accident, Republican Governors give the “tax and spend liberals” sloganeering a rest and put their hands out.

But the political problem for many of them in this situation is greater than mere hypocrisy. Because though as Governors, they desperately need this money, as long as extremist Tea Partiers and Club for Growthers control their party, they will get Hell for publicly lobbying for a Medicare rescue package if and when they run for Federal office – or even for reelection.

So to recap, what we see here is the bitter fruit of insincere Republican posturing, irrational extremism among the Republican rank and file, Blue Dog reelection positioning, and the White House (and possibly Nancy Pelosi, depending on how you interpret her comments in the article) enabling premature deficit hawkery.

Some of the politicians who have put the country at another precipice have to risk political damage by voicing what Governor Douglas of Vermont, a moderate, very reasonably states (quote below). To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, if the politicians who could lose an election over a deficit but know that shafting state governments in a budget emergency is unacceptable don’t hang together, we will all hang separately.

“I’m very concerned about the level of federal spending and what it would mean for the long term,” said Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican and chairman of the National Governors Association. “But for the short term, states need this bridge to sustain the safety net of human services programs and education.”

 

• FL-Sen: Today is the day we say goodbye to Mel Martinez, resigning to… well, he hasn’t figured it out yet. Martinez leaves sounding rather downbeat, having been pilloried by much of his party for his work on immigration. And today we say hello to George LeMieux, Charlie Crist’s former right-hand man and now body-double in the Senate. Interesting trivia: Kirsten Gillibrand is no longer the youngest Senator; LeMieux is a youthful 40.

• MA-Sen: The rumor du jour coming out of the Bay State is that Andy Card, the former Bush White House chief of staff, is interested in the Senate special election for the GOP. Card would be a long-shot (as would any Republican), but would at least come to the race armed with a giant Rolodex full of donors. (Wait… do people even use Rolodexes any more?)

• UT-Sen: Is Bob Bennett just ready for retirement, or is he trying to move to the left of the the gaggle of far-right primary challengers, hoping they split the wingnut vote and let him win by occupying all of the quasi-moderate Huntsman-style space in the GOP field? Either way, he took a few provocative actions yesterday, as one of only four GOPers to stand and applaud Barack Obama’s call-out of the “death panel” lie last night — which earned him the spot of Public Enemy #1 at RedState — and earlier as one of only five GOPers to vote in favor of cloture on the Cass Sunstein nomination, who currently holds the #2 spot on the list that Glenn Beck is holding in his hand.

• NY-Gov: This is a weird-ass rumor, but apparently several different sources are telling the Weekly Standard that Hillary Clinton may bag on being Secretary of State in order to run for Governor of New York. Take with… I dunno, is there something much stronger than salt? Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be in the middle of a power play involving remaking the leadership of the state GOP in preparation for a gubernatorial run, but seems to be losing that proxy battle, as the insufficiently-pro-Rudy Ed Cox still seems on track to take over as state GOP chair.

• TN-Gov: Rep. Zach Wamp has an edge in the GOP primary for the open gubernatorial race in Tennessee, according to his own polling, done by the Tarrance Group. Wamp has 22% of the vote, followed by Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey at 15, Shelby Co. DA Bill Gibbons at 14, and Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam at 12. Wamp also led the field with 22 in a poll several months ago from Southern Political Report.

• CA-11: There are already a bunch of next-to-no-names running against Jerry McNerney in the R+1 11th, but the GOP has dug up someone who’s at least one notch above that: Tony Amador, the former U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of California under the Bush administration, giving him some sort-of-non-partisan law-and-order cred. Amador was the son of undocumented immigrants — but does that make him the kind of courageous by-the-bootstraps story that Republicans love, or unacceptable to the GOP’s rabid nativist base?

