Tag: John McCain

• Volunteering: Marriage/partnership equality campaigns in three states are looking for help down the home stretch. The best part is, you don’t even have to leave your chair – all three organizations are looking for folks to make calls to help get out the vote. So if you’d like to help, follow the links for Maine, Washington state, and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The folks in Kalamazoo are also looking for in-person volunteers – click here if you are in the area. (D)

• CT-Sen: With Joe Lieberman back to his usual self-promoting mavericky ways, vis a vis the public option, and with the netroots worked up into a lather, it’s a perfect time for Ned Lamont to step back into the spotlight. The 2006 Democratic primary winner attacked Lieberman’s statements, although he sounded interested but noncommital about the idea of a 2012 rematch.

• FL-Sen: Here’s another sign that the Charlie Crist camp is starting to take the Marco Rubio threat more seriously. They’ve launched an anti-Rubio website, TruthAboutRubio.com.

• KS-Sen: Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe endorsed Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the GOP primary in the open seat Senate race in Kansas. Inhofe seems to be the first sitting senator to endorse Tiahrt (although Rick Santorum already did); several senators (John McCain, John Thune, and Inhofe’s colleague Tom Coburn) have already endorsed the less hardline Rep. Jerry Moran.

• MA-Sen: Rep. Niki Tsongas (the only woman in the Massachusetts House delegation) endorsed AG Martha Coakley in the Dem primary for the upcoming Senate special election. It’s Coakley’s first endorsement from a House member; four other House members have gotten behind Rep. Michael Capuano.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall has another poll of the Pennsylvania races out, and like a lot of other pollsters, they’re finding that people aren’t very enthused about Arlen Specter, and are getting even less enthusiastic, giving him a 28/46 favorable (down from 35/42 in August), and a 23/66 reading on the “deserves re-election” question. Specter currently leads ex-Rep. Pat Toomey 33-31 (down from 37-29 in August), and beats Rep. Joe Sestak in the Dem primary 30-18 (down from 37-11). Sestak loses to Toomey, 28-20. F&M also look at the gubernatorial primaries (no general matchups, though). AG Tom Corbett leads on the GOP side over Rep. Jim Gerlach, 30-8, while the Dem field plays out: 10 for Allegheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato, 9 from Auditor Jack Wagner, 6 for ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel, 3 for Tom Knox, and 3 for Scranton mayor Chris Doherty.

• SD-Sen: Democrats may turn to an old family name for a Senate candidate against John Thune: Mark McGovern, the 37-year-old grandson of former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern. McGovern is state director for Repower America, a clean energy advocacy group, and was state director for the 2008 Obama campaign.

• CT-Gov: The campaign for Democratic SoS Susan Bysiewicz is making references to an internal poll that has her trailing by only 6 to the once-thought-unassailable Jodi Rell in 2010, 47-41. (And that assumes Rell runs — given her fundraising, and now the possibility of a hard race, she may not be on track to do so.) The poll also finds Bysiewicz overperforming Stamford mayor Dan Malloy (who loses to Rell 52-31), and beating Malloy in the primary, 44-12.

• SC-Gov: An impeachment resolution against Mark Sanford was introduced today by Republican state Rep. Greg Dellenny during the brief special session. However, fellow Republican speaker Bobby Harrell ruled it out of order, as outside the scope of the special session. It’ll have to wait until January.

• VA-Gov (pdf): Looks like we’ll have to wait another day (and probably a lot longer than that) for signs of life in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Virginia Commonwealth issued their first poll of the race, giving Bob McDonnell a 54-36 edge over Creigh Deeds (51-33 without leaners pushed). Rasmussen chimes in with similar numbers at 54-41 for McDonnell (finding a spreading McDonnell lead like most pollsters; two weeks ago they had it at 50-43). Pollster.com‘s regression line has the overall total moving today to the exact same result: 54-41.

• TX-Gov: Maybe this falls under the category of an endorsement you don’t really want to tout, but Kay Bailey Hutchison needs every vote she can get in what looks like a tight GOP primary with incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. KBH secured the endorsement of Dick Cheney today.

• CA-19: I’m still not sure what conservative Rep. George Radanovich did to wrong the local GOP, but the hunt goes on for an even more conservative Republican to challenge him in the primary. One possible challenger is former Fresno mayor Jim Patterson, who’s looking for a new political gig. (Patterson ran for Congress in 2002 in then-new CA-21, losing the GOP primary to Devin Nunes.) Patterson may also be interested in replacing termed-out Mike Villines in the state Assembly.

• FL-08: Buried in a longer Politico piece titled, appropriately, “Rivals shy away from Alan Grayson” are three more potential Republican challengers: first-term state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, attorney Will McBride (who lost the 2006 Senate primary to Katherine Harris), and businessman Bruce O’Donoghue. O’Donoghue, who’s close to Mel Martinez, sounds like the likeliest of those three to run.

• NY-23: Big money continues to flow into the 23rd on the pro-Bill Owens side, with another $245K from the DCCC, and $200K from the AFSCME. MoveOn.org has also started flogging this race in its fundraising e-mails, saying that it’s a chance to rebuke the Palin/teabagger wing of the GOPers. Meanwhile, Doug Hoffman continues to rack up the endorsements from people that no one in the 23rd has ever heard of: South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and even Oklahoma House candidate Kevin Calvey and California Senate candidate Chuck DeVore. RNC chair Michael Steele is still standing by Dede Scozzafava, though.

• TN-09: It looks like former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton may self-destruct before Rep. Steve Cohen even lays into him in the Dem primary in the 9th. Herenton is reportedly the target of a criminal probe by the local US Attorney’s office focusing on “personal business transactions” during his time as mayor. Herenton, naturally, is calling the investigation politically-motivated.

• VA-02: Here’s a screwup for Ben Loyola, one of the Republicans jostling to take on freshman Dem Rep. Glenn Nye and one who made a big self-funding impact last quarter. Loyola may have low-balled estimates of the value of a division of his company that he sold to a Swedish firm, at best a disclosure violation in terms of reporting his net worth, and at worst an illegal campaign contribution.

• EMILY’s List: EMILY’s List added four Democratic House members to its list of endorsees. Three are swing-district freshmen (Debbie Halvorson, Ann Kirkpatrick, and Dina Titus), and the other one is the perpetually shaky Carol Shea-Porter.

• WA-Init: A slew of polls out of Washington yesterday and today, containing good news. UW’s Washington Poll finds that R-71 (a referendum in favor of expanded domestic partnership) is passing 57-38, while I-1033 (the latest TABOR-style anti-tax initiative from initiative huckster Tim Eyman) is failing 40-49. These numbers are confirmed by SurveyUSA, which finds R-71 passing 50-43, and I-1033 going down 38-50. The Washington Poll also looks at the King County Executive race, which (though ostensibly nonpartisan) sees Democratic county councilor Dow Constantine beating Republican former news anchor Susan Hutchison 47-34 — they don’t have trendlines, and the only comparison point is SurveyUSA, who last showed Hutchison with a surprising 47-42 lead, so this one still bears watching. The Washington Poll finds Joe Mallahan leading Mike McGinn in the Seattle mayor’s race, 44-36.

• Census: An independent analysis of the effect of the proposed David Vitter legislation that would only count U.S. citizens for purposes of reapportionment finds a very different looking House. California post-2010 would lose five House seats, and Texas would gain only one House seat (instead of the projected three). The proposed change would also spare Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania the expected loss of one seat each. (The study is worth a look also because it projects which states gain and lose seats according to normal rules, and also looks at which metro areas are experiencing ‘brain drain.’)

• AZ-Sen: This is good news for John McCain… ‘s opponent. Rodney Glassman, Tucson city councilor, has formed an exploratory committee to vie for the 2010 Democratic Senate nomination. With the state’s top-tier candidates avoiding the race, an up-and-comer looking to increase his statewide profile like Glassman is probably the best we’ll do here. (H/t Nonpartisan.)

• CT-Sen: You just know that the moment pro wrestling CEO Linda McMahon launched her Senate run, the nation’s Democratic opposition researchers all started doing a merry jig knowing how much work would be available for them. The first wave is already out, leading off with a clips reel of “PG-rated” (McMahon’s words) WWE highlights including simulated rape and necrophilia. Meanwhile, newly minted teabagger ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, realizing that he doesn’t have a lock on the necrophile vote any more, has continued his march to the right, begging forgiveness for his previous support of EFCA and cap and trade.

• FL-Sen: I always thought the idea of a Corrine Brown challenge to Kendrick Meek in the Democratic Senate primary was weird from the outset, but despite putting up some decent fundraising numbers in the third quarter, last Friday she pulled the plug on any bid. Rep. Brown will run for re-election in the dark-blue 3rd, where she’s been since 1992.

Meanwhile, Charlie Crist is actually starting to sweat his once sure-thing Senate bid. Although no one has actually leaked it, rumors keep persisting about that Chamber of Commerce poll that has Crist posting only a 44-30 lead over Marco Rubio in the GOP primary. Also worrisome for the Crist camp: much of that $1 million that Rubio pulled in was from in-state small donors — you know, the kind that actually vote — rather than out-of-state movement conservative bigwigs. With that in mind, Crist is already tapping into his big cash stash, airing radio spots in the conservative Ft. Myers market touting his government-slashing abilities.

• IL-Sen: Departing (well, maybe) Rep. Danny Davis gave his endorsement in the Democratic primary to former Chicago Urban League head Cheryle Jackson, rather than to establishment candidate state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias. Fellow Rep. Bobby Rush has already endorsed Jackson.

• KS-Sen: Dan Glickman, who teased Politico earlier this summer with some vague whispers of suggestions of hints that he might run for Senate, says he’ll step down from his current gig (chairman of the MPAA) in September 2010. If he sticks to that timetable, that clearly puts him out of the running for any return to politics this cycle. At 64, and facing what is now an almost implacably red state back at home, Glickman sounds like he’s done with elective office for good, saying he thinks he’ll “end up in the nonprofit or academic world.” (D)

• MA-Sen: Rep. Michael Capuano is way behind the polls of the actual voters, but he’s closing in on a majority of the state’s House delegation in his corner for the Democratic Senate special election nod. Today, Rep. Stephen Lynch, the state’s least liberal House member and a surprise non-participant in the Senate primary, endorsed Capuano; he joins Reps. Jim McGovern, John Tierney, and Barney Frank.

• SC-Sen: Democratic attorney Chad McGowan made it official; he launched his Senate candidacy against Jim DeMint. He’s the most credible candidate who has stepped up so far.

• IL-Gov: The Paul Simon Institute on Public Policy issued a poll last week of the Democratic gubernatorial primary, finding a lot of undecideds (and “someone elses”) but that incumbent Pat Quinn leads state comptroller Dan Hynes 34-17.

• KS-Gov: Democratic state party chair Larry Gates squashed earlier rumors; he won’t be getting into the gubernatorial race (or any statewide race), leaving the Dems still candidate-less.

• NJ-Gov: More golden admissions from Chris Christie, from a video recorded several years ago but released right now for maximum effect by Team Corzine. In Christie’s words:

Listen, I plead guilty to having raised money for Governor George W. Bush because I thought he was the best person to be President of the United States. And I did it in a completely appropriate fashion and enthusiastically for the President….

There’s no mystery to the fact that I was appointed to this job because, in part, I had a relationship with the President of the United States.

Anybody who receives a political appointment — I am a political appointee — there’s going to be some measure of politics involved with that appointment.

And Christie may be sending the wrong message right now, as revelations fly about his luxurious travel overspending while US Attorney: now he’s saying as Governor, his top advisers will be able to travel with fewer restrictions than under the current administration, at taxpayers’ expense, naturally. Meanwhile, over the weekend Jon Corzine picked up the endorsement of the two biggest fish in the news pond, the New York Times and the Phildelphia Inquirer. (Christie can boast about the East Brunswick Home News Tribune, however.)

• VA-Gov: Speaking of endorsements, Creigh Deeds got the big one too, from the Washington Post, and in very unambiguous fashion as well (recall, of course, that the WaPo endorsement in the primary was the corner-turning moment for Deeds). Meanwhile, while it doesn’t seem set in stone, there are reports that Barack Obama will campaign on Deeds’ behalf after all.

• FL-08: With the current field against Rep. Alan Grayson looking pretty underwhelming, Republican Winter Park physician Ken Miller, who had been considering a run in the 24th (where the primary opposition is of a higher-caliber), has decided to move over to the 8th instead. Which isn’t to say that the never-before-elected Miller seems terribly, uh, whelming.

• FL-19: One of the likeliest candidates to run for the seat being vacated by Robert Wexler has already declined the shot: state Sen. Jeremy Ring won’t run. While he cited family concerns, he did also point to the fact that little of his district overlaps with the 19th. Fellow state Sen. Ted Deutch is starting to take on front-runner status.

• IN-07: Butler University professor and perennial candidate (including the 2004 Senate race against Evan Bayh) Marvin Scott is back, and this time he’s going up against Rep. Andre Carson in the Indianapolis-based 7th.

• NY-23: The independent expenditures are flying in the 23rd, with $100K from the SEIU in favor of Bill Owens, $9,700 from the Club for Growth $9,500 from the Susan B. Anthony List, both on behalf of Conservative Doug Hoffman, and $123K from the NRCC against Owens (which includes $22K for a poll from aptly-named POS — so if we don’t see that soon, we’ll know the NRCC doesn’t like the results). The SEIU money is paying for anti-Dede Scozzafava radio spots, another blow for GOPer Scozzafava, who had been expected to get some labor support. Scozzafava did get the somewhat belated endorsement of Long Island’s Rep. Peter King, though, one of the few other remaining labor-friendly GOPers. Finally, rumors abound in the rightosphere (starting with the Tolbert Report) that Mike Huckabee, who’ll be addressing the state Conservative Party in Syracuse soon, won’t actually be endorsing Hoffman.

• OH-02: Rep. Jean Schmidt, who had to beat back a primary challenge in 2008 from state Rep. Todd Brinkman, will face another primary bid from an elected official in 2010: Warren County Commissioner Mike Kilburn. Kilburn says “there’s a movement to elect more conservative politicians to Washington.” Because, uh, Schmidt isn’t conservative enough?

• OK-05: A sort-of big name is getting into the field in the open seat race left behind by Rep. Mary Fallin (running for Oklahoma governor): Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud, who opened up his exploratory committee. He starts off lagging behind in fundraising, though, as state Rep. Mike Thompson and former state Sen. Kevin Calvey have already been running for a while  now.

• Mayors: After a closer-than-expected primary, Boston mayor Tom Menino is still leading in the polls. The 16-year incumbent leads city councilor Michael Flaherty 52-32 in a Boston Globe poll (down from a 61-23 lead in a May poll).

• DSCC: Barack Obama seems like he’s finally shifting into campaign mode. He’ll be headlining a DSCC fundraiser in Miami next week.

• Voting Rights: After spending years as a political football that gets kicked around from bill to bill, it looks like the push to get Washington DC a full voting Representative is resurfacing again. This time, it may be attached to the 2010 defense appropriations bill. (Watch the Republicans vote against it anyway.)

• Fundraising: Pollster.com has some handy graphics displaying 3rd quarter receipts, expenditures, and cash on hand graphed against each other for Senate candidates. (We’ll have our own Senate chart up today, hopefully; if you missed James’s House chart over the weekend, it’s here.)

• AZ-Sen: Does the persistent rumor of a J.D. Hayworth primary challenge to John McCain boil down to nothing more than a Hayworth grudge against former key McCain aide Mark Salter (and thus a way for Hayworth to keep yanking McCain’s chain)? That’s what the Arizona Republic is proposing, pointing to a 2005 dust-up between Hayworth and Salter over immigration reform. Hayworth, for his part, says that “spite” would never fuel a primary bid.

• IL-Sen: GOP Rep. Mark Kirk is touting an internal poll taken for him by Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies that has him beating Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in a Senate head-to-head, 42-35. It also shows Kirk in strong shape in the primary, leading developer Patrick Hughes (who seems to be cornering the wingnut vote) 61-3.

• KY-Sen: The allegedly third tape (although nobody seems to remember what the second one was) involving Lt. Gov. and Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo trashing his boss (and one of his few endorsers), Gov. Steve Beshear, has surfaced. This time, Mongiardo says people he talks to want to “yell” about Beshear and says, “It’s like being married to a whore.” This time it popped up directly on YouTube instead of on a Rand Paul fan blog.

• NV-Sen: Markos has an interesting observation, that may give some comfort to the Reid boys as they face an onslaught of bad polls. Democrats now have a registration edge of nearly 100,000 in Nevada, and it’s growing: since February, Dems have added 4,860 while the GOP has added 1,549. In fact, this sad performance puts the GOP fourth, as both nonpartisan registration and the right-wing Independent American Party gained more new registrants.

• PA-Sen (pdf): One more poll from Dane & Associates via GrassrootsPA, and it gives narrow edges to both Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak over Republican ex-Rep. Pat Toomey in the 2010 Senate race (46-43 for Specter and 43-38 for Sestak). Worth noting: this is only the second poll (after that freaky Rasmussen poll in August) that shows Sestak performing better against Toomey than does Specter.

• TX-Sen, Gov: Kay Bailey Hutchison may be getting some cold feet about committing to a resignation date from the Senate. In response to questions on a conservative radio talk show, it’s sounding like she’s unlikely to resign her seat by year’s end. However, she also doesn’t sound like she’ll stay in her seat all the way through to the gubernatorial primary election in March, saying “that’s not what [she wants] to do.” (Although it’s understandable she may want to keep her day job if the whole being-governor thing doesn’t work out.)

• NJ-Gov: PPP has its poll of the New Jersey gubernatorial race out, and like everyone else these days, they’re seeing it as pure tossup. Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine 40-39, with 13 for independent Chris Daggett. (It’s right in line with today’s Pollster.com average of 41-40 for Christie.)That’s tremendous progress for Corzine, who was down 44-35-13 last month. Also, it’s worth noting that not only is Corzine dragging Christie down to his level but he’s actually starting to improve his own favorables; he’s up to 37/55, still terrible but better than last month’s 32/60. The race will still depend on getting unlikely Dem voters to turn out; the likely voter pool went for Obama by only 4% last year, way off from the actual 15% margin. One last tidbit: the poll asks Daggett voters their second choice, and Christie wins that one 48-34 (suggesting that Daggett does more damage to Christie, but that Christie’s best hope is to peel off some of the vacillating Daggett supporters).

• VA-Gov: Not much change in Virginia, where Rasmussen finds a 50-43 lead for Republican Bob McDonnell in that gubernatorial race. (This is right in line with today’s Pollster.com average of 51-43.) Two weeks ago, Rasmussen found that McD led Creigh Deeds 51-42.

• FL-08: This seems kind of surprising, given freshman Rep. Alan Grayson’s over-the-top invitations to rumble (or who knows… maybe being aggressive actually works to cow Republicans?). After a lot of public vacillating, it turns out that Republican former state Sen. Daniel Webster, considered the strongest contender to go up against Grayson, won’t run. Rich guys Jerry Pierce and Armando Gutierrez Jr. are in the race, but the establishmenet Plan D (with Webster, state House speaker Larry Cretul, and Orange Co. Mayor Rich Crotty out) seems likely to fall to state Rep. Stephen Precourt, who expressed interest but said he’d defer to Webster.

• NC-11: Looks like businessman Jeff Miller declined for a good reason yesterday, as the GOP nailed down a stronger-sounding competitor to go up against Rep. Heath Shuler in the R+6 11th. Greg Newman, the mayor of Hendersonville (pop. 10,000 in 2000) since 2005, says he’ll take on Shuler.

• SC-05: State Sen. Mick Mulvaney looks ready to launch his candidacy, most likely on the 17th at a GOP gathering in the district. He’ll take on 27-year incumbent and House Budget chair John Spratt.

• TN-St. House: There’s a small House special election in Tennessee tonight, with big stakes. HD 62, located in rural south central Tennessee (its major town is Shelbyville) was vacated by a Democrat, Curt Cobb, who resigned to take a better-paying job; Cobb’s brother Ty is facing off against Republican Pat Marsh. It’s GOP leaning territory, though (this is part of the 6th CD, which had a very sharp Democratic falloff in 2008). The stakes are high because the Democrats hold the chamber by a 1-vote margin, 50-49, thanks only to a power-sharing arrangement with renegade Republican Kent Williams who serves as the Speaker elected with Democratic votes. A Republican victory here could give control of the House back to the GOP, if they’re able to reorganize in midterm. If the Republicans can control the state House and pick up the governor’s office in 2010, they’ll control the resdistricting trifecta.

• Mayors: One other election on the docket in Tennessee tonight Thursday: Shelby Co. Mayor A.C. Wharton is looking likely to become the new mayor in Memphis. Polling has him leading Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery by a wide margin. (There are 25 candidates in the race, including professional wrestler Jerry Lawler.) The mayoral job was vacated, of course, by long-time mayor Willie Herenton, who after several abortive attempts to resign in the past is leaving to challenge Rep. Steve Cohen in a primary.

• AZ-Sen: It’s been a rumor all year, but it just won’t die: ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth is reportedly still interested in challenging John McCain in the GOP primary next year. McCain already has a primary challenge from the fringey right, in the form of former Minutemen leader Chris Simcox.

• FL-Sen: Although Rep. Corrine Brown doesn’t seem to be taking any steps to get into the Dem field, it looks like Rep. Kendrick Meek still may not get the primary all to himself: former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre is signaling his interest in the race. Ferre is 74; he was the first Hispanic (he’s Puerto Rican) to be elected Miami mayor. Meanwhile, Meek is the beneficiary of yet another Bill Clinton fundraiser; this is the Big Dog’s fourth on behalf of Meek, a prominent Hillary Clinton endorser in 2008. Finally, Karl Rove is weighing in on the Florida senate primary, albeit just with a $1,000 donation and no loud public pronouncement: he’s backing Marco Rubio.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk says he’s raised $1.6 million for the 3rd quarter, leaving him with $2.3 million cash on hand. State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias hasn’t made any report yet, but ended the 2nd quarter with $1.65 million on hand.

• NV-Sen: The heat is getting turned up on John Ensign; Barbara Boxer confirmed today that the Senate Ethics Committee will be taking up the little matter of getting a lobbying job for cuckolded ex-staffer Doug Hampton and then steering him clients as a parting gift. Meanwhile, the GOP’s new candidate in the 2010 Senate race, Sue Lowden, is still clinging to Ensign, standing by earlier pro-Ensign comments at an Elko appearance on Friday, saying that she hopes to have Ensign campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates (including, presumably, herself) next year.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold seems to be sitting pretty, with high favorables and little in the way of GOP opposition. His likeliest opponent is Madison real estate developer Terrence Wall, but Wisconsin’s Blogging Blue makes a nice catch about Wall: he loves doing business in Wisconsin so much that all 16 of his business entities are incorporated in Delaware.

• AZ-Gov: Another minor GOP player is jumping into the gubernatorial primary against appointed incumbent Jan Brewer. Former state GOP chair (during the early 1980s) and former member of the university system Board of Regents John Munger is in the race. He joins Brewer and Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker, with state Treasurer Dean Martin and some other higher-profile figures considering it too.

• CA-Gov: Maybe this explains why alleged Republican Meg Whitman is running for governor and not for senate: turns out she endorsed Barbara Boxer in 2004 as part of Technology Leaders for Boxer, and gave her $4,000. No word yet on whether Whitman actually got around to voting for her, though.

• MN-Gov: A straw poll at the Minnesota GOP convention sees former state House minority leader Marty Seifert in pole position; he pulled in 37% of the vote among nine candidates. Little-known state Rep. Tom Emmer finished second at 23%, and former state Auditor Pat Anderson was third with 14%. Norm Coleman was also seen mingling with convention-goers (he got a few write-in votes although his name wasn’t on the ballot); he says he hasn’t fully ruled out running, saying he’ll make a decision early next year.

• SC-Gov: Republican AG Henry McMaster, who’s running to succeed Mark Sanford as governor, has run into his own little ethical snafu. He’s having to return $32,500 in illegal contributions that came from five attorneys after he had hired them to work on cases for the state.

• SD-Gov: Republican Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard officially kicked off his campaign for the 2010 gubernatorial race. In an apparently all-Scandinavian-American rumble, he’ll face off against state Senate majority leader Dave Knudson in the GOP primary, and the winner will face Democratic state Senate minority leader Scott Heidepriem.

• VA-Gov: The money keeps pouring into the Virginia governor’s race. The DNC is throwing another $1 million into Creigh Deeds’ kitty. Also, the RGA is going on the air with a huge ad buy in the DC market with an ad featuring a testy post-debate Deeds interview.

• WI-Gov (pdf): The Univ. of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Policy Research Institute poll the Wisconsin governor’s race, but primary fields only. Unknowns rule the day: on the Dem side, Milwaukee mayor and ex-Rep. Tom Barrett (who hasn’t confirmed his interest) beats Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, 38-16. On the GOP side, Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker beats ex-Rep. Mark Neumann 39-14, with 4% to Tim Michels. (Barrett is the best known of all the candidates, with a 36/12 favorable.) Current Gov. Jim Doyle heads out of office in net negative territory, with a 43/52 approval, although that still beats a lot of other governors right now.

• WY-Gov: Most of the major players seem to be standing around and waiting to see whether current Gov. Dave Freudenthal challenges the state’s term limit laws in court in order to grab a third term. One Republican isn’t waiting though, becoming the first announced big-ticket opponent: rancher Ron Micheli. He was a state Representative for 16 years and state Agriculture Director under Republican Gov. Jim Geringer.

• NV-03: It looks like the GOP may successfully trade up in the 3rd District. With banker John Guedry bailing out of the race for personal reasons, now it looks like they’ve coaxed former state Sen. Joe Heck out of the gubernatorial primary (where he initially looked like he had a shot at taking out unpopular incumbent Jim Gibbons, but turned into a long shot with the likely inclusion of ex-AG, ex-judge Brian Sandoval in the primary) and into the race against Dem freshman Rep. Dina Titus instead. Heck is still officially mum, but will have an announcement later this week.

• PA-11: Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien had been a long-rumored primary challenger to long-time Rep. Paul Kanjorski in the 11th, and he made it official over the weekend. O’Brien is clearly emphasizing what a young go-getter he is (compared with the aging Kanjorski), kicking things off with 30 straight hours of campaigning.) Kanjo remains undeterred though, reiterating that he’s running for re-election and looking forward to the debate.

• Generic Ballot: PPP fires up another warning flare about 2010, looking at some of the generic ballot crosstabs. Among voters who don’t like either party, they opt for the GOP 50-14. But there’s a disparity by party line among unhappy voters. The unhappy Republicans will still vote GOP, 66-18, but the unhappy Democrats say they’ll cross over to the GOP, 48-26. On the plus side, there aren’t as many unhappy Democrats as there are unhappy Republicans (20% instead of 33%).

• House: Biden Alert! The VP has been working overtime in the last month appearing at fundraisers for vulnerable House members, helping nearly a dozen members haul more than a collective $1 million. He’s also been assisting with recruiting efforts, most notably with the successful score of Bethlehem mayor John Callahan in PA-15.

By: Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…

It is a popular today to say that the South has switched from voting Democratic to Republican. Many people are fond of looking at previous electoral maps. Hey, isn’t that funny – the states have completely switched parties. It’s like the Republicans have recreated the Solid South.

That statement is unequivocally false. Most people have no idea how unbelievably Democratic the Solid South was. For half a century, Democrats in the Deep South did about as well as the Communist Party did in Soviet Union elections.

Let’s take a look at a model Republican southern state: Alabama. John McCain won 60.32% of the vote here, his second best showing in the South. Below are the counties in which Mr. McCain won over 70% of the vote (all my statistics below are from http://www.uselectionatlas.org/ – an amazing website).

That’s a lot of counties. The Republicans are doing quite well – about as well as the Democrats used to do in Alabama, many would say.

Here is another map, filled with blue counties.

It is the 1940 presidential election. I invite you to guess – what do these blue counties represent? Counties in which Roosevelt won over 70% of the vote? 80%? 90%? Remember, Roosevelt was quite a popular guy. He must have done pretty well in Alabama, part of the Solid South.

Continued below the flip.

In fact, the blue counties are those in which Roosevelt won over 95% of the vote in 1940. In all, he won 85.22% of the good folk of Alabama.

Those are incredible numbers. If today that result occurred, we would all cry fraud.

Of course, fraud – of a sort – was occurring in Alabama at that time. As everybody knows, blacks were not allowed to vote at that time. Notice how all but one of the blue counties surround Alabama’s Black Belt. What is less well known, however, is that many poor whites (more likely to vote Republican) were also unable to vote. The poll tax didn’t hurt just African-Americans, after all.

Different southern states enacted different voting restrictions with an intent to continue Democratic dominance. Some were more strict; some were less so. Republicans in North Carolina, for example, generally held Democrats to below 60% of the vote; they even won the state in 1928. On the other hand, South Carolina probably disenfranchised the most voters.

Here is the result:



The blue indicates a county that gave the Republican candidate less than 10% of the vote – for nine straight elections, from 1912 to 1944. From 1900 to 1944, South Carolina’s average vote (per election) went 94.89% Democratic, 3.98% Republican.

How did South Carolina achieve this amazing result?

A revealing clue is provided by looking at the voting count numbers. For example, in the year 1912 a total of 50,405 people voted in South Carolina (48,357 of whom supported the Democrat). At that time the census had just reapportioned electoral votes; South Carolina had a total of nine.

By comparing South Carolina to states with similar populations, one can get an idea of how many potential voters were disenfranchised. Kansas, for example, had ten electoral votes; 365,560 people in the state voted that year. West Virginia had eight electoral votes; 268,828 people voted in that state (remember, this was before women’s suffrage). In South Carolina, therefore, several times more citizens “should” have voted than actually did.

In conclusion, to state that the Solid South always voted Democratic is a misnomer. Even to say that it voted extremely Democratic might still be inaccurate. It would be like saying I’m interested in politics. Technically its true, but the picture the words imply far and away understates the reality.

By: http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…

This is the last part of my review of the swing state Ohio.

Republican Ohio

What parts of Ohio vote Republican?

All of it, of course, except for the parts that vote Democratic.

That is a pretty facetious answer to a fairly serious question, but there is something to it. Blue Ohio has a set of defined, separate characteristics. Red Ohio does too, but not to the same degree. It is far easier to describe Democratic Ohio than Republican Ohio.

The following map is a good beginning in exploring Republican Ohio.



These are the places which most heavily supported John McCain (for those who are curious, the most Democratic counties were Cleveland, Toledo, Ohio University, and Youngstown). They are located primarily in the southwestern portion of the state, away from the Democratic ‘7’. Interestingly, practically none are part of Appalachia – considered Obama’s weakest region in the country.

Southwest Ohio historically – and to this day remains – the most conservative part of Ohio. Geographically, it is the Republican base; even in Democratic landslides, it often will vote for the red candidate.

There is another trait the highlighted counties have in common: most are semirural and somewhat less populated. Another map helpfully illustrates this.



Compare the two maps. Very few of the counties in which John McCain took over 60% of the vote were populated enough to appear on the above map. There is very little overlap between the reddest parts of Ohio and the densest parts of Ohio – except, importantly, the suburbs of Cincinnati.

More below the flip.

This does not mean, however, that all counties with over fifty thousand votes went blue. Quite the opposite, in fact: many of the yellow counties voted for McCain. Only counties with over one hundred thousand votes tread Democratic. Take a look:



What does this mean?

The yellow counties are an imperfect representation of what famously cost John Kerry the state: the exurban reaches of Ohio, especially in Columbus and Cincinnati. Most of them are well-off and home to middle-class folk, like exurbs in general. White flight played an important role in their formation (although it was not, as some maintain, the biggest motivator). Both McCain and Bush got their largest margins from these places; they constitute an important – perhaps the most important – block of the GOP coalition today.

This has not always been the case. Before 2000, Hamilton County (Cincinnati) tended to give Republican candidates their biggest margins in the state. Today, it has been replaced by the surrounding counties, rapidly growing exurban communities. Nevertheless, Hamilton County remains a reliable Republican stronghold.

Contrary to popular perception, the city Cincinnati itself is not that conservative (not anymore); its deep red suburbs account for the county’s Republican lean. Cities in general never vote Republican, but in GOP strongholds – like Cincinnati – the overwhelmingly red suburban vote outweighs their Democratic lean.

For a visual illustration of Cincinnati’s importance, here is how George Bush did in Ohio:

Cincinnati and its surrounding exurbs provide the largest Republican margins. The exurbs of Columbus are going heavily Republican; so is much of eastern Ohio.

Note, however, that George Bush only won the state by 3.5%. Unfortunately the Times does not have maps of stronger Republican victories (e.g. 1988, 1980).

How has the Republican base changed since 2000? The following map provides a sense of how things stand today.



There is not too much to show. One can see a coherent north-south divide; northern Ohio has become more Democratic, southern Ohio less so. Most of the rural southwest is fairly lukewarm to Obama – but so is the blue east. Interestingly, the exurbs seem to have moved Democratic more than their rural brethren. Note that most counties are blue because the country as a whole voted more Democratic in 2008.

It is difficult to tell how much of this is permanent and how much was specific to 2008. Perhaps the exurban counties were only bluer because of the housing crisis. Certainly a place like Cincinnati (with its large black population) voted for Obama as a person, not the Democratic party. Then again, maybe not; the county supported Bush ’04 by only 5%.

But as a whole, red Ohio seems to vote the same way it has for the past few years (or generations). Neither it nor the Ohio Republican Party has changed much in recent years. The same cannot be said for the Democrats.

By: Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…

This is the second part of an analysis on the swing state Ohio.



Unlike Florida and Pennsylvania, Ohio cannot be easily divided into geographically distinct regions (although they do exist). Instead, I will be examining it through the lens of both partys’ strongholds in the state.

History

During the late eighteenth century Ohio was a consistently Republican state, the equivalent today of North Dakota or Arizona. Democrats often came close behind – four or five points – but never quite won the state until 1912. Their stronghold lay in a ring of rural counties populated by German immigrants (a pattern that has completely disappeared today). But this was never enough to overcome Republican strength everywhere else.

It was Franklin Roosevelt who changed this pattern forever. He laid the foundations of Ohio’s structural politics, which exist to this very day. Roosevelt brought in previously hostile working-class counties along the northeast section of the state. He also shifted most of Ohio’s northern cities to the Democratic side – which had previously leaned Republican.

To see the effect, here is Roosevelt’s 2.85% victory in 1932:



Here is his 4.4% victory eight years later:



The maps are practically inverses of each other – courtesy of the New Deal.

Democratic Ohio

Today Roosevelt’s coalition remains, for the moment, intact; Democrats still dominate the union vote and northern cities. Because both populations reside along Ohio’s northern and eastern borders, Ohio’s Democratic results often form a blue “7.” The greater the Democratic margin of victory, the “fatter” and more defined the shape becomes.

For example, below the flip is Bill Clinton’s 1996 performance, in which he took the state by 6.4%.

• AZ-Sen (pdf): John McCain is probably safe for re-election in 2010. PPP released the second half of their Arizona sample, and find McCain beating two strong opponents who seem to have no intention of running anyway: Sec. of Homeland Security and ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano (53-40) and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (57-30). He also leads Tucson city councilor Rodney Glassman, who is at least a rumored candidate, 55-25. McCain only has 48/42 approvals, but with kind of a bipartisan spin: an unusually low 65% of Republicans approve, while an unusually high 32% of Democrats approve.

• IL-Sen: Facing some unrest on the right flank, the RNC’s Michael Steele has withdrawn sole support from Rep. Mark Kirk in the Illinois Senate GOP primary, according to the Chicago Observer. He’s back to a neutral position, which certainly counts as a victory for Patrick Hughes, who’s been gaining some momentum at coalescing the party’s right-wing. Considering how Kirk acted when Andy McKenna was going to run, is another temper tantrum in the offing? On the Dem side, Alexi Giannoulias got the endorsement of the SEIU, which led his new rival, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, to “go there,” invoking the specter of Rod Blagojevich, who was elected via SEIU support.

• NH-Sen: This isn’t going at all according to plan for Kelly Ayotte (or the NRSC). Yet another random rich GOPer is showing up to scope out the Senate race, the third in a week. Today it’s Jim Bender, an investor who used to be the CEO of Logicraft in the 1990s.

• OH-Sen: Everyone forgets about wealthy auto dealer Tom Ganley in the GOP primary in Ohio against establishment pick Rob Portman, probably because he doesn’t have a built-in constituency. Looks like he’s trying to hook up with the teabaggers as a result, positioning himself as a populist alternative to the free-trading Portman. Ganley is also getting some help from a Republican insider: an endorsement from Bay Buchanan (sister of Pat), pleased by Ganley’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

• WV-Sen: Looks like Robert Byrd’s stay in the hospital was a lot shorter than his stint this spring; he was released today.

• GA-Gov: Strategic Vision looks at the primary fields in the Georgia governor’s race, and finds not much has changed since last time. For the Dems, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes is at 45%, with Thurbert Baker at 30, David Poythress at 5, and Dubose Porter at 2. (It was 45-29 last month.) For the GOP, Insurance Comm. John Oxendine leads at 38, with Karen Handel at 15, Nathan Deal at 10, and four other guys in single digits. (Oxendine was at 39 last month, although Deal was in 2nd last month at 13, so maybe he took a minor hit from that corruption probe.) No head-to-heads yet, unfortunately.

• MI-Gov: Here’s another poll of a potentially exciting gubernatorial race, but primaries only. An Inside Michigan Politics finds a tight GOP primary, with AG Mike Cox in the lead at 27, followed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra at 23 and Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard at 15 (with businessman Rick Snyder and state Sen. Tom George each at 2). Lt. Gov. John Cherry is at 40 in the Dem primary with only light opposition from state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (9) and former state Rep. John Freeman (8). A March poll from the same pollster had Cox at 17 and Hoekstra at 15 (but both losing to Oakland Co. Exec L. Brooks Patterson, who isn’t running).

• NJ-Gov: Two very different pictures from partisan pollsters of the New Jersey governor’s race out there. First comes one from Democracy Corps, who have the race as close as anyone has had it since early spring: Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine and Chris Daggett 40-39-11, and Christie has net negative favorables for the first time, at 32/34. (Their poll two weeks ago had Christie up 41-38-10.) The other is Strategic Vision, who see Christie up 46-38-8. Still an improvement from their last poll in July: 53-38-5… like most pollsters, they see Corzine essentially unable to move up, but succeeding in dragging Christie’s numbers down. One more bucket of mud for Corzine to throw at Christie arrived yesterday: news that Christie owned stock in Cendant Corp. at the same time as he was investigating them through the US Attorney’s office.

• NY-Gov, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Marist has a poll out that finds New Yorkers thinking that Barack Obama should butt out of New York governor’s race, by a 62-27 margin. Nevertheless, only 25% think David Paterson should run next year (63% say no); they just want him to arrive at that decision on his own. While the poll doesn’t contain gubernatorial matchups (not that we need any more of them), it does have some Senate numbers, confirming other local pollsters, finding the not-running Rudy Giuliani beating Kirsten Gillibrand 51-40 and the probably-not-running George Pataki beating Gillibrand 45-41.

Meanwhile, the NYT has a profile of a rather melancholy Paterson, saying “I didn’t sign up for this.” They also have a quote that could be seen as hopeful that he may still bail out on seeking another term: “if I got to a point where I thought that my candidacy was hurting my party, obviously it would be rather self-absorbed to go forward.” (Unless he’s made peace with just being self-absorbed.) If you’re wondering what’s taking him so long to make a decision, though, Josh Goodman has a nice pithy summary of the decisionmaking process, not just for Paterson, but all the race’s players:

Paterson thinks he can beat Lazio, but not Giuliani, so he doesn’t want to decide whether he’s running until Giuliani makes up his mind. Giuliani thinks he can beat Paterson, but not Cuomo, so he doesn’t want to decide whether he’s running until Cuomo makes up his mind. Cuomo thinks he can beat anyone, but doesn’t want the messiness of a primary battle, so he doesn’t want to decide whether he’s running until Paterson makes up his mind.

• VA-Gov: It looked briefly like ex-Gov. Doug Wilder might endorse Creigh Deeds after all, but today he backed down and said he won’t endorse. Wilder also leveled some criticism at Deeds for proposing tax increases to fix northern Virginia’s increasingly dire transportation problems. It’s a wtf? moment from the mercurial Wilder, whose endorsement would do a lot to move African-American turnout for Deeds, where he hasn’t generated much excitement yet.

• MO-04: No surprise here, but state Sen. Bill Stouffer made it official that he’ll be taking on 17-term Dem incumbent Ike Skelton in the dark-red 4th. Christian Right former state Rep. Vicky Hartzler is already in the race; Stouffer, however, seems to be working more of a fiscal discipline angle.

• PA-07: While state Rep. Bryan Lentz seems to have the inside track on the Dem nomination (despite no formal announcement), another Democrat is getting in the race: Teresa Touey, a political consultant who has worked for Joe Sestak and Ted Kennedy. One problem for her, though: although she is a native of the 7th, she’s been living in Massachusetts since the early 1990s.

• NYC-Mayor: Quinnipiac finds mayoral results in line with just about everybody else: incumbent Michael Bloomberg leads Dem comptroller William Thompson 52-36, with Conservative Party candidate Stephen Christopher pulling in 2.

• Redistricting: Roll Call has a detailed piece on how the parties are ramping up financially for the post-2010 redistricting fights. A new 501(c)(4), euphemistically titled Making America’s Promise Secure, with Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott among its founders, will be coordinating the effort (since campaign reform passed since 2002 prevents the RNC from using soft money to spearhead the effort now). The DCCC’s counterpart is the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, although a 527, the equally euphemistic Foundation for the Future, looks like it’ll do the financial heavy lifting.

By: Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…

Is Ohio a liberal place? Or is it a conservative place?

I suspect far more people would say the latter rather than the former.

In many respects, Ohio is politically similar to Florida. Both are well-known swing states that hold a bountiful electoral prize. Both lean Republican. Both have large cites that function as pools of Democratic votes. Both also have considerable rural, Republican regions.

But in other ways they could not be more different. Sunny Florida is diverse, growing, and service-oriented. While Florida often votes Republican, it is not exactly conservative. Cold, northern Ohio is a rust-belt giant. It is not very diverse. It is definitely not growing. Florida is new. Ohio is old and conservative.

For the moment Ohio is a bit more conservative than the country at large. For the past eight out of nine presidential elections, it has been a bit redder than the nation. Not much redder, but enough to be noticeable.

I do not think that the future looks bright for the Democratic Party in Ohio. The two are moving in opposite directions. Demographically, Ohio is staying static while the country at large changes. And there are not many truly liberal spots in Ohio – places like Boulder, CO or Seattle. There never were.

Ohio has a lot of unionized, working-class folk who are still voting against Herbert Hoover; they are a core part of its Democratic base. I am not sure how long they will continue to support a party that is becoming, quite frankly, fairly upper-class in ethos. People in West Virginia certainly don’t anymore.

Not that Ohio is doomed to become a Republican stronghold. Places like Columbus are rapidly turning blue, perhaps fast enough to offset losses in working-class counties. And it isn’t inevitable that those counties will start voting Republican. If West Virginia is a prime example of working-class voters who deserted the Democratic Party, Michigan is a prime example of working-class voters that still support it. Barack Obama won a landslide in that state.

Nevertheless, my gut still tells me that Ohio and the Democratic Party are shifting farther and farther away from each other. These things can reveal themselves very quickly in politics. In 1988, California was a red state that had voted Republican for six elections in a row. Then one day it was won by Bill Clinton – and it has never gone back since then. In 1996 West Virginia had gone blue for five out of the past six elections. Then George Bush won the state – and now we consider it a rock-hard Republican state.

That may be the fate of Ohio.

By: Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…

This is the last part of an analysis on the swing state Florida.

Miami-Dade County

Here is how John Kerry did in south Florida:



Here is how Barack Obama performed:



Broward and Palm Beach are marginally smaller, when compared to Obama’s performance. The big difference, however, is with Miami-Dade. Kerry won it by 6%; Obama won it by 16%.

There is no other place in Florida (and, perhaps, the country) like Miami-Dade. Palm Beach and Broward counties are retiree destinations; Miami is home to immigrants and refugees from all Latin America. More than 60% of the population is Latino – and only 3% of them come from Mexico. The Miami accent is unique compared with the nation. Local government is distinct from other counties in Florida.

One would expect Miami to be one of the most Democratic places in the nation, much like New York City or Chicago.

It is not.

Continued below the flip.

Obama won the five boroughs of New York City by 59%: a 4 to 1 margin. He won Cook County (Chicago) by 53%, with more than three-fourths of the vote. In contrast, Obama took 58% of Miami-Dade county – less than the amount by which he won New York City. The 2008 Democratic performance in Miami is comparable to their performance in cities such as Dallas (57% of the vote) and Sacramento (58% of the vote).

Much of this is due to the Cuban vote, the city’s largest demographic group. Refugees from Castro’s Cuba, staunchly anti-Communist, and faithful Republicans ever since the Bay of Pigs fiasco; Cubans vote as strongly Republican as Jews vote Democratic. In 2000, George W. Bush won about four out of five Cubans, helped by Cuban anger over Al Gore’s role in the Elian Gonzalez affair. In 2008 Obama won around 35% of their vote, based on exit polls. This was the best performance of a Democrat with Cubans in recent memory.

Their influence ensures that Miami remains a competitive, Democratic-leaning city. Democrats usually end up winning it, but their margins are severely cut. And occasionally it will turn up in the Republican column – as happened during the 2004 Senate race. There, Mel Martinez, a Bush ally, won Miami-Dade on his way to a one percent victory.



Democrats often hopefully comment that demographic shifts will slowly move Cubans leftward, as a new generation of Cubans, less concerned with Castro and communism, replaces their more militant elders. Perhaps. But that process will be the work of decades, not a single election cycle. For the moment the Cuban vote remains strongly Republican.

In 2008 the Democrats challenged two entrenched, Republican congressmen in south Florida: the Cuban Diaz-Balart brothers. The races were closely watched, so much that the New York Times Magazine aired an article dedicated to them. In the end, both Republicans won by margins larger than expected. Their continuing presence points to the steadfastness of the Cuban Republican vote.



Conclusion

Of the three most commonly cited swing states, Florida is the most conservative. The state can be divided into unique blocs, each of which has a distinct culture. The first, northern Florida, shares much/is part of the Deep South. Voting patterns reflect this. The populous I-4 corridor – Florida’s so-called swing-region – leans Republican, although Democrats perform well in Tampa Bay and Orlando. Finally, south Florida – diverse and populous – is the Democratic base, although the Cuban vote in Miami blunts their strength.

Whether Florida will remain this way is uncertain. Florida is an immense and diverse state. It is home to the Panhandle and Miami – two places opposite as night and day. Most every part of America can be found in the varied peoples that reside there. And certainly, it will continue to be an important swing state, sought after by both parties. Whoever ends up winning Florida is well on his or her way to becoming president.