Tag: FL-Sen

One door closes, another opens. After Lincoln Diaz-Balart put the kibosh on his Senate appointment, the latest word is that near-octogenarian and Tampa Bay-area congressman Bill Young is under consideration for the appointment:

RPOF chairman Jim Greer just confirmed that longtime Congressman C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores is among those being considered to fill U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez’s seat for the remainder of the term.

Young could be an ideal choice for Gov. Charlie Crist, given his Tampa Bay roots and his respect and clout on the Hill. But Young’s move to the Senate could put what is arguably the state’s most competitive congressional seat up for grabs.

No word yet on Young’s interest, but this would make a lot more sense for a guy who’s both long in the tooth and facing his most competitive re-election campaign in eons from state Sen. Charlie Justice. And if Young did decide to cap off his career with a Senate hoedown, his open House seat would likely be the site of a huge special election battle. It’s about as closely-divided at the partisan level as they come; Gore won the district by 2% in 2000, but the area went for Bush by two points four years later. Last November, Obama carried the district by a 51-47 margin.

UPDATE: A couple more items off the Florida Senate appointment wire: Ex-Rep. Clay Shaw says that “my phone’s not ringing“, essentially signaling that Crist is not interested in giving him the job. Meanwhile, the St. Pete Times gives a rundown of the pros and cons of the major choices under consideration.

RaceTracker Wiki: FL-10

It was fun while it lasted:

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart withdrew his name for consideration to replace U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez this evening.

Diaz-Balart issued a statement this evening saying he told Gov. Charlie Crist to remove him from the short list of three to fill in for Martinez until next year’s November election.

“I have informed Governor Charlie Crist this evening that I will not be submitting the Questionnaire for appointment to the Senate he kindly asked me to consider submitting. It was a great honor to be considered by Governor Crist for appointment to the United States Senate. […]”

So much for that game of political pinball that Charlie Crist was supposedly angling to rig. In other Senate appointment news, Crist is set to meet with Bobby Martinez (the former U.S. Attorney, not the ex-Governor) today, who some speculate is the real leading candidate for the appointment.

On Saturday, we wrote about the possible scenario being cooked up by Charlie Crist in order to lure Marco Rubio out of the Florida Senate primary — namely, that Crist would appoint 21st CD Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart to the Senate as a placeholder, creating a House special election that would be hard for young Rubio to turn down. It seemed like a bit of a stretch at the time, but there are signs that this may actually be pretty serious. First, from the Miami Herald’s blog:

Supporters of U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Miami say he’s seriously considering giving up his House seat to serve the rest of Mel Martinez’s Senate term. Gov. Charlie Crist said Friday that he’s on the shortlist.

“To my surprise, Lincoln is seriously considering filling out the questionnaire and putting his name in the hat,” said lobbyist/fundraiser Ana Navarro. “It’s a historical opportunity where he feels he can make a difference. He is willing to lose his House seat in order to serve the state of Florida in the Senate.”

But wait, there’s more! Much more, in fact. The new rumor on the blocks is that by moving up, Lincoln Diaz-Balart would leave his seat open not for Rubio, but for his younger brother, 25th District Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. The idea is that Mario is not enjoying the Dem-trending nature of his own district (it voted for McCain by 1% last year, and MDB himself only won re-election by 6%), and thinks that the 21st is more hospitable territory for the Diaz-Balart brand. I’m not so sure how wise of a move that would be — the 21st isn’t all that more GOP-friendly than the 25th; LDB’s district went for McCain by 2%, but he crushed highly-touted but highly flawed Dem nominee Raul Martinez by 16 points during the same election. The theory, then, is that Marco Rubio would be free to run in the adjacent 25th District once MDB successfully swaps seats. More from the Miami Herald:

Because Diaz-Balart’s name did not surface immediately when Martinez announced he would quit, the prospect of him seeking the appointment — and that his brother, Mario Diaz-Balart would run for his more Republican-friendly seat — is creating political upheaval in an already topsy-turvy election cycle. That would leave Mario’s seat open, possibly for former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who is considered a longshot against Crist for Senate. (Both Mario and Marco would have to move.)

“I would urge Mario to run for the seat because of the changing demographics in his district,” Navarro said. “It’s adjacent to his district and has the same issues but has a much stronger Republican base.”