• MO-08: Here’s an appealing-sounding recruit for the Dems to go against Jo Ann Emerson: college instructor and Army vet Tommy Sowers. He served two tours in Iraq, then taught at West Point, and now teaches at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He’ll still have an uphill fight against Emerson, who hasn’t drawn tough competition since her initial 1996 election, in this district that actually went for Bill Clinton but has fallen off the cliff lately at R+15.

• SC-02: If last night were a movie, the poster would say “Starring Barack Obama, and introducing Joe Wilson!” With one over-the-top line of dialogue, Wilson was catapulted from back-bench anonymity, to front-and-center among one-dimensional cartoonish House Republican villains, right next to Michele Bachmann and Jean Schmidt. While Wilson privately apologized last night, he is refusing today to publicly apologize in the House well, and Democratic House leadership seems eager to let that slide, not wanting to get distracted from the more pressing matter of health care. However, the assault from the netroots has been merciless; Wilson’s 2010 opponent, Iraq vet Rob Miller (who came within 8% of Wilson in 2008 in this R+9 district), has hit the fundraising jackpot, raising over $200K since last night according to the DCCC. (Prior to last night, Miller had $49K CoH while Wilson had $212K.) This includes $135K alone at Act Blue (hint hint). UPDATE: PPP teases that they’re going into the field tonight to poll SC-02; they’re asking for help in drafting the poll, so be sure and give them a hand.

• CA-St. Ass.: In case you were under a rock yesterday (or had a particularly aggressive work-safe web-blocker), Republican Mike Duvall resigned immediately from his state Assembly seat in northern Orange County after getting caught on an open microphone talking in lascivious detail about his sexual transactions with a oil-and-gas lobbyist. The resulting special election in AD-72 doesn’t seem likely to go to the Dems — Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby is set to run for the seat — but it’s the least hardcore part of the OC, where John McCain won only 50-47, so it’s worth paying some attention. (See californianwonder‘s diary for more.)

• House: Here’s a GOP poll that I’m sharing simply because of the sheer irrelevance of its premise: that Nancy Pelosi is the most polarizing House Speaker since Newt Gingrich. Remember that there was exactly one Speaker in between Gingrich and Pelosi. Should it be any surprise that the highly visible Pelosi is considered more polarizing than the shapeless, flavorless DeLay-puppet Dennis Hastert… or that the GOP paid good money to ascertain that?

There’s going to be a healthy amount of turnover in the Senate; even if the Democrats don’t pick up any seats in 2008 (OK, OK, you can stop laughing now), there will still be at least five new faces because of the retirements of Warner, Allard, Domenici, Hagel, and Craig. However, there’s also going to be at least a sixth new face in the Senate, because, barring something really weird happening, either Barack Obama or John McCain is going to be the next President in January, opening up one more seat to be filled by appointment until 2010 (the next general election, but also when Obama and McCain’s terms would end anyway). Unlike the rest of the Senate races, that’s one race we can’t handicap, because we have no idea who the candidates are, and there’s going to be only one voter: either Rod Blagojevich or Janet Napolitano.

This is in the news today because Robert Novak is alleging that Nancy Pelosi has been talking up Rahm Emanuel as the replacement senator. (This being Novak, the safe response might be to assume the exact opposite of what he’s saying. Just consider it a conversation starter.) He described Pelosi as “enthusiastic about Emanuel’s elevation to the Senate.” (Although she might be most enthusiastic about getting one-half of the Hoyer/Emanuel tag-team off her back.)

It seems unlikely to me that Blagojevich would pick Emanuel, though, because Emanuel doesn’t help Blagojevich with either of his competing needs: the pressure to appoint another African-American so that number of black senators doesn’t drop back down to 0, and the desire to move his strongest intra-party competition to Washington and out of his hair. (It also might seem a demotion for Emanuel, who is at the #4 slot in the House as Conference chair, and given his age, a likely candidate for Speaker in the 2020s.)

Probably the most frequently mentioned African-American contender for the position is Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Jackson is young (41), he’s progressive (near the top of the House, with a Progressive Punch score of about 99), he’s been an effective Obama surrogate, he’d leave behind as safely-Democratic a House seat as can be imagined, and he has name recognition.

