Tag: Tom Rooney

• PA-Sen: Seems like Joe Sestak cleared his Senate run with his family, as now he only has to run it by the Almighty: “It would take an act of God for me to not get in now,” he said on Saturday. Meanwhile, the state’s political establishment, led by Ed Rendell, feted Arlen Specter at the state party’s quarterly meeting on Friday (with Sestak in attendance).

• FL-Sen: From sitting Senator to punchline in a few short years: Bob Smith’s announcement that he’s running for Senate again seemed to generate mostly just shrugs and giggles. Of course, part of the problem is that he’s running in Florida instead of New Hampshire, where he looks to be barely a blip on the radar screen in the titanic Crist/Rubio faceoff. This may benefit Charlie Crist a bit by shaving off some of the die-hard conservative vote from Marco Rubio, but Smith in his announcement didn’t even seem to have any ammunition to use against Rubio, saying only that he offers “strong political leadership” in contrast to Rubio’s “wheeling and dealing.” Meanwhile, Crist got hammered in a St. Petersburg Times editorial for his role in gutting Florida’s growth management act, which damages his environmental credentials for the general.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand snagged two more endorsements from her former colleagues in New York’s House delegation: Nydia Velazquez and Ed Towns. Rep. Carolyn Maloney continues to staff up for a potential challenge, though, and words comes that she’s looking to hire Joe Trippi as strategist, and Mark Penn’s polling firm (now there’s an odd combination).

• IN-Sen: Indiana Republicans have located a challenger for Evan Bayh: 32-year-old state Senator Marlin Stutzman. While Stutzman probably doesn’t have Bayh shaking in his boots, it seems like a way for him to grow his statewide profile for future endeavors.

• CA-Gov: Another California governor’s poll bubbled up last week, from Probolsky Research for Capitol Weekly. They look only at the primary fields: former Governor Jerry Brown continues to lead the field at 24, while SF mayor Gavin Newsom is at 16 and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is at 15. On the GOP side, “undecided” is running away with it, with 64%. Among the human candidates, here’s a surprise: moderate ex-Rep. Tom Campbell leads at 13, leading the two more-highly-touted and richer candidates, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman (10) and Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner (8).

• IA-03: Rep. Leonard Boswell may face a rematch with the guy he barely beat in the 1996 open seat race to take office: former state GOP chair Michael Mahaffey. IA-03 is a very different configuration now, though; it used to be a mostly rural district then, but now is centered on Des Moines (although Boswell still manages to find ways to get elected by narrow margins).

• TX-23: Rep. Ciro Rodriguez may face a primary challenge in 2010, from lawyer and Iraq vet Miguel Ortiz. Rodriguez and Ortiz are both from San Antonio, so Ortiz doesn’t have the advantage of a geographical hook.

• FL-AG: State Senator (and former U.S. Senate candidate) Dan Gelber confirmed that he’s running for Attorney General (against friend and fellow Senator Dave Aronberg). Gelber had also been considered for Lt. Gov., seemingly leaving Dems back at square one to fill that slot.

• FL-16: Speaking of Aronberg, with him out, St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft seems to be DCCC’s person of interest to take on freshman Rep. Tom Rooney. They’ve also talked to Craft’s fellow Commissioner, Doug Coward.

• VA-Legislature: Here’s another interesting look at our best chances of taking control of the Virginia House of Delegates in 2009, this time from our own diaries courtesy of Johnny Longtorso.

• PA-Sen: Gov. Ed Rendell confirmed in his usual inimitable style that he’s backing new-found Dem Arlen Specter in 2010. He did go out of his way to praise Rep. Joe Sestak but to encourage him to remain in the House, warning Sestak that he would “get killed” (metaphorically, I’d assume) and that “we will lose a terrific Congressman and when he loses to Arlen, he fades into political obscurity.” Sestak did pick up his first big-name endorsement, though: MontCo Commissioner and former Rep. Joe Hoeffel, who lost to Specter in the 2004 general election.

• CT-Sen: Here’s an inauspicious start to Merrick Alpert’s primary challenge to Chris Dodd: the Democratic party committee in his home town, Groton, voted a resolution of support for Dodd. It also issued a pretty transparent slap at Alpert, deploring any hypothetical primary challenger’s use of “echoing right wing talking points or by utilizing the conservative media echo chamber to slander Dodd.” (Alpert’s already done that.)

• FL-Sen: State Sen. Dan Gelber made it official (via Facebook) that he’s dropping out of the Senate race, giving Rep. Kendrick Meek a clearer path. He’s now considering the AG race against a crowded field including fellow state Sen. Dave Aronberg, or, more interestingly, joining the ticket as Alex Sink’s Lt. Gov. candidate.

• MN-Sen: It was Minnesota Supreme Court hearing day in The Senate Race That Won’t Die. Five of the court’s justices heard an hour of oral arguments. Rick Hasen‘s interpretation of how the individual justices responded to the lawyers’ arguments suggests a quick and possibly unanimous decision in favor of Franken.