This is a pretty crazy game of pinball that Crist and the Diaz-Balarts may or may not be attempting to rig. I would have to grudgingly tip my hat to the Governor if it all fell perfectly into place, but of course, there’s also the risk that something this complicated could blow up in everyone’s face.

As Samuel L. Jackson once said, hang on to yer butts.

UPDATE: Straight from the horse’s mouth:

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said today he is “seriously considering” seeking the vacant U.S. Senate seat.

RaceTracker Wiki: FL-Sen | FL-21 | FL-25

With the news that Charlie Crist has asked GOP Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart to submit his application for the state’s Senate vacancy created by outgoing Sen. Mel Martinez, there has been a lot of debate over just how seriously we should be taking this news. Roll Call finds a pretty major (and clever) wrinkle in the situation — namely, that Charlie Crist may be hoping to create a House vacancy that would be too tempting to pass down for his primary opponent, Marco Rubio:

Some GOP insiders speculated that appointing Lincoln Diaz-Balart would create a House vacancy and special election that might be a tempting proposition for former state Speaker Marco Rubio (R), who is challenging Crist in the Senate primary. Rubio has repeatedly said he is in the Senate race to stay, but his former House district overlaps with Lincoln Diaz-Balart’s 21st district.

Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos said late Friday that his boss’s efforts remain focused on only one race. “Marco Rubio is a candidate for the U.S. Senate. It’s not only Washington or bust for him, it’s also U.S. Senate or bust,” Burgos said in an e-mailed statement.

I have to hand it to Crist — if his intention is to lure Rubio into another race entirely, then he certainly knows how to play chess, not checkers. And if I were Rubio, I don’t think I could pass up an opportunity to have what would probably be a clear shot at a seat in Congress over an extremely tough Senate primary.

RaceTracker Wiki: FL-Sen | FL-21

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has requested applications from three Republicans for the Senate vacancy created by the resignation of GOP Sen. Mel Martinez. One of the names under consideration, South Florida Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, should pique the interest of open seat fans. From the Palm Beach Post:

Crist said he asked for applications this afternoon from U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami; former U.S. Attorney Bob Martinez; and former Florida Secretary of State Jim Smith.

“There will be others,” Crist said in an interview.

Picking Jim Smith might give Crist some headaches with the base — Smith began his political career as a Democrat, winning two terms as the state’s attorney general beginning in 1978, and lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1986. He switched to the GOP a year later to accept the Secretary of State appointment, but as far as I can tell, he never built up the far-right cred needed to satisfy the Rubio crowd.

Appointing Lincoln Diaz-Balart would certainly shake things up, creating another special election in his R+5 House district sometime this fall. Diaz-Balart most recently dispatched highly-touted but troubled Democrat (and ex-Hialeah mayor) Raul Martinez by a blow-out 58-42 margin last year, but his district has shifted dramatically from the Republican stronghold that it once was. According to SSP’s analysis of the results, McCain barely edged Barack Obama by a 51-49 margin in the 21st CD last year, a big drop from the 57-43 win that Bush posted here in 2004 (and 58-42 four years earlier). I’m not sure who we have on the bench who might consider running in a special election, but it would certainly create a race with some potential.

UPDATE: One thing we should make clear here — the “Bob Martinez” under consideration by Crist is not the former Governor, but rather the former U.S. Attorney of the same name.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist barely survived another county-level GOP censure vote, this time in heavily-Democratic Palm Beach County, where one would expect the GOP faithful to be Chamber of Commerce types and not run-of-the-mill teabagging rageaholics. The censure bid failed on a 65-65 tie. The party member who led the bid referred to Crist as “nothing more than Arlen Specter with a tan.”

• NV-Sen: Rep. Dean Heller, who recently declined to run for Senate, laid his cards on the table, confirming what many suspected, that the John Ensign scandal contributed to Heller’s decision not to run against Harry Reid. Any Ensign support for Heller would have been a distraction rather than an asset. In the same interview, Heller also encouraged Ensign to answer remaining questions about payoffs to the former staffer he had the affair with. (One other interesting question raised here… does Heller calling out Ensign mean Heller is trying to help push Ensign out the door and then run for the open Senate seat in 2012? Because that would mean Heller wouldn’t run in the primary against Jim Gibbons in 2010, making it likelier that Gibbons survives the primary — and I know Democrats would rather face Gibbons than Heller in the governor’s race.)

Also, CQ is reporting that, bolstered by an internal poll giving her a small edge over Harry Reid (and also by Heller’s decision to stand down), state GOP party chair Sue Lowden is getting more interested in making the race, and she’s testing the fundraising waters.

• PA-Gov: Rep. Jim Gerlach got another endorsement from Pennsylvania’s GOP House delegation, Bill Shuster from PA-05 (coming on the heels of endorsements from Todd Platts and ex-Rep. Phil English). Of course, House colleagues tend to stick together, and their endorsements are of questionable value since they generally don’t bring local machines along with them, but these endorsements are at least interesting to the extent that they’re coming from the rural, most conservative parts of the “T,” not from Gerlach’s moderate southeastern suburban base.

• VA-Gov: There’s been some shuffling of personnel on the Creigh Deeds campaign, which has seemed kind of listless for the last month. Larry Sabato reported that campaign manager Joe Abbey, who engineered the primary victory, had been shoved over in favor of Mark Warner ally Monica Dixon. Dixon, however, says that Abbey’s still in charge but that she and some other new additions are there to bolster the ranks.

• KS-04: One more random wealthy Republican to add to the ever-expanding field in the open seat race in the Wichita-based 4th: oilman Willis “Wink” Hartman. State Sen. Dick Kelsey and RNC member Mike Pompeo are considered the GOP frontrunners.

• NY-23: GOP nominee for the special election, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, had temporarily put her campaign on hold to tend to her father, who is recovering from heart surgery. Without a John McHugh Senate confirmation or a set election date, though, this isn’t likely to be much of a setback. (Stuart Rothenberg, as part of a good overview of the race, says it’s likely it’ll be held on Election Day in November, meaning that the significance of whatever happens may be subsumed by NJ-Gov and VA-Gov.)

• OH-SoS: The Secretary of State field for the Democrats may keep growing, with a potential new entrant with an impressive resume. Paul Gains is the Prosecutor in Mahoning County (where Youngstown is); he says he’s leaning toward the race. (His biggest claim to fame is surviving a mob hit upon first taking office in 1996.) Ohio SoS is one of the most important lower-tier statewide offices in the country, given the state’s narrow divide and the SoS’s role on the legislative apportionment board. Franklin Co. Commissioner Marilyn Brown and State Rep. Jennifer Garrison are also likely to run for the Dems.

• FL-Sen: As the angling for a one-and-a-half-year fill-in for Mel Martinez’s Senate seat continues, there’s already been one prominent “no thanks,” from Jeb Bush (not that anyone would expect Charlie Crist to pick him, as there’s been a lot of Crist/Bush friction and Crist wouldn’t want to risk having a placeholder overshadow him). Meanwhile, a likelier pick, 70-year-old former Republican Rep. Clay Shaw (a Gold Coast moderate who served in the House from 1980 to his 2006 defeat) shot his hand up and said “pick me pick me!”

• IL-Sen: Chicago Urban League president (and former Rod Blagojevich spokeperson) Cheryle Jackson made her entry into the Democratic senatorial primary field official yesterday. However, the Illinois SEIU chapter, one of the state’s major unions, came out with an Alexi Giannoulias endorsement today, which, given their resources, moves him closer to having a lock on the nod. I’m wondering if they’re announcing in response to Jackson… or to Roland Burris, who keeps popping his head back up.

• KS-Sen: Not much change in the GOP Senate primary in Kansas since we last looked. SurveyUSA finds that Rep. Jerry Moran has a 38-32 lead over Rep. Todd Tiahrt, propelled along by a 78-13 edge in the state’s western portion. Moran led by 2 in June and 4 in April.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-16: It didn’t register much, at a time when all speculation focused on Rep. Carolyn Maloney, but several months ago Rep. Jose Serrano said he would consider a primary run against Kirsten Gillibrand. Yesterday he made clear that he wouldn’t get in the race (although he still didn’t sound very enthused about Gillibrand), which means that none of her former House colleagues are left planning a primary challenge.

• MN-Gov: Add one more second-tier Republican to the huge pile of prospects for the open Minnesota governor’s race: state Senator Mike Jungbauer, a religious rightist from exurban Anoka County, formally kicked off his campaign. He does already have one important endorsement in his corner; he was “called by God” to run.

• NJ-Gov: Today’s Quinnipiac poll has a slightly better showing for Jon Corzine, in line with last week’s R2K poll, though it’s far from time to start talking “comeback.” He cuts the lead to 9 points, 51-42, in a two-way poll of likely voters, down from 53-41 in July. More importantly, Corzine trails Chris Christie 46-40 in a three-way that includes independent Chris Daggett (who’s up to 7%). Campaign Diaries observes that the centrist Daggett (a former EPA regional administrator) is probably absorbing a lot of protest votes, keeping Democrats and moderate indies who hate Corzine from going over to Christie. If Corzine wins, he’ll owe Daggett a big ol’ “thank you.”

• NY-Gov The NYT reports on growing discomfort by various downballot electeds on the prospect of having David Paterson at the top of the ticket. Both Reps. Michael McMahon and Dan Maffei worry about the effect of Paterson’s low approvals spilling over into their own races. Not to worry: although it’s buried deep in the story, the Times says that powerful local Dems are pushing Paterson to stand down and make way for Andrew Cuomo — and that local bigwigs have been tugging at White House sleeves, hoping they’ll find a nice appointed position for Paterson soon.

• CA-10: The John Garamendi camp released an internal poll from Tulchin Research giving Garamendi a sizable edge in the upcoming special election: Garamendi is at 31, Mark DeSaulnier is at 21, Joan Buchanan is at 17, Anthony Woods is at 9, and Republican David Harmer is at 5. There’s a wrinkle with this poll, though (one that didn’t elude the DeSaulnier campaign): it’s a poll only of Democratic and decline-to-state voters, but the primary election is an all-party primary with one pool of votes (although under California law, the top Democrat and Republican will advance, not simply the top 2). In response to our inquiry, the Tulchin crew said that polling Republicans as well just wasn’t cost-effective, especially since there are six Republicans running and therefore there isn’t likely to be much party-line crossing.

In other CA-10 news, Garamendi got another bit of good news: he got the endorsement of both Bill Clinton and Al Gore (he was a deputy Secretary of Interior for part of the Clinton administration). However, a SurveyUSA that only tested favorables for the CA-10 candidates didn’t have good news for much of anyone: Garamendi is at 30/34, DeSaulnier is at 22/23, and Buchanan is at 16/25. Only up-and-comer Woods is in positive (if generally unknown) territory, at 14/13.

• CT-04: With presumptive GOP nominee state Senate minority leader John McKinney staying out, not one but two other GOPers got in the race against Democratic freshman Rep. Jim Himes. One was the party’s likely #2 choice, state Senator Dan Debicella; the other is Rob Merkle, a political novice but the wealthy owner of a financial services recruitment firm.

• PA-06: Maybe journalist Doug Pike won’t have the Dem primary to himself after all, now that Rep. Jim Gerlach is committed to the gubernatorial race. Bob Roggio, the little-known businessman who almost beat Gerlach in 2008, said he hasn’t “ruled it out.” Also, while there doesn’t seem to be anything tangible, there are indications that state Sen. Andy Dinniman, the Dems’ highest-profile elected official in the pivotal Chester County portion of the district, is “increasingly rumored to be seriously considering” the race.

• CT-Sen: Here’s some good news for Chris Dodd (and also Kent Conrad, although he’s not facing any danger at home): the Senate Ethics Committee found that no Senate gift rules were broken by accepting VIP mortgages from Countrywide. Perception-wise, though, this is a case where the damage has probably already been done.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio has issued some demands to Charlie Crist, regarding Mel Martinez’s now-vacant Senate seat: appoint someone conservative, and appoint an “interim” senator (i.e. not Crist). TPM also cites NRO’s Jim Geraghty as hearing rumors that the pick may be former Republican Gov. Bob Martinez (no relation to Mel), a conservative (although registered as a Democrat when nonpartisan mayor of Tampa) who served one term, 1986-1990. Bob Martinez is 74, and of Spanish ancestry rather than Cuban.

• IL-Gov: It still seems like a strange choice to me, but Comptroller Dan Hynes (runner-up to some guy named Barack Obama in the 2004 Democratic Senate primary) made it official yesterday. He’ll be running in the primary against incumbent Governor Pat Quinn, who’s been sporting surprisingly good approval ratings (by virtue of not being Rod Blagojevich, I suppose) and already managed to deter the much stronger Lisa Madigan from a primary fight. The primary is a ridiculously-early Feb. 2.

• NJ-Gov: One more poll in the New Jersey governor’s race came out yesterday, painting a worse picture than yesterday’s not-terrible R2K. Rasmussen finds a 13-point spread, 50-37, for Chris Christie over Jon Corzine. That’s right in line with Pollster.com’s rolling average, which is 50-38 today.

• UT-Gov: Utah Governor Jon Huntsman was confirmed as ambassador to China today, to no one’s surprise. Once he resigns, Republican Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert will be promoted but will face a special election in 2010.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds has taken on some criticism in recent weeks in the wake of flagging polls, for ignoring northern Virginia and focusing on his white rural base too much. He seems to be remedying that with his newest wave of radio ads, targeting Hispanic and black voters. On top of that, of course, was yesterday’s appearance with Barack Obama in McLean in NoVa.

• CA-47: Republican Assemblyman Van Tran, who’s running against Loretta Sanchez in the 47th, got some bad PR last night. Tran was disruptive enough at the scene of a drunk-driving accident involving Westminster city councilor Andy Quach that he was threatened with arrest unless he returned to his car. (Tran was apparently called to the scene to act as Quach’s attorney, rather than a passenger.)

• IL-10: State Rep. Julie Hamos got a boost in her quest to win the Democratic primary in the open-seat battle to replace Rep. Mark Kirk. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who represents the next-door 9th, endorsed Hamos, the first high-profile endorsement in the race.

• SC-04: Republican Rep. Bob Inglis laid down the law at his town hall the other night, telling Screamers at the event to turn off the Glenn Beck and tune out the fear-mongering. One more clue that the increasingly-sane Inglis, who’s facing several high-profile primary challengers (most notably state Sen. David Thomas) in a dark-red district, is becoming the 2010 cycle’s likeliest GOP primary casualty.

What’s with all the prominent Republicans unable to even make it through their first terms? Today Mel Martinez joins the club of lame-duck GOPers unwilling to be dead fish going with the flow, and instead is going to maverick his way on up and out of the Senate:

He made the announcement at a morning staff meeting, where he said he will not be returning to the Senate after the August recess.

Martinez announced he wasn’t seeking re-election to the Senate last December, but he had insisted that he would be serving out the remainder of his term, which expires in 2011.

Martinez is reportedly interested in the presidency of Florida St. University, which opened up in June. So he may already have lined that up, or maybe he’s just decided to jump out of the plane first and find out the color of his parachute on the way down. (Can life in the minority really be that bad?) Well, like the refrigerator magnet says, he doesn’t need to explain himself to his enemies.

So now the big question is: what does Charlie Crist do? Florida doesn’t have a fast special election law like Texas, so Crist has to appoint someone for the remaining year and a half of Martinez’s term. With Crist already running for the open seat in 2010, there’s certainly the possibility he could appoint himself. He’ll have to weigh, though, whether that would help or hurt him for 2010, whether any incumency advantage he’d gain would outweigh the perceived impropriety of appointing himself. If he doesn’t appoint himself, who’s a likely elder-statesperson placeholder he might appoint? He wouldn’t want to appoint anyone who might turn around and decide to stay in the Senate, and he wouldn’t want to appoint anyone too moderate either, as he doesn’t want to rile up an already hostile Republican base, seeing as how his most immediate problem in 2010 is getting past Marco Rubio’s primary challenge from the right. (Discussion underway in DTMB!‘s diary.)

UPDATE (James L.): The Associated Press confirms that Crist will not appoint himself to the big show. Smart move on his part — right now, he’s the likely GOP nominee and the likely Senator-elect come November 2010. A self-appointment would only create controversy.

LATER UPDATE: The Palm Beach Post fingers FSU Board of Trustees Chairman (and ex-state AG) Jim Smith as Crist’s likely choice for placeholder.

RaceTracker Wiki: FL-Sen

• 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.