Other mentioned African-American contenders include Rep. Bobby Rush (who’s been in IL-01 for many years and is 62), Sec. of State Jesse White (a well-liked longtime fixture in Illinois politics, but 76 years old), State Senate President Emil Jones (who’s a key Blagojevich ally in the legislature, but who’s 72), and State Senator James Claybourne (who’s only 44, but unlike these other contenders, not a Chicagoan (he’s from Belleville, next to E. St. Louis) – and with Dick Durbin already senator, a second Downstate senator is unlikely). One other possibility I saw mentioned was giving Carol Mosely-Braun her old seat back, although given her inability to hold the seat in the first place, that doesn’t seem likely.

The other camp consists of people Blagojevich might like to deport from Illinois by promoting them: Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Comptroller Dan Hynes. It’s unclear whether Blagojevich intends to run for a third term in 2010 (he’s eligible to do so, although given his ethical problems and low approval ratings, it seems he’s likely to head for the exits at that point), but if he does, he’s likely to face primary opposition from one or both of them. And even if he doesn’t run, these two have oversight of his activities and have been constant thorns in his side (and, with one of them in Washington, could then be replaced with one of his own appointees).

Whether or not Blagojevich is an obstacle, either Madigan or Hynes is likely to be the next governor of Illinois. Madigan is 41; Hynes is 39. They’re both well-connected to Illinois machine politics (Madigan’s dad is state house speaker Michael Madigan; Hynes’s dad is former Cook County assessor Thomas Hynes.) One consideration is that Hynes has shown more desire to go to Washington rather than aiming for governor; Hynes ran for the Democratic Senate nomination in 2004, finishing second to Obama in the primary.

Finally, there are several other names who get mentioned but don’t fit into either category: Rep. Jan Schakowsky from IL-09 (she’s also one of the most progressive members of the House and wields a fair amount of leadership clout there, but she’s 64 and has some ethical baggage associated with fraud charges against her husband Robert Creamer), and Illinois Veterans Affairs Dept. Director Tammy Duckworth of IL-06 fame (she brings diversity and Iraq War vet status to the table, but has never actually won an election before). And it can’t be discounted entirely that Blagojevich might appoint himself, since a Senate seat would give him a new career without term limits… although he’d face the same electoral liabilities in 2010 facing Senate re-election as if he were running again for governor.

Turning to Arizona, some of you might be licking your chops, anticipating another Democratic senator, appointed by Janet Napolitano, as the consolation prize in the event of a McCain victory, but that’s not the case. Arizona is one of several states (along with Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, and Wyoming) where the appointed interim senator must be of the same party as the departing senator.

This becomes an interesting strategic decision for Napolitano, though: does she take the easy way out and appoint the Republican who’s at the top of the queue? That would most likely be Jan Brewer, who is Secretary of State and, since Arizona has no Lt. Governor, the state’s #2 person. However, it could be one of the current representatives, most likely John Shadegg, who has more seniority and a higher profile than Trent Franks or Jeff Flake.

Does she appoint the Republican who, ideologically, is likely to suck the least (moderate ex-Rep. Jim Kolbe, who was in AZ-08 for many years, comes to mind), who would be vulnerable to a right-wing primary effort but difficult in a general election?

Or does she try to game the system by appointing the Republican who would provide two years of dislikable right-wing insanity and then an easy opponent in the 2010 general election (when, not coincidentally, Napolitano herself would be term-limited and looking for a new job)? That could be ex-Rep. and professional loudmouth J.D. Hayworth, or, for maximum comedic effect, former State Rep. Randy Graf. (It still probably wouldn’t include current Rep. Rick Renzi, who’s likely to consider 2009 a good year if it involves staying out of prison.)

Related posts:

Whom Might Blagojevich Appoint? (from August 2007)