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo did it again — he publicly denied that he’ll be running for Governor and maintained that he “plans” to run again for AG. (He did concede that primaries can be productive for the party.) While the idea of Cuomo giving up an almost-free shot at the governor’s mansion seems ludicrous, maybe there’s a kernel of truth to Kirsten Gillibrand‘s cryptic comments from last week that there would be no primary; at some point, if Cuomo says it enough times, we have to start taking him seriously.

• AL-Gov: Hangin’ judge Roy Moore made it official this morning; he’s running for Alabama governor. He joins four others in the hunt for the GOP nod.

• TN-Gov: Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey officially launched his gubernatorial campaign at midnight this morning (to kick off the third quarter of fundraising). He seems a bit overshadowed by Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam, Rep. Zach Wamp, and Shelby Co. DA Bill Gibbons, but has a solid base of support of northeast Tennessee.

• LA-03: Republicans seem to be making a full-court press on newly R+12 LA-03, even though Rep. Charlie Melancon (who didn’t even have an opponent in 2008) seems likelier to remain in the seat than run for Senate. The NRCC has been courting state Rep. Nickie Monica, who has obliged by offering some public criticisms of Melancon. Ascension Parish sheriff Jeff Wiley was also on the wish list, but has taken himself out of contention.

• PA-11: Nobody’s taking the heat off Rep. Paul Kanjorski in the 12th. First came news that Lackawanna Co. Commissioner Corey O’Brien and Scranton mayor Chris Doherty were interested in primary challenges; now it sounds like Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta, who came within 3% of Kanjorski in 2008, may be back for a third try. Barletta was seemingly considering the Lt. Gov. slot in 2010, but assuming AG Tom Corbett wins the gubernatorial nomination that job may go to someone from the Philly suburbs for purposes of ticket-balancing.

• DCCC: The DCCC launched an ad blitz against six vulnerable House Republicans today, hitting them with radio ads and robocalls for voting against the stimulus package by focusing on specific shovel-ready projects in each district. Targets are Don Young (AK-AL), Brian Bilbray (CA-50), Tom Rooney (FL-16), Thad McCotter (MI-11), Peter King (NY-03), and Charlie Dent (PA-15).

• Demographics: A new Gallup poll finds that only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, African-Americans, or other non-whites. Considering that we’re a few decades away from a country where whites no longer hold the majority, The Math seems to indicate a Republican Party that doesn’t dramatically change its message is on the brink of permanent irrelevance.

Word comes from Politico that Tim Mahoney may, at this late date, decide not to seek re-election, according to “a Democratic leadership aide with ties to his campaign.” (No direct comment from Mahoney’s campaign, of course.)

The article, if you were to create a word cloud, would include such phrases as “paid $121,000 to a former aide,” “threatened to sue Mahoney for sexual harassment,” “allegedly had a second affair,” and “FBI has begun a preliminary investigation.” And Mahoney doesn’t think he can survive all that? Quitter! Bwak bwak bwak bwak…

Well, if this indeed happens, then it seems like we’re looking at a virtual repeat of 2006, where GOP candidate Mark Foley bailed out shortly before the election, and substitute candidate Joe Negron was handicapped by being referred to as “Mark Foley” on the ballot. (And yet Negron barely lost: one more tribute to Mahoney’s political skills.) So this opens up the question: what FL-16 Democrat would get to play the role of “Tim Mahoney” on this year’s ballot? Despite this district’s R+2 lean, it doesn’t seem like we have much of a bench in this district (which is what led to previously-unelected ex-GOPer Mahoney running for us in the first place).

A quick look through the Florida legislature doesn’t seem to indicate any Democratic state senators in the 16th (except possibly for Dave Aronberg (I say ‘possibly’ because there seems to be partial but not total overlap between the 16th and the state districts)) and almost no state representatives (probably Richard Machek, and possibly Shelly Vana). Anyone from the area, please feel free to chip in with other names.

First this:

Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney has a homestead exemption on a house in Palm Beach Gardens and describes it as his primary residence.

But the address on Mahoney’s voter registration is a barn with a small apartment that he owns in the rural Caloosa area west of Palm Beach Gardens. The barn is in the 16th Congressional District that Mahoney represents; the homesteaded house is just outside Mahoney’s district.

And now this:

The campaign of Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, who’s been under fire for registering to vote at a barn with an apartment rather than at his homesteaded primary residence, called Republican challenger Tom Rooney a hypocrite today upon learning that Rooney was registered to vote for five years at the Palm Beach Kennel Club dog track.

While Rooney was in law school and then in the Army in Texas and at West Point from 1998 to 2003, the address on his voter registration was the Kennel Club, which is owned by the Rooney family.

Where would you rather hang your spurs: a BARN down by the RIVER, or a dog